Principles Pictured by the Tabernacle, The Court

[0:00] With a family album pretty soon. That'd be pretty cool.! That was good. That was really good.! So let's find in our Bibles this morning, Exodus chapter 27.

[0:14] ! Last week we began this chapter, which the first eight verses describe an altar that they are to build.

[0:25] This altar is the first thing that you would see if you entered into the court of the tabernacle. And as we liken this tabernacle first to your Christian life and to making a sanctuary for God to dwell in, we also likened it to Bible Baptist Church as the Bible gives both analogies.

[0:44] And I showed you last week that both your life and this church needs an altar. And we studied that it's a place of offering and sacrifice, a place where some things are to be given over to the Lord, to burn up and be consumed and never again to take back.

[1:00] And some of those things are good and some of those things are evil. And whatever the case is, there's an altar that needs to be in your life and there's an altar that needs to be here in this church. We also studied it's a place of atonement, a place of reconciliation.

[1:14] And we saw that one of the wonderful things about our God is that He's ready to pardon. And He's always looking for us to come and get things right with Him. It's important that we frequent that altar as frequent as it's needed.

[1:25] Remember how we studied that it needs to be kept hot, that the flame is always to be on that altar. You can't neglect it. You can't walk away from it. But God knows we need to be there pretty quickly, pretty frequently.

[1:36] And the last thought was that it's a place of thanksgiving, a place that's very important to God. God, the praise and the thanksgiving with that altar, He deems more necessary than the offering of burnt beasts and animals.

[1:50] But Lord wants to see our worship. And so God help us to keep that altar hot and to stay close to it. And I know you want to be right with God. You want to be perfect with God.

[2:00] Well, then you need to know where that altar is. You need to have it. Don't be ashamed to use it, especially here in the service, if God ever deals with your heart. So we move on from there to the rest of this chapter.

[2:11] The majority of the chapter now deals with a court that surrounds the tabernacle. And He describes a perimeter that is built to then make this inside court place for the priests to perform their duties.

[2:26] And so we're going to read about that from verses 9 to 19. And so follow along in your Bible from Exodus 27, beginning in verse 9, And thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle.

[2:36] For the south side southward, there shall be hangings for the court of fine twine linen of an hundred cubits long for one side. And the twenty pillars thereof and their twenty sockets shall be of brass.

[2:48] The hooks of the pillars and their fillets shall be of silver. And likewise for the north side in length, there shall be hangings of an hundred cubits long. And his twenty pillars and their twenty sockets of brass.

[3:00] And the hooks of the pillars and their fillets of silver. And for the breadth of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits. Their pillars ten and their sockets ten. And the breadth of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits.

[3:13] The hangings of one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits. Their pillars three and their sockets three. And on the other side shall be hangings fifteen cubits. And their pillars three and their sockets three.

[3:24] And so, so far we have a hundred on the north, hundred on the south, fifty on the west. And then on the east coming from the corners inwardly, fifteen and fifteen, leaving a gap of twenty cubits. And that's going to be for the gate or the hanging here in verse sixteen.

[3:39] And for the gate of the court shall be in hanging of twenty cubits, of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twine linen, wrought with needlework and their pillars shall be four and their sockets four.

[3:50] All the pillars round about the court shall be filleted with silver. Their hooks shall be of silver and their sockets of brass. The length of the court shall be a hundred cubits. And the breadth fifty everywhere.

[4:01] And the height five cubits of fine twine linen and their sockets of brass. All the vessels of the tabernacle and all the service thereof and all the pins thereof and all the pins of the court shall be of brass.

[4:12] In the last two verses, we already read this when we studied back in chapter maybe 25, I think it was, with the golden candlestick. And he just concludes with some thought about the oil and maintenance of that candlestick.

[4:27] So today we're going to look here at this court. And God gives the dimensions of the perimeter of the court, as well as we read the makeup of the walls.

[4:37] It's more like a fence. If you want to picture a post, these pillars are the post. And then in between is the linen that's hanging in between these pillars all around the perimeter. And also, as we read in verse 16, distinguishes the gate or the entrance into this courtyard, which matches the entrance of the tabernacle, the hanging.

[4:57] They're identical, even matching, except for the cherubim, the innermost holy place and the veil that hung there. Now, this section, when God starts in verse 9, saying, Thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle, he begins by giving Moses the dimensions.

[5:15] He just starts saying, The south, 100 cubits. The north, 100 cubits. The west, 50 cubits on the west. And then the east side, eastward, is going to be another 50 cubits.

[5:27] It's a perfect rectangle, a two-to-one ratio, surrounding this tabernacle that we've already studied. After discussing the entrance and this gate, this specific beautiful hanging in verse 16, then he comes down to verse 18, and he rehearses the measurements.

[5:47] Look at verse 18 again. The length of the court shall be 100 cubits, the breadth, 50 everywhere, the height, 5. He doesn't discuss for us this time what kind of wood the pillars are going to be made of.

[6:01] That's the first time he talks about something being made and doesn't say what kind of wood it's to be made of. The first time of all these studies, of all these pieces of furniture, of all these pillars, of all the boards, all the bars, this is the first time he just says, he just kind of skips that detail.

[6:15] We could assume that it's shittim wood again, but he never sells us. It doesn't tell us the exact thing. He doesn't talk about tenons, or when he talks about there being, oh, where is it at?

[6:27] Sockets, 20 sockets of brass. Doesn't talk about tenons fitting down into these sockets underneath the pillars. Doesn't give that description either. We could assume it's there. We could presume based on previous information, but he doesn't give us that.

[6:39] What he does do a second time in verse 18 is he doubles down on expressing the dimensions of the perimeter. In verse 18, he already told us what the north, what the south, what the east, and what the west is.

[6:52] And then when he brings it all together, he says again, a hundred cubits, and the breadth, fifty everywhere. And I want to discuss this with you as we're likening these things to our local church and to our Christian life.

[7:04] I want this to show or to illustrate for us the importance of boundary. Because God doubles down on the measurements, and I think there's some specific things that we can learn.

[7:14] Because boundaries are an important, a very necessary part of a Christian life. Boundaries. How far you'll go in certain instances and how far you won't go.

[7:28] And whether it's thinking of it as building a wall in your life or maybe drawing a line in the sand, whatever it is, certain boundaries need to be in place. And I think there's a few things we can learn from this court and from God's attention to the perimeter that can apply to our Christian life.

[7:45] And so I want to give you three thoughts from this passage, and let's pray before we do any of that and ask God to help us and our hearts this morning. Lord, it's with humility and thanksgiving that we come before your throne.

[7:57] We seek to know you and we seek to hear truth and have it revealed from this book and have this Old Testament picture and this court that was presented surrounding your tabernacle and the pillars and the linens and how you described and designed it to be.

[8:14] I pray that it would find some application in our understanding for our lives today. Lord, please do that by your spirit. Please take your words and make them applicable and help us to receive them and to have some boundaries in our lives.

[8:28] Lord, impress upon us where those boundaries must be. Teach us from your word exactly how we are to live this life and let us be submissive to it and take courage to have a humble spirit and to turn over to you anything that doesn't belong in our life.

[8:44] We pray these things in Christ's wonderful name. Amen. Amen. So first thing I want you to consider out of this passage is pretty simple. When they decided that we need to put up some kind of wall or some fence or something, Moses didn't just sit down with Aaron and say, what do you think it should be?

[9:02] What do you think it should be? Hey, bring your sons in on this. They're pretty smart guys. But no, the first thing I need you to understand is that God establishes or determines the boundary.

[9:13] God spoke it to Moses and from that moment forward, it was fixed. Right here in the mount, in chapter 27 of Exodus, God determined, I want 100 across the north side.

[9:25] I want 100 across the south. I want it 50 and 50. It's going to be exactly that. God established where the boundary is going to be. The dimensions God fixed alone.

[9:37] What didn't leave it up to the Levites to do what they thought was good. God declared specific measurements for the placement of this perimeter. It was God that established this boundary that's to be observed by every Israelite, everyone in the camp of Israel.

[9:54] On the inside, it's those Levite priests only. All others, they got to stay out. They have no business in there. They have no right to come in there. They have no chance of surviving should they try to breach that opening.

[10:06] It was in everybody's best interest to understand and to observe the perimeter and the boundary that God established for his people.

[10:18] God is far too holy to be approached by man. And certain select men from a certain select tribe that were consecrated, that were cleansed, that were covered in their holy garments, these could approach.

[10:33] We've already studied that God had made us to be priests unto God through the blood of Jesus Christ and given us access that we could draw near unto God. But the boundary God established, the placement of the pillars, not up for debate.

[10:48] God gave the precise distance, the precise location, 150, and for whatever else outside, that's off limits. What he said was recorded. And when Moses took that from God, he didn't say, so, 100, plus or minus, you know, just in case.

[11:05] Moses didn't get that liberty to say, well, what if we want to just, you know, what if there's a thing? What if we need to have some leeway? Should we have a committee? Should we discuss it?

[11:16] God didn't leave it up for debate. So the Lord God established the boundary. All right? That's pretty easy to pull out of that text, right? Pretty simple. God established the boundary and it was recorded.

[11:28] And Christian, I'm going to say this several times this morning, this book is your boundary. This book, it declares the measurements. It draws the lines.

[11:39] It demands that you understand and it demands that you observe what it says is off limits and what it says is unclean to you and what it says is profane or is an abomination.

[11:51] Man doesn't determine this for you. You don't determine this for you. If you're a person of God, you're a person of the book. The culture doesn't decide for us where the line is.

[12:01] God does. Well, what if the Supreme Court in our land passes a law? What if the Supreme Court says that this is acceptable now? This is to be permitted in our land.

[12:14] Men can marry men if they want to. Women can marry women if they want to. What does the child of God think about that? Because the Supreme Court, the highest law of the land, declared this is acceptable.

[12:26] But no, for the Christian, God establishes the boundaries of our existence. What about the president if he issues and signs an executive order?

[12:39] Do then we take a look at that and consider, oh, maybe we should allow this now in our church or allow this in our lives? No. But the professor at my college or the teacher at my school or the textbook tells me that this is where I came from or that this is how it should be.

[12:56] This is how we're made. This is... No. Your family, your friends, your teacher, your husband, your wife, your pastor doesn't determine the boundaries.

[13:09] The Word of God sets the boundaries. It establishes them. God alone establishes these lines and declares what's acceptable and what's off limits.

[13:20] And if you desire to please Him at all and you want to please Him with your life and with your choices and what you allow in your life and in your heart, then you better seek out of the book of the Lord and read.

[13:32] Get your nose in that Bible and seek. What does God say about this? God establishes the boundaries. If any man contradicts the Word of God, this answer is simple. Let God be true and every man a liar.

[13:45] Even if it's me and I tell you something that's not from the book, make me a liar. And say, Preacher, you better check yourself on that. Chapter and verse for that one, brother. And if I don't have it, just disregard it.

[13:59] Because God establishes the boundaries for the Christian life and it's been recorded. Now, we're going to look at some examples in a little bit, but that's a pretty simple one. Pretty easy to pull that from the text.

[14:10] God establishes boundaries. I'm showing you this morning the importance of boundaries. The second thing I want us to consider from here is that the boundary doesn't change. It has been recorded and right there it still is.

[14:22] It's still right there. That boundary didn't change a bit. Not a word, not an inch. It's 100 cubits by 50 cubits. And would you consider that these Israelites, I feel like we looked at this once in numbers.

[14:36] It might be 33, I think, where it gives a list of all the places that they departed and pitched and departed and pitched. And it's like almost, it's in the 30s, I think.

[14:47] Dozens of places, dozens of times that the Israelites tore down this tabernacle, including the perimeter, transported it till the clouds stopped and then built it all back up.

[14:59] Dozens of times they set up and tore down this perimeter. And every single time the perimeter was 100 by 50.

[15:12] It didn't get any smaller. It didn't get any bigger. Why? Because God established the boundary and the boundary didn't change. No matter if they pitched in the wilderness, no matter if they pitched that by the way of Edom or near the shores of the Jordan River about to cross over, the boundary remained the same.

[15:32] It didn't matter where they were. It didn't matter what land they passed through. It didn't matter if the Ammonites were on this side. It didn't matter later if the Moabites were on that side. It didn't matter if they were all alone or even if they were in the promised land itself.

[15:45] The boundary did not change. What a wonderful truth to relate to the Christian life. The boundaries that the Word of God places upon our lives as we seek to please Him do not change.

[16:02] They don't change. When you leave this church this morning, the boundaries God established for you do not change when you get into your home. And when you leave your home and get away from your spouse or from your children and you head to work, the boundaries God has established for how a Christian is to live His life, that doesn't change.

[16:22] Those stay the same. They're always the same. What a wonderful truth. What's acceptable to God is still acceptable to Him out there just like it is in here.

[16:34] And what's despised of God in here is still despised of God out there. The boundary doesn't change. The scenery will change day by day, year by year.

[16:49] The scenery will change. Much like this people, you'll travel, you'll move, you'll be amongst different people. You'll find yourself in new environments, in a new look, in a new beginning.

[17:02] But you've got to remember what God established doesn't depend upon where you live. And what God established for your Christian life isn't dependent upon who you live with. It doesn't matter if you live at home with your parents or if you go off to school.

[17:15] It doesn't matter if you get married. It doesn't matter if you move to a new place. What God established still remains the same. The boundary doesn't change. Again, the book is your boundary.

[17:28] And the book hasn't changed. What was wrong for you when you first got saved is still wrong for you today if you've been saved for 45 years. What was right for you when you first learned to walk with God is still right for you today.

[17:43] And in this, I have to caution you, Christian. If you haven't seen it yet, if you haven't learned it yet, you'll hear it today. Christians can be a fickle people. Christians can change.

[17:55] The longer they're saved, in some cases, it's supposed to be, he's still sweeter every day, but in some cases, the longer they're saved, the lazier they become.

[18:06] The more they start to allow back into their lives that they once abstained from and kept out of their lives. They start to justify things. What Christians do, and take heed to this because it's around, Christians tend to push the boundaries.

[18:24] They tend to push them out a little further than they were when they first got saved. And be careful. The Bible describes the word liberty. You have liberty in Christ.

[18:35] And some lazy Christians use this phrase, liberty in Christ, as a license to push the boundary. And say, well, there's nothing really wrong with that. And they push it a little further.

[18:47] When the Bible says, use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh. So where are these boundaries exactly? Well, they're in the book, right? The book's your boundary. I said that. But let me give you an example.

[18:58] Just a quick example. Just one of a thousand, maybe. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. This one's very easy to apply. It's very easy to understand.

[19:11] And it literally applies to every one of us the same. So I want to just show you this one. Ephesians chapter 4. The boundary doesn't change.

[19:26] Would you look toward the end of this chapter at verse number 29? Again, this is just one. But it's an easy one to grab. Verse 29.

[19:37] Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

[19:50] That verse has been in this book longer than I've been alive. And it hasn't changed. It was good for those men of God that I read about in ages past that have sought the Lord and wrought with the Lord.

[20:05] And they submitted themselves to that verse. That verse was there the first time my eyes laid on it and read that no corrupt communication and the Lord illuminated my mind to say what comes out of your mouth matters to me and I want it to be right.

[20:21] In Proverbs 8, all the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing forward or perverse in them. And when I first understood that, that God wants my mouth to be clean, I can't promise and stand before you and say that it's always been clean.

[20:37] That's surely not the case. But the boundary is right there and the line is drawn. There's nothing to be corrupt to come out.

[20:48] If corruption comes out, if I allow things to come out of my mouth and I pretend, imagine that it's okay, there's nothing wrong with it.

[20:59] It's not a big deal. If I pretend that, that, you know, God's fine with it, you people make such a big deal about some things, but it's not a big deal to God, I pretend that I'm pushing the boundary.

[21:12] I'm pushing it away from where God established it to be. For me. And if I'm guilty, and if I know I'm wrong, you know what I'm to do? I'm to come back and go through that entrance and right there in front of me is the altar.

[21:28] And I'm to lay that on the altar and get back inside the boundary. It's wrong for me to push the boundary out and try to say, oh, I can be here. Whereas if I got right with God, I'd say, no, the boundary didn't move.

[21:41] I moved. I allowed something in my life that is wrong. Okay, you're right here. Look at verse 31. Verse 31 and 2, it says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

[22:10] If you find yourself dwelling in a field of bitterness and anger toward one another and imagine that it's okay, I'm right with God because I was right. They were wrong.

[22:22] Or you don't know what they said about me or you can fill in the blank for how this has affected you and why you're in that field of anger and bitterness. You might want to consider that you pushed the boundary.

[22:34] You pushed it away. God calls us to dwell in the field of forgiveness inside the boundary. The boundary's there. Christians tend to start to justify their sins and push the boundary out a little further.

[22:48] You might have to check your heart like it was talked about earlier this morning. So Christians can be dangerous by pushing the boundaries out but the boundaries don't change.

[22:58] There's something else on the other hand. Some Christians do something different. They try to bring the boundaries closer to the tabernacle. They tighten up that sacred zone so small and narrow that virtually only they can fit in and no one else.

[23:13] And they impose self-righteous standards. They're religious hypocrites. They make the way so narrow and compacted that even the Lord Jesus Christ was found guilty of not complying with God's standard.

[23:29] You've got to be careful. But no, we don't tighten up. We don't expand the perimeter that God has set. Because God has set, He establishes the boundaries and those boundaries don't change.

[23:42] What we do is we read. What we do is we study. We rightly divide. If something in that Bible is confusing to us and we're unsure of something, then we study it more until the truth of God becomes clear and understood.

[23:56] And then we erect those pillars and fasten those hooks and fillets and hang the linens and hold and maintain that boundary that God has fixed for us. It's 100 cubits by 50 cubits.

[24:09] No more, no less, no matter where you take the tabernacle of God. That's the boundary. It remains the same and it's been recorded.

[24:21] And then there's something else. If you can go back to Exodus chapter 27. I pointed this out already but it's verse number 18 where I said God doubles down on those dimensions.

[24:32] What we read was the north is covered by 100 cubits, the south is covered. When you put the 50 on the west and then the 15 and the 15 with the 20 additional for the gate, you have a completely enclosed perimeter.

[24:50] In verse 18, the length of the court shall be 100 cubits and the breadth 50 everywhere. Every where. Thirdly, I want you to consider this boundary that God established.

[25:02] That doesn't change. This boundary is complete. Completely enclosed. The tabernacle is surrounded. There are no gaps. There are no void spots.

[25:13] The hangings completely enclosed. This court and the boundary is complete. And to continue the thought, the book is the boundary and the book is complete.

[25:26] And in the book, there's no void spots or openings that need to be filled in. You may remember in Ezekiel, this is not the case, but in Ezekiel, God sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, that should stand in the gap.

[25:40] Well, that was Israel. They had some gaps. They had some things missing, but not the word of God. This doesn't need a man to fill in the gaps. The book doesn't need any man to add to what God has plainly declared and stated for our lives.

[25:54] The word of God is perfect. That means complete. The word of God is settled. It shall stand forever. Nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it.

[26:05] Add thou not to his words, lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar. Let God be true again and every man a liar. But sinful man with his sinful heart loves to look for loopholes.

[26:24] He loves to look for cracks. He loves to find a place where the flesh can get some relief. The old man is always looking for some room to breathe.

[26:35] He hates to be so constrained by the boundaries of the word of God. It's liberty for the new man, but for the old man, it's put him off, put him to death, mortify his deeds and his members.

[26:51] And so he looks for cracks. He looks for a gray area. He looks for a gray area and tries to exploit that one and push the limits as far as possible.

[27:03] And there are things that we call gray areas in the Christian life. It's things that the Bible just doesn't say black and white, here's the line, obey and follow this.

[27:14] But if in any gray areas, it doesn't mean that God doesn't have an opinion. It doesn't mean that God doesn't have a principle that can be applied. But the truth is that many Christians don't want to seek the word of God to find what the mind of the Lord is on it.

[27:30] Instead, they want to just have a gray area where they can let it mean to them whatever it means to them. And they can do what they want to do. Christians are known for this.

[27:40] They're carnal. They justify their actions so they can do what they please and they don't like anybody telling them they're wrong. They'll be quick to clap back, oh, you legalist, you Pharisee.

[27:52] Judge not. They're pushing the boundaries. They're imagining gaps and cracks in the wall where there is none. My advice when it comes to these gray areas, if you're not sure, then play it safe.

[28:10] Err on the side of caution. Don't take a strong stand for something that the Bible's not clear on. You might find yourself calling God a legalist one day when he judges you for your sins or for your actions or your decisions.

[28:23] And he'll reveal how desperately wicked your heart was and how you allowed it to run the show. So the boundary is complete and it's for your safety and it's to keep you clean and it's to keep you holy so that you and I can draw near unto our holy God and offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to him by Jesus Christ.

[28:46] So God puts up the boundary. He establishes it. It doesn't change and it's complete. You don't need to fix it. You don't need to add to it and you don't need to be searching for holes and cracks and ways to get out.

[29:02] These boundaries, Christian, are necessary for your Christian life. They're necessary. They keep you safe. They keep you alive.

[29:13] Observing the boundaries that he established will keep us in fellowship with God. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 24 and I want to close with a little passage that I like to turn to oftentimes.

[29:32] Proverbs 24. Proverbs 24. It's our job to locate and to erect the perimeter exactly the way God established in his word and not change it, not push it, but just in humility submit to his word.

[29:57] So in Proverbs 24, let's look at this little story here that Solomon offers at the end of the chapter. It's in verse 30. He says, I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of a man void of understanding and lo, it was all grown over with thorns and nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall thereof was broken down.

[30:22] Then I saw and considered it well and looked upon it and received instruction. You had a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that travels.

[30:34] Plainer words, that's your life. If you neglect these things and neglect to consider what God has for boundaries in your life and you just pretend I don't have to give diligence to that, I don't have to pay attention to that, you're going to find yourself a wreck.

[30:49] You're going to, those thorns and nettles, picture of sins that come in and curse and overtake your life instead of bringing forth fruit unto God, your life's going to be filled with sin, the stone wall broken down, no protection, can't stop anything evil from getting in then.

[31:08] And the point here that I want to drive at in closing is that determining and understanding these boundaries that God gives requires diligence on your part and requires effort on your part and it requires humility on your part.

[31:27] You've got a desire to know God's way. Isn't that something that kind of, when you first are saved and you first get a taste for the word of God and salvation, doesn't that kind of come natural initially?

[31:40] Because you admit and you realize I've been wrong all my life and now I have salvation, I have Jesus Christ, I have the right answer and you start to look at the rest of your life and say, what else am I wrong with?

[31:53] And you're kind of open to God moving and changing you. You want to, what does he say? I want to be right. But as you get older, you can get colder. You can get harder.

[32:04] You can determine that I'm not worried about it that much anymore. It's up to you to desire to know God's way and to be tired of and sick of the world's way and of your flesh having its own way all the time and you've got to be willing to change and you've got to be willing to submit to what God teaches you because it doesn't always come easy but it's worth it.

[32:30] Establishing those boundaries in your life according to the word of God, keeping those to be the same boundaries they were back then as they are today according to the word of God, that doesn't come easy and stop trying to make breaches in it so that you can have your own way.

[32:47] Again, that doesn't come easy. You're going to have to surrender your heart completely to the word of God. You're going to have to come to that book and like was quoted earlier, search me, oh God, and know my heart.

[33:05] Try me. Check me out, God. I want to do this thing your way. And what he's going to do is say, well then let's get some boundaries set up right now.

[33:17] Let's do that. 100 cubits, 50 cubits, I'll tell you what they are. They're recorded and it's not going to change. You can be fixed upon this for the rest of your life.

[33:30] But boy, aren't we the ones that kind of try to get around it and try to change it, try to push it. Something happens to us that gives us license to make some changes that aren't according to the book.

[33:44] It takes humility to come back to the book and surrender. It takes humility to turn around and say, oh, I'm outside of the boundary. I need to go back through the gate and get to that altar.

[33:57] Once you exercise that humility, oh, there's such a liberty. There's such a cleansing, a relieving, a clearing of yourselves. It's such a glorious thing to be back right with God instead of pretending that it's okay when you push the boundaries further away.

[34:15] So God, help us to have a humble spirit. Help us to desire the boundaries that he established for us. They're the book. In the book. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord.

[34:27] Fathers, we dismiss this morning. It's been a pleasure to consider this message and this passage and to learn something from it that works for us. But God, it is not as easy as it's said for us.

[34:41] We are filled with pride. We have a flesh that just won't quit. And Lord, it's in every single one of us to try to push those boundaries and try to have it our way.

[34:54] Lord, strengthen us by your spirit in the inner man and renew in us a right spirit that we might surrender our hearts and minds to thy spirit and thy leading and thy word.

[35:07] You're perfect in every way. You're true in every way. Lord, may we surrender to it and submit to it quickly. God, if somebody needs to get back to the altar, help them to do it.

[35:20] Show them. Help them to be, take courage in their spirit and submit. I want to say thank you for drawing some lines, for not leaving it up to me to determine it, not leaving it up to any one of us to come together and decide if it's okay.

[35:36] Thank you for just telling us. Thank you for your way. Thank you for your word. God, I'm a lost, deceived fool without the word of God.

[35:49] I need that perimeter set up and I thank you for it. this morning, I wonder, with your heads bowed, with your eyes closed and just nobody stirring around yet, I wonder if you'd acknowledge that, yeah, what you're talking about with that boundary, that's me.

[36:08] The Lord has set some things up in my life and I kind of tore them down. I kind of decided I don't need to abide by these rules anymore. I'll just do what I want to do now.

[36:19] Now, did God change or did you change? Chances are it was you that moved away. If you need to get to the altar today, get to the altar and get it cleared and get back inside that perimeter where the priest can minister and sacrifice before the Lord and can draw near.

[36:40] Yes, Yes,