Would you turn with me to Psalm 78?
Give ear, O my people, to my law:
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His strength, and His wondrous works that He hath done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That they should make them known to their children;
That the generation to come might know them,
Even the children that should be born,
Who should arise and tell them to their children,
That they might set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments;
And might not be as their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that set not their heart aright,
And whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
Also, will you turn with me to Psalm 81? We will read just a few verses.
Sing aloud unto God our strength:
Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
Raise a song, bring hither the timbrel,
The pleasant harp with the psaltery.
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
At the full moon, on our feast day.
For it is a statute for Israel,
An ordinance of the God of Jacob.
He appointed it in Joseph for a testimony,
When He went out over the land of Egypt,
Where I heard a language that I knew not.
I removed his shoulder from the burden:
His hands were freed from the basket.
Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee;
I answered thee in the secret place of thunder;
I proved thee at the waters of Meribah.
Hear, O My people, and I will testify unto thee:
O Israel, if thou wouldest hearken unto Me!
There shall no strange god be in thee;
Neither shalt thou worship any foreign god.
I am the Lord thy God,
Who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt:
Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
But My people hearkened not to My voice;
And Israel would none of Me.
So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts,
That they might walk in their own counsels.
Oh that My people would hearken unto Me,
That Israel would walk in My ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies,
And turn My hand against their adversaries.
The haters of the Lord should submit themselves unto Him:
But their time should endure for ever.
He would feed them also with the finest of the wheat;
And with honey out of the rock would I satisfy thee.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are here gathered in Your presence, and we thank You, Father, that You can meet us at the beginning of this conference.
Dear Lord, we need You. We are living in perilous, dangerous, and confused days. Judgment is abroad in the land. We need You, Lord. We need to hear You. We need that You would touch the eyes of our hearts.
Beloved Lord, we thank You that You have provided us with an anointing through the finished work of our Lord Jesus. You have provided it for both the speaking of Your Word, the translating of Your Word, and the hearing of Your Word. Into that anointing we stand by faith.
Let that gracious power of Yours be upon us this evening. In some way, reveal Yourself to us, and we shall be careful to give You all the worship and praise of our hearts for answering in this way. Amen.
The theme, I think you all know, of this conference is the recovery of the testimony of Christ. My responsibility is the receiving of the testimony of God in the old covenant, in the Old Testament.
Israel was chosen by God to receive His testimony.
If you consider those two psalms we have read together, you have it in a few words. In Psalm 78:5, “He established a testimony in Jacob.”
Could there be anyone more hopeless than Jacob? Yet it is in Jacob that He establishes His testimony.
It is quite an amazing thing that God should have chosen Israel. He did not choose them because they were great in number. He did not choose them because they were pure. He chose them because He loved them.
We find this in Deuteronomy 7:6.
For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God:
The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for His own possession,
Above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.
The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;
For ye were the fewest of all peoples:
But because the Lord loveth you,
And because He would keep the oath which He sware unto your fathers,
Hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand,
And redeemed you out of the house of bondage,
From the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
The key to this is the little phrase, “for His own possession.” That is it. That is the testimony.
He loved them. He chose them to be a people set apart from all peoples—to be His own possession.
It is interesting when you go back to Abraham. You know, when the God of glory appeared to him, according to tradition Abraham was an aristocrat. He came from one of the great ruling families of Ur of the Chaldees.
He was not, as some liberal theologians say, some illiterate, smelly Bedouin shepherd. Abraham’s family—his father, Terah—had a very lucrative idol business. It was a very good business. There were idols on every corner: idols for the living room, idols for the kitchen, idols for the bedroom.
According to tradition, Abraham was a very clever salesman. Then the God of glory appeared to him.
Abraham was changed. He never worshipped an idol again. He never made another idol. He saw the God of glory—the city of glory. He saw more than most.
And God said to him, “Out of thee shall come a great nation.” He went on to say, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
Two things: a great nation—not great in numbers, but great because God dwelt among them.
This little people that God chose were, by the grace of God and the power of God, to influence the whole of world history because God chose them as His own possession. It changed the world.
The second thing was, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” This is not merely the Jews; this is all peoples, every ethnic group, every colour.
It was an amazing promise that God made to Abraham. It never left his seed.
Jacob was a twister. That is what his name means in Hebrew. Dear Jacob—he twisted his twin brother: first the birthright, secondly the blessing. Then he had to flee for his life.
And God met him. He had a dream, with his head on a pillow of stone. Maybe it helped him to dream.
But in that dream he saw God standing over against the ladder, and the angels were ascending and descending—not descending and ascending, but ascending and descending.
When he woke up, he said, “This is the house of God.”
God sent him to the only other clever swindler in the Middle East. It was his uncle, Laban. The two of them swindled each other for twenty-one years, until finally Jacob saw himself—first in Laban, then in Leah, and finally in Rachel.
Only then did God change him. He was alone. Laban was behind him; Esau was in front of him. Then God wrestled with him.
It is an amazing story. Someone in human form wrestled with Jacob. No one can tell me that that mysterious stranger could not knock Jacob out with one blow.
Jacob was a strong young man. It took all the shepherds to roll back the stone, but Jacob did it for Rachel alone.
That heavenly visitor who wrestled with Jacob made Himself weak so that Jacob could get Him in a wrestling clinch.
Jacob said, “I will not let You go, unless You bless me.”
And the Lord said to him, “What is your name?” As if the Lord did not know his name! The Lord arranged the whole thing, taking him from his home through all these relationships and circumstances.
The Lord said, “What is your name?” Of course, He knew. Jacob could have said, “I am Abraham’s grandson. I am Isaac’s son.” That would have been a good way out.
But he said, “Jacob”—the twister.
And God said to him, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel”—a prince with God.
This is the testimony of God. Then the Lord took him back to Bethel. That is where he began, and then he came in a full circle: the house of God.
This is what the Lord meant when He said, “I have loved you, and I have chosen you, not because you were many or great, but because of the oath I swore to your fathers.”
They were special people. God chose them. He set them apart from all other nations.
Even when Balak paid Balaam to curse them, he could not curse them. He could only bless them. In Numbers 23:9, he said this extraordinary thing:
From the top of the rocks I see him,
And from the hills I behold him:
Lo, it is a people that dwelleth alone,
And shall not be reckoned among the nations.
Everything the Lord did with these people was to make them separate. He gave them laws concerning food. This was to ensure that they could not be assimilated by other peoples.
We eat food as an expression of friendship. We have friends come to us; we go to them. It is like fellowship. I do not have to say anything to the Chinese about eating!
But by giving special laws—that they could not eat this, they could not eat that, they could not eat the other, and all the other laws to do with food—He cut right across that sharing.
The reason they are still a people today is because of those unbelievable laws that kept this nation separate from other nations.
Not only food laws: marriage. No Jew was to marry a non-Jew. They were apart—separate, holy.
Not only marriage, but also dress. The men had to wear an undergarment with tassels, just to show that they were the people who belonged to heaven.
And not only that, but in their behaviour—everything. God said they were the people for His own possession.
He owned them as His own. The land He gave them He called, thirteen times, “My land.”
That covenant He made with Abraham and the seed of Abraham—through Isaac, not Ishmael, and to Jacob, not Esau—He has kept to this day.
I do not want to digress, but I will say this: the division of the promised land lies at the root of the judgment that is falling upon the United States, and also the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The financial meltdown, the economic recession, and climate change are all to do with the promised land and the division of it.
But let me come back to this question: What was the testimony of God? He chose them to be a special people, separate from all others, and He desired to dwell amongst them. They should be His own possession.
Just to go back to the very beginning, do you remember the pillar of cloud and fire? That was the testimony of God. That was the presence of God manifested.
No other nation had such an experience. It was all to do with a divine purpose.
There is much more I could say on this, but I must go on. There is yet another matter I would like to speak about in this testimony of God.
The apostle Paul put it very simply: “What advantage then hath the Jew?” He answered, “Much every way: first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.”
Here is the testimony of God. To this nation, and to no other, God committed Himself. He revealed His heart and His mind.
I do not know if I am making myself clear enough. This nation of Israel was to be the custodian of the revelation of God’s heart and mind.
Through them, this Word of God would come to the nations. By them, the light of God would shine in a world that was totally dark.
It was the Word of God. Every part of that Word was centred in Christ.
For instance, take the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 24:27:
And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Or again, in the same chapter, Luke 24:44-47:
And He said unto them, These are My words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
That all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning Me.
Then opened He their mind, that they might understand the Scriptures;
And He said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer,
And rise again from the dead the third day.
Is this not amazing? My only responsibility this evening is to speak about receiving the testimony of God in the old covenant.
You have thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. The early church had nothing else. From those thirty-nine books they preached the gospel.
Marvelous. So amazing is this Book. This Book is alive. It may not be alive to you, but it is alive.
When the Spirit of God takes this Book, He can take a verse, a sentence, a phrase, and bring it into you. In that moment, your whole life is flooded with divine light.
Shakespeare is wonderful, but I have never heard of an alcoholic delivered from alcoholism by a word from Shakespeare. Have I ever heard of a drug addict delivered by a word from Shakespeare?
Confucius and Lao Tzu are wonderful, but has anyone ever been saved through Confucianism? Never.
But this Book—the Spirit of God can take it into your life and heart. Then He brings you into union with God in Christ. It is amazing, dear folks.
It is amazing when you think of this testimony of God that was received in the old covenant.
Just listen to these words from Deuteronomy 11:18:
Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul;
And ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand,
And they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
And ye shall teach them your children,
Talking of them when thou sittest in thy house,
And when thou walkest by the way,
And when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house,
And upon thy gates;
That your days may be multiplied,
And the days of your children,
In the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them,
As the days of the heavens above the earth.
You may think it is religion. The Jews bind these things round their heads and put them between their eyes. They put them on their hands, on their doorposts, and on their gates. We think, “Well, this is religion.”
Actually, it is a testimony. Your thinking must be under the Word of God.
Your works, your business, everything that you do with your hands, shall be under the Word of God.
When you go out of the door, it is under the Word of God. Your whole house—your family life—is under the Word of God.
It is the same with the gate: all your business life, your economic life, everything is under the Word of God.
Here is something about the testimony of God: He has given us His Word, not to tickle us or somehow give some sort of satisfaction to our brains.
This Word of God has been given to us to obey. Until we obey it, there will not be multiplication and blessing.
But when we obey it, the blessing of God is upon that person, the blessing of God is upon that home, the blessing of God is upon that business—upon everything to do with our life.
I wish I could be more clear on this. We are living in days when people despise the Word of God, when they reinvent the Word of God, when they bring it up to date, and tell us that it only has to do with the customs of that time and nothing for us today.
But this is the Word of God which lives and abides for ever. By this Word we have been born again. We have been made alive unto God, and by this Word we take every new step.
It is tremendous. This Word of God—the Old Testament—is all centred in the Lord Jesus. There is no single part of it that is not centred in Jesus.
Take the blood. From Genesis 3 all the way through the thirty-nine books, there is blood. There is no salvation apart from the shedding of blood.
Take another thing: salvation. It is there in the third chapter of Genesis, when a promise is given concerning the seed of the woman and the triumph of that seed over Satan.
All the way through these thirty-nine books, it is salvation. You know Mary and Joseph were told to call Him Jesus. Yeshua—salvation.
Sometimes Jews say to us, “You make so much of Jesus, and I do not see Him at all in the Old Testament.” Well, all you have to do is point out every time the word salvation comes in English. It appears thousands of times. Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua—everywhere in the Old Testament.
Listen to Psalm 27:1:
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
That word salvation is Yeshua. “The Lord is my light and my Yeshua.”
When you come to the New Testament, it is all summed up in John 1.
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.
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.
This word translated “Word” in English is the Greek word Logos. Jesus is the Logos.
The only way you can understand me this evening is by the words coming out from my lips. If I keep my mouth shut, you do not know what I am thinking. You have no idea of my heart or my mind.
But when I speak, it is an expression, an articulation—or, to use an American word, a verbalisation.
Jesus is the verbalisation of God. It is the way you and I can understand the heart and mind of God.
Is this not amazing? Am I boring you? I do not know. You may have had a hard day. This is the first day of the conference.
But what I am saying is this: the whole Bible is gathered up in the Person of the Lord Jesus. He is the Word of God.
When you look at it, it is quite amazing. Go back into the old covenant. Everywhere you have types and figures—types of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is everywhere.
What about the events? I can only take one or two. Take the Passover. Every single thing about that Passover speaks of Jesus.
What about Jordan? When the priests stood with the ark of the covenant and their feet went down on the riverbed, in that moment the river stopped flowing. It is a wonderful picture of Jesus—the testimony of God.
Or again, think of a little pond in the wilderness. Do you know what it was called? The children of Israel came to it and drank it. It was bitter.
The name Marah means bitter. Moses was told, “Cut down the tree; throw it into the pond.” Immediately it became sweet water.
Jesus. That is what He does to a life that is full of bitterness. You bring the cross into it, and it becomes sweet.
Or again, think of the Old Testament, the old covenant. Have you ever thought about whom they saw?
It says in John 1:18, “No man hath seen God at any time.” You cannot get over that.
Who was one of the three who met Abraham? He spoke directly to Abraham and said, “Within a year you will have your son.”
Sarah was preparing the meal in the tent, and she had the flap closed. Then she laughed. This is why I know God has humour. God said through the flap, “Sarah, you laughed.”
Sarah said, “I did not laugh.” “Yes, you did. You shall call the son you shall have Isaac”—laughter.
Do you remember Jacob? He wrestled with that mysterious stranger, that person. When he was changed into Israel, he said, “I have seen God face to face, and I have lived.”
What about Moses? It says of Moses that he saw the Lord and spoke to Him face to face.
That is just a few examples. Who was it? It was Jesus. Before His incarnation, it was Jesus.
This is the testimony of God that Israel received. There is a sense in which it does not make any sense until you bring Jesus into the equation.
I must finish—but you know I always take a little time to finish.
It is very interesting to me that the ark of the covenant is called the ark of the testimony. It is, in one way, the key to all the tabernacle and the temple.
Actually, the tabernacle is called the tabernacle of the testimony. All that I have said is now narrowing down to something very, very important: the tabernacle of the testimony.
Much of the furniture is called that which is related to the testimony. It is called the tent of meeting of the testimony. The ark of the testimony—that is the key.
The ark is the symbol, or figure, of the presence of God.
Do you remember how the Lord said, “I will meet with you there,” between the cherubim’s wings, on the mercy seat? “There I will meet with you. There I will commune with you.”
Now you have come to the heart of the matter. This is the testimony of God.
Within that ark were three things: two unbroken tables of stone, and on them was written the eternal law of God; secondly, a golden pot of manna; and thirdly, Aaron’s rod that miraculously budded.
It is Jesus.
He fulfilled the law: unbroken stone. “I am not come,” He said, “to destroy the law, but to fulfil.”
The golden pot of manna: Jesus spoke of Himself as the bread of life. You need bread for sustenance. Jesus is the bread of life. He gives us eternal life.
Listen to me: if we abide in Him, that life grows stronger and stronger.
And Aaron’s rod that budded: divine authority. It is tremendous. It is the Lord Jesus.
Do you remember the times when the ark got parted from the tabernacle? Do you remember how it came back on its own accord? The presence of the Lord departed, and the presence of the Lord came back.
There are many things one could say about this. Everything in the tabernacle spoke of the Lord Jesus.
The lampstand, all of gold; the incense altar of gold; the table of showbread with the bread upon it; the curtains; the silver sockets—everything speaks of Jesus: His redemption and union with Him.
It is the most incredible picture of the house of God. This is the testimony of Jesus.
I checked this with Brother Stephen. I remember years ago Elizabeth Fishbacher saying to me—we were talking about so-called churches—and she said that Watchman Nee had said, “If the ark of the covenant and the tent of meeting get parted, follow the ark of the covenant.”
Did you hear that? If the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle get parted, follow the ark of the covenant.
Without the presence of God, it is just routine. It is ritual. You can see the ceremonies, but the Lord has gone.
That is exactly what happened with Laodicea: an assembly of born-again believers, with elders, with deacons. They had Bible studies, they had meetings, they had the Lord’s Table, they had evangelistic outreach—and the Head of the church, Jesus, was outside of the whole thing.
None of the elders saw it. None of the deacons saw it. None of the people saw it.
Is it possible to have an assembly of born-again believers meeting in the name of Jesus, praying in His name, studying His Word, and He is outside? Yes, it is.
If you read what the Lord said to the church at Laodicea, their estimate of themselves was diametrically different from the Lord’s estimate.
They said, “We are rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing.” And the Lord said, “You do not know that you are poor, naked, blind, and wretched.”
Could the Lord say of born-again believers that they were wretched? Yes—people justified by His finished work.
This is what happens when the testimony of Jesus is withdrawn. You have all the outward things, but the heart has gone.
Dear brothers, dear sisters, we need the Lord. We have not so much time left to us.
Maybe you found it difficult to listen this evening after travelling long distances, some of you. But let the Lord reach your heart.
It is not what you know. It is your heart.
When Jesus said:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock:
If any man hear My voice and open the door,
I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
It is the most plaintive thing Jesus ever said: “If any man hear My voice.”
That is what happened to the testimony of God in Israel. It became religion. It became ritual.
But the ark of the Lord was not there in Zerubbabel’s temple. It was not there in Herod’s temple. Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord leaving.
What was the light that shone over Bethlehem? It was the glory of God returning. Anyone who knows anything about stars and astronomy will tell you that a star could not behave in the way that the Bethlehem star behaved.
But when they got to Jerusalem, the light moved over Bethlehem. It was Jesus.
Dear child of God, it is possible for the Lord who has saved you to be outside and knocking.
Do not make the mistake our people made. Do not make the mistake that you see all the way through church history.
Why do you not hear His voice and obey? Then you will have a new experience of the Lord Jesus.
May the Spirit of God meet you.
Dear Lord, we pray that You meet us. Many of our assemblies are very lifeless. The glory of the Lord has gone.
Help us, Lord. We need to be revived. We need to be renewed. We need to have a new, wonderful experience of Yourself that will once again set us on fire.
Enable us to hear Your voice, to hear what the Spirit says, and to overcome. Lord, You know the days we are living in. You know exactly where it is going to lead.
Lord, hear us. O God, in the name of Jesus. Amen.