In this sermon, the speaker begins by dividing the sermon into three parts, with the promise of a more engaging sermon in the following weeks. He then reads from Exodus 24, emphasizing the essence of worship and the experience of Moses coming near to the Lord. The speaker mentions a sermon on Romans 8:28 that deeply impacted the congregation, except for one old lady who confronted the pastor about his privileged background. The speaker also discusses the paradox of seeing God, as mentioned in the scripture, and how Moses was able to see God's back. He references a book called "The Missing Jewel" by an author who emphasizes the importance of worship in the Christian life. The speaker shares a personal story of being in the hospital and reflecting on why he was there, ultimately realizing the limitations of his own plans to save the world.

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