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T. Austin-Sparks - on Revelation

Contents

The Alpha and The Omega

The Anointing: Light Within Our Dwellings

Coming Down From God Out of Heaven

Features of the City and Its Inhabitants

A God That Hideth Himself

God's Call to the Life Above

Having Our Eyes Opened

The Importance and Value of God-given Vision

The Importance of Being in the Spirit

Seeing Christ by Revelation

Spiritual Understanding

The Street of Pure Gold

The Time is Shortened

When the Books Are Opened

The Alpha and The Omega

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8).

"And He said unto me... I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 21:6).

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 22:13).

One of the titles which the Lord takes to Himself in resurrection is: "the Alpha and the Omega". The Lord Jesus here presents Himself as "the Living One", Who was dead, and is alive again - alive for evermore (Rev. 1:18). Those two letters, Alpha and Omega, are, as we know, the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. The one is the same in form as the first letter in our own alphabet; the other is unlike any of our letters. Alpha and Omega - First and Last. In every alphabet there is something which corresponds to an 'A' and a 'Z', an Alpha and an Omega, a beginning and an end. It does not matter how complicated the alphabet may be, or if it only contains a poor twenty-six letters as in English: everything is bounded by the 'A' and the 'Z', the Alpha and the Omega. You cannot get anything outside of that; all is within that. The Alpha and the Omega comprehend all speech; there is no speech possible in any language outside of what comes between those two letters. All that can be said has to come between their compass; outside of their compass nothing can be said.

No Knowledge Of God Outside Of Christ

Now Jesus says that of Himself: "l am the Alpha and the Omega." The Word of God tells us that Christ is the fullness of God, and that God will sum up all things in Him. What is more, it shows us that God will never speak to anybody outside of His Son, Jesus Christ. He has bounded all His speech to man by His Son; He has made Christ the compass of all; He has nothing to say, and He will say nothing, outside of His Son. "No one cometh unto the Father, but by Me," said the Son (John 14:6). "And no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). The Apostle who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews began by saying: 'In old times, God spoke in fragments and in parts and in various manners, by different men and at different times; but at the last He summed up all that He had to say in His Son. In the end, He has spoken to us in His Son, Whom He has appointed Heir of all things.' All that God will say, and all that God can say, to us, will be in Jesus Christ.

"I am the Alpha". The very first syllable of the knowledge of God is the knowledge of Jesus Christ. It begins with A; it is the first lisp of a babe. "God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). The first syllable of the Christian life begins with 'A' - 'Father'. We do not know the Father until we know Jesus Christ: He it is Who has revealed the Father. The beginning of all knowledge of God as Father comes to us through Jesus Christ. What He said in His prayer was indeed true: 'I have manifested unto them Thy name' (John 17:6) - and that name was 'Father'. Do you want to know God? Do you want to know Him as Father? Do you want to know what He has to say to you, to make known to you? Do you want to know all or any of the vast wealth God would reveal to you? You can only know it in Jesus Christ; you can only know it in Him Who is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. There is no knowledge without words made up of letters (except perhaps for our Chinese friends!), and all the letters are between these two. There is no knowledge that is knowledge indeed, knowledge that is life eternal, except in Jesus Christ. "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send... Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). There is no knowledge outside of Jesus Christ.

And there is no communication from God outside of Jesus Christ. Set Jesus Christ aside, and God is silent - He has nothing to say to you. If you fail to give His Son His place, God is just mute; He will communicate nothing. The more you honour the Son, the more the Father will come out to you and communicate with you.

All Need Comprehended In Christ

Secondly, Alpha and Omega not only comprehend all speech - they comprehend all need. You do not want anything outside of 'A' and 'Z'; you do not need to create any new letters; it is all there. It does not matter what big words you use - and there are some big words these days! - it does not matter how big the words, how long the sentences, or how great the utterances: you can meet the need of the biggest word, the longest sentence and the fullest utterance between Alpha and Omega. For all these big new words, you have no need to create new letters: all that you need are here.

We are told by the Apostle Paul that "in Him" - that is, in Christ - "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead" (Col. 2:9); "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3). "It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell" (1:19). We are very fond of that word of Paul's to the Philippians: "My God shall fulfil every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). Every need supplied on the scale of His riches in glory - can we fathom this, can we compass this? - but every need met according to that in Christ Jesus. In Him is all we need; He is Alpha and Omega. When Jesus says: 'I am Alpha and Omega', He is saying: 'I am all you need. You never can have a need, you never can invent or imagine anything for which I am not sufficient. No situation can arise that exhausts Me: in Me all the fullness dwells. I am Alpha and Omega.'

Christ: Agent, Pattern, And Goal Of Creation

Christ is the first and the last in creation, so says the Word. In that letter to the Colossians, to which we have just referred, the Apostle tells us clearly and precisely that "in Him were all things created", and that "He is before all things" (1:16, 19). The Apostle John, at the beginning of his Gospel, tells us the same thing, that "all things were made through Him" (1:3). He is the beginning in creation. In the Letter to the Hebrews, we are told that the ages were made through Him, they came into being through Him (1:2). In this book of the Revelation, we read: "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God..." (3:14). He is the Alpha and Omega in creation: here He is the Alpha, the very Agent and Instrument of creation.

He was creation's design, for all things were made to be a temporal and material expression of spiritual and moral realities in the Son of God. If we had eyes and understanding to see the deeper secrets of an unfallen creation, a vast universe from the hand of God, we should see, in everything, something that speaks of the Son of God - His spiritual, His moral character, and His supreme place in the whole system of God. He is the pattern of creation: "of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things" (Rom. 11:36); and He is declared to be the completion, the finish, of the creation of God. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Christ: First And Last In Redemption

All this is by way of setting the Lord Jesus in His rightful place in God's universe. But we may feel that it is not very helpful to us. What comes nearer to us is this: that He is the Alpha and the Omega in redemption. He is the First and the Last in redemption. In that letter to the Hebrews again, we have this familiar word: "Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith" (12:2). He is, then, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, of redemption.

Christ is, of course, the beginning of redemption in this simple sense, that there is no redemption until we come to Him. Just as there is no speech, no communication, no knowledge until we come to the alphabet, so there is no redemption until we come to the Lord Jesus. There is just nothing before 'A'; there is nothing before Alpha: that is just where everything begins. And what is true in language is true in redemption: there just is no redemption, there is no salvation, until we come to the Lord Jesus. But when we come to Him, there is a new beginning. It is the beginning of everything - a whole new compass and range of possibilities, whether of communication, of knowledge and understanding, of wisdom or of pleasure.

What a wealth there is in Christ! What a wealth there is in Him as the Redeemer! When you take Him as the beginning, the Alpha, of salvation, what a marvelous world opens up! When you pick up a dictionary, and begin to turn the pages, what a world opens up! As you go on and on, through the many thousands of words, in all their different shapes and forms, what a world is there! I cannot understand any person who cannot revel in a dictionary! But you see what I am getting at. When you come to Jesus as the Alpha, a new and vast and wonderful world begins to open up, a world that you never thought of. It is like coming upon new words in the dictionary - words that you never knew were there, and that open up to you altogether new vistas. It is like that with the Lord Jesus: when He becomes your Beginning, an inexhaustible world opens up. Wealth, fullness, riches of knowledge - there are limitless possibilities when you begin with 'A'.

And there is no end to it! Just as there is something more being added every year to the dictionary, so it is in the Christian life. I am not exaggerating. My experience through the years, and perhaps especially in recent times, is that Christ is just inexhaustible. There is more and more and more coming, all the time, that we did not know before. But it all began when we began with Him, and it has gone on ever since, and it is going on for eternity; for the Word says: "Of the increase of His government... there shall be no end... upon His kingdom" (Isa. 9:7). No end! What a kingdom of fullness His is! But we have to begin with Him, we have to make Him our beginning before we can have any of it. He has got to be our 'Alpha'. But when once He is that, I say again, a new world opens up; a new fullness - and such a fullness! - begins to disclose itself. It is all in Him as our Redeemer.

This is what we have in the first chapter of the Revelation: titles of the Lord connected with Him in resurrection. And then we have words about what He has done in redemption. He 'purchased unto God with His blood...' (Rev. 5:9); He "loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us a kingdom, priests unto His God and Father" (ch. 1:5,6). It is the work of redemption which has opened up everything new - wonderful fullness! He is the Alpha of Redemption.

"The Author..."

Christ is not only the Beginning: He is the Beginner. It says here "the author": "looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter..." (Heb. 12:2). He is the Beginner - the One who takes in hand this matter of beginning all over again and bringing us into a world that we have never known before. He is the initiator of it: it is in His hands: He does it. He has taken the initiative in our redemption; that is the point. I am so glad of that - so infinitely glad of that. With all that may be said about our quest - man's quest for God, man's search for God - that is nothing compared with God's search for man. What Jesus has come to reveal, and has revealed, is that God is the Seeker. Those wonderful and familiar parables about lost sheep, and lost pieces of silver, and lost sons (Luke 15), and other lost people: they are all meant to show us that God is the Seeker, that the initiative is with God. "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

Yes, He began this thing: you and I would never be rejoicing in salvation if He had not begun it. He said: 'Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you" (John 15:16) - and that is why we are now numbered among His saved ones. And if we are now among those that belong to the Lord, it is simply because He sought us. Whether we were seeking or not, He was the Seeker; He was the Beginner; He began. No one else can begin to redeem us; no one else can save. 'There is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved' (Acts 4:12); only His Name. There is no beginning of redemption without Him.

"...and Perfecter"

And Christ is the Last, the Omega, the end - in this sense, that, when He begins a thing, He finishes it. 'The Lord', says the Word, 'will perfect that which concerns us (Ps. 138:8). "He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). He finishes what He begins. And He is not only the Beginner and the Perfecter, but Himself the Beginning and the Ending - the Finish. God is working all things to the end that we should be "conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29). Christ stands, so to speak, right at the end; and God is moving and working in us, His people, in relation to that One who stands at the end, that we should be conformed to His image. The servant of God cries: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps. 17:15). It is that likeness that is the end: Jesus Himself is the End. All things under Heaven's government are working towards conformity to God's Son.

Christ Makes Sense Of Life

Furthermore: Christ, as Alpha and Omega, makes sense of life. I might have a tray with all the letters of any alphabet jumbled up in it. If I know what the letters are, and I know what I want, I can put them in an order so that they make sense. They express exactly what I want to express. All this that comes between 'A' and 'Z', between Alpha and Omega, makes sense when it is put in its right place. There are many people today who cannot make sense of life at all. The struggle of many is to try to make sense of life: What does it all mean? What is the explanation of it all? It seems all a jumble, a confusion, an enigma. Jesus makes sense of life: He puts the jumble into an order.

That is a description of the Divine design, the great purpose of God: to provide an explanation of everything. Yes, in Him we have the answer to our life's problems; in Him we have the setting in order of lives disrupted and confused. Has that not been true of so many? Men and women whose lives were all mixed up and confused, distorted and twisted, without any seeming design or pattern, meaning or explanation; they could not make sense of anything. And then they came to the Lord Jesus, and life made sense: a design, a pattern came in, and they came to realize what it all meant, what they were for. That is the testimony of those who are truly His. In the Lord Jesus, we have found a pattern, a design, for life; we have found a meaning in life, an explanation of life. He can bring into life a clear pattern, a new understanding. In Him, as Alpha and Omega, we have all that we need to make sense.

Let me repeat: Until you have your letters, your basic characters, there is no beginning, and there will be no sensible, meaningful end at all. Jesus just supplies that need - a beginning and a sensible end. He leads somewhere! When you and I at last reach the end, the end in glory, it will truly be a meaningful end, will it not? It will be an end that justifies everything, that gives meaning to everything, that explains everything. The thousand 'why's' of lifetime will be answered, will all be explained. Why this experience and that? Why this sorrow and that? Why this disappointment and that loss? Why these strange ways in our life? It will all be answered in the end - and Jesus Himself will be the End! Yes, it will be a 'sensible' end. We shall have no quarrel with God then, because Jesus will have put it all straight, and brought us to an end beyond our wildest expectations and altogether beyond our merits.

God Speaks To Us, And Through Us, By Life

Thus we may understand why, in the Bible, Jesus is called "The Word of God" (Rev. 19:13). God speaks in Him and by Him; always and only, and finally, in His Son. Perhaps you say, 'That is all very interesting, but after all, how does He speak? Are we to hear Him with our ears?' No. If you come back to the context of these titles, you will find that it is resurrection life. "I am... the Living One;... I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:17, 18). How does He speak? How do we know Him? How is life delivered from its tangle and confusion and brought into pattern and meaning? By His becoming our life! He makes us partakers of His own risen life. He puts that life into us which is an ordered life, a life of wisdom and understanding: a life, not of confusion, but of pattern. It is a life-power within us.

When His life is within, that life answers the questions, explains things, gives meaning to life. And while, to natural ears, life may be inaudible, life is really a very, very powerful speaker. It speaks louder, much louder, than words. Some poor suffering child of God may not be able to say much in coherent speech, but you have only to be with them for a very little time, and the life speaks to you. The very life that is in them speaks far more powerfully than words. It is the life that is within us which is the communication, the explanation, the wisdom of God: the power of that life working in us. By that life, God speaks to us, answers our problems.

So often, the answer of God to us is not in something that He says, but in something that He does - in some new touch of life. It is strange how, if we get that new touch of life in our inner man, we cease to worry about the problem - the problem is solved! We may not have got the answer to our questions, but we have got the answer: it is in life! It does not matter about the problem now; it is answered in this new touch of life. Life is God's way of speaking to us.

And life is God's way of speaking through us. People may come into a meeting, and they may have no idea what the speaker is talking about; and yet they might go away and say - 'I didn't understand a word, but... but... there was something there!' They may not be able to describe it, because they are not familiar with the language and the phrases and the terminology. But they feel that they meet something there - something that answers to a need. Well, if they only knew, they would say: It is life, life, life! And that is the way that God really speaks. We would sooner have it that way, would we not, than that people should be able to understand a lot of words and phrases, and not feel the impact and registration of life. Better, of course, if both; but if we have to choose, better this way - that they go away and say: 'There is something there that you cannot get away from; I can only say, it is God!' And what they mean is - it is Jesus Christ, the Living One!

That is the way God speaks through us. Oh that we may be, in this sense, the voice of God, the speech of God: the expression of Christ, Who is the Alpha and the Omega.

The Anointing: Light Within Our Dwellings

When will the Lord's people, who have the Scriptures and who know the Scriptures so well in the letter, when will they come to realize and to recognize that if truly they have been crucified with Christ, if they have died in His death and have been raised together with Him and have received the Spirit, they have light in their dwelling? ''The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you, but... His anointing teacheth you concerning all things'' (I John 2:27). When will believers, when will Christians, come to realize that? Why must Christians who have the knowledge of the Scriptures in the letter run about here and there to seek advice from others on matters which vitally affect their own spiritual knowledge? I do not mean that it is wrong to get counsel, wrong to know what other children of God of experience think or feel about matters. But if we are going to build our position upon their conclusions, we are in great danger. The final authority and arbiter in all matters is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the anointing.

We may get help from one another, but I do hope that you are not going to build your position upon what I say now because I say it. Do not do that. I do not want you to do it. I do not ask you to do it. What I say is, listen, take note; and then go to your final authority Who is in you if you are a child of God, and ask Him to corroborate the truth or to show otherwise. That is your right, your birthright, the birthright of every child of God: to be in the light of the indwelling Spirit of light, the Spirit of God.

I wonder where Paul would have been had he taken the opposite course to that which he did take? ''When it pleased God, Who separated me from my birth...to reveal His Son in me...straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia'' (Gal. 1:15-17). I wonder what would have happened had he gone up to Jerusalem and laid every matter before those who were apostles before him? We know from subsequent events that one thing they would have said to him would have been, Look here, be careful, Paul! You tell us that on the Damascus road Jesus is supposed to have said something to you about going to the Gentiles; be careful! They would have put him back about this Gentile business. You know what happened afterward. You know how on that point even Peter was caught in dissimulation years after. You know how those apostles which were before him at Jerusalem were all the time very chary about this matter of the Gentiles, and had Paul capitulated to them, we should never have had the great apostle to the Gentiles, the great apostle of the Body of Christ, with his revelation of the mystery, of the oneness of all in Christ, Jew and Greek. He did not submit that thing even to those who were apostles before him, to ask them whether he was right or not, whether this was sound or not. Oh no! He had the anointing in Damascus; Ananias laid his hands upon him and he received the Spirit, and from that day, although Paul was quite ready and happy to have fellowship with his brethren, though he never took a superior or independent position, though he was always open to conference, nevertheless he was a man governed by the Spirit.

I know you have to be careful how you take what I am saying. It will only be safe for you as you are one who does not set yourself up as some independent party with the Holy Spirit, but who keeps perfect fellowship, humility, submissiveness, openness of heart, with readiness to listen to and obey what may come through others, as the Spirit bears witness to the truth. But all that depends upon your inward condition, whether you are on natural ground or on spiritual ground, on old creation ground or on resurrection ground. But being on resurrection ground, where it is not the life of nature but the Spirit that governs, beloved, you have the right and the privilege and the blessing of knowing the Spirit bearing witness in your heart, and the anointing teaching you all things with regard to whether any given matter is right or wrong. When will the Lord's people know that, recognize that?

You see, it is this other thing all the time that is robbing so many of the light that the Lord would give them. The Lord would lead them into the greater fullness of the knowledge of His Son, of the enlargement of their spiritual understanding, but they are neglecting the gift that is in them. They are neglecting the Holy Spirit as their illuminator and teacher and instructor and guide and arbiter, and they are going to this one and that one, to this authority and that, and saying, What do you think about it? If you think it is wrong, then I will not touch it! It is fatal to spiritual knowledge to do that. That is going on to natural ground.

Now the Lord wants us off that ground. This matter of occupying resurrection ground, of living a life in the Spirit, is all-important in coming to the full knowledge of God's Son. How much more we could say about that! Let us be careful as to who our authorities are. So many dear children of God, individually and collectively, have come into dire and grievous bondage, limitation, and confusion by all the time going back to human authorities, to this great leader and that, to this man who was greatly used of God, this man who had a great deal of spiritual light.

''The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from His Word'' than even this or that servant of His possessed. Do you see what I mean? We get all the benefit of the light given to godly people and seek to profit by true light, but we will never come into bondage and say, That is the end of that matter! That must never be. We must maintain our resurrection ground. And who can exhaust that? In other words, who can exhaust the meaning of Christ risen? He is a boundless store, the land of far distances. No man yet has ever done more than begun to know the meaning of Christ risen. If there has been one man who has that meaning more than another, I suppose it was Paul. But to the last from his prison he still cries, ''That I may know Him!'' "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" (Phil. 3:8). Right at the end of a life like his, he is still saying, That I may know Him!

Coming Down From God Out of Heaven

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW JERUSALEM

Reading: Revelation 21 & 22

The next great event in God's calendar is the return in glory of His Son Jesus Christ. It is the consummation of that coming and the final revelation of the glory of Christ which is shown to us in the form of this heavenly city, "coming down from God out of heaven". This bridal city represents the sum of God's working through the ages. Its many symbols display the features of His Son as they have been wrought into the people whom He has taken out of the nations for His name, a marvellous union of Christ and His Church which has a timeless task of ministering life to the universe. The nations are to walk in its light, and they are to find the maintenance of their health from the leaves of its tree; kings are to bring their treasure into this city, and God's glory will provide its radiance.

John twice affirms that the city was shown to him by God - "He showed me...". Perhaps as we humbly read and meditate God will show us something of its significance and importance, and by means of its symbols give us a clearer idea of the unseen and eternal things which we are to keep in view so that "our light affliction" may work for us "more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

THE STREET

The Authorised Version makes a break between the first two verses of Revelation 22 which is misleading. The Revised Version indicates that the river is in the midst of the street of this holy city. The single street is central; a river runs down the middle of the street, and the tree of life grows on either side of the river. Nothing is in the plural, not even this tree, though it is found on both sides of the river. Up to this point things have been in the plural. Life has many ways of expressing itself, as the many trees of Ezekiel's river show (Ezekiel 47:4). At the end, however, everything is gathered up into an absolute unity: one city, one street, one river and one tree. It is a symbolic reminder that at the last all will be summed up into a perfect oneness, the oneness of Christ.

Such unity can only be realised in the fellowship of the Spirit, but this is surely not only for the future but for today. The city is being spiritually formed now, and the work is going on now in preparation for the great consummation which it reveals; if the Church is to be God's metropolis with an eternal vocation at the centre of the universe, then here and now it must learn oneness with and in Christ. One street! This oneness, right down at the very core of the Church, is basic to its present witness as well as to its eternal vocation. The one street has one river, which means that from the inner realm of fellowship with Christ there is an outflow of life. The city is, of course, the ultimate goal to which the Holy Spirit is moving, but the same law holds good for all time. Our vocation on this earth here and now is not primarily to engage in a number of good works, but to provide a way by which the life of Christ may flow out to others. How can this happen finally if it is not beginning now? How can we enthuse about ultimate unity if we are not giving diligence here and now to keep the unity of the Spirit?

This being the case it hardly needs to be pointed out that the enemy's strategic movement against the purpose of God in the Church is to keep that Church divided, basically divided. He does not mind mere professions of unity, nor is he unduly troubled by external illusions of unity; but what he is set against is the deep-down inwrought oneness which will release God's great river of life to flow out to a needy world. "I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife" were the words of introduction which led John to see the great heavenly and holy Jerusalem in its glorious unity. Undivided love for Christ, as the love of the bride for her husband, is the only sure counter to Satan's wiles, and the only basis for real oneness.

THE GOLDEN REED

The city was measured with a golden reed, everything in it being seen to conform to God's measurements. The whole idea is divine, and it can only be measured by divine standards, for it is to express divine purpose. Our calling in Christ makes many demands upon us, but if we can only view them in the light of things eternal, it will be much easier to face them. Not that it is ever easy for our human nature to be dealt with in accordance with this golden rod of divine standards but we can more readily bear the cost if we keep God's end in view. An outstanding characteristic of the city is its absolute clearness. This is true of its way of life, for the water of its river is as clear as crystal. It is true of its substance, which is of pure gold made like unto clear glass. It is true of its light, which is described as being "like a jasper stone, clear as crystal". This stone is also said to be "most precious", which suggests that such a condition of transparency is very precious to the Lord.

It also implies that we, His people, will find it a costly quality, one which can only be experienced as we accept discipline under the hand of God, and are given a spiritual education which makes us refined and Christlike. This clearness is not merely negative, a sort of stainless condition, but it is unshadowed and unclouded light. God is light: Christ is the light of the world, and the ministry of the Church is both to receive and to transmit His light. The city is radiant with the glory of God. What is the opposite of glory? It is darkness, cloudiness, murkiness; it is all that realm which is not clear, but mixed and shadowy. If you have had to deal with a person whom you cannot trust because of hidden elements which if not actually deceitful somehow lack clear transparency, you will have found it an unpleasant experience, the very opposite of glory. When the glory of God fills everywhere, then there are no such questions or shadows, but perfect, open confidence. "In Him is no darkness at all..." (1 John 1:5). This glory is ours, by grace, and must govern all our ways.

All the portals of the city are of pearl. Pearls are a parable of the preciousness which results from suffering, since they are formed as a result of the agony of the host creatures. These pearls are the only gates. There is no other way into this city than by suffering love, for the elect people who are to reign with Christ are those who have first shared something of His sufferings. It is no use our opting for a casual or easy way into fellowship of this kind, for the love of Christ, purified from all mixture and precious to God demands a committal to Him for His supreme purpose to be fulfilled even though the cost may be fiery trial or deep travail. Let us not be deterred by the cost though, but keep our eyes on the outcome - "having the glory of God". This is our destiny.

THE WALL

A further characteristic of this embodiment of God's thought is the fact that the city has a wall "great and high". Much is said about this wall, with repeated mention of its foundations, its dimensions and its strength. It seems to depict the city's distinctiveness. It is true that walls are often used for purposes of defence, but as such a need could never arise with the heavenly city, we conclude that the wall represents a demarcation of what God wishes to be distinguished in a special way. Do you not agree that there is much weakness in Christianity today just by reason of a lack in distinctiveness of testimony and life? Not that God will allow us to think in terms of spiritual conceit or imagined superiority, but it is important that we should not lose that sense of definite purpose and set-apartness which should always govern the life of His redeemed people.

The wall is beautiful; it is high; and it is strong. It marks off in clear delineation that which has special meaning and value to God.

ADORNED

"Coming down from God out of heaven, adorned...". If this city is to be the embodiment of eternal values, if it is not a thing but a people, then something must have been happening to shape and prepare them so that such a condition could be possible. You will notice that the wall of the city is adorned, and also that the adornment of the city itself is spoken of as being suitable for a bride. The wall is no ugly demarcation but its very foundations are adorned with all manner of precious stones. The costly gems are simply symbols of the many-sided preciousness of Christ. "For you therefore that believe is the preciousness" (1 Peter 2:7), the very preciousness of Christ Himself.

And the bride is also adorned. Her adornment is something more than external splendour which can be put on and taken off; her beauty consists of those inward qualities which delight the heart of her heavenly Bridegroom. "The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold" (Psalm 45:13). We are apt to pay such attention to externalities, even in spiritual things, but God's objective is a people whose inner life is beautiful with the pure gold of Christ's loveliness, for Christ is coming "to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" (2 Thessalonians 1:10).

If these adornments come down from heaven, how did they first get there? They are the outcome of our walk with God here on earth. We live our lives down here, and although we frequently get discouraged, we do enter into new experiences of God's grace and learn more of His Son. The Word teaches us that something is happening all the time in relation to our life down here which is equivalent to treasure which is going ahead of us and waiting for us to follow. As we proceed on our way with the Lord there are heavenly values accumulating for the future. Did not the Lord Jesus tell us to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20)? So while there is a temporal life, there are also values being stored up in heaven, features of Christ which will adorn His city. Our spiritual growth, our spiritual characteristics are, as it were, going ahead of us. They are eternal: they are not of time. And all this preparation is going on, so we are told, "while we look... at the things which are not seen... but eternal".

"Adorned as a bride for her husband". What the Lord is doing in us now as daily we learn new lessons of grace and humility, will be manifested in that day, and although this may bring gratification to us and joy to others, it is primarily meant for the pleasure of Christ. The Church's spiritual adornment is to be the reward to our Bridegroom-Redeemer for all His patient, suffering love.

The city descends from heaven, that is, it has been conformed to heaven. It has not been turned out of heaven because it is not suitable, but comes down to bring heaven's values into the rest of God's universe. We must measure everything down here by values which are heavenly and eternal. This brings us back again to the golden reed of God's standards, the reed which measures everything in the light of God's purpose of showing the greatness of His Son to a wondering universe by means of the Church which is in living, loving communion with Him. This is the end of all things. This is where the Bible closes. And this is our vocation in Christ.

From "Toward The Mark" May-June, 1972

Features of the City and Its Inhabitants

Reading: 1 Kings 7:1-12; Revelation 21:2,10-12,16,19.

In both of these representations we have that which is symbolic of the place where the Lord delights and purposes to dwell. The "greater than Solomon" is building His house, and a house also for His Bride. The King is building the city where His throne is to be.

If we read carefully these descriptions of Solomon's buildings and of the new Jerusalem, the Holy City, we can clearly discern three outstanding characteristics: strength, beauty and costliness. These are the three major characteristics of that in which the Lord will dwell. He is most concerned for these things and works with deep and patient application to have them, the expression of Himself and His thoughts.

Strength

Very evident in Solomon's building is the element of strength - those mighty, weighty stones and those great cedars of Lebanon. The impression is all of strength. It has taken a long time to secure those stones, and they have a long history. Indeed, it might be impossible to trace the beginning of those stones, of that rocklike substance. It goes back a long way and has a long history. And then those cedars of Lebanon were not planted yesterday. They speak of many a testing storm and many a long year of growth. There is nothing superficial, nothing light and nothing fancy about them, and nothing will be able easily to carry them away. They will stand and they will endure; they are the embodiment of the very principle of patient endurance. There is eternity in their very constitution. They have passed through many a tempestuous testing, and they are here in the house because of that - the king will dwell here because of that testing. They have been exposed to the elements; they have never been coddled and covered and protected from adverse elements. They have been exposed to all the forces that could destroy. Here is strength!

Look at that mighty new Jerusalem! Twelve thousand furlongs does not convey very much to our minds until we begin to think about it and remember that this is a cube of fifteen hundred miles. I will leave it to the mathematicians to work this out, but, remember, breadth, length and height are equal. I just mention that to emphasize this fact of weightiness: the substantial, the enduring, the strength.

Dear friends, I need hardly say any more, for your minds are interpreting and applying as I speak. Is this not the history of the true people of God? The Lord does not put us in glass houses to grow us to be His trees, and He does not protect us from the storms or the adversities. He exposes us to the bitter winds and scorching suns of adversity and trial, for He is working in us that which is according to His own nature - eternity, that which is enduring and everlasting, which will not be easily carried away. He is putting substance in us. Oh, we fear that today the appeal to become Christians is so often in terms of having an easy or good time, being happy and enjoying yourself. Well, thank God for all divine joy, but that which is true of the house, of the city, is the main thing toward which the Lord is working; He is seeking to work into His people that substantial, steadfast, enduring faithfulness which is according to His own nature. Oh, for substantial Christians who do not need coddling and nursing and running after all the time, being pandered to just to get them to go on or to stand up! Oh, for men and women like the cedars of Lebanon, like the hewn stones, weighty, accountable, responsible, able to carry weight, and all that is meant by strength!

I can only remind you again of what a large place this has in the Word of God... "Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might" (Ephesians 6:10): "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:1, AV). Think again! If you want to understand why the winds are allowed to blow so fiercely, and the storms to rage, it is to get us away from that natural easygoing-ness, cheapness, lightness, frivolousness, and to make us people of weight and strength, through testing, through adversity; strength to endure. There is much that is going to be carried away in the last great testing, and if therefore trial, adversity, is the only way to deepen us, to put calibre into us, I suppose we must accept more of it as time shortens.

Beauty

I will not stay to say much about this, but it is so evident in these representations, is it not? The Lord is also at work in this matter, for He wants that which is His dwelling-place, the place that He is making for Himself, His own habitation, to be attractive, to be admirable, to be grand, and something to be wondered at. I suppose the one word which covers this whole sphere of beauty is the word 'grace'. If suffering is unto strength, then grace is unto beauty. If you and I have a true apprehension, a real heart appreciation of the meaning of divine grace, there will be something about us that is not ugly, repulsive, but something beautiful, something mellow. Beauty is not fierce, not cruel, not hard. It is, in the right sense, soft - but perhaps mellow is the best word. You and I, as we go on with the Lord, under His Hand, ought to be losing our natural hardness of judgment, of word, of attitude, and taking on more and more of the mellowness of grace.

Look again at these descriptions, perhaps particularly that of the city, and see how outstanding is this characteristic of beauty. It is a mighty thing, and almost overawing in its strength, its power to resist, to endure and stand, and yet one of the wonderful things about the Lord Jesus, and about anything and anyone in whom He fulfils His purpose, is the combination of strength and beauty. There is a balance: it is not all strength and it is not all softness. There is a marvellous balance in the Lord Jesus. Look at Him! These two things are brought together, and that is what the Lord would have in us.

Costliness

How costly was Solomon's building! There was a great, great cost bound up with those houses that he built. And then the city - "the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of precious stones". There is something very precious, very valuable to the Lord: there is nothing cheap in what is of God. Remember that! Everything that is of God is costly and has a great price attached to it. There is nothing here that is contemptible and mean. These were costly stones. It is the embodiment of suffering.

You notice that "the wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" ... "The first foundation was jasper" and a jasper stone is "clear as crystal". Who was the first of the Apostles? Simon Peter - now a jasper stone, clear as crystal. All the mixture has gone out, and he is transparently clear - but what suffering! Look at him! He denied his Lord and went out weeping bitterly; and in his Letters he has quite a lot to say about the fiery trial which is to test us and try us. Peter knew suffering. Yes, but, you see, it produced something very precious, valuable and costly to the Lord. Was it not Peter who said: "For you therefore which believe is the preciousness"? (1 Peter 2:7).

If you think again of the Lord's ways with us you cannot fail to see that He is prepared to use a lot of time, energy and money in order to get essential spiritual value. Those of you who have read the life of Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium, will remember the tons and tons and tons of stuff that men would call rubbish which was heaped into her backyard. They collected tons, so to speak, mountains of it, out of which to get the tiniest grain of radium. When it is all reduced there is just this little tiny fragment of radium out of tons of stuff. Ah, but look at the cost of radium in those days! Look at the power and the virtue in it!

The Lord is like that. He is prepared to use tons and tons and tons to get one fragment of this essential nature of Himself: preciousness. Think of its intrinsic energy! There is something about the nature of the Lord which is tremendously potent: the potency of truth, of love.

You and I must look at everything in the light of spiritual value, for that is how the Lord looks at it. Nothing with the Lord is of any value except in so far as it results in something of Himself. You may have your millions - though I don't suppose any of you have! - but with the Lord that is nothing. He says: 'How much does that represent of Me?' On the other hand, you may have your little and have to look at every shilling that you spend, but there may be in your use of that little something of the Lord, for the Lord; and so He looks upon the widow's mite in the light of spiritual value, while He looks upon the Pharisee without one thought or word of pleasure.

It is everything in the light of spiritual value where the Lord is concerned. Think of the matter of time! What a lot of time the Lord takes! How upset we get over this matter of time! It is one of our big problems that the Lord is so slow, waits so long and takes so much time. It is a real trouble with us, and we are always trying to hurry Him. No, if it requires time to get what He is after, He will take a lifetime to get it.

You see, the whole thing that the Lord is after is just real value, the cost of things, and we could speak much about suffering. How much suffering the people of God know! The sufferings of His people are a real problem, but if Paul is right, here is the answer: "Our light affliction, which is for the moment" - and you can only talk like that if you see the rest of the statement! - "worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). That is the end, the object, the goal. Our 'light affliction' is not light at all. It is very heavy unless we can see what the Lord is after, and then perhaps we can see it in a different way.

So, the Lord is after this true value, and when He gets these characteristics of strength, beauty and real preciousness - costliness - the process will be fully justified.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1965, Vol 43-1

A God That Hideth Himself

"Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Isa. 45:15).

It is as though the Prophet was suddenly overawed and struck with amazement at what he was being made to prophesy! In the midst of his ministry something of its wonder broke upon himself and he interjected this ejaculation.

Leaving, for the present, much of what this might imply as to prophecy as prediction and its vindication, we will stay with the exclamation itself. That statement is one in principle with several instances in the Scriptures. Looking at the present context we see that it is Israel's release from captivity, and return to the Land to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, which is contemplated. No doubt there had been much speculation and discussing as to how the prophecies of their return would be fulfilled. Seventy years had been determined and made known as the duration of their captivity. The Gentile powers were in undoubted ascendancy and there seemed very little prospect or possibility of Israel's regaining their national power and glory amongst the nations. The state of things in their own country - the destroyed Temple, the burnt city, the land overrun with wild beasts, the enemy emissaries installed - and the disintegration among the people themselves in exile, made the outlook one fraught with seemingly insuperable problems, and it might well have led to complete bafflement and even despair.

Then the Prophet is made to foretell that it would all come about - this restoration - at the hands or by the will of the Gentile power itself; that the Sovereign Spirit of God would come down upon one who - as yet - was not in the position to do it, and probably whose name was not yet known at all. Babylon was not yet overthrown: the Babylonian Empire was not yet destroyed; Daniel's prophecies were not yet fulfilled. But the one who would do it was mentioned by name and the details of his conquest are given in this forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah's prophecies. (Read it fragment by fragment.) And then, even although this man would be in ignorance of God, he would be constrained and compelled by God like an Anointed one to fulfil the Scriptures, release the people, provide the means, and generally facilitate the restoration.

As the Prophet sees it all in his "vision" ("the vision of Isaiah," 1:1, one vision including everything) he is overwhelmed with wonder. All the problems are solved, the questions answered, the "mountains" levelled! Who would have thought of that? Who would have dreamed such a thing? Oh, how deep are God's ways, beneath our imagination, hidden from our most intense speculations. 'Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour."

There have been several other great and outstanding instances of the mystery of God's ways in fulfilling His major purposes. All the race had gone from Him and become involved in Godlessness and idolatry. It was universal. How would God meet His own need? Well, He moved to put His hand on one man, and out of that one man He made a nation. In sovereign grace He made that nation His mystery, His secret, among the nations. Israel was God's mystery, God's hidden way. There was always something mysterious about Israel. Paul, in contemplating this method of God and finding it rise up with such overwhelming power, did just what Isaiah did. While writing it down he just interjected a loud and resounding ejaculation:-

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out!" (Rom. 11:33; A.S.V.).

He might well have added, "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself." Who would ever have thought of the Incarnation, and that, not in glory, but in humiliation unto offending every expectation of man? Who would have thought of the Cross for God Incarnate as the method and means of solving the greatest problem ever known in this universe? Who would have suspected that it was all embodied in that Man of Nazareth, "the carpenter's son" as they called Him? There was the greatest mystery of God! Did it work? Has it proved to be the way, the only way, and the transcendently successful way?

And what is true as to the mystery of Israel, and the mystery of Christ, is also true as to the mystery of the Church. There is a hiddenness about the true Church. No natural eye can discern it. No natural mind can explain it. Reduce it to human sense and description and you have lost it, you have got hold of the wrong thing. "God's wisdom (is) in a mystery," says Paul. Try to commend the Church to the world without faith and you have stripped your Church of its secret power! Unless men come right up against inscrutable God Who overwhelms them, that which claims to be His dwelling-place is an empty shell.

And we would remind you that what is true in these great epochs of sovereign progress down the ages, these interventions and advents in the history of this world's spiritual life, is true in the life of each one of His true people. Such will be constantly confronted with the how? of impossible situations, in order that they may be compelled to repeated exclamations in the presence of His simple solutions -

"VeriIy Thou art a God That hidest Thyself."

"Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will."

"I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that it is I, the Lord, Who call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel" (Isa. 45:3; ASV.)

God's Call to the Life Above

"They that trust in the Lord

Are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever.

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,

So the Lord is round about his people,

From this time forth and for evermore." Psalm 125:1-2

Psalms 120 to 134 form a little volume of their own, called the Psalms or Songs of Ascent. They tell of the climb up out of the deep, dark valley on to the sunny heights, which is where the Lord always desires His people to be.

Psalm 84 speaks of passing through the valley of weeping, but in that connection we ought to underline the two words "passing through", for this valley is never meant to be the dwelling place of the people of God but only a passage through which they pass. Zion, the mountain home, is where God wants His people to abide. It is surely instructive to note that the Lord established periodic ascents as an ordinance in Israel; all their males had to go up to Jerusalem three times in every year. God meant these going-up ordinances to be governmental in nature; that is, the people of Israel were not to be governed by the plains or valleys, but to be a people of the mountains. They might have to spend time, perhaps much time, down below but their normal life was continually interrupted by the command to go up. Their life, their real life, was up in the high places. If we could have joined their caravans as three times a year they made ready and got on the march, leaving the valleys and the plains and going on the upward way to Jerusalem, we would have found that these journeys had a tremendous influence on the life of the people. These songs, for instance, became songs for all time; they were provided for the ascents of those particular occasions, but they were not reserved for the three times a year, becoming the perpetual songs of Israel in which we ourselves find much of abiding value. This is because the Lord's mind for His people is that they should not abide in the deep and shadowy places, though from time to time they may have to pass through the valleys, but that they should be a people of the heights, with their lives governed by that which is above and not by what is below.

I have been very much impressed with the large place which mountains had in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, as may be verified in Matthew's Gospel, which begins in chapter 5 with the Mount of Instruction and finishes in chapter 28 with the Mount of Commission. It can be noted that all through the Gospel the peak events were associated with mountains, as though these found an answer, a response, in the very heart and nature of our Lord. Is it not true that Jesus came down and passed through this valley of weeping in order to meet us and lift us up out of it?

His whole life, in every aspect and activity of praying, teaching and working, was a life on a rising plane, a lifting, returning move to heaven which would take back with Him as many others as possible. There was nothing in the low level of this world's ways to give Him any pleasure, so it is not surprising that He loved the mountain heights. The very nature and spirit of the Lord Jesus was a complete contradiction of the natural course of human movement which is steadily slipping lower and lower. The Lord Jesus is in direct contrast to this; the whole effect and influence of His presence anywhere being to lift upwards. He only came by way of this valley of tears to lift us up out of it.

ASCENDANCY

Mountains suggest and represent elevation, ascendancy - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains". To take our eyes off what is here - self, circumstances and the rest - and to set them on the One who is the Lord over all, high and lifted up on the throne, is itself an elevating experience. "Looking off unto Jesus" is the one thing which will bring us up out of the valley of despair, for where our vision rests affects the course of our lives. It is in every sense an uplifting experience to be joined to the Lord in heaven; it is morally elevating and spiritually emancipating.

Perhaps what most of us need is a higher level of life. We are too small. Our valley is a hemmed-in place, it is narrow and limiting. We must get on to the mountains to find enlargement, with a sense of being liberated from the littlenesses of life, freed from its smallness and pettiness. If this is true naturally, it helps to interpret a spiritual truth, reminding us that God has "raised us up together with Christ". Individually and collectively in the Church, a very great deal of the trouble, weakness and even paralysis which we suffer is due to our failure to maintain our true position in the heavenlies in Christ. If we could get up higher, move on to higher ground and leave behind the things which belong to the shadows and miasmas, we should find ourselves living in the good of the mighty will of God in us.

SECURITY

Then, as the psalmist indicates, it is not only ascendancy which comes from the mountains but also security. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about His people...". The heights are the places for strongholds, for refuges. And our strength, our safety is to get away from the low things, to leave behind what is mean and contemptible, and to get up into fellowship with the Lord on high. On the low levels we become the playthings of bad influences and cross currents - there are always evil powers which are at work down there in the dark. We will find deliverance and security by rising on to higher ground.

The devil and the evil forces are tremendously concerned with getting us down and holding us down, so that they can harass and play havoc with our spiritual lives. Down... down... that is the drive and direction of the evil one, who plans to get us down and keep us down in the place where he has the strength. Our refuge is not to fight on that low ground, but to flee to the heights, to escape to the Lord in the secret place of the most High.

I think that the Lord Jesus did just this. At the time when He was aware of all the pressure and down-drag of earthly conditions and disappointments even with His own disciples, He said: Let Me go away for a while and go into the mountains to My Father. It was thus that He was able to return marvellously fortified, and we can do the same, finding our way of escape by fellowship with God in the heights.

VISION

There is a further point about mountains, a fairly obvious one, and that is that they are places of vision, places where one can see the far distances. At the end of the Bible we are taken to an exceeding great and high mountain and shown the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, so that the last scene in the Bible is a mountain scene, and the mountain is truly one of vision, showing the Church in the full expression of its heavenly glory. Surely it is of supreme importance that God's people should have their vision enlarged. Our vision is too small, our purpose in life is too small; our conception of our salvation is often too small. We tend to narrow our thoughts so much that it is important for us to ascend into the Mount of Vision, for the loss of vision always brings about a falling to pieces. Those Christians who have no great sense of God's purposes and of His ability to reach His end and fulfil His intentions will find themselves at the mercy of the doubts and fears which defeat men down here on this earth.

GRAVITATION UPWARD

The reader may agree with all that has been said and yet still be puzzled as to how such elevation to the heights can be realised. The answer is that it is already a working power in the new nature of the Christian. The beginning of the Christian life is the discovery that Christ has come from heaven to take us back to heaven, and so has given us life from above. From the day that a man really comes into vital union with our risen and ascended Lord there begins within him a process of gravitation upwards. He now discovers that he does not really belong to earth, but has a heavenly nature which responds to God's call to the life on high. As he progresses, he finds that his new life leads him further and further away from the world in which he lives, and although this involves him in some difficulties and even embarrassment, he cannot find himself at home here as he once could. This very inward pull is evidence that he is a child of the heavenly country.

The consummation of the believer's life is certainly upward - for he is to be caught up to be forever with the Lord. So the life is a constant movement upward, from its first beginnings to its glorious end. This means that, like his Lord, he must learn to respond to the heavenly gravitation, not clinging to earthly interests and possessions, not being bound by earthly considerations, but giving always an inward answer to the call of heaven.

So far as Christ was concerned even His physical going up into a mountain illustrated how eager He was to respond to this call. And I believe that when at last He ascended to the Father, His heart was filled with the deepest satisfaction at home-going. It will surely be the same with us. We shall not go reluctantly and with regrets; no, we shall be rising to where we belong and what we were made for; we shall be rising to the final ascendancy, and in doing so we shall be answering to everything in our new constitution. Spiritually we are a mountain people. Let us now seek grace day by day, so that we may repudiate all earth-boundness and refuse to dwell in the valley. We may often have to pass through it, but we must never settle down there, for we belong to the heights in Christ. "Here we have no abiding city, but we seek one to come" (Hebrews 13:14).

From "Toward The Mark" Jan-Feb, 1972

Having Our Eyes Opened

"But their eyes were holden that they should not know him" (Luke 24:16).

"And their eyes were opened, and they knew him" (Luke 24:31).

This is a negative and a positive side. On the negative side there is a word of very solemn warning to us all. Because "their eyes were holden" it was possible for the Risen Lord, the Lord of life and of glory, to be present with them and they did not know it. It is possible for the Risen Lord, with all that that means, to be present with His own disciples and they not know it. And it is possible that He will be present here, speaking from all the Scriptures, and we shall not understand. It is true that the disciples said: "Was not our heart burning within us, while he spake?" We may have strong feelings and emotions while the word is being given. No doubt these two men were saying in their hearts: 'Isn't this wonderful? Why, we never heard it like that before! We never saw the Bible handled in that way.' All that is possible, and no difference be made in us. Really, if these two men had understood, they would not have reached Emmaus, and would not have waited until after dark to go back to Jerusalem. They would have turned back on the road and rushed straight back to their fellow disciples. But they just continued in the way that they were going before. Strong feelings, yes; a sense of wonder, yes; but no real revolution in their lives that turned them another way.

Now I expect you dear friends are saying: 'Well, is such a thing possible?' Perhaps you would say: 'That is not possible with us!', but let me speak to you out of long experience. There are many of the dear people of God who have had a great deal of teaching and have said afterwards: 'Well, it was all very wonderful. "Our hearts were burning within us while he spake"', but so many of them are not changed by the word. They just go on the same way as they went before, and that is possible with us, and is why the Lord is just saying this word to us. If it is to mean a change in our life, something has to happen inside.

I do not know how many of you are fond of music. If you are, you will sometimes read a critique in the paper about someone who has been giving a performance on the piano. The writer describes how wonderfully the pianist played, speaks of his wonderful hands and says: 'He rendered the Rondo and the crescendo like a master', etc. That may have been true of the pianist, but what about the piano? Supposing some of the strings of the piano were broken? Supposing an enterprising little mouse had got into the piano and eaten all the dampers away? Well, even Rubinstein or Mendelssohn could not make that piano do what he wanted it to do. The great pianist may be all right. There is no question about him, but if there is something wrong in the instrument, he cannot do as he would.

"Their eyes were holden" - and that was the trouble. Something had to be done in the instrument.

That is the negative side - and it is just possible that that would be true of us.

But there is a positive side: "And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him".

Some people have said that when He took the loaf, gave thanks and gave it to them, they recognized something that they had seen before - it was just the way that Jesus did it in the upper room. Well, you may think that that is the explanation, but I do not, for the whole New Testament stands behind this. Paul said: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: ...he cannot know them" (1 Corinthians 2:14). Their eyes being holden was an act of God, and their eyes being opened was an act of God.

Paul prayed for the Ephesians: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened" (Ephesians 1:17,18). If all those Ephesian believers, who had had all Paul's teaching, needed a spirit of revelation, surely we do! It is an act of God whenever we really do see the Lord Jesus.

But, again, it was an act of grace. These men had forsaken the Lord Jesus in the hour of His trial, and they were men who were of an unbelieving heart. Jesus said to them: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!", but grace overcame all their failure and all their sin. Their eyes were opened by the grace of God. We do not have to be perfect Christians in order to see the Lord.

If it was an act of God and an act of grace, it was also an act of Divine power - and that act makes all the difference. The fire was burning very low before He opened their eyes, but when they were opened, the fire was rekindled. They had said to Him: 'Come in and abide, for the day is far spent and it is dangerous to be on the road.' When their eyes were opened, the night was turned into day. It is no longer dangerous to be on the road when you have your eyes opened! It is a wonderful thing to have our spiritual eyes opened.

Let us all pray every day that we shall not only hear the Scriptures expounded, but that a great act of God shall be done in us whereby our spiritual eyes are opened to see and know the Lord.

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

The Importance and Value of God-given Vision

"Come hither, I will show thee..." (Revelation 21:9)

At times of crisis in the Church's history there has always been one factor which has been decisive; that is, 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.

The need and importance of such vision is found in its various features. In the first place:

IT IS CONCRETE WITH GOD

Such vision 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. It is not an emergency expedient because of a situation unforeseen. God-given vision has its roots outside of time and circumstance, eventualities, contingencies or 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:

IT IS COMPREHENSIVE

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 (Romans 8:28). 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 to his purpose" we, in response, are lovers of God, then all things are the sphere of His 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 fullness, 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 the phase. If we are, the whole becomes bound up with that phase so far as we are concerned, and we see no more. This may put us completely out of commission if any one phase has served God's purpose and He is now moving on. Sufficient motive demands sufficient vision, and we must see much more than that which is immediately before our eyes. Then, further still:

IT IS CONSTANTLY ENLARGING

It is very important to remember that God-given vision is never given in completeness at 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 order 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 organisation. It just lives on its past and tradition. Further:

IT 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 recognised 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 realise 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. Our world may be tumbling to pieces, but the full and final outcome is what matters. The great pity is that so many just cling to the old framework or partial vision. God presents His heavenly pattern in greater fullness and demands adjustment. He does this with foreknowledge, knowing of a day which is imminent when this vision alone will save. But because it seems revolutionary or unlike what God has blessed in the past, it is rejected and put aside. Then the foreseen day comes and all sorts of expedients have to be resorted to in an attempt to preserve any values for God.

Abraham had a vision of "the city which hath foundations" and he looked for it, but he never found it on earth. He found it at last in heaven, but only as the climax of a walk which was ever upward. Ezekiel was another man of vision. In his "visions of God" he saw the glory lifting from the earthly scene and moving up and on, finally culminating in a spiritual house and river which find their counterpart in the final revelation given to John. It was heavenly, spiritual, universal. What a significant phrase that is about the house seen by Ezekiel - "there was an enlargement upward" (Ezekiel 41:7). God-given vision is always heavenly and always moves away from the merely temporal and earthly. To understand this is to be found in ways of vital fruitfulness.

God never works for reduction or limitation, even though at times He may seem to be doing so. When we are able to see as He sees we find that what looks like trimming and reduction is really His way of leading to more 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 shown to Moses (Hebrews 8:5). It was "... above the firmament... a throne... and upon the throne... a man above upon it" that Ezekiel saw (Ezekiel 1:26). It was that "the heavens do rule" that Daniel apprehended (Daniel 4:26). 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 allowing the shattering of much that He has used of scaffolding or framework, in order to realise His fuller purpose. It is not that what went before was wrong, but only that He now desires something more. We thank God that ever He took Paul away from his ministry of travelling evangelism and let him be shut up in prison, for it was then that the full glorious vision and revelation of the "heavenlies" and the "eternal" was given. This seemed to eclipse all the earthly and temporal. It was worth it. What might have seemed a tragedy was not one after all. Satan may have had a lot to do with Paul's imprisonment and with John's banishment to Patmos, but from these troubles the Church has gained very much in heavenly values. 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. Once again:

IT 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 realisation; than that kind of facilitation which is made possible by God's overruling. 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 endured because of their vision! It was their vision which brought all the inward as well as the outward suffering upon them. Look again at Habakkuk. How he cried to God about the situation and then took his position in relation to the vision. It is faith and patience which are the virtues to be perfected, so he realised that "the just shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4). Similarly John, the man of the Patmos visions, described himself as the brother "in... the patience of Jesus" (Revelation 1:9).

So we may find that although things may be taking a new and different shape, the purpose of God has not changed. We may be presented with His vision in new and more advanced aspects, but it is only what God originally purposed. Can we adjust? Can we leave the things that are behind? Without raising questions as to the right or wrong of what has been in the past, can we go on and grow up as we move towards God's end? Finally:

IT MAKES MEN OF PRAYER

This is almost too obvious when we remember the men of the Bible. It was vision which got them away from the trivial and petty. It required vision to get prayer on to the major lines and to make it a matter of 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 lasting values.

I cannot conclude without pointing out that what could have been voluntary with a minimum of loss has often had to be made compulsory with gains that are less than they could have been. This is because we do not from time to time stand back and in detachment wait upon God so that He can adjust and enlarge our vision. Many a work which has mightily served the Lord and been a great spiritual testimony has lost much of its glory and impact by becoming an organised routine which has made no provision for the further light from God which could have come from periods of retreat and waiting upon Him. Perhaps the Lord would send more prophetic vision which would lead into fuller spiritual values if we were not too busy to receive it. Without renewed vision there can so easily be a leakage of spiritual power.

From "Toward The Mark" May-June, 1978

The Importance of Being in the Spirit

The phrase "in the Spirit" occurs several times in the book of the Revelation. It represents the way of escape for the Lord's people from the oppression of the earthly conditions which surround and beset them. John, being so oppressed on the island of Patmos, found deliverance from earth's limitations into the much larger realm of things as they are in heaven. The book of the Revelation shows, as perhaps few other books of the Bible do, how real and absolute is heaven's government. In the matter of the whole Church (represented by the seven churches), the nations, the great world systems (represented religiously by Babylon and politically by the Beast), and even to the hidden warfare with spiritual evil, it was made clear to John, and so to us all, that it is really the heavens which rule.

Emerging from this truth of heaven's absolute dominion is that fact that through the adversities and sufferings of His people, God is providing a fruitful ministry of spiritual fullness and wealth.

So heaven came in on Patmos, and turned what would have been misery and crippling limitation into something tremendously fruitful for the Church throughout many generations. There can be no question as to the untold value of John's ministry which resulted from this Revelation of Jesus Christ.

What was true in the case of John himself is revealed to be also the case for many of the Lord's servants. Those of us who have even a small experience of being shut up and hemmed in by difficult circumstances will perhaps realise a little of what the great apostle must have felt. He had so much spiritual wealth; he was the sole survivor of the apostles; he could realise how greatly the churches needed him; and yet he was, banished to a lonely island, cut off from all opportunity either of fellowship or service. In some way Paul before him had gone through a similar circumstance in his Roman imprisonment, and could also at times have felt singularly frustrated as to useful service to Christ. Yet how much poorer the Church would have been without his 'prison epistles'. So he and John had this in common, that the seeming limitation of being prisoners for Christ had produced unlimited spiritual helpfulness to many generations of Christians.

It may well be that what was true of them will be found to be valid for the whole Church. The vision at the end of this book is of a Church of such vast measurements that its dimensions seem to have been grossly exaggerated. The simple implication is that heaven will have overruled the earthly trials and tribulations of God's suffering saints and made out of them a fruitful means of dispensing Christ's riches to the whole universe for all eternity. This is the significance of being "in the Spirit".

From "Toward The Mark" Nov-Dec, 1972

Seeing Christ by Revelation

He (the Lord Jesus) is the sum of all Divine thoughts, and the Incarnation is the supreme expression of this one thought of God, to be truly, adequately, fully, perfectly represented; so that it was possible for the Lord Jesus to say, ''He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father'' (John 14:9). There is the mystery of Christ.

What is the mystery of Christ? The mystery of Christ is God veiled in this Representative. Here is God in representation, but how many saw Him? ''He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.'' But I think that word ''seen'' means something very much more than just looking upon Him as a man. Peter said, ''Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And He said, ''Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father Who is in heaven'' (Matt 16:13-17). That is what it means to see; it is by revelation. It is that which is the mystery. The fact is there, the true representation or representative of God in person, yet unrecognized, unseen.

Now, the Resurrection and Pentecost seem to me to have meant just this one thing, the seeing of Christ. You remember when He was considered dead and buried, even disciples were in black despair and eclipse of faith and hope, and some went on the way to Emmaus very sad indeed; and their words were, ''We hoped that it was He Who should redeem Israel'' (Luke 24:21). But before the end of that episode was reached, we are told that He opened their understanding that they might know the Scriptures. Having taken up the Scriptures right from the beginning and spoken to them things concerning Himself, He opened their understanding, and it was just that that was marking His appearances during the forty days after His resurrection. They were in some altogether new way coming to see Him. Oh no, not now physically merely, that He was alive, that He had a body; it was not merely this that was being borne in upon them very powerfully. They were seeing Him - Who He was; the mystery of His Person was breaking down. They were seeing Him, and the day of Pentecost seemed to bring that through to full birth. The forty days were moving up to that day, and then on that day by the coming of the Holy Spirit the thing was consummated, and in the full blaze of Who He was the Church was born. It seems to me that the Church was born - yes, by the Holy Spirit, but by the Holy Spirit's breaking open to men who Jesus was after all. It seems to me that is how every one came into the Church. They saw by an operation of the Holy Spirit Who Jesus was. That is how Paul came in on the Damascus road; he saw who Jesus of Nazareth was. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the Eleven, as under the power of the Holy Spirit they opened their mouths, and the spontaneous declaration was all about Who Jesus was, and they are men in a new revelation.

Oh, I know from our fundamentalist standpoint, this is nothing very much. I do not suppose there is one here who does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh. You all believe that as a bit of your faith; but what is the effect of it? What was the effect of that at the beginning? The witnessing, the representation, is not just attesting historical facts, nor doctrinal facts. When they went out as witnesses unto Him, it wasn’t just to say things which, while they were true, were only truths. They went out in the power of having seen, having had their eyes opened to the Lord Jesus. It was as though they had been men moving in the shadows during those years, groping, sometimes feeling an assurance, a certain amount of certainty, but then questionings, uncertainties coming in, shadows all the time. But at last the heavens were rent, the blaze broke through, and they saw. It was in the light of that they were constituted witnesses, representatives. It was in the light of that the Church was born. It was in the light of that the Church went on its way so effectively. The fact was that, wherever they came, it was the impact of God in Christ by their presence. Their presence stirred hell, because hell felt anew - God is here!

Spiritual Understanding

Reading: Matthew 13:1-9, 11, 14-15, 19, 23, 51

You will probably note that one word occurs in all these varied verses - the word 'understanding' in its different forms. I have recently been very much impressed with the necessity for spiritual understanding.

This parable is, I expect, as familiar to you as any of the parables of the Lord Jesus, and you know that it has its setting in what are called 'the parables of the kingdom', that is, in our Lord's teaching concerning the kingdom of Heaven. However, we have to see it in a larger setting, for this book which goes by Matthew's name does make the definitions very clear as to the differences between the Kingdom of Heaven and the other kingdom. Indeed, this book sees this contrast being drawn, pressed and forced to the point of ultimate destiny. There were the two kingdoms: that kingdom in which the Jews were naturally, and the Kingdom of Heaven to which the Lord Jesus was calling men and women. Through this book you find those two kingdoms in very strong contrast and opposition, so that the Jewish rulers, teachers and leaders are found to be increasingly antagonistic to the Kingdom of Heaven until the issue is pressed at last in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, that issue being the destinies which are here in view and involved, the destiny of those in the Kingdom of Heaven and the destiny of all others who are not in that Kingdom.

The Lord Jesus, in His teaching concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, is working on a selective line, for He is drawing out from the other kingdom a people for the Kingdom of Heaven, those who will enter and be born into that Kingdom. He speaks on the one side of "an evil and adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39), which is the other kingdom, and then, on the other side, He speaks of "the sons of the kingdom" (Matthew 13:38), and that is so different.

Now right in that setting stands this most familiar of all parables, that which we call 'The Parable of the Sower'.

It is tremendously impressive that the Lord Jesus makes this whole issue turn upon one thing. This immense issue of the two kingdoms, the two destinies, the two courses, the two kinds of people, turns upon this one thing of spiritual understanding. It is worth looking again at these verses which we have read:

"By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise UNDERSTAND... Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and UNDERSTAND with their heart... When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom and UNDERSTANDETH it not, then cometh the evil one... And he that was sown upon the good ground, this is he that heareth the word, and UNDERSTANDETH it... Have ye UNDERSTOOD all these things?"

Before we can go further, we must see that there are three realms to be recognized as realms of relationship between us and God.

First, there is the realm of the unsearchableness and inscrutability of God and His ways. He cannot be understood, He is past finding out, and altogether defeats the last attempts of the wisest of this world to explain Him. That is a true realm recognized in the Scriptures.

Then there is another realm in which we are called upon to obey and go on with the Lord in blind faith, and without any explanations from Him. Sometimes, we would say, He WILL not explain Himself. He just calls on us to go on believing Him without any kind of understanding or explanation. We know we have to go on, but that is all we do know. We do not know why we must take a certain course beyond that the Lord has said that we must. We have to wait. That is another realm that is clearly recognized in the word of God.

But there is a third realm - and these are not contradictory - and that is the realm of education and instruction unto spiritual intelligence, and understanding, and the Word of God makes a lot of that.

When this struck me as I was reading this parable, I was led off, and finally turned up my concordance. I was greatly impressed with the place that this word 'understanding' has! It occupies several columns, going right through the Bible, and there are many different connections. There is far too much for us even to glance at now, but how important and valuable understanding is! What a lot really does hang upon spiritual understanding and intelligence! How essential it is for the Lord's people, in a day of crisis and perplexity, difficulty and confusion, to have somewhere, by some means, spiritual understanding! It was a great thing in Israel's history that the men of Issachar had "understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chronicles 12:32). I am sure that strikes a chord in us! Oh, that there was such a capacity, such a faculty and such a ministry amongst us in these days of confusion and perplexity - that there were those who had "understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do"! It is saving in such times if there is that gift!

Think of those men on the Emmaus road. What a position and a state they were in! Their world had collapsed and everything had gone - until He opened their eyes and they understood the scriptures. A new world was recovered instantly, and a new hope and prospect were saved by spiritual understanding.

Oh, the tremendous value and importance of spiritual understanding! However, let us be quite clear as to what it is and what it is not.

Of course, it is not worldly wisdom and acute, natural, intellectual acumen. In this Gospel by Matthew the people who are most in evidence are the teachers and rulers of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees, the people who knew it all and gave the interpretation and explanation of everything. They are in the forefront of the scene on the stage here, but later Paul said about them that theirs was the wisdom of men, not the wisdom of God, "which none of the rulers of this world knoweth: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). It was the wisdom of this world that crucified the Son of God. So spiritual understanding is not that!

It is not that we have a great and wonderful religious tradition with all the oracles handed down to us, and we stand possessed of the great inheritance of religion. That is not spiritual understanding! It is quite evident that you can have all that and still go wrong. There was a man in the New Testament who said that he had everything along that line, and yet he was the most vehement antagonist of Jesus of Nazareth and all who were of that way. He pursued them unto distant cities, haled men and women to prison - yet he was a man with the largest tradition. So spiritual understanding is not that!

Further, it is not a wealth of truth and Christian teaching. Again, it is possible to have that and not have spiritual understanding.

What is it, then? To begin with, it is the combination of two things. First of all, it is the result of the direct action of the Spirit of God upon the spirit of man. By nature our spirit is in death, and the Spirit of God acts to raise it from the dead and bring it into life. And it is our spirit which is the organ of spiritual understanding. If we are normal we have a natural understanding, but by nature we do not possess this faculty, this organ of spiritual understanding. It is dead, or dormant, until the Spirit of God acts upon it, and than we are aware that we have a new faculty - a faculty of discrimination. We know from that moment, without being told anything about it, what we should do and what we should not do, what is right and what is wrong. It is a new faculty, but that faculty is indwelt and actuated by the Spirit of God, and is not acting independently. "The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16).

Therefore the combination of these two things, the resurrection into life of our own spirit and becoming indwelt by the Spirit of God, constitutes the organ and function of spiritual understanding. It begins in simple ways, but education in the Christian life proceeds upon that basis, and that alone.

There is a link formed by this action of the Holy Spirit between knowledge and conscience. Note that, for it is a very important thing. There is a link between knowledge and conscience, which is a new conscience or consciousness. That explains the tragedy of many Christian lives. They have a lot of knowledge without any conscience about it. It is not a knowledge which produces a consciousness of life, and so there is inconsistency and contradiction. They know the teaching, the doctrine, the truth and what the Word of God says, but there is no deep exercise in their hearts that gives them, on the one side, a bad time for any inconsistency and, on the other side, great joy in realizing that they are being well-pleasing unto the Lord. This link, you see, is what is meant by spiritual understanding. 'I KNOW that that is mere knowledge, information, or truth, but I UNDERSTAND when the thing affects me, when it touches my life, and when it brings me up short on matters.' That is spiritual understanding.

You see, in this chapter all those people received the Word. They received the ministry of the sower and the seed, but with three parts of them it came to nothing in the end. They had the word, they had the sower as much as anyone, and they had Christ. He was present, and they had the word of the Lord. All the potentialities of the Lord's presence, His work and His Word were with them and were there for everyone. It was not that He gave more lavishly to some than to others. They all had the same possibilities, but only a fourth part showed anything for it, and the Lord said: 'There is one reason only. The three classes failed in the end because they had no spiritual understanding. They had the word, the Lord and everything, but they might just as well have never had them for all the value that accrued. The one class showed a return, greater measures, because they had spiritual understanding.' What did it mean? Well, surely it just meant that these people laid the word to heart. They discerned and recognized something of the significance, the meaning, the importance and the destiny that were bound up with the word.

Dear friends, these are not the words, nor is this just teaching. The Lord Jesus was not just broadcasting ideas and saying: 'You can take it or leave it.' There is something here that is going to affect us in relation to the ultimate issue of the Kingdom of Heaven.

A seriousness of attitude is the beginning of understanding. It is put like this in the Old Testament: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). What is the fear of the Lord? It is taking Him and His word really seriously. Anything that comes from the Lord is of tremendous consequence, and that is the beginning of spiritual understanding.

Now look at the parable and you see what are the values of spiritual understanding.

Spiritual understanding means that that which comes from the Lord finds a place for itself in us. There is a receptivity in the heart. In the first scattering of the seed the birds of the air found it an easy prey because of lack of receptivity. It just stayed on the outside, on the surface, and did not enter in at all. And so it was stolen. Spiritual understanding means that we draw the word in, take it in and apply ourselves to it. There is a receptivity about us.

In the next place, spiritual understanding means an endurance of and through what the Lord gives. The life of the seed on the rocky ground was short, so the history of that bit of the work of God was very short-lived. There was no real endurance. Spiritual understanding is the basis and the means of the spiritual endurance of the work of God in our hearts and in our lives. That is very clear and, I think, very simple. It is so possible, as we know, to hear it all and, in a way, know it all. Then, when the real test is applied, things begin to get difficult, the sun rises with scorching heat, and we get into the fires, the adversities and the suffering, all our knowledge means nothing. All that we have heard and all that has come to us just stands for nothing, and our spiritual history goes. I am afraid that is how it is with many - there is no endurance through the scorching sun and the fires.

Then, what about this that fell among thorns? "And the thorns grew up, and choked them." Spiritual understanding has a wonderful power to set up in us a resistance to this world and its fires, but there was no resistance here. The thorns sprang up and choked the seed. They were not challenged and subdued. The Lord's explanation shows that there was no resistance because there was no spiritual understanding, no real spiritual apprehension.

Give me men and women, however simple according to the standards of this life, who have spiritual insight, spiritual discernment, spiritual judgment, spiritual sensitiveness and spiritual aliveness to the things of God! There is a wonderful resistance in those lives when other things come along with their appeal - the thorns, the cares and the pleasures which come along to spoil and overpower the work of God - and this resistance is because of spiritual understanding. You meet people like that, but you also see people driven away from the Lord by adversity or by prosperity. When you ask yourself why that is you have to say: 'Well, the root of the matter was evidently not in them. They had the things, but not the MEANING of them. They really did not understand where they were and what it all meant.'

Spiritual understanding means depth, and that brings us to the fourth class. Everything depends upon our having depth.

Oh, for more of this spiritual understanding that has these results! First a receptivity, which means that we embrace the truth. Then an endurance against all adversity and temptation. Then a resistance to everything that comes to us which is not true or right, and finally a depth that lays hold and reproduces.

Now, spiritual understanding is shown quite clearly in the Word to be essential to a sound beginning in the Christian life. Why is it that such a large proportion of those who seem to make a good beginning do not go on? They fall away and you cannot find them after a little while. Why? Because they did not have a beginning in understanding what all this is about, what it means, what it implies and what it involves. It was an appeal on the outside, perhaps a very powerful one and so they made their answer, but where are they after a little while? Spiritual understanding, says the Lord Jesus here, is the answer to that. Be very sure that your converts understand! Do not be satisfied with any light and superficial spiritual catch phrases, but seek to get them truly grounded in the Word of God and rooted in OBEDIENCE TO THAT WORD.

The unproductive soils, by their very contrast, illustrate for us the essentials of a spirit of understanding. The opposite of the hardened ground is the heart which is ready to receive with meekness the seed which is sown in it. Always the Lord requires of His children that they have a teachable spirit. Those who are self-assured and independent give little opportunity for the Word to do its cleansing and transforming work. So the first requisite for an understanding heart is simple dependence and a genuine humility, with a willingness to abandon one's own conceits in order to allow God to do His own work of correcting and reshaping according to His will.

Then there is the stony ground, the opposite of which is surely a heart softened and broken under the hand of God. This is not natural to any of us, for even the weakest nature can be strong and stubborn in its unwillingness to submit to the inward working of the Word. Even though the experience may be painful to the flesh, it is essential that our own strength and self-esteem should be set aside to make room for God. Without such experiences of being broken down and opened up by the working of the Cross it is not possible to become spiritually sensitive to the will of God.

Finally, it is essential to be single-minded if we are really to understand the ways of God. Whether the "thorns" be ugly or whether they be seemingly beautiful, if they are rivals to God's speaking then they must not be tolerated. Spiritual understanding means the ruthless setting aside of lesser things in order to make room for God. The man who is truly taught of God is the man who makes it his daily exercise and delight to give absolute priority to the hearing and obeying of the voice of God.

We need to pray that among the children of God there may be an increase of spiritual understanding in the knowledge of Him, and we need to remind ourselves that the essentials to such an understanding are humility, brokenness and singleness of heart.

From "A Witness and a Testimony" November-December 1971.

The Street of Pure Gold

"And he shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal,

proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,

in the midst of the street thereof" (Revelation 22:1-2)

Passing from the general description of the holy city in Revelation 21 the apostle John then said that he was shown it as consisting of one single and central street, with a river flowing down the centre of that street of pure gold. The spiritual significance of the vision is the perfect oneness of Christ as revealed in a beautiful unity in which He has the central place. This is God's masterpiece, this unity of the fellowship of the Spirit which makes Christ and His members one. By means of this city God plans to minister to the whole range of His universe. The nations are to walk in its light and to find health from the leaves of its tree of life. God purposes to minister blessing to His universe from the central position of the Church in which Christ is the central Figure.

If this is so, then we must believe that this element of oneness is a vital principle, and that even now the Lord is working to produce and maintain it. Although the final objective of God is future, it must surely cast its rays upon the present. When the glorious city comes suddenly into view it may seem to come 'out of the blue', but in fact it will only represent the final emergence of that which has been spiritually coming all the time. There is a sense in which each one of us is sending up in advance those spiritual values in Christ which are being developed in us. When we follow the simile of the bride, we think of the garments being prepared now, as some excellency, some beauty, some virtue of Christ is woven like a thread into the fabric of the bridal garments. We will 'put on' Christ then because we are learning to put Him on now. It seems that in a similar way, the material of the heavenly city is being prepared now. It is true that every part of it represents some aspect of Christ, but once again it should be realised that these expressions of Christ are to be formed in us now. The consummation will be seen later, but the city is being spiritually formed now.

What will be true ultimately concerning the eternal vocation of the Church as the metropolis of God's new universe, throws some light on what should be true here and now. In eternity God's glory is to be ministered on a basis of absolute unity. First of all this means oneness with the Lord Himself. The Church can fulfill God's eternal purpose only by oneness with the thoughts of God as expressed in His Son. It is not enough to contemplate a feature of divine unity as illustrated by the one single street and the life-giving river flowing down the middle of it; we need to ask ourselves what this implies for us here on earth. Surely the implication is that among God's people there should be that basic unity of the Spirit which makes possible a free-flowing ministry of life. There is no need to insist on a uniformity of language or procedure. Even where this exists in outward matters there can still be deep tensions of spirit and dividedness of heart. And even where people differ in unimportant matters there can still be that all-important unity of fellowship in Christ. It is this unity which is essential to the flow of the Spirit.

Satan himself lays emphasis on this point by his constant strategic movement against the power and value of any service for Christ by introducing divisions and seeking to perpetuate them. He does not mind talk about oneness; in some ways he does not so much object to doctrinal agreement of an external nature; but he is set positively and persistently against a deep-down inwrought oneness, for he knows the powerful impact of such a testimony. So the picture of the river flowing down the street is a challenge to us all. It is, of course, a challenge to the Church as a whole, since the unity of the Spirit is not sectional but all-embracing. It follows, though, that the practical impact of the challenge is felt at local levels and in the assemblies where we are found. Is the river flowing there? If not, is this lack due to basic disunity? Are there many streets, side avenues and private roads, instead of the King's highway?

The challenge finally confronts each individual, for the Lord Jesus promised that the result of a vital faith in Him would be the outflow of rivers of living water (John 7:38). So the initial unity must be that of our own personal relationship with Christ. Before we begin to consider our church, we need to examine our own lives and to ask if those around us are finding refreshment and life as the Spirit flows out from us to them. It is not enough to meditate on the beauty of the golden street with its crystal-clear river if we think of it only in terms of future prospects and not of present fulfilment. So while we gratefully enjoy John's prevision of eternal glory, we do well to ask what it should mean for us here and now.

John could say: "He showed me...". He was reporting what he had himself seen. But is it not relevant that each one of us, in reading and hearing the Word, should be able gratefully to affirm: "He showed me...". Just as John could hardly have conceived these heavenly wonders if the Lord had not first said to him: "Come, and I will show you...", so we cannot appreciate the spiritual significance of this matter until the Lord Himself has revealed it to us. We should be able to say in all humility, "He showed me...". But if this is true, if we really have received revelation, then what we have seen ought to have a tremendous practical effect upon our lives. How can I rightly claim to have seen this wonderful truth of spiritual fellowship if it does not find practical expression in my life? How can I talk about the holy city, the heavenly bride of the Lamb, without any outworking of the principles in me now? Surely the test of whether we have seen is to be found in what happens to us and in us. I do not believe that there can be an effective divine showing without there being some result. It is surely most perilous to accumulate teaching concerning holy truths, perhaps even to disseminate that teaching, while all the time there is a minimal outworking of them in our experience. The teaching can do more harm than good, for it can deceive people into imagining that they are in the good of things just because they are informed about them. We must always test our assumed knowledge by the practical effect which it can be shown to produce.

In the last chapter of the Bible, as in the first, the double emphasis is on the Spirit and on life. In Genesis we are told that the very first indication of divine activity was the brooding of the Spirit of God, and then followed ever new and ever more wonderful expressions of life. When we come to the last chapter of the Revelation we find the Spirit with the bride calling: "... he that is athirst let him come: he that will, let him take of the water of life freely". So again we have the Spirit and life. In a sense this is a key to the whole Bible. In the Old Testament the Spirit is symbolised in many ways, as water, fire, oil and so on, but always related in some way or other to the matter of life. In the New Testament this is much more clearly emphasised. The last book, the book of consummation, has the Spirit and life as its two most prominent features. It opens with John's statement that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and then seven times over in the letters to the churches, the call is for those who will listen to what the Spirit has to say in the churches. Running right alongside is the question of life. In the Spirit John saw and heard the Living One, the Lord Jesus, in terms of resurrection life. As the seven-fold fullness of the Spirit is referred to, we realise that His lamps of fire are directed to the churches in a quest for the one supreme experience which should be theirs, even the fullness of life. The real test of whether those believers were moving towards the Church's goal was, Are people meeting Christ through you? Is virtue flowing out to others, as it did from the garments of our Lord? Our very vocation here on earth is to be witnesses of His life and to minister that life to others around us. Individually and in our churches, we are meant to be life centres.

One of the churches was told: "... thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead..." (Revelation 3:1-3). Names are no use to the Lord. Whether the name sounds good, whether it is Scriptural, whether it has a long tradition; these are of no interest to the Lord and have no value in His sight unless His own life and love are flowing out through us. And there can be no doubt that this life expresses itself in oneness. If the Holy Spirit is really having His way among the Lord's people, they cannot be divided. In eternity there will be a golden street. Even now may His love so triumph in us, His people, that the river of life is freed to carry life to the thirsty souls around us!

From "Toward The Mark" Sep-Oct, 1975

The Time is Shortened

"But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both those that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it..." 1 Corinthians 7:29-31.

It is necessary that we should not misunderstand Paul's words, for he would never contradict himself. He who wrote: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church..." would never write anything that set aside or lessened the force of such a grand description of marriage relationship. Clearly he did not wish to minimise the importance of marriage; nor did he mean that weeping or rejoicing or other human activities should be obliterated; his remarks are set over against the existing situation in Corinth and they are introduced by the word 'But'. "But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened" (RV).

In his letter the apostle had been forced to deal with many unhappy features of current experience in the Corinthian church. There were so many inconsistencies, even contradictions, and so much which denied the Lord, that it was as though he became utterly wearied of it all and felt obliged to cry out in protest against using so much time and energy on the quibblings and carnality of God's people. He felt that he could not afford the time which he was having to give to the negative task of admonishing, correcting and remonstrating. He wanted to get busy with the positive matters of life in the Spirit, and groaned at the sheer waste of time produced by the internal conditions at Corinth.

For this man, who ever had his eyes on a wider horizon, there was still so much to be done. Paul was so aware of the tremendous forces at work against Christ and against His testimony that he felt that they were in an emergency situation. In his day there were signs of a great crisis in which Christian testimony might be curtailed; he sensed in the very atmosphere the tension which eventually brought him to martyrdom. Being conscious of the emergency state in which public witness, the work of the Lord, would be severely suppressed and the antagonistic forces would overflow the world in their attempt to destroy the testimony of Christ, he could not refrain from crying out about it to his brethren: "But... the time is short!". He wanted them to get clear of their internal problems and difficulties so that they could buy up all possible opportunities for Christ. We need to be freed from self-preoccupation, so that we can redeem what time there is, for at best it is all too short.

I suggest to you that in this connection the Scripture is very meaningful for us now. There are so many problems, questions, differences of opinion, personal clashes, but...! 'But' brothers and sisters, 'the time is short - too short to be wasted on things of secondary or third-rate importance.' Even marriage, the sorrows and joys of life, possessions, fashions, earthly interests - it is not that they are wrong but they provide a subtle snare to distract us from the real business of our Christian living. Nothing, from the inner circle of our domestic relationship to the widest circle of world events, must ever be allowed to interfere with our testimony for Christ. Those blessed with wives must not allow them so to fill their lives that the happy domestic circle becomes a preoccupation which absorbs all their time. There are some that weep, but they must not let their sorrow paralyse them with regard to the Lord's interests. There are those who can rightly rejoice, but they must watch that their delight does not subvert them, so that they give it priority and find themselves turned aside from their main concern which should have been for the glory of Christ. There is much in the world which can rightly interest. The Corinthians had already been told that "All things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world..." (1 Corinthians 3:22). But Paul also told them that they must not abuse this gift, not use it to the full, not let it be their prime concern. Brethren, the time is short, and we must not allow anything in any department of our lives to encroach upon the interests of the Lord.

This is the cry of a man looking back and knowing that for him time would not last much longer. Paul was always feeling the cold hand of the past reaching out to remind him of those wasted years which he so deeply regretted. He had spent such a valuable part of his early life in travelling along the wrong road, fighting against the Son of God; and he deplored those barren years. How much energy - and religious energy at that - had been utterly wasted! His soul was filled with sorrow about the failures, the lost opportunities of the past, and he was stirred to make sure that this should never happen again. He cried out in protest against the possibility of further shortening. Life is not as long as all this, that one can afford to have more failures, more lost time, more misspent energy. Life here on this earth is all too short. The man who looked back and grieved over those periods of his experience when his energies were bent on a course which brought no glory to his Lord, had to cry out in dismay at the prospect of still more waste.

It is also the cry of a man who was looking around, being made conscious of the overwhelming need which everywhere abounded. Paul was deeply distressed over the crying spiritual need of Christians who seemed so muddled and powerless, as well as over the appalling condition of men without Christ, multitudes who had no vital experience of the transforming power of the gospel. And time was passing so rapidly. The demands on every hand were so great that it seemed most culpable to give them anything less than full and undivided attention. So it is today. Only the gravely insensitive can fail to register the seriousness of the circumstances which surround us. The needs are so great and the important thing to remember is that our remaining time is very short, and so are our opportunities for doing the Lord's work. It seems that the Corinthians were so taken up with their own affairs that they failed to realise how spiritual opportunities and values were slipping from their grasp. Paul was aghast that this should be so. He was no passive spectator himself, no self-interested neutral, but a man who realised the supreme importance of working the works of God while it was still day. He cried out against the paralysing work of Satan among Christians and the great power of darkness in the world. "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving", he affirmed (2 Corinthians 4:4), and this darkening, blinding work of the devil forced him to warn his brothers that the time was drawing to an end.

His words were also the appeal of a man looking on into the future with eager expectation but who yet appreciated how much still remained to be done in these shortening days. His own course would soon be finished, and he felt that if he spent all the moments of all his days in utter devotion to Christ, it would still be woefully inadequate and he an unprofitable servant. The time was so short that he knew that at the end he would feel regretfully that if he could have his life all over again he would use it to so much better advantage. This might be a general and very natural emotion, but for Paul the important thing was to minimise it and be saved from unnecessary regrets at the end of his brief career. So it was that he urged his brothers at Corinth to join with him in making everything subservient to the one great consideration of the work of Christ.

Some of them were doubtless still young in years and therefore not so conscious of the swift approach of the end of earthly life, but the call to them was just as valid, for at best life passes all too quickly and the Spirit of God would surely impart to them something of His own urgency to buy up every opportunity for glorifying Christ. The Christians of those days lived in constant expectation of the return of the Lord Jesus in glory. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" they were told, the trumpet would sound for the termination of the gospel age (1 Corinthians 15:52). The Second Coming has not yet taken place, but to many of us it appears quite imminent, so that more than ever we need to take note of the fact that the time is shortened. It may well be that as we move rapidly towards that great day we shall find that there will be a closing in upon Christian testimony, with all kinds of new limitations being imposed on the servants of the Lord, and then Paul's 'But' will be even more relevant. It stands over against all the petty and unworthy preoccupations of Christians like those Corinthians who were inclined to fritter away the precious moments still remaining to them in unprofitable disputations and childish self-indulgence. Most of the matters raised in this letter would never have arisen if the believers had kept their priorities right and not forgotten how rapidly time is diminishing and eternity drawing near. The same applies - and even more so - to our own day and age. Brothers, there is no time to spare for the many unimportant and time-wasting differences and disputes which beset the Church of Christ and dissipate its energies. There is something far more important on hand. The Lord's interests demand that we have done with all that has no eternal value and get on with the real business of life, which is the bringing in of the kingdom and of the King.

From "Toward the Mark" May-June, 1974

When the Books Are Opened

Reading: Romans 16.

An outstanding feature of this chapter is that people are appreciated as people. The Letter itself is a masterpiece of spiritual instruction, Paul's supreme exposition of the infinite range of redemption. The more striking, then, that place should be given for the names of these simple people. Doctrines can be considered and held in a detached way, but what value is there in abstract truths if they are not expressed in terms of individual people?

When a person is led to trust in Christ he does not become one more cipher for statistics, but a live being who matters to God. The phrase "in Christ" is repeated eight times here, for this is the significance of the names listed, not what the people were in themselves but what was their spiritual measure in Christ. The apostle had no thoughts of social niceties or merely of paying compliments; what mattered to him was the degree in which these friends of his were counting for Christ. This, of course, presents a personal challenge to me. I wonder what Paul would have written against my name if I had lived then. If he had needed to write a salutation to me, what could he have said about the quality of my life "in Christ"?

Why was Paul so lovingly drawn out to these people? Perhaps because he could observe the fulfilment in them of the revelation given to him of the power of the gospel of Christ. It must have been refreshing to pass from his exposition of the theory of redemption to the living outworking of his doctrines. So it is that I ask myself what fruit there is in my own life from the volumes of teaching which I have been giving in my preaching. Are God's people being helped, are they being made better servants of Christ by reason of my labours? If not, then in my case all that Paul wrote and all I teach goes for nothing.

In Rome there was one of the churches that Paul had not yet visited, but even at this juncture there were a number of people there whom he knew personally and even intimately. This is more than a mere item of interest. It seems to indicate something of how in those days the gospel spread abroad and the churches were established. For one reason or another, for business purposes or by political compulsion, people had to move about the world, even as they do today. This may have been inconvenient and at times most unjust, but behind that movement there was the sovereignty of God, using everything for the speeding up of the work of the gospel.

This gives us encouragement, to know that once our lives are wholly given over to the Lord, His sovereignty will govern and over-rule all the ordinary affairs and circumstances of daily life and make them contribute to His purposes and glory. Because of the cruel decree of the Emperor Claudius, Aquila and Priscilla had to abandon their home and business and become displaced persons in Corinth, but the sequence of events and their commitment to Christ resulted in the honoured place which they have in this list which we are considering. Their case opens up to us a world within a world, a world of spiritual romance. No doubt as we pass from one of the names to another in this list, we would discover that there had been marvellous providential working of God in each case.

What is more, when we look more deeply into the chapter we find that the people here referred to not only had their lives overruled by God but were themselves intent on the Lord's business and ready to take responsibility for His interests. They were not just passengers, just people who happened to come and go, individuals in the crowd; they each got involved to the utmost in the affairs of the kingdom of Christ. Paul's comments and allusions make it clear that the gospel was furthered and the churches established because these men and women put the Lord's interests before everything else, in their work and in their journeys. They had the urge of the divine imperative. Like their Lord before them, their lives were not at the mercy of chance but characterised by the word "must", just as His was.

In the final book of the Bible we are told of the book of life being opened, but we are also informed that there are other records which relate to our personal histories: "the books were opened" (Revelation 20:12). May it be that these books represent God's evaluation of the lives of His children? If so, what will be the eternal verdict concerning my life? What will the books have to say of my response to the divine imperatives of grace in my life? Thank God that all my sins are blotted out by the wonder-working power of the blood of Christ, so that there can be no accusations against me. Of that we can all be certain. But I have to realise that although there is no mention of my faults, there will also be no record of any personal features or virtues which seem to assume so much importance to me now. No, what will be recorded for eternity will surely be that which has been true of me "in Christ". It is what is being enacted daily in my life and walk with God which will be written there, and that alone is what matters. What will history - God's history - say about me? What will be His verdict?

In the case of these people, it was Paul's own life which had been enriched by them, as he readily acknowledged. Phoebe had "succoured" him; Priscilla and Aquila had "laid down their necks" for him; Rufus's mother had been like a mother to him and Tertius wrote for him. None of these were apostles, yet by helping Paul they had contributed something, however small, to an apostolic ministry. They could not do it all, and neither for that matter could he, but the whole divine purpose was realised because each played their part, labouring in Christ and for Christ.

So the reading of this heartening list of Paul's friends challenges us as to how much our lives are counting for God as the days go by. We are led to believe that the apostle could not always give such cheerful comments on those whom he knew and worked with. There were unhappy exceptions, those who, like Demas, seem to have shrugged aside divine imperatives and taken their own course. They are not mentioned here. Paul writes appreciatively of each of those who in simplicity remained devoted to the Lord Jesus.

It is people who matter! Nobody is a nonentity in Christ. There is a place for each one of us in the divine record. And when the stories written in the books are disclosed, we will exclaim, as Paul does at the end of this chapter and this Letter to the Romans: "To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ... be glory for ever." Amen.

From "Toward the Mark" May-June 1988.