Hallelujah! the Lord returned to the earth. Because He had lost His standing on the earth, He went back to the heavens. What is His standing on the earth? It is the building up of His house, the church. In order for the Lord to come back to this earth, He needs a built-up church standing on this earth. He will come back, not simply to this earth, but to the church. At that time Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord, and he also saw a man standing by him. He not only saw the glory of the Lord, he saw the Lord as a man. The man stood by him and said, "Son of man, the place of my throne" (43:7), proving that the man who stood by Ezekiel was the Lord Himself. It was a man who said, "The place of my throne." According to the grammatical construction, "the place of my throne, the place of the soles of my feet where I will dwell in the midst of the children forever," does not seem to be a good composition. It may be because the Lord's desire and joy was with His house, He neglected the grammar. He was fully occupied with His house.
Some people have said that Witness Lee is too much for the church. I feel that I am not enough for the church. The Lord was so happy with His house that He forgot about the grammar. Upon His return to the temple, He was very happy. Hallelujah! the house was recovered! the place was recovered! Hallelujah! Once more the Lord had a place for the soles of His feet! Oh, the Lord's desire is for the church! He has been desiring and waiting to come back to the church. This is why we have so much joy in the meetings, and this is why we are so happy and crazy in our meetings. It is because the Lord Jesus within us is also happy. He has a place, the place of His throne, and the place of the soles of His feet. Without the recovery of the proper church life, the Lord has no place for the soles of His feet. For centuries the Lord has simply been in the air with no place for the soles of His feet. How happy the Lord is now that in the local churches there is a place for the soles of His feet! If I had been Ezekiel I might have asked, "Lord, are You not the almighty God? Why do You care for such a small, narrow place only twenty by twenty cubits? Why are You so happy with this little place?" The Lord would answer, "I just love this place on the earth, I just care for this little place on the earth!" The Lord cares for the recovery of the church life! The place of the soles of His feet is also the place of His throne. The throne is for God's government and administration and kingdom. It is the place where He can administrate. The soles of the feet are for His move on this earth. Without the temple God has no base for His administration and no base for His move on the earth. Unless the church is built up, the Lord has no standing to administrate His government and to move upon this earth. Furthermore, this is the very place where the Lord can dwell for rest and satisfaction.
According to Ezekiel 43:7 the people, the house of Israel, had offended the Lord in two things: in their whoredom and in their carcasses. The Lord did not rebuke the house of Israel for their behavior and conduct, but for their whoredom and carcasses. Whoredom is fornication. For example, suppose a wife is nice, kind, truthful, and patient—but besides her husband she loves and stays with another man. That is whoredom. To the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, the Lord said that they had done many good works, but they had lost the first love. The Lord meant that, besides Himself, they loved some other things. That is whoredom. Regardless of how good or how pure or how holy something may be, if we love that thing more than we love the Lord Himself, it is a kind of whoredom. In Christianity, not many care simply for the Lord Himself. Rather, many care for other good, pure, fundamental, spiritual, and holy things. This caring is a kind of whoredom.
What then are the carcasses? The carcasses are the dead things. Verse 7 says, "neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places (of Zion)." We may add these two words "of Zion" as a kind of interpretation. It means the high places on Mount Zion. According to the custom, the carcasses of the kings were buried beside the temple. So the Lord says the threshold of the carcasses was close to His threshold. The post of their grave was close to His post in the temple. There was only one wall between. On one side was the Lord's sanctuary, and on the other side was the grave of the carcasses of the kings. These were not the carcasses of the lower people, but of the kings of high standard.
Let us apply this matter to today's Christianity. For example, the so-called church weddings with the wedding march, with the procession of the bride and the groom, with all the worldly attire, and with all kinds of dead things is a carcass of the king. When you attend that kind of wedding, you can sense the stinking of the carcasses. It is not the carcass of the lower people, but the carcass of a high standard, of the king. Then, on the next Lord's Day morning in their service, Miss Jones sings a solo. She comes to the front with a dress which exposes her bare shoulders, and she is painted with blue, white, and red as she stands there singing. That is really a carcass, really something dead. That is not a carcass of a lower standard, but of a higher standard, having a high education and a high standard of music. That is really a carcass of the king. When you listen to that kind of solo, do you have the sensation it is a praise to the Lord? When I was there, I only had the sensation of the stinking. Today's Christianity is full of whoredom, full of carcasses. Years ago, I visited Westminster Cathedral in London. Oh, that church building is full of carcasses. Even John Wesley's carcass was there. The carcasses of many famous people are buried under that roof. I told the British brother who brought me there that it was really a church of dead people. It was full of carcasses.