How very glad I am to be here amongst you, especially in Richmond, Virginia—from Richmond to Richmond.
Those of you who are from Richmond, let me just say this: you folks, quite a few years ago, put up a plaque on Richmond Hill, a spot overlooking the Thames Valley. On a clear day, you can see sixty or seventy miles right over the Thames Valley. You can see Windsor Castle on the skyline, and, on the other side, as far as the North Downs and even the South Downs on the coast of England, on the Channel.
You have put a plaque up there saying that, originally, when folks from Richmond, Surrey, came to Virginia to settle—I cannot remember the date, but it was a very early date in your history, a late date in ours—they came to this spot overlooking the James River and saw a site that reminded them so much of home that they decided to settle there and call it Richmond.
I said to Brother Stephen, when we came here and I looked down, “Well now, is this just exaggeration? Was it just wishful thinking?” But as I look down across there—even here, and I do not know whether this is the spot—certainly I could see straight away why they called it Richmond. It is quite familiar to me from the top of Richmond Hill, or in what is now called Richmond Park: the same view looking down, perhaps not quite so high.
So I felt very much at home. The only thing I do not feel at home with is the stickiness. That I do not feel at home with.
But I feel very much at home with you, dear people of God—not only from Richmond, but from everywhere else as well. I am glad to have the privilege, given to me by the Lord, of sharing something from the Word of God.
I would like to read from 1 Chronicles 22. I am going to read the whole chapter, from verse 2.
And David commanded to gather together the sojourners that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.
And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the couplings; and brass in abundance without weight;
and cedar-trees without number: for the Zidonians and they of Tyre brought cedar-trees in abundance to David.
And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnificent, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death.Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel.
And David said to Solomon his son, As for me, it was in my heart to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God.
But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build a house unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight.
Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.
He shall build a house for My name; and he shall be My son, and I will be his Father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.Now, my son, the Lord be with thee; and prosper thou, and build the house of the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken concerning thee.
Only the Lord give thee discretion and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel; that so thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God.
Then shalt thou prosper, if thou observest to do the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage; fear not, neither be dismayed.
Now, behold, in my affliction I have prepared for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver, and of brass and iron without weight; for it is in abundance: timber also and stone have I prepared; and thou mayest add thereto.
Moreover there are workmen with thee in abundance, hewers and workers of stone and timber, and all men that are skilful in every manner of work:
of the gold, the silver, and the brass, and the iron, there is no number. Arise and be doing, and the Lord be with thee.David also commanded all the princes of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying, Is not the Lord your God with you? and hath He not given you rest on every side? for He hath delivered the inhabitants of the land into my hand; and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before His people.
Now set your heart and your soul to seek after the Lord your God; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be built unto the name of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Lord, how glad we are that Thou hast Thyself said to us that Thou hast given the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to lead us into all truth. Now we just want to confess and recognize in Thy presence, Lord—speaker and hearer alike—that we are dependent upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot depend, Lord, upon eloquence or upon biblical facts even. Lord, we want to know that unveiling, by the Spirit of God, of these things to our hearts. O Father, wilt Thou fill this time, therefore, with Thyself? Wilt Thou cause there to be an unhindered ministry of the Holy Spirit, taking of the things of Christ and declaring them to us, glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ, granting us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus?
O Father, hear us. We give to Thee all the praise and the worship. We thank Thee, Lord, that it pleases Thee to take weakness and to manifest Thy power and strength in it. Do it this evening, we ask, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I want to speak this evening—and, if the Lord gives me the grace and the life to do it, on perhaps a few succeeding occasions—on the Book of Chronicles.
Now, do not all die. I know that some people find the Book of Chronicles chronic. They feel, “Oh dear,” you know, they start 1 Chronicles with all those long pedigrees and genealogies, and by the time they have waded through ten chapters of it, they are just about finished.
Then again, there are people who feel they cannot quite understand why we have the first and second books of Chronicles anyway, because after all, nearly the whole lot of it is pretty well found in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. So why have Chronicles redoing the whole thing?
But you know, when God repeats anything, it is vitally important. God never wastes words, and He never wastes time. God always repeats something with a very real objective. Chronicles is one of the most vitally important books in the Bible, and I hope that, as a result of these times, you will begin to see that.
There are certain books which are the interpretation of all the other books, and these books are therefore in a special position. For instance, two books come immediately to my mind.
Deuteronomy—the second giving of the law, the fifth book of Moses, the fifth book of the Bible—is in fact a going over of everything we already have in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. It is the second giving of the law, but it is absolutely vital because the Book of Deuteronomy goes to the heart of all that God has been doing in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
A new element is added that is there all the time, but which perhaps we have not noticed. It is as if the finger of God is put upon it and attention is focused upon it: God has done all this because He loves His people, and He wants them to be a vessel for Himself. There is much else in the Book of Deuteronomy we could speak about.
Another book which goes over the ground again in many ways is, of course, the Gospel according to John. The Gospel according to John is not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are historical records. Of course John is also historical, but it is written as an interpretation of the preceding three books.
Therefore, you get the whole Gospel built upon eight claims of “I am” and eight great signs. Well, that is just something else.
Now, the Book of Chronicles is just like these books. It goes over the ground all over again, and this time it focuses our attention upon the heart of the matter. It is as if God is saying, “Now then, you have gone through all this before, but we are going right back again, right to the beginning, and we are going to recap. Then I am going to point out to you what lies behind everything.”
You have, of course, the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings, and Chronicles covers all that ground once more. Samuel and Kings deal with the king and the kingdom. The whole of that history is about the way God brings in His King and His kingdom.
We will not stay with that this evening. Chronicles goes over all that ground once more and says that there is something even more vital than the kingdom: God brings His King in in order that His house may be built.
The theme of the two books of Chronicles, together with Ezra and Nehemiah—which, in Jewish reckoning, are considered to be one book—is the eternal purpose of God. We go right to the heart of the matter. It is as if God puts His finger upon something behind all this coming of the King, behind this matter of the kingdom and the throne of God. It is this purpose of God’s heart: to have a home for Himself.
To obtain an elect people, if you like; to produce living stones, and then build them together upon the right foundation into a holy temple in the Lord. Now, that really is what it is all about.
In other words, the theme of 1 and 2 Chronicles is the eternal purpose of God. It goes right back to Adam. The interesting thing is that it goes right back to Adam, quickly traces history through those genealogies which some people find so boring, and goes right on beyond Solomon to the return of Zerubbabel from Babylon.
It is as if God says, “Now, the whole of this history is to be explained in this term: here is the eternal purpose of God behind all these things, behind all these incidents, behind all these reigns, behind all the history of these different people of God, these different saints. There lies this sovereign, eternal purpose of God: to obtain a home for Himself.”
Or, if you like to put it another way, to produce a bride for His Son. It is the same thing, really. And, of course, it is very thrilling when we begin to see it like that.
That is why we have the pedigrees. That is why we have the genealogies. We will speak about that, if we get to it tonight, and find that they are very wonderful. It is not just a question of their being the genealogy of our Lord. It is the fact that somehow or another God is doing something with people, and it is possible either to stay within the centre of God’s purpose or to go out of it.
You do not lose your salvation, but you lose your inheritance. You go out of the will of God.
Some people think Christians cannot go out of the will of God, but they can. Saul went right out of the will of God. His whole story is here, and we have lots of others in the pedigrees: all kinds of people who started right and went off.
Then we have other people who started wrong, got right, and came in—people like Bathsheba, Tamar, Ruth, and others who were in an awful mess. But by the grace of God, they came right in and were found in the centre of God’s will.
Other people began very well. They had the right parentage and the right pedigree, but they went clean out. Esau was one of them. There were others who had the right father and the right mother, but went out of the purpose of God.
Then we have this whole period of chapters in the Book of Chronicles, all to do with preparation for the house: the battles that had to be fought, the materials that had to be won, all the laying up, as it were, on the ground, the obtaining of things for the Lord, in order that this house of God might be built.
Then we have, of course, the actual record of the building. After that, we have many chapters concerning the conflict over the house of God. For once the house of God is built, all hell comes out against it—to destroy it or to compromise it.
We have the whole record of the way Satan, hell itself, comes out by one means or another: frontal attack, or internal attack; coming right out against them from without, or somehow worming his way within and attacking from within to undo that work.
If we take Ezra and Nehemiah in with it, as it was originally, then we have finally not only the conflict and ruin of the house—the testimony of the Lord—but we have finally the recovery in glory.
That is a kind of potted history, a very quick bird’s-eye view of the whole thing.
Now let us come back to this again and see if we can see it more clearly. I am taking it that you are all real believers, every one of you born of God. If you are not, I pray that you may swiftly become so. But we will take it that everyone here really knows the Lord this evening.
The theme of Chronicles is the eternal purpose of God. It is as if God says, “Come with Me. We have recorded all this history—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. We have recorded it all, but now come with Me.”
“This is not really the heart of the matter. You have only been seeing the outward circumstances. You have only been seeing the outward things. Now come with Me. I want to take you back again. I want to go right back to Adam and trace the whole history again. Then I want to tell you what is the thing that is on My heart—the thing that has governed all My ways with you, the thing that has governed the pouring out of grace upon you, the reason why there is a way of salvation for you. I want to tell you what it all is.”
It is the eternal purpose of God.
This is why I have put this chart on the board here. It is very badly done. I did it very quickly; the light is not good. But I have done it so that you can come afterwards and make a copy if you feel it is valuable.
I remember years ago when I first discovered it. It was my greatest thrill when I suddenly found, to my amazement, that the first three chapters of the Bible and the last three chapters of the Bible minutely correspond.
All these people who tell us that the Bible is legend and myth, with one or two other things thrown in, and is a little bit wobbly in parts—you cannot trust it completely—I find it amazing. I will tell you why it is so amazing.
Although everyone always agreed that Genesis should be the first book, right through the first four centuries of the early church there was much discussion about the Book of Revelation. Indeed, it did not occupy the last position in the books of the Bible for many years. Sometimes it was put elsewhere, but not at the end.
Finally, in the fourth century after Christ, the Book of Revelation was universally recognized as being wholly of God and found its position at the end of the Bible. So it is not as if someone said, “Now then, all this other has come in. I will sit down and write something which caps the lot.” It was the Spirit of God who was doing this.
Now just look at it. Take the first three chapters and the last three chapters.
| Genesis 1–3 | Revelation 20–22 |
|---|---|
| A heaven and an earth — Genesis 2:4 | A new heaven and a new earth — Revelation 21:1 |
| Time ushered in — Genesis 1 | Eternity ushered in — Revelation 21 |
| Satan entering — Genesis 3:1 | Satan cast out for ever — Revelation 20:10 |
| Paradise lost — Genesis 3:24 | Paradise regained — Revelation 21:3 |
| Earth cursed — Genesis 3:17 | No more curse — Revelation 22:3 |
| Adam and Eve, a man and a woman — Genesis 2:23 | An innumerable company of the redeemed — Revelation 21:3; 22:14 |
| A garden — Genesis 2:8 | A city — Revelation 21:2 |
| The tree of life — Genesis 2:9 | The tree of life — Revelation 22:2 |
| The river of life — Genesis 2:10 | The river of life — Revelation 22:2 |
| God visiting the garden | God dwelling with His people for ever — Revelation 21:3 |
| Earthly marriage — Genesis 2:21-25 | The marriage of the Lamb and His wife |
| Pain, sorrow, and death — Genesis 3:16-19 | No more pain, crying, mourning, or death — Revelation 21:4 |
In the first three chapters, we have only two people: Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. That is all we have. But in the last three chapters, those two people have given place to an innumerable company of the redeemed, a redeemed people which no man can number.
In the first three chapters we have a garden, and the garden gives way in the last three chapters of the Bible to a city. Now, the city is a garden-city, but it is still a city. The garden has given place to a city.
In the first three chapters, we have the tree of life; in the last three chapters, we have the tree of life. In the first three chapters, we have the river of life; in the last three chapters, we have the river of life flowing out to the ends of the earth.
In the first three chapters, we have God walking in the midst of the garden once per day. In other words, God visits the garden to fellowship with Adam and Eve. Once per day, He moves into the garden and talks with them.
In the last three chapters, we have God dwelling in the midst of His own for ever. He is not visiting them. He is not merely coming in and going out. He is not there once per day. He is there; it is His home. He has come home. He is there for ever.
If He goes out, He goes out from them and comes back to them. But this is His home. He does not visit them. That is Revelation 21:3.
In the first three chapters, we have earthly marriage—Adam and Eve, man and woman, earthly marriage until death parts them. In the last three chapters, we have heavenly, or eternal, marriage. We have the Lamb and the wife of the Lamb. This marriage is an eternal marriage, of which earthly marriage is only a picture, a symbol, an illustration.
In the first three chapters, we have pain, sorrow, and death. In the last three chapters, we have those wonderful words: no more pain, no crying, mourning, or death.
Now listen carefully. In the first three chapters, we have, it seems, three substances. You have to follow this very carefully.
If you look in Genesis 2:11-12, you will find—and surely some of you must have asked yourselves why these things are mentioned—that there was a tree of life in the midst, and a river of life that flows out and becomes four great rivers, watering the whole earth. Then it says that if you follow the river, you will find, firstly, gold—and the gold of that land is good.
That is a very strange thing to say, is it not? Then it says you will also find an onyx stone. Then it says you will also find a thing called bdellium.
Three substances: gold, onyx stone, and bdellium.
Now this is quite interesting because, first, it is near the tree of life. That is where you begin. Secondly, you follow the river of life, and when you follow the river of life, you find these three things.
Gold we have no problem with. But onyx—onyx is very interesting, because if you look in Exodus 28:9-12 and Exodus 28:18-20, you will see that the high priest had twelve precious stones on the breastplate. Each stone represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and on each precious stone was engraved the name of the tribe. He had them on his heart.
It was a picture of the high priest bearing the whole people of God on his heart before God.
Those twelve names, those twelve tribes, were also gathered up onto his shoulders. He had six names on one onyx stone and six names on another, meaning that the government was upon his shoulder. But the stones on his shoulder did not correspond with the stones on the breastplate. They were onyx stones.
In other words, the onyx gathers up all the preciousness and qualities of the other stones into itself. It becomes the symbol of them all. You have got it?
So now, when you follow this river of life, you find not only gold, but precious stone. You find onyx stone, which symbolizes all the precious stones of the Bible.
Now, bdellium is even more interesting. In Hebrew, bedolach. This word was much discussed by the rabbis in our Lord’s day as to exactly what it was. Bdellium is an aromatic plant. This little plant, when you break it—literally, the pearl plant—gives out a white substance which hardens and has that opaque, mother-of-pearl look.
In fact, in our Lord’s day the rabbis were often discussing whether this plant was not actually pearls—river pearls. Well, we do not know, and we cannot establish it. But what we have now, listen carefully, is three substances: gold, precious stone, and something very much like a pearl.
It certainly has the same symbolism as a pearl. You have to break it—suffering—and out of the broken plant comes its very lifeblood. Its lifeblood becomes something like a pearl.
Perhaps you are all looking at me blankly. We come to the last three chapters of the Bible, and what do we find? If you do not know your Bible, I hope that by talking like this it will give you such an appetite for getting into it that wild horses will not stop you.
The fact is, when you come to the last three chapters of the Bible, you have a city, a city of incredible beauty. It is produced out of only three substances: gold, precious stone, and pearl. There is no other substance in the whole city. You find this in Revelation 21:18-21.
The gold is so refined that it is transparent as glass. Not one of you has ever seen gold transparent as glass. What refining! What fire! What affliction that gold has gone through to become transparent as glass, so that only the glory of God can shine through it—nothing to stop the glory of God, nothing to stop the light of God shining through it.
It is incredibly wrought upon: gold of the most precious quality.
The second thing is precious stone: the twelve foundations of the city. Abraham, when the God of glory appeared to him, went out seeking the city which had the foundations. What are these foundations upon which this eternal city rests? They are these twelve precious stones.
Where do they come from? Deep down in the dark places of the earth. How have they been formed? By tremendous heat and pressure in hidden places—“treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,” as the prophet Isaiah says.
These have been found by the Spirit of God, brought out, and wonderfully wrought upon so that it becomes a city. Think of it: gold and precious stone, all wrought upon in such a way that it becomes a city, compact together, builded together.
The third thing: you have twelve gates, and the twelve gates are each of one pearl.
Everlastingly, the way into the city is through a pearl gate. Everlastingly, the way out is through a pearl gate. Gates speak in Scripture of government. It is where things are settled. Always, in the old days, things were settled in the gate. The elders went to the gate, and there they sat for judgment, for settling disputes, and for making things legal and definite so they could not be changed.
What a wonderful thing it is.
Now will you mark again, please, those of you who are mystified about the Bible? Here in the beginning, in the first three chapters, where do you find these things? My dear friend, they are not obvious to the naked eye. The only thing that is more obvious is the river, and you have to follow the river.
You have to start with the tree of life and follow the river of life. If, having begun at the tree of life, you follow the river of life, you will come to gold.
But where is the gold? The gold is all in the silt. It has to be discovered, mined, sieved, and then fired. It is all there.
Where do you find the precious stone? Under the very ground you are walking on. You do not see it with these eyes. It is there, but it has to be found and discovered.
Where is the pearl? Well, it is right in the water, out on the riverbed. Do you know what produces the pearl? An ugly piece of grit falling into the softest part of the clam. The clam says, “Ouch. I do not like this. I am going to eject this bit of grit. This does not belong to me. This has nothing to do with my life. This is Satan. This is something that has come from hell.”
So it says, “I will take all the resources that are in my life and put a coat around this thing and eject it.”
It puts one coat around it, and the grit stays. So it sends out another coat, and another. You can almost hear the clam saying, “Lord, Lord, this messenger of Satan, take it away from me. It is like the agony of impalement. This is a thorn in the flesh.”
And the Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Another coat goes around the bit of grit.
Then you see the clam saying again, “Lord, take it away, take it away,” and the Lord says, “No, My grace is sufficient,” and another coat goes around. You see, all the resources and energies of the life of God in you are producing a coat around the grit.
The grit is not taken away, but God changes the grit.
Years ago, digressing for one moment, I remember listening to Mildred Cable speaking about the jade-smiths of Central Asia and of Peking. I have never forgotten it. I was a lad, and I was enthralled to hear her say that some of those jade-smiths whom they knew and with whom they became friends would spend as many as six years—not nonstop, but over years and years—looking at a piece of jade with a flaw in it.
The whole art was how to make the flaw the central part of the piece.
Some of you have seen beautiful pieces of jade. There are some in Washington, in whatever gallery it is called. Suddenly you see what the craftsman has done: he has taken a flaw, a bit of brown in a beautiful piece of jade, and made it a bee on a peony. Or he has taken a little ugly, flaky piece of grey and made it a frog on a lotus leaf.
The flaw has become the central piece, the reason for the whole.
There is no jade mentioned in the city, but you see, it is the same thing as the pearl. Oh, this city—it is all there in the beginning of the Bible. The whole thing is there, only you cannot see it with the naked eye. The biblical critic can scoff, but it is all there.
When the Spirit of God opens the eyes of our heart, we suddenly find that the beginning of the Bible and the end of the Bible have an extraordinary correspondence. No man did it, but the Spirit of God brought these two things together.
I will tell you something even more remarkable. Keep your eyes open and your ears open.
If you take the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation, you have the beginning and the end of the matter without the fall of man or sin. You have the beginning and the end of the matter—except that perhaps in Revelation 22 it says that nothing filthy, or that maketh a lie, shall enter into the city.
Otherwise, you have the beginning and the end of the matter. You have something that God set out to do, and at the end there it is, completed. Here it all is in a hidden way, and there it is all produced and wrought upon into something of eternal and incredible beauty.
Now, having said all this, let us ask: in Genesis 3 we have the fall, the entry of Satan, fallen man, sin, the curse, death, and all the rest of it. We all know that—every one of us in this room.
In Revelation 20, we have the end of it. Thank God. He is thrown into the lake of fire, and that is the end of the whole thing of sin.
It is as if God suddenly says, “Now look here, do you understand the word ‘parenthesis’?” I have to be so careful. I remember when I first came to the States, the little motto at the top of the New York Times read like this: “English is the language which divides the United States from the United Kingdom.”
Sometimes words that we say use the same words that you use, but they have a slightly different meaning. Now, do you use the word “parenthesis”? Yes, you do, so you know what I am talking about.
You have Genesis 1 and 2, and with Genesis 3 you have the beginning of the parenthesis: the fall into sin, time, and the whole tragic story of man. Yet also the glorious story of the coming of the Messiah, promised at the very beginning.
We follow the story all the way through fallen man and the coming of the Messiah, until the Messiah comes, born of a woman, born of David’s line, and finally gives His life for the salvation of us all. Still we have fallen man. Now we have a redeemed people, but we are still in the parenthesis. Do you understand? All of us are still in this parenthesis now. We are still in the brackets.
But is it not wonderful? When we come to Revelation 20, it is as if God says, “Now then, I am putting in the bracket. Here we are at the end of the parenthesis. Finished.”
Then He says, “The former things have passed away. Behold, I make all things new.” Now, is that not wonderful? If you do not say hallelujah over that, you must be dead.
When you think how wonderful it is, here is the amazing thing: we do not know what God is really going to do.
Some people say they find heaven rather boring. They imagine lying around all day doing nothing, or being in an eternal choir. “Will we not get rather tired after we have sung these praises for a thousand years, sort of nonstop? Will we not get a little bit weary?”
This is a misunderstanding of eternity. It is a fallacy.
Of course we are going to sing. Of course we are going to play. But do you think that God, who is the creative Being, is going to stop? Of course not.
This world, with all its beauty, is a pale reflection of what God originally had in mind for man. It says in Romans 8 that the whole creation has been subjected to bondage, the bondage of corruption.
We do not even know what that means, but it seems that somehow or another these trees, fields, hills, and this natural creation were meant for something else originally. But because of the fall of man, it lost its object. It lost its purpose. It lost its heart, if you like.
The whole thing has been an endless cycle of corruption and corruption, vanity and vanity, emptiness and futility. It is all waiting for the manifestation of the glory of the children—the sons—of God. Oh, how wonderful, when you really think about it like that.
We do not even know what is going to happen. All we know is that the Bible ends with a marriage. There are only two ways of looking at marriage: either it is the end or it is the beginning.
Some people say, “Oh dear, poor fellow, that is the end.” Other people say, “How marvellous. He is beginning life.”
Marriage is both things. It is the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Now the Bible ends with a marriage.
Dear child of God, you love your Lord, do you not? The more you find Him, do you not find that He is absolutely marvellous? You may get disappointed with believers, but you do not ever get disappointed with Him. My word, there must be something wrong with you if you have been disappointed with the Lord.
I have never yet been disappointed with the Lord. I have been disappointed with believers a thousand, thousand, thousand times, and by myself even more. But with the Lord, I have never been disappointed.
There are times when we are in the valleys, but what about the mountaintop experiences? My word, I remember years ago being given a little book called The Rooftop Saints. If anyone ever sees that little book, I would love to have it again.
It spoke about cellar Christians, who were those greatly inhibited; kitchen Christians, who were the brethren who loved eating; drawing-room Christians, who were the Methodists, who loved to be getting on doing things; and then there was the bedroom, where certain folks were fast asleep.
Then there were the attic Christians, and the rooftop Christians. They shouted, “Hallelujah!” all day long because they were filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Well, I remember that little book. But the point is this: when we begin to see something of the purpose of God, it is so wonderful. The Bible ends with a marriage, and it is as if God says, “No, I am not going to tell you what I am going to do in eternity. All I am telling you is that I have at last got you and My Son together.”
Dear child of God, with all these wonderful experiences we have, we are only betrothed. We are only engaged. We are not yet married. We are in a state of betrothal. We are actually engaged to our Lord, but the marriage supper of the Lamb is still to come.
What is it going to be like? Why, we shall be transported out of ourselves when this marriage is finally consummated, and when we really are one spirit, soul, and body for all eternity. It is going to be absolutely marvellous.
When we look back, we will say, “It was worth it. It was worth every single affliction. It was worth every single dark spot. It was worth every single bit of being knocked about by other saints in being built together. It was worth it to put up with so-and-so and to go through with those things. It was absolutely worth it, because here we are.”
We are not just those blessed ones invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We are the ones who are actually the bride herself.
Oh, how wonderful. We do not know what it will be in the future. We do not know what God is going to do. All I know is that God is creative. He does not stop. He is going to go on.
It is as if He says, “Now then, My dear ones, I can close the parenthesis. I can put in the final bracket. The former things are past. We can get on with the job. We can really get on with the job.”
But we do not know what the job is.
All we know is that we are going to be one with Him, joined to Him: the wife of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem, the city of God. God is at home for ever there. He is going to manifest His glory through it. The nations are going to walk in the light of it.
I only know that there is going to be eternal service. There is going to be service. So if you think you are not going to work in heaven, you have got another thing coming.
There is going to be eternal service, and it is going to be wonderful.
We have gone through all this because, when we come to this matter, we must ask ourselves: what is at the heart of the whole thing? Somewhere between the first three chapters and the last three chapters, we must understand God’s purpose.
I can only say that God’s purpose is that you and I should become part of Him. That seems almost blasphemous, but you know it is in the Word.
Listen to these wonderful words. I will give you first a Scripture in 2 Peter 1:4:
Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature.
Here it is: we are to become partakers of the divine nature. We are to become those who are in Christ, those who become the members of Christ.
Now, you know the word member, do you not? It means part of Christ, limbs of Christ—not members on a church roll or on a bit of paper, but members as when we speak of dismembering a body.
We are to become the members of Christ. What a glorious thing. If the Bible did not say it, it would be almost blasphemous, would it not? It would be almost blasphemous to say that you and I could become part of Him.
Of course, the Lord Jesus never loses His unique deity. He never loses His unique position as God the Son. But we become part of Him. How wonderful. How wonderful.
I get so excited about this, because we Christians have done a terrible thing. The gospel we have preached has been so poor that we have given the world the idea that you preach a kind of gospel, people get saved, get forgiven, go to church, sing hymns, say prayers, read their Bible—preferably every day—and, if they are very zealous, witness to others.
Then one day they die and sit on a cloud forever after, playing a harp in an eternal hallelujah chorus. The world turns round and says, “If that is Christianity, you can keep it.”
We have devalued the whole thing. We have made it like a fairy tale. No wonder the new generation says, “What has Christianity got for us?”
But that is not Christianity.
This is not to devalue the fact of forgiveness, or the cost of our forgiveness, or justification. The most glorious thing in the gospel is the fact that God justifies us absolutely—not bit by bit, but absolutely—so that our sins and our iniquities He remembers no more. They are cast away from Him. They are blotted out. There is not even a record of them. They have gone.
But, dear child of God, that is only the beginning. That is the means to an end.
When God saves you, it is that you might become a partaker of His nature, that you might become a partner in Him, that you may share Him.
Let me give you another Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:9.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Not into fellowship with His Son, but into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
What is this fellowship of His Son? We have it in 1 Corinthians 12. It is a body.
My body is a fellowship of Lance Lambert. You may not like it, but there it is. My little finger says, “I am in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.” My ear says, “I am in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.” My foot says, “I am also in the fellowship of Lance Lambert.”
My little finger says, “I share his life. I share his intelligence—what there is of it. I share his mind. I share his will. I share everything. I share his name. His name is my name.”
My big toe says, “And mine too. I am nowhere near you, little finger; I am down the other end. But I share the same life. I share the same name, and I share the same intelligence when it gets to me down there.”
We are all in the same thing. Do you see? I am a fellowship.
The Apostle Paul says that God is faithful, through whom you have been called into the fellowship of His Son. You are all members one of another. The eye cannot say to the ear, “I have no need of you.” The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you.”
We are all in the same body. We belong to each other. We have become sharers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This Greek word, fellowship—koinonia—comes from a word which means to have things in common, to share. So I always like to put it this way: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
My Lord is your Lord. It is very simple.
I have a certain background, a certain racial background, but my Lord is your Lord. You may be a Polynesian, but your Lord is my Lord. In Him there is no Polynesian, no Hebrew, no Britisher, no American. Is that not marvellous?
You are not American brothers and sisters; you are brothers and sisters from America. I am not a British brother; I am a brother from Britain. It is quite different, you know. I am a member of the family. I am not a British member of the family; I am a member of the family who lives in Britain.
I have left the church in Richmond, Surrey, and come here. I am in a church in Richmond here. I am not a visitor; I am a member. So please do not treat me like a visitor. I am a member.
I often used to say to people, “What church did the Apostle Paul belong to?” Did he say, “Well, I have got my membership in Antioch, you know. I am visiting you here just to see how you get on, and then I am going back to Antioch”?
Of course not. He was a member of the Church of God. He was a member of the family. When he came to Ephesus, they should have said, “Come to the family. You are part of the family. Come in.”
The only people who are visitors are people who are not the Lord’s. They are visitors. The rest of us are members of the family.
It is a wonderful thing when we begin to see it.
What is the purpose of God? If you turn to Ephesians 2:21-22, it says:
In Whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Please note that it does not say, “groweth into a holy temple of the Lord.” It says, “groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.”
What have we got? Angels singing?
It is a holy temple in the Lord—not merely a temple of the Lord. This changes the whole conception of the matter, does it not?
If it is a holy temple of the Lord, that is on a lower level than being a holy temple in the Lord. If it is a holy temple of the Lord, it means He can visit it. He comes to His temple and says, “Well, here I am. I am here to bless you. I am here to speak to you. I am here to bless you. But you are My temple. I am here for a little while, and then goodbye. I am off.”
But if we are a holy temple in the Lord, that makes a difference altogether. It means that we are quarried out of the Lord. We are living stones quarried out of the rock of His nature, out of the rock of His life, out of His substance. We have been produced as living stones, and we are being built together in Him.
You find here something rather wonderful:
In Whom the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.
In Whom? In Christ. The whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.
In Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Do not let that word habitation choke in your throat because it is an old-fashioned word. Think of the word dwelling, or better still, home. A home of God in the Spirit.
In Whom you are builded together—in Whom? In Christ. So it is all in Christ. In Christ, the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord. In Christ, you are builded together for a home of God in the Spirit.
We have gone quite a long way, but now we come back to this. Somewhere between the first three chapters and the last three chapters, we find what this purpose of God is: it is a home for Himself in the Spirit. It is that we might grow into a holy temple in the Lord.
That is the purpose of God.
Dear child of God, I wonder whether you realize this. When you turn to Ephesians 3:11, it says:
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or, as another version puts it:
According to the eternal purpose which He realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Oh, this eternal purpose of God has been realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do you see?
I will slowly come to an end like this. This purpose of God has been realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is all in Him. God has done something in Him.
There are two things we have in Genesis 2: the tree of life and marriage. Leave that to you to read and look up, but you will see that those are the two things in Genesis 2.
The tree of life, of course, stands for eternal life. When you take something and eat something, what does it do? It becomes you. The meal we had a little while earlier is now your flesh and blood. It does not take long.
We have the most amazing system in our bodies, which turns a banana into flesh and blood within half an hour. Within a matter of an hour or two, all this food, which does not look at all like us, is becoming us. What you eat becomes you.
You take the tree of life, and it becomes you. So the Lord Jesus said:
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him.
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life.
He that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me.
It is all in John 6. In other words, He gets into us. He becomes our life, our salvation, our very life. He becomes the strength and power of our being.
That is the first thing. But the second thing we have is marriage.
When I was first saved, being rather irreverent in tone because I had a pagan type of background, I was full of questions as I began to read the Bible. I remember when we first began on Genesis. We swiftly came to Genesis 2, and I could not understand why the Lord took Adam and said, “Now then, Adam, you call all these creatures names.”
I thought that was very strange. I thought, “Well, the Lord has created them, so why does He not say, ‘Now Adam, we will call this a hippopotamus. This, Adam, is a giraffe. This is an elephant’?”
But He says to Adam, “Adam, now you name these things.” God was not just interested in Adam naming them. There was something much more in it, because the passage begins with this very important statement: “There was not found a helpmeet for him.”
Or, if you look in Genesis 2:18 and Genesis 2:20, the Hebrew is very beautiful. It means there was not that which answered to his face. It comes from the word for a reflection in water. There was not anything that answered to him, answered to his face, complemented him—that was him.
So God said, “Now, Adam is sinless, he is innocent, but he is not perfect. He is not complete.”
So now all these animals are brought before him, and we see whether he does not find out by the process that he is missing something. Adam was evidently rather lonely.
Along comes a hippopotamus, and Adam says, “Yes, we will call that a hippopotamus,” and off it goes. In comes an elephant, and he says, “I will call that an elephant,” and off it goes. Here comes a thrush. “I will call that a thrush,” he says.
He does not find any answer to him.
He may like the creature. He may find it rather lovable. But he does not have any answer to him. Even the orangutan, when it came along—Adam had never seen another ape, and he had never seen another human being, rather—he might have thought, “Well, I suppose I could settle down with this. It is the nearest to me. I suppose I am rather lonely. Maybe we could get some kind of relationship that would be mutually helpful.”
But he says, “No, no, that is not it. Orangutan, goodbye.”
Then the Lord put him to sleep, caused a deep sleep to come upon him, opened his side, and took out of his flesh and bone. From the flesh and from the bone He made woman. Then He woke Adam, and Adam immediately said, “Now this—this is woman.”
No. He said, “This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. This is me. This is me.”
Then the passage ends by saying, “Therefore the two shall become one.”
Our Lord Jesus, the last Adam and the second Man, was put to sleep on the cross. In John 19:31, I think it is, when He cried, “It is finished,” we know that our salvation was won by that cry: “Finished.” At that moment, the veil of the temple was torn in two. It was over. Our salvation was won.
Why then does the Apostle John make so much of the fact that a Roman soldier pierced His side and out of it came blood and water?
The Apostle John said, “He that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true.” Why did he make so much of it? Why did he not say, “He cried, ‘It is finished,’ and I want to tell you that I bore witness, and my witness is true”? Is that not more important?
Why does he take the matter of His side? It cannot be salvation. Our salvation was already won. So what is this side being opened, and the blood and the water?
A little later, when John was writing a letter, he said, “There are three that bear witness: the blood, the water, and the Spirit.” He saw these—the blood and the water—as tremendously important. He saw that the Spirit of God would take the blood and the water and do something.
Of course, what it is is this: it was our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, the second Man, asleep. His side was opened, and out of His side came blood and water.
By the blood and the water, a woman is formed. A bride is formed. A church is formed.
Then it is as if the Lord is raised from the dead, as if He comes back, and immediately opens His arms and says, “This is Me. This is a new day, a new creation, a new Man, a new beginning. This is Me. You are Me.”
“By My finished work, through the blood and water from My opened side, through the work of the Spirit of God, you are Me.”
The eternal purpose of God.
So when we come to Chronicles, we are not dealing with some dry, dusty old book that merely has a few chronicles of some kings thousands and thousands of years ago. It is as if God is saying, “Come with Me. I want you to come behind history. I want to get behind it all, and I want to show you what lies behind it all.”
“I want you to understand that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.”
Whether you know it or not, you have been called according to purpose. The purpose was not merely to save you. The purpose was to make you the home of God. That is the calling into which God brought you. He saved you into it.
Therefore, dear child of God, your salvation is a means to an end. Never make it the end. It is a means.
This is not to devalue your salvation, which is so great and so costly, but there is something bigger than even your salvation. The thing that is bigger than even your salvation is this glorious end of God, which God had in His heart from the beginning to do, which He has realized through the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit.
We have never got to that, so we will finally end with this. The last thing here.
In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God is brooding, hovering. The word is of an eagle, if you like, that hovers over darkness, chaos, and emptiness. There it is: the Spirit of God brooding.
But in the last three chapters, what has happened?
What has happened? Revelation 22:17:
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
All the way through, it is as if the Spirit of God was hovering, like an eagle looking for some nest, looking for some place where He could find His home, some little place where He could alight and find a habitation. But He could not find it all the way through history.
The first time He alights is on one Man, the Lord Jesus, at His baptism. The heavens opened, and the Spirit of God came down upon Him as a dove. It is as if the Holy Spirit found His home in one Man.
But now, through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the blood and the water, the Spirit of God has found His home in a people.
So the Bible ends with these wonderful words:
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
It is as if the Holy Spirit is saying, “Here we are at last. At last, I have done it. I have got her prepared for her Husband.”
May the Lord open our eyes. If we do not understand what I have said this evening, may it just give us a little appetite. Sometimes it is a good thing to know that there is a good deal more than what we know. May it give us an appetite, that we might be like the Apostle Paul:
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.