Rideau Ferry Other Meetings: 2012
Table of Contents
The Tabernacle (1 of 3)
Address—David Mearns
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Maybe we could open this afternoon by singing 114.
#114.
Behold, they are Sway.
Unturned, perfect face, we have gone.
Home. We found our center.
Heaven chip up on earth falls. Oh Christ, my bells.
All our friends and friends.
I thought to wait for her fuel.
Orders to come to.
Oh God, we come with singing.
Ikan by Grand Hybrid.
Games to the bragging.
Lord or God happening?
For all the worth of it, we're Thor. Might be.
We asked the Lord for his help.
Our God and our Father, we thank thee for our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus, we thank thee for this hymn that we've been able to sing together. And as we would open my precious word, we're reminded our God of thy people of old and how they did not have the access that we have to be able to go within the holiest.
That's all because of the finished work of that blessed One, our Lord Jesus.
And so our God, this afternoon we just would earnestly pray that as we open Thy precious word and we read from these blessed pages, that there would be that which would touch our hearts, our God, in such a way as to 'cause our foots to hasten and our our look to be upward as we await that moment. Our God, when that blessed One, our Lord Jesus will come for his own. And perhaps it will be this afternoon.
We just would pray our God that our time would be for real profit as we would look at this subject that we find in my precious Word. And so our God, we are so thankful for thy ways with us, and for thy ways with thy people of old that are so instructive to us.
And we just would pray that as we would now embark on our little time together, that we would indeed see that blessed One, our Lord Jesus, in all his beauty, in all his glory. We'd ask these things, our God giving thanks and the worthy and the precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, Amen.
00:05:04
It's a little overwhelming to.
Consider this subject that's before us, the thought of the Tabernacle.
The subject we find in the Word of God. It takes about 55 chapters to look at the Tabernacle, to look at the priesthood, to look at the manner of worship that the Lord gave to his people of old.
And to go through those 55 chapters, there are lists and reams and reams of details.
That each one of them in their cells, they speak of some particular beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus. Well in two hours, you know what can you do When I first did this little subject with with the young people 25 years ago, soon after my wife and I were married, we made this little little model here I would I would do a few things that are different, but we.
We started from the outside and we did.
We did the boards as we have here and.
Umm, we, uh.
We made the boards and then we had a session on the boards and then we made the the silver bases that the board stood on and we had a session on the silver bases and so on and so forth until we were done in I think it was 22 sessions that we had. So it's not my intention this afternoon to take all those details and to cram them into into a couple hours. We're not able to do that, but my desire is.
You know, as I thought about preparing and I thought of making a few notes and it's just hopeless to.
Try to take the subject. And so we're just going to have to strongly rely on what the Lord of God and what the Spirit of God would bring before us as as we go through this.
This subject and so there are details that I'm not going to look at.
Things like.
And I'll, I'll just, I'll just go through a few little things here that would perhaps tweak your interest. This board that I have in my hand, it's made of pine, but it was, it was made of Acacia wood.
Overlaid with gold.
And.
They each weighed 2200 lbs approximately.
Just in your mind, think of thinking of think of raising up a Tabernacle every time they move and putting this up these boards, each of them weighing 200 lbs, all sitting on these bases of silver, which made-up probably just about 5 tons worth of silver. Well, there, there's so many details like that. There's the rings that we find here. There's the little bars that we find here. There's the there's the hanging in front of the of the Tabernacle, which had five pillars. There's the.
It's made of, it's made of much the same material as we have the veils made of the veil sits on 4 pillars. It sits on five pillars. This is 4 pillars. This one has crowns on the top of it. This one has no crowns. Perhaps Speaking of the Lord Jesus as he was cut off. I could just go on like that, detail after detail after detail after detail. Umm, which I don't think would be real profitable. So as I sought to umm to consider before the Lord as to what to umm, what to bring before my own heart and the hearts of each one here.
We trust that that which we have will be for.
Our good and blessing and would indeed encourage our hearts to to lay hold of what we have in the Word of God and to see some of these details that UMM would touch our hearts. So where we start?
I thought maybe I'd start with what's something I enjoyed this morning. I enjoy a little something every day. Umm. And so let's turn to Matthew's Gospel where I read this morning.
Matthew's Gospel chapter 5. I just finished Revelation in my in my personal reading. And so I've gone back to Matthew where we're actually reading in our assembly reading here we're a little bit further.
Further on in Matthew, but I read this morning.
From the.
12 verse to the 16th verse.
Sometimes, every chapter, sometimes I read just a little portion. I'm just going to mention this to be an encouragement to.
Those here who are particularly younger.
00:10:05
There are times.
In our life.
When?
We perhaps feel that, uh, we don't feel that closeness to the Lord that, uh, perhaps we once did. We can all in our minds look back to the first time, not necessarily the first time that we were saved, but the first time the Lord really touched our heart says that perhaps taking up the word of God and reading it for ourselves and umm, and made a real impact on it. And it was just like, uh, what we read in Revelation concerning first love. There was just a joy in our souls as, as we.
As the Lord seemed to lay hold of us, you know, we can look at times like that and sometimes we find in our lives those times they wane and perhaps we get a little bit away from the Lord and we don't enjoy the same things that we once did. Well, we just trust that as we spend a little time together here that it would be for the the purpose of umm, of having our, our vision fixed on that blessed one, our Lord Jesus, and to just have our hearts stirred to go on in a manner that would be.
Umm, for the glory of the Lord Jesus and would be for the joy of our souls. Well, I was thinking of here where I read this morning, I read in Matthew's Gospel the 5th chapter and I read these, these words, um, I'm sorry, it's the fourth chapter, Matthew chapter 4 starting at the 12Th verse. And when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea course in the borders of Sidon and Natalie that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaias the prophet, the land of Zebulun and the land of Nathalim, which is by the way of the sea.
Beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness, and so on. What arrested my attention this morning was just this little phrase by the way of the sea.
The way of the Sea.
So why?
I have a bit behind me here.
Oh I wish it was bigger. I stuck one over there for those that are closer to that.
We see here.
The Tabernacle.
Which we have here. What I don't have is the court that's around the Tabernacle.
We won't have too much time to spend on that.
We'll look a little bit at the Tabernacle. What we see in this poster, though, is, umm, some of the tents around the Tabernacle.
It's astounding to me that when the people of God moved and they might be camped for a year, they might be camped for five years, they might be camped for a month. We don't know the time frame between them all for to go to the 33rd of, of numbers, we would go through and find the encampments. Uh, some of you, you have heard me take that up.
But it's been incredible to me to consider here perhaps 1,000,000 1/2 People.
All intents, all with their animals.
And the Shekinah glory which we have here, we don't know exactly what it looked like, but the time came when it would move and when it moved, the people of God moved. And So what happened is the Tabernacle came down. There were 3 tribes that headed off Umm. The tribes that were right here in front of the in front of the Umm, the Tabernacle that they camped there and they camped there all the time. Same 3 tribes, same 3 tribes camped over here, same 3 tribes camped over there, same 3 tribes camped over there. There was one man that headed this pro procession every time they moved.
One man wasn't there? Wasn't Moses? Maybe some of the young fellows here can tell me who that young man was sometime tonight.
But they, they headed off and, and, and, and it was in perfect order, perfect order every time. Just marvelous to think of that, to think of the, the Levites and how they camped in the same place. Aaron and his sons and Moses, they camped here. And we find that the, the Gershomites, they camped over here. The sons of Murari camped over here. The sons of the Itamar camps umm in.
On the on the West side.
Sorry, the umm, the South side, they all have their place.
In which they can't and umm.
They they moved. You're getting off your your seat. Excuse me just for a SEC. Sorry to interrupt.
00:15:03
I want to just try wonderful thing.
Try that.
Thank you.
The umm.
The Lord had the move in perfect order and they had them stop in perfect order. But throughout that 40 year period, the Lord had them do something that was interesting to me. You remember, Umm, and we're not speaking to an audience here that's not familiar with the word. You remember when they first embarked out of the land of Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea.
Across the Red Sea.
While the Lord knew their hearts and the Lord knew that they were forgetful, as the Lord knows that we're forgetful, and so he brought them back to the Red Sea on four different occasions.
I'll look at a couple. Let's turn to umm.
Umm, the Book of Numbers.
Numbers, Chapter 14.
This is after the spies.
Come back with an evil report.
And we finally pick up the story here in UMM.
In verse 22, because all those men, Numbers chapter 14, verse 22. Because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and attempted me now these 10 times, that have not hearkened to My voice, surely they shall not see the land which I spake under their fathers, neither shall they any of them that provoked me see it. But My servant Caleb, because he have another spirit with Him, and it followed Me fully. Him will I bring into the land, where into He went, and His feet shall possess it. Now take notice of this next verse, now the Amalekites.
And the Canaanites dwelt in the valley tomorrow, turn you and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. That's what touched my heart this morning when I was reading in my personal reading, The Way of the Sea. I know it's a different sea, but it's just the expression. Let's turn over to the 21St chapter.
And the fourth verse and they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edith. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. I won't turn to the others just for time, but.
Just to make this comment that there was that time of tremendous deliverance to the people of God at the Red Sea. They crossed that Red Sea and they saw their enemies dead on the seashore. And it was a cause in the 15th of Exodus for great rejoicing. We find the first time singing is mentioned and it's in Exodus 15 and all. What a time of rejoicing. That was marvelous time. We can relate to that in our own souls, can't we? Those times of first love when there was such rejoicing, such tremendous rejoicing in our souls, and yet we find that the people of God that.
That.
Their hearts got discouraged, as we find here and in other places. And so the Lord, he had them go back to the Red Sea.
Just to have a look at that place where there was that tremendous deliverance. And we find that as we go through the word, we find that another time in numbers, umm, the 33rd chapter. We find time and time again, the Lord brought them back to the Red Sea just as a time of such encouragement for them so that they could remember in their minds that time of joy in their own souls. And so, you know, we, we have that in our own lives too, where we remember times of real joy. And it's just my desire this afternoon that as we look at this little subject that it would, it would, it would cause our hearts to, to burn afresh as we see the Lord Jesus in all his beauty. Well, first of all, here I'm just going to go through.
A few details here before we.
Embark on the subject of before us. You see here I've got some pieces of furniture. We have the altar of burn offering. We have the table of showbread. Abby has made us 12 fresh loaves of bread here. We find, according to Leviticus 7, that sometimes the priest ate unleavened bread. Sometimes they ate leavened bread. They ate both. We have 11 cakes here.
This was this was born and most of the pictures you see of an altar of Brune offering.
00:20:03
Has will have four rings in it.
We read the word, it shows it only had two rings. It was probably born by four people just because of the weight of it. And so we have, and we might get some little priests after, after a while to come and help us with, with some of these pieces of furniture. Maybe not now, but after supper, the, umm, the, uh, the entrance to the umm.
To the courtyard which was here.
The people looked in. The first thing they saw was the altar of burnt offering, which is the first thing we're going to speak of.
Subsequent to that, we have the labor.
These were both made of it says brass. They are made of copper. This is probably the color of it. I have a little labor here speaks of the labor and his foot two different pieces and you have the the the door into the first room of the of the Tabernacle and take off these curtains. This one here is.
It's a curtain of badger skins, it's called. We don't know exactly the animal, but it was. It wasn't exactly a pretty covering.
It was a covering that.
That you would see that when you looked at the Tabernacle, that's what you would see. Much of the beauty that you would see in the Tabernacle, you wouldn't see because it was covered up by, by this, umm, this covering a badger skin. And you know, it's a picture of the Lord Jesus. Isn't that marvelous to think that the Lord has touched our own heart so that we see beauty in the Lord Jesus?
We read there's no beauty that we should desire him. And you know, so many in this world, they think of the Lord Jesus and there's nothing that attracts them at all. And it's a wonder to our minds, isn't it? And yet, you know, that would be the same with ourselves if the Lord hadn't reached down and touched our hearts.
Well, this was called a covering. This one was called a covering.
Covering a better skin. I'm not going to turn to the scriptures with these just for times times sake.
This next one was umm, was also called a covering. It was Ram's skin dyed red.
Call the covering, it was read, speaking perhaps of the blood of Christ.
Umm, we don't have any measurements on this one. No measurements at all.
How can you measure the value of the blood of Christ?
No measurements so we don't know exactly how big it was. We just know there was a covering and it was red. It was a RAM skins.
In a few details, but.
Pretty hard to come up with one when you don't know the measurements, but it's indicative of can't place a value on the blood of the Lord Jesus for sure. So this was also a covering. This next one was a covering of goat's hair. It was made of 11 curtains joined together. It was not necessarily this color. It was actually probably dark.
But it was called the tent. So there's a number of places we find in the Word of God where this is referred to, and it's referred to as the tent.
Umm and this other covering that we have umm here.
Fine twined linen, blue, purple, scarlet.
So this is called the Tabernacle and this too is called the Tabernacle.
And it was those colors.
We have measurements. This was made-up of 11 curtains. This was only made-up of 10 curtains.
Which brings us to the Tabernacle itself, where we have.
2:00 rooms.
As you look up here, you can see this, this, this picture, it's cut away here. There's the first room and there's the second room in the first room.
Right inside the door you have the table of Showbread. I thought it would be helpful to at least have a life-size.
Model of the table of Showbread just to give the picture of the size of it. Then inside on the left hand side we would have a Candlestick.
Candlestick. This was made of gold.
Of umm, in case you would cover it in gold. This was made of pure gold.
And, umm.
It speaks to us.
Of the light of God's Word.
And.
Small measurements for this either.
How can you put a measurement on that?
00:25:02
And then right ahead.
Is the altar of burning fence, which I trust to spend a little bit of time on, umm, after supper. The umm, altar of burning incense, which was probably born of, uh, four people. We have umm, we have horns on the altar of burn incense. Umm, as you see here, there's a horn there.
And there's also a horn on the halter burnt offering if we were to turn to the UMM. Let's just do that for a moment.
Turn to Psalm 118.
We'll pick up on a scripture.
Sometimes we have this red and the breaking of bread.
Psalm 118.
27 God is the Lord which hath showed us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.
Now the horns would speak of strength. You remember when Abraham was told to take his son under the land of Moriah. And you remember there when he was going to sacrifice his son, there was a ram. It was caught in a thicket by its horns. Wasn't caught by a foot, wasn't caught by a leg, was caught by its horns. Who would speak of its strength? And so the children of Israel, they would bring their, they would bring their animals in through this door and they would tie them to this altar, the horns of the altar where they would slay them and they would.
The priest would catch the blood.
And the blood would be sprinkled on the altar. It would also be sprinkled on the labor.
Well, just to mention that there was the, umm, the horns on both this altar and the Altar of Burning Sense.
And then we have here the veil which separated really the people of God from the presence of God.
Beautiful to think of the veil being rent.
Just a marvellous thing to think of the veil being ransomed for the wonderful privilege we have of going into the presence of the Lord Jesus and we do that on Lord's Day morning. We can do it on a daily basis. Whereas the people of God, they didn't have that privilege. Aaron could go in once a year on the Day of Atonement. You notice that Aaron's garments here, he's got some garments there on the Day of Atonement. Those garments weren't like that. They were white. A different set of garments he had on the Day of Atonement, but he would go in there and.
This is where we find the.
The ark which was made out of fascia wood, the same as these bars, and then the mercy seat which had blood on it that was made of pure gold, The presence of the Lord.
Let's just turn for a moment to Exodus 25.
Will we find the desire of the heart of God?
In Exodus 25.
And verse one the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart. Ye shall take my offering, and this is the offering which ye shall take of them. Gold and silver and brass, and purple and blue and purple and scarlet. Fine linen and goats hair. Ram skins dyed red, and badger skins and chittim. Wood and oil for the light, Spices for anointing, Oil for sweet incense. Onyx, stone stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
Here's where I'm going.
And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
You know what was ever in the heart of God.
Dwell amongst His people. You know when God first created Adam and Eve, His desire was to dwell with them.
And then he's going to have communication with them, and you want to have fellowship with with them. He didn't have a creature that he could fellowship with before that, but he made man so that he could fellowship with him and all He had that time in the garden where he could do that. And oh, what a wonderful time it was. But then the enemy of our souls came in and that fellowship was marred. And God didn't have that fellowship. But you know, he still yearn for that. We find him fellowshipping with different ones. You know, he fellowship with Abraham.
We read of him speaking about Abraham. He says Abraham my friend and he was able to, to, to have that time with, with Abraham.
But you know, as the people of God were, they left Egypt. Oh, how he wanted to be right in the middle of his people as they were camping through the wilderness. He wanted to be right there in the middle of them. That's where he wanted to be. So he says here, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. And if we could only get ahold of that in our souls. Now that the Lord's desire is that he wants to dwell with us, He wants he wants to walk with us. He wants to spend that time with us on a daily basis that we would be in his presence. And he wanted that in the time past.
00:30:28
In the wilderness with the children of Israel, He wanted it. And so that's why we have the Tabernacle, and that's why it speaks to us of so many things of himself. His desire was that he might be with the people of God. We're going to look at that a little bit later.
In connection with the altar of burning sense, but in the time that's remaining now, I'd like to look a little bit at the altar of burnt offering and the labor.
If we could turn to.
Umm.
Exodus chapter 27.
Now shop meek access 27 and verse one. Thou shalt make an altar of Shittimwood 5 cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be 4 square. I considered doing an altar of burnt offering, but.
I was thankful for James and George and my daughters that helped paint to come up with these two pieces of furniture on Monday night.
We uh.
We had to use our imagination a little bit as to the material I had in the shop that evening, nothing being open. So we came up with this and, uh.
And also a burnt offering would have been a bit big, I think here, but it was probably 7 1/2 feet square, 8 feet square, maybe close to close to five feet high. So we have here. Thou shalt make an altar of **** and wood, 5 cubits long, 5 cubits broad. The altar shall be 4 square, the height thereof shall be 3 cubits. Now shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof. His horns shall be of the same, and thou shalt overlay it with brass. Thou shalt make his pants to receive his ashes and his shovels and his basins, and so on.
And in verse seven and stage shalt thou put into the rings, and the staves shall be upon the two sides of the altar, to bear it hollow with boards shalt thou make it. Now take note of this little detail here, as it was showed thee in the mount.
As it was showed the in the mount.
We'll see that that UMM wording quite often throughout this UMM construction of a Tabernacle. Turn to the UMM.
Turn to the 4th chapter of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy chapter 4 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your Father's giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you. And so we know that that's never to be done, adding to the word of God.
Neither shall ye diminish ought from it. Well, we find that statement made a number of times too. So I just thought of that in connection with Exodus 27 and the end of the eighth verse. He was to do everything in connection with this Tabernacle as it was showed him in the mouth. He wasn't given any liberty as to details. No, he was to do it exactly as the Lord showed him.
Now to embark on the altar of burn offering. Let's go to and really, this is all.
Umm, preparatory to the subject that we have numbers Chapter 16.
00:35:00
I'm gonna take the time. It's umm.
The only portion in this meeting and the next meeting that I'm going to read that's of any length, but we're going to read it because in it we find a number of things that are instructive to us.
It's the story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram who rose up against Moses authority.
I believe the Lord refers to it the end of the book of Matthew when he's Speaking of the scribes and Pharisees, and he says the scribes and he scribes and Pharisees.
Set themselves down in Moses seats when Mr. Darby translated, I believe it refers to what we have here in #16 So we're going to read now some of this portion just to make a point in connection with the impact that the altar of birth offering made upon the people of God. So we read here the core of the son of Azar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dason, and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and on the son of Pilaf, sons of Reuben, took men.
And they rose up before Moses, the certain of the children of Israel. 250 Princess of the Assembly.
Famous in the congregation, men of renown, And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And they said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord.
And Moses heard it.
And he fell upon his face. That's a good place for all of us, isn't it? I've just been recently impressed by the number of times we find people bowing themselves in the Word of God.
The greatest victory we find in Samson's life, that says, He bowed himself, and in those pillars came down beautiful. Take that little expression, go through the word. He bowed himself. Here we find Moses falls on his face, and he spake on the core, and unto all his company, saying, Even tomorrow the Lord will show you who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto Him. Even him whom he hath chosen will he cause to come near unto Him. This do take you sensors, Cora, and all his company.
And put fire therein, and put incense on them before the Lord tomorrow.
And it shall be that the man whom the Lord that choose, he shall be holy, he take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi. And Moses said unto Korah, Here I pray you, ye sons of Levi, seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel.
To bring you near to himself, to do the service of the Tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation, to minister unto them. And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren, the sons of Levi with thee, and seek ye the priesthood also, for which cause both thou and all thy company are gathered together.
Against the Lord.
And what is there in the team murmur against him? And Moses sent the call based on the Byron, the sons of Eliab, which said we will not come up.
Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a Prince over us? Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Without put out the eyes of these men, we will not come up. And Moses was very wroth, and said unto the Lord, Respect not thou their offering. I have not taken one *** from them, neither have I hurt one of them.
And Moses said to Corah, Be thou in all thy company before the Lord, thou and they and Aaron tomorrow, and take every man his censor, and put incense in them, and bring ye before the Lord. Every man is censor. 250 Censors.
Thou also and Aaron, each of you is censor.
And they took every man his sensor, and put fire in them, and laid in, since they're on, and stood in the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation with Moses. And Aaron. And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. And the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation. And the Lord spake unto Moses, and unto Aaron, saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell upon their faces, and said, Oh God, the God of all spirits.
God are the spirits of all flesh. Shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from the Tabernacle of Korah and Dathan and Abiram. And Moses rose up and went unto Jason, and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. And he spake unto the congregation, saying, the part, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch not nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins. So they got up from the Tabernacle of Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram on every side. And Dathan Abiram came out and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children.
00:40:14
And Moses said, Hereby he shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own mind. If these men die of the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me.
But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, and all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit, then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.
In the Kingdom mass passed as he made an end of speaking all these words that the ground played asunder that was under them. The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up in their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Cora and all their goods.
They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation, and all Israel that were round about them flooded the cry of them, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
When I came out of fire from the Lord and consumed the 250 men that offered incense. Now these next 3 verses that I want to take special note of in connection of the altar of burn offering.
The Lord spake on the Moses, saying, Speak unto Eliezer the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the sensors out of the burning scattered out of the fire Yonder. For they are hallowed, the sensors of these sinners against their own souls, and let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar.
For they offer them before the Lord, therefore they are hallowed, and they shall be a sign unto the children of Israel.
Elias of the priest took the brazen sensors wherewith they that were burnt had offered, and they made them broad plates for a covering of the altar to be a memorial under the children of Israel.
Well, it's a long portion to read, but it sets the scene, I believe, for that which we'll have before us the rest of this meeting and in the meeting to follow the altar of burnt offering.
Think of the thousands of animals that were slain.
Bert on the altar of burnt offering.
Something I've never seen and I don't have it on this one. Every picture I've ever seen of the altar of burnt offering.
It doesn't have any plates, the sensors that were fixed on it.
We find from this portion that there were 250 sensors that were fixed on the sides of this altar. Every time the people of God came and approached the court, the first thing they did was they looked inside and that the first thing that met their eyes was those sensors. And it was to be a memorial. And I pictured, I pictured, you know, all the children thinking.
Saying to their parents, So what are those things on the altar? What are those things on the altar? And this story was gone over.
And we read of the holiness of God, and we read of what God thinks about rising up against authority.
And we have authority in this world in many different ways. There's governmental authority, there's authority in the home. We find authority in the assembly, and we find often that authority is risen up against. And we find here a picture of what God thinks about rising up against authority.
You know, it's touched my heart because we find that.
One of the men here that spearheads this situation is a man by the name of Cora.
Men by the name of Cora.
The rate of the gain saving of Korah, don't we?
If we were to turn to the Psalms and we don't have the time, we find a number of number of places, we find groups of Psalms to the sons of Korah.
We find that when it came to based on the Byram, their families disappeared into the into the pit. Isn't that marvelous that there were those children of Korah, that they were not going to go along?
With their father rising up against authority, and they stood back and they were spared.
And I picture a picture of different ones, you know, can't you picture? We all know the story of Samuel. So very, very, uh, very well, we've got two here. We've got three here. We've got Sam Mart, We've got, uh, we've got, uh, one of Dale's boys is Sam. We've got one of our Kevin's little boy Samuel. And we find perhaps Samuel is a little boy saying to Eli, you know, Eli, what are those things on, on the side of the altar? And Eli would go through this whole story. And he just explained just what transpired here in numbers chapter 616.
00:45:05
And when he was all done, you know he would say to Samuel, and you're one of the sons of Korah.
A marvelous thing to, to go through that and see how the grace of God reached out to these ones and we find them come up in the word time and time again. Well, I just mentioned that to, to, as we start this little subject to, to recognize a little of the, of the, of the holiness of God and to realize what it meant to the people of God when they brought a sacrifice. And daily they would come into that that court. The first thing that would meet their eye were these sensors. I imagine for days you heard the clanging of these sensors that they bang these sensors into broad plates and fixed them on the side of the altar.
If anybody ever has a picture of an altar that's got sensors, I'd like to see it. I've never seen one, but it hasn't they were there.
Let's turn now to the book of Exodus.
And we will move from the.
Altar of burnt offering with a few minutes that we have left.
Exodus Chapter.
30.
In verse 17.
Emily, umm, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Thou shalt make a labor of brass, and his foot also of brass to wash with all. There's a number of different thoughts in connection with the labor. And his foot, I don't know. That's all. We're told. We have a labor here and we have a foot underneath. Whether the foot had water in it or not, I rather think it may have, uh, we don't know, but it was, umm, evidently two different pieces.
You know, when it speaks about the table of childbirth, it doesn't say the table of showbread and its legs. We don't read about the, the, the arc and its legs. We don't read about the, umm, the altar brain sense in its base. We don't read of those things. But when it speaks of the, of the labor, it speaks about the labor and his foot. So very definitely, we have perhaps two different pieces here, but we read continue on here.
His foot also of brass to wash with all. Now she'll put it between Tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and now shall put water therein.
And Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat when they go into the Tabernacle of the congregation.
They shall wash with water that they die not, or when they come near to the altar to minister to.
Burnt offering by the flyer unto the Lord. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to them, and to a seed throughout their generations.
Turn now over to the 29th chapter.
And the 4th 1St.
We read and Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the Tabernacle of congregation, and shalt wash them with water. This portion speaks about Aaron, his sons having a complete bath, but that only happened once. And that perhaps speaks of our salvation and how we're washed by the blood of Christ never has to be done again. Aaron never had to take a bath again in that way. Well, but forever after we find in this portion that we've read that he had to wash his hands and his feet.
Now let's look at the 40th chapter.
The 40th chapter of Exodus.
And we'll read.
The seventh verse This is in connection with them setting up the Tabernacle, and the seventh verse of the Exodus 40 Thou shalt accept the labor between the 10 of the congregation and the altar, and shall put water therein. The 30th verse And he set the labor between the 10 of the congregation and the altar, and put water there to wash with all. And Moses and Aaron and his sons wash their hands, and their feet their at.
00:50:16
Well, the labor is a is a marvelous thing to consider.
The umm.
There was one other portion I did want to look at.
I guess in the 38th chapter.
Maybe we'll leave that for a moment, but here we find the labor.
And uh.
It speaks to us of the Word of God.
The labor does and the need for us to Washington on a daily basis, you know, we're cleansed from our sins and that's done once for all. But we need to wash now every time one of the Levites went.
By that labor they had to wash their hands and their feet.
And we find the Lord Jesus.
Taking the disciples in and washing their feet.
And we find, as I said, it's a picture to us of the word of God. And it's interesting, you know, we, we spoke about the, the Ramskins dyed red. Well, to come up with labor is kind of difficult because.
There's no dimension given to the labor. Absolutely none.
How can you put dimensions on the word of God?
Can't be done. So we don't know any picture you have of Labor. Every picture you see, if the labor is conjectured, we don't know how big it was. We don't know how small it was. It speaks to us of the word of God. But I would just like to encourage now our hearts in this 38th chapter of.
Exodus.
And the 8th chapter.
And he made the Laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Very interesting that this flavor was made of the looking glasses made of these mirrors that the people of God had.
That were made of copper.
I'm here is something, you know, we put it up to our face and we can see what we look like. Well, you know, it's not a picture of the word of God and how it shows us just what we're like and it shows us where we need to change is that which is refreshment for us is that which was an encouragement for us, that which enables us to go on in a manner that's consistent with the Word of God. While it was made here of the very thing that showed the people of God that they needed washing. That's what it was made of. And we find that the priests, they had to wash their hands and their feet every time.
They went by the labour. Well, there's an added detail, I'll just end with this. This added detail in connection with the Labor is that they were to wash their hands and their feet that they die not.
That's really spoke to my heart, you know, because.
Unless I am continually in the in the word of God.
There's deadness that creeps into my soul.
You showed me somebody that hasn't read the word of God for a few months.
There's not much in the way of a vibrant testimony.
We need the word of God. We need it on a daily basis. We need it perhaps several times during the day. Sometimes I come home from work, you know, and supper is not ready. I just go back to my back bedroom and just just read a couple of verses just because I need just, we pick up so much to file on it through the day, not just by being out, just by walking inside the door. And we don't have to walk outside the door to pick up the file and we can pick it up right in the home. How we need the washing and the water by the word on a daily basis that you don't.
You know, I just think of, umm, I think of Sardis and how let's just read that portion in Revelation.
Revelation, the third chapter.
Unto the Angel of the Church in Sardis write these things, saith he that half the seven spirits of God.
The seven stars I know thy works, that thou hast the name, that thou livest and art dead.
00:55:03
Oh, how the Lord Jesus would have us to be real that there would be no deadness within us Yeah, we die daily Yes, we're dead in Christ, but oh that there be that life that's manifest in in our lives just recently. Then once again encouraged by the the.
The little creature, the locust.
No locus. This nor grasshopper is kind of like a grasshopper. But you know what's interesting about a locus?
He's not interested in eating anything that's dead.
Won't need anything of this. It's only interested in eating something that's green. It's all it's interested in. You can give it something dead if not interested. Only that which is alive is it interested in eating? I just think in my own life how many dead things I consume in a week's time.
Locus is not like that. They're just plummet, not interested in anything that's dead. You can try to tempt it. It's not interested. Even if it's starving, it's gotta be alive, has to be alive. Oh, that we would have that desire in our souls. We have a thirst for the Word of God and a hunger for the Word of God and seek to feed on that which is alive. Well, I can see our time is gone, so let's just commend ourselves to the Lord. I'll make a few, few announcements.
And and then we'll, umm, we'll break Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for thy precious word that we've spoken about a little. We thank Thee for that which has touched our hearts so many ways from my precious word. And we just would pray that we would have a real appetite for us. We own our God that so often we find deadness in our soul. And there are those times we're so much like the children of Israel.
And we need so much to be brought back to the Red Sea, to be brought back to that scene of Calvary where we see that blessed One, our Lord Jesus, and all his beauty and all his glory, and that which was accomplished on our behalf.
Oh my God, we just would pray that our hearts would be encouraged.
To spend that needed time in my precious word. And so we just would ask now for thy help.
The balance of our time, we think of our fellowship after and pray that it would be sweet. We think of our of the many details and getting supper and getting the table set up. We just would ask for thy help our God and pray too as thy precious word is opened after supper that again it would be for real prophet our God and for thine honor and glory. We'd ask these things our God giving thanks and the worthy and the precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, Amen.
The Tabernacle (2 of 3)
Address—David Mearns
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Maybe we could sing #271 That's 271.
Lord of the World of.
The.
God, where my trampoline?
Come on.
But far, well formed and far they are gone with 100.
5.
Hour, Lord.
And find by the spring of blood.
Just ask the Lord for his help.
Our God and our Father, we again thank thee for.
Blessed One, our Lord Jesus.
Notice so willingly send.
Thank you for that. Blessed One is on high on our behalf.
And we thank thee, our God, that it's our privilege to be here in a land like this where we can have Thy precious word opened. Help us not to take these things for granted, our God, as we realize that many of our brethren are being persecuted for Thy name's sake. And so we just would pray that as we have this opportunity, that we would, uh, have energy and have a real desire to, to hear thy voice, our God, as we would open my precious word.
And pray that it would be for real profit we.
Safety that it's our privilege and we just would ask these things, our God giving thanks and the worthy and the precious name of our O Jesus, Amen.
I'd like to turn to a few thoughts and the songs.
Look at.
After the 85th Psalm.
This is a little cluster of songs that are from for the Sons of Korah. We spoke about that a little earlier in connection with the Altar of Burnt Offering. You know, I really.
Feel that the sons of Korah had a real sense of how the grace of God reached down and picked them up. They could so easily have gone down into the pit with Umm, Those other ones that we read of, you know, all the families of Umm Dathan and Abiram, they all went down to the pit, but not the sons of Korah. And it's sweet to see that there were those that Umm carried on. They, they took a stand. It was against their father, they took it.
00:05:13
But they were preserved and we find the fiddle a cluster of psalms here for them. There's a number of them.
That we find in the 85th Tom, just to pick up on a verse.
Wilt Thou not the sixth verse of Psalm 85? What, Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? Choice Thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation. Well, I know that there's going to be a coming day when the remnant is really going to lay hold of these Psalms, but I just thought of that in connection with ourselves in the sixth verse. Will Thou not revive us again? Sometimes we need that, don't we?
We just need that little tender loving care to revive us again that you might once again really enjoy things as we once enjoyed them before.
Umm, the 87th Psalm, the very end of the chapter. We sometimes see this, this phrase up on the wall on the text. The seventh verse. All my springs are in the well. What a marvelous thing for the sons of Korah. Well, let's look at the 84th Psalm.
84 Some starts off How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts, My soul longest, yeah, even faintest for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Ye the Sparrow hath found in house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young. Even mine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God, blessed are they that dwell in my house, they will be still praising thee.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, and whose heart are the ways of them. The passing through the valley of Becca make it a well. The rain also fill up the pools.
Think of the Valley of Baca. You know, we sometimes read that portion and how it's made it. Well, it doesn't really seem to to to make sense.
And yet to to realize that.
Some of the situations that we find ourselves in, our situations that the Lord passes us through for our good and blessing and so that we'd be able to see more the beauties of the Lord Jesus and perhaps be able to appreciate them in a way that we weren't able to. You know that 80.
The 85th Psalm. We often read the end part of it.
Sometimes in the breaking of bread, the 10th verse, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace of kissed each other.
Truth shall bring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from the earth. Well, you know to to see it prefaced by that sixth verse. Will thou not revive us again? Well, just with these thoughts, I'd like to look at um.
Exodus chapter 35.
Exodus chapter 35.
And I might make this.
This comment before we read some of the verses of this chapter.
As I mentioned, the the sons of Korah had a real sense in their souls of how the grace of God reached down and and picked them up. And that's a good thing for us to realize too, how the grace of God has has reached down and picked us up. I've been, I've been impressed this last little while and both in my own assembly here have heard me mention it.
In connection with Noah, we find that the Lord looks down on the world, He looks down on the children of men, and he says every imagination of their hearts is only evil continually. And we could add one thing and Noah was no better.
Noah was no better.
So we think, well, you know, maybe he was just a little bit better.
So that the Lord said, well, you know that that man there, he's just got the edge on everyone else and I'm going to preserve him. Noah was no better.
Says Noah found grace in the eyes of Lord. Noah found grace was the grace of God that picked no up, just like the grace of God picked every one of us here up. It's a, it's a, it's a wonderful thing. It's a marvelous thing. It's a humbling thing to sit here this evening and to recognize that it was none other than the grace of God that reached down and picked us up.
00:10:20
Just with that in mind, as we go through this chapter, we find the people bringing all the various things for the altar they offered them willingly, and we find in the in connection with the building of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle had, umm, had uh, had walls like any building does.
Tabernacle had a roof like any building does has doors.
They also had a floor.
There's only.
One mention of the floor of the Tabernacle. I believe in the word of God, only one.
And it beautifully portrays the grace of God.
Umm, I'll just turn to the verse. We won't read the portion. It's in Numbers chapter 5.
Where we have only that one mention of the floor of the Tabernacle, and it's in connection with.
A wife that has been unfaithful to her husband.
And there's a spirit of jealousy with the husband.
And the priest takes her, and he brings her unturned unto the Tabernacle. Here in verse 16. The priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord. And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, And of the dust that is in the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall take and put it into the water. We won't take the time to read the portion. What transpires here is there is a man that's jealous of his wife because of what is what his wife has done. And the priest takes this water, and he he, he takes.
The dust from the floor of the Tabernacle, and he puts it in the water and he stirs it up, and he makes her drink it. And if she's guilty, then it turns within her into tremendous bitterness, bitterness, bitterness.
You know when I thought of that.
And looking at that picture of a man and his wife.
And I thought that those of us who are part of the bride of Christ.
And how unfaithful we've been.
I look at my own heart and realize how unfaithful I've been time and time again.
And it's just like that drink has been mixed up for me.
But you know, it's the Lord Jesus.
That took the cup for us and drank that cup. Here we find the man is jealous and he wants his wife to drink it. But isn't it marvelous? The Lord Jesus stepped in our stead and took that drink which would have caused us to be guilty, would have caused tremendous bitterness. He took that drink. The cup that my father hath given me to drink. Shall I not drink it? Oh, what a beautiful picture. The only mention of the the floor of the Tabernacle. But as we go through this portion in the.
The 35th chapter.
I thought of it in connection with the hearts of the sons of Korah, while we read in chapter 35 of Exodus. And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them. Six days shall work be done on the 7th. There shall be to you on holy day and Sabbath of rest of the Lord. Whosoever do with work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire, fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.
And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying.
Take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord. Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering unto the Lord. Gold, silver, brass.
Just consider everything that was in the Tabernacle. This is where all the material came from. Blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goat's hair, ram skins, dyed red, badger skins, shittim wood, oil for the light and spices for anointing, oil for the sweet incense and Onyx, stones and stones to be set for the ephod and for the breast. For the breastplate. Well, I thought of all this material that was brought by the children of Israel.
I don't say that everyone brought.
Doesn't say that everyone brought something.
I plotted that some time.
00:15:01
You know, there's an interesting statistic in this world, in this country, in the country that's to the South of us.
The number one killer?
Of the human race.
Is heart disease?
It's heart disease.
One in five people have it.
That's pretty pretty high statistic.
Most don't know.
And most people that are taken with heart disease.
They die of a heart attack and there was no recognition beforehand. All of a sudden, boom, they're gone. But there was heart trouble before that, even if they didn't know it.
And it caused me to think, you know?
The number one difficulty.
In our Christian pathway is also heart trouble.
The number one problem.
In the pathway as a believer that I walk.
Number one problem I fate I faced is heart trouble, Heart trouble, infections of my heart being divided. As the Lord yearns for my fellowship, He yearns to walk with me. He yearns to have me all for himself. He wants that so badly. He wants it for every one of us here. And heart trouble causes us to be at a distance from God.
Let's read some of these verses.
Verse 10.
And everyone shall come.
Well, no.
Every wise hearted among you shall come.
And make all that the Lord hath commanded the Tabernacle, and his tents, and his coverings, and his attaches, and his boards, and his bars, and his pillars, and his sockets, the ark and the staves thereof on the mercy seat, and the veil of the covering the table, and his staves, and all his vessels, and the showbread, and the Candlestick also for the light, and his furniture, and his lamps with oil for the light. The incense alter is stays in the anointing oil, sweet incense, and the hangs for the for the door, and so on. The list goes on. But then it says the 21St. And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of the Lord, and they came.
Everyone.
Whose heart stirred him up, and everyone with whom his spirit made willing.
Before we go on further, let's just consider how.
The Lord has brought us here tonight, and I thought of these bars, you know.
And how they form.
Part of this Tabernacle.
That's a picture of the believer.
They all have their place all the way around. They form the Tabernacle just like all the believers form the Church of God. Every one of us has been made for a specific purpose, a specific purpose. Lord has made us all for His pleasure, and He's made us for us with a specific purpose in view.
And you know, as we consider that and and consider these boards every time they went up.
They umm, they were. They were. They were put in the same place.
And they had. They had that function.
They.
They they weren't interchangeable. Every, every, every piece in the Tabernacle had it had its, had its place and had its function. You know, I, I've often thought of umm of these bars and how, you know, if we were to turn to New Testament, we would see how that.
The connection with the Church of God and how it's quickly joined together. Sometimes we find ourselves maybe at a communion we don't function. Umm.
With the rest of the body in the same in the same way that we perhaps should we're out of sync. This bar here which would speak of the Spirit of God. It puts us in a position where we can't leave the body, but our function sometimes is at a sink and and we want to go our own way and the Lord desires our heart. He desires our fellowship and the purpose that he has for us. We're not seeing it in our lives and we decide we want to do what we want to do and so we're like this board that's.
Function and why? Because we have heart trouble. We have trouble trouble with our hearts. Let's read on.
21St verse They came, everyone whose heart stirred him up. Oh, that we would have our hearts stirred up tonight, every one of us, that our hearts would be stirred up, that we would go on to pursue that which is a real, that's that which is of real value, that which is that the apostle says it's Timothy, that which is really life, whose heart stirred them up. And they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the Tabernacle, the congregation for all his service, for the holy garments. And they came, both men and women, and as many as were willing hearted.
00:20:30
And they brought bracelets and earrings and rings and tablets.
And all jewels of gold and so on.
Can we find in the 25th, 1St there are a number of people that are singled out, it says in all the women.
That were wise hearted.
What were we doing in the assembly without?
Those were women.
What would we do without the mothers in the assembly?
That character that some of us who are husbands that we don't, we don't, umm, can't identify with. It's a character, you know, that comes right from the Lord.
We see that portrayed.
In Lord, in numerous ways we see it in in in the red heifer. We see it in connection with the Umm. The Ethiopian eunuch, as he read, we find as a sheep.
Before her shears is dumb, so we open. It's not his mouth, it's that character that's given to the woman.
That soft character. I told the story last year in the assembly here. We had a few chickens. Those of us, those of you know, we, we have a few chickens and we had three last year that we thought were gotten by Koons. And you know, our, our place is infested with varmints. There's, there's ***** there's, there's mink, there's we lost the chicken to a fox right in our front lawn this, this spring.
After these ones were taken by ***** a couple of weeks later, the three of them came tripping into our yard with little trails of chicks behind them. You know, where did they get the the intuition to be able to live out in the woods for those two weeks with the place infested with, with the varmints and and predators and to be able to have preserve and to preserve that that little, little trail behind them. We see the Lord looking over Jerusalem and he say how often what I have what I have.
Umm umm.
Covered thee as a tender.
Helping with the, uh, portion of the hand that, uh, to cover her checks. But, uh, you, you know what I'm saying is that preserving character that the, the Lord portrayed, he, he portrayed himself as, as just that, that with that character. And, and there is that in the assembly that, that female character that's so, so very much needed. So we find here that it's, it's the woman that were wisehearted. They did spin with their hands the 25th 1St and they brought that spun.
Both of blue and purple, and of scarlet, fine twine, linen. And all the women whose hearts stirred them up, Well, we find 21St verses everyone that stirred them up. But now here's the woman whose heart stirred them up.
In wisdom, spun goats here.
29th Verse. And the children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all manner of work.
What we find that we haven't spoken about.
The two that were.
Singled out in a special way. We have it in the 30th verse, Moses said unto the children of Israel. See the Lord have called by name Bezalel, the son of Yuri, the son of her of the tribe of Judah. I'm sure he didn't go to Home Depot or go to Kohl's and buy some baseboard to do the altar of burn offering like we have here, but we find that he was filled with all, with the Spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge in all manner of workmanship to devise curious works to work in gold and in silver and brass.
And so on.
Verse 35 Well, no. The 1St 34 and.
Put in his heart, that he may teach both he and Aholiab the son of Ahisama of the tribe of Dan. Then hath he filled with wisdom of heart. Wisdom of heart to work all manner of work, of the engraver and of the cunning workmen, of the embroidery in blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen, of the Weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work. Then rob Bezalel and a holy and every wise hearted man.
In whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the Lord had commanded. Moses called Bezalel and a holy AB, and every wise hearted man in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, even everyone whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work.
00:25:10
Well, isn't it marvelous that when you see someone who has a stirred up heart.
To carry out a work for the Lord, whatever it might be.
However big, however small, just to have a stirred up heart for the things of God.
But you know, it wasn't good enough just to have a stirred up heart because we finished that verse, it says here in verse 2.
Uh, whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work?
To do it.
Well, the Lord lay something on our heart. You know, sometimes I make this little statement, I said. I say, you know, one of these days I'd like to do such and such.
One of these days I'd like to do this. Or one of these light days I'd like to write someone a note, Or one of these light days I'd like to visit someone.
You know, for myself in saying that, it's a soft way of me saying.
I'm never gonna do it. I'm never gonna do it, but I don't like to say it that way. And so I say, well, one of these days maybe I will. It's a little bit more palatable for my for my soul. And I think, oh, well, you know, that's nice. Maybe one of these days it will. But it's a way of saying I'm not interested in doing it. I'm just not interested. I just don't have the moral fiber to be able to follow through with what the Lord has laid in my heart. Here we find those they had their hearts stirred up.
There was a work for them to do.
There was a purpose that the Lord had created them as there was a purpose for everyone of us. And what happened, they did it, They did it. I'm thankful for those that we have here whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work.
To do it, Verse eight. In every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the Tabernacle, made ten curtains of fine twine linen, and blue, and purple and scarlet, and so on we go into the curtain as well.
As I said earlier.
The number one difficulty in my own soul, my Christian pathway, is heart trouble. Sometimes the Lord even stirs up my heart, but then that's as far as it goes. It doesn't find its way into my feet and I need some reviving again. You know, we need that at every stage we are in our life. Doesn't matter how old we are, whether we're six here or whether we're 86. The Lord can stir up our hearts and we can follow through with that which the Lord has laid in our heart to do.
As being created for his pleasure and to be such a blessing to our own souls and to be a blessing to the people of God. Oh, to have stirred up hearts to do what the Lord would have us to do. Well, let's turn back now a couple chapters.
Two.
Where we started Umm.
This afternoon on the 25th chapter.
Exodus 25.
And verse 23.
Thou shalt also make a table.
Of shittimwood, 2 cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
So in our little model here we have a little table of shortbread.
And we have a full size one. This is the size of it. The details of it we don't know exactly.
We're we're told some details and we don't know exactly what, uh, Bezalel and, and a holy ad were shown what Moses was shown in the mouth. We don't know exactly the details, but we know it was this size approximately. And so we read and I shall lay it with pure gold, verse 24 and make there to a crown of gold roundabout. Now shall make unto it a border of an hand breadth roundabout, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof.
Round.
About.
So I read here about two crowns. A lot of little model here only has one. I wasn't too sure where to put the other one.
But there's there's so many beautiful pictures that we have here and just show one this, this table of Showbread, it wasn't simply a table. It had a border all the way around it. And that border was in hand breadth it was this high. And so we put our hand here and we find out that's the height of the border that went around the table. And it's a beautiful picture of eternal security. Can we find way back in the Tabernacle a picture of eternal security? How those those loaves that can't fall off the table beautiful to see with ourselves.
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That no man can pluck them out of his hand to realize that we're just eternally secure.
Beautiful to see that just here in this little picture of the Tabernacle of eternal security. So we read here about two crowns. Thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereof to a crown of gold roundabout, and we find the 25th verse, another golden crown. Well, you know it speaks to me, and speaks to us perhaps of the two crowns of the Lord Jesus had.
And this world afforded him a crown of thorns. A crown of thorns.
But then we find that he's crowned in glory now.
You know, we we sing that little hymn.
Umm, Jesus, thy head once crowned with thorns is crowned with glory. Now you know when there's so many, so many pictures that we see of as Peter brings before us the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. There's numerous times that we read read of that we read of it in connection with the altar of Brune offering. Let's just look at that in the in the in numbers chapter 5 just in passing.
Numbers Chapter.
It's not numbers five, it's numbers 4.
When they were to move the camp and they were to move the items of furniture, they they moved when they were covered. And we find here in verse 13 of Numbers four. And they shall take away the ashes from the altar and they shall spread a purple cloth thereon will the ashes you know, and the bird on the altar of burnt offering. There was lots of ashes. Well, those ashes were taken away and over top of that of that altar was placed this purple this this purple covering. It would speak of the glory, the ashes speak of the sufferings of Christ.
And the purple speaks of the glory that should follow. And so we find that theme throughout the Word time and time again, the sufferings of Christ.
And the glory that should follow, we see it in the crowns, we see it in the altar of burnt offering, we see it in the other items of furniture too. But we have to pass on now. And so we read in verse 26.
Thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof over against the border. Shall the rings be for the places of the staves to bear the table?
Thou shalt make the phase of Shittim wood and overlay them with gold, that the table may be born of them.
Thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and the spoons thereof, and the covers thereof, and the bowls thereof, the cover with all of pure gold shall thou make them. Thou shalt set them up on the table. Thou shalt sit upon the table. Showbread before me always. What we find the tables mentioned other places of the word. You know the Lord records umm how David ate the showbread in umm. In the Gospels we we find that the the table is mentioned umm in various places.
But it's.
It's really touching to our hearts what it speaks to itself, a table. It speaks of fellowship.
It speaks of fellowship we read at the table of the Lord, but this table, you know, they, they, the priest would go in umm, in through the, uh, in through the, the umm, the hanging here. And incidentally, this hanging here was, was different than than this one. You don't see the difference so much, but.
It was made of the same thing, but this one had cherubims on it and it just seems that the closer the people of God got.
To.
The actual dwelling place of the Lord the more they saw the beauties of the Lord. And so this one was this one was made of needlework. This was embroidered, but this one was specially made of needlework. And there was those those chair bins that that really portrayed the holiness of God and and brought out some of the beauties that we see in the Lord Jesus so that they were different even though they looked exactly the same. Well, the people of God, the priest rather they could they could go through this opening and the table of showbread was right on the right hand side of the.
Of the of the holy place. And we find, you know that fellowship is a wonderful thing. Let's turn to 1St John.
First John, chapter one.
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First John, chapter one.
Verse three. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
We enjoy the thought of fellowship, don't we? We appreciate it.
You could break the word down to fellows in the same ship. When you're a ship, you just can't decide you're going to leave. You're there together. We find that in connection with a table.
We're going to go through Luke's gospel. There's numerous times in Luke's gospel where we find the Lord sitting down with someone and eating with them. More times in Luke than anywhere else.
We, we can, umm, you know, we can, we can visit here umm.
We visited before supper and we visited during supper and we visited after supper. When I'm visiting with someone, we can stand and talk and you know I can leave at any time. And you're sitting at a table with someone, though.
Just can't get up and leave same way as when you're visiting with someone, you're standing up. And so you know there there are times that we really enjoy fellowship with someone when we're sitting at a table. And here we find in first John, we find really 2 forms of fellowship.
And so we appreciate having fellowship with each other. But then it says here though that truly our fellowship is with the Father.
And with his son Jesus Christ, and it just seems that if our fellowship.
With the father is such that it's an enjoyment to him and it's an enjoyment to us, then we're properly going to be able to enjoy fellowship one with another. That's really the basis for our fellowship.
The word of God, the Lord himself. And if I'm enjoying the Lord, you know, I don't know if you've ever had the experience. I have it often where I'm walking down the road with someone or talking with someone in the meeting room and they're just enjoying things, you know, that they've enjoyed. And I've kind of had a bad day and I just.
Just not able to enter into those things that are enjoying with me. You know, of course, desires that we would have fellowship with him. That's what he that's why he wanted this Tabernacle. He said let them make me a sanctuary that I made well among them. He wanted their fellowship and he desires our fellowship too on a continual basis.
Well, if he has our fellowship, you know, that's going to put us into a, into a position where we're so much better to be able to enjoy the fellowship one with another so much more. You know, it's the same with umm. I enjoyed the the one time the people of God in the in the wilderness, when they came to the end of the wilderness, they'd been eaten manna. And we don't have the time to look at the manna, but there was one day where they ate banana and they ate the old carnival land ate them both only one day.
They got into the land, they ate the old corner land. But I've looked at it this way, that if we.
Enjoy a portion of the word of God, say in the morning before we leave.
It far better equips us to be able to draw alongside someone and to be able to have fellowship with them. It's far better equips us when we bump into someone and they try to share a thought with us. We've already enjoyed something from the word. Oh, it just equips us to be able to enjoy something that someone shares to us when we come to meeting that night. If we've already had a portion. How much better equipped we are to be able to enjoy something collectively from the Word of God, what the prayer meeting or wherever it might be.
Fellowship. The Lord desires our fellowship. That's what he wants.
We desire fellowship too, don't we? We really do desire and fellowship. Oh, how much more the Lord desires our fellowship.
Well, we find the table beautiful picture there, uh, the Lord sitting down with so many people and, uh, enjoying fellowship with them. So let's turn back now to Exodus.
25.
And verse 30.
And thou shalt set upon the table Showbread.
Before me alway.
You know, that was the showbread was food for the priests, food for the priests. These loaves were freshly baked food for the priests.
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You know the Lord desires to give us food. Let's turn to one more Scripture just comes to mind in Revelation.
In connection with these things, Revelation chapter 3.
Stop.
We still find so often, at least I find it my own soul, this this layer to see in spirit, this lackadaisical spirit of of saying, you know, I really don't need anything rich and increased with goods. I got needed nothing and I coast now we don't read coasting in the Christian pathway. We don't read of that. We we lead busy lives, you know.
Umm, it's hard to umm.
I uh.
I had a desire to have a little chat with someone and so.
And so I I said, well, maybe the way to do it is to go out for breakfast. So we asked the brother to come out to breakfast. Well, just didn't work and.
Tried another time and it just didn't work. It still hasn't worked yet and our lives are so busy that.
It's hard to be able to.
To make the time to sit down with our brethren is to have fellowship with them. I'll tell you who the brother was.
There's my son.
He lives in the same house as me. We get up together.
We, we, we read together, we sit at the supper table together, but to have, I'm not gonna tell you which one it is, umm, but the, the concept of, of being able to, to sit down and, and to have a chat and to be able to have breakfast together, to make an appointment to do that, it's just hard to do. We live busy lives. We really live busy lives. And, and you know, the cares of this life are, are very real. They're very real.
And they choke out the word. They choke out our time. That's so needful to be with one another. You know that that example seems bizarre, but it's not really. I I live in a household. There's six adults. We've got 7 cars in the driveway. We all go different directions every day. It's busy. It's just busy.
Just to be able to have fellowship. We know the Lord desires our fellowship through the day and to be able to properly have fellowship one with another. Well, what do we find here in Revelation?
18 That council will lead to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayst be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed. The shame of thy nakedness do not appear. And anoint thine eyes with eyes out that thou mayest see. Oh, that we would have our eyesight such that we can see, that we'd have discernment. Samson lost his eyes, never got him back.
Hair grew back. They never got his eyesight back.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, that's hard sometimes to hear the voice of the Lord, it's hard. Oh, that we would breathe the word of God with our ears, not just with our eyes, to read it with our ears, that we would hear the voice of the Lord. I will come into him, and will Sup with him, and he with me. Oh, fellowship, that's what the Lord desires in this busy life that we live. And I don't seem to be time for anything. You know the Lord Jesus.
Doesn't seem like he's ever in a rush. He always had in the day. Just the amount of time to do the things that the father wanted him to do. I covet that, I covet that.
That's the same with us. The Word hath given us just the right amount of time to do the things that He wants us to do. Well, one of those things is to be able to sit with Him and to Sup with Him.
And he was me. That's what his desire is. Well, the table of Showbread, the first item on the right hand side they saw when they came in through that hanging.
The next one was the Candlestick.
The Candlestick of which we don't read any dimensions. Well, let's read about the candlesticks.
Back to Exodus.
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25.
Verse 31.
Thou shalt make a Candlestick of pure gold.
A beaten work shall the Candlestick be made. The shaft, his branches, his bowls, and his knobs, and his flowers shall be of the same.
6 branches shall come out of the sides of it. Three branches of the Candlestick go to the one side. 3 branches of the Candlestick go to the other side. Just like we have here in the little model.
Three bowls made like unto almonds, with a knob and a flour in one branch.
And three bowls made like almonds in the other branch that's not like the model with a knot and a flower. So the six branches that come out of the Candlestick and the Candlestick shall be 4 bowls made like unto almonds with their knots and their flowers. You know, it looked like a looked like an almond tree in full bloom with almonds and uh, and flowers speaking. Perhaps so.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and resurrection. And the Candlestick shall be 4 bowls made like unto almonds, with their knots and their flowers, and there shall be a knob under two branches of the same. This is verse 35. And I'm not under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the Candlestick.
They're an OPS, and their branches shall be of the same all. It shall be one beaten work of pure gold. And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof, and they shall light the lamps thereof, that they may give light over against it, and the tongues thereof. And the snuff this is thereof shall be a pure gold of a talent of pure gold. Shall he make it with all the vessels look, that shall make them after their pattern. Here's this little phrase that we have again, which was.
Showed the in the mount.
Well, the first thing I'd like to look at in connection with the Candlestick because it speaks of our testimony.
In the first, in the first verse we read in verse 31, it says Thou shalt make a count stick of pure gold. The beaten works. Now what speaks of the shaft speaks of his branches, his bowls, his knobs, and his flowers, Speaking of perhaps all various different aspects of our life. And how are those various aspects supposed to be in connection with our testimony Shall be of the same.
You know, I'm sure if you talked to James, you'd find some time that.
I'm maybe a little different person at work than I am here.
Shouldn't be that way?
My testimony, my family setting should be the same as my testimony in my work setting should be the same as my testimony here with my brother. It's all the same a testimony. Well, I just want to make a little comment as to our testimony, and this is to me because so often my testimony is not very good. Let's turn over to the 28th chapter. So just go over a couple chapters.
In connection with the priest.
We find that.
It would be nice to be able to go through the garments of the priests and the breastplate and the ephod, the robe, and so on the girdle.
It's not our portion to be able to do tonight.
But we read umm.
And, umm.
Well, it goes through all the various different parts of the garment. But let's pick up with the 31St verse. And thou shalt make a robe that the E fought all of blue, and there shall be a hole in the top of it. In the midst thereof. It shall have a binding of woman work round about the whole of it, as it were the whole of the Hebrew gone, that it be not rent. And beneath upon the hem of it thou shall make pomegranates of blue, and a purple and a scarlet round about the hem thereof, and bells of gold between them round about. Well, so we have the priest and a bell, and a pomegranate. A bell and a pomegranate.
The progress Speaking of fruit, the bell Speaking of the testimony. Verse 34. A golden bell and a pomegranate. A golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the road roundabout. And it shall be upon Aaron to minister. Now let's look at this next phrase, and his sound shall be heard.
His sound shall be heard.
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Every one of us has a testimony.
How is it with our testimony? How is it with my testimony? There's a sound that's heard.
What kind of sound does my life give off?
But what kind of a sound is my life not give off?
Am I thought that, uh, you know, I really, I really don't want people to know that I belong to the Lord in some certain situations.
When I'm here eating, I'm quite happy for people to know that I belong to the Lord, but I get myself into some situations and I just, I'm, I'm just not sure sure. I want to let that testimony. You know, we, we give out a sound, we give out a sound. What kind of a sound is that at home? What kind of a sound is it here? What kind of a sound is it at work? You know, this beaten work and all the various parts of the camel stick, They're all the same. And in connection with Aaron as he moved about.
When nobody else was around, even.
His sound shall be heard now, sometimes when people can't even see us.
There's a sound that's been given off.
Our testimony. Our testimony? Well, what is that testimony like?
Drop my glasses here. Let's turn back to that portion.
In the 20.
In the 20, uh, fifth chapter.
Umm.
Let's let's look at the 30th chapter here for maybe one more thought.
Thought.
I'm sorry this is the 37th chapter. I'm looking for the place that.
That speaks to the oil olive that causes the lamp to burn always. Maybe somebody can help me with that.
Thanks James. I was looking at 2027. It didn't make sense.
2720 That's right.
And now shall command the children of Israel that they bring the pure oil olive beaten for the light to cause the lamp to burn.
Always.
You know the oil would speak to us of the Spirit of God.
And I, you know, as you, as you went inside this, this, this room here.
The only light that was in that room was the Candlestick and it was it was burning with that oil. You know, the Spirit of God works with us on a daily basis.
I'd just like to submit this to my own soul.
What kind of a spiritual glow?
Do I have it says here to cause?
The lamp to burn. Always, always.
So I treat my testimony like a tap, and sometimes I glow and sometimes I don't glow.
You know the Lord would have us.
To be that testimony for His honor and glory all the time. Just to be that glow for Him. Maybe we don't say anything if we don't do anything, but it's evident there's a sound that we give of some sort that we indeed belong to the Lord Jesus, and there is that glow.
Well, we go now. See, we've only got a few minutes left.
So we go from the.
The Candlestick on the one side, the table of shortbread on the other side, and then we have the altar of burning sense just before the veil, which is this here.
I'd like to read.
Umm.
In Exodus the.
30th chapter.
I can see we're not going to get to the Ark.
Which is umm.
The most touching?
The most touching place, but that's our portion. Now I guess we'll look at the altar of Vernon sense in verse 30, Chapter 30, verse one. Thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon. Of Shittimwood shalt thou make it. A cubit shall be the length thereof in a cubit the breadth thereof and Foursquare shall be, and two cubits shall be the height thereof, and the horns thereof shall be of the same. I shall overlay it with pure gold, the top there of the tables thereof around about, and the horns thereof thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold roundabout. Now the horns on the altar burn offering spoke of strength, but the horns on the altar of.
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For an instance, they also speak, speak of strength, but you know that would speak to us of power and prayer, power and prayer. And we read down now in the sixth verse, Thou shalt put it before the veil, that is, by the ark of the testimony.
Before the mercy seat, that is over the testimony, and there I will meet with thee.
And Aaron shall burn their en suite incense every morning. When he dresses up the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it.
I just like to turn to umm, the book of Hebrews.
The Book of Hebrews.
The 9th chapter, because what we find in the 9th chapter is the same as what we've just read in the 30th chapter.
Hebrews Chapter 9 verse one of early the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary and there was a Tabernacle made the first we're in with the Candlestick, the table and the showbread which is called the sanctuary.
And after the second veil, the Tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden sensor.
And the Ark of the Covenant overlaid roundabout with gold.
When was the golden plot that had men in and Aaron's raw that buttered and the tables of the covenant? Yet we know from the end of the Book of Exodus that the altar of burning sense was here.
But we read in Hebrews and in the portion that we just read that it was here.
So why?
You know what it says there?
In the sixth verse.
And it's in connection with what we read in the 25th chapter when the Lord said, let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. It was always the Lord's purpose that he dwell amongst his people, and he'd be able to have fellowship with them. And so we find that the altar of burning incense was such that it was on this side of the veil for the priest of doing every morning to be able to burn it since they're on.
As it says here that I will meet with the you know, we know most Aaron could only go.
In here, once a year we find that Moses could go in this Tabernacle. We read many times where Moses went in so we could go in and out. But you know, it's always in the heart of the Lord for him to be able to commune with his people at all times. But in between this time that we read and I see our time's gone. But at the end of Exodus, we find that the altar of burning sense was taken from here, and it's put there.
Why in between those two types there was the golden carrot?
Where the people of God said anything that you tell us to do, will do. And once again, just like that, fellowship was broken in the garden.
So it's broken here.
You know, Thor's desire, the city health would have fellowship with us on a continual basis, and now the Vale's rent, the Vale's rent, and we can have fellowship with the Lord at all times, just like he always intended it to be.
And sometimes our hearts are so cold and so callous with my owners. And that concept of having fellowship with the Lord on a continual basis, it's just not there. His desire is that it would always be there, that we could enjoy that on a continual basis. That marvelous to see the order there in the book of Hebrews. The order here is different in the end of the book of Exodus. Well, I see our time is gone.
Maybe we could just sing a hymn before we.
Before we.
I was thinking of this, maybe we could just sing one verse of.
Of 313, I was thinking we didn't get to the arc. I was thinking a little bit of umm of how Joseph could say to his brethren, come near unto me, I pray you. And isn't that what the Lord desires for every one of us to be able to draw near to him? He desires that on a continual basis that I would get up in the morning and you have my fellowship throughout the day. Go to bed at night, get up the next morning and you have my fellowship again. Oh marvelous. And we have access. We have it.
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You know, but so often, as I mentioned earlier, we have heart trouble. Well, let's just sing this last verse in closing 313.
And now we draw near to the throne of grace for His love and my pray Father, and we joyfully seek God. Holy faith of our sensor afraid.
And pray of a harbor.
Ourselves.
Our God and our Father, what an unspeakable privilege. It is ours to be able to go into thy very presence.
To think of that blessed One, our Lord Jesus, and the depths to which he went, the Lord Jesus. What almighty stoop? How do snake to bring us into such blessing?
So we're just here before the Lord Jesus, humbly in my presence.
She realized the mighty work that's been accomplished on our behalf.
Privilege that we have of walking through this scene. Blessed Savior with thee.
Granted to be so.
Or chase us, We think about us tarry of the wonderful privilege that is ours on the Morrow, going into thy very presence to remember thee. We just would pray that it would be a sweet time. Umm, it's Terry. We just would pray our God, as we consider these things that we've had before us, we consider the table fellowship. We consider our testimony.
As seen in the Candlestick and we consider.
The wonderful privilege that we have our Jesus of going.
The veil being rent into the library presence.
The blood that's on the mercy seat, Lord Jesus, not the blood of cows, not the blood of goats and own blood was shed on our behalf. Blessed Savior, we thank and praise Thee. This wonderful portion is ours and we long for that moment, Lord Jesus.
Now give that shout, We'll gaze into thy lovely faces. Put a moment awaits us, blessed Savior. So we give thee thanks, my worthy and precious name. Amen.
The Tabernacle (3 of 3)
Address—David Mearns
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I wonder if we could open our meeting this evening by singing #303.
That's number 303.
When Israel by heaven.
Coming over from.
Your resource and run.
I want it from the heart of the world and grace and.
We just commend ourselves.
Our God and our Father we.
Thank you for thy great heart of love.
We thank Thee for the Savior that Blessed One, our Lord Jesus, who died for us so willingly and has brought us into such blessing.
And our God and Father, we find ourselves in a wilderness scene, and yet we're mindful of our people of old, how they found themselves in a wilderness theme too.
And they found, blessed God, that thy grace was sufficient for them. And we thank thee. It's our privilege to be able to walk through this scene with thee and.
So our God is we would open my precious word tonight and read from these wonderful patients. We just would pray that as we would touch on a subject that is so dear to thine own heart that we would find that which would be encouragement to us to press on our God in the pathway of faith until that moment when that blessed one our Lord Jesus would give that shout and call us home to be with himself. Perhaps that will be even tonight. We just wouldn't ask our God, will I help tonight?
As we would.
Seek to read thy precious word and give the sense. And so we'd ask these things, giving thanks in the worthy and the precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Turn with me first please to.
Psalm 85.
Many of you were here a few months ago when we embarked on this subject and we spent a little bit of time.
00:05:06
Speaking about the Tabernacle itself, as we have here, we have some coverings. We spoke a little bit about these coverings and we had at that time.
A few articles of furniture which were full size. We spoke a little bit about the altar of burnt offering here. That was right in front of the Tabernacle. We've got a couple of charts up here. They're they're kind of small, but they kind of give you the sense as to where the Tabernacle was situated. There was a court around the boat. It's Tabernacle was there and there was an altar of burnt offering and there was a labor here. We spoke a little bit about those things last time we spoke a little bit about.
The table of showbread that we have here in the Holy Place. We spoke a little bit about the altar of burnt incense that we have here.
And we spoke a little bit about the Candlestick.
We ran out of time. We didn't touch on the arc. So when we have the model here, we kind of take a look at the arc and it doesn't look very big. Does it look kind of small? But this is an actual size of what the arc looked like. And so that kind of gives us an idea as to when Aaron went into the holy place within the veil there once a year. Moses could go in various times, but Aaron could go in just once a year and not without blood. And this is what he saw. Now, we don't know exactly.
How big the chair of them were.
When I was doing this, we started Wednesday night, Andre and Ron and I spent a couple hours on us and we put this together and then James helped us put a bit of trim around it the next day and that's all the time we had. So we don't have anything 3D like Andre wanted to do.
But we find here.
The Ark.
That speaks to us of the presence of God, and we find a number of places where we find the ark mentioned. But I want to look at this verse in Psalm 85 just for a moment.
Because we hear much about the Ark and we hear much about the Mercy seat.
And we trust tonight that as we would speak about these, we're not going to get to talk to the mercy talk about the mercy seat. It's really another subject. There's many ways we could go with this. There's a cherubim, and that's a subject in itself.
Remember in the Garden of Eden the cherubim that stood with a sword, keeping everybody from going into.
Getting access to the tree of life.
And there's chairman throughout the world. We return to Ezekiel, where you find they had a head and a face like a man, a face like an ox.
Tastes like an eagle.
And we have umm, 4 different faces on the cherubim. Well, we don't.
Have a time to look at that, but I would like to look, umm, a little bit as to, umm, what was in the ARC. We're gonna go through the Book of Samuel and the Kings. We find a number of mentions of the Ark and it would be nice to look at them, but we, we really don't have the time to do that. So we're gonna keep our comments to what we find inside the Ark and trust that for tonight, that would be for our good and blessing and be an encouragement for each one of us to go on a pathway.
That's consistent with the Word of God.
So we read this verse in Psalm 85.
Verse 10 Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Now let's go to the New Testament, just for a moment. Look at Hebrews.
The 9th chapter.
Hebrews, Chapter 9.
We read many, many mentions of the ark, not as many mentions of the mercy feet. Only twice in the New Testament do we read at the mercy seat. Once here in Hebrews. We read of it in the third of Romans.
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We're umm, it's in relation to propitiation. We won't look at that. But here in Hebrews 9 we read then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and it will be sanctuary. For there was a Tabernacle made the first, wherein was the Candlestick and the table and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the Tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer. Now here we have our subject, the arc of the covenant.
Overlaid roundabout with gold.
Wherein was the golden pot that had manna, Aaron's raw that budded, and the tables of the Covenant, and over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot now speak particularly.
So let's go now to.
The Book of Exodus.
So this.
And we'll read in chapter 20.
I was walking down a hall at a Bible conference.
And coming down the other way was Chuck Hendricks.
Any stuff in front of me and he said.
So Dave, do you know the 10 commandments?
Well, I think I could maybe go through a few, he said. It's God's holy standard, and you don't know the 10 commandments.
Well, I spoke with him for a little while and I went home and I learned the 10 commandments.
So I would ask.
Hey folks.
As to God's holy standard.
As to often when we speak with people and they make mention that a good way to get to heaven is to keep the 10 commandments.
Would we know what they're talking about?
Or is it just that vague place in Exodus that speaks about some of the things that we're supposed to do and some of the things we're not supposed to do?
So you who are students, young folks, go home and learn the 10 commandments.
Here we find them.
God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God, which I have brought thee in the land of Egypt, out of the House of *******. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. I'm not going to read the mall. They're in that chapter though. Let's go over and we'll go to the 24th chapter.
Towards speaking to Moses said, Come upon unto the Lord thou Aaron Dathan, and a Byron, and 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship ye a far off.
Afar off, much different than our privilege, isn't it? And most of the loans shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come thy neither shall the people go up with him.
And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, all the words which the Lord hath said we will do. That's quite a statement, isn't it?
Quite a statement repeated in the seventh verse. The end of the verse. All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.
You know what partial obedience is?
Partial obedience is disobedience.
That's a searching thing for me.
And sometimes I think, well, you know, I.
I I was 90% obedient. That means I was disobedient.
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The people here said that anything that the Lord says we're going to do. Verse 12 And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me under the mount, and be there, and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.
So let's go over now to.
The 31St chapter.
We're obviously skipping lots of things here.
But you can go home and read these things for yourself.
They're so important and so good for us and so helpful for us to be able to understand what we have in the New Testament.
What we're trying to do tonight is to take a picture that we find in the Old Testament to help explain what we have in the New Testament. That's what the pictures were for. It's beautiful to see the picture. Sometimes I learn by pictures pretty well. The Lord gives us many things, so many things in the New Testament. So much for our good and blessing. We have pictures of them in the Old Testament. One of them is the ark and the mercy seat. Well, here we find verse 18. He gave unto Moses when he had made an end of communion with him upon Mount Sinai.
Two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God. Maybe Darren, you can give me a hand here.
Thank you.
Let me go to the other side and just pull. Pull a bit and it'll drop down.
So we have some tables of stone here.
That were given to Moses we read here. They were written with the finger of God, The finger of God.
It's a little hard to come across with the impact.
Of what we have here before us.
Because we find there's a number of times in the word of God where we find an ark.
We read of Noah.
He built an ark.
And it was a sanctuary of protection, that's what it was.
We think of Moses and how, umm, a member of your little baby that was born and.
And his mother took an ark.
And she put this little baby in an ark and she pushed it into the water. And that Arkansas.
Was same thing.
It was a protection for the Moses.
Noah's Ark was a protection for uh, Noah's Ark was a protection for Noah and his wife and his boys and their umm and their wives and all the animals that were in it. It was a protection from the waters of judgment that came down. And for baby Moses, who like many of the babies in in Egypt, they were to be thrown into the river. This ark was a protection for that little baby so that that baby could be saved.
This arc was also a preservance.
Now what was it a preservance for?
You know it, It's going to be helpful for us tonight if by the end of our time of speaking.
We could see the relation between the arc.
And the mercy seat.
The mercy seat with the cherubims above, with the blood that was on the mercy seat was a protection for God's holy standard. That's what was a protection for. It was the tables of stone that were in there. It was God's holy standard. Now in this portion in the next verse, rather Moses up in the mouth.
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And we find that, umm, when he's getting these tables of stone and he's starting to come down from the mountain. Let's look at verse 15 of chapter 32. We read this and Moses turned and went down from the mount and the two tables of testimony were in his hand. And the tables were written. Notice these tables were written on their sides, on one side and on the other side with the written. So I've got some. I didn't go through and write the 10 commandments on there, but we find that the tables of stone, they were written on both sides. And Moses had these tables and he comes down from the mount with these tables.
And in verse 17 it says, When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that showed for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear? And it came to pass that as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and break them beneath the mouth.
You know what I've often wondered when I was younger, I, I, I read that and I thought, oh, well, Moses was angry. And so he just in a fit of anger, he broke the tables of stone. But that's not the thought.
That's not the thought.
Let's look for a moment at First Samuel.
Let's turn to First Samuel, just for a moment.
We're, I believe we find the impact of what Samuel did here, at least what Moses did here in the book of Exodus, first Samuel. And let's look at chapter 6.
You know the Ark of God had been taken by the Philistines.
Maybe we could look at that in the 4th chapter, First Samuel chapter 4.
We saw signs have come to do battle with the people of God.
And they're afraid. The people of God are afraid. And so here's what they say in verse three. It says when the people were coming to the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines?
They had just done battle and they hadn't done well.
Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
You know, it's not that the Lord would save them. It's not that God would save them. But the ark, the ark, the ark had become nothing but a religious symbol, a religious symbol. It was still the representation of the presence of God, but that's not what the people of God thought. It's interesting that the Philistines had a better perspective of what the ark was than the children of Israel. So notice a little bit further down and.
It says in verse five, when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was coming to the camp.
And the Philistines were afraid, for they said God is coming to the camp. And they said, woe unto us, for there have not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods. These are the gods that smooth the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. You know they had a better perspective of what was happening with the ark coming into the camp of God, the people of God, says the Arkansas.
Nothing about God but just the ark. The Philistines knew what they spoke of.
But now let's go to the 6th chapter.
So here comes some time later.
The Ark of God from the Philistines back to the people of God and we read in verse 13.
Uh, First Samuel 6 They of Bethchemesh were reaping the wheat, their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes, and they saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, at best you might, and stood there, where there was a great stone and a clay, the wood of the cart, and offered the kind of burnt offering unto the Lord, and so on.
Now let's go on down.
Will we find what I'm getting to something transpired?
This ark comes amongst the people of Bashamesh.
And I'm pretty curious, notice what it says in verse 19. And he smote the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people 50,003 score and 10 men. And the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth Shemesh said, who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?
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And to whom shall he go up from us?
What transpired?
The ark comes and they're happy to see the ark but.
He was the best man from best Shemesh. Did they went like this? In order to look into the ark, they had to lift up the mercy seat. All they did was peek inside the ark. All they did was peek into what the mercy seat was guarding.
And 50,000 men drop dead.
That's a pretty solemn thing.
To think of the mercy seat, to think of Aaron coming in once a year. And a couple of years ago I took up the thought of the great Day of Atonement with the goats. We don't have time to do that now, but Aaron came in.
And he didn't come in without blood.
And you know, one little peek in Nevada arc and 50,000 men dropped dead. Aaron, I'm sure with fear and trembling came in and he made sure the blood got on the mercy seat.
There the mercy seat was guarding what was in that ark. It was God's holy standard.
You know, doesn't it give us a little sense?
Of what we enjoy.
If the Lord leaves us here tomorrow morning.
And yet so often take for granted.
The privilege of coming right within the veil.
Right into the very presence of the Lord Jesus.
There's a mercy seat. There's a lot on the mercy seat.
God's holy standard is not changed.
But mercy and truth are met together.
They're met together and we can come right into the presence of the Lord.
His blood has been shed. His blood is on the mercy seat.
Here in the Old Testament 1, little peek into that ark and you see the devastation that took place.
Well, you know.
The tables of stone.
They speak to us of the Word of God.
Turn to Matthew's Gospel we read in our family reading this morning.
In chapter 24 of Matthew.
Matthew 24.
And verse 35.
Heaven and earth shall pass away.
But my words shall not pass away.
Heaven on earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass.
Away.
You know something I have to do around our house?
A number of times during the year has changed some filters, change some filters. We have a water filter.
When it gets all clogged up, we hardly have any water pressure.
We can filter on our furnace and if it runs too long, it has to work overtime and you go downstairs and you take the filter out. Oh, it's got all kinds of stuff inside the filter. That filter has to be changed. So the Word of God is like a filter system for us. It's like a filter system for us. We need to be well acquainted with the Word of God. We need to feed on it.
So I'm just going to ask everyone here.
Did you read the?
Portion from the Word of God today.
Did you read a portion?
That which is not going to pass away.
That which was God's holy standard that he's made available to us. You know, I read a short while ago.
About about a pastor.
In umm, that was spending some time going around China and he had come into contact with a number of pastors who didn't have a Bible.
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Who did not have a Bible? And here's these men. They're seeking to teach a little flock of believers, and they don't have a Bible.
They do not have a Bible.
And here we're sitting on our lap with a Bible.
They would just love to have a Bible. This man that was traveling, one of the pastors that he was speaking with, he said to him, can I have a page of your Bible? Could I have a page of your Bible?
And here we have the Word of God in our laps, and sometimes we don't read it.
God's holy standard, that which is light for our pathway.
Could you read a portion from the Word of God today?
The way in which God desires to communicate with us.
He had something for every one of us today, Something special. Something very, very special from his word.
If we didn't read the word, we didn't get it.
We didn't get it and we're not going to get it.
Because tomorrow he'll have something else for us.
All we need to read the word of God.
We need to read the word of God, the people of God, as they went through the wilderness, they always had it with them. It was in the ark, it was protected.
Now it's our privilege to have it and to read it whenever we want, or that we would have an earnest desire to feed on the Word of God.
Let's turn now.
To umm.
Back to the book of Exodus.
We're gonna read about something else that was in the arc.
In the 16th chapter.
We read about the mana.
Verse Chapter 16. Verse 16. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it.
Every man we could go back, maybe.
Verse 11 And the Lord spake on the Moses, saying, I've heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, That even you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass that even the quails came up and covered the camp, And in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on the ground.
And when the children of Israel fought, they said One to another, It is manna, for they wisp not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given.
Ute This is the thing which the Lord commanded. Gather of it every man according to his eating, and Omar for every man according to the number of you of your persons. Take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so.
And gathered some more, some less. And when they did meet it with an Omar, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.
They gathered every man according to his eating, and Moses said, Let no man leave of it until the morning, notwithstanding thy hearkened not unto Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning. And it bred worms and stank, and Moses was wroth with them, and they gathered it every morning.
Every man according to his eating when the sun waxed hot, it melted.
Now let's turn towards the end of the chapter.
Verse 32 There's more about the man and you can read about in the in Exodus, umm 16 and we'll if we had time, we would turn to Numbers Chapter 11 and read another account of Amana.
But here in verse 32. And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded, philanthropist to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take apart, and put an Omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations.
As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept. And the children of Israel did eat man of 40 years until they came to a land inhabited. They did eat manna until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. Now And Omar is the 10th part of Anifa, and he give me a hand here.
Darren again.
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So we have a pot here.
Fort Manor.
And it was put into the Tabernacle. Interesting, eh, that they gathered the manna as they left it over to the next day. It bred worms and stink, but there was a pot of manna there all through the wilderness. Didn't do that. It kept a plot of manna.
Now I want to turn.
To the Book of Revelation.
You know, I'm sorry. Before we go there, let's look at the numbers 11 for a moment.
Hadn't thought to do this, but it seems like maybe we should do this in Numbers Chapter 11 just to find out what the people of God's attitude was.
In relation to the manna, you know, they had mana every day and they got disgruntled and they got sick of it.
And in Numbers 11 and verse four, a mixed multitude that was among them fell lusting. And the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons, the leeks and the onions and the garlic. And now our soul is dried away, and there's nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.
The manna was a coriander seed and the color thereof was fidelium.
People went about and gathered it and ground it in mills, or beat it in the mortar and baked it in pans. Make cakes of it, and the taste of it was like the taste of fresh oil. When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.
Nobody got sick of it. Let's turn to Revelation now.
Revelation, the second chapter.
Because we read here.
There's a comment in connection with the manna. We read about the man in the New Testament. The Lord brings it up.
But here we find that there's.
A special word.
To the overcomer.
In Pergamos.
Which we don't have enough time to go through. We read about the doctrine of the Nicolaitans there and the doctrine of Balaam. But there's a word here to the overcomer in verse 17 of Revelation two. He that half an ear let him hear with the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.
The hidden manner, you know the manna was that which nourished the people of God all the way through the wilderness.
And it's manna that's going to nourish our souls as well.
The manna speaks of Christ.
That's what it speaks of.
And it's good for us to seek to get a little portion of Christ.
Every day.
We read much instruction in the word of God and it's good for us and we need to read that, but we need to seek to get a little portion of Christ.
So why does it say here that to the overcomer, there's going to be, they're going to be able to eat the hidden manner? Well, I thought in my mind, you know, the hidden manna was something that was in the ark. It was hidden away and nobody could see it. They knew it was there.
But they couldn't see it. But it's more than that.
And I believe that if there is a desire in our souls.
To have an overcoming spirit, you know, we live in a day that it's busy with a busy life. There's the care of this life. They're real. The enemy tries in every way to squeeze out the Lord out of our lives if he can possibly. But if there's that overcoming spirit with us, if there's that desire in our hearts.
You know what God will give us? God will give us a taste.
If the hidden manner is that portion of Christ that only God can see.
And all, you know, isn't it wonderful to take up the word of God and justice to read a little portion and to think, wow, isn't that nice? I never saw that before. Isn't that just beautiful as to as what I'm reading here, You know, it's that portion of Christ that the Lord desires to give us. God desires to give us. He sees so many things in his blessed Son, so many things that that are are so beautiful. So many things are so meaningful to him as a father and he desires to give us those things too.
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If we have that overcoming spirit, He'll give us to eat of the hidden manna. And we can understand those times in our life, can't we? When we are reading the Word of God and just something comes to life and it's just such nourishment to our souls. You know, the Lord desires to give us that every day, every day, all that we would seek to be like the people of God that diligently went out to gather the manna every morning and they got that portion. And here in Revelation, the overcomer.
He gets a taste of Christ that only God can see.
Well, I see we're having a little trouble with time, so let's go back now.
To the book of Exodus.
You know, we'll go to the Book of Numbers. This is kind of hard. Umm, if, umm, everyone was here, that was here a few months, months ago, and we had this meeting right after the others, I'd be able to say, you remember yesterday when we were speaking about the altar of burnt offering and we looked at #16 and we looked at Cora Days on the Buyer and everyone say, Oh yeah, I remember that. Some of you weren't here, so you don't remember that. Some of you were. So you can. But we're going to look at numbers 16 just for a moment.
S.
#16.
#16 is the story of Cora Decent and a Byram, where the earth opens up and Cora Decent and Byron goes down, goes down into the pit. There's 250 men with them. They go down into the pit. They're all swallowed up.
We know that chorus children are spared.
And they they take the sensors.
And they beat them in the broad plates and they fixed do you remember we spoke about it. They fixed the broad, the sensors onto the altar so that when you looked into the.
Into the courtyard of the Tabernacle. The first thing you saw was the altar of burnt offering, and you saw all those sensors and it was there for a memorial.
For the people of God to remember what happened, Well, the next chapter.
Which is the 17th chapter we read this. Let's look at it #17.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of everyone of them a rod according to the House of their fathers, of all their Princess according to the House of their fathers. 12 rods. Right thou every man's name upon his rod. And thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi. For one rod shall be for the head of the House of their fathers. And thou shalt lay them up in the Tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony, where I will meet with you. And it shall come to pass that the man's rod whom I shall choose.
Shall blossom, and I will make deceased from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby they murmur against you.
And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, and everyone of their Princess gave him a rod of peace.
For each Prince one according to their father's houses, even 12 rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods, and Moses laid up the rods before the Lord and Tabernacle of witness.
Then it came to pass that on the Morrow Moses went into the Tabernacle of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron for the House of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds and bloom blossoms, and yielded almonds.
And Moses brought out the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel, and they looked, and took every man his rod.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony to be kept for a token against the rebels, and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die not. And Moses did so. As the Lord commanded him, so did he. And the children of Israel spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh anything near under the Tabernacle of the Lord shall die. Shall we be consumed with dying?
So here we find a test.
So I have a rod here.
And Moses was told to take 12 words.
Some of you have heard me take up.
The thought of the staff.
There's a number of staves in the scripture. Staff was different than a rod. Staff had a crook on it.
David could say in Psalm 23, Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
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And so there is a number of states, beautiful subjects, but there are also a number of rocks that's also a lovely subject to take up the various different rods in Scripture.
Is wrong. Correction, there's Moses rod, Aaron's rod, there's various rods.
Well, here's these 12 rods. They're all laid up before the Lord, 12 of them.
And in the morning they woke up and one of the rods was different. Darren, how about you give me a hand here?
And one of the rods looked like this.
Get out buds. It had blossoms. It had almonds just overnight.
Just overnight.
You know, you'd have to say it was the evidence of life, wasn't it?
The evidence of life.
Now this has been a searching thing for me.
A very searching thing to me.
Is there?
Evidence of life.
In my Christian pathway.
I want everybody to think about this past week.
Those we come in contact with.
Those that pumped my gas at the gas bar.
Those I bumped into at work.
Friends that you played with?
Do they know that there's something different about you? Do they know that there's something that's different about me?
These two rods, they're very different, aren't they?
When they got up in the morning and they looked at those rods, I'm sure they all said, oh, overnight buds, blossoms, almonds.
That's the evidence of real life.
What about us? Is there that evidence of real life?
You know, that's a searching thing for me.
Because if there's not the evidence of like, you know, I can what, what, what, what's the evidence of life? What is that?
Is that someone saying to me, saying about me when they're talking about me, that Dave Mearns he's, he's a religious person.
Is that the evidence of life?
No, it's not. There's lots of religious people in this world. Is that all they know about me, that I'm religious?
Can I be gathered to the Lord's name?
Can I go through all the form and all the ritual?
And yet there's no real evidence of life.
And the only thing I can be convicted with is that I'm a religious person.
You know that that's searching to me that.
Is really searching.
And it's been very impressive to me to read this portion.
And to see these rods and to see just overnight there was something that was so different about this rod.
That I just stood out from the others because there was life in it. There was life.
Do our brethren say that about us?
Or am I so happy in my circle of Christian friends and carry on that, that there's there's, yeah, there's, there's the form, there's the ceremony, and there's lots of nice things I do and lots of nice things I say, but there's not the evidence of real life.
You know that soul searching to my own soul because.
Because often it's not that way.
I say the right things, I do the right things.
But people don't look at me and say that man is different. There is something that's very different about him. And it's not just these religious he's got life, he has life.
The Lord said that Nicodemus he must be born again.
It has to do with life.
What about the expression of life in our own lives as believers? You know the believers in Antioch, they were called Christians there because they were Christ like ones. There were those that viewed them and they thought that group of people, they're different. They are different.
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You know, it's something to read about those in Sardis. We read about those that had a name, that they lived, but they were dead.
There wasn't the evidence of life. I'm not saying there's not life because that's what's searching for me. I've got life.
But often there's not the evidence of it.
All that I might be stirred in my soul.
That there would be evidence of life to those that I come in contact with, to my brethren.
Not that I would just be the way you know me, but that there would be the evidence of life.
Oh, how different this rod was.
And why was it different? Because there was fruit. There was fruit. There wasn't just leaves, There wasn't just buds. Yes, that was the evidence of life. But there was almonds on it. There was almonds we read a few days ago in connection with the fig tree in in our own family reading. And the Lord comes to the fig tree and there's a fig tree, luscious fig tree, lots of leaves, just a beautiful tree and no face, no face, no fruit for God. And the Lord couldn't get any fruit. How much fruit does the Lord get from me?
Is the Lord able to get fruit from us?
That's what his desire is.
He longed to have fruit from us and all. There can't be any if there isn't life.
Our time is gone.
We've looked at this little subject. There's so many ways we can go with it, yeah.
But all.
That we might have an appreciation.
Tomorrow morning, if the Lord spares us and we go into the presence of the Lord Jesus.
To remember the tables of stone.
To remember God's holy standard.
And one look into it and 50,000 and more were slain.
And we have the privilege of going into his presence freely.
And I take it for granted so often, and it means so little to me so often. And Aaron with fear and trembling, when in once a year, and not without blood. And the Lord Jesus has shed his blood so that we can go freely into His presence every day.
Every moment but tomorrow, collectively.
And I take it so much for granted, but then to the pot of manna that we would desire to get that portion of Christ that only God sees that he desires to give to us. That's for our nourishment and.
In the rocks that there would be the evidence of life in each of our lives. Could we sing in closing?
There are so many hymns that would speak of the of the presence of the Lord. We could look at 1:14. I thought maybe we'd sing 136 in closing.
Umm, this evening 114 is the holiest. We enter in perfect peace with God. Well here we find in 136 the veil is rent. Our souls draw near unto a throne of grace. The merits of the Lord appear, they fill the holy place.
#136.
The fellas rent ourselves on air.
Fresh the marathon of the Lord up here.
They fell, the holy flesh.
The frosted flood.
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Ah, short our prayers and songs, and friends of them by frightening.
We commend ourselves.
Our God and our Father.
We thank the.
That we who are one time afar off.
I made nine by the blood of Christ.
We thank thee, our God, that it's our privilege.
To look at these pictures that we find in the Old Testament.
And what a contrast to see.
The wonderful privilege that we have.
Of Lord Jesus.
Being able to walk with thee.
And being able to.
When by very presence.
The blood being on the mercy seat.
Oh Lord Jesus.
Help us to realize more fully.
The great cost it was to thyself.
For us to enjoy such a privilege.
And we pray, blessed Saviour.
That there would be in our lives.
That manifestation of the life that is there.
We thank Thee, our God, for working in our hearts.
By massless grace, reaching down and picking us up.
And we pray the few moments that are left to us.
But there would be a response.
From our hearts that there would be fruit for thine honor and for thy glory.
And so, our God, we thank Thee that it's been our privilege to open my precious word, and we pray Thy blessing upon it to us, asking these things, giving thanks and the worthy and the precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
Questions
Address—Rick Shower
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Nice to see so many out on a blustery night.
Indeed, overwhelm my heart by seeing each other of you here. Trust the Lord won't let you down. Uh, let's begin tonight with hymn #206.
Oh Lord, we know it matters not how sweet the song may be. No heart, but of the spirit taught, makes melody to Thee.
Then teach Thy gathered Saints, O Lord, to worship in Thy fear, and let Thy grace mold every word that meets Thy holy here. Hymn #206 brother, raise the tune, please.
Lord Reloaded.
Your life, I don't do anything.
No apology. No, no, no, no, no.
I have a long day for you to believe me.
And behavior and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Afraid of words, but I didn't make any. Thy holy hair, but I've been.
What I want to be here with you.
Osiris, Jacintha. May I know How many 1000?
Make a prayer.
Just ask the Lord's help. Our God and Father, we look up to thee tonight.
And we're so thankful for the word of God that thou has given to us.
We're thankful as we've sung.
That thou art our only passport, Lord, to take us from here to there.
And that our confidence comes from Thy word as we open it, study it, meditate upon it as it draws our hearts to Thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus. And so we are thankful to have it open again once more. Thankful for each one here tonight. We pray that all would have listening years and the speaker also that there might be something for each.
To take home with them tonight, maybe to encourage the hearts of one here. So we just ask all this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
00:05:14
I have decided.
By the Lord's.
Grace, I believe to take a look at a little meditation.
In connection with the questions that the Lord Jesus asked his disciples.
Now the the Lord asked a lot of questions. He asked questions of the disciples.
And he asked questions of the people and of the leaders and of the demons.
He asked questions of all those, but I want to look at just not even all the examples, but a few of the examples tonight of when the Lord asked His disciples a question.
A little different takes. I know there's some that have taken up the questions that the disciples asked the Lord that I'm going to look at the reverse.
There are 31,000 questions in our Bible, King James Version. There are more questions than in our statements, almost 2 1/2 to one. So lots of questions. So, and to I, I'm not taking them up particularly in any order except one. Uh, it'll be a little out of order. We'll refer back, but I'm going to start in the Gospel of Matthew and take some questions from the Gospel of Matthew.
And then?
Mark and Luke and finish up with John. That way we don't have to be turning a lot of pages. Pretty well stay within a book.
Now the 1St place I'd look like to look at and the first question is Matthew chapter 10.
In verse 29.
The context here is that he's speaking to his disciples and then he raises a question here in verse 29. He says to them, are not two sparrows sold for a Farthing?
Are not two sparrows sold for a Farthing? You know, that's a good place. I believe to start tonight because I believe this brings before us God's care for everything in this world. Not only, uh, man, but also is creation that he placed here his eyes on it all, he's looking at it.
And of course he's concerned about it. Especially man, but also creation.
And that outward, uh, world around us is measured just like our lives are measured, each one of us. And so I think this is a nice place to begin because I think the Lord wanted to bring before the disciples here that there is nothing too small.
For him to be concerned about.
And, you know, he was concerned enough for you and I to die on that cross that we might be here tonight, the Spirit of God, to be able to have it open before us. So I'm starting here with the Sparrow. You know, a Sparrow is a pretty insignificant bird, often not liked by farmers and others, sometimes a messy bird when they get in large groups. But you know, the Lord had his eye on him just like us.
Like us before we were saved, a lot of things we did wrong, a lot of sins we committed. But his eye was honest. His eyes on each one of you tonight too, and his eyes on you for good. He's taking note of each and everything, youngest and oldest tonight about what we're doing. So here we start with the Sparrow and we'll go over to Matthew chapter 16 for the next question.
Matthew, Chapter 16.
And verse 13.
Now the Lord is interested in us as he expressed to his disciples, He was interested in the very smallest of things, even a Sparrow. In chapter 16 here and verse 13 we get another question. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, him?
00:10:06
Ask you tonight, how would you answer that?
The Lord was standing here and he said to you that same question.
He said, Who do men say that? I, the son of man in.
How would you answer it?
Would you answer like Peter or like some said here? Well, you know, it's like John the Baptist, Elias Jeremias, one of the prophets, an important man, a good man.
But could you say he's my Lord and savior?
The one that loved me and gave himself for me.
You know, if we can say that.
Then we're on the right track. We're on the right track for the types of things that he has for us. But you know when he asked this question of the disciples.
They said several things in verse 14. Some said some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias or one of the prophets. But he gives them a second question here. He wasn't concerned about what other people thought. He wanted to know what they thought. He know the Lord Jesus doesn't care about what other people think. He cares about what you think each and every day.
He cares about what you think. We're going to look at some portions, sort of like the Sparrow, where he's concerned with the smallest details of your life and he wants every day to have you bring those things to him that he might bless you.
And bring forth to you that which would be of value.
So he says in verse 15, But whom say ye that I am? So for each of us tonight, that's a good question. How would we respond?
Has the Lord captured our heart in such a way that we would have, uh, a very loving response? Do we see Him as a hard taskmaster? You know some do.
They seem as an austere man.
Reaping where he did not sow.
But I trust that for each of us tonight we see him in a different light than that, because experience in the days that we've been saved tells us otherwise.
We know the goodness of God because He's showing it out to us in multiple ways.
Let's go over to the 26th verse of the same chapter for another question. Chapter 26. Danny is talking to his disciples. He's raising some questions before him. First of all, who do you think I am? And then he says in verse 26, For what is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Now we know that that's a great gospel portion, nice to apply to the center. But are we guilty of that? Are we so occupied with our jobs, we're so occupied with our lives we're so occupied with?
Going from point A to point B that we've lost out spiritually.
Lost out spiritually, you know, we don't have many days left.
Before the Lord comes, I believe, and it would be a sad thing to be not.
Keeping up, so to speak on things with him and come to that last day and hear the shout.
And not hear. Well done now, good and faithful servant.
So he says to them, what is a man profited? You know, we uh, we can profit in a lot of things, but the biggest profit should be spiritually for us. Often times we want to see profit in the books of business. We want to see a profit in, uh, maybe our children. We want to see a profit somewhere else rather than down in our own souls.
And that's where the Lord would have us to profit. I'm applying this portion here. You well are aware. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Well, we know that once saved, always saved, we're not going to lose our soul salvation. But what?
What about a life that's lost here, a life that doesn't go on for him?
00:15:08
The life that's like those, uh, like the ground with the rocks starts out, grows fast, but when tribulation and things come along, what happens to that seed that was sown on that rocky ground? It says it Withers and dies.
Weather is up, becomes not what it should be. When I worked in the agricultural office, used to go out and measure wheat fields. Pretty obvious when I'd get out there in the fields where the bad spots were, where the rocky ground was, where was thin. You see this nice stand of wheat and all of a sudden it dipped down and be what we call Shorty variety, very small and it'd be dried up. The rest of the crops would be growing. Well, it had withered. Why? Well, the heat of the day, the heat of the summer had come along.
And there was nothing down there for the roots.
So spiritually, are we in that condition tonight?
Spiritually lacking exchanging something for our spiritual soul that doesn't have a real value.
Over to the Gospel of Mark.
Marks the servant you know, and Mark has questions in it too. Chapter 4.
Mark Four and verse 40. I don't want to take time for the context here, but they had gone out on the sea and there were other ships, and there arose that great wind and a storm.
And he has to say to them after, after he demonstrated his power, he says to them, why are ye so fearful?
Why are you so fearful?
Umm, someone gave me an acrostic a long time ago for fear.
Prostate means the 1St letter of the word. Fear fits, uh, a word and you get a little phrase out of it.
Uh, fear false evidence appearing real. It's what fear is all about. False evidence that appears real. You know, we, we fear that, uh, something's going to happen. Maybe we made a mistake at work and we know the boss is aware of it. And so we fear what the boss might do. But you know, a lot of times it's false evidence that appears real.
The box may not be upset about it at all, He might just take it in stride. But you know, we can fear and tremble in a lot of different things, and sometimes we fear many things that don't come to pass. The Lord goes before us and clears the way and we don't, we don't have that fear. But you know this, this question comes after he had just demonstrated that he could quiet the whole scene.
Now, someone said, if you've ever been on the sea, you know that after a storm the sea is still moving, still going up and down. It doesn't become a calm in an instant. But that's what happened here. It became a calm in an instant because he had that power to be able to do that. And yet they were fearful, Fearful.
I believe, and I would just suggest this, and maybe one of the reasons why He asked this question of the disciples, Why are you fearful? Because they didn't know Him.
They really didn't know him yet. And as you read through the gospels and you you hear the Lord speak about his going to the cross and his death, his resurrection, and it doesn't seem like they ever laid hold of it.
They never really did know, really, the man that was there. Now, I'm not faulting the disciples at all. I'm sure if I'd have been one of them, I wouldn't have been one whip better. But you know tonight.
We don't have an excuse. We have the Word of God. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us to give us and to provide for us a marvelous understanding of who the Lord Jesus is, and in such a way that it would draw our hearts after Him.
So we asked that question, why are you so fearful? And then he says the second question, how is it that you have no faith?
You have no faith.
00:20:03
Satan loves to use fear because fear casts out the faith that we have.
It causes us to discount God Himself.
And when that happens, who's the victor? Satan.
He's got the victory, then He's got us in that position where we don't believe, we don't have faith, and the Lord is, should I say reverently, the loser in that regard. So easy for us to fall into that. And so He brought that before the disciples here. Why are you fearful and how is it that you have no faith? The two seem to go very much together.
Let's go over to the Gospel of Luke.
In chapter 2.
As far as recorded scripture, here we have the first question the Lord ever asked, and I will apply it kind of loosely that it was to his disciples.
In Luke chapter 2 and verse 49.
We know that familiar, I'm sure with the portion here where the, the parents have gone up to the Passover, that Jerusalem and they had celebrated the Passover and then they were headed home and after they were on the road aways, uh, lo and behold, the Lord Jesus wasn't with them.
He wasn't there, and so then they had to backtrack to try to find him.
And I just suggest this that.
They were gone one day on the road, but there were three days finding him.
One day away from the Lord, 3 days to get back into the enjoyment of what He has for us in communion with Him.
One year away.
Three years to get back.
You know, he has to bring us back to the point of departure so that we'll judge the root of whatever it was, the cost of departure, and then he can bring us on once again. But if we don't go back to the point where we departed and it's only a partial thing, it's only kind of a gloss over and it'll probably rise again. But that's kind of by the by here. But in verse 49, he says to his parents, how is it that she sought me?
Was she not that I must be about my father's business?
Even as a child, he could not put aside his father's business.
And you know, there have been children.
Uh, who have been saved at a young age and they.
So to speak, couldn't put aside their Heavenly Father's business.
Children who would rather listen to ministry on a tape recorder than go out and play with their peers.
Why?
The Lord had captured their heart in some manner.
They realized they had a Heavenly Father and they wanted to be about His business.
Now we might say, well, that's kind of an abnormal person. Well, it might be an abnormal young person, but what a testimony to the others. Remember Albert Hayhoe and you people knew him much better than I ever did. I remember Al Albert Heyho saying in an address one time that uh.
His brother Gordon, I don't know if he was old or not, but anyway, his brother Gordon, he would be on the way out the door to go play ball with his ball, ball, bat and glove and he'd look over there, Gordon and Gordon was reading his Bible.
He said, you know, my brother made a far different choice than I did.
And he said I believe he chose the far better path.
I thought that's quite a statement to make when you know, like I said, you guys know Albert a lot better than I ever did. And I had, I had admired him very much as a very godly man and had a heart for the Saints of God.
But for him to say that, you know, my brother chose a better path when we were younger for quite a testimony to make. And I'm wondering how many young people tonight are making the decision not in regards to their peers.
Or their.
Wants. But what his wants are the Lord Jesus wants.
00:25:06
And so he says, should I not be about my father's business? From the time of approximately they, I think they figure he was. Well, it says verse 42, he was 12 years old. From the time he was 12 years old, the body's father's business had it always before him.
I taught 12 year olds for probably over 20 years and there was one thing I noticed about 12 year olds at least back then. It may not be true today. A lot of things have changed with children, but back in that day, what a 12 year old was when he was 12 was pretty much what he was going to be the rest of his life. If he was a person that could be counted on, if he was a person who was honest, if he was a person who was respectful of others at 12, it was that. When he got older too, and I traced him out through high school.
It was the same character, but if they were rascals when they were 12 and they were disobedient and they were talked back to adults and so forth.
Found the same types of things, no respect for their elders and that just kind of seemed to go on and characterize her life. I'm talking in general terms is always exceptions both ways. But I just observed that that age 12, you know, we get to age 12 mentioned several times in Scripture, I think, uh, 312 year olds. In fact, I'll let you search that out. Uh, not all in the New Testament.
So here he is at 12 years old, and he's about his father's business, and so he's asking his parents which we might apply as disciples.
What she not that I must be, must. That's imperative. It's imperative form of the verb. I must be about my father's business. Can't do otherwise, Must be part of it.
Luke chapter 6 for another question.
Now, like I said, I'm not taking all the questions. There's some more here, but time would fail me to take up all of them.
Luke chapter 6 and verse 45.
A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good.
And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringing forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
I'll stop there because the next one is the question, but I want to just stop there for a minute.
I have met young people that when they were younger they loved to speak of the Lord as they got older, went on through high school, maybe to a University College. Met him later. You couldn't ring.
The name of Jesus out of their mouth.
They are absolutely no talk. Nothing out of their mouth had anything to do with the Lord Jesus.
And you know what we just read here says that, uh.
The out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
So word to myself and I trust it's a word to each of us tonight and we're in conversation. How long does it take us to get to the Lord Jesus?
Especially with her brethren.
You know, it's easy to talk about the storm that's coming up the coast and how it's going to impact all these different places and, and the people and our brethren there in New Jersey and elsewhere.
But sometimes we just get to the weather. We don't even get to the impact of our brethren.
Sometimes we talk a lot and I'm guilty. Brethren, don't think I'm not. I'm guilty doing a lot of talking and never get to the Lord. But it shouldn't be that way.
You know, you don't have to talk to me very long before I'm gonna say something about my life.
Usually good.
And that's because there's an affection there.
And you know, if we love the Lord Jesus, it should just come easily for us out of our mouths to speak well of Him for all that he's done for us.
But then he says, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
00:30:13
I'm afraid I see an awful lot of that today.
Amongst the Saints, I don't travel about a lot. I do see ones from different meetings, see ones in our own meeting back in Phoenix.
But I see an awful lot of that.
Why call ye me Lord, and do not the things which I say?
The old story That too can be wrong, but two cannot be right.
And how is it then that we don't say the same things? We don't agree on the same things? Does the Spirit of God tell you one thing and tell me something entirely different? Scripture has no verification of that.
Scripture is that the Spirit of God would speak the same thing to each of us.
So how is it that there's so much disagreement sometimes amongst us?
Mr. Darby was asked that question.
Ran across one of his writings and his response was.
Two things. One, we're not subject to scripture.
The Word of God. And two, we take our thoughts to Scripture.
Rather than taking our thoughts from Scripture. I think Harry Hagel may have been great at taking that similar comment, but I think you got it from Mr. Darby.
Isn't it? Isn't that usually the case?
We are talking, some of us not too long ago about the, you know, the different, uh.
Divisions. The different groups.
And how is it that one says one thing and one says the other, and we say we have the truth and they say they have the truth and yet there isn't an agreement? How? How can that be?
You have to go back to the word.
Can you back it up with the Word of God? Can you back it up with the context of where it is and the Word of God? Do you have principles to support it? Do you have, I'm not going to say always chapter and verse? When I first came in the assembly, I asked a laboring brother. I said.
When I grew up in the Baptist Church, I had a very beloved sister in the Lord who told me even as a young man.
That every answer that you need is found in the Word of God.
And I'm.
Gone down the road a few years and there'd been times when I needed an answer but I couldn't find it if it was there.
So I asked him, you know, is, is there a chapter and verse for every single thing we need? And he gave me this answer and I never forgot it. He said there are some questions that cannot be answered by chapter or verse in Scripture.
But it can be answered by principles in Scripture.
Principles, a line of things that can be brought out from the Scriptures to give you an understanding of the yay or nay of your question. And I thought that was a very interesting answer, especially because I didn't know much about principles. I didn't know much about the principles of the Word of God. But I have found over the years since that time that that is a big help.
God's moral ways don't change from dispensation to dispensation.
So in the Old Testament we have many things that can give us the principles of God's moral order of things.
I'll give you an example, adultery.
Adultery was to be stoned under the law.
Why? Because God hated such a thing, whether it was spiritual adultery or physical adultery.
He hated it, he didn't want it amongst his people. He knew what corruption it would bring about.
To his people. And so he had to say that person needs to be stoned.
Now, does he hate adultery any less in the year 2012?
00:35:05
No, he does not.
But his means by which he's going to treat that is different.
But he still hates it.
He's willing to forgive an adulteress. We have it there in the gospels, a woman taken quote in the very act.
And what does he say? He that's without sin cast the first stone.
Different than stoning.
A whole different concept, but the principle did not change from Old Testament. New Testament. He hates it.
And I suppose he hates spiritual adultery even more than physical.
Because spiritual adultery is a reflection on himself.
As the Son of God.
As the creator of this world for the one who gave himself for us and yet to weaken so easily be duped into taking up with with other things that become a blasphemy to his name.
So he says here you do not the things which I say, oh what a word to myself. How many times through the day have I gone through it and get to the end of the day and think?
Hike. I did everything wrong I could do wrong.
Sometimes I wonder why the chariot wheels turn hard.
Seems like everything just going not like it should.
And then I realize, maybe I didn't start the day with prayer. Maybe I didn't start the day by reading this word. Maybe I thought I had too many things I needed to do. I'd take care of it later. And I found in my life, and I don't know about yours, but later never comes.
Seems like once you hit your feet down on the road running, there just seems to be no time. And I think Satan makes sure that you don't have time.
And so.
He wound up he didn't do the things he wanted.
Let's go on to another question.
Chapter 12 Loop.
Chapter 12 and verse 42.
Now this is the parable that he gives about the steward and his servants. But he asks this question right at the very beginning of his parable. And he says, verse 42. Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?
Blessed is that servant whom is Lord, when he cometh shall find so doing.
We don't have much time.
Believe the Lord's coming is eminent and I know uh ones have said that from.
The year 100 on but really.
When we look at the state of of the testimony of the Church.
We look at what's going on in this world, but especially what goes on in even the professing church today. How close is coming? Must be. And so because it is close, are we going to be good stewards, Should I say, right up to the end? Or is Satan going to win out right at the end? Because, you know, he's making a play. He's making a play for the young people. He's making a play for you and I. He's making that last desperate charge to disown.
Desolate. Do everything you can against the testimony.
He wants to rack as much havoc with it as he possibly can. Why? Because the testimony is to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's his arch enemy. And if you and I are going to be that testimony, we're gonna run into conflict. There's going to be instant and continual conflict because Satan knows that his time is limited.
He knows as well as you as a you and I that the time is running out. We've gone 2000 plus years. Our Lord still hasn't come and yet he said I will come quickly so that every generation would have that hope before him. And so we likewise have it. But wouldn't it be nice when we hear that shout for to for the Lord to look out upon us and say well done.
00:40:19
You didn't quit right at the end.
You kept it up right to the last very minute.
When I used to train kids for track in my early years before I was gathered.
One of the things I had to make sure the kids knew and didn't do when they were running is to not look behind him.
Because the instance you look behind you, you slow down. I don't care how mentally prepared you might be, but the instant you turn your head, you'll slow down. It might not be much be enough to lose the race.
You never turn around and look until you've crossed the line. Brethren, the lions almost here. We don't wanna stop now, Tehran, look back and see what others are doing or what we should have been doing. We'll have our eyes, like Paul said, focused on the goals.
And then once we're there, we can look back.
But to hear the Lord to say to us, Well done, thou good servant, no good and faithful servant, what a joy to his heart.
What a joy to his heart to be able to say that. I'm afraid for some he's just going to say, well done thou good servant.
But wouldn't you want him to hear that added word? Faithful?
Faithful right up to the end never gave up.
Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing, doing the work, No, Lord Jesus. And we read there at age 12, He had his Father's business before him at Gethsemane. He had his Father's business before him. He knew that that cup had to be taken. He didn't want it.
Let this cup pass from me.
He didn't want that cup.
He knew what it was to be sin. He knew what a excuse me, I didn't say, let me say that again. He knew what sin was.
And he knew what was going to be laid upon him, and he shrank from it because of the heinousness of it.
God's thoughts of sin is hell.
Do you ever think of that? He hates sin so much he created hell.
That's a pretty awful thing, but that shows the magnitude of his dislike for sin. The Lord Jesus, when he was in that garden, he knew what was going to happen. He knew what was going to be laid upon him. He didn't want that.
Not because he was not capable, but because of what sin was to a righteous, holy God.
But he said nevertheless, not my will, the perfect surrendered will.
No, you and I, sometimes we don't surrender our wills. We submit our wills, but we don't always surrender our wills like he did.
So that servant is going to be blessed in that day. Chapter 18 of Luke.
Move on here a little faster.
Both chapter 18 and verse 8.
I tell you.
That He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? I believe that should correctly be Shall He find thee Faith, not faith in the individuals. It's the revealed body of truth.
That God has given to us in His Word.
Is it, uh, Jeremiah, where it speaks of, uh, the truth falling in the streets?
Does the truth fall in our streets?
Do we give up truth? A little here, a little there?
Then comes the folding of the hands slumber.
00:45:03
Sleep.
We'll get to that one. He raised that question too, to him about sleeping.
But here he says, shall he find thee faith, or that revealed body of truth on earth? Is he going to have those servants faithful to the end, holding to the truth right up to the end? Chapter 22, Luke 22.
Luke 22 and verse 46.
And we know this is a situation in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was weighing before the Father that He was going to go to the cross. But here he says to his disciples in verse 46, Why sleep ye?
Why sleepy?
You know, it's easy for Christians to sleep spiritually.
When our circumstances are pleasant.
Our business is going well, our job is going well, our family is going well. Things are OK in the assembly.
Great time for us to go to sleep.
That's when the enemy sowed the tares there in the 13th of Matthew.
It's easy for us to go to sleep and let our guard down.
It's also easy to go to sleep when things go well spiritually, individually with us. Maybe we've been enjoying some things in the world. We've taken up a study and boy, every morning I just, I just can't wait to get up and continue on with that. And what else does Lord have and what else am I going to pick up on this? This is this is really something I've got these nice thoughts that the Lord has brought before me.
But that's a time when we can also go to sleep because we're not being faithful.
And so he says here in verse 46, Why sleepy? What's the antidote? The next 2-3 words rise and pray.
If we're not rising and we're not praying, we're going to be.
Material for Satan to do something with.
Pryor makes us dependent, and if we're dependent, then he's going to have us going in the right direction because we're going to be dependent upon him.
And so he tells them to rise and pray. Why? Lest ye enter into temptation?
Something, Satan, come along and get some something on you. Some besetting sin brought up. Keep you from it.
Chapter 24 of Luke familiar portion.
Luke chapter 24 and couple of questions. The first one in verse 17. We know this is the two on the way to the AMA umm 2 on the way to Emmaus. What manner of communications are these that you have one another as she walk and are sad.
Isn't that touching? It's touching to me.
He saw these two.
Leaving the place of his appointment, Jerusalem.
He saw him going away and he looked at him and he thought.
They're going away from the place of my appointment, the place where I chose to put my name.
Place I chose.
Not them.
And so he comes to them and the first thing he says is what manner of communications are these?
That you have with one another as you walk and are sad.
He didn't want him to be sad, but he knew why there was a sadness there and he wanted to bring him back around, back to the place of the appointment. I'm not going to go into the details here, but you know, if you read this portion, where do they end up?
They go to Emmaus.
It breaks bread with them, and what do they do? Their eyes are open, they realize their heart burned within them, and they turn right around and go back.
To Jerusalem.
The place of his appointment, place where he wanted him to be.
A lovely picture of the Restoration. Back to the place of his appointment, brethren.
And then verse 19, he says, they say, He say unto them what things and they say concerning Jesus of Nazareth He was concerned about. He wanted to know. He just didn't say, well, why are you sad? He wanted Him to delineate. He wanted Him to bring up to Him what it was.
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A brother said to me one time, my younger years, he said.
When you've had a really hard day at school since, you ever come home and just fall down on your knees at your bedside and cry out to the Lord for the day that you've had and tell him all about it.
He says you'll find you'll have a far better evening if you do.
Why? Because he wants to know how many times has a has a child heard their parents say, Well, what happened today at school?
Why do they ask that? Well, they wanna know what's happening. They wanna know what's going on.
And if the child comes home and they're down at the gums and they're looking really sad, the parent go, oh, looks like you're sad. No, the first thing they wanna know is what's the matter? What's happened? What went on? Oh, the Lord Jesus loves us so much. He's gonna do the same thing. He's gonna say to us what happened? What's wrong? Let me put in the oil and the wine. Let me love your heart.
So that you don't feel that way.
And so that's what he did here with these two on the way to on the way to a mass.
Go to the Gospel of John for the last question.
A big one in John chapter one.
There's two questions here. John chapter, one verse.
38.
Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye?
You know he didn't say whom. Saiki. He said what?
And I believe he did use the word what, because he didn't want to put, should I say, words into their mouth. He wanted them to respond with what was in their heart. We had that before us already. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And so he says, What seek ye. And they say unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou?
Where dwellest thou?
That's a question that has arisen to some fairly recently that have come out of system, come out of division, because they wanted that question answered. Where dwellest thou? Where are, where is the place of appointment?
And a brother said recently, you know, we don't choose the place of his appointment, he chooses it.
All the way through Scripture.
The principle is the same. Here we go, principles again, the principles the same in the Old Testament, he told them. I will choose the place where I'll put my name, and there it will be forever. And a marvellous thing today that city of Jerusalem for the Jews is a mess.
But he said my name will be there forever.
There's a day coming when he'll turn around and Jerusalem will be the focus point of this entire world.
In between, there's an interim period here where there are low IMI, not my people.
You can't collectively take up with them, but he had a place of appointment for them. And brethren, he has a place of appointment for you and I. It's not the place you and I choose, it's the place he chooses, for He chooses to place his name.
And so the question is, where dwelleth down?
That was their desire. They wanted to know where he dwelt. He could have told him, well, I'm going to be at so and so's house. Does he say that here? No.
Does he say it's on Rio Ferry Road? And then you turn and you go down the old Kingston Road and you'll see a brick building there on the right hand side that looks like a box and it's got some things out on the front of it.
Is that it? No.
It's not a geographical place.
It's where he is in the midst.
According to scripture.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 6 and verse.
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61 I'm going to read a couple of verses here.
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? And he said that to the disciples, Are you offended?
What and if ye shall see the Son of man a sin up where he was before? Another question. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were plural that believed not, and who should?
Betray him.
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except you were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus.
Under the 12 will ye go away?
Will you go away? I think Mr. Darby renders it. Is it in your heart to go likewise?
I might be paraphrasing that a little bit, but it's the thought of it. Is it in your heart to do that?
I see brethren walking away.
I see brethren giving up the truth. I see Him going and taking up with that which I left and christened. It breaks my heart.
Breaks my heart, not so much for them, but it breaks my heart for the Lord Jesus.
Brethren, we have such a privilege of what He has brought us into, the immensity of the things He has before us, and we're right at the end of the time.
And we see many.
Why did they go away? Why did you take up the context here? And he says, uh, does this offend you? Well, it really had to do with doctrine, with his teaching.
And you know, there's some people that take up and they say, well, I don't agree with that. I, I think we need a little broader path than that. I think we need to make it big enough that we can kind of just take in everybody. That's an awful narrow stand right there.
I didn't make any difference what I think doesn't make any difference what you think. What does Scripture say?
If scripture says it's a narrow thing, and it's a narrow way, then by golly that's what we should do.
Stand for it, not give it up.
Is that gonna be popular? Absolutely not. Oh my goodness.
I'm sure there's some would take exception with me right now.
Take exception with me, but if you can prove in the Word of God that anything needs to be broader than what I believe in right now, I'll be glad to hear it. I'll be glad to bow to it.
Because if it's in the Word of God, I want to bow to it. Because it's His word, not mine.
And so they went away, and the Lord had to say, Will you go away also?
Is it in your heart? You know, the heart manifests where we're at. Somebody once said we never leave the Lord's Table at right angles. In other words, we just don't go.
Walk away.
Comes a slow little turns, little things to kind of slowly turn us until we're not looking in the right direction and then we begin to move away.
Little things.
And sometimes a doctrine that's offensive, teaching that's offensive.
Let's not give up, brethren, what He's given to us not, not this close to the end.
And you know, it's for his heart. Now I want to look. Here's why. I'm going to digress for just a moment to Matthew. I want to look back at Matthew at a, at a reference in the 26th chapter of Matthew.
Matthew 26.
And verse 40.
Here's another question.
I'm gonna make this application.
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The one hour between 11:00 and 12:00 from Lord's Day morning.
One hour.
1St 40 And ecometh unto his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter.
What could you not watch with me one hour?
There are some that find it more needful to go on a picnic than to go.
To the breaking of bread.
There are some that find it more needful for a sports activity.
And it is to spend one hour with the Lord, 1/4.
I guess that's enough said there. And one one last thing.
If we think of the one hour in a prophetic sense, we're in the last hour. Are we going to stay with it for the last hour, That one hour right up to the end?
Are we going to be like Peter?
And not watch.
Last closing, uh, back to John.
Chapter 21.
Their familiar verse.
John, Chapter 21.
And verse 22.
Right at the end here Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come. What is that to thee? Follow thou ME3 little words bread.
Sums up everything I've said tonight.
Follow them me. Follow not me. Follow the Lord you. Follow the Lord you. You honestly seek after Him with an honest heart. He'll never let you down. He has provided everything for you in the past, why would He let you down now?
He's been faithful beyond faithfulness to each of us in our lives. Why would we want to quit?
Why don't we want to go on?
With that which we know is tried and true and truth or something that's new and not true.
Stay with the old pass.
The loving with all our hearts.
That we might have an abundant entry, yes, but that He might have the joy of our faithfulness.
Our garden, Father, we do thank Thee, blessed Lord, for thy word. We think of these many questions I'll ask the disciples probing.
That thou did seek to work unto their hearts, their affections, their conscience. Ah, blessed Lord, how faithful thou art. May we respond to that faithfulness that we might be found in these last days going on with the going on with the truth of Scripture, going on with that which many have been raised in some of us have been brought into, that we might know the joy.
Of pleasing one who gave everything for us.
And so it is that we would look to Thee tonight. We know the time is short. Maybe tonight we'll hear that shout. The blessed Lord, when it occurs, may we be found continuing on as faithful stewards of all that this house given to us, that Thou may speak glorified. We ask this in thy worthy name, Lord Jesus, Amen.