Reading: 2
Chronicles 6; Isaiah 56:6-7; Mark 11:17; Ephesians 6:18.
"My house shall be called an house of prayer for all
people."
The sixth chapter of the second book of Chronicles is a
magnificent example and illustration of these words of the
Prophet. In the dedication of the House by Solomon, prayer of a
universal kind inaugurated the ministry of the House, introducing
its function. The characteristic words of that chapter are:
"This house" and "thy name". "When they
shall pray toward THIS HOUSE, because of THY NAME which
is upon it...".
You will remember the words of the Apostle concerning certain
people, that they 'blasphemed that holy name which was called
upon you'. The House is the link between the two passages
historically and spiritually, and the Name called upon the House.
What was true of the temple of Solomon, as the House with the
Name called upon it, is true of the Church, the Church of Christ,
with the Lord's Name upon it. We have no difficulty in
identifying the anti-type of Solomon's temple as being the
Church. You are no doubt sufficiently acquainted with the Word to
make it unnecessary to quote Scripture in this connection. Many
passages will come to your mind which bear out that statement.
The Church is God's House; "whose house are we", says
the writer of the letter to the Hebrews; "a spiritual house
to offer up spiritual sacrifices", says Peter. The
identification is not at all difficult. And that the Name is upon
the House is also quite clear. It was because of the Name which
they bore at the beginning that the Church was so mighty in its
going forth. The power of the Name was ever manifesting itself in
their ministry. That is all very simple and needs no labouring.
Then there are these other factors.
SONSHIP
MARKING THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
The temple of
Solomon was really the temple of David. It came in in revelation
through David, and in realization in sonship, David's son. We
know that in the Word both David and Solomon are types of the
Lord Jesus, that He is great David's greater Son, and that He
combines all that is spiritually represented by David and Solomon
of sovereignty, kingship, exaltation, universal triumph and
glory. You will remember how the Lord sent Nathan to David, to
tell him that though he himself should not build the House, he
was nevertheless to be the one to gather all that was necessary
for it, and so be the instrument of making it possible. This so
satisfied David that in the inspiration of it, and the tremendous
stimulus of it, he went out and subdued all those nations which
had been historic thorns in the side of Israel. And when he had
subdued all the nations round about, and a universal triumph had
been established, then the House came into being through Solomon.
We carry that forward into the triumph of the Lord Jesus by His
Cross. He possesses the universal victory. He is exalted,
enthroned, in virtue of all His enemies being overthrown by His
Cross, and on resurrection ground the declaration is made:
"Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee." A
fresh declaration of sonship is made, by reason of resurrection,
and in resurrection, and in that sonship He builds the House, and
the Spirit of sonship enters into every member of that House, and
it becomes a 'sonship House' (Acts 14:33; Galatians 4:6).
THE
MINISTRY AND VOCATION OF THE HOUSE
That all leads the
way to this particular thing, namely, the ministry and vocation
of the House, of the Church. The House itself has to provide the
Lord with a place, a sphere, a realm, a vessel, through which He
can reach all people. That is the working outwards; that is God
securing to Himself a means of universal blessing. God moves
universally through His House, and therefore He must have a House
constituted on a prayer basis. Do you notice the two movements in
this chapter of 2 Chronicles 6? There is a movement outwards, and
a movement inwards. The outward is through the House, with
Solomon, so to speak, ministering the Lord. He is, as it were,
bringing out from heaven the gracious goodness of God, the
interventions, the undertakings and resources of God, world-wide.
He is making the House the vehicle of what God is, and what God
has, unto all peoples. When you reach a certain point in the
chapter the movement changes, and you see people coming to the
House because of the Name. That is the movement inwards. They
shall "pray toward this house, because of thy great
name", said Solomon. That means that the circumference is
going to find, not a direct access to God, but its blessing
through the House of the Lord.
I suggest to you that those two things very greatly govern the
New Testament revelation of the Church, and the Church's
vocation. The one thing which embraces all is that God in Christ
has bound Himself up with His Church, the Body of Christ, for
this world's good, and that the fullness of the Lord will never
be known nor entered into in an individual or individualistic
way; that anything like mere individualism, separatism, will mean
limitation. Any kind of detachment and isolation leads to being
deprived of the larger fullnesses of the Lord, or, to put it the
other way, to come into the fullness of the Lord we have to come
into the fellowship of His people as the House of God. That is
one law, and that is established.
That is the line which is more severe. There is a frown, perhaps,
about that. It sounds hard. But it is the warning note which is
very necessary, and especially in the light of the fact that
there is a continuous, unceasing, incessant drive of the
adversary in the direction of separation, isolation and
detachment. It seems that at times the devil releases his forces
and concentrates them upon people, to get them to run away, to
get out of it, to break away, to quit because the strain seems so
intense. Their whole inclination is to get away alone. They think
that they are going to get an advantage by that. They are
sometimes deceived into thinking that it will be for their good
if only they get right away alone. They sometimes put it in this
way: that they 'want to get away and think it all out'. Beware of
the peril of thinking it all out! You can never think out
spiritual problems. The only way of solving them is to live
through them. If you have tried to square down to your spiritual
problems, and bring your mind to bear upon them, and to solve
them by 'thinking it all out', you know that you never get
anywhere, and that the Lord does not meet you in that way.
Spiritual things have to be lived through to clearness. We can
only get through to clearness in spiritual things by living
through them. If you do not understand that now, you probably
will understand when you come up against another experience of
this kind. Thus one aspect of the enemy's drive is to get you to
run away. Why does the enemy want us to get away? Why is it that
this whole force, this whole pressure, is to make us quit? He has
a very good reason. He knows that it means loss and limitation.
The Lord, to put it in a word, has bound up all His greater
fullnesses with SPIRITUAL relatedness, and there can be
nothing but grievous loss in failing to recognize the House-law
of God, the fellowship-law, the family-law. There can only be
loss if we TAKE OURSELVES out of God's appointed
relatedness. Be very much aware of any kind of movement or
tendency which is in the direction of either detachment or
putting you into a place where you are apart. The enemy has many
ways of getting his end. If he cannot drive us out from the midst
of the Lord's people, he very often tries to give us a too
prominent place in the midst of them. He can isolate us just as
much by our being too much in the limelight, and we at once
become uncovered, exposed. There is no more dangerous place than
to be made too much fuss of, to be SOMEONE. There is such
a thing as finding a hiding within the House of God.
But our particular consideration at the present time is this
vocation and its outward direction, the House of prayer for all
peoples. The Church, the Lord's people, form for Him a
ministering instrument by which He has ordained to reach out to
all the ends of the earth, a universal instrument wherever
gathered together, even when represented only by two or three.
The test of any company of the Lord's people, and of our
position, is this vocation.
THE FACT
OF REPRESENTATION
You begin with the
representative fact, the fact of representation. Representation
begins with two or three, and that immediately swings us
completely clear of all earthly grounds of judging and
estimating. It indicates the essential heavenly nature of the
Church. In the Lord Jesus every member of the Church is included.
If Christ comes, the whole Church comes. The Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of the whole Body, uniting all the members in one. You
cannot be in the spirit and in Christ anywhere but what you are
there in the SPIRITUAL REALM, in the HEAVENLY REALM,
with the whole Body, and the whole Body is there spiritually. Two
or three? "There am I"! The whole Body, then, is bound
up with the two or three. The fact evidences the heavenliness of
the Church, the Body of Christ. This is not a possibility on the
earth. You cannot bring the whole Church together in any one
place on this earth literally. It is not the Lord's way, and it
cannot be done. The Church is scattered world-wide, so far as the
earthly aspect is concerned. And yet the Church is a heavenly
thing gathered up in Christ, its Head, by one Spirit baptized
into one Body, and when we come into the Spirit, into the
heavenly realm, we are in the presence of the whole Body; not
with earthly intelligence, that is, the whole Body is not
conscious of the fact from the earthly standpoint, but
spiritually it is true. That is the whole Church represented in
the two or three if truly "in the Name". What the two
or three may do in the Holy Ghost becomes a universal thing.
THE
PRAYER MEETING
What we are seeking
to press home is that this is so different from having a local
prayer meeting, in the usually accepted meaning of that term.
Suppose that where such an outlook obtains the announcement is
made: 'We will have a prayer meeting on Monday night.' Who will
come to that prayer meeting? People will say among themselves:
'Shall we go to the prayer meeting?' or, perhaps: 'Well, it is
only a prayer meeting!' That is one way to look at it, as a local
thing in a certain place at a certain time. But if I were to say:
'Will you come and minister to the whole Church of Christ
universally in such-and-such a place at a certain time, and your
business is to go and minister in that range to the whole
Church!' that puts another point of view. It gives an altogether
new conception of what we are called to. Let your imagination
take flight, if you like, and see the whole Church from the ends
of the earth literally gathered together, needing to be
ministered to, and the Lord saying to you: 'Now you come and
minister to the whole Church! Thousands of thousands, and tens of
thousands gathered together, and I want you to minister to them.
I have placed the resource at your disposal and will enable you
to do it.' Perhaps you might shrink, and be fearful, but you
would see the tremendous significance. You would not stay away
because you were unimpressed with the importance of it.
This is not exaggeration. We are not straining the point. We are
seeking to get to the heart of this ministry which is ours. When
two or three are gathered together in any place, and they pray in
the Holy Ghost, that is what is possible and it happens. They
represent the whole Church, and become the House of prayer,
functioning for all peoples, a universal ministry. We need to
lift the prayer business on to a higher level. When we see the
range, the significance, the value of a time of prayer together
in the Name of the Lord, we shall stop our trivialities and take
things seriously. We shall come together saying: 'Now, here are
nations to be entered into tonight, and things which are
world-wide and of tremendous significance to the Lord Jesus, and
we are called to deal with them in this place!' There is no
greater ministry. It is a tremendous thing to have a ministry
like that.
It all comes back to asking whether this is true of the Church.
What does this mean? Is it merely a passage of Scripture? Is it a
nice idea, but falling short of any real meaning? What is the
meaning of: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for
all people"? It certainly does not mean that the whole
Church can literally be gathered together in one place to pray,
and it certainly cannot literally mean that the whole Church can
pray together at the same time, though scattered. The situation
is different in all countries. Day and night govern different
parts of the world, and other factors come in. It is necessary to
get away from the earth to explain this. And if you get off the
earth and see that where two or three are gathered together into
the Name all the rest are represented, and because the one Spirit
is there the whole is therefore touched through that one Spirit,
as well as involved, then the possibilities are tremendous.
"A house of prayer for all peoples" is God's ordained
way of ministry.
THE NEED
FOR PRAYER MINISTRY
Leaving the great
spiritual truth, and coming to what is immediate, so far as one's
own heart is concerned, in this word, I do feel that there has to
be a fresh registration in our hearts of a call to this ministry
and the need for it. We may pray a lot, but I feel that we have
to take this matter of the prayer ministry even more seriously,
to regard it as our supreme ministry. The order is EVERYTHING
BY PRAYER; not everything and then prayer, but everything by
prayer. Prayer comes first. Everything comes by prayer. Prayer is
the basis of everything, and nothing else must be attempted or
touched except on the ground of prayer. We have to gather into
our prayer the universal interests of the Name of the Lord.
"Because of thy name"! The Name is in view, and is
involved. It is the interests of the Name which govern the
functioning of the House, and all the interests of the Name of
the Lord have to become the definite and solid prayer business of
the Lord's people. Oh, the Lord cut clean across that thing which
makes us so casual, and which makes corporate prayer times so
optional, and bring into our hearts, with a strong, deep, set
conviction, the witness that prayer is universal business, and
that we are called to it!
It may be that before long there will be very little else that we
can do. It may be that before long the Lord's people world-wide
will find that their other activities are brought to a
standstill, and they are shut up. What is going to happen then to
the Lord's interests? Is that the end of ministry? Is that the
end of functioning, of value, of effectiveness? It may be that
before long the Lord's people in all the earth will need, as they
have never needed before, the prayer co-operation of other
members. It may be that the Lord's Name has suffered because we
have not regarded this ministry as we ought to have done. We are
not blaming anyone, but simply saying that there is room for far
more serious entering into this tremendous thing which the Lord
has appointed for us. Only to dwell upon the words quietly and
thoughtfully will surely mean that their implication will come
upon our hearts? The Lord has not said that He is going to move
directly out to the universe. He has said: "My HOUSE
shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." To put
that in other words we might state it thus: 'I have ordained to
meet universal need through an instrument, through a vessel, and
My people, My Church, form that vessel. That is My appointed way.
If My Church fails Me, if My instrument does not take this matter
seriously, is occupied with itself rather than with the great
world-wide needs of My Name, then I am failed indeed!'
Now this means that we must recognize that where but two or three
gather into the Name, where it cannot be more, there is nothing
merely local about such coming together in prayer, but that the
farthest ranges of the Lord's interests can be advanced, helped,
ministered to, by the twos and threes. If it is possible for more
to gather, then the Lord desires that, but it is ministry to the
Lord by prayer for which He looks to us. We must see to it that
it is our first, our primary business to pray. It is strange that
so many more will come to conference meetings than to prayer
meetings! Is the mentality behind that, that it is far more
important to hear teaching than it is to pray? Would it not be a
great day and represent some tremendous advance spiritually,
something unique, if the prayer gatherings were bigger than the
biggest conference gatherings, or at least as big as the biggest?
Let us lay this to heart! Remember that the enemy is always
seeking to destroy the essential purpose of the House of God.
"Ye have made it a den of robbers." That was one
attempt of his to put out the real purpose by changing the whole
character of things. God forbid that anything like that should be
true in our case, but it is just possible to allow the primary
thing to take a secondary place. The primary thing is prayer for
all peoples. That, the Lord says, is what His House is for, and
that is our real ministry. We cannot all be in the ministry of
the Word, but we can all be in this ministry. We can all be in
spirit out to the Lord for the interests of His Name.
There seems to be weakness and failure along this line: that we
are not functioning in prayer to the point of seeing things
through. We pray about many things, and we preach many things,
but we do not see them through in prayer, and the Lord's Name is
involved in that. You will know whether the Lord is speaking to
your own heart. I believe this is a fresh call to the primary
ministry which is so very, very much needed. All those who go out
into the nations need very strong prayer support. If we fail them
we do not know what may happen. They may be in all kinds of
difficulties which they need not get into if we were wholly
faithful in this prayer ministry. The Lord lay it upon our hearts
as a burden!
From "A Witness and A
Testimony" July-August 1968, Vol. 46-4.