Could we turn to the book of Chronicles—1 Chronicles, Chapter 29? We are going to read two portions today, first in 1 Chronicles 29.
And David the king said unto all the assembly, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.
Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for the things of gold, and the silver for the things of silver, and the brass for the things of brass, the iron for the things of iron, and the wood for the things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, stones for inlaid work, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.
Moreover also, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, seeing that I have a treasure of mine own of gold and silver, I give it unto the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house:
Even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, wherewith to overlay the walls of the houses:
Of gold for the things of gold, and of silver for the things of silver, and for all manner of work to be made by the hands of artificers. And who then offereth willingly to consecrate himself this day unto the Lord?
Then the princes of the fathers’ houses and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers over the king’s work, offered willingly.
And they gave for the service of the house of God of gold five thousand talents, and ten thousand darics; and of silver ten thousand talents; and of brass eighteen thousand talents; and of iron a hundred thousand talents.
And they with whom precious stones were found gave them to the treasure of the house of the Lord, under the hand of Jehiel the Gershonite.
Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with a perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy.
And then in 2 Chronicles, Chapter 1.
And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly.
And Solomon spake unto all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and to the judges, and to every prince in all Israel, the heads of the fathers’ houses.
So Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.
But the ark of God had David brought up from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem.
Moreover the brazen altar, that Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord: and Solomon and the assembly sought unto it.
And Solomon went up thither to the brazen altar before the Lord, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it.
In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask what I shall give thee.
And Solomon said unto God, Thou hast showed great lovingkindness unto David my father, and hast made me king in his stead.
Now, O Lord God, let Thy promise unto David my father be established; for Thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude.
Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this Thy people, that is so great?
And God said to Solomon, Because this was in Thy heart, and Thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of them that hate thee, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for Thyself, that Thou mayest judge My people, over whom I have made thee king:
Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.
So Solomon came from the high place that was at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting, unto Jerusalem; and he reigned over Israel.
Just one further word of prayer.
O Lord, how glad we are, when we turn to Thy Word, that Thou hast Thyself promised that, Lord, the Holy Spirit will make this Book live to us. We have already told Thee, Lord, we want to meet with Thee. We want, Lord, to receive from Thee.
We do not want this time, Lord, just to be a time of academic intake or learning. Lord, we want it to be a time when we meet with Thyself, when there is an unveiling of Thyself to our hearts, when we receive of Thee.
And Lord, we are very glad that Thou hast always perfected Thy strength in weakness, and Thou seest our weakness, both speaking and hearing. O Lord, we pray that we may know the perfection of Thy strength and power in our midst, making known unto us the things of God, making them so real to us, Lord, that they come into us and become flesh and blood.
O Father, hear us. We thank Thee for that river of Thine which flows from the altar. We have no other plea, Lord, than that the Lord Jesus died for us, and that in Him we have also died and have been made to walk in newness of life by Him.
O Father, let that river of life flow out from the altar this day, and let it touch every single one of us, we ask, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, I will not go over what we said last night again this morning. If there are any who were not with us yesterday evening, I can only suggest that you listen to the tape, because I want to go on and say just a little bit more about this book of Chronicles and what it has to teach us.
Suffice it to say that this book of Chronicles is an interpretation, indeed, of the whole Old Testament. There are a number of books like that. Deuteronomy is an interpretation of the first four books of the Bible. John is an interpretation of the first three Gospels in the New Testament.
And now Chronicles goes right behind all history, from Adam to the coming back from Babylon. Indeed, you could say from Adam to the coming of the Lord Jesus. It tells us what is the secret of God’s purpose. What is the thing behind everything?
If you carefully go through Chronicles, reading it either in a very modern colloquial version or in the older version, you will discover that every single reign of every king of Judah is judged by his attitude to the house of God.
Now, we know from archaeology that some of these kings were great kings, and you would not learn that from the Bible. Some of them, who are given just a few verses and dismissed, were in fact very great kings, at times of great prosperity outwardly, with great building programmes and so on. But Scripture bypasses them, overlooks them all, because of their attitude to the house of the Lord.
In other words, if you and I had been there, we would have written history differently. We would have said, “Now, this man is a big man. This man is a really big man. He has a great organisation. He has got everything at his fingertips.” But God says, “Oh, no. He is nothing. That is all just transient. That just belongs to time. It was all show. It was all the flesh. It was all human resources. That does not go into the city of God.”
But this king, who had a difficult time, did something as far as the house of God was concerned, so we have quite a lot about him. We have quite a lot about Hezekiah. We have quite a lot about Josiah, and Jehoshaphat, and other such kings.
We have therefore seen that the key to these two books of Chronicles is the house of God—the dwelling place of God, a home for God. This is the thing that God has been after all down through the ages. It lies behind history. It lies behind the creation of man. It lies behind God’s redeeming purpose, His saving purpose.
He has saved you with a very great objective in view: not just that you might be forgiven, not just that you may be filled with the Spirit, but that you might be built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. You may become the home of God for all eternity: the place where God is at home, the place where God reveals Himself, the place where God manifests Himself, the place from which God rules and reigns, the place where all the beauty of the character of the Lord God is to be forever expressed.
That is God’s plan for you. That is a high calling. That is no small, mean thing. That is something tremendous. And when you think that we are such worthless, insignificant, sinful creatures, how much more amazing is the grace of God—how amazing is the grace of God—not only to forgive us and to justify us, to declare that we are righteous, but to bring us into this relationship with Himself for all eternity.
Now, there are a number of things I would like just to underline this morning from these two books of Chronicles in general. The first thing I would like to underline today is that the sovereign purpose and power of God is behind the building.
The sovereign purpose and power of God was behind this building. In other words, God’s sovereignty—His almightiness, His omnipotence, His infinite power—was thrown behind this plan to get this house of God built.
That is why, when we look in this book of Chronicles, we find that there is behind all history a flow, a mighty flow, of God’s power and might. The pedigrees that we talked about—all those genealogies in the first ten chapters of Chronicles, which many people find so terribly boring—are just an illustration of this.
You see, we have all kinds of people there, if you read them carefully, and lots of them just go out of the purpose of God. They had a relationship with God, but as far as the purpose of God goes, they go out.
Now, Marxists speak about the inexorable march of human history. They speak about this onward march of some impersonal thing called history. But we believers have something far more wonderful. There is flowing from God sovereign power, and God had a purpose which He is not going to be frustrated over, come wind, come weather.
If all hell comes out against God, He is not going to be frustrated in this purpose. He had this in His heart from the beginning. What was it? To provide a bride, if you like, for His Son; to produce a home for Himself in the Spirit.
Satan seemed to come in and destroy that, to frustrate it, but he has not. He has only made the grace of God the more wonderful, because God sent His own Son—the very One for whom we were destined in the beginning. He sent Him to lay down His life to bring us back to Himself.
So God has not been frustrated. But God, through His Son, has given us a salvation by which His original purpose for us can be fulfilled. Do you get that? Well, that is marvellous, is it not? It is absolutely wonderful. Of course it is.
It gives us a tremendous panorama of our salvation. It makes us realise that salvation was not just something isolated. Behind it lies this inexorable onward march of the sovereignty of God. He is not going to be frustrated.
I cannot understand these people who tell me that somehow or other the church is in ruins, that it is all hopeless, all fragmented, all divided, all in pieces, and now all we have to do is go on personally with the Lord.
What did the Lord Jesus say in Matthew 16:18?
Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
And just to make absolutely sure that no one could misunderstand our Lord, He said, “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Who are these Christians who tell us that the gates of hell have prevailed against it? What do they mean? Are you going to side with the devil in this matter?
There are plenty of Christians who are just propaganda machines for the devil. But it cannot be done. It cannot be done. They say that talk about our being built together, about our really coming together, about really knowing the oneness of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing something of what it is to go on with Him, to grow up into Him as the Head—that it is all mystical, idealistic stuff. Be careful of it, they say.
The Lord Jesus said, “Thou art Peter.” There was no one more shaky than Peter. There was no one more impetuous, impulsive, than Peter. He was always putting his foot in it, as we say in Ireland. He was always opening his mouth and putting his foot in it.
The fact of the matter was, with Peter, he was always somehow in the front, and he had not at that time the stability and the power and the roots to go through. It was more on the surface. It was the flesh. It was his own resources. Oh, Peter is just like us all.
If the Lord had said, “Thou art John; upon this rock I will build,” we would have understood a lot more. We would have said, “Ah, that cuts a lot of us out. We do not have that devotion to the Lord. We do not have that intimate leaning upon His breast that he had.” But the Lord took Peter, and Peter, after all, is like us all.
He said things quickly and thought about them afterwards. He was always in the front line, always taking the lead, and it was not just ambition. It was that he really loved his Lord, and he wanted to be wholly with his Lord.
Oh, how lovely that the Lord said, “Thou art Peter”—just a little splinter of the rock. But upon this rock, petra, the great massif, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
What does Chronicles teach us? It teaches us simply this—if we take Ezra and Nehemiah in with it too—that even in spite of all hell, God’s purpose is going to be fulfilled. Even if the people of God are sent into Babylon and dispersed into every part of the earth, still the purpose of God will be fulfilled.
If only in a handful, if God has to raise up children from the stones, He will do it. Do not think that God is perplexed. He is not perplexed at all.
My dear, dear child of God, if the Lord cannot get His way with us, He will get it with someone else. Amen. He will raise up, if need be, a new generation altogether that has nothing to do with us. Why, He might even do something in Jewish circles, altogether apart from Christendom, that will finally give Him His purpose and plan in the end. But He is going to do it.
Jesus, our Lord Jesus, has committed Himself. He said:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Oh, dear child of God, I often hear people saying, “I wish I knew the will of God for me. I wish I knew the will of God for me.” Listen, you will always be in a mess when you take it in a self-centred way. “What is the will of God for me? What should I do? What should my career be? Where should I live? How should I go?”
Listen, first of all, get the stick round the other way. Turn the whole thing; invert the order. First get hold of what is God’s will. What is God’s will? Then a whole lot of things will fall into place.
Once you begin to see what God’s will is, once you begin to see what His will is for His people, what His will is behind all history, this will give you a clarity that you have never had before in your life. Do you understand?
We are so self-centred, you see. We believe the Lord revolves round us. He is there for me. He is there for me. The throne of God is for me, just to clear a way for me to live in this life. Salvation, of course, is for me. Everything is for me. I am the centre of the world. The Lord is there, and the Father is there, and everyone else is there. The Holy Spirit is even there for me. I am the centre of it all.
Get rid of that idea. It is the Lord who is the centre, and you are revolving round Him. Come over onto the other side. Do you understand? Begin to see it like that.
There are lots of Scriptures about this, you know. It says, for instance, in Ephesians 1:9-10:
Making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ.
Now here we have what the will of God is. Here is the mystery of His will, and He has made it known to us. What is this mystery of His will? To sum up all things in Christ. Christ, everything. Everything and in everyone—Christ, all and in all. This is the purpose of God.
So we do know that the will of God for us is always along the line that I must decrease, He must increase. There must be more and more of Him. That is one way we can always find out whether it is the will of God for us or not. Does it glorify me? Does it satisfy me only? Or is it really the Lord who is getting something out of this?
Or again, I think of Colossians 1:9-10:
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
To walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Oh, dear child of God, there is nothing more wonderful than to be in the centre of the will of God. Now, I do not just mean for you personally in detail, but I mean to be in the centre of God’s will concerning this home for Himself in the Spirit.
Listen, when you get there, surely everything else will start to fall into place, because there you are right in the centre of the main tide of the purpose of God through all history. I find it the most thrilling thing in the world.
I cannot understand Christians who get all tied up and weighed down. When you think of it, look at me. I am just a little tiny human being, a little bit of clay, flesh and blood, a dot amongst the billions and billions of human beings—not only who are alive, but who have ever lived.
And think of it: little me, by the grace of God, can get right into the centre of the flow of the purpose of God, from eternity to eternity. I can feel a great current that takes me forward.
You know, once when we flew from San Francisco home to London, we flew in a 707, and we were told by the pilot that this was one of the first flights they had just begun. It was about the extent that a 707 could do without coming down to refuel.
They said, “You know why we can do this? We can do this because we get into the slipstream. We get into a flow of warm air which rushes up to the Arctic. So we just get up, we get into it, and the flow there carries us right the way up, and then we put the engines full blast on and come down to London.”
Now, I am not a technical person, so those of you who are, forgive me if I put it rather crudely. But the fact of the matter is this: that little plane got into a mighty current of air, and that current of air just swept it along.
Dear child of God, you can get into not a current of air, but you can get into the current of the Spirit of God. You can get into the flow of the divine life of God. You can get into the sovereign power and might of God Himself, which will carry you through, because God has a great purpose. You will be in it.
You remember how Zechariah says in Zechariah 4:
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 thereof with shoutings of, Grace, grace, unto it.
Now, some of you who have had real charismatic experience surely say, “Well, surely we do not shout, ‘Grace, grace’—surely, ‘Glory, glory’?” But no. There will be such difficulties, such problems, that will make the whole thing impossible by human standards—only by the Spirit, through faith.
And when it is done, the only thing we shall be able to cry is, “Grace!” The grace of God has completed the work. He laid the foundation. He developed the building. He brought the top stone, which is the Messiah, into place. It is all His work.
Oh, how wonderful it is to be in this building. I do not care where I am. I do not care whether I am a little stone somewhere in some corner, buried out of sight, or whether I am a bigger stone somewhere else, or whether I am in an arch, or where I am, as long as I am in the building.
That is all I want: somewhere sandwiched between the foundation and the top stone. That is all. But when I am between the foundation and the top stone, glory be to God, I am in the purpose of God. I am at the heart of the yearning of God’s heart from eternity to eternity. I am right where He wants me to be.
The salvation of His Son is not just to save me or make me a pretty little object. It is to bring me into something which is going to be forever and ever and ever the instrument of the purposes of God. We do not know what they are, as I said last time, but how wonderful it is.
Dear child of God, you have got such a high calling. Why drop out? Why drop out?
Now, that brings me to this point. These pedigrees, these genealogies in the first ten chapters, are all about people who dropped out. How many people were really connected with the purpose of God, but went out.
You take Adam: he went right out. You take Esau: he went right out. Or many others too—Saul, and many others that are all there listed for you.
There are extraordinary little comments inserted in these pedigrees. If you look, it says of some person, “He trusted the Lord and did valiantly.” Why is that put in a pedigree? Because it meant something to the Lord. That man had great problems, and we do not even know who he is or anything about him, but there it is: he did valiantly because he trusted in the Lord.
A lot of people just went out. It says of Saul that he went out because he inquired of a medium. He compromised. He touched another world—the enemy of God—and he went out.
Oh, do not drop out. There are plenty of dropouts in this world, but there are plenty of spiritual dropouts. They become Christian cynics. They get so disillusioned and disappointed by everything and everybody, they just become cynics. They become critics. They become Christian agnostics. Outwardly they believe everything; inwardly they believe nothing.
Oh, there are plenty of them, plenty of them. They just do not really believe anything, and yet they are frightened outwardly to say they do not believe. God preserve us from being dropouts. May we be right in the purpose of God right through to the end.
Well now, that is one thing. The second thing I want to say that we learn about this matter is the need for deep and costly preparation. If this house of God is going to be built, there is a need for deep and costly preparation.
We have it all here in the book of Chronicles. One thing we have, right in 1 Chronicles 11:4-9, was that David had to take Jerusalem. There could be no building of this house of God until Jerusalem itself was taken, and Jerusalem was a Jebusite city.
Now, the Lord had said, “Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread, that have I given unto you.” He had said that to Moses. He had said it to Joshua. Every place where the sole of your foot treads upon, that will I give you.
And wherever they put the soles of their feet down and said, “This is ours,” it happened. It happened through faith. There was a real appropriation.
Dear child of God, if you want to be in this building, if you want to be built together for a home of God in the Spirit, if you want to contribute something towards its building, let me tell you that it will ever and only be by grace through faith. By grace through faith. Never any other way.
Now, it was all grace. God said, “I will send the angel of My presence before you, and he will be like a hornet. He will drive out all these hosts, and you shall possess the land.” It was grace, but then comes your responsibility: faith.
“Wheresoever the sole of your foot treads upon, that will I give it to you.” You have got to put the soles of your feet somewhere, and that is what they did.
You remember the River Jordan? It was overflowing at full harvest tide. I always think the Lord has humour. I mean, if only He had allowed it to be in the dry season, where the river was a little smaller, and they could have said, “Well, we cannot get across this, but it does not look too bad. Maybe it will dry up a bit more, and we will be able to wade across somehow or other.”
But no, it was full harvest time. And do you not think that, as those priests took the ark of the covenant down to the water, the devil was right there whispering in their ear, “You are going to look a bunch of fools in the sight of these people. All you are going to do is get your feet wet. You are going to stand in the water there, and nothing is going to happen.”
And do you not think one of them might have thought, “Now, Lord, give us a sign. Give us a sign. As we move down, let the water go back just a little—just a little. Then we will know You are with us, Lord.”
Oh, I know many people like this. They say, “Lord, I cannot take this step of faith until You just give me a hand. Let it go back a little.” But if I know the Lord, He lets the water come out to meet you.
I bet you, as those priests came, a great tidal wave came out, as much as to say, “Ha, ha, ha! You are not going to get across.” But the priests of the Lord just put their feet down into the water, through the water, onto the riverbed; and as soon as the soles of their feet touched the riverbed, the water stopped.
Of course, there are people who always think the thing they must do is to do it quickly. They say, “Now then, you put the soles of your feet down. You say, ‘Lord, I take this.’ Now come on. Do it, do it.” And if it does not happen instantly, they say, “Oh, the Lord is not with us. What is wrong? There must be sin in the camp or something else.”
But when they came to Jericho, they had to go round once a day for six days, and on the seventh day seven times. And the masterly thing of the Lord was not a single bit of conversation.
Have you ever found that, when you take a step in faith, conversation is not always a good thing? People come and talk and say, “Well, do you really think? I wonder. I am not sure.” And so conversation is not a good thing.
What do you think those people in Jericho must have thought as they looked over the walls and saw this great crowd of people going round? Did they say, “Well, goodness, what are they—tourists from Egypt?”
One old divine once said there were only two ways of looking at those walls. One was, “Phew, these walls! They will never come down.” Or the other was, “What a lot of dust there will be when these walls come down.” Only two ways of looking at the wall.
But on the seventh day, on the seventh time, when the trumpet of the Lord blew and they shouted with a great shout, the walls fell flat. It was the soles of their feet—grace through faith.
Those children of God were judged all the way through by what they took and what they did not take. Some places they found chariots of iron. They said, “It is too hard.” What a tragedy. They only needed to use the soles of their feet.
They did not need to battle with chariots of iron. They just had to put their feet down on that valley and say, “Chariots of iron or no chariots of iron, this is the Lord’s valley.” And it would have been the Lord’s valley, but they said, “No chariots, man.”
Oh, there are many Christians who have known many great deliverances, many great victories, but when they come to the chariots of iron, they take one look at those rumbling chariots, like the tanks of our day, and say, “No, no, no. This is no good. This is a bit too much.” But you only need to use the soles of your feet.
When they came to Jerusalem, they said, “Jerusalem? Impossible.” And for four hundred years Jerusalem remained a Jebusite city, until David came and David used the soles of his feet. When David used the soles of his feet, Jerusalem was taken, and Jerusalem became Jerusalem.
Now, if you and I are going to know anything about building, the first thing that has to be taken is not just the land. We have to take Jerusalem. Do you understand that? Not just that you may enter into the fullness of Christ: you have got to take a particular place in the land which the enemy will do every single thing to stop you from taking.
And what is that? It is the purpose of God to have a home for Himself in the Spirit. In other words, if you like, it is our being built together in a particular place at a particular time. You have got to take it.
If you do not take Jerusalem, you will know something of the fullness of Christ, but you will not be in the central stream of the purpose of God.
And then again, may I say something else about this need for deep and costly preparation? You see, all this gold, this silver, this brass, this iron, these precious stones, this wood—all the material—it was nearly all the spoils of victories. The spoils of victories. Listen to it: the spoils of victories.
Now, dear child of God, however small your victory is, it yields spoil. Did you know that? You have got a big problem on. I do not know what it is. Maybe it is a problem about worldliness, and you have had such a battle over this thing. You loved this thing. It was the very essence of your life before you were saved.
You have got saved, and now suddenly you feel uncomfortable. It is not that other people have said anything to you about it, but the Holy Spirit has been dealing with you about that particular issue. But for you, it is huge. For others, it is nothing. But for you, it is huge.
And you say, “Well, what does it matter? What does it matter if I do get through? Who is going to gain from this? Is anyone going to gain from it?” I tell you: you get through, and there is spoil for the house of the Lord.
There is gold that comes into your life that can come no other way—the gold of His nature. The silver that comes into your life: something more of His redeeming work. The brass that comes into your life: something of His power. Iron that comes into your life. All these things come into your life through victories. Do you get it?
You see, if you turn to 1 Chronicles 20:2, just as an example, the last part of the verse reads:
And he brought forth the spoil of the city, exceeding much.
And 1 Chronicles 26:26-27:
This Shelomoth and his brethren were over all the treasures of the dedicated things, which David the king, and the heads of the fathers’ houses, the captains over thousands and hundreds, and the captains of the host, had dedicated.
Out of the spoil won in battles did they dedicate to repair the house of the Lord.
Out of the spoil of battle. Oh, there is such a battle for life if you are a child of God. And if you know anything of fellowship with one another in a growing way, what a battle there is. What a battle.
It is as if all hell is out to fragment us, to divide us, to somehow trip us, to ensnare us. But every time we know a victory of the Lord through faith, through grace, then there is spoil for the house of the Lord. There is gold, there is silver, there is brass, there is iron—these precious qualities of Christ.
How do they come into our lives? They come at great cost. They do not just come while you sit there and do nothing.
Some people feel that until they are spiritual, they can do nothing. Dear child of God, you will sit there till kingdom come and not be one whit more spiritual.
If you really think, “I cannot take part. I could never please the Lord in a company like this. I could never open my mouth and pray—not till I am more spiritual,” that is the more spiritual one. Dear one, you will never be more spiritual till you open your mouth and praise the Lord in the midst of the people of God.
You will never, never know anything more of the Lord until you take a step in faith. You see, behind it all lies pride. Some of us will not speak another language until we are perfect, so we never learn it.
You just cannot learn another language if you say, “I am not going to open my mouth and make a fool of myself.” You will never get anywhere. You will never walk unless you learn to fall.
When you learn to stumble, and you pick yourself up, and you go out, and you fall, and you get up, after a while you start getting up yourself. You go, and then before long you are walking.
And so it is here in this matter. We have got to learn these deep lessons. We have to really get victories in these things. They may seem very small, but on small issues—victory on small issues—very big things depend. Never forget that.
The devil will tell you it is something very small and does not mean anything to you. My dear child, you have got it all wrong. That thing may be very small in itself, but once you have settled it, you will find a gateway opens to a huge universe of spiritual wealth.
You see, the spoils of victory over the enemies of God go into the building of this house.
And then again, I want to say that it is very costly sacrifice. These things do not just come.
If you read in 1 Chronicles 22:14, David says:
Now, behold, in my affliction I have prepared for the house of the Lord.
What does he say? “In my affliction.” David knew pretty well about affliction. There was much in his life that could only be described as affliction—years and years and years of being hunted in the wilderness by Saul.
He could have polished Saul off so often, two or three times, but he refused to do so because he would not allow the arm of flesh to help the work of God. And that meant more affliction for him.
You know, there are times when the Lord tries us. He says, “You can polish this thing right off. Just do it now. If you just take this action, you will finish it, and you will be on the throne.” But to do that would be to introduce another level, another realm, into the work of God—the realm of the flesh.
When you say no, you introduce yourself to much more affliction. But you see, there is a sacrifice in this whole matter. Do you really think the gold comes easily?
Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, which thought it was so rich and so great and so powerful and needed nothing:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire.
“Buy of Me.” Why did He say, “I counsel thee to buy of Me”? How can you buy something which is given you by grace? But I believe the cost is experience. You do not get gold—it is by grace that the gold comes to you—but that experience is the price.
And sometimes you must go into depths before, by the grace of God, you know the gold given to you.
For instance, take 2 Corinthians 4:7 and then verse 17. This is what the Apostle Paul says:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
And then he speaks of the perplexity:
We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair;
Pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
Here is an experience, is it not? Why, we say, “No Christian ought to be perplexed. No Christian ought to be perplexed.” We would say, “Indeed, an apostle perplexed? We do not expect apostles to be perplexed. We expect apostles to be clear. We expect leaders to be clear.”
But the apostle says, “God bless you, always perplexed.” Do not get out of this thing. Usually there is some affliction there. It does not mean that he is not clear about the Lord. He may be very, very clear about the Lord, the ways of the Lord, and the purpose of the Lord, and yet be greatly perplexed at times. The Lord allows it.
Why? Because there is treasure in that vessel, and the only way to get the treasure out is to break the vessel. The only way you can break the vessel is by being pressed on every side, perplexed, pursued, smitten down, bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. The only way the treasure can come out.
Dear child of God, Christ is in you. There is treasure there—unsearchable riches of Christ. And how are you going to get them out? How are you going to get them out? How are you going to get them contributing?
For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.
Light affliction, employed by God to bring that out, to produce an eternal weight of glory.
There is a need for deep and costly preparation if you and I would be part of this building. And one other thing in this matter: may I say there is an unswerving purpose of heart.
No man or woman will ever be prepared to pay the price of being in this building work of God unless they have an unswerving purpose of heart. Or, put it another way, a single eye for the Lord.
If you are double-minded, if there are any two ways about you, you will go out and you will be a dropout. Get that double mind dealt with by God, if you have got one. Get that serving of God and mammon dealt with by God, if you are trying to do it. It will destroy you. It will surely destroy you. You will be a dropout as far as the purpose of God goes.
You remember, in rabbinical circles, Psalm 23 is given to David’s youth, when he was a shepherd lad. How amazing that a boy could write a Psalm like that, if it is true:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
But the most remarkable thing is this:
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
What is this little lad talking about? Where did he get this from? “House of the Lord”? Where is the house of the Lord? There was no house of the Lord. What is this boy talking about? “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord”? He is a shepherd boy. He knows all about killing bears and lions, keeping the flock from foes. What does he know of the house of God?
The rabbis used to say that Jesse, the father of David, was by trade a weaver of the veil of the tabernacle. If that is true—and I have often thought about it—then it may be that that dear old father of David used to say, “I do not know. It is about time we had a real place for this. That old tent is really not sufficient for this purpose.”
I do not know. But somewhere in the youth of David, by the Spirit of God, he came to see the house of God. Later on, he was to say in Psalm 27:
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.
What a purpose this man had. It was unswerving. He would not be diverted one way or the other. He had many failings and many faults, but David had an unswerving purpose, and by the grace of God David was not a dropout. He was within the purpose of God right through to the end.
That is why that lovely Psalm 132 was written about David:
Lord, remember for David all his affliction;
How he sware unto the Lord,
And vowed unto the Mighty One of Jacob:
Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house,
Nor go up into my bed;
I will not give sleep to mine eyes,
Or slumber to mine eyelids;
Until I find out a place for the Lord,
A tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob.
There is purpose.
There are three other things I only want to touch on, but they are all important. If you turn to 2 Chronicles 1, you will see that the tabernacle and the ark had got parted.
2 Chronicles 1:3 tells us that the tent of meeting of God was at Gibeon, and the ark of the Lord was in Jerusalem. They had got parted. They had got parted.
Now, the ark of the Lord stands for the presence of the Lord. The presence of the Lord, of course, is everywhere, but it is the committed presence of the Lord, and the symbol of the committed presence of the Lord is the ark.
Of course, we see it most beautifully in our Lord Jesus, in whom there is both authority—Aaron’s rod that budded—and the golden pot of manna. He is the Bread of Life, and the unbroken law, the law fulfilled. Of course, He is also the mercy seat, but that is all by the way.
The fact is that this is a symbol of the committed presence of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth.
And somehow the presence of the Lord and the tent of meeting, which is a symbol of us, if you like, in Christ—a symbol of our being in Him and together with Him—they got parted.
All through church history, the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting have been getting parted. Have you noticed it? Right from the beginning, it seems that the devil has worked unceasingly to divorce the ark of the Lord from the tent of meeting.
Then comes a division amongst the people of God. “Where shall we go? What shall we do? Shall we serve the Lord at the tent of meeting? Shall we serve the Lord at the ark?”
G. H. Lang once said, “When the ark and the tent of meeting get parted, always follow the ark.” In other words, it is best and safest to follow the Lord, rather than to follow just an outward organisation or system.
Now, may I just say something about this, because I think it is quite important. I will only touch on it. Leave it to the Spirit of God to do the rest for you.
When God did this building, the tent of meeting had to come to the ark, not the ark to the tent of meeting. Now, this is a very, very important thing. It may help some of you.
But the fact is this: what is this cry all the time? “We need revival. We need revival. We need revival.” Is it not so often that we want the ark of the Lord to come to our tent of meeting—our work, our denomination, our circle? We want the Lord there.
No, it is not that God does not want to revive His people, but the only way it can happen is by bringing the circle to the ark of the Lord. This may require quite a few changes.
Some people want revival without any changes. Oh, yes. They just want to go straight into the old ruts and just thrill it all. Do you know what I mean? Somehow get into the old thing and give it a bit of life, bring a few more members in, send up the collections, and generally help.
I am being very unkind, but believe me, I have not been in the Lord’s work for nothing. I know how often the thing is. I have had ministers sometimes say to me, “You know, we can hardly live now because our congregations are dropping and the collections are poor and all the rest of it. We need revival.”
It may seem very, very unkind, but it is the truth. And but for the grace of God, all of us naturally think on that level.
We need to see the place. If we are going to go on—and let us give it the best way—such folks really believe there is a testimony of the Lord in this thing, and they say, “If this testimony of the Lord is going to go on, we need a revival.” But God says, “No, I do not take the ark to the tent. The tent must come to the ark.”
You see, many a change may be required. The ark has not gone wrong. It is the tent. Bring the tent to the ark.
In other words, bring the holy vessels of God back. It was not the tent of meeting that actually went to the ark in the end. It was all the holy vessels that were taken to it. You understand?
Well now, I think that this is quite important. I just mention it because many of us want God’s revival, renewal—however we like to put it—on our terms. But the Lord will not have it.
Let me tell you a story, a true story. In the west of England, in a quite hilly area called North Devon, where there is much wild, open country called Exmoor, there are two very beautiful resorts: Lynton and Lynmouth. Lynmouth is on the mouth of the River Lyn, and Lynton is up on the top of the cliffs.
Quite a few years ago, about 1952, there were three days of torrential rain up on the moors. The waters built up and built up and built up and built up, and finally a huge wall of water, sixty feet high, crashed down upon sleeping Lynmouth.
It carried away two-thirds of the town into the sea. Cars were taken out over a hundred miles into the Irish Sea. Many, many people lost their lives. Many were never found again, including believers.
When an inquiry was held, it was found that the course of the River Lyn had been changed sixty or seventy years before. They had changed the course of the River Lyn and had given it a new course.
When the floods came, the river went back to its old course. Every time God has visited His people in the history of the church, the tide of life has gone back to the old course—the primitive course, if you like, the New Testament course.
We changed it. We said, “Oh, we do not like this river going this way. We would like it to come this way. Much prettier. More convenient.” And so we built a new way for the river.
But when the tide of God’s blessing comes back, God goes to the old course. He says, “No, you come back to Me. I do not come to you. You come to Me.” Oh, Lord, help us.
There are two other things I want to touch on in these lessons from this book. One is the need of vision—the need of vision.
Is there anything more beautiful in the book of Chronicles than this picture of the young Solomon offering up a thousand offerings on the brazen altar and then going to bed? And in the night the Lord stood by him in vision and said, “Ask what I shall give thee.”
Has God ever asked you a question? Sometimes God asks you a question through the lips of another human being, and you do not really realise it is the Lord who is asking you the question.
Can I tell you something? We often give the game away by our answer. You reveal very, very much about yourself in the way you answer a question.
If we are going to see anything about building, the first thing we must have is vision. The church has suffered from people who have studied church doctrine and then tried to put it into practice.
Oh, the world is cluttered with New Testament patterns. All over the place we find New Testament patterns. Here, a New Testament pattern; there, a New Testament pattern. They have all got a New Testament pattern which is built upon Scripture.
And sometimes we find these New Testament patterns more deadly than something which is definitely not a New Testament pattern. Sometimes we find, in some circles which we cannot by any stretch of the imagination call a New Testament church, more of the presence of the Lord, more blessing, and more life.
Go along to one of these New Testament things, and it is as cold as a graveyard. Not that any graveyard could be too cold in these parts, but you know what I mean. It is as cold as death. Put it like that.
What is the problem? “Surely we have got the New Testament pattern. If you have got a New Testament pattern before you, the Lord should be committed. Surely once you have got the regulations, once you have got the pattern, once you have got everything according to Scripture, surely the Lord is delighted. He has to bless them all, be with them, use them.”
Not at all. The Lord has a horror of New Testament patterns unless it is the pattern that comes from within the life.
My body has a pattern. I have got two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, two hands, two legs. I have got a pattern, sure enough. But my pattern was not put together by a book.
My mother did not read a book and say, “Now then, you have got to do like this. Do not forget, you have got two legs, two hands, two eyes, two ears, a nose. You must be right now.” Not at all. All my mother did was eat the right food, and I came along.
I have got the pattern inside. My pattern is in the life. You get it?
Do you know what a daffodil is? I have to be careful of our terms, because they may be different to yours. But if I were to plough up a whole great field here—say two or three or four acres—and there were thousands and thousands of onions, and in the centre one daffodil, do you know that all those onions would come up as onions, and the one daffodil would be a daffodil?
But you say, “That is absurd.” Recently, we had a man in England who was in hospital because, while his wife was a little unwell, he went out and she had had some daffodils flowering indoors. She had taken them out and put them near the vegetables, and he had taken them, shredded them, and had a good meal. They were so nice. Daffodil bulbs and onion bulbs are very much alike.
Now, would you think that thousands and thousands of onion bulbs being near one little daffodil would make it an onion? Almost thousands and thousands of onions, all being its fellowships, their influence, their nearness, ought to make the one little daffodil think, “I feel a little lonely, and I look so like the pile of them too.”
But it cannot do it. It has got daffodil life, and the rest have got onion life. So the onions come up onions, and the daffodil comes up a daffodil. You see, it is on life. There is a pattern in the life.
You have to see this. You see, this whole thing began with God standing by Solomon, and he saw the Lord.
Isaiah, in his great ministry, it all began when he was in the temple and he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. There is a wonderful thing.
He was evidently bowing, I suppose, in prayer and lifting up his hands to God. Then all of a sudden he looked and thought, “Well, good gracious, what has happened? There is like a fog everywhere. I cannot see the temple anymore.”
Then he looked a little more carefully, and he saw, “Well, this is amazing.” His eyes began to go up, and up, and up, and up, and he saw the Lord high and lifted up. The Lord enveloped the whole temple. The temple was lost in the Lord.
He did not see the temple. Some people only see the church; they see it down here, and that is the whole trouble. But when we see the church as the Lord—oh, that is different. We see the church as Christ. We see the church as being in Christ. We see the church as the life of Christ expressed. There is all the difference in the world.
So, dear one, I want to say something to you. If you want to see God do something in the way of building, wherever you live amongst you, whether here in this area or elsewhere, it must begin with vision.
Start asking the Lord for vision. May He give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord, the eyes of your heart being enlightened that you may know—not about, but that you may know. May God grant this.
May I say one other thing? Note the order. First he offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar, and then he got the vision.
Many people strain and stress. They really strive to get a vision. “I want to see this thing. I want to see this thing.” My dear one, God does not show anything lightly to people.
First, He demands that you know something of the cross in your life. One thousand burnt offerings—no small offering. That was something total, something absolute.
Have you yet come to an experience of the cross? Do you know what it is to lay down your life? Do you know what it is to be identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and burial and resurrection? Do you know anything about that at all? About bearing about in your body the dying of Jesus, that the life also may be manifested?
Vision? I tell you, vision comes out of death. There has to be a cleavage between soul and spirit if we are to see.
Lastly, may I just say this: the need of wisdom. I said a moment ago, you know, your answer to a question reveals a lot about you.
God came to Solomon and He said, “Ask Me what I shall give thee.” I would be so interested if the Lord stood before every one of us here this morning. This would not be a collective thing. He would not say, “Ask what I shall give you all.” He would come to each one of us.
He would stand before us and say simply—no long revelation, no long message—just one short, direct question: “Ask what I shall give thee.”
How interesting it would be. I would love to know what you would ask. That would be the surest indication of the kind of person you are.
Supposing the Lord stood in front of you just now, took everybody else out of the room, and said, “You tell Me what I shall give thee. What would you like? What is it that you supremely want or need?”
Solomon could have asked for power. He could have asked for security. He could have asked for popularity. He could have asked for riches. He could have asked for the death of his enemies. He could have asked for health.
In many ways, many of these things would have been quite legitimate. Power, that I might rule. Riches, that I might not fall into avarice. Security, that I might give myself to knowing You. The death of my enemies?
He was twenty-one years of age and had the most hard, cruel, cunning enemies. Joab was one. There were others too, all around this young man. They were ready to assassinate him, ready to do anything to get rid of him. He was only twenty-one years of age. He could have asked, “These are my enemies, Lord, because they are Thy enemies.”
He could have asked for health. That is good, but I am not a healthy person. He did not. He asked for one thing: wisdom.
I must say that I think this is the forgotten quality. I hardly ever hear people asking for wisdom. I just do not hear people asking for wisdom—not even people who are responsible people in the work of God.
They ask for power. They ask for performance. There is nothing wrong with that. But you see what the Lord said? He fell over Himself almost. He said, “Solomon, because you have asked for this thing, not for yourself, but that you might rule this people for Me, I will give you all of this.”
“You shall have everything because you asked for this. I will give you wisdom such as no one has ever had before or after you. And then I will give you all this power and fullness, and riches and wealth, and the death of your enemies, and health and long life. I will give it all because you have asked for this.”
That is the value that God puts on wisdom above everything else.
You see, Scripture is very interesting in this way. In Proverbs 4:7, it says:
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom:
Yea, with all thy getting get understanding.
Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom. Or again, Proverbs 9:10:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Oh, there is this fear of the Lord. Where is this fear of the Lord? This is the one thing Solomon had. He feared the Lord, and that is why he asked for wisdom. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
And this fear of the Lord is not some cringing thing that depraves you, robs you of dignity. This fear is a loving, sensitive reverence and affection for the Lord, that you would not dare to do anything that would upset Him or grieve Him. Wisdom. Oh, how we need wisdom.
Many years ago, when I was a lad and was first saved, and did not know a single thing about anything to do with the Bible or anything to do with Christian things at all, round the corner from us, in a huge mansion, lived a Swedish lady that I knew as Auntie Dagmar. She was a dear believer.
She took me and my sister, both of us, under her wing, for some of the first lessons we ever learned from her—some of the deepest, I suppose, and lessons that have lasted all the way through the years.
I remember she said to me once, “Now, my boy, you ask the Lord for wisdom. You ask Him every morning and every night.” And she said, “I will give you a Scripture,” and she gave me James 1:5:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
I used to pray every morning, every night, religiously for wisdom, quoting that Scripture. I am so glad that I did. I still do.
I have found again and again that when we ask the Lord for wisdom, in the most wonderful way—not in a dramatic way, but in the most wonderful way—the treasures of knowledge and wisdom which are hidden in our Lord Jesus Christ are made available to us.
Is it not interesting? In 1 Corinthians 1:30, he says:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God.
And then it goes on. But the first thing He is made to us is wisdom. See the importance of wisdom. I do not believe the house of God will ever be built until we see this.
I will close by telling you a story. What is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? Do you know the difference between wisdom and knowledge? I can best tell you the difference by illustrating it.
Behind Halford House, we have what you call a truck farm; we call it a market garden. The old man who farmed that area—two acres, not very big—was a man called Dan Archer. He was an absolute character.
This man became the basis for a whole BBC series which had run for sixteen years. Every day you had fifteen minutes of The Archers, based on him. He is gone now. He died some years ago.
Once we had a beautiful fuchsia tree, about this high, in a great big tub. We had had it for years and years and years in Halford House. Halford House, by the way, dates from 1710, but the fuchsia did not date from 1710. We had had it for many years, and it was a thing of great beauty. It used to flower.
And in this year, it all came out, got all these buds, and just as the buds were about to open, the whole lot fell. Then it had more buds, and just as they were about to open, they all fell. We could not understand it at all.
Now, we had two of the leading botanists in the British Commonwealth in the house, in the company there in Richmond. So we went to them and I said, “Could you please explain what is wrong with the fuchsia?”
So independently, I think, both those came. It was very interesting. They plucked off the leaves, they looked up through them at the sky, they looked very carefully at the bark, they inspected the roots, and then they said, “Well, it could be this,” and they mentioned a Latin name that long. “It is probably this,” and they mentioned another name.
Then they told me the whole history of the fuchsia. Well, it was one of the things. They told me where it came from, how it had been developed, all its different family names, and finally how we got this particular kind of fuchsia. But still, we were no nearer to doing anything with the fuchsia.
So I said, “Why did you not go up and get Dan Archer down?” So I went up and got Dan Archer down. Dan Archer trundled down, and he took one look at the old fuchsia. He looked at the leaves, and then the buds, and then he said, “You know what? That needs a dose of Epsom salts.”
Now, I suppose most of you know Epsom salts as something for your stomach. So, of course, we laughed long and loud and said, “Now, come off it. What does he really mean?” He said, “I am not joking. It needs some Epsom salts. You give it one tablespoonful of Epsom salts a day for four or five days.”
“And what do I put it in?” “Well,” I said, “I am not going to tell the whole company this. They will think I am crazy.” I said, “If I do not get that, shall I go to the market?” “Love,” he said, “it means Epsom salts. Do not be silly.”
So I put the Epsom salts in water and watered it in. We did it three or four days. Within two weeks that bush was back to normal. It was full of flowers.
And you see, the first two had knowledge, but the second had wisdom. The first two knew all about the fuchsia. They knew all the possibilities of diseases: what this disease was, what that disease was, where it came from, its family background—all knowledge. Facts, facts, facts, facts, facts.
But, oh, Mr Archer—Dan Archer—he had wisdom. He knew what to do with the facts. He said, “That bush is diseased, and I will tell you what to do. Take it some salts.” That was wisdom.
And within a few moments, the thing was done. You see, many Christians have got knowledge. They know the facts. They have not got wisdom. They do not know how to apply the facts.
Some people know all about the church. They can tell you the foundation, they can tell you the ground, they can tell you the nature of the church, they can tell you about being built together, they can tell you the ministries of the church and the gifts and everything else, but they have not got wisdom.
They do not know how to apply the facts—how, in fact, the facts can become experience. How to make some of that wisdom. Therefore, get wisdom.
And the Lord help us.