If you would turn with me this morning to Exodus 25, second book in the Old Testament. If it is at all possible, and it will be a labor on you, if you could, if you could in mind go back and find yourself looking on such a scene as this, Exodus 25, I want to read verses 20 through 22. And in 22, there's this grand, great promise of God. There, I will meet with thee. Would you pray with me? My father, as always, we come, certainly I do, as a very needy creature. I am not capable of speaking so as to cause these to hear. And if they hear with the ears you have given them, that's not sufficient. But we must hear like the great prophet. God wasn't in the wind, wasn't in the fire, but in the still, small voice. And in that presence, Elijah rubbed the mantle around his face. And here we sit today, 2,000 years past the cross, And yet I fear we take that so lightly. And we take our gathering here lightly also. My father, would you in great mercy, deal with hearts, do that which we have not seen in some time. Though there are individuals here that knew me with you in their closet, in the Scriptures, but meet with us as the gathered church, thy people. It's all Christ. And as we read these verses, Let us see that my entrance into this place is based solely upon the person and work of our Savior. No way, there's no way that we in this flesh could approach thee, except through and by him. Lord, help us. Call back the wandering child. Renew a seriousness in our gathering Help your people, Lord. Grant words fitting, appropriate, given by Thee fearless to speak that that I ought. But Holy Father forbid that I get outside Thy will. in talking to these. Be thou honored in our midst, O Lord, and bring us again to the realization the living God is here when a people comes prepared to meet Him. Hear us, in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Verse number 20, and the cherubim was holy. Of course, these weren't living. These had been carved out representing those holy beings above. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings. And their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat, shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." Can you see yourself all alone right now in such a holy setting? Cherubims with their faces turned inward, wings covering the mercy seat. There's the ark of God, the law, inside the testimony. inside the ark, or the testimony inside the ark. And the law says to me, do this and thou shalt live. I try, but I fail. Not 10% of the time, 100%. And the law says, do not. And yet I find that in me there is a law working contrary to the command of God. When I would do good, I find evil is present with me. Strive as best I can. It's impossible in this old flesh. And that inability to do as God commanded or not do what God commanded us to do, my inability immediately drives me to the mercy seat above where the testimony of God is. And in this place there's such splendor, breathtaking silence in such a holy place. And he or she that can enter that will find within such awe. But everything in here, everything, was all covered up. For on the outside of this old tabernacle there were animal hides. That was the top layer. And our Lord Jesus came representing that perfect man, for he was, representing the perfect fulfillment of what God commanded and yet the Jews never saw him as a son of God. It was, it was that outward covering veiling over his own glory within that flesh that they were told to call his name Jesus. All they saw was a carpenter's son. And all we, like them, when we saw him, there was no beauty in him that we should desire him. Later on, When the tabernacle has completed that which God had it built to do, then the third king of Israel, Solomon, comes along and builds a temple. There are several places, and I found more than one that stated this, But the silver and the gold Solomon used, that alone was over 200 billion dollars. Not in our currency. That was not counting the bronze and the iron and the ivory and the cedar wood And in that, over $200 billion, there were 153,000 men. All this is in the scripture now that worked for seven years. And when it was completed, the best estimate was that there was over $500 billion That then is a cost unimaginable today. All that the tabernacle and all that the temple ever represented was a place where God would meet with his people. and the splendor and the glory. Get behind the curtains inside and all the way into the holy place and you see these two heavenly beings in the great mercy seat covering the ark of God with this promise, dare I will meet with thee. Now folks, everything in the Old Testament was in the physical realm. Everything. In worship, when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, Mariam and the women took up their musical instruments and they played and they danced to the glory of their Lord. David came in front of the Ark of God, bringing it back to the city of his God. He was out in front, dancing, covered with that linen garment. Even the judgments of God were in the physical. If Israel sinned, then the nation had famine or went into captivity. Achan sinned against Israel, one man, and God slew thirty-something men and later on Achan and all his family and all that he had died. David sinned against God and lost his son with this promise from the Lord that the sword would never depart from his house. He had to live with that through the remaining part of his life. Solomon loved many strange women. and the judgment of God again in the physical, then the kingdom was divided. Now instead of one people, there's two. But you get to the New Testament. And the judgment of God after the descent of the Holy Spirit and sometime later, the judgment of God ceased to be in the physical realm and it became that in the spiritual realm. And when a man sinned, God didn't kill him. When a man violated the commands of God, I mean he's walking around the next day just like the previous day. The only thing is he lost an awareness of the presence of God. God was nowhere near that man or that woman. And we, having greater light, sit under greater condemnation and ought to walk with a carefulness in everything we do, knowing that God's not going to strike us dead. He's just going to depart and leave us to ourselves. I, Hosea 5.12, God said, will be unto Ephraim as a moth. You've never heard any sound of a moth eating, destroying garments. Never. That's God in the New Testament. He's working silently. He's working spiritually. If you're not careful, you'll never know that you've stepped beyond the boundaries of God's holy commands. Jesus comes along and the woman there, he meets the woman there in John 4, and she finally figures out there's something unordinary about that man. And she said, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. And she's got a question now that she needs answering. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. But ye say, in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, the hour is coming and now is. Arks done away with, that costly temple has been destroyed. Our cometh now he is when neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. But all true worshipers shall worship him in spirit and in truth. And the Jews that were so accustomed to everything in the outward They still heard and passed judgment on all things based on what they saw. Jesus said to them, destroy this temple. In three days, I'll raise it up again. They can't rationalize anything in the spiritual. They're not spiritual men that he was talking to. And they said, You can't do that. Our fathers labored 40 and 60 years in building that. And then when our Lord departs, or even here, the worship was brought from the physical more to speak and to the spiritual. It no longer was about a place. It no longer was about the structure of a building. Paul preached long one night up there in the third story in the loft of a building when a young man fell out and was killed. Later on he speaks in houses. He saw that the Jews were not going to listen to him and he forsook the house of what they call the house of God and began meeting sometimes just on an old shore. Because it wasn't about a building after the Spirit came. No longer was that of the greatest importance. There have been and there still remain some buildings outstanding architectural design and built with an enormous cost. Because the spirit is so active, or so inactive, we've reverted back to the physical. And if we build multi-million dollar structures, if we have all these programs, and we have all this that will excite the people, then we will once again attract them into the house of God that they just built. And all the while we've lost one central being that transforms an old loft or an old house. We've lost that as being the house of God because we've lost God. Jacob stopped for one night and the Lord visited him, ladder, birth, reaching up to heaven. The Lord visited him that night in that dream. The next morning he erected an altar there and poured oil on those old stones and he said, this is Bethel. This is the house of God. Before God ever had a building, before God's people ever had a particular place where they could go to worship, out there in the open, some rocks with oil poured on it, He said, now that's Bethel. That's the house of God. Our forefathers landed up there off the eastern coast. They gathered there in an open space to give thanks to God for getting them out from under religious bondage into a place where they could worship in freedom. Later they built old log structures for the house of God. But children, they had something in that old log house that these buildings today that do attract thousands in some places, those old log structures, they housed God. God was there when they met. In the 1740s, William Tennant a very notable pastor, evangelist. He started a theological school to train young men and young men for the ministry. I started to say young men and women. Watch how far down we've gone. And it was known as the Log College. But those that named it that weren't doing so because of the great work taking place within. They were just making fun of it. That old college over there, that's just a log house, log college. Archibald Alexander wrote, and he titled his book, The Log College. And throughout, chapters are given to the ministry of the men who attended The Log College. All the way from up there in the east down to North Carolina, through the ministry of those men that sat under William Tenet, God or revival throughout that part of our country. In 1741 or nearby, Jonathan Edwards preached that grand sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. You think he had a grand palace to preach in with Carpet on the floor in the on the pews and chandeliers hanging about you think he had all that fine structure No, he didn't fold, but he had God there that day And you believe that he dare have the nerve to tell men and women there to refrain as best they could from weeping and My, if a crowd broke out in tears, I'd think God has come, but he quieted them down and said, let me get through with what I got to say today. Oh, that place had no marble structures or no chandeliers, no pews of the finest material, but they had God. Oh, those men that went out, George Whitefield came over about that time and the young evangelist sat down with the old William Tennant and sat there for several hours visiting in his home talking about what he found out about God and the work of God. Jonathan Edwards said, and this was of Gilbert Tennant, William's son, that attended the college there of his father. George Whitfield said, under his preaching, hypocrites have either got to repent or they're gonna get so mad at him that they'll quit and won't go back again. Nothing is wrong with fine structure in a building. It doesn't matter what you have. We have nothing without the Spirit of God. Since the descent of the Holy Spirit, God began dwelling for a people regenerated, born again, saved, would meet for no other purpose other than to worship the God that did so much for them. on earth, and that throughout time, God's ordained His church where He meets with His chosen. Our Lord said, where two or three are gathered, now here's the point in the whole, where the two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst. We just got two or three here that you come gathered in His name. Then we have hope there the great God will descend and meet with us. A lot of folk, well I know several out there that do not have a place to go and those that are given over to you've got to be in a church. You've got to meet in that building that calls itself a church that was organized in the 1800s and been there ever since. You're not going to worship God if you miss gathering in that old building out there, that new building. Listen folk, a church is not a church if Jesus Christ is not the main and the central being there. And all of us, in quiet submission, take our place at His feet to hear Him. And if we don't have Him as the main and the central being here, we have nothing. So they have their good music. And they have grand singing. They have activities for all age groups. They don't have anything if they don't have Him meeting with them. And I may not live to see it and then again I may as quickly as this thing has unfolded in the last short while. Times coming when the true church, the true church, those that hold to the old scriptures, that become new when one is converted. But those that hold to the Bible, time is coming when they will not be able to publicly gather. You'll be gathering at home somewhere as many of you as can. They're going to shut the doors to any public building that dares say that the Word of God is inspired and that God meets with the group. Turn with me, if you would, to the 48th Psalm. Psalm 48. Great is the Lord. You want to let those words become more than words. See that God so unveils and removes the scales off your eyes. When you speak, you're talking to the Lord as being great. And if He ever becomes that to you, then greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. But that city of God, That's that place, that's that place where the saints of God, on their worship days and solemn assemblies, they journey together to the Mount of God. Oh, it's located in that high place. But now see, it's not in the physical anymore. but it's still here and it's in the spiritual. Mount Zion on the sides of the north, what makes it beautiful? It's the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for refuge. Local place, the local assembly, That place if you will strive to maintain a reverent atmosphere and you so live that when you sit down here on Sunday mornings that God has absolutely no reason not to meet with us. This place becomes that where God is known And some sitting here and maybe one day another lost person would wander in. And here their heart would be revealed to them and threatened with everlasting torment if they're not born into the family of God. And here have a Savior, the great Physician set forth as their only hope. there, in here, finding deliverance from their sin. Now I know that there will be a large number in glory that were saved outside the walls of the local assembly, but it was in that place where they were first quickened and awakened in alarm about their condition. I have read of a few, probably many more than I know about, that have, they said, accidentally stumbled across a track, a good gospel track. Not this, one, two, three steps to receiving Jesus, a track where the gospel is preached to them. Some have stumbled across that. Read about one, this was over probably 200 years, no, no, no, 100 years ago. A traveler down an old dusty dirt road. A train passing by and out of one of the windows flew this pamphlet. And that one took it home and read it and re-read it. God brought him to the fact that he was on his way to hell. Hell is not gripping us like it ought to, dear ones. Eternity is not holding our hearts as it ought to. Great is our Lord. Beautiful is that place where he meets with his children. That place where God is known in our palaces. You do know The only way God is known here, known in the palaces even here, was by the Spirit. And when He is absent, it's impossible, impossible for you to sit here with any reverence, with any sense of God was there. If we have not the Spirit of God, the only way of building, the only way a group of people becomes the house of God, the church of the living God, where the Lord Jesus is declared and manifest is that people have the Spirit of God. No other way. Can't educate a man enough where he can get up and charm the hearer's soul to get them to hear. Impossible. You don't get to know God by education. You get to know God by God being revealed to your heart. An old heavenly dove Like in Luke 3, the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove. There came a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son. We can gain once again a greater activity of the Spirit of God. And the Fathers say, You are my child by the Spirit. For us to be that place, every person here must, through the utmost diligent labor, strive to see You're always, always in your words and in your actions, you for all time here. You are what the Lord would have you be. And when you fall and you falter and you step aside, you go back to God to gain repentance. You live godly. It doesn't matter if you're the only one in the family. It would make it easier if husband and wife, children, Mom and Dad, don't think, don't think for a second that your words and your actions have no effect upon your children. But the Spirit of God being that dove, in the form of that dove, takes only the least noise to frighten her away, him away, in this case. Great effort. Challenge every person here. Great effort should be put forth from you, by you, to always be a person devoted, separated from the world, and dedicated to a holy life. If you don't, you're gonna lose even the little we have of the Spirit of God. Labor for purity within our walls. My speech so regulated by the Spirit of God that He is never grieved. My life is so lived in holiness before my God because He is holy. Be ye therefore holy. Then let me strive to abide by that. Let me look throughout the New Testament at the warnings, take heed, brethren, lest there be in you an evil heart in departing from the living God, Hebrews 3.12. It's in me and it's in you, the possibility of departing. Dare not sit here and stand before you and boast of I'm forever saved. I can claim that when I cross the finish line. The question right now is, am I what the Lord would have me be? Am I rightly representing Him in His house by my actions? Am I representing Him in public? Oh, you probably won't get many chances to speak a word for Him, but as you language that, that it ought to be. God, children, is holy. All begotten of Him over time come to resemble Him, for without holiness No man shall see the Lord. 1 Peter 1, As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation and all manner of living. God said, Be ye holy, for I am holy. But we've lost the Spirit of God because of our lifestyles, our worldliness, our indifference. And by losing Him, this would cease to be the house of God. Well, Gideon was returning and he ran across a group of men and he said, what were those men that you slew? I said, well, each one resembled a child of a king. Gideon said, that was my family you slew. And he slew every one of them. Got anybody out there that can point to you and say he, she, represents, resembles a child of a king? Folk, you've got to labor more today than your grandparents had to labor for the Spirit of God to meet with them. from the time that the tabernacle was completed. There was such beauty within that when the priest entered, he immediately became aware of the majesty of the Lord, His beauty and His glory. And we filled up what we call our worship time with worldly schemes and plans And we almost have become a temple like that that Jesus entered. And he drove them all out and said, you've made an identity. You've stolen from God. You've robbed God of his glory. Children, don't let that be us. Robbed God. Oh, God help us. Will you turn maybe one last? I'd really like. We'll see, one last in James. I'm not gonna say one, I'll take that back, just in case. We've been in the Old Testament thus far, and I just wanna bring you into the New Testament, though I've quoted some verses from the New. I wanna bring you into the New Testament so you will know And you can't excuse, well, we're out of the Old Testament. James chapter 3. I talked with one this week. I talk with him every couple or three weeks. And that that grieves him most is his difficulty in finding where the Lord would have him. He's told me on several occasions, on Monday morning already knew, excuse me, what I'd be dealing with on Thursday. He said, now I go all week long striving to find what God would have. And he said, it's become such a difficult chore. So it's not just our children. It can be everywhere. that was at one time the house of God. James 3. And I hope you'll go out, if you get mad at me, I hope you'll go out and collect yourself sometime later and see it's just God. That holy, heavenly, being represented by that dove. Verse 14, James 3, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, don't you dare glory, don't you lie against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish. For where anything in strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. I've used this verse 17 a lot of times. When folk, young Christians, were trying to find, how do I know If that thought was from the Lord, or if it's the devil putting something in me, listen, the wisdom that is from above, Jesus Christ, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, he is the wisdom of God. Wisdom. that is from above is first pure. Can you entertain that thought that entered your mind and find purity in it? Can it bring to you a peaceable gentleness? Is it easy for you to be entreated by that thought or is it most bitter to you? You find out if it's from the Spirit of God. Oh, that's without partiality and that's without hypocrisy. Let's just go on in to four. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your own lust at war and your members? You lust and you have not, you kill and you desire to have and cannot obtain. Can't get it? You fight, you war, you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? Let me just read you this. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints, in all churches. God is not the author of commotion, tumult, spirits like that dove. O hymn 1800s, take time to be holy. Speak oft with thy Lord, abide in him always, and feed on his word. Forgetting in nothing his blessings to seek, take time to be holy. The world rushes on, spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. Thy friends and thy conduct his likeness shall see. I guess I'm about to date myself back to the time when your grandparents and you younger great-grandparents when they met. Those old men, they'd come in that church building, they'd take their hats off. But you didn't have any trouble distinguishing Between a man and a woman back then, no wonder we got all this junk out there. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers, they dressed according to their gender. Well, times have changed. Don't care how much time changes, the Word of God has not. You ladies are to dress in moderate, unmodest, you know what that means, well-arranged apparel. You know what that is? What it means? It means alluring, letting your hemline down if the styles in your day is short. Don't be afraid to go against that which society is doing because you say you represent the Lord. We're gonna lose him, folks. If you get mad enough with me to quit, I can't apologize. But I promise you, I'll pray for you. Because I've said nothing this morning in malice. I've said nothing with any one person in view. God knows my heart, I'm telling you the truth. More than anything else, I just want to see him. I want him to be back in the local assembly. And more than I want to see him, I want you to see. I don't mean visibly, folks. You know that. But I want you to hear from him what would him Let folk, when they see you and when they hear you, say, that man or that woman resembles the child of a king. God help us. Jim, you come. Lead us in our closing hymn.