In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the importance of knowing God's ways and the need to avoid erring in our hearts. They emphasize that while God is always doing new things, there are certain principles that remain constant because God does not change. The speaker also highlights the significance of praise and worship, explaining that worship is not just something we do, but something we become. They conclude by referencing Psalm 95 and the concept of true worshipers that Jesus spoke about, emphasizing the hope of seeing God even in the midst of challenges and death.

I appreciate the hunger in God's people. I think oftentimes we have that hunger and we feel we're being deprived, but it's a real blessing from God if you find it in your heart to hunger after the Lord, because there are multitudes of Christians that really don't hunger after the Lord, and we're inclined to think a man is blessed if he can get up and prophesy great words of wisdom or heal the sick or perform a miracle, but Jesus never mentioned any of those when he uttered the Beatitudes. He did say, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are they that hunger, because as surely as you're hungering after God, God has that which you need and that which you desire and that for which you are hungering. He has it. He has it for everybody, he has it for the world who are hungering for him. He has it for those who hunger, he has it for everybody. God had everything the church had laid as they needed. We think of the church, it was bankrupt, it was wretched, God had everything they needed. God's only complaint with them, as far as I could find, was that they didn't know it, didn't recognize it. They said, we are rich and increased with good and have need of nothing. God had it all. But because they didn't know they needed God, they said, we are rich, and Jesus said, you're poor, wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked. But he said, I've got everything I need. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. The church is getting filled with counselors these days, I can't get over it. It's become another ministry in the church, they're hiring counselors now, along with pastors and assistant pastors, they're hiring counselors. And the reason is because people want an easier way out. And God has counsel. I don't care what your need is, God has good counsel for you in his Spirit. We don't want to really come to the place of complete and total commitment, but maybe a counselor can dig up my past and tell me how I got it from my father or my grandfather or my great-grandfather, that's where your trouble is. I know our trouble is there, but it goes right back to Adam. God crucified it all at the cross. Before God ever made a man with an appetite like I think a lot of us have here, I mean in the natural, before he ever made man with an appetite, he made the fruits and the vegetables and everything else he needed to satisfy that appetite. He made that on the third day, and the sixth day he made a man and gave him an appetite for that which he had already provided. And then told him, See those trees, those vegetables, I made that for you, that'll be your food. So be assured, God has every provision for you, and that's why you're hungry, because God has it there and he wants you to partake of it. He has it, he's already provided it. So blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled. It is true, of course, that we eat, we still hunger, we eat again and we still hunger. So the secret is in continually coming to Father's table, he that eateth of my flesh and drinketh of my blood. It must be an ongoing thing. And then we're never in a state of famishing. But I believe God is putting that hunger there in his people, and recognize God is doing it. Recognize he's doing it, because there are many who are not hungry, so he's doing it. We touched on it a little, how in the manna there was every provision for their needs, but it didn't quench their appetite, lest them feeling, I'm not satisfied, I'm empty, I loathe this light bread, it's not substantial. It lest them that way, that they might know that man does not live by bread only, so that in eating of that manna that provided everything they needed, it didn't quench their hunger. God says, I fed you with manna and caused you to hunger, that you might know that you don't live just by this, but you live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. We're going to find health in the body of Christ when we begin to depend on every word that comes from his mouth, and not just on the food we eat. I think we should seek to eat good food and all that. But we're coming to a time in this country and ours where the food is contaminated before we get it. It's contaminated while it's growing. It used to be, well, get back to nature, get back there, get the stuff right from the ground. Now it's coming from the ground contaminated, coming from the oceans contaminated. We've got to know God in this day and hour, that our life is not to depend on that food. It's poisoned already. We've got to eat of that hidden manna which is well able to keep us healthy and strong and free from disease. I believe that's God's purpose, that his people are healthy, physically, spiritually. But I think he's putting the emphasis on the spiritual these days. He did send a great, mighty wave of healing back in the 40s and 50s. I know he's still healing, I'm not denying that, but there was a wave of it, and people were being healed freely. And that seems to have subsided. I think it's simply that God wants his people to recognize that it's the spiritual that God is concerned about, and for spirits God brings to pass in this church, that condition where life is flowing through the body, we'll find it in our physical bodies as well. I believe the covenant of healing and of health is for God's people. I felt maybe for a few sessions to speak a little bit about new beginnings, because I think there's no question in our hearts and multitudes of God's people that we do stand in the threshold of a new day, and every new day is a new beginning. I don't know how blind some people can get, I hear it said, if it's new, it's not true, and if it's true, it's not new. Nice little poem, isn't it? God's always doing new things. Every day you get up, there's a new day, a new day. There's times and seasons and years. God ordained it that way in the beginning in the natural and in the spiritual. There's times and there's seasons when there's a new day. This summer is not like the last one, and that one is not like the one before, but while saying all that, we certainly recognize that there are certain principles which must remain constant for the simple reason that God is the author of the days and seasons and God doesn't change. So though he has many, many new things to bring forth to his people and will continue to bring forth new things, nevertheless, there is always the old that we must cherish. So that in the temple that Solomon built, God ordained that they would have storehouses where they would keep the spoils of battle that they had accumulated from the days of Israel's war, from the days of Samuel and on, there were many spoils in battle that God ordained should be preserved and put there in the temple. And so we never say because it's a new day that we don't need the past. We don't need the writings of the people of the past or the ministry of those of the past and that forget everything you've known because now it's a new day and there's new teaching. We're not saying that. There are many, many spoils that were won by the people of God in times past for which they laid down their lives, and they're laid up there in God's house, they're laid up there. Some of them perhaps we have never seen or heard. That doesn't matter. According to God's plan and purpose, he has preserved a great heritage, he's brought us into a great heritage. And so the psalmist would say, Tell your children about this, and let their children tell another generation, that that generation which shall arise shall tell it to their children. The purpose being that God's people in succeeding generations would have had transmitted to them by their parents, by their fellowship in the house of God, would have had transmitted to them truths that they would need, truths that they would go by, truths that would keep them walking with God. So seek out the old paths, yes. We must cherish all the wonderful truths that have been restored. But in saying that, God forbid we should come to the place like generally the church has come to in any revival, as far as I know. Finally God has done it. Now, we thought that we had it all when we were a Lutheran, but now we talk in tongues, now we've got it all, that thought. Because God still has many things that he has not yet revealed. I think the most of what God would reveal is still future. The most of his treasures are still future. I have not seen nor heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. A verse, I think, in my generation, every young person could quote that. You learn it in Sunday school. When they would have what they called a scripture shower, someone was sure to quote that. I have not seen nor heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. We never looked up to context, never gave it another thought, great day, some day we'll get to heaven and then we'll have all these things. Don't misunderstand me. God has tremendous things for the next life. He has eternal riches. Don't be afraid that, well, I think you're speaking something that really pertains to the next life. It's not for me, it's for the next life. Don't be afraid of that, because even if it is for the next life and God gives you a hunger and desire for it, you can begin to partake of it now. In fact, what you are partaking of, many of the things you are partaking of, really pertains to another age. Paul, writing to the Hebrews, reminds them that there are those who partook of the powers of the age to come but did not go on and turn back. If you have partaken of the powers of the age to come and then fall away, what we are really partaking of are the powers of the world to come. So then, don't be disturbed if I say something and you think, Oh, no, that's for the world to come. Well, God forbid that I should come up with a lot of guesswork about those areas. I try not to do that. But if God, by his anointing, is bringing forth things that pertain to the world to come, well, he must want us to partake of it in measure, because the ultimate of what we are really looking for is the resurrection from the dead, as far as I know. I consider it an ultimate. To rise in the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it's going to happen some day. The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised and the living shall be caught up with them to be with the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. We anticipate that. The Saints, I believe, of all ages, many of them anticipated it, though in the Old Testament it wasn't real clear, but once in a while there would come forth a clear pronouncement, I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand on the latter days upon the earth and know after my skin worms destroy this flesh, yet in my flesh I shall see God, the living hope and soul. When Jesus came back at the request of Mary and Martha, for their brother was sick, Jesus waited till he died till he came back, deliberately waited till he died. And of course, when he came back, they said, Sorry, Lord, you should have been here a couple of days ago. Four days, I guess, wasn't it? If you would have been here, he would have gotten better. Jesus said, He'll rise again. Oh, yeah, we know. We know he'll rise in the resurrection. He'll rise in the resurrection, we know that. But Jesus says, I am the resurrection. So true, that's great, that resurrection day, but Jesus says, I am the resurrection. So I believe it's a new day, I really do, I believe it's the dawning of a new day. And let's not consider it's going to be the same as yesterday. Principles are the same, it will be the same sun of righteousness, but he rises with healing in his wings. The same sun, yes, the same Christ, the same living Christ coming forth in a new day. I felt greatly encouraged, helped, edified with what became known as the Lateran Revival. I believe it was a great move of God. I know sometimes a younger generation sort of, Hmm, we've missed out on the good things of this century. And I used to think that concerning the Pentecostal Revival. I wasn't around when the Pentecostal Revival had started, in its purity, it didn't take long to go the way of man, and I was close to it, and so I knew the power of it, and I knew the glory of it just by hearsay. And you sort of feel, you know, I sort of missed it there. But I've come to recognize that if we truly believe that the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, that you don't miss out on anything. Because then there's hope for another day. There's hope for still another day. And so that hope keeps you expectant, keeps you in a state of anticipation and expectation. And that will be the preparation that you will need for any new day. Remember that? What are the preparations that we're going to need? We sometimes say we've got to be prepared for what God is going to do. That's something very individual, I believe, that as you walk with the Lord, be diligent. Perhaps the Lord will appear today. Perhaps he'll appear in our midst here, or where you are. Be expecting him, be anticipating confrontation, a meeting, or a confrontation. And I believe it's bound to be both, because though we anticipate his glory, it's a very awesome thing for his glory to be revealed. For then it reveals all areas of darkness within you, for he is light, brilliant, shining light. And you can't come into the presence of that brilliant, shining light and not have that light expose all areas of darkness. But isn't that what we want? And so we don't shrink from the light like the children of Israel did when Moses came down radiating the glory of God. We must not shrink from it, come to it. You say, it'll slay me. That's right. Let's come to the light. Remember that. Don't ever run from the light. Come to the light. For God intends his light to sweep away all the darkness, to reveal all those areas of darkness that in revealing it he might sweep it away. That's the purpose of the light, not to destroy us, but to sweep away the darkness. But it will do one or the other. That's why in the coming of the day of the Lord, a lot of Christians can't understand when they read of the wrath and the judgment and the desolation, God, oh, thank God he's going to take us out of here. Oh, no. Because the day of the Lord is God's day, it's not God's night. And I never saw that until a few months ago, maybe a year or two ago. You say, you never saw it? Well, have you? The day, it's the day of the Lord. We're not looking for a dark day, a dark night that's coming. Paul says the darkness is passing away. The night is far spent. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore put on the armor of light, because the day is at hand. Put on, and did you ever notice that, that when the day of the Lord comes, instead of God taking us away, he clothes you with armor? Put on the armor of light, because you're not children of the night, you're children of the day. And that's how it was with the children of Israel. I said we're going to talk a little about new beginnings. If you want to open up there, I might not deal at length with it, but Exodus 12. God said this month shall be unto you the beginning of months that shall be the first month of the year to you. God said this is to be a new day for you, to be a new day. God has many new days, and Lord willing, we want to go into some of God's new beginnings in the scripture to give us confidence and hope. Truth is not really complicated. I think it seems that way because by nature we are very complicated in so many areas of darkness and ignorance within us, that it seems complicated to us. But wisdom speaking in the book of Proverbs says, All my ways are plain to him that hath understanding. So truth becomes very simple, I believe, as we let the Lord work it in our lives, but as long as it's out there for you and I to struggle with and try to comprehend with our natural minds, of course it's complicated. But God intends it to be simple. He intends us to digest it, to partake of it that it might be food for us, eat it, drink it, let it become food for us. Then you don't worry about the theology of it. You sit down at a table, and if we sat at our tables like they sit around arguing about theology, you'd hesitate to drink that water because the scientists would say, Do you know what that is? That's hydrogen and oxygen. They're both a gaseous thing. Oxygen, we breathe it, and hydrogen is very inflammable, and it'll burn. Should I drink that or not? I don't know. Then you grab the salt, and you're going, Oh, wait a minute, that's composed of sodium and chlorine. Chlorine is a very poisonous gas. Some soldiers in World War I were afflicted with it until the day of their death. Sodium, well, I remember once in a laboratory at school, I think it was sodium he took out of some solution and it began to burn right there in the air. Is that right? I think it does. That's all salt is, but somehow God had a way of putting it together so it was something that Jesus said was good. So you know you can be like a scientist. He dare not eat anything because he knows there's poison in that and that, and this would consume you, and this would, I don't know what all. But those who aren't scientifically minded take the water and drink it, take the milk and drink it, take that vegetable and drink it. So the truth, if you dissect it too much, can become poisonous. You just take one doctrine there that you like and feed on that and it could poison you. But you say that's contradictory to this other doctrine. Well, I know it seems that way, but not if the Spirit puts it together. As an example, I like the doctrine of election and protestation. I do, I really like it. But if you just hang on to that and don't accept your responsibility in the things of God, it can make you sick, it can make you high-minded, it can feed it, it can cause you really to just die spiritually. But somehow God mingles it up with a doctrine that says, Whosoever will, let him come unto me and drink. Whosoever will, let him come. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And whosoever hear us say, Come. Come, drink of the waters of life. A young man stood up in one of these Calvinist churches years ago and started to preach something like this. An elder came up and tapped him in the shoulder, My son, you're not preaching election. He said, If you'll go and put a cross on the backs of all the elect, I'll just preach to them. But he didn't know who was elect, so he said, Whosoever will, may come. And the elect would come. For Jesus said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And it's something you can rest on in times of trouble and difficulty. And God chose me, so if I'm a brand put out of the fire, God, all I can say is, I thank you for it. But if I study up in the doctrine of election and know it so thoroughly that I say I'm elect because it says here, ye are elect, I'll have to say to you, it says it there in the book, But are you doing what the Apostle Peter said to make sure that you're one of the elect? He says, As your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be idle nor unfruitful in any good work. But he that lacketh these things is blind and short-sighted, has forgotten he was purged from his old sins. Therefore, be diligent to make your calling and election sure. So you see, God speaks to the elect, make your election sure. If you have faith, become steadfast in it. Know about God and his word. Add your faith virtue to virtue knowledge. Knowledge, self-control, come to the place where you keep your body under by the power of the Spirit, that you do not let the lusts of the flesh destroy that life you have. Patience, adding all these virtues. That's the only way we can know if we are the elect. God knows, of course. God says, The foundation of the Lord standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But you say, can you then reconcile the two doctrines? No. No, I can't reconcile the two doctrines. I've tried for years to do that. And many others have tried for years. One man decided, I'll get this book, this man's got a book on Romans and Romans 8, predestination. I'm going to get that book, and he found one, an old writing, I guess it was, and he bought it and took it home so he could somehow, by the writing of this great theologian, he would be able to reconcile in his thinking this doctrine of predestination with the rest of the Bible. So he hurriedly gets home and opens up to Romans 8, and someone had torn the page out. Someone else had the same thought. But God has purposes that we'll not miscarry. He's got purposes that we'll not miscarry. We rest in that. We've got to rest in the sovereign God. You can't figure it all out before you can rest in God and his truth. We'll never figure his truth out. It's intended to be food for our daily bread, water for our thirsty souls. That's what it's intended to be. Not to so understand it all that we can argue with people about it, because you won't be able. I've discovered, and you can spare yourself a lot of that frustration in trying to reconcile aspects of truth. If you can receive this, you won't be able to reconcile many aspects of truth. And God never intended it that way. But in giving bread, he mingles them together in such a way that even though by itself that salt could kill you and that sodium could kill you and many of those ingredients could kill you by themselves, nevertheless coming forth from the heart of God and intermingled by the process of creation and life that is in God, he makes it to be health for our souls and spirits. It's a living bread. Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. They couldn't make any sense in their thinking. It sounded awful. It sounded gruesome. And Jesus deliberately said that to people whom he knew would not receive it. Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He knew it would cause them to stumble. His own disciples were bothered with it. But he knew also that those whom the Father had given to him, those they couldn't understand it, would rejoice in the Spirit that came from the lips of Jesus, and they knew it was right. Like someone said this morning at the breakfast table, he just knew it was right, but he couldn't understand it. That's good. In the process of time, God will give us a little more understanding in all these areas, as we need it. As we need it. Not just as we ask him for it, but as we need it. So God does have new things. As I started to say, I was greatly blessed, illuminated. I know God did something in my life that was different. Though it wasn't, I wouldn't say, a sudden thing, but I just recognized within a few months after I had partaken of the benefits of what became known as latter rain, which we never called it that. Up our way it got that name, down here in the States some months or a year or two later, because they did not believe the brethren whom God used to bring forth that move. They did not believe that was the ultimate latter rain. They believed it was just the foretaste of it. Nevertheless, it was a great blessing. It was showers of God's rain about his inheritance. I found great benefit from it, with help by it. But within about three years, I realized I had to step out of it. Not out of the rain, I hope, but out of that particular structure that grew up around it. It bothered me. Because I thought we were there in 1950 where I think we are now. I don't know, but it does seem to me that we've come to end time. I thought we were there then, and so it seemed so devastating that God would have started this thing. Suddenly, two or three years, it just seemed to peter out. I suppose I mourned over it a little. One time, I think the Lord quickened to me that passage in Isaiah 43, or in there, Remember ye not the former things? Or consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert. God does new things. He's always been doing new things. I believe he always will be doing new things. I can't help but believe that in eternity he'll be doing new things because he's eternal. And in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I can hardly imagine that after a few millennia that finally all God's riches of wisdom and knowledge have been exhausted. Paul talks about declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ. They're unsearchable. Nevertheless, the Spirit searches them out, and you and I search them out. And if the Spirit is searching, and we have the Spirit and we're listening to the Spirit, the searching in our heart is good. But if we're searching out those hidden treasures in God without the Spirit, it'll end us up in a lot of confusion. And that's why God gave us his Spirit, that he might search out the deeps in God while at the same time searching out our hearts. That as he finds a place in our hearts for this truth that he's searched out in God's heart, he can join them together. And so the deep in our hearts, that hunger, that desire, that longing, the Spirit knows it, he's found. Here is a searching heart. So he searches out of God's heart, joins it to our spirit, that we might partake of it. Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words, imparting spiritual realities to spiritual people. However we might take it, and some translators bring out both those thoughts, that the Spirit of God takes from God and finds that spiritual quality, entity in us, and he's able to join it so that there's a conception, there's a birth, there's an importation of that which is in Christ into our hearts by his Spirit. And so God says, new things do I declare. The former things have happened. And new things do I declare. And in the other verse, remember not the former things. We thank him for the past and all that, but we cannot recall the past and he doesn't want us to linger around the past, whether it be in areas of beauty and success or areas of tragedy and desolation, forgetting those things which are behind and pressing forward to those things which are before. That's why Ephraim must take precedence over Manasseh. Though they were sons of Joseph and though Manasseh was first born, it was upon Ephraim that the blessing was pronounced, because if God is going to bring forth fruitfulness in your life and mine, he has to make the sign of the cross upon us, so that when Joseph brought Ephraim and Manasseh to his father Jacob for the blessing, he brought Manasseh in his left hand, so that Jacob, all he had to do was reach out his hand and lay his hand on little Manasseh. So Joseph made it convenient for Jacob to pronounce the blessing on the right son, because Manasseh was first born, and that was very important in Israel, that the firstborn would receive the preeminent blessing. So he was making it easy for Jacob, and Ephraim in his right hand. But Jacob ignored it all, and in his blindness crossed his hands. Joseph said, Not so, Father. I brought him here in my left hand, so your right hand would touch him. I know it, I know all about it, but upon Ephraim shall be the blessing. God crossed his hands over you? Those things that you present to God that you want him to bless, has he put the sign of the cross there yet? Forgetting those things which are behind and pressing forward to those things which are before. Oh, you say, that's easy. My past has been a desolation. Oh, yeah, but you remember that still? Is it still a thorn? Is it still bitter in your mouth? Another says, Well, I've had a very... Ephraim means fruitfulness, but more than fruitfulness, double fruitfulness. We talk about the double portion. We want the double blessing. That's for Ephraim. But God must cross his hands upon us to cause us to forget the past. Though the past was essential, it was first. It had to be there to make way for the future, to make way for that which God would do in the future. You had to go through those areas in the past to make way and to prepare for the work that God would do in the future. You say, I don't know that there's much preparation in my life. Well, if there's been disappointment, if there's been perplexity, if there's been trial, if there's been trouble, that's the preparation. If there's been unfruitfulness, if there's been barrenness, that's the preparation. Because I'm sure that what God will do in these days, in the days to come, he's going to do it through a weak people, a barren people, a people of known devastation, a people of known trouble, sorrow, disappointment, trial, whatever. That's why he says, Rejoice, thou barren, that beareth not. Break forth into singing, thou that revelest not. For more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath a husband. And particularly in times when God would bring forth something special, does God use the barren and the helpless and the weak? That no flesh should go in his presence. When God would bring forth a promised seed, Sarah was barren. And the older she got, the more hopeless it became for God to fulfill the promise. When God would bring forth a Joseph, preceding that, Joseph, who was to be a great deliverer, not only for his own family, but for Egypt, his mother was barren. Rebecca was barren. Elizabeth was barren. And so when God promised him a son, he said, Can't, Lord, now. It's too late now. I say this to encourage young and old alike, because the older inclined to think, Well, you know, I've done my best. I'm getting up there now, and it's time for the younger ones to take over. That's often the attitude. God is going to use some old men in this day and hour. He's going to use some young ones. And the young ones will have to learn these things that we're talking about. You say, Well, I haven't got time. You mean to say I've got to wait 40 years like you did? I don't think we've got time for that. But infants went into the land of Canaan and grew up not having known the wars of Canaan and the turmoil that their fathers went through to come into that land. And so God left some enemies there to prove them in the land of Canaan. So if you get into the land of Canaan without too much warfare, don't think you've missed it all. Because God will have some enemies there, too, that you might learn war, too. Those who had not known the wars of Canaan. Behold, a new thing I will do. Now it shall spring forth, shall ye not know it. Israel had come to a place where God has got to do a new thing. And God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush and told him, Go back and deliver my people, which was his vision 40 years before, but not now. God might bring things to pass in your life that you feel, Well, yeah, I did have this vision, but it's a thing of the past. In order to clarify it, to purify it, to purge it, to make it to be his vision, because God was not able to use that strong and mighty prince in Egypt, Moses, son of Pharaoh, to all appearances, son of Pharaoh. In his own way of life, son of Pharaoh. Designated by Pharaoh to do many great projects, we're told, in history. Pharaoh appointed him to go and build cities and look after various things of the empire. And he was in a key position to bring deliverance to the people. Right there, right at the top, politically speaking. And so, some are encouraged today to get in there. Become a senator, become a mayor maybe first, and then a senator maybe, and get into Congress, and first thing you know you might be president, you'll have a Christian president, right there in the key position. But it's not in the realm of politics that God is preparing deliverers. It's in broken, humble people of God out there in the desert looking after a few sheep perhaps, that God is preparing world leaders. So now he was out of politics. Pharaoh was mad at him. He was out in the wilderness feeding sheep. Give up the vision because I can't do it now, I'm getting older and older, and I'm, Pharaoh's against me now, I dare not go back there. When God came on the scene, having found the vessel he wanted to deliver a whole nation, finally got Moses right where he was. And God went looking for him. God went looking for him. Do you know that God's out looking for people? He's looking. Not with two eyes, but eyes within and without. His eyes are searching. All over the earth. Not for preachers or apostles or prophets or teachers or servants or slaves. They might become any of those things when God gets them. But the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth to show himself strong on the behalf of those whose hearts are right. Whose hearts are perfect toward him. That's encouraging when you consider that God's out looking for you. If your heart's right. You don't have to step out there when you think God's coming. Here I am Lord, I've been waiting all these years now, can you please use me? He's out looking for you, but he's looking for a heart that's right. Not looking for eloquence, because Moses had lost his by that time. Not just looking for young people either, because Moses was an old man there at that time. Not just looking for a guy that might be politically minded and be able to pull wires with officials. Moses had that once and lost it, now they're looking for his head. But all this is part of the preparation. And I think that little bush that was burning and not consumed was God clothing himself with Moses. When Moses complained, I don't have anything, I can't do it, I'm not eloquent anymore, I can't speak. God wouldn't take any excuse. I'm a little concerned when any person is so fired up with getting into ministry, so excited about it, lest he be greatly disappointed or lest he hasn't known the dealings of God. But Moses said, I can't, Lord, I can't, I can't, I can't. And God brought him to the place where Moses would know he couldn't do it. He brought him to that place where he would know he couldn't do it. Because that became the reason why God chose him. Because God must demonstrate. In this new thing that God is going to do, he's going to demonstrate that it's not in any individual, in their education or their power or their eloquence or their abilities. It's not in that, but it's in the presence of God. And therefore, to be assured that God will have a people who will give him all the glory, he doesn't choose too many of the other kind. Not too many mighty, not too many noble, not too many wise. He does choose a few. But the few he chooses, their trials are greater because they've got to be, that's all got to be wiped out. Or should I say consumed ashes. That out of the ashes of it all, he might bring forth what he wants. Not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise are called. You see your calling, brethren. But God has chosen the weak things of the world, the things that are foolish, the things that are not considered of any importance in the sight of man. For Paul goes on to say, He's chosen the things that are not, to bring to naught the things that are. How do you like it? God says you're nothing. How do you like that? That's what he's choosing. So if you don't know it, and you feel the call of God, just recognize that someday you will know it. I forget which writing it was, but I sent it to this man, and he said he just felt impressed, just to read a chapter or so, and then just as the Lord would indicate, stop reading there. Put a bookmark in. So he put his bookmark in, and went to work the next day, and complained all day to God how useless he was getting. He said, really Lord, I think you've brought me to zero. And so he went home that night, and thought he'd read another paragraph. The next paragraph ended up by saying, God is not in the process of taking us down a notch or two. He's in the process of bringing us down to zero. And that encouraged him. It encouraged him. Because he was telling God, God, that's where I am, and then he got confirmation. God says, that's what I want to bring you to. That's what I want to bring you to. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year that you speak unto the congregation of Israel, and we won't read it all, but Passover time. There's going to be other new things. There's going to be the Feast of Pentecost. There's going to be the Feast of Tabernacles. This is the beginning. God doesn't always tell us, you know, this will be this, and then there'll be this, and this, and this. One day enough at a time. A fresh man every day is sufficient. To follow the cloud to the first stopping place in the wilderness is all we need to know right now. We don't need to know how many stopping places there are going to be, and he doesn't tell us. He didn't tell them there were going to be 42 of them. He doesn't tell us how many. He just says, follow the cloud. That's all. Because the cloud of God, God says, goes before you to search out a resting place for you. And he brings you to a place that is dry and barren and bare and no growth, no water, no food maybe. And you say, how could God have said that? That he's searching out a resting place for me. I think we sometimes criticize the children of Israel because of their murmuring and their complaining. As if to say, God, if we were there, we wouldn't do that. But we're very much like them. And God led them that way. This is a great mystery. Tremendous thing that God led them that way for your benefit and mine. For these things were examples, Paul says, for us. So that he led them that way as examples for us. Not that we should do the things they did, but that we should learn the experiences that they failed to learn from. Learn from their mistakes. Paul starts out writing to the Corinthians by declaring what they were in Christ. And God always tells us that before he deals with us. You're my son. I've redeemed you. You're mine. I see you as holy in my sight. The saints at Corinth, the holy ones. I'm writing, he says, to the holy ones at Corinth. And so after he introduces his remarks, then he starts telling them how carnal they are. And he says, You come behind in no gift as you wait for the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, but you are enriched in him in all utterance and in all knowledge. And come behind in no gift. They're feeling pretty good about it all. Until chapter 2, like we read the last day or two. How the Spirit has been given to search out those depths in God. Join them unto us. Then the next chapter. I'm sorry, brethren. I can't talk to you as to spiritual people. I can't bring forth those deep hidden things of God and impart them to you because you're not spiritual. You're carnal. Paul was so led of the Spirit, you see, that he spoke, as he said, words which the Holy Ghost teaches, not which man's wisdom teaches. And so God led him to speak to the Corinthians the way he did. That's what they needed. Reaching forth from the heart of God, this is what they need. They need reproof. They need correction. They need to have a word that would cause them to realize their carnality and their foolishness and come to know you better. Writing to the Ephesian church, it is much different. He was able to reach out and bring out some of the hidden treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge that he could not impart to other congregations. So you see how hopeless we are as ministers, to minister living truth to God's people, if we're not under the anointing. If we're not ministering from his heart. Because only he knows the hearts of people. Only he knows what they need. And then he says to them, I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the clouds and all passed through the sea, were all baptized unto Moses in the clouds, in the sea. Baptized in the cloud and baptized in the sea. Because as the waters opened up, they marched on a dry path through the mighty waters on each side, which the apostle likens unto baptism in the sea, baptized in water, going through the place of death, yet coming forth in life on the other side. But baptized in the cloud. I wondered about that until one time I read in the Old Testament where the cloud which had led them out of Egypt and up to the Red Sea, the cloud immersed the hosts, moved from the front to the back, immersed them in the cloud, stood behind them as a defense, led them in the right way and then stood behind them as a defense, which is God's plan for His people as He leads us. The Lord shall go before you, it says, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearward. You shall not go in haste, neither shall you go in flight, but the Lord will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rearward. The Lord leading, the glory of the Lord following. Not in haste, nor in flight. It was to the betrayer, it was to the betrayer that Jesus said, What thou doest, do quickly. To His disciples He said, You wait in Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. The Lord doesn't push, He leads. He leads gently. He causes you to rest. In whatever work He gives us, God help us to find that rest. And we only find it, Jesus said, as we take His yoke upon us and learn from Him. Then He said, You shall find rest unto your souls. For He said, My yoke is easy and my burden is light. I would never want to tell anyone that Jesus had an easy life, nor would you. But because the Lord Jesus had come to the place of such commitment that all He did was what the Father would do through Him, all He would speak is what the Father would speak through Him, that His very life was such that He depended totally upon the Heavenly Father, He could say, My yoke is easy and my burden is light. He was just moving along in the realms of God. And therefore, in His concept, and I have to say that because I couldn't say that Jesus had an easy life, but that's how He looked upon it. Because no matter how great the task, no matter how great the trouble, no matter how great the persecution, how great the cross, He knew He was offering Himself up as a sacrifice that was well-pleasing unto God, a burnt offering from which God smelled a sweet savor. I know He cried in desperation, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Because He was also a sin offering and He didn't probably understand in His natural mind how God could have forsaken Him as a sin offering. God had to turn His back. But as the burnt offering, as one who committed a voluntary offering unto God, of His voluntary will, I will to do the Father's will, God smelled a sweet savor of incense. Your Father's had all these glorious experiences of baptism, baptism in the water, in the sea, in the cloud. They all ate of that spiritual food that God gave them, that miraculous bread from heaven. They all drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Never was there a more blessed people than the children of Israel. I don't think there was any church more blessed than the Corinthian church, albeit, Paul says in the next line, with many of them, and the Greek is more emphatic, with the many, with the most of them, God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. It isn't the case that God didn't love them and didn't bless them. He wasn't pleased with them. He just wasn't pleased with them. We have to know those things because we've come to a day in our life, God's blessing, see, God's right on our side. Not knowing, Paul says, you despise the riches of God's goodness and forbearance and longsuffering. Not knowing that the goodness of God leads us to repentance. God's goodness leads to repentance. That's why God is good. But how few there are who repent when God is good. God is confirming. I've heard it said, and I feel it might be right, that because God was very, very merciful during the Iraqi war, very merciful, gave them a quick victory with hardly any bloodshed, it seems that the nation has suddenly become very proud. We know how to do it now. We were disappointed in Vietnam and all that, but we've got it now. Not knowing that the goodness of God was intended to lead to repentance. I think God's judgments are brewing, becoming more and more imminent. We who know our God must recognize in that day, we haven't got very far into the Passover, but that when God poured out His judgments upon Egypt, He left His people there. He didn't take them out. He left them there to be glorified in the redemption that He was working in their midst in the hour of Egypt's judgment. God says, I'm going to make a difference between Goshen and the rest of Egypt. I'm going to make a difference. The word there is redemption. I'm going to put redemption between you and Egypt. I'll make a difference because you're my people. God doesn't fear to put us in the fire. He walks with us through the fire. He doesn't fear to pour out His judgments on the earth lest His people suffer. He's glorified in being the captain of our salvation in the midst of the struggle. And darkness penetrated all through the land of Egypt. It must have been more than a natural darkness. It was a spiritual darkness that God caused to settle down upon the land of Egypt. Was it three days? Anyway, a darkness so dense it said they could feel it in the land of Egypt but not in Goshen. Why? Because it was God's day for them. It was a new day for them. It was a new day. This was to be the beginning of months. A new day in the darkness of Egypt. It was very, very dense but the light in the homes of Israel was very, very bright. That's the way it's going to be in the day of the Lord which is fast coming upon us. A day of darkness and of gloominess, I know. But Isaiah saw and he perhaps didn't understand what he saw. Darkness covers the earth and goes darkness to people. A light shall arise upon thee and his glory shall be seen upon thee. When? When darkness covers the earth. When gross darkness covers the people. I was going to read this just in closing. One preacher said this is the first closing. This will be the last. God's commentary on how he looked upon the children of Israel leading them through the wilderness. Psalm 95. That's how it goes. Come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. It goes on down. The Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods and praise unto God. That's what the Psalms were, songs of praise unto God. His sea is his and he made it. His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship. Praise turns into worship. Worship is of a higher dimension. Worship is something that we are to become. So is praise. It's not just something you do. Worship isn't just something you do. Jesus said the Father is looking for true worshipers. So it's something you become. Not something you do when you come to church only. Something you become. So that if there's a great trial, you worship God. When God stripped Job, took everything away he had, went out and lay on the ash pile, bowed his face toward God, said, God, you gave and you took away, blessed be the name of the Lord, and says he worshiped God. The first mention of worship in the Bible, of the Word, I know that Abel worshiped, Adam worshiped, but the first mention of the Word is when Abraham said to his son Isaac, we're going up to the mountainside. He said to his servants, you stay here. We're going up to the mountain to worship God and we will return again. And you know what he went up there for. But that was an act of worship. Because whether just test or trial or victory and triumph, Abraham was a worshiper. God wants worshipers that were always worshiping God. So praise must progress into worship. And bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear His voice, we mentioned I think, how suddenly they're going along in a certain realm and suddenly it seems entirely opposite. Worship, praise, suddenly. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart. As in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my work, forty years long was I grieved. Can you imagine that? Blessing them as no nation on the earth had ever been blessed before or since with the presence of God, with the pillar of fire, with the pillar of cloud, with manna from heaven, with water out of the rock, with healing for the congregation. And God says for forty years I was grieved and said it is the people that do err in their heart and have not known my ways unto whom I swear my wrath that they should not enter into my rest. What a way to end a psalm of praise and worship. They have not known my ways. His blessing, His gifts, His provision, yes. God make us to know your ways.