Seventh Meeting
(February 6, 1964 A.M.)
Reading:
John 4:19-23; Exodus 25:8:
"The
woman saith unto Him, 'Sir, I perceive that Thou
art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain;
and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men
ought to worship.' Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe
Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye
worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such
to worship Him.'"
"And
let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among
them."
In the
Gospel by John, chapter 1:14:
"And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father,) full of grace and truth."
We are
seeking to get right back behind all that Christianity
has become to its fundamental principle. I think we all
recognize that Christianity has become a great buildup
system. And very soon after the apostles had gone to the
Lord, men began to put their hand upon Christianity. They
put its truths into a set system of creeds. They put its
testimonies into a form of ritual. Somehow or other man
must put his hand on things. From the day when Adam put
his hand on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man
has always wanted to put his hand on the things of God.
That is, to bring the things of God into his own control.
We use our hands in order to bring things under our
control.
But when
it comes to the things of God, that is a wrong use of our
hands. Man has always been doing that. The Philistines
put their hands on the ark with disastrous results for
themselves. Uzzah in the days of David put his hand on
the ark; and the Lord smote Uzzah [so] that he died. And
for the time being everything came into confusion in
Israel. The ark of the testimony had to be turned aside.
The whole progress toward God's end had been brought to a
standstill. And even David was angry with the Lord. All
the results were man putting his hand in the things of
God. It has always been like that. And it is like that in
Christianity.
Christianity
began in a simple beautiful living way. It was all in the
life and the liberty of the Spirit. And while the Holy
Spirit has His hand on things, everything is all right.
Now men came in and they took hold of Christianity and
the result is what we have today. There is no place where
there is more confusion than in Christianity. The Lord's
testimony is under arrest. It is in limitation because
man's hands are upon it. Man has brought it under his
control. That is always a dangerous and a disastrous
thing. The Lord's attitude is like this. 'I will keep My
hands off until you take yours off. While your hands are
on My things I will leave it to you.' And things go from
bad to worse. Now I think we all recognize that. The more
a man or any man puts their hands on the things of God,
the more confusion there is. When man brings the things
of God under his control and dominates them, that means
trouble. That is why the Lord so often had to weaken man
and make man know his own weakness. Paul, the apostle,
was a strong man naturally. And as Saul of Tarsus, he put
his hand on the things of God. And then the Lord met him
and smote him. And in the end, the apostle said, "I
will glory in my infirmity and in my weakness, that the
power of Christ may rest upon me."
Now let
us take note of these things as we go along. I am not
concerned about giving you a great mountain of teaching.
It does not matter to me how much I give you or how
little. The important thing is that you take note of
every little bit. And what I have just said is a very
important thing. Let me say to my brothers, and sisters,
be careful how you put your hand on Divine things. Be
careful how you try to bring the things of the Spirit
under your control, it may be that the Lord will smite
you if you do that. If you do that, you will only bring
confusion into the church. With all this tremendous
confusion, the system of Christianity exists because man
put his hand on Divine things. This brings Divine things
within the compass of their own mind, and to say: 'This
is how it has to be done. This is what we must do and
this is what we must not do.'
Now as
we so often said, Peter started doing that, when the Lord
showed him that he has to go to the house of Cornelius, a
Gentile. Peter always took the position that Jews had
nothing to do with the Gentiles. When the Spirit told
Peter to go to this home of the Gentile, Peter said,
"not so, Lord"; he put out his hand, and he
said, "Now Lord, You are wrong and I am right; You
must come into line with my Old Testament
understanding." That was a very critical day for
Peter. And it was a very critical day for the Church.
When Peter took his hands off, it became a wonderful day
for the Church.
So we
have got to get right back to Christianity as a system as
we know it. And get right to the first simple spiritual
principle of Jesus Christ. And we said yesterday that
this passage in the Gospel by John, chapter four, verse
twenty-three takes us right back to the beginning. It is
the beginning of a new dispensation. Jesus said to the
woman, "the hour cometh, and now is." Then He
dismissed the whole system that had existed up to that
time. It was the whole system of Judaism according to the
Old Testament. In one sentence, He dismissed the whole
dispensation. And He introduced an altogether new order
of things.
What did
He mean? Because when He said the hour cometh, and now
is, He did not mean literally just an hour and so many
minutes. He meant that it was the first hour of the new
day. With this hour an altogether new day has come. What
is the new day? If you would have asked Jesus to put it
into a short sentence, He would have said, 'Well, I am
here.' The hour is not just a matter of time but a matter
of PERSON. The new dispensation is the dispensation of
Jesus Christ. Christ is the new dispensation. I am here,
He said. You go through that Gospel of John. He is
centering everything in Himself. I am the Way; I am the
Truth; I am the Life; I am the Shepherd; I am the Vine; I
am the Resurrection. IT IS A PERSON. It is that which
lies behind everything. Christianity is Christ. Christ is
Christianity. That is where it all begins and it never
departs from HIM. The development of the Christian life
is only the development of Jesus Christ in the life.
Now in
this fourth chapter of John, the focal point is the House
of God. The woman said, "Our fathers worshipped God
in this mountain." She is referring to the mountain
Gerizim where the Samaritans worship. Our fathers said,
'This is the place where men must find God.' But you Jews
said, 'It is the temple in Jerusalem.' All the Jews said,
'If you want to find God, you must go to the temple in
Jerusalem.' So that was their idea of the House of God.
Now Jesus takes that up in relation to the new
dispensation. He says, 'The hour cometh, and now is, when
neither in Samaria, nor in Jerusalem.'
Now we
come to those two passages that we have read at the
beginning. Exodus twenty-five, verse eight says:
"Let them build Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell
among them." That presents to us the great truth of
the whole Bible. It begins the Bible and it ends the
Bible. And the whole Bible is taken up with this one
matter. In the beginning of the Bible we have God
dwelling in men. And the Lord God came into the garden.
Showing that God's great desire is to be with men. He
made men for this very purpose: That He might dwell among
men. Not to be the God far away somewhere that you do not
know, but the God Who comes down and dwells with men.
That was something always in the heart of God. So that
the one thing - all through history - is God's desire to
be present with men.
The
Bible shows what a wonderful thing it is to be in the
presence of God. Oh, when the Lord is present, what a
blessed thing it is. And the most terrible thing that the
Bible shows is for the Lord to withdraw Himself from men.
I expect all of us here know something about that. I mean
that the most difficult thing in our experience is not to
sense the Presence of the Lord. If, when we have a day,
when it seems that the Lord is far away, that is a very
very hard day. When we have a day, when we realize the
Presence of the Lord, that is the best day in our life.
You remember the Lord's servant of old says, "If Thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." He
could not contemplate going out without God. The Lord
says, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will
give thee rest." And so they were able to go on.
Now the
Presence of the Lord is always the most important thing.
Do note that, because I am going to make a lot of that
now. When the Lord said to Moses, "Let them make Me
a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them," He was,
of course, referring to the tabernacle, the tabernacle in
the wilderness. And then God gave them the pattern of all
things concerning the tabernacle. And when all things
were made according to the pattern, God came down and
filled the tabernacle. He PRESENCED Himself among
the people.
Now we
come to John one, and verse fourteen. Here is a little
bit of Bible study for you. See if you can trace in the
Gospel by John how many allusions there are to the Old
Testament. John was a Jew and he was full of the Old
Testament. And whenever he wrote, he brought in something
from the Old Testament. Now that is a very rich and
profitable study. I just leave it to you for the present.
He begins his Gospel with, "In the beginning was the
Word. The Word became flesh." There, note the word
that he uses. "THE WORD BECAME FLESH, AND
TABERNACLED AMONG US." That is the original word, He
made His Tabernacle among us. In John's mind he was
relating Jesus to the tabernacle in the wilderness. And
he is saying that as God came to dwell among men in the
tabernacle in the wilderness, so GOD HAS COME TO
TABERNACLE AMONG MEN IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. What is the
Tabernacle of God in this dispensation? It is His Son.
What is the House of God? It is Jesus Christ. What is the
Church? I wonder what you would put down on paper if you
were asked that question. If I were to ask you to write
down on one sheet of paper the answer to this question,
"What is the Church?" I wonder what I should
get. I am sure somebody will give me a wonderful system
of Church truth. A wonderful order of Church practice.
The answer is simple. The Church is Jesus Christ, nothing
less than that, nothing more than that. If Christ is in a
number of people, it is He Who forms the Church. It is
Christ in us that makes the Church, not first our
doctrine, not first our practice, not first the way we
carry on when we come together: but first of all the
Presence of the Lord. The Presence of the Lord in those
who are gathered together, that makes the Church.
But
note, I have commenced with the Church. And I am thinking
of the Church universal, worldwide. There is no geography
in the Church. You understand that? It is not in this
mountain or in Jerusalem. There is no geography in the
Church. There is no time in the Church. We are here at
nearly nine o'clock in the morning. In England, it is
eight hours earlier. Take eight from nine and you have
one. It is about midnight in that country. You go further
west and it is earlier still. But that does not exist in
the Church. The Lord never goes to sleep. Darkness and
light are both alike to Him. There is no day or night in
heaven. Time does not exist with Him. I am very glad
about that. Well, we will leave that for the time being.
We may show that again at some other time, in some
particular connection.
We want
you to come back to this. Christ is the same at all times
in every place. Therefore, the Church is the same. The
Church is not American, British, Chinese, Philippine,
etc. The Lord does not take notice of that. All that
matters to the Lord is that He has a place in the heart,
and it does not matter where it is in all the world, or
what time it is at all. The Church takes its character
from Christ. CHRIST CORPORATE IS THE CHURCH. You have got
to prove that Christ is not in me, in order to say that I
am not in the Church. And you have no right to say to
anybody who has Christ dwelling within, that they do not
belong to the Church. Do you understand that? Do you
agree with that? We are getting right back behind
Christianity to Christ. Right back behind what man calls
the Church to Christ.
Now,
having spoken of the Church, we are going to speak of the
churches. What are the churches? Here we have got to do a
lot of rethinking, and make some very big adjustments. Do
you know that most people think that the apostles had the
idea that they have got to get out to the nations and
form churches? They believe, for instance, that the
Apostle Paul's business was to go out and form churches
everywhere. The real object of Paul was to go out into
Asia and into Bithynia and into Galatia and form
churches. Their idea was, we must have a church
everywhere. Do you believe that? If you think that, you
are all wrong. Now do think seriously about this. Because
this is going to revolutionize our whole thinking.
What did
Paul and the apostles believe was their work? It surely
was not to bring churches into being. They believed that
their business was to bring Christ into every place. Will
you tell me where in the New Testament you have any
apostle arriving anywhere saying, 'Now, we have come to
form a church. The Lord has sent us to this place in
order that we may form a church.' Well, you will spend a
lot of time trying to find anything like that in the New
Testament. It is not there. There are lots of other
things that are not there, which we think are there.
Things we have come to teach as being there, and they are
not there at all. That is not there; you get back to the
Gospel. "And Jesus sent forth His apostles two by
two." And it says, "He sent them into every
place, where He Himself would go." He has never
changed that principle. He does not send us to form
churches or set up Christianity. He sends us before His
face to bring Himself there. That does not mean that
churches have no meaning. But that brings us right to the
point. What are churches? They are just people gathered
into Christ where He Himself is. The supreme thing is
this eternal thought of God, the Presence of the Lord.
The Presence of the Lord, that is the purpose of anything
that is called the church. And that is the only Purpose.
You
remember in the Old Testament, there was the tabernacle
or there was the temple. And when the Lord withdrew from
the temple, it was no longer sacred. It did not matter to
God one little bit whether it existed or not. It was just
an empty shell. The Lord is not a bit interested in that.
That is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said that in
the temple at Jerusalem, "Your house is left unto
you desolate. The day cometh when there will not be left
here one stone upon another." That is how sacred
this thing is to God when His presence is gone. it is no
different from any other piece of stone. That is what the
Lord meant when He came to the churches in Asia. He said,
'I know all about your works and your labour. I know all
about your Christian doctrine. I know all about your
services. But repent, and do the first works; or I will
remove your lampstand out of its place.' The thing has no
longer any meaning or purpose when the first thing has
gone.
What is
the first thing? It is not teaching and doctrine. it is
not certain Christian practices. It is not continuation,
of your meeting. It is the Presence of the Lord. The
first thing was, when they came in from outside, they
said: "God is with you." It says they
fell down and said, "GOD IS WITH YOU." Go
back to the Old Testament when the Lord filled the
tabernacle and the temple, It says that; even the priest
had to go out. They could not stay in the Presence of the
Lord. They were but men. And they were sinful men. And
men as men have no place in the Presence of the Lord. Oh,
what a thing men have made of Christianity. In
Christianity, man has made man everything. Sometimes I go
to some places. I am introduced to the congregation. The
one who introduces me says, 'Mr. Austin-Sparks, the great
Bible teacher from Europe.' And then a lot of other
things. My heart sinks; I feel ill. I have to stand up
and say, 'Do not take any notice of that. I am nobody.
The Lord is everything.' Man has no place in the House of
God. We come into God's House in our own importance, in
our own strength, putting our hands on things, our minds
on things, our wills on things. We are changing the whole
nature of the House of God. The Lord will be limited
there. Indeed, He will not have a clear way for Himself.
This Jesus Who was the very presence of God says, "I
am meek and lowly in heart."
So I
finish on this note, I have said we are here to get
instruction on the foundation. I am trying to be very
faithful with you. The day is coming when everything is
going to be shaken from heaven. Christianity has suffered
a terrible shaking on the main-land China. And now the
system of Christianity is practically gone. And the only
true thing that remains is what is of the Lord in the
heart of the men and women. That kind of shaking is going
on all over the world. The Bible says it is going to be
so. Christianity is going to have a terrible shaking. And
only what is the Presence of the Lord will remain.
Perhaps the meeting will go, and be impossible. Perhaps
Christian fellowship will be exceedingly difficult.
Perhaps the preaching of the Word will be suspended.
Perhaps all the externals will just disappear. And then
the only thing will be, have we got the Lord? Do we know
the Lord? Is the Lord with us? Be sure! that is something
that the Lord will bring about. He very often does that
with the individuals. If our Christian life rests upon
things outward, the Lord will separate us from them. He
very often does that. And then the big question is, how
much of the Lord have I got? That is the ultimate thing,
because that is the first thing. Do remember, dear
friends, that THE TEST OF ANY CHURCH IS THE PRESENCE OF
THE LORD! Not whether it is here or there; not whether it
is done this way or that way. But just how much we find
the Lord there. Just how much men find the Lord there.
And to have the Lord in a larger way means having men in
a very small way.