If you will turn with me to a number of passages in the Bible, I would first like to read a very well-known passage in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, from verse 13.
Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?”
And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
He saith unto them, “But who say ye that I am?”
And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then, if you will turn to the Old Testament and to the prophet Zechariah—Zechariah chapter 4, from verse 1.
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
And he said unto me, “What seest thou?”
And I said, “I have seen, and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with its bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are upon the top thereof; and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.”
And I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?”
Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, “Knowest thou not what these are?”
And I said, “No, my lord.”
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, “This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of, Grace, grace, unto it.”
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
For who hath despised the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel; these are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.”
And then again in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, chapter 19, from verse 4.
And the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God that sitteth on the throne, saying, “Amen; Hallelujah.”
And a voice came forth from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, ye that fear Him, the small and the great.”
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.
And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”
And he saith unto me, “Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he saith unto me, “These are true words of God.”
Heavenly Father, we are so glad that when we come to Your Word, You have made a provision for us which is beyond our natural resources, both for speaking and for hearing.
And, Lord, we want to avail ourselves of that provision this night. We do not want to come to Your Word in a careless frame of mind, either for the speaking of it or for the hearing of it. Lord, I can speak words; we can all hear words. I can outline truths; we can all mentally apprehend these truths. But, Lord, unless You are in the speaking and in our hearing, there will be nothing of eternal value in our time tonight.
Dear Lord, we want to say together, apart from You we can do nothing. Therefore, Lord, we would open our hearts and, by faith, take that anointing which is ours, both for speaking and for hearing, so that Your Word may find a rich dwelling in us all.
Dear Lord, will You grant that Your purpose in this time this evening may be fulfilled? We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
In the very well-known passage that we read a little earlier in Matthew 16, there is a phrase that I suppose everyone in this place this evening has heard many times. You will find it in Matthew 16:18:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
This incident, recorded in Matthew 16, took place at Caesarea Philippi, in the shadow of Mount Hermon. It is of the most profound significance.
Until that point, there had been for the disciples no clear, dogmatic revelation of the Lord Jesus. It is true that at His birth certain things were said and remembered. It is true that Nathanael wondered whether this could not be the Messiah. It is true that Andrew, when he fetched Peter and introduced him, said, “Could this not be the Messiah?” There had been a number of things that had taken place. When there was the storm on the lake and He calmed it, they wondered, “Who is this, that even the winds and the waves obey Him?”
But there had been no clear, dogmatic, categorical revelation of the Lord Jesus up to this point. And when the Lord Jesus, as it were, provoked the declaration of Peter by asking the disciples, “What are men saying about Me? Who do they say that I am?” they said, “Some say that You are Elijah, and others say that You are Jeremiah. Others say You are one of the other prophets. Some say that You are John the Baptist.”
He said, “Well now, who do you say that I am?” And before the others had a chance to say anything, Peter made his great declaration.
Nor was it a declaration that Jesus despised for one single moment. Jesus said to him, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed that to you, Simon Peter, but My Father Who is in heaven.”
And then, immediately, on Peter’s declaration and the Lord’s affirmation of that declaration, the Lord Jesus revealed the aim and purpose of His coming and work: “Thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
It is interesting: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Thou art; I will. It is an almost immediate response, and it is of profound significance. It is one of the turning points in the Gospel.
The aim and purpose of the incarnation is to obtain and build the church of God. That is what the Lord Jesus said. You will notice that He said, “I will build My church.” He did not say, “I will build a church,” or, “I will build the church.” He said, “I will build My church.”
The church is not a particular denomination, however great a tradition any one of the particular churches may have. The church is not a particular denomination. It is not a particular institution. It does not belong to one particular tradition in Christendom.
When Jesus said, “My church,” He was referring to all those whom God the Father has given to the Son for His inheritance: from all ages, all races, all nationalities, all different classes, and indeed all the different denominations. It is all those whom the Father, in His great love and foreknowledge, has given to the Son as an inheritance.
And Jesus, speaking of all this precious number of the elect, said, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Now, another evening we shall consider a bit more about the actual rock. But this evening I want to confine myself to the unchanging purpose of the Lord Jesus—the unchanging purpose of the Lord Jesus.
I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Brothers and sisters, if you have been born of God, if you have been saved by the grace of God, if you have been delivered from the powers of darkness and transferred by that operation of the Spirit of God into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, you are part of this church.
Furthermore, you are part of the building work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You come right into the heart of this declaration of the Lord Jesus: “Upon this rock I will build My church.”
Now, there are a thousand and one things on earth and in hell, in the whole atmosphere, that would frustrate, if possible, the building work of the Lord Jesus concerning you as an individual and me as an individual. There are a thousand and one forces and powers in the unseen, apart from the seen, that would stop the building of us together as the body of the Lord Jesus, as His church.
But Jesus has declared that His purpose is unchanging:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Now, I find that a tremendous comfort personally. I do not know about you, but I consider myself to have a somewhat ropey background. I find a lot in my own nature and in my own past which would resent, contradict, and gainsay every work of grace that God would do in me.
I do not go along easily with the Lord’s ways. I find that I am always arguing, always sort of finding excuses, always somehow or other giving the Lord problems. Well now, I suspect that most of you are the same. And that means that the Lord has some problems on His hands.
But the wonderful thing is that He has already declared that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against this work. There are times when we have to take the side of God against ourselves—against our own temperament, against our own background, against all the things that we see with our eyes and feel with our hearts that somehow would discourage us and depress us.
We have to take the side of God against all these things and say, “The gates of Hades are not going to prevail against the building work of the Lord Jesus in my life, nor in the building work of the Lord Jesus in us as the people of God.”
The unchanging purpose of Christ: no change in direction, whatever happens.
I do not understand some of the Christian commentators and scholars who have suggested that this was the purpose of the Lord Jesus at the beginning of this so-called church age, but that somewhere along the way, because of all the divisions, factions, worldliness, superficiality, and only the Lord knows what else, He has given up this declared aim.
Evidently, circumstances have proved too much for the Lord. The ideal remains the same: He wants to present a church without spot or blemish to Himself. But the Lord has now settled for a lesser standard. Now it is just individuals here and there who have to make their own way, by the grace of God, to the throne of God.
I do not find this at all. The Lord Jesus did not say, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it until the Antichrist comes,” or, “Until the last days, when the power of darkness will be so great that all My building work will cease and you will have to make your way as individuals by My grace, finally to the throne.”
He does not say that. He says instead, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Full stop—or, as you say in these parts, period. Personally, I think full stop is a much better word, but still.
There is no change in direction implied or inferred in this profound declaration of the Lord Jesus. This is a statement for the whole age, from Pentecost till the rapture.
He has said, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” There is to be no diversion from this declared purpose of the Lord because of circumstances, opposition, apostasy, worldliness, superficiality, lukewarmness, or what else. There is to be no deviation from the goal.
The Lord Jesus has unequivocally, categorically stated a purpose of His heart which is absolutely immutable.
Now, this word immutable is one of the most marvellous words in the English language—probably not even heard of on this side of the Atlantic. The immutability of His counsel: it is a perfectly scriptural phrase. You will find it in Hebrews 6:17.
It simply means no possibility of deviation, no possibility of diversion, no possibility of change of direction. This counsel of God is immutable—unchangeable. But immutable is better than unchangeable. It carries the sense that it is impossible for there to be a change.
Now, with God nothing is impossible. It is perfectly true that in the Word of God, now and again, the Lord changes His mind about things. This gives some people a problem. They like to think of God as somebody who is like a cast-iron machine, a computer that really cannot change.
But it is a good thing to know that now and again the Lord repents of something, or changes His mind about something, or takes another course. But there are certain things that are immutable.
One of them is the destiny of the Lord Jesus. The Father’s purpose for the Lord Jesus is immutable. It will never be changed. There will never be a change of direction in this matter. He has settled it forever that He is going to sum up all things in Christ. He is going to head up all things in Christ.
And there is another marvellous immutable matter: those who are born of the Spirit of God through the finished work of the Lord Jesus are in a purpose of God which will never be changed. God’s destiny for that people is the same as the destiny of His Son. His purpose concerning their destiny, as the destiny of the Lord Jesus, is immutable.
Dear brothers and sisters, dear family of God, I am so glad that it is to Peter that Jesus addresses these words.
Quite apart from getting into the question of whether Peter was the first pope or not, or whether the church is built on Peter, some Protestants would be very adamant in saying that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Peter. But, as I hope we shall see tomorrow evening, it has a lot to do with Peter.
The Catholics are not wrong in saying that when Jesus said, “Thou art Peter,” a small splinter of the rock, “but upon the massif of the rock I will build My church,” there is a connection. We cannot go so far as some of our Protestant brethren and say there is no connection at all. Jesus was only talking about Himself and about Peter’s declaration—nothing to do with Peter. No, no, no, you cannot say that.
I am very thankful that it was Peter. Supposing it was John who had made the declaration, I would have felt a little bit depressed. I might have thought to myself, “Well now, unless I am just like John—one hundred percent devotion and one hundred percent everything else—I am not going to be in on this thing.”
But I am so glad that it was Peter, to whom the Father revealed this matter concerning the person of the Lord Jesus. It was to Peter, who was to deny his Lord three times with oaths and curses, that Jesus said, “Thou art Peter.”
“I know all that is going to happen to you. I know all that you are going to go through. I know what you are capable of. But My grace is going to bring you right through and put some rock-like qualities into your shaly impetuosity.
“I am going to do something in you because I am going to build you into My eternal home. I am going to make you part of an eternal, invincible, unshakable church.”
I am so glad it was to Peter. This gives me hope. I hope it gives you hope too.
It makes me think: the Lord is not surprised about me. Sometimes we get the idea that the Lord is always making discoveries about us. You know, somehow or other, we let the Lord down yesterday and the Lord got a headache, as it were, about us, saying, “My goodness, if I had only known that so-and-so was going to let Me down like this, I would never have saved them in the first place.”
But we get the idea sometimes that our clouds of depression and our sense of being alienated from the Lord are simply because we are shocked, not the Lord. Because we are so self-righteous, we are horror-struck that we could be so lukewarm, so worldly, so sinful, so unbelieving, or whatever else.
So it shocks us, and because we are shocked, we believe the Lord is shocked. Whereas the Lord knows the worst about us—far, far more about us than you and I know. If I knew what the Lord knew about me, I might go into a mental home. My self-righteousness is of such a quality and of such a stubborn standard that I am not sure I could take it.
But the Lord knows all that, and still He saved me, in full view of what I am capable of. He saved me, and He not only saved me: He has said of me that I am involved in this building work of His which is forever, for whatsoever the Lord does, it is forever.
I find that tremendous. Sometimes I feel, as I have perhaps said before to some of you, that we get the idea that we are just trophies of grace.
You know, somehow or other the Lord, like some hunter, went round and shot a few of us, has now sort of stuffed our heads, and one day we will be hanging on the baronial walls of the kingdom of heaven. He will take the angels around and say, “Ah, this one is a trophy of grace. I got him in such-and-such a year. And this one—well, she is quite a monster. I got her at such-and-such a time.”
We get a kind of idea of trophies of grace that adorn the walls of the palaces in the kingdom of God. Somehow, all God is really interested in is trophies that exhibit His prowess and His ability to catch us. But love has far greater qualities than just stuffing us and hanging us on a wall.
God’s love for us would be seriously offended if that were all our purpose in eternity: simply to exhibit His expertness in catching us.
No, God has a purpose for us: that we should be in Christ, and that Christ should be in us; that we should be brought into such a union with Christ that we become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; that we should be brought into such a position that we become, as it were, a bride for His Son.
That is the purpose of the Lord. It is amazing to me that the Lord has taken such poor material to create something of such beauty. After all, when you think about it, none of us are very much really. It is what the Lord does in us that, in the end, is the beauty.
I find it of tremendous encouragement personally to find that it is to Peter that our Lord says, “Thou art Peter, Petros, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Dear brothers and sisters, should we not encourage ourselves this evening? There are enough things that are discouraging and depressing about the world in which we live. Whether we think of the United States or the nations in general, there are enough things to discourage us and depress us about human society and the way it is going.
It is time for us to encourage ourselves in the Lord. We are loved by the Lord, none other than the Messiah, the Son of the living God, Who gave Himself up for us that He might purchase us and incorporate us—that He might, as it were, bring us into a relationship with Himself which is eternal.
Now, in this matter of the unchanging purpose of Christ, some teach that the church is so divided, so full of faction, so institutionalised, so worldly, that it no longer comes within the category of the words of the Lord Jesus: “My church.”
Therefore, there has been a teaching, accepted by some, that somehow or other this whole concept of the church is almost in abeyance; that it is a question of personal holiness, personal walk with the Lord, personal sanctification, and personal experience.
Well, I have no question that everything has to be personal. We cannot hide in one another or in some corporate experience. We have to personally experience the saving grace of God. We have to personally experience the indwelling of the Lord Jesus, the anointing power of the Holy Spirit, what it is to be crucified with Christ, and what it is to be obedient to the Lord and to walk in faithfulness with Him.
But, having said that, dear brothers and sisters, it is quite clear to me that the Lord Jesus has not given up this purpose declared here: that He is going to build His church.
They take certain Scriptures—2 Thessalonians 2:3, for instance:
Let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
This has again and again become the basis for their teaching that in the last days the church is going to be apostate. There is going to be an apostasy, a falling away from the Lord. When that happens, so the teaching goes, we just have to individually make our way with the Lord.
To this are added other Scriptures. They place much emphasis, for instance, upon Matthew 24:10-13:
And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another.
And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray.
And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold.
But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
They also take Luke 18:8:
I say unto you, that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?
Because of these Scriptures, some teach that in these last days into which we are entering, this whole declared purpose of the Lord Jesus will be shelved. There will be no more building of the church because there will be an apostasy in the church, a falling away. With it, the love of the many will wax cold. There will even be a hating of one another, and there will be no faith.
Now, if that were all the description we had of the last phase in the end times, we might have cause to be concerned. But it is not.
We have a number of other marvellous Scriptures. For instance, Revelation 10:7, right in the midst of all these visions of dragons, serpents, antichrists, false prophets, six-six-six systems, and I do not know what else, says:
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which He declared to His servants the prophets.
Now, this mystery of God is, in fact, the mystery of the church, which is the body of the Lord Jesus. We are told here that in the midst of all this persecution, antagonism, and activity of the powers of evil and darkness—actually, in some cases, becoming incarnate—we discover that the mystery of God is completed.
It is not completed on a lesser standard, but exactly according to the good news which He revealed to His prophets. In other words, here we have the most marvellously encouraging word from the Lord: it is not going to be in days when everything is flowing with us, when everything is at peace and everything is right, that this is going to happen. In the midst of enormous upheaval, the mystery of God is going to be completed.
Then, to underline this matter, Revelation 19:6 says:
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.”
It is almost as if the Holy Spirit has inserted this little phrase, “His wife hath made herself ready,” in such a way that the conclusion is inescapable. She is not going to be carried along. She herself is going to awaken out of any lukewarmness, out of any stupor of worldliness, out of any partial blindness, and she is going to prepare herself for the coming of the Lord.
It would have been so much more according to the doctrines of justification by faith if the Word had said, “His wife hath been made ready.” Indeed, those of you who know Oriental weddings will know what a tremendous amount of preparation there is. The major amount of preparation is done by aunts and sisters and a whole bevy of women who gather round the bride, painting her eyelashes, painting her nails, painting her toes, bathing her in I do not know what—a thousand and one things they do. She could not do it herself.
The poor thing is massaged, perfumed, oiled, cosmetised, or whatever it is. All the female relatives of the bride have a glory time with the bride. So it would be perfectly correct if the Scripture had said, “The bride has been made ready.” But He does not say that.
We know very well that the only way the bride has been made ready is through the grace of God, through the anointing power and grace of God, through the provision which the Lord Jesus has made through His finished work. But the Scripture says, for our encouragement, right in the midst of all these visions of darkness and anti-God, antichrist systems worldwide in their reach, “His wife hath made herself ready.”
My dear friends, there is another side to this picture. When Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” He meant it. Right to the very last day of the coming, the appearing, of the Lord, there will be grace for every one of us to be prepared for Him.
I find this tremendously encouraging. Then, of course, I take a look at some of these other Scriptures in the light of this.
He does not say, as most people subconsciously read it, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of all shall wax cold.” It does not say that. It says, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of the many shall wax cold.” Now, that is a different thing.
You can either choose to be in the majority or in the minority, is it not? Dear brothers and sisters, if there is a choice in this thing, by the grace of God I want to be amongst those whose love does not grow cold, even though iniquity is multiplied. Do you not?
Then there is this saying of Jesus: “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” I find this very interesting because of the story.
The Lord Jesus told a story about a little Jewish widow. Now, you have to know Jewish widows to understand the story. This little Jewish widow had a case, but the judge was a bent judge, if you understand what I mean by a bent judge.
The judge was not a just judge, a righteous judge at all. He took bribes. If you wanted the judge to hear your case, and particularly to rule in your favour, a little gift had to be made for him. Of course, you did not do anything as vulgar as to go up and plant it right in front of his nose. Quietly into some Swiss banking account, you paid a sum. Or somehow or other, in a roundabout way, a nice new car appeared as a little gift.
He was a bent judge, as simple as that. The Lord said this judge was an unjust judge. This poor little widow had no money, so there was no way she could pay any kind of bribe to him. But she had one quality that has never been lacking amongst Jews: she was able to talk.
She went at it hammer and tongue. She gave him no peace whatsoever. When he got up in the morning, there she was at the garden gate. When he went to work, there she was waiting at the office door, always the same old whine: “What about my case? What about my case?”
So he was driven by this little widow, who had no education, no money, no influence, and no, as we say in Hebrew, protektsia—that is, no family connections in high places where she could pull behind the scenes. She had no such thing, but she drove this bent judge to a nervous breakdown.
He began to have nightmares about her. Waking up in the night, there she was in his dream. He could not escape from her wherever he went. When he was to sit quietly and relax, there she was, completely in his face.
Do you really think our Lord wants you and me to be like that little widow? So what is the story all about? The story is about persevering, enduring faith—burning faith, the kind of faith that will not let go until the purpose is fulfilled.
It is perfectly true that in the end there is going to be a falling away. There is going to be lukewarmness, if not coldness, in the love of many, and there is nothing like iniquity being multiplied to do that.
But what I find is this: without spot or blemish or any such thing is going to be fulfilled. It is the unchanging purpose of my Lord and Saviour. If He has made no deviation, I will not abandon that building work of His. I want Him to do the building work in me, and I want Him to do the building work in us, so that we are related to one another in the right way in the Lord.
I will build My church.
Because the Lord is on our side, the Lord is not our adversary. He is not our accuser. He is not waiting to find fault in us. The Lord is actually on our side. He has taken our side, if you get what I mean, in the battle with the powers of darkness.
He has saved us, and He has made provision for us which means that you and I can be part of this eternal building work, this church that He is building.
Now, I would like to move a little more deeply into this. I think that His purpose is unchanged whatever the mountainous difficulties may be that confront this building work of His. This I find in Zechariah 4.
This is such a marvellous chapter. In this vision which Zechariah had, the first thing he saw was a seven-branched lampstand, all of gold.
For those who know their Bibles, I do not think there will be too much problem in understanding this. This lampstand we find all the way through the Bible, from Exodus onwards. It was the lampstand in the tabernacle; it was the lampstand in the temple.
For those of you who know your New Testament a little better than your Old Testament, you will remember that when the risen Messiah stands in the midst of seven local churches, they are represented, each one of them, by one of these lampstands—these seven-branched lampstands.
He sees this lampstand, and he sees that it has seven lamps and that they are all alight. Then he sees seven pipes, each one coming into one of the seven lamps. Then he notices that on either side of this lampstand is an olive tree—two olive trees, one on either side.
He notices that these pipes, strangely enough, are coming out of the branches of the olive trees and into the lamps. There is a connection between the olive trees, the lampstand, and the light.
He notices that it is not oil that is coming out of the olive trees, which would be the normal thing. In fact, the translators have added the word oil, simply because to them it does not make sense. But in the vision which Zechariah had, it was not oil that came out of the olive tree; it was gold.
In Hebrew it says that the olive branches emptied gold out of themselves into the lamps. This gold, which came out of the olive trees into the lamps, became light. In other words, the flame which produced the light came out of the gold which was produced by the olive trees. That was the vision.
Now, the interesting thing is that the angel, just like the Lord provoked the disciples—it seems to be a heavenly method—asked Zechariah, “What do you see?” Zechariah said, “Well, I see a lampstand all of gold, and I see these two olive trees on either side.”
Then the angel said, “Do you understand what you see?” Zechariah very honestly said, “No, I do not.” Then the angel of the Lord said, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘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 the top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of Grace, grace, unto it.’”
If you read on, you will see it made even clearer: “His hands laid the foundation; his hands will also finish the work.” In other words, we discover that this lampstand represents a building work—an eternal building programme or work.
We could say that this lampstand is the testimony of Jesus. This testimony of Jesus is all to do with the life of God. If you like to go even further, we could say that this testimony of Jesus is all to do with God’s building work in your life and in my life.
Now, we will come back to this again on another evening. But what I want to say this evening is that I want to point you to the mountain.
Between the professed purpose of God to do something and the completion of that purpose, there are mountains of enormous and difficult nature.
Thank God, we are not told what the mountains are. We know from Haggai that the people were very lukewarm at times. Maybe that was one of the mountains. Maybe the materials were another mountain. They had difficulties in getting materials. Maybe political and economic circumstances were other mountains. I do not know.
But I am glad to say the circumstances are not spelt out for us as to what these mountains are, and that helps us tremendously. What could have been the mountains in Zechariah’s day may not be the mountains today.
What we know is this: these mountains were of such a nature as to make the fulfilment of God’s declared purpose and programme impossible.
I do not know of a single person who has seen the church and who has committed themselves to the Spirit of God for the building of the church who does not, sooner or later, confront mountainous problems concerning the fulfilment of that revelation.
Now we come to the point. It is the easiest thing in the world to be terribly spiritual and shelve the whole matter. “Well,” we say, “the enemy has got in. This and this and this and this has happened. There is lukewarmness, superficiality, or error has come in. All this, all that, or the other. Now it is impossible. The only thing for me to do is to walk by myself with the Lord.”
What is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel? It is this:
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.
In other words, the very thing that would mean it was impossible for the purpose of God to be fulfilled will become the vehicle for the purpose of God to be fulfilled. The mountain will become God’s way.
God will drive a highway right through the mountain so that the mountain becomes, as it were, a plain. The top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of “Grace, grace.” In other words, God will complete the work.
In the old days, when they built these houses, there was no bonding, no cement, no mortar. Every stone was fitted so that you could not even put a knife in between them. I could take you to buildings around where I live where you could not put a knife in between the stones. They are over two thousand years old, of course.
Nowadays, they build with mortar and fake the whole thing. But in the old days, the whole honour and reputation of the master builder rested on whether he could build in such a way that, at the final dedication ceremony, the top stone slid into place without any faking.
Everyone gathered for the top stone to go into place, because that was the final dedication of the building. The whole honour and reputation of the builder depended on whether that top stone could slide into place without a crack on either side, and the building was complete.
This is the meaning of the words, “The top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of Grace, grace, unto it.” We who have some charismatic experience might imagine that the word should be, “Glory, glory, unto it.”
But it will be so much the Lord, when this building work is completed, that the only word anyone will be able to say, the only word on anybody’s lips, will be, “Grace, grace.” It was the grace of God that began this work. It was the grace of God that developed the work. It was the grace of God that sustained it when it should have been destroyed. It is the grace of God that has completed it.
The mountains have become a plain. The hands of Zerubbabel, who laid the foundations, shall also complete it. Thank God, we have a greater than Zerubbabel. His hands laid the foundation of the church. His hands are the ones that are going to complete this work of the church.
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is no way for mountains to become plains but by the person of the Holy Spirit.
When Christians despise the Holy Spirit, ignore the Holy Spirit, or even go so far as never to speak about the Spirit but only speak about the Lord Jesus, there is something missing. There is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not just an influence. He is not just an agent. He is not just a power. The Holy Spirit is as much a person as the Father and the Son.
There is no way to know mountains become plains except through the person of the Holy Spirit. This is so important for us to understand.
Why is it that when we get a vision and an understanding of the church and commit ourselves to the purpose of the Lord, we come up against obstacles that overcome us? One of the reasons is this: the Lord is very jealous that the glory of this whole work shall go to Him.
He sometimes allows problems and difficulties of an enormous, almost an Everest-type nature to come up against us, so that we say, “There is no possibility of this church being built in me or in us.”
But when the Holy Spirit is given His place—“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts”—mountains become a way for the Lord. The very difficulties that would have frustrated God’s building purpose become the very vehicle for its fulfilment.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I believe we need to encourage ourselves in this matter. There are every kind of possible difficulties represented by these mountains: division, faction, superficiality, carnality, worldliness, error, lukewarmness. There are a thousand other things I could add to the catalogue.
These are some of the mountainous difficulties that lie between us and the fulfilment of God’s work. I want to shock some of you by saying this: in one of the Corinthian letters, Paul, as so often, inserts one little phrase which is, for me, a saving factor.
There must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you.
I find that very interesting. Think about it. Think about it.
You see, all of us are looking for the perfect church. There is something about us old human beings: we are looking for this golden age, this utopia, this sort of perfect church. The trouble is, if I join it, it will not be perfect anymore. And I want to let you into a secret: if you join it, it will be even less perfect.
It is amazing. We all are looking for the perfect church. We go all through life looking for the perfect church. We go from fellowship to fellowship, from denomination to denomination, from assembly to assembly, from group to group, looking for the perfect church.
As soon as we find some poor failings or faults, we are gone. It is inconceivable to us that there could be, in a New Testament church, an Ananias and Sapphira. Yet Peter simply said, when he dropped dead, “Take him out and bury him.” Then, when she dropped dead a few hours later, “Take her out and bury her next to him.”
“That is not a New Testament church. I am not looking for that kind—no Ananias and Sapphira.” It is interesting that in some of the New Testament churches, in one there was a Jezebel. The Lord does not say, “Now leave.” He says, “He that overcometh, to him will I give.”
In another, there was Nicolaitanism. He does not say, “Now you must leave.” I am not saying there is never a place where we have to leave. What I am saying is this: we are often deeply shocked when we really discover the true state of New Testament churches. They are anything but perfect.
Jezebels, Nicolaitanism, lukewarmness, superficiality, pride, deep things of Satan—only the Lord knows some of the other things that existed in the early churches. But they were the place where God was doing the work. What do you expect?
God did not say, “I am going to wave a wand over you all, and tomorrow morning the whole church will be perfect.” Would it not be lovely if we could come together and look to the Lord, and He waved a wand over us all, and the next morning there we all were, fitly framed together and knit together in love, and thus we stayed forever after?
I am afraid it is not like that. Supposing the Lord does a work in me—and that takes Him long enough—but supposing He does a work in me and gets me ready so that I and another brother can at least have a relationship and begin to work together, and then you come along. We are back to square one.
Because he and I have got somewhere, and now you have come. Then in comes someone else. They have twisted every Richmond citizen for the last twenty years, and they got saved last night. Lo and behold, they are in the church. Oh, my goodness. Now we have another problem.
Are we going to get the ropiness and twistedness out of him overnight? I do not think so. I think we have a problem on our hands.
Of course, the easiest thing for us would be to make a first- and second-class citizenry. We will put him in the second class and keep him there for a while, and we will be the first-class citizens. You who have just joined us, we will make you a first-class citizen—but we will watch you.
This might be a little easier. But what I am trying to say is this: if the church is really down here, God’s building yard, there is going to be an awful lot of mess. There are going to be things all over the place that are being done.
If you think about it for a while, no church down here could possibly be perfect—not if it is a real, functioning, living church. There should be people being saved all the time. There should be prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, divorcees, those who have problems with demons, and all kinds of people, altogether apart from some of the more normal cases.
These folks are all coming into the church if it is a New Testament church. Just think of it: supposing we had Matthew amongst us. Of course, we all say, “Oh, Matthew!” But Matthew was Levi, and Levi was the publican. I do not mean he kept a pub; I mean he was a tax collector.
Oh, what a twister he must have been. You are not going to tell me that all that twistedness in Matthew came out of him in one fell swoop. No, of course not.
Then we have Mary Magdalene. You mean to tell me that she became overnight a saint after seven demons were cast out of her? You do not mean she had any ongoing problems of any kind? My dear friends, I can just imagine it.
There are many others. What are we to do? This is the builder’s yard. Here are our difficulties. But we are all looking for the perfect church.
It is quite extraordinary, really. It shows what a kind of fairytale mentality most of us have when it comes to the matter of the church. We are actually looking for the golden age. We are looking for this kind of utopia, this paradise. Thank God, we are going to come to it—but not down here.
Praise the Lord, there will be times of blessing, times of ecstasy, times of joy, and times when we walk on air together. But there will also be many other times when we shall have collisions and problems in all this being fitly framed and knit together.
Dear brothers and sisters, there are every kind of difficulties which these mountains represent. It makes no difference:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain?
Thou shalt become a plain before Zerubbabel;
and the top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of Grace, grace, unto it.
The work is going to be completed. Why? Because the purpose of the Lord Jesus is unchanging—immutable. He is not going to be diverted. He is not going to deviate from His declared purpose. Upon this rock, He is going to build His church. Brothers and sisters, that is something for you and me to be encouraged about.
There is one last thing I would like to leave with you. It is the same idea, just going a little deeper. His purpose is unchanged in spite of the final shaking that is going to come to the earth.
We know in the Bible that a huge and universal shaking of both the heaven and the earth is predicted. This shaking, in my estimation, we are already in. It has begun.
The final stages of this shaking are a physical shaking of the universe, when the sun and the stars will be shaken. Because something happens in the sun, something will in consequence happen in the moon; and because of that, something in consequence will happen with the tides of the oceans and the seasons. This shaking is the final shake.
Nothing could be better designed to shake the arrogance of man in the space age than a shaking of the universe which he is exploring.
This is the last stage of a shaking which, in my estimation, began with the First World War, continued in the Second World War, and has now grown in intensity with every decade that we have lived through. It is not going to stop. It is only going to get more and more.
In Hebrews 12:26-29 we read:
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God, with reverence and awe:
for our God is a consuming fire.
This is not a frightening verse at all, nor is it meant to be a frightening statement of God’s Word. It is an encouraging one. The accent is this:
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer to God service well-pleasing to Him.
We may well feel that in this shaking there will be no more building of the church. Brothers and sisters, the most fruitful time for the building of the church will be in this shaking.
This is when all the institutional thing will apostatise. This is the time when there will emerge a world church, a world faith in which there will probably be included Hinduism, Islam, Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other systems, into one great world faith.
But this shaking will shake those who are born of God out of all these things and into a relationship with one another that we were never prepared to enter ourselves. God will do through the shaking what we were not prepared to do.
There is nothing like persecution for driving people together. If you are in some hole of the earth, you are not likely to say to someone, “Are you a Catholic?” All you want to know is, “Does he love the Lord?” If he loves the Lord, you and he are one.
But it is even more interesting that when we turn to Haggai 2, we find where the writer of Hebrews was quoting. This is what the original says.
For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
and I will shake all nations; and the precious things of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.
The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of hosts.
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
Here is the most amazing promise. When the Lord shakes the whole universe and all the nations, He will shake the very materials required for the building of the house out of where they are and into the right place.
The old version, of course, said, “The desire of all nations shall come.” But in fact the Hebrew says, “The precious things of all nations shall come.” There are two ways of looking at it, both of which are right.
One is that the Messiah, the Desire of nations, will appear at the end of this shaking. The other is that all the precious things He requires for the building of the church will be shaken out of where they are and into the building work that He is doing.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is no need to fear any shaking. No, we have much cause for encouragement.
How does this little prophecy of Haggai end? It ends in this amazing way, in Haggai 2:21-23:
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;
and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts.
Now, a signet ring is a sign of authority. What the Lord is simply saying is this: it is not only a question of building the church; it is a question of producing those who can come to the throne of God.
This shaking that will come in the last days is designed to push and oppress those who really mean business with the Lord out of lukewarmness, out of divided hearts, out of divided loyalties, into a one-hundred-percent commitment to the Lord, so that He can make them overcomers and make them as a signet ring on the hand of God.
Do you understand? I do not know if you know what a signet ring is. In the old days, with a signet ring bearing the insignia of whatever royal house or aristocratic house you belonged to, when a letter was brought, the thing you looked for on the seal outside, in the wax, was the insignia.
When you opened the letter, you went down to the bottom, and again you would see the seal in wax. Sometimes these seals were so cleverly designed that they could not be faked. Those who knew would look especially and carefully at the seal to see if it was the royal seal, or the seal of whatever house it was.
That signet was on the hand of the king, the prince, the duke, or whoever else it was. When a letter had been prepared, sealing wax was melted with a candle, dropped onto the paper, and then the signet went into it. It was authorised.
In other words, what God is saying about Zerubbabel is, “You are going to be My authorisation. I am going to use you as the authorisation for My eternal purpose. I am going to use you in the ages to come as the one that authorises things, actually sets the seal of My divine authority upon every programme that We have for the future.”
Brothers and sisters, where was this work done? In the shaking. In the midst of the overthrowing of kingdoms and the strength of kingdoms, God said to Zerubbabel, “Do not fear, Zerubbabel. I will make you as My signet ring on My hand. In the midst of all this shaking, just keep your eyes on Me and trust in Me.”
Brothers and sisters, what an encouragement we have. Have you got problems in your life? Have you inherited problems in your temperament and nature from your background? Have you got mountains that you feel make it almost impossible for you to see the fulfilment of God’s building work in your life? So have I.
What has the Lord said?
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I am going to take the side of God against myself. I am going to say, “Lord, in spite of myself, in spite of my circumstances, in spite of so many mountainous difficulties in my life and nature, You are going to complete Your building work in me by Your grace.”
When I look at our fellowship together, I want to be able to say, “Lord, in spite of all the mountainous difficulties that we see on all sides—the work of the enemy, the devices of Satan, the many things he has done to divide, factionalise, and alienate—I want to say, Lord, I believe that You, upon this rock, are building Your church, and the gates of Hades are not going to prevail against it.”
The top stone is going to be brought forth with shouts of “Grace, grace, unto it.” Not, perhaps, in the way I imagine: everything wonderful, everything at peace, everything, as it were, perfect.
I think in all the absolute clang of war machines, in the huge battle, with the smoke of battle in the air so that you can hardly see anything, in the midst of it all the top stone will finally come into its place.
When the mist clears and we see the top stone in place, there will be only one word on all our lips and in all our hearts: grace. The grace of God did this. He began it. He even included me in His grace, and He has completed it. Praise God.
Heavenly Father, we bow here in Your presence this evening. There is not one of us who has not got some kind of mountain in our lives, some kind of problem or difficulty that would stand in a defiant way astride Your purpose being fulfilled in our lives.
But, Lord, we praise You. We can say tonight, “We believe, Lord, You can do it—not by might, nor by power, but by Your Spirit.” Lord, You can do it in each one of us. You love us, Lord, and in Your Word You say that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Your Son.
Heavenly Father, tonight we take Your side against ourselves. We say, “Lord, You are going to do this work in all of us.”
Then, Lord, when we think of the many fellowships that are represented here, and the difficulties that are represented—the mountainous difficulties and obstacles—Lord, we see them. But, Lord, we want to take Your side in this matter and say, “Lord, we believe You are going to fulfil Your purpose in this thing.”
Blessed heavenly Lord, go on with Your work. We want to be those who are walking with You, who are faithful to You, who are committed to You in this thing.
We praise You, then, for Your love and grace, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.