We will read three or four brief passages of Scripture, two of which are in the prophecies of Ezekiel.
And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone;
and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.
It shall be eighteen thousand reeds round about: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.
Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say,
in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will;
to the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ:
in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,—in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of His glory.
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
We are going, dear friends, at this time to be occupied with a matter which so clearly springs into light as we read such passages as those which have just been before us: the great governing reality of divine purpose.
Now, last time together, at Easter, we were occupied with the horizon of Christ: Christ, the horizon of all things.
Now we follow with what is the complement of that: the horizon of divine purpose. In saying that, of course, we do not set aside Christ as being the horizon of all things, but only bring alongside of Him that which is the complement of Himself—the purpose which God has purposed in Him.
The Person and the purpose are complementary. They make one whole. The purpose is the extension of the Person. The Person is explained and amplified in the purpose. These two go together.
May I impose upon this an earnest emphasis? I am very heavily burdened with a sense of the importance of this word for our time. I think I could say that I have never been more conscious of being burdened with a message for the hour.
I say that only to draw your attention, with a great deal of humility, to the essential importance of our meditation. What I have on my heart to say, I trust, will be an inspiration. I trust that it will be an encouragement and an incentive. I trust that it will be instructive. But I know that it is going to be challenging.
It may be correction. It may be reproof. It may cause some offence. But it has got to be said.
We have read from Ezekiel. We are going to be occupied very much with Ezekiel’s message. The word of the Lord to Ezekiel in commissioning him was, “Son of man, speak unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.”
“Speak unto them, son of man.” I trust that the second part is quite unnecessary here. There will be no forbearing to hear. We are here, in the main, because we want to hear, whatever it means.
So I ask you: come with me into this most serious and important of all considerations—the horizon of divine purpose.
In the Scriptures which we have just read, you will have noticed that they resolve themselves into two couplets. In Ezekiel, at the beginning, there is the throne and the Man upon it above. That is the beginning: the throne and its Occupant.
The last word in those prophecies, in that wonderful book, is indeed the end: “The Lord is there.” Everything that comes between the beginning and the end is directed toward, moving toward, that end.
That is the end of all things—not only the end of Ezekiel’s prophecies, but the end of all the content of Ezekiel. The last thing that will be said is, “The Lord is there.”
That is the ultimate expression of that throne. That is the triumph of that throne. That is just what the throne is for: to secure for the Lord a place of eternal habitation, in satisfaction, in joy, and in peace, under the throne.
Everything has that in view, as Ezekiel says: “The Lord is there.” Where? Well, you know the closing chapters are occupied with the house and with the kingdom. The New Testament is occupied with the end: the house and the kingdom, and the Lord is there.
And, as I have said, there is the issue. All the activities and sufferings, and all that is under that throne, are moving toward that end. There is a great deal under that throne, as this extensive book—its forty-eight chapters—makes perfectly clear. A great deal indeed; but one thing explains it and governs everything: “The Lord is there.”
Dear friends, if you and I want an interpretation—the divine interpretation—of everything in our history and experience, and in this world, the answer is there: a throne above is governing, and governing toward one end.
And that is, with all that is contrary to it vanquished and expelled, “The Lord is there.” The answer to every challenge; the answer to everything that seeks to put Him out, or deny Him a place in you, in me, in His Church, in the world—the answer is, at last, in spite of everything, “The Lord is there.”
We have often said here that at last some of us will look at one another and say, “Well, we are here. Never thought we would get here; or, at times, we thought we would never get here.” That is the glory. There are many questions along the way, but something more than that is this: “The Lord is here.”
For if you and I have had our progress toward glory challenged, defeated, assailed by many a conflict and many a doubt—“What about the Lord?”—and that proves that all the universe seems to have been set against that throne, it is so today. It is the explanation of everything that is going on.
There is a hand against that throne. There is a mighty power against that throne. The Lord is being continually challenged in your heart, in my heart, in our minds as Christians, and in the Church. His place is being disputed.
If He can be displaced, then hell will displace Him and leave no stone unturned to do it. If He can be kept from coming into His ultimate place, then there is everything in this universe to make it so.
Neither He nor we are going to be there without the greatest, the most immense victory in this universe that ever has been.
And to shout at the end of all this, those of you who are familiar with the book of Ezekiel know what a lot is in it. What a lot the Lord has to overcome in His people, with His people, and in the kingdoms of this world.
You get through it all—every incident and detail—and then, right as the last word: “The Lord is there.” That is no small thing. It is the triumph of the throne which is set above at the beginning.
You will notice that in the beginning it is individual: that Man on the throne. We may say, in the light of this whole book, a rather lonely figure on the throne—just One.
When you get to the end of the book, you have a people. You have a people, a kingdom, a whole corporate company, in glory with Him, in association with Him. That is the triumph of the throne.
Now you turn to the so-called letter to the Ephesians. You wonder why I put it like that. Perhaps some of you know, because you are scholars in the Word. It was not specifically sent to Ephesus; it was a circular letter.
You read at the end of the letter to the Colossians that Paul refers to two circular letters which he wanted to be read in the churches. Undoubtedly this is one of them.
I say that now not just to make a technical point, because there is a very vital point here. This message is to the churches. All that is here is to the churches, and the local churches are about to hear all about this and come into line with it. We reserve that for presently.
In what is called the letter to the Ephesians—we have to give it some title—we begin in chapter one with the exalted One: God “raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority.”
Here is the throne again: the Man upon it above. When you get to the end of this matchless letter—or never in all the writing under the Spirit of God has there been anything to equal this document—you get to the end, and that individual is with His Church, and His Church with Him in God.
Beginning individually, ending corporately. The end is the issue and triumph of that throne. The Church is to come there with Him in glory. That is quite clear, is it not, in these two books?
That common factor justifies our bringing together Ezekiel and Ephesians. They are both documents of the throne and this mighty issue: the place where the Lord is, and is in fulness of satisfaction. “The Lord is there.”
Now there are two things which arise very clearly and stand out in clear relief in this connection. One is that there is, over all things and in all things, a governing purpose.
You are so familiar with such language, but perhaps it fails to strike you. Are we not sometimes tempted, even as Christians, to wonder whether there is a purpose in all this that is happening to us, that we are going through? Where is the purpose in it? So often it seems purposeless.
I put it in another way, or use another word: is there a meaning attached to all this that is going on? In our own experience, in the experience of companies of the Lord’s people, in the experience of the Church, in all that is happening in the world—is there not a meaning? Is there not a purpose?
Now, here you have the categorical statement that He “worketh all things after the counsel of His will.” And you will notice that in that presenting of the Man on the throne, it is in every realm: heaven and earth, the things celestial, the things mundane, and the things satanic. All are working to a purpose.
Make no mistake about it. We have got to get hold of this, or we shall be in complete confusion, bewilderment, and weakness. Unless we are sure on this one thing—that there is a meaning in what is happening, that there is a purpose to which that throne is working in all things—we shall be overwhelmed.
“According to His purpose”—that is the thing under which we are going to be gathered, I think, mainly in these days: the all-governing purpose.
The second thing that comes so clearly to light in these two books, and of course everywhere else, but here it stands out so conspicuously, is the mighty energy of the Spirit of God.
No one who has read the prophecies of Ezekiel has failed to see that here is a book of the energies of the Spirit of God. We shall come back to that, of course, a great deal.
When you take up this letter to the Ephesians, you meet the Holy Spirit. You meet Him with energy: “Strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man.”
A fragment, but a mighty fragment. Here we are, then, in the presence of these energies of the Spirit of God in relation to this all-governing purpose.
Of course, they are here in two connections. In Ezekiel, we have Israel: the historical, earthly, and temporal side of this great truth of purpose and Holy Spirit energy.
In Ephesians, it is the Church, not Israel; and here it is within the realm, not of the historical, earthly, and temporal, but the eternal—the heavenly, spiritual realm.
But although that may be true—two realms, earthly and heavenly—the principle is the same. The truth is identical. A great purpose is in view, and the Spirit of God is committed with all His energy to realize that divine purpose.
The end, with all that it means, is just stated in the Hebrew name, Jehovah-shammah: “The Lord is there.” Oh, how comprehensive that is. What a lot there is in that.
Now, in both cases—Israel and the Church—there is this common thing: they were both chosen by God for one purpose, and that purpose is the testimony of God in this universe.
Israel was chosen for that. The Church is chosen for that. And both Israel and the Church are dealt with by God in the light of that one inclusive purpose.
Look at God’s dealings with Israel: many-sided dealings, long, patiently drawn-out dealings. All His dealings with Israel were in the light of the purpose for which Israel was chosen: the testimony of God in this world.
Enlarge the horizon, and you see that the Church is chosen not as a thing of time and the earth, but chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, and for this identical purpose: the testimony of God in this universe.
What are God’s dealings with us—you, with me, with His people, with His Church? What is it? To fail to recognize it, truly to fail to see it, is to miss the way entirely, and wonder, as Israel wondered.
What is the Lord doing with you, with me? Why is He dealing with us as He is? By all these dealings of God with us, at last, He would have us individually and together with all others who form that holy sanctuary as a place where He can be without hindrance, without any cloud or shadow.
Where it can be said of you, of me, and of all believers: “The Lord is there.” The Lord is there.
And, dear friends, if we have the most simple, fragmentary experience of that, what a blessing. Is it not true that our one coveting, our longing and yearning, is the presence of the Lord?
The presence of the Lord. We set that before us as the very first thought when we come together. We know that everything depends upon that. But if that is realized, everything is all right.
If only we, in our individual Christian lives, know the Lord is with us, what a lot we can stand up to and go through.
And to have that, not as something periodic, occasional, coming and going in consciousness, but in fulness—an everlasting fulness, without any variation at all—an everlasting full consciousness of the presence of the Lord and no other presence: surely that is the end to which our hearts turn.
What is true day by day is the object of our hearts forever: that the Lord may be present—“The Lord is there.”
In a company of the Lord’s people, people can say, “Well, this or that,” whatever they have to say; but if you meet the Lord there, the Lord is there. That is the answer to everything. What more do you want? Without that, have everything, and you have nothing.
Yes, He is dealing with us in this way to this end, as with this one, so with His Church and His members.
This is the divine revelation: this, with all that it demands, and all the means and methods that the Lord has obtained for realizing it.
This, dear friends, is a mystery which has been revealed. This is the purpose which He has purposed in Christ Jesus, to gather together all things in Him.
This is the revelation which has come in this dispensation—the purpose of the ages, as it is called here, the purpose of the ages.
And I do stress the line that it is a revelation. I could enlarge upon it with much detail within this letter: “The eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling.”
What is it? You will ask, put it down in a few words: what is the hope of His calling? What would you answer?
“The riches of His inheritance in the saints.” What would you want? The riches of His inheritance in the saints. But what are they? What is His wealth of inheritance in the Church?
“What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe?” What is it? What does it mean? Is it strength? Is it concrete and positive?
The answer is this: this is the revelation of what God is doing and going to have at last. There is nothing mystical about this. The Holy Spirit is committed with all His divine energy to this thing, and He is working it out in you and in me, upon you and in me.
This is the revelation: the eternal purpose. Now, we have that revelation embodied and encased in this volume. It is there for the Holy Spirit to reveal to our hearts, if we are men and women of the Spirit.
You notice what we read: having believed, “ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance.”
For the moment, the point I place upon that is this—and this is where we must take notice, where we may not be quite so clear. Here, both in the case of Israel and in the history of the Church, one thing does come to light and become very evident.
It is this: there is no substitute for light once given by God.
There is no substitute for light that God has given. Unfaithfulness to light given results inevitably and unavoidably in confusion, in weakness, in bondage, in limitation, and in the suspense of everything—in a state of tentativeness.
All these marked the features in Israel’s case. They had the revelation. The light was given. And they were unfaithful to what God had made known as the purpose for which they had been chosen.
Unfaithful to the light. The result? A nation in confusion—complete confusion. The whole history of Israel was confusion. Go back to its beginning: Babel—confusion.
Because the light that God had given was lost, disobeyed, set aside.
Weakness? Are they in weakness in Babylon, this nation? No doubt about it. They have no strength. They can just do nothing there. They are helpless and impotent.
Are they in bondage? No question about that. Is there limitation? Yes. And obviously one thing that is in the air all the time is just this tentativeness, suspense of everything.
Waiting for something, waiting for something—day after day, month after month, year after year—waiting, waiting, in a state of suspense. Longing, yes; crying, yes. Everything is held up. Everything is suspended. The light has gone.
Is it not impressive, when the prophet Isaiah sees the day when all this is going to be changed, when they are coming back, that he cries, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come”? That is the way back. That is the way out of all these conditions.
The conditions are the result of unfaithfulness to light, and there is no substitute for light. Lay that down. No, sir. Whatever you may try to bring in, build up, arrange, or order, if there has been unfaithfulness to the revelation of God, there is no substitute.
Someone has said that the Church in the past century was power-conscious; the Church in the twentieth century is problem-conscious.
Never was a truer word spoken. I certainly cannot improve on that, neither would I try; but I could paraphrase it by saying that the Church in the first century was purpose-conscious, and the Church in the twentieth century is perplexity-conscious.
Is not that true? Power-conscious; purpose-conscious; problem- and perplexity-conscious. That is where we are in the latter, so largely.
You challenge it: are we power-conscious? How much truth and teaching and what not we have, but our consciousness is of lack of power—real lack of power.
How conscious we are of problem and perplexity rather than of purpose.
When anything becomes something in itself—teaching, doctrine, practice—it turns in a circle, going around and around and around, rather than being a means leading to a great divine end bigger than itself, bigger than the teaching, than the doctrine, than the practice, than everything: the great end to which it is intended to lead.
Then that happens. Then they are in Babylon. Then everything comes into straitness and limitation, powerlessness, rather than a purpose that carries us from week to week with a mighty prospect.
We are going to look at this matter much more closely as we go on: this matter of the distinctiveness of testimony.
The distinctiveness of testimony demanded by God is unmistakable when you read the Bible. If there is one thing that the Bible says, and says abundantly, it is that mixture is an abomination to God.
He has prescribed against it in the old law: no mixture. Symbolic laws, in which spiritual principles are embodied.
Have you noticed? It is just this—just this—that was the battleground all the time. Balaam was unable to curse. He said, “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed?” But by seduction, mixture came into Israel; and the worst curse Balaam could pronounce came upon the people.
It was a terrible thing, ever threatening. Even with the remnant that came back, you read the book of Nehemiah—all that wonderful recovery work in that book—but you have not got through before you are up against this thing again.
The enemy on the outside—they were kept at bay. They could do nothing while the people were pure in heart, inside, with a single eye and a single motive.
No enemy on the outside could do anything. But the great enemy behind all enemies, evidently not going to make any headway from the outside, said, “I must get on the inside.” And that is what he did.
He got mixture on the inside. You know, a new form of paralysis started up then—ah, more serious matters.
Mixed motives, mixed ideas, mixed views, mixed purposes inside, and you have gone to pieces. Confusion.
More serious than in the Old Testament, one hesitates to be censorious or critical, but I think we shall not depart from the truth if we say that the weakness, tentativeness, frustration, and confusion amongst the Lord’s own people in our time may be traced very largely to this: lack of a singleness of motive.
Put it the other way: mixture. “The mixed multitude” murmured, it says of old. The mixed multitude.
Division on the inside—disastrous, most disastrous. God demands what He calls purity; that is, singleness of mind, of heart, of purpose. Singleness of mind. No mixture.
The Bible carries us from the house of Israel. The word that is frequently used concerning Israel by the Lord Himself is that word “peculiar”: “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me.” “The Lord hath chosen you to be a peculiar people.”
The Hebrew word is segullah: an enclosure, an enclosure. Now, you put up a fence, an enclosure, because that inside is peculiarly yours—no one else’s. That which is inside is peculiarly valuable. You want to protect it, keep it, care for it, guard it.
So you put up an enclosure because of its value, its preciousness, and its purpose. At work, they are a peculiar and enclosed people—a shut-off people—for Me, My peculiar treasure, separated unto Me, with a hedge around them for a purpose: to be Mine in a peculiar way.
You have the same word in the New Testament. You know, in Titus and in 1 Peter, that word “peculiar” is used again, quoted from the Old Testament.
But the Greek word is also interesting. It means something that has been acquired as out of the ordinary—something out of the ordinary which has been acquired, secured unto the Lord: a peculiar people, apart.
That is the Lord’s idea of His people. Israel was distinct from all the peoples of the earth because of a distinct purpose for which she was chosen: a distinctive testimony in this world.
In the New Testament, Christians became known as the people of the Way. The world outside called them that, gave them that name: the people of the Way. It evidently recognized that they were different.
They were different. Their way was different. Their way of life—everything with them—was different. People of the Way: a single way, a clearly defined way.
Ah, the way of a specific testimony of God in this universe.
The whole work of the Hebrew prophets related to this one thing. The books of the prophets all focus upon this thing: defilement, corruption, mixture has come in. The prophets are raised up to put it away.
The whole work for which they gave themselves, wore themselves out, suffered, and sometimes died, was to get this people back onto its pure ground, for this pure testimony to God in this world.
What we call the major prophets bring into view four of the major characteristics of God. I am not going to tell you what they are; you can look at it. Four major prophets. The twelve called minor are simply so called because they are packed into a smaller compass, not because they are less important.
Look again, and you will find that every one of them has some particular feature of God with which He is concerned.
They all together—the four and the twelve—combine to focus upon this one thing: absolute purity for the sake of an effective testimony for God in this world.
Theirs was a challenge to recover the distinctiveness of testimony for which they were called.
Now, distinctiveness of testimony, lest you misunderstand or misinterpret, does not mean some testimony distinct from the whole purpose of God. It does not. The very word or phrase “distinctiveness of testimony” only arises when the general thing is in dispute. God is seeking to recover something He must have.
It is not something particular and peculiar as apart from all the rest that God is doing. It is the heart of everything of God.
Distinctiveness of testimony is not some teaching, some form of practice, some method of procedure. It certainly is not an exclusiveness of position.
It is clear, clear expression of the life of the Spirit of God amongst His people.
Well, that river, crystal clear, flowing in holiness—the river of life, where the righteousness is, though now imperfect, in some large degree limited, yet leading toward the ultimate fulness: “The Lord is there.” That is the testimony.
None of us, with all our generosity and magnanimity and largeness of heart, will say that that is the general characteristic amongst the Lord’s people: “The Lord is there.”
Well, distinctiveness of testimony is just that: “The Lord is there.” There is no mistake about it.
Well now, dear friends, I must break off there for the time being. We will come back later, the Lord willing, to some of the major factors in this distinctiveness of testimony.
Then we close for the present by reminding you that the whole battle rages around this one thing: the impact of the presence of the Lord.
Oh, if it does come about that the Lord’s presence is not felt, sensed, recognized, and met, whatever else there may be, the testimony has gone—has gone.
Anything else being met, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent, cannot make up for it. Only one thing: “The Lord is there.”
We have got to pray that from the heart personally. I solemnly lay it upon myself; you do it. One thing is so clear: we must labour and pray and suffer, and pour ourselves out, if need be, not to have something, however good, but that the Lord’s presence is the pre-eminent thing where we are gathered together, where we are.
Remember, this is the great triumph over the universal breakdown.
Oh yes, failure—the very feature of the Fall, the great fall at the beginning—the mark of the satanic triumph then, was a loss of distinctiveness everywhere. It struck into man; he became something mixed. It struck into the earth; it became something mixed.
Two things working against each other in man, in nature. We know how universal that is: mixture and contradiction, loss of distinctiveness—the mark of satanic interference. It is always like that.
And I do not like, individually, if there is a loss of distinctiveness of testimony, that is the finger of Satan in our life, even in our company as the Lord’s people. There is the loss of this.
If all who are spiritual are not sensitive to say, “The Lord is there,” if that is not true, then Satan has done the thing which he ever set out to do from the beginning.
And it is a strong word. I said it may cause offence. Well, let it, if necessary; but we need in these days, dear friends, to get onto ground where God is with us—God is with us.
We need to get onto the line of the mighty energies of the Holy Spirit. That is our only hope, our only hope: the way of His presence, the way of His pre-eminence, the way of clear-cut distinctiveness of life.