We are occupied with
what is represented by a clause in a statement made by
Nehemiah when, being invited by his enemies, in their
subtlety, to come and meet them in some place apart, in
order to ensnare him, he said: "I am doing a
great work, so that I cannot come down". We
are shortening that statement to "a great
work": for this book of Nehemiah sets forth, in
figure, in historic illustration, the great work of God.
Nehemiah, as we have seen right at the beginning of the
book, says that he disclosed to no one what God had put
in his heart to do. Later he did disclose it, but this
great work to which he refers was something that God had
laid upon his heart.
Before we proceed with
this matter of the rebuilding of the wall of testimony, I
want to put in here a very important and inclusive
parenthesis - not based upon any particular clause or
text, but upon that which pervades and underlies the
whole: that is, worship.
For when we come to
think about it, Jerusalem, defined by its wall, just
speaks inclusively and comprehensively of the matter of
worship. Indeed, Jerusalem's very existence was for that
purpose. Babylon, as we saw earlier, was the seat and
centre of false worship, idolatry, something that was not
of God. Jerusalem always stands over against Babylon in
the Bible as the opposite of that. It stands for the
worship of God; it is the place of God's worship. So this
wall of Jerusalem is a figure of that which encompasses
the worship of God, and is in itself a figure of worship.
Worship is the first thing in the whole history of
relationship with God, and worship is the last thing. We
find reference made in the Bible to worship going on
before the world was, before the creation was undertaken
- the "sons of God" occupied with worshipping
Him before the foundation of the world. Who those sons of
God were we do not know, but there is the statement. They
sang together for joy, they worshipped the Lord. It was
there, it was happening.
Then worship comes in as
the governing factor in the Creation. As we know, it was
a breakdown in worship which was the basic sin of Adam:
then, when that matter has been upset here in this earth,
God institutes the whole course of worship during the
ages and maintains a testimony to Himself. One of the
last things we have in the Bible is this universal
worship of Him. And Jerusalem was, I repeat, so far as
type and figure and historic illustration are concerned,
the Lord's earthly seat of worship - of the maintenance
of worship unto Himself. We are carried in the New
Testament and in this dispensation from the earthly to
the heavenly, we are come to "the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels to... the
church of the firstborn" (Heb. 12:22-23): and it is
worship. It is worship re-established in heaven.
Worship
is Redemption Unto God
So we look at this
matter of worship for a few minutes. We are seeing that
Nehemiah's work was the rebuilding of the wall of
Jerusalem, and really it was a redemptive work - the work
of redeeming the situation, redeeming the testimony. It
was a work of redemption. Now, we know quite well that
redemption is unto God. "Hast redeemed us to
God" (Rev. 5:9, A.V.) - that is the phrase. And
worship just simply means that - everything redeemed unto
God, brought back to God, recovered for God; and that
mighty work of redemption is still operating - in this
sense, that it is against a certain natural trend and
course of things which has come into the creation through
what happened between Satan and Adam. Redemption is
recovering from a certain trend. The trend of the
creation now is always downward. In every part of
the creation, the natural course is downward. You are
contending with that in some way or another every day.
Anybody who has a garden knows that it is a constant
day-by-day work of redemption from a downward tendency.
Any doctor or nurse is day by day contending with the
downward course of physical life. Unless the body is
looked after, unless there is a 'counter operation'
brought in, the course is naturally downward, there is
deterioration; and so the medical profession are in their
realm occupied with redemption. And so we might go on
into every realm, because everywhere and in everything
that is the natural way - decline.
And if that is true in
the natural creation, the physical creation, how true it
is in the spiritual. The Bible is one comprehensive
revelation of the fact that, unless there is a counter
power brought in from heaven, everything goes down. Again
and again and yet again, in the Bible, we find these
movements downward taking place - decline, degeneration,
and God reacting to redeem from that course, to redeem
unto Himself. Worship, then, means the redemption of
everything unto God, giving the significance of God to
things.
Worship
a Matter of Motive
Let us think for a
moment of the rudimentary element in worship, leaving
religion aside for the moment. Worship goes on altogether
apart from any religious system or form. It is there in
the very constitution. What is worship in its elementary
principle? Well, it is just the element of motive in
life - that is, worthwhileness to live, it being worth
while to live. The very lowest, the very saddest and most
tragic state to which anyone can come is to have lost all
interest in life, to be saying, 'There is nothing now for
which to live, I have nothing to live for'. You could not
get lower than that. Life has been given up; life holds
nothing worthwhile. That worthwhileness is the
principle of worship. It is a motive for living,
something for which to live, and that is present in all
the world, except in those tragic realms where people
have already given up life because they have no more
interest and no more motive. I say that is the saddest
and the most terrible thing that can ever come to anyone.
Except where that obtains, worship is just this, that
there is something to live for, that there is something
worth while in being alive. That is the principle of
worship.
Now you carry that into
a much larger and higher realm. What is there to live
for? What is the greatest thing for which to live? And
there you bring worship into its right realm, and worship
becomes this - 'Why, the greatest thing to justify life
and to give meaning and value and worthwhileness to life
is the Lord!' Not this world, as something to be
worshipped, nor its kingdoms, not its princes or its god;
but the Lord being worthy, the most worthwhile object in
life, having all the worthwhileness of our very being and
existence: so that He holds the full place, the central
place; the Lord is the object always in view.
Worship is not going to
some ecclesiastical building week by week, perhaps once
or twice, to attend what is called Divine worship. That
is not worship. That may be just empty form; that may be
patronising God. It may be anything short of the reality.
Worship is a life thing, not a weekly thing; certainly
not once a quarter at the 'quarterly communion', or on
the great feast days of the Church - Easter, Christmas
and so on. Worship is this, that life is for the
Lord. Every moment, every hour, every day, every week and
every year - it is all for the Lord. That is worship. Our
first thought in the morning is the Lord, and our last
thought at night is the Lord; and although there are many
occupations of mind and hand during the hours of the day,
there is something behind the one who has been redeemed
unto God that is always reaching out to Him.
The lives of such are
the prayer of worship. They are not always putting it
into language and phrases, and they are not always on
their knees, and they are not always in meetings; but
from behind them, so to speak, there is that which is
reaching out to the Lord - they long for the Lord. It is
true of them, as it was true of those in Israel in the
days of Jerusalem's glory, though they were far from
Jerusalem, that they long for Jerusalem. 'Oh, to be
there, the place of the altar, the place of God, the
place of worship!' Their longings were there, and away
they could never be satisfied. They expressed this true
principle. When in Babylon they were taunted, this
remnant whose heart was in Jerusalem - taunted by the
Babylonians: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion"
(Ps. 137:3). 'Sing us one of your folk-songs of
Jerusalem'. "Upon the willows... we hanged up our
harps... How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land?" Their longing was to be there. They were
drawn. We should understand that in a spiritual way. Our
Jerusalem is no focal point on this earth, but there
ought to be that about us which is always out to the
Lord; which asks: 'How much more of the Lord can there be
in our lives?'
If you read this book of
Nehemiah in the light of that, it will be entirely
revolutionized for you, marvellously illuminated.
Nehemiah begins with this tremendous yearning for the
Lord, away there in Babylon. He comes to Jerusalem and
takes in the situation and deplores that this is not to
the honour of the Lord, and he weeps and he prays and he
sets to work and he draws others in, and he is not at
rest until this thing is finished at all costs - a
testimony to the Lord raised up in fullness, in
completeness. It is all a spirit of worship; and the
people who came in, of whose work we have yet to speak,
they had a mind to work, they were of a willing spirit;
but, you see, it was the spirit of worship. They, in
their own way, were fulfilling what Paul says in his
letter to the Romans: "I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1, A.R.V.). They were
giving their bodies to this work, and it was spiritual
worship in motive. Worship, then, springs out of a
motive.
The
Lord Draws Near on the Basis of Worship
Now that is just the
divide point in the Bible. When God made man and brought
him into fellowship with Himself, everything was for the
Lord. Man had no other object in view for which to live
and work than the Lord. It was a beautiful state of
things. It was man and the Lord, and the Lord, it would
seem, coming in the cool of the evening, walking in the
garden to receive those whom He had made and there was
joy in their life and in their work. The Lord had
pleasure in that. It is always shown in the Bible that
the Lord has pleasure in, and draws near to, those who
are in a state of worship. That is to say, the Lord's
drawing near is on the ground that their heart is out to
Himself. You never find the Lord drawing near when it is
otherwise, unless it be in judgment. But when the Lord
comes in blessing, in benediction, it is because there
are hearts out to Himself, and if the Lord came there
into the garden, as He is shown to have done, it was
because there were hearts toward Him, because He found
there that which satisfied Him. When the Lord Jesus was
here it was like that. He loved to be where He found a
heart open to Him, ready to receive Him, ready to answer
to His desires. That is why He went to Bethany so often.
There was a heart there for Him, for the Lord. There was
a spirit of worship.
The
Devil's Deception of Mankind
But then there came the
terrible break, and the enemy came into the garden to
divert from God, to divert to himself. But how? - and
this is a terrible thing to recognize. He brought man's
own personal interests into view, man's own personal
interests first, and showed him that he could have
something - he could get something. Up to that point it
was all that the Lord could get, and now the situation is
that man can have something. The enemy was working in a
deep and subtle way to draw away from God to himself; and
so, getting man into alliance with himself; he deceived
man into thinking that he was going to have the benefit,
when all the time it was the devil who was going to have
the benefit. That is the deception of mankind. He was
turned from God to get something, a good time, this
world, and all that, and in the end he finds he has been
duped, and the devil has got it all - and him into the
bargain. That is the tragedy and the deception. But you
see the point: it was in order to draw away from God by
this self-interest, this self-ishness - and that broke
the worship. From that time it has been like that. The
world is a selfish world, a world that draws to itself,
that does not give God His place, does not let Him have
everything, first and last. That is how things are.
But now God wants His
spiritual Jerusalem: He wants that recovered where
everything, voluntarily and gladly - delightingly - is
for the Lord; a people who delight in the Lord. Our Lord
Jesus was the embodiment of this principle. "I
delight to do thy will, O my God" (Ps. 11:8). His
delight was in the Lord. He is the true embodiment of the
spirit of the heavenly Jerusalem, where everything, not
under constraint but wholeheartedly, is unto the Lord.
A
Divided Heart
Now you look at this
wall in its ruin, in its brokenness, as we are doing at
this time, and you say again, 'Why this state of things?
Why this picture of tragedy? What is come to pass that
everyone seeing it wags the head or heaves a sigh? What
has happened that that which was once so glorious has
come to this? Why is it?' And the answer is: 'Their
worship went away from the Lord; the very thing for which
Jerusalem existed, that is, to be wholly for the Lord,
was broken into; they allowed other objects of worship to
seize upon their hearts and lives'. Yes, the Lord was
displeased, and therefore Jerusalem had no justification
in continuing in the sight of God. God sees no reason why
it should go on at all, and so He hands it over to
destruction. It was not what it was meant to be.
And may that not be the
explanation of a good deal of weakness - yes, in our
lives, and in the Church as a whole, in that which bears
the name of the Lord; defeat, brokenness, the absence of
those signs that the Lord is present those marks of the
Lord's pleasure? May it not be that there is a
dividedness of heart, a reservation in our lives? that
there is, after all, somewhere deep down, some
self-principle at work? May it not be that? I am not
judging but I do know the deception of these hearts of
ours. They are indeed "deceitful above all
things" (Jer. 17:9). Very often, when we think that
what we are doing is for the Lord, we are having a good
deal of pleasure in it ourselves, and if in the service
of the Lord the element of personal pleasure is withheld
or covered, we have a very bad time - after all, it was
somehow or other for ourselves. Yes, it is like that. We
do not want to be too introspective, but you see what I
mean. The Lord looks on the heart, and when He really
sees that the heart is wholly toward Him, that there is
no mixture, no other god, no other interest, then the
Lord commits Himself to that life, to that Jerusalem. The
Lord commits Himself where it is wholly for Him. That is
worship.
Now you see, the ground
of Satan's detracting and diverting from God is this
wretched self-life in one or other of its numerous forms.
Over against that, God's ground, where He encamps,
where He commits Himself, is the ground of Himself alone.
God commits Himself to Himself, and to no one else. If
the Lord is here, if the Lord has His place fully and
wholly, utterly, if it is all for the Lord, the Lord will
commit Himself to that ground; not to our ground and
certainly not to Satan's ground; but to Himself. If it is
for Himself, then He will be for Himself, and we all
agree that that is perfectly safe and anything else would
not be safe at all. The Lord is the only safe ground upon
which He Himself can work and be present.
A
Disposition for the Lord
Now, with just one
little further word about this motive, I will close. The
Apostle, in that great word on worship in Romans 12:1-2,
follows on - and we must not stop short half-way through
the statement, we must watch the conjunction as he goes
on - "... which is your spiritual worship. And be
not fashioned according to this age: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind" - the
'making anew' of your mind. A 'mindedness' is the
principle and motive of worship. What are we disposed to?
Is our whole disposition for the Lord, all our
'disposedness' unto the Lord? "Be... transformed by
the renewing of your mind" - your mindedness, your
inclination, your disposition - unto a new disposition,
altogether different from that which came in with Adam in
what we call the Fall.
Thank God for this; it
is true. It is more true, perhaps, than we often realize
or recognize. I think that very often we are troubled and
bothered about something that is not true as to
ourselves. We are thinking untruths about ourselves. Of
course, we know our proneness to sin, we know the evil
that is in our flesh, we know how wicked we are and how
unworthy, and all that; but then we allow that to go too
far. I ask you this: with all our unworthiness, all our
sinfulness, all that is evil in our flesh, have we not a
heart for the Lord after all? We feel we blunder, we err
- yes, but we have a heart for the Lord. Where did that
come from? There was a time when we had no heart for the
Lord, when we had no disposition, no tendency, that way;
we were not inclined after the Lord. But something has
happened in us deeper and stronger than all our
weaknesses and our waywardness and our faults and our
follies and our sins. There is a reaction that rises up
every time we make a mistake, and sends us back to the
Lord in grief, in sorrow, in disappointment, in longing,
and we are not happy again until we have found the Lord.
Where does that
disposition come from? It is something done by Him. That
is the basis of worship; that is the ground upon which
the Lord will get everything. So do not let us be
discouraged by ourselves too much. You will never think
that I am saying that we are to condone our sinfulness
and our foolishness and to give place to them; but it is
a glorious fact that, while all this is true, and Satan
can tell us so much about ourselves that is bad,
nevertheless we can reply in the words of the hymn:
I know it
all, and thousands more:
Jehovah findeth none.
We can come back against
all accusation and say, 'Nevertheless God has done
something in me that has set my heart toward Him. With
all my failures, my heart is toward Him. With all my
breakdowns, I am for the Lord'. And so we go on. This
spirit, this law of worship, consumes and consumes, and
we find at last in His presence that there is nothing
else left but Himself, just Himself.
That is a simple word,
but that after all underlies all that is here about
Jerusalem. All that we shall have to say, or could say,
as to the details of this matter of the rebuilding of the
wall has its roots in the soil of worship. This Jerusalem
is to be a praise in the earth; it is to speak of the
glory of God. It is all to point toward the Lord. It is
all to testify to His glory and honour. That is what
Jerusalem exists for, and that is what we who are of the
spiritual and heavenly Jerusalem exist for - to bring
everything back to the Lord, to bring delight to His
heart, and to constitute a testimony that He is
satisfied.