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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/david-oliver/house-of-god/
Genesis chapter 28, and our reading will begin at verse 12. I think you know the story of Jacob fleeing from his brother, and stopping at a place called Luz, and sleeping on a pillow of stone. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.
And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
John's Gospel, chapter 1, and we will read at verse 49. Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou?
Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
And in Matthew, chapter 18, please. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 18, and we'll read from verse 15. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.
If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church.
But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together to or in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
I didn't hear anybody say this today, but maybe it was passed around among some others that didn't bother to talk to me, that the assembly is, after all, the closest place to heaven on earth. And I think we experience that on a Lord's Day morning when we meet together.
I wish it were true every Lord's Day morning, but it's a wonderful joy when there is that touch of devotion and softness as we remember the Lord Jesus and as we respond to him, trying to keep the Word of God and to fulfill his desire of remembering him.
Heaven and earth come very close together because one of these days, and it might be today, we will be spending the rest of our eternal existence doing in a fuller measure what we did this morning, just occupied with Christ, just expressing the glories and beauties of the Lord Jesus.
What a tremendous privilege to think of heaven and earth brought so close together. But what I want to point out to you is that there is another sense in which heaven and earth are brought together in the assembly.
And I think it is most instructive if we can follow the truths that we have been reading in the Word of God just now. There are three things, because there are three passages, but there are three things that I want to ask you to consider with me.
I want to think of the roots in the past. So we'll look back to the past in Genesis chapter 28. The responsibility in the present, and then I want to think about the reflection in the future when it comes to these great truths.
Earth and heaven being brought together. Because in the book of Genesis chapter 28, Jacob has taken it into his own hands to fulfill God's will. Right? By deception, to fulfill God's will, he worked it out his own way.
He was a rustler. He could just get things to manipulate into his own ends. God says, Jacob, I want you to know this, that administration of my will will be carried out as I design it. And in fact, I want you to know that I have got the whole program underway, and I will see to its ultimate conclusion.
It is not up to you to somehow or other manipulate my will or manipulate your circumstances to accomplish my will. My will will be accomplished in my way and in my power. And to emphasize that, he gives to Jacob this dream, a way cast up to heaven, and the angels of God descending and ascending upon that way.
Right? I want to keep you awake. Ascending and descending. Because God's will is being administered by angelic messengers, don't they administer for God? And it is being administered on earth, connected with heaven, and brought back to earth.
And so the angels of God are ascending and they're descending. And God's will is being accomplished on earth, being administered on earth. And Jacob awakes out of his dream, and he has tremendous spiritual intelligence.
And he says, this is a fearful place. I am in the very presence of God. I have taken my own way, and yet God has been very much aware of what I have done. And he is bringing me now into the sense of the very presence of God itself.
And he says, this is a fearful place. This is none other but the house of God. And this is the place where God administers. This is the gate of heaven. There was an administration needed when it came to carrying out the law of God in the book of Ruth, wasn't there?
The law of the next of kin to redeem. And so they go to ten men in the gate, Boaz gets them together, and they in the gate administer for God. Lot sought to administer as a judge in Sodom. That's what the men complained about.
He would be a judge among us. And he sat in the gate. The gate is the place of administration, the place where the law is to be carried out. And so what Jacob is telling us is this. First of all, this is a place of reverence.
It's a fearful place. This is a place of residence. It's none other but the house of God. This is a place of rule. It is the gate of heaven. Now I think it's fair, just having gathered that, I borrowed that from Jack Hunter.
Gonna drop a name or two here and there. But I was so impressed in hearing that as I was a boy a few years ago, one or two. I was so... Well no, he's gone longer than that. I was so impressed hearing that way back then.
It has stuck with me. And I think it's a wonderful saying. When ministry embeds itself, its truth is so clear, it's so obvious, it's so evident, it's so potent. It's a place of reverence. It's a place of residence.
It's a place of rule. But I just want to point out one thing to give weight to the way I am seeking to handle the Word of God. This is the law of first mention. It's the first time that the house of God is brought in in the Word of God.
If the writer to the Hebrews wants to tell us about priesthood, he goes back to the first mention of priesthood and he tells us about Melchizedek. If the Apostle wants to tell us about faith and justification and peace, Romans chapter 4, he will take us back to the first mention where Abraham is accounted righteous through faith.
And peace is brought in in that chapter as a first mention as well. So the truth is being introduced here. This is the initiation of the truth. And the wonderful truth that is here is truth that is abiding.
It is a subject that the Spirit of God, by divine inspiration, will develop through the Word of God. It will not be left just to Moses to somehow or other be the vehicle of this revelation. But through Moses, by inspiration, the one author of the book, ultimately, the Spirit of God, will develop the subject right to the end of our Bible.
But you'll see that this that is brought in here is not simply left hanging for the rest of our Old Testament. You will remember that God said to the nation of Israel, that they had a place of his dwelling.
Let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. And there was a place of God's dwelling among them. But God says, you have been going through the wilderness, but this is actually in view of your going into the land.
And when you go into the land, you will not do what the nations around you do. You won't just worship God in any place. But in the place that the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name, even to his habitation, you shall come, bring their offerings, bring their worship with that place of the name.
Because when it comes to God's dwelling place, the place of his habitation, it is his choice as to where it is. It is his choice as to placing his name there. Let us not somehow or other trivialize what we have heard so often.
Grasp afresh the significance of God placing his name in Shiloh to begin with, and eventually in the failure of Eli and his sons in Shiloh, to place his name in Jerusalem. What did it mean that God's name was being placed, being somehow or other exalted, lifted up, displayed in Jerusalem?
When Solomon speaks about the temple at its initiation to begin with, at its dedication, he speaks about this house, for thy name is there. God's very character, displayed in his name, is the very testimony of that house.
And it's not some, like, mysterious thing. I showed a person a picture of our kitchen, and the person began to tell me about my wife. Because the person derived the character of my wife from the kitchen.
I'll give you another hint. Like, you're all welcome. Not all at once, but you're all welcome. You can come to our house when you're out yonder on the far end of the continent east. Well, not so far as St. John's, but anyways, far enough.
And I think, well, at the moment, okay, didn't mean to tell you this, but at the moment we're trying to sell a house, and so we're reducing furniture. So some of the furniture that kind of gave it the effect is no longer there, and I'm looking for a place to sit here and there.
But if you were to come, I think you'd get some sense of her character. And I get credit for it, because I'm married to her. God's character is going to be displayed in his house. Who God is, what he is, his ways, his name associated with the place of his dwelling.
And it's no strange thing, then, that that place where he dwells and what he is is displayed. Who he is is displayed. It should be no strange thing to us that that ought to be the place of worship. What more would draw out the worship of a heart than to know the very character of God?
The more you and I know him, the more we will worship. And if there is not genuineness to our worship, then there is something amiss in our acquaintance with him. Oh, the tremendous value. We've been reminded of it in this conference.
The tremendous value of getting to know the Lord Jesus, getting to know your Father. And I suppose if we recognize that worship is the highest occupation of a redeemed heart, then worship needs fuel, not your imagination, not your little thoughts that seem so cute.
Sorry. The more you know of God through his Word, the more you will have to bring to God in your worship. And the value of worship is its content from the Word of God. Acquaintance with God through his Word.
And it is a place, house of God, dwelling of God, a place of reverence, a place of residence, his residence. The Lord dwells there. And it is a place, as well, of rule. And I have mentioned it in connection with the tabernacle, but in all those cases, whether it's the place where God is going to dwell in the journey through the wilderness or in Jerusalem itself, God says, there's going to be a house here, and I'm going to tell you, David, this is how it's to be.
This is how it's to be built. It is very clear that there is a pattern that God has in mind for his house. It is up to him to tell the pattern. It is up to David and Solomon to fulfill the pattern. It was up to Moses and to Holy Adam and so on.
It was up to them to fulfill the pattern that God had given. So that brings me, as you will well expect, to Matthew chapter 18. Not only the initiation of the truth, but I want to point out to you that this, in Matthew 18, is the implementation of the truth.
And you've got the connection, right? The angels of God ascending and descending. And there may be some people that have wondered, like in Matthew 18, why doesn't the Lord Jesus say, verily I say unto you, whatsoever is done in heaven shall be done on earth, and whatsoever is loosed in heaven shall be loosed on earth.
Do you mean to say that God up in heaven is looking over the ramparts of heaven? I don't know where we got that idea. But anyway, he's looking down from heaven, and he's just checking. I wonder what the assembly is going to decide.
And the assembly comes to its decision and says, this is what we'll do. And heaven says, good, if that's what they're going to do, then I'll put my imprimatur on it in heaven. You don't believe that. You wouldn't believe that for a second, would you?
You're all looking at me. You wouldn't believe that for a second, would you? Sorry. I hope you don't. I don't. But it is house of God character that administration of God's will is being taken place on earth.
House of God, which is the church of the living God. House of God, which is the church of the living God, pillar and ground of the truth. And in Matthew chapter 18, it is whatsoever you shall bind on earth.
There is a connection between earth and heaven. And there is a connection in the binding and in the loosing. Decisions that are being made on earth are decisions that must be the implementation of the will of God in heaven.
And so here's the difficulty in the assembly. And you'd be quite well aware of that. And it can't be resolved in the most amicable way, just personally, individually. It can't be resolved when one or two more go and try to resolve the problem.
And finally, it should be resolved now in the church. The Lord Jesus is once again giving us the first mention of the church in its local aspect, the first mention of the church of God in the New Testament.
Primary truth. Please do not reduce Matthew 18 and 20 to anything less than primary truth for a church of God. And the primary truth that is being brought before us is this. The church is the highest authority on earth for carrying out the will of God in this present time.
Not the church, the body, but the church of God in portage. Take your choice. You can go by one number street or some other number street, but it would be the church of God. And the responsibility in the present is the administration of the will of God.
The assembly does its best and the man will not hear. Not they won't hear what the elders say. Not they won't hear what the church says, although you understand the wording is that. The point of it is the assembly carrying out God's will on earth is dependent on God to give guidance as to his will.
We don't reach up into the air and pluck out some idea we have. And the man that's got the best way of arguing things, he will persuade us and that's what we ought to do. It is by the word of God. There is no other way that we know the will of God.
And if we come to a problem and we do not have guidance from the word of God, we do nothing but admit our own poverty. Because the word of God is full enough to give us all that we need for every age.
That the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all every good work. There is sufficient guidance for us in the word of God. And we must have the word of God. It's not some matter of pride that we hear that brethren, as they used to be called, we don't call them that anymore surely, do we?
But brethren, as they used to be called, are men of the book. This is not a statement of boast. I want to say very clearly, and I admit my own weakness, we ought to be men and women that know the word of God.
We have to be men and women that know the word of God if we are associated with house of God. It's an absolute necessity. And here is the administration now on earth of the will of God. You'll understand that in the gospel of the rejected king, and I'm ahead of myself here but I'll just mention this, one day the will of God will be carried out on earth as it is in heaven.
But that king that will do that is rejected. And there is a place on earth, in various localities, there is a place on earth that God himself has invested with the responsibility to carry out his will on earth.
And what do we know about that place? The Lord Jesus explains the whole thing. Because he says, let me paraphrase for a minute, but he says now, Verily I say unto you, whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Verily I say unto you, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
And you can take that anywhere you want to, but in the context what the Lord Jesus is saying is this. If men and women are going to carry out the will of God on earth as it is in heaven, then they need not only to be acquainted with the will of God, but they have got to act in dependence on God.
And then he says, I'll explain why all this is the case. For it's the house of God. You didn't read that, did you? But you see, it is a place of divine residence. There I am in the midst of them. The Lord Jesus is not saying that when you get together, I come to meet with you.
The Lord Jesus is saying, the assembly has the character of my dwelling place. And as you gather together, you will express the truth that this is house of God. You will express the truth. Hopefully, in Corinth, if they follow the word of God, hopefully what will be evident to those that come in will be this.
God is among you of a truth. Not that God visits you every time you're together. God has a dwelling place among his people. Matthew chapter 18 and verse 20 is telling us that that dwelling place, there I am in the midst of them, is associated with his name.
That's not some truth that's being introduced. It's the reality that has been carried now through the Old Testament and the reality that he brings to us at this present moment. God chooses that the Lord Jesus should be on display in that locality, in the gathering of those believers, by their lives and by their testimony and by the very way that they function according to the pattern of the Word of God.
And the reality is this. His name is there. There's one thing that ought to be displayed in every assembly and it's this. The actions of believers, one with another. The way that they respond in the prayer meeting and the way that they respond at the breaking of bread and the way that they respond into the Word of God is all evidence of this.
This is God's house. The regulation here, if any man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandment of the Lord. This is house of God. What his word says is our only guide.
We cannot add our imagination. It must be thus saith the Lord. And the pattern is not the pattern of expediency. If it works, if it brings in numbers, that's what you do. I'm not saying we're anchored by the practice of all that has been done in the past, but we are anchored by the principles of the Word of God.
We are anchored clearly and solely by thus saith the Lord. It must be the case because it's house of God. And so the name is there. And if I just... Oh, I'm going over time. I wanted it to be 20 minutes and it's 25 already.
Not good. I was going to Revelation, though. Can I take you quickly there? And remind you of golden lampstands? And will you just allow me to put this slant on it? Because I really think this is what is involved.
When the Lord writes to each of those lampstands, the first thing he brings before them is himself. For the most part, it is what has already been revealed in the vision in chapter 1. And what the Lord Jesus is saying is this, if this is who I am, then this is how you must behave.
He sets the standard. He is the standard. And therefore, every light and every golden lampstand is responsible to give a clear, accurate picture of Christ in all that is done in the assembly. Now, that's a very nebulous statement, very broad an application.
But if we get a hold of the truth of it, I think it might have a weight in our hearts that the assembly is not something of the ordinary one of a dozen. I'm looking for the expression. I haven't got it.
It's not just your ordinary run of a place. It is uniquely designed by God. It is uniquely claimed by God. And it is uniquely used by God for the carrying out of his will on earth and for the display of Christ in all the glory and majesty of his glorious person.
He is on display. That is what the assembly is about. And so you have the implementation of this truth in the present. But finally, the combination of the truth in the future, because that's what the Lord Jesus says about the future, right?
First, verily, verily, in John's gospel. And he's telling Nathanael, who has just recognized you're the one of Psalm 2. You are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. And now the Lord Jesus says, you thought just because I saw you under the fig tree that that was great.
I just want to tell you there's something greater yet to come. Because the day is coming when you will see the Son of Man on earth and the angels of God ascending and descending. Because the day that's coming will be house of God, the house of God on earth.
There will be a place of divine administration. It will be perfect administration. Would to God that we did not miss the mark and be imperfect in our administration. We have the whole Word of God. But when it's in our hands, you can expect we'll be wrong sometimes.
God help us to be humble and modest in our decisions in the fear of God. But when it comes to that day, this future, he will be the center of administration. And the house of Israel will form that house of of God.
And there will be an administration in this world that will be absolutely perfect. And the prayer long breathed will be answered. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And just just get this get this into our hearts.
You know what that means? That what we're doing here in a very limited sphere in our limitations is just a reflection of what's going to be done in the glorious future that awaits this world, that awaits our Lord Jesus Christ.
Get a hold of the reality that there is something taking place now that is a preview of the future for the glory of God. Is there anything else that you ought to know that would encourage you to put everything you have in the house of God?
Everything that matters, every energy, every capability devoted to the Lord Jesus so that the display of his name and the carrying out of the will of God will be in keeping with the word of God and with the kingdom that is coming.
Because you see, I think that will tell us why. Your faithfulness in house of God here will be the degree to which you will have participation in the house of God there to share in that divine administration with him.
Based on what we have known and practiced, don't tell me you know it, but you don't practice it. If you don't practice it, you don't know it. And what we practice carried out in the house of God here is the degree to which we will share with him in that coming day of glory.
You looking forward to that? Are you about tired of things as they are on earth at the present moment? I mean, God bless government. They have a tremendous responsibility and we can all sit back and criticize.
But they are only men and they lack the fear of God for the most part. But one day it will be right. We're not going to make it right now, but it will be right when he comes and we're coming with him.
And when he reigns, we'll reign with him. May God help us to do the training for reigning. I'll just lift Mervyn Paul's book title and apply it here. The training for reigning in the assembly, that God may help us to be faithful to recognize this is a solemn responsibility, a great privilege.
And may God help us to do it in a godly way for the glory of our Lord Jesus.