Fourth Meeting
(February 3, 1964 P.M.)
Dear
friends, it is not my intention to keep you very long.
Indeed, I think I shall not say much to you this evening,
but there is one thing I must say. How very grateful I am
for the opportunity that this love feast has given me. It
has given me the opportunity to meet so many of my fellow
brothers and sisters in Christ. I am not conceited enough
to think that this love feast has been arranged because I
have come to the Philippines. But I do think it is a very
great blessing that so many of us can come together like
this. Perhaps many of us would not meet at this time were
it not for this opportunity. So, I thank my brothers here
for making this provision. If you had told me when I was
speaking here last night that over seven hundred people
would be gathered around the tables in this hall, I think
I should have had difficulty in believing it. And what a
wonderful feast it has been, but there is something more
wonderful than the crowd, and there is something more
wonderful than the feast. It is the love of Christ which
is in every heart in this hall tonight.
When I
was thinking and praying about this time this evening,
and asking the Lord for just a little word to give you,
there came into my heart the first words of Paul, in the
First Letter to the Corinthians, I will just read those
words to you. "Paul, called an apostle of Jesus
Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our
brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even
them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be
saints, with all that in every place call upon the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours."
It is the last part of that verse which is very much in
my heart, "With all that in every place call upon
the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and
ours." I think the Apostle Paul was a
very wise man. He was a very clever man, and in these two
verses, that cleverness comes out. You notice he begins
by addressing the church of God which is in Corinth. Now
the Corinthians had a great gift of division. Later on
the apostle would say there are divisions among you. And
their divisions were marked by their circling round
different men. One group said, "We are of
Paul"; another group said, "We are of
Apollos"; another group said, "We are of
Peter"; so they were people who are very much marked
by divisions. It was to those people and to those
divisions, that the apostle said this, "To all that
in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus,
their Lord and ours."
How big
is the church? It is just as big as Jesus Christ. The
trouble with the Corinthians was that they were making
Jesus much smaller than He really is. So the apostle,
right at the beginning, said: No, Jesus is bigger than
all the groups put together. To all those in every place
who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus, their Lord and
ours.
Divisions
are always the result of making Jesus smaller than He is.
Our Lord Jesus is greater than men. We have a hymn which
has a line like this, 'The love of God is greater than
the measure of men's mind.' We are always making God, and
the love of God, about the size of our own mind. And if
people do not agree with our mind, that is where the love
of God stops with us. We, here tonight, represent many
groups. Perhaps we have our own mind about things, but if
this feast really lives up to its name, it represents
something much bigger than our mind. We are not gathered
to men or a man. No man for us can measure Christ. We are
here tonight because this is a true love feast. And that
means that the love of Christ is in our heart. We left
our groups. We left our divisions. We are here on the
common ground of Christ. What a grand thing it would be
if all Christians just took that ground! The ground of so
many Christians, the ground of some denominations, some
organizations, some special teaching, or many different
things, that is their ground. But the real ground of the
Christian is Christ. If we all had a greater concern for
the Lord Jesus than we had for religious things, what a
different thing it would be in the world.
Now, I
expect you all agreed with that. You agreed with it in
theory, but you know this is very practical. To live next
door to some people is a very practical matter. It just
finds you out, does it not? How you get on with your
neighbor. Now, there is another thing that you will all
agree with in theory. It is that this life is a
preparation for heaven. You believe that? You would say
that you are on your way to heaven. And you expect one
day to be there. And you will agree that this present
life is a preparation for heaven. Do you really believe
that? Because it is very practical. We are all going to
be neighbors in heaven. We are all going to live next
door to each other. Do you remember that there is a
description of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Bible?
I am
afraid that the people who have written our hymns have
gone astray on this. There is a hymn which says this,
'The streets, I am told, are paved with pure gold.' That
is false doctrine. In the Bible, it says there is only
one street. Only one street in the New Jerusalem. That
one street is of gold. Dear friends, we will all get to
live on the same street in heaven. We are all going to be
neighbors there. If it is to be taken literally, we shall
not be able to go out of our houses without meeting
everybody in heaven.
Someone
came over to England from America once; they had traveled
on the same boat as we had. They had never been to
England before. We got into the train to go from the port
to London. This person saw all the long rows of houses
joined together and she looked shocked at this. 'Look at
all the houses joined together. How do you get on if you
do not like your neighbor?'
In
heaven there is one street. It is paved with pure gold.
Now I do not think we are to take that literally. I think
it is symbolic, and is meant to teach us two things. (1)
We are all going to be in the closest fellowship in
heaven. And (2) the gold is the symbol of the love of
God. We are all going to be together in the love of God.
Now I
said you believe that this life is the preparation for
heaven. Do you believe it? You had better begin to know
how to live with your neighbor now. I mean your Christian
neighbor. All those in every place who call upon the name
of our Lord Jesus.
What is
going to be the chief characteristics of heaven? It says
that Christ will be all in all. Will the characteristics
of heaven be the Christ of everything? Not things, not
institutions, but just Christ. If it is going to be like
that, then we had better begin to make Christ everything
now. If we are going to have anything as a foretell of
heaven in this life, it will only be just as Christ is
more than anything and everything else. So our daily
prayers must be, 'Lord, prepare me for heaven, and do
it by filling me with more and more of Christ.' Do
take these words of the Apostle Paul, "With
all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours." The Lord
bless you all, dear friends.