Reading: II Chronicles
6; Isaiah 56:6-7; Mark 11:17; Eph. 6:18.
"My house shall
be called an house of prayer for all people."
The sixth chapter of the
second book of Chronicles is a magnificent example and
illustration of these words of the Prophet. In the
dedication of the House by Solomon, prayer of a universal
kind inaugurated the ministry of the House, introducing
its function. The characteristic words of that chapter
are: "This house" and "Thy name".
"When they shall pray toward this house, because
of Thy name which is upon it...."
You will remember the
words of the Apostle concerning certain people, that they
'blasphemed that holy name which was called upon you'.
The House is the link between the two passages
historically and spiritually, and the Name called upon
the House.
What was true of the
temple of Solomon, as the House with the Name called upon
it, is true of the Church, the Church of Christ, with the
Lord's Name upon it. We have no difficulty in identifying
the anti-type of Solomon's temple as being the Church.
You are no doubt sufficiently acquainted with the Word to
make it unnecessary to quote Scripture in this
connection. Many passages will come to your mind which
bear out that statement. The Church is God's House;
"whose house are we", says the writer of the
letter to the Hebrews; "a spiritual house to offer
up spiritual sacrifices", says Peter. The
identification is not at all difficult. And that the Name
is upon the House is also quite clear. It was because of
the Name which they bore at the beginning that the Church
was so mighty in its going forth. The power of the Name
was ever manifesting itself in their ministry. That is
all very simple and needs no labouring. Then there are
these other factors.
Sonship
Marking the House of the Lord
The temple of Solomon
was really the temple of David. It came in in revelation
through David, and in realization in sonship, David's
son. We know that in the Word both David and Solomon are
types of the Lord Jesus, that He is great David's greater
Son, and that He combines all that is spiritually
represented by David and Solomon of sovereignty,
kingship, exaltation, universal triumph and glory. You
will remember how the Lord sent Nathan to David, to tell
him that though he himself should not build the House, he
was nevertheless to be the one to gather all that was
necessary for it, and so be the instrument of making it
possible. This so satisfied David that in the inspiration
of it, and the tremendous stimulus of it, he went out and
subdued all those nations which had been historic thorns
in the side of Israel. And when he had subdued all the
nations round about, and a universal triumph had been
established, then the House came into being through
Solomon.
We carry that forward
into the triumph of the Lord Jesus by His Cross. He
possesses the universal victory. He is exalted,
enthroned, in virtue of all His enemies being overthrown
by His Cross, and on resurrection ground the declaration
is made: "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten
Thee." A fresh declaration of sonship is made, by
reason of resurrection, and in resurrection, and in that
sonship He builds the House, and the Spirit of sonship
enters into every member of that House, and it becomes a
'sonship House' (Acts 13:33; Galatians 4:6).
The
Ministry and Vocation of the House
That all leads the way
to this particular thing, namely, the ministry and
vocation of the House, of the Church. The House itself
has to provide the Lord with a place, a sphere, a realm,
a vessel, through which He can reach all people. That is
the working outwards; that is God securing to Himself a
means of universal blessing. God moves universally
through His House, and therefore He must have a House
constituted on a prayer basis. Do you notice the two
movements in this chapter of II Chronicles 6? There is a
movement outwards, and a movement inwards. The outward is
through the House, with Solomon, so to speak, ministering
the Lord. He is, as it were, bringing out from heaven the
gracious goodness of God, the interventions, the
undertakings and resources of God, world-wide. He is
making the House the vehicle of what God is, and what God
has, unto all peoples. When you reach a certain point in
the chapter the movement changes, and you see people
coming to the House because of the Name. That is the
movement inwards. They shall "pray toward this
house, because of Thy Great Name", said Solomon.
That means that the circumference is going to find, not a
direct access to God, but its blessing through the House
of the Lord.
I suggest to you that
those two things very greatly govern the New Testament
revelation of the Church, and the Church's vocation. The
one thing which embraces all is that God in Christ has
bound Himself up with His Church, the Body of Christ, for
this world's good, and that the fullness of the Lord will
never be known nor entered into in an individual or
individualistic way; that anything like mere
individualism, separatism, will mean limitation. Any kind
of detachment and isolation leads to being deprived of
the larger fullnesses of the Lord, or, to put it the
other way, to come into the fullness of the Lord we have
to come into the fellowship of His people as the House of
God. That is one law, and that is established.
That is the line which
is more severe. There is a frown, perhaps, about that. It
sounds hard. But it is the warning note which is very
necessary, and especially in the light of the fact that
there is a continuous, unceasing, incessant drive of the
adversary in the direction of separation, isolation and
detachment. It seems that at times the devil releases his
forces and concentrates them upon people, to get them to
run away, to get out of it, to break away, to quit
because the strain seems so intense. Their whole
inclination is to get away alone. They think that they
are going to get an advantage by that. They are sometimes
deceived into thinking that it will be for their good if
only they get right away alone. They sometimes put it in
this way: that they 'want to get away and think it all
out'. Beware of the peril of thinking it all out! You can
never think out spiritual problems. The only way of
solving them is to live through them. If you have tried
to square down to your spiritual problems, and bring your
mind to bear upon them, and to solve them by 'thinking it
all out', you know that you never get anywhere, and that
the Lord does not meet you in that way. Spiritual things
have to be lived through to clearness. We can only get
through to clearness in spiritual things by living
through them. If you do not understand that now, you
probably will understand when you come up against another
experience of this kind. Thus one aspect of the enemy's
drive is to get you to run away. Why does the enemy want
us to get away? Why is it that this whole force, this
whole pressure, is to make us quit? He has a very good
reason. He knows that it means loss and limitation. The
Lord, to put it in a word, has bound up all His greater
fullnesses with spiritual relatedness, and there
can be nothing but grievous loss in failing to recognize
the House-law of God, the fellowship-law, the family-law.
There can only be loss if we take ourselves out of
God's appointed relatedness. Be very much aware of any
kind of movement or tendency which is in the direction of
either detachment or putting you into a place where you
are apart. The enemy has many ways of getting his end. If
he cannot drive us out from the midst of the Lord's
people, he very often tries to give us a too prominent
place in the midst of them. He can isolate us just as
much by our being too much in the limelight, and we at
once become uncovered, exposed. There is no more
dangerous place than to be made too much fuss of, to be someone.
There is such a thing as finding a hiding within the
House of God.
But our particular
consideration at the present time is this vocation and
its outward direction, the House of prayer for all
peoples. The Church, the Lord's people, form for Him a
ministering instrument by which He has ordained to reach
out to all the ends of the earth, a universal instrument
wherever gathered together, even when represented only by
two or three. The test of any company of the Lord's
people, and of our position, is this vocation.
The
Fact of Representation
You begin with the
representative fact, the fact of representation.
Representation begins with two or three, and that
immediately swings us completely clear of all earthly
grounds of judging and estimating. It indicates the
essential heavenly nature of the Church. In the Lord
Jesus every member of the Church is included. If Christ
comes, the whole Church comes. The Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of the whole Body, uniting all the members in one.
You cannot be in the spirit and in Christ anywhere but
what you are there in the spiritual realm, in the
heavenly realm, with the whole Body, and the whole
Body is there spiritually. Two or three? "There am
I!" The whole Body, then, is bound up with the two
or three. The fact evidences the heavenliness of the
Church, the Body of Christ. This is not a possibility on
the earth. You cannot bring the whole Church together in
any one place on this earth literally. It is not the
Lord's way, and it cannot be done. The Church is
scattered worldwide, so far as the earthly aspect is
concerned. And yet the Church is a heavenly thing
gathered up in Christ, its Head, by one Spirit baptized
into one Body, and when we come into the Spirit, into the
heavenly realm, we are in the presence of the whole Body;
not with earthly intelligence, that is, the whole Body is
not conscious of the fact from the earthly standpoint,
but spiritually it is true. That is the whole Church
represented in the two or three if truly "in the
Name". What the two or three may do in the Holy
Spirit becomes a universal thing.
The
Prayer Meeting
What we are seeking to
press home is that this is so different from having a
local prayer meeting, in the usually accepted meaning of
that term. Suppose that where such an outlook obtains the
announcement is made: 'We will have a prayer meeting on
Monday night.' Who will come to that prayer meeting?
People will say among themselves: 'Shall we go to the
prayer meeting?.' or, perhaps: 'Well, it is only a prayer
meeting!' That is one way to look at it, as a local thing
in a certain place at a certain time. But if I were to
say: 'Will you come and minister to the whole Church of
Christ universally in such-and-such a place at a certain
time, and your business is to go and minister in that
range to the whole Church!' that puts another point of
view. It gives an altogether new conception of what we
are called to. Let your imagination take flight, if you
like, and see the whole Church from the ends of the earth
literally gathered together, needing to be ministered to,
and the Lord saying to you: 'Now you come and minister to
the whole Church! Thousands of thousands; and tens of
thousands gathered together, and I want you to minister
to them. I have placed the resource at your disposal and
will enable you to do it.' Perhaps you might shrink, and
be fearful, but you would see the tremendous
significance. You would not stay away because you were
unimpressed with the importance of it.
This is not
exaggeration. We are not straining the point. We are
seeking to get to the heart of this ministry which is
ours. When two or three are gathered together in any
place, and they pray in the Holy Spirit, that is what is
possible and it happens. They represent the whole Church,
and become the House of prayer, functioning for all
peoples, a universal ministry. We need to lift the prayer
business on to a higher level. When we see the range, the
significance, the value of a time of prayer together in
the Name of the Lord, we shall stop our trivialities and
take things seriously. We shall come together saying:
'Now, here are nations to be entered into tonight, and
things which are world-wide and of tremendous
significance to the Lord Jesus, and we are called to deal
with them in this place!' There is no greater ministry.
It is a tremendous thing to have a ministry like that.
It all comes back to
asking whether this is true of the Church. What does this
mean? Is it merely a passage of Scripture? Is it a nice
idea, but falling short of any real meaning? What is the
meaning of: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer
for all people"? It certainly does not mean that the
whole Church can literally be gathered together in one
place to pray, and it certainly cannot literally mean
that the whole Church can pray together at the same time,
though scattered. The situation is different in all
countries. Day and night govern different parts of the
world, and other factors come in. It is necessary to get
away from the earth to explain this. And if you get off
the earth and see that where two or three are gathered
together into the Name all the rest are represented, and
because the one Spirit is there the whole is therefore
touched through that one Spirit, as well as involved,
then the possibilities are tremendous. "A house of
prayer for all peoples" is God's ordained way of
ministry.
The
Need for Prayer Ministry
Leaving the great
spiritual truth, and coming to what is immediate, so far
as one's own heart is concerned, in this word, I do feel
that there has to be a fresh registration in our hearts
of a call to this ministry and the need for it. We may
pray a lot, but I feel that we have to take this matter
of the prayer ministry even more seriously, to regard it
as our supreme ministry. The order is everything by
prayer; not everything and then prayer, but
everything by prayer. Prayer comes first. Everything
comes by prayer. Prayer is the basis of everything, and
nothing else must be attempted or touched except on the
ground of prayer. We have to gather into our prayer the
universal interests of the Name of the Lord.
"Because of Thy Name!" The Name is in view, and
is involved. It is the interests of the Name which govern
the functioning of the House, and all the interests of
the Name of the Lord have to become the definite and
solid prayer business of the Lord's people. Oh, the Lord
cut clean across that thing which makes us so casual, and
which makes corporate prayer times so optional, and bring
into our hearts, with a strong, deep, set conviction, the
witness that prayer is universal business, and that we
are called to it!
It may be that before
long there will be very little else that we can do. It
may be that before long the Lord's people world-wide will
find that their other activities are brought to a
standstill, and they are shut up. What is going to happen
then to the Lord's interests? Is that the end of
ministry? Is that the end of functioning, of value, of
effectiveness? It may be that before long the Lord's
people in all the earth will need, as they have never
needed before, the prayer co-operation of other members.
It may be that the Lord's Name has suffered because we
have not regarded this ministry as we ought to have done.
We are not blaming anyone, but simply saying that there
is room for far more serious entering into this
tremendous thing which the Lord has appointed for us.
Only to dwell upon the words quietly and thoughtfully
will surely mean that their implication will come upon
our hearts? The Lord has not said that He is going to
move directly out to the universe. He has said: 'My house
shall be called a house of prayer for all
peoples." To put that in other words we might state
it thus: 'I have ordained to meet universal need through
an instrument, through a vessel, and My people, My
Church, form that vessel. That is My appointed way. If My
Church fails Me, if My instrument does not take this
matter seriously, is occupied with itself rather than
with the great world-wide needs of My Name, then I am
failed indeed!'
Now this means that we
must recognize that where but two or three gather into
the Name, where it cannot be more, there is nothing
merely local about such coming together in prayer, but
that the farthest ranges of the Lord's interests can be
advanced, helped, ministered to, by the twos and threes.
If it is possible for more to gather, then the Lord
desires that, but it is ministry to the Lord by prayer
for which He looks to us. We must see to it that it is
our first, our primary business to pray. It is strange
that so many more will come to conference meetings than
to prayer meetings! Is the mentality behind that, that it
is far more important to hear teaching than it is to
pray? Would it not be a great day and represent some
tremendous advance spiritually, something unique, if the
prayer gatherings were bigger than the biggest conference
gatherings, or at least as big as the biggest?
Let us lay this to
heart! Remember that the enemy is always seeking to
destroy the essential purpose of the House of God.
"Ye have made it a den of robbers." That was
one attempt of his to put out the real purpose by
changing the whole character of things. God forbid that
anything like that should be true in our case, but it is
just possible to allow the primary thing to take a
secondary place. The primary thing is prayer for all
peoples. That, the Lord says, is what His House is for,
and that is our real ministry. We cannot all be in the
ministry of the Word, but we can all be in this ministry.
We can all be in spirit out to the Lord for the interests
of His Name.
There seems to be
weakness and failure along this line: that we are not
functioning in prayer to the point of seeing things
through. We pray about many things, and we preach many
things, but we do not see them through in prayer, and the
Lord's Name is involved in that. You will know whether
the Lord is speaking to your own heart. I believe this is
a fresh call to the primary ministry which is so very,
very much needed. All those who go out into the nations
need very strong prayer support. If we fail them we do
not know what may happen. They may be in all kinds of
difficulties which they need not get into if we were
wholly faithful in this prayer ministry. The Lord lay
it upon our hearts as a burden!
T. Austin-Sparks