Reading: Matt. 16:13,16,18; John 10:10; Rom. 9:25-26; 2 Cor.
3:3-6,17-18; Heb. 9:1314; 12:22; 1 Tim. 3:14-16; 1 Thess. 1:9-10;
Rev. 7:2-3.
We are very familiar with the phrase - the living God - and it is
not the first time in which we have dwelt upon it, but it is the
only word that comes to me just now as containing something of the
Lord's mind for us in this present hour.
I begin by reminding you that this phrase lies behind everything
in God's universe from eternity to eternity - The Living God! And
it is not only a designation of God, a title, it implies the
entire work of God. The work of God throughout is the work of
life; the work of the living God is the work of life.
The passages which we have read, as you notice, bringing in this
phrase and this title so frequently, relate to the kind of thing
that comes out from God, the kind of thing that belongs to God.
The first, the Son of the living God, "Thou art... the Son of
the living God" - declares "I am the life", and says,
"I came that they might have life". He, the Son of the
living God, is Himself the life and the mediator of life.
Then the sons of the living God are not just those people who
belong to a certain company, a certain few who bear a certain
title, that is, 'sons of the living God'. They are those who share
with God His own life; they are the living ones in that divine
sense, inasmuch as they have received God's own life.
The Church is called "the church of the living God" and
again the designation is not of some particular institution which
belongs to God as differing from others; it is that which,
differing from all others, is distinguished by the very life of
God which is in it.
So you go on from passage to passage and you find that it is a
discriminating word. That is seen in John 10:10: "The thief
cometh not, but... to kill... I am come that they might have
life" - a discriminating word.
So, behind everything, back of the universe which comes in after
God, we have the living God, and all the work of God is the work
of life, until you head right up to that great discriminating act
at the end when the earth and the sea are to be delivered over to
judgment and the final destruction, and there is a staying call to
the angel - "Wait a minute, before everything is handed over to
destruction and death, there is a seal to be placed upon the
foreheads of certain ones!" It is the seal, not of just God, but
of the living God. These are to be marked as sharing God's life,
marked out by the seal of God, the mark of God, and what is it?
These cannot be engulfed in the general destruction, these cannot
be involved in this work of judgment, these are distinguished and
discriminated from all the rest. They have a seal upon them and
that seal has God's stamp. What is the hallmark of God anywhere at
any time? It is always life, just as the hallmark of Satan is
death. Those two things stand clearly apart and distinguished -
one to kill and destroy, the other to make alive and by that life
to preserve even through all the work of death.
Now this, as we have often seen, is the great issue of all time.
It is the issue of life and death, death and life. The issue is
not first sin and righteousness; that is not the first issue. The
issue is death and life, life and death. Sin is the ground upon
which the issue is decided; sin is the ground of death, but death
is the objective, therefore Satan, in order to kill, to bring
death into God's universe, must first corrupt it. He must get the
condition of corruption in order to have a state of death. His
object is not just to corrupt, it is to kill, to bring in death.
Righteousness, while it is a matter of great importance with the
Lord, is not the first thing. Life is God's first thing, but now,
because of sin, God must have righteousness unto life. He must
create righteousness before there can be life, but the object is
life, just as the object with Satan is death. All accusations from
Satan, all condemnation, all bringing under the cloud of an evil
conscience, is with a view to death. All the values of Christ our
righteousness to be appropriated and continually held on to by
faith are God's provision for life, not just to make us good, but
to make us live.
God has one thing in view finally, and that is life. He intended
from the beginning that that which issued from Himself,
represented Himself, bore His mark, should be that which lives
with His own life. Satan has determined just the opposite, that
that which comes from him bears his mark, and that is death, not
because he wants to have death to gratify himself, but he wants
God to be deprived of that upon which His heart is set. Satan's
heart is a heart of malicious spite against God. Remember that! He
has, deep in his very being, this spite against God. God has done
something to Satan which has turned his heart with the bitterest
malice and deep abysmal hatred for God and spite against God, and
he wants to deprive God of His end - that is, a universe marked by
God's own life. And so anything whatever that has the mark of God
upon it or is in the way of having that mark, that seal, is the
objective of Satan's bitterest hatred. It becomes a sharer with
God in the spite of Satan. Remember that! Wherever there is divine
life, then that becomes part and lot with God in the animosity of
the devil. The one thing is to bring that life to an end, to spoil
that life, to bring in death; where life is, to surround that and
try and engulf it in death again. There is only one way in which
he can do it and that is to corrupt, but, strangely enough, it is
to get the mind or the heart of the believer accepting corruption.
You see, in Christ Jesus, by faith, we are partakers of the very
righteousness of God. It is not a goodness of man, but a
righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ. That is
what God is. We share in His nature by faith. We are accounted the
same as God by faith in another righteousness. A tremendous thing!
That is not what we are in ourselves. No man can ever say for a
moment, "I am one with God in my nature!" Who can say that? "I am
one with God in His very righteousness, in His very holiness, in
His sinless perfection! I in myself am one with God in that!" What
presumption! But yet, by faith in the Lord Jesus, in virtue of His
mighty Blood, we are able to say, "In Christ, not in myself, in
Christ I am a sharer in the divine nature, I am accounted one with
God in His righteousness, His nature!"
Now, the enemy's objective is not to make us worse than we are. I
do not know whether he can do that, if we knew the depths of our
own natures. It is not that, but it is always to work upon what we
are to try and bring it up as a cloud between us, our faith and
God's righteousness, in order that we shall accept in our hearts
and in our minds an evil state rather than that state which is
ours by faith, and so accepting in our hearts and in our minds
condemnation and accusation on the genuine ground of what we are
in ourselves, so destroying faith in what we are in Christ, to
bring us under condemnation and so to smite us with death, to
bring about death.
There is that wonderful illustration of this in the Old Testament
in the case of Balaam and Israel. You remember how Balak hired
Balaam to curse Israel, "Come, curse me Israel". Balak took
Balaam up into a great high place and showed him Israel and Balaam
was unable to curse. And Balak said, "Come round and look at them
from another angle, perhaps you will be able to curse them there!"
But he found he could not curse them from that angle. Then Balak
tried another angle, "We will get these people somehow!" But
Balaam could not curse them, he had to go on blessing. And Balak
said, "I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou
hast altogether blessed them." What is the explanation? Oh,
Balaam's utterance contains one clause! You see, he is being
compelled to look down on Israel from God's standpoint, from
heaven, not along the level of earth - what Israel is, what Jacob
is. Jacob is used there as a title. But he was compelled to look
down from above, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob."
Why? Because Jacob was without iniquity? Not a bit of it. There is
another story in the Psalms about what Jacob was, that corporate
Jacob, what they were in themselves, but He hath not beheld
iniquity in Jacob! Why? They are out under the Blood. When they
are out under the Blood, God has His own view, "He hath not
beheld iniquity in Jacob." Therefore it was impossible to
bring them under the curse because of the Blood.
Paul says, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect? ... It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was
raised from the dead" (Rom. 8:33-34).
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Well, Satan
is always trying to do that with a view to bring under the curse
to death - this great issue of life and death.
Now our point is just this, that the hallmark of God's work is
life, the hallmark of Satan's work is death. The great objective
of Satan is to bring us into that state of heart - it is called
'conscience' in Hebrews - which will be a suitable ground for him
to bring about his reign of death, but God has made His full
provision of another ground upon which Satan has no standing,
where he cannot come, iniquity cannot come on that ground,
unrighteousness cannot come onto that ground, sin cannot come
there. Satan therefore cannot stand there on the ground of that
provided righteousness in Christ who is made unto us from God
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Satan cannot come
there. Stand then on the ground of Christ and Satan has no stand,
no power, and death is vanquished. But that does not mean that
Satan accepts his defeat. It does not mean that the battle is at
an end, for our battle is not to get our ground, it is to keep it.
We may get our ground and stand on it, but that is not the end of
the conflict. It may only be the beginning of the conflict. We
have got to hold that ground, stand our ground. "Stand, therefore,
stand, withstand, having done all, stand." The battle for life so
often resolves itself into a matter, not of gaining some position,
but holding it. Remember that! To get us moved away - that is a
great Apostolic word - being moved away, by any means to get us
moved away. Now Satan stands at nothing to bring that about, that
moving away.
I am not going to begin to touch on the means, the ways, by which
Satan seeks to get that moving away, but I have the present
situation very much in mind, and here I head up everything and
stop. I cannot get away from the strong feeling that what is
happening today is something very much more than just a phase of
this world's history as such. I do not think that needs arguing. I
think we all feel that. We are all convinced, even people who
profess very little faith in the Lord Jesus, have a strong feeling
and strong conviction that this is more than merely an earthly,
international conflict, that this is something, as they say,
satanic. There is something more in this. We are quite sure about
it, but what is the meaning of it? Well, I believe, beloved, that
it is heading up to its end, the end of that particular phase of
the sovereign ordering method of God which is called "the times of
the Gentiles". The end of any dispensation takes the spiritual
features of its beginning and repeats them.
Now, if you do not know what I mean by that, let me illustrate.
The times of the Gentiles came in with Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
God took the rule of this world away from Israel because of
Israel's unfaithfulness and breaking of the Covenant, and
committed the rule of this world and its kingdom into the hands of
Gentile rulers, the first of which was Nebuchadnezzar. Now, one of
the first things you find about Nebuchadnezzar taking the rule of
the kingdoms of this world as the great head of gold, is this. It
came into his head - that is the way of putting it, it seems
almost a fancy, a chance, but no. Things come into men's heads,
but where do they come from? We will see in a minute. It came into
his head to do something. What came into his head? Well, he had
dreamed and it came into his head to put all the wise men
throughout his dominion to a test and to say this - "Unless you
pass the test, you will be destroyed!" - and that, from Satan's
standpoint, was a foregone conclusion. They would be destroyed. It
was their death sentence, because they were not going to pass the
test. The thing was altogether beyond them, and they would not
pass the test, therefore all the wise men were sentenced to death
before even they were given the test virtually. They had got to
interpret, and if they could not, they would be destroyed, for he
was an absolute despot - whom he sentenced to death were killed;
whom he kept alive were kept alive. That is what is said about
this one.
Now, what is the objective of Satan? Where did this thing come
from? There is one man in Babylon with whom the interests of God
and heaven are bound up. The testimony of God is bound up in one
man's life - Daniel. He is one amongst the wise men. Get all the
wise men killed, and you have got Daniel included. Now you see
why. Daniel carries things right on to Christ. The testimony of
Daniel is the testimony of Jesus; his prophecies lead right on to
today and afterward. Everything of what is precious to God through
the history of this world is bound up with that one man in
Babylon. He is in touch with heaven. His prayers influence the
heavenly powers and principalities. Yes, what is of God is bound
up with that man. The living God, the living testimony, the living
interests of God are bound up with one man, therefore Satan does
not mind if he has all the wise men throughout the kingdom of
Babylon killed if he can only get one man. That is the beginning
of this dispensation of the times of the Gentiles.
My conviction is this, that today Satan is standing at nothing in
the wholesale slaughter on this earth in order to get at one
corporate man, that man child of Revelation 12, that company with
whom the heavenly and eternal interests of God and the testimony
of Jesus are bound up, and this is it - life or death? And the
pressure to corrupt will be intense, the pressure to destroy faith
in the living God will be terrible, the pressure to move us away
from our ground of confidence in God will be unspeakably great in
order that that testimony of the living God, that life over which
Satan has no power, shall be brought, so far as the instrument is
concerned, into a neutralised state. God must have an instrument.
He has done this thing again and again. The whole generation of
babes of a certain age destroyed in Israel in order to get one -
that Babe of Bethlehem. It is this thing that is my conviction. I
am not thinking in physical terms now - our destruction physically
included in this that is going on today. That is a mere incident;
whether we live or whether we die is not the question just now. I
hope that we have got over that, that we can sing from our hearts,
"The fear of death has gone forever" in so far as the physical
side is concerned. That is not the point. It is our faith,
beloved; if we lose faith, we have lost our life. If we lose our
confidence in the living God, we are engulfed in that spiritual
death; that is, we are put out of our functioning place for God,
with God. The true sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ, those who
share God's life through regeneration in virtue of the Blood of
Jesus which has dealt with the sin question, those who have become
sharers with God in His life through His righteousness, are the
objective of Satan today. It seems a terrible thing, but then what
is going on on the earth after all may only be limited to Europe.
And we say, all of us, is it not a terrible thing to think that
one man in a continent will bring millions to death just to get
his own end? But take the whole world, and not only the whole
world, the whole course of time, and Satan has repeated it again
and again to get his own end. It does not matter to him if he
throws all the nations into the fire of destruction if he can get
his end. What is his end? It is that elect instrument, God's
elect, with which all the purposes of God are bound up, to get at
that, to get at the faith of that, not to destroy it physically,
but to get at its faith.
He may get at our faith through physical conditions, and we know
that he does try that. While these things are going on, we know
what is going on inside of us. There is a battle going on. We have
to hold on to the Lord with both hands, to trust the Lord. What
for? Oh, just to be spared death, injury, destruction? Oh no,
there is a spiritual issue in this. We feel it deeper down than
that. There is a spiritual issue in this. There are eternal
factors bound up with this, and we know that the blow is always
there. How can you believe in God when things are as they are? How
can you believe in God ruling, God being supreme, God being all
that you have claimed that He is; how can you hold on to that
position? If you and I let go there, it is worse than physical
death. We know it. Something has happened. It would be better to
die than that that should happen. Better to lose all than to lose
that, for, losing that, what is the good of anything else? We know
that today. People who have not got that have nothing. They may
have all in this world. What is the matter? What is the value of
possessions now? What is the value of anything here now? That is
their position. But we have something more. We have the living
God.
Let me remind you of how that phrase came up so early in the Word
of God. You remember, in the book of Joshua, "Hereby ye shall
know that the living God is among you... Behold, the ark of the
covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you
into the Jordan" (Josh. 3:10,11). Then a little parenthesis
in brackets, "for the Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the
time of harvest" (v.15). Jordan, the symbol of death, death
at the flood, overflowing everything, the mighty power and deluge
of death and the ark of the God of all the earth goes over into
Jordan, and what happens? The waters are thrown up; the mighty
power of death is cleft and made to stand back. What is that ark?
It is the testimony of Jesus. Death is overcome, death is
swallowed up in victory. If He Who is the life is with us, death
has no power. "Hereby ye shall know that the living God is
among you...". Why? His Son is with us and in us, and He is
not in us as the man of Nazareth, of Galilee, as the child of
Bethlehem. He is in us as the risen and ascended Lord in the power
of His Spirit - One Who has overcome death.
"Therefore, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is
not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58).
Why? That exhortation follows upon this -
"O death, where is thy sting? ...thanks be unto God, who
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore
be ye steadfast...".
Work in the risen Lord is not in vain. If death is swallowed up
in victory, there is nothing in vain. If death is still
unconquered, everything is in vain. "Hereby ye shall know that
the living God is among you...".
Let us see what the issue is right at the heart of things, and
see it is all a colossal, unspeakably iniquitous attack upon a
faith, the faith of the Son of God in us. If Satan can destroy
faith, the day is lost, he is victor. But to come back and finish
on the right note - "Thou art the Son of the living God". "Upon
this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it." The Living God!
Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.