THE LAW OF THE HOUSE OF GOD

Psalms 22: 1-3; 26; 1 Corinthians 10: 14-22; 11: 17-27

Someone has said: ‘If we confine our attention to the Old Testament we are legal; if we study only the New Testament we are theoretical; but if we study both Old and New we shall be practical’ - so I read from both.

Last week the subject before us was the way to the house of God, and we were looking at the Songs of Degrees as setting it forth, and to-night my subject is the law of the house. If you do not recognise the law of the house you will not appreciate the privileges of the house. I believe that this is the need of the moment. You cannot turn from this subject, for before you can enjoy privileges you must face the responsibility: but I want to speak of this in a way that will make you feel, and respond to, His love.

You may ask where we get the expression, “the law of the house”? I refer you to Ezekiel 43: 10-12, where it occurs. Of course I only apply to ourselves a passage which refers to a future day. It is most holy - this is the law of the house. And I may say that in the last verse of the Book of Ezekiel you will find the privilege of the house, “The Lord is there” Ezek 48:35. That is what will make it so beautiful in a coming day. If the Lord is there you may depend upon it there will be blessing. “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, Ps 132: 14. That is the privilege of the house.

The reason why I have read Psalm 22 is to show that in death the Lord secured the privilege of the house. In this psalm the Lord appears in the bitter night of weeping. The title of the psalm, “Aijeleth Shahar”, means ‘the dawning of the day’, and it is the dawning of the everlasting day. You get first the bitter night of weeping, and then the joy of the morning. God puts things in the right order. It is not morning and evening, but “the evening and the morning were the first day”, Gen 1: 5. If there is a bitter night of weeping, you may be sure that God will secure a morning of joy. It always follows the night. If you have to go through a night of sorrow, look out for the joy: it will be sure to come, and mark you, that joy lies outside the reach of death; if you touch it, you reach what is beyond the shadow of death.

What do you possess outside the reach of death? I ask myself that question, and it always does me good. I am sensible of God's goodness to me in earthly things, and I thank Him for His mercies, but death's shadow is there. The joy of which I speak is the deathless joy of the house of God. Christ went into death, into those afflictions and sufferings, to secure a dwelling-place for God, a habitation for God where the joy of that morning should be known.

The Lord said, “be not thou far from me”, v 19. If all others forsake me, do not Thou forsake me, but He has to say, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” No one can fathom those depths. But when He was in that dark and distant spot, His own blessed heart answered back, He gives the reason why He was there. The first reason He gives is, “thou art holy,” and then God dwells in the praises of His people. In that dark spot He could look into eternity, and see that every bit of praise that God would get must be secured by Him there.

How fitting that He should lead the praises! And there never will be a bit of praise in which God will take pleasure that Christ does not lead. He is the great choirmaster. “Thou art holy,” that is the law of the house. It will not admit of anything that is not holy. In the end of the psalm there is a glorious stream of praise that He leads. Wherever you read such passages you will find He was there to secure a people for God. “A seed shall serve him” (v 30), that is, ‘worship Him’.

I turn now to Corinthians. I said that the Lord secured the law of the house in death, and that love will recognise it. The Epistle to the Corinthians is written in a spirit of jealousy. The Lord has a right to be jealous. There never was such love as His, and He has a right to be jealous.

I call your attention to the last chapter. In the midst of warm Christian greetings the apostle stops, a feeling of jealousy comes over him. He pulls himself up, and says, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha”, 1 Cor 16: 22. He was an apostle and could say that. I could not, of course, say it, but in these days it is well to read these words, and one is made to feel the propriety of them.

The love of Christ burned in his heart. That is what we want - love to Christ. Paul's eye was resting on the glory, and his heart filled with love to Christ, and he could say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Gal 6: 14.

And here he says, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?”, chap 10: 22. He wants my heart to be so affected by the love of Christ that I may be jealous over myself. If we are not jealous over ourselves, it provokes the Lord to jealousy. Are we stronger than He?

The apostle had to write to the Corinthians in this corrective way. There was great carelessness as to their associations, and we also are weak on this point. Chapter 10 is separation, chapter 11 is seclusion. If there is not separation from things without, there will not be seclusion within. The apostle brings before them the nature of Christian fellowship; he is not giving the order of the Lord's supper, you will notice he mentions the cup first. Death is the introduction to it. Fellowship is set forth in the cup. He says to them, You are committing an outrage upon the death of Christ. They were going off to heathen temples, and he says, You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

I am a baptised Christian, but I say to the Lord, Give me to know what my baptism means; and to be true to my baptism I have no right to a will - I am to live to God. You “were baptised into his death” (Rom 6: 3), you have no right to a will. As our hearts are under the power of His love, where the affections are in play, there it is that we are true to our baptism - we live to God.

I have no right to a place here; martyrdom is the idea. To the early Christians it meant martyrdom. Of the people of God it is said, “We are killed all the day long”, Rom 8: 36. Things are altered, I know, but this is what it means, “accounted as sheep for the slaughter”. What put them there? Their baptism. But those people could not be separated from the love of God, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

That is the answer to the question, What do I possess beyond the reach of death? The LOVE OF GOD. If I died to-night it would not take me out of my joy. It could be said to a Corinthian saint, who went to a heathen temple, You are committing an outrage against the death of Christ, for if a man identified himself with Jewish or heathen temples, he did not keep the law of the house. “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim 2: 19) - that is insisting on the law of the house. There is nothing but confusion if we look around, but in scripture it is plain: “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity”. They are to purge themselves from the vessels to dishonour, to be sanctified for the Lord.

There is much to be thankful for, because the Lord is so good, but there is much to be deplored. There is not the separation there should be. We are paralysed by our associations, so that when we come together we are spiritually feeble. May God give to us a large heart and a true conscience!

In Psalm 26, verse 8 is the key to the psalm: “I have loved the habitation of thy house” You must put it side by side with Psalm 22: 3. And you will remember how in Psalm 132 he says, “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob”, vv 3, 4.

“They shall prosper that love thee” (Ps 122: 6), spoken of Jerusalem, is true to-day, for if the assembly is loved there will be spiritual prosperity. Let us wake up to these things. The man whose soul is growing prosperously is the man who loves Zion. Do you feel a spring in your soul when you turn your back on your place and come to His place? The Psalmist says, “I have loved thy house”. It is for all the time, although especially when God's people are found together.

In verse 3 his conduct is in accordance with that: “thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth”. Moved by this loving-kindness there is the desire to be consistent with the place he loves.

Then verses 4 and 5, “I have not sat with vain persons ... I have hated the congregation of evil-doers” Those two verses sum up 1 Corinthians 10. I will be true to the law of the house; true to His death, and touch nothing that is contrary to it. It is what is due to the love of the Lord that secured the law of the house. He washes his hands, he keeps himself pure, feet and hands preserved from evil.

Now suffer the word of exhortation. We must be careful about these things - have our hands clean, and our feet clean. There must be personal separation and purity in our dealings with others. “So will I compass thine altar, O Lord”. It is easy to open the hymn book and give out fine hymns, but if the hands are not clean it is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. What are you doing that disturbs your conscience? You must not play tricks with your conscience; God grant us to take this word seriously to heart!

Think, for instance, of a man who is in debt taking part in the assembly! It is a frightful thing for a Christian to be in debt. We must pay our debts. I appeal to you that we may be true to His death. “My foot standeth in an even place”. Then he is free to praise. “In the congregations will I bless the Lord”. I pray God to make a mark on my soul as much as upon yours as to this. If you love the house you love the law of the house. Do not provoke the Lord to jealousy, but may we be provoked to jealousy of ourselves, that we may be true to the law of the house out of love to Him who secured it.

1 Corinthians 11: 17 to chapter 14 is one complete section. These people came together to have a feast; such a state of things could not be now, not in that outrageous way. They spread a meal for themselves, while others hungered, and some of them even got drunk! A very shocking state of things, but the point of the passage is that there were divisions among them.

Where the Lord is apprehended in the Supper, there will be accord. The great choir-master puts the choir in order. It is the love that puts us in accord. You do not take the Lord’s supper as an individual you take it with others. At the Supper it is the Lord’s love to the company: we eat together, drink together - it brings us together. Think of two brothers severed in thought and feeling from each other: how can they eat the Lord's supper? Nay, they do not eat it. If you eat the Supper you are made one. We are the objects of one love. The Corinthians had missed it.

The One who secured the place, the choirmaster (I say it with reverence), puts the choir in order, and if it is not in order there is no singing; better pray then. Nothing gives Him greater pleasure than to have us in company with Himself. Let us see to it that we are.

Chapter 10 is SEPARATION from things without; chapter 11 is that we are to be in the ACCORD OF LOVE. Love must be supreme. I pray God we may not be legal.

Do not let us be formal, but let us understand what the spirit of the Supper is - the LORD’S LOVE. He leads the praises in the assembly. Let us get alone with the Lord, dear brethren, get under the impress of His love, and be filled with the Spirit.

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From ‘The Believer’s Friend’, 1917