"89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him."
Numbers 7:89
Further to the thought about the possibility of God speaking with His people, we may recall what we are told in 1 Samuel 3, about the days following the period of the Judges when the word of the Lord was precious that is, a scarce commodity and there was no open vision. The reason for this is not hard to seek: it was because God had been grieved away by the sin of His people that He did not speak. When this is the situation, the need is twofold. Firstly, God's people must recover a biblical pattern for life and a biblical doctrine of 'approach' in Christian terms, the recovery of the theology of the cross. One compelling reason why the church of God has made so little headway in modern society is that it has so substantially de- parted from biblical foundations and biblical thinking. Secondly, there must be a recovery of the spirit of glad abandonment to God in His gospel, the spirit of dedicated stewardship fol- lowed by the coming of the word of the Lord to Moses and to the people. The prophet Malachi sums it up: 'Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to re- ceive it' (Malachi 3:10). This is the glad reward of true and faithful stewardship; and this is the message of the chapter.