A Message of Hope From an Ancient Festival

“This is now a war for peace,” wrote English novelist and social commentator H.G. Wells. “It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing for ever.”

Those words come from a piece explaining Britain’s choice to enter World War I. It was optimistic about what the war could accomplish, and soon the sentiment spread throughout Europe. That hope crystallized into an iconic phrase: the war to end all wars.

Iconic—and ironic.

The Second World War erupted only a couple of decades later. Then came other wars: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, wars in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere. The past century has been marred by conflict.

How did we get trapped in an endless loop of war?

Why does our world replay war like a song stuck on repeat?

The Bible gives the answer within its first few pages: this is the age of human self-rule. Ever since our first parents made their dismal choice in Eden, humanity has been groping for the secret to a peaceful, flourishing society while ignoring God’s standards in favor of its own.

Nothing we’ve done has worked.

We have more history than ever to look back on and confirm that. Push God to the margins, run the show on your own, and you will reliably get unbridled selfishness, rampant social injustice and, sooner or later, war.

Man, cut off from God, cuts himself into pieces.

This is the “present evil age” Paul talked about (Galatians 1:4)—and for 6,000 years, it has played the same ruinous tune. But Scripture promises that things are going to change. One day, this old song will stop, and a different one will play.

An ancient festival foreshadowing a future age

That brings us, in a curious way, to an Old Testament passage that tends to collect dust in most Bibles: “The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles . . . When you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days” (Leviticus 23:34, 39).

As one of God’s seven appointed festivals, the Feast of Tabernacles is a “shadow of things to come” (Colossians 2:17). It shifts our attention away from everything that’s broken in this world, and toward God’s promise to make it right—the end of one age and the beginning of another.

This new chapter in humanity’s story is the Millennium. Its name comes from the six references to a “thousand years” in Revelation 20, a period in which Satan is bound and the glorified Jesus takes the world’s reins. And every year, at the Feast of Tabernacles, God’s people congregate to rehearse its fulfillment.

Micah gives us a glimpse of that new age: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Micah 4:3).

For a whole week, God wants us to spend extra time fixing our minds on prophecies like that one. Not delusions, not dreams whipped up by human imagination, but previews of a future reality. Micah saw the end of the arms race. He saw the time when feuds will evaporate and the art of war will give way to the art of peace.

And it was only a sliver of the picture.

No more war means no more dispossession. No more families being stripped of their homes. No more watching others take what you’ve spent years building. Instead, “they shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat” (Isaiah 65:21-22).

The cessation of war is monumental, but so is the way its effects will ripple through society.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Of course, mankind won’t abandon its self-destructive tendencies and proclivity for war on its own (Isaiah 59:8). So how exactly will this transformation happen? Micah brings us back to the thing that sets it all in motion:

“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it” (Micah 4:1).

In ancient times, God’s house was His temple. It stood in Jerusalem as Israel’s crown jewel, a visible reminder of God’s presence and rule. In the future, Jesus will return and rebuild it—not just for Israel, but for everyone.

That’s the linchpin. Everything good about the coming Millennium flows from that one reality: God’s presence at the center of the world and at the center of our lives.

When the present world runs its course—when humanity’s experiment in self-rule reaches its catastrophic conclusion—Jesus will descend to Zion and, joined by His glorified saints, usher in His long-awaited reign (Revelation 20:4).

And when His Kingdom is set up, there will be a colossal pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

“Many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths’” (Micah 4:2).

They’ll come to worship, they’ll come to pay homage to the King, and they’ll also come to learn. Jesus will launch the greatest educational effort the world has ever seen. In time, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).

This knowledge will reach into every sphere of human existence, from individuals and families to communities and countries. Godliness will multiply and so thoroughly shape society that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.”

When these changes take place and humanity finally accepts that God was right all along, “everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4).

These are big promises. They describe a world turned right side up after 6,000 years of being upside down.

It seems too perfect to be true. But Micah assures us that it is true, “for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken” (verse 4).

Keeping the end in mind

By now you should be able to see why the Feast of Tabernacles is so important to observe. But if you’re still not convinced of its value, maybe this short proverb will help:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, King James Version). Other translations say without prophetic vision, the people “cast off restraint” (English Standard Version, New King James Version).

There’s a reason God chose to preserve prophecy. There’s a reason we can look through the pages of Scripture and find dozens of promises about the world to come. God knows we need reminders.

If we lose sight of what He’s working on behind the scenes—the world He’s preparing even while the present one is unraveling—then we’ll lose heart and maybe even lose out. That’s why the Feast of Tabernacles matters. It sharpens our vision.

The Millennium will eventually give way to the abode of eternity, what the apostle John called “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). In his final vision, he beheld a world utterly unlike anything humanity has ever known. To call it a “return to Eden” would be selling it short. He saw the fulfillment of everything Eden represented.

John wrote, “I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them’” (verse 3, New Living Translation).

That’s ultimately what’s in store for mankind: total reconciliation with the Father in eternal bliss. And all the toil and heartache that defines our world now? The endless cycle of war and suffering?

We’re promised in the very next verse: “There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone” (verse 4, NLT). Unlike H.G. Wells’ false hope, this time they will be gone . . .

Forever.

Study this further in our online article “Hope for the Future Found in God’s Festivals.”