Reading: 1 Kings 7:1-12;
Revelation 21:2,10-12,16,19.
In both of these
representations we have that which is symbolic of the place where
the Lord delights and purposes to dwell. The "greater than
Solomon" is building His house, and a house also for His
Bride. The King is building the city where His throne is to be.
If we read carefully these
descriptions of Solomon's buildings and of the new Jerusalem, the
Holy City, we can clearly discern three outstanding
characteristics: strength, beauty and costliness. These are the
three major characteristics of that in which the Lord will dwell.
He is most concerned for these things and works with deep and
patient application to have them, the expression of Himself and
His thoughts.
Strength
Very evident in Solomon's
building is the element of strength - those mighty, weighty
stones and those great cedars of Lebanon. The impression is all
of strength. It has taken a long time to secure those stones, and
they have a long history. Indeed, it might be impossible to trace
the beginning of those stones, of that rocklike substance. It
goes back a long way and has a long history. And then those
cedars of Lebanon were not planted yesterday. They speak of many
a testing storm and many a long year of growth. There is nothing
superficial, nothing light and nothing fancy about them, and
nothing will be able easily to carry them away. They will stand
and they will endure; they are the embodiment of the very
principle of patient endurance. There is eternity in their very
constitution. They have passed through many a tempestuous
testing, and they are here in the house because of that - the
king will dwell here because of that testing. They have been
exposed to the elements; they have never been coddled and covered
and protected from adverse elements. They have been exposed to
all the forces that could destroy. Here is strength!
Look at that mighty new
Jerusalem! Twelve thousand furlongs does not convey very much to
our minds until we begin to think about it and remember that this
is a cube of fifteen hundred miles. I will leave it to the
mathematicians to work this out, but, remember, breadth, length
and height are equal. I just mention that to emphasize this fact
of weightiness: the substantial, the enduring, the strength.
Dear friends, I need hardly say
any more, for your minds are interpreting and applying as I
speak. Is this not the history of the true people of God? The
Lord does not put us in glass houses to grow us to be His trees,
and He does not protect us from the storms or the adversities. He
exposes us to the bitter winds and scorching suns of adversity
and trial, for He is working in us that which is according to His
own nature - eternity, that which is enduring and everlasting,
which will not be easily carried away. He is putting substance in
us. Oh, we fear that today the appeal to become Christians is so
often in terms of having an easy or good time, being happy and
enjoying yourself. Well, thank God for all divine joy, but that
which is true of the house, of the city, is the main thing toward
which the Lord is working; He is seeking to work into His people
that substantial, steadfast, enduring faithfulness which is
according to His own nature. Oh, for substantial Christians who
do not need coddling and nursing and running after all the time,
being pandered to just to get them to go on or to stand up! Oh,
for men and women like the cedars of Lebanon, like the hewn
stones, weighty, accountable, responsible, able to carry weight,
and all that is meant by strength!
I can only remind you again of
what a large place this has in the Word of God... "Be
strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might" (Ephesians
6:10): "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ
Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:1, AV). Think again! If you want to
understand why the winds are allowed to blow so fiercely, and the
storms to rage, it is to get us away from that natural
easygoing-ness, cheapness, lightness, frivolousness, and to make
us people of weight and strength, through testing, through
adversity; strength to endure. There is much that is going to be
carried away in the last great testing, and if therefore trial,
adversity, is the only way to deepen us, to put calibre into us,
I suppose we must accept more of it as time shortens.
Beauty
I will not stay to say much
about this, but it is so evident in these representations, is it
not? The Lord is also at work in this matter, for He wants that
which is His dwelling-place, the place that He is making for
Himself, His own habitation, to be attractive, to be admirable,
to be grand, and something to be wondered at. I suppose the one
word which covers this whole sphere of beauty is the word
'grace'. If suffering is unto strength, then grace is unto
beauty. If you and I have a true apprehension, a real heart
appreciation of the meaning of divine grace, there will be
something about us that is not ugly, repulsive, but something
beautiful, something mellow. Beauty is not fierce, not cruel, not
hard. It is, in the right sense, soft - but perhaps mellow is the
best word. You and I, as we go on with the Lord, under His Hand,
ought to be losing our natural hardness of judgment, of word, of
attitude, and taking on more and more of the mellowness of grace.
Look again at these
descriptions, perhaps particularly that of the city, and see how
outstanding is this characteristic of beauty. It is a mighty
thing, and almost overawing in its strength, its power to resist,
to endure and stand, and yet one of the wonderful things about
the Lord Jesus, and about anything and anyone in whom He fulfils
His purpose, is the combination of strength and beauty. There is
a balance: it is not all strength and it is not all softness.
There is a marvellous balance in the Lord Jesus. Look at Him!
These two things are brought together, and that is what the Lord
would have in us.
Costliness
How costly was Solomon's
building! There was a great, great cost bound up with those
houses that he built. And then the city - "the
foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner
of precious stones". There is something very precious,
very valuable to the Lord: there is nothing cheap in what is of
God. Remember that! Everything that is of God is costly and has a
great price attached to it. There is nothing here that is
contemptible and mean. These were costly stones. It is the
embodiment of suffering.
You notice that "the
wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them twelve names
of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" ... "The first
foundation was jasper" and a jasper stone
is "clear as crystal". Who was the
first of the Apostles? Simon Peter - now a jasper stone, clear as
crystal. All the mixture has gone out, and he is transparently
clear - but what suffering! Look at him! He denied his Lord and
went out weeping bitterly; and in his Letters he has quite a lot
to say about the fiery trial which is to test us and try us.
Peter knew suffering. Yes, but, you see, it produced something
very precious, valuable and costly to the Lord. Was it not Peter
who said: "For you therefore which believe is the
preciousness"? (1 Peter 2:7).
If you think again of the
Lord's ways with us you cannot fail to see that He is prepared to
use a lot of time, energy and money in order to get essential
spiritual value. Those of you who have read the life of Madame
Curie, the discoverer of radium, will remember the tons and tons
and tons of stuff that men would call rubbish which was heaped
into her backyard. They collected tons, so to speak, mountains of
it, out of which to get the tiniest grain of radium. When it is
all reduced there is just this little tiny fragment of radium out
of tons of stuff. Ah, but look at the cost of radium in those
days! Look at the power and the virtue in it!
The Lord is like that. He is
prepared to use tons and tons and tons to get one fragment of
this essential nature of Himself: preciousness. Think of its
intrinsic energy! There is something about the nature of the Lord
which is tremendously potent: the potency of truth, of love.
You and I must look at
everything in the light of spiritual value, for that is how the
Lord looks at it. Nothing with the Lord is of any value except in
so far as it results in something of Himself. You may have your
millions - though I don't suppose any of you have! - but with the
Lord that is nothing. He says: 'How much does that represent of
Me?' On the other hand, you may have your little and have to look
at every shilling that you spend, but there may be in your use of
that little something of the Lord, for the Lord; and so He looks
upon the widow's mite in the light of spiritual value, while He
looks upon the Pharisee without one thought or word of pleasure.
It is everything in the light
of spiritual value where the Lord is concerned. Think of the
matter of time! What a lot of time the Lord takes! How upset we
get over this matter of time! It is one of our big problems that
the Lord is so slow, waits so long and takes so much time. It is
a real trouble with us, and we are always trying to hurry Him.
No, if it requires time to get what He is after, He will take a
lifetime to get it.
You see, the whole thing that
the Lord is after is just real value, the cost of things, and we
could speak much about suffering. How much suffering the people
of God know! The sufferings of His people are a real problem, but
if Paul is right, here is the answer: "Our light
affliction, which is for the moment" - and you can only
talk like that if you see the rest of the statement! - "worketh
for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory"
(2 Corinthians 4:17). That is the end, the object, the
goal. Our 'light affliction' is not light at all. It is very
heavy unless we can see what the Lord is after, and then perhaps
we can see it in a different way.
So, the Lord is after this true
value, and when He gets these characteristics of strength, beauty
and real preciousness - costliness - the process will be fully
justified.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1965, Vol 43-1