Reading: Matt. 4:8-10; 1 Cor. 15:28;
Revelation 21:22; 22:3.
"Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve."
"... That God may be all in all."
"... The Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are
the temple thereof."
These
closing words of the New Testament in the book of the
Revelation, from which we have read the small fragment,
contain those factors which sum up the spiritual history
of this universe. It is helpful and instructive to go
right to the end of things as we have them in the Word of
God, and just to note what the end is, to see what is the
last word in it all. There is a sense in which Rev. 21:22
is a final utterance. There will be other things said
before the book closes, but up to this everything, the
history of this universe, has been heading right through
the ages. And how does it terminate, what is the end of
it all? As I have said, in a sense, it is this - "I
saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and
the Lamb, are the temple thereof." This contains the
great factors in summing up spiritual history. First, the
Lord God the Almighty; second, the Lamb; and in
connection with that the third thing is said - "no
more curse" (Rev. 22:3). (1) and (2), the Lord God
the Almighty and the Lamb, are, as you note, linked into
the Temple, they are the Temple. (2) and (3), the Lamb
and the curse, are connected in that they signify the
challenge to the Lord God the Almighty, and its answer.
The curse suggests the entering in of something which was
a challenge to God's place of unreserved Lordship; the
Lamb is the answer to that challenge. So we have these
three factors here which lie back of this long and
terrible history.
By the
way, there is a finality here in the matter of
interpretation. It is that the spiritual is the right and
the essential interpretation, not the temporal or the
sentient. So far as the Temple is concerned, ultimately
it turns out to be God and the Lamb. You have reached
finality in the whole history of temples and lambs,
sacrifices, priesthood and every such thing. When all is
said, and all is done, and all that could be seen through
history is passed, it all turns out to be a spiritual
matter. This temple matter, what is it all about? This
lamb matter, what is it all about? It is God the Almighty
and the Lamb. With what has it got to do? - a curse, a
challenge, a false thing entering into God's universe
which has to be eliminated in order that actually, not
only positionally, but actually, God may be all in all.
Worship - The Ultimate Issue
What we
have to see is, firstly, the ultimate issue in this
universe; secondly, the relatedness of all else to it;
and thirdly, the way of its attainment.
Firstly,
then, the ultimate issue in this universe. It is summed
up in one word, a very comprehensive word including many
things, an all-embracing word. It is the word
"worship." That is the ultimate issue in this
universe to which all else is related, and which governs
all that has been revealed in the Word of God as God's
way of reaching His end. As we approach this matter of
worship, standing back from the detail and from all the
form, the means used temporally to set it forth, we
recognize that it is set in a realm far bigger than this
earth. It embraces other realms, its setting is
super-earthly. You have no need that I remind you of
Scriptures in that connection, but perhaps it is as well
for us to keep the Scriptures well in view. You will call
to mind those extraordinary passages such as in Ezekiel
28.
"Son
of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord
Jehovah: Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast
said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst
of the seas; yet thou art man, and not God, though thou
didst set thy heart as the heart of God; behold, thou art
wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that is hidden from
thee; by thy wisdom and by thine understanding thou hast
gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into
thy treasures; by thy great wisdom and by thy traffic
hast thou increased thy riches, and thy heart is lifted
up because of thy riches.... Moreover the word of Jehovah
came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation
over the king of Tyre" (note the change - not the PRINCE
of Tyre now) "and say unto him, Thus saith the
Lord Jehovah: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom,
and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in Eden, the garden of
God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius,
the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the
jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and
gold; the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was
in thee; in the day that thou wast created they were
prepared. Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth:
and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain
of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the
stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the
day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was
found in thee. By the abundance of thy traffic they
filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast
sinned: therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the
mountain of God; and I have destroyed thee, O covering
cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart
was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted
thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I have cast thee
to the ground; I have laid thee before kings, that they
may behold thee.... All they that know thee among the
peoples shall be astonished at thee: thou art become a
terror, and thou shalt nevermore have any being."
That is
one; you are familiar with another in Isaiah 14.
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O
daystar, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the
ground, that didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst
in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the
mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the
north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I
will make myself like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be
brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit.
They that see thee shall gaze at thee, they shall
consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the
earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the
world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof;
that let not loose his prisoners to their home? All the
kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every
one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from
thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the
slain, that are thrust through with the sword..."
If we wanted more, we could go to the book
of Daniel, to which we may refer again. You remember
those extraordinary statements about Daniel praying for
three weeks, and that from the first day that he set his
heart, archangels were set in motion to fulfill his
prayer, and they were withstood by world rulers of this
darkness, principalities in the heavens. Or we might just
put in the whole book of Job - which is not fiction. It
is all of a piece with this great drama in the realm of
things spiritual. Again, we should come to our Lord, and
find that immediately He moved into the realm of
spiritual things, full of the Holy Ghost, which
constituted Him one to fulfill essentially spiritual
purposes - that is the object of the gift of the Holy
Spirit, to constitute for spiritual work - endued with
the Holy Ghost, immediately He met the prince of
spiritual realms. But the point for the moment is this.
In Matthew's record, that spiritual foe, the Devil,
started through His body, where he started with the first
Adam. Failing there, he moved to his soul, and was
defeated there; but fully and finally the object comes to
light as he tried to get in through His spirit, and the
one word connected with spirit is worship, always.
"... If thou wilt fall down and worship me." He
has got right to the citadel of man - worship in the
spirit. So he assailed finally His spirit, showing that
that was, after all, the object of the whole campaign;
worship in the spirit, or by the spirit. We might do well
to stay and think quietly about that. It is not part of
our subject for the moment, but just keep it
pigeon-holed. How the Devil tries to get at the ultimate
thing through other channels, through the body, through
the soul, to capture the spirit with a view to installing
himself as God, to be worshiped!
Or we might again pass on to Paul, and
listen to those familiar words about principalities and
powers, world rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked
spirits in the heavenlies; all this, with all that the
book of the Revelation holds on the matter, indicates the
setting of this issue, this ultimate, consummate issue.
It is in the realm of things spiritual. It is in a far
bigger realm than the mere earthly. It embraces a vast
range, goes right out to the heavens; that is where it is
set - worship in the universe, and it is essentially
spiritual. "God is spirit; and they that worship him
must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24).
"Such doth the Father seek to be his
worshippers." "I saw no temple therein; for the
Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple
thereof." This is what it is all heading up to,
"that God may be all in all." That statement in
1 Cor. 15 is a very enlightening statement. It speaks
about the Son having all things put in subjection under
Him, and it says, that when all things are put in
subjection under Him, it must exclude the One Who puts
them in subjection under Him. They must be put by
somebody, and therefore that somebody must be excluded,
remain outside, alone. So the complete statement is -
"When all things have been subjected unto him, then
shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did
subject all things unto him, that God may be all in
all."
And the
significance is this; you have there, in that small
fragment, the whole conception and idea and meaning of
sonship. Here I am not going back again over those words
"child" and "son"; you know the
difference by now. The word "son" in the
Scriptures is a full thought, a much bigger thought than
"child"; it is a child fullgrown. Recognizing
that, what is the object of sonship? Here it is. It says
quite plainly that the whole object of sonship is to
secure God's universal rights unto Him in man. Sonship
has fulfilled its purpose when God is all in all. In
sonship all God's universal rights are secured to Him in
man, and that not only positionally but actually.
Positionally, God is all in all, but actually He is not
yet that in you and me, in the creation. The Spirit of
sonship is seeking to bring that about; we are called
unto the adoption of sons with a view to God's securing
all His universal rights in worship. We are in a
tremendous business when we become possessors of the Holy
Spirit. Linked up with receiving the Holy Spirit is the
ultimate purpose of this universe, and we, of course,
come into that immense conflict which has raged since
that undated time when God's place of supreme and
undivided worship was challenged by this one of whom we
read. At that time, conflict entered into God's universe
and it came down on to this earth. At that moment, the
question arose - Who is going to be worshiped? Who is
going to be the ALONE OBJECT of worship, to whom
alone is everything to come?
The Cosmic Conflict
That is
a far more acute question than it sounds to be. Of course
we worship God! Ah, but do we? That is pressed right down
to the innermost secrets of our being. That will have to
be looked at more closely when we come to see how
everything is related to this issue. It is the issue of
the book of Job, to which we have referred. The one
question standing out in that book, over all that is
taking place, is this, Who is going to be worshiped? Is
there any way or means at all open to Satan, by which he
can turn a man away from God? Then he will exploit it. So
all Job's domestic affairs come into the realm of a great
cosmic conflict; all his physical, bodily affairs move
right out of the mere significance of a man on this
earth; all his relationships and friendships become
involved in this terrific battle. Oh, the darts and
arrows, satanic assaults striking upon his soul; doubts,
questions, fears, all about this one thing - Is God going
to come out supreme in this man's spirit or is the Devil?
Who is going to be the alone object of worship? "In
all this Job sinned not" (Job 1:22) is the verdict.
You read many things; you say, Surely that is wrong, he
ought not to have said that! Listen to God - "In all
this Job sinned not." These pious friends said many
things, lovely things, so true philosophically - "Ye
have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my
servant Job hath" (Job 42:7) was God's verdict. It
is not what we say under stress, it is not the doubts and
the fears that rack our souls at times of terrific
pressure: it is down in our spirit - do we hold on to
God, do we believe God, can we curse God? "There
shall be no more curse." "The Lord God is the
temple." Worship and the curse cannot go together.
When you come to the final issue, the Lord God and the
Lamb are the temple, there is no more curse. Perhaps you
do not follow that, it sounds a remote thought, but it is
principalities we are dealing with and this is the thing
we are in. I am only dealing with the background of
things in this meditation. We come very near in practical
life later on.
You can
embrace everything and gather it up into this one
question; it is the one thing that runs right through the
spiritual history of this universe; it is the one thing
which lies behind all that is taking place on this earth.
There is only one thing. There is nothing here of two
realms that you might call secular and spiritual, no two
realms in this universe, it is spiritual altogether. If
you have not recognized, even in the blatant history of
the past six years, that spiritual factors have been
predominant, you have missed the whole thing. It has been
a most remarkable display of spiritual principalities
during these years. God is going to uncover the meaning
of this world's history and in the end it will be more
patent than ever that it was spiritual. It is a spiritual
thing that is happening. You cannot touch anything in
this universe and get outside of spiritual issues. There
is a spiritual issue bound up with anything and
everything. You cannot put these things in water-tight
compartments. The simple issue is this - worship. Do not
just have narrow ideas of worship. Worship is not merely
singing hymns, bowing heads, saying prayers, coming
together in "public worship." Get behind all
that. It is the question which arises with us
continually, all the way through our lives, in every
connection. What place has God in this, where does God
come in? How does Satan stand to get an advantage here?
It only needs two Christians divided against one another
to raise this whole issue. How much is Satan getting out
of this? A lot! Then it is my worship to see that this
thing ends; ending this is worship to God and giving God
His place. It touches everything. What I feel so much in
my heart needs to come home to you and to me is the
tremendous significance of our lives, as being in this
universe. They are not little things, they are not
unrelated things. They are bound up with the one thing
for which the universe exists and which is governing the
whole course of the spiritual history of this universe.
Who is going to be worshiped alone, without reserve,
without dividedness, without question, without rival and
without grudging? - whole-hearted, unquestioning worship!
It is an attitude of heart, it is a position of life, and
all that is in the Bible is simply gathered into this.
Oh, this
question of worship is such a battle, is such a conflict,
and anything that has to do with things being brought
God-ward, and more God-ward, is going to be withstood and
fought up to the hilt. The whole course of this opposing
activity is to draw away from God; and God plants
something right down in the midst, the course of
"away-ness" from God is challenged, and upon
that this storm breaks. That is saying, No, not away from
God, but unto God. "Now unto him." That is what
we are in this universe for as God's people, and it is
standing against something, very often against something
in ourselves as well as outside. If the Lord's people
only recognized this more fully, were more alive to it,
how much greater would be the meaning in things. Take our
hymn singing. Why do we sing hymns? Just to open the
service? "Let us open our meeting by singing,"
"let us begin our service by singing" - a part
of the program? Would it not be better to say, "Now,
let us challenge the Devil and put God in His place by
singing"? If it were like that we would not sing
many things that we do sing, and we would sing some
things with very much more meaning. Our spirit would come
in it, we should worship in spirit. So it would be in
every other part; especially in that central act of the
Church's life, the Table of the Lord. It is worship! What
meaning would come into it! What value there would be in
it if it were taken out of the realm of "Holy
Communion" as an ordinance, a part of the Church's
calendar! This Table stands in the midst of this universe
in relation to the ultimate thing. In the light of what
we are doing today, we are standing across the whole
course of drawing away from God on the part of the evil
powers and saying, No! - the other way, unto Him!
It is
not only in the Church's life, in meetings, and so on. It
is our life individually in every sphere. That is why we
are there. I do not want to go further now with that side
because it will have to be looked at more closely a
little later. All that occupies us at this time is the
setting of this ultimate issue. I come back here to the
passage which governs all, which from the end throws its
meaning and value right back over all that has been -
"And I saw no temple therein." To be without a
temple is a terrible omission! No, not at all, "for
the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple
thereof." Everything at last is gathered up in the
Lord by way of the Cross, through the Lamb, Who has dealt
with the curse coming in through the challenge of the
enemy. There is no more curse, because the Lord God the
Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple. I think it is
very beautiful to come to the end like that. The Lord God
the Almighty is the temple; worship is centered in Him,
not in things. He is the sum of worship, it is all in
Him, and that has been brought about because of the Blood
of the Lamb, the mighty work of the Cross.
Shall we leave it there for the present?
It is not in the amount that is said in words, it is in
the thing that is said that we shall find the real value.
Recognize this, then, as one thing that governs
everything else. It simplifies the Bible. Go back to your
Bible, and you find one thing, after all, one thing
embracing, covering everything that you can think of, one
issue - Who is going to have the "worth-ship"
without question, without reserve? And the answering of
that question involves us in the conflict. You know, or
you ought to know by now, that if you are the Lord's, and
you have any spiritual perception as to why you are the
Lord's, and why you are here on the earth as the Lord's,
you ought to know quite well that you are a marked man or
a marked woman. Before you have said anything about it,
you are marked. The more utter you are going to be for
the Lord, the more you are marked, without asking for it
or saying anything about it. Satan has real spiritual
discernment. He is able, without weighing up the pros and
cons, to jump to very right conclusions very quickly as
to the significance of an individual. He can foresee what
you are going to count for in this one issue. Therefore
you are marked out as an object to be by any possible
means subverted, turned away, destroyed, got out of the
way, nullified. If you are going to contribute to God's
being worshiped in the sense of which I have been
speaking, you are involved; and remember that you never
do count for the Lord in this matter, nor against the
enemy, until you have received the Holy Spirit. The Devil
does not mind how many people go to "public
worship." It is of no account to him, in the
ultimate sense, how many go to "public
worship." You begin to count spiritually in this
matter of really drawing toward God only when you receive
the Holy Spirit. Therein is your salvation. We have the
Holy Spirit Who is the Spirit of worship, Who is the
power of accomplishing His end. Oh, thank God, He has
determined to have the unquestioned place at last, and He
has sent His Son to secure it. It will be by His Spirit
that we are fulfilling this holy vocation. The power of
the Holy Ghost is our salvation. The shield will be
anointed and the battle will be in the power of the Holy
Spirit. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). So we
need not be frightened, scared at the outlook and
prospect. What has been said is in order that we may
really see we are in something immense. Sooner or later
every Christian, every young Christian, will find that he
or she is in something more than just having signed a
decision card to become Christ's. They will find they are
in something for which they need resources beyond their
own to get through. It is a great thing to understand the
nature of what we are in, to have some light on this
matter.