In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed into His image. He refers to the labor of regeneration and renewing as the process of being renewed into the perfect image of the Son. The preacher shares a personal experience of receiving revelation from God in the early hours of the morning. He highlights the veiled nature of the gospel to those who are lost, but emphasizes the power of the cross and the blood of Jesus to cleanse sinners. The sermon concludes with a reminder that the treasure of God's truth is written in the hearts of believers, enabling them to love God with all their hearts.

Perhaps we ought to turn to the scriptures for other than singing, and you will remember that yesterday morning we were considering the whole truth of the tabernacle as it is in the second book of the Corinthians. I want to continue there. Praise God. This wonderful revelation that God has given us that we should see that we are the tabernacles. The tabernacles. And that we are a mixture, if you like, an unmixed mixture. But mixtures are all right. You know that mixtures aren't always muddles, don't you? Mixtures don't mean confusion. You like mixtures, ever so much. For instance, if you happen to be a man, and you've got a wife, and you went home one day, and on the table, when you sat down to your meal, your wife put a handful of flour, and a handful of raisins, and some marge, or some lard, or butter, if you're better off, and some peel, and some glassy cherries, and said, there you are. I'd like one all mixed up in the cake, with milk. That's what I want. I don't want this. I want mixtures. The right mixtures. And it's this, beloved, that the Lord wants us to understand. In fact, so much comes from mixture in our life. I mean, you just think of that old saying, wherewith you can combat, or it used to be thought you could when I was a boy, and I'll doubt date myself if I'm not very careful, when I was a youth, people used to come up with this kind of answer, or they thought it was a slick answer, to the evolutionists, that couldn't explain this, that, and the other, and you were supposed to say, how is it that the brown cow eats green grass, gives white milk and yellow butter? How did it do that? Is that evolution? It's a rich mixture. That's right. And this is how things happen. Somehow, the cow gets it all mixed up inside, turns out lovely milk, and butter, and cream. It's beautiful. And so the Lord shows us his glorious truths. I think yesterday morning, we got as far as the glorious perfume. You will remember, in chapter 2 of 2nd Corinthians, that we are, verse 15, unto God, a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish, to the one with a savour of death, unto death, and the other, the savour of life, unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? Well, the only answer to that, of course, is God. The only one sufficient for those things is the blessed Christ himself. Without him, we could never have become this glorious perfume, this unique and wonderful mixture, this compound after the art of the apothecary. Hallelujah. Now then, this morning, I want us to go into other things, and perhaps we shall complete our study together. You will know that the laver stood between the altar of sacrifice at the door of the tabernacle, and it led directly through, in straight lines, from that altar to the Ark of the Covenant. It was a straight line from one to the other. And they had to go via the laver, which we have quite clearly interpreted for us in the Titus letter, which we are told is the laver of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed forth upon us abundantly, that we, being justified, should be made heirs. You see, justification must lead to heirship. Justification could be made to servants. But this is the thing that old Abraham, in the scene, complained about. He said to God, he said, what are you going to give me, seeing that there is this Eliezer of Damascus, his steward, his servant? He said, is he going to inherit all things? And God said, no, I'm going to give you a seed. You're going to have a real heir. It's not going to servants, it's going to sons. Amen. What a tremendous thing this is, for us to understand that via the great road of justification, when we're thinking theologically or analytically, we come to regeneration. And that, beloved, is the marvellous thing for us all to understand. Of course, it was the same cross where it was all wrought out. It's in the same spirit that it's all made vital to us. But whatever we do, beloved, we mustn't linger about in servanthood. We mustn't linger about there. We've got to know this blessed and wonderful sonship. And so these people, they had, as you know, if you weren't here yesterday morning, we'll point it out again. Here is the lever in the third chapter of the second book of Corinthians in verse 17. And you see, it's connected with the Holy Ghost. Now, the Lord is that Spirit. And where the Spirit is Lord, or where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And only the sons have liberty. Praise God. Nobody else but the sons have this glorious liberty of God's house. You remember, Jesus pointed this out in the New Testament. In the eighth chapter of John, do you remember it? Where he said that the servant does not abide in the house forever, but the son does. Hallelujah. And that's why he said, now if the son shall make you free, there's liberty, you shall be free indeed. Hallelujah. That, you see, in the ancient tabernacle, you will know this, beloved, there was no rest for the servants at all. They never had rest. There was only one place of rest in the tabernacle. It was called a mercy seat, and God sat on that. The servants never sat down. They were always on their feet. They always were walking to and fro, to and fro, round and about, and oh, hallelujah. But they never sat down. Only God sat down. Only those in the family sat down. The servants keep on their feet. You can always tell them. I know I'm on my feet a lot, but I mean spiritually now. They don't rest. They don't sit down. I mean, it isn't that they've got a lot of work on, in that sense. We have to have a lot of work, don't we? Meaning you have to wake up about six in the morning and start straight away, and then whilst you're having breakfast you talk to someone as well, and then you go to a meeting and you preach, and then you have a meal and you talk to somebody all the afternoon, and then you come to the evening service, and that goes on for four hours, and then you keep on until one o'clock in the morning and you go to bed. That's the proper way to be a son. And the whole glorious thing about it is that the Lord constantly ministers. We'll see this great ministry of the Lord to us from this blessed truth of the labour. And here we go. We all with unveiled face, that's your word open, we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, pointed this out yesterday morning, that the labour was made of the brazen mirrors that the children of Israel brought out of Egypt. We behold the glory of the Lord and we are changed into the same image. My glory be to God, this is the purpose of the labour, beloved. Amen. You see, you're told in Titus, hope your mind can nip to and fro in these scriptures, in Titus you're told that it's the labour of regeneration and renewing. Now this is what the renewing is about. Renewing me right back up into the perfect image of the Son. Now that's what the renewal is. Hallelujah. This likeness was lost in the garden of Eden, beloved. Lost in paradise. The likeness of God was lost in paradise. It just wasn't paradise lost, it was what was lost in paradise that was the tremendous and terrible thing, beloved. They lost this grey reflecting likeness of the God in whose company they lived and with whom they walked and talked. Elastic. And God's great ministry is not only to regenerate us, but in this regeneration and only because to renew this marvellous image of the Son. That's why he said to the children of Israel, you're not to make unto yourself any image at all. It's God who's going to make the image. Hallelujah. He's going to make the image renewing us right back up into, if it is back I don't know quite what to say, but renewing us up into that glorious image and likeness of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. What a marvellous thing it is, beloved. Now, in the Hebrew, this word leiva really means the living river. That's the Hebrew root, the word leiva has come from. The living river. Amen. And I don't know how you imagine this leiva was made, but it was really made as like a big cistern, you know, not too big, on top, and it had a foot. And the water used to run down from the cistern at the top to the bowl at the bottom. You know, so the priest could wash their feet in it, you see. Like that. They didn't have to go up here to wash their feet. God's very sensible. He put it down there. In the foot, you've got to be clean in your feet, you see. Right down there, you see. And it's so marvellous. And the water used to run down like a little river from the top down to the bowl at the base. And it was the living river. Marvellous. Amen. And that's why when you read, say, in the restored temple of Ezekiel, I don't know whether you've done this, in Ezekiel's prophecy, there's no leiva but a river that runs from under the throne and under the threshold of the door. A river. No leiva there. Have you noticed that? Well, keep reading. And the whole glorious thing, beloved, is here and in New Jerusalem. No more sea. That was the new name for the leiva in Solomon's temple. No more sea but the river. Here it is. Running from out the throne of God down the golden street. And if you walk up the golden street, your feet have to be clean. Hallelujah. It's all so marvellous, this great thing that God has said. And you walk upstream to the throne. Oh, that's equated by the mercy seat, but we'll leave that for a moment. We can't get there yet, but we've got to see the whole glorious plan of God. The Bible is one. Amen. God has buried his methods of dealing, but he's never buried his principles of truth. Amen. And here we are then, beloved, in this great and glorious place. And I want to tell you, beloved, that this is the only way you'll ever keep new. Having got newness, you'll only keep new. Having got a generation by power from God in the spirit, which is regeneration for us, you'll not keep in this marvellous dynamic power of the generation unless you constantly keep in the leiva. You've got to keep there. Never get away from new birth. Because this is the thing that's been lost. You see, you've got to see that in your Bible, you go to the Old Testament, they had redemption, they had the blood, they had justification, they had salvation, they had sanctification, all these marvellous themes that preachers like to preach on, but they never had regeneration. You'll not find that in the Old Testament. They never had reconciliation, and they never had regeneration in the Old Testament. These are the distinctive features of the new covenant. Hallelujah. And it's because we've lost the truth of reconciliation, as we were talking on Sunday night, always talking about atonement instead of reconciliation, and it's because we've lost the truth of regeneration that there's an overemphasis and a going wrong on the baptism in the spirit. Because we've lost the truth of regeneration, amen and amen, we've got to see that this is the great and distinctive thing. You know, some of the marvellous truths, in Isaiah for instance, when we're talking about the Holy Ghost is this, I will pour water on him that is thirsty. See? But you see, the priests, they didn't have to drink at the labour, there was no inward work, it was always outward and typical. Though it represented the Holy Ghost, in which they were first entirely bathed or plunged, right? This is what Jesus said in John 13, he that is bathed, he that has had his initial great plunging, immersion, total washing, he only needs to keep his feet clean after that, he said, walk with this tremendous thing, you see? But they never had to drink at the labour. But when it comes to God's moving and his new great dealings with his people, he said, I'll pour the water on him that's thirsty, glory. God intends to flood everywhere in this, beloved? He intends everything to get flooded. And of course, if everything gets flooded, nobody will be able to avoid it. This is the great and wonderful thing that God wants us to see. And these priests had the privilege of typically showing us this, and where they came back to the labour. And there, as they stooped to wash their feet, they could see their faces reflected in the top cistern was made. And then in the water down, as they looked, they could see their faces too. Hallelujah. So they had to keep coming back to the labour. You see? Oh, coming back to the labour. And I want to tell you, beloved, that there they didn't have any veils on their faces. They looked in and they saw exactly who they were. Amen. They saw exactly what they were like, or did they? A river thought, you've never seen what you're like exactly. A mirror does not tell you exactly what you're like. You're the other way around. That's right. You have a look in the mirror and see. Go on, you have a go. Isn't that right? You're the other way around. The reflection is the other way around. This is the wizardry of a mirror, you see. And so they never, never, never quite knew the truth. They were always so near, and yet so far. That was the whole tragedy. They had the veil there. They got so near to it. I expect they could go up to the veil and go like that, you know, this veil. That was it. So near. And there were so many people like that. They were so near. They were so near. Jesus said this once to a man on earth. He said to him, you're not very far from the kingdom. He was so near. So near. And, you know, I'm constantly meeting them. By the hundreds, really, they're so near. But they're not really there. But you see, the washing, beloved, in the laver, was for the moving into the holy place. Where do you go from the laver, priest? The holy place. That's where I go from the laver. Hallelujah. I live my life and do my business in the holy place. Oh, isn't that lovely? Yes. And there are lots of people like that. You know, when Jesus was born on the earth, one of the things the angel said to Mary was this. The holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And lots of the disciples, figuratively speaking, of course, came to the holy place. They came to the holy thing with Jesus. But they never got within the veil of his flesh. See, they got as far as the holy place. They could feel him. They could get healing from his rose just by touching, for instance. They could get blessings. Oh, they could get everything. Words coming from within the veil out. They could get all that. But they never got in. Nor could they. Nor could they. Till the Lord dealt with the veil. But wait a moment. Let's go further, shall we? The laver, praise the name of the Lord. You went from the laver into the holy place. And we've already dealt with that because we had to from Ezekiel, Exodus 30 yesterday morning. They came straight in to a place where there was no when the natural was excluded. Now, it wasn't all excluded. There was an always open door down there where the light of the sun and of the day came in. It was never glaring, of course, because there was a great cloud over the tabernacle. A great cloud. And they could come in there and there was daylight there. But when they got in, they were in half natural light and half artificial light. The light that wasn't natural. In fact, the deeper they went in, the nearer they got to God, the further they got away from the natural. And right up there, up against the veil, there stood on either side a table, a showbread, and a candlestick, a seven-branched lampstand. And you know that the oil, the golden oil in there, just gave itself up to light. That's all it did. It just flowed and yielded itself up to make light there. Over against the veil and over against the golden table and the table of showbread. The further they got in, the more they got into the light of the Holy Spirit. All right? Let's read about that. Is the lampstand in 2nd Corinthians? Oh yes, the lampstand's here. Here it is. It isn't mentioned, but the light is. Here it is. If our gospel in verse 3 of chapter 4 be veiled, it is veiled to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, that's the Greek, I've changed it, the light of the gospel of the glorious of Christ, who is the image, he's the image, blessed God, should shine unto them. And we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your slaves, for Jesus' sake, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts. Note, I'm going to come on to the Greek now. It's much more powerful and much more real. Keep your eye on your version. Whichever translation you're using, God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, is he that hath shined in our hearts to the light of the knowledge, or unto the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen. No wonder this image shines to us. We're not looking in dim brazen mirrors now, out in some figurative thing. We're not looking down into water that either shows the sole of my feet or the length of my nose when I go to wash my feet. Not that. But we've come, beloved, into the exact image. Amen. We've come to it. Praise God. What a marvellous thing. This is why in the New Testament there's never any excuse. If you get into a New Testament experience, never any excuse. Hallelujah. He that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, he's really going back beyond the tabernacle. He's going back to creation. Where we were last night when he said, let there be light. And you will notice that where the light is mentioned in Genesis 1, the face also is mentioned. The face of the deep. Hallelujah. The face of the deep. And your face mirrors what's in your deeps. What you are deep down there, you've only got to live long enough. Despite your skill at camouflage, you've only got to live long enough before it's on your face. By the time a man's about 40, it's there, ineradicable. Hallelujah. And Elizabeth Arden can't do anything about it. It's there. Hallelujah. I suppose that's why most people fly to Elizabeth Arden. Or the makers of Old Spice. The tremendous thing about it, beloved, is there. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, is he that has shined in our hearts unto the terrible distorted features of Jesus on the cross? No. No. Hallelujah. Unto the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Glory. Glory. That's it. No wonder it's the gospel of the glory. Do you preach the gospel of the glory or the gospel of the agony? What do you preach? Do you preach the gospel of the glory? He's shined in our hearts unto the knowledge this glorious light is the enlightenment of the heart and the mind that's in the glory and understands the glory and has come out of everything else. Praise God. I've got two pairs of glasses, so it's all right. God does this. Isn't it there, yes, sir? Do you see what you've been robbed of? What did Adam and Eve lose in the garden? Glory. Of course they lost their glory. Amen. So they started to cover up straight away. They lost their glory. Their unveiled glory. They lost it. So they started to veil themselves up. Of course, an accommodation to sin and to need. Hallelujah. Making ourselves decent. That's right. But God doesn't come just to make us decent. He comes to restore us to the glory. Hallelujah. There's nothing indecent about glory. And if you're glorious, you'll not be indecent. The whole tremendous truth lies here, beloved. Amen and amen. We've got the light as well. Amen. Have you got it? See. Now, if this good news be veiled, it's veiled to you, you're lost. That's what it says. I mean, I'm not writing a Bible. I'm not manufacturing anything. Hallelujah. And when it comes to those that are lost, it comes veiled for a start because you couldn't stand the glory right at the beginning. It comes veiled in flesh. We're pointed to the cross where he hung with his dripping flesh and his blood, blood, blood streaming from him. And we say, praise God for the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. You know that chorus. Praise God that the sinners neath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Then it comes up. I believe it. I receive it. Did you ever learn that chorus? You ought to. Or at least learn the truth of it. Be careful what you're singing to yourselves, won't you? So, the whole wonder of it all lies here. Amen. Oh, for the person that's here. And this is what he says. We have this treasure. We have it. We've got this treasure. We've got it. I've got this treasure in this earthen vessel. Hallelujah. He calls it an earthen vessel here. He calls it a tabernacle in chapter 5. Same thing. Amen. Here. I've got it here. Praise God. Hallelujah. Shine there in heart. Oh, this is so precious, beloved. God has so constituted you and me in the heart, in the deeps, in the center of us, that we can have it all and all at once. No divisions. No departmentalizing. No this compartment and that compartment. Hallelujah. You know these great truths, beloved. I'm absolutely sure. There then is the great lampstand. The light. The light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And as you behold it, this is what we're told in chapter 3 verse 18. When we behold the glory of the Lord, we're changed. We're changed, beloved. Changed. Hallelujah. The trouble with that tabernacle, this is why God did away with it. He said it was always casting shadows. The light was in one place and there was a shadow here and a shadow there. That's why we talk about shadows to do with the Old Testament. There were shadows there. When a man walked, he came up, you see. He walked in and his shadow was cast before him. There's a lot of people like this. Their shadow gets into the holy place and they think they're in because the light's behind them. And it casts their shadow in. And then as they walk in, there's no shadow in front of them. Then as they walk further in, shadow starts to go behind them. Glory. Oh, to be in this place where there aren't any shadows. This is it. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The dark shadows of the cross and of his suffering have gone. Amen. There he is. The glory of the Lord lightens this place, beloved. Hallelujah. And what is this regeneration, this total immersion, this glorious in-drinking, this flooding of the human personality by the Spirit. There's no shadows anywhere. The grey, dark clouds and the ugly blotches have gone. Amen. Praise God. In the glory, in the glory. Did you know that this is what Jesus Christ brought to men? Did you know that this is what it was all about? Hallelujah. How nearly am I like you, Jesus? That's my concern now. My concern is, wait a minute, how nearly am I like Jesus? Somebody said to me this morning, do you remember when you said, can you think of anyone like Jesus? This person said, I thought of my mother. I thought of my mother. Hey, mother, will your daughter ever think that about you? Father, will your son ever think that about you? When you said, do you know anyone like Jesus? I thought of my mother. I never met her, mother. Do you think a greater compliment could ever be paid anyone? Oh, she wasn't a great creature. So far as I knew, she moved in the wrong set. Exclusive brethren, for instance, have any say in the gift of prophecy. As far as I knew. I'm having a bash at myself in this. The whole tremendous thing is, my mother. Hallelujah. I saluted her, mother, in my soul. And somehow I traveled all the way back to desperate situations. And knew and understood. And glorified God for a mother that could leave that impression on her daughter's soul. Amen and amen. The greatest of these is love. Praise God. Hallelujah. Now, beloved, we've got to reflect this glory of the Lord. Not by puzzling our minds and concentrating and marshalling up all the things we believe. What you'll do by that is work pharaohs into your forehead. But by just reflecting, because you're so close. That's right, isn't it? I've got a mirror in my room where I'm sleeping. It's not much use to me. I can't see. I can just about see this. I thought they must all be giants. I'm not too small, but I wonder how Malcolm got on with it. You might see the top of his hair if he looked at it. So I thought, well, I don't know about this time. Then I spotted a little tiny mirror. I thought this must be Malcolm's. About as big as that. I went up to him. I just wanted to see if it was right. That's all. I got ever so close. That's right. I didn't stand over the other side. I said, oh, I can't do it. Reflecting as in a glass. The glory of the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And you know, this great table of showbread. I'm going ever so quickly this morning. I don't know what we'll do tomorrow morning, but it doesn't matter, does it? We'll have the Lord. And this great table of showbread, where does that come? Well, we've already seen it. The word translated showbread is really bread of faces. Bread of faces. You know, the Lord loves his people. He loved his people. And he devised ever so many means of always having his people in the tabernacle. Always. You understand that, don't you? I hope you do. And one of the ways he devised of having his people in front of him all the time was he had twelve stones set in the breastplate of the high priest. And this is really behind that statement that you love in Malachi. Do you know? Do you know this one? About the Lord. He hearkened and he heard when his people came together to speak one another. And he caused a book of remembrance to be written, you see, for those that loved and fought on his name. And he said, they should be mine when I make up my jewels. He made up his jewels and he had them there on the breastplate. Oh, hallelujah. Mind you, listen, I'm tempted now to go right off my subject here, because I like this one. The pearl of great price wasn't there. No pearl. You know why, don't you? Oysters were unclean and you'd only find pearls in oysters. And the children of Israel never knew anything about it. Unclean fish for them. Not for you and me. Paul speaking for us says, I'm persuaded there is nothing unclean of itself. That's New Testament. He'd been a terribly strict Jew and talk about food laws, he kept them. This is a tremendous thing. Isn't it marvellous how God can persuade your heart about all your stubborn ideas and all your eugenics. Praise the name of the Lord. It's marvellous. But here they were, these jewels. God had them always in front of him there. And then, as though that wasn't enough, he had a couple big ones made on either side. They should have read six tribes and six tribes all there on his shoulders, on his breast. This represents, of course, the great name of El Shaddai, Lord God Almighty, which means the shoulder and the breast. Whenever you think about El Shaddai, that's what it means. It incorporates the thought of the breast and the shoulder. What a glorious thing this is. You see, he's always got them. And then, just as though that wasn't enough, every day he had twelve loaves baked. Every day, new bread every day. Praise God. Wonderful. And to stop the priests having indigestion, he always made them eat bread one day old. That's right. Because the priests ate the bread, or the bread of faces, and every morning they went in and put another loaf, freshly today. I look upon you, my children, freshly today. Marvellous. Newly this morning. The mercies are new every morning. That's what they could say. But in the New Testament, we say, your grace is ever upon me, Lord. Better than mercy is grace. We need mercy, but all grace. Hallelujah. You have to come to the throne of grace to find mercy. They came to the throne of mercy and they got mercy. But if you come to the throne of grace, you'll get mercy as well. This is the tremendous thing. There, beloved, every morning, hot, hot, hot, not lukewarm, hot from the oven, right onto the table, no layer of distilled steak here, right bang onto the table, all hot, out of the oven. That's my people. That's my people. He looked at them, the bread of faces. But what if you only saw the crust, Lord, and inside it was all milky? That's why it had to be fresh every morning. The crust would have remained the same. It could have gone green inside, being rotten. The face is upon the deep, where God is concerned. Hallelujah. God connotes, he combines all scriptural ideas, all glorious truth here. We come, wherever we go, I go back. See these old priests of old? They used to go back to their labor. You are an ugly old man. I mean, if any man is honest, he says, you are an ugly looking old man. Ah, but I'm a precious jewel to God, you see. If his thoughts were right, perhaps he didn't think these things. It's only men that are in the Spirit can see these things. He says, I'm a precious jewel to you, Lord. I'm all fresh and lovely and warm to you this morning, my God. Hallelujah. Yesterday's loaf has fed me. The bread of God has fed me. Out in the wilderness they only ate manna. Here they ate the bread of God. Moses didn't give you the bread of God, he said. Moses didn't give you that manna. God's giving you the bread. Hallelujah. Yesterday's loaf, my God, has fed me. Here I am this morning, warm, reflecting the glory. Ah, God's not some blind Isaac. He doesn't sit behind a veil all blind, like some father time figure. He's the Eternal. He's not some groping Isaac that can't see. He says, just come, come, come. Smells right. Feels right. But if he could have seen, he would have known. But God isn't some patriarchal father figure, tucked away there behind a veil of a tent. That's where Isaac was living, behind a veil in a tent. He was awake and alive. Glorious. This is what it's all about. We come. Hallelujah. This is the priesthood. This is the glory. This is the life. These are the privileges, beloved. Amen. He was, and he was back again. Perhaps in his heart he was saying, oh God, oh God, oh God, I'm sorry, I don't know what went through the man's mind. How can I know? I only know that these are the groanings which cannot be uttered, that the Holy Ghost puts down in the deep deeps of a man, for which he can find no words, and neither the Spirit himself express it consciously. Inunderstandable things. They might even be mere platitudes if the Holy Ghost would give his tongue to those which he wouldn't. But platitudinous thinking gets us nowhere. We're out of the school of Plato and the wisdom of men and the world. Hallelujah. I don't know what he thought. I know that in me the Spirit makes groanings, for he is my eyes and he is my mind and he is my anointing and he is my priesthood and he is everything. And he relates that to this. Oh God, down in here you are what you groan inside. God knows your groaning. If it's a real groan, it's always the groans that show on the face. You always can tell the people that live in groanings, weepings, you know, they show on the face. These are the things that come out, they etch the character, they depict the inward condition, they infallibly mark out the spiritual state. Amen and Amen. The disappointments. I speak a word now to those that are living in the mistakes they've made. Some mistakes men and women make they can never undo. Even by the ordinances of God they can't undo them. And they've got to live in mistakes. Some mistakes you can put right. You make your mistake, you've got to live with it. Even Father Abraham made his mistake and the trouble in Palestine, sorry, Israel now is the result of it. But nevertheless he lived with God in the midst of his mistake and God can beautify it all. And God can do it if you live in the knowledge of him that by the divine power can make the mistakes glorious. Hallelujah. And make you radiant so that you're not a sum total of your mistakes showing up on your face. And the groanings of your own inadequacy. But you're living in the glory of the Lord. The things I can't put right I leave with him whose righteousness exceedeth my own understandings. Hallelujah. And we should reap the benefit of him who never made a mistake and live in this glory of what the Lord our God is doing. Amen. Amen. This is our privilege, beloved. The candlestick, the table of Shulbrey, the bread of faces or of the presence or of the presentation presented to God. The presence of my people in the tabernacle. That's what the Lord is saying. They couldn't, they had to stop at the doorway. The priests went in. But they were there. Excuse me, they were there. Well, we've got to go further yet. Because in the old tabernacle it was thus far and no farther. They could come there. Oh you say the high priest could go further. No he couldn't. He was just like all the rest except for one fleeting thing once a year. He was just like all the rest. Surprisingly. Yeah. He was just like all the rest. So far, no farther. Once a year he could slip in. Amen. Glory. We know then he absolutely typified our blessed Lord. Our glorious Melchizedek. He stepped out of the Aaronic Order into the Melchizedek in order for about five minutes and he was back in air and stopped us. Hallelujah. And the veil dropped down behind him and there he was. Just an ordinary man again. Elected to show forth the highest and the best and the glorious before the eyes of the priest and of God. And in this great tabernacle there were veils. Now let's have a look at them shall we. We'd better read something of this third chapter haven't we. Well well where shall we break in. Let's start shall we in verse two. You are our epistle. Written in our hearts. Known and read of all men. For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us. It's a terrible thing that you people that preach. They're going to be an epistle of Christ ministered by you. So look around and see the Christ you're ministering. It's in the people that listen to you. Sit under your ministry. There they are. He says you are our epistles. He said that. It's you. You've got them. Don't blame them. Don't blame conditions. Don't blame false religions. Don't blame new moves. Don't blame sin. Somebody else blame yourself. They're the product of your ministry. You also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth. Do you know I used to go to conferences and places and I'd get killed every time I went. Letter, letter, letter. Boy they knew the letter, Greek and Hebrew, they spend half a day conferring on whether this prefix meant that or that. The word, the word, the word, it's killing, it's killing, it's killing. So the letter, the letter kills, they're killing people with the Bible, what do you think of that? That's right. The Bible says so, it's not the imagination. The letter, it kills. This book is an instrument of death, as just a book, as just a letter. It's the spirit, and the spirit alone that gives life. Glory be to God. Now we'll move on. If the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be in glory, actually, you've got rather glorious, be in glory. All the ministration of the Spirit is in glory. Amen. Hallelujah. If the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more that the ministration of righteousness exceeding glory, for even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelling, you know, a candle is made glorious for people in a dark hole, but when the sun shines, beloved, it has no glory at all. It's an insult to it. Put that out, put that candle out. It's an insult to it. Put it out. That's what, that's the comparison. That's your contrast. That's where you live. Even that which was made glorious, no glory in this respect. Amen. By reason of the glory that excelling, for that which is done away was in glory, much more that which remaineth is in glory. Amen. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. God help us. And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. Praise God. We've never been able to look steadfastly to the end of that which is abolished. Never. Because it was too awful in the end to look at. And that's why God pulled darkness down over the cross. Over the sufferings of his Son in the flesh. And finally wrought out the tragedy of sin in the darkness. That we couldn't see what happened to his Son in the moments of agony when holiness succumbed to sin. Not that sin overcame it, but that sin should be overcome. Hallelujah. When the pure met the vile and the awful pain in the heart of Jesus that broke it in the end. Hallelujah. I'm glad it was the heartburst of God that in the end gave its secret strength and love to the blood that redeemed me. Came to the final point and burst. And the fountain was broken at the pitcher. The pitcher was broken at the fountain. And the blood ceased to flow. And redemption was accomplished when love had reached its extreme agony for sin. For me. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'm glad. A cross in the flesh. It's awful. Glorious. But you'll never, never see to the end of that. But that which remains is glorious. We're out of the flesh and into the Spirit. Amen. And he on the throne this morning is not a broken hearted Savior. Hallelujah. What God did to his Son in resurrection I cannot tell you. We always think of power sort of gets fleeting up and wants to start moving. Do you think what God had to do to his Son? He had to push all the bones back in. He had to heal his wounds. He had to make him a new heart. That's why you've got to have one. I heard the dreadful story the other day from someone who said in the place where they worship they mustn't talk about having a new heart. It's being forbidden. Oh God save us. Hallelujah. His healing, his ra-ah, ah, it all comes from this. Our blessed Lord. Alive and whole. Healed. Glory. The one that was acceptable back into heaven was whole. And the bone of him had never been broken. Though many had to be pushed back into place. Hallelujah. That's why it says in the Ephesian epistle, it's that which every joint supplies and we being fitly framed together. He had to be fitly framed in the tomb before he breathed. Before he went in a disintegrated, a disjointed lump of human flesh. Our Lord. Our glorious God. God raise him. Hallelujah. God raise him beloved. Whole. Perfect. Wonderful. Glorious. Amen. Where shall we find words? Left in the end wondering, incensing. This is what it's all about. From our hearts. Unspeakable things. Growing. Not in agony, but in joy and anticipation. And the being is yet finding itself incapable of being all that God has revealed to it. And yet growing up in the glorious power of God. Aren't you like that? Amen. Amen. So don't try and get away from the groanings down in the pit of your. I mean the pit. I don't mean the horrible pit. Down here. Where they go on. Inwardly. Ceaselessly. They're intercessory. They're doing things for you that you can't even put into words. And glory be to God. Now beloved. We'll pass on shall we? It says Moses. He put a veil over his face. And he put the veil over his face for this reason. Verse 14 gives it to you. Because the minds of the people to whom he came were blinded. See? They were blinded. And to this day there remains the same veil. Untaken away. In the reading of the Old Testament. Which veil is done away in Christ. I want you to see that it wasn't. What the apostle here is saying. He's not saying it's done away by Christ. Therefore you can all see. He's saying it's done away in Christ. And until you're in him like properly you don't see. It's only done away in him. I know it was done away by him. Praise God. But he's using the word in. Very pointedly. I don't know what these modern translations give about it. But they'll muddle you up on essential truth in an effort to get something smoothly over to your mind. If you're not very careful. In him. Bliss God. Listen to verse 15. Even to this day when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart. Look see it's all veils. Veil on Moses face. Veil on the mind. We read that in the fourth chapter. It's the gospels hid. It's hid to them of the lost. Veils. It's all veils, veils, veils. And listen. When Moses is read the veil is upon the heart. Now I'm going to ask you a question. When Paul's read is the veil upon your heart? Do you understand what he's talking about? You see we said. Ah God. We all keep thinking back in shadows. Let's come into the prison. Is the veil upon your heart say when John is read? I mean really read. Moses was read. He didn't have a bit selected from him. He was read. And well read. And the veil was upon their heart. When you read Paul, Peter, John. Is the veil upon your heart? I can't understand this. Is the veil there? Well, do you think you understand? No, I don't. But I know this. I'm in the spirit of understanding. I don't understand all the details. I'm not an encyclopedia. I knew a man once. I used to call him a walking encyclopedia. Didn't matter what subject you talked on. He could talk on it. It was tremendous. I used to go down into Manchester and tie all the atheists and blasphemers up in knots. Till they got so fed up with him they sort of howled and groaned with their teeth. But he carried on. He had a mind like an encyclopedia. I had great respect for him. But you and I, brother. Are you really the understanding of the spirit? So that when you read Paul like this, Paul's very plain. And the more you read it, the plainer it gets. The only thing that's wrong is that you didn't notice some of the finer detail at first. But you understood it. I mean, you understand that that's I understand that that's a microphone, you see. But it's not so I start to pull it to pieces that I'll understand some of the finer detail of it. And the Lord moves on us in this tremendous way. Nevertheless, verse 16. When the heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Hallelujah. Do you know why God put veils up in the Old Testament? Because it was in their hearts and in their minds. And he had to put up a veil. Their heart couldn't take it. Their mind couldn't understand it. So he hung veils up. They could understand symbolisms, signs, all this kind of thing. They got that. Well, how deeply they got it, I don't know. And this is why people always reach out for signs in the New Testament. They don't get the plain truth. The veil on the heart. And he says, when you turn to the Lord, when that heart turns to the Lord, utterly to the Lord. Now that's glorious because it's beyond the veil where the deepest secrets lie. It's beyond the veil where the eternal truth exists and always has. I know it was symbolized in the Old Testament. It was an ark. There it was. Just a box made of gopher, shitting or acacia wood. They're all the same. Made there, in there. Gold, a slab of gold. God sat on gold. Hallelujah. Cherubim and glory. And in there, they neither needed natural light and they didn't need artificial light. They had the light. The glory. The glory. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. That in there. Bless God. Hallelujah. Spirit needeth neither natural nor artificial. Neither does it need calm or pleasure. Amen. And God is moving his people here. Now this is the place of the New Testament. God gave his oath and testament in rending the flesh of his Son in order to produce the blood that sealed it. He rent it and said, the veil is taken away. Go into that there. Live there. What is it like inside there with you? Is it the unveiled glory? Is it the original? The unique? Amen. Where we don't need portrayals and we don't need figures and we don't need symbols and we don't need signs and we don't need this and we don't need that. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Where even the water is changed now. It's the word. See the outward figure of water. It's served as a figure. It's the word. Now, hallelujah. It's all so tremendous. And where out of your belly flows the living river of the labor. It's there. Flowing out of you. Talk about living in the labor. Talk about living in this great regeneration. Talk about living in this renewing of the Spirit. Oh, hallelujah. This is what it's all about. God should give us great plainness of speech. And if by speech this morning I've befogged you, please forgive me. For speech today must tear away every veil, rip down everything that can cast a shadow. Nothing but the great glorious outshining of the blessed Christ. Nothing must have a shadow. Babyhood or boyhood or girlhood or youth, singleness or marriage, work, occupation, fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, relationships in an office, nothing. And fellowships, neither. We live in the light. What do you think that John meant when he said, walk in the light? Has a veil been on your mind about that? Have you thought it's got some sort of special emphasis from some branch of teaching? What do you think it means? Walking in the light as he is. When you walk in the light as he is, in the light you'll have fellowship. It's as simple as that. So marvelous. This is it. So when the veil was down, if they'd have ripped the veil down, the glory would have flooded through the temple and it would have blinded out the sun. So old Aaron, he just used to live out in a corner like this. The veil was there. They mustn't see to the end. They mustn't. None of the priests, none of the people, peeping through the altar gate. Glory is death to flesh. Hallelujah. The glory is spirit. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It is a marvelous thing, beloved. We'll have to go a little bit further. We'll finish for this morning because I don't want to sort of take up a quarter of an hour tomorrow morning, a half an hour tomorrow morning to deal with this, but it doesn't matter really. You sort of get a start and you go where the spirit, the wind blows or the river flows. It doesn't matter. You go and the whole marvelous thing is here, beloved, that inside that inside that veil, there was the Ark. And in the Ark was the basis of life for all Israel, the Ten Commandments of God's basic righteousness, governing relationships with him and social behavior, the basic things, governing relationships with him and neighbors, not brothers. The word brotherhood is not there. It's always God and neighbors. The pearl of brotherhood, the great church, has not yet been revealed. Amen. But nevertheless, the whole truth is there and we've got it. Here it is. Verse 3 of chapter 3. You are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart. Amen. Now we've got it. We've got to the heart of the matter. Yeah, that's right. We've got to the foundation of the throne, righteousness. We've got to the X plus Y plus Z. That's what we've got, which equals A. A is God. Now we've got to the X plus Y minus and so on in the equation. It's like that. Do you understand? Don't you? I'm not talking algebra to you, am I? Well, that's better than talking Greek or Dutch. But the whole thing is, you see this, that we think of God. God is love. But the summary of the two tables is this. Thou should love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. And that's how you do it. Unless this righteousness is written in your heart, you can't come to what God calls love. God called those tables of the law love. The summary of them was love. Thou should love the Lord thy God. That's the A. And it is the equation five and five. All right. Now, as they knew it without regeneration, actual experience of regeneration in the Old Testament. This is what God imposed upon them. That's what he did. It was an imposition. It was written in unyielding stone. God did it by power, by force, into cold slabs of stone. It was an imposition because they were carnal, sold under sin. You see, but in the New Testament, it's not an imposition from the outside. It's written in here. It's an interior. And the fleshy tables of the heart so that my flesh becomes spiritual and my life is an exposition of the secret writings of God in my heart. Amen. Indelible, ineradicable, written with the finger of God. Amen. Not the letter. The letter kills. I was brought up to remember this letter by the yard. I suppose you would say meter now. Amen. You see, God, Beloved, we've got right in now. No veil on my face. No veil on my heart. No veil on my mind. Blessed be the name of the Lord. God couldn't let me in there until all the veils were ripped off. And by that cross and by that altar, am I right? That's why, as we were saying the other day, you've got to constantly carry the altar round. As it says in this 4th chapter, it says that you always bear about in the body the dying. That word dying is the actual point of crucifixion. That's your actual word. The moment of crucifixion you carry around with you all the time. Hallelujah. You carry about in you the dying of the Lord Jesus. The moment of expiry. Finished! It's always there. Hallelujah. You carry it round with you. So you have altar, table of incense, laver, table of shortbread, lampstand, ark, tables, everything. That's why Paul said, we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle, we are tabernacles. If that were dissolved, we have a building in the heavens. Bless God. A building. And we're not groaning to be unclothed. We don't want to be naked spirits cruising about somewhere to be clothed upon with our house. If God could establish me in Christ, which he told us in the 1st chapter, God who has established us with you and anointed us, you see, I'm in Christ. And surely he can stabilize me in the spirit. We don't want to be, we want to be unburdened with this whole tabernacle. Hallelujah. So that we can get stabilized in a temple, in a building. Is that right? And the Lord is moving us up in this tremendous life of opening revelation and understanding. We've got to be this sweet savor. Hallelujah. When you rub shoulders with a man or a woman, whichever sex you are, you've got to smell sweet. We use these days of rubbing off. This is a term we use. Something's rubbed off on me. That's what they say. Glory be to the name of the Lord. When we come up against one another, I don't mean wrongly to fight. I don't mean that sense will come. But when we come there and we meet one another, oh, blessed Lord, let the incense rise to thee. The incense that's incensing me. And let us be one blessed odor of everything absolutely right. That's what we're after. That's what the ministry of the Spirit is. At least so far as it touches this subject. And we're to move here all the time, beloved. Our sufficiency is of God. It isn't of ourselves. It's of God. And it's sufficient. And more than sufficient. Hallelujah. Therefore, beloved, none of us have an excuse. None. Because God, oh, this word sufficient, you know, it got right into old Paul's bones. I won't tell him what other chapter in this epistle it comes, but he talks like this. All sufficiency. You know, yeah, you know. All things been all sufficient. My, he's tremendous. He's going way. And you understand when he talks about all sufficiency, he means something like a flood of it. Absolutely overwhelming. So God who was sufficient to do these things, beloved, done for us. So that we should be in the glory of it all. And the Lord wants us to live here. And carry on our priesthood here. And make us all able ministers of the New Testament. Not of the letter of it. Of course, you know, he can quote the New Testament, can't he? He knows when it was all written, what's it all about, where it fits in. Not of the letter. Not of the letter. Not of the letter. That's what it says. When will it sink in? But of the Spirit. Amen. Hallelujah. When we can minister the Spirit. It's the Spirit of all this. He's the Spirit of glory. He's the Spirit of the absolutely completed work. The finished, consummated, glorious thing of God. That's what he is. And we, beloved, are those who have been made beneficiaries under the will of God. We are those who have received beforehand in the Spirit that into which we are yet moving. We've received it. It's all mine. It's all thine. Hallelujah. When a man and a woman will leave everything else for it, they shall have it. You see, these priests, they lived lonely lives, didn't they? They lived lonely lives, didn't they? They did. Why to leave everything for it? Wives, lawful relationships, everything. Families, farms. They only wanted one gold and it was altars inside there. They moved away from everything. Moved away from lawful companionships, common conversations, didn't they? Oh, I'm glad I didn't live in the Old Testament. I'm glad I wasn't born of the Aaronic family. You've been born of the Melchizedekian family. You've been born of the new priesthood. Hallelujah. And we don't walk about like the priests of old that said nothing. We use great plainness of speech. And we talk to one another. And we minister the truth. And mark it. You'll write something on my heart. Amen. I want it to be a precious thing. I want it to be another word in the great construction of truth that God is building up in my heart. Amen. I'm going to stop. I get wound up and I go on forever. God has rent the veil, beloved. Come right in. If you've got the light and the knowledge of the glory of God in your heart, and it's there shining in the face of Jesus Christ, you are through the veil. The veil is off your heart. Amen. The veil will go off your face. Ever seen a person's face clear? Hallelujah. Now God's got his blank, his carte blanche. We can stop now. He's going to bring in the likeness, fill in the features, give you all the glory. Amen. Now let's pray. You move in.