THE KINGDOM MEETING PRESENT CONDITIONS
[p. 378] THE KINGDOM MEETING PRESENT CONDITIONS
Revelation 1:4 - 6; Judges 15:17 - 20
I have in mind the thought of kingdom and I turned to Revelation because it speaks of the saints as made a kingdom, and I began to read with the fourth verse of this chapter because in it John addresses the seven assemblies. In his address he tells us that Christ has made us a kingdom and priests unto His God and Father. You will observe that John in his addresses to the seven assemblies speaks of Christ as having loved us. There is not a great deal said in this book of Revelation of Christ’s love for us but it is spoken of in this paragraph, the first mark as to it that the Lord Jesus has washed us from our sins in His own blood and that He has loved us. It is a limited thought, that is, the persons involved are those addressed as the assemblies. The assembly is in mind, those who form it. The assembly itself is treated more accurately and pointedly and fully in the apostolic epistles, especially Paul’s, and there he tells us that Christ loved the assembly and gave Himself for it. This statement in Revelation 1 is not so full, not so feeling, not so suggestive of His own relation with the assembly, His own special relation with it. It is rather the saints as we are now in this very place and universally viewed as loved by the Lord, loved in divided conditions, alas, loved in defiling conditions, loved, we may say, in incongruous conditions, but nevertheless loved to the extent that we are washed from our sins and made a kingdom. These are two most important facts relative to us in these present circumstances, that is to say, as loved by Christ, washed from our sins in His own blood and then made a kingdom and then made priests to His God and Father.
[p. 379] Now we might have thought that if the prophet John were to touch on anything the Lord made, if he were speaking of the assembly he would speak of it as made by Him, or rather in His own language as built by Him. But here John is not saying that. Nevertheless, he is speaking to the assemblies what he has in mind and surely he has not forgotten that the assembly was built by Christ. The building of it stands in other relations than that of washing from our sins. It is in relation to revelation, not such as is seen in this book, the name of which is Revelation, but revelation by the Father to Peter. It is in that setting that it is built. That is to say, it is a final and primal matter. The assembly as in Matthew 16 is a primary matter, one issuing forth in relation to the Father’s revelation spoken of by Christ in that setting. It is a final matter, it is an eternal matter; and it is said to be Christ’s assembly. It is God’s, too, of course, but it is there said to be Christ’s assembly. “My assembly”, the Lord says. Now that is not mentioned here. This setting is not equal to it. Truths are seen in their own settings, an important thought in the Scriptures — the settings in which things are found. The assembly is not viewed as built by Christ in this passage. Instead of that we have the statement that the Lord has made us something, not the final or permanent thought but the provisional one. You are needed on account of emergencies in the history of the assembly. There are many things attributed to the Lord in this provisional dispensation presented to us as each is peculiarly arising from His own thoughts and forethoughts, arising from His own wisdom. They are just provisional, but nevertheless they are provisions of love. What may last a year or a century of this kind will do its work, but it then comes to an end. There are many such things in the Scriptures. Samson’s jawbone is not presented to us as anything [p. 380] made exactly, but it was found and Samson’s needy hand found it — a jawbone, a fresh one. That is what the word signifies. It is a fresh jawbone but it was intended to be used, placed so a hand could take it and use it, but it is cast away. It is clear enough that it is not to be used again, but nevertheless it has done a wonderful work and has a place in spiritual poetry.
Now there are many such things that the Lord takes on. He is at the right hand of God, not yet on His own throne but on the Father’s throne, and the Father’s throne is a wide one, a great one, a divine one, but occupied provisionally. It was not made for the Son. It is the Father’s throne, but it is serving a wonderful purpose just now. One’s heart expands as one thinks of the Lord on such a throne. How far-reaching His activities are! How resultful! How He can go over seas, mountains, and rivers and do what He will but in His provisional position in which the Father’s hand is seen. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand” (John 3:35). It is a position of great, infinite latitude. Well, now He acts to meet emergencies. I do not speak exactly of improvised things but of provisional things, and I referred to the kingdom here and that it is made by us. At least we compose it. The Lord has made us a kingdom. Those that deal particularly with dispensations treat of divine plans, long-thought-out plans, spoken of old; and the Lord coming on the scene, we might say, not provisionally but officially. The gospels present Christ coming in officially. Hence Matthew is “the generation of Jesus Christ”, not exactly that He was born of a certain family, but it is the generation of Jesus Christ. As Adam had a generation so has Christ. The gospels are on those lines, all on a wide, divine scheme, long-thought-out. Hence we have the kingdom of the heavens, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Father, but here [p. 381] we have the Lord through John speaking of saints, ourselves, those who form the seven assemblies which means those who are in responsible bodies on earth and that they are made a kingdom.
I hope I make clear, dear brethren, what is in mind and how even if it be an improvised thing, which I do not call it, it is One meeting an emergency. I do not conceive that the Lord has made us a kingdom with a view to our eternal condition. It is a provisional thing and arising from conditions, so that wherever the brethren are abstractly they have means of meeting lawlessness in themselves. They have means of putting things in order, of naming things, and placing each in its place. So the Lord Himself is operating in the midst of the brethren; He is not operating here in the kingdom, not viewing them as a kingdom, but themselves. He is seen in this chapter in the midst of the seven golden lamps. Now John is introduced to us in this first chapter, and we have to follow what he has to say. He will lead us in the way of the Apocalypse. He is not the apostle John here, but the prophet John, and he has all the features of a prophet. He is not in hairy garments or a leather girdle although they are features of a prophet. John is without these features. He is, however, here as the one that the Lord selected to bring into the secret of the Apocalypse, “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw”. That is to say, John comes into this as a reliable, loved man. The existence of the Apocalypse would be an impossibility morally without love, not only love in Christ but love in John. There was love in John and John was loved so that the Apocalypse has become a possibility, a great instrument for the illumination of [p. 382] the saints, indeed, in view of the last days and in view of the coming days in which, as we have already seen, Elijah will have his part, and also the ministry of a man like John the baptist. Persons impersonating him will be active in the days contemplated in the Apocalypse. The word is ‘revelation’ really, but it is an unveiling of things that have been hidden, that no human skill or ability or research can meet. It is something that is divinely hidden and what is divinely hidden cannot be exposed. The Apocalypse is something unveiled and John is in the very midst of the thing, in the very forefront, on the title page, one who was loved by the Lord Jesus Christ and who immediately tells us of the Lord Jesus as our great Lover. It is not an Ephesian feature, but He has washed us from our sins in His own blood and consequent on that made us provisionally a kingdom; as if He were to say to us at any given place or any given time: I know you have the fundamentals, I know you have the principles, I know you have the Scriptures, and I know you read them. I know you have the Bible readings, the ministry meetings, but what you are lacking in is that you have not got the kingdom. You are not a kingdom, and things are not attended to. Lawlessness has become more or less rampant. The Lord would say that to us, and in order to meet this He is setting you up authoritatively as a kingdom. How long it will last is not stated, but the thing is existing. It is constituted as a provisional thing to meet an emergency. The Lord is saying to us at the very outset, I am giving you My bondman John whom I have long known and loved, whom the Spirit has called or designated “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. I have called him into this. I have not given up the great platform on which I began the great official features of My ministry in the gospels. I have employed him to write the gospel, but I am introducing him here. There is [p. 383] no gospel like it. I have employed Mark to write a gospel; I have employed Luke and Matthew — all these great books have in mind My official state, duties, and functions, but in the meantime things have not gone well. That is what stands on the title page really of this book called the “Revelation of Jesus Christ”. It was a revelation to Him. You say a revelation to Jesus? Yes. Of course, Jesus reveals Himself. He is divine; He is God; but He is also a servant. “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him”. It is as if the Father is thoroughly with the Son in all His operations of love; “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. The Father is with the Son. In fact, He has translated all the loved ones into the kingdom of the Son of His love. That is a wonderful kingdom. I would say that is one of the things that stand. It is a love matter, a great matter, but a love matter in the sense of being a kingdom.
Now the Lord would speak in this way at any given time from the beginning of the failure of the assembly. He would say things are not just going right. There is much lawlessness; indeed, in this very Apocalypse he tells us in his message to Thyatira, “These things says the Son of God, he that has his eyes as a flame of fire” (Revelation 2:18). He has good things to say to Thyatira. It is one of the seven assemblies in Asia. You say, why should Asia be singled out? It is not all the great continent of Asia, but a province of Asia. It is a question of sovereign selection. The Lord had gone far afield from Palestine. I have referred already to seas, rivers, mountains, and oceans. The Lord can go across them. He does it in love to visit the brethren, but He also has in mind the geographical position of the assemblies. I might say that that could be easily defined. The position of the assembly is pretty well limited; to go to China to find anything corresponding to it is very questionable. The Lord has not gone [p. 384] into that area to lay His foundation plans, His beautifying, architectural plans. He has made His own selection. I am only touching on that to see the position that is in Asia. The assembly of Thyatira was in it and the Lord says to that assembly after saying all He could in favour of it, “I have against thee that thou permittest the woman Jezebel”. Well, that opens up a wide history, and the Lord has His own way of opening up wide veins of history. He brings in Elijah. Elijah had to do with Jezebel, and Christ had to do with Jezebel, and so should we today. Jezebel hated Elijah and would have destroyed him from the earth, but God has raised up barriers against her. The word ‘woman’ in Revelation 2:20 is really wife; that is to say, the wifely element in the local assembly. The woman having acquired the place of a wife really alludes to Ahab, Jezebel being his wife. The Lord is not saying anything to Ahab, not bringing so much against him. He had to do with Ahab as Jehovah. One remarkable thing in the history is that in spite of his wickedness and Jezebel’s wickedness Jehovah used Ahab to give Him great military triumphs for the sake of Israel. But He did not use Jezebel. Never would He use Jezebel. So He says, “I have against thee that thou permittest the woman Jezebel”, and then He tells them why. I am bringing all that in because of this matter of kingdom, that it requires the power of kingdom to deal with Jezebel and that power of kingdom was put in the hands of Jehu who did well in using it.
So, dear brethren, if this emergency has arisen, if there are any lawless activities in a universal sense or in a local sense, the Lord would say I will improvise something to meet this evil condition that has arisen. But He will use you. He will make you meet the thing; you do not have to invoke the authorities. He will put it into your own hands, and He will make [p. 385] it official. Matthew 18 may be introduced in this respect. The Lord contemplates a man who trespassed against his brother. He has to add the fifth part according to the law of Leviticus, but this new kingdom the Lord has improvised, so to speak, will not bring in a new law. It will use the old laws. They are not abnegated, not one jot or tittle, they will stand. But it is a question of where they stand. It is a question of who can handle them or enforce them, or have we to go by the board? Is there no power of enforcement? Certainly. The Lord says, I do not ask you to move into the Father’s kingdom, or the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love, but what I am improvising now is as authoritative and effective as the first one, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the heavens, the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love. And so we see Matthew 18. You say, I am going to tear it out of the book. No, the book must stand. This whole book of the Apocalypse must stand. No one must tear any verse out of it. Woe be to any who does! His part will be taken out of the tree of life. So Matthew 18 is inviolate. All the power of the kingdom is just put behind Matthew 18 to meet this trespasser, to deal with him or how many there may be of them.
That trespasser may be a sister. I am not now bringing in the word ‘Jezebel’, but it is remarkable that it comes in in Thyatira and she is there as a wife. Single sisters are not intended to be dominant in the assembly. It was never in the divine intent that they should be dominant. There should be single sisters, of course, and the best of them are single, at least as far as my observation goes. The very best women that one has known have been single, and yet they are not all to be single. In fact, they are enjoined to marry under certain circumstances. I am now speaking of the possibility of trespass and how it is to be met where you have, maybe, single sisters.
I am only using the word ‘sisters’. Paul uses it and he speaks to young men, too, in view of marriage. They are to marry sisters, not women, but sisters. No others. That is to say, they are to function as sisters first, to learn chastity, to be chaste virgins to Christ. That is all that is in mind as to the marital matter. The first point as to a sister is how she has been in her sisterhood, whether she can get on singly and function in that way. The husbands will come for such, that is, if they are divinely ordered and directed by God. If they are divinely ordered and controlled, they will come that way as they did of old. The family of Abraham went a long way to get a wife, but they went under divine direction. The result was satisfactory according to God. We need the part of the chapter that deals with trespass. The chapter includes, in the phraseology of it, severity. The man is going to be dealt with. Trespass is not going to be trifled with whether it be a brother or a sister but where there is trespass in this sense it will arise from persons, from sisters who have distinguished husbands. The more distinguished my husband is, if I am unspiritual, the more likely I am to say things that I have no licence to say at all. I am sheltering under the distinction of my husband, under the place he has. That is the reason I brought in Thyatira. Lydia came from there. How different she is from Jezebel. Jezebel is said to be there, too. Would she have anything to do with her? No, I am certain she would not. Lydia was one whose heart the Lord opened. He had the means of opening her heart to attend to the things spoken by Paul. So we have a wonderful sister, and presently a wonderful brother in Philippi. I will place Philippi over against Thyatira. Lydia was in Thyatira, but she is now in Philippi and she had a house. There is no reference to a husband at all with her, but she had a house. It does not say she had a family; it is a house, and [p. 387] she opened that house to the apostle Paul and his company.
Now these occasions that we are in tonight include a sort of youthful department. That department functions or operates after dark, so to speak. It is a young people’s department and I am not so sure there is much in it. I am afraid of it. The older sisters and older brothers are not essential to it in the eyes and judgment of the leaders of it. What there is of God nominally to which experience is not essential is to be watched. Now I am moving from place to place without making any effort to regularity, but it is a question of putting the truth before the brethren. Lydia was no trespasser, but she was a householder. Nor was there any idea of her house being open especially to young people. It is open to Paul and his company, those who were working with him.
Now coming back to Thyatira and to verse 6 of our chapter, “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”, the Lord would say I have constituted you. I am referring now to any opposition of the Lord coming into a local position with His eyes as a flame of fire or maybe with dove’s eyes, but He is coming in anyway as with liberty to come. He may come in with eyes as a flame of fire, and He would say I am not going to stay. Although He is on His Father’s throne, He is not on His own throne, nor has He judged the world yet, nor bringing in everlasting righteousness yet, but He is doing much and among them are dealings with trespasses that require law and require us. These great things are still ahead. They are still pending, but He is doing much and among them are the dealings with trespasses. They require law and a court-house and a police force. That is Matthew 18. So the Lord says, I am here today. It may come out in the ministry meeting, the Bible reading, address, or the gospel. The Lord may say, things are not just as I wish them and I [p. 388] am going to give you authority, to constitute you officially to deal with things that are not right. He has made us a kingdom, but not only that, He has made us priests; if we attempt to exercise kingdom without the power of a priest we will make a mess of it and judgment will fall to the ground. That is why I read in Judges. I brought Samson in because he accomplished a great victory with a jawbone of an ass, but the jawbone is cast away. You do not find it is future armoury; it is cast away. When he finished speaking, he began to be thirsty. If I sit on the bench thirsty, I will not render right judgment. I will put the laws in the wrong places, and so it is said that Samson asked God about the thirst. He said I am going to die. He had a true judgment of his state in spite of his great victory — a thousand men slain with the jawbone of an ass. God stood by His servant, and He will in these critical times where judgment and eldership is necessary. God would stand by us. God would say to elders, if there are any in a gathering and I hope there are, you will get thirsty. You may accomplish great things, give good addresses, take long meetings, get good recommendations, but then you may be thirsty and your successes will stop. They will come to an end. You do not go to any more ministry meetings or give any more addresses until your thirst is slackened. God is God and will never forsake His servants. He clave the hollow place that is in Lehi and the water came forth for Samson. It does not say he smote it. We have the smiting of the rock in Exodus by divine direction, by the rod of Aaron, a most solemn and official matter; God Himself is there to see it done. He says I will be there with you when the rock is smitten, but now God clave the rock in Lehi and the water was there. It was God providing for the thirst that had arisen in his victorious servant. Victory would soon die without the water, and so I close with the question [p. 389] of the Spirit. I have touched on many points, but the necessary touch is to make the address have a point to it, and the water is necessary to constitute the servant to do something needed again. There are no more thousands of Philistines to be slain; there are, but it is not now given to do that. He is going to do it later in another way, but what is needed is the great thing that God had invested Samson with — twenty years of judgment. He judged Israel twenty years. That is brought in twice in the history, and it is brought in in this chapter where he was thirsty and is given drink by God. What an affecting thing that God did it! How did He cleave the rock of Lehi? It is said to be hollow and you might say that is easier than a solid. Nevertheless, it had to be done and God did it, and the water was just there as it was in Exodus 17. God did it. You may say it was easier than what Moses did; it had to be done but God did it, not only to meet this difficulty, but that His servant might continue to judge. That is what is needed — to judge things in our houses that are not right, and God will be with us and enable us to do it so that it is a finished matter. The people of Israel cannot say just what they like. God is against that. So it is that God has provided for the thirst and we have a judge from that time on. He judged Israel for twenty years. In a certain sense I would say it was greater than the slaying of the thousand men to have a man day in and day out judging Israel, and whatever he finds wrong in his house he will say it is wrong and deal with it. So it is in a thousand things that have happened. The Lord has inaugurated in a locality, in a man’s house, the idea of kingdom. It is operative, and so judgment goes on for twenty years or however many years remained of the twenty after this matter of Lehi.
So it is that I have connected Judges with the passage in Revelation. The Lord brings in such [p. 390] conditions so that things are not allowed to go on unsettled, unfinished, so that we shall never hear of them again. Finished matters — that is Christianity. The Lord says, “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it” (John 17:4). Matters have to be not only settled but finished. They will come out in the millennium and the eternal state of things. Things will not only be settled but finished for ever. May God bless the word.
Pages 391 - 470 — “Righteousness”. Readings at Minneapolis, 1943. (Volume 161).