History of Halford House 5

[00:00:00] Read from the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 40. The 40th chapter of Isaiah. [00:00:22] Isaiah, chapter 40 from verse one. [00:00:26] Comfort ye. Comfort ye, my people, saith your God. [00:00:32] Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. [00:00:49] The voice of one that crieth. Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord. Make level in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the uneven shall be made level and the rough places are plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice of one saying cry. And one said, what shall I cry? [00:01:36] All flesh is grass. And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth. Because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth. But the word of our God shall stand forever. [00:02:03] O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion. Get thee up on a high mountain. O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem. Lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold the Lord. God will come as a mighty one and his arm will rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm and carry them in his bosom and will gently lead those that have their younger may we just read a few verses from another chapter in Isaiah? The 62nd chapter that we read from this morning. [00:03:18] The 62nd chapter of Isaiah. [00:03:29] It is the Lord who speaks here in verse one. For zions sake will I not hold my peace. And for jerusalems sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. And nations shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory. And thou shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Verse six. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem. They shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrances, take ye no rest and give him no rest till he establish. Until he make Jerusalem. A praise in the earth. Verse ten. [00:04:33] Go through. [00:04:35] Go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. [00:04:41] Cast up. Cast up the highway. Gather out the stones. Lift up an ensign for the people. [00:04:52] Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth. Say ye to the daughter of Zion. Behold, thy salvation cometh. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. And they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord, and thou shalt be called. Sought out a city not forsaken. [00:05:23] These few days, from Thursday evening till today, we have been meeting together just very simply to praise the Lord and to worship him for his great grace and goodness toward us over these past 25 years. It seems amazing to us that we have been gathering together now for 25 years. It was 25 years ago on a foggy November morning in a private home that we first met together around the Lord's table in. [00:06:04] And from that time we've gone on. [00:06:07] And we're here tonight. And we have such a story of the Lord's faithfulness to record and to rehearse. And we have sought to tell something of his ways with us and have sought to also explain a little of the meaning of that story. But we cannot go over that this evening except to say that I hope that you will be able, perhaps in the weeks and months that lie ahead, to at least hear the tape if you have not been present at those gatherings, because they're all of a piece. But this morning I spoke from this 62nd chapter of Isaiah. And I spoke about this sovereign purpose of God. To create, to build, to produce a city. And he calls this city. My delight is in her. And another name he gives to her is married. You find that in verse four. You shall no more be called forsaken. Neither shall your land anymore be termed desolate, but you shall be called Hezibah. My delight is in her. And Baulah married. [00:07:31] What a wonderful thing this purpose of God is for those of us who have known his saving power. It is not merely that we should know forgiveness of sins. That in itself is tremendous. It is not merely that we should have a legal standing in the presence of God for all eternity. Absolute and complete justification, we call it. Because our sins have been removed from us as far as the east is from the west. They have been blotted out by nothing less than the blood of our Lord Jesus. Oh, what a standing we have before God. But that is only part of the gospel. If we were to go on and to say, yes, it is not even union with God in Christ, that is tremendous. That not only have we a legal standing before God, but we are born of the spirit of God. Every true Christian has had an experience of being born again. They have a second birth. They are people with two births. They've had a physical birth, and they've had a spiritual birth. And it is a marvelous thing that we preach. When those words of the Lord Jesus, except a man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God. Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again. And this union with God in Christ, this coming into a union with him, we abide in him, and he abides in us, is tremendous. And within it are all the resources of God and all the riches of God, and all the power of God and all the fullness of God. What a wonderful thing it is to know the Lord. If that was the gospel, it would be wonderful enough. But he goes beyond that. For God has from the very beginning desired to have what he calls in human language a home, a habitation. Sometimes he calls it my house. It shall be a house of prayer for all nations, my dwelling place, the place where I will cause my name to dwell. He calls it another place, another place. He calls it a city. Jerusalem. Zion. And we read those wonderful words in the New Testament, that we have been born from our mother who is above. The Jerusalem which is above. Everyone who's born of God has been born of that Jerusalem, which is above. Or the writer to the Hebrews puts it like this, ye have come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the new Jerusalem. You have come by the grace of God. You've been born into that city. Your name is registered in that city. You are a citizen of that eternal city. That's marvelous. But it is even more wonderful when we think of it in these terms, that it is the bride of the lamb, the wife of the lamb, the bride of Christ. And he speaks of it here with such tenderness and such desire and such passion. He says, for Zion's sake will I not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. Last night I read that wonderful passage from Zechariah four. I understand that some of you may not be fully able to follow me altogether tonight, because we're dealing with things that really only believers can understand. But God can make them real to you. If your heart is in need, if you're someone who's come in amongst us and doesn't know much about the Bible, doesn't know much about christian things. Don't worry, don't be afraid, don't feel it's not for you, for God can take one little thing and make it real to you and bring you to himself, and bring you into this city, into this glorious purpose of God, which spans all the ages of time, from before time to the ages that are to come. He can reveal it to you and bring you even this night into it, so that you're born of God and part of this purpose of God. But I was saying, oh, how wonderful it is when you see the Lord's passion here. For Zions sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as broken and a salvation as a lamp that burneth. Last night I read Zechariah, chapter four. It is a rather involved chapter for those who do not know their bible. It is an extraordinary one. There is the prophet Zechariah, and he suddenly sees a lampstand, a golden lampstand. He understood immediately what he saw, because it was the seven branched menorah of the temple. He understood it instantly. [00:12:34] There he saw this great seven bounced golden lampstand beaten out of a solid piece of gold with its seven lamps upon it all burning brightly. And then he saw on the left hand and on the right hand two olive trees. And then he saw out of the olive trees the most extraordinary thing, pipes. Have you ever seen? People do have strange visions. They saw these kind of pipes coming out of the olive trees. You've never seen pipes coming out of olive trees, have you? But he saw pipes coming out of the olive tree into the lamp, and then he saw an amazing thing. He saw gold coming along those pipes and pouring into the lamp, and the gold became light. Now, of course, our very clever translators, as always, when they look at the word, sometimes with more academic spirit, they looked at it and said, well, well, well, this can't be. Now this is ridiculous. It's quite clear that someone's messed up the Hebrew here. Some doji scribe on a hot mediterranean afternoon, writing weight Hebrew fell asleep for a moment and his mind slipped over one word and he left out the word oil. [00:13:50] It must be golden oil. So you will see in a lot of your modern versions it's been corrected too. And these pipes emptied out golden oil, oil into the lampstand. Of course, it makes much greater sense, doesn't it? I mean, you don't get light from gold, you don't get fire from gold. You don't get power from gold. Not only commercially, of course. [00:14:15] You don't get energy from gold. No, no, no. [00:14:23] But the holy Spirit made no mistake. Zechariah was bowled over by this vision instantly in the day in which he stood. Where did he stand? He stood toward the end of an age. He was, as it were, at the very threshold, on the very threshold of the coming of the messiah. The very shadow of the Messiah had fallen across his path, as it were. He was at the end. He was at the completion of the purpose of God for the Messiah to come. And Zechariah and Haggai and Malachi, all three of them were bound together in bonds of love and fellowship. They knew that they were part of the completion of the purpose of God for the coming of the Messiah. Malachi said, the Lord shall suddenly come to his temple. [00:15:15] And Zechariah has said quite a lot about the coming of the Messiah. But they all knew it was somehow or other bound up with the building of this house of the Lord, this testimony of God, this golden lampstand. [00:15:33] They understood the words of Isaiah, the prophet God, the cry of God's heart. For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. And nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. And thou shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. [00:16:20] Zechariah. The impact of that vision overwhelmed him, and for a moment he faltered, and then he got hold of the angel and he said, excuse me, could you tell me, what are these two olive trees? Now, this is very interesting. It seems that Zechariah quite understood what the lampstand was. At least he thought he, he didn't ask about the lampstand. He said, I understand that that is the testimony of God in the covenant people. That is the core of the matter. That's the heart of the matter. You can have the routine. You can have the festivals, you can have your religious services, you can have the priesthood. You can have the sacrificial system. But the heart of the matter is that God is in the midst of his people, and that God is expressed through his people and that the living God is known by the nations through his own. And that the salvation of God goes to the ends of the earth through this people. That is the testimony, that is the lampstand, all of gold. I understand it, and I know that it has something to do with the building. I know that it has something to do with the completion of this house. Zechariah was at the time when the house was only partially built. It wasn't completed. They'd got the foundation clear, they'd got the walls up, they'd got a certain amount done, and then they'd all got weary and they'd stopped. And somehow or other, a kind of general dearth had spread over the people of God, and they had ceased to build anymore. And it was Haggai who came along with a great message and stirred them all up. And then Zechariah came along and stirred them up a bit more. [00:18:03] This time they didn't stone the prophets to death. They listened to them. These people were not hard toward the Lord. They were devoted to the Lord, but they had been waylaid by the enemy. [00:18:20] All kinds of circumstances, domestic circumstances, personal circumstances, commercial circumstances, pressures of work, pressures from enemies had somehow or other worn these dear people out. Till in the end, they really wondered whether it was a priority to get this house of the Lord built. They began to think perhaps the priority was their own homes and this and that and the other. And so they had begun somehow to get two minds, and with the two minds came a weariness, and with the weariness came a slackness and a carelessness, until finally the house of the Lord stopped altogether. [00:19:09] Zechariah understood something about this. He said, I understand that. But, Lord, what are the two olive trees? And the angel said, don't you understand? [00:19:21] And Zechariah said, no, I don't understand. And then the angel said, this is the word of the Lord. [00:19:30] Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, I feel that in some charismatic circles, that's as far as we have got, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit. Thank God for that. If it means that people have woken up, if it means that they've come into a discovery of the risen life of Christ, if it means they've come into a tasting of the fullness of God, if it means that the gifts of the spirit are known to them, if a discernment, a thing has come, as it were, being given to them, praise the Lord. But we can't stop there. For the angel went on, who art thou, o great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the top stone with shouts of grace. Grace unto it his hands laid the foundation, his hands shall also complete it. [00:20:38] It's so very easy in the day of small things to despise. [00:20:43] I remember the days when we were greatly despised. [00:20:46] I think we still are by some, but I remember the day when we were abi. Word and a derision, when people was funny little goop. [00:20:59] What do they think they're doing? [00:21:01] What are they after? [00:21:04] What are they up to? [00:21:06] Just like sanballat and Tobiah and Gashmu, the Arabian. [00:21:16] They sort of say a fox could push over their wall. [00:21:23] What do they think they're doing up there? Spending all this time talking about the house of God and about the building of the house of God and about the purpose of God. Are they nuts? [00:21:35] Don't we have the word of the Lord as well? [00:21:39] Do they think they're elite? [00:21:42] Nehemiah was a very, very clever man spiritually. When he refused to even discuss it with them, he just went on building. [00:21:51] He knew very well, get the walls finished and that will shut them up forever. [00:21:57] Don't parley with them, don't talk with them, don't come down to that level. Just get on with the work God has given you to do. And if they misunderstand, okay, in the end, they'll see it. And they did see it with their own eyes. They saw the work completed and they knew that something had been done by God. [00:22:15] Oh, yes. But the interesting thing is, you see that this whole matter of the Holy Spirit, his person, his work, his power, his gifts, his fullness, it has an objective. What is the objective? That somehow other, there may be material out of which this city can be built. When we read the book, the book of revelation and chapter 21 and 22, we make an incredible discovery. We find this city, this bride of Christ, this wife of the lamb, this new Jerusalem, this zion of God is produced out of pure gold, refined so that it is transparent as crystal. [00:23:02] You've never seen gold transparent as crystal. [00:23:06] And where does this gold come? [00:23:09] It comes out of olive trees, out of branches of the olive tree. They pour out gold out of themselves, into the lampstand. And the gold becomes power, the gold becomes fire, the gold becomes light. [00:23:29] You understand, of course, if you want it theologically and technically correct, these two olive trees stand for the priest and the king. [00:23:45] Kingship and priesthood. And we have been made kings and priests unto God. This is the glorious privilege of every single true child of God. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We believe in the kingshood of all believers, the Lord Jesus has vested in us the kingship the Father vested in him. Isn't that marvellous? [00:24:15] Therefore, we are meant to be executives. We are meant to be involved in the purpose of God. We are meant to be those who are part of the realization of this purpose of God. Now come back to this marvelous. Isaiah 62. God says about this city, my delight is in her, she shall be called. My delight is in her. She shall be called married. This is my heart's desire, this is the passion of my being. May I say it reverently? God from the beginning created a whole universe and universes of universes. But he had only one glorious purpose. And that purpose was to create a mankind that would come into a union with himself and become his home, become his habit. God doesn't live in universe in the blue sky. God doesn't live in mountains and lakes and in the air. God is far too infinite for that. All that is the expression of God. All that is the basic expression of his basic. Of the basic energy, which is God. Do you understand? [00:25:29] He doesn't dwell in it no more. Does he dwell in a house like this, or a place with a steeple or a belfry or anything else. Some of those places they used to build deliberately in the most ugly way they could. [00:25:44] Some very beautiful, others, especially the nonconformists, they built places as ugly as they could because we don't want anyone to get too. But still it happened, didn't it? Our tendency as human beings is, whether it's ugly or beautiful is to call the thing the house of the Lord. We say were going to the house of the Lord. This is the house of the Lord, you see. [00:26:04] But we are the house of the Lord. God has redeemed us. He wants to dwell in us. And do you know what he says about you and me? [00:26:13] He calls us. My delight is in her. [00:26:18] That is the most wonderful way of looking at it, is it not? [00:26:22] And he calls you and me married. Oh, no one on the shelf. [00:26:28] No one on the shelf. No one feeling time has passed me by, I'm left on the shelf. [00:26:37] We're all in by the grace of God. We're all in this marvelous relationship with. If we want to be, we want to be. [00:26:51] We cant, we shall never lose our salvation. [00:26:55] But dear child of God, there is every possibility that we lose our place in the bride saved. [00:27:09] But not to come to the throne of God. [00:27:13] Not to come to sit down in the throne of the lamb with the Lord Jesus. [00:27:21] What a wonderful chapter this is. [00:27:26] What does God say, here, listen to it. [00:27:30] It is not stayed language. [00:27:34] It is not placid language, it is not phlegmatic language. Listen, for Zion's sake will I not hold my peace? And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. Don't you feel the heartbeat of God in those words? Don't you feel some quickening, as it were, of the pulse, something as if God is so deeply concerned, so deeply committed, so deeply involved, as if he's crying out, listen, listen if you will hear me. This is my heart's desire. This is my passion. It reminds me of the words of the Lord as we find them in psalm 132 and verse twelve for the Lord hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision, I will satisfy her poor with bread, her puissance, or will I clothe with salvation. And her saints shall shout aloud for joy. There will I make the horn of David to but well, what a wonderful word the Lord says about Zion. I have chosen it. I desire it. What does he desire it for? For my habitation. This is my resting place forever. Did you hear it? My resting place forever. My delight is in her. My delight is she shall be called married. [00:29:20] It was this that we saw at the very beginning, and it was this that governed more and more our prayer ministry. It was this that became the passion by the grace of God alone, and the work of the Holy Spirit, the passion of our hearts as it was his. It was this that led us to sacrifice ourselves, to commit ourselves, whatever the pain, whatever the cost, whatever the price, that somehow or other God would get this Zion. We were not interested in having nice little meetings and entertaining people with nice little songs. We were never in interested in having a beautiful place that people could sort of marvel at. Or we were not interested in that. [00:30:07] We were interested in this one thing, that the righteousness of Zion would go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth to the ends of the earth, that nations would see his righteousness, that they would come to his light, that the unsaved would find God, that those who are depraved in sin and shackled in evil might know the power of the Holy Spirit, breaking those shackles and bringing them out to be members of God's Zion. True Zionists, this was the passion of our heart. [00:30:58] We have had and do have many failings. And many faults. I and all the rest of us, we have never claimed that we were an elite or that we were in any way superior. But the one thing we do claim is that we saw something of the purpose of God and became completely committed. [00:31:25] Only by the grace of God can we remain as thoroughly committed to the end of the course. [00:31:33] Otherwise, like every other thing in the history of the church, we will go out and off into a diversion. [00:31:51] It is so amazing to me when I read this chapter and understand something of the Lord's heart, something of his desire for us, how amazing it is. [00:32:04] You and I are really nothing. We're drunk. There's not much we tend to believe when we're young and sometimes when we're old, that the whole world circles around us, that we are the center of everything. That really everyone should be noticing us, taking note of us. But really, what are we? When I think of it, millions of human beings, like little ants. Sometimes I look down on an anthill and I see it all those little ants crawling all over the place. And I sometimes think, couldn't the Lord have looked down upon us and think, well, they're just like that. Thousands and thousands. Millions on that little lens, all running about, all got a little job to do, all feeling they're the center of their own little world. All got their own little problems and circumstances and everything. But God isn't like that. In some incredible way, he's breathed into us something of himself. [00:32:58] We call it spirit. [00:33:02] And because he has breathed into us something of himself, he has a relationship even with every unsaved person. Because we were made in the image of God. Don't believe this Marxist rubbish that we're animals. If you want to believe we came from monkeys, you can. [00:33:24] We were made in the image of God. If you believe we came for monkeys, when we get so many, one day there will be a place for putting down the mentally ill, putting down the aged, putting down those who perhaps are inveterate criminals. We'll gas them to death, get rid of them like we do vermin. Because, after all, we're only animals, only a slightly higher society. It will come to it in. In the end, when gradually the population of the world is. But if you believe that we are made in the image of God, if you believe that there is something in every human being, however depraved, that is from God, you cannot gas him, you cannot get rid of him. He is a human being that Christ died for. He is a human being that God loves. And he may be marred and corrupted and spoiled so that you hardly see anything of God left in him. Only Satan. But still he is loved of God, and still the blood of Christ was shed for him or for her. [00:34:34] This zion. [00:34:36] How amazing it is that the Lord says, I have set watchmen upon thy walls, o Jerusalem. They shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrances, take no rest and give him no rest till he make Jerusalem appraise in the earth. [00:35:00] Well, I said a little bit about that this morning. Well, I want really to talk about these last verses. [00:35:07] I only have to underline a few things. Doesn't need to say so much about it. [00:35:14] Go through. [00:35:16] Go through the gates. [00:35:20] Prepare ye the way of the people. [00:35:23] Cast up. Cast up the highway. Gather out the stones. Lift up an ensign over the people. [00:35:37] What is an ensign? [00:35:41] An ensign is a standard, a flag, a symbol of a house, of a royal house or a noble house or a nation. [00:35:57] A people. It is an ensign. What is this ensign that we are to lift up over the peoples? It is surely the standard of the lamb. It is surely the standard of the Lord Jesus. We are to lift up his standard. [00:36:14] We belong to a royal house. We belong to a chosen people. We belong to an elect race. We are his, and we are meant together to lift up an ensign to the nations, so that wherever there is a heart that is in need, wherever there are people that feel the emptiness and aimlessness of their existence, they can see an ensign. They can see the Lord Jesus. As he said, a city set upon a hill cannot be hid. Men, when they light a light, do not put it under a bushel, but they put it on a stand that it may give light. He said. This is what he meant. It is not only a declaration of the fact that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein, it doesn't. [00:37:02] The earth will be the Lord's, and the fullness thereon the world, and those who dwell in it will one day be his. It says, the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereon the world, and they that dwell therein. Or as it says in another place, that when they gather together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us cast away his bonds, he that sitteth in the heavens will laugh. [00:37:31] Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, and I will tell of the decree. [00:37:37] Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth, for thy possession. [00:37:52] What a declaration we have. You know, this old world belongs to God. There is a usurper. The Bible says the world lieth in the evil one. [00:38:05] But thank God, our Lord Jesus said just before he died, now is the prince of this world cast out. [00:38:13] In other words, though the world lies in the evil one, it is the job of the church to proclaim the simple fact that he is a user and that this world belongs to the Lord. That's what we've always seen to be our mission here in Richmond, spiritually, to say this whole area belongs to God. The people in this area belong to God. [00:38:37] Lift up an ensign. It's no good just declaring. Of course, that's a very important part of it. We have to be an embodiment. [00:38:45] We can't just lift up an ensign. We have to be an embodiment so that we become in ourselves a symbol, a representation of the king. [00:38:55] Do you understand what im trying to say? [00:39:01] Its no good just saying he is king. If he is not king in my life, its no good me saying he is king when I have circumstances which somehow or other I cant trust him over. I cannot say hes lord. And in my own life he is not really. I'm not giving him the things that he ought to have or surrendering in the way that I ought to surrender. Most of us are like this, aren't we? We have an argument with the Lord that goes on for years, silly little things on which we hold back from the Lord. Lift up an ensign. [00:39:35] Notice again it says, prepare ye the way of the people. Is that not interesting, that God says that there must be a preparation of a way for the people? You know, motorways are very important things. When you go through a mountainous country. In the old days, it would take years and years. I remember even myself when there was no motorway between Elat and rash Muhammad on the very southern tip of Sinai through the most mountainous terrain. It was impossible. [00:40:10] All you could do was go in a jeep over the desert and that would take you two, three days or four days to do it. But now there's a motorway that goes right through the mountains and you can do it in some hours, sail down the motorway. Someone's prepared a way for the people. It's as simple as that. Some of you know, I mean, I don't have to talk about Sinai, do I? I remember, and I'm not so old. I remember when it took 7 hours to get to Bristol. [00:40:40] Don't all look so surprised. You know very well I'm telling the truth. 7 hours it took to get to Bristol. Sometimes all through Newbury and all those little ways and those traffic jams in villages, knocking off bits of historic monuments as you went round corners and so on. And then the m four got built and what could we do? If you forget the speed limit, you can get there in an hour and a quarter, but you've got to forget the speed limit. [00:41:06] But if I were to say it takes only 2 hours, you know exactly what I mean. There's a highway prepared for the people. [00:41:14] The other week I went down to Devon. Now, as a family, we always used to go to Devon. We didn't used to go up north or to the midlands or any of those other places. We always went west. [00:41:29] I think you suspect that we always went west. But you know, it used to take us a whole day to get to Exeter. I was amazed when the friends in Exeter said, now then, when you come to us this time, you know the m five is open all the way to Plymouth. Now come on, they said, you go all the way to Bristol on the m four and then get on the m five and you'll be with us in Torquay in 4 hours. [00:41:52] I couldn't believe it. 4 hours. I thought, and I think when I was a boy, of the hours we used to spend, and I was a bad traveler, I used to get out of the car every hour to be sick in the ditch. Oh, I thought 4 hours to exeter instead of a whole day. [00:42:11] 4 hours to talk. Ye get to Exeter before then. Isn't that wonderful? Someone has prepared a way for the people. Do you know what God says here? He says, don't only just lift up an innocent. Prepare a way. It will take toil, it will take sweat, it will mean hard work. But prepare a way, make a level path. Does he not say it in Isaiah, chapter 40, the voice of one that cried, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make level in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places are plain. [00:42:55] That's what you have to do when you make a highway. You have to bring some things down and other things up. [00:43:03] You make a highway. Now, I'm no engineer, and I don't know the first thing about road building, but at least I do know when a good road and a bad road, I experience that. [00:43:15] And people tell me that the camber of the road is bad. I don't understand what they're talking about, but at least I know that somehow or other, it has an effect upon the one who's sitting in the car. You do feel it when it's a good road, or when you feel it when it's a bad road. What a wonderful thing it is when a road is made level through the wilderness. [00:43:36] What does God say about this purpose for his people? What does he say about this Jerusalem, this work of his, this passion of his heart? It is that we are to lift up an ensign over the peoples. We are to make a declaration. We are to be the embodiment of the king. We are to set forth the claims of the king upon this world, upon the area in which we live. [00:43:58] We are to proclaim that he is far above all principality and power, that they are all made subject unto him. But more than that, we are to prepare a highway. A highway for our God. Then see what next it says. It says, cast up. Cast up the highway. Gather out the stone. [00:44:27] What does it mean, gather out the stone? Don't you think that means the things that make it impossible for a good road? [00:44:38] Are there not many things in our lives that make it impossible for a good road? [00:44:44] My dear friend, I think not only of my life, my own life and your life, but I think of our church life. What a lot of hypocrisy there is now. Church life. What a lot of things we do which are sham. What a lot of things that are not even in the book. Somehow or other, we've just produced them through tradition or something else. And in the end, they become stones that stumble people, that stop people. They hinder people from coming in to what God desires. We've got to get rid of those things. [00:45:20] We have to gather out the stone. [00:45:25] Sometimes you see these people gathering out stones before they had these great mechanical grabs and diggers and all the rest of it. My word, they used to work like trojans, running backwards and forwards, taking big rocks and so on and throwing them out and so on. Now, of course, they've got these big grab things that take whole boulders and just. And it's out of the way. It's amazing. [00:45:50] I don't know whether the Lord spiritually has such mechanical grabs and diggers to help us remove stones or whether it all has to be done manually. But the thing is that it costs. [00:46:06] Cast up. Cast up a highway. Gather out the stones. [00:46:11] It's no good just glorying in this as truth. It's no good just coming on Sundays and saying, well, I love the folks at Halford House. It's so comforting. I like to go there on Sunday, just to the meeting. It's good. Now, I know some of you are students and you can't come in the gatherings of the week or take part in the home gatherings. But, my dear, when I want to tell you this. From the very beginning of this work we have been dead set against people treating this as a place to go on Sundays. [00:46:43] This thing deadens any work of God. God is not interested in people just coming to sit on Sunday. [00:46:50] And then they feel it's like a sop to their conscience. They feel a bit better for it. This is not what God wants. God wants us to be committed, lock, stock and barrel. We may have problems, but God wants us in such a way that we become involved. We become part. [00:47:07] We become built together. We somehow become instrumental in the hands of God. How can a highway be cast up if we just come once in a blue moon? How can it be if we come regularly, once in a while, when the whole life of the church is a stranger to us? We never come into it. We're never part of it. We never take our responsibility. We never commit ourselves fully. Of course, we cannot cast up a highway, gather out the stones. This is hard work. [00:47:41] The Lord says here in this word, go through. Go through the gates. [00:47:50] What does it mean? [00:47:54] It means, commit yourself irrevocably. [00:47:59] Now, I dont say, commit yourself irrevocably to a thing, to a movement, but commit yourself irrevocably to the Lord. [00:48:09] Remember the words of our Lord when he said this. He said in such solemn words, not all that say, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my father, who is in heaven. [00:48:30] Many shall come to me in that day and say, Lord, lord, did we not do this? And did we not do that? I've sometimes wondered whether it's not just people who did these things, but people who were involved with others who did it. [00:48:45] And they will come and say, lord, Lord, I was part of that. I was in a kind of thing. You know, where I went on. These things happen not. You must surely know me. [00:48:54] And the Lord says, depart from me. I never knew you. [00:49:00] And then he told the story. The house that stands is a house that's built on the rock. And what did he say? He said, it's a man that hears my word and does it. [00:49:18] What does it mean to go through the gates? [00:49:21] My friend, you can look at the gates, you can look at the city. You can look at the great sort of work going on in the road, preparing the road. Lifting up an inside, say, oh, isn't it marvellous? Isn't it wonderful? Yes, I'm sure it's all in the book. I'm glad for those folks who see this thing and the way they're getting on with it. It is marvellous because I believe it's truth. But we never commit ourselves. We are spectators when we go through the gate. [00:49:51] We have finally said, lord, I have to be part. [00:49:58] Here I am. [00:50:00] Take even me, dear believer. [00:50:08] The Lord Jesus went through the gate for you. [00:50:13] There was a day when the Father unveiled something of his concern for a world that he was to create and a man that he was to form. [00:50:28] And I believe that he must have said somehow to the Son, this man will go off the rails. [00:50:36] Are you prepared to be born of woman and live amongst them and die to redeem them? [00:50:50] And the son said, here am I. [00:50:56] And Bethlehem was the going through the gates. [00:51:00] And when he came to the river Jordan, it was as if the Father said to the Son, my son, I will not help you on this. [00:51:09] These waters of the river Jordan speak of death, cold and solemn. A terrible death of the cross. Are you ready for it or would you prefer to withdraw? And the sun went down into the waters of Jordan and was baptized of John, saying, it becomes me to fulfil all righteousness. And immediately the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit came upon him. And the word of God saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And when he came to the mount of transfiguration and he was transfigured in glory before Peter and John, he could so easily have stepped into heaven that he turned and came down. He went through the gate again. And when he came to Gethsemane, do you remember? And the full horror of the cost of our salvation hit him, he said, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he, he took the cup and drank it. He went through the gates. [00:52:24] You would never have been saved if the Lord Jesus had not committed himself to the purpose of the Father to save you and to save me. But he went to the gates. Now everyone who would follow the lamb must follow him the whole way. That's why the Lord Jesus said, said, if any man will follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and come after me. He that loseth his life the same for my sake and the gospels the same shall find it unto life eternal. But he that holds on to his life the same shall lose it. [00:53:12] Have you gone through the gates? [00:53:15] Is God speaking to you about some area in your life in which you are not really committed to the Lord. [00:53:23] May God give you the grace this night very simply to commit yourself wholly to him. You know what God is saying to you. You know exactly what it means for you to go through the gates. What it means for you may be different to me, but you know, because the Holy Spirit makes it real to you. Perhaps there's someone who's never even come to the Lord tonight who would love to find the Lord and come to him. The Lord will find you this night, if you're ready. [00:53:59] Maybe there are many others of us who need to know something of that anointing of the Holy Spirit. Spirit. [00:54:04] Or need to be renewed in spirit and power in life. [00:54:10] Or maybe there are those of us who really just got to settle issues we've been arguing out with ourselves. I can't do this. I can't do that. I can't do the other. You know, Lord, I can't do this. And this and this and this. And so we get it all into our head, and it goes around in a spin, and instead of getting better, we get more tired. [00:54:29] Then we say, I'll drop this out. Cut this out. Cut that out. I'll cut that out. I'll cut that out. I'll cut that out and get even more tired. And in the end, instead of being more alive and more vital and able to do the things that remain, we find we can hardly do the things that remain. [00:54:49] Going through the gates is the only key. Shall I tell you why? Because in the last phase of world history, there will be such antagonism toward believers and such pressure upon walking with the lamb, that only those who go the whole way will know the power of his resurrection, the power of his holy spirit. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts, this. Who art thou, o great mountain? You shall become a plain before it's a rubbable. And he shall bring forth the top stone with shouts of grace. Grace unto it. There's power. There is the power of the Holy Spirit and the life and strength of the Lord Jesus for those who will really go through the gates with him. Let's pray, shall we? [00:55:58] Now, Lord, thou knowest every one of our hearts. Thou knowest those who've gone through the gates and those who haven't. [00:56:09] Thou knowest all, Lord, who have really committed to what thou dost want. [00:56:16] O Lord, speak to us even tonight as we wait on thee. [00:56:21] Make this evening to be a memorable one in all our lives. [00:56:27] Hear us, o Lord. [00:56:30] For we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus, thy son. [00:56:39] Amen.