But I tell you of a
truth (I tell you very definitely, emphatically,
positively). There are some of them that stand here, who
shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the
kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27).
"The former
treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus
began both to do and to teach, until the day, in which he
was received up, after that he had given commandment
through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had
chosen: to whom he also showed himself alive after his
passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space
of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the
kingdom of God" (Acts 1:1-3).
"There are some of
them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of
death, till they see the kingdom of God."
"...by the space of forty days speaking the things
concerning the kingdom of God." The theme with which
the Apostles were being occupied by the Lord during the
forty days after His resurrection - the theme of the
risen Lord - was the kingdom of God.
The
Battle of Two Kingdoms in our Lord's Earthly Life
Looking back into the
years of His life from the Jordan to the Cross, we can
see that, in His own personal case during that time, the
battle of two kingdoms was going on. Along various lines
and through various instrumentalities, influences were
being brought to bear upon Him. He was moving within a
circle of forces and activities the object and direction
of which was to get Him to have a kingdom. At the very
beginning, the conflict with the adversary in the
wilderness during the forty days and nights headed right
up to that issue. "The devil... showeth him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and he said
unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt
fall down and worship me" (Matt. 4:8-9). His own
disciples were constantly pressing upon Him with their
Messianic mentality and expectation, making it very
difficult for Him in this way - that He knew they were as
yet such children spiritually that it would be a disaster
to disillusion them too quickly and disappoint their
expectations and hopes. Those expectations, hopes and
visions, and all that they included for these men, were
for the Lord like barbed wire all the time pricking Him.
He could hardly say anything of a disillusioning
character but at once the disciples were offended,
questioning, thrown all over the place, even to revolt.
The crowd, the hysterical multitude, on one occasion
would come and take Him by force and make Him king. There
is something at work, coercing. He was fighting that
something all along, putting it back, rejecting,
repudiating; and it was no easy thing. At the last, as He
stood before Pilate, when the accusation against Him was
that He said that He was a king, Pilate said, "Art
thou the King of the Jews?" and Jesus said, "My
kingdom is not out from this world system - if my kingdom
were out from this world system, then would my servants
fight but now is my kingdom not from hence" (John
18:36). It was the repudiation of a kingdom; which meant
that inwardly He was standing for another. It was not the
repudiation of the Kingdom. He was fighting all
the way along against a false for a true, against a
temporal for a spiritual; but the powers that existed
were seeking to precipitate this other matter, to get Him
involved in a kingdom which was not His real one. You can
easily see what an involving it would have been. Suppose
He had capitulated, accepted a kingdom out from this
system, put Himself on this level; well, a little thought
at once betrays the sinister nature of the pressure, the
offer. No, He was not accepting the framework which
embodied the kingdom of Satan - that is what it amounted
to. Within the kingdom out from this system, Satan, the
prince of this world, was established, and the Lord was
not accepting that at all. Through all these temptations,
even though they might come through the lips and by the
mistaken zeal of a beloved and devoted disciple of the
inner circle - no other than Simon Peter himself - He was
adamant. On that very matter of His going up to Jerusalem
and being delivered into the hands of men to be
crucified, when the human counsel is "Be it far from
thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee," the
instant rejoinder is, "Get thee behind me,
Satan" (Matt. 16:21-23). He sees Satan entrenched in
the very suggestion, and that is not the kingdom the Lord
will accept. There would be a kingdom which He would
have, but not of that kind.
The
Kingdom Recaptured for God Through the Cross
So to the Cross, along
the line of repudiating a kingdom after
that order; and there, in the Cross, He went behind the
framework, behind all the form and the system, and dealt
with the prince of this world, and cast him out. How He
cast him out we have been seeking to see in these
meditations; He cast him out morally. "The
prince of this world cometh: and he hath nothing in
me" (John 14:30), so he is morally put out. And,
casting out the prince of this world there in the Cross,
He captured - let us rather say, recaptured - the Kingdom
which had been betrayed by Adam into that usurper's
hands; recaptured it as the last Adam, the second man,
the Lord from heaven; and, having recaptured it in and by
His Cross (a matter about which we have yet to say more)
He rose, and His theme was the kingdom of God - the
fulfilment of His emphatic statement, "There are
some of them that stand here, who shall, in no wise taste
of death, till they see the kingdom of God." They
saw it on the day of Pentecost, the recaptured Kingdom in
the hands of this victorious Christ Who knew how to
refuse quick returns - a thing which we know very little
about morally; and because He was able to let go, He
secured all.
That is a law of
tremendous value in spiritual life - being expert in
letting go. We have seen the other one expert in laying
hold - 'I will, I will, I will.' There again we shall
have more to say. But now in the hands of this One, the
Kingdom recaptured is brought in on the day of Pentecost
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The
Spirit the Life and Power of the Kingdom
But note, the point for
us is that it is a reformed kingdom, that is, its
constitution is altogether different from and
other than that which was in the minds of the
Apostles and was offered to Him by Satan. It is
another kind of kingdom, essentially spiritual. It
comes in by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is in charge
of the Kingdom. He precipitates this thing and He
keeps the reins in His hands in the projecting and
the developing, the expanding and the establishing, of
this kingdom. Everything is spiritual, and we find
therefore that the Kingdom is, from first to last,
essentially an inward thing. The Lord's words
about the kingdom of the heavens being within you were
very, very truly proved on the day of Pentecost and
afterward - it was the Spirit within that was the nature,
the power, the life, the energy and the everything of
this kingdom.
The
Spontaneous Challenge of the Kingdom of God Through the
Church
If that is the course
and nature of things, what really is the heart of it all?
Well, the heart of it is this, that when from the day of
Pentecost men and women went out into this world in the
good of what it meant that the kingdom of God as an
actual reality had come, and that it was an inward fact,
the thing which characterised them was that there was, by
their very presence here in this world, an impressive and
overwhelming impact of the kingdom of God upon that
other kingdom lying behind the framework of this world
system. It just happened. Their very presence disturbed,
challenged, provoked that other kingdom, and the fact of
these two kingdoms being in such deadly opposition became
a manifest reality simply because those believers were
there; and, mark you - this is something to be marked -
their predominant note in preaching was not the salvation
of men from sin (which was the result of something else)
but it was the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.
Everywhere they bore witness to the resurrection of
Jesus, and they proclaimed Him as Lord. When it came to
dealing with exercise of heart under conviction, and with
the enquiry, 'What shall we do to be saved?' then the
interpretation or the application was that this Lord is
also Saviour. You can be saved by Him because He is Lord.
You can be forgiven because He is Lord. Let me say again
- it is not just because He is officially Lord; but
because He is morally in the position to forgive. Leave
that again for a minute.
What I want to
concentrate upon and keep to is this, that there needs to
be recovered the spontaneous challenge of the kingdom of
God in the Church. We may be preaching the gospel of
salvation - let no one think for one moment any
discrediting or weakening of that is intended - but that
must come out of the established lordship of Jesus Christ
in the preacher and in the Body representing Christ. It
must be that - that Jesus is Lord - not as an item of a
creed or of doctrine, but as something which has become
an inward power. The lordship of Jesus Christ as an
inward power, both in the life and in the Church, has to
be registered in a spiritual way, not first upon men. I
do not know whether you are able to follow further than I
am saying; but why the vast amount of the preaching of
the gospel to the unsaved without effect? Does that not
exercise you, or is that a question which ought never to
be raised? It is true is it not? The gospel is preached
and preached and preached with little effect. Is the gospel weaker than it was in
those days? Is the Holy Spirit withdrawn from the earth?
What is the explanation? Is it that the Lord is
different, His gospel is different, or His Church is
different? Ah, I think it must be the last. It cannot be
the others. What is the difference?
The Church is taking up
something, and giving it out, very largely as objective
teaching; of course, knowing something of the blessedness
of being saved, of the good and joy of what the Lord
Jesus is in terms of salvation. That is all very good, it
gets so far, but somehow or other there is a tremendous
margin of ineffectiveness; and the reason may be - I put
it in that way - that first of all the preaching is to
men, the registration is upon men, and there is not that
which comes from behind spontaneously. The kingdom of God
is not something worked up, properly arranged in
addresses and sermons, it is not a theme, a subject, but
it is the mighty power of the Holy Spirit coming from
behind. You are there as the Lord's witness, and there is
something more than the power of the enemy present; the
power of God is there too. The kingdom of God has come.
The kingdom of God is an overwhelming thing. That, is the
meaning. It is in this realm that the weakness of so much
preaching lies. Now, we will go on with our preaching of
salvation, we will proceed with our approach to men and
women about this matter of salvation; we must, more than
ever. But remember, if we come without the kingdom of God
- not as a subject but as a power coming through us, so
to speak, as from behind, coming right through and
registering itself, not upon men and women in the first
place but upon those forces behind in which the whole
world lies - we shall be largely ineffective. It is very
true that no one can believe, no one is free to turn to
the Lord - however much they may crave to do so - unless
the Lord does something to release them. This strong man
has to have his house broken into by a stronger than he;
and who is stronger than he? This kingdom has to be
raided by another kingdom greater than itself. And so,
although the Lord had given the disciples the sphere of
their activity and the commission to go out into it, He
said, "But tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed
with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). "John
indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in
the Holy Spirit not many days hence" (Acts 1:5).
'Until then, do not attempt the commission or you will
fail, and the other kingdom will prevail over you.'
You see the point for
us. It all centres in that, it is all summed up in that.
What is our real business here? Is it to propound
doctrines, expound truths, give out volumes of
interpretations of Scripture? No! Whatever place that may
have for edification, for instruction, it will all be
unprofitable so far as real spiritual effectiveness is
concerned, unless the kingdom of God is coming through -
that is, unless there is the real registration of the
fact that Jesus is raised from the dead and is Lord. It
is no use saying that, unless you say it in the power of
the Holy Spirit. "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but
in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). That does not
mean that you cannot use the phrase "Jesus is
Lord," but there is something more in saying than
using words. When God said; "Let light be"
there was light - and that is the kind of saying that we
are thinking of - a saying which is a fiat, an impact.
One man may say, "Jesus is Lord," and while it
is quite true, the doctrine is correct and sound, nothing
happens. Another man in the power of the Holy Ghost
declares the lordship of Jesus Christ, and you feel
something, you are conscious of something coming through
of God. Now, this is not the privilege only of Apostles
in the ecclesiastical or official sense. This is for the
Church, and you and I are the Church in representation.
Oh, that our prayer should be the impact of the Kingdom
upon that other kingdom! That is what my heart cries
for; for prayer should not be a list of petitions, a lot
of things asked for, but there should be something done
behind things. In all our teaching, though it may not be
instantly seen, there should nevertheless be a steady
work going on which is producing lives in the power of
this kingdom - people becoming factors to be reckoned
with by the enemy. It is the only justification of all
our teaching, that those who receive it shall themselves
become in turn factors which are marked by the enemy; of
whom, as we have said before, the demons can say,
"Jesus I know, and - so and so - I know." It
ought to be that we are known to the enemy by name as
people to be reckoned with, to be taken account of, and
not included in the category of those who do not count -
"but who are ye?" (Acts 19:15).
The matter which
occupies the risen Lord is the kingdom of God. It is the
thing with which He would occupy His servants. The
kingdom of God - not some framework of a temporal system,
but the kingdom of God - is not in word, but in power;
not in eating and drinking but righteousness in the Holy
Ghost (Rom. 14:17). That is the kingdom of God; and you
and I, dear friends, are in the very happy position of
being included in that former statement of the Lord -
"There are some of them that stand here, who shall
in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of
God." That is our privilege - to see the kingdom of
God, and for the kingdom of God to come through us with a
sense of Divine power. That is the heart of things. I
have said already that all the rest we are talking about
in these meditations gathers round that.
The
Importance and Power of Letting Go to God
You say, 'Well, I
believe that is true, and all my heart responds, and I
pray God that it may be so where I am concerned. I want
it to be, but nothing happens. How can it be?' That is
just what we are getting at; and I have hinted already
how it can be. It is intensely practical. When I said
that the Lord Jesus was the greatest expert at letting
go, I touched the heart of this matter. We have said
again and again that everything is centred and focused in
the human will. Let me ask here (though I shall have to
refer to it again later on more fully), have you not many
times discovered that your real power - the power which
delivered you, the power which lifted you up and set you
on high - came when you let go? You were holding on - and
I am not saying that you were holding on to something
that was necessarily wrong; you were simply holding on.
It may have been something given to you by God, and your
own natural possessiveness had got hold of it, and you
were holding something of God to and for yourself, and
saying 'hands off' to everybody else. There is no
question that Isaac was given of God to Abraham; he was a
perfect miracle, impossible unless God had given him. And
then we read, "God did prove Abraham." He said,
"Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou
lovest" (and, He might have said, whom I gave thee)
"...and offer him... for a burnt-offering"
(Gen. 22:2, etc.). Abraham did not say, 'Thou gavest him
to me, do not contradict Thyself and take him away again;
Thou didst make all Thy promises to hang upon him; I am
not going to give him up!' He gave him up and he got him
back; got him back with a whole kingdom by which he
became "heir of the world" - that is the
statement (Rom. 4:13). He has the kingdom by letting go -
the foreshadowing of this Son of God Who let go. They
would take Him by force and make Him a king; He let go.
He got His kingly place with increase, but He got it in a
realm where Satan could not touch it; it was beyond the
power of death. If He had accepted that thing which was
offered Him it would have been subject to death. Here in
resurrection He has it, and death has no power over it.
But He got it like that - by letting go to God. You see,
it is intensely practical. Oh, how can this be? By
getting yourself out of the picture! That is why it
cannot be - because self is in the picture! Self-will,
self-interest, self-realisation. That is the kingdom of
Satan, and God is not going to give you His kingdom on
that ground. That was the ruin and the loss of the
kingdom of God for man. You cannot restore it; like
cannot overcome like. Something different, other, is
needed; and whatever that self may mean, it has to get
out of the way if the kingdom of God is to come in.
This is practical. I
have to be quite sure that I am not in this, that some
secret ambition of mine, some motive of mine, is not at
work. Oh, how subtle are our hearts! You and I perhaps
are ready to be utterly for the Lord. We mean well, and
we mean it thoroughly. We would sing really with our
hearts and with our voices at full strength, 'None of
self, and all of Thee,' and we would mean it, and there
would be no uncertainty so far as we are concerned. And
yet God knows that we are all the time defeated in our
very sincerity by secret motives, and nothing but a test
position can prove whether we actually mean it. So He
brings us to a test - to a prospect, and then a
disappointment. How do we react? Is our sorrow, our pain,
for the Lord or for ourselves? Are we disappointed, or is
it really only the Lord for Whom we are concerned and we
are not in it at all? You see what I mean - a test
situation to find out after all whether it is 'None of
self, and all of Thee.' We can never discover it except
in practical ways along the line of very practical
testings. The Lord knows it all right, but it is not
enough that He knows it. You see, in order for us to come
in, we have to come in intelligently and co-operatively.
That is the point of every test. The Lord could do a
thing with a stroke, it could happen mechanically. But we
are in a moral world, and God acts towards man on moral
ground. Man has a will that constitutes him a morally
responsible person, and so he must exercise his will in
co-operation with God.
You remember the words
in Deuteronomy 8:2 - "Thou shalt remember all the
way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty
years in the wilderness, that he might humble thee, to
prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou
wouldest keep his commandments, or not." Our version
does not convey the full meaning. The words as quoted
might raise a question as to whether the Lord knows what
is in our hearts without trying us out. We cannot have
any doubts about that. No, the real meaning is this -
"that he might make thee know what was in thy heart,
whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not."
It was necessary for Israel to come to the place where
they knew their own heart and repudiated what was
contrary to the revealed will of God; and that was the
battle of the forty years. The Lord had shown that His
purpose for them was the promised land. They were
discovering that in their hearts Egypt still had a place
in opposition to the land; and the Lord was calling upon
them to recognize what was in their hearts and to
repudiate Egypt - repudiate it as much in the wilderness
as they had repudiated it when they had fled from it. It
is an inside thing. Until their hearts were wholly toward
the land and for the land, the Lord could not get them
into it. That is where Joshua and Caleb were - they wholly
followed the Lord. Why did they go in when all the others
of their generation failed? Because they had completely
and finally and utterly slain Egypt, not objectively but
subjectively, and embraced the land as God willed. These
others were being tested, day after day, year after year,
on that ground - 'Do you really mean that you want to
follow the Lord? You say, Yes - but do you? Let us try it
out!' The Lord was doing that, to make them know what was
in their hearts.
I say, this kingdom of
God within is very practical, explaining the Lord's
dealings with us. When we recognize the laws and
principles of that kingdom there must come the test, when
we give up our Isaac, not because we know we are going to
get him back again but knowing that perhaps the Lord will
really require him of us and that he will not be given
back to us. There is the battle and the victory. None of
us has fully got there yet, and that is why the Kingdom
has not fully come where we are concerned; but inasmuch
as we triumph in that matter, the Kingdom is coming
through - power and salvation are coming through; and
also, I believe, rest for our own hearts' deliverance.
The Lord show us the meaning of this word.