"... And, Lord, now this morning , we, as a little group of Thy people, come before Thy word with open hearts asking that Thou wilt teach us, not our own thoughts and our own ways and our own plans, but what is Thy Will and Thy Word. So we ask for Thy help in our study together this morning and we give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
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If you have your blank form that was in the bulletin this morning and you want to fill it out, I'm going to just go over that this morning. That will be the substance of our work together in this class. You notice I call it a "class" because it really is. And we'll just try to fill in as many of the blanks as we can. If you want to use it, fine; if not, that's okay.
Last week, we talked about #1. You'll notice the first name or title given to the church in the Scripture, or the New Testament, is the 'Flock'. And 2 references that I gave, (and, by the way, I'm going to suggest 1 or 2 and sometimes 3 references for each of these terms but we'll only try to look up 1 and say a few words about it) and talked about were John 10:16 and Acts 20:28.
(John 10:16 KJV) And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
(Acts 20:28 KJV) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
We saw there the presentation of Christ as the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd and the Chief Shepherd. And then under the column marked 'Lessons God Teaches Us' - loyalty, protection and unity. Now you could probably think of others but I want to highlight just those 3 - loyalty, protection, and unity.
As far as any notes for the right-hand column, I think I would just want to underscore how important the whole of the UNITY of God's people is. That it's a great gift of God to us with the Lord Jesus as the Shepherd in the center. He's the focal point. He's the One that gives us our unity and brings us together. The Holy Spirit has formed us into one body and I think we need to be on guard.
Let me say this now as something that should apply to our study all the way down this sheet. We need in each one of these terms to recognize that God is communicating some special lesson or truth about what His intention is for the church, and we need to be on guard constantly because everyone of us, as born-again Christians has not only the Spirit of God dwelling in us, i.e. to say a new nature, we also have that old sinful nature that we had from Adam. And that old nature is going to want to get involved and foil and mix up the plan of God. And with regard to this first column, I think I see a tendency for man always to get some human being into the center of the flock. And we've got to resist that tendency. We're not talking about the local church yet we hope to talk more about that next week or the weeks following - we're still talking about the universal church - the great body of all believers world-wide. But we need to see that whatever we believe about the universal church, we're going to have to scale it down now and see if we really respect that and practise it on a local level. And so we see man always trying to put another shepherd or another head man or someone in the center of the flock, and we need to keep the Lord Jesus in His place there.
Now the second one is the 'Field'. And I wish you'd turn to your Bibles please to I Cor 3:9. This verse divides two figures of speech that Paul is using to talk about the work of God. And he says, "For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's cultivated field (you're God's field) and you are God's building."
(1 Cor 3:9 KJV) For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
Now if you look at the verses immediately preceding, the first eight verses, especially vv.5-8, he's talked there about the field. If you look at the verses that follow verse 10 on down, you'll see he changes and begins to speak about the building. So, we want to emphasize right now the 'field'.
The church is also likened to a cultivated field and of course we see there that God is pictured to us as the husbandman or the farmer.
And the lessons we might remember from that - I see at least two - growth and fruitfulness.
We want to see growth in the people of God. For a field there has to be plants, and the plants have to grow, and eventually there is going to be fruit. Now in the Scripture we know that 'fruit' is used in at least two ways. It's used to describe people who are won to the Lord. We say we should go out and 'bear fruit' and by that we mean we want to see other people come to know the Lord Jesus. We also speak about the 'fruit of the Spirit' i.e. the character of the Lord Jesus being born in each one of our lives. So, 'fruit', then, or 'fruitfulness' really has a two-fold thought.
One of the joys that I've had in the past months is, when working with the people in the new assemblies up in Bristol, to see at least three young men there who have a burden or the gift of evangelist - not saying they're evangelists, we're not sure about that yet - but they certainly do have that burden. And I'm thrilled to see the way that God has touched their hearts, not only to see the importance of that matter, but also to see it in its right perspective. They're taking the gospel OUT to the world where it should be, and they're going out with tracts, and door-to-door and witnessing to others, in the town and in the shopping centers and so forth. We all should be witnesses and we praise God for the exercise of these young men.
Now if you'll look back at vv.5-8, you'll notice that Paul is speaking about the various servants of God. Just want to draw your attention in verse 6 to a statement he makes there - "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase."
Well, certainly, another lesson we can learn under this metaphor of the 'field' is how important cooperation and teamwork is in the work of the Lord. Whether we're going out to win the lost for the Lord for the first time or whether we're talking about growth or fruitfulness in the believers in the assembly, there must be cooperation and teamwork. We need to respect one another's gifts and abilities. We need to work together. And Paul here is appealing to the Corinthians, saying, "Don't arrange yourselves behind this man and that man, we've all been given to you by the Lord, and it's His field. And we're all workers together. And the thing that we want to see come out of this is fruitfulness and growth."
The third word is a 'building'. The church is likened to a building. And that's the same verse - 1 Cor 3:9: "Ye are God's building." Another scripture you might want to look at some time is Eph 2:22 where the church is called a 'habitation' or a 'dwelling place' for the Lord.
(Eph 2:22 KJV) In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus as you know is presented in Scripture as the foundation and the chief corner stone. So when we're thinking of the church as a building we want to think of Him as the Foundation on which the building is erected, but also He is the Chief Corner Stone and the Cap Stone. So He's the bottom and the top.
The lessons that we might see under this illustration of a building are : we have a permanent dwelling, not a temporary dwelling, but a PERMANENT dwelling, and also very important, we see in the passage (verse 10 and following) a PLANNED architecture.And I just delight in the way God has in His Word laid out the blueprint. You know, that's what we're doing here on Sunday mornings. We're studying the blueprint of the church. The Master Designer has written a blueprint and He's handed it to us. And He's said, "Now here's My plan and you need to study it and you need to learn it." And we all come together as the people of God and we open the Word of God and we study the divine blueprint for the church.
One sister told me this morning when I came in - I want to share it with you - she and another sister were praying together in their room at home and she said, "we're praying to God that the leadership in the assembly here might see the need that we have to study the principles of the New Testament church," and she said, "The next day we came out to the assembly and the elders made an announcement that we're going to take up the study of the New Testament church." She said, "What a joy it was to be in prayer to God for that and then the next day have that announcement made." So we thank God for that and for their willingness to share that blessing and I know they won't mind me sharing that with you. But we're not going to build on the foundation and get a building that's really going to stand if we don't study the blueprint.
Here's a verse I've always loved ... in II Tim. 2:5 Paul says,
There he's thinking about the athlete. If a man enters an athletic competition, if he's not going to keep the rules, he's not going to receive the reward.
I think we can apply that to the building too. And as we look around professing Christendom today, we see a lot of buildings and we shake our heads sadly and we say, "I don't really see much obedience and faithfulness to the blueprint when I look at that."
Remember last week we said how Moses was commended because of his accurate attention to the minute details that God had given. So we want to be very careful then in our study to pay attention to the divine blueprint. And the Lord here, through His apostle Paul, reminds us in I Cor. 3:10, "Let every man take heed how he buildeth on it." So he says, "Let everyone take heed. The church is God's building." And he says, "I want to warn you, let every man watch out and be very careful how he builds."
(1 Cor 3:10 KJV) According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
Now he says in verse 1l,
So if we're not building on the Lord Jesus, we're not going to be building God's building. We're not going to be doing God's work. There are many who DO accept the Lord as Foundation, saying, "Oh, yes, we certainly believe that Jesus Christ is the Foundation," as we sang this morning - 'the Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord'. But then you'll have to wonder about the materials that they're using.
Paul speaks in verse 12 and following about the various materials that are available. He speaks about enduring materials - gold, and silver, and precious stones. He also speaks about materials that will not stand the test of fire and are easily burnt up.
Now as I thought about this, I remembered a time, years ago, and I had to do some masonry, some stone work, and that's a long and a hard job. When you're building a structure out of stone, it goes very slowly. And if you're going to take up wood or some of these other materials, you might make a lot more speed. And building with stone is cumbersome and slow. And if it's speed you're after, you'll probably wouldn't choose stone. And yet when the fire comes, we find that it's the gold and the silver and the precious stones that endure and remain. But some of these other things - the wood, the hay, and the stubble - do not stand the test of fire.
So then we want to be careful in our work for God - that the primary thing we're seeking is not speed. We're glad to see growth and we're glad to see when growth moves right along and we praise God for it. Now that's not the primary thing, the primary thing is - are we really building with quality? and God gives that to us here in the passage. So, we have the building.
And then #4, we also read about the temple. Now if you'll read down to I Cor 3:16, Paul says, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" This is also taken up over in II Cor 6. And of course the temple brings a flood of memories to us who have read the Old Testament whether we're speaking about the human body as Paul does in some Scriptures, or whether we're speaking about the church.
The presentation here is the Lord is seen as God, and only God is the One who goes in the middle of the temple and be worshipped. The temple is a place of worship.
Under lessons, I have 'a place of worship and service' and also the thought of 'holiness'.
When we think of our worship for the Lord and when we think of our service for Him in the assembly and during the week, I trust that everyone of us will remember that the basis for service and for worship is a holy life. We cannot come before the Lord either in worship or in service if we're not willing to maintain a separated walk so that we can have approach to His holy presence.
I also want to remind us, under this thought of a temple, of something we're going to enter into and spend (Lord willing) a whole message in the weeks ahead, and that is the priesthood of the believer. Now where you have a temple, you'll have a priesthood. We want to speak about the priesthood of the believer - who the priests are, and what their sacrifices are.
But right now let's suffice it to say that the Lord Jesus looks at His church and He says "You are the temple of God" and He is in our midst. And we are all believer-priests. We come before Him to bring our worship and praise to Him. But then we also have our acts of service.
Now remember what the Lord Jesus said in Matt. 4, He reminded us of the Old Testament principle, He said that thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
Each one of us needs to pause from time to time and ask ourselves who we serve! It's easy to say, "I worship Jesus Christ. I go to West Woods on Sunday mornings and I have a service just for worship. And so I worship Jesus Christ."
But remember the Lord said, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and HIM ONLY shalt thou serve." And so God then wants to see the worship - that we bring to Him on Sunday morning and at other times - being an expression and an outflow of life that is serving Him too.
Now I think you would agree with me that if we're serving ourselves or if we're serving someone or something else, then how acceptable is our worship really going to be to our Lord? So, each one of us then - we're not to judge one another - we need then to be very careful to take a good hard look at our own lives, and say, "Who am I really living for? What am I really living for?"
This is especially important for parents with young children because the children see what the parents are really living for. If we worship the Lord, and we say we worship the Lord, then we ought to serve Him. And we can serve Him in the place where He has put us - each one of us in the way that He gives us.
So the church then is to be a temple. And the Lord Jesus is certainly God and He is worthy to receive our worship and we do serve Him.
And then we have the Body. Now this is a very important illustration. Let's turn over to Eph 1. More than any other book, Ephesians speak about the body. Maybe we could just read a few verses here - Eph 1:22-23. Speaking about the Lord in v.20: being raised up from the dead and sat in heavenly places at the right hand of the Father, Eph 1:22 says "and hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." Let's also look at 4:4 - just that first little phrase - "There is one body." Now we're going to talk about this on another day, but let me just suggest something here, if I may, without hurting anyone.
As we go along in our study, one thing we want to do is pay attention to details and also get our terminology straighten out. We all tend to muddle the use of words and so let's then try to take up the Biblical use of words and not cloud their meanings.
The Scripture says "There is one body." We have to remember that. The body is an illustration that is NEVER applied to the local church. We hear about the many bodies in Christianity, and our body and their body and all the rest. But Scripture never speaks in that way. There is one body. So we may be the local expression of it, we may be the local church, the local assembly but there's one body and let's try to be careful and all watch our terminology there.
Eph 5:22-23 - "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the Head of the Church and He is the Saviour of the body." So there we see the Lord Jesus as presented as the Head - a body with a head.
And the lessons would be : life, there must be life in a body; dependence. Paul in I Cor 12 speaks about how all the members are necessary and not one can say, "we don't need you." So there is life. There is dependence.
And here again, I think we see the thought of unity- every member is necessary to go to make up the body of Christ. And so when you hear Christians talking about the body, you'll know what they're speaking about. They're speaking about the church, and the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Body.
Now I mentioned I Cor 12 and maybe we could just put a marker there at Ephesians and go back to I Cor 12 because I want to remind you about one matter that has to do with the body. One of the most challenging goals that I know of in the study of the whole matter of church truth is every time you identify something in the blueprint that has to do with the great universal church, the body of Christ, is to ask yourself, "Now how are we going to make that practical in the assembly where we fellowship?"
There's just so much doctrine to fill our heads, in our note-books but if it isn't going to affect our lives, I wonder how valuable it really is. How are we going to make these things practical? That's what this series, I hope, will try to do, but I want you to notice that in I Cor 12, that chapter where Paul again and again and again speaks of the body ... he says in verse 7: "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to PROFIT." I think some time ago we studied that word 'profit' and we saw that literally it meant 'the carrying together'. Paul says the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every person for the expressed purpose of the carrying together, that is the bringing together, the joining together, of the body. So that the body might be without schism, developed, every member knowing its place and its part. Now what is the manifestation of the Spirit?
Now if we have a living body, the body in order to be alive must have a living spirit within. God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now God breathed into the church on the day of Pentecost, and the church became a living body. And the Holy Spirit indwells the church, the body of Christ. But the Holy Spirit within us and within the assembly seeks to manifest Himself, not Himself so much as Christ. It's called the manifestation of the Spirit.
We will not look there now but you remember over I Cor 14, there were those skeptics and unbelievers who came into the local assembly and because the Holy Spirit was free to manifest His presence through the Christians, the skeptics and unbelievers said, "God is certainly among you people." That's a marvelous testimony. I'm always glad when the unbeliever says that, "Well, you know, I didn't believe much in God but I have to admit He's certainly with you people." That's a good testimony and we need to ask the question "Are we allowing the Spirit of God to manifest His presence?"
We want to see the fruit of the Spirit being formed in the lives of individuals. We want to see changed lives. We want to see the gifts of the Spirit. There are many, many gifts in Scripture, all given to serve. And we want to see these things as the Holy Spirit raises us up and brings these things forth. And they're all given not for entertainment. Oh, no, they're given for the common good, to bring the body together. And anything that tends to fragment and destroy the body is not a work of the Spirit of God. But anything that tends to bring us together, to promote the Head of the Lord Jesus, this is the work of the Spirit of God. And we need to encourage it.
Now we go on to #6, the family. In Eph 3:15, Paul mentions the whole family in heaven and earth being named after the Lord. I also want to suggest as a reference the whole book of I John. I John is a family letter. It's written to the family of God, and it speaks about the babes, and it speaks about the young men, and the older ones. And if you're in the family of God, once in a while, you should read I John as a family letter. It's not written to unbelievers at all, it's written to the family. And here we see the Lord presented as the Heavenly Father. Remember the Lord Jesus spoke about us praying to the Father in Heaven, your Heavenly Father, and this would bring before us the lessons of intimacy, and fellowship and different degrees of maturity.
Now you know there is one thing that we have to pause and think about for a moment - the different degrees of maturity. How important for us to remember that in a family there are babes that have need of milk, and there are young people that have need of challenge to serve, and there are older ones that have their needs too. We have to respect one another and realize that all of us are at a different stage of development.
Sometimes in a family, tensions can get a little hard and there can be a little grating, and rubbing on one another, and it's tough to live under the same roof with a family especially if you've a little house. And God ordains that this is good for us to learn to live together and work together and get along.
And I believe that one of the basis of the family is communication. I wonder what kind of a communicator you are in your family. What kind of communicator you are in the family of God? And here again on the practical side I wonder, what kind of time do we allow in the assembly for communication - really meaningful fellowship to learn about one another and get to know one another? It's very important.
We had the opportunity to fellowship with a Christian family this week, and the wife said, "Well, you know, I guess you could say about our home ... I don't understand my husband and he doesn't me and that's why we have so many problems." And that's sad.
And so I think fellowship and intimacy in a family and getting to know one another is a very, very important thing. And we need to remember I Peter 3, Peter says, Let the wives dress and behave in a certain manner and then he says, let the husbands dwell with their wives according to knowledge and giving them honor and , when he gets all done there, he says, so that your prayers will not be hindered. And he takes for granted you're going to be praying of course if you're a Christian couple. And he says, you don't want your prayers to be hindered - that God is not able to come in them and answer your prayers.
Can we apply that to the Christian family, the assembly, to the church? We want to have the ladies and the men, and the young people, all respecting and loving one another and getting along, so that our prayers will not be hindered. If anything does come in, we need to confess it and get it cleared away. Each one of us should have that as a personal goal at home and in the assembly. "I don't want to be the cause of unanswered prayer."
I have a friend up in Bristol, a young brother and he was telling me about something that happened at work. And he said some man came up to him to criticize the fact that he was so outspoken in his witness. Before he criticized him, he said, "I don't want you to get offended but I want to tell you something." And the brother said, I looked at him and said, "Now listen I've known the Lord for 2 whole years, I'm not a babe anymore. I'm not about to be offended by anything you or anyone else could say." And he quoted Psalm 119:165 "Great peace are they that love Thy law, nothing shall offend them" and he likes that verse and he said, "You can't offend me." And so the fellow went on and criticized him and he said, "Okay I'll take that and think about it." And I thought, My, isn't that nice? Here's a brother who's been saved 2 whole years and he can say, "Well I'm not a babe anymore, you can't offend me."
How sad when we see people who've been saved 10, 12, 15, 20 years, and we hear people say, "Be very careful how you talk to him. Be very careful how you approach her. Because you can offend her so easily." Isn't that sad?
And here we are in the family and those of us who are older in the Lord, we ought to be unoffendable Christians. Now that's what it takes to make a family that can live together in harmony and do the work of God.
#7 - the bride. While we're in Eph 5, let's read just vv. 15-17 : "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Well, we have the bride of Christ. Another reference would be Rev 21:2,9, where the bride is described specifically. Rev 21:2 & 9 - the Lord Jesus here is presented as the bridegroom, of course, and the church is His bride.
This would bring before us the thought of love and devotion, of purity, and in this case, of expectation. The bridegroom is away, the bride is here on earth, but we expect at any moment the return of the bridegroom. So we love Him, we have devotion to Him. We keep ourselves pure from the world and we expect His soon return.
I want to suggest that each one of us would be greatly blessed, I'm sure many of you do this already, to sit down from time to time as you read the Word of God and really ponder between the many parallels of the church as the bride of Christ, the bride and the bridegroom relationship, and the husband and wife relationship in the family.
Now, many people think about that on the wedding day because the preacher brings it into his message, but after that, it kind of goes by the way-side. But we ought to keep that in our marriages, husbands and wives, all through our lives.
Some of you know Jim Harvey up in Massachusetts. When I was in college, he used to come and speak at the assembly where I was, and he always referred to his wife as his bride. And now that made a real impression on me. He's always very kind, and kindly spoken about his wife. He called her 'his bride' and I think that's the way God wants our marriages to be.
Do we look at our marriage and do we really see a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church? Sad to say, we're in the middle of a great national tragedy right now, aren't we, where husbands are not taking the spiritual leadership at homes? They're not doing what it says the Lord Jesus does as the Head. They're not loving their wives. They're not giving themselves for their wives. They're not sanctifying i.e. helping to bring the wife's state of spiritual maturity and holiness about. And the wives are not submitting to the husbands. They're in a state of rebellion in many ways. And so, what happens? Not only does the family fall apart, and the children suffer, but also eventually the church begins to question the authority of the bridegroom. And people that call themselves Christians begin to say things like "Well, you know we no longer accept that", "We no longer believe that" or "Social customs have changed, that we no longer feel it's necessary to follow those instructions of Christ." And so it's very important then for us to see this lovely relationship - the bride and the bridegroom.
#8- the house of God. Let's turn to I Tim 3:15 - Paul writing to Timothy says:
Here we find the expression - the house of God.
And this makes us think, and I want to skip over to the subject of the order and discipline, i.e. the lesson - the order and discipline that there needs to be in the church.
This makes me think of the Lord in His work as Judge. Now some of you may feel that word a little bit harsh to be put there - "'Judge' sounds quite austere etc." I just want to remind you of 1 Peter 4:17 which is the other reference. Peter says, "The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God: if it begins us, what will happen or what will be the end result for the world that doesn't believe the gospel?"
I don't believe that that's a judgment for sins because that was certainly borne by the Lord Jesus on the cross, but there is certainly a purifying judgment. There is certainly a disciplining, a chastening work in the life of the believer. And God certainly exercises this order and discipline. He looks for order, and He certainly brings needed discipline and chastening in the church at certain times.
Parents, did you ever notice in your home how that when you had to discipline severely one of your children, how suddenly the others all shaped up real quick? Did you ever notice that? The strap or the rod came out to deal with one wayward youngster and suddenly everybody was on their best behavior? Remember what happened in Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphira suddenly fell down dead because of their sin? We read there in v.11, "Great fear came upon the whole church." I would think so. God was bringing discipline. And Peter, as a leader there in the assembly in harmony with the will of God, intervened on behalf of the Lord, i.e. to say, he's God's instrument and God respected his word and discipline came, and great fear fell on the whole church.
And I want to say that one of the things that the church today needs is a little bit more close attention to order and discipline. Not that we're all wayward children, but I think sometimes some have gotten the impression that the church exists as some kind of a social club where you come together and have a real nice time and nobody ever says anything that you don't like to hear.
My son used to say to me when I was disciplining him, 'You know, dad, you know you're making me feel real bad!" And I guess that was supposed to make me change my mind. "You're making me feel real bad!" As if our home was set up just so that everybody could have a nice time. But we need to be corrected.
Hebrews 12 says that He chastens EVERY son that He receives. He says that if we're without correction, we're revealing something about who our true father is. So, the house of God ... very important , let there be order and discipline.
#9- the pillar. Also 1 Tim 3:15. The church is not only called the 'house of God' but it says it's the 'pillar and ground of the truth'. Now the pillar is that which upholds the house. It's not the foundation, it's the abutment or the form or whatever it is, it's that place of special heavy support.
And here we find the church in its special work of standing for the truth, keeping the doctrines of Scripture intact and defending the great truths of the Word of God Paul goes on in the next verse, v.16, and he says , "without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: " And then notice this great doctrinal expression in just one verse, what a tremendous amount, Paul says here : "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory." My! We could talk all week on just that one verse. There's so many great doctrines there. And if society cannot look to the church as the place where the doctrines of Scripture are known and understood and upheld, where can our nation turn if the church is throwing out the doctrines of God's Word because she can't accept this and can't agree with that? So then the church is a pillar.
And I want to suggest that two of the lessons we might learn here are the labor and service of the church as regards the world. In other words, the church also has a responsibility out in the world. The world is going to be looking at us, scrutinizing the church. The pillar is not only that which supports but it's also that on which notices were posted so that the public might be informed as to what is going on. True and right doctrine must be the basis of all services. Services not based upon right Bible doctrine is not going to be honoring to God and useful to Him in His purposes. We need to defend the doctrines of the faith.
And I might say also, just before we leave this one, I also believe, it is the work of Satan our adversary to war against this point here - the church as the pillar of God. Satan would like to see the church become swallowed up and immersed in subjectivism - "Well, what do you think we should do?" or "How do you feel?" Emotionalism and subjectivism are swallowing up the professing church in many places. And there's a place for our emotions. There's a place for what the individual thinks and feels and likes, there's a good place for those things, BUT when it comes to what the church is founded on - the pillar - what you think and what you feel, or what I think and what I feel, doesn't matter a hoot. It's what the Word of God has to say, that's the foundation, the doctrine of Scripture.
And then finally, last of all, ,10, the church is portrayed as a lampstand. Here we have of course Rev 2, 3. The Lord Jesus is brought before us as the risen, glorified Christ - no longer, the meek and lowly, suffering Jesus. Now He is see by John in all of His resurrection splendor and glory - the risen and glorified Christ.
And of course the lampstand reminds us of the matter of testimony. The church has to have a testimony. I've been teaching through the book of Acts on Wednesday nights, and we really enjoyed what God has been saying to us as we study that book. One thing that has come home to me again forcefully as I've gone through the book of Acts and that is I don't see the church involved in any projects. Now I'm not saying anything against projects, I suppose we all need projects and thank the Lord for them. But I don't see the early church trying to win the community or do anything by making projects. As I've gone through Acts, I see the church almost wholly taken up with making sure the light is burning brightly. And that's what we have here in the lampstand - making sure that light is burning brightly.
If you have an oil lamp at home, first of all you have to make sure the glass is clean. You have to make sure the light is lit. You have to make sure there's enough oil in it, and of course oil is a picture in the Scripture of the Holy Spirit.
And just this morning, in some spare time I turned to the book of Rev 2, 3 and I saw something that I've never before seen in my studies and I want to mention it in closing because I think it fits right in here at this point.
Many have taught series on the seven churches of Revelation - the letters of the risen Lord to the seven churches. But I don't ever remember making this point or hearing it made by anyone. As I went through these letters, and I looked at, and tried to summarize in one short statement what the Lord's criticism or correction was to each one ... of course in #2 and 6, Smyrna and Philadelphia, there is no criticism, the Lord just gave those churches words of praise and comfort; but in the other five, ... I found to my surprise that the correction that the Lord would bring was the same all the way through - "Adjust your relationship with ME(!!!) - and pay attention to the doctrine that you're learning and teaching." And you'll find that in all five ... To Ephesus He says , "I have a little against you, you have left your first love" and you go right on through all of them and you come to Laodicea and He says "I'm going to spew you out of my mouth because my relationship to you and your relationship to me is making me sick. It's no good." And all the way through, you see this.
And so I want to make a suggestion here in the light of that. We talk about the testimony of the church and the church needs to have a testimony. I think it's very important that we give due consideration to the quality of the light that's coming out. What about our relationship to the Lord Jesus as a church? What about the oil of the Holy Spirit? And the people who fellowship in that place? Are these Spirit-filled believers? And can the world see it? My! That's what we find in the book of Acts. No wonder they had tremendous growth back then!
Let's pray: