In this message we’ll be looking at the Festival of Booths (Tabernacles), which is, I think, the closest approximation in the Bible to our own holiday of Thanksgiving. It came annually at the conclusion of their harvest season and was a time of feasting and a time to express gratitude to God in worship. It was called the festival of booths because when God instituted the holiday (Leviticus 23:33-43) He commanded that all the people live in makeshift shelters made of branches for seven days to commemorate the years of wandering when they lived in dependence on God in the wilderness and without a fixed place to dwell in. The symbolism is rich for us as New Testament believers who are living, as it were, between the Red Sea deliverance that we experienced when we first put our trust in Jesus for salvation, and the Jordan River entering into the promises of God when Jesus returns. This age in which we are living is the church’s time of desert wandering while we wait for the day when we will enter into all that has been promised to us.