We are
engaged upon a consideration of the last chapters of the
book of the Revelation, especially with those parts that
deal with the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of
heaven. In that connection will you look at three verses
of Scripture in the Letter to the Hebrews:
"By
faith he (Abraham) became a sojourner in the land of
promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents,
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise: for he looked for the city which hath the
foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (11:9,10).
"But
ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22).
"For
we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the
city which is to come" (13:14).
Before
we continue with our consideration of this city I do want
to say a very serious word about the purpose of these
meditations. I want to say to you that this is not just a
subject for a conference, nor just some Bible study for a
series of meetings. My own strong conviction is that this
is a word from God in this serious time in which we are
living, and we are living in the most serious time in the
history of this world. If we knew what was happening in
the nations of this whole world today, one question would
fill our minds: How much longer can it go on? Things are
happening which make it very possible that many alive
today will see the great change in this whole world. We
are not exaggerating if we say that it is quite possible
that within the next twenty or twenty-five years the end
of this present world order could come. That would mean
that this could happen in the lifetime of the middle-aged
people, and certainly of younger people. It is not my
desire to be an alarmist, but what I have just said is
very possible, and so many things are happening in the
world as to make the time very short.
I am not
prophesying, so no one will be able to say that I was a
false prophet if it does not happen! I am only saying
that it is very possible, and if this is true, then we
might expect that God would send a message to His people
to prepare them. So I repeat: this is not just some bit
of Bible teaching for a week. This could be a message
from the Lord to prepare us for what is coming very soon.
Now I
must take you back to the main thing which we said
earlier, because that is the thing which is right at the
centre of everything else. It is that the thing which
governs everything in the history of this world is the
nature of God. When God created this world He created it
to be an expression of His own nature, so that wherever
you looked you could see what God is like. When God
created man He intended him to be an expression of
Himself. He, said: "Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26), which just means
that when man is as God meant him to be, we should see
what God is like. When He finished that creation He said
"it was very good" (Genesis 1:31), and when you
think of what God is like, for Him to be able to say 'It
is very good' of anything, it means that it really must
satisfy His nature.
Then
everything went away from God and became displeasing to
Him. When He looked out in the world He could not see His
nature being expressed, so He put a curse upon
everything. In effect, He said: 'That no longer satisfies
My nature. I do not want it.' From that time onward God
was always seeking to find something that would satisfy
His nature. That is the story of the Old Testament - it
is just the story of that which does satisfy God and that
which does not satisfy God. And God accepts or rejects
just according to how far His nature is satisfied. It is
a long story; but running through that long history was
one golden line, like a golden thread in a black fabric.
ABRAHAM'S QUEST
It is a
long history. It reaches right back to the beginning, and
then it was taken up by Abraham, who, it says, "by
faith... looked for a city" - now note - "whose
builder and maker is GOD". Not
a city built by sinful man. However wonderful such a city
might be, it would never satisfy God. It had to be a city
which satisfied the nature of its Maker, God. That vision
was put into the heart of Abraham, and he could say:
'Somehow I have come to understand that God wants a city,
and if He wants anything, it will have to be like Him,
and be made by Him. It is a "city whose builder and
maker is God".' So we have read that Abraham went up
and down the land, and as he did so he saw some cities.
He saw the city of Sodom, and said: 'No, that is not it.
That could never satisfy God.' Then he saw the city of
Gomorrah. 'No.' said he, 'that is not the one.' And then
he saw the city of Salem, the original Jerusalem. 'Now
this is very much better than Sodom and Gomorrah,' but
the Spirit said to Abraham: 'No, not even that one.' So
he went on moving up and down the land, and this Divine
conception of the city never materialized. Seventy years,
eighty years, ninety years... and then he died, and he
never found the city! This Letter to the Hebrews says:
"These all died in faith, not having received the
promises... God having provided some better thing for us,
that apart from us they should not be made perfect"
(11:13,40).
THE END OF THE QUEST
And then
this same Letter says: "But ye ARE come...
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem." It has been a very long spiritual
pilgrimage, but it is at an end now. Abraham has got it
now. He is a co-inheritor with us.
Yet once
more we have to change our ideas. There is a long, long
story of Jerusalem in the Old Testament, but that
Jerusalem, even in its best days, never finally satisfied
God's nature. Everybody who knows his or her New
Testament knows this. Have you read Peter, Paul, John and
Stephen? They very largely make up the New Testament, and
everybody knows from them that the things in the Old
Testament were only patterns of some spiritual thing in
the New Testament. Read Peter's Letters again, and there
you will find that he is speaking of God's new Israel,
and the NEW House of God in Israel. He
calls it "God's spiritual house", and speaks of
the offering of "SPIRITUAL
sacrifices". This is the new Israel. Read Paul
again, and you will find him writing to the Galatians:
"Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and
answereth to the Jerusalem that now is: for she is in
bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem that is
above is free, which is our mother" (4:25,26). And
then he will say in his Letter to the Philippians:
"Our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we
wait for a Saviour" (3:20). That is the transition
from the earthly to the heavenly, from the temporal to
the spiritual.
You
know, John builds his Gospel around Jerusalem; that is,
the Gospel by John is centred in and circles around the
Jerusalem which is below, but when you move on to the
book of the Revelation, written by the same man, the
centre is the heavenly Jerusalem. He is walking around
her, noting her walls. In these two great writings John
has moved from the earthly to the heavenly. And then this
wonderful Letter to the Hebrews says that we, the
believers of this dispensation, "are come unto mount
Zion... the heavenly Jerusalem".
But, you
see, this is all spiritual language. It is that of a
spiritual character which God is seeking to possess.
Well,
let us say it again, very strongly: This is only
symbolism. What does it really mean? It just means what
all the Bible is about: God is going to find His full
satisfaction in His Son, and in a people conformed to the
image of His Son. It is not a thing, nor a place - it is
the Son of God and the sons whom He is bringing to glory.
THE PRESENT PREPARATION
Let us
bring that city right here. Dear friends, if you are
really a born again child of God, you are a part of the
city which God is now building. God is now building
something, and this building is going on inside of us -
or it ought to be! God is, by His Spirit, building His
Son into us. Christ is being built up in us, and we are
being built up into Christ.
This is
a tremendous business! When we are born again the Holy
Spirit gets hold of these pieces of rough stone - and
what poor bits of humanity we are! What poor pieces of
material we are for a heavenly city! We have a lot of
corners, like a piece of stone, and the Holy Spirit says:
'We will knock off some of those corners,' and so our
spiritual experience is one of having the corners knocked
off. You know what I mean by 'corners'! If you don't
think that you have any corners, you know that other
people have! We are very awkward people and do not fit in
anywhere, so we have to be made to fit into this heavenly
city. You see, this heavenly city is very practical. It
is all very well to sing about 'Jerusalem the golden',
but when the Holy Spirit is knocking off the corners,
that is not what we mean when we sing. The symbolism may
be very wonderful, but the actuality is through
suffering. But when the work is finished we will say:
'God has done a wonderful thing in me. What a difficult
person I was! How difficult it was for me to fit in with
others! Indeed, I often wanted to run right away from
everyone because I did not fit in, but God has done His
work faithfully. All the awkward corners have gone and
Jerusalem is a city that is "compact
together".' Do you remember those words from Psalm
122? "Jerusalem, that art builded as a city that is
compact together" (verse 3). and Peter says:
"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual
house" (1 Peter 2:5). Yes, God is building His city.
Not only
are we people with corners: we are people with a very
rough surface, and when we rub up against one another
there is a lot of friction. You know what I mean! We just
do not get on smoothly together, and then the Holy Spirit
takes the sandpaper to smooth us down. But, oh no, He
does not take a piece of paper and rub us smooth - He
puts us up against someone else who is not smooth, or He
puts us in a situation in life which is not smooth. We
want to get away from that person because he, or she,
rubs us up the wrong way, and we want to get away from
that situation because it does rub us up the wrong way so
much. We want to have a smooth time, but the Holy Spirit
does not let us have it. We shall never have a smooth
time until we are smooth - and do you know what it is
that makes us smooth? It is the grace of God in
suffering. We have to say a lot about that when we
further consider the city.
Now you
have got away from symbolism, have you not? We have come
to spiritual reality! And this city is just the
embodiment of these spiritual principles.
BUILDING FOR ETERNITY
When you
are talking about the heavenly Jerusalem you are talking
about something eternal, and that is something of which
we are very conscious now. Here again we have come into
the realm of what is spiritual and not temporal. The
point is this: What God is doing in the small fragment of
time in our lives is going to be revealed to His glory
for all eternity. To use the words of the Apostle Paul:
"Our light affliction, which is for the moment,
worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal
weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). God is doing
in these little lives that which will correspond to the
city "coming down out of heaven from God, having the
glory of God".
I do
trust that you are already beginning to see what God is
working at, and what He is now building for all eternity.
So we cease to think of the city as a place, and think of
it as a people conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
"Partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).