Assemblies as lampstands

The book of Revelation chapter 1. The book of Revelation chapter 1 and we're going to read from verse 12. Revelation chapter 1 and verse 12. I turn to see the voice that speak with me.

John is on the isle of Patmos and the Lord is communicating with John. And being turned I saw seven golden lampstands. Explain why that should be lampstands.

And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like unto the Son of Man. And then John gives us a description of the Lord Jesus Christ. We would take it as a priestly judge.

And he is going to pass his divine unerring evaluation of seven assemblies upon earth in John's day. We'll come to verse 20 of the same chapter. Chapter 1 and verse 20.

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands which thou sawest are the seven churches. Chapter 2 and verse 1. Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write.

These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. And verse 5 of that same chapter. Remember therefore from whence art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy lampstand out of his place except thou repent.

That's all that we're going to read. We know that God will further add his blessing to his word. I have a have a real exercise when it comes to conference meetings.

I think there are two subjects that should be touched upon in every conference. One of course is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're living in the last days very near to the moment when we are going to see him.

We're going to rise from this earth to meet the Lord in the air. And it does seem to me it is rather strange that we're not occupied as much as we ought to be about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is a blessed hope.

That is a purifying hope in the life of a believer. The second topic that should be touched in a conference and particularly in the days that we are living in and you probably could give me reasons for this I'm not going into reasons just now. But I do believe that the assembly should be touched at every conference gathering without fail.

Now brethren, that's my exercise. I don't know whether that will stir your exercise. I want to touch a little upon the assembly.

We have read here of a golden lampstand. Go look for a moment at that golden lampstand. When you come here to the golden lampstand there is no question as to its interpretation.

When you come to the last verse of chapter 1 we read the golden lampstands which thou saw'st are the seven churches. No question. That's not even debatable.

That each of the lampstands represents one of the seven churches. And we would take it from that that every assembly is a golden lampstand. A testimony for Christ in a very evil day.

Let's touch for a moment upon the lampstand then. We're reminded here that there are seven churches. I'm going to say a few things likely that are old things that have been mentioned many times but maybe need to be mentioned many more times.

The word church here is a word ecclesia. It's made up of two parts. Now you know this.

The first part is a calling or out of and then the second part, kaleo, a calling out of. And so when the Lord was reminding John as he's on the Isle of Patmos of these seven churches, he's reminding John that they have been called out of the world. I don't understand and I'm speaking to my young brethren here.

If I go back my way you'll understand that I come from a little further to the east. Now when my young brethren can go to a baseball game and watch the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers play baseball, that that's beyond me. We're called out of all of that.

Out of the world. And it's no wonder that some don't have much to offer when it comes to a Bible reading if they're occupied with the world. And so the the meaning of the word church here is a out-called company called out of the world.

And John is now told that these seven assemblies are likened onto a golden lampstand. I'm just going to give you a few thoughts on the lampstand. You notice first, obvious, that it is composed of gold.

It is a golden lampstand. We used to have a chandelier at home. And if you turn the light switch on and the light from the light bulbs would reflect off the chandelier.

Now don't get excited because it wasn't gold. Probably it was copper or some other cheap alloy. But the point is that the light shines or reflects off the gold.

And so when you come here to the to the golden lampstand, it gives us something that we perhaps have already heard and that the purpose of an assembly is to tell out the glories of Christ in a dark, dark world. For gold speaks of deity, gold to remind us of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the great purposes of an assembly being planted in various locations relative to this earth is to be a testimony for the glory of Christ.

Do that pre-incarnate glories. That He was a fullness of the glory of God before He came to earth. The glories of the Lord Jesus upon this earth.

John says we beheld His glory. John was occupied with the moral glories of Christ. They watched Him.

They saw Him. They beheld the perfect character of the Lord Jesus here. We tell out the glories of the Savior in heaven just at this present moment, exalted in the very presence of God, crowned with glory and honor.

And how unworthy that we are that we're going to stand in His presence and we're going to see His glory. Glory of the Savior will dazzle every eye in the crowning day that's coming by and by. How do we tell out the glories of Christ? By the ministry of the Word of God that's been touched upon already.

By the sounding out of the gospel, the preaching of the gospel in a very dark world. But I want to touch something else that has already been mentioned and I'm not saying this just to improve upon what my brother has said, but just to emphasize what he has said. As we sit here at this present time, we're giving indication of the purpose of the assembly to sound out the glories of Christ.

When you come to First Corinthians chapter 11, you come to the third verse of that chapter, and in that chapter you would read the statement that the head of the woman is the man and the head of the man is Christ. The Apostle Paul has taken the head to teach a great spiritual truth, that is the physical head. When he refers to the head of the woman, he's referring to her physical head.

Her head in the assembly is the man, and so the woman sits with covered head, because there's nothing worth telling out about man. Man has nothing to declare relative to his accomplishments or attainments relative to the assembly, and because the man is the head of the woman, the woman sits with her head covered veil, that is the accomplishments of man veil covered in the assembly. The doctor comes in and takes his place in the assembly, and he sits beside the bricklayer.

They're just brethren in Christ. If I sit at the doctor's desk with an ailment, then I respect his accomplishments and his expertise, but in the assembly he's only my brother in Christ. The man sits with his head uncovered.

His spiritual head in the assembly is Christ, and the uncovered head of the man declares the purpose of the assembly to declare the unveiled glories of Christ. It's a golden lampstand. In a world that is so so dark and it's sin, the uncovered head of the man is declaring that our purpose is to present Christ in all of his glories in this world.

You notice that gold is precious, you know that. There was a brother in the assembly in Ottawa back home, and in the city of Ottawa there is a mint where they process all the gold. Because of that brother's position in the mint, he could take you on a tour of the mint.

If you were a tourist in Ottawa, you wouldn't see what he could show you. He had access to certain places in the mint that the ordinary tourist wouldn't see. He took me to the mint.

After our tour, we stood in front of the great doors of the vault, summoned the guard, and the guard unlocked the doors of the vault, and the doors were swung open, and I was escorted into the vault of the mint. I was told to hold out my hand, and I held out my hand, and they took a gold brick off the shelf and put it in my hands, and I just found the price later. I figured that I held about two million dollars worth of gold in my hand for 30 seconds.

Then they took it away, and they put it back on the shelf and escorted me out of the mint very quickly. Gold is of tremendous value. The golden lamp stand here would indicate something of the value of an assembly of God.

Tremendously valuable. It's valuable to God. There's nothing on this earth that is of greater value that the heart of God is set upon like the assembly of God.

It means so, so much to God. It has cost Him. It has cost Him dearly.

It has cost Him the precious blood of His Son, and it means so very much to the God of heaven. It is precious to God. We might ask ourselves how precious is it to us? What does the assembly mean in my life to me? Is it something that is just a thing that I've belonged to, and I come once in a while? Or is it something that is very precious? Is it very vital in my life, the assembly of God? The golden lamp stand is of tremendous value.

Gold would indicate that. I wonder, what does it mean to me? The preciousness of the golden lampstand composed of gold. You'll notice something very unique here.

You have to take notice of this. That there were seven golden lampstands, but each of the lampstands stood on its own base. That base is Christ.

Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And so every foundation has its own separate base, and that is Christ. There is no connection between the foundations of the golden lampstands.

And so when you come to the assembly at Ephesus, the assembly at Ephesus was responsible for Ephesus, not for Pergamos. The assembly at Ephesus had no responsibility for the world that had crept in to Pergamos. The assembly at Ephesus had no responsibility for a woman teaching in Thyatira, and it had no responsibility for the lukewarmness of Laodicea.

Every golden lampstand upon its own base is responsible to Christ for the assembly in that area where the golden lampstand is found. That is a tremendous truth to get hold of. And so there is no central oversight.

There's no group of men like in the exclusive brethren, and I know this for certain because my neighbor was a full-time man amongst the party of exclusive brethren, and we have discussed this. They have a central oversight that controls a group of assemblies that's not found here in Revelation chapters 1 and chapters 2. There is no governing body. It is not a denomination.

You need to grasp tonight or this afternoon that the assembly is not a denomination. It is not a sect. There is no human creed that controls assemblies.

Every assembly is responsible to Christ, not for another assembly, but to Christ for the assembly where it is planted, where it is found. But you'll notice something else. You'll notice that we are told twice here, once in chapter 1 and verse 13, once in chapter 2 and verse 1, we are told that the Lord Jesus moves in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

That's not Matthew 18 and 20. Well, Matthew 18 and 20 is so precious. We love the truth of Matthew 18 and 20, and I hope that it's all of our souls that, even here at this present moment, the Lord Jesus is present in the midst of his people.

Present when the Christians are gathered together. And I hope that that fills our soul. That when we come together on the Lord's Day morning, that the Lord Jesus is present in the midst of his people.

That would affect our whole department if that truth permeated our soul. We're not speaking of something mystical. We're speaking of something absolutely real.

That he is present in the midst of his gathered people. But when I come to Revelation chapter 1 and chapter 2, I'm looking at something different. He's in the midst of seven golden lampstands.

And so why is it that you can go to an assembly in various parts of this world and you would find very much similar to the way that an assembly would function here in Blue River? Why is that? Because every assembly is responsible to Christ. Responsible to the one who moves in the midst of the lampstands. And bearing responsibility to Christ, every assembly will be very similar insofar as they are carrying out his word and are obedient to him.

There will be a similarity between all assemblies in any part of the world. And so when he's moving in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, if Thyatira is bowing to the Lordship of Christ, there will not be a woman teaching in Thyatira. If Pergamos is acknowledging the Lordship of Christ, they will be very careful about the world and its ways that have crept in to the assembly.

If Laodicea is responding to the Lordship of Christ, then there will be a stir in Laodicea, a warming of the souls to get back to him. Emphasis responding to Christ will return to their first love. And so insofar as every assembly or any assembly is responding to Christ, there will be a similarity and a closeness because of that response.

When I read what I have read, I read the word lampstand and not the word candlestick. The word that is used here is lupnia, and it would be far better to translate it by lampstand. A candlestick burns wax or tallow or some other substance, perhaps, that the candlestick is composed of.

A lampstand burns oil. The oil is a reminder of the Holy Spirit of God. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul made the statement that the Spirit of God is in you, that is, in the assembly.

In chapter 6, the Spirit of God dwells in the body of the believer. That's an astounding thing, that the Holy Spirit, a divine person, indwells the believer. That's a tremendous thing.

But it's just as tremendous when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and when you're reading verse 16 of that chapter, when he says the Holy Spirit of God is in you, that's the assembly of Corinth. That's the golden lampstand. That's the oil in the lampstand.

The Holy Spirit dwells in the assembly and guides and directs and empowers all of the activities of the assembly, empowers the preaching of the gospel, guides and directs in the worship of the assembly, raises up overseers to guide the affairs of the assembly. The Holy Spirit of God is over the assembly. And I would suggest that perhaps we have lost sight of the guiding power and of the direction of the Holy Spirit of God.

Can I say this? I told my brethren back home, I don't think they listen to me too much. When it comes to a conference like this, and the material aspects of the conference, there has to be some planning. You're not going to feed all the people who come to this conference unless you have some planning.

If there's no planning, we're likely all going to go hungry. So there's got to be some planning when it comes to material things. But when it comes to spiritual things, the more that can be left to the Spirit of God, the better.

And the greater blessing that we might experience. And it may be that the Spirit of God is so hindered amongst us because of all of our planning and all of our arrangements when it comes to spiritual things that the Spirit of God cannot move and is not at liberty as the Spirit of God should be. And for that reason, and I'm not saying something here that I wouldn't say back home, because I've made this statement a few times back home.

If you're going to plan two weeks of gospel meetings, don't ask me. Because we're putting the Holy Spirit in a box. And we are saying to the Spirit of God, in these two weeks you are going to have to work.

And if the Spirit of God doesn't work in those two weeks, we're going to close up. And the Spirit of God, I wonder, just says, well go ahead, but I'm not going to work. We just had a series of meetings back home.

This might reach home, and that's all right, because I'll face my brethren. Two weeks. I wasn't involved in the series of meetings, and I wouldn't be.

I was there perhaps the second last night. The hall was packed, but the meetings had to end because the two weeks had come. And I sat there grieving in my soul, wondering, there's a number of unsaved people sitting in this hall tonight.

And my brethren are going to end the meetings when it is very evident that there's an interest in the gospel here, and the meetings are going to come to a close. One of my overseers, not in the assembly where I'm in fellowship, but one of my overseers back home, when we were discussing gospel meetings, we had come to the end of the fourth week. And one of my preaching, my preaching brother was, I think pretty certain, wanted to come to an end of the meetings, but my overseeing brother said the meetings I was saved in went for 11 weeks.

He said for the first 10 weeks of those meetings, I had no interest. It wasn't until the eleventh week that I got stirred up, and I was saved the last night of the eleventh. And so the Spirit of God must be at liberty to work and to move when it comes to the assembly, ungrieved and unhindered.

And so the oil in the Spirit of God, in the golden lampstand, represents the Holy Spirit of God. But you'll notice the light. Thank God for the light.

The light shines in a dark place. That would remind us of the sounding forth of the gospel of the grace of God in a dark place. That would remind us as well that when it comes to a series of gospel meetings, far more can be accomplished sometimes than souls being saved, though that's our exercise, that's our burden.

But those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. The gospel can warm the heart of the Christian, stir the believer's heart. The gospel can be a moment of restoration of the backslider.

Good place for a backslider to be in a gospel meeting. The way back is the same way that the sinner takes. It's back by way of the cross.

It's back to Calvary. It's back to Christ and the suffering to the Savior to warm the soul of a believer who is away from God. But there's another issue that's involved here when it comes to the golden lampstand and the shining forth of the light.

We need to look a little beyond the assembly itself because there is something the Lord told us to pray for, brethren. And I've only been to one conference in my life. I'm not that old, but I've only been to one conference in my life where I have heard this prayer.

For the Lord specifically said, pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth laborers into the harvest. Fields are ripe and are ready to harvest. I had the privilege this summer of laboring with brother Murray Pratt.

It's a new work. Murray is a hundred and fifty miles away from the nearest assembly, brethren. We're the pioneers now.

Where's the exercise to take the gospel and beyond the assembly? There are new places to reach Christ. It's not easy. Several nights Murray and I sat in the tent.

There's only five or six people in the tent and all five or six of them professed to be saved. So Murray and I sat at the front of the tent and looked at each other. Well, what are we going to do? And we decided, well, we're going to preach the gospel because the man next door who was not in the tent was sitting on his front veranda and he's not saved.

We don't know where the gospel is going to be taken by the Spirit of God and what is going to take place. And when I said look beyond the assembly, even in the area where the assembly is, to take the gospel to places where Christ is not named and the Spirit of God will work and stir souls. I think it's a sad thing when my really younger brethren, I'm not talking to my brethren here, some of my Canadian brethren are here and I'm not talking to them.

My really younger brethren get into the habit of going from conference to conference to conference to conference. No real gospel work. They're not a stir of heart.

You'll notice finally that there's a priestly function here. In the Old Testament, Ronald took to the tabernacle. The priest would go into the holy place where the golden lampstand was and they had the snuffers and the snuff dishes to trim the lampstand.

That's what the Lord Jesus is doing in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. He's going to trim the lampstand and he's reminding John to tell each of these assemblies of the difficulties and the problems that are in the assemblies and problems that they had to face on the lamps. The wick needed to be trimmed. Ephesus needed to get back to their first love.

Interesting when you come to Smyrna, there's no condemnation of Smyrna. Smyrna is a suffering assembly and historically or prophetically however you want to put it, Smyrna represents a period of time of the martyr of the Roman Colosseum and the turning of the wild beast loose on believers in the forum who are suffering terribly and the Lord demands no more of them. When a believer is prepared to give their life for Christ, there's no greater sacrifice that he demands.

So there's nothing condemned in Smyrna. There's nothing condemned in Philadelphia and again historically you go back to the 1850s, the early 1850s, Philadelphia represents a period of time when there were believers in the systems of men and reading their Bibles, studying the Word of God, the Spirit of God was moving and they left the systems of men and they gathered outside the camp unto the person of Christ. We used to sing a hymn, I haven't heard it for a long time, outside the camp unto thy dear name draw me O Lamb of God far from the world from its sin and its shame hallowed is every sod outside the camp.

Philadelphia represents that period of time and I don't know what my brother might think with this, I'm going to close, relative to the Golden Lampstand, we are living in the last days but when we come to Laodicea the question might be raised, when did the last days commence? I have wondered if they commenced in the days of Paul. Paul had to remind the believers of his days of things that were creeping in amongst them. I wonder if that commenced right at the very beginning when the assembly movement was in its prime and in its freshness that the last days began to creep in and today they are coming to fruition.

We are certainly living near the end of the last days, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. And so may God preserve the testimonies the assemblies gathered to his name and the golden lampstands in our day and may there be recovery and refreshment and restoration in the souls of each of us. I need that, we need that to carry on as a vibrant faithful testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ in the last days in which our lot is cast.