If you will turn with me to one or two scriptures: first of all, the Gospel of John, Chapter 1. We will read from Verse 14.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us
(and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father),
full of grace and truth.John beareth witness of Him, and crieth, saying,
This was He of whom I said,
He that cometh after me is become before me:
for He was before me.For of His fulness we all received,
and grace for grace.For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him.
Then, in the second chapter of the same Gospel, John Chapter 2, from Verse 19:
Jesus answered and said unto them,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.The Jews therefore said,
Forty and six years was this temple in building,
and wilt Thou raise it up in three days?But He spake of the temple of His body.
When therefore He was raised from the dead,
His disciples remembered that He spake this;
and they believed the Scripture,
and the word which Jesus had said.
And then, in the same Gospel, John Chapter 15:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh it away:
and every branch that beareth fruit, He cleanseth it,
that it may bear more fruit.Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine;
so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.I am the vine, ye are the branches:
he that abideth in Me, and I in him,
the same beareth much fruit:
for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
And finally, in the Ephesian letter of the Apostle Paul, Ephesians Chapter 1. This is the prayer that the apostle, and whoever was his secretary, were praying for the believers. This prayer of the Apostle Paul is still effective today.
He prayed that the spirit of wisdom and revelation should be given to us in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus; that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened.
Then, from Verse 19:
That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe,
according to that working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead,
and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion,
and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
Beloved Lord, we are very thankful this evening that we are gathered here in the name of our Lord Jesus.
Lord, we are very conscious that the enemy is seeking to make an attack upon this conference. We hide ourselves in the Lord Jesus. He is our fortress and our stronghold. He is our high tower. We can run into Him and be safe.
And we come against this virus, this thing that the enemy has brought amongst us, in the name of the Lord Jesus and the finished work of the Lord Jesus, in which You have provided for us protection, security, safety, healing, and well-being.
In the name of the Lord Jesus, we thank You that the enemy is under His feet. We praise You for this.
We thank You for that word: when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a banner against him. We rally to the King’s banner. We believe that it is His will that this conference should be fulfilled, and that His purpose for it should be fulfilled.
Therefore, Lord, we praise You. Come like the pillar of fire and cloud between us and the enemy, and be to us everything we need at this time.
Lord, we want to thank You. You have provided an anointing for the speaking of Your word, for the translating of it, and for the hearing of it. Into that anointing, grace, and power, we now stand by faith. Let it be manifested, we pray, amongst us.
And we shall give You all the praise and worship of our hearts. We ask this 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.
And my responsibility, my part, is the revealed pattern.
We have heard repeatedly, either from the lips of dear Brother Stephen or myself, that the church is Christ. Even in the Old Testament, we have this in figure.
It is amazing how the Holy Spirit uses the words in John Chapter 1, Verse 14. It really is so suggestive:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
And the word dwelt is “tabernacled.” Everything in the tabernacle spoke of the Lord Jesus. And when finally He came, the words used of His coming were, “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled amongst us.”
Then again, in the second chapter of John, the Lord Jesus said to the Jewish establishment, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
This was stuck so much in their minds and hearts that, three years later, when they arrested Him and arraigned Him, they said, “He said He would destroy the temple.”
But Jesus was talking of Himself. He is the temple of God—not merely His body as a temple, but He Himself, His physical body. He is the temple of God: the tabernacle and temple.
Then again, think about the old covenant. Take Isaiah Chapter 5, Verses 1 and 2. This is what the Lord said by the prophet Isaiah:
Let me sing for my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
and He digged it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
and planted it with the choicest vine.
Or think of Psalm 80:8:
Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt:
Thou didst drive out the nations, and didst plant it.
What was this vine? Who was this vine? It was the covenant people of God.
Now we hear the Lord Jesus saying, in John Chapter 15, Verse 1, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Abide in Me, and I in you.”
For the disciples, they could not understand. What is He saying? They all knew that the vine was the people of God. How could Jesus say, “I am the people of God”?
According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, one of the great wonders of that day was the great vine worked in filigree gold, there just inside the porch of the sanctuary.
Every one of the men of the house of Israel who went into the court of Israel could see that vine. It was a work of art. And here is Jesus saying, “I am the true vine.”
Every Jew knew that the vine was them. How could Jesus say, “I am the people of God”?
If He said, “I am the King,” that is understandable. If He said, “I am the High Priest,” it would have been a little more of a problem, but they would have understood. If He said, “I am the prophet of Israel,” or, “I am the Messiah,” they would have understood.
But, “I am the people of God”—of all the claims that Jesus made, this is the most remarkable.
It comes immediately to our theme: the testimony of Jesus in the church. He is the vine. He said, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” When you are in Me, then I can manifest Myself.
This little phrase, in Christ, takes over the New Testament. Everything is in Christ. If you are born of God, if you are a child of God, if you are saved by His grace, then you are in Christ.
You do not have to fight to be there. That is your God-given position. The Father, by the Holy Spirit, has placed you in Christ.
So the Lord Jesus said, “Remain in Me. Abide in Me. Stay where My Father has put you, and I will dwell in you. I will be your life. I will be your power. I will be your grace. I will be your endurance. I will be your wisdom. I will be everything you need.”
And not just you personally, but every one of My redeemed.
Here, then, is this amazing picture. But when we come to the New Testament, there is a new picture added: not just tabernacle, not just temple, not just vine. This time it is head and body.
We spoke about it last night. Stephen spoke about it this morning. It is tremendous.
What does it mean that He is head and body? If you look at Ephesians Chapter 1, Verses 22 and 23, it says:
He gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
How can the body, the church, be the fulness of the Lord Jesus? In a few moments, I will come to this more fully.
Most Christians understand Jesus to be the head like the head of a university—the chancellor of a university. Here is the student body; there is the head. Or like a hospital: he is the principal, and there is the staff. Or like a college: there is the faculty. Or He is the prime minister, and we are the cabinet.
In other words, He is there and we are here. But this is not the way the Holy Spirit uses this amazing phrase. He uses it of head and body.
The head and body have to be joined. Otherwise, there is no life. As Stephen said this morning, there could not be anything clearer.
Do you mean to say that the church is the body of the Lord Jesus, joined to Him in a unity?
Yes, yes, yes, I do. That is exactly what the New Testament says.
Here we have the revealed pattern. You say, “I thought you were going to talk about elders and deacons.” No, I will come to that at another point. “I thought you were going to talk about the breaking of bread and baptism.” No, no, no. “I thought you were going to talk about our meetings.” No.
Here is the first thing about the revealed pattern in the Word of God. It is not like the Old Testament, where you had a high priest and the people, or the king and the nation. This is a unity.
Here is the first thing I want to say, following on from what Stephen said this morning. It will not harm you to hear it all again.
Here it is: the absolute headship of the Lord Jesus.
What does the Word of God say about the Lord Jesus?
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
It is the absolute victory of the Lord Jesus. He is not fighting tonight. He is not struggling tonight. He is not nervous about what the outcome is going to be.
Looking at us as the church, He might well be nervous! But no, He is seated in a position of absolute rest. He has won. He has won. His work is finished.
Through that work, He has beaten every single demonic foe. The Father said, “Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”
We are very conscious of the enemies—everywhere: insidious, seductive, powerful, with strategy and incredible intelligence. We know these enemies. But the Father says, “I will make Your enemies Your footstool.” Praise the Lord.
Then He says, “Let the rod of Your strength go forth from Zion. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.”
When the church is joined to the Head, when it is in living communion with the Head, God makes the enemies the footstool of Jesus.
That is why, in the verse we thought about last night, the Lord said:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The Lord Jesus went on to say:
Unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
He speaks of authority. It is tremendous. It means that the rod of His strength can go forth when the church is with Him.
Enemies are on every side. But you know what the Lord Jesus said just before He ascended:
All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore.
All authority in heaven—we expect that—but on a fallen earth, filled with demonic powers, principalities and powers that manipulate everything behind the scenes, world-rulers of this darkness, and hosts of wicked spirits in heavenly places: the Lord Jesus has all authority and power in His hand.
It only needs a word from Him. Do you believe it?
This is so tremendous. There is only one Head of the church. All supreme authority is vested in His headship. This is the revealed pattern.
If the church is alienated from its Head—if somehow or other something else or someone else comes between it and the Head—the church is paralysed.
This testimony of Jesus, this lampstand all of gold, is removed from a church the moment that church is no longer in union with the Head.
So serious is this matter. The work of the Holy Spirit—blessed be His name—is to make known the mind of the Lord Jesus.
The Holy Spirit: what can we do without Him? The Holy Spirit is the One who makes known to us the will of the Head.
Therefore, anything that comes between us and the Head is sin. It is a crime. Why? Because it paralyses the life of the church.
Whether it is a pope, an archbishop, a patriarch, a cardinal, a pastor, or even elders—if they put their head in place of the headship of the Lord Jesus, it is sin.
We think of sin as immorality. We think of sin as fraudulence. We think of sin as dishonesty. We think of sin as backbiting and character assassination. But far worse is the sin of divorcing the Head from the body.
Any worker that comes between the Head and the body, and takes upon himself too much of it, is divorcing the Head from the body.
Am I being too strong? Look at church history.
The biggest single problem that the Father has faced has been the ability of believers somehow to put something between them and the Head.
Look at the early church. Could there have been anything more glorious, more powerful, more living, more multiplying? Yet within two centuries it had become a stagnant organisation. There were wonderful believers here and there, but it already had all the symptoms of churchianity.
Look at it everywhere you look. Every move of the Holy Spirit—our brother spoke about Martin Luther. What a tremendous move of God that was. Not only Martin Luther, but a whole company of men and women whom God used to turn the known world upside down.
They recovered tremendous truths: the authority of the Word of God; the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, sufficient for every sinner in the world to be saved; and many other things.
Within a century or two, it stagnated. Until God did a new thing—whether it was the Moravians, the Quakers, the Methodists—and the same thing happened with them.
Within a matter of a century, by the fourth generation, it died. It crystallised. It became a routine, a list of doctrines.
It does not matter where you look; it is the same. What is it that lies at the root of this problem? The absolute headship of the Lord Jesus.
It takes tremendous power. Let us start again: it takes tremendous power to stop men with big heads.
Only the cross can do it. Otherwise, we become men who say, “I will wear a hat, and you will do what I say.” You do not have to dress up in robes. You can be dressed like this and still say, “You will do what I say.”
Only the cross can break us so that the authority of the Lord Jesus comes through. This is the biggest problem in the churches.
This is the focal point of Satan’s strategy. This is the easiest way he has to render any great move of the Holy Spirit lifeless: reduce it to a system; institutionalise it.
Brothers and sisters, your intelligence should be in your head. I sometimes think, with the Chinese, it could be in the stomach! Do not worry, Karl—that was a joke.
Let me say it again: your intelligence is in your head.
When the body of our Lord Jesus is alienated from the Head at the right hand of the Father, the intelligence in the Head cannot reach us.
Do you think the Lord has left us in a world that lies in the evil one, unguarded, unsafe, and left to our own wisdom? Do you really believe the Lord Jesus has thrown us out to the wolves?
The church, which is the body of the Lord Jesus, is the means, the agency, by which He wants to reach the world. Do you not think the Father has made provision for the body? Of course He has.
The problem is that most of us cannot hear Him. It is not that the Lord does not want to speak. He said, “My sheep hear My voice.”
Or again:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
In other words, practically, this matter of the headship of the Lord Jesus is a matter of hearing.
Now let me tell you a story. You may have heard it before. Years ago, there was a certain sister who was very full of herself. She lived some eighty or ninety miles away from where we were in Halford House, and every time she had a problem, she tried to telephone.
The sister who looked after the house noticed that I was always on the phone with this lady. So they all conspired together that whenever she phoned, they would make sure I was out. They would even take me by the hand and say, “Get out, get out,” and put me outside the back door or the front door. Then they would say, “He is not in the house.”
I did not want to lie, but now and again she phoned at a time when there was nobody else in the house, and I would take the phone.
“Oh, brother, praise the Lord! Hallelujah! God has given you the spirit of counsel and wisdom, and I have a problem.”
Then she would pour out. She never stopped. Minute after minute—anything up to eight or nine minutes—just a torrent of words.
Then she would say, “Thank you, dear brother. You have the spirit of counsel and wisdom.” And then, after about twenty minutes, I never got a word in—not a single word.
She would say, “Praise the Lord! I knew you would counsel me this way.” And before I could say, “My dear sister, I had not counselled you at all,” the phone went down.
This is exactly what has happened between the church and the Head. We pray, we pray, we pray. We want some words and words. We would drop dead if the Lord said, “Just wait. I want to say something.”
We do not expect the Lord to reply. But the intelligence is in the Head. We should give the Lord time to be able to speak to us—especially if we are elders, especially if we are servants of God, especially if we are workers, as well as all of us.
We need to be able to give the Lord time to speak to us. Do you not often say to the Lord, “Lord, I need counsel. I need Your help”? Then we pour out all the problems, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we stop. No wonder the church is paralysed.
I remember when I was in the Baptist church—and I do not want to say anything against Baptists—I was on the youth committee. We used to meet together, and the chairman would say, “Let us bow our heads.”
Then he would say, “Dear Lord, we are here to discuss the programme for this coming year for the youth work. Would You please make Your mind known to us?” Then he would say a few other things, and conclude, “In the name of Jesus, amen.”
Then he would say, “Now, so-and-so, I believe you have made a whole number of arrangements for this summer. Could we hear them?” And so there would be a whole lot of things: this speaker, that speaker, this special garden affair or outing.
Then, at the end, the chairman would say, “Let us pray,” and he would say, “Thank You, Lord, for revealing Your mind for this whole coming year.”
Then we spent the rest of the year wondering, “Why did no one get saved? Why was there no power? Why was there no growth? Why was there very little life?”
If the intelligence is in the Head, we need to ask the Lord to speak to us and direct us.
Consider the wonderful Psalm 27, Verse 4:
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.
To inquire in His temple. How daily, on every level of church life, there should be supplication.
What is supplication? It is a beseeching of the Lord Jesus, an appeal to the Lord, an inquiring of the Lord.
It is no wonder that the Apostle Paul, in his first letter to Timothy, says very simply:
I desire therefore that the men pray in every place,
lifting up holy hands,
without wrath and disputing.
He puts supplications first.
If we look at the history of the church, by the third or fourth generation no one is hearing the Lord any more. It is all second-hand. It is all, as it were, from the past.
We know what we should do. We know what we believe. It is all crystallised. We have institutionalised the un-institutionalisable.
Let me put it another way: we have organised what cannot be organised. We have organised the organic. But it is not from within, as Brother Stephen said this morning; it is not from within the life.
It is according to a book.
I do hope what I have had to say in this matter is not offensive. This whole great movement of the Spirit of God that began in China will die within another generation unless we have, on every level of responsibility, those who seek the Lord and hear the Lord.
It is so important. If the headship of Jesus is so vital, what is needed in us?
Not just in all—that is obvious—but in the leadership, on every level. There is no other way to hear what the Lord says.
Now there are two other things, and I close. Here is a second matter to do with the revealed pattern: in a church, the Lord Jesus should be all—beginning and end, first and last, Alpha and Omega. Jesus. Amen.
What does this mean? It means simply this: for the Holy Spirit to build the house of God, it has to begin with the Lord.
The enemy’s whole strategy is to introduce things that do not have their source in the Lord Jesus.
Psychology—there is a psychology that is divine. The Lord Jesus was the supreme psychologist. There is a psychiatry that is divine. The Lord Jesus is the supreme psychiatrist.
But when you bring in Freudian psychology into the church, with it come the demons. With it comes every kind of thing that does not belong to the Lord Jesus.
We have to be very careful on this. It is in one of the Psalms, “All my springs are in Thee.” I think it is Psalm 87.
When the Lord Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and Omega,” He was not just saying, “I am A and Z, and nothing in between.” He was saying, “I am the A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.”
What was He saying? “I am the Word of God. I am the language of God. I am the Word articulate. You do not need any other language. It is all here. Do not bring in other things.”
When Jesus said to the church of Laodicea, “I am the Amen,” what did He mean?
We normally say “Amen” when we agree with something, when it is right. Amen means, “I believe. I have faith. I agree with that. That is right.”
The Lord Jesus is the Amen. There were many things in the church of Laodicea that He could not be the Amen to. They had all their own philosophy, their own ideas, theological ideas mixed up with worldly philosophy.
They were great. They were rich. They were just terrific. And Jesus said, “You are blind, naked, and miserable.”
Can you believe it? A sophisticated church of believers, and the Lord Jesus says, “This is what you are, and this is what you think you are.”
No wonder they never inquired of the Lord. No wonder they never sought His mind. They thought they knew it. “We have got it all. Nobody needs to tell us anything. We know the truth.”
Dear brothers and sisters, this matter is of such importance. Jesus has to be at the beginning and in the end.
Let me say something: the source determines the destiny.
If you have the right source, you will have the right destiny. You remember the little phrase in Genesis Chapter 1: everything brought forth after its own kind.
Fish could only bring forth fish. I am sorry for Darwin, but it is true. Birds only brought forth birds, animals brought forth animals, and human beings could multiply as human beings. So simple.
Origin determines destiny.
If you begin with the Lord Jesus, if you are faithful, you will reach His end. But if you do not begin with the Lord Jesus, you will not get there.
Jesus said:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
It can be religious flesh. It can be theological flesh. It can be sophisticated flesh—flesh with lots of degrees and titles—but it is still flesh. Flesh remains flesh.
Origin determines destiny. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
When you look at church history, this is so evident. As the world came into the church, as people somehow or other did not have their source in the Lord Jesus, it died.
I think really that is enough for one evening. Just two things about this pattern: the headship of Jesus—nothing more important—and Jesus as all.
Do you remember the scripture we read? He made Him to be Head over the body which is the church, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
Everything and everything is in Christ. This is the church. It is the new man, the new creation. And we need to be so careful that everything has its origin in the Lord Jesus.
Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, You know very well our heart, and You know the need. We do not have to tell You, Lord, the state of things. You know it very well.
You stand in the midst of the church, and You say to every one of us:
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
We need, Lord, to hear what is Your mind. We need, Lord, that You will deliver us from every device of darkness.
We want, Lord, that all our origins should be in the Lord Jesus. Our sources should be in Him. What begins with Him will end in glory.
Lord, that is what we want. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.