Lord, not in a new formal way, not only as a custom, but in a very deep and strong consciousness of need, we pray. We must pray.
We are this morning allowing ourselves to be put under new responsibility. If Thou shouldest speak, as we have asked Thee to do, then the words that Thou dost speak will judge us in that day. We realize that it is no small thing even to allow ourselves to hear the Lord speak.
My Lord, it is a matter of capacity also. We cannot understand unless the Spirit of wisdom and understanding gives us the ability. Things are going to be said which may be the truth, and we will not understand unless something is done in the inner man. And we certainly cannot follow through in obedience unless Thou, Lord, dost do this thing.
Thou didst say to a very beloved disciple, “Thou canst not follow Me now; whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now. Thou shalt afterward.” That “cannot” is over us and on us. We cannot follow through unless, Lord, there is something done by Thee.
Now, all this we bring. And what is true of hearing and obeying is just as much true of speaking. We are not authorities. We are not teachers. We cannot speak unless Thou, Lord, dost the speaking. The anointing must do it.
We submit ourselves that this time shall be an anointed time, a Holy Spirit time, in both ways and always. Be Thou the Lord this morning. Grant that the glory may come to Thee, and any fruit may accrue to Thy glory. In the name of the Lord Jesus, we ask this. Amen.
We return to continue with that first fragment of Hebrews Chapter 12, Verse 22:
But ye are come unto Mount Zion,
And unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
“Ye are come to Mount Zion.” For this morning, I want to link with that one or two other passages of Scripture. First of all, back in the prophecies of Isaiah—Isaiah Chapter 30. Pardon me, Chapter 32. I think I am still wrong. That is it.
Now go, write it before them on a tablet,
And inscribe it in a book,
That it may be for the time to come,
For ever and ever.
And then will you turn to the second Psalm—Psalm 2. I want you to read this Psalm, perhaps beginning at Verse 6, having glanced at the earlier part:
Yet have I set My King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Now you keep that Psalm in mind, please, as we go on—all the rest of it from that verse and before. Take a glance. But I want you now to turn to the letter to the Romans, and your great favourite, Chapter 8. No, I am not going to read what you want me to. Chapter 8 and Verse 19:
For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will,
But by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope
That the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
Into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Now, of course you want the next bit, but I am leaving that and going on to Verse 29:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son,
That He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
And whom He foreordained, them He also called;
And whom He called, them He also justified;
And whom He justified, them He also glorified.
Now, between those two portions that we have read, we have this, Verse 22:
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption,
To wit, the redemption of our body.
We are occupied with what we have come to. “Ye are come.” Ye are come. And we have been thinking about Zion, Zion to which we are come. We have said seven things about Zion—some things to which we have come, constituting this position.
And I come to this eighth this morning, which is a very serious and solemn matter. I feel that if the Lord gets His word through this morning, very largely, so far as this ministry is concerned, the conference may hang upon it. It is the most practical issue in this whole consideration of position.
What have we come to in coming to Zion? Here, as you note, this passage—Zion and Jerusalem—look to be synonymous: “unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” There is no “and” between them making them different things. If you put in an “and,” you eliminate the sense from this whole section, because you are not dealing with different things. These various matters that are mentioned are all of one; it is all one thing.
That, by the way, is where Zion and Jerusalem come together and are spoken of as being one. And that gives us our starting point for this present consideration.
Zion, as the heart of Jerusalem, is the very essence of all that Jerusalem was intended to be—the real spiritual meaning of Jerusalem, the concentrated point of all that Jerusalem represented.
Zion and Jerusalem, in history and in the nations, have always been the storm centre—the storm centre of history and the storm centre of the nations. It would take a long time for us even to look generally at the history of Jerusalem. You can do that at any time. But how many sieges? How many investments? How much was Jerusalem the object, the centre, of world attention and concern, again and again and again?
Eyes were turned toward Jerusalem: toward Jerusalem’s destruction, Jerusalem’s wiping out, or Jerusalem’s possession. The long troubled history is the history of Jerusalem, even to our own time: a world centre of conflict and controversy which everybody recognizes.
Zion—what the prophet calls “the controversy of Zion.” The controversy of Zion. Zion, Jerusalem, has been a controversial object in history and in the nations all the way along.
It is extraordinary, is it not? You wonder why. It is not such a wonderful city, is it? Not so great. How long would it take you to walk across it, or even to walk around it? What is it, and what was it? Perhaps it is a better specimen of world cities today, so far as structure and modernization are concerned. But what was it, and even now, what is it?
How can it compare with London, New York, Paris, or any of these others you might mention? Well, they may be centres of attraction, truly. There was tremendous battle in our own lifetime to get hold of London. Oh, if you had been in the Battle of London, you would have known fourteen months, day and night, without cessation—city bombs, things happening, great areas going up in dust and smoke.
Well, London is an object. It counts for something. Most of you people know nothing about it in that way; I hope you never will. There it is. But it is traditional, historic Jerusalem. What is that? Why, not once or twice in a lifetime, but right through the long history of centuries, there has been controversy over Zion.
If you look closer and look into it more carefully, you will come to see this: Zion, or Jerusalem, was always a sign. It was a sign. There was a significance attached to it, and the significance was not its temporal aspect of buildings, structures, economies, and so on. Babylon could go far beyond all that. It was a spiritual thing.
You notice this: whenever the spiritual life of Jerusalem, as representing the people and the nation, was right—whenever the spiritual life was right, whenever it was a matter of right standing with God—Jerusalem was in the ascendant.
Attack, if you like. Let the hordes of Babylon or Assyria come against Jerusalem and encamp. There is a Hezekiah inside. There is a people inside who are right with the Lord, waiting on the Lord, crying to the Lord, trusting the Lord. So much the worse for Assyria. In a night, their hosts are wiped out by the angel of the Lord.
When things are spiritually right, it does not matter how fierce, forceful, and great the assault or the antagonism; they stand. It comes true. From time to time, it was not like that inside. The spiritual state was low; there was declension, there was wrong, and the standing before God was not right.
Then Jerusalem was always in weakness, always in fear and dread, weakened from the inside spiritually. It could not stand. And at last, after more than one successful assault, breaking down and overcoming, at last, simply because of this poor, low spiritual condition, Jerusalem was destroyed—finally destroyed.
That is robbed of its place in the divine economy and purpose as a sign of a spiritual condition. Zion has always been such a sign—a barometer of spiritual life.
It is absolutely useless, dear friends, to refer to tradition and say, “Well, God did this in the beginning, and this is the place where the oracles of God are found, and the temple of God is, and the great tradition of Israel and the chosen people. Here we rest on that, you know.”
Tradition will not support now. History will not support now. Institutions will not support now. It seems as though God has no regard, at length, for temple, altar, or priesthood. He cries through the prophet, “Away, away with you! I want none of your sacrifice.”
Isaiah Chapter 58—the chapter begins, “Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice.” Then what follows? “Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways.” But the Lord says, “I will have none of it. I will have none.”
These are not the sacrifices I want. This ritual is not what I am after. This traditional system is not what I want. It is a spiritual state, and only on that can the Lord associate Himself, ally Himself, to Zion.
I am saying that Zion has always been a sign of spiritual condition. That has been made evident by whether there was ascendancy—the support of God, making them superior to every adverse power—or whether they were ashamed among the nations, a reproach and an object of derision.
With a prophetic element, pointing on, of course, to something else, as is always so in the prophets, you have Jerusalem’s cry—the great heart-cry: “Woe is me! … All ye that pass by, have pity.” What a tragic situation for Zion: shame among the nations.
Which of the two things—ascendancy or shame, glory or dishonour—was right at the centre of the history of the nations, bound up with a spiritual condition and dependent upon a spiritual condition?
There is a lot to be gathered into that statement, dear friends, which I cannot stop even to explore. But if you look at this letter to the Hebrews again and see that we are come to Zion, we are not come to some thing, some religious thing, some tradition. We are not come to historic Christianity, let me put it this way. We are come to a spiritual situation which is calculated to startle us.
“Oh,” we say, “we are in the day of grace. This is the dispensation of grace.” True. Is the letter to the Hebrews on any other ground than the ground of grace? Surely not. But do you know, in this letter the most awful things in the Bible are written?
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
Our God is a consuming fire.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This is said to these people—these Christians—and other things like it. I am always having people come to me on this question of whether one is saved, or saved finally, raising the question out of Hebrews Chapter 6 and other parts—these statements, you see: “It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance,” and so on. Do not raise that with me, please.
But I am pointing this out: this letter, in the day of grace, brings into view not some new Christian system, not the formation of a new Christian tradition, but a spiritual condition without which everything else is as nothing.
Come to Zion, yes; but you have come to the controversy of Zion. You have come—we have come—to the great battle of Zion, and it is a spiritual battle.
Well now, having said that—and that is the background of it all—I do not want to make you glum. I see your faces are getting a bit heavy and your chins are dropping a bit. You think I am getting back to Sinai, I think. Zion! No, no. I said this is a very solemn time.
We are going to have a lot of teaching this week. It will not avail one little bit if there is not a corresponding spiritual position. Well now, having said that and laid that as the background of all, it is the battle, the controversy of Zion. What is the nature of this controversy?
Let us look at one or two things about it. I am working toward a very, very vital thing, which I trust we shall reach before we finish. What was the nature of the battle with Israel, centred and represented by Zion, Jerusalem? It was the battle in relation to a calling and vocation.
They were called by God. They were chosen by God. They were an elect race. You see why we came to Romans Chapter 8: an elect race, a chosen people. In history, on the earth, they were the elect of God—chosen, called, and separated, not merely to be saved, just to be different, just to be that.
No, for a vocation: a calling, a testimony in the world, testimony among the nations—a mighty heavenly vocation on the earth. Called for that: to reveal God; what God is like; the reality of God; the glory of God; the holiness of God; the power of God. A vessel of testimony among the nations, to the nations, to the world.
Zion, as we have been saying, is that which represents God’s full thought for mankind. The fullness of God’s thought is vested in, centred in, Zion. And because of that, the battle starts.
That is, as it says here, “the city of the living God.” In history, it was the city of David, God’s anointed king. And you notice the history of David. From birth, it looked like down and out, but no—steadily, steadily, up.
Let all the forces of Saul and his malice be concentrated against this young man. What that young man suffered! You know the story. He seemed to be a marked man. We say—I do not know whether you have the phrase in this country—a “marked bird,” just right from the beginning to be marked.
The devil had put an eye on him, watching him, pursuing him. Poor David cried, “I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.” Oh yes, the object of fierce, furious, relentless malice for his undoing.
Yet he held on his way steadily—not because he was so strong, for there were times when David broke down: “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.” He resorted to some subterfuges—a man of like passions with us, very human.
Nevertheless, through it all—whether it was in the land of the Philistines by compromise, a mistake from which God sovereignly delivered him, or in the cave of Adullam, in the wilderness, driven hither and thither for his very life—his spiritual course was onward and upward. It did not look like it, actually, but on and up, until eventually, anointed, he came to the place of the anointing: the throne.
Zion is the place of the consummation of that history of divine election—divine, if I may use the word in these days, foreordination. He is in the place of the full thought of God, and that is centred in him.
It is the place of the absolute sovereignty and lordship of God’s anointed. Zion. We are come to Zion. You can say, “There is another greater than this that is here. There is another Zion greater than that that is here.” But it is on that point, dear friends—focused upon that one inclusive and consummate point of the absolute sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ—that all the conflict rages.
Turn to your New Testament. You know that is true. You know their message as they went out into the world that then was. Everywhere their message was, “Jesus Christ is Lord. We preach Jesus Christ as Lord.”
That brought them up against Caesar and all the Caesars, because Caesar said, “I am.” The Roman Empire said, “Caesar is lord,” and they worshipped Caesar. The argument, contention, and accusation was, “These men are preaching another king but Caesar.” Oh yes, that is where the controversy was: on this one thing, the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.
The controversy of Zion is on that point ultimately: God’s Anointed. Why did we read Psalm 2?
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying,
Let us break their bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.
They are a menace—a menace. Yet:
Have I set My King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
The raging, the storming, the controversy, is focused about the Anointed One—in the Anointed One, God’s Anointed.
But do you notice, it was not very long in the New Testament before you reached what is marked mechanically by Chapter 4. There is a use, of course, in having this thing that that man in Paris did a few centuries ago when he divided up the Bible into chapters and verses. That is quite a modern thing—quite useful for our purposes of reference.
But I have said this often: it is a very good thing to wipe those things out sometimes and read straight on, blind to the chapters. You notice, when you reach Chapter 4 as it is marked, you reach a point in the controversy. The controversy of Zion—the battle is on.
The forces of evil in this world have set their mark upon this Anointed One and the proclamation of Him. When they are at work killing James and imprisoning Peter, the church meets. Zion gathers. Zion gathers.
What do they do? They quote the second Psalm to the Lord. “Lord, Thou…” Then they said:
Why did the Gentiles rage,
And the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth set themselves in array,
And the rulers were gathered together,
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed.
What happens? The Lord intervenes. He intervenes. Oh yes, Herod seemed to have had great success in killing James. He was pleased with himself, and the people were pleased with him. He thought he was going to do the whole business. He took Peter and put him in prison.
That is all right—so much the worse for you. What is the end of that story? He was eaten of worms and died. And the next sentence: “But the word of God grew and multiplied.” The holy hill of Zion—the One enthroned, you see—because there was right standing with God then.
So they go to Psalm 2, meaning that time has no place in this and geography has no place in it. Wheresoever there is a true representation of Zion, there may be assault and seeming successes of the evil one and his powers, but the issue is with Him who is reigning. The issue is victory. God has set His Anointed One upon His holy hill, Zion.
Now, dear friends, you are listening to all this as Bible exposition, perhaps. I do not know what you are thinking or what your reactions are, but I know what I am after. I am after something. I hope you will move with me to the object that we are seeking to reach.
If we have come to Zion—and you may have been very pleased with the seven things about it: “Oh, beautiful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, glorious!” Yes, they are. “Let us think more about Zion. Let us have it as the city of our solemnities. Let us have some festivities.” All right, all true. But you have got to meet number eight.
If we have come to Zion, we have come to the controversy of a spiritual position on the part of a people—the controversy of history over this people in union with the ascended, exalted Lord. It is a controversial matter in this universe.
Principalities, powers, world-rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked spirits—all focused upon one thing: the denial of the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. And the church is the custodian of that testimony. That is our call. That is the vocation of the people of God: to be that.
Then the battle is against all that is against the testimony of Jesus. Look at the context of that phrase, “the testimony of Jesus,” in the book of Revelation. I am so glad the Lord has led Brother Kahn along the line of these evenings. It is just what we are saying this morning: a terrific battle is on for the testimony of Jesus.
Well, that is the focal point of it. But the battle, mark you, is not only in the atmosphere, so to speak. That is its realm—the heavenly places, the atmosphere—in a sense an abstract thing. But notice again, as in the type in the Old Testament, so in the spiritual reality in the New: this antagonism has its media, its vehicles, its channels, its means.
What is it? It is the world spirit. The world spirit. This evil world in its spirit.
Have we really grasped what the New Testament has to say about this world? It is an enemy. It is an enemy of all that is of God.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
There is that great cry from the heart of the Lord Jesus in prayer just before the cross:
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world,
But that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one.
No, this has not registered yet upon the church: the world spirit.
I think you must have something to think about. During this very year, the past months of this very year, I have had a lot to do with governmental departments—government departments. My contacts with them have been in relation to interests of the Lord, means for the work of the Lord, interests of the Lord.
Do you know, well, I have known something about it in the past, but every place in touch with this world—government departments and the men at the head of them, the people—has met me with perversity, unreasonable frustration.
No reason indeed—every other reason why they should have helped. They could not tell me; I am quite sure they could not tell me why they did not. I have reasoned, argued, and pointed out that there is nothing, nothing at all, that would not be to their interest. Yet frustration—frustration every time, on no good ground at all.
A strange thing is that after four months of that, from one department to another, this department said, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, but you must go to so-and-so.” All right, over to so-and-so. “Oh yes, oh yes, but you must go to Sir So-and-so.” And like that all the time, never getting anywhere.
The strange thing is, in the end, when it was all finished, they on their own account put in the thing they said would never be allowed. But what a history of touching this world! Time-servers—men who were governed by something they did not know. Frustrated, frustrated.
This is what I mean by this world. It is not going to help us. Indeed, it is going to obstruct all the way along. And you see, in the Old Testament, it was these world interests, world forces, the world, that was all the time against Zion.
If you had asked them why, they would have had to sit down and think hard. “Why is it that we do not like that silly little city, those people? Who are they? What are they? Why do we not like them?” They would have had difficulty answering their own question.
But there is something sinister behind it all. There are sinister intelligences who know something. What do they know? They know what the elect are called for, and that in the long run Satan knows that that elect is going to be his undoing. He is going to lose his world power. His world title, “prince of this world,” is going to lose it all at the hands of this One in Zion, and through that corporate expression of His sovereignty, His lordship—that Zion to which we are come.
He knows. And if you are related to that, I am going to tell you that you are a marked man; you are a marked woman. Do not succumb to second causes and say, “It is my landlord; it is this and that and something else.” Oh, that may be the immediate vehicle, but there is something much more sinister than that behind it all.
Our wrestling is not with flesh and blood—landlords or anybody else—in the outward issue, committee, organization. No. Behind all this is the world spirit.
Remember Dr. Campbell Morgan, to whom I owe very much? In his lectures on the letter to the Corinthians, he simply said this: the whole reason for those conditions in Corinth, so shameful, so terrible, from which you turn in disgust and shame, was because the world spirit in Corinth had got into the church.
Well, there you are. The battle is with the world spirit. As in the old literally, so now in the new spiritually. I need not dwell upon 1 Corinthians, need I? World spirit—the wisdom of this world. The apostle is up against that. The conception of power in this world is up against that: the wisdom and power of God. Ah, Jesus Christ, he says, was crucified. All right, that is another line.
Let us go on. This is the final phase to which I want to get so definitely this morning. It is what Romans Chapter 8, the part we read, brings us to as the very sum of all that we are saying about the controversy of Zion: the tumult of the nations.
The tumult of the nations. Why do the nations rage? Tumult in the nations. Is there anybody here this morning who would not agree with me if I said the nations are in tumult just now? Was there ever a time when the world, almost in its entirety—if not in its entirety—was in tumult as it is now?
Surely, not only among the peoples and the nations, but convulsions in nature. Convulsions in nature. We have never had this like this, have we? All these convulsions—I do not know how much you are in touch with it, but somehow or other we know about it—the disruption of seasons, what not.
There is, and the best word for it is, convulsion in the nations. Romans says:
The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
By the groaning and moaning I have heard in these meetings, what is going on in the creation is bad enough. I am not sure—mark you, please forgive me—I am not sure whether the moanings and groanings in these meetings that I hear are we within ourselves groaning, but it is the same thing, maybe. However, that is a little humour by the way.
The whole creation groans and travails in pain together. There is an integration in the groan; it is integrated by this travail in the whole creation. And not only so, but we who have received the firstfruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves, waiting.
Creation is groaning inwardly and travailing. If we had a spiritual ear to hear, it is groaning for something. Subjected to vanity, not of its own will but by the will of Him who subjected it—what is it groaning for? What is this travail to bring forth? Something. What is it that is to be brought forth? Note the rest: the elect.
You come on that section, that great controversial section of Romans, about predestination or foreordination. Now, do not come to me about that. I am not having anything to do with these systems of predestination and the rest of it.
What I am saying is that there is such a thing as God’s elect, hidden in the nations. God knows; you do not know, I do not know. I cannot tell you who is elect and not elect. God knows. They are there, hidden.
Within such there is this period of travail, longing, groaning: “Oh, for this vanity, this not attaining, to be removed, and that we should emerge—emerge, come out, be born!” Travail should precipitate.
There we touch the heart of it. What are all these convulsions in the nations and in nature about, as we are moving toward the end of the dispensation? Why this tumult, this convulsion?
Because God has something here that is not wanted here by this world and its prince. It is something, you know, like Jonah in the great fish. The moment, the hour, came when the great fish said, “Oh, look here, what have I got inside? What is this that I have got?”
“It has given me the most awful indigestion. Oh, to get rid of this! I shall never be comfortable until I have precipitated this, because I have got it inside. Let me get rid of this. Let me get this out.” Of course, under the sovereignty of God, that great fish precipitated Jonah.
We think, when that fish turned back into the sea, it said, “Oh, now I feel all right. He is gone. He is gone.” Now, am I exaggerating, imagining? Come back with me to Israel in Egypt. What is happening? Convulsion after convulsion in Egypt—convulsion under the sovereignty of God, yes.
Steadily, gradually, persistently, Egypt is coming to the place: “Oh, will it not be a good day and a good thing when we get rid of these people?” You notice what happens at the end: they thrust them out. They precipitated them. They vomited them out.
I suppose, although their army pursued and sought to bring them back, many, if not all, in Egypt said, “Thank God they had not succeeded in bringing those people back again. We are rid of them, and it is very good for us.” No, that is not an interpretation.
There is a people in there, God’s elect, and sooner or later the place where they are will want to get rid of them. They are a menace. Amen.
But come over to Babylon. They are there—there. We have not very much to indicate it. We have Daniel and his three friends, and we must conclude that they were not the only ones. Then there is Ezekiel. There is a remnant in Babylon. God has a people.
He is doing something through seventy years, and then the seventy years are completed. What happens? The prophet Isaiah cries, Isaiah Chapter 43:
For your sake have I sent to Babylon,
And brought down all their nobles.
How did it happen? Belshazzar had his feast, did he not? A hand wrote on the wall:
Thy kingdom is divided.
That night Belshazzar was slain. Cyrus and his army stealthily, through the night, moved along the bed of the dried-up river, through into Babylon underground, and, to use the phrases of the prophet, had broken in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron. They came up in the middle of Babylon and slew Belshazzar.
“For your sake, for your sake, because of you, the elect, I have sent to Babylon and brought down all their nobles.” The people inside are a menace.
God’s object in all His activities—world convulsions, if you like—is this. I believe, dear friends, as we get near to the end, that the church is not merely to be raptured; the church is to be extricated. These convulsions are significant, very significant. The day of our emergence is near.
You remember the words of the Lord about the end: the tumult of nations, men’s hearts failing them for fear because of the terrible things which are coming upon the earth. But the literal Greek is not merely “the distress of nations”; it is, “No way out for the nations.”
No way out for the nations. Oh, my word, is that not true? Trying to find a way out—no way out. But then, when that time comes, lift up your heads, for your way out draweth nigh. There is a way out for the elect when there is this investment.
Well, you have got the teaching now, have you not? You have come to Zion. I wonder—I do not know. Of course, in the smaller world of the New Testament, it may have been true under those persecutions and martyrdoms. I think it was.
But the world is such a much bigger world now than then—this great world compared with the little world of the Roman Empire then. I wonder if there was ever a time in the history of this world when the saints were going through spiritual pressure more than they are now. Spiritual pressure.
I am not talking now only of outward persecution—something in depth. Even here, at this time, this week, children of God have said to me, “Never in my life have I known so much spiritual pressure.” It sometimes gets unfair. “I wonder how I am going to get through.”
Many of you may not know anything about that. If you do not, do not worry at the moment. But if you do know that, dear friends—and some of us do—we have never in our lives, and some of us have had a long life for the Lord, known such intense, almost naked, spiritual pressure.
At times it does seem to get to the point where we will break. We will break. Many dear children of God all over this world write to me on these terms about this. What does it mean? You have come to Zion. That is what it means.
Leave your theology of election and predestination; leave that. That will not get you anywhere, only into trouble and confusion. But take the fact that God has a people in this world, in the nations, hidden in the nations, whom He knows. “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” He knows them.
They are of the greatest interest to the devil. They are not? And they are involved in the controversy of Zion. If you like to leave the word “Zion,” if that creates mental pictures, leave it. Forget it. See the meaning, the spiritual meaning, of something that is standing for the testimony of Jesus, standing for the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ, standing for the true vocation of the church.
A people like that are not going to have an easy time. I am sorry to say that to you. But we have been told that, have we not, this week, very pointedly? Here it is.
You go back, and perhaps you will be troubled—difficulties, this kind of thing, family, business, what not. Then you say, “Well, what has happened to me? What has gone wrong?” It has all gone right. Oh, I wish we could believe it.
If what I am saying is true, it is the controversy of Zion: the conflict over something very precious to the Lord, because Zion was very precious to the Lord in history, was it not? Read the Psalms.
Something very precious to the Lord is being challenged and combated by all the forces of evil, nakedly and by every kind of means.
This is the explanation of the present convulsions. This prince of this world, this prince of this world, and this world’s spirit and system, knowingly or unknowingly, is sick of us.
The nations are closing their doors, driving out those who represent the Lord. The world is narrowing down its scope from what is of Jesus Christ. You are pressing in.
The explanation is the time—the time of the way out of the church. Of course, it is a false hope on the part of the world. It may have been true that the Egyptians were glad when those people were gone. They got rest for a time; it did not last for them. It was a transient thing.
Later history was a bit troublesome. Babylon may have felt a bit more comfortable when that remnant had gone back to Jerusalem. It did not last very long. “I have brought down all their nobles.” The Lord destroyed that one. Has He destroyed Egypt? Maybe.
It may be that when the church is gone, the prince of this world and his kingdom will say, “Well, there they have gone. They are out. We have it all to ourselves.” But if you notice the context, they do not have it to themselves very long. Then comes the judgment.
Judgment. This world is just waiting until the church is out. That time is drawing very near. I think I have said enough, have I?
I could say much more as to the aspects of this conflict, the means used by the enemy to try and undo this testimony, try and destroy Zion—which means you. One is confusion.
These evil powers and spirits are spirits of confusion. They always were. There never was a time, I venture to say, in the history of this world when there was more confusion—confusion in Christians. It is brought down to the least local expression of Zion: confusion.
It is true. You do not know what to do, very well how to answer, what it means. Here is confusion invading everything. It is on this confusion that spirits of corruption seek to defile—to defile. Corruption.
Spirits of deception. Was there ever a time when there was more deception everywhere? Deception. Well, I dare not stay with that. Here are things that are misleading, assuming a divine complexion, which are not of God. They will not last. They will have their day and cease to be.
The roots of their decease, of their disintegration, are in them—a positive fear in the semblance of good and right. Deception.
Divisions. No end to this, no end. For the Lord’s people there will be this attack: divide, get us apart somehow. Yes, in the church universal, split up; in the local churches, yes, division and division following division; in the family, and in the home.
We are in the battle. It is a terrible thing to say, but you know, however much there may be of love, and certainly that the Lord brought you and your wife together, or you and your husband together, very often there is a battle over your fellowship. Is that saying too much? That is true.
Misunderstanding comes in there to divide and isolate. Anywhere, anywhere, the spirits of division are at work today. The slogan of those forces is, “Divide and conquer.”
It depends on the ground on which you are standing. Standing on natural ground, on traditional ground, on theological ground, on interpretation ground—depending on any of those grounds, you will not hold together. You will not hold together.
If you are standing on the ground of Christ’s ownness and His lordship, that is the answer.
I close with this, then: Zion is very precious to God for the reason that His Son is His appointed King upon His Mount Zion. Ah, there is a great love of this testimony of Zion for His Son’s sake.
You and I must have His Son as the motivating power of all our way. Ye are come to Zion. That means you come to involvement in a great conflict. So help us God.
We just ask, Lord, that all the authority which has been given to Thee in heaven and on earth may cover, encompass, and embrace what has been said here this morning.
Thou knowest it is not easy. It took a battle even to get it out. But, Lord, we need to be protected. The word needs to be protected in our hearts. All the significance needs to be protected.
We trust Thee—trust Thee for all the mighty virtue of Thy blood to protect, and glorify Thy name. Amen.