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Is the second of three seminars on the topic of how to study the Bible. It is encouraging to see that some of you have persevered from the first session to the second. And I will do my best to make the second easier than the first, though I have no guarantee to offer you. We begin, as usual, with dependence, the awareness of our dependence upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
But now let us retrace our steps a little bit and look again at the first sheet with which we were issued this morning, entitled Preparation. And on there we have divided the first ten chapters into five major parts. Just let me repeat on what basis those divisions have been suggested. They have been made by an attempt to follow the fo- thought flow of the writer and how he has grouped his material.
So the first four chapters have a common theme. The census, the numbering of the people in readiness for the journey. First of all, the numbering of the tribes that occupies two chapters. Secondly, the numbering of the Levites. And though, of course, the tribes had very different duties from the Levites, they have this in common at this part of the narrative, that they are being numbered, listed, and thus organized for their particular services.
Similarly, the elements in the second column are both concerned with keeping the camp clean. It requires no imagination to see the importance of this particular regulation and provision. Get some thousands of people living in tents in close proximity in a wilderness that was very dry and water was scarce. It would demand punctilious care on the part of everybody to keep themselves and the camp free, otherwise serious infection and contagions would break out.
As we survey, however, the material in the second column, we notice it is not merely a question of physical cleanliness. There is the question, of course, of physical cleanliness. The camp must be cl- kept clean in that particular. But then there comes a question of keeping the camp clean from other kind of damage, damage done to people in connection with the things of God.
So serious would be the dealings in business one with another, though in those days often by exchange, I suppose, rather than coinage. But should people get up to sharp practice in the matter of business as they travel through the wilderness, and pray don't forget that they had to do some business. The wilderness was not like the Sahara is today. It was crisscrossed by the caravans of merchantmen, and some of the supplies would have to be gotten from those merchantmen, and so forth and so on.
If among themselves the Israelites started cheating each other in their business, you can see what disturbance in relationships that would make and seriously impair the unity of the nation and their readiness to stand and fight together when they were opposed by some common enemy. It is a sorry fact that the spiritual health of some assemblies has been seriously disturbed by questionable business practices among members of the assembly.
But then of course, there were faults in the things concerning the Lord. These too had to be guarded against, and when offense occurred, to make proper restitution. But the largest space is then spent on what we considered this morning, the trial of jealousy. And we noticed that that is concerned with avoiding moral defilement. And then a section on the Nazarites' vow.
And though at first sight it seems to be a very different topic, yet it too is concerned with the maintenance of cleanliness. Things could happen to a man who had a Nazarite vow that were not his fault, such as suddenly someone died by his side, and according to Old Testament ritual, he would then be defiled and his vow thus be broken, and he would have to shave off his hair and start again if he so wished.
His devotion in that technical sense could be defiled. The third column in the sheet you have concern- is concerned with the so-called Aaronic blessing. It is a matter of a few verses, from chapter five— chapter six verse twenty two to verse twenty seven. Of course, we could think of all kinds of connection between this and what goes before and what goes after, but rather than risk any artificial forcing of connections of thought, I have listed the Aaronic blessing as a thing in itself, though short, of course, of fundamental importance in the question of Israel's provision for crossing the desert.
In the fourth column, similarly, I have tried to use thought flow that points to the similarity of topic between what I have listed as A and B. The question first of the offerings of the princes at the dedication of the altar. Other details, of course, are mentioned in that chapter seven, but the main theme, and it's a very long chapter, are the offerings of the princes at the dedication of the altar. Now we notice an interesting thing, that that altar had been made and presumably dedicated long before they set out from Sinai.
And yet the offerings of the princes at the dedication of the altar was not put early on in the book of Numbers, nor yet in the book of Exodus that describes the making of the altar and the tabernacle. From which we perceive that the material in this first half of the book is not being listed necessarily in chronological order. and therefore we are h- have it emphasized to us that the order of the material, deliberate, is not simply on the ground of chronology, but on the ground of subject matter and significance.
But the dedication of the altar is followed in the next chapter, chapter eight, and the main topic there, not the only topic, but the main topic there is the offering of the Levites as a living sacrifice to God at the time of their installation into their office, a living sacrifice on the part of the whole nation. Then in chapter five we have what I conceive to be regulations for the journey.
Now you should notice that the journey itself begins in chapter 10. And, uh, you'll see, look at verse eleven: m In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the testimony, and the people of Israel set out by stages from the wilderness of Sinai, and the crowd settled down in the wilderness of Paran.
So, if you were doing this simply on the ground of the journeys, then of course you would make a break in the structure of the book at that point, at chapter ten verse ten. And That would be a very instructive thing to do, to notice this book and the times when Israel were resting in one place for some days or months, and then the times when they were journeying, because throughout this book, those two themes alternate.
Sometimes Israel is at rest in one place, though busy about the details of daily life. On other occasions, they are on the move constantly. So here they begin to journey, and they are journeying until they come to the borders of the promised land. But at that point, they refuse to go in, and God, uh, sentences them to forty years, and the text seems to suggest that they would be here in this wilderness, the text says, as though they stayed in or around the wilderness of Paran, maybe at Kadesh or in other places in that extensive wilderness, but they were not, in that sense, making any progress.
And if that is true, then that wait lasted nearly forty years. Then they started journeying again. Presumably now the younger generation grown up to years of responsibility, and they make their way to the plains of Moab. They have to fight their way through, and the record is given in detail of some of the battles that they had to fought- fight against various of the nations. But then numbers, numbers will record how eventually they came to the plains of Jordan, on the east side of Jordan, and there they encamped eventually.
There it was that Moses, according to Deuteronomy, gave his farewell addresses to the nation, and they were lengthy addresses indeed, because at that point the nation had reached a critical juncture in their experience. The first time they were given the chance to enter the promised inheritance, they refused it. Now, after virtually forty years, they were brought to another chance of entering the promised land, this side from the east of Jordan. And the question would be, would they or wouldn't they take this opportunity and go in?
And Moses, who himself was not allowed to go in, not allowed to lead them into the land, to his heartbroken disappointment, yet, of course, pleads with the people to make up their minds before God, to learn the lessons that God had taught them in the wilderness, and this time to go in and possess their inheritance. It was a very dramatic situation. And all I am mentioning that for is that one very valid way to analyze the book of Numbers is to follow the geographical, uh, method and notice when they were at rest and when they were marching, the two themes alternate in the course of the book.
Sometimes life itself is a bit like that, isn't it? Have you noticed that? Sometimes we appear to be making great and significant progress, and other times we seem becalmed with no wind in our sails, and we seem to be getting nowhere fast. Life tends to be like it. Numbers will talk to us about that phenomenon. It doesn't mean that God is teaching us nothing when we are becalmed somewhat. Sometimes the being becalmed is our own fault.
But that, by the way, and I'm not here to sermonize. I'm supposed to be conducting a seminar, not a sermon. But my, it is mighty difficult. So let's come back to the first column and notice a few things about it. When it was a question of the numbering and the organizations of the tribes, they were told from the very first that they were to add, put into the census the people from such an age upwards, all those able to go to war.
It was made clear from the start that if they wanted to cross the wilderness to their promised inheritance, it would ve- very likely involve fighting from time to time. The crossing of the wilderness of Sinai or the wilderness of Paran or other such wildernesses was not a kind of a little stroll you would take of a Sunday afternoon with your wife through the local park. It is still a dangerous business, crossing that wilderness, so much so that you will probably have to get permission from the authorities.
You'll not be allowed to do it unless you have a four-wheel drive. You must take plenty of water, and the authorities must know in case you get lost or delayed through some accident and the vultures get at you before the AA is there. It is not a secret either that our walk from earth to glory is not necessarily a Sunday afternoon's picnic or a little stroll.
There are times when it can be wonderfully enjoyable. Not all Christian life is a context and a fight, of course not. And there were oases from time to time, even in the wilderness, you'll see. But it wasn't hidden from them that they must be organized from the start to be ready to fight. We do need to retain that concept, don't we? We must not represent our current salvation as merely a long struggle. It is full of the abundant mercies of God.
And when I hear the old hymn, the world is a wilderness wide, I sort of know what the authors meant, and in a fundamental sense, it is true, isn't it? But then I have to remember it's God's world. I was, um, brought up by gentlemen, God be praised for them and their influence, but I got the impression from them that to be interested in things like physics, unless you had to be to earn your bread and butter, was a little bit worldly. But you know, I found Isaiah saying a little bit to the contrary.
Well, it was God actually through Isaiah that bad people go out of doors and consider the stars. I have found it marvelously helpful in my Christian pathway to look at the stars, not in astrology. Oh, but what a sense of the wonder of God it gives one. And I like the other hymn that says, yes, we're traveling, but we're traveling through Emmanuel's land. It belongs to him anyway. And we are not to be so heavenly minded that we fail to see the glories of the creation around us.
It's God's world. One day nature shall be re- re- uh, stored and redeemed from its bondage to corruption. Oh, but here I go preaching again. Uh, forgive that. I must get back to business. Mm-hmm. They had to be prepared to fight. And therefore the, we find out in chapter two the arrangement of the tribes, both in camp and on the march. In camp, they had to be arranged so that the armed troops formed a square around their most valuable possession in life, that is the tabernacle and the presence of God.
And then when they were on the march normally, the ark and the tabernacle and all its concerns was normally in the middle of the line of troops to protect it from attacks from all sides. I know you will probably quote me the end of chapter ten that says that when they first set out, the ark went three days journey in front to seek out a resting place. What precisely that means, whether it kept three days ahead, 3 days ahead all the time or not, is a matter of some dispute.
But normally, they were organized as an armed force to protect what for them was life's most sacred, most valuable, most significant thing. The presence of God among them. And all the wealth that his presence brought them, symbolized in those rich symbols of the tabernacle and its service. They had to be prepared to fight for it. You say, Mr. Lecturer, you've got things upside down and on their head.
As we go through the wilderness, it's not we that fight for God, it's God that fights for us, surely. Well, that was true of Israel. The Lord fought for them. That doesn't mean they just sat there. They too had to fight. And I sense likewise that for us believers, in the hurly burly of daily life, we shall have to learn to fight, to maintain a sense of life's true values, that God is with us.
And the most supreme value in life is our enjoyment of the presence of God and the glorious provision he makes for us. Have you never found it a matter of fight? To find a half an hour a day to spend with God. You never found it a fight, in spite of good intentions, to take God's word seriously. I thank God for the way he has made life easy for me.
We in universities were supposed to live in ivory castles. Well, that's another story. But the pressures of modern life, with often husband and wife both working, and children parked out on other people, and laptops and mobile phones, meaning that they can never get away from work and the boss, have introduced pressures into life. That can have some far-reaching and impoverishing effects.
But life goes by. We don't have much space, actually, for the development of fellowship with God and enjoying the riches of God's word. We shall have to fight for it. Oh, young man, young woman, learn it early on. In the pressures of all that you have to endure in carving out a career. And we have to earn our bread and butter, don't we? But you'll have to fight, you'll have to discipline yourself, to carve out in your earthly life a time for the enjoyment of the reality of the presence of God and the service of God in daily life and communion with God and the learning of his word.
All start now, young man, young woman, before life's pressures amount so high that you have almost no time for communion with God in his word. Ah. Fight the good fight of faith, says Paul to Timothy. And then there came the Levites, and among their duties was this, that when the, uh, the tabernacle was at rest and the people at rest, they had to guard the tabernacle from any unauthorized intrusion or damage.
When the cloud moved, then it was the responsibility of the Levites to dismantle the tabernacle. The furniture was covered by the priests, but then it had to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, and the lists are given us as to which tribe of Levites did what in that particular. They had some carts for carrying the heavy stuff, like the frames and the solid metal sockets, but the furniture was carried on their shoulders.
Mm. I suspect when they first did it, they were very excited. Oh, we're carrying a table of showbread. Ooh. We're, we're carefully undoing the frames and the sockets. Ooh, this is wow, somebody's got the ark carrying it. But I fancy, you know, when you've taken the tabernacle down two thousand five hundred and sixty three times, and you build it up two thousand five hundred and sixty four times, it loses some of its novelty, you know.
It could become a kind of a secular chore, do you see? And sometimes you might even forget something. I don't think the high priest would have allowed it to you, but you just imagine getting at the site in the early afternoon, and the tabernacle has to be put up, and here come the troops, and they are so organized that they come at the right moment. You can't put the vessels in the tabernacle unless somebody first has put the tabernacle up, can you? That's what I mean. And they're putting the thing all together, and then somebody looks around and says, now next the laver. Oh, oh, who's got the laver?
Um, is it you? No, it wasn't me. That was him, I think. No, he says, that wasn't me. I- I- it's not my duty to labor today. No, no, that- that is yours. Oh, oh, sorry, I forgot. You forgot the labor? Yes, but we had a game of football, you see, and we were a bit late, it lasted a bit long, a- a- a- and well, I forgot. Yeah. Yes. These are practical things, aren't they? You say they're only symbols, so what did it really matter? Half a minute. You celebrate the Lord's Supper?
What happened if the person's responsible to put the bread and the wine on the table forgot it? Have you ever been at a meeting where at the beginning it was found that nobody had thought to get the bread and the wine, and the shops were all shut? Difficult, isn't it? They're only symbols. Aren't they sacred? But it's not merely that, is it? When we draw the parallel between them and us. Those tabernacle pieces of furniture, symbols, yes, but symbols of what we regard in Christianity, symbols of absolutely fundamental truth.
And when we think of that, the doctrine of the atonement, the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. And the doctrines of the deity of Christ and the deity of the Holy Spirit. And the doctrine of the new covenant as distinct from the old. And the washing of water of regeneration. And the fellowship with God at his table, and the function of the lampstand. These are truths, aren't they?
Who, may I ask, carries them in your assembly? You say the Bible carries them, of course, my boy. But in spite of that, the truth of justification by faith being in the Bible, of course, but in one sense was generally lost for centuries. People just didn't know it or had forgotten it. And we in our day are responsible, aren't we, before God? To carry the truth of his word.
Suppose everybody in my assembly went, or yours, would you be able to explain to someone the doctrine of justification by faith? Would you be able to explain to them the difference between justification by faith and justification by works? These fundamental and illimitably valuable things depend for their preservation amongst the people of God on each individual learning them, knowing them, carrying them in their own personal experience.
That is true of the new birth, isn't it? It's marvelously difficult to explain to anybody the new birth if you've not experienced it yourself. But similarly, if we have experienced it, should we not be able to explain it to somebody else and why it is necessary? Alas for Christendom, when many of the fundamental doctrines of the faith, the virgin birth of Christ, the incarnation of the Son of God, his bodily resurrection, doctrines fundamental to the faith are being lost.
Many in the average congregation couldn't tell you about them. Our responsibility, therefore, by our personal experience and knowledge of these things, to maintain them. Of course, it is the chief burden of teachers, and not all are teachers. But because these things are kept and perpetuated by people experiencing them, it is all part, so part of all the people of God. We talked this morning about the keeping of the camp clean, and eventually of the trial of jealousy.
I needn't say more about that now, except to notice one particular feature of that trial of jealousy. The woman suspected of unfaithfulness was brought before the priest. Now, this wasn't some pagan ceremony, such as the ordeal by fire that you would have found in early Europe, where a c- a a a convi- a a a person was charged with an offense, and they decided to find out whether he was truly guilty or not, so they heated a bar red hot and told him to get hold of it, and if it didn't damage him, he was innocent.
If it didn't damage him, he he was guilty. Well, there was very little doubt about the the the verdict. This wasn't like that. The element in the trial was to stand before the Lord with spe- this water, some dust from the floor of the house of the Lord sprinkled on it, and the woman drank it. There was nothing there if she was innocent. That would have injured her. But she was standing before the Lord, and thus appealing to God. If she was innocent, God would protect her.
If she was guilty, she was inviting God to show it. Thus, the suspicions of her husband, reasonable or unreasonable, could be laid to rest. How is it with us, as the people of God, and are trusting one another, whether it is the partners in a Christian marriage or the members of a church. The church is not sort of a Gestapo secret police, is it?
Surveilling everybody's actions. How could it be? On what basis do eventually we, can we trust one another? Well, this may be far-fetched, and if it is, now forget the book of Numbers for two minutes. Forget those organizers, uh, that say you mustn't preach. Um. What do you suppose is happening when we gather to remember the Lord Jesus and to celebrate his covenant? We are told to do it.
We must discern ourselves. And where we perceive wrong attitudes or wrong deeds, we must confess them before the Lord. For if I come to the Lord's Supper and take the cup of the covenant, and I do it irresponsibly, with sin allowed in my life, what will the Lord do? He will judge me. He will chasten me. He will not abandon his covenant, because his covenant says, I will write my laws on their hearts, and on their minds will I inscribe them.
That our Lord pledges himself to do by the covenant of which the cup is the symbol. And if I will not cooperate with God and judge myself, and I come to that supper unrepentant, without any regard for the ongoing writing of God's laws on my heart, I am, so to speak, inviting the Lord's judgment on me. You don't know where I get to during the week, do you? Do you trust me?
That I take the celebration of the covenant about the writing of his laws on my heart, that I take it seriously, and invite the Lord, if need be, to chasten me. If we all did it seriously, we could all trust each other, the more implicitly, couldn't we? But that, by the way, and I come back to other things. There was the Nazarite vow. Now, the Nazarite vow is here because of the question of possible defilement.
But the Nazarite's vow in itself is very interesting because it was completely voluntary, voluntary. You didn't have to take a Nazarites vow if you didn't want to. It was a voluntary exercise of someone, man or woman, that decided that perhaps for a certain limited time they would be specially devoted to the Lord. It needn't be forever, it could be for a certain time, and then they could go back to what you might call ordinary devotion to the Lord.
Now I shall have to be very careful what I say here. I shall need an angel or two to guard me. Is there for Christians such a thing as voluntary devotion? I thought all Christians, by definition, were obliged to give themselves utterly and one hundred percent to the Lord. In that sense, we're like the Levites. The Levites were taken in the place of the firstborn, and God's claim upon the firstborn was this, that when the angel des- uh, destroying angel passed through the land to smite the firstborn, and the Egyptian firstborn was slain, the firstborn in Israel was saved by the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorposts of the house in which he was.
In other words, apart from that sacrifice, the firstborn in Israel would have perished too. And since they owed their preservation and their life to the redeeming mercy of God and the blood of the Passover lamb, God claimed them as his personal property, but in the end agreed to substitute the Levites for the firstborn. The principle applied, therefore. It applies to us. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. He died for all, that they which live should henceforth not live to themselves, but to him that died for them.
Shall we not say, therefore, that we are all under obligation to live one hundred percent for the Lord, as William McDonald was in e- e- exhorting us to do last night? Well, of course we are. But it seems to me that within that total devotion that whatever we do, we do to the Lord, even the Christians are allowed in some places what you may call voluntary devotion. The instance I cite is to be found in one Corinthians seven, where the question is raised about marriage.
One Corinthians seven verses twenty five to twenty eight. Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who, by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marry, she has not sinned. So?
It seems to me quite clear that in cases like this, our Lord leaves the decision to each individual believer. If you get married in this, this, this condition, in this circumstance, you have not sinned. If you don't get married, you haven't sinned. Give you my advice, says Paul, but it's not a command from the Lord, and it is left for each one to decide before the Lord what he or she shall do. Voluntariness. And some may decide, as our Lord Jesus indicated in the Gospel of Matthew, that for the kingdom of God's sake, they would remain single.
If they married, it wouldn't be a sin. But here is a voluntary thing. Each one has to decide. It is not only a question of marriage. It is a question of all sorts of other things where God leaves the choice to us. We may decide for a certain period in life to go without this or the other. Not that it is forbidden, but we want to show for that period and set ourselves free for a special devotion to the Lord and his work.
But lest we think this is a very odd institution, let us remember what God said through the prophet Amos in chapter two of Amos, verses eleven to twelve. God is ambitious for his people, you know. No parent thinking of a career for his son or daughter could be possibly so ambitious as God. And listen to God talking to Israel about his ambition for some of their sons. I raised up of your sons, says God, for prophets and your young men for Nazarites.
Not everyone, but some. And God had in mind those great heroes of faith, men like Samuel, who were Nazarites from their birth to their death, men of outstanding effect for God, because they were free, so to speak, and thus devoted to God. In this particular sense, they were Nazarites. What men they were. How pleased Hannah was that her child followed that career. I raised up of your sons for Nazarites, says God, some of them.
What a career they could have had. But you, says God, the Israelites, you poo-pooed that idea. You said that it was extremism. You gave the Nazirites wine to drink. That's a sad thing, isn't it? I don't know it was possible for God to get Israel through the wilderness and maintain them all the years of the judges and on into the monarchy, without there being sometimes somewhere men like Samuel that were prepared for this extreme form of devotion to God.
And then we come to the next, the middle, the third column, as far as I have made them out, concerned with the Aaronic blessing. I leave it by itself. I'm not here arguing for a structure of the book. But let us concentrate for a moment on this Aaronic blessing. And what's it doing here? Why isn't this given in the book of Exodus, where the priests are inducted, or given us in the book of Leviticus, where the priests are inducted? What is this doing here?
That is my question. In this book of Numbers, in this part of the book of Numbers. If we are right in thinking that here are the preparations and the provisions for Israel's journey. God is not in a hurry. He wants all provisions in place because he knows the strains and difficulties of the wilderness ahead. What is this doing? Why is this important? Along with ropes for the carts and bullets for the carts and grease to oil, grease the wheels of the carts and lots of big vessels to put the water in and all such practical things.
You'll forgive me, won't you, because of my, um, idiosyncraticisms. But sometimes I hear my superiors exhorting me as a preacher, now look, be practical. You see? And I do my best to see what on earth they mean. Are they implying, for instance, that if you gave too much time to study numbers, it wouldn't be practical? Are they suggesting that some parts of God's word aren't practical? And we would be well advised to keep off them.
That's a funny view of inspiration, isn't it? What you mean by practical, anyway? Here were people about to embark on this dangerous journey across a wilderness. They must be protected, if God can do it, by a very practical thing. And what is that? Well, let me put it this way. One of the difficulties of the wilderness journey, perhaps its supreme danger and difficulty, would be that circumstances should arise in the course of that journey that would lead the people to doubt and question the love of God.
I want to say that this is the most practical thing of all in life. Let there come circumstance in my life or yours that cause in our hearts serious doubt about the goodness and faithfulness and love of God. Then, however successful we may be in other areas, Satan has achieved an enormous victory. And God foresaw it, of course, and made provision for his people that they should be filled as full as possible with a sense of the reality of the blessing and the love of God.
And so Aaron is told that from time to time he must gather the people and pronounce upon them the blessing of God. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. They were not mere words, were they? Oh, how I wish, even though this is a seminar, I could speak those words in such a way to your heart that by God's spirit you would sense the overwhelming love and grace of God towards you, in whatever circumstance you might at the moment find yourself.
It's easy for me to talk as a bachelor with few responsibilities. Difficult for some folks in their circumstances, is it not? Just to quote tritely, all things work together for good. I do remember I was studying the book of Numbers with a few friends at one stage. And present was a relative of a family that had three sons. The first son came home one day and said, "Mummy, I can't see."
And she thought he was fooling about and rebuked him. "No, mummy," he said, "I can't see. They took him to the doctor. They diagnosed inoperable tumor on the brain. He died. A year later, perhaps it might have been, the elder son got his first job of a Saturday, went and earned some money, came back very proud with things he'd bought from his first wages. Went upstairs saying he was a bit tired. They heard him go to the toilet, but he didn't come out.
They went to find him. He was dead on the floor. A news came through as we were studying numbers. How do you, what do you say to parents that have lost two of their sons within, say, a year? How we do need the supernatural grace of God, do we not? And if I may speak to my fellow preachers and elders, all see to it that in your ministry you are not forever simply exhorting people, but you are so seeking by God's grace to convey to them something of the wonder of the faithfulness and love of God.
The Lord bless thee and keep thee. Facing a wilderness, security would be a number one need. The question would be, could God keep them secure in a wilderness? The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to you. What a lovely metaphor that is, isn't it? You watch a little lad or girl come home, and it's mother's birthday, and she's bought a present.
The present might not be in good taste, it might be a very cheap affair. She's bought it with the money mum gave her to start with. But you watch her face as she comes to present her presents to mum, you'll see. And watch mum's face as she sees it. Uh, and watch the husband's face as he presents his gold carrot, a carrot gold, I don't know what. Husbands do, you say, I'm so ignorant, eh, uh, uh, to their wives, you'll see. The beaming on his face of his own generosity. Uh.
When is it you last look into the face of God? And saw, so to speak, the face of God shining at you. For the sheer grace and the marvelous wealth of his salvation. It's what we're supposed to convey, if we're priests at all, to the people of God, the wealth of the grace of God. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. In the ancient world, as in some more modern European states, gestures are very important.
You have to understand them. Sometimes in some countries they can appear to be quite contrary. If in Yugoslavia you say something and the man moves his head sideways, he means he's agreeing with you, which is the very opposite of what that would convey to an Englishman. In the ancient East, if you went to somebody to ask a request, they either would put their head down and not look at you, or they would turn their head upward and not look at you. So much so was that, that in Greece, at any rate, if you went to somebody for a request, you got hold of his beard so he couldn't turn his face from you.
He had to look at you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you. And when you come with your prayers, give you a sense that he is actually taking notice of what you pray and listening to you, that you at least will have the peace of heart that God knows and has heard. And if he's heard, he will answer your prayer in the way he, not necessarily you, sees to be best.
This thing that stands central to the preparations is of vast importance. Oh, allow me to exhort my fellow preachers, Sunday school teachers, and everything else. See to it, if you can, that you don't just exhort God's people, but that you be used of God, that God through you may strengthen their faith in the goodness of God, the reliability of God, the wealth of salvation, and that a God who cannot possibly pass over you and forget you, but knows your need, hears your prayers, and will answer in his time.
Finally, let us look at the fourth column. Here were first the offerings, the main story, the offerings of the princes at the dedication of the altar. It is a very long chapter, and each offering is described in the very same terms, but they are repeated because of the importance of the topic. As the nobles came with their costly offering of silver and so forth, and laid it at the foot of the altar to express their sense of the value of that altar in spiritual terms to the people of God.
It is followed by the dedication and the offering of the Levites. And the connection of thought is easy to see. The Levites were required now to come and be assembled, and as the nation put their hands upon them, they were to be offered to God, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to him, for his service. Where should they get the motivation from, those Levites, to carry out their duties?
Their willingness to be offered at the altar. All would depend, would it not, on their sense of the value of what that altar stood for. And I imagine that the people assembled around the altar when it was to be dedicated, with their wives and children, and as each lordly prince stepped forward and put at the base of that altar his most costly silver offering. I can imagine a little lad nudging his dad and saying, what's he doing that for, dad?
Why those expensive things given up? And dad saying, it is, son, because of what that off- that altar means to us in our relationship with God, and the lad would begin to learn the values implied by that altar. So we might hope the Levites would be. Is there anything comparable with us? Please, I'm not saying this is a type, I'm just drawing analogies. I'm required, am I?
By the mercies of God, to yield my body, a living sacrifice? Really? You're going to stand up and exhort me that that is what I've got to do? Why should I offer my body a living sacrifice? How would you help me to do it? Well, one place you could help me to do it would be at the Lord's Supper, maybe. It's only one place. As I hear you, sir, prince among the people of God, step forward, and on behalf of the gathered people, express to God what you think and how you value the sacrifice and death of our Lord upon the cross.
And I can sit by and note the sincerity and perhaps the emotion and the deep-seated appreciation that's in your heart, and see this is genuine. If that man with life's experience behind him values that sacrifice, that cross, that offering of Christ. Then I can begin to see, if Christ has loved me like that, I ought to offer in return my body a living sacrifice for him.
O you princes, do resist the modern temptation, so to organize the Lord's Supper, as it is a ten-minute interval in the course of an entertainment organized for other purposes. It is central to our own motivation for to yield our body a living sacrifice acceptable to the Lord through him. Shall we pray? Lord, look upon our humble efforts, we beseech thee, faltering as they are, to understand thy word.
Bury it deep in our hearts, we pray, by the ongoing of thy Holy Spirit's ministry, cause us to perceive its unexpressable wealth and glory and grace, that thus fortified we may face our Christian walk, walk worthily and manfully in view of the calling wherewith thou has called us to share the eternal glories of eternity with thee and thy dear Son, for his namesake.
Amen.
