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 will He lift up the head.
Let us bow our heads once more in prayer.
O Father, we have already committed ourselves to Thee and opened our hearts to Thee, but I just want, Lord, to confess my own need, as we turn to Thy Word, of that anointing that is in the Lord Jesus.
And, O Father, whether for speaker or for hearer, we all need that anointing provided for every one of us in our Lord Jesus. For it says that that oil runs down the head, upon the beard, right down to the hem of the garment. Lord, we would ask Thee this morning to be just like that—gloriously enabled by Thy divine power.
So that, Lord, we meet with Thee and receive from Thee, and we shall give to Thee all the praise and the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
This morning I want to come to the third lesson from this psalm. Last night I spoke about the second lesson, the eternal purpose of God: Zion. We considered that little phrase in Psalm 110:2, “out of Zion.”
Now this morning I want to come to the third lesson, which I have entitled “The Eternal Purpose of God’s Dominion”: that His own should have dominion—the headship and authority of Christ over and through His own.
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Now this is, to me, very wonderful, because we know that this psalm is a Messianic psalm. We know that it refers to the ascension and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
These words refer to the Lord Jesus Christ: the fact that He has finished the work, and that He has obtained, once and for all time, everything required to save a sinner; everything required to turn a sinner into a saint; everything required and necessary to conform us to the image of God’s Son.
Every single thing required that we might be anointed and gifted by the Holy Spirit; every single thing required that we may serve God with gladness; every single thing required that the church of God should be built up and the work completed—all has been obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ and by His finished work.
And the Father has said to Him, “Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” In other words, it is the Father Himself who is taking the enemies of Christ, the enemies of the purpose of God, the powers of darkness and all their many devices and works, and is going to make those beings and those works the footstool of the Lord Jesus’ feet.
But now, in Psalm 110:2, we find a very wonderful thing:
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion.
In other words, it is the purpose of God not only to redeem men and women and bring them into union with our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is His purpose to train us for government.
When we come to the end of the Bible, as I was saying last night, we find an extraordinary picture. We have, on the one side, a city. Now, a city is a centre of government; it is a centre of administration. It is where all the government, either of a nation or of an area, is centred. It is headquarters.
And we have a picture of eternal government:
The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall serve Him.
And they shall reign for ever and ever.
It does not even say, “He shall reign for ever and ever.” It says, “They shall reign for ever and ever.” That is the last word of God concerning His own.
We do not know what is going to happen in eternity to come. We do not know what we are going to do. We do not know how God’s creative genius is going to be displayed and exercised. But this we know: that the redeemed are going to be joined to the Lord in an eternal marriage. They shall serve Him, they shall see His face, and they shall reign for ever and ever.
This is why the Lord Jesus said in the last message to the seventh church, the church at Laodicea:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne,
As I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
In other words, the desire of God is not only that we should be born of Him, that we should be His children, but that we should grow up, be trained and educated, and be qualified to be part of His government and His administration.
Now, this does not just mean that willy-nilly every single child of God is going to sit on a throne. The Scripture is quite clear on this matter:
If we suffer with Him,
We shall also reign with Him.
There is an “if” here. If we are not prepared for the discipline of the Holy Spirit down here on earth, if we are not prepared for the discipline of the church—of our brothers and sisters—down here on earth, we will disqualify ourselves from eternal government.
This is a very important matter that we are dealing with. It is remarkable to me that here in this psalm, written by David humanly speaking, yet divinely inspired by the Spirit of God, we have the whole span of time—from eternity to eternity.
The very thought in the heart of God at the beginning was for man. What was the Lord’s first word to man in Genesis 1:28?
Let them have dominion.
God’s idea for man was that first he should subdue the earth, cultivate the earth, till the earth, watch over it, and administer it. He should have dominion over the earth. The idea was that all the physical and natural side would be the kindergarten in which man would be trained, in union with God, to have dominion.
From there, he would have gone on to the spiritual dimension, ruling, as it were, with God. Now man fell, but God’s purpose has not changed. From the very beginning, His desire is to find a home amongst redeemed ones; to build us together, to fitly frame us together, and to bring us into a relationship with one another which is not for time, but for eternity.
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion.
I think it will be worth all the afflictions, all the trials, all the routine trivia of church life, all the collisions and all the corners that are not passed, all the having to walk the way of the cross, all the having to be broken, all the having to lay down one’s life for one’s brothers and sisters. It will be worth it all if, in the end, we come to the throne of God.
Could there be anything more wonderful in the whole world than to come finally to the centre of God’s purpose for man? To be, at the very end, by the grace of God alone, right at the heart of what God first desired for man: that we should reign with Him.
I cannot think of anything more wonderful. And, dear child of God, this is the very significance of your salvation. When God saved you, it was not only to loose you from your sins. It was not only that you might praise the Lord. It was not only that you might know new life, wonderful as that is. It was not only that you might come into union with God and enjoy fellowship with the Lord.
The meaning of your salvation was that God should not only build you together with other believers, so that you might be educated, trained, and disciplined, and learn some of these lessons; but that you and I might learn, here and now on this earth, in time and in association with our brothers and sisters, to rule in the name of the Lord Jesus.
No person will ever come to the throne unless first they learn how to rule their own circumstances in the name of the Lord. No one will ever come to the throne unless first they have learned how to reign over their own problems—perhaps inherited from family, perhaps inherited from other sources, which had nothing to do with them.
We have to learn how to exploit and appropriate the grace of God. We have to learn how to get on top. For God has said, “You shall not be the tail, but the head. You shall not be beneath, but above.”
We have to learn that God has provided all the grace required and necessary for us to reign with Christ here and now. For some of you, it will be the kitchen sink. For some of you, it will be all the routine duties of a home and family. For some, it will be college; for some, hospital work; for some, the factory; for some, business life.
For all of us who are redeemed, it will be in church life. There will be plenty of problems. People are always looking for the perfect church. They are looking for a church without problems. Oh, my dear friend, what is wrong with us? We do not want a church without problems. We want a church with problems.
That is where you are taught to overcome. If we are going to have one of these lovely places where all is praise and joy, where there is never a collision, never a disagreement, never a ripple of difficulty, how are we going to learn?
We can live in a fool’s paradise. You will never need to learn to appropriate the grace of God. You will never need to learn how to maintain the unity of the Spirit. You will never need to learn how to lay down your life for your brothers and sisters, how to fall into the ground and die.
That, my dear friend, is the whole point of the church down here: it is full of dirt and filth. It is the place where God is boiling out all that comes to the surface. I spoke about gold being refined. Where do you think it happens? Where does all this dirt and scum come to the surface if it is not in our being built together?
Of course, it all begins to come to the top. It is just there that either you and I get annoyed with one another and say, “Well, farewell. I will find something else more spiritual than this lot.” But if you opt out of a company of God’s children on the real foundation of God, you have opted out of eternal government.
You have disqualified yourself from the school of Christ, from the school of the Holy Spirit, because what the Lord is seeking to do with you and me is to train us in how we may appropriate the grace of God and the power of the anointing which is ours in the Holy Spirit, in order to overcome these problems.
God does not always remove the problems. It is very interesting in the Word of God: there are two or three ways in which God deals with mountains.
One way is that He causes them to melt:
At Thy presence the mountains flow down.
What a wonderful experience that is when you have a mountain of problem or difficulty, and suddenly the Lord steps in and the whole mountain disappears overnight. They are wonderful. Oh, how we praise the Lord!
But there is another way God deals with mountains: He gives us faith to remove them. We speak to the mountain, and it moves. Isn’t that wonderful? Oh, that is the great excitement.
But then there is another way God deals with mountains: He leaves them.
No, no, no—never, never! God always removes mountains. No. He says, “I will make all My mountains a way.” In other words, the mountains are left there, but they become the way of the Lord. You have to go up, and you have to go down, but the mountains have become the highway of the Lord.
He has made the problems and difficulties a way for you to go on, so that instead of them destroying you, instead of them paralysing you, you in fact traverse them and see the purpose of God fulfilled.
What God does in many cases is a variety of this last kind of mountain. Habakkuk says:
He hath made my feet like hinds’ feet.
Now, hinds’ feet are the most incredibly delicate things you have ever seen. They are not elephants’ feet. Some believers try to get up into the mountains God leaves in their lives, or in church life, with elephants’ feet—pounding all over the place.
But this is not the way to live in the mountains that God leaves in our lives. He gives us hinds’ feet, and we can walk in the high places, springing from rock to rock, never falling, because God has given us the ability to overcome and reign in the place of darkness and difficulty.
Now, dear child of God, do you begin to understand why sometimes the Lord does not always answer our prayers for a thorn to be removed, for a difficulty to be smoothed away, or for something to be miraculously melted in front of us? Because God sees the end. He is Father. He sees the end.
He is such a good Father. He has the problem: shall I immediately do what this little one is trying to get Me to do day and night, or shall I leave them to suffer for a while till they learn that they must overcome in this problem?
That is why, in the love of God, because He is a Father, He leaves us with the problem that we may overcome it. Once we have overcome it, we shall never be the same again. Something has happened.
It is one thing to have a mountain removed. That is one experience. A far greater experience is to learn how to traverse it. That is a greater experience.
You see, when you have mountains removed—as I have often said, with Daniel and his lions—the best way to come through is to face the lions. If you only have all the lions removed in a miraculous way, all sort of killed off, then every time you come to a possible lions’ den in your experience, the devil can whisper and say, “Now, if God does not remove this, you are finished.”
But the deepest level of all is to be able to go in amongst the lions, look them straight in the eye, and find out that they are nothing but pussycats. God has shut their mouths. They cannot eat you.
Then what can the devil do? He can give you a thousand lions’ dens, and you will go right through them all, praising the Lord and fulfilling the purpose of God. He has no ground for fear in your life anymore. You have faced the worst, faced the possibility of being eaten by the lions, looked them straight in the eye, and found that they cannot harm you.
So, dear child of God, this matter of “The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion”—what does it mean?
The Lord, the Father, says to the Lord Jesus:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Surely this must refer to the church on earth. We know that the enemies of God are everywhere. We know that Satan was cast down and that his time is short. But for the Father to say to the Lord Jesus, “Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies,” it seems to me that the Father is saying that the Lord Jesus must rule through His body on earth amongst the enemies.
In other words, how is God going to make these enemies the footstool of our Lord’s feet? Only when the church, by the grace of God, learns to overcome, takes those enemies by faith through the finished work of the Lamb, and puts them under the feet of the Lord Jesus.
Oh, for people who can hear the Word of God—people who can hear the purpose of God, people who can read the mind of God in a given situation. They know that the Lord would rule this thing.
Then we can understand this wonderful word: “send forth.”
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
You see, dear people of God, we have been, according to Colossians 1:13, delivered from the powers of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His dear Son.
In other words, we have become an alien embassy or colony here on earth, a guarantee that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” That is why Satan hates us.
Do you think Satan bothers with me—a little whippersnapper, a bit of dust, a little bit of clay? Why, the devil has only got to go, and I shall fall over. He knows it. Left to ourselves, I am afraid to say, and I am sure it is true of you, we shall cooperate with him. We shall do his will, not God’s will.
But the wonderful thing is that God has delivered me from the powers of darkness and transferred me into the kingdom of His dear Son. He has brought me into union with the Lord Jesus upon the throne.
Satan hates me because I am a testimony to his end. I am a testimony to the fact that this earth belongs to God, not to the usurper; that the prince of this world has been cast out; that his time is limited; and that there is an end to his activity.
If I am a testimony in Europe, what is the church? It is the testimony of Jesus. It holds the testimony of Jesus. We are centres of light in darkness, cities set upon a hill that cannot be hid.
What I am trying to say is this: this matter of building the church, this matter of saints finding their relationship to one another in the Lord Jesus, is vital.
God does not just want us to come together for bless-me meetings, or merely for a little wonderful worship session. Thank God for real worship; it is a vital element. But the idea, friends, is that God wants us, the people of God, to stand together for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
It is the job of the church of Christ to see that the will of the Head is done here on earth.
Now, when you look at this, it becomes so wonderful. This word “rod of Thy strength” is one of a number of Hebrew words translated “rod,” but this particular word is the same word we find in Exodus 4:2:
The Lord said unto Moses, What is that in thine hand?
And he said, A rod.
And He said, Cast it on the ground.
You know this. This was the rod that Moses used all the way through with Pharaoh, and later over the Red Sea when it was divided and they walked over on dry ground. It was the rod that God used to bring water out of the rock. It is a symbol of divine authority.
It is the same word we find in Numbers 17:2:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of them rods, one for each father’s house, of all their princes according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods: write thou every man’s name upon his rod.
And thou shalt write Aaron’s name upon the rod of Levi; for there shall be one rod for each head of their fathers’ houses.
You will remember that this was a rebellion, and the rebellion was against Aaron. The Lord said, “Take these rods, write on every one the name of the tribe, and Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi, and put them up in the tabernacle before the ark of the covenant.”
The rod that budded would be the one that had God’s authority. When they came in the morning, they found that Aaron’s rod had not only budded; it had blossomed and borne fruit, all in the same day. The whole seasonal cycle had gone through—from life to fruit.
This is a symbol of divine authority. What does it mean? Only when there is divine authority in our lives, only when divine authority is recognised and not merely recognised but obeyed and experienced, only then can there be life. Only then can there be blossom, and only then can there be fruit.
That is why so often we can get a little group of believers together and find very little life and very little fruit. It is when we see the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we learn how to bow to His headship, how to read His mind, how to understand His will together, and how to do it, that we know life and more life, fruit and more fruit.
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion.
In modern English, we could put it this way: “The Lord will send forth Thy divine authority out of Zion.” Have you got it?
The Lord will send forth Thy divine authority out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
What is the Lord saying? He is saying that wherever there are redeemed ones gathered together upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, being built up together into a habitation for God in the Spirit, there the Lord says, “I will send forth Thy divine authority out of Zion. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.”
Who is to rule? It is the Lord Jesus. It is the Lord Jesus who is to rule over His enemies from us, through us, in us, through us. It is His divine authority that is to go forth out of Zion.
His being seated at the right hand of God the Father is not because He is weary, tired, or needs to relax. It is a position of strength.
Of course, it is recorded that the Lord Jesus stood to receive Stephen when he was martyred. It does not mean that the Lord Jesus is forever seated physically. I mean, for two thousand years He has not simply been sitting there. Lord, forgive me if that sounds irreverent, but it does not mean that.
It is a picture. When God said, “Sit,” what He meant was this: “Look, the work is done. You have completed the work. You have finished the work. Here is the guarantee: sit, and I will make Your enemies Your footstool.”
But when Stephen was about to be martyred, he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God the Father. There are one or two other instances where we hear of the Lord standing. But the point is that this psalm speaks of the finished work of the Lord.
He is not seated because He is weary, tired, or frustrated, but simply because He has finished the work. There is not one thing to be added to that work. I find that very, very wonderful indeed.
Turn to Ephesians 1. I will read from Ephesians 1:19. Now be careful, because many of you may know these words so well that they may just run over you like water off a duck’s back.
What the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
Far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
Now, where are you in this? Where are you in this? Listen again:
He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body.
Where is the body? Between the Head and the feet. Everything is under His feet. He has been made Head over all things to the church, which is His body. We are in Christ. Have you got it?
We are the Zion of God. We are the place where the name of the Lord has been caused to dwell—His holy habitation. Under our feet, because we are joined to the Head, all things have been placed. Our Head has been made Head over everything to the church, which is His body.
We have, unfortunately, got chapters and verses. They are a great blessing in many ways, but a great curse in other ways, because they divide our mental understanding and interrupt the flow of the Word. This was all written as a letter. The apostle Paul went straight on:
And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins.
And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Did you hear that? It does not say, “He will raise you up and will make you sit with Him in heavenly places in the ages to come.” No. It says that He has raised you up together with Him and made you sit together with Him in heavenly places.
My dear friends, think of it: the position of the church is that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. This marvellous position of our Head is ours as well. The body has been joined to the Head in His triumph. It is wonderful.
When you look at Ephesians 6, you find everything that is against us:
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 armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Isn’t this marvellous? We have all these enemies. Here are the enemies of which God the Father says to the Lord: “The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion: rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.”
What are these enemies? Principalities, powers, world-rulers of this darkness, and hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places. It is not flesh and blood. It is not Mr. Brezhnev, Mr. Kosygin, whoever is chairman in Peking, President Carter, Prime Minister Callaghan of Britain, or Prime Minister Begin. These are not the people we have to contend with.
You can contend with them. You can try to manipulate them, if only you had the power. You can try all kinds of things. But, my dear friends, you will never get anywhere. The real problem is the principalities, the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, and the hosts of wicked spirits that are behind these people.
You will remember how Daniel prayed three weeks concerning the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. When finally the angel came with the message, he said, “O man greatly beloved, the day you opened your mouth in prayer, you were heard, and I was on my way with the answer, but I got waylaid.”
Some people think this sounds like a Sunday-school story. But it is in the Word. He was waylaid by the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece. These are principalities. These are not human beings. They were fighting.
The fact is that it reveals to us that human history is only the outward expression of spiritual forces. Marxism is not merely a human ideology; behind it is a spirit. Behind many of the other great ideologies there are spiritual forces: principalities, powers, world-rulers of this darkness.
What does “world-rulers of this darkness” mean? It means that spiritual darkness and moral darkness are ruled by spiritual beings. My friends, we can evangelise until we are blue in the face. We can talk and talk and talk until we are blue in the face. But unless you and I know how to exercise the divine authority of the enthroned Christ, our Head, we shall never paralyse those spiritual forces.
Do you not realise that the enemy knows only too well that as soon as a few believers come together, he is afraid? He says, “Now then, we will mobilise our forces. We will put a ring of iron around this group. We will make every meeting they have heavy. We will upset them in every way possible.”
These poor people do not know what to do. They come together, sit there in a hush, and ask, “What is wrong?” Then they look at one another, and the devil says, “It is him. He is the cause of the problem.” “Oh yes, I always thought so.”
It is not really Brother So-and-so at all. It is not even your circumstances physically. The enemy has said, “This thing shall go no further. I will not allow the Lord Jesus to build His church here. I will not allow anything to happen at all. I will not allow saints to be illuminated. I will not allow them to start to move together. I will not allow them to be related to one another.”
Now the whole question comes: will we accept the verdict and the will of the powers of darkness, or do we trust in the purpose of our Redeemer? It is a collision between God and Satan, between Christ and the powers of darkness.
What are we going to do? For the most part, we do nothing. We sing hymns more and more weakly, or Bible choruses more and more weakly. We somehow have a few little prayers, or we do this or that. We do not know what to do. We do not know the truth of this wonderful Scripture:
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion.
Why should we put up with the enemy? Why should we put up with his devices? Why should we allow him to impose his will upon us? We are the freed people of God. We are not slaves in a spiritual Egypt. We are out of Egypt. God has redeemed us. God has loosed us from our bonds. God has delivered us from the powers of darkness.
Dear friends, why do we not rise up in the name of the Lord and see that the divine authority of our risen Head is exercised in our midst? Where there are hindrances, let us rule over them. Where there are difficulties, let us reign over them in the name of the Lord. Let us take our position as seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Let us speak the words of God in faith.
Now I want to say something. I do not mean by this that we should talk to the devil, that we should be forever speaking with the powers of darkness. Dear friends, we must leave that to those who have in them divine authority vested.
There are people who run round all the time rebuking Satan and telling this and that. They tell me they are safe. They are not safe. In the end, they will become, as we say in English, cropper. They will trip up in the end. They will uncover themselves in the end.
Our covering is the church. When the church, in the name of the Lord, rebukes the enemy—as if the Lord rebuke you, Satan—Satan is rebuked by our Head. He is set back.
How then do we call forth the rod, as it were? How do we let the Lord send forth the rod of Christ’s strength out of Zion? How does the Lord Jesus rule in the midst of His enemies?
Well, dear friends, we have to learn how to use the keys of the kingdom of heaven. We have to learn how to speak the will of God, not merely in petition, but in faith.
In other words, we have to learn to say out loud, “The Lord Jesus is triumphant here in this company. He is Lord of this company. He is Lord over the local rulers of darkness.” That is the way to do it. Do not talk to the enemy; talk to God. Do you understand?
The enemy is set back when you make positive statements. When you say, “O Father, we bless Thee and praise Thee. The Lord Jesus Christ has been made Head over all rule and authority and power in Richmond, Virginia, in Raleigh, North Carolina,” the enemy is set back.
Our time is against us. But when you look at Psalm 110 again, look at verses 4 to 6:
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.
I do not know why the American Standard Version puts part of this in the future, because the Hebrew is in the past. You will see that the New American Standard Bible puts it into the past tense: “The Lord at Thy right hand has struck through kings in the day of His wrath.”
Then it goes into the future: “He will judge among the nations.” Then it goes back to the past: “He hath filled the places with dead bodies. He has struck through the head in many countries.”
The word translated “struck through” is a very strong word indeed. It means to smite through, to wound severely, to shatter. The Lord at Thy right hand has shattered kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge the nations.
That does not only mean in the future, in the far, far future. It means that God, through His church, can judge a nation. He shatters kings. He fills the places with dead bodies. In other words, total victory.
In verse 5 you have kings; in verse 6 it says that He will strike through the head over a wide land. Even the rabbis have said that the “head” here is the principality behind the kings.
In other words, you have all the minions in their different countries or localities, and behind them you have the principality—the head. Has our Lord Jesus struck through, wounded severely, the head of the powers of darkness? He certainly has.
Genesis 3 says that He will crush his head. How did He do it? At Calvary. The Lord Jesus said:
Now is My hour come.
Now is the prince of this world cast out.
That is why Satan hates us, because we are the testimony to his casting out. At present, the whole world lieth in the evil one, but we are the testimony that the usurper has been cast out by the finished work of our Lord Jesus. It is only a matter of time before the Lord Jesus returns and the final verdict is executed.
Well, dear people of God, the purpose of God is to be fulfilled:
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.
The enthroned Christ is the guarantee that the purpose of God is going to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, it is through His own, through us whom He has redeemed, that He rules His enemies and realises God’s purpose.
For instance, in Psalm 2:
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord, and against His anointed.
Then, in verse 6:
Yet I have set My King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Now, my dear friends, I want to ask a very simple question. How have the nations become the inheritance? How has our Lord Jesus obtained an inheritance in the nations of this earth? How have the uttermost parts of the earth become a possession for Him? How?
It has taken two hands, two legs, a human mouth, and a human heart to go.
When our Lord said, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations,” and then, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”—the end of the age—this is exactly what He meant.
“Listen: I will ask My Father for China, but unless there is someone who will go, obey My will, stand there, and say, ‘China, there will be an inheritance for God out of this land and out of this nation,’ it shall not come to pass.”
Do you get it? Those early apostles went out. By about A.D. 44, if we believe church tradition, they had taken the gospel to India, Ethiopia, Armenia, Mauretania on the Atlantic coast of North Africa, Gaul, Spain, and even to the British Isles. Think of that. I am afraid they did not get to America, but by A.D. 44 those apostles had taken the gospel there.
It was not only that the Lord said, “Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance.” Somehow, the desire of His heart flowed over into the body. Members of the body responded and said, “I will go in Thy strength and in Thy power and by Thy grace.”
Do you think the church of God is going to be built in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, merely by a word from the throne? No. It requires more than that, as we shall see in the next session, when I take another lesson from this psalm. It requires the people of God to respond.
If God says, “My church will be built in the United States,” it requires redeemed men and women in the United States to rise up together and say, “Your church will be built in the United States because You have said it.”
The Lord Jesus said:
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.
In other words, you and I have got to discover what is the will of God for America. If you feel that is too big a matter, then we have got to discover what the will of God is for our place—where we live, our locality. What is the will of God for this area? What is the will of God for the redeemed ones in this area?
When we know it from the Word and have it confirmed in our hearts and in our spirit together, then we must speak out the Word. For the Lord will send forth the rod of His strength out of Zion.
The Lord hath said unto my Lord:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Thus, you see, the church is called to have dominion. Like Hudson Taylor, who died on a little island off the coast of China with the words, “Give me China.” Or like John Knox, who in that famous prayer meeting said, “O God, give me Scotland, or I die.”
It was the passion of the Head that had got into members of the body. Then the Father said, “I will.” Scotland knew revival, and finally so did China. China knew a work of God that spread through all its borders.
So it has been with every single land in this whole world. There have been those who, in union and communion with the risen Head, have somehow or other heard His cry. His passion and travail have spilled over into them—the travail of His own Spirit, of His own heart.
Thus, they have become an integral part of the purpose of God—its realisation and its fulfilment.
Dear people of God, shall we play at churches? Shall we play at churches? Shall we just have our little meetings? Are there not enough already?
Or do we see that it is not only that God wants us to have vision; not only that He wants us to be people of vision, who understand and see the objective of God, that to which He is driving; not only people who are committed to that vision and have an understanding of it; not only people who are built together and related to one another in the Lord—but more even than that?
Shall we not be people who, in the name of our Lord, see to it that He has dominion over the area in which we live?
That brings me finally to this. There is so much that one could say about executive action—how we do it. But, you see, dear people of God, it is to our Lord Jesus that the Father has said:
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.
In the end, it is a matter not of playing at churches, but of walking with the Lord.
When we really walk with the Lord, when we are sensitive to the Lord, when there are those who respond to the Lord, react to the Lord, hear the Lord, and can read and discern the mind of the Lord, then we can begin to exercise His authority. We have dominion.
So, you see, dear people, whether it is personal problems or corporate problems; whether it is our individual difficulties and needs over which we need to gain the ascendancy by the grace of God; whether it is our local need, the problems in the church in which God has placed us; or whether it is national problems or international problems—the things that stand between the Lord and the fulfilment of His purpose—we are called to learn His authority.
It is not that we should be politically conscious all the time as the people of God. But, my dear friends, it stands in the Word of God that we should pray for kings and all that are in authority. Why? That the gospel may go forth, that there may be an opportunity for men and women to find the Lord.
That is why we need the church to rule our nation from the secret place. That is why we need to rule even the nation. Now, perhaps you feel that is too much for us at the present time. We can overreach ourselves if we try to get there. But you can start with local problems, with those many things that stand as obstacles and hindrances to the building up of the church of God in whatever locality you are found.
Oh, may God help us. The rod of His strength going out of Zion.
If we do not learn to exercise His authority, if we do not learn, like Moses, to lift up the rod in the name of the Lord, we shall never come to the throne. Hear me in this.
It will be an even greater tragedy for us here, for we are not unacquainted with this truth. It would be an even greater tragedy if, having known the truth and understood the truth, we should yet be rejected when it comes to the government of God.
All the grace is available. All the power is available. All the resources are available. It is for you and me to appropriate what we need. May the Lord help us.
Out of Zion—highways to Zion in our hearts—we need more than that. We need to have the rod of His strength sent forth from our midst. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we have dealt with something that is not easy. But, O Lord, by Thy Spirit Thou art able to translate all this into practical terms and apply it, Lord, to all the companies that are represented here and to each of our lives.
O Father, do just that, we pray. Preserve this word from being misinterpreted or misunderstood, from becoming grounds for the wrong use of authority.
But Lord, on the other hand, by Thy grace, we pray that Thou wilt Thyself take hold of us as Thy blood-bought children and teach us, Lord, how to be so one with Thyself and with one another that Thou canst send forth the rod of His strength out of Zion, and He can rule in the midst of His enemies.
Make us, Lord, a people who know our Head, who know the mind of our Head, who do the will of our Head, and who see Thy purpose fulfilled.
Lord, let Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.