Linger in the Tent

Scripture Reading

That's the lector and this is the pulpit I'll preach here. Will you open your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33 verse 11. Exodus 33 verse 11. Brothers, fathers, Sisters, this is God's Word. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

Prayer for Illumination

And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man did not depart from the tabernacle. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for your word and we pray now that it is it is late at night we pray that your holy spirit might invigorate our souls, open our eyes, soften our hearts, and drive us to our knees. Lord, please help us this night in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I come to you tonight with a simple message. You might even say a dull, boring, old message. Men, do not stop praying. Men, do not stop praying.

Sermon

Linger in the tent. Moses would go out. Our Moses has gone out. He's gone to the heavenly tapernacle. But now we are called. Some of you might not think you're young men, but compared to Moses, you're still a young man. We must linger in the tent. We have a constant drumbeat in the life of ministry, whether you're a teaching elder or a ruling elder, of do, do, do, get done, get done, get done. But the best things we ever get done are on our knees. God calls us in the midst of our busy schedules, in the midst of our busy world, in the midst of the pressures of work, and the administrative bloat that often is brought on by our own selves. He tells us be still and know that He is God.

Arkin Hughes in his book, Disciples of a Godly Man, tells of a minister who was wrestling with it in his own heart one day as he had neglected his prayer closet time and time again. And as he had neglected his prayer closet, he saw his long to-do list and he knew that he was supposed to pray, but his will did not want to pray.

His emotions weren't there, and so this minister, in an honest moment in his diary, he wrote down that he had told his emotions, I don't care what you want, me and Will are going to the prayer closet. And so he shut off his laptop and he went to the prayer closet. Emotions didn't matter.

He needed to go pray. Because it was the duty that God had placed on him as a minister of word and prayer. And this went on for weeks. where every day he did not want to pray, his emotions kept dragging him behind, kept saying, but there's so much more work to do, you don't feel it. And every day he said, no Will, you and I are going to go pray, and emotions, you can follow along if you want. And he said, something glorious happened by the end of the second week. All of a sudden, in the middle of prayer, emotions came along and shouted, Hallelujah!

Brothers, it's not about this emotional high to pray, but a firm commitment that we linger in the temple. We linger at the tabernacle. We stay there because there is the oxygenated environment for our ministries. Prayer is the gasoline in the tank. It's the engine underneath the hood. It drives us. to realize that we could do all we want in our ministries, we can spend all the busyness that we want, but unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers build in vain. So brothers, linger in the tabernacle. Linger there. Wrestle with the Lord Almighty.

Do not give up the pattern that Jesus Christ himself gave us when he departed to a desolate place while it was still very early in the morning, and there he prayed. If it was important enough for our Savior Jesus Christ to spend long hours communing with our Father in heaven, so ought it to be ours. Brothers, this is how we maintain our first love. We can be the most doctrinally precise denomination, presbytery in the world, but if we have not love for Christ, we fail. And we show our devotion to Christ first in our private prayer closet.

So brothers, linger in the tent. Pray for the people in your church. Go on prayer walks. Go on prayer retreats. John Piper and his brothers, we are not professionals, makes the point that all these homes in America have an entire room devoted to a television, but not one to prayer. How much time do we spend wasting our lives on social media, on television, on books, on newspaper, and these aren't necessarily bad things in and of themselves, but they become distractions to us from our first love, Jesus Christ.

Brothers, linger in the tabernacle. Come face to face with the God of grace. He tells you to come boldly into His presence, the King of the universe. who promises that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His bride, against the church, tells them, He tells us to come to Him.

Many of you are struggling tonight. Many of you have things going on in your congregation. People who are abandoning you. Congregants who have just turned their backs. Financial woes that you don't know how they're ever going to be answered. Where will you find comfort for your soul? Except to have the balm of the Holy Spirit apply it to your soul as you're on your knees with your eyes lifted up to heaven. Brothers, linger in the tent. Go to the one who tells you to boldly enter into his throne of grace. The greatest moments of spiritual experience time and time again is in prayer.

I'll never forget as a young Christian, I'm still a young Christian, but when I was even younger and I was reading R.C. Sproul's books, The Truths We Confess, and he was talking about the holiness of God as the sun was streaming into the living room and I was sitting there on a Sabbath afternoon reading this book, I was brought to tears of the holiness of God and what was the deepest, most profound thing I could do but to get on my knees and to pray.

We can talk about experiential religion all we want, but if we deny our prayer clauses, if we don't linger in the tabernacle ourselves, have we really come into contact with them? In prayer, we are forced to say that we are sinners. In prayer, we are brought to extol Him for His holiness. In prayer, we are able to preach the gospel to ourselves. As we linger in the tent, we see how far we are from perfect sanctification. As we linger in the tent, we see that we have more work to be done in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And in prayer, we confess that we can't provide our daily bread.

It's Him who does it. Brothers, linger in the tent. For there we give up selfishness. There we do the work of the kingdom. God's people are served best by their pastors, best by their elders, best by their leaders, best by their brothers and sisters when they're brought before the King of the Universe in prayer. This is what the apostles devoted themselves to. Yes, the ministry of the word, but also to prayer.

Closing Prayer

Men linger in the tent. In prayer we have revived evangelistic zeal. And we pray to our God that his kingdom of grace might be expanded and his kingdom of glory might be hastened. So brothers, I pray that you don't forget your prayer closets, that you linger in the tent, and that there is a place where you can go and you can find the grace of God, the balm for your soul, as you go before the triune God of the universe, who both enables you, cares for you, and hears your prayers. Brothers, linger in the tent. Let's pray.

Father, we confess to you that we are fickle people. And we confess to you our often lack of prayerlessness. Lord, we confess to you that when we say that you are sovereign, but then neglect our duty to pray, we really think that we're on the throne. God, forgive us.

Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit might work in our hearts in such a profound way. when people walk away from our congregations, they might know that they love Christ and they love to talk in prayer. Lord, please make us men and women of prayer. Father, we pray that you would please use us on our knees for the furthering of your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.