“For other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”
(1 Cor. 3:11).
“If the foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3).
We have had an immense amount of
teaching on the greater magnitudes of divine counsels and
purposes carrying us from eternity to eternity, and we are
acquainted, at least acquainted, with very much in that realm
that has to do with those purposes of God, but I have been
greatly troubled because there is a very great deal that does not
seem to come into line with that. Indeed, it seems to be
inconsistent with it or a contradiction to it, even amongst those
of us who are so closely in touch with it; and that under test,
given circumstances, assaults of the enemy, deep trials,
on-rushes of other forces, there is breakdown. There is a good
deal that is not honouring to the Lord, very much otherwise, even
where the teaching has been received for a long, long time and
ought to be known. And this is not said just about others. We are
all aware that a good deal of what we know of spiritual
information has still to be inwrought, and we are far from being
able to say that we are the living embodiment of all that. We
find many weaknesses, we find a great deal that needs to be built
up in ourselves. And in this realisation and having to do with so
much, all this which falls so far short of what the Lord has
given and is so contrary to it in so many cases and directions,
my exercise of heart has been: What is wrong? Is it not after all
a matter of foundations? Have we become so taken up with the
superstructure of the divine purpose and truth and revelation
that, as we said earlier, we have got a bit top-heavy, and there
is something not quite right between the relationship of the
superstructure and the foundation? That is my exercise, and that
is what I feel to be the Lord’s intention, for this message.
So far as I am concerned, that is my burden.
So we came to speak about our
foundation, a fresh contemplation of Christ. We approached this
through the symbolism, typology and metaphors of Jerusalem and
Zion, but I have a feeling, a very bad feeling, that the
metaphors and the symbolism obscure the immediate practical
value, and I want to get away from the framework right to the
very heart of things and just say exactly what it is we feel the
Lord is after. It is here in Christ Himself, the foundation other
than which no man can lay, and if that foundation be destroyed,
made of none effect, violated, what do the righteous do? Put in
that form of question as to prospect, it is a cry of
hopelessness. You can do nothing, nothing is possible. With all
that you say and all that you teach, all that you give, it is all
in vain, it is useless, if the foundations are in any way
destroyed. You notice that the margin gives another tense to that
which puts it rather in the past: What have the righteous
accomplished after all that you have done? After all that you have
done, what does it amount to if the foundations are destroyed? It
is all in vain.
So again, it is very important
that we should be quite sure that everything is really on the
foundation and what that foundation really means, and this can be
understood by looking at some of the meanings of foundations.
The
Stability of Christ
In chapter one we were seeing
Christ as the foundation and the great factor of stability. It is
quite obvious to us all that if there is not real spiritual
stability about us, if we are not people of certainty, of
assurance, of spiritual confidence who can be relied upon
spiritually, counted upon; if we are people who are of more than
one mind, up and down and so on, there is something very much
wrong with our foundation, our apprehension of Christ, our
relationship with Christ. We saw how stability was wrought in Him
to perfection; through all the storms, adversities, trials,
sufferings; how sure, how steadfast He was, how unwavering. And
then that the Spirit of Jesus Christ has come to work that into
us progressively, and, while we will not reach final stability in
one bound, it ought to be true that there is a very distinctly
marked progressiveness in this matter, that whereas at one time
we were easily moved, we are not easily moved about that now.
Whereas before we could be shaken by certain things, those things
do not shake us any longer. We have got past that. We may still
have our shakings by new forces and situations which we have not
met before and we are going through new experiences where this
rooting, this grounding, has still to take place. Nevertheless,
we have moved on, and we are no longer the old flabby things that
we once were, knocked about and carried about by all those more
elementary forces of adversity.
There is much in the New
Testament about steadfastness in Christ, being strong in the
Lord, always abounding, unmovable, and unless that is true, we
are not going to get through at all. All the building that we are
putting up on top of that is going to collapse. We may know all
about the eternal purpose, the counsels of God from eternity, the
church, its great calling and destiny, and the whole thing will
collapse like a pack of cards if underneath we are not rooted,
grounded, settled, steadfast, unshakeable; that is, unless we are
in oneness and keeping with the Foundation, the unshakeable Rock,
and we are taking the rock-like character from Him Who is the
rock foundation.
And, while this is a call and a
challenge, let it also be an encouragement, for we are going to
be put through many mysterious inexplicable adversities and
sufferings, things that we cannot explain, things that we cannot
explain even from God’s side. We cannot see God in them, we
cannot see why God should allow it, how that can be consistent
with God. Oh yes, that is not saying a wrong thing, it is true in
the experience of many - the mystery of God’s ways,
altogether beyond finding out. We are going through things that
could shake our very foundation, our faith, cause us to come to a
standstill in the grip of an awful question. Now the Lord takes
us that way, and the history of stability is the history of a
tree which, having been planted, with every successive storm,
finds for the moment its roots a bit loosened, things becoming a
bit precarious, but its reaction to every such effect of storm is
to root down deeper, and the mighty tree which cannot be moved by
the greatest gale is simply the history, the sum of many shakings
which have sent its roots deeper to lay hold more strongly. That
is the way of the Lord with us. Yes, not one of us is beyond
being terribly shaken, raising the greatest questions, wondering
with the biggest ‘Why?’ But that is the way of being
established. Do not, then, be discouraged if you pass through a
time where everything for you is an open question after all. Just
remember that that is the time in which the Spirit of Christ has
His opportunity for bringing that mighty rock-like stability of
Christ into fuller expression as the very foundation of your
life.
The
Unifying Power of Triumphant Life
Then we went on with the
unifying nature of foundations, unifying in the power of a life
triumphant over death, and here again I stay for an extra word,
because inconsistency with much revelation and much light and
truth is found along this line very often. A very great deal of
my time is taken up with clearing up messes created in
relationships with other Christians by people who have got fuller
light. They have got all the light of the Body, all the truth of
the Body, the church, the oneness of Christ, and they are making
messes everywhere between themselves and other Christians. Rather
than it being a unifying thing, it is becoming a divisive thing.
The truth is dividing as it should not divide. If we really have
apprehended Christ aright, there should be a far greater measure
of divine love in our hearts for all saints, not those who accept
our particular viewpoint, our particular measure of revelation,
what we stand for. It is a most pernicious thing. I am finding
everywhere people who say, ‘If you have not been to Honor
Oak, you do not know anything!’ See what effect that has on
other people. It is divisive, and it is a wrong apprehension and
a wrong application of truth. We stand here solidly for the
oneness of all believers, though they have the remotest
apprehension of Christ. If they are in Christ, we are one with
them; if they are in Christ, they are one with us. On that we
build; on that Christ builds. It is a family relationship that is
foundational. The Father, the Son and the children. Do get
rightly adjusted to foundations.
Triumphant
Survival of That Which is Rightly Related to Christ
Now one extra word. It is this:
the triumphant survival of these foundations or of that which is
rightly related to the foundation - Christ. If we go to
our type and illustration, Jerusalem, we shall have a very good
example and illustration. Oh, what a history that city has of
sieges and assaults, of being overrun and destroyed, and yet how
persistently it survives! It comes up again and again. How it
still remains a world factor, something that all the nations have
got to reckon with. Just think of how many times Jerusalem has
been overthrown, besieged, destroyed, occupied, possessed. Think
of its long history of ups and downs. Today Jerusalem is just as
much a factor in world affairs as ever it was. It still comes up.
Now I am not going into the realm of prophecy. I am not coming
down on to the earth level. Far too much is made of that. God has
set this here only to point us to something else, and the history
of Jerusalem is God’s way of saying that His church, founded
upon Christ, will survive, triumphantly survive, and even after
all its conflicts, all its assaults, all its sieges, and all its
seeming devastations, it will come up again and again, and at
last will be there as the supreme factor to be reckoned with in
this universe.
When you come to the prophets
Isaiah and Ezekiel you find Jerusalem devastated. Jerusalem has
been laid waste. It is in that state that you find it in Nehemiah
and Ezra. It is laid waste, devastated, and the people of the
land are in exile. That is how Jerusalem is, that is how Zion is,
that is how Israel is, and always remember that the terms
Jerusalem and Zion are very often used of the people, not of the
place. The daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem, is simply
Israel. Come to Isaiah and Ezekiel and the city is in full view
as though nothing has happened to it, it has not gone. “He...
set me down upon a very high mountain, whereon was as it were the
frame of a city” (Ezek. 40:2), and Isaiah is speaking so
much in his later prophecies about the glorious survival of
Jerusalem, of Zion. Oh, they have not let it go, they have not
given it up. This thing for them is still intact. Because they
knew, they believed, that this was something which God had raised
up, God had instituted, God had constituted, and “whatsoever
God does, it shall be for ever” (Eccl. 3:14). Let happen
what may, it will survive, triumphantly survive. Oh, now “if
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
The foundation for us is the imperishable, eternal stability of
the Lord Jesus. Everything does rest upon whether the Lord Jesus
is finally going to be vanquished. Is the Lord Jesus, after all,
going out? Is God’s purpose going to be defeated? Our answer
to that is the answer to our own inner questions.
What is the meaning of the Lord
Jesus? He has no meaning apart from us. The very existence of
Jesus Christ involves and implies the existence of His church. He
cannot exist apart from us. All the meaning of the incarnation,
all the meaning of His life here, all the meaning of His cross,
all the meaning of His resurrection, ascension and exaltation is
His church. He is only vindicated, the meaning can only be
understood, in the light of His church. “Upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail
against it” (Matt. 16:18). They shall not! You see, it
is the eternal city because it is on an eternal foundation which
is outside of time, outside of all that may happen.
We are going to survive if we
are truly consistent with our foundation; if we are really rooted
in Christ, we are going to survive, we will be found standing
with Him at the last. When everything else that has sought to
prevent it has gone down and been destroyed, out of the wreck we
shall rise and stand with Him.
Sin
Weakens Our Confidence in Triumphant Survival
I know what weakens that
confidence, and it would be overlooking a very important point if
I did not mention it. What weakens our confidence, in survival,
coming out alright afterwards or at last, is the sense or the
knowledge of our own sin, our own sinfulness and our own failure
as Christians. Yes, as Christians we sin. We cannot call it
anything else. We sin. If we were to analyse that, we could soon
prove it. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin”
(Rom. 14:23). If you have the slightest question regarding God at
any time, that is sin. It goes right to the root of everything. A
little bit of pride, even spiritual pride, is sin. “Every
one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord”
(Prov. 16:5). “The haughty He knows from afar”
(Ps. 138:6). I am not going to analyse that question of sin. We
sin and we sin in gross ways. We fail, we break down, we make
mistakes, we show weakness, and we know in our hearts that the
Spirit of God has smitten that thing, we know the Holy Spirit has
condemned that in our lives, and we know how failing we are. And
that is the thing which undermines our confidence, so often, that
we shall not be cast off, we shall not be set aside, the Lord
will not have done with us. The enemy encamps upon the ground of
our failures to undercut this assurance and to weaken our
confidence that we are going to triumph and come out alright.
After all, all I can say to you
in a comprehensive way is, go back to Zion, go back to Jerusalem,
go back to David. Oh, how terrible! Think of David, a murderer,
his hands stained with the blood of a man in order to get his
wife, and other things, right up to that awful thing which
culminated on Mount Moriah, the loss of tens of thousands of
lives in Israel because of his self-will. Go back to the history
of Jerusalem, see what the prophets have to say about Jerusalem,
its iniquity, and think upon the mercy of God to David. “The
sure mercies of David” (Isa. 55:3). What a phrase! The
mercy of God, the grace of God, to David, to Jerusalem, to Zion!
He has not washed His hands of us, He has not abandoned us, it is
going to survive, not because of its goodness, not because we are
so good and never fail and sin (this is no excusing of our sin),
but by His infinite mercy and grace we are going to survive. We
are founded upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ, not upon merit
or worthiness or goodness in ourselves. He is the foundation, and
He answers to God for every perfection that God requires in us.
Let us get down on our foundations. That is the way in which we
shall survive triumphantly. It is Christ, the solid Rock.