We turn to God's Word again in
that portion of Scripture where we read in the Acts of the Apostles,
turning to chapter 7, and I'll read again, verses 37 and 38. This is at Moses, which said
unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me. Him shall
ye hear. This is he that was in the church
in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount
Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to
give unto us. And the words really that I want
to take are here at the beginning of verse 38 where we read of
the church in the wilderness concerning Moses, this is he
that was in the church in the wilderness. We observe then the
simple fact The great truth that there was a church in the Old
Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ, in the
course of his own earthly ministry, spoke to his disciples of that
church when Peter made his confession, that great confession of his
faith at Caesarea Philippi. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Remember the response of the
Lord He said, upon this rock I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And he didn't have
to explain to the disciples, there's nothing there to indicate
that they didn't understand precisely what he was speaking of when
he made mention of the church. And then again later in that
same gospel, in chapter 18 of Matthew, We have those words
of the Lord Jesus in which he makes some reference to the church
in the matter of church order and church discipline. Verse 15 of Matthew 18, Moreover,
if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him
his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee,
thou hast gained thy brother. But if ye will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two
or three witnesses every word may be established. And if ye
shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if ye
neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen
man and a publican. It goes from the few to the many. Initially it is one to one, then
the need may be of witnesses, and then ultimately it must go
to the Church. That is the proper order. But
when the Lord speaks of the Church, The disciples have no problem
in understanding what the Lord is speaking of. There was a church
before the Lord Jesus Christ was manifest in the flesh. There was a church in the Old
Testament. There was a church in the wilderness. But I do want us to go further
back initially. I want to speak of that Church
of the Patriarchs. And when we think of that Church
of the Patriarchs we can learn something with regards to some
of the characteristics that belong onto those who are the true people
of God. Now what is a striking thing
with regards to those that we refer to as the Patriarchs of
Israel? Well, They are those who call
upon the name of the Lord. They call upon the name of the
Lord. This is what we do when we come together as a church.
We come together to call upon God's name. We call upon Him
in prayer. We call upon Him in our praises.
And we are told right at the beginning of Genesis, in chapter
4 and verse 26, how that Adam's son Seth begets another son. To Seth it says to him also there
was born a son and he called his name Enos. Then began men
to call upon the name of the Lord. There is the beginning
of the church when men call upon the name of the Lord. This is
one of the marks that we see so clearly in the life and the
experience of Abraham. in Genesis 12 and verse 8 and
again in chapter 13 and verse 4 and doubtless there are many
other references that we could make but on those particular
occasions in those verses we read of how Abraham would build
an altar and call upon the name of the Lord. That is one of the
marks of the church and we see it quite clearly when we come
to the New Testament. when the Apostle Paul addresses
himself to the church at Corinth. He doesn't just address his epistle
to that particular church, there's a wider application as we see
from what he says in the opening verses. The first Corinthians,
Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God which
is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called
to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours. Yes he is addressing
this church, this church that God had established at Corinth
They are the sanctified, they are those who were set apart
in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are saints, but it's a wider
address. It's addressed also to all in
every place who are calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is one of the striking remarks
of the Church. It's made up of those who call
upon the name of God. call upon the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then another characteristic
that we see, and we can go right back into the book of Genesis,
is that those who are in the church are referred to as the
sons of God. John says, Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. We are the sons of God if we're
members of the Church. We're God's sons by an eternal
adoption into God's family. We're God's sons by regeneration. We're those who are born again,
born of the Spirit of God. The Church is made up of those
then who are God's sons. Spoken of in Hebrews 12 as the
Church of the firstborn. But when we go back in time,
Genesis chapter 6, and remember out there in the opening verses
of that chapter, we see a clear distinction being made between
the sons of God and the daughters of men. There were those who
were disobedient, there was an unequal yoke. Those who were
the sons of God, taking to themselves as wives the daughters of men.
And He brought nothing but confusion. Who are those sons of God? That's
the church. that is the church there in the
Old Testament. We know for example now that
the whole nation of Israel ultimately is a people set apart and separated
onto God himself. And that Israel in the Old Testament
is a clear type of the New Testament church. Look at the the language that we find in
the seventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy concerning Israel. What does it say there? Deuteronomy
7 verse 3, neither shalt thou make
marriages with them, that is, with the Canaanites and the other
nations occupying the promised land, neither shalt thou make
marriages with them. Thy daughters thou shalt not
give unto his son, nor his daughters shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they
may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord
be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly. Verse 6, For thou
art an holy people, unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God
hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all
people that are upon the face of the earth." Oh, how wrong
it was then back in Genesis 6 that those who were the sons of God
should take them wives from amongst the daughters of men. No, God's
people are separated. And that is certainly true with
regards to Christian believers. Are they not those who are the
very temples of God the Holy Spirit? Again, think of the language
that we have when Paul writes there to the Corinthians in 2nd
Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14, Be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath Christ
with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? All God's people, clearly this
people who are a separated people, come out from among them, he
says. Be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean
thing, and they will receive you. and we'll be a father unto
you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty. Having therefore these promises,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord."
This is how believers are to conduct themselves, a separated
people. It is one of the marks of the
church. Peter speaks of a holy nation,
a peculiar people. And that was true of Israel,
a wonderful, a remarkable type of that church of the New Testament. And we see from what is written
again in Matthew's Gospel that the patriarchs and Christian
believers are part and parcel of the same church. That one
through church, through the Old Testament, through the New Testament
also. The language that we have then,
in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 11, the Lord says, I say unto you
that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. All believers, New Testament
believers, Christian men and women, are to sit down with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob in God's heavenly kingdom. That is that
church that the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased by His precious
blood. We can go right back then, right
back to those early chapters in the book of Genesis. We see
the church amongst the patriarchs. But here, in particular, as I
said, it is the church in the wilderness that is spoken of
by Stephen as he makes this great apology for his faith, his great
confession. referring to Moses, this is he
that was in the church in the wilderness. Now what was that
church in the wilderness? It was very much a theocracy. It wasn't a democracy, it was a theocracy.
God was king. amongst his people there in the
wilderness. And it was the most glorious
period in the whole of the history of the children of Israel. That
time when they came out of Egypt and they were first established
in the Promised Land. And Jeremiah refers to those
days in chapter 2. Verse 2, he says, Go, cry in
the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I remember
thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,
when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that
was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the
Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase. All that devour
him shall offend, Evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord. He's referring to a certain time
in their history, and it's a time in the wilderness, it's the church
in the wilderness. The kindness of thy youth, the
love of thine espousals. God was their King. It was God,
of course, who constantly led and directed them throughout
all those wanderings in the wilderness. He went before them in the fiery,
cloudy pillar. He led them in the way through
all those wanderings and brought them ultimately into that land
that He had promised to their fathers. And the sad thing was
that it was not long after they were in the land that they wanted
to be like the nations round about them. You can read it there
in 1st Samuel chapter 8. They wanted to have a king. They wanted to be like the other
nations. They didn't want to be that people
who were so different and so distinct. They didn't want to
be a theocracy, with God only as their king. but how different
it was when they were in the wilderness. And now, this is
the significant thing, that the very vocabulary that we find
being used of Israel in the wilderness, the language that is employed,
is that that is taken up in the New Testament Scriptures to describe
the church. And there are two words in particular
that we find used. There's the word that is normally
translated in the books of Moses by the word assembly. For example, in Numbers chapter
8 and verse 9 we have mention of the whole assembly of the
children of Israel. They were to be some and together
they were to assemble themselves. Just last week we were considering
the Feast of Trumpets in Leviticus chapter 23 and we made some reference
also to Numbers chapter 10. where we have mention of the
silver trumpets. And remember how those silver
trumpets were to be employed. What was the purpose of those
trumpets? How were they used in Israel? They were sounded to gather the
people. The people might assemble themselves. Verse 2, in Numbers 10, Make
thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece, that thou mayest
use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying
of the camps. And when they shall blow with
them, all the assembly shall assemble themselves at the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now we see this people, Israel,
a type of the church, and they are to be summoned together,
they are to assemble together. Now, in the Greek version, the
ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, that that is usually
referred to as the Septuagint, it would have been translated
at that period, that intertestamental period between the Old Testament
ending and the New Testament beginning, so These men who were
the human authors of the New Testament Scriptures, they were
familiar with the language of that Greek version. Now in that
Septuagint version, this word assembly is constantly translated
by the word ecclesia. The ecclesia. Now, that word in the New Testament,
in our authorised version, is normally translated as Church.
Interestingly, and you're probably aware of this, I know some of
you are, in Tyndale's version, it is not translated Church,
it's translated Congregation. Of course, it was King James,
James VI of Scotland, James I of England, who insisted, in the
authorized version, that they didn't use Tyndale's word, congregation. He wanted to churchify it, as
it were. So we have church, but a better rendering would be the
congregation. And that's the proper translation
of that Greek word, ecclesia. But when we look at that word,
it's one of those combined words It's two words married together,
and it literally means the called out ones. It's derived from the
verb to call out. This is what the church is. It's a congregation called out. Remember how Jude speaks in his
epistle, how he describes believers, how he describes the church.
sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and
called. God himself has sanctified them
in the sense that God has set them apart from all eternity.
He has chosen them. He has made choice of them in
the Lord Jesus Christ. They are preserved in Jesus Christ. Christ is the one who came and
purchased them by the shedding of his precious blood and they
are those who are called. The effectual call of the Spirit
of God. That efficacious grace of God.
They are the called out ones. The language that we have there
in the Old Testament in reference to the children of Israel in
the wilderness The assembly is the word that is the Greek word
that is used in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old
Testament Scriptures, is that that is constantly used in the
New Testament with regards to the church. But I said two words. There's another word that we
also find oftentimes used in reference to Israel. At that
time, it's the word congregation. Let me just give you some references,
Exodus. You think of the church in the
wilderness, remember? So we go back to the books of
Moses, who was with them there in the wilderness, as says Stephen.
In Exodus chapter 16, as they're brought out of Egypt,
before they come to Mount Sinai. This is what we read in the opening
chapters, or the opening verses rather, of chapter 16. They took
their journey from Elym, and all the congregation, mark the
word, all the congregation of the children of Israel came onto
the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elym and Sinai, on
the 15th day of the second month, after their departing out of
the land of Egypt. And then we're told the whole
congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses
and Aaron in the wilderness. Here they are being referred
to then as a congregation. Verse 9, Moses spake unto Aaron,
saying, Unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, come
near before the Lord, for he hath heard your murmurings. And
He came to pass as air and spike unto the whole congregation of
the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness.
And behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the clouds."
Constantly then we have this, they are being referred to as
a congregation. at the beginning of that 16th
chapter in the course also of that chapter it's the provision of the manner
that the Lord is making for them and so eventually they are told
how they are to to gather the manna, and the word is used again,
verse 22, He came to pass that on the sixth day they gathered
twice as much bread, two omens for one man, and all the rulers
of the congregation came and told Moses. God is making provision,
of course, for the seventh day by giving them twice as much,
so not to go and to gather the manna on that seventh day. But how we we see them as a congregation. And again, if we refer to that
Greek version, that ancient Greek version of the Old Testament
scriptures, what is the word that is used to translate what
we know as the congregation. Well, it's the Greek word synagogai. In fact, it comes over into our
English language as the word synagogue. And the synagogue, of course,
is the congregation. But the word is also one of those
words that when we break it down we see that it's really two words
and it's from a verb that means to gather. The congregation is
a gathering. They are gathered together. And
who do they gather to? They gather to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Is He not Shiloh? When we see
that blessing that Jacob pronounces on his 12 sons in Genesis chapter
49. Remember what he says with regards
to Judah. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
that one who comes of the tribe of Judah. He is Shiloh. And it says there in the blessing
of Abraham upon his son Judah. until Shiloh come, and unto him
shall the gathering of the people be." What is the church? It's a gathered company. It's
a people who are called out. Thinking of the word ecclesia,
the assembly, they're called out. And this word congregation,
from the verb that means to gather, they're gathered out. And we
do, I trust, understand what the doctrine, the true doctrine
of the church in Scripture is. We believe in the gathered church. They're those who are called
out of the world. And they're gathered together
in local congregations. We do not believe in a territorial
church. The Church of England The Church
of Scotland. These are territorial churches. You know what the situation is
in England. The Church of England is the
state church and the whole country is divided into two provinces.
There's an archbishop in the southern province, the Archbishop
of Canterbury. There's an archbishop in the
northern province, the Archbishop of York. But then in each of
those two provinces there are dioceses. There are various bishops. And the bishops are the chief
persons in each of their own dioceses. Here, of course, we
have the diocese of Portsmouth, and so the whole diocese is divided
into parishes, and each parish has its own parish church. It
is as if the whole of the country is a Christian country. It's
a territorial church, but that's not a biblical pattern. This
is why we dissent. This is why we're non-conformist,
because we believe in the biblical pattern. We believe in the doctrine
of the gathered church. The church that is gathered out
of the world. The people that call upon God,
because God himself has called them out of the world. That's
why they call upon him. He has first called them to Himself,
He has gathered them out. And remember what we referred
to earlier in the way in which the Apostle addresses the church
at Corinth? It's not just to that local church,
it's to all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. They
call upon Him because He has called them. He has gathered
them out of the church. And it is interesting to see
how this vocabulary is quite deliberately used in the New
Testament. And the vocabulary is that that
is borrowed from what we are reading constantly concerning
that church in the wilderness, that church that came out of
Egypt, that church that God led throughout all their wilderness
wanderings. And there's no disputing the
fact that with regards to the way in which the churches of
the New Testament were ordered, that much was owed to what transpired
in the synagogues amongst the Jews. We know what Paul's pattern
was as he went from place to place preaching. He would usually
go in the first place to the synagogue. in his missionary
journeys. For example, here in chapter
13 verse 5, when they were at Salamis, they preached the Word
of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They had also John, that
is John Mark, to their minister, that's Paul and Barnabas together
with John Mark. And there are several references,
you can read through the Acts and see what Paul's practice
was. And much of the way in which
they conducted their services was owed to what took place in
the Jewish synagogues. The synagogue, as we've already
said, was that assembly of the Lord's people. See how the word
is used in James? In James chapter 2 and verse
2 it says, if they're coming to your assembly, and if you
have a margin, you might see that the word is literally synagogue. He's writing of a Christian assembly,
an assembly of believers, a gathered church, but he uses the word
synagogue. Here we see then the truth concerning
the doctrine of the local church. It's a church in the wilderness.
In the wilderness of this world it's a people who have been called
out. The people whom God has gathered
together in an assembly to worship his great name. How important
is the Old Testament Scripture then? when it comes to our understanding
of doctrine, the doctrine of the Church. And when we trace
the origins of the Church back to the Old Testament Scriptures,
it causes us to realize that great error that is so evident
in Dispensationalism. The Dispensationalists would
say there's no Church at all in the Old Testament. There's
no Church until we come to the New Testament. But that is erroneous,
heretical teaching. What is the Church? Well, the
Church is really the Israel of God, as I've said already many
times in the Old Testament. Israel is a remarkable type of
the New Testament Church. And when Paul is writing to the
Galatians, There at the end in chapter 6 he speaks of the church
as the Israel of God. We know that they are not all
Israel, that are of Israel. Although the nation in the Old
Testament, ethnic Israel is a type, not all those who were of Israel
were the true spiritual children of God. They are not all Israel
that are of Israel, says the Apostle. There was ever a spiritual
Israel. There was ever a true remnant
in the midst of the nation. Paul also says he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly. Neither is circumcision that
which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit
and not in the letter, whose price is not of men but of God. That is the true Jew, the spiritual
Jew. The teaching of the dispensationalist
is so erroneous. There was a church, and there
was a true church, always in the Old Testament Scriptures.
That's Church of the Firstborn, whose names are all written in
heaven. And Abraham, of course, was in
that church. Doesn't the Lord Jesus say to
the Jews in his own day, your father Abraham rejoiced to see
my day, and he saw it and was glad? Abraham is one who is saved
in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and Abraham is spoken
of as the one who is the father of all that believe. Oh friends,
how important it is that we understand the significance of the truth
that there was a church there in all those wilderness wanderings
of the children of Israel. You see, The dispensationist
really denies to the Christian believer any interest in the
Old Testament Scriptures. If there's no Church there in
the Old Testament, well, whatever we read of God's dealings with
that people, it has nothing to do with the New Testament Church.
But all, all of Scripture belongs onto the Church. and we should
familiarize ourselves, not just with the New Testament, but with
the Old Testament. I've heard some say such foolish
things as, I only need the New Testament. We don't just need the New Testament,
we need the Old Testament. It was Augustine, and we've quoted
this famous saying of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, before, how
he says, concerning the Word of God, The new is in the old
concealed and the old is in the new revealed. It's one book and
we do well to take account of that. All the scriptures belong
onto that church. This church Peter tells us no prophecy of
the Scripture is of any private interpretation. It belongs to
all the people of God. When we read in the Old Testament,
when we read in the book of Psalms, and we read of the experiences
of the saints, their experiences relates to
our experiences. not to think that they didn't
know the same experiences as we know. All these things are
written for our learning. Remember how in 1 Corinthians
chapter 10 we have that saying by the Apostle how that all these
things happened unto them for examples and they're written
for our learning upon whom the ends of the world are come. That's
verse 11, there in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. But see it in its
context. Look at what he's been saying
in the previous verses. And he is speaking of that church
in the wilderness. He's speaking of God's dealings
with the children of Israel in the days of Moses. Moreover,
brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant how that all
our fathers were under the cloud, or passed through the sea, or
were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did
all eat the same spiritual meat." He's writing to a church that
is made up of Gentiles, and yet he speaks here of our fathers,
and he speaks of God's dealings with the children of Israel in
the days of Moses. It is evident. It is clear, is
it not, that there was a church there in the Old Testament. There
was a church in the wilderness. And this relates to us. That's
a wonderful thing, the church in the wilderness. We sang just
now that lovely hymn of Isaac Watts which is really a paraphrase
of a part of the Song of Solomon chapter 8. Who is this that cometh
up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? And doesn't Watts tell us quite
plainly that this is none other than the Church of Christ and
it's every individual believer in the Church of Christ who is
this fair one in distress that travels from this wilderness
and pressed with sorrows and with sins on her beloved Lord
she leans. This is the spouse of Christ,
our God, bought with the treasures of His blood and her request
and her complaint is but the voice of every saint It's Christ's
spouse, Christ's bride, Christ's church. It's every believer in
the church. It belongs onto the church. And the church is left in a wilderness. Oh, the Lord Jesus himself makes
it so plain. He says, In the world ye shall
have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
It is a wilderness of a world. that we have to live in as a
people who are called out and separated. We're not to conform
to the world and the ways of the world. We're to live our
lives as those who are truly a sanctified people, set apart
to the service of God. But how God cares for his church
throughout all the wilderness wanderings, that's our comfort.
We see it even in the book of the Revelation. There in chapter
12, verse 6, we read of the woman who fled into the wilderness
where she hath a place prepared of God that they should find
her there, that they should feed her there. The Lord nourishes His church,
it goes on to say later at verse 14, and He nourishes, He feeds
His church in the wilderness of this world. And how does he
feed, how does he nourish his people? It's by his words. It's by the means of grace. It's
by the assembling of ourselves together. God hasn't saved us
in isolation, he's called us out, yes, but he's also called
us into fellowship in local churches. We meet together, we read God's
words, we attend, to the preaching. They're all means of grace. What
is the Lord's table? It's a means of grace. We come
together that we might meet with Christ and we trust by faith
we might be those who are ever feeding upon the Lord Jesus.
In that sense we eat His flesh, we drink His blood, we want to
know a true and a real union and communion with Him. This
is how the Lord nourishes His people. The church in the wilderness. And now here, under the inspiration
of the Spirit, even as he's about to be martyred, the first Christian
martyr, Stephen, inspired by the Holy
Ghost, uses his very expression. It's such a faithful rendering of the Word of God that we have
here in our Authorized Version. He that was in the Church, the
congregation, in the wilderness, O God, grant that we might find
much comfort there, in all the wilderness of this world, as
we see the great truth concerning the doctrine of what the Church
is. It is what God himself has provided
for us, even granting us Church fellowship. O the Lord be pleased
then to bless this word to us. Amen.