Gooding, David: 9 - Practising Peace

Thank you, sir, for those very kind and generous words. It has been a pleasure for me to be with you here. We are told reliably that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that surely is a dictum that applies to preachers beyond all others. Much easier to stand here and give than to sit on hard seats and listen. I assure you, who may not, uh, think it is so, I assure you that an hour up here goes twice as fast as an hour down there on those seats. And I thank you for the way you have been so patient. If you have found fault with some of our lengthy studies, you did very well. Unfortunately, your criticisms didn't reach me, for which you better blame your elders. Nonetheless, thank you for the way you have worked so hard along with me. It is a tremendous joy to find people who share interest in and delight in the word of God and all those riches that are there stored for us. I pray God that we shall not only have enjoyed these studies, but that in the coming years they will be written on our hearts and help us to deepen the worship of the Savior and to give us help and strength in the practical affairs of life. It would be most kind of you indeed if, in coming months, you could now and again, as an assembly, find an odd moment or two to name me in your prayers. God's will, I shall, in the beginning of March, be with the missionaries in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, and in those days of intensive study, I should be delighted to know that from time to time you are supporting us in prayer. Later on in the year, I shall be in Spain, God willing, for similar things for a month, the month of April, and in Poland again in June. So if now and again, amongst all the multitudinous things that you pray for, you could find time to remember me in your prayer, that would be a, a great blessing and encouragement to me. Now, shall we begin our last study by reading from Leviticus, this time in chapter seven and verse 11 onwards. Leviticus seven eleven. And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which one shall offer unto the Lord. If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes with oil, mingled with oil of fine flour soaked. With cakes of leavened bread shall he offer his oblation, with the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving. And of it he shall offer one out of each oblation for an heave offering unto the Lord. It shall be the priests that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his oblation. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. But if the sacrifice of his oblation be a vow or a free will offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offereth his sacrifice, and on the morrow that which remaineth of it shall be eaten. But that which remaineth of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire. And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it. It shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity. And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten, it shall be burnt with fire. And as for the flesh, every one that is clean shall eat thereof, but the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people. And when anyone shall touch any unclean thing, the uncleanness of man or of an unclean beast, or any unclean abomination, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which pertain unto the Lord, that soul shall be cut off from his people. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat, and the fat of that which dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn of beasts may be used for any other service, but you shall in no wise eat of it. For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people. And you shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whosoever it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the Lord shall bring his oblation unto the Lord out of the sacrifice of his peace offering. His own hands shall bring the offering of the Lord made by fire. The fat with the breast shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord. And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar, but the breast shall be Aaron's and his son's. The right thigh shall you give unto the priest for an heave offering out of the sacrifices of your peace offerings. He among the sons of Aaron that offereth the blood of the peace offerings and the fat shall have the right thigh for a portion. For the wave breast and the heave thigh have I taken of the children of Israel out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons as a due forever from the children of Israel. And may God give us good understanding of his holy word. And now for our last study together this evening, we take one more of the laws of the sacrifices. On Tuesday last, we introduced ourselves to this particular topic, and we noticed the difference between the instructions for the sacrifices as are given in the early chapters of Leviticus, and these further instructions, what are called the laws of the offerings. We notice that the details of the sacrifices themselves are addressed to the people at large, because the people at large needed to know, when they were in some spiritual need, what sacrifices they could bring and should bring to the Lord. But then we found that the laws of the offerings are addressed to the priests, and they deal with a number of practical things that it would be necessary for the priests to know and to do, that they might maintain that complicated system of symbols that God had given to Israel. And you may remember we illustrated it to ourselves from our own Christian symbols. On the Lord's Day, when we meet at the Lord's Supper to remember the Lord, we use symbols of bread and wine. And for ourselves as a congregation, we find the bread a symbol of the Lord's body, the wine a symbol of his blood. And those symbols lead our thoughts and our hearts and our devotions out towards the Lord Jesus to a deeper spiritual understanding of the wealth of his person and sacrifice. But then we observe some very homely and humble things, that if we're going to use bread and wine as symbols, somebody or other has got to bake the bread and make the wine and prepare it and bring it along of a Sunday. And though it is a simple thing, yet it requires responsibility and reliability and persistence in the discharge of that humble but valuable service, so that the rest of us can enjoy and use the symbol, somebody has got to look after the practical details. And so we thought, uh, for ourselves, we are priests, responsible to preach the glorious sacrifice of Christ to our fellow men and women. Where we find people in need of forgiveness, to point them to the sacrifice of our Lord. Nothing that we can say can add value to that sacrifice. Nothing that can we can say or do can take away anybody's sin. But if we would discharge our office as priests and point people to the sacrifice of Christ and explain to them the sacrifice of Christ. Behind the scenes, it will involve us in a great deal of hard work, getting to know that sacrifice, understanding all its parts, so that we can, so to speak, put them in order before the people and bring the people to understanding and enjoyment of them. And similarly, as priests, we have responsibility to worship the Lord, to give thanks to God. And so often, when we do so, we're thinking of our blessed Lord again, thanking God not merely for material benefits, but thanking him for the great sacrifice of our Lord. Nothing that we can say to God can add any value to the sacrifice of Christ. Yet, on the other hand, if we would praise the Lord and worship him as we should, and lead others in the worship of the Lord Jesus and in the appreciation of him and of his value, behind the scenes, that is going to involve us in a great deal of work, some hard study of God's word, some hours in prayer, some careful thought as to how we shall speak and arrange things. We too are priests, and therefore on Tuesday night we were looking at the laws, first of all of the burnt offering and then of the sin offering, and we found they taught us how to maintain our zeal and keep going the fires of our worship of God. And then we thought, as we studied the laws given to the priest as to how he was to arrange and conduct the sin offering, how God there so counseled him that he should maintain a sense of the holy. So difficult for a priest when he was doing this kind of thing every day of the week, year in, year out, for some twenty five to thirty years, so regularly. It was, I say, so difficult for the priest to maintain a sense of the holy. The whole thing could easily become common and ordinary and lose its power and become merely a way by which the priest earned his bread and butter and made his living. We recognize the same danger in ourselves, not that many of us maybe earn our living from preaching the gospel. When we become, after the years, so familiar with divine things, there is a danger that sometimes we lose the sense of the holy. And these thrice holy things become ordinary and cease to move our hearts as they should. And so we thought about some of the practical exhortations and laws that God laid down for his ancient priests to help them maintain the sense of the holy. And now tonight we are to study the final law, the law of the peace offering. And I have entitled our study The Practice of Peace. And what I mean by that, I shall try and explain, if you'll allow me, by reminding you of what we found in our study of the peace offering itself. It was a fortnight ago, and that's a long, long while in politics, and it's a long while, long, long while in theology, isn't it? Or at least in theological studies. But a fortnight ago, we were thinking together from chapter three of this book of the peace offering. And of course, we took it as a picture of our blessed Lord Jesus, by whose sacrifice we find peace with God. And on that occasion, you remember, we reminded ourselves that the Hebrew word for peace is a very large word. It means, as our English word means, of course, the cessation of hostility, the ending of enmity, the making of peace in that sense. It means more. It means peace and plenty. Not just the absence of war, but the positive presence of all the good things of life, peace and plenty, and therefore of enjoyment. And because it means that, it also means health. What is your peace is the standard Hebrew expression, even to this present day, for inquiring, how are you? Peace, then, the absence of war, the cessation of enmity. Peace in the sense of peace and plenty and prosperity. Peace in the sense of health, both physical and spiritual. And therefore peace also in the sense of integration, wholeness. Just as in the New Testament, we find the word that means salvation also means to make whole. For God's idea of salvation is not merely the forgiveness of our sins, but making us whole as men and women, integrating our personalities, leading us into true integration that is fellowship with God and fellowship with his people. And so, as you remember, we studied the peace offering as a picture of the sacrifice of Christ, who has made peace. As we thought of the blood, we thought of our New Testament that says he's made peace by the blood of his cross and the cessation of that terrible enmity that was in our heart against God. While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. So started that great process of integration. It ended for us who believe the alienation from God. For a human personality, unregenerate, at basis at enmity with God, is of course already on the way to perishing, already on the way to disintegration. We are creatures of God. And to lie across the will of God, to be alienated from God, to consider God really an enemy who's against our joy and blessing and prosperity, that is to ruin the very foundation of our personalities. That's why the Bible calls such people dead in trespasses and in sins, and on their way to disintegrate and perish. Oh, thank God for the sacrifice of Christ by which our sin is forgiven, by which the holy wrath of God against sin is satisfied, and we are reconciled with God and brought back into his presence with access into the holiest of all. And then we noticed, as we studied the, what you might call the algebra of these Old Testament symbols, we noticed that this peace offering speaks to us of the perfection of our blessed Lord in the matter of his trust and confidence in God. And we spent a moment admiring the marvelous faith of Jesus Christ our Lord, his personal trust in God. How even when he hung upon the cross and the crowd went by and mocked him with his faith in God, even then, and even when the darkness came and he was forsaken of God, his faith remained unbroken. He held the whole universe of God together. And because his faith was unbroken, he was able to be our sacrifice and savior. And as we fell to admiring the, the unbroken faith of the Lord Jesus, then we remem- reminded ourselves of what our blessed Lord is doing for us who trust him. He's not only made peace with God and done away with the enmity, he is beginning to make us whole again as personalities by beginning to renew our confidence, what the Hebrew calls our flanks, by drawing out our faith in God, so that, as Romans five puts it, being justified by faith, we have peace with God and access into this grace. And now watch the confidence beginning to come back again, that basic confidence of the human personality, and we joy, we glory, or if you will have it, we exult in hope of the glory of God. Oh, what a renewing of our personality. Personalities that have been divided and spoiled and disintegrated through sin being renewed. And here comes the central confidence around which the personality is built, and it's regaining its lost center. It's anchored in God. And what is more, though we are imperfect still, forgiven but imperfect, we may have confidence that one day we shall attain the very glory of God. And as we struggle through life battles, our very tribulations, says, uh, he, uh, Romans five, we may have confidence even in the face of tribulation. Why? Because we know that once there is faith in Christ, faith in God, then even tribulation shall not be allowed to break that faith, but tribulation will work endurance. And then in Romans five, we're told not only can we have confidence in our certain hope that we shall attain the glory of God one day, and confidence as we face tribulation that come what may, our Lord's intercession will maintain our faith and produce endurance. But in all this, we may have confidence in God himself, the very God whose justice condemned our sins, so that once he seemed our enemy and seemed against us. Now our confidence is in him, not only in his grace, but in his very justice. And we say, hallelujah that God is a God of justice. Because he won't, uh, he won't forever tolerate my sin. And that means for me who trust the Savior, that God won't rest content until he has me perfect. So we notice that the Lord Jesus gives us peace with God, no fear of judgment, certainty we shall not come into condemnation, and then he begins to build our confidence and put it back where it ought to be, in God. And then we found, as we studied the algebra of our typology, that our Lord, uh, the Ho- the Holy Spirit pointed us to our Lord's inner motives. We fell again to admiring the Savior. In Old Testament terminology, kidneys, or in New Testament toler- uh, uh, terminology, uh, kidneys as well. I, the Lord, search the kidneys, the inner motives of the personality, the desires of the personality, and we fell to admiring our blessed Lord. Although he were the Son of God, yet it is written that Christ, even Christ, pleased not himself. His desire was to do the will of God, the will of God, the will of him that sent him. As we thought of that, we thought of ourselves again, and we're grateful to God for the way that our blessed Lord, through his sacrifice, is beginning to restore our personality by dealing not only with our confidence, but with our hidden motives and our desires. For desire is an exceedingly im- uh, uh, exceedingly potent part of our personality, isn't it? We've seen many a man struggling with his business and his ambition. And though his arthritis hurts him and he has difficulties galore, but his heart is on that ambition, and you know, it holds him together. When he's achieved his ambition and retired, and having nothing else to do, he begins to disintegrate. The very desire out there in front, so to speak, united his whole personality as he followed that desire. Men and women away from God, they may have their temporary objectives outside them. Some of them put their objective inside them. Their desire is to please themselves. But if we make this passing world our ultimate object of desire, if we make ourselves the ultimate object of desire, in the end we shall disintegrate. Our blessed Lord has done a wonderful thing for us, hasn't he? By taking our desires so that we no longer fashion ourselves according to our former desires in our ignorance. But as he that is called us is holy, so we are exhorted to be holy. And our blessed Lord puts a great objective in front of us. How? Well, let me cite you what, uh, Paul says in two Corinthians five. We thus judge, says Paul, that the love of Christ now it is that constrains us, it holds us together. We judge this, that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live for themselves, but to him that died for them and rose again. And God has put a marvelous object, a savior who died for. And logic, let alone gratitude, would say, and now life's objective must be that I live for him. Is it not easy, at least to desire to do it, when I consider that my life I owe to him entirely, and he died for me. Now he's risen, I want to live for him. And the desire focused on the Lord Jesus now to live for him out of love is not only serving the Lord, but whether we know it or not, as we desire and serve him, is beginning to integrate our personality. God forbid we should ever lose that desire and love for the Lord Jesus. For insofar as we do, we begin to disintegrate. Of those things then we thought as we were studying the peace offering. What is left therefore now for us to study as we come to the law of the peace offering. And as we come to this law, now we shall be thinking not so much of the Lord Jesus, though of course we shall constantly be thinking of him, but we shall be thinking of ourselves and of some of the practical instructions that God gives us through these Old Testament priests. Not now as to how to make our peace with God, nor even how to obtain peace with God, but rather how to develop peace and the enjoyment of peace in ourselves. There is a difference, isn't there? Haven't you found there's a difference? I certainly have. Thank God in his mercy, I know what peace with God is. And because it is founded on the sacrifice of Christ, it's a peace that doesn't come and go. It is there all the time. Absolutely fundamental and unquestionable and unruffled. Oh, what a thing it is to have it in life. Peace with God. Unchanging and unchangeable because it rests upon the sacrifice of Christ, and it does not in that sense depend on me. Peace with God. Yes, but peace with God is one thing. Peace with myself is quite another thing. I don't go through many days at peace with myself, do you? Oh, but yes, perhaps you do because you are a much superior person. I forgot that. But, yes, but some of us be assured, know what it is not to have peace in our own hearts with ourselves or with our circumstances. And if we will be truthful, though we might be heard singing, you know, now I go around singing all day long. That, as you understand, is a sort of a pardonable religious exaggeration. We are not HAPPY all day long, at least I'm not. Far from it. A bundle of contradictions within my personality, so that I have to say, along with Paul himself, oh, wretched man that I am. Peace with God still, not always the peace of God in my heart. And I take it that in this law, God is giving the ancient priest and the ancient worshipper some practical instructions on how the worshipper might enjoy the peace and the plenty and the wholeness and the health that was available to him through this sacrifice. For you see, this is a sacrifice unusual in this sense, that when a man offered a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, then some of it was given to God and burned upon the altar. Some of it was given to the priest. The majority of it was given back to the man himself, that he might enjoy the result of this sacrifice. I take it that these instructions are about how you would enjoy it. And so would you notice one more thing before we come down to a few details? That this law is concerned especially with one particular type of peace offering. The offering that a man made to God as a thanksgiving offering. For you see, amongst the Israelites, you can offer a peace offering in order to put away sin, just as you could a sin offering. But then you could come, if you wanted to, and offer a peace offering just out of the joy of your heart to make God a gift. Not all sacrifices in Israel were for sin, as you will notice from the phrase that the Epistle to the Hebrews uses, a high priest is ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin. Now we're going to think particularly tonight of those sacrifices that a man in Israel might make because he wanted to thank God as a gift. And it's here we start our observations. For that is the very first thing that God says through the priest. Now, if the man shall offer it for a thanksgiving. Let's pause precisely there to pick up this practical emphasis on thanksgiving. My brother, my sister, if you and I are going to enjoy practical peace of mind and health of mind, then we shall have to make a very deliberate exercise to be thankful. That sounds very elementary, doesn't it? I don't need to labour the point. It is our common duty to be thankful to God. But I don't know about you, I find it uncommonly easy not to be. But then again, as I say, you're so superior. How easy not to be thankful? Sometimes I think it is because I am surrounded by such multitudinous blessings, I begin to take them for granted, and the thanksgiving goes. And then sometimes I think it's our, our, our, our unfortunate n- news reporters, you know, that fill our newspapers and television screens and whatnot. You listen to the poor fellows. No, you won't pick up your paper tomorrow and read ninety five percent of the population of Bangor is a law keeping society, and the fathers love their children, and the mothers love their children, and the children obey their parents. What delightful families there are in Bangor. That wouldn't be news. Wouldn't get anybody excited. Let one teenager bash in a policeman or something. That'll make news. Isn't it curious? I must be careful what I say, but sometimes, you know, even with the elect themselves, if you should be so fortunate as to get asked out to supper. Oh, well, on many occasions, of course, they will have mercy on you, and they'll concentrate on the lovely things of God, and they'll say, brother, have you been enjoying Jeremiah recently? Now, isn't the Lord wonderful? I don't mean pie talk, I mean real down to earth enjoyment of the lovely things of God. But it could happen to you that they wouldn't talk of that. What they'd talk about is, have you heard about Mr. So-and-so? No, what about her? And then comes a list. And Mr. So-and-so, and have you heard there's trouble in that assembly up the way there? Oh, there, that about Thompson. Oh, isn't it interesting? We fill our minds with bad things and distressing things, and sometimes with tainted things. And we wonder why we don't have peace. We wonder why our worship of the Lord's Day is on a very lowly plane. And we wonder why I get our nerves get frayed. Look, says God, if you would be healthy and integrated personalities and know peace, or pray, get into the habit of Thanksgiving. I call upon myself many a morning, you know, I have to in the mornings because mornings is not my good time. I envy those believers that wake up, forthwith jump out of bed, and give them two seconds, and they're singing the Te Deum, and the bathroom resounds with their marvelous praise of the Lord. They're marvelous. I was never built that way. Takes me a long while to open my eyes, you know. I've got to positively call upon myself like the psalmist did, you know, say, come on here, soul. Now get. Stand in front of that mirror looking so glum. Get at it, man, now, now. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. And I've got to try and think now, what are the things I'm supposed to bless the Lord for? You've got them at your fingertips, haven't you? I have to start and think. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Oh, that will keep you going praising a long time, wouldn't it? That is, if you've had many iniquities. Who healeth all our diseases. Oh, how many things there are to thank the Lord for. Says this law, if you would practice peace, but this is your number one, to learn to give thanks. It's serious to get into the habit of not doing it, isn't it? The Hebrews are a very honest crowd. They tell us in the book of Numbers that when God had spent a lot of time preparing them to cross the desert so that they might enter their glorious inheritance, then of course, they started out. First five minutes they murmured. You say, about what? Well, the book of Numbers doesn't say they just murmured. I mean, that's like us sometimes, isn't it? You wouldn't know what we were murmuring about. It's just a habit we've got into. Then they murmured about the food, then they murmured about the drink, then they murmured about the servants of the Lord, Moses and Aaron, and uh... Presently God got angry about him. Why? Well, my brother, if God isn't doing good enough for you now, it raises a very big question, doesn't it? Do you want to go to heaven? Because if he's not doing good enough for you now, how do you know he's going to do good enough for you there? Is he going to change or something? If I can't be at peace with God, if I don't really trust him, if I don't really love him, if all the while I'm murmuring against God and saying, God, you could do better for me than this, then you better not go to heaven. Because the love of God doesn't change. If he loves me at all, he loves me now. He'll not love me any more when I get home to heaven than he loves me now. And you find it with Israel, they got into such a habit of complaining, you know, that when at last they got to the promised land, they complained against that and ran off. Didn't want to go. You say, Mr. Preacher, it's all right for you youngsters to talk like that. You don't know my circumstance. All right for you, you've had it easy in life. If only you know how I've had it difficult. Do you not know the bereavements I've suffered? Do you not know the serious illness? Do you not know my difficult Difficult circumstances? circumstances. And you find it very difficult to thank God, don't you? In everything give thanks, oh, what a difficult thing. My brother, I know a little of what you mean. There's the rub, isn't it? Confidence in God. In spite of the circumstance. How can I do it, you say, when life is desolate and full of pain? There's only one way I know. That if, like Job, the pressure of pain has become so intense and it all seems so unfair, and you can't see any rhyme nor reason in it, and your very reason revolts and say, I can't understand, and I don't understand, and why God d- does God allow it and allow so much? And in the end, there is only one answer, isn't there? And that is in the sacrifice of Christ. That he who died for you was God's only Son. I am taught to believe and to argue that he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all. My sister, my brother, if you can't thank God for the pain, if you can't thank God for the deterioration of your parents' mind, can you not? Bow before the Lord and tell him you, you can't give thanks for it, but you dare to trust him. Because he's demonstrated his love beyond doubt, and that he gave his son to die for you. And so to trust where we cannot understand. And to thank God that in ways that we know not and shall not see till at last we get home, that somehow he works all things together for good. Or for my dear brother, if there's no God, and if there's a God and he doesn't love you, then is your personality on the road to disintegrating altogether? Secondly, I noticed that if a man offered a sacrifice for a peace offering, then he was, um, uh, exhorted to bring a whole lot of cakes with him of various kinds. And you will have noticed from our reading that some of them were unleavened, and some of them, it explicitly says, were leavened, which has caused the theologians a lot of bother. Because the theologians have started off with their symbolism, thinking in terms, for instance, of the New Testament, one um Corinthians chapter five, that interprets the injunction that the Passover, uh, uh, bread was to be unleavened bread. The New Testament interprets it this way: Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Let us keep the feast, therefore, not with the old leaven of malice and hypocrisy, but with the unleaven of sincerity and truth. And they say, therefore, in the symbolism as Paul interprets it, leaven stands for that which is bad and corrupt. That makes sense, doesn't it, when you're thinking of the sacrifice of Christ, there was no leaven about that whatsoever, for in him there was no sin. But said the theologian, how then on this particular sacrifice could some of the loaves be offered, and it be explicitly said that in them there should be leaven? They say leaven must have turned to the good or something on this occasion. Well, not necessarily, because if we look closer, we are talking about sacrifices of thanksgiving, not sacrifices of atonement, but thank- sacrifices of thanksgiving. And when a man came to give his sacrifice to God, it was his Thanksgiving sacrifice, and he gave his bullock, he gave some unleavened bread along, some leavened bread. And if I got the symbolism right, the whole thing is a comfort to me. And if you can prove to me that the symbolism is wrong, I shall thank you as you go out of the door, and then I shall cling to my New Testament in spite of it, shall say. Not bad going, is it? And you'll see. Ha. But this is what it says to me at any rate. As I come to God, I talk about Christ, and he's perfect. And I recognize the wonder of God's work within me, but I say, goodie, you know, there's still leaven inside you, old man. Isn't that true of you as well? Or absolutely, you know, poor and spotless. Mm. Bits of hypocrisy still left, you know, pretending you should hear me pray sometimes in public and think I was a saint. If you knew the whole truth, you'd say it's a bit of show acting there. A little bit of hypocrisy, you know. Or pretending not to be what I am. That's just as bad, isn't it? Malice. And a whole lot of ugly, corrupt things inside me. Yes, I say it to my shame, but that is perfectly true, isn't it? What comforts me is God recognizes it. You see, my dear brother and sister, if we're going to have true peace of mind, psychological peace, we shall have to let God teach us to be realists and face the fact that even as believers, we're not one hundred percent pure and holy and wholesome inside us. I've got a little jealousy left still, more than I think. We preachers are given to it. Well, I better stall for the one I know best, and that's me. See the congregation at the conference praising one preacher more than another. Mm. And then the one that isn't praised so much, he feels all in a huff. We might as well face the fact, might we, we're jealous, you know. You see, if you don't face the fact that there's evil still within, you say, well, being jealous, that's a thing I couldn't dare admit I am. That doesn't get rid of it. That just suppresses it. And presently there comes a theological dispute among the brethren. And what, oh, don't they fight? And you begin to see, well, what's going on here? Because now they're not fighting as Christian men should fight, they're fighting like a lot of barbarians bashing each other. Too know. You say, what on earth is it? If you ask them, they're standing for the truth. Well, perhaps they are. It could be a little submerged jealousy coming out, couldn't it? Yes. You know, if we would be psychologically healthy and enjoy wholeness and peace. Then says God, you better recognize that you still have these ugly things about you. Because if I'm aware of them, I can begin to do something about them, can't I? What a lovely realist God is, you know, when he invites us to come to the Lord's Supper and remember the Lord Jesus, and there give thanks to God for the loveliness of Christ. Now God says, now notice first what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, now before you come, you must be sinless. Of course not. None of us would come. But he does say, if you come to that, then you must first judge yourself. Because you better realize that in yourself there's still things amiss, and perhaps there's things that you haven't realized yet. Your wife knows it, your fellow brethren know it, sir, but you don't know it yet. And you better recognize it, and by God's grace and by his word, begin to discern yourself. And then judge yourself. And confess it to the Lord. And seek to lay hold of his grace to overcome it. Come to the Lord's Supper, of course. Not carelessly, saying it doesn't matter if I'm sinful. But not staying away because I say I can't come unless I'm a hundred percent perfect. But coming in all realism. I'm imperfect still. Confessing it to the Lord, and laying hold upon the glorious promises of that new covenant that the cup of the covenant of the Lord's Day speaks to us all. That little by little, God will save me, and one day make me like Christ. So then there is this matter of thanksgiving, and secondly, there is this matter of recognizing that there is evil still within us. Yet with the assurance from the Lord that if we, if we judge it ourselves, he will not have to chat about it with us. And one day will deliver us from it completely. Thirdly, if it were for a Thanksgiving, says the writer, then the man must eat it the same day. All the parts of the oxen that he gets back, he must eat the same day, to see. If he, uh, is for a vow or a free will offering, then he's allowed two days to eat it, but he mustn't eat it on the third. What shall we make of that practical regulation? Well, some have suggested, have they not, that it is this, that as the man took, took home the tremendous great piece of rump steak, so to speak, to waiting wife and family, that he had to eat it all that day, the same day as the sacrifice was offered. And they say it is to remind the man, of course, that he owes that, uh, that lovely meal to the sacrifice. He owes this great benefit to the sacrifice. He is, in a sense, sharing this with God, for of that sacrifice, God has had his part, his priest has had his part, and now the man himself has his part, and he's sharing it with God. And that's the loveliness of it. It wasn't just the flavor of the beef, you know, that was so beautiful. It was as he sat and ate it with family and friends that he had a sense of fellowship with God, who fellowshiped at that altar. It's still important, isn't it, for our peace and wholeness? Whether it be spiritual blessing or material blessing. That lovely sense as we sit down to eat, as we enjoy our homes, as we enjoy friends, as we enjoy spiritual blessings in Christ, that we get them because of the sacrifice of our Lord, and we eat them in fellowship with God. My dear sister, that's a beautiful sprung, invisibly sprung, um, settee you've got, beautiful covering. Yes, may you enjoy it for many years, the comfort of the thing. I'm not hope, I hope I speak no nonsense when I say it'll be even more comfortable. If in the simplicity of your heart you say, yes, and by God's grace I have it, and you thank the Lord for it. When we lose the sense that our blessings come from God himself and through the sacrifice of Christ and the mercies of God, life can become a hard thing and lose its highest dimension. And you know, when we begin to lack the sense that it comes from God, and we begin to lack the sense of fellowship with God in this, then we are in danger of going just for the thing itself, and not getting complete satisfaction in that because it's impossible. We start trying to get satisfaction by heaping up endless things without the Lord in them. That ultimately is a way to dissatisfaction. The highest thing about my benefits is they come from the Lord. I enjoy them in fellowship with him. I think there must have been another practical reason, wasn't there? You imagine if you had bought a bullock for a, a, a peace offering or a vow, and you got the biggest part of the bullock back, and you've got to eat it within two days. Well, if you're going to do it by yourself, you'll have to sit up all night with you or something. How would you do it in two days? The sheer regulation forced you to do what was commonly done. If you'd offered a bullet for a vow, uh, to pay your vow, then you summoned all your neighbors and friends to help you eat the thing. As the psalmist puts it, I will pay my vows before them that fear thee. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. Thus our Lord has done when he offered his great sacrifice to God, and he called us, his people, to come and enjoy the blessings that come from that sacrifice. And we eat. As we give thanks to God, God will say, yes, but my brother, you'll have to share it, you know. You say, with whom? With all God's people. For wholeness of personality means, eventually, that I shall have to do more than just enjoy the things of God by my little self. I shall have to be integrated into the fellowship of God's people and enjoy God along with all his people. Paul himself gives us a lesson on it in one Corinthians ten, doesn't he? He calls it the table of the Lord. He imagines us at the Lord's Supper, for instance, taking the loaf that's on the table, and as the loaf passes around, each one takes his little piece out of it. And when it's past the last person in the room, the whole loaf has disappeared into the stomachs of those that have ate it. Now, says Paul, where is your one loaf? We started off with one loaf. Where is the one loaf now? You say, well, curiously enough, if you get the X-ray machines out, you'll find the one loaf, a little bit in each person, so that all the people there constitute that one loaf, because they have all partaken of one load. And so they are bound together. That is the fact, my brothers, my sisters. You have come to Christ, and you have received him and eaten the benefits that come from his sacrifice. Well, so have I, whether you like it or not. You and I are one, you know. Christ in you, Christ in me. Yes, it's God, and I insist on it. You are to receive one another as Christ has received you. To reject some genuine believer from Christian fellowship, that is a sad, sorry disobedience of the explicit word of God. How did Christ receive you, my brother, and on what terms? Not just to his social fellowship, not just from a meal in the home, accepted you to all the benefits of his great salvation the moment you repented and put your faith in. As Christ has received you, God will demand that you receive your fellow believer. We celebrate it, don't we? In that lovely hymn that we sing so often at the Lord's Supper, we would remember we are one with every saint that loves thy name. Integration, holiness. And if I would have the blessings of peace in my heart through Christ's salvation, then says God, you will pass those blessings on. Have you been forgiven? Then you must forgive. If I come to God as a believer, and I plead with the Lord for forgiveness, that the Lord would ease his discipline of me because I have been, I've gone astray, and ask the Lord to ease his hand of discipline, and the Lord forgives me. Then the Lord will require me that I forgive my brother as he repents. And if I don't, our Lord told a solemn parable to the effect that if I refuse to forgive, he will withdraw his forgiveness and put me through the prison of his discipline even more severely. God will not use his salvation to perpetuate my selfishness. God's salvation is given to me that I might learn health and wholeness and integration and fellowship with the Lord's people. My brother, my sisters, we are all failing men and women, and God has received us in spite of our failings. He asks us that we do the same to all believers in the Lord. That does not mean that we are to be careless of sin. Finally, there are some other practical, uh, uh, rules. I needn't stress them or, or delay them. You mustn't eat it with your uncleanness upon you, says the Word of God. If I would enjoy the things of the Lord and grow healthy in my mind and in my psychology, then I must not to try to do the splits and be allowing myself unclean things. Where I find I've been tainted, let me hasten to confess, and the brother Jesus Christ, God Son, cleanses us from all sin. But to think that I can go on in uncleanness quietly and yet at the same time enjoy the great benefits and blessings of the salvation of God, that is an exceedingly dangerous presupposition, and it has landed many a man eventually in disaster. Don't you eat any fat or blood? The fat is the Lord's, and the blood is sacred. It comes upon us sometimes, doesn't it? In the hurly burly of life, that you wouldn't know. Don't press me too hard to to ask how I know, but it comes upon us sometimes in in the pressures of life. And we see the world as we see it enjoying themselves, and our temptation could be to rob the Lord of what is the Lord, to increase what we think is our own enjoyment. And prayer gets lost, and church fellowship goes by the board, and our money goes on other things that should be going to the Lord himself. And we think we're increasing our enjoyment. That is a sure road in the end to spiritual poverty. As our Lord said, a land is seared itself, rich and increased with goods, spiritually poor, miserable, blind, and naked. Finally, for our encouragement, the law says that when a man brought his sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord, then certain parts of it went to the priest. Well, I know you don't believe in having special priests, nor do I for that matter. You're all of you priests, thank the Lord for that. But just imagining myself in that man's place in Old Testament days, I think as I walk down the road back to hoeing my beans on the farm, or back to my ledger in the office, or my lathe in the factory, I should have felt bad that day as I walked down the road. Think of that. I have to be attending to this lathe here, doing my job and concentrating on it. But you know what? I've given a bit of my bullock to that priest up there, and if you please, the man is praising the Lord. Isn't it an early thought? Praising the Lord as a result of something I gave. Not only did I thank the Lord, but now that man is thanking the Lord. Isn't that glorious? I should think I should go to bed tonight that little bit happier, wouldn't you? If I could think that something I did yesterday, maybe, or was it last week? Or even today. Not merely as an expression of my thankfulness to the Lord, but something that I did. Has got somebody, a saint of God, leaving in the presence of God this night and praising the Lord. Oh, what a lovely gift to give to God. Paul went through tribulations galore. Sufferings that left him on more than one occasion nearly dead. Never mind, says Paul. You know, you Corinthians have been praying for me, haven't you? And God heard your prayer and delivered me. Marvelous. And as a result, it it it, you know what? All around the Roman Empire, all around the Roman Empire, there have been people praying for me, and now that God has brought me through those tribulations, they weren't, they were d- difficult, I tell you they were. But now they're over, never mind, because you see, all around the Roman Empire, there are people tonight, and they're praising God. Well, then it was worth the suffering, says Paul. It's an expensive kind of way of living, isn't it? And my brother, to fill our hearts with joy and peace, to save us and make us whole, that also was expensive and accomplished by infinite suffering. Now we have a chance in this poor old fallen world to show our gratitude to God, cost what it may, to promote the praise of God in other hearts. I repeat, it's a lovely present to be able to give to God.