Show Notes
Exodus 25:8,9
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Our glorious God in heaven.
[00:00:05] What marvelous things. Your word speaks about us, your church.
[00:00:12] We have just read that we are the church which you have purchased with your blood.
[00:00:23] We know from that many things.
[00:00:28] We know that we therefore belong to you, that we are yours.
[00:00:36] We know the great depth of your love.
[00:00:41] For the purchase price with which you made us your own was the blood of your dear son.
[00:00:49] And so we know not only how greatly you love us and that we are yours, but we know that if you have given us your son, you have given us yourself, so that you are ours, O Lord our God. The glorious truths of the gospel are those of your solemn bonds of love in the covenant of grace.
[00:01:17] We ask, O God, tonight, that in every area of our hearts and lives where we have need, and they are many, we ask that by your grace you would apply to us the balm, the healing, the strength, the correction, all that we need.
[00:01:38] We ask that you would mind up and heal our wounds, that you would quiet our hearts which are anxious before you, that you would help us to know that we are loved, forgiven, washed clean, and yours.
[00:01:52] And we ask, O God, therefore, that by your word we might receive through faith the Lord Jesus and all the blessings of the covenant of grace in him. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:02:06] We'll read God's word now From Exodus, chapter 25.
[00:02:13] Exodus 25. We'll read verses.
[00:02:17] I think it's 8 and 9.
[00:02:30] Yes, Exodus 25.
[00:02:32] Eight, nine will be our sermon text this evening.
[00:02:39] Hear God's word and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.
[00:02:49] Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture.
[00:02:56] So you shall make it. Please be seated.
[00:03:07] Perhaps you have been on a trip for a week or two.
[00:03:15] Maybe it's just been a really long day at work. Either way, your thoughts wander to home.
[00:03:22] What do you think about when you think about home?
[00:03:25] When you finally get there and you walk into your home, how do you feel?
[00:03:33] Maybe you feel safe.
[00:03:36] It's your little refuge from the world. It's the place where you've made everything just right.
[00:03:43] Every room is arranged just the way you need it for you and your family, right? Maybe you feel safe. Maybe you feel really comfortable there. I hope you do.
[00:03:54] Maybe it feels like a warm place for you.
[00:03:59] Place where you nurture your children.
[00:04:03] They grow in safety. And the feeling of being loved and cared for. These are the kind of things, there's probably other things that you think about or feel when you walk into your home after being Gone for a while.
[00:04:17] But that's what our home is. It isn't just a house with walls and a roof, right?
[00:04:23] Shelter us from the elements, which we surely need here in the desert.
[00:04:28] But there's more to our home, isn't it? Because it's those things, because it's warm, because it's safe, because it's our intimate place that's just for us.
[00:04:40] It's a place where we invite our friends or our family members, right? We bring them in to our living room or to our dining room, and we share our intimate space with them.
[00:04:55] And when we share that space, of course, our relationships get deeper, don't they? Hopefully, if all is well, right, that's where we get to spend time with each other, share food, rejoice over each other's joys, comfort each other when you're going through trials. All of these are the kinds of things that happen in your home.
[00:05:16] In our story sermon text this evening, we find that God asks his people, commands his people to build for him a dwelling place, in other words, a home.
[00:05:31] God tells his people to build him a home so that he can come and live with them.
[00:05:38] We want to look together at God's dwelling place under three heads. First, we'll look at how this tabernacle, this dwelling place is God's home.
[00:05:48] It's a homey place.
[00:05:50] Secondly, we'll look at how it's a tent, it's a tabernacle, so his dwelling place is a home, it's also a tent or a tabernacle. Thirdly, we'll look at how, as God takes up residence in this tabernacle, God's people dwell with him. So first, his home, secondly, his tabernacle. And thirdly, dwelling with God in his dwelling place.
[00:06:15] Firstly, God's home, home is comfortable. It's warm, it's cozy, it's inviting.
[00:06:24] When you enter this tabernacle that God commanded his people to build for him, I'm assuming a little bit of knowledge on your part that maybe you've heard about the tabernacle before here. But as you enter this tent, there was a curtain. You peeled back the curtain and you walked into the tent. Of course, only the priests could do this, and the high priest. But when the priests went in as representatives of God's people, as they entered, there was a way in which the people were entering with them. You might say they representing the people. As the priests enter into God's tabernacle and they looked around, they would see furniture. Did you notice that God told them to build the Tabernacle and all its furniture, that's like a home.
[00:07:15] They would walk into the tabernacle and yeah, there was furniture in God's home, a table.
[00:07:23] And on that table would be placed loaves of bread.
[00:07:29] God setting a table for his guests beside that table, on the opposite side was another piece of furniture, a lamp stand with seven lamps on it, casting a warm, inviting glow around the tent. But especially on that table, the loaves that were opposite all of this in a warm, inviting environment. Blue curtains. And we'll read more about all of it later.
[00:08:06] And in the middle, in between them, in front of the holy of Holies, where there was another curtain, another veil, in front of that was an altar of incense. And on that altar would be burning a sweet smelling aroma. How many of you make sure that your house smells nice so that when you come home, you enjoy being there?
[00:08:30] Yes.
[00:08:31] God set his tabernacle, his dwelling place up like a home, a home into which the priests would come.
[00:08:41] Now, further past, almost, you might think this is sort of an outer, like a living and dining area. You might think further into the tabernacle, past the second veil was God's inner sanctum. Now, what's your inner sanctum?
[00:08:58] What's your most private place? It's your bedroom, right? God doesn't have a bedroom. He doesn't need a bedroom. But if it helps you think of it, a place that you don't even usually let your guests come into, right? This is a very special place just for you, your spouse, or you and your children to come. Your bedroom, a very private place. Right here is God's inner sanctum, his throne room, where his glory presence rests upon the box. It's just a box. We call it an ark, but it's a box with a lid on it that acted as his throne.
[00:09:35] There was his special glory presence.
[00:09:40] This is his dwelling place, like a home, homey, even inviting and welcoming to those who are permitted to enter.
[00:09:52] In the tabernacle, God gives his people a grand revelation. This is something really new. If you start reading in Genesis and you make your way all the way through Exodus and you hit this tabernacle, you hit something mind blowingly new.
[00:10:13] Here God shows Moses the pattern on the mountain. You read that there exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all its furniture, so you shall make it what God shows Moses on the mountain that then Moses and the Israelites are to make a copy of the tabernacle, is the copy. What he shows Moses on the mountain is the pattern which is another way of saying that God shows Moses the original.
[00:10:49] Here's the copy. But what Moses gets to see a glimpse of is the original. You see if the tabernacle is the copy, God's dwelling place, his home filled with his furniture, inviting and welcoming his people.
[00:11:08] What God shows Moses on the mountain is his actual home, his eternal dwelling place.
[00:11:18] And this is huge.
[00:11:20] You see, the last wonderful, marvelous revelation of sort of God and his Where God is and where God would one day invite people to be with him was way back in the garden.
[00:11:33] And the garden was marvelous. It was a place teeming with life, full of life. Everything was alive. And everything that was alive was alive because of the water, the river that flowed through the garden, giving life and watering everything.
[00:11:51] And we saw a couple months ago now, but we saw how God was giving Adam and us a picture of what God's eternal presence is like. God is the source of all life and goodness and blessing, and the garden was a picture of that.
[00:12:12] And in the tree of life, God held forth to Adam that if Adam should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, would eat from the tree of life. God would give him eternal life to be with God in the presence of the one who's alive, and a fountain of goodness to be there forever.
[00:12:32] Now, God in the tabernacle adds something to that.
[00:12:36] My eternal dwelling place is an open, welcome, inviting home, a home prepared for my people that they might dwell with me and me with them forever.
[00:12:56] So God says in Isaiah 66:1, Heaven is my throne.
[00:13:01] Where is the house that you would build for me here on earth?
[00:13:07] I don't live in a house here on earth. I live in heaven, where my throne is.
[00:13:14] Now, God is everywhere. We know this, right? There's no limit. He's infinite. God is everywhere.
[00:13:21] But in his creation, he shields us from his glory presence. His special glory presence is in heaven, where he has his heavenly, eternal home.
[00:13:35] And here he's revealing to Israel and then to us that there's a home that one day he will welcome mankind into.
[00:13:46] Now, as he has them build this tabernacle, it's not just that he's revealing that he has a home, but something we've already been hinting at is that God would make his home with his people.
[00:14:01] This copy, this copy or tabernacle was a sign that God would keep his covenant promises. We looked at God's covenant promises that he made to Israel when He was bringing them out of Egypt. He was going to save them out of slavery, right out of Bondage in Egypt, the picture being saved out of bondage to sin. And then God was going to give Himself to His people. He would be theirs and they would be His. A promise of mutual possession.
[00:14:32] He would be their God, they would be his people. This tabernacle was a sign of that second promise. He would be with them, he would dwell among them, and they would live with Him.
[00:14:45] You could think of it in the language of the prophet Isaiah.
[00:14:49] This is an Emmanuel sign. The tabernacle is Emmanuel, God with us?
[00:14:59] So the tabernacle is God's home, or a picture of God's eternal home. It pointed Israel to the fact that God would actually dwell with them. They lived in tents. He would live among them in his tent. His presence truly would be with them.
[00:15:17] But we read here that the tabernacle is something more.
[00:15:20] Verse 8 says, Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.
[00:15:27] God's home. This tent would also be a sanctuary.
[00:15:32] It's a place where God would meet with his people. Now, this kind of flows out of everything we've been saying.
[00:15:37] God is going to invite and welcome his people through their representatives, the priests, into his home.
[00:15:46] He is welcoming them into his living room, you might say, every day to come in as they offered the sacrifices, as they burned the incense to represent presenting the prayers of God's people before God's throne.
[00:16:01] God was welcoming them every day into his presence, receiving the priests and therefore receiving the people. And of course, once a year, he invited one representative, the high priest, all the way in to. To the Holy of Holies, all the way into his inner sanctum, to be received and to behold God's glory, presence there over his throne, the ark.
[00:16:28] God is saying then, as he has them build this tabernacle and to come and to meet with him and to worship him in this tabernacle. He is saying to his people, you were exiled from my presence when I threw Adam out of the garden, but now I brought you back near to me.
[00:16:50] You're forgiven.
[00:16:52] You're mine.
[00:16:53] My dear ones, come into my home and have fellowship with me.
[00:17:01] So the tabernacle, God's dwelling place, is his home. But secondly, the tabernacle, God's tabernacle, his dwelling place is also a tent.
[00:17:11] It's a tent.
[00:17:14] To enter this tent, what was required?
[00:17:19] Do you remember?
[00:17:21] We'll get to it in future messages.
[00:17:25] To enter this tent required blood.
[00:17:30] It required blood every day, lots of blood. Gallons upon gallons of blood every day, morning and evening, and then on the Sabbath, even more animals. And then on festivals, even more animals had to be killed. Their blood drained and sprinkled before the altar, poured and splashed all over the place.
[00:17:53] And then the bodies of those dead animals cut up, arranged on the altar, and then burned morning and evening, day and night. And that fire consuming those animals, offering them up before God, that fire could never go out.
[00:18:11] The priests had to get up in the middle of the night, put more wood on the fire, so that that fire offering up the atoning sacrifices would never go out.
[00:18:23] To enter God's tent required a continual round the clock, never ending atonement.
[00:18:34] It taught God's people that in order to be God's friends and to be welcomed into his presence, a continual atonement was required because they were a continually sinful people.
[00:18:50] But we're taught that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. You find this in Hebrews chapter 9 and chapter 10. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. And the logic goes this way. If you go read Hebrews 9 and 10.
[00:19:11] If the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin, then one animal killed and its bloodshed would be enough.
[00:19:20] That would have done it and atonement would have been made.
[00:19:24] But the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.
[00:19:29] What did they do?
[00:19:32] All they cleansed was not ultimately really the people they cleansed in a way, ceremonially they cleansed a tent.
[00:19:43] This was, after all, a tent, a picture copy of God's home in heaven.
[00:19:50] But it was ultimately just a copy, a tent here on earth.
[00:19:55] All that the blood of bulls and goats allowed men like the priests to do and God's people to do through them, was to enter into a kopi, a tent here on earth.
[00:20:08] But an important lesson was learned by God's people.
[00:20:12] The way into God's heavenly home must be through atoning blood.
[00:20:21] The way to live with God forever is through the blood of a substitute.
[00:20:28] But this tent, as wonderful as it was, as a wonderful promise and sign of God's covenant presence with his people that he would receive them, it was still just a tent.
[00:20:42] Acts 7:48. However, the most high does not dwell in temples made with hands.
[00:20:50] It was a sign, it was a picture. But at the end of the day it was just a tent. And the blood of the animals was just the blood of animals, but it was a tent, as the Israelites were in tents.
[00:21:09] So God said, I will come and dwell in a tent, God says, as he comes and dwells in the tent that they built for him. And when they stood it up, God's glory presence filled the tent, and his glory presence remained for some time in the holy of holies.
[00:21:30] God said he was showing his people as he came and dwelt among them in a tent.
[00:21:37] He said, as you are tent dwellers, so I must become a tent dweller. As you are, so I must become, so that I may dwell with you and you with me.
[00:21:51] If God is going to dwell with man and man is going to dwell with God, God must become like man.
[00:22:01] The tent was a picture of God's heavenly home. But the tent was taught Israel that God would become like us so that we could live with him.
[00:22:15] So to show you that I will become like you, God says, I will come down and dwell in a tent.
[00:22:22] What's going on here?
[00:22:25] God is coming down.
[00:22:28] It's a condescension. It's a. It's a coming down of God to be with his people, to save his people.
[00:22:38] In the New Testament, we call this the incarnation.
[00:22:44] So the tabernacle was not just a mere tent teaching us about the atoning blood of a substitute one day that would make the way for us to go into the heavenly realm.
[00:22:56] The tabernacle taught the condescension of God, his coming down, the Word, becoming flesh and dwelling among us. John 1:14.
[00:23:09] The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. John says that's a reference to Jesus, the Son of God, when he came and took on human flesh and blood.
[00:23:23] But literally there, if we were to translate the word dwelt, it's that he came, became flesh, and he spread his tent among us.
[00:23:36] The word dwell is that he spread his tent.
[00:23:40] He came and tabernacled among us.
[00:23:45] How?
[00:23:47] By taking on a body, our flesh and blood, he came to live with us. And so you remember in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus is born, they called him Emmanuel, God with us.
[00:24:05] God's first tabernacle was a sign, saying, I will one day become like you.
[00:24:11] I will come and live among you.
[00:24:15] It was a sign. It was mysterious.
[00:24:17] But now we know the true tabernacle. The one who truly spread his tent among us was Jesus, the Son of God.
[00:24:28] Emmanuel.
[00:24:30] The tent was a tent. The tent was a condescension.
[00:24:34] The tent is also a sanctuary.
[00:24:39] The tent is a meeting place between God and man. The glory cloud of God came and hovered above the ark, so that God's people, through the high priest, might come and meet with God and see experience something of his glory.
[00:24:56] But John tells us that when the Word became flesh, when the Son of God came and took our human nature. And tabernacled among us, we beheld his glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[00:25:12] That is to say that when Jesus came in his human nature and went around preaching the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, calling men to faith in himself, men beheld the glory of God in Jesus, and especially through the preaching of the gospel.
[00:25:30] And so Jesus says later in the Gospel of John, John 14, he says, if you know me, you know my Father. If you've seen me, you've seen my Father. In other words, if you've met Jesus and come to know him and believe in him, then Jesus is your sanctuary, your tabernacle. For in Jesus you have come to meet, to commune with the triune God.
[00:26:03] The tabernacle then was not just a picture of God's eternal home, but it was also a promise that God would send His Son to make a way through the atoning blood of the cross, so that you might coming to know Jesus, you might come to meet the Father and enter one day his eternal home.
[00:26:27] The way into the glory presence of the holy of holies was open one day a year when on the day of atonement, the high priest entered in to sprinkle blood before the presence of God.
[00:26:42] But if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you know the one who has passed through the heavens into the holy of holies, as we read in the call to worship you, he is there before the throne of God. And if you know Jesus and you're united to him by faith, then you're there too.
[00:27:00] Anytime you turn to Christ in faith, anytime you offer prayers, anytime you gather with his people, you are entering the holy of Holies and meeting with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
[00:27:16] The tabernacle is a tent, but it's really about Jesus.
[00:27:23] The tabernacle was God's home, a picture of God's home. It was a picture of Jesus for us.
[00:27:32] We turn to living with God. If God comes to live with us, do we dwell and live with Him?
[00:27:39] Would you like to live with God?
[00:27:43] That's what God made you for. That's what he made mankind for.
[00:27:47] So that we would know him, love him, be with him, be his friends, worship him. That's why we're made in God's image and all the other animals aren't. That's why we have words and can speak and think and communicate rationally so that we can worship God and speak to him and hear his voice and and know Him.
[00:28:11] But our sin cast us out of his presence.
[00:28:14] When Adam sinned, everybody, not just Adam, but all mankind, was exiled from God's presence.
[00:28:23] But God has made a way back into his presence through the true tabernacle, through the blood of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that sinners who come near to him and who trust in him have a new and living way through forgiveness in Christ. You can now enter God's presence and live with him again here on earth. And one day, that place that the tabernacle pictured can be your true and eternal home.
[00:28:54] Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life.
[00:28:58] No one comes to the Father but through Me.
[00:29:03] He says, come to Me.
[00:29:05] Are you weary and heavy laden with sin? Jesus says, come to me, and I will take that burden away. And I will take you by the hand, and I will lead you to my Father, and you can be with him and with me forever.
[00:29:20] Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to Me.
[00:29:25] And the one who comes to me will. I will by no means cast out. So turn to Jesus. Trust in Him.
[00:29:33] Receive Him.
[00:29:34] Then he will be yours and you will be his.
[00:29:40] Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?
[00:29:46] Is he yours? And you are His.
[00:29:48] Then the tabernacle still speaks to you.
[00:29:53] You dwell with God and He dwells with you. But how does that work?
[00:29:58] Well, think about the tent.
[00:30:00] Who lives in tents?
[00:30:04] People that are on journeys. People don't have a fixed residence. They're not settled yet. They're not in their forever home yet. And so they live in tents.
[00:30:16] They're pilgrims on a journey. You see, you've left Egypt like the Israelites. You've left the kingdom of darkness. You've been set free. Now you're in Jesus kingdom. He reigns over you.
[00:30:30] But you're not yet home yet, are you?
[00:30:32] Like Israel, you're in the wilderness.
[00:30:36] You live in tents.
[00:30:38] You're on the way, but you're not there yet.
[00:30:44] God promised his people that he would be with them, that he would go up with them to the promised Land, that he would dwell with them. And so he had them make a tent so that they would know that he was with them.
[00:30:58] God gives the same promises, but even better to you, his children.
[00:31:03] Jesus says in Hebrews 13, I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:31:09] And you wonder, how does he make that promise? Didn't he go off to heaven?
[00:31:15] Well, remember God's glory? Cloud that hovered, yes, in the tabernacle, but that pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night? We sang about it, that it was Like a shade during the day for God's people. And it guided them in the night by fire.
[00:31:33] God's presence was with them. They saw a vision of it in the glory cloud.
[00:31:39] That glory cloud was a picture not just of God generally, but particularly of God's Holy Spirit.
[00:31:49] They saw a picture, a symbol of the Holy Spirit being with them, protecting them, guiding them as he did.
[00:32:00] God gives you something better than a cloud and then a tent.
[00:32:04] You see God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus went to heaven and sits on the throne of heaven, he has the right to pour that Holy Spirit out on his church.
[00:32:18] We read in Ephesians, chapter 2, chapter 1, verse 22, that the Father gave Jesus to be head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
[00:32:35] You see, if you know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are a part of his body, his church. And Jesus fills His church. Every single one of his children, he fills with His Holy Spirit, whom He pours out on his people.
[00:32:52] You don't need a cloud out there because Jesus, through His Spirit, lives in you.
[00:33:01] And he says, I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:33:05] You see, dear child of God, you are never without God because you are never without His Holy Spirit. And His Holy Spirit continually unites you to Jesus in heaven through that union. The New Testament tells us that heaven belongs to you.
[00:33:24] See, Jesus went and he stormed heaven and he took possession of it. And he reigns over heaven. And because it belongs to him, it belongs to you.
[00:33:36] That's way better than a tent. That's way better than a glory cloud. In fact, that's way better than the land flowing with milk and honey that the Israelites were headed for.
[00:33:46] Paul says that already, as you are united to Jesus by faith through the power of the Spirit. And he says, you are seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
[00:33:57] He says, so real is Christ's possession of that heavenly home of God.
[00:34:02] And so real is your union with him that spiritually it already belongs to you. And it's as though you're there.
[00:34:13] If Jesus is there and all these things are true, then guess what? You are welcome in God's home.
[00:34:21] His Heavenly throne room is waiting for your arrival.
[00:34:26] God is waiting for you. He wants to welcome you into his home. Not a tent on earth, but his heavenly home that Jesus has prepared for you. Remember what he says. In my Father's house are many rooms.
[00:34:46] If it weren't the case, I would have told you.
[00:34:48] But I go to prepare a Place for you.
[00:34:52] He's preparing a place for each of you.
[00:34:56] There's a room for you in your Father's house in heaven, and you're welcome there.
[00:35:04] You see God's forever home that he gave the Israelites a picture of in the tabernacle. If you belong to Jesus, then that is your forever home.
[00:35:14] You live in a tent now, just like Jesus did. This earthly body, it suffers, it decays.
[00:35:20] There's all kinds of problems.
[00:35:23] But Jesus who died, was raised incorruptible.
[00:35:27] And one day he's going to come and he's going to call your name, and your body is going to rise out of the grave incorruptible.
[00:35:34] And it will be changed. It will be glorious. It will be fit to enter the Father's house. You see, we're not ready for it yet. But one day when he raises us up, we will be ready. He will prepare us to enter that heavenly home.
[00:35:52] You see, Jesus, your heavenly bridegroom who died to save you.
[00:35:57] He will come and take you as his bride.
[00:36:00] And he's going to take you into his bridal chambers and celebrate over you.
[00:36:07] He's prepared that place for you. He longs for you to come and be with Him.
[00:36:13] The Israelites could not enter the tabernacle. They could not enter its holy place, its holy of holies. As warm and as inviting as they were, they couldn't go in.
[00:36:23] But Jesus has prepared the real thing, and he will bring you in. One day you will hear his voice. Come, you blessed of my Father in inherit the kingdom prepared for you.
[00:36:40] You will walk into not a copy, but the real thing.
[00:36:46] You're going to walk into the very throne room of God, and he will smile upon you. Not a lampstand, but his glory shining on you. And you will behold him face to face, and you will hear that marvelous voice.
[00:37:04] Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God.
[00:37:17] And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
[00:37:24] There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
[00:37:30] There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
[00:37:36] Let's pray.
[00:37:38] O Lord, our God, help us to see what's truly real.
[00:37:46] We look upon the things of this earth, and sometimes they seem wonderful to us. We want more of them.
[00:37:54] Maybe we want bigger houses, more beautiful furniture in our houses, nicer cars.
[00:38:00] We want more riches and treasures and delights here on earth. All good things, to be sure, even blessings that you give us But Lord, we so often confuse them with what is truly a blessing. A blessing that will never end.
[00:38:18] Riches and treasures laid up for. For us by Jesus in heaven. O Lord our God, help us to see that there is something that he has secured for us. Not something that we earn, but something that he gives us freely.
[00:38:32] Something in which there will be no more troubles, no more problems.
[00:38:37] Lord, help us to grow in this hope for your home.
[00:38:43] Help us to grow in our firm and sure conviction that knowing the Lord Jesus, we will enter that home.
[00:38:52] And O Lord our God, we ask that you would send your word to the hearts of sinners that many more might be turned to Jesus to see in him their Savior, and being drawn to him, that they might come to you.
[00:39:11] We long for that day when the whole body. Body all of those for whom Christ died would be drawn to him in saving faith. For we know that when that day comes, the Lord Jesus will return and receive us. So we pray, Lord Jesus, that you would come quickly. Amen.
