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It is a great pleasure to be here. I appreciate the privilege of sharing with our brethren. That's a great courage. I'm indeed flattered since I came because in the first session, Father Kenneth introduced me as the only one of the original brethren left. So you people should be very thankful for listening to such a notable character. I'm as like Elijah as I've ever been. I only am there. I'd like to read from the book of Exodus and chapter forty.
The book of Exodus and chapter forty. We commence with verse one. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month shall thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation. Verse sixteen, thus did Moses, according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he.
And it came to pass in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up. And Moses reared up the tabernacle, fastened the sockets, set up the boards that I'll put in the bars thereof, reared up his pillars, and he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent above upon it, as the Lord commanded Moses. Verse thirty three, and he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work. Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up, for the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and the fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journey. And that's as much as we take for our reason we trust with the Lord's blessing. We've already been reminded today of the value and the preciousness of the word of God, and uh, we're amazed at the versatility of this great volume.
It's applicable to every situation. There is ever any set of circumstances that we encounter in life for which the Word of God cannot be relevant. And there is a great ministry in the Bible for first day, and I think on the first day of two thousand and ten, it might be appropriate just to indicate something of the first day ministry of Holy Scripture. There is, of course, right at the very beginning of the Bible, the first day of time. What a remarkable day it was. God said, let there be light. There was light. God separated the light from the dark, called the light day, darkness he called night.
God saw it was good. Evening and morning were the first day, the first day of time. The great principle of divine communication, and God said, the great principle of divine clarification, let there be light. The great principle of divine classification. The light he called day, the darkness he called night. The principle of divine commendation. He saw that the light was good. The first day of time is a very significant day, and indeed in all the other days that have intervened since then, it's a sad pity that the human race did not remember the principles that God established on the first day.
But then as well as the first day of time, we have the first day of the week. And when we come to our New Testament, passages like John chapter twenty and Acts chapter twenty and Revelation chapter one, it's a great day of resurrection. It's a day of remembrance. It's a day of revelation. So that is also a very interesting first day. And what we have come to here today is one of those five occurrences in the Old Testament of the first day of the year. The first day of time, the first day of the week, and the Bible has also a ministry for the first day of the year.
And on this particular New Year's Day, as we have it recorded in Exodus chapter forty, what gave that day special significance? It was the day in which Moses reared up, is the expression used. Moses erected for the first time the tabernacle. That was quite a structure. And for the first time upon the sands and the soil of planet Earth, a building was erected that replicated that. What a significant day.
What a start to the new year. The first day of the first month of the second year. What a privilege to have made a little scar or made a little blue, or to have given a little bit of your gold, and to find that what you had contributed was now incorporated in that building. The very residence of God, in fact, the first residence of God upon earth. I say it was a great development in the ongoing story of redemption. The first day of the first month of the second year of the Exodus, it was a wonderful beginning.
Twelve months before that day, these people have been groaning and grinding in the bondage of Pharaoh. And within a short span of 12 months, a people that were the slayers of Pharaoh have now become the associates of God's power. What a year. God has been their teacher. We have already been reminded today of the cry of the psalmist heard, teach me thy statutes.
God had taken those people, and in the course of 12 months in education, we often hear about a crash course, where a great deal of education is imparted in a short space of time. Well, I tell you that here were a group of people, a congregation of people, that the twelve months previously were the erstwhile slaves of a prince of this world. Now they have become associated with the earthly palace of the king of the universe. I want to look at that twelve-month period. I want to think about a number of the great events that contributed to the education of these people.
You know, twelve months, twelve months in God's school can teach many lessons. Maybe there's someone here, and this time last year, New Year's Day two thousand and nine, found you in your sins on the way to hell. And New Year's Day two thousand and finds you saved by grace and associated with the Lord's people in testimony. If that is the case, mind you, that has been a special twelve-month period in your life. God teaching people. The book of Exodus is a great book of emancipation. It's a book of elevation. God says, I put you and I brought you on eagle's wings, and I bear you to myself.
And from the mud flats of Egypt to the slopes of Mount Sinai, these people have not only been emancipated, they have been elevated. And as well as those two great features, it's a great book of education. God teaching and introducing into their thinking subjects they would never have dreamt of. They're learning a lifestyle. They're becoming acquainted with topics that are holy and topics that are heavenly. A twelve-month period of spiritual education. And in that twelve-month period, God used a number of object lessons to communicate what he wanted those people to learn, and those object lessons are what I want to speak about just for the minutes that I will be here.
The first main object in the education of these people was the blood. That was quite a lesson. You see, Egypt was a land that worshiped living animals. And it was something rather staggering when God told his people, the only way to safety is the blood of an animal that has been slain. And you not only slay the animal, catch its blood, but you put the blood around your door. Wonder why that was done. The whole land of Egypt become besmirched with a sign of judgment.
The structures of Egypt, they would never be there again. They would leave those houses. They would never be back. I don't know what they did to the blood. Maybe they had the solitary folks out the next morning trying to get everything cleaned up. Well, I tell you, at the very least, it was a strange, and these people started out their great pilgrimage. The first object lesson, strange to them as well as strange to the Egyptians, was the blood upon the door. You know, I think, I think that's something where we all start. You can remember, you can remember the very first thing that you appreciated in your Christian experience was the great fact that on the cross there was one who took my place, and as a spotless Lamb of God, his precious blood was shed, and that blood that was shed and appropriated by faith, it is answered to the claims of God, and we rest this afternoon in the value of the precious blood of Christ.
I hope we haven't forgotten that we would never start without it. Starting people on a course of education is an expensive business, and the foundation of it all was sacrifice. In that blood, I not only think about the claims that it answered, but I think about the cover it provided. The firstborn son sheltered behind the screen of blood. Um, I just mentioned this for younger believers because I have mainly younger Christians in mine. There's a sense in which what I want to speak about could be called basics for beginner. The things that I'm going to be mentioning are things that you could learn in the first twelve months of Christian experience.
And one of the things that I would mention here is this, that on that great significant Passover night, there are two activities of God that are mentioned in Exodus chapter 12. There's passing through, and there's passing over. When I was a little boy in Sunday school, I used to think that when God came to a house that had blood on, he skipped it. He passed over. And he skipped that house. I don't believe that now. I believe that when a house had blood upon the door, God hovered over the door. He didn't skip over the house, but he hovered.
That's the meaning of the word. And when the judgment passed through the land of Egypt, the judgment couldn't get into that house because, as well as having gone around the door, the Lord himself took his position as the guardian of the household. And if destruction would get into the house, it would enter that house through the Lord. Dear Christians, one thing that I want you to rejoice in this afternoon is the eternal security of the believer. Blood has answered the claims of God's eternal throne. Blood has given to every believing soul comprehensive cover, and the Lord puts himself and all that he means between the believing soul and the judgment that is threatened.
And the third matter that they would learn from this blood was the captivity that it ended. Four hundred years of bondage, or whatever it was, two hundred and fifteen or four hundred. We're not talking about that now, but the bondage is over. And the hard labor and the grinding and the sighing that they have endured is now finished, and they march out holding their heads high. Slavery concluded as free men, the liberated servants of Jehovah. Thank God for the emancipating power of the precious blood of Christ.
That was the, and it was the fourteenth day of the first month. Tell me this, why did God not bring them out of Egypt on the first day of the first month? He did tell them, this month is unto you the beginning of months, and if it was the beginning of months, is the beginning of a month not the first day of a month? Why give the halfway through? Why have a Passover on night fourteenth and they're marching out on the first section of day fifteen? Is there any rationale for God's activity? Well, just keep in mind this, that the structure of the month in those times was lunar.
And on the fourteenth day of the month, going into the fifteenth, that would be the time of the full moon. And I think that God carefully selected that date so that his people would march out of Egypt as free men under the silvery light of the moon. Not only enjoying living, but enjoying life, heavenly life, and to me, all of that is very, very closely associated with the wonder of conversion. The lesson of the blood and the shelter that it gave. Never had seen the like of it before. What a start to a year. They would say, if this is how God commences things so strangely, so wonderfully, you would never know what surprises are along the way, and the second surprise was coming quickly because it was the baptism.
There were easy, plenty of easy routes to Cana. You could skirt round the Red Sea without any serious difficulty. It wasn't by any means a massive detour to go round the Red Sea, but God brought them right up against the face of the water. You know, it's a, it's a strange feature of our God that he often takes people through the toughest routes. You say, but if there's an easier route, would you not take it? If there's plain sailing, if there's plain traffic, that's the way to go.
God takes his people sometimes up against the stiffest obstacles in life because he wants to demonstrate how much he can do and how much he can mean in the difficulties of the way. And they come to the water. What are we going to do now? Here where people were cut accustomed to the gurgling, predictable waters of the Nile, with those predictable inundations and so on. Here they hear the roar of the Red Sea, and every, every roar of its bill is a message of death. It's stable, it's stable to bring us to the edge of this sea.
Well, God will do something again they never thought would happen. The whole thing will just open up. And they'll walk through. And they will have a, a figurative baptism. They will go through the tunnels, and they will come out on the other side. And the waters again will roll, as we know, and those returned waters will be a very clear demarcation between these people and nature. God has not only saved them from his judgment by the blood, but he has separated them by the water from the system of this world. And they're out of the new river, and they are ready a new life.
And according to the New Testament, baptized onto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, they're in the enjoyment of a new leadership. Maybe, maybe there's someone here today not baptized. You've appreciated the blood of Christ. The Lord died for me. I'm covered and I'm sheltered by his precious blood. Well, just let me say to you that the next step of obedience is baptism. I know that's basic, but I'm speaking about basics for beginners. Our brother was in Psalm one hundred and nineteen, and I think it was that very Psalm and one of the verses, brother, that spoke to R.C. C. Chapman, as a young believer, thinking about baptism, wondering how it w- when it would happen, just how it would all come together.
He came with that text, I made haste and delayed not to keep his commandments. Is there someone here, and you're hesitating in the path of obedience? I say, dear Christian, if the Lord has shed his precious blood for you, is it too much for him to ask that you will encounter the water of baptism in obedience to him? Make haste! If you're truly saved, make, make haste. Don't allow two thousand and ten to amble away very many weeks or months. Make haste and delay that to keep his commandments. That's someone that's not baptized.
But you know, maybe it wouldn't do any harm to speak to those of us who have been baptized. I wish, I wish I could live in the full practical significance of my baptism. You know, these people, I don't think they grasped it. And they went through this, they would never forget it, the day when they went down in and up out through the water, they would hardly ever forget it. It's constantly referred to in later scripture. In fact, the night I was baptized, that's just about as much as I understood that the Lord said believers should be baptized. And I think I heard some of the men read something about Romans six, and they gave fairly heavy water up about that.
And I hardly just understood it all, and I learned a little bit more sentence. Thank you, dear believers. There's a significance with baptism that has very far-reaching practical ramifications. If you're baptized cut off from the world. I say that the water of baptism, it left them with a new leadership. It brought them into the enjoyment of a new liberty. They were heading now for a new land. Death and darkness were behind them. Grace and glory were before. And it also brought into their soul new learnings, because they were hardly up out of the Red Sea until the Bible tells us, then sang.
I tell you, that's some song, isn't it, in Exodus fifteen? The song of redemption that began to vibrate in their very spirits, and they raised up those loud hallelujahs to the Lord who had delivered them new lyrics. I mentioned this at a conference, a conference recently, and I don't want you to think that I've nothing else to preach about. But I do want to say that. Some of my young Christian friends, we're not a bunch of old pranks. Quite a lot has been addressed today to young Christians. We really think a big deal of our problems is older people that should know better.
I'm not to get any credits for that, but that's the truth. There wouldn't be as many problems about some of the young people as some of you older Christians would fight less and gossip less and behave better. There's baptism for you, a deluge, a deluge, but that's the truth. But I'll say this, some of my younger Christians said, you've been baptized. What kind of music do you listen to? People who go about today with these things in their ears, cotton wool in their ears, because they're walking about like zombies. They can hardly move without listening to the thud and the bang and the beat of music and some of the words, and that what troubles me is this.
You see a picture of some of the artists, and you only need to look at their photograph to see that they are men and women without God and without Christ. And if you're allowing their music to seep into your soul, because that's what music does, it seeps into your soul, and in seeping into your soul, it will shape your personality. And before you know what happens, you'll become just like them. And if you don't become like them in your appearance and the way someone might dress, present themselves, I'm beginning to think they are giving them. If you don't become like them in your appearance, imperceptibly and inevitably, you'll become like them in your attitude.
And may God grant. Listen, listen, listen. We have as many songs as will keep the Christians happy for centuries. You don't need to be dabbling in the music of this world. May God grant that we'll appreciate not only the lesson of the blood, but the lesson of the baptism. And they weren't too far from that until they got the lesson of the bread. This is a crash course for twelve months, and they're going to learn now about the bread. I tell you, it was quite a lesson. Quite a lesson. Going to be a whole new system of food supply. God has brought a people out from Egypt, and he's going to sustain them.
I often point out that, uh, as far as, as far as the conventional means of survival are concerned, we get our bread from the ground, cereal, so on, so forth. They grow the grain, and they produce the flour, and they bake the bread. Our bread comes from the ground, and our water comes from the sky. God brings his people out into a wilderness where they're neither. You don't have water, and you don't have bread, and you say, Lord, you have taken us, and you have launched two million people into this inhospitable desert, and they will never survive.
It's impossible for people to survive in a situation like this. The Lord says they'll survive if I keep them. He says, I not give them breath from the ground. He said, these people will get their breath from the sky. And he said, I not give these people water from the sky. I'll give these people water from the ground. And he said, all, all the nations of the world will see that I'm able to sustain. The Philistines say you'll never do it. The Egyptians say they'll never manage. The Moabites are just standing laughing at them. God says, I will show the nations of the world that my people are supernaturally sustained.
And when others, you know, people wonder, how can we survive? How can we survive? You don't go here. You don't have this. You don't have many of these gizmos that are built. You know, the world needs to be mollycoddled by its little pieces of machinery, and they're fascinating with their toys and their little technology, and technology, well, there are many good things of it, but dear Christians, may the Lord help us to appreciate that there's a higher lifestyle. There's a different way of living. Can I say to my young Christian friends again, you be careful about what you feed on.
Onions, leeks, cucumbers, garlic, melons. Those are things that are eaten in private. Everybody know in public what you've been feeding on. Especially the latter one. So go careful, be easy on the rest of you if you're fond of garlic, or else hold your breath. I'm gonna do more trouble with you after twenty minutes. But, uh, if you feed on those things in private, it will become obvious. You know, what the young believer feeds on will show. You can't hide it.
And this very special bread, you know, it tells us, I think, it is the book of Psalms, maybe Mr. Newby is a marginal reading of his. Man, man does eat angels' food. Mr. Newbrething puts in the margin, man that eat the bread of the mighty. You know, God gave them bread, not just to survive, but bread that would make them strong and would help them to go through the wilderness without any aches or pains. The Bible even tells us that their feet didn't swell. They were strong and healthy and robust and sturdy. Dear Christians, if we want to be robust Christians, may God grant us of feeding what he has provided, the heavenly fare.
Now, what's your food? And I'm not going to elaborate that anymore. We've enough in this great volume that our brother reminded us of at the start of the reading that will sustain us. It's a, it's a great larder for the soul of the Christian. But then things go. The blood, the baptism, I'll never forget the bread. When they saw this bread, they even said, what is it? What is it? They couldn't say, what is this? What's we don't do, no nation ever lived with bread like this before. But you see, God's educating people. In a twelve-month education, he's going to bring them to his house, and he's going to educate them.
And then he... But then they get into a, they get into a fight, and old Amalek's there. He doesn't like the way things are progressing, and he causes a bit of disturbance. It's in Exodus chapter seventeen. And, uh, it's a wonderful conflict. And Moses holds up his hand, one hand and the other hand, and then both hands, the men that help him, and he intercedes up on the hill, and the conflict is going on in the valley, and, uh, there was no battle conducted like this before. This is not, this is not the way you win battles. This battle is not a matter just of prowess, and it's not a matter of military might or strategy, or it's not a matter altogether of being well armed.
There's a man here praying. And as he weavers in his praying, the battle wins. And as he prevails in his praying, down in the valley, the battle is being won. You say, this is a strange thing, and you can see the old man up there being sustained and supported and interceding with God, and you say, this is strange, this is strange warfare. So it is. And when the battle's over, Moses builds an altar, and he calls it Jehovah Nisa, which means the Lord our banner. Uh, the word banner in that particular text, maybe, maybe it's not a banner as we know a banner.
A banner with us is a piece of fabric that flutters in the wind. But the word banner in that passage is more the idea of a, a standard or a pole. It's the same word actually as Numbers twenty one, lifted up a serpent upon a pole, translated standard quite a number of times in the prophecy of Isaiah. There was a standard. It's the standard to which the proof, proofs rally. Who is our standard? Well, Moses says, when the troops keep their eye on the Lord. The Lord is our battle. The Lord is our starter. And he said, when they keep their eye on the Lord, he said, then the battle will be won.
The battle, just I love, and now, well, maybe I should say this. You see, just make the humble to a young believer. In Exodus chapter fourteen was it? God told Moses, he said, now you tell the people to stand still, and they'll see the salvation of the Lord. He said, the Lord will fight for you. He said, you let them fight. Just stand still, and the Lord will do all the fighting. When you get to chapter seventy, the Lord tells Joshua and tells Moses, he says, go down into the valley and fight. You see, the difference is this, that in chapter fifteen, chapter fourteen, it's salvation, and when it's salvation, it's the Lord that fights.
Now the mighty deed is done, and the battle's fought, and the victory won. And in salvation, it's the Lord that achieves the victory, and we reap the benefits. But dear Christian, let me tell you, you will not be too long on the pilgrim way until you discover that you have to fight. And there's a struggle, and there's an intense conflict in your mind and in your soul. And sometimes the young believer begins to become introspective, and he wonders, how can I ever win? Dear Christian, it's keeping your eye on the Lord. The Lord is the valve, and the Lord is the standard bearer, as we have just been reminded. But then we come further, and they get to Mount Sinai, maybe just about four months after they were delivered from Egypt, and they get a book.
They get a book. And God tells Moses, he said, now you tell these people how to behave. And he said, write these things in a book called in Exodus chapter twenty four, the book of the covenant. And in that book of the covenant, well, here we're back again to the scriptures. They were told how to treat each other. They were told don't be stealing, don't be stealing your brother's coat. If you see that your brother's ass needs to help with his burden, help. Don't, uh, don't start a fire in your brother's field that will burn all the corn that he has. Don't be doing that kind of thing.
Be very charity, be very considerate. If you dig a hole, make sure that you cover it because some of your brother's animals might come along and might stumble and fall into the pit which you have left uncovered. Be very thoughtful about others, and uh, their whole life now became organized by a book. Told them about their dress, their appearance, their apparel, their attitudes, their associations. I can't go through all of those details, but what I want to say is this. You know, dear Christians, we are a book. And it amazes me, it amazes me how detailed and comprehensive the Word of God is.
And through this book that we are now guided by, we have already been hearing a good deal about it, it shines its light into the various departments of our lives and teaches us about relationships. Now, I just keep that in mind and not say anything more about it, but I see the time is going. The blood, the baptism, the bread, the banner, and the book. The next large section of Exodus is the bootstraps, because God tells Moses a very, very interesting thing. He said, Moses, I brought you out here with this congregation.
He said, I would like to come and live with you. He said, I'm not just going to go before you, I'm actually going to come and live in the midst of the congregation. I tell you, that was a real thing to think of God now taking up his residence amongst his people. But he said, if I'm going to live with you in a tent, he said, you'll have to make me a tent. Well, he said, of a special specification. And Moses went up into the mount. And brethren have had different ideas. I wouldn't be dogmatic. But God did tell him.
He said, Moses, you make the tabernacle according to the power that was shown to you in the mountain. Now, I don't know what your thought is. It seems to me that in some way or another, Moses must have seen, I'll call it a model, a model. I've seen quite a few models of the tabernacle in my lifetime, and I've never been satisfied with one of them yet, but, uh, that's only beside the point. But I think Moses saw a lot. Imagine, imagine a man up on a mountain getting, getting a replica, a revelation of something that will be reproduced on earth.
And when Moses came down from that mountain, he had firmly in his mind the blueprint of what God's dwelling place should be like. I say to you, Christian, that's a, that's a precious thing to get. It's nice to appreciate the blood, and it's nice to appreciate the bread, and it's great in this struggle of life to keep your eye on the Lord and to enjoy victories. But, you know, it's a very precious thing to get a blue bread. And maybe, and maybe off the mark here altogether, and forgive me if I am, but you know, I believe there are people, and they could be in assembly fellowship for a dozen years, who never grasp the blueprint.
Where did Moses get the clear picture of the blueprint on the mountain? And might I say, there's a something about assembly life, and there's something about the pattern, the pattern that God has in mind for dwelling amongst his people, that it can only be grasped in fellowship with God himself. And Moses climbed that mount, did without food, water, and so on for all those days, and passing before his mind was this beautiful blueprint, and he had that picture. You know, God is still a pattern. Still a pattern.
We have made quite a few adjustments. Some places they have made quite a few extensions. They have taken away some of the precious parts, and they have introduced other instruments. Moses was told the size of it, the shape of it, the contents of it, no extras, no additions, no omissions. May God grant that we appreciate that there is still a part that God requires. Then... then there's a bad little patch. A bad little patch, you would think of two that go from strength to strength. People that have, people that have sheltered beneath the blood, people that have passed through the baptism of the same, people that have tasted the bread from heaven, people that have marched to victory beneath the banner of the Lord, people that have received the revelation of the book, people whose leader is a man that knows the blueprint, you say they'll go on from script.
They got tied up in the, in the boat. Imagine. Imagine all those people dancing around a party around a bull calf. Dancing around a bull calf. Just like fools. It was exciting, it was charismatic, to be sure. But there it was. God said, listen, if that's what you want, he says, I'll destroy it. I'll destroy it. Moses pleaded, and that very, very forceful and very prevailing intercession.
God said, well, he said, all right, Moses, I'll not destroy it. He said, I'll tell you what I will do. He said, I'll send my angel and they can go up to the land and build it honey, but I'm not going to go in the midst of it. He said, we'll not build the tower. He says, I'll tell the angel. And he's taken through the wilderness, and he's bringing them into the land of milk and honey, and they can enjoy the material benefits of the land. But he says, I'm not going to live amongst them. I just give them grass and milk and honey. He said, I'm not giving myself. Take them up, he said, but no paradise. It nearly broke Moses' heart. He says, Lord, show me thy way.
He says, Lord, I, I, I, I, I, I can see a problem here. He said, these people that you have so much blessed have gone back to worship, just like Egypt. And he says, they've turned apostate, and he said, honestly, Lord, he said, I can't really see how you could live in the midst of them. He said there's such an ungrateful apostate congregation. I don't see, but he says, Lord, I can't think, I can't think. He says the promised land would do great to me if you're not there. He said, Lord, I don't want the boozy mind to turn. I'm plenty of milk and great herds of cattle.
If you're not there, he said, all the luxury of the land of Canaan will be absolutely pointless if you're not in it. He said, Lord, to be honest, if your presence doesn't go with us. He says, I don't just want an ancient for the land of Canaan. You know, sometimes... Well, I don't want to be too hard, but these things give me a bit of concern at times. Sometimes the Lord gives us what we sure would want. He says, if they want gold, if that's the, if that's the, if that's the summit of their aspiration, if they want a golden calf and they enjoy gold and material prosperity, he says, I can give it.
I wonder at times do we show the Lord what we're really want? And Moses never ceased until the Lord showed him his grace and his goodness. He says, Moses, I'm going to give you a revelation of my character, such as you have never received before. You know, Dobbins, the time's up, so I'll stop just a minute. Dobbins in his book speaks about the God's jealous sulk when the people made a wee ornament of gold. God's jealous sulk. He was nearly right, only it wasn't a sulk.
You know, God will brook no rival. And when he saw his people giving their affections to an alien devotion, the Bible tells us that there's jealousy for them. Dear Christians, God wants to have our whole affections. Our brother referred to that wholehearted devotion that is written across Psalm one hundred and nineteen and Moses, even though they had the awful breach of the bull calf. You say, where did they get that idea? Well, you know it. And I've mentioned it already, and I'm not going to elaborate it. Dear Christians, one of the problems we have to constantly face in Christian experience is the pull of the past.
Just look going back to what they left. Just going back to what they left. But we need to watch what they're going through this year. The last thing that I mentioned, before the book of Exodus finishes, on the first day of the second year, on the first day of the second, New Year's Day, year two. it would be a big year. From the blood, to the baptism, to the bread, to the banner, to the book, to the blueprint, to the bull shaft worship.
And they learned the futility of the theory of things. And the last little section of the Book of Exodus is the building of the sand. You see, it was a great thing, it was a great thing when Moses put it all up. I, I have a bit of an interest in architecture and building and so on. And might I just say, from, uh, from the details that are given about the tabernacle from twenty five to thirty one, I don't know how anybody makes a model of the tabernacle, because you simply haven't enough details given to allow you to make a model. That's just a simple fact. There'll be a certain amount of guesswork. But you see, you get a man working at the yard, that's...
you get another man or those skilled men working at the last stuff, and you have all these different vessels. But then, it must have been a great day on this New Year's Day when the whole thing was done, and everybody could see the whole picture and see how it functions. It's like a, it's like going into a building site, and uh, all the different pieces are there. The blocks are there, and the trusses are there, and other pieces are there, and you have a, an architect's plan, and you look at the plan, and you look at the various bits sitting around. Really means nothing. But it's quite impressive when they get all the pieces together in the right place, and you actually see that.
Moses put up, he led down the sockets, put up the boards, covered them, brought in the vessels, and everybody could stand and watch and say, I wonder what that meat was for, and I wonder, I wonder what that was for, but I can see now how it all fits together, and the whole thing was just a marvel of function. You see, and I'm going to conclude now, it's a great thing, it's a great thing to appreciate how an assembly function. Not just to examine the pieces, but to see how the whole different, the different parts all combine together to make a functioning entity.
And see where the lamps are, and see where the table is, and see where the other is. You see, hi, dear brother, and I wouldn't be critical at all. There are some dear brother and I met in a lake here, and they never knew the difference between a remembrance meeting and a prayer meeting. Now, they knew what a remembrance meeting was, in a sense, and they knew what a prayer meeting was, but they couldn't get the thing together. And they couldn't see how it functioned. But here we're all reared up now, and all the pieces are in place, and best of all, a cloud of glory comes down and fills it all. This building and its functionality, and I can speak about the building and its fullness.
The presence and the glory of the Lord filled the building. Dear brother, you're very well aware that we have the Lord's presence in our meetings. We don't need many supplements. And if we don't have the Lord's presence, it won't matter how many supplements you introduce, there's still there's something missing. Oh, the fullness of the building was the Lord's. The functionality of the building was a dwelling place for him. And my final point is this, the future of the building. It says when that building moved, the children of Israel moved with it. I might have thought that when they moved and brought the tabernacle with them.
It's the other way around. It's when the tabernacle moved. They wasn't it came with them. They went with it. It dictated the pace of the movement. I would say to young friends again, this is for the first year you do. This is the first year of Christian experience. Learn the value of some of these things that I've been mentioning. I don't want to repeat them again because of the time. Twelve-month Christ course of education. A great lesson for you to learn in early Christian experience is this. You arrange your life around the assembly. Wherever it move, you move.
Try and get a job, and it might seem to you insensitive for me to say this in days of unemployment and so on. Try to get a job that allows you to attend all the assembly meetings. Fit your education around the assembly. You work your holidays to suit the assembly. Let it dictate the direction and pace of your life. Don't make it suit you. You make it suit the dwelling place of God. And I say it was a great twelve months, and when it was all over, I just, you just imagine, I can't go into the details. You just imagine, on the first part of January, to use our language, of that first year, these gift things that I have mentioned, people knew nothing about.
Absolutely nothing. The bread from heaven, the blueprint of the tabernacle, the bread of the Red Sea. The only thing they knew was the bull's calf, and that was the red raised step. They knew nothing about these things, but in twelve months, God had introduced to their thinking some of the greatest concepts that human beings have ever considered. You know, it's a great thing to be amongst his redeemed people. We're starting another year. Two thousand and ten has just been chimed in. May God grant that we the good scholars of his school, that we learn the lessons of the blood, the lessons of our baptism, the shelter of the blood, the separation of our baptism, the sustenance of the bread, the standard of the banner, the scripture of the book, the sin of the breach.
And the climax of it all is the chicana of the building. I tell you, if we learned these lessons, I believe we could go into this year and to an ever increasing degree enjoy the conscious presence of the Lord amongst his people, to his glory, to our preservation, and to the blessing of Mary Messiah. May God grant it will be so.