While, experimentally, we must all begin with redemption--Passover, "the first month

of the year to you" (Exod. 12: 2), God begins with the Sabbath, and the purpose of the

age is to restore that which is past.

Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost and the Firstfruits have received their

fulfillment (I Cor. 5: 7, 8; Acts 2:; I Cor. 15: 20). Between Pentecost and Trumpets

(Nos. 4 and 5 in the list above) is an interval of some months, with no feast to mark it,

only a reference to "the poor and the stranger". Here, in these silent months between

Pentecost and Trumpets, is where the dispensation of the mystery finds its place.

The Feast of Tabernacles, being the sunteleia, must be given a little closer attention.

This feast celebrates both the harvests of "the corn and the wine" (Deut. 16: 13). At the

return of the captivity under Ezra,  and again under Nehemiah (Ezra 3: 4 and

Neh. 8: 14) this feast was observed, and this is the feast picked out by God for annual

observance by all the nations that are left after the coming of the Lord (Zech. 14: 16-19).

The association of "tabernacles" and the coming of the Lord explains Peter's suggestion

on the mount of transfiguration, that he should make three tabernacles (Matt. 17: 4).

After the detailed statement of Lev. 23: 34-36, the writer returns to the feast of

tabernacles to give further particulars (verses 39-43), thus marking it as of great

importance. Here we have the command to take boughs of trees and to dwell in booths or

tabernacles. Here also is emphasized the "eighth day" which is "the last day, that great

day of the feast" (John 7: 2 and 37), when the Lord spake of the full outpouring of the

Spirit--upon His own glorification--partially fulfilled at Pentecost, but awaiting His

second coming for its complete fulfillment.

The "eighth day" brings us to resurrection. The tabernacles speak of true "peace and

safety", and all these typical observances are covered by the word sunteleia used by the

disciples when they came to the Lord with their question: `What shall be the sign of Thy

coming, and the end of the age?" That "end" they knew was harvest, ingathering,

rejoicing, peace; all inseparable from the coming of the Lord. Until He is "glorified"

that "consummation" devoutly to be wished is as unattainable as Utopia, a mirage, the

will-o'-the-wisp of politicians and reformers who have not grasped the essential relation

between "the times of refreshing" and "the presence of the Lord". That wholesome

lesson it is hoped we have learned. And now, having some understanding of what the

question of Matt. 24: 3 includes and implies, we can give more earnest heed to the

answers that follow.