CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13
The temple was God’s house on earth, yet the Lord says, “there shall not be left one stone upon another”. God has a house now, but not of that character. The church is a place for God on earth. It is not the body, but the house. Jerusalem and the temple had been a scene of admiration; now, those who were true would be “hated .. . for my name’s sake” (verse 13).
It is important to hold fast the fact that there are two ministries: the gospel and the church (see Colossians 1). The second ministry is almost given up! In reviving the gospel ministry, the ministry of the church was revived, but we have become feeble in it. Evangelists did not go on to Colossians 1: 25. There was no greater evangelist than Paul. He says, “the gospel .. . which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister”. One ministry was to be universal, the other select - a company - Christ’s own body. When a man is wholly given to the gospel ministry the tendency is to overlook the church and let the one ministry stand for both.
It is right to have your own particular service, but it is not right to make it your object. Christ is your Object and the church is His body. He “loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it .. . that he might present it to himself”. The ministry of the gospel had a wonderful effect in the New Testament. It was the offer from the God of grace to man when all was over. They were not only in the benefit and happiness of His death [p. 184] for them, but they walked here in the sense of the Lord’s death, and that produces moral state. His death stamps everything to me if I see that He broke connection with everything here in order that I might be free from all that was upon me here. It is “for the elect’s sake”. It is cheering to see that in the midst of all the rejection He has a company - a Bethany (verse 30).
“This generation” is the Jewish people; but it is not merely the Jewish thing set aside. Christianity is of an entirely new order, and outside the order of things as set up on the earth. We do not enough consider this earth as the scene of divine judgments. The book of Revelation brings it out. The Lord acts upon souls in two ways: He attracts by Himself, and He cuts the cords which bind us to this place where He is not. It is like filling a balloon with gas and then loosening the grapplings, that it may rise. We find the two things in Peter’s epistle: “the day star arise in your hearts” - that is attraction; and then in the last chapter all is to be burnt up; nothing left here and everything swept away with the besom of destruction. Then, “seeing .. . these things .. . what manner of persons ought ye to be?” Lot had only the one, he was driven out of the scene of judgment. Abraham had the two, and we must keep them together. If you try to get away from the earth without being attracted to heaven, you are only like a monk or a nun.
But if you are going on with the Lord, He will see to the cutting of the cords in giving you the sense that there is nothing here, that it is not worth while to be detained, and this is always blessed - there is the correcting to get us out of crooked ways, and there is the polishing in the good ways - Jonah in the whale, and Jonah losing the gourd. If you had only the one, you would be miserable; but there is great encouragement in it when you know the attraction and what I call the ‘polishing.’ Practically it is not done in a moment. Nothing is. Paul’s will was broken in three days. With us it may take nearly all our history, but there is no ‘polishing’ till then, “that the man of God may be complete, fully fitted to every good work”. You might learn your own will without going to the bottom of the sea, like Jonah; but you could not have the second part of Jonah’s discipline without trials - we who live are always delivered unto death. The will must be broken for real blessing. Jacob was not broken for all those twenty years he was in Syria till he went back into the right path. Then God wrestled with him and he was broken. When your will is broken you are a subject person and are in the condition for the polishing process.
This chapter closes with the coming of the Lord. The place of God’s favour becomes the place of the most terrible judgment - every stone to be taken down from God’s own building. People look for the coming of the Lord as a relief, but I must see what manner of person I am to meet Him. Peter puts it thus as a practical thing. He skips the millennium and presses the end as a practical exhortation - all is to be burnt up. I suppose if Lot had known that Sodom would be destroyed, he would have left it and taken a new line of action.
In Luke 12 we get not only waiting but watching for the Lord. Watching is keeping awake - the eyes wide open, looking for Him. That is what the disciples are called to in this chapter. Watch therefore!