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The Controversy of Zion

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1956

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - The Controversy in the Realm of Christian Profession

Chapter 1

"For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, the year of recompense in the controversy of Zion" (Isaiah 34:8).

"For thus saith the Lord unto me, As the lion and the young lion growling over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him, will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so will the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof" (Isaiah 31:4, A.R.V.).

"A noise shall come even to the end of the earth for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations; he will enter into judgment with all flesh: as for the wicked, he will give them to the sword, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 25:31, A.R.V.).

"Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh: the Lord will have them in derision. Then will he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure: Yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will tell of the decree: The Lord said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel" (Psalm 2:1-9, A.R.V.).

I want us to consider the meaning of that little phrase "the controversy of Zion". We know that, in the Word, Zion and Jerusalem are often synonymous terms. If there is a difference, it is that Zion denotes the intrinsic values of all that Jerusalem is supposed to represent and contain. We recognise that difference and must keep it in mind. When we come to Zion, we are coming to the high peak, the ultimate significance of all that Jerusalem stands for.

Jerusalem the Storm Centre of the Nations

Speaking of Jerusalem, we know from history, from the Scripture, that Jerusalem has always been, and still remains, the storm centre of the ages. There is a little phrase in the Old Testament used of Jerusalem that she would be "a cup of reeling unto all peoples" (Zech. 12:2), and behind the phrase is a picture. It really sets forth a threshold, and on that threshold a cup full, and those who come to that threshold and drink of that cup stagger and reel, are thrown into confusion, and Jerusalem is said, in that picturesque way, to be like that to the nations. The nations coming against Jerusalem would find that on the very threshold they met something that threw them into confusion, completely upset all their calculations. She would be to the nations a cup of reeling. To the nations, yes, that is what Jerusalem truly has been and still is. They do not find that they can just play with Jerusalem, do as they like with Jerusalem. They meet something that is more than Jerusalem, something they cannot cope with.

Jerusalem a Sign to Israel Herself

And not only to the nations. Jerusalem has always been a decisive point to Israel herself, a kind of sign, a barometer, a tell-tale, representing the spiritual condition of Israel. If Jerusalem was in the ascendant, it was because the spiritual life of the people was in the ascendant. If Jerusalem was other than in the ascendant, that represented the spiritual life of Israel, its condition. Jerusalem was always indicating spiritual life, and Jerusalem's security and peace was always bound up with the spiritual condition of God's people. The condition of Jerusalem was always a spiritually controversial matter, whether to the nations or to Israel.

A Greater Controversy Over the Spiritual Jerusalem

If these things are true - and they lie right on the face of history - if they are true in relation to the earthly and temporal Jerusalem and people of God, they are even more true in relation to that of which the earthly is but a figure after all, what Paul calls "the Jerusalem that is above" (Gal. 4:26), and what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, whoever he was, speaks of when he says "ye are come unto mount Zion" (Heb. 12:22). It is that controversy over this superior and supreme Zion that is to hold our attention at this time. For there is undoubtedly an even greater controversy over what is meant by the spiritual and heavenly Zion than has raged over the earthly. This is the very thing to which Paul himself refers in his letter to the Ephesians, when he speaks about 'our wrestling being with principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness, and hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies' (Eph. 6:12). That follows straight on from his presentation of the Church, the Body of Christ, and this is only another way of saying that there is a tremendous controversy in heaven over this thing. This is the occasion of cosmic upheavals and uprisings and disturbances, something of a furious character going on in the unseen, directly and immediately related to this, the Church, the Jerusalem which is above, the Zion of God.

It is to this same thing that Peter referred when he said, quoting from Isaiah, "It is contained in scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: ...A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence" (1 Pet. 2:6,8), something that immediately raises a controversy, throws things into the realm of conflict and dispute.

Again, it is to this very thing that John refers in the Revelation, when he sees that multitude who have "come out of the great tribulation, and... washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7:14) - the victorious host over all the forces of evil; and then he says later: "And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on the mount Zion" (Rev. 14:1). This is a presentation of the tremendous conflict that circles round this that is called Zion.

Jerusalem A Sign of the Times

Yes, and just as Jerusalem, or, if you will, Zion, is a sign of the times in the temporal and earthly and historical realm, so it is in the spiritual. I am not launching into prophecy, but the earthly Jerusalem has always been a sign of the times, and still is. It has come to be almost commonplace to say: 'Watch Jerusalem, and you will know the time of day; watch Jerusalem, and you will know where you are in the dispensation'. A sign of the times. Why? Because God is acting in this whole world in a related way. Watch, and you see the movement of nations, the movement of policies; you see things shaping, forming, moving in the whole world. God is moving and acting worldwide in a related way, and acting in the earthly history in relation to Jerusalem. It is very significant. A sign of the times so far as the world is concerned, a sign of the times so far as the nations are concerned; God moving.

This is something that we should lay hold of, in days when everything seems to be in the melting pot, everything seems to be in tumult and disturbance. We should remember that God is not only the God of Christians, He is the Lord of all creation, of heaven and earth, and that all the nations are as a drop in a bucket with Him. They are in His hand, and He is manipulating the course of history and the movement of nations; all these things that are happening are not just wild, lawless, run-amok events in the world. They are all governed from heaven relatedly, every one of them. There is no political movement that is not under heaven's government just now, in a related way, concerning something, and all the nations are like that with the Lord. It is all indicative of God's object, God's interest. It is a sign of the times, it is a sign of spiritual conditions; for God is not only acting in that kind of chronological way, working coldly, mechanically, to a programme and timetable; He is moving upon a spiritual basis; it is all connected with spiritual conditions, and spiritual conditions are all related to it.

Now, having said that, we arrive at this, that it is made clear in the Word of God - and we will not spend time in dividing between the temporal and the spiritual - that 'Zion' will be the occasion of the supreme and final conflict in the history of this world, this present world order. Zion - if you like, Jerusalem - will be the scene and the occasion of the final consummate conflict of the ages of this world. It will be upon Zion that everything is focused.

Zion a Representation of Spiritual Things

Now, let us keep to our side of this matter. What does Zion symbolize? Let us say it again, as we have said it before: Zion, the earthly, the literal, the material, the temporal, is, after all, at most a symbol, a representation, of spiritual things. Those spiritual things can be detected in the material, for God's material things always contain the elements of His spiritual, and Zion therefore symbolizes a full heavenly and spiritual testimony to Christ in the significance of His Person, and the value of His work, and finally to His God-determined destiny. Now that is a big statement. If you could break that up and grasp it, you could comprehend the whole history of the earthly Zion, Jerusalem, and understand what that is all about. It is true, in its realm, of the earthly: for there in Zion, when Zion was as God intended it to be, you had a full, heavenly, spiritual representation or embodiment of God's mind concerning His king and His reign, and the basis of it was always the altar and always the sanctuary. There are your elements. We are not going to follow those too closely, we have so much on hand.

But let us transfer that in its spiritual meaning to this Zion to which we are come. What is Zion, then, for us? The Zion to which we "are come", this "Jerusalem that is above", nay, this Jerusalem of which we are citizens, this Jerusalem which has no existence apart from the people of God themselves, who are the Jerusalem of God; what is it? It is this: a full, a heavenly, a spiritual representation, embodiment, expression of Christ in the significance of His Person in God's universe; the full, heavenly value of His work (that, of course, means the work of redemption by His Cross); and the full declaration of the place that God has eternally destined that He should occupy. That is the testimony of Zion. It is no small thing, because any one of those three things could occupy the Christian for a whole lifetime and more. The significance of the Person of Christ in God's universe - can you range that, can you fathom that, can you exhaust that? The value of His work by His Cross - have you ever plumbed that? The eternally predestined place that He shall occupy in God's universe - can we comprehend that? Put those three things together, and they constitute the testimony of Zion, and no wonder there is a controversy, and no wonder that the controversy is as great as it is. You are not surprised, are you? This is no little campaign, no little battle, no little fight. This is ultimate, this is all-inclusive. But let us go on.

This conflict and controversy has three aspects. One, as to the nations; two, as to the realm of Christian profession; three, as to the ministry of the testimony of Zion.

(1) The Controversy with the Nations

The controversy has to do, in the first place, with the nations. We have already stated that in general terms, but we will look at it more closely. I am keeping to the Scriptures; I am not outside of the Scriptures, although I am not quoting every chapter and verse. The convulsions, the upheavals, the conflicts, the unrest, the frustrations in national and international affairs, are all related to this testimony of Zion. That is saying a tremendous thing. It means, in other words, that they are all related to the inheritance of God's Christ. The nations are related. We read in Psalm 2: "Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession". That follows upon: "I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion". So that all that is happening in the nations, between them and amongst them, is connected with this whole matter of Zion's testimony as to the inheritance of God's Christ, and of course the inheritance of the saints with Him.

We have some very striking and forceful illustrations of this kind of thing in the Bible. We are all so very familiar with the controversy with Egypt and with Pharaoh and with the gods of the Egyptians. What a terrific conflict that was! How long-drawn-out, how thorough, moving with steadily growing momentum and force, working itself down ever deeper, exhausting all the opposition - but what a conflict! The whole cosmic realm was involved, natural phenomena, the sun, heaven, blackness, darkness; all nature was in convulsion. Everything was gathered into this controversy with Egypt, with Pharaoh. What was it all about? Something that God had in the nation; that is all. Something that belonged to God, something that in the sovereignty of God was chosen to be the vessel of His testimony in the earth. And so the nation, this mighty kingdom of Egypt, is thrown into convulsions, and all nature is thrown into convulsions, over this one thing at the heart of the nation.

Then consider Babylon. True, the people have failed the Lord and have been sent away into Babylon, but the Lord has not forsaken, and the Lord has not given up, and the Lord has not abandoned His testimony. So - what do we read? Well, let us look at it in Isaiah 63:14,15: "Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King". "I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them" - the margin says "all their nobles" - "I will bring down all of them as fugitives", "for your sake". Do you know what happened in Babylon? It is a wonderful story. It just looks like the pageantry of world empires, one following another. But no; God says, 'I have brought all this about'. We cannot take time now to go over the story of the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire - the onward march of Cyrus, the approach to the doors; when they were all inside, off their guard, in revelry, that night Belshazzar was slain. The doors were found unfastened and unguarded, and in came the next empire. The Lord's word about this is: "For your sake I have sent to Babylon". All this, the overthrow of empires - and the Babylonian Empire was one of the greatest in the history of this world - what is it for? Because of a people right in the midst. All this is focused upon some deposit of God in the nations. The controversy is with the nations over some object, and that object is this Zion.

And if that was true of the historical and earthly, it is even more true of the spiritual and heavenly. God has a deposit in the nations, and we are told that He has visited to take out of "the nations a people for His Name" (Acts 15:14). He has got in the nations a people for His Name, and the things that are happening in the nations, though we may not be able to detect and follow and define, are happening in a related way. Just as the nations will vomit out the Jews and be glad to get rid of them, as did Egypt, so a true people of God in the earth will make this world sick, so that the world will want to get rid of them, and the sovereignty of God will make the very attitude of antagonism and hatred and expulsion His own way of securing His people. He is working in the nations. It is a tremendous thing to recognise this. "For your sake". Our point is that, just as the nations are being dealt with, or have been dealt with, in relation to Israel of old, so the world is being dealt with in relation to this Church that is in the "field" (Matt. 13:44).

In Matthew 24 we have some of those signs of the end of the age given to us - wars, rumours of wars. Now you may say, as some do, 'Well, there always have been wars and always will be wars. What is the difference between those of Matthew 24 and the others?' Well, to begin with, have you counted the number of wars in recent years? There have been more wars in recent years than in any previous time in the history of this world; we are never out of war, whether it be hot war or cold war. I am not going to dwell upon those signs, and the signs in the heavens. But what is the statement here? The Lord said: But all these things are the beginning of travail (birthpangs) (Matt. 24:8). Have you grasped that? - "the beginning of birthpangs". We are far advanced beyond the beginnings, I think, in this matter. But be that as it may, birthpangs. Then something has to be born. That is how the Lord viewed this whole situation, this upheaval, in the nations, this tumult, this unrest, this frustration - for you know that is the word that is really so a propos of the situation. When He said "distress of nations, in perplexity" (Luke 21:25), the Greek words employed by Luke suggest a picture of a trade, a business, which has no way out. It is a business that has become shut up.

But then the Lord says, 'When you see this state of things, the nations having no way out...' Is that not true? 'No way out'. They are trying all the time to find a way out - a way round this situation, a way out of this dilemma, this predicament - and they cannot find it. All their expedients and policies and diplomacies are failing; they are having to make compromises all the way round, and none of their compromises gives them a way out. Then the Lord says: "When these things begin to come to pass... lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28). 'Your way out cometh'. We know the way out. That, however, is only said in order to emphasize this, that this is the beginning of travail, of birth-pangs; something is emerging, is going to have a way out. That which has been locked up in the nations is going up. The Church is the only Body that has a way out.

But that is so much in keeping with what Paul says in his letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verses 19 to 22. "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now", as it "waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God". Yes, there is travail and groaning in the creation. We can hear it with our spiritual ears.

Let us proceed. There has to be a testimony in the nations upon which God can work, which justifies His judgment of the nations, which gives significance to His government of the nations and of the world. There must be a testimony in the nations, and such a testimony as will provoke God to jealousy. We have so often quoted in this connection the words of the prophet: "I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath" (Zech. 8:2), and that is connected in the prophecies with this. The Lord has a controversy with the nations; He is jealous over something; something is there that is very precious to Him, and very important. He must have a testimony like that; and when He has got it, His sovereignty comes into operation in all sorts of ways in relation to it. He may work on the long, patient line, but 'His mills', while 'grinding slowly', are 'grinding very small':

"Though with patience He stands waiting,

With exactness grinds He all".

It is all related to that which is in the earth. There is something in this earth, in this world, which is a disturbing factor. It has set up inflammation. That is true wherever the true Christian goes. You get an adequate testimony, and you see the inflammation, the conflict, that is set up. There is something there. You do not have to try to make trouble, you have nothing whatever to do to precipitate it. It is spontaneous, it happens. You may be the meekest, and the mildest, and the quietest person on God's earth; but if Christ is vital in you, or in a company of such, you will find that your very presence provokes something, and that provocation has the direction of - "We must get rid of this; it is foreign to us, it does not belong to us, it is something that is not of our constitution; we must get it out of our connection.' That is the world's attitude. That is the attitude of the Devil and his kingdom. There is something provocative in this earth, something disturbing.

That is all we can say about the relationship of Zion to the nations. I trust you see more than I have said, as to the significance of God having an adequate testimony in this world, and what a tremendous thing it is.

Chapter 2 - The Controversy in the Realm of Christian Profession

(a) Personal Interests

Next we must consider Zion, and the testimony of Zion, in relation to the realm of Christian profession and tradition - that realm in which, with the name of Christian or of Christ, the natural soul has its kingdom. It is a terrible thing to say, but it is true, that right there, with the Christian title, there is that which is after all only the kingdom of the soul of man, the natural life. You find - we say it with grief - that there is correspondence, in principle, even there in the realm of Christian profession, to all that you have in the world. All the same elements are active, commercially and socially. Whence come jealousies, rivalries, ambitions, personal interests? You find them all rife and in riot in a certain realm called Christian. They do not come from God, they do not come from the Spirit of God, they do not come from heaven.

Yes, there are rivalries in Christianity, in Christian work, in Christian interests; jealousies for Christian things; personal interests to bring men into position, into reputation, into influence. You touch them, and you meet something - a kickback. Christianity is a sphere of many selfish, natural, personal ambitions. Men sport themselves in the realm of Christianity, to get advancement, to gratify their own natural desires. One grieves to say that, but it is a fact. We know it so well. That is one aspect of the realm of Christian profession. The 'eyes as a flame of fire' see through it; they know all about it.

(b) Zeal Without Knowledge

Another aspect is that it is a realm of 'zeal without knowledge', and that is a terrible realm, a terrible kind of thing. "Zeal... but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10:2): a kind of shadow land where men are seen "as trees walking" - that is, there is something indistinct in spiritual apprehension, there is no power or capacity or faculty for discriminating between what is spiritual Christianity and what is 'soulical' Christianity; things are all mixed up and confused. In so much that is going on, you cannot draw even a thin line between man's soul and its ambitions and its activities and its heats, and what is really purely of the Spirit of God. It is all so mixed up; there seems to be no ability to discriminate or discern between the two. Therefore many innocent people are carried away by the semblance of things, thinking that it is something quite good and quite right. But everything is indistinct, confused, with very limited revelation.

This was the kind of thing with which Paul had to do in Judaism: a confusion of the old covenant with the new, an attempt to mix them up and make a Jewish Christianity, making one thing of Judaism and Christianity; Judaizing Christianity and Christianizing Judaism, leaving no gap between and no difference. Paul was up against that. No, these two things belong to two different realms and kingdoms altogether. One belongs to the realm of the soul, and the other belongs to the realm of the Spirit, and there is a cleavage to be made between these, a discrimination, a cutting through.

Much is being fought for that is believed to be the truth - and yet after all it is only a legalistic interpretation of the truth. There is so much failure and so much inability to grasp the meaning of the truth. Need I point out that there is a vast difference between the statement of a truth in Scripture, and God's meaning in that statement? If you are not able to discriminate between these two things, you will be in constant confusion.

That is just what we find. Here is the letter, but what did God mean by that? If you cannot discriminate, you can take that letter to support a thousand different opposing things; you can take any bit of Scripture and use it to support something that is entirely in conflict with another thing based upon the same Scripture. It needs the Holy Spirit's enlightenment, interpretation, witness and government, to bring us to the truth of the Word.

Now, God has a controversy with that sort of thing. For His true testimony, He will have a controversy with what is called Christianity as surely as He had with Judaism. He will indeed, and very likely it will rage in greater intensity in that realm than in any other. I cannot follow that further, but this is a matter about which the Lord has very real concern. Zion represents, amongst all the other things which it represents, the transparent light of heaven. Zion's light - "thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (Is. 60:1) - is absolute transparency, clear seeing of issues, clear discrimination. That is what Paul meant when he spoke about discerning the things that differ (Phil. 1:10). As you know, he was speaking about, not the wrong and the right, but the good and the best. Zion represents the best; God will not be satisfied with anything less than His full and ultimate testimony.

(3) The Controversy as to the Ministry of Zion

Now we come to the third application or realm of the controversy - that as to the ministry of Zion. Of course, this includes the two that we have already considered - the conflict with the nations, and the conflict with tradition and formal Christianity - but when it comes to the ministry of Zion it becomes very much more inward. This controversy rests upon some things that we may seek to understand. The ministry of Zion is a greatly disputed thing. The ministry of Zion is something around which the battle circles more hotly, perhaps, than it does around any other issue. This whole matter of ministry in relation to God's full purpose - what a battle! Paul knew something about this. How he besought believers that they would pray earnestly that he might be given utterance to open his mouth to speak the mystery (Eph. 6:19), that a door might be opened to him to speak the mystery (Col. 4:3). This is not something about which you can get up an address, and go out willy-nilly and begin to give it out. If it is rightly constituted, it is fraught with the most terrific conflict. This ministry, if it is the true ministry of Zion, first of all rests upon, and is constituted by, the sovereign apprehending of a vessel for it.

(a) Sovereign Apprehension

Of course, that is so true of the historical Zion, God's sovereign choosing of Zion. It is there in the Scripture declared and made clear very positively. It was a sovereign act of God that chose Zion. But Zion is a vessel, a symbolic vessel; and a vessel for this specific ministry - the fulness of the significance of Christ and His work and His place in God's universe - is something sovereignly apprehended by God, raised up by God. When I say 'sovereignly', I mean that there is no explanation for it other than that this is of God. You cannot account for it in any way whatever but by the Lord. Touch it, you meet the Lord. Be amongst it, you meet the Lord. Somehow or other, the Lord is responsible for this. Whether it be collective or individual, it is something sovereignly raised up by God.

You have no choice in this matter of ministry. You cannot do this by choice, you cannot aspire to it, you cannot walk into it, you cannot put your hand upon it. You cannot just 'take up' this ministry. Oh, it is such a sifting and discriminating thing. Many people like it; they like the ideas, and they think they are going to propagate those ideas, to take up this thing and make it theirs; but it just does not do. Either they get into confusion or other people do. Something happens that it does not work out. You have a caricature, you have a contradiction, you have the absence of the vital thing. It is something that you cannot, just like that, take up at your own will. If God Himself has not apprehended you for that purpose - He may have apprehended you for something else - then it is no use; keep out of it. It is something out of the sovereignty of God.

How many things that touches! It amounts to this, that the question of such a testimony is a matter of life and death with us; nothing less of an issue than that. It is not something we can take up and drop. It is not something that we can come into, and then not like it, and be offended and draw out. It is a matter of life and death: I am there because my very life is found in my being there, and it would be committing spiritual suicide for me to drop out. That is very utter. I am not saying that God's sovereignty operates only in this ministry or that ministry of utter fulness of Christ. It operates in other ways. But I am saying, as to the testimony of Zion: first of all, it is something right out of the sovereignty of God, and man has no place in it other than that of faith and obedience. Man has no proprietary interest in this, no possessive place, no controlling place in this. It is the Lord, wholly, utterly the Lord, and if it should cease to be that, everything goes. Man just cannot carry that on. He can carry on the framework, but he cannot carry that ministry on. He can still have the tabernacle in Shiloh, but the glory has departed. It is the Lord. That is a very solemn, very searching word.

This ministry of Zion is constituted, then, by a sovereign apprehending of God.

(b) God's Sovereign Government Behind the Vessel's History

Then, in the second place, there is a sovereign government of God behind the history of the vessel. Of course, that needs explaining. It can be illustrated. When the Apostle Paul said, 'It pleased God, who separated me from my birth, to reveal his Son in me' (Gal. 1:15,16), he touched this very point. 'From my birth'. 'My birth, was into a Jewish family, my birth was utterly, one hundred percent Jewish; but right there, while I was like that, in a most complete and utter Jewish setting - birth, blood, training, education; while all that heat of antagonism to Christ was still in my blood, although it had not come out until it was provoked; while my hatred of the Gentiles, whom I called the 'dogs', was in my constitution - God had already separated me to be the messenger of Christ to those very Gentiles, to have all that heat in my blood against His Son quenched - or rather, to have a new fire kindled in love for that Son'.

The point is this, that right behind that man's earthly history was the sovereignty of God, foreseeing him, foreknowing him, forechoosing him, and arranging everything in line with his ultimate calling and the purpose of his life. It is difficult to believe that it is like that, and yet when God has a vessel for a purpose in view, it is no afterthought. It does not just arise, at some point in time. God has foreseen it, known all about it, and worked in relation to it, and its very birth and environment are under His sovereignty to some good purpose in relation to ultimate meaning. We may have to live a long time before we discover what that is.

Let me put it this way. We have to get right into line with God's purpose and God's thought, before we are able to see that our very birth and constitution and environment have had a definite relationship to the thing to which we are called. If you cannot understand and grasp that, do not worry about it; but it is a fact. It is the sovereignty of God, lying behind our earthly experience and history, in relation to purpose, that constitutes this vessel.

(c) A Deep Work in the Vessel

And then, in the third place, this ministry of Zion is constituted by a deep and drastic work in the vessel. This is not something that we can take up apart from something that has been done in us - that God is doing in us: the undoing of us, the taking of us to pieces, the stripping of us, the emptying of us, the bringing of us to zero and starting from there all over again with us. That is the sort of thing that is connected with Zion and Zion's ministry.

Do not make any mistake about it. This ministry, the ministry of which we are speaking, the ministry of Zion, is something utterly different in its nature and its realm from all other ministries. It is possible to look on and admire. It is possible to walk in and out, or sit down inside, and to appreciate the truths and agree with the ideas, and to recognise something of the values, and to desire the benefits, and to seek to participate. It is possible that all that may be so - and then that there should be a great dividing 'but'. With all the agreement and admiration and recognition and desire, there may yet be lacking the constitution of Zion. The constitution of Zion is - what? That God has broken clean through all natural faculties and abilities for understanding, and, by revelation, has planted right deep down in the centre of the being a knowledge of a spiritual kind which is different from natural knowledge. It is not taking up the phraseology and the ideas, and all that sort of thing, and appreciating and valuing and agreeing, and then going and repeating. It is something that has been done inside, and the thing has come by revelation of the Holy Ghost.

That is the ministry of Zion; and I say - that discriminates, that divides. And it is because things are like that that you have so much conflict. You find the conflict in the very realm of that ministry. It arises there. It arises in the realm where people, while they agree, they accept and they repeat and they look and they want, and so on, yet they are not constituted. Violent conflict arises in that realm. If you only take the matter of ministry itself - I mean public ministry - you find it is the most controversial point in all Christianity. More trouble has arisen over platform ministry than over anything else. But in Zion no one has a right to minister, no one has a qualification for ministry, who cannot quite easily sit back and do no ministry at all if the Lord wants it. It ought to be just as easy for a minister of Zion to take a back seat, and wait for the Lord and watch for the Lord, as it is for the natural soul to want to be on that platform.

What I am saying may have application to a very limited company, but I focus upon this matter of ministry, the ministry of Zion. It is of a quality, of a kind, of a constitution that is not studied, that is not the result of going to books and extracting the truths, of observing and hearing, and then reproducing. It is something inwrought. But oh, how the devil rages over a ministry of that kind - because it is going to do something, it is going to touch God's ultimate purpose, and if he can he will destroy it and destroy the vessels of it. He will stop at nothing to bring an end to that kind of ministry. It is true. Here the "controversy of Zion" rages. It rages over the ministry of Zion.

You see, the whole point of the controversy and the conflict is its reality, its essence, its essential value; the very life of it, the very power of it, the very distinctiveness of it: for if Satan focuses upon one aspect of such a testimony more than another, it is to destroy its distinctiveness, in some way to get it drawn out into a generalisation, conform it to a recognised system, take away that distinguishing definiteness; and it is a terrific battle all the way along to keep the testimony clear, distinct, unmixed. You may not know all that I am saying, but it is quite true. It is something in a different realm from mere mental apprehension. You can have the same truths by study, but there is a difference between that and having them by revelation of the Holy Ghost.

(d) Spiritual Discernment

I close upon what I regard as one of the most important factors in the testimony of Zion, and that is spiritual discernment. This is the greatest gift that God gives to His Church. It is impossible to overrate the value of people of spiritual discernment, who see the differences, the fine differences; who 'register'; who read right through the semblance to the reality; who sense, perhaps - 'Yes, that is all according to the book, but there is something lacking'; or, on the other hand - 'Ah, they have not got that by reading, by studying; they have come to that through something the Lord has done in them.' That capacity for discernment is of the greatest value to such a testimony. Oh, for more men and women of that discernment, able to discriminate - not to criticize by their discrimination, not using their discernment in order to denounce, but able to guide and help because they know the Lord has done something. They have not built up a standard from which they judge, but God has done something in them, so that they recognise where God has done something in others, and at the same time register a sense of hurt and grief where they only meet with an imitation.

The Lord give us such understanding!