Why the Sanctuary?

The Exodus

 

 

The Lord declared in His holy word through the prophet Amos that, “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of The Lord.” (Amos 8:11). Can we not testify that this is a reality In our present day? “Has not food been cut off from before our eyes…the seeds shrivel under their clods; the store houses are desolate, the barns are torn down, for the grain is dried up…” (Joel 1:16/17). 

 

Never before have we had such an abundance of The Word of God published in so many multiplicities, colours, styles and formats, and yet never before have so many believers been starved of hearing the words of The Lord. Such is the cruel irony. Many of us are familiar with the poignant images of starving children in the third world. The emaciated bodies, protruding ribs and swollen stomachs; yet if we could only see the present condition of the church here in this land, as God Himself sees it, we would truly see that we are  “…wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked…”

 

Ichabod Is now written upon the doors and altars of many churches, and the finger of God’s judgement has been written on the walls of many sanctuaries throughout this land. The pulpit is full of hirelings and hired-hands who in the words of the late Leonard Ravenhill “have prostituted the altar”. Still a faithful remnant is responding to The Lord’s call to “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). 

 

They are no longer content to drink from the polluted streams of Egypt. They are thirsty for the true pure water of God’s Word, and hungry for heavenly manna. Wild pastures tainted with the worlds philosophies; slick programs, entertainment and showmanship cannot sustain them anymore. A thirst is welling up within them and they are panting after The Living God “as a deer pants for the water brooks” (Psalm 42:1).