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Scripture Reading: Deut. 12:5-6, 8, 13-14, 17-18, 26; 14:22-23; 15:20; 16:2, 5-6, 15-16; 2 Chron. 3:1; Psa. 133
The things of the New Testament always have their types in the Old Testament. The types are pictures of that which is revealed in the New Testament, and a picture, we know, is better than a thousand words. A lengthy definition of a certain matter may still not make the matter clear, but when we look at a picture, it is immediately clear to us. This is the way the Lord teaches us. The Old Testament gives us the pictures, which are called the types; then the New Testament gives the definitions. If we are not clear regarding certain points in the definition, we can go back to the picture and compare the picture with the definition. Then everything will be exceedingly clear.
Even the matter of the church ground has a clear picture in typology in the Old Testament. The book of Deuteronomy tells how rich the good land is, and how marvelous is the enjoyment of that land. The manna in the wilderness is a type of one aspect of Christ, and the rock in the wilderness is a type of another aspect of Christ. But the good land is the type of all the aspects of Christ. It is a complete type, an all-inclusive type, including all the rich aspects of Christ. This is the enjoyment into which the people of God must enter. But for the enjoyment of the riches of Christ as typified in Deuteronomy, God has appointed two ways. One is the enjoyment of the riches of the good land by the people individually. This is the personal and individual way. Everyone is free to enjoy the riches of the good land by themselves at any time and in any place. But there is another way, and that is the enjoyment of the riches of the good land as a corporate worship to the Lord. In this way, there is no choice as far as the place is concerned. There is only one unique place throughout the whole land of Israel chosen by God. In all the land of the twelve tribes, there is only one place that is the proper place for all the people of God to come together to enjoy the riches of the good land as a corporate worship to God. This is not the individual, but the corporate way.
In Deuteronomy the produce of the good land is divided into two parts. The first part is a tenth part, the tithe. The tithe must be the first tenth, not the last tenth. This part must be separated for the corporate worship of all the people to God. They have no right to enjoy this ten percent in any place they choose; they must bring it to the place which the Lord has chosen. This tithe is holy unto the Lord. They may prefer to enjoy it in their homes or in some other places, but they have no right to do so. They must bring this ten percent to the very place which the Lord has chosen.
The rest of the produce, the ninety percent, may be enjoyed in any place. This part is for the individual enjoyment of the riches of the good land. Thus, there are these two ways to enjoy the riches of Christ according to Deuteronomy. One is individual, and the other is corporate.
Some say that Christ is not narrow, but that He is everywhere, and this is true. I can enjoy Christ in my home, and I can enjoy Christ in any place. But this is only one way. There is another way in which we may lack. We may enjoy Christ in a private way with the ninety percent, but we cannot enjoy Christ as the firstfruit and topmost portion.
Whenever we come together on the proper ground, which is the ground ordained by the Lord, we enjoy the topmost portion of the rich Christ. We can testify this by our experience. Sometimes we pray-read in our homes and enjoy the Lord in a rich way. We feel quite satisfied. But when we come to the meetings of the local church, we see that there is no comparison. One is the topmost portion, and the other is the bottom. Of course, everything of Christ is good, but there is still a difference between the firstfruit and the remainder.
If it were possible, I would never miss the meetings of the church in Los Angeles. I would stay in Los Angeles forever to enjoy the church meetings. I do not know how good it will be when we get into the New Jerusalem, but I believe I have enjoyed a real foretaste in the meetings in Los Angeles. There is no comparison with the topmost enjoyment of the meetings of the local church. The Holy Spirit does withhold something for the church.
There are only two ways to enjoy Christ: the individual way and the corporate way, the personal way and the Body way. Praise the Lord, there is a Body way! The people of Israel had their corn, their oil, and all the produce of the good land. They enjoyed ninety percent of all these things in their own homes and in any place they wished. Undoubtedly this was a kind of enjoyment. But I do not think they were nearly as excited with this enjoyment as they were with that of the Feast of Tabernacles. At that time, they brought the firstfruits of the produce of the good land to Mount Zion. There they met with all the people of Israel to put all the offerings together as an exhibition of the rich produce of the good land.
There were three main feasts that brought all the people of Israel to Jerusalem: the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. I am certain that whenever the time of these feasts arrived, all the people were moved with joy. Even before coming to Mount Zion, while they were ascending, they would sing Psalm 133:1: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is / For brothers to dwell in unity!”
These two ways must be exceedingly clear to us. We should enjoy Christ in a personal, individual way, but we still need to enjoy Him even more in a corporate, Body way. The topmost produce of the good land is for the corporate way of enjoyment. The best portion of Christ is for our corporate enjoyment.
With the individual way of enjoying Christ, there is no problem, but with the corporate way, there is a real problem. Why, in the Lord’s wisdom, did He make such a regulation for the worship of the people of Israel? Why was there only one place for all the people to come together to have the corporate enjoyment of the rich produce of the good land? There were twelve tribes in the good land, but the Lord only chose Jerusalem. Regardless of how far the tribe of Dan was to the north, they still had to come to Jerusalem. In Deuteronomy 12, 14, 15, and 16 the Lord said many times that the people of Israel had to worship at the place He chose. They had no choice. Moses said that in the past they all did whatever was right in their own eyes, but when they would come into the good land, they should not do what was right in their eyes, but what was right in the Lord’s eyes. In other words, they could not act according to their choice, but according to the Lord’s choice. Why did the Lord choose only one place for the corporate worship of the people? It was because this unique spot kept the oneness of all the people of God. This unique place was the ground of oneness.
Suppose two Israelites were neighbors living at a distance from Jerusalem in the territory of Dan. One day, they became angry with one another and eventually hated each other. However, the time of the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and both must go up to Jerusalem. If they did not go, they would be cut off as males from the people of Israel. Thus, they would be forced to go and must travel the same road. What could they do? Nothing remained but for them to be reconciled to each other. How else could they sing Psalm 133 as they ascended Mount Zion?
Hallelujah! The ground of oneness forces us to be reconciled to one another. The one unique ground keeps the oneness. This is why we stress again and again the local church ground. It is the one unique ground of oneness that is typified in the book of Deuteronomy.
The ground of oneness keeps all the dissenting elements away and closes all the doors to division. If we do not have the ground of oneness, I am afraid that in a few years’ time there will be fifty free groups in Los Angeles. All the brothers will feel free to establish a meeting in any place they choose.
It seems that it is easier for people to establish a “church” today than to open a store. If you would open a store, you must register with the government. But to establish a “church” only requires someone to start a meeting in their home. People continually refer to Matthew 18:20 as their ground for meeting. But this is wrong. To judge a church according to the presence of the Lord is never conclusive. Even the Catholic Church can testify that they have the presence of the Lord today. If you inquire of them, they will steadfastly maintain that they have the Lord’s presence. But does that vindicate and justify them?
Then there are some who say that the greater the measure of Christ you have, the more you are the church. We cannot agree with this. Madame Guyon was very spiritual. Few have the measure of Christ she had. But she was not right as far as the church was concerned because she remained in the Roman Catholic Church.
Regardless of how spiritual you are, you must come to Jerusalem. Simply to love the Lord by yourself is only one aspect. There is still the corporate side. We must come to the unique ground of oneness, which is the choice of the Lord. If the standing of the church is not according to the ground but according to the so-called spiritual condition, nothing will be stable. Condition is a very relative matter. Today you may be uplifted in the spirit, but after six months you may be very low. Today I may be weak in the spirit, but by the Lord’s mercy after one year, I may be strong. There is no standard of spirituality.
How spiritual is spiritual? It is similar to the length or the height. How long is the length, and how high is the height? There is no standard. But the unique ground is exceedingly definite. It is absolutely unequivocal. The standard of spirituality is extremely vague and obscure. But the matter of the ground is definite. We are one Body; so wherever we go, wherever we are, we must be in the expression of that one church. This is definite and keeps us in oneness.
Christians consider that as long as they preach the gospel and edify the saints, they are right. But the apostles only worked with the intention of building up the local churches. There was no exception. Can anyone show from the Acts or the Epistles that one of the apostles did any work apart from that of building up the local churches? No, there is not such a hint. All the apostles went forth with the full intention of establishing, edifying, and building up the local churches.
The temple had to be built on Mount Moriah as David appointed. Mount Moriah was and still is the center of Jerusalem. It is the place where God appeared to Abraham and also to David. Abraham offered Isaac on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22:2), and David offered sacrifices to the Lord on the same spot (1 Chron. 21:18-19, 26; 22:1). Thus, David ordained that this very ground be used for the building of the temple. The people of Israel do not have the right to build the temple in any other place. They must build it on the very spot which David appointed. The church is the fulfillment of the type shown by the temple. We have no right to build a church in any place we choose. If we do, we are simply doing whatever is right in our own eyes. We will please ourselves, but we certainly will not please the Lord. Christians today continually do things which are right in their own eyes. They have no right to do so. They must build up the local church on the very ground which God has appointed, that is, the local ground.
“What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea” (Rev. 1:11). “To the seven churches” means to the seven cities. One church represents one city, and each local church is equal to that city in which it stands. To establish elders in every church is equivalent to establishing elders in every city (Acts 14:23; cf. Titus 1:5). There should be only one church in one city. In The Normal Christian Church Life, Brother Watchman Nee said that anything smaller than the city is not the church, and anything larger than the city is also not the church.
So many Christian workers today have altogether too much freedom. They build the “church” everywhere and on any kind of ground. There are all kinds of so-called churches: home churches, street churches, campus churches, and so forth. All manner of churches are built upon all kinds of grounds. It is just as if every Israelite has the right to build a “temple.” Benjamin builds a “temple” here, and Jonathan builds another one there. Everywhere there is a so-called temple. This is the situation of today’s Christianity. There are not only many churches but many different kinds of churches. How pitiful it is!
When we say that this is wrong and that we all must be one, others say that we are narrow and exclusive. But in all these years it has been proved who is narrow and exclusive. The church in the locality is not narrow. It includes all the believers in that locality. The only thing in which you may say that the church on the proper ground is narrow is that it will not take anything divisive. We will accept all kinds of Christians as long as they are saved. We will accept those who are sprinkled as well as those who are immersed. Would those who say that we are narrow receive such?
What does it mean to be narrow and exclusive? Most people simply do not know what they mean when they speak thus. To be narrow means to disregard the proper ground of oneness. If we are on the proper ground, we can never be narrow, for the ground of oneness is common to all the people of the Lord.
Some missionaries in China said to us, “We are all one in the Lord. Let us work together.” But we made the situation very clear to them. We said, “Yes, we are all one in the Lord, and we are all working for Him, but there is a big difference. We are working to build up the local church, but you have been sent by your mission to come here to build up the church of your mission. This is the problem. We appreciate the fact that you have sacrificed to come to this foreign country, but you have come here to build up something other than the local church. You have come to build up the church of your denomination. It is impossible for us to agree with this. As far as gospel preaching and edifying of the saints is concerned, there is not much problem; but in building up the mission and denominational churches, we cannot go along with you. You must recognize that the building up of the mission and denominational churches is wrong. If you would relinquish this, there would be no problem.”
Who is narrow? Some are narrow in their mission work. Some are narrow in their personal work. We, as the local church, are not narrow; we are broad to include all the Lord’s people in our locality.
Why do the missionaries insist upon building up their mission churches in the mission fields? Why do they not give up all divisive ground and come to build the local church? When we say this, they say that we are narrow. But the Lord knows who is narrow, who is sectarian, and who is exclusive. The local church is all-inclusive. It embraces all the believers in a locality. But the problem is that so many are sectarian in their opinions and in their work. So when the local church will not take their sectarian opinions, they say that the local church is narrow.
Brothers and sisters, may the Lord be merciful to us. In such a time of confusion, we must be clear. Praise the Lord! There is no choice. Only the ground which the Lord ordains is the proper ground.
All the brothers and sisters who have been with us in these past years have tasted the real enjoyment of Christ in the church on the proper ground. Those too who have only recently begun to meet with us have sensed the sweet enjoyment there is here in the local church on the ground of oneness. It is here that the Lord has commanded His blessing, even life forever. The oil is on the Head, and the dew is on the mountains of Zion. This is the proper ground, and this is the unique place to enjoy the Lord to the uttermost.
