Watchmen of Zion 1973

Isaiah 62, verses 6 and 7. Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night. They shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a place in the earth.

The redemptive work that needs to be done at this hour is not going to be done by individual heroes. It is going to be done by the body. The need of this time is not for one or two or three flaming prophets, but for a living, burning church.

A church that is really a city set on a hill, really a habitation of God, a church that is so blazing and alive with the presence of the living God that the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind will literally find themselves drawn into it. Now, we've been praying, many of us, for all kinds of good and for our private ministry, but we've been far too satisfied with things as they are when it comes to the church itself. You know, if we have a good crowd, or the singing was pretty good, there's a warm atmosphere, the brothers and sisters are fairly friendly today, we go on our way content that the church is doing all right.

And yet time and time and time again, we go out of fellowship here, we leave the gathering here or wherever you have the fellowship normally, and we go out there and we come up against lepers that we can't heal, the blind whom we can't give any sight, people who are all troubled and we can't bring them the peace of God, people who are really seeking God and they can't find their way through our many words. And this is not just a private problem. This is a problem that has to do with the fellowship itself, the body.

How many times we come away from the fellowship and find ourselves caught right back up in habits that we can't break and attitudes and fears and all kinds of bondage that make mockery of us. And again, these things are not just private problems, but they have to do with the body itself, the corporate body. And so in Ephesians, we have this passage which is usually read at weddings.

People can't... Ephesians 5, 25 and following. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor without having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. And the question is, how are we going to reconcile this picture of splendor, this picture of a living, burning, holy church with what we see and with what we are? Now, the Spirit is calling for a church at this hour that is holy and without blemish and is far, far different from this wrinkled, spotted, mediocre thing that we have been.

The Spirit is calling for a church, a corporate, a body of believers. You know, that really manifests the presence of Christ and really reveals his nature and really functions as a body and is really pure. And what we've been satisfied with up to now, most of us, you know, this club atmosphere and this superficial piety and this lack of discipline and this lack of concern and this lack of love and all the things that go to make up churches and fellowships and non-institutional bodies and New Testament churches and all the other things that, you know, go the whole gamut.

You know, these things are just not satisfactory to the God that we serve or to the need of this hour. And I say that if we can't have a church that really manifests Christ and that really touches heaven in its worship and that really burns with the love of God, then, my friends, let's face it, we're better off with nothing than this spiritless mediocrity that has filled our past years most of the time. You know, to have a church that is really filled with God, with his love and with his power and with his peace and with his healing grace, we're aware of the fact that Jesus himself has to bring this about.

To have a church where people stepping into the assembly know that they're coming into the outer courts of heaven. Jesus has to make this happen. You know, we can have retreats and we can have meetings and we can appoint committees and we can have good intentions, but nothing's going to take place until Jesus comes into the wedding feast and turns the water into wine.

Until he does that, we're without wine. That's true. You know, on this rock, I will build my church.

The gates of death are not pre-delegated, but I'm going to build it. He has to do the building. And in this passage that I read, you know, the making of a church without spot or wrinkle is a thing that Jesus has to do.

He sanctifies the church and he cleanses it and he pours out his spirit upon it. And, my friends, he will do this when he has a few people who care enough about this to start asking for it. I mean, really asking for it.

You know, Jesus did not turn the water into wine at the wedding feast until Mary came up to him and started bugging him. And we don't see him healing people normally unless they show, or somebody with him shows some kind of desire. And even in the case where he picked out that man at the Pool of Bethesda, you know, Jesus picked him out.

He didn't come to Jesus. Jesus came to him. But before he healed him, Jesus said to that man, Do you want to be healed? As long as we're satisfied to just bumble on, not troubled enough to cry out to God for more than this, then this is all we're going to have.

But, praise God, there are voices being raised across the church on earth at this hour that are indeed pestering God, pounding on heaven's door, you know, insisting, bugging, you know, demanding, holding God to his promise. You know, not satisfied until God makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth, until her vindication goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. Let me read that again from Isaiah.

Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night. They shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.

Now to those in this gathering right now who are satisfied with things as they are in the church of Jesus Christ, there's very little to say to you except sleep on. If you really think that the way things are right now in the body, you know, and if you're not in this body, whatever body you're in, if you really think that things are okay and that the way the body is functioning, here or anywhere you come from, you know, is satisfactory to God and sufficient to meet the work that needs to be done at this hour, then all I can say is good luck for you. But for those in this gathering who are in their hearts troubled, who are not satisfied, who know that what we are now and what we now produce and the manifestation of God's grace that we now are able to bring forth is not sufficient and you're troubled about it, then listen to the call of the Spirit for watchmen, male and female, to get up on the walls of Zion and start hollering, you know, and give God no peace and take no peace yourself, no rest, until God establishes Jerusalem and makes her appraised in the earth.

Now, first of all, the need is for watchmen who have vision and whose vision goes beyond their own narrow little community, whatever it may be, you know, and whose vision rises up and gets hold of the church as it lives in the heart and mind of our Lord and Savior, the church that He will have before He can possibly come back and bring earth to the way of His. There has to be a vision of splendor, see, and not the splendor of earth, not the splendor of magnificent buildings and lovely robes and eloquent speech and earthly wealth and earthly power, but the splendor of Jesus Christ reflected on the faces and in the voices and in the daily living of those who claim to be His followers. What is needed is a church where brothers and sisters are indeed growing and changing and emerging from one degree of glory to another, being transformed by the Spirit of the Lord.

What is needed is the vision of a church that is pure, not just pure in doctrine. We have all kinds of churches that are so pure in doctrine, but so dead, and not just pure according to what we consider to be the proper New Testament pattern, but pure in heart, like a pure wife whose heart is undividedly her husband's, who shares that with nobody, and whose love is for her husband, not for herself, so that we have fellowships that aren't forever raving about their community or their church. See, when you have a fellowship where believers are forever subtly boasting about their own things, you have a wife who's forever doing this, you know.

What's needed is a vision of a church that is adorned with righteous deeds. It was granted her to be adorned in fine linen, bright and pure, and the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints, a church where the lives of the believers truly match their message, their conversation, their financial affairs, the way they handle money, their imagination, their moral life, our Christ life. Nothing less than this.

Now, don't be presumed on God's grace. If there are people in this room right now who know very well that they are not coming up to that, don't kid yourself. God is not satisfied with anything less than a pure and righteous church.

Secondly, what is needed is to have watchmen up on that wall who, having received a vision, now begin to persist until that vision comes to pass. You know, people, very, very, very, very little can be accomplished by those who are all excited today and back to sleep tomorrow. Then they get excited the next day.

Then they're asleep the next day. You know, the only people who are going to accomplish what needs to be done on earth at this hour, who remain persistent day in and day out, watchmen, not tourists, not sightseers, but men and women who stay awake, who take no rest and who give God no rest until He establishes Zion and makes her a place in the earth so that we're persistent in our pride of prayer and persistent in our daily work and daily ministry and daily life, persistent in our corporate worship and persistent in our corporate ministry and, you know, pounding on the heaven's door, all the time pounding, now when the opposition is very light, so that we'll continue to be pounding on heaven's door, if necessary, when the opposition is very heavy. And somebody says, well, I'm sorry, but it ain't my nature to be persistent.

Well, bless your heart, it wasn't Peter's nature to be persistent either. And he learned. And you're going to learn, too.

You better learn. Thirdly, what's needed is to have watchmen up on those walls of Zion who expect God to come through, constantly expecting. You know, they're not pounding on heaven's door to see how much racket they can make, but they're pounding on heaven's door because they know that door is going to open.

God is going to do this. Lord, we're not going to take any rest and we're not going to give you any rest until you establish Zion and make her a place in the earth. The thing that spreads death in the church is this lack of expectancy in the hearts of the saints.

And very often that lack of expectancy is hidden beneath beautiful prayers and radiant smiles and the most wonderful expressions of worship, but God knows very well that we're not expecting these things we're praying for. Jesus waited until Mary came up and demanded wine for that wedding feast. And you notice that, you know, Mary really expected something to happen.

She didn't mess around, you know, before Jesus ever said yes to her, which he never did. He chewed her out. Woman, what have I to do with you? Mine hour has not yet come.

Mary doesn't pay any attention to that. She says, look, servants, whatever he tells you to do, you do it. She knew he was going to come through.

And the Canaanite woman, the same thing. She keeps bugging Jesus and pestering him and she knows he's going to heal her daughter and he does. And there's nothing that pleases our Lord more than those who cry out to him for life and just know that he's going to come through.

You know, who just get a hold of Jesus and hang on to him and refuse to let go until they get their blessing. And there's nothing that Jesus looks for more at this hour, I really believe this, than for saints who are going to lift up their voices and cry out to him for him to quicken Zion and make her a praise in the earth. Now look at Martin Luther.

Can't make the blind to see. And Billy Graham can't make the streams flow in the desert. And the Pope can't cause the wilderness to blossom as a rose.

And Catherine Kuhlman can't set the captives free. And you and I can't cause the spirit of God to fall out upon the believers. But our Lord Jesus can do this and much more.

He can make the church come to life before our very eyes. And I'm telling you, he's going to do this in response to those who mean business with him. The call right now is for brothers and sisters to climb up on the walls of Jerusalem and lift up their eyes to the heavens and hang on to the heavens until they begin to get the vision of the heavenly, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband.

And having seen the vision, hold on and refuse to let go. And take no rest and give God no rest until the vision comes to pass. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we're just asking that this day through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will deal with this complacency, this satisfaction that's sick, this numbness, this dullness of mind and heart, this ease with which we look at things that ought to shake us up, this comfortableness with ourselves and this impatience with everybody else that's an abomination in the Father's sight. Deal with these things in us, O God. Shake the children who have seen the Lord until they have no peace with themselves as they are.

That we're up on those walls, O Lord, doing the thing that needs to be done at this hour. O Lord, we just pray that you'll raise up those watchmen who will be real and who will be steady and who will be consistent. And that in answer to their cry, the bride will come down from heaven.

That she will be formed in the midst of these earthly vessels and that the glory may all be yours. We ask it, Lord Jesus, for your mercy's sake. Amen.