MEASUREMENT
Edwin Mutton
I suppose the idea of measurement is what distinguishes time from eternity. God has brought in the idea of measurement because our finite minds cannot grasp what is unmeasurable. They have difficulty in thinking about eternity, something that does not have an end, where ageing and time have no place. And God has created time, which in itself is measured. God has arranged things in creation and we measure time by what is created. The year is the period of time that the earth takes to travel round the sun. The month is linked with the way the moon rises and sets. The day is a measurement that is governed by what is created. God indicated the measurement of a week which is not related to what is natural but is something God saw that man needed for rest from his labours every seventh day. God has brought in other measurements too. In fact, our lives are marked by measurement. What we buy in the shops is usually measured. We can buy large packets or small packets, or material or wood, anything like this is measured. Sizes of shoes and dresses, everything we have to do with is measured. The first thing they do when we are born is to weigh us; the last thing is to measure a man to make his coffin. Measurement touches us all the way through our lives.
And God uses it in the scriptures. He gives us measurements. It is interesting, as you go through Scripture, to see that measurement that has to do with God's operations has just that touch of infinity about it. When the Lord comes, it says, He will come and we will be raptured "in the twinkling of an eye", 1 Cor 15: 52. In one sense, that is a finite measurement: ''the twinkling of an eye", but it is very difficult to measure. How fast, how long is ''the twinkling of an eye"? That is something that God will do and to us it is almost infinite, it has just that touch of what is divine. You think about creation and the measurements that men use: light years. They can be calculated. People can say how many light years away the nearest star is, but it is almost an infinite concept for us.
There is always that touch in Scripture when measurements have to do with God that there is something beyond measurement. God Himself cannot be measured. In the Old Testament, as to the Lord Jesus in type, we get that interesting reference to the ark, the half-measure, but while it was an actual measurement that men could make, that half-measurement suggests there is something that is greater than men can compass. Later we get another measurement: as the ark goes through Jordan, there were two thousand cubits between the ark and the people. There is something about divine things is always beyond us.
But God teaches us by measurement and I would like to apply this scripture because the gospel is something that measures us. The gospel comes to us, and God says, I want you to measure yourself by what is presented to you in the gospel. We sang in our hymn that "All men have sinned and short of glory come" (Hymn 275) That line is taken from Romans 3: 23 – “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". God has a measurement, His glory, and we have come short of it: we do not measure up to the standard. There are certain children's rides on Walton Pier, and by them there is a notice: 'If you are not as high as this picture, you cannot come on this ride'. And in the gospel, according to Romans 3: 23, there is a measurement: ''the glory of God". God would say, if you want to know Me and to be at home in My presence, and you do not come up to this standard, then you have come short. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". (You young people remember that next time you walk down the pier and see that notice!) God has a standard and no man has reached that standard but Jesus alone. Thank God that that is not the end of the story! Thank God that He has made a way whereby His standard - the Lord Jesus Himself - that standard can be put to your account and mine. We are taken into favour, we are brought into the presence of God in the worth of the One who is God's glory.
But the gospel has in mind that you and I measure ourselves. And here in Revelation 11 John was given a measure and told to go and measure certain things. I would like to apply this scripture; it is not, literally, its interpretation. It applies to a day that is yet to come. But these three things are very important for us to measure - the temple, the altar and them that worship in it.
First "measure the temple of God". The word of God comes to us to give us some impression of the greatness of the things that God has prepared for men. Whether we can measure them or not is another question, but God would say to us in His word, This is My proposition to you. I would like you to sit and consider it. To sit down and measure something, takes time and deliberation. You cannot easily measure something at a distance. God says I want you to get close to the temple of God. I want you to see the things that I have prepared for those that love Me. God has prepared blessing, an eternity of bliss. God has prepared things that have not entered into the heart of man for those that love Him as an alternative to what men have.
What have you, dear friend, to look forward to without God? If you take God out of your consideration and out of your life - even if we know the Lord Jesus and know God - if you take the things of God - the things that belong to God, the truth of the gospel, the truth of the Lord Jesus and the work that He has done - out of your life, what have you? What has man, those who know not our Lord Jesus Christ? Paul tells us: he speaks of those who are without hope and without God in the world. What a position to be in! Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 15, "If in this life only we have hope..., we are the most miserable of all men", v 19. Go down on the beach: there are plenty of people who do not know God and do not think the Lord's Day is any different from any other day and they seem very happy. Are they? Can a man be happy without having peace with God, without having a link with the Lord Jesus? Do you think you can be happy without a link with the Lord Jesus? What have you, dear friend? What can you say you actually have by way of permanent lasting peace and enjoyment outside of God? I can tell you because the scripture tells us: you have nothing. If you have not the Lord Jesus in your heart as your own personal Saviour, if you do not know peace with God, if you do not know that your sins are forgiven, if you have not measured the temple of God and seen the great things that God has for you in the gospel, you have nothing.
That is a lesson we all have to learn and keep on learning because sometimes we think we have something. We think we have ability. We think we can get to the top of the tree, make our way in the world. God can take that all from you. There have been those that have reached right to the top of their chosen career or chosen sport, and God has put His hand on them and touched them. Job was a man like that. He had everything and God touched him in every part of his life. Sometimes God does that to us, touches us just to remind us that without Him we have and are nothing. God in whose hand our breath is: God can take that breath away at any moment. None of us can boast of tomorrow. That should keep us very humble in the presence of God, very dependent, but it should also give us to value the greatness of the temple of God, the greatness of the things that God has. This temple here is the actual building, the centre of the temple, because it goes on to speak of “the court which is without the temple cast out, and measure it not", v 2. This is the very shrine, this is the innermost thought of what God has for men and, dear friend, without it, you and I have nothing. Therefore, we should measure these things and see how much part of our lives they are. If the things of God are the only things worth having, how much time, how much energy do I devote to them? Or is my time and energy devoted to that which really is only building up a line that is going to end in death and the grave?
This is a challenge to every heart. If you do not know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, it should be a very real challenge to you because you are going on, dear friend, to destruction. Oh, you say, that is a bit old-fashioned. That is very basic, fundamentalist Protestantism. It may be but it is also the truth of God. There are only two ways: there is a broad way that leads to destruction and a narrow way that leads to life, and the trouble is that you and I would like the broad path to lead to life. But it does not. The broad path leads to destruction: “the end thereof is the ways of death", Prov 14: 12. But the narrow way leads to life. There are not many on it; most are on the broad way. How sad that is! All those people enjoying themselves on the beach and many of them, no doubt, on the broad way that leads to destruction, not only not knowing it, but not really caring about it. God can speak to them. God does speak to them. Every man, woman and child, I believe God gives them opportunity. He speaks to them in their lives, circumstantially, something they hear or read, even by means that perhaps you or I would not fully approve, maybe a word or programme on radio or television. God can use that to speak to the hearts of men. Thank God for what goes on, even in the way of the mass media - faithful men and women who are prepared to deliver the truth and speak a word about the Lord Jesus in simplicity and faithfulness. But He is speaking to you and me and what He is saying is "measure the temple", measure and see what I have for you, and how much I have in store for you and how much I want you to be with Me and with Me eternally, to see this great, wonderful edifice, the “things ... which God has prepared for them that love him", 1 Cor 2: 9. I do not think you could measure it fully. None of us knows anything yet as we ought and if you read later in this book of the holy city and see the measurements there, something like twelve hundred miles vertically and horizontally, although it is finite it is almost beyond our comprehension. That is the kind of thing in which God wants you and me to find our eternal part; happiness now in time, but everlasting joy throughout eternity. Let us have some increased apprehension of the temple of God.
I want to come now to: "measure ... the altar". I think this would relate to the work and the Person of the Lord Jesus. He was the altar and the sacrifice, but I think it is a very touching matter to measure the altar, to have some fresh apprehension in the gospel of where the Lord Jesus went, the depths to which He went. Again, because it has to do with One who is divine, it cannot be measured in its fulness. "None could follow there, blest Saviour", the hymn says. The same hymn says, "Thou didst measure then sin's distance" (Hymn 298). You cannot do that. I cannot do that. None of us can measure the awfulness of the distance that sin has brought in between man and God. Even light years would not measure the distance that sin has brought in between man and God. But there is one Man who has measured it. He was the sacrifice and the altar. Dear friend, have you measured the altar? Have you ever sat down and thought what the death of Jesus meant to God, what it means to you, what it means for everybody? Have you ever sat down prayerfully and read on your own the accounts in the gospels of the death of the Lord Jesus? We need to measure these things deliberately. God says to you in the preaching, "Come now, let us reason together", Isa 1: 18. Let us think about these things! This is a very profound reference, "measure ... the altar", see the way that the Lord Jesus went, tasted death for everything. There is not a sin that has been committed in time that the Lord Jesus did not bear, for which He did not suffer and exhaust God's judgment. He is a propitiation for the whole world (see 1 John 3: 1). There have been some heinous crimes, deadly sins, black sins. Oh, you say, that lets me out. I have not done these wicked things. I have never murdered anyone. Perhaps I have never stolen anything. I have never done these wicked things. One sin would keep you from the presence of God for eternity. If you were the only sinner on the earth and if you had only committed one sin, if you were to have entry into the presence of God, the Lord Jesus had to die. It may not be a very grievous one, but one sin would keep you out of the presence of God for ever because God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil”, Hab 1: 13. Think of that! We have to do with a God who cannot even look upon sin. And you think of this altar. Think of the Lord Jesus, the One whom we remembered this morning, the One who went into death, laid down His life, shed His blood, exhausted God's judgment against sin. We do not come into the blessings of Christianity without the price being paid. The price has been paid in full. Thank God the gospel says that you and I have not to pay the price. It has been paid. God's judgment against sin has been borne and exhausted by the Lord Jesus. "Measure ... the altar!" Have a fresh look, dear friend, at the Person of the Lord Jesus! Have a fresh appreciation of the depths to which He went! You will not be able to fathom it. But here this man was given this reed like a staff and, told, "Rise, ... measure ... the altar". Let the word of God just come to you afresh! Have another look, dear friend, believer and unbeliever alike, at what the death of the Lord Jesus involved. How deep He went, how far He went! As that hymn says, referring to Luke 15:
'But none of the ransom'd ever knew
How deep were the waters cross'd
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through
Ere He found His sheep that was lost.'
Think of the shepherd going after that lost sheep "until he find it", Luke 15: 4. How far was that? How far has the Lord Jesus had to go for you? How far did He have to go for me until He found me? How far away were we from God? Yet He went until He found us. Every blood-bought saint will be able to say that that the Lord Jesus went after them until He found them. It says in relation to some in Luke that He would have gone further. We would have to say that the Lord Jesus has gone further for us than any of us have ever gone in disobedience and sin, because He has measured the extremity of sin's distance, However far you have been away from God, however bad you have been, however wicked your sins have been, the Lord Jesus has gone further because He has been to the bottoms of the mountains (Jonah 2: 6). "Measure ... the altar!" Contemplate the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus, the alone Saviour for sinners, the only one that can give you entrance into this wonderful realm of the temple of God! There is only one way. There is only one gate. The Lord Jesus said that: "I am the way ...", John 14: 6. There is no other way into the blessings of God. Comparative religion? No! None of that will do. There is only one way. There is only one person. The Lord Jesus is beyond compare. There is much talk these days about different ways of finding God and arriving at salvation. There is only one way. There is only one gate and that is faith in the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus; the only way of blessing: "... for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men", Acts 4: 12. Whatever names there may be, there is only one "name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved". That is God saying: Measure this! Most of us can count to one. The scripture says there is only one way. God has made it so simple. If there were a multiplicity of ways, I would be able to say my way is better than yours or my way is easier than yours. This is what politicians say, Our way is better than yours: this way will not work: this way is such-and-such and this way is something else. No! God says there is only one way. God has made things simple. Even if you cannot count beyond one, you can come into the blessing of the gospel because there is only one way for blessing. Dear friend, let us "measure ... the altar".
Now we come to the testing one: "measure ... them that worship in it". This is measuring you and me. As I said at the beginning, God tells us in His word that we have all come short. How do you measure up to the word of God? How do you measure against the glory of God? We come short. God says He is able to make you to stand. Have you ever measured yourself? Have you ever been able to say that by putting your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus all the worth of that blessed One is put to your account so that you can stand before God? "Measure ... them that worship in it". See those men in the Old Testament - "Each one resembled the sons of a king", Jud 8: 18. That is what a believer is. That is what a blood-bought saint is. "Measure ... them that worship in it". How do you stand before God? Do you still come short because your faith is not in the Lord Jesus or have you put your faith in the Lord Jesus and can say that God has made you to stand, made you a prince? That is what believers are. As Mr Lyon used to say: heaven's aristocracy! A few weeks ago we buried a brother in Redbridge, who was a road-sweeper. I often used to see him out and about sweeping the gutters and the pavements. I used to think of that remark when I saw him sweeping the streets. Men would drive by in their Rolls Royces and Mercedes. There was a man who was part of heaven's aristocracy. Nothing in this world! No! Some of us may strive to get a better place, maybe. But you need no better place than God can give you. Measure the worshippers! God can make you to be one of heaven's aristocracy, a son of God. What greater privilege could you have? You have a link as you come into the joy of the gospel with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You have a line of communication, a direct line to the very seat of power, help and grace in the universe. A Man ascended far above all heavens and filling all things. Now let us measure ourselves, "them that worship in it".
There is just one thing more before I finish. It would be a good exercise if we put this into practice locally and measured ''them that worship in it". It would give us to value our local brethren, value all our brethren, value anyone with whom we have a link in the things of God. Perhaps we have not done that. Perhaps you write some off or write some down. I think it would be very good if we kept this reed like a staff and started to measure ''them that worship in it". We might get some surprises. You might find some hidden treasures, some hidden stature in a brother or a sister that you had not seen before. Go round your local meeting. Go round your local area. Go round your Christian friends. The gospel would give you this positive view of all God's people.
May the challenge of this verse in Revelation remain with us all, for the Lord's names sake.
WALTON-ON-THE-NAZE
17 July 1994