I knew a professor who taught French. With his second-year students, on the first day they came in, he would have a little story written out. He told his students, “Now, I’m going to read this story word for word, and I’m not going to repeat it. But when I finish, I expect you to write out in French what I’ve said.”
Well, the students did that, of course, and the class did not do very well. The second week, when the students came back, he did the same thing. There was about a seventy-five percent improvement in their answers. The reason was that they had learned to listen.
The first time, they were a little caught off guard. The second time, they listened very intently. And I do not say this just because I am speaking this morning, but listening is a real problem.
The song that we sang says God is speaking. But maybe the real problem is: are we really listening? You know, God does speak. I mentioned last week that He speaks through the universe.
When our Lord Jesus was on the cross, and after the third hour darkness began to cover the whole earth, God was speaking. Man’s sin had separated God and man, and that darkness spoke of the great impassable gulf that sin had created.
Now sin was coming upon His only Son, and He was going to take our place. Praise the Lord, He did. Praise the Lord, the Son did. Because of His work at Calvary, God was speaking.
You may remember that as soon as the Lord finished and said, “It is finished,” and gave up His spirit to God the Father, there was a tremendous earthquake. Even God’s creation was speaking to man. Something tremendous had happened at Calvary—something that would alter mankind forever.
It was a tremendous revolution in the spiritual realm, resulting in an earthquake on this earth. But unfortunately, those who supposedly would know the most about our Lord Jesus Christ did not hear what God was saying, even in the earthquake.
Amazingly enough, if you read the Scriptures, you find that the spirits of the dead came up out of the graves after that earthquake, and they went throughout the city speaking and talking—a testimony to what God had done. God was speaking, but very few listened.
But praise God, there was one centurion soldier who had witnessed probably many crucifixions. When that happened, the Word records that the centurion said:
Surely this was the Son of God.
He listened. He listened.
Brothers and sisters, we can go through life knowing the Lord. We come here week after week and participate in the Lord’s table. We participate in prayers, worship, and songs. The Lord can be speaking very clearly sometimes, but are we really listening?
So I would challenge us all, including myself. Even this morning, as we came to this table, were we truly listening? Did we come in to hear the voice of the Lord as we took the table?
When we come together on prayer-meeting night, are we really listening to the voice of the Lord through the prayers—sensing what is on the Lord’s heart and being able to respond?
It is true of all our lives together, brothers and sisters. It is true of our daily lives when we go to work. In the busyness of doing our daily work, are we listening? Because the Lord is speaking.
Often, He uses circumstances in our family, with our children, in our business, or events that occur in our lives to speak to us. The Lord is speaking, but are we listening?
In the Book of Revelation, one of the great messages that the Lord reveals to His church in this last hour is His word to the seven churches:
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
Oh, brothers and sisters, may we regain our ears. May the Lord touch our ears, our spirits, and our hearts, so that in these days we can really see our Lord Jesus, hear our Lord, respond to Him, and obey Him.
Now, that is not my message for this morning, but it is a burden on my heart. After all these years, am I really listening? Am I really? Only the Lord knows.
But He is faithful to awaken us, and I pray that He does in this hour preceding His soon return—awaken us to hear His voice.
I think it is so precious that the Lord spoke to little Samuel and woke him out of his sleep. Samuel did not know it was the Lord, and Eli told him what to do. He said, “Just say, ‘Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.’”
So may the Lord wake us up. May we hear. As I said, not just because I am speaking this morning, but may we not fall into that pattern of hearing but not listening.
Brothers, it is like we sometimes do with our wives. We know they are saying something, but we are not really hearing it. It works both ways, does it not, sisters? It took me a long time to learn that.
I say that this morning because we live in a desperate hour. We need to sense what is on the Lord’s heart and follow the Lord.
Lord, we come to Thee this morning. We have to say, Lord, like Job:
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth Thee.
Lord, may that be true in our lives. Refresh our ears, so to speak, Lord. Open them, and open our spirits, Lord, to be alive, awake, and anxious to hear what You have to say. Give us willing hearts to respond and obey.
Lord Jesus, in such critical hours as those in which we live, we cannot afford to let a word spoken by Thyself pass by. Use this word this morning to speak to us and encourage us. It will be by Your grace and mercy that we hear.
Lord Jesus, awaken us to Thyself as we look into Your Word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Let us go to Genesis 22, verses 1 and 2. This is the third message on Genesis 22. There is a lot in this chapter. I am going to read verses 1 and 2, and then verses 20 through 23.
And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
And He said, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
As we have seen previously in studying the life of Abraham, we have seen God the Father. He is your Father, and He is my Father. We see Him bringing Abraham into spiritual life through a revelation of Himself. The God of glory appeared to Abraham.
That is where our faith comes from: when the Lord speaks to our heart and we respond. It is the Lord of glory speaking to you.
We know that in his son Isaac there is a shadow of our Lord Jesus Christ. It says that Abraham saw Jesus’ day and rejoiced. That is in the New Testament. Christ said that of Abraham: “He saw My day, and rejoiced.” So Abraham had a revelation of Christ.
Then, in Hebrews, we learn that Abraham, in all his searching through the land, was actually looking for a city whose foundations and builder—whose architect—was God Himself. He knew that God had something special in mind. It was God’s purpose and God’s heart.
We know that city. In Revelation, it says it comes down as a bride adorned for her husband. That is really the bride of Christ.
God loved Abraham. He directed Abraham and gave Abraham promises to build his life of faith. He gave Abraham an unbreakable covenant. We mentioned that God was going to carry out the covenant regardless of Abraham. He was going to do it.
It was an unbreakable covenant that He made with Abraham. In other words, God was fully committed to Abraham. You need to understand that God is fully committed to you. Our commitment to Him may be questionable, but His commitment to us is unquestionable and unchangeable.
There is a great lesson in looking at the contrast between Lot and Abraham. God loved Lot, so what was the difference? I think the difference was that Lot never saw what Abraham really saw.
God was able to reveal Himself to Abraham in a much deeper way. Lot never was able to receive that. Lot was not a man of obedience, looking for the Lord’s will as Abraham was. He went his own way, and it was a destructive way for him and his family.
But he was saved as by fire. The New Testament speaks of those who build their lives with wood, hay, and stubble rather than building on the Rock. They may know the Lord and be saved, but when the test comes, much of what they have done and accomplished will burn because it is not based on Jesus Christ.
But we see here that God was committed to Abraham. He truly is committed to you and me, brothers and sisters. It was not that Abraham was perfect. He was weak in faith in many cases, and he had failures in his life of faith. Yet he also had triumphs because of the grace and mercy of God.
God stuck with Abraham and brought him to the point when He was finally ready to give him the great test. God does not test us unless He has first worked something in us, so that there might be a testimony to the glory of the work of God in a person’s life.
He asked Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice on a mountain in Moriah—a place that God would show him. Abraham responded in faith. He did not question God. He knew it was God’s voice, and he knew who was speaking to him.
He immediately began in obedience. For three days he had to consider what he was going to do, but he did not falter in his faith. He was ready to slay his own son, and the angel spoke from heaven and stopped him.
But as we spoke last week, when our Father offered up His only Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross of Calvary, He did not withhold His hand. The Son was crushed under the weight of our sins, under the ravages of hell that ravaged Him. But He was victorious. Praise the Lord for that.
God brought Abraham through, and He is committed to bring you and me through. It is our responsibility to believe Him, submit to Him, and obey Him.
That was basically Abraham’s life: he listened, he submitted, and he obeyed. When he failed, brothers and sisters, he came back to God. He came back. He got it straight with the Lord, and he was able to go on.
He made some serious mistakes, but God forgave him. He returned to the Lord and followed the Lord.
In the life of Abraham, God has a testimony. This is what we shared on last time: God has a testimony in Abraham’s life. I called it The Testimony of the Road to Calvary.
I shared concerning God’s love for His Son. As Abraham loved Isaac, God loved His only Son, Christ. He loved Him so much that He created this universe for Him. He created man for Him. He had something in His heart: that His Son would have a helpmeet. It was not good that His Son should be alone.
We see the shadow of that in Adam and his wife. God spoke to Adam and said that it was not good for man to be alone, and He brought Eve to him.
God loved His Son, and we saw God’s love for man. Man failed. Though God had created man for His Son, man fell short of His glory through disobedience—no longer fit for the Son, no longer fit to be part of the bride, and no longer fit to be part of the kingdom.
But God did not give up. He had a plan. His purpose had not been altered in any way; His purpose was the same. But there was now an issue, and God had a plan to deal with man’s disobedience and make a way for man to be redeemed.
That was God’s love. God made a way. Love made a way for man.
We saw the Son’s love for the Father. Just as Isaac willingly put himself on that altar to be slain, once he discovered that he was going to be the lamb, he willingly submitted and obeyed his father.
Isaac was about twenty-five years old, and Abraham was about one hundred and twenty-five years old. Certainly, if Isaac had not chosen to obey his father, he could have easily left.
So it was with the Son. But we know that in the garden of Gethsemane He fully committed Himself to God’s will and to God’s plan to redeem man, and chose the way of Calvary for us.
How the Son loves man! He gave Himself on our behalf. He took your sin and my sin upon Himself. Therefore, He has shown and demonstrated His love for you.
Praise the Lord, we see the love between God and His Son, Jesus Christ. You and I have been included in that love. We have not been excluded from that love. We have been included because of Christ’s work on Calvary.
That is a testimony of Abraham’s life. It was worked out in reality in Abraham’s life. It was real. We see the testimony to the pathway to Calvary between the Father and the Son in the life of Abraham.
Throughout history, the Lord has always desired to have a testimony of Himself on this earth. We spoke last time of creation being a testimony to God and His glory; of Abel and the acceptable sacrifice; of the only way to be redeemed.
The only way for your sins to be taken care of is through the blood of the Lamb. We see that testimony in Abel. We see Enoch—a walk with God, a testimony to walking with God—and he was raptured.
Noah abided in the ark and was delivered from the world and the judgment upon the world. These were testimonies to God’s ways and to God’s heart.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know how to say it, but God wants to have a testimony of Himself in you as well. That is what He is working. He is always looking to have a testimony of Himself in a people on this earth today—not only in the future, not only in the kingdom.
Of course, it will occur in the kingdom, but He is looking for it now.
In this twenty-second chapter, we referred last time to God’s purpose to have a bride for His Son. There is a hint of that in this chapter—a hint of what is on God’s heart and of God’s purpose.
We know that Abraham was looking for a city that had foundations. In Revelation 21, we see the city. It is a bride adorned for Christ. We see that city and that building work as future, but the Lord is building that city now in a people—you and me together—a testimony to Himself.
That is what the city is about. That is why, in Revelation, the Lord is walking among the lampstands. What was He looking for? He was looking for His bride. He was looking for something of Himself—something worthy of Him, something that spoke of Him.
Adam, when all the animals were presented to him and he named them all—which is amazing—discovered that he was alone. There was no one like himself.
Let me say it in better English. There was nothing among those animals that spoke to him. None of them seemed to relate to Adam. They were nice pets, I suppose, but certainly not something you would want for a wife.
When the Lord put Adam to sleep and took something from his side—most people say a rib—and built Eve out of Adam’s side, He brought her to Adam. Adam’s response was:
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh.
It spoke to him. It was something of him.
That is what the Lord was looking for in those seven churches. That is what He is looking for among us today: something that speaks of Himself.
The Lord called Abraham and told him to go to Mount Moriah. Now we need a little background. Let us go to Exodus 15, verses 1, 2, and 17. This is the song of Moses—the prophetic song sung once Israel had crossed the Red Sea and the Egyptians had been crushed beneath the waters.
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying,
I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously:
The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and song,
And He is become my salvation:
This is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.
Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
In the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
In the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
He said He was going to bring them to the mountain of His inheritance, to a place where He could dwell—a place His hands had established.
Let us go to Deuteronomy 12, verses 5 through 8. I have struggled with saying “Deuteronomy” for sixty-six years.
But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put His name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come;
And thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock:
And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.
Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.
In other words, God was going to bring them to a place. This place was where He would put His name. It would be His habitation. Everybody would not simply be going here and there, but it would be His place—His habitation.
God had raised up a testimony to Himself in the life of Abraham. That testimony was carried on through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. His family became a testimony to God on this earth.
We remember how Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers, eventually ended up in Egypt, and was raised up by the Lord to be the second man in Egypt. He saved his family, which I think numbered seventy at that time—the only testimony on earth to the living God.
He brought them into Egypt, and there they multiplied and grew into a great multitude. While Joseph was alive, everything went well. But other Pharaohs followed who did not know Joseph, and they became concerned about the multitude of Jews.
They put them into slavery, and they were in slavery for four hundred years in Egypt until they began to cry out to God for deliverance.
God raised up Moses to be a deliverer, to bring them out of captivity. In the song of Moses, we see that God had something in His heart: God wanted to dwell in the midst of His people.
He desired a permanent habitation and sanctuary—not just a tent traveling around, but a permanent sanctuary, a place of testimony on this earth, a place that God Himself could call home.
It would be a place where His presence could dwell, a place that spoke of Himself, a place where He was sought after and listened to, a place where He was welcomed, revered, and honored.
That is the place where He was going to put His name. The Lord’s house would be a place of His choosing, on a mountain of His choosing. He did not tell Moses where this place was, other than that it was in the Promised Land.
Now we have to move another five hundred years after Moses. It was six hundred years from Abraham to Moses, and now we move another five hundred years.
God wanted to share something that was on His heart. I think it is interesting that Scripture says David was a man after God’s own heart. God had this place on His heart, this place where He could put His name, but He had mostly kept it hidden all those years—eleven hundred years.
He was patiently waiting, and finally He found David, a man after His own heart. David became king, conquered the lands around him, and took Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem.
But Satan tempted David. I am not speaking of Bathsheba at this point; I am speaking of when David numbered the people. David thought about it and decided to number them.
God had told him never to number the people because it was God who was going to raise up this people. It was God’s hand and God’s work. No matter how great David was, it was God’s work.
David needed to be humbled before the Lord. The root of this action was pride. Pride has brought down many a great man. Pride has brought down many men of God. Pride has brought down many works.
God hates pride. It is the opposite of His own character. God hates pride so much that He began to discipline the people because of David’s sin—because of his pride, because he had numbered the people.
Many were dying, and David finally cried out to God, “Have mercy, God. Have mercy. May Your hand be upon me and not these people.”
Let us read 1 Chronicles 21:15-30 and then 1 Chronicles 22:1-2.
And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, the Lord beheld, and He repented Him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay thy hand. And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Thy hand, I pray Thee, O Lord my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against Thy people, that they should be plagued.
Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
And David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshing-floor, that I may build therein an altar unto the Lord: for the full price shalt thou grant it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all.
And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost.
So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon the Lord; and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering.
Then the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel.
And David commanded to gather together the sojourners that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.
Out of this great tragedy, God moved. David had fallen in pride, but God used it and gave us a great lesson. He began to reveal His heart for His house to David.
David was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan. A threshing floor is where the wheat—the grain—is separated from the husk and all the other stuff.
Basically, a threshing floor was usually on top of a mountain. They say they were usually about fifty feet in diameter. They would throw the wheat on it, run oxen over it, and often use a cart with weights in it to crush it, so that the grain would come out.
Then they would take it in a shovel, or something like a shovel, and throw it into the air in the wind. That is why they needed to be on top of a hill. The wind would blow away the chaff, and the grain would fall back.
The Lord was showing David something—something to do with the threshing floor. In contrast to trying to build a place for God through man’s ways and man’s pride, the only way the house of God could be built was through the cross, through the altar.
That is what the threshing floor is all about. Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ was that grain of wheat.
He was the One whose life was crushed on Calvary’s cross. Calvary’s cross was that threshing floor for our Lord Jesus. There, that outer shell was broken so that the life of the Lord Jesus might come out and the blood might be poured out for our salvation.
That is the foundation for God’s house. It is the work of Calvary. It is the cross of Calvary. The death, burial, and resurrection are the foundation upon which the house of God must be built—the only foundation upon which it can be built.
Let us go to 1 Chronicles 22:7-10.
And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my heart to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God.
But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build a house unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight.
Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.
He shall build a house for My name.
He shall build a house for My name. Moses knew that God wanted a place where He could put His name, but he did not know where it was. Where is this place?
Let us read 2 Chronicles 3:1.
Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, which he made ready in the place of David, in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
That is where the house was built: in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, on the threshing floor of Ornan.
Where is the Lord going to build His house? On the threshing floor of Ornan—in other words, on the work of Calvary, on Christ and His work at Calvary. That is where the house had to be built: on the threshing floor, on the work of Calvary.
Where was the threshing floor of Ornan? It was on Mount Moriah.
Now listen. The Lord said to Abraham, “Take thy only son, whom thou lovest, and go to the land of Moriah, to a mountain that I will show you, and offer him there for a burnt-offering.”
Abraham was looking for a city. How little did he know that God’s testimony—the temple that would be built—would be built on the same place where he offered his only son, Isaac.
Do you see the connection between the work of Calvary and the house of God? It is the only foundation on which it can be built. It cannot be built on the prosperity gospel. It cannot be built on promises. It has to be built on Calvary, the work of Christ. That is its foundation.
Today the Lord is looking for a place, brothers and sisters, to put His name. He is still looking for that testimony on earth—a place where Christ and the work of the cross are the foundation.
Not merely the doctrine of the cross and the work of the cross, but a place where the cross is actually being effected in the lives of its people—where the work of Calvary is being worked out in the lives of His people.
That is where He wants to put His name: a place where He is welcome, where His presence is known, where His presence is manifest, and where He is honored above all.
A place where He can be at home. They say there is no place like home—a place where He can be at home.
You remember our Lord Jesus Christ when He was here on earth. He said:
Foxes have holes, and birds of the heaven have nests;
But the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.
He was looking for this place that had the name of God on it, and He could not find it. There was a temple there, rebuilt by the Jews who had come out of Babylon and enhanced by Herod, but God’s presence was no longer there in that temple.
It was not our Lord Jesus’ place of rest. He was looking for that place of rest.
When our Lord Jesus was on this earth, God did have one place where He could put His name, and that was on the Lord Jesus Himself. The only testimony to the Lord God in the heavens above was our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was God’s house on this earth. He was the temple of God. That is why He said:
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Today God still desires a place where He can put His name—a place in which His Son can say, “Bone of My bones, and flesh of My flesh,” a place that speaks of Him and satisfies Him.
Brothers and sisters, we know this place is no longer a physical building, but it is a spiritual house. First Peter 2:5 says that we are living stones, built together as a spiritual house to offer up spiritual sacrifices.
Do you not see that the Lord is trying to build a place where He can put His name? He is building it with living stones, not stones out of the earth. It is, according to Hebrews 9:11, a house made without hands.
We know today that the church is to be that place. But we also know, brothers and sisters, that for the most part Christianity has left its foundation. It has abandoned the threshing floor of Ornan. It has abandoned the work of Calvary and Christ on the cross.
It says that a loving God could never put His Son to death on the cross of Calvary. That is just a misunderstanding of love altogether. It is a humanistic view.
It is wood, hay, and stubble. Wood represents human ways—man’s ways. Hay represents the works of man instead of the works of the Spirit. Stubble is the fruit of man’s work. He cannot build a house with these things.
He wants a place to put His name. Is it lost? Is it all lost, brothers and sisters? Is it possible that God can have a place where He puts His name?
In Matthew 18:20, the Lord said:
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
What does it mean to be gathered in His name? It means that we are under the authority of Christ, that He is our Head. He is the One who truly makes the decisions and gives the direction. We are looking to Him to be Head.
We are given to that name. We honor that name. We do not want to do anything to dishonor the name of Christ. We are sold out for that name. We give all for that name.
We hold no other name. No other person, no other creed, and no doctrine should ever replace Christ alone.
Two or three gathered in My name—two or three standing together for God’s will—they overcome. And He says, “I will be in their midst.”
I think it is interesting, brothers and sisters, that in Revelation 14, when you see those who have overcome—the one hundred and forty-four thousand upon the mountain—it says that the Lord will put His name and His Father’s name in their foreheads.
He is always looking for the place in which He can put His name.
Brothers and sisters, we have been wrestling lately with the Lord speaking to us about leaving our first love. Yes, the lampstand is still there, but it is smoking.
It is something that we all have to consider because we are all those living stones being built together. We have to ask the Lord, “Where do I stand in this, Lord? I do not want to be blind anymore. I need to listen to what You are saying to me.”
Brothers and sisters, that is the reason why we initially decided to gather here. We felt that the Lord needed a testimony on this earth. Not that we were special—I do not want to give that impression.
That impression obviously has been made to some, but that is not the case. We never considered ourselves special. But we knew that we could not remain in what was called a division, something based on a creed or based on a famous spiritual giant of the past. We could only stand on Christ.
Only His name could we lift up. There is no sign out here. That may seem like a simple thing, and some people do not understand why we do not have a sign that names us.
It is because, in all honesty, the Lord showed us that His name is critical and important. It is the only name the church has. Why should we ever present ourselves as being under any other name?
We do have a legal name, Richmond Christian Fellowship, for the purpose of holding this property. It is not the name that God has given this place. It is not the name we have given this place. It is simply a legal entity to hold this property, which we pray the Lord is able to use.
We gathered together because we love the saints. We are open—I want you to know that. Some may not believe this, but we are open to all the saints, even the ones who have left us.
In our hearts, they are ours, and we are there. It will always be that way.
Anyone who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ belongs to the church and cannot be rejected on any basis. There is only one basis for being in the church of God, and that is Christ Jesus—those who believe on Him and on His name.
You do not need to be on a membership roll. You are already on His roll in heaven. That is where we are. That is what the Lord has called us to.
But brothers and sisters, in order for the Lord’s name to remain, there has to be that first love. There has to be that abandonment in our hearts for Him and for His name.
As we go on in our Christian life together, and in our testimony of being built together as a living body of the Lord Jesus Christ—a house for Him—the whole foundation is the work of Calvary and the love of God.
When that love in our hearts begins to wane for the Lord and for one another, there is an issue, and it has to be corrected. May the Lord have mercy on us.
May we not just be passive about what the Lord is trying to say to us, but may we return with our hearts toward the Lord. I am not trying to put anybody down. If anybody is put down, it should be me.
Mount Moriah speaks of a place where the Lord can put His name. It is His chosen place. It is where the threshing floor was.
There is one other hint concerning God’s purpose, and it will not take long to finish. In Genesis 22, I love this. It really thrills my heart.
In verse 23, all of a sudden the Lord puts in this genealogy. Let me begin in verse 20.
And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she also hath borne children unto thy brother Nahor:
Uz his first-born, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram,
And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.
And Bethuel begat Rebekah.
These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Out of nowhere, in connection with all that has gone on in this chapter, the Holy Spirit puts in this little lineage referring to Rebekah.
Who is Rebekah? Isaac’s wife. She is to become Isaac’s wife—a bride for Abraham’s son.
Not only is God after a house in which He can dwell, He is after this union between His Son and His bride, between Christ and the church.
In Ephesians, it says that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her—not just for you and me individually, but He loved the church and gave Himself for her. It is the bridal attraction that our Lord is seeing in His church.
This bride is not going to suddenly appear out of nowhere in the end, brothers and sisters. Just as God built Eve—and the word there in Greek is “built”—out of Adam’s side, out of the side of our Lord Jesus the church is being built.
The bride is being built today, in time and place, through local expressions.
All these local expressions are not individual churches. They are a part of the church. There is only one church. But in these local expressions, there is usually some unique and special testimony of the Lord Jesus’ life and character.
This can only be done through brothers and sisters being together and being built together. Today, some say it is enough simply to have relational Christianity—to go to this brother or sister, or to this place or that place, and enjoy fellowship.
Well, that does not build the bride of Christ. That does not build the house of God. It may give encouragement to the one doing it, but they are not becoming part of the building work.
I want you to listen to what Christ is doing today. It says that He loved the church and gave Himself for her. He is washing her and perfecting her with the water of His Word, that He might have a bride without spot or wrinkle—a glorious church.
That is what He is after: the place where He puts His name.
Brothers and sisters, the foundation is Calvary—Christ and the work of the cross. It must be worked out in a people, not merely held as a doctrine. It must be a place where He can put His name.
That is what our heart is. If He is not able to do that, then we have failed in His purpose for raising up what we are meeting for here in Richmond. That would be tragic to the Lord and to us.
May the Lord give us a heart to consider before Him. The brothers have been meeting faithfully every Sunday night to consider this and to share. May He recover what He is after in our midst.
Lord, we come to Thee today. I thank You for these precious little hints that You gave thousands of years ago of Your desire to have a place where You could put Your name and a bride for Your Son.
Now, Lord, poor a condition as we may be in, our eyes are upon Thee. We are looking to Thee. You were committed to Abraham, and we know You are committed to Your church.
We pray, Lord, that in Your commitment You will bring us through to the place that You would have—a place that truly honors Your name, a place where You are pleased to put Your name.
A place where You are pleased to dwell, a place where You Yourself can find rest, a place that has those bridal songs. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.