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.
Unto Whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame.
For you therefore that believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner;
And, A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:
Who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
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.
Then answered I, and said unto Him, What are these two olive-trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
And I answered the second time, and said unto Him, What are these two olive branches which are beside the two golden spouts, that empty the golden oil out of themselves?
And He answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these are? And I said, No, my lord.
Then said He, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches: unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.
And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that You are here. We are not asking You to join us; we are coming to join You. Lord, we want this time to be a time when we hear Your voice. Beyond the human voices, may we hear what Your Spirit is saying.
Beloved Lord, we praise You that, through the enormous cost our Lord Jesus paid at Calvary, You have provided us with all the power and all the grace that we need to fulfil this ministry. Into that anointing, grace, and power we stand by faith.
Let a double portion be upon the speaking, the translating, and the hearing. Plant something in us. Do something in the midst of the years to revive Your work. Lord, we are dependent upon You, and we shall be careful to give You all the thanksgiving and praise of our hearts for answering this prayer, which we ask in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
I think you all know that the theme of this conference is the testimony of Jesus in the church. My responsibility is what has been termed the revealed pattern—that is, the revelation God has given us concerning the church, the revelation within the Word of God.
I want this evening to speak as simply as I can. I know that only the Holy Spirit can reveal these things.
I was once a Baptist—a good Baptist. I was a devoted Baptist. But there came a day when I read a little booklet, and I was very thrilled with what the brother said.
I was walking by the River Thames, reading it. A strange thing to do, to read a book walking by the river; I could have fallen in the river, but I managed not to. I read these words: “Christ is the church.”
Then I thought, “Now I understand why everybody speaks against this brother.” Everybody knows that Christ is the Head and the church is the body. So I shut the book. “Now I understand what all the fuss is about this brother.”
But God has enormous humour. The next day my reading began with 1 Corinthians 12:12:
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
That is what this brother said. I thought to myself, “The Greek cannot say this. It must say, ‘of which Christ is the Head.’ The members of the body are one body, but Christ is the Head.”
And in my spirit I heard a voice: “Is your body something else than your head?” My head is Lance Lambert, and so is my body. You have never seen a living headless body, and you have never seen a living bodiless head.
The whole idea of this amazing figure, which the Holy Spirit uses only in the New Testament, is that head and body are organic. They belong together. For life, for function, you need head and body together.
This is the revelation that was not given to the prophets and patriarchs in the old covenant. It was something given to the apostles in the new covenant.
I find this wonderful. I only want to introduce this subject as far as what I have to say in these three nights. It seems perfectly clear to me that the biblical pattern is Christ.
People seem to have this crazy idea that if we get a few Christians together, appoint some as elders and some as deacons, have hymn books, chairs, the Lord’s table, and a Bible study, then we have the church.
That is the whole point of Pentecost. One hundred and twenty saved men and women were gathered in an upper room with the Bible—the Old Testament at that time. They believed every word of it. They were absolutely one, more than we can say of most assemblies. They were absolutely devoted to the Person of the Lord Jesus, more than we can say for most assemblies.
They believed in the virgin birth. They believed in the Messianic ministry of the Lord Jesus. They believed in His atoning death, His bodily burial, His literal resurrection, His literal ascension to the right hand of God, and they believed He was coming back. Could you ask for a more perfect congregation?
But it was not a church. It was a synagogue: a perfect assembly of believers in the name of the Lord Jesus, with singing, worship, the Bible—everything.
But when the Holy Spirit came, He turned those 120 units of a congregation into 120 living members of the living body, joined to a living Head. And the world was turned upside down.
Could you believe it? One hundred and twenty! The whole Jewish establishment should have killed it. The Roman establishment—the Roman government, with all its power and might—should have killed it. Instead, it ended up in Rome and turned the whole Roman Empire upside down.
They went to Rome. They also went to southern India, Ethiopia, Armenia, Spain, and what we used to call Yugoslavia. It went everywhere.
There is an ancient tradition, perhaps not so stupid, that Joseph of Arimathea preached the gospel in the streets of London fourteen years after the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
There was nothing to stop these believers once they had discovered that they were joined to their Head at the right hand of God, and to one another, whilst they did not grieve the Holy Spirit and whilst they did not quench the Holy Spirit. Like a forest fire, the gospel went forward.
Dear brothers and sisters, every time the Holy Spirit has moved again, the same thing has happened. Look at the Quakers. They believed in silence. They did not believe in music. Yet they had the same consequences and results as Pentecostals and charismatics. People fell on the floor and shook; that is why they called them Quakers.
They had a revelation from the Word of God—or prophecy. It was a Quaker who prophesied the great plague and the fire that would follow in London.
It has happened again and again and again, every time the Lord by grace has brought the church, or believers, back to the original principle—whether it is the Reformation or any other movement.
This is a tremendous challenge to us. In every single move of the Spirit, within the third, fourth, or fifth generation, the thing has died. It has become a façade, crystallised into a routine. The life has gone.
The Lord Jesus made a simple, categorical, dogmatic declaration: “I will build.”
If we look at these last almost two thousand years, there has been such a conflict and such warfare over this building work of the Lord Jesus. It has all been to do with the headship of the Lord Jesus, the freedom of the Holy Spirit, and the authority and power of the Word of God.
Whenever those basic, foundational principles have operated, the building work of the Lord Jesus has come forward. Whenever He has been dethroned and disobeyed, there has been lifelessness and death.
Look at these wonderful words of the Lord Jesus. First, Who is the Builder? It is the Lord Jesus.
Upon this rock I will build My church.
Not archbishops, not cardinals, not any human leader. The Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church.” This is the first thing.
Notice what He said: “Who do men say that I am?” They said, perhaps Jeremiah, perhaps this, perhaps that. “And who do you say that I am?” He said to Peter.
Peter said, “Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The Lord Jesus said, “Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you.” You did not get it in a theological seminary, or a Bible school, or even in a Bible study. God revealed that by revelation. “My Father revealed that to you.”
That means relationship to the Lord Jesus as the Builder.
Upon this rock I will build My church.
Now, what is the rock? It is God Himself. Do you remember the word in Isaiah 26:4?
Trust ye in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord, the Lord, is an everlasting rock.
It is interesting in the Hebrew, because it is doubled: “the Lord, the Lord,” emphasising the truth. Earlier in the verse, you have the phrase “perfect peace”; in Hebrew it is “peace, peace.” In the same way, the Lord is emphatically declared to be the everlasting Rock.
Now the Lord Jesus says, “You are Peter.” The Greek was Petros: a small stone. “Upon this rock,” petra—the massive rock—“I will build My church.”
Does this mean that the Lord Jesus was saying, “Oh, you are nothing; you are just a little stone”? No, no, no. Later Peter explains his understanding in his letter. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, he says, “Unto Whom coming, a living stone.” He also speaks of believers as living stones, built together. Peter understood something.
You can have church truth from ear to ear and not really see what the church is. What really is the church? What is it that the Lord Jesus is building? It is all to do with eternal life.
Jesus said again and again, “I am the life.” Out of this life of God we are quarried—not dead stones, but living stones, alive to God by the Spirit of God. Then we are to be built together.
You do not get a house with a heap of stones. If I asked you to come and have a cup of tea with me, and when you arrived there was a great heap of stones, and I said, “Please come in,” you would say, “Where is the door?” You would think, “He is crazy. He is getting old. His head is touched.”
Those stones have to be built together. Of course, if you are a very precise person, you might put the stones beautifully together in a pile—but it is still not a home. Those stones have to find their relationship one to another. They have to be built together. Then it becomes a house.
Peter clearly understood this. When the Lord Jesus said, “You are Peter,” He was saying, “You are a small bit of rock. You have not yet been faced and formed; you are just a bit of rock.” But upon the massive Rock, He would build His church.
Let me look at it another way. The Lord Jesus is the foundation. There is no other foundation that can be laid. This is the divine foundation.
Jesus is the chief cornerstone, from which all the measurements of the whole house are taken. He is the stone that holds the walls together. Jesus is the top stone. He is the first and the last, and everything in between. Here is the beginning, and here is the end. Is this not amazing?
If you read on in 1 Peter 2, you will notice that Peter speaks of Jesus as the cornerstone and as the head of the corner. It is all about a building programme—a divine building.
Come back to Matthew 16:18. “You are Petros; upon this rock, petra, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Do you believe that? When you look at the state of the church today, and even the state of ourselves, you might have reason to wonder. Have not the gates of hell prevailed against us? Have they not broken down the gates and come in like a flood?
Listen again to the words of the Lord Jesus:
Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades, or death, shall not prevail against it.
That is the whole story of genuine church history. It has been the risen Lord, by the Holy Spirit, Who has again and again brought believers back to the original truth.
Many years ago, in a beautiful little village on the north coast of Devon in England, for three or four days rain like a monsoon fell upon the moors. About the third day, a great wall of water came down on the village and swept a number of people into the sea. Everyone was horrified, and the government set up an inquiry.
It was very interesting what they discovered. About a hundred years previously, the people responsible for leadership in the village had decided it would be much better if they changed the course of the river. They changed it from the way it had been naturally created and put it another way.
When the flood came, the river went back to its original course. This is a marvellous picture of what God has done again and again. It is Christ the Builder.
When He has got a group of believers—and although they are infinitely small sometimes, “Who hath despised the day of small things?”—the flood has come from the throne of God and returned to the original course, until men again change the course of the river.
I do not know whether what I am saying makes sense to you, but I can tell you that if we are going to go through the last great crises of world history, we need that flood from the throne.
If the top stone is ever to be set in its place, it will surely be by the grace of God. I used to wonder why they did not all shout, “Glory, glory,” when the top stone went in. But they did not. The conditions were so difficult and the obstacles so enormous that the only word they could say was, “Grace began this work, grace developed it, and grace has finished.”
It is an amazing picture we have in Zechariah 4. The dear prophet saw this great lampstand, this menorah, and two great olive trees, one on either side.
He was caught by the olive trees, not the lampstand. “What are these olive trees?” The angel did not specifically answer him at first. Later he asked again, “What are these two olive trees?” Still the angel did not answer.
Then he said, “What are these two olive branches that are emptying golden oil out of themselves into the lampstand?” Then he got his answer.
This lampstand, which is the lampstand of the tabernacle and the temple, represented a divine building programme. In the Old Testament, it was the house of the Lord—the temple. Everything was against the work of rebuilding that temple.
So you have these wonderful words:
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.
Who will make the mountain a plain? The Lord Himself. Then it goes on: Zerubbabel’s hands began this work; his hands will finish it. And the top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of “Grace, grace.” That is the end of the work.
It says that the eyes of the Lord will rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. What is a plummet for? Building. It has no other use that I know of.
Every single thing in the tabernacle spoke of the Lord Jesus. The brazen altar speaks of the finished work of our Lord Jesus. The brazen laver speaks of being born of God, born of the Spirit of God by the Word of God.
Have you been born in such a way? You may be a second- or third-generation Christian and never have had an experience of being born of the Spirit of God. But that laver speaks of that.
Go inside the tent, and what do you see? A table all of gold, with the bread on it. It is Jesus: “I am the bread of life.” Look at the golden altar: it is Jesus. He ever lives to make intercession.
What is the lampstand? It is Jesus: “I am the light of the world.” Go into the Holy of Holies, and there you have the ark of the covenant—the covenant God made with His people. God has made a new and eternal covenant with us.
Within it are the unbroken law, speaking of the holy Lord Jesus; the golden pot of manna, speaking of Jesus as the Bread of Life; and Aaron’s rod that budded, speaking of divine life and resurrection.
Dear brother and sister, is it not interesting that God selected only one piece of furniture to represent His building programme for the church? Why did He not take the golden altar? We can live as we feed on the Lord Jesus, and we are called to intercession. Why did He not take these other things? Everything speaks of the Lord Jesus.
The temple is only the tabernacle on a much greater scale, and more permanent. Why did the Lord take the lampstand? It is the testimony of Jesus.
I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.
The life of the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of God, becomes light. In His light we see light. It is amazing.
Come back to Zechariah. “What are those two olive branches, Lord, that empty out golden oil into the lamps?” The golden oil is light.
In the Hebrew, it does not say “oil.” Those branches empty out gold. And the gold becomes fuel for light.
It is the only way the testimony of Jesus can ever be held. Jesus said to Laodicea, “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich.”
It is the only way that the testimony of Jesus can be held by a church: when you have enough members of the body in whom gold is being produced.
Suddenly we have an apostle, nearest to the Lord Jesus—the one who, in some ways apart from Paul, saw more than anyone else. He was in a forced labour camp when the Lord appeared to him.
The risen, glorified Lord said, “What thou seest, write in a book, and send it to seven churches.” A little later we are told the mystery of these lampstands: they are seven churches.
Whichever way you look at this—whether you understand that the Lord selected seven local churches to represent the whole church of God in time and place, or whether you understand it as the history of the whole church—it is the same truth.
I remember years ago an old divine saying to me, “The Bible is like a diamond. It flashes in different lights as you look at it from different angles.”
Each of these churches is represented by a lampstand. What happens when the lampstand is removed? The church rumbles on with its Bible studies, its evangelism, its organised outreach, and everything else.
The Laodicean church did not even know that the Lord was outside of the whole thing. They were studying His Word, singing about Him, seemingly worshipping Him, breaking bread together, and they had no idea that He was outside.
This lampstand represents the church. The testimony of Jesus is what the church holds. You have this phrase again and again in Revelation: those that hold the testimony of Jesus.
When Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church,” then, two chapters later, He spoke about a problem among believers and said, “If this does not work, go and tell it to the church.” Apparently, there is something on earth as well as in heaven.
Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it. The Apostle Paul speaks of all the churches, the churches of Galatia, and the church of God at Corinth.
You have the church, and you have churches. What are the churches? There is no division in the churches. According to the Word of God, in practice, if you live in a certain place, you belong to the church there. It is clear enough in the Word of God.
These seven churches represent the people of God on earth, in time and in place.
When you come to the end of Revelation, you hear these wonderful words:
And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
The glory of God is the light. The seven lamps, meaning completeness and fullness, are the Lamb. What is the stand? The stand holds the lamp.
That means that what happens in those churches is directly related to what God is seeking to build. Where does the gold come from? From those who are in those churches, in time and place.
Where do the precious stones come from? They are worked believers—in their circumstances, in their relationships, above all in their relationship to the Lord Jesus and their relationship to one another. Where does the pearl come from? It is formed in these churches.
There are only three materials: precious stones, pearl, and gold. Where are they found? Where are they worked upon? In the churches.
It is very interesting that the Lord says the same thing to all seven: “He that hath an ear, let him hear,” and, “To him that overcometh.”
We need to hear what the Lord is saying, and in obedience and faith to the Lord, overcome.
I do not know whether this has been too much for you this evening. I do not know. But there is something tremendous here.
If the Lord Jesus said, “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” I, for one, want, by the grace of God, to be with the Builder—whatever the cost, however humbling it may be, whatever it takes for the Lord to do the work in us.
There will come a day when, if we have not allowed the Lord to do this work in us, we shall shed many tears. We really are at a crossroad.
We do not know how long we have, and we need to wake up. Where there is sin, confession. Where we have wronged brothers and sisters, we need to go and put it right.
The Lord’s Word is very clear:
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Where we need strengthening, the Lord will give it. Where we need grace, it is available. Where we need power to overcome, it is there. It is not given to you and me because we deserve it. It is given to you and me because the Lord Jesus finished the work. It is already available.
May the Lord touch our hearts. May something sink into us. We need to be a people on fire for the Lord—alive, hearing, obedient, walking with Him.
Now we shall have a word of prayer.
Lord, take these poor words of mine, and whatever has been truly of Yourself, make it sink into us.
Lord, there is a certain amount of lifelessness in so many of the assemblies. We need You, Lord. We need You to revive Your work in the midst of the years.
We need You to give us a new vision of Yourself. You are the Builder. We want to be with You in Your building work.
Touch our hearts. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.