The Outer Court—Our Closest Mission Field

“When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts?” Is. 1:12.

Many people seem to think there is apostasy in the church when there is an outer court. They want the honor of appearing to be a spiritual church, and they want to do away with the outer court. We have to bear with the reality that there is an outer court. This is the church’s closest mission field. But there must also be a Holy Place. You can never allow the outer court to come in there. This outer court Christianity must never get power in the church. Power lies in the authority of those who have been entrusted with the Word of God.

The effect of the preaching of God’s Word varies, depend­ing on the condition of a person’s heart. Those who are in the flesh feel fenced in by the same laws and commandments that are perceived as a glorious gospel by those who look into the perfect law of liberty. The law serves as a schoolmaster to Christ. Those who are under the law come up against these boundaries, and things become heavy for them. This chastens them to Christ so that they can be liberated. There are joyful mothers with many children who look into the perfect law of liberty and are saved and happy in their circumstances. Oth­ers are under the law, and it is a heavy burden for them. What is this mystery that most people don’t understand? It is the death of Christ, the cross, that makes it possible for us to build the church.

“Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?” Rom. 7:1. What can the law do for dead people? Dead people cannot be placed under the law. This is a great mystery that the religious world does not understand.

Everyone who comes to our meetings must feel free, ac­cepted and loved, so that they come to a healthy development or remain under the law until they are born again. You cannot remain in the outer court if you try and get out of it and seek earthly things. Then you break the laws that make it possible for you to continue in the outer court. People like this go into the world and have to reap corruption, because of God’s se­verity, but this makes it possible for them to come back. We have to be flexible and give them room.

Today there is more freedom than ever before. And through God’s grace, more people remain in the church today than before. You cannot win hearts by preaching about out­ward things, chastening, punishment, etc. If you preach the law, you become one of the ten thousand schoolmasters. These schoolmasters cannot build the church. They must not be allowed to damage our children and young people. Young people must experience that those who work with them love them. The shepherd’s staff must consist of bonds and beauty (pleasantness—Norw.). Then people will be bound to the church and ultimately to Him who is the Head of the church. They will not become ungodly when the gospel is preached in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, and sin will not gain power in the church because of the outer court.