Gooding, David: 2 - Life in the Wilderness

Let's begin our study this evening by reading in the New Testament from the Epistle by James... and chapter four. The Epistle by James and chapter four. Whence come wars and whence come fightings among? Come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members? You lust and have not, you kill and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may spend it in your pleasures. You adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. Or think you that the scripture speaketh in vain, that the spirit which he made to dwell in us longs Unto unto envy. envy, that he giveth more grace. Another scripture from the New Testament will help us before we proceed to our book of Numbers. And the second one is to be found in two Corinthians chapter eleven. Two Corinthians chapter eleven. Verse 1. Hope that you could bear with me in a little food. Nay, indeed, bear with me. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. With those introductions, let us come to our book of Numbers and read therein from chapter five. Numbers chapter five, beginning in verse eleven. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If a man's wife go aside and commit a trespass against him, and a man buy with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken in the air, and the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled, or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled, then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and shall bring an oblation for her. The Lord give us good understanding of his love. Uh, we have some operations to be done, and while they're being done, let me thank you all for leaving the hall this week in the same place as you had it last week. When you do that, it makes it very easy for me to find the place, and I find it this evening without any difficulty whatsoever. That doesn't stop. It's the hearing aid. Somebody's hearing it. It's very disturbing, whoever it is. Sorry, brother. My bad chest, I think, really. So this is our second week studying together the book of Numbers. What we are trying to do is to get just a bird's eye view of some of the major contents of this book and to see how they might help us in our practical Christian life. We found last week that the Book of Numbers is the story of how God took his people Israel through the wilderness. We found that it is divided into two major parts. The first ten chapters describe certain provisions and preparations that God made for his people. Then the second part describes the journey that they actually took and some of the momentous things that happened to them on that journey. Last week we began to study, therefore, the first part of the journey. The provisions and preparations that God made his people take before they could travel. They had indeed begun their journey earlier, but in those early days, after initial joy and gladness, they ran into grievous difficulties. That nearly ruined their progress altogether, difficulties from which they never would have recovered had it not been for the intercession of Moses, the apostle and high priest of their confession. So when those grave difficulties were settled, and Israel ready to move on again in their pathway across the wilderness, God first made them stop and begin realistically to take stock of the journey that was in front of them. So that now, not in mere excitement, but in real, down to earth, practical terms, they should look reality in the face and together with God make those necessary preparations and provisions that would help to guarantee that they would get across the wilderness successfully. For one thing, they had learned that getting across this wilderness was going to be a man-sized job. Not a little task that they could do in their odd moments of a Saturday afternoon and still lessen their carpet slippers on a Sunday afternoon. Wildernesses they were to learn were real places, dangerous places, where people can get lost and where people can perish. But if they really meant business with God and really meant to get across that wilderness and home to the promised land without making a ghastly mess of the whole business, they must first sit down with God and do some realistic thinking and make some preparations that should be realistically geared for actually getting them across the wilderness. As you read these preparations in the early parts, you may observe that some of them are concerned with real practicalities. Most of them, however, have to do with Israel's preparation in the realm of their souls and their spirits. Yes, there would be time where their difficulties would be simply physical difficulties, running out of water, for instance. God could deal with that. The real difficulties would lie in their hearts, in their souls, in their spirits. That when the diff- going got difficult, would test their faith in God and their faith in the leadership of his appointed apostle Moses. Their difficulties would lie not so much in lack of food or lack of water, as sometimes would happen, and the sheer tedium of the journey. The difficulties might well lie in their relationships one with another, and the way they treated each other. Because, you see, if on the journey that people were to lose faith in one another, so that they didn't trust one another, then they would be exposed to all sorts of dangers. When they met the enemy, instead of having the willpower to fight and go through, because they couldn't trust each other, they would disintegrate. And therefore, perhaps it is not surprising to find that in these ten chapters, the preparations and provision that God make are not so much about the same sort of, look, see that you pack a lorry too full of spare corn so that if you run into difficulty, uh, you'll be all right, and get a tanker or two of water just in case you run out of water on the road. Creations are much more concerned with being spiritual and social. Last week we saw how God told them to organize their camp, both on the march and when they were encamped and settled. They had to be prepared. God told them forthwith and at once to be armed. Sometimes getting across the wilderness would mean fighting an enemy who tried to stop. So everyone had to be summoned that could possibly fight. Their credentials checked that they were real, true Israelites by birth, and not just hangers-on, ready therefore to fight for their nation. Secondly, we found that they were so to organize their camp, whether, uh, when they were still or whether on the march, that the most valuable things were at the center, so that at all times those most valuable things could be protected and never lost. And we found out that the most valuable things that they were always to protect were, of course, those things that spoke of their relationship with God, the spiritual things of life. They were to have a life that was God-centered, whether they were stationary or on the march. What had been the good of it if they had got all through the desert and lost the presence of God? What good would it have been to have arrived in the promised land with all the corn and the wine and the bees and the honey and the cows? When they got there, God wasn't there because they'd lost him on the way across. What would be the good to you, my good brother or sister, if you got down to heaven and God wasn't there. What use would a few golden streaks and pearly gates be? Hello, God? But now we move on to the remaining preparations, and perhaps that makes you disappointed. You were longing to get going on a journey to see some of the many momentous things that happened on the journey. There's a standstill in the station, while the engine driver soaks up the engine and oils the wheels and all that, uh, it's enough to provoke anybody's impatience. Why can't we get going? Yes, but the truth is get going across this wilderness and they shall prepare. So another night of preparations. And And at of first course, I like most most curious, comes chapter five. But amongst other things, is mainly concerned with making preparation for husband and wife against the possibility that one of these days a man might, uh, conceive suspicions about his wife's loyalty. And being suspicious of his wife's loyalty and unable to settle the matter, he could bring the woman to the priest, and God would make provision for the truth to be brought to light, either to set his mind at rest by proving the woman's loyalty, or else, if it had to prove the opposite, let the man deal with it. And do you might say that that's a very curious regulation to put at that particular part of the book of Numbers? What's that got to do with anything? I suppose we might think up all sorts of reasons why that kind of provision should be necessary and helpful at that particular point on the march. I couldn't guarantee any of them because the passage doesn't tell us why. Just states the provision. One mother's thought, I suppose, will show us that when you've got a large number of people living in tents, tent by tent by tent by tent, as it would be necessary in the wilderness, living on top of each other, so to speak. There would be temptation for unfaithfulness. More than there would be if they were living in separate homes and scattered across the whole country. It was, wasn't it, so John eight tells us, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, when the people were crowded in tents, living in Jerusalem in tents on every square inch, one poor woman fell to the temptation of adultery. Then we might surmise too that if that kind of unfaithfulness took place to any extent in Israel, the matter would become exceedingly serious, and for that for two reasons, and the bigger one first. God was delivering his people out of Egypt, and he was going to take them into the Promised Land. Actually, as they were journeying through the wilderness, the Promised Land was occupied by Canaanites, who were steeped in the most gruesome immoralities. And Israel, when they got to the Promised Land, were going to be called upon to be the executors of God's judgment on those wicked Amorites in the Promised Land. And God was going to expel the Amorite for his immorality and wickedness, and put the Israelites in their place. Or if the Israelites gave in to the same kind of sins as the Amorites while the Israelites were walking through the wilderness? How would that have made sense? Now, when they God is going to give us his gift to reign over this world with Christ, he's going to purge this earth of evil men and women and put us in their place, heirs with Christ. It sounds sorry business, wouldn't it, if the people of God got wrapped in the same kind of immorality as the world at large. Upon whom, as Ephesians chapter five says, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. Oh, says Paul, please don't live like that. You know that no fornicator or adulterer or any such hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God. Show that you are true believers. Not behave like that. He seems safe, for off a guard cometh upon the children of disobedience. There had been another reason, of course, why God saw fit to announce these regulations at this time. Suppose unfaithfulness of this kind took place commonly amongst Israel, and men grew disillusioned about the whole business of their wives and love and family loyalty. What would they have to fight for? When the enemy came, what man is going out to fight for a family that isn't loyal to him? Whatever the reasons why God in his wisdom therefore announced these regulations at this stage, we may be. Because we as Christians cannot read this passage surely without being reminded of those two exhortations that we find in the New Testament applied to us at another level. The literal sin of a disloyalty of wife to husband or husband to wife is, of course, frequently used both in the Old Testament and the New of our spiritual relationship with God. So we may be authorized now to use the, this scripture in Numbers uh five to remind us that the New Testament issues the warning to us under that metaphor. Listen first to James. You without a missus, he says. Not literally so. He's talking now of our relationship with the Lord, isn't he, with God. But he indicates it is possible to be disloyal to God. In a way that is kind of parallel to a woman being disloyal to her husband. How could you do that, you say? Well, says James, you'll see, if anybody is determined to be a friend of the world, he is thereby constituted an enemy of God. What does that mean? Uh, certainly doesn't mean that we've got to go off and be and shut ourselves up in a monastery somewhere. So our Lord in his prayer to his father before he left our world, concerning his people, he said, Father, I pray not to take them out of the world. Not in it. I pray you keep them from it. We're not therefore to, to be friends of the world. You say, whatever does that mean? I thought we had to love folks. Of course we do. We also love the world, that is the world of men and women, and indeed, as our hymn puts it, we invite the fall as well, and in spite of their sin, he loves them. Moreover, our blessed Lord Jesus showed that God does not want us to isolate ourselves from men, but to go where they are, that we might bring them the love of God. Thus did our Lord move amongst the very drakes of humanity, as the Pharisees found them, and et and drank with publicans and sinners, that he might bring them the love of God. So must we. Get to love men and women. It's fine with us. And when we think of the world in that other sense, the world of creation that God has made. Not to look upon it, are we, as though it were some evil thing, and do our best not to enjoy it, but some people probably would. You couldn't stop enjoying your breakfast, could you? What a bless. Or dinner or whatever it is. How would you not enjoy it, unless you've got houses or something? God made it, he says, to enjoy. He's given us all things richly to enjoy what he has. And all those other appetites that God has given and put within us that are God-given and in themselves healthy and are to be used and enjoyed, and uh, God is to be thanked for. To get into our heads that they are somehow evil and that we must shun them. There is another sense in which the Bible uses the term world, is there not? And it's in a sinister sense. And James shows us the way to what the word means. He describes these people as desiring and lusting and going after the good things of this world completely to forgetting God. Men and women do that. And go for this world, not merely its nasty things, but its good things, but go for them to the complete forgetting and exclusion of God, determined to have the good things of life, cost what it may spiritually. It's like a woman, her husband has given her many a lovely, beautiful golden ring and a pearl necklace and everything else, but she's determined to have more. If that other man down the road can give her more rings, necklaces, she'll go for him. Really, it wasn't her husband she loved in the first place. The rings and the bracelets he gave her. Our Lord indicates in the Gospel of John, doesn't he? That the great enemy of God has concentrated on this very trick of using the lovely things of this world as a bait to get the creature's heart from God over to the side of God's enemy. So that if the way to get on in the world is to forget about God and, uh, go the way that the unregenerate go, multitudes are prepared to go that way. And forget God. Forget the good things. That is spiritual adultery. Possible for a believer, is it? Who has really given his heart to the Lord. Possible for a believer to allow the enemy so to attract him with all sorts of possibilities that presently the believer has forgotten the Lord, forgotten the Savior, gone after the bait. And God, did you notice the term that James uses? God is jealous. Do you suppose the scripture says it for nothing, says James, that this Holy Spirit that God has put within the believer, he becomes jealous. Oh yes. When a husband is jealous over his wife, he's not prepared to share her with somebody else. God is jealous over his people, says the Old Testament, and the New repeats it. If I give my heart to the world instead of to God, God's spirit within me is jealous, will begin to take proceedings, bring me to my senses. We may think of the warning that Paul issues. Says he to the Corinthian believers, he said, you know, you know when you got converted, what it was what was happening when you said yes to Christ. You had met, uh, the heavenly bridegroom. You had listened to the story of his love for you. You said yes to Christ. It was like being betrothed, engaged. Getting baptized was like putting the engagement ring on. In the ancient Eastern world, they took these matters very seriously. So that once a girl was engaged, even though she was not yet married, then if she were disloyal to her betroth, it was counted as outflow. What is Paul concerned about when he says, you see, I, I, you believe this, I, I betroth you as a pure virgin to Christ. Engage. One day there will come the marriage supper with their mother. For the moment, engaged. What I'm afraid of is that the old serpent who by his cunning corrupted and deceived Eve shall corrupt your mind. Now listen to what Paul actually says. In some ancient English translations, it's a bit, uh, unclear. So listen to what he's actually saying. Shall corrupt your mind from the purity and simplicity that is towards Christ. What on earth is that? Simplicity towards Christ. Where simplicity is the opposite of duplicity in this kind of context, isn't it? You'll say, not that I claim to know much of any things, that before a girl gets betrothed or engaged, she is free, as far as I'm aware, to consider all possibilities. She is one. Yeah. No. Something to be said of him, but, well, perhaps not. Now there's this other one over here. He's very attractive. Wonder what his background is, or perhaps not yet. Let's see whether there'd be a third possibility. When a girl gets betrothed in the ancient world, at any rate, there's an end of that. There aren't any more possibilities now. There's this one. And this one only. The very idea of entertaining an alternative would have been counted serious indeed. Oh, my fellow believer, when you said yes to Christ with God looking on, you are taking vows of betrothal to Christ. That ends all other possibilities. You weren't thinking, of course, of becoming a Hindu, I'm glad to hear that. More yet in the home. Were you dabbling a little bit with liberalism and trying now to question the deity of Christ? You can't. Without a fast to one man. I hear some young folk coming straight from school, and they say, you know, everyone believe the Old Testament. Our Lord did, didn't he? I usually say, the teacher said, you said that, well, you said that, well, yes, perhaps our Lord did, but then, but then what? Well, he didn't really know the truth about these things. He was just as ignorant as anybody else, and he made mistakes. Oh, really? Is it a question of trusting? Is it the wisdom of Christ or the wisdom of your school team? Which do you trust? This world isn't quite the innocent place that you might expect. Early in infancy, sometimes even in the infant school, attacks can be made on the loyalty of a believer to the authority of Christ. What if I should lose my faith in his deity and absolute authority? Where on earth would I be? What comes of the whole scheme of redemption if, after all, Jesus isn't the Son of God? Do you mind if I pack it up? I myself have no wonder that God put this passage here, right here. You may lay it to your heart if you poke your nose outside the door at all in this real world, sooner or later, as you cross the desert on the way home to glory, Satan will try to get at your loyalty to the person of Christ. You were not it. These are high life events. There were all sorts of ways, I- I suppose, but let's move on and think about what comes next in- in Numbers. And that is another interesting, though at first sight, strange chapter. Contains several different things, but the main part of it is given up to the regulations for an institution called the Nazariteship. That sounds a very strange and odd term to you, never mind. We can at least easily enough find out what the superficial details are. The Nazariteship in Israel was an arrangement by which a young man, if he decided at some stage in his life, that for a time at any rate, not necessarily the whole of life, but for a time, he wanted to show his special devotion to the Lord, then he could enter into a promise with God and become what is called a Nazarite. And during that period when he was showing his special devotion to God, he was asked to do some things that at first sight seem very curious and common. He had to let his hair grow long. That custom was not to be confounded with any more modern custom, which has a little significance. Uh, he was to have his hair long. Secondly, he was to abstain from wine and anything connected with wine or the vine indeed. Not that God regarded the drinking of wine as a sin. God wasn't commanding the man to abstain from wine because wine was sinful. We are always to abstain from sinful things, aren't we? Never ought to be doing them anyway. We don't show our special devotion to the Lord by abstaining from sinful things. Shouldn't be doing them any thoughts. No, the idea was that this man, because he wanted to show his special devotion to the Lord, was prepared to, for a period, abstain from even legitimate things, even from legitimate treasures, things that there was nothing wrong in them of themselves. Now, to show his devotion to the Lord, he was prepared to abstain from these legitimate treasures. In the same way as having his hair short was not a sin, was it? Nor having it long, for that matter. It was something that God was asking him to do, simply to show his special devotion to the Lord. There were some famous Nazarites in the Old Testament. I suspect can remember one immediately. Samson. Nazarite to God from his very birth he was. What a giant of a man. In the end, he went to stir. But when he was in his prime and behaving as he should, which was rarely, I'm afraid, but when he was behaving as he should, sometimes even when he wasn't. Oh, what tremendous power the man wore. He owed it to being a Nazarite. There's reason to think that perhaps Samuel may have been a Nazarite too. What a man of God he was in his day. How God used him mightily in the spiritual affairs of that nation. As I say, you didn't have to do that all your life. You could say, right, for the next six months, for the next two years, I will be a Nazarite, and at the end of it, you went back to ordinary way of living. Not simple, but ordinary. What about you? And me. Ever given up some pleasure for Christ's sake? I'm talking about something wrong, but a legitimate pleasure. Giving it up as a sort of a secret thing between you and the Lord, and you didn't tell anybody about it, but you gave it up for a while. So as to be more devoted to the Lord. So perhaps to have more time for God. More time for prayer. More time for his work. More time for missionary interests, more money to give to the missionary. You went without what were a legitimate thing. You didn't advertise it all around the world, of course not. In your heart, it was a little love gift between you and the Lord. Ever done it? Of course you've done it. Oh, we're not trying to earn salvation by, are we? Of course not. Salvation's a gift, you know. But he would be a very strange believer, wouldn't he, who got it into his head that all you have to do is to receive everything God gives, receive what God gives, receive what God gives. Never give anything back. Never be prepared to go without some pleasure that I have, some enjoyment. And feel the pinch of it. For the Lord's sake. I tell you what. I don't know that you'll ever do much service for God that's worth doing unless you're prepared somewhere along the road. To surrender legitimate pleasures. Not all of them, but some of them. For the sake of serving the Lord. If you should do it, don't feel what I would. Oh yeah, but you know, instead of spending a bob yesterday on an ice cream, I gave it to the scripture giver. Let everybody know. God. God had the idea in the Old Testament that there would be fellows around who thought this was marvelous. What chance to be a Samuel? Wow, chance to be... chance to be a Samson. Oh, tremendous. Says God through his prophet Amos to the people, I raised up of your young men for prophets and of your youths for Nazarites. I thought, said God, that I was offering them something really provocative and attractive. God's disappointment as people turned around and they said, you know, but you can't expect young folks to go for that kind of thing. No, no. You gave the young people wine. Soft as I will. All right, nothing wrong in it. Wine, I mean, as far as... There are days when I think I'd like to be an Olympic gold medalist. I imagine myself. I've seen them do it occasionally. After the race, you just run, you run along a little bit, uh, come around to the right place, and then they get you and put you on a with the stands. two, And, uh, you bow your head gracefully, and the man puts the gold around your neck. And there have been moments when I thought, wouldn't that be nice of me to stand there and put the gold around my neck? There's no one differently. You know, bed is so comfortable, it's not boring. The thought of getting up at five o'clock and going out training and running, no, oh, I mean, you couldn't expect anybody like me to do that, could you? And sitting on the far side admiring the book, oh, that is so delightful. You couldn't expect me to turn up, could you now? It's just a bit cold. To train? That's ridiculous, expecting me to do that. Who is he? I'll tell you something else. It's ridiculous to expect me to get an Olympic gold medal too. You want a reward when you get home to the Lord. You want to be able to bow your head and for His gracious majesty to put a chain of gold reward around your neck. I have a little realism. That ain't likely to happen. And somewhere along the road, I've abandoned my fireside. Oh, it was nothing simple. I've abandoned it and gone out into the cold, for Christ's sake. You know, I don't want to get persuaded that chapter six of Numbers isn't the answer to chapter five. What will stop me being disloyal to Christ? And falling to Satan's ever-ready temptations to make me disloyal to Christ. What can help to stop me? My brother, her on the other side. I'll only avoid the positively wrong, but be prepared now and again to sacrifice even what is legitimate in order to be more devoted to the same. They told me last week, uh, I could go on to the the past nine. If you object, I'll show you the man after the meeting who told me. Because then there comes another, uh, uh, uh, chapter in our book. Very long chapter, chapter seven, And it also has bearing on this matter of getting across the wilderness. It is the story of the dedication of the altar, you know, the big altar, where the sacrifices for sin were made. And God thought it would be a great idea if one day, hmm, very soon now, before they really got going along the wilderness, they had a day of dedication of the altar. Oh, that's interesting. What would that mean? You imagine yourself standing there, and there's this altar, you see, and there's Israel all around. What's going to happen now when they dedicate this altar? So, as they watch, here comes, you'll see, the princes of Israel, heads of the father's house. First man comes along. Wagons, oxens. And then he comes along to the altar, and we are told that he offers a silver charger. Oh, you can see the way he's carrying it. Oh, that's quite heavy, bit of silver. A little bit of, um, common old metal glazed over with a little bit of electric plate or something. It's solid silver charger. Full of the finest of fire. And he's got a silver bowl. And that's full of fire. And you think you've seen the end of this marvelous treasure? Got a, got a golden spoon! Thing is full of incense. Did you ever see such treasure? Where has the man got it from? I didn't know we had that kind of thing in a tent down here somewhere. What if the man devotes these costly, beautiful, silver and golden things to buy. You know, it's gets finished, when up came another prince. He got a super silver charger. He had a silver bowl. He got a golden spoon. I can't keep this up much longer, but the third came, and the fourth, and the other chair came, and there they were, a great, a great final. Princes, heads of the father's houses, making their response to God, and telling God how they valued their altar. And as those stately men made those lovely gifts to God, the first impression upon Israel as they looked around was all the fantastic wealth of it. How did you know they'd been slaves in Egypt? They didn't have two pennies to put together. I know they were expecting one day to get to a land flowing with milk and honey, whatever that meant, they hadn't seen it yet, and it was going to be lovely, but that was all in the future. They hadn't seen it, couldn't quite visualize it. God, in his wisdom that day, opened their eyes. It wasn't merely a matter of having an inheritance way off in the future, but now! With the sand, they had wealth almost incalculable. Why do you think God had those men do that just then? I think I know. I don't know that I'd go to the state for it, but I think I know. It's all right having a hope of an inheritance way out there somewhere. But if you've got to go across a desert to get to it, one of these days the desert will be so hot, so dry, so monotonous, so weary, so thirsty, so irritating, so boring. That old thing will begin to see me, a poverty Overty stricken. straight. The tendency will be to give the whole thing up and say, really, I don't think there's anything in it at all, really. Who says, if there is an inheritance, yes, I've never seen it, and what does it mean to me anyway? I can't visualize it. Is there anything in it anyway? You ever felt like that about spiritual things? You got converted, I know, and you're glad to be saved, but then you believed in heaven, but, you know, when life came with all its checkered disappointments and difficulties and trials, things didn't always go right in the church. And somehow it wore a bit thin. And you were a bit dissatisfied. And you wondered whether all this conversion bit was perhaps, after all, it was only a little psychological, uh, deception. Heaven and its reality began to recede. And In heaven. heaven. It can happen to middle-aged men. I don't know how I know, look at my hair. If I'm going to pay a way across this wilderness and heaven be real, then I shall need there to enter into my life here and now. A sense of the will. The heart has already put into our hands. Already. Not waiting for heaven, now. Do you know, I think that's why Paul prayed the kind of prayer he did for folks when they got converted. Paul heard that there were some folks in Ephesus and they got saved. He said, I pray for you. Or for? God might give you a spirit of wisdom, the eyes of your heart being illumined, that you might know what is the exceeding Lead in riches riches. of his inheritance in the saints. God wants to flood my heart and yours too, right now, with the sense that we are indescribably rich, even now, to the wonder of salvation dawns on us. And our hearts are filled with the sense of the riches that God has given us now. It will give us the puff to push on through this wilderness, however dreary the place is. Yeah, haven't we? Where did those nobles get all that money from anyway, those spoons and things, and all that wealth? Where did they get it from? And what made them give it up anyway? I was answering God's call, you know, God says, see that old gentleman, what do you really think about the law? How would you really value it? Show me. Oh dear. Oh dear. God took me tonight and stood me at Calvary with his son upon Calvary and said, Gooding, my man, Gooding, tell me what you think of that. Tell me how you value that altar. Where Christ died for our sin. What would I say? What would I do? It seems to write what we've just signed, were the whole relevant nature of mine, at were an offering. Ah, to sport. I can't use it, but you haven't answered the question. Where did the fellas get it from? Where'd they get all that wealth from to give? Would you say in Egypt they had not two kidneys to rub together? One of the results of redemption, you are, you know, was that when they came out of Egypt, God told them to ask of the Egyptians, and the Egyptians would be so glad to see them go. And press on with the gifts of gold and silver and all other such things. And that is what happened. They got this wealth as a result of redemption. Gave it back to God. You got any wealth? We all have, really. What makes some folks give more to God than others? Well, because some have had their eyes open. To see what is the exceeding riches of his grace towards us in Christ Jesus. And in the sense of that riches. What can we do but to give back to God what he's given us? My older brother, my older sister, might I have a word with you? You don't expect the youngster, do you, necessarily, to have detailed knowledge of the wealth that's his. He's looking to us, isn't he? Not forever to get from us endless exaltations and lashings of the whip to drive him on. That's the technique of Pharaoh's touch. Those are waiting for you, sir. Those eyes God has opened to you, madam, to see the wealth that God's grace has given you, and to see by your response to God something of the wealth that's in your life. Spiritual wealth, I mean. Or if they come near us week after week, week after week, week after week, and hear us do nothing but complain and criticize, and there's very little praise and very little sense of riches or wealth about us. And they'll conclude very little in the whole business of salvation at all. And I would like to go on. Bald one, isn't it? And we are not anywhere near starting the journey. Should we ever get started, I wonder. Never mind, perhaps we've had enough. But these are not things just to enjoy with our minds are. These are things to be pondered by everybody that has the hope that is journeying to heaven and soon to stand before Christ in glory. Oh, we shall tell him then how we valued his cross. That would be good. Be a bit late to start, wouldn't you? Let's tell him now. So I can't afford it. I can't afford to take my life and give it to Christ like that? You can't? I see. You're not worthy enough yet. Ah. I know the... Then let's pray like Paul did, that God would open the eyes of our understanding, reveal to us the incalculable riches that we have through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Don't be afraid now again to to show him off a bit. Not show himself, of course not. But don't be afraid to show off your riches a bit, will you? Because there's some tired folks about this world. Tired with wings, hard pushed by death, their spirits worn thin. Or, my brother, if you weren't quite so reticent, and now and again you showed off the riches that you have in Christ, it would revive their spirits, make heaven more real, and help them to continue the journey with more resolution. Are we done? Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee, Father, that when we begin to understand it, even if it be some far hidden place of the Old Testament, it turns out to talk about Christ. And we thank thee, Father, it bears the whole mark of thy spirit's inspiration in that it is true to life and talks to our hearts, not in some kind of theoretical fashion, but with the real red language of. Now, Lord, we pray as our study comes to its end, that by thy spirit they will cause these things to remain on our minds and hearts and illumine them. Show us the Savior again. Show us the loyalty of his love towards us, undeviated. We might be loyal to him in return, without turning aside. Show us the wealth of his sacrifice on our behalf we do beseech him. And all those unutterable riches that thou hast given us in him, we enjoyed already. Our response may begin to be a A little little worthy worthy. of his sacrifice for us.