Well, how very glad I am to be here amongst you, especially in Richmond, Virginia—from Richmond to Richmond.
Those of you who are from Richmond, let me just say this: you folks, quite a few years ago, put up a plaque on Richmond Hill, a spot overlooking the Thames Valley. On a clear day, you can see sixty or seventy miles right over the Thames Valley. You can see Windsor Castle on the skyline, and on the other side, on a very clear day—either before rain or after rain—you can see all the way to the North Downs, even the South Downs on the coast of England, on the Channel.
You have put a plaque up there saying that originally, when folk from Richmond, Surrey, came to Virginia to settle—I cannot remember the date, but it was a very early date in your history, a late date in ours—they came to this park overlooking the James River and saw a site that reminded them so much of home that they decided to settle there and call it Richmond.
I said to Brother Stephen, when we came here and I looked down here, “Well now, is this just exaggeration? Was it just wishful thinking?” But as I look down across there, even here—and I do not know whether this is the spot; no one has told me yet—I could see straight away why they called it Richmond.
It is quite familiar to me from the top of Richmond Hill, or in what is now called Richmond Park: the same view looking down, perhaps not quite so high. So I feel very much at home. The only thing I do not feel at home with is the stickiness. That I do not feel at home with.
I feel very much at home with you, dear people of God—not only from Richmond, but from everywhere else as well. And I am glad to have had the privilege given to me by the Lord of sharing something on the Word of God.
I would like to read from 1 Chronicles 22. I am going to read the whole chapter from verse 2: 1 Chronicles 22, from verse 2.
And David commanded to gather together the sojourners that were in the land of Israel;
and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.
And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the couplings;
and brass in abundance without weight;
and cedar trees without number:
for the Sidonians and they of Tyre brought cedar trees in abundance to David.And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender,
and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnificent,
of fame and of glory throughout all countries:
I will therefore make preparation for it.
So David prepared abundantly before his death.Then he called for Solomon his son,
and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel.
And David said to Solomon his son,
As for me, it was in my heart to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God.
But the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars:
thou shalt not build a house unto My name,
because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight.
Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest;
and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about:
for his name shall be Solomon,
and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.
He shall build a house for My name;
and he shall be My son, and I will be his Father;
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.Now, my son, the Lord be with thee;
and prosper thou, and build the house of the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken concerning thee.
Only the Lord give thee discretion and understanding,
and give thee charge concerning Israel;
that so thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God.
Then shalt thou prosper, if thou observest to do the statutes and the ordinances
which the Lord charged Moses with concerning Israel:
be strong, and of good courage;
fear not, neither be dismayed.Now, behold, in my affliction I have prepared for the house of the Lord
an hundred thousand talents of gold,
and a thousand thousand talents of silver;
and of brass and iron without weight; for it is in abundance:
timber also and stone have I prepared; and thou mayest add thereto.
Moreover there are workmen with thee in abundance,
hewers and workers of stone and timber,
and all manner of skilful men for every manner of work:
of the gold, the silver, and the brass, and the iron, there is no number.
Arise and be doing, and the Lord be with thee.David also commanded all the princes of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying,
Is not the Lord your God with you?
and hath He not given you rest on every side?
for He hath delivered the inhabitants of the land into mine hand;
and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before His people.
Now set your heart and your soul to seek after the Lord your God;
arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God,
to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord,
and the holy vessels of God,
into the house that is to be built to the name of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Lord, how glad we are that Thou hast Thyself said to us that Thou hast given the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to lead us into all truth.
Now we just want to confess and recognize in Thy presence, Lord—speaker and hearer alike—that we are dependent upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We cannot depend, Lord, upon eloquence, or upon knowledge, or upon biblical facts even, Lord. We want to know the unveiling by the Spirit of God of these things to our hearts.
O Father, wilt Thou fill this time, therefore, with Thyself? For Thou cause there to be an unhindered ministry of the Holy Spirit, taking of the things of Christ and declaring them to us, glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ, granting us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.
O Father, hear us. We give to Thee all the praise and the worship. We thank Thee, Lord, that it pleases Thee to take weakness and to manifest Thy power and strength in it. Do it this evening, we ask, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I want to speak this evening, and, if the Lord gives me the grace and the life to do it, on perhaps a few succeeding occasions, on the Book of Chronicles.
I do not know. Some people find the Book of Chronicles chronic. They sort of feel, “Oh dear,” you know. They start 1 Chronicles with all those long pedigrees and genealogies, and by the time they have waded through ten chapters of it, they are just about finished.
Then again, there are people who feel they cannot quite understand why we have the first and second books of Chronicles anyway, because after all, nearly the whole lot is found in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. So why have Chronicles redo the whole thing? Why not just have 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings?
But you know, when God repeats anything, it is vitally important. God never wastes words, and He never wastes time. God always repeats something with a very real objective. Chronicles is one of the most vitally important books in the Bible, and I hope that, as a result of these times, you will begin to see that.
You see, there are certain books which are the interpretation of all the other books. These books are, therefore, in a special position.
For instance, there are two books that come immediately to my mind. Deuteronomy—the second giving of the law, the fifth book of Moses, the fifth book of the Bible—is in fact a going over of everything we already have in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. It is the second giving of the law, but it is absolutely vital.
The Book of Deuteronomy goes to the heart of all that God has been doing in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. A new element is added—though it is there all the time, perhaps we had not noticed it—and it is as if the finger of God is put upon it and it is defined. Attention is focused upon it: God has done all this because He loves His people, and He wants them to be a vessel for Himself.
Now, another book which goes over the ground again in many ways, of course, is the Gospel according to John. The Gospel according to John is not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are historical records. Of course, John is historical too, but it is written as an interpretation of the preceding three books. Therefore, you get the whole Gospel built upon the great “I am” declarations and the great signs.
The Book of Chronicles is just like these books. It goes over the ground all over again, and this time it focuses our attention upon the heart of the matter. It is as if God is saying, “Now then, you have gone through all this before, but we are going right back again, right to the beginning. We are going to recap, and then I am going to point out to you what lies behind everything.”
You have, of course, the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings. Chronicles covers all that ground once more. Samuel and Kings deal with the king and the kingdom. The whole of that history is about the way God brings in His King and His kingdom.
Chronicles goes over all that ground once more and says there is something even more vital than the kingdom. It is this: God brings His King in in order that His house may be built.
The theme of the two books of Chronicles, and of Ezra and Nehemiah—which, in the Jewish reckoning, are considered to be one book—is the purpose of God to have a home for Himself.
God puts His finger upon something behind the coming of the King and behind the measure of the kingdom. The throne of God is this purpose of God’s heart: to have a home for Himself; to obtain an elect people, if you like; to obtain living stones; to produce living stones; and then to build them together upon the right foundation into a holy temple in the Lord.
That really is what it is all about.
In other words, the theme of 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles is the eternal purpose of God. It goes right back to Adam. The interesting thing is that it goes right back to Adam, quickly traces history through those genealogies which some people find so boring, and goes right on beyond Solomon to the return under Zerubbabel from Babylon.
It is as if God is saying, “Now the whole of this history is to be explained in this term: here is the eternal purpose of God behind all these things, behind all these incidents, behind all these reigns, behind all the history of these different people of God and different saints.”
It is this sovereign, eternal purpose of God to obtain a home for Himself—or, if you like to put it another way, to produce a bride for His Son. It is the same thing, really. And of course, it is very thrilling when we begin to see it like that.
That is why we have the pedigree. That is why we have the genealogies. We may speak about that if we get to it, and we shall find that they are very wonderful.
It is not just the question of the genealogy of our Lord. It is the fact that somehow or other God is doing something with people, and it is possible either to stay within the sense of God’s purpose or to go out of it.
You do not lose your salvation, but you lose your inheritance. You go out of the will of God. Some people think Christians cannot go out of the will of God, but they can. Saul went right out of the will of God.
We have lots of others in the pedigrees: all kinds of people who started right and went off. We have other people who started wrong, got life, and came in—people like Bathsheba, people like Tamar, people like Ruth, and others who were in an awful mess but, by the grace of God, came right in and were found in the centre of God’s purpose.
Other people began very well. They had the right parentage and the right pedigree, but they went clean out. Esau was one of them. They had the right father and the right mother, but they went out of the purpose of God.
Then we have whole chapters in the Book of Chronicles dealing with preparation for the house: the battles that had to be fought, the materials that had to be won, and all the laying hold, as it were, of things for the Lord in order that this house of God might be built.
Then we have, of course, the actual record of the building.
After that, we have many, many chapters concerning the conflict over the house of God. Once the house of God is built, all hell comes out against it—to destroy it, to compromise it. We have a whole record of the way Satan, hell itself, comes out by one means or another: frontal attack from without, or somehow worming his way in and attacking from within to undo that work.
If we take Ezra and Nehemiah with it, as it was originally, then finally we have not only the conflict and the ruin of the house—the testimony of the Lord—but finally the recovery in glory.
That is a kind of potted history, a very quick bird’s-eye view of the whole thing.
Now let us come back to this again and ask ourselves a little more. I am taking it that you are all real believers, every one of you born of God. If you are not, I pray that you may swiftly become so. But we will take it that everyone here really knows my Lord this evening.
The theme of Chronicles is the eternal purpose of God.
It is as if God says, “Now come with Me, come with Me. We have recorded all this history—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. Now, we have recorded it all, but now come with Me. This is not really the heart of the matter. You have only been seeing the outward circumstances.”
“I want to take you back again. I want to go right back to Adam and trace the whole history again. Then I want to tell you what is the thing that is on My heart—the thing that has governed all My ways with you, the thing that has governed the pouring out of grace upon you, the reason why there is a way of salvation for you. I want to tell you what it all is.”
Of course, when we come to the New Testament, we find this again and again.
This is why I have put this part on the board here. It is very badly done; I did it very quickly, the light is not good, and I do not suppose you can see it well. But I have done it so that you can come afterwards and make a copy if you feel it valuable.
I remember years ago, when I first discovered it, it was my greatest thrill. Suddenly, to my amazement, I found that the first three chapters of the Bible and the last three chapters of the Bible minutely correspond.
People tell us the Bible is a sort of collection of legends and myths, with one or two other things thrown in, and that it is a little wobbly in parts—you cannot trust it completely. I find it amazing.
Although everyone agreed that Genesis should be the first book, right through the first four centuries of the early church there was much discussion about Revelation. The Book of Revelation did not occupy the last position in the Bible for many years. Finally, in the fourth century after Christ, Revelation was universally recognized as wholly of God and found its position at the end of the Bible.
It is not as if someone said, “Now then, all this other has come in. I will sit down and write something which caps the lot.” It was the Spirit of God who was doing this.
Now just look at it. Take the first three chapters and the last three chapters.
In the first three chapters, we have a heaven and an earth: Genesis 2:4. In the last three chapters, we have a new heaven and a new earth: Revelation 21:1.
In the first chapter, we have time ushered in: Genesis 1. In the last three chapters, we have eternity ushered in: Revelation 21.
In the first three chapters, we have Satan entering: Genesis 3:1. In the last three chapters, we have Satan cast out forever, thank God: Revelation 20:10.
In the first three chapters, we have paradise lost: Genesis 3:24. In the last three chapters, we have paradise regained: Revelation 21:3.
In the first three chapters, we have earth cursed: Genesis 3:17. In the last chapter, we have those wonderful words, “No more curse”: Revelation 22:3.
In the first three chapters, mark it, we have only two people: Adam and Eve—a man and a woman. That is all we have in the first three chapters of the Bible: Genesis 2:23.
In the last three chapters, those two people have given place to an innumerable company of the redeemed, a redeemed people which no man can number: Revelation 21:3; Revelation 22:14.
In the first three chapters, we have a garden: Genesis 2:8. The garden gives way in the last three chapters of the Bible to a city: Revelation 21:2. The city is a garden city, but it is still a city. The garden has given place to a city.
In the first three chapters, we have the tree of life: Genesis 2:9. In the last three chapters, we have the tree of life: Revelation 22:2.
In the first three chapters, we have the river of life: Genesis 2:10. In the last three chapters, we have the river of life flowing out to the ends of the earth: Revelation 22:2.
In the first three chapters, we have God walking in the midst of the garden once per day. In other words, God visits the garden to fellowship with Adam and Eve. Once per day He moves into the garden and talks with them.
In the last three chapters, we have God dwelling in the midst of His own forever. He is not visiting them. He is not just coming in and going out. He is not there once per day. He is there; it is His home. He has come home. He is there forever.
If He goes out, He goes out from them and comes back to them, but this is His home. He does not visit them. That is Revelation 21:3.
In the first three chapters, we have earthly marriage: Genesis 2:21-25—man and one woman, Adam and Eve, earthly marriage until death parts them.
In the last three chapters, we have heavenly, or eternal, marriage. We have the Lamb and the wife of the Lamb. This marriage is an eternal marriage, of which earthly marriage is only a picture, a symbol, an illustration.
In the first three chapters, we have pain, sorrow, and death: Genesis 3:16-19. In the last three chapters, we have those wonderful words: “No more pain, no crying, mourning, or death”: Revelation 21:4.
In the first three chapters—listen carefully—it seems that we have three substances. You have to follow this very carefully, but if you look in Genesis 2:11-12, you find something which surely some of you have asked yourselves about.
It seems so odd, in the second chapter of the Bible, suddenly to be told that there was a tree of life in the midst, and a river of life flowing out into four great rivers and watering the whole earth. Then it says that if you follow the river, you will find gold, and “the gold of that land is good.”
Then it says that you will also find the onyx stone. Then it says that you will find a thing called bdellium.
Three substances: gold, onyx stone, and bdellium.
Now, onyx is very interesting, because if you look in Exodus 28:9-12, or Exodus 28:18-20, you will see that the high priest had twelve precious stones on the breastplate. Each stone represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and on each precious stone was engraved the name of the tribe.
It was a picture of the high priest bearing the whole people of God on his heart before God.
Those twelve names, those twelve tribes, were then gathered up onto his shoulders. He had six names engraved on stones on one shoulder and six names on stones on the other, meaning that the government was upon his shoulder.
But the stones on his shoulders did not correspond with the stones on the breastplate. They were onyx stones. In other words, the onyx gathers up all the preciousness and qualities of the other stones; it becomes the symbol of them all.
So when you follow this river of life, you find not only gold, but precious stones. You find onyx stone, which symbolizes all the precious stones of the Bible.
Bdellium is even more interesting. In Hebrew, it is bedolach. This word was much discussed by the rabbis in our Lord’s day as to exactly what it was.
Bdellium is an aromatic plant. When it is broken, a white substance comes out which hardens and has an opaque, mother-of-pearl appearance. In our Lord’s day, the rabbis often discussed whether this plant was not actually related to pearl or river pearls.
We cannot establish it, but listen carefully. We have three substances: gold, precious stone, and something very much like a pearl. It certainly has the same symbolism as a pearl. You have to break it—suffering—and out of the broken plant comes its very lifeblood, which becomes something like a pearl.
Perhaps you are all looking at me blankly. We come to the last three chapters of the Bible, and what do we find? If you do not know your Bible, I hope that by talking like this it will give you such an appetite for getting into it that nothing—not even wild horses—will stop you.
When you come to the last three chapters of the Bible, you have a city of incredible beauty. It is produced out of only three substances: gold, precious stone, and pearl. There is no other substance in the whole city.
If you want to look at that, you will find it in Revelation 21:18-21. There are only three substances. Gold—and the gold is so refined that it is transparent as glass. Not one of you has ever seen gold transparent as glass.
What refining! What fire! What affliction that gold has gone through to become transparent as glass, so that only the glory of God can go through it—nothing to stop the glory of God, nothing to stop the light of God shining through it.
The second thing is precious stone: the twelve foundations of the city. Abraham, when the God of glory appeared to him, went out seeking the city which hath foundations.
What are these foundations upon which this eternal city stands? They are twelve precious stones. Where do they come from? Deep down in the dark places of the earth. How have they been formed? By tremendous heat and pressure in hidden places—“treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,” says the prophet Isaiah.
These have been found by the Spirit of God, brought out, and wonderfully wrought upon, so that they become a city. Think of it: precious stone, all wrought upon in such a way that it becomes a city, compact together, built together.
The third thing is the twelve gates. The twelve gates are each of one pearl.
Everlastingly, the way into the city is through a pearl gate. Everlastingly, the way out is through a pearl gate. You know that gates speak in Scripture of government; it is where things are settled. In the old days, matters were settled in the gate. The elders went to the gate and there sat for judgment, for settling disputes, and for making things legal and definite.
Will you mark again, please, those of you who are mystified about the Bible? Here in the beginning, in the first three chapters, where do you find these things? My dear friend, they are not obvious to the naked eye.
The one thing more obvious is the river. You have to start with the tree of life, and you have to follow the river of life. If you follow the river, you will come to gold. But where is the gold? The gold is all in the silt. The gold has to be discovered, mined, sifted, and then fired.
Where do you find the precious stone? Under the very ground you are walking on. You do not see it with these eyes. It has to be found and discovered.
Where is the pearl? Well, if it is pearl, it is right in the water, on the riverbed. Do you know what produces the pearl? An ugly piece of grit falling into the softest part of the clam.
The clam says, “Ouch, I do not like this. I am going to eject this bit of grit. This does not belong to me. This is nothing to do with my life. This is Satan. This is something that has come from hell.”
So it takes all the resources and energies within its life and puts a coat around the grit in order to eject it. One coat goes round, but the grit stays. Another coat goes round, and another. You can almost hear the clam saying, “Lord, Lord, this messenger of Satan, take it away from me.”
The Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and another coat goes round the middle. Again the clam cries, “Lord, take it away,” and the Lord says, “No, My grace is sufficient,” and another coat goes round.
You see, it is all the resources and energies of the life of God in you producing a coat around the grit. The grit is not taken away, but God changes the grit.
Years ago, digressing for a moment, I remember listening to Mildred Cable speaking about the jade smiths of Central Asia and Peking. She said that some of the jade smiths known to them, and who became their friends, would sit sometimes for as many as six years—not nonstop, but over years and years—looking at a piece of jade with a flaw in it.
The whole art was how to make the flaw the central part of the piece.
Some of you have seen beautiful pieces of jade. There are some in Washington, in whatever you call that gallery. Suddenly, what has the artist done? He has taken a flaw—that bit of brown in a beautiful piece of jade—and made it a bee on a peony. Or he has taken a little ugly streak of grey and made it a frog on a lotus leaf.
The flaw has become the central piece, the reason for the whole.
There is no jade mentioned in the city, but you see, it is the same thing as the pearl. This city—it is all there in the beginning of the Bible. The whole thing is there, only you cannot see it with the naked eye. But it is all there.
When the Spirit of God opens the eyes of our heart, we suddenly find an extraordinary correspondence between the beginning of the Bible and the end of the Bible. No man did it. The Spirit of God brought these two things together.
If you take the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation, you have the beginning and the end of the matter without the fall of man or sin.
You have something that God set out to do, and there at the end it is completed. Here it is all in a hidden way, and there it is all produced and wrought upon into something of eternal and incredible beauty.
In Genesis 3, we have the fall, the entry of Satan, the fall of man, sin, the curse, death, and all the rest of it. We all know that, every one of us in this room.
In Revelation 20, we have the end of it, thank God. Satan is thrown into the lake of fire, and that is the end of the whole thing—the whole thing of sin.
It is as if God says, “Now look here, do you understand the word ‘parenthesis’?” I have to be careful. I remember when I first came to the States, the little motto at the top of the New York Times read: “English is the language which divides the United States from the United Kingdom.”
Sometimes we use the same words, but they have slightly different meanings. But you know what I mean by a parenthesis.
In Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, you have the beginning. With Genesis 3, you have the beginning of the parenthesis: the fall, time, and the whole tragic story of man. Yet you also have the glorious story of the coming of the Messiah, promised at the very beginning.
We follow the story right through the fall of man and the coming of the Messiah until the Messiah comes, born of a woman, born of David’s line, and finally gives His life for the salvation of us all.
We still have the fall of man, but now we have a redeemed people. Yet we are still in the parenthesis. All of us are still in this parenthesis; we are still in the brackets.
But when we come to Revelation 20, it is as if God says, “Now then, I am putting the bracket. Here we are: the end of the parenthesis. Finished. The former things have passed away. Behold, I make all things new.”
Now, is that not wonderful? If you do not say “Hallelujah” over that, you must be dead.
We do not know what God is really going to do. People try to say that they find heaven rather boring—you know, lying around all day doing nothing, sort of in an eternal choir. “Will we not get rather tired after we have sung praises for a thousand years nonstop?”
This is a misunderstanding of eternity.
Of course we are going to sing. Of course we are going to play. But do you think that God, who is the creative Being, is going to stop? Of course not.
This world, with all its beauty, is a pale reflection of what God originally had in mind for man. It says in Romans 8 that the whole creation has been subjected to bondage—the bondage of corruption. We do not even know what that means fully.
It seems that somehow these trees, these fields, these hills, this natural creation, were linked to something else originally. But because of the fall of man, it lost its object, its purpose, its heart—call it what you like. The whole thing has been an endless cycle of production and corruption: vanity, vanity, emptiness, futility.
And all is waiting for the manifestation of the glory of the children of God.
All we know is this: the Bible ends with a marriage. There are only two ways of looking at marriage. Either it is the end, or it is a beginning.
Some people say, “Oh dear, poor fellow, that is the end.” Other people say, “How wonderful, he is beginning life.” Marriage is really two things: the end of one phase and the beginning of another.
The Bible ends with a marriage. Child of God, you love your Lord, do you not? The more you find Him, do you not find that He is absolutely marvellous? You may get disappointed with believers, but you do not ever get disappointed with Him. By God, there must be something wrong with you if you are disappointed with the Lord.
I have been disappointed with believers a thousand times, and by myself even more. But with the Lord, I have never been disappointed.
When we begin to see something of the purpose of God, it is so wonderful. The Bible ends with a marriage, and it is as if God says, “Now I am not going to tell you what I am going to do in eternity. All I am telling you is that I have at last got you and My Son together.”
Here, child of God, with all these wonderful experiences we have, we are only betrothed. We are only engaged. We are not yet married.
We are in a state of betrothal. We are actually engaged to our Lord, but the marriage supper of the Lamb is still to come. What is it going to be like? Why, we should be transported out of ourselves when this marriage finally is consummated, and when we really are one spirit, soul, and body for all eternity. It is going to be absolutely marvellous.
When we look back, we shall say, “It was worth it.” It was worth every single affliction. It was worth every single dark spot. It was worth every single bit of being knocked about by other saints in being built together. It was worth it to put up with so-and-so and to go through with those things. It was absolutely worth it, because here we are.
We are not just those blessed ones invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb; we are the ones who are actually the bride herself.
God’s purpose is that you and I should become part of Him. That seems almost blasphemous, but you know it in the Word.
Listen to these wonderful words. I will give you a Scripture in 2 Peter 1:4:
Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises;
that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature.
Partakers of the divine nature. Here it is: we are to become partakers of the divine nature. We are to become those who are in Christ, those who become the members of Christ.
Now, you know the word member, do you not? It means part of Christ, limbs of Christ—not members on a church roll or on a bit of paper, but member as when we speak of dismembering a body.
We are to become the members of Christ. What a glorious thing. If the Bible did not say it, it would be almost blasphemous, would it not?
The Lord Jesus never loses His unique deity. He never loses His unique position as God the Son. Yet we become part of Him. How wonderful.
Christians have done a terrible thing. The gospel we have preached has been so poor that we have given the world the idea that people get saved, get forgiven, go to church, sing hymns, say prayers, read their Bible—preferably every day—and, if very zealous, witness to others. Then one day they die and sit on a cloud forever after, playing a harp in an eternal hallelujah chorus.
The world turns around and says, “If that is Christianity, you can keep it.”
We have devalued the whole thing. We have made it like a fairy tale. No wonder the new generation says, “What has Christianity got for us?”
But that is not Christianity. This is not to devalue forgiveness, or the cost of our forgiveness, or justification. The most glorious thing in the gospel is that God justifies us absolutely—not partly, but absolutely.
Our sins and our iniquities He remembers no more. They are cast away from Him. They are blotted out. There is not even a record of them. They have gone.
But, dear child of God, that is only the beginning. That is a means to an end. When God saves you, it is that you might become a partaker of His nature, that you might become a partner in Him, that you might share Him.
Let me give you another Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:9.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Not into fellowship with His Son, but into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
What is this fellowship of His Son? We have it in 1 Corinthians 12: it is a body. My body is a fellowship of my members. You may not like it, but here it is: it is a fellowship.
My little finger says, “I am in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.” My ear says, “I am in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.” My foot says, “I am also in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.” My eye says, “I am in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.”
It is not uniformity. You have fingers, feet, ears, eyes, nose, and mouth—all different things—but you have a fellowship. This fellowship is a sharing.
My little finger could say, “I have been called into the fellowship of Lance Lambert. I share his life. I share his intelligence—what there is of it. I share his mind. I share his will. I share everything. I share his name.”
My big toe says, “I am nowhere near you, little finger. I am right down the other way. But I share the same life. I share the same intelligence when it gets to me down there. I am all in the same thing.”
The apostle Paul says, “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son.” You are all members one of another. The eye cannot say to the ear, “I have no need of you.” The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you.” We all belong to each other.
We have become sharers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This Greek word, koinonia, comes from a word which means to have things in common—to share.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. My Lord is your Lord.
I have a certain background. I have a certain racial background. But my Lord is your Lord. You may be a Polynesian, but your Lord is my Lord. In Him there is no Polynesian, no Hebrew, no Britisher, no American.
Is that not marvellous? You are not American brothers and sisters; you are brothers and sisters from America. I am not a British brother; I am a brother from Britain. It is a great difference.
I am a member of the family. I am not a British member of the family; I am a member of the family who lives in Britain.
I am not the church from Richmond, Surrey, coming here to visit the church in Richmond, Virginia. I am not a visitor. I am a member. So please do not treat me like a visitor.
I often used to say to people, “What church did the apostle Paul belong to?” Did he say, “Well, I have got my membership in Antioch, you know. I am visiting you here just to see how you get on, and then I am going back to Antioch”?
Of course not. He was a member of the Church of God. When he came to Ephesus, he had come to the family. When he came to Corinth, he had come to the family.
The only people who are visitors are people who do not know the Lord. They are visitors. The rest of us are members of the family.
What is the purpose of God? Turn to Ephesians 2:21-22:
In whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Will you please note that it does not say “groweth into a holy temple of the Lord.” It says that it “groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.”
That changes the whole conception of the matter, does it not? If it is a holy temple of the Lord, that is on a lower level than being a holy temple in the Lord.
If it is a holy temple of the Lord, it means He can visit it. He sort of comes to His temple and says, “Well, here I am. I am here to bless you. I am here to speak to you. I am here for a little while, and then goodbye; I am off.”
But if we are a holy temple in the Lord, that makes a difference altogether.
It means that we are quarried out of the Lord. We are living stones, quarried out of the rock of His nature and the rock of His life. Out of His substance, we have been produced as living stones, and we are being built together in Him.
“In whom the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.”
“In whom”—in Christ—“ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.”
Do not let that word habitation choke in your throat because it is an old-fashioned word. Think of the word dwelling, or, better still, home. A home for God in the Spirit.
In Christ, the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord. In Christ, you are being built together for a home of God in the Spirit.
Somewhere between the first three chapters and the last three chapters, we find what the purpose of God is: a home for Himself in the Spirit; that we might grow into a holy temple in the Lord.
That is the purpose of God.
Dear child of God, I wonder whether you realize this. When you turn to Ephesians 3:11, it says:
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or, as another version puts it:
According to the eternal purpose which He realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This eternal purpose of God is being realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is all in Him.
There are two things we have in Genesis 2: the tree of life and marriage. The tree of life, of course, stands for eternal life.
When you eat something, what does it do? It becomes you. That meal we had a little while earlier is now your flesh and blood. It does not take long. We have the most amazing system in our bodies which turns a banana into flesh and blood within half an hour.
What you eat becomes you. You take of the tree of life, and it becomes you.
The Lord Jesus said in John 6 that he who eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him, and He in him. He who eats Him and drinks His blood has eternal life. He becomes our life, our salvation, the strength and power of our being.
That is the first thing.
The second thing we have is marriage. When I was first saved, I had a pagan-type background. When I first began to read the Bible, I was full of questions.
I remember when we first began Genesis, we very swiftly came to Genesis 2. I could not understand why the Lord took Adam and said, “Adam, now you call all these creatures names.”
I thought, “The Lord has created them, so why does He not say, ‘Now Adam, we will call this a hippopotamus. This, Adam, is a giraffe. This is an elephant’?” But He says to Adam, “Adam, you name these things.”
God was not just interested in Adam naming them. There was something much more in it, because the passage begins with this important statement: “There was not found a helpmeet for him.”
The Hebrew is very beautiful. It means there was not that which answered to his face. It is the word of reflection in water. There was not anything that answered to him, corresponded to him, complemented him, that was him.
God said, in effect, “Adam is sinless, he is innocent, but he is not perfect. He is not complete.”
So all these animals come before Adam. A hippopotamus comes, and Adam says, “We will call that a hippopotamus,” and off it goes. An elephant comes, and he says, “I will call that an elephant.” A swan comes, and he says, “I will call that a swan.”
He does not find any answer to himself. He may like the creature and find it rather lovable, but it does not answer to him.
Even the orangutan, when it came along—Adam had never seen another human being—might have seemed the nearest thing to him. Perhaps he thought, “Well, I suppose I am rather lonely. Maybe we could settle down together and get some kind of relationship that would be mutually helpful.”
But no, there was not found a helpmeet for him.
Then the Lord put him to sleep, caused a deep sleep to come upon him, opened his side, and took of his flesh and bone. Upon the flesh and bone He made woman.
Then He woke Adam, and Adam immediately said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” This is me. This is me.
Then the passage goes on to say, “Therefore shall the two become one.”
Our Lord Jesus, the last Adam and the second Man, was put to sleep on the cross.
In John 19:31, I think it is, when He cried, “It is finished,” we know that our salvation was won by that cry: “Finished.” At that moment, the veil of the temple was torn in two. It was over. Our salvation was won.
Why then does the apostle John make so much of the fact that a Roman soldier pierced His side, and out of it came blood and water?
The apostle John said, “He that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true.” Why does he make so much of it? Why did he testify concerning the opened side, the blood, and the water?
It cannot simply be salvation, because our salvation was already won. So what is this side being opened? Later, when John was writing his letter, he said there are three that bear witness: the blood, the water, and the Spirit.
What is it? It was our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, the second Man, asleep. His side was opened, and out of His side came blood and water. By the blood and the water, a woman is formed. A bride is formed. A church is formed.
Then it is as if the Lord is raised from the dead and comes back, as it were, immediately opening His arms and saying, “This is Me.”
It is a new day, a new creation, a new man, a new beginning. “This is Me. You are Me. By My finished work, through the blood and water from My opened side, through the work of the Spirit of God, you are Me.”
The eternal purpose of God.
So when we come to Chronicles, we are not dealing with some dry, dusty old book that just has a few chronicles of some kings thousands and thousands of years ago.
It is as if God is saying, “Come with Me. I want you to come behind history. I want to get behind it all, and I want to show you what lies behind it all.”
I want you to understand that:
All things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose.
You see, whether you know it or not, you have been called according to purpose.
The purpose was not just to save you. The purpose was to make you the home of God. That is the calling into which God brought you. He saved you into it.
Therefore, dear child of God, your salvation is a means to an end. Never make it the end. It is the means.
This is not to devalue your salvation, which is so great and so costly. But there is something bigger than even your salvation. The thing bigger than even your salvation is this glorious end of God, which God had in His heart from the beginning to do, which He has realized through the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit.
The last thing: in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God is brooding—brooding, hovering. The word is of an eagle, if you like, hovering over darkness, chaos, and emptiness. Here is the Spirit of God brooding.
But in the last three chapters, what has happened?
Revelation 22:17 says:
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
All the way through, it is as if the Spirit of God was hovering like an eagle, looking for some nest, looking for some place where He could find His home, some little place where He could alight and find a habitation. But He could not find it through history.
The first time He alights is upon one Man: the Lord Jesus at His baptism. The heavens open, and the Spirit of God comes down upon Him as a dove. It is as if the Holy Spirit found His home in one Man.
But now, through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the blood and the water, the Spirit of God has found His home in a people.
So the Bible ends with those wonderful words:
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
It is as if the Holy Spirit is saying, “Here we are at last. At last, I have done it. I have got her prepared for her Husband.”
May the Lord open our eyes. If we do not understand what I have said this evening, may it just give us a little appetite.
Sometimes it is a good thing to know that there is a good deal more than what we know. May it give us an appetite, that we might feel like the apostle Paul:
I press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.