Reading:
Hebrews 1, 12:26-29.
We
must remember that the Kingdom is
always referred to as something being already in existence and that as
complete. It is not something now being formed, constituted, or built.
It is
something which, already being in existence, is to come to be received,
to be
entered into: "Thy kingdom come." Receiving a Kingdom: "Except ye
receive the
kingdom as a little child, ye cannot enter therein." Here the word, as
we have already
pointed out, indicates that, so far as we are concerned, the Lord's
people, it
is a matter of progressively receiving the Kingdom, receiving that
Kingdom more
and more. The Kingdom is complete, it is full, it is a realised thing,
but for
us it is a matter of receiving that Kingdom in ever-growing fulness.
The
governing factor about the Kingdom
is the element of finality, the accomplished fact, the established
thing, the
unshakeable truth and reality; therefore the sons of the Kingdom should
be characterized
by this particular and dominant feature, assurance. If we have rightly
understood and apprehended the Kingdom, we ought to be the most assured
people
in God's universe, for a real spiritual understanding and apprehension
of the
Kingdom will destroy all uncertainties, will put aside all doubts and
questions,
will deliver us from all that weakness and paralysis resultant from a
question,
an uncertainty. It will make us at the centre of our beings an
established
thing: we shall be taking our spiritual character from the very Kingdom
to
which we belong, and that is what it means to be in the Kingdom, and to
be sons
of the Kingdom. We take our character therefrom, and it is this element
of
finality which is predominant in the matter of the Kingdom.
Having said that, it
remains to be
explained what this finality is, and this letter to the Hebrews sets
forth
finality in three directions or connections. We may only get a little
way at
this time in seeing it; if we have every step established it will be
worthwhile.
Finality is shown in three connections in this letter: firstly, as to
the Person; secondly, as to His work; thirdly, as to the calling and
position of
the Lord's people.
The Person
of the Lord Jesus as God's Final Appointment
You
know how the whole letter bears upon
that, but even that has to be looked at from more than one angle.
Turning to
chapter 1 we have right at the outset a declaration concerning the
finality of
the person in God's appointment. The Son is God's final appointment:
"Whom he appointed
heir of all things". He appointed the Son heir of all things. All
things are
His inheritance. You cannot get outside of all things, and there is
nothing
after that. Finally Christ inherits all things by the eternal
appointment of
the Father, of God. Upon that all our faith hangs. The whole question
of faith
is immediately raised by that first finality. Do we believe that the
end which
is fixed, and the thing about which there is no question at all is that
Jesus
is going to inherit all things? Do we believe that, in spite of all the
course
which this world's history has taken, and is taking, and all that seems
to be
so much to the contrary; in spite of all the grasping for world
possession and
world dominion; in spite of all the disputing and the quarrelling over
the
inheritance in this earth; in spite of all the apparent grip that Satan
has
upon things; in spite of the deeply rooted and apparently established
order of
things, which it sometimes seems so nearly impossible to change, to
root up, to
destroy? That is the first question for faith. It has been the
challenge to
faith all the way through.
Of course, we are so
largely spectators.
We have been very nearly more than spectators, and we find ourselves in
the
position in which a large number of the Lord's people are today, in the
havoc,
the chaos, the evil consequences of evil, the very Devil's work; in a
position
of utter impotence, helplessness, driven, no home, no place of rest,
nothing
here but all around the terrific pressure of evil, the domination of
iniquity.
This is where the challenge to faith comes. It is in conditions like
that that
the big question arises. But this letter, and, of course, much more in
the Word
of God, brings at the outset this before the people of God for their
faith,
that in the appointment of God, His Son is the heir of all things, and
He will
have His inheritance no matter what intervenes. This very first
presentation to
faith links with the whole of chapter 11, for that chapter, that great
survey
of faith through the ages, is linked with the ultimate issue for the
people of
God, and that issue is the complete, universal sovereignty of the Lord
Jesus
Christ, God's Son. That is the inheritance.
Now that is the first factor of the
Kingdom which cannot be shaken. To these Jewish believers, who were
passing
through such deep trial, persecution, suffering for the faith, for the
testimony, receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken meant that they
were to
rest upon and be established in the fact as a living thing in their own
hearts,
that finality is bound up with Jesus as heir of all things, and it is
presented
to us in the same way. Let us remember that all the conflict of history
circles
and rages around that one thing, and as history grows and the times
near completion,
the end draws nigh, the one thing which will rise clear in definition
out of
all other things will be this finality of issue: Who is Lord in God's
universe?
Who is God's appointed and eternal King? Who is the inheritor of the
earth? And
that issue is being steadily urged today. This question of world
lordship is
centred not now in a great number of lords but in one. It is being
narrowed
down, it has come to a very few, and the question is a very, very hot
one; the
pursuit of this thing is very feverish. Let us not be deceived. Oh, we
thank
God for respite, we thank God for a little postponement, but do not let
us be
deceived. We are probably today at a point of far greater seriousness
than we
were some time ago, for we are obviously very much nearer that point
when:
"They shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh...".
God has
sought to stir us to the depths by allowing things to go that far in
order to
bring us up and make us realise that at any moment our testimony may be
suspended. Therefore let us give the greater diligence for the time is
short.
Any day we might have to say, It is the end, no more can be done. Then
for utterness
for God until that time comes!
There will not be a giving up of this
grasping, or an abandoning of the programme. There is something more
deeply at
work than is seen. There is the drive of that one who must produce his
Antichrist. It is in God's Word. It will come to pass. There will be
one who
sits in the temple of God announcing that he is God, and being
worshipped as
God, claiming the allegiance and worship of the world. The whole thing
will be
headed up into that one, and then the question will be between two
only,
between that one and the One Who has sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty
on high. There is no question about the issue when that clash comes:
"Whom the
Lord shall destroy by the brightness of his coming". God is going to
see that
it is all headed up to one, and then He whose right it is to reign will
come
and will smite with the brightness of His appearing the all-inclusive
one of
the Devil's producing. Receiving that, now
receiving that! That is the basis of the Kingdom which cannot be
shaken.
Finality is bound up with the Son of God
as heir of all things, and that is where the Kingdom which cannot be
shaken
begins and ends - Christ the Son, God's final appointment.
The Person
of the Lord Jesus as God's Final Speech
Then
the second thing as to the person
is Christ, the Son, as God's final speech: "...hath at the end of these
times
spoken unto us in his Son...". He who in old time spoke by divers
portions and
in divers manners hath gathered it all up at the end of these days, and
has
spoken in fulness and in finality in His Son. So that the Kingdom which
cannot
be shaken is a matter of the utter government of the Lord Jesus Christ
in what
He represents as the embodiment of God's thoughts and expressions. I
can put
that much more simply. The
Kingdom which cannot be shaken, which we are to receive, is a matter of
the
complete knowledge of the Lord Jesus. You and I have not got to
learn all kinds of
truths and doctrines, teachings and interpretations. It is not our
business,
our obligation to be familiar with all the different kinds of doctrinal
truths
in the Word of God. Of course, it is very useful in a subsidiary way to
know
these things, but if we know them all they simply become a matter of
intellectual knowledge, and they can then become the ground of a good
deal of
discussion, argument, and dispute; but they do not get you further than
that in
a spiritual way. They never constitute for us a Kingdom which cannot be
shaken:
they constitute the kingdom which is never stable; this doctrinal
kingdom, this
point-of-view kingdom, even in the things of the Bible. The Kingdom
which
cannot be shaken is knowing Jesus Christ in our own hearts, God
speaking in us
in His Son.
I must remind you again that that is
exactly what the apostle Paul says in his second letter to the
Corinthians.
When God gave expression to His thoughts in the old dispensation He did
so by
writing on tables of stone: that is, it was an outward, objective
presentation
of obligations brought to rest upon His people. That is the old
dispensation:
that is past. Now, says the apostle, in this dispensation it is not so,
but
there is a covenant, there is an expression, there is a revelation of
God's
thoughts, God's mind, God's will for His people; but now it is upon the
fleshly
tables of the heart, written by the Spirit of the living God. And right
in
connection with that the apostle says: "God hath shined into our
hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus
Christ." God has spoken in His Son, and now it is a matter of our
knowing
Christ in an inward way by revelation of the Holy Spirit. That is the
Kingdom
which cannot be shaken.
I
have marvelled at Paul many times,
and I expect you have. I have said many times that I do not know how
Paul managed to go
on. How did he go through? How did you go through, Paul? You tell us
all these
things that befell, you give us these lists of happenings, and then I
see that,
after your long life spent
to the last drop for your Lord, and being used so mightily, with such a
wide
range, I see you at the
end shut up, held in a chain, in prison, and I know that you are
getting news from
the whole field of your life's activities that your work is simply
being
destroyed; it is falling to pieces, and all those for whom you were
used to
bring to the Lord are forsaking you. I
hear you say: "All they in Asia be
turned from me." Paul, how do you get
through? How can you be so triumphant? How can you write so much about
the
heavenlies, and every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ
Jesus,
with those conditions around you? And my answer is found in his first
letter to
the Galatians: "It pleased God... to reveal his Son in me." If Paul had
adopted
a system called Christianity and given a kind of mental assent to all
the
propositions doctrinally of Christianity, he would not have lasted a
year. His
first year would have put him out, and yet he went right through
because of
this: "It pleased God... to reveal his Son in
me." That is the Kingdom which cannot be shaken. All other knowledge of
the
Lord will find us wanting in the day of the ordeal, when heaven and
earth are
shaken. We shall go to pieces; we shall collapse under the strain. Do
take this
to heart.
There
are going to be shaking ordeals
for every child of God. God has appointed it; it must be. It can be in
our
lives without great world upheavals. We can go through trial, through
testing,
we can be put into the fires in personal ways, but believe me we are
all going
into the fires in some way or another. God has appointed that we shall
not be
in a false position.
The question is: Have
we got the
unshakeable Kingdom within? That is, in a word, do we know the living
Son of
God in a living way within us? "God hath spoken"! Are we progressing in
the
knowledge of God in Christ? For He, the Son, encompasses all God's
fulness. All
that ever we are to know, to have of God, is in Christ. God has given
Him, and
with Him given all things. We have to learn Christ,
and learn Him in an inward way, and as we learn Him inwardly, what He
is, how
He expresses God's own thought, desire, will, purpose, nature, the
Kingdom
which cannot be shaken is taking root in us, so we are receiving that
Kingdom.
To receive the Kingdom is to be progressing in the inward knowledge of
our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in all the comprehensiveness of God's
fulness
dwelling in Him.
The Person
of the Lord Jesus as Our Finality of Responsibility
Now we close with this word as to the Person. He is
the finality of God's appointment; He is the finality of God's
speech; and our learning is simply a learning of Christ. Christ is our
finality
of responsibility. It is not, What did Moses say? What did Elijah say?
What did
Isaiah and all the prophets in whom and through whom God spake in old
time say?
It is now just the Lord Jesus. Our responsibility is for Him.
Responsibility
begins and ends with Him. We are responsible for the Lord Jesus.
The apostle draws the
distinction
between God speaking on the earth through Moses, and Israel being
responsible
for God speaking through Moses on the earth. Now He says, How much more
when it
shall be a speaking from heaven, and that through the Son. What a great
responsibility
it is when God speaks from heaven through the Son. "God... hath...
spoken in his Son." Our
responsibility lies there. God has spoken, and
God has spoken in Christ. Now all responsibility is summed up and bound
up with
that in this sense: we are not going to have to answer for any other
thing
before God than for our response to His voice in Jesus Christ. I think
many people have an idea that when they stand before God and are in
judgement
the whole question of the ground of their judgement will be spread over
quite a
lot of ground. How many sins did you commit? How much better or worse
you were
than someone else! They seem to think that they are going to stand a
much
better chance in the judgement if they have not committed quite as many
sins as
someone else, if they have not done certain things that other people
have done.
If they have been an improvement on certain fairly poor types of people
their
judgement will be according to the degree of their goodness or their
badness:
and if, therefore, they can so curtail their bad deeds as to bring them
to a
minimum they are going to stand quite a fair chance in the judgement.
You may
smile at that, but that is the
inveterate habit of this nature of ours, and that is why so many wear
worried
looks. As Christians they are always poking around inside to find
something
good, and because they find so much
bad they are miserable; and they have never come finally to God's
conclusion about the whole matter of what they are, that in them dwells
no good
thing, and they are always trying to find some good thing, and, not
finding it,
they are miserable. We are already in spirit standing before a
judgement seat
of God, bringing ourselves under judgement, under condemnation, and it
is a
false judgement seat. It is something of our own imagination or of
Satan's
projecting. Let me say now, quite definitely and precisely: the ground
of all
judgement is our reaction to God's presentation of His Son, not how
many sins,
be they few or many, or how much badness, little or much. It is this:
God has
spoken in His Son, and what have you done? That is where responsibility
begins
and ends. Judgement is simply a matter of our response to God in
Christ. It
simplifies the whole matter, gets rid of a great many difficulties.
What is your heart
attitude to the Lord
Jesus? If you can answer that, then you have got the answer to your
standing
before God. It is there that responsibility begins and ends; it is
final. You
and I can say, Oh
yes, in me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing, I am the
chief of sinners;
nevertheless, my heart is all towards God's Christ, and by God's grace
I am going
on to respond to everything
that God will make known to me of His will in Christ. That is the only
ground
of responsibility which lies at our door, and there it ends. That is
all God's
requirement. It is very simple, very blessed. Let it be remembered that
it is
just where we refuse to respond to the voice of God in Jesus Christ
that we
have to take the responsibility, but inasmuch as we give a full and
hearty
response to the Lord Jesus, God takes all the rest of the
responsibility, and,
of course, that is the gateway into the very next part of this
consideration:
finality in the work of the Person.
This is the Kingdom
which cannot be
shaken. May the Lord find us unshaken in these days.