We continue our consideration of the implications of those few words from the Book of Ezra, from which we have read this evening, in Ezra 6:3.
The answer which came back from Darius to that letter was, “Let the house be builded.”
Last night, we occupied our time with a consideration of the eternal conception and decision of God regarding a house. We sought to show that, although the Bible deals with many particular and clearly defined matters, there is one object which is inclusive of them all. That is the divine purpose and intention to have a habitation.
That habitation has many symbolic titles or names in the Bible. We do not stay now to call them all to mind, but perhaps the most common of those symbolic titles of this habitation is a house of God.
It is but a symbolic title. To our mentality, the very word conjures up certain ideas, but our time last night was occupied in seeking to arrive at the divine idea.
Now, there is a progressive revelation of this matter in the Bible. As we proceed with the development of that revelation, we are led to see that this is not a thing at all. It is not a building, as we understand it; it is not a place. It is a people—the people in vital, organic union with God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
That is where we arrive as we pursue this matter of God’s habitation.
Now, at this time, we are going to consider the continuous controversy and conflict in relation to this habitation of God.
It is a matter of very simple evidence that we are not through the first three chapters of the Bible before we meet all the elements of conflict and controversy. From then onward, right the way through the Bible, those elements of conflict and controversy are rarely absent.
The Book is just full of them until we reach the last two chapters, when the conflict and controversy are settled, and that forever.
But, as we pointed out last night, the centre of the consummation and the final issue is:
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He shall dwell with them,
and they shall be His peoples,
and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.
That end has been the occasion of this tremendous conflict from the beginning.
If we look more closely into this matter, we shall find that it is invariably related to just one thing. It is most impressive: it is always focused upon this one thing—God’s place in this world, and a people for His habitation.
That is, as we say, the bone of contention, the focal point of all the trouble. That is the issue there at the beginning in the garden with the first pair.
It is far too beautiful and happy a scene to behold God walking with men, talking with men, and having very blessed fellowship with men in a scene of peace, rest, and order. It is far too beautiful a thing to go unassailed.
Somehow, a situation must be set up which would try God out and break in upon that fellowship, and, if possible, end it—or at least suspend it. That was the issue there. Many things may circle round that, but it is just this: God here in conditions of fellowship with men.
It is the point of the trouble in the first family. Family in holy and sacred fellowship with God is something that will not go unassailed. So we find the family thrown into this state of conflict, and one brother murders the other.
It is the whole point in the history of a chosen nation, in all its varied phases and stages of life and history.
When that chosen nation was in Egypt, what was it that God intended? Well, it is found in His challenge to Pharaoh, king of Egypt: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” We know from later history what that meant: God in the midst of His people.
The great controversy and conflict in Egypt was born of this sinister realization: if that happens, God will have what He has ever set His heart upon having, and that must be frustrated. That is the point.
They get into the wilderness—that is, God gets them out to be His people for His dwelling. As they are congregated at the foot of the mountain, Moses goes up into the mountain. Note: he is going to receive the pattern of the tabernacle in which God will take up residence in the midst of His people.
For that tabernacle, there will be need, at least, of some gold—the great symbolism of the divine nature—which had been brought out of Egypt. And while Moses tarries in the mount, what happens?
Again, there enters in this challenge to the divine purpose, and the gold is taken and made into a calf to be worshipped in the place of God. All part of the one long story.
It goes on in their history. When they are through the wilderness and in the land, Solomon builds the temple, and God takes up His residence.
But just before that temple was to be brought in, another terrible thing happened. It is said, “Then Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” Many of you know the story.
The numbering, of course, was just a bit of vanity—the vanity of the human heart, counting heads, being able to say, “What a great people I have got. What a great king I am.”
Even a man of the world, who had very little, if any, spiritual perception, Joab, saw through it and urged the king not to do it. But he insisted, and then he had to meet God in the devastation of the nation.
As the plague swept over the people, mowing them down, David at last met the angel of the Lord at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. That became the site of the temple.
What a contest. What a controversy over this habitation of God all the time.
Well, the temple is built. When the nation has come to the very peak of its development along this line of God’s habitation, the very builder of the temple itself defaulted and made an alliance with that which was another god outside of Israel.
So it is not long before the nation is slipping too, and the swift movement downward takes place. The Lord leaves the temple. It is left.
The end of that movement is away into Babylon: temple and Jerusalem forsaken of God, people in captivity.
After seventy years, a remnant returns and starts to build the temple. The story is told in these twin books, Ezra and Nehemiah. What books of conflict they are.
Here it is again. It is as though something said, “No, never, if we can stop it.” You look at the last verses of Ezra 4, and you will see: “So the work ceased.”
Well, that is how the Old Testament closes. The New Testament opens, as we saw last night, with God coming to His consummate realization along two lines: firstly, becoming incarnate in His Son, Emmanuel—God with us.
His very presence raises the bitterest controversy on this very point of the temple. It all centres in and circles round this temple. You know the charge which brought Him to His death was that He spoke about the destruction of the temple.
He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again.” In their blindness to His true spiritual meaning, they interpreted it as meaning that this great temple was to be destroyed. Of course it was, but that brought Him to His death.
Stephen took up that matter a little later on and quoted these words about the temple: God does not dwell in temples made with hands. From that point, the rage and storm broke upon him.
See the focal point of it all? Most significant.
When the personal Christ, like a corn of wheat, has fallen into the ground, died, and risen in the corporate form of the nucleus of His church, this is the habitation of God in reality. But what a storm breaks upon it. Oh, it is the signal for new outbreaks of this terrible antagonism.
That is the root of all the sad, tragic history through the centuries of divisions, controversies, schisms, and contentions amongst Christians. One object and focal point is this: God is not going to have this glory if it can be prevented by any means whatsoever. This must be stopped.
There is no greater menace to the kingdom of darkness than a people after this kind, to whom God commits Himself, because they provide Him with the ground for being there—just being there in blessed fellowship.
We believe that we are living in the end time. As the end draws near, in spite of all the talk and efforts for union and affiliation, the spirit of suspicion, fear, and misunderstanding intensifies.
The atmosphere of Christianity is impregnated with this kind of thing. The last little thing will suffer division, if possible. The differences are multiplying all the time as we get near the end.
What is it? Well, we have mentioned it this evening. Why are there so many differences and controversies in the realm of Christian relationships?
It is just this one thing. You may say it is because of this or that or some other thing. You may put it down to one of the many hundreds of things which make for division, but let us get right to the root of it and the heart of it.
Every one of these things, which may be the occasion, is related to this one all-inclusive and all-governing thing. It is related to a spiritual relatedness of the people of God, to provide Him with that which has been in His heart from all eternity: a habitation, a presenting of Himself with men.
That is the heart of it.
All this sad and terrible history and story is related to the corporate: the beginning, man and his wife; two brothers; the race; twelve brothers, twelve sons of Jacob, twelve tribes; the tabernacle; and so on.
It has always centred in this corporate idea: either to prevent it or to wreck it, if it has any semblance of being present. Ever and always, the point of attack has been the people of God in heavenly fellowship, with God in their midst.
Well, we have to look at the significance of this. What does it signify in the first place? Surely it signifies so clearly the existence in this universe of a force and system that is hostile to this idea, that is antagonistic to the realization of this divine purpose.
This is not a natural thing. You may, if you like, say, “Well, it was because of this or that or something else,” and often there seem to be good human and natural reasons for it. But get behind all that.
You find that it is all issuing from this sinister realm and hierarchy which is antagonistic to one thing, and it is this one thing.
We speak about the church militant. What do we mean by the church militant? Our ideas are usually objective when we speak like that. We think of the church making assault upon heathenism, upon paganism, upon worldliness, upon vice, upon dead social conditions, upon suffering and its causes. That is perhaps what we mean by the church militant.
However true and right that may be, the fact is that the church militant finds its campaign sabotaged from the inside—defeated before it starts to fight. Indeed, it cannot fight as a corporate whole because it is already crippled on the inside.
Crippled—that is the word—by the absence of this one related corporate life in expression. Yes, the enemy has somehow got on the inside of things and weakened and paralysed the church militant.
Some of you are perhaps familiar with a story in the life of Spurgeon. The students of his college were preaching their trial sermons before him.
One young man chose Ephesians 6 for his subject. In a great attempt at eloquence and impressiveness, he pictured the warrior and the armour. He himself was taking it up, at last fully clad. In great boldness, he stepped forward and said, “Now, there is the enemy.”
Mr. Spurgeon kept his hand inside the armour.
Well, that is an old story, but it is very much to the point—very much to the point.
The church is not moving like a mighty army. It is not true that “like a mighty army moves the church of God.” It is not true that it is “terrible as an army with banners.” Satan has seen to that and given the lie to that.
What is the point? We have got to take account of something more than the human factor, the natural element.
I am not wanting to open the door for an inrush of demonism or demonology, but perhaps we have swung too much the other way in our fear.
We have either got to accept the Bible or reject it. We have got to settle that. If we accept the Bible, if we take it and it stands, we have got to accept this fact of a great evil spiritual hierarchy surrounding this world—unresting, ceaseless in vigilance and activity.
It is watching for any opportunity and any ground that it can use against this one thing: the absolute oneness of God’s people, to provide Him with a habitation suitable to Himself.
We have got to recognize that great system, take account of it, and really take it into account. There it is.
There seems to be some strange dullness, numbness, over the church in this matter, which may be significant. Who does not, amongst Christians, know, for instance, Ephesians 6? Probably most of us could quote it.
Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities,
against the powers,
against the world-rulers of this darkness,
against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Who does not know that in word and letter? But, dear friends, who has really been stung into the realization of what that means for the church? Into the recognition of the fact that that word is the summing up of the greatest revelation of the church that has ever been given to mankind?
Up to that, the apostle moves with his great unveiling of the church in its past eternal election, in its heavenly vocation, in its walk here with God, and in its coming eternal purpose. To all that, he moves and says, “Yes, yes, that, that.”
While that is true, while that is God’s masterpiece—the greatest thing ever conceived—it is the one object of countless hosts of evil spirits in their implacable antagonistic interest and attention.
Principalities and powers, world-rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked spirits, have one thing that they are after: the destruction of that church, the dividing of that church.
We, I say, are strangely numb in the presence of such a revelation. We are not stung alive to the recognition of what that means.
If all this is true, you are going to have very great difficulty in arguing your way out of it, if you are so disposed. I say the Bible, from the first chapters to the last, is full of this very thing: this continuous controversy and conflict centred in this one thing, God having a habitation for Himself in a people.
If this is true, dear friends, we have got to adjust ourselves, take a new attitude over this matter, and face the fact.
These evil forces are not just concerned with the whole sum total of the church, to split it into so many sections. They will not stop at the last two. They began with the first two, and they will pursue their evil purpose until the last two believers are separated.
If that is true, I say we have got to adjust ourselves to this. Any division, any breaking up of fellowship, is not to be put down finally to some human or natural factor. That may only be the pretext or the occasion, but behind there is something very much more.
We are involved in a terrible warfare over this matter, far, far beyond our power of overcoming or coping with it.
There, you see, is where the words in this great letter come to our rescue, where the apostle prays that He would grant you to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inward man.
Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
I say we have got to take account of these forces and adjust ourselves to the matter in a new way, in the realization of what it is that is happening. We must not put everything down to secondary causes, but get behind them to the primary cause in that other evil realm.
God is holy. The place of His dwelling must be holy. If this is the work of Satan, it is unholy; it is the touch of evil. Therefore, God cannot commit Himself. The work of the enemy must be cast out.
God is one. God is one. He will not commit Himself to that which divides Him.
Cried the apostle to the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” I think there was a tone of shock in his interrogation. Unthinkable. Unthinkable. Christ is not divided.
He cannot commit Himself, as one God, to divisions. We divide God. The Holy Spirit is one Spirit. “There is,” says the apostle, “one Spirit.”
There are not as many Christs and as many Holy Spirits as there are believers. We do not have a personal and private Jesus or Holy Spirit. We only have Him in common, and there is no other way of having the Lord.
Now we have got to find the key. We have got to find the key to this oneness, this unity. In this very letter to the Ephesians, the apostle speaks about it as the unity of the Spirit.
The unity of the Spirit. You see, our unity is not first an intellectual thing—that is, that we have threshed out truth and matters of procedure, and after a great deal of discussion and argument have arrived at some measure of agreement, and now we are one.
It does not begin there. That is not the basis of our oneness at all. Even in evangelical truth, we do not arrive at oneness intellectually by argument.
We do not arrive at it by an enterprise, a common undertaking, or a piece of work. “This needs to be done, and we resolve to unite to do it.” Surely the history of the work of God is the history of how that kind of thing can break down and does not go through when it meets the forces of evil.
No, we are not one in that way. We are not one by sentiment. May I use the word smarminess? Nice talk, closing our eyes to wrong—that is wrong being sentimental. That is not the basis of oneness. It is not a oneness-type ideal, and certainly not oneness of pretence.
What is it? It is the word here, says the unity of the Spirit—that is, of the Holy Spirit. I have just said that there are not as many Holy Spirits as there are believers.
“We were all baptized in one Spirit into one body,” says the apostle. Now then, this oneness is twofold. First of all, it is basic, and then it is progressive.
It is basic by our sharing of a common life. Oh, that we made more of that fundamental reality.
We know it is true. We have only got to be scattered over the world, where you meet one Christian in a hundred thousand, and the thing becomes very real—very real.
Oh, what a thing it is to meet a Christian. You do not raise ecclesiastical questions forthwith, doctrinal questions, and so on. You just find that you have got something in common.
If you would only keep on that ground, what a long way you can go. It is something in common. You know it without being told. We know a believer, a true believer, anywhere in the world without introduction. The introduction is inside.
It is fundamental. We share one life. We have one Holy Spirit dwelling in us. That is the basic reality of oneness, if only we would make more of it.
But then it is progressive. It is progressive—that is, it grows, it develops, it progresses by living in the Spirit, by a life in the Spirit, a life governed by the Holy Spirit within us.
Dear friends, though this has been said many times, it is a point for very great emphasis. If only you and I, personally, really lived the life under the government of the Holy Spirit inside, what a big difference it would make.
See, He is the Spirit of truth. If He is governing our spirit and our inner consciousness as born-again children of God, impressed by the Holy Spirit, if you and I got a false notion about another one, it would not be long before we knew it in our own hearts: the Holy Spirit does not agree with that notion.
We take on a false report, a false rumour. We hear something about somebody and take it on. It may be apparently true and may seem to come from the most authentic and trustworthy source, but it might still be false.
We can know it in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
That Spirit governing will be a safeguard against some division, some strain, some broken fellowship, which ought never to be because it is founded upon a lie—a beautiful lie it might be.
You see what I mean? We ought to spend much time with that. But oneness, fellowship, is progressive on the basis of a life in the Spirit.
You and I, as God’s people, are called to live in the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit; to know the inner instruction and teaching of the Spirit; to know the voice of the Spirit.
It takes a long time to learn in fullness, or in any great measure, but it is a great reality which ought to begin with our new birth: that we have a new consciousness. Our values are different—of right and wrong, of what we ought to do and ought not to do, how we ought to speak and how we ought not to speak. All this ought to be born with us at our new birth, but it ought to grow and grow and grow.
Only so will this other evil kingdom be destroyed. Only so will it work the counter. Only so will the church be terrible as an army with banners. Only so will God find the place that He is seeking, where He can commit Himself, apply Himself, and make Himself known.
Time is gone for this evening, though the ground is not by any means fully covered. That is enough. It is enough.
The great battle—and that battle is not just the battle of different conceptions, interpretations, and presentations of Christianity. Behind it all is the conflict between a great intention of God and a counter-intention of the enemy.
God help us to have our eyes open to this, and to be very clear-cut as to where we stand in this fight.