Would you turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16? I am going to read just two verses.
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.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.—Matthew 16:18-19
In the first letter of the apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2, from Verse 4:
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.—1 Peter 2:4-5
In the second letter of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 10, from Verse 3:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh
(for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.—2 Corinthians 10:3-5
And finally, in the old covenant, Psalm 110:
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.Thy people offer themselves willingly
In the day of Thy power, in holy array:
Out of the womb of the morning
Thou hast the dew of Thy youth.The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.The Lord at Thy right hand
Will strike through kings in the day of His wrath.
He will judge among the nations,
He will fill the places with dead bodies;
He will strike through the head in many countries.
He will drink of the brook in the way:
Therefore shall He lift up the head.—Psalm 110:1-7
Shall we just have a further word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we can come here into Your presence. We bless You and praise You, Lord, that You are here. We are not asking You to join us; we are coming into Your presence.
And Lord, we are so thankful that You have made provision for us in this time: provision for the speaking of Your Word, for the translating of it, and, Lord, for the hearing of it. We want to avail ourselves fully of that anointing.
We know, Lord, we can speak many words and say many things, and we can all hear various things. But, Lord, what we need is to hear Your voice. Our prayer is: Lord, will You bring that anointing so powerfully, as we have already prayed, upon this whole time, that we shall be alive to You? We shall hear You beyond the human voice.
Lord, by faith we stand in that anointing, grace, and power for the speaking of this Word, for the translating of it, and for the hearing of it. Lord, we ask it in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I think you all know the theme of this conference. You have heard it so many times—at least three times a day, and I imagine many more times in fellowship and prayer times. It is found in that marvelous declaration of our Lord Jesus: “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell, or Hades, shall not prevail against it.”
My part in this conference is a question given to me to speak on: Why the conflict over the building?
Well, I do not think you have to be a very old child of God to know that, if you have been born of God, you have been born into warfare. Sometimes it confuses us why there is so much conflict. But, in fact, every child of God knows that you and I have been born into warfare—born into conflict.
It is not a conflict, essentially, between Satan and you. You are small fry, and so am I. We are nothing as far as Satan is concerned. Satan only has to blow at us and we are gone. I mean, he only has to get permission to arrange our circumstances and somehow bring about problems, and we are finished. Let us face it.
A few of us will last out a little longer—but not for too long. Job was the great example of someone who managed to survive for a long time before he finally collapsed.
The fact of the matter is that you and I are nothing as far as Satan is concerned. What he hates—what he hates with an unbelievable hatred—is the Lord Jesus.
It is not for nothing that, in the last days, an antichrist will arise. It will be Satan’s last attempt to capture the whole world for himself.
He hates the Lord Jesus and everything to do with Him. He hates Him with a venomous hatred and a determined hatred. Anyone who is marked with the name of the Lord Jesus, however poor material they are, once they have been marked with the name of the Lord Jesus, comes within the sphere of that satanic hatred.
He will do everything to destroy you simply because you belong to the Lord Jesus. You are one of those of whom the Lord Jesus said, “The Father has given them to Me.” For this reason, he hates us, and he hates the building of the church.
We are not talking about something institutional, traditional, or whatever else. We are talking about that which is the body of our Lord Jesus: those who have been born of the Spirit of God, whose position, by the grace of God, is in Christ, and in whom the Lord Jesus dwells.
We are talking of that church which, over the years, the Spirit of God has been building up. It is the Lord Jesus who is the Builder, and the Holy Spirit who is the foreman—the manager, if you like. He is the One doing all the actual practical work of obtaining the material, bringing us into understanding and vision, and then building us together.
Now, this is important for our understanding. I said last night that the key to this continuous conflict is the testimony of Jesus. I am not going to go over that again, except to say this: the testimony of Jesus is linked to the Word of God.
The Word of God is objective. It has come to us in the most amazing way. It is authoritative, inspired, inerrant, and relevant in all its parts.
The Lord Jesus is the personification of that Word. That is why John’s Gospel—which I always say is the most Jewish of the four Gospels—begins by saying:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
—John 1:1
This word Logos means intelligence expressed. In other words, Jesus is the very heart and mind of God expressed—the very purpose of God fulfilled, realized, secured, expressed, and illustrated. This is the testimony of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit selected one piece of furniture out of all the furniture in the tabernacle and the temple: the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand. If you want to call it a candlestick, you can, but it was not a candlestick. I do not know why the older versions translated it that way. It was a lampstand.
The lampstand held seven lamps. In the seven lamps was oil, and the oil became light. What an amazing picture—what an amazing picture—the testimony of Jesus.
It is very interesting that, whether it was the temple in the old covenant, Israel today, or the church, all are represented by this seven-branched lampstand. It has something to do with a divine and eternal building programme.
Most Christians have very little idea that God has a building programme. Unfortunately, the old versions of the Bible used a very unfortunate word which meant something four or five hundred years ago but does not mean much today. They used the word edification.
Most people think of edification as “headification”—an increase in academic knowledge. But the word is building up. Let all things be done for building up. The body has to build itself up in love. It is all to do with building.
Now, it is that which the enemy is seeking to destroy. He cannot bear the testimony of Jesus, and he will do everything. He will use every tactic, every device, every contrivance, every wile, in order to make such a mess of the church that the lampstand is removed. Once the testimony of Jesus is removed, there is no more building.
So the aim of the enemy is very simple: by every means from without—through persecution and limitation. I will speak about this a little more tomorrow, but take Islamic countries. Those of us who live in regions of Islam know the almost invisible power of Islam limiting the church, so that it is unable to be free, even though it is constitutionally free.
Far more terrible are his tactics from within. Golda Meir once said, when speaking of Israel, “When we have friends like we do, we do not need enemies.” Sometimes I feel the Lord says that: “We really do not need enemies when You have got My people. Leave it to them. They are a Trojan horse.”
They will open the door to the enemy from within, and the whole work will be divided, paralysed, factionalised, brought into error, immorality, fraudulence, or whatever else.
So I want to look a little more closely at these words in Matthew’s Gospel. My contribution is to do with the conflict:
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
—Matthew 16:18
What a wonderful statement. What a wonderful declaration. What a prophetic promise the Lord Jesus has given: “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
That is the word of our Lord Jesus. At this present moment, He is at the right hand of the Father, with all authority and power not only in heaven, but on earth. He is the One who is able to make sure that the gates of hell do not prevail against His building work.
I mentioned last night that I do not like this modern translation, “gates of Hades.” It is technically correct, but realistically stupid. What does it mean? Hades—the place of departed spirits. What in the world does “the gates of the departed dead” mean? There is very little meaning in it. It is a figure that our Lord was using.
“Gates of hell” is better, because hell conjures up for us Satan, the powers of darkness, principalities and powers, world rulers of this present darkness, hosts of wicked spirits in heavenly places, and strongholds of Satan.
Imaginations. High things exalted against the knowledge of God. Thoughts. Everything begins with thoughts.
Satan put a thought into a Jew who became a Lutheran. His name was Karl Marx. Satan put a thought into Mao Zedong. One little thought, developed and extended, became a jail for millions of people.
Thoughts. Never despise thoughts. Sometimes, as the Scripture says, we despise the day of small things—thoughts, we think. But a thought can develop into a philosophy, into an ideology, and become a bondage for millions.
I find it interesting: the gates of hell. Gates in Scripture are always a symbol of government, of arbitration, of policy-making, and of the execution of policy.
In the ancient days, in Israel and in other parts of the ancient world, the elders of the city always sat in the gates. It sounds as if they played mah-jongg or chess, or smoked a hubbly-bubbly, while their poor wives worked themselves to death. But in actual fact, they sat in the gate because that was where the municipal authority was.
They were there to make decisions. They were there to execute policy. They were there for government.
So, when the Lord Jesus speaks of the gates of hell, He is speaking of the authority of the powers of darkness. He is speaking about a governing authority of the powers of darkness, the policies of Satan, and the execution of those policies.
When it comes to His building programme, there are the gates of hell. There is a contender, and that contender is none other than Satan himself.
Never give to Satan more than you should. People sometimes think that God is here and Satan is there—God is omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing; Satan is everywhere at once, omnipresent, omniscient, all-knowing. Nonsense.
Satan has limited intelligence, thank God. He is not an uncreated being; he is a created being. You may have some problems as to why God ever created him, but that is another matter.
The fact of the matter is very simple: Satan has supreme intelligence next to the Godhead, but it is limited intelligence. Furthermore, Satan cannot be everywhere at once. I thank God when I hear that Satan is visiting you, because he cannot be visiting me.
He cannot be everywhere at once, but he has a whole network—a spiritual network. It studies human beings, their conditions, and their weaknesses. Why do we laugh at it as if it were a fairy tale? Do you really think that Satan is so stupid, some horned creature with no intelligence?
How would you deal with someone if you hated that person and regarded him as a rival? Would you not build up a whole network that watched, noted, and learned the weaknesses? Your weakness is not my weakness. My weakness is not yours. What would get you down is not what would get me down, and what would get me down is not what would get you down.
The enemy has a whole network. He knows how to stop the building work of our Lord Jesus simply by building up a dossier of information upon everyone who has been delivered from the authority and power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
The gates of hell represent Satan’s will and purpose—the power of darkness. That little word prevail in the phrase “shall not prevail against it” can just as easily be translated, “shall not overpower it” or “shall not overcome it.”
But that little word reveals the fierceness of the conflict. The Lord Jesus may have supreme authority, but apparently this building work is not going to be a bed of roses. It is not just going to be something done in wonderful conferences. It is done in the midst of enormous battle and conflict.
But it will be done.
That is the first thing I want to underline this evening. The second is, I think, very wonderful. Of course, it is the Lord’s words:
Upon this rock I will build My church.
—Matthew 16:18
Most of you have heard two or three of our brothers speaking about the two words here: “Thou art Peter”—petros in Greek—“and upon this rock”—petra—“I will build My church.”
Petros is a small stone. Petra is the bedrock, the massive rock. The Lord Jesus said, in effect, “You are a stone, but upon this bedrock I will build My church”—the bedrock of God’s salvation and God’s eternal life.
Years later, Peter wrote a commentary on this, if I may say so, by the Spirit of God:
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.—1 Peter 2:4-5
That is how Peter understood it. Far from the papacy, the Vatican, or a thousand and one other interpretations, Peter himself understood it: He is a living stone, and we are living stones—not just Peter. We are living stones quarried out of that bedrock.
In my part of the world, when you built a home in the old days, you selected an area where there was rock. Those of you who have visited Israel will know very well that you do not have to go far for rock—it is everywhere. People used to say, “Where did he get the stones from?” No problem. They are everywhere.
But in the old days, you bought a home with massive rock, and you quarried the rock on your property. Then you built your home out of the rock on the bedrock.
The Lord Jesus said, “You are Peter, a stone. Upon this bedrock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” How amazing this is when we think about it: the simple, categorical, dogmatic declaration of the Lord Jesus. You are a little stone; upon this bedrock, the massive rock, I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail—shall not overpower it. Wonderful.
I do not want to run down Peter. I am amazed that John felt such courage to speak about Paul the way he did. I am not going to talk about Peter quite the same way, but let me tell you this: this church is built out of Peters—always making big plans and never able to support them in practice.
If the Lord Jesus had said, “You are John, and you are the stone,” I think we might have had a bit more problem. But this is amazing to me: the Lord Jesus taking Peter, who was to deny His Lord three times with oaths.
Out of this kind of material—always jumping in where angels fear to tread—this material, saved by the grace of God, with revelation made to him not once but a number of times, the Lord builds His church.
The church is built out of Peters, with all the same problems: big assertions and not always much reality; real revelation, but not always anything to back it up in practice. That is the way the Lord builds His church.
It is a very strange thing. Everyone is looking for the perfect church. God help us. D. L. Moody said, “When you find it, it will not be perfect”—because you will be in it.
What a problem we have when we find Peter to be Peter. We say, “Impossible. The church will never be built with this kind of person. What did he do? Three times he denied the Lord. Well, I have not denied the Lord. You mean You are going to build the church out of that kind of person?”
That is exactly the material God uses. Of course, it is not the old man, if you know what I mean. It is Peter in Christ. Now the Lord is going to put into him rock-like qualities. He is going to quarry him out of the very saving grace of God, out of the eternal life of God, fashion him, and build him with other living stones until a house is built.
I have told this before, I think, here at this place, quite a few years ago. I remember when my home in Jerusalem was renovated. The whole top floor had been blown off because my neighbours had kept armaments up there in 1946 or 1947. A stray shell or bullet somehow got into the attic and blew the whole thing off.
When I came, the whole top of the house was not there. I remember when the first rocks arrived. A great lorry came and dumped them all up at the top, because they were not allowed to come within the small community called Yemin Moshe. Donkeys brought them down these paths.
I felt so sorry for those donkeys, coming up and down those steps loaded with stones. The stones would be tipped out by one of the workmen on the ground, and then an old gentleman came whom I understood was a great stonemason.
He sat there taking all these stones. To this day, I do not know exactly what he was doing. He would pick up a stone, look at it, hold it this way, then hold it there, and put it aside. Then he would take another and put it here, there, or over there—and throw it away.
Gradually, this pile of stones was sorted. I went to look at the stones he was throwing away, and I thought, “What a crook. The man is a crook. It takes a Jew to find one.” I thought the man was a crook.
I went over and looked at the stones. They were beautiful. The colour of those stones and the veining in them were so beautiful. I kept pestering the man, but he spoke only Arabic, and I could not really follow his Arabic.
Finally, the big contractor came. I said, “Look what this man is doing. He is going to take away these stones. He has put some of the most beautiful stones of the whole load over here.”
“No, no, no,” he said. “He knows there are faults in those stones.”
“How,” I said, “does he know? He did not look as if he had been to university to me.” I asked, “How does he know that there are faults in them?” There was something he listened to that somehow told that old man.
Later, through an interpreter, he said to me, “Why should I spend days fashioning that stone, and at the very last moment it falls to pieces?”
Living stones. You are a living stone. I do not know if you are a cracked living stone—I hope not. You should not be. But these stones are built together, a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.
What an amazing picture we have here. If this is true—what I am saying—and the Lord Jesus can take material like you and me, somehow bring us into a new place with Himself, and out of the saving grace of God quarry something in you and me, out of His eternal life in Christ quarry something out of you and me, and then shape us and fit us together—what goes wrong?
If the Lord Jesus said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, how come the gates of hell seem to prevail against it and overpower it? Not once, but again and again and again. Do you see what I am trying to say?
Some theologians say, “This is the trouble with some of these Christians who are realists. This is mystical. This whole thing of the church is mystical. It is in the unseen; it is in the invisible. That is where it is all happening. Never mind that it is divided and factionalised, and all kinds of things are wrong here on earth. Forget that. It is all happening up there.”
I cannot accept it. It seems to me a get-out. How am I related up there? I mean, how do we get related to one another?
It is very easy for me to say, “Oh, my beloved brothers and sisters in India.” Of course—they are thousands of miles away. “Oh, I feel knit together with my brothers and sisters in China.” Of course—they are thousands of miles away. I can even say I feel one with my brothers and sisters in New York—still hundreds of miles away.
But the Lord is not interested in such flaptrap. He says, “What about the brothers and sisters where you live?” Ah! No divorce? Oh, we do not believe in divorce—only when it comes to fellowship. Then we believe in divorce. “I cannot agree with you anymore. I thought you were something more than what you are. The Lord is calling me away.”
I used to say that the house of God is a building where there is no fire escape. It is like a pressure cooker. Once the lid is on, the work is done inside. Like a slow cooker—I think that is what you call it over here, do you? I do not know. These American terms I have never been able to get hold of.
I prefer to hear about the wind and the rainfall. But still, we will not argue about English and who was responsible for it.
The fact of the matter is that we have something extraordinary here. Why, if the Lord said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” does it seem that the gates of hell do prevail against it?
For instance, just think for a moment. Every move of the Holy Spirit since the church was born at Shavuot, at Pentecost, nearly two thousand years ago—every single move of the Holy Spirit to recover and restore—has not lasted more than a couple of generations.
It is almost as if we could say, “The Lord said the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, but the gates of hell have prevailed against it again and again and again.”
If you feel that some of the things in the Reformation, the great Anabaptist and Mennonite revival, the great Quaker revival, the great Puritan and Covenanter revival, the first evangelical awakening of the Wesleys and Whitefield, the second great evangelical awakening, the Brethren, and later the Pentecostals have been lost, you may ask: “But what about the early church?”
That early church did really represent the mind of the Lord. How come the Lord allowed the gates of hell to overpower it, so that within a period of one hundred and fifty years its very structure changed? It became an organisation instead of an organism. It became a system instead of a relationship to the Lord and to one another.
It became somehow a tradition. There is nothing wrong, by the way, with tradition if it is a living tradition. You eat breakfast every day—it is a tradition. Other people have supper before they go to bed—tradition. Not all tradition is dreadful.
But it became a tradition instead of a living experience of the risen Lord by the Holy Spirit. Dear friends, why does the Lord allow this?
I must be careful that I do not get stuck on this, but in every move of the Holy Spirit certain features reappear. I will list a few of them.
First: Christ as salvation, Christ as the one Head, and Christ as life. That reappeared in every one. It does not matter whether it was the Quakers, the Brethren, the first evangelical awakening, the Puritans, the Reformation, or groups earlier than the Reformation that most of you will probably never have heard of—the Albigenses, Waldenses, Priscillianists, Bogomils, Paulicians, Donatists, and Montanists.
The history of the church is an incredible history. From one point of view, it is the history of institutionalism, traditionalism, denominationalism, and organisationalism. But, on the other hand, there is the real history of the church. Remember, the Book of Acts was never finished.
One day we shall hear the whole story of the real church told from heaven’s point of view. People say they think heaven will be boring. It will not be boring, believe you me. I have known a few saints of God, and if they are there, as I know they will be, it cannot be boring. Such characters, such pioneers! We could spend a whole eternity listening to testimonies.
Here is another feature: the Word of God as authority—its inspiration and relevance. In every single one of these moves, it was at the heart.
Here is another: the Holy Spirit honoured, both in His Person and in His work—not only His indwelling, but His empowering. In every one of these movements, the Holy Spirit was honoured.
I do not know what it is that makes some Christians so frightened of the Holy Spirit. As soon as you start talking about the Holy Spirit, people think they are going to fall all over the place. What we need is fire.
Half our problems would be burned up in the fire of God. We get so respectable as Christians. Fire? Fruit, we accept. Root, we accept. Fire? “Oh, do not talk about fire. Are you talking about the Salvation Army?”
Well, in the beginning there was fire. You may or may not know that, in British history, the last martyrs were eight Salvationists murdered for their faith on the streets of a British town. Fire! There is nothing Satan is more disturbed by than the fire of God.
Then there is the oneness of believers and their fellowship. Is it not interesting that in every single great move of the Holy Spirit, the people did not take a denominational name?
Did Martin Luther ever call them Lutherans? Of course he did not. He would have died a thousand deaths rather than call them Lutherans. Did Wesley call them Wesleyans? He would have died at the very thought.
George Fox did not even call them Quakers. It was some godless judge who said, “What shall we call you?” They said, “We are just believers.” Someone said, “Sir, they tremble when they wait upon God.” He said, “Right. We will call them Quakers.”
So it has always been in the history of the church. They have never taken the name; others have given it.
In the beginning, it was the most disrespectable thing to be associated with Martin Luther—that podgy monk who liked drink. “Justification by faith? Who has ever heard of justification by this newfangled doctrine?” But within a hundred years, they were called Lutherans, and it was very respectable to be a Lutheran.
It was the most disrespectable thing in the world to have anything to do with John Wesley or George Whitefield. They called them enthusiasts. They were driven out. I have preached in a number of pulpits from which Wesley was driven, the second time, by the church wardens in Bristol. He not only left, but two-thirds of the congregation went with him, and thus Methodism began. It was not called Methodism then. They were just believers.
This oneness of believers and this fellowship of believers reasserted themselves again and again.
One last feature, before I come to a final point I want to underline very much: the impact upon human society.
Every single one of these moves of the Spirit of God turned the society around them upside down and inside out. Whether it was the Reformers, the Puritans and Covenanters, the Quakers, the Moravians, the Methodists, or wherever you look, it is the same.
Now, this is an enigma. The answer to my question—why does the Lord allow this?—is very simple. It is something as small as this.
A key.
“You are Peter, a stone. Upon this bedrock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. To you I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
Listen to the tense in the Greek: “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
Keys. So simple. Keys represent authority. Anyone who has keys has authority: keys to the safe, keys to the school, keys to the drug cupboard in the hospital, keys to the home, keys to the car. It is only when you lose your keys that you get into trouble.
Oh, how simple it is to have a key. I travel all the time, as you know. It is a problem to me, though when I was younger I did not mind it so much. Now I find all airports look the same to me inside, and most planes look the same. Some are a little better, the service is a little better and more pleasant, but most of them are dreadful—absolutely dreadful. Far East has the best, but that is another matter.
Sometimes I go with people after a meeting, and we are going to a car. They are talking away about something or other, take the key, put it in the lock without even looking, open the door, get in, and put the key in the ignition. So simple.
But when they have lost the key, what a problem.
I was once with a brother down in Sinai, and we went swimming. We were having a wonderful time. We stayed in a hotel two hundred miles away and used to drive down early in the morning for the whole day. In those days there was nothing else there. It was a wilderness paradise.
I remember one occasion when we came to leave and could not find the car key. We searched everywhere and could not find it. I thought, “Such a stupid little thing. We cannot get in the car.”
It was a hired car, so we did not like to damage it. But there was a little moshav nearby, a little settlement, and they came out. A fellow came with a saw and was in through the window in a flash. I thought, “My word. That just shows you something.”
Then he got the saw and began to saw through the lock on the brake. I said, “So, so, so,” because I could see us having to pay hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars for the damage he was doing. “Oh,” he said, “wait.” Off he went.
Later, a whole detachment of the Israel Defense Forces came down. They loved it because they all put on goggles and went swimming backwards and forwards looking for this key. We never found it.
I spent the night there, and my companion went all the way back to Eilat by bus to try to get an alternative key. You see, when you have lost the keys, what is so simple becomes a huge problem—an obstacle almost insurmountable.
The problem is that the church has lost the keys.
Then we face the gates of hell and we do not know what to do. Gates can be locked. Gates can be unlocked. So we stand before these threats of the enemy, these works of darkness, these terrible things that wreck assembly after assembly and all the building work of the Lord Jesus, and we do not know what to do.
Keys represent authority. I hope that I can be as simple as possible in this matter: we are entirely dependent upon the Lord for knowing how to use these keys. The authority is given to us.
Now let me ask you a question. Do you believe that when the Lord said to Peter, “To you I give the keys,” it was to him and only him? It is true that he opened the door to the Samaritans and opened the door to the Gentiles. That is perfectly true.
But do you really believe in the papacy and the Vatican? I know there are many Catholic believers; I have no problem about that—people born of God. But I think it is entirely wrong to build the papacy upon this Scripture. Surely Peter represents you and me, does he not?
Is the Lord not saying to simple believers, saved by grace and authorised by Him, “I am giving these keys”?
How can we use the keys? We are entirely dependent upon the Lord in this matter.
Let me say something I have said before, but I do not mind saying it again and again. Sometimes I get afraid and think, “Are you getting old? Are you getting stale?” But these things are so important.
When I was first saved, I had never read the Bible. Everything in the Bible was new to me. It was stunning. I read John’s Gospel until the little paper Gospel I had fell to pieces.
When I first began to read the whole Bible, I was filled with questions. One was over Moses and Aaron. I could never understand why they kept falling on their faces before the Lord.
To worship the Lord, I understood. But it was when they were in trouble. Every time they were in trouble, Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the Lord. I thought to myself, “What is wrong with these fellows?”
Of all the children of Israel, Moses and Aaron ought to know what to do. They had the law. The law was given to them. They knew everything. Why did they not just say, “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Did not the Lord say such-and-such? Yes, of course. That is right. That is the answer”?
But they were still on their faces before the Lord.
Half our problem in facing the gates of hell is that we have technical answers for spiritual problems. We think that we can answer them with theology. We need to fall on our faces before God and remain there until God gives us light.
When God gives us light, it is the first step in the use of the keys.
Let me try to explain a little more. What do I mean? When the enemy comes in like a flood and everything goes wrong—when it is an evil day, when it seems as if Satan is in charge, everyone is rocked to their foundations, and people we thought were so rock-like and steady collapse—what do we need?
We need to see the Lord. It is not good enough to say, “It is Satan.” Of course it is Satan. But what are we to do with Satan?
Someone says, “The Lord said the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Oh, so you expect the Lord to step in and do it. You are more of a Calvinist than I thought.
You expect the Lord to step in and use the keys. Then why did the Lord not say to Peter, “I have got the keys myself. Just leave it to Me, and I will use them”? Why did He say, “To you I give the keys of the kingdom”?
It is uncomfortable because suddenly the responsibility comes to us. We are going to be held responsible.
I would not like to be in the shoes of those who, through the years of church history, were responsible for just sitting paralysed when everything went wrong. The Lord is going to say, “Did I not give you keys? Why did you not use them?”
Now you say to me, “Why is the Lord not more gracious?” Did you hear that? Of course, you good Christians would never say such a thing; you leave me to say something like that. “Why is the Lord not more gracious? Does He not understand how poor we are, how unworthy we are, how small we are?”
Oh, absolutely He does. That is why He has saved us. Now listen to this: the Lord is training you, educating you.
It is His love and grace that says, “I will do nothing. I will not act for them if they will not act.”
Did you notice the Greek tense? It is very difficult to put into English, or indeed any different language. The idea is not that we use the keys, lock something, and heaven says, “Ah, they have locked it. Locked.” Or that we unlock something and heaven says, “That is okay. You have unlocked it. It is unlocked.”
That is not what it says. You cannot lock up what God does not will to be locked up, and you cannot unlock what is not the will of God to unlock.
So here we come to the crux of the matter: we have to inquire of the Lord. That is why Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the Lord. “How do we handle this situation? What do we do? What is the way we do it?”
In other words, we have to have light on the matter. If the enemy has come in like a flood, what is the key to this situation? What is it that has got this situation?
I pray that the Lord gives understanding on this matter, because we are now moving into one of the most troubled periods of world history. The nations are at the crossroads, and in particular the United States.
We need, as never before, to answer. Dear folks, may I say something to you? Please do not misunderstand me. This sorts out the men from the boys.
The boys will simply say, “We are confused. How can we use keys? We do not know what to do.” But the men—those who have grown up—are the ones who should act in the name of the Lord. But first, you have to have light on the situation.
I am tempted to give a number of illustrations from experience in this matter, but I do not think we really have time to do so. The fact is this: we have done great disservice to ourselves in overlooking the gifts of the Spirit.
However much they are abused or counterfeited, the gifts of the Spirit are the gifts of the Spirit. They are essential equipment in facing the gates of hell.
Let me explain. Prophecy: how many times, when we have been on our knees facing a situation—national, local, or within the assembly—as we have sought the Lord, this one or that one has been given a Scripture.
Again and again, two or three people were given the same Scripture. Then we knew it was prophetic. Do you understand? It was as if the Lord was speaking to us prophetically, applying His Word to a situation.
Take a word of knowledge. What is a word of knowledge? It is the facts—the facts. Sometimes we need a word of knowledge. We need to know what lies at the root of a problem. Is it jealousy? Is it rivalry? Is it doctrine? Is it immorality? Is it fraudulence? What is it that lies at the roots?
Sometimes a word of knowledge, confirmed by others—never taken by only one person, always confirmed in fellowship—is the key to the use of the keys.
Let me put it another way: a word of wisdom. Wisdom is what to do with the facts. You can have the facts and still not know what to do. Wisdom is how to use the facts.
Faith. I have never understood my dear brothers and sisters who do not believe in the gifts of the Spirit in any shape or form. I cannot understand them, because they all speak of the gift of faith. They say Hudson Taylor had the gift of faith, Amy Carmichael had the gift of faith, this one had the gift of faith, and that one had the gift of faith. How come only one gift operates? Is that not odd?
The gift of faith—what is the gift of faith? It is when faith is suddenly manifested by the Spirit of God in you.
Have you ever heard someone in a prayer meeting going from appeal, to petition, to request, and then suddenly someone prays in faith? When it really is the Lord, there is a witness of the Spirit in all the other members of the body, and something is touched.
Or discernment of spirits—how we need that. What is it that is in here?
Now, I know there is a lot of, may I use the term, ballyhoo connected with this matter of the gifts of the Spirit. I have seen the most extraordinary things in my poor life—people doing the weirdest things, saying the weirdest things in the name of the Lord, and the Lord knows nothing about it whatsoever.
But that does not mean that there are not real gifts of the Spirit. They are essential in the use of the keys.
Did you notice Psalm 110? Did you notice how the Lord said unto my Lord, “Sit Thou at My right hand till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet”? Is this not the Lord Jesus?
This psalm is quoted more than any other in the New Testament. It speaks of the risen, glorified Messiah at the right hand of God. The Father says to the Son, “Sit. Do not fight. Sit, till I make Your enemies the footstool of Your feet.”
The rod will go out of Zion. You remember: “Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.” Is this the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God? How is He ruling in the midst of His enemies? Through His body.
Then it says, “Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of Thy power.” The word in Hebrew can be translated “the day of Thy army.” In other words, this is the Lord’s army, and He is taking volunteers. Are you a freewill offering?
I will give one illustration of what I mean about the use of keys.
Years ago—it must be thirty-five or forty years ago—there was a certain brother with a real ministry who came into our midst in the assembly at Halford House in England. He seemed to have a very real gift, and he was a blessing to a whole number of people. But I began to have a very funny feeling.
I was so loyal to this brother that I never spoke with any of the other brothers about it. I just had this funny feeling. Then I began to think, “I think you are jealous. He seems to have such power, such influence. Maybe you are jealous. Temperamentally, you are different.”
But I noticed that the people who were so blessed with his ministry changed in personality. Now, that disturbed me. However much the Lord works in you, your personality remains your personality. But these people began to act as if there was another spirit.
Then he said to a sister who had a history of mental problems, “You are not born again. The Lord says it.” I did not know he said this. He had a hotline to heaven. He never spoke with any of the other brothers. Whatever the Lord told him, he said.
This poor sister went down to the River Thames and was going to throw herself in. She said, “What have I got? Nothing.” Mercifully, another sister was walking along the towpath, saw her just as she was going to throw herself in, stopped her, and walked her back. That bothered me even more.
At that time, this brother was not living with us; he just used to come and visit us. Then I got a phone call from two very dear brothers who lived about one hundred miles away. They said, “Brother, both of us want to have a day of fasting and prayer. Could we use the library at Halford House for this?”
“Of course,” I said. “Absolutely. On Saturday. And do come in and see us.”
I went in to see them in the middle of the morning. They began to talk. They said, “We have been praying so much for the work of the Lord in the south of England, and we are praying for this assembly here. Can you tell us anything? Are you being disturbed by something?”
“Well,” I said, “I think I am. But I have not talked with anyone about it.”
“Well, tell us what it is,” they said.
I told them about this brother. I said, “Am I being jealous? Is it merely temperamental?” They said, “Let us get on our knees.”
The three of us got on our knees. I have never forgotten that meeting. Amongst many grand meetings, I have never forgotten it. Those two brothers dragged that spirit out. They did not know this brother. They had never met him. They dragged that spirit out into the open, and they executed it in the name of the Lord.
What could have destroyed the whole work was terminated that morning—spiritually.
The next day was the most extraordinary day for me. One after another, the people whose personalities had so changed came to tell me—and this is what they all said, without talking with one another—“I have suddenly woken up. Forgive me. I have become so critical.”
I believe that is the key to this. You see, they used the keys. I felt hamstrung, unable to use the keys. I felt as if somehow, for me to do it, would be to promote myself.
That is where we need fellowship. When we brothers got together at the end of this time and talked together, we covenanted together that whenever we had, again, a witness of something wrong, we would speak with one another. Never again would we hold it just inside.
Well, I think that is enough for one evening. But shall I sum this thing up? How do we use the keys?
The weapons that we use will be the Word of God. How wonderful it is when the Lord applies His Word to a situation and gives us His Word to stand on. Then, together, it is almost as if we are turning a key in the lock, or unlocking something, in the name of the Lord.
Then there is intercession, on the basis of that Word given.
Finally, there is executive action, I call it. In the name of the Lord, you take action. You lock it up.
There are many other examples I could give of this that I have seen. I have come to the simple recognition and realization that the authority given to us by our Head is sufficient to stop the gates of hell from all their purpose.
But our problem is that few of us have grown enough to be able to exercise that kind of authority.
You can talk about the church. You can talk about the truths of the church. You can talk about the Word of God. You can study the Word of God. But, in the end, it is whether you are able to hear what the Lord is saying in any given situation, and then, together, be able to act in the name of the Lord.
I could give many examples, not just to do with fellowship and assembly life, but even national matters. I remember some of the amazing times of prayer we had, especially when Britain was thinking about going into the European Union—it was called the Common Market then.
Oh, did we have some times of prayer. We came to an understanding that the Lord was not for this. We sought Him more, received certain Scriptures, and stood on those Scriptures.
All the polls said Britain was going into the Common Market the next day. The Lord gave a wonderful Scripture to Brother Eric Shore, the brother who did all the editing for T. Austin-Sparks and who was with us in Halford House:
The lot is cast into the lap;
But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.—Proverbs 16:33
We praised the Lord for a solid hour. We had such a time of worship it nearly blew the roof off. We went home, and the whole thing was depressing. The news was depressing.
We woke up the next morning to hear that President de Gaulle had vetoed it, and Britain did not go in.
Of course, since then things have changed. Quite a few years later, we sought the Lord again. This time the Lord said, “Do not ask Me. They are going in.” And so we left it.
But the Lord gave us a promise that out of every corner of Europe would come an army for Himself. It is amazing what has happened in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Eastern Europe. Thousands upon thousands have found the Lord. There is much more needed in teaching and depth, but it is amazing.
What I want simply to say is this: here you have an amazing psalm. Who does the Father use to put the enemies where they belong?
The church.
We never talk to the devil. Never try to do it. Never try to make these statements. Always hide in the Lord. But do not be afraid.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against the building work of our Lord Jesus. And they have not. Again and again and again, the Holy Spirit has moved in another little repeat, almost a Pentecost, to restore something more. And it will go on to the very end.
May the Lord use these poor words to open the eyes of our hearts. Shall we pray?
Lord, we really need You. Lord, You are the only One who can guard this word from misinterpretation and misunderstanding and, at the same time, reveal it to us.
Forgive us, Lord, if You have given us responsibility and we are somehow paralysed, confused, and in turmoil ourselves. What shall we do? How shall we face it?
Lord, help us. For You Yourself have said, “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Lord, help us to decide with You: the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Help us, Lord. We need You. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus.