The Rule of the Heavens # 6

The Rule of the Heavens # 6 

This is just where we should finish, is it not? Light was given at the beginning: much light came in fully through the Apostle Paul. Most of it has been lost, or it has been lost in the main for the people of God through the ages, but God has been slowly recovering it, bringing it back bit by bit. And does it not strike you as significant that the Lord has so mightily recovered the testimony to the truth of the Coming Again of the Lord Jesus, and then brought in on top of that, and is bringing in on top of that, His emphasis about the Church the Body of Christ? Those two things go together. The remnant is related to the Advent.

Well, now we just close here for the present on this. The Lord is out to perfect that instrument of and in the testimony as to the Coming Sovereign One, and to bring that instrument as He brought the instrument in the Book of Daniel, into a living and experimental relationship to Himself for the age-purpose. How practical things were with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - very practical. The Lord wrought the testimony in them and through them by deep, deep experience. That is a foreshadowing, making the testimony a matter of life and death. And that is where we are. God is seeking to bring about a conformity to the light at the end.

May the Lord give you hearts that are able to hold all that is in His thought important for this time. This has only been surveying a very broad outlook in order that we may have something to work after.

The Testimony And Its Vessel Unto The Time Of the End

Hell's Hatred Of the Vessel of Testimony

Having covered the ground in general survey and main outline we are not able to begin to work more closely on the spiritual aspect of those things. We want to come into closer touch with out title in its meaning, that is, "The testimony and its vessel unto the time of the end."

I want to just touch one or two fragments of this book before we go on. Daniel 1:21 - "And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus." Try and keep that in mind, for it is a very important statement. Daniel 7:9011: - "I beheld till thrones were placed and One that was the Ancient of Days did sit: His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool: His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire" etc. 7:13-14, 22 - "...and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." 7:18 - "But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom ..." 7:27: "... and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High..." 10:1, 12:13 -"But go thou thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, and shall stand in thy lot at the end of the days."

We have been saying that this book reveals that throughout an extended period of this world's history, known as the "Times of the Gentiles," the heavens are in operation in relation to a vessel of the testimony of the Lord, and that inasmuch as the heavens are in operation in that connection, hell is also stirred up and is tremendously active in the same direction.

The Mighty Significance Of The Insignificant

Now what we have to see is not only that vessel, but how it fulfills its ministry in relation to the Lord's testimony in this time. And that vessel, we have said, is represented in this book by Daniel and his three companions. There are these two things; the world, under Divine planning, governed by Gentile powers, for the most part hostile to the Lord, antagonistic to the Lord's purposes, but in the midst thereof that which is related to the Lord and His purpose, and joined to the heavens - through which the heavens are ruling in the midst of the kingdoms of men; and what comes out in this Book of Daniel very clearly is, that while the Gentile powers are operating, and operating strongly, in opposition to God, God is imminent in His instrument and that instrument is really ruling in the midst of the world powers and bringing in that which speaks of the superior and transcendent government of the heavens. Now that is a very simple statement, but it has bound up with it  tremendous things for us and for the people of God. It is no small thing to see that right there in the heart of the great dominating world system, the organized systems of this world governing the earth, there is a small thing, out of proportion to that system in its natural constitution, which so represents the supremacy of the heavens over the earth that although that world system goes just as far as it can, and the spiritual forces back of it, to bring to an end that apparently small and insignificant thing at its center, it is said of that, firstly, that continued unto the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia, continued unto then. Then there is seen that testimony right at the end of everything, the last thing when the pageant of the empires has passed, mighty empires rising, having their day, dominating, waning, passing; and they have all come and they have all gone and they have spent themselves to the full, the instrument of that testimony stands at the end of the day: "Thou... shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days." And then withal the kingdom handed to the saints of the Most High and they take the government. That instrument, that vessel, is no insignificant thing; it may appear to be to the natural eye,comparatively from human standpoints it may be a mere nothing, but it is the instrument of heaven's rule and government and it is something which is greater than all the world-powers with all the satanic forces behind them.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 7)