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Text Sermons : Paris Reidhead : A Mirror Covered With Water – Part 1

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A Mirror Covered With Water – Part 1 By Paris Reidhead*
Will you turn again to Exodus, Chapter 40. We are going to consider this portion as the message in song has prayed, Teach me Thy way, so we remember that He said, These things are written for our ensample, that we might be taught. And today I am proposing to have you consider with me this general theme, Truths God has revealed in the Tabernacle concerning our approaching Him in worship. And so we would see the Tabernacle.
Can you visualize it? Let me picture it before you. Here in the middle of the desert is a courtyard, about 50 cubits by 150 cubits, about 75 ft. by something like 200 ft., and in the center of it is a building. This again is 15 cubits by a total of 45 cubits, covered with badger skin and other covering. Two rooms, one 15 by 15; the other, 15 by 30. In the inner room is the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat; and above it, the Cherubim, angels with their wings almost touching, over the gold mercy seat.
In the outer room, against the vail. To the north side, the altar of show bread; and to the south side, facing east, the candlestick. Outside, just outside the gate, the hangings to the house, is the laver, a brass basin, lined with mirrors, filled with water. Between the laver and the gate, the altar of burnt offering. This was the place where the blood and the flesh of the sacrifice was burned. And then the hangings of the gate. Now this is the way God has revealed it, from the inside out, from the ark out to man, and this was of course His revelation, from His throne in glory out to us. But we are approaching it just in reverse. We are going from where we are to where He is, and as we would come, sinners in death, lost, without God, without hope, the first thing we would see, approaching this revelation of His grace, this Tabernacle, would be the gate, the gate to the very east, in the center of this eastern section of the court.
There were five pillars, five pillars supporting four hangings. The hangings were purple, and scarlet, blue, and fine twine linen. There have been varieties of associations, but I would move from the four colors of the gate of the tabernacle to the fourfold vision of Ezekiel. When he saw a beast with four faces, there was the face of an eagle, the face of a man, the face of an ox, and the face of a lion, the four beasts, and the four faces. And I would see these, the face of the eagle, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Heavenly dweller, the One from before the foundation of the earth; the face of the man, God incarnate, God come in the flesh; the face of the ox would be our Lord Jesus who is both priest and sacrifice, who went into the grave and death, that he might arise in triumph and become our High Priest; and then, the face of the lion, speaking of our Lord as the king. Now we see Him in these four aspects of His character. He said, I am the door, by Me it any man enter in. And so, coming to this door of entrance to God, you find here the fine twined linen, the scarlet, the blue, and the purple speaking to us of our Lord as the preexistent One, the One by whom all things were made. The blue, speaking of the Heavenly dweller. The face of the eagle, speaking of the one that reaches the highest heights. And God, thus using the Old Testament as a picture book, tells us that the One by whom we come into His presence is the One who has been from eternity past God, creator and sustainer of the universe.
Then we see Him pictured by the white, the purity of a man, the man without sin, the One of whom the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17) The One of whom the word could be, We find no fault in Him. And as Judas said, “I have betrayed Innocent blood.” (Matt. 27:4) As the soldiers sent to take Him declared, “No man ever, spake like this Man.” (John 7:46) The innocent, spotless, pure Son of God, pictured by the fine twined linen.
And then we see the scarlet, speaking to us of this Man who became - was made to be sin for us, the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself innocent, having kept the law perfectly, could reach out to where you would be in time and draw you to Himself, and be made to be sin for you, and die in your place and in your stead, die your death, pictured by the scarlet hanging.
And then the purple hanging, the One who has been raised by the right hand of the Father, to be a prince and a savior, the One who said, All authority in Heaven and earth is given unto Me. This One, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, now at the gate you find the four curtains. They are all there. Not four gates. One gate. I am the door, one door, but there are the four aspects of our Lord’s nature and character and work.

Now there might be some that would like to just change it from the four to the one. I can imagine that would be the case, They said, Well I do not like to have the Lord, the Creator, in my heart. This is too much for me. The sinless man, no. I just like the scarlet, the One who died. I would like to accept Jesus as my Savior. Really all I want from Christ, someone to die for my sins, and someone to pay the penalty of my guilt. Well, my friend, the four hangings are there, and He is thus pictured by them.
We read this, “He came unto His Own, and His Own received Him not; but unto as many as received Him, to them gave He the authority to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name.” (John 1:11,12) Now, to be born of God is to receive Christ. To be born of God is to go into the door which is Christ. He says, Behold, I stand at the door of your heart, and knock. If any man open the door, I will come in and sup with him. I will come in. Now, who is this One who will come in? Who is this One that we must receive. He is the One by whom all things are made. He is the Creator. He is the innocent, sinless, spotless Man. He is the sacrificial Lamb, the One of whom John said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. But He is also the One whom God has raised from the dead and exalted with a Name above every name. And we receive Him. We receive Him. Salvation is in a Person.
Now has Christ come into your heart? To believe on Christ is to receive Him. But you cannot say, I receive this hanging, I just take this aspect. You receive a Person. And that Person made the world, that Person is the sinless Man, that Person is the sacrifice who died, that Person is the King who reigns. And you receive Him. He is there. Have you received Him? Has He come into your heart? Have you believed on Him? Have you beheld Him? Have you seen Him? Have you known Him? Is this what it means to believe on Christ? Indeed it is. And so it is that the very threshold of ever meeting and knowing God is an encounter with the person of the Son of God, and of receiving Him as He is presented.
But you will notice when you come in through the gate of the Tabernacle, the first thing you will find is the altar of burnt offering. This speaks to us of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. For here it was that fire was placed. Here it was that fire and blood met. Here it was that the life of the innocent was poured out for the sins of the guilty. This pictures the cross, the place where the Lord Jesus Christ died for you. And we see that this One, this Man the Lord Jesus Christ, God who became flesh and dwelt among us, went to the cross, pictured by the altar, and there He died. And so we, receiving Him, recognize that He died for us. He shed His, blood to wash away our sin, and our guilt? Have you thus met Him and known Him? Have you come to the cross and seen the Lord Jesus dying there for you? Have you opened your heart to Him? Do you know your sins are pardoned? Have you come thus far on your pilgrimage to know the living and the true God? Have you come to the altar of burnt offering?
And perhaps I speak to some of you who say, Yes, yes I remember years ago, when I saw Jesus Christ, just as you have described Him, and I opened my heart to Him, and I asked Him to come in. I saw Him dying for me, and I know that my sins are pardoned. I know that my past sins have been forgiven. But is this all God gave us? Is this the complete tabernacle? Is there nothing more? Of course, there is something more. But to hear some people preach, and others teach, you would think that the only thing God gave was a court, and an altar of burnt offering, for all they seem to see is the cross where the Lord Jesus Christ died for sinners, and where He shed His blood.
But there is more than that. We have to go beyond the altar of burnt offering, and there we see this tabernacle. But what do we find is between the altar and the tabernacle? There is the laver. This immense wash basin, lined with mirrors, filled with water, serving a twofold purpose. For it would first reflect what was soiled upon the face. One who had been working there in this dusty, open court, could have become soiled and dirty, and the God He is worshipping and serving is a holy God, and nothing unclean shall enter into His presence. And so, before he would go in through the hangings of the tabernacle, into the presence of God, he must go by the laver, and he would do this repeatedly. Every time he would go in, he must go by the laver, not by the altar of burnt offering, but by the laver; the altar of burnt offering speaks to us of the cross where Christ died once; But the laver speaks to us of that way whereby we come to the Word of God for self-examination.
Why do you read the Word of God? Some people read it the same way they would read an insurance policy, to find the benefits that will accrue to them in case of death. Some people read it as a timetable to find out what is going to happen next. Some of them read as a genealogy, to find out what their family status is. And all these things are good, and read it regardless of why you read it. Just read it. And keep on reading it, but you ought to understand that our Lord Jesus said, Now you are

clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. And you ought to come to the Word of God the same way that they went to the laver, to see if in the pilgrimage you have been soiled.
Now there was a mirror, and this mirror was covered with water. We find that the Spirit of God is so frequently spoken of as water. It was not that the face was reflected in the water, but the water over the mirror completes the type and the picture. And so it is not just the Word, but it is this Word seen by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, who applies the Word to your heart. Do you read this book in order that you might see wherein you have grieved Him? Do you come to it in order that there might be developed within you a sensitivity to everything to which God is sensitive? After all, if it is important to God it ought to be important to you, and to me. If He is concerned about it, we ought to be concerned about it. And so we will find that this mirror is not only going to show us what is on the outside, but is going to be an x-ray mirror and it will help us to see what is on the inside. And so, when we have come to Christ, as we have pictured by the door, come to the altar of burnt offering where past sins are dealt with, then we realize that there is a daily coming to the Word in order that the Spirit of God can show us wherein that day we may have been soiled and thus have that with which we must deal.
Pictured to us again by our Lord the night on which He instituted the Supper, girded Himself with a towel, taking the pitcher, and washing the feet of His disciples. Peter you know said, Wash me all over. He said, No. You do not need to be washed all over. You simply need to have your feet washed. And the consequence of this, Well we have the laver. And as we come to it, we find the Spirit of God speaking to our hearts through it. I think I can show you how to use it from just one Scripture this morning.
If you turn to Ephesians, Chapter 4 and 5, you would see how you can use the Word of God as a mirror. This is a portion in this wonderful epistle of the Heavenlies, but it also sets forth to us the responsibility, for it pictures to us in a sense the Heavenlies. It sets forth our responsibility of our personally dealing with everything which grieves Him. I begin reading with vs 17. Bear in mind now the image we are studying which is the laver. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness,” (now this is immorality on the mental level. This is that which we studied Wednesday night, and of Noah’s generation that had the imaginations of their heart only evil continually.) (Eph. 4:17-19) And as you come to the Word of God, the Spirit of God is going to make sin, on the mental level, on the level of the intellect and imagination as heinous in His eyes as is sin in actual word or deed. Now understand you will never miss revival. When God, the Holy Spirit, is released to work invariably, and inevitably, and uniformly He makes the conscience burn, for the thoughts, as previously it may only have burned from words and deeds. For God saw that their iniquity was great and their imaginations were only evil continually.
And so it is that this is what the laver does. It shows us what we have allowed in our minds, and it is on this level where we find sin having its genesis, its origin.
Notice we cannot stop there, however, because as we go down a little further, we find in vs 22 “that you put off concerning the former manner of living, the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful desires.” (Eph. 4:22) Desires for position, place, recognition, and all these deceitful desires, that seemingly offer something which when they are achieved have brought nothing. Deceitful, because they were misrepresented. You said, Oh, it I can just get this, I’ll be happy. And you got it, and you were not happy. And so it is that we have to have our motives exposed, and this is why David prayed, O God, try my reins in the night season. Reins are that with which a horse was steered. And a person is steered by his motives, by his desires, and so it is as we come to the laver the Spirit of God will show us our motivation. Why we do what we do, say what we say, and think what we think. And when we have thus had our motives exposed, we are in a position to deal with it. And it is only the Spirit of God, through the Word or God, that can cause us to see our motives, because so many times they are secreted in the depths of our personality. But as we come to the Word, opening our hearts to Him, He will show you whether or not there is jealousy, whether or not there is envy, whether or not there is vanity and ambition. And it is these desires that will be exposed by the Spirit of God.

Then as we come on a little further, in vs 25, “putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” (Eph. 4:25) And the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, will show you whether or not those words that you spoke were for the intent of communicating truth, or confusing issues. And words can be used for both, you know, to communicate truth, or to confuse and to misrepresent. And so, as you come to the Word of God, the Spirit of God by the Word, is going to show you whether or not your intent through what you said was to minister as you would to the members of your own body, or whether somehow in it was the intent to hurt, or to injure, or something else.
Then in vs 26, “Be angry and sin not.” (Eph. 4:26) If you must be angry, then deal with it on the basis that is prescribed in the Word. There are occasions when anger is appropriate, and it should always be righteous, it should always be in obedience to the Word, it should always be directed toward the person concerned in order that there should not be in incurred with it. For if you are angry in your own home, and your heart is filled with anger, and you do not write to the Congressman, or deal with the mayor, or come to the brother, or the elder, or the pastor, then that anger which may have been proper, because they may have been wrong, but because you were angry and did not deal with it properly your sin has been added to the sin which you see. So it says, “Be angry and sin not.” Do not sin in it. But if you discover there is reason for it, then deal with it as has been prescribed. It did not say that there was not occasion to be angry. But it did say that it must be dealt with according to Scriptural procedure.
Then again, in vs 28, “Let him that stole steal no more.” (Eph. 4:28) And here we find that He is saying that we are to recognize the rights of others in every area.
Then in vs 29, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” (Eph. 4:29) Here we are coming to the matter of words.
In vs 31, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” (Eph. 4:31) Oh, how often I have talked with people, and when certain names have been mentioned, faces would contort, just twist into an evil visage, because of deep bitterness, deep anger, deep resentment. Oh, this grieves Him whose Name is Holy. This grieves the Holy Ghost. “Let all bitterness, all wrath, and anger, and clamour be put away from you with all evil speaking and malice.”
“Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Eph. 4:32)
Down in vs 3, Chapter 5, “fornication, uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not once be named among you.” vs 4, “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting,... For you know (in vs. 5) no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.” (Eph. 5:3-6) Now the children of disobedience will persist in these things, but the child of God that has come to the gate and received Him, come to the altar and been pardoned, does not want to be contaminated with these things, and so will gladly go to the laver, and lean over it and say, Blessed Lord, show me in my life that which grieves Thee.
O, have you done that? Have you seen that? Are you willing to do that today? Do you give evidence that you really are seeking God? Well, no one could ever come to God unless he would come through the laver, and pass the laver. My dear heart, if you have a hunger for God today, you must come to the Word, you must expose your heart to the Word. Great revival in Kenya Burundi and that area of Africa, great revival I say has been going on. Why? Because there has been through these many, many years, nearly 20 now, a laver in the center of the church, and they have one with brokenness, and they have come with a continuous desire that their lives should show forth His glory and His praise. Have you done that? Do you see that? Do you recognize the place of the laver? Are you prepared to come and lean over it, and allow the Spirit of God to show you anything and everything?
Then what did you find when you went in through this. Well you discovered just as you went in through the door that there on the north side, on your right, first which you would see was the altar of shewbread, the table on which the bread was set. Here were these 12 loaves of bread, speaking of the twelve tribes of Israel, bread sufficient for them all. And it is to us a picture of

two things, God’s Word, this Book that we have, and the provision of God by His Son to meet the needs of our hearts, and of our lives.
Let me ask you. Do you study the Word of God? Do you live in the Word of God? Do you meditate upon the Word of God? Well if you are ever to enter into His presence as pictured by the holiest of all, it is absolutely imperative that you come by way of the table of shewbread, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.” (II Tim. 2:15) Have you done that? Are you doing that? Are you living daily in the Word? Are you continuously seeking God? For this room is lighted by the candlestick. To me, the candlestick speaks of the illuminating presence of the Spirit of God, who when you come to the Word, will show you that Word and apply it to your heart need.
I would have you see then, dear friend, that if you are to ever know God, in any vital real way, it is going to be absolutely imperative for you to give much time to the Word of God.
John of Ruysbroeck1, that dear man of the 13th century, had two mendicant priests from down in Italy, that walked all the way from Italy up to Flanders, to see John. They were hungry, they said. They saw him in the garden, tending his roses, and were a little bit taken back that such a holy man should be digging around his shrubbery. And when they found him there, just transplanting the roses, and pruning them, they said, “Well, Father, we have come to you. We did not expect to find a gardener. We wanted to find a priest.” “Ah,” he said, “whatever a child of God does, he can do for the glory of his Father. What have you come for, brethren? Why are you here?” “Oh,” they said, “we have walked these hundreds of miles. We have walked through the snow. We have begged.” And they were magnifying their own efforts, and he said, “Why have you come?” “Because we have heard about you, and father, we would be holy.” “Oh,” he said, “is that why you have come?” And he turned with his spade, and turned over the dirt and said, “You are just as holy as you want to be now.” And he went on digging. And they were taken back.
But, my friend, let it be understood by us today, that everyone in this room is just as holy as he wants to be. You are just as holy as you want to be today. You are the fulfillment of your desire, up until this moment. You could have been holier, if you had wanted to be. So could I. You are as holy as you want to be. For God does not give us desire to mock us, and to thwart us, and to hinder us. But, if you and I are ever to enter into the holy place and know Him as He needs and desires to be known, we must go by the table of shewbread. Your life with God today is in direct proportion to the time you have spent eating of the Word of God. Not simply filling notebooks, not simply learning outlines, but feeding on the truth of God. And if you and I are to go on to know Him as He desires to be known, we will have to give ourselves to the eating of His Word; personally, privately, in groups, in church, there will never be any entering into the holy place without passing the table of shewbread. And the Spirit of God will illuminate that Word as you come with a hungry heart to know God, and He will open that Word to you, and lead you into that Word. Not that we should become hobbyists of some particular doctrines, and not that we should simply fill our notebooks with teachings of teachers, but that we should feed upon the Word of God, meditate upon it until that Word bursts into life, into our hearts.
But you will notice that between the altar of shewbread and the candlestick was also the altar of incense, speaking of prayer. And I believe that just as this incense was made of several different spices and ointments, compounded together, so prayer has several different elements. First, there is the prayer of confession. And oh, that we should never come past the place where we can in humbleness before God confess everything He shows us. And this ought to always be the fulfillment of having gone to the laver and seen our hearts, that one of the ingredients of the incense on the altar is confession, confession of sin, confession of failure, confession of need. And I submit to you that the incense that ascends and is acceptable to Him will always have that ingredient of confession and brokenness. He said, My Name is holy. I dwell in the high and the holy place, with him that is of a broken and a contrite spirit, to revive the hearts of the broken and to revive the spirits of the contrite ones. And there will always be that element of confession and brokenness. Then there will be with it the element of thanksgiving. I believe that God has nothing for the ungrateful heart; that one, who sees not His mercies of yesterday, need not expect for mercy today. I
1 John of Ruysbroeck (1293-4-1381)

believe that when the writer, Paul writing to Timothy says, that there will come a generation that will be anathema, from which those who love God must turn away, and then he said, They will be unthankful and unholy. He put his finger on two characteristics of every decadent religious group. They have lost their sense of gratitude, lost their sense of thanksgiving, lost their sense of appreciation. O, my friend, if you have sinned against God by failing to let the incense of thanksgiving ascend into Heaven, you have deprived yourself, crippled yourself. You have afflicted yourself with a paralysis far more crippling to your spirit than any disease could be to your flesh. I witnessed to you that last time I spoke of the consequences of ingratitude, for when we fail to give thanks in everything, and give thanks for everything, then we have smothered the incense, and we have paralyzed our approach to God, and robbed ourselves of His blessing.
And it may be I speak to some of you that have fallen into this trap, and gone into this pit of ingratitude.
And then another ingredient in this incense is praise. And they are not to be confused. Thanksgiving is gratitude for what He has done, and praise is adoration for what He is. Have you seen Him? Have you magnified the Name of the Lord. If you have ever received from God, if you ever see Him, in any real vital sense, it would be because there has arisen from your heart, from the altar of your spirit, praise. Praise becometh the saints. Praise is a sacrifice God delights in. Praise is quite distinct from thanksgiving. Praise is God-centered, even as thanksgiving is self-centered. You are grateful for what God has done for you. But praise is adoration for what He is in and of Himself. Have you seen that? Is there an altar in your heart from which confession, and thanksgiving, and praise arises?
I remember reading years ago how Martin Luther2 prayed for three hours, and I determined to do it. And so I set an alarm clock on my desk, and knelt at my chair in the office, and started to pray. I prayed around the world. I went over all my missionary lists. I went over the membership of the church. I went back and forth from the tropic of Capricorn to the tropic of cancer, and zigzagged around the world two or three times, and I was sure I must have gone at least three hours, and peeked through my fingers, and found I had been 22 minutes and about 30 seconds. And I said, If he spent three hours doing this, how in the living world did he do it? What did he talk about all that time? I know now. He was not there reading off a celestial gimme list, or shopping list. He was not there just to get God to send him an order. He was there with confession. He was there with thanksgiving. He was there with praise. And somewhere in the midst of this petition burst in his heart, and he laid hold of the God he had been magnifying, and that petition was registered in Heaven. And then he went on thanking the Lord, and praising the Lord, until another petition was released. And every time he brought a petition thus to the Lord, there was an answer, for it was prevailing prayer. But the time was spent, not in asking, but in worshipping.
And so it is, if you are ever to know God in any intimate real sense, as the dear little woman that wrote the book, “The Cloud of Unknowing”, who said, “Oh, first it is words, then it is thanksgiving, then it is praise, and then it is just beyond words in His Presence.” And she called her little treatise, “The Cloud of Unknowing.” Have you ever gone into the holy place? Do you fellowship with Him? Oh, dear heart, listen. As I was there, recuperating and resting during these weeks past, I had so much time to spend with the Lord. And you know, one day I said, Lord, why have I gotten so tired? And you know what I found, as He spoke to me. I opened the Bible and began to read and I read where David was bringing the ark back to Jerusalem, and David had gotten in trouble once because he tried to do it the day the Philistines did. And then he brought the staves, and did it the proper way. But it was not just enough to obey the Lord, and wait on the Lord. He said, This is a religious occasion, and we ought to do something appropriate. So you know what it says, And David and all Israel danced before the ark with all their might. Now nowhere in the Word of God did God ever command that they were to dance before the ark. The ark was not to be the place of dancing. It was to be the place of worship.
And you know I think our frenetic, schizophrenic generation of Christians, about one tenth of whom the national average prevails even among the church, will need mental health therapy. Do you know why? It is because we have been dancing before the ark, with all our might, instead of falling on our faces, lost in wonder, love, in awe, in praise.
2 Martin Luther (1483-1546) German monk, former Catholic priest, who wrote the Ninety-Five Theses.

Have you ever gone into the holy of holies, and there seen Him who is unseeable, and beheld Him whom your eyes cannot comprehend. This is where He wants you. And this is what He said, God seeketh such that will come to the gate, come to the altar, come to the laver, come to the bread, come to the place of prayer. God seeketh such to worship, worship, worship Him.
What are you doing before the ark? Are you worshipping? or dancing with all your might? Have you entered into that place? Where are you? Let’s go back. Have you come to the gate? O dear sinner friend, if I talk to you, this is what you must do, receive Him. Have you come to the gate? Have you come to the altar? Perhaps I speak to some, Yes, I know I have been forgiven. I know I have been pardoned. I know my sins are under the Blood. Yes, I know I have been born of God. But did you stop there? Did you stop there? Have you gone on to the laver? Have you opened your heart, have you exposed you mind, have you exposed your spirit, have you said, Lord, search me within and without? You will never go further unless you go to the laver, because that door into the holy place is going to be fast closed to you. And that is when revival comes. When people get hungry and they go to the laver and they begin to open their hearts and expose their minds, and their spirits, and deal with what God shows. Have you come to the laver? Have you been? Oh, I have been there, Brother. God has been speaking to my heart. I have been there. But now I see, I had better go to the altar, the table of shewbread. I haven’t been feeding on the Word. I haven’t been nourishing my mind and spirit.
Where are you? Have you been to the place of prayer, praise, of adoration, or worship? Have I spoken to some that have entered into the holy place? The secret of the Lord is in the sanctuary. It is in that place of worship, that place of abandonment, that place of revelation. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. And the heavenlies speak to us of the holiest of all. Have you come in there? That is where He wants to bring you. That is where He is pressing you. That is where He is drawing you. If you are His.
Where are you? Where did you stop? Where did you stop? Because, if you stopped, you chose to stop. Where did you get off? Where did you choose to stop? Did you stop at the altar of burnt offering? Did you stop before you got to the laver? Did you stop at the table of shewbread? Did you stop at the place of prayer? You were not to have stopped. You were not to have stopped. There is only one place to stop, and that is in the presence of the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, in worship, and in adoration. This is what He seeks for, and this is what glorifies Him. Have you been there? Have you been there? Do you see it? Do you see it? This is where He wants to bring you.
Shall we bow in prayer. We are coming now, dear friends, to this Table, this is the Table of the Lord. He has said, Judge yourselves, examine yourselves, prove yourselves. Now I want to ask you, Where have you come? Where have you come? How far have you come? Have you come to the door? Have you? Have you come to the altar? Perhaps you are just on the outside, saying, Yes, I see Christ, this is what I see, but I have not received Him. Well, then you have no privilege here. If Christ is not in you, you have not been born of God, then really I want to say in all love, you have no right to take the bread, you have no right to take the wine. For it speaks of those that have been born of Him. You say, Well my life is better than some I know. Well, I recognize that. Perhaps that could be true, but still remains that this is to eat unworthily if you have not been born of God. But I speak to you that have come passed the altar of burnt offering. Yes, my sins were forgiven. But you see you have not right to serve of these elements, and take of them, unless you have come to the laver, unless you are willing to expose your heart, and your life, and your imaginations, and your motives to the unveiling light of the Spirit of God, and deal with everything He shows you. For if you eat and drink, without having gone to the laver, you eat and drink judgment and discipline. Have you come to the laver? Are you willing to say, Lord, test my motives, test my imaginations. Or, are you saying, Lord, Thou knowest my motives, and they have not been right. Thou knowest my imaginations. It has not been clean, and kind. Thou knowest my words. They have been bitter, and hurtful, and harmful. My dear, if you eat and drink today, I assure you in the light of God’s Word and truth, you are drinking discipline. And there is that warning which says, For this reason, many are sick, and some sleep, for God is very tender, and gentle, and protective of His Table. Where have you come? Have you come to the Word, the altar, the table of shewbread? Have you come to the place of prayer? Where are you? And as we come to the Table of the Lord, with what motive de you come? Do you come with brokenness? Do you come with concern? I wonder today, before we even go to this Table, if the Spirit of God is not speaking to you, saying, O God knows my heart. He knows my imaginations, my words. The laver has found me out. I do not know of a better time in all the world for you to acknowledge you need and to deal with it, than right now, right now, before we even go into this service of worship; before we move any further I am going to ask

this, If God has spoken to your heart, He has shown you your need, and you have purposed to deal with what He has shown you, and you know that you are a Christian, and yet God has shown you areas in your life and places in your life that you are dealing with, you are judging, you are going to appropriately deal with, and you want to signify that to your own heart and to Him, then I am going to ask you to raise your hand and be remembered in the closing prayer, before we go into this Table of the Lord, and your upraised hand will say, Yes, God has shown me where I have stopped, but I am purposing to go on. I am going to go on, and I see it, I am dealing with it, and I am asking God to be my witness and my help that I may deal with everything He shows me. Would you raise your hand? Yes, thank you. Yes. Yes thank you. Take them down. Are there others? Yes, I see that. Are there others? Yes. Yes, thank you. In the balcony, are there those? Yes, I see them. Are there still others. Thank you. Thank you. Are there others? Put them up. Take them down again, saying God has shown me my need, shown me my heart. Anyone else?
Father, Thou dost see the hearts of this people. We know Thou dost know us. Thou dost know everything in us that must be dealt with. Hands have been raised. And these hands, Lord, represent hearts that have broken to some degree at least. And we ask Thee to continue to work in every life until everything that grieves Thee is out of the way and under the Blood, confessed and forgiven. We plead, therefore, our Heavenly Father, the precious Blood of Christ over and upon this company, each one and every one, Thou knowest what will be required. To some, Lord, it is going to be confession. Perhaps to some it will be public confession. To others, it will be private apology and asking for forgiveness. But we believe, our God, that there are those who have raised their hand that meant it, and so we ask Thee to breathe upon us and brood over us until all that was intended by Thy Spirit’s dealing is finished. We know that Thou dost not seek to hurt us, but only to make us blessable. And so we ask Thee that Thou wilt now as we come to this Table make wonderfully real Thy presence. May these even who have not had opportunity to put into effect the purpose of their heart, may they be accepted by Thee, because of the intention of their heart, to set everything right, to come to the laver, and to get it out, confessed, under the Blood, that there should be nothing between. And so, as we come, may we have that sense of Thy presence. Deal Thou with those, Lord, with whom Thou hast spoken, but hast not said a yes to Thee. May Thy Holy Spirit take away all joy, all rest, all peace, all contentment with their food and their bed, all life satisfactions canker in their hearts, in their minds, in their mouths, until they are right with Thee. We plead for the precious working of Thy Spirit upon us. We want to be a vessel Thou canst use, and so we are willing to expose ourselves to Thy dealing, so that we can in due cause have Thy blessing. In the Name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ask it. Amen.
* Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle Church, New York City on Sunday Morning, August 12, 1962 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1962






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