Matthew 16:18.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for gathering us together unto Thy name. We thank Thee for Thy table. We thank Thee for what Thou hast done for us, and we thank Thee that we can continue in Thy presence and hear Thy word.
Dear Lord, do speak to us. Open our hearts, open our understanding, and bring us into the reality of Thy word, that Thy name may be glorified. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Thank God for gathering us together yesterday morning and this morning. The burden that the Lord has put upon my heart is just one word, and that is the word you find in Matthew 16:18. Our Lord said, “I will build My church.” So the word is build.
We find that the first mention of that word is found in Genesis 2:22. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.”
Then, in verse 22, God took the rib out of the man and built it into a woman. Then He brought the woman to the man.
Now, we know that the word build is a technical word. It is used in architecture. We mentioned yesterday morning that there are at least five steps in this matter of building:
First, you have the purpose. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.” You find there is a definite purpose there.
Then the second thing is pattern. Once the purpose is decided, you need to have a blueprint, a design, a pattern. In the case of the woman, you find that her pattern is none other than Adam himself.
After you have the pattern, then you begin to prepare for the building. You have to get material to build. Where will the material be found in the building of the woman? You find, again, that it is in Adam.
In order to get that material out of Adam, you find the fourth word, which is process. God put Adam to sleep, and out of his side God took out something—a rib, perhaps—to build the woman.
After the woman was made, finally there is the presentation. God brought that woman to the man, and when the man saw the woman, he said:
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh:
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.
The two became one. This is the first mentioning of the word built in the Bible. Oftentimes, you find that in the first mentioning, you have all the principles involved.
But our focus is not on the man and the woman, because Adam and Eve are types. We are not going to deal with shadows; we want to see the antitype. We want to see the reality.
You remember Ephesians 5. The Apostle Paul said, “This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.” So our burden is the building of the church of God.
We know that the church is not something that just happened. There is a purpose behind it, and you can trace that purpose way back before the foundation of the world. Before God created anything, God purposed a purpose in His Son.
That is to say, He wanted to give His Son something that would really satisfy His Son. Certainly no one thing could satisfy His Son, because even the heavens and the earth could not satisfy His Son’s heart. He wanted to give His Son the greatest gift that He could ever give.
So He purposed a purpose in His Son, even before the ages, before He began to create anything. That purpose is that He would give His Son the church, and that church is to be His help meet. It is to be His wife.
It is as if God said, “It is not good for My Son to be alone. I will make Him a help meet for Him.” God made that purpose even before He created anything.
That purpose is so glorious that it was hidden throughout the ages. It was not until He revealed it to the holy apostles and prophets that it became known.
This purpose is so glorious that even the angelic host ought to learn this mystery through the church.
We mentioned yesterday morning that the angelic host are more intelligent than human beings. Yet, in this particular respect, even the angels have to learn the all-wise God through the church.
They will see how God will make His unsearchable riches fill a body, and that body is to manifest the glory of the Lord Jesus. This is a marvel even to the angelic host.
So, brothers and sisters, first of all, we need to see one thing: the church is not something extra. You find that the church is the mystery of Christ. It is the greatest gift that God could ever give to His beloved Son.
God puts such emphasis upon that church. Brothers and sisters, how can we treat this matter of the church as something insignificant?
Oftentimes, we think only of our own interests. Even in the pursuit of spirituality, we feel that to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman is the highest of all Christian pursuits. Yet we do not understand God’s heart.
God’s heart is more than individual spirituality, because no one person can contain all the riches of Christ. No one person can fully satisfy the heart of God’s beloved Son.
It takes a corporate body. It takes all those redeemed of the Lord, all the called-out ones gathered together unto the name of our Lord.
In that body, all the unsearchable riches of Christ can be contained. Through that body, the glory of Christ, the Head, may be fully manifested.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, the church is not the product of man. It is not the product of human history. The church is a preconceived idea of God, and it is for His beloved Son.
Secondly, after you have the purpose, you need to seek for a pattern. The question is always asked: Does the church have a pattern?
Some people think that the church does not have a pattern. In other words, they think it is left for man to decide how it should be formed. But as we read the word of God, we find that whenever God purposes a purpose, He always follows it by setting down a pattern.
God’s purpose was to dwell among the children of Israel, so He gave Moses the pattern in the mount. The same thing is true with the temple. God gave the pattern to David, including all the details of the building: what materials should be used and how they should be put together.
It was all planned out by God. Therefore, we cannot say that the church, which is in the heart of God, has no pattern given. There must be a pattern given to us. It is not left to man to decide how to organize the church. It is not the result of human genius.
God does give us a pattern. Some people try to find a pattern in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, if you notice where Christianity is going, you will discover that Christianity is gradually going back to the Old Testament.
They find in the Old Testament things that they would like to have in the church today. For instance, in the Old Testament, so far as temple service is concerned, you have the priests. You have a group of people separated from the rest of the children of Israel.
They are specially trained, and they are given the sole responsibility of doing all the spiritual work. In order to give some glory and honor to these priests, you find certain garments of beauty and glory with which the priests are dressed.
Brothers and sisters, as you notice Christianity today, in the beginning only the Catholic Church had such things. Then you find the Protestants beginning to learn from them.
I remember when I was a boy, in the particular denomination I was in, the pastors did not wear special garments. But now they are doing it, and it has become more and more popular—to distinguish them from the rest of God’s people and to give them special honor and a special place.
Then, among those people, you find that you need a choir, of course. What would a church be without a choir? Where do you find a basis for a choir? You remember David and how he organized the choir.
The only reference you can get from the Bible for a special choir is found in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it is congregational singing. We all sing unto the Lord.
Some people think that you have to find the pattern in the Old Testament. But you must remember: the Old Testament tells us of the shadows. God does not want us today to play with shadows, because the reality has already come. Christ has already come, so we need to hold on to what is real.
Then some people say, “Well, we should not go back to the Old Testament, to the shadows. Where do we find the pattern?” Finally, they turn to the New Testament and say that they want to organize New Testament churches.
You find in the book of Acts how the apostles appointed elders and chose deacons. The elders took care of overseeing the church, and the deacons did practical services.
So they say that to have a New Testament church, you need elders, deacons, and, of course, the laity. Without the laity, the elders and deacons would all be chiefs without Indians.
When you have some elders, some chosen deacons, and the laity, you may say, “We have a New Testament church.” But, my brothers and sisters, is that the New Testament pattern? Is it the pattern that God has given to us concerning the glorious church?
In the Old Testament, God was dealing with an earthly people. Therefore, much of what He did with them was physical and material. But in New Testament times, we are God’s heavenly people; we are God’s spiritual people.
God’s dealing with us is no longer on that lower level of the physical and the material. The pattern given cannot be merely technical. You may be technically correct according to the New Testament, yet that is not the pattern.
What is the New Testament pattern? It is so evident. When you open the New Testament, what do you find? You find the four Gospels. The four Gospels tell us about the Lord Jesus.
Following the four Gospels, what do you find in the next book? It tells us of the church. In other words, God is clearly telling us that the building of the church is according to the pattern of Christ.
What Christ is, that is what the church is to be. It is not in a technical sense, because you do not treat Christ as a technical person. You see Christ in the Spirit, in a living way.
He is the living One.
I am the first and the last,
And the Living one;
And I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore,
And I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Our Lord is a living Christ. Some people emphasize the historical Christ. Of course, Christ is historical. Two thousand years ago, the Son of God came into this world and became a man. He is historical.
But, brothers and sisters, He is eternal. He is not limited by time and space. He lives forevermore, and this living Christ is given as the pattern of the church.
So the measure of Christ is the testimony of the church. Thank God that He has given us that living pattern.
These things we have already shared yesterday. So we come to this morning. After God has purposed that He will give to His Son a corporate body, which is called the church, to be His help meet and to be His wife, then on the basis of that, God gave us a pattern.
He sent Christ into this world and said, “This is the way I am going to build My church.” When Christ was on earth, the first time He mentioned the word church was in Matthew 16:18.
Our Lord said, “Thou art Peter.” Peter means a stone, a little stone, a small stone. “Upon this rock”—not Peter, but the rock—“I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Christ will build His church upon Himself. He is the pattern of the church. After you have the pattern, you need to prepare the material. So the third word in building is preparation.
In the Old Testament, how did God first prepare the material for the woman? Since Adam is the pattern, where could God find the material for the building of the woman? It is quite clear: He could only find it in Adam.
Only that which is out of Adam can return to Adam and be united to Adam as one. Our body will reject foreign matter, but when it comes from the same source, then it can be united into one. So God found the material in Adam.
In the case of the tabernacle, we mentioned yesterday that God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai, and there He proclaimed the Ten Commandments to them.
Why did God give the children of Israel the Ten Commandments? Because by the Ten Commandments He made the children of Israel His own people. The children of Israel were different from all the nations. In what way? It was found in the law of God.
By keeping the Ten Commandments, they became God’s own possession. Immediately following this, God revealed His mind of saving them. Why did God redeem these people? Why did God make them His own possession? Because God had a purpose there.
He wanted to dwell among them. In order to dwell among them, He needed to have a tabernacle; He needed to have a sanctuary.
Where would He find the material for the tabernacle? If you read Exodus 25:1, God told the children of Israel, “Give Me a heave offering out of a willing heart.”
The materials for the tabernacle came from His redeemed people. It is very strange, because when God created the heavens and the earth, He created them out of nothing. He called nothing into something. God could do everything. He did not ask any help. He did not need any ready material. He spoke the word, and it was done. That is creation.
But strangely, when He wanted to make a tabernacle, God could easily have spoken a word and the tabernacle would have been there. But God did not do that. God told the children of Israel, “You give Me a love offering.”
It is a love offering, offered with a willing heart. Brothers and sisters, if you know the condition of the children of Israel, you know that when they were in Egypt, they were slaves.
What do you mean by a slave? A slave is a person who owns nothing. They were put into slave labor, so they had nothing at all.
But when God delivered them out of Egypt, do you know what God did? You can find it even in Exodus 3. When God first called Moses to go to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel, He had already told Moses what would happen.
He said that He would do wonders to Egypt, because Egypt would not let them go. Finally, He would deliver them out. When they came out, they were to ask the Egyptians for gold, silver, and clothing.
They spoiled the Egyptians. In other words, all the riches of Egypt were turned over to the children of Israel. The riches of Egypt had come from the slave labor of the Hebrews, and Egypt had never paid their wages.
God, being righteous, redeemed not only the children of Israel—the men, the women, and the children—but God even redeemed their property, their rightful property. You can see the fullness of redemption.
When you think of ourselves, it is the same thing. God not only redeems you; He also redeems all that is yours. Everything belongs to God.
After God delivered them out with all the riches, He asked them to give Him a love offering. It was as if He said, “If you love Me, because I love you so much, then give Me out of all that I have given to you.”
They gave some gold, some silver, some clothing, and all kinds of material. The materials for the building of the tabernacle came from that love offering.
God will not do it alone. He wants the cooperation of His own redeemed people. That is the way God always works with new creation.
In the old creation, He did it alone. But in the new creation, it is God’s will that He wants His redeemed ones to work with Him. Actually, everything comes from Him, and yet He first gives to us, then asks us to give back to Him out of love.
This is the genius of God. So the tabernacle was built in that way.
But you know how subtle the enemy of God is. After Moses told the people what should be done, he went back to the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, and he was there forty days and forty nights.
The children of Israel in the plain came to Aaron and said, “We do not know what has happened to Moses. Maybe he has died. We need someone to lead us. Make us a god.”
You remember what Aaron said: all the men and women were to take off their golden earrings. He took these earrings, melted them, fashioned them into a golden calf, and the children of Israel said, “This is our god.”
Immediately, they had a feast. They said, “This is the Lord.” What a mixture! They sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
God told Moses to go down, because they had already broken the covenant. Moses melted the golden calf and made them drink it. What a waste!
The gold was supposed to be used to build the tabernacle of God, yet it was wasted in building a golden calf.
Brothers and sisters, do you realize that we sometimes do the same thing? All that God has given to us is supposed to be a love offering to God, to serve His purpose.
How the enemy entices us to waste what God has given us in other things and for other purposes! But thank God, through the intercession of Moses, God forgave them.
Once again, God gave them another chance. In Exodus 35, God, through Moses, told the children of Israel that anyone who was prompted by the Spirit and had a willing heart could still give.
Thank God, the children of Israel gave and gave and gave. They had to be stopped because there was too much. Brothers and sisters, this is how the materials for the tabernacle were gathered.
The same thing happened with the temple. We said that God gave the pattern of the temple to David. But because David was a man of war and had shed much blood, God said, “No, you cannot build it. Your son will build it.”
But David was a man after God’s heart. What did he do? We do not have time to read these chapters, but if you go to 1 Chronicles, I would point out a few things.
In 1 Chronicles 22:14 and onward, David gathered the people and told them how he wanted to build a temple. It was not God’s will for him to do it, but his son Solomon would build it.
David said that in his affliction he had prepared gold, silver, and other things for the building of the house of God. He separated the spoils unto God, not for his own use.
Then, if you come to 1 Chronicles 29, you find that David said, “I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God.” He used all his power to prepare the material. What abundant materials he prepared!
He said, “Moreover also, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, seeing that I have a treasure of mine own of gold and silver, I give it unto the house of my God.”
Here was a man who knew God’s heart, and he loved God. He loved God’s house. Even though he was not allowed to build it, to him it was not a duty; it was love.
So he prepared all the materials that he was able to prepare, with all his power and out of his affection. If you read these chapters, you will find how much he prepared. It was his love offering.
He encouraged the people to give freely, and when they began to give freely, praise God. In 1 Chronicles 29, you see his worship: “Everything is given by Thee; and of Thine own have we given Thee.”
This is the preparation, the preparing of the material.
How about us today, brothers and sisters? The Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church.” The church is built by none other than Christ Himself. Nobody can build the church. We can be laborers under His direction, but He is the One who builds the church, and He is the One who decides on the material.
Where can He get this material? Brothers and sisters, you have to go back to the very beginning. Do you know why God created man? Why did God create man in His own image, according to His likeness?
There is something already hidden there. God knew that He could not build the church with stars, with moons, or with suns. He could not build the church with angels. He could not build the church with living animals.
They do not answer to His life. They do not answer to His headship. For that reason, He created man in His own image and according to His likeness.
He created man so that man would have every potential to receive His divine life. The sun cannot receive His life. The animal cannot receive His life. The angel cannot receive His life, because they were not created in that way.
But only man was created in this specific way. Man can receive God’s life into him. Man can have God’s character built into him, and then, out of God, something can return to God.
So, brothers and sisters, that is the reason why God created man in the first place. You find that God put man in the garden, and there was the tree of life.
God suggested to Adam, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” I imagine that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood beside the tree of life.
God was giving a hint to them: “Take My life into you. Then, with that life in you, I can build the church.” Oh, what a heart of God!
But you know what happened. Man fell, and that gave God so much work to do. Instead of forsaking man and creating another man, God came to the garden and said, “Adam, where art thou?”
God came to seek man. Throughout the ages, God was working toward His original purpose. He gave us a promise: the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head.
Then God began to call Abraham. Out of Abraham came a nation, a people that belonged to Him, because out of that people God would send the Savior. God was working all this time.
Until one day, Christ came into this world. Even when He came into this world, you find that He was seeking for the material for the building of the church.
He could not find it. He could not find it. The only way He could find it was as God put Adam to sleep, so that God could take something out of him to build a woman.
So God put His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus, to death. But His death was not like Adam’s sleep. When Adam was put to sleep, it was a painless operation. But with our Lord Jesus, it was a painful crucifixion.
Why? Because sin was involved. Sin had to be redeemed. Sin had to be judged. Our Lord Jesus took our sins. He was rejected not only by man, but even by His Father.
Then, out of Him—you remember, when the soldier pierced His side—there came out blood and water. Brothers and sisters, it is with this material that God builds.
The material for the church can be none other than Christ Himself. But it is Christ in you and Christ in me. This is the material.
Our Lord said, “Thou art Peter.” You know, Peter before was Simon. The natural man cannot be the material. Simon would deny Him three times.
If you use the natural man as material for the house of God, it will turn out to be a tower of Babel. But the Lord said, “Thou art Peter. Thou art a stone. Thou hast received My life.”
“I am the Rock. You are a little stone. You are chipped from that Rock, and I will use people like you to build My church.”
In 1 Peter 2:4 and onward, Peter said:
Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord is a living Stone. When we come to the Lord, we all become living stones. We have His life; we share His very life. Our Lord will take these living stones and build them into a spiritual house.
That is where you find the material. Brothers and sisters, the church is made of people, that is true—those who are called by God and gathered together unto the name of the Lord. But strictly speaking, it is more than that.
It is not just the called-out ones gathered together. It is these called-out ones gathered together unto His name. That is to say, we all submit ourselves under His headship.
Anything in us will be cut off by the cross. What is left is Christ in you and Christ in me. Only that pure material can be used for the building of the house.
Only that which comes out of Him can return to Him. All foreign particles will be rejected. That is how the materials are prepared.
My, what Christ has done in order to prepare this material! No wonder it is so precious. That is the preparation. Then, after preparation, you have the process.
You have all the materials now, but if you just pile the materials together without any design, it does not make a house. We are not a heap of ruin. We are to be built as the house of God.
To build, you have to go through a process. You have to take all these materials, form them, and set them in the right place. That takes wisdom.
When God commanded Moses to build Him a sanctuary, all the materials had been given, but they were raw materials. It takes wisdom to turn raw materials into finished products.
That is the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is that you know the materials, but wisdom is knowing how to use these materials and make them into finished products.
When you come to Exodus 31, you find that God said, “I have called Bezaleel and Aholiab.” God put His Spirit in them. God gave them wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to know how to use the materials and make them into finished products.
Under the direction of these two men, all the wise-hearted people came together to turn these raw materials into a tabernacle.
You find the same thing when you come to the temple. All the materials were there, but it took Solomon to build it, because Solomon is synonymous with wisdom. He was the wisest man in the world.
With the wisdom that God had given him, with that understanding heart, he was able to turn all these materials into a temple.
Brothers and sisters, when the tabernacle was built, it took them about a year. When the temple was built, it took them seven years. Do you know how long it takes our Lord to build His house?
When He was on earth, He said, “I will build.” In other words, the building had not started because there was no material. He was there to prepare the material.
After He died and rose again, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down. The one hundred and twenty gathered in that upper room were baptized in one Spirit into one body. That was the beginning of the church.
It began in the first century, and our Lord in heaven, by His Spirit on earth, is still building. It has been two thousand years, and the building is not yet finished.
Can you find any building on this earth that takes two thousand years? You can see the magnificence of that building.
The Holy Spirit is taking all these raw materials, these rough stones. He will refine us so that we may become precious stones. He will take away all the dross in us.
A precious stone takes so much pressure, so much heat, and so much darkness to form its preciousness. Do you know, brothers and sisters? That is our story.
You wonder why, after you are saved and have received the Lord, you think you are on the highway to heaven and that there will be no problem anymore. But, to your surprise, you find all the pressures, all the heat, and all the darkness confronting you.
The Holy Spirit arranges your circumstances. He is trying to transform you from a rough stone into a precious stone. He is trying to incorporate into your life the very character of Christ.
He is transforming you. He is conforming you to the image of God’s Son, because that is the way to build the church. He is doing the building work today.
It is a dirty work. You find lots of chiseling, lots of cutting, and lots of smoothing to do, to make you polished.
But that is not all. God’s purpose is not to put you in a museum as an exhibit. You may go to a museum and find all these precious stones, but that is not God’s purpose. His purpose is to use these precious stones to build a house.
He wants to fit us together. There is lots of fitting to do. “This is my beauty,” you say. But unfortunately, your beauty interferes with the next door. You cannot fit together.
Everyone is a giant, so no one will submit to another. Everyone is the best, so no one wants to obey any other. But the work of the Holy Spirit is to use the cross to fit us to one another.
He is fitting us together until we can be built together into a spiritual house, fit for the habitation of God. That is the process.
If we can understand the process, we will be willing to humble ourselves and submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God. In due time, He will bring forth the final product: a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, fit to be presented to the Bridegroom.
This is the work of God. He is still working. He is working in you. There is too much rubbish that needs to be cast away—too much of ourselves: our self-righteousness, our self-confidence, our self-independence, our self-sufficiency, and our pride.
All these need to be crucified. The cross will take away all the rubbish, and He will allow Christ’s life to grow in us. No longer I, but Christ.
Brothers and sisters, one day you will see that finished product. If you read Revelation 21, you will see the final product: the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb.
Not only the church today, but all the work of God in the Old Testament will be gathered together in that holy city. Glory to God!
When you have the finished product, what do you do? When the woman was brought to Adam, immediately Adam responded, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” How supernatural, yet natural, this is!
The same thing happened to the tabernacle. When the tabernacle was built according to the pattern and erected, the glory of God filled it.
When the temple was built according to the pattern, the glory of God came down. Even the priests had to retreat from the temple because of the glory.
One day, we shall see that glory. You will not see any man anymore. Everyone will have to retreat.
One day, the church will be presented to Christ. What a glory! That is the day for which we are all looking.
We know that this is something God has done. It is the work of God.
Through all time, God is doing this one work. Our Lord said, “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.”
Brothers and sisters, do we cooperate? May we cooperate and work together, that we may hasten the day of fulfillment.
We have a great responsibility today. We cannot live as we lived before. We have to live for God’s heart. We have to give ourselves fully, absolutely, out of love to Him.
We have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Allow Him to finish the perfect work. Oh, how glorious that day will be.
Dear Heavenly Father, how precious, how manifold, are Thy thoughts. Who are we that Thou shouldest be mindful of us? We are all poor material, and yet Thou canst take nothing and make it something so beautiful.
Out of Thy great love, Thou hast finished all for us, that we may live no longer for ourselves, but for Him Who died and rose again for us.
To Thee be the glory. In Thy precious name. Amen.