In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the importance of unity within the church. He emphasizes that every detail in the tabernacle, as described in Exodus 25, is significant and represents a part of God's infinite deity. The speaker highlights the need for Christians to be a steadying influence and counterbalance any tendencies to go off on tangents or find fault with one another. He also discusses the concept of the testimony of God and the mercy seat, emphasizing their relevance in the present day and the end times.

And I'm curious myself and even anxious to see an old text brought into a new context to bring out depths of that text that are intended for now. So Lord, if that's your intention, we would be so grateful. And if it is your intention, Lord, give us grace by your Spirit as we explore, probe, my God, into the very deeps, Lord, in what you have deposited in your uncanny wisdom from the very beginning that is timeless and appropriate for all generations and takes on even heightened meaning as we come to our last generation, the end of the age and the consummation of all things from the beginning. So Lord, we're privileged to be led by you even as a kind of preliminary to the school itself. And we thank you for your so great presence that you're the God of truth, Lord, righteousness, mercy, love, that your own heart, Lord, is chafed by the schisms and the breaks and the convolutions of your body. Is there any people more prone to being offended than the church? What is it about us, my God, that makes us so susceptible to offense, a wrong look, a wrong word, a gesture? It's amazing where the world is more thick-skinned, we are so apt to find fault or an offense. As our brother shared before the breakfast break, a man comes dressed differently and that's enough. The man could be apostolic and have been the fount of life-giving things, but he's not dressed properly and boom, one fell swoop and everything is undone. So Lord, we're your sons and daughters, Lord, for the church and we want to be instructed and to be a steadying influence where it would be disposed to go off on such tangents. We, because we have been privileged to receive instruction from you, my God, might be a counterbalancing influencer to keep the church on even keel in all of its differences, remembering that every difference is born of you. You're the God of diversity. You made the male and female and by that one thing alone, what you have set in motion, only eternity can reveal. You gave prophets and teachers and their very virtue is antagonistic to the other. And so you're setting something up that out of antagonism will come reconciliation of such a transfiguring kind as to make the church an eternal glory for your name. Help us to see that, Lord, and to rejoice for it and to participate in it, that we ourselves will be the fall guy. We ourselves will have to experience and pass through being misperceived or misunderstood or maybe even rightly understood in our era and have to bear the pain of it before we experience the joy and the glory. We're willing, even as you were willing, my God. So come and ventilate and express your so great heart that we thank you for the privilege in Jesus name. Amen. Well, the text in question is Exodus 25. This is the pattern that Moses was given on the mount of the tabernacle to be raised in the earth, which is the statement of God himself. This is not just the mere architecture or pieces of furniture. Every single detail is explicit and redundant about God touching some aspect of his infinite deity. And there's one portion here that has always, I've always found so compelling in chapter 25 after being told about the tabernacle and the pattern of it in verses eight and nine and what should be inserted in it as articles of furniture, how it's made, its measure, the ingredients, the elements that go into its making. And we read in verse 16, and thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. Even that word is remarkable, isn't it? The testimony, we think of the word testimony like a word in jurisprudence, a testimony of a witness before you make a decision and a verdict, a cry from the meaning God intends, the testimony of himself. And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold of beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat and make one cherub on the one end and the other cherub on the other end. Even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubims on the two ends thereof and 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 cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. Remarkable text utterly divine every word God breathed and out of the wisdom and counsel of God himself in remarkable detail so it deserves the most exacting examination even the language the terms mercy seat we didn't make that up he gave it to us that's the term by which he himself designates this remarkable central piece in the whole tabernacle of God this is the centerpiece the ark of God the testimony within the rod of Aaron that budded the pot of manna and then on top of it a lid a mercy seat I have in my margin here it says an expiating cover and we know that it was on that cover in heaven that Jesus brought his own blood and sprinkled it and the father watched the benevolent gaze of the father waiting for this one act to to establish expiation to establish atonement for sin of all mankind for all time forever was this one act on this one lid the mercy seat so what God is instructing Moses to establish on the earth is the perfect counterpart of what already is in heaven there is actually a heavenly tabernacle an exact dimension of the kind that was given Moses for the earth and maybe when the new Jerusalem comes down upon the old there will be that merging and the establishment of a permanent and enduring tabernacle where heaven and earth have met but it will be of these dimensions so we need to explore why God calls it mercy seat why it's the lid over the testimony that is within the ark and why the ark itself seeing that it's the statement of God and containing these remarkable elements is very modest in size as I said was it yesterday morning when we took communion I said you don't need a big piece even a mini communion will do just a little piece of the bread and a sip of the wine for the reality of the power is in the whole eating more of it does not change the content and the value is as much in the little as in the as in the more the same thing here the dimensions are very modest which is also a statement about God because if man were doing something of a comparable kind of an everlasting statement of testimony it would take grandiose dimensions so if you go to Berlin today and see the holocaust memorial being built in the same area where the Reichstag is the parliament of Germany where every cubic centimeter of ground is worth I don't know how many tens or hundreds of thousands of Deutschmarks they're taking football fields to make a memorial to the holocaust as if the magnitude of that event requires size and dimension and it's nothing more than just slabs of concrete something like an enormous casket indicating the wholesale death of Jews in the holocaust but couldn't one casket have sufficed do you need to multiply them by the hundreds and pour out millions of dollars worth of concrete over vast areas of space as if size and space and dimension make a statement of the magnitude of something well would the statement have been more profound if it had been concentrated in one thing only of a modest kind and there the essential elements that you're wanting to commemorate could have been found it's a remarkable contrast of man with God man requires amplitude dimension size power because we know where that the spirit of that and that mentality has its origin but here we see the divine mentality completely other and contrary to man in terms of its modest proportions the remarkable not only is it modest but it's irregular in verse 17 and this shall be the length thereof a cubit and a half the breadth thereof and two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof i've i've i'm stymied to this day i don't know why God gave an irregular measure two and a half one and a half you would think three three is the great number the trinity why half so i'm putting that out for your consideration and your response there's something in the divine mind that uh not only required a modesty of size but an irregular irregulatory dimension a half rather than a full measure as if something is incomplete that this will be completed at some future time where something also of two and a half and one and a half will come together and form the perfect and the complete whole so what does that suggest spiritually speaking so everything is given to indicate that something is yet incomplete and that the completion concludes the redemptive purposes of God and its yet future but we live with the fragment the incomplete measure and that we ourselves being instructed by this may well be the instruments of affecting the completion of God's design where heaven the heavenly tabernacle meets with the earthly and becomes the one everlasting whole well you can think of how let me put it this way can you live with incompleteness can you live with something partial knowing that it prefigures something whole that is yet to come but is not yet it's here but not yet here the kingdom of God is here but not yet here uh we have it in part we will have it in whole man as a rule does not like to live with incompleteness we want the security of all of the hatches battened down you know that nautical term we don't like something that's in part and yet the distinctive of the church is to live with incompleteness and not be agitated out of measure to be comfortable with something that is partial and that will yet one day be completed and yet to live with it as if it's already in hand isn't that remarkable well that's what we're talking about broken relationships and uh to live in that and the tension of something that has not yet been resolved and not come unglued not demanding an arbitration and terms that will complete something and waiting on God to perfect in his completion something that not only resolves the human tension of of difficulty but glorifies him brother glad this is being recorded wow i don't think i said anything of what i'm now speaking when this was a prime message some years ago how come because i was not yet in that place it waited upon the fractions and factions of unresolved things that have come into my life of the kind that we shared before we went for the morning break to begin to see a corollary between the design given here of an incomplete measure and the incompleteness that we see in the lives of the saints and in ourselves so my definition of a saint is one who's willing and able to live with the tension of incompletion of things yet unresolved confident that when that resolution comes it will not only be an answer to the agitation that we've that that has to be born but that it will glorify God the reason for the rupture is not just to bring about a solution and a resolution that will please man though undoubtedly it will but that God will all the more be glorified when the incomplete is made perfect and for that reason we can bear the tension thank you lord for that little piece of punctuation for that reason we can bear the tension we're willing to live unlike the rest of mankind with the agitation of unresolved things because we know that God has a purpose in it there's a reason why this is given in half measures and uh when it's not even explained to us but we can sense that there's it's it's pointing to something that is yet that will is future that will complete what is given here only in part and that when that comes God will be glorified eternally so we're willing in time now to bear the agitation and the incompleteness knowing that when the resolution comes in God's time it will be beyond time it will be an eternal glory and for that we can bear it it's a statement of God's identification with us that not only are we to bear the tension of something yet unresolved but he's willing to bear the tension he who is perfect is willing to live in a yet unresolved thing waiting for a fulfillment of the church coming of age and his purpose is being consummated it's a real statement about God i'm just talking off the top of my head it's a statement of his humanity if i can put it that way that he who did not have to bear that kind of tension and deserves perfectedness and is himself perfection is willing to bear the incompleteness of something that waits for a development in the earth to bring about the final resolution he's willing to bear it also and to live with that incompletion i'm not saying let's say if the lord how can i speak for him but that's what it suggests to me that he has the other half waiting for this half and uh who need not wait he's God he can have everything now but in his identification with us that in all of our afflictions he's afflicted and in all of our tensions he bears attention and so that's a statement about God that was worth pondering how many fewer divorces would there be among Christians whose statistic of divorce is as scandalous as that in the world if they understood this and could live with the agitation of the incompleteness of their marriage of the coming together of of opposite parts and it's not a little snap of the finger it's not a piece of magic but it's a painful working out remember that this whole thing is beaten out of gold and out of one piece of gold it's not poured into a mold it's beaten out so are we willing just in the application of this to allow for the beating out of the gold of our marriage and our relationships of incomplete parts until the wholeness will come in which the marriage will not just be a piece of compatibility but a statement of glory how many Christian marriages fail and men or women throw in the towel willing for divorce because they cannot bear the continuing agitation of something unreconciled now the remarkable thing is that God himself is the author of that disparity and of that contradiction male and female and the personalities of husband and wife are the very givingness of God to obtain something more than the issue of compatibility but glory but they don't hold steady they have not the patience the forbearance the trust they can't bear the agitation their own satisfaction is more important than the glory of God and so they'll break it off and try try again to find the partner who'll be more compatible that they'll not have to pass through these difficulties and can come into a more instant gratification for themselves not realizing that the issue of marriage is not the issue of gratification or compatibility but the issue of the glory of God because it's the mystery of the church itself so if we had been properly instructed through the book of Exodus we can bear those differences as as grating as they are because they're totally contrary to ourselves you know how much more painful when the relationship is two brothers or one's own wife or a spiritual brother who uh ate bread with you and went into the house of the Lord with you and then becomes a betrayer or at least is perceived as that so there's quite an element of pain that's intrinsic to this resolution that will glorify God so maybe another definition of a saint and what I'm saying is the willingness to bear tension is the willingness to suffer pain tension is pain and the contradiction is the God who made us organically to desire that resolution that gratifies so pain is to defer an immediate gratification for something distant and to wait on it in trust and bear it which God is willing to do and is doing now in heaven it pains him but he's not wanting a slick completion he's wanting an authentic resolution and the reconciliation of differences hammered out of gold and if if uh insensate material like gold could register pain it would say ouch for every hammer blow can you picture this a block of metal is beaten and flattened and these two cherubim are fashioned from either end of this gold out of the same piece there's a tremendous amount of beating to achieve this design in the way that God instructed it to be made you don't make the separate pieces and then glue them on you don't weld them on you don't solder them on it's out of the same piece that's beaten so there are a lot of blows in relationship and it's not because your wife is malicious that you're suffering the blow it's just in the nature of things the way she's composed and or a brother in the fellowship or a sister crying out this is too much this is going too far this is bordering on heresy that's not a statement out of some malicious intent to rupture a discussion but out of a genuine heart concern for the sanctity of the faith as this lady understands it and thinks she's standing in defense of the faith see what i mean but it's a blow to the man who is by his nature and calling willing to explore where where others have not gone heretofore so these blows are not malicious not intentionally malicious though i'm sure that there are times when they are but nevertheless it's still a blow it's still a pain that one has to bear so uh that's God is willing to bear because with every blow he he experiences the pain even more acutely than ourselves so to be a saint then is to become like God the willingness to bear offense of pain blows misunderstanding men falling upon you for taking offense at a word i often say that the greatest pain in my life in 40 years as a believer has not been jewish opposition angry jews ventilating their their fury kicking or spitting or name calling it's what you bear in the church it's the having gone with a brother into the house of God and broken bread together and having that same one accuse you or or leave the community but make sure that he's gone to every household to explain why he's leaving and in the hope that by so doing he will encourage them also to go out and then when they go out and leave art all alone in his empty uh ben israel that will be the judgment and he has been the instrument himself in affecting it this is a man with whom you've traveled in the world in ministry in different nations assuming if it was a stranger you could bear it but when it's one with whom you have broken bread and gone into the house of the lord together and served in the and from that one comes a design to bring judgment because he suspects you know what his wife said that's pain so this house is not going to be complete and the glory of God not to be obtained except by those willing to bear it as the lord himself is bearing it but dwelling on every word that issues from the mouth of God look at the very commencement of this segment of scripture that begins and thou shalt make i've never before dwelt upon that and thou shalt make why why what was possible significance in that when God himself could have given something fashioned in heaven even in its incompleteness because it's holy but no thou shalt make you you form this you pass through this you beat this thing you beat this gold you hammer you experience you let this register on your soul on your consciousness on your understanding this isn't the ready-made little convenience that you'll now set in the tabernacle you make it and thou shalt make it and isn't that what we're doing isn't that what the church is isn't that what we are about isn't that what the struggle is between these two couples thou shalt make it it's not going to come to you ready-made in a generation of instant this instant that for convenience thou shalt make it you must pass through this you must experience this this must be in wrought the ingredient is pure gold which is always the symbol of deity so isn't it remarkable the it's made for of God God makes the the situation the circumstances but we shall make it he's allowing us to employ what is of him to pass through our hands and our experience to create something that if it does not exist and am not formed in the same exact specification it cannot be completed from that which is in heaven he's entrusting us with something that has to be formed through our handling that will complete what he has already established in heaven talk about faith because we're not called to something magical we're called to something authentic and we can only come to that authenticity through the reality of making it it's out of our situation it's out of male and female and black and white and the what was our brothers cast untouchable and the things that you pass through in the history of the body of christ and your expression of it in community and of the various struggles and so on you shall make it i'm the giver of the ingredients pure gold but you make it you form it you pass it must come through your experience we are hammered upon and we ourselves hammer and that's the name that's the nature of the thing you can't avoid either inflicting the blows or receiving them even in the situation i've described before the coffee break with these two couples they have both hammered and been hammered upon not because of any malicious intent we need to remember that but just by the nature of the thing even the nature of their own calling of a man who's a wordsmith as a teacher exercised and irritated by a man who exhorts in a very liberal sweeping way without careful attention to the text that's the kind of thing that moves a teacher to a frenzy that that's a prophetic exhorter take such liberties while the prophetic man looking at the teacher says he's so narrow so intent on the the um the curlicues what do you call it the the minutiae of the word that what is in hebrew not not not one jot or tittle the teacher's involved in the jot and tittle and the prophetic man wants to see the large picture so there's a natural antagonism that is god-given this gold comes from god this is god's gold giving some men as teachers and some as prophets but we're the one and they're going to rain blows on one another out of the very nature of their calling so we mustn't take offense you know and and recognize that this is inherent in the nature of things in the mystery the paradox of things and bear it because there's something god is wanting between these cherubim and so peter's last word is what shall this man do so there are elements of envy jealousy competition and striving speaking about john what shall this man do and then after the advent of the pentecost and holy spirit the same two men who were in a natural antipathy of of conflict and envy perhaps are the ones to affect the first miracle at the gate beautiful when the man born lame fixes his eye upon them why did he fix his eyes upon them because what they represented was already a prefiguring of this glory they had been already affected in the power of the holy spirit a reconciliation of differences that that that miracle would not have taken place exclusively by peter independent of john but something was exhibited by them in a union of what had come to bring the two irregular pieces together and peter though the spokesman said silver and gold have we none but as much as we have we give unto you not i we already his his perspective has been altered and the two in effect in effect have become one so you see a prefiguring of the glory of god's intention for the church somewhere in one of oswald chamber's utmost devotionals he says something like there's always one thing more about a person which if we had known it would have altered our entire view of the man and of the thing but that one thing more is not for us to know but to be humbled by the knowledge that there is always one thing more and that we can never be complete in our own assessment of any man or be offended because if we knew the totality it would remove the offense so remarkable what is given in an old testament text that would be so applicable for the church today if it were tempered by the wisdom of what god had given and requires to be made and and the working out of its own relationships so verse 18 thou shall make two cherubims of gold of beaten work if you're not made of a beaten work you're not angelic angels ascending and descending upon the son of man and that's why i say when we hear a man like this indian brother said before us can we see the beaten work can we understand what what goes into the making of such a man this isn't just a abstract disseminator of words who has obtained a certain skill and knowledge this is a whole thing this is beaten out of gold with blows so we need to appreciate that and we ourselves appreciate the process in ourselves so two why two peter and john the prophet and the teacher the apostle and the prophet male and female every duality everything in opposites requires the one end and the other but they're there to be beaten out of the same gold and constitute the two ends but they're to be related to each other in a very specific way their wings have to touch because they're overshadowing the arc of testimony that contains the statement of god as almost a kind of protective uh presence and their faces have got to it says look down into the testimony they've got to see through the mercy seat on whose ends they have been beaten to the testimony of god below they have to see through mercy to righteousness for what is in the ark is the statement of the righteousness of god tablets of the law the rod of of Aaron the pot of manna the mercy provision of god every issue has got to be seen in the context of god's righteousness but to see god's righteousness independent of god's mercy is not to see rightly so you can only look upon the righteousness of god and the requirement of righteousness through the place of mercy they have to look down upon the mercy seat and look down and through and into the requirement of god whew can you imagine a church that has this kind of understanding and disposition because so much that has been church squabble and difficulty has been men in insisting upon their being right and on and probably more cases than that they are right but right is wrong if it's not tempered by mercy to be right is not right enough to be correct is not correct enough and more injury and harm is done in the name of rightness and correction and correctedness and having the right view than in error to be right without mercy is more painful and more destructive than even error itself i would much rather be at the mercy of men who are right in spirit but in error in doctrine than i would give myself to men who are correct in doctrine and are wanting in mercy those are the those are the ones who will burn you at the stake so even this requirement to be beaten out of one gold one gold but to look down while at the same time looking in each other's faces 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 street seat shall the face the cherubim's knee it takes two on either side and that they represent the polarity of everything that is in nature that is in god that is in the church that is in the callings of god and he himself is the architect and author of this requirement he need not have done this if he wanted a cheap unity he could have made one figure which is like the idols of pagan religion which is a cheap unity but no god's unity comes out of conflict out of opposition if we think that that's a fiction and that there are not distinct painful differences we don't know what we're talking about and to make sure that i know what i'm talking about god has given me the gentile of the gentiles every corpuscle in that dear danish lady's nature is gentilic from beginning to end and there's a reason if there can be some kind of communion and coming together of these disparate differences it'll not just be a working harmony it'll be a glory there's madness there's purpose in god's madness he's created them gentile and jew male and female prophet and teacher and and everything that is opposite and contradiction altogether is given to glorify god in that resolution and reconciliation which comes in the end through his grace that could not have begun to be provided if he instantly and at the beginning just fashioned one thing so here's the majesty of god's intention and that we have to work it out we shall make two ends so the tendency is to look away rather than into isn't that right we don't want to look into the face of that which contradicts us we want to look only into that which is complementary and supportive of us but to look into the opposite with a steady and non-faltering gaze not just to tolerate those differences but to understand and apprehend them i'm talking right off the top of my head which is always my best talking so this this purpose of they shall face each other is not just taking a deep breath and suffering because god requires it a forbearing of the differences but to contemplate them to look into the face of them even what so to speak to appreciate them even to admire them and even to see the beauty of god in them though it is totally different from you from yourself and the same requirement is made of the other cherubim as they contemplate you how many of us have done that it's contrary to nature and everything that glorifies god is contrary to nature but if he has required it he'll give us the grace not only that he says there i will meet with you at the end of this statement i've i've i've constituted one place where i'm to be available to you in counsel for all the sons of israel in whatever exigency whatever requirement whatever unforeseen a complex situation arises in the future if you're going to have my counsel for the sons of israel this is where it will be obtained and in no other place there i will meet with you above the mercy seat and between the cherubim i'll meet with you in the place of conflict and antagonism and contradiction and opposition and i'll not meet with you in any other place there i'll meet with you how about them apples what a god these are not accidental haphazard differences that somehow we have to abide and find resolution they are god given he's the gold it's made out of him because he himself is inclusive of all contradiction he takes into himself all contradiction and uh and we have to uh the knowledge of that that that opposite one that not only is different from us but is threatening to us is as much from god as we are that that's what this couple need to realize that the man who is the exhorter is as much from god in that nature and calling as the one who is the exquisite exegete in the detailed examination of the word it's the same gold and the church does not recognize that so this is a remarkable formula for the church and given at the very beginning to moses on the mount as the template in the pattern by which god's sanctuary is to be established where his presence is to be found and where he himself says there i will meet with you if we shun that place if we don't want to look into the face of that which is opposite and ostensibly is threatening to us we void having a communion and the accessibility of a god who will give us counsel and that's why we've lacked it that's why these conflicts have gone without resolution to be delighted in the mystery of that requires a remarkable security in god can you face that which seems to threaten your calling your identity and not be disconcerted and come unglued because you know that you know that you're beaten out of the same gold and that you're accepted in the beloved and that you're called to be a cherubim and that you know that this is the foundation of your life and person and therefore you can bear and even receive and even enjoy that which is contrary to you but how many believers have that security and that's what my complaint when this sister cried out last year that year this is going too far i said privately to her later you're speaking out of fear your fear is death you're afraid that we're going to lapse into heresy you're insecure where's your confidence that here's a man that you've known for over 30 years can't you trust and wait when something embryonic is first coming forth that god is wanting to elaborate and to establish in greater measure later do you have to jump on it right now for fear that you're instantly going to be plunged into heresy what about the history of the man and of the fellowship fear insecurity because it does not know that it itself is made of the same gold see we need you need to have that deep confidence that you're wrought from god and in god then you then you can receive from the opposite as you guys know the little drama that is being worked out in brooklyn between myself and a pentecostal congregation patient feeling our way through historic differences irreconcilable differences of that which is apostolic and prophetic having to meet with and find communion and relationship in reality with a staid historic traditional pentecostal denominational church it's unprecedented and yet it's a pilot program if we should fail in this there's no hope for the church to be to the jewish community growing right up to the doors of the church what it must so it's a new thing but it requires the patience and forbearance of the lord which brings us to the remarkable last verse here that i've alluded to but we need to study it verse 22 and there i will meet with thee and will commune with thee which is to say that if we will give ourselves to the tension to which god calls us in opposites he will meet with us and commune and if he meets with us there and communes with us there he's giving himself he is very grace he is mercy he's patience he is wisdom and therefore we have god to be the medium by which the the differences will be worked out he's not asking us on the basis of our limited cherubim ability to work out the relationship with the opposite things that threaten us i will be there i will meet with you and communing with you is not luxury is it is nuts and bolts provision for the most difficult calling which is ours at the church our reconciliation with that which is opposite and if we can do it in the church through the god who will meet with us there and commune with us there what possible provision and answer might that not be for the world for the bantu and who's the other tribe that suffered genocidal elimination the tutsis both black and yet their differences led to savage annihilation because they had not a knowledge of reconciliation of differences though they're both african and what shall we say in serbia and croatia and all of the recent conflicts of this age and even now with arab and jew palestinian and israeli the heart of resolution that only the church can offer to the world as a basis of answer to the conflict that is making of the world a hell but if the church will not perfect what has it to offer and that's the whole design of god both for the nation israel and for the church to be a statement and a provision to the world that it might know how to resolve contradiction and opposition that always ends ultimately in violence destruction and death i will meet with you and i will commune with you we've got to show that reality that there might be a hope born even in the unregenerate when the church sets forth the glory of god because how else shall a jew a hebrew of the hebrews born and brought up in brooklyn in that mentality in life find a basis not just of getting by with the gentile of the gentiles from denmark but a glorious resolution of the differences into a new form that transcends both denmark and brooklyn except by the god who will commune with us and be there his presence is the key but only there will i meet with you so long as you remain steadfast and not turn your eyes away from the other though you're tempted many times so to do there i will meet with you in the place of tension in the place of contradiction the place where you you think this is impossible there's no way lord that there could be any kind of union between what i am formed at your hand over these years in this prophetic apostolic mentality with these traditional pentecostals they're stone cold dead they're fixed in their tradition they their ears stopped i can't hear it's it's water off the duck's back there's no way i just want to have my hand on the car door ready to take off and never come back the pastor comes running out of church brother cats don't leave yet we're going to take you to lunch and that lunch and the coffee that followed up in his apartment was the turning point that set in motion the seminar that brought the word of god that set this to that god was there in communion let's let's look over this text again and be sensitive to the lord if a certain word phrase thought comes speak it out there are depths of things that we've not yet called that waits upon something that you will identify from verses 17 through 22 so gold stands for deity and meekness is an essential attribute of god so he's in this from the beginning and without himself this could never be formed he's the malleable metal anything else is earthen and human couldn't be used so there are things that we've not yet heard from god that wait upon this condition for him to communicate he says of all things which i will give thee it's yet future but he'll only give it in this context so we have we're not even conscious that there's a content that god wants to impute and give that will be so valuable for all the children of israel the church and the people israel that waits upon the condition alone that he prescribes that's a that's a remarkable verse 22 there i will meet with you i will commune with you from above and from between there's a certain word uh lord gave in new zealand with regard to the tension between the aboriginal native maoris and the white settlers that have come over whose land new zealand is those that were there originally who were just a pagan tribal people as against the advances of civilization that has come with white settlers vying now for whose land new zealand is and the word gave me a word remember simon and the word has to do with this an attitude by which even when you're right you're wrong if you're a maori you're wrong even when you're right and insisting that you were the first uh occupiers of the land if you're white you're wrong even when you're right when you say that we deserve the preeminence because we brought all of the distinctions of civilization that has made new zealand new zealand there's a word for this callback gave that word and i can't remember it it's an attitude of diffidence write that down d-i-double-f-i-d-e-n-c it's so rare a word you never will hear it in a lifetime of conversation in america diffidence diffidence is an attitude where you know that and even when you're right you're wrong it's a patience and a forbearance you never act with a zeal that will persecute because you always know that there's one thing that had you known it about the other party you would not be so absolute in your condemnation but it's not given to you to but it's given to to you to be diffident and not press home that you alone are right and the other has to concede to your terms the conceit of man has wrought in this earth who are persuaded of their own correctness as for example the bolshevik revolution the french revolution bloodshed unprecedented even the regimes that were that came with their success in which millions were wiped out called kulaks were the middle class peasants of russia when they wanted to systematize russian agriculture as a socialist program they actually annihilated an entire class of independent farmers in the name of progress of affecting a socialist economy the end of it was starvation and the murder of millions of people in the absolute rectitude that these engineers of society had in affecting their program so the whole of modern history all of history is shot through with rivers of blood unbelievable suffering out of the zeal of men who think themselves correct and maybe we can lay the blame at the door of the church that the church has not demonstrated to the world an alternative mentality that is diffident that knows that even when it's right it's wrong and can never press anything through with an absoluteness that that uh dominates and and conquers those whose view you think is inferior and the whole of the whole of this context is calculated to bring us to this kind of diffidence this kind of mentality this way of seeing and perceiving the other is not the enemy and success does not wait upon his elimination but some kind of new thing that will come out of an integration affected because god is present if we'll look at each other and look down to the place of righteousness through mercy at the same time this is an answer for the world and which the church is to demonstrate and has not done so but you think of the mentality that has even discarded the old testament as being invalid and inappropriate since the advent of the new testament because there they're not even willing to consider that one of the cherubim is the old testament and the other cherubim is the new they're not opposed the though it may seem so and that there's there are benefits and treasure in both waiting for a reconciliation but the mentality of the church has been to push aside the cherubim of old testament and to insist upon its prerogatives in the new as not even requiring the consideration of the old and therefore has missed this text which is so profoundly applicable for new testament christianity it's interesting that i don't know which of the two speakings i was seven years away from being back to zimbabwe seven is the number of completion when i came back after seven years the message the lord gave was the last message that i spoke seven years before washing one another's feet which is reconciliation and the differences of white and black