In order to understand the recovery of God’s house and God’s city, we must look back into the history of the people of Israel. We all know that the Old Testament is a book of types, and the greatest, all-inclusive type is the history of the people of Israel. In Christianity today, many teachers and Christians apply the things which happened in the beginning of the history of the people of Israel to their Christian experiences. I believe we all know this. We know how to apply the Passover to our experience of redemption, and we know how to apply the crossing of the Red Sea to our experience of baptism. We know how to apply the enjoyment of the daily manna and even the water from the cleft rock to our experiences, for this is taking Christ as our daily supply and as our living water. We even know how to apply the temple built by King Solomon to our experience.
But very few Christians know how to apply the last part of the history of the people of Israel. What does the captivity mean to us? How can we apply the captivity to our experiences? And what does the recovery, the return from captivity, mean? And how can we apply their recovery to our experiences? Most Christians know how to apply the beginning, but they simply neglect to apply the ending.
What stage are we in according to the spiritual situation of today’s Christians? There is no doubt that we are in the stage of captivity. Captivity means that the people of God have been scattered; it means that there is no more unity. God’s people have been carried away from the proper ground of unity to a wrong ground. First they were in Jerusalem, gathered and centralized, but later they were scattered and carried away to many places. This is the captivity. Let us apply this to today’s situation. Are Christians today gathered or are they scattered? In a sense, they are more scattered than the people of Israel were. They are very divided and very scattered. This means Christianity is in captivity. We do need to return, and we need to be recovered. We need not only revival, but also recovery.
What do we mean when we say that we need to be recovered? Do we mean that our health needs to be recovered, or that our job needs to be recovered? No, to be recovered means to be brought back to Jerusalem. It means to come back from Babylon to Jerusalem. This is the right meaning of recovery. Negatively, to be recovered means to be brought out of Babylon, and positively, it means to be brought up to Jerusalem. Have you been recovered out of Babylon, and have you been recovered back to Jerusalem? Perhaps some would ask, “What is today’s Babylon and what is today’s Jerusalem? How do we apply Babylon and Jerusalem to our experience?” We know that Jerusalem was the center in the land of Canaan for the people of Israel to be gathered. Jerusalem was the ground of unity.
We are told by the Scriptures that some of the people of Israel were taken captive to Syria and some to Egypt, but the majority of them were taken captive to Babylon. Babylon was the main place of their captivity. So, in type the meaning of Jerusalem is the ground of unity. This is the ground for the gathering of the Lord’s people. And the meaning of Babylon is division, scattering, and captivity. To be recovered out of Babylon is to be recovered out of division and to be recovered to Jerusalem means to be recovered back to the original ground of unity.
When the people of God were brought into the good land, according to Deuteronomy 12, 14, 15, and 16, the Lord told them many times that when they entered into the land of Canaan, they had no right to choose a worship center. God told them again and again that He would choose the place, the unique place, the only place where He would set His name and build His habitation. Eventually, that place was Jerusalem. Therefore, Jerusalem became the center for God’s people to worship Him, and this unique center kept the unity of the people of God. Without such a center, after they entered the good land, the people would have been divided.
For instance, the tribe of Dan lived in the north, quite a distance from Jerusalem. Suppose they said that they lived too far away, and transportation to Jerusalem was not convenient for them. After all, God is not limited by geography. If God could be in Jerusalem, why could He not also be in Dan? If the tribe of Dan were to speak in this way, immediately the people of God would be divided. Then another tribe would say that if Dan could set up a second center, they could set up a third one. Then a third center would be established. Others then would follow and set up a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth until there would be endless division!
God is wise. He foresaw this problem so He repeated His commandment again and again. The people of Israel had no right to choose their own place to worship. This right was in God’s hands. He was the only One who had the choice. Israel had no choice; they were to take God’s choice, the divine choice. The choice of God should be the choice for us. God’s choice became the center of the gathering of His people, and this is the unique ground of unity.
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