Would you turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew? I am going to read once again those two verses.
It is a wonderful thing to memorize the Word of God. I am sorry that it seems to be falling into disuse because of the many modern versions, which are not so easy to memorize. They do not have a rhythm. That is not a call for you to use the ancient version, but I think it is a very important thing to memorize the Word of God.
Because in prayer, very often, the Holy Spirit will bring back what is in your heart, and it becomes prophetic, or it becomes a word of knowledge, or it becomes a word of wisdom. It can become a discernment of spirits. Learn to memorize the Word of God.
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.
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
And he said unto me, What seest thou?
And I said, I have seen, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon;
there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are upon the top thereof;
and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
And I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?
Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these are?
And I said, No, my lord.
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the headstone with shoutings of, Grace, grace, unto it.
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
For who hath despised the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which He declared to His servants the prophets.
And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven; and they said,
The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ:
and He shall reign for ever and ever.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him:
for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.
And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure:
for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, These are true words of God.
And I fell down before his feet to worship him.
And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee, and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God:
for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
Her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God:
with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,
and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,
for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Loving Lord, we want to thank You for this time we have had together these days. They have been precious. You have answered us, not least in the weather. We thank You, Lord, for that sign and evidence of Your love and favour.
We thank You for every session that we have had in which the anointing has come upon us all, both in worship and in the ministry of Your Word. And now, Lord, we come to this time, and we do not want, Lord, to rely on anything past.
We stand by faith in that anointing which You have already provided for the speaking of Your Word, for the translating of it, and for the hearing of it. We want this final time to be special to every one of us. Lord, hear us.
We are at a great crossroads in history, and maybe, Lord, a greater crossroads for this nation than most of its citizens realize. Beloved Lord, we pray together: take this time and speak to us. For we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, and we shall be careful to give You the praise and the glory for answering us. Amen.
Well, I do not have to tell you what the theme of these days has been. Where have you been if you do not know what the theme of these few days has been?
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
My part has been to answer the question: why the conflict over the building? It is now too late to go over it all, except I would like to point out that the focal point of all this conflict is the testimony of Jesus.
It is not first and foremost to do with you and me. It is to do with our Lord Jesus, with the testimony that He gave—that testimony that has, as it were, overthrown the powers of darkness.
The enemy is after you and me insofar as we belong to Him, because we have been delivered from the power and authority of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. We are marked people.
And so, as I have said continuously, we are born into warfare. The first thing we realize as newborn children of God is that we have an enemy. There is someone who is ready to trip us up by every means available.
But we thank God that we have a good Shepherd. He cares for us when we stray, when we become ill, when we become disabled. He cares for us. It is a wonderful picture that we have. Well, that is another matter.
Then we have spoken about the gates of Hades. It is an amazing figure for the powers of darkness, for the mobilization of the powers of darkness, for the determination and will of Satan himself and his whole network of evil to overthrow the Lord Jesus, to neutralize the purpose of God concerning Him, and to frustrate His building work.
I spoke last night about keys—the smallest of all things. Anyone who has keys has authority.
It is interesting that the Lord Jesus said, “To thee do I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” It is delegated authority. They are His keys, but He gives them to His own.
It is very possible to get a misapprehension of this truth and to think you can throw your weight around, lock things up, and unlock things, and that heaven will support you.
I have seen this through my little life again and again and again: someone standing up before we have hardly started the meeting to tell Satan that he or she is binding him. I always feel I can hear a cackle from hell itself, as if Satan says, “And who are you?”
You cannot just willy-nilly take the keys. The Greek tense is very interesting. The Lord said, “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.” It is an awkward translation, and not the best, but it is the only way in English we can say it. “Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
You cannot lock anything up that it is not the will of God to lock up, and you cannot unlock anything that it is not the will of God to allow. That puts us into a difficult position, because it means that you and I have to seek the Lord.
We need discernment. We have to be sensitive to Him. We have to understand what is His will about any given matter. That is why we have those who shepherd the flock. That is why we have those who are overseers of the assembly: because we have a responsibility before God.
We have a responsibility to know what is the mind of the Lord, whether it is to do with a family, individuals, the church and its building, the locality in which we live, the nation in which we live, or the purpose of God in the nations.
We have an enormous responsibility. If we surrender this responsibility—this divinely given responsibility, this divinely delegated authority—we have only ourselves to blame when the enemy comes in like a flood, and when he paralyzes everything and neutralizes everything.
How clever the enemy is. His tactics are multitudinous. It would be depressing to speak for the whole evening on the tactics of the enemy.
The apostle Paul, writing in the second letter to the church at Corinth, says, “For we are not ignorant of his devices.” But the fact of the matter is that the people of God, the redeemed children of God, for the most part are ignorant of his devices. They have not the faintest idea as to the contrivances, the wiles, the strategies, of the enemy.
Of course, they read the Bible and study the Bible, but, as so often is the case, people who are wrapped up with charts about the future and about prophecy and so on are absolutely hopeless when it comes to realistic living—as if by living in Never-Never Land we are functioning as members of the Body.
The prophetic Word of God is to be a light in a foggy and murky place, till the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts. It has a practical, realistic relevance.
You and I have to recognize that in this matter we all, as we grow up in the Lord, have a responsibility for the building work of God. The Body is meant to build up itself in love. We are not supposed to leave it to apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers. The Body itself is meant to build up itself in love.
Insofar as every one of us is responsible for this building programme of the Lord, we are answerable and accountable to the Lord for what we do when things go wrong.
I said last night: why is it in the history of the church, on every level, that the Lord stands back when He sees things going wrong? Why does He not do something when He Himself said, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against His building work”?
But if we look at the evidence of church history, from Pentecost itself onwards, it seems that the gates of Hades have prevailed against that building work of our Lord Jesus. Things have come into death. They have institutionalized and denominationalized.
In many cases, what is left is as far away from the mind of God as it is possible to be. In fact, in many cases the institutional church has been the great persecutor of real believers.
How could this happen? Why does the Lord stand aside? For a very simple reason: you have to grow up. It is as simple as that.
It is like a father or mother with their children. There comes a time when they stand back and say, “You have got to learn to do it yourself. You have got to learn to take responsibility.” If you do not take responsibility, the Lord says, “I am going to let the enemy come in like a flood, and you will all suffer.”
Now, do not think that I am just getting at leaders. I am talking to every child of God in this place. If you are five years old in the Lord or above, you have got a responsibility. Well, let those who are younger than that off.
But everyone who is five years old in the Lord, at least minimally, has a responsibility before God. You are accountable. It is the Lord Jesus who is the Builder. It is the Holy Spirit who is the foreman. But you and I are accountable to God, and will have to answer one day for the way we have discharged our responsibility.
The tactics of the enemy are multitudinous. I do not want to spend too much time on them, except to mention one or two. Division, of course, is obvious.
It is interesting that right in the early church—this wonderful church we all think was absolutely perfect—we find that Corinth had all the problems that would bring division and inaction to any assembly.
Never once does the apostle say, “Leave.” Never once does he say, “Get out. The testimony of Jesus has gone. You cannot have people drunk at the Lord’s table. You cannot have someone sleeping with his father’s wife. You cannot have lawsuits. Get out.” He never once says it.
This church—and it is interesting that the apostle says, “The testimony of Christ was confirmed among you”—had the lampstand there. The testimony of Jesus was there.
They had divided very naturally. We are all human beings. We like certain ministries more than others. Some said, “Well, you know, I go along with Paul. I like him. There is something special about that man’s ministry. He has got a depth that the others have not got. After all, who has been caught up to the third heaven? Who has been told, ‘You are not to tell anyone what you heard’? Now that is something. You can trust the apostle Paul. He has got such mysteries at his fingertips.”
Others would say, “No, no, no, no. Apollos is much better. He is smooth, so sophisticated, so academic. I love his Alexandrian way of putting things. It is tremendous. I hear undertones of Philo in what he is saying and the way he says it.”
Then, of course, there are others who say, “Apollos? Academics? No, no, no, no. I like Peter. He is a fisherman. He is down-to-earth, like a baseball player—right down to earth, absolutely a man amongst men. That is the kind of person I like. When he speaks the Word of the Lord, it comes to me as reality. He is a working man, not like these others, Paul and Apollos.”
Then, of course, you have the terribly holy lot: “I am of Christ.”
It is interesting that the apostle Paul never commended them. They were wrong because they were elitist.
Division is one of the great tactics of the enemy, whether it is immorality, the poor character of some believers, things contradicting God’s Word being done by some amongst us, or division which in the end becomes denominationalism.
After all, what is the difference between “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” and “I am Lutheran,” “I am Wesleyan,” “I am Quaker,” and “I am something else”? Is there any difference? Of course not. It is a tactic of the enemy.
Then again, there is another tactic. I am only going to mention one or two of these tactics, but this other tactic is very interesting: church-centred groups rather than Christ-centred saints.
The older I get, the more value I put on T. Austin-Sparks. There were a whole number of little groups all through the British Isles that everyone called Honor Oak groups. Honor Oak is a suburb of London where the assembly in which he was meeting was situated.
I remember one day, when I was still very young, talking with him. I said, “What about these groups, Mr. Sparks?” He said, “You mean what they call Honor Oak groups?” “Yes,” I said, “what they call Honor Oak groups.” “Well,” he said, “that is exactly what they are. Not one of them is the church expressed. They have got church truth and a church pattern, and nothing else.”
Beloved brothers and sisters, there is a little phrase in one of the Psalms which is so beautiful. I was sorry to see it up here in the NIV—the nearly inspired version. Not that I am against the NIV; do not get me wrong. But I think it is a terrible translation, at least in the Hebrew. That is all I can say. It is not a good study version if you want to really study the Word.
This is how it goes. It is Psalm 27:4:
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in His temple.
The NIV says, “and to seek Him.” It does not say that in Hebrew. It says, “and to inquire in His temple.” In other words, the house of God is to do with the beauty, the glory, of our Lord Jesus.
If we get turned in on the house of God and simply stop at church truth, we have lost the meaning. The house of God is to express the Lord Jesus.
The apostle wrote to the Corinthians, “When an unsaved man comes in, will he not fall down and worship, saying, ‘God is here’?” That is it. That is exactly it.
When you have the house of God in reality, everyone who touches it touches the Lord. It is almost as if the Lord Himself is physically there.
“To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” In other words, it is in the house of God that everything is explained—everything. You get an understanding of times. You understand where your nation is going. You understand where the nations are going. You understand God’s purpose for Israel. You understand a thousand and one things in the house of God.
Beloved brothers and sisters, the house of God was meant to be a place of worship. If you see church truth, you cannot worship, can you? Of course, it is important to see church truth. But if you stop there, how can you worship that? When you behold the beauty of the Lord, you worship.
The house of God, the Lord Jesus said after Isaiah’s prophecy, “shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The house of God is not somewhere where we just pray for the church itself, for ourselves. It is somehow to be a means of intercession for the nation in which we live. It is meant to be a place of intercession for the purpose of God in the nations.
Oh, I wish I could put it more clearly. You stop with a church-centredness instead of a Christ-centredness, and everything stops. You are left a little holy cluster feeding on church truth.
But if you are meeting on church ground, you are meeting on the foundation of Christ. There is all the difference.
I always used to say to anyone who asked me that there are three hallmarks of the church in expression:
Those are the three hallmarks of the church of God in expression.
Another tactic of the enemy—I have already mentioned this, so I will not speak of it too much—is the whole question of exclusivism.
We make the ground of our fellowship less than Christ. It is Christ plus—Christ plus devotion, Christ plus knowledge of the Word, Christ plus this and that.
But the apostle Paul said that we are to receive one another as Christ received us, to the glory of God. How did Christ receive you? As an overcomer? No. As a devoted believer? No. As someone who was pure? No. As someone who was not a sinner? No.
How did Christ receive you? As a sinner. He received you as a sinner.
If we were to take that as the basis for receiving one another—in other words, everyone whom Christ has received on that basis of salvation—I cannot reject.
The tactic of the enemy is to make the foundation of the building, the foundation of fellowship, and the foundation of functioning less than God’s foundation.
Forgive me; let me go a little further. I suspect that Pope John XXIII was born of God. I have known one or two people who knew him in the village in which he was born and brought up. That man turned the Catholic Church upside down. Oh, how some of the old conservatives hated him.
He started that Bible-reading association through which millions of Catholics have found the Lord. Now, I am not arguing for Catholicism. All I am saying is this: if Christ received John, I have to receive him—not as a pope, but as a brother in the Lord.
I cannot reject a single person whom Christ has received and truly saved. The church is exclusive in this sense: it excludes all unsaved people, whether they be cardinals, archbishops, bishops, moderators, or whoever else.
You can be baptized a thousand times, as Spurgeon said, all the way from Land’s End in the west of Britain to New England, and all that will happen is that you will get very wet. He was a Baptist.
Without saving faith, water can do nothing for you, nor can some bread and wine, nor can holy oil. As Zwingli said in the minster in Zurich, “Better keep the oil for your salad.” It will not do any good to you simply as oil.
My dear brothers and sisters, the true church excludes everyone not born of God, whoever they are, whatever theological degrees, titles, or status they might have in institutions. If they are not born of God, they have no part in the church of God.
But it is inclusive, in that it includes every true believer, whoever that person is, however poor, whatever race, whatever colour, whatever tongue they speak. If they are born of God, they belong to me as I belong to them.
Now, the tactic of the enemy is to reduce the foundation of our fellowship from that.
There are many other things I could say about the tactics of the enemy. Of course, this may sound very strange to you: one of his tactics from without is persecution. That can be a blessing.
Wherever great persecution has come and people have had to face death, and many have been martyred, the blood of the martyrs has become the seed of the church. Look at Russia. Look at Eastern Europe. Look at China. It will happen also in Iran, where there has been so much suffering, and in other Islamic areas of the world. But I must curb myself or we will be here all night.
The fact of the matter is that he has many tactics. If the enemy cannot turn us into legalists, he makes us radicals. It is another tactic.
You know, legalism is incredible. In the end, you have to look alike, you have to dress alike, you have to sit alike, you have to stand alike. Never raise your hand. You must never do such a thing as that.
Never mind that it says in the Word of God that when men pray, they lift up holy hands. It does not matter if it is in the Word; do not do it. Legalism—doctrinaire, a kind of doctrinal thing—is a straitjacket. It is a terrible tactic of the enemy. He will kill any living work with legalism.
And yet the law is the law. The Word of God is the Word of God. We are not free to disregard it.
This question of freedom: there is something within every heart that longs for freedom. So often the enemy takes this wonderful thing—that we are free. We do not have special days, special places, special people, or special clothes.
I had to remember one work of the Lord—it was a work of the Lord—in Canterbury, in the south of England. It was a really good work. So much happened. So many young people got saved. It was wonderful.
Then this teaching came in about freedom. The enemy pushed it to an extreme, and one of the leading brothers said, “You know, we should be led of the Spirit. If we are truly of God, we should be led of the Spirit. We shall no longer tell you at what time we are meeting, or on what day. You have to know from the Spirit.”
Well, that was confusing enough. But a few weeks later, the brothers decided that they would not even say where they were meeting. Of course, somehow the older ones guessed where it would be and what time it would be, but all these younger ones came to me and said, “What are we to do? We keep turning up at the wrong house, at the wrong time, on the wrong day.”
What kind of stupidity is it? I used to think, these dear men of God, saved by the grace of God, shepherds of this flock!
When I rebuked one of them, he said to me, “But, brother, it is a pendulum that swings. It goes to one extreme, then it swings back to another, and then it gets level.”
So I said, “And when it swings to this side, you lose half the saints. When it goes over there, you lose another half of the saints. In the end, you are left with yourself. You are the one who has learnt.” Is that being responsible? Tactics of the enemy.
I remember another assembly in the northwest of Scotland, a Brethren assembly. It really got touched by the Spirit of God. But they had a teaching about musical instruments. Being good Brethren, there were no musical instruments—none—not even at the prayer meeting.
The younger people began to chafe under this and began to say, “Why? Down the road we have other Brethren assemblies that do not have instruments at the Lord’s table, but they have them at the prayer meeting, Bible study, and youth meeting. Why cannot we have them, at least at the prayer meeting, Bible study, or youth meeting?”
Of course, the elders were outraged. It was only a piano or a harmonium, if those of you who are older know what I am talking about.
They had a teaching about water and fire based on being baptized into Moses in the sea and in the pillar of cloud and fire. They decided—I know this is crazy, but I want you to see how either the Lord weeps or He laughs—they decided they would take the piano and baptize it, and the harmonium.
There could not have been a musician amongst them, I take it, because they could not play either the piano or the harmonium after it had been immersed. They were, of course, believers in baptism by immersion.
Can you believe that a company of God’s people could take a piano and put it down into the Baptists’ tank in the name of the Lord, haul it back up again, and think that they could play it?
Now you laugh, but that is the tragedy of the tactics of the enemy. In so doing, he pushes us into the most stupid, radical, overboard extreme.
Dear brother and sister, it does not matter how many tactics the enemy has—and I have only mentioned four or five—the enemy will fail. Why will he fail? Because the Lord has said so. That is why.
The Lord Jesus has said, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
I understand that very simply. It means I may not be in the building, but He is going to fulfil it. If I am irresponsible, if I am not prepared to grow up, if I am not prepared to lay down my life, the work of the Lord will still be fulfilled.
Maybe in some place in Africa. Maybe somewhere in Southeast Asia. Maybe somewhere where affluence has not yet reached, and where there are believers simple enough to believe that God is God and His Word is His Word.
When that kind of revelation comes, this building programme of the Lord Jesus will be fulfilled.
Listen again to these wonderful words. It is not just that the Lord Jesus Himself said it; for me, that is enough. But listen to Zechariah the prophet:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.
Zerubbabel was just a human being, called and chosen by God, saved by the grace of God. “Who art thou, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel? Thou shalt become a plain.” The mountain—even an Everest—will become a plain, not just before the Lord, but before His own.
We would understand it if the Lord said, “Before Me, it will become a plain.” Of course, that is exactly right. But He said, “Before Zerubbabel it shall become a plain.” Can you believe it? Can you believe it?
Not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. Mountainous obstacles and difficulties are rendered a plain. His hands shall bring forth the headstone with shoutings of “Grace, grace, unto it.”
In Hebrew, whenever you use a word twice, it means perfect, complete, total. Total grace. Complete grace. Perfect grace.
His hands laid the foundation. His hands shall finish it—complete it. Is it any wonder that it says the eyes of the Lord rejoice when they see the plummet line in the hand of Zerubbabel? It is to do with building.
Beloved brothers and sisters, listen to me on this matter. Do not let the enemy depress you. Do not, just because there are so many who have fallen by the way, and just because there are so many charges made against us and so many accusations, become discouraged. Are we not a poor people?
Every time I hear these accusations, I get on my knees and thank the Lord that they do not know a whole number more things they could accuse me of. It is not hard. If I really investigated you, I would have a field day. I reckon I could find a thousand weaknesses about you.
My dear brother, my dear sister, we are all such poor material. But thank God, we are saved. We have been redeemed. We have been born of the Spirit of God. Is that not something tremendous?
If that is so, this building work, represented by this lampstand, is all to do with oil coming out of two olive trees. It is amazing. The light comes from the oil. It is a picture of the Holy Spirit: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Does it sink into you?
The only way the building work of the Lord Jesus can be completed is by the Holy Spirit. No other way.
Everyone loves the fruit of the Spirit. But there is the fire of the Spirit.
Every time the tabernacle was set up, and later the temple was set up, the fire of God came. The glory of God filled the place, and nobody could even stand to minister. Fire. Why are we afraid of fire?
You can be so respectable without fire. I came to the Lord through C. T. Studd. Poor little man. The doctor said of him that he was a museum of diseases. I feel like it myself sometimes now.
I remember saying to the Lord, “Please make me what You made C. T. Studd.” I did not mean this way, but it is still there.
No doctor would even give him a letter of recommendation to go as a missionary—to China with the Cambridge Seven, then to India, then to the Congo. But that little man, racked with illness, weak, spoken against everywhere in the Christian world—I thank God for him. It was the first Christian life I ever read after I was saved.
The fire of God in a dried-up old thornbush. The world turns aside every time there is a dead thornbush on fire. That is the church.
We are just dried-up thornbushes—plenty of thorns. Put your hand in, and you will know. But it is not the thornbush. We can be such respectable thornbushes. We do not touch each other. We are closed in and respectable.
But it is the fire in the thornbush. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
So how is this work going to be completed? By the Spirit of God alone and the grace of God alone.
It is the grace of God that brought you and me into the salvation of God. It is the grace of God that watched over us from the day we were saved. It is the grace of God that the Holy Spirit touched the eyes of our hearts and gave us understanding of His purpose.
Dear child of God, you have all the power of the Holy Spirit available to you and all the grace of God in the Messiah. Tell me, will this work not be completed?
If the power of the Holy Spirit is available to us, and the grace of God is available to us, how can this work not be fulfilled? If it is not fulfilled in us, it will be fulfilled somewhere in Africa or somewhere in Asia, where there are believers simple enough to commit themselves to the grace of God and to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, what an amazing thing this is. Listen. In Revelation, he says, “The mystery of God, according to the glad tidings which were preached, is completed.”
Listen again: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah; and He shall reign for ever and ever.” Done.
Listen again:
Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, for the marriage supper of the Lamb is come,
and the bride hath made herself ready.
The bride has made herself ready. Somewhere there has been building. Somewhere the building work has come to completion. Praise God.
Do you not find it amazing that in the Ephesian letter, which is the greatest exposition of the building programme of God in the New Testament, the greatest and fullest interpretation of the eternal purpose of God in the New Testament, the apostle, by the Spirit of God, ends this letter in this way?
Listen to him. He does not say, “Finally, let us have conferences. We shall need to teach people.” I have nothing against conferences. I have been coming to this conference nearly every year except one, I think—and I missed the very first one. They escaped me then. But I have been to pretty well every other one. I have nothing against conferences; they are tremendous.
But he did not say that. Nor did he say, “Finally, let us have an experience of the Holy Spirit.” I believe very firmly in the experience of the Holy Spirit, both His indwelling and His anointing—both fruit and fire. But he did not say that.
Nor did he say, “Finally, make sure you study this whole question about God’s eternal purpose. Get clear.” Of course, he is absolutely right—but he did not say that.
Nor did he say, “Finally, let us have plenty of evangelism. Fulfil the divine commission. Preach the gospel in the whole world.” Absolutely right. What did he say?
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, or strategies, of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against hosts of wicked spirits in the heavens.
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God.
Is this not interesting? I must watch myself on time, because I can get carried away on this. I find this amazing. It is almost as if the apostle ate something that did not agree with him. How do you get wrestling and standing in one breath?
Did you notice it? Listen: stand, withstand, stand, having done all stand—for our wrestling. I have never seen a wrestling match—I do not know, I imagine most of you do not watch wrestling—but have you ever seen a wrestling match in which they both stand?
I know those huge, monstrous Japanese gentlemen; they sort of gaze at one another with those ferocious looks. But I am not thinking of that. At home, one of the boys was a champion wrestler. It is the strangest thing in the world.
To stand. Wrestling is a contact sport. It is sweaty, vulgar, crude—not nice. Standing seems quite sophisticated.
I always used to say that most prayer meetings I go to are more like tennis championships than wrestling matches. You know, the ball goes backwards and forwards. Someone calls it out. Very sophisticated, very high-class, very nice.
But the apostle Paul did not say we are in a tennis championship. He said, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers.”
Now that is where we come unstuck. When troubles come in ourselves, in our assemblies, we tend to think of it as flesh and blood, and we get very bitter about the flesh and blood.
But it is principalities, powers, world-rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places. It is the gates of Hades again. It is the gates of Hades.
Notice what it says: “Put on the whole armor of God.” Oh, Paul, where are you taking us? Stand, withstand, stand, having done all stand; wrestling; now armor. Have you ever seen someone wrestling in armor?
“Put on the whole armor of God.” He says it twice. Then he describes what we have to put on—the whole armor. As Charles Wesley put it:
Leave no unguarded place;
take every virtue, every grace.
Put on the whole armor. In other words, let me try to put it as simply as I can. If you are still awake, listen.
It is almost as if the apostle is saying this: “Ephesus, you will lose everything—everything—if you do not learn to stand. You must not go forward. You must not go backward. You must not go to either side. You must not go up; you must not go down. Stand. Withstand. Stand. Having done all, stand.”
It will be contact. It will be contact with the enemy. You will feel and smell the breath of the enemy. But do not fear. If you learn to stand, you will use the keys.
Now let me say something else. Standing is the Jewish mode of worship, and standing is the Jewish mode of prayer.
You stand to praise the Lord. You stand to pray. The normal mode—sometimes you kneel, sometimes you fall prostrate completely—but the normal mode is to stand.
Now, is this not interesting? Here we have a key. We have a key to an understanding of how to use these keys of the kingdom of heaven.
It is so simple. A child should be able to understand this. How do you win the battle? By standing. Standing in what? Standing in the Lord. Standing where? In the Lord.
Do not get all neurotic about whether you have got every bit of the armor on. I knew one man who nearly did that. He was really a Christian neurotic. He used to stand before a mirror every morning and put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate, and the loins girded around. That is legalism gone crazy.
All you have to do is say to the Lord, “I am remaining where You placed me—in Christ. I am absolutely safe in Him. He is my covering. He is my protection, and He is my victory.” Do you understand?
Now, is this not an amazing way to win the battle? Paul was really saying this: “Listen, if you do not learn how to stand in Christ, and more than that, to stand within the purpose of God for Christ—to stand further within the purpose of God for Christ and His home—the enemy will come in like a flood and take everything away.”
Well, we know that the testimony of Jesus was nearly withdrawn because they left their first love. Whether they came back, we do not know. But what we do know is that Ephesus, the church in Ephesus, totally disappeared.
You see, we read this wonderful word, “Be strong in the Lord,” and say, “Oh, wonderful. Let me put on the whole armor of God, use His shoes, and I will be safe individually.” It is actually talking about the church.
You must put on the whole armor of God. You must stand. In other words, you have to know what is the mind of God and the will of God. Then you can stand. You can withstand in the evil day, and having done all, you can stand.
The enemy has wiles. That is an old-fashioned word, and it is almost like a fairy tale. Better: strategies. He is not stupid. He knows the weakness of every believer, and he knows the weakness of every assembly. He knows exactly how to plan.
An evil day—oh, these evil days of the enemy. How long he plans for them! They do not just come like that. He plans, just like 9/11 was planned years in advance.
The enemy plans, and when finally he strikes, he knows he has depressed the people of God, knocked them out—more turmoil, more confusion, more disorder.
Fiery darts of the evil one. These fiery darts were poison-tipped as well as on fire, which meant that if you had a clever archer and he could get one into the joints of the armor, he could paralyze a warrior.
Have you ever known a fiery dart somehow hit its mark in you? You know, you are walking with the Lord one day, and then suddenly something happens, and you are almost paralyzed.
Well, dear people of God, keys. It is another way of saying, “To thee have I given the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” What is the purpose of God for the church?
Upon this rock I will build My church.
Has Satan power to destroy it? Absolutely not.
And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Why then does so much work of the Lord go into degenerate deterioration? Why does it break up? Why do people we have walked with for years suddenly get—well, so many of these things are phantoms. Have you noticed that?
You ask people, “What is it?” “I cannot tell you. Well, there is something wrong.” “Something wrong?” “Yes, something dark, something dark.” “What is dark?” “Well, you should know if you are walking with the Lord.”
How are these phantom things possible? Sometimes they are not phantoms. Sometimes they are real things. In other words, there are weaknesses, and the enemy knows it. He plays on those weaknesses, whether in this one or that one, and it brings turmoil, dissipation, criticism, and everything else.
Well, dear brothers and sisters, I think that is nearly all that I have to say tonight. One last thing:
Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,
with all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit.
Now, is this not interesting? Take the sword of the Spirit—the only offensive weapon mentioned in this amazing revelation of divine victory. It was the small sword used to finish off the enemy.
The helmet is salvation; we understand that. “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” Why does not the Spirit of God say, “Take the Word of God with all prayer”? No, it says, “Take the sword of the Spirit.”
In other words, the Holy Spirit has to take this Book, with all its promises and all its declarations, and apply it to given situations. When the people of God take that Scripture, take that promise, take that declaration, stand on it in the name of the Lord, and refuse to budge, the Lord works the victory.
Shall I tell you something else? You learn something every time you have been involved in a victory. You are never the same again. It is yours—yours.
So, dear friends, listen very carefully to me on this: God-given faith, proclaiming and declaring that His purpose will be fulfilled.
Well, dear folks, sometimes things get so bad that we really wonder whether there can be any recovery at all. Things seem to go to pieces. Everything goes down.
That is the time to stand, and withstand, and stand, and having done all, stand. Is that not beautiful? “Having done all, stand.”
So simple is this matter. When it comes to experience, it is not always quite so simple. But, you see, the enemy knows just how to give us nightmares—sort of visions, negative visions, of the impossibility of it.
Learn to praise the Lord.
Have you noticed something that Brother Sparks said many years ago? When you sing a hymn that is a declaration, the whole atmosphere in a place rises.
When it is an appeal, you do not have that, because it is an appeal. When it is almost a petition, as many hymns are, you do not have that. But when you have one of these wonderful hymns:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
doth His successive journeys run.
All hail the power of Jesus’ name!
Let angels prostrate fall.
When you release that—especially when you sing it to the right tune—I mean, it is something tremendous. It is almost as if the Spirit of God witnesses to it in everybody. The whole thing lifts.
Faith. Sometimes people say—I have so often heard it—“Well, we have so little faith, you know. We have got so little faith.” That is not the problem. The problem is whether you are using the little faith. That is the problem.
Everybody thinks they have such great faith. What do you have great faith for? Faith in itself has never done anything. Faith in itself is nothing. Really, I mean it: faith is nothing in itself.
Faith never removed a mountain, all through history. It is God who moves mountains. But a little bit of faith, alive, will knit you to the infinity of God, and anything can happen.
God-given faith, proclaiming the Word of God in these devilish, satanic situations of division, faction, problem, and paralysis.
May the Lord touch our hearts and open our eyes. Whoever you are, it matters not. If you are a child of God, you have a divinely given destiny in Him.
Do not throw away your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
Let the Lord Jesus clear again the eyes so that we see Him afresh. For every time we see the Lord, faith is born in our hearts.
One thing have I asked,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord.
That is where faith comes. To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple—that is where understanding comes.
Shall we pray?
Loving Lord, You know us. We are all such poor material. Lord, it does not matter who we are; we all feel so unworthy and such poor material. But, Lord, You have chosen us. You have saved us. You have brought us into understanding of Your purpose.
Will You take this evening and burn it into our hearts, Lord? Somehow get this right into us, Lord, in such a way that we cannot be the same again.
Those who are young and have very little understanding, Lord, let this night be the beginning of an understanding of Your purpose and a pilgrimage, a walk with You, which will end in Your throne.
And for those of us who are older, Lord, if we have become depressed or cast down, Lord, give us a fresh glimpse of Yourself that will set us on our feet and enable us to stand, and to withstand, and having done all, stand.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.