VIEWING THINGS FROM A RIGHT POSITION
[p. 180] VIEWING THINGS FROM A RIGHT POSITION
Matthew 24: 1 - 4; Revelation 21: 9, 10
What is before us is to seek to show the advantage of viewing things from a right position. God is pleased to give us this advantage, and it is of all moment to have it. The mount of Olives in Matthew 24 represents a place of vantage from which to have a right view of that which the Lord Jesus had abandoned. He had abandoned the temple, and having abandoned it and also Jerusalem He would accord the disciples a just view and estimate of what He had abandoned. Now, when we come to the other side, to that which is specifically called the holy city, new Jerusalem, the prophet is also taken to a vantage ground, so that he might see her according to all her glorious perfections.
The present day is one in which the people of God are very listless in regard to what the Spirit would say. You remember how in speaking to the angels of the assemblies, the Lord singles out certain ones who had ears and that singling out assumes there would be those who had no ears — a very sorrowful consideration. I trust we have ears, but remember, it is not everything to have ears; we must use them. So the Lord says, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches”. So that having an ear, it is a great thing to use it. If we do not exercise our ears, we are liable to be deceived and to mistake sin in the camp for the noise of war, as did Joshua. Moses and Joshua when coming down from the mount, drew near to the camp, and there was a noise in the camp — there is a noise in the camp at the present time — and Joshua said, “There is a shout of war in the camp”. That was the judgment of one whose ear was unexercised. He mistook the noise. Moses, on the other hand, declared, “It is not the sound of a shout of victory”. What was the truth of the condition of things in the camp? “The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to sport”. That was the condition; this was what was going on in the absence of the mediator, of Moses. I refer to that, to emphasise the need of exercise as to using our ears. The Spirit of God speaks at the present time, so the Lord appeals to those who have ears.
This passage in Matthew suggests that the Lord has withdrawn from earthly organised religion, and in withdrawing from it, He has judged it. If you go back in the narrative, you find the Lord coming into Jerusalem, and as coming into it He judges everything in it. He takes account of things as they are, and ends with the words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... Behold, your house is left unto you desolate”. That is His last pronouncement on the city. He had drawn near to it in grace in the tenderness and affection of the Bridegroom. It was His city, “the city”, in His own language, “of the great King”. The temple was there and all its service, but He pronounces judgment on it.
Christians require to have a true estimate of things as they are in the world. Our judgment is often superficial; hence the needs-be for the Lord to help His people to form a just estimate of things. To illustrate from Scripture this thought of divine aid in seeing things, I would refer to Abraham. According to Stephen’s words, the God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia. That is how God reaches the soul. He appears to you where you are, but you are not to stay there. Were it not that God graciously appeared to us in the place where we were found, we should have remained where we were, instead of being where we now are. I do not say that Abraham saw the glory of God in Mesopotamia. It does not say the glory of God appeared to him, but the God of glory, an entirely different thought. Mesopotamia [p. 182] was not the sphere of divine glory: “Get thee out”, God said. Think of God leading him out and showing him the land! What a thought that is! To be shown the land by God Himself. It needs to be shown to us divinely. God said to Abraham, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look ... northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward”. And God supported him in lifting up his eyes. So now, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, is here to show us things. The Lord said that He would show us what is coming. Think of the Holy Spirit showing us things! Never assume for a moment that we could look at anything divine unless it were shown to us. The Holy Spirit is here in order to show things to us. How important it is then for us to lift up our eyes!
When we come to Moses we have the same thought. Moses was one of those who wanted to see. He said, “Let me ... see thy glory”. That is what God delights in. The present time is a great time for display, things for the eye are paraded in every direction. The man of sin who is coming in will be on that line, he will be a sort of show-man. He will bring signs from heaven, wonderful things shown to the people that they desire to see, but they are deceptive things. If you want to see the world, you clothe it according to your heart’s desire. Look at Lot. The Lord did not show him the land; there is nothing said of that. Lot saw the well-watered plains of Sodom, and he gave them a name, a name such as was in his heart. He called them “the garden of the Lord”. What a delusion! And he connects it with the land of Egypt. Such was the heart of Lot! It was not set on the land. The plain of Sodom was in no way like the garden of the Lord. That was Satan’s delusion! I speak as a warning, as young christians are liable to clothe the world with heavenly garb, but it is an absolute delusion, Satan’s work. There were two things that Moses desired to see, first the glory of [p. 183] Jehovah, and secondly, the land of Canaan; these things were in his heart. He saw the glory on the mount of transfiguration, and he did not seem in the least out of accord with that scene. The glory was in his heart, for we are told that he was one of the men who appeared on the mount, and spoke with the Lord Jesus. He saw the glory and he saw the land. Jehovah took him up to mount Nebo and showed him all the land. What a wonderful vista for Moses as he was alongside the Lord! Think of the Lord pointing out this place and that place in that glorious land! That is what the Lord would do for us. No one of us is equal for the exploration of heaven. We require God to show it to us.
Now the Lord here had abandoned Jerusalem. Have we accepted that? There is in this world a system of organised religion. The influence of christianity was such that Satan could not ignore it; hence he suggested to the leaders of the world to adopt it, so that the name of the Lord should be regarded as one of the assets of the world. Think of the rejected Nazarene; think of His name being adopted in this way. And in connection with that name a system of organised religion is built up, and in it we find sin and lawlessness legalised. It is a most serious consideration; are we able to form an estimate of it? It is carefully elaborated, so that it has the appearance of being of God, but it is the outcome of the teaching of Balaam. Satan through Balaam could not succeed in cursing the people of God, so he turns him into a teacher. If we examine the chapters in Numbers which record the doings of Balaam, we find that he pretends to make much of God, but in his heart he loved the wages of unrighteousness. The teaching of christendom has come from men who earn their wages by it, that is what is in their heart. What kind of teaching is it? If teaching for their masters, they will please their [p. 184] masters by the teaching; hence you have the legalisation of every kind of lawlessness. Scripture speaks of those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak. It was as if he said, ‘Balak, if you do not pay me for cursing the people, you must pay me for corrupting them by teaching’; and the teaching, alas, has succeeded, and an elaborate system of lawlessness has developed out of it. Now, beloved christians, we have to face that, and to judge it, and for this we need the Lord’s help, and He is pleased to accord us every advantage we need. He left the temple, but before leaving it, He pronounced its doom. Jerusalem had slain the prophets, killed those sent to her, and now her house is left desolate. The Lord formally leaves Jerusalem, and now He is on the mount of Olives. That is the position, and it is the position He assigns to us.
I would say a word as to the mount of Olives. It was the place of the Lord’s interchange of holy thought and affection with His Father. He went there whole nights. “Every one”, we read, “went to his home, Jesus went to the mount of Olives”. The very expression indicates the Spirit of God. The olive tree suggests the Holy Spirit. Now where are we to be? Jesus left the city. Have we left it? Have we left it politically? Have we left it religiously? The Lord withdraws and goes over to the mount of Olives and sits down there. The disciples, in the beginning of the chapter, had come to show Him the buildings of the temple, that wonderful system which had stood the test of centuries! Look at its ramifications, will time destroy it? One can well understand the enquiries of hearts as regards the great systems that exist today. What does the Lord say? He says, “Not a stone shall be left here upon a stone which shall not be thrown down”. Do you believe it? Not one stone in all that huge fabric that will not be thrown down. This announcement involves the complete overthrow of all [p. 185] that is earthly, all earthly organised religion. How blessed is our privilege to sit down on the mount of Olives with Christ, and look at it all! What a stay to the heart in the presence of the overthrow! All the light is on the other side of the ravine, so to speak, as we are separated from Jerusalem, withdrawn from it, and listening to His word as to the ultimate destruction of the whole system. We can readily see how important it is to live on the mount of Olives. It is impossible to get a right view of Jerusalem in Jerusalem. In order to get it you must withdraw from the city, abandon it, and come into the sphere of the Holy Spirit. Sit down on the mount with Jesus. Ask Him questions about it. Have you any difficulties about it? Ask the Lord about it. The disciples came to Him there after His words, and said, “Tell us, when shall these things be”. How delightful to the Lord to be enquired of, as He sat on the mount, as to when those things should happen. Then there is this wonderful chapter 24; are you in the light of it? There is the opening up of the history of things, until the coming of the Lord. I do not enlarge on the prophetic side, but it is important that we should pay attention to it, for prophecy has the effect of detaching our hearts from this world. The Lord is pleased to answer the questions of the disciples by opening up happenings from that moment till His coming, in order that the saints should not be deceived. “See that no one mislead you”. What a warning! Where all kinds of pretensions are rampant your refuge is in sitting down on the mount of Olives with Christ. The disciples came unto Him privately. One loves to resort to the sphere of the Spirit privately, withdrawn from the world, to sit down on the mount of Olives and receive the explanations of Christ.
Now, if Jerusalem is to be destroyed and the temple left desolate, they are to be replaced. Abraham looked for a city, and we are not left without one; so before [p. 186] the scripture closes we have a view of the heavenly Jerusalem. Hence in Revelation 21 it is said, “He carried me away in the Spirit”. That is what we require; we require to be carried away in the Spirit. Contact with this world, being in the midst of it, tends with the most spiritual, to dim the vision of our souls, so it is “one of the seven angels which had had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues”, the angel who judges the world, who carries John away in the Spirit. What I am emphasising is the great distance between the world and what is of God. So the idea of judgment is first presented, and then John is carried away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain. How much do we know of it? When Elijah was caught up, the sons of the prophets wished to look for him. They suggested that the Lord might have cast him into a valley somewhere! The Spirit of God does not take His people to a valley, He takes them on high. What a wonderful experience, carried away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, your back turned on the world, you see it no more. The angel not only holds in his hand the bowls of the judgment but he can show us the holy city, Jerusalem. It is what we saw in connection with Abraham, divine showing. And the city is seen coming down out of the heaven from God. Have you seen it? Who are they who see it? Those who look for it, the men of faith, and the city they see is one whose builder is God Himself. Every spiritual man looks for that, the holy city, heavenly Jerusalem. Philippians 3 presents the point of view of a spiritual man. It shows us how a spiritual man regards things. The apostle says, “Our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”. The spiritual man has politics, but they are in heaven, in this city.
My point at the beginning was to engage you with the divine vantage ground, and I would commend to you the mount of Olives. I would commend to you sitting down with Jesus there, and getting from His [p. 187] lips the judgment of things here; and I would also commend the importance of having in our hearts the heavenly city, for remember, we speak of things according to our hearts. You will recall how Caleb brought a judgment of the land according to what was in his heart; so if you have the city in your heart, you will be looking for it; and if so, it will be shown you by one who judges the world. And what a view! The city, coming down out of heaven, having God’s glory, the vessel of divine glory!
May the Lord help us to be engaged with it!