We bow together. We all really seek the Lord, that He will meet with us in His Word.
Our Father, we do seek Thy face once again. As we come to Thy Word, we want to recognize before Thee our complete inability, Lord, to really receive the things of Thyself naturally.
But, Lord, we praise Thee for the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit, Who has come to glorify the Lord Jesus, come to lead us into all the truth, and come to take the things of Christ and declare them to us.
O Father, we want Thee to know that we are dependent upon that ministry of the Holy Spirit this evening, speaker and hearer alike. We thank Thee for the anointing which is ours in the Lord Jesus; and, Father, we all by faith stand into that, for hearing and for speaking.
Lord, may this be a meeting with Thyself. Lift it above just a Bible reading, or a Bible lecture, or a Bible study. O Father, we pray that Thou wouldst make this a time of revelation, a time when we meet with Thee, a time when we receive from Thee directly.
O Lord, we commit ourselves to Thee in all our weakness, and we praise Thee that it has pleased Thee to make Thy strength perfect in human weakness. So, Lord, we give Thee praise and worship and thanksgiving, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This evening, I want to take another series of characters in the Old Testament. You know that we have been talking about reigning with Christ, about kingship, about overcoming—its nature and its character.
The last time I spoke, we looked at four lives, each of which reveals and illustrates one essential characteristic of kingship, or overcoming. In God’s mind, the overcomer is not the extraordinary person; he really exhibits what God wanted in all His children, but was not able to produce.
We looked at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We saw there four essential, fundamental characteristics of true kingship:
Now, this evening I want to pass on to two very important phases in God’s dealings with His people in the Old Testament.
The first is summed up in the lives of Moses and Joshua. It is all to do with inheritance: a people redeemed that they might possess their inheritance, that they might possess their possessions.
The second phase is summed up in the lives of David and Solomon: a people in their inheritance, that they might build the sanctuary, or house, of God. That is what I want to cover, by the grace of God, this evening.
It is a very interesting thing about both these phases in God’s dealings with His people. First, we have the preparation—Moses in one phase, David in the other. Then we have the realization: Joshua in the first case and Solomon in the second.
First, let us look at Moses and Joshua. There is a New Testament Scripture which, I think, most wonderfully sums up these lives: Hebrews 6:12.
That ye be not sluggish, but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
It is very interesting, when we turn back to Exodus 15, to see what was God’s idea in the exodus of His people. In the great song of Moses we read:
The Lord is my strength and song,
And He is become my salvation:
This is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.
Then, from Exodus 15:13:
Thou in Thy lovingkindness hast led the people that Thou hast redeemed:
Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.
The peoples have heard, they tremble:
Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia.
Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them:
All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away.
Terror and dread falleth upon them;
By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone;
Till Thy people pass over, O Lord,
Till the people pass over which Thou hast purchased.
Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.
God’s purpose was not just that people might know the power of the Lamb, that they might know deliverance from the angel of death, that he might pass over their dwellings, and that they might all be preserved.
It was not even that they should sit down in those homes and eat the lamb, not leaving a single thing over, but completely partake of the lamb. Nor was it even that they should get out of Egypt by the mighty outstretched hand and arm of God, that He might divide the waters in two and take them over on dry ground, out of the house of bondage into freedom.
God’s purpose in redeeming that people, God’s purpose in becoming their salvation, God’s purpose in purchasing them, delivering them, freeing them, was that they might pass over into the land that He had given them; that they might come to the mountain of His inheritance, through His sanctuary, and into His holy habitation.
In other words, dear child of God, our salvation has an objective. We are not just saved—and we say in English, “full stop”; you say, “period.” We are not just saved and there is no more. God saved us with a tremendous objective in view, with a tremendous aim in view.
Few of us have ever fully exploited and appropriated all that it means spiritually: that there is the blood of the Lamb; that there is a Lamb to be partaken of; that there is an angel of death who cannot touch us; that there is a Red Sea opened up for us to cross.
The pillar of cloud and fire—cloud by day, fire by night—shade from the heat in the day, light at night, light to keep away the wild beasts, and so on. Few of us have appropriated all that this symbolically and spiritually means: manna from heaven, water out of the rock.
But, you know, all of it was meant to an end. It was not that they should just have wonderful meetings, sing about water out of the rock, or sing about being led by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. Why was the pillar of cloud and fire leading them? What was the whole purpose?
God’s purpose was to take them through that wilderness and over another river—the River Jordan—into the land that God had promised through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that they might possess their inheritance, that every man might sit under his own vine and fig tree.
Have you ever thought about that? Why does it say every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree? Because it simply means there will be enough ground, enough soil, for there to be a vine and a fig tree to sit under. Every man shall have his allotment of the land. Everyone shall inherit some portion of that promised land—enough to grow a vine and sit under its shade.
That was the purpose of God. And, dear child of God, that is God’s purpose for you and for me. It is that you and I might enter into all the fullness of God in Christ; that we might know the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ; that we might know the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are hid in Him.
That we might know not only life, but life more abundant; that we might know not only power, but a power which is the exceeding greatness of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
Oh, what an inheritance is ours, dear children of God, dear family of God! If only our eyes were opened to see what the Passover Lamb has won for us.
The blood of the Lamb underlies not only the getting out of Egypt and the whole journey through the wilderness—which should actually only have taken a matter of weeks—but it was to be the basis upon which they would go over into the land and possess the whole land.
The death of the Lamb, the blood of the Lamb: that was the ground upon which God would not only get them out of the house of bondage and deliver them from the powers of darkness, but transfer them into the kingdom—in New Testament language, into the kingdom of His dear Son.
It is a sad fact that many of us are trying to build the house of God before we have experienced the fullness of God.
It is a sad fact that we start to play at churches because we can do nothing else. It must remain in the head. It must be a matter of patterns. It must be a matter of theories. It must be a matter of doctrine. It must be a matter of truth—truth, but still truth only.
Until you and I go over the Jordan spiritually, until through Christ crucified we not only know what it is to get out of the house of bondage and into freedom, but also enter into our inheritance in the Lord—to know and taste His unsearchable riches, to know the exceeding greatness of His power, to know that life more abundant—oh, dear children of God, a catastrophe has overtaken us.
We do not understand our so-great salvation.
God wants everyone, the simplest believer here, to enter in—into an inward experience of what is theirs in the Lord Jesus.
For it says in Colossians 2:9-10:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
And in Him ye are made full.
Oh, to know that completeness. Oh, to know that wholeness in Him. My little capacity filled, overflowing, with all the fullness of God—being filled unto all the fullness of God.
Now, the interesting thing is that when we look at Moses and Joshua, illustrated in their two lives, we see the essentials in overcoming, in kingship, in reigning with Christ.
Moses is the preparation. There are no shortcuts with God, my dear friend. In the whole history of the church, there have never been any shortcuts to the throne. There have never been any shortcuts to reigning with Christ.
God took forty years to prepare Moses, and another forty years to use Moses and prepare a people, as well as Moses—eighty years in all—for this preparation before a people were produced and ready, with the spirit, the character, and the faith to go over that Jordan and possess the inheritance of God.
What is the great lesson of Moses? Ah, there are so many lessons. But, as I say, if we are going to cover all this territory this evening, we will only be able to underline perhaps the most important one of all.
Before Moses could ever lead a people, he himself had to know the Lord. If the Lord was to become the salvation of the people of God, He had to become the salvation of Moses. He had to be Moses’ life if He was to be the life of those people.
I believe that we have it all summed up in that most amazing encounter of God with Moses, and Moses with God, recorded in Exodus 3. I will read Exodus 3:2:
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush:
And he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
The bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
This meeting of God with Moses was the most tremendous event in Moses’ life. It not only changed him; it changed the course of history.
Moses saw something in that burning bush which was to stand him in good stead in all the years of his ministry.
Because really what God was saying to Moses was this: “Moses, you are a dried-up, dead thornbush, and I am the fire. And when the old dried-up thornbush and the fire get together, My purpose is fulfilled. Something begins to happen. History is influenced.”
Moses did not always think he was a dried-up old thornbush. I remember years ago when I lived in Egypt for some years. Every now and again, in the hot dry season—which, of course, in Egypt is pretty well the whole year—we saw, now and again in the height of summer, a flash of fire.
The first time I saw it, I asked the Bedouin shepherd that I was with, “What was that flash of fire?”
“Oh,” he said, “that is just an old thornbush. It is dead, and the sun has ignited it.”
It was quite a common thing. Moses was out in the desert keeping sheep. I suppose he saw that flash of fire and thought, “Oh, one of those thornbushes.” They are everywhere, by the way—the most common form of vegetation in the southern Sinai.
He thought, “That old thornbush has caught fire,” and went on dreaming his dreams and looking after his sheep. Ten minutes later, he looked back and saw that the fire was still burning. Then he thought, “My, that is some thornbush,” and went on dreaming his dreams and sheepherding his sheep.
Twenty minutes later, he looked back and saw the fire burning. “There must be the biggest thornbush in the Sinai,” and he went on dreaming his dreams and keeping his sheep. But after half an hour he thought, “I am going to turn aside and see this great sight. This is the most extraordinary thornbush I have ever seen.”
As he walked over to it and came near to it, he saw that it was just, I suppose, a tired, ordinary thornbush. They very rarely grow higher than my waist, perhaps two or three times the width of this lectern.
Then, as he came near, a voice came out of the fire and said, “Moses, Moses, do not come any nearer, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy. Take off the shoes from off thy feet. I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.”
Now, have you ever thought of such a thing? I mean, it is the most incredible thing when you really begin to think about it.
If God had chosen a palm tree, of which there are many in the southern Sinai, it would have been absolutely marvelous—especially for those of us who are Bible teachers. The palm speaks of righteousness, or holiness, and fruitfulness in Jewish thought.
We could have said, “Holy, holy, holy unto the Lord,” and thought how marvelous it would be: that burning fire high up on a palm tree, and God speaking down at Moses, saying, “Moses, Moses, do not come any nearer. Take off thy shoes from thy feet; the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground.”
Moses thought he was a palm tree. Forty years earlier, he was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was the great hero of the Libyan campaign. He was highly decorated by his grandfather, the Pharaoh, according to Jewish tradition, after the Sudanese campaign. He thought he was a palm tree.
When he saw an Egyptian fighting with a Hebrew, he stepped in straight away. Here was a saving of the day. He could do God’s work for Him.
It took God forty years to reduce Moses from a palm tree to a dried-out, ugly, common old thornbush. Forty years to drain out all his big ideas, all his high-blown ideas, and reduce him to what he really was in the sight of God: a dried-up, common thornbush in the desert.
Suppose God had chosen another tree found very much in the Sinai: the acacia tree, in the King James Version the shittah tree. That would have been simply wonderful for Bible expositors, because they would have said, “You see, God was appearing to him as that beautiful acacia tree from which all the furniture of the tabernacle was to be made.”
But God neither appeared to Moses out of a palm tree nor out of an acacia tree. He got, as it were, into a literal old thornbush. It is amazing to me that God looked up at Moses, that He actually spoke up to Moses—not at him, not down at him, but up at him.
I believe Moses saw in that bush and the flame of fire—the angel of God in that bush—something which transformed the whole of his life. It was his preparation, the beginning of his understanding of the basis upon which God was going to lead that people through the wilderness.
What was it? Simply this: that we are nothing, and God is everything. We cannot save ourselves. God is the fire. We are just a dried-up old thornbush. Even camels turn up their noses at the thornbush. Bedouins are not even overkeen on using it for fuel because it burns so quickly.
All the ideas we all have about ourselves! We know that we come as sinners to God. We know that we cannot save ourselves. But as soon as we are saved, oh, we get big ideas. Oh, we are palm trees: straight as a die, majestic, noble. We look down, and God says, “Poor things, they think they are palms, and they are really thornbushes.”
Oh, we think we are acacia trees. We think we can become the dwelling place of God; we can, as it were, somehow partake of the divine nature. And God says, “They think they are acacia trees, but they are really only thornbushes.”
The amazing thing is this: the thornbush remains a thornbush, and the flame remains the flame. It is eternal fuel for eternal fire.
Dear child of God, sometimes it takes the Lord a whole lifetime to teach us one simple lesson: that He is everything and we are nothing. He has sometimes to take a whole lifetime reducing us to what we really are.
Even then, some of us try to be green thornbushes, full of sap. God has to put us through so much until finally our resources are dried up, our energy is burnt, everything is gone. We are dead thornbushes: ugly, common, full of thorns.
When we get to that place, then God says, “Now I can get in you. Now I can manifest Myself in you, now on the basis of reality.”
Oh, dear child of God, before ever you can become a cedar tree in the house of the Lord, before ever you can become a vine branch, before ever you can become an acacia tree—that wood out of which God made the tabernacle—you must first know this: that you are nothing but a dried-out old thornbush.
Moses said to the Lord, when He said, “I am sending you to Pharaoh, because I am going to bring My people out from the house of bondage,” Moses said, “But, Lord, if I go, they will say, ‘Who sent you? What is Your name?’”
The Lord said to him, “My name is I AM THAT I AM. Tell them, ‘I AM hath sent me unto you.’”
Now, I have heard some marvelous sermons on the name, the unmentionable name of God—such wonderful things about His infinity, His omniscience, His omnipresence, and His almighty power. They are absolutely thrilling, but none of them have touched my heart.
I have always recognized that “I AM THAT I AM” simply means that God has neither beginning nor end, but that everything that exists exists because of Him and in Him.
Once there came to us in Richmond a little old Irish evangelist, a man who could hardly speak the Queen’s English, but who led my dear father to the Lord the year before he died. He preached a message that I have never forgotten.
He said, “When God said, ‘I AM,’ to Moses, oh, in effect He gave him an open cheque, a blank cheque. He said, ‘Moses, I am what you need. Do you need love? I am your love. Do you need power? I am your power. Do you need grace? I am your grace. Do you need wisdom? I am your wisdom. Do you need strength? I am your strength. Do you need patience? I am your patience.’”
“I AM, Moses. You are only a dried-up old thornbush. There is nothing in you—nothing in you—but the flame of fire is in the bush. I am all that you need.”
Dear child of God, you can never go over to possess your inheritance until first you learn that lesson. Do not be afraid. God will not consume you.
The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
It does not matter who we are. When finally we come down to it, we are all old, dried-up thornbushes.
You know, sometimes you hear someone preaching and think, “Oh, what a wonderful person.” Then you get to know them.
I am sure that if we had the apostle Paul among us, we would say, “Oh, what a man! Did you hear that?” Why, if he only opened his mouth and gave us the first chapter of Ephesians, it would have been enough for us.
But, you know, the apostle Paul was a thornbush. Those who wanted to could pass along all the things they wanted to about old Paul. They said, “His bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account; his letters are weighty and strong”—and many other things.
What a lesson this is, dear child of God. We see it all the way through Moses’ life. I believe God was saying to Moses, “Now, Moses, get this clear: you are this thornbush, and I am the fire. When we two get together, something happens. Pharaoh will be paralyzed. The whole power of Egypt will be paralyzed. My purpose will be fulfilled.”
But the great need is not merely that you know you are a dead thornbush and that I am the fire, but that you know the thornbush and the fire are to be together—fire and thornbush together forever.
Oh, child of God, what a lesson!
The Lord is my strength and song,
And He is become my salvation.
That is the song of Moses. What he was saying was, “The Lord—Yahweh, I AM—is my strength and my song. He is become my salvation.”
I wish we had time to delve far more deeply into the life of Moses: to talk about his intercession, when he pleaded with the Lord and said, “Lord, if Thou wilt not forgive these people, blot me out.”
Or Levi—the house of Levi, of which Moses was a member—and how God chose them. It is the same lesson again and again and again: they had no inheritance; the Lord was their portion. The Lord was everything. He was to be their all.
You see, it is the overcomer. It is kingship. Dear child of God, no one will ever reign with Christ unless they know that they are nothing and He is everything, and that every single thing required for the administration of the government of God, the fulfillment of the will of God, and the performing of the counsel of God has been given to us in Christ.
We are nothing but dried-up old thornbushes, but He—He is everything.
The stamp of Moses is everywhere in the whole matter. God was saying, “Moses, remember that this people you are going to lead is a dried-up old thornbush. Never argue with them. Remember, they are a dried-up old thornbush, and I am the fire, and I am in them.”
That is why God got so angry with Moses when he struck the rock and said, “Hear now, ye rebels; shall we bring you forth water out of this rock?”
To many of us it seems so hard and severe of God. But God was saying, “Moses, you have forgotten. If Miriam and Aaron were smitten because they touched you—an old thornbush enriched by the flame of God’s presence—you cannot touch the people of God.”
It is a hard lesson, is it not?
However your brothers and sisters are, my dear friends, the minimum is that they are a dried-up old thornbush, with plenty of thorns. But the flame of fire is in them.
Be careful when you write them off. Be careful when you criticize them. Be careful when you accuse them and condemn them. They are the redeemed of the Lord.
Then, of course, we come to Joshua. Joshua, as most of you know, is the Old Testament variation of the New Testament name Jesus: Yeshua. The Lord is salvation.
Moses had learned that lesson. It was the lamb, the blood of the lamb, and the partaken lamb that was the key to getting out of the house of bondage, through the Red Sea, and into freedom.
Now they had to learn to go over and possess the land. The land does not come to us. We have to go in and possess it.
There are many believers who tell me that they have everything in their salvation. I do not disagree with you for one single moment. My word, you have every single thing you need in your salvation. But, my dear friend, the land—the fullness of God, the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the resources of God in Christ—does not just come to you. It does not just fall upon you. You have to, by faith, go in and possess.
By faith and patience, you must inherit the promises.
It is the Lord’s will that we should possess our possessions, that we should be complete in Him. We may have a clear understanding of what God wants concerning the church. We may have a clear understanding of the building of it. But unless you and I are possessing our possessions, what have we got to contribute?
So much Christian life, so much Christian service, so much church life, is just an endless going round and round and round in a wilderness.
There is a true experience of guidance at times: a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire. There is a real experience of Christ at times: the water of life, the bread of life. And yet they go round and round and round, and we never go over.
There are two things in this matter of possessing our possessions, of inheriting what is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first is this: of that whole generation that came out of Egypt, only two went over—Joshua and Caleb. Why? Because they were of another spirit.
I believe with all my heart that the key for going over and possessing our possessions lies in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who is afraid of the Person, the work, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit will never, ever go over and possess their possessions.
That gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit is the key by which you and I go over. We have another spirit.
You cannot work up faith. Try. You can know your Bible from end to end, but you cannot get faith by working it up. Faith can only be an academic thing, a theoretical thing, a head matter, without the Holy Spirit.
You may know all about holiness, all about being crucified with Christ, all about resurrection life—but you do not know it. Only the Holy Spirit can enlighten us, quicken us, and empower us.
It is by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the body. It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the law of sin and death.
It was by the eternal Spirit that Jesus offered Himself to God without spot or blemish. Have you ever noticed that? Not merely the offering up of Himself on the cross by the Spirit, but that He could live a life without spot or blemish—He did it by the Spirit.
If the Lord Jesus did it by the Spirit, how much more you and I? We cannot go over into the land. We cannot possess what is ours in the fullness of Christ. We cannot know that gracious indwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit, the anointing, and those blessed gifts of God, except by the Spirit.
That is the first key.
The second key is that there are only three things that can stop a believer from entering into what is his: only three things—sin, unbelief, or ignorance.
Some people are just ignorant. They never knew there was anything more. They thought that being a Christian was being forgiven. Because they were ignorant, they never knew there was more to possess. They never knew there was a pressing on, and never knew there was a land to go in and take.
You understand? Well, I hope there is no one here tonight in complete ignorance. After this, that leaves us with two things: unbelief and sin.
There are people here who say, “Oh, that is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I wish I could go in. He does not know me. Sometimes he does not know my background. He does not understand my temperament. I am very special. It is very, very wonderful, but it will not work with me. It will work with others, but not me.”
Unbelief. The spies came back and said, “Oh, this is a wonderful land, flowing with milk and honey. Look at the grapes that we brought back from the valley of Eshcol.”
“But it is a land fortified to the heavens. There are giants in it. We cannot go in and possess it.”
Oh, there is a believer who says, “Well, it is wonderful. I was thrilled with that message. I was absolutely stirred, and that book I have been reading is something out of this world. But it is no good for me. I cannot do it. You see, I have very unusual circumstances.”
In other words, you are saying, “Of course there are cities fortified to heaven, and there are giants that stalk the land. We cannot go in.”
Or there is sin. I am surprised at the sin that there is in the people of God, even among the most seemingly spiritual: immorality, dishonesty, swindling, tax evasion—all kinds of things that God calls sin, not cleverness.
That kind of thing stops us from going in to possess the land. But we must go on if we are going to finish this evening.
Dear child of God, we can never build the house of God until we possess our possessions. They go hand in hand. You and I have got to know something of Christ as our fullness, Christ as our life, Christ as our power.
We have got Jerichos to face at the very beginning of the land, at the very entrance of the land—Jerichos whose great walls have got to come down if we are going to go in and possess.
Then there is this second phase of God’s dealings—actually the third phase, if we take Abraham through Joseph as the first—and it is illustrated through David and Solomon. There are many others, such as Samuel, but we must leave him. Let us just talk about David and Solomon.
Again, we have the same thing. Now God has got us into the land. Now, at least with all our weaknesses, we are in the land. We have got an allotment. If we are like Caleb, we have said, “Give me this mountain,” and we have taken it.
But, my dear friend, that is only a second phase. I do not care whether you have seen the third heaven and heard things not lawful to utter. That is not everything. It may be a very great thing God has done for a beloved servant, but it has very little bearing upon the objective.
Now we find God starts to deal with this people in the land. There are two things He has in view: the kingdom, the throne, and the house.
The first is a matter of government, reigning with Christ; the second is a matter of worship and God’s eternal home.
It is important for us to recognize that even if we have known something of the fullness of Christ and the resources of God, God has a higher objective than that. It is not that you and I should be satisfied if we get our inheritance.
Notice that Exodus says, “Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance.” So many of us believers are only concerned about ourselves: our blessing, our good, our peace, our life, our satisfaction. Oh, ours, ours, my, mine!
We will go to any conference if we think it has something for us. We will travel hundreds of miles if it is a matter of us getting in on the picture.
But God says you must first go over into the land of His inheritance. You must have gone in; you must have possessed the land; you must know what is yours. But then you must understand that there is not only your little inheritance—there is God’s inheritance.
What is God’s inheritance? It is the house of the Lord. Until God could get a king on the throne, a man after His own heart, there could be no building of the house of God. That is the story of David and Solomon.
David is the preparation; Solomon is the realization. Again, what can we take from that wonderful life of David?
This whole matter of coming to the throne is so important. Why did the Lord Jesus say in Matthew 16:18-19:
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church;
And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
What was He saying to Peter? “If I am to build My church, and if the gates of Hades are not to prevail against it, Peter, you have got to use the keys. There are things that have got to be bound, and there are things that have got to be loosed.”
Dear child of God, why do we not see the building up of the house of God? Why can we preach till we are blue in the face about church matters and still not see a real building up of the people of God?
Why can we know the doctrine of the church correctly, have the whole practice correct, be in the village, and yet at the same time never see believers built together? We never see them fitted together. We never see the glory of the Lord filling the house until no one can minister in it.
Oh, that experience is when somehow, out of the glory of God, that sense of the presence of the Lord holds the company of His children in such awe that no one dare utter a word—not from inhibition, not from limitation. That is the glory.
There are touches of glory to be had down here corporately, when the Spirit of God—not always in some great dynamic movement, but sometimes in the quietest way—suddenly makes us all aware that the Lord is in the midst in a manifested way.
It is because you and I have not used the keys of the kingdom of heaven, because we have not known what is to be bound and what is to be loosed, that we have had this whole matter of the building of the church for years and years in the realm of theory.
That is why kingship is so important. Why executive prayer is such a vital aspect of the house of God. It is something to do with the throne.
Now, dear child of God, listen to me in this matter: we shall never see the house of God built until we have the throne. Once we have the kingdom, once we begin, in our poor way, to reign with Christ together, then we begin to see the house of the Lord.
Do you think Satan is going to stand fast and simply watch the house of the Lord built and completed? Do you think he considers it such a simple thing? He knows that the building of that place, wherein is the eternal home of God, spells his end. He is not just going to stand by and watch.
He will put every single weapon in his armoury into play. He will do every single thing imaginable to overturn, undermine, and paralyze the work, to sit upon the people of God until the whole building work comes to a finish.
Dear friend, if you and I have not learned to reign with Christ, if we are not willing to use the keys of the kingdom of heaven, there will be no conversions. There will be no snatching brands out of the burning. There will be no newborns being added to the house of God among the people of God.
The devil is interested in preventing it. You will see that there will be no material for that house, no living stones for that building. It is a matter of binding and loosing.
The same is true with ministry. David did so much in preparing the ministry for the house. The last years of his life were spent drawing up the courses of the singers, the players, the different instrumentalists, the different orders of Levi, and so on.
My dear friend, we need a kingship that is fought out, that is brought to this point. We need to reign with Christ. You see, the King is on the throne.
Jesus said, “I will build My church.” Protestants often forget that He said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church”—which He meant, of course, of Himself, but Himself revealed in Peter.
“Unto thee”—to Myself? No, to thee, Peter—“I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” The Lord Jesus did not just say, “I will build My church.” He said, “You are Peter. It is something to do with you.” You must do something.
We learn such wonderful things from David’s life. Something we know, and I can only touch upon it, is that from the very beginning he had a clear understanding of the purpose of the Lord.
He never saw the throne as an end in itself. He saw the throne as a divinely given responsibility, a stewardship—I mean, to build the Lord a house.
If you want Scripture for that, it would take too long to give you them all. I can only give you 1 Chronicles 17:1-4 and 1 Chronicles 17:12-14. Compare those with 1 Chronicles 28:2. If you look that up and go back over it, you will see what I am talking about.
But look at David’s heart. Listen to him:
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
He was praying for the house of God before there was even a temple, when he wrote that psalm. I can give you a whole series of psalms in which he speaks about the temple. It so much appears that liberal theologians say these psalms could never have been written by David; they must have been written after the temple.
I do not think so. I can tell you that is a clear understanding of what God’s purpose was. It was to build Him a house.
You can take down Psalm 27:4, Psalm 36:8-9, Psalm 68:29, Psalm 11:4, and Psalm 18:6. What about that loveliest of all?
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
The rabbis tell us that that was written when David was a boy. If that is so, it means that from childhood he had an understanding about the house of the Lord.
If you and I are going to see the house of God built, we have got to have understanding. Has God caught you yet, so that you say, “One thing that I desire, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life”?
That was another thing about David: he was a man of war. Solomon was a man of peace. David was a man of war—two sides of one coin. You will never have the house of God without the conflict of faith.
Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou wast called. If you do not, there will be no fulfilled purpose of God. There is a conflict. There is a contention. It is the fight of faith.
Oh, what disillusionment comes in our lives in this matter of the building of the house of God. What disappointment. What inexplicable problems arise. How easily the glow of youth gives way through the disillusionment of middle age.
Child of God, remember: fight the good fight of faith.
It was David who, when he came to that Jebusite stronghold and saw them looking over the great fortified city, heard them say, “We will just leave the lame and the blind on these walls. You will never get up.”
David remembered the words of God to Joshua:
Whatsoever the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it.
And he said, “Very well. We will see about the lame and the blind.”
He sent his men up the water shaft, which is still there today in the complex of Hezekiah’s tunnel. They put their feet down and said, “This is the Lord’s.” It could have been done hundreds of years earlier, but they did not have the faith. Jerusalem was taken.
If you read some of these wonderful things about David’s fighting, his wars—they may make your blood curdle, some of you—but the fact of the matter is, my word, it is the fight of faith. Moab, Ammon, Edom, Philistia, the Amalekites, and Aram—they all went down one after another after another.
Here is the most wonderful thing of all for those of you who want to follow this. Look up 1 Chronicles 29:1-5 and compare it with 1 Chronicles 18:7-11. What will you find? You will find that the wars of David provided the material out of which the house of God was built.
When David said, “I have prepared gold and silver in abundance, and costly stones, marble, timber, iron, and all other kinds of things,” you will find that it is all paid for in the victories.
Dear child of God, do you think the house of God is built by sitting and singing hymns? Do you merely think the house of God is going to be built by reading a book or holding a Bible study? My dear friend, God will allow His enemy to come in from all sides—from north and south—and they will take every single thing we have in the land.
They will subjugate us. They will subject us. They will make us slaves without inheritance unless and until we learn the lesson that we must rise up in the name of the Lord, and every Goliath will fall.
Then, out of the victories that we know in the name of the Lord, will come the material for the house of the Lord.
It is not by power in ourselves. They are not going to come to the throne any other way. Do not think God is just going to put a crown on you, wet-nurse you, put a diaper on you, and cuddle you all the time when you are forty years of age.
There are believers who are forty years of age physically and still expect someone to cover them, carry them here, carry them there, do this for them, and do that for them.
Do you think the house of God is going to grow like a fairy tale—just wave a wand and it comes up like magic? My dear friend, it would be rather nice in one way if it did, but it would be a disaster for character.
God will never, ever allow character to be bypassed. He wants His character. The only way you and I can learn the characteristics of kingship is to withstand the enemies of God in the name of the Lord and beat them.
My dear friends, of course you cannot beat them by your knowledge, your devotion, your tears, or your fasting, but by the finished work of the Lamb. It is the finished work of the Lamb and the God who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.
He that had the power of death—the devil—has been defeated. That is the thing we need to declare.
Then we shall have spoil: the gold of Christ out of battle, out of victory; the silver of redemption; the precious stones of His nature. Through suffering we learn the wood of His humanity, the stones of His durability. All these things will come to us as we learn to fight the good fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life.
Dear child of God, do you not think we need this sometimes in our meetings? Those of us who have seen something of this and are gathering together as believers—why do we become heavy so much, do we not? We all know there is something in the atmosphere, but we go through our hymns and our Bible study.
At times it would be a good thing to stop and say, “Friends, there is something sitting on this company, something that needs to be contested in the name of the Lord. We will put aside what we are doing, and we will get down to prayer.”
Then things would start to happen. It is like a breach in the enemy’s defenses. Once there is a great breach, the defenses of the enemy start to tumble. Once there is a major breakthrough, he is put back.
We do not see it like that. We think the devil is so stupid, you know—hang up a few texts and he runs off like some frightened little jackal. The devil is not like that. He has keen intelligence, next to God. He knows what he is doing.
There is only one thing that can finish the enemy, and that is when the people of God rise up in the name of the Lord together, with all their sense of weakness, their feelings of unworthiness, their feelings of insignificance, and say, “The Lord is going to have His house.”
Well, our time is really gone, but I ought to say something about Solomon.
Solomon, I think, in some ways—the end of his life was sad. There are those who believe that Solomon backslid completely. I do not. I suppose because of my background, I believe the Jewish position: that he followed the Lord wholly at the beginning, in his middle age fell away, wrote Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon when he was a young man, and then came back to the Lord in his old age and collected the Proverbs.
But Solomon is part of this tale. With him, the house of the Lord is built.
One of the most beautiful things in the whole Word is when the Lord appears to Solomon one night, when he was twenty-one years of age, and says to him, “Tell Me, what do you want of Me?”
Solomon said, “Thou hast made me king over this people, who are a great multitude like the sand of the seashore. I ask of Thee wisdom and knowledge, that I may be able.”
God said to him, “Because thou hast not asked for riches, nor wealth, nor honour, nor the life of them that hate thee, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge My people—I will give thee wisdom and knowledge such as never was before thee, neither after thee shall there any arise like thee. And with that wisdom I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour.”
When it comes to building the house of God, we need wisdom.
When one sees so much of what, in the beginning, has been wonderful in many parts of the world in the matter of church building, and then sees how quickly somehow or other it goes off the rails, goes off into other things, becomes formula, system, and institutionalized, one realizes the need of wisdom.
Wisdom is more than knowledge. Knowledge is to do with facts; wisdom is the application of the facts—to know how.
Oh, dear friends, we need wisdom. Every one of us is a builder—some of us a little bit more, but all of us are builders.
It is very interesting in 1 Corinthians 3. It speaks of what a man builds, and we all think about the elders, the ministers. Not actually—it is Paul the apostle speaking of what you contribute to the building: gold, silver, precious stones. Every man’s work shall be made manifest.
What are you putting into the building?
What are you putting into the building?
Solomon: a man of peace.
Solomon was an amazing man, at least in his youth. He cleared Mount Moriah. To this day, you can see what he did. It was a feat that was incredible.
Then he laid out the great huge stones and built upon that foundation a house for the Lord. Then he covered the interior with silver, then wood, then gold, and then gold.
Oh, we should really have a whole message on each one, should we not?
There is no other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. The church will never be built on a thing, on a method, on a technique, on a truth, or on an experience.
It is built on Him and Him alone. The church is built on that foundation: “I will build.” It is as simple as that, and yet so profound.
Living souls, brought into the very nature of God itself, are built upon the foundation which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then there is that silver. Then the wood—cedar and olive wood in the temple. Cedar and olive wood all speak of humanity: incorruptibility, durability, flexibility, nobility, and Spirit-filled humanity.
Then the gold of His nature, and then the precious stones. And when the house of the Lord is built in the Spirit, the glory of the Lord fills it.
Dear child of God, you and I have been called by the God of all grace to His eternal glory in Christ.
Have you understood? It is not only a matter of entering in and possessing what is yours in Christ. It is also a matter of reigning with Christ, that the house of God may be built.
This eternal home of God is the heart of the whole creation and the heart of all God’s dealings with humanity. We are here that we might build the house of the Lord, that when it is built we may reign with Him forever.
I think we will stop there. That is enough for one night in this whole matter of kingship and overcoming, do you not think?
I wonder how many kings there are here—those who are possessing what has been so dearly bought for them at the price of Christ’s love. I want that.
How many overcomers there are here tonight, learning to be above only and not beneath, the head and not the tail, while learning to build the house of the Lord.
May the Lord help each one of us to understand these things. Shall we pray?
Father, we ask Thee very simply that Thou wilt give us all that spiritual wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We need our eyes enlightened. There are many here who perhaps, Lord, are not entering into what is theirs in the Lord Jesus as Thou wouldst have them enter in.
O Father, may the end of this week be that many of us rise up in the name of the Lord and, by faith and patience, inherit the promises; go over into the fullness that is ours in the Lord Jesus and possess it; begin to experience something of Thy resources and riches in Him.
O Father, we pray that all of us may have the eyes of our hearts opened to see what Thy objective is, that, Lord, we may learn to reign with Thee and, in reigning with Thee, build the house of the Lord.
O reveal to us what that house is, and what the building of it really means in practical terms.
Father, hear, for we give ourselves to Thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.