on the tabernacle. I've spoken in the gospel a good number of times that I've never taken up very much in the way of Bible teaching. Brother Fred mentioned they've never heard me speak on the tabernacle. I don't know whether you're in for a treat or a treatment, but one person I remember somewhere along the line said, They'd heard many, many messages on the tabernacle that they never heard anybody speak on the tabernacle like I did. And after they were gone, I kind of wished I'd have asked them what they meant. So maybe when the week is over, you'll be able to fly the missing lake to that state. Will there be a gospel deal each night, too, or just a little? Every chance I can. Every chance. Now, you'll notice that the tabernacle covers a good deal of the book of Exodus. In fact, if we were to start from the twenty-fifth chapter and proceed to the end of the book, we'd find it would cover roughly about fifteen chapters. That's quite a bit. The account of creation covers only a couple of chapters in the Book of Genesis. Some might wonder why so many chapters were the tabernacle and so few for creation. One has pointed out that creation has only to do with the making of the platform or the stage upon which the great drama of redemption would be enacted. The tabernacle gives us a lot of teaching. about Christ and about its people. And I don't know how familiar any of you are with this study, but I was wondering this morning as I came into the building, if I were to ask you the question, why did God ever give the instructions to build a tabernacle? What would you tell me? Do you know why it was ever given? If you can understand why the tabernacle was given to the people of God in the wilderness, then you'll understand a lot of other things along with it. But I just wonder how many would be able to tell. I certainly hope that some would. I don't expect everybody, especially the young people. Now, when we think about the tabernacle, we think of something that happened many, many years ago. But this is not going to be a bunch of lectures and discussions on ancient history by any means. I have this very firmly implanted in my thinking back in nineteen sixty-three when I was in Houston, Texas, just before I had my first lesson on the tabernacle or in a little prayer meeting and a boy prayed, Lord said he, don't allow to be just some dry history. And he said, Amen. And I determined right then and there that every time I had a chance to speak on a tabernacle, that the Lord would, by His grace, deliver me from just speaking on dry history. It's anything but dry history. It's historical. But believe me, it's very practical. Now, we're going to be looking at the tabernacle in a series of sections which we study through this week. And because it's such a vast subject, we're not going to be able to hit every possible thing on it. To do that, we'd have to spend a couple weeks, maybe three. But what I'm going to do this morning, I'm going to introduce it, and then tonight we'll be thinking again about the story that the court wall has to tell us. And whenever we speak on the tabernacle, we'll be thinking of it from two directions. First of all, how it presents Christ. Secondly, how it presents God's people. There is a verse in I John chapter four, verse seventeen that goes like this. As he is, so are we in this world. So you see, wherever you find Christ, you'll find his people. And wherever you find God's people, you'll find God. So we'll be thinking this morning and tonight about the story that the court wall tells. And then Monday night we'll be looking at the brazen altar. Tuesday, the story of the brazen labor. Wednesday, the story that the golden altar tells. Thursday, the story that the lampstand tells. And Friday, the story that the table of showbread tells. And then we'll conclude it Sunday morning with some final message. But these will cover the main parts of the tabernacle. Each one of these has a tremendous line of truth for every child of God. All right, let's open our Bibles now to the book of Exodus chapter twenty-five. I asked the question, why was a tabernacle ever given to God's people to begin with? I'll give you the answer. Exodus chapter twenty-five and verse eight. And let them make me a sanctuary that I may what? Dwell among them. Why was it given? Because God wanted to dwell among his people. Now there are five outstanding records of God dwelling among His people in the Bible. The very first time we have any intimation of it is back in Genesis chapter three when God created the man and the woman, placed them in this garden, and we are told that God present was known among them. This is the first time that God had any dwelling among His people. This was on the grounds of creation. That's the first time. We don't have any record of God dwelling among anybody after that, after sin came into the world, till we come to Exodus chapter twenty-five. And this had to be on the grounds of redemption. Because when sin came in, God could no longer dwell or tabernacle among His people. Redemption had to occur. And then having occurred, then we find that He gives instruction for the erection of the tabernacle that he might dwell among his redeemed people. We don't find any further record of God dwelling among people until we come to John's Gospel chapter one. And here we read a very outstanding verse, I believe, the fourteenth verse of John one. And the word This is Christ, was made flesh and what? Dwell, and the word here is tabernacle among us. And we beheld as glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. You know there was glory in the tabernacle too. You see, the shaitan of glory cloud hovered over the holiest place of all to remind us that here was God actually in presence. He dwelt among his people. We have him dwelling then among people, especially in the person of the Lord Jesus. He tabernacle among men in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the fourth occasion that we have recorded has been found in Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two in this time, reading from verse twenty. and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fitly framed together, growth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Now here's the fourth occasion. God indwelling the church. It's a habitation of God through the Spirit. So this is the fourth kind of dwelling place. There's one more we'll look at, and this is found in Revelation chapter twenty-one. Verse three, and I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. And he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people. And God himself shall be with them and be their God. And he will dwell with them. And this brings us to the eternal thing. So we have these five outstanding occasions of God dwelling among people. Genesis on the grounds of a perfect creation. Exodus in the tabernacles we have it here on the grounds of redemption. Third, we find a redeemed people constituting a holy temple in which God by the Spirit dwells today, the church. And that's on the grounds of grace. And then we have in Revelation chapter twenty-one God dwelling among His redeemed, the new heavens and the new earth. And this is glorification. God will bring everything into perfect harmony with Himself and He will dwell among us. You might say that the whole Bible has to do with God wanting to dwell among His people. This has been God's great desire. I want to ask you a question. What do you think would be the value of this tabernacle. There was gold, there was silver, there was brass, there were precious stones and all that sort of thing. There was an intrinsic value to the tabernacle, but let me ask you, what was the real value of the tabernacle? The real value of that tabernacle was not in the gold or the silver or the brass all of the wonderful workmanship that went into the construction of it. But I want to point out this morning, before I go another inch, that the great value of the tabernacle was in the fact that God Himself dwelt in the midst of His people. And brethren, we better lay that to our hearts today. God is not concerned about the material things. God is not concerned about the outward show. God is not concerned about a church building. God is not concerned about our ritual, our formal procedures and religion. God is concerned about actually dwelling and being at home among His people. This is what makes it really worthwhile. Once God removed from the tabernacle or from the temple... It was just another building, just another human construction. We could say a great deal about that, but I don't have the time, but we'll touch on before I finish, I'm sure. Now, I have here some papers, and I hope that some way we're going to be able to reproduce them so I can give them out to you that gives the meaning of the various numbers. We'll be thinking about numbers as we use this. In the first place, there were sixty pillars that went all the way around this court wall that held up the linen. And if we were to go on the basis of numbers, we'd have six times ten to get sixty. Now the reason I'm mentioning six times ten is because ten in Scripture is the number of responsibility. It's the number that God uses to seek a responsibility in a world aspect. For example, I have ten fingers. I'm responsible, man is responsible on the grounds of creation to serve his Creator. I've got ten toes to remind me I'm responsible to walk for God. We have six in Scripture to remind us of man's number, because man is created on the sixth day. And six, of course, is one short of seven, and seven is a number of divine completion. Seven, as we go through Scriptures, often indicate completion. Everything is in fullness. And then when we come to the book of Revelation, we have seven after seven, series of seven, the seven trumpets, the seven vials, and so on. down the line, the seven lampstands. That speaks of everything in completion. And when we think of that as symbolizing divine completion, we think of it as perfection, but divine completion, and man's number is six, and you subtract six from seven, what do you get? I don't know, that's a heavy question that pops earlier in the morning, but what do you get, Bill? You get one, don't you? One in Scripture is God's number. Our God is one God. Now think about it. When you subtract six, which is man's number, from seven, which is the number of completion, you have one, then man lacks one of being what he should be. He lacks who? He lacks God. Every man and woman ever to get into heaven has got to have the addition of one. He has got to have God implanted and imparted to him by divine grace that he'll ever be in heaven. It's not a matter of improving yourself. It's not a matter of man making himself better. It's a matter of a man coming into divine relationship with God. And when Christ comes into the picture, then man finally reaches that place of completion. Without him, he's incomplete. You remember, now I'm getting way off the subject. But when God made the animal kingdom, he made them like this, male and female in creation. Did he do that with man? No, he didn't. He made man first. He made Adam first. But he made the animal came the male and female at the same time. At the same time he made the male, he made the female. But he didn't do that with man. He made Adam first and Adam for a little while lived all by himself. And I want to suggest to you that Adam living by himself one individual was unique. There was no other life. And he was complete himself. He did not leave any one else. He was complete in himself. But God said it's not good that man should be alone. He was complete when he was alone. And if you think of Adam as typifying the Lord Jesus, he was complete in eternity past. But he was alone as far as this creation of human being is concerned because sin came in and separated them from God. And the only way that Christ could be complete again would be to have a bride. And when God took the flesh from the side of Adam, for a little while Adam was incomplete. The animal kingdom male was never incomplete. at the time of his creation, only that he had a corresponding mate to complement him. But Adam was complete. And then when the flesh was removed, he was incomplete. Then God made the woman and brought the woman back. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh. And Adam says, now I'm complete again. He was complete in a different way. He was complete at the very beginning. He was incomplete for a little while. Then he was complete again in a different form. Christ is going to be complete to all eternity in that he's going to have a problem. When Adam went into the deep sleep, it corresponds to Christ's death and the cross. And when Adam opened up his eyes after the deep sleep, there he had a bride. He never saw until the other side of the deep sleep. And Christ has a bride on the other side of the cross. Never had one before. There couldn't be one. And so these pillars here, ten times six, tells us of man's responsibility in this world to stand for God. Now, we can't do that unless we're redeemed. If you're unsaved, you lack Christ. You can't stand for anything until you meet Him. Then there were... Twenty pillars on this side. Twenty in this side. Ten here. Ten over here. And we find there were two hundred and eighty cubits of fine twine linen stretching all the way around this tabernacle corner. Now let's divide that up. We get two hundred and eighty by multiplying forty by seven. What does forty in Scripture speak of? If seven speaks of divine completeness, what does forty speak of? I'll give you a little hint. Jesus was tempted how many days? How many nights? Forty. Forty in Scripture is the number of tests. How many days did old Goliath come out and challenge Israel? Forty. And how many days... years you might say until Christ came. We take just the ordinary view of creation. Forty. Forty centuries. The time of testing. So we see in these two hundred eighty cubits the fact that we have the divine righteous character of our Lord Jesus Christ under testing in this world. Men looked upon him. We're going to see that in a moment too. And then if we go back tonight and see how this links up with the believer, we too are under close scrutiny in this world. Well, I think we'll just leave that for the time and we'll go over now to the book of Hebrews and look at chapter seven rather, verse twenty-six. Exodus twenty-seven tells us of the construction of the court wall. We won't read that tonight right now. We will tonight when we get back to it again. But for the sake of time, I'm going to forego that and simply read what we have in Hebrews chapter seven, verse twenty-six. For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. Will you please notice we have a description of the Lord Jesus here as our high priest who became us, who is suitable for us, really? And it tells us that he was, first of all, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. And did you know that the whole sum and circumference of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ here on this earth. That tells you everything in one verse. Isn't that amazing? You get everything about the Lord in one verse. Just a few states. Do you see it there? Look at the first description. We're told here that he was holy. This has to do with the birth of the Lord Jesus. When I look at this white expanse of beautiful white linen stretching all the way around the tabernacle, it reminds me, first of all, of the miraculous, wonderful birth of Christ. He was holy in his birth. Now, that's not true of any of us. I guess when a mother looks at her little infant son or daughter, at the time of birth, she thinks, you know... I know there's been a lot of kids in the world, but there's sure none like this one. It looks like a little angel. Could that, oh, that couldn't, that, is that little mouth ever going to tell a lie? No, couldn't. From those little hands. No. No, my little baby's got to be different. I don't think they go around saying that, but I kind of think they look at it. I'll be honest with you when I looked at our first kid, I thought. be a little bit different. Was I ever fooled? But you know, that goes with the being in the human race. When Eve came forth with Cain, she says, I've gotten a man from the Lord. She really had big ideas. Oh, yes. She really had great thoughts. And then when she watched what unfolded in the life of Cain, everything that was wrong in her life, as Cain had brought in, she saw it, exemplified in the life of Cain. And when little old Abel came along, she learned her lesson and she called him Fancy. Oh yes, she found out. Our friends, that little infant that comes into the world looks oh so cute, so precious, so sweet, and indeed they are, but There never was anyone born in this world that we could say of that birth. They were holy in birth. Because we, according to the Scriptures, we were born in sin. We're shaken in iniquity. We're conceived in sin. For the very moment of conception, the principle of sin in the nature is implanted in that embryo. And all that birth does is to simply bring out into the world. And as we see the years unfold, we see how sin unfolds itself in the nature of that boy, that girl. Friend, if you're sitting here this morning and you're halfway honest, you will have to admit in your own life that there's things that have cropped up that horrified you. Thoughts that went through your mind, you said, oh, my, do I think like I'm so glad nobody knows what I'm thinking. the way we talk and the way we act, and it all indicates that we had a bad beginning. But when we think of the Lord Jesus, Scripture tells us that He was holy in birth. And I do not for a moment countenance that teaching today that tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ could have sinned. Jesus didn't come into this world to see whether he was going to sin. He came into this world to show the world of a man that could not sin, who would not sin, in whom there was no sin. And I never for a minute can tolerate these doctrines that tell us that our Lord Jesus Christ could possibly have sinned. But we'll go on to the next description of him. It says here that he was harmed. Now this has to do with Christ not so much in his birth as it is in his life. In his contact with men. Harm. Did you ever read anywhere in the life of the Lord Jesus where he did anybody evil? Were he ever harmed anybody? Were he ever really hurt anybody just to hurt them? I know he spoke very sternly to some, and call Herod an old fox. Well, you'll never read anything like that in the life and the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wish I could say that about myself, but I can't. Harm us. There's not a one of us sitting here today, but we have harmed somebody by the way we live. I know husbands that harm their wives because of their conduct, because of their ways. and also why harm their husbands. I know of parents that harmed their children. And I know of children that harmed their parents. Because you see that principle of sin is working in us. It's not very pleasant to contemplate, but it's true. But our Lord Jesus was harmed. He never went anywhere. He never said anything. He never did anything. But it was always from the divine standpoint. I wish I could say that about myself. I know better, but I don't do better. The third thing about him, we're told here, was not only harmless, but he was undefiled. And this has to do with his death. Holiness birth, harmless in his life, undefiled in his death. Because when he died, he died underneath. the consequences of my sin and yours. And when we sunk down into death, a very wonderful miracle occurred here. His body didn't see corruption. I don't care how long you live with somebody, and I don't care how much you love them, but if you were to die today, the very moment that you close your eyes in death, corruption would set in. Might not notice it much today. Might not notice it too much tomorrow. But it would keep getting worse and worse and worse. And no matter how much you love your partner, you may travel with them forty years, fifty years, sixty years, and I've seen them. And when death comes, they very sadly say goodbye. I can't live with the remains. Why? Because corruption comes. Death is a vile and a fallacy. It's tepid. You know, when they put Jesus in the grave, there was no corruption. He never stopped. Never defiled by his contact with men in this world. He touched sinners. He touched lepers. And when he came in contact with sinners, sin fled. When he touched the leper, the disease was gone. Sin and death. and darkness was dispelled in the presence of the Lord Jesus. He's undefiled. I come in contact with things. If you come in contact with certain things, we can become defiled. Their brother Kincaid was preaching his heart out in Wichita at the Focus Conference and he said, what do you feed your mind on? We feed our minds on garbage, we're going to have dirty money. What we feed on, what we eat. You see, we're subject to defilement, aren't we? I am subject to be defilement, and I can defile. But here was a man. Scripture tells us that lived in this world, and he walked in this world, and he died in this world, and there was no defilement. That's great. But it goes a little further. It says not only undefiled, but it says he was separate from sinners. And we could read it like this even better. He was separated from sinners. How is it in his resurrection? In his resurrection, separated from sins, because God raised him from the dead. Now, there have been others who have been revived, but none was ever resurrected. You see, our Lord Jesus Christ has a body today which is perfectly glorified. It's not a body like you and I have. And by and by those who are redeemed are going to have a body like his. But we don't right now. That's why when death comes, it does its awful work. But he was separated from sinners, and God raised him up. What a wonderful vindication it is. I never go to a funeral, and I see the earth that remains going into the socket in the earth, but I think, thank God, there is one grave, one tomb that's empty today. And that's the tomb in which our Lord Jesus Christ was buried. Because that tomb is empty, I have no fear about the body that's lying in that old cemetery. Well, these days it's going to be claimed, it's going to be glorified and changed. And then last of all, he says here, and made higher than the heavens. That's his glorification. Made higher than the heavens. Can you imagine that? What a stupendous step he has taken to being made higher than the heaven. But in order to arrive at that place, that high station of glorification, he that came from the presence of God by way of Bethlehem's manger, an incarnation, I don't know how far down he stood. Now when he got down to the bottom of that awful quad martyr sin, There in the filth and the debris, He found me. Thank God He found me in my sins and He saved me from my sins, the penalty of them, and He saved me from the power of sin. And I'm glad today that I'm associated with the Lord Jesus. I didn't deserve it. But thank God I am. And when I look at that court wall, I say, Hallelujah. What a Savior. Hallelujah. Now, I know there were different ones that came around and said, Oh, yes. But, you know, He's not just as good as you think He is. Oh, if I could call some of these men up for a witness this morning, I think I'd like to call old Pilate up if I could. I'd like to say Pilate come up here. And I see Pilate coming, dressed in his Roman clothes. government roamed and he stands before this audience this morning and he says, what do you want? And I say, Pilate, sir, I want to ask you a question. You tried Jesus, didn't you? Ah, yes, I did. And your sentence him to die, Pilate, surely you must have seen something in that man's life that caused you to give him a death sentence. What did you see, Pilate? I see Pilate's face as it flashes and he says, I have to say, I found no fault in him. Thank you, Pilate. And Pilate goes back. But I'm ashamed to think that a man could say he found no fault in him and then condemn him to die. That's the world's way. All right, is there anyone else? Yes? There was a man that betrayed him. that he might be put to death, and that was Judas. If I could call Judas from his place, I'd say, Judas, what can you tell us about Jesus? You know, you were numbered with the twelve. Maybe you saw something that was erroneous in his life. You saw something that was false, something deceitful. You saw something we didn't see. Judas, what was it? And Judas has to say, as he shakes his head, he says, I have to say, I have sinned, in that I betrayed the innocent blood. And Judas goes back to his place of eternal remorse. But before he goes into oblivion, God makes sure that he leaves a record that he had sinned in betraying the innocent blood. And is there anyone else? Yes? There was a man that watched him die, and that was the centurion, and he'd seen many a person die. And I say to the centurion this morning, he said, listen, sir. You saw many men die. Did you see something in the final moments of that man, Jesus? It makes us to wonder if he really was what he claimed to be. And I listen and you hear the voice of this centurion as he says, Surely this was a righteous man. Judah says, It is his blood. Pilate says, I find no fault in him. He was a righteous man. Thank you, sent you. Wouldn't you say there were others that were close? What do they see? Well, I'd like to ask Peter. I'd like to ask Peter. Goal and petches Peter. Peter, what will you tell us about the Lord? And I hear the words of Peter. They come concerning our Savior. Who did no sin? Neither was guile found in his mouth. And you know it would be just like Peter to notice that our Lord Jesus was perfect in the two areas that he was so imperfect in. Who did no sin and no God found in his mouth. That must have been riveted on Peter. He never did anything wrong. He never said anything wrong. And I know about all of those things, says Peter. Thank God. He didn't any sin. And he was an old guy on his mouth. Thank you, Peter. We knew you'd say something good about it. And then I would like to call John. John, the one who is lying on the bosom of the Savior, John, what can you tell us about the Lord Jesus this morning? And I see John as he comes forth and he smiles and he says, I can say only this. In him was no sin. Peter saw his deeds. Peter heard his words. But, dear John, the introspective one looks into his innermost beauty says, in him was no sin. He couldn't say that about you or me, could he? what he did about Jesus. And then Paul, the intellect, oh, Paul, what could you tell it about? And Paul would have to say, as he looks upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that he knew no sin. He knew no sin. He was made sin, but he knew no sin. Don't you feel like saying, hallelujah, what a saint is? I do. Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad that when Christ came to the world, the world couldn't find any fault with us. Because there was any fault. He didn't come down here to see if he could sin. He came down here to show us a man who would not sin and who could not sin. All right. There's another little thing or two we'll try to close out on. And that is... We have this white wall that was about eight feet high. I like to call on a little old Barbara McLaren. I was talking to her when I came in. I don't know if she's up here now or not. Is she up here? Well, I'm going to borrow any. Let's say that she comes up to me and she says, you know, Brother Lynn said, you know, I've been looking at that tabernacle and I was just wondering, it looks so big, yes? I said, it's about a hundred and sixty feet long and it's about seventy feet wide. She says, would you take me for a walk around? I said, sure. And so we start walking around, we start over here and we walk along. She keeps looking up at me and she says, Brother Lynn, can you see anything over the top? I said, no. I'm six foot one and a half, but I can't see over the top. I look down at her and she's not too big. So I say, hey, can you see anything underneath? She says, no, I can't see anything underneath. Can you see anything else? No, I can't see anything above. You think that's eight feet high. And the little ones and the big ones, we don't see over the top. I find an expanse of white linen that tells me that there's none in this world that measure up to the Lord Jesus. And as we walk around this old wall and we walk around that wall and we walk around that wall, she says, how do you get in here? I said, just a minute. We turn the corner here and we come down and all of a sudden we stop and say, oh, look at that beautiful gate. Yes. She says, what's that? I said, that's the way into the tap. This white wall excludes all who try to come in. Friend, if you approach the white linen wall, the day you stand back and say, I can't enter in. Why? Because none of us measure up to it. I don't care who you are. In order to measure up to that wall, you'd have to be holy in your birth. You'd have to be harmless in your life. You'd have to be underpiled and separated from sin. And you and I can't face things. But thank God when we come around in the corner here we see there is a way in. There's a beautiful gate. Isn't that nice? And you know, it was twenty cubits long. Twenty cubits long. That's quite a good size gate. I'm just going to throw in one little thought here. That if this is five cubits high, which is about eight feet high, twenty cubits long would be about Thirty feet long. That'd be quite a good size. How wide is this building right now? Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight. All right. So it'd be two feet wider than this building. And the gate would be eight feet high. You say that's quite a size. I believe that Fred and I could get in at the same time with room to spare, don't you? You husbands and wives, you could get in there at the same time. Plenty wide. Five times twenty is how much? One hundred. Tremendous. One hundred qubits, square qubits. We come to the door that goes into the holy place. It was ten qubits this way and ten qubits that way. How much is that? One hundred. Ten by ten is a hundred. Five by twenty is a hundred. And here is the difference. Here we have a gate and the measurements are five times twenty to give us a hundred cubits and the emphasis is upon width. Accessibility. Over here the emphasis is not upon width but upon height because this door is for the saint to go in for service and there we have to meet responsibility. But when it comes to coming in for salvation we find that it's and broadness, wideness for accessibility. Grace means that all can come if they will. When it comes to serving the Lord, then we find that it's high. It's ten if he was high because he wants to teach us there's no responsibility we have to meet in order to serve him. But thank God in order to be saved, you can just come in as you are. It was the only gate, the only way to heaven. It was a wide gate, accessible. And it was a beautiful game. There were four colors involved here. There was the blue, there was the scarlet, there was the purple, and there was the white. And the blue reminds us of the Gospel of John who presents Christ as the heavenly one. Blue is the color of this. He came from heaven. Purple tells us of our Lord Jesus, the suffering one. Scarlet tells us of Christ the royal one and the white linen according to Luke tells us of the sinless one. Oh, what a Savior he is. Now I'm going to ask you this morning as I bring this introduction to the tabernacle study to a close. Have you ever entered in that door? I like this little thing I read somewhere about the kids that were in a boy scout meeting. And you know, the scout master had assigned all the kids certain things to do, and they were supposed to do a good deed every day. So these boys were giving a rehearsal of all the good deeds they'd done, and finally one kid said, well, he says, I helped an old lady across the street yesterday. Good, says the scout master. I said, I'm glad to hear that. That's real good. Did you hear that? He helped an old lady across the street yesterday. Turn to the next kid, he says, what do you do? Well, he says, I help Bill get the old lady across the street, too. Well, he says, good, good. He says, that's nice. You help him. He says, let's try to help him. What do you do, Jimmy? Well, he says, I help Bill and the other guy take the old lady across the street. Stop and ask her stuff. I don't know where you're going. I can see one guy getting her across, and even two, but three of them. Well, yeah, he says, she didn't want to go. That makes a difference. Didn't want to go. Oh, listen, the only way you'll ever miss out on salvation is just because you don't want to go. You'll never be able to stand back and say, Oh, God, you made that gate too hard. You didn't. You made it too difficult. No. It just doesn't be because a person didn't want to go. Do you want to come? The gate's over. And there's a final thought in connection with that. Did you know that that gate was never closed? Did you know that? The gate was never closed in the tabernacle. The only way that that gate never functioned, there were certain times when the gate was taken down. When the tabernacle was disassembled, but it was never closed. There's a day coming when you won't be able to come in. There'll be no doors. But it's open. As long as the door is available, it's open. But one of these days, God's going to take down the way for you to get saved. So I'm urging you this morning. If you haven't come, please come right now. Our Father, we ask thy blessing upon thy good word. We have tried, in a little measure at least, Lord, to get an introductory look at this lovely subject of our Savior and his people. We've looked this morning, Father, at the first segment of it, what the world must have seen in Jesus. And then, Lord, tonight when we come back to further consider it, we pray that thou would give us understanding hearts as to the other part of this truth, what the world must evidently see in its people. Lord, we pray that thou would honor thyself and glorify thy Son once again as we turn our hearts to