"And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the
several gates was of one pearl" (Rev. 21:21).
"And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the
kings of the earth bring their glory into it" (Rev. 21:24).
"And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the
midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and
on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits,
yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:1-2).
Without staying for details of interpretation, I am assuming that
this holy city, new Jerusalem, coming from God out of heaven (Rev.
21:2) is the glorified church in type, and that the church as here
represented is constituted by spiritual principles, and thirdly
that those principles are the occupation of the Spirit of God with
the building of that church spiritually now in this dispensation.
The Outgoings and Incomings by Way of the Gates
Having said that, let us look at these symbolic features which
embody the spiritual principles of the church, which principles
are to come out in their full meaning eventually in glory. Here in
the verses which we have read, we have gates, pearls, nations,
kings, and we are given to see the outgoings and the incomings by
way of those gates; out to the nations from the city through its
gates go the forces of life - life, health to the nations. By way
of the gates, an outward ministry of life is carried on. In
through the gates the kings bring their glory. It is, of course, a
picture of the great ministry which the church is called to
fulfil, the people of God in their eternal vocation: by way, by
means, of them as a vessel, life to be poured out to the nations,
and they become that which the nations know to be the formed and
prepared instrument of their blessing. Then they send back
acknowledgment that it is by means of this church that they have
come into the good of life, of grace, of fulness. I think that is
what is here simply and briefly in principle, and I want to dwell
upon that quite simply and briefly.
The nations are seen to be deriving life, health, fulness, from
this church constituted by the Holy Spirit on divine principles by
way of what is meant by these gates of pearl. We come to that in a
moment. The kings of the nations bring their glory in through
these gates, their tribute, their own glory, their wealth which
has come to them by way of the church, and now they pay tribute,
they make acknowledgment, they come back and in effect say: "We
have come into what we have come into because of you and we pay
that tribute and acknowledge that fact and give thanks; we place
our glory upon the grace of God which has been so marvellously
manifested in you", and the church becomes, therefore, as the
apostle said it was to become, "to the praise of the glory of his
grace" (Eph. 1:6). "Unto him be the glory (from the nations) in
the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and
ever" (Eph. 3:21). What will be owing to the church!
The Gates - the Place of Government
But that leads us, of course, to the gates which are for the
moment our central object. As you know, in the Old Testament the
gates of any city were the place of government. It was there that
government was set, in the gates; there that the rule was made
known. It was there that life had to come into line with the
thoughts of those who were placed in authority. The gates are
always symbols of government, and that holds good here. There is a
governmental factor bound up with these gates of pearl.
The Governing Factor - Fellowship with Christ
in His Sufferings
You see, the divine wisdom having chosen the pearl as the symbol
of that which is the way of blessing and the way of glory, at once
says that the great governing factor is your fellowship with the
sufferings of your Lord. The pearl is the embodiment of anguish,
of blood and tears, of suffering. I need not stay to describe the
formation of the costly pearl by the anguish of the organism which
gives its very life-blood to that marvellous formation. The Lord
has seen fit to choose that as the symbol of government which is
the very essence of ministry. Government with God is not something
official, something autocratic, something domineering, despotic.
Government with God is: if you can be a blessing to me in my deep
need and distress, you become a real governmental factor in my
life. I bow to you, I yield, for in the depths of my distress I
can find help nowhere else, and God gives help through you, and I
have to say that God has put you in a place of great power and
authority in my life; you become a real factor. That is government
with God.
It is the principle of the government of the Lord Jesus. He holds
His place, not in virtue of any official despotic position. He
holds His place as Lord in virtue of His Cross, in virtue of His
anguish, and in virtue of His being able to meet need in human
lives which could not have been met otherwise and apart from Him,
and that makes Him Lord. We bow to Him because of that. That is
why in the book of the Revelation everything comes to a Lamb
slain. He is in the Throne, He is in the place of supreme power,
not because God has put Him there in some official capacity, but
because through the Lamb all need is met and all of us are ready
to bow to the Lamb because of the ministry that has come to us
through His suffering.
That is the principle, the divine principle, of ministry. The
only way for the outgoing of life, the outgoing of healing, the
outgoing of spiritual fulness is the way of suffering and agony.
It is in the fellowship of His sufferings that the church will
fulfil her ministry most fully and most truly.
What is true of the church as a whole is, of course, true of
every part of it. In such an organism - If "one member suffereth,
all the members suffer with it" (1 Cor. 12:26). In some strange,
mysterious way it is true, every part is baptized into the
sufferings of Christ.
So the question arises: If our lives are to be ways for God's
fulness, ways for the outgoing of life, ways for healing, ways for
the Lord, we have got to be one with this principle of the pearl.
It is going to be blood, it is going to be tears, it is going to
be suffering. All this is what our Lord meant when He said,
"Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it: and whosoever shall
lose his soul for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:25). "We ought
to lay down our souls for the brethren" (1 John 3:16). Laying down
our souls. I know that "life" and "soul" are interchangeable words
derived from the same original. I choose "souls" because so often,
when you speak of laying down your life, people think of being a
martyr in some way, either clubbed to death or burnt alive. No,
laying down your soul - it is something every day, it may be
spread over a long life, letting go our personal interests,
letting go our personal ambitions, suffering in the realm of our
soul's keen and terrible disappointments in this life. It means
letting go what might rise up, but for our relationship with the
Lord, what could be, what no doubt would be if we were not
following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. It is the way of
sacrifice, of the sacrifice. How much we would escape if we were
not following the Lamb - reproach, sacrifice, discipline.
Those who are going to be the way for the Lord for the pouring
out of His real fulness to the enrichment of a wide circle of His
interests, those to whom by His grace and in Him there is going to
be paid this tribute by the kings of the earth (symbolic language
again) and they say: "We owe it, under God, to you, that we have
come into this good and this wealth." Those who are going to be in
such a position - and this is nothing mythical, it is very real,
it comes right near to us - those who are going to be like that
are going to know discipline under the hand of God which no one
else knows. If you are called nearer to the Lord's side, do not
think that that means that it is going to be all blessing and all
the gratification of your desires. Not at all! It may be the Lord
will handle you much more severely than He will handle anyone
else.
Gordon, in one of his "Quiet Talk" series of books, speaks about
the Lord not allowing Moses to go into the land, and he gave the
picture of generations after, little children sitting upon their
father's or mother's knee, hearing the story of Moses, after all
his life of suffering and sacrifice, at the end being forbidden by
God to go in. They would say, "Oh, that was cruel of God, that was
not kind of God", and the parent would say (this is how Gordon put
it), "Ah, but you see, Moses was not an ordinary man, and men like
Moses cannot do what ordinary men can do; everybody is looking at
Moses and everybody has got to see through such a representative
man as Moses that disobedience cannot be overlooked." Yes, the
Lord deals severely with some of us because we are not just
ordinary - may I put it like that? - just ordinary people. This
church is no ordinary thing. There is a lot bound up with this
church and all its parts and therefore the Lord must be very
exacting and we go into sufferings which other people may not know
in order that this ministry, this great eternal vocation, might be
fulfilled; the outgoings of God like the river of the water of
life, the incomings of glory to Him in the church from the
nations. It is the way of the pearl.
You may be, if you are trying to avoid or evade reproach and
persecution and all that sort of thing, you may be sacrificing
your very ministry, you may be cutting right across and damming up
the very river of the water of life, you may be depriving yourself
and your Lord of much glory simply because you are hiding your
light, because to let it shine would bring upon you reproach and
suffering and persecution, ostracism and so on. Beware! It is not
worth it.
So I say to you, dear friends, the Lord's hand may be upon you in
strange ways. He gives and then He seems to take away. He, by a
miracle gives an Isaac, and then He says, "Offer him up." Strange
ways, the seeming contradictions of God, the mysterious ways. What
suffering, what perplexity, but what glory! This is the way of not
an ordinary kind of value and ministry - nothing superficial about
this. It is kings who bring their glory in, people who
count for something, people who have come into real values will
say, "But it was through you and it was because you were prepared
to go the hard way, because you were prepared to know the
suffering of your Lord; it was through your sufferings in the
grace of God that I am what I am." Kings bring their tribute and
the nations derive their life.
You see the principle perfectly clearly, and though we may
enlarge, and there is much here, the word is this - the way of
enlargement, the way of glory, is the way of suffering, which,
though we may think for the time being it means a cutting off,
shutting in, narrowing, straitening, depriving, closing doors and
so on, God has His marvellous way of bringing about spiritual
enlargement even though it may be like that. It may seem like
that, that it is something less, something smaller - oh no, not
necessarily. It depends on your point of view, whether it is man's
or God's, whether it is earth or heaven; heaven's ideas of
greatness are very different from earth's, but be assured that if
you are knowing the fellowship of His sufferings, whatever that
may be, you will know the fellowship in that great ministry of
life, of fulness, of wealth, of glory.
Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.