THE ASSEMBLY HAS REACHED ‘THE LAND’

BUT IT IS ALSO THE HOUSE OF GOD

(Acts 7)

The assembly is the house of God, the pillar and base of the truth, but increases to a holy temple, compare Eph 2: 21 and 1 Tim 3: 15.

It is not, in this chapter, the tabernacle in the wilderness, nor the temple of Solomon afterwards. Both these were only types. It is God’s house which is the church of the living God, and its prophet is not Moses but Christ. Of both these Stephen was the living proof. We have the living antitype now.

What a revelation was this! God in His house and fully known there—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest” (Exod 33: 14)—words of truth, but only fully revealed and known now in the church.

The temple is being “built up”, as the living stones are (1 Pet 2), by all the quarry work of reduction and enlargement of the present moment, but we are it. This is the important point. It is both vital and spiritual. He is building the assembly. On this rock will I build my assembly. We hear “that prophet” of whom Moses spoke, of whom the Father testifies later on in the fulness of times of the synoptic gospels. “Hear him”. This is the blessedness of the moment in which we are called to live, and this is the One whom we are called upon to hear now amid all the present distress of nations with perplexity, at the roar of the sea and the rolling waves! (NT).

We had a wonderful prayer meeting here last night. We heard “him” (by the Spirit’s voice) and we spoke to Him. What a privilege!

Exeter

6 November 1917

From Mutual Comfort—vol 11, 1918