Fighting the Spirit of Legalism

The text I pray the Lord be pleased to speak to us once again is Acts chapter 15 verses 13 through 17. Last night we dealt with the gospel of David's tabernacle. And in that message last evening, I showed that David constructed a temple, a tent.

And he had the Ark of the Covenant put within that tent, while the tent of Moses still was functioning in Gibeon. It had been in Shiloh, and then after the Ark of the Covenant was captured, we'll talk about that in a few moments, it eventually wound up in Nob, and in Nob it ended up in Gibeon, and it was there for about 20 years. And the reason that David did that last night, we looked at one of the reasons why he would do that, was because of all of the Gentiles that had gravitated to him.

Here he was, a type of the Messiah. And many of his elite bodyguard were not Jewish, but Gentiles, uncircumcised Gentiles. Knowing that the law of Moses would have forbid they worshipping at the tabernacle of Moses, he erected this tabernacle.

By the way, there were no outer courts, and there was no inner veil separating the Holy of Holies from a holy place. It was just this tent, and in the middle of it was the Ark of the Covenant. And people could worship, even in visible view of the Ark of the Covenant.

Well, here we are again, back to the same text. And today, in this session, I want to speak on the mockery of formalism. The mockery of formalism.

Acts chapter 15, beginning with verse 13. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name, and with this the words of the prophets agreed, just as it is written.

After this, I will return, and we will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins. I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.

Even of the Gentiles, who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all these things. When Christianity becomes established, it's always in danger of formalism. Wherever the gospel goes for the very first time, and is rooted, eventually the temptation is to become formal in worship.

The early church came to a major crossroads. They had a choice to remain a spirit-led people, or return to the law of Moses, and become a formalistic and ritualistic people. The importance of being spirit-led should inspire and motivate all of us.

We are not a people of the law. We are a people of the Spirit. We do not live by the power of the flesh to keep the law.

Instead, we live by the life of the Spirit. And the product of that kind of living is the fruit of the Spirit. Against such, there is no law.

What does that mean, that last phrase of Galatians 5.23? Against such, there is no law. Meaning, if you are being led by the Spirit, what comes out of you? There will be no law found in the word of God, not even the law of Moses. That will disapprove.

It will approve of you. Because that's what the Spirit will do. It will bring you into conformity to the character of God, which is what the law was.

It was a codified picture of the character and heart and nature of God. And so here's the crisis that faced the church. Do we follow the Holy Spirit, who will bring us into conformity to Christ? Who is the fulfillment of the law? Or do we return back to the law? This idea that Moses points you to Christ for justification.

And then Christ points you back to Moses for sanctification. Is blatantly what was at stake. It was the heart of the controversy.

Jesus does not point you back to the law of Moses for sanctification. No, He says, I will give you another comforter. Another advocate.

One like unto Me. And He will guide you into all truth. This was what the controversy was all about.

Either live by the flesh and try to keep the commandments of God. Or live by the Spirit and fulfill the law of love. After the decision of the Jerusalem Council.

Controversy didn't end. Wherever Paul the Apostle went and planted churches, these Judaizers would follow. And after he left that town or community to go to the next and plant, they would enter in.

And they would come in and teach their terrible lies to the Gentiles. That if they really want to have status in God's kingdom, they had to be Jewish. The churches of Galatia were deceived by the seditious doctrine of these false teachers.

So that Paul is compelled to write an epistle. Thank God it was kept. It's in your New Testament.

It's called the Epistle to the Galatians. That's all this letter is about. It's a response to this false teaching.

And listen carefully. It seems to me that every generation has the same fight to wage against the spirit of legalism and a formal religion. You and I, especially those of us in this room, which is probably the majority of us.

We are mostly wired. Our flesh is mostly attuned to law, to performance. Give me my checklist.

Stand out of the way and let me perform it. That's a natural tendency to most of us. And surely, you and I have to learn how to fight that very spirit of the flesh.

To perform, to keep law. Rather than to be led by the spirit and believe by faith that we are in Christ justified. Perfectly righteous in His sight.

And so, as we also must stand against the cheap grace crowd that despises the pursuit of holiness, we need to fight the spirit of legalism. And since that's what my text is dealing with, I'm going to deal with this formal faith of the self-righteous this morning. And so the Apostle James, in the answer we found in our text, verse 16 and 17, he quotes Amos chapter 9, verses 11 and 12.

He reminds them that Amos predicted what they were experiencing. The tabernacle of David would be rebuilt because the tabernacle of David was a gospel prophecy. It was prophesying Christ and His good news.

It pointed to the Messiah who was and is our tabernacle, the dwelling place of God. Where both Jew and Gentile can come boldly to worship God. Where self-righteousness has no place.

Where the law has been satisfied and no longer makes demands. Do you believe that? Do you believe the demands of the law has no jurisdiction over you? I didn't say that means we're lawless. Absolutely not.

For if you walk in the spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Paul. Paul writes to the very Romans and to the Galatians.

And in Galatians chapter 2, when he had to withstood Peter, who had backtracked and began to become hypocritical, withdrawing from the Gentiles and only eating with the Jews what the Jews would eat. Paul withstands him publicly and says to him, Peter, Peter, you and I are Jews. We couldn't even keep the law.

What are you doing? Beloved, there's not a person in this room, including the one speaking to you, that can keep the law as Christ kept it. Who am I to be compared to Him who kept the law of God perfectly? Why do you want to vaunt yourself and execute rules and regulations? Didn't He supply that? Didn't He satisfy that? Didn't He fulfill all righteousness for us? And so here we are. We are a tabernacle wherein Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, availeth anything but faith working through love.

And so here we are in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle of David, and it pictures all of this. Two tabernacles that were in function simultaneous. Two tents, one the tent of Moses, the other the tent in Jerusalem, the tent of David.

Why does David seem to violate the law of God? Because God is revealing to him things that are of our generation, of this time. God revealed to David things as he would read the law and open his understanding. He could see an hour coming in which you and I are now living.

But there's another reason. He erected the temple, and it is because the glory had departed the tabernacle of Moses. The glory had departed.

And so we have to do a little work in history. Do you mind? I know it can be taxing, and some of us didn't like history in school, and we don't like it now. But this is very important.

There was a high priest by the name of Eli, and he had two sons, Phinehas and Hophni. And both of them were diabolical. Slept with women, stole, ate the best meat that was forbidden of them.

It was to be sacrificed to God only. And the Philistines had attacked, and Israel one day lost about 30 soldiers. They lost the battle that day.

And so Phinehas and Hophni come up with a plan. Here's the plan. Bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battlefield.

God, let's bring God to this war. We went to battle without God. Let's bring God to the field of battle.

Surely we'll triumph. Now, friends, while God doesn't lose battles or wars, there are some battles he doesn't show up for. And he didn't show up for this one.

And that day, 30,000 Israeli soldiers died, including Hophni and Phinehas. But worse than that, the Ark of the Covenant, it was a rectangular box, wooden box overlaid with gold, and on top was the mercy seat with two cherubs facing each other with outstretched wings touching. And it was there the presence of God literally dwelled.

When the Ark of the Covenant was placed into the tabernacle of Moses and Moses dedicated all of the furnishings and the tabernacle, the Bible says that the Spirit of the Lord came down in a mighty cloud, the Shekinah of glory, and rested between the two cherubs. And within, inside the box, was the law of Moses, Aaron's rod that budded, and a jar of the manna. And only once a year could the high priest only, and not without blood, could enter beyond the veil of the Holy of Holies.

And there he would make intercession on the Day of Atonement with a rope tied to his leg and bells ringing. And the moment they heard no bells, that meant God didn't receive the intercession. And the high priest had died, and they would have to drag him out.

That's the same Ark which represented the presence of God, and now it was in the hands of the enemy, the Philistines. Back in Shiloh, where the tabernacle was, Eli waited for any news from the battlefield, and when the messenger finally arrived, Eli desperately wanted a report, and the young messenger gave him this account. 1 Samuel chapter 4 and verse 17.

Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there's been a great slaughter among the people. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured. And when Eli heard that, not the knowledge of his son's death, but when he heard the Ark of the Covenant had been captured, he fell back, broke his neck, and died.

The Bible summarizes verse 18, that it happened when he made mention of the Ark of God, that Eli fell off his seat backward at the gate. The Bible tells us that Phinehas had a wife who was expecting a child, and when she heard what had happened, well, let me just read it to you from the Bible, let you hear God tell you. 1 Samuel 4 beginning with verse 19, Phinehas' wife was with child due to be delivered, and when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth.

For her labor pains came upon her, and about the time of her death, the women who stood by her said to her, Do not fear, for you have born a son. She didn't answer. Can you imagine that, moms? It says, and she didn't regard it, the baby.

Almost as if she didn't care about it. Why? Then she did the most unspeakable thing, poor child. She named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory has departed from Israel.

Her mourning was not Phinehas. Her mourning was the Ark of the Covenant. Why? Why? Because it represented something to a Jew's heart that really loved God.

The glory. The glory. I've spent my whole Christian life trying to understand what is this thing called the glory of God.

I still don't grasp it totally, but what I do know is this, it is the Godness of God. The Godness of God. It's all that makes God, God, and that's gone.

No wonder she was devastated. Everything that made her Jewish, everything that she had counted on, culturally, ethnically, religiously, spiritually, was gone with the Ark. I'm not going to take the time to tell of the Ark's journey in Philistia and all that happens.

It's an incredible story. Suffice it to say that sooner than later the Philistines discover that the Ark is more powerful than they had first thought. It was proving to be a danger to their health and well-being because men were dying of tumor-like growth.

So a plan was devised. Build a cart to carry the Ark of God back to Israel. And the cart was pulled by two oxen that had never been yoked.

If the oxen pulled it in the direction of Israel, then it would be considered God's mercy by the Philistines. And it's this they did. And they were rid of the Ark of the Covenant and God was merciful to the Philistines.

The Ark of God returned to Israel. But, for reasons unstated, the Ark is not returned to the tabernacle of Moses in Shiloh. In fact, it never returns.

Never. Curiously, the ministry of the tabernacle continues all the days of Samuel. It continues throughout all the days of King Saul.

Nothing changes about the ministry of the tabernacle even though the Ark of God, God's presence, God's glory is not there. Even though the Holy of Holies is empty, they act as if it's still there. It is placed in the house of a man called Abinadab in the town of Kirjath-Jerum for 20 years.

Now here's my question for your consideration. Why is it that the Lord didn't providentially have it returned to the tabernacle of Moses? We believe God is sovereign. Why didn't He have it returned? Why does Saul, King Saul, why does he never ever lead an effort to put the Ark back in the designated place, the designated place of the law for the Ark? Why? Nevertheless, the Ark no longer rested in the inner chamber of Moses.

What do we see happening around the tabernacle? The priests continue the daily sacrifices, all the rituals established in the law of Moses, nothing changed. And they continue to observe the law. They continue to observe the customs of the Old Covenant without God's presence.

How sad it is... Are you listening? Some of you may have lost you through all that history. I want to make sure you hear this. How sad it is to keep the letter of the law without the presence of God.

As a Pharisee, a professing believer, without the glory, without the inner Shekinah of God's presence, I know what it means to keep the law, the letter, without the glory. And it's so hard. Brothers, it's so much easier to be a genuine Christian than to try to be one.

To keep sacrifices going without God being there to receive them. The Levites would keep the wicks trimmed on the candlestick. The table of showbread would have its daily portion.

Never the fire of incense stopped. They went through all the motions of obedience without the power. What does that remind you of? What text of Scripture comes to your mind? I have one.

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Again, I have no intentions of being harsh, mean-spirited. Nor do I speak from a position of superiority.

But friends, this is not a time for smooth words or soft words. We are in a very precarious position. The church in America.

It's time for the voices of the prophets. It's time for men of alarm and warning. This is exactly where many of our churches are today.

And I'm not talking about all those that we can easily label heretical. I'm talking about Bible believing. Just like the tabernacle of Moses.

Keeping the law. Doing all that was required. I'm talking about Reformed churches.

Whether Baptist or Presbyterian. Congregational. Dutch Reformed.

I don't care what your stripe is. Is it possible? Is it possible? Not just your church. But you.

You. Having a form of godliness. But denying the power thereof.

I don't want you to start thinking about others. Please don't do that to yourself. Don't commit such an injustice against your own soul.

Examine yourself at this moment. Is it easy for Jesus' name to fall from my lips? Though my heart feels nothing? I ask the question because of what we just heard from our brother. It is all too easy.

You know, I tell people. I have a heart condition. I do.

It's called the leaky heart syndrome. I don't know if you've heard of it. What God pours in today, it leaks out by tomorrow.

I have a suspicion many of you have the same heart condition. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You can experience. I can be in the prayer closet.

And having wonderful communion with God two hours later. The glory has seemed to departed. No, He doesn't depart.

He doesn't forsake us. He promised that. But the conscious awareness of that glory.

The conscious awareness of His presence. This we shall talk about tomorrow. But I'm asking you today.

Do you have a form of godliness? But deny the power thereof. This is why God doesn't have the ark put back in the tabernacle. But rather He moves David to erect the simple circular tent.

Because God has a prescription over that tabernacle. It had been violated. The people had a heart that was not inclined towards God.

And God had departed long before the ark of the covenant had been captured by the enemy. I want to speak just for a few moments. On the devastation of formalism.

What is Christian formalism? Well, it's the focus on an outward form and behavior. More than on an inward heart of affection. It's to be more concerned with your behavioral compliance.

Formalism looks away from inward realities. To the observance of form. Maintaining the system.

Rather than the heart encounter with God. We all have forms and systems to help us express our worship. Normally we have a portion of our worship services.

Or someone as we had today. Brother Kevin leading us in singing songs of worship. Praise.

But we have an order to the service. Sometimes it's written. For other churches it may be written out in a bulletin.

Whether it's written or not. There is some system your church has when you come together. Listen to me.

That's okay. But these systems should never substitute for your affection for God and the experience of Him. Are you experiencing Him in the closet of prayer? Or are you just going through the form? The ritual? I would dare say many of you are here at this conference because you have affection for God.

You want to please Him. And so you don't neglect the closet. You read your chapter a day to keep the devil away.

You congratulate yourself you did it. Maybe of you who are real more spiritual follow some reading plan like McShane. Where you read four chapters a day.

And it's so easy to congratulate yourself without ever bending the elbow. Something internally happens. It takes satisfaction that you've done that.

That God must be pleased. That's formalism. That's what I'm speaking about.

Who am I? That I should take pleasure that I've rendered something to God that He first gave me. That without Him I could never have rendered it in the first place. When I experience God through the Word, by the Spirit.

I recognize that that is a mercy undeserved. That is something that God does because He loves me. Not because I earned it.

My whole way of thinking before I was saved. And even for years afterwards. The old man had trained my flesh to think.

Now that I'm a Christian. Even now after I'm saved. I've got to strive to please Him.

Because you know God is holy. He's perfect. He told me to be perfect like Him.

And I've got to strive to do that. I'm going to tell you the best thing God did. Is to let me try to do that on my own.

The most loving thing He could ever do to me was to let me do that. I told some men last night. You know you run your head into a brick wall enough times.

You eventually learn that you are not going to dent it or make a hole. God lets us fail. God lets us go through the formalism.

He lets us do the things that we think we should do. Read the Scripture and pray. Fellowship with the saints.

All the means of grace that we are to do. And we think somehow that in the means of grace. We have pleased the Lord.

No, no, no, no, no. The means of grace are simply that. Means of experiencing God.

And Christ is the prize. The prize isn't a star or a check mark beside your performance. It's Him.

Him. Those that come to God must believe He is. And He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek answers to prayer.

Diligently seek a revival, an awakening. No. Seek Him.

And if you are seeking Him. Then He has got to be the reward. Is that the object of your prayer? Is that the object of your Scripture reading? Is that the object of coming together? If not.

You've drifted into a form of godliness. Without the power. Oh my dear friends.

This is a grave danger to us all. It's the same thing that happened to the Ephesians. Who did not stop their ministry.

Kept the ministry going as well as it had always been performed. Nevertheless, they had left their first love. Who's here this morning? Who's here this morning? And your heart says that's me.

I've left my first love. My heart's not as warm towards Christ. What do you mean preacher? My heart's not warm.

You're just talking about emotions. Emotions. Oh, those things are dangerous.

Yes, they can be. But you can't read this book and tell me that God doesn't touch the emotions. The soul.

Who created them. You read the Psalms. You cannot tell me that God doesn't expect you to experience Him and feel Him.

The problem is not emotions. It's emotionalism. That's the problem.

We are all seeking these emotions. No. That's not the purpose of this message.

Or last night. Or tomorrow. The purpose is not for the sake of feeling something.

Well, the devil can give you any feeling you want. No, no. I want God.

And I'm not happy. I'm not pleased. Until I've come into His presence.

And by the way. I never open this book and pray without first experiencing His presence. By believing His promise that He would be there with me.

Never forsaking me. How do you pray to a God you can't even relate to? How many of you know what I'm talking about? He's perfect and you're not. He's holy and you're not.

He's perfectly righteous and you're not in your own self. Many of you don't even believe that Jesus suffered temptation. It was just going through the motions of such.

My dear friend. He suffered temptation like none of us in this room have suffered it. Can you imagine a perfect mind as Christ? Having to even have that impure suggestion placed upon that pure mind.

Horror of horrors. It caused Him to shudder to His depths and core. Oh, He's handled temptation like none of us.

You find it so hard to relate to God. Oh, my friend. He knows what you're going through.

And so today, I want to ask you. Have you left first love? Has the heart cooled? Is there no longer the affections? Tozer said of his day, and I think it's still true in our day. Listen carefully.

Current evangelicalism has laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts. But now seems satisfied to count the stones. Rearrange the pieces.

With never a care that there's not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. Do you understand what he's saying? Instead of the experience of God in His glory. The Godness of God coming upon us.

We're over here. Analyzing, making sure every dot of our doctrine is dotted and every T is crossed. Again, Tozer said this.

Orthodoxy or right opinion is at best a very slender part of religion. Though right temperament feelings cannot subsist without right opinions. Yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers.

There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of that. Do you hear me? Do you hear Tozer? What he's saying? Let me tell you from personal experience.

When a God saved me, He had to deprogram me. I grew up in a completely different kind of denomination. And so for three years, He deprogrammed me.

About seven years actually. And began to teach me. You know, when I began to read the Bible, I'd been a preacher for 11 years.

This book was a matter of getting by the checklist performance and getting sermons. That's all it was. But it didn't make... There was no life because there was no life in me.

And so I'd have to, before the days of internet, buy sermon outlines at the Christian bookstore. Or pull one of Spurgeon's sermons down. Plagiarize a little bit.

Why? There was no life in me. Now, now I'm a Christian. Now I've got eyes that can see.

I'm no longer blind in this book. God was meeting with me. I remember the first year the Lord challenged me just to read His book.

With a spiral notebook. A Greek New Testament. And a lexicon.

A Greek dictionary. And I went through the entire New Testament. Every verse that has anything to do with grace, salvation, deliverance, redemption.

I'd camp out there. Pray over that. Wrestle with that verse until I believed I understood what that verse meant.

I'd write that down. And I went through the entire Old Testament. When we moved just a couple of years ago, I found that old spiral notebook.

And I thumbed through it. And I realized that most of what I believe today came from that initial first year of doing that. I became quote unquote a Calvinist without even reading John Calvin.

I just believed what I read. By the time I'm pastoring seven years later, I'm now introduced to Reformed books. For which I'm grateful.

Don't misunderstand me. But brothers, you've got to know how to read Reformed literature. It'll mess you up if you don't.

Do you hear me? I began to discover that my prayer life began to be weakened. My evangelism and burden thereof declined. And I didn't know what was going on.

What's wrong with me? After about three or four months, I figured it out. I'd come to believe in the sovereignty of God in an unbiblical way. By just simply reading Reformed theology.

I carried it to its logical conclusion. Which, by the way, is not God's logic. Orthodoxy, right opinion without the right spirit.

So what are the signs of formalism? Let me give you three. Number one. Chiefly, mostly, primarily.

You got that? That means this is one of the most important of the three. The glory has departed. Now let me speak.

Because, again, I believe true Christians can have a sense of the glory departing. And God has not departed. But our ability to connect with that glory has departed.

We've lost the ability to see God in His tabernacle. In Romans chapter 1, it shows us one of God's acts of judgment is to simply pull back. Pull back.

Withdraw. Turn men over to their own desires. So when the glory departs, God withdraws.

What is the sign of God's glory departing us today? Well, I remember what Peter says. That judgment begins in the house of God. Before judgment will happen to this nation, and it is happening.

And it's only going to intensify. You can call me a kook if you want to. I've been saying it for 25 years.

30 years probably by now. This is going to happen. It's because directly God's judgment is on our churches.

And that judgment is that God has simply backed off. And He has allowed the absence. Are you listening? Say amen.

Some of you aren't listening. He is allowing the absence of the manifestation of His presence. He's still among His people.

He cannot depart. He made a promise. He can't break it.

But that doesn't mean He has to manifest that presence. What is the manifestation of God in the church? Number one, it is the word preached with power. The word preached with power.

What does that mean? Here again, some of you are not going to like this. But I dare you. If I'm wrong, you have a brotherly obligation to come to me at some point today.

With your Bible. And be able to show me with this that I'm wrong. Because I don't want to preach error.

I really don't. We have the right to disagree. We don't have the right to be disagreeable.

So you come in the spirit of love. With your Bible. We'll sit down and we'll talk.

But you've got to let me talk if I find you're the one in error. And you need, with the same spirit of humility, receive what I have to say. Here's what I think that means.

The word preached with power. Namely, that when the word of God is being preached. God is felt.

God is experienced. When the word is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit. Illumination happens.

Understanding. Dots get connected. You ever see those little activity books that children do? You connect the dots.

One, two, three, four, five. And after all of the dots are connected, you have a complete picture. The spirit comes in the preaching of the word.

And the dots are connected. You see things that you'd never seen. How themes of Scripture come together in Christ.

Christ and his beauty. He's there and you see it. And your heart's moved.

Something happens. What happens? Well, listen carefully. When you are in the presence of God, one of two responses happens.

First, most often, conviction of sin. When the glory of God is being manifested, no sin is left uncovered. God exposes.

Isn't this the ministry of the Holy Spirit? And when the Comforter has come, when the Spirit of God has come, he will convict the world of what? Sin, righteousness, and judgment. That just doesn't happen before you get saved. Leading you to Christ.

No, no. It happens afterwards as well. Conviction of sin.

How can you be in the presence of God while in one hand you've lifted in praise and worship, but in the other hand you grasp your sin? No, no. You sense it. You know it.

You cannot continue to hold it. You must turn loose that you might cling to him with all of your heart. With both hands.

Am I making sense? Conviction of sin? Well, let me ask you. When was the last time you were in church and you were so moved by the Spirit of God over your sin that your heart broke? Listen, listen. I didn't say I had a tinge of conscience.

All of your consciences have been well trained if you've been in the church very long. And your conscience tinges. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Your heart is broken that you must forsake your sin. That is the manifestation of the presence of God. When was the last time you saw someone converted in church? I'm telling you the judgment of God is in the house of God.

When was the last time you saw people being broken over their sin, coming to Christ, believing upon Him for the forgiveness of sin and for His righteousness? Has it been some while? How is it that we are content to baptize one or two a year and usually small children? Something's not right in Zion. What's not right? Where the glory has departed. We're under the judgment of God.

But it's different for us than it is for the sinner. No, when God abandons the sinner, there's no hope for him. God leaves him or her to their sins.

And one day they're going to merrily fall into hell because God has not intervened. When my youngest son, one day I asked him, I said, son, what's God doing in your life? He was a teenager. And he said, well, I don't know.

I guess I know I'm a sinner because dad, you tell me I am. And the Bible tells me I am, but I sure don't feel like it. That struck terror in my heart so much that I couldn't do anything.

I'd find myself in my office trying to prepare a sermon and I would fall to my knees and weep and cry out to God. A burden of prayer came upon me until God answered me. And by the way, He saved not only my youngest son, a week later He saved my oldest son.

How is it? So the abandonment of God of the sinner is different than it is for the saint. Here's what happens in the saint. God doesn't abandon us.

He withdraws the manifestation of His presence and hides until we are homesick, longing of soul for Him. Are you there yet? Are you tired of the absence of God's presence in your life? That's God's discipline. That's God's discipline.

He's trying to rejuvenate, jumpstart your hunger. I mean, you know, you can fast. After three days, your hunger leaves, doesn't it? Have you ever done a long fast? After three to four days, no more grumbling of the stomach, no more appetite until about the 15th day.

And then the digestive system re-jumps and says, you've got to feed me something. I'm starting to starve here. I'm not getting enough nutrients.

But if you deny that, you can go on for another couple more weeks. No hunger whatsoever. How long has it been since you felt pangs for God and His glory? Conviction of sin is the first response of being in the presence of God.

The second is joy. Joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Joy undefinable. You know, when I know God's done something for someone, when they tell me, they try to tell me what it is, but they say, I can't put it into words. Well, how do you know it happened? I don't know, but I know it happened.

Then I know it's God. Because if you can tell me what happened, then it wasn't God. It was something manufactured.

Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Or a combination of both. Both conviction of sin and joy.

I'm telling you, I never feel more loved by God but when He disciplines me. You know that year I talked about last night? I'm going to tell you, it was the worst, most difficult year of my spiritual existence. Wouldn't want to have to do it again.

But it was the best year of my life because when I came out of that, almost a year to the day, God's love was so amazing. So amazing. And one of the things that overwhelmed me was, God, you love me enough to put me through that.

You love me enough to cause me to have to endure this. To work in my life. To wean me.

To break me of my idols. Oh, thank you for your great love. That you wouldn't give up on me.

That you persevered with me. Beloved, sound exposition of Scripture is needed. And we all can say, Amen.

Why come to church if the Bible is not going to be preached, right? We don't launch from a text never to return. We want to understand the text. It's a must if a congregation is going to thrive.

However, expository preaching can take place that delights the mind but leaves the spirit empty. It happens too frequently every Sunday in good, biblical, sound churches. Only the Holy Spirit can reach and touch the spirit of a person with the power of the Word of God.

It's not the mental understanding of the truth that feeds the spirit of a man. No, no, no. It's God Himself.

God Himself. And His glory deposited within your heart that nourishes your heart. Only God.

And what you learn about God should lead you to Him Himself. In an address to the British and Foreign Bible Society, May 5th, 1875. The Prince of Preachers, one of my mentors and heroes, Charles Spurgeon.

This is what he said. Are you listening? Boy, I'll tell you what. I'm going to get in trouble, I know, for this.

But I'm just quoting him. Apart from the spirit, the Bible can do nothing for us. It's a mere dead letter.

Doesn't feel right, does it? You sure Spurgeon said that? Come on, Durham, you're making that up. No, no. What does Spurgeon mean? He means this.

The necessity of the Holy Spirit to bring the Scriptures to life in your heart and in your mind. He didn't mean the Bible itself is dead. But rather, that its transformative power is never realized except through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And for many churches, the Spirit of God has withdrawn because we've quenched Him. Oh, He's still there. But we've quenched His voice.

We can't detect Him. We can't perceive Him, discern Him. Another sign of formalism is unfruitful service.

I know this is difficult to endure just a little bit longer. What was being accomplished with all that service rendered in Moses' tabernacle? What was really the fruit of that? What was the outcome? The produce? Nothing. Is real fruit resulting from your service, friend? Is real fruit going to come out of this conference? I'm not for sure yet.

The verdict is still out. What will God do for us today? What will He do tomorrow? Do you even expect God to do something? Or did you come just to hear a preacher that you saw on the internet? Did you come just to learn something fascinating that you didn't discover before? Or did you come to meet with your blessed Savior from whose precious side we have come? Did you come to draw closer to Him? Did you come to let Him say to you, I want this, I want that, I want you? Did you come that you might know His balm, His comfort, His solace? Did you come to be encouraged? And do you expect it, my dear friend? The real fruit, where is it? I meet so many Christians, including pastors, who are exhausted, thoroughly worn out, because they're serving in the power of the flesh. Oh, how much of our service lacks the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

We don't know anything about it. You start talking about the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and everybody wants to think you're Kenneth Copeland or Joel Osteen. Don't let what those men have stolen, biblical terminology, and rob you of God's best.

Don't you tell me that the Spirit of God must come upon a man. And that doesn't just happen the day you get saved. If you think all you have ever experienced of the Holy Spirit happened when you got converted, brother, that's not New Testament.

It's not. And if I seem angry, it's not anger. It's pleading.

Begging you to hear me today. Who did Jesus say? If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? He was speaking to His own apostles. Why on Acts chapter 4, after being filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, two chapters later, they're begging God in a prayer meeting, Oh Lord, stretch forth Thy hand.

And the Bible says the place where they were praying was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Please, sir. Please, I beg of you.

If I'm wrong, show me. What was that? Why would they ask for such? And why would God respond? By filling them again. If all of the Holy Spirit and His power and influence came at the moment of conversion, it doesn't.

God, would you please revive our hearts to seek the Holy Spirit and His power and quit serving in the arm of the flesh. Flesh reaps corruption. Spirit reaps life.

One final sign and I'm done. You know, I often pray, Lord, help me to be more suitable in my demeanor when I'm in the pulpit. Because these folks, they're not used to that in the first place.

But I hope you can see, by the way, I'm delivering the message that there's urgency, there's earnestness here. I feel almost as if I'm pleading for your soul, even though many of you probably are converted. Undoubtedly, there are people lost here.

I preach like this because this is what we need. We need a revival. A revival of our hearts to once again fall in love with He who loves us with all His heart, mind, and soul.

He doesn't ask anything of you that He hasn't already given to you. He doesn't ask you to love Him with everything about you. And He not do the same.

He's not a husband that will ask his wife to give to him more than he will give to her. Don't you ever insinuate such about my Lord. He will always outlove you every day of the week.

All He's asking is a revival of your heart to love Him with everything again. The final sign is death versus joy. Again, I go back to the Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 6. 1 Chronicles 6, verse 31 and 32.

This is all in our text. It was all wrapped up, the history. All the apostles knew this.

All of the elders in Jerusalem knew this. The Gentile churches had some concept of this. Unfortunately, we've lost it.

We've quit reading our Old Testaments thinking that they're no longer inspired and for us today. 1 Chronicles 6, verse 31. Now these are the men whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the Lord.

That means his tabernacle. After the ark came to rest, they were ministering with music before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of meeting until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem and they served in their office according to their order. The best that I can tell as I read and I've done my research is that David actually appointed musicians, shifts of musicians and singers so that at the tabernacle of David where God's presence was at the ark, praise and worship 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Joy. Joy unspeakable being expressed. What was going on in the tabernacle of Moses? I'll tell you.

No music. No singing. But the bloodletting of killing animal sacrifices.

Death. Death. Death.

One tabernacle, death. The other tabernacle, joyful worship unto God. My dear friends, the sign of formalism is we can even sing, but there's no life in it.

It's death. And we can so deceive our own hearts and think that we are doing the work of the Lord when our hearts are far from Him. Remember what Jesus said about the religious people of His day? With their lips they draw near to Me, but their hearts are... What? Far from Me.

Where's your heart in relationship to God's heart? Where is it today? Let that question have its life and power in you. If you need to repent, if you need to humble yourself, if you need to get on your face before God, why? It doesn't matter what the schedule is. I'm sure that those here in this conference would be obliging to give us all the time we need to seek Him with all of our hearts until we find Him again.

Oh, may the Lord draw us unto Himself. May He spur us to get up and flee from a far and desolate place and return to the tabernacle where His glory abides. Amen.

And amen. Let's pray. Before I pray, I'm just going to ask you to obey God.

He will give you the grace to do that. But you obey the Lord. Do whatever God tells you to do.

He will never lead you to contradict the Word. But you do what God's leading you to do. Father, I don't know the inner hearts of anyone here but my own.

And I confess, Father, that I need more of You. More of You. That's what I need.

More of You. Father, cleanse me of every idol. I know as soon as you get rid of one, there will be another one to crop up.

But Lord, don't forsake me. Don't let Your presence become unaware. Help my heart to remain tender before You, that I can discern Your movements in my heart.

Let Your Word always have life and power, Lord, when I open the book at any time of day. When I meditate and think about what I've read. Lord, Holy Spirit, please show me Jesus.

May the Word be like He speaking directly to me. Showing me His great love for me. Father, I want to be more like Him.

And I confess there are days I feel like that's an impossibility. But I cling to one thing You said. With God, all things are possible.

In myself, I know, Lord, I can't. But I trust You. You made covenant with me.

You told me You were going to conform me to His image. So here I am. Here we are.

It's not easy to say these words, but Lord, we do say them not in formula, but in sincerity. Whatever it takes, Lord. Burn off the dross.

Heal our spiritual ears to hear Your voice again. Revive our hearts in Jesus' name. Amen.