Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Ministry from David Gilliland Saturday afternoon.

[0:02] It’s most encouraging to see all who have assembled for this afternoon, and we look to the Lord for his help.
And I would like you to read two passages. First of all, the book of Exodus and chapter 19.
The book of Exodus and chapter 19.

[0:26] And we’ll commence at verse one of Exodus chapter 19.

[0:33] In the third month when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai, for they were departed from Rephidim and were come to the desert of Sinai and had pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel camped before the mount.
And Moses went up unto God, And the Lord called unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, And tell the children of Israel, Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, And how I bare you on eagles’ wings, And brought you unto myself.
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, And keep my covenant, Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, Above all people, for all the earth is mine.
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

[1:39] Chapter 20, we have the commandments, verse one, God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Now with that, a reading from the book of Numbers and chapter 10, the book of Numbers on chapter 10.

[2:09] And we read in verse 1, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Make thee two trumpets of silver, of a whole piece shalt thou make them, that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.
Verse 11, It came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony, And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran. And they first took their journey according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. In the first place went the standard of the camp, of the children of Judah according to their armies, and so on.” Now, I think that will be sufficient for reading, we trust the Lord’s blessing upon His Word.

[3:13] I know if I told you that I was going to try and cover 60 chapters of the Bible, you might think it a rather daunting task, especially for the first session after that very enjoyable lunch, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
And I want to just present to you a large canvas of the first five books of the Bible, and then a discrete section within those five books. I’m more and more convinced, the more I read the Scriptures, that if we can see how the Scriptures hold together, the shape.

[3:58] The structure, the symmetry of Holy Scripture, then we’re in a better position to appreciate the substance.
Very often we’re a little bit guilty of proof texting, and we reach for a text and we lift it out, and we use it sometimes to great advantage, sometimes spiritually, but we just take the text maybe a little bit out of context and better to see it in context. And so I want to spend 40 minutes or so or whatever the time will be at Mount Sinai. Wonderful place, interesting place it is. Interesting place geographically, very bleak, barren wilderness. The landscape is very bare, Anything but picturesque. Once you get to Mount Sinai you can see nothing but those towering mountain peaks. You feel yourself to be very small. You look to the left, to the right, there’s nothing exciting. Grass is very scarce. Desert and granite rock in abundant supply. Everything amazingly quiet. Hardly anything to be heard but the chirp of a bird. And in the silence and in the solitude of Sinai.

[5:27] God brought a people and he settled them there for a year.

[5:33] It was quite a marvelous year, 11 months and two-thirds of a month.
When they had finished that almost 12-month period at Mount Sinai, they were poised to be the greatest people on the face of planet Earth.

[5:54] When they arrived there, they had just been slain, making bricks, down in Egypt, under the thralldom of the prince of this world, Pharaoh.
God by a mighty arm had brought them out.

[6:11] He has great things in mind for this people, but before he launches them on their worldwide mission, he stops and he gives them a crash course of spiritual education at, what do, we call this place, Eastern Christian School.
Well, we’ll talk about Eastern Sinai School.
And at the School of Sinai, it was quite a marvelous experience for God and a nation.
And in the silence of that auditorium, an auditorium which he, as the creator, had already carved out and had erected, knowing that it would be needed, a ready-made classroom.
They were separated from all the noise, the excitement, the sensations, the bright lights of Egypt.
And God said, I want you out here, and you will give me your undivided attention, undistracted, undiverted attention.
And he said, within a space of a year, I will teach you.
What did it say here?
What do they do? Eastern Christian School, engaging, Nurturing, transforming, well, that’s what God did.
Said I’ll engage you.

[7:33] And I’ll talk to you, and I’ll speak to you.” And they stood, riveted, shuddering at the foot of Mount Sinai. They had never been in a classroom like this before, and they heard literally the voice of God. He engaged them. He nurtured them. They’d just been born as a nation.

[7:58] Under the banner of the blood of the Lamb, they had exited Egypt.
They’re just a fledgling nation just commencing out on their national history, and God nurtured them.
And for those 12 months at Mount Sinai, he treated them very, very tenderly, and he gave them quite a number of concessions.
And as a newborn nation, they were given very, very special attention. He engaged them.
He nurtured them. What was the third word? You have to get your sermon somewhere. Transform.
Oh, I tell you, he transformed them. When they came to Mount Sinai, they were just a little bunch of families and tribes.
When they left Mount Sinai, they marched out as a highly-formed, disciplined nation to conquer the world for God, altogether different and transformed.
Now, you’ll come with me then, just for these minutes, to the school of Sinai, and we’ll observe God giving a people the equipment so that they will be able to become for him what he intends them to become.

[9:23] It’s quite an interesting thing that in the first five books of our Bible, we have about 60 chapters.
I read with you at the beginning of Exodus chapter 19.
Then we skipped over to Numbers chapter 10.
So the rest of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, the first 10 chapters of Numbers, about those 59 or 60 chapters, are all taken up with that 12-month period at the School of Sinai.

[9:55] That has never been repeated in world history. That is a one-off. The making, the molding, the marking, and the maturing of the infant nation of Israel in the school of Sinai.
Before we get to Sinai, we have what, 50 chapters in Genesis, 60, 70 chapters. We have about 70 chapters before Sinai. We have about 60 chapters after Sinai, and the whole middle of what we call the Pentateuch, the first great five books of the Bible with its 187 chapters, about 60 chapters right in the middle of those five books are all devoted to 12 months period. At Sinai, when the, The God who had accomplished the emancipation, he said, you have seen that I brought you out of Egypt and they were set free from the galling chains of Egyptian bondage.
Great to be free.

[11:03] Here we have a congregation of people this afternoon and we have often sung together, my chains are snapped, the bonds of sin are broken, and I am free.
We once were slaves to the prince of this world. Grace has intervened.
Redemption price has been paid.
We have become the recipients of a marvelous emancipation.

[11:29] We have known redemption, Lord, from bondage worse than theirs by far.
Sin held us by a stronger cord.
By thy mercy free we are. What an emancipation! he said, I brought you out from Egypt.
And then there was an elevation.
He said, I not only brought you out, But he said, I brought you on eagle’s wing.

[11:56] He said, I lifted you to a higher level, and from the mud plains of the River Nile, making bricks, with your nose grinding in the dust. He said, I have brought you across the sea and into the uplands of Mount Sinai, and I’ve planted your feet upon higher ground. Well, I tell you, dear Christians, we are higher still. Not only has grace brought us out, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. We have experienced an emancipation. We have enjoyed a spiritual elevation with Christ. And God said, now, He said, I’m interested in your education.

[12:38] He said, just when I have you here, having brought you out and brought you up, He said, I want you to sit at my feet and I will teach you. And He said, in this 12-month period of teaching, Well, we all know that there is no teacher like the Lord himself.
When the Lord takes in hand to teach people, he can do it. It doesn’t take a six-year course or a 10-year course.
The Lord Jesus, in three years, took rough pieces of Galilean granite and he produced a little college of men that moved out and took the world for his glory.
He can teach great lessons in a short space of time. So, at the Eastern Sinai School, God nurtures them, He engages them, and He transforms them in that period of 12 months, and the details are given to us over those 60 chapters. You say, I don’t like those chapters, all that stuff about Leviticus, and all those things about entrails of animals, and kidneys, and liver, and all that kind of stuff. You say, I skip those, pieces in my Bible. Do you? Do you do that? Do you think God has put them in there just to fill up space? This was part of God’s education of this people. And in that period, I want to highlight, and I’ll do it very, very quickly. I want to highlight five great institutions which God.

[14:01] Gave them in that one year crash course of spiritual instruction at Mount Sinai.

[14:09] And when they left Mount Sinai, the God who had emancipated them and elevated them and educated them, he had equipped them.

[14:19] By means of these five institutions, he had equipped them to go out and to be a marvellous…
He said, in fact, you’ll be a treasure. You’ll be a treasure. He said, I’ll value you. He said, you’ll be a real treasure. He said, all the people of the earth are mine. He said, I own the whole business. All the Amorites and the Hittites and the Hibbites and the Jebusites and the Hooligites and the Girgisites. He said, I own them all. But he said, out of them all, you’ll be special. You’ll You’ll be my treasure.
I’ll value you. For he said, I have a work for you to do that none of the rest of them will have.
And he said, you’ll be really valuable because you’re going to become witnesses for me.
It’s a great thing, dear Christian. If you can appreciate just today how valuable we are to God, he’s made us witnesses, not only saved us, but we are to become sounding boards for the spread of the message of his son.
We are to become testimony bearers to the rejected, but returning Christ, and we are valuable.
So he said, you’re going to be a special treasure unto, and he said, I have a task for you.
He said, the reason you’ll be a treasure unto me as a special nation above all the nations of the earth, he said, you’re going to be a holy nation and you’re going to be a kingdom of priests.

[15:41] Hmm, you say, what does that mean? Well, he said, that’s what I intend for you.
He said, I want you to become a mediatorial nation, a kingdom of priests.
We were reminded earlier that a priest is a man that introduces people into the presence of God.
He said, I want you to become testimony. Do you see all these heathen people all around you that know nothing about me?
He said, I want all those people to get to know me through you.

[16:08] You’ll become a kingdom of priests. You’ll become a conduit directing people to the knowledge of the true God. He said all of those people out there have no idea who God is or what God is and they’re worshiping all kinds of idolatry and frogs and lizards and wizards and all kinds of things. But he said you are the monotheistic nation, you know the true God and I have saved, you and he said through you these people were brought out of the ignorance of their idolatry to get to know me you will be a mediatorial nation he said that’s a big task well he said as well as that you will not only be a mediatorial nation he said you will be a model nation you’ll be a holy nation he said because you know me and because your testimony bearers for me he said you’ll live holy lives.” He said, those people don’t live holy lives. They don’t know the word holiness, not even in their vocabulary. He said, associated with their idolatry is all kinds of immorality and all kinds of confusion and all kinds of corruption. And he said, they don’t know it.
But he said, through you, he said, when they see the way you live, they will get to know me and they will be attracted by the morality of your life and by the standards of your behavior.
So he said that’s quite, well I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, God had some big ideas, didn’t he?

[17:35] When he saved Israel, you say I thought he just brought Israel in so that he might stir up world politics a little bit and that he might create some kind of a social construct in the surface, of planet earth and leave everybody a little bit out of joint because of this weird people, that have been brought into existence. No, God brought Israel into existence so that they may become testimony bearers to him and that through their testimony and their holy living, and their knowledge of God that other people might be brought to know God as well. Is it any different for us? Is that not why he saved us? He’s brought us out and given us a spiritual elevation, lifted us to higher level, given us an intuition into the understanding of spiritual things that the clever people of this world know nothing about. And He not only has touched our personality at the deepest level by His indwelling Holy Spirit, enriched our minds, He has ennobled our behavior. We live according to a different standard. We march to a different drumbeat.
The people out there, through our life, through our testimony, they could be brought to inquire why do they live differently.

[18:56] What is there about this people that seems to be so distinct?
What is the driving dynamic of their belief and their behavior?
And they begin to inquire and get… Oh, you had one or two like Rahab the harlot.
She wondered what sort of people are these and she got saved.
Queen of Sheba, she saw some of these people and she got saved.
And there were a few here and there.
And Israel did become the vehicle, the avenue through which some of these forlorn Gentiles were brought to know the true God of Israel.
God said, that’s the task, that you would be a holy nation and that you would be a kingdom of priests. And he said, you’ll be valuable. He said, I’ll really appreciate you. You’ll be a treasure.

[19:44] Because you will have such a task. It’s a big task. But he said, so that you can fulfill that task, I will give you a special training.” And that’s the 12 months at Sinai. And God did give them at Sinai a very, very special training. And He put into their possession, I say, those very unique implements, items, institutions. They didn’t have any of these when they came to Sinai.
When they left Sinai, they were furnished and they were equipped with all that they needed.
You know, I’m glad. I’m glad that we serve a God. And He never sends people to do the impossible without giving the equipment.
I’ve been reminded already of that today. The Apostle Paul was a chosen vessel to bear the name of God before the Gentiles, and he was given the equipment to do exactly what he was to do. So with the other apostles, so with Moses. Moses met God at this very same mountain.

[20:45] A number of months before this, and God gave Moses the equipment to do his work.
Now, it’s not a man at the mountain, it’s a whole nation, 603,550.
It’s a very large classroom. It’s a wonderful auditorium. It’s a marvelous teacher.
It’s an interesting syllabus. It’s an amazing goal, and it’s a short course.
And when it is over, I say, these people will be the students of the one true God of heaven, able to reach the world for his glory. And if they don’t fulfill their task.

[21:27] It will not be because they didn’t receive the equipment. There will be no blame with the teacher. So you say, well, what exactly did he teach them? What was the training? What were the subjects that were involved? The five subjects that you have mentioned? Well, those five subjects cover these 60 chapters from Exodus 19 to Numbers chapter 10. And I could go through them in fine detail, but you would only become lost in the crowd. And so would I, and I’ll not do that. But the five of these, first of all, the stone. You should look after those, stone. It said, inscribed the engraving of the great creator. God scratched out on the, the granite stones of Horeb, his word.

[22:19] There’s not another nation in all the world of that day or this day, ever received stone written with the very finger of God.
He said, that’s the first part. You need to get a revelation from me.
If you’re going to be a witness for me, you’ll have to have a word from me.
And so he had the stone.
That’s Exodus chapter 19 to maybe chapter 24.
Then he said, there’ll be a sanctuary. He said, I’m going to give you a sanctuary that you can build for me and I will live in the midst of you. For he said, you couldn’t. Oh, he said, you couldn’t.
You couldn’t be a witness for me if you didn’t have my presence.
He said, you’ll not be able to do it on your own strength. He said, the secret of your success in this great mission to reach the Gentiles will be my presence in the midst of his people.
So he said, I’m going to give you the specifications for a very special tent, and I will lift the stones and the sanctuary.
Then he said, I want to teach you about sacrifices.

[23:28] And I’m going to show you just how the sacrifices are all to be laid upon the altar.
And there’ll be sin offerings and meal offerings and burnt offerings and peace offerings and trespass offerings and consecrate… Oh, you say, I thought you just killed an animal and that was it.
No, no, God said you need to get all the sacrifices. You need to know what’s what.
And you need to know the different aspects. You don’t just talk about sacrifice as one grade block category. He said, learn the distinctions my people. He said, I’m going to initiate you into the understanding of the whole thesis of sacrifice and the meaning of the altar and the, value of sprinkled blood. And he said, through you, when you become witnesses for me amongst the nations, he said, they will learn that relationship with me depends upon the value of satisfaction that has been made at the altar. So the stone, and the sanctuary, and the sacrifices, and he said, there’s more. He said, I want to give you a new calendar, And I’m going to give you a calendar with seven seasons.

[24:39] And he said, this calendar of seven seasons, I will detail it for you.
You’ll read about it all in Leviticus chapter 23.
And that great sabbatical calendar, you say, did other nations not have a calendar?
They might’ve had a calendar, but they didn’t have a calendar like this calendar.
God put the stamp of his own understanding upon this special seven season calendar, which he gave to Israel.
And he said, you’ll discover, you’ll have seasons all together, when other nations are involved in all kinds of orgies. And he said, they’re having all kinds of licentious celebrations.
He said, you’ll have holy convocations, and you’ll have holidays of a totally different kind, and you’ll be thinking about things at these special seasons that never enter into the mind of the heathen. And he said, it will make you distinct. And because you will be distinct, you’ll be able to make an impact for me because people will want to know why the difference?

[25:45] Why the difference? I think I’m not taking time. I don’t have the time. I’m not taking time to apply all of that. But you see, God has given us certain things that make us different. And people, should be asking why we do this and why we’re marching to a different drumbeat and why we have different outlooks and priorities in life and a totally distinct worldview. So, you’re following with me, I think, in this crash course of education at the School of Sinai. And I say, separated from all the distractions of Egypt, they listened and they looked and they learned, from the stone, from the sanctuary, from the sacrifices, from the season. Then you.

[26:34] Get into the early chapters of the book of Numbers. God says I’m going to give you signals, two special signals. They didn’t have these signals coordinated before they came to Mount Sinai. He said there’ll be a signal for your ear, The silver trumpet, there’ll be a signal for your eye.
And he said, you’ll march through the wilderness and your pathway will be dictated by most unusual phenomena.
He said, the other people don’t go to the sound of silver trumpets and the other nations of this world don’t move according to a pillar shaking a cloud, but he said, you will.
Teaching, oh I say, isn’t it great to think of the teaching of the God of.
From the stones they would learn God’s principle.

[27:20] If God redeems people, they need to learn how to behave and live with each other, don’t steal and tell lies, and all those kinds of things that Christians would never think of doing.
And they learn God’s principles from the stones, thou shalt not.
From the sanctuary, they learn God’s pattern.
That is, if God is going to be with us, if we are going to enjoy His presence, there will be a sanctuary that is made according to his pattern.

[27:51] We’ll learn a little bit about that, I hope, just in a couple of minutes. From the sacrifices, they’re going to learn something about God’s rich provision. What a marvelous provision. Even if they fail, they had a sacrifice that would cover their failure. Thank God we learn, as Christian experience goes on, we learn the perennial and eternal value of Calvary, not just for the salvation of our soul, but for the maintenance of our communion with God. And they learned all of that, his provision from the sacrifice, his program from the season. Those programs, that great sabbatical calendar, those seven seasons throughout the year, they marked out the great stepping stones of God’s redemptive program. All of you, dear believers have often heard those special bible lectures by competent brethren on the seven feasts of Jehovah. Some of these younger brethren and sisters here get your hand around these things when you say it’s very difficult you I was only saved last year you wouldn’t expect me to know Israel has only saved six months. God said I’m going to teach you these things and they’re only saved six months, there’s no better time to learn than just at the start. Learn early.
As a young believer, put your mind to the big things of the Bible. Don’t content yourself with.

[29:21] Paddling around in the shallows of scripture and being an expert at baseball at the same time. You can’t be an expert in baseball and the Bible at one and the same time. I’m sorry to tell you, it won’t work. Get into God’s book as a young Christian. Make it. Make it the mold of your mind.
Make it the mark of your life. And it will challenge. And you will be for God what God intends you to be. That’s what he was doing for these people. And from those signals, they were going to learn not now God’s principles or his pattern or his provision or his program.
They’re going to learn God’s pathway. That we don’t go through the desert just at random.
It’s not a haphazard pathway. We take our stepping stones through the desert, guided by light from heaven.

[30:12] Guided by the sound, the signal of a silver trumpet, sounded by men of the sanctuary.
Wasn’t that it, dear Christians? Well, well, I better stop there. I better stop there.
Where do I start now? We’ll just go back over them again. I see some people beginning to sleep, so I’ll stop before you all sleep. But at the same time, we talked about a great meeting last night at the Mount of Transfiguration, and they fell asleep. If people could sleep at a meeting like that, well, surely they could sleep here this afternoon. But do it all when our brother’s speaking here. Don’t be tempted. Don’t even be tempted to think about it now. God says, I’m going to speak. He says, keep quiet, keep quiet. Moses, tell the people to keep quiet.
I’m going to speak in ten words, the great Decalogue. They’re never called in the Scriptures, the Ten Commandments, we call them the Ten Commandments, it’s just called the Ten Words.

[31:15] Written by the finger of God. And he said, put them in a golden box.
Don’t tamper with them, don’t tinker with them, don’t try to change them, don’t dilute them.
He said, don’t exchange them. He said, this is my word.
And he said, that’s the first thing you need to get.
You need to get a word from God.
If you’re going to be a witness for God, you need to get a word from God.
And you need to know how to treat his word.
Treat it, handle it with care, and treat it with reverence, and obey it with implicit trust.
You say, why 10 words?
What do you think?

[31:53] Why not 12? You see, I thought that would be a good number. Had to be a good number. 12 tribes, one for each tribe.
A lot of 12s. 12 low. 12 words. No, no, 10 words. Why 10?
That’s how the Bible commences. There’s a whole watery mass in Genesis chapter 1. At the beginning, when you reach the end of the chapter, It’s a beautiful creation, all transformed, and what has happened 10 times between the beginning of Genesis 1 and the end, you read, and God said.
And it was a statement of God’s Word that brought beauty and order and shape and form and symmetry to creation at the beginning, God’s creative Word.
I say to all of us, say to young believers here, if you want to have shape in your life.

[32:53] Let the Word of God have its power in your heart.
See what I’m saying? Many people complain to me about life. My life has gone a bit, pear-shaped, a bit topsy-turvy, a bit upside down. My life doesn’t seem to have any discipline, doesn’t seem to have any real order. I don’t seem to be going any… No, no, I tell you what to do, dear Christian young believer. You give God’s Word space and power in your life. God’s Word brings order. God’s Word brings light. God’s Word brings beauty. The very last statement of God’s Word, he said, let us make man in our own image. He said, I’ll put my image here and God’s Word will imprint upon your life and mine the very image of his son.” That’s what God wants to do.
Is there an old hymn that says somewhere, speaking about spiritual things, it says, Engrave this deeply.

[33:52] On our hearts with an eternal pen, that we may in some small degree return, would it be great if God would take an eternal pen. There’s a young man here today, and God could incisively scratch out on the tablet of his heart, at the very center of his personality. The God who left a permanent engraving of his word upon the stones to equip Israel. There’s a sister here and God could engrave upon your heart a message from heaven.
So indelibly imprinted by divine power that you would never forget it for the rest of your life.
God’s commanding Word, God’s creating Word, God’s changing Word.
You know I haven’t time to develop it. You know that Israel were never meant.
It’s a distortion. They say you’re to keep the Ten Commandments so that you can be saved.

[34:59] You could hardly find a bigger distortion of the Bible. God said to Israel, He said, you see these Ten Commandments, these Ten Words?
He says, I’m the Lord God that brought you out of Egypt.
He says, you don’t keep these commandments to be saved.
You keep them because you are saved.
He says, these are the responsibilities that you have because you’re my redeemed people.
You’re already mine. You don’t keep these to become mine.
You keep these because I have made you mine. That’s it, dear Christians.
We are so thrilled with the wonder of God’s grace that has saved us, redeemed us, has made us his very own.
That a response of obedience and appreciation. We give back to him our willing hearts.
I say to all of us, let us do that just now and say here, oh God, at this Midland Park Conference 2023, We give you the tablet of our heart.

[35:53] With that eternal pen in scribe what we need to learn and the impression of God’s sanctuary in my heart will become the expression of my testimony to the world and his word will make a mark on me that means that I will then be able to make my mark for him it’s the word of the stones he said He said, you keep them, take my word seriously, the stones.
The sanctuary.

[36:23] Well, he said, I’m gonna live with you, I’m gonna give you my presence.
He said, you live in tents, I live in a tent too.
I’ll accommodate myself to your situation. Isn’t that the God that we serve?
But he said, you’ll have to make the tent according to my specification.
And he said, the rooms and the shape and the sizes, all of those things.
And he said, be very careful that you make it according to the pattern.
And he said, arrange your whole lives around that pattern. He said, make this house, and I can’t go into all the details, but he tells them all this at that year in Mount Sinai.
He said, make your camp around this pattern, the 12 tribes right here.
And he said, have it in the center. Don’t put the tabernacle out at the edge.
He said, put it right in the middle. He said, my presence will be there with my pattern.
I say, dear Christians, that’s another thing. If I can transfer it very quickly, without terminutical justification, if I can transfer it very quickly onto New Testament ground, God has not only given us his word, thank God he has given us the pattern of his dwelling place.

[37:30] There are a lot of ways of doing church in our day.
Used to be denominational churches. I speak with respect to many dear people and good people that were associated with such institutions.
Now it’s the megachurch.
Now it’s the community. You say, but there’s so many ways of doing church.
How do you know what way to do it? The pattern.

[37:56] And make the pattern the center of your life. Young people here with corporate world backering, climbing the ladder, the commands and the demands of career, the peer pressure to succeed in the material things of this world.
It’s very, very easy to put the assembly out to the air.

[38:20] Especially on Primary Day night, Wednesday or Tuesday night or whatever it is, put it out on the… Oh, I’ll turn up on Sunday and I’ll dip my toe into the water of Assembly Fellowship at the Remembrance Meeting and I’ll give it a bye for the rest of the week and I’ll organize my life and I’ll have the Assembly just nicely in one little comfortable corner that doesn’t interrupt my program. That’s not the way to do life for God.
If we are going to be a testimony for Him, we must appreciate the value of His Word and the principles of His Word, and we must appreciate the pattern and the centrality of His sanctuary.
I represent a generation before me, and maybe a little bit before that, they had many weaknesses.
They weren’t perfect.
But I’ll tell you this, dear Christians, we have to lift off our hat to a previous generation of brethren and sisters who lived in the 50s and 60s, and whatever we say about them or whatever we do not say about them, we have to say this, the things of God and the assembly, of God were their absolute priority.
Far too many of us are living second-rate Christianity.
Today, this conference is the time to reshuffle our priorities.
You say you don’t know anything about it. Are you sure?
Was I not in corporate world?
Did I not experience the demands of education and this, that, and the other, at least in measure?

[39:45] Did I not know what it was to say no to some of the offers because of the assembly?
By the grace of God, I say, we need to get back to basic Christianity.

[39:55] We’re trying to convince ourselves that we can be high flyers in the world with its possessions and its pleasures, and at the same time be men and women for God, hardly likely.
That was the education, and then the sacrifices. I say I’m going to have to stop here.
Well, that was a great thing. You say, what is it, the burnt offering, and the meat offering, and the sin offering, the trespass offering, and all that in Leviticus 1 to 7. You say, we started the trespass offering. What do you mean? We started the trespass offering, and you go back up to the burnt offering. Who told you that?

[40:37] It. You don’t start at the Trestle, you start at the Passover. We start at Exodus 12. Those, offerings in Leviticus chapter 1 to 7 were not to tell these people how to be brought into communion with God, it would tell these people how to maintain communion that had, already been established. And if I’m in communion, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, brought out into freedom, into fellowship with God, and I make mistakes and I fail in my commitments. You say that’s the whole relationship over. No, thank God for the, value of sacrifice and the value of Calvary. And we go back to the cross. The, Apostle Paul would say, for example, in Ephesians chapter 5, Christ loved us, gave himself for us, and offering a sacrifice to God for a sweet, you say, that’s a burnt offering. Hallelujah!
You say Ephesians chapter 4, God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us our sin. You say that’s the peace offering. Exactly. Ephesians chapter 2, he is our peace and he has slain the enmity by the blood of the cross. You say that’s the peace offering. Yes. Ephesians chapter 1, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins. It’ll say in the margin of your Bible, trespasses.
The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches. You say that’s the trespass. Yes, exactly.
We are coming on. You see, if we didn’t have the pictures of Leviticus.

[42:03] There are facets of the death of Christ that we would never be able to distinguish.

[42:09] That’s why we, you’re coming into New York and you look at the skyline and you’ve got your, you’ve come from just the dark woods of Ireland And you have a little handbook that says New York and all the details.
And you see all these buildings. And you say, that’s the Empire State Building.
And that’s the Rockefeller Center.
And, oh no, you say, no, no, that one’s the Empire State Building.
And you go back to the handbook.
But you say, you’ve got to New York. You’ve got to New York.
Forget about the handbook. Throw the handbook overboard. You’ve got the real thing.
Don’t worry anymore about the handbook.
No, the handbook is still useful, even when you get to New York.
And the handbook can tell you, oh, that’s so that when we get the real thing in Christ, we still go back to the pictures of the Old Testament and the pictures of the Old Testament.
If I was just reading the New Testament, I couldn’t distinguish those things that I have just mentioned.

[43:04] Anyway, that’s it, that’s it. I’m stopping here. We’ll have to leave the season.
God has given us a different calendar, a redemptive program.
Even the youngest believer here carries within his heart or within her heart some idea of God’s great program for the future, what a difference it has made to our lives.
We come to meetings like this where we hear the sound of the silver trumpets, the clarion note that would call us, and point us out the way to go and show us the path.
And you say, well, after 12 months like that, where did they go?
They pulled up their stakes.

[43:43] They marched out from Sinai. They had a great task, they had a great training, and they went out and they conquered the world for God. Oh.

[43:57] It would break your heart. They didn’t obey his word. They didn’t respect his tabernacle.
Get away to Samuel’s day, and there were men in the tabernacle, and they were having illicit relationships with Saul. That was terrible.
They didn’t appreciate the cloud. They missed the mark. And instead of worshiping the one true God, they themselves, like the Gentiles, began to worship the very same idols of the Gentiles, and they lost their power, and they lost their identity. And when God was speaking to old Elijah, hundreds of years later, this nation that God had trained for a mighty task for him, He says, Elijah, there’s only 7,000.

[44:41] You say, what? 7,000? And it started off with 605,000 that were at the school of Sinai.
Now there’s only 7,000? A meager number, a mere fraction that haven’t bowed the knee to Baal.
What an abysmal failure.
And yet the day will come when God, through Christ, will bring that nation back.
And they will be what God intended them to be, and they will become a model nation, exhibiting the glory of the reigning Christ to the whole world.
I’m saying this, dear Christians, God made us to be a testimony for Him.
He has given us a training, His Word, the local assembly, the ministry of the Holy Scriptures, the value of Calvary, the great prophetic program.
He has given us all that we need so that we might be a mighty force for his glory.
May God grant we’ll not dilute our effectiveness and that we’ll not compromise our service, by a failure to appreciate the training and the transforming teaching which God has given to us in his word.

[45:58] Eastern Christian School, Eastern Sinai School, I trust the Lord will help us to learn the lessons of this ancient 60-chapter document of Old Testament Scripture.
May the Lord bless us.

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