Address—David Mearns
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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.
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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.
00:50:05
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.
00:55:49
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.