My Father's House, Part 1

Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to this program of the Archie Hardy Ministries. I'm Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

I'm happy to bring you today's message, Meet Me in the Morning. I don't know about you, but the most important thing in my life is the presence of the Lord. Without God's presence orchestrating the daily events of my life, whether extraordinary or mundane, I would have no joie de vie, no joy of life, and certainly no peace of mind and rest of heart. And they all flow from my morning time with God.

This sets the tone for the day. But I did not always practice this until God showed me His way and said, Meet me in the morning. Hallelujah. I'm glad that we can personally worship the Lord. You know, I've heard some people make the little funny remark, you know, that Jesus had said that if you don't praise me, the rocks will cry out. And someone said, I'm not going to let a rock praise the Lord in my place.

But you know, I'm not neither am I going to let a cow or a sheep or a goat. Amen. Praise the Lord in my place. Because instead of offering up the burnt offering of a cow or a sheep or a goat, I get to raise my hands and praise the Lord. And the lifting up my hands is the burning of incense at the evening sacrifice.

I don't have to come through a middleman. I don't have to come through a priest, because he's made me a priest with our God. Amen.

And I can come on my own. So not only is it a privilege, but we need to look on the other side and say it's also an awesome responsibility. How can we not praise him? When God has allowed us to approach his presence, when in the under the old covenant, you couldn't approach the presence of God. You there's no way that you could come without coming through that sacrifice, and the smoke that would ascend up under God, because your sins had to be covered.

They had to be covered. The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. In order for sin to be remitted, it took blood to cover it. And God allowed temporarily, parenthetically, he allowed the blood of the goat, the ram and the sheep to cover the sin.

But the thing about it is, is it could do nothing to deliver them from sin's power. So they were compelled to sin over and over again. Therefore, they had to offer sacrifices over and over again. And the priesthood continued from one generation to the next to the next to the next, because there always had to be a priest to offer up sacrifice because there were always sinners.

But when Jesus was offered up, the Bible says once, one time, for all time, one time for all time, for it's not possible that the blood of rams and goats could cover us and, and not only cover us, but deliver us from the works of death, works and sins that continually brought the death consequence upon us, but the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah. And I'm so glad this morning that now I am called to be a priest with our God. And so are you. Do you know that? Amen. Now those of you who come on Sunday nights, you know, the last two Sunday nights, I have been exhorting about the Feast of the Lord, not the Feast of the Jewish people specifically, but the Feast of the Lord. And I've been talking to you about them.

And I kind of want to go off of there. But because we are right now, we're in the second day of the Feast of Tabernacles for the Jewish people. These are their high holy days, starting with Rosh Hashanah, which is the new year, which is really Yom Teruah, the blowing of the shofar. And then from there, they had the 10 days of all. And during that 10 days, they reflected and looked at their lives to see what kind of person they had been for the last year, and hope that they had more good stuff that's going in the book than bad stuff, so that their name would be written. You see, they believe that their name is written every year in the Book of Life.

And it depends on how you acted that year, whether or not it gets written in the Book of Life. And during that 10 days, they kind of look over their life and see, well, and they all the sins all of a sudden they think about when Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, they repent. Now, before the temple was destroyed, they had sacrifice and shedding of blood to cover. But once the temple was destroyed and the priesthood was scattered, and now nobody even knows who the priests are, they no longer have shedding of blood. So they fast and repent all day. But the scripture says, without the shedding of blood, see, there's no remission. There's repentance but no remission.

And then after the Yom Kippur, which was last Sunday going into Monday, five days later, they start the Feast of Tabernacles and it goes for eight days and it is a happy, happy, happy festive time. They got the repentant behind them. And now they enjoy the presence of the Lord. As long as there is sin in your life, you cannot enjoy God's presence. Amen. But when the sin is taken care of, you can draw near, you can come as close as you want to get. You can get as close to God as you want to get.

You can crawl up and sit on his lap and say Abba, Father, when the sin is gone. Amen. And so we're in the second day of the Feast of Tabernacles. And the Jewish people call this feast and this is one of the three feasts God commanded for all generations.

It wasn't a temporary thing. In fact, the Feast of Tabernacles is the only feast that will continue to be celebrated even in the millennium. The Bible says, I think it's in Zechariah, that all the nations of the world will go up to Jerusalem and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and whatever nation doesn't go up there won't get rained that year. So it's not a Jewish thing.

Amen. He said all the nations that are left will go up and celebrate this feast. And so the word that they use is called Sukkot. Somebody say Sukkot. And now put the emphasis on the second syllable Sukkot. All right, you got it. And that is what this Feast of Tabernacles is.

Why? Because it's really the Feast of Booths. You know, a booth that we think of a booth that we sit down in a restaurant. No, don't think that kind of booth. Think of a booth as a little shelter, a temporary shelter, not a house that you would build to live in permanently, but a little shelter. It could be like a tent or just a little thing that you put up and it's only a temporary shelter. Amen.

And that's what the word booth means. And what God told them to do is during this time, He said, build yourself a little temporary tabernacle. And during these eight days, I want you to stay in that tabernacle, eat and sleep in the tabernacle.

And it is so that you will commemorate the time that I brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. And for 40 years, they had no certain dwelling place. They followed the pillar of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, wherever it went, they went. When it stayed stationary, they stayed there and they put up their tents and they waited until God moved them on to the next place. And He says, I never want you to forget how I supplied their need. They did not want for anything in that 40 year period. So God said, now I want you to celebrate this every year at the same time.

Now, the reason why we got the word Sukkot for Booths is when they wanted to, you know, give it a name. When Jacob returned from his 20 year servitude to his uncle Laban, remember, he fled there to flee his life from Esau. He ended up staying there 20 years, got two wives and 12 kids.

And now and a whole bunch of sheep and goats. And remember, his uncle tried to cheat him even out of that. But God wouldn't let him because they made a deal.

They struck a deal. And you know that God made the ones, certain ones bare that he was supposed to get all. He was supposed to get all the ugly ones. He was supposed to get the ones with spots and streaks and rings. And he said, fine, give me the ugly ones.

I don't care. And God made all the ugly ones fat and healthy, have lots of babies. So he left with all of this. And he was traveling with his entourage, getting back to the land of Canaan.

You know, he didn't just leave and get those straight there. They had to go and take a while to bring all these kids and animals and people and servants and stuff. And so one time they came to one place and he stayed there a little longer. And he built a house. And the Bible says he built booths for his animals. He built booths for them to stay in. And he called the place Sukkot because it means booths.

Now let's, I'm going to give you a little nugget here. Let's fast forward to the time of Christ. I've already quoted before John 14 and the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, tabernacled amongst us. He came down and pitched his tent right in the middle of our camp. He tabernacled with us. He took on a tabernacle of human flesh and came down and dwelt with us. Emmanuel, God with us. And the Bible says that he came in the form of flesh because Mary, that which was conceived of her, was born of the Holy Ghost. And she brought forth her firstborn son and she laid him in a, she laid him in a manger, a Sukkot, a booth that the animals stayed in. Amen.

And just one little other thing we'll just throw out there before we get started here. Jesus was not born in December. He was born in September, October, because if you take the order of his uncle Zacharias priesthood, he served in the temple, remember, and the angel Gabriel came and said, you're going to have a son and he's going to go before the Messiah. And what happened? His old wife got pregnant. And what happened when she was already six months pregnant? Gabriel went to Mary and said, your cousin's pregnant. Now you're going to get pregnant with a seed from God. So John the Baptist is six months older than Jesus.

Amen. And they can tell when his father Zacharias would have been serving in the temple when the angel came because David, he set up 24 orders of priests and they all got two weeks at a time. So if they calculate when Zacharias was in the temple, when Gabriel came and they count the time, because when he went home, his wife got pregnant right away. So if they count all that, they know that Jesus was born September, October.

And I'm not going to go into the details. One reason why, you know, that the Feast of Tabernacles can go from September to October, because they had a lunar calendar and were on a solar calendar. So Jesus, no doubt, very, very strong, strong evidence that he was born in the Feast of Tabernacles because the Word was made flesh and tabernacled amongst us. So this is a very special time. It's a high holy time, but it's a festive time. It's a time to celebrate. It's a time when the heavens are open. Hallelujah. You ought to have lots of prayers going up, lots of worship going up, lots of praise going up. Amen.

Because it's a time when the heavens are open and the Spirit of God is especially powerful amongst us. Amen. Now I want you to know something. It was God's intention that the whole nation of Israel, when he brought them out of Egypt, his intention was, now we know there was between two to three million people, and his intention was that the whole nation was to be priests.

Did you know that? Turn with me in your Bibles. We're going to be in Exodus for a little while. Exodus 19. Exodus 19 and verse 4. Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself.

You know, I just can't read over those last three words. I brought you unto myself. This is God Almighty speaking. I know I came, you know, you'd have to read the whole chapter, but God said, I delivered you from the Egyptians, and we know it was with a mighty deliverance. He said, and I did it so that I could bring you all two or three million of you, how many it was that I could bring you to myself.

I'm just going to arbitrarily say three million. Okay, one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Ghost. He said, I brought you unto myself. Next verse. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice and deed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And listen to this verse six.

Here we go. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words that he spoke unto Moses and told Moses to speak unto the people. God intended for the whole nation, all three million people to be the priests for the rest of the world. The Jewish people were to be the mediators between the rest of the world, the Gentile, pagan, hedonistic, idol worshiping world and God. They were to be the priests to lead the rest to God, the whole nation of them.

But what happened when they got out there on the mountain, Mount Sinai and God said, I'm going to meet with you in three days, three days. I want you to get ready. I want you to get your clothes washed. I want you to get ready. I'm coming on the mountain. I'm going to talk to you. And Moses gave the people all the instructions and the day came and God said, Moses alone can come up closer for the rest of you. Be prepared. I'm going to speak to you. I'm going to, I'm literally, God said, I'm going to marry you. He made a marriage covenant with Israel.

Amen. I'm not going to go into all those details, but that's what he said. I'm bringing you unto myself and I'm going to give you my covenant up here on this mountain.

You're going to be my peculiar people above all the people in the nations of the world. But what happened when they got there on the mountain? You can read it later in the rest of the 19th chapter, the waters began to thunder and the lightnings began to strike and fire came and smoke came and the Bible says the whole mountain quaked greatly and God spoke and his voice sounded like the blast of a shofar blowing a long sound and it says it got louder and louder and louder. That's what happens to me when I get to preach it. Benny's always telling me, you're too loud. It just happens. Once I get into it, I forget about don't be so loud.

I get louder and louder. Amen. And so when that happened, the people trembled. They got scared to death and look what they said.

Just turn over chapter 20 verse 18 and all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they removed. In other words, they got out of there.

That word removed is a little, you know, a little too easy. And they stood afar off and they said unto Moses, speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. From that moment on, they no longer were God's priests. It was their choice. They made the decision. They preferred not to hear God's voice themselves. They preferred to let Moses hear God's voice and come tell them what God said. Amen. And from that point on, they no longer were God's priests. And so what happened? Let me tell you something. Whenever you make a choice to start backing off and removing yourself from God's presence.

Why? Because God's presence is convicting you of your sin. God's presence is dealing with your heart. God's presence is, is sometimes it's a comforting and it's a wonderful, lovely, I love you.

And sometimes it's a reproof and it's a rebuke. But Amen. When you start backing off from God's presence, bad things happen. Amen.

Until we find out that by the time that the 40 days was up, that Moses returned with the law of God, the tablets in his hands, by the way that were written with the finger of God, the only part of the whole Bible that God personally wrote with his finger. But when he came down, what did he see? An orgy worshiping a golden calf and everybody eating and drinking and having all kinds of sexual parties, all this going on.

Amen. Can you imagine coming down from the holy presence of God where the Bible says that God spoke to Moses like his friend face to face and lip to lip coming down from God's holy presence into that mess, worshiping a cow that they made with their own hands when he's been in the presence of the almighty creator himself. And what did Moses do? He was so angry.

He was so angry. He took that cow and he crushed it to dust, mixed it with water and made the people drink it. And then he stood up and he said, who is on the Lord's side?

Let him come unto me. And out of both those 3 million people out of 12 tribes, only one tribe, the tribe of Levi who happened to be Moses tribe, they stood up and gathered every man to him. And from that point on, it was the tribe of Levi that God chose to be the priest. He had intended for the whole nation, but they had backed away from God's presence and they had gone into idolatry and sin. And therefore God could no longer use them as priests. So from that point on, he chose the tribe of Levi. Amen. To be his priests and mediators. Moses, his rage, his anger was kindled against them greatly.

Amen. And the thing of it is, is God was angry too, because God said, that's right. He was ready to kill them all. But what happened? Moses told Levi, the sons of Levi, he said, go out there, get your swords and slay every one of those. That's mixed up in this mess. And the Bible says that they went out and that day slew 3000 people.

3000 people. The good thing is that was Mount Sinai when he gave the law. Today that is Pentecost. And that on the day of Pentecost, when God poured out his Holy Spirit and all of those other people from all around who would come to Jerusalem for the feast, heard the gospel in their own tongue and Peter preached and they believed and 3000 got saved. On the anniversary, see the giving of the law and the giving of the Holy Ghost is the same day.

You understand that? It's the anniversary. Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came was the anniversary of the giving of the law of Mount Sinai. And when they got the law, they sinned and 3000 died. But when the Holy Ghost came, they got saved and 3000 came to the Lord.

And from there it was exponential. Amen. God doesn't do anything accidentally. You will find out he's a God of great precision and great details.

He dots his I's and it crosses his T's. So don't think you're going to get one up on God. You're not going to do it.

You just may as well find out what he wants to do and follow his plan. So God said, I will no longer go with you. I want you to get these people that are left and take them in there to the land that I said I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I can't go back on my word. It was a unilateral covenant.

God could not change his mind. He promised them the land and their seed. He said, get these people and take them in there, but I'm not going with you. And I love what Moses said. Exodus 33 11. Moses said, if you don't go with us, I'm not going either. He was bold to say to God, God, if you don't go with us, I'm not going either.

Amen. And that's exactly what God wanted to hear. He wanted to hear from the voice of a man. God, your presence is more valuable to me than all these people and anything else or this land or the promises or the honey and the milk that's flowing and the grapes and the silver and the gold and the cattle on a thousand hills.

You can have it all. Give me your presence. He said, if you don't go with us, I'm not going either. And the Lord said in verse 14 and the Lord's fake unto Moses as a man would speak unto his face. It says in verse 11 and in verse 14 he said, my presence shall go with you and I will give you rest. Amen. What an inspiring word of the Lord.

Meet me in the morning. You know, it was always God's intention to have a daily personal relationship with man and he did until Adam sinned. Then God chose Abraham and his seed to reconnect the broken relationship. When he sent Moses to bring them out of Egypt's bondage, they were two to 3 million people and on Mount Sinai, God spoke to them and called them to be a nation of priest unto himself. God told Moses to tell the people to prepare themselves for their meeting on the holy mountain.

But when they saw the lightning, the fire and smoke and heard the thunder, they were afraid and ran. They said to Moses, you speak to God and you tell us what God says and we will hear, but we don't want to hear God speak lest we die. And sadly they pulled away from the presence of God, but not Moses. The scripture says that God showed Israel his miracles, but he showed Moses his ways. Moses beseeched God, not for material blessings or prominence, but he said, show me your glory.

And God told Moses, be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to the mountain and present yourself to me and no man shall come with you. This is the secret and this is the price for intimacy with God, morning prayer and meditation with the Lord. Every great man or woman of God who ever had a successful influential ministry has had a daily time of intimate prayer with God to meet God first thing in the morning before the busyness of distractions and the carnal routines of life intrude on the thoughts and hearts and set the emotions on a particular course and chart the day without divine guidance and spiritual strength. Even Jesus, the son of God had to rise up early a great while before day to spend time with his father and receive his instructions for the day's ministry. You know, for many years I had a woefully impotent prayer life of which I greatly lamented.

I would try to break out of my rut, but always would fall back into prayerlessness until I discovered it was not how I prayed that was my problem, but when to meet God in the morning was the key to developing a dynamic and enjoyable prayer life. To order Meet Me in the Morning on CD, send a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry, request SK145, that's SK145, mail to Archie Hardy Ministries, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or order online at ArchieHardy.org where you can also order on MP3. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 and request offer SK145. Until next time, this is Sharon Nott singing Maranatha.