Quite an exodus when the children leave, isn’t it?
Greetings in the name of the Lord. Brothers and sisters in New York, Long Island, where I live, I bring you greetings.
I would like to thank you for your hospitality this weekend. I stayed with the Blanchards, and I was rebaptized into family life with a bunch of boys. We had a wonderful time. Even though Matt is now living out of the house, he came back just to be part of the whole sort of repartee around the table. It is really quite something in the Blanchard home. I hope you all pray for Sharon.
I have two thank-yous here. First, I would like to thank the brothers and sisters for the very clear letter that was sent out before the planning meeting.
The brothers in our particular group read that letter together and said, “You know, we had forgotten that we are part of that whole conference.” We had forgotten because Richmond was taking everything—we felt like they were doing the planning and everything—and the letter so clearly reminded us.
So the brothers and sisters said, “You know, we have got to share some of that responsibility.” It was a very good letter. I do not know who constructed it, but I feel like the Holy Spirit was the pen behind the words. I would like to thank you for that.
Every time we have a clearer word like that, then we have a response like the one we have had. It was a good word.
I would also like to thank, belatedly, the nursery workers. Now I have a vested interest in this.
Because this year, at the last conference, my two grandchildren came. My daughter-in-law, who is being drawn by the Lord but is not one yet, attended.
After the whole week of conference, I said, “Well, how did you like the speakers, and what impression were you left with?” She said, “You know the thing I cannot get over? The women who work in the nursery.”
She saw the Lord there. The gentleness, the orderliness, and the love of them was something that touched her. That was the testimony she received from Conference ’96.
I would just like to thank those sisters, and some brothers, who work over there. To tell you the truth, I did not realize until this last year that they were there. But they are doing something unto the Lord.
This is how wonderful it is to be part of the body of Christ, where there is so much going on behind the scenes. The Lord knows. So I thank you, brothers and sisters.
Up in New York, the Lord is working among His children. I will share with you one blessing before I come to the things I want to share.
There were two sisters from Halford House who were with us last week. I do not know if they actually stopped by here; they may have. In any case, one of them is Blanche, a sister who is actually the hostess in Halford House itself. If you have ever gone and stayed there, she has been the sister who fed you and kept you going.
The other sister is named Mary. They are two sisters who have been at Halford since 1958. On Monday, I came back from a meeting, and they were staying in our house, so I took them into the city for a big show-round.
As we were going around, we went by David Wilkerson’s church. Let me share with you a little blessing.
We went into David Wilkerson’s church, and they had a huge chalkboard. We did not know what it was, but there were all kinds of time slots—nine, ten, eleven, twelve—with twenty-five names under them.
We walked into the auditorium, and there were people praying down in the front. A brother came up to us and was very enthusiastic in sharing. Here is the wonderful connection.
The chalkboard showed that, for the last month, twenty-four hours a day, the saints had been praying for revival in New York City. They had twenty names under every hour, and they were down there praying night and day. Their place was open. They were saying, “Lord, have mercy on this sinful city and bring revival.”
This brother was in there getting ready to do his time, and he began to share with us. Our sisters, Blanche and Mary, are part of the prayer life of the saints in Halford. They are two prayer warriors—you know those kinds of sisters. They are faithful to pray.
One of the burdens they have prayed for over the years at Halford, because of Lance’s involvement in Israel and everything, is salvation among the Muslims.
This brother began to talk to us enthusiastically about the coming revival in New York City. He said, “Even among those that I work with, I am praying for revival.” So we said to him, “Who do you work among?” He said, “Among the Muslims. I am an Iranian named Abraham. I was saved by the grace of God, and I minister among the Muslims.”
Blanche and Mary almost got raptured on the spot. To hear the testimonies—and these sisters had been praying faithfully—the Lord just blesses us in these little ways. Is He not wonderful?
All the way there in New York City, and they were on home turf. They were praising God and saying, “Well, we will remember your name,” jotting it down in their little prayer notebook. It is wonderful. Thank the Lord for the preciousness of the saints.
I would like for us to look at two Scriptures this morning. I have heard that the Lord seems to have laid upon your heart this matter of foundations, and I was glad to hear that.
The Lord has placed upon my heart this burden. I get these kinds of couple-of-word burdens, you know. This burden that I have been feeling in my heart—not for Richmond, but recently for all the saints—is this: clarify the foundation.
When I first heard this, I wondered what it meant. To show you how ignorant I am of kitchen duty, I walked into my kitchen recently and my wife was cooking. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Clarifying butter.”
I had no idea what that meant. I said, “What does that mean?” She said, “You melt the butter until it is clear.” Clarifying. I never knew it was that simple. I thought they were doing something magic—putting sugar in, something. It is just melting until it is clear.
Lord, clarify the foundations. Make them clear again. This is the burden of my heart.
Let us begin with Psalm 11. The entire psalm has something to do with foundations.
In the Lord do I take refuge:
How say ye to my soul,
Flee as a bird to your mountain;
For, lo, the wicked bend the bow,
They make ready their arrow upon the string,
That they may shoot in darkness at the upright in heart;
If the foundations be destroyed,
What can the righteous do?The Lord is in His holy temple,
The Lord, His throne is in heaven;
His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men.
The Lord trieth the righteous;
But the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.
Upon the wicked He shall rain snares;
Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.
For the Lord is righteous; He loveth righteousness;
The upright shall behold His face.
Then turn to 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 10.
According to the grace of God which was given unto me,
As a wise master builder I laid a foundation;
And another buildeth thereon.
But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Each man’s work shall be made manifest:
For the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire;
And the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
But he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.
Lord, we come to You today. We thank You that You are forthright with us, declaring Your righteousness and declaring Your will. Lord, we ask that the Word of God may be alive and active in our midst, doing the work that You desire.
We pray that the Holy Spirit would help me as speaker and us as hearers to receive and respond to this work. O Lord, establish us. Found us upon the Rock. We pray for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
In 1 Corinthians 3, we see that clarifying the foundation is crucial in the life of the church. Individually, in our lives, we need a clear foundation. As the church, we need a clear foundation.
Our only foundation is Jesus Christ. He is our foundation. There is no other foundation that can be laid in a Christian’s life.
But this foundation is built upon, of necessity. A house does not just have a foundation; we must be careful how we build.
There are building materials of great value, and the reason for their value, to put it simply, is that they are clear as crystal. There is a see-through gold that we know about from the New Jerusalem.
If we build upon this foundation with see-through gold, we can still see Jesus in our Christian life. People need to see Jesus. No matter what we build, they still need to see Jesus.
May it be that whatever gold is built, it is clear gold. Whatever precious stones are built, Jesus can still come through. This is a beautiful building the Lord desires, and He wants us to build with precious things.
But the problem comes sometimes when we are successful, when we are blessed, when we are moving with momentum. In these blessings, we are not always careful how we build. We stick in some wood, straw, and hay—opaque things that get on the foundation and obscure its clarity.
It is Jesus who saved us. It is Jesus’ finished work that we benefit from, and we live by His life. This is our foundation.
But we have a tendency, sometimes in times of life such as we are in right now, to build with things that obscure that clear and simple testimony. So the Lord has to bring us back to clarifying things, because the testing time comes.
As it says here, each man’s work will be tested. Paul has in mind primarily the building work of he and his fellow associates, as they went from place to place building the church. He is saying, “What you are building over here at this location may look good, but when the test comes, we will see just how well it was built.”
When the fire comes, if it is gold, if it is silver, if it is precious stone, it will go right through. If anything, it will just clear up the foundation a little more.
But there are a lot of things claimed to be a building work of God where, with one little match, the whole thing could come down because it is only straw. Again, by the mercy of God, the fire clarifies the foundation. It burns away all that is irrelevant.
But we who have been spending time building with matchsticks suffer loss. So He tells us to be careful how we build.
Paul says he is a wise master builder, and indeed, in retrospect, we must say Paul was a wise master builder. He only built out of his own foundation—out of the revelation of Jesus Christ in him. Out of these things he built.
When he built the church, he did not build himself in the corner with a memorial stone saying, “Just always remember, you belong to Paul.” He just built Jesus Christ and built the Lord Jesus into the saints.
This clarifying of the foundation becomes necessary: a sweeping, a clarifying, until we see the foundation clear. Ah, it is all Jesus—grace, grace, from beginning to end. Jesus there and Jesus here. That is what we want to see.
Psalm 11 gives us an illustration regarding this matter of foundation, and also the necessity and importance of being clear about our foundations.
Notice verse 3: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” All of us say, “Yes, amen.” But actually, this verse is not the Lord’s word. It is conventional wisdom—the conventional wisdom of somebody who does not know the real foundation.
In verse 1, we see the beginning place: the man of God has taken refuge in the Lord. “In the Lord, I have taken refuge.”
On the top of my old King James Bible, which I like to read, it says In Domino Confido. That is how it begins in Latin: “In the Lord, I confide.” This is the stance of a man of God.
But then somebody comes alongside—perhaps his alter ego, his carnal side, or perhaps just the devil upon his shoulder. Somebody comes along, pushing the panic button, full of fear at the decline of the environment around him, and says, “It is time to move to the mountains.”
“You know, western North Carolina is a good place. The West Coast is choosing Montana. Move to the mountains—quick, move to the mountains. Everywhere you go, evil people are shooting their bows at you, at the upright.”
“The upright do not even have a chance on a job anymore. There are so many evil cupids going around shooting you down. After all, when the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Maybe we should retreat and regroup in the mountains. I will meet you there in a couple of years.”
This is the conventional wisdom of some religious person who does not understand the foundations.
What does the psalmist, David, reply to the suggestions of his religious friend? He says, in verse 4, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”
Eugene Peterson, in The Message, paraphrases this beautifully: “Yahweh has not moved to the mountains.”
This man of God has taken refuge in a Lord whose throne is still in heaven, and the Lord is still in His holy temple. Why should we flee?
The wisdom of the man of God flies against the wisdom of convention. This religious voice does not have its foundations solidly where they should be.
In times of prosperity, in times of blessing, or in countries like ours, we begin to put our trust in other things: a government with men of character, an economy that will never fail, the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or the foundation of saying, “I am as healthy as a bear, and emotionally stable to boot.”
I contend that these are foundations of the world. They are temporary, corruptible, and will pass away. If our hope is staked on those kinds of foundations, no wonder this person is panicking and saying it is time to flee to a place where he can live by his trusted foundation.
Because this person is religious, we also have to imagine that people can misplace their trust and make their foundation religious things, which are also temporary and corruptible.
What if the decline has come to the place where this person no longer thinks the temple is going to stand? “It is time to flee away.” Some people put their trust in buildings. Some people put their trust in a religious experience.
If the foundation of our life is, “I know I am saved because somebody told me I am saved,” that is not going to work in a time of trouble. I need to have a foundation in the salvation of Jesus Christ.
“I am serving God because somebody prophesied over me and told me that is what I was supposed to do.” That will never wash in a difficult time.
If we put our trust in some experience—“Oh, I know I am saved because I said ‘bibbity-bobbity-boo,’ and I get chills every time I close my eyes”—if that is the basis of our foundation, we are in poor trouble.
Or if we put our trust in certain doctrines: “Oh, I know now. There is no doubt in my mind.” Well, circumstances can cause those doubts to rise. If it is just head knowledge that is our safety, then we have a leaking net.
Or perhaps our foundation is a religious leader—a man of God. If our foundation is not Jesus Christ, if we are not built on that solid Rock, we will find that all other ground is sinking sand.
But this man of God knows his foundation. He says, “My foundation is sure. Listen: the Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”
That is a wonderful testimony and a wonderful clarification. This man knows where his foundation rests.
Brothers and sisters, despite all our religious professions, we need to learn to bow our fearful knees before this throne. There is too much fearful talk in Christian circles. People are so prepossessed, I fear, that everything has a tinge of paranoia to it.
We need to clarify the foundations until we know on Whom we have put our trust, and on Whom we can depend, and bow before that throne. That is our foundation.
My statement, which I would like simply to make and illustrate in a few Scriptures, is this: our foundation is His throne.
If we can count on His throne, we indeed have a firm foundation.
Of course, we know our foundation is Jesus Christ. Our foundation is a Person—Himself and His work. But when we say our foundation is His throne, we mean something more specific.
We mean that the foundation of our life is that our Lord Jesus is Lord. He commands. He has a will and a direction for our lives.
When we speak about His throne, we are speaking of Him as an actual Lord in our midst—speaking and commanding.
Look at the picture given here of the Lord being upon His throne: “His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.” He is looking around. He is still in control.
Some righteous people are panicking and saying, “We have got to flee to the mountains because the Lord is not in control anymore.” Excuse me. His eyes are still looking around. He knows you. He knows your circumstances. He has the situation in hand.
He knows the wicked who are getting away with murder, and they are going to pay. But the upright man, it says at the end of this psalm, will behold His face.
Clarify these foundations and live in the confidence of His throne. It is Who He is. But it is when He is allowed to reign that we live in the good of His throne.
There are two aspects of this foundation: the throne and His temple.
Verse 4 says, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.” There are two aspects to this sure foundation—a foundation we can live by regardless of the circumstances of our lives.
The first is the throne. Our foundation is this: the Lord is commanding, the Lord is in charge, the Lord is speaking, the Lord is observing. He is quite alive. He is quite in control of things.
He has not been dislodged from His throne by recent circumstances, by Clinton’s reelection, or by any other circumstance. He is still there. He is still commanding. He is still watching. He is still rewarding. He is still meting out justice.
This Lord is on the throne, and this is a great confidence for us, brothers and sisters, because this throne is in the heavens. It is immovable. It is unchangeable. It is His decree. It lasts forever. We need to have confidence in this throne. He is still Lord.
Even in the history of Israel, at times when, because of their unfaithfulness, there was no testimony on earth, still His throne was in heaven. We will never be able to take that away.
If you are led to the farthest parts of the earth and put in some concentration camp for your faith, you may be all alone, but His throne is still in heaven. His throne is untouched and unperturbed by our circumstances. This is our foundation.
Before the heavens and the earth were ever made, His throne was established in heaven. That is before the creation of the heavens and earth, and before you and I were born. We need to have confidence in that.
But there is a corresponding aspect: “The Lord is in His holy temple.” This brings it down to our life.
We have the Lord upon His throne in heaven, but when His throne touches the earth, we have a testimony down here of His presence. We have the Lord upon the throne, ruling and commanding; we have the Lord here, touching the earth with His presence.
“The Lord is in His holy temple.” What a great comfort that is. What a great comfort it was to David.
When David ran into trouble, what did he say? “I have got to get back to the temple. Oh, to see the Lord, to seek His face, to be in His presence. This is the place I want to be.”
The Lord wants to establish His throne here on earth in the testimony. Our sure foundation is His throne and the living testimony He has here upon the earth.
Now, this testimony is not eternal and unchangeable. It is temporary. It is a vessel. It is conditional.
It is conditional upon those people who are the temple of God being faithful. We have this immutable throne in heaven, and we have the testimony borne to that throne here on earth.
What is the testimony of God here on earth? It is whenever somebody in this world can see that God is commanding, God is speaking, and God is moving.
How do they know that? Because of these people here. They hear the command, and they act on it. This is the testimony. This is how people come to know the unseen God who is upon the throne: they see people moving around down here under the commands of a different drummer—an unseen Drummer.
They discover that, in fact, it is the Drummer of the living God, the Lord Jesus.
This testimony is conditional upon two things. We need to hear. If we do not hear, what good is it to give commands? He is speaking from a million-watt radio station, but nobody has the radio on.
It is not enough that the Lord speaks. Somebody needs to hear. How rare it is in these days when people hear.
What then? Obey.
If we want the foundations clarified among us as the church of Jesus Christ, then it needs to be a place where God is speaking and we are obeying. It is as simple as this.
Without that, we can have all the doctrines, accoutrements, and fancy things we want to put in, but it means nothing if He is not speaking to us and if we are not obeying.
Hearing, obeying. It is such a wonderful thing when God can command, and it is such a wonderful thing when He has servants who are listening and saying, “Yes, Lord. Whatever You want. Yes, I will go this way. Yes, I will do that. No, I will stay. Whatever You want.”
Imagine that: a Commander up there, a King, and servants down here. As I always say to young people, to have a kingdom, you have to have a King and dumb.
The Lord who commands, and His people who say, “Amen. Do it.” There you have a testimony, and there you have the fullness of our foundation.
The Lord does not want us merely to live our days with the knowledge that there is a throne in heaven. By His grace, He has decided to let this throne touch the earth.
In a time of trouble, the writer of Hebrews says to his Christian friends, “Draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace.” It is touching down upon this earth in a time of need. Go there with confidence and grab hold. Find grace and mercy in time of need.
The Lord’s throne is touching the earth by His wonderful grace. Take advantage of it.
Let us look at the story we have all sung about—or at least your children have sung about—the wise man who built his house upon the rock. It appears in two places in the New Testament.
In Matthew 7, we see the first account, beginning at verse 24.
Every one therefore that heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them,
Shall be likened unto a wise man,
Who built his house upon the rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
And the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
And it fell not:
For it was founded upon the rock.
There we are again, you see. How much simpler can this foundation be? We need to hear and obey.
The emphasis in this illustration is that the house stood because of the strength of the Rock upon which it was built. It was founded upon the Rock.
If I were writing this Bible, I would have capitalized “Rock,” because that is the emphasis in this particular story. The wise man built his house and made sure it was founded upon the Rock. That is his foundation, and the test of time only proves how solid the Rock is upon which he stands.
Now turn to Luke 6, where we see the same story with a slightly different emphasis, beginning at verse 46.
And why call ye Me, Lord, Lord,
And do not the things which I say?
Every one that cometh unto Me,
And heareth My words, and doeth them,
I will show you to whom he is like:
He is like a man building a house,
Who digged and went deep,
And laid a foundation upon the rock:
And when a flood arose,
The stream brake against that house,
And could not shake it:
Because it had been well builded.
Here the emphasis is upon the faithfulness of the servant who dug deep and laid a foundation.
The foolish one, in verse 49, is the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly. He is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation.
I guess it is possible to build the house of God without any foundation. That would be a dreadful thing to think about.
In Matthew, the emphasis is upon the Rock. The man dug down and found solid rock. That is what he built on. Then the winds came, and the house stood.
In Luke, they came to a patch but had to keep digging. They had to keep digging, faithfully digging a deep foundation upon the rock. It was that foundation—the depth—that kept the winds from destroying the house.
In other words, they were faithful, and they obeyed. What is the digging deep? It begins when He says, “Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Our digging is our obeying.
Here we have a problem in the testimony of the Lord. It is possible to hear, and hear, and hear, and not obey.
Our Lord is faithful. He wants to speak to us so much that He will speak to us out of a donkey if He has to. But we have a problem if we do not dig deep and establish a clear, real, solid foundation upon the Rock of Jesus Christ.
Again, we see the throne and the testimony. We see the Rock and the deeply dug foundation. There is the Lord commanding, and there is a testimony saying, “Amen,” and doing.
A third illustration is found in 2 Timothy 2. Paul is giving counsel to his coworker Timothy to be strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ despite the problems in the church.
A firm foundation of Jesus Christ had been built in this church. The wise master builder had been there himself. But in 2 Timothy, we come to the reality that something can be built with a good foundation, and then that foundation can become obscured.
It can become obscured by doctrines—crazy doctrines that obscure Jesus Christ from being seen as the saints gather together. There are evil men and men with wicked intent confusing the saints.
Various character problems and doctrinal ideas can obscure the foundation. There are doctrines that obscure rather than clarify the fact that Jesus is Lord—Lord of all and Lord of us—and that we hear and obey.
Some doctrines can get us so confused that we hear the Lord and say, “Gee, I do not know if I can obey, because this doctrine has got me all worked into a box here. I do not understand how it works anymore.”
Clarifying the foundation is getting back to K-I-S-S: keep it simple, stupid. “I am speaking; you obey.” Now we have a clear thing, and everybody can see Jesus.
Do not give me all this obscuring stuff and get the foundation so dusty and cluttered that you cannot see the testimony anymore.
Notice what this passage says. In the midst of these troubles and Paul’s counsel, he says in verse 19:
Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth,
Having this seal,
The Lord knoweth them that are His:
And, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
The particular church, probably Ephesus, was being shaken up a little bit. But listen: the firm foundation of God stands.
It has a twofold seal. First: “The Lord knows those who are His.” Second: “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness.”
The foundation of God’s house stands firm. First of all, the Lord’s throne is still there. The Lord knows those who are His.
What a wonderful statement. Sometimes things can get so confused in the church that you do not know who is His or what is really going on. The Lord knows those who are His.
He is still upon the throne. He is still in control. He is still looking. He is still observing. He is still judging. He is still bringing correction. The Lord knows those who are His.
That, to me, is a great confidence.
It makes me think of Jesus speaking the parable in Matthew 13, the parable of the sower.
Jesus spoke the parable at the zenith of His popularity and ministry in Galilee. People were flooding and pressing upon Him, wanting to hear Him. What a crowd. Of course, the disciples were thrilled with this, because they were definitely in with a winner this time.
Jesus stood up with this crowd pressing on Him and the disciples leading the cheer—“Give me a J!”—because they knew Jesus was going to be King.
Then He spoke of the sower who went out to sow, and of four different responses. What was Jesus saying? He was saying, “Some of you people are getting all excited about the number of people who have joined us for our party. I want you to know what I see from My point of view. I know those who are Mine.”
Some people are not even going to listen to His words because they are too busy looking for lunch. The birds will come and snatch the seed away. Others are excited about the good times of a big revival meeting, but they will not last because they are not willing to dig. They are willing to hear but not obey.
Then there are others who love the Lord, bless their hearts, but they are so entangled in the world that they are not going to bear fruit. But He knows those who are His.
There are some folks who are good soil. They are going to hear, they are going to dig deep, and they are going to produce thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.
Disciples, the next time you see a huge group of people, look at it from the King’s point of view. I always have in my little notes, KPOV: the King’s Point of View.
It is not the earth’s point of view, not the disciples’ point of view, and not merely the church’s point of view. Sometimes when the church is down and moping, saying, “Oh Lord, nobody is coming, and it seems dead,” the Lord says, “Man, this is great. I know who are Mine here.”
But sometimes when we are bursting out of the seams and everything is going crazy, the Lord looks over the group and says, “This group may be so many in number this morning, but I have got a smaller number on My list.”
The Lord knows those who are His. You cannot fool Him. Whether the church at Ephesus is in a season of blessing or a season of trial, the Lord knows those who are His. He cuts right through all the stuff, and He sees the reality. To me, that is a great comfort.
Then there is that other side again: “Let everyone who names the name depart from unrighteousness.” There is the testimony.
It is a great comfort to the Lord, believe it or not, to know that as He gives commands, there are those on earth willing to stand up for the testimony and name the name.
Despite the fact that the whole church at a particular moment may be going into compromise or into a moral slide, there are some standing still, saying, “No. We are standing before the Lord. He is commanding us to be holy; we will be holy.”
If the whole church goes downstream with the tide of the world, we stand right here and say, “We are swimming upstream by the grace of God. He has commanded us. Aye, aye, sir, we are standing firm.”
The Lord will always find some people on this earth who name His name, who bear the testimony, who say, “The throne has touched me on earth. I hear His voice. He told me to be holy; I will be holy.”
So what does he do? He flees youthful lusts and pursues righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Ah, they are swimming upstream.
Now there is a testimony on the earth. Now there are those willing to be purged by the Lord and transformed into vessels of gold, honorable vessels.
There are many vessels in the Lord’s church today, but sometimes you wonder about the quality. How clear is the crystal? How pure is the gold? How clearly can we see Jesus? This is the question, and the Lord knows.
When I am humbled by the challenge and opportunity of going through a Richmond Conference and speaking to the young people or the major assembly, the larger gathering, I do not know what to do.
On one hand, I look forward to it because I want the Lord to speak and deal with me so that I have something to share. But on the other hand, knowing myself, I wonder what a shame it is that the Lord does not have more to choose from than just us.
You know, I am not much of a vessel. I know it. Just a hunk of clay. The Lord has to choose people like us.
May it be that the Lord does something among us—brothers and sisters, we are not there—and among those we ask to speak for us, as the Lord gives us grace.
May we come to a place where young people and old are vessels that stand together and say, “No. We say the Lord’s throne is alive. He is speaking from heaven. We are saying amen on earth, and by His grace endeavoring to obey.”
This is our sure foundation.
I have found the Lord in the lives of people who have just endeavored to be faithful. I have found the Lord’s aid, help, succor, grace, power—everything, including angelic help—to get that brother or sister from point A to point B because they have this desire in their heart.
They know they are a vessel, perhaps only clay, but they feel, “Lord, purge me until I am clear, because I want to show Jesus when I walk in this world.”
May we be like Noah. He so foolishly built that ark, but the more he built, the more people saw the testimony: “He is hearing from another Drummer.”
In the midst of this whole downstream evil generation, are there those building an ark, standing in righteousness, preaching righteousness, and living that testimony? Then, when the rains come, the testimony will prove itself.
Are we living on this sure foundation?
It is an amazing and precious thing that we can gather together with brothers and sisters who call on the Lord from a pure heart and know the presence of the Lord in His holy company. But this is conditional upon our hearing and our obeying.
I will end by going back to 1 Corinthians 3 for one more moment, if you will allow me.
By the grace of God, everyone here who knows the Lord Jesus Christ has been built upon Him as our foundation.
Now the Lord wants to present us as vessels of glory. Our value to the Lord as vessels in the house is all related to our relationship to the throne.
The Lord desires the testimony of Jesus, which in the book of Revelation is defined as the spirit of prophecy.
What does that mean, in its simplest sense? I only go into the simple. It can get complex, I suppose. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
At least it means that where the Lord’s testimony is present, there is a voice speaking from heaven. He is speaking from heaven. It is a living word.
It is not just dead doctrine, repetitive statements, or “la, la, la.” The Lord is speaking from heaven, and we are hearing from heaven. The spirit of prophecy is upon us. The Lord is speaking.
He is doing that in order to establish His testimony. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Here in 1 Corinthians 3, we see that we need to be careful how we build upon that foundation of Jesus Christ. We want His throne in our midst.
Brothers and sisters, I want to make this statement, hoping that you join with me in your heart: if there is anything in our midst preventing us from hearing the words of the living God, may the Lord clear the foundation.
If there is anything that prevents Him from speaking as our Commander and allowing the throne to have its influence on us, may He clear it away.
Anything that obscures that hearing is religion, and it must be swept away. Where that leaven sneaks into our hearts, we want the words of the living God.
We care not for all kinds of religious things and constructions we can build. They only complicate the testimony.
I am always impressed when new believers gather together. Their testimony is so clean and pure, just uncomplicated. They hear; they obey. They make mistakes, of course—that is the downside of it all.
Sometimes, to prevent mistakes, we build such a religious conglomeration that we cannot get from point A to point B. It is so difficult. May the Lord clear that away.
I was in a place recently visiting, and they heard a word from the Lord. They decided, “Well, we have got to pray about this.”
Some brother came through and said, “You know, we have got to pray about this.” So they began to gather for the prayer meeting to pray about this word, whether they should obey it or not, basically.
As they got there, one of the people said, “You know what? I think we need to fast and pray that the Lord would make this clear.” So then they prayed about whether they should fast and pray.
As their system began to get into place, I became very unhopeful that they would ever get down to the place of obeying what they heard.
They had set up a kind of religious checks-and-balances system that had ruled out their obedience. Right now, they are praying about whether they should fast and pray about this matter that they are hearing, and then obey. This has gotten awfully complicated.
Sometimes the Lord says, “You know when I liked it best, brother? When I spoke and you obeyed.”
Now, when we are walking together as brothers and sisters, there is some complication thrown in. There is an inertia because you are dealing with everybody else who disagrees. I am not talking about a maverick Christian existence where you just do things on your own.
But I am saying that when the Lord speaks to us, He wants obedience. No religious fooling around. No religious construct, or even doctrines, that prevents us from hearing the Lord. They have got to go—anything that gets in the way.
Sometimes, if our prayer meeting becomes too religious, what happens is that in most gatherings of Christian people today, the prayer meeting is basically where we throw stuff up and nothing comes down.
But it cannot be that way. Our prayer meetings need to be a time where we bring our petitions and we hear His voice.
Now we have a prayer meeting that is on the Rock, and it is doing the business God wants us to do.
May the Lord have His way among us. May He have His throne in our midst in such a way that He can speak. He can speak, and the spirit of prophecy will be upon us as the church.
The Lord’s foundation needs to be His life prevailing in our midst, enabling us to obey those things that we hear.
If we are hearing and not obeying, I again say, “Lord, clear the foundation. Please clear the foundation until we see You, hear Your voice, and obey by Your grace.”
We need to get rid of any religious red tape that keeps us from obeying, religious complexity that keeps us from obeying, and religious filters.
I do not know if you get that, but to me I see this very clearly. We filter the Word of God sometimes until what gets down is just watered down by religious filters.
But the Lord wants to speak to us and have us respond to Him in first love, which is pretty much spontaneous obedience.
The Lord wants a sure foundation, and the Lord has His foundation. Here it is: the Lord is upon His throne, and the Lord will have a testimony upon this earth—His holy temple.
This is why we serve and strive. This is why we desire to see the church built. This is why, once the church is built, we desire to make sure that the foundation is always clarified, so that we can see Jesus.
Others who come and visit can see Jesus. May our life be that kind of testimony.
I hope it seems as simple to you as it seemed to me when I was before the Lord regarding this message. I hope I did not obscure it unnecessarily. To me, it is a very simple thing.
With all the instruction that comes with clarifying the foundation, there is also the basic life where we hear the Lord and obey. Those two must go together.
If we hear and hear and hear and do not obey, we soon will not hear.
Or if we do and do and do and do not hear, we will not do for too long.
We need both together: a hearing and an obeying. When we say Jesus is our foundation, let us really let Jesus be our Lord, and deal with what that means when He speaks to us.
Let it be said that we are His servants, and when He says, “Do,” we say, “Amen.”
This is a glorious foundation. The Lord’s throne is in heaven, unshakable, and His purpose will be fulfilled. There is something in that throne that says, “I have decided to do this, and I am going to do it. I am going to prepare a bride and get her ready.”
Now, are you saying amen?
Let us let the Lord clarify our foundation until we see Jesus, and everything built upon it is pure gold and pure precious stones. This will go through any test in any day.
Let us pray.
In times like these, we need a Saviour;
In times like these, we need an anchor.
Be very sure,
Be very sure,
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.This Rock is Jesus,
Yes, He is the One;
This Rock is Jesus,
God’s only Son.
Be very sure,
Be very sure,
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.
Every time You clarify, and we see You as our life, our all, we see Your finished work as the basis of all our existence. We rejoice and live in the simplicity of that testimony.
O Lord, we know Your throne is established in heaven. We take great comfort that even in times of our own disobedience, that throne still remains our foundation. We come back to the throne.
In this time of clarification, in this time of establishment, Lord, we pray: do Thou, by Thy great hand, clarify and clear the foundation of anything that would obscure, and build upon it with gold and silver and precious stones.
O Lord, we thank You that there is a throne in heaven. We thank You that there is a testimony upon the earth.
Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. We would obey.
If this day we find a time of shaking, as in the book of Hebrews, when all things are shaken so that the things which cannot be shaken may remain, then let us rejoice, because our foundation is sure.
Nothing will be shaken that is of the unshakable quality of Jesus.
If we find the circumstances difficult in our lives, Lord, we will not flee to the mountains and panic and claim that the foundations are beyond repair. It is time to move because our foundation has never needed repair. You are our foundation.
Lord, help us to live upon our foundation—Your throne. In Jesus’ sake we pray. Amen.