“It Will Take Your Breath Away!”

A minister said a church member of his was looking forward to their completed multi-million-dollar building program. She stated, “When people cross the overhead bridge coming into town, they will see a church so beautiful it will take their breath away!”When we heard this statement, the thought came immediately: “My soul! We’ve already seen that church!” “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God” (Revelation 21:9-11; read the following verses).

That true church of God is not in a building or a “sanctuary” built by men, but it is beautifully arrayed in the righteousness of Christ, for it is all the redeemed sinners of Adam’s fallen race, all of God’s elect. And a sight of that beautiful church, clothed in the robes of His righteousness – it will “take your breath away” to see that beauty.

A large church in Charlotte NC built a “sanctuary” to the tune of about 30 million dollars, bank payments on which are about a quarter-million dollars per month. With a vast interior, audaciously decorated in pink, mostly glass exterior walls and yet that temple builder pastor claims to have been converted under a sound evangelical minister.

Another church in Charlotte, a so-called Baptist church, erected a gigantic Oneness Prayer Tower stretching high above the community – at a cost of more than four million. Other Baptist churches in Greenville, in Spartanburg, and yes, in your city as well, boast that their steeples are the tallest metropolitan landmarks! It is significant that the old prophet cried, “Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples” (Hosea 8:14). They had counted the truth of God and His holy law as “a strange thing”, and the Lord promised to send a fire to devour them. Whenever spiritual worship degenerates, the temple building sets in.

Today, theorizing that the building is a “sanctuary” for God, the competitors for giant structures continue on – never realizing that such things are utterly foreign to the New Testament concept of simple worship, mostly in homes; for the beauty of the Church is the people clothed in white raiment, in bloodwashed garments. These are the precious sheep of His pasture who seek to “follow the Good Shepherd” (John 10), not erect the largest structure in His name.

Glory to God? that church is called a “city”, but it is people, God’s own elect ones. They are a building of God, but not the result of a contractor’s, a brick mason’s or a carpenter’s creative genius. Ah, far better than any building made by hands is that body of Christ. That church which He hath redeemed with His own blood is the bride, the Lamb’s wife. You must come to this spiritual application in order to truly behold our Lord’s church in all its “breath-taking” beauty. And by His grace which was not bestowed in vain, with each of the Lord’s little ones in the kingdom, we have been blessed to behold the Lord’s church.

Precious is this Old Testament picture of my Lord’s church: “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge…Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death” (Psalm 48:2-3, 11-14).

And as a personal note, we cannot close without bowing in praise for that grace which effectually called me into the fold, even to the “House of our God,” to the Saviour of poor sinners – yea, and “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:23-24).

You can have all of man’s “building contests”, for they are mere toys of the earth to us poor worms who have seen the King in His beauty, and been blessed to be made “beautiful” in His righteousness. Now here is a beauty that really will “take your breath away!”