God's Normal Order - Called to Be Priests — Devern Fromke

That in the midst of thy people there is a song welling up and there is a new day coming in which thou art really bringing forth a priesthood unto thyself, O how we thank thee. We praise thee this morning for bringing each sister, each brother together that we might just worship and we might sit before thee and claim that thou wilt teach, that thou wilt instruct.

Help yourself to us this morning, Lord. Take away any strangeness. Take away anything that would hinder the full flow of thy own revealing and we'll be sure to give thee the praise, the honor, and the glory.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. We were saying last evening in our first time with you that God is restoring to the church the real spirit of praise, the spirit of joy, rejoicing, of thanksgiving, of singing a song till everybody gets there and then we get into the message.

The Church as a Priestly People

It's hard for them to worship the Lord if the Lord has not really done a new thing in their hearts, to fill up the well and to bring them in to see that we are really called to be a priesthood under the Lord.

I've been quite impressed in recent months with the fact that God's way of selling things is so different from ours. I have some friends who are pharaohs, conscious, representatives of the business world and they tell me today that you can sell anything if you advertise it enough.

I'm about to believe it. Some of the stuff that's being produced today, it just really isn't worth production. But the amount of promotion and the amount of advertising, you see a thing, you hear about it enough, pretty soon when you push your cart down the supermarket, what do you do?

You just automatically reach for it. In case you hadn't realized that, watch yourself. Everything is promotion today. It's promotion. You know, God doesn't spend much time promoting. He puts all this energy and effort on the product.

How many of you realize, how many of you know that if the product is what it ought to be, you don't have to promote? Satisfied people do what? They talk, they promote. You know, it's interesting in our hard-fell approach of the gospel today, in our hard-fell approach of trying to get people interested, we've had to really promote.

I look back, I was speaking of our Youth for Christ days last night, and some of the advertising that we had to use, it was always stupendous, colossal, gigantic, enormous. It was always overselling. Then folk would get there, and they had the big letdown, the big letdown.

But the ways of the Lord are so different. He always puts on the pedestal, He always produces the product. And the product has its own peculiar way of selling. That's what He did with Israel. He called His people out and unto Himself.

They were to be a people, we read over in Exodus, we'd like to turn there for a moment, Exodus chapter 19, beginning to read with verse chapter 19, You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, how I bear you on eagles' wings and brought you unto Myself.

Now therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. We were saying last evening, and I feel the Lord would have us carry along a little further, that God's normal order of things, God's normal order has been so missed, it's been so misunderstood, we have come short so long in our mentality.

We highly fail to see what God's way and His normal order was. We've had all this declension that God would use a means by which to bring things back to His normal order. We said last evening, and I want to repeat it again, that when God brought this people out of Egypt and He brought them unto Himself, I believe He gives them something of the normal order of His expectation, a peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

The Peculiar Treasure of the Lord Within His People

And that which God works into and through His people will always have, excuse me if I go back to the softer chalk, it will always have some of these characteristics that will be evident. Any departure, declension, or defection from the normal order of things, God sometimes uses down here what we call some emergency means.

We've had so much declension, we've had mostly emergency. We can't get the emergency distinguished from His normal order of things. This is my burden in these hours with us, but somehow the Lord will help us to hold clearly what I believe is the normal order that He's after.

A people who are a treasure. Now you look at yourself and say, not much treasure in me, but I believe that the treasure is the Lord Himself in an earthen vessel. The earthen vessel, well, it isn't so much, but it's the treasure, the peculiar treasure.

It's the deposit, the increase of the Lord Himself in the lives of His people that become the treasure. And, of course, that makes them different. I don't believe in being peculiar for peculiarity's sake, you don't really have to try.

Just praise the Lord, just walk with the Lord, and you'll be different enough without having to take on any eccentricities. It's a wonderful thing when you can get distinguished your natural eccentricities from that which God has wrought of divine treasure.

We see far more vessel, far more of the earthen vessel than we need to. It's the treasure, the increase of the Lord Himself that is sufficient to make us different from the rest. So the first mark, then, we say is that of being a peculiar treasure because of the increasing measure of the Lord Himself, the jewel that He works out in our life by the Spirit.

The Kingdom of Priests and the Order of the Spirit

The next thing that we notice was a kingdom of priests. And this priesthood, those who know the life of the altar, as we were saying last night, the life of the altar and giving unto the Lord the spiritual sacrifices, it's a blessed thing.

I don't know how high we will get these days, but I'd like to emphasize that it's not just a priesthood, it's a kingdom of priests. And where I get the picture of a kingdom, I get that which has the orderly arrangement of priesthood.

By the orderly arrangement I mean the priests have learned their function. They have learned their order in relatedness. And I believe, beloved, that an hour is coming when our hearts will delight to see men coming into the order, the order of priesthood, a delightful thing.

I can't go into it any more than just to say that we are a kingdom of priests and there is the loveliness of His order. When the Holy Spirit takes the baton to direct the choir, He brings the crescendo and the minuendo, the legato, the staccato, all of this because He has produced a kingdom and there you have the government of the Spirit producing the order of priesthood, giving the sacrifice, the praise and all that it represents.

So this is a part of the normal order that God will bring in. He's bringing it. And then finally He says a holy nation. I cannot get away from the fact that the order of things when God is really, really in it is that there's a holiness of life.

We've all reacted in past days. I grew up in holiness churches. It was so legal. It was so outward. I thank God that there's been some imprints that have been left indelibly. That is that God is a holy God and He wants a people, not in the stiff, rigid, legal sort of a way, but a people who know the Lord Himself as their holiness, their righteousness.

This will be a mark. And I thank God that I see this beginning to take place because wherever the Holy Spirit is working to bring us into the normal order, God is doing. As we said last night, we'll repeat for someone who may not have been here.

Whenever things fall below this, God has to use some emergency measures to bring man back. We were saying that the normal, the life of the church is that of bringing forth praise. And I believe that in this kind of life, you see three things that are very operative.

Openness, Fellowship, and Divine Teaching

You see an openness and an honesty before the Lord continually. You see a people who know a fellowship with Him, real fellowship, real participation with them in the Lord, in their rejoicing and in their praise.

And in turn, you see that God gives them a knowing, a teaching. He instructs them in His ways because this is the function in our spirit. What are the three functions in our spirit? Conscience, which really represents an open way to the Lord.

Man in his beginning, as he was fellowshipping in the garden with God, there was a doorway. Not a door, but a doorway, an openness. He talked and he fellowshiped with God in the very beginning. And it was only when sin came that consciousness or conscience came to work.

And so the blood has always been applied where? At the doorpost, the lintel, to make access, to produce openness again, having therefore boiled us to enter in by the what? The blood of Jesus. A cleansed conscience who is producing once again a people who know entrance, openness, back into the very presence of the Lord.

We're not so conscious of a conscience as we are conscious of the Holy Spirit producing an openness. That's the first, it's the leading part of our spirit, taking us back in. Then in our spirit we have fellowship, the capacity to worship, the fellowship.

God is spirit and our spirit joins His spirit in fellowship, you see, worship. And out of this, God takes the initiative to lead, to instruct, to bring His people into divine seeing. So in the order back there, if it was in its proper way, the priesthood and the teaching, the divine way in which God would share.

If we get into some of the real pipes in the sanctuary, it comes out. But I don't want us to spend our time there this morning. Simply to say, now look, this is the normal order. Some came last night afterwards and said, my, I guess I don't know how I'd get along without preaching in a meeting.

Or the prophethood, so to speak. Well, the prophethood is the call back to the normal order. God brings a people into life in the spirit, openness, honesty, fellowshiping with Him, giving to the Lord, ministering unto Him.

Ministering to the Lord Before Receiving Ministry

The church at Antioch, it says, as they ministered unto the Lord, the Holy Spirit said, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work wherein I have called them. Our primary function, the normal order, is a ministering to the Lord.

And who does the ministering to thee? The Lord Himself has a ministry to the people. We've had so many folk coming into our fellowships and the church life in Indianapolis the last few weeks, and it's poor.

But I guess it's a little better than the average. And one of the things that's been rather interesting to hear the testimony, we had a young fellow from seminary who came down for the weekend. I've known Butch for 10, 12 years, I guess, watched him grow up.

And not much was said, he just fellowshiped. But when he sat in the morning service, as we gathered in remembrance around the Lord's table, there was a real spirit of praise, real thanksgiving, real openness.

I didn't think it was anything special, but the Lord was surely honored and glorified. It is a free flow. But for about an hour, we just sat and sang, gave praise, thanksgiving and worship to the Lord.

And then followed that our ministry. Just at the close, when we were ready to go and he was getting in his car to go back, he got up and he said, well, I've been in lots of communion services before, but never something living like this.

And he said, I came to be preached at, that I have found the Lord's way of ministering to my heart. Tears coursing, he said, thank you. I've seen something new. God's way is a way of what? The church ministering.

Well, I didn't say very much. It was kind of restrained. He was with us then for a little while that afternoon, and he went on home. And I got a letter from him a couple days ago. Would you mind if I, I don't think I can stay in seminary anymore.

It's one of the better seminaries, if there is such a thing. I'm sorry. But he wrote back and he said, I just can't fit into homiletics and the old order of things. I think God's calling me to the life of the church.

Can I come and get a job and help support and work and do whatever? Well, this is happening all the time. God is working. How'd I get off on that? Well, anyway, we so long lived below par. You know, it's possible to study abnormal psychology so long you don't know what's normal.

I really, I really got perplexed with some of this educational stuff. I met so many people who know what's abnormal. They don't know what's normal. Do any of us? What's the old order of things? Genocide is to see.

And all the Lord's ways now of really meeting man's awful declension to bring us back. So don't be surprised when you get into meetings where there is God depositing a fuller measure of himself into the lives of his people through the daily crucibles.

And he begins to bring about a people who are more alive to praise and worship. The best meeting of the week is the meeting in which we gather to remember and to lift up and exalt the Lord. But there's an order in it that God is producing.

And then finally, a true holiness of life. He's after this. So when I look at what the Lord was after here in calling this people out, then you get some glimpse of how they missed it. But before we see how they missed it, I'd like to just take you through one little picture of what I'd call normality.

Jehoshaphat, Praise, and Trust in the Battle

Turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. You will know this, know immediately the story, don't you? 2 Chronicles chapter 20. King Jehoshaphat was one of the better kings. He was able to restore the order of worship to Jerusalem.

And he was bringing the people back to the restoring of the Lord and walking more with a perfect heart. And you get a little bit better picture of the moral order of God's way in the reign of Jehoshaphat.

And just as surely, ah listen, just as surely as a people reach anything of divine normal order, you can count on the enemy to make attack. He is to hinder, he's going to thwart. He will move in to hinder.

He cannot stand the praises. The old song we used to sing says, hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praise. You go around with a moaning, poor me, groaning spirit, there's no quivering in hell at that.

It's when God's people come to life and praise. And the enemy makes his attack upon a people who are fulfilling something of divine normal. All right, let's see. Chapter 20. Came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with their mother beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

They're making the charge. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat saying, they come with a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, on this side Syria. And behold, they be in Ezra and Tamar, which is in and dirty.

Jehoshaphat feared that it's irreverent and set himself to seek the Lord. And proclaimed to fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.

And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah in Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And willest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen?

And in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever?

And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein, for thy name's sake. If for evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in affliction, then thou wilt hear and help.

And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou didst not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them not. Behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy position, which thou hast given us to inherit.".

He's fulfilling the remembrance of the Lord. Lord, we're your people. We're identified with you. You've given the land. We're your possession. This is your possession. Reminding the Lord all of this. And then he said this while, O our God, wilt thou not judge them?

For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do. And our eyes are upon the awful multitude who are about to swallow us up, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the children of Seir.

What? Is that the way it reads? No. Our eyes are upon. They looked unto him, and their faces were lightened. Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee, is the normal order. And all of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children, because they were ministering to the Lord.

And here is the seeking of the Lord, and here is the giving to him. In an hour of crisis, the enemy is making an attack. I think we do well to remember now that the Lord has won the battle, and the simple word for us, first of all, is as we believe, God begins to work.

As we believe. I like to just say it's our first foundation here. As we believe, God begins to work. The next principle, don't we believe, God begins to work mightily. But sometimes at this first point, where in believing, we get weak, begin to turn our eyes again to the multitude, or to the challenge.

But it's the standing, just a little longer. Not that we have to win, but that the Lord who has won is saying, just stand. We were reading this morning in Devotion to the Table, the thought for today, this is not a marching order to go out and invade.

The word means stand. Just take what has already been yours. The privilege. We're such fighters. We're so quick to pick up and assume that something really depends on us. And the peculiar, delightful way the Lord is to just bring us into a dependence in his way.

Well, you'll see as we go along now. Verse 14. Now, because we've been ministering unto the Lord, the Lord is going to teach them what needs to be done. Then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Denariah, the son of Jeorah, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation.

And we seek the Lord just for him and reminding him, then the Lord begins to speak. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon this young man, Jehaziel. And he said, how can ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and our king Jehoshaphat, thus say the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the body is not yours, but God's.

Tenaro, go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz, and ye shall find them at the end of the brick before the wilderness of Jerusalem. And ye shall not need to fight in this battle.

Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed. Tenaro, go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. Here is the Lord giving the insight.

Now, I want you to see a good minister. He says, this is where they are coming. Go out by the cliff. And you see this high cliff that looks down, and they're going to sneak up through this passageway.

I hope you get the picture now. Because as they go out there, he has just given them one step at a time. That's the hardest thing for us. Go out by the cliff of Ziz. But what am I going to do when I get out there?

What next? That's not your problem. As we believe, God begins to work. As we stand for what he has said, he begins to work by the way. Good Lord, I can only speak to one brother the last few weeks with us at the farm.

And he's been emphasizing over and over again how the Lord shines his light on one footstone. He says, take a step. Then there may be darkness between, and he shines the light on the next one. You take the next step.

Not the whole path, as he orders it. So here they are. The word has come. Go out by the cliff of Ziz. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord.

They should have been preparing for battle, shouldn't they? Should have been devising means to win. Foolishness. They're called to what? To kill your people. Worshipping the Lord when they ought to be doing something else.

In the eyes of the people. You see? See the foolishness of man's reasoning? And the Levites, and the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. They rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa.

And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, hear me, oh Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall you prosper.

And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord. And it should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army and to say, praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Now I want you to see what this means. The day before, he said, go out by the cliff of Ziz, because they're going to be sneaking up through that passage. They get out there, they're praying, they're worshipping the Lord.

The king gets another word. He forms a choir. Wouldn't you like to be in this choir? I want you to see really. I sort of picture in my own mind that there are the people all back here. Maybe they were moving like a phalanx, somewhat prepared.

You know, phalanx was the sharp point of the enemy. I mean the sharp, the best men out at the very point. They're right in the very front of everything. In full exposure at the cliff, the choir. No arms, no guns, no swords.

What are they doing? The foolishness of God is wiser than men. Man in his wisdom thinks he knows how. But even the foolishness, the foolish things that God does are wiser than man's greatest wisdom. How many volunteers for this choir?

And did you notice what they're doing now? As it says, as they go out, the beauty of holiness. God is a holy God. And when he works in the midst of his people, he will always produce a holiness, a righteousness.

Praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever. Verse 22. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah.

I can just hear them down hidden in the valley, looking up at that peculiar thing up there. And I can hear one of the commanders say, careful now, these people always trick you. This is just a trick. And so the Moabites began to argue with the Ammonites.

And the scripture says they flew one another in the midst of all their, they devoured, they flew one another. And all these peculiar people, the treasure the Lord did was what? Stand singing, worshiping, praising, announcing the Lord and his goodness.

Worshiping God for Who He Is

Where is the Bible? Do you not see, beloved, that the real Bible is up here? There are two songs that are at war. The son of God is being challenged by the enemy. You see it all the way through the scripture.

The throne of God is being challenged. And we were just sort of, I don't like to say puppets, but we just sat down here. And when God can bring a people, when God can get a people who will look to him, be alive to him.

To do, he's just one little simple thing. The enemy said it not. And the real issue is this. He challenged God about Job. Remember what he said? Ah, does Job serve God for naught? The final word of Job says he'll, if you bless him like you bless Job, God removes the hedge.

And he allows all of the possessions of Job to be taken away. But Job remains his integrity. The enemy comes back again and says, well, maybe things don't mean so much. But look, he's still strong and healthy.

He's got good physical. And he removes another hedge. He can't take his life. But Job goes into the crucible in which there is some physical suffering, terrible boils, the smell and the stench. He's out of the edge of the city, scraping the pot with a piece of pocket.

And what's the battle that's going on up here? Can God get someone to love him, praise him, serve him, worship him without being bribed? That's the issue. Does God bribe people? Is it pie in the sky? Is it all he offers?

Is he worthy enough himself? Is it just what he gives and what he does for us that causes us to praise and worship him? Do you see the battle? When circumstances are nice, everything is going good, we give a sacrifice, praise, thanksgiving.

Thank you, Lord, for all you've done. Thank you, Lord, for us. But God, I believe, is able to stop the mouth of all of the enemy. He's able in the challenge to say, all I really need to do is to give them a glimpse of myself.

That what I do, they can find within in knowing the Lord. You see, it's all wrapped up in knowing the Lord. Knowing him and his worthiness. And I believe when the final choir sings, as we do in Revelation, the psalm will be, he is worthy.

Utterly worthy. This is worship. He is worthy. Of course, he's done all of this, and we sing and we give thanks because of what he's done. But oh, we come to see who he is, and we love him because of who he is.

We praise, we worship, we adore. This is the worthiness of the Lord that gives. And so, in that arena, when Job is, so to speak, put in the test, it's then that the real warfare, the real battle is up here.

And the same battle exists today. Can God get a people, can God get a people who will learn to hear, listen, put away their arms, as it were, and take up the real issue, and it is the acknowledging that he is Lord.

He is the head of this kingdom. It's all in order, and we are praising. And I believe in just that moment, he set up ambushments, and the struggle and the quarrel that went on between them, and they killed one another.

Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Now, beloved, this is not getting a hold of a little technique. It's not getting a hold of a method. This is my concern.

I'll tone this. We're so technique, we're so method conscious, and we read, and then we read the testimony of someone else who praised his way through. Maybe we've all been through the techniques and the methods.

God's way is working from the inside out. The sacrifice of God is a what? Starts inward, like broken heart, a broken and a contrite spirit. Anytime I just try to mouse the technique, you know what I mean by that, don't you?

The technique. We've all been locked up. We've all tried different ways of prayer. Adam was placed as the first ruling king, the first one for whom God was going to accomplish something. Now, there'd been a revolt in the heavenly.

One of those that he had created had already revolted. I can't go into all the story, but in this room, because we have an openness and an honesty and a fellowship with himself. So this way of a people who move in the divine order, the normal order that God is after, it has another mind to it all the way through.

Here they were, shut up to the Lord, looking unto him, not the multitude. And the word the Lord gave me some years ago was this. We want to always be delivered through understanding. Lord, if I knew what you were going to do when I got out by the cliff, I could see the next step.

But he seemed to say to me, we are delivered into dependence. Delivered into dependence. Cut loose, utterly, utterly cut loose from our knowing how. What's going to happen when we get out there? It's not your worry.

Just depend on me. It's the way of continuing dependence upon the Lord. And you see, what we always do is to develop the mark of getting away from the order of God, the normal order thing, is to develop all our capabilities, all our methods, just in case God fails.

We come to a situation where, and it's the danger of all the books, of all the things that we know. Because what we experienced last time was a wonderful victory. So I try to use it the next time. Children of Israel have to learn this continually.

They were delivered into dependence. Oh, if I could just get an experience at the altar, that would really fix me up. I could just once and for all. But I'm really the dependency of the flesh. If I could just arrive at that something, whatever it is, I could be independent.

I wouldn't need to really be cast totally helplessly, rest upon God all the time. The power of whatever it is. Now we won't minimize whatever experience has reality in it. Thank God that if it doesn't deliver you into dependence, it comes short.

Delivering it into dependence upon him. Good. Well, we don't need to go on here anymore than just to simply say that as we believe God works, as we stand for what we believe, God works mightily. As we, I think we read it down here a bit further, as we praise, it says, God sets up ambitions and they're all hidden to our natural eye.

And then finally, as we rejoice to be with the Lord. And while he's away, Aaron and the people begin to murmur and they begin to complain. They look around at their circumstances. Where is this man, Moses, who's brought us out?

Where is he? Moses is inquiring, waiting before the Lord. And while they are, while he's away, they're complaining, they come to Aaron. You can always find someone who'll be sympathetic with your heart.

The Golden Calf and Israel's Departure from God's Order

Sometimes even someone in the service of the Lord. And Aaron goes off and he allows them to build a golden calf. Imagine a people who had come out of Egypt with such miraculous power demonstrated. Across the Red Sea, the enemy had been swallowed up.

Not many days after now, they're camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Here, with Moses away, they plead, make us gods who shall go before us. For we know not what has become of this man, Moses, that brought us out.

They thought it was Moses. They'd forgotten. And so Aaron told them to bring all the golden earrings and they make a golden calf. And then they start to worship. They have their feast around them, dancing, drinking, playing, nakedness, all that goes with it.

While Moses is away, God speaks to him and reminds him what he sees, what the people have been doing. And he goes down into their midst. Now, I want us to get another little glimpse of something that takes place.

When a people have come short, the people that should have been the priesthood people, who should have fulfilled the thing that God was wanting in the line of his purpose. One of the things that God uses as a means to bring his people back in line is this we call intercession.

The spirit of intercession begins to manifest itself. There will be prayer, praise, thanksgiving, worship. But it says God looks for a man to stand in the breach. He looks for someone by which he can bring man back when his people have missed.

And I believe we do well to expect that the spirit of travail and intercession will be the means by which God will burden and exercise hearts in order that they can be brought back once again, lifted to the normal order thing.

Just as surely as his people miss, there has to be the spirit of travail, intercession. Here is Moses. We pick it up with verse 7. They're called to be a kingdom. They're not just professing like a big tree that's become abnormal and missed it, you see.

And this brings us then to see that what God is doing today, back where we were this morning, God, now up in the mount, it says, and the Lord said unto Moses, Go get thee down for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. And they have made a molten calf and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed their unto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

The Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them. And I will make of thee a great nation.

I believe Moses is on the spot in this moment. Does Moses have a heart for the purpose of God, or does he have a private ambition? Not one of us will ever get by the testing someplace down the road. Are we really, are we really concerned for what the Lord is after?