Let me ask you a very simple question.
It's not a teaser.
How many of you really, from the bottom
of your heart, how many of you like
to be disappointed?
Raise one hand.
No?
Well, how many of us like to be
a disappointment?
How many of us like to be a
disappointment?
To be disappointed is that I receive something
that lets me down, I'm disappointed.
But if I'm a disappointment, I'm the cause
of somebody else being disappointed.
I try not to disappoint anybody.
I'm sure I do sometimes.
But surely the supreme disappointment is when we
disappoint God.
I want to talk to you for tonight.
I sure won't get through this thing.
And if I come back twice again, maybe
once next week and sometime after, of course
you're having the great doctor, who's coming next
week?
Winky.
Winky Winky.
He's coming next week.
Oh no, what do you mean, oh no,
you don't want him to come?
What do you mean you don't like Winky
Winky?
Oh, sorry, I thought you said oh no,
you said oh wow.
That's nice.
Well, Winky Wow is coming next week.
Or Wow Winky, whichever way you want to
put it, I don't know.
I'm always quoting some event that happened, well
not always, in my life through Dr. Tozer.
I had the privilege of going in his
office when just the two of us were
there.
We used to talk theology.
He didn't talk about people, he just talked
about God.
Ministers very often talk about ministers, but he
didn't do that.
And on one occasion when I walked into
his office, I've quoted this to somebody before
I guess, he pointed to a piece of
dog-eared rug there.
I don't know if they make them now,
you know those rugs plaited with little bits
of stuff, you know.
And he said, let me take a look
at that rug.
And I looked at it and he said
I gave 69 cents for that in Kresge.
That was before inflation of course.
69 cents for a rug that was, I
would think about a yard long and maybe
24 inches wide.
I was so amused about it.
I didn't say that, I just looked at
the rug.
I'm always amused too.
And then he said this amazing thing.
He said, Len, I come in my office
some mornings at 8 o'clock.
I lift the phone and I talk to
my secretary in the other office, she is
on the other side of the church, and
say to her, Margaret, you can go home
today.
I don't want to take any letters, I
don't want to give any interviews.
And then he said this, which is one
of the most stunning things he ever said
to me at least.
He said, I get down on that rug
on my belly, that's a good bible word
you know, out of his belly shall fall,
you would say in the most parts I
suppose.
But the scripture says out of his belly
shall fall, I get down on that rug
on my belly and worship God.
For an hour, two hours, three hours, four
hours.
From 8 o'clock until 11, or 12,
or even after that.
And he said, you know, as I lay
there for four to five hours, I don't
pray, I don't even praise, I just worship.
Some of you have seen his little book,
it's not very large, I wish he had
done a bigger job on it, but anyhow
he has a book called The Missing Jewel,
Worship the Missing Jewel in Our Christian Life.
When I was laying in hospital in 1951,
I jumped out of a burning hotel, and
hit the deck and I had my back
broken in three places, and my left leg
was in three pieces, and both my feet
were broken, and I wasn't feeling sorry for
myself, honestly I wasn't.
But I was trying to figure out why
I was there when I was just going
round the world, you know, I got it
all planned out how to save the world,
and as you know I didn't make it,
and you see the mess of the world
now.
So, I put my hand back like this
because I was in a cast from my
chin to my toes, and I reached back
in those 7-up bottles, they had bottles
in those days, not cans, and I picked
up my New Testament and opened it like
that, and it came to this verse from
the 7th chapter of Luke, Thou gavest me
no water, Thou gavest me no oil, Thou
gavest me no kiss.
Well, I was lying on my back so
I had to look up anyhow, and I
just looked up and said, Lord, I was
going round the world to preach, I was
going to do a lot of wonderful things,
you know, but here I can minister to
you.
You see, the modern church, whatever denomination you're
from, we have taught people to work, and
we have taught them to witness, but we
have not taught them to worship.
And I suddenly realized while I'm there that
I could worship God.
And then a few years ago I was
at a very fine church in Titusville, Peter
Lord's Church, and we went down to a
place in the middle of Florida, it was
a place where they dried out drunks, so
we took all the preachers we could get,
and not because they were drunks, because it
was a very lonely place.
And the last night I mentioned something about
worship, and a big hefty fine-looking preacher
came to me, and he said, would you
preach for me Sunday on your way home?
We were at Baton Rouge, I think.
Yeah, I'd preach for you in the morning
anyhow.
We had dinner with him that Saturday night,
and I remember he leaned over the table
and with tears, and if you understand Bunyan's
language, the water stood in his eyes, and
he said this to me, you know, Brother
Ray Mill, I appreciated your teaching for those
three days, but one thing really hooked me.
And that was when you said on Friday
night, you talked about worship.
Now I can read my Bible, he said,
the Old Testament I can read it in
Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, I've been
to school, I've been to seminary, I've been
here, I've been there, I think you had
a Ph.D. degree from Edinburgh, a Ph
.D. from Edinburgh.
And then you said, but I don't know
how to worship.
And if I don't know how to worship,
how can I teach other people to worship?
Well, you can't do it.
Twice, you remember, the Psalmist says what, Psalm
26 and 69, I think, where he says,
worship the Lord, how?
In what?
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
The opposite of beauty is ugliness.
The opposite of holiness is sin.
And yet again and again we're exalted in
the word of God to worship God.
Remember the woman that came to Jesus, and
she was quite theological, I think she was
a prostitute, but I've heard prostitutes argue theology
too.
You say in Jerusalem is where we should
worship, and where you say we should worship
here.
And Jesus says, no, no, no.
Neither in this place nor in Jerusalem.
Now, if you can get this in your
mind, how valuable is worship?
You see, we've substituted work for worship.
As though the more work I do, the
more I get to the heart of it,
not so at all.
There is no substitute for, you can't give
anything in the place of worship to God.
You can't give God wisdom, he's a source
of all wisdom.
You can't make him rich, he owns the
universe.
How valuable is worship?
Well, there was a time when heaven didn't
have any anarchy in it and any rebels,
and then one day somebody rebelled and got
kicked out.
And that evil one, Satan, came to Jesus
one day and said, look, I want to
make a deal with you.
You, you just kneel down and worship me,
and I'll give you the whole world.
That's the value of worship.
From that angle.
I'll surrender the whole, and Jesus didn't say
you're a liar, it doesn't belong to you,
because the word of God talks about Satan
being the prince of this world.
But you see, immediately you worship, you fall
down, you recognize somebody superior to yourself.
You acknowledge your inferiority.
And Satan says, I would love just to
see you once kneel down there, maybe five
minutes.
And you call me Lord, and I'll give
you the whole universe.
Now, we don't set that value on worship.
Okay, let's go to the scripture.
Scripture.
What I want to do again is divide
this into three parts.
Tonight may be a little bit drier than
next week.
Next week will be far better, and the
week after, better still.
But anyhow, you've got to take some of
the bitter with the sweet.
Exodus 24.
Exodus 24, and again, I remind you that
I'm reading from the Living Bible, King James
Version.
Exodus 24, verse 1.
He said unto Moses, that is, God said
to Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou,
Aaron, laid up by you in the seventy
of the elders of Israel, and worship ye
afar off.
And Moses alone shall come near the Lord.
Now, I believe that's the very essence or
quintessence of worship.
I'm not sure we can worship God in
crowds.
I call Moses alone.
Well, if he called the seventy, and he
called these other wonderful fellows.
He said, I don't have any children, don't
call them me, Dad.
And Abihu.
And they get teased at school with names
like that.
But they'd left the million or two million,
and some people say three million people in
Israel, and God had separated the seventy plus
about four others.
And then they have to leave the seventy,
and you get the four.
Now, there's a statement.
Remember the other week when Art Katz was
here, he mentioned this.
Verse 8.
Then went up Moses, Aaron laid up Abihu
in the seventy of the elders of Israel,
and they saw the God of Israel.
And there was under his feet, as it
were, a paved work of a sapphire stone,
and as it were, the body of heaven
in his clearness.
And upon the nobles of the children of
Israel he laid him up his hand.
Also they saw God, and did eat and
drink.
You say that the scripture says that no
man has seen God at any time.
That's true.
But it says that they saw God, and
that's true.
Remember God said to Moses, you stand there
and you can't see me face to face,
but as you hide in the cleft of
the rock, you'll see my back part.
Now, there's nothing comparable to this.
I think it's one of the most amazing
verses in the scripture.
There's nothing comparable to this till you get
to the last book in the Bible.
And you remember it talks about the great
city and all its glittering jewels and so
forth and so on.
Verse 13.
Moses rose up and his minister Joshua.
Moses went up into the mount of God.
He said unto the elders, Tarry ye here
until we come again unto you.
And behold, Aaron and her are with you.
If any man have any matters to do,
let him come to them.
Moses went up in the mount, and a
cloud received him, or covered him.
And the glory of the Lord abode upon
Mount Sinai.
And the cloud covered it six days.
And the seventh day he called unto Moses
out of the midst of the cloud.
Now again remember here, he's left the multitude.
He's taken the seventy, and now he's left
the others.
And now he's received up in a cloud,
and he stays there for six days in
total silence.
Now what do you think he was doing?
I'm sure this is one of the factors
in his life, that afterwards when he gets
into every stormy situation, you know you hear
some woman say, Oh boy, all the kids
have driven me up the wall today.
How many do you have?
Two.
Oh mercy.
Two children drive you up the wall?
What would you do for operating a million
rebels like Moses was?
Wouldn't that be tough?
And then I'm convinced of this.
There were two things that held him on
course.
One was when somewhere, I don't know where,
but when he was in the court of
Pharaoh, he had a vision one day.
Now I hear there are people having visions,
and I'm glad I don't have visions like
they have them, but there you are.
But he had this vision.
Of what?
Of whom?
Well, you go right down to Hebrews 11,
and it says there that Moses, he let
go everything in Egypt.
Now remember, this was the greatest empire the
world had ever seen up to that point.
And he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Maybe if it stayed, he would have been
Ramesses III.
Instead of going up to Egypt now, seeing
monuments of Ramesses I, Ramesses II, you would
see one Ramesses III and say, that fellow
used to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
But it says he chose to surrender all
the things of Israel, pardon me, I keep
saying Israel, of Egypt, just for a season.
He gave them up, he let them all
go.
For what reason?
Considering the reproach of Christ.
Well, how in the world does he know
anything about Christ?
He hasn't read any prophecies.
But somewhere he had a vision and he
considered the reproach of Christ exactly as you
get out of Isaiah 53, which is almost
a word-for-word picture of Jesus, written
750 years before Jesus was born.
Now, I don't believe anybody else had that
vision.
I don't know if you ever shared that
vision with anybody else.
See, some people like visions because they want
to go to a meeting and say, hey,
just a minute past, I had a vision
last night.
Well, I know that everybody had a vision
last night, it was television, but I mean
a real vision.
No, he doesn't say anything about it, he's
got his spirit anchored into the fact that
he's in tune with God.
Come on, he went to the top of...
Look at those craggy mountains there, it's a
good thing they're there.
Notice there's no ski lift to the top.
There's no blacktop road.
He didn't have very good shoes, like you
would buy.
If you were going up there, you'd get
something with big nails in and, oh, you
know, padded around the back so your darling
little ankles wouldn't get hurt.
And yet he climbs up that mountain, maybe
by the time he got up his flesh
was torn with the briars and his toes
were crushed with the rocks.
He doesn't say a thing about it, he
just goes there and he waits on God.
And the sight of God, verse 17 says,
the sight of the glory of the Lord
is like a devouring fire on the top
of a mountain in the eyes of the
children of Israel.
What do you think they were thinking?
Come on, let's be honest about it.
Here they are, they're down in the valley,
a million of them and there's that big
roaring fire up there.
Oh, Moses is being barbecued.
How's he going to put up with that?
See, that's one of the titles God likes.
Our God, remember, is a consuming fire.
And tonight the world is going to hellfire
because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire.
It's as simple as that.
Our God is a consuming fire.
The scripture says there's a wall of fire
round about us and the glory in the
midst of it.
God is like a devouring fire.
You know, that's perfectly true of revival when
revival comes.
Everybody shrivels up.
You don't have to punch somebody and say,
hey, you've got some secret list or you've
got some pride, you've got something else.
Once in it we feel the heat of
God's holiness and this is what it's all
about.
A thing we don't do.
The way Dr. Tozer used to say, Len,
our generation has such a cheap concept of
God.
Our God is there to hand us our
needs, answer our prayers.
Most of us have God on hold, you
know, till something goes wrong.
Till I have a need, not about His
glory, but I have a need, I have
a problem, I have a tight situation.
In other words, God is kind of, I
want to get help from you.
You see, if the church again captured the
vision of Jesus Christ, as the Lord of
glory, as in flaming fire, the situation was
very different.
You see, you get brochures, I do, I
get, most of you are straight in the
wastebasket.
But lots of them, the friendly church, come
only a stranger once in our church.
Very nice, a bit sloppy, but anyhow, there
it is.
Supposing you put your name out at the
bar and you put, this church, no man
dare join it.
What?
That's what he said about the New Testament
church, no man dares join it.
I had a couple in my house the
other day and they were so zealous about
their testimony and the church they're at, and
it's a real New Testament church, and I
said, well, I, maybe sometime I can, I'd
never seen one, I'd been around the world
a couple of times and preached in a
lot of famous churches, I'd never seen a
New Testament, oh, we've got a New Testament
church, oh.
Who got killed last Sunday morning?
What?
Well, in a New Testament church, you clean
it out, you say you're lying, and you're
lying, and stewards take them to the morgue.
After all, when the Holy Ghost came, or
Pentecost, what happened?
They're immediately cast into jail.
See, we're taught now that the presence of
God means prosperity, and power, and gracious personalities,
and in the New Testament it meant poverty,
privation, and persecution, and prison.
Well, who wants a religion like that?
You can make it acceptable, I mean, don't
preach too much judgment, and hellfire, and so
forth, let people go to hell, but let
them go quietly, you know, don't disturb them.
I believe that when there's true worship, as
I tried to say the other Sunday morning,
when I preached there, I would like to
go to that fellowship, or some other anyhow,
whichever it is, I would like to be
so caught up in the majesty and holiness
of God that nobody dares speak when they
come out after the service.
Nobody wants to speak.
To speak to them and say, hey, your
dress is pretty, with almost blasphemous as saying
some horrid word, and taking the name of
the Lord in vain.
But we've got, J.B. Phillips wrote a
book years ago, I have it on my
shelf, I confess I've never read it, but
I bought it because of the title, Your
God is Too Small.
Where is the God of majesty?
Where is the God of glory?
Moses never forgets this situation.
He's so intoxicated with God, and what is
it, Numbers 11, he gets to the place
and says, oh Lord, this situation is so
heavy upon me, but oh God, I can't
bear it, kill me if you're not going
to deliver them.
That's pretty hefty going, isn't it?
Okay, chapter 25, verse 1, The Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of
Israel.
They bring me an offering of every man
that giveth it willingly his heart, with his
heart, you shall take my offering.
And this is the offering, and so he
goes on.
They shall bring silver and brass and gold
and blue and purple and scarlet and fine
linen and goat's hair and ramskins dyed red
and badger skins and acacia wood and oil
for the light, and a sweet anointing oil.
Moses says, let them make me a sanctuary.
That I may dwell among them.
Skip over there to, okay, verse 20.
The cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on
high, covering the mercy seat with their wings,
and their faces shall look one to another.
Toward the mercy seat shall the faces of
the cherubim be.
And I shall 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, this is the first time he gives
any measurements at all about this amazing tabernacle.
It always reminds me of Jesus.
It says there was no beauty that we
should desire him.
And the tabernacle outside was badger skins and
goat skins and all the, ugh, it was
almost repulsive from the outside.
Again, with the Lord Jesus, there's no physical
beauty that we should desire him.
We try and put him up and make
him acceptable, but that isn't the right thing
to do.
Verse 17 of the chapter says, I shall
make a mercy seat of pure gold.
Two cubits and a half shall be the
length thereof, and a cubic and a half
shall be the breadth thereof.
Okay, and skip to 22 now.
And there will I meet with thee.
Have you recognized this?
That when God wants to tell us in
this book how he made the world, he
does it all in one chapter with 31
verses.
And when he wants to tell us about
the building of the tabernacle, he takes seven
chapters and 243 verses.
I wish he'd turned it around.
For my inquisitive mind, I'd rather the Lord
took those seven chapters and 243 verses and
tell me about all the creatures, the dinosaurs,
and everything else that he made that we
don't know much about.
And we could have crowded all this other
stuff into one chapter with 31 verses, but
God says no.
You see, when you read the epistle to
the Hebrews, actually that epistle to the Hebrews
is the background of the history of Israel.
It's the background, its background is in the
first five books of the Bible and then
the whole book of Psalms.
Now, again, verse 22.
And there will I meet with thee, and
I will commune with thee from above the
mercy seat.
From between the two cherubim which are upon
the ark of testimony of all the things
which I will give thee in commandment unto
the children of Israel.
Now, you know, this is a puzzle to
me.
I don't have any answer to it.
Why did God let these people stay 400
years in bondage and total slavery, in cruelty,
lack of food?
And they had no tabernacle, they had no
priest.
Total slavery for 400 years.
Why?
Surely that's where they needed a tabernacle, that's
where they needed a priest, that's where they
needed the sacrifices, that's where they needed the
atonement.
But for 400 years they're wallowing in darkness
and wickedness and wildness and strange gods and
they're going through hell.
And God lets them go through.
Well, maybe again it's a type.
You see, God is not going to establish
his pure...
Israel, we talk of Israel now as a
nation, Israel is not a nation, Israel is
the church of God, or was in the
Old Testament.
The people of Israel could not live like
other people, they couldn't eat like other people,
they couldn't get married like other people, they
couldn't walk as far as other people.
God puts a whole list of restrictions on
them.
They're to be a royal priesthood and a
holy nation.
Oh, there was the Mongols outside, Hittites, Amalekites,
Perizzites and all the otherites.
You are to be to me a royal
priesthood and a holy nation.
And you're going to build this tabernacle.
Go to chapter 30.
Look at verse 20, we'll jump over some
of these things.
When they go into the tabernacle of the
congregation, they shall wash with water that they
die not.
Or when they come near to the altar
to minister, to burn offering made by fire
unto the Lord.
They shall wash their hands and their feet
that they die not, and it shall be
a statute over them, even to him and
his seed throughout all generations.
And when they come near to the altar
to minister, now the Lord says to Moses,
verse 22 and then verse 23, take unto
thee principal spices, pure myrrh, 500 shekels, sweet
cinnamon, half so much, 250 shekels of sweet
calamus, 250 shekels, and of cassia, 500 shekels
after the shekel of the sanctuary.
Verse 25, thou shalt make it an oil,
a holy ointment, a compound after the art
of the apothecary, or as we would say,
the drugstore, does it?
And it shall be a holy anointing oil,
and thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the
congregation therewith on the ark of the testimony.
Now sometimes when you've got time, just sit
down and read that, and trace all the
different materials that are put in that anointing
oil.
Notice, what is it for?
Thou shalt make an oil of holy ointment,
anointment compounded after the art, and it shall
be a holy anointing, and thou shalt anoint
the tabernacle of the congregation.
It was only used for that purpose, it
was put there, if you can, to anoint
or to sanctify the congregation.
Now, come to verse 30, Thou shalt anoint
Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them that
they may minister to who?
What does it say in the Bible?
To me.
Okay, you've got the tabernacle in three parts.
You've got the outside there, the outer court,
and then you've got this big kind of
room with your skins and other things on
it.
In the outer court you have daylight.
In the holy place you have candlelight or
lampstand.
In the holy of holies there is no
light at all, it's pitch black.
Daylight in the outer court, lampstand in the
holy place, in the holy of holies, pitch
black.
In Israel a man could be a soldier
when he was twenty, because then and now
you don't need brains to kill anybody.
Twenty years of age he could be a
soldier, twenty-five years of age before he
could be a priest, thirty years of age
before he could be a high priest.
How old was Jesus when he began to
minister?
Hm?
How old was John the Baptist when he
began to minister?
Ah, how old was the apostle Paul?
He was more than thirty anyhow.
Well, do you have to wait till you
think?
No, no, no, it's a figure of speech
there.
The house, you remember that Solomon built, the
walls were thirty cubits high, and the walls
of the ark, it's a symbol of perfection.
So the priest in the outer court, he
runs around, you know, somebody comes up and
says, offer a pair of turtledoves, I've committed
this sin.
Somebody else says, offer this because of a
sin I've done.
But now he says, thou shalt anoint air
in their stones and consecrate them, that they
may minister unto me in the priest's office.
Thou shalt speak unto the Gentiles, and the
Gentiles will say, this shall be a holy
anointing oil through all your generations.
Now notice this, upon man's flesh it shall
not be poured.
Do you remember where it says in the,
I always forget the sum, is it 133,
I always get mixed up, 133, 126, but
it talks about the holy anointing oil which
was put on the head of who?
Aaron, the high priest, and it ran down
his face, no it didn't, ran down his,
and it ran off his beard onto his,
not his tummy, I'm holding it, but his
coat.
The coat was pure linen.
I remember once crossing the Atlantic, there were
a number of old rabbis that had got
out of, I guess it was about 1953,
and they'd been through some of the suffering
in Germany and these old rabbis were on
the deck and they had these flat hats
and they had long white beards and they
had black coats to their shoe tops made
of linen.
Why made of linen?
No wool.
In Deuteronomy it says you can't plough with
an ox and an ass, why not?
Why not?
Well, an ox is a big thing, an
ass, they'd wobble like this, no, no, no,
no, no.
One is a clean beast, the other is
an unclean beast.
Why can't the priest have anything with wool?
Well, I guess you didn't look at my,
my wife has a fur coat we bought
from England with us in 1958 and she
hasn't worn it too much.
It wasn't expensive, in fact it was very
cheap by modern prices, but I said to
her tonight, well sweetheart, I'll put your fur
coat on, it's a nice evening, the kind
of weather you need it.
Why do you wear wool?
Because it makes you sweat.
That's a terrible word.
Don't say sweat, you say perspired.
No, but you're right, that's why the priest
could not wear a garment that had wool
in it, because it made the preacher sweat.
And that's about the only thing that the
preachers have brought over from the Old Testament,
they never sweat.
All right, don't write and tell your daddy
that it is a preacher, but it's still
true.
But anyhow, the priest could not wear anything
with wool and linen, no mixture, it must
be pure, therefore pure linen.
Okay, so the oil is put on the
head of the priest, it goes down his
beard, and it falls on his coat, and
it goes to the ground.
Why?
It shan't come on his flesh.
Why?
Because flesh is corruptible.
See, sometimes we think, by that guy, he's
a smart guy, you know, he has a
he has a XY degree from somebody, and
a PhD from somebody, he's smart, you know,
boy, God will take that man and really
anoint him.
Well, there's only one thing, before he does
that, he'll break into pieces anyhow.
He'll strip him of all his self-confidence.
If there's anything that gets in the way
of true worship, it surely is arrogance and
self-sufficiency.
There are all the vain things that charm
me most, and help me least.
But there are some vain, useless things that
charm us most.
Some of you won't have to fight the
devil, what you'll have to fight is a
racquetball court.
If you don't watch it, you'll become your
God.
If you love it more than you love
the Word of God, it's become your God
already.
If you'd rather do it than pray, it's
become your God already.
And you can go round and do all
the things that are done in Christian service,
and you'll get away with it, but, you
see, the cash register, the checkout counter, is
at the end.
It's called a judgment bank.
Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured,
verse 32, neither shall ye make any other
like it.
You can't make an imitation of it.
It has neither imitation nor limitation.
There used to be a man showing a
great deal on PTL, always very arrogant, always
his hair was perfectly styled, you know, and
immaculately dressed, and always saying, because I was
with him in the early days, didn't you?
I don't know whether you should be proud
of that or not, but anyhow, that's what
he said.
I understand now he's a drunkard.
He's back fooling in sin after all the
times he's strutted to millions of people.
But, you see, you can deceive people so
easily.
When a man doesn't have the anointing, he
becomes, you know, he gesticulates and becomes dramatic
and holds his Bible up and says, you
know, and you wonder if the Indians are
coming by the time he's got through.
Neither shall ye make any other like it
after the composition of it.
It is holy and it shall be holy
unto you.
No limitation.
No imitation.
There is no substitute for worship.
And you know what?
The less we know of the intense, holy
presence of God, you'll notice that from the
days of the apostles as they lost the
anointing, what did they do?
They started building beautiful churches, stained glass windows.
Some people can't worship unless the priest has
a night shirt on and somebody walks in
front of them with a golden cross or
something or you light candles.
Worship's got nothing to do with any external
selling money.
It should be holy and it should be
holy unto you and whosoever compoundeth any like
it or whosoever putteth any of it upon
a stranger shall even be cut off from
his people.
And the Lord said to Moses, Take unto
thee sweet spices, stacti and onica and galbanum,
sweet spices with pure frankincense.
Of each shall there be a like weight
and thou shalt make a perfume or a
confection after the art of the apothecary.
Tempered together pure and holy.
Notice how that word holy is repeated here.
And thou shalt beat some of it that
is small and put it before the testimony
in the tabernacle of the congregation.
There will I meet with thee and it
shall be unto you again most holy.
As for the perfume which thou shalt make
ye shall not make any not make to
yourselves according to the composition it shall be
holy unto the Lord.
Now come on when were you last in
a meeting where you said look in this
meeting we were in this morning there wasn't
one grain of self in it.
There wasn't one grain of flesh in it.
I'm still convinced of this that when we
come together if you have the spirit of
holiness in you it's like candles.
Only once I think I went to a
candle night service that was in the Bahamas
and everybody that came in at the door
got a candle and they lit the candle
and soon there were about maybe eight hundred
people there all with a candle.
Now when we went in early and there
were only a few there there wasn't much
light but it was each one added and
added and added and added eight hundred candles
make a great deal of difference between the
darkness and the light.
So we got the idea that somehow all
you do you go to church and all
you do is take a dollar for the
offering or something.
Again how often are we numbed I choose
that word particularly how often are we numbed?
How often are we speechless in the presence
of the Holy God?
You hear people go out of a meeting
I guess they're justified very often you hear
them say boy I got nothing out of
that.
But that's not the first criteria the thing
is not what you got out of it
what did God get out of it first
of all?
Did he get adoration?
Did he feel did he sense the smell
of an aroma going up into his presence
because of the purity of God's people because
of the anointing?
You know that psalm 23rd psalm may be
the most quoted of all psalms and for
years the critics criticized it and said you
see it's alright it's a wonderful psalm but
you know at the end that bit about
they'll anoint us my head with oil now
that doesn't fit into it I mean they
anointed kings and they anointed priests and they
anointed other people but you don't anoint sheep?
He got off the track there somehow.
Well of course you may not do it
around here I think you should have some
sheep around there to keep your grass cut
low for you you know and if you
don't like nothing I do so that helps
you out one way but you see what
happens in the east middle east in fact
in Scotland I used to see there on
the hillside what looks like a complete circle
and when you get near to it there's
about maybe four feet where the wall is
not finished the wall isn't this height it
goes right round then there's a gap and
the shepherd carries a plaid later my wife
had a plaid dress on the other day
and somebody said what look like a plaid
it's you know a Scottish thing well that's
not a plaid it's a tartan the plaid
is a thing he rolls up like the
guys used to roll up a blanket or
a sleeping bag and put it on the
back of the saddle there you know and
the shepherd at night he would lay across
the doorway there he'd be wrapped up and
if anything tried to come in it had
to go over a shepherd remember Jesus said
I am the door by me if any
man entering he shall be saved ok but
what does he do in the morning well
they have tropical weather there so the sheep
come out he has a horn full of
oil and he stops every sheep and he
puts his hand like that and pats the
wool a bit and he anoints his head
with oil why for two reasons one if
it's going through the bush and it happens
to tear its head immediately the oil goes
in to heal it or if it doesn't
get torn like that the scorching hot weather
and the oil would keep it from having
sun stroke now David says thou anointest my
head I'm going out into a burning wall
there I'm going out to difficulties I need
that anointing so you travel places and people
say oh I got saved so long ago
I got filled with the spirit so long
ago maybe I'm not concerned when you got
filled I'm concerned tonight are you filled because
if we stay in the place of obedience
there is a constant filling just as it
says the blood cleanseth us from all sin
the Greek there is in the present continuous
sense that it keeps on as long as
I stay in submission to God I'm kept
continually clean if I disobey if I get
out of touch with God if I'm rebellious
then I'm not protected and I get into
trouble well let me see let me go
a bit further here um no
I don't think I know let's see what's
the time let's stay with this for a
minute the Lord said unto Moses take the
sweet spices stacti well where do you get
that from you get it from a tree
but you never take it out in daylight
the only time the sweetness will flow out
of that tree is to lacerate it is
to cut the tree and maybe you've seen
people if you've been in another country they
cut trees and get rubber out of them
we watched a man in the Bahamas and
they have a tree there that stores up
water and he says if ever you're lost
and you see one of these trees make
a slit immediately they made it there's a
storage of water in it well now this
stacti comes out of a tree that you
can only you can only make a vent
in it in the night time it won't
flow in the day time for some reason
it doesn't give a perfume well isn't there
some scripture that talks about having songs in
the night when did saw Paul and Tarsus
Paul and Silas I'm saying Paul and Tarsus
Paul and Silas sing in the night well
anybody can sing in the day what about
when the you know when the walls go
out and the roof comes in that reminds
me of a friend of Dr. Sangster Sangster
was at that great big church Kitty Corner
to Westminster Abbey and I used to talk
with him and pray with him and he
told about a day when a friend of
his in the first Methodist church in Baltimore
Maryland and this man preached a ceremony a
very wonderful preacher one ceremony preached on Romans
8 28 going out people couldn't nod their
heads they were so full and tears in
their eyes and so grateful and he said
everybody went out but one little crooked old
lady and when the others had gone she
just about jumped on the pastor got all
of his lapels on his coat and swung
around his neck and said it's very easy
for you to talk isn't it your father
was rich you went to school you went
to college you toured the world you have
a big house you have a big income
you have a boat oh boy she knew
she made an inventory on him she poured
it out you've never known need you've never
known sorrow you've never known adversity you've never
known I can't drive my automobile I
have no assets only liabilities I have my
children to raise he went on a few
things and he said somewhere in this congregation
I suppose there's a little old lady who
talked to me last Sunday morning and reminded
me she'd a list of all the blessings
I'd had a wonderful wife a wonderful education
a good income an automobile a boat and
all the other things I don't know where
you are this morning lady he said but
I want to tell you something I lost
my sight on Tuesday I can't read I
can't study can't drive my car I have
to sell my boat everything's gone but I
want to tell you something Romans 8.28
is true he wrote everything after the council
was on there and he said you know
with all the years of travel and all
my studies at school and the university and
the seminary Christ has never been nearer to
me than he's been since Tuesday it's a
pity it had to come this way but
he said when everything external went out when
the walls went up the roof came in
you see the anointing of the head is
not for fun it's not to push around
and say I'm more sanctified than you and
I have more gifts than you have and
I have more skills than you have because
if you have them you are very very
humble about them you wouldn't want to embarrass
anyone else like that anyhow but there's one
ingredient there's something that comes out in the
night and if you haven't had one cheer
up you're going to get one who was
it who wrote the dark night of the
soul madam Teresa or somebody hundreds of years
back the dark night of the soul the
thing you'd love to avoid the thing that
soon as we'd say listen you've gone into
the dark night of the soul look I
want to put you on one side I'll
take your place no no that won't make
any character for you Moses has his dark
night of the soul for 40 years on
the backside of the desert Jesus has his
for 30 years don't you think he often
would like to have gone out when they
were carrying a corpse through the town and
say I'm the resurrection and the life arise
as he did to Jairus his daughter or
when he raised Lazarus from the dead there
are some things that will only come out
in the night what's the other thing here
specting it's in the night it's the time
of our wounds and our trials what's the
other one there second one Annika hmm where's
it come from it comes from a sea
urchin a little thing that lives in the
shell at the bottom of the ocean there
and it takes a lot of getting and
it's very rare but when you add it
to that which you've already got put those
two together then you strengthen that fragrance you
strengthen that perfume hmm Galbanum well we said
the first thing you can only get at
night Galbanum you can only get it and
process it early in the morning I wonder
how often you read in the word of
God of those who early in the morning
sought God there's something about the early morning
Joshua rose early in the morning I have
a book it's about literally this size and
about that depth it's on the epitaph of
the Hebrews I haven't read it yet I
peek into it now and again it was
written in 1575 by a man called Gauch
G-O-U-G-E I like the
introduction it says this man had finished his
devotions every morning by four o'clock not
starting finished his devotions by four o'clock
and then from five o'clock till about
eight he did his studies the book itself
is an exposition of Hebrews and he preached
it once a week every Wednesday night for
42 years my goodness most of our preachers
would have preached as the man said from
generations to revolutions I mean Genesis to Revelation
32 years isn't enough in the Bible people
would keep preaching 32 years and he could
stay in one book you know if I
was talking to some young preachers which I
sometimes do I would say look preach sure
sure but become a specialist in one book
you could spend 20 years in Hebrews and
not exhaust it you could spend five years
in Ephesians and not exhaust it you could
spend 10 years in Romans and not exhaust
it but we feel like butterflies sometimes I
see the butterflies out of my window oh
they're so beautiful useless things I mean useless
because they get on the flowers they don't
make any honey they just feed themselves and
build up their own vanity I'm not too
fond of bees sometimes they come a bit
too close or got stung once or twice
scorpions I think they're from the pit but
anyhow you see God has his own way
of ministering to us even through those things
but this this stuff is all going to
be put together and pure frankincense you shall
not make it to yourselves this is their
personalities isn't it who's coming next week so
and so oh boy I'm going to hear
him oh it's a horrible thing John says
in his gospel there that one reason that
we're not blessed is that we pay too
much homage to each other you honor yourselves
you honor one another worship well Jesus got
it when he couldn't recognize it didn't he
wise men came for what what did he
come to do worshiping what did they bring
they brought gifts of gold and frankincense which
is mentioned here and myrrh and there was
myrrh at the end of his life but
they came to worship him there came a
a leper running to him and he fell
at his feet and and then he rose
from the dead they seized him by the
feet and and then he ascended to heaven
and as he ascended it says they worshiped
him you see worship is a combination of
what well in my little thinking it's a
combination of meditation and you know what there's
not much meditation talk anymore pondering thinking through
a verse what is God really saying here
it's made up of meditation and concentration because
if we don't concentrate we get off into
transcendental meditation or something so there has to
be concentration and meditation and adoration my how
popular that old old Christmas hymn I'd never
heard it sung for years until about ten
years ago and somebody stood it up you
know O come let us adore him Christ
the Lord and everywhere you go now they're
singing O come let us adore him which
is great I've no problem with it this
is right through life Jesus has to become
the center of everything I went with Dave
Wilkinson last Sunday night asked me to go
with him and we went to the where
the movie Memorial Hall in Southern Methodist University
ten thousand people jammed to the rafters boy
was he on the ball he really really
came down with anointing I thought I was
listening to early writers and he said one
trouble with us in charismatic and Pentecostal circles
is we push Jesus on one side and
it's all and I said no no no
that's wrong I say to people sometimes I
don't care whether you're Presbyterian or Pentecostal there
are no gifts of the Spirit oh you
can see people go hmm yeah you know
the rest of you finish I'll be at
the platform I'll put you straight before the
meeting's up and then I say well I'll
give you a scripture for it it says
Jesus led captivity captive and he gave gifts
unto men and the Holy Spirit distributes as
he wills the things that were purchased by
the death of Jesus Christ the death of
Jesus is called the incarnation the resurrection of
Jesus obviously is the resurrection you can't have
a resurrection without the incarnation and the incarnation
is incomplete without the resurrection and Christ is
going to be the center of eternity and
you can go to meetings some days where
all you hear is about the spirit the
blessed spirit read the first chapter of Acts
what did they say hey just a minute
I want to ask you a question let's
take the classical case the man with the
beautiful dress of the temple twisted like a
pretzel well Jesus must have passed him a
hundred times two hundred times there in the
temple Peter and John must have passed him
scores of times he said the same thing
he asked for arms little girl said what
did he ask for arms he asked for
arms when he needed legs but you know
what he meant by arms he meant money
he was asking for shekels give me some
money they brought them to court in whose
name have you done this oh because you
had the baptism of the spirit did they
say that what did they say his name
through faith in his name he said in
whose name have you done this I know
Peter you don't have enough credit in the
genetive you can get that man and twist
him like that oh that's a lovely story
when the man was in his need Peter
says look on us I wonder how many
of us preachers could say with the apostle
Paul what you have seen and heard in
me do and the God of peace be
with you most of our preaching is lecturing
now do it this way you know again
the old saying well don't do as I
do but do as I say Peter says
look on us and he looked on him
expecting to receive something of him well why
not he just had a revival he had
three thousand people saved he had a big
love offering and so he shared it with
them and Peter says I have none don't
have any silver or gold but such as
I have I won't sell it to you
that proves he wasn't the first pope he
said I won't sell it but I'll give
it to you I'll give it to you
look on us then Peter put his hand
on him the fellow felt he had touched
ten thousand volts he jumped up and ran
leaping and praising God and the multitude came
and Peter says don't look on us oh
we would have written a book on it
wouldn't we we would have said I want
to get on ptl and tell everybody I
healed a man I
healed a man I healed a man I
healed a man I
healed a man I healed a man I
healed a
man a man I healed a man I
healed a man I healed a man I
healed a
man I healed a man
I healed a man a man a man
a man a
man
I healed a man a man in your
life, there was no window there, there was
no lampstand, there was nothing.
But if you were stripped to yourself, God
is light, and in Him is no darkness
at all, no darkness at all, and what
happened?
The she-camel did it.
God Himself appeared in light.
Can you imagine the blazing light of God
reflecting on the wings, the pure gold wings
of the cherubim and on the ark?
Do you think He wanted to talk?
I'm convinced that the highest form of worship
is speechless adoration, like my friend Tulsa.
When I've told people that, they've said, oh,
I couldn't do that kind of thing.
Of course you can't.
Dr. Tulsa didn't make up his mind one
day, I'm going to worship God, I'm not
going to pray, I'm not going to praise
Him even.
You see, you go to some meeting and
say, let's all stand up, raise our hands
and worship God.
No, that's praise.
Praise is the gateway to worship.
Worship is humiliation.
We'll come and see in the third talk,
all the folk in the Revelation will fall
on their faces.
People go to meetings now and they say,
I was in a meeting last night, you
know, about 20 people fell backwards.
And I say almost sarcastically, we used to
call that backsliding.
The scripture always says they fell on their
faces.
Frustration, humiliation.
Oh, I'm a woman, no man.
No flesh can glory in His presence.
You can't be holy and on top and
in the peak of strength on Sunday and
then go back and be calm on Monday.
You can't give God glory and then start
wedding a halo of your own success.
Oh, yes.
I think one of the hindrances to worship
is popularity.
Not many people can stand it.
I want to give God the glory, but
then they string it all out.
So give them it.
Say nothing about it.
It's either popularity or power or possessions.
They get in the way.
The only thing that chokes our individual periods
of adoration and worship, surely it must be
the criticism.
Or just lecturing people what to do when
they're not living it.
My simple key shows there's just that big,
silly, stupid world outside that, even in a
day like this, when we can put a
man on the moon, we're still shooting people,
blitzing them to bits down in the fault
lines as though you can kill a philosopher
who's dropping a bomb.
We're still savages at heart, until God gets
hold of us.
My argument is this.
The world outside is not N.O.T.
It is not waiting for a new definition
of Christianity.
It's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.
And if I fulfill His law, and I
love the Lord my God with all my
heart and all my soul and all my
strength, well, that's what makes God happy.
Nothing else makes Him happy.
You can work yourself to death.
As I lay in that hospital, I realized
that, well, Lord, I could go to a
meeting tonight.
I've been to meetings where folk have come
out in hundreds.
And I said to myself, you know, I
believe I could do that every night of
my life, get people coming to our office
by the hundred and still be a disappointment
to God.
Why?
Because I glory in my ministry.
I enjoy my ministry.
I enjoy my exposition.
I enjoy the response of the crowd.
And I'm not really serving Him.
Indirectly I am, but what I'm really doing
is getting a lot of credit to myself
as being an outstanding speaker and outstanding something
else.
And God is a jealous God.
He said to Israel, if you go worship
other gods, if you worship them.
Well, what did he do?
They went and worshipped other gods.
What did he do?
He scattered them over the face of the
earth.
Boy, you get some severe penalties for one
thing, don't you?
Remember those people said, well, don't worry about
it.
His blood be upon us.
They said, we got rid of that man.
He was coming in Jerusalem with a bunch
of screaming women after him.
We got rid of him.
They got rid of him.
Well, he got rid of them.
He said, your house is left unto a
desolate.
You realize that for 2,000 years the
Jews have had no sacrifice that was acceptable.
Next time I see a rabbi, I'm going
to ask him in the street.
He says, excuse me, sir, you're still under
the old dispensation.
What do you do for under their detainment?
You shed the blood of bulls and goats.
What do you do for detainment?
For 2,000 years the Jews have been
a football, kicked here, kicked there, kicked.
And they're not through their trouble.
I kind of fear very secretly that they
get kicked out of Israel again.
And when they go back, they won't go
back for safety.
They'll go back because they do believe that
their only hope is Messiah.
There's some wonderful things about them.
A friend told me recently he was in
Israel.
He got up Saturday morning, which is their
Sunday.
There's not a shop open, not a restaurant
open.
They keep the Sabbath strictly.
That's great.
I think our David spoke here a few
weeks ago.
They do the same in New Zealand.
No shop's open on Sunday.
No shop's open on Saturday.
Shopkeepers say, well, you work all the week,
and then you come here, and you have
this day off, and we have to work
all day to satisfy you.
No, no, no.
Do all the shopping the other days.
And so they get Saturday and Sunday off.
They get a real time of rest.
And remember the Sabbath day.
It's the only one of the 10 commandments.
Well, there are 10 commandments that don't, for
heaven's sake, think they're 10 different laws.
It's one law with 10 different statements in
it.
And the only one with remembering it is
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And as our 58 propositions revival on keeping
the Sabbath day holy.
We don't do it.
I don't think it's very important.
No.
No, I don't feel bad, you know.
You know.
Well, that last verse, this is the day
that the Lord, okay.
We shouldn't sing it that way.
We should sing, this is the half day
that the Lord hath made, that we will
be glad till 12 o'clock, and we'll
play tennis in the afternoon, that the Lord
hath made this.
And that's what we do, just like the
Catholics, just like anybody else.
But God is a jealous God.
The tithe of your money is one thing.
The tithe of your time is your good
in that day.
It's his day.
And if you disobey, what does Malachi say?
Will a man rob God?
Everything you do contrary to God's will on
Sunday, you're robbing God.
You're robbing him of the pleasure of your
company.
You're robbing him of time you could dig
into this world, and you're expanding your spirit,
and getting deeper in the things of God,
and getting a fragrance on your spirit, which
only comes out of meditation, and concentration, and
contemplation, and adoration.
You can't make any other ointment, it's an
abomination.
You can't sing pretty songs and clap your
hands and do as you like the rest
of the day.
Now anything we don't like is one of
two things, either bondage or legalism.
Have you noticed that?
Anything we don't like, oh that's bondage.
Something else we don't like, oh that's legalism.
Yeah.
Some of you are married I see, some
of you are married.
Well the others I want to warn you,
don't get married.
Bondage.
Real bondage, you're tied up to just one
woman the rest of your life.
My darling wife there, we've been married over
40 years, I don't know how many ever,
but 43 or 44 maybe.
And it's been wonderful, I wouldn't reverse it
for anything.
But you see, you tie yourself up in
a certain, well it's the same with God.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and all thy soul and
all thy strength and all thy might, and
then there's a fragrance poured upon thee, upon
you.
I'll give you that next week in a
wonderful hymn, written in England of course, but
it's a very marvelous hymn by a lady
who really got the whole thing in a
nutshell.
Now we'll see it come out in a
practical experience next week.
It's very simple and yet it's very profound.
I preach this message all over the world
and I'm going to give it to you
next week, because I always enjoy it.
Nobody else does it, it always does me
good, see.
So I'm a bit selfish in that, let's
pray.
So that you think it through your word,
you realize again that holy men of God
speak as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.
We are glad we have not to shed
the blood of bulls and goats, we have
not to compound anointment, a thing that would
cost us a stack of money to get.
We thank you it's all given to us
in Jesus Christ.
He has made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption.
We pray the Lord that as your word
says, let the beauty of the Lord our
God be upon us.
This is a day when everything has to
be beautiful.
So much money spent on makeup, women trying
to adorn themselves, and costly clothes and other
things and with all such vanity, if we
are ugly on the inside it will shine
through whatever we are wearing on the outside.
And if we are beautiful on the inside,
that will come through too, even if we
are clothed in rags.
We thank you for the perfection of Jesus
our Lord.
We thank you for the sweetness of his
life.
We thank you for his grace, his humility.
He said he could have called a legion
of angels, and that would have meant he
could have called enough angels to burn the
world up in five minutes, but he didn't
do it.
We pray the Lord that that same love
and patience and grace, the ointment that you
mix in our lives, sometimes you do it
through dark places, sometimes it comes like joy
in the spring of the morning.
But Lord we thank you that you are
working everything out for the counsel of your
own will, and you are doing it not
for our sakes merely, you are doing it
for your own sake.
That you can show your beauty in these
lives of ours that have been ugly so
often, too often.
And instead of sweetness pouring out, bitterness is
poured out.
Instead of people wanting to be like us,
they are glad they are not like us.
Lord help us to find this secret of
being quiet before God, of taking time to
be holy, of gazing on your face, gazing
on your holiness, gazing on your majesty, gazing
on your purity, gazing on your faithfulness, that
like Dr. Tozer we can just lay there
and say how beautiful the sight of thee
must be, that endless wisdom, boundless power, and
all full purity.
This is the God whose faith has said,
O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord, forgive me if
I say for very love thy sacred name
a thousand times a day.
Burn, burn within me, love of God.
Burn fiercely night and day till all the
dross of earthly love is burned and burned
away.
Lord keep working on us.
As the cake can't answer to the potter,
may we be in total subjection to every
manipulation of your hands, your skill, your wisdom.
And we give you praise in Jesus' name.
Amen.