The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 14

The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 14

Life For Our Vocation, continued -

These things may seem very simple to you, but they are very important and real.

The passage that the Lord used in answering satan is from Deuteronomy 8:2 and 3, and you need to look at the setting of it. It is at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, and says: "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not,neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live".

What have we here? The people are not going into the wilderness now, for they are going over Jordan into the land, but there is a history behind them. For forty years God has proved that there is a life other than the natural. Do you not think that is a good thing? You might say to me: 'You are talking about this Divine life, but prove it.' Well, I can give you more than forty years - but no, I am not talking about myself. I am talking about the history of the Church, and that is two thousand years. Has the Church continued through these many centuries by its own strength? Has the Church been in many a wilderness? Has there been much starvation? Yes, again and again the Church has been in a terrible wilderness, with death all around, and with nothing in this world to support it. It could have died again and again, but it has not died. It is alive today, and there is a great history of the Lord's support. And what is true of the Church is true of the history of many a believer. Many of you could say: 'If it had been left to me I would have been dead today. My very survival is a testimony to something supernatural.' Is that true? Oh, yes, it is true, and it has to be true to the end.

So here we have a history behind what the Lord Jesus is saying, and He is able to put the strong proof of history into His words when He answers satan.

Now the Lord Jesus is in a wilderness, but what is He going to have to meet in the next three and a half years? I do not think that satan is going to stop at anything to kill the testimony of Divine life in Jesus. Again and again he makes an attack upon His life in every possible way in order to quench the testimony of Jesus, but He goes through. He lives, and He lives today, for that Divine life has triumphed over everything.

That biography has to be written in your heart and in mine. We are in a wilderness - or do you think that your Christian life is the Garden of Eden, with everything so lovely and with everything in the world that you can want? Is that how it is with you? Well, of course, it is very nice here at Hilterfingen, but you know quite well that you have to go back. You may feel like Peter: "Let us build three tabernacles and stay in Hilterfingen for the rest of our lives!", but it may rain next week, and, even if it does not, you know you have to go back to your difficult situation. That may be very much like a spiritual wilderness, but you have this great truth: there is Divine life, which is a different life, an extra life, and you can live by that life wherever you are.

I suppose there are few more difficult situations than those in which our dear brother Watchman Nee has been for eighteen years. As far as we know, he is alive, and I believe that his spiritual testimony is still alive - and that is a miracle. We may not have his experience, but we may know the wilderness, and God can prepare a table in the wilderness.

The point, then, of the first temptation was this: Would the Lord Jesus use His own powers to save His own life,or would He depend upon God? Later on He will say: "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it" (Matt. 10:39), and that is the principle. satan has failed on that ground, so he is going to change his position, for he is not giving up yet.

The Methods Of Fulfilling Our Vocation

Now we come on to the methods of fulfilling our vocation. satan took the Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said: "Cast Thyself down." Now satan quotes Scripture, trying to take Christ's own ground and defeat Him there. 'You believe in the Scripture, do You? You are thinking of the Word of God. All right! Now it is written: "He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee: and on their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone". I say that satan misquotes the Scripture, for is that what Psalm 91 really says? If you read that Psalm you will find that satan left out the most important clause: "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways". There are some ways in which the Lord will not keep people, but satan leaves that out.

See, satan is quoting Psalm 91, and what are "the ways" in that Psalm? I think it is very impressive and almost humorous. That Psalm begins by saying: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High," and that is the man referred to throughout the Psalm. Jesus had chosen to make His dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, and every Christian knows what that is. You have a hidden life with God, and you abide in that. Have you a hidden life with God, a life that this world does not see, a sanctuary with God, a secret place with the Most High? Will you come out from that? You see the subtlety of satan! 'Come out from Your secret place and adopt some worldly methods of fulfilling Your vocation! Cast Yourself down and everybody will say: "This is something very wonderful!," and You will have all the people in Jerusalem rushing to You. They will say that You have come down from heaven, and You will be the most popular man in Palestine!' - and it will have been done by a trick.

It would mean that the Lord Jesus was party to something in the natural man which likes to have evidences and proofs, for, you see, everyone in Jerusalem sought for a sign. They said to Him: 'Show us a sign and we will believe. Give us some evidence. Give us some proof that we can see and we will be Your followers.' This is the temptation: Use some methods in the work of the Lord which will make you popular,something that will appeal to the sensational in man, some tricks.

Do you see what I am talking about? Is this not what the Church is trying to do? It is trying to recover its lost power by a lot of tricks, by playing to this thing in man that wants the sensational. Surely we can see that this is what is happening! The methods that are employed in the work of God to attract the crowds, to get big meetings, are to satisfy this desire for proofs and evidences. Perhaps never in the history of the world has thee been so much of this. I do not want to be critical, nor to judge too much, but I have a very great question about a lot of things that are employed to try to make the work of God successful.

That was what was in this pinnacle of the temple. You will get the crowds if you do that kind of thing, but you may come out from the secret place of the Most High, that hidden place from the world is the place of power.

I can only just drop these hints, but I know what I am talking about, and I do believe, dear friends, that all we need is the power of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel. I do not believe that it is necessary to have all this other stuff. I believe that where there is reality, people who really want reality will go there, and people who do not want reality, well, just let them stay away! Perhaps you do not agree with that, but I am talking on Divine principles, on the principles of the life of Jesus Christ, and I am saying that these principles of Christ have to be written in His Church.

The Purpose Of Our Vocation

We come to the third temptation, and satan is now moving his position. He is gradually being uncovered and it is now going to be manifest what it is he is rally after. He himself knows what he has been after all the time, and he has been moving steadily towards it. He took the Lord Jesus up into a very high mountain. I do not know, of course, how that was done, though I do not think that it was done literally. I think that the Lord Jesus was seeing all this in a spiritual way. However, in that high mountain satan showed the Lord Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said: 'I will give You all this if You will fall down and worship me.' Ah, now it has come out! satan knows what Jesus Christ has come into this world for, and that is to bring in the Kingdom of God. He knows that this One is destined to be the  Divinely appointed Lord of the universe. If satan knew the Scriptures in Deuteronomy and Psalm 91, he also knew them in Psalm 2, which shows the final exaltation of God's Son. satan knew that before the world was, His demons know this One, for on one occasion they said to Him: "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God?" (Luke 8:28). So the ultimate issue is world dominion, and that is the one thing that satan is against, for he is the god of this world and he is not going to have that position taken from him by anyone.

But see how clever he is! 'I will give it all to You without You having to go to the Cross. You can have it all without suffering if only You will do one thing - put me in the place of Your God and worship me. And if You do that I know quite well that You will not get the kingdoms of the world. My kingdom is established, and what You came for will be defeated.' That is what lies behind it all, but what is satan really saying? 'Compromise with me as the prince of this world' - and if we compromise with this world we are going to lose our spiritual dominion now and afterwards. You see, it is the Church that is going to reign.

There are some things in the Bible that I do not understand. For one thing I do not understand what Paul meant when he said: "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?... Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:2-3). I do not really understand that, but I do know that it is in keeping with the whole revelation of the New Testament: "If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him" 92 Tim. 2:12). He will give us the Throne with Himself.

That is what we are called to, and is the purpose of the vocation: to govern this world in the place of satan. Is that not a tremendous thing? That is the destiny of the Church. So satan sees that the way to defeat that destiny is to compromise with the world, but you cannot cast out satan by satan, nor can you cast out the world by the world. The Church has tried to do that, and it has lost its position and its power. It is in a poor state today,and the reason is that it has compromised with this world. It may have had a right motive - trying to win the world on its own grounds - but you will never overcome the world by worldly means and methods.

"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God ONLY.' You must give Him the supreme place in this universe. 'And Him only shalt thou serve.' not satan, not the world.

What is the service of God? Remember Mary's service - bringing the Lord into His right place, taking ground for the Lord and holding it for Him. But what a battle! The enemy and all his powers are set against it, but thank God for the anointing! It is said that the Spirit which had come upon Him drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, but it does not say 'to be defeated by the devil'. He was anointed to test out the strength of this great enemy and break it, and the anointing carried Him through to victory.

Dear friends, we have the anointing. Let us believe in it! There is nothing impossible with the anointing: "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6).

~T. Austin-Sparks~

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