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T. Austin-Sparks - on Prophetic

Contents

The Amen

The Burden of the Valley of Vision

The Candlestick all of Gold

A Child Over the Nations

The Final Call of God

"For Such a Time as This"

The Fountain and the Cisterns

A Good Man in Danger

"I Will Overturn"

Is the Great "Shaking" at Hand?

Jealousy for God

Keeping Christ in View

A Message for the Hour

The Ministry of Elijah

The Necessity of Giving Earnest Heed to the Things That Have Been Heard

The Need of the Hour

Oil for the Light

One of the Greatest Needs

The Only Reality

A Peculiar Vessel

Portents of the Day of the Lord

The Removing of Those Things That Are Shaken

The Saving Power of Divine Vision

Set for a Sign

Things Which Will Be Shaken

Truth in The Inward Parts

Understanding of the Times

Vision and Vocation

A Vital Ministry in a Day of Transition

The Voice of the Son of God

"Watchman, What of the Night?"

What We See

The Amen

"These things saith the Amen" (Rev. 3:14).

The last message to the Church is from the One who selects for Himself from His many titles and designations the one that embodies everything that is affirmative, positive, and definite.

"Amen" is not only an ejaculation or form of assent, it is a Divine title, and in the title there is - as always - a character, a definition. In Isaiah 65:16, "the God of truth" is literally "the God of Amen". When Jesus so often said, "Verily, verily", He used this very word, "Amen, Amen", thus conveying the meaning that what He was and said was of the character of absolute certainty, perfect assurance, and unmistakable positiveness.

Eventually He gathered all into the personal title - "the Amen". This, alongside of its definition, "the faithful and true witness", gives a forceful significance to the message of the context, and becomes the message itself. It stands in vivid contrast to the conditions existing.

Although not universally, yet quite widely, the interpretation of the messages to the seven churches is thought to be historical and future: that is, that they not only relate to the first Christian century, but cover the whole Church dispensation and represent phases and stages of the spiritual life of the Church at certain given times. Thus, such an interpretation gives to "Laodicea" an end-time application and describes the condition which will obtain at that time. It is not necessary to accept that interpretation, for whether it be right or not so, the message holds a test and a challenge for all time. It is important to get the whole significance of this challenge, for undoubtedly it indicates an ever-present tendency.

1. The Lord's Reaction to a Reactionary Movement

To fully grasp the meaning of the message to "Laodicea", we have to go back some years. There are two factors to bring forward.

(a) It is generally recognised and known that the two great letters of Paul called "to the Ephesians" and "to the Colossians" did not have such designations attached to them, but that they were circular letters for the churches in Asia (see, e.g., Col. 4:16). If this was the case, as we believe it to have been, then these were the greatest documents ever penned; and the greatest revelation ever given by God, as contained in those two letters, was given to these seven churches in Asia. That, at least, signified spiritual capacity and aliveness on their part, for the Lord does not give His fullest and best where there is little capacity, life or spirituality. They must have been tuned to this great heavenly key.

(b) The second thing is that terrible statement of Paul at the end of his life concerning these churches: "All that are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1:15). This is generally held to mean a doctrinal turning away; an adverse reaction to Paul and his teaching; and it is surely borne out by the things said to at least five of the seven churches, and by Paul's letters to Timothy, who had responsibility in Ephesus.

If this was true, then the messages, and the message to Laodicea in particular, represent the Lord's reaction to that reactionary movement. It is as though the Lord said (and here is the message for all time): 'I have given you a full revelation of My mind concerning Myself and the Church; you have that immense deposit, but you have turned from it. You may turn from the messenger, but you cannot get away either from the message or from the One who sent it. These things saith (not Paul but) "the Amen, the faithful and true witness" - the unalterable, unchanging, invincible One.'

The Church is responsible for what the Lord has given it, and will be judged accordingly.

2. The Inclusive Charge

"Neither hot nor cold"

How necessary it is for us rightly to appraise what this means. Surely the things of which Laodicea boasted did not come to them without some zeal or energetic activity on their part! These things do not just tumble into the lap without thought and concern. May there not have been many things there that today would be regarded as the marks of a vigorous, energetic, active and 'living' church? - indeed, a very prosperous church?

It depends upon the viewpoint and the standard that governs - whether the world's or the heavenly Lord's!

Here is a state which, from one standpoint, is defined as "rich, and in need of nothing". From the Lord's viewpoint it is judged to be spiritual mediocrity, and the very boast contains the constituents of that spiritual mediocrity. Spiritual contentment and complacency, the absence of a deep and strong sense of need and desire for what has never yet been attained, are such constituents, and the symptoms of spiritual invalidism.

The Lord said: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst..." (Matthew 5:6).

Paul said: 'I have not yet attained, but this one thing I do - I press on...' (Phil. 3:12-14).

Is it not possible to be very active, energetic, and zealous in good works, and yet be terribly deficient in spirituality?

Just look again at those two great letters of Paul. What wealth, what fulness, what power, what life, what light! This is the Lord's standard. Is the Church - or any church - living in the good of this? We must return to that presently.

But that is not all, nor the worst about "Laodicea".

"Thou knowest not..."

"Wretched" - "Miserable" - "Poor" - "Blind" - "Naked"

Can all these be true at one time and of one object, and yet - and yet - 'know it not'? It could hardly be true in the natural, but here is something worse than natural.

What is this constituent of spiritual mediocrity? It is spiritual insensitiveness.

One of the truest marks of a Holy-Spirit-governed life is spiritual sensitiveness. Such a life is finely strung to the gentle movements of the Spirit, and suffers much when the Spirit is grieved. But here is a state of which the Lord says it is all out of tune, and yet there is no sense of discord.

Look again at the letters mentioned. What riches, what sight, what clothing, what beauty, what glory! All this the Lord has provided, has given; but what a pathetic absence of a sense of loss - of poverty, nakedness, blindness - there is in the Church.

3. The Challenge

"I counsel thee to buy..." "Be zealous... repent..."

Here it is not the buying of salvation - that is "without money and, without price" - but it is the 'zeal' that repudiates mediocrity, complacency, and lukewarmness in a burning quest for that unto which we are saved. A false apprehension of even so great a thing as salvation can lead to untold loss. To make initial salvation an end in itself and to rest upon it as if it were all that mattered represents such a false apprehension.

The best exposition of this challenge and admonition is found in Paul's own words in Philippians, in which he shows how he would "buy... gold and white raiment... and eyesalve". They are the words of a truly saved man, and one who had full assurance of salvation.

"What things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ... Not that I have already obtained, or am already complete; but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:7,8,12). That is what the Lord would designate an 'Overcomer'.

We are led, then, to -

4. The Final Issue

The risen Lord having shown that, with a very great deal of what men may think important and successful within the church, it is terribly possible for Himself to be outside, He then discloses the "on high calling"; the "prize"; the object of the 'apprehending'.

"With me in my Throne"

A governmental union with Christ in the ages to come! Not only a heavenly citizen; certainly not one of those of whom Paul wrote to the Corinthians, as being "saved; yet so as by fire" - all else lost; but called to the highest place that Heaven affords believers - "in my throne". Unto this there may of necessity be "rebuke" and "chastening". It will be a disciplined, chastened people who will "attain" unto this completeness.

So we see the great contrast possible in Christian people, and hear our Lord say: 'Do not be satisfied with anything short of all that to which I have called you, and which I have made possible. Be a people of the "Amen" - very positive, utter, and abandoned.'

The alternatives are vivid: "Spew out", or "Sit... on my throne".

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith..."

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1956, Vol 34-4

The Burden of the Valley of Vision

Reading: Isaiah 22:1

The word ''burden'' here just does mean a load or weight, as much as a man can carry. Thus the Prophets felt what the Lord had shown them to be something that weighed heavily upon them and often overwhelmed them.

The prophetic function is brought into operation at a time when things are not well with the people and work of God, when declension has set in; when things have lost their distinctive Divine character; when there is a falling short or an accretion of features which were never intended by God. The Prophet in principle is one who represents, in himself and his vision, God's reaction to either a dangerous tendency or a positive deviation. He stands on God's full ground and the trend breaks on him. That which constitutes this prophetic function is spiritual perception, discernment, and insight. The Prophet sees, and he sees what others are not seeing. It is vision, and this vision is not just of an enterprise, a ''work,'' a venture; it is a state, a condition. It is not for the work as such that he is concerned, but for the spiritual state that dishonors and grieves the Lord.

This faculty of spiritual discernment makes the Prophet a very lonely man, and brings upon him all the charges of being singular, extreme, idealistic, unbalanced, spiritually proud, and even schismatic. He makes many enemies for himself. Sometimes he is not vindicated until after he has left the earthly scene of his testimony. Nevertheless, the Prophet is the instrument of keeping the Lord's full thought alive, and of maintaining vision without which the people are doomed to disintegration.

While it has so often been an individual with whom the Lord has deposited His fuller thought and made His prophetic vessel, it has also very frequently been a company of His people in which He has been more utterly represented. Such companies are seen scattered down the ages. They were the Lord's reactionary vessels. Such, surely, are the ''Overcomers'' of every ''end-time.'' The mass of Christians may be too taken up with the externals and accepted ways of Christianity; too spiritually satisfied with the lesser; too bound by tradition and fettered by the established order. The Lord cannot do His full thing with them because He does not put His new wine into old wineskins; the skins would burst and the life be wasted, not conserved to definite purpose. He finds Himself limited by an order which, while it may have been right at a certain time and for a certain period to carry His testimony up to a certain point, yet now remains as the fixed bound, and for want of an essential adjustableness His fuller purposes are impossible of realization. So it was with Judaism, so it has become with Christianity, and so it is with many an instrumentality which has been greatly used by Him. There is no finality with us here, and it is dangerous to the Lord's interest to conclude that, because the Lord led and gave a pattern at a certain time, that was full and final and must remain. Every bit of new revelation will call for adjustment, but revelation waits for such a sense of need as to at least make for willingness to adjust.

The Lord needs that which really does represent His fullest possible thought, and not those who are just doing a good work. But it costs; and this is the ''burden of the valley of vision.''

The Candlestick all of Gold

Zechariah 4

Features of the End-Time

The chapter which is now before us features in a remarkable way conditions and Divine aims in the "End-times." There are striking similarities in it to certain things mentioned in the first chapters of the Revelation. These we shall see as we go on. The chief value is in its reduction of all that is essential to a concentrated essence, and when you have this you have everything vital.

Let us take the chapter bit by bit. What first comes into view is

An Angel Talking.

"And the Angel that talked with me," verse 1. "The Angel that talked with me," verse 4. The parallel of this in the Revelation is the phrase seven times repeated (note seven = spiritual perfection, completeness) "What the Spirit saith to the Churches."

The Lord has something to say at the End. The book of the Revelation is full of voices. It begins with "I turned to see the voice." A strange way of putting things. Did ever anyone see a voice? There is, however, no mistake made. A vital reality is in this seeming error, as we shall see. We have known much to be made of this "voice" factor in the Bible. True as it is that God can make Himself vocal and audible, taking up men and articulating His thoughts through them, as He has ever done, yet we beg to stress that in this case it is not the voice of man in view, and it is not primarily the voice at all, but it is that there is something God has to say, and that a very important something. The most pertinent question that can possibly be asked at this time is

What is God Saying Today?

A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times. While there are many good preachers of the Gospel, and while we are not without champions of the vital verities of the Faith, we are sadly in need of the Prophet with his "Thus saith the Lord" which he has received in a commission born of a peculiarly chastened fellowship with God.

Why it is so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system? A system which puts preachers so much upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and programme? Not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organisation and activity of "Christianity" as we have it in the systematised form today. There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when "the burden of the word of the Lord" is upon the prophet, or when he could say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me." The present order requires a man to speak every so often; hence he must get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our programme and asked to meet it (which He will not do) or the preacher must make something for the constantly recurring occasion. This is a pernicious system and it opens the door to any number of dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices, a confusion of voices, but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time. Too often it has the effect of causing men to hear and read just with a view to getting preaching matter, subjects for sermons, and the value of things is judged by their suggestiveness of themes. The man may be a godly man and the message may be the truth, but there is something more than this - is it the message which relates to the immediate time-appointed purpose of God? There are many good men who are giving out what they know and believe of the truth, but at the same time there are many of the Lord's children who are hungry and not being fed.

The food question amongst the Lord's people today is a very acute one, and a more or less good ministry is not going to meet the need. There is a growing concern to know, as distinct from the generalisations of truth and service, what is the Lord's word for now, where we are, and what in the Divine purpose belongs to this present hour.

This brings us back to the first thing in our chapter; God has something to say; but it also leads us to the next thing, "The Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep."

Here we have the necessity for

An Awakening to What God Has to Say.

In the Revelation this is "He that hath an ear, let him hear," and in the case of Laodicea - which represents the end - it is "I counsel thee to buy of me eyesalve that thou mayest see." "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me," said John. God is speaking, He has something to say, but there must be "a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened."

Spiritual discernment, perception, understanding and intelligence are all too rare. The causes are many. The engrossment with the work and its multifarious concerns; the rush and hurry of life; the restless spirit of the age; these, with an exhaustive provision of external religious facilities, all tend to render the inner place of Divine speaking inoperative or impossible of functioning. Perhaps we have forgotten that the Bible is not only a revelation but also contains a revelation, and that that deeper spiritual content is only possible of recognition and realisation by such as have had their eyes and ears opened; in other words - who have been awakened. Some of the Lord's most faithful servants are still only occupied with the letter of the Word, the contents of books, topics, themes, subjects, outlines, analyses, etc., and in the deepest sense are not in "revelation." (This is not meant as a criticism). The difference too often is that of a ministry to the mind or head, and not one to the heart or spirit.

The former will sooner or later tire and weary both the minister and those ministered to. The latter is a ministry of life to both, and is inexhaustible in freshness.

Whether it comes at the beginning or later, it is the greatest day in our history of which we can say: "It pleased God to reveal His Son IN me." "I received it, not from men but by revelation." That is the beginning of an inwardness of things which may have many crisic issues. One of these is the one of which we are particularly thinking now, namely, the awakening to see what is the thought and desire of God at given and specific times. Such a revelation - through the Scriptures - is nothing less than revolutionary, though usually costly.

Would to God that there was an adequate number at this time who, like the men of Issachar "had knowledge of the times." We now proceed to see what comes into view when God's instrument is awakened, and is able to answer the heavenly interrogation "What seest Thou?"

"Behold, A Candlestick all of Gold."

Every ministry in the Scriptures appointed by God was constituted upon something having been seen. The test of a Divine commission may be found in this question, "What seest thou?" and the credentials may well be the answer upon the basis of God having shown something very concrete. It is not a matter of winning the sermon or winning the audience, but declaring the truth for the time as it has been made a fire in the bones. It would be rather pertinent than impertinent to challenge the servants of God with this question, relative to the time in which they live, and relative to the immediate concern of God - "What seest thou?"

There is no doubt that what God has seen at all times as His objective is "A Candlestick all of Gold," but from time to time there has been a special necessity for Him to bring it into the view of the people, and especially His prophets. It is for this that He reacts, and the end-time must see a renewal of His reaction.

Now ignoring that there is a difference between the seven-branched candlestick or lampstand of the Old Testament, and the seven lampstands of the Apocalypse, there is a relationship of both in a common principle. That common principle is that they both represent

The Instrument of the Testimony in the House of God.

While that innermost light of the Most Holy Place - the light of Christ in the presence of God - remains undimmed and inviolate, there is that which is midway between heaven and earth - the Holy Place - where the testimony has to be kept clear both Godward and manward. Concerning this - as differing from the other - God has given very careful and explicit instructions and injunctions for its perpetual maintenance. He is peculiarly jealous over this testimony. So we find that it is here in the sphere of this that the prayer-life (Altar of incense) and the feeding-fellowship (Table of shewbread) of the Lord's people has its true value and vitality. The instructions for the making of the Candlestick in Exodus 24 and 37 are full of the richest significance. First in these is the material - "pure gold."

If it is to have a sevenfold fulness, intensity, and expression, which refers to spiritual completeness, then it must be pre-eminently suitable to the Divine purpose. The meaning of the "all of gold" then, is that it is

Absolutely According to God.

Be sure to get the force of this; an instrument of the testimony wholly according to God!

There is only One Who is thus wholly according to God's mind and heart, and He - the Lord Jesus; and if the whole Tabernacle in every part came firstly from God and then was Christ in type throughout, then this lampstand speaks of a vessel of the testimony of God in which the Lord Jesus is absolute and complete. God would have everything according to Christ. This fact governs the whole revelation in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. It is typified and prophesied in the Old Testament. It is presented in the Gospels, demonstrated in the "Acts"; defined in the Epistles; and consummated in the Revelation. But, alas, what a tragic and heart-breaking history is associated with this fact, and how difficult has it ever been to get anything wholly according to Christ! In an earlier chapter we saw God's reactions to this in Bible times, and suggested that He has again and again so reacted since.

The Reformation was such a reaction, and by it He recovered the Great foundational truth of Justification by Faith; which puts Christ into His absolute place as the Chief Corner-stone of the House of God. It was a grand thing, though very costly, but all too soon men pulled it down on to the earth, and the "Protestant Church" as such issued; a tree under the branches of which almost every kind of credal bird can lodge, and Protestantism as such is by no means a synonym for what is wholly according to Christ.

Since then the reactions of the Lord have been seen in other instances.

The Moravian Brethren, through a great fight and affliction, were used to recover the great truth of the Church's responsibility for the testimony of Jesus in all the nations. Not a missionary society or adjunct to the Church, but the Church itself directly. This was, and is, wholly according to Christ. But again, human hands mould this movement into a "Church," with all the outward elements of a religious order. There is no question that there has been considerable spiritual loss.

A further reaction of God is seen in the Wesleys and Whitfleld. Here, in addition to a mighty recovering of soul-saving evangelism, there was the recovery of the doctrine of practical holiness. This was grand while the instrument remained, but, alas, there came those human hands again, and an earthly organizing into a system - "the Wesleyan Church." We are perfectly sure Wesley would not have wished this. Then about a hundred years ago there was what all ought to recognise as a movement of God in the case of those who are now known as "Plymouth Brethren." There were several most precious recoveries made in this instance. The Lord Jesus was given an exclusive place which was not common in those days, nor is it common now. The great truth concerning the Body of Christ - the One Church - was brought again into view, after perhaps centuries of obscurity. God was in this, and is still in it, but the most ardent devotee to this community is both grieved and ashamed to contemplate its divisions today. Is it that men have again been insinuated or have insinuated themselves? Has this, like so much more, been taken into the governing hands of men? Has that subjective work of the Cross, by which in a very deep way man is cut off and the Holy Spirit governs, failed of adequate application or acceptance here? These are only questions, not charges. Indeed, all that we have said is not meant as a charge or as a criticism. We are seeking to speak constructively, not destructively. Many more are the reactions of God through the past nineteen centuries, but we only use these by way of illustration. It will be seen that each fresh movement was in advance of those before in the matter of truth recovered. So that from the Divine stand-point it was a movement nearer to the original position. The big question which at once arises is, will the Lord do a new thing yet? Are we to know of a fresh reaction to His first position? The only answer we can give to this question is that whether or not there should be anything in the nature of a "movement" as open to general recognition, we are certain that there is a more or less hidden movement on the part of the Spirit of God, working through deepening dissatisfaction with things as they are toward that which is nearer the original thought than has been since the beginning. It will be such a thing as cannot be "joined" by men, but into which there will come only such as come by deep inward exercise, so that it is a matter of common spiritual travail and inwroughtness.

What next comes before us in this vision which is more than Jewish, but has that invariable double application of Old Testament revelation, is

The Two Olive Trees and the Two Anointed Ones.

The symbolism here is familiar. Two is the number of testimony or witness. Trees are very often symbolic of man or men as witness or witnesses. The Olive, as is apparent in this chapter, especially relates to the oil. The position of these two trees is on either side of the Candlestick. From verse 14 we learn that "These are the two anointed ones which stand before the Lord of the whole earth."

There is no doubt that the two olive trees bring into view, firstly and historically, Joshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel the Governor. Chapter 3 deals with the one and Chapter 4 with the other. The first speech was concerning the High Priesthood and its ministry, and the second speech of 5:1, is concerning the Government or sovereignty. This interpreted prophetically relates to the Lord Jesus. His High Priestly work and position first come into view and are established in glory. Then He is established by God as Lord and Sovereign-Head. On these two sides of His one Person He ever gives the meaning of the candlestick; that is, He defines the nature of its vocation, and supplies the unfailing resource for that testimony. It is, as we have said, constituted according to Christ, and maintained by Him in all the fulness of His anointing. The Divine explanation of this is "This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Here we reach the central meaning of the vision as to the executing of the purpose of God. It speaks for itself. Its clear affirmation is that this instrument and this testimony must be utterly in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Not might, nor power of brain, will, emotion, organisation, machinery, committee, influence, reputation, numbers, name, personality, outfit, enthusiasm, etc., but solely the Holy Spirit! The accounting for this will never be in truth - whatever superficial observers may say - attributable to any human force or resource, but all who have any spiritual intelligence will have to recognise that its energy and power is Divine. This will also be proved by its endurance and persistence through the intense fires of opposition and antagonism. Here the Holy Spirit is allowed to govern and dictate, to direct and choose or reject, just as in the "Acts" at the beginning. To have such an instrument and such a testimony there will need to be a very revolutionary re-shaping of ideas. It will be necessary to realise that all those things upon which men have come to count as most important factors in the Lord's work are really not necessarily factors at all. It will have to be recognised that education, business ability, worldly wisdom, personal ability, money, etc., as such have nothing to do with the work of the Holy Spirit or with Christianity. The Lord may use these, call them in, and if they are kept in their right place they may serve Him greatly, but they are secondary, and He can easily dispense with them. It is of infinitely greater importance and value that men should be filled with the Holy Spirit, and if a choice is to be made, the very first consideration should ever be as to whether this is the case. There is a wisdom, judgment, discernment, knowledge, understanding by the Holy Spirit which is the only kind which is equal to that which is to be wholly according to God. Thus the Lord Jesus as the Great Mediator and Sovereign Head would maintain His testimony wholly in accordance with His own nature and mind in the fulness of the Spirit of His own anointing.

When things are thus there is no need to be unduly oppressed by

The Great Mountain.

"Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain" (verse 7).

The mountain is a figure of the accumulation of difficulties. The completing of the House of God will be no less fraught with difficulty and obstruction than the commencement, but, as then, so at the end, where the Holy Spirit is absolute Lord, these difficulties will be proved rather complementary than otherwise. The "many adversaries" will only be sovereignly used to further rather than arrest the consummation of "the eternal purpose." "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands also shall finish it."

The Greater Zerubbabel laid those foundations at Pentecost. The finishing will be by His hands alone. The same glorious Lord Jesus will bring forth the topstone with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it."

Then there is presented for our contemplation, by way of an interrogation, a matter which is indeed very challenging, "Who hath despised

The Day of Small Things?"

There is an unhealthy lust for big things amongst the Lord's people in these days. Something to attract attention, to impress; a demonstration to capture, an appearance to impress. Big names, big places, big titles, big sounds, big movements, big sweeps! If the dimensions are big according to men's standards, the success is judged accordingly.

God has ever found it necessary to reduce in order to get and maintain what will preserve the recognition of wholly Divine factors. End-times are always days of small things. See the testimony in the Revelation; it is only represented by the few who "overcome." Bigness is material or temporal. Greatness is spiritual and eternal. Too often men - even Christians - despise that in which God delights. The significance of things according to God is so often seen in an "upper room" over against the whole city, but the city succumbs to the upper room. When dealing with the "world rulers of this darkness" the Lord has frequently made an upper-room His Throne-room. "These seven eyes of Jehovah shall rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel." What is that? Well, the seven eyes symbolise the perfection of spiritual vision, taking in everything as it is. The plummet is that by which crookedness is brought to light and made manifest. When Jehovah sees the Lord Jesus with that instrument in His hand which so represents His own standard and mind that by it He can correct what is not so, and show the all-unsuspected leanings, angles, bulgings, and dangers of that which is related to His House; when He has that instrument by which He can make manifest how His House should be built according to Christ, then His perfect spiritual vision will rejoice and be satisfied. This is what He needs. O, that we might be such to Him! It will cost! It will not be a popular ministry, but it will be precious to the Lord.

As we close it will be no little gain to note the names of the Lord in this chapter. The thing as in view is related to Jehovah - the Almighty. Eternally Self Sufficient One (verses 6, 10). The executing and sufficiency of the purpose is related to Jehovah-Sabaoth - the Lord of Hosts (verse 6). The place of the testimony is related to Adon-Master, or Lord (verse 14); that is, He who owns and has the rights of proprietorship.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1967, Vol 45-2

A Child Over the Nations

Reading: Jeremiah 1

This title has nothing to do with a youth's conceited idea of his own importance, but the very reverse of any such idea, for it indicates how God selected a weak and insignificant instrument through whom He could bring His own throne to bear upon the nations. The rule committed to Jeremiah was a spiritual one, and God still seeks to influence and govern world events by spiritual means through a praying Church.

Jeremiah has a very real message for us in this connection. We can be helped by all the men of God described in the Scriptures, for they represent spiritual principles which are not limited to any particular time, but are eternal in their significance and abiding in their value. Jeremiah, however, seems to me to have a special application to the time in which we live; and as we study his story we can find how he illustrates a divine instrument which is nothing in itself but has tremendous throne influence on current affairs.

JOSIAH'S PASSOVER

One of the most significant and important events in his time was the re-discovery of the book of the law by Hilkiah. The first effect of this discovery was that king Josiah intensified his reforms and summoned a great national gathering for the celebration of the Passover. He himself stood to the Word of God, and all the people declared themselves ready to do the same. Jeremiah, however, a man who could never be content with the merely external, had his reservations; he did not believe in the downright genuineness of it all, so far as the people as a whole were concerned. And he was right.

Josiah himself was doubtless genuine, and meant all he said, but it seems perfectly clear that the people themselves were not wholehearted in their committal. The ground of Jeremiah's reservation was the "notwithstanding" of 2 Kings 23:26, which shows that the long drift away from God's requirements could not be reversed by a mere emotional outburst called revival, but needed something much more radical. So Jeremiah was not carried away by the good and apparently sincere movement. He had spiritual perception which pierced through the outward appearance.

Such perception can be painful. Jeremiah found that his discernment got him into trouble all along the line. His reserve was not due to temperamental or constitutional cynicism, as though he were one of those negative people with a critical and destructive attitude, even towards the best that is. No, Jeremiah was far too sensitive spiritually for this, and would have been only too glad to have found something which did truly represent heart adjustment to God. He was a heart-stricken man, ready to weep day and night for the people's misfortunes (9:1). There is a great deal of difference between the passing of critical judgments, censorious attitudes, a discontented spirit, constant fault-finding, and the sorrowing heart of a man who truly suffers with God. It is easy to see faults and flaws; it costs nothing to criticise; but it is very painful to see with the eyes of God and to sorrow with Him over the difference between mere professions and what is genuinely according to His mind. Let me say that critical people are no use to God; He will give no anointing to them, for they bring in death and not life. Jeremiah represents an entirely different spirit. His suffering ministry seemed to pull down and root up, but it also had a positive building result. All this is made clear in the account which we are given here of his call.

JEREMIAH'S I CANNOT

Jeremiah's immediate and spontaneous reaction to his calling and commission was to say, "Ah Lord God, I cannot...". This may not sound very spiritual but actually Jeremiah's sense of personal inadequacy was an indispensable factor in his whole calling. The Lord knows whom He is apprehending and sending, and we can take it as settled that if Jeremiah had been a man full of confidence in himself, God would never have called him. This sense of personal weakness and emptiness is essential to God; this is where everything begins in a life marked out for divine purpose. If the Lord were doing some small things, partial things, He might have used a less empty vessel. There are people who enter God's service full of confidence in themselves, and in some measure they are used by God. Their usefulness, however, is very limited until they realise that God's full purpose requires that the work should be wholly of Him, with no room for man's sufficiency. Most of us begin before we have learned this lesson, but as we come more clearly into the light of God we realise that the height of the value of God's purpose in and through us, will correspond with the depth of our conscious dependence on Him. It is basic that God's servant should be aware of his own weakness.

Had Paul been asked to answer Jeremiah's confession, "I cannot speak..." he would probably have pointed out that God has chosen the weak and foolish things, and even the things which "are not" for His greatest works. Had he continued, however, with his own testimony, he would doubtless have described an experience in which he was given a new awareness of his personal inadequacy which made him more dependent and therefore more usable. "We despaired even of life" was the negative side of this experience, but its positive value was found in the purpose, namely "... that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead". The man who comes down to zero will find that God meets him at that point, for this principle of conscious personal insufficiency is one which God will insist on, and will take pains to establish in us, even at the cost of deep suffering on our part. While such an explanation may be hard for some to receive, it may well be a comfort to others whose strange trials have made them inclined to fear that they can never count for God at all. It is always the Lord's way, to empty us of self strength so that we be endued with His power. Jeremiah's call suggests that it will always be "a child" whom God will set over the nations.

GOD'S I WILL

God's answer is always resurrection power. Jeremiah's perception made him dubious about the genuineness of the people's allegiance to God under the old covenant, but his ministry was far from being negative, for it was he who first propounded the glories of the new covenant. He may have felt as weak and insignificant as a child, but he had a big part to play in the history of God's people, and in fact when the seventy years of captivity had closed, his was the ministry of recovery for, "... that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus..." (Ezra 1:1).

Here, then, was the Lord's immediate reply to His servant's difficulty; He gave him a commission which was based on a vision. "What seest thou?" He asked Jeremiah, giving the prophet the opportunity to tell of the almond tree which was full of miraculous significance. Aaron's almond rod budded, blossomed and bore fruit in one night, so being a type of the Spirit of resurrection in priesthood. All the other rods remained dead, as would have done the rod of Aaron if it had not been given miraculous new life, and so become a symbol of Christ's fulfilling His priesthood in the power of resurrection. It was as if God was explaining to Jeremiah that his ministry was not going to be fulfilled on the basis of what he was or was not; the work would be fruitful by reason of the mighty power of resurrection life. So it proved, again and again. There was so much opposition that at one point Jeremiah determined that he would not speak any more. He found, however, that there was a fire - a divine fire - in his bones which set aside all his carnal resolutions to be silent and constrained him to speak anew in the power and victory of resurrection. How important it is for us all to have the fire in our bones!

Again, he was put into a dark dungeon so miry that it threatened to engulf him and would certainly have died there but for God's merciful intervention through Ebed-melech. At times it seemed to him that God was as a mighty man who could not save, but the Lord never disgraced the throne of His glory and Jeremiah was always delivered. The almond tree means that whatever may happen, God will always see to it that the end is victory by resurrection power. So Jeremiah not only survived but was the means of producing a God-glorifying remnant who emerged from their seventy-year grave in Babylon to come back to Jerusalem and to its true testimony. The vision of the almond tree was a private promise to Jeremiah: the fulfilment was for all to recognise.

The final assurance of this call gave the guarantee that Jeremiah would have a charmed life until he had finished his God-given task. He did not die a violent death; he did not starve; but he lived on until the work was completed. The story is an amazing one, for he had to pass through indescribable vigours and perils, seeming to have every evil force against him. He ought to have died a score of deaths, but he survived every attack and lived on through forty-two dangerous years. So it was that he proved what we can all prove, and that is that frailty and inadequacy are sometimes the very qualifications for a powerful spiritual ministry.

FAITH'S AMEN

Unlike Daniel, Jeremiah was never made a ruler by men. He was, of course, a priest, and it was in terms of priestly ministry that he exercised his authority. He did not serve in association with the temple and its sacrifices, but he served in the secret place of heart communion with God. It was there, in that inner life of prayer, that he wept over the tragedy of the blind and stubborn people (13:17); there that he kept alive his vision of God's glorious high and eternal throne (17:12); and there that he found sweet dreams which were no airy optimism but substantial purposes of God (31:26). Even while he was shut up in prison he maintained his prayer watch with God and found fresh inspiration to ask for, and receive, the impossible (33:3). He ruled by prayer.

So fervent and persistent was this man's prayer life that there were times when God Himself had to tell him to stop (7:16; 11:14; 14:11). The last of these references seems to indicate that God did not want to silence Jeremiah, but only to forbid him from asking for a superficial amelioration of the people's lot and a return to the old order. Jeremiah understood this, and kept his prayers focussed on the future, and especially on the new day when Israel herself would seek God with all her heart (29:14).

Although Jeremiah was such a man of prayer he was no recluse. He witnessed fearlessly as well as praying. He wrote messages to the captives in Babylon as well as interceding for their good. He bought his nephew's field, and he visited the potter's house. He lived an active life, but his chief contribution to the current affairs in his day - and far beyond it - was through his ministry of intercession. He prayed before he spoke, and he prayed afterwards. When he had completed his business affairs, he turned to prayer (32:16).

He ruled for God. His prayers not only kept alive a flame of hope at a time when men were in despair, but in due time they rebuilt and replanted God's people in restored Jerusalem. More than this, they spanned the centuries to inspire Hebrew Christians when once again their holy city was destroyed (Hebrews 8:10), and still today they inspire us to take fresh note of the glories of that new covenant which turns away from dead religious observances to a living and personal knowledge of God by the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah's perception of the unreal did not stop at negatives but led on to this blessed prospect of vital, spiritual union with God. It may seem fanciful to speak of a child over the nations, but was it not our Lord Jesus Himself who said, "Fear not, little flock: for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32)? Jeremiah's history may help us to understand something of how God is working with us so that this divine intention may become a reality.

From "Toward the Mark" July-August 1972.

The Final Call of God

History is marked by a recurrent crisis which has three aspects. Whenever God has considered that the time has come for judgment, that ordeal by fire has involved these three issues. Judgment is not only penalty or punishment; it is firstly discovery and uncovering. Then it is discrimination and putting things in the category to which they belong because of what they are. Finally, it is passing sentence accordingly, and fixing destiny. This is clearly observable in all the Divine visitations in the history of nations and of the people of God. It will be fully and ultimately true of the last phase of this present world-history - disclosure, discrimination, destiny.

We have a very clear and definite instance of this represented in the fiftieth Psalm.

It has not yet been finally settled as to what part of history this Psalm belongs. Who this Asaph was is not certain. The conditions referred to in the Psalm do not very well fit into the national situation in the time of David and Solomon, when Asaph was the leader of the music. They are more like those of a later time when that glorious epoch had passed and the glory faded.

But it does not really matter; the Psalm embodies God's work of judgment at any time of visitation, and the aspects are clear.

Firstly there is the delineation of His fullest and highest thought; that which is His standard, His desire, His joy; that which is His satisfaction.

"God... hath spoken... Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty..."

God has an object and a pattern to which He is committed, and this is the background against which His judgment is placed. God cannot judge until He has clearly shown and revealed that which He desires and that for which He has made every provision. Judgment will ever be according to the will of God, as revealed and known; or, at least, as made available to knowledge.

In this Psalm, as in so many others, and in the Prophets, Zion is the synonym for that which embodies the full pleasure and satisfaction of God's heart and mind. In the New Testament, Zion is no longer any earthly point, but is synonymous with the Church ideally; which, again, is Christ in corporate expression (Hebrews 12:22,23).

This Divine conception and intention has been fully and gloriously revealed to a whole dispensation through the last 'Letters' of the Apostle Paul. We have this revelation, and it will be over against this revealed mind of God that judgment is to take place. In the sovereignty of God there is a great renewal of attention being drawn to these 'Church' Letters in our time. Perhaps never was there such a large place being given to these writings as at this present time. Upon this basis the judgment will rest, as in the case of the churches in Asia (Revelation 1-3), for it is here that the fullest and ultimate thought of God is revealed and presented. "Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty..." Then immediately follows - "Our God shall come... a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him".

Three things characterize this 'coming to judgment'. We take them in reverse order.

(1) "But unto the wicked God saith..." (verse 16). "Now consider this, ye that forget God" (verse 22).

Fearful things are said as pending for the 'wicked' who are described as those who 'forget God': those who have not God in their thought when so many evidences of Him abound.

(2) The middle section has to do with the judgment of formalism: the judgment to uncover and reveal what is merely outward and formal. Here is a whole system of ritual; sacrifices, altars, priests, and ceremonies. The fiery ordeal will show how much there is in the religious world, that is, of "truth in the inward parts"; whether it is a matter of the very life and character, or merely a system of rites and practices. Here is a massive structure of profession which will collapse and become ashes in the day when "Our God shall come".

(3) The gold secured and preserved.

"Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice" (verse 5).

The last call of God, as judgment is pending, is a call to Himself. Here then is the call of God in our time.

The last movement of the people of God is to Himself: not to a movement as such; not to a teaching or interpretation of truth; not to a sect or party; not to an enterprise or mission - but to Christ. The final true and Divine movement is to the Lord Himself. The sheer pressure of the conditions in the gathering storm and tempest will demand a leaving of all lesser interests and objects, however good a purpose they may have served hitherto, and a moving toward the Lord Himself. 'Things' divide; the Lord unites. 'Things' must pass; the Lord abides. The time comes when all the means and accessories which the Lord has sovereignly used will cease to avail. This includes all the organized side of Christianity, and the Lord will force the issue as to how much there really is of Himself.

The basis of this phase or aspect is the 'covenant by sacrifice'. It rests upon the Cross as rooted in the very life of His people.

"GATHER... UNTO ME... BY SACRIFICE."

If this little paper could have any influence with the several thousands who receive it, this would be what we would desire, for our whole position from the beginning of our ministry has been that of the Lord above all else. It is not merely negative, as against this and that, or wrongly exclusive, as for some particular form or fellowship; but Christ in all His fulness. We may feel that devotion - more or less - to the forms or sections of Christianity is often a limitation to the Lord; but we would say: 'Make the Lord Himself your supreme object: to know Him, and to increase in His fulness; and all else will take its measure of value from that.'

So, not other than as spiritual movement, we would take up this Divine call.

"Gather my saints together unto me" - with the emphasis upon "together" and "me".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1958, Vol 36-5

"For Such a Time as This"

Beloved of God, I have recently been going over writings which expressed the feelings of spiritual people of God at various times during many years. The thing which is characteristic of them all is that the time of writing - although long periods lay between - was felt to be the most critical, ominous, and spiritually difficult or almost unbearable time that ever was. In most cases the conclusion was that the Lord must have been on the very verge of coming. Undoubtedly this has been the feeling of at least some in every part of time since Apostolic times. This might give us pause in saying that the present time - difficult as it is for so many - is more of this nature and portent than ever. It might just be because now it is our turn. And yet there are certain factors which may well give a deeper shade to the darkness, and a more intense severity to this time. There is the general fact that, the nearer we get to the end of the age, the more terribly will the powers of darkness fight to make good all the possibilities of their shortening time. The Scripture is "...great wrath, knowing that his time is short". Then, the world has grown so much as the years have passed, and it is a much bigger place now than in Roman times or the Middle Ages. Satan has so much more ground in humanity to use. Further - and this is a special point to remember - the challenge to Satan's kingdom is become so much more extended, so that, in a new sense, the issue of "inhabited world" dominion is in view. It is this question of world dominion that lies behind everything, and it is this that determines the degree of spiritual pressure and conflict. Listen to me a moment on this matter, for it is most crucial at this time.

There have been many bids made for the domination of this whole world, and, like the ebb and flow of the tides, sometimes at the Neaps, and sometimes at the Spring, the later ones have been a considerable advance upon the earlier, extending to new territories. Thus was the Roman a great advance upon the Babylonian, for instance.

So the reign of Antichrist, which is the direct succession and consummation of all such bids and movements, will be more far-reaching than all that have been. We are actually living in an emphatic stage of this purpose which is more ambitious than anything yet. Upon the natural side we do not dwell, but we see by analogy some things which should head us straight to the present implication and demand for the Church.

There is the strategical factor. One of the outstanding features of the present campaign is the infiltration into the nations of agents, representatives, missionaries, and colonists. These communities are not only propagandists, but their very presence has been made the occasion of "rights" to be "protected". In every way they give the aggressor-power something of its own to which to come, and a "moral" right and claim is the (professed) strength of the invasion or possession. This has been the case in many instances, at least. For the rest, it is war because such claims and rights are disputed. Now passing from the earthly to the heavenly, this, on the higher level, is exactly the Lord's own strategy, and therefore the occasion of the bitter warfare waged by and with the powers of darkness.

Look again at those words of His in Matthew 24:14.

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come." (R.V.)

Let us examine this statement word by word.

"Gospel" = "Glad tidings".

"Kingdom" = (a) The fact of royal reign or dominion.

(b) The sphere of such.

(c) The immediate and ultimate consequences of such.

All these are inherent in the word "Kingdom".

"Preached" = Proclaimed, heralded. There are five Greek words translated "preach". The one used here means to announce that someone has taken the power, or ascended the throne.

"World" = Inhabited earth.

"Testimony" = "Marturion" (Gk) means both a testimony, the one who testifies, and a proof. "To set the evidence" (Weymouth).

What then is the meaning of this statement? It has been used, of course, in general as the great incentive to missionary work and world-evangelisation, and rightly so. But for want of a recognition of the inner significance, something of real consequence has been lost. What the Lord is really meaning here is that He must have in every nation that which proclaims and gives evidence of His having taken the Throne and become Lord. "The earth is the Lord's." "God hath given him the name which is above every name." "Being at the right hand of God exalted." "Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet," etc.

Before Christ can come into His own place as the rightful ruler of this world, taking the dominion thereof, He must have a testimony to His sovereign Lordship. When David was driven out of his kingdom by the usurping Absalom, he left the loyal Abiathar and his company in Jerusalem so as to have that which was of himself to which to return; and while Abiathar and his priestly company were there, the reign of Absalom could never be universal, but would always be virtually disputed. The presence of the true Church in the nations is meant to act in exactly this same way in relation to the rejected Lord.

But note; and this is our special point; the "Testimony" is not something merely or only stated as a truth; it is "to set the evidence", as Weymouth puts it. Yes, to set the evidence. In the Old Testament the Tabernacle was called the Tabernacle of Testimony, or Witness (Num. 17:7; Acts 7:44). It was a tangible expression of a spiritual truth. The Lord said that His apostles should be witnesses unto Him. Satan and his powers are not very interested in doctrine or truth as such, but they are seriously concerned where there is representation and evidence. They will do all in their power to swamp, kill, drive out, break up, paralyze a vessel which really represents the Lordship of Christ as in the power of the Holy Spirit. If only the Lord's people will always keep immediately in mind the fact that it is not with flesh and blood that they are wrestling, but with principalities and powers, etc. and that the sole object of the enemy's assaults is to destroy or spoil the evidence of Christ's Lordship, then there would be an adequate motive for "standing and withstanding," and for dealing with everything that gives Satan ground to spoil the testimony.

Now then, let us note the first implication of our being here. The work of Apostles and their present counterpart was and is to bring into being those - twos and threes at least - in every nation who shall be there as a living evidence that Jesus is Lord. We are where we are in the will of God for this purpose, and no less than this. Satan will try to move us, to drive us, to overwhelm us but this only gives the opportunity for proving by the power of the Blood that Jesus has overcome him, and really is Lord. We hold the ground for the coming Lord, and although He will call us out for a time, we shall come with Him to reign, if we now suffer together with him.

But; and this is a sad but; is the Church setting the evidence? Is this really what the Church represents in the nations now? Alas for the testimony - the evidence! Truly the spiritual state in the light of the Lord's revealed mind as to His Body compels us to one of two positions. Either the Body of Christ is something distinct from the general multitude of those who confessed Christ and received eternal life; or else it is wholly a matter of the Church in general and "Overcomers" in particular as those who "press on toward the goal unto the prize of the on-high calling". Whichever it is, the issue is the same. The Lord must have His testimony here in fulness. The Church as a whole is far from "setting the evidence". The appeal therefore is for "Overcomers" and their testimony. This is the point of this letter.

The conviction deepens and grows that, since the loss of the Church's spiritual position in late Apostolic times, the Lord's chief concern has been with "Overcomers"; that is, with those who preserved or would recover the original position and testimony as to the absolute Lordship of Christ in every realm of life, and pre-eminently in the realm of the spiritual evil powers. The issue becomes clearer and stronger as the Antichrist forces show their hand more boldly and presumptuously toward the end. This is a time when this testimony needs to be brought out in strength and clearness as never before. If we were asked what we most truly believe to be the paramount need of our time we should say with considerable emphasis: A vessel represented in all the nations which serves the Lord in exactly the same way - only in the spiritual, not temporal, realm - as Esther served Him and His people, coming to the Kingdom "for such a time as this". It is that the Lord should have a people placed over the earth who know "Throne union" with Him now in intercession and testimony, with a background of deep chastening and travail: an instrument through the warring prayer of which He can bring evil counsels to nought and save the life of His people. Is it not clear that Christians today (to say nothing of the unsaved) are not going to get to know God's full thought for them, let alone enter into it, unless there is firstly a ministry released to them by prevailing prayer, and then an overcoming of the blinding, binding, deadening spiritual forces which are working in a thousand different ways to keep the children of God from apprehending that for which they have been apprehended by Christ Jesus? The fact is that God's people do not see.

The present vocational purpose of "Overcomers" is a tremendous one, for it relates to the need of the whole Church. But their testimony is preeminently for the Lord Himself. He must have satisfaction in His Church! The "Cherubim" company of "Living Ones" in identification with "The Living One" are something very near to God for governmental purposes; spiritually now, and literally presently. What will such a vessel be? What is its nature? To put it simply and plainly, as the whole Bible shows, the Lord must have a company in the earth who, in every respect, are a heavenly people. Their spiritual resources of life, power, wisdom, knowledge, purpose must be heavenly and by mediation of the Holy Spirit alone. Their means and methods must be Divinely supplied and dictated. Their energy must be directly Divine energy; which means that they must have been separated from their own.

The spiritual relationships and associations must be heavenly. It was the resolving into an earthly institution and system which cost the Church its Throne power at the beginning, and there can be no recovery without a clear position as to traditional relationships. There will need to be a purely heavenly position as to the really heavenly nature of the Body of Christ - the Church, without any contradictions in earthly orders. We have heard it said that at a certain gathering of servants of the Lord "it was like a touch of heaven; everyone dropped - for the time being - their differences of denomination and earthly divisions". This speaks for itself. But why go back to them?

It will be fatal to essay to engage in heavenly warfare with anything but a heavenly position. We have seen terrible scattering, confusion, and havoc made by the enemy in directions where assaults were made upon the powers of darkness by companies which had mixture, earthly religious contradictory orders, and conflicting acceptances as to vital Scriptural matters.

It may be wondered how ever such a vessel or instrument can be brought into being. Well, it was once, at the beginning; and the secret then is the same now. The Cross did two things. It brought Christ into the place of absolute sovereignty, and made the establishment of that sovereignty possible and actual in the lives of a great company by ruling out all personal, natural, earthly traditional, and temporal interests and influences. The Holy Spirit made Calvary and the Exalted Christ a reality in each heart. "They were of one mind and one soul."

We can never arrange this, or decide to do this heavenly business to any consequence (except failure) unless each one concerned is in it by revelation of the Holy Spirit, and is born into it through spiritual travail. We shall be wasting our time if we expect, try, or even pray for anything really effective apart from this essentially heavenly and therefore anointed ground. There is no royal road or short cut to the Throne or to Throne power; it will cost us everything here. We have known more than one to be faced with this issue, and - in trying to keep something here - miss the Lord's highest and best, and later in life to know that it was so.

Will you go to the Lord and ask Him to do that deep work by His Cross in the hands of the Holy Spirit which will result in your being brought into the place where His authority is exercised through you, and His rule is registered in the realm where things matter most, through your heavenly union with Him? Will you pray for the securing of the prepared instrument to "come to the kingdom for such a time as this"? Will you seek grace to count all gains but refuse in the light of the prize of that "on high" calling? Finally, will you seek the Lord that there may be just where you are in the nations a vessel of this testimony and of this heavenly nature, which really does "set the evidence"? It will be a battle to secure it, as it was in every case with the Apostles. It will be a battle to preserve it. But, given the co-operation, the Lord can do it, and He will.

From time to time God has sovereignly raised up a ministry or an instrument to serve Him in a special need which then existed. We have, as the result, the heartwarming stories of these mighty times and ministries. But they are now of the past, and while they inspire us, they only make us grieve that there is nothing like them now. Surely everyone is aware of the need of "a new thing" from above. Let us not bind ourselves to the same form which God has taken before, but realise that He may be moving on, and the need may be of something quite in advance of anything that has been, although its essential spiritual features will be in accord with the original pattern; that is - the Lordship of Christ will be the transcendent issue. If we are coming at the end back to that original issue, it will certainly mean more in every way than it has ever meant in the intervening centuries, because the consummation of that testimony is in view.

The Lord Himself give you the light and lead you into the prayer-travail for the bringing forth of His testimony in fulness.

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1941, Vol 19-3

The Fountain and the Cisterns

"It shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate for ever" (Jeremiah 25:12).

"Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom..." (2 Chronicles 36:22, Ezra 1:1 onwards: see also Isaiah 45:1- 8).

Here then is the vindication of Jeremiah. But he never lived to see it. Therein lies one of the most testing things that a faithful and greatly opposed servant of the Lord can have to accept. Jeremiah had to fulfil his ministry knowing that, so far as his own time and the people thereof were concerned, it would be an apparent failure; he would not live to see that part of his commission fulfilled - "To build and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10). How many of the servants of the Lord have been called upon to follow Him in this so searching and testing path! They, as He, have had to do their work for a time to come. We observe the seeming failure of the Lord's own earthly life and labours when "He was crucified through weakness". We see the desertion, forsaking, discrediting, and discounting which marked the closing days of the Apostle Paul's earthly course. What a galaxy of lonely heroes of the faith compose the noble army of the "despised and rejected of men", upon whose costly ministry men passed the verdict 'It was to no purpose'! But if their ministry and labours had anything of God in them, that element is eternal and immortal, and it will live again: God will vindicate, and "the men of Anathoth" (Jeremiah 11:21,23) will be the ones upon whom history and eternity will heap the shame. The tears of the Jeremiahs will - as the Psalmist says - be kept in God's bottle. This is one of "the voices of the prophets" which, although not heard by dull spiritual ears, will be shouted for all to hear by the events of history. Ezra and Nehemiah, and Daniel's visions in fulfilment, will be the answer to Jeremiah's rejected ministry.

Cyrus may be a pagan, having no personal knowledge of the Lord, but his irreligious solicitude for God's interests will declare for all time that, while Jeremiah may be ignored or discounted, the God who called and appointed him cannot be so dismissed. If there is one voice that shouts from the book of Jeremiah it is the voice of Divine Sovereignty. The whole book is contracted in the Lord's words to His servant in the Potter's House: "Cannot I do with you...?" (Jeremiah 18:1-11). The Sovereignty of God is a difficult thing to be against. Ask Jerusalem and the Jewish nation about that in the year A.D. 70 when the sovereign words of Jesus Christ as recorded in Luke 19:41-44 were so literally fulfilled.

So much, then, for the inclusive 'voice' of Jeremiah. But what were some of the things that our Prophet had specifically to encounter and cry against? We can put these into a phrase. He cried concerning certain basic and fundamental contrasts...

THE FOUNTAIN AND THE CISTERNS

This is a contrast that the Lord vehemently called an "evil" - "My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13). Let us be duly impressed - before we pass on - with the Lord's judgment upon this alternative procedure; it is EVIL! The Lord says that it is a fundamental evil.

There are several features of these alternatives.

(a) The feature of the One and the many: the one Fountain; the many cisterns.

Here we have a voice of the Prophet which, having been missed, has resulted in - not only Israel's undoing - but, largely in that of organized Christianity, and is not absent from evangelical Christianity. It is a matter to which the Bible gives the most serious attention, and upon which the New Testament is very largely built. It is no less a question than that of the all-sufficiency of God or - alternatively - the many devices of men. It is just the exclusive and final fullness of God or the independent or plus resource of human effort. This is the inherent principle of the One Fountain or of the many hewn out cisterns. Into what a lot of Christian work and activity this issue has become real! From the dawn of man's active relationship with God there has been this incorrigible propensity of man to "put forth HIS hand" and lay it possessively or controllingly upon God's things. Probably this is Satan's (Lucifer's) sin which led to his fall, and was the very nature of his 'tempting' and deceiving Adam. That is why God calls this 'EVIL'. It is the evil of dividing God's place; of insinuating man's independence, and implying man's ability. It is at the heart of humanism, of autocracy, of dictatorship. It is the essence of that so oft-referred to symbolic term in the New Testament - "the flesh". It is the principle of the 'uncircumcised heart', which - like the 'uncircumcised Philistines' - insinuates itself in the things of God. It is full of significance that it was not until David came fully and pre-eminently to the throne that the Philistines were finally subdued. Theirs was a hand against the throne. Not until Christ is absolutely Lord will this tendency to self-assertion be overruled.

What the many "cisterns" represent in their form and nature is just legion; too many things produced by human strength, intelligence, and ingenuity to tabulate or catalogue.

There is a very serious and solemn precautionary reason why, after having given the command and commission to His Apostles to go into all the world, He added "BUT, tarry ye... until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49); "He charged them not to depart... but to wait for the promise of the Father" (Acts 1:4). The world-commission must never be taken upon any kind of natural energy. The Holy Spirit alone, and that as a definite bit of personal history, is to be the source of God's work.

(b) Another difference is indicated in our text.

The cisterns of religious man's hewing can "hold no water". Perhaps the emphasis should be upon the word "hold". They are 'empty' because they are leaky. They have to be repeatedly and continually filled artificially. Their hewers are involved in the arduous task of finding and replenishing the resources. They get something and it leaks away, and dryness demands more and more human effort to defeat it. What a true description of all that comes from man putting his hand upon God's work! His are indeed leaky cisterns. On the other hand there is the Fountain. Full, final, inexhaustible, and ever fresh, never stagnant.

"The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (John 4:14).

"Out of him shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).

What a thing it is to have an opened Heaven, and never to have to hew out a message, a discourse, a ministry, an enterprise! It was against this weary, disappointing, laborious life that Jeremiah testified, and his "Voice" must be listened for in this matter today for an EVIL thing has limited the life of the Lord. Fullness is always a mark of the good pleasure of the Lord.

Excerpt from "The Voices of the Prophets" in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1965, Vol 43-4

A Good Man in Danger

It was no small thing that Jesus should have said of a man "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile", thus marking him out as one apart from the majority of his nation, as being more spiritual than fleshly or carnal: a son of Israel rather than of Jacob. Further, it was no small thing that this man came to a fuller revelation and apprehension of who Jesus was, and was thereby able to exclaim "Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." And yet again, it was no small thing that he should have received from the Lord this word of assurance, "Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." That son of Israel went far beyond Jacob and saw all the spiritual side of Jacob's typical dream. If we knew all that these things meant for Nathanael we should undoubtedly be convinced of the greatness of the blessing that came to him on that day when Philip found him and bore his testimony. And yet Nathanael was in danger at one point of missing it all, and the reason was a foolish prejudice.

Nazareth had a bad name, and up and down the country when Nazareth was mentioned people just passed off as a bad lot everything and everyone in the town. So whatever good there may have been suffered under the general prejudice. Thus to suggest that Nazareth could produce any good thing was pooh-poohed, and a cynical rejoinder was made "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The Devil was always seeking to prejudice the chances of Christ getting a following, and he would not stop at corrupting a whole town in the minds of men to destroy the eternal and Divine values of one of its members.

Nathanael had taken up the popular prejudice and epithet, and just for a brief moment that prejudice stood to shatter and ruin that glorious prospect. Everything for him trembled for that moment in the balances. Would the prejudice win, or would the bigger and finer element rise and waive the prejudice aside? How thankful he must have been afterward that he decided to suspend the prejudice while he put Philip's testimony to the test, while he set aside the widespread and popular belief about Nazareth, and proved the matter for himself!

What a tremendous blow to prejudice was his "proving of all things"! What warning he was ever able to give to others as to the infinite peril and possibility of loss through being influenced by popular opinion, even when accepted by the religious world.

Nathanael was tested by this prejudice, and a prejudice is a test of every man's quality. In the presence of something very generally accepted and believed, although unproved, opportunity is given for many personal interests to arise and govern the course to be taken; reputation, future prospects, loss of friends and esteem, and many such like considerations.

It is a matter of comparative values. Nathanael may have lost much, but ask him whether he made a mistake! However, the lie was very definitely given to that report, and the Devil was found to be behind it. The greatest good possible to man came out of Nazareth!

So, while Satan works to prejudice the Lord's interests, God only uses the prejudice as a means to test the reality of those concerned, and the prejudice is used as a safeguard against mixture and unreality in those who will have God's best.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1938, Vol 16-4

"I Will Overturn"

"I will overturn, overturn, overturn.... until He come Whose right it is; and I will give it Him" (Ezekiel 21:27).

You will see, if you look, that those words have an immediate and a much wider context. Their immediate context is the life-ministry of the prophet. His times were to see the beginning and the carrying forward, to some quite serious degree, of the fulfilment of these words. But there is also an expanded context, and the expanse of that context has not yet reached its final phase. But here in the Scriptures much of that expanded context is noted and mentioned. The overturning had begun when the prophet was caused to make this proclamation of Jehovah's intention. The immediate context, then, was that of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem as the symbol and representation of the nation: the nation which was chosen of God for a purpose, God's special purpose: the nation which had been carefully, painstakingly and patiently constituted and disciplined unto that purpose, and then had so lamentably failed, so tragically missed the mark. Unto that nation the words were addressed: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn... until...." It was a progressive movement unto Christ's second coming.

The reason? The lost distinctiveness of that nation's life. They had gone out to the world in illicit and forbidden relationship of a spiritual character, and the world had been let into them in a defiling and corrupting way, resulting in that end which is always and ever an abomination to God - mixture. In and amongst His people there was the lost distinctiveness of their life, the lost vitality in the means which God had provided for the realization of His purpose. He had provided tabernacle and temple, priesthood and ordinances, sacrifices and feasts, and much more. He had made a great provision in this way, but all was intended to be a vital and effective means to an end, not as an end in itself. That vitality had been lost in temple, priesthood, sacrifices, ordinances, and they had all become a formality, a mere daily routine; something being kept up, something just in itself: a great formalism, without life. Vitality in the means had gone and God's deposit was dead in their midst. They had lost the vision as to the purpose of their existence. They had lost both the consciousness and the knowledge of why they were the Lord's people. They were claiming to be a special people amongst the peoples of the earth. They were using His Name, but the purpose for which they were the Lord's people had been lost to their consciousness; their vision of the great object and end of God in choosing them from among all the peoples of the earth had been lost.

You know that that is the cry of the prophets. Their cry is against this mixture, this defilement, and against this mere formalism. Through Isaiah the Word of the Lord came: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sin. Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways" (Isaiah 58:1,2a). They were carrying on, but without vision, without purity, without vitality.

All that led to this "I will overturn, overturn, overturn." It was as though the Lord was saying: 'I am not going to preserve mere form, mere shell, mere profession. To Me it is all hypocrisy, unreality. I will overturn.' Why? Because these things, the things that really matter, the things that characterize a people under the true government and in the true energies of the Holy Spirit, are gone. Because of the lack of these things authority was lost in Israel, authority in the nations, an authoritative voice in their own midst. They were not registering in life, in word, and in testimony.

It is a tragic situation when the people of God lose their authority in the world, and they always do so when they mix in with the world, and when the world is mixed in with them.

Then there was lost unity. We see the crumbling of the nation, the breaking up and disintegration, until the only suitable picture is that of the valley of dry bones, very many and much scattered, unrelated, unarticulated, disintegrated.

Then again there was the loss of the position to which God had brought them. He had brought them by covenant into the land and set them there as His own place for them. God's place for the nation was the land, and they lost their position, their God-appointed position, and were cast out of it.

Finally, the prophecies lead to the lost glory in and over the people of God. The glory was lifted up and moved right away, and the Lord says about such a state: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn" - 'This cannot go on.'

The Ever Widening Context

You can see the widening context and application here, and I must remind you that Ezekiel overlapped at two ends. At one end he overlapped the ministry of Jeremiah and at the other end he overlapped the ministry of Daniel. You remember the word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah: "I have set thee this day over the nations... to pluck up, to break down... to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10; ASVB). 'Over the nations.' At the other end - Daniel. We are all familiar with how Daniel in his book is set right in the midst of the nations. We will come to that in a moment. Here is a wide context, in the midst of which Ezekiel is set. There passes in review the rise and fall of the world-powers, of the peoples and nations who have exercised power and influence in the history of this world.

The prophet here, Ezekiel, begins with the first four: Ammon, Moab, Edom and Philistia. You are not expecting, nor wanting, that I should trace their history and give their full meaning. Sufficient to say that it was Ammon and Moab who conspired and joined hands to hire Balaam to curse Israel. Balak, king of Moab, sent for Balaam to come "Curse me Israel." All right, Ammon! All right, Moab!

"The mills of God grind slowly,

But they grind exceeding small:

Though with patience He stands waiting,

With exactness grinds He all."

Ammon, Moab, you are going to be grist for God's mill! We will see. The third was Edom: And what a history Edom had as a menace to Israel and the interests of the Lord! And the fourth was Philistia. Oh, we are tired and sick of reading of the interferences with the interests of the Lord by the Philistines - 'uncircumcised Philistines,' as they are called. They were that constant, almost perpetual, menace to the Lord's interests in Israel. These four are brought right into the 'Song of the Sword' (Ezekiel 21): "I will overturn, overturn, overturn," says the Lord. And so it was. Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia went to the sword and are no more.

The prophet passes from the first four to another two, Tyre and Zidon. In chapter twenty-eight of these prophecies you have one of the most amazing, startling and terrible things in the Bible - the king of Tyre. It is not difficult to see right through what is said here to Satan himself. "Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire" (Ezekiel 28:14). And this is said in the first context of the King of Tyre, but you can see right through this to another one, inspiring this exalting against God, this aspiring to be supreme everywhere. Read chapter twenty-eight again and see how terrible it is. The Zidonians are in league with Tyre, and the word reaches even unto them: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn." And where are Tyre and Zidon? What happened? Well, history will tell you what happened. The desolation of Tyre! It is a tremendously thrilling but startling story. The prophecy was fulfilled.

And then the prophet moves to one: Egypt. After the four and the two he comes to one, Egypt, that empire of antiquity, that wonderful civilization, that great world-power of which many other great powers were for a long time much afraid. But Egypt comes to the sword. The same thing is said: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn." And we know the history. God said: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn," and so it was.

And then we move into a still larger context as we overlap into Daniel, and before long the great image of Nebuchadnezzar is brought into full view. That great image, one of the four of the greatest world-powers in history - we are with the 'Big Four' here - Babylon. 'See this great Babylon that I have made!' said Nebuchadnezzar. God gave him a kingdom that all nations and peoples and tongues should bow down before him. How great was Babylon!

Then came the invasion of Cyrus, the Persian, and the supplanting of the great Babylon with the Medo-Persian Empire, which is proverbial. In our daily speech we speak about the laws of the Medes and Persians, by which is meant something that has come to stay for ever and cannot be altered. It lifts itself against Babylon and Babylon comes down, and Medo-Persia takes the ascendancy.

And then another great world-power comes on the horizon. Alexander the Great rises up with his Greco-Macedonian war and treads all other powers under foot and looks for new worlds to conquer. And when he has conquered all the worlds that he can find, he passes in the pageant of empires, and then the greatest of them all appears on the scene: the Roman Empire.

All these are mentioned in Daniel, and they are presented in the great image. The great Roman Empire, the greatest of them all that had ever been, both in extent and in power. Here are the world-nations. Here are the world-empires. And the prophecy extends to them all: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn." Daniel tells us of the overturning when he says, after describing the vision, that there was seen a stone cut out without hands which smote the feet of the great image so that it crashed and crumbled, and was no more. And Daniel says: "In the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom." A stone cut out without hands: the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom and it shall endure for ever. It was in the very time of the Roman Empire that the stone smote it and it crashed, and in representation it brought all the other empires down with it. "I will overturn," said the Lord.

A New Testament Counterpart

And, dear friends, may I have your forbearance if I remind you that these prophecies are not exclusively concerning Israel in the Old Testament and the old dispensation. There is that in the New Testament which corresponds to this immediate context. This terrible chapter twenty-one of Ezekiel's prophecies has been called 'The Song of the Sword.' If you read immediately associated with these words of verse 27: 'The sword, the sword, the sword, the point of the sword, God's unsheathed sword,' and that by the sword He is going to "overturn, overturn, overturn," I would remind you that we have two corresponding passages in this other realm of the Church in the New Testament. One is in the Letter to the Hebrews: "I will make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven" (12:26). The other? It is in the coming of the Lord Jesus into the midst of the seven lampstands, and in that comprehensive and matchless description and presentation of Him there is this: "He that hath the sharp two-edged sword." He begins with it at the churches (Revelation 2:12). His is an overturning in churches. The sword is cleaving, dividing, finding out, searching and judging, and there is that which, having so largely resulted in the loss of the specific purpose, falls to the sword of the Lord. These are hard words, but suffer them for the moment. It is like that. The Lord is saying to the churches, as representing the whole Church, the same things as He said to Israel here. 'I am not a bit interested in or concerned with your religious form. I am not a bit interested in or concerned with much religious or Christian activity. "I know thy works!" I am not concerned with your profession. The thing for which you were raised up, elected, and constituted is My eternal purpose concerning My Son, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, occupy the first, the full, and final place; and anything that either falls short of that, or contradicts that, must come under the sword. I will overturn, overturn, overturn.' And judgment begins at the House of God.

Dear friends, if this is true and we are not mistaken, the Church in general is going to meet the sword, is going to be dealt with in this way, and there is going to be a whole lot of activities and works and professions and whatnot that is going to the sword, going to be overturned, overturned, overturned, in order to get to that end which God has appointed.

And what is true of the whole Church will be true of any local company of believers. If the Lord sees unreality, sees hypocrisy, mere formality, making His Divine things just an end in themselves, sees us turned in on ourselves and not ministering to and forging toward the great end, progressing and developing as we go on with this increasing fulness of Christ, the Lord will, sooner or later, overturn that local company, upset it, will bring the sword in and will scatter and will break down and overturn. It is the history of many a company of the Lord's people who have become merely formal and traditional, having lost their vitality and their vision.

And let us come nearer. It will be the history of individual lives. As soon as you and I resolve everything - teaching, doctrine, practice, and meetings - into some thing which is just a rota being carried on, and it loses that great, mighty, dynamic vision of the purpose of God, and loses that tremendous impact of a sense of purpose, then our own individual Christian life will come under the sword. We will just go to pieces and will have to come to this place: 'I have been on false ground, I have been in a false position. My position has not been true, nor real. All the teaching that I have received is simply something in my head, in my mind, and not a vital part of my very being. The Lord must overturn.'

That sounds very hard. But would we have it otherwise? Is it not His faithfulness to do that? To get to reality and to save a remnant that has the root of the matter in it?

The Throne Above All Thrones

What is the teaching of all this? In the first place, over all the thrones we have already mentioned there is a Throne, another Throne, which is seen at the beginning of Ezekiel's prophecies: "Above the firmament... the likeness of a throne... and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness... of a man upon it above" (1:26). Above! That spreads over all these kingdoms, dominions and powers. To use a fragment from Daniel: "Thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule" (4:26). 'The heavens do rule.' There is a throne over all, and that ought to comfort us.

I have been saying hard things, painful things. Perhaps you say, gloomy things, depressing things. But what is the lesson? Over all these terrible things there is a Throne. What is the explanation of the downfall of all these world-powers? There is one explanation. Every one of them sought to take the place that was eternally appointed for God's Son. God had appointed Him "heir of all things" (Hebrews 1:2). That is the Scripture. God's Son was destined heir of this world and its kingdoms. God's Son is the rightful ruler of all nations. And every one of these had stretched out a hand to take to itself what belonged by eternal covenant to the Son of God. Spreading from Ammon and Moab, in a very limited scope, spreading out and out and out until Rome spreads itself over all the world, to possess it, to rule and govern it for their own ends. And God said: 'Wait! That is My preserve. That is the preserve of My Son. Don't touch that. Don't lay a hand on that. That is sacred to My Son. Touch that and I will overturn, overturn, overturn until He come whose right it is: and I will give it to Him.' That is history.

Contemporary History

There is a still wider context. There have been a lot of things since Rome went down. And in our own lifetime we have seen this thing happen. We do not like mentioning it, and we do not like mentioning the names, but we have to in this very context. What about Hitler? Hitler aspired with his ambition and ambitiousness to dominate all the nations of this world: to bring them into subjection to his ideology and to his control: to take them. And we know how viciously he repudiated Jesus Christ and His Church. 'All right, Mr. Hitler,' says the Throne above, 'that is the prerogative of the Son of God. Hands off!' And we have seen the awful wreckage and ruin both of Hitler himself and of his regime, the awful devastation, and the terrible story of his end. Christ's rights were interfered with, so 'I will overturn.'

And we have seen Mussolini having made for him a great relief map of the ten kingdoms of the Roman Empire to stretch the whole width of a great hall, setting up a statue of himself and proclaiming himself as the last Caesar of the restored Roman Empire. 'All right,' says the Throne above, 'so far shall thy proud waves come and no further.' And look at the shame of his end! "I will overturn, overturn, overturn."

But contemporary history! Our present time is seeing something bigger than any of these. Bigger than the biggest of the old 'Great Four,' Rome. Bigger than these that I have just mentioned. Something is spreading itself in the denial of God and the denial of the Son of God and the denial of the Church of God, to be the great world-power. And the Throne above says: 'If you can't read history, you will learn in experience.' And the same destiny and doom is coming to it. Make no mistake about it. Why? Because this world was made for Jesus Christ. And the day is coming when the Scripture will be fulfilled: "The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" (Revelation 11:15).

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run;

His kingdom stretch from short to shore,

Till moons shall wax and wane no more."

But note! While that is a glorious prospect, it is a terrible outlook from another standpoint. And it is a challenge. It is a challenge to us; it is a challenge to our assemblies; it is a challenge to the Church of God; it is a challenge to the world. The purpose of God is to gather together, to reunite, all things in Christ, things in the heavens, things in the earth, "that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:13). That is the purpose of God. It is of the most minute application in our lives. It is the object with which the Holy Spirit is working in our spiritual history. It is the explanation of this world's history: the rise and fall, the glory and the shame of world-powers, empires and dominions. "He must reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25).

That is the message. The Lord make the application!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1962, Vol 40-6

Is the Great "Shaking" at Hand?

"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also the heavens". Hebrews 12:26-27.

There is no doubt that the Letter to the Hebrews was a supreme effort to get Christian believers detached from an earthly form of Christianity, and attached to Christ in heaven. That effort had as one of its strong reasons the fact that a great shaking was foretold, foreseen, and imminent. That shaking was to be in two parts, an earlier and a latter; an entirely earthly, and an earthly and heavenly combined. The effect of the shaking, and, indeed, the purpose of it, would be to test everything as to abiding values. The former and earthly shaking was Jewish, but it had all the elements in principle and type of the latter.

In the destruction of Jerusalem - toward which the Letter pointed - the whole earth was shaken so far as Jewry was concerned. The Temple, as the focal point of that whole world, crashed even with the ground. The priesthood, as gathered up in the high-priestly order, passed away. The temple service ended, and the nation ceased to be an integrate and unified people.

These were things capable of being removed. And yet how long they had stood! What forces they had withstood! What confidence there was that they could never cease to be! How assured they were that God was so bound up with it all that it could never be destroyed and cease to be! How they fought and clung to it to the last terrible extremity! But it was of no avail. God was no longer wanting the framework and earthly system, which had taken so much room, and energy, and expenditure, before the really spiritual was reached. The percentage of spiritual value was so small after all, and spiritual interests lay so far along the labyrinthine ways of religious machinery and tradition, that it was not worthwhile. The means to the end was not immediate that is, there was far too big a distance between the means and the end. There was no immediate touch with the real Divine requirement, but there was far too much that was intermediate. And so it had to go, and, rather than preserve it, God Himself shook it.

What remained after the shaking was just that, and that only, which was Christ in a spiritual and heavenly way: Christ in heaven, and here by His Spirit, the gathering point, or occasion of assembling; Christ in heaven the High Priest and Sacrifice; the order of God's home a purely spiritual and heavenly one - not formal, arranged, imposed, imitated, or material. Order grows out of life, and if that life is Divine and unchecked, Divine order will be spontaneous.

"He taketh away the first that he may establish the second".

But a further and greater shaking is to come, and we are asking whether this is not imminent. Everything points to it being so. We have been very conscious of the restraining hand being upon world affairs for some time. The worst has seemed to be possible again and again, but it has been suspended in a way which has suggested a Hand more than that of man's. It is not difficult to see what would happen to all the outward aspects of Christian work and life, given the withdrawal of that Hand.

Is God going to shake in a way unparalleled, so that the framework and organised structure of things Christian is totally suspended, and only that which is the true knowledge of Himself and the real measure of Christ remains? Such a possibility only (it is more than that) should make His people, and especially His servants, look to it that they are in immediate touch with the eternal and spiritual factors; that there is a minimum of that which must go in the shaking, and a maximum of that which will abide. We must get away from the outward to the inward: from the earthly to the heavenly: from the destructible to the indestructible: from the means to the end - the full measure of Christ.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1937, Vol 16-2

Jealousy for God

"And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house" (1 Kings 18:17,18).

"And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts" (1 Kings 19:10).

When we bring together those two fragments - "I have been very jealous for the Lord"; "Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?" - we find two strangely contrasting and conflicting points of view. On the one side, the claim - truly supported, and undoubtedly true - to have been very jealous for the Lord. And on the other side, this term, this description, used of that same person: "thou troubler of Israel". But the juxtaposition brings out something very significant. To be very jealous for the Lord may inevitably mean that you are a troubler of Israel. Indeed, it usually works out like that. You will give nobody any trouble - I mean spiritual trouble - if you are not jealous for the Lord. But if you are, make no mistake about it, this is how it will come back at you: 'Thou troubler of Israel!'

THE PROPHET AS 'TROUBLE MAKER'

Now, although Elijah seems to have repudiated the charge, and there was truth and right in his so doing, nevertheless the charge was true. Ahab, for once in his life, was telling the truth, but telling the truth in a way of which he was not aware. It is essentially a part of the ministry of a prophetic instrument, to cause trouble. It is inevitable; it is in the very nature of things. For the very function of the prophet came into view when things were not right. If things had never gone wrong, had never needed adjusting, correcting, or bringing to some greater measure of spiritual fullness, there would have been no need of prophets. We should know very very little about prophets, if things had gone right on as they should have done. The function of the prophets was to keep and hold before the people of God, God's full thought concerning them, especially in the face of certain things that worked very definitely against it. And it is just because of that clash and conflict that the trouble arises.

Elijah's charge against Ahab was a real one; but the 'trouble' to which Ahab referred was not in Elijah - it was deeply inherent in the spiritual condition of the time. Its real root and cause lay there. There would have been no 'trouble', but for people like Elijah; everything would have remained quiescent. When Elijah was there in the country, Ahab knew of it, and searched for him high and low. He was the great irritating, aggravating factor. Though for a long time hidden, nevertheless his very presence in the country was having the effect of dragging this thing out - this spiritual apostasy and corruption, which was, after all, the root of the trouble. It could not go on unchallenged, while such people as Elijah were there. I am not at this moment so much concerned with Elijah himself, as with what he represents: the presence of some living spiritual testimony, embodied; an annoying, inconvenient, aggravating thing, always somewhere about. As you notice in the chapter, Ahab sent throughout the length and breadth of the land, to try to discover Elijah. If only he could get hold of THIS, and destroy THIS, he thought, he could get rid of the 'trouble'.

This leads us to some very definite conclusions. If there is a clash, a collision, between two irreconcilables, there will always be trouble. Given the incorrigible downgrade trend of human nature, and, wherever that is challenged, you will have trouble. That there is such a thing in human nature needs no argument. We know quite well that any kind of turning of that trend upward, no matter in what realm, is always fraught with hard work, with conflict. It is the nature of things to decline. Leave anything in this creation to itself, and it degenerates; we know that to be true. Every attempt, every effort to improve things, in every realm, is fraught with conflict. That is clearly true of human nature. It hates to be bothered, troubled or disturbed; it wants to have its own way. Morally and spiritually, the trend is always downward; if that is challenged, there is going to be trouble.

ISRAEL EXEMPLIFIES THE DOWNGRADE TREND IN MAN

How terribly true is the working of that principle and law in Israel! Never in the history of mankind has such an experiment been carried out, as that which God carried out with Israel. God did everything that could be done to make possible an upward trend in the life of a nation. He gave it the very best system of laws and regulations, for every department of its life - physical, moral, spiritual. He gave it the very best conditions, in a land flowing with milk and honey; a land that simply leapt to respond to any little effort to make it fruitful. God showed infinite patience and longsuffering with that people. Never was such an experiment carried out in human history, as was carried out with Israel.

They had only to answer to God in any little way, and immediately He blessed. If they did this, in the temporal realm, at once they received blessing for it; at once they were rewarded. They had only got to ask, and He gave. They had only to do, and He came out to them. We often wish (secretly) that we lived in those days, when the temporal responses of God were so wonderful! Yes, even when they were not right with Him, if, in the midst of their criminal attitude toward God, they humbled themselves and prayed, God seemed to forget it all, and to come right out to them. God was carrying out an experiment. Right at the centre of His universe, He was giving an object lesson for all ages, for all intelligences to observe, to read. He put this people there under the most favourable conditions - physically, geographically, morally and spiritually - that He could provide. His attitude was: If you will, I will, and there will be no delay about it.

What is the sum of the whole thing? What is the story when you read it? An amazing story! It is that, in spite of everything, the course is always downgrade, downgrade, downgrade. This is something incorrigible, inveterate. God has shown for all time, for all times, that there is something in man, IN man, that is deeper and stronger than all the upward advantages that God can give him. Put him in a paradise, and he will turn it into a slum! Give him all the best conditions, and, in the long run, the condition will be one of disgrace. And, somehow, strangely enough, man loves to have it so. If you try to interfere with it, you see what you meet. The dentist and the doctor can be the most hated persons in the world! Is it because they are so evil? Oh, no; there is something irrational about it, utterly irrational. The value is altogether overlooked - simply because it goes against the grain! And what is the 'grain'? How many people would sooner suffer, suffer, suffer, than endure perhaps a few moments' pain, to have the suffering cleared up! You see what I mean - it is a strange thing, this human nature. But that is really at the root of this whole thing.

Is it not strange, that that which can be, or could be, the answer to all need, the solving of every problem, the clearing up of every evil situation, the bringing in of conditions so much more favourable, can become the most hated thing? Is it not strange? Look at the Lord Jesus: look at all that God has given in Him; look at all that He was, all that He came to bring, all that He came to do! He is a challenge, an abiding challenge. Can you find evil in Him? "What evil hath this man done?", asked another man once - a man who knew something about evil, wrong and sin; perhaps few knew more about it than Pilate did. Yet, knowing it all, he had to say: 'I find no fault in this Man' (Luke 23:22,14). And yet this One is the object of malice and hatred, unto murder. Strange, isn't it? He could clear up all the situations, solve all the problems, meet all the needs; and yet - and yet - 'Away with Him!' Anything that stands in the way of man's own disposition, or predisposition, or predilection, having its own way, will be a 'trouble maker'.

Now that touches a principle. You and I, on the broadest basis of the Christian life, are here in this world in this very capacity, to straddle the path of iniquity, of sin - of the very course of man - and to represent a check; and because we are here for that, we shall be called 'trouble makers'. In a very real sense we shall BE trouble makers. The trouble will focus itself upon us, and we shall have to suffer for it. The very fact that you are jealous for the Lord will bring you into conflict with that trend that there is in this world, in man. It is going to be a really gruelling business for any testimony for God in this world, because, in the very nature of things, it counters the whole course of this world, which is downhill.

THE SPIRITUAL VERSUS THE 'NATURAL'

That is, as I have said, the broad line of the principle. Let us get nearer to the heart of things, so far as what is represented by this chapter is concerned. When the SPIRITUAL stands to confront the merely formal, traditional, nominal and 'natural', then there is going to be trouble. This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is the reaction from religion. I would go further, and say it may be the reaction from Christianity. There is a very great difference between formal, traditional, nominal, 'natural' Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference. So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield - the battlefield of a lot of trouble.

Leave formalism alone, and everything will go on quite quietly. Leave traditionalism alone - that is, the set order of things as it has always been; that framework of things as it has been constituted and set up and established by man; that Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of things - and you will escape a great deal of trouble. But seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and trouble arises at once. And YOU are the trouble maker! The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing condition, the situation, the state; but it is only brought out by your action. And so spiritual men and women, and spiritual ministry, are called 'trouble makers', because the two things cannot go on together.

That is where Israel was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had the forms, they had the system - they had it all; BUT, in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap between the 'externals' and 'internals' of life in relation with God. The heart is far removed from the lips. The spiritual reality is not found in the formal. You may have it all - but then bring in the truly spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that very realm. It is the trouble which arises when what is external and traditional comes into conflict with something which is truly spiritual.

I used the word 'natural' a few moments ago - of course in quotation marks, taking it out of the New Testament: it means, literally, that which is merely 'soulish', 'of the soul'. It is important to realise how very soulish a thing can be, even in Christianity. There can be tremendous passion, tremendous earnestness, tremendous enthusiasm, tremendous arguments and conviction; and yet the thing may be far, far removed from what is spiritual. It may be another world altogether. The conflict arises between those two things. When the natural mind is manipulating Divine things; when the natural reason has taken hold of the Word of God and the things of God; when man's own passions and interests are being served through the work and service of God: that can become the ground of a great deal of spiritual conflict and trouble.

Trouble will arise in the realm of religion, and in 'Christian religion', as such, when what is purely spiritual comes up against the fixed system and tradition of men. It can happen as truly within Christianity, as it did between Christ and Paul, and Judaism. There was the tradition, and, in itself, there was nothing wrong with it; there was nothing wrong with what God had given, with the oracles and the testimony, nothing spiritually or morally wrong. But they had become ends in themselves, things in themselves; and the real meaning, significance and interpretation of them was lost; THEY were the things. The temple was the thing: with God it was not the thing; it was only a sign of something else. With them the sacrifices were the things: with God they were not the thing at all; there was only one Sacrifice that was true with God. And so we might go over the whole gamut. The THINGS - the forms and the means - were everything, and it was criminal in their eyes to say otherwise, to give any other interpretation than the historical and traditional. That is where they fell out with Paul. He had come to see the meaning of things, he had advanced from the things to the meaning; and they had not. Therein lay the conflict and the trouble.

'SOUL' IS THE GROUND OF SATAN'S KINGDOM

But now, let us come to the very heart of it. There is the wide circle of the world, of mankind and of human nature; and, within that, the smaller circle of religion, whatever the religion may be. These are realms of conflict when God's full mind is present. But right at the heart of both of those, there is something else, something that is easily discernible right through the Bible: there is the Satanic. Now, if Satan is alive to anything, sensitive to anything, touchy about anything, it is on this matter of the place that the Lord Jesus is to have - and to have, not formally, but vitally; not just historically, but spiritually: so that the Lord Jesus becomes not merely a name in history, not merely a figure in history, not merely a teacher in history, not merely a historic factor, but a vital, potent force in this universe, right up to date. That is the point upon which Satan and his kingdom are most sensitive. They are alive to any little thing that points in that direction, and they recognise immediately a potential menace to their kingdom.

Human nature is a good playground for that. Hence the story of missionary martyrs: those who have touched the raw material of human nature with the testimony of Jesus, with all the terrible conflict, suffering and cost. The natural man - the natural mind, the natural will; that which is merely the soul of man - in moving and working, exercising itself, asserting itself and drawing to itself, in the realm of the things of God, is a splendid playground for the evil forces. You assert any little bit of your soul life, and see what the Devil will do with it! You uncover any little bit of your soul life, and see what a wreck Satan will make of you! It is the whole story of the devastation that results when self-occupation, introspection and self-pity - all the forms of self-life - assert themselves and become accentuated. Does not the evil one just play havoc with people like that! They have opened the door, and he is not slow to present himself there for access.

Now, set over against all that - the natural man brought into the spiritual world (if that is a possibility), or into the realm of God's things - is that which is purely and truly spiritual, that which is of the Spirit. And when those two things come into collision, there is trouble - for they are both great systems - simply because, in the realm which is truly of the Spirit, Satan has no place at all! 'The prince of this world cometh', said Jesus, 'and hath nothing in Me' - the Man who lived in and walked by the Spirit. In all things, in ALL things, He referred and deferred to the Spirit of the Anointing which was upon Him. The prince of this world had NOTHING in Him.

Poor Peter was just at the mercy of the Devil, because, with all his sincerity, with all his well-meaning enthusiasm, he moved in his own soul. His relationship to Christ was one purely of the soul. When Peter came to be a man under the government of the Holy Spirit, that matter underwent immediate adjustment, and you can almost watch the process of that soul-life of his being brought more and more under control.

Perhaps I should pause to safeguard this, by saying very emphatically that it is not wrong to have a soul. No, God has given us a soul, and it is our soul which has got to be saved. But the point is - what is the base upon which and from which we operate, the instrument that we are using, the ground of our living? Either it is the soul, which is the seat of our SELF-life, in every sense; or it is the spirit, which is the seat of the DIVINE life.

Here, then, is the explanation of the conflict. Satan works hard to get hold of 'soul'. He can lead everything out on to a false stream in that way. A thing that may start in the Spirit, can at some point, without sufficient watchfulness and prayerfulness, be led right out on to a false trail, and end up as something altogether different from what it was at the beginning.

But, to return to this eighteenth chapter of First Kings - Baal and all the rest of it - the heart of the thing is this. It is not Baal, it is not Ahab, it is not Jezebel: it is the evil powers; and THEY are after this man Elijah. Behind Jezebel, there are evil forces set upon the destruction of this man, because his very presence means a breach in their kingdom. He is the man in touch with God, in touch with the Throne. In him and by him, THAT throne becomes imminent - that throne is present. And these two thrones, these two kingdoms, are against one another.

'TROUBLE' INEVITABLE WITH SPIRITUAL SIGHT

When, therefore, there is the purest testimony, the fullest expression of what is of God, the heavenly over against the earthly, the spiritual over against the carnal or the natural, the enemy gives a turn to things, a twist to things, and lays the responsibility at the door of a spiritual and a heavenly ministry. He says: 'You are the cause of all the trouble - you are the troubler!' But no. The trouble lies deeper than that, and in another realm. The truth is, there is something here that, in its very nature, MUST create trouble, MUST be a source of trouble, so long as God's known will, His revealed mind, is being violated; while the full expression of God's purpose is being withstood. To bring in something that stands for that, there is going to be trouble.

It is a costly thing to have seen God's full purpose and thought concerning His people. It is always a costly thing. The Lord Jesus set a very vivid example and object lesson of this truth right in the foreground, in the incident of the man born blind (John 9). There is no doubt that the Lord intended that man to represent Israel and Israel's condition at the time. He gave that man sight - and what happened to the man? "They cast him out", that is all; they cast him out, they excommunicated him (v. 34). That is an object lesson, an instance of this very thing.

If eyes have been opened; if, in any sense - not officially - you have become a 'seer' - one who sees: it is going to cost you a lot, it will involve you in a lot of trouble. This matter of 'seeing' does that. It was Elijah the SEER, over against the BLINDNESS of Israel. It is a costly thing to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman in this universe. It is a costly thing, yes, very costly, to hold to a heavenly and spiritual position. It is a costly thing to hold for Christ's full place; it involves you in trouble. It is a costly thing to have light - if it is true light, God-given light. It is a costly thing to have life.

But remember, it is here, in this, that the power is resident. It is with this that God is found ultimately to be committed. You know the story again. God will have no compromise with the thing that lies behind. 'Take the prophets of Baal!' They were all slain. There is no compromise with that spiritual thing. But God is shown as to where He stands, to what He is committed, and where the power is.

For I suppose that, if Elijah represents one thing more than another, he does represent spiritual power. When we think of spiritual power we always refer to Elijah - 'in the power of Elijah'. It is proverbial. Why? Not because of anything that he was in himself; no, not because of the man. He was a man in touch with the Throne; he was a man who had seen; a man who was committed, of whom it was true that he was "very jealous for the Lord". God was with Elijah.

John came 'in the power of Elijah' (Luke 1:17); he was the Elijah of his time. The Lord Jesus said of him: "If ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah" (Matt. 11:14), though John himself denied this (John 1:21). Elijah is a sort of phantom in a certain realm. Poor Herod was scared of his life - he began to see things, to get strange ideas - when he heard about Jesus: some suggested to him that this was Elijah returned to life, but he thought it was John the Baptist risen from the dead (Matt. 14:2; Mark 6:14-16). The fellow just lost his mental grasp of things. This Elijah man counts for something. Power is with him; the verdict is with him.

And - let there be no mistake about it - in the end it will be found that God IS committed to that which is utterly committed to Him for His full purposes. It is costly; it causes much trouble; BUT - the issue is with Him, and He will look after His own interests.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1960, Vol 38-4

Keeping Christ in View

From time to time we feel it to be helpful to our readers if we try to put into some concrete statement something relating to this ministry.

Very many write us of its value and helpfulness, and we are glad that its true object and purpose is discerned by so large a number. Even so, we are continually concerned to bring it to clear and definite issues. This is because this ministry is so very practical in its background, and we are anxious that this fact should be kept in view. These are not just ideas and teachings that are expounded, but the issues of a life in the school of deep and, often, painful experience. It is the result of something being done and then explained.

Note the order. In the old dispensation, God first showed a pattern and then commanded that all should be made accordingly. In this dispensation, He began with mighty acts, the acts of the Cross, Resurrection and Exaltation of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit; but these were not wholly understood even by those chiefly involved, and their meaning had to be arrived at by way of progress and crises. This ministry is so much of that character. The Lord has done and continues to do things in us and with us, and then teaches us their meaning. We are still learning: hence there is always room for adjustment, and need for teachableness.

To sum up this work and teaching of the Lord, it just amounts to this. There has taken place an undercutting of the whole of Christianity, as it is known now, in its crystallization into a set, established, and accepted system, with all its institutionalism, traditionalism, etc., and a bringing right back and down to the spiritual and essential significance and implications of Jesus the Lord. So very much of that which goes by His Name is now so much separated from His Person. Not historically, of course, for it all relates to Him as the historic Jesus; but vitally, spiritually, organically, and immediately. The 'Gospel' has suffered this severance. It is now so largely 'salvation' as a matter of forgiveness, justification, peace, happiness, heaven, and escape from hell.

These are truly the blessings of the Gospel, but at the beginning it was Christ who was preached; the Person who was kept in full view; the one through whom the Gospel came. It was "the gospel of God concerning his Son". The emphasis was not upon what men could have, but upon God's rights and Christ's glory. This may seem to be straining things, but let it be understood that the Holy Spirit - the Custodian of Christ's honour - is most jealous on this matter, and will only commit Himself to this keeping of Christ in view.

There is everywhere today an immense amount of definite or tacit admission of the failure of Christianity; the asking of the question: 'What is wrong with Christianity or the "churches"?' The would-be doctors seeking to diagnose the malady and prescribe the remedy are a growing multitude. Not all are mistaken, and if we seem to have joined their ranks, we do not think that we are speculating when we assert that that which is preached and taught has become - although largely unwittingly - detached from the personal significance of Christ Himself. The business of the Church and its ministry is not to propagate a system of Christian truth, but to bring Christ Himself, in the power of the Holy Spirit, wherever it goes and is. The Gospel as such saves nobody. Salvation is a vital personal contact and union with Christ Himself. Hence, and this is the crucial point, Christ must have a living organism in which and by which to make that contact and that union.

Christianity has become something almost entirely apart from the Person of Christ. It is a religion, a system, a philosophy of life, a set of ways, practices, and ideas. It is something that people enter into, take up, join, and choose. They come to Christ through the Christian system, but the Christ they come to is a denominational, sectarian, ritualistic, or evangelical Christ. The Christ that they know and believe in is the Christ of this or that connection and interpretation. Christ rarely now creates Christianity; it is Christianity that creates Christ.

The Church - that is, what is termed the Church - is now an institution. It has become the Church of historical production, of accidental or human production. It is a hierarchy of ecclesiastical, social, human, and arbitrary selection, direction, and government. As we know it, it is not "one body and one Spirit". The terminology of Christ as Head of the Church, and the Church as the Body of Christ, is employed, but it is all objective, and so largely in the realm of Divine Sovereignty; it is fatalistic in effect, rather than immediate, subjective, and essentially personal in the presence and authority of the Holy Spirit.

All this, which represents a vast amount more, indicates the loss of one inclusive and pre-eminently essential reality. That is an inward revelation of Christ as the embodiment of an altogether other order of creation; of a constitution which is according to a Kingdom that is not after this world, either as a whole or in any part.

Christ just cannot be conformed to anything here, national or denominational. "The world knew him not." He is, to the natural man - who may be a Christian - inscrutable, inexplicable, and unintelligible. His power and influence cannot be attributed to any of those things looked for by the world as explanations; e.g. birth, education, personal abilities either in constitution, acquirement, or attainment. He positively repudiated all such attempts to explain His works and teachings, and to answer men's question, "Whence hath this man this...?"

What Christ did and said came, so He declared, not out from Himself, but by seeing the Father. What we do and say must be by seeing the Son, and this demands, in Paul's words, a "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him". It is the irreconcilable difference between imitation and duplication, on the one hand, and generation and reproduction, on the other.

The reproduction of the Church is not its duplication. It is a fatal mistake to try to form 'New Testament Churches'. That is the policy of sectarianism: to have churches everywhere of a pattern and technique. The Church was born, out from heaven, as all its members have to be, and it is just the same with churches. It is the violation of a fundamental principle to try to form churches after any pattern, and so to duplicate - even if the original was born of God and represents His mind. Every next one must be born in the same way. Everything with God takes its rise and its form from life - and that Divine life! In so far as we crystallize truth into a set compass, measure and limited interpretation, we make it minister death rather than life; bondage rather than liberty; letter rather than Spirit. God's way is once, and once only, to create - the prototype - and then to generate from that; not copy it by imitation, either mass-production or otherwise.

The Holy Spirit is in charge of this dispensation and everything has to be born of the Spirit if it is of God. We may have all the truth that is in the New Testament and seek to reproduce things according to it, but that is no guarantee that we shall have the living organism. We hear people speaking of 'standing for' this truth and that; meeting on the ground of such-and-such a truth; but this can only engender divisions and exclusiveness. Christ is the ground of meeting, and we should contend only for this ground.

It is significant that the majority of divisions, and these the most acute, have come about in directions where 'the one Body' has been the truth contended for. We can well understand that the enemy would make it his business to bring such a vital matter into dishonour and reproach; but there will always be this possibility, if truth - even the most important truth - is put in the place of the Person. Even the truth or doctrine of the Person can obscure the Person Himself. Hence even fundamentalism can be very un-Christ-like in spirit and behaviour.

All this, and so much more of its kind, represents the need for that basic and drastic work of the Cross, as an abiding power, so that what is presented is not 'Christianity', as it has come to be so largely known, but Christ, in terms of life, light, power, love, liberty, and glory. It is not this or that 'church', but Christ expressed, as present in the corporate organism - His Body.

Hence it is no particular teaching, company of Christians, 'work', or 'Fellowship' that is the object of this ministry, but only and always the Fulness of Christ.

There are many Divine principles governing such a testimony, but these are contained in the messages of this spoken and printed ministry.

When all has been said, the fundamental fact has to be borne in mind that the real seeing of Jesus is a Divine fiat, an act of God: the granting of a "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him".

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1953, Vol 31-5

A Message for the Hour

The Vital Importance of Spiritual Vision

"Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint" Proverbs 29:18.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6.

The first quotation above is from the Book of Wisdom. The wisdom of that statement has been overwhelmingly proved by much history and experience. There is a sense in which this explains a vast amount of spiritual tragedy, both individual and collective. This will be explained as we proceed. But first we must define the terms.

1. The Text - Its Interpretation and Meaning

(a) "Vision" - What is Meant by the Word?

This is the word used to define and summarise the message of the Prophets: e.g. "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz".

Sometimes it was as in a trance, or dream, but this was by no means general or invariable. It certainly was not essentially a matter of ocular or objective presentation, so that the matter took visual or oral form to the senses. The "vision" came in various ways, and the method is of little account. It is what it amounted to that is important. That was

The Message from the Lord for the Hour

We should resolve it all into that. If we have the message of the Lord for the hour we have what the Bible means by "Vision". If we have what the Bible calls vision, we have the message of the Lord for the hour; although the full fulfilment may reach far ahead.

It can therefore be easily seen that the absence of such a message - especially if the hour is a critical one - could have grave results. The Bible give various instances and explanations of the absence of "vision".

Hosea 4:6,7 gives 'rejection' as the cause, and note the serious reaction of the Lord to this rejection.

In 1 Samuel 3:1 spiritual declension is the cause.

Or it might be because of diversion and preoccupation with things other than the supreme purpose of God.

Again, the spiritual organ of vision may be so injured by selfish interests, or sinful indulgences, or neglect, as to make seeing almost impossible.

Whatever may be the cause, the result is serious.

That leads us to

(b) "Perish" (A.V.) "Cast off Restraint" (R.V.)

But neither translation gives the full content. By using various words or phrases we could get nearer the meaning. 'The people let go: fall to pieces: go loose: run wild: or disintegrate.'

A good example is seen in Israel at the foot of Sinai worshipping the calf. The Lord told Moses that they had "broken loose".

It may be disconcertedness, bewilderment, consternation, distractedness, terror. Or it may be disappointment, grief, perplexity, or impatience.

The causes may be many, but the effect is disintegration. A disintegrated life or community is one that is useless and helpless; weak, defeated, and paralysed.

So much for the definition - at present.

2. The Message

(a) If what is indicated above is true, then surely the first part of the message is that of the vital importance of there being a word from God for the hour.

It is essential to God's purpose that there is in critical times and ominous days a vessel with the essential message of God.

It is difficult to imagine a more grievous and tragic situation than that of there being no voice to interpret nor message to govern in a day when people are pealed, broken and bewildered.

(b) What is the essential element in 'vision', or the message from God?

It is certainly authority - the voice of authority.

We could almost paraphrase our text thus - "Where there is no voice of authority the people go to pieces".

But this authority is not in the tone or strength of voice or utterance. It is not in the force of personality, or in any human factor in itself.

What is

The Nature of Authority?

(a) It is clarity and certainty as to God's end and objective.

That is a statement made. We do not intend at this point to indicate or discuss what that end is, but it will readily be seen and realised that if there is not clarity and certainty as to what God is set upon, working toward, and supremely concerned with, there most certainly lacks the essential integrating factor in life and work. For things to be ends in themselves; merely to be doing things without an all-dominating, adequate, and supremely justifying Divine purpose is to result in collapse, loss of heart, and 'going to pieces' in the day of the fiery ordeal.

(b) Then it is clarity and certainty as to God's method.

Again, without at the moment trying to indicate what God's method is, we but emphasize that God does have a method - His own appointed and designed method - of reaching His end. That end is not going to be reached either willy-nilly or by ways of man's inventing, choosing, or designing. It is just on this point that a vast amount of miscarriage, frustration, and loss have marked so much expenditure.

To be able to indicate the boundless method of God is to have that kind of authority which, though it may be flouted or rejected meantime, will be vindicated by eventual proof.

(c) Further, it is clarity and certainty as to God's means.

Does it need stressing that God has always shown Himself to be very jealous regarding the means employed for His purpose? To be clear and sure on this matter is to be where God can commit Himself, and that is always authority. While this matter of means may apply to numerous things, it is discernible in Scripture that God has His means chosen and appointed for reaching and realising His end, and that He does not normally depart from it; and never so, finally.

(d) Finally, it is clarity and certainty as to God's principles.

That the Bible is a book of principles is its supreme value and meaning. That God therefore builds and fulfils history and design on spiritual principles - never deviating from them, infringing, nor weakening as to them - is something of fundamental importance to be apprehended. The recognition or identifying of those principles, or the principle involved in any situation, is to be in a position of great strength - authority.

This was the essential nature of the authority which was so definitely felt in the case of Christ Himself. Not mystic, psychic, or merely intellectual, but a getting behind things as such to the principle involved. This is what is meant by spiritual discernment, and without it there is spiritual disintegration, or lack of integration, as at Corinth (see 1 Corinthians, chapter 2).

All this is enough, at present, to lead us to see that our text is very true and sound. We see the tremendous power of "vision" in the matter of bringing and holding together; what Paul called "standing fully assured".

3. The Application of the Principle

(a) To the Individual

It is of supreme importance to the strength and steadfastness of the individual Christian's life that it is seen that there is a purpose unto which and into which we are called in Christ. This is not only a life, it is a life governed by a mighty objective.

(b) To the Local Company

For a clear, strong, and effective testimony in any location it is essential that the Church as represented there is more than a congregation, a number of individuals; but a unit, a single corporate organic entity.

For this the essential is "vision", that is, all seeing together God's purpose, and being integrated thereby.

(c) To the Church Universal

The only hope of a bettering of the situation in the divided and therefore weakened Church as it is, is the recovery of a seeing of God's single objective, the recognition of God's essential method and means, and the discernment of His unalterable and inviolable principles.

We shall try to fill in these four features or components of authority later, but here we present what we believe to be the necessity and the nature of "vision", and must leave all who have any concern for the interests of God and of His people to seek Him the more earnestly for "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the (full) knowledge of him", 'the eyes of the understanding being enlightened'. (Ephesians 1:7).

Christianity's Coming Ordeal

We close this part of our consideration by pointing to the gravity and seriousness of this matter in the light of present trends. It is our conviction that Christianity is in the way of a serious crisis.

Our grounds for this conviction will be stated later, but both from the Bible and from present processes we feel that there is ample ground for believing that Christianity will pass into a worldwide ordeal of testing and sifting.

It is spreading rapidly from the East and, being energised by a supernatural force, with Satan's last and consummate challenge to God's Christ as its all-out motif, even its instruments will not be able to stop the tiger that they have mounted.

But God's Sovereignty is over all, and the issue is none other than what is truly, genuinely, and intrinsically Christ and what is - not just opposite, but - imitation, assumed.

With this ordeal pressing on so that every agency of men and institutions is proving impotent to stem it, the greatest need of our time is a ministry and message that brings God's people into the presence of that all-governing purpose to which He has immovably committed Himself.

One of the perils of the hour is to mistake the significance of things. For instance, there are great evangelistic movements with tens of thousands being brought together, and large numbers making a profession of "accepting Christ". The peril in this for the Church is to be caught up in it as the main and most important thing in our time.

What really ought to be recognised is that at best it is a large-scale drawing attention to the fact of God and of Christ with a view to leaving the world without excuse. This is according to Scripture.

The writer was impressed with this when recently following immediately upon one such great campaign in a city in America he asked a number of Counsellors what the effect had been. The agreement of these was that of all who had signed cards - a large proportion being "decisions for Christ" - the majority were already members of churches. This is tremendously significant, and would surely imply that God is not willing to leave people in a false position. Would to God that the convenors of large Christian conventions could realise that, while "deepening of the spiritual life" is essential to preparation for the ordeal, the motive and purpose, the reason and mainspring is in God's eternal purpose, not in the Christian life itself.

A tremendous additional factor of immense effectiveness will come into such conventions if, right at their centre there is that "prophetic" ministry which - coming from "vision" - is God's message for the hour in relation to - not just an interpretation of "prophecy" (as of some school) - but the spiritual significance of the course of things!

The Lord raise up and send such messengers!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1957, Vol 35-1

The Ministry of Elijah

Reading: 1 Kings 17.

What we have in view, of course, in the first place, is the servant of the Lord. Once more God is found reacting to a state of things amongst His Own people, rising up in Divine discontent, and, as always, laying His hand upon an instrument for recovery.

So Elijah stands before us to represent such an instrument, and, in God's dealings with him, we see the ways and the principles by which a servant of the Lord is made an effectual servant, in relation to the purpose of God.

The Sovereign Choice Of God

The first thing related to any such instrument is the sovereignty of God. There is never any adequate, natural explanation for the choice and appointment by God of His servants. There may be things in the chosen instrument which will be turned to account, when they are wholly sanctified and brought under the government of God's Spirit, but when all has been said, we have to recognise that God's choice of His instruments is always a sovereign choice, and not because there is anything naturally in the instrument to warrant His choosing that instrument and selecting it from others. He acts sovereignly in choosing and appointing for His purpose. But, although that may be true, and although God may go beyond choosing and may endue that instrument with spiritual power, yet the instrument must be controlled and disciplined continually by the hand of God. Otherwise that servant of the Lord, or that instrument, will be found following in the direction of his own soul, following his own judgments, being influenced by his own feelings. The intent and motive may be very good, it may be very godly, but that does not dispense with the necessity of that instrument being continuously under the hand of God, for government and for discipline.

That is what comes very clearly before us at the outset in the case of Elijah. There is no doubt about God's sovereign choice, and there is no question as to God having endued Elijah with Divine power. Nevertheless, we see him at every step under the hand of God, and those steps are all steps which are a disciplining of the man himself. God is dealing with His servant all the time, and bringing him, all the way along, under His hand, so that he never becomes something in himself, but has everything in the Lord, and only in the Lord. We make a great mistake if we think that it is enough to have the Divine thought as to Divine purpose, that is, to have the knowledge of what God desires to do. That is not enough, that knowledge of the thought of God is not sufficient. There has to be a dealing with us in relation to that Divine thought, and that dealing with us is usually in a way which is altogether beyond our understanding.

If God were dealing with us as sinners, that is, if He were dealing with us because of certain personal sins and personal faults, we could quite clearly understand that; but when He is dealing with us in relation to Divine purpose, as His servants, His dealings with us go far beyond our understanding. We are taken out into a realm where we do not understand what the Lord is doing with us, and why the Lord takes certain courses with us. We are out of our depth, we are altogether baffled, and we are compelled - that is, if we are going on with God - to believe that God knows what He is doing: we have just to move with Him according to whatever light we may have, and believe that these dealings with us, so far beyond our understanding, are somehow related to that purpose with which we are called, and that the explanation waits some distance ahead, and we will find it when we get there. God does not explain Himself when He takes a step with us. God never comes to a servant of His and says, 'Now I am going to take you through a certain experience which will be of this particular character, and the reason for this is so-and-so.' Without any intimation from the Lord, we find ourselves in a difficult situation, which altogether confounds us, puts us beyond the power of explaining that experience, and God takes us through without any explanation whatever until we are free, until the purpose for which that experience was given is reached, and then we have the explanation.

The point is, that even an instrument, sovereignly taken up by God in relation to His purpose, while knowing His main thought as to His purpose, still needs to be kept every moment, at every step, under God's hand, to be disciplined in relation to that thought, to be governed entirely by God.

Elijah, great man as he was, outstanding in the history of God's movements, was brought to that very point where, although he knew that God had laid hold of him, and although he knew what God's intention was, he could not, by his own initiative and by his own energy, freely go on to fulfil his mission. He could not move more than one step at a time, and even so that step had to be definitely governed by God. He could only take that step under the Divine direction. You see it here in this chapter to begin with. He had to take just one step, and then the next, and that by Divine direction, nothing beyond that. The Lord does not turn even His greatest servants loose with an idea. He does not liberate His most mightily used instruments to take a free course, even though they may know what God is after.

Divine Authority

Some of the reasons for that are clear. Elijah's ministry was one of Divine authority. There were powers at work which were more than human powers. The case with Israel was not simply one of spiritual declension. It was not merely that the people had lost a measure of spiritual life and were on a lower level than they should be, so that they had to have a deepening of the spiritual life. That was not the position at all. Baal had a mighty footing in Israel, and the evil powers, the forces of darkness, were back of this state of things. The situation demanded more than merely spiritual help to Israel. Something more than a ministry of exhortation and of spiritual food, something more than a convention for the deepening of spiritual life was called for. A ministry of Divine authority was needed, to deal with a spiritual situation back of the condition in which the people were found. There were mightier forces at work than merely human faults and failings. The mighty power of Satan was there represented by Israel's state. Elijah, therefore, must needs fulfil a ministry of Divine authority, and the very first public utterance indicates that that is what his ministry was:

As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word (1 Kings 17:1).

There is a position, and there is an authority by reason of that position. James says that by Elijah's prayer the heavens were closed. That is going beyond the merely earthly, human situation. And again, by his prayer the heavens were opened. That is authority in heaven.

Secret Preparation

Now that ministry of authority was born in secret preparation before it came out in public expression. The Apostle James tells us quite definitely that "Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently (you have no mention of that in the historic record in the Book of Kings) that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain..."

There is a secret history with God. He came into his public ministry with abrupt announcement. He simply stood there upon the platform of the universe, as it were, and made his declaration. But that is not all. There is a secret history with God behind that. All such ministry of Divine authority has its beginning hidden from the public eye, has its roots in a secret history with God. That kind of ministry, born out from that secret history with God, needs very special government by God to preserve its safety, to safeguard it from all those forces which can destroy it, and that is why Elijah, having such a ministry, needed to be governed in every step by God. There must be no generalization of movement in his case, there must be specific movement, God dictating every step. So God preserves that authority as He produces it, that is, by a hidden life. Such a life and such a ministry must not be exposed, otherwise it will be destroyed.

Separation From The Self-life

So the Lord said to Elijah, "Get thee hence..." Hence? Where from? From this exposure, this publicity, this open place with all its dangers. "Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan." Hide thyself. Geography may have little to do with it. What is here spiritually is "hide thyself". Cherith means separation or cutting off, and that is linked with Jordan. Cherith is a tributary of the Jordan. We know what Jordan stands for, the death of the self-life. In the major sense, the Lord's servants have been to Jordan; that is, the self-life has been set aside; but they have to keep near Jordan, and Jordan has to govern them at every step. The most paralysing thing to a ministry of Divine authority is "thyself". It is, in other words, the strength of our own souls. Elijah was a strong-minded man, a strong-willed man, a man capable of very strong and drastic actions, of pouring out a great deal of his own soul-life with great heat, and the self-life of a servant of God is a great peril to the spirit. Paul makes it perfectly clear that, at an advanced point in his ministry and in his spiritual life, when God had entrusted him with visions and revelations unspeakable, which it was not lawful for a man to utter, the main and most immediate peril and menace to the ministry of that revelation was himself. 'Lest I should be exalted above measure...." Then the self-life had not been eradicated from Paul! Paul was not clear of the peril of doing great damage to purely spiritual ministry, and God had to take a special precaution against the self-life of His own servant, not the sinful life in its old sense, but the self-life. 'Lest I should be exalted..." I... exalted! What is that? That is the exaltation of the ego, the self. What dangers are in that "I", and how truly it stands in peril of getting into an exalted place, a place of power, a place of influence, a place of authority. It is in this sense that the Lord has to say, "Hide thyself": 'get to the place of cutting off, of separation.'

This was so different from what you might expect. You see, here is a man, having had this deep, secret preparation with God in much prayer, who finds himself brought out in Divine authority to make a great announcement which represents a crisis in the purpose of God. You would expect that, from that point, he would go straight on from strength to strength, from place to place, would at once become a recognised authority, a recognised servant of God, and be very much before the public eye. But God would guard against any servant of His taking up a Divine purpose and a Divine commission in himself, taking it up in his own energy. That will destroy it, and there must be a hiding, a very real hiding. If a geographical hiding is God's way of getting a spiritual hiding, well, be it so. If God chooses to send us out of the realm of public life and ministry into some remote and hidden place, in order to take us away from the imminent peril of our becoming something, of our being taken up to be made something of, our going on in the strength of our own self-life, that is all well and good; but whether it be geographical or not, the word of the Lord to all His servants would always be, "Hide thyself!"

Adjustableness

Then you see, connected with that, as a part of it, the servant of the Lord must be found always in the place where he is pliable, where the Lord can get a ready and immediate response. The servant has no programme, therefore there is nothing to upset. He has no set course, therefore the Lord has nothing to break. He is moving with God, or staying with God, just as the Lord directs. He must be mobile in the hands of the Lord, that is, capable of being moved at any time, in any way, without feeling that everything is being broken up and torn to pieces.

"Get thee hence... and hide thyself by the brook Cherith... and it came to pass... that the brook dried up." The Lord did not say that it would not dry up, and the fact that the Lord told Elijah to go to the brook Cherith did not mean that the Lord was going to preserve the brook forever. It was a step, and the Lord said, in effect: 'That is the next step. I do not promise you that you will stay there always. I am not saying that that is your last abiding place, and that you can settle down there forever. That is your next step: go there and be ready for anything else that I want.'

This is a spiritual condition, of course. No one is going to take this literally. If we were to begin to apply this literally, as to our business here on earth, we might get into confusion; but we have to be ready in spirit for the Lord to do anything that He likes, and never to feel that there is any contradiction when the Lord, having directed us in one way, now directs us in another. It is a matter of being in the hands of the Lord, without a mind of our own made up, though the way be hidden from our own reasoning, from our own will, from our own feelings, hidden from all our soul-life, so that the Lord has a clear way with us.

The brook dried up! Well, are you dependent on the brook? If so, you are in a state of utter confusion when the brook dries up. Are you dependent upon the Lord? Very well, let all the brooks dry up and it is quite all right. Dependence on the Lord is a governing and an abiding law of true spiritual power. Elijah has been spoken of and written of as the prophet of power. If that is true in any special way, he was very certainly the prophet of dependence.

That relationship to the Lord made it possible for the Lord to do other things, and to lead him on into new realms of revelation and experience. Oh, what a thing adjustableness is! If we are not adjustable, how we prevent the Lord from bringing us into His full revelation and purpose.

Those disciples of John the Baptist were adjustable, and because of that they came to know the Lord Jesus. You will remember those disciples of John who followed Jesus, and said, "Master, where dwellest Thou?" He said, "Come and see." Now had they been fixed and settled, saying, 'We are John's disciples and we must stand by him; we must stay with John, and move with him; let Jesus have His Own disciples, but we stand by John,' they would have lost a great deal. But they were open and adjustable, and moved beyond John.

Those other disciples of John whom Paul found at Ephesus many years afterward, to whom he said, "Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" were adjustable. When they heard what Paul said, they were baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus. They were ready to go on from John to Christ, and so they came into the greater fullness (Acts 19).

Unless we are adjustable we shall miss a great deal. Elijah was adjustable, and so God could lead him on. The Lord allowed the brook to dry up because He had something more for His servant to learn, and something more to do through him, and so He said, "Arise, get thee to Zarephath... I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee." He went to Zarephath, and was made a blessing by his obedience.

Experience Of Resurrection

Then he was brought by his new movement of obedience and faith into a new exercise, a new perplexity, a new trial; for the woman's son died. The woman was a widow with one son. The death of the son meant for her the loss of everything. It happened while Elijah was there, being looked after by this woman, and he was there in his obedience to the Lord. He had done this in obedience to the Lord, and now in the line of obedience to, and of faith in the Lord, the Lord allowed this catastrophe to come into the very home to which he had been sent. It clearly raised a big question in Elijah's heart. 'God sent me here, I know that! God raised me up and commissioned me, and in the course of the fulfilling of my commission He brought me into this situation! There is no doubt about the Lord having led this way, and now here I am, having done what the Lord told me, having taken the course that He indicated, and everything has come into death and confusion; there is a terrible contradiction here!' All sorts of questions can arise when you get in a position like that, and you can begin to go back on your guidance, begin to raise questions as to whether, after all, you were led, or whether you made a mistake in your guidance. Do that, and you only get more and more into the mire. What is all this about? God has a revelation for Elijah beyond anything that he had yet received. He was going to bring him into something more than he had yet known. He was going to show His servant that He is the God of resurrection; and that has to be wrought, in a deep way, into the very being of His servant, through trial, through perplexity, through bewilderment. Thus the Lord allows the widow's son to die, and the house to be filled with consternation, and all concerned to ask big questions.

The prophet goes up to his chamber and brings the thing before the Lord, and lays hold of God, and so relates himself to this situation that he and the situation are one, and the boy's resurrection is the prophet's resurrection. There is identification of the prophet with the situation in death, and then in resurrection. The mighty meaning of the power of His resurrection, with new experience of that for the servant of God, was an essential lesson, if this authority was to be maintained, and this ministry to work out to its ultimate meaning in the overthrow of the power of death, which were working destruction. The servant of God must go through it all in his own heart.

This discipline of Zarephath was relative to the whole ministry of the prophet. Zarephath means testing and refining, and it was indeed a refining fire. But Elijah came out, and everybody else concerned came out, into a new place in resurrection.

The Lord write these things in our hearts, and show us how they still remain as spiritual values connected with the reaching of God's end, the fulfilling of His purpose.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1938.

The Necessity of Giving Earnest Heed to the Things That Have Been Heard

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them. For if the word spoken through angels proved stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will" (Hebrews 2:1-4).

"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not, when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape, who turn away from him that warneth from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:25-29).

Those words, of course, sound very terrible. They are almost like holding a threat over people, and you might feel that they are not too encouraging a beginning for a time like this. However, I have read them with one object, and I think they constitute a very good starting-point for such a consideration as is before us at this time.

No one will question the solemnity of those words. There is something almost terrible about them. When you hear them you say: 'Well, you cannot, you dare not, fail to recognize that we are in the presence of something very serious. There really is something very serious on hand when such words have to be spoken.' We are not in the presence of some light, superficial, pleasant matter and interest. We are evidently in the presence of something momentous, something which, if it can be put into such language of fear - for it says "Let us fear": a solemn and terrible warning of the possibility of something awful happening - well, you don't talk like that about anything unless it is something of tremendous value, something of very glorious possibility and consequence. To miss that something is said to be the most terrible thing that could happen. Therefore it must be something tremendously important.

Now, I am not exaggerating, I am not making that up, but there you are. I have started at the beginning of the Letter: "Let us fear lest...". I have gone right over to near the end of the Letter where similar words occur again as summing up, and in between the beginning and the end you just have any number of these earnest entreaties, these solemn warnings and examples taken out of the life of others who did not give heed and go through, and what happened in their case?

Therefore I suggest to you that this Letter must be a very vital Letter. If that is the nature of it, the realm of it, if that is the portent, then there is something tremendous in view for Christians which can be missed. That is what it is all about.

For the present I will occupy my time mainly in talking about the Letter.

When you have language like this, when someone is speaking in this way and it is put on record, and turns out to be (allow me to put it in this way) not man writing or speaking, but God, you surely must be in the presence of a crisis. It must be a crisis that is on hand; that is, a terminal point on which, and at which, tremendous issues are at stake, one way or another. When you hear, something has got to happen. It is the ultimate that is brought to bear upon this moment, this situation.

We know, of course, that this Letter itself took its rise from a crisis, but it is impressive to realize that not only was it related to a historic crisis, but the Holy Spirit took hold of that and introduced the ultimate crisis, and built upon that the ultimate issue. Perhaps you need that explained.

The Historic Crisis

The historic crisis was this. This Letter was written probably about two years before that full scattering for the whole of this age of the Jewish people: the destruction of Jerusalem which the Lord Jesus had foretold. You notice, in our reading, things which were in the first place spoken by the Lord Jesus - "Give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard" - and some of the things which were spoken by Him related to this crisis. He said: "The days will come, in which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" (Luke 21:6). That terrible twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, spoken by the Lord, was bearing upon the thing which was now within a year or two of actual fulfilment, when the Roman legions besieged Jerusalem, brought it to starvation, destroyed its temple so that literally, according to a Jewish historian, they did not leave one stone upon another. It is on record that as they went about their work, they literally left the whole thing on the ground. The temple was finished, all the temple worship was finished, the priesthood was finished, the sacrifices were finished, and the people were scattered to the ends of the earth, never to be fully recovered again in this dispensation. It has been according to the Lord's word: "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matthew 23:38). It has been like that these nearly two thousand years.

That is the historic crisis which is here - the shaking of the things of the earth that can be shaken.

The Ultimate Crisis

Now the Holy Spirit takes hold of the historic and superimposes upon that something bigger: the shaking of the heavens also, the heavenly things. Christianity as a whole will be shaken at the end. This is the end of one phase, but another phase is coming when everything in Christianity will be shaken to its foundation. This tremendous, two-fold crisis is the occasion of this Letter.

Why did the Lord cause this person, whoever he was - and we won't debate who he was - to write this Letter at that time? This is where it comes to us, and it ought to come with just as much force as it came to the Jews, or was intended to come to the Jews at that time.

The time will come, and it is fixed in the counsels of God, when everything in this creation and in this universe is going to be subject to a tremendous shaking. It is going to happen. Peter speaks about it in terms of the atomic age, as you know: "The elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10). It is coming. And the issue is this: When it comes, what have we that will abide the shaking? What will come through it all and survive unshaken? What have we got that, let the greatest shaking in this universe come, can never be moved, will never go, will come out all right, unshaken - "a kingdom that cannot be shaken"? What have you got like that?

Getting On To Ground That Cannot Be Shaken

Now this Letter was written to these Hebrew Christians to try - and it was a great effort of the Lord - to get their feet established upon ground that could never be shaken. They were wavering, already being shaken and being moved from their steadfastness. Some of them were thinking of going back to the old associations and the old Jewish system, and the Lord inspired this Letter with the one object of getting them established, so established that when this terrific storm broke, these winds were let loose and so many and so much carried away, there would be that which would stand the storm and abide. As I have said, He used the historic as the occasion for bringing in the eternal. He leads on to this for all Christians.

Before the Storm Breaks

Now, dear friends, there are two things which are important for us to notice. One is this: that you cannot settle that matter when the storm breaks. If you have ever been in a really good storm you know very well that that is not the time to get things settled. If you have not got them settled before then, you are just going to be all at sea indeed. The forces will be far too much to cope with. You will just be thrown all over the place. An emergency is not the time to get quietly down to our foundations, for we are too much caught up in things. If it is not all settled beforehand, if you do not know where you are beforehand, you will not be able to see to it when this thing breaks. It is important to recognize that. Therefore this Letter would say: 'In the light of testings which will come, in view of that which is bound to break upon us at some time, now is the time to make sure that our position is an absolutely sound one, an absolutely true one, and that there is nothing doubtful about our position at all, no question about it and we know where we are, that we are not at the mercy of other people's judgments and ideas. We know the Lord for ourselves. We know where we are. Let everything go to pieces! We know where we are with the Lord.' That is the thing that has to be settled, and it cannot be settled when everything is going to pieces.

The other thing that is important is that we should recognize that it may not be necessary for the great ultimate upheaval and chaos and cataclysm to take place in order to bring that issue out. Is not this the heart of every trial that comes into the Christian life? Any day there can come a temptation, or an adversity, some suffering, or some thing that is just calculated to throw you all over the place. In any such experience the question arises: What have I got of the Lord that is going to get me through this? What have I really got now of the Lord that will stand me in stead in this crisis? It may be something in everyday life, a family matter, a business matter, a church matter, or a personal matter, but it is something that is most testing, unsettling, upsetting. It comes like a shock or a blow and could knock us to pieces. What have we got of the Lord which will see us through and will not go with the wind, will not be carried away in this hour of trial, but will stand and remain?

That is the issue of this Letter, whether it is a historic crisis in the life of Israel, or Jewry, or in the ultimate experience of the Church. It is coming, and has already come to multitudes of people on this earth. It is the position today in a large part of the world, where the test is: What have we got that will see us through this terrible time? It is a question for many in the East today, but it is the ever-present question.

Lest We Drift Away

That is the message of this Letter, so it has to be solemn, it has to be serious, and it has to use words like this: "Let us give - we ought to give - the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them."

Now that is a poor way of interpreting the original language. Our English language just so often fails to give us the real sense of the words which were originally used. Here it is: "Lest haply we drift away from them", but the picture there in the original language is of a ship in rough water, with strong currents and heavy winds, and that ship is having a very difficult time and is trying to make calm water. There are moorings there in the harbour. If only she can make those moorings, lay hold on them and get moored up, she will be all right. Here she comes, but those responsible are a bit careless about it, and just as she comes up on the moorings they are too careless to grasp them, to lay hold of them and to fasten them, and she drifts past on to the rocks. That is actually the picture behind the words here - "We ought to give the more earnest heed... lest haply we drift away." You see, on this strong, adverse current of these conditions of trial, we can drift past through not being serious enough, not earnest enough, nor meaning business sufficiently. The moment comes when all might be well and we might be made fast and sure, but we drift past, carried on to lose what was there for us.

Now, you know that this whole Letter is built up on that idea. Read it again in that light. After its introduction, that wonderful presentation of the Lord Jesus, it says: "We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away", and you see what the consequences of that are in this book. "The more earnest heed to the things that were heard." To me that is a key to this book. There are many arguments in it which might be taken out and used as the title, or key, to the whole book. A little further on there is this wonderful fragment: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" "So great salvation" might be a key to the book. You can read and study it in the light of that. And there are many other fragments like that which in themselves open up the whole book. "We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard." What things?

God Hath Spoken in His Son

You see how the book begins: "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son." Not by His Son. That is true, but it does not say that here. Yes, He spoke by His Son, but the real point here is that He has spoken in His Son. The Son is God's speech. It is not even what the Son says, but it is what the Son Himself implies, signifies, what His coming into this world, or being in eternity, represents of God's thought. God has manifested Himself, has made Himself known, revealed Himself, spoken for Himself Son-wise. Not the words of the Son only, but the Son Himself expresses God. If you or I could see the Lord Jesus, really read Him as a person, we would have all that God wants us to know, for it is all there. God has spoken in a person. He has embodied Himself for revelation in a person... 'hath spoken at the end of these days Son-wise'. You notice that the words 'in his Son' are in italics, which means that in the original those words do not exist. What is really there is this: 'God hath spoken Son-wise.' That is difficult to grasp and to understand, but, you see, it opens up everything. The rest of the book is an opening up of what Christ is, and all that has come from God in Him personally. We are not going further with that at the moment, but God hath spoken. In old times He spoke by angels, by leaders, by prophets, by priests and by numerous means and methods, signs and symbols and types, divers manners, a variety of manners, in different times and fragments. He has gathered the whole up now at the end. This is the last speech of God, but it is complete and full, comprehensive. It is the end - Christ.

"We ought to give the more earnest heed." If it was so serious when He spoke by or through angels, then it was tremendously solemn when He spoke in His Son. The angels were great beings, wonderful beings, but, as the Letter goes on to show, nothing in comparison with the Son. If when God spoke through prophets, or priests, or kings, or leaders, it was a solemn matter for the people - and it was a very solemn matter, a crucial thing for those who heard - how much more so when He spoke Son-wise! We ought therefore to give the more earnest heed when God speaks like this, and He has spoken to us like this. You see what it says: "The word spoken through angels proved stedfast". This so great salvation takes its greatness, its dimensions, its supremacy from the fact that Christ is so much greater than all. God has spoken to us in Him, but, you see, it is "God bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit".

Through the Apostles

I think there is something more to note about this for the moment. This Letter - so-called to the Hebrews - was written (if what we think is true) just before the year A.D. 70, when the destruction of Jerusalem finally took place. By the year 70 all the Apostles, with the exception of John, had gone to the Lord. They had done their work and had written their Letters. God had spoken concerning His Son through them all. Only John remained at this time. God had been speaking. Now it says here: "God... bearing them witness". To whom did God bear witness? To the Apostles - "by signs and wonders... and gifts of the Holy Spirit". God was speaking concerning His Son in and through the Apostles, so that by the time this Letter was written there existed the major part of the New Testament literature. Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians existed. You look into all those and you see that it was God speaking concerning His Son. The Letter to the Romans opens almost with that very phrase: "The gospel of God... concerning his Son", and that is the message of that big book.

Now these are the things that were heard: God's speaking concerning His Son. You and I have that. We have all that God has said and is going to say in this dispensation concerning His Son. All that I am saying is only getting into what God has said. I am not adding anything to this revelation of Jesus Christ. It would be impossible to do that, and it would be a very terrible thing to attempt to do it. We are only, as the Lord enables, getting into what God has said about His Son in His Word. We have it all: all that God has said concerning His Son. What a tremendous thing it is that He has spoken to us by His Son! "We ought to give the more earnest heed", because tremendous things are bound up with this. I am not going further into that just now, for I am only talking around and on this Letter.

Making Sure of Our Calling

You see, it is a very critical thing for the Christian life. Not to the unsaved, for this Letter is not written to the unsaved, but to Christians. If you look into the Letter you will find that these Christians made a wonderful start. Reference is made to what they suffered for Christ's sake when they came to faith in Him. They suffered the spoiling of their goods - they suffered terribly. They made a tremendous start and there was no doubt about them being Christians. I repudiate any suggestion that this Letter was written to professing Christians and not real Christians. You don't talk to professing Christians in this way! What have they to lose? They have not got it to lose. The whole Letter is on what Christians may lose, and it is not a matter of losing their basic salvation. Let us say that at once but that will lead us further into the Letter. There is some tremendous thing that Christians have got to make sure of. It is not just their being basically saved, getting into heaven. The Corinthians were there, but to them the Apostle said: 'Look here, you Corinthians, the foundation is laid in you and you are on the foundation, but you may be putting up a tremendous superstructure which will go up in flames and in smoke and you will just get into heaven so as by fire.' Do you know what that means? Well, you may get in, but everything you have got will be lost and go up in smoke. You will get in naked. What kind of abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom is that?

Well, of course, if you would be of this indifferent kind and say: 'Well, as long as I get into heaven, that is all that matters' you are completely out of tune with the New Testament. This Letter is saying: 'That is not enough. There is something immensely more than that to which you were called in Christ, and you have to make very sure about that... "Give the more earnest heed... lest".' Lest! How often that little word occurs in this Letter! Lest so-and-so be the result which God never meant for His people. He meant something so much more than that.

Well, I think we are going to leave it there now. We just stand on the threshold and survey this, and conclude with this word.

The Lord Wants Better Christians

Dear friends, the Lord wants much better Christians than many of us are. He does want a more solid type of Christian than is represented by the majority. Oh, the poor shape that the majority of Christians make of this matter! What a poor representation and expression of Christ we are! Many know it and are not satisfied. Inside they know that all is not well. They know a lot of things, have a lot of teaching and doctrine, and church work, but there is such a poor measure of Christ. The Lord wants much better Christians, a better type, a better calibre, and this Letter is the Letter to make known what it is that the Lord wants, and therefore what it is that is possible, and to bring this tremendous emphasis: "Give the more earnest heed". That attitude is essential to being a better kind of Christian. It is not how it is put here, but it is what it amounts to. There are Christians and Christians, but the Lord would work hard with us to make a better kind of Christian. I would sooner put it this way - to have a far bigger expression of Christ in us than there is. He would work hard for that. That is probably why He allows us to have difficulties, trials and adversities. We have to secure a position where, without any kind of interference, of arguments and circumstances, or what the consequences would be, we are with the Lord, at any cost, for all that He ever meant when He called us into fellowship with His Son. An attitude like that will make tremendous things possible, and that is really the upshot of this Letter. Get right into line with all the purpose of God concerning His Son and you will be a different kind of Christian, and you yourself will count for very much more. The Lord will be with you and will commit Himself.

So we can see why the Letter opens up with putting the Lord Jesus in all His greatness right there in front. What a revelation of Christ is that first chapter! The Holy Spirit puts Him there, right at the beginning, in the first, supreme place, and then He says that everything else has to do with that, relates to that, and all these entreaties, exhortations and warnings relate to this: God has an immense purpose concerning His Son, and you are called into that.

May the Lord at least impress us with this: that the salvation into which we are called is a very much bigger thing than perhaps we have realized. It is a "so great salvation".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1966, Vol 44-1

The Need of the Hour

As we take account of the situation today we feel more and more deeply convinced that the greatest need of the hour is for men of vision and courage.

But we use the word "vision" in the specific sense in which it is used in the Bible and not in the general sense, of enterprise. That is, what is needed above all else is men who have had a Divine revelation by the Holy Spirit in their own hearts as to God's purpose in this dispensation, and the particular Divine emphasis for the present hour.

There can be much enthusiasm and zeal put behind a more or less generally conceived idea of what needs to be done, with a resultant activity and "movement". The opposite of this, and that which we are seeing to be so much more needed, is a burdening of the hearts of "chosen vessels" with God's own most pressing concern at this time, resulting in an all-consuming passion which will accept all the cost of its realisation.

There are many earnest and devoted servants of God who are seeking to be faithful in the work to which they feel God has called them. There are passionate preachers, and men on full stretch for the furtherance of "the Kingdom of God." What we are saying is no overlooking of this and of much more, neither is it an undervaluing of the great amount of devoted and sacrificial service to the Lord. Nevertheless we press our point. There are very few men in our day of whom it can be truly said, "That man has had a revelation from God."

There is all the difference between being saved and then going into Christian service with the resultant studying of the Bible, the preparation of sermons, addresses, lessons; collecting material, mastering themes and subjects; etc., etc., and giving this out as required or as opportunity affords - there is all the difference between this and an open heaven, an anointing, a revelation by the Holy Spirit. It is the difference between our labouring to get in order to meet a constantly recurring demand, and the Holy Spirit continually revealing Christ in us. This is a general difference, but it is a very great one, and it may represent all the difference between bondage and liberty, between limitation and fulness, even between life and death in ministry. But this is not our particular point. The need of the hour is not only for a higher spiritual level of ministry in general, it is for men with a specific revelation which will meet the situation as it is now.

No one who knows anything about the present conditions will disagree with the statement that the Church is in tragic need of men with a message, but our point is that what is needed is the knowledge of what the message is for the time. That message must come from God to men chosen for the purpose. This is not a ministry which can be taken up. Usually for such ministry there is a long and deep history with God, a history full of mystery and suffering. Many phases are passed through, all in the permissive will of God, or in His directive will, inasmuch as they are intended to educate and give experience, but the course is never that of the established and settled kind, and so big changes may be called for, each of which comes by a new spiritual crisis.

No one can do anything in the making of such vessels, however much they may be concerned for them. This is God's work alone, and they have to be left in His hands. We may sometimes almost despair as we look in vain for such, but there may be many more under the Lord's hand than we have any idea of, and He will produce them in His time. We do urge this need upon the consideration and prayers of the Lord's people today.

But what about the courage? Men of vision and courage! Yes, and more courage will be required here than in any other realm of which we know.

A specific revelation will - to begin with - set a distance between such as have it and such as have not that specific revelation. This will give rise to many possibilities. Even the best servants of God who have not so seen will probably stand back. It will mean loneliness, and going on alone perhaps for quite a time. It will mean ostracism, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, suspicion, closed doors (so far as man can close them).

Then, no revelation from God is ever just verbal truth, it always involves practical issues. These practical issues will appear like the crystallising of the truth, so that those who obey it will become marked people. This raises a new set of opposing elements. If God has given a revelation concerning His purpose in Christ which is of such vital importance as to have called for all this special history and preparation, we must realise that it is of very great moment to Satan's interests, and he will leave nothing unused to make its course impossible.

Let it be understood that in the line of a revelation and ministry such as Paul's the only way of its fulfilment is that of Paul's abandonment and courage. Listen to him again:

"Circumcised the eighth day,

Of the stock of Israel,

Of the tribe of Benjamin,

A Hebrew of the Hebrews,

As touching the law, a Pharisee,

As touching zeal, persecuting the Church,

As touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

Howbeit, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ". (Phil. 3:6,7).

Here is birth, religious training, tradition, denomination, status, prestige, family, friends, reputation, all touched by his new revelation. He let them go as it became necessary in the fulfilment of his received heavenly vision.

And this was not all, for even in the Apostolic circle Paul very largely stood alone.

If the greatest need of the hour is that of men of vision, along with it will go the need for willingness to pay the price. But there is another side, and that is God's side, and the compensations are great.

It is a great thing to be in possession of an open heaven and of a mandate from God.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1938

Oil for the Light

Transcribed from a message given in July 1955.

The book of Exodus, chapter 27 at verse 20: And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the tent of meeting, without the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord: it shall be a statute for ever throughout their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.

Oil for the light. It is my growing conviction dear friends, that the greatest need of our time is a true knowledge and understanding of the Holy Spirit and His work. Such knowledge, if spiritually apprehended, would really solve by far the greater number of the problems which beset Christians and the church today. If only we really lived in the good of the indwelling Holy Spirit with all that that means as a matter of light... how different everything would be.

So I say again, the pressing need of our time is for such knowledge, such understanding. And so, what follows this morning is just touching on the very fringe of that matter; not by any means an attempt to cover it or exhaust it.

This simple fragment: thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring pure olive oil for the light You notice this is a command to the Lords people. This is an imperative. This is a necessity. This is indispensible, this is essential - a command. It is not optional, left to choice; this is an obligation: Command the children of Israel that they bring oil for the light.

Now, first of all note the place of the light. The lampstand, as you know, was in the holy place, between the outer court and the most holy place. It was in that place which in type is a between place, a place between heaven and earth, heaven and the world - theres the outside and theres the inside. There is all that is here in this world on the one side, on the other side there is all that which is essentially heaven - the very presence of God. And in between heaven and earth, this light was to be a place which united heaven and earth and yet divided them.

I think the meaning is what our Lord meant in His great prayer. It seems to me that He was standing very much in this position when He prayed in John 17: They are not of the world even as I am not of the world, and yet and yet they are in the world, these are in the world. I come to Thee, they are not of the world. It is so familiar a truth, almost a hackneyed phrase, in the world but not of it. Here is an in-between place which is the place of believers in this present dispensation at this present time. It is our place between heaven and earth in a very real sense. Well, we know that dont we? We know that on the one hand we are here in this world, right enough and its very real. And yet it is just as real that we dont belong to it, we are not of its life, were in an in-between place. We know that were not yet literally and actually in heaven, and yet and yet! Somehow or other we are deeply linked with heaven. The place between... that is where the light was to be or where the light was; a place which divides heaven and earth and yet brings them together.

There were no windows in that place. No windows in the holy place. No provision was made for natural light. Natural light was excluded. But for this lampstand, it would have been totally dark. All that was there represented in type and symbol, all the values and functions of that place were only possible, capable, of being effective by a light which was not the light of nature.

The Light of the Spirit

The light is produced by the oil. That is very true and touches very closely upon my opening remark. This holy place, this in-between place was symbolic of the position in which Israel were just at that time, they were out of Egypt but they were not yet literally and altogether in the land of Canaan. They were in an in-between place and oh, how they needed the light of heaven for that wilderness journey!

There are two aspects of the Christian life. In Christ it is true we are seated in the heavenlies, but Peter will tell us that we are still pilgrims and strangers; we are sojourners - always the two aspects. And on this side, the peculiar, peculiar position of Gods people at the present time: the pilgrimage aspect.

And this is true to very positive teaching in the New Testament. In this life God has made no provision for natural light. If you and I are going on our way to reach Gods full end then natural light, for one thing, will be no good to us, but for another God has ruled it out. He has made no windows. Thats the argument of the first letter to the Corinthians isnt it? The natural man receiveth not the things of God and neither can he know them. And the whole force of the chapter in which those words occurs, is: God has made no windows for that  your reason doesnt come in here, the light of your natural judgement is not allowed here. It is all excluded. The light that is here is the light from the oil. Its the light of the Spirit.

So the argument of the first letter to the Corinthians is the argument about the Spirit, isnt it? And about what is spiritual for guidance, for judgement, for counsel, and for the knowledge of everything of the Lord. No place for natural light, yet Gods own provision for light which is better than that, its Gods own light.

Now look at the contents of this place, the holy place. Well, in addition to the lampstand, the golden lampstand, you know there was the golden altar of incense and then there was the golden table of bread, of the loaves. Simple symbols that help us to understand the meaning of the light, the functioning of the oil. Just this, dear friends, and of course we know the symbolism is that the oil is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is our light for the things of God. But this light is not just unto itself. It is to throw its rays upon, to light up, to illumine this whole matter of prayer.

And Im quite sure I carry you with me when I say what a tremendous need there is that the people of God should know how to pray in the Spirit. If only we knew how to pray in the Holy Ghost! Thats a New Testament phrase: praying in the Holy Ghost. We need that. We shall never really get very far without that. Well be going round in circles. And you see the Lord from time to time called a halt in this journey for the setting up of the tabernacle again, with everything that it contained. But right in the centre was this thing: the light in the holy place upon this matter of intercession and prayer - the altar of incense. It is as though the Lord was saying, we cant get any further until we have put a new emphasis upon this matter of prayer in the Spirit, praying in the Holy Ghost.

Our future, our progress, our fresh stages will require that we get into the Spirit of prayer again and we get prayer in the Spirit. Now, its difficult for me to convey all that I am feeling about that, but dear friends, you will grasp the point. If in our prayers and in our own prayer life privately, and when we came together, we come together for prayer as the Lords people, we were really praying in the Spirit, how much further we should get! Instead of praying in our own judgements, our own feelings, our own impulses, our own ideas, our own reasoning - what ought to be, what we think should be and so on - and uttering a lot of things out of our own natural light. If the Holy Spirit got hold of our praying and we prayed in the Spirit even one thing, how much further we should get! See, I do not believe it is possible to pray a thing in the Holy Ghost without an issue, without something happening, without something being reached and some moving taking place.

Look again in the book of the Acts. Thats just what it was, you see, they prayed in the Spirit. And that does not mean that they just prayed in a kind of feeling, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of light, you see. And the Holy Spirit knows what God wants. He knows all the purposes of God, all the designs of God, all the ways of God, all the times of God. He knows when the time is due for such and such a thing. He knows exactly how that thing ought to be done. He knows it all, Hes the Spirit of light! Pray in the Holy Spirit and you pray right on to the things that God intends and they must be.

And I can do no more this morning than just make this appeal: that you and I seek the Lord yet more earnestly that our prayer life shall be in the Spirit, illumined by the Spirit, that we shall pray in the intelligence and the understanding of the Holy Spirit.

So the oil for the light has a relationship to prayer in the Holy Spirit. On the other hand this light was thrown upon the table and the bread. And that surely indicates that we must feed upon the Word of God in the illumination of the Holy Spirit. This is the extra factor that is so necessary, I feel perhaps more necessary today than ever, if thats possible.

You can take this book, the Bible, and from the same book, using exactly the same Scriptures, get a hundred different positions, even every one of which is in conflict with the other. That is what has been done! That is what is being done. You see nearly all the different aspects and forms of Christianity today build themselves upon Scripture, support their position by Scripture, and very few of them can stand together. They are contradictory if not antagonistic to one another, they take one thing out of the Word of God and you get these different views which are absolutely in conflict with each other and yet built upon Scripture. And that can be extended over so many things, so many ways.

Well, what are we to do? How are we to know? Not by leaving the Scripture and arriving at our own conclusions and judgements, but we need the Holy Spirit to tell us what the Scripture means. Theres something, you see, extra to the Word. The Spirit gave this Word and He knew what He meant by it. And He never meant two conflicting and contradictory things. Hes not like that. The Spirits mind is one mind. Always very consistent is the Holy Spirit, and there are no contradictions in the Bible where the Holy Spirit is concerned; there are in our natural light interpretations or apprehensions.

Do you not see how important it is to bring oil for the light? That in the Word of God upon which we have got to feed (it is our Bread) Christ has come to us as the Bread in the form of the Word, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word every Word! Christ is the living Word as the living Bread. But oh! We need the Holy Spirit to illumine this Word and to interpret, and to convict, to save us from contradiction. Ah yes, but the Holy Spirit has no windows for our reasoning and our interpretations - natural light. Here everything is shut up to Him; shut up to Him - everything else excluded.

Well, our time is gone. I think you see what I meant, the tremendous importance in our day of the Holy Spirit - knowing the Holy Spirit. My last word is this: beaten. Bring pure olive oil beaten for the light. Theres got to be definite exercise about this matter of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the illumination of the Holy Spirit. It just does not happen and come about. It does not just come about, weve got to get down to this matter in real exercise and energy and make, shall I say, a business of it: Lord, Lord, rule out my judgement, rule out my feelings, rule out my likes and my dislikes. You come by Your Spirit and have absolute pre-eminence in my heart, in my mind as I pray, as I read Thy Word. See? Its business, beaten out, real exercise about the place and the work of the Holy Spirit in our personal life with the Lord and in our collective life.

Let us long to hear that note in our prayer gatherings, a real laying hold of the Lord, Now Lord, tonight in this hour we must come into the mind of the Spirit about things... A real laying hold of God, beating it out. Command the children of Israel that they bring pure olive oil, beaten... for the light.

One of the Greatest Needs

One of the greatest needs of our time is to plough our way down through the heavy and tangled growth of Christian doctrines to the virgin soil of spiritual life and reality. A master-stroke of the great subverter, in his purpose to neutralise spiritual effectiveness against his kingdom, has been the resolving of Christianity into an endless system or series of doctrines, most of them in conflict with each other. By these Christianity has been crippled and frustrated, turned in on itself, and a state of civil (or uncivil) war has been created.

The Church cannot move, as an integrated and single-fronted body, against a very powerful and wily foe, because it does not believe together; its mind is divided into so many conflicting interpretations.

This means that authority has almost entirely disappeared. Men have repeatedly tried to correct this by forming creeds, confessions of faith, principles and practice, etc., but these only serve to form groups, widen breaches, harden antagonisms, create superiorities, and foster complacencies; they never solve the problem of spiritual dividedness. They engender suspicion, breathe an atmosphere of fear, and stimulate a mentality of heresy.

All this is due to certain fundamental weaknesses and defectivenesses in Christian life.

One of these is a wholly objective approach to Christian truth.

There are two aspects of this.

(a) The exhausting of truth as such, so that a state of saturation and finality is reached, and the whole matter is reduced to the best text-book, manual, 'authority' or 'classic' on the subject. Book succeeds book, and the matter is covered, embodied and compassed in a library.

Do you want to know what is the fullest presentation of any given 'truth'? So-and-so and such-and-such is the answer. It is in book form. That is 'the last word'. If someone has something 'fresh' or 'original' or a bit off the beaten and well-worn track, he is either suspect or creates a vogue which obtains for a time and then falls into line or passes out. Generally, that sort of thing is just not allowed.

(b) But an even deeper and more serious aspect of this objective approach is the immense cleavage between the verbal statement of truth and the inward illumination.

Here traditional, spiritual Christianity is in violent dividedness, bitter conflict, and complete confusion. In this dividedness an extreme position is taken by one side. The Bible says so-and-so. It just says that, in actual words. Unless it is obviously and unmistakably parable, simile, symbol, allegory, or figure, it must be taken just as it stands. All that it means is on the surface of the simple verbal expression. There is no place or allowance for any interpretation, deeper, fuller, or other meaning than that which is conveyed by the words themselves. In the realm where this is the beginning and end of the whole matter, positively no place is allowed for any fuller light, other meaning, or clearer understanding. As a consequence of this rigid attitude no new experience of fuller or clearer illumination is tolerated, but is at once written off as dangerous.

We know of a 'Faith Mission' (so-called) which demanded the resignation of any of its missionaries or staff who claimed to have any new experience based upon a new revelation of Christian truth. In this way it is trying to safeguard itself against certain 'isms'.

It is true that the Scriptures themselves forbid 'private interpretations', 'wresting the Scriptures', "handling the word of God deceitfully". It is also true that a very different and much better situation would exist in Christianity if Christians took more careful note of, and gave more implicit obedience to, just what the Scriptures say. We are often shocked and appalled that Christians who have the Bible can so easily violate its so clearly stated injunctions. If the Bible is read at all by vast numbers of Christians it surely is read far too objectively!

But, given that there should be a meticulous observance of the letter of the Word, is that all?

Of course we have no sympathy with any position that is above the Word. If, for instance, the Bible says that 'if a man does not work he shall not eat', there is no spiritual getting round that by an able-bodied person. That must be taken literally! It is dangerous and pernicious to be 'spiritually' above the clear statements of God's Word, just as much as to ignore them. Many have their spiritual life strangled, thwarted, arrested, limited, because they do not, or will not obey the Lord in some clear statement of His Word.

But when all that can be said along that line has been said, is it not also a dangerous, harmful, and mistaken thing to reduce the life of the child of God to a merely mechanical, automatic, 'penny-in-the-slot' kind of thing? That is, to exclude the possibility that the Scriptures - in whole or part - have a meaning which is either more or other than we have seen? to take the position that we have the true and full meaning at first sight and in the words employed to convey truth? If it were not the case, it would be hard to believe that many Christians, and among them leaders, do take such a position. To such it is heresy to speak of fuller light, illumination or 'revelation' as to what the Scriptures contain or mean. Such people forbid any 'experience' based upon such illumination, but what a static and coldly legal Christian life theirs must be! We do not overlook a much more thoroughgoing 'study' of Scripture, with 'aids' and comparings, but whether it be little or much, the ultimate issue is the difference between an intellectual approach and Holy Spirit enlightenment.

Well, with the fullest recognition of the perils of any position carried to an extreme, one way or the other, we are compelled to face some facts. These lie in two directions: (a) in the Bible itself; (b) in the history of God's ways since. But before we do this let us say that we know how impossible it is for us to resolve by argument the problem with which we commenced this editorial. We shall come to the true solution presently.

The outstanding illustration and example of the defectiveness of holding the verbal presentation of Scripture without spiritual illumination is surely Israel.

The Hebrew Prophets are just full of this failure; indeed, it might be said that this is both the heart and the sum of their ministry. This long history headed up to and became the root-cause of the crucifying of Jesus. It was this 'blindness' that He was encountering all the days of His ministry. It is a searching and challenging statement, with extended significance, that -

"They that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew... not... the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him... and... asked... of Pilate that he should be slain" (Acts 13:27,28).

Then to take another instance. This holding of the Scriptures without inner illumination was the explanation of the breakdown, scattering, offence, and disconsolateness of the disciples after the crucifixion. They had the Scriptures. Jesus did not give them the Bible as something of which they had never heard. They knew their Bibles in an objective way. But it is a solemn fact that their kind of Bible knowledge did not mean anything to them in the day of the fiery ordeal. "Selah" - think of that!

See the two representatives of the rest on the Emmaus road. What the Lord did was not to give them the Scriptures, but to 'open their understanding that they might understand' them. That was an experience! That made all the difference!

To go on with the instances. Was there a man who had a better knowledge of and devotion to the Scriptures than 'Saul of Tarsus'? It was this very thing that accounted for his vehement antagonism to Jesus and His followers. But listen to his later confession:

"I verily thought... that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26:9).

There is much more like this from Paul. But, again, it is a solemn reflection that it is possible to be so utterly wrong while believing that we are in line with Scripture.

One more instance in the Bible. No less a person than Peter himself had a big crisis on this very issue. His controversy with the Lord - a bit of the old Peter - over 'unclean things' and 'going in to eat with Gentiles' was based upon his apprehension of the Scripture of Leviticus 11, an absolutely governing Scripture for Jews. That that Scripture, in the meaning that Jews, including Peter commonly gave to it, did not hold good in heaven, at least since the Cross, is implicit and unmistakable in the voice accompanying and ending the vision of Acts 10. And yet Peter could find his scriptural support for saying: "Not so, Lord". It could have been disastrous to his apostleship and ministry if he had stuck to his own apprehension of Scripture. What an immense thing issued from the revolutionary new light that came to him. It was indeed an experience!

Through the ages, when God has moved on in His purposes, a new development has so often been based upon a new illumination or revelation of His word. So often such has been quite revolutionary in the life of those concerned, and they have not hesitated to refer to it as a revelation from God, although, of course, never extra to the Scriptures, but only as to their content and meaning.

So it was with such men as Dr. A. T. Pierson, Dr. Hudson Taylor, Bishop Handley Moule.

In the case of Dr. Pierson, he had been brought up, trained, and ordained in a certain interpretation of Scripture, and spent half of his life teaching and practising accordingly, gaining considerable eminence in that connection. In mid-life, or after, he received what he referred to as new light, and said that 'God has shown me'. This related to a fundamental interpretation of much in the Scriptures. This new light and altogether different interpretation (the exact opposite to his old conviction and teaching) cost him his church, his denomination, and favour in his whole erstwhile realm; but it led to a new and world-wide ministry, which was the ministry for which he is known by so many of God's people and is extant in his books.

As to Dr. Hudson Taylor: it will go without any argument that he would know as well as anyone the fifteenth chapter of John's Gospel. But it was when God gave him a new revelation of the inner meaning of that Scripture that, leaping into a new experience, he was saved from the darkest time, and the work of God went on. The story can be read in the monumental Life, in the chapter called 'The Exchanged Life'.

Dr. Handley Moule's association with the 'Keswick' testimony is well-known and his ministry therefrom has enriched multitudes. But remember - that association was born of a big battle on the Scriptures, and Dr. Moule was no novice in that realm. Only by new and revolutionary light on the Word did he come into the 'experience' and the resultant ministry.

And so we could repeat the story in numerous instances. That 'The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from His Word' is not disputed by many, but sometimes the breaking forth may prove revolutionary for one whose apprehension has been quite mistaken.

Let us here pause to say that this issue is not really one of alternatives i.e. between the literal statements of Scripture and the spiritual meaning. It is really the balance between the objective and the subjective. The loss of this balance on either side is the cause of the loss of very much real value and effectiveness. That the 'letter' is not all has the very authority of Christ Himself behind the statement.

That it is possible to have a new revelation, extra to and apart from the Scripture, no one ought to believe. But to have "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" is Scripture for Christians.

We have not even yet reached the very heart of this whole matter. We commenced by saying that a great need of our time is to break through the matted tangle of systematized doctrine to the soil of life. How can this be done, and what does it really mean?

The answer lies in a return to spiritual life. This is a return from the merely intellectual, traditional, and 'accepted' school-realm of Christian interpretation of our construction of the Scriptures, to what the Lord meant when He said: "The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."

Alongside of that He said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing".

The "flesh" surely is the unillumined natural mind of 1 Corinthians 2. This constitutes an impasse, Paul says; and it is instanced and demonstrated in Nicodemus, "the teacher in Israel", when it came to "heavenly things" (John 3).

This impasse obtains and remains for all who know nothing of the indwelling, inward illumination of the anointing Spirit - the Teacher within. Those whose only approach to the Scriptures is objective are thus handicapped.

Did Jesus say of the coming Spirit: "He shall guide you into all the truth"? Surely to be guided into all the truth is something more than having the truth presented, conveyed, and written down!

Did Paul pray for believers that they might be given "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (i.e. Christ)? Surely that is an imparted faculty, ability, in the believer, and more than natural equipment!

Did John write: "The anointing which ye received abideth in you, and... teacheth you concerning all things"? Surely - this is an inward activity of the Holy Spirit, and more than the result of reading the Bible without that work!

The only hope for oneness of mind and spiritual authority in the Church is the absolute Lordship and mastery of mind, heart and will by the Holy Spirit; a crucified selfhood in all these respects. This is life, power, assurance, and impact upon the world.

It is the return to or discovery of the life in the Spirit. "The Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". "The veil is taken away". "In that day ye shall know" - "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come".

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1957, Vol 35-1

The Only Reality

Among the many designations given to responsible servants of God in the Bible is that of 'Watchman'. The function of the Watchman is so well understood that the time need not be taken to describe it. In a word, it is to be aware of both movements and their portents, and to make these known for the well-being of those for whom he has a responsibility. This was one of the functions of the Old Testament Prophets, and this aspect of prophetic ministry is implicit in the anointing of all servants of God at all times.

But this particular aspect has meant, and will always mean, that the Watchman lives before the time when that which he sees will eventuate or materialise. The New Testament Apostles were of this kind. They truly lived for their own hour and day, but they lived even more for a day to come. As Watchmen they saw the trend and significance of certain 'signs' or portents, and in this respect they lived before their time, and were only vindicated long after their departure from this earth.

We make no claim to prophetic foresight or Apostolic prevision or inspiration, but there are at the present time certain signs and indications, the significance of which, for various reasons, may not be immediately recognised; and it could be that the declaration of their meaning, as by a faithful watchman, might mean the difference between salvation and disaster for multitudes of people.

If there is one thing upon which the Bible is clear and emphatic, it is that, in all His sovereign government, God works toward reality at the end. The end of every phase of the progressive purpose of God has been marked by a sifting, challenging, and testing of things as to their reality.

This can easily be seen as the eye is cast over the various stages of the Old Testament. It is manifest again in the crisis of Christ's first advent, which, in the first instance, was a consummation of the whole Old Testament dispensation, and His judgment of that is found most pronouncedly on the very face of His life on earth. The test was that of reality, and in the balances of reality that whole system, as represented by its official class, was found so wanting as to be 'cast into the fire and burned'. The end of the New Testament sees an exact and final repetition of this judgment, this time beginning with Christianity - if you like, with the Church.

Thus, the 'eyes which are as a flame of fire' are looking for reality. They pierce through many things.

In the first place, they pierce through traditional and formal religion or 'Christianity'. Their interrogation is - Is your religion a matter of attachment or adherance to a system, a historical tradition, a family inheritance; and so on? Or is it born - is it a birth in you; is it something that has happened to you; is it your very life, your very being?

Secondly - and I concentrate more especially upon this for the moment - they pierce through temperament and disposition. They demand to know whether the reason why you are where you are, are concerned for what you are concerned for, are connected with what you are connected with, and are disposed as you are, is because your particular temperament leans that way. You are artistic and mystical in your tastes and constitution: therefore you choose or make your religion after your own image. Your temperament is melancholic, and so the more abstract, profound, serious, intense, introspective, and speculative, appeals to you and finds a natural response in you. You make God, Christianity, Christ, the Bible, after your image.

Or again, you are of the practical temperament. To you everything is only of value as it is 'practical'. You have no patience with these contemplative people. You are irritated by the 'Marys', for 'many dishes' are your concern. To you, how the end is reached is of much less importance than the end itself. You are not bothered much with imagination, and you would put all the value on things done - how much there is actually to show for your day. Your God and your Christianity are entirely, or almost entirely, of the practical kind, after your own image. And so we could go on with all the other temperaments.

But this will not do, for Christ is not any one of these; He is different. He may combine the good in all, but that does not wholly mean Divine nature. He is different. All this is the human soul, but the essential nature of Christ and true Christianity is of the Divine Spirit - it is heavenly! If new birth means anything, it means this, that another nature and disposition is born into the believer, so that he or she is 'carried whither they (naturally) would not'. In the hands of the Holy Spirit one thing becomes increasingly clear: it is that our temperaments or dispositions cannot carry us through the terrific testings and adversities which come peculiarly to Christians; and that another life, power, grace, is absolutely essential to our survival. The greatest, strongest, and most richly endowed servants of God have ever found this to be true.

Reality, with God, is more than sincerity, earnestness, devoutness. It is not our reaction to God at all. There could be no greater mistake, no more serious misdirection, no more mischievous counsel than to advise people to select the church association which best suits their temperament.

Christ and man (naturally) belong to two orders, and there is no passing from the one to the other by 'selection', or choice, or preference. And certainly not by natural affinity, for there is no such thing! With God, Christ is the only Reality, and that is not temperamental, mystical, not a matter of plain or ornate, ritualistic and ceremonial, or bare and simple. Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit in the heart, as by a Divine fiat, corresponding to the "let there be light" of creation, is the only Reality!

For the present my space is gone. But I return to the governing issue. The end will be marked by an intensifying sifting, testing, fiery ordeal to find out what is real - that is, what is truly Christ - and to expose what are the artificial accretions and appendages of Christianity. This ultimate "judgment" has commenced and is verily moving over the earth. May there be found a maximum of "gold", "silver", "precious stones", and a minimum of "wood", "hay", "stubble".

Editorial letter published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1958, Vol 36-2

A Peculiar Vessel

"FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS"

1 Samuel 1.

The state of things today is very similar to that which existed at the beginning of the first book of Samuel. Three things in particular seem to stand out there as features of those days.

The first was a formality in the things of God through being pursued in the energy of the flesh; resulting in mixture and spiritual adultery, and spiritual weakness and ineffectiveness.

Another feature was the absence of spiritual revelation and perception - "There was no open vision". The "Spirit of wisdom and revelation" was inoperative amongst priests and people. Spiritual intelligence and apprehension was a minus quantity.

The third thing was the constant menace of the Philistines, which eventually issued in the departure of the glory from Israel and the absence of the testimony of the Sovereignty from the midst of the people of God. When we remember that the Philistines always represent the intrusion of the natural man ('uncircumcised', Col. 2:11,12) into the things of the Spirit, it is a very significant feature.

We leave it with those who have eyes to see to judge whether there is any similarity between then and now. What we have on our hearts is to note the method by which the Lord reacts to this situation.

The two things, then, which immediately come out are, firstly, that the Lord is not satisfied to have it so, yet He does not abandon the situation. Rather does He begin in a secret way to secure the instrument for recovery. The second thing is that there has to be a very deep and peculiar travail in the bringing forth of that instrument. Samuel represents such an instrument, and Hannah represents the travail which produces it.

What is clear in this first chapter is that this will not come about in the natural course of things. The USUAL way will not produce it. Indeed, it is declared that there was a deliberate act of God against that course (verse 6). Hannah's state was the Lord's doing. In other realms and for less important purposes - or shall we say, for more general purposes - the usual method may be followed. Samuel was not an after-thought. He was foreknown and foreordained and yet humanly he was an impossibility. Why had the Lord so acted in this matter? How do you relate and reconcile the two things, that Samuel was determined and yet made humanly impossible by the act of God? The first part of the answer is that the bringing of this instrument into being was to be by a fellowship in the Divine travail in relation to the testimony.

Hannah went through unusual and uncommon soul-agony in the matter. She is here represented as "in bitterness of soul" and she "wept sore" (verse 10). It was not just simply a personal interest or a selfish end in view. When at length Samuel was given she placed him at the disposal of the Lord as soon as she possibly could. Concerning Isaac it says that "when the child was weaned", but in the case of Samuel it says of Hannah that "she weaned him", as though she was not letting things go on, but bringing about a separation unto the Lord as soon as possible. She was concerned for the Lord's interests in a specially eager way. This is impressive when we take into consideration the cost of this child, and therefore the peculiar endearment to herself.

Let us get the full force of the truth here. A thing which is to serve the Lord in a specially vital way is not born easily, and is not brought into being without some unusual suffering and travail. There is much bitterness of soul to be gone through, and many tears.

For a time, a drawn-out time, it appears that there will be nothing. The heartache and sorrow seem to remain long in the place of barrenness. And yet there can be no philosophical acceptance or fatalistic capitulation. The Lord is a factor and there is a "hoping against hope", a wistful looking toward "the God who raiseth the dead, and calleth the things that are not as though they were."

Not one of the least painful aspects of the suffering is the taunting of Peninnah (verse 6). Now Peninnah was of the same household and a co-wife with Hannah. She was not a stranger or a foreigner. It was as such that she "provoked sorely to make her fret". Peninnah had plenty of children, there was none of this (divinely appointed) human impossibility. Things were more or less simple and easy with her.

So it is, when the Lord determines to secure for Himself that vessel of peculiar purpose, and cuts off all the many activities, works, and occupations which, while being in the same household of faith and in some relation to Himself, are largely by the energies of nature and the facility of man. When and where there are not those usual accompaniments and outworkings, those issues and results, the evidences and proofs; then there is criticism, taunting, the pointing of the finger, and grievous imputations. The very acts of Divine sovereignty are given a twist to mean just the opposite of God's thought. So one system of things taunts the other. Well, so be it! It ever was. It ever will be. But wait! Samuel did come, and one Samuel meant more to God than all the children of Peninnah put together. And yet it is not a matter of comparative values. Samuel was for an hour of peculiar need. The suffering in connection with his coming into life was so deep as to solemnize beyond the suspicion of pride or comparison. All questions of self-realisation, vindication, or satisfaction had been tested in the fire, and the refined issue was the glory of God.

Samuel came, and, in the purpose that he served, the suffering and sorrow were made well worthwhile, and the wisdom of God's mysteriousness was established. God was justified and the channel used was satisfied. We can leave it there.

When the Lord wants something for an hour of peculiar need, the methods have to be out of the ordinary. To those concerned He has to say, 'Others can, you cannot'.

More and more deeply, we are entering into such an hour at this time. The general thing is not meeting the situation. The Lord must bring through something which will "come to the kingdom for such a time as THIS".

Who will pay the price?

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1952, Vol 30-4

Portents of the Day of the Lord

While students of prophecy are occupied with historical signs of the approaching advent of Christ, there are three spiritual portents that should be carefully taken note of.

1. A phenomenal world-encirclement of the Gospel.

Never before has there been such a sovereign movement of God to see that "every nation" has had the Sound of salvation in Jesus Christ registered in it "for a testimony". By persons, radio, and literature this outreach and "Sound" is a mark of our time which just cannot be mistaken for its range. It may only be the essential fact of salvation in and by Jesus Christ, but again "their voice is gone into all the earth".

Jesus said that it would be so of necessity, "and then shall the end come".

2. The filling up of the cup of iniquity.

It is a question whether, in so short a time, there has ever been such a landslide of iniquity. Iniquity is now legalized in those countries which have the greatest history and tradition of the evangelical faith. Israel's release from Egypt synchronized with the "iniquity of the Amorite" being full. May it not be so for the Church?

3. A deep and largely hidden spiritual movement on the part of a "Remnant" for something more real in the knowledge of Christ.

Disillusionment and spiritual hunger are making many seek food and reality with the result that - as Billy Graham has said - many circles of hungry Christians are seeking spiritual fullness outside of organized Christianity.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1967, Vol 45-6

The Removing of Those Things That Are Shaken

Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in 1958.

The spoken form has been retained verbatim.

The letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12 at verse 26: “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe.” Chapter 13 and verse 14: “For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come.”

Now, into a very few minutes I want to put just a few things that are on my heart at this time, I believe as partly introductory to the conference which is ahead of us during this next week. You, most of you at least, know why this letter to the Hebrews (as it is called) was written. That is, from the Divine standpoint, why God had it written and preserved. And that undoubtedly was in the light of what we have just read: an imminent, great, shaking... for this letter was written a little before the end of the Jewish system and regime and dispensation. The year 70 was fast approaching when the Roman legions would throw their siege around Jerusalem and reduce it - as the capital and centre of the Jewish world - to rubble; literally fulfilling the words of the Lord Jesus, “They will not leave one stone upon another”. It was the end of that long, long Jewish era, and that was on the very near horizon when this letter was written. And we can see therefore, the infinite wisdom of God in bringing into view the heavenly and eternal counterpart of that whole system of earthly things. That system was to be shaken to its foundations and toppled to the earth. But after all, as the whole letter shows, at most and at best it was but an earthly representation of heavenly things and the earthly was passing now and it was therefore necessary for men and women of faith in the Lord Jesus to have their anchorage in the heavenly, and the abiding; the eternal. And that was the purpose of the letter.

But you can clearly see, even from the fragments which we have read, that that was not the end of the matter. For even here when that had happened, when it had happened, the whole earthly thing broken to pieces and passed away, there’s a pointing on. There’s still a future vision, and even these who looked beyond the figures and the types and the symbols and the earthly and the temporal, had in view a City which was never of this earth and of this world: “We look for a City, we have here no abiding City...". That was very evident with the passing of Jerusalem, but: "...we seek one."

Now, dear friends, of course that opens up far more than I can put into fifteen minutes but out of that and around that I want to gather one or two things a little on my heart very much in these days. If it is true that that shaking was only half of the great shaking and the other half will be the shaking not only of the earth but of the heavens also (that is, not only of the temporal but of the spiritual, not only of the local but of the universal) then to bring in the setting which is abiding... everything that is not abiding, that cannot stand has got to be shaken to its foundation.

When the Lord Jesus was speaking in many words about this very day of Jerusalem’s destruction and passing and Israel’s scattering, He gave many indications; signs which would clearly indicate that that day was at hand. He spoke about the “signs of the times” as we call them; spoke about a fig tree and other things which would clearly indicate that that day was at hand. But then He passed beyond that and carried us to the end of this dispensation and He gave many further signs of how we should know that this greater end than the end of Jerusalem and Jewry was at hand; given us many signs and I’m not going to try to gather up or even mention, but they are indeed very significant. I think, dear friends, this is the point: I think that we have today an almost overwhelming amount of evidence that we are on the point of this far greater shaking. In other words: that we are at the end of another dispensation.

I always hesitate in the realm of prophecy, you never hear me say very much about prophecy; I’ve had enough of the confusion of prophecy in fifty years of study of it. But at the same time, with all that, with all my carefulness about it, I cannot but feel that everything today is most portentous. I would not be surprised (if I may say it) if during this past week one of the most significant things has happened in relation to the end. There is a great system, the very heart and core of which is anti-God and anti-Christ. And one of the things which the Bible tells us will mark the manifestation of the man of sin who will put himself in the place of God is that he will be a tremendous showman, calling down fire from heaven. Everybody can see how easy that could be any day now, calling down fire from heaven! We are almost familiar with that aren’t we, and many other such things.

Now I could dwell on that side of the matter for a long time but I simply mention that, I think... indicative of so much more that points to our coming to the end of this dispensation very soon - the heading up of the final great shaking of heaven and earth. But what I want to touch upon at least this morning is what this means to believers. And that means you and me. What are we to expect? What will be the spiritual signs of the times? We are fascinated with the material, the temporal signs; tremendously impressed with the outward, but what will be the spiritual signs? I just mention it; you must take it away and think about it.

I believe that the Word of God makes very clear (we shall see that much more fully later) that as we get near to the end, as the end approaches, two or three things are going to happen where believers are concerned. One is, one is that they are going to be brought very definitely to the point of accountability for all that God has given them - accountability for all that God has given. God has given much: a great revelation, a great deposit in His Word and through His Word, in ministry, ministry which He Himself has given. I’m not speaking just here, but to His people; a tremendous amount of ministry that God has given through His Word. But there the foundation and substance of it is all preserved in a most marvelous way in the Scriptures and at the end you and I are going to be brought to our accountability to God for what He’s given us. I believe the church, the people of God, are really going to have to face up to what they’ve got; what they’ve received. There, I feel, and I could show you from the Word, that that is made perfectly clear in the Scriptures: that we are going to be brought face to face in very real and even drastic ways with what we’ve got, with what we’ve received; to answer for it and to it.

Let me carry that further. I believe the Word shows very clearly that the people of God will pass into a phase of spiritual experience where what they have is required to be their very life. What they have is required to be their very life and their very survival! That could be said in another way: that the things that you and I have received and think we know are going to be sifted right down of all mere teaching, interpretation, mental grasp; stripped of everything. Now then, what about that that you have taught, you have believed? Now then, what about the meaning of the Cross? Now then, what about the meaning of the Body of Christ, spiritual unity and fellowship? What about it? Now then, what about the sufficiency of Christ? See? I believe that that is going to happen. Reality! Downright reality is going to be the emphasis of the Holy Spirit at the end and you and I and the people of God will pass into such an intensity of spiritual experience under pressure, under stress, under trial and testing that we shall be found out as to what proportion of all that we have claimed to hold is really our being and our life. We’re going to be just stripped down to that.

I believe that is what is happening just now and may be the explanation. We have spoken of Christ as our Life. Very well then, the Holy Spirit says, “Let’s find out how true that is and how much there is.” It may be an explanation of the physical; something along that line - how much is Christ our Life physically? Have we proved Christ as our Life for our bodies as well as for our spirit? Have we? Because there is divine Life for the body dear friends, some of us would not be here today if that were not true. There is divine Life for the body to be had, if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead be in you... “He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal body”. That’s not the dust that’s in the earth; that’s your body now "by His Spirit that dwelleth within". Well what about it? That’s only one point, there’s many others.

We’re just going to be brought to this: is it real? Is the Cross real? Is the Life real? Is Christ real? How much so? That’s going to be sifted out at the end and there’s going to be a shaking of all that can be shaken. And does this not explain very much? Yes there’ll be a great falling away because the large measure of mere profession or claim that is not justified deep down in the very constitution of those people. Well, this is it. This letter, this whole letter, puts its emphasis here: the thing, the thing that matters is the eternal. All history... the Lord has built up a tremendous history around that, do you notice? And what a lot of light it throws upon things, although many problems associated with it.

Have you noticed that whenever, during the whole Christian era from apostolic times to this day, whenever anything that was raised up by God at its beginning became crystallized and static, fixed and set, the Lord had no further interest in preserving it? The explanation of why things have a wonderful beginning and their end... what? Well, you don’t see the Lord preserving it intact! It’s living on a past. It’s simply holding a tradition. The Lord doesn’t care about that. It’s become something fixed down here on this earth and God is only interested, in this dispensation, in the eternal! The City is not here, it’s there. “We are come unto the heavenly Jerusalem.” The Lord won’t let us, won’t let us! And we here have got to be as careful of this as any others have in their connection, that what we call or what is called “Honor Oak” never becomes a fixed system of things, a rigid, set, crystallized, boxed compass of teaching and truth: “That’s that! Finished! Complete!”. Never! God forbid that ever anything like that should happen to us. If so, the Lord won’t preserve it; He won’t! He will have no interest in our preservation for that is the history of things: something new from God (and we could put our finger upon so many couldn’t we?) down through the centuries. Yes, something from God; the reformation, and Wesley, and the Brethren, and all the rest; but... but! Has God founded something so dear to His heart that He would preserve it intact and never allow it to go to pieces and become confused and divided and mixed up? Not at all. Why? Because it became Protestantism; an ism. It became an ism you see. Something like that, fixed, set and rounded off. He’s not in that at all. This heavenly, eternal, spiritual is His interest and He won’t let it settle down here. No ambitions on this earth or in this world will be allowed by God in His people. Have anything like that and you’re in for a bad time, a really bad time.

Now, you see I’m defeated entirely trying to range this, but what I wanted to say, and what is really on my heart that I’m feeling so strongly, is just this: that if we can see anything that corresponds to this in the experience of the Lord’s people today, a sifting, shaking, stripping, getting down to roots and foundations and finding out where we are - that is a sign of the times. It’s a real sign of the times, an internal one. The day is far spent, the coming of the Lord is drawing near. And of course we agree that’s right. We say it’s right. It must be. Surely it’s the thing that must happen! The Lord mustn’t come and find us in a false position; mustn’t come and find us in a position where it’s make-believe, it’s not true; not at all.

So the end may be through much tribulation that we enter the kingdom, the Word says so: “receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken”. A part of the much tribulation through which we enter the kingdom is just this: finding out, oh by such drastic ways, in discipline and chastening and hammering and battering and pressure... finding out how much is real. How much is real? How much is true? Well, the Lord throw more light on that.

The Saving Power of Divine Vision

(A Message as Spoken)

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" ("the people cast off restraint" - R.V.). (Proverbs 29:18).

That verse might be translated, "Where there is no vision, the people disintegrate" or "fall apart" or "go to pieces".

Whether that be the right translation or not, it is quite true in fact. Where there is no vision, the people go to pieces, and that is borne out very clearly in the Word of God in quite a number of places. A very clear instance is that which is shown in the days of Samuel at the beginning of his course, where the statement is clearly made, "The word of God was rare in those days; there was no widely spread vision" (1 Sam. 3:1): no widely spread vision; and we know how things were at that time. I am quite sure that there are many of the Lord's people who are feeling keenly the truth of these words. Though we may not have used them or applied them to the present situation, we are in the experience where these words are proving to be true. We are finding it necessary to adjust ourselves a good deal; to get our ideas adjusted, our outlook adjusted, our attitude adjusted. A great many things are passing from our horizon as possibilities. There is a very great deal of closing in and closing down, stricture and limitation of movement and activity. Many things that we have been able to do we can no longer do, and the question that is in the heart of many a child of God and a servant of God is, What is possible? What is going to be possible? Where are we going to find ourselves? All this can have a paralysing effect. It can bring us to a complete standstill, so that we stand and know not what to do. We can see nothing, no way.

It is a very sifting time that we are entering into. The one thing which perhaps more than anything else that is being tested is our vision. Is our vision already suffering? Have we begun to lose our vision, or to lose vision? Are we already disintegrating, going to pieces, finding ourselves with no strength of cohesion, no definiteness and positiveness of purpose? Are we all over the place as to our work, as to our calling? Of course, I am speaking now of spiritual things, of our relationship to the Kingdom of God. Well, in the final issue, the thing which is going to determine whether we go through and remain in strength and in a measure of confidence and assurance, or whether we come to a standstill and then just disintegrate and go to pieces; the thing which will determine that issue is vision. There is no doubt about it, and it is deeply true that where there is no vision, where the vision has been lost or where the vision has been a false one, or where there has never been any real vision, the absence of such true vision will be the cause of disaster. On the other hand, the presence of a true vision will be the basis of triumph. When we speak about vision, of course, we are speaking about Divine vision, and we mean two or three things.

THE MEANING OF DIVINE VISION

(a) Seeing God's Purpose

First of all, by vision we mean the seeing of God's purpose; and I feel, beloved, that we are right up against the supreme test of the one thing, namely the purpose of God, the eternal purpose, the Divine purpose. We are going to be tested as to whether that is a true vision with us or whether it is a phrase; whether it is something that has come to us by the Holy Spirit and has been entered into by us, as into the supreme meaning of things, or whether it is a form of words and teaching which has gone on around us, which perhaps we have accepted and to which we have assented. The developing situation is going to challenge us all on this matter of vision; and when we speak of vision, that is what we mean, and I believe that is what the Bible means throughout by vision, God's purpose being seen, having been made known by God Himself; and where there is no seeing of God's purpose the people will go to pieces, they will disintegrate. You and I have no more assurance of getting through triumphantly and having confidence in these and in coming days than men of the world have, unless we see inwardly, have inwardly the vision of God's purpose. We shall be paralysed and then we shall break down; our testimony will go, our ministry will go, our assurance will go. We shall have nothing whatever upon which to rest in a very little time but what has been revealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as God's purpose. That is vision.

(b) Seeing the Principles that Govern God's Purpose

Then, of course, it means in addition to that, the seeing of the principles which govern that purpose; that is, seeing how God ordains to reach His purpose; what are the determined and set laws of God in the reaching of His end? It is not enough to know what God is after; it is equally important to know how God will get there. Many people have glimpsed quite accurately God's end, but they have gone astray and missed God's end because they have sought to reach it along wrong lines, by false means. The principles which govern God's procedure to His end have not been known and recognised; and vision must mean that. So prophets who were seers, men who saw, men who had vision by revelation of God, were able not only to declare what God required, what God was after, but were also able to correct men about the way toward God's end, and to lay down the laws of God's realisation.

(c) Seeing Why and How Things are Contrary to God's Mind

Well, that carries with it a third thing. Vision means that we see how and why things are contrary to God's mind. It is a very important thing. There are many people today who realise that things have gone wrong, or that things are not right, that God's end is not being reached, but they cannot put their finger upon the cause, they cannot point out why, and so they have to speak in general terms and they are unable really to be true helpers.

Vision means these three things, then: firstly, a seeing of God's purpose; secondly, a seeing of those ordained principles by which God realises His purpose; and thirdly, therefore, a seeing of why it is and how it is that things are contrary to God's mind. I FEEL THAT THE OBJECT OF THE LORD JUST NOW IS NOT TO PRESENT THESE THINGS AGAIN, BUT THAT HE WOULD HAVE US FACE UP TO THE SITUATION.

THE VISION TESTED

We are being brought face to face with a very exacting situation, a situation that is going to test us to our very foundations. The outlook is going to be extremely perplexing, utterly bewildering; or so it threatens and promises to be, and most of us, I think, are already aware of how searching the developing situation will be, how much it will remove of that which has had a large place with us. Supposing, for example, all our outward activities in Christian life are ended; meetings, ministries, and everything that goes with the wider activity, and we are simply shut in to what is personal, so that Christian work, as such, ceases. It may be that we are to be brought right down to the place where nothing remains for us but God - God is; and we have some inward relationship with the Lord, but there is very little that we can do and we see everything going into the melting pot; and perhaps worse things than that, such as a great number of the Lord's people simply being wiped out, and things which have stood for the Lord being destroyed. That is possible, because it has already become actual in many places. Well now, we are moving into a situation which is capable of testing us right out.

Now, beloved, what will be required in that situation to save us will be the reality of the vision of God's purpose, will it not? What is God doing? What is the end toward which God is working? Unless you and I can answer that question in our hearts by revelation of the Holy Spirit, we are lost, we are paralysed, we go to pieces. Further, for all practical purposes, we have to know and see very clearly those laws and principles which God has ordained and fixed as the ways by which He reaches His end; and then, in order to be of any use at all, to have a testimony, to be of value to others in so far as that is required, we have to be very clear in our own hearts as to why it is and how it is that things are so contrary to the mind of God. That is vision. Those three things comprise vision, and, where they are lacking, where there is no such vision, the people go to pieces.

VISION THE DYNAMIC OF LIFE

So vision resolves itself into two things. It resolves itself into the very dynamic of life, the thing which keeps us going, which is the strength of our hearts. Look at the prophets. Take Jeremiah, for example. Well, from his own point of view, Jeremiah had to face a hopeless situation. For him his ministry was an utter failure right to the end, for himself. We have got the sequel and can see that others came into the value generations after; but in his own lifetime and for himself, his ministry was a failure, and he knew it. He sometimes turned to the Lord and had strong things to say to the Lord. At one time he would tell the Lord that He had deceived him and led him into a trap by putting him into prophetic ministry, simply because he realised that his ministry was an utter failure: and it was destined to be so for his own day. Another time he cried, Oh that I might get right away from everything, out of it all, into some place apart from men, apart from everything! We all know something of that from time to time. Oh, to get away from everything and everybody even in this great thing which, at other times, we realise to be the greatest thing that God could put us into. We want to get out and away. Why? Because of the apparent hopelessness of the situation; the slowness of spiritual growth, or the utter absence of spiritual growth to our view, to our vision, and many other things. That is Jeremiah. But nevertheless, through all those vicissitudes, those changes, those differing moods, Jeremiah was a man with a fire in his bones, and though he determined that he would not go on, he could not refrain. That fire in his bones is only another phrase for a vision which God had given, and through all, it held Jeremiah. It held him in the dungeon, it held him in the pit, it held him in persecution, it held him through the despair. Although he might today go right down into the depths of darkness and hopelessness of spirit, he could not stay there. It was an experience; but he came out and the fire was still there, burning. The vision was there to the end.

Beloved, that is how the knowledge of God's purpose has to be with us. It has to be something that is stronger than the situation without, deeper than our own feelings and emotions and emotional experience. It has to be something that is more than what we are in our moods, a mightier thing than all that to which we are subject in our soul life. It has to be able to bring us up out of our spiritual pits and mire, and keep us going. Vision is the only adequate dynamic in days like these and that is going to prove to be so more and more. With everything going to pieces around us, everything in the world becoming more and more desperate, we must be able to say, I have seen God's purpose; I know what God has in view, what He is working toward. Have you the Divine vision thus in your heart? Now, there could be no more utter test and challenge for us than that. It will not be of any use to any of us to have been taught about the eternal purpose if that thing has not entered into us in such a way that, when everything outside is in a hopeless state, that keeps us going and is capable of bringing us up out of our own hours of deepest despair; for I do not hesitate to say that even prophets can go down into deep despair for a season. But, because they are prophets, because they are seers, because they have vision, they come back again, they come up again, and it is that fire in their bones that brings them back. HAVE YOU A FIRE IN YOUR BONES, BORN OF THAT EYE-OPENING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THAT VISION OF GOD'S PURPOSE?

So vision is the dynamic of our lives. Thank God for the strength of such a thing! Were it not for that, where would some of us be today? Well might we ask the question. I know quite well that I should not be here, and I expect that is true of many of you. We have passed through depths of dark despair when it seemed that everything was failing and no more was possible. But we have PASSED THROUGH and come to the end of that tunnel, and what have we found? The fire of the vision, the old vision, is still there. We have not been able to abandon that, that has not gone. We have thought that it was gone, and that we would have to change our position entirely and give up all for which we had been standing. But no, it is as strong as ever, and it carries us on again.

VISION THE COHESION OF LIFE

Then vision is not only the dynamic of our lives; vision is the cohesion of life. Where there is no vision, the people disintegrate, go to pieces, their cohesiveness breaks down; and, for any real value in testimony, there must be oneness in vision. I believe that is the foundation of the Church. I believe that the Divine foundation of the Church as a whole, is a revelation, a vision, a "having seen the Lord". The Church started there, the Church took its rise from a seeing of the Lord, high and lifted up, exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Church went forth on the basis of that vision as a cohesive testimony, as a corporate vessel, and what is true of the Church must be true of the relationship of all believers. You and I can never hold together by agreements. We can never hold together by certain rules and regulations, or by a creed. Nothing objective in that way can hold us; but, if we are to be a combined testimony and a vessel for effective use in the Lord's hands, it can only be as we are one in vision, one in revelation. If this vision is necessary to hold us together as individuals and to keep us from falling apart in ourselves, it is equally necessary to keep us together as the Lord's people, and that is going to be one of the tests of these days. It is very important, and the Lord only knows the point at which we may be standing today. He only knows how soon this must be pressed through to its practical outworking. There is a scattering today of the Lord's people, physically and geographically. Eight countries have been overrun. We do not know what the conditions in those eight countries are, but I think we should not be far from the truth if we said that things are not normal amongst the Lord's peole, that things are very difficult. The old line of corporate expression and fellowship may have ceased and doubtless has in many places. Now, is this scattering, this breaking up outwardly, going to be the whole thing, or is there going to be, with all that, a spiritual cohesion that triumphs over it? Is it going to be seen that all the work of the Devil, all the destruction and the havoc and the breaking up and the outward disintegrating can have no effect upon that, but that there still remains in the unseen before God in heaven, and here as a testimony in the earth, that oneness, that cohesiveness of God's people which Satan cannot destroy, and which is working effective things against him?

Well, beloved, the answer depends upon vision, what we are seeing. I know in the first place it is seeing the Lord; ever and always it will be a matter of "looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith". That look will ever be necessary to save us in our suffering, because that exaltation is connected with sufferings. This is seen from the words that immediately follow: "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God". Thus that is a word to help us in our suffering; but in our testimony we have to see the purpose of God and how God has determined to realize His purpose. That is the practical side outwardly. The upward look has to do with ourselves inwardly in a day of suffering; the seeing of the purpose has to do with our testimony to others in a day of suffering, of trouble, of adversity. Vision is the cohesion of life, and whatever may come, may it prove that we have seen; not that we have heard teaching, but that we have seen.

VISION DEMANDS THE ELIMINATION OF SELF

Vision, beloved, demands one thing, otherwise it cannot stand; that is, it cannot save us, cannot bear its fruit, cannot do its work where we are concerned. Vision demands the absolute elimination of self. If you or I figure in the vision we have rendered the vision impotent. Take your place alongside of Jeremiah. Now say to him, Jeremiah, you can prophesy, you can appeal, you can weep, you can suffer intensely to the end of your life, but you will see no fruit of it! Now, Jeremiah, what are you going to do about it? That is the test. You are doomed to be a failure, Jeremiah! Yours is to be the most unpopular ministry in this world: no one will listen to you and after years of the bitterest suffering all you yourself will see is the dark side of your prophecy coming true. As for living fruit from it unto the glory of God, you will see none of it! Well, if Jeremiah was standing for the vindication of his own ministry, if he figured in the vision, to be used mightily of God to bring in the new age, and to be there on the spot when it was being done; well, Jeremiah could not have borne the strain if that was his position, his mind about it. Do you see what I mean? It is not easy for us to take this position: We shall not live to see the fruit of our ministry. All that for which we have suffered and been poured out, all our testimony, will bear no positive fruit in our day. Though it be destined to do so one day, even as God is true, yet we ourselves will be most unpopular, never accepted. That is the test of self in the vision, a tremendous test.

Well, we have to face that test now. Are we prepared to go on to the end without figuring in things, just being faithful and maybe dying with nothing more than the knowledge that to have taken any other course would have been to violate that in us which most truly represented the Lord? Are we prepared not to see, not to have a place, not to gain recognition, and be faithful? You see, vision makes that demand upon us - true vision. True vision is a most challenging thing, since for most people, especially young people, that word "vision" means that, somehow or other, we are in the picture, we are seeing things happen, we are in it. That will not do. Vision demands the elimination of self.

Mark the case of the Lord Jesus. What had He to show for His life on earth? See the Apostle Paul, after his long life of service and suffering, in a prison; his converts, who owe everything to him spiritually, turning from him; his churches throwing him over; a lonely man in a prison. Was he a man of vision? Was the Lord Jesus a Man of vision? Were they right? Had there been any place for self in their case in the vision, they would have broken down, they could not have gone through. All the time they would have been in controversy with the Lord - Where do I come in! Was that not the temptation of the Lord Jesus right at the beginning of His ministry, to figure in things? Was it not the very essence of His victory over the enemy when He took the position: The kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof, yes, but by way of the Cross, by way of the despairing cry, by way of the unpopular road, by way of being rejected of men. Had He figured in it, He would not have gone on. The Lord save us, then, from that self-interest in Divine things which destroys vision and therefore leads to our own undoing.

From "This Ministry" Messages given at Honor Oak, London 1940 - Volume 1.

Set for a Sign

"Say ye, I am your sign." - Ezek. 12:11.

The mental conception of consecration is that of being blessed and being made a blessing. If left there that is not a true conception. These passages, which we have read (see below) contain a proposition which is the central and basic principle of consecration to the Lord. It is that He would make us a sign. They contain this law, that God in His eternal purpose determines that the method of His realisation should be by an incarnation of Himself, that is, a manifestation of Himself in the flesh; and that He shall do something in that incarnation which will be a sign to the universe, setting forth something of the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God - that He will take hold of the form of a man, and in that form do things and say: "Look at that and learn." He is making such an instrument, by what He does in it, a signification, not only to man, but to angels of the two hierarchies, the Divine and the satanic; as for example Job, in whom God did a thing at which all the hosts of angels and demons might look and learn of His manifold wisdom. In every realm, amongst men and in the heavenlies, the lower and the super heavenlies, God would do a thing in those who are His, which should be the means of instructing, making aware, informing and demonstrating to all who behold.

Moses was a sign to the children of Israel. He disobeyed God, and because Moses stood in such a prominent position before the people, God had to act at once and to punish his disobedience publicly. In that judgment he became a sign to the Israelites, lest they should come to regard the sin of disobedience lightly. With us also there will have to be a like judgment of the flesh, for the warning of others, as well as the vindication of the Truth in its living outworking. Moses was God's sign. It costs to be God's sign. Are we willing? How great was the cost to Moses, but how fruitful the afterward.

That this is a principle of Divine dealing is illustrated in the following Scriptures:

Ezek. 12:6. "I have set thee for a sign."

Ezek. 12:11. "I am your sign."

Ezek. 24:27. "Thou shalt be a sign unto them and they shall know that I am the Lord."

Acts 1:8. "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me."

2 Cor. 3:2. "Ye are our epistle... known and read of all men."

2 Cor. 3:3. "Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ."

1 Cor. 4:1. "Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ."

1 Cor. 4:9. "We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to men."

Eph. 3:10. "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies (lit.) might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God."

2 Cor. 2:15. "We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish, to one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other of life unto life."

I believe that the Lord is seeking in these days to gather out a people - few they will certainly be, and one does not say that the Lord can do this with all who are His - who shall be His sign to the "House of Israel". Their testimony may not be that "the House of Israel" is utterly wrong; but rather a testimony to a higher and deeper life in God to which He calls. One feels this borne in upon one so much in these days, and you will understand the signification of this, that when the Lord calls a people, a small company it may be, when He puts His hand upon one here and one there, He deals with them in altogether different ways from those which He follows with other people, and He says: "I will do a new thing".

Now it is no use your making a comparison with others. In their way they may have a certain seal and blessing of God upon them; but this does not mean that the way by which the Lord is leading you is a wrong way. You dare not argue from the ways other people go. This is the way of the Lord for you. Do not stay to make comparisons or you will be stumbled, you who have given yourselves wholly to God and come up against these exceptional and trying experiences, the full impact of the wrath of the enemy. If you look around upon others who have an easier time, because they are not going the way you are going, it will immediately seem that for you all meaning has gone out of everything. The point is, that the Lord has His wheel within a wheel, His instrument which He desires to make a special sign to His people of His wisdom, His power, His grace, His methods, His purpose; He would reveal Himself through you to others. Do not for one moment have the thought of anyone being on a pedestal, being in solitary isolation, of special account to the Lord. It simply means that more than others you go deeper down into death, and in humiliation before the world. Because the Lord takes you deeper, He is able to reveal something higher.

God is leading such out into a way which is unusual, which is, if you like, peculiar, and is doing a thing of which they have no knowledge of having been done anywhere else. As He leads them thus I believe it is in order that, in doing this thing, with all its cost, with all its pain, with all the need for the slaying of every part of the flesh, its pride and arrogance, its desire for the approval of men, and all that kind of thing - in His new way He is seeking to have such to go with Him - all in order that He may make them a sign; something spiritual, and something spiritually powerful. He will not have them to be that which men can applaud and approve, but that which perhaps will be like the impact of the throne of God upon the throne of Satan. That is the burden of the Word of the Lord: "Son of man, I have made you a sign"; "Say, I am your sign."

It seems to me that this moment is one in which we should face the implication of this word; as to whether we are going the popular way or the unpopular way, as to whether we are going to be the Lord's Sign. When Paul uttered these words: "For I think that God hath set forth us apostles last of all, as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle..." he was taking account of the holidays of the Romans, when they gathered for a day's sport. When all the other items were finished,  to crown this holiday, the last thing was the turning into the arena of criminals to be made sport of, to be laughed at, jeered at, ridiculed, made fun of as they suffered. Paul says: "set forth... last... made a spectacle" - the world laughs. In the same way the world laughed at Nehemiah in the building of the walls of Jerusalem.

"God hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle..." Are we ready to be made a "sign"? Are we willing to become a thing at which the world laughs? The Cross of the Lord Jesus has ever proved to be the superlative wisdom and power of God. For the time being the sharing of the Cross is the real test. The Master endured the Cross, and despised the shame, in order to be made a sign. Was there ever a sign more glorious and mighty than that Cross - in the heavens, in hell, and on the earth?

Thus our Master came to the end of His earthly course, and said: "For their sakes I consecrate Myself". For their sakes I give Myself unto the full consecration; and that consecration is the Cross. I am willing to be made a "spectacle" to men, demons and angels, for their sakes. The Lord wants us to be signs. One says this with bated breath, knowing little of what it means, but knowing also that His grace is sufficient. Beloved, He is just seeking to gather a company of people together of whom He can make a Sign. Will you say on those terms, on that ground, "I am the Lord's"; "At Thy feet I fall; to suffer, live or die, for my Lord crucified"? This is what it means to be His witnesses. "Ye are my witnesses".

The Lord has had different kinds of signs through the years. Sometimes He has raised up outstanding individuals with their peculiar and specific experience and testimony; sometimes a piece of work embodying some particular spiritual law or feature; a place or a mission. Such are ever the expression of Divine sovereignty, and they cannot be repeated or copied by men at their will; they are essentially the work of God. But while we can neither produce nor imitate them, we can and must learn the spiritual lesson which they are intended to teach. The one inclusive object of all such "signs" is to lift the Lord's people to a level which is above the ordinary and natural; yes, above the normal, above the human, above the best that is possible in man of himself. The significance of "the Lord" is what is in point; not the man, the people, the instrumentality, the work, but the Lord. Thus it comes about that, in the course of their ministry, the Lord does not protect them from adversity, but rather seems to allow every devastating force to break upon them, so that again and again they are at their "wits end"; the end seems to have come; the enemy seems to have triumphed; the whole vision appears to have been a mistake. But by  "resurrection from the dead" the Lord is glorified and His power is known. When the Lord secures such an instrument He takes pains to strip it of all elements of human glorying, and makes it to be something which is dependent upon Him for its very life. The more we must have of some thing in which to boast, the less are we likely to have of the genuine glory of God.

The way of the true "sign" is no way of earthly praise; it never attracts to itself. The very term "sign" means that there is something beyond and more than the thing itself.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-Jun 1937 Vol. 15-3

Things Which Will Be Shaken

With this last issue of the paper for this year (and it will not reach many of you until very near the end of the year) I feel a strong desire and urge to look back and on with you. For myself, it has been a very full year. So far as movements are concerned, the fullest year of my life. I have travelled by air alone twenty-six thousand miles, and quite a bit in other ways. This has involved many conferences, meetings, etc. so that there has been a very great deal given out. To this must be added all the ministries and labours of my colleagues and fellow-workers. This is not mentioned just as news or information, although it will show that "a great and effectual door" is opened to us. But I mention this because it will indicate that we are not spending our time up in some corner, imagining things, and ministering to hypothetical situations. We are in immediate and direct touch with the spiritual and actual situation as represented by a very large area. We have no hesitation, though much sorrow, in saying that the situation spiritually is very, very sad and deplorable. It is our well-considered and deeply-rooted conviction that some great and drastic judgment from heaven of Christendom is absolutely imperative. We are equally convinced that it has commenced and is moving obdurately and inflexibly across the world. Just as the Assyrians were the instrument under the sovereignty of God to sift Israel in the last dispensation, so it is most likely that the power moving over the earth today - a combination of Satanic forces with human instruments - is going to test the whole of Christendom as to its real spiritual measure. This may very well be the counterpart of what took place is the year 70 A.D. when Judaism was shaken to its foundations and fell. The Scriptures quite definitely foretell a tribulation coming upon "the whole world to try them that are upon the earth". This is something much more than Jewry.

The words quoted from the prophet seem yet to be capable of a fuller-ranged fulfilment than even the above-mentioned 'shaking'. "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also the heavens". (Hebrews 12:26,27).

There is no doubt that the Letter to the Hebrews was a supreme effort to get Christian believers detached from an earthly form of Christianity, and attached to Christ in heaven. That effort had as one of its strong reasons the fact that a great shaking was foretold, foreseen, and imminent. That shaking was to be in two parts, an earlier and a latter; an entirely earthly, and later an earthly and heavenly combined. The effect of the shaking, and, indeed, the purpose of it, would be to test everything as to abiding values. The former and earthly shaking was Jewish, but it had all the elements in principle and type of the latter.

In the destruction of Jerusalem - toward which the Letter pointed - the whole earth was shaken so far as Jewry was concerned. The Temple, as the focal point of that whole world, crashed even with the ground. The priesthood, as gathered up in the high-priestly order, passed away. The temple service ended, and the nation ceased to be an integrate and unified people.

These were things capable of being removed. And yet how long they had stood! What forces they had withstood! What confidence there was that they could never cease to be! How assured they were that God was so bound up with it all that it could never be destroyed and cease to be! How they fought and clung to it to the last terrible extremity! But it was of no avail. God was no longer wanting the framework and earthly system, which had taken so much room, and energy, and expenditure, before the really spiritual was reached. The percentage of spiritual value was so small after all, and spiritual interests lay so far along the labyrinthine ways of religious machinery and tradition, that it was not worth while. The means to the end was not immediate, that is, there was far too big a distance between the means and the end. There was no immediate touch with the real Divine requirement, and there was far too much that was intermediate. And so it had to go, and, rather than preserve it, God Himself shook it.

What remained after the shaking was just that, and that only, which was Christ in a spiritual and heavenly way: Christ in heaven, and here by His Spirit, the gathering point, or occasion of assembling; Christ in heaven the High Priest and Sacrifice; the order of God's house here a purely spiritual and heavenly one - not formal, arranged, imposed, imitated, or material. Order grows out of life, and if that life is Divine, and unchecked, Divine order will be spontaneous.

The amazing thing is how blind and unbelieving Christian people are, and therefore how unwilling to seek to know the way of the 'unshakable'. In a very small part of our lifetime the phrase 'world evangelization' (from one part to another) has been rendered unusable, and all that mighty machine is having to be revised. Countries which were until quite recently the greatest spheres of 'missionary' activity are now closed as such. There is a feverish race to try to move ahead of the flood in other countries which are already encircled and undermined. In those overrun countries nothing but a true and living knowledge of the Lord is stemming the tide. The framework and organized structure of Christianity is gone. Deeply, stealthily, and irresistibly this sinister work is paving the way for swift and paralysing movements in all the rest of the world, as much in the West as in the East. The result will be the same everywhere, little as it may seem possible because of long traditions and strong establishments. It seems a terrible thing, even to think, but as we have touched so very much of what is called 'Christianity' we are bound to believe that, because vast numbers who call themselves Christian are in an utterly false position, and the system itself has become so largely an earthly, traditional, formal, and unspiritual thing, this world-wide shaking is quite necessary and will be eventually justified. If we were writing a treatise, we could show that what is called 'Christianity' is really the greatest enemy of Christ.

It will be seen that it is not a matter of substituting another and better system for an old and poor or bad one. Some people seem to think that it is all or largely a matter of the order, technique, and form, and if we returned to the 'New Testament' form or order of churches all would be well. The fact is that, while certain things characterized the New Testament churches, the New Testament does not give us a complete pattern according to which churches are to be set up or formed! There is no blue-print for churches in the New Testament, and to try to form New Testament churches is only to create another system which may be as legal, sectarian and dead as others. Churches, like the Church, are organisms which spring out of life, which life itself springs out of the Cross of Christ wrought into the very being of believers. Unless believers are crucified people, there can be no true expression of the Church.

This brings us to our particular point. What is the pressing imperative in view of this oncoming flood of testing, which has already carried away very many of those who were called Christian, and even evangelical Christians?

Surely there is only one answer:- On the one hand, a ministry which has as its substance and object the "rooting and grounding", the establishing, the building up, of believers, the real increase of "the measure of Christ". This must get behind evangelism, so that the work is deep, not superficial; enduring, not transient; intrinsic, not general! On the other hand, believers must really take stock of their Christianity. Is it just a tradition, an assumption, an external system, the thing which is common acceptance - more or less? Or is it really "by revelation of Jesus Christ" in the heart? A real walk with God, and a growing knowledge of Christ, a life in the Spirit? God has said it: the things which can be shaken will be. What have we got that, being unshakable, will remain?

So, with our review and outlook, we gird up the loins of our minds, and feel that the small bit of this 'building' ministry committed to us must be pursued with greater devotion. How we wish that it were possible to gather the people of God together in every country and minister Christ to them, and more than we have done!

Dear friends, let us away with suspicions, prejudices, misunderstandings, and fears; these things which are such successful means and methods of Satan to defeat God's purpose in many lives - His purpose of the fulness of Christ; and let us pray much - as Paul besought the saints to pray - that "a door may be opened to speak the mystery"; that a mighty new movement of the Spirit of God will take effect in the direction of spiritual purity, strength, and reality. Oh, that such a movement might begin before this year closes, and the critical year - 1953 - be marked by a deep movement of the Lord's people toward Himself!

Make this a matter of prayer as to yourself, and then for all His own.

Pray also for us that we may be very truly and faithfully led as to what the Lord wants of us, and where. Calls and needs are so many; our burden is so great! We do want to do that which will have the greatest measure of intrinsic spiritual value. You know that it is not a 'teaching', a 'movement', or any 'thing' that we are interested in or concerned with. It is truly "the measure of Christ" in His members and Body.

The Lord continue to make this ministry effective to His end.

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1952, Vol 30-6

Truth in The Inward Parts

"Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts" (Psalm 51:6).

PSALM 51 might well have as its title DE PROFUNDIS.

It is here that the Psalmist reaches the deepest depths of sorrow and remorse. The bottom is touched when it is a question of "bloodguiltiness", for, in all the provisions for sin in the Mosaic ritual, there is no provision for bloodguiltiness; death alone is the answer. This is what David knows and is facing in this Psalm because of the episode over Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11-12). David well knew that the mercy of God had to go deeper than death; death which was his due. In his deep agony David has come to a vital question or issue. It is here that "Deep calleth unto deep". Deep suffering calls for a deep solution, if the suffering is related to sin. The solution is that in verse six: "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts". To reach that deepest place and solution God uses our failures and wrongs.

There is a -

Progressiveness In God's Dealings

In the course of our spiritual history God deals with us in ever-deepening ways. Down, down, down, He goes, until He touches bottom to have things true at our very depth. He undercuts all our professions, doctrines, assumptions, pretensions, illusions, and customs.

There is no mere formalism about this; no mere Jewish ritual in this; no mere outward observance of rites and ceremonies in this! No! This has got to go right into the inmost being, in the inward parts. God works toward that. God is ever working toward the most inward parts. Do you recognize that? Do you understand what He is doing with us? Oh, He will meet us with blessing on a certain level, as we walk before Him, like the man in Psalm 1. He will meet us with His gracious provision when we transgress and trespass and fail, and do wrong - He will meet us there in grace. But God is going to pursue this matter to the most inward place of our being, and register there His work of grace and redemption.

"Thou desirest...", and David did not come to that until he reached the profoundest, the deepest place of need, of failure, of conscious weakness and worthlessness. Then he cried. It is not enough to just please God in ordinary ways; it is not enough to observe the ritual of the Law, and go to the ceremonies, and carry out all that which is external. God is after truth in the inward parts, right down into the depths of our being. Why? Why? Because truth is a major feature and constituent of the Divine nature. God is called the God of Truth; Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, called Himself the Truth - "I am... the truth"; "To this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth"; the Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of Truth - "when He, the Spirit of truth, is come...".

The Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are characterized by this one feature - truth! And God desires and has set His heart upon having people who are partakers of the Divine nature, and so He is working ever more deeply toward this end: what is true of Himself shall be true of His children - those begotten of Him - that they should be true sons of God in this sense.

All Untruth Is Satanic

Satan is described as the liar and the father of lies. For that reason all untruth is an abomination to God. God has consigned all liars to the lake of fire; He has excluded from the New Jerusalem everything that maketh a lie. God hates everything that is not true, and true right through and through like Himself. He must have truth in the inward parts.

The interference of Satan with God's creation - man - resulted in man becoming something false where God is concerned: he is a misrepresentation of God's mind; and he is a deceived creature. "The god of this age", says Paul, "hath blinded the mind of the unbelieving". Man is a deceived, blinded creature; but God desires "truth in the inward parts".

Now, you see how large a matter this is, and one is hard-pressed to know what to say, and what not to say about it. But let us dwell for a moment upon this clause "the inward parts" - the inward parts. You will detect in this Psalm that that is running right through. Here it is: "create in me a clean heart"; "renew a right spirit within me"; "a broken spirit and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise". You see, it is all this innermost realm of things that has now arisen as the real need. No more deception, no more falsehood, no more mockery, no more make-believe, no more going on as though it is all right when it is not all right; no more using external means to cover over inward unreality; no more going to meetings, and saying prayers, and joining in the whole system, when the inward parts are not right before God. Seeing then that we are what we are by nature now, this represents a re-constituting of us. Anything that does not minister to that is false in itself. Any system of religion that just puts on from the outside, and covers over the inner life by mere rite and ritual is false, it is not true. The work of God is to reconstitute human nature. And that, of course, involves two things.

On the one side, it involves a breaking down. And if you know anything about God's dealings with lives who come into His hands, there is undoubtedly a large place for that - a progressive breaking down; a getting to the root of things, and undeceiving us. If we have any illusions about ourselves, they will all be gone when God has done with us. If we are governed by any kind of falsehood about ourselves, and our position, and our work, when God has done with us, that will all be gone. He is going to break us down until we see ourselves stark, as an unclean thing, with all our righteousnesses as filthy rags. So He will break us down, and He does.

But there is the other side, of course, all the time, for God is not only, and always negative; there is the constructing, bringing up to the place where anything that is false, anything that is not absolutely transparent and true, straight, clear, is hateful to us. More and more our inner man revolts against our own falsehood. Any exaggerations comes back on us at once with conviction of wrong; any false statement hits us hard, and we know that we have not spoken the truth. It is a tremendous thing to get into the hands of the Holy Spirit, until, like God, the one thing that we hate is anything that is false. "I hate", said David, "every false way". We must come there. But we must be lovers of the truth. And this is going to pursue us everywhere; it will pursue us into our own life within ourselves, that we are not deceiving ourselves at all. Before God we know exactly what God thinks about us, and we know where we stand in the light.

Truth In The Social Life

It will pursue us into our social life, and all our social lies and make-believe will have to come under the hand of God. Oh, what a tremendous amount of falsehood, make-believe, there is in the social realm. What about all the 'make-up'? is it not to make out that you are something that you are not?! to give a semblance of something that is not true? The whole social life is like that; it is a fabric of untruths, and we have many ways of just saying things that really are not true.

Truth In The Business Life

It pursues us into our business; the lie that gets us a good sale or a good buy - the commercial lie. And so, through and through, God will pursue this matter of truth. Forgive me, but it is a very, very important matter with God. If God does hate what is untrue, and desires truth in the inward parts, how can He bless where there is anything that is false, of any kind at all - His eyes see.

And this is a work of time - indeed, it is a lifelong work. This thing comes more to light, becomes more intense, the further on we go. The Lord lets us off with a lot of things as spiritual infants, as we do our children. We know that they are children, and we do not take too much notice of certain things which we know are not quite right. And God is very patient and very tender to bring us on. It would not do to come right in with all the fulness and the exactness of His nature too soon - He spreads it over the whole lifetime. And the nearer we come to the Lord, the more meticulous the Holy Spirit is over this matter of truth; the closer are His dealings with us. It is very true, you see, "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord" - perfecting. The nearer we get to the end, the more stringent will be the Lord's dealings with anything false in our lives. It is a time matter, but God is very faithful - He is very faithful; He does not let things pass. Do we want Him to be faithful? Well, it is not comfortable to say, Yes, but it is good that He should be faithful with every inconsistency, every contradiction, every falsehood, in the inward parts.

That carries the matter deeper than our own natural, moral life. I am not talking about morals now. It is right to be honest; it is right to have integrity; it is right to be straight; it is right to be true, naturally, humanly: but I am not talking about that. This thing goes deeper than our natural moral life at its best, for the simple reason that, by nature, we have not got God's conceptions and God's standards. God's thoughts about things are very different from ours. We would often allow what God would never allow. He has an altogether different point of view about things. We judge in one way about things, and God judges in another. It is necessary for us to come to God's standpoint. Oh, we would say, there is no harm in such-and-such a thing. Oh, there is no wrong in that; look at so-and-so and so-and-so, and we take our standard, perhaps, from other people. We have known people to do that; point to some outstanding figure in the work of God, in whose life was a certain thing - that one has been taken as the model, to be copied, and so the thing has been taken on. Oh, there is no harm in it; look at so-and-so. And I have known lives and ministries to be ruined on that very excuse. The question is: What does the Lord say about it? God says, Walk before Me! Not before any human model; not before any human standard; 'There is no harm in it; so-and-so does it; it is quite a common practice'. No, no! "Walk before Me", says the Lord. We have got to get this in the spirit, in the inward man. It is deeper than our best moral standards. Otherwise there is no point in it being in the Bible at all, if our moral standards can rise to God's satisfaction - why must we be so handled and reconstituted? It is deeper than our intellect, than our reason. You cannot, by reason or intellect, arrive at God's standard at all. Not at all! Oh, do not think that by any method of reasoning, you are ever going to reach God's standard. You never will. Here, it is only by revelation of the Holy Spirit. Christ has got to be revealed in our hearts by the Spirit. There is no point in Jesus saying: "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth", if we could get there by our own intelligence. Not at all. It must come by the revelation of Christ in our hearts, in the inward parts. This is something spiritual. "God is Spirit; they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth " - spirit and truth go together. Only what is spiritual, what is of God, is truth - only that!

The Apostle Paul had a great intellect, as everybody knows, and he had a very high standard of moral life, but he was an utterly deceived man before his conversion. "I verily thought that I ought...." 'It was a matter of conscience with me to do many things contrary....' He was conscientious. He could say as concerning the righteousness which is of the Law -blameless! There is a moral standard; there is an intellectual standard, there is a conscientious standard! But it can be all mistaken, deceived. No, that is not the way. It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit Himself in us, changing us, completely changing us. It may be that common honesty, sincerity will be a way along which the Lord can come. I am quite sure, if we are not going to be honest and straight with God, He is not going to meet us, but that will not get us there. He may require the gangway across which to pass to us, the gangway of meaning business with Him, and being thoroughly honest with Him. But let us never think that any sincerity of ours will bring us to be partakers of the Divine nature - not at all! "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts", in the deepest realm of our being - in our spirits.

If we are in a false position we are in great weakness, and our foundation will collapse, sooner or later. But the Lord's way is to deliver us from such.

Well, I think thats all that I dare take time to say on this matter this morning But we ought to leave it at the point where we do recognize that God has provided for this in sending the Holy Spirit: When He, the Spirit of Truth is come. Its all a matter of the Holy Spirit as Lord within us. Having His place as absolute Lord. Over intellect, over our own moral pride, conceit, satisfaction. Oh, let me come back where I started: The Holy Spirit will take this thing right down, thank God. Thank God! Oh, what are you hoping in? Are you hoping in something in yourself - the man in Psalm 1? Or are you hoping in the law and the ritual and the ceremonies and the sacrifices - man in Psalm 32? And yes, you get Gods mercy and grace there if you can satisfy Him on either of those grounds at all - theres a blessing. But, God is not going to stop there. And thank God He doesnt.

Do I say too terrible a thing when I say that God will bring us to the place of complete despair on all other grounds than His mercy in order that He might reach His end, reach His end, which is His own satisfaction in us - that no flesh should glory in His presence. He that glorieth shall glory in the Lord. So our Psalm is of mercy and of grace, boundless beyond... beyond anything that ever has been provided for in the old economy. It is provided for in Jesus Christ.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1962.

Understanding of the Times

Some Observations and An Appeal by the Editor

In his "Holy War" John Bunyan's spiritual acumen is rarely more impressive than in that point in the enemy's strategy to capture Mansoul where he orders that Mr. Understanding - the Town Clerk - must be put in a dark dungeon where he cannot see what is going on. The Apostle Paul has given us no small emphasis upon the importance and value of spiritual understanding, and the New Testament contains a great deal of evidence as to that importance. Would to God that we - His people - were more awake to the nature and meaning of currents, trends, and happenings in our own time! David's kingdom was strengthened in the day of its establishment after the death of Saul by the men of Issachar "that had understanding of the times". Our Lord's kingdom surely needs people so endowed. The spheres in which this gift or quality is needed are both those of the Lord's movements, and those of the enemy's, and such perception would be a great strengthening to the Church and the people of God. While we do not claim to be greatly endowed in this way, there are some vital and big matters concerning which no great illumination is necessary, and we venture to point these out. For the moment we confine ourselves to only two, but two which are very far reaching and inclusive of many more. The first has to do with

The Church

There is an almost astounding movement in our time in this connection, and it has two major aspects. The New Testament can be said to be - in a large proportion of its contents - a document containing God's conception, election, calling, and constitution of the Church for its eternal vocation, and it can truly be said that God has bound Himself to the Church in a very full and utter way. He has made it clear that His means and method of fulfilling His eternal counsels concerning His Son is 'Churchwise': that the normal channel of His approach to and meeting of men is His Church. Of course, this means the Church as constituted, indwelt, and governed by His Son as "head over all things" to it. This Divinely revealed and introduced Church all too soon lost its original character and effectiveness, toward the end of the apostolic age, and, for the most part, it has been other than at the beginning ever since, with few worthy representations, except here and there. But God has never abandoned His original conception and appointment. Sooner or later it would be brought home to Christendom that His way and means are indispensable to its very survival. That time has now come! Never was there a time when so many books were being published, and so many conferences being held, on the subject of the Church as at this present time. The matter is - perhaps - not even second to evangelism, for evangelism resolves itself invariably into the Church question, and is so largely determined as to its abiding value by it.

What we are going to mention is not a verdict either way upon the World Council of Churches (here we pass no judgment for or against, that is not our object at the moment), but it is of no small significance that a body representing almost every denomination of Christendom should make the pronouncements that it has made.

In the great gatherings of this body in Amsterdam the subject chosen was 'The Order of God and the Disorder of Man'. This was afterward altered to 'Man's Disorder and God's Design'. This was a reconsideration of the New Testament revelation of the Church, and was a tacit condemnation of the departure therefrom. Later this great body was found using freely a phrase which has almost become a slogan: 'These man-made divisions must go!' For centuries these 'divisions' have been upheld and championed as part of the sovereign ways of God to recover or preserve certain specific features of Divine truth. It has been said again and again that the denominations were raised up by God for this purpose (no matter how they contradicted one another). Now it is 'these man-made divisions'. What lies behind this change and new face? Nothing less and other than the realisation that for its very survival and effective testimony the Church must reassert its unity. While we do not for a moment think that the kind of unity - or union - being aimed at or worked for is what is in the New Testament, or will have any more intrinsic value than a League of Nations or United (?) Nations, we repeat that it is of no small significance that, as the age closes in, God is compelling a recognition of His own established way. While this may be the imposing of His decree upon the recognition of men, there may be a hidden and deep-down working of His sovereignty to have the genuine thing.

There is another aspect of this matter. It is in the realm of

'World Missions'

No one with any eyes to see can fail to recognise that we have turned a very big corner in the matter of what have been called 'World Missions'. This turn is truly stated by one very competent to judge. Here are his words (we quote them with certain reservations which we will later mention):

"The missionary movement stands at the beginning of a new age." "Among enlightened individuals, for example, it is now common to hear the term 'world mission of the Church' used instead of the time-honoured phrase 'foreign missions'." "The age of foreign missions has passed." "The challenge of our day lies rather in a world-wide heathenism running horizontally through all the religions, cultures, and nations of the world, including our own." "Nothing is foreign that concerns our mission to take Christ to our disordered world." "Then, also, we speak less of 'missions' today and more often of the 'world-mission'." "The transition from the plural to the singular is important." "...the word 'missions' in the plural suggests many scattered enterprises, supported by churches and individuals because of their concern for a particular missionary or a specific type of work... in promoting these enterprises we find ourselves exalting the incidental and the subsidiary rather than the basic and the permanent. The missionary faith at home cannot be nurtured on success stories, for in some countries, at least, dark days lie ahead - how dark we dare not even surmise..." "To go a step further, this 'world-mission' is a world-mission of the church. Missionary emphasis today is upon the church. We are concerned with the mission of the church ... The modern 'rediscovery of the church', of which we read and hear so much, was, in fact, largely a missionary achievement... It is with the church as fellowship, rather than organisation, that the missionary movement is concerned... Incorporation into the fellowship is the end of conversion. A solitary believer is an impossibility... Experience on the mission field has demonstrated that the gospel is commended to unbelievers by the corporate witness of the new life as lived within the fellowship as a 'colony of heaven'. The church as fellowship is not only the end of evangelism; it is the agent in that process."

The above is no isolated judgment and appraisal. Our point in this statement is that - whether it be the Church of Divine revelation, or of man's conception - it is the fact of the Church that is finding an altogether new and primary place in the realm of Christian concern. This, we repeat, is very significant, and ought to be considered seriously in the light of Divine sovereignty, as displacing both individualism and institutionalism. There is a particular aspect of this to which our evangelical leaders in particular will do well to take heed. We quote here from another work for the sake of getting to the point quickly.

"All through the Christian age a minority of believers has endeavoured to carry out in corporate life the Scriptural principles (i.e. of Church life and work). The bitterest and most implacable opposition has come to them, not from the world, but from organised Christendom, that is, the system men call the Church. By this powerful organisation they have been in turn oppressed, misrepresented, persecuted, reviled, ridiculed, and ignored, but their persistence from century to century has supplied proof of the practibility of the principles they professed."

The present writer has recently spent some time in the East and the Far East and has seen the glory and the tragedy of the above.

On the one hand a mighty work of God - not on a 'mission' or institutional basis at all, but on the true and pure basis of the Church - is expressing itself and reproducing itself as shown in the book of the 'Acts', reaching far and wide until churches have been born in many hundreds of places (literally true), with large numbers of fulltime workers, and an order beautiful to behold, a joy that bows one to worship. One thanks God for ever having been allowed the honour of seeing just a part of this work, from the inside, and of being able to look deeply into its constitution. This is something actually in existence and still going on today. But on the other hand, this is the work that has had more opposition in misunderstanding, misrepresentation, criticism, and avoidance on the part of organized Christianity, than any other Christian activity. 'Christians' have even gone so far as to boycott in business those who have been associated with this work. It is happening today, but the most evident seal of God is on this testimony.

This leads us to our second main word in this editorial. It has to do with this increasing and blighting

Suspicion Among Christians

Error, false teaching, and heresy have always been a major means by which the Devil has sought to destroy "the testimony of Jesus", but when he brought in the weapon of what is known as 'Modernism', or 'Higher Criticism', he used a double-barrelled gun. One barrel he aimed directly at the great fundamental truths of the Person of Christ, the work of Christ, and the authority of the Bible. He has thus wrought great havoc, but one wonders whether even that is comparable to the mischief of his second and closely related barrel. By it he has poured out volumes and clouds of suspicion, fear, mistrust, apprehension, and all the grievous effects of these among true Christians. There is not a single person today who is quite safe in this 'Christian' world and atmosphere. Some of the most outstanding and erstwhile evangelical stalwarts have at length fallen under its awful miasma, and died of a broken heart because of it - and all so untrue! The enemy stops short at no point short of dividing the last two Christians, and if he cannot find true ground for doing it by spreading suspicion and mistrust - "evil report" - he will make it by giving a twist to anything that is capable of being twisted. It is like an evil disease, a blight, a cancer, working in the very system of Christianity, and because of it the Church can never be true to the glorious definition:-

"Fair as the moon,

Clear as the sun,

Terrible as an army with banners."

God only knows what He is losing by this, and what capital Satan is making out of it! God forbid that there should ever be compromise with false teaching and error, but is not the predisposition to suspicion, the capitulation to a spirit of mistrust, and a mentality which is all on the alert for something doubtful, being carried too far, to the destruction of the Church's authority and unity?

We beg to appeal to all those to whose eyes this message may come, that they will ask the Lord, if need be, to completely convert their mentality in this matter. Would it not be more according to the spirit of the Master, who said "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone", and "He that is not against us is for us", if, as our instant reaction to every 'report', 'rumour', criticism, judgment, insinuation, innuendo, or whisper, we instantly asked the question, Is it true? Did the speaker - or writer - really mean that? Is there not another meaning to be given to it? Is it not - perhaps - an unfortunate way of putting it, but not necessarily pernicious? Should we not, before accepting it, find out whether our interpretation is the right one, or whether we may be mistaken?

Whatever value there may have been, or may be, in the meticulous custodianship of 'soundness' which some have assumed - and we do owe much to those who have been eyes to the Church when there has really been something to see that threatened The Faith - the Lord has suffered, and His people have suffered, far more from the ultra-critical and suspicious and fearful than from many other more open assaults upon the truth. The enemy is engaged more than ever upon a campaign of sabotage within the Church for its internal disintegration, and it is for us to resist him by seeking all the positive ground of fellowship possible, not looking for all the negative ground, either really or imaginatively existent.

There are various ways of approaching the matter of Christian unity. We have before approached it in this paper along the line of Scripture, dealing with its spiritual basis. Many books have been published and articles written by various authors. Nothing seems to have had much effect, but we venture to believe that such a change of disposition as is here appealed for would go a very long way toward rescuing the Church from its present weakness due to its internecine strife and its civil war.

To return to our starting point. Is it not a matter for real spiritual perception and discernment that - at a time like this, at the end of the age - the Church should be so largely crippled by an intensive campaign of the evil forces to spread suspicion and doubt through all its ranks, and by lies, halftruths, and misapprehensions to get the Lord's people all looking at one another with questions and uncertainties, so that they are totally unable to face a common foe, and a great vocation, as one man in Christ?

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1956, Vol 34-3

Vision and Vocation

The Importance and Value of God-given Vision

"Come hither, I will shew thee..." Rev. 21:9.

Once again in the course of its history the Church of God is found in a time of serious crisis as to its life and world-testimony. Not once, nor twice, has this occurred, but many times have conditions arisen which have raised the major questions as to its next phase or entire future. At such times there has always been one factor which has been decisive; that was, the presence or absence of God-given vision. Again and again, such vision has been, by its absence, the cause of calamity and disaster; or, by its presence, the turning point for good or ill, according to the attitude taken to it. God has many times reacted to either actual or threatening tragedy by the presentation of a new vision; new, so far as His people were concerned.

We are now entering more and more deeply into a situation which threatens the life and testimony of the Church, and already in large areas of the world it is an actual and desperate reality. It is no hypothetical or imaginary situation, nor one of supposition, but there is a terrific drive from the unseen with a view to the engulfing of all that is of God and of His Christ.

So the need of the hour is once again God-given vision. The value and importance of such vision is found in its various features. In the first place:

God-given Vision is Something Concrete with God

It is something which has existed with God in clear-cut definition in the eternal counsels from the beginning. It is not something abstract or nebulous, something that is what people term 'visionary' or mystical. It is quite definite, clear, and real in the mind and intention of God. God-given vision is not something subsequent to eventualities, an afterthought because of things having arisen unexpectedly; a kind of alternative to what God originally meant. It is not a substitute for His original plan. No, it is not an emergency expedient because of a situation unforeseen. God-given vision has its roots outside of time and circumstance, eventualities, contingencies, emergencies! All those things have been already taken account of, and have - so to speak - been swallowed up in the vision of God.

To be brought into such vision is to be brought on to a ground of confidence and assurance when the sands seem to be sinking and everything giving way. This, surely, is of no little importance and value. Then again:

God-given Vision Comprehends All Detail

Things, whether they be good or whether they be evil, are not ends in themselves. They are either embodied in or overcome by the vision. Under the sovereign government of the Spirit of God all things are made to serve that purpose which is the substance of God's vision. That is just the significance of the words so familiar and so often used about all things working together for good (Rom. 8:28). But we so rarely see them in their setting, and stop short of the full import. We just say "All things work together for good..." and stop there. The context has two aspects. Lives wholly under the Holy Spirit's government are in view, and "his purpose" is governing. Unless these two things are implicit, all things do not work together for good! Given that being "called according to his purpose" we in response are lovers of God, then all things are the sphere of a sovereignty which makes them work together for good. Purpose governs all, and the purpose is the substance of God-given vision. It therefore requires a vision of God's purpose in greater fulness, not in part. The purpose comprehends all parts. No phase or part is an end in itself. One wheel of a machine has no adequate meaning in itself. There lacks a real motive if all the other parts are not in view. We must not be too obsessed or taken up with the part or phase. If we are, the whole becomes bound up with that phase, for us, and we see no more. This may put us completely out of commission if any one phase has served its purpose and God is moving on. Sufficient motive demands sufficient vision, and we must see much more than that which is immediately before our eyes. Then, further still:

God-given Vision is Constantly Enlarging

It is very important to remember that God-given vision is never given in completeness any one time. This is something borne out by an abundance of Scriptural evidence and instances. Such vision is always subject to enlargement. It will always be developed and fulfilled through new phases. This is a law in nature, and nature embodies spiritual principles.

The means employed by God at one time may - and very likely will - pass or be changed. In the sovereign ordering of God one particular phase, method, or means will pass out, though greatly used and blessed so far. This does not involve a change of vision (unless it is ours and not God's) but an enlargement of vision. With God all that He uses and blesses, however wonderfully, is only relative and not final or ultimate. Therefore we must not cling to what has been and regard that as the form for all time. So often this has been a most disastrous attitude of mind, and has resulted in God having to go on with His full purpose in other directions and by other means, and leave that fixed thing behind to serve a much lesser purpose than He wanted with it. Eventually it has spiritually died, although perhaps carried on by human effort and organization. It just lives on its past and tradition. We go on:

God-given Vision Always Moves Upward

In its first apprehension it seems to have such immediate, temporal, and earthly significance. The implications of any movement of God are not always recognized at the beginning, but if we go on with Him we shall find that much that is done here and is of time is - and has to be - left behind. The spiritual and the heavenly is pressing for a larger place and becoming absolutely imperative to the very life of the instrumentality and those concerned. It is spontaneous, and just happens. We wake up to realize that we have moved into a new realm or position, and no amount of additional earthly resource can meet the need. It is not only something more that is demanded, but something different. This is a crisis, and it will only be safely passed if there is vision of God's ultimate object. This demands spiritual mindedness, capacity for grasping heavenly things. One world may be tumbling to pieces, but the full and final is the explanation.

The great pity is that so many just will cling to the old framework or partial vision. God presents His heavenly pattern in greater fulness and demands adjustment. He does it with foreknowledge, knowing of a day which is imminent when this vision alone will save. But, because it is 'revolutionary' or not 'what has been in the blessing of God' etc., etc., it is rejected and put aside. Then the foreseen day comes and all sorts of expedients have to be resorted to to save the ship. Paul warned out of his intuitive vision that such would be the case on the journey to Rome, and it proved true, the ship eventually foundered and much was lost.

Abraham had a vision of "the city which hath foundations" and he "looked for" it, but never found it on earth. He found it at last in heaven, but it was the climax of a walk which was ever upward. Ezekiel saw "in the visions of God" the glory lifting from the earthly scene, and moving up and on; and this vision related to all his other visions, culminating in a spiritual house and river which have their counterpart alone in the revelation given to Paul and John particularly: heavenly, spiritual, universal. What a significant phrase that is about the house seen by Ezekiel - "there was an enlarging upward" (Ezek. 41:7). God-given vision is always "the heavenly vision", and always moves away from the merely temporal and sentient. If this were apprehended there would be much more vital fruit, and many fewer 'white elephants'.

God is never on the line of reduction, limitation. It may look like that, but it is not so. If we really had His vision, that which looks like trimming and reduction is His way of enlargement, but spiritual and heavenly enlargement.

It was "the God of glory" who appeared to Abraham (Acts 7:2). It was the pattern in the heavenlies that was "shewn" to Moses (Heb. 8:5). It was "...above the firmament... a throne... and upon... the throne... a man above upon it" that Ezekiel saw. It was "that the heavens do rule" that Daniel apprehended. These are not only sovereign factors in government, but heavenly conceptions in the nature of things.

These two things proceed as one. God in sovereignty will run the risk of shattering, or allow the shattering, of so much that He has used of scaffolding or framework in order to realize the fuller purpose. It is not that it was wrong, but now He wants something more. We thank God for ever that He took Paul away from his travelling ministry and let him be shut up in prison. It was then that the full glorious vision and revelation of the "heavenlies" and the "eternal" was given to eclipse all the earthly and temporal. It was worth it, and was no tragedy! The Holy Spirit is the custodian of the full purpose of God, and under His government the Church and the individual believer will move ever on and up.

Satan may have had a lot to do with Paul's imprisonment, and with John's banishment to Patmos, but the Church has gained unspeakably in heavenly things.

Once again:

God-given Vision is the Ground of Our Training

When God does give vision it is that which becomes the occasion and basis of our testing, our education, and our discipline. This is far more important to God than easy fulfilment and realization; than that kind of facilitation which knows only sovereign power. Look at the prophets. They were men of vision. They stood in the gap between threatening disaster and the survival of God's people. But what discipline they knew because of their vision! It was their vision that brought all the inward as well as outward suffering upon them. Look again at Habakkuk. How he cries to God about the situation and then takes position in relation to the vision. But faith and patience are the great spiritual virtues and values to be perfected. "The just shall live by faith". Said John - with all his Patmos visions - "I John... your brother... in... the patience of Jesus" (Rev. 1:9).

So, things may be taking a new and different shape, but the purpose of God is the same. We may be presented with His vision in new and further-on aspects, but it is only what He originally meant.

Can we adjust? Can we leave "the things that are behind"? Without raising any questions as to the right or wrong of what has been, can we "go on" and "grow up", "attain"?

Finally:

God-given Vision Makes Men of Prayer

This is almost too obvious when we remember the men of the Bible. It was vision that got them away from the trivial and petty. It requires vision to get prayer on to the major lines and to make it real travail. What a bound and range those prophets had in prayer! But what immense issues were precipitated.

It is not our vision for God, but His vision in us that will be dynamic, and that will determine value.

I cannot conclude without pointing out that what could be voluntary with much gain has often to be made compulsory with much loss.

This is because we do not stand back from time to time and in detachment and waiting upon the Lord give Him an opportunity of enlarging vision.

Many a work which has mightily served the Lord and been a great spiritual testimony has lost its former glory, purity, and impact because it has become a 'Work', a 'Movement', an Organization, and its ramifications and responsibilities have become such as to completely rule out any such 'retreat' with God, where that work is put back and a real openness to the Lord for anything else, more or other, is enquired after.

The Lord might send prophetic vision by ministry to lead into His fuller meanings if there was a way for it, but we are too busy. What tragedy is related to such preoccupation!

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1952, Vol 30-1

A Vital Ministry in a Day of Transition

''Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord'' (Malachi 4:5).

''For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John."

''And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come'' (Matt. 11:13-14).

Elijah and John the Baptist are in view in these passages of Scripture, and much for our help can be learned from their experiences.

In the first place, we must take account of their ministries. The two men are brought together in a mysterious identification by the Lord Jesus, and from various fragments it is quite clear that their ministries were one in principle and nature; that is, in a day of fairly general spiritual smallness and weakness, these two servants of God were His instrument and vessel for making a way and a place for Himself in greater fullness. They were way-makers for the Lord, pioneers and pathfinders for His larger purposes and desires. In the familiar words used by John: ''He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30). That was the key to the ministry of both Elijah and John the Baptist, the increase of the Lord amongst His people.

Both lived in a time of transition. The principle of transition is clear, firstly, in that Elijah is brought over into full view at the very end of Malachi's prophecies, at the close of the Old Testament, an end-time, a period of transition unto the Lord's coming; in that case, of course, His first coming. But I do not think that what the Lord said about Elijah, in Malachi and later, was exhausted by the first coming of the Lord; the great and terrible day of the Lord is still to come.

We will not enlarge too much on details, but be content to note that that time of transition was governed by the ministry of both these men, and was marked by the gathering out of a real people from among the professing people of the Lord. Malachi makes that perfectly clear:

''Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His Name . And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even Mine own possession, in the day that I do make'' (Mal. 3:16-17). Out from the professing, religious realm there is seen in these words to be a true people for the Lord.

Undoubtedly that was the mark of John' s ministry, for tradition, formalism, legalism were the dominant features of religion in his day, and it was against these that he hurled his weight to secure a people unto Christ in fullness, in utterness. He sought a transition from one spiritual state to another, and, in the light of a change of dispensation, to secure a people wholly for the Lord. That wants dwelling upon very much more fully, but I think that is enough to give us the clue to the ministry of these men and to relate them in a vital way to our own day - another end-time transition period that is surely ushering in another coming of the Lord and that also is characterized by the need for the gathering out of a real people from among those who profess to be the Lord's. We may expect that what was true in the experience of Elijah and John in their day will in principle be found in God's dealings with instruments of His choice today.

It become clear then that for such a great purpose, to make a way and to make room for the Lord, God had, and has, His instruments, known to Himself and secretly under His hand being prepared. Elijah comes on to the scene mysteriously, almost out of nowhere, after deep secret preparation and discipline. John has spent all his life in the wilderness waiting for the day of his appearing to Israel. Something has been going on in secret. God has had these men in hand in deep preparation, vessels to meet this particular need in the time of transition - transition from a state which the Lord can no longer accept as answering to His known will to a state which will satisfy Him.

He must have a vessel for such a purpose. It may be individuals, as it often is, but it has also through the ages proved to be a corporate vessel, a company of the Lord's people prepared in this way. These instruments, known and secured by God in secret, have, in a secret history with Him, been learning to know the Lord as their heavenly sustenance. Elijah, at a time when earth could not provide any sustenance, was sustained from heaven. John the Baptist, in the wilderness for many years, where he had to know the Lord in loneliness and apart from men, was having to learn the Lord as his heavenly life and his heavenly provision. Such is the preparation, the equipment, of any vessel to serve God in this greater purpose of His heart.

The Voice of the Son of God

Reading: John 5:25, 28; 11:43; 6:63, 65; 8:43; 10:4,5; 10:16.

It is well known that with John 11 a transition has taken place. Up to chapter 10 a series of spiritual truths and principles has been very largely enunciated and made practical in relation to a number of individuals. With chapter 10 those truths are taken up in a collective way, and from there onward the Lord Jesus is found more particularly occupied with a special company. Chapter 11 stands exactly half-way, with ten chapters on either side. ln this position it gathers up all that has gone before, and represents what will be the ultimate issue. Lazarus is central in both position and meaning, so far as Christ's glory is concerned. The company which is found together at the table, occasioned by the raising of Lazarus, sets forth two things (and we must always bear in mind the double aspect of things in the Scriptures, the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the spiritual). Those two things here are Israel and the Church. Israel's history will be exactly that of Lazarus. A sickness in which Christ will not intervene. He will deliberately remain away from Israel (as such) - although greatly loved - until no hope remains along any line but a miraculous intervention. Israel will "stink" in the nostrils of the world, and, rather than a remedying, only by a resurrection as from the dead, by the voice of the Son of God - Jesus Christ, will they have a Divine future.

The other thing here is that the Church comes right into view typically and in principle with the resurrection of Lazarus and the company as gathered. The Church is the company of those who have their very being only and solely by reason of the resurrection miracle. This is quite clearly and finally stated in the most "Church" part of the Bible, the letter to the Ephesians. "And you did he quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins... and made us to sit with him in the heavenlies" (2:1,6). ("Lazarus was one of them that sat at meat with him" John 12:2). But, when we have said that, we have not touched the deepest note in the matter. The very heart of this position is found in the words in John 5:25, "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son God".

Firstly, it is obvious that something more than a physical faculty of hearing is in mind. The dead have no such faculty, there must be a hearing which is not natural, which is deeper and more inward than the natural. Nor is it just that by God speaking some actual result occurs. There is a hearing which has that result. Briefly then, a living relationship with Christ and its corporate expression in what is called His "Body" - "the Church" - is the result of a hearing of His voice which, while it may come through spoken and audible words, is more than they. It is possible to hear the verbal statement of truth, and that many times and over many years, but not to have heard His voice. It is possible, after having heard the truths often and long, suddenly to hear the voice, and the result to be as though we had never before heard at all, all is so new and wonderful. Living relationship with Christ is not an emotional or intellectual or volitional reaction to a presentation of Gospel truths; it is not by an influenced and persuaded signing of a card or "deciding for Christ"; it is not the effect of hot air evangelistic effort in which the soul is played upon, and all sorts of superficial and theatrical elements are brought into play. All this may have an apparent success on a large scale, but - always allowing for the sovereignty of God to reach some hearts through His Word - much of this may only be adding to the great tragedy with which the Church is confronted as one of its most difficult problems, namely a cheap regard for the Christian life, a mass of people who "have tried it and found it disappointing", and a great number of "Christians" who have no real living and growing knowledge of the Lord. The fact that there is so much indifference to Christianity today and so little taking of it seriously is largely due to its having been vitiated and cheapened. No, the basis of everything in the New Testament is that, beyond anything audible, vocal, natural, temporal, earthly, the voice of the Son of God was heard deep down in the human spirit. This may or it may not be a voice of actual words, but when it happens the one concerned is truly able to say "The Lord has spoken to me", or "I know that the Lord has made me aware of His will". It is a voice - a power - through words, or without them, but not just words alone.

I said that everything depends upon this. "They that hear shall live". Our very life - in the Divine sense - depends upon it. Our salvation issues from it. But what is true initially is true in principle continuously. For all the major decisions in life (obvious and unmistakable duties excepted) it must be on this wise. Paul based his whole ministry, and its specific aspects, upon this principle. When God speaks in this way, something is done, not only said. We know that something has happened to us or in us. Such a knowledge or work in us is absolutely essential to stability. We know of those who have radically and thoroughly changed their strongest positions more than once in the course of a few years. After taking up truth and affirming that it was the greatest thing that God had shown them, they subsequently repudiated it, and changed their attitude to it. When this happens there is only one thing to be said, apart from willful and deliberate disobedience, and that is that they never received it in the first place from heaven, but from men. It came by mental and emotional acceptance, either by hearing or reading and study. So strong was the impact, so seeming to answer a need or provide a way of self-realization, that it was taken up in the soul with zest. And those concerned were not really broken in soul and emptied to the dust. Thus, not being a hearing in the spirit, beyond nature, of the voice of the Son of God, it could not last, and the life has become characterised by lack of permanence. Of course this is quite a different matter from the changes which mark true development and growth. Very big changes may take place here, but not in our basic revelation. It is most important that, as to the basic knowledge of the will of God and revelation of Himself to us, we are at the end where we were at the beginning, although enlarged and perhaps with a change of merely outward features.

Further, in the moment when God speaks thus to us in Christ, eternity has broken through time; the super-temporal has been registered upon us. All that belongs merely to time and earth has been suspended, and in that moment that which was in God's mind "before the world was", and that which is His thought unto the ages of the ages yet to be is brought to our lives. Our very existence is bound up with it. I do not mean that our continuity is involved and that there is the peril of annihilation; but the very fact of our existence, of our having a being at all, is now to have its meaning for us, or has drawn near. Yes, it is, for all Divine intention, an eternal moment; "Upon this moment hangs eternity".

Then again, and closely related to what we have just said, it is most solemnly important to recognize that this hearing of the voice of the Son of God is a sovereign act of God. That is, it is when and as He alone chooses. Unless God speaks, all men's speaking is dead. Neither those who are in view nor those who are concerned for them can choose the time. That sovereign decision is most clearly seen in Christ's attitude over Lazarus. There were many human factors at work, and He was involved in misunderstanding by His behaviour, but, nevertheless, He would not move until the time of God had come. The point for the moment is this: when that voice is heard it is God's time, and we can never say if or when that time will be again. In the passages at the head of this message, we have included that strange one, "Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word" (John 8:43). God had spoken, and they had not responded. and now they cannot hear, even when He speaks. On the Damascus road only Saul heard the voice. Those that travelled with him only heard the sound (Acts 9:7. marg., 26:14). There is a recorded instance of the same thing in the life of Christ (John 12:28,29).

Then, a question arises. What is the first and immediate effect of God speaking to us? It will not necessarily be exhilaration. Mere exhilaration may mean something false. Usually there will be no natural gratification resulting. Our natural interests and likes will have little or no place. Exhilaration is not necessarily life. If it is only exhilaration we should pause and examine ourselves. There is a great difference between rest, peace, and quiet joy, and mere exhilaration. It may more likely be a solemn awe and fearfulness, but with quiet reassurance.

The first effect of hearing the voice of the Son of God is the gift of faith. What could not before be contemplated now becomes possible. What was hopeless - and we knew it - is now a living prospect. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." (1 Peter 1:3). It is a resurrection hope. How hopeless and impossible the situation was with Lazarus until he heard the voice of the Son of God! Now, Paul says, "by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). He also says, "Faith cometh by hearing" (Romans 10:17). But it is the kind of hearing of which we have spoken. The strain goes out of life when faith in God enters, and the impossible mountains are no longer impossible.

We are nearing the end, but two things remain to be mentioned. If the dead are to hear the voice of the Son of God and live, it will only be the dead who do so. We have seen that the Lord Jesus was very deliberate in His determination that Lazarus should really be dead before He came on the scene. He first used figurative language. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth", but His disciples did not know His meaning, wherefore He said emphatically, "Lazarus is dead". The sisters knew what the state would be ordinarily after four days in an Easter clime and tomb. Was Lazarus dead? Indeed he was! This was essential to the Divine principle. We are too much alive, in our own efforts, interests, struggles, ambitions, activities, works, etc. to stand a chance of hearing this voice of the Son of God. Therefore our works are so much "dead works". There is the life of nature, but not the life of God. So many voices fill our ears, religious as well as worldly, and a mixture of both. If the greatest thing that can happen to mortals is to happen to us, we, like Paul, will have to be smitten to the ground and hear a voice (Acts 9:4). How often, under the hand of God has it been that the end has been the beginning. We have been brought to a place of despair and utter helplessness, so that like Paul we have "despaired of life", not only or necessarily physically, but spiritually. But afterward we have found that this was sovereignty at work in relation to an entirely new thing. There really is no hope until we are dead.

"I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be".

Finally. What is the nature of your relationship with Christ? You may believe in the Christian doctrine of the Deity of Christ, and believe in it very intensely. But if it is only doctrine, a tenet of the Creed, an objective fact concerning Christ, it will not carry you through the terrific experiences which lie in the path of true Christians. John said that the object of his writing his Gospel was that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing we might have life in His name. But he took pains to show that those who did so believe, had an experimental basis for their faith. How and why do you believe? Can you say truly - "because something has happened in me for which there is no accounting apart from God Himself. Emotions, reasonings, persuasions, cannot account for it. Human personalities, psychology, or any human or natural factor cannot account for it. It required God Almighty, and I found Him in Jesus Christ. It was the voice of the Son of God, and I lived, and live".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1946.

"Watchman, What of the Night?"

Everyone who has read history, and especially Church history, knows how true it is that people have very often thought of their own time as being the most significant or even critical of all times. The language of crisis has characterized many periods and phases of human life and the course of the world. Many such times while they lasted were regarded as the most epochal of all times. Some have certainly been outstandingly revolutionary. We may, or we may not, be right in regarding this present part of the twentieth century as more outstanding and significant than other times, but we should be blind indeed did we not recognise the tremendous changes that are so rapidly taking place.

This is true in the realm of all the sciences, in politics, industry, and not least in Christianity (we use the word in its broadest sense at the moment). The features will be easily recognisable by those who have eyes and are willing to use them honestly, neither closing them nor putting on blinkers. But it is not only these changes in themselves but their significance that God's Watchmen ought to recognise. A great responsibility rests upon Watchmen, as we know from Ezekiel 33. Note, we say Watchmen, not watch-dogs. It is easy and cheap to take on the role of the watch-dog and yap or bark at any 'suspect', or even bite indiscriminately. It is different to be really able to discern the portents or implications of developments.

We venture to suggest the following as being significant of a time of very great portent. It may be that it is no other or less than the end-time of this dispensation.

1. God's Big-Scale Net of Evangelism

Whatever may be the criticisms, the questions, the reservations as to the incidents and accompaniments, the results and fruits, of big evangelistic efforts and movements, what we have to take note of is that, on a scale unparalleled in history, the call to give Christ His place as Saviour is sounding over the world. When we think of the campaigns and the vast radio broadcasting of the Gospel we are not exaggerating when we say that no previous age in the history of Christianity has known anything nearly so immense. But the impressive feature is that which we may call the Sovereign factor in it. God just seems to have decided that, by the simplest possible declaration of salvation in Christ, millions shall daily be placed in a position of being without excuse when the day of judgment comes.

That is the simplest fact. Criticisms of and questions about the instrumentalities and means employed quite apart, it would seem that in His Sovereignty God is determined that men shall know the bare foundation of their salvation. The writer was being given the various criticisms and adverse judgments of a well-known evangelistic campaign in one of America's greatest and worst cities. When the critics had unloaded, he just asked the simple question - "Well, imperfections, weaknesses, and all that apart, is it better for such a city to be made aware of the fact of God than otherwise?" Whereupon the critics just said, "Well, of course, if you just bring it down to that alone, the whole thing would be justified." This is certainly not all that God would have, and it is no argument for the justification of some features, excesses or deficiencies, but, we repeat, may it not be one sign of the end that - on such an immense scale - Christ is being heralded as men's true and only Saviour?

This phase must be viewed in this setting and possible meaning, and not as something in itself. To view it in the former is to give it a meaning beyond itself. To view it as something in itself is to court disappointment, and to take up something that will not bear the weight of God's full purpose.

2. Intensifying and Expanding Dissatisfaction with Tradition

This is no view from a cloister window, but the result of world-wide travel and contacts. The positive way of speaking of this discontent is to say that there is a deep and strong reaction toward reality and realism. People of "the old school" are conscious that their traditions are not standing up to new demands and changing conditions. The younger generation is not willing to take these traditions and institutions for granted and as a matter-of-course. Many are standing back and asking questions, not altogether due to lawlessness and a new age, but because of disappointment and a shrewd perception that things are not vital and dynamic in many of the historic and traditional realms.

There was a time when young people recognised, accepted, and were subject to their elders, and took everything from them, just because they were their elders. That time has completely passed - especially in the West - and now everything has got to prove itself before it is accepted. So the hoary institutions, the established order, the "as-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever-shall-be" ecclesiastical mentality is just not respected or accepted. Whether this is all a part of, and in keeping with, the general world-movement toward "self-determination", and the revolt against the controls of many centuries - the swing of the pendulum toward a new "liberty" - or whether it lies deeper in the stirrings of spiritual forces toward the ultimate climax, does not alter the fact that it is here and has to be recognised. The inner fact within the general is that there is a new hunger for bread that satisfies. In a time which has so many appearances of superficiality, cheapness, flimsiness, and frivolity, there is an undercurrent of discontent, and an inarticulate cry for the more substantial. This may be limited to a comparative few, but it is real and by no means insignificant. The booksellers tell us that there is a growing demand for the old spiritual classics, the solid stuff of fifty and more years ago, even for the Puritan writers, and the discerning are reproducing such works.

There is a sense of spiritual loss in those directions where, formerly, there was such a wealth of spiritual measure. We have read the reports of two conferences of leaders of the one body from which more spiritual food has been given to the Church of God than any other in the last century. In these reports there is not only the evidence of tragic loss of measure, but the open confession that it is so. Perhaps we should draw what comfort we can from the fact that there is a consciousness of this loss, but even that is made the more pathetic by the evident absence of any sense of how rightly to recover it. There appears to be no searching for the cause or causes of decline.

However, there undoubtedly are reactions, and it is evident that, where solid food is known to be available, many hungry ones are to be found resorting thither. If that end-time sign of "a famine of the hearing of the word" (in spiritual life, power and fulness) is clearly discernible, it is also clear that not a few are aware of the famine and are distressed. This will be a governing factor in God's having a representative company which answers to His fuller thought at the end.

3. The Growing Concern About the Church As Such

In these pages we have recently referred at greater length to this matter, but we are increasingly impressed with the growing and strengthening occupation with it in all directions. It is not only in those quarters from which we expect such reactions, the "evangelical", "conservative", or "fundamentalist", but as a part of a tremendous theological swing-round in "liberal" circles there is an almost astonishing "new look" in this direction. As typical of this, here are some quotations from foremost theologians of our time.

"How stands the Church, regarded as a spiritual organism, as the Body of Christ, in relation to the institutions we call 'churches' today? Which ought the Church to be, primarily? Fellowship or institution? Can there be any doubt where the Pauline stress falls? For him, the Church is pre-eminently a fellowship, not an institution. It is a pure communion of persons united to Christ, its living Head, and to one another through the Holy Spirit: not a highly organised, legally administered institution."

"...if we look at our own 'churches' today, are we never smitten with an awful sense of their unlikeness to the Body of Christ as Paul conceived it?"

"Consider, next, the perennial problem of our Church disunion. 'There is one Body', says Paul. For him, the oneness of the Church is as axiomatic as the uniqueness of the Church's Lord. It is with sheer horror that he hears of 'parties' in Corinth. 'Is Christ divided?' And we cannot doubt that if he were here today, he would condemn our ecclesiastical divisions as roundly as he condemned the cliques in Corinth."

"We comfort ourselves by saying that, in spite of all our denominations, we have a spiritual union with Christians in other 'churches', and we sing (God forgive us)

We are not divided,

All one Body we."

"It is in the mission field that the scandal of our divisions presses most heavily. Converts not unnaturally ask, 'Why force your divisions on us?' ...There is no real answer to this question..."

"When we look at our denominations and divisions today, in which one man says, 'I am of Calvin', and another, 'I am of Luther' - can we not hear Paul, across the centuries, indignantly demanding, 'Is Christ in fragments?' Were we baptized into the name of John Calvin? Did we profess our faith in John Wesley? Do we pray to Martin Luther?"

"Surely it is a task laid upon the minds and hearts of all who call themselves Christians, of all who believe the great High Priestly Prayer (John 17) to be a true mirror of the mind of Christ, to work and pray for the healing of the Broken Body of our Lord."

"Or take the question, What is the true mission of the Church in the world? No worthier answer has been given than Paul gave in Ephesians, perhaps the most contemporary book in the New Testament.

"In the forefront he sets the Body of Christ, 'the fulness of him who is being wholly filled'. Christ and His Church, Head and Body, form a corporate Personality, and Christ is 'filled' as the Body grows up into its full spiritual stature. The mission of the Church is to 'gather into one all things' in Christ the cosmic Redeemer."

"Such is Paul's vision, and he speaks with pointed directness to the men of our day, hungry for true fellowship, yet living a 'barbed-wire' existence..."

The above are but selected extracts; they could be extended to many pages.

A part of their significance, we repeat, is that they come from the top ranking theologians of our time, and not from the general level of evangelical leaders. The main import is that they are just fragments of volumes being written in our time and indicating the new and great concern in this direction.

As we have said elsewhere, it is a tremendous thing to live in a time when there can be so clearly discerned an enforced recognition of God's original and unalterable position that the Church is His means, method, object, and answer. That He is compelling to such a recognition is a matter of momentous account, and, at least, indicates that - even if only in a "Remnant" - God will end where He began.

4. Fiery Ordeal and Trial

If we add one further sign of the times, for the moment, it would be that movement over the earth in which Christians are being tested by fiery ordeal and trial. A large part of the world is already undergoing this "baptism", and the waters are moving steadily on over widening areas. They are moving from the Far East toward the Nearer and Middle East and the Near East.

While Christians in parts of the West can still meet in conference and debate the question: "Will the Church go through the tribulation?", many believers are asking - "Can the tribulation be any worse than that through which we are now passing?" For one it is all objective, future, and doctrinal. For the other, real, actual, and ghastly. It would be more healthy and valuable were we to face the matter from another angle and ask - "Have we reason to believe that the Scriptures point to an end-time in which all artificial supports, 'foreign' aids, external forms, and all that which keeps Christians going from the outside, will be stripped off, and they will stand or fall in so far as they really know the Lord and He is more real than all the accompaniments and things of Christianity?" This will be the ultimate criterion, whether in the increasing spiritual pressure upon believers more generally, or by the force of adversity such as that which is now spreading over the world.

God will have reality. For Him His Son is the only reality. He, as such, is the End, the Amen, and God works all His works toward Him, "that in all things he may have the pre-eminence".

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1956, Vol 34-5

What We See

"I beheld the Lord always before my face" (Acts 2:25).

The last part of that quotation could rightly define the nature and object of the ministry of this little paper.

Not to propagate a teaching as such; not to constitute a new community; not to support a particular 'movement'; but truly and solely to bring and keep the Lord Jesus in view in ever-growing fulness: that is its object. It seeks to be occupied with the far-reaching purpose of God concerning His Son, Jesus our Lord.

In this connection, and according to the above quotation from David, it is impressive and instructive to note what a great influence on life the matter of seeing, or beholding, has.

It can be truly said that a great deal of what we are, and therefore of the effect that we have in this world, is the result of our seeing. There is much truth in the saying that we become like that upon which our eyes are mainly focused. This can be seen in national characteristics. The arid, austere, hard, cold, and colourless regions of the world produce a hard, austere and matter-of-fact type of people. The colourful, verdant, soft, warm and fertile realms, where nature has not to be coerced but only guided, produce colourful and easygoing people with more artistic and sentimental natures. Small and restricted surroundings produce small minds, with limited interests and understanding. The dwellers in the spheres of far distances and massive dimensions are venturesome, bold, and generous, with enterprise almost audacious. This is a general rule with occasional and particular modifications or variations. It points to the effect on an individual or a community, consciously or unconsciously, of that which is continually before their eyes.

The Bible takes much account of this fact and carries it over to all its parallels in the spiritual life. Indeed, it puts every stage and phase of the Christian life upon the basis of seeing.

The initiation or beginning of the Christian life is the result of 'beholding the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29).

There were various objects of sacrifice in the great typological system in Israel, but the lamb was the centre of all. Their history as a nation began with the Passover lamb. They were ever and always reminded of that beginning by the yearly Passover. They looked upon the lamb as bearing their sin and judgment, although itself 'without spot or blemish', and knew that it was God's lamb pointed out and provided for them to look upon.

The New Testament brings the Lamb of God into view and calls for beholding. That word means more than 'take a look', 'glance your eyes toward Him'. It means, 'fasten your gaze upon Him'. It is the gaze of need, of a quest; of desperation, if you will.

"Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22).

Then the Bible places upon the same basis the whole matter of our progressive transformation.

"Beholding... we are changed into the same image" (2 Cor. 3:18).

It is not an effort to form some mental picture of Jesus. In the Apostolic writings He is presented to us, and for us, from various vital standpoints, by the One who knows Him best and most fully.

In 'Romans', for instance, He is comprehensively presented as the essential righteousness of God provided where none can be found otherwise, but without which there is no hope at all for man or creation.

This is not an introduction to the books of the New Testament, but a pointer to Him and an indication as to how, as we are found looking at Him - not at the writers - an influence upon our character toward His likeness will follow.

What is true in principle regarding the beginning and the progress of the Christian life is also shown to be related to its consummation.

"Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" (1 John 3:2).

There is more that shows that that final 'beholding' will have a consummating effect in putting the final touches to the work of 'conforming to His image'. So, from first to last, our salvation, transformation, and glorification are vitally related to our eyes, our spiritual seeing. 'The pure in heart shall see God' (Matt. 5:8).

But, when I set out to pen these lines, I had other things also in mind. Our eyes are so much confronted with conditions that are contrary to Christ, and this constitutes such a battle-ground for our eyes.

The Bible contains much that shows the deplorable results of the wrong use of the eyes. Think of Eve, of David, of the ten spies at Kadesh-barnea, of Samson (who saw a woman to his spiritual undoing, and eventually lost his physical eyes), and so on.

May it not be that much of that which is to be deplored in evangelical Christianity is due to this wrong use of the eyes? Our religious bookshops are furnished with the sour and bitter fruits of time and energy spent searching out and 'exposing' the weaknesses, flaws, or faults of so much that is otherwise of true value. This can become a predisposition, an obsession, a mania, and a menace.

We look at men, at people. We look at ministries. We look at Christian work, and in all we mark the human, and faulty aspects. These become our foci, and the result is that the really valuable, and - perhaps - much fuller value, is eclipsed for us by the spot that has become everything to us.

Nothing has escaped this blighting use of the eyes, even that which has been most of God. We have known greatly used servants of God having their ministry cut off from thousands of believers just because of the focusing upon a deviation - or imagined deviation - in some comparatively small point, from common acceptance. The decline of ministry in some of our great conventions can be traced to this very thing. None would be more jealous for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, than we are, but we are equally jealous that the standard of judgment should be - not tradition, or rigid systems of men, but - the measure of Christ.

Christ is the criterion, from first to last; not the judgments of men. Do I - or rather can I - see the Lord, if I am really looking for Him? If so, that must be my focal point. If He is there, there is hope for the rest, and I must leave that with Him.

How easy it is to sing glibly: 'Turn your eyes upon Jesus', and forget that it is always from 'the things of earth'.

"I beheld the Lord always before my face."

For the sake of everything precious to Him, may this be true of us!

First published as an Editorial in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1959, Vol 37-5