Open—Steve Bambauer
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Uh, just a few comments that verse seven of our him suggested.
It I'll read that again, a verse of him 23 in the back verse seven says with thee, O Lord, forever our souls shall be content. And if I suppose we could jam everything in this world into our souls, they still wouldn't be content.
But only he satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
He's the only one that can do that. But the rest of that same verse that we read?
It says, Nor act, nor thought shall ever full joy with thee prevent. So it shall be when we are there, because whatever comes from the old nature, the old nature won't be there, and it will be unhindered.
Communion with the Lord and we're never going to have to stop and think. Now, was that pleasing to the Lord?
Was that thought? Was that conduct? Was that attitude?
Displeasing to the Lord, but now we do. But this is future Norak. Nor thought shall ever full joy with thee prevent.
And of course, while we're here, there are certain.
Standards of conduct that uh.
Are due to the Lord.
And I might just look at a verse in Exodus chapter 3.
And this pertains just, I suppose, even to our.
Life, daily life, our daily life, because in this chapter we have Moses keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. He had some investment in that. It was his father-in-law. It wasn't a hireling. He was shepherding that flock and it belonged to his father-in-law.
He led it to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb, and an Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush.
Moses is startled, and I suppose we are, when we really come to grips with the fact that God.
Is visiting us.
And that.
And just our our daily activity.
And he's concerned with that.
Now, Moses wasn't a foreigner to God, of course.
We're not looking at a salvation picture here.
But it was a unique.
Manifestation of God to Moses.
And it starts with a flame, it appeared unto him, and a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush.
And he looked, and behold, the Bush burned with fire, and the Bush was not consumed.
Well, I remember in college people saying and they stood up at the podium here and they had the grade book in one hand and they had.
Epaulets with stripes on it and, uh, letters after their name. And it was kind of intimidating. And they would say something like, uh, evolution is a fact of life and God is an idea in the mind of man.
****.
Here God is manifested to Moses.
In this similitude or picture.
It's a flame of fire and there is a Bush and the burn. The Bush burned with fire. The Bush was not consumed.
When God?
Comes to man.
He doesn't consume him. It's mercy. He provides a way.
But.
The Bush burned with the fire. The Bush doesn't support the fire because it's not burned. And so God doesn't need man's thoughts or ideas for him to be.
We're not dealing with a concept that comes from the mind of man. God is objective and outside of ourselves.
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So the Bush is not.
Consumed. That's mercy, but the Bush doesn't support the flame. God doesn't need man for his existence.
But anyway, Moses is looking at this, and each one of us certainly would.
And he said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight and certainly it is why the Bush is not burnt. Why is not the Bush burnt?
This is such mercy.
But Moses was going to get, uh, he's curious, while we would be.
And when the Lord saw that, he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the Bush, and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh, hit her, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou whereon thou standest is holy ground. And so now there is a proper attitude and approach to God in dealing with God.
And Moses was curious, of course, and how he wanted a closer look.
And he was going to get closer to examine this phenomenon that he's looking at.
This is an enigma. Who can sort this out? There is a Bush and a flame, and the Bush is not supporting a flame and the Bush is not burned.
And we're not going to define God or we haven't got him. If we do, we think that we can.
So we're not going to approach in curiosity.
God is holy and reverent.
He says, draw not nigh, hit her. Here are the conditions. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
And this is how we would approach. There is a reference here given in this picture.
But we wouldn't show up with our boots on, if I could put it bluntly.
And we may think about these things, you know, we sit in the presence of the Lord.
In the breaking of bread, and that's a collective thing. But we walk before the Lord as individuals, and that's an individual thing. And what is our conduct before the Lord and how should it be?
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Any approaches on that basis?
And gets the mind of God.
Now when I was in the service.
We had a squadron of about 25 aviators with a commanding officer who was a commander in rank and most of us that were flying were Lieutenant JGS and lieutenants. And there is, uh, an, an order of command there necessarily. So every once in a while we would be in the ready room, uh, maybe preparing for a flight or playing AC Doocy would like to play AC Doocy. It's kind of like backgammon. It's a checkers game and sometimes there's spare time and it was an outlet and.
Uh, the commander of the air group would show up. We'd come in through the door, or perhaps even the captain of the ship.
Would come into the ready room, he might have had business there, wanted to make an announcement, wanted to see our particular commanding officer. He'd open the door and come in and we might have our feet spread out there.
It was kind of an at ease position and somebody looked up to you, came in and recognized that it was the commander of the air group or the captain of the ship. Immediately he would announce attention on deck while everybody would sit up straight, come out of a slouch.
Said quit playing their AC juicy game. They put down their cup of coffee and they were all ears and attention because this person had authority. It's just a little picture of what is due.
To the commander of the air group, or the captain of the ship, and even our commander who was a commander in rank.
Well, he got his fitness report from the fellow that was the commander of the air group, and the commander of the air group got his fitness report written up by the captain of the ship. And so of course it was his personal interest to give deference.
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If for no other reason than his own advantage. But it was protocol in the Navy. And that's how we behaved. And I've often thought about that, you know it. Sit up straight in the chair, put down a cup of coffee, quit playing our game, whatever we're doing, and give complete attention to the one with the authority who had just entered. There was a reverence or a respect, I could should say, given to that person.
And so it is.
And now, of course, I could get real legal at this point and say, you know, when we're in the presence of the Lord.
Especially in the breaking of Brad, of course there is a demeanor and my own exercise is to sit up straight and you know, I almost hesitate to go into this.
But it's my exercise.
And uh.
To give due respect and to pay attention, especially when the brother is reading the scriptures or praying or were singing a hymn and and discipline myself.
And it takes discipline to pay attention to the words that we're singing.
I don't know if you're like I am. I can go through a whole hymn and not even know what I just sang. My mind can be 1000 miles away.
And I could, uh, live the rest of my life that way. And it's a continual exercise to pay attention and to give proper respect. This is what Moses had to do. And these were the parameters for Moses. So rather than to go into detail and give a list of, you know.
If our hearts are in reverence before the Lord, if we're there with without our boots on, with unshod feet, I'm not saying come barefoot, but in the picture, it couldn't just stomp up there to get a closer look and have his curiosity satisfied. And Moses was a godly man too. Not talking about the heathen here. So in that sense that we're certainly speaks to me.
As one who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ is one with whom we have intimacy.
But not familiarity.
Now we didn't have intimacy.
I wasn't invited to the captain's quarters. I was once when I ejected and was picked back up and brought back to the ship and I went immediately soaking wet.
To his office and my commander was there and the CAG was there and the captain of the ship was there because they wanted to know what happened and they wanted to know before I talked to anybody else. But even there, there was the respect shown, even though the seawater is dripping onto his floor.
Put off size shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy, holy, holy ground.
And I know that there was a deportment.
With our older brothers in years past.
And it was one of discipline and reverence.
Now the whole culture in Western civilization and especially North America.
Is getting a lot more slack and casual.
So we could go over to Joshua chapter, uh.
5.
And verse 13. I think this was read within the last few days. I recall this.
Moses then.
In heating and giving respect to God.
Is commissioned for.
A task that has eternal reward. Now there is purpose for Moses.
And we like purpose.
We'd like to think there is, and certainly there is.
And only we that know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and God as Father understand that. And in all its ramifications, it's eternal. It's just not a a spasm of consciousness that we're waddling through trying to find the most that will tickle us along the way. We have a lot more invested.
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We belong to God. The next generation comes, and that's Joshua.
So we come to the next generation.
And, uh, he had to deal.
With those in Israel that went through.
And all the old folks died and those over under 20 are with him now.
With the exception of Caleb, who is also with him.
And about to go into the promised land.
Well, you might say the whipper snappers, huh?
Our generation, today's day.
And we can't be so much guided by the fellows sitting next to us anymore, as our forefathers were.
But we can be guided yet.
By what is due to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that in Joshua chapter 5 verse 13 it came to pass. When Joshua was by Jericho and he was about to bring them in, he left it up his eyes and looked. And behold, there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand, And Joshua went unto him.
Said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? Didn't recognize him at this point.
And Joshua had an immense task right at hand.
Is this one for us or against us? This is important to a tactician like Joshua.
And the answer is Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come?
Christ is our head. He is our Lord as well as our Savior.
Head of the Church, Lord of each one of us.
And we need to be reminded of that.
And respect him for all that we have in view of what is due to him.
Joshua fell on his face to the earth.
And did worship.
We don't.
Literally fall on our face in a collective way. I know that in our privacy, in our own lives, we.
Be on our knees in prayer. Why? We can't dismiss that.
Provision that we have at the throne of grace.
And succeed in the Christian pathway.
And of course, collectively in the prayer meeting, we do the same thing.
But here it's worship.
Phillip brother stands when he addresses God collectively for the assembly.
And when he reads the scriptures and prays or breaks the bread.
It's protocol, and it's an expression of respect and reverence.
For the one whose presence we're in.
Fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? Oh, to be in his presence, not to have a list, but to be in his presence.
And disciplined there we'll hear a lot more, we'll enjoy a lot more, and we'll have a lot more for him.
We have the same instruction for this next generation. The captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua.
Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.
And Joshua didn't say, but Sir.
Joshua did so.