The Rule of the Heavens # 7

The Rule of the Heavens # 7

Hell's Hatred of the Vessel of Testimony, continued -

Now that is saying immense things, beloved, immense things. Do you catch something of the application of that yourself?  Do you realize and recognize that you in all the weakness, the feebleness, the poverty, the insignificance of your own personal life, your own human constitution, your position, if vitally, truly linked in with God's eternal purpose in and concerning His Son Jesus Christ, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, called by grace and having responded to that call, a partaker of the heavenly calling, you are moving with God in the Holy Spirit. If that is true of you then you are a part of that vessel through which the government of the heavens is being made manifest in the unseen, and vitally related to the course of this world's history, giving significance to all the happenings of the course of this world; that you are spiritually what Daniel and his three companions were in Babylon. What was that? The vehicle, vessel, instrument, for showing that God and the kingdom of the God of the heavens is a mightier thing than all the force and power of men and devils combined. That is no small calling for you or for me, we are in that,and mark you, that involves this - if my interpretation of the Scripture is right (and there is a great deal more than the Book of Daniel with which to support it) - it involves this, that when the devil has done all that he can do, and men have done all that they can do against us, that testimony which we represent is going to abide to the end and we are going to stand upon the wreck and ruin of all the world empires triumphant in that testimony in Christ, indestructible. Let them kindle the fires seven times, let them starve their lions! Now this is not romancing, this is the meaning of the issue of the testimony in the power of Christ's resurrection. That is the thing you and I are called unto, the power of His resurrection, which is to have its final manifestation in a company who have conquered death, and the authority of death, or in whom the Son of God has conquered death. That is the meaning of the fire and the Son of God in the midst (Daniel 6).

Oh, that something of that might just dawn upon you, for we are here today in no small thing. Tremendous things have gathered us here at this time and there is a very great deal of history back of our being here.

Daniel continued unto the first year of king Cyrus. When was that? Open your Book of Ezra and how does Ezra begin? "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia" (Ezra 1:1; Daniel 1:21). What did he do? Gave command for the return of the Jews to their land, opened the way and facilitated the return of the remnant, the recovery of the testimony. Daniel continued unto then. He must have been an old man, but that very fact is a declaration which spites hell,for Babylon sought to engulf Daniel.

The powers of evil back of Babylon marked Daniel out for destruction. Oh, you can see it. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream, sent for all his wise men to interpret - no one could, impulsively he commanded that they all should be destroyed, and it says: "And they sought Daniel and his companions to be slain." That means Daniel was a marked man by those who had this power in their hands. Why does it say: "And they sought Daniel and his companions to be slain" (Daniel 2:12). Well, he was not one of the Chaldean or Babylonian wise men or magicians, but they included him and his friends.  They had not asked him if he could interpret the dream, they had not given him a chance, but they sought to kill him. You see the impulsiveness of hell back of that, to get four men who had not been given a chance, to kill them, to sweep them in, to stampede this whole thing in order to get those four men. That is what Herod did; he swept in all the babes in order to get one. That is what Pharaoh did. This is hell's method, just to get one, to engulf the vessel of the testimony. We know the fiery furnace and the den of lions. We know from this book of the animus (enmity, hostility) in the hearts of men toward these. How they were scheming and designing so that they could entrap them, catch them, get rid of them. How they gloated over the signing of that command by the king which could not be cancelled and had to go  through when Daniel was caught. How they gloated over it. "Now we have got him." Well, that is there coming from the spiritual background, but: "Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus." Why is that added just there? Why is that put in? Is that only just a little bit of historic information thrown in for narrative? No, the Holy Spirit is saying something tremendous. Daniel, continued. Then when all this is passed, they have done their worst: "...and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days." The vessel of the testimony will be there when all else is spent. It continues unto the end; it is indestructible, it is of the nature of the permanence of heaven. It does not mean we may not die, although we may not be executed, - but never was a vessel of the testimony more alive than the Apostle Paul today. He was executed. He will stand in his lot at the end.

This is a spiritual principle, a spiritual truth, and the point that I am seeking to get at is this, beloved, there has got to be something in our relationship to heaven and God's specific  purpose which makes possible the manifestation of that mighty, devil-conquering life in us. We have got to know the power of His resurrection. That is essential to the vessel of the testimony at the end time, unto the end, to get through to the end: it means that we must be that in which the power of His resurrection is manifested. That is not merely an obligation; that is a privilege. It is a costly privilege, but that is what the Lord needs.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 8)