Eleventh Meeting
(February 8, 1964 A.M.)
Reading: Exodus 25:8;
John 1:14:
"And let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may
dwell among them."
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
We are going to continue
this morning with this great desire of God to dwell among
men. In our own personal life, in our life together as
the Lord's people, in all the work of the Lord, THE
MATTER OF GREATEST IMPORTANCE IS THE PRESENCE OF THE
LORD. There is nothing so important as the Presence of
the Lord. I think we realize that because we pray very
much about it. We pray every day that the Lord will be
with us. When we come together for our meetings, we pray
that the Lord will be with us. When we go to any part of
the Lord's work, we pray that the Lord will be with us.
But we very rarely realize that no amount of prayer can
secure the Presence of the Lord. We may pray all day and
all night, and have many nights of prayer for the
Presence of the Lord. And we may think that because we
pray so much for the Presence of the Lord, that that is
going to guarantee that He will be Present. It is not
only a matter of how much we pray for this. The Presence
of the Lord depends upon whether things are suitable to
the Lord. We may pray for the Lord to be Present, but
because things are all wrong, the Lord will not be
Present.
No, it all depends upon
things being suitable to the Presence of the Lord. There
is a sense in which the Lord is not with people. The Lord
is only with His Son. And it depends upon how far things
are according to Christ, whether the Lord will be
Present. When the Lord Jesus said, "Wheresoever
two or three are gathered into My Name, there I am."
It did not mean wherever a few people gather together,
and say, "We are here in the name of Jesus."
Anybody can say that. All Christian religion says that.
Jesus said, "Wheresoever two or three are
gathered into My Name." THE NAME OF JESUS IS
ALL THAT JESUS IS IN HIMSELF. The Name gathers up all
that He is. All that He is to God the Father. And all
that He is from God the Father to us. See, it is INTO
the Name of Jesus. It is being found in what Christ is.
That brings us back to
this matter of the Presence of God as in the tabernacle
of old. We were seeing yesterday that the Spirit of God
took hold of Bezaleel and Aholiab, so that they could
fulfill the pattern which had been shown to Moses. Now,
you see, you have three things. You have the pattern
which had been shown. Then you have the people who are to
do the work. Between the pattern and the people is the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes hold of the pattern.
And the Holy Spirit takes hold of the people. And the
Holy Spirit makes the people carry out the pattern to the
finest detail. All things according to the pattern shown.
Now do you see, why the
Holy Spirit takes men off of the natural ground, and puts
them onto the spiritual ground? So that the men will not
do the work of God with their natural understanding or
with their natural strength. They do the work of God by
the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps, one of
the things which we take the longest to learn in this
work of God is this: It is that God leaves nothing to
man's own judgment. I wonder how many of us have really
learned that lesson.
You see, some of us had
the idea at the beginning that we were called into the
work of the Lord. Well, the idea may have been quite
right. And then we had our idea as to what the work of
the Lord is. And so we got busy about it. We use all our
mind and all our strength to do this work of God. We
organize the work. And we organize the people. And we
appointed this one to do this work, and that one to do
that work. We were like the general manager of a big
business. And for many years there was very little or
real spiritual results. The fruit of all that was
spiritually very small. We may have built up big things.
People may have said, 'Well, that is a very successful
work.' But, as we look back upon it today, we see how
poor it was in spiritual value. It is not the number of
people. It is not the amount of work. It is not wonderful
organization and machinery. It is just how much the Lord
is in it. And it is better to have something quite small
with the fullness of the Lord in it, than something quite
big with just a little of the Lord in it.
Now Bezaleel and Aholiab
were given understanding by the Spirit. How important
that is. The Holy Spirit is very particular about the
work of God. What a lot of trouble and waste of time
would be saved if we were really led by the Spirit in
what we do.
I give you an
illustration from my experience. Many years ago when the
Lord was doing something, and it was something that the
Lord was doing, a dear man came along and he said, 'I
think this is the Lord's work.' And he came to the
meetings. And he prayed in the meeting and he was one who
had been used to preach in different places. And I
thought at one time, Well, it might be a good thing to
have this brother in the work. So, I asked him to preach.
Well, he did preach. And then I asked him again, and he
gradually became a part of the work. But the time came
when I realized that that brother had not got the same
vision. We who were in that work of God had gone through
a very deep experience. We had come to know something
very truly of the work of the Cross. The Cross had broken
all our old ideas about preaching and organization. Now
this dear brother had never gone that way. He had not
come up from the root. He had been added from the
outside. The real basic revelation had not come to him.
So he was a preacher and a Bible teacher. But the time
came, years afterward, when I said: 'Oh, I made a
terrible mistake in bringing the brother in.' The day
came when he went away. He tried to start some other
things. And though we still loved him, and recognized
much of the Lord about him, it brought a great deal of
trouble and distress among us that he had come into the
heart of the work. And when he went away, it meant a lot
of difficulty.
Another brother came a
little later. This was before I had learned the lesson.
He was a dear brother, he really loved the Lord. He had
been an evangelist. And he had done some Bible teaching.
But he was a lonely man. And he came to me one day and he
said, 'You know I feel the need of being a part of
something else. I need to have a company of people around
my ministry who will pray for me when I go out and where
I can find spiritual fellowship.' Oh, in my sympathy for
him, in my desire to help a brother, I said: 'Brother, we
will provide you with what you need. We will gather
around you. We will pray for you. You just find your
place amongst us.' He had not grown up from the root. He
may have been quite good fruit. But you know, there is a
difference between the fruit that grows out of the root,
and a piece of fruit that you come and tie on the tree.
Now I have no fault to find with that brother. But I
lived to see the day when I felt very sorry indeed that
ever I had brought him in. He also went away and tried to
start something else. And that has caused us quite a lot
of trouble. We love him very much, we have no fault to
find with him.
But, you see, God was
doing something. And those who were connected with that
had to come up from the inside. You cannot just put your
hand on people, this one and that one and say, come and
join us. Come and take up work amongst us. They have to
be right in that which God is doing with you. The work of
God is an organism, not an organization. And everything
has got to grow out of the root. I hope you understand
what I mean. It is so important that everything should be
in the Spirit and not by man's judgment.
I began these morning
meetings by telling you that the Second Letter to
Timothy, which is Paul's last letter, was in order to
correct things in the house of God. And one of the things
that he was correcting there, was elders in the house of
God. We are sure that they had already commenced that
condition of things, which led to the organization of the
Church - in man appointing officials in the church. I do
not know whether you can understand the differences
between an official and a living organism. Do you
understand that difference? See, we have got organisms in
our body. We do not call them by official names. They are
just living organisms. They function by life. We do not
say, 'Now this body needs a heart. Let us go and find the
heart somewhere. And we give it some official name and we
put it in.' No, the heart grows out of the whole
organism. Now in late New Testament times there was this
thing beginning, when men began to call elders bishops
and archbishops and deacons and then at last popes.
Now that was beginning
before Paul finished his ministries. And Paul wrote that
letter to Timothy to put that right. In effect, Paul was
saying this, "Elders in the church are not just
officials. They are not chosen because they are
intellectual men. They are not chosen because they are
wealthy men. They are not chosen because they have
influence in the world. They are not chosen because they
are known to be successful businessmen. Elders are elders
before ever they are called elders. Do you understand
that? It is not the name at all. It is what the man is.
And what the man is, is wholly a matter of how much of
the Lord is in him. It is the Presence of the Lord which
decides what the man is. You can leave out the name if
you like. We just use the name for convenience. The name
has taken on a meaning which it was never intended to
have. Elders in the church are nothing more and nothing
less than spiritual men. Let me repeat, IT IS JUST A
MATTER OF HOW MUCH OF THE LORD IS IN THAT MAN.
You see, I am keeping
true to the New Testament. Right at the beginning it was
like this: 'Choose you out men filled with the Holy
Spirit.' That was the thing that decided the man. Whether
they were deacons or whether they were elders; whether
they were apostles, it was a matter of man filled with
the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit makes
everything according to Christ. And when we meet a true
elder, we do not meet the man first, some important man,
some very forceful man, some man who has gotten
everything in his hand: WE MEET THE LORD JESUS.
That is the thing that makes us what we are in any
capacity. And these are very important principles.
"See, that thou make all things according to the
pattern shown." And although the people were to do
the making, they could only do it by the power of the
Holy Spirit. If it is not like this, there will be a
waste of time, and a waste of strength.
Several years ago, I was
having a long talk with a leader of a great world
movement. It was something that had a very blessed and
beautiful beginning. God raised up a servant of His, and
took that man through a very deep experience, then began
to use him in this work. It became a world wide work.
Many of you would know about it if I mentioned his name.
But you need not ask, I shall not tell you. The thing is
that in its early years it was a great spiritual power. I
think it was one of the most spiritual things God has
done in the last hundred years. But today it has lost its
original power. It goes on; it is a big worldwide
evangelical movement. It has hundreds of churches all
over the world, but it has lost its original spiritual
depth. It is quite different today in its character from
what it was in the early years. Now I was having a talk
with one of the leaders of this work, and he was
deploring this loss of spiritual life in the work. He was
very sad about it. And he said to me, 'Mr. Sparks, what
would you do?' And that was a very big question to ask
any man. So I had to think for a moment, and then I said,
'I think this is what I would do. I would call all the
leaders together, and take them right away from all the
work, and for two or three weeks I would wait on God. I
would ask them to seek the Lord to recover the original
vision and life.' He said, 'Mr. Sparks, you are right,
that is the only thing to do.' But then he said, 'It
cannot be done.' I said, 'Why?' 'They are all too busy.
You see, we have got into something which so takes up our
time and our strength that we have not the time to keep
our spiritual life deep and strong.'
That brings me back to
another very, very important thing about this tabernacle
in the wilderness. Not only did all things have to be
made according to the pattern, but when that was done,
the people set forth led by the testimony. The tabernacle
was taken down, and all its parts were put upon the
shoulders of the Levites, and the camp went forward.
Well, that is very good, we like to think of that. But it
was not long before the Lord said, 'STOP, we are
not going on, put up the tabernacle again, and stay here
till I say MOVE!' That happened again and again.
I wonder why that was. You know, we cannot get things on
our shoulders, and we cannot go on, and just keep going
on. The Lord says: 'Stop, I want you to have a further
understanding of My Son. I want you to understand that
progress is only by My Presence. You have got to gather
round this tabernacle, but realize that I am Present
there in the midst. Now, for a time you have got to be
occupied with Me. So far, you have been occupied with
getting on; but I say STOP, and be occupied with
Me for a little while.' The point is, that spiritual
progress is always a matter of the Presence of the Lord,
and of our understanding what that presence means. So if
it happens in our lives that the Lord sometimes says,
'Stop, stop all your going on, stop all your activities,
stop all your work, be still and know that I am God. Be
occupied with Me for a little while.' Progress, spiritual
progress is only by THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD.
You know, when the
people came to the border of the promised land, they
refused to go over and take the land because they heard
from those who had spied out the land that there were
giants in the land (Numbers 14). Therefore they would not
obey and follow the Lord. Then the Lord said to Moses:
"Say unto them, 'As I live, saith the Lord, surely
as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you: your
dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that
were numbered of you, according to your whole number,
from twenty years old and upward, that have murmured
against Me, surely ye shall not come into the land,
concerning what I sware that I would make you dwell
therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the
son of Nun. But your little ones, that ye said should be
a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the
land which ye have rejected. But as for you, your dead
bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children
shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and
shall bear your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be
consumed in the wilderness" (Numbers 14:28-33; ASV).
When Moses spoke these
words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned
greatly. And they rose up the next morning and they said,
"We have sinned, but we will go up to the place
which the Lord has promised." But Moses said,
"Why then are you transgressing the commandment of
the Lord, when it will not succeed? Do not go up, lest
you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is
not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will
be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword,
inasmuch as you have turned back from following the Lord.
And the Lord will not be with you." The people said,
'We are going over.' And the Lord said, 'No.' But they
said, 'We will go over, we are going on.' The Lord said,
"I AM NOT GOING ON." And they went on, or tried
to go on, and it was a most disastrous thing. And at the
end of forty years they all died in the wilderness, just
as the Lord had said (Num. 14:41-43; NASB).
It is a dangerous thing
to go on without the Lord. We can only go on if we know
that the Lord is with us. And so in all our activity, it
is very important that we know that the Lord is in what
we are doing, that we are not going ahead of the Lord.
It is just as dangerous
not to go when the Lord does go. Supposing on one of
those days when the priests sounded the silver trumpets,
sounded that call on the trumpets which said, 'Today, we
move on, today the Lord is going on.' Supposing the
people said, 'Oh, well, I am not going. I am going to
stay here, I am not going to move.' All right, the Lord
would have gone up, and they would have been left alone
in the wilderness without the Lord. See it works both
ways. The Lord is going on, we must go on. The Lord says,
'Wait a little while, and get a new knowledge of Myself.'
Then we must be prepared to wait. You see, I am giving
you the foundation principles of life with God.
I think I am going to
finish there this morning. I have said a lot of things. I
do not want them all to be lost in the mass. I want you
to be able to see this because that is a vital factor in
the Presence of the Lord. It is not always what we think
the Lord wants to do. We must bring our thoughts into the
Presence of the Lord. 'Lord, it would be a good thing for
me to go to such and such a place. I think they need me
there. Indeed, they have invited me to come, and it seems
to me to be quite good if I were to go.' Is that all that
you have to consider? We have got to bring all that back
to the Lord, and we have to say, 'Lord, do you want me
there, and do you want me there at this time? If I get
out of the Lord's time, I am going to waste time. Perhaps
the Lord means it for next year. If I do it now, I have
wasted a whole year.' You see what I mean? This is life
in the Spirit, and the Lord can only be with us as we
live in the Spirit.
Now, we are not perfect,
we make our mistakes. I have told you a mistake that I
have made. It was not because I had not got a heart for
the Lord, it was not because I was not very jealous for
the Lord, but you see I had not learned the lessons in
the school of Christ. I have told you at the beginning
that I was just going to bring you some of the lessons
that I had learned in that school. I have learned them by
failure, and I have learned them by suffering. God is
very practical. You see, God never puts a textbook into
our hands and says, 'Now you study that textbook and do
things just as in the textbook.' Oh no, God never does it
like that, that would be easy. Perhaps we would like it
like that, but God teaches us by experience. He leads us
into situations, and then we learn His deep lessons, that
is the only way in which we really learn. True knowledge
is the knowledge which comes by experience. Somebody else
may write a textbook; they come along to you with the
textbook. They say, now this is the textbook of the New
Testament church, and you have got to do everything as we
put it down here, and it is not long before you find
yourself in a lot of confusion.
The Holy Spirit is our
textbook, He knows it all. He has got all the principles,
and it is only as we live in the Spirit that we learn by
experience. But there is some value in our being able to
tell you these things. I do not say to you now do this
because I tell you to do it. I tell you that this is what
I believe to be the way of the Lord. You give heed to it.
You let the Spirit teach you, try to remember these
things and they may save you from a lot of the trouble
that I have had. But it all comes back to one thing, THE
PRESENCE OF THE LORD. That is the most important thing in
the world. It is truly a great thing to be able to say,
"The Lord is with us."