Fifteenth Meeting
(February 10, 1964 A.M.)
As this
is the last of these series of special morning meetings,
I think that it would be most helpful if, at the
beginning, I were just to go right back and remind you of
the ground which we have been covering. We commenced with
saying that Christianity has become something very much
more than it was at the beginning, that much has been
added to the foundation which does not belong to the
foundation. So that we find ourselves today in a
Christianity very different from that which was at the
beginning. Christianity today is a very complicated
thing. There are all the divisions, and the
organizations, and so very much more than was in the
simple basic realities of the beginning. And we said that
we were going to ask the Lord to bring us back to those
first beginnings of that Divine work in our Lord Jesus.
We went on to say that we believe that the Word of God
shows that there is going to be a great shaking of
everything at the end. And in that great shaking, only
the things which were and are really out from heaven will
remain. A very great deal of what has been built upon the
foundation will disappear. We believe that this is stated
in the Word of God.
Then
when that time comes, and we feel that it has already
begun, everything will be tested by the foundation. The
ultimate question in the great shaking will be just how
much the Lord is Present. So we went on to consider that
fundamental thing, the Presence of the Lord. That is
where the Lord began with the old Israel. And we quoted
Exodus twenty-five, verse eight, "Let them make
Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." That
is the eternal thought of God, which goes beyond all
time, THAT I MAY DWELL AMONG THEM. We saw that that
tabernacle or that sanctuary was, for the old Israel, the
place of God's Presence.
Then we
passed over to the New Testament, and found the new
Israel being formed by the Lord Jesus. When the old
Israel was put aside by God, then it says, "That
the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us." So
that in this dispensation, THE TABERNACLE IS THE LORD
JESUS. It is not a thing, it is a Person. The Presence of
God is wherever the Lord Jesus is. That governs
everything. It is all a matter of whether the Lord Jesus
is Present. Where He is, there is the Tabernacle of God.
Just as in the Old Testament where the people were
gathered around the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the
governing thing in their lives by which they were made
one people. All united by that one center, receiving all
their life and their light from it. So in this
dispensation, the Lord gathers people to Himself, He
becomes the center of everything. It is in Him that they
are united as one people, and from Him they received all
their life and light. And this is all the matter of the
Presence of the Lord.
So we
went on to see something of the meaning of the Presence
of the Lord as illustrated in the tabernacle of old. The
first thing that we saw was that it was something
presented to them by God from heaven. The Lord said,
"See that thou make all things according to the
pattern shown thee in the mount." The mount was a
type of heaven, where the Lord came down to meet His
servants, and there He showed the pattern of all things.
That pattern was brought down from the mount and made
known to the people. It was a presentation to them of the
pattern that was in the mind of God.
We know
that that tabernacle was a representation in every detail
of the Lord Jesus. So that in this new dispensation,
everything begins by a presentation of the Lord Jesus.
That is why we have the Four Gospels, which were written
after many of the Epistles, put in the first place in the
New Testament. Those Four Gospels contain a presentation
of the Lord Jesus. And He is there as God's pattern for
His Presence. We must recognize the very great importance
of those Four Gospels. They are God's pattern given down
from heaven for us to see. God has shown us
the pattern: and He has shown us that pattern in
perfection. When Jesus finished His life on this
earth, He was able to say, "I have finished the work
which Thou gavest Me to do." What was the work that
God gave Him to do? Well, supremely it was to reveal the
mind of God, so that He was able to say, "He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In other words,
He could say, 'I am the expression of the mind of God.
And I have come down from heaven that you may have in Me
the expression of the mind of God in every detail.'
Of
course, I can only say this in a general way this
morning. I could take up these Gospels and show you a
thousand ways in which the Lord Jesus was revealing the
mind of God. In everything that He said, and in
everything that He did, there was something of God. And
He was personally the comprehensive embodiment of the
thoughts of God. Now God has given that pattern to us. In
giving His Son, He has given the pattern of all things
for His Presence.
May I,
dear friends, appeal to you on this matter. I told you
when I first came that I have not come to give you Bible
teaching as such. When I go away from this country, one
question that will be in my heart will be this: 'What is
the practical results of it all?' That is going to be the
great deciding factor on the value of this time together,
so I have to seek the Lord very earnestly every time I
speak to you. And I have to ask the Lord that He will not
just give me a lot of things to say but that He will
leave you with something that you have to face up to. So
I say to you, that the fundamental thing is always the
Presence of the Lord. It is not any one of the thousand
things that make up Christianity. The ultimate criterion
is, 'Is the Lord there?' and 'Is the Lord in all things
there?' 'Is the Lord in what they do?' and 'Is the Lord
in how they do it?' Because with the Lord how things are
done is as important as doing the things. Is the Lord in
the people individually there? And are their lives marked
by this supreme thing? THE LORD IN THEM.
I have
no doubt that you love the Lord. I am not raising any
question about that. But, I do say again, we are involved
in a great system which is a very complicated thing, and
a great deal of it is not of the Lord. It is something
that man has brought in. Man has put his hand upon the
things of the Lord, and man has made things according to
his own mind, and therefore a great deal has come in
which is of man and not of the Lord. And when we say
that, we are not only thinking of Christianity in
general, we are thinking of ourselves. This is true of
ourselves. We have all come into something called
Christianity, and we have all taken on something of
Christianity, and there may be a great deal that we have
to get rid of, and come back to the simple fundamental
reality. And the fundamental reality of all realities is
THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. We have got to know that the
Lord is with us, and that the Lord is with us in all that
we do, that this did not originate in our mind. It did
not originate in our will, it did not originate in our
emotion. It did not come from our soul, this thing has
come from the Lord in every detail like the tabernacle.
Just like Jesus Christ, in every detail it has to come to
us from God.
That
ought to send us back to our knees - to go through all
our work. It may be necessary for us, from time to time,
to stand back and ask the Lord about all that we are
doing. 'Is this out from God, or is it something out from
ourselves? Is this way of doing things the mind of God,
or is it our mind? Is the Lord in this, or have we come
into it?' You see, that is a great deciding matter. Make
no mistake about it! Everything that is only of man is
going to perish. Sooner or later it will be shaken. Every
man's work shall be tried in the fire, says the Word of
God.
So the
first thing, then, is a presentation and a seeing of the
Lord Jesus. I wonder if I may refer to a personal
experience in this matter. I do not want to talk about
myself, but I want to help you by illustrating. For many
years, I was what was called a minister in the
denominations. I was a minister of what are called
churches. I was a minister of two denominations at the
same time. So I had the big religious buildings. And I
wore a clerical collar and attire, and I was in that
whole system of organized Christianity. I had a big
pulpit. And I preached sermons, and I was paid to do it.
Well, I was very earnest. I really believed that I
belonged to the Lord. My heart was reaching out to the
Lord.
But, the
time came, when the Lord showed me Jesus Christ. He began
to reveal His Son in me. You see, I knew the Bible. I was
teaching the Bible everywhere. When I went to a big
church in the north of London, they had no Bible teaching
meeting. They had only a very small prayer meeting. But I
decided that we would have, what we called, a Bible
school. So I got a big blackboard made, a blackboard as
big as this whole platform. I decided that I would give
Bible lectures. So I started going right through the
Bible. I went from Genesis to Revelation. The result was
that that place was crowded with people for the Bible
lecture. I say that to show you that I did know something
about the Bible.
The day
came when I saw the Lord Jesus, and all these other
things were like nonsense. All this church business was
like little children playing at going to church. All this
dressing up in clerical clothes, oh, how silly it was! I
really had not seen the Bible. I had it all in my head,
but really the Bible was a closed book. When the Lord
showed me His Son, all these other things went. It was
like nonsense to me, I saw that the Lord Jesus is the
Church, not these things. I saw that the Lord Jesus is
everything in the Bible. The Bible is not a book, the
Bible is Christ. I saw the Bible in Genesis, I mean, I
saw Christ in Genesis. All through the Bible I saw
Christ. It made everything else so foolish. It simply
turned me inside out and upside down. All those other
things had to be left behind. I saw the Lord Jesus. I do
not mean I saw Him with these natural eyes. But what Paul
meant when he said, "It pleased God to reveal
His Son in me." That is what happened in my
case.
And a
new thing began from that time. A new ministry began, a
new work of God began. And I am here today on the other
side of the world because of that. I have come to you not
as a Bible teacher, but to speak to you of what I have
seen of the Lord Jesus, and to say to you that the
fundamental thing is seeing Jesus. Of course, that is not
something that happened years ago. It only began to
happen forty years ago, and it is still going on today.
If I am faithful to the Lord, it will go on to the end of
my life. It is a continuously growing seeing of the Lord.
You see, that is where it began in the Old Testament, and
that is where it began in the New Testament. We have to
come back from all our things to the Lord.
Now
after the pattern was shown, both in the case of Israel
in the tabernacle, and in the case of the Lord Jesus to
the apostles, the next thing was to instruct the people
concerning the pattern. So the people were told about it.
It is quite clear that all the people were gathered and
told about this pattern. They were all involved in this.
They had to do the making of all things. They had to
provide the gold, and the silver, and everything else.
So, although it is not said in the Bible, it is quite
evident that Moses called all the people together. And he
said, 'Now the Lord has shown us a great pattern.' And
then he would have begun to explain to them all the
detail. He would say, 'Now there are things to be of
gold, and there are other things to be of silver, and
then there are the various fabrics that are needed, and
the different colors of the different fabrics.' And so he
would go through the whole pattern. He would say, 'Now
this is what the Lord has commanded, and all you people
are involved in this.' He instructed them concerning the
pattern.
Now the
Lord Jesus came from heaven as the Tabernacle. "HE
TABERNACLED AMONG US," said John. He is the full
revelation of God's mind. And then the Lord Jesus began
to instruct His disciples concerning Himself, by word and
by deed, He was instructing them concerning Himself. As
they watched Him, and listened to Him, they were really
coming to the knowledge of God's mind for them. So we
have our New Testament, and the New Testament is the
embodiment of all things concerning Christ, with one
object only in view. All these many details about the
Lord Jesus relate to only one thing. It will take you a
long time to count up all the details of the tabernacle.
It will take us all eternity to sum up all the things
concerning Christ. But in the New Testament we have a
great many things concerning the Lord Jesus. But in the
great many things is only one thing. And that thing is
the Presence of the Lord. You see, it is a comprehensive
thing; it is a detailed thing. The Presence of the Lord
relates to that little detail. I could show you that from
the New Testament. If things were not done according to
the mind of the Lord in the New Testament, everything
went wrong. The Lord only went on with them when
everything was according to Christ.
So the
second thing is for us to be instructed concerning
Christ. There is a little fragment in the New Testament,
which to me is a very important and significant one; the
apostle is writing concerning things which were wrong. He
just used this phrase 'You have not so learned Christ!'
That is not the way in which you learn Christ; that is
not the learning of Christ. See, how important that is?
It is as though the apostle was saying, everything must
come from your having learned Christ. These things have
come from men, from yourselves. In all things we must
learn Christ.
Now the
third thing. We spoke about the two men, Bezaleel and
Aholiab. It says that these men were filled with the
Spirit of God, for all manner of workmanship. So that the
work, when it began and was carried on, was not just done
in the wisdom of men. The Lord did not say, 'Now, here is
the pattern, you get on with it. You take it into your
hands and just work it out.' The Lord did not do that. He
took these two men, and He filled them with the Spirit.
And they became His instruments in showing how things
have got to be done. My point for the moment is not the
men, the Lord may take hold of men for this kind of
thing. But my point is this, THAT IT HAS GOT TO BE DONE
BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. If men come into this as God's
instruments, they must be men filled with the Holy
Spirit. As we pointed out, this is how it began in the
New Testament, 'Seek ye out seven men filled with the
Holy Spirit.' That related to the carrying on of the
work. It must all be done under the anointing of the Holy
Spirit.
Dear
friends, today I can see in much of the Lord's work, men
who are in positions for which they are not anointed.
They have been put into the position by men. Men have
thought that they would be, well, good men to have in the
work. Of course, they love the Lord, they are very
devoted to the Lord, and they want to work for the Lord.
So, the leaders take them and put them into positions. As
you go on you will see they were never anointed of God to
hold that position. Leadership in the work of God is
anointed leadership. It has to be seen by all spiritual
people that that man and that woman is anointed for the
position which they hold. They are not there because they
themselves have pushed themselves in, and they are not
there because the other responsible people thought it
would be a good thing to put them in. No, it is quite
evident that the Lord had anointed them for that
position, and therefore the Lord is with them. They may
have many human imperfections, there may be things about
them that you naturally do not like. You know how faulty
they are naturally, but you have to say, the Lord is with
that man and that woman. They are in the right position
because the Lord has put them there.
The
anointing is the great factor in all things concerning
Christ for this reason, it is not individual anointing.
There are not so many anointings as there are people.
There is only one anointing, and that is on Christ as the
Head. We only come into the anointing when we are in
Christ, and when we are under the Headship of Christ. We
are not under the anointing if we choose our own
position, or if men put us into positions. The anointing
is Christ's anointing, we have the anointing when we are
entirely under His Headship. Well, of course, that is too
big a matter for us to consider just now. But my point is
here in the course of the formation of things according
to Christ, the governing principle is the anointing of
the Holy Spirit.
The next
thing that we saw was that all spiritual progress is
governed by the Presence of the Lord. You can imagine a
situation in the wilderness. I can imagine that all these
people, when the tabernacle was taken down and packed up,
and the trumpets were blown to march on, the people were
full of enthusiasm - 'Now we are going on to the promised
land, now we shall soon be in the promised land.'
So they
were all full of interest about this going on business.
And then the cloud over them stopped, and the Lord told
them to unpack the tabernacle, and to set up the
tabernacle. We are going to stay here for a while, and
perhaps the people said, 'Oh, why have we got to stop and
wait and lose time, we want to get there, why stop here
and wait? How long are we going to stay here?' And if the
cloud remained many days, as it did, they could have
said, 'Oh, why are we losing all this time? Why are we
not getting on with the business?' And why was it? You
see, the Lord wanted them not to be occupied with the
journey alone, but with Himself. He wanted them to move
as they were occupied with Him, and so when they had some
time of being occupied with the Lord, the Lord said,
'Now, we will go on.' He did not say so, but He meant, We
will stop again later on. Now the Lord does that in
different ways. We get hold of things and we want to go
on with things. We get full of our own energy in the
things of God and we say, 'Now let's get things done.'
And we go on like that. Sometimes the Lord says, 'Stop a
bit.' He may bring us up short by something that happens,
some kind of adversity, or suffering. Something happens
and we know the Lord has said, 'Stop, you are too busy to
listen to Me, you are too occupied with My things to be
occupied with Me personally.' And so we must have a time
of being occupied with the Lord. My point is that all
spiritual progress is by the Lord's Presence.
Now when
Moses called the people together, all the willing hearted
people brought what they had for this work. In that way,
the Lord put responsibility upon the people. You see, the
tabernacle did not fall out of heaven all completed, only
the pattern came out from heaven. And then the Lord said,
"See that you make all things according to the
pattern." He put responsibility for this matter upon
the shoulders of the people. They had to understand the
pattern and take the responsibility for the fulfillment
of it. When they did that, then the glory of the Lord
filled the house of the Lord.
But
there were some times when they departed from the
pattern, we will look at just one of those times. Aaron
had two sons, they were Aaron's two elder sons. Their
names were Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu came after
Aaron in the priesthood. Now Nadab and Abihu must have
known all about the pattern. They must have known what
God had said about every detail, and there was one thing
amongst all the others that God had said. When the
priests go in before the Lord with their censers, they
are to take the fire from off the altar. Now where did
that come from, that fire on the altar? I expect you have
read the story. Here is the altar, here is the wood on
the altar, everything is ready. Did the priest go and
strike a match and light the wood? Or, whatever was the
way in which they made fire, did they do it like that?
Did they make the fire and take it to the altar? No, that
altar fire came from heaven. When the altar was set up,
and the wood was put on it, and the sacrifice was slain
and laid on the wood, the fire of the Lord came down, and
that fire never went out. They never had to do that a
second time. All the time that the tabernacle was in that
place, the fire continued day and night. No man had to
make fire. Nadab and Abihu did not take the fire from the
altar, but they went and made some fire themselves. They
got it from somewhere else by some other method, and they
put that fire in their censers, and went in before the
Lord, and the Lord smote them [so] that they died before
the Lord. They offered strange fire. It was not the fire
that had come from the Cross. It was their own fire, the
fire of the flesh, the fire of the natural man, the fire
of their souls, and not of the Spirit. The Lord says that
is strange fire. It was not according to the pattern, and
the Lord judged that. I must leave you to interpret it.
You see
what a big thing 'responsibility for Christ' is?
THE LORD HAS PUT THE RESPONSIBILITY ON US. He says,
'If you make all things according to the pattern, I am
with you. You will have blessings; I will go on with you.
If you begin to introduce things that are not according
to the pattern, but of man, that will bring spiritual
death.' May the Lord give us spiritual understanding.