Reading: Rev. 21:22; 22:3; Matt. 4:8-10; 1
Cor. 15:28.
"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only
shalt thou serve."
"... That God may be all in all."
"... The Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are
the temple thereof."
In our previous meditation, we first of
all pointed out that the words in the closing chapters of
the Revelation contained the three factors which sum up
the spiritual history of this universe - the three
factors, The Lord God the Almighty, the Lamb, no more
curse. We pointed out that the Lord God the Almighty and
the Lamb are linked into the temple; they are the temple,
and in being so linked, they represent the ultimate issue
of this universe, which is worship. Then after that, the
curse and the Lamb are connected in that they
respectively signify the challenge to the Lord God the
Almighty, and the answer to that challenge - the Lamb.
The curse is the consequence of the challenge to the
unquestioned and unreserved worship of God. The Lamb has
taken up that challenge of the curse and answered it,
with the result that the curse at length is gone forever.
The Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple;
that is, worship is gathered up, centered in them.
We said then that the things that we have
to recognize are these -
Firstly, the ultimate issue in this universe.
Secondly, the relatedness of all else thereto.
Thirdly, the way of its attainment.
In our previous meditation, we considered
the first, the ultimate issue, which is worship. We
sought to see that this matter of worship is set in a
realm far greater than this earth, in a supernatural
realm. Back in a dateless time and unspecified place,
there arose through one a challenge to God's unique,
undivided, unquestioned supremacy as the sole object of
worship. We saw the result of that both in Ezekiel 28 and
Isaiah 14. Then from that time we saw what we may call
the cosmic conflict, that is, the super-earthly conflict
in relation to the worship of God.
The Relatedness of the Bible
Now we go on with this second aspect -
relatedness of all else to this issue. We are getting
down now away from the broad expanses, the vast ranges,
to practical details. We can only indicate some of the
things related to this issue, and to begin with, of
course, the Bible. The Bible has a great deal of detail.
There are almost countless matters with which it deals,
but you can sum the whole Bible up in this one question,
this one all-inclusive matter. All the separate and
particular things are to be seen in the light of this
worship; that is, the outgoing of everything to God, the
reversing of that whole course of things which came in
with Satan's activity to draw to himself. That covers the
Bible and, of course, all these details and these
particular things in the Bible can only be seen in their
full value, as they are set in their relatedness to this
one governing reality.
We just stand back from our Bible and ask
the question, What is it all about? What is THE issue
involved in it all? The answer is - worship; if we
understand what worship is. The tendency of godly people
has always been to take things in the Bible in
themselves, and to take them apart from their ultimate
relationship. For instance, doctrines have been taken as
things in themselves. Salvation as something in itself;
prophecy has been detached and made something in itself;
Christian work is in the Bible, but again it is made
something in itself; the great revelation of the Church -
yes, it is true, it is Scriptural, it is in the Bible,
but again it has been made something in itself; or
further, the churches, that THEY should be THE things
in view, something in themselves. So we might go on. The
result of that tendency has been confusion, limitation,
weakness and arrest. What we are saying is, that
everything must be kept in line with its object. It must
be kept as on a main thoroughfare to some goal, to some
end; it must not be in a side street as something in
itself; this company of people circling round the
doctrine of sanctification, with nothing else to talk
about; that company of people round the Church; the other
company about something else; and they are all living up
side streets. Well, all these things are really, in God's
thought, a chain with an ultimate clasp, an end, an
object, and that object is worship, and what God means by
worship. There is nothing in God's Word which is
something in itself, ends with itself, or ends with the
time in which it is uttered. It may have a specific
application to a specific time, but there is something
more in it than a time factor. Everything that comes from
God carries with it an eternal law, the essence of God
Himself, timeless and universal. It is related to God,
and the one thing that links everything that has come
from God with God is this matter of worship.
Now we have said something that we shall
all take a lifetime to prove. There is nothing in the
Bible which is an end in itself. You may take anything
you like in the Bible; pick it up at random. The Ten
Commandments - well, of course, the Ten Commandments
belong to Israel, they are Jewish, they are the law, and
that is past. Not a bit of it! "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart." Does that belong
to Jews only, to a certain time in the past? "Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve." "Thou shalt have no other gods before
me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image... thou
shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve
them." You have got outside the law of Israel, you
are touching the rock-bottom principle; you compass
Genesis to Revelation, and beyond, in that. All the other
fragments of the Law, not only the Decalogue but the Law,
all contain something which has to do with this ultimate
question.
Marriage laws - you say, of course they
are Divine arrangements for social life. Not a bit! There
are the laws of business, weights and measures; there are
laws of the field, agriculture. "Thou shalt not
plough with an ox and an ass together" (Deut.
22:10). Laws concerning what you wear - "Thou shalt
not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together"
(Deut. 22:11). You can go on anywhere you like - just
weights and measures, not two kinds of weights and
measures; no two kinds of beasts working under one yoke;
no two kinds of material in your garments. God does not
have, in any place of His universe, room for mixture.
Mixture is the hallmark of Satan's interference, and it
touches this question of utter, and absolute, and
unquestioned purity; worship in the beauty of holiness,
no mixture, no contradiction, no confusing, no
inconsistency; only one thing is in God's mind, utter,
absolute, full, final, unquestioned, undivided,
unreserved worship, without a doubt about it. That is the
basic law of worship; and it runs through everything.
The law of marriage - no mixture. The
whole law of marriage was carried right through in the
life of God's people. Adultery is mixing things up. There
is a whole history of that with Israel. That is the
trouble, and the issue of it all was idolatry. What about
Balaam mixing things up? "Who taught Balak to cast a
stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication"
(Rev. 2:14). It is the end of it. What is the
sinister deep-down movement? It is touching idolatry, it
has affected the whole question of worship. Two worships
in God's universe, and He will not have it.
Well you see, I have said that you can
pick up the Bible anywhere and you are touching eternal
principle. All leads you to this one question of worship.
Take up the Tabernacle. Everything that
you can touch in that Tabernacle contains the principle
of what is unto God. It is so with the temple, the
priesthood, the kingdom, the monarchy, the prophets -
study them. Why did Saul go out, cast off by God?
Mixture! The climax of Saul's doubtful career was
"What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in
mine ears?" "The people spared the best of the
sheep and of the oxen" - the best of that which
belonged to the Amalekites. God will not have it, it is
mixture. Out that king must go. "I have found David
the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who shall do ALL
MY WILL" (Acts 13:22). The principle of
kingship is abandonment to the will of God. So the very
king who is God's king, is a man who is more marked by
worship than anyone else. Look at the Psalms. David had
his faults, great faults, but the truth about David was
that he was for the Lord, wholly unto the Lord. The Lord
looked upon his heart, and saw that he had no
reservation. He made mistakes, but it was not because he
was in revolt against God and wanted something for
himself; his heart was not divided over the interests of
God.
Well, how much shall we touch and how much
shall we leave? All the covenants, the covenant of the
Sabbaths, the seventh day, the seventh year, the seven
sevens of years, all bear down upon this matter of giving
God His place, bringing God into His place, and God
having His rights. I will not go further with that, we
have so much ground to cover.
Satan, who is termed "the god of this
world" (II Cor. 4:4), is active all through the
Bible deceiving and, by deceit, corrupting: taking sides
- afflicting where his godship and worship are not
acknowledged, murdering Abel; supporting wherever he
finds that he is going to get what his heart is set upon.
Tempting, accusing, oppressing - what is it all about?
One thing only. All Satan's antagonistic activity all his
work, is with one object in view, and that object is the
turning of the heart of man away from God unto himself.
He will even tempt you to wrong, seduce you, and when he
has done it, accuse you and, in accusing you, malign God;
bring a charge against God of unfaithfulness and un-love;
draw away from God; put God in a wrong light. You know
how he does that under duress, strain, suffering,
pressure - questioning God's love and faithfulness, and
so on. He is always there on the spot at a weak moment.
Well, everything we are saying is bound up with this one
question and issue - the worship of God. That is the
Bible.
The Relatedness of Christian Life
Let us come to the matter of Christian
life. Christian life begins with what we call,
comprehensively, salvation, being saved. We look at that
more closely, and we speak about justification by faith,
or righteousness through faith, the righteousness which
is of God through faith. That spiritual truth throws us
back to the Old Testament, the spotless lamb, the lamb
without spot, without blemish. That is very blessed as
our experience, as our joy, our salvation. But let us get
deeper. What does it mean? Well, first of all, quite
simply, it means that Satan's ground has been taken away;
a situation has been brought about in which Satan has no
standing. The spotless Lamb has been presented, and by
faith hands have been laid upon its head, and that
spotlessness has been attributed to that faith as the
spotlessness of the believer, and his sin has been
removed. He believes that, and enters into life and
salvation. It is a tremendous thing that has been done.
The real basis of the salvation of the believer is that
God has got His rights, and Satan has been robbed of them
all. Now lay hold of that. That is simple as a statement.
God has got His rights. What are they? Absolute
incorruptibility, holiness, righteousness, purity.
Satan's ground, the ground of his power, authority, which
is unholiness, unrighteousness, evil, sin, has been dealt
with. God has provided Himself a Lamb, and in that Lamb
Satan has no place, no power, God's rights are secured in
the Lamb, and Satan's rights are ruled out. That is the
basic fact, but we know well enough that Satan never
ceases to try to make it as though it were not so. To the
end of our time, he is always seeking to bring us back on
to the same ground as before, our own ground; the ground
of what we are in ourselves, our own sinfulness and
corruption; to have ourselves in view, and, bringing
ourselves into view, to accuse our consciences, and thus
to nullify the great fact of justification and
righteousness through faith, to counter it; and whenever
we cede him one little bit of that ground, recognize it,
acknowledge it, accept it, what have we done? We have
taken God's rights from Him and given the rights back to
Satan. This whole question of worship comes into the
realm of suspense, there is no way through. While the
question remains as to our justification by faith, our
righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, Satan is in
the place of power, and we are in the place of defeat,
and God is being robbed. It is something much more than
just a personal matter between ourselves and the Lord,
between ourselves and the devil. It is touching this
ultimate question of God's rights, and all worship gets
right down there. We must settle this thing, and we must
not open up the matter as a matter for questioning; it
must never arise as a matter of question that through
faith in Jesus Christ we are justified, and righteous
before God. Satan can keep his battle going in us,
continual conflict between ourselves and God, while we
allow a question to arise in this matter. He is getting
at the ultimate thing. When you come to the end, where
this question of worship is fully and finally settled, it
is this - "The Lord God the Almighty, AND THE
LAMB, are the temple thereof." Worship
unquestioning toward God is related to the Lamb. God gets
everything through the Lamb; Satan loses everything
through the Lamb.
My point is this, that salvation, in its
initial sense as well as in its continuous enjoyment,
justification, righteousness by faith, is bound up with
this ultimate issue of God having an unquestioned place,
getting all His rights. Salvation is not an end in
itself, getting people saved, converted, signing cards
and so on. That is small; it is good, it is right, it
works, but it is so small in the light of the immense
issue that is involved. You understand why souls are so
hardly won, why such a battle rages around the securing
of one true believer. Satan will do anything to put them
in a false position, in a false faith, in an assumed
conversion, and he will fight tremendously against the
reality of a real, downright, central regeneration,
because he stands to lose all his ground, and God to get
all His. It is a big thing that is bound up with the
salvation of a single soul. This is a conflict. We are
drawn into it when we have a concern for men's souls.
They are not just going to be handed over by asking, if
they are worth anything to the Lord.
And what is true of salvation is true in
the matter of sanctification, or its alternative word -
consecration. What is it? It is being set apart for the
Lord and it is connected with worship; consecrated,
sanctified, set apart FOR THE LORD. You
know quite well that in the Old Testament, worship
and service always went together. It is everything for
the Lord, the whole for the Lord. Why preach
sanctification, why be concerned about consecration to
the Lord? For this very reason, that the ultimate issue
of the universe is bound up with that. The opposite of
real consecration, real sanctification, is a defeated
life, Satan having a part and God having a part, things
belonging to one kingdom and things belonging to the
other being mixed up, and God says you cannot. "Ye
cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13). "Ye
cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table
of demons" (I Cor. 10:21). It cannot be done. It is
not just the things, it is what lies behind, the god of
this world holding away from God by the things of the
world. That is obvious, too obvious even to mention.
The Relatedness of Christian Experience
Come to the matter of Christian
experience; being in the hands of the Lord, under the
government of the Holy Spirit; being trained, being
educated; through training, discipline, spiritual
education, being perfected; being brought to the place of
cooperation with God. What lies behind spiritual
education? Look at every fragment and phase of your
spiritual education, the way the Lord deals with you, and
leads you; the history that there is with God lying
behind. What is the outcome of it all? Suffering, trial,
perplexity, adversity, and all that which goes to make up
our Christian experience - and there is so much of it -
what is the outcome of it all - God has His way? Let us
look at ourselves, the way we have with God, the way He
has taken us through the depths; through suffering,
affliction, trial and difficulty, sometimes to the point
almost of despair, like Paul, despairing of life, having
the sentence of death. But what is the result? If the
Lord has His way, is it not that He has a larger place,
and the enemy a much smaller place through it all? That
is the marvel of it all. Sometimes when you are going
through it, you come to a rock-bottom experience, as you
think, and you feel the devil is going to gain, the Lord
is losing. But when you come up out of it, the Lord has
much more ground, He has something more that He can work
upon. What He has done is to get rid of a lot that was in
His way. Suffering is a great purger. Christian
experience is all with one object in view, where the Lord
is concerned, in His dealing with us as He does. It is
worship, worship in this sense, that God is coming into
His own and Satan is losing ground. We have often feared
that it would be just the opposite, while we were going
through it, but God is faithful and it does work out to a
larger measure of the Lord.
The Relatedness of Christian Service
I must close on one final note - the
matter of Christian service. We have already said that in
the Old Testament service and worship were synonymous.
"Let my people go, that they may serve me" (Ex.
7:16). That statement, as you know, was linked up with
the demand that they took their cattle for sacrifices,
that they might worship the Lord. Worship was the
service, and what I am concerned about is just this, that
we recast our whole idea and conception of Christian work
or service.
We have the idea that doing a lot of
things in this way, that way, and another way, is the
service of the Lord, and I want to say with strength and
emphasis that all service to the Lord is determined, in
its value, by how much more the Lord really gets of a
place FOR HIMSELF in spiritual reality, and not
how many things we do, both in number and kind. The
heart, the very core of service is worship; which means
that God gets an enlarged place and Satan loses ground.
Judge all service by that - not by the things done, but
by the spiritual issue, that there is something more
coming to the Lord. I know that sounds so simple as to
hardly warrant the emphasis. But get into the places of
service. Evangelization; what is the object of
evangelization? Ultimately, with God, the object of
evangelization is that there shall be more of God in this
universe and more for Him. It is not just something in
itself, to get people saved. Are we quite sure that all
that is being done along this line of evangelization is
really and truly bringing God into the situation, that
there is something there that is so much of God that
Satan has to reckon with God? That is how it was in the
New Testament. Strangers coming in fell down and said,
God is among you! Ananias and Sapphira found that they
could not deceive God; they were dealing with the living
God, and it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of
the living God; God is here. That is the essence of
worship, that is the nature of service. Evangelization -
bringing God in and securing unto God His place and His
rights. The testimony is for that; both individual and
corporate testimony is for that.
Why companies? Why the churches? Because
it is the New Testament order? That is not it, that is
superficial. The churches are here as meaning in very
reality, in spiritual intent, that God is here. God has
not been put out of His universe, He is here. He can be
met here; He can be known here; He is here, for or
against. A local church, a corporate testimony, is
essentially for that. All its activities are unto making
that effective. Is mutual edification something in
itself? Not at all; it is for building up a larger
measure of the Lord. All its activities are for that -
the increase of the Lord, the increase of God in Christ.
The whole question of fellowship is that; not just to
have a good, social, Christian time, a happy time
together with those who are of like mind. Fellowship is a
terrific thing in the spiritual realm. I use that word
advisedly. Spiritual fellowship is a terrific thing
amongst the unseen forces. Unto God it is a wonderful
thing, a glorious thing. "Behold, how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity"! (Psalm 133:1). But it is an object of
Satan's most bitter hatred. Through the ages, one thing
upon which he has concentrated has been to destroy the
fellowship of the people of God, because it is in that
fellowship that God is found so richly, so livingly.
Fellowship is not just a nice thing that you can bring
about by discussion and agreement. It is something that
has to be wrought by the Holy Ghost, something so wrought
by the Holy Ghost that Satan cannot undo it. It stands
the test, it goes through the storms, it is a marvelous
thing, and, in the end, it is a miracle when brothers and
sisters are, through all the testing and the assailing
and all the working of the devil, found still together in
the love of the Spirit. It is a mighty testimony to the
Lord, and it is worship. There is something of worship in
the real spiritual fellowship of God's people; not in
what we say, but in our love, our mutual love, there is
worship to God, things are coming to the Lord.
Well,
there we are going to stop for the present. I trust we
are able to see one thing at the back of all the details,
all the things, one tremendous issue which has to govern;
we have to allow it to govern, we have to make it to
govern. When we meet things, we have to ask this question
- Is Satan going to get something out of this, is this
calculated to serve him, to yield to him what he is
after? Then, by the grace of God, we will deny him that.
What can the Lord get out of this, how much can the Lord
get? Oh, that we might have grace always to have that as
a governing thing - What can the Lord get out of this? -
and take it up in the light of that question, not what we
stand to gain or lose, but what does the Lord stand to
gain or lose? That is the spirit of worship, and in the
end, blessed be God, because of the work of the Lamb,
there will be no more curse, but God Himself, the
Almighty, and the Lamb, will be the temple, and there
will be no question as to who is the object of the
worship of this universe.