See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they refused Him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from Him that warneth from heaven:
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God, with reverence and awe:
For our God is a consuming fire.
We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle.
For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.
For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come.
Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His name.
But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee that we can approach the throne of grace with holy boldness. It is because of the blood of our Lord Jesus. It is because of the new and living way that He has opened for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. And it is because He is our great High Priest.
So, Father, as we enter into Thy very presence this morning, we do ask that the light of Thy countenance will shine upon us and reveal Thy mind to us, that we may know how to serve Thee with reverence and fear. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The Book of Hebrews is written to the Hebrew believers in the first century to prepare them for the shaking that was soon coming upon the world.
We know that in A.D. 70, God allowed the city of Jerusalem and the temple in it to be completely destroyed. This was a great shaking to the Jewish people at that time. We cannot imagine what a great shaking it must have been to these people.
This was a great speaking to the Hebrew believers too, because they tended to cling to Moses as they clung to Christ. But it was God’s will that they should be completely freed from the bondage of Judaism into the perfect liberty of Christ. God wanted these people to make a break from Moses unto His Son, the Lord Jesus, and this shaking was to serve such a purpose.
Through the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, the Hebrew believers were finally being released from Judaism into Christ, because this is the will of God.
Now, brothers and sisters, we have mentioned again and again that this Book of Hebrews is most relevant to our days. Why? Because we also are in a time of great shaking. I think everybody can see that we live in an hour of shaking.
Not only earthly things are being shaken, but even heavenly, or spiritual, things are also being shaken. The reason why such shaking is taking place is that that which can be shaken will be removed, so that that which cannot be shaken may remain.
Anything that can be shaken shall be removed, because God has given us a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and He wants us to inherit that kingdom.
You know, when such shaking is happening around the world, people are frightened to death as they think of the things that are coming. But the Bible says that we who are the Lord’s, who have been forewarned, should raise our heads, for our redemption draweth nigh.
To the Hebrew believers of the first century, God prepared them for this great shaking. God gave them definite instructions by which they could stand through the time of shaking and stand before God. And we believe that the instructions given in this book are for us today.
Last Lord’s Day, we mentioned that there are two phrases in this book which serve as guideposts for us. One is within the veil. That is, God wants us to live within the veil.
This was a privilege that the people in Old Testament times never had. Once a year, the high priest, by the blood and the smoke of incense, entered into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for himself and for the people; and he had to retreat very quickly. The Holy Spirit indicated by this that the way into the holiest of all was not yet open.
But thank God, through the death of our Lord Jesus, the veil which separated the holiest from the holy place was rent. When our Lord Jesus died on the cross, at the very moment when He cried with a loud voice, “It is finished,” and gave His spirit to the Father, the veil within the temple was rent from top to bottom.
Because of that rent veil, the way into the holiest is open to us. We may enter in; and not only may we enter in, but it is the will of God that we should dwell within. To live within the veil is now our privilege.
God does not want us merely to be active in the outer court, helping people and preaching the gospel. This is what we will do, but God does not want us to live there. Neither does God want us to live in the holy place. There, as priests, we serve God, testify of Him, worship Him, and pray to Him; but this is not the place where we live.
God wants us to dwell, to make our home, to live constantly and continuously in His presence, because our life is hid with Christ in God. God is now our home. There we shall abide. There we shall gaze upon Him. We shall see the glory of the Lord and be transformed from glory to glory into the same image, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
So, dear brothers and sisters, how can we go through this time of great shaking and not be shaken off, but be able to stand before God holy and without blemish? The secret is that we must dwell within the veil. We must live day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, in the very presence of God.
This is something that our Lord Jesus has given to us. Again, let us say that it is not just for a privileged few; it is for every believer.
This morning, we would like to continue with the second guidepost: outside the camp. Within the veil, and outside the camp—these are two related matters.
In other words, if you live within the veil, then you will go outside the camp. To live within the veil is to live before God; to go outside the camp is to live before men.
Within the veil speaks of our hidden life in God, unseen by men but seen by God. Outside the camp is our life before the world as a witness and a testimony for God.
The more we live within the veil, the more we will go out unto Him outside the camp. The more we go out unto Him outside the camp, the more we will experience His closeness and nearness. These two things go together.
Within the veil gives us the strength to go outside the camp, and going outside the camp confirms that which we have seen and heard within the veil. So, brothers and sisters, it is not enough merely to live within the veil. If we do, then we must go forth unto Him outside the camp.
First of all, we would like to consider: what is the camp? If you read Hebrews 13, you will find the phrases “outside the camp” and “outside the gate,” as if the camp and the city are one and the same thing.
In a sense, that is true. When the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt and travelled through the wilderness, they were a camp—the camp of God. But after they arrived in the promised land, they dwelt in cities. Of course, the most well-known city was Jerusalem.
The camp and the city are one and the same thing in this sense: in the wilderness they camped, and in the promised land they lived in cities. A camp or a city speaks to us of a certain boundary, highly organized into a unit. It is not scattered; it is something organized into a unit.
Generally speaking, the world today is a camp or a city. In the beginning, God created the earth, and God gave the earth to man to live in, to enjoy, and to rule for Him. But unfortunately, man sinned against God.
Through the fall of man, not only did man fall under the rule of the archenemy of God and man, Satan, but through man Satan was able to usurp the earth. He took the earth from the hand of man and organized it into a cosmos—a system.
So the whole world today is a system. Whether it is political, economic, educational, or even religious, you find that the whole world today is a system—a world system organized by Satan as a unit.
Satan uses this world system to oppose God, to fight against God’s purpose, and to try to delay the coming of the kingdom of God. Dear brothers and sisters, this is what the world is: a camp, a city, represented by Babel.
Once we belonged to the world. We were part of it. We were under the dominion of the wicked one. But thank God, He has delivered us. He has taken us out of the world and has given us to His Son, our Lord Jesus.
So, brothers and sisters, what is our position today? We are in the world, but we are not of the world. It is not the will of God that we should go out of the world today. I often think how good it would be if, the moment you were saved, you were raptured. That would save so many problems! But this is not God’s will.
Even though He has saved us and taken us out of the world and given us to Christ, yet physically speaking, we are still in the world. But thank God, spiritually speaking, we are not of the world. In the world, but not of the world—just as our Lord Jesus, when He was on earth, was in the world but was not of the world.
This is our position. We do not belong to this world system, even though we are still here.
Because of this, we are exhorted not to love the world. In 1 John 2:15, it is said:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
What is the world? The world is presented to us in the form of things. The world has many things—beautiful things, attractive things—and the world offers these things to entice us, to draw out from us the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Brothers and sisters, God created this earth and all the things in it for man to enjoy. God created us with desires and needs, and these desires and needs are met by the things He created upon the earth.
There is nothing wrong with the desires or needs that God created in man. There is nothing wrong with the things that He created upon this earth to supply man’s needs. But today, you find that the enemy organizes the world, takes the things of the world, and tries to draw out lust from us.
What is lust? Lust is illegitimate desire. There is nothing wrong with desire. If you are hungry, you need to eat; there is nothing wrong with that. But when desire becomes inordinate, improper, illegitimate, and out of bounds, then it becomes lust.
The enemy uses the things of the world to draw out the lust of the flesh. We not only want to live, but we want to live luxuriously. We want to satisfy our sinful passions. Our eyes are never satisfied with the things that we see. We want to compare ourselves with our neighbours—the pride of life.
Dear brothers and sisters, these are the things of the world. If we fall into the trap, then we will pierce ourselves through with many sorrows, and the love of the Father will not be in us.
The Bible asks us not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
In the original, not being conformed to the world means that the world has its own mould. Do not try to squeeze yourself into that mould. Or, to put it in modern language, do not try to be fashionable.
The world has a kind of mould, a kind of fashion. Perhaps every spring or every winter you find a new fashion coming out. Probably it begins in Paris or New York—I do not know. Then the fashion begins to blow all over the world, and everybody wants to follow it, to squeeze himself into that mould.
Dear brothers and sisters, you are too big for that mould. You are too dignified for that mould. You are not to follow the world; the world is to follow you. Why should we squeeze ourselves into the mould of the world and try to be fashionable?
Now, I do not mean that we should be so outdated as to be antiques. But still, we should be moderate, and we should not try merely to be fashionable, squeezing ourselves into the mould of the world.
The Bible tells us that if we try to be friends with the world, friendship with the world will make us enemies of God. Brothers and sisters, we should not try to cultivate such friendship with the world as to compromise ourselves. If we do, we become enemies of God.
God has already delivered us out of this world. We do not belong there. Do not try to go back and belong. If we do, we lose our testimony.
But if you read the context of Hebrews, you will find that this is not primarily what the Holy Spirit is referring to when He speaks of the camp. The camp, or the city, there is not the world as such.
As believers, the world as a cosmos has already been settled with us. We are not of the world. The writer to the Hebrews, the Holy Spirit, is not so much concerned with the world as a camp or city. Rather, the burden concerning the camp from which we need to come forth, and the city from which we need to go out, is the religious world.
Let me read to you a comment by Andrew Murray:
The camp was not Rome with its heathenism, but Jerusalem with its religion and its revelation from God. There Jesus was rejected of the Jews because He condemned their self-righteousness and formality.
It is not the irreligious, but the religious world, from which we must go out—that is, from everything that is not in harmony with His cross and His spirit of self-sacrifice.
Let us go forth, not from one religious connection to another, which in time proves to have as much of the spirit of the camp. No, let us go forth unto Him, to close fellowship, to entire conformity to Him, to conformity to His meek and patient and loving spirit.
Let us not cast our reproach on those we leave behind, but let us bear His reproach.
Another comment says:
Many interpret this as though believers of any intelligence were justified in holding no fellowship with those assemblies of believers who have not as much light as themselves. This is certainly not the mind of Christ.
It is good to leave idolatry, such as that of Rome, and every worldly system calling itself Christian which is really only an association of unbelievers with which some believers are mixed up.
Another comment, by G. H. Lang, says:
The temple is the centre of earthly, ritualistic, legalistic religion. This religion is in the city. It is the religion of the world, part of its system. But God is not in the city or its temple.
Christ came to it as God came to it. He was cast out into the place of curse. All classes of the city combined to despise and reject Him: religious leaders, priests and rabbis; politicians and men of law; judges, police officers, learned scribes, and common people.
Neither the city nor the temple saw Him again. He is not there, and it is vain to seek Him there. It is at Calvary that He must first be met, and Calvary—the place of reproach—is the only drawing unto the kingdom, the house, the heart, and the glory of God.
In plain language, it means that he who wishes to have fellowship with God in His holy heaven must abandon every system of religion that is of law, ceremonies, self-effort, human devising, or sect authority, and must accept the reproach of dependence upon, fellowship with, and obedience to the Redeemer who suffered without the gate.
The camp was Judaism at the time of Christ and at the time of the first century before the destruction of the temple.
Judaism, in its beginning and origin, was from God. God gave to Moses the law, the pattern, and the sacrifices. It had its beginning in God. But gradually, through the hands of men, it became an ism—an organized system.
That which was revelation from above became the tradition of men. So, at the time of Christ, Judaism had become a religious system. At the top of the system was the high priest, and with him were the seventy—that is, the Sanhedrin, the governing body of Judaism. Then there were the Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, and rabbis.
Judaism was highly organized at the time of Christ. The high priest, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and the scribes were its governing body. They defined and explained everything in Judaism. They were the authorities. They controlled not only the bodies, but the consciences, of the Jewish people.
If anyone dared to contradict their interpretations and concepts, that person was excommunicated and put out of the commonwealth of Israel.
When Christ the Messiah came, He did not fit in with their interpretation of prophecy or with their concept of the Messiah. They expected a political Messiah who would deliver them out of the hand of Rome and make them the head of the nations.
But instead, they found that this Jesus of Nazareth preached about love and forgiveness. He had no interest in overthrowing the Roman yoke, but He was interested in delivering people from the yoke of sin.
He did not fit in with their concept. He did not fit in with their interpretation. He did not follow them. He did not belong to the system. He dared to challenge their system and their tradition. Because of this, they got rid of Him: “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!”
There was no place for the Messiah in the camp. Christ was cast out of the camp. They brought Him outside Jerusalem to the place called Golgotha, the place of a skull, and there they crucified Him with two robbers.
They did not know that this was a fulfilment of prophecy. It was a fulfilment of the type. In Leviticus 16, on the Day of Atonement—that great day of atonement—a bullock and a goat were offered.
The blood of the goat and the bullock was carried by the high priest behind the veil and sprinkled upon the mercy seat. There the high priest made atonement for himself and for the people once a year before God.
The daily sin offerings and trespass offerings were for personal matters. But on the Day of Atonement, the sacrifices were offered for the whole nation. The blood was brought behind the veil into the very presence of God to make atonement.
But the bodies of the sacrifices were not to be eaten by the priests or by those who offered them, as with the peace offerings. Neither were they to be burned completely upon the altar as with the burnt offering. The bodies of the goat and the bullock were carried outside the camp, and there they were burned into ashes.
The body was burned outside the camp; the blood was brought within the veil. Dear brothers and sisters, here you find how this was fulfilled in the life of our Lord Jesus.
They pushed Him out of the temple and out of the city to that place outside the camp—a place of curse and reproach. There they crucified Him. His body was broken and offered, but thank God, His blood was brought behind the veil to atone for the sins of the world. He suffered without the gate that He might sanctify the people.
Why must the goat be burned outside the camp while the blood was brought within the veil? Because the camp was defiled.
You remember Exodus 32. When Moses was on the top of the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel below in the plain worshipped the golden calf. God sent Moses down. When Moses saw the scene, he broke the two tablets of the law because they had broken the law.
He ground the golden calf into powder, cast it upon the water, and caused all the children of Israel to drink of it—to drink of their own sin. Then, in Exodus 32, Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, “Whoso is on the Lord’s side, let him come unto me.”
Only the tribe of Levi came out of the camp to join Moses. Moses ordered them to go through the camp and slay those who had committed this idolatry, whether man or woman, relatives or neighbours, in order to sanctify themselves.
Then, in Exodus 33, something happened. Moses took his own tent and removed it outside the camp. He took his tent outside the camp and called it the tent of meeting.
Whenever people wanted to inquire of the Lord, they went outside the camp to the tent of meeting. When Moses went out to the tent, the pillar of cloud descended upon it. The people saw it and worshipped.
Because the camp was defiled, Moses had to remove his tent outside of it. God’s glory came upon that tent.
Brothers and sisters, Christ, in order to sanctify us, could not do this work within the camp. Judaism was supposed to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, yet He was not received. It was defiled. So He had to do the work of redemption outside the gate.
There He was crucified. He offered His blood in the very heaven, in the very presence of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Outside the camp.
That is the reason why the Bible says, “Let us go forth unto Him without the camp.” He is not in the camp; He is outside. Therefore, anyone who wants to seek Him has to go outside the camp to seek Him.
In the Book of Acts, you find in Stephen’s defence in Acts 7—or we may say in Stephen’s testimony—that he was telling the people the same thing: Jerusalem and the temple, God is no longer there. You have to go out to meet the Lord.
Judaism as a camp had not only rejected Christ; it had persecuted those who followed Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, how does this apply to us today? Christianity has its origin from heaven. It began as a living revelation. It is a living faith. It is like a mustard seed.
Our Lord says that if your faith is like a mustard seed—the mustard seed being the smallest of all seeds—there is life there. This thing comes from above.
When Peter acknowledged our Lord Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Christ said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven.” It is a living faith.
After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and after the day of Pentecost, the church had its beginning. Within thirty years, the gospel was preached throughout the world known at that time. At the end of the Book of Acts, Paul was in Rome, the centre of that world.
The Roman Empire used its military and political power, trying to wipe out Christianity; but the Roman Empire was wiped out. Christ and His followers conquered, not by the sword, but by love.
But unfortunately, this mustard seed, as it grew—and it should grow—should have remained a vegetable, because this is the will of God. The church of God should remain in this world as something small and despised in the eyes of men.
But through the hands of men, especially beginning in the fourth century, men began to organize the living faith and to organize the revelation from above. Gradually, they reduced it into an organization, an institution powerful in this world—a tradition instead of revelation, a system instead of living faith.
This mustard seed grew abnormally into a big tree, out of its kind and out of God’s order. All the birds of the air came and lodged in it. If you read the first parable in Matthew 13, you know that these birds represent the wicked one.
Instead of becoming a habitation of the holy God, it became the roosting place of all wickedness.
In the beginning, Christianity was like three measures of meal, to be offered to God as a meal offering. But then a woman came and put leaven in it. Leaven in the Scriptures speaks of wicked doctrines and wicked manners.
The leaven puffed up the three measures of meal, making it palatable to human taste but unfit to be offered to God. This is how Christianity has become. Just like Judaism, it had its beginning in heaven, in God, but now it has become an earthly, human religious system.
And what happened to the system? They pushed Christ out of the camp.
If you read church history—and I do not have the time to do it—you will find that during the first three centuries the world as a cosmos, as a system, opposed Christ and persecuted His followers.
The Roman Empire persecuted the Christians. It is well worth reading how Christians died—people like Polycarp and many others who gave their lives for Christ. The Roman Empire tried to wipe out Christianity, burning Christians, casting them to lions, and killing them.
But the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the gospel, and the gospel spread.
From the fourth century onward, Christianity became a religious system, part of the world. And as it became a religious system and part of the world, it began again to persecute those who wanted to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
It is no surprise for the world to persecute Christians. But for the religious Christian world to persecute Christians is surprising. Yet it is a fact.
Andrew Murray said:
There is perhaps no greater need in our day than that God shall open the eyes of His people to the solemn truth that the so-called Christian world is the very same world that rejected Christ. We are to bear to it the same relation He did.
In church history, when you come to the sixth century, you find that the Roman Catholic system was firmly established. Do you want to know how the Roman Catholic system persecuted the true believers of Christ? Let me read you just a little.
In the middle of the seventh century, the Paulicians existed in the area of Mesopotamia. Perhaps they were so called because they placed much emphasis upon the writings of Paul. They had particular respect for the authority of the Bible and advocated a life of simplicity.
They were a devout and earnest people and bore a strong witness against the unsavoury practices of the Catholic Church. Their enemies testified against them, but their lives testified for the truth.
The Paulicians accepted no central authority to rule over the sacred assemblies. The local churches looked to God as their Head. They were built up and strengthened spiritually by teachers who moved from place to place to minister in their midst. Their spiritual unity lay in a living connection with their Head, Christ.
They were people who wanted to follow the Lamb whithersoever He went. But what happened? Not only were their leaders killed, but in the middle of the ninth century, under the notorious persecution of the Empress Theodora, within the space of five years, one hundred thousand persons met their death.
The Catholic system used the world to kill these followers of Jesus because they did not belong to the camp.
In the middle of the eighth century, there were the Bogomils. They lived in the Balkan Peninsula, and Bogomil simply means “friends of God.” They preached love and grace from the gospel and exhibited Christian virtues in their lives.
Instead of ornate church buildings with all the attendant trappings, the believers met within their own houses. The Scriptural truth of the priesthood of all believers was recognized. The congregations were guided by a plurality of elders and edified through the teaching of ministering brothers. The poor and needy among the churches were helped according to the law of love in Christ.
The spread of these friends of God constituted an increasing threat to the Roman Church, and Rome was not inactive in seeking to stem the tide of this meek and powerful opposition. The King of Hungary was ordered to invade Bosnia, and the country was ravaged by war for years.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Cathars, also known as the Albigenses, fiercely denounced the prevalent ecclesiastical errors of the day and led people to a new life through the preaching of the Scriptures.
The Waldenses were characterized by their marked reverence for the Scriptures, in which they found their rule of daily living. The knowledge of Christ dwelling within by the Spirit was to them a truth of paramount importance.
They allowed liberty in Scripture interpretation so long as the basic necessity of the interpretation of Christ was not denied. Salvation was through faith, and the Roman Church had authority neither to open nor to close the door to God’s grace. The proof of salvation was holiness of life. Baptism was a testimony to faith in Christ, and the Lord’s Supper was a remembrance of His sacrifice.
But then, in 1348, under Charles IV, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a determined effort was instituted to wipe out the Christian congregations. The Inquisition was brought into effect with diabolical efficiency.
How that religious system called Christian persecuted those who belonged to Christ, who wanted to follow Christ all the way, because they did not belong to the camp.
Do you think this happened only with the Roman Catholic system? No.
Thank God for the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Thank God for Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and these people. Through a hard struggle, they recovered justification by faith and opened the Bible.
But unfortunately, these reformers did not go far enough. In other words, they stopped short of God’s full purpose. Even though they came out from under the Roman yoke, they came under different states or countries and formed national churches.
These Protestant churches, in the beginning, were a move of God. But then men came in, organized them, and they became state churches. Protestantism is no better than Catholicism when it becomes a system.
If you read church history, you will find that even at the time of the Reformation, the reformers themselves—who had been persecuted by the Roman Catholic system—began in turn to persecute those who wanted to follow the Lord all the way.
We know more about these things today than before because much hidden history has been recovered. Take, for example, the Anabaptists. The term is actually a very general and vague one. It does not refer to one particular group. Anabaptist simply means “those who baptize again.”
Why were they called Anabaptists? During the Reformation, even people like Martin Luther still believed in infant baptism. But there were some people who were not involved in either Catholicism or Protestantism. They were freed from the bondage of both and were able to go into the Word of God with such intensity that they began to see that baptism is believers’ baptism.
They could not find infant baptism in the Word of God. Yet they had all been baptized in the Roman system or in Protestant churches such as those in England. So when they began to follow the Lord and be baptized in water, they were called Anabaptists—those who baptize again. But actually, they were being baptized for the first time.
These people refused to call themselves by any name but Christians or brothers. They admitted to fellowship only those who had experienced regeneration through faith in Christ.
But how they were persecuted, even by the reformers! Killed, burned—hundreds and hundreds drowned. They said, “All right, you want to be baptized? We will baptize you.” They tied stones around their necks and drowned them—men, women, and infants, hundreds and hundreds of them.
This happened not only at the time of the Reformation. If you read church history, you find the Puritans in England—people who refused to take the oath of loyalty to the king because the king was supposed to be head of the church. They were dissenters and nonconformists, and how they were persecuted!
John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison. He was in prison for twelve years.
In the eighteenth century, thank God for Count Zinzendorf. He opened his estate to receive the Moravians who were persecuted because of their faith by the religious Christian world. There began the Moravian mission.
Think of John Wesley and George Whitefield. God used them, but they were not allowed to preach in the so-called churches. Finally, they preached in church graveyards.
And it continues on and on and on, up to our time. How true believers of Christ in China were persecuted, often more by the so-called Christian world than by the secular world. It is true that the Communist government persecuted them, but it was the organization used by the Communists—the so-called Christian organization—that carried out the persecution.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is no place for Christ in the camp. He is not there. That is the reason why the Word says, “Therefore let us go forth unto Him without the camp.”
If you want to follow the Lord, you have to go forth outside the camp unto Him.
Brothers and sisters, we need to live within the veil, but at the same time we have to go outside the camp. Why?
What do you have outside the camp? If you read the Old Testament, you find that the people cast outside the camp were lepers. See Leviticus 13. People taken outside the camp to be killed were blasphemers. See Leviticus 24. People taken outside the camp were Sabbath-breakers. See Numbers 15.
It is a place of curse and reproach. That is the place into which they cast our Christ.
Therefore, let us go forth unto Him. The only attraction outside the camp is Him, because He is there. Where He is, there we need to be. That is the very heart of it.
What is the kind of life outside the camp? First of all, it is a life of separation. We need to be separated from the world—from the world as a system, even if it is religious.
Only through such separation are we able to be joined completely with the Lord. Separation and unity are not contradictory. Separation is unto unity.
You find this in John 17. The Lord said, “They are not of the world.” “I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified.” Why? That they may be one, even as He and the Father are one.
Dear brothers and sisters, if we are not separated from the world, we will not be able to be united into one.
It is a life of separation. It is a life of reproach. It is the way of the cross. We have to bear His reproach. We have to take up the cross and follow Him. We will be misunderstood. We will be labelled. We will be accused. But that is the place where He is.
It is a life of faith, because we do not have an abiding city here. We are looking for that city which hath foundations. We acknowledge ourselves as strangers and sojourners upon this earth. We do not expect anything on this earth; our expectation is in Him.
It is a life of faith. We do not walk by sight, but by faith.
Thank God, it is a life of worship. Why? Because it is said, “Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually.”
You would think that people in the camp, with everything, living a comfortable and unchallenged life and welcomed by everybody, would be able to offer praises unto God. But, strange to say, it is those who are outside the camp who are able to offer the sacrifice of praise through Christ Jesus.
What is the sacrifice of praise? A sacrifice is something that costs you something. It hurts you, in a sense. Brothers and sisters, how much praise unto God is only lip service? There is no sacrifice involved. It is easy just to open your mouth and praise the Lord; it does not cost you anything.
That is not called the sacrifice of praise. The sacrifice of praise costs you something. Because you follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes, because you bear His reproach, it costs you something. Out of the sacrifice, praises ascend unto God. That is the sacrifice of praise.
That kind of praise satisfies God’s heart. Those who are outside the camp live a life of worship.
Another thing: “But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
Do you think it is those who live in prosperity, comfort, and popularity who give? No, those who give are often those who suffer.
Think of the Macedonian believers. Oh, how they gave—not out of their abundance, but out of their poverty. Because they loved God so much, they gave themselves to God, and they wanted to have a part in the grace of giving.
But the Corinthians had to be urged. Brothers and sisters, those who are outside the camp are those who take care of the poor, think of the needy, and are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to supply others.
This is the life we are expected to live in this day of great shaking, dear brothers and sisters.
If we live within the veil and go forth outside the camp, we will be kept by the Lord through the great shaking and be able to stand before His presence holy and without blemish.
O Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee for giving us instructions, telling us how we should live in a time of great shaking.
Our Father, we do pray that, by the work of the Holy Spirit, we may be a people who live within the veil in heaven and go outside the camp here below.
We pray, O Lord, that these may be the characteristics of our life on earth, to the glory of Thy name. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.