The City of God – “There is a River” – Its Effect

[00:00:00] Psalm 46. The 46th psalm. We'll read this psalm that we looked at last week. We'll read it again. [00:00:12] First I'm going to read it in the old version. Well, at least comparatively. Old version, the standard version or the English revised are about the same. [00:00:27] Psalm 46. [00:00:30] God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. [00:00:37] Therefore will we not fear. Though the earth do change, and though the mountains be shaken into the heart of the seas, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains tremble with the swelling thereof. [00:00:57] There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. [00:01:08] God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her. And that right early the nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. [00:01:25] The earth melted. [00:01:27] The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. [00:01:35] Come. Behold the works of the Lord. What desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease. Unto the end of the earth he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear. In sunder, he burneth the chariots in the fire. [00:01:53] Be still and know that I am God. [00:01:59] I will be exalted among the nation. [00:02:02] I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. [00:02:10] The God of Jacob is our refuge. Now I'm going to weed it in the new English Bible. [00:02:20] Don't hold a brief for the new English Bible, but sometimes it does just help us a little. [00:02:28] God is our shelter and our refuge, a timely help in trouble. So we are not afraid when the earth and the mountains are hurled into the sea, when its waters seethe in tumult and the mountains quake before his majesty. [00:02:45] There is a river whose streams gladden a wondrous city, which the most high has made his holy dwelling. [00:02:57] God is in that city. [00:03:00] She will not be overthrown, and he will help her at the break of the day. [00:03:08] Nations are in tumult, kingdoms hurled down. When he thunders, the earth surges like the sea. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob, our high stronghold. [00:03:25] Come and see what the Lord has done, the devastation he has brought upon earth. From end to end of the earth, he stamps out war. He breaks the bow. [00:03:36] He snaps the spear and burns the shield in the fire. Let be then learn that I am God, high over the nations, high above earth. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob, our high strung host. [00:03:58] Now I'm going to read it in the living Bible. [00:04:03] We are so greatly favored by these many translations. I feel so sorry. Often when I travel, folks in other countries say we've only got one version, or we've only got two versions, but here we've got this multitude of versions. And just because the word of God is the word of God, each one in its translation has something to give us. Well, here is the living Bible version, which is, of course, a little more of a paraphrase, but still, listen to this. God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble. And so we need not fear, even if the world blows up and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar on foam, let the mountains tremble. There is a river of joy flowing through the city of our God, the sacred home of God himself. [00:05:02] He is living in that city, therefore it stands unmoved, despite the turmoil everywhere. He will not delay his help. [00:05:12] The nations rant and rave in anger. But when God speaks, the earth melts in submission and kingdoms totter into ruin. [00:05:23] The commander of the armies of heaven is here among us. He, the God of Jacob, has come to rescue us. Come see the glorious things that our God does, how he brings ruin upon the world and causes wars to end throughout the earth, breaking and burning every weapon. Stand silent. [00:05:46] Know that I am God. [00:05:50] I will be honored by every nation in the world. [00:05:54] The commander of the heavenly armies is here among us. He, the God of Jacob, has come to rescue us. [00:06:08] Now, well, sing a hymn. [00:06:14] Well, now, this evening I want to once again take you back to this 46th psalm and to say just a little bit more vomit. [00:06:29] For those of you who were not with us last week or do not know the background of our study, it's simply that during a week of prayer, when we were praying so very much for the nation and particularly about the common market and some of the other big issues like Ulster and so on, God spoke to us in the end in a number of ways, and one of them ways was this psalm. [00:07:00] And God showed to us that the issue of human history is the city. [00:07:12] There are so few christians who really understand what God is aiming at. [00:07:21] Sometimes we think that our salvation is the thing, as if God engineered the fall and everything else simply to express his redeeming love. [00:07:37] But, you know, great as our salvation is, tremendous as our salvation is, it is only a means to an end. [00:07:49] It is not the end. It is the means to the end. [00:07:55] And God has a tremendous purpose. And that purpose is summed up in this little praise, the city of God. You know, we looked at this psalm and we saw that all around was turmoil. All around was earthquake, all around was change, all around was conflict. On every side there was shaking. And right in the midst of it, the psalmist finds himself, and he's not cowed or fearful by it all. He says, right here, not there will be a river, but there is a river. Right in the midst of the earthquake, right in the midst of the conflict, right in the midst of the shaking, there is a river. But it's much more than that. The very reason for the shaking, the very reason for the turmoil, is that God himself might finally complete this great building program of his. [00:08:59] We, you will remember I pointed you to Hebrews twelve, and those wonderful words about, I will not only shake the earth, but the heavens also, that everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that what cannot be may remain. [00:09:16] And then he goes on about the kingdom that we have received which cannot be shaken. [00:09:23] Now, this was a quotation from Haggai, and in haggai we find the original quotation was simply, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the dry land and the seas, I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. So all the shaking, all the turmoil, God stands behind it. It's not just simply even that. He says, now the devil can do it. [00:09:58] He says, I will shake, so that it is a very word, a word from the very throne of God, which is set in motion. All the things that are shaking, everything that can be shaken, we christians sometimes can get quite tense, I think I mentioned to you last week about some people who come to me and say that they cannot read the book of Revelation. They cannot read parts of Daniel. It terrifies them. It depresses them. I remember one believer saying to me, I always get depressed. Whatever is wrong. [00:10:33] If a believer gets depressed through something written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to encourage us. [00:10:44] Now, we know that many of us are somewhat weird, and the very things that are meant to somehow help us are the very things that we take in such a way as to depress us. [00:10:57] Many of us are like that. [00:11:01] But, you know, the word of God was written, and these things were outlined, if you like, revealed to us, not that we might be fearful or despondent or depressed, but that our heads might be lifted up because our redemption dwarf nigh, that we might be strengthened, we might understand that God is behind all this, and that in the end, it's the thing that matters that's getting done. [00:11:33] And the things that don't matter are getting shaken to pieces. [00:11:39] Now, there are very, very few christians who could put into a sentence or two what really the purpose of God is. [00:11:51] They would be quite unable to say what the issue of human history is, quite unable to say what the issue behind all God's dealings with mankind is. [00:12:04] But we've got it in this psalm, the psalmist soil. [00:12:09] He puts his finger unfailingly upon the issue of time. [00:12:16] The city of God. Here it is. [00:12:22] There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. [00:12:35] And, you know, last week we went back over the whole Bible, and I think, I trust, that we saw that really, the whole of human history is explained in two cities, the human and the divine. [00:12:54] We go right back to Genesis, chapter eleven, and we find there a city and men aspiring to something quite noble in many ways, somehow aspiring to bridge the gulf between earth and heaven and to build a tower that would reach heaven somehow to make some kind of communication with heaven, some means of reaching heaven. But that city had not got the foundations. [00:13:26] God shook it and shattered it. [00:13:30] It was called Babel. [00:13:33] And of course, we know it in its greek form, Babylon. [00:13:39] The rest of the Bible we find Babylon mentioned again and again, not only the name of a physical city, but later on, as we come to the book of Revelation, we find that it is taken as a symbol of the human city. Whether it's Rome or Washington or Moscow or Peking or New Delhi or Karachi or wherever it is, it is Babylon. [00:14:07] Man's glory, man's resources, man's genius, the flowering of man's mind. [00:14:18] Everything that man is, is found in that city, all his noblest aspirations. And as I've pointed out to you, it is not just base and evil and wicked and malicious in every single part. [00:14:33] The problem with that city is it hasn't got foundations. [00:14:38] From heaven's point of view, the thing cannot last. It cannot go through because it has not got the foundations. It's built on sand. [00:14:49] But we make a great mistake if we think that that city is only full of malice and evil. [00:14:57] There is much that's noble, much that's good culture, art, literature, oh, so much in it. But it hasn't got the foundations. And therefore they start out, in one sense, with great ideals and tremendous aspirations, and end up by contradicting those very things. Think of just this one word, freedom. [00:15:25] Oh, how this word has been on the lips of man from the very beginning, probably from the moment he left the garden. The words freedom were on his lips one way or another. [00:15:37] But even those very words are frozen into something that can only be called bondage. Again and again and again, systems, philosophies, ideologies, which set out to Freeman. But in the end, the very thing that binds them, fetters them, even Christianity as a thing has done that when he became something fleshly, something of man, something that was just man's ideas, man's resources, instead of freeing man, it fettered them. [00:16:15] He bound them in darkness. [00:16:19] That is the story of the human city, with all its aspirations and all its ideals, its own worst enemy. But in the very next chapter in Genesis twelve, we read of a man called Abram, a citizen of no mean city or of the Chaldees. And we find, according to Stephen, that the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham whilst he was in ur of the Chaldees, and said to him, get thee out of ur of the Chaldees into a land which I will show you. And when we come to Hebrews chapter eleven, we find that it wasnt just for a physical piece of land called Israel, it wasnt just for a physical city called Jerusalem that he went out, although his life was very much bound up with that plot of land geographically. But it says he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and architect is God. So we discover that right back in the very beginning of human history. We find that God is both the builder and architect of a city which has got the foundations. We find that Abraham went out looking for that city, Isaac and Jacob. [00:17:41] We find that Joseph, Moses, all of them have been caught up into this, reaching out for this city, seeking for it by the grace of God. No longer inhabitants, citizens of the human city, but pilgrims and sojourners, citizens of another city born from above. [00:18:07] Jerusalem, the mother of us all, that is, all of us who are born of God. [00:18:15] Well, there's such a lot that we could say. We'd go again. [00:18:22] We'd just go over it all again and talk and talk. Someone came up to me afterwards and said, oh, I'm so sorry. [00:18:30] Do you really mean to tell me that Beethoven and Mozart and Schubert and so on. I could add a few Brahms and one or two others are going to all go up in smoke. [00:18:49] Well, yes, in one sense, yes. [00:18:54] And then, you see, some christians get the weird idea that God, God has no party or truck with that kind of thing at all. He hates it. This is far, far from the truth. [00:19:07] God has made us in his own image, and even fallen man has been able to create things of tremendous beauty. You wait. People sometimes say that they think they might be bored in heaven. Rubbish. [00:19:24] The genius of God in his people will create new compositions of such grandeur, of such scope, that you and I cannot imagine in our present state. [00:19:36] You don't think that God is going to write all the music for us and compose all the words for us? When we get to heaven, we shall be so in love with him, so taken up with him, that the very genius planted in us will be drawn out, but without sin, so that we shall be able to compose things and express things in another language. And there will be those who will compose it in music and as much else. [00:20:05] God made us in his image. [00:20:08] He gave us this capacity, this creative capacity. [00:20:13] Heaven is not someplace where we just sit around, draped around the walls all day, sort of with a rather languid look of it, yes, but only you smile. But this is what most people think. [00:20:25] They think they're going to be in a city paved with gold, and they'll go out sort of shop window gazing, looking into things, and sort of an m back for a concert in the evening. A kind of divine Handel's messiah. [00:20:42] I don't mean this is nonsense. [00:20:45] God had a plan in man. [00:20:48] God had a design in man, and that design has never been achieved. [00:20:54] Sin has ruined that design that God had in man. All we know is that man was created in the image of God, and that he was created spirit, soul and body. And we are told that by the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ through the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is not just our spirits that are justified, but our souls that are saved and our bodies redeemed. [00:21:26] It's a full salvation, spirit, soul and body. What are some people going to do when they get to heaven with their souls? They've suppressed them so much down here that when they finally get to heaven, they won't know what to do. [00:21:40] And I'm not joking, we have a soul that is the creative part of us. [00:21:47] We have what we call personality, that the trouble is when it's not under the government of the spirit of God, when it's not the means by which God, the Lord Jesus, can express himself. Oh, the bondage that comes into christian circles through misunderstanding of the constitution of man. [00:22:10] But you know, we are going to be saved, holy. [00:22:14] And the apostle Paul, writing to the church at Thessalonica, said, and may the Lord Jesus Christ sanctify you. Or was it the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ sanctify you holy spirit, soul and body. [00:22:38] So we have to know the work of God in every part of our being, in our spirits, in our souls and in our bodies. [00:22:52] Sometimes some christians have got the idea that we are going to be sort of spirits in the ages to come. [00:23:02] But that is quite unbiblical, quite unbiblical. The Lord Jesus Christ had a resurrection body and just to prove that he wasnt a spirit, and this is what some christians believe, he ate food to prove it says that he was not just a spirit. [00:23:25] And this gives us a clue to the kind of redemption which is ours. God's design in man has never been realised. And do you know that the Bible doesn't even tell us what is going to happen in the ages to come. [00:23:38] It only gives us this glorious picture of a city which is called the wife of the lamb. [00:23:45] And when that marriage supper has come and the bride and the lamb are finally married, they go out together and the last picture we get is of the glory of God filling this city. [00:24:03] No need of a temple God and the lamb of the temple thereof. [00:24:13] There's a union with God so glorious and so deep and so profound found that you can hardly tell where God ends, if I may put it almost blasphemously, and where man begins. [00:24:28] They've been fused together into a unity. Now, we don't know exactly what is going to happen in the future, but what we do know, surely is this, that God's original design in man is going to be fulfilled. [00:24:42] And the thing for which we were created, these brains of ours. You see, people say, well, isn't heaven going to especially unsaved people, they say, heaven's going to be so boring. Of course, if God could make us all dull morns, we could sit around all day and be happy. [00:25:02] But we've got brains, which we shall still have. [00:25:06] We've got intelligence, which we shall still have. We've got our redeemed personality, which we will still have. That's the glory of our salvation. And therefore you can understand that somehow or other all that's going to be drawn out by the spirit of God. [00:25:24] What is a city? [00:25:28] Is it not interesting that God did not say, as he could so well have done, that given us the final picture of a garden? [00:25:38] Instead, the garden has given way to the city. [00:25:42] And a city is a very busy place, full of activity, full of interchange. [00:25:53] It is an administrative centre of something. That's why there's so much in the book of revelation about the throne of God and our being found finally in the throne with the Lord Jesus Christ, its only another aspect of this city. [00:26:17] But you know, having said all that, when we come to the book of revelation, we find that the other city is destroyed and Jerusalem comes down from above. [00:26:28] But theres so much of us, so much of Babylon in us all. [00:26:35] There is so much of Babylon in us that we're all, we cannot really rejoice at the destruction of Babylon. [00:26:43] There's still much of us that somehow belongs in some way to it, this compromise. There are links with it instead of it just being the Lord and the Lord leading and the Lord governing and the Lord expressing them on links with that old now you know, dear child of God, why does God shake all these nations? Why, as the psalmist says, are the earth changing, mountains shaken into the heart of the seas, waters thereof roaring and being troubled, mountains trembling with the swelling thereof? What is God trying to do? Is he trying to save people? Yes, maybe he's trying to save people. He's trying to wake people up to the fact that the life that they live has no value, no meaning. But I don't think that is the prime purpose. [00:27:41] I think God is trying to shake us who do believe. [00:27:45] Oh, but you say now that surely not. Oh yes. [00:27:51] There's no unsaved person in that city. [00:27:55] The only people in that city are believers. They are the material out of which the city is produced. In one sense, the living stones with which it is built quarried out of Christ. [00:28:10] But don't you see that it is the material which the Holy Spirit is producing in our lives and producing in our life together that is providing the material, as it were, for that city? [00:28:26] Perhaps that was not too well put, but you understand, let me put it another way. Can't you see that we're not just going to be in that city willy nilly? [00:28:40] There's got to be material in us. What material? [00:28:45] Gold? [00:28:48] Precious stone? [00:28:50] Pearl instead of wood, hay and stubble. Now one corinthians, chapter three tells us, if you look at it, that it is possible even for ministers of the gospel to Minister Wood, hay and stubble. [00:29:08] How much more then if those called with this glorious calling can minister Wood hey. And strap? How much more those of us who are just dear children of God, members of the body only wood, hay and stubble. There's no wood in that city, there's no hay in that city, and there's no stubble in that city. [00:29:32] In the old days, stubble and hay were mixed with earth and many, many homes were made out of it, as they still are in many parts of the earth, wood, hay and stubble. [00:29:55] A flood comes, and what goes clean through it? [00:30:02] Gold. Precious stone, pearl. What is gold if it is not the gold of his nature? And what is the precious stone if it is not the precious stone of his nature of life? And what is the pearl if it's not the pearl of his life and nature? It's all there, but it's got to come into us. The Lord Jesus said in the third chapter of revelation, I counsel thee to buy of me gold, refined in the fire, that thou mightst become rich. [00:30:33] It would be, for some of us, almost a tragedy if the Lord Jesus came tonight. [00:30:47] There is so little in our lives of the material from which the city is being built. [00:30:56] Thats why God says, I will shake, I will shake. [00:31:03] I will shake so that my dear people, those ones I've loved so greatly redeemed at such a price, might be shaken away from all that can be shaken and may be riveted to what is unshakeable. And you know, is it not true that it is only the bereavements and the sorrows and the tribulations and the problems of life that bring us face to face with the realities? [00:31:29] How few christians there are who, when everything is going beautifully and easily, just swim into things? Oh, so few of us. [00:31:40] It's these trying times, troubling times that bring us face to face with things. And then we begin to realize we have not got the foundations. [00:31:51] We're not really where we ought to be. [00:31:55] So the psalmist says, there is a river, the streams of which make land the city of God. [00:32:04] I want then, very simply now, just to dwell for a few moments on the outcome of that river. What really is the outcome of that river? Now, if you look at psalm 46, we have some remarkable things in this little psalm. [00:32:29] The first thing that happens. Are you all getting too warm? [00:32:36] Would it be possible just to open one door for a few moments? And if there's a draught in the back there, perhaps one of you will nod at him or nod at me. [00:32:49] One of the first things this river does. [00:32:54] What? [00:32:56] What does it do? What is the first thing it does make? Where it flows. Yes, that's right. [00:33:05] But what's the first thing it does to us? [00:33:08] It makes us glad. [00:33:11] Now let me put it another way. It turns believers into worshippers. [00:33:18] Now, whenever the river of God's love comes to us, the first thing it does, it makes us a worshiper. I met a man a little while ago and he said to me, I've been a Christian for some years. I'd never known what it is to worship the Lord till the Holy Spirit came upon me. And then I became a worshiper. [00:33:38] I know so many christians who don't even know how to worship the Lord. They feel out in the cold when it comes to worshiping the Lord. Some, of course, think that worshiping the Lord is making a lot of noise. All they think, if you're going to worship, at least in some people's ideas, you've got to make a lot of noise. No, no, no. [00:33:59] What does it mean to be a worshipper. When the mountain in your life is being shaken into the heart of the seas you are worshipping? [00:34:08] Not much noise. Perhaps only the noise from the mountain being shaken into the heart of the seas. That's the noise, then. But you have become a worshipper. [00:34:18] The river has touched you. [00:34:21] You've got. Your treasure is in heaven. [00:34:25] Your treasure is in heaven. [00:34:29] People used to say to me, I don't know what would happen to you if you ever lost anything. [00:34:36] Because I always had a great interest in things. [00:34:40] And then when I came back a year ago, I found Berkeley. [00:34:46] Berkeley. [00:34:49] Things that had been in the family for years just gone. And people said to me, they'll come back. I knew they wouldn't. [00:34:57] I knew that they. The crux of the matter was, could I worship? [00:35:04] And some people say, I'll worship because the Lord's on the throne. He'll bring it all back. [00:35:09] But, no, I knew they wouldn't. [00:35:12] So I said farewell and worshipped. Yes. You know that honestly. That's absolutely true. [00:35:19] God gave, I give him the glory. Why? Because the world was a. If I hadn't got that river of life. If that river of life wasn't touching me, then I couldn't have worshipped the Lord. [00:35:32] Isn't that true? Aren't there many of you that could stand up and say, I've got the same experience. I haven't been burgled like that. Maybe you're not so avaricious as me. But you've got other things in your home. There's something in your relationship with some dear one or something else. And the bomb has come. [00:35:51] And like job, you could bow down and say, the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. [00:36:00] He worshipped the Lord. It says, the river has got to you. [00:36:06] You can't do it without that river. Why, you may have all the theology in the world up here. You may have all kinds of doctrine in here. [00:36:16] But unless the river's got to you, you're not a worshipper. [00:36:21] Sometimes people say, I don't know. I feel funny when I hear everyone thanking the law because I don't seem to be able to. Has the river come to you? [00:36:31] There is a river, you know, that's flowing from the altar. It's flowing from the throne, from Calvary and Pentecost in Ezekiel 47. One from the altar. Revelation 22. One from the throne. Calvary and Pentecost, the lord of hosts. [00:36:51] Pentecost, the God of Jacob. Calvary, the lord of hosts, is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Now, the wonderful thing is just simply this, that that river is flowing for everyone. It's not that it can flow or might flow or will flow. If you ask it, it is flowing. All you've got to do is to get into it. Some are paddling, some are up to their knees, some are up to their thighs, and some have launched out and are swimming. [00:37:30] Worship. [00:37:32] It turns us into worship. It's the first thing this river does in the midst of the shaking, in the midst of the conflict, in the midst of the wars, in the midst of all this catastrophe. [00:37:47] Worship. [00:37:53] Are you a worshipper? [00:37:56] The key note in heaven is worship. [00:38:00] Not doing. [00:38:01] Worship. [00:38:03] The key note. And then all the doing comes out of worship. [00:38:09] And you'll find that that is one of the simplest and yet most profound truths of the whole gospel. [00:38:17] That when you learn to worship, then the doing somehow has about it a glory. [00:38:25] Worship. So they became worshippers. Worshippers in spirit and truth. That's what the river does to us. [00:38:33] It makes us glad. And don't you always feel glad when you worship the Lord? [00:38:38] Some people wait to feel glad before they worship the Lord. Their idea is, if I'm not glad, it would be hypocritical of me to worship the Lord. And so it is. If you're going to say, lord, I'm an absolutely wonderful person. I feel absolutely on top just now. I'm absolutely full of things. Then, of course, it would be quite hypocritical. Hypocritical of you. But if when you are down and when all you can hear is the roaring of the sea and the mountain trembling, as it were, almost under you, and you say, o Lord, you are on high, you are mighty. Your throne is forever, is that hypocritical? [00:39:15] You are speaking truth. [00:39:18] That's not hypocritical. That's a lie from the devil. [00:39:21] Many people can't open their mouths and praise the Lord because they feel that unless they feel like dancing all over the place, they can't work. Worship the Lord well. The devil will jolly well see to it that you never do feel like dancing. And you'll be here for 20 years if the Lord tarries and all the way through, you'll feel the same. [00:39:39] And if you have a marvelous experience which God may give you that will make you dance with joy, the devil will see to it that within a few days you've got so many problems, you're right back. [00:39:50] Because that's what he does. He knows that if the basis of our worship is what we feel, he knows he can stop it. [00:40:00] But worship isn't. That. [00:40:03] Worship, as we find from the scripture, is the declaration and the expression of what we see in our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:40:12] It's not subjective, it's objective. I see him and I say with the eye of faith, I see you are above all. [00:40:21] You are above all. Now, when that happens, what can the devil do? [00:40:28] You have come on to another level. [00:40:31] Don't ever let the devil get you down on things like this and say to you, you can't worship the Lord this morning, why don't you lift your heart up and your voice up and say, o beloved Lord, things may be going rather against me today, but you are just the same. [00:40:51] Because I broke half the china, or because the baby's got a cold, or because my husband's sort of a bit grattan, or because my wife overdid the egg, or the boss has got a thick cloud upon his head and every single thing is wrong. [00:41:14] You are changed, Lord. You are not the same. [00:41:18] Somehow or other, heaven has caved in overnight. [00:41:23] The foundations of your throne are shaking because of the egg. [00:41:30] Oh, it's so ridiculous. But that's just where we all stay. It's just those little things that we get us absolute and rob us of all praise. We think God has changed. We wouldn't, of course, when now we think about it, we say, of course he has it. [00:41:43] He is exactly the same. You may have a cloud round you, but beyond the cloud, he is exactly the same. And when you say, lord, I can't see you just now. The clouds are all round, but you're just the same. Right above it, the cloud starts lifting. [00:41:58] You become glad. The river makes you glad. [00:42:05] Another thing this river does not only makes us worshipers, that's the first thing it makes us. It causes us, as it were, to possess our possession. [00:42:15] You know, we've got to get in. [00:42:18] If you're just on the bank looking at the river saying, isn't it lovely? Isn't it? You'll never possess your possessions. You've got to get into the river. [00:42:29] Better to be a paddler than nothing at all. [00:42:35] Of course, the most marvelous thing of all is to be a swimmer. [00:42:41] But I mean, better to be a paddler in God's river than nothing at all. [00:42:47] At least you've got in. [00:42:50] When you're in, you're in. [00:42:55] Oh, if only God could just show us a little more of what it means to possess our possession. We are made glad when we possess our possessions. What kind of christian life have we got? What kind of city are we moving toward if we haven't got the equipment or the material or the power or the life which can create the material for that city? [00:43:21] We've got wonderful ideals and wonderful hopes, but we're just like the human city, full of aspirations and ideals. [00:43:29] It's only when we are possessing our possessions that we are moving forward. [00:43:38] Have you possessed your possessions? [00:43:41] You may have possessed some. Have you possessed more going on? Well, that's another thing we've got that. I think again in verse four, there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. O that we might possess our inheritance. [00:43:56] Take what is ours, what we need for that city of God. [00:44:02] Then again, in verses four and five, we read of God being at home. [00:44:11] Why? Our older version puts it, God is in the midst of her. A little earlier, it says, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. When we just take that word down, all it means is this, his habitation, his dwelling place, if you like. God is in the midst of her. [00:44:33] Ezekiel, when he tells us about this tremendous river flowing out of the throne, ends up in the last chapter with that tremendous vision of the whole thing and says, and you know what the name of that city should be called? Jehovah Shama. [00:44:48] The Lord is there. [00:44:53] There's nothing more wonderful than that. [00:44:58] The folks in India, when God moved so mightily, some, what is it? 20 years ago in Madras, they called the name of it Jehovah Shaman. [00:45:13] The Lord is there. [00:45:15] Oh, there's nothing more wonderful than when the Lord is there. God is at home. It's not that he's visiting. It's not that he's using. [00:45:25] It's not that. It's just. He's just speaking a kind of comfort center. No, he's at home. [00:45:33] He's come home. When I go round the world, I'm sure it must be shared by so many others. But when I go around the world, around Europe particularly, the thing that so makes me unhappy, and I'm sure as many others, is where is God's home? [00:45:50] Where is God's home? There's this meeting and that meeting and this mission and that mission and this assembly and that assembly. And wherever you go you find the same thing. You get that feeling that whilst the truth is there, the soundness, there's no feeling. God is at home. [00:46:11] How can I explain it? [00:46:14] Once you've touched the church, you're never the same again. [00:46:19] Never. [00:46:22] Once you really touch the church you're spoilt for life. [00:46:27] In one sense we could almost say for eternity. [00:46:31] You're absolutely spoiled. Why is that? Brother knee once said many years ago, once a person has touched the city of God expressed on earth, they can never stop seeking. [00:46:48] Now why is that? I tell you why I believe it. I at least offer this possible explanation. [00:46:57] We have touched the heart of the matter and even though our brains don't understand and sometimes are quite befuddled, our spirit does. [00:47:09] And our spirit says this is it. [00:47:15] Not in the sense of it being an it in one way, but you know what I mean. This is home. [00:47:22] Home. [00:47:24] I've come home. [00:47:27] Why should I feel at home? I feel at home because God is at home. [00:47:33] When you've really been born from above, when the spirit of God has come into you, who's come from above, then your home is God's home. [00:47:45] You can never really be satisfied with anything, anything else. The loveliest home on earth cannot be home. [00:47:57] But when we really touched home, we know it now the thing this river comes to is the home of God. It is in one sense it's making glad that home, but in another sense it is true to say it's producing that home. [00:48:15] How can a river produce a home? Well you see in Genesis two we follow the course of that physical river. [00:48:23] In the garden of Eden we find gold, precious stone and bedelium. A thing rather like the pearl. As I explained last week, when it's broken by the aromatic herald, you see the materials out of which this city are produced are in the resurrection life and power of Jesus Christ, made available to us by the Holy spirit. That is the river. [00:48:53] That is the river. [00:48:57] God is at home. Is God at home in you? [00:49:01] Do you know many christians suffer from a kind of spiritual schizophrenia. [00:49:10] The reason is their new birth means God should be at home. [00:49:18] But they are not prepared to let God be at home. [00:49:26] They are going to be the boss. They are going to decide this and that and that they are going to have their way. And it's the world and the things of the world that have priority. [00:49:41] Such folks, by nature have got to be miserable. [00:49:48] You know, you can ask for this, for that and the other, all kinds of things, but by nature you've got to be miserable if that's the case. [00:49:57] Because God should really be at home in your life and you cannot be satisfied until you allow him to be at home and to make you with others his home. [00:50:10] Well, there you are. God is at home. In one sense, you know, the whole of history is explained by this because from the very beginning, God does not dwell in this beautiful creation that he created. And God does not dwell in houses of brick and stone temples or churches, so called, or this kind of house. God doesn't dwell in this kind of thing. [00:50:33] God dwells in us. [00:50:38] That's what he wants. He wants us. So you've got it again. And then another thing I want you to note is this. It means another consequence is that we become unmovable and unshakable. What is going to happen to the majority of us? When I think of what happened in China, when I think of what happened in just one assembly that we know a little about in China. [00:51:08] When you remember that. When. When brother Ni was finally accused in public at that great show trial in the sports stadium near my great uncle's home, just behind it, when he was tried, over 40 women alone came forward to say, church members, those who'd been associated in the work for years, to say that he'd committed adultery one after another of the believers in the assembly there from the beginning, witness and testified against him. [00:51:56] Oh, in the old days, when it was all power and glory and a mighty river flowing by, everything seemed so wonderful. But when the pressure came and the shattering came and the power of darkness came just like in the time of our Lord at Gethsemane where there were no foundations, it showed up. Now, someone said to me a little while ago about a certain situation in which someone was saying something about another believer. It just shows you what would happen if communism ever got here, if we can say such things about one another. [00:52:43] Oh, it's sobering. [00:52:45] Sobering. [00:52:48] God help us all. [00:52:50] What we need are roots, and roots can't come overnight. [00:52:57] Why does it say again and again, watch and pray? Why does it tell us about those foolish, five foolish virgins? [00:53:08] Some people think that they hadn't got any oil in their lamps. It does not say that. It says they turn around and said, our lamps are going out. [00:53:16] Give us oil. They've got oil. And they were alight. [00:53:19] They were going out. That puts that parable onto an altogether different level, much more solemn. It was the surplus, if you like, putting it in another way. The roots, when the crisis came, they had no surplus. [00:53:40] Youve got to have a history, you know? [00:53:45] Dont think that you can play about with God and the things of God and the people of God and go on and go on and go on. And then suddenly one day youre going to see in the heavens the sign of the coming of the son of man. [00:53:58] And then all of a sudden, you're going to absolutely turn over, reform, do everything well, by the grace of God. Thank God for those who can. But you can't make up for what you've lost in years. [00:54:12] You can't do it. [00:54:14] You can't in one week, two weeks, even a month, even a year, make up what you should have been doing for year in and year out. [00:54:23] We can't do it. What does this river do? It makes us immovable, unshakable. In other words, when the Holy Spirit really starts to bring us in to the power and resurrection life of Jesus Christ, he gives us the roots we need. He grounds us. He makes us immovable. Even the most, the most shaky of us becomes rock like. [00:54:50] We all smile at Peter, we think, poor old Peter. He was so impulsive, so impetuous. But, you know, tradition tells us that Peter was finally crucified. [00:55:05] And tradition tells us, maybe it's true. I don't know where else the story would have gone up that Peter requested only one thing, that he be crucified upside down. He was not worthy, he said, to be crucified in the same position as his master. And if tradition is right, he was crucified upside down. [00:55:28] Where the shakiness of the old Peter. Where the running away of the old Peter. Where the denying of the Lord that he might save his life with oaths and curses. Is it all gone? Why had it all gone? Because of Pentecost, that's why. [00:55:47] Something had happened to the man. [00:55:51] Now, it doesn't all happen in the moment, believe you me. We are told from our encouragement, two things in the word about dear Peter. One is that a little while after he's been so tremendously used by the Lord, he dissimulated the greater partial. [00:56:13] All this business about eating. Now the Jews had and still have a tremendous fear of anything that's non kosher. [00:56:23] And they didn't mind the gentiles being saved. That was bad enough, but still they were able to accept that. [00:56:29] But how to sit down at the same table and eat when they were eating? Pork and shrimps and crab and lobster and all those things. It was just too much for them. Rather like we can't bear the thought of eating horse. [00:56:48] We sort of. Oh, dirty. [00:56:51] Just like some people can eat rabbit, but they couldn't eat a dog. Oh, but it's a delicacy in south China. [00:57:01] However, I will not go any further than that. The fact of the matter is that we have these things which can divide us when it comes to fellowship. And Peter collapsed in a heap at this point and wouldn't go forward anymore. And Paul stood up and publicly rebuked him, gave him such a dressing down. [00:57:23] Now, that shows that it doesn't all happen in a moment. [00:57:26] Peter was still a bit shaky. Oh, the Peter who stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached that tremendous message. The Peter who'd gone before the Sanhedrin and said, we cannot obey you in this matter even if you take our lives. The Peter who'd gone into prison and James was. Was beheaded and he was brought out by an angel. This Peter was still a little bit shaky. [00:57:50] I don't know whether some would think I'm wrong to say this, but when he wrote a letter much later in his life, he says at the end of it, about our beloved brother Paul, who has written things, he says, hard to be understood. [00:58:08] Maybe there was some still a little bit of shake. But when it came to the end, he was unshakeable, absolutely unshar. Isn't that an encouragement? [00:58:24] Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it. [00:58:29] He can do this. It's the river of God that does it. [00:58:33] Peter knew a river that was bigger than his own nature. Peter knew a river which was bigger than the weaknesses of his own temperament and personality. He got hold of something which was the secret. [00:58:46] It turned him into someone in the end who was immovable and unshakable. God can do the same for you. [00:58:53] God can do the same for you. Can do the same for me. [00:58:57] Immovable, unshakable. And then again. [00:59:01] And, oh, how we need to be that. And then again, there's something else here. There is testimony. Have you got a testimony? Not do you. Have you got a testimony? Something that has 20 years ago, but have you got a testimony tonight? [00:59:15] A real testimony? You know, sometimes some people are frightened to death of us because we always tell them what happened to us years ago. [00:59:25] But the people who always win folks for the savior are people who speak out of present experience. [00:59:33] It's also natural. It's also normal. They're walking with the and here is a wonderful testimony in this, verses four and five. Dont you think made glad. Isnt that a testimony when youre made glad? [00:59:47] Not that you are all the time glad, but youre made glad by this river youve got a testimony. Oh, such a problem came to you today. But you worshiped the Lord, you possessed your possession, and you became glad. [01:00:02] You endured of seeing him who is invisible. Youve got to take testimony. [01:00:07] No point you going into the office and saying, I've been delivered from everything. [01:00:12] No bereavement, nothing at all. I'm absolutely on top. And there's someone who's just lost their child, or someone who's just had a terrible problem or difficulty, Emma. [01:00:28] But when they see that you go through some of the same things and and you come through with something else, then you've got a testimony. [01:00:38] Then the bush burns with fire and is not consumed. There's a testimony here. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. Not she's just obstinate, but God is in the midst of her, and therefore she will not be moved. That's a testimony. [01:00:58] Oh, to have a testimony like that. God is in the midst of her. [01:01:03] Have you got a testimony. The city of God is really the testimony of Jesus. [01:01:11] Not just a testimony, but the testimony of Jesus. [01:01:17] That is, the city, the lampstand. [01:01:21] And then again, will you also notice finally, that there is vindication and final triumph. [01:01:29] How beautifully it's put in the Hebrew. God will help her at the turning of the dawn. [01:01:37] At the turning of the dawn. Our old versions. And that right early now, of course, we all tend to think of that as poetic, but when it said it in the old days, it meant that. And that right early at the very turn of the dawn, the first streaks of light. [01:02:01] Sometimes there's a night to be endured, but God always comes to us in the dawn. [01:02:10] Even if there's a night to be endured, a night through which we've just got to go. [01:02:18] God will never leave us, and he will never forsake us. [01:02:25] God will help her at the turning of the dawn. [01:02:32] Or, as it's put more simply and more meaningfully, at the dawn of the morning or breaking of the day, the breaking of the final triumph. [01:02:48] Final triumph. Oh, there's something very wonderful in the end when the Lord meets us like that, haven't then there's something that nothing on earth and nothing in hell can take away. We've gone through something, and God has met us. Thank God for that vindication and final tribe through the word of the Lord. Be still and know that I am God. Listen to that. The nations rage. Kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth melted. Final vindication. [01:03:25] Isn't it wonderful to realize that when the end comes, it's not going to be a terrific, long, drawn out battle? But one word. [01:03:34] It says that when the Lord Jesus rides forth to Armageddon, written on his thigh is written, king of kings, lord. And he's called the word of God. [01:03:46] King of kings, lord of lords, the word of God. [01:03:52] It says in two thessalonians, chapter two, that he will slay the Antichrist with the breath of his mouth. [01:04:05] A word. [01:04:07] A word and it's done. [01:04:11] A word and it's done. Well, what is the issue? The issue is the city. [01:04:20] Britain's going into the common market. [01:04:23] As far as we can see, many other things are going to happen. [01:04:28] All around us, we see change all around us, we see shaking in every single sphere. What is the issue behind it? [01:04:39] The issue is the city of God. [01:04:44] Now, isn't that a wonderful thing, if by the spirit of God, our eyes have been opened just to see that? [01:04:51] And an even more wonderful thing, if the Holy Spirit has somehow brought us to see that the thing that must have priority is the Lord himself and his work, what he's doing. [01:05:07] Can you imagine at the end that you'll be sorry? [01:05:15] I met an old lady in Norway just recently who travelled from an island on a difficult journey. She's dying of cancer and came to see us and talk with us. [01:05:33] And there's one thing I cannot forget. The Lord had told her that this was the end, it was going. [01:05:40] And just as she was leaving after prayer, she said to me, I have met in my life, she's 90. I've met in my life many, many people who have been so disappointed with life, full of regret. [01:06:01] But she said, I had never met a person who regretted letting the Lord Jesus Christ have his way. [01:06:11] Now, that's very, very simple. But, you know, I sat down and thought, and I thought, good gracious me, I don't think I have. I don't think in all the thousands of christians I've ever met, I've ever found a single Christian who said to me, do you know, I regret the day I let the Lord Jesus into my life, or I regret the day that I obtained and gave over to him. I regret the day when that issue was settled in my life and I let him have his way. I've never met anyone. Quite the opposite, I think, of people who come to me getting at that point, it seemed to me absolutely impossible to give the Lord his way. It seemed to me that everything worth living for was finished. But I gave him. And I can't tell you how glad I am. [01:07:02] Oh, I've met so many people like that. Their lives have been completely changed. Many of them, the whole course of their life has been radically changed. What about you? [01:07:15] Have you got any regret? [01:07:17] Isn't it only the enemy who whispers in our ear and says, if you let the river of God get to you, you're going to suffer. [01:07:26] Everything you want, you'll not have. [01:07:32] Well, I'm not going to say that everything you want, because I don't know what you want, but everything you want, you'll have. [01:07:40] There are some things you may want which are absolutely your own, for your would absolutely destroy you. [01:07:47] But I can tell you this, that if you will only let the Lord have his way in your life, if I will only let the Lord have his way in my life, we'll never regret it. [01:07:58] Ever. [01:08:00] Never. Shall we pray? [01:08:08] Beloved Lord, we commit ourselves to thee, o Father, that thy holy spirit would reach us, every one of us. [01:08:19] That river flows right through this womb tonight. [01:08:24] Thy word says there is a river, o father, that we might know it in our experience. [01:08:32] We pray for those, Lord, who are just so held back. Wilt thou, Lord, free them and grant? We pray, Lord, that even tonight, issues may be settled in many of our lives. To thy glory. Issues, Lord, settled, that we'll never regret. [01:08:52] O beloved law, we thank thee then for thy word. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, dear Lord, make wield this thy word to every one of our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.