The Book of Nehemiah - Part 2

This is Chapter Two. Behind them, and over them all, is one increasing, all-over-hanging figure. And that figure is Godfather.

He overshadows everything. He stands behind everything that is in the whole of this book in all forms of representation. The process of God is confined to Christ.

It is Christ who is established by God in this matter of which we are speaking, both to be and to provide for God. That in which God can have pleasure to bless. It is Christ.

We must be of course, Ezra and Nehemiah with their contemporary prophets and governors. I've got one. Just one.

Special entities in Ezra on the temple. Special entities in Nehemiah on the wall. But they're, but you're one.

They're only two parts of one whole temple and the wall. The temple? God's country. God's country.

It would not be difficult at all. And it certainly wouldn't be unnecessary for anybody knowing the Bible for me to embark upon showing how all temples represent things in the Bible. A great central spot everywhere.

The temple is in its very constitution a comprehensive representation of Christ. It is the prophet, however, that must hold us. God's being amongst men.

God's being here. And God's finest possible, may I say, to delight, to enjoy being here. It is Christ, dear friends, and only Christ that has brought God into this world.

It is by His Son that God has drawn near and offered to dwell with men and to make them His temple. It is in Christ God cannot realize His prophet because apart from His Son, because the prophet is so ineffitably, inseparably bound up with His Son. And to identify the prophet is to see Christ as everything in all things the answer to this hard test of God to be amongst men.

You will see how much is gathered into that, the whole meaning of the Incarnation, the whole nature of Christ and it's important that we leave all that detail. Christ is the purpose of God. Let us not think of divine purpose in an abstract term.

As some extreme, let us think that the purpose is a question. And there is no possibility of realizing the purpose apart from the purpose. Therefore, if we are called according to the purpose, it is on the basis of our being called into the tent of the God-son.

Our realization or fulfillment of God's purpose in this very creation and in our existence demands a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus. So it begins. There is no explanation of existence, the existence of man, God, or creation only in this way, God's determination to have a dwelling and that God's determination is realized and fulfilled firstly in the person of his son and then secondly in all where his son is found.

You see, the one thing leads to the other. The presence of God and all this wonderful, wonderful thing that God has depends on all eternity, depends upon the presence of Christ. And look, depends upon the measure of the presence of Christ.

You will find God in the measure in which Christ is present. Does that sound too simple like a prophecy? We all have a lot we bound up to them. God is where Christ is and nowhere else.

And God is in the measure, in the measure of Jesus, in the measure in which he comes is there. You and I aren't, God and I lie, but if we try to care about this, that God will only commit himself to his son, not to us. God doesn't commit himself to me.

Jesus never did that. He did not trust himself to me, and he knew what was in me. Take faith.

Take faith. God doesn't commit himself to you and to me. Men are always trying to take hold of God, get hold of God, and use God, even in religion, to use God, to manipulate God, to make God fulfill their dreams, desires, ambitions, and satisfy them in some enterprise, some undertaking that God doesn't commit himself.

He does never do that. It must be perfectly clear that God only commits himself to his son. Because it is only Christ who satisfies God and provides him with a sanctuary for his presence with glory.

And what is true of the foundation, is true of the secret structure, the presence of God in power, in activity, depends entirely upon the measurement of Christ's will. If God is to be really manifested, our one concern is that the greatest possible measure of Christ that is found in us and where we are. I know that sounds very simple, but it's here.

It's in the building, the building of this temple and the building of the wall, the temple. The temple is essentially but the wall. What is the wall? It's the definition, it's the distinction, it's the unit of what that temple refers to.

It's the boundary of the presence of God. It defines what is within. It gives, it teaches me that apart from all else that is in the world outside, that wall says, within my limit, you discover and know what God is like and where God is.

Look at that temple. I am the testimony that God is not only present, but God is like us and there has to be a distinguishing line and mark between what is of God and what is not of God, that is of the world outside from which all these counter activities are coming to spoil everything. The world understands that it speaks of a definition.

No one will dispute with me the statement that if there is one thing needed perhaps more than anything else today is definition where the Lord's people are concerned. Definition. Discontentment.

Oh, how things have got mixed up. How much more has come in than what is of God. What is of God.

How confused the situation is. But that wall says if our God is concerned there could be none of that. No confusion, no uncertainty, no indefiniteness, no indistinctness.

It's going to be all clear cut, clearly defined. It's going to be God and only God and everything that is not God is of Him. That is Christ in extension.

That is what God is after. He must have it like that. In principle we know how to do it.

Get a mixed up state and how much of the Lord you find there. Get a confused condition. Get the why creeping in and how much of the Lord you need.

Get what is of man and the Lord is limited. Christ is not like that. You know why.

Christ is a principle not made with hands. That is not of this creation. To use biblical language.

Not of this creation, not made with hands. That is the deepest mystery meaning of His death, His death, not of blood, not of blood, the mixture of blood, not of the will of heaven, not of the will of man, not of God. Any of that is set with an act of God.

He is different. No wonder there has been such an assault upon the virgin birth. Cut that, undercut that and you will come to mind this whole process of death to have everything according to Christ.

He is not made with hands. He is not of this creation. He is not of man at all.

He is of God. The Lord is saying so clearly Christ is different. Christ is other.

Christ is not of this world. Kingdom is not of this world. He is a part in a wide holy of God.

And so it must be that God is to have revenge and in fullness there must be this this constant work of putting out the wall what is not of God. Maybe this book has a lot to do with it. Putting it out.

There was a time when an enemy on the inside brought furniture into the house of God that knew him out. Who does? And he took that furniture out that the metaphor is not contradictory. Locked up and buried.

House none of this is here. Doesn't belong. Doesn't belong.

So I say he took it over the wall. But anyway metaphorically that's what he said. Doesn't belong.

The house constantly takes it doesn't belong. Doesn't belong. And all that does not belong has got to go out.

The wall has got to go out. Discriminating decimation is the testimony of that wall. Holy of God.

Now we stop there for the moment. Leave you with that. It is not a small thing dear friends to be called by the grace of God into this great topic to give to him in our own lives and in our lives together with his people and in this world the answer to these common desires of ours is it a small thing? Is it a small thing? If we can't do the small thing if that does not make an appeal to us if that does not really come to us which point? If we do not think the importance and greatness of that we can let it go as something put in a museum a subject tokenized in a country if it does not really register with us a country above all other things we get an exclamation of this creation and of our being of cause both in creation and in redemption the exclamation of Christ coming of Christ living of Christ dying and rising and going back to heaven in a heavenly present of peace leaves a present of everything else one answer to one exclamation is that in you and in me and in us together God shall dwell a matrix present known if that does not appeal to you then I can only say that you are a very precious person because the very essence of preciousness is not to let the peace one have all that we desire and not to be concerned about it it must be with your other interest oh no it is no small thing to be called according to this thing to be called to answer to the deepest and ever abiding desire of the heart of God and therefore God takes infinite pains to make the place of his habitation suitable for the manifestation of his glory that is the end he is coming to be glorified in his place and to be marveled at in all the messes in what an end what an end you ever thought about that to be glorified in his place in his place to be marveled at that all heavenly intelligences look on this place of ours in this marvelous place and you know angels and half angels they know something about marvelous things they are not unfamiliar with marvelous things they have marveled at the creation the sons of God started for joy at the creation they marveled they marveled in the birth of Christ they sang for joy glory to God in the highest they are acquainted with marvelous things of my faith which has come to be marveled at who is going to do the marvels who is going to do the marvels they must be unto these infantalities and children of heaven that is wonderful grace that is displayed in the face and the ways of the graceful the marvel of all marvels he should be glorified in people like that what a marvelous thing grace is that is the end he's waiting for death but death has claimed his place why he doesn't let joy fall together and come back again to each other why he disciplines and he allows us to go through deep and difficult ways to overcome I conquer this that would conquer him and on the other side to bring him back to provide him with a pitiful ground for his fullness that is you and I all know something about that discipline and suffering if we really understand and interpret God's grace with us we can see on the one side there was much that had to be conquered had to be broken had to be bound up in the fire and we say I am in that's life too but on the other side you cannot say too much about this and we can't say anything very much about it at all nevertheless we know that grace is being conquered we are being saved we have more love for God than we once had and more of the love of God than we once had and so we do that as we think we cannot speak much about that because it's all too slow and too difficult nevertheless we see and the end is that it's marvelous Christ is marvelous but not just a part from the truth marvelous in all the that's the way and we have to to see all the love for his grace