I have thought for fifty years about the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, and have written about it for thirty-five years, at least. Tabernacles is the next spiritual feast after the feast of Pentecost, and is ready for our participation now. In fact, it is the "Tabernacles experience," not a removal from the earth, that will enable us to survive in the coming days.

God is ready to enter His people through Jesus Christ. Are we ready to enter Christ to the same extent? Do we really desire to forsake our own life that we might become the expression of God to His creation?

One of the big differences between the Pentecostal experience and the Tabernacles experience lies in the demands made on us by each of the two spiritual interventions in our life. Pentecost requires that we yield to the Holy Spirit to the point of speaking by the Spirit. Tabernacles requires that we turn over our entire life, particularly our self-will, so the Father and the Son may make Their eternal dwelling in us through the Fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (John 14:23—NIV)

Probably the biggest issue of the Tabernacles experience (I am not trying to start a new doctrine, but "Tabernacles experience" is a handy term to use) is that of our self-will.

In basic salvation we die to the world, so to speak, and come alive into the Kingdom of God.

In the Pentecostal experience we die to sin as the Spirit leads us to put to death the acts of our sinful nature.

In the Tabernacles experience we die to our self-will that we may enter resurrection ground. Canaan is a type of life lived in the fullness of the Presence of God through Christ, and then a type of our inheriting the saved nations of the earth.

If we are to survive in the coming days of spiritual oppression we must learn to live in and by Jesus Christ. It is not enough to have our flesh anointed with the Holy Spirit. We ourselves must become the dwelling place of God through Christ. Only then can we bear the fruit of Christ's moral image that the heavenly Father is hoping for.

We die to the world by choosing to die with Christ and to come alive with Christ.

We die to sin by following the Holy Spirit.

But our death to self-will we cannot control. It is organized and operated by the wisdom of God. Only He knows the crosses and prisons that will produce the perfect rest in Himself He desires for each one of us.

We must be made barren so to speak; for the new Jerusalem is composed of those who have endured barrenness in the Lord that they might bear eternal fruit.

To be continued.