Power With God # 12
Samuel Against The Secondary And For the Primary, continued -
Now we are going to break that up, and I want to do so very simply. I do want that the Lord should get this across in very definite ways, in simple ways. When things are like that, when there is a lot of history in the background, a lot of tradition, and the things of God and the people of God have become very mixed and confused, and are not clear, precise, definite, distinct in relation to God, what does God have to do if He is going to be true to Himself, to His own thought, to His own intention, and go on without committing Himself to a lower level, a lower standard, and wholly compromising and surrendering? If He is going to react again to His full intention, what will He do in such a day? He will do exactly what He did with Samuel - and I do hope you are not just followint this with an objective mentality, thinking back to Samuel and his day, or looking out in a sort of nebulous, abstract way. I do hope that as we go on, step by step, you are putting your self right into this. If it is true that the situation in our day is very similar to the situation in Samuel's day, so far as the Lord's people and the Lord's work are concerned, that represents a loss to the Lord,something other than the Lord intended to have at the beginning of the dispensation, and we have to come to some position about it and ask ourselves: Is God going to accept that as final? Is He going to settle down and just take that attitude, saying: 'Well, we can have no more. We will be thankful if we can have half a loaf if not a whole one, so we will leave the other.' We do not believe that is God's attitude.
A New Beginning
If it is like that, then in such a time God must react to the situation. His reaction will be on the same line as it was in the case of Samuel - and what was it in his case? Well, firstly, Samuel was a new start in himself. That is a simple way of putting it, but it is very precise. He was a new start in himself. Samuel was not a child of tradition. He could not be; it was impossible. A miracle from heaven had to be worked to bring Samuel into this world at all. There was no open way for Samuel to come into this world. He began at a grave, a place of death. You know what I am referring to in the case of Hannah. Oh no, this is not a succession, this is not taking up a tradition, this is not just following on something that has been. This is a new beginning. Right from zero, right from death, he in himself is a new beginning. He does not take things up with a background of inheritance. God has taken precaution against that in His sovereignty again. The impossibility of Hannah having that child was God's sovereignty in relation to His purpose. Nothing could have been at all but by a special act of God. There is no carrying-over from the past, no link at all. It is a clean-cut, new beginning.
You are wondering how that is going to be applied. It can be applied in various ways, and quite simply, too. Perhaps most of you have a tradition. You say: 'Well, I am out of it. I do not come into this, for I have a tradition.' Yes, many of us had a tradition. I suppose everyone who comes into Christianity comes into a tradition; but, you know, God can do something in a life with a very big tradition to cut them clean off from their tradition and bring them to an end of it. They can make a completely new start, and if He is going to do the kind of thing that He did with Samuel, He is going to do that. But is He not doing it? Some of you young people have been born into Christian homes and have been brought up in godly surroundings, and you have received a great deal of your Christianity second-hand. How you view that, I do not know. I used to think that if only I had had a long line of godly people behind me, it would be a tremendous asset. I have changed my mind about that. I used to think that the men who were 'sons of the manse' had all the advantages. I was not a 'son of the manse,' and therefore I was handicapped. I have changed my mind about that. Your tradition, even your Christian home, may be a handicap to you. You may have got a lot secondhand and it may not be yours at all; it may be your parents.' You have taken it over. It may have become just a straitjacket to you, or it may be an altogether false position where you are concerned and it is not yours right from the beginning. What is God doing with you? Is He not putting you into positions and situations and taking you through experiences where father's or mother's religion is no use and you have to have your own? The knowledge of God which has been given to you and which may have helped you in the matter of counsel and influence in your childhood does not stand up to the situation now. You have to know God for yourself, and unless you do, you are not going through. You know quite well that if you are going to be of real value to God you must not be just a child of tradition; you have to be born right 'out of the blue' and know God right there from zero. That is the application of this.
That application, I say, is made in various ways and various stages. The trouble with a lot of people is that they will not hand up their traditions to God and let Him transcend all that is merely secondhand and bring them from zero into something of Himself. They are clinging to their accepted, already-made beliefs and doctrines, and God has His great difficulty there. He has to say, in effect: 'All right, I cannot do anything here. I must go and work where I have a chance.' If God is going to do today what He did in Samuel's day, somehow there has got to be that clean out in between what is merely tradition and what is experience, what is secondhand and what is firsthand, what has come to us from the outside and what has come to us inside.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 13)
A Proliferation of Christian Devotionals and Sermons
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017
Power With God # 11
Power With God # 11
Responsibility Born of Love
What does it amount to? It just amounts to this: coming into a place of the responsibility born of love. Not busy responsibility, nor official responsibility, but the responsibility born of love. It is the responsibility which a mother feels for a child, a parent for a child, and a parent's sense of responsibility for a child is not a business responsibility, nor an official responsibility, but a HEART responsibility. The heart is bound up with this. Will you not agree with me that the most terrible and tragic thing of which we can conceive is a parent without a sense of responsibility for his or her children? And here the relationship between Moses and Israel was the responsibility born of love. Something had been wrought deep down in the soul of Moses, so that he and the people were one in life, and one in destiny. It was a great love.
"Christ... loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it" (Eph. 5:25). There is a relationship there which is the deepest, and most sacred of all the relationships God has ever created: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." Moses loved Israel; Christ loved the Church. And if you want to see all that summed up in a few words, you have only to look at Hebrews eleven and read: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." That is the first thing about Moses - he refused. "Choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Refusing all the honor, reputation, status, resources, and choosing, definitely choosing, to be evil-entreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. "Accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible." Just make a sum of those words: He refused, he chose, he accounted, he forsook, he endured. There is a heart in something. It is a heart that is the ground of power with God. That is the kind of servant that the Lord needs, concerning whom He can say: 'If Moses stood before Me...Moses My servant.'
Exemplified In Samuel
A Personal Knowledge of the Lord
Read: Jeremiah 15:1; Psalm 99:6; 1 Sam. 12:19-21, 23.
We come now to the fifth and, for the time being, the last of these representative men who stand in that relationship with God which is acknowledged by Him to be one which has great weight and great power with Him. In our previous meditation we were seeing what Moses represents as to the ground of God's power put into operation. Moses stood at the beginning of Israel's national life. His work was mainly the shaping of the rough material, the raw clay, into a vessel for God, and he found it hard work.
The Situation Which Confronted Samuel
When we come to Samuel, we come to the point where that vessel is marred in the hand of the potter, and there are extra and even more difficult conditions. Samuel's work was with a vessel which was not being made from the beginning, but with a lot of material that had gone all wrong. It is important for us to recognize exactly where Samuel stood, and that with which he was confronted, in order to see the specific and peculiar significance of his ministry, and therefore in what way he represents power with God.
There are many features which made Samuel's time very much like our own, and therefore many features in our own time which are very much like his time. His was a time when the people and the work of God were not upon God's essential basis. They were on a secondary line and basis, which was only accepted by the Divine sovereignty. It was being governed and ruled, and, as far as possible, blessed, in the sovereignty of God; but it was not immediately in the thought of God. Taking Saul as an illustration of that as a part of a much greater whole, it is perfectly obvious that Saul was not God's essential thought. But God went as far as He could in the acceptance, the recognition, and the blessing of Saul, and in using Saul and that order of things which obtained in his days. But it was not His real mind. It was secondary, and it only came within His purview at all on the ground of His sovereignty. God sovereignly uses and, so far as He can, blesses whatever there is in existence - but, oh! that it might be otherwise! That is His attitude, and that is clearly seen as to the Lord's and Samuel's attitude toward the whole order of things in those days.
A Situation Akin To That Of Our Day
It does not require a great deal of spiritual understanding, perception, enlightenment and education to see how akin to that time is our own. There is, so far as what is of God on this earth is concerned,something of which God is taking account, is allowing, is accepting in a sense; He is using it, He is blessing it, He is going as far as He can, but it is only just as far as He can. He cannot wholly commit Himself to it. It is a secondary idea. He has His own thought, but His people are not in the good of that. I cannot very well go further than that statement. It is a general statement, but I say that you do not need a great deal of perception to see that God is limited, and if you are at all exercised and concerned about the situation - that is, about the effectiveness, the fruitfulness, the permanence, the purity, the power of what is related to God on this earth - and troubled that it does not go further, then you should look into it from this standpoint: is it on a secondary line, or does it correspond to God's original and full thought as to His way, His means and His purpose? Well, read about the times of Samuel and you see how restrained, limited and straitened God was, and, therefore, what an unsatisfactory state - to say the least of it - existed among the Lord's own people. That is the setting of Samuel, and that really is the key to the whole situation: something which God uses as far as He can because there is nothing else, and because the real thing has been lost.
There are a lot of things in the whole course of the Christian era,from those early New Testament days, which are not God's thought as to how the work of God should be done, by what means, on what basis, according to what principles, which He has blessed and used, and is still doing so, but they represent a limitation to the Lord because they are secondary. And that is where we are! There is no doubt about it. That is Samuel's situation, and because he had to contend with such a situation we see the significance of his life.
Samuel Against the Secondary And For The Primary
What was that significance? Samuel came in at a time like that to stand in the midst of it; on the one hand against something secondary, and on the other hand for something primary. I think his life is summed up in that. Samuel did not wholly accept Saul,and he was inclined to have absolutely nothing to do with the idea of a king, so that the Lord had to say to him: 'Samuel, they have not rejected you; they have rejected Me' (1 Sam. 8:7). Samuel was not going to have anything to do with this, and the Lord had, in other words, to say sovereignly: 'We cannot have what we would have, but we will allow this. We know how it will work out; nevertheless, give it a chance, facilitate it as far as you can.' Samuel had that secret with the Lord all the time. He knew how it would work out, and he was not accepting it. He was there to hold things for God's primary, full thought among His people. That is what he represents.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 12)
Responsibility Born of Love
What does it amount to? It just amounts to this: coming into a place of the responsibility born of love. Not busy responsibility, nor official responsibility, but the responsibility born of love. It is the responsibility which a mother feels for a child, a parent for a child, and a parent's sense of responsibility for a child is not a business responsibility, nor an official responsibility, but a HEART responsibility. The heart is bound up with this. Will you not agree with me that the most terrible and tragic thing of which we can conceive is a parent without a sense of responsibility for his or her children? And here the relationship between Moses and Israel was the responsibility born of love. Something had been wrought deep down in the soul of Moses, so that he and the people were one in life, and one in destiny. It was a great love.
"Christ... loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it" (Eph. 5:25). There is a relationship there which is the deepest, and most sacred of all the relationships God has ever created: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." Moses loved Israel; Christ loved the Church. And if you want to see all that summed up in a few words, you have only to look at Hebrews eleven and read: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." That is the first thing about Moses - he refused. "Choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Refusing all the honor, reputation, status, resources, and choosing, definitely choosing, to be evil-entreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. "Accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible." Just make a sum of those words: He refused, he chose, he accounted, he forsook, he endured. There is a heart in something. It is a heart that is the ground of power with God. That is the kind of servant that the Lord needs, concerning whom He can say: 'If Moses stood before Me...Moses My servant.'
Exemplified In Samuel
A Personal Knowledge of the Lord
Read: Jeremiah 15:1; Psalm 99:6; 1 Sam. 12:19-21, 23.
We come now to the fifth and, for the time being, the last of these representative men who stand in that relationship with God which is acknowledged by Him to be one which has great weight and great power with Him. In our previous meditation we were seeing what Moses represents as to the ground of God's power put into operation. Moses stood at the beginning of Israel's national life. His work was mainly the shaping of the rough material, the raw clay, into a vessel for God, and he found it hard work.
The Situation Which Confronted Samuel
When we come to Samuel, we come to the point where that vessel is marred in the hand of the potter, and there are extra and even more difficult conditions. Samuel's work was with a vessel which was not being made from the beginning, but with a lot of material that had gone all wrong. It is important for us to recognize exactly where Samuel stood, and that with which he was confronted, in order to see the specific and peculiar significance of his ministry, and therefore in what way he represents power with God.
There are many features which made Samuel's time very much like our own, and therefore many features in our own time which are very much like his time. His was a time when the people and the work of God were not upon God's essential basis. They were on a secondary line and basis, which was only accepted by the Divine sovereignty. It was being governed and ruled, and, as far as possible, blessed, in the sovereignty of God; but it was not immediately in the thought of God. Taking Saul as an illustration of that as a part of a much greater whole, it is perfectly obvious that Saul was not God's essential thought. But God went as far as He could in the acceptance, the recognition, and the blessing of Saul, and in using Saul and that order of things which obtained in his days. But it was not His real mind. It was secondary, and it only came within His purview at all on the ground of His sovereignty. God sovereignly uses and, so far as He can, blesses whatever there is in existence - but, oh! that it might be otherwise! That is His attitude, and that is clearly seen as to the Lord's and Samuel's attitude toward the whole order of things in those days.
A Situation Akin To That Of Our Day
It does not require a great deal of spiritual understanding, perception, enlightenment and education to see how akin to that time is our own. There is, so far as what is of God on this earth is concerned,something of which God is taking account, is allowing, is accepting in a sense; He is using it, He is blessing it, He is going as far as He can, but it is only just as far as He can. He cannot wholly commit Himself to it. It is a secondary idea. He has His own thought, but His people are not in the good of that. I cannot very well go further than that statement. It is a general statement, but I say that you do not need a great deal of perception to see that God is limited, and if you are at all exercised and concerned about the situation - that is, about the effectiveness, the fruitfulness, the permanence, the purity, the power of what is related to God on this earth - and troubled that it does not go further, then you should look into it from this standpoint: is it on a secondary line, or does it correspond to God's original and full thought as to His way, His means and His purpose? Well, read about the times of Samuel and you see how restrained, limited and straitened God was, and, therefore, what an unsatisfactory state - to say the least of it - existed among the Lord's own people. That is the setting of Samuel, and that really is the key to the whole situation: something which God uses as far as He can because there is nothing else, and because the real thing has been lost.
There are a lot of things in the whole course of the Christian era,from those early New Testament days, which are not God's thought as to how the work of God should be done, by what means, on what basis, according to what principles, which He has blessed and used, and is still doing so, but they represent a limitation to the Lord because they are secondary. And that is where we are! There is no doubt about it. That is Samuel's situation, and because he had to contend with such a situation we see the significance of his life.
Samuel Against the Secondary And For The Primary
What was that significance? Samuel came in at a time like that to stand in the midst of it; on the one hand against something secondary, and on the other hand for something primary. I think his life is summed up in that. Samuel did not wholly accept Saul,and he was inclined to have absolutely nothing to do with the idea of a king, so that the Lord had to say to him: 'Samuel, they have not rejected you; they have rejected Me' (1 Sam. 8:7). Samuel was not going to have anything to do with this, and the Lord had, in other words, to say sovereignly: 'We cannot have what we would have, but we will allow this. We know how it will work out; nevertheless, give it a chance, facilitate it as far as you can.' Samuel had that secret with the Lord all the time. He knew how it would work out, and he was not accepting it. He was there to hold things for God's primary, full thought among His people. That is what he represents.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 12)
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Power With God # 10
Power With God # 10
God Needs Those Committed To His Purpose In and Through The Church, continued -
Moses is not there. Ask him about the work! He would say: 'Oh, may the Lord have mercy upon me and deliver me from the "work!" ' Moses said he was not able to bear the people (Deut. 1:9), and that is the "work". Moses was not interested in, or concerned with the work; he was concerned with a people for the realization of God's purpose. We can get this abstract idea of the "work" of the Lord. We do not stay to define it, but, somehow or other, it is something we get into. We come up against difficult people and we begin to despise and criticize them. We think of them according to their natural constitutions and put them into "pigeonholes" - 'This is a worthwhile person, this is not.' There is all this sort of thing - human judgments about people. We have no room for certain people. All that, however, is false to this principle. No people on God's earth have ever been more difficult than Israel! Yes, all that you can say about the Jews is true, and yet look at this man! It is not the work; it is the people. He loves the people and his heart is bound up with them. Oh, what a people - and yet the marvel of this love for them! Not the work, but the people, just as they were and as bad as they were. He put his whole destiny at stake for that people. Why? Because he saw that God's purpose was bound up with the people and not with the work and not with organization.
It is challenging! What am I committed to? Is it a ministry, or a teaching? Am I interested in the teaching of the Church, this teaching and that teaching, this kind of work and that, and this kind of ministry and that? The people may be another thing. Do you see the point? You can divide between those two things. You can be thoroughly in your work, in your ministry, in your teaching, in your system of things - but the people! There is something else when you really come to think about it. How much pains are you going to take with the people? How much are you going to give yourself to the people, to that difficult one, and that difficult one,and that awkward one, those who show so little response to it all, those who turn upon you when your heart is really burdened and say: "Who made you a ruler?" That is what they did. And when Moses went to them in Egypt, they turned against him. We sing: "From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand" - all wanting you to come. If only you will go to China they will all rush to you and be saved. Go and see! They will begin to stone you.
Well now, what about the people? Moses met that affront on the very first movement into Egypt to bring out the people. God needs those among us who are not interested in teaching, and orders, and Christian work as such. It can all be so abstract and can all be a fool's paradise when you come up against facts. God needs those who are right in this thing for His purpose, and who will meet the affront and the discouragement, and who will not suffer the shock of disillusionment because they have been building 'castles in the air' about the Lord's work. Those who know that this is a life and death matter, that it is going to cost everything, and they are in it to that degree. They have no illusions. "I know this people have sinned a great sin." You do not make any excuses for them, but nevertheless your purpose is bound up with this 'bad lot.' "I am committed to the purpose." That is what the Lord was trying to get.
You can follow it through to His Son, the inclusive, supreme example of this very thing. Oh, He has given all, and He has been cast out by those for whom He had given all and for whom He had left the glory. What is the end? "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). His heart still yearns. He is not invoking Divine judgment upon them because He is a disillusioned and disappointed man, and they had not responded. His heart is in this.
Hear Paul! "I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake" (Rom. 9:3). That is the sort of thing. It is that that has power with God. 'That is why Moses, to speak after the manner of men, caused God to repent, changed the mind of God. It is not true when you know the real truth, but that is how it looked. He had that power with God. God said: "According to thy word."
What are we committed to? Are we committed to the interests of the Lord like that? Have we seen His purpose concerning the Church? Are we in it? - and do remember that the appeal is for servants of God. Two great titles used more of Moses than of anyone else are these: Moses, 'the man of God,' and Moses, 'the servant of God.' Outstandingly Moses carries those twin titles: 'The man of God," and 'Moses My servant.' The Lord is wanting men of God, servants of the Lord.
But this is the nature of service. I do not ask you to come and give yourself to the work of the Lord, to go out and begin to organize Christian work here and there, near and far, and to do this and that and other things for the Lord. The appeal is: the Lord needs people, not necessarily to go out in the romance of missionary service, but just where they are to be committed right up to the hilt to the Lord's own honor as bound up with His purpose in the Church and through the Church, and upon whose hearts in the first place is the Church. I am very emphatic and careful in saying that - in the first place, the Church. If only that were recognized there would be a very great deal of difference in the situation today. God's instrument of evangelization is the Church. The Church has been ignored, and the thing has been attempted on a wide scale without the Church. The result is, for one thing, a terrible failure to accomplish the purpose, and you have to say that in a large degree the Church has failed. And what about the type of Christian that exists? A vast number of converts do not go on very far. You cannot leave them alone. You have to hold them up, support them, and put them on crutches all the time. And so you find that, whenever people try to organize an evangelistic campaign, they have to start with getting the Church right. Very often the whole thing resolves itself into a mission to Christians first.
Israel was not an end in itself. If Israel failed, if God let Israel fail, or let Israel go, the nations would be lost. But by means of Israel being kept and strengthened and built up, and moved on, the nations will be compelled to confess that God is in the midst of them and God is with them. That is Moses' argument: God is among you, and this is the kind of God He is. That is revealed by a people living in the good of Divine fullness.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 11 - Responsibility Born Of Love)
God Needs Those Committed To His Purpose In and Through The Church, continued -
Moses is not there. Ask him about the work! He would say: 'Oh, may the Lord have mercy upon me and deliver me from the "work!" ' Moses said he was not able to bear the people (Deut. 1:9), and that is the "work". Moses was not interested in, or concerned with the work; he was concerned with a people for the realization of God's purpose. We can get this abstract idea of the "work" of the Lord. We do not stay to define it, but, somehow or other, it is something we get into. We come up against difficult people and we begin to despise and criticize them. We think of them according to their natural constitutions and put them into "pigeonholes" - 'This is a worthwhile person, this is not.' There is all this sort of thing - human judgments about people. We have no room for certain people. All that, however, is false to this principle. No people on God's earth have ever been more difficult than Israel! Yes, all that you can say about the Jews is true, and yet look at this man! It is not the work; it is the people. He loves the people and his heart is bound up with them. Oh, what a people - and yet the marvel of this love for them! Not the work, but the people, just as they were and as bad as they were. He put his whole destiny at stake for that people. Why? Because he saw that God's purpose was bound up with the people and not with the work and not with organization.
It is challenging! What am I committed to? Is it a ministry, or a teaching? Am I interested in the teaching of the Church, this teaching and that teaching, this kind of work and that, and this kind of ministry and that? The people may be another thing. Do you see the point? You can divide between those two things. You can be thoroughly in your work, in your ministry, in your teaching, in your system of things - but the people! There is something else when you really come to think about it. How much pains are you going to take with the people? How much are you going to give yourself to the people, to that difficult one, and that difficult one,and that awkward one, those who show so little response to it all, those who turn upon you when your heart is really burdened and say: "Who made you a ruler?" That is what they did. And when Moses went to them in Egypt, they turned against him. We sing: "From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand" - all wanting you to come. If only you will go to China they will all rush to you and be saved. Go and see! They will begin to stone you.
Well now, what about the people? Moses met that affront on the very first movement into Egypt to bring out the people. God needs those among us who are not interested in teaching, and orders, and Christian work as such. It can all be so abstract and can all be a fool's paradise when you come up against facts. God needs those who are right in this thing for His purpose, and who will meet the affront and the discouragement, and who will not suffer the shock of disillusionment because they have been building 'castles in the air' about the Lord's work. Those who know that this is a life and death matter, that it is going to cost everything, and they are in it to that degree. They have no illusions. "I know this people have sinned a great sin." You do not make any excuses for them, but nevertheless your purpose is bound up with this 'bad lot.' "I am committed to the purpose." That is what the Lord was trying to get.
You can follow it through to His Son, the inclusive, supreme example of this very thing. Oh, He has given all, and He has been cast out by those for whom He had given all and for whom He had left the glory. What is the end? "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). His heart still yearns. He is not invoking Divine judgment upon them because He is a disillusioned and disappointed man, and they had not responded. His heart is in this.
Hear Paul! "I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake" (Rom. 9:3). That is the sort of thing. It is that that has power with God. 'That is why Moses, to speak after the manner of men, caused God to repent, changed the mind of God. It is not true when you know the real truth, but that is how it looked. He had that power with God. God said: "According to thy word."
What are we committed to? Are we committed to the interests of the Lord like that? Have we seen His purpose concerning the Church? Are we in it? - and do remember that the appeal is for servants of God. Two great titles used more of Moses than of anyone else are these: Moses, 'the man of God,' and Moses, 'the servant of God.' Outstandingly Moses carries those twin titles: 'The man of God," and 'Moses My servant.' The Lord is wanting men of God, servants of the Lord.
But this is the nature of service. I do not ask you to come and give yourself to the work of the Lord, to go out and begin to organize Christian work here and there, near and far, and to do this and that and other things for the Lord. The appeal is: the Lord needs people, not necessarily to go out in the romance of missionary service, but just where they are to be committed right up to the hilt to the Lord's own honor as bound up with His purpose in the Church and through the Church, and upon whose hearts in the first place is the Church. I am very emphatic and careful in saying that - in the first place, the Church. If only that were recognized there would be a very great deal of difference in the situation today. God's instrument of evangelization is the Church. The Church has been ignored, and the thing has been attempted on a wide scale without the Church. The result is, for one thing, a terrible failure to accomplish the purpose, and you have to say that in a large degree the Church has failed. And what about the type of Christian that exists? A vast number of converts do not go on very far. You cannot leave them alone. You have to hold them up, support them, and put them on crutches all the time. And so you find that, whenever people try to organize an evangelistic campaign, they have to start with getting the Church right. Very often the whole thing resolves itself into a mission to Christians first.
Israel was not an end in itself. If Israel failed, if God let Israel fail, or let Israel go, the nations would be lost. But by means of Israel being kept and strengthened and built up, and moved on, the nations will be compelled to confess that God is in the midst of them and God is with them. That is Moses' argument: God is among you, and this is the kind of God He is. That is revealed by a people living in the good of Divine fullness.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 11 - Responsibility Born Of Love)
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Power With God # 9
Power With God # 9
God Seeking to Make a Man Utterly One With Himself,continued,
You see, man is involved in this. This is a great heart principle of redemption. God could have dispensed with all instrumentalities and mediators and intercessors and go-betweens, and Himself, sovereignly from heaven, acted directly and have done the whole thing. He could have done it, but that is not the principle, and that is not the way. The whole Bible comes in to show and to prove that man himself being involved in this, it requires a Man to redeem man. We sing the hymn: "A final Adam to the fight, and to the rescue came." The Man Himself, Christ Jesus, the redeeming Kinsman, the Mediator - that is the principle. Moses is called the "mediator of the covenant." Moses, the mediator, had to be in that position where, on the one hand, he was so truly one in heart with God's purpose, and, on the other hand, so truly one in heart with the object of God's purpose, that he brought the One who purposed and the object of the purpose together in his own person. He took the hand of God and the hand of man and brought them together in his own person. That is the whole work of the Lord Jesus, and the principle is here. God is testing this man in the same way as Elijah tested Elisha: "Tarry here... for the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel." And Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee" (2 Kings 2). Elijah was apparently trying to shake this man off, but was really testing him because of something tremendous in view. He had already cast his mantle upon Elisha, who was to come into the good of that mantle on Elijah's ascension and do greater works than Elijah had done, but he is going to suffer a tremendous testing. But he went on and refused to be put off.
God is working on that principle with Moses. 'Let Me destroy this people, disinherit them.' Supposing Moses had said: 'All right!', what sort of mediator would he have been? And, mark you, the point is this - that God would have lost the essential basis of His work and purpose, and the essential basis was a man whose heart was so deeply and terribly in this matter that he himself would rather perish and lose all than that, on the one hand, God's Name should be dishonored and, on the other hand, God's purpose should not be fulfilled.
That is a ground of power with God - a tremendous thing! He is saying: 'Oh, I acknowledge it, I perfectly agree and I make no excuses for them. "This people have sinned a great sin." It is quite true. "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin -" He does not finish ... "And if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written." Could anything be more utter than that? "You disinherit them and You disinherit me. I have nothing to live for. I do not want to go on in life at if You disinherit them." What a oneness! And that is the kind of thing that God requires in order to do His great things. You notice that God went on and did His great things because He had that ground. That ground prevailed with God again and again. And the Lord said: "I have pardoned according to thy word". ..."And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." That is only a way of putting it. God said: 'All right, I will not do it - according to thy word."
Absolute Oneness With God's Purpose
Where do we begin, then, with this? It begins here. Moses had become, in heart, deeply one with God's purpose concerning His people. God had indicated and intimated what His purpose was concerning this people. Moses quotes that to the Lord: 'Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and what You said.' He has become one with God in His purpose concerning His people, he has seen what that purpose was, his heart has espoused the Divine purpose for the people of God, and he has involved himself in that utterly and without a reservation. For him his eternal destiny is bound up with that and he has nothing else to look for, or hope for if that fails.
I expect you are wondering what that has to do with us! How does it apply to us? It is all very true about Moses, but I think this indicates something to us of what the Lord's will and desire is, and also it is a searching and challenging word. If God, for the realization of His purpose, must have an instrument or instruments (personal or corporate) like this, because He has bound Himself to this kind, and cannot get on with it without such instruments, may it not explain why the coming of the Lord's people to the inheritance, to the fullness of Christ, the attainment of the Church unto the glorious purpose of the ages in which it is called, is so retarded and delayed, and why there is something wrong in this respect? Dear friends, this, to me, is a most searching thing. It has searched my heart tremendously as I have dwelt upon it. It is not just some Bible teaching; this is something which will search us very deeply. What are we committed or devoted to?
God Needs Those Committed To His Purpose In And Through The Church
Shall we go back a step before that and say: are we committed? Are we devoted? Here is a company of the Lord's people; not a large company but a representative company, and sufficient to stand right here before the Lord to meet this challenge and to hear it said in the Name of the Lord that the Lord needs people like this, constituted on this-wise, like Moses. He absolutely needs them. He cannot get on with His work until He has this at His command - people who stand in this relationship to Him, to His purpose and to His people, those who are the people of the eternal purpose. God must have people like this, men and women who have sen God's purpose concerning the Church and who know what that purpose is.
It is not just a matter of doctrine, teaching, or Bible study. God needs people who have seen it in their hearts. And then He needs such people who, having seen it, are committed up to the hilt to it without any reservations. God is needing such people, committed utterly to Him for His purpose in relation to His people, the Church. Have you seen? What is it that you are doing? This is where I think the thing is so searching and challenging. There are many people of God who are committed to the work. I am not asking you if you are committed to Christian work or Christian service. That is not what I am after at all. There are any number of people who are up to their eyes in Christian work. Let the work test them out, and they will resign from the work. Let the conditions become too hard, and they withdraw from the work, or they will change their sphere of work, or the nature of their work for the Lord. It is the work. The work has an appeal. Oh, the appeal that is made for the work of the Lord, and how appealing it is made to be! The romance of it all, the fascination of it all, the idea of realizing something, expressing yourself, of being in the work, is the force of the appeal.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 10)
God Seeking to Make a Man Utterly One With Himself,continued,
You see, man is involved in this. This is a great heart principle of redemption. God could have dispensed with all instrumentalities and mediators and intercessors and go-betweens, and Himself, sovereignly from heaven, acted directly and have done the whole thing. He could have done it, but that is not the principle, and that is not the way. The whole Bible comes in to show and to prove that man himself being involved in this, it requires a Man to redeem man. We sing the hymn: "A final Adam to the fight, and to the rescue came." The Man Himself, Christ Jesus, the redeeming Kinsman, the Mediator - that is the principle. Moses is called the "mediator of the covenant." Moses, the mediator, had to be in that position where, on the one hand, he was so truly one in heart with God's purpose, and, on the other hand, so truly one in heart with the object of God's purpose, that he brought the One who purposed and the object of the purpose together in his own person. He took the hand of God and the hand of man and brought them together in his own person. That is the whole work of the Lord Jesus, and the principle is here. God is testing this man in the same way as Elijah tested Elisha: "Tarry here... for the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel." And Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee" (2 Kings 2). Elijah was apparently trying to shake this man off, but was really testing him because of something tremendous in view. He had already cast his mantle upon Elisha, who was to come into the good of that mantle on Elijah's ascension and do greater works than Elijah had done, but he is going to suffer a tremendous testing. But he went on and refused to be put off.
God is working on that principle with Moses. 'Let Me destroy this people, disinherit them.' Supposing Moses had said: 'All right!', what sort of mediator would he have been? And, mark you, the point is this - that God would have lost the essential basis of His work and purpose, and the essential basis was a man whose heart was so deeply and terribly in this matter that he himself would rather perish and lose all than that, on the one hand, God's Name should be dishonored and, on the other hand, God's purpose should not be fulfilled.
That is a ground of power with God - a tremendous thing! He is saying: 'Oh, I acknowledge it, I perfectly agree and I make no excuses for them. "This people have sinned a great sin." It is quite true. "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin -" He does not finish ... "And if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written." Could anything be more utter than that? "You disinherit them and You disinherit me. I have nothing to live for. I do not want to go on in life at if You disinherit them." What a oneness! And that is the kind of thing that God requires in order to do His great things. You notice that God went on and did His great things because He had that ground. That ground prevailed with God again and again. And the Lord said: "I have pardoned according to thy word". ..."And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." That is only a way of putting it. God said: 'All right, I will not do it - according to thy word."
Absolute Oneness With God's Purpose
Where do we begin, then, with this? It begins here. Moses had become, in heart, deeply one with God's purpose concerning His people. God had indicated and intimated what His purpose was concerning this people. Moses quotes that to the Lord: 'Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and what You said.' He has become one with God in His purpose concerning His people, he has seen what that purpose was, his heart has espoused the Divine purpose for the people of God, and he has involved himself in that utterly and without a reservation. For him his eternal destiny is bound up with that and he has nothing else to look for, or hope for if that fails.
I expect you are wondering what that has to do with us! How does it apply to us? It is all very true about Moses, but I think this indicates something to us of what the Lord's will and desire is, and also it is a searching and challenging word. If God, for the realization of His purpose, must have an instrument or instruments (personal or corporate) like this, because He has bound Himself to this kind, and cannot get on with it without such instruments, may it not explain why the coming of the Lord's people to the inheritance, to the fullness of Christ, the attainment of the Church unto the glorious purpose of the ages in which it is called, is so retarded and delayed, and why there is something wrong in this respect? Dear friends, this, to me, is a most searching thing. It has searched my heart tremendously as I have dwelt upon it. It is not just some Bible teaching; this is something which will search us very deeply. What are we committed or devoted to?
God Needs Those Committed To His Purpose In And Through The Church
Shall we go back a step before that and say: are we committed? Are we devoted? Here is a company of the Lord's people; not a large company but a representative company, and sufficient to stand right here before the Lord to meet this challenge and to hear it said in the Name of the Lord that the Lord needs people like this, constituted on this-wise, like Moses. He absolutely needs them. He cannot get on with His work until He has this at His command - people who stand in this relationship to Him, to His purpose and to His people, those who are the people of the eternal purpose. God must have people like this, men and women who have sen God's purpose concerning the Church and who know what that purpose is.
It is not just a matter of doctrine, teaching, or Bible study. God needs people who have seen it in their hearts. And then He needs such people who, having seen it, are committed up to the hilt to it without any reservations. God is needing such people, committed utterly to Him for His purpose in relation to His people, the Church. Have you seen? What is it that you are doing? This is where I think the thing is so searching and challenging. There are many people of God who are committed to the work. I am not asking you if you are committed to Christian work or Christian service. That is not what I am after at all. There are any number of people who are up to their eyes in Christian work. Let the work test them out, and they will resign from the work. Let the conditions become too hard, and they withdraw from the work, or they will change their sphere of work, or the nature of their work for the Lord. It is the work. The work has an appeal. Oh, the appeal that is made for the work of the Lord, and how appealing it is made to be! The romance of it all, the fascination of it all, the idea of realizing something, expressing yourself, of being in the work, is the force of the appeal.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 10)
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Power With God # 8
Power With God # 8
God Served Through Suffering, continued -
That is true of many of the Lord's people in fragmentary ways, but it is also the whole history of Christ in union with His Church and of His Church in union with Him in a true spiritual position. It is the history of the Church - the Lord's people going through a terrible grueling time at the hands of the devil, under the sovereignty of God, out of which the Church becomes "a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Eph. 5:27); "when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believed" (2 Thess. 1:10). That is the Lord having all the glory out of all the suffering. Is that your experience in a small way? I think you can see something that touches you, but do you recognize the upshot of it? God is saying that this is what He requires in order to be able to move in. Job represents the ground that He needs. Job represents that which is power and influence with Him. What is that? It means being prepared to suffer with Him, prepared to suffer for God's rights.
We have a great deal more light about this than Job had. Job did not know about that interview in heaven, he knew nothing about satan appearing with the sons of God and all that took place there, the challenge and the permission given. All he knew was that these things were happening. His cry is the cry of a man in the dark without any explanation and that is very helpful to me. There is a difference drawn here between the bewildered, perplexed, confounded arguments, statements and words of a man under terrible pressure, and sin. Job says some pretty hard things, even to the Lord, and you wonder how God can support that,stand alongside of that. Yes, when we are down under the pressure, the enemy lying to us and God seeming to have hidden Himself and left us, we are bewildered, perplexed and confounded and the whole thing is so terrible that we begin to cry out and challenge God as to His faithfulness, as to His love, we begin to question God. Take heart, God does not call that sin. I do not mean that we can take liberties with God, but we may get to the place where, because of the intense difficulty of the way, the deep suffering and affliction, because God seems to be outside of His universe and satan seems to be doing all he wants and we are involved and everything that is ours is involved, we cry out even against God and question His faithfulness. There are the cries, the groans - almost the screams - of a bewildered, perplexed, baffled soul passing through an experience which has a spiritual meaning beyond the understanding or knowledge or apprehension of that soul, and God does NOT call that sin. He understands our frame, our humanity. It would have been sin if Job had done what his wife told him to do, to renounce God. That is sin and satan would try to drive a soul there. But God is sovereign here and that is not satan's right. We may go a long way towards that point, but God has the matter in His hands; He has not allowed it to come to pass. I think it is a wonderful thing, when you read all that Job has to say, to hear God saying that in all this Job sinned not with his lips. God is standing by Job.
This is, after all, a marvelous triumph of faith in God because, although Job does go down and does say some very hard things, it is not long before he is up again and saying other good things. His faith is having a terrible time, but he is constantly coming up again and his faith triumphs through it all. "And after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:26). That is faith in resurrection.
What is it that prevails with God? Power with God does necessitate our standing for God's rights and serving Him in that intensely spiritual sense. There are all kinds of things here on this earth which may serve the Lord, but there is a service to the Lord which is deeper than things, deeper than our activities here. The greatest service we can render to God is His own vindication and that can only come by Him redeeming, transforming and glorifying humanity. That is what He is doing with us and He is doing it through suffering.
Power With God (IV)
Exemplified in Moses
Responsibility Born of Love
Read: Exodus 32:31, 32; 11-24; Numbers 14:11-20
"Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind would not be toward this people" (Jeremiah 15:1).
God Seeking To Make A Man Utterly One With Himself
"Though .... Moses ...stood before Me." We have to get right into the heart of this matter as quickly as we can, and it seems to me that the best way of doing that is first of all to look at this God who is presented in these passages. What impression does it all make upon you when you see a man, who himself is shown to be a man of weaknesses and imperfections and human frailty,seeing to exhibit more patience that the Lord with whom he is dealing, and trying to persuade the Lord to be gracious, to be merciful, not to be 'unChristian,' not to be so impatient, and not to be so revengeful, so swift and utter in His judgments? How does that impress you? It almost looks as though Moses is, in grace and character, superior to God. It almost appears that Moses is trying to bring God up to a higher standard. That is how it looks. Taken just by themselves, lifted clean out of the whole Bible and context, such passages of Scripture would put God among the gods of the heathen - cruel, swift to anger, needing to be appeased from His wrath, and persuaded to be kind. But, of course, you all shrink from such an idea! There arises in you, perhaps, something of indignation that one should even say such a thing, but I want to get into the heart of this thing as quickly as I can, and I think that is the best way of doing it.
Is that the Lord? Is that the true position? Is it really a fact that Moses had more of those graces than God had, and had to win Go over to his side, to his point of view, to his position? Was it true? NO, not in the slightest, NOT for a moment! Oh, but here it is! Here is God saying that He is going to do something, He is going to blot them out and destroy them, and Moses comes along and says: 'No, don't, Lord! If You do that, You see what it means. First of all, the Egyptians will hear about it and they will say: "See the kind of God that they have! He is one who starts on a thing and finds He cannot carry it through, and so has to wipe it all out" - the God whom we have declared the only true God above all! They will say it just is not true, that is all. He is not the only God, and He is not any better than any other god.' Can you imagine for a moment, while Moses argues with the Lord like that and presents the situation, the Lord saying: 'I have not thought of that, Moses! That is a new idea. Thank you for reminding Me! You have saved Me.' - Moses saving the Lord from getting into trouble and disgrace with the nations of the world! Do you accept that? It looks like it, does it not? NO, we cannot have it. There must be some other explanation, for that is not it. Then what is it? Well, it is just this. The Lord is Himself taking that line deliberately in order to get this man over to His side. The Lord had no intention of blotting this people out, or disinheriting them. He said: 'Let me ..." but Moses said: 'No, I will not let you' - and that is the point. The Lord wanted to get this man to the position where he was so truly one with the Lord's deepest intention that he could not entertain the slightest suggestion that God should not stand up to His Name, His honor, and carry through His purpose. You will notice all the way through the Bible that that sort of thing is happening. What is He doing? He is out to make a man so utterly one with Him as an absolute necessity for the realization of His purpose.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 9)
God Served Through Suffering, continued -
That is true of many of the Lord's people in fragmentary ways, but it is also the whole history of Christ in union with His Church and of His Church in union with Him in a true spiritual position. It is the history of the Church - the Lord's people going through a terrible grueling time at the hands of the devil, under the sovereignty of God, out of which the Church becomes "a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Eph. 5:27); "when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believed" (2 Thess. 1:10). That is the Lord having all the glory out of all the suffering. Is that your experience in a small way? I think you can see something that touches you, but do you recognize the upshot of it? God is saying that this is what He requires in order to be able to move in. Job represents the ground that He needs. Job represents that which is power and influence with Him. What is that? It means being prepared to suffer with Him, prepared to suffer for God's rights.
We have a great deal more light about this than Job had. Job did not know about that interview in heaven, he knew nothing about satan appearing with the sons of God and all that took place there, the challenge and the permission given. All he knew was that these things were happening. His cry is the cry of a man in the dark without any explanation and that is very helpful to me. There is a difference drawn here between the bewildered, perplexed, confounded arguments, statements and words of a man under terrible pressure, and sin. Job says some pretty hard things, even to the Lord, and you wonder how God can support that,stand alongside of that. Yes, when we are down under the pressure, the enemy lying to us and God seeming to have hidden Himself and left us, we are bewildered, perplexed and confounded and the whole thing is so terrible that we begin to cry out and challenge God as to His faithfulness, as to His love, we begin to question God. Take heart, God does not call that sin. I do not mean that we can take liberties with God, but we may get to the place where, because of the intense difficulty of the way, the deep suffering and affliction, because God seems to be outside of His universe and satan seems to be doing all he wants and we are involved and everything that is ours is involved, we cry out even against God and question His faithfulness. There are the cries, the groans - almost the screams - of a bewildered, perplexed, baffled soul passing through an experience which has a spiritual meaning beyond the understanding or knowledge or apprehension of that soul, and God does NOT call that sin. He understands our frame, our humanity. It would have been sin if Job had done what his wife told him to do, to renounce God. That is sin and satan would try to drive a soul there. But God is sovereign here and that is not satan's right. We may go a long way towards that point, but God has the matter in His hands; He has not allowed it to come to pass. I think it is a wonderful thing, when you read all that Job has to say, to hear God saying that in all this Job sinned not with his lips. God is standing by Job.
This is, after all, a marvelous triumph of faith in God because, although Job does go down and does say some very hard things, it is not long before he is up again and saying other good things. His faith is having a terrible time, but he is constantly coming up again and his faith triumphs through it all. "And after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:26). That is faith in resurrection.
What is it that prevails with God? Power with God does necessitate our standing for God's rights and serving Him in that intensely spiritual sense. There are all kinds of things here on this earth which may serve the Lord, but there is a service to the Lord which is deeper than things, deeper than our activities here. The greatest service we can render to God is His own vindication and that can only come by Him redeeming, transforming and glorifying humanity. That is what He is doing with us and He is doing it through suffering.
Power With God (IV)
Exemplified in Moses
Responsibility Born of Love
Read: Exodus 32:31, 32; 11-24; Numbers 14:11-20
"Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind would not be toward this people" (Jeremiah 15:1).
God Seeking To Make A Man Utterly One With Himself
"Though .... Moses ...stood before Me." We have to get right into the heart of this matter as quickly as we can, and it seems to me that the best way of doing that is first of all to look at this God who is presented in these passages. What impression does it all make upon you when you see a man, who himself is shown to be a man of weaknesses and imperfections and human frailty,seeing to exhibit more patience that the Lord with whom he is dealing, and trying to persuade the Lord to be gracious, to be merciful, not to be 'unChristian,' not to be so impatient, and not to be so revengeful, so swift and utter in His judgments? How does that impress you? It almost looks as though Moses is, in grace and character, superior to God. It almost appears that Moses is trying to bring God up to a higher standard. That is how it looks. Taken just by themselves, lifted clean out of the whole Bible and context, such passages of Scripture would put God among the gods of the heathen - cruel, swift to anger, needing to be appeased from His wrath, and persuaded to be kind. But, of course, you all shrink from such an idea! There arises in you, perhaps, something of indignation that one should even say such a thing, but I want to get into the heart of this thing as quickly as I can, and I think that is the best way of doing it.
Is that the Lord? Is that the true position? Is it really a fact that Moses had more of those graces than God had, and had to win Go over to his side, to his point of view, to his position? Was it true? NO, not in the slightest, NOT for a moment! Oh, but here it is! Here is God saying that He is going to do something, He is going to blot them out and destroy them, and Moses comes along and says: 'No, don't, Lord! If You do that, You see what it means. First of all, the Egyptians will hear about it and they will say: "See the kind of God that they have! He is one who starts on a thing and finds He cannot carry it through, and so has to wipe it all out" - the God whom we have declared the only true God above all! They will say it just is not true, that is all. He is not the only God, and He is not any better than any other god.' Can you imagine for a moment, while Moses argues with the Lord like that and presents the situation, the Lord saying: 'I have not thought of that, Moses! That is a new idea. Thank you for reminding Me! You have saved Me.' - Moses saving the Lord from getting into trouble and disgrace with the nations of the world! Do you accept that? It looks like it, does it not? NO, we cannot have it. There must be some other explanation, for that is not it. Then what is it? Well, it is just this. The Lord is Himself taking that line deliberately in order to get this man over to His side. The Lord had no intention of blotting this people out, or disinheriting them. He said: 'Let me ..." but Moses said: 'No, I will not let you' - and that is the point. The Lord wanted to get this man to the position where he was so truly one with the Lord's deepest intention that he could not entertain the slightest suggestion that God should not stand up to His Name, His honor, and carry through His purpose. You will notice all the way through the Bible that that sort of thing is happening. What is He doing? He is out to make a man so utterly one with Him as an absolute necessity for the realization of His purpose.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 9)
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Power With God # 7
Power With God # 7
Through Suffering To Glory, continued
satan has to come back again. "Well, what about it?" says the Lord. "What about Job?" "Very well, go and touch his body, but touch not his life." Yes, it is becoming very deep and terrible. You know what happens - the terrible physical affliction and then his wife saying, "Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die, Put an end to it all." Oh, satan is behind all this so subtly. satan has been forbidden to touch Job's life, but he has come round in way as to try to get him to take his own life. It is the same thing. satan cannot take it, but he thinks he can get Job to take it. satan is after his life, but he does not get it, and Job goes through this terrible experience, this devastating time. We do not know how long it lasted, but it must have been a long time and been very drastic, but in the end satan has not proved his case. Through the very work of satan, through the very discipline, God has only changed the ground from one which could not ultimately stand up to Him - that of righteousness which is of works - to a ground which does stand up to God. It is a marvelous thing to see that the very ground that makes it possible for God to be glorified and justified and vindicated - the ground of righteousness which is according to faith - was the ground on to which satan forced Job. There is the sovereign hand of God. The Lord is - may I use the word? - very clever. satan thinks he is clever; the Lord can outwit him.
What we must get at this point. We see the spiritual history in the transition from the objective to the subjective, from the outward to the inward, from the hearing of the ear to the seeing of the eye - "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee" - from the righteousness which is of works, to the righteousness which is according to faith. We see that transition as an essential thing to give God His ground.
God Served Through Suffering
Now the point is that there is a service to God which lies in an altogether different realm from the realm of things earthly and temporal. "My servant Job." He is God's servant, but the real service of Job's life was fulfilled in a spiritual realm, out of sight. It was fulfilled through temporal things, it is true, but there is a background to all this. These were not just happenings in his life, the ordinary misfortunes which could overtake any man. Something is happening in the unseen, in another realm where, through all this, God is being served in a peculiar way. What is the object? What is the end in view? It is just this: God must eventually be vindicated in creation by having glorified humanity. When God undertook to create man, He undertook all the responsibility and all the liability of creating man, and it was a tremendous liability. You get down into the depths with Job and sometimes you will ask ultimate questions, "You created me, I am your responsibility, I lay the responsibility at your door." God says, "I accept that, and when I undertook responsibility for creating man, I did so with the unalterable determination to have man glorified at the last; a glorified humanity is the only thing that will vindicate Me." satan has done everything in his power to defeat God in that intention of a glorified humanity. The whole battle in the unseen has to do with that, and the very work of satan is being sovereignly used by God toward that end. Job's last state is only, of course, a figure, a suggestion, of man raised from the dead and exalted to a very high position and filled with Divine fullness - all through grace, all through the mercy of God acting sovereignly. That is the end in view.
Now, in the unseen something is going on in relation to that, and God is being served through the sufferings of His own people in this way, that He is being vindicated. What do we mean? We are the Lord's people and we have not only been saved in order to be saved, but, in that old, very hackneyed phrase, we have been "saved to serve." God knows that means a great deal more than most people thin when they talk about serving the Lord. Read the Book of Job and see what serving the Lord is. The very highest service that could be rendered to God was God's own vindication, the rights of God in man, God's vindication in creation. This was not a matter of running about, taking so many meetings, preaching all over the place and doing many things which are called service. Sometimes it means being stripped of everything and being put through a deep and terrible experience in which God can do something in us that makes possible the glorifying of humanity, investing man with glory so that, at the last, with a glorified humanity, God can say, "I am vindicated, I am justified in having created man. Does this not justify Me?"
While we, at the moment, cannot grasp all the eternal significance of it, we know this thing in principle. It is working out in principle in minute forms and ways with us. The Lord allows us to come into very deep and dark affliction and suffering where we are deprived and stripped of so much. We go down into the depths and satan seems to be having it all his own way, just riding over us. The Lord seems to be so far away and so hidden and yet, in His faithfulness, He is doing something in us. We do not know what it means. Our constant cry is, Why? Why this? We go through it and then we come out with measure, with spiritual wealth, with a new knowledge of the Lord; we come out with our souls purified into a new place with the Lord and as we look back on it we say, "Well, it was pretty bad, but it was worth it; it was terrible, but I have something which justifies it; I know today as I could not have known by any other way and really I justify God; I go down before the Lord, saying that He is right, He has effected something that would not have been effected in any other way and it is worth having. What is more, I am now in a position, like Job, to stand before God on behalf of others." There are others in desperate need and they are not going to get through. Job's friends could not get through with God and they would not have got through but for Job. He stood before God for them in a place of power and influence. God was right, after all, because of the outcome of that experience, the values that have come from it, the knowledge of the Lord, the spiritual strength, the ability to help others - that justifies God in His ways.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 8)
Through Suffering To Glory, continued
satan has to come back again. "Well, what about it?" says the Lord. "What about Job?" "Very well, go and touch his body, but touch not his life." Yes, it is becoming very deep and terrible. You know what happens - the terrible physical affliction and then his wife saying, "Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die, Put an end to it all." Oh, satan is behind all this so subtly. satan has been forbidden to touch Job's life, but he has come round in way as to try to get him to take his own life. It is the same thing. satan cannot take it, but he thinks he can get Job to take it. satan is after his life, but he does not get it, and Job goes through this terrible experience, this devastating time. We do not know how long it lasted, but it must have been a long time and been very drastic, but in the end satan has not proved his case. Through the very work of satan, through the very discipline, God has only changed the ground from one which could not ultimately stand up to Him - that of righteousness which is of works - to a ground which does stand up to God. It is a marvelous thing to see that the very ground that makes it possible for God to be glorified and justified and vindicated - the ground of righteousness which is according to faith - was the ground on to which satan forced Job. There is the sovereign hand of God. The Lord is - may I use the word? - very clever. satan thinks he is clever; the Lord can outwit him.
What we must get at this point. We see the spiritual history in the transition from the objective to the subjective, from the outward to the inward, from the hearing of the ear to the seeing of the eye - "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee" - from the righteousness which is of works, to the righteousness which is according to faith. We see that transition as an essential thing to give God His ground.
God Served Through Suffering
Now the point is that there is a service to God which lies in an altogether different realm from the realm of things earthly and temporal. "My servant Job." He is God's servant, but the real service of Job's life was fulfilled in a spiritual realm, out of sight. It was fulfilled through temporal things, it is true, but there is a background to all this. These were not just happenings in his life, the ordinary misfortunes which could overtake any man. Something is happening in the unseen, in another realm where, through all this, God is being served in a peculiar way. What is the object? What is the end in view? It is just this: God must eventually be vindicated in creation by having glorified humanity. When God undertook to create man, He undertook all the responsibility and all the liability of creating man, and it was a tremendous liability. You get down into the depths with Job and sometimes you will ask ultimate questions, "You created me, I am your responsibility, I lay the responsibility at your door." God says, "I accept that, and when I undertook responsibility for creating man, I did so with the unalterable determination to have man glorified at the last; a glorified humanity is the only thing that will vindicate Me." satan has done everything in his power to defeat God in that intention of a glorified humanity. The whole battle in the unseen has to do with that, and the very work of satan is being sovereignly used by God toward that end. Job's last state is only, of course, a figure, a suggestion, of man raised from the dead and exalted to a very high position and filled with Divine fullness - all through grace, all through the mercy of God acting sovereignly. That is the end in view.
Now, in the unseen something is going on in relation to that, and God is being served through the sufferings of His own people in this way, that He is being vindicated. What do we mean? We are the Lord's people and we have not only been saved in order to be saved, but, in that old, very hackneyed phrase, we have been "saved to serve." God knows that means a great deal more than most people thin when they talk about serving the Lord. Read the Book of Job and see what serving the Lord is. The very highest service that could be rendered to God was God's own vindication, the rights of God in man, God's vindication in creation. This was not a matter of running about, taking so many meetings, preaching all over the place and doing many things which are called service. Sometimes it means being stripped of everything and being put through a deep and terrible experience in which God can do something in us that makes possible the glorifying of humanity, investing man with glory so that, at the last, with a glorified humanity, God can say, "I am vindicated, I am justified in having created man. Does this not justify Me?"
While we, at the moment, cannot grasp all the eternal significance of it, we know this thing in principle. It is working out in principle in minute forms and ways with us. The Lord allows us to come into very deep and dark affliction and suffering where we are deprived and stripped of so much. We go down into the depths and satan seems to be having it all his own way, just riding over us. The Lord seems to be so far away and so hidden and yet, in His faithfulness, He is doing something in us. We do not know what it means. Our constant cry is, Why? Why this? We go through it and then we come out with measure, with spiritual wealth, with a new knowledge of the Lord; we come out with our souls purified into a new place with the Lord and as we look back on it we say, "Well, it was pretty bad, but it was worth it; it was terrible, but I have something which justifies it; I know today as I could not have known by any other way and really I justify God; I go down before the Lord, saying that He is right, He has effected something that would not have been effected in any other way and it is worth having. What is more, I am now in a position, like Job, to stand before God on behalf of others." There are others in desperate need and they are not going to get through. Job's friends could not get through with God and they would not have got through but for Job. He stood before God for them in a place of power and influence. God was right, after all, because of the outcome of that experience, the values that have come from it, the knowledge of the Lord, the spiritual strength, the ability to help others - that justifies God in His ways.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 8)
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Power With God # 6
Power With God # 6
Exemplified In Job
The Fellowship Of His Sufferings
Read: Job 1:6-11; 2:9, 10; 42:7, 8, 10
Job's Spiritual History
Job is introduced to us as a man in great fullness: fullness of possessions and of wealth, fullness of good works and of personal righteousness, and standing before God in acceptance. Then there begins a course in his experience, the meaning and the secret occasion of which is altogether hidden from him. He knows not the why nor the wherefore, but he finds himself suddenly in the course of being stripped of everything. One thing after another is stripped from him - all his possessions, all his relations, all his friends and all his righteousness which is of works - and with it all come the investing, the encompassing, the onrushing of those hostile forces with their suggestions of accusation, condemnation, judgment. There is an encompassing of spiritual antagonism and of a spirit of death, with God hidden, withdrawn behind the clouds, and Job is left stark, bare, apparently alone, a stripped and afflicted man, oppressed in spirit, bewildered in soul and in anguish of body. The circle of all his relationships narrows to the closest, the nearest - his own wife - who bide him renounce God and, in so doing, surrender his life, for that is what is meant. The man has come right down from a great height and a great fullness to a very deep depth of utter emptiness, weakness, helplessness, and is as good as dead.
In the course of that history a transition takes place. You can hardly perceive it, but it does take place. It is a transaction from a righteousness which is of works to the righteousness which is of faith. Whereas earlier he pleads his own cause on the basis of his own righteousness and his own works, you find him being stripped of all that and at the end of it all he is saying, "Wherefore I abhor myself" (Job. 42:6). And yet he is still holding on to God, but this is a righteousness which has no foundation in his own goodness and works now. It is a righteousness which is by faith in the mercy of God. With that transition, that change from one basis to another, something else has happened. satan has gradually been edged out of court. At the beginning satan is there in full power - or almost so - with a great deal of liberty, doing pretty much as he likes. Then there is an almost imperceptible point at which satan has stepped out of the scene and Job is left alone with God. satan has had all his ground taken away, he has had to withdraw and give up the fight, he is completely worsted. Then comes resurrection from the dead into a place of new spiritual power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way, investing Job with a new fullness which is not now the fullness of his own works, but the fullness of Divine grace; not the fruit of his own labors, but the gift of God; not what he himself has brought about, but what God has given him. That is Job's spiritual history in a few words.
Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation
In saying that, we are able to look further and discern Another, a greater than Job, standing in His own fullness and in all His own rights, accepted with God, of whom God could say "There is not another - not only in the earth, but in the universe - like Him." And then, because there is something in the universe that is evil, something that has to be undone, to be robbed of its power and put out of court, that One in all His fullness is steadily stripped and laid bare in the vortex of this terrible controversy. Picturesque words are used to describe these forces of evil. "They compassed me about like bees" (Psalm 118:12). The whole scene is set in a spiritual realm where the forces of evil are rampant, accusing, condemning, judging, appraising. It is an atmosphere of terrible antagonism and terrible spiritual death. He is brought right down, "crucified through weakness" (2 Cor. 13:4), stripped stark naked, emptied, with God's face hidden behind the cloud. "Thou hast forsaken Me!" You can almost hear that in Job from time to time, "Thou hast forsaken me!" How much more real was that in the case of this greater One. "Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15). They are ruled out of court, the great spiritual opposition has been brought low. And up from the grave He arose, back to a place of new power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way and make Him a minister to His own brethren with a new significance, investing Him with all the heavenly fullness. It is in principle the same as Job's experience.
Paul's Stripping and Filling
The principle is repeated in limited, much more limited, ways. Read that little Letter to the Philippians and hear the Apostle speaking about the fullness which was his, the righteousness of works. He could speak about being full, about the time when he had all things, things which were gain to him. And then this man was stripped of it all. There is no man in the New Testament who speaks more of his own unrighteousness and unworthiness and of the worthlessness of the righteousness by works than does Paul. He was stripped of it all, everything in this life, everything natural, his own ability to accomplish anything, to achieve anything. And yet, with all the suffering and all the terrific assaults of evil powers upon that man, we see him living in the power of a resurrection, of an ascension union with Christ which says, "I have all" (Phil. 4:18); "All things are yours" (1 Cor. 3:21). All things are ours. You see, this is the same principle.
Through Suffering To Glory
In saying that, you have got to the heart of this whole matter of what is power with God, what is the ground upon which God comes in. It is just contained in that phrase, through suffering to glory. Job suffered for the rights of God, that is the point. He did not know it, but that is what it meant.
What was all this about in heaven? satan had come to God and God had indicated His servant Job. "Hast thou considered My servant Job?" 'Oh, yes, I have considered him all right, I know all about Job!' - You can see the sneer, the leer - 'Yes, I know Job. There is not another like him in all the earth! H'm! Does Job serve God for nought? I have so spoiled all your work, God, that even the best among men have an ulterior motive. Even the best of men, as you would call them, on the earth are time-servers. You think that Job serves you because he is devoted to you? He is only serving you for what he gets out of you! You have not a man after all, even Job, who is so disinterested and selfless as to trust you and serve you without the idea of reward. I have spoiled the whole lot for you and your best are like that!' This is what is implied, this is the sneer of the devil, that he has spoiled God's work to the very last man, even to the best. 'All right,' says God, 'you claim to have wrecked and ruined all My creation, you claim that there is nothing whatever in the whole creation that will satisfy Me, that will provide Me with ground for My pleasure? I accept your challenge. I take away the hedge that you talk about. You go and touch him. Touch all that he has first of all.' You know the story. One thing rushes upon another. Read that first chapter again and see the repetition, "While he was yet speaking, there came another ..." Someone else came with another terrible tale of woe,one thing on another. Before one thing is through, there is another. All that he has is taken - sons, daughters, cattle, camels, sheep, everything - yet, in all this, Job sinned NOT with his lips.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 7)
Exemplified In Job
The Fellowship Of His Sufferings
Read: Job 1:6-11; 2:9, 10; 42:7, 8, 10
Job's Spiritual History
Job is introduced to us as a man in great fullness: fullness of possessions and of wealth, fullness of good works and of personal righteousness, and standing before God in acceptance. Then there begins a course in his experience, the meaning and the secret occasion of which is altogether hidden from him. He knows not the why nor the wherefore, but he finds himself suddenly in the course of being stripped of everything. One thing after another is stripped from him - all his possessions, all his relations, all his friends and all his righteousness which is of works - and with it all come the investing, the encompassing, the onrushing of those hostile forces with their suggestions of accusation, condemnation, judgment. There is an encompassing of spiritual antagonism and of a spirit of death, with God hidden, withdrawn behind the clouds, and Job is left stark, bare, apparently alone, a stripped and afflicted man, oppressed in spirit, bewildered in soul and in anguish of body. The circle of all his relationships narrows to the closest, the nearest - his own wife - who bide him renounce God and, in so doing, surrender his life, for that is what is meant. The man has come right down from a great height and a great fullness to a very deep depth of utter emptiness, weakness, helplessness, and is as good as dead.
In the course of that history a transition takes place. You can hardly perceive it, but it does take place. It is a transaction from a righteousness which is of works to the righteousness which is of faith. Whereas earlier he pleads his own cause on the basis of his own righteousness and his own works, you find him being stripped of all that and at the end of it all he is saying, "Wherefore I abhor myself" (Job. 42:6). And yet he is still holding on to God, but this is a righteousness which has no foundation in his own goodness and works now. It is a righteousness which is by faith in the mercy of God. With that transition, that change from one basis to another, something else has happened. satan has gradually been edged out of court. At the beginning satan is there in full power - or almost so - with a great deal of liberty, doing pretty much as he likes. Then there is an almost imperceptible point at which satan has stepped out of the scene and Job is left alone with God. satan has had all his ground taken away, he has had to withdraw and give up the fight, he is completely worsted. Then comes resurrection from the dead into a place of new spiritual power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way, investing Job with a new fullness which is not now the fullness of his own works, but the fullness of Divine grace; not the fruit of his own labors, but the gift of God; not what he himself has brought about, but what God has given him. That is Job's spiritual history in a few words.
Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation
In saying that, we are able to look further and discern Another, a greater than Job, standing in His own fullness and in all His own rights, accepted with God, of whom God could say "There is not another - not only in the earth, but in the universe - like Him." And then, because there is something in the universe that is evil, something that has to be undone, to be robbed of its power and put out of court, that One in all His fullness is steadily stripped and laid bare in the vortex of this terrible controversy. Picturesque words are used to describe these forces of evil. "They compassed me about like bees" (Psalm 118:12). The whole scene is set in a spiritual realm where the forces of evil are rampant, accusing, condemning, judging, appraising. It is an atmosphere of terrible antagonism and terrible spiritual death. He is brought right down, "crucified through weakness" (2 Cor. 13:4), stripped stark naked, emptied, with God's face hidden behind the cloud. "Thou hast forsaken Me!" You can almost hear that in Job from time to time, "Thou hast forsaken me!" How much more real was that in the case of this greater One. "Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15). They are ruled out of court, the great spiritual opposition has been brought low. And up from the grave He arose, back to a place of new power, opening the door for God to come in in a new way and make Him a minister to His own brethren with a new significance, investing Him with all the heavenly fullness. It is in principle the same as Job's experience.
Paul's Stripping and Filling
The principle is repeated in limited, much more limited, ways. Read that little Letter to the Philippians and hear the Apostle speaking about the fullness which was his, the righteousness of works. He could speak about being full, about the time when he had all things, things which were gain to him. And then this man was stripped of it all. There is no man in the New Testament who speaks more of his own unrighteousness and unworthiness and of the worthlessness of the righteousness by works than does Paul. He was stripped of it all, everything in this life, everything natural, his own ability to accomplish anything, to achieve anything. And yet, with all the suffering and all the terrific assaults of evil powers upon that man, we see him living in the power of a resurrection, of an ascension union with Christ which says, "I have all" (Phil. 4:18); "All things are yours" (1 Cor. 3:21). All things are ours. You see, this is the same principle.
Through Suffering To Glory
In saying that, you have got to the heart of this whole matter of what is power with God, what is the ground upon which God comes in. It is just contained in that phrase, through suffering to glory. Job suffered for the rights of God, that is the point. He did not know it, but that is what it meant.
What was all this about in heaven? satan had come to God and God had indicated His servant Job. "Hast thou considered My servant Job?" 'Oh, yes, I have considered him all right, I know all about Job!' - You can see the sneer, the leer - 'Yes, I know Job. There is not another like him in all the earth! H'm! Does Job serve God for nought? I have so spoiled all your work, God, that even the best among men have an ulterior motive. Even the best of men, as you would call them, on the earth are time-servers. You think that Job serves you because he is devoted to you? He is only serving you for what he gets out of you! You have not a man after all, even Job, who is so disinterested and selfless as to trust you and serve you without the idea of reward. I have spoiled the whole lot for you and your best are like that!' This is what is implied, this is the sneer of the devil, that he has spoiled God's work to the very last man, even to the best. 'All right,' says God, 'you claim to have wrecked and ruined all My creation, you claim that there is nothing whatever in the whole creation that will satisfy Me, that will provide Me with ground for My pleasure? I accept your challenge. I take away the hedge that you talk about. You go and touch him. Touch all that he has first of all.' You know the story. One thing rushes upon another. Read that first chapter again and see the repetition, "While he was yet speaking, there came another ..." Someone else came with another terrible tale of woe,one thing on another. Before one thing is through, there is another. All that he has is taken - sons, daughters, cattle, camels, sheep, everything - yet, in all this, Job sinned NOT with his lips.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 7)
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Power With God # 5
Power With God # 5
Exemplified in Daniel
Read Ezekiel 14:12-14; 19, 20; Jeremiah 15:1
The situation in relation to which these Scriptures occur is indeed a desperate one; it is one of hopeless extremity. God is represented as stating that He Himself has come to the end of His human resources as far as the salvation of His people is concerned. He says that there is not a man who could avert the judgment which must come upon Israel. In such a state He says that if that averting were possible there were certain five men who could do it; and in mentioning the fire by name - "Moses, Samuel" (Jer. 15:1). "Noah, Daniel, Job" (Ezekiel 14:13-14). He pinpoints that which those men signify which would prevail with Him, if anything could do so.
We are therefore seeking to put our finger upon that particular feature and factor which God Himself indicates as having power with Him up to the last degree. We have considered Noah, now we move to the second in the order in Ezekiel - Daniel.
Incidentally, it is impressive that, with the acceptance of Ezekiel by Hebrew authorities for inclusion in the Old Testament Canon, they should have made such heavy weather over including Daniel. Only after much debate and controversy was Daniel admitted to a place in the Bible by those higher critics. The reasons for this attitude are full of interest, but not to be considered here. The point is that, as always, prejudice results in contradiction and inconsistency. Admit Ezekiel, yes, but overlook the fact that in Ezekiel God sets the very highest importance upon one whom you will not admit without a battle - Daniel.
From Noah To Daniel
It is a very far cry from Noah to Daniel. Noah stands in the Book of beginnings - Genesis; Daniel stands so near the end of the Old Testament era. Are we straining the truth when we say that that fact really brings us to the very significance of Daniel as an ultimate factor in power with God? We must remember that when God speaks there are very deep and eternal thoughts beneath His words; they are "spiritual" thoughts. We have seen that with Noah the vast eternal and fundamental spiritual truth of the righteousness which is by faith was the power by which believers were delivered from universal judgment and secured a new, regenerate world. How far-reaching that truth is in the light of the New Testament 'Genesis' - the Letter to the Romans! If that is foundational and at the beginning, what is it that is ultimate as indicated by Daniel?
The book which bears his name may be regarded as a book of history and apocalypse, of prophecy, and history written in advance; but that is surely not the point made by God when He singled out Daniel as a man of pre-eminence in power with Him. No, we must think again.
We have to begin by reminding ourselves of why Daniel was in Babylon at all; that is, why the people of Israel were there. That brings us to the point that Daniel was physically and temporally - though not spiritually - involved in Israel's situation and condition. Was it not because Israel had forsaken their high and distinct position as God's "Peculiar People?" All distinctiveness of life and testimony as "not reckoned among the nations" had been wholly violated and forsaken. They had become like Babylon before they were in Babylon. They were not only in the world, they had become of it. To this position and condition Daniel reacted with deliberation, positiveness, and faithfulness. His decision regarding the king's meat; his refusal to bow to the king's image; his persistence in rejecting the king's edict about praying to any other god; and his acceptance of the penalties of all this - in fellowship with his other three friends - was all related to one principle. From the lips of the king himself were forced words which precisely and concisely embodied that principle: "The heavens do rule." The inclusive truth of Daniel, in himself and in the effect of his life with God in secret (remembering that it is in age of "the times of the gentiles," that is, the era when the "kingdoms of this world" are in world power), is that after all "the heavens do rule," and that any power with God over "the world rulers of this darkness" demands a heavenly position on the part of any vehicle of that power.
This means, as in the case of Daniel:
Absolute Spiritual Distinctiveness
of his life and testimony, at whatever cost.
It may involve the lion's den, and there are many kinds of lions dens. It may mean the fiery furnace, and there are many kinds of fiery furnace. It may be the fire of jealousy and spite on the part of men, as with David. In His great and spiritually instructive prayer (John 17) Jesus had very much to say about the world as the enemy of His Church. How He prayed for the Church to be saved from the world; to abide in its "out of the world" position, and so be kept from the evil one. This kind of praying was based upon His immediately preceding words: "I have overcome the world," and this because (as seen throughout that Gospel) He Himself maintained His heavenly position.
It is therefore so impressive and significant that the Letter which speaks so forcefully about the Church's warfare with "world rulers" is the Letter which is based wholly upon the heavenly position of the Church. The measure of powerlessness in the Church, in preaching, in the prayer-life, in the testimony, within and without, will be determined by the measure of the "world" in the methods, means, behavior, habits, accommodation, compromise, etc., in its members and corporate life.
This is an age of imitation of the world by the Church, and the power of the Church is pathetically small. If the Church were what it is really meant to there would be neither need nor thought for imitating the world. We have to recover "the rule of the heavens" by recovering our heavenly position spiritually.
Daniel is a kind of summary of the Old Testament and a prophetic voice to the New. The one battleground of all the Old Testament is that of the heavenly distinctiveness of the people of God. That battle was lost in Israel, and the hopelessness of their position as a whole nation (apart from the Remnant) at the end, with the desolating judgment of God, was on this one issue - compromise with the world! The Lord has thus thundered in history and through all the Prophets to warn His Church of the calamity of this lost distinctiveness through compromise with the world. The whole Gospel of John, his Letters, and the Letters of Paul make unmistakably clear three things:
One: there is a "prince of this world"; a "Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience"; that "the whole world lieth in the wicked one," etc.
Two: that there is a spiritual realm where Christ is Lord, and NOT satan, and where "the prince of this world (has been) cast out." Into that realm, by birth "from above", believers have been related and spiritually, inwardly, located, so that, as Jesus said: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
Three: there is a fierce and relentless warfare between the two realms and their two Lords. But the point is this: satan, for any success at all, must have his own ground. Therefore, to rob Christians and the Church of prevailing power, he must get Christians and the Church in some way, on some point or points, on to his own ground - this world.
Why did Daniel "determine" not to touch the provision from the king's table? Why did he and his friends refuse to have anything to do with the king's image? Why did he keep his prayer window open three times a day? It was all to avoid compromise with the world and its god, and to maintain his link with heaven. He knew that such as the secret of spiritual power, and he is the very personification of the law of power with God.
If we were desperately concerned about power with God in life and testimony, we should be stretched out to know by the Holy Spirit where "Achan" (Josh. 7:1) links, contacts and ground are in our lives, sabotaging our spiritual strength. The Holy Spirit would be very faithfully say: "There, here, this that!"
Power is a matter of position.
Have you noticed how dominant in Daniel is the phrase "The End" (11:27, 35; 12:4, 13)? This spiritual position to prevail is peculiarly characteristic of the end, and who shall say that it is not the issue in our time? The Church is feverishly trying to recover power, but is it by spiritual position?
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 6 - Exemplified In Job)
Exemplified in Daniel
Read Ezekiel 14:12-14; 19, 20; Jeremiah 15:1
The situation in relation to which these Scriptures occur is indeed a desperate one; it is one of hopeless extremity. God is represented as stating that He Himself has come to the end of His human resources as far as the salvation of His people is concerned. He says that there is not a man who could avert the judgment which must come upon Israel. In such a state He says that if that averting were possible there were certain five men who could do it; and in mentioning the fire by name - "Moses, Samuel" (Jer. 15:1). "Noah, Daniel, Job" (Ezekiel 14:13-14). He pinpoints that which those men signify which would prevail with Him, if anything could do so.
We are therefore seeking to put our finger upon that particular feature and factor which God Himself indicates as having power with Him up to the last degree. We have considered Noah, now we move to the second in the order in Ezekiel - Daniel.
Incidentally, it is impressive that, with the acceptance of Ezekiel by Hebrew authorities for inclusion in the Old Testament Canon, they should have made such heavy weather over including Daniel. Only after much debate and controversy was Daniel admitted to a place in the Bible by those higher critics. The reasons for this attitude are full of interest, but not to be considered here. The point is that, as always, prejudice results in contradiction and inconsistency. Admit Ezekiel, yes, but overlook the fact that in Ezekiel God sets the very highest importance upon one whom you will not admit without a battle - Daniel.
From Noah To Daniel
It is a very far cry from Noah to Daniel. Noah stands in the Book of beginnings - Genesis; Daniel stands so near the end of the Old Testament era. Are we straining the truth when we say that that fact really brings us to the very significance of Daniel as an ultimate factor in power with God? We must remember that when God speaks there are very deep and eternal thoughts beneath His words; they are "spiritual" thoughts. We have seen that with Noah the vast eternal and fundamental spiritual truth of the righteousness which is by faith was the power by which believers were delivered from universal judgment and secured a new, regenerate world. How far-reaching that truth is in the light of the New Testament 'Genesis' - the Letter to the Romans! If that is foundational and at the beginning, what is it that is ultimate as indicated by Daniel?
The book which bears his name may be regarded as a book of history and apocalypse, of prophecy, and history written in advance; but that is surely not the point made by God when He singled out Daniel as a man of pre-eminence in power with Him. No, we must think again.
We have to begin by reminding ourselves of why Daniel was in Babylon at all; that is, why the people of Israel were there. That brings us to the point that Daniel was physically and temporally - though not spiritually - involved in Israel's situation and condition. Was it not because Israel had forsaken their high and distinct position as God's "Peculiar People?" All distinctiveness of life and testimony as "not reckoned among the nations" had been wholly violated and forsaken. They had become like Babylon before they were in Babylon. They were not only in the world, they had become of it. To this position and condition Daniel reacted with deliberation, positiveness, and faithfulness. His decision regarding the king's meat; his refusal to bow to the king's image; his persistence in rejecting the king's edict about praying to any other god; and his acceptance of the penalties of all this - in fellowship with his other three friends - was all related to one principle. From the lips of the king himself were forced words which precisely and concisely embodied that principle: "The heavens do rule." The inclusive truth of Daniel, in himself and in the effect of his life with God in secret (remembering that it is in age of "the times of the gentiles," that is, the era when the "kingdoms of this world" are in world power), is that after all "the heavens do rule," and that any power with God over "the world rulers of this darkness" demands a heavenly position on the part of any vehicle of that power.
This means, as in the case of Daniel:
Absolute Spiritual Distinctiveness
of his life and testimony, at whatever cost.
It may involve the lion's den, and there are many kinds of lions dens. It may mean the fiery furnace, and there are many kinds of fiery furnace. It may be the fire of jealousy and spite on the part of men, as with David. In His great and spiritually instructive prayer (John 17) Jesus had very much to say about the world as the enemy of His Church. How He prayed for the Church to be saved from the world; to abide in its "out of the world" position, and so be kept from the evil one. This kind of praying was based upon His immediately preceding words: "I have overcome the world," and this because (as seen throughout that Gospel) He Himself maintained His heavenly position.
It is therefore so impressive and significant that the Letter which speaks so forcefully about the Church's warfare with "world rulers" is the Letter which is based wholly upon the heavenly position of the Church. The measure of powerlessness in the Church, in preaching, in the prayer-life, in the testimony, within and without, will be determined by the measure of the "world" in the methods, means, behavior, habits, accommodation, compromise, etc., in its members and corporate life.
This is an age of imitation of the world by the Church, and the power of the Church is pathetically small. If the Church were what it is really meant to there would be neither need nor thought for imitating the world. We have to recover "the rule of the heavens" by recovering our heavenly position spiritually.
Daniel is a kind of summary of the Old Testament and a prophetic voice to the New. The one battleground of all the Old Testament is that of the heavenly distinctiveness of the people of God. That battle was lost in Israel, and the hopelessness of their position as a whole nation (apart from the Remnant) at the end, with the desolating judgment of God, was on this one issue - compromise with the world! The Lord has thus thundered in history and through all the Prophets to warn His Church of the calamity of this lost distinctiveness through compromise with the world. The whole Gospel of John, his Letters, and the Letters of Paul make unmistakably clear three things:
One: there is a "prince of this world"; a "Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience"; that "the whole world lieth in the wicked one," etc.
Two: that there is a spiritual realm where Christ is Lord, and NOT satan, and where "the prince of this world (has been) cast out." Into that realm, by birth "from above", believers have been related and spiritually, inwardly, located, so that, as Jesus said: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
Three: there is a fierce and relentless warfare between the two realms and their two Lords. But the point is this: satan, for any success at all, must have his own ground. Therefore, to rob Christians and the Church of prevailing power, he must get Christians and the Church in some way, on some point or points, on to his own ground - this world.
Why did Daniel "determine" not to touch the provision from the king's table? Why did he and his friends refuse to have anything to do with the king's image? Why did he keep his prayer window open three times a day? It was all to avoid compromise with the world and its god, and to maintain his link with heaven. He knew that such as the secret of spiritual power, and he is the very personification of the law of power with God.
If we were desperately concerned about power with God in life and testimony, we should be stretched out to know by the Holy Spirit where "Achan" (Josh. 7:1) links, contacts and ground are in our lives, sabotaging our spiritual strength. The Holy Spirit would be very faithfully say: "There, here, this that!"
Power is a matter of position.
Have you noticed how dominant in Daniel is the phrase "The End" (11:27, 35; 12:4, 13)? This spiritual position to prevail is peculiarly characteristic of the end, and who shall say that it is not the issue in our time? The Church is feverishly trying to recover power, but is it by spiritual position?
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 6 - Exemplified In Job)
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