Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

God’s Glory Is Reached Through Adversity

But another thing that we have got to recognize in that very connection is that God’s glory is usually reached along the line of adversity. Now you take up the Book of the Acts, what do you call this book? Well, you can call it by different names, “The Acts of the Apostles, The Acts of the Holy Spirit,” or simply “The Acts.” However, I wonder if you have ever heard it called, “The Book of the Glory of God, The Glory of Christ?” It does not always look like that, but let us look at it again, from that very standpoint. We have said that it begins with the Church being born in glory. There is no doubt about it, the day of Pentecost was a day of glory, and heaven came down. The Spirit of Glory descended and it was a state of glory, a state of joy, a state of life, a state of new hope and prospect. It was a day that Peter could say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). That was the very atmosphere and nature of the day of Pentecost: “Begotten again unto a living hope” after that terrible despair just a few days before; now it was a day of glory.

But let us pursue the course of the glory through the Book of the Acts. It will not be long before we arrive at the terrible story of the martyrdom of Stephen, the hatred, the malice, the wrath, the wickedness, the evil, against Christ, against this “Way” as they called it, venting itself, blazing out against this young man Stephen, ending in the dragging of him outside of the city and stoning him to death (Acts 7:59). You say, ‘tragedy, defeat, reverse, set-back.’ Ask Stephen who said: “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). “And all beholding him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). It was glory, and glory so real and so terrible that the chief witness against him—Saul, who became Paul—and supporter of his death was smitten to the heart, stirred to the depths of his being and forced to redoubt his antagonism to save himself, to save his own conscience.

However, out of Stephen came Paul. Is this despair? Is this defeat? God is very ingenious: the Lord Jesus, if I may use the word of Him, is very clever. Let men and devil, earth and hell combine against the Christ of God, the glorified Christ. How does it work out? Do not be too quick, too soon in drawing your conclusions and passing your verdict. Look to the end. We are dwelling in this letter to the Ephesians, the most wonderful document that has ever been penned by man. It came out of Stephen’s death, Stephen’s martyrdom. You see, that is the kind of thing that glory does. And if you think that still needs strengthening, well, all right, pass on to the next confrontation.

Herod seized James and executed him. This seemed to be a terrible set-back, a terrible set-back. My, the devil has done something now, successful and triumphant; he has struck at this apostolic company, and slain one of its members (Acts 12:1–2). But Herod is up against the Glory. And before you end the chapter in which his act against the Lord of Glory is recorded, Herod himself is smitten and eaten of worms, and the next thing in the next verse is, “But the word of God grew and multiplied” (Acts 12:21–24). See the reaction of the Glory? This is glory is it not?!

You can see how the glory comes along the line of adversity, and it is only along that line that you really do know what the glory is. Well, Herod thought that it was a good thing he had done when he smote James, because it pleased the Jews; and so he seized Peter, and put Peter in prison. Now, if Peter goes, this is going to be something tremendous. Well, he takes all the precautions that a man in his position could take to secure Peter. Oh, he throws him, or has him thrown into the inner dungeon, his feet made fast in the stocks, and four quaternions of soldiers to guard the prison. It seems as though there is no hope for Peter so far as hell and men are concerned, but what does the Glory say? The Lord of Glory is interested in this matter, and He simply says to the whole thing, ‘Oh no, oh no, not a bit of it!’ The angel of the Lord, as you know, visits Peter, and his chains fell off. He was bidden to gird his garment about him, and told to follow, and the iron gates opened (Acts 12:7–10). What has happened to the four quaternions of guards? They are hardly mentioned, they are as though they did not exist, and out comes Peter.

Now here is something very strong on the part of the evil powers against the Lord of Glory, and how simply the Lord of Glory answers it, for “prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.” The Church was tremendously stirred and concerned that night, giving itself to prayer in a stretched out way before God. The word says that “prayer was continually and earnestly being directed by the Church to God concerning him. The word ceasing means: “stretched out.” The Church was fervently praying by the taking of this matter so seriously. The Lord of Glory moves in and solves the big problem so simply. Infinite power can work in such a simple way, as shown in Peter’s deliverance from the evil powers.

And next, in the Book of the Acts, Saul of Tarsus in his rage, he calls it rage himself, a choleric anger, wrath, hatred, like a boiling caldron overflowing against those of “this Way” (Acts 9:2; 18:25,26; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22). Saul of Tarsus goes to the High Priest and says that, ‘If you will give me documents of authority, I will go to the farthest city and I will have arrested all who are of this Way. I will bring them to prison and judgment and, if needs be, to death,’ And he obtains the documents, the parchments of authority, the warrants of arrest, and starts out on his way to the distant city of Damascus, where he knows there is a company of these people of “the Way.” Saul, “breathing out threatenings and slaughters,” went to Damascus; and the Lord of Glory stepped across his path. And the Glory smote him to the ground. (Acts 9:4). Forever afterward, this man Paul, knew the meaning of the glory and could speak about it so fully.

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 Again, the point is that the glory comes along the lines of tribulation, suffering, and sometimes apparent defeat; that is, the apparent success of the devil himself and his emissaries. Sometimes it just does look as though Satan has done it. Now, he has succeeded, but that is not the end of the story. And so you go with this man Paul from place to place, go with him to all these cities which he visited and see what happens. He later said that the Holy Spirit had witnessed to him that in every place bonds and afflictions awaited him. How true it was. We cannot follow his course, but we call to mind Lystra and such places, and pick out Philippi. Philippi—he went, and the reaction of the evil forces of Satan found Paul silenced in the prison, again fast in chains, backs bleeding from their thrashings. Surely Satan has won now, gained the day now, surely this is reverse and defeat. But we know the story now, the Lord of Glory had an interest in this matter, and when it is necessary, the Lord of Glory can create an earthquake and shake a prison to its foundations and loose all prisoners and save the jailor and his household and establish the Church in Philippi, to whom the Apostle Paul will later write, “My beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown...” (Phil. 4:1). He would say “crown of glory,” and remember how it started, the way along which it came. He referred to this when he said to the Thessalonians, “We had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi...” (1 Thess. 2:1–2). “How shamefully,” he says, “How shamefully I was treated in Philippi.” It was through shame, suffering adversity, that the glory came.

Now I do not know where to end all this on the riches of His glory. The whole of the New Testament has now sprung into life for us. Do we see the point? The Apostle John has a lot to say to us about this glory in his gospel right at the very beginning. There is the marriage of Cana in Galilee and the failure of the wine. This shows forth an end of all human resources where man can do nothing. Then comes in the Lord of Glory, and it says, “This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and showed forth His glory” (John 2:11). Glory is seen where man’s resources end, where humanly the situation is quite hopeless. That is the pathway of the glory. And then Lazarus: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified” (John 11:4). And to the poor, baffled sisters, “Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” (John 11:40). But the necessity for the manifestation of the glory was the utter end of all human hope, where there is perfect helplessness on the part of man, then the glory comes in.

I wish we could believe it, and always believe it, when things are so utterly hopeless, when it is quite impossible for us to do anything at all, we have to take our hands off and stand back and say, “Only the Lord God Almighty can handle this situation.” May that not be the way of the glory?! I wish we really could believe it. If only we could always believe that these situations—which seem to be so often the work of the devil with his complete triumph—are only the pathway of the glory, that in the end when the full story is told, it will not be all tragedy, all defeat, but the end will be glory through grace.

[Shammu]

What Is The Pathway Of The Glory?

Satan was determined to bring Paul’s ministry to an end by bringing that man to an end. Over this wide area in Asia, things moved toward that in churches. The churches, which owed their existence instrumentally to this man, and owed all that they had spiritually to him and to the Lord, had turned against him. In 2 Timothy, chapter one, at verse 15 he says, “All they which are in Asia be turned from me.” False brethren betrayed him. And what an accumulation of evil things gathered and focused upon that prison in Rome, all saying with their own meaning: Limitation, curtailment, shortening of tenure, of influence and life. That is the natural, satanic situation very imperfectly described and set out.

On the human side, if looked at just purely as a natural situation, everything in that prison and those chains seemed to say what the enemy meant, and what men meant: this is an end! and this is a curtailment in every way. And yet, looked at from heaven’s standpoint, and from history’s standpoint, it is the most glorious triumph over the work of the enemy. They said, limitation; heaven said, enlargement. They said, narrowing down, curtailment. Heaven said, expansion. They said, death, agony. Heaven said, a new beginning, not only of the man in heaven, but of his ministry. For it was out of that imprisonment at Rome, and all that which was set for the ending of that ministry—his death—out of that has come the greatest ministry that he fulfilled.

The letters from that prison embrace a fulness of Divine revelation that can be found no where else, an enrichment for the Church beyond, beyond our telling. An expansion of ministry far far beyond the whole range of his missionary journeys personally. Today, in every country of this world Paul is known; perhaps not in every spot in every country, but in every country. From far East to far West, far North to far South, that man is known and his ministry has gone forth.

And today, through all the battle and the controversy over what is called Paulinism, the theological world, through all the battle of the years, you know, Paul is on top. They just cannot cope with this man, they cannot silence him, they cannot account for him. You probably will not know a great deal of that battle. Those of us who have read and studied through many years of this conflict, of ideologies and philosophies and theologies focusing upon this man Paul, know how at one point the whole thing became just this issue, “Away from Paul back to Christ,” back to Christ, or “back to Jesus” as they put it, away from Paul. “Paul has betrayed Christianity.” All this sort of thing is a terrific battle on that ground. But today, the very schools that were represented by that position are saying Paul is the interpreter of Christ, the supreme interpreter of Christ.

You see, this man’s life started in a blaze of glory. Glory descended and struck him, as we said earlier, that glory went right through his life. And he never got away from that glory. He had seen the glory of the Lord at his beginning; and although the end of his earthly course seemed naturally to be so inglorious, so much speaking for apparent triumph of the forces which were against him, nevertheless, two thousand years have not quenched that glory. He shines with it today and we, a little minute fragment of a very great worldwide whole, are here at this time together, glorying in the glory which has come through that man. So, I say that the last chapter of the Book of the Acts is just the consummate and inclusive setting forth of the whole book, showing the pathway of the glory.

What is the pathway of the glory? It has two sides. The one side is the reduction of the natural, the human element. It demands that; it will always work that way. It will always be the reduction, the nullifying, the weakening, the emptying, the undoing of the natural human element of man. And running alongside of that, there is always the positive increase of Christ. This is the pathway of the glory. On the one side, there is an ever decreasing and setting aside of the natural man, even as a Christian, and in the work of the Lord. Consequently, we must be getting more and more to the consciousness that it must be the Lord, or there will be nothing at all. The human factor is increasingly of no account. That is the pathway to glory.

Now, this is not a very happy thing, perhaps, to contemplate, if you look at it on that side alone. But it is true. Here is this man Paul, naturally and humanly in weakness, naturally and humanly in limitation, as a man in bonds. However, there is the other side, the enlargement of what is of the Lord. There is the mighty, marvelous enlargement of Christ in this man, so that these letters from the prison are a matchless setting forth of the greatness of the Lord Jesus. And in this light, you ought to read your first chapter of the Letter to the Colossians and see the place the Lord Jesus is given.

Now you can see this, and it is well that we do take at least a glance at the glory, by looking at the opposite. Go right to your Bible, and you will see that whenever man put forth his hand upon Divine things, the glory went out. That is a word written over Eden is it not? The Lord’s precaution in Genesis was “Lest he put forth his hand.” The Lord knew quite well that if man put forth his hand on Divine things, that was an end of the glory.—And, as we know, that is exactly what happened.

 Right through your Old Testament, you can see this. Case after case, when man pressed in and put his hand upon Divine things, the glory went out. You know how Isaiah says, “The day that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a Throne and His train filled the Temple” (Isa. 6:1). This brings us to the tragedy of Uzziah. You remember that man,—how he was one of the greatest kings, even an idol of Isaiah the Prophet. King Uzziah who reached great dimensions of power and influence and earthly glory, and then he presumed upon it and forced his way into the Temple, to the Sanctuary, to the Altar. Fear came upon men and they said, “It does not pertain unto you, king Uzziah, to offer incense,” but he spurned the warning and was smitten a leper and died in shame with all his own earthly glory gone. He forced himself into the Temple and laid his hand upon Divine things; and so far as he was concerned, and for that time, the glory departed. It was a great reversing of the situation when Isaiah saw the Lord on the Throne, for it was no longer Uzziah, but the Lord on the Throne. Then the glory comes back. When man usurps the place of God, the glory goes out. That is just one instance of this thing.

You remember David and the Ark of the testimony? David had the best of motives concerning the Ark, and the Ark is always the Ark of the glory. Remember that it is always the Ark of the glory. The glory of Israel is focused upon and centered in that Ark. David with the purest and best of motives thought of bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, and he mistakenly formed a new cart after the Philistine manner. Upon this new cart he put the Ark. This was contrary to the Divine Word on how to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem; because, according to the Law of God, only the Levites were to carry the Ark upon their shoulders. Apparently they were having a very good time on the road until they reached the threshing floor. Then the oxen stumbled, and Uzza put forth his hand upon the Ark to keep it on the cart. So when he put forth his hand to the Ark of God, and took hold of it, the Lord smote him there for his error; and there he died by the Ark of God. Then the Ark was turned aside into the house of Obed-edom for a period of time (1 Chron. 13:1–14; 2 Samuel 6:1–15; 1 Chron. 15:1–15).

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Man had put his hand on Divine things. When the glory of life, the glory of joy, the glory of spiritual fulness, the glory of Divine power departs, and comes under a shadow, or is eclipsed or limited, it is usually because man’s hand has touched the testimony. Man’s nature has insinuated itself— that is, his judgment, his ideas, his thoughts, his will, his emotions—into this matter. David’s mind got to work, David’s emotions got to work, and it was a very emotional scene. David’s will got to work, so that his soul, mind, heart and will came out to touch Divine things. It was of man. And whenever it is like that, if our judgments and our emotions and our decisions lay hold of the things of God, we will be left without the glory. The glory will depart, or the glory will be under eclipse, or the glory will be limited. Yes, it is a long story, as it began in Genesis: “Lest he put forth his hand.”

Well, that is the dark side, but it is well that we took a glance at that side, because that is so largely the trouble today. There is an absence of the glory, or a limiting of the glory, and our hearts are crying out for the glory to return. We are always praying that the glory of the Lord may be manifested, we are always asking the Lord that the glory might be known and felt. But, you see, we have got to get out of the way before that can be. We must give the Lord all the place in order for that to happen. It has to be all the Lord.

So, on the one side, there are the limiting of human abilities and powers of mind and will. On the other side, through that limiting or excluding of that natural human element, there is the coming in of the Lord, the increase of Christ, because then Christ is our wisdom, Christ is our strength, Christ is our will, Christ is our all. Dear friends, that is the pathway of the glory. And that pathway is painful to the flesh, very painful, because this flesh is very strong, much stronger than we would believe, yet it is there.

Nevertheless, we must finish, and finish on perhaps a much happier note. While we must understand what the glory demands and see the way of the glory, we do want to have at the end a final look at the ultimate glory. To do this we remember Peter’s word, “When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4)—“A crown of Glory,” that is the end. Of course, “A crown of glory” is a symbolic word. I am not very ambitious to have a little crown put on my head, and for the life of me I do not see how I am going to ever have three crowns on my head, literally; and there are three crowns mentioned in the Word. It means being crowned, having your life and your work crowned or capped with glory. That is the last picture, the crown of glory.

What is it? Well, I have mentioned that there are three crowns, and you probably know them well. There is “the crown of righteousness” that we are to receive on certain grounds. “A crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give.” Paul says, “There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:. What was his meaning? It was this—that at the last part of his life, in one of his prison letters, which was that beautiful letter to his beloved and longed for children in Philippi—he says, “Leaving the things which are behind... I press toward the mark for the prize of the on-high calling of God” (Phil. 3:13–14). But then he also says, ‘I count not myself to have attained, neither am I already perfect: but this one thing I do, if by any means I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, but the righteousness which is of God through faith.’

The last longing cry of the apostle’s heart was that the righteousness of God through Christ should adorn him; that he should obtain unto it; that is, that he should stand before the Throne of the eternal One without any qualms, any fears, any flinchings; that he should stand justified, stand in a righteousness not his own, but stand perfect in righteousness. And that is what he meant by “the crown of righteousness,” to stand at last before the Eternal Throne of Infinite Holiness, clothed with Divine Righteousness, with all his own unrighteousness and imperfection gone forever. “Clothed in righteousness,” that is what he called the crowning thing for his life, and the fullest realization of his ambition, “That I may stand perfect, lacking nothing. I am not already perfect, I have not already attained, but if only I can attain to being found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, but His righteousness.” What a glorious end!

That is a crown to covet, that is a crown to suffer for, a crown to live for, a crown to be abandoned for. A crown of glory indeed! That, dear friends, is something that you and I are in agreement on. If there is one thing we long for more than any other, it is the full and final escape from our own sinfulness, from this accursed fallen nature and all that it carries with it. How we desire to attain unto the crown of righteousness.

And then there is the crown of life. “Be thou faithful unto death,” said the Lord, “and I will give thee a crown of life.” A crown of life—what is that? “Faithful unto death,” is to be answered with a crown of life. All right that is perfectly clear, is it not; the crown of life means that death has no power. It is robbed of its power, death as a power is destroyed, and Divine life, Resurrection life, is mightier than all the power of death. Therefore, we must stand “in the Power of His Resurrection.”

In that same letter, in the same part of that letter, as we have quoted, in the Philippians letter, Paul utters those words so familiar to us, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.” The cry at the end of his life is “the Power of His Resurrection.” That is the ultimate and final nullifying of death in all its forms and in its whole power, standing in the good of a Life which can never, never be touched by death again. You move over to John into the Book of Revelation at chapter 21, in verse 4 where the word says, “There shall be no more death,” but “a crown of life.”

And then the third crown is the one we are speaking about, “the crown of glory.” You know what we have said about glory. Glory is the expression of the full satisfaction of God’s nature. Can that ever be for me, for you, that crown, the full satisfaction of God’s own nature? That is what He has called us to, and redeemed us for, and is working in us unto, and will work to the end for—this crown of glory. And although perhaps at the end of our longest life, we shall not have reached the place where we do at that point utterly, fully, and finally satisfy the nature of God. Well, in our last moment, in our last breath, there will still be a lot of imperfection about us; but, remember, when He takes the responsibility of ending the process, He makes up all that would have been if He had not done so.

There is in a moment the twinkling of an eye, and “we shall be changed.” All that we lack then will be added. All that would have been if we had lived on and on and on under His grace, under His power and working, will be put to our account. “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.” I go to sleep not altogether in Thy likeness, but “I awake in Thy likeness.” It is just that, a mighty thing that God is going to add to those who are faithful, and faithful to the end; not perfect, but in the way of being changed into the same glory, from one degree to another, from one image to another. The crown of glory is God’s final approval. It is God’s final approval when He says, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matt. 25:34, 23).

And, believe me, the Lord will never be really joyful over what is not according to His own nature. But when He says, “The joy of thy Lord,” He will have got what His heart had been set upon, for the end will be “a crown of glory,” which is God’s full and complete approval, satisfaction. Oh, what a wonderful almost unbelievable prospect there is along the pathway of glory.

Well, I must leave all the rest with you, all the other connections of riches, and this very very imperfect and limited setting forth of the riches of His grace and the riches of His glory. May the Lord Himself just follow on and teach all that we cannot teach, all that we have yet to know about this riches of His glory. But may He also use even this for our help, for our encouragement, in order for us to go on in the way of the glory, unto the everlasting glory.

Up next; The Unveiling of Jesus Christ

[Shammu]

In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore you are free to use these writings as you are led, however we ask if you choose to share writings from this site with others, please offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

The Unveiling of Jesus Christ
by T. Austin-Sparks

Part 1

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John" (Rev. 1:1).

At the beginning of the Book of the Revelation, we find, on the one hand, a situation of spiritual loss and failure, weakness, and many other conditions and features which even the Lord Himself, in all His grace, has to deplore. Through His servant John He sends a series of letters to seven representative churches, aimed at securing the renewing of the life of His people, and the restoring of those primary and primal values of their beginnings. Then, it was a situation of many difficulties - sufferings and trials and adversities from various quarters and of various kinds. The Christians at that time were both actually in a time of much adversity, and were moving yet more deeply into suffering. To one of these churches the Lord said that they were ABOUT to suffer; they were ABOUT to be cast into prison; they were going to have tribulation for a specified time (2:10). It was a time when Christians both actually needed real help and stimulus, and needed to be prepared for further battles, further conflicts and further sufferings. These were the two main aspects of the general situation.

In the light of those facts, we stand back and ask: How did the Lord, and how does the Lord, meet that need? Indeed, we might say: How does the Lord ever meet a great need? What is that which alone will supply the need, and be the key to the problem, the answer to the demand, and the assured ground, both of recovery and renewal, and of fortification for the suffering? And the answer has ever been, and always is: A new revelation - an unveiling - of the greatness of Jesus Christ. That is the very platform, we might say, upon which and from which the Lord moves into these situations, and into all the situations that follow in this book. He prefaces everything with this fresh revelation or unveiling of His own personal greatness.

That has ever been the way. Abraham was called upon to take tremendous decisions, to make immense sacrifices. In his native country and city, with its marvellous and rich civilization, he had a very full life indeed; and, without assurance that his movement would be justified, he was called upon to move under sealed orders. 'Get thee out... unto a land which I will show thee.' 'I will show... when you get there!' It was a tremendous move, very costly, and very testing. But if you have wondered how it was that Abraham went through, met all the tests, and at last survived, you have, I think, the answer in these words: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia" (Acts 7:2). If ever that happens, you have got something to move on; you have got a background; you have something that will again and again come to your rescue in a time of difficulty.

Moses was called upon to undertake a tremendous responsibility. We know the whole story now. Moses was not altogether ignorant of what he had to face, in Egypt and afterward; and we may wonder sometimes how he kept to the course and got through. But we know that he met God 'face to face'; it could be said equally that 'the God of glory appeared' to him. Reference is made several times in the Bible to that encounter with God in the bush. And we are told that "he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27). That was the secret of his sustenance.

Joshua was called as a young man to face very great responsibilities and undertakings, in the ridding and clearing of that country of those ten kingdoms, getting that people in - such a people - he knew them! - to possess the land, and all that was bound up with it. And no wonder the Lord had to repeat one word to Joshua continually, to get him on the move. 'Be of good courage'; 'be strong and of good courage'; 'only be of good courage... only be strong' (Joshua 1:6,7,9). How did the Lord give to Joshua the basis? He 'lifted up his eyes' and saw the 'Captain of the host of the Lord' (Joshua 5:13-14). From that time it was all right; he could go on and go through.

Isaiah was a young man in a very, very difficult day, one of those very cloudy days in Israel's history. He was taking up his great prophetic ministry in the face of great difficulties and threatening problems. How did he get through? 'I saw the Lord, high and lifted up', he said (Is. 6:1). That is the answer.

Think of Paul - did ever a man have to face greater difficulties, oppositions and antagonisms and sufferings and perils, more than that man? How did he get through? He saw the Lord, or the Lord appeared to him. He saw the greatness of Jesus Christ.

Stephen triumphed as he saw 'the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God' (Acts 7:56). So we could go on.

Some thirty years later, the Lord's people had come to a point where there was going to be a devastating blow struck at their corporate life. It was just on the point of that final siege of Jerusalem, when everything was going to be shattered and scattered; a great earth-shaking was about to take place; all that the Lord Jesus Himself had foreshadowed, '...not one stone left upon another...', and all those other terrible things, were all about to take place within a very little time. How were the believers going to get through?

The Lord took up a man - we do not know now exactly who it was; some say one and some say another - but He took up a man to write what we call 'The Letter to the Hebrews', and he begins with an almost matchless unveiling of the greatness of Jesus Christ! The Lord was saying through that letter: If only you can get that as your foundation, you will go through it all. You will not go back as you are being tempted to do, as perhaps you are contemplating doing. If only you see how great your Lord is, you will go on. So He laid the foundation for survival of faith - for that is the issue; you know how it all comes up in the eleventh chapter - the survival of faith, on the ground of an apprehension of the greatness of Christ.

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And then we come to this book of the Revelation, and again we are in the presence of these things: on the one side, spiritual declension, failure, breakdown, loss; on the other side, suffering, growing suffering, terrible afflictions for the Church. How will the one be remedied and recovery take place? What is the key to a renewing of spiritual life when it has reached a low ebb? How shall they go on through the tribulation and the tribulations, and come out in victory in the City of God? The Lord's only answer, His one answer, which has always been successful, and is the only one which will be successful in any situation of need, is a new unveiling of the greatness of the Lord Jesus.

But oh, these are but words! When we have said these things - and we would all agree that they are true - we are still so helpless, because it is the THING that matters - not talking about it! If only, by the Holy Spirit - and there is no other way, no other means - we could catch a new glimpse of His greatness, how many problems that would solve, questions that would answer, needs that would meet! How OVERWHELMING it would be! - and when I say 'overwhelming', I mean, how much would be overwhelmed! A mighty tidal wave, making all these rocks, upon which we threaten to founder, as nothing; they are sunk beneath it, disappear from view.

Now that is not just language. Look - who is writing this? It is the Apostle John. The Apostle John? Yes, that man who walked with Jesus of Nazareth, listened to Him, watched Him at work, and, at supper, and at other times, sat next to Him, and put his head upon His shoulder - the most familiar picture of a man alongside of a Man, in close, devoted, affectionate association. John always called himself 'the disciple whom Jesus loved': it showed that there was a sacred, holy familiarity between John and Jesus, marked by very human terms and language.

Yet that same man said: 'When I saw Him I FELL, as one dead.' It is the same Jesus, and the same man; but - 'I fell to the ground as one dead.' And if that One had not, in His great mercy, come and laid His hand upon him, saying, 'Fear not, John: I am the first and the last; I am the Living One', John would have been there as a dead man. It was the same Jesus - but look at the transition from the 'Jesus of history' to the Christ of glory! That is the difference. From the John of the Gospels to the John of the Revelation it is a marvellous and mighty movement! He never felt like that when he walked with Jesus, devoted as he was. With his fullest consciousness of who Jesus was, he was at most perhaps sometimes awestruck and awe-inspired. It was not until he saw Him glorified that he went down, helplessly prostrate, like a dead man. It was a great transition from the Jesus of history to the Christ of glory.

Now, I take nothing whatever from the values and blessings of the Gospels, when I say that I am sometimes afraid that we may dwell too much upon the Jesus of history, and fail to remember that the men who wrote those four Gospels wrote them long after Jesus was glorified. You notice, they did not at some point toward the end of His life, when they perhaps began to sense that He would not be with them much longer, get away and decide to write the story of that life - of His birth, and His manhood, and His teaching, and His miracles - as a mere human, earthly story. When they wrote, they had all the mighty facts and realities of His resurrection, ascension and heavenly glory, which they were seeking to crowd into that story of His life here, as those who would say: 'That One was This One! That was not just Jesus of Nazareth - that was the mighty Son of God from Heaven!' They were crowding every incident with the fullest apprehension that they had of the glorified Christ - Christ, Who was now there at the right hand of God! They were not just writing a human story.

That is the only way in which to preach the Gospel from the Gospels. Do you notice, when after His ascension and His glorification they preached or they wrote, how little, how remotely little, they ever said about the three and a half years? - just a fragment here and there. They said very little about His teaching and His miracles and His walk about Palestine. They were all occupied with THIS One Who had been 'crowned with glory and honour' - that was their message. Yes, there was that other One - Jesus of Nazareth, 'Who went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed with the devil' - a sort of passing reference to that earthly phase, a summary... 'But God raised Him'! God honoured Him, THIS One! It will not get us very far just to be occupied with the incidents of His earthly life, however precious they are. If we are going on and going through, we need an apprehension of that fullness of glory that is His now - the greatness of Christ.

It is, indeed, just because men have robbed or stripped Him of His essential greatness, that we find, down the centuries, the deplorable conditions that have obtained. Our 'liberal' theologians have stripped Him of His Deity; with what result? Oh, devastating results in the impact of Christ upon this earth! They have made Him a lesser Christ than He is. The philosophers have just made Him one in their gallery of great and wise men. It was against that tendency even with the Christians in Corinth that Paul raged in his first letter - taking something from the Lord Jesus, and just putting Him amongst other great men. The gnostics of Colossae, what were they doing? They had a theory of angelic ranks and orders, from the highest order of angelic beings down to the lowest subordinate; and they put Jesus, perhaps at the top, but as nothing more than an 'angelic being', robbing Him of His essential Person. He is Very God!

The 'comparative religionists', all along and in our own day, are saying, Well, there are great founders of religions - there is Buddha, and Confucius, and Mohammed, and Jesus... and so on. You see the subtlety? - a comparative, not an absolutely Supreme and unique! And then there are the humanists of our time, inflating and glorifying man and humanity to such a point that, after all, humanity will be deified one day, will reach God-head - and Jesus is only, after all, the Super-Man! So it goes on, and it is all these things, this Satanic work, to reduce the size of Christ, to make Him less than He is, that has done so much mischief. If we lose, or fail to have, the essential greatness of Christ in our consciousness, ours is going to be a lesser spiritual life than it could be, and we shall break down under the stress and the strain of adversity. The only thing for every need is the recovery of His greatness.

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The Personal Greatness of the Son of Man

Now here He is presented in the Revelation, and He is not presented in the language of Deity, although it runs very close. At some points, you cannot distinguish between the humanity and the deity. You do not know whether John is speaking of God or of Christ at certain points. The fact is, he is speaking of the One Who is both. But the title, as we have already seen, by which He is presented in this matchless, incomparable unveiling, is 'Son of Man'. Let us now consider the personal greatness of the Son of Man, Who is, at the same time, Son of God, very God.

We have referred to the Letter to the Hebrews, and we call it in now for our help in this matter. We read from it, and we begin with this "effulgence of His glory", and then we read: "Whom He appointed heir of all things" appointed heir of all things! - "through Whom... He made the ages...", and so on. "But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man, that Thou visitest Him? Thou... didst set Him over the works of Thy hands: Thou didst put all things in subjection under His feet... We see not yet all things subjected to Him. But we behold Him Who hath been made for a little while lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God He might taste death for every man."

Here is the Son of Man in His Own Personal Greatness. See Who He is: 'the effulgence...', 'the express image...'. See His appointment: 'Heir of all things'. See His instrumentality and agency: 'through Whom the ages were made'. The Son of Man - how great this One is! You would not think that, when you see Him walking about Palestine - not all that! You do not recognize Him. But that same One is now here before John, with these devastating effects; that same One, now revealed, unveiled, as to what He is essentially in His Person; Who He is; what position He holds. He is here as the Heir of all things come for His inheritance. And the rest of the book sees Him working it out - the securing of that inheritance of which He is the Heir, and, in the end, of a 'new heaven and a new earth'. What a glorious inheritance comes into view in the last chapters of this book! This is the Son of Man; this is His greatness! But we are completely defeated at any attempt at a true, not exaggerated, unveiling of Jesus Christ. There is His personal greatness.

But as Son of Man, we have, in that very title, His representative greatness. To borrow again from the Letter to the Hebrews, where first He is appointed Heir of all things, then He is the 'Captain of their salvation', 'bringing many sons to glory'. The word 'Captain' there would be better translated the 'Pioneer' of their salvation - the One Who goes before to lead them into that into which He Himself has entered. Of course, that is the substance of this Letter to the Hebrews. He has gone before; He has entered into the heavens; He has "passed through the heavens"; He has gone the whole way, and reached the end, as the Pioneer of the many sons being brought to glory, whom He calls His 'brethren'. His representative greatness, as there at the end, in fullness, in glory - for THERE He represents all those whom He is going to bring and is bringing - how great it is! We read in the Revelation of a 'great multitude which no man can number out of every tribe and kindred and tongue... thousands... ten thousands of thousands...'. Language is taxed to breaking point to describe the fruit of the sufferings of the Lamb! And He is the Representative in glory of them all. How great is His Person and His representation!

And then, HIS OFFICIAL GREATNESS. That is seen through this book of the Revelation, and again in the Letter to the Hebrews. His official greatness, as High Priest - what a great High Priest He is, as according to that book; what a tremendous thing He does! Think of it: through century after century, sacrifices of lambs, and goats, and bulls, and other things - blood enough to fill an ocean - all through the centuries, day after day, and never reaching an end in effectiveness where sin was concerned: but HE, One Offering - only one! - went far beyond the millions of sacrifices on Jewish altars. How great was His sacrifice, and His priesthood, as He offered Himself without spot to God, once for all.

And here, in this book, as the other side of His official greatness, we have His description as 'King of kings, and Lord of lords'! What a thing to say, in a day when that tyrant at Rome was dominating the world, assuming lordship over all lordships, and seeking to subject to himself every power, not only in earth, but in heaven, since he claimed deity. In THAT day, the unveiling of Jesus Christ is 'King of kings' - yes, and Nero amongst them! - 'and Lord of lords'.

To sum up: I believe we would have very much better converts if they were presented with a very much greater Christ. To anyone who does not know in their own life and experience salvation in Jesus Christ, what it really means to be born again - to be really a 'child of God', and TO KNOW IT - to be able to join in heartily with this apostle John when he said, 'Beloved, now are we the children of God... Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and such we are!' - to any such I would say this. While Jesus would be your Saviour, the Forgiver of your sins, and many other things to you, He is far, far greater than anything you can imagine. Salvation takes its greatness from the measure of the Saviour. If you want a great salvation, see what a great Saviour He is. And remember that because of what He is, you need have no fears in putting your trust in Him; you need not fear that you may not be able to 'keep it up'! No, you won't, but He will; He will be able to keep you up - He is great enough! We need an unveiling of the greatness of Jesus Christ, to get a better kind of Christian.

For the recovery from our spiritual losses and declensions and failures, and deliverance from all these things which are so abhorrent to us and to Him, there is only one way, and that is, really to see His greatness. If we do that, we cannot live on a 'little' level. I recently went to the Planetarium in London. The thing that was with me, while listening to the lecture, and afterward, was, how ever can anyone be 'little' when they are dealing with these things all the time! I suppose it is possible even for a Fellow of the Astronomical Society to be a 'little' man in character (I am not implying this about this man, but it is possible!) but it is not possible to have a revelation of the greatness of Jesus Christ and remain a little person! Oh, for our enlargement, our ennoblement, our deliverance from our pettinesses, and all this which is so despicable! What is the answer? A new grasp of His greatness - that is all!

And then, if we are suffering; if we are knowing adversity and trial; if the clouds seem to be gathering, and increasing, how will we get through? Only by getting away, and asking, seeking, pursuing in prayer a new heart revelation, a new unveiling, of Jesus Christ, and that will surely do it.

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Part 2

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John" (Rev. 1:1).

Yes, we are in the Book of the Revelation, the most controversial book in the Bible. This book has set up more schools of interpretation than any other. It would not be profitable even to name these schools. Of them all, no two are in agreement, and each one is uncertain of the rightness of the others. The only safe and profitable way is to find what is certain. This is the Bible's way of solving and answering its problems and questions. That is, interpretation and application by spiritual principles. In passing, we do point this out as a really valuable and satisfying method of approach. Apply it to the first chapters of Genesis and there will be a very great deal of rest from the weariness of mental wrestling with questions and problems there. The same is even more true with 'Revelation'. This is what we shall do in this message. We begin with reference to

The Apocalyptic Method

It is essential to accept the fact that, whatever actuality and literalness there is behind the record here (and of course there is such; it is not a book of myths) it is all presented to us in symbols, figures, resemblances, similitudes, and representations, and not in real and actual things. Dragons, and Beasts, and Bowls, and A Lamb, etc., are not actually such. We ask: why this method?

Well, at least part of the answer relates to the time and condition of the writing. It was a time of terrible and fierce persecution of the Christian Church. The focal point of that persecution was the Christian testimony to the Lordship of Jesus Christ; what the book calls "The testimony of Jesus". That testimony came into direct and immediate collision with Roman Emperor-worship. Caesar took the title of God, and claimed worship as such. The Christians both refused to acknowledge this, and preached Jesus Christ as Lord.

This set up a situation in which it was dangerous to speak in plain terms, names, and definitions. So, in writing to the Church and Christians for their instruction, counsel, comfort, correction, and warning, their spiritual discernment and perception was called into use, and they had to - as we say - 'read between the lines'. No Caesar's name is mentioned, but a representation of him is there. No system is named explicitly, but its character is delineated; and so on.

But the method applies to much more than the immediate historic background, or the prophetic horizon: it is applied to almost everything in the book. That has to do with the NATURE of the book. Now we proceed to the question - Why the book? In another place we are occupied with the last chapters of this book. Here it is with the first chapters, and mainly with chapter one. In this part we are met with

A Challenge to Christians

Asia is the venue of the vari-sided message, or - if you like - the seven messages. Asia was representative of first century Christianity: that is, Asia had received all the primary and essential apostolic teaching. Paul called it "the whole counsel of God". But some thirty or more years had passed since Paul wrote his great circular letter to Asia and so soon after completed his ministry. In that period - only about thirty years - serious decline had set in in the majority of the churches. The character had changed. Divergence had taken place. The standard had lowered. Measure had been forfeited. The churches were living on a past. The fine gold had become dim. Form had taken the place of life, and works went on without the primary love. It is painful to have to accept the fact that, in even the fullness of the apostolic times, such a change could take place in a comparatively short time. It surely says that, to have had so much is no guarantee of final consistency. This is an age-long peril; the peril besetting the path of anything which had a great and wonderful beginning under the hand of God! It is not difficult to find all over the world the dead shells of what once was a mighty testimony to the sovereign movement of God; a "candlestick of pure gold". We do not dwell on this aspect for the moment, but move on with the positive method of the Lord to meet it.

So we are brought back to the introduction: "THE UNVEILING OF JESUS CHRIST, which God gave Him to shew unto His servants" (1:1). While the whole statement as to the 'shewing' is immediately related to "the things which must shortly come to pass", it is essential to note that this WHOLE unveiling is based upon, and issues from, an unveiling and presentation of the Person of God's Son, Jesus Christ. All that follows in the whole book is intimately connected with the personal presentation. The phrase: "to show unto His servants" comes to relate - at least in the first place - to the churches in Asia, and, of course, to John. This full-length presentation of Jesus Christ will occupy us in this present consideration. Note carefully that the Person - in His full and meticulous delineation - is so closely linked with the churches as to 'hold them in His right hand' (1:16,20), and also "walketh in the midst..." (2:1).

The point here is

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The Intimate Association of Christ with Conditions

It is not a contradiction or confusion to see Christ in Heaven and at the right hand of God, as Paul and Stephen speak of Him, and then to hear John say that He is imminent and immediate in the churches on earth. And this is shown to be so even when the churches - the true churches - are in a poor and bad condition. It may come to be that because of certain conditions, as in the case of Laodicea, where Christ is represented as on the outside of the door; nevertheless, He has not deserted and abandoned. We shall see that the real force of this first section is the deep and pained concern for His Church in her state of declension.

At this point we should sit back and allow ourselves to register the forceful impact of a serious fact. Taking not one whit from the Lord's command and commission to evangelize the whole world, it was after the world that then was had been evangelized that practically the entire New Testament was written to Christians who had responded. After 'Acts' there is not one book of the subsequent twenty-six comprising the New Testament which was written to the unevangelized and unsaved. This surely is forceful enough (apart from the contents of the books) to convince us that the Lord is - at least - as much concerned with the 'follow-up', the saved, as He is to evangelize! The law of God, both in nature and in grace, is "full growth", and anything less than that is either abortion or stultification; it is subnormal, or un-normal, and it speaks of defeat and frustration of purpose and design. God is not like that, and Himself suffers in any such condition. We shall come on this again later, but it MUST be from THIS consciousness that we begin. If that has impressed us sufficiently, and only if so, we can proceed, and in doing so we shall at once be confronted with

God's Ultimate Standard

This is set before the Church, the churches, and individual believers ("HE that overcometh", "Unto HIM will I give..." etc.) in the full stature and characterization of Christ. John says, inclusively, "One like unto the Son of Man" (verse 13). The title, used some eighty-two times of Christ in the New Testament, has a double significance. (a) It means representation; and (b) it means identification. Not to be too detailed and ponderous, we do not include a study of these two aspects, but those who are following closely will at once see how true they are in this final presentation. Here, "Jesus Christ" represents Man as God intends him to be, and as he will be through grace, in Christ. And here "Son of Man" means the most intimate organic identification with His redeemed, so that He stands to lose something of Himself if they fail.

When the Ultimate Standard has been presented, we are very soon led on to see that THE LORD IS NOT WILLING TO ACCEPT COMPARATIVE STANDARDS. In the majority of the messages to the churches the comparative is noted. Good things are tabulated, such as 'works', 'labours', sincerity, zeal, hatred of falsehood and hypocrisy, orthodoxy, etc., but when all this is allowed for, warning, rebuke, severity, and entreaty are administered. The "garment down to the foot" (1:13), is not sleeveless, half-length, or even three-quarter length. It is full length, and all-covering. It is the "seamless robe" of John 19:23. It is of one piece and complete. Garments in the Bible speak of the measure and the character of the wearer. But here it is the garment of authority, the Judge. By it standards are judged, and criteria are fixed.

With God in Christ there are no substitutes for Divine fullness and no alternatives to the Person. This comes so clear in the confrontation of the churches. When all is taken into account the judgment is gathered into one word: "But".

This could be very disconcerting, discouraging, disheartening, but we must remember that the Lord puts His finger upon causes and reasons, and shows what can be done to make good the defects. Among the multitude of 'overcomers' doubtless there are many who were in the poorest state described in these Messages.

Let us go on, for about this 'seamless robe', the perfect wholeness, there is a girdle of gold about the breasts. It is oriental symbolism, but it is eloquent. The breasts speak of the affections; here, the affections of Christ. Gold is ever the Divine nature. And the girdle, the symbol of strength and action. To His Church, His people, in their weakness, their decline, their failure, even in their apostasy, He comes in the energy, the strength, the activity of Divine love and affection to recover, to restore, to be faithful, to lift up. It is in love that He rebukes: "As many as I love, I rebuke" (3:19). This Divine love is not mere sentimentalism. It is very faithful love. It is parental love which for the child's GOOD may slap, but in so doing feels the regret as much as the child. "Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it."

I think that perhaps we have something here to learn and to which to adjust. We criticize and harshly judge the Church. We take a very adverse attitude to what we deem to be the faults, weakness, deflections, and even evils in the Church. We must search our hearts to see why we do so. Is it really our suffering love and sorrow for the Lord that motivates our spirit and demeanour? Is it REDEEMING love?

Now, seeing that this is not a whole book, we must sum up thus far. What comes out as governing this contemplation is this: whichever school of interpretation may be ours - historicist, futurist, literalist, spiritual, or none of them - one thing governs the whole section (chapters one to three). It is that, whenever things have departed from the pristine glory, fullness, and power, and a decline to a lesser and lower spiritual measure and level has taken place, the Divine method of recovery is a fresh presentation and unveiling of Christ in His fullness and true character. Before there can be any hopeful dealing with the details of the situations which are wrong; that is, before taking a negative course of condemnation, judgment, warning, etc., the Lord presents, or re-presents the positive standard of His Son. This has always been the principle on which God has acted, as we could show from many instances. Unless we have a POSITIVE BETTER to present, we have no ground for being negative in judgment, criticism, or attitude. There must be a Divine criterion by which all things are measured. People will only see the wrong and be ashamed if the right is set before them. "Show the house to the house of Israel that they may be ashamed" was the command of God to Ezekiel. The Lord would, in our time, have His prophets who can - like John - bring the fullness and significance of Christ before His people. So the whole book of the "Revelation" is governed by the initial unveiling and presenting of Jesus Christ in full stature and detailed character.

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Part 3

The Foundation of Recovered Testimony

In our first chapter our main point was that this book of the Revelation is, in its first section, a call back to a position which had been lost by most of that representative body of first Christians. The first chapter must be read in that light, and it is that fact which will most truly interpret its symbolical content. The following messages to the churches must also be related to the full presentation of Christ in chapter one. This will become clear as we proceed. We reached the point where we saw that the "garment down to the foot" introduces all that follows as signifying the fullness and completeness of Christ as the standard for the Church and churches. More will be said about this later. For the present we are going to take a step backward, and a step forward because this full-stature description of Christ stands between two important fragments. Verse 5: "Unto Him That loveth us, and loosed us from our sins in His blood", and verse 18: "I was (became) dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." These words, as we have said, form the boundary within which Christ in heavenly fullness is presented. This boundary, or basis, is something to be very carefully noted, for its significance is immensely important. Whenever God has moved for the recovery of the lost testimony (chapter 1, verse 2) He has always called back to the Cross. That was always His starting point, and any deviation will necessitate a return there. There are three very clear and strong instances in the Old Testament. These were in the reigns of Josiah and Hezekiah respectively, and, later, in the time of Ezra. In the revivals under Josiah and Hezekiah recovery was definitely related to the Passover.

Three features in that connection are noticeable:
(a) It is impressive and instructive that the two godly kings concerned were characterized by a clear perception as to the key to the prevailing spiritual weakness and complications. Not a 'conference' or 'convention' or 'convocation'. Not a 'round-table discussion'. Not an entertainment or 'holiday camp'. But a celebration of the Passover. A solemn yet joyful reaffirmation and celebration of the one fundamental and inclusive basis of their life as the people of God. The Passover had constituted them God's distinctive people, and it had, year by year, been the central power in their testimony. That both Josiah and Hezekiah discerned that this was the ground of resolving the so deplorable situation, and not any of the other methods resorted to since, is a very clear evidence of the sovereign guidance and instruction of the Spirit of God. The Passover had ALL the aspects and content of the Cross of Christ, just as the Lord's Table - or Supper - is the INCLUSIVE embodiment of everything foundational to New Testament Christianity.

In the case of Ezra, it has only to be pointed out that after the seventy years of Israel's exile, when the 'Remnant' returned, it was the altar which was the centre and focal-point of the recovery of testimony.

With the Church in the New Testament the testimony becomes definitely the Testimony of Jesus, and, as we are seeing, after decline at the end of the apostolic period, the Lord works again for recovery by introducing and presenting Himself in terms of the Cross.

(b) The second thing noted in this method and means of revival and recovery is that the Passover was

The All-uniting Ground

We know that in the times of Josiah and Hezekiah the nation was divided and in strong conflict; ten tribes against two. It would have been impossible to restore or get an expression of unity by any organizational recourse, or any friendly gesture. Jehoshaphat resorted to a compromise with Ahab, but with disastrous consequences. Hezekiah ignored the division and disunity and sent his appeal to ALL Israel. It is true that his call was met with laughter, scorn, and ridicule by some, but a great number responded favourably. "They made proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even unto Dan that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel, at Jerusalem." What a tremendous lesson and principle this is with regard to all efforts to secure unity in broken Christendom, evangelical Christianity, and all realms of broken fellowship! It would truly work if all concerned really and truly understood and embraced the true meaning of the Cross - "Christ our Passover"!

No other ground or means will ever secure the kind of oneness mentioned by the High Priest as He was about to offer the one great sacrifice on the Cross (John 17).

(c) There is the third feature which comes into view in those Old Testament instances of revival and recovery. It is that the Passover was

The All-corrective Dynamic

Idolatry was rife and widespread in the land. Altars and monuments to other gods were numerous. But nothing was said in the appeal as to these things. 'Come to Jerusalem and restore the Passover to its central place' was all that was mentioned. They came; the Passover was the one object and interest. It was a time of such blessing from God that nothing like it had been known for very many years. So blessed was it that the people wanted to extend the period beyond the appointed time, and they did. But that was not the end. As they returned to their own homes they passed those objects of false worship which had before been their life of devotion, and they smashed the lot! Nothing before would have displaced those altars and idols. But a taste of the real thing did what nothing else could do. How we ought to stand still and consider this! There are so many THINGS which both divide us and account for our spiritual weakness, and all our efforts and plans to change that situation are so abortive and unsatisfactory. If only we could meet on the sole ground of the Cross - the infinite love and grace of God, so costly, and so eternally efficacious - and of an inward sight of our Redeemer - Saviour, the work would be done!

"I have seen the face of Jesus,
Tell me not of aught beside."

The Cross, Christ crucified, is the great corrective.

How often we have said that if only our gatherings and gathering-place were full of the life and light of the Lord, and the power of the Cross was manifested in His gathered people, there would be a spontaneous forsaking of all that divides and weakens the testimony! It is difficult to set down all that we see in this ultimate presentation of Him as alive, Who became dead, and is risen forevermore.

What it amounts to, in the Passover and its counterpart or full unveiling, is that God must be ALL. That which takes His place, or divides place with Him - the idols of men - may just be ANYTHING which is of any consideration before or beside this one thing: is it wholly and undividedly the Lord and His glory? Our institutions, organizations, traditions, enterprises, even denominations, associations, etc., etc., may obscure or limit the Lord. The answer is a new, captivating, all-mastering and over-circling vision of Christ in all His Divine fullness and significance. The last movement before "Behold, I come quickly" MUST be a Christ-movement.

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Part 4

The Consummation of the Ages

We concluded our last chapter with the words: "The last movement before 'I come quickly' MUST be a Christ-movement." If this book of "the Revelation" is finality, then it is - in that very connection - the book of the fullness and finality of Jesus Christ. Above we have used the word 'consummation', the etymology of which is: 'to bring into one sum, to perfect, to bring together'. This is exactly what this book does. It is the summation of the ages. It comprehends the whole Bible and bounds all history. It compasses creation, redemption, and perdition. It embraces heaven, earth, and hell. It connects with God, man, and Satan. In it there are no less than four hundred allusions to the Old Testament. When all is said, the one question that arises is: 'Is there one thing - one issue that interprets and explains everything?' Yes, there is! The all-inclusive issue is

The Purpose of God in the Eternal Government of this World

In our other series of messages on the Holy City we are seeing that - not only at the end of this book but at the end of all time - universal government is represented by the City, both in fact and nature. It is the symbol of universal authority vested in, and mediated by Christ and His Church. It is the nature of the Son of God as Son of Man. That is why "judgment begins at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17) as in the first chapters, representatively.

This inclusive issue is seen (in this book) to relate to the purpose of God
(1) in creation;
(2) in redemption;
(3) in His Son;
(4) in Israel;
(5) in the Church;
and THAT is the way in which to read and study the book! The book is the revelation of final restoration and recovery in Christ Jesus.

A revelation has been given in (a) the Old Testament; (b) the New Testament - brought to its greatest fullness through the Apostles Paul and John.

That revelation has been departed from, both by Israel and the Church. Its greatest fullness was given through Paul to the churches in Asia; hence it is there that the comprehensive message of judgment unto recovery is focused. But that was intended to reach through ALL time to the end, and that message shows that there are always those, a remnant, who stand and make up the difference for the recovery of the fullness of Christ in God's people (Col. 1:24). So, what we have seen in our first three chapters is a fundamental presentation of God's Pattern and God's Way, i.e. His Son and the Cross.

The consummate issue, then, is brought into view in two ways:
(1) A personal presentation of Christ; and
(2) A comprehensive designation of Christ in His titles.

As to the latter we have:

(1) "Jesus Christ, the faithful witness" (1:5)

"Jesus" - the Man. The title of His humanity before His exaltation. When He is so called, almost invariably the connection is with His earthly life before 'being glorified'. After that, as a rule, there is added 'Lord' - 'Lord Jesus', or 'Jesus, our Lord', etc. It is quite a mistake now, as with a whole body of people, to say just 'Jesus, Jesus'. That title, or name, is used only to identify Him with the designation that follows. This One Who is majestically and gloriously unveiled, is none other than the One Who came into this world at Bethlehem and lived a life as a Man here.

"Christ" = Messiah, the Anointed. "This Jesus" was, by anointing, made Prophet, Priest, and King, for all men, in the midst of God's new Israel, the Church. 'Anointed' is His official title to carry out a Divine mandate. It is God committed to Him.

(2) "Faithful and True Witness" (1:5)

"Witness" is the same as "Martyr", "Faithful unto death". His testimony - "the testimony of Jesus" - is forever sealed with His Own Blood. A vast amount of the Bible is gathered into this.

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(3) "The Firstborn of the dead" (1:5)

This is position and relationship. Priority to be followed by others in resurrection. There could be no resurrection for any until Jesus was raised, but then 'a new and living hope' sprang to birth for all born-anew believers.

(4) "The Ruler of the kings of the earth" (1:5)

By His resurrection He won universal Lordship. What Satan offered Him on the ground of compromise, and He refused and declined, He has gained through no compromise, but obedience unto death.

This brings us to the all-inclusive issue - the issue which is greater than Caesar AND Satan - His victory.

(5) "The First and the Last" (1:17)

Note the particular use of this title in relation to this book. This is the end! The end is to see everything where, and as, God - at the beginning - intended it to be. 'All things summed up in Christ' (Colossians 1:16-20). Pause here with your New Testament open at 'Ephesians', 'Colossians', 'Hebrews'.

(6) "The Living One" (1:18)

"I became dead" - not 'I was killed'. The Roman Empire, the Jewish nation, the kingdom of Satan, all conspired to kill Him, but "No one taketh it from Me. I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and to take it again. This commandment received I from My Father" (John 10:18).

"I am alive unto the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." Here we have two things:
(a) The purpose of His 'becoming dead', His voluntary death. This is in verse 5, and it is summed up in a mighty "US" -

"Loveth US" - "Loosed US" - "Made US".
"Christ loved the Church."
Christ loosed the Church from Satan's authority.
Christ made the Church a "Kingdom and Priests".

"The keys of death and Hades." The right and authority to deliver from the sum of human sin and Satan's power thereby, which is death. Read in here 1 Corinthians 15.

Death, and subsequent captivity - imprisonment - cannot prevail against the Living Lord and His Church. Death is the power, and Hades is the realm in which the system of death operates. Christ has plundered both, and taken their power into His Own hands.

"He plunged in his imperial strength
To gulfs of darkness down;
He brought his trophy up at length;
The foiled usurper's crown."

Again, we have to place the Cross over the whole book!

The Throne is the Throne of the Lamb!

(b) The second thing intimated here is the one which relates to the final issue in a primary way. It is going to be the ground of the real controversy, connected with everything. Because it requires so much consideration, we shall do no more than mention it now. It is just what is THE meaning of our Risen Lord's exultant cry: "I am alive for evermore." Yes, that is it!

The Life of the Ages. Life Triumphant; Life Immortal!

You may be sorry that we break off there for the present, but this is enough to bring us face to face with the mighty issue of this book - even that of God's eternal counsels.

The End

Up next; The Voices of the Prophets

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In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore you are free to use these writings as you are led, however we ask if you choose to share writings from this site with others, please offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

The Voices of the Prophets
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1

"They knew not... the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath" (Acts 13:27).

 "God having... spoken... in the prophets... in divers manners" (Hebrews 1:1).

Our object in these chapters will be to see what those divers voices and manners of God's speaking mean for us in our time and our lives: not a fullscale study of the Prophets, but just the salient message for our instruction, comfort, guidance and - perhaps - warning.

The statement made by the Apostle Paul in the first quotation above is a very astonishing and arresting one, and itself becomes a message and a warning from the Prophets. It says precisely that on every Sabbath day, over a long period of years, the Prophets were read in the hearing of a people, in a great centre like Jerusalem, and in numerous synagogues far and wide, and, while the words were read and heard, and while the Prophets were speaking through the mouths of priests and synagogue-rulers, the people and their rulers "knew not the voices of the prophets". Words, Scriptures, sounds, times without number, but the 'Voice' undiscerned and undetected; that inner meaning, that vital message, that one inclusive Object unrecognized. But not only so. The tragic result of all the hearing was a violent, positive and grievous contradiction; a doing indeed, but a doing of just the opposite of what the Prophets meant for the people concerned. They should have profited by the 'voices', but they were condemned.

Thus, at the very outset, we are challenged as to the result, of all our hearing and the value of all that has come to us. What will the verdict be when the 'voices' are no longer to be heard? It is, however, important that we are aware of the issue upon which the final judgment and verdict will rest. From many Scriptures, and focused in Hebrews 1:1, that issue is clearly stated to be the place and measure given to Jesus Christ, God's Son. This is the consummate issue in our basic quotation of Acts 13:27: "They knew him not". Jesus said that all the Prophets spoke of Him. The Prophets had much to say about many things: idolatry, bad moral conditions, formal and merely external religion, etc., but Jesus saw and pointed to Himself in all the Prophets, and at last made the significance of the Prophets a personal one as to Himself. All judgment ultimately will turn, not upon sins, more or less, few or numerous, but upon the place and measure given to Christ. Thus the issue bound up with hearing the Prophets, i.e. the Scriptures, is: how much of Christ is resultant in us. Not one or many of the things which comprise Christianity, but the degree of Himself in us. In the Old Testament Prophets it is the place of Christ. In the New Testament it is firstly the place, and then the measure.

All the New Testament Letters (Epistles) are primarily concerned with the measure of Christ in believers, individually and corporately. This final outcome is, according to Acts 13:27 and other Scriptures (such as Isaiah 6:9,10, and Revelation 2:7,11,17,29, etc.), a matter of spiritual hearing, or "an ear to hear what the Spirit saith". How many, like those referred to above, hear the Scriptures as such, maybe "every sabbath", but fail to hear 'the voice'. It is with the object of catching the voice of the Prophets that we essay to consider them and their message. This preliminary word is important so that it will not be just and only 'the letter of the Word'.

Let us note that the failure and its consequences on the part of the people referred to was not because the Prophets were not faithful. While it may be true in many cases that the people are in a tragic or pathetic position because their teachers and leaders are not faithful, this is not always the case. That a child at school does not pass the examinations cannot always be honestly blamed upon the teacher. The child may be lazy, indolent, careless, or rebellious. The best and most painstaking teacher has his - or her - failures. The Prophets gave all that they had, but still the terrible verdict of Acts 13:27 was true. The blame rested upon the hearers.

1. The Voice of Jeremiah

It will be seen that in our commencing with the Prophet Jeremiah we are not in the biblical order. We are not here concerned with the history, geography, nor the chronology of the Prophets, but primarily with the spiritual message. The change in order is simply because, at the moment, we are pressed with the sense that Jeremiah comes nearer to the heart of personal spiritual need. Here it is the man himself, in his own suffering, that dominates the book. Isaiah and Ezekiel have nations, rulers, the making of history (for a long time to come) and the predictive and Messianic vision so much in view, while Jeremiah has less of these features, and is so very largely burdened with the present and immediate course of things. This is not by any means the whole truth, but is comparative. The thing which impresses the reader above all else is the personal distress of the Prophet, whatever he may say about nations in chapters 40 to 51.

The message comes really out of the Prophet himself. This is true of all Prophets, as we shall see. The personality of Jeremiah is more in view than is the case of any of the other Major Prophets and many of the - so-called - Minor. Through his personality great truths were converted in spiritual life. While much may be said of the same nature regarding the other Prophets, of Jeremiah, perhaps it is true to say that no man was ever more - if as much - integrated with his message than was Jeremiah. It was literally wrung out of him like the juice crushed out in the wine-press.

Let it be here remembered that the function of the Prophets was pre-eminently to keep clearly and powerfully before men what God is like. If we keep this in mind we shall have the key to each Prophet. God is vari-sided. It has been said that "There are grounds for believing that the Figure of the Suffering Servant of the Lord, raised by the Great Prophet of the Exile, and the idea of the atoning and redemptive value of His sufferings were, in part at least, the results of meditation upon the spiritual loneliness on the one side, and upon the passionate identification of himself with the sorrows of his sinful people on the other side, of this the likest to Christ of all the Prophets." Certainly Jeremiah foreshadowed the Greater than he Who was "A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief". We have said that God is varisided. Perhaps it would be better to say that God is love, and love - especially God's love - is many-sided. There is the sorrow of love; the jealousy of love; the wrath of love; the insight and understanding of love; yes, and the hatred of love; etc. Jeremiah was the embodiment of the sorrows of love - God's love.

Before we go further into the causes and reasons for God's sorrow, we will look at the man himself, his call, and his vocation. There is so much here to help any servant of the Lord who has to take an unpopular way, plough a lonely furrow, stand against a strong adverse current, and bear an unwelcome testimony. Jeremiah can be a great inspiration to all such.

cont'd next post

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We cannot do better than give some extracts from a most helpful "Introduction" to Jeremiah by the late Dr. Alexander Stewart. Dr. Stewart wrote:

    "Jeremiah would have inherited the tradition of an illustrious ancestry, and his early life would have been moulded by the distinctive religious influences of the community to which he belonged. God, however, had 'provided some better thing' for him than to spend his days in serving at the altars of a proscribed and degenerate priesthood. The young son of Hilkiah had been appointed to the tremendous destiny of being a prophet of the Lord in one of the most testing hours in the history of His chosen people....

    "That word (of the Lord) made known to him, first of all, that he had been chosen by God for the prophetic ministry before he ever saw the light of this world (Jer. 1:5). The word which constituted his ordination to office revealed to him at the same time his foreordination to that high honour. Nor was this all. The Divine disclosure also made mention of a preparation for the tasks which were to engage his strength, a preparation which stretched away into the mysterious past, till, in its starting-point at least, it bore the seal of eternity, and included gifts of... spiritual consecration which preceded the discipline of his conscious experience.... His work was to be unusually extensive in its activities, and for the most part intensely painful in its character... his commission was 'to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant'. The two closing terms indicate a generative purpose... but by far the greater part of his work was to be of a destructive nature. Both these ends were, of course, to be achieved by Jeremiah as the instrument of the resistless energies of the Lord.

    "A second outstanding fact in connection with Jeremiah's call is his own shrinking from the task with which he was faced. 'Ah, Lord God!' he cried, 'behold I cannot speak, for I am a child' (1:6). He was, of course, no mere child in the literal sense, for he must have been more than twenty years of age; but he felt himself a child in knowledge and experience, and he was specially apprehensive of unfitness for the prophetic office on the ground of a conscious lack of the gift of utterance....

    "It is a striking illustration of the mysterious working of the sovereign will of God that He should have chosen as 'a prophet unto the nations' a man so apparently unfitted by temperament and aptitude for that tremendous task.

    "A third feature of vital significance in Jeremiah's call is the special equipment which he received for his life work. This equipment was symbolised by the touch of the Divine hand on his mouth, an action which was accompanied by the explanatory assurance, 'Behold I have put my words in thy mouth' (2:9)....

    "Jeremiah's equipment included also a message from the Lord which was particularly adapted to his need. It consisted, first of all, of a word of command in answer to his protestation of unfitness (1:7). The twice repeated 'Thou shalt', of this solemn charge - 'Thou shalt go', and 'Thou shalt speak' - swept aside the young prophet's objections, and made it plain to him that he must subject himself unreservedly to the authority of his Divine Master, with respect alike to the sphere of his labour and to the character of his message. But the word of command was followed by a word of gracious encouragement: 'Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee, to deliver thee.' Hostile faces there certainly would be in plenty - brows lowered in resentment, eyes flashing in hatred, and lips curled in scorn or clamorous in denunciation; but here was a promise of the Lord's own presence throughout all the days, and in that fact there lay for Jeremiah a guarantee of strength and protection amid all the difficulties and dangers of his future ministry. The prophet certainly needed a full share of courage, for few men have ever been confronted with a more formidable task."

If we give some attention to the times in which our Prophet had to fulfil his ministry we shall better understand its difficulties, and perhaps we shall not fail to recognize some similarities to our own times, thus giving stronger point to the "Voice".

The features of Jeremiah's time (also true as to all the Prophets) were:

1. Spiritual declension
The lowering and lessening of truly spiritual standards and values. The loss of the inner and heavenly meaning of Divine things.

2. Religious formalism
Religion, yes. All the externals, forms and techniques were there. The Scriptures had been lost, but a tradition - of sorts and in measure - still obtained. But the religion went in one pocket and vital application to life went through the hole in the other. Jeremiah - speaking as God - said: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water." (Italics ours.)

3. Moral degeneration
There was a perfect landslide of moral standards in the nation. The vehemence of the hatred demonstrated against the Prophet was largely due to his high standard of spiritual and moral purity, and that vehemence showed how far the nation had gone in this moral degeneration.

4. Commercial obsession
The criterion of success had become that of material and commercial gain. Here there had taken place a satanic twist and distortion. Whereas material prosperity and advancement were a mark of the blessing of God in that old dispensation, as the token of Divine approval of faithfulness to His covenant and word, now the gain had become divorced from holy living. Thus, the world and its business had become the enemy of the spiritual life and sapped it away. The cunning lie of the great deceiver was that if you had means, money, possessions, etc., you could serve God with it. But the Prophets said "No, never!" God said "Away with it; I will take no sheep from your flock nor ox from your stall. Your gold and silver are polluted."

"Big business", commercial engrossment, can become a fascination, an obsession, and the thief of spiritual increase.

5. Pending disaster
There were ominous signs all around. Nations were warring and restless. One after another kingdoms were falling. New powers rose on the ashes of old. The air was full of threats. The only resort for any survival was greater fierceness and violence. Disaster was no stranger to consciousness. No one had any sense of security or assurance of an indefinite tenure of life. This condition, being specially focused upon Jerusalem, was reacted to by a false and bolstered-up "courage", foolhardiness and presumption. Thus Jeremiah, who kept the pending judgment in view, was charged with being a traitor and thrown into a dungeon to silence him. His warnings had been met with faces harder than a rock (2:23,35; 7:28). Guilt was repudiated, and correction rejected.

There, for the present, we must leave the matter, and come back to consider more fully the ministry of the Prophet. This "Voice" surely has something - even thus far - to say to any hard-pressed witness for Christ and servant of the Lord. The value will - of course - only be derived by such as are sometimes tempted - like Jeremiah - to lose heart and feel the impossibility of the situation.

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Chapter 2 - The Voice of Jeremiah

"They knew not... the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath" (Acts 13:27).

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

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

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

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

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

1. The Fountain and the Cisterns

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

There are several features of these alternatives.

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

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

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

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

(b) Another difference is indicated in our text.

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

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

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

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