Leaving God In A Tent | Bro. Alex Mason

OK, that be your prayer tonight. It feels good to be in the House

of the Lord tonight. Amen.

So, so good, Bishop. I feel what you're feeling and I

can't explain it. All I know is that we need to

tap in tonight. Sometimes.

I don't know what, I don't know if you feel what we feel up

here. But I I do believe that his arm

is not short and that he is not confined.

When I tell you I cannot describe to

you how uncertain I feel, that is an understatement.

But I'm telling you right now, I feel in the Holy Ghost right now

that if we can entertain and welcome him, it's going to be

all right tonight. It's going to be all right

tonight. Paramacio, do we all lift our

hands right now? Oh, Lord, you're welcome here.

I give of myself. Shakaya, have your way in this

place tonight. Oh, we could push through, and I

don't know what we're up against right now, but I am claiming

victory in the power of our words tonight.

Touch your people tonight.

Touch the weary, touch the sick. Hey, it's Jesus.

Ho high. Surrender all to you.

Everything I give to you, Withholding nothing, withholding

nothing. Oh, withholding nothing,

withholding nothing. I surrender all oh to you,

everything I give to you or withholding nothing, withholding

nothing, withholding, nothing, withholding, nothing.

I give you all of me. I give you all of me.

I give you all of me. Withholding.

Nothing Withholding. Nothing.

Hold on my shield, on my side. Oh, that would be our prayer

tonight. Behold, the Lord is good.

Please continue to entertain his presence tonight.

If you will turn the second Samuel 7 verse one, Jesus, Jesus

have your way, Lord. Second Samuel 7 verse one says,

And it came to pass, when the king sat in his home, Speaking

of David, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all

his enemies, that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now

I dwell in a House of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within

curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Go,

do all that is not in thine heart, for the Lord is with

thee. And it came to pass that night

that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go and tell

my servant David, Thus saith the Lord, Shalt thou build me an

house for me to dwell in. Whereas I have not dwelt in any

house since the time that I brought up the children of

Israel out of Egypt, even until this day, but have walked in a

tent and in a Tabernacle. Tonight I have a task of

bringing to you simply titled, Leaving God in a Tent.

Leaving God in a tent. I ask that you would help me

pray one more time for the Word tonight.

Lord, I ask you just to move in this place.

Lord, you are already here. Lord, we are here to entertain

you and entertain your word, Lord.

Let this Lord word come forth, not from my own Lord doing, but

for your will, Your purpose. God, touch your people tonight.

Prepare hearts and minds, Lord for Your word.

Lord, it would not return void, but it would be something that

we take with us and we would not fail to thank you and praise you

for it. Oh God, have your way in this

service tonight. Lord, touch your servant.

Lord, I ask you just to move in this place in Jesus mighty name

that we pray and everyone said Amen.

Amen. You may be seated tonight

leaving God in a tent. Back when Moses climbed Mount

Sinai, God gave him directions for a place, a place for his

Spirit to be. Now we know that God is not

confined to one place. This was about communion.

This was about relationship with God.

A place where people could come and the priests could give of

sacrifice and praise. It wasn't a palace.

It wasn't a stone temple, it was a tent.

Exodus 25 and verse 8 states, even says, let them make me a

sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

According to all that I show the after the pattern of the

Tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof,

Even so shall ye make it? The tent made sense in that

season that Israel was in, Israel was traveling, Israel was

moving, they were wandering, even learning to follow the

voice of God. A permanent structure would be

impossible if every single time they had to move, they had to

rebuild another permanent structure.

It didn't make sense. They were not settled, and so

God chose to make His presence mobile with the children of

Israel. He met them where they were.

He chose a tent because that was going to help His people in this

time and season. In Numbers 9 and verse 21 it

says. And so it was when the cloud

abode from even unto the morning, and that cloud was

taken up in the morning. And then they journeyed, whether

it was by day or by night the cloud was taken up.

They journeyed, or whether it were two days, or a month, or a

year, that the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle, remaining

thereon. The children of Israel abode in

their tents and journeyed not, but when it was taken up, they

journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord

they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they

journeyed. They kept the charge of the Lord

at the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses.

They are going in a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by

day. They are only journeying when it

moves. When the presence departs from

the Tabernacle, they know they have to pack up and go.

And that Tabernacle was a mobile Tabernacle.

It was in a tent. Everything that was there could

be moved, packed up, put on, put on camels and mules and gone on.

And people we have, we have a opportunity there of mobile

Tabernacle. It was necessary for the time

that Israel was living in, and it was important that they had

that opportunity and God met them where they were.

Deuteronomy 1 and 31 even says And in the wilderness where thou

hast seen, how that the Lord thy God bear thee, as a man doth

bear his Son in all the way that we went, until ye came unto this

place. Yet in this thing he did not

believe the Lord your God, who went in the way before you and

searched you out a place to pitch your tents in the fire by

night, and to show you by what way you should go in the cloud

by day. This tent was God's compassion

towards Israel. It was His patience even towards

Israel when this first took place.

You have to remember that this, it was Israel very shortly after

the Exodus moment. And so this was not supposed to

be something that was going to go on.

He rested when they rested, he journeyed when they journeyed

and whenever he went and they got tired, he settled.

That was their meeting place. He was meeting them in their

instability and they're in maturity.

Deuteronomy 1 and 31. It's said that he even carried

them like a father carries a child.

It was a way to bridge the gap during this time of transition

that would eventually last longer than intended.

And if we're honest, that's a picture for us that we have to

look through. All of us go through seasons

where we don't have structure yet or we have lost our

structure. Seasons where we're figuring it

out, where our faith is inconsistence, our habits are

shaky at best, and our obedience is struggling to find footing.

And God still meets us in that place, and he comes to us in our

tent seasons. You see, the tent was never a

problem. The tent was never a problem

that needed fixed, but it wasn't supposed to last forever in the

wilderness. It was necessary.

But after that, the story begins to shift.

After Israel crossed the Jordan, after they conquered the

promised land of Canaan, and the tribe settled into their

territories, the tent still remained.

Joshua 18 And one even says, And the whole congregation of the

children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh and set up

the Tabernacle of the congregation there.

And the land was subdued before them.

They are settling into their promised land.

They have won the victory. They are settling in here at

Shiloh and they are putting the Tabernacle, the tent they have

been used to this whole time for many a many years and they are

putting it here at Shiloh. Israel was planting, they were

raising families, they were establishing their new found

land of promise. All the while God was still in

the same tent that He was when they were wandering in the same

tent when they were in the wilderness, when when God

decided to have mercy and meet them where they were at and

continue in that mercy, He still was in a tent.

The place that He was in was still temporary to them even

when they were getting getting permanent structures for

themselves. That was it was as if you have

houses all surrounding the Tabernacle and the Tabernacle is

still there in curtains. No one, no one questioned it.

No, we don't have a bunch of accounts before, before we get

to David where people are thinking and pausing and

thinking about it. They they got used to a God who

met them in the wilderness, and that's the God they wanted to

keep. They never considered, though,

that he might deserve something better.

The place he still put, they put him in still folds up.

It was still convenient for them.

If they decided that they were going to be like Aaron in the

Israelites when Moses was on Mount Sinai, they could pack it

up, store it away. We get ourselves our a new God

because it was convenient. They could pack it away whenever

they'd like. If they decided that they're not

going to be Christians today, they're going to pack it away

because it's convenient to them. That's what routine does to you.

It takes you're comfortable and makes it you being comfortable

with imbalance. It lets you treat holy things as

familiar. It lets you settle for what God

once tolerated because He loved you instead of what He deserves

now because you have grown. We start in our walk with God

and this is what happens sometimes.

Maybe we even start in our walk with God.

Maybe we haven't even been in this thing for a long time and

He meets us in our mess. He meets us where we are.

We start to get used to the routine of it all and we settle

and we plan and we continue our life and that we have to still.

And we still have God in a tent even after all the growth.

I've told many of people before, I've told people, students in

particular, that the you have to realize that regular life

happens after the salvation plan of Acts 238.

When you go to conferences and you go and you, you have an

experience. And I am not demeaning that

experience. You go and you have an

experience. You come back.

Life continues. I am sorry.

I want every day to be like church camp.

I want every day to be like conference.

But I'm sorry to tell you that is not real life.

And we go to conferences and we set up our tent because we've

had it stuck behind the curtains and stuck everywhere else other

than in front of our lives. And then when we come back home,

it's time to pack everything away.

It's almost as if we pack the Tabernacle with our clothing

that we pack for the event. We keep him in something that we

can fold up when life gets busy, and then we pull it out when we

feel spiritual. We pack the tin away when

conviction gets uncomfortable and and God sometimes even

delivers us from our wilderness, but we're never going to deliver

him from his tent. And once you get used to the

tent, you're going to stop noticing how out of place it is.

I told Trevor this in particular.

I wanted it to look out of place because if you look at that,

that is not common unless you're thinking of maybe a homeless

area, which normally they would probably get the cops called on

them if they're just in a regional area with people and

housing. But it looks out of place

because that's exactly what it is.

That's exactly what was happening for hundreds of years

when when David is sitting there, he has he has been given

rest from all of his enemies. And that was a lot.

The amount of years that David spent running, that David spent

fighting, David spent making up for his own mistakes, all of the

different issues that David faced.

And he is sitting here at the beginning of this chapter and

this says the Lord has given him rest from his enemies.

I don't know about you, but when I'm restful, I'm not thinking

about how someone else deserves something else.

Normally I think that's normally all of us when we're resting,

we're thinking about numero Uno, right?

Number one, we're not thinking about, oh, you know, so and so

doesn't have ex wives or so and so doesn't.

He is the first time in years he is not running and he isn't

fighting. He is sitting in this stability,

and sometimes stability will reveal things to us that

struggle keeps us too distracted to see.

And David is sitting in this house, in his house, and he's

thinking, wait a minute, there is something wrong about this

that I I haven't noticed yet. I'm living in a House of cedar,

and here the presence of God is living in curtains.

David is marveling at where God has brought him, but then he

can't stay in that moment for long because then he realizes

there is something wrong here. Anybody else had gotten used to

it for generations and they walk past the tent without thinking

twice. This is what's normal.

This is, this is our tent. This is the Tabernacle.

And they walk past it and become tradition, if you will.

Almost. It was normal and familiar.

And my question for you tonight is, would you even notice if God

didn't have permanent residence in your life?

Have you noticed if God doesn't have permanent residence in your

life? David, even in Psalm 132 and

three says, surely I will not come into the Tabernacle of my

house nor go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes

or slumber to mine eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord

and habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.

Everyone else had gotten used to it, but David was not everyone

else. He saw the imbalance.

He felt the disrespect that had been hidden.

Everyone else didn't want to talk about, or they had gotten

too used to and comfortable. And David gathers materials.

He's drawing plans. He said I will not slumber until

this is made right. He spent years preparing for a

house that he even would never enter because God deserved it.

Can we say truly that we are going to do things, we are going

to lose sleep even because God deserves it.

He deserves our everything. He deserves our effort.

He get. We give of ourselves unto him

do. Can we truly say that we are

going to sacrifice because God deserves it when we sometimes

can't even sacrifice extracurricular things and miss

church? We sacrifice everything for the

outside because it's easy. We gotten comfortable.

God's in a tent. I'll get him out whenever I come

back to church. First Chronicles 22 and 5

continues the story and says, And David said, Solomon, my son

is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for

the Lord must be exceedingly exceeding magnifical of fame and

of glory throughout all countries, and I will therefore

now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly

before his death. You know, we think, you know,

maybe David, you know, you're, you're getting older, you know,

you're close to retirement age. Just chill out, take a little

sabbatical, relax. You've had a, you've had a

productive life, a busy life. But he said, no, this, this

cannot be undone. This is not something that we

can allow to happen. This is a dishonor to God and so

he says I don't care about getting my moment in the sun and

and retiring so to speak and just being the king at the at

the end of my days. That is just going to chill out

and and have people bring me grapes and and fan me with

leaves. I am going to work because it is

what God deserves. And all that tireless

preparation that David did LED up to his son Solomon building

the house. And the ark of God was finally

going to be brought to a place of permanence.

God met their people in the wilderness, and now they were

finally going to honor Him in the promise.

First kings six and one it says, and it came to pass in the 480th

year, someone say 480 years after the children of Israel

were come out of the land of Egypt.

The 4th, the 4th year of Solomon's reign over Israel in

the month of Ziff, which is the second month that began to build

the House of the Lord. We're talking about 480 years

since they left Egypt. 480 years and God's presence had never

once lived in anything more permanent than a tent, almost

almost half, half of a millennia.

And we are talking about the fact that that God had still

lived in a tent. And, and when you think of that

and you think about the fact that they wandered in the

wilderness for 40 years and, and you start to do the math, you

can think really quickly that they stayed in the promised land

or around that area in their promise for many years before

they even got to this point, centuries before they got to

this point. And this was not just any house

that they were finally doing. It was the House of God.

Everything was intentional. It was deliberate and it had a

purpose, and nothing was rushed, nothing was cheap and nothing

was casual about it. And when the last piece is

placed, and the ark is carried into the most holy place,

Solomon praise, and when he prays, we get to Second

Chronicles 7 and verse one. It says, Now when Solomon had

made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and

consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of

the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into

the House of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled

the Lord's house. And when all of the children of

Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon

the house, they bowed themselves and their faces to the ground

upon the pavement, and they worshipped and they praised the

Lord, saying, For He is good, for his mercy endureth forever.

The glory of the God fills the house.

It presided in the temple, but it fills the house so heavily

that the priest could not even stand.

They could not stand the minister.

They could not stand to enter in.

You see, God's glory visited the tent.

That's just temporary. But his glory will dwell in the

house. It will stay in the house.

The temple that Solomon built wasn't just the final temple.

Through the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus

Christ and the tearing of the veil in the temple, we now have

an opportunity ourselves. 1st Corinthians 6 and 19 says what?

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,

which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to stop treating our body, our

lives as a tent for God. We need to preside Him in a

temple, a holy temple, and that is only going to come through

prayer and fasting and supplication, relationship with

God. If we are to be the temple, He

must dwell. He must not just visit.

We are not a tent carried through the wilderness or

presiding in Shiloh, not a structure of wood, brick and

stone, but us. You are where God desires to

dwell. The same God whose glory filled

the temple desires to fill living temples if those temples

make room. The issue is that we treat

ourselves like a tent, and we receive the Holy Ghost and the

literal presence of God presiding within us.

And sometimes we pack it away in comfort.

We'll get well. I'll get my Holy Ghost out when

I need it. We build lives, relationships,

dreams, routines, identities, but God's place stays temporary

in our lives. We want Him accessible.

We want to be able to get to Him, but we don't want Him to

have sovereignty in our lives. Sovereignty means we have to

give things away. We have to give up things that

that really, when we've been doing those things, we've been

packing the tent away. I don't want conviction to

happen while I'm trying to do my thing.

And so whenever we have that, we want to be him, to be

accessible. And he is, and he's merciful,

but we take advantage of his mercy because we just, we give

him a tent place in our life. We don't give him a Tavern.

We don't give him a temple place in our life.

We carry God like Israel did in the wilderness with a tent,

portable and storable. And we revisit that tent

whenever crisis hits, whenever, whenever everything's going

wrong, Guess what, God, it's tent time.

Come back out here, you know, come, come on down.

You've won the big prize. You get to be in my life again.

We revisit that tent and then we'll feel, we feel spiritual.

And then when everything becomes good and dandy again, we'll pack

it away. We want that convenient tent

relationship with a temple presiding God. 1st Corinthians 3

and 16 Paul again says, Know ye not that ye are the temple of

God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for

the temple of God is holy. Which temple are ye?

He also says in 2nd Corinthians 616 it says In what agreement

hath the temple of God with idols?

For ye are the temple of the living God.

As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I

will be their God, and they shall be my people.

If we are to be the temple of God, that means dwelling, not

visitation. How is how you are living your

life making him welcome? Is it making a place of

permanence or is it making a place where God, you can come

whenever I say you can come? Not, not, don't, don't, don't.

God's a gentleman. But you're basically just saying

time out until I need you. I'm telling you right now, God

doesn't take the Holy Ghost away from anyone.

But please don't misunderstand me tonight.

But we are living. Are we living in a way that

makes a place for Him or do we give him that tent for our

convenience sake? Because we don't want to let go

of things that we've, we've had, we've, we found we don't want to

let go of things that aren't in alignment with God's word, in

alignment with temple principles.

But we just, we want, we, we, we feel good.

We feel good whenever we, we do come and we feel good whenever

we do have those, you know, come to Jesus moments.

And, and it may be, if we may for a little bit get get down

and really feel convicted. And then what happens because we

have not committed to temple relationship.

All it was was a tent. Still.

Are we only getting the tent out when we need Him to do something

for us? Are we consumer Christians who

call on God only when we need him?

We only show up to church when we're going through a struggle?

Or are we going to be like Dave? And are we going to realize our

disrespect? Because if we are the temple,

then he deserves to have a residency.

He deserves to have a mailbox in our lives.

Permanence, priority. Sometimes it's a priority issue

that we can't get past. We have all these different

things vying for our attention and they all look great and

they're all dandy. And sometimes I'm not even

saying, you know, the people have worked everything like

that, but there are things that that could be sacrificed for

priority's sake. And we do not because his his

space in our life isn't as important as we say it.

We can you talk is cheap. We can say all the time, but

there is action that is behind that talk that we have to

understand. Can you stand tonight?

Music is going to come. Maybe tonight, maybe God is

asking you, are you going to stop treating me like a house

guest? Will you stop folding me away

when you are busy? Will you stop only giving me

residence in your life when you need something?

Or can I actually have a place to dwell, a temple to dwell?

If you have left God in a tent, I am urging you to prepare a

place in your life for Him. We all go through seasons in our

life where we have that. A a permanent place where He can

dwell is something that you are going to find eventually is

going to be one of the best things in your life, one of the

best decisions you could have made.

When you walk in the spirit and you are walking hand in hand

with him, so to speak, and you are allowing Him to intervene in

your life and allowing A dwelling place, you are going to

see the difference. You're going to see and feel the

difference. Your stress is going to be your

stress press is going to be gone.

You're going to be walking in peace, the peace of the Lord.

It is important that we have a permanent place for him to

dwell. And if we're supposed to be that

temple of God, we have to be holy.

Otherwise, Paul said, we defile the temple.

These altars are open tonight. This, this is not a call the

shame or to guilt, but it is an invitation to relationship where

his presence isn't just squeezed in.

It's not just leftovers in our life.

It's not just something that we forget about and we're like, OK

God, you can do this now, but where He is the center of it

all. For some that may look like

surrender. For some, that may be laying

down a habit that has been taking up space that God has

been meaning to be filling. Or giving up control of

situations that we can't really control anyways.

Letting conviction work instead of pushing Him away whenever we

feel that tug of conviction. God, I just want to be your

temple. I want to be your dwelling

place, not just to visit, not just for visitation.

I, I, I want it to be something that you dwell and you stay.

Saints, we cannot afford to leave God in a tent.

He has mercy on us to meet us in those seasons, but we should

have enough honor.