Lessons from Moses #3: Intercession

Address—Dave Spence
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Could we turn to Exodus Chapter 6, Chapter 17, Exodus 17 and we'll read down through verse 14.
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin.
After their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord.
And pitched in, reffered him.
There was number water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses.
And said, Give us water, that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why Chidee with me?
Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children, and our cattle with thirst?
And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready to stone me.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy rod, wherewith thou smote us the river, And taken thine hand, and go, Behold, I will stand before thee thereupon the rock in Horeb thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come out water, water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so on the side of the elders of Israel, and he called the name of the place Massa.
Because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?
Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rafidim. And Moses said unto Joshua chooses out men and go out fight with Amalek to Morrow. I will stand upon the top of the the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek and Moses. Aaron and her went up to the top of the hill.
And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
But Moses hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him. And he sat thereon. And Aaron and her stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek with and his people with the edge of the sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book.
And rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.
For I will utterly put you out, put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
So this particular chapter has to do with Moses.
Leading the people of Israel. And here he is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ and his intercession for us. Here he was interceding for the people of Israel.
And this is some little time now from where we left off in Exodus chapter 2.
And as we've had him before us, and the steadfastness of his faith.
And the endurance of his faith. It seems, as it says in Hebrews Chapter 11, that he endured because he saw him who was invisible and beloved young people. I would like to encourage you to look on not at your circumstances as he could have done, and he probably did, and become somewhat downcast.
And perhaps very discouraged at times, but I want you and me and each one of us.
To look at him who is invisible by faith.
And if we do that, we will endure, beloved.
Because we get our eyes above the circumstances on him who is ordering our circumstances and it makes all the difference in the world. And when we can do that, it delivers us from self occupation. And this is one of the enemy's greatest tools to drag us down, to discourage our hearts and to turn us aside from following Christ self occupation in any form.
Is introspection. That is, it's looking inside.
And there are some groups in Christian circles that would encourage you to do that. In Christian Psychology is 1.
It is very dangerous.
Because it deals with the inner man, yourself, the me, and it's the me first.
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I'm sad to say that, but from what I've heard and know about it, it sets you as #1 treat yourself right.
Put yourself first. Oh, they associate it with Christianity. But the thought is to promote yourself and your feelings and your abilities and your self esteem and all of that. And Christianity has nothing to do with that side of things at all, because it has to do.
With the Natural man and it's revising his abilities. It's adjusting him to be able to function, to conform as a Christian should walk, and it's impossible.
The Scripture says whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh, and whatsoever is born of spirit is spirit, and you cannot sublimate the flesh to become spirit. It won't work.
And the idea of Christianity, or I should say the force of Christianity, the beauty, the blessed principle of Christianity, is to deliver us from ourselves. And so at a very young age, you can turn your inner vision, your eye, towards Christ.
And no matter what your feelings might be about something that you're going through or about someone who has offended you and treated you maybe maliciously, you don't need to be occupied with that. And that's the beauty of Christianity. It delivers us from ourselves and our self occupation and all of those thoughts that would tend to turn us inward and make us feel very sad. There were those in Luke 24 that felt very sad as they walked away from Jerusalem because they didn't really understand what was going on.
They said to the Lord, not knowing who it was that they were speaking with. As he journeyed with him, we thought that it was he who would have delivered Israel, so they were confused.
And their faith had turned inward to themselves. So Satan doesn't care what he uses to turn your eye from Christ, he just succeeds many times in doing that.
And he knows your weaknesses. He's followed you ever since you were a baby. He knows exactly how to trip you up. And he's far wiser than you are. He's far. He has far more wisdom than I have. But there is one thing he cannot deal with, and this is what we have in Chapter 17.
Of Exodus. And that is the power of communion by the Spirit of God in the believer.
Yes, he can fight with us and we fought with him.
And we have been overcome.
Instead of overcomers, but here we find that in chapter 16 and 17.
We have three things very beautifully brought before us and that is in 16 we find that Christ is the food of his people. In chapter 17 we find the Spirit of God is the power of the Christians or the believers life.
And then we find that we have victory over Amalek.
By this power, and likewise we have the smitten rock Christ smitten on the cross for us, just to say a word about the man of which fell from heaven. It came as the result of their murmuring and complaining that they had nothing to eat, just as much as the water came here because they were murmuring and complaining, because I think our brother Doug mentioned this or someone mentioned this, that they were still on the ground of grace at this point.
They had not said, give us a lawn, we will keep it yet that's yet future here. And the Lord graciously gives them the manna from heaven when they complain. And it's interesting when he speaks of the manna in chapter 16, He speaks of his glory thereto verse seven. In the morning ye shall see the glory of the Lord. That's His grace Moses sought on the backside of the desert beloved Saints. And we see it as we're journeying through the wilderness in the measure that we behold His glory.
By faith.
And the measure that our vision and our eye is single towards him, we'll have a glory set before us that will deliver us from every glory of this world. And let me say this, that one ray of the glory of Christ will quench and extinguish every glory of this world that you could ever, ever have.
Any position that you might have, or all the wealth in the world that you could get, could never ever satisfy you like 1 ray of the glory of Christ. And Moses got a little ray of that in Egypt. But then he saw the glory of the Lord in that burning Bush, the full blaze of it, we might say, in the Lord speaking to him. And he speaks of that five times over in his ministry through the wilderness, because it had such an impact upon him. And the Apostle Paul likewise.
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We remember that he was stricken down on the road to Damascus, and he saw that light from heaven. And then he speaks of it the second time as a bright light, and the third time a light above the brightness of a noonday sun. The more that we contemplate the blessed glory and person of Jesus, the more our hearts will be raptured and taken out of this world. Paul lived in spirit outside of this world, and so he could say for me to live is Christ.
We say, How could I ever attain to that? We can. We can't attain to that naturally. It's only as we are delivered by the Spirit of God from everything around us, as we behold the glory of the Lord and walk in communion with Him, and we have a single eye for Him.
And so the manna came as the food for God's people. And we know and have read many times what happened was as they fought upon the foods of Egypt, their appetites were dulled. In fact, they were almost eliminated for the manna.
Because they fought on them. The melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic, cucumbers, fish, and so on. Those foods of Egypt and beloved young people. Have you ever come to to this sad discouragement in your life of waking up in the morning and not having an appetite for the word of God?
I really don't feel like reading it. And when we don't feel like reading it, we should read it anyway.
Because the Lord, by His word, will use His word to speak to you in some way. It may not be that day, but down the road as to something in your life that is an impediment that's hindering your fellowship with Him, and he wants to cleanse you from that.
That's where we have power is in the cleansing process because it removes the hindrances and the defilement.
So you become discouraged because you don't have the appetite for the word of God.
But it's because defilement through occupation with the foods of Egypt, so to speak, have affected that appetite. And when that happened to the children of Israel, it said that they loathed this light bread. They called it light bread. It really wasn't. It wasn't worth anything to them when they were in that state of soul. It wasn't, it wasn't a desirable for food. In other words, plainly speaking, beloved young people, they got tired of Christ.
And the flesh always tires of Christ. The flesh will never turn spirit and it will never desire to live for Christ. It can't. And sad to say in Christian circles today, I believe that much of Christianity has been wrapped up with.
Bringing the flesh and the Spirit together, so to speak, to live for God and it can't happen. We have to be delivered from ourselves.
O wretched man that I am, the Apostle said, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? You see, he need needed deliverance, and he knew that no kind of commitment on his part or code of ethics or conformity to principles would ever do it Old Testament or New.
Of course, the New Testament hadn't been completed, but he had light.
What we need is the person and that's why he says Who shall deliver me, And it's Jesus, is Jesus the Lord Jesus.
He will deliver you, no matter how young in the faith you are if you simply apply that verse to your lives.
He will deliver you if you own your wretchedness, your inability to deliver yourself.
Perhaps more of that later, but the thought is with the manna. We must keep our lives judged from the defilements of this earth in order to maintain an appetite for the precious manna. And that is how Christ lived when he was here.
How he walked in grace while he was here. How did he walk?
Never man spake like this, man.
They marveled at the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that came from his lips.
When he suffered, he threatened not. When he reviled, he reviled not again. But he committed himself to him who judges righteously. That's how he walked.
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When he was smitten, as they were taken into the cross, he didn't strike back. He never fought back.
He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That's the manna.
In the third chapter of Philippians we have Christ as the object, and that's the old corn of the land in the in Jordan as they cross the river. Speaking of the death of Christ, they were occupied with a glorified and risen Christ. We need both beloved the manna and the old corn of the land, Christ as the object that gives us power and our ability to be bold for him in the gospel and sharing Christ with other people that we meet in the world. But the manna humbles our hearts as we behold the glory, the moral moral glories of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does it do?
It just makes our hearts melt.
We say I am so unlike Jesus, I want to be more like him.
Never had a home.
Never had anywhere to lay his head. The foxes had holes, the birds the air had nest, but he had nowhere to lay his head.
When he needed a boat, he had to ask Peter for a boat to stand in to preach from.
And when he entered into Jerusalem, he asked for someone else's coat that he could write upon.
And he had no money because.
He was from the glory, and he had come here.
To bless men and women so he needed a penny. He told Peter to go take a penny out of the fishes mouth.
And on and on and on. He had nothing here.
That's how he lived. It's not that we should not have anything here, but the point is, that's how Jesus lived. Humbled, loving, kind, always thinking of others. And Mr. Darby said when you read about the life of Jesus, you read about the life of a man who never did anything for himself. It was always for others. And if you can find one verse, tell me about it. Beloved friends, where Jesus did something.
To satisfy himself.
It's not there on the pages of Holy Writ.
When you come to chapter 617, we find that Moses must smite the rock.
The smitten rock speaks of that rock which followed the children of Israel in First Corinthians chapter 10. And that rock was who.
Christ.
And so for the Holy Spirit to be sent forth, Christ must be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. Oh come thou stricken Lamb of God, who sheds for us thine own life blood, and teach us all thy ways. Then pain in life were sweet, and death were gain.
With the mana its life. We have life in Christ and how that life is sustained. He is the bread which came down from heaven, that if a man eat thereof, he should not die. That's how we have life. But that life must be sustained by feeding upon Christ as the manna.
And if we're undernourished and we have no strength, and we soon find our vision and our desires and thoughts turn again to the beggarly things of this world, and we begin to feed on all of those things, and I'm just as guilty, perhaps, if not more than you are.
It has to be daily. It must be every day in the morning before the the.
The things of life lay hold of our hearts and our minds begin to work. And this pretty soon we're so taken up with what we have to do. We put down the scriptures and we go outside to get busy, or we go to work or school or whatever it is.
But in chapter 17, it's the Holy Spirit given after Christ suffered and returned to the glory.
Because, he said, I prayed the Father to give you another comforter.
He was the first one.
He was returning to the glory, and he had comforted their hearts. And he said, Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.
But he was going away and their hearts were broken.
So he said, I prayed to the Father that he will give you another comforter.
And he said, Ye shall not be orphans, I will come to you.
Did they understand? I don't know. But we understand. And if you don't understand or you haven't up to this point, beloved young people, it means this that he came back in the form of the Holy Spirit and he lives in your heart and mind.
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Christ in You is the hope of glory. Colossians One verse 21.
He lives in you in the power and the form of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of God came not to speak of himself, but to glorify him. And we hear so much today about the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, and the power of the Spirit. And do you speak in tongues? And do you have the gifts of the Spirit? And and so forth.
The greatest gift of the Spirit is to bring Christ to me and to you.
And to occupy my heart with him, because he would bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever things I have spoken unto you, Jesus said.
Of His love He would remind them of His grace and of His kindness, of his companionship by the power of the Holy Spirit, once the Spirit King, And they were to wait in Jerusalem until they were endowed with that that power from on high. But we have the power within us. The full potential of the power may not be expressed, but the power is there. And the the Apostle Paul said that you might know the exceeding greatness of his power.
They'll never be deliverance from any habit.
From a character that we've developed because of the habit in our lives, or a relationship that we're unhappy with and something that we're going on with that's caused a double heart until we come to the point where the spirit of God is in control. Now I know that happens by measure, but that's our deliverance, beloved young people.
The Spirit of God.
Having control, maintaining communion.
With Christ.
Jesus cried on that great day of the feast, he said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
And it's as we get into the word of God and we begin to read the precious things of Scripture Christ has brought before us. And the Spirit of God feeds us and refreshes our hearts with the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't speak of himself. He glorifies Jesus.
Well, something happened verse eight. They then came Amalek and fought with Israel in refident. What happens to the believer is this It beautifully brought out in picture form in Exodus 17.
Once you possess the Holy Spirit and you belong to Christ.
You're going to find one thing that will characterize your life, and that is conflict.
And that is one of the signs that confirms or should confirm to your heart that you are real, beloved young person. I had struggles with this when I was young, but finally when I I realized that through the teaching of my beloved brethren from the pages of Scripture.
On that very point, because I had conflict, it made me feel better about my position. My condition, because my intellect was at work and I tried to figure things out and understand things and feel for my faith rather than simply.
Trust and not look inside again, all of our problems seem to spring from.
Looking inside or depending on what we are.
Instead of what he is and what he has done for us.
And let me ask you this question.
Do you depend upon what you ought to be for peace?
Rather than what Christ has made you.
Stop and think about that. Do you depend upon what you ought to be?
For your peace and feeling your acceptance before the Lord, or what He has made you accepted in the Beloved 1.
He offered one sacrifice for sins, and he forever sat down. God is not only satisfied, but He's glorified and it takes just a little speck of faith to trust him for your salvation.
And you can rest in Christ. You have peace with God.
But what happens, it says in Ephesians chapter One, after having believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.
And that simply means the Holy Spirit we now possess as believers. And he that hath not the Spirit is not of Him. Don't ever let anybody tell you you'll get the Spirit by degrees. It may be true. You get power by degrees, and you'll have the enjoyment of His love and communion with him by degrees. But not the Spirit of God. You have all of the Spirit. And if we could turn this group of believers, wonderful young Christians and older ones too into.
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Fully developed power for the Lord by the Spirit of God.
What kind of what kind of worship would we enjoy? What kind of ambassadorship would we be executing in our lives for the Lord Jesus Christ? What kind of of energy we would express for the vocation for with which we have been called, that is to manifest that we belong to the body of Christ, of which Christ is the head?
We often think of our happiness, but there is the Lord's side and what brings him joy. Because our brother expressed the other day, he rejoices in our love and worship. The expression of our praises to him and our communion and fellowship He feeds among the lilies.
He feeds among the lies.
You're one of his lilies.
It's what he has made you.
The bride and the Song of Solomon, she said. I'm black, but comely. She looked back at what she was naturally. But she says I'm comely. That's what you are in the sight of Jesus.
You're everything to him, beloved young people. He loves you.
And any little thing in our lives that becomes a deterrent to our hindrance, to our fellowship with him.
We might say it brings sorrow to his heart because he has a claim upon you.
In glory we will be what He wants us to be, but He wants us to be conformed to His image here.
To a very large degree, because he has such a claim of love upon us.
He deserves it. He's worthy of that vessel, that life of yours, and you only have one chance to give it to him.
And that's this life.
So the children of Israel fought with Amalek, that is, Satans working upon the lusts of our flesh. Do we know anything about that beloved young people?
Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.
You see, there is conflict, but the victory does not come through our conflict.
Moses told Joshua to choose out men and go down to down and stand in the plane.
And fight with him while he would go up to the top of the mountain.
And Aaron and Moses and her went up to the top of the hill.
And Moses held up his hands.
And as long as Moses could hold up his hands, there was victory.
Christ's intercession for us.
But there was Joshua down in the plains, and he is a type of the risen Christ in the energy, not of the flesh, but of the Spirit.
Moses was doing his part. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he was last seen, went into the glory with his hands held up.
And if that were not the case, if he were not interceding for us, there would be no victory for us.
I don't understand at all. I believe it though. It's by faith we understand, it's not by reasoning and figuring it all out.
But that's why we can say he lives for us.
And he will save us to the uttermost, the scripture says from the gutter most to the uttermost that come unto God by him, because he also liveth to make intercession for us.
But here is our part, beloved young people, and that is.
That I grieve not the Spirit. Because remember, Joshua is a picture of the energy of the Spirit in the risen Christ, and we behold Christ in glory. He is the object of our hearts.
And we live for him, to him, through him.
And all that he has done for us, and is to us, but the moment that we.
Grieve the spirit failure comes in.
The Moses could have held up his hands all day, and perhaps this in fact he did. And this is what happened. Victory was the outcome.
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Victory was the result.
Because Joshua here is doing his job.
But we might say, are we doing our job by living a judged life?
In the presence of the Lord. Wherefore grieve not.
The Holy Spirit, the scripture says Ephesians 4, I think verse 12.
The Holy Spirit of promise.
The moment that we grieve the Holy Spirit, we become occupied with ourselves. Do you know anything about that? You look inside.
When you realize that you had gone on for a period of time and you were beholding the Lord, you were looking upon him because it says.
And Hebrews chapter 12 Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, So the eye had been upon him. But now your eye is turned inward upon yourself. Do you ever remember a joy in your life that surpassed any joy that you had in this world?
I'll have to be very honest with you young people.
I was raised in a Christian home like most of you are or were.
And I knew nothing.
About joy because I was so occupied, preoccupied with myself. I'm being very honest with you.
I had things fairly well confused in my mind as to what Christianity really is.
And to me, one of the most beautiful verses that expresses Christianity is John chapter 14, where it says, if a man loved me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him. That is Christianity in the fullness of its power, because he's speaking in those verses. That's about John 1423 after he promised the Holy Spirit to come. And the Holy Spirit is that which the power and the person which brings Christ to us.
And.
He abides in us, we abide in him.
As my father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue.
In my love. And that's why we keep His commandments. He goes on to say, if you keep my commandments, you shall continue in my love. Now here is a common fallacy in our thinking as Christians. We believe that if we are obedient and we read the word of God and we pray enough, we'll finally earn communion.
And a power to live for Jesus.
That isn't really what the verse says, because that's our attempting to gain something he's already given us by the Holy Spirit.
He says. As my father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue in my love. That's normal Christianity.
If you keep my commandments, he says, you shall abide.
That's why we obey, so that communion can be maintained in our lives.
And that's what he does. As our great high priest, he maintains our communion. But there is our responsibility as well to keep our hearts clean and our hearts judged. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, the Psalm said.
And renew a right spirit within me. That was after he had sinned, and he acknowledged his sin under the Lord, and confessed his transgression.
And he was Clint, he said. Cleanse me with, purge me with hyssop.
And wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. We need the washing of the water by the word, the foot washing. Yes, perhaps we'll say a word on that just before we close as to the advocacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it's different as.
In contrast to his being our high priest.
He maintains our communion. In other words, it's not so much the thought of.
Sin coming into our lives, but keeping us from sin.
Could I repeat that one more time, not only for you, but for me. I need it to be lovely young people.
He holds his hands up in intercession for me.
To keep me from sin.
And in communion through the power of the Holy Spirit is how He effects this in our lives.
He has sent forth the Holy Spirit into our hearts, crying ABBA Father. But it says love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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And you'll find that affection and relationship somewhat hindered to towards the father because sin has been allowed.
Because the love of the world has come in and defilement.
And contaminations, contaminants. And Satan knows how to work upon the lusts of the flesh in order to affect this. The lusts of the flesh are real and were to abstain from those lusts, not to regain communion, but to maintain communion.
Now, when we sin, when we fail, that's another subject. We need restoration.
But I just like to say this concerning what we had a little bit yesterday pertaining to.
The wilderness journey.
And his care for us along the way, and our casting all of our care upon him.
Young folks, he was here in this world.
He knows.
The sorrow of the path.
It says in Hebrews chapter 2 That he took not upon him the nature of angels, but he took upon him the seed of Abraham, and wherefore it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren. Why?
So that he might become a merciful and faithful High priest.
We have a high priest that is not touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We have not in high priest, which is not touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tested, like we are, except without sin. Wherefore let us come boldly under the throne of grace that we might find.
Mercy and grace to help in time of need. It's a throne of grace, and when you pray, when you're tempted, he will be faithful if you submit to His Lordship.
I walked by the shower stalls up in the boys area the other day and there was the most wonderful duet being sung out of those showers that I'd heard while I've been up here. We haven't had too many duets, so this is a wonderful male duet.
I guess one was singing from one shower song and one the other, I don't know, but the song was this yield not to temptation.
For yielding his sin, each victory will help you.
Some other to win, Fight prayerfully onward. Dark passions subdue. Look ever to Jesus. There's the key. No confidence in yourself, no trust or strength in yourself. And that's the secret of deliverance from yourself. You finally realize the conflict is not you with the devil. It's the Spirit of God occupying you with the blessed person and the glory of Christ. And your heart is taken up with him. There's no conflict on your part.
The power and the for the conflict is on the part of our great high priest who holds up his hands for you and for me. And he's holding them up now. Beloved. That was a beautiful song, fellas. Thanks for singing it. It just blessed me. I don't know who you are, but it blessed me and others that were walking by that heard it beautifully. Sun, we should have them sing it tonight.
But this is the blessed portion of Christianity I feel that we are getting. At least I got so far away from when I was young. I really didn't know how to maintain myself in the circle of Christians that I was identified with and in my own individual life. For the Lord, I had no power.
But I had conflict.
And that comforted me. And I believe so many Christians get so far away from the Lord that the conflict is there, but they begin to doubt their salvation because they almost feel an enmity towards the things of God because you're walking in the flesh. And the carnal mind the scripture says in Romans chapter 8 is enmity against God.
Sold under sin, I mean, it cannot love the Lord. And so you feel when you're walking in the flesh, that enmity. It's there. You feel a a division, a distance between your soul and the Lord. And you say, I can't be a Christian, but yet you know you have a love for Christ. It's there.
And so there is this conflict. It's because you need to be restored.
You've gotten away from the Lord. Sin has come in. It may be an intellectual thing. You may have gotten into some doctrinal errors or departure from the Word. It may be just contamination, lust of the flesh as we have in Amalek.
By the way, Aaron speaks of the high priest.
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Moses as Christ interceding for us according to Romans 834.
And her as light. And if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. Think of what our fellowship would be would be if we walked in the light.
How blessed it would be.
But I just like to say this that the Lord sympathizes with you when you go through this world and meet with all kinds of discouragements or sickness and afflictions.
And problems in your home and all of those things he sympathizes with you.
He has felt the road. Beloved friends, he knows it.
That's why he can sympathize with you. He sympathized with Mary when her brother had died, and in fact, so much so that he wept.
Jesus wept.
And he walked with her. And that's the kind of comfort that he gives us as our great high Priest. He wants to bear you up above the storm. He wants to hold you, so to speak. The last word. Some of the last words of Moses were these. The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
But as our advocate, could I just say this before I close?
If you have sinned or there is something dividing your heart with Christ and the hymn We we sang.
46 In the back of the Have an eye, an object, Lord below, that would divide my heart with thee. Something's come in between your heart and Jesus.
If you ask him, he'll lead you to what that is, what the problem is. It's not worth going on with to be unhappy, to continue on in the past.
It could be you may get further and further away and we may not even see you here next year. I don't know because the enemy's tactics are are tremendously powerful and he knows how to deal with you. But it says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.
Our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I'd just like to repeat what our brother Gordon said the other day.
We'll never really judge those that problem or sin in our lives thoroughly until we do it in the light of Numbers 19. And it's just as simple as our brother conveyed it very beautifully.
The ashes in the water, the death of Christ.
Directed by the word of God to our hearts, tells us what it cost him.
To bear that sin.
And we have added to his suffering on the cross.
And dear young folks, as you go through this life and you think about doing something that's wrong or saying even a bad word, evil communications.
Lusts.
If you think about it, adding to his sufferings doesn't make a difference.
You say. Oh Lord.
I don't want to add to your sufferings.
Please deliver me from this temptation as those boys were singing. Yield not.
Because it costs him will have cost him more suffering.
And the scarlet and the cedar and hyssop were added there. The glory of man, the greatness of man, and even our discouraged lives. The Lord put them all into one pot, and we're condemned. He doesn't even look at us as to what we were in the flesh.
And when we apply that to our lives, we simply say I am gone in the sight of God as a man.
For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness.
Of sinful flesh and for sin.
Condemned sin in the flesh.
And by the Holy Spirit now living in us, we are free from living unto the flesh, and the lusts and desires of the flesh.
So maybe you confess the same sin over and over again, and you've gotten no deliverance from it. But it's because perhaps it has never been judged in the light of his suffering and agony for you upon the cross.
Just like to read two or three verses to a poem and then we'll pray.
This is a Roses poem written about two weeks before she went home to be with the Lord, and it's available back there on the shelf.
Two or three verses. It seems as though she must have known something about the Lord Jesus Christ as her high priest, and knew the comfort of his love and the joy of his companionship. And she went through some troubles, difficulties.
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And she knew that this was worth more than anything she could ever get in all the world. Here's what she said.
Give God thanks in times of trial.
Give him thanks with a smile. Remember his great love for you.
Give him thanks in all you do. He never promised a bed of roses, but he our every tear feels and knows he will give strength through every trial. Give God thanks with a smile.
Give God thanks When things grow go wrong. Give God thanks. When against you rages A worldly throng, stand firm and do not give up. So our verse here on the wall. Stand fast in the Lord beloved and the enjoyment of His love.
Constantly thank him with an overflowing cup. Shall we just close in prayer?