Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Leonard Ravenhill with his
message, Who is Touching the Ark?
Through Samuel 6 we read from verse 1,
Again David gathered together all the chosen men
of Israel, thirty thousand.
And David arose and went with all the
people that were with him from the valley
of Judah to bring up from thence the
ark of God, whose name is called by
the name of the Lord of hosts that
dwelleth between the cherubim.
And they set the ark of God upon
a new cart, and brought it out of
the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah,
and Uther and Ahio.
Ahio, that's not a state, that's the name
of a man.
The sons of Abinadab drove the new cart,
and they brought it out of the house
of Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying the
ark of God.
And Ahio went before the ark.
And David and all the house of Israel
played before the Lord, and all instruments, men
of instruments, made of firwood, even on harps
and psalteries, on timbrels, on connets and cymbals.
And when they came to Nacon's threshing floor,
Uther put forth his hand to the ark
of God, and took hold of it, for
the oxen shook it.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Uther, and God smote him there for
his error, and there he died by the
ark of God.
Let's look a minute here in the 25th
chapter of Exodus.
Exodus chapter 25.
Remember, the beginning of this chapter is where
the Lord is selecting.
He's going to do what I think must
have been very strange to Israel.
They had never had any covering in the
sense of a tabernacle.
They'd been nomads.
They'd had no priests.
They'd had the heavens for the ceiling of
their church, if you like.
And now suddenly, instead of being enlarged, they're
contracted to a small space that's called, has
been called again, the tabernacle in the wilderness.
And God gives specific instructions to this amazing
man Moses, about the building.
It's very interesting that he had no choice
in this.
He obeyed every commandment God gave to him.
He had no more choice in the colors
of the thing, any more than Noah had
a choice of what kind of a rainbow
he wanted.
He never wondered what kind of a rainbow
he might have chosen.
If the Lord said, you choose the colors,
it would have been a mess.
If he'd asked me, I wouldn't know the
colors.
But he just did as he was commanded.
And it says in verse 8 of the
25th chapter of Exodus, let them make me
a sanctuary that I may dwell among them,
according to all that I show thee, after
the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern
of all the instruments thereof, even so shall
ye make it.
Okay, come down to verse 17.
Thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure
gold, two cubits and a half shall be
the length thereof, and a cubit and a
half the breadth thereof.
And thou shalt make two cherubins of gold,
a beaten work shalt thou make them in
the two ends of the mercy seat, and
make one cherub on one end and the
other cherub on the other, even of the
mercy seat shall ye make the cherubins on
the two ends thereof.
And the cherubins shall stretch forth their wings
on high, covering the mercy seat with their
wings, and their faces shall look one to
another.
Towards the mercy seat shall the faces of
the cherubins be.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above
upon the ark, and in the ark thou
shalt put the testimony that I shall give
thee, and there will I meet with thee.
Now that's the first piece of furniture mentioned
as regards the tabernacle.
It was roughly 54 inches long, this ark.
It was a three feet high and three
feet wide, and it was a visible presence
of an invisible power.
It was a kind of a earthly resting
place where God put his power between those
awesome cherubins.
Remember how often the psalmist cries, O thou
that dwellest between the cherubins, shine forth.
Psalm 80 particularly, before Ephraim and Manasseh, stir
up thy strength and come and save us.
If you talk about the ark, usually people
think you mean the ark where, you know,
the children play with at home, they were
little animals, and they go into Noah's ark.
Well that was an ark all right.
Now do you remember another ark beside that?
Well it was a little thing a woman
made to put a baby in.
She made an ark of bulrushes.
And thirdly you have this ark.
Now the ark, actually the word really means,
if you get right to the bottom of
it, it means a place to preserve something
intact.
It has complete coverage.
You know I've said so often that faith
does three things.
It reckons, it risks, and it rests.
I think the mother of Moses must have
been, well she sure was a wonderful woman,
and she put that baby in that little
ark and pushed it out onto the waters
of the Nile.
I think it's a horrible risk.
Now did she know a crocodile wouldn't eat
it before she had hardly turned her back?
Or the lid could have blown off and
the sun might have scorched the baby crisp,
or it could have been carried away on
the on the flood, or somebody could have
stole it.
But you see when you get a word
from God, you're not going to be shaken
by the Philistines or anybody else outside.
God had told her what to do and
she obeyed.
And again that's the key, that's the anchorage
of spiritual success, spiritual maturity, is obedience.
To obey is better than sacrifice.
Remember King Saul filled a hole of that
that valley with beasts, and yet he retained
a few of the price stock.
And when Samuel came up to him and
spoke to him, he said, well I've done
as you said, and the little sheep gave
the story away enough.
Wonderful what little animals have taken important parts
in the Bible isn't it?
And Samuel says, if you've done what you
said you've done, what meaneth this bleating of
the sheep?
And the lowing of the oxen which I
hear.
To obey is better than sacrifice.
There is no substitute for obedience.
None, not there, not now, not ever.
Again trust and obey, there's no other way,
there's no other outlet.
You either do as God says, all right,
you begin to shrink, you begin to wither.
Now here is the ark, and the measurements
are given to us.
Verse 22 says, there will I meet with
thee.
And that was the supreme desire of God.
It's the supreme desire of God today, that
when we come together we meet with him.
As I usually ask people when, somewhere in
a meeting, did you come here, or did
you come here tonight to meet God, or
did you come to hear a sermon about
him?
I talked with somebody today, an internationally known
figure who said, you know, I'm realizing how
little I know of God, and I had
offered somebody a sermon that, uh, there's the
most profound thing I've ever heard, and this
person said, I don't, I feel as though
I don't want to preach anymore.
I said, well that's how I felt when
I, when I heard the, the depth that
this man has.
Talking about Jesus laying his glory by and
being wrapped in our clay.
Oh God pity us, we're so commercialized, we're
so regulated by circumstances, we get up with
the clock, the clock runs our lives, that
we lose sight of eternity, we lose sight
of the wonder of God's salvation.
And the key concern is about the whole
of the building of this marvelous, you know,
if you want to call it, kind of
a private area that was to be roped
off, and, and again when you think of
all the linen that was put round, and
every thread, billions of them were put in
there by hand.
Rather staggering, isn't it?
And then there's to be a, a place,
a holy place, and then not only a
holy place, but the holy of holies.
And this ark was put not in the
holy place, it's put in the holy of
holies, and it has the chief place in
the holy of holies, and inside of it
you'll have the, uh, the rod that budded,
and you'll, you'll have a sample of the
manna that fell from heaven, and it didn't
get worms in it either, and, uh, and
there you have the tables of stone.
These, this testimony of God has to be
preserved.
And the ark is, is an abiding place
for God on earth, that is, he manifests
himself there.
Uh, let's, let's skip over a minute here,
and read in the first book of Samuel,
and, uh, chapter five, sorry.
We can't go through the whole thing, this
is a fantastic study.
I'm going to do it myself, but I
couldn't do it tonight, because it would take
up too much time.
But if you want to find a, a,
a, a minute, excuse me, a minute account
of this ark, and God's desire, and the
way it moved around, you'd have to go
to the first book, go to the first
book, uh, of Chronicles, and chapters 12 to
16, and you'll find a very marvelous account
of the moving of that wonderful ark.
And then, of course, you'd have to read
Psalm 68, and Psalm 101, which, which also
deal with him, and this, and Psalm 24.
You see, this is some little bit of
furniture that's tucked away in the corner that
has no meaning, meaning it's the abiding place.
If you like, it's the seat, it's the
dwelling place.
You, you have the ark, and then on
the, on the top of the ark, you,
you have a mercy seat.
The Salvation Army never used to talk about
coming to the altar, they used to sing.
I remember that years ago, 60, 70 years
ago, when the army used to sing, come
to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring you wounded heart, here, uh, tell
your anguish, earth has no sorrow that heaven
cannot heal.
There's a mercy seat, a blood-sprinkled mercy
seat.
Somebody afterwards removed that lid and looked inside,
and because they did, they, they got into
serious trouble.
Now, if you read those Psalms again, 68
and 101 and Psalm 24, you'll find this
thing goes immensely, immensely interesting.
Okay, we're now in the first book of
Samuel, chapter 5.
The Philistines took the ark of God and
brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
When the Philistines took the ark of God,
they brought it into the house of Dagon
and set it by Dagon.
Now, when they of Ashdod rose early in
the morning, behold, Dagon had fallen upon his
face on the earth before the ark of
God.
And they took Dagon and set him on
his place again.
And they rose early in the morning, and
he was fallen on his face, and his
head and his hands had broken off.
Now, you see here the peril of toying
or playing with holy things.
There's a verse I didn't look up, but
it talks about the iniquity of holy things.
Now that's something to really turn over, isn't
it?
How in the world can you have the
iniquity of holy things?
These people have captured the ark of God.
They thought it would do them good.
Instead it did put it at the side
of their God, this monstrous God.
Dagon, with the upper part of his body,
was a man, and the lower part a
fish.
Something like a mermaid you would say today.
And there he stood in a temple where
people worshiped him, and as soon as they
put the ark of God there, without anybody
doing a thing, big old Dagon fell down
on his face.
So they stood him up again.
And they went in the next morning, he
was worse off.
He not only fell down, his hands had
broken off, his feet had broken off, just
because of God's presence being there.
Now, see what happened further in the chapter.
When it was early in the morning, behold
Dagon was fallen upon his face to the
ground before the ark of the Lord.
And the head of Dagon and both the
palms of his hands were cut off upon
the threshold.
Only the stump of Dagon was left.
Therefore neither the priest of Dagon nor any
that came into Dagon's house dared tread on
the threshold of Dagon to this day.
You see, just that one visitation, that one
movement of God, terrified them.
So in a sense Dagon had to go
out to business.
Verse 6.
The hand of the Lord was heavy upon
them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and
smote them with emeralds, and Ashdod and the
cults thereof.
And when the men of Ashdod saw that
it was so, they said, The ark of
God of Israel shall not abide with us,
for his hand is sought upon us and
upon Dagon our God.
Going to the end of the eighth verse.
And they carried the ark of God, the
God of Israel.
They carried the ark of the God of
Israel out thither, and it was so after
they had carried it out that the hand
of the Lord was against the city.
Now here you are again, you see the
peril.
What I want to emphasize, two things.
I want to emphasize the peril of having
these holy things and misusing them.
And yet the peril is obviously the opposite
to the power.
Remember the children of Israel, one of their
marvelous escapades, they walked around the city seven
times.
What did they do?
They carried the ark of God.
So then that was the very presence of
God.
Can you imagine people on the walls looking
down and say, Well, who are these lunatics?
I mean, what are they doing?
They were not allowed to speak.
That must have been tough on some of
them.
They were not allowed to speak.
They walked around in silence.
They carried the ark.
What have they got there?
Is that a coffin?
What is it?
It's a casket.
You see, they were not allowed to mount
it.
When Moses was sharing out some of the
property of Israel, he gave various things to
various people, but the sons, I've forgotten his
name, Athon, I think it was, his sons
were not allowed to have any cattle or
any of the possessions.
They were separated to carrying the ark of
God.
Now the peril is this, and I think
to me it comes home with great force.
Or let me go to the other scripture.
Where did we read a bit earlier?
I've forgotten that chapter.
2 Samuel 6.
Okay.
2 Samuel 6 and verse 6.
When they came to Nacob's threshing floor, Uzar
put forth his hand to the ark of
God and took hold of it, and the
oxen shook it, and the anger of the
Lord was kindled against it.
Why?
Now they'd made a new cart for it.
God said it never had to be on
a cart.
God said it had to have four gold
rings, one on each corner, and put a
staff through it, and that men had to
carry this thing.
So they made a new cart.
You know, the Jews then, I don't know
about today, they loved new things.
Remember what Samson said, if you fasten me
with seven new ropes, then I shall be
like other men, or then I shall be
weak like other men.
Rather insulting to us, isn't it?
Remember it later, when Jesus died, they put
him in a new tomb.
When Jesus rode an ass, he rode one
that nobody had brought in.
It was entirely new.
They loved new things, and these people thought
they were doing God a favor by, you
know, modernizing this thing.
I mean, why carry the thing on your
shoulders anyhow, when oxen can do it?
Now I don't know what happened to these
oxen.
You know, it says that when they came
to the threshing floor of Uzar, maybe they
thought it was lunchtime.
You know, they could smell, hmm, that's the
stuff we eat, and hmm, right now they're
threshing some new wheat.
Hmm, we should stay and have some.
And maybe it was the very action of
those creatures that swayed the ox.
Now isn't it really awesome?
They didn't decide to paint it another color.
They didn't decide to put a second deck
on it.
They didn't disfigure it in any way.
The men didn't go in front of it
and start blaspheming.
The man somehow thought he do gotta, oh
look, the ark is going to topple over,
oh I'll hold it.
Somebody once asked Mr. Spurgeon if he would
join a society for the defense of the
bible, and he said you don't usually walk
before a lion with a sword.
Why do you need to defend the bible?
All this man did was put his hand
up to stay the ark, and immediately he
was smitten.
What do you think we're doing with the
gospel today?
Dressing it up?
Painting it up?
Somebody told me this week of a Christian
group, a rock band, a Christian, Christian rock
band.
Anyhow, whatever they are, they go around, and
now they've got sequins on their coats.
Well why not?
Johnny Cash has them, and all the other
guys have them.
I mean if the world can have them,
can't we?
Glitter, I mean if there's no other glitter,
we may as well stick it on the
outside if you're not on the inside.
Anyhow, and we try to study the ark
of God.
We're trying to put some improvement on the
ark of God.
We try to do that, I think, with
the translations we make of the word of
God.
We try and make sure those words are
just a little bit more easy.
As I said to some preachers I've preached
with this week, that if we go back,
and maybe mentioned it here before, if we
go back to bible language and and call
sin what it really is, instead of saying
somebody, you say that girl's a whore, you
say no no she's a call girl.
You say about a dirty filthy sodomite, oh
no no he's not a sodomite, he's just
gay.
There's nobody wicked, they're just weak.
There's no iniquity, it's just infirmity.
No backsliders anymore, that's a dirty word.
A lot of people have a fellowship, but
backsliders, you don't use that word.
Oh how smooth.
I remember reading a story of Mr Whitfield
where he was particularly angry one day.
I'd like to have heard Whitfield, I think
it had been right up my alley.
He got mighty furious about the possessions the
devil had.
He was always wanting the church to pull
down strongholds.
He was always seeing the enemy doing his
evil work, getting people to submit to him.
And one day he said, I'm going to
shoot the arrows of God into your heart.
And he said, he mentioned an arrow and
he pulled it, the arrow back like this,
and the congregation ducked, you know.
And that's the way to preach, if you
can get them to do that, at least
you've got them halfway down to the ground,
and maybe when you get them halfway down,
you can push them the other half.
But the anger of the Lord was kindled
against this man, and not only slaughtered him,
but killed him.
Come on, in God's name, what are we
doing with the gospel today?
Isn't it getting more emasculated?
Isn't it getting more Hollywood style?
Don't you miss the absence and the glory
of God?
Why, they got the very presence of God
in fact, and that's all we need.
There's an old hymn that says, God's presence
and his very self, an essence all divine.
I'll ask you again, I've asked you before,
when did you last go out to the
sanctuary?
Tiptoe, because God had revealed his holiness and
his majesty.
We go out very much as the same
way we came in.
Go out, we say, hey I like it
very much.
Someone like that in fears myself, which I've
got it.
Or I like some other trivial thing that's
got nothing to do with eternity and nothing
to do with God.
Oh my.
Notice in verse 5 now, go back a
minute here.
David and all the house of Israel played
before the Lord, and all instruments made of
fir, wood, even hearth, and psalteries, and timbrels,
and coronets, and ensembles.
Now that there is his ecstasy.
Now come down to verse 9.
This same David was afraid of the Lord
that day, and he said, how shall the
ark of the Lord come to me?
That's a big switch.
He's excited, they have their band music, everything's
having a wave of the time, and then
suddenly God intervenes, and suddenly his all emotional
life does a somersault.
He realizes what an awful God he serves.
What a God of majesty, what a God
of glory.
One minute everybody's excited, the next minute wouldn't
that be something?
It'd be like going into the uh that
experience you know when Ananias and Sapphira went
to church.
That must have been a great morning.
I would have enjoyed that I think.
I said, well Lord why do you why
do you stop with two hypocrites?
I'm sure half the congregation you could have
wiped them out at the same time.
It would have been more spectacular, but God
doesn't do it that way.
But I what I'm trying to say, rough
and tumble as it may be, because I'm
up to the hectic day today, that the
anger of God was kindled for a very
simple thing.
He did not take a hammer and break
the ark.
He didn't say this old piece of furniture
we can do that.
Do you know the ark is the only
thing that was taken out of the original
tabernacle and went into the temple of the
most high God?
Do you know afterwards in the book of
the revelation it says that's preserved the testimony
of God in an ark?
Now scholars will tell you that the ark
was destroyed in the uh second invasion and
the burning of Babylon and what have you
got, and maybe it was.
And yet God's presence, and that's what it
matters.
It isn't a case of having a wooden
box here.
What it's telling us is that God makes
their place in habitation.
Now as I said to somebody today this
is this is awesome, this is breathtaking, when
when you say well I'd like to go
and I wish we had a box and
you can say God's presence is there.
He's there in his holiness, he's there in
his majesty, he's there in his glory.
Be careful how you handle this thing.
Well we don't need a box, we don't
need a presence.
Why?
Because it says you're the habitation of God.
There's only so much of God's holiness in
this meeting as you and I fill with
the spirit of the holy spirit of God,
the pure spirit of God.
He doesn't dwell in temples, they owe you
to make him a thousand crystal palaces like
they've done on the west coast there.
So what?
You can't sanctify a building in the new
testament since they didn't do that.
Why even Solomon said, and I guess he
built the most expensive building ever made, men
were like he used gold to walk on,
he used gold on the walls, he was
the most extravagant building ever made, he used
gold more easily than we used cement.
And he built the altar and he had
all the priests in total correct display there.
And yet when he made it into session
to God he says, look I put up
this building, I've done everything according to your
commandment.
We've even got an altar, we even got
a sacrifice on the altar.
Now what's missing?
Nothing except the fire of God.
What good is a house that I've built
if God's presence isn't there?
What's the good of making a showpiece and
saying we've got the best tribe, we've got
the most brilliant preacher, we've got this time.
So what?
In God's name does it matter?
Don't you think we're putting our hands on
so many things these days?
You've got to start this way and finish
that way and do something else.
We're getting so mechanical.
Since when did the gospel need trimming up?
I would have to go to a meeting
this week, there was a five-piece band
there.
It was band, B-A-N.
If I had ought to do it, it
would be B-A-N-M-E-D,
band.
I'd have banned the whole thing.
Oh how they swerved and jazzed and what
not.
They didn't do that too long after I
really got going.
The preacher said amen for 10 minutes then
he lost all his pump, his energy and
somehow lost his voice.
Who's touching the arse?
David was afraid of the Lord.
He hadn't been afraid before.
Isn't it incredible that this people that knew
God in such an intimate way, this people
who had gone round the city without a
gun, the most despised people of all, and
they went round one day, round another day,
round another day, round another.
On the last day they went round seven
times, so 13 times they went round.
That's pretty unlucky isn't it?
And they kept down and they put all
the criticism of the people that were watching
and all they had to do on the
last day was shout with a great shout.
Why?
Because God was there and I don't see
any fun in shouting and carrying on in
a meeting.
Oh you can clap your hands that's okay,
but mercy that's all you have to do.
You have to whip people up.
You know I brought my dear friend there
Dale there and his father belonged to a
tribe called the Quakers.
And I thought about when God said I
want a tabernacle and there at the mercy
seat will I meet with thee.
God wants me to meet with him.
It's more than me preaching for him, it's
more than me being a missionary for him,
he wants to meet with me.
He wants to reveal himself to me, he
wants to talk to me, he wants to
come and work in this being of mine.
And then he called me from the border
of Mexico today and she said she was
weeping and she said that God has called
us here, we're Hispanics, God has really blessed
us but oh we do want to be
such great soul winners and she went on
and I said my dear look the first
commandment is not thou shall be a soul
winner.
The first commandment is thou shall love the
Lord by God with all thy heart soul
mind and strength.
There are lots of missionaries that don't love
God.
There are lots of missionaries should have returned
to the from the field six months after
they got there.
They're doing a thing mechanically and it's hard
to enjoy that kind of good when you're
doing it mechanically.
But when they do it under the anointing
of God, when they do it with the
love of God.
Can you imagine this profession stopping?
They had harps and psalteries and timbrels and
comments and they're having a great time and
suddenly death came.
You wonder that David was angry afraid and
he said how shall the ark of the
Lord come unto me?
Verse 12.
It was told King David saying the Lord
blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all
that pertaineth unto him because of the ark
of God.
So David went and brought up the ark
of God from the house of Obed-Edom
into the city of David with gladness and
it was so that when they that bear
the ark of the Lord had gone six
paces he sacrificed oxen and fatlings and David
danced before the Lord with all his might
and he was girded with an ephod.
Now notice what he danced with.
He danced with all his might.
Doesn't say dance with a girl.
He said he danced with all his might.
He danced in the presence of God.
There's nothing sensuous about it.
He isn't linked up with some woman in
his arms.
He's dancing in God's presence.
God has turned his sorrow into joy.
He started off in joy.
There comes bereavement.
There comes sorrow.
They've disobeyed God.
They've hurt God.
They've transgressed against God.
Do you ever wonder if you're getting insensitive
to what God's trying to say to you?
Do you ever wonder when when a certain
thing has happened somewhere in your nervousness you
put your hand up to steady the ark
and somehow that sensitivity went and the compassion
you had went and the concern you had
went?
Again this man didn't take an axe and
split up the ark.
He didn't say we've carried this thing long
enough we need no no no no.
All he did was try to steady the
ark of God.
Oh mercy how we're trying to steady the
ark of God these days.
We want to do some new thing.
We wouldn't we wouldn't we wouldn't just steady
it.
We'd paint it.
We'd put a musical box inside of it.
We'd put the priest in some new garments.
We'd try and make it more acceptable.
You know there's nothing nothing this generation needs
more than a baptism, an old-fashioned hellfire
preaching.
I'm sure of that.
The power and the presence of God were
resting on that tabernacle and while they were
obedient they had success.
It doesn't matter if you have to get
a city down.
Again the most ridiculous thing.
And they stood all the criticism and scorning
and yet on that final day when because
they'd obeyed God the whole place came tumbling
down.
Well let's not be too critical about them
because you know you and I again have
more we've more transfer for than they had.
We've seen the mighty workings of God.
I don't know anybody that's pulling Jericho's down
do you?
Can you think about obligation that we have
as a nation with all our Bibles all
our broadcasts?
Well are we studying the ark of God
in the way of presenting the gospel these
days?
The gospel is still the power of God
unto salvation to all who believe.
And when I hear people I heard somebody
say well you know there's a different approach
today is there?
Is there really?
You go tell a woman who's just lost
a child.
Well these are modern days you don't have
to weep over it and groan over it.
I mean they did that in the Bible
days but of course women were women then.
But nowadays it doesn't matter.
All they've done is lost a child.
Is there any difference between the grief of
somebody who's heartbroken today than there was in
the grief of somebody who lived 3,000
years ago?
We say human nature has changed.
Human nature has not changed.
Human nature is still a sinful nature.
Human nature still needs God.
And I think there are times when God
tries to stop the business you know.
When I think of again they all they
did was put his hand up to the
ark.
He didn't curse God.
He didn't take a hammer and smash it.
He didn't say now you're all lunatics for
going this way as if it's too old
-fashioned.
Well do you think that God maybe has
been speaking?
Have you noticed how many tragedies we've had
this winter?
One whole town swept away with a mudslide
just like that.
People went into eternity.
Mississippi has covered more area than ever.
We came down past there just the other
day.
Acres, hundreds of acres, just little bits of
roofs standing up out of the water.
And all you could see looked like you
could see for 50 miles just straight to
the water.
And some farms just standing on a little
island.
They'll never get any crops in there this
year.
There's sludge will be left behind.
They can't do with cattle.
It seems though God is trying to check
us but we we won't take the checking.
We won't take the warning.
And again I said to you the most
distressing area I believe is the area of
the church itself.
We're trying to study the ark.
We don't want God almighty to govern the
whole thing.
We want a little bit of flesh in
it.
We want a little bit of humanism in
it.
We want a little bit of organization in
it.
We want some skill in it.
And God holds off.
Want to do it in the flesh?
By the word of God says some trust
in chariots and some trust in horses.
But we will trust in the name of
God alone.
Oh I'm aching on the inside to see
somebody that will really really really have no
confidence in the flesh.
Don't try to organize.
Isn't it horrible when we try and subsidize
God's cause with a few dollars in a
collection there and something else.
Now either God is God or he isn't.
As I've said before this book is either
absolute or it's obsolete.
There's no middle course.
It either has all the answers or it
has no answers.
I've got to get to the place where
I say Lord you can strip everything else
away from me.
I'm on Christ the solid rock I stand
all of the ground is sinking sand.
I'm not going to study the ark.
I'm convinced God's going to do new work.
I've talked the last two or three days
with a brother I love very dearly and
he's at the crossroads in his life and
I know others who are men that you
think are at the top of the tree.
You think they should be satisfied with what
they've got and they're not.
They're suddenly realizing there's a new dimension that
God wants to bring to our generation.
A new revelation.
A new unfolding of the word of God.
If you like men that don't try to
study the ark by organization and saying you
must do it this way you must do
it that way.
Say no listen we're going to follow if
it takes us we have to follow those
loin oxen.
They look pretty scruffy things.
But before long you remember that David he
went and slew the oxen and and he
took the fatlings and he made a sacrifice
to God and then he danced before God.
Why?
Because he got rid of many of his
obstructions.
The Lord is very merciful.
Do you know how merciful he is?
He's so merciful he'll strip us right down
to the place where we under thing to
stand on.
We under thing to lean on.
We're cast in nakedness and we we stay
in despair.
You know the church that was rich and
increased in goods?
That's where the church is today.
She's rich, she's increased in goods, she's in
need of nothing.
Which church was it Jesus spewed out of
his mouth?
I would I was either hot or cold.
So then because I was neither hot or
cold I would spit.
It didn't spew the cold one out of
his mouth it never been in.
It was his church that he spewed out
of his mouth.
It wasn't a heathen religion it was his
church.
They were neither hot or cold.
They were kind of midstream.
And because they were neither one thing nor
the other he vomited them out.
He didn't vomit the cold church out.
He didn't bother with it.
God will not stand for mediocrity.
I think I need to sit down.
In fact I've said to somebody today I'm
going to do less preaching in the next
few months as little as I can and
I'm going to meditate on certain things.
I'm not young anymore.
I'm getting older and older but that doesn't
mean you can't.
I mean Moses was 80 when he started
and I'm not 80 yet.
So maybe when I'm 80 I'll wake up
and start doing something.
But there's a hunger.
There's a the class we talked to the
last Saturday morning there's some 500 men maybe
about 30 of them 32 or 3.
And half of them were zealous.
They were sitting on the edge of their
seats with all prospects.
Most of them there were seminarian fellows.
Eager keen.
Even asking afterwards well Mr. Raymond what's the
secret really of abiding?
What's the secret of abounding in the Christian
life?
What's the secret of not being a failure?
What's the secret of not letting your branch
get withered up?
I had somebody calling today for prayer again.
Every day they call.
I'm sorry for the situation some of them
are in but it's the only way they'll
go in grace anyhow and in the knowledge
of God.
They've been leaning too much on what they
have and now God's going to dry up
their souls so that they only have God
on whom they can lean.
They've had so much flesh.
They've had so much ability.
They've had so much organization.
They've had so much security.
God says well let me pull it all
away.
Doesn't the word say trust in the Lord
forever?
For in the in the Lord is everlasting
strength.
I think one of the shocks in eternity
will be to discover how little we've ever
used of the available power of God.
Not for our own mean silly self, but
there's a world out that's dying there.
Does God have resources to meet this generation?
Come on.
I learned to my horror just while I
was in Brooklyn that a man who is
a professional in this realm, a very fine
Christian man.
Last year the churches in America spent close
on two billion dollars on radio and tv
preaching.
Two billion.
Do you know how many people we reach?
Less than four percent of the of the
national family.
Less than four percent of Americans listen to
the gospel.
And we spent nearly two.
Can you imagine how many how many mission
stations that would have built?
How many churches that would have built in
some other country?
I think we're putting our hands on the
arse.
We're rather afraid that we might go a
bit overboard you know.
Doctrinally somebody comes and says, hey well steady
a minute.
And he hardly knows he's putting his hand
on the ark anyhow.
We're just afraid it seems of some new
revelation, some new some new demand that God
will make upon us.
Not just individually, well it is individually of
course, and collectively.
Now I guess I didn't get this over
to you as it came to me, but
I'll tell you when I read it the
other day.
I was shocked to realize that again this
man did not smash up the ark.
He didn't tell all the people to rebel.
He didn't tell the priest to do it.
All he did was steady the ark thinking
he was doing God a favor.
Like all he did was disobey.
Is that all?
Well that's all Adam did in the garden.
All he did was disobey.
Didn't curse God.
And it seems the hardest thing that we
have in the in our lives to learn
is how to obey in the very very
very simple things that God challenges us with.
I still say you know if I were
a kind of protestant Pope I'd close every
church down for a month.
We're preached to death.
Why do we keep going to conferences?
You can't handle the light you've got.
Why do you want some more?
Turn it off when you go home tonight.
The next conference you go with it this
weekend, the next week.
You'll have more light therefore you'll have more
to answer the judgment seat.
Haven't you got enough to answer for?
Aren't there areas in your life where you're
still not obeying even though God said do
this?
You put your hand on the ark because
it was toppling over on you.
It's a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of a living God the word of
God said.
Robert Louis Stevenson said I only know one
thing and that's when you fall out of
the hands of the living God.
And that happens.
It comes a time when God says to
a nation all right you've been putting your
hand on my truth.
You've been withholding my truth.
Job said I have not eaten my morsel
alone.
You say well we've given money to mission.
So we have.
You know this came I mentioned it last
night before I do a lot of number
of preachers in that place and I said
this I said you know we we had
a national day of prayer last week.
No we didn't have a national day of
prayer.
We had a national suggestion.
If we had a national day of prayer
the president would have said every factory is
closed down.
Every school is closed down.
Every shopping mall is closed down.
Everything's on the start.
It's time we listened to God.
It's time we humbled ourselves before God.
But when God wants it that way, which
he does, we put our hand on the
ark and say well we'll steady it and
make it a little bit convenient.
Dear God there was a time when they
were so concerned about revival they even put
remember they put what um stack cloth on
the animals.
If you wear stack cloth they think you're
a crackpot.
If you don't think so get a sack.
Get an old potato sack and put a
hole in the top.
Put it over your head and get your
wife to cut some holes so you can
put your arms in and go to church
like that.
And say this is an outward sign of
an inward sorrow I have.
I don't care about the style of my
clothes.
I don't care what you think anybody else
thinks.
We've got to have revival.
We've got to have a move of God.
And we haven't had it by all our
financial efforts and all our geniuses of evangelism.
All the other things.
We get so far then we put our
hands on the ark.
There's going to be a conference shortly and
I am not in any way troubled that
I wasn't invited but I know some of
the godless men in the world and they're
not invited to that conference in Amsterdam.
2500 the itinerant evangelists.
I guess that's why they'll get to say
well they're not itinerant evangelists.
They're going to meet and they're going to
go through a rigmarole again.
Workshops.
There's a workshop for this and there's a
workshop for that.
The hardest work in the whole world is
prayer.
They are workshops aren't they?
No.
The ark is falling.
We're going to study it.
We've got a new idea.
Every magazine I pick up now, Christian magazine
is, is how to make your church grow.
I'm looking for one that says how to
take your church deeper.
Somebody said to a preacher you have the
biggest church in.
How big is your church?
He said three miles wide and an inch
deep.
I think that's true of a lot of
them.
Three miles wide and an inch deep.
And while it's true it's tragic.
Are we going to change the style?
Are we going to keep studying the ark?
Are we going to say no no no
we're not going any further like this.
This old cart you've got it on with.
New cart we're taking it off.
We're going to do it God's way and
it looks silly to carry it on your
shoulders.
It looks silly to walk around when you
can mechanize the thing or organize the thing
or paint it up or make it more
attractive.
What in the how can you make God's
presence more attractive?
That's about the height of insanity.
Isn't God himself in his holiness attractive?
For some reason I don't know why I
thought about Westminster Abbey.
They recently redecorated it.
Oh they climbed up there and they put
pure gold leaf.
It's worth millions of dollars now.
I don't think God ever enters the place
to tell you the truth.
You know the less of the glory of
God we have the more showmanship we need
inside.
A fancy good-looking choir with marvelous robes
on.
Lovely church building everything.
And the more we get of that it
seems as though God says I don't dwell
in temples made with hands.
I'm not comfortable here anyhow.
You know what we need to do?
We need to do what David did.
We need to take all the implements.
We need to take the cart and break
it up and we need to get hold
of the bullets and chop them up and
have one big holy ghost bonfire and say
Lord God I'm going to live on the
stretch for you from now till I die
whether I die tomorrow or ten years from
now.
I'm going to meet with you as I've
never met with you before.
I'm going on the stretch for God as
I've never been on the stretch before.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard Leonard Ravenhill with his
message Who is Touching the Ark.
Tune in next week to hear Ken Ham
talk about the spiritual state of our nation
on From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.