A Day to Be Remembered — Major Ian Thomas

It's hard to say again, but it's been a tremendous joy for me to be here night by night, and I'd like to add my welcome once again to those of you who have gathered with us this evening. I'm grateful, too, to Pastor Alan Hatchpool for his good offices and so much donkey work behind the scene.

Takes a donkey to do donkey work. And he was a good donkey at Cape and Ray at home in the Bible school, and we've learned to love him there and his wife, whom he met in the Bible school. It's just part of the service.

They're not the only two, but we've had some very lovely fellowship during these days, and I'm grateful, too, to the pastor and officers, members of this church, for the rich fellowship, as also for campaigners for Christ.

The Passover as a Day of Redemption

Mr. Reimers, Mr. Bryson, and others who've played their part in making these meetings possible. I'd like you to turn with me for a few moments to the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 12.

I'd just like to read you one or two verses. Exodus 12 and verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.

In other words, this was going to be a month from which life should never be the same again. Speaking unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.

Verse 5. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. He shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper doorpost of the houses wherein they shall eat it. Verse 11. And thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment.

I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Now this is the familiar story of God's redemptive intervention in the affairs of his people Israel in bringing them out of Egypt, out of their place of bondage, through the Red Sea, and then to poise them upon the threshold of their onward march on and in to the land of Canaan.

And it was God's purpose that they should be brought out beneath the shadow of the shed blood of a little lamb without blemish, the lamb that was to be slain, and its blood to be pasted upon the doorpost and the lintel.

This beautiful picture that God gives us of the Lord Jesus Christ, for you will remember in the 46th verse of the same chapter, it says, in one house shall it be eaten. Thou shalt not carry forth all to the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall ye break a bone thereof.

Not one bone of this little unblemished lamb was to be broken as it was slain, and its blood pasted upon the doorpost and the lintel. And you will remember that when the Roman soldiers came, because the following day was a Jewish Sabbath, to ensure that the victims who had been crucified were dead, to smash their legs, they broke the legs of the two thieves, one on either side of the Lord Jesus, but because when they found him dead they did not break his legs, they pierced his side, for not a bone of his body was to be broken.

This is one of the unique, beautiful, Old Testament pictures that God gives us of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. And as by faith we apply his pressure-shed blood, his atoning sacrifice, to the doorpost and the lintels of our hearts, so God passes over, and judgment fails to fall upon us, for judgment fell in our stead upon him.

A New Beginning Through Faith in Christ

Now that's the picture of the Passover, and what Moses says here to the people at God's command is this, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you.

This day of this month shall be unto you a memorial, ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Or look in verse 3 of chapter 13, Moses said unto the people, remember this day in which she came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place.

Remember this day, Moses says, this is a day to be remembered, for beneath the shadow of that shed blood God led his people. It came to pass, verse 51 of the 12th chapter, the self-same day that the lamb was slain, its blood was shed, that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their arms, and it was a day to be remembered, for it was to be the beginning of months from which life was never to be the same again.

Now my dear friend, this is the purpose of God in Christ. In the day that you recognize yourself to be what you are, in the sight of a holy God, and recognize that you were born spiritually destitute of life, dead in trespasses and sins, uninhabited by God, and in true repentance toward the God who made you, you put your trust in the Christ who died for you, it is the beginning of months for you.

This is a day to be remembered, and there are so many of us here tonight who can look back and remember the day. I can remember, I've told you already, quarter to nine, Saturday night, 13th of August, 1927, I could almost take you to the blade of grass.

It was a day to be remembered, when in the silence of my heart, unsung, unknown, unsuspected by those who sat around me in that big canvas marquee, by faith, I claimed the shed blood of Christ to cleanse me from sin, that I might be at peace with God my maker, and that he in the power of his Holy Spirit might come and live within me as my Savior and my God.

It was a day to be remembered, and I can honestly say that from that moment, life was never the same again. Do you know, I can hardly believe anything that happened until I was 12 years of age. I don't think I lived until I was 12, I just existed.

But something happened that day that changed the whole course of my life's history. It's the only tangible reason for my being here gladly in your midst tonight, so far away from my own family, my wife and unspanked sons.

A day to be remembered. Can you remember the day? Can you remember the day when you put your trust in Christ? Like the small boy, you know, who was asked at a meeting that was thrown over to testimony to tell the folk how he so recently had received Christ as his Savior.

He was terribly nervous, his ears went like beetroots, and his feet felt like great big lumps of lead, but at last he managed to get up and he stuttered it out, he said, well, he said, all I can say is this, that I have received Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I'm happier now when I'm not happy than I used to be when I was.

It was a day to be remembered, and there are so many others for whom this day is a day indeed to be remembered. I trust you have a day that you can remember when you put your trust in Christ, and knew that your sins were forgiven, and knew that your name had been recorded in what is described in the Revelation as the Lamb's Book of Life.

That record in heaven of names of those who have been cleansed in the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and on the basis of redemption, have been re-inhabited by God, for God, by the restoration to them of his Holy Spirit, in whose gracious presence the Lord Jesus dwells within the redeemed humanity of a forgiven sin, a day to be remembered.

From Redemption Out of Egypt to Possession of Canaan

But there's something more than that, for this is what it says, Exodus 30 verse 5, and it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.

In other words, this celebration, this memorial, this remembrance of the day which is a day to be remembered, to be celebrated in terms of the Passover sacrifice, the feast of unleavened bread, this day is a day to be remembered in a land to be possessed.

It is a day to be remembered, but listen, Christian friends, it is a day to be remembered in a land to be possessed, for the purpose of God in bringing them out of Egypt was that they might go in into Canaan.

Exodus, I beg your pardon, Deuteronomy chapter 4, where Moses recounts the purpose of God in bringing them out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 4 verse 37, and because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and therefore brought he thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt, to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance as it is this day.

He brought thee out, verse 37, to bring thee in, verse 38. The purpose and economy of God was not that you might come out to be dumped in the desert, his purpose was to bring you out, to bring you in.

Now I need hardly remind you tonight that Egypt represents the unconverted, the unforgiven sinner, the uninhabited man, woman, or child who is still in the condition in which all men are born dead in trespasses and sins, alienated from the life of God, cut off from the divine source, spiritually bankrupt, that's Egypt.

And Canaan, if I may remind you yet again, in spite of all that your hymns may tell you, is Christ on earth living in you in the power of his resurrection. You partaking of what he is, his joy, his victory, his fullness, his power, his plenitude, his righteousness.

This is Canaan. It is something for you now, in the today of your experience on the way to heaven, out of my spiritual bankruptcy, to be filled with Christ in the fullness of his resurrection life. He died for what I've done, to get me out of Egypt, he rose again to take the place of what I am, that I might live in Canaan.

Now that's the spiritual significance of the story of God's dealings with his people. And the tragedy was this, they got dumped in the desert. They got stuck halfway in the wilderness. And the wilderness is not your weary journey through this world until one day you go through the dark cold waters of Jordan and then pop up in Canaan.

And find you've got wings flapping around behind you, sitting on a damp cloud playing your harp. That is not Canaan. And that is not the wilderness. The wilderness was never in God's economy. The wilderness represents God's breach of promise.

Did you know that God committed breach of promise? It's a strange expression, but you'll find it in the 14th chapter of the book of Numbers. Numbers 14. When God is declaring his judgment upon an unbelieving bunch of believers, because that's what the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they were unbelieving believers.

They had enough belief to get them out, but they didn't have enough belief to get them in. They had enough belief to get them out and enough unbelief to keep them out. You see, these were unbelieving believers, carnal Christians.

After the number of the days in which you search the land, verse 34 of Numbers 14, even 40 days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities, even 40 years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

And if you happen to have a marginal translation, you'll see that breach of promise means the altering of my purpose. The altering of my purpose. My purpose was to bring you out to bring you in. But because you only have enough belief to get out and you don't have enough belief to get in, my purpose is altered and you'll be buried in the wilderness.

That was never in God's economy. And that a Christian should live a dull, deflated, defeated, bewildered, baffled Christian life is not in God's economy for you. His purpose for you, as some of us saw last night, is that you should rejoice evermore, be consistently, incurably, aggravatingly cheerful in every situation.

That's God's purpose for you. You are to be more than conquerors through him that loves you. You are to reign in life by one Christ Jesus. You have to have a superlative quality of living, joy unspeakable and full of glory and love that passeth knowledge and peace that passeth understanding.

This is God's purpose for you in Jesus Christ. Brought you out to bring you in. And the only place that you can truly, legitimately celebrate and remember the day that is worth remembering is in Canaan, the land to be possessed.

It was a day to be remembered in a land to be possessed. And a Christian who's living a defeated life and goes around celebrating the fact that he's converted is a poor adversary. And that's why, you know, lots and lots of folk aren't terribly impressed.

Out in the old tin ford with the rolls in the garage. Well, let's have another look at Exodus 13. Remember this day, says Moses, in the land to be possessed. Verse 8,. And thou shalt show thy son in that day, when you celebrate the Passover, thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.

This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. In other words, says Moses, when your small boy comes nosing around, when you're keeping the feast of unleavened bread and the Passover, and he says, Dad, what's all this about?

You ought to say, Son, we're remembering the day. We're celebrating the glorious day that God brought us out of Egypt. Can you imagine what the reaction of a small boy would be who'd lived for seven years in the desert?

He'd say, Can't see anything himself, much to celebrate. What's all the fuss about anyway? I don't call this particularly enchanting. Nothing but arid desert. I know almost every grain of sand by name.

And there isn't a cactus bush around here I haven't sat on one time or another. I don't know what the excitement's about. Why celebrate this? From folk who've been in Egypt, so far as I can see, it's far better than Egypt never was here.

I don't see why we don't go back to Egypt. What was there to celebrate in the wilderness? Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for tea, and manna for supper. And what do you think they had for breakfast?

Manna. And the parents had encouraged the small boy to ask one of his small chums home so that he could be introduced to God's one, to Israel's wonderful God who brought them out of Egypt. And what do you think his parents gave his small chum for breakfast?

And lunch, manna, and tea, manna, and the small boy says, I'm going home. This is dull as ditch water. I mean dull as manna. I'm going back to Egypt. I like it better there. And the small boy was discouraged.

How could he impress his school chums when he brought his school chums home and just found them living in a desert on manna? God intend them to live on manna for 40 years? Oh no. Oh no. Deuteronomy chapter one, Moses reminds them as part of his last will and testament before he died himself a disappointed man in the wilderness.

Verse two, there are eleven days journey from Horeb, just inside the wilderness from Egypt, the place where the rock was smitten and the water flowed, Christ and him crucified. There are eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Sihon to Kadesh Barnea, on the very frontiers of Canaan, the place where the twelve spies were sent from in to the land, to spy out the land.

Eleven days journey from Egypt to Canaan. How long did it take them? Forty years. Well, that was some delay. God never intended them to have manna for forty years. He tells you in Deuteronomy eight, verse three, he humbled thee and he suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna.

That's a strange thing, isn't it? Seems a contradiction in terms. It says God suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna. While God was feeding them with manna, he was suffering them to hunger. Of course, because the manna was never designed to satisfy, it was only designed to sustain.

God says I will sustain life in the desert, but I will not satisfy life in the desert. I don't satisfy the people in the wilderness when I have laid the table in Canaan. That's what God said. If you want to be satisfied, then get on and get in.

But don't expect me to satisfy you dumped in the desert. Neither one thing nor the other. Neither hot nor cold. I wonder if that's why some of you Christians have never really been satisfied. I wonder if that's why some of you said, let's go back to Egypt.

I wonder if that's why some of you have campaigned to get Egypt into your church. You never got to the place where God could satisfy you. You've just been playing the fool in the desert, living on the scrub, playing hide-and-seek around the cactus bushes, sand castles in the wilderness.

God will never satisfy you there. He never can and he never will. Thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying this is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. Christian parents, if you're living in the wilderness, don't expect your children to be particularly thrilled with your God.

Not in the desert. Maybe you wonder why they kick over the traces. Maybe some of you wondered why you haven't been able to bring them up keen, earnest, out and out, 100 Christians. Maybe it's because they've lived in the wilderness with you in your home for too long.

Don't blame them. If they've had manna to eat and never tasted the grapes and the pomegranates. You see, if you don't give them memories of Canaan, they'll feed on memories of Egypt. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Verse 9 of Exodus 13. This Passover shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth. For with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt.

This feast, which is to be celebrated every year, is to be a sign upon thine hand, a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth. It was to have a threefold significance. A sign on the hand.

It will change the things you've done. A memorial between your eyes. It's to indicate that this God's redemption has changed the things you think. And it is to put the Lord's law in your mouth. It has changed the things you say.

When a man is really converted to God, when a man is truly regenerate, when a man is anything but a make-believe Christian, a person who's just playing church because it's the cheapest social club that he can join, if a man is really born again, truly converted to God, means business with God his maker, then his redemption will involve a radical change in what he does, a radical change in what he thinks, and a radical change in what he says.

That's how you can know whether a person's genuinely converted. That's how you'll know whether they're real Christians or just flabby, let's pretend Christians. Well, it'd be interesting to see what happened in the wilderness.

This was a feast that was to be celebrated every year. If you look in 23rd of Exodus, it says this, verse 14 of Exodus 23, three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Three feasts to be kept annually.

Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. Thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days as I commanded thee in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it this month thou camest out from Egypt, and this is the day that is to be remembered, the beginning of months when life was never to be the same again.

That was the first feast. And the feast of harvest, verse 16, the first fruits of thy labors which thou hast sown in the field. And the feast of ingathering, that's the third which is in the end of the year when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field.

How much sowing did they do in the wilderness? None. How much ingathering did they do in the wilderness? None. How much harvest was there in the wilderness? None. So how could they keep those feasts in the wilderness?

They could, and didn't, because the wilderness was the altering of God's plan. They had no legitimate grounds for remembering the day in the wilderness. And how could they keep the feast of unleavened bread when there was no corn in the wilderness?

They could only keep it by using up what they brought with them out of Egypt. And if you don't enjoy the indwelling resurrection life of Jesus Christ to sustain you and to fill you and to satisfy you, that his life may flow out from your innermost being like rivers of living water, the only source of energy that you can tap as a Christian apart from Christ is what you bring with you out of Egypt, your own unregenerate condition, that is to say your flesh.

And so your activity will all be carnal activity. The sweat of fleshly effort instead of the unction of the Spirit of God. And I may be wrong, but I can find only one occasion upon which they kept the Passover in the wilderness, and that was in the second year when they still had just enough corn left over from Egypt.

Then it ran out. And then they didn't celebrate it for another 38 years because there was no corn except in Canaan. And your enthusiasm and the energy of the flesh may last you for a month or two or a year or two, and then there'll be no more celebration.

You'll just settle down to going round and round in the wilderness. Every now and again you get in a shot in the arm, you'll go a bit quicker. And when in the wilderness you go a bit quicker in circles, you get that much quicker back to where you start.

And that's what's been baffling some of you. Why it is that your Christian life has never gone on straight but gone round and round, and you're always finding yourself back where you start. What happened in the wilderness?

It should have changed what they did, it should have changed what they thought, it should have changed what they said. Interesting to see what happened. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 12. And don't think I'm talking about the children of Israel.

I'm just borrowing them tonight. I'm really talking about you. Verse 1 of Deuteronomy 12. These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land, that's Canaan, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it.

You haven't got to buy it. It's given to you. All the days that you live upon the earth. That's where you are to enjoy Canaan. All the days that you live upon the earth. Verse 7. There in the land that is given to you to enjoy all the days that you're on the earth, there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that you put your hand unto.

Ye and your households wherein the Lord thy God has blessed you. In the land that you are to enjoy all the days that you are on earth, in God's economy, you will eat before God to the full and you'll rejoice in everything you put your hand to do.

Your Christian life will be a sheer joy. You'll rejoice evermore. Christianity won't be a drudgery. To do this and to do that won't be a solemn, heavy, cumbersome duty. You'll do it gladly from a free heart because you want in the land.

Verse 8. Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day. Where? In the wilderness. What were they doing? Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. That's what they were doing in the wilderness.

Everybody was doing in the wilderness what was right in their own eyes. Everybody was his own little master. Everybody had his own peculiar concept of what he ought to be doing. No reference to God, no recognition of his totalitarian sovereignty, no relationship that released his jurisdiction.

Every man did what was right in his own eyes. It doesn't even say that every man did what was wrong in his own eyes. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. They all had their own personal subcommittee where they decided on God's behalf what they considered to be right in their own eyes.

And when you get six people all deciding what's right in their own eyes on the same committee, you need a nerve tonic. Now that's what they were doing in the wilderness. Every man that was right in his own eyes.

They claimed to have the jurisdiction of their own activities in complete repudiation of the basic truth, which is this, that man is man only by virtue of what God is in man, for it is God in man exercising his own divine prerogatives in total sovereignty that makes man man.

And the devil's basic lie is this, man is man by virtue of what man is not by virtue of what God is in man. Do what's right in your own eyes. You're adequate without God. You can be morally adult and morally mature without the need of being spiritually regenerate, spiritually alive, or spiritually submissive to the sovereignty of God.

Ye shall not do, after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes, for, verse nine, ye are not yet, as yet, come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth.

And that is not heaven. That is the land that God giveth to be enjoyed every day that you are upon the earth. But he says you haven't got there yet. You've not entered into that rest. For Hebrews four tells us that he that has entered into his rest has ceased from his own work.

A man who spiritually has entered into his rest on earth is one who has ceased doing what is right in his own eyes. He recognizes that there is only one person who has the right to do what is right in his eyes, and that's Jesus Christ.

Have you got there yet? Have you got to the place where you recognize gladly the totalitarian claims of Jesus Christ so that from this moment on you have absolutely no right to please yourself? Last night we saw in Romans 15 three that even Christ pleased not himself.

Because as perfect man he recognized the perfect right of the father always to decide at all times what he should do. I do only always those things that please me. I say if you haven't come to that place spiritually in your life you may profess to be converted but please don't rush around telling people because that's a day to be remembered in a land which you've never yet possessed.

And if you start giving your testimony and telling people how wonderful it is to be saved when everybody knows perfectly well that you're running your own life in your own way, egocentrically, satisfying and pleasing only yourself, they won't be the slightest bit impressed.

They'll tell you to go home and stop being childish. They'll tell you they've got better things in Egypt than you've got in the wilderness. Well that's what they were doing in the wilderness. I said what were they thinking in the wilderness?

For this was calculated to change the things they did, a sign upon their hand, and the things they thought, a memorial between the eyes. Well turn to Numbers again, 11th chapter. Numbers 11 and verse 4.

And the mixed multitude that was among them fell elastic and the children of Israel also wept again and said who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember. What do you remember with? Your thoughts, your imaginations.

That's what you remember with. What you remember is what you're thinking. As I reminded some of you the other night, while you're sitting here in church and your body is sitting nicely propped up between two well-clothed individuals on either side of you, in your imagination you can be miles away.

You just prop your house up and keep looking in the right direction. Everybody thinks you'll listen. But while you're looking at me are you remembering? Where are your thoughts? Well it tells us here where their thoughts were.

Here were people whom God by his own right hand miraculously beneath the sign of the shed blood of the unblemished lamb had redeemed them out of Egypt and it says we remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic.

We remember. That's where our thoughts are. They're way back in Egypt. Where are your thoughts? Where would you have liked to have been tonight if somebody hadn't dragged you here? Where are your thoughts?

Where's your imagination? Although they had been brought out of Egypt they were still living in Egypt in their thoughts. Some of you have been converted. God's redeemed you and your name's in the Lamb's book of life and you'll never perish or get to hell.

No, not now. Because God will never never go back on his faithfulness to his son who's redeemed you. You're his. You're purchased. He won't let you go. And yet in spite of the fact that you'll get to heaven you're living a way back in Egypt.

Still influenced by the enemy whom God buried to a man in the red sea. That was the tragedy of the children of Israel in the wilderness. They lived for 40 years under the subtle influences of an enemy whom God had buried.

They were in the wilderness and their hearts were in Egypt. We remember the fish. Fish in a hot climate. The cucumbers. 12 inches of indigestion. And the melons. 95 water and 5 pips. This is what they were thinking about.

This was the realm in which they were living and my dear Christian friend you laugh but that's just about as poverty stricken as you are. God had promised them milk and honey, golden corn, pomegranates, grapes, everything luscious to the full in Canaan.

These were the miserable things they were thinking about. Leeks, onions, garlic. Things that speak for themselves. Or you can always tell from a man's breath where he's been living even though he may profess to be converted.

Did you know the company he's been keeping? They said, now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes. Verse six. They were sick and tired of manna. Of course they were.

So would anybody be after 40 years of this? And they blamed God because life was dull and boring and restricted. Who ever told them to live for 40 years in the wilderness? Not God. And there are some of you who've never once allowed Jesus Christ to exercise his sovereignty in your life and you think the Christian life is a bit dull without going back into the world.

A bit restricted, a bit narrow without going back and doing the things that you used to do before you were on your way to hell. You blame God because you refuse to have what God redeemed you from. The fullness of God the Holy Spirit.

The overwhelming wealth of what Christ is in you. In all his sovereignty. Flowing out in untold blessing to your fellow men so that you may daily witness the miracle of bringing men out of darkness into light.

And you're playing the fool in the wilderness and wonder why you were never satisfied with your Christian life. That's what they were thinking about. You can always tell a church that's living in the wilderness.

You just watch the folk who go there. It won't take you long to detect where they're living, what company they're and the kind of activities they'll want. I say what were they saying? For redemption should change the things you do.

It should change the things you think and should change the things you say. Number 16. Verse 3. Maybe we'd better read the first two verses. Korah the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and on the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.

And they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. These were all the bigwigs in town. 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.

All the folk who had big, big, big, big bank balances. Chairman of the building committee, treasurer of this society and that. You always want to be careful who you pick for that. These were the big names, the big influences, the folk who could pull strings.

Oh, there's a curse on a church. Panders to the susceptibilities of human flesh. How many a church has been brought into bondage under the thumb of one man who pays the bills? Oh, there's a curse in a church like that.