The Unity of the Spirit 1 – Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity

[00:00:00] The 133rd psalm. [00:00:18] Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:00:27] It is like the precious oil upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that came down upon the skirt of his garments like the dew of Hermon that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion. [00:00:48] For there the Lord commanded the blessing even life forevermore. [00:00:57] As we have thought about this evening, we have this evening, we have next Thursday evening and we have a further Thursday evening available to us. And we've wondered. I and some of the other brothers been praying about it and I was directed, I believe, to this 133rd psalm. We shall consider some of the lessons of this remarkable psalm. It is a small psalm, one of the shortest, in fact, in the whole psalter. You can see it consists of three verses. Everyone in this room ought to be able to memorize this little psalm as we look at it in these Thursday evenings. [00:01:47] But if it is a short psalm that bears no relationship whatsoever to its importance, this little sum is of tremendous importance. It expresses essential and vital truth and it is the understanding of what the Holy Spirit is saying in this little psalm that will be of tremendous blessing and value to all of us both in the life of the church here and in the work and service of God. [00:02:34] At a first and superficial reading, as with one or two other remarkable psalms, one feels that it is rather strange. [00:02:49] A person with average intelligence. I imagine reading this psalm must feel that a whole number of verses have somehow or other got lost on the way. I mean, what has Aaron's beard to do with brothers dwelling together in unity? And what on earth has oil running down on somebody's beard going down to the hem of their skirt, of their garment or hem of their garment got to do with brothers dwelling together in unity? One feels a little bit of sympathy with Doctor Moffat who rearranged the scriptures entirely according to his own idea. Some of you who've ever seen Moffat's version well remember how you will read verse one to verse 17, verse three, verse 35, verse four. He rearranged it as he felt was most suitable. [00:03:53] He was not bound by any views about the authority and inspiration of scripture and therefore felt that he could make it more intelligible to what at that time was the modern reader. The classic, of course, is when he came to the little injunction of the apostle Paul to Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach's sake and his oft sickness. He removed it altogether from the text and in the margin said, the apostle Paul could not possibly have said this. [00:04:35] This reveals what happens when we become so subjective in our approach to the word of God. At a superficial reading of this psalm, one must feel that a number of verses have got lost or are to be found somewhere or other in other psalms and need to be recaptured and brought back to their original anchorage. [00:05:10] However, even if we wonder what the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion has to do with brethren dwelling together in unity, or what Aaron's beard and the oil, the precious oil upon his head that ran right down to the border of his garment, what it has to do with it. The fact is this, that as always, the Holy Spirit knows exactly what he is doing and has arranged this psalm precisely as we have it. [00:05:46] Once we begin to understand both the fundamental lesson of the psalm and its illustration and teaching, it becomes not just exciting, but a window into the purpose and heart of God. [00:06:10] Now, with the Lord's help, that's what I want to do, and I want this evening to take the first and fundamental lesson that underlies the whole of this psalm. We have it here in verse one. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:06:40] Will you please note this little phrase? Brethren dwelling together in unity. This word in unity in Hebrew, the word that we get the word one from just means really unitedness or togetherness. [00:07:03] And we have a little word in front of it which intensifies it so that in fact, really, as our version puts it in English, behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:07:19] The together and in unity in Hebrew is one word, but it's an intensive feeling, so it is quite right to translate it in this way in English. [00:07:31] Brethren dwelling in togetherness, brethren dwelling in oneness. That's what this is all about. This is its basic lesson. Now, I want you to notice that the psalm speaks of dwelling together in oneness. [00:07:53] He doesnt speak of something which is a temporary lodging. [00:08:01] It is not a fleeting, transient experience, not some high point in a conference, in some great gathering together of the people of God, where for a few moments, for a few days, we feel the unity of the spirit, some point where everything in the garden goes beautifully, and we just feel that we have been on the mountaintop in an experience of the unity of the spirit. The psalm is not speaking about this. It uses a word which is very interesting. It says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:08:53] That is, something settled, something stable, something fixed, something established. [00:09:08] This dwelling together in Christ means that these brothers have found their home together in Christ. They have found their abode together in Christ. They have found their sort of fixed center together in Christ. [00:09:30] The word is a wonderful word. Again, in Hebrew, it is a word from which we get the word for the jewish settlement, yeshuv, the settlement. [00:09:42] It is just this thought of making one's abode in a place, settling in a place, becoming established in a place, getting rooted in a place. There's nothing transient here, no high point of experience, but something which is routine, something which colors the whole of life. Everything takes its color and its texture from this basic dwelling together. [00:10:21] And then another little thing, before we look a little more at this whole matter. [00:10:26] In the text it says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Now, the sisters don't have to feel cut out here. The thought isn't just brothers, although it is a marvelous thing when men do dwell together in unity, and it is an even more wonderful thing when women dwell together in unity. But the fact remains that this word covers both brothers or sisters. It doesn't matter. The thought is this. This is not a sentimental unity of all God's creatures. [00:11:06] It is brethren, those who have the same parentage, those who have the same birth, those who have the same origin, those who share the same family name, these are those who dwell together in unity. Now, this is very important, because years ago, no one bothered two hoots about the unity of God's people. [00:11:41] Evangelicals were as much to blame as anybody else in this matter. That although we believed in some kind of vague, mystical unity of the body of Christ, no one bothered about removing the barriers or the middle walls of petitions between us. Of course, the Keswick movement began with that great objective in mind. And there were other things, too, that began some over a little over 100 years ago with this great truth in mind. But somehow or other, it didn't quite bring to the final end of breaking down the wall so much that people flow together. We have to say that it has been the Vatican Council, the Second World Vatican Council, and the impact of the World Council of Churches, which has finally made real believers sit up and have to think again about this whole matter of the oneness of Christ. [00:12:46] And now there is a danger that we go the other way and sort of include within the unity those who have no business to be in it. [00:13:00] It is brethren that dwell together in unity, those born of God, those named by heaven with the name of Jesus Christ, those who have the same origin, born in God's heavenly Jerusalem, God's heavenly Zion. [00:13:21] Those are the ones who are to dwell together in unity. [00:13:31] Now that means very simply that if a person, however poor he may be, whatever the color of his skin, however ignorant he is of basic doctrine, if he is really born of God's spirit, he belongs to me and I belong to him. If the Lord Jesus has received him, I cannot project him. [00:14:04] If the Lord Jesus has received him, it is incumbent upon me not only to receive him, but to find that basis upon which we can dwell together in oneness. Now this is not to say that we therefore receive every false doctrine and every error and somehow become partakers in other men's sins. But there must be a way through the propagation, maliciously and deliberately, of error and falsity. And those that in some way or other are just caught up with something because of their background or because so often of a real desire to find reality which somehow or other they do not find in the mainstream institutional denominations. [00:15:04] If I find people who are really born of God, that one is my brother, that one is my sister, they belong to me and I belong to them in Christ, then I want you to notice another thing about this little verse. One behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Someone has said, it certainly is both good and pleasant because it is so. Where to find brothers sisters. Really dwelling together in oneness is surely something that is beyond price. [00:15:56] It is good and pleasant. And it doesn't just mean in a kind of nice way that it's good and pleasant, that somehow or other, when brethren dwell together in unity, the birds twitter and the sunrises and sunsets are the most glorious, and everything is beautiful in the picture. Nothing ever goes wrong. No, no. But what it does mean is this, that when brethren dwell together in unity, the blessing of the Lord is there, the anointing of the Lord is there, the power of the Lord is there, the mind of the Lord is there. It becomes a place of revelation. It becomes a place of expression. It becomes a place of communication. Wherever brethren really dwell together in unity, in what the word of God means by unity, that becomes the means by which the Lord unveils himself not only to them, but through them to a dying world around good and pleasant. [00:17:06] That means it can be good and pleasant. When the whole of hell is aroused to somehow or other destroy that work because of its effect, it is still good and pleasant because the Lord is in the midst. [00:17:23] It was good and pleasant in the days of King Hezekiah when he was surrounded by the assyrian army. And that strange gentleman called the Rabshaker, as Dennis always calls him, the rib shaker stood around the walls and hurled up his insults at those that were within. They were locked up. It was a siege. Nothing could get in. Nothing could get out. They were walled up in the city of Jerusalem. Much of the country was occupied by alien forces, powers of darkness. But it was good and pleasant because the brethren within the city dwelt together in unity. They sought the Lord, and the Lord spoke to them, to the prophet Isaiah, and you will remember the great deliverance that came to them. It was exactly the same with Jehoshaphat when they were surrounded by a whole confederacy of evil and all seemed lost. You will remember the story. And finally, walled up in Jerusalem, they called a fast and sought the Lord. And again God spoke to them through a prophet and said, take your position, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And then you will remember that Jehoshaphat and the other leaders had a little conflab together to decide amongst themselves. How could they express their faith in concrete terms? If the Lord had said, take your position, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord? How could they express their faith? And they did something which many of us have often longed to do. They put the choir in the front of the army as it went out to battle. [00:19:21] I've often thought that would be a way of getting rid of some choirs. But this choir going in front of the army was a very different one. They didn't sing some great jingoistic tune about, the Lord is the Lord of hosts and a man of war, and he will trample the blood of the enemy underfoot and cause it to run all over the place. They sang really what was almost like a Sunday school picnic song. One side sang, the mercy of the Lord endureth forever. And the other side sang back, the mercy of the Lord endurethe just as if the enemy wasnt there. How good and how pleasant it was for brethren to dwell together in unity. Now we make a big mistake if we think the goodness and the pleasantness is because the enemy is not there. [00:20:10] The enemy may be very much there. He may be laying siege to the whole work of God. He may be causing a spiritual blockade. But while those brothers and sisters dwell together in unity, it is good and pleasant because the Lord is in the midst. And when the Lord is in the midst, no matter what the enemy does, it must not only fail but work out the purposes of God. [00:20:42] In other words, the Lord can turn the very devices of the enemy and the very plans and counsel of the enemy to actually fulfill his own purpose. How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:21:05] We have, of course, this in other things, too. [00:21:09] But we must understand that the enemy's tactics have always been the same. [00:21:18] Where the people of God are drifting in some abstract, vague way, in a kind of corporate self delusion that they are doing the work of God and proclaiming the word of God and being effective, the enemy will leave them to it. [00:21:41] Sooner or later they will die on their feet. [00:21:45] He doesnt bother them over much except to give them a prod now and again and make them a little more weary. [00:21:53] But where there are brethren dwelling together in unity, the enemy is ceaselessly at work, because he has in some way or another to undo that effective testimony and service. It spells the end of his plans. It spells the end of his keeping captives in captivity. It spells the end of his desire to frustrate the Lord Jesus in the building work of the church. He has to do it. And therefore, the enemy's tactics have always been centered on this one thing. To divide the people of God, to get us all to be at sixes and sevens. Far from dwelling together in unity, we're dwelling together in faction. [00:22:48] We're all associated together, but not really together. [00:22:53] We meet together, but really it's not spirit meeting spirit or heart meeting heart, but really a kind of just a physical presence. [00:23:06] If the enemy can bring this about, he has effectively destroyed the value of the testimony in that. [00:23:21] Now let us look a little more closely at this whole matter. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. What really happened on the day of Pentecost? [00:23:41] What really happened on the day of Pentecost? Well, some will say they spoke in tongue and others understood. Yes, that is perfectly true. But in one sense, without being misunderstood, I trust that is a detail. [00:23:59] Well, someone else says 3000 were saved. [00:24:04] Yes, that is very true. That was a consequence. [00:24:10] But it is not the real significance of Pentecost. [00:24:18] What is the real significance? Someone else says they were filled with the spirit, baptized and anointed with the Holy Ghost. [00:24:26] That I think is getting much nearer to the significance of the day of Pentecost. But still we are not at the heart of the matter. What happened on the day of Pentecost? What happened was this. 120 units of a congregation became 120 members of a body. [00:24:53] That is the essential significance of Pentecost. [00:25:00] Almost overnight, what man could never achieve by training, by courses, by religiosity, by even learning the scripture, by any other method, the Holy Spirit achieved by coming within and bringing the whole thing within. [00:25:24] Now, these hundred and 20, if you look at acts, chapter one and chapter two, you must notice one or two things. I believe that many, many christians in this country and elsewhere would be very excited if the conditions immediately after the ascension of our Lord and before the day of Pentecost only existed today. 120 born again believers in an upper room. [00:25:51] I think most people would be tremendously excited here. They were absolutely one of one accord, the scripture says, meeting together in one place of one accord, no faction, no disharmony, no rivalries, seemingly no jealousies. 120 born again believers. There wasn't a single unsaved person masquerading as a believer in their midst. Or we would say, there's a pure church. There is a pure church. [00:26:27] Furthermore, they had pure doctrine. They believed in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. They believed in his miraculous ministry. They believed in his atoning death. They believed in his bodily literal resurrection. And they believed in his ascension to glory and his coming back again. [00:26:51] These things, they believed they were pure in doctrine. I think most of us would be so excited if we could find some company of believers meeting together of one accord around an open Bible that they believed. Now, they had only the Old Testament at that point, but they believed it from Genesis to Malachi. And that's more than many, many believers do. Every word they believed to be inspired by God, their doctrine was pure. Their conception of the Lord Jesus was pure. Could you ask for anything more? And they had had the risen Christ himself in their midst, opening the scriptures to them, it says, then opened he their understanding of the scriptures. You couldn't ask for more. If everything called a chapel or a church in this country was like that, many of us would say, revival has come at last. At last it has come. Everything that's called by the name church, born again believers of one accord really praying. Apart from anything else, the fact that they have prayer meetings would be enough for us here. We would say, oh, this is just wonderful. People praying, seeking the Lord in prayer with an open Bible, a risen Christ, sound doctrine. What more could you ask? Yet the Lord Jesus said, tarry in Jerusalem until you be clothed with power from on high. Why was he so afraid of them getting out? [00:28:19] They knew he was risen from the dead. They now had an understanding of the scripture. Their minds had been opened. [00:28:27] They knew he had ascended to the right hand of God the Father. [00:28:32] The point is this. If they had gone out there, they would have reproduced the kind of churches we have today, congregation units, where we sit somehow in a kind of isolation sometimes in some places you can go in. You've known a person for years and yet you don't know them. You see them sitting over there, you know they're a believer, you know God has saved them, yet you don't know them and they don't know you. [00:29:03] There is no sense of belonging. [00:29:10] But when the day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit came upon them and into them something extraordinary happened. Now you must remember that only weeks before, these same apostles were squabbling who was the greatest? [00:29:28] And John and James, who of course were in the same family as the Lord Jesus, thought that it would be a very good idea if they kept the positions of the coming kingdom as a family business. [00:29:45] One of the gospels says, they asked about it and the other gospel says, mother was sent. [00:29:52] I expect it was both. I expect at 1.1 of them opened up the possibility and faltered somehow. And then they got hold of mother, who may well have been behind it from the start, and said, now, mother, you go and do the dirty work. You go and ask him, you're his aunt, was the aunt of our lord, humanly speaking. Go and say to him, what about the positions either side of you in the kingdom? What about John and James? [00:30:27] They were always squabbling. They were rivalries. [00:30:30] Who is the greatest? Who's going to have the biggest position? Who's going to be on your left hand, your right hand and your left hand in your coming kingdom when you reign over the whole? But on the day of Pentecost, a most extraordinary thing happened. No more question about who was first or who was last or who was greatest or who should be used. Peter stood up and it says, and the eleven with him, they all stood up and Peter preached. Now we know that they also all spoke the whole 120. But it is interesting that Peter preached the great message and the others were absolutely behind him, as if they were saying, this is us. These words that are coming out of get them out, Lord, get them out. As if, you know, there was no question of saying him. He denied the Lord three times. [00:31:25] If anyone should have preached the first message ever preached up here, representing all aslot, it should have been john. [00:31:33] He was the one who first recovered and the purest of us all. [00:31:39] But no, not a breath. [00:31:42] Something had happened. Now it was no longer a question of ambition, no longer a question of position, no longer a question of status, no longer a question of my ministry, my work, my job. Now it was a question of something. That was the ministry of Christ, the word of Christ, of God, the service given to us all. It doesn't matter which one the Holy Spirit takes hold of. Providing the Holy Spirit takes hold of someone of us, and we get the job done by his grace. [00:32:14] They've become a body, 120 members. [00:32:19] It is interesting that before the Holy Spirit came, I dont know whether we can put too much on it, but it is an interesting point that before the Holy Spirit came, they threw lots as to who should fill the place of Judas the traitor. [00:32:38] It is an interesting fact that from that day onwards, we have no further record of them ever casting lots again. [00:32:47] Ever after that they prayed and found the mind of the Lord. It wasn't lots that were cast to find who should go out on that great mission to the Gentiles. It was the Holy Spirit who said, separate me, Saul and Barnabas. [00:33:04] In other words, something had happened. The whole thing had gone on to the inside. It was an organic unity produced by the spirit of God. Now, when we look at the Bible, one of the most wonderful things about the letters of Paul is that they were not written to tell us about an experience that they must all get into. It was written describing something which was their experience. It was a definition of something for their help. Do you understand? Oh, what a difference. When we have something held up in front of us that's supposed to be the church or whatever, and we're told, now build this, get into this, do this, then all our troubles begin. But how much more wonderful it is when we find ourselves flowing together in the Spirit, belonging to one another in the Lord, where we feel somehow or other, something organic, and then it has to be defined. This is that. [00:34:03] It is interesting that it is described as the body, the Lord Jesus, something organic. You can never have a living, headless body. [00:34:15] It can only be a living body when joined to a living head. [00:34:20] Now in romans twelve four five, this is how we read the apostle Paul some years later, describing what has come into being. For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office, so we who are many, are one body in Christ and severally members one of another. [00:34:50] One body in Christ. Not just one body of Christ, one body in Christ and severally members one of another. Something has happened that is not just our names on a membership role is not just a matter of being given the right hand of fellowship. Something has happened whereby we have been born into an organic entity. We have been born into something which we can only describe as a belonging to the Lord and a belonging to one another. [00:35:29] How wonderful. I think that is. This is exactly what we read about in one corinthians, chapter twelve and verse twelve. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or gentiles, whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, it is not, therefore not of the body. [00:36:06] And if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body. It is not therefore not of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, each one of them, in the body even as it pleased him? And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now there are many members, but one body. [00:36:36] Now this really is what we have in this wonderful little psalm. How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together. [00:36:46] They have come into something that is eternal, an eternal unity into an eternal reality, into a relationship first and supremely with their lord and savior, and then in him with one another. [00:37:06] No wonder the apostle Paul says in ephesians four and verse two and three, give diligence to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. [00:37:23] What really is this oneness of Christ? What is the church? Very simply, it is oneness with Christ. [00:37:34] That is, to put it in profound simplicity. [00:37:41] You can forget all the orders and all the positions and all the titles, elders, deacons, and all the serried ranks, gifts and equipment and everything else, and come right down to the core, the heart of the matter. What is the church union with Christ, and then out of that union in Christ with one another. [00:38:09] Do you get it? [00:38:11] You see, there are not as many christs as there are christians. That's to put it very crudely, but we get this idea because so often in evangelistic services we're offered a personal Christ. Therefore, our concepts govern our behavior. We begin to get a concept from the day we're born that somehow or other we have a personal Christ. I have a tailor made Christ. I have my own Christ, you know, and although, of course, once we think it through, we realize it's rubbish. There's only one Christ. There may be millions of believers. There's only one Christ. And every single one of those believers is in that one Christ, whether he's black or yellow, red or white, it doesn't matter whether he's jewish or gentile. It doesn't matter if he is in Christ. [00:39:04] He belongs not only to Christ, but to all the others that are there. Union with Christ. There's only one Christ. [00:39:13] And if we are all in the one Christ, the one Christ is in all of us. [00:39:18] There is not a Baptist Christ, or a Lutheran Christ, or a Methodist Christ, or a brethren Christ, one exclusive Christ, or whatever else, there's only one Christ. [00:39:29] We may have labeled him or tried to trap him into our persuasion, but in actual fact there's only one Christ. [00:39:38] And we are in the one Christ, and the one Christ is in us. [00:39:45] Now when we begin to see it like that, it makes a tremendous difference to our whole concept. You begin to understand what is this amazing union that we've come into. I have been made one with the Lord Jesus and Ron has been made one with the Lord Jesus, and Bob has been made one with the Lord Jesus, and Henry's been made one with the Lord Jesus. Now if I am one with the Lord Jesus and they are one with the Lord Jesus, what has happened to us? [00:40:13] We must have come into a relationship with one another. The Bible says he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. So I'm joined to the Lord. His spirit, my spirit are fused into one, and his spirit and Bob's been fused into one. What has happened to us? [00:40:30] It is the unity of the spirit. [00:40:35] You begin to see it. [00:40:38] You see the abuse that we fall into. If we begin to label that or make it smaller than it is. What a terrible thing we do. Thank God to the history of the church. God has been recovering one thing after another over these years. And I believe the final thing, though it will never be uniform and never systematized, although if you do that, you have a hierarchy. [00:41:04] Reproduce the old mistake all over again. But in the end, if only in a remnant all over the world, this oneness will be expressed. [00:41:14] Names and sects and parties fall. [00:41:18] Thou, o Christ, art all in all. That's the end. Being brought to a full grown man at the end of the age, to the point where the final expression of God's purpose is to be realized. Now I say that this has a dynamic impact upon the society around. Whenever you get the church, as the Bible calls the church, when you really get the church, when you get people in union with Christ and in union with one another, dwelling together in oneness, you have a dynamic impact upon the society of God. Why? Because first and foremost, the supreme impact is upon the principalities and powers, the world rulers of darkness, the hosts of wicked spirits that lie behind the flesh and blood. [00:42:22] We can preach till we're blue in the face and find that in the end, nothing happens. We can work our fingers to the bone in organizing meetings, activity and this and activity and that, and all this, and still nothing happens. But when you get brethren dwelling together in unity, in risen with their. [00:42:44] In union with their risen head, then there is always a dynamic impact upon society. See what happened in Jerusalem? The whole place was turned upside down. See how the whole anger of the enemy was aroused against them. And finally, they were expelled by persecution. And what happens wherever they go? The same thing happens throughout Judea and Samaria. [00:43:10] Before very long, apostles have to go down to see what on earth is happening in Samaria. And then they get some deacons appointed to look after the cash side of things because of the widows. There's a little bit of feeling in the church because for some reason or another, the hebrew speaking widows and needy are being more favored than the greek speaking widows. And so the church prays and seeks the Lord. And very interestingly enough, they appoint seven men, all greek speaking. There was a lovely thing about the hebrew speaking folks that they all appointed seven people who were, in fact, the other side and said, okay, okay, okay, you have seven the other side, and we'll see how it goes this time. Whether you discriminate against us, no one did. But it's very interesting that some of those people, within a matter of, well, a year or two, had become outstanding evangelists and teachers. Stephen became one of the great teachers of the church. So much for trying to relegate deacons only to some kind of menial duty. [00:44:19] Before very long, Philip had become an evangelist. So remarkable. I wish we had a few around like that. My goodness. Caught up leaving great big meetings and vast collections to go off to one man. [00:44:34] He only was treasurer. The queen can be seen of Ethiopia. But, I mean, he didn't know that when the Lord caught him up and sent him out to join that chariot baptizing one man. I was is. He had a few evangelists like that. What an impact upon society around him. It doesn't matter where this thing goes, whether it's Ephesus, whether in the end it's Rome. It turns everything upside down. Now, dear friends, what was it that turned everything upside down? Did they have a very efficient fundraising program? Did they have, in fact, many other things that were well organized? Did they have great theological seminaries, great Bible colleges. Is it not that these things are necessarily wrong? But was this the secret of their impact? No. Was the secret of their impact that they had tremendous committees, committee after committee, committee, controlling committee and more committees. I mean, as always in anything successful. No. [00:45:33] What then, was the secret of their dynamic impact? Oh, was it numbers? But it is an interesting thing that in some places they were very few in number. Still, they turned the whole place upside down. So what was it? I suggest that it was this matter of brethren dwelling together in unity. [00:45:59] It was the presence of the organic body of Christ. [00:46:07] What a wonderful thing the Lord Jesus said. Said to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, somewhere, probably somewhere in the Golan Heights or just over on the other side, when he met him on midday and the sun was eclipsed by the radiant glory of the Risen Messiah. [00:46:31] Isn't it interesting that that risen Messiah said to. When Saul said, sir, who are you? [00:46:40] And the risen Messiah said to him, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting now, the apostle, to be the apostle Paul, then Saul, the unconverted Saul could so easily have said, but I'm not persecuting you. You're dead and gone. [00:47:08] I'm persecuting these cranks who are followers of yours, but I'm not persecuting you. But you see, the seed thought in the revelation of the risen Christ had been planted. What you do to born again people, you do to Christ. [00:47:32] He and his are one. [00:47:37] So glorious was that union from the day of Pentecost that Jesus could say, so. [00:47:43] So why persecutest thou? Me? [00:47:52] When Saul went away into the arabian desert for those three years, I've often thought it must have been this initial revelation that finally began to dawn upon him in ever greater clarity. The Lord and his own are one. How do we explain it? This union, this entity, this reality, this being joined to him? How do we explain it? Maybe, as I've sometimes said to you, it's fanciful and speculation. But maybe talking with Doctor Luke. Perhaps it was Luke who said to him at one occasion, no, I think it's rather like the human body, head and body. You know, it can only be alive if it's all joined together. [00:48:42] And the body is a. An organic thing, one. [00:48:48] I don't know how it came, but this I do know that the apostle Paul was the first to really begin to use this term, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in everyone. [00:49:04] Oh, dear children of God, if we could only see this, wouldn't it transform our whole concept of the gospel, wouldn't it give us a kind of a glimpse of the objective of God? [00:49:20] Instead of relegating this whole matter of belonging to one another, of being built together as living stones into some kind of fanciful, mythological fairy tale world, we would begin to see this as something that is real, it is concrete. We need to be built together. We need in some way to find our relationship to one another. And above everything else, we need to guard that relationship with our Lord and with one another. [00:49:56] Let me just say something, two more points I want to make, one that has a number of subsections. [00:50:07] What is the expression of this unity? Something about the expression of this oneness. First of all, it is spiritual. [00:50:17] In Ephesians chapter four, verse two and three, the apostle Paul says, by the spirit of God, give diligence to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. You cannot keep something you haven't. [00:50:32] He did not say, my dear friends, now give all your strength to producing unity. [00:50:42] Fight for it. [00:50:45] Somehow or other, you've got to create this. This is the ideal, my dear ones, this is the ideal to which we are driving now. Let everybody fiber of your muscles spiritually be strained to attain it. No, he did not say that. He said, give diligence to keep the unity of the spirit. It is something you're born into spiritually. It is something you're introduced to by new birth. You have been brought there when you were converted. Now don't let erroneous ideas or conceptions destroy that unity or devalue that unity or belittle that unity. Maintain it in the bond of peace. [00:51:37] It is a spiritual unity, is it not? Interesting, and I am not closing the meeting, that in two corinthians, a second Corinthian letter, chapter 13, verse 14, the apostle closes with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, or communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. [00:52:02] In other words, this is, again, what we're talking. It's the unity of the spirit. [00:52:08] Only the Holy Spirit can create a sense of belonging. [00:52:13] People have their membership roles, and they have their church order and their church discipline and all the rest of it. That you know you don't, doesn't make you feel you belong. [00:52:27] It is a spiritual thing, this sense of belonging. You may feel sometimes you're overlooked, or somehow or other you're not treated as you ought to be treated, but at least you feel like a member of a family. [00:52:43] You belong. [00:52:46] It is an inner thing. Our Lord Jesus prayed for this in John 17 when he said in those very well known words, verse 21 23, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that thou didst send me. There's the impact and the glory which thou hast given me. I have given unto them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them, thou in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that thou descend me and lovest them even as thou lovest me. Now, you have two things there. First, our Lord prays that we may be one even as the father is in him, and he is in the Father, that we may be in them. [00:53:42] That's remarkable. Then he prays that they may be perfected into one. In other words, you had the basic thing, and then you had the growing up, you've got the foundation, and then you have the being fitly framed together, growing together into a holy temple in the Lord. [00:54:03] That's where we have all our problems, isn't it? But isn't it an amazing thing that this unity the Lord Jesus described as the mystical, infinite oneness between the Father and the Son? Now, I don't care what anyone says. In my estimation, you can never trap that truth in a creed. [00:54:27] Much as I respect the Nicene Creed and the apostles Creed, you can never really finally trap into human words the mysterious eternal unity between the father and the Son. It is beyond us. How can a finite human being ever understand quite that it is beyond yet the Son pray that we may be in them as the father was in him and he was in the Father. In other words, this unity into which you and I have been introduced, this is a partaking of divine life. This is being brought into a relationship with God in Christ so remarkable that we find ourselves in a divine unity not to take away from the person of the Father or the person of the Son or the person of the Holy Spirit. But all the glory of this gospel, as the russian liturgy says, jesus Christ became man so that man might become part of God. [00:55:51] How wonderful it is and how we've devalued the gospel into making it just a matter of a decision or something about singing hymns and going to meetings and reading a Bible and saying prayers, all things, all those things which are necessary. But that is not the be all and end all of the gospel. The gospel is that you and I, by the grace of God, have been saved, born of the spirit and brought into a union with Christ and with one another. It is a spiritual union. You can't organize this unity. You cannot somehow or other put it together. It's got to be a recognition on our part of the essential nature of our unity. Now when we begin to recognize by the, with the eyes of our hearts the essential nature of this unity, we begin to flow together. [00:56:57] Can't do it otherwise. It's a spiritual man. Then another word about this, about this unity, it has great variety. [00:57:07] It's not a drab, dull uniformity. Oh, what we people have done to one another in this matter. We have to toe the party line. We have to all look like one another. We have to dress like one another. Either we've all got to dress in dark colors, or somehow we've got to look somehow alike, think alike, speak alike, into like everything's alike. It has become such a habit that you can almost tell what particular group a person belongs to by the way they pray. [00:57:39] I knew a pastor who used to tell me, could tell any pastor from another denomination by the way they shook hands. [00:57:47] I will not go into the details, but he swore that he could detect without ever being told. [00:57:55] I don't know. [00:57:58] What I do know is it has always been the habit of man to reduce everybody to a uniformity. This is man's idea. So often of unity. We produce great political systems, great ideologies, that somehow rather trap men and women within them. We've got to make them look alike, act alike, think alike, live alike. Everything has got to be the same. This is not so with this unity, this unity has tremendous variety. [00:58:32] I think of the words in one corinthians and chapter twelve and verse four to six where we are told that there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit and diversities of ministrations, and the same lord and diversities of workings, but the same God who worketh all things in all. And of course, from verse 14 onwards, for the body is not one member, but many. Now, when we look through it all, we find that there's a marvelous difference here. And one of the lovely things about seeing our oneness, seeing that our oneness is Christ, is we can all relax. [00:59:14] You see, when we see that our oneness is a matter of sort, of particular details of doctrine, where we may all have to toe a party line or all look alike or act alike or behave alike or speak alike. But when we see that our essential unity is that the same Lord is ours, the same savior is ours, we're in the same Christ, and he is in us, we can relax and be ourselves. [00:59:41] If you're a volatile person, you could remain volatile. If you feel like clapping your hands, as some of you did a little earlier, well, okay, you can do so. But we don't sort of look at somebody else and say, why doesn't he clap his hands? I must pray for his release, you know, or someone raises their hands and we think, oh, God, do something in so and so. If they're such exhibitionists, may they be delivered from having to raise their hand. But if someone wants to raise their hand, why shouldn't they raise their hands? [01:00:18] You see, we in this country have always felt that the british temperament, basically phlegmatic and placid and solid, is the temperament of heaven. It is the divine temperament. And that when the Lord gets hold of his latin or oriental subjects, he will iron them out in time until they take on the british temperament. [01:00:43] When you go to a spanish meeting and you have hardly bowed your head before someone jumps up behind you and says, hallelujah, and pours out their heart, their soul, in a torrent to the Lord, oh, how lovely. The Lord must say, I love my latin people. [01:01:06] I mean, if they were all british, think how dull it would be. I love them. They're so solid, they're so unflappable. [01:01:17] But, oh, I'm glad I've got some. My latin people, I saw a lovely thing in the garden tomb a while ago. I know some of you might possibly misunderstand me, maybe as well, not to quote me on this, but I thought it was one of the loveliest things I've seen in years. A group came in at 09:00 in the morning to the garden tomb, half of them from the West Indies, big black mammies, and they sang their hearts out. The other half were very sort of respectable, as far as I could make out. Folks from somewhere down south in the states. [01:01:54] Not that I'm saying the black mammies were any disrespectable, but they sang their hearts out. [01:02:02] And then the brother David, Allah was giving a word about their garden. And there was one dear old lady. She couldn't contain herself. I suppose it was her only visit to Jerusalem and her only visit to the garden tomb. [01:02:19] And suddenly she threw her notebook up into the air with a woohoo. Like this. It went right up. Then she took her hand back and woof. It went up in the air. And she must have had some heav on glass in it, because it came down with a crash on the ground. And then this lady of about 60 did two somersaults and ended with her legs waving in the air. And the whole group went. [01:02:54] She recovered, sat down, and every time David said, jesus, she just waved her hand and smiled from ear to ear with tears running down her face. I thought the Lord must have said, oh, how lovely. [01:03:08] Now, if the British did that, I'm sure the Lord would be shocked. [01:03:13] They would say, goodness, what are they doing? [01:03:19] So unnatural. [01:03:23] But when you see there was something so beautiful about it. She'd met the lawn, and in some way, she just couldn't contain herself, and she had to express her feeling. [01:03:35] Now, of course, in our more ordered meetings, we don't like any kind of disturbance. But nevertheless, in this oneness of Christ, there's great variety. There are people who are volatile. There are people who are placid. There are people who are cautious. There are people who are always in the front of everything, pushing, straining at the least to get on and get things done. Our whole job is to stay together, dwelling together. In unity, we balance one another without destroying one another. The person who's volatile does not become vulgar and crude, but somehow or other becomes the enlivening of a whole company of people. [01:04:14] And those that are placid and cautious, they don't just become that awful, heavy, dark hand upon everything, but they become the means of stopping things going overboard into excess and extremism. When we stay together, the tragedy is when the volatile all go off in a corner and the placid all remain over here. And then there's no longer brethren dwelling together in unity. And there's no impact, because however much we like it, the world will never feel at home until everyone is present, until somehow or other, there are all the different temperaments, different ways of looking at things, different backgrounds, present in at least in a way, can't have everything present. Obviously, you can be yourself when you know that your unity is not how you look or what you say, but the fact that you're born of God and you're in Christ and he is in you. [01:05:17] Oh, then you can have your Matthews and Marks and Lukes and Johns all expressing Christ, but a different aspect. Put them together. You have the fullness of Christ. Departmentalize them. You have only one quarter of Christ. [01:05:34] How much poorer would we be if we had only Matthew and no John? How much poorer would we be if we had a mark and a Matthew and no Luke? [01:05:46] It's when you have each one in expressing his experience and knowledge of Christ, that you have the full Christ. When I was first there, I could never understand that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I remember going to a divine in the church of which I was, and saying, having never read the Bible till I was twelve years of age, I remember saying to him, I can't understand this Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all telling the same story four times. And he looked at me a bit queerly and I was only 1213. So he said, well, sit down, I'll try to explain it to you. And then he said, you see, Matthew is Christ as king, mark is Christ's servant, Luke is Christ as man, and John is Christ as God. And he said, of course, you see, Matthew with his kind of background was very suited to revealing Christ as king. And Mark, well, he was really. It was the voice of Peter and the hand of Mark. Peter was a fisherman and so he was greatly suited to speak of Christ as servant of the Lord. And Luke was a doctor. Who better to speak of Christ as man? And John was the one who was nearest to him and saw most deeply. He revealed him as God. But I couldn't understand it then. And in my crass and sort of arrogant way I said to him, well, if I'd been God, I wouldn't have done that. I would have taken John. You say he's the most spiritual and written a fourfold gospel through John. [01:07:15] Christ as king, Christ as servant, Christ as man, Christ as God, by John the apostle. [01:07:22] And he looked at me very sadly and said, well, one day, if you have the fear of the Lord, you may understand. [01:07:30] And it was left like that for quite a few years. And then after years understand, I understood something. I suddenly realized this thing isn't automatic, it's not just mechanical. You have to have a Matthew and he can reveal, because of his background, his temperament, his upbringing, everything. When he finds the Lord, he reveals the Lord in a certain way. And you have to have a mark because of his whole background and upbringing and temperament. He reveals Christ in another way and John another way and Luke another way. It's wonderful. [01:08:00] Split it up and you have only a little of Christ. Christians say, I have everything. I have the whole of Christ. No Christian can have the whole of Christ. Of course we have the whole of Christ, but I can't contain the whole of Christ. I can only contain a little part of Christ. But when the little part of Christ that's in me is put next to the little bit of Christ that's in Ron, we have a fuller Christ. And when we add dug in, we've got an even fuller Christ. And when we add Bobbin, we have an even fuller Christ. And we begin to have a much fuller Christ because, you see, each one of us has only a certain capacity. [01:08:37] I can't reveal all. I can only reveal a little. That's why, dear ones, it's not only a matter of it comes down sometimes to interpretation of great truth. You probably, most of you know that by persuasion, theologically I'm a Calvinist. But there are rather here who are certainly not. [01:08:59] Well, I don't go behind the scenes saying, oh, Lord, the damage so and so is doing. [01:09:06] Deliver us from this fearful arminian teaching. No, I understand, as Doctor FB Meyer once said, that one page of the Bible is arminian and the next one is calvinist. [01:09:22] I mean, really, it is opposite ends of one pole of truth. But I can't get the whole thing in me. I can only get part. Now, I have perhaps told some of you the story, but just let me tell you it and I will honestly close. [01:09:39] I mean, it's all very well if a person's been saved at a Billy Graham crusade, and I believe people get saved at Billy Graham Crusade. I mean, someone goes forward, the gospel is preached, the challenge is given, someone goes forward, they're counseled, they sign a card and they're truly saved. [01:09:55] Well, naturally they believe. Well, I was challenged and I decided for the lord and thank the Lord he saved me. But what do you do with friends of mine who. He was in the merchant navy. A captain in the merchant navy, a blackguard. I knew both him and his wife. [01:10:13] They were old couple when I was first saved, but I knew that I heard it from their own lips. [01:10:21] A blackguard used to come back drunk often and then came back. That time drunk, fell in through the front door, managed to get into the lounge, fell flat on his back in the lounge and stayed there the whole night. Woke up the next morning with a hangover, converted. [01:10:40] How do you explain that? [01:10:42] His wife, of course, did not believe in his conversion. [01:10:46] She thought that the drink was burning away the vitals not only of his stomach but of his brain. [01:10:53] And therefore she felt that she must wait a while. But an extraordinary change came over. He no longer swore he wanted to find a Bible. And he spent quite a time searching through everything to find the Bible, till finally he found it and started reading it. He said to me, I never wanted the Lord. [01:11:12] Now, are you going to tell me he's going to be an arminian? Of course not. What else can he be? He has to be a calvinist. [01:11:24] So I say to him, you're in our brother. [01:11:27] But even more remarkable, his wife, sweeping the corridor one day, leant on top of the broom, wondering what had ever happened to her husband, and got sovereignly converted leaning on top of a broomstick. [01:11:42] So both of them were thoroughly calvinistic. Not in a. In a bad way, but they could be no other. Now, some people are so small in their whole concept, so narrow in that they cannot contain that kind of thing. It muddles them, it confuses them, it sends them into a twirl. [01:12:03] They say, well, there must be something wrong with God. [01:12:09] But the fact of the matter is this, that God is bigger than us all. [01:12:14] All I know is there is such a thing as human responsibility, and we do. We are called upon by the Lord to make decisions, and we are accountable. But I also know that in some strange way, God works all things according to the counsel of his own will. [01:12:33] How I tie those two things up, I do not bother my sweet little head. [01:12:39] All I can do is give what I have, and that is to know that God somehow laid hold of me. [01:12:46] And I can only express that's what the Lord has revealed to me. But I'm very happy for someone else to thunder home the fact that people have got to make a decision, because that's the other end of the same truth. Now, when we stay together, we have the Bible. When we part, we have sex. [01:13:09] When two brothers stay together, you have fullness. When they part, you have less. Now, that is what it means, I think, this man of variety. It means we can be ourselves. We can relax. We can start to just be ourselves and contribute what we have of the Lord. There's so much more really, to be said in this matter. Maybe, I don't know, on another occasion, we'll take up a little more. I think we should finish there. But you see, this matter of brethren dwelling together in unity, once we start on it, where do we end? [01:13:48] I'd like to say something about the local expression of it, and that's quite important. And something about holding fast the head. That's another. I'd like to say something about the way of dwelling together in unity. [01:14:09] Recognizing one another in the Lord, maintaining the unity, giving diligence, being careful to maintain the unity of the spirit, building one another up. [01:14:19] Dear friends, if you never contribute anything, you can be sure that you're not maintaining unity of the spirit. This unity is not just static. [01:14:31] We have to build, just like a living thing has to be cared for. [01:14:36] Every member of the body has his part or her part to play. Whether it's prayer, whether it's giving. Whether it's just doing a practical little job. [01:14:48] I'd like to say something about love because in the end that's the key to the whole thing. Just loving one of the people's heads. Got no time to do it. Know somebody's lawn or put a screw on. Somebody who unable to do it. [01:15:06] Little silly little things sometimes. But they all come into this whole matter of loving one another. People say I've got no time. I've got no time. But it's an extraordinary thing. Have you ever noticed that when a young man begins to get an interest in a young lady he suddenly has an awful lot of time? [01:15:24] Have you ever noticed that suddenly people who've never had time before have got time? [01:15:33] Time to play with, time to do this. Time because it's love. [01:15:42] When there's real love there's time. [01:15:47] Time to do the things that ought to be done. [01:15:52] Both the major things and the minor things. Now well come back to this matter again and look at it a little more. As the Lord leads us. Shall we pray together? [01:16:07] O father, we just bow together in thy presence. [01:16:11] And we ask thee, Lord in thy love and mercy that thou wilt write these words of this psalm 133 indelibly upon our hearts. [01:16:23] We want to be a people who dwell together in unity. We know, Lord, we cannot do it of ourselves, but we do. Praise thee, Lord. We have been born into that oneness by thy spirit. And, o Lord, we want to be given the power to maintain the unity of thy spirit. [01:16:46] Help us, Lord, this night to see the nature of it. Help us to see our part in it and help every one of us to be a contributing factor in the building up of thy body. [01:17:01] And this we ask with thanksgiving in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.