Would you please turn to 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.
Hebrews 11:10:
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Psalm 127:1:
Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it:
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for bringing us to this last full day of this conference. We thank Thee for the past. Thou hast been so gracious, merciful, and faithful to us.
We believe Thou art the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. So we ask, Lord, that during this last day of the conference, Thy presence may be over us more than before.
Dear Lord, Thou art the only One that we need, the only One that we worship, and the only One that we desire to know. So, Lord, we pray that Thy Spirit will open our understanding, bring us within the veil, allow us to see Thy glory, and transform us, conforming us to Thy own image.
Lord, we want to thank Thee because Thy word is power. Thy word is truth. Thy word is light. Thy word is life.
So we just turn to Thee and pray that whatever needs yet to be done will be done this day. Oh, how we long to see Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that Thou mayest be glorified. We commit this time into Thy hands, trusting Thee to bless it. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Thank God for bringing us to this last full day of ministry. The theme of this conference is taken from Matthew 16:18:
Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
This is the word of our Lord Jesus Himself. It is one of the greatest revelations ever given to man. As we said before, the greatest of all revelations is that the Father has revealed the Son to us.
Without a revelation of the heavenly Father, no matter how clever we are, we will not be able to know the Son. But thank God, it pleased the Father to reveal His Son in us, and we all testify that He has done it in our lives.
On the basis of the Father’s revelation of the Son, the Son is able to reveal something that is very dear to His heart, and that is the church. So He said, “I also say.” The Father has spoken, and now the Son speaks: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
It is a statement made by the Lord Himself. No matter how you feel, no matter what you see around you, what He said is true. He will do it, and it will be done.
My responsibility on these mornings is to consider this question: Who is the Builder?
Now, I feel it is rather strange that this question should be asked. Of course, God is the Builder. Our Lord Jesus Himself said, “I will build My church.” But why is it that this question has to be asked?
It is because, even though mentally we acknowledge that God is the only One who is able to build His church, somehow in our consciousness we do not quite agree with that. We feel that we are able to build a church.
That is what you find in two thousand years of church history: how man ignored this statement of our Lord Jesus, “I will build My church,” and instead tried to build His church. What we have built is the Tower of Babel—confusion.
God is the only Builder. We mentioned during the past two mornings that, as the Builder of the church, He is the Originator of the building. That is to say, it is He who has the idea of having a church. The concept does not come from man.
Before the foundation of the world, before the ages, before God created the heavens and the earth, God had already conceived in His mind this thought. The Bible says that He purposed a purpose in His Son.
He loved His Son so much that He desired to express His love toward His Son. The best expression He can give to His Son is the church, because He knows that His Son desires a companion, a life companion, one who is His counterpart, one who can be united with Him as one, and one who can share with Him in responsibility and in glory.
Brothers and sisters, before the ages God conceived this thought of the church for His Son. If this is the case, you can see how important the church is in the heart of God and in the heart of our Lord Jesus. We need to consider very carefully before the Lord: how much place does the church have in our own hearts?
We also mentioned that God, as the Builder of the church, is also the Planner. This thought of the church is so glorious that He will not allow anybody else to plan for it. He Himself is the Planner.
The pattern, the blueprint, He has in mind for the church is none other than His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus. Brothers and sisters, the pattern of the church is not technical, organizational, legal, or external. God uses His only begotten Son as the pattern for the church.
Even in the Bible, when God built the woman, He used Adam as the pattern. None of the animals that were led to Adam was his likeness or counterpart, one who could answer fully to Adam’s heart. He could name them, but he could not be joined as one with them.
Finally, God put Adam to sleep, and out of his side God took something. Usually we say that God took a rib, but actually, in the original, God took something out of Adam. God used that which came out of Adam and built a woman.
You remember the Apostle John. He was the only one of the apostles who stood at the foot of the cross of our Lord Jesus. He saw the soldiers come. They broke the legs of the two robbers to hasten their death, but when they came to the Lord Jesus, He was already dead.
To make sure that He was dead, a soldier took his spear and thrust it into the side of our Lord Jesus. That side was opened; it touched the heart, and out of it came blood and water.
John emphatically said, “I bear witness to this. I saw this. It is true.” Why did John place such emphasis on this matter? Because out of the side of our Lord Jesus came blood and water: blood for the remission of our sins, and water to give us life. His life is poured out for us and to us, and with that which comes out of Him, He builds the church.
This morning, we would like to consider God as the Constructor of the church. He not only conceives the idea, and He not only plans for it; He actually builds it.
Our dear brother John Saunders has the responsibility to speak on how the church is built, so I do not want to step into his area. But when we speak of building, of actual constructing, what can we say? I think probably I will deal with this matter from a different angle. We will look at the building itself from the viewpoint of God Himself.
In other words, in the actual building of the church, we will see the skillfulness of His hands. This expression is found in Psalm 78:72: “the skillfulness of His hands.” In the building of the church, you do see the skillfulness of the hands of the Lord.
Do you think that, aside from God, there is anyone in the world who is so skillful that he can build the church? So far as I understand, God is the only One who has the skill, the power, and the ability to build the church. There is no one else.
Why? Because in building the church, He is exercising His creativeness. God is the only Creator in the universe. What is creation? Strictly speaking, creation is calling something into being out of nothing.
When God created the heavens and the earth, it was a creative act because He called that which was not into being. There was nothing; there was no material of any kind. Yet out of nothing, God created the heavens and the earth. Wonderful!
Who else can do it? We may be able to make something out of something. We may be able to manufacture something with raw materials and make it into a finished product. But there is no one in the universe, not even the angels, who can call nothing into something.
Not only that, but when that something appears, it is wonderful and glorious.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth His handiwork.
He is the only Creator. Of Him, through Him, and unto Him are all things. To God be the glory.
Now, brothers and sisters, in the building of the church, do you think it will be less creative than the creation of the old heavens and the earth? It just cannot be. How can God build the church with less creative skill than He exercised in creating the old creation? That would make the old creation more excellent than the new creation.
Thank God, the new creation is far, far more glorious than the old creation.
When God created the heavens and the earth, the Bible says in Colossians 1:16, “In Him were all things created.” All things were created in Him, and because they were created in Him, the whole creation reveals the power and divinity of the Creator—how divine He is and how powerful He is.
I remember when I was in China, there was a sister greatly used by the Lord. As a matter of fact, she was one who began this work in China with our dear brother Watchman Nee. She was an atheist—an avowed atheist—very intelligent, highly intelligent. She even told people that she would never believe in God. There was no God.
But one year there was a pestilence in China. She was then a dean of a girls’ school, and they had to send all the students back to their homes. She took some of the students and travelled along the Yangtze River, going downstream to send them to their different places.
She was sitting at the front of the boat. As the boat went through the Yangtze River, she looked around and saw the beautiful scenery all around her. Somehow, she was convicted that there was a God who could create such beauty and such massive mountains. No human could do that. It could not come by chance. There must be a God.
Thank God, that realization turned her completely around. She served the Lord many, many years. Why? Because this is the creative act of God. It comes out of the skillfulness of His hands and demonstrates to us who He is—His wisdom, His power, and His glory.
But when He created man, the Bible says He created man according to His own image and after His own likeness. When He created man, He had in His mind that this man would one day be the life companion of His beloved Son.
That is the reason why He created man in His image and after His likeness: to give man the capacity and potential to receive the life of God and thus be able to be united with Christ, His Son.
When He created all things, all things were created in Christ. But when He created man, He created man to be His likeness. Dear brothers and sisters, did it ever come into your mind that the church is a new creation?
If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.
Brother T. Austin-Sparks used to correct us. He said, “If anyone be in Christ, a new creation.” He said that in the original, “he is” is not there. There is a new creation.
In other words, God has exercised His creative act. By creation, He means bringing something out of nothing. Do you believe that the church is a new creation?
You may say, “I do not think so, because God already has poor man as material. It is not out of nothing into something.” But, dear brothers and sisters, let me tell you: this creation of God is even more marvelous than bringing something out of nothing.
When God created man, He had in His heart that man should be the counterpart of our Lord Jesus, His bride, one with Him. That is why we were created in His image and after His likeness. But unfortunately, man sinned.
Man was cast out of the Garden of Eden. The material God had in mind for the building of the church was broken, cast out, and totally useless. Not only that, but sin entered into man. The enemy of God gained a foothold in man, and his dominion came over man.
As our brother said, the enemy’s hatred against God and against God’s purpose is imprinted in the mind and heart of man. For no reason, man hates God.
I had another co-worker in China. When he was young, his family sent him to Russia to study. He became an atheist, participated in the Russian Revolution, and received an award.
When he came back to China, his family was very rich. The Japanese had taken some of their property and made an airfield out of it. He did not need to work and had nothing to do. But he told me that he had one job: to end Christianity.
He went from house to house preaching against Christianity. There was only one church building in his city, and he was the one who closed that building. He employed a number of children. When people stood up to pray, the children would go and take all the seats away. When they were singing, the children would throw sand into their mouths. It became so difficult to meet that finally the door was closed.
He was that kind of person. He did not know why, but he hated Christianity. One rainy day, he was in his brother’s shop. His brother had a small shop, and he had nothing to do, so he looked around for a book to read.
Strangely, he found a book under the counter. He picked it up, opened it, and read:
The good man is like a tree planted by the river.
The bad man is like chaff, blown away by the wind.
“Well,” he said, “that is reasonable.” He could not sleep that night. The next morning, he went to the church building. It was closed, of course, but he pushed the door and it opened. He went in and came to the pulpit, where he saw a large book.
He did not know what it was. He opened the book, and it was the Psalms. “Oh,” he said, “it is from this book.” So he took the book and took it home. That was the first time he stole.
He began to read the Book, and he was convicted. He had been a leader in Manchuria during the revolution in China. While he was escaping for his life, because the Japanese wanted him, one morning he knelt down and prayed. His tears wet the floor. Then the word of God came to him, and he was wonderfully saved.
He served the Lord until he died. But, brothers and sisters, when this man persecuted Christianity, he did not know why. The hatred was there.
Do you think that we—the natural man, the sinful man—could be material for the building of the house of God? Less than nothing; worse than nothing, because there is opposition there.
The natural man does not understand God. There is no desire for God; there is a natural opposition to God. The Bible says, “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” The religious, the moral, the high class, the sinful, the degraded—all are the same: no material for the building of the house of God.
When our Lord Jesus came to this earth, according to the Gospel of John, why did He come? He came as a Bridegroom. He came to seek for His bride, for the bride was nowhere to be seen. All He saw were the desperate, the blind, the deaf, the crippled, and the dead.
Ye must be born again.
He told Nicodemus, the moral man, the religious man, the teacher of Israel, “Ye must be born again.” Do not think that because you are religious and moral you are almost in the kingdom of God. Nicodemus may have thought, “One more step, one more instruction, a little more education, and I am in.”
But the Lord said:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Not only can you not enter in; you cannot even see it. You do not know anything about the kingdom of God because you have not seen it.
Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Let us see this in the building of the church. The Lord said, “I will build My church.” Why did He not say that at the beginning of His ministry? Why did He say it toward the end of His ministry?
Because at the beginning of His ministry there was no ready material, no material available to build the church. He had to redeem, deliver, and save people out of sin and out of the world. He had to deliver them, set them free, and give them new life.
It is a new creation—nothing old.
If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God.
In the building of the church, the skillfulness of the hand of God surpasses that which was displayed in building the heavens and the earth. From something worse than nothing, He is able to build a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish. Do you see the skillfulness of His hand?
But that is only the beginning. We think that after we are saved, God can just go ahead, work, and finish it quickly. Not so.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Simon Bar-Jonah, thou art blessed.” Why? Because this was not revealed by flesh and blood; it was His Father in heaven who revealed it to him. Then He said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.”
In John 1, when Andrew took his brother Simon to the Lord Jesus, before Simon was able to open his mouth—the one who was usually the first to open his mouth—the Lord said, “Thou art Simon; thou shalt be called Cephas,” which is by interpretation, Peter.
Simon was a man made of dust: earthly, natural. No matter how good your temper is, or how bad it is; no matter who you are, you are Simon—the natural man, the man of the flesh.
But the Lord said, “Thou shalt be called Peter.” All your hope is in Peter, not in Simon. He will deliver us from our natural man and give us a new life, a new creation. He will make us Peter—a stone, a different element—not loose as the earth but solid, something that God can build with.
The Lord does not say, “Thou art Simon, and upon this rock I will build My church.” He could not do that, because Simon could not be identical to that massive Rock, our Lord Himself. Simon is a different material: polluted, defiled, sinful, corrupted, and opposing every step of God’s work.
How can you use Simon to build upon the Rock, Christ Himself? Impossible. But “thou art Peter.” Because you are Peter, there is something similar. As our brother mentioned last night, the Lord Himself is the living Stone, and as we come to Him, we also become living stones, built together into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Yet even after the Lord said, “Thou art Peter,” the Simon in Peter came out again. In the same chapter, Matthew 16, the Lord began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, be rejected, be killed, and on the third day be raised from the dead.
Then Simon in Peter came out. He took hold of the Lord and said, “Lord, never! This shall never be unto Thee. Thou dost not need to go to the cross. Thou canst have the throne; it is Thine.”
Our Lord Jesus turned and said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” He was not speaking to Peter, but to Simon. In Simon, Satan had ground. In Peter, there was no ground.
Thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Even after Simon came to the Lord, confessed the Lord, and the Lord said, “Thou art now Peter,” unfortunately the Simon in him still remained. More work had to be done.
Toward the very end, when the Lord said, “I am going to be delivered up and killed, and ye will all be scattered,” Simon Peter said, “No. Others may do so, but not I. I am willing to die with Thee.”
The Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon.” He did not say, “Peter, Peter.” He said, “Simon, Simon, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.”
We do not know how much Simon we still have in us. We do not know how much of the flesh, the natural man, and the ally of the enemy is still in us. It takes time for this to come out and for the Lord to deal with it.
The Lord must get rid of all the Simon in Peter, all the self in us, because you can never build the house of God with Peter and Simon together. This is a spiritual principle that we need to understand.
The building of the church, from beginning to end, is a creation—a new creation. Nothing of the old can be built into it. It is foreign and will be rejected. Only that which is of Christ in us can be built into the church.
Oh, God, how much we need to be dealt with by the Spirit of God. That is why the Holy Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit, who dwells in each one of us, is with us all the time. He will never leave us.
You may grieve Him, you may quench Him, and you may disobey Him, but you cannot drive Him away. He is still there. Why? Because God’s work has to be done. The Holy Spirit is in charge of fulfilling the building of the church.
That is why God leads us and allows us to enter into all kinds of situations—things we dread and do not like to experience. Somehow, God in His wisdom arranges our circumstances in such a way as to expose and bring to our mind what we are naturally.
That is why God led the children of Israel into the wilderness. His purpose was to lead them into the promised land, but when He led them out of Egypt, He led them through the wilderness. Why?
We think the wilderness is a waste of time. In one sense it was, because they should have crossed the wilderness in two years. Unfortunately, they wandered forty years. But those two years were necessary.
Deuteronomy tells us why. God tested them. He knew them, but they did not know themselves. He tested them and brought what was within them out into the open, so that they could see with their own eyes how ugly they were, how totally useless they were, and how antagonistic to God they were.
He brings us to the place where we are willing to let go. Who is willing to deny himself? We love ourselves; we hold on. But the Lord says, “Let go. Let Me be everything to you.” With all these natural things, He cannot build the church.
In the building of the church, there are no foreign elements. Every fallen element will be rejected. Life rejects that which is not like it. Therefore, there is so much work God has to do in each of our lives.
Oh, brothers and sisters, are we really willing to yield ourselves to the Lord and allow Him to speed up that work, so that He may have material fit to be built into the house of God?
There is much work to be done in each one of us: to eliminate that which is of the natural, of Simon, and to increase that which is of Peter, of Christ. Not merely a living stone, but a precious stone. All the character of our Lord Jesus is being built into us. What a work that is. How skillful He is!
But there is more than that. He is not building a monument with one stone. He is building a house with all these precious stones. Therefore, these stones have to fit one with another.
When Solomon built the temple, 1 Kings 6 tells us that during the building process there was no sound of hammer, axe, or iron. Why? Because all the materials had been prepared in the quarry, in the darkness.
Every stone was cut smooth according to its place. Which stone would be on your right? Which on your left? Which underneath you? Which above you? Every stone was prepared in coordination with the other stones.
All those points that stuck out and did not fit had to be cut smooth. Everything was done in darkness. So when the stones were brought to Mount Moriah, they simply put one upon another—a perfect fit. There was no sound of the hammer.
Brothers and sisters, the working of the cross is not only concerned with each individual believer. The working of the cross has to work in a corporate way. It has to work in our lives so that not only may we be perfected by His grace, but that we may be perfected with our brothers and sisters.
How much more work God has to do in us. It is often our strong points—what we consider our strengths, even our spiritual strengths, our spiritual gifts, and our spirituality—that require His dealing.
Even that which is given to us by God is of God, but God never means that we should be independent. He means that we have to be fitted together and work together as one.
No one can say, “I do not need the other one.” No matter how gifted you are, the more gifted you are, the more dangerous you are. God has to deal with that.
Joshua and Caleb had an excellent spirit. They could have entered into the promised land thirty-eight years ahead of the rest. But by the grace of God, they wandered together with the rest so that they could go in with that new generation.
That is what the overcomers are. They overcome not for themselves, but for the whole church.
We have to learn to bear and forbear with one another. We have to look upon our brothers and sisters as more excellent than ourselves. We have to humble ourselves, not only before the Lord but before our brothers and sisters.
Love suffereth long, and is kind.
Who can do such a work except God Himself? Only the Lord can do it. Only the Spirit of God can do it. Nobody else can do this work.
Finally, there is one phrase that came to me: 2 Peter 3:15.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters, think of the long-suffering of our Lord. It is because of His long-suffering that we have hope.
One day Brother T. Austin-Sparks asked our dear brother Watchman Nee, “Which passage in the Bible is most difficult to fulfill?” Our brother said, “Ephesians 5: a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish.”
Can you see it? Is it nearer? In the eyes of the flesh, it seems to be drifting further and farther away. No. Brothers and sisters, will He fail?
He is working. Everywhere in this world there are His hidden ones, precious to Him. He is working silently, secretly, hiddenly, but He never stops working.
The longer I live, the more I appreciate the patience of God—how He has suffered over all these years. If He lost His patience, I would be finished. But thank God, He is still pursuing me. He will not let me go until He finishes His work.
I believe with all my heart that the glorious church will appear.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are living in a time when everything is shaking. The Bible says that not only the earth but also the heaven will be shaken. All that can be shaken shall be shaken away, so that that which is unshakable—the kingdom of God—shall remain.
The gates of Hades may seem to swallow up, shake off, and break down what we see as the church of God. But they cannot. What they are able to break down is man’s work—that which is natural and of man.
My cry is, “Let it be shaken. Let it go.” There is nothing there to long for. Let that which is unshakable, that which is of the new creation, appear.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we are approaching that day. Suddenly, out of nowhere, out of almost nothing, the New Jerusalem appears. May we be there by His grace.
Dear heavenly Father, what Thou hast prepared for Thy beloved Son! Thou hast worked through the centuries. So we say, oh, we pray that it will be done, fulfilled, realized, and finished quickly.
We acknowledge that we are the problem. Lord, wilt Thou take us in Thy own hand? Take away all the resistance, opposition, and foreign elements from us, and fill us with Thy beloved Son, that He may speed up Thy work in us.
May the bride be ready. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.