The Lampstand all of Gold

[00:00:00] Just three passages I would like to read. The first is from Exodus, the Book of Exodus, chapter 37. [00:00:13] Book of Exodus, chapter 37, verse 17. [00:00:23] And he made the candlestick of pure gold, of beaten work, made he the candlestick. Even its base and its shaft, its cups, its knots and its flowers were a one piece with it. [00:00:43] And then in verse 22, their knots and their branches were of one piece with it. The whole of it was one beaten work of pure gold. [00:00:57] And he made the lamps thereof seven. And the snuffers thereof, and the snuff dishes thereof, of pure gold, of a talent of pure gold, made he it, and all the vessels thereof. [00:01:14] And then in Leviticus, chapter 24, Leviticus 24, one. [00:01:31] And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, come on, the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil, beaten for the light to cause a lamp to burn continually without the veil of the testimony. In the tent of meeting, shall aaron keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord continually? It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. He shall keep in order the lamps upon the pure candlestick before the Lord continually. [00:02:04] And then in revelation, chapter one, revelation, chapter one, verse twelve. [00:02:19] Revelation 112. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the candlesticks, one like unto a son of Mandev, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle. [00:02:44] You will remember that when you came into the tabernacle, if you were to pass through the outer court, were only two pieces of furniture in the outer court. The first you would find immediately as you came in the door, it was the altar of brass. [00:03:12] And the second thing you would find between the altar and the tent of meeting was a laver of brass filled with water when you had passed those two. And if you were able to enter into the tent of meeting through the door, you would come into an area, a room completely covered on every side with those four colors, scarlet, blue and purple and white. [00:03:48] And you would find only three pieces of furniture in there. Directly in front of you, before the veil, you would see a golden altar for incense. [00:04:02] On your right, you would see a golden table with twelve loaves of bread. [00:04:09] And on your left, you would see a golden lampstand or candlestick with seven lamps. [00:04:21] And I want to point out to you this morning and the most interesting thing, that the first two pieces of furniture deal with what we could call the elementary and primary matters of the christian life, or of the gospel. I'm afraid to say that very few of us really beyond those two things. [00:04:58] But you know, when we have said everything and we have investigated thoroughly everything, it is nevertheless absolutely true to say that the brazen altar and the laver of brass are dealing with primary things. [00:05:18] They are dealing with just simply elementary things in God's purpose. [00:05:26] You see, they are, after all, only brass. [00:05:30] It belongs, after all, only to the outer court. [00:05:34] And both of them are dealing with what we are. The altar, the boson altar, is dealing with our sinful nature. It's dealing with us, our sins and our sin. It is dealing with what we are, ourselves, essentially. There an entire end is made of us in God's thought, in his purpose. There should be no old man, there should be no old creation. As far as God is concerned, the cross which stands at the brazen altar, which is the brazen altar as a symbol of it, has completely put us away out of God's sight. It has ended us. Not only has it blotted out our sins as a thick cloud, but God through the Lord Jesus Christ has got to the root of the matter. And that is ourselves, our self life, what we are naturally that's been dealt with at that altar. And when we come to the labor, and I know some think of it as standing, symbolizing what we call sanctification, being set apart, being separate. But I believe myself that it symbolizes something more far reaching than even sanctification. I believe it symbolizes regeneration. [00:06:58] And regeneration is sanctification. Sanctification is regeneration. There's no such thing as a sinful born again believer. Do you understand what I mean? I'm not saying that we haven't got sin, but I'm saying that what is born of God cannot sin. What is of Christ in us is not sinful. What is produced of Christ within that divine nature has no taint of sin about it at all. [00:07:24] Born of him, begotten of him. It's his nature, his character, his life, absolutely set apart. That's what's set apart. Everything is set apart. All that is of Christ. The word of God is meant to divide between soul and spirit. It is meant to put on one side what must go to the altar, and is meant to put on the other side what has come through the labour. What is of Christ is shown up to be of Christ, and what is of ourselves is shown up to be of ourselves. That's what the word of God does to us. We heard this morning to the children something about the word of God. What it does it's true. The more we look into the word of God, the more obedient we are to the word of God. The more it devastates us, the more it simply points out what is not of the Lord. And we like to think it is of the Lord, tells us that that's a farce, that's a facade, that's a counterfeit, that's a substitute. That's not spirituality. That must go to the altar. [00:08:26] It's got to be dealt with, and it will point out to us that's of Christ, that's come by way of new birth. That's the Holy Spirit within. [00:08:38] That's the Lord Jesus reproducing himself in an original and individual way in you. [00:08:47] But you know, all those things are elementary. I think it's one of the greatest and most tragic facts that nearly all our deep teachings in the world today is centred upon those two things. When God wants us to see those as elementary and to pass from the outer court into the tent of meeting right within God's dwelling place. And when we come within, we see something altogether different. For when we come in, there's no more brass. It's all gold. [00:09:19] And we find three, a threefold function in the tent of meeting. The tent of meeting, of course, is a symbol of the church. It's a symbol of the body of the Lord Jesus. Wherever we look, it's Christ. Wherever we look, it is his people. We can't differentiate between Christ and his people. They have been fused together. It is Christ ministering in his people. It is Christ and his people. Absolutely one. And we find that the church, the body of the Lord Jesus, has a threefold function. On the one side, it is meant to impart food. [00:09:55] There is there food. [00:09:58] And there's such a lot we could say about that golden table that presents bread, that show bread. Bread which is the revealing of the presence of God. That's what God wants. [00:10:12] He doesn't want any ministry of knowledge. He doesn't want any pure and mere ministry of doctrine. God wants a ministry that gives Christ a ministry that imparts Christ. A ministry in which Christ is there. He is present with it. Food, food, present, spread something that reveals the presence of the Lord. [00:10:41] That's one great ministry of the church, or should be. When we be dealt with at the altar, when something altogether knew, and we've understood it to be absolutely new, we stand into it all the time and go back to it again and again, to be washed in it, to draw more life from that resurrection of the Lord Jesus by the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead. As we continue to go back to that supply of new life, so we are meant to function as the body. We are meant to be built together. We are meant to become the sanctuary of God in the spirit. And one of our great functions is to provide food for people who are hungry. Food all the time. We should be food. Our very presence in this world should be food, spiritual food. And when you've got God's people and no provision, then it is a contradiction in terms of their very being. [00:11:49] Our presence should be the presence of God. O market. Our presence should be the presence of God. [00:11:57] Where we are, the Lord should be. [00:12:01] That is the whole point of the church. [00:12:05] A Lord, although he does do it in abnormal conditions, moves where his members are not. His thought is that it should be his members where his members go, their Christ goes. Where his members visit, their Christ visits. [00:12:22] That's the point. [00:12:24] You look straight ahead and you see the most essential and most important function of the church, which is a ministry. What shall we say? Not just a ministry of food. No, this is altogether different. A ministry of food is outward. This ministry that you see before the veil, before the mercy seat is a ministry that is inward and upward. It is centered wholly on the Lord. [00:12:53] The lampstand and the table for showbread are to do with others. But the altar of incense is really essentially to do with the Lord. It is a sweet smelling savour. To do with that altar are two things essentially connected. The anointing oil and also the incense. [00:13:16] Well, you know what it is? It's a ministry. What is it a ministry of? I find it very difficult. Most people say it's a ministry of intercession, but I find I cannot rest with that. I believe that that altar of incense is not just a ministry of intercession, if we mean by intercession, just mere prayer. I believe that the altar, that golden altar, speaks of something which is a continual sacrifice of ourselves, of what is of Christ in us. One thing goes to the altar. That's our old selves. It's got to be bound to the altar. It's got to know something of an altar life. But theres another kind of life within thats got to know an altar life as well. Thats the life of Jesus. Thats the life that must continually also go into death. That is another kind of life which has got to know what it is to be offered up, to be offered up continually. [00:14:12] Thats the golden altar. Something crushed, something ground, something broken, something burnt. But this time. It's not an old nature being broken. It is something all Christ being offered up to him in service. [00:14:31] But you look on the other side and you find a lampstand. And that lampstand is very interesting, for I suppose of all the furniture in the tent of meeting, the lampstand is the one that has been taken up most in script. [00:14:48] And right through the Bible we find the lampstand. [00:14:52] This lampstand was pure gold. It was of beaten work. It is of one piece. It had pure beaten oil flowing in it. [00:15:03] What was it? It was to give light. It was never to go out. [00:15:09] It was to give light. [00:15:12] And it speaks of a ministry, again, not a food, nor a ministry of service to the Lord in intercession and sacrifice, suffering, travail. [00:15:28] That's the golden altar. But this speaks of a ministry, really, of light. That's all. Light different to food, light. [00:15:43] Let your light so shine light. [00:15:50] And I want you to mark that this is one of the most important things of all. For it's taken up in scripture right the way through. And we find it to be the testimony of Jesus. The testimony of Jesus. What is it? What is it? [00:16:05] What is the testimony of Jesus? [00:16:08] The testimony of Jesus is simply another kind of life. [00:16:15] That's all. [00:16:19] A presence. [00:16:22] The presence of God. [00:16:25] The testimony of Jesus is simply this, that wherever. Wherever that comes, something happens, something is exposed, something is discovered, something is revealed, an impact is made immediately. You think of the Lord Jesus into whatever situation. The Lord Jesus, when he turned it upside down, he hardly had to say a word, even if he said nothing. Things within people came out. [00:16:53] Obsessed people, other things. They recognized something. He turned the world upside down. What was it? He didn't have to preach. He didn't just have to do things. It was himself, just himself. [00:17:07] He was the light of the world. And wherever the light came, it suddenly revealed things to people. It revealed dark, sinister, satanic things. It revealed bondage. [00:17:22] It revealed, oh, misery and evil and sin and unhappiness. [00:17:29] And it also revealed an altogether different thing. It revealed something of God. It revealed what God was like, revealed who God was, what God wanted. The Lord Jesus was in himself, the very thing God wanted. [00:17:47] He was the testimony inscripted. The testimony. Jesus, that golden lampstand. [00:17:57] Well, you know, if anyone were to say to me today, and I think you all know from revelation, chapter one, that this testimony of Jesus is now vested in the church, the people of the true people of God on the earth. There it is. John took symbolically seven churches and he showed that in the midst of these seven companies of God's people, in these seven different localities, there was the golden lampstand, there was the candlestick in the midst, and everything depended upon the golden lampstand. For they're told that they are to be there. They're not allowed to lead, they're not allowed to get away from it. They're to stay. Whilst the golden lampstand is there, whilst the candlestick is in the midst, they're to stay. [00:18:42] The Lord Jesus spoke to one or two of them of removing the lampstand. That meant that the thing would go on. But the testimony of Jesus is to go. [00:18:52] It was the testimony of Jesus. So if the testimony of Jesus was himself personally went on earth, and then, and now vested in the church of God on this earth, what do you think is the most important thing in the world today? [00:19:12] I know I might risk being misunderstood, but, you know, I would say it is not just evangelism. Oh, no. You can have all the evangelism in the world, and it can, and it might not have the impact. [00:19:25] Why, you can take a handful of people in the New Testament and turn the roman empire upside down from beginning to end today, you can have tremendous amount of money, a tremendous amount of activity and energy, and very little real results. [00:19:43] Now, what is it? [00:19:46] I say it's not evangelism. It's not just missionary endeavor, tremendous and necessary and vital as that is, I don't believe that's the most important thing. I tell you what it is. The most important thing, in my estimation, in the world today, is to see the testimony of Jesus back in his people. [00:20:05] If you could get the testimony of Jesus back into the midst of God's people in this earth, this world would be turned upside down. [00:20:15] You would begin to find men and women bound in sin, absolutely and utterly miserable. They would, by the Holy Spirit, begin to find their way to the light. [00:20:24] They couldn't help themselves. [00:20:27] They don't feel at present the church has any answer. They feel the answer that they hear is so superficial, so facile, so easy. [00:20:39] But, you know, I do believe that if the testimony of Jesus was there, if he was lifted up, and that's exactly what it means, if he was lifted up, he would draw all men to himself. [00:20:50] And then you would find that the missionary endeavor and the evangelism and so much other activity would have within it most tremendous and dynamic revolutionary force inside of it, which I'm afraid it's lacking here and everywhere. [00:21:08] It's the testimony of Jesus that is the key to it. [00:21:13] Well, I think that is perhaps the most tremendous and most important thing that any of us could see today. [00:21:26] That if we could find first, what is the testimony of Jesus? And secondly, what are the conditions to which alone the testimony of jesus can be given, to which it can return? [00:21:43] I think, oh, what a difference. You know, may I say this? [00:21:48] When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, he said in one place to his disciples, he said, you know, when I go to be with my father, you shall do greater works than these. Think, think. [00:22:05] You shall do greater works than these. [00:22:10] There is only one phase in church history in which those greater works have been done, and that was in the first 30 to 60 years. [00:22:20] That's all. [00:22:22] And yet the Lord Jesus said, you shall do greater. He talked of himself as being straitened, being restricted, being limited to one human body, and how he longed for his baptism of fire, that he might, as it were, give himself to every part of the earth through his body. [00:22:45] Oh, what a tremendous thing it all really is. When you look at, you know, if all it simply means is this, that when the Lord Jesus was here, you think of the impact he had. You think of the answer that he was in himself. You think of the way in which men and women were absolutely broken by his presence and brought right out into the light and to the knowledge of God. [00:23:11] That's what the church. You surely don't think that church should be a nice, cozy little place where people just have a cup of tea and talk to each other, or there for the facility of each other so they can just do a few odd jobs for each other. If all of you don't think the church is, that, you don't want the churches. This world is full of sin. This world is full of misery. This world is full of darkness and ignorance. Oh, some of us, we've got nice homes. Some of us have got nice surroundings. We've got so much to be thankful. But we don't know what's happened in the world. We don't know the people that are sobbing their hearts out to try and find an answer to life. And what do they look? They look at us, and all they see is nice, respectable people. That's all. It stops there. Religious people. [00:24:02] And when they see that, they turn away and say, oh, they haven't got an answer. They don't know anything about my condition. They are nice people, that's all. [00:24:12] But if they saw the testimony of Jesus, something within them would somehow or other be drawn irresistibly toward the light. [00:24:22] They would say, this is the answer. This is it. This is the key to which. For which I've been looking for. I found it how they found it. Had they found it in some mysterious, ethereal way, looking up into the heavens? No. They found it by looking into frail human vessels. [00:24:42] And though they can see that they are human, somehow, something inside of them leaps and says, those people, though they are only like me, they seem to be quite normal and everything else. They've got something inside. I can't tell you what it is, but they've got something inside. [00:24:58] That something is the testimony of Jesus. [00:25:01] The extra, the supernatural, the testimony of Jesus. [00:25:12] I wonder what people think of you in your office, what we are thought of in our homes, because, you know, the world has an uncanny way of judging us rightly. [00:25:31] Are you known just to be religious? [00:25:36] Are you known just to be decent? [00:25:41] Or can you say that there is something you're not conscious of, but others have somehow detected something about you which they can't explain, but which draws them somehow. They've got the feeling that they can only express. You seem to understand. You seem to realize what it is. [00:26:05] Somehow I feel that you've got the answer. I can't put it into words, but somehow I feel you've just got the answer. You know what that is? It's the testimony of Jesus. [00:26:18] I'm afraid that christians have become merely religious. I mean, true, born again christians. We become true, just merely religious in the eyes of the world. We have our series of meetings. We have a lot else, but it's the extra that's the testimony of Jesus. That testimony is the thing that's lost. [00:26:39] Oh, if you look through here, you will find a lot of things that are very interesting about the testimony of Jesus, about that candlestick. I want just to leave you with these things. They won't take a minute. I just mention them to you. You can record them in your mind and go away. You've only got to look at Exodus 37 from 17, those few verses, and Leviticus 24. What do we find about the candlestick? First of all, it's all pure gold. That's all pure gold. What is? [00:27:07] It means that every single part in the testimony of Jesus is the reproduction of his character. [00:27:15] It's the most essential thing of all, his character produce. [00:27:21] And, you know, oh, that does. [00:27:24] That doesn't come easily, but that is. That is the quality that the world looks for. [00:27:33] That's the quality that the world looks for. Not noble, natural character, but the character of Jesus we produce. Golden scripture always stands, as you know, for divine nature. [00:27:46] It is the reproducing of the nature of Jesus in us in a human vessel. I want you also to note that it's all of one piece. This vessel knows something of an interrelatedness, a fusion. It's all one piece beaten out of one piece, not added on, not additions, but all out of one piece of gold, a talent of gold that was beaten out of. [00:28:18] That's the testimony of Jesus. Do you know anything of that? If you try to get all our old men and women together, we're going to have a terrible job. If we think that's the testimony of Jesus, try to get them all together, try to get them to harmonize, try to get them to flow together, try to get them to work together, try to keep united. My, what a business it's going to be. But listen, if you just let go of that and step onto the other side, what is the nature of Christ in us? What is of Christ in everyone? The goal, you will find that goal, is one piece, and it's all being hammered out of one piece, into each one. Oh, no, there's no disunity there. If you stand on that ground, you and I, we are one in Christ. Because Christ is one, you can't part him. And we are just, as it were, the extensions of Christ. He's being reproduced in us. It's one candlestick beaten out of one piece. Absolutely one. That means, you see, that we just can't do anything alone. It means that we just can't just live alone. [00:29:23] Somehow or other, we feel our need of each other, our need to be with each other. We feel our need of belonging. We've got a sense within, somehow or other, we all belong. Oh, of course, we all see each other's old men and women. [00:29:38] We see each other's natural characteristics and constitution and temperament, and there could be a lot of collisions and will be a lot of collisions along that line. If you get two or three people stepping out of what Christ is onto what are, before you know where you are, there's going to be all kinds of troubles. But you get back to what Christ is and it's one beaten piece. One piece. [00:30:04] How we contravene that often, how we've got our own little personal things, our own private things, our own little sort of guarded territories. And, you know, when we have that, we're very miserable. Have you ever noticed that the more private and the more personal we are, the more miserable, in the end, we become? Whenever we're amongst the people of God, we think they're all wrong, because in actual fact, we're all wrong. [00:30:36] The easiest way when you know there's something wrong with yourself is to say that everyone else is wrong but just one being. And, you know, when we've got little guarded territories or things that are private and personal, we're not going to let those be shared. We're not going to have one life in that way. Oh, yes, we don't mind a religious one. Religious life, that's all bind of times, but we don't mind that. But when it comes to all life being shared and everything being shared, that's going a bit too fast. [00:31:11] But, you know, we shall not be happy. [00:31:15] We shall send somehow a veto. Whenever we come into the presence of God and God's people, we shall not be happy. [00:31:24] And then you will see it's a beaten work. Well, I don't think we need to spend any time on that. But how does this unity come? How does this gold come? It's all beaten. Work turned, well, beaten, turned and beaten out. You see what a job that is. Do you know, this unity just doesn't flower easily. It's beaten out and it is beaten out. It's a battle to see it come into being and to see it stay, to see us really going on in that beaten work. Gold beaten. Oh, what a thing that is. The gold doesn't come easily. The Lord Jesus said to the children at Laodicea, I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined in the fire. [00:32:07] The gold of his nature refined in the fire. He wants us to buy it with experience. [00:32:12] Buy it. It won't just come. We've got to get it. We've got to buy it. [00:32:18] And then when you got it, there's a lot of beating work to go on to see that it's all one piece, all out of one piece of. Or you won't find it very easy because you'll find that the Lord says, you'll say to yourself, well, I don't mind so and so and so and so and so and so. I can be one with so and so and so and so, brother so and so and sister so and so. Oh, I think they're lovely. I think they're so helpful. They're so sweet. I can be one with them. [00:32:46] Then suddenly, brother so and so crops up in your mind, and sister so and so crops up in your mind and you think, oh, dear. Well, they can't be at the one piece. They can't be gold. I think they're all flesh, but they're not. There's something there of gold. And you see, you can't be pickers and choosers in this. It's one piece. [00:33:09] You and I, we've got the same right to be there, because it's Christ. [00:33:14] And you and I have got to take that ground, that it's every saint. [00:33:19] And then I want you to notice it's pure oil. Leviticus 24. Pure oil. What is this? It's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. The gold speaks of the character. The Holy Spirit speaks of the ability. The gold speaks of the kind of character that is essential in the testimony of Jesus. The character of Jesus. [00:33:42] The oil speaks of the power to perform, the power to fulfill the ministry, the power to light, to be a light. [00:33:53] Do you see? What's the good of having a golden lampstand, very beautifully polished, all wonderfully worked, all beaten out of one piece and not a bit of oil. [00:34:01] The thing's useless. The Lord doesn't go in for ornaments, I'm afraid, in that way he wants it to give light, light, oil, oil, pure, beaten oil and light, light everywhere, because the Holy Spirit is inside. The testimony of Jesus is linked with the Holy Spirit everywhere. It's linked. Well, we must stop now, but I'd like to take you all through the script and I'd like to Zechariah and show you how Zechariah saw this vision and how he saw two olive trees beside the candlestick and they were pouring out. And the Hebrew says gold, because our translators couldn't quite understand it, they put gold on oil. [00:34:44] They were pouring out gold. [00:34:49] Oh, it's interesting when we really get down to the testimony of Jesus, how it's linked. But you know, there's one little last word I'd like to leave with you. In ecclesiastes ten and verse one, it says that the oil of the perfumer can be ruined by dead flies. [00:35:11] Not a very nice food to wear. None. [00:35:15] But oil in scripture is everywhere symbolic of the Holy Spirit. And it's used for a variety of things, for the healing of the body, for rubbed in after long journeys over the desert, used for light, used in food, and used just to keep the house smelling nicely. A little bottle was sometimes put uncorked at different times, especially when you're having guests. And unfortunately, flies had a way of getting to it. They trip along and slide in and then in the gluey substance of the oil, drowned. And in the east are many flies, and the result? Worlds. If you look in ecclesiastes ten one, it says it caused the perfumed oil to stink you know, I thought in the testimony of Jesus in so many of us, there can be gold, there can be oil. But, you know, it's the flies that often ruin things. [00:36:17] Just the little tiny things that really. [00:36:21] Just a little. It might be your tongue. It might be your. You can't help gossiping. It might be that you backbite. You can't help wrong behind people's backs. It might be that you're irresponsible. It might be impunctuality. It may be a temper. [00:36:41] It may be that you're discriminating in a wrong way. Narrow all the 1001 things that are these little flies that get into the pure oil of the Holy Spirit in our lives and after a while ruin it. [00:37:00] Song of Solomon says thy name is like oil. [00:37:06] Pour. [00:37:07] That's the Lord Jesus. Well, there's just a few thoughts there about the candlestick and about the constituents of the candlestick. That's the most important thing of all, that the testimony of Jesus might be found in his people today and here in Richmond. O may the Lord Jesus give us help, and may he give us wisdom. May he give us understanding. And above all, may he give us obedient hearts so that if there are flies, they might be got rid of. If there's anything else. Oh, that we might seek the Lord. And so that there might be that pure light of the Holy Spirit getting out the ones.