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 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.
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.
Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?
Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him; and the people did fear before the Lord.
Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.
And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God.
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.
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.
Could we have a word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful to be here in Your presence this evening. We thank You for Your Person. And Lord, where Your presence is, anything can happen.
Dear Lord, we commit this whole time to You. We thank You for speaking to us in many ways through these days.
Now we ask You, Lord, by Your Spirit, touch the eyes of our hearts. It is one thing for us, Lord, to know academically the testimony of Jesus. It is another thing when it dawns upon us absolutely. Then suddenly it comes home to us. Wow. Then we are challenged. Then we have to respond.
Lord, meet us this evening. Lord, we thank You for the anointing which You have won for us at Calvary through Jesus’ death. Into that anointing, grace, and power, we stand by faith: for the speaking of Your word, for the translating of Your word, and for the hearing of Your word.
Lord, meet us, and we shall be careful to give You all the thanksgiving of our hearts. We ask all of this in the name of our Messiah, Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Well, I know that all of you know what the theme of this conference is. This is the last evening. If you have somehow missed what the theme is, I feel sorry for you.
It is the recovery of the testimony of Jesus.
My responsibility in this whole matter of the testimony of Jesus is the receiving of the testimony of God in the Old Testament. Now, don’t go to sleep. You think, “Oh well, Old Testament. No, no, no, no. We don’t need that.”
Not a single person would be here but for my people. God chose them from all the peoples of the earth. He chose them to be an agency, an instrument, a channel by which His heart and mind would come to the world.
Balaam said it—though it was the Lord who changed his mind and made him say it—“They are the people who dwell alone.” That is, they are unique, and they will not be reckoned among the nations.
There is something unbelievably unique about the Jewish people, and it can only be explained by God. There is no other explanation.
God chose this people not because they were mighty, nor because they were many. He chose them because He loved them. And you can never explain love.
I sometimes meet people who have fallen in love with other people, and I think, “What do they see in that person?” Love really cannot be explained.
The Lord chose them. He said in Deuteronomy 7, “Because He loved you.” He chose them to be His own possession, to be, as it were, the vessel through which He would reach the nations of the world.
All that He gave to the Jewish people was centred in the Messiah. It was centred in the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Everywhere you look, these two things—the word of God and the testimony of Jesus—are there: in type, in figure, in events, and in marvellous appearances of the Lord Jesus before His incarnation.
It is all summed up in the ark of the testimony.
The ark of the testimony represented the presence of God Himself amongst His people. The tabernacle is also called the tabernacle of the testimony—the tent of the testimony.
It is very interesting. I think all of you know that every single thing about the tabernacle spoke of Jesus: the lampstand, the showbread table, the altar of incense, the brazen altar, the laver—everything.
But once you took away the ark of the covenant from the tabernacle, it was just religion—routine—nothing more. It was the ark of the covenant that represented the presence of God.
When the Lord was present, there was glory. Do you remember when the tabernacle was set up? The glory of God filled it, and no one could enter in.
Do you remember when the temple was finally finished, when it was dedicated? The glory of the Lord filled it, and no one could stand up.
It is very interesting that this did not happen with Zerubbabel’s temple. In fact, it is recorded that the people who remembered the old temple of Solomon wept.
I do not have to say anything about Herod’s temple. It was all beauty and no glory. That puts it in a nutshell: all beauty, no glory.
The tabernacle literally meant nothing without the presence of the Lord, because the presence of the Lord meant glory. It meant light, divine life, grace, divine grace, salvation, divine salvation, power, divine power, life, divine life, and fulfilment.
When the presence of God was there, it was a meeting with God. There God spoke. There God revealed Himself. There was the salvation of God.
It is a most interesting thing that in the book of Deuteronomy it says, not once but many times:
Ye shall not offer your offerings in any place that ye see;
But in the place which the Lord shall choose, to cause His name to dwell there.
Again and again it says: not in any high place, not on any mountain, but in the place where I will cause My name to dwell.
What a strange phrase. How does Your name dwell there? What does the Lord mean?
In the Western world—not the Chinese, but in the Western world—we often name people with names that have very little meaning, but they sound nice. I think it is amazing what people call themselves or call their children in the West.
But in the ancient Jewish world, in the Old Testament, a name had prophetic meaning. Abraham: father of a multitude. Isaac: laughter. Joseph: adding. Moses: drawn out—a picture of the church, those who are called out.
You have these names everywhere. They all have meaning. In other words, a name has colossal meaning. It is as if God is saying, “That is where I am going to be. That is where My personality will be known.”
“I will cause My name to dwell.” That place was Jerusalem, and the temple within it.
Dear child of God, the testimony of Jesus means nothing unless it means the Person of God. “And we beheld Him, full of glory.” It is Jesus—the expression of the mind and heart of God.
What is a church if it has lost the presence of the Lord? What is an assembly if the lampstand has been removed? It is nothing. It has lost the very meaning of its existence.
There the Lord should be known. There the Lord meets with people. There the light of God is shed abroad. There the grace of God is experienced. There the salvation of God is known.
There, in that place, is all the possibility of transformation into the likeness of Jesus.
You say to me, “Oh, you are speaking from the New Testament.” No, I am not. I am speaking from the Old Testament. For when that tabernacle was given through Moses to the redeemed, it was a copy of heavenly things.
What God wanted, above everything else, was a dwelling place: a home in which He could express Himself—not just to visit, not just to use, but to live there, to express Himself there. That is what the testimony of Jesus is all about.
You realize from what I have said that declension is not only in denominational churches. It is often in non-denominational churches. It is often amongst us.
We have all the knowledge. We have all the output. We have the tabernacle without the ark of the covenant. And the ark of the covenant is the heart of the tabernacle.
God said, “Beneath the wings of the cherubim, on the mercy seat of the ark of the testimony, there I will meet with you. And there I will commune with you.”
Oh, I wish we could put this more clearly.
I have already said that from the time of Zerubbabel—blessed be his name, because he really was faithful—there was no ark of the covenant. Somewhere it was lost in Babylon.
Of course, we have all the nutcases who tell us that they have found it here and there and elsewhere, but it has never been found.
Here is a very interesting thing. I hope you are awake. The lampstand became, as it were, the representative of the temple and, in a sense, of the tabernacle.
The lampstand, all of gold—I have read the whole chapter; we have read it together. Haggai and Zechariah both prophesied in that period when the remnant had come back from Babylon, from Persia.
They had come back with great expectation and great hopes. Ezra and Nehemiah were there; Zerubbabel of the royal seed; and Joshua the high priest.
Yet everything seemed to point to their not building again the temple, even though they had a decree from Darius. It was so difficult.
It was difficult to find food. It was difficult to find a place to live in. The economy was bad, and there were a whole lot of people in the area who were not helpful, to put it mildly.
Then the Lord gave Zechariah a vision. It says he was awakened as a man out of sleep. Have you ever seen a man awakened out of deep sleep? You shake him, and he gets up like a zombie. He is there, but he is not there.
It is very interesting that when you are in that kind of situation, what is really in your heart comes out.
As he began to see this vision, he said, “What are these two olive trees?” I do not know if Zechariah had our understanding of trees, but trees normally represent human life.
Even after everything was explained, he came back to it and said, “What are these two olive trees?” He did not get an answer. Then he said, “What are these two branches of the olive tree?”
Notice what the Lord said: “These are the two anointed ones”—king and priest.
Now think. You know your New Testament. We have been made, through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, kings and priests unto God.
We are the kingdom. We are a kingship. We have authority only by being under the King, and we function as priests only under the High Priest.
Now see what this vision is all about. It is the lampstand of the tabernacle and the temple: the lampstand of pure gold, one piece.
Do you know what that lampstand represents? Of course, it represents the presence of the Lord. Of course, it represents the testimony of Jesus.
But in this connection, in relation to the presence of God and the testimony of Jesus, it represents a divine building programme.
It is not just a work of art. It is not just pure gold beaten out of one piece. It is not merely a theological representation of the presence of God and the testimony of Jesus. It is all to do with the building programme.
Everywhere you look in Zechariah 4, it is about building. Read verse 10:
For who hath despised the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.
The plummet is a plumb line. What is a plumb line? It is a length of cord with a weight on the end. It was the way you could tell whether the walls were straight and whether the building was being built correctly.
It was not for hanging your washing on. It was not for fishing. It was all to do with building.
When the Lord sees this plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel, He will rejoice. There is a divine satisfaction. We will even be touched with glory when the Lord sees the plumb line, because it is all to do with being built together.
Built into the house of the Lord: a spiritual house, to offer up spiritual sacrifices by a spiritual priesthood. It is tremendous.
Let me say it again:
In Whom the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.
Did you notice? This is Ephesians 2:20-22. You see, I am on the New Testament again—but this is all in the Old Testament. You cannot get away from it.
In Whom—in Christ—this whole building has to be fitly framed together, and then it grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
In Whom it becomes a habitation of God in the Spirit. There could be nothing more wonderful than if every assembly represented in this place was a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Then the needy would find their needs met. The lonely would find themselves comforted. The unsaved would be saved. The glory of the Lord would fill each assembly, however small.
Now do you begin to understand why our brothers have laboured over these days to talk and to express the meaning of the testimony of Jesus and the necessity of its recovery?
Look at verse 9:
The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it.
This house of the Lord has a foundation. There is no other foundation. It is the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus alone.
Do you know that the cornerstone is the Lord Jesus, from which the whole building takes its shape? He is the corner. He is the head of the corner—that is, He holds two walls together.
In verse 6, He is the top stone. So He is the beginning and the end. There is only one thing in between: it is all the Lord Jesus. It is the Messiah.
If you have been saved, then you are a living stone, just as the Lord Jesus is the living Stone.
We all accept that, but it is the next thing where we get stuck:
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
It is amazing. This vision that Zechariah saw—he saw much more than most Christians. He understood that this was a building programme.
This house of the Lord had to be built; otherwise, the prophecy of Malachi would never be fulfilled: “The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple.”
That is why you and I need to be within the building work of the Spirit of God, so that the top stone can come forth, as it were.
Oh, you say, “It is impossible. You should know the people I am meeting with. It is impossible for this house of God to be built. You talk about glory. It is all very wonderful what you are saying, but in practice it does not work out.”
You mean that you are a bigger problem—so big that the Holy Spirit cannot cope with you?
Listen to the word here again:
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.
Oh, we have mountains in front of us: a thousand obstacles, unbelievable and seemingly insoluble difficulties, and a whole lot of people who are incredibly unlike Christ. How can this house of God be built?
If you look at the mountain, there is no way. If you look at the Lord, there is a way.
The top stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it.
Grace. I used to think, when I first read the Bible at thirteen, and when I first read this prophecy of Zechariah, “This is wrong. It should not be ‘Grace.’ It should be ‘Glory, glory, unto it.’”
I am now seventy-eight, and I know the only way the purpose of God can be fulfilled is through grace. The amazing thing is that abounding grace is given to us. It will be fulfilled.
Now, just wait. I have not finished with this, so wake up. What does it say in Zechariah 4:12?
What are these two olive branches which are beside the two golden spouts, that empty the golden oil out of themselves?
I do not know about the Chinese, but in the English translations they have added the word oil because they cannot understand it. They say, “Of course it means oil—golden oil.” It is not in the Hebrew. It is gold.
These two, who have been constituted king and priest by the grace of God, are undergoing such a work of the Holy Spirit that the gold of the nature of Jesus—of Christ—is being emptied into the lampstand and becomes fuel for light.
Is any gold coming out of you?
What did Jesus say? “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire.”
There is one more thing which the angel put at the very beginning: “This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel.” No matter what the mountains are, no matter what the circumstances or difficulties—even the divisions and the opposition—
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
There is no way that you and I can overcome without the Holy Spirit. We will never see the house of God built wherever we live without the Holy Spirit.
Not by might. Not by power. But by My Spirit.
Now I am going to digress for one moment. I warn you: now you can go to sleep.
It is very interesting to me, speaking about the Old Testament and the testimony of God in the Old Testament, that when David Ben-Gurion and the other Jewish leaders wondered whether there would be a recreated Jewish state in the early days, they had to decide what to call it.
Then it happened. On 14 May 1948, Russia, of all the Soviet Union, suddenly switched and decided to back the resolution. Then all the other nations under the Soviet Union voted accordingly.
David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann put their heads together and wondered, “What should we call this new state?” They considered a whole number of names. The one they thought of most was Judea.
But suddenly David Ben-Gurion said, “No, I think it should be Israel.” It was prophetic: Jacob the twister became Israel, the prince of God.
Then they discussed what the emblem should be. They had a whole lot of ideas, but finally David Ben-Gurion, who knew his Bible inside out, said, “I think we should take the lampstand all of gold, and the two olive branches on either side.”
The Talmud says this: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts,” is seven words in Hebrew. The Talmud says that Zechariah saw in the seven lights of the lampstand one word, two, three, four: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit.”
It was prophetic, because there will come a day when the Spirit of God will fall upon the Jewish people. It will be not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit. Then Jacob will say, “I have seen God face to face.” He will be Israel.
Forgive that digression.
The most amazing thing about this matter—now go back to the testimony of Jesus—is that the people listened to Haggai.
Haggai said, “The Lord says to you: you say it is not time to build the house of the Lord because of the economic problems and financial problems and all the rest of it. The circumstances are not opportune.”
Then the Lord said, “You have your own ceiled houses whilst My house lieth waste.” He said, “Look, you work so hard and you are getting nothing. Why do you not put first things first?” I am putting it in my own words.
Build the house. And the people heard and obeyed.
Now, I hope that you have followed me so far. I will come to an end, but this is very important, what I want to say now. This lampstand is the testimony of Jesus.
When you come to Revelation 1, the risen, glorified Messiah is standing in the midst of seven golden lampstands. I think those lampstands have to be the lampstand of the temple and tabernacle. Each of the seven churches was represented by one lampstand.
To lose the lampstand is to lose everything. Once the lampstand is removed, once the testimony of Jesus has gone, what is the church? What is an assembly? It is just a gathering, just a generation. That is all.
There is no glory. There is no power. There is no life. There is no salvation. People are never saved. There are no new births. There is no spiritual growth.
Take away the lampstand; it is like taking away the ark of the testimony.
What did the angel say in Revelation 19?
The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
What does it really mean? When you hold the testimony of Jesus, there is a prophetic content to that assembly. I am not just talking about prophetic utterance. I mean the very assembly, the very church, is prophetic in its constitution.
It is light in the darkness, salt in the corruption. It is the presence of God in a fallen, sinful world. This is the testimony of Jesus: the presence of God.
Every human being longs for a home. We are built in such a way that we long for a home. It is something God has put into us—something that He also longs for.
When the presence of the Lord is there in an assembly, in a church, somehow unsaved people come home.
When they come in amongst us, something in them touches home. The home of God is there.
Isn’t it interesting that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews—I personally think it was Apollos, but that is only my own view—quotes Haggai. He quotes this matter of “The latter glory of this house shall exceed that of the former.”
Isn’t this amazing? I find it amazing. He speaks of a shaking: the heavens, the sea, everything.
He says in Hebrews 12, everything that can be shaken to pieces will be shaken to pieces.
This great shaking, in my estimation, began with the First World War, 1914-1918. In that great shaking, kingdoms disappeared, empires disappeared, everything got broken up.
Then came the Second World War, and it finished off what began in the First World War. In the midst of all this shaking, Marxism took a quarter of the earth, and Israel was reborn.
Do not be afraid of the shaking, because the writer says by the Spirit of God, everything that can be shaken will be shaken.
If you lose your home, you lose your income, you lose everything, somehow or other you are being shaken to your foundations. Where is your treasure?
Your real treasure is Jesus. He cannot be shaken. You and I are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Almost in the last chapters of the book of Revelation, it says:
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.
Isn’t this interesting? “The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy” comes right after this.
Here is something even more wonderful. This bride is the wife of the Lamb. It is the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God.
Do you know what the bride is? It says she has made herself ready. She walks in garments of white—a white wedding. That is wonderful.
But she is produced out of only three things: gold, precious stones, and pearl. All these three things out of which the wife of the Lamb is produced speak of Christ.
Gold: the life and nature of Christ.
Precious stones: twelve kinds, the excellences and beauties of the Lord Jesus, all found in His life and sometimes brought to us only by experience.
And pearl. At the heart of every pearl is a worthless bit of grit: the fellowship of His sufferings.
Out of these three materials the bride is produced, and she wears garments of white. It is the testimony of Jesus.
Dear brother, dear sister, I must finish. What does our Lord say?
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Do you have an ear? The Lord puts so much emphasis on the ear.
Before ever the blood goes on the hand or the foot, it first touches the ear. You know this. The oil, before it goes on the hand or on the foot, touches the ear.
When a bondslave, at the end of the years, in the Jubilee year, can go out free but does not want to—because he loves his master and wants to stay with him forever—the master takes him and puts an awl through his ear.
Forever after, he wears an earring. Why not a bracelet on his wrist? He is a bondslave. How does he show it? He does everything with his hands.
Or someone very clever says, “Oh no, it is the feet.” No, not just reflexology. It is the feet that carry you. What use are hands if you do not have feet that carry you?
But the Lord says this: “If I do not have your ear, your hands and your feet mean nothing.”
You do not hear Me; you do your own thing and ask Me to support you, bless you, and clean up your mess.
The Lord needs people who can hear Him and obey.
Now, this testimony of Jesus means nothing if you do not hear the Lord.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.
“He that overcometh”—it is linked to hearing. Seven times the Lord says it. Seven times.
Will you listen? Will you hear? Will you obey?
Do not give up. This great shaking will go on. The United States is under judgment. It will get worse.
But if it shakes out of you what is shakable and drives you to the Lord and to His purpose, you will praise the Lord for all eternity.
Oh, beloved Lord, we pray together that You make this a reality.
We want to be in Your building programme. We want to be part of what You are doing, even in days of distress and confusion and judgment.
We want to follow the Lamb wheresoever He goes. We want to give ourselves in a new way to You, surrender our will to You, and make You Lord and Head.
So that something may happen in every assembly and church represented here this evening.
Lord, we do not have much time. We need You. Give us an ear to hear what You are saying, and a heart to obey, whatever the cost.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus.