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[00:00:00] John chapter three verse 13 and 31 and no one hath ascended into heaven but he that descended out of heaven, even the son of man who is in heaven. Very mysterious. Verse, verse 31 he that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from heaven is above all. Then one Corinthians chapter 15 one Corinthians chapter 15 verse 47 one corinthians 1547 the first man is of the earth earthy. The second man is of heaven, as is the earthy. Such are they also that are earthy and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Then one John one John chapter four and verse 17 one John 417 herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world, as he is, even so are we in this world then.
[00:02:17] Hebrews chapter three Hebrews chapter three, verse one Hebrews chapter three verse one wherefore, holy brethren partakers of a heavenly calling? Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, even Jesus partakers of a heavenly calling. Chapter twelve, verse 22 Hebrews chapter twelve verse 22 but ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, ye are come to heavenly Jerusalem. Philippians chapter three Philippians chapter three verse 20 Philippians chapter three verse 20 for our citizenship is in heaven, whence also we wait for the saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:03:46] Our citizenship is in heaven. Ephesians chapter one, verse three.
[00:03:55] You will see that the connecting link with all these is heaven.
[00:04:01] Ephesians one three blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly heavenly places in Christ.
[00:04:15] Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ chapter two, verse six chapter two verse six and raised us up with him and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
[00:04:41] Then you ought to make a note we're not going to go through them, but you ought to make a note of the approximately 33 times that the phrase kingdom of heaven is used in Matthew. In Matthew's Gospel, 33 times the phrase kingdom of heaven is used then. Galatians chapter six verse 15 Galatians chapter six verse 15 for neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation, a new creation or transverse and creature a new creation.
[00:05:32] New is the word I want you to underline. Ephesians, chapter. No, sorry. Ephesians 215.
[00:05:40] Ephesians 215.
[00:05:43] Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances that he might create in himself. Of the two, one new man, a new creation, a new man.
[00:05:59] Chapter four, verse 24.
[00:06:05] And put on the new man that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. And then Colossians, chapter three, verse ten and eleven. And have put on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him, wherein there cannot be Greek and jew. Circumcision and uncircumcision. Barbarian, Scythian, Bondman, Freeman. But Christ is all and in all. From that we learn that this new man is a corporate person.
[00:06:50] Then lastly, back to Romans, chapter 16.
[00:06:56] Romans 16.
[00:07:00] Now, it's the word mystery that we're going to look at.
[00:07:05] Chapter 16 of Romans and verse 25.
[00:07:13] Now to him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, according to the revelation of the mystery. Ephesians, chapter one, verse nine.
[00:07:37] Ephesians, chapter one, verse nine. Making known unto us the mystery of his will, the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him, unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times. To sum up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and the things on the earth. In him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage. Chapter three, verse three.
[00:08:05] How that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words. Chapter four, verse nine.
[00:08:21] No, that's not right.
[00:08:24] It must be versed nine. It's verse nine of chapter three. Will you see that that's corrected, all of you?
[00:08:33] That shouldn't be four. That should also be three.
[00:08:38] Okay, three. Verse nine. And to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages has been hidden? God, who created all things. The stewardship or dispensation of the mystery. Now, Colossians, chapter one, verse 126. Six.
[00:09:21] Even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations, but now had it been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. And lastly, chapter two, verse two, that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
[00:10:30] This evening I want, if the Lord wills, to cover two very important points. We've asked ourselves the question, why are you at Halford House? Why am I at Halford House? And now we have so far sought at least to introduce the matter, and we've given a short answer as to what we believe. And then we have said that because of that, it requires in the all those who really are devoted and faithful to the Lord. It requires their complete and utter devotion to the Lord and to give their first and first and foremost to give their loyalty to Christ, even if it means foregoing loyalty to things and people.
[00:11:32] And we have spoken about taking the ground of the body of Christ. Now, in practical terms, last week we dealt with the first point. This means practically the headship, the absolute headship of the Lord Jesus Christ in and over the church by the Holy Spirit. Now, that's why we always pray about things, why in all levels of the work, with all its weaknesses and failings and breakdowns, we do seek always to get before the Lord and seek him, whether it's the elders, whether it's this aspect or that aspect, whether it's all of us together, whatever it is. We try to get to the Lord about every problem and all our mistakes made in the history in which we could spend a whole evening talking about, because they are so illustrative and instructive, have been made because we did not first inquire of the law. Someone came up with a bright idea, which we all fell in with. Or we went on a majority vote, which was the classic at the very beginning of the example where upon we threw out voting altogether from that day to this and so on. So. But all our mistakes have come because we did not first inquire of the Lord. Now we have said, we've taken the ground of the body of Christ. We're in Christ because we're in Christ. We're members of his body, and that's the ground we've taken.
[00:13:07] What is the second point? The second point I want to make this evening may at first seem to be obscure, but believe me, it's anything but obscure. The second point is this. The church, his body, is a heavenly thing and is therefore inexplicable. On the natural level. I repeat it again.
[00:13:33] To take the ground of the body of Christ means that his body is a heavenly thing. It's a heavenly matter in a heavenly position, with a heavenly life, with heavenly resources, and it is therefore inexplicable on the natural level.
[00:13:57] Now, at first that might seem very obscure, but I think as we deal with it, you will see that it goes to the root of very much in modern Christianity, the church is the heavenly body of her heavenly head. You can't have a heavenly head and an earthly body.
[00:14:26] Either the head is earthly or the body is heavenly.
[00:14:32] They must be one.
[00:14:35] We know that our head is in heaven. We know that he is from heaven. We read it. What a mysterious word that is in John chapter three when it says this in verse 13, and no one hath ascended into heaven. That is, no one has been able to attain heaven, any fallen man, but he that descended out of heaven, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of man, even the son of man, who is in heaven now, the Lord. It was said of the Lord at a point when he was on earth. How therefore was he in heaven at that point? Who is in heaven? The Lord Jesus said, who is in heaven?
[00:15:19] His present position was in heaven.
[00:15:23] You've got it again in the verse 31, he that cometh from above is above all.
[00:15:30] And then again, you've got it in one corinthians 15, which we have read together, and verse 47, the first man is of the earth early. That's Adam. And all of us, we've all come out of him. We're of the earth early.
[00:15:47] The second man, that is Jesus Christ, is of heaven, is of heaven.
[00:15:57] Now, the Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven and is of heaven. His body is therefore as he, heavenly in nature and character. In other words, this is precisely what it means in that, again, somewhat wonderful but mysterious comment in one John 417, where it says, because as he is, even, so are we in this world, so no one can relegate that to the eternal future in this world. In other words, he is from heaven. We are of heaven. If we've been born, we've been born from above. That's why it's a new birth, born again, born anew, born from above, born of the spirit. And because of that, we are in the kingdom of heaven.
[00:17:01] You see, we have received our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the man from heaven, and we have been joined by the spirit of God to him. So we are one.
[00:17:14] Now, we can put it this way together, Christ and his body, the head and the body constitute the new man, the new creation. That's why we had those references in the second one about the new creation. Circumcision. Uncircumcision doesn't mean anything now. It doesn't avail anything. It's of no value but a new creation. What a wonderful word that is. In two corinthians 517, wherefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new, and all things are of God. But I think it's brought a lot of children of God into condemnation, that word, because it is wherefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.
[00:18:11] But if you look in your revised version, you will find in the margin an alternative rendering which is just as accurate and just as possible as he is a new creature. And it is this, wherefore, if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation. I love that because that is precisely true. There is no new creature in my old flesh.
[00:18:36] No good thing dwelleth in me. Naturally, my whole flesh has been crucified. But in Christ there is a new creation.
[00:18:46] He is the new creation. He is the new man, and he has begat me and begotten you again.
[00:18:53] You understand? We are of him. We have a heavenly life and a heavenly head.
[00:19:02] Now, the church's character, the church's resources, the church's life are all heavenly.
[00:19:14] Even the position of the church whilst on earth is in heaven. That's why we read a word like this in Ephesians, chapter one and verse three, where it says, he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. In the heavenness.
[00:19:38] In the heavenness. And you've got it again and again. If we had time, we would take you all the way through and show you that the position of the church is in the heavens. Now, here we are on earth, yet our position is in heaven. That's not something to do with the future when we go through the pearly gates, so called.
[00:19:59] That's an altogether misunderstanding of the way the term heaven is used. It is not a future place. It is a sphere, a realm into which you and I are introduced. Now, all right.
[00:20:19] One of the clearest hallmarks upon which I believe we can be completely dogmatic. One of the clearest hallmarks of that which is the genuine work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit is always its distinctive heavenliness and spirituality. Therefore, dear child of God, you can judge everything by this. You can go into this meeting. You can go into that meeting. The naive can be swept away by what they see, by the claims that are made by everything else. But in the end, it is the distinctive spirituality and heavenliness of that work, of that ministry which is the home as to whether it's of God.
[00:21:04] Anything that's got the earth in it, you can be quite sure is dangerous. Anything which is a mix or completely of the earth is dangerous. Be careful of it.
[00:21:16] Nor does it take more than a superficial reading of the New Testament, just a superficial glancing through the pages of the New Testament to see how the, the use of this word heavenly or of heaven or in heaven is connected with the life and resources of the church. Wherever you look in the New Testament, you will discover that what I said is so.
[00:21:47] But what do we mean by heaven? With us, that's the question.
[00:21:57] What do we mean by heavenliness? I think it's all summed up by the little phrase we often hear, too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.
[00:22:15] And although we all laugh at that, in fact, that goes to the root of the general idea of what heavenliness is in the general Christian's mind, certainly in the world's mind, and I'm afraid to say it, in many christians minds, heavenliness means that you're abstract, vague, mystical, impractical, you know. Well, you know, it's a very heavenly character so and so has got. What we mean is they can't wash up dishes.
[00:22:52] That goes to the root of it. I remember asking about a certain group once in the east of a very tough missionary that we all knew as tiger, and I said, and I've never forgotten the explosion there was too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.
[00:23:11] So all I got couldn't find another thing. I had to go to other sources, find out what was meant by this. But the word as we use it, heavenliness, actually, that phrase does not appear in the scripture, but the word heavenliness just means simply of heaven, out of heaven, from heaven, characterized by heaven.
[00:23:40] So when we speak of the heavenliness of the church, we mean that her life, her character, everything is, as it were, formed out of heaven, sustained from heaven. You got it?
[00:23:53] Now, if you consider the church in this way, with one or two things, very simply, we can, I can write up here, conceived.
[00:24:05] That's the first thing in heaven, born from heaven, governed from heaven, or out of heaven, sustained by heaven.
[00:24:31] Heavenly character. That's the only way we can put it, growing heavenly character.
[00:24:39] Sorry, but my writing gets more like chinese every day.
[00:24:44] Consummation in heaven. Now, if you think about that, these simply describe and comprehend everything about the church that you and I know or have experienced. Where was the church conceived? Conceit in the heart of God, in the mind of God, from before times eternal in heaven. It was a heavenly conception.
[00:25:15] Where was she born? On the day of Pentecost, by the Holy Spirit out from heaven. She never came up from the earth. She came out of heaven.
[00:25:24] How is she governed? By the head. Where is the head? At the right hand of the majesty on high in heaven.
[00:25:31] How is she sustained? She is kept by the power of God.
[00:25:37] Where does the power of God come from? Through the head by the Holy Spirit. It's heavenly.
[00:25:44] She has a growing heavenly character. In other words, she's being conformed to the image of him who died to save her. And finally, where is the consummation going to take place? The consummation is going to take place in heaven. We're going to be caught up. So just think of it. It began in heaven.
[00:26:10] It came from heaven with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It is governed, developed, protected, anointed from heaven. And one day glory, one day it will be caught up by the power of the Holy Spirit to meet with her lord in the air. And then? Then there will be the marriage supper of the lamb. Where in heaven.
[00:26:38] That's not down here. Yep, there.
[00:26:42] And from whence think of it. I'm using almost anglican phraseology. From whence it shall appear.
[00:26:53] It is from whence he shall appear, but the church also from whence she shall appear.
[00:27:01] Where does he come? Heaven. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.
[00:27:11] He's going to appear, caught up to be with, hallowed, and then appearing with him in a universal way to and upon this earth.
[00:27:24] Thus there is about the true church that which is wholly inexplicable to the natural man.
[00:27:39] It's a mystery to him. The man in the street just can't understand the church.
[00:27:43] Let's get that clear now. I'm not talking about what we call the church. I'm talking about the true church. It is an enigma to him. He cannot understand it's a mystery.
[00:27:55] He asks a few questions, gets a few replies, and he's more mystified than ever.
[00:28:02] The thing is an absolute mystery to him from beginning to end.
[00:28:10] It is inexplicable to him because it is wholly outside of his realm and sphere.
[00:28:17] He is on the earth, earthy, because this thing is in heaven and out from heaven. He just can't understand it.
[00:28:26] Hope I'm making myself quite clear. The fact, the fact that the church, the true church, is concrete and practical. It can be seen away with this idea of the invisibility. It can be seen, it can be handled, it can be touched. It is human and located. That is the church on earth, human and located.
[00:29:01] The fact that it is so concretely expressed, so tangibly expressed, only makes it more inexplicable to this world. If only the whole thing was a mystery, if only it was completely abstract and vague and sort all up there. But the fact is they see something, they see cohesion, they see unity, they see a love, they see a practical outworking of something, or they see the failure and the breakdown as well. But they see something which they can't explain. It all seems so ordinary, it all seems so human. It all seems very much like any other fellowship or club or society or organization. Yet it, it is an enigma because it just, its source, its fountain head, is somehow not the same.
[00:30:00] I hope that this means a little to you.
[00:30:10] You see, I think the easiest way to understand it is this.
[00:30:15] To the natural man, the church, the true church, is as inexplicable as Christ was when he walked on this earth.
[00:30:27] Was Christ visible? Of course he was visible.
[00:30:32] Was Christ tangible? Of course he was tangible. Was Christ human? Yes, they said, isn't this the son of Joseph? And we know him. He's the carpenter.
[00:30:45] That was the enigma.
[00:30:48] If he'd just been rather like Melchizedek, without beginning and without end, who just drifted in somehow it would have all been much easier.
[00:30:56] But he wasn't. He seemed to be so on one side, so ordinary, so just like the rest of us. But next minute he was an enigma. He could feed 5000 men apart from the women and children. He could feed another 4000 men apart from the women and children. He could walk on the sea, he could raise the dead.
[00:31:22] That was completely inexplicable. Yet the thing that made him more mysterious and more of enigma than anything was the fact that he seemed to have two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth and a body just like us. He eats like us, he gets weary likes us. He sleeps like us, he cries like us.
[00:31:45] Well, who is he?
[00:31:48] You see, he is of heaven.
[00:31:53] Now the church is exactly and precisely that.
[00:31:57] She used to be felt and touched in the same way. She used to be known to be seen in the same way, and yet she's an iniquity. Where does she get her resources? Where does she get her power? Where does she get her life? How is she governed? How do these people get to know? They say they do. The will of God.
[00:32:17] How do they find it out? Well, you see, this that I'm talking about is both the impact and the glory of the church.
[00:32:29] The impact and the glory. The church loses almost completely its impact when she loses her heavenly character when she becomes explicable.
[00:32:43] The glory of the church is the fact that she's from heaven.
[00:32:47] She has a life this world doesn't know of. She has a law this world has rejected. She has a power that is beyond anything in this world.
[00:33:00] How did it come into being? The world asks. Supposing they ask us, how did it come into being?
[00:33:05] Don't you find it difficult sometimes to answer? The more you know about the history of this company the more difficult it is sometimes to say. Well, I always say, where should we begin?
[00:33:14] We go back to Egypt. Should we go back before Egypt? Shall we start when we started with prayer gatherings? But, I mean, that's only the science, such a thing.
[00:33:25] How did it begin? It was born somehow.
[00:33:29] Everything that's really of God is born of the spirit. How can you explain that to the natural man? How can you explain that to the world? He can't understand. How did it come? It must be a human personality somewhere. Yes, there are human personalities. That's what makes it all even more inexplicable because they're there. Yet you can get other personalities and the thing doesn't happen. What is it?
[00:33:54] How. How is it governed? Oh, someone says, how are you governed? Are you governed by bishops or an archbishop or a priest or. I mean, what, do you have fathers or elders? I mean, what is it you see? And you say, well, it's rather hard to say. We've got elders. But, you see, we get on our knees and we ask God. You ask, oh, yeah. Well, no, no, no, just wait. Of course, you're asking God about sort of aunt Fanny who's gone in, who's died and gone over.
[00:34:28] Oh, no, no, no. We're not asking about Aunt Fanny who's gone over onto the other side. No, no, we don't do that kind of thing.
[00:34:39] Well, what are you asking God about? I mean, you don't ask him about practical things like carpets and gardens or whether you should take this thing or do that over there. Oh, yes, we do. But how does God speak to you? Does he speak with an actual voice? Can you hear him? I mean, does he, do you hear a voice suddenly, like a loudspeaker speaking in the middle of the room and says, you shall do so and so and so?
[00:35:03] But this is the very kind of thing you know, that the world is mystified about. How do you hear the voice of God? How do you find the will of God? You all talk about it. I mean, first they begin off by saying it's the nonsense.
[00:35:16] I remember the time when. When Bill came first to us and I had a little talk with him. We thought it was the only, only the honest thing to do. And I said to him, now, Bill, you do realize that you're not employed by us, don't you? Oh, yes. So I said, well, I mean, you're employed by God. Oh, well, I said to him, I mean, the fact is, I said that you've got to be very careful about this because I said, it's God who's going to pay you your wages.
[00:35:43] Well, of course, what happens is what do I do about it? Well, I said, you come and tell us. And we prayed, yes.
[00:35:49] And he went up no more.
[00:35:53] Every week he asked for the sum and every week it was there. So he told us, lit. Afterwards he said, I thought this was just religious talk. These were Bill's own words. We got witness to it. I thought it was religious talk. He said, so the way these christian people do, they've got it all down in the bank.
[00:36:11] What happens is they say they pray, but what? They drop down to the bank, draw it out and give it to him.
[00:36:17] And every time he asked for it, we got it. Till that famous occasion when he asked for 300 pounds and it wasn't here. And he came to me on the Thursday morning, he said by that time he'd learnt how phrase he is. He said, has the money come?
[00:36:31] And I said to him, no. I said, strangely enough it hasn't. So he looked me, said, oh, I said, listen, have you done the work right? Yes. He said, I think so. And then he thought for a while, he said, well, perhaps there's some screws that should have been put in here and there. And there was a latch that was wrong on somewhere. She said, well, I'll go and do that. Well, I said, you do because God sees everything you see. She said, but listen, he said, do you think the money's going to come? I said, when do you need it? By 02:00 he said, so I can get it into the bank by three. One. I said, it'll be here by two. Of course, by then there was a second post and I thought, oh, now, come on, Lord. But the second post came and there was nothing but bills in it.
[00:37:04] And then at lunchtime we didn't know what to do. So I said to them all, it was cleaning day, remember that? I said, we'll go upstairs and we'll pray. And we went upstairs into the library and we had a little time of prayer. I think there were ten or eleven of us. Every single Christian in the premises went upstairs. Bill came through along there. Just after two, we walked through the back door. He went up through past that front doormat, up the stairs. He didn't open the library door. He didn't bang on the library door, he just opened it. And then we heard it shut quickly.
[00:37:36] And Bill told me I'd never felt so sick in all my life because I heard someone saying, lord, we haven't got that 300 pounds of giving now. And he said, I clutched my stomach, he said, and I've been sick many times through over drinking, but he said, I've never felt so sick. I went down the stairs like a drunk man. He went from side to side and he said, all I said to myself was, God, they haven't got the money. They haven't got the money. I've been trusting them. They thought they'd got the money. They haven't got. What am I going to do? When he got to the bottom of the stairs, there were 301 pound notes.
[00:38:09] He was the one who came up and opened the door and said, you can stop playing. He's the mother.
[00:38:16] Inexplicable. Now the amusing side of this is that he tried to explain that to his bank manager among because his bank manager wanted whether we were creditable people.
[00:38:31] Oh yeah, they got no money to pay plague.
[00:38:38] The bank manager said, oh yes, but you see, it was inexplicable. Inexplicable. Now you say, how is the charge governed? Well, look at it, how is it governed? It causes outwardly you've got certain things, but inwardly there's something else. It is the Lord himself. How do you explain that to the man? How is it financed all this? You must have a collection. But when you don't have collections, I can't understand. You must have a lot of rich people.
[00:39:07] But when they get to know us, well then what's wrong here with this company? How has it happened? I remember the first time we started the work here. Someone said to us, a minister said to me, look here, you've got to be practical, Lance, you've got a mystical side to your nature. Now this was a very dear evangelical leader. He said to me, you've got a mystical side, your nature. You've got to be practical, you've got to have a collection. He said, you'll not get anything, and the church won't get anything.
[00:39:37] Why? I said, I think that's terrible to say that. So he said, no. He said, you'll find out in time. You can't be sort of all up in the air about this. He said, God's people have got to be reminded.
[00:39:50] And I was so annoyed with God's people at that point that I said to him, if God's people have got to be reminded, I think God can do without their cash.
[00:40:03] I don't see that God wants your penny. You keep them.
[00:40:07] The only way God can get you to give to him and do his work is by continually shoving a collection plate under your very nose. I should think you might as well keep the cash. Go and buy an ice cream with it.
[00:40:23] Sure to be more value than dropping it in a plate for God and feeling that somehow you can. Now, I'm not saying that a collection is necessarily wrong, but the reason we don't have collections is because we believe there is a higher way.
[00:40:36] It says in the word, don't let your left hand see what your right hand's doing in a collection clay. Not only does your left hand see, and when the collection see what your right handed, but everybody else sees.
[00:40:50] And that is the idea behind it.
[00:40:54] That is the psychological idea behind the collection. The people feel shamed into getting something. You all know the feeling. You're nudging someone. I haven't got anything. Can you lend me?
[00:41:06] Because you can't bear to let a plate go by.
[00:41:10] It takes courage to do it. Thankless or meanness.
[00:41:23] Well, anyway, that's. How is it finance? It's financed by the Lord. He said, my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus, which is in glory in Christ Jesus. How wonderful it is when they say, where'd you get your money? My mother's always on to us about where we get the money from.
[00:41:45] She's the best detective in the place, always trying to track it down. Well, it must have come from so and so, she says, or so and so, or something like that. You know, they've got to. They can't understand it. How is it? How does it happen?
[00:42:01] She'll never forget when my mother came back one day and said she'd talked with Phyllis, and Phyllis said they'd had a problem with the sink. It was blocked up. So she said, we put a wire down it and pray about it, and then we wiggle the wire. The Lord does the rest.
[00:42:23] My mother was just sitting. She just didn't know what to say. She didn't think such people existed.
[00:42:31] It's inexplicable when you've got someone to fall really back on who has promised to be absolutely faithful. How is the church sustained? Now, on a more serious note, the rest is as serious. But we don't get any laughter out of this. How is the church sustained? You think of the outwardly, the annihilation of, of the church in certain parts of the earth. And what happens? It comes up, it seems that the devil has dealt a death blow to just wipe the thing out. And then suddenly you find it's there. And not only there, but there more strongly than it's ever been in its history.
[00:43:10] The baptism of fire and blood has only brought the thing more truly into being.
[00:43:17] Nero discovered that the roman empire has long since collapsed, but the church hasn't.
[00:43:25] How is it sustained when so many other things have faded out, when they've been liquidated by autocrats or dictators?
[00:43:36] It's because it's from heaven. Then suppose you. How do you join it? How do you join church? Can you explain that to a man, the natural man? How do you join it? Of course, if you've got a membership, you can explain it straight away, just as you can explain finances, if you have a collection on appeals and all the rest of it.
[00:43:56] But if you haven't, how do you explain how you join the church? You say, well, you must be born of the spirit.
[00:44:09] Are they cranks there?
[00:44:11] What does it mean? It's inexplicable.
[00:44:15] Now, this is much more important than perhaps most of us realize.
[00:44:24] This, that I've been talking about.
[00:44:28] Whether a thing is explicable or inexplicable is the tragedy of so much that goes by the name of Christ.
[00:44:39] It is so wholly explicable to the, to the, to this world.
[00:44:47] The natural man can understand entirely because it is like any other worldly organization. How do you join it? Join the membership. Get the right hands, pay a little bit, look right, say the right things in your brain.
[00:45:08] In some setups, get two people to sponsor you.
[00:45:12] That's what it virtually amounts to, and you win.
[00:45:19] How is it run? Committees, council, boards galore.
[00:45:23] It's entirely explicable. Everything else in this world is run by committees, boards and councils. Source?
[00:45:30] It's entirely explicable.
[00:45:36] How is it financed? You've only got to look at some notices outside, some of the treasures to see.
[00:45:43] Begging, grovelling for money, I mean. Or it just means that the whole thing is so explicable. It is organized the way it is organized, the way it is financed, the the way it is governed, the way it is joined. It is all just like any other society. What's the difference between that and a stamp collecting society? Or a bird watching club or some other club or society? The things run on basically the same lines. You've got people elected officers, you've got people nominated to take control, you've got subs and so on and appeals when funds run low, and all the rest of it. Indeed, I might say that some worldly organizations run their finances a good deal better than some so called churches.
[00:46:37] It is also this heavenly nature and character which the enemy is continually attacking and assaulting.
[00:46:49] There are two ways in which he attacks.
[00:46:52] The first is this. He seeks to create an earthly, counterfeit something which is holy of this earth but uses the name of God, the name of Christ, the things of God, the word of God and all the rest. But it is absolutely and holy of this word. It has a form of godliness, but it denies the power thereof. Humanly established, humanly formed, humanly governed, humanly financed. That's one line of attack. The other is what must concern us here most.
[00:47:34] The other is to seek to bring down that which is heavenly to us into and onto an earthly level, to compromise it so gravely that it becomes a mixture neither holy of earth nor holy of heaven. And, my dear friend, in that you will find nearly the whole of church history.
[00:48:09] What denomination, which began as a heavenly move of God, has not ended up on earth as worldly, as earthly as anything else?
[00:48:26] God is very practical on this thing. Very, very practical. He says we are to serve the council of God in our own generation. And I have absolutely no doubt at all that if we could all be here to watch and look at a meeting here, should the Lord tally in 100 years, we shall see the same thing have happened here.
[00:48:47] No doubt about it.
[00:48:50] It is the earth bound earth war tendency in everything. Once it comes to the third, second and third and fourth generations, it loses its holy, heavenly character and then becomes a mixture.
[00:49:05] And little things are introduced that you and I don't even think about. They seem so legitimate and so good and so, so desperately needed. They're introduced and they are the end.
[00:49:17] For few people see the end of a seed that is planted.
[00:49:23] They only see the need.
[00:49:26] Well, I have no doubt about it. The same thing will happen here as it happens in everything else. But our point is today the present, serving the counsel of God. Now in our own generation, we ought also I think, to take a careful note, I put this word of warning in that we do not have to make it inexplicable.
[00:49:51] There are some christian leaders and christian groups who seem to think that they. Would you like a glass of water?
[00:50:06] They're all carried away.
[00:50:12] I need to make this point very clearly. There are some christian leaders and some groups who seem to think that because the church is heavenly and inexplicably, and therefore inexplicable, we. It's our job to make it inexplicable and mysterious, you know, to sort of heavenize everything.
[00:50:37] There is a kind of singularity, a kind of peculiarity more unkindly. We could say that it is eccentricity which amongst christians, which is wholly lamentable.
[00:51:01] Now, when a person is odd before they were saved, and it's a temperamental matter, the Lord often uses the oddness that God save us from people who become odd because they've been saved.
[00:51:18] There are plenty of them and there are plenty of groups that get into that trap as well. Now, our Lord Jesus was not eccentric. He wasn't peculiar. He was certainly singular, but he wasn't peculiar. He wasn't eccentric. He wasn't one of these odd, queer birds.
[00:51:38] He was absolutely normal.
[00:51:42] Absolutely normal. Flesh about flesh, bone about bone, as it were. We could understand him. And that is the enigma. I don't find one of these mysterious, queer, eccentric types heavenly at all. I think, well, of course, it can all be explained a bit odd.
[00:52:00] They talk about hearing voices and seeing visions, and I think, whoa, they're a bit odd anyway.
[00:52:08] But when I meet someone who is absolutely normal and they start talking about hearing the word of God and so on, then that's an enigma. We found a man in the world.
[00:52:19] I can't understand that this man is so normal. He laughs like me, cries like me, he sleeps like me, he walks like me. He lives almost like me one way.
[00:52:30] And yet, you see what I mean? That is heavenliness. Now, get that clear. If you'll never go wrong, if you think of our Lord Jesus, if you ever want an example of heavenliness, it's the Lord Jesus. Think of him and you'll be preserved from all these weird, queer ideas that float around. Now, we have two or three illustrations of this. We have the book of Acts from Pentecost onwards. What is it but an illustration of something wholly inexplicable to man, heavenly in nature and character? You see that church that came into being on the day of Pentecost? See how it moves through the book of acts. It's got failings. It's got fools. They're all human beings, very much human beings. Yet how inexplicable it is.
[00:53:22] Take the gospel according to Luke and the Book of Acts and entitled them the new man, volume one, the head.
[00:53:35] That's Luke, volume two, the body acts. And you've got exactly what I'm driving at.
[00:53:44] One is as inexplicable as the other, the heavenly body of a heavenly head.
[00:53:53] And of course, the other thing is the testimony in baptism. When we're baptized, we give. We bear testament to the fact that we're in something heavenly. We've been cut off in the waters of baptism. We've been cut off from the old, from the earth. It doesn't mean that we haven't got a lot of trouble and so on with our old man or old woman. But the fact is that we're in Christ, and that's the testimony, glorious testimony. Now, in the last few minutes, we have. I'm going to start to talk about the second principle, and that is that the church, his body is an organism and not an organization. An organism and not an organization. Now, if you take your scriptures, we'll just look at one or two in the notes that you'll get.
[00:54:46] You will find in more scriptures than we're going to read. Romans twelve, four, five. For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members of not the same office, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and severally members one of another. Now, I'm not going to read one corinthians, chapter twelve. But if you will read it one corinthians, chapter twelve from verse 1213, right the way through, you will find there again this organism illustrated Ephesians, chapter four, verse 15. Speaking truth in love may grow up in all things, into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body under the building up of itself. In love. It's something organic. Got it? You grow up into him's head, and the whole body fitly flows, frame and knit together. Through that which every joint supplied increases with the increase of God. It builds itself up. It's an organic thing.
[00:56:10] Got it? Then again, if you look at Colossians 219, holding fast the head, you've got the same thought again there in Colossians 219.
[00:56:21] Now, most evangelicals give lip service to the truth that the church is an organism.
[00:56:33] I know very few evangelicals who do not say, very few Bible colleges, where it is not taught that the church is an organism. Everyone agrees. They all give lip service to this. It is in the practical outworking that there is all the contradiction and inconsistency and breakdown, because everyone is prepared to say, it's an organism, it's an organism, it's an organism, the church is an organism. But when it comes to the practical outworking, it's the most extraordinary thing. Everyone forgets it's an organism.
[00:57:10] For instance, many evangelicals seem to feel that to be non denominational, non denominational in spirit is enough.
[00:57:22] You can even belong to a denominational church. But if you're non denominational in spirit, that's all that's required, just to be broad and loving and free and open. Others go further, and they would say that providing one is in a non denominational church, that's all that is required.
[00:57:44] Denominationalism is the real blind. They would say the real curse amongst us Christians is denominationalism.
[00:57:58] But denominationalism in fact is only the symptom, it is not the disease. Now get this clear, it is only the symptom, it is not the disease. The disease is a very deep seated thing indeed, and I would call it organizationalism.
[00:58:25] Organizationalism, that's the disease. And if you think about it, every denomination has somehow evolved from organization. As the things become more and more organized, more and more top heavy, so the thing has died and become a set, rigid organism. Now, we're not saying that God doesn't use it, God doesn't bless it. God doesn't save any such thing. Of course he does, they're his children. God sweared ever his children are found. But never mix that up. All the blessing and all the other saving activity of the Holy Spirit, don't mix that up with God owning the thing.
[00:59:01] God may use it, but he doesn't own it.
[00:59:06] And God will dump it one day, because it will all go back to where it belongs, Rome, the whole thing, and that's where he's dumping it.
[00:59:20] It's all going back. Birds of a feather flock together, and the thing gravitates to its right and true center.
[00:59:33] Organizationalism is the disease. So you can have something which is completely non denominational and yet as organized as anything which is denomination, and that's why there's no life there. So people, some of the young people particularly, they say, what's the point of all this talk about recovery of the church? And so we're in something which is absolutely New Testament, but it's as dead as dead can be.
[00:59:56] It's so heavy, it's so lifeless. And then what happens? We found again, people leaving so called New Testament groups and going right to the other extreme because they say, well, God doesn't seem to bother very much about whether it's New Testament or not.
[01:00:12] The fact of the matter is that organizationalism, even if it's New Testament in pattern, is the disease.
[01:00:24] Anything, let's put it this way, anything which is the substituting of human organization, however New Testament in appearance, for that which is organic, the work, the product of the Holy Spirit, energies and life, is what I call organizationalism. Now it is an extraordinary fact, dear family, it is an extraordinary fact. You've only got to get twelve people together when they start to walk around themselves. Ron can bear witness. He was only just saved in the east, and I was the arch fiend in this, not in his salvation. I didn't inflict that on you.
[01:01:10] That wasn't anything to do with me. But what did happen was this, that when we were there were only about 16 of us. What do you think? We had? We had an extraordinary meeting to elect officers. We gave ourselves a little membership and then we had officers. Ed was the most excited, and you know, the Holy Spirit was so gracious, he brushed the whole thing aside. And after that extraordinary meeting, we never, although we elected the whole up, we never once took note of it.
[01:01:35] Isn't it extraordinary? The thing was in us, in our lifeblood, in our very, as it were, system. It's impossible, as it were, to get the thing out of us now this is exactly what happens. Do you think of the many little so called New Testament groups that have split up and been shitwrecked on this? Who's going to be leader, who's going to be elder? Who's going to have this ministry, or that ministry, or this position or that position. What a caricature it is.
[01:02:04] What a caricature it is.
[01:02:08] They talk about the church, but they're not in it in experience, potentially. Of course they're in it, but they're not really in it in experience. Is it an extraordinary thing?
[01:02:21] Well, now that leads me to say this, that there are, of course, not only those who go that way in the sense of organizing everything like that, substituting human organization for the Holy Spirit, but there are, of course, those who go the other way, to the other extreme, who use the fact that the church is an organism as an excuse for something which is loose and disorderly, and it nearly always leads to indiscipline, disorder, weakness and license.
[01:03:01] The church is not a free for all.
[01:03:05] Now, having said that, we are presented with a mystery. Well, then, what is this matter of the church being an organism? Well, now, what do we mean by organism?
[01:03:17] What is the difference between an organism and an organization? Now, an organism is a whole, to quote the Oxford Dictionary, is a whole and whole with interdependent parts sharing a common life.
[01:03:35] It has got an organization, sometimes a complex and highly developed organization, but all of its organization develops from the life within it.
[01:03:51] All of it is formed and developed by. And according to the life within my body is an organism. I have the most amazing organization in this body. I've got an inbuilt thermostatic control.
[01:04:06] It's the most amazing thing. If it goes haywire, you'd know it. I mean, if yours went haywire, you'd know it.
[01:04:14] Mine went haywire, I know it. It's an amazing thing. If you've ever suffered from thermostatic control in your body going out, you start to perspire for neuropathy. You'll feel cold. There's a person in this company who suffers badly from it, that kind of thing.
[01:04:30] You've got many other things in your body to do with your circulation and everything else. Highly intricate and complex organization. Where did it all come from? Did it read a medical book?
[01:04:42] Was it instructed in its early days by mother or father as to how it should sort of organize itself? No, it had a life, and the whole thing was within the life. Every one of you. Some years ago, we won't go into how many was just that size. A little blob of flesh and blood. But the organization was all there, every bit of it.
[01:05:06] And every bit of you that's sitting there, though it's been changed every seven years, every bit of it came out of that little blob, and the organization came from within it.
[01:05:19] And the only time we have to worry and read books and get ourselves diagnosed and helped is when it goes wrong.
[01:05:28] And that's precisely why you've got some things in the New Testament, Timothy one or two, Timothy, Titus, Corinthians.
[01:05:36] It's because something went wrong.
[01:05:38] So we have to have a diagnosis, and people have taken the diagnosis when it goes wrong, as the pattern from the New Testament. It's incredible. You get these saying, this is the pattern. We got it in the New Testament. The others say they've got it from the New Testament, someone else has got it from the New Testament.
[01:05:53] Now, what is the difference between an organism and an organization. Well, an organization, as we commonly understand the term, is that which is framed, set up or put together by man according to a set pattern or blueprint or standard set standard of rules and regulations.
[01:06:17] Okay? Its organization depends entirely on man.
[01:06:23] It is not from a life within, but from a law applied from without.
[01:06:29] It is devastatic and dead. Now, a good example is your body compared with a motorcar.
[01:06:38] A good example, my body is an organism. Now, just over 30 years ago, my body was born.
[01:06:51] And let me get it quite clear, everything I've got, everything. Everything I've got, except these clothes I got out of that little block.
[01:07:04] The whole thing has come from that life. Now, tonight, in 1968, I have a 1968 body. You may not like it, but it's a 1968 body. You've got a 1968 body. You haven't got a body dated at the age of your birth.
[01:07:24] You've got a 1968 body. It's contemporary.
[01:07:28] It's contemporary. But if you had a car from 30 years ago, it would be precisely a 1938 car in 1968.
[01:07:44] You see, it's an organization. It's static.
[01:07:47] It doesn't renew itself from a life within. It hasn't got any way of developing and adjusting from within. It can't do it. So it remains a static organization. In 1968, you've got 1968 traffic conditions, 1968 speed, 1968 roads in some countries.
[01:08:11] But you have a 1938 car.
[01:08:17] What can you do about that? But your body is a 1968 version.
[01:08:26] And if you live in the Lord Tarrys in 1988, you'll still have a 1988 version.
[01:08:32] It won't be a 1968 one in 1988, because your body is an organism.
[01:08:37] Now have you got it? Now the church is an organism. You see, when you look at the church, church history, because I could only say it here, but when you look at church history, it's really like a dumped car yard, isn't it?
[01:08:58] Yeah, that's right. A car graveyard. You know, I kind of all around various denominations, which organization was built in, 16 something, 17 something, 18 something, early, 19 something. And there they all are. They're all trying somehow, rather to go in 1968. Some of them use.
[01:09:18] Some of them use 17th century costume.
[01:09:24] Now you laugh, of course, you wouldn't think of it if I put it in other words. But they use 17th century costumes to try and reach 20th century people.
[01:09:33] They use 17th century language to try and reach 20th century people.
[01:09:40] But God said I am, that I am not. I have been. That I have been.
[01:09:47] He's ever present. He's the living God, not the past. God, the living God. He wants to express himself all the time in a living, vital way.
[01:09:59] I mean, we shall have to end this evening.
[01:10:05] But there's so much I would like to say. I mean, even a superficial reading of the New Testament reveals that the church is an organism, the living, functioning, growing body of Christ, the Holy Spirit. Initiating, leading, filling, qualifying, gifting, empowering, anointing, developing, instructing, correcting, all the way through, you know, the remarkable absence and lack of any rules or regulations in the New Testament for the setting up of a church.
[01:10:50] Now this might shock some people because they seem to be, oh, but there must be a New Testament pattern. I do find there isn't. The only way you can get a New Testament pattern is by going through the whole thing and sort of taking a little bit from here, a little bit from there, a little bit here, gleaning, and then you put it all together.
[01:11:05] Every church is built on the so called New Testament pattern. Presbyterian, Methodist, a lot, all built on the so called pattern in the New Testament in one way or another.
[01:11:24] Now, seeing the awful chaos that has resulted, surely somewhere in the 27 books of the New Testament, one small letter could have been devoted entirely to the organization of the church. Don't you think so? Do you think God is so stupid he could foresee all the chaos that result? Don't you think he could have? Clearly, if the churches and organization have clearly said, now look, this is the organization of the church, this is this, that is that, the other, the other.
[01:11:58] Nowhere do we find it.
[01:12:01] Corinthians is dealing with an appalling state of affairs. The letter of Corinthians would never have been written if something hadn't gone wrong in the church.
[01:12:11] And anyway, where did the people get the organization to start with, may I ask? In the Book of acts, where did they get it?
[01:12:23] It developed, it developed from within.
[01:12:29] There was only one time they ever cast lots.
[01:12:32] And many theologians believe that was a ghastly mistake when they filled the place of Judas.
[01:12:41] But ever after that, we never find them casting lots again.
[01:12:46] Now they've got the risen head by the Holy Spirit. They inquire of him, he does it.
[01:12:54] When you come to one and two, Timothy and Titus, why were they written? Do you know why they were written? Because things were going wrong. And the apostle Paul says in the letter, if you read them carefully, write the way through, get them in a modern version. Read, write to the holy. You'll see. He says he foresees a turning away, a falling. So he says, now, Timothy, these are, he doesn't give regulation.
[01:13:16] These are the qualifications. Spiritual character and spiritual measure you must look for. You can be quite sure if the Holy Spirit is raising up men to be elders or deacons or for any other function. These are the qualities you will find in them.
[01:13:35] But the science of the thing, the technique of the thing, is not there.
[01:13:40] He says, lay hands on no man suddenly. In other words, give time for organic development.
[01:13:50] Well, there is no intended blueprint in the New Testament. That's really how I think we'll end this evening, and next week we'll take up from there. We'll end on a positive note. This is what I will say. The New Testament does reveal principles that are inherent within the life of God.
[01:14:18] If those principles are lifted out of the life and made dead regulations and rules, the whole thing dies. But if they are kept as principles and obeyed as principles of life, then there is increase, multiplication, development, growth, and so on.
[01:14:40] You've got it.
[01:14:44] That's the way we'll end. Now, some of you, I know, are mystified by this here, because I wanted to illustrate two little bulbs.
[01:14:56] Now, unfortunately, at the end these days of things being all sort of processed and I don't know what else, onions are much cleaner than they used to be.
[01:15:07] But, you know, I wonder how many of you would really know the difference between that and that.
[01:15:15] If we were to put it on a plate, you'd know afterwards if you ate them.
[01:15:23] But that is an onion. That is a daffodil.
[01:15:29] Now, isn't it an extraordinary thing that a daffodil has never become an onion?
[01:15:35] They're so alike.
[01:15:38] Yet in the whole of history, a daffodil has never become an onion and onions never become a daffodil. Isn't that strange? I mean, you could plant a hundred onions all around this daffodil and this would still come up as one daffodil in the midst of an onion patch.
[01:15:53] Really? Really. You could put that one onion and plant hundreds of daffodils all on it. The onion would still be an onion. Now, why?
[01:16:03] Because that onions got onion life, and that daffodil's got daffodil life. And the pattern is in the line.
[01:16:12] So the pattern of a daffodil is in the daffodil iv. And if you put it in the ground, the life starts to take over, and the pattern is in the life. It develops always as a daffodil and that as an onion.
[01:16:26] That's why I could hold a few pips in my hand. They might be a pear pip, an apple pip, and a few other pips.
[01:16:37] And, you know, they all look so small and so alike. But if I plant them, one becomes a plum tree, one becomes an apple, one becomes a pear. Why? Why didn't they ever have a mix up? It never happens. Because there is within one apple life, and in the other there is pearlive, and the other there's plum life, and so on and so on. Now listen, Christ in you is the christian life. Christ in us is the church. The pattern is in the life. Once we let the life of God start to flow through us, the pattern manifests itself.
[01:17:18] You'll get church life, church order, church gifts and ministries, church increase, it'll all be there, but it's the life. So don't let's bother too much about the other. Let's get on. We've really been together.
[01:17:37] In other words, we've got to make sure we're holding fast ahead and we're allowing the life to flow through us together by the cross, through the spirit.
[01:17:51] And that is why in so many of these peculiar little groups, you never have church life. But an awful, an awful lot of talk about it.
[01:18:04] Somewhere, somehow, some people have got to pay the price.
[01:18:14] Some have got to lay down their life completely through the cross of our Lord Jesus. And then the life starts to flow, and with the life, the building and the pattern and the ministries and everything else. Now, next week we'll take that matter up and then we'll go on to another matter or two. Shall we just ask the Lord to give us enlightenment?
[01:18:45] Lord, we pray together that thou wouldst really give us enlightenment this evening. We need it, Lord. Oh, that we might really understand what it means. Our father. The church is a heavenly thing, Lord. O, wilt thou reveal that to our hearts?
[01:19:04] And wilt thou so work in us, Lord, that we shall be truly heavenly people?
[01:19:10] And then again, Lord, we do bring this matter of the organic nature of thy church, that, Lord, thou wouldst really reveal this because thou knowest this lies at the root of so much, Lord, that's broken down or failing even amongst so many of thy children who long to see something of the recovery of thy church. O Lord, we pray that thou wouldst really enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we might know this thing inwardly, and we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
