In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of being ready for service in the Lord's work. He uses the example of Aaron in Exodus 29, who had been cleansed and surrendered his life to the Lord, but still needed to go through a process of preparation before he was ready for service. The speaker emphasizes that God has a way and a time for working, and it is important for believers to understand and follow His timing. He also shares a personal story of feeling called to witness to young people during a time of economic hardship, highlighting the need to be sensitive to God's leading in our service.

I'm going to ask you to turn, please, to Exodus chapter 29. The Old Testament is God's picture book of the truths taught so explicitly and clearly in the New Testament. We look to it for the illustration, and here we're seeing the shadow, the type, the picture, if you please, the illustration. Now, I would like to read several verses, actually through the 21st, and I would suggest that you try to visualize what is read. Now, see it. See it as happening in a three-dimension, a full-color stereo, if you please. It's happening. This took place, and there's a very real reason for it. And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them, to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office. Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened, tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened, anointed with oil, of wheat and flour shalt thou make them. And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket with the bullock and the two rams. And Aaron and his son thou shalt bring into the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod. And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre. And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him. And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them. And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them. And the priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute. And thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons. And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock before the Lord by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar. And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the gall that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp. It is a sin offering. Thou shalt also take one ram. And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. And thou shalt slay the ram. And thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it around about the altar. And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head. And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar. It is a burnt offering unto the Lord. It is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And thou shalt take the other ram. And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot. And sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his sons with him. And he shall be hallowed, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him. Now we'll stop the reading of the word there. This gives us the picture that I believe the Lord wants us to consider this morning. Last night we saw that God has a way of working. We considered this in the moving of the Ark from the country of the Philistines back to Israel. God has a way of working that honors him, that exalts his Son. And we have to do God's work in God's way, if God is to honor it and get the glory that he deserves from it. But today we have to see that God has a time for his working. God's work is not only to be done in God's way, but it's also to be done in God's time. For this is the, one of the significant factors. Moses has given orders for the building of the tabernacle. The garments have been prepared. But Aaron and his sons, though appointed to serve, are not ready to serve, are not released to serve, until certain things are done, certain things are fulfilled. And here we are, a company of perhaps the largest portion of this morning, students, preparing to serve the Lord. And it's so important that we should understand that God has a way of working, and God has a time for working. I recall back in Northwestern schools in Minneapolis in 1936 it was, or perhaps it was the fall of 36. You may recall that there were thousands of American young people on the road, drifting with the railroads. Camps of these refugee adolescents would be set up at the edge of town. Cities would provide some kind of food for them. Thousands and thousands of young people, just drifting. No work, no employment. And I became concerned about it. Someone came and talked to us at school, and somehow it entered into my mind that that perhaps I should leave school and just go and witness to these young people. R. L. Moyer was the dean of the school and professor, and I met him one day and I mentioned this to him. Well, he said, I don't know what the Lord has for you to do, and I can't tell you what you should do. But I want to tell you one thing. Faithful preparation is service. You're not preparing to serve, you're serving while you prepare. Faithful preparation is faithful service. He said, I think the problem with you is you're eager to serve, and you don't feel that you're serving while you're preparing. He said, you've got to understand that in your preparation you are serving God as much as in any service that you will perform afterward. God has a time, a time to prepare, a time when the arrow is polished and put into the quiver. And if you do not faithfully prepare, then there will be no possibility of your serving in the opportunity and the privilege that God will have for you. Now here are instructions. We've read in Exodus 29 the instruction. They're clearly given for a real purpose. First they're to take the garments which have been prepared and put them on Aaron and his sons. This is substantially what's happening to students now. These that have prepared truth and testimony and ministry are now transmitting it. They're putting it upon mind and spirit and heart. And oh how many there are that have had the garments put on, and they have felt that they were ready, because their minds have been furnished and their hearts have been stirred perhaps with the awesome privilege and responsibility. But it wasn't just that they were to have the garments put on. They were also to then stand before the door of the tabernacle with their hands over the head of the bullock. Now this is in a sense an inauguration service, but it pictures again the deliverance that was first illustrated back there in Egypt, when they were delivered by blood. It's a reaffirmation if you please. It's a testimony. And we must ever, I believe it was our brother O'Neill who prayed yesterday, and in his prayer drew our hearts in worship to the fact that we never outgrow the need for the precious blood of Christ. It was Spurgeon speaking to the students at the Pastor's College in Britain who said, young man, young man, make much of the blood of Christ. For everything is on the perch, the pouring out of his life, that purchase of our redemption that he made there when he died. Back in Egypt that night, the ram was taken and slain, and its blood sprinkled on the doorpost, the lintels. And it's strangely enough, if you move the two lintels together with the post, you have again a cross. How frequently this appears in the types of the Old Testament. But the blood is sprinkled on the doorpost, and it was there that night, that Aaron and his sons came under the covenant of blood. But now as they begin their ministry, they put their hands over the head of the oxen, and in so doing identify again with the fact of their utter unworthiness, that in them, in themselves, there's no good thing. And so with you, as you prepare to serve the Lord, be it ever before you, that though it may have been years before, that you knew first forgiveness and pardon and the gift of eternal life, it should be as it were daily that you stand with your hands upon the head of the oxen. In me, Father, in my flesh, no good thing. Remember the blood. Make much of the blood, is the testimony here. And they're declaring that when God found them, they worthily deserved his wrath. They deserved to have died in Egypt. They deserved, because of their sin and their unworthiness, to have perished. But God loved them. They were redeemed by grace. It was the mercy of God that found them in the dunghill, and lifted them up, and set them among princes. And so as they stand with their, their head upon the ox, it's a sin offering. It's an affirmation. It's a testimony. It's a picture. That it's not by works of righteousness which they have done, but according to his mercy hath he saved them, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And so we find that there has to come to us, ever and always, this recognition that there's only one door. Oh Aaron may, may be high priest, and his sons priests with him. And they're going to minister to the people of, of Israel that come and stand at the door. But now at this day, Aaron is saying as he puts his hands upon the, the head of the ox that's there, I came by this same door. There's only one door, for the rich, the poor, for the taught, the wise, the untaught, the unwise. All of us have come thus, and thus it behooves us to remember that there is no sin that anyone's ever committed of which we are not personally capable. Aaron must put his hands upon the head of the bullock. Then we find that there is the second offering. It's the ram that's brought. And here, in a sense, it's that putting his hands in identification. But the whole ram, though it is the skin is taken from it and the inwards are burned, then the pieces are laid to the head. And the whole ram is laid upon the altar. And it speaks to us of Romans 12, 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you that have been redeemed and washed by the blood, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable under the Lord, which is your reasonable service. And so it is that they're now saying something else. They're not only saying as their hands are upon the head of the bullock that our sins were carried by the death of the just one, for us the unjust, but they're saying we have brought ourselves now by virtue of our union and our identification with Christ to present ourselves on the altar a living sacrifice. But you would think this would certainly now qualify them to serve, wouldn't you? They've seen themselves washed in the blood of God's dear Son. They've made presentation of themselves in surrender and in abandonment, as they've identified with the ram of the burnt offering, a sweet savor to the Lord. You would think now they were ready, wouldn't you? But ah, wait a moment. There is the other ram. The other ram. Isn't it interesting that it is, it is so stated? And then there is brought this other ram. And again there is this act of identification, putting of their hands upon the head of the ram. The ram is slain, its blood caught in a basin. But notice now what is done with the blood. The finger of Moses is put into the blood, and first it touches the ear, then it touches the thumb, and then it touches the great toe. Do you see the symbolism of it? The ear, the thumb, the great toe. What does that form? A picture of the cross. And there you have the preparation of Aaron and his sons for service. That they have surrendered themselves to the Lord, that they've presented themselves a living sacrifice, is essential. Washed in the blood, indispensable. That they have made a surrender to the Lord, absolutely necessary. But before they're ready to serve, there has to be this cross experience. Because Aaron and his sons can never be as others will be. They're going to have to buy this cross, so totally identify with Christ. It's not a matter of now of sins. That was settled there at the sin offering. It's not a matter of surrender. That was done at the burnt offering. But the cross is now reaching in deeper, because Aaron has rights. Oh he has rights to his name, and rights to the position God has given him, and rights to his time, and rights to his talent, and his ability, and rights to his possessions. He has rights. But if he is to fulfill the purpose of God to him, his identification with the cross must touch his ear. The blood must come to the place that he has neither right to hear, nor think, nor speak. For the blood now has come to this seat of government. And now he's presenting his ear, that he may hear what God would have him hear, the complaint of the people that would come. His brain, that he might think God's thoughts and get them back into the world again. His eyes, his lips. Blood is on the ear. The blood is on the thumb. He has no longer right even to do the right and proper things. Things which others may have perfect right to do because he is who he is, he has no right to do them. He has abandoned in this the right to his rights. And this is where the cross reaches. I am crucified with Christ. It's not a matter of sins of the past. It was death of Christ for us that dealt with that. I present my body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto the Lord. This is a matter of surrender. But before Aaron and his sons, or you, and you, and you were ready, there has to come this identification with Christ in his death, to the abandonment of the right to your rights. Now notice, there's a reason for this. How many people there are that have wanted power, the power of the Holy Spirit, that in a sense they might use God, get a handle on God. I remember speaking down in Huntington, West Virginia, speaking on the radio and in a little work there. Pastor came to see me. We had spoken to a group of pastors, and he, and asked me to stay on and converse with him. He said, now I'd like to just tell you a little about myself. We have a big program here, a big radio program. We're reaching on so many stations. Growing Sunday School, we have so many hundreds. We have a big church. But I need power, and I've been told by Brother Coy that, that you could help me. Well, you know what the picture was? The picture was somebody sort of in a big Cadillac wheeling up in front of a filling station, a little old broken down filling station, if I was a filling station, and saying, fill her up, bud. Well, in this case, I looked at him, and I saw the Cadillac, his opinion of his own work, and all I could think of was he wanted super high octane spiritual power to run that big program of his. And I said to him, well now look, it's like this. Suppose we're talking about power as gas, and you're driving up in a car, whatever kind, Cadillac, he said. I said, all right, you're driving up in a Cadillac. And you're saying to me, fill her up. And I look at you, and I say, I can't, I don't know. You just better get over in the front seat in the other side, let the Lord drive. I don't think you're going to get this pump unlocked till, till you're over on the other seat. And then I said, no, I don't know. Do you think you could trust yourself? Haven't you a feeling that maybe if even the Lord was driving, and you wanted to stop, you'd turn the key off? Or you'd pull the wheel, or put your foot on the accelerator to go faster, the brake to stop? I said, I don't think you could trust yourself. You better get in the back seat. He smiled a little, and I said, Bo, I don't know, that isn't so good either, because you just leap across and grab the key or the wheel. I said, I'll tell you what, as I understand this matter of power, God isn't giving you his power so that you can drive off in your program. It's like this. All I know about it is, if you want God to fill your car with powerful gas, you get out, turn the key off, leave the keys in the switch, take one key, open the trunk, crawl in the trunk, throw the key away, and pull it down. And as it comes down, say, look Lord, you drive. And I said, he may do something for you. But this is essentially what's happening here. Aaron has been cleansed from past sins, pictured by the sin offering. He's surrendered his life to the Lord, pictured by the burn offering. But now he's getting ready for service. He's not ready yet. Dr. Simpson, commenting on Luke 24, where our Lord met his disciples and said, you go into Jerusalem and tarry there. They thought they were ready for service. This is the end of side one. Please stop the machine at this point and turn the cassette over. He wasn't afraid that they wouldn't get busy for him. He was afraid they would before they were ready. So he said, you just go and wait now till I've met you and I've done what. And so here we find Aaron and his sons waiting. They're not ready to serve yet, because the blood has to be applied to the ear, and the thumb, and the great toe. The cross has to reach to the right to their rights. The right to their time, and their talent, and their ability, and their possessions. And Aaron and his sons are going to serve under the cross. Even as the Apostle said, years after his first meeting with the Lord, I am crucified with Christ. This wasn't an experience alone, it certainly was. It was an attitude toward himself. In Paul's case he said, the blood is on my ear, my thumb, and my great toe. And I'm staying there. But it, that isn't all. They still aren't ready. You will notice that after the blood had been applied to the ear, and the thumb, and the great toe, the cross had done its work. Then the blood and the oil are mixed together. And the oil is poured on Aaron's head, and on, sprinkled on his clothing. The oil speaks to us of the Holy Spirit. And there was no, in a sense, anointing with oil for his garments, and the service, and function, and ministry those garments represented, until the blood had been placed upon the ear, the thumb, and the great toe. And thus it was that he's saying to you that the power of the Holy Spirit is to be related to the cross at work in your experience. Now I happen to know from having met people through the years, that there are those that have been baptized with the Spirit, received certain gifts of the Spirit, and accompanying power of the Spirit, before they've known anything of the cross. And this is difficult for me to explain at one time. I recall being down into Coa Falls, Georgia, probably ten years ago now, or perhaps even longer. A meeting had been canceled unexpectedly. I had received a telephone call. Brother Reedhead, you've never met me. We have mutual friends. My name is Nolan. I am pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Wilmington, North Carolina. Several of us had been in prayer for your coming, and the Spirit of God gave witness to us that you had a cancellation. You received word of it yesterday. You would be free to begin with us on Sunday and to remain for eight days. Are we correct? If we are, we want you to come with us. I said you're absolutely correct. I'll be there. Now the Spirit of God had told them exactly what had happened. I went, administered the word with them. This is what I found out from this brother. He'd been, had a marvelous experience of regeneration out in Colorado. Early it had come to some that had the testimony of the baptism of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. And God had met him and given him several certain gifts of the Spirit. But you know what happened? First, he had red hair and the accompanying disposition that's attributed to it, though I think unjustly. But in his case, he found that he'd been extremely unable to control his temper. This had made a great deal of difficulty for him in his ministry. He had also the matter of great moodiness and vacillation and enthusiasm and unsteadiness of purpose. Oh, there were several things that had been. And yet he had these gifts of the Spirit. So here he was in torment. He'd come to the place that one time he denied the reality of the gifts and what God had done. And then he couldn't do that. And he was in considerable distress. I came and sought to just present the word, knowing nothing of this of course. And I presented the cross. I am crucified with Christ, as being that preparation of heart, that preparation of spirit, of mind. God finds the prerequisite to our being sprinkled with oil, if you please, following the type. And then he came to me on Friday of the meetings after the morning service. And he said, Brother, you see, I know now that if there wasn't anyone else, he sent you here for me. I had thought perhaps that what I had was spurious and false. But I know now that God met my hunger and my need, anticipating the time would come when someone would instruct me. I see it's a both-and matter, not an either-or. Similarly, I was talking with Robertson McQuilken, the son of Dr. McQuilken, founder of Columbia Bible College. Dr. McQuilken had been closely associated with Keswick in its early days. And in those days, he'd had a marvelous experience of the baptism of the Spirit. But as he had taught this message, with the message of the cross, he discovered there were people that had experienced the baptism of the Spirit that weren't having victory. And so he concluded that the important thing was the message of victory, the message of the cross. And for nearly 30 years, he just completely ignored that whole area of his own experience, in which he delighted. But he didn't feel it was relevant, that the important thing was the message of identification, and victory through identification, through union with Christ in his, his death. Robertson said to me, you know you had a real blessing, you're a real blessing to my father, when you came and he found that you had entered into the same experience that God had given him years before. And he told me just a few days before he died that perhaps he'd been wrong, in that it wasn't just a matter of victory or the baptism of the Spirit. It wasn't an either-or matter. It was both and. Both and. And so here it is in the type. It's both and. It's the other ram. It's this blood upon the ear, and the thumb, and the great toe. It's this union with Christ. I am crucified. The day he died, I died. And then, on the basis of this, the sprinkling with oil. The oil speaking to us of the, of the baptizing fullness of the Holy Spirit. Now, it remains for us to recognize that our Lord followed this type. After all, he was the author of all the instructions given to Moses concerning Aaron and his sons. And it was in Luke, the twenty-fourth chapter, to which I've already referred, that our Lord there on the road to Emmaus met these, his disciples, and spoke to them. And you will recall how he said, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and arise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sins could be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but carry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. God's work is to be done in God's way, but it's also to be done in God's time. I think of my own ministry. Oh, how I would wish that it were possible to retrieve certain years of the past. I was down at South St. Paul at the old Red Rock Holiness camp meeting when these men I mentioned last night were preaching. The one who made the strongest impression upon me was Dr. Paul Rees. I'd been a professing Christian, a church member, and there the faithful preaching of the Word morning, afternoon, and evening had discovered to me the fact that I had never been born of God. I can recall on Thursday of that second week, so convicted of sin, we were playing over in the freight yard at Cudahy's, and I was playing follow the leader and leading at the moment, ran and stumbled and slipped and flew across the tracks and fell with my arm wedged between two ties and just then a loaded boxcar of meat products being shunted down to make up a train came past. I heard the brakeman scream when he saw this boy lying there. He couldn't know whether I was under the wheels or not, but I pulled my head as far as I could and those wheel trucks were six inches from my head, and I knew that I was six inches out of hell, that if I died as I was, I'd certainly be there. That night I listened and under deep conviction. Dr. Rees was preaching and all the penetration. I went home and went to bed, laid down, and then the lights were all out, and the cabin sat up because I knew God had gotten me within six inches, and he was certainly after me, and I wanted to be awake when it happened. He was angry with me because of my sin, and I awakened in the morning, gray morning, all lame and stiff from having slept crumpled up in the middle of the bed. That was the day, that night in the altar service, that God in sweet mercy and grace saved me, and I passed from death to life. One of the, I went to see the children's worker on the next morning, and she met me, and I was so eager to tell her what the Lord had done. You know what she did? She looked at me and patted me on my head, and said, that's fine, now you need to be sanctified. Instead of allowing me to just enter into the meaning of this deliverance from Egypt by blood. And she, she didn't understand that there's a time in the dealing of God. Now God had met me in reality, and she said, come on, let's go into the auditorium, and we'll ask God to sanctify. So we went, this time I went, not having any idea what was happening, no preparation, just a word. And she prayed, and met me, talked with me, and put words in my mouth, and told me what to pray. She was sweet and earnest, and oh so mistaken. And when we got up, we went out, she said, Dr. Reese was coming. She said, oh Dr. Reese, isn't it wonderful, Sonny was, was saved, and was sanctified this morning. Saved was, slid it over, and sanctified was important. And to me, the boy born of God was a miracle. And the other was just words. And I went on from there, and it wasn't until we came back from Africa in 1949. I went, so I knew something was desperately wrong. I went to seminary, matriculated, thought certainly there was something there that God had. And I began to realize that seminary wasn't the answer, so I dematriculated, and stayed for a month, and had spiritual inventory. I began to go back down, down, down, looking for reality, looking for something that had meaning, looking for something that was real. And finally I got through the years in the mission field, in the pastorate, in Bible training school. And I can recall one day writing to my wife saying, I've gone now in introspective review, and in, in, through the past twelve years of my life, and I fear that if I should go on through, and find no more reality than I found up until now, that I will out of conscience have to become an agnostic. I cannot give my life to preach something that's no more real than what I have experienced. And I went on down, and down, and down, and down. I went right through those few moments at the altar with this dear sister, until I came to the next night. And you know what I discovered? That the last real thing that ever happened in my relationship to Christ was the first real thing that ever happened. I'd been born of God. I couldn't deny that. If I denied that, I would deny my own knowledge of my own person. I would have no grounds to know I existed if I denied what God did to me that night in the altar in the straw. But from that time on, I had been led by this, the office of this good woman, to assume that if I knew the words, and could say the words, and define the words, and explain the words, and I went through the formula, I could presume I had reality. But you can't go to the mission field with presumed reality. It'll be exposed, just as it was exposed to me. Oh, I, we had a teacher at school here in the city that knew all of these truths, Maude Groom. She had a course in the Christian life. I got ninety-eight for the course. My desire, I'd gone out into the auditorium of the First Baptist Church and knelt in the back pews and said, Lord, I take my faith to all that I've been studying. The fact remained that when I got to the mission field, I found that it wasn't enough. And I discovered, as I've related to you, that there was such a critical mind and censorious spirit. I wasn't right, and I could prove that nobody else was. That's the only way I could live with me, it seemed. And so I became critical and censorious and sarcastic, out of a self-defense, out of a, the fact that I'd been through everything and nothing had reality. But I'll never forget that day down there in Clearwater, Florida, or Crystal Beach, Florida, when George Mandela, Maranatha Tabernacle in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, opened the word. And he described me, and he said, your problem is you've never seen the cross from the inside. Oh, I knew I'd been washed in the blood and forgiven. I knew that I'd put my hands on the head of the bullock. I knew I had a witness and assurance that my sins were forgiven. Oh, I knew that the ram of burnt offering had atoned for those times when I had been critical and censorious and sarcastic. I knew he'd been gracious to cleanse. But I knew I wasn't ready to serve him. I knew I wasn't ready when he said you've never seen the cross from the inside. And he talked about the fact that there were two people on that cross, Christ and me. And then with that truth, that insight, that knowledge, I went to my room. And there, as at first, when I first met the Lord in reality, that day it was as though the blood came to ear and thumb and great toe. And that an experiential reality. This was wonderful. It was marvelous, this truth of identification. And that is the ministry that I took to Ben Lippin Conference and shared with Dr. McWilkin. But it was in Louisville, Kentucky, that a dear sister came to me one day. She said, my heart has been as you've spoken of our union with Christ, our identification with Christ. And God has made this truth real to you. But oh brother, that you'd go on to see that after the blood was sprinkled on the ear and the thumb and the great toe, the oil was poured upon Aaron and his sons. Said God wants you to know that you can be baptized with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Spirit of God. She said, I'm gonna pray for you. And several times after that, when I'd come to Louisville, I'd see her. And she'd say, you know, I'm still praying for you. And rather resented it. I didn't think there was anything more than the blood on the ear and the thumb and the great toe. This was the message. Victory. But there the truth of God began to burn into my heart. And I went to talk to one whose background was similar to mine and who'd experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I questioned him as though he were before me for ordination and satisfied with his orthodoxy. And I remember after spending two hours with him in prayer, he said, you're going to be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. I didn't even know that was in the Bible, though I must have read it hundreds of times. Because God spoke it to my heart. It became quick to my spirit. This is what God wants you to see. There's a time. There's a time. God's work in God's way, yes. It's by the two staves. The cross is the only way by which this glorified Son can be uplifted. But God not only has a way, but he has a time. It's after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Tarry until ye be endued. Oh, do you mean to say we do nothing until then? No, not at all. Not at all. But that you understand that this is the preparation. I'm sure that Aaron was busy. I'm sure his sons were active. But I know that they did not perform that ministry that God had for them. Until the blood was on the ear and the thumb and the great toe, and on the blood was sprinkled the oil. Only then were they equipped and prepared. And so with you. The Spirit of God wants to cleanse you. He wants you to bring yourself a living sacrifice to the altar of surrender. And everything that touches the altar is cleansed by the altar. He wants you to have a clean heart and a motive and purpose only to glorify him. Certainly. But he also wants you to come with the right to your rights. In that abandonment to him. Because you see being filled with the Spirit of God with the oil of anointing is not that you should get control of God's power, but God should acquire full right and control of you. Oh how different. And how important that difference. And so here it is. This is what he's asking for and yearning for and praying for. That you'll abide in him, crucified with him. That he can abide in you in the fullness of his resurrection life. To do in you anything he chooses. Anywhere, any time, any place, any way. To succeed or fail, to be known or unknown, to live or die. But what you're doing is coming as Aaron did of your own choice. And saying, Lord hear the ear, the thumb, I'll live under the cross, crucified with Christ. That Christ may live in me. First the blood of cleansing from past sin. Then the blood of cleansing of the heart from all that would defile it. Then the cross. Not separate experiences if you please, necessarily. By the timing of God's dealing with me is inconsequential. I tell you not the timing should be significant, but only the truth should be illustrated. It's a relationship with him. For additional copies of this cassette or a listing of other dimension tapes, contact your local bookstore or Bethany Fellowship, 6820 Auto Club Road, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438.