After reading these messages, we should be able to clearly see that the problem in the universe today is not with Christ but with the church. In the type of the tabernacle, the problem was not with the Ark. Rather, all the problems were with the tabernacle.
If we read through the records concerning the history of the tabernacle and the Ark in the Old Testament, we will see that the Ark was unchanging but that the tabernacle, which was related to the Ark, went through four different situations. In other words, the tabernacle, which was in coordination with the Ark, was always in one of four different situations. If we compare these four situations with the situations of the church in her two thousand-year history on the earth, we will see that the situations of the tabernacle correspond exactly with the situations of the church from its beginning to the present. Now let us briefly point out these four kinds of situations.
The first situation is the one in which the tabernacle did not have the Ark in it. This occurred at the time when Eli was a judge. The Ark was captured by the Philistines, and the tabernacle was left in Shiloh. Spiritually, this typifies the church when it is without Christ and has become an empty shell. In this situation the church is the church in name, but it does not have Christ as its reality. In other words, the church has only an outward form and does not have Christ as its inward reality. This is the condition of the church in serious degradation.
The second situation, which is the reverse of the first, is the situation in which the Ark was without the tabernacle. The Ark eventually was sent to the house of Obed-edom, but the tabernacle remained at Shiloh. The two were completely separated. Spiritually, this typifies a situation in which Christ is present, but there is no church to match Him. Ever since the church began to have problems and was taken captive by Roman Catholicism, which is today’s Babylon, there have been many believers who were quite godly and in whom one could definitely see the Ark, Christ, but not the tabernacle, the church.
The third situation is the one in which the Ark and the tabernacle were both present, but the condition of the tabernacle was improper. David was a man after God’s heart, so one day, out of consideration for the Ark of God, David brought the Ark into the city of David, which was on Mount Zion, a high mountain in the city of Jerusalem. There he pitched a tent for the Ark. However, this tent was not the original tent. The original tent had been built by Moses according to the heavenly pattern that God had revealed to him on Mount Sinai. Only that tent was according to God’s heart because it had been built according to God’s measurements and was therefore what God wanted. David’s intention and motive were right, but he pitched a tent for the Ark according to his own pattern. In the eyes of God, this tent was improper and was not what He desired in His heart.
In church history there have been similar situations. In the past, some Christians, because they realized that the presence of Christ was with them individually and were thereby blessed by God, set up meetings for themselves out of their good intentions. However, those meetings were not the proper church meetings, just as the tent in the city of David was improper because it had not been pitched according to the heavenly pattern. On the one hand, those Christians were in a good situation because they did not live as individual Christians but had a meeting in which they worshipped the Lord together. On the other hand, they were not in a proper situation as the church in the beginning had been.
Suppose Peter and all the other apostles are in Jerusalem. Should he establish only one church in this city according to God’s desire, or should he establish more than one church? Suppose Peter establishes only one church according to God’s desire, but later Paul comes. Peter grew up in Judea, was saved and trained in Judea, and had been working in Judea, while Paul grew up in the Gentile world, was saved and trained in the Gentile world, and had been working in the Gentile world. Hence, Peter and Paul often dispute concerning the truth. Feeling that he has no way to work with Peter in Jerusalem, Paul begins to preach the gospel by himself, and as a result, many people are saved. These saved ones follow Paul to establish another meeting apart from the church already established by Peter. The gospels that Peter and Paul preach are the same, and the spiritual messages that they give are also similarly accurate. Furthermore, they both pay attention to the spiritual content and experiences of the bronze altar, the bronze laver, the showbread table, the golden lampstand, the golden incense altar, and the Ark. They also preach spiritual messages concerning Christ, the cross, the Holy Spirit, and life. However, eventually a problem arises. The meeting established by Paul and the church established by Peter become completely divided. Is this situation right or wrong? This situation is wrong! In this situation we can see that although Paul was spiritual, had a good heart, and did a good deed, the meeting he established was altogether not according to the original pattern. In a similar way, David pitched another tent that God could not acknowledge in His heart.
What is the original pattern? According to the original pattern, there can be only one church in Jerusalem. There cannot be more than one church. The divisive meeting that Paul established might have had the “Ark,” but the “tabernacle” would not have been right. The Christ and the cross that they preached may have been right, but their meetings would not have been right. This is the third kind of situation, a situation in which one has the Ark but not the proper tabernacle.
A few years ago I visited a friend in Taiwan who asked me a question, saying, “Brother Lee, why is it that your meeting is right but a smaller meeting in another place is not right?” I said, “This question is not easy to answer. I am afraid that the more I answer, the more misunderstanding there will be.” He then said, “You preach the cross, and they also preach the cross! You expound the Bible, and they also expound the Bible! You help the believers to be spiritual, and they do the same, perhaps even more than you do!” I replied, “Thank and praise the Lord. That is very good.” He went on, saying, “You pay attention to the outward filling of the Holy Spirit, and they also pay attention to this!” I said, “It is not necessarily good to pay too much attention to the outward filling of the Holy Spirit, because we have discovered that in some places where the believers pay too much attention to this matter, problems tend to arise.” He said, “There is a small meeting in which the believers are absolutely for the outward filling of the Holy Spirit, and on this point they are stronger than you.” I said, “Thank and praise the Lord!” Finally, he brought up the initial question again and asked, “Brother Lee, why is it that your meeting is right but others’ meetings are not right?”
This question was very difficult to answer. I could only turn around and ask the brother in return, “In the early days, during the time of the apostles, was there one church in a city, or could there have been more than one church in a city?” He answered, “It did not matter. It was all right as long as the believers preached the gospel and brought people to salvation. It was all right as long as the believers pursued being outwardly filled with the Holy Spirit and paid attention to being spiritual.” In terms of the type of the tabernacle, what he was actually saying was, “It is all right as long as we have the Ark. Who cares about the tabernacle? It does not matter whether or not we have the tabernacle!” I then said to him in all sincerity, “Brother, we cannot be so quick to say that the matter of the church does not matter. According to the Scriptures, this is a big matter. For instance, in the beginning in Jerusalem three thousand people were saved, and later five thousand were saved. They met separately in many, many homes, but they were still one church. Nowhere does it say that in Jerusalem there were two churches. However, why is it that today in Taipei there is a church on almost every street and sometimes even several churches on one street? Is this city not turning into a ‘church market’? In the Scriptures, there is only one church in a city or locality, such as the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch, the church in Ephesus, the church in Rome, and the church in Smyrna. In the Bible there is no such thing as a ‘street church.’”
These days I am discovering more and more that the building of the church is the most confusing and neglected matter to the children of God. They have no problems concerning the gospel, concerning being spiritual, or concerning Christ. However, most are not clear concerning the matter of the tabernacle, the matter of the church. During my last trip to Tokyo, Japan, I was walking on the street one day when by chance I saw a place with a hanging sign that read, “Non-church-ism.” I said to myself, “This is something new! I have been a Christian for thirty or forty years but have never seen a phrase like non-church-ism. Although Christianity today is in a state of confusion, most Christians have not gone so far as to say that they do not want the church. However, here are some people who are advocating non-church-ism!” How confusing the children of God have made the matter of the church on the earth today! It is so confusing that some are even saying, “Forget it! We do not care for the church!” In other words, they are saying, “We do not want the tabernacle because we want to avoid quarrelling!”