This conference time has been focused upon the
present significance of a little clause in the
12th chapter of the letter to the Hebrews
and the 22nd verse, ye are come to
Zion.
Various aspects of that statement have been considered
and without any review we are proceeding to
another this morning.
I want you to have before you one
or two other fragments of scripture.
Firstly in the prophecies of Isaiah chapter 34
and verse 8, for
it is the day of the Lord's vengeance,
the year of recompense in the controversy of
Zion chapter 31 and verse 4,
for thus saith the Lord unto me, like
as when the lion growleth, the young lion
over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds
be called forth against him, he will not
be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself
for the noise of them.
So shall the Lord of hosts come down
to fight upon Mount Zion and upon the
hill thereof.
In the prophecies of Jeremiah chapter 25, verse
31, the noise shall come even to the
end of the year for the Lord hath
a controversy with the nations.
He will plead with all flesh as for
the wicked he will give them to the
sword, saith the Lord.
And in the second psalm, why do the
nations rage, the peoples imagine a vain thing.
Kings of the earth set themselves and the
rulers take counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointed, saying, let us break their
bands asunder and cast away their cords from
us.
He that could live in the heaven shall
laugh, the Lord shall have them in division,
then shall he speak unto them in his
wrath and etch them in his sore displeasure,
yet I have set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion.
I will tell of the decree the Lord
said unto me, thou art my son, this
day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me and I will give thee
the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like
a potter's vessel.
And this morning we are to be occupied
with meaning of that little phrase, the controversy
of Zion, the controversy of Zion.
We know that in the word, Zion and
Jerusalem are often synonymous terms.
If there is a difference, Zion just means
the intrinsic values of all that Jerusalem
is supposed to represent and contain.
We recognize that difference and must keep it
in mind because when we come to Zion
we are coming to the high peak, the
ultimate significance of all that Jerusalem stands for.
Speaking of Jerusalem, we know from history, from
the scriptures, that Jerusalem has always been and
still remains the storm center of the ages.
There's a little phrase in the Old Testament
used of Jerusalem that she would be a
cup of real and
that behind the phrase is a picture.
It really takes forth a threshold and on
that threshold a cup holds and those who
come to that threshold and drink of that
cup, staggered and real, are thrown into confusion.
Jerusalem is said in that picturesque way to
be like that to the nations.
Nations coming against Jerusalem to find that on
the very threshold they met something proven into
confusion.
It completely upsets all their calculation, a cup
of really, to the nations.
To the nations, yes, that is what Jerusalem
has been and still is, literally.
They do not find that they can just
play with Jerusalem, cope with Jerusalem, do as
they like with Jerusalem.
They meet that is more than Jerusalem.
Not only to the nations but Jerusalem has
always been a decisive point to Israel herself.
A kind of sign, a barometer, a telltale,
representing the spiritual condition of Israel.
If Jerusalem was in the ascendant, it was
because the spiritual life of the people was
in the ascendant.
If Jerusalem were other than in the ascendant,
that represented the spiritual life of Israel, its
condition.
Jerusalem was always indicating spiritual life and Jerusalem's
security and peace was always bound up to
the spiritual condition of God's people.
So, it was always a controversial matter, a
spiritually controversial matter, whether to the nations or
whether to Israel.
If these things are true and they lie
right on the face of history, if they
are true in relation to the earthly and
temporal Jerusalem and people of God, they are
even more true in relation to that of
which the earthly is but a figure after
all.
What Paul calls the Jerusalem that is about
and what this writer of the letter to
the Hebrews, whoever he was, speaks of when
he says ye are come to Zion.
It is that controversy over this superior and
supreme Zion that is to hold our attention
this morning.
For there is undoubtedly an even greater controversy
over this that is meant by the spiritual
and heavenly Zion than has raged over the
earthly.
This is the very thing to which Paul
himself referred in his letters of the Ephesians
when he spoke about our wrestling being with
principalities and powers and world rulers of this
darkness and hosts of wicked spirits in the
heavenly.
That follows straight on from his presentation of
the church, the body of Christ.
And this is only another way of saying
there's a tremendous controversy in heaven over this
thing.
This is the occasion of cosmic upheavals, uprisings,
disturbances, something going on in the unseen.
However, a furious character directly and immediately related
to this church, the Jerusalem which is about
the Zion.
It is to this same thing that Peter
referred when he said, quoting from Isaiah, it
is contained in scripture, behold I lay in
Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, a stone
assembly and a rock of offense, something that
immediately raises a controversy, throws things into the
realm of conflict and dispute.
Again, it is to this very thing that
John refers in the tribulation.
Then he sees that multitude who have come
out of the great tribulation and have washed
their robes and made them fight in the
blood of the Lamb, a victorious host over
all the forces of evil and then says,
I beheld and lo, a Lamb upon Mount
Zion.
This is a presentation of the tremendous conflict,
conflict that circles around this that is called
Zion.
Yes, and just as in the temporal and
earthly and historical Jerusalem, or if you will,
Zion, is a sign of the times, so
it is in the spiritual.
A sign of the times.
I'm not launching into prophecy, but it is
clearly understood, I believe, that Jerusalem, the earthly
Jerusalem, has always been a sign of the
times and still is.
We have come to the almost commonplace in
saying, watch Jerusalem and you'll know the time
of day.
Watch Jerusalem, you'll know where you are in
the dispensation.
A sign of the times.
Why?
Because God is acting in this whole world
in a related way.
Watch and you see the movement of nations,
the movement of policies, you see things shaping,
forming, moving in the whole world.
God is moving and acting worldwide in a
related way and acting in the earthly history
in relation to Jerusalem.
Very significant.
A sign of the times.
So far as the world is concerned, so
far as the nations are concerned, God is
moving.
Something, dear friends, that we should lay hold
of in days when everything seems to be
in the melting pot, everything seems to be
in turmoil and tumult and disturbance, we should
remember that God is not only the God
of Christians, he is the Lord of all
creation, of heaven and of earth, and that
all the nations are as a drop in
the bucket with him, they're in his hands
and he is manipulating the course of history,
the movement of nations and all these things
that are happening are not just the wild
lawless run-amok events in the world, they
are all governed from heaven, relatedly, every one
of them.
No political movement that is not under heaven's
government just now in a related way concerning
something and all the nations are like that
with the Lord.
It's all indicative of God's object, God's interest.
It's a sign of the times, it's a
sign of spiritual condition, for God is not
only acting in that kind of chronological way,
working to a program and timetable in a
cold mechanical way, he is moving upon a
spiritual basis and it's all connected with spiritual
conditions and spiritual conditions are all related to
it.
Now, having said that, we arrive at this,
that it is made clear in the word
of God and we will not spend time
in dividing between the temple and the spiritual,
it is made clear in the word of
God that Zion will be the occasion of
the supreme and final conflict in the history
of this world, this present world order.
Zion, if you like to reason, will be
the theme and the occasion of the final
consummate conflict of the ages of this world.
It will be upon Zion that everything is
focused.
Now, let us keep to our side of
this matter.
What does Zion symbolize?
Let us say it again as we've said
it many times in this conference.
Zion, the earthly, the literal, the material, the
temporal, is after all, after all, at most,
a symbol, a representation of spiritual things.
Those spiritual things can be detected in the
material, for God's material things always contain the
elements of his spiritual.
And Zion, therefore, symbolizes a full heavenly and
spiritual testimony to Christ in the significance of
his person and the value of his work.
And finally, to his God-determined destiny.
Now, that's a big statement.
You could break that up and grasp it.
You comprehend the whole history of the earthly.
Zion, Jerusalem, understand what that's all about?
It's true in its realm of the earthly.
For there in Zion, when Zion is as
God intended it to be, you have a
full, heavenly, spiritual representation or embodiment of
God's mind concerning his King and his way
and the basis of it.
Always the altar and always the sanctuary.
There are your elements.
We're not going to follow those too closely.
We have so much on hand.
But let us transfer that in its spiritual
meaning to this Zion to which we are
coming.
What is Zion then for us?
The Zion to which we are coming?
This Jerusalem which is about, nay, this Jerusalem
of which we are citizens.
This Jerusalem which has no existence apart from
the people of God themselves who are the
Jerusalem.
What is it?
It is this.
A full, a heavenly, a spiritual representation,
embodiment, expression of Christ in the significance of
his person in God's universe.
The full, heavenly value of his work.
That of course means the work of redemption
by his cross.
And the full declaration of the place that
God has eternally destined that he should occupy.
That's the testimony of Zion.
If that is true, and that is no
small thing because any one of those three
things can occupy a Christian for a whole
lifetime and more.
The significance of the person of Christ in
God's universe.
Can you arrange that?
Can you fathom that?
Can you exhaust that?
The value of his work by his cross.
Can you arrange that?
The eternally destined, predestined place that he shall
occupy in God's universe.
Can we comprehend that?
Put those three things together and they constitute
the testimony of Zion.
And no wonder there's a controversy.
And no wonder that the controversy is as
great as it is.
Not surprised, are you?
This is no little campaign, no little battle,
no little fight.
This is ultimate.
This is all inclusive.
So let us go on.
This conflict and controversy has three aspects.
One, as to the nations.
Two, as to the realm of Christian profession.
And three, as to the ministry of the
testimony of Zion.
Let us look at those.
The controversy has to do in the first
place with the nations.
We have already stated that in general terms.
But we'll look at it more closely.
Of course I'm keeping to the scriptures.
I'm not outside of the scriptures although I'm
not quoting every chapter and verse.
The convulsions, the upheavals, the conflicts, the
unrest, the frustrations in national and international affairs
are all related to this testimony of Zion.
That's saying a tremendous thing.
They are all related to, in other words,
the inheritance of God's Christ.
The nations are related.
Ask of me and I will give thee
the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession.
That follows upon this.
I have set my king upon my holy
hill.
So that all that is happening in the
nations between them and amongst them is connected
with this whole matter of Zion's testimony as
to the inheritance of God's Christ.
And of course the inheritance of the saints
with him.
We have some very striking and forceful illustrations
and instances of this kind of thing in
the bible.
We are all so very familiar with the
controversy in Egypt with Pharaoh and with Egypt
and with the gods of the Egyptians.
What a terrific controversy that was.
How long drawn out.
How thorough.
Steadily moving with growing momentum.
Force working itself down ever deeper exhausting all
the opposition.
What a conflict.
The whole cosmic realm was involved.
Natural phenomena.
Sun, heaven, blackness, darkness, all nature was in
convulsion.
Everything was gathered into this controversy with Egypt,
with Pharaoh.
What was it all about?
Something that God had in the nations.
Something that belonged to God.
Something that in the sovereignty of God was
chosen to be the vessel of his testimony
in the earth.
And so this nation, this mighty kingdom of
Egypt is thrown into convulsions.
And all nature is thrown into convulsions over
this one thing at the heart of the
nation.
Babylon.
True the people have failed the Lord and
have been sent away into Babylon but the
Lord has not forsaken and the Lord has
not given up.
The Lord has not abandoned his testimony.
So then what do we read?
Well let's look at it in Isaiah 43.
Verse 14.
Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, your Redeemer,
people who are in Babylon, the Holy One
of Israel, for your sake I have sent
to Babylon, for your sake I have sent
to Babylon and I will bring down all
of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans in
the ships of their rejoicing.
I am the Lord, your Holy One, the
Creator of Israel, your King.
I have sent to Babylon and will bring
down all of them.
Margin says they're nobles.
I will bring down all of them as
fugitives for your sake.
You know what happened in Babylon.
A wonderful story isn't it?
What happened in Babylon.
It just looks like the pageantry of world
empires one following another.
Oh no, God says I have brought all
this about.
It's a wonderful story which we cannot take
time to go over.
The story of the overthrow of the Babylonian
empire.
The onward march of Cyrus.
They approached to the doors and they were
all inside off their guard in reverie.
That night fell shatterlessly.
The doors were pounded and possibly they were
unguarded and in came the next empire.
And the Lord just describes that and says
for your sake I have sent to Babylon.
All this, the overthrow of empires.
The Babylonian empire was one of the greatest
in the history of this world.
I know the overthrow of empires because of
a people right in the middle.
All this, all this is focused upon some
deposit of God in the nations.
The controversy is with the nations over some
object.
And that object is this Zion.
And if that dear friends is true of
the historical and earthly, it is even more
true of the spiritual in heaven.
God has a deposit in the nations.
And we are told that he has looked
to take out of the nations of people
for his name.
He's got in the nations of people for
his name.
And the things that are happening in the
nations, though we may not be able to
detect and follow and define things are happening
in a related way.
Just as the nations will vomit out the
Jews and be glad to get rid of
them as did Egypt.
And so the nations will.
So, so a true people of God in
this earth will make this world sick.
But their world will want to get rid
of them.
And the sovereignty of God will make a
very attitude of antagonism and hatred and extortion.
His own way of securing his people.
He's working in the nations.
Tremendous thing to recognize this for your sake.
Our point is that just as the nations
are being dealt with or have been dealt
with in relation to Israel of old.
So the world is being dealt with in
relation to this church that is in the
field.
Note in Matthew 24 we have some of
those signs of the end of the age
given to us.
Wars.
Rumors of wars.
Now you say, well there always have been
wars and always will be wars.
What's the difference between those of Matthew 24
and the other?
Well to begin with, have you counted the
number of wars in recent years?
There have been more wars in recent years
than in any previous time in the history
of this world.
And we're never out of war.
Whether it's hot war or cold war we're
never out of war.
Well I'm not going to dwell upon these
signs but there they are.
And the signs in the heavens.
But what is the statement here?
The Lord Jesus said all these are the
beginnings of birth pains.
But that's the beginnings of birth pains.
We're a long way advanced I think in
this matter beyond the beginnings.
Be that as it may, birth pains.
Then something's got to be born.
That's how the Lord views this whole situation.
This upheaval in the nations.
This tumult.
This unrest.
This frustration.
We know that's the word that is really
so apropos of the situation when he said
distress of nations.
He used a Greek word was employed which
gives the picture of a trade, a business
which has no way out.
It's shut up.
It's a business that has been shut up.
The Greek word means business.
No business.
No way out.
That's the word translated distress.
But then the Lord says when.
When you see this state of things the
nations having no way out.
Oh isn't it true?
No way out.
They're trying all the time to find a
way out aren't they?
The Greek word means business.
No business.
No way out.
That's the word translated distress.
But then the Lord says when.
When you see this state of things the
nations having no way out.
Oh isn't it true?
No way out.
They're trying all the time to find a
way out aren't they?
Find a way out.
All the way round.
A way out.
A way out of this.
This dilemma.
This predicament.
This situation.
They can't find it.
All their expedients and policies and diplomacies.
All the.
All of it is not succeeding.
They're having to make compromises all the way
out and none of their compromises give them
a way out.
No way out.
Then the Lord says when you see these
things lift up your heads.
For your way out's coming.
Your way out.
We know the way out.
That is however by the way it's all
to emphasize this.
That this is the beginning of taboo.
Of birth pangs.
Something is going out.
It's going to have a way out.
That which has been locked up in the
nations is coming out.
Church is the only body that has a
way out.
Has got a way out.
Yes convulsions.
Birth pangs is the word.
But there is so much in keeping with
what Paul said isn't it in his letter
to the room.
Chapter 8 verses 19 to 22.
We know that the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth together until now.
Or the manifestation of the sons of God.
Yes there is travailing and groaning in the
creation.
We can hear it.
We can hear it with our spiritual ears.
Well now let's go on.
There has to be a testimony in the
nations upon which God can work.
Which justifies his judgment of the nations.
Which gives significance to his government of the
world and the nations.
There's got to be a testimony in the
nations.
And such a testimony as will provoke God
to jealousy among the nations.
We so often put it in this connection.
Words of the prophet.
I am jealous for Jerusalem with a great
jealousy.
I am jealous with great wrath.
And that's connected in the prophecy you see
with this.
The Lord has a controversy with the nations.
He is jealous over something.
Something that has is there that is very
precious to him and very important to him.
He must have a testimony like that.
And when he's got that his sovereignty comes
into operation in all sorts of ways concerning
that he may work on the long patient
mind.
But his moves while grinding slowly are grinding
very small.
Though with patience he stands waiting with a
sadness grinds he all.
All related to that which is his in
the earth.
Something something in this earth in this world
which is a disturbing factor.
A disturbing factor.
It has set up inflammation.
You know that's true for every Christian.
A true Christian does.
You get an adequate testimony and you see
the inflammation that's set up.
You see what happens.
There's something there.
You don't have to try and make trouble.
Nothing whatever to do to precipitate it.
It's spontaneous.
It happens.
You may be the weakest and the mildest
and the quietest person on God's earth but
if Christ is vitally in you or as
a company of such you'll find that your
very presence promotes something.
And that provocation has the direction we must
get rid of this.
It's foreign to us.
It doesn't belong to us.
It's something that is not of our constitution.
We must get it out of our constitution.
That's the world's attitude.
That's the attitude of the devil.
His kingdom.
There's something provocative in this earth disturbing so
much and that is all we can say
about the relationship of Zion to the nations.
I trust you see more than I have
said.
The significance of God having an adequate testimony
in this world and what a tremendous thing
it is.
We must hurry to the next.
Zion and the testimony of Zion in relation
to the realm of Christian profession.
Realm of Christian profession and tradition.
That realm in which with the name of
Christian or of Christ the natural soul has
its kingdom.
It's a terrible thing to say but it
is quite true.
Right there with the Christian title there is
that which is just after all only the
kingdom of the soul of man.
The natural life.
And you find, you say it with glee,
you find that there is correspondence even there
in the realm of Christian profession to all
that you have in the world in principle.
All the same elements are active as in
the world commercially and socially.
Friends come, jealousies, rivalries, ambitions, personal interests.
You find them all ripe and in riot
in a certain realm called Christian.
They do not come from God, they do
not come from the devil, but there they
are.
Yes, I repeat, rivalries in Christianity, in Christian
work, in Christian interests, jealousies.
Jealousies for Christian things, personal interests to bring
them into position, into reputation, into influence.
You've touched them and you meet something but
kick them.
Christianity is a sphere of many selfish, personal,
natural ambitions.
Men support themselves in the realm of Christianity
to get advanced, to gratify their own natural
desires.
I'm pleased to say that but it's a
fact because we know it so well.
There it is.
That's one aspect of that realm of Christian
profession.
The eyes, as a flame of fire, see
through it.
They see through it.
They know all about it.
Another aspect is that it's a realm of
zeal without knowledge.
And that's a terrible realm, you know.
Terrible kind of thing, zeal but not according
to knowledge.
Kind of shadow land where men are seen
as trees walking.
That is something indistinct in spiritual apprehension.
No power or capacity or faculty for discriminating
between what is soulical Christianity and spiritual Christianity.
Things are all mixed up and confused.
I said at the beginning, some of you
weren't going to understand some of the things
I said.
Perhaps that's one of them.
But it's all solid thinking.
To most, things are mixed up.
You, in so much that is going on,
cannot draw even a thin line between man's
soul and its ambitions and its activities and
its thinks and what is really purely of
the Spirit of God.
It's all so mixed up and people don't
seem to be able to discriminate or discern
between the two.
Therefore, many, many innocent people are carried away
by the semblance of things, thinking that it
is something quite good and quite right.
Everything is indistinct, confused, with very limited regulation.
This was the kind of thing with which
Paul had to do in Judaism.
It's Judaism.
A confusion of the old covenant with the
new.
The old position with the new.
Trying to mix them up and make a
Jewish Christianity.
Making one thing of it.
One thing of it.
Judaism and Christianity.
No gap between.
No difference.
Judaizing Christianity and Christianizing Judaism.
Paul was up against this.
No, these two things belong to two different
realms and kingdoms altogether.
One belongs to the realm of the soul
and the other belongs to the mind.
There's a clean ditch to be made between
these, cutting through, discriminating.
But, in the realm of Christian profession and
tradition, there is not a capacity for that
discrimination.
Things are all mixed up.
Again, I use Christ's letter for men as
trees walking.
No power to clearly define what it is.
What it is.
It seems to be like this and yet
it is not all clear for our confused
state of things.
Much that is believed to be the truth
is being fought for.
And it is, after all, only a legalistic
interpretation of the truth.
There is so much failure, so much failure,
and so much inability to grasp the meaning
of the truth.
You know, there's such a difference, dear friends,
between a truth stated in Scripture and God's
meaning of the statement.
You are not able to discriminate between those
two things.
You see, you'll be in constant confusion.
That is just what we have here.
Here's the letter.
But what did God mean by that?
If you cannot discriminate, you can take that
letter to support a thousand different, opposing things.
Take any bit of Scripture and use it
to support something that is entirely in conflict
with another thing based upon the same Scripture.
It needs the Holy Spirit's interpretation, enlightenment, witness,
and judgment to bring us to the truth.
But in the realm of Christian profession, there
is not such a capacity or faculty.
Now, God's got a controversy with this.
For his true testimony, he will have a
controversy with what is called Christianity, as surely
as he had with Judaism.
He will indeed.
And very likely, the thing will rage at
greater intensity in that realm than in any
other.
I cannot follow that further.
This is a matter, this is a matter
about which the Lord has very, very real
concern.
Zion represents, amongst all the other things which
it does represent, the transparent light of heaven.
Zion's light.
Thy light is come.
The glory of the Lord is risen upon
thee.
That absolute transparency.
That clear seeing of issues.
That clear discrimination.
That is what Paul meant when he spoke
about the things discerning, the things that differ.
Things that differ.
And as you know, he was speaking about
not the wrong and the right, but the
good and the best.
The good and the best.
Zion represents the best, and God will not
be satisfied with anything less than his full
and ultimate testimony.
Now, I must come to the end of
this morning, the third application or realm of
the controversy as to the ministry of Zion.
As to the ministry of Zion.
Of course, this includes, one, two, conflict with
the nations.
The conflict with tradition and formal Christianity.
But it comes very much more inward when
it comes to the ministry of Zion.
Yes, much more inward.
This controversy rests upon some things that we
must seek to understand, dear friends.
It was in this particular connection that I
was speaking at the beginning about having understanding.
You see, the ministry of Zion, the ministry
of Zion is a greatly disputed thing.
The ministry of Zion is something around which
the battle circles more hotly, perhaps than in
any other connection.
This whole matter of ministry in relation to
God's true purpose.
What a battle.
Paul knew something about this.
How he besought believers, repeatedly, that they would
pray earnestly that he might be given assurance
to open his mouth to speak the mystery.
That a door might be opened to him
to speak the mystery.
This is not something that you, about which
you can get up and address and go
out willy-nilly and begin to give it
out.
If it is rightly constituted, it is fraught
with the most terrific controversy.
This ministry, if it is the true ministry
of Zion, rests firstly upon, and is constituted
by, a sovereign apprehending of a vessel.
Sovereign apprehending of a vessel, Paul.
Because that is so true of the historical
Zion.
God's sovereign choosing of Zion.
It is there in the scripture declared and
made clear, very positively, it was a sovereign
act of God that chose Zion.
But Zion is a vessel, a symbolic vessel,
and a vessel for Zion.
That is for Zion's ministry, the fullness of
the significance of Christ and his work and
his place in God's universe, a vessel for
the ministry of that is something sovereignly apprehended
by God.
Raised up by God.
When I say sovereignly, there's no explanation for
it other than this is of God.
Cannot account for it in any way, whatever,
but touch it, you meet the Lord.
Be amongst it, you meet the Lord.
Somehow or other, the Lord is responsible for
this.
It takes a course.
Whether that be collective or individual, it's something
sovereignly raised up by God.
Anything cannot do this.
You cannot do this by choice.
You have no choice in this matter of
ministry.
You cannot aspire to this.
You cannot walk into this.
You cannot put your hand upon this.
You cannot take out this ministry.
Oh, it is such a sifting and discriminating
thing.
Many people like it, like the ideas, and
they're going to propagate those ideas and begin
to take up this thing and say, make
it this.
But it just doesn't do.
Either they get into confusion or other people
do, or something happens that it doesn't work
out.
You have a caricature, you have a contradiction,
you have the absence of the vital thing.
Something that you cannot just like that take
up.
If God himself has not apprehended you for
that purpose, he may have apprehended you for
something else.
But if he hasn't apprehended you for that,
it's no use.
Keep out of it.
Something out of the sovereignty of God.
A lot of things that touches, doesn't it?
You see, dear friends, it amounts to this.
That this whole matter of such a testimony
is a matter of life and death with
us and nothing less an issue.
That's something we can take up and drop.
That's something that we can come into and
then not like it and be offended and
resign, throw out.
It's a matter of life and death.
And I'm there because my very life is
found in my being there.
And it would be committing spiritual suicide for
me to drop out.
That's very utter.
I'm not saying that God's sovereignty operates only
in this ministry or that ministry of utter
fullness of Christ.
It operates in other ways.
But I am saying as to the testimony
of Zion, first of all, it's something right
out of the sovereignty of God.
And man has no place in it other
than that of faith and obedience.
Man has no proprietary interest in this.
No possessive place in this.
No controlling place in this.
It's the law.
Wholly, utterly the law.
It should cease to be that.
Everything goes.
Man cannot just carry that on.
He can carry the framework on.
He can't carry that on.
He can still have the tabernacle and shadow
but the glory of departing.
It's the law.
That's a very solemn word, very certain word.
Zion is constituted then by the sovereign apprehending
of God.
Then by a sovereign government of God behind
the history of the things.
So it wants a lot of explaining.
It can be illustrated.
Paul the apostle said, very pleased by God,
who separated me from my birth, to reveal
his son to me.
He touched his own heart.
My birth, from my birth, my birth, my
birth was into a Jewish family.
My birth was so utterly, 100 percent Jewish.
My family, but right there while I was
like that in the most complete and utter
Jewish setting, birth, blood, training, education, and while
all that heat of antagonism to Christ was
still in my blood, although it had not
come out until it was provoked, I was
all there, while my hatred of the Gentiles
whom I called the dogs was in my
very constitution, God had already separated me to
be the messenger of Christ to the Gentiles,
to have all that heat in my blood
against his son, Quincy, rather a new-found
kindred, not for their son.
But the point is, right behind the man's
earthly history was the sovereignty of God, foreseeing
him, foreknowing him, forechoosing him, and arranging everything,
arranging everything in line with his ultimate calling
and the purpose of his life.
Difficult thing to believe, isn't it, that it's
like that?
And yet, when God has a vessel for
a purpose in view, there is no afterthought.
It does not just arise at some point
in time.
God has seen it, foreseen it, known all
about it, and has worked in relation to
it, and its very birth and environment are
under his sovereignty to some good purpose, in
relation to the ultimate meaning.
We may have to live a long time
before we discover that.
Nay, let me put it this way, we
have to get right into line with God's
purpose and God's thought before we see anything
of how true that was, that our very
birth and constitution and environment and all that
has some relationship to the thing to which
we are called.
Now, if you can't understand and grasp that,
don't worry about it, but it's a fact.
The sovereignty of God lying behind our earthly
experience and history, in relation to the purpose.
That constitutes this vessel.
And then, in the third place, this ministry
of Zion is constituted by a drastic and
deep work in the vessel.
A drastic work in the vessel.
A deep work in the vessel.
This is not something that we can take
up.
Apart from something that has been done in
us, that God is doing in us, the
undoing of us, the taking us to pieces,
the stripping of us, the emptying of us,
and bringing us to zero.
Starting from there all over again with us.
That's the sort of thing connected with Zion
and Zion's ministry.
Don't you make any mistake about it.
The nature of this ministry, dear friends, the
ministry of which we're speaking, Zion's ministry, the
ministry of Zion, is something utterly different in
its nature and its wealth from all other
ministries.
It's possible to look on and admire.
It's possible to walk in and out, or
sit down inside, and appreciate the truths, and
agree with the ideas, and to recognize something
of the values, and to desire the benefits,
and to seek to participate.
It's possible for all that, and therefore there
to be a great dividing out.
With all the agreement, and admiration, and recognition,
and desire, there may be lacking the constitution
of Zion.
The constitution.
The constitution of Zion is what?
That God has broken clean through all natural
faculties and abilities for understanding, and by revelation
planted right deep down in the center of
the being a knowledge of a spiritual kind,
which is different from natural knowledge.
He's not taking up the phraseology, and the
ideas, and all that sort of thing, and
appreciating, and valuing, and agreeing, and then going
repeating.
It's something that's been done inside, and the
thing has come by revelation of the Holy
Ghost.
That's the ministry of Zion, and I say
that discriminates, that divides, and it's because things
are like that that you have so much
conflict.
You find the very conflict in the realm
of that ministry.
It rises there.
It rises in the realm that people, yes,
they agree, and they accept, and they repeat,
and they like, and they want, so on,
but they're not constituted.
Violent, violent conflict arises in that realm.
You only took the matter of ministry itself.
I mean now public ministry.
You find that it's the most controversial point
in all of Christianity.
More trouble, more trouble has arisen over ministry
than over anything else.
Platform ministry.
And in Zion, no one has a right
to minister, no one has a qualification for
ministry, who cannot sit back, and do no
ministry at all, quite easily, if the Lord
wants it.
You got it?
It ought to be just as easy for
a minister of Zion to take a back
seat, and wait for the Lord, and watch
for the Lord, as it is for the
natural soul to want to be on that
side.
That may be speaking to a very limited
company, but I focus upon this matter of
ministry, the ministry of Zion.
It's of a quality, of a kind, of
a constitution, and that is not studied.
That is not the result of going to
books, and taking out of books the truths.
Observing, and hearing, and then reproducing.
It's something inward.
Oh, how the devil rages over a ministry
of that kind, because it's going to do
something, it's going to do something.
It's going to touch God's ultimate purpose, and
if he can, he'll destroy it, and destroy
the vessels of it.
He will stop at nothing, to bring an
end to that kind of ministry.
It is true.
Here, the controversy of Zion rages.
It rages over the ministry.
See, the whole point of the controversy and
the conflict is its reality, its essence, its
essential value, the very life of it, the
very power of it, the very distinctiveness of
it.
For if Satan focuses upon one aspect of
such a testimony more than another, it is
to destroy its distinctiveness, to in some way
get it drawn out into a generalization, conform
it to a recognized system, take away that
distinctive evidentness, and it's a terrific battle all
the way along to keep the testimony clear,
distinct, unmixed.
It is, friends, you may not know all
that I'm saying, but it's quite true.
It's something in a different realm from mere
mental apprehension.
You can have the same truth by study.