Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

The Lord’s Need Of A Fixed Heart

Of course Elijah’s great manifestation of this was at Carmel. How often Carmel has been taken as a basis of an appeal to the unsaved. The question which Elijah addressed to the people has been made a favorite text for such a purpose: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.” That word was never addressed to the unsaved. It was never intended for them. It is only rarely that the unsaved are in the position of two opinions. More often than not they are of no opinion. This is what the prophet really said to the people: How long limp ye from one side to another? He viewed them as lame, and lamed by uncertainty, lamed by indecision, paralyzed by an unsettled issue. Oh, how an unsettled issue does paralyze the life. Have a controversy with the Lord, an unsettled issue with the Lord, and your whole life is lamed, is paralyzed; you are limping first one way and then the other, there is no sense of stability about your way.

So the prophet called for the issue to be settled. How long limp ye from one side to the other? Settle this issue one way or the other. If Jehovah be God, let Him have His place, His full rights; settle it once and for all. If Baal is god, well then let us be settled. But until that is done you are crippled, you are paralyzed, and the whole secret of your being in that weak, indefinite, unstable, uncertain place is that God is not having His full rights; there is a dividedness in your life, a dividedness in your own soul, because other interests and considerations are in view. The dividedness may be in your home life, where you have power, authority and influence, and you are not standing one hundred percent for the Lord’s interests there. It may be working in other directions, but wherever it is present the result is that deep down in your being you are not satisfied, you are not at rest. You may be busy, you may be occupied, you may be rushing hither and thither in the Lord’s name, but you know that deep down there is a lack, an uncertainty, an unsettled state; your spiritual life is limited and paralyzed. It will always be so until the issue is settled and God has His place in fulness in every part and relationship of your life. It is a question of zeal for the Lord, jealousy for the Lord. So on Carmel that issue was settled. How gloriously it was settled! See the prophets of Baal, and over against them an altar of twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of Israel, of whom the Lord said, “Israel shall be thy name.” Israel was the name of a prince with God, a man who came out in full spiritual stature, who triumphed on spiritual grounds, after the flesh was maimed, and lamed, and put aside. Now the twelve stones represented the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, all Israel in full spiritual stature, a spiritual people. That is the issue. Elijah does not even leave out the two-and-a-half tribes. He brings all Israel into this. The issue is to be complete, perfect.

How bent upon such an issue Elijah was we see from his singular preparations in connection with the sacrifice. “And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it the second time.” And they did it the second time. And he said, “Do it the third time.” And they did it the third time” (1 Kings 18:33,34). There is to be no doubt about this issue. He is going to leave no room for question as to the straightforwardness of this thing. It is to be utter death, and utter resurrection, or it is to be nothing. That deluging of the sacrifice with water is bringing everything to death. Now if life can make itself manifest here it is indeed God Who is at work in resurrection power. The issue is fulness of life or nothing at all, because Elijah has seen to it that every other way out has been well quenched. There is no other way out. All prospect, all hope is quenched by those jars of water being poured over everything.

Elijah called upon the Lord and the fire came and burned the sacrifice, consumed the wood and licked up the water. The issue is clear, is it not? The way to heavenly fulness is through God having His place, which means, on our part, an utter death to all that is other than God. When God gets that place, where it is all Himself or nothing at all, then, and only then, do we know Him in the power of His resurrection, do we know heavenly fulness.

We stop there for the time being, with but a re-emphasis of the application to our own hearts. What is zeal for the Lord? What is jealousy for God? Does it consist in the number of engagements, the much business? Is it a matter of our emotion? Is it the sum of those ways in which we express what we would call our devotion to the Lord? We have made answer. The Lord must have His place and His rights in us in an utter way, and in everything with which we are related, so far as it lies in our power, we must see to it that He is thus honored. That is zeal for the Lord. That is what it is to be jealous for God. That was the spirit that consumed the Lord Jesus: “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.”

We must ask the Lord to show us exactly how and where His Word applies to us, and how this is the way to heavenly fulness. Elisha, whose life is typical of heavenly fulness, sprang out of such a background, and, like Elijah, was rooted on this foundation. We too shall come into the heavenly fulness by no other way than that wherein God has unquestioned and undivided place, and all the fruit and all the interests of our life are unto Him.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - The Last Journey of Elijah with Elisha

Reading: 2 Kings 2:1–15.

“And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, “Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel.” And Elisha said unto him, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day?” And he said, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” And Elijah said unto him, “Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho.” And he said, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day?” And he answered, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” And Elijah said unto him, “Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” And he said, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee.” And Elisha said, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” And he said, “Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.” And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.”

In this meditation we have before us Elijah’s last journey in company with Elisha, on the eve of Elijah’s being raptured to heaven. We have seen that the keynote of Elijah’s life is found in the words with which he twice made reply to the Lord: “I have been very jealous for the Lord...” His whole life is packed into what is represented by those words. We have also noted what jealousy for the Lord means, and to what it leads.

Heavenly fulness was reached personally by Elijah when he went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and was the glorious crown of a life poured out for the interests of the Lord, with the one consuming purpose that God should have His full place amongst His people, and have all His rights in them secured to Him. Elijah was the man who set aside all personal interests in order that this object might be attained and the Lord’s people might stand as a testimony in the earth and the universe to the fact that God has that in which He enjoys His full rights. To that Elijah gave himself to the full, and that was the fire which burned in his bones, the fire of a great jealousy for God. That issued in his reaching heavenly fulness.

The Testimony To Be Established In This World

But, as we have indicated, that testimony was to be carried on in the world, and so Elisha was brought into relationship with Elijah before the latter’s translation, and was to be the expression here of what Elijah was in heaven. Elijah had gone into heavenly fulness on the ground of having secured the Lord’s rights amongst His people. Thus there was in heaven a man who had reached heavenly fulness on that ground, but there was to be in the earth the expression, not of what Elijah was before he went up, but of what Elijah was after he had gone; an expression here of heavenly fulness on the ground of the Lord having had His rights secured to Him fully and utterly in the midst of His people, as is set forth for us in the Carmel crisis of the life and ministry of Elijah.

Accordingly we find that Elisha was the instrument of that heavenly fulness, and wherever he went, and in connection with everything with which he had to do, heavenly fulness came in. We are not engaged with the life of Elisha at this time, though we make reference to it. We are considering the basis of that heavenly fulness which is but a type and an illustration of what obtains now in this present dispensation. The Lord Jesus is the counterpart or Anti-type of Elijah. He came to secure the rights of God in His universe. He fought the battle for the rights of God, and fought it through to a final issue. As Elijah fought to an issue at the altar of Carmel, so Christ fought this battle out to an issue on the Cross of Calvary, and having thus settled once for all the question of God’s rights, having brought that issue to perfection, He went up into heavenly fulness, He was received up into glory.

Further, there was also to be a counterpart of Elisha, and that counterpart is seen, or was intended to be seen, here on earth in the Body of Christ, the Church. The Church is intended to be an expression of heavenly fulness on earth. So many are looking for the day when we shall get to heaven and enjoy heavenly fulness. The Lord’s thought is that we should know something of it now, that it should be expressed here on the earth as a testimony to the Man in the glory. That constitutes His present manifestation in this world. That is the Lord’s desire. Heavenly fulness can be known in measure, and in large measure, here on this earth, but it can only be known and expressed on the same ground as that upon which Elisha stood, the ground where God has had all His rights secured to Him through His interests being served, and through His people giving Him His full place. In this chapter, therefore, which embraces the period between the end of Elijah’s earthly life and the beginning of Elisha’s ministry, we are shown in a typical or an illustrative way what is meant when we speak of God having His rights secured, and how this leads to heavenly fulness.

[Shammu]

The Path To Fullness

We have summed it all up in one word, “zeal”. Elijah had been very jealous for the Lord. It can at once be seen that this same zeal is a mark of Elisha, when we look at 2 Kings 2. “And Elijah said unto Elisha, “Tarry here, I pray thee; for Jehovah hath sent me as far as Bethel.” And Elisha said, “As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” So they went down to Bethel” (verse 2). At Bethel, Elijah said the same thing to Elisha in relation to Jericho, and Elisha’s reply was as before. They went on together therefore to Jericho, and there the same thing occurred again with reference to their proceeding to Jordan.

But we have not yet noted all, for as they went, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken from thee” (verse 9). Elisha, as though he had already calculated and preconsidered the matter, promptly answered, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” To this request Elijah in turn replied, “Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee...” (verse 10). So they went through Jordan to the other side. Elijah was then caught up by the whirlwind into heaven, and in order that Elijah should know that he was there, Elisha cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof” (verse 12). I am here! I want you to know that I am here! You tried to shake me off, but I am here! You have tested me as to whether I really meant business; you have tried me, to see if I would go all the way, and I am here! Very clearly do we there see the zeal of the Lord. There is a man who really gave diligence to make his calling and election sure. There was zeal to go on to God’s full thought; not merely to go so far and then to stop; not to go but a third of the way, nor two thirds of the way, but the whole way. “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” Those are the words of a man consumed by the zeal of the Lord. That is a good foundation for ministry, and on that ground Elisha entered into the enlargement, the heavenly fulness.

That is where we begin. We can put it in many ways. We may speak about zeal to go on. We may speak about utterness of devotion. We may speak of meaning business with God. In whatever way we express it, the thing itself is basic to God’s heavenly fulness, and it will only be such individuals and such assemblies of God’s people as are after this kind that will truly represent here on the earth what Christ is in heaven.

It is not, in the first place, a case of how much we see. We may be incapable of comprehending, apprehending, or understanding all the truth that we hear, all that is brought to us in the way of teaching. If we have thought it to be necessary for us to understand everything before we can come into the Lord’s fulness, we have made a mistake, because, in the first instance, it is not how much we see that is basic to heavenly fulness, it is how much we mean. God knows our meaning. God knows how utter we are. God knows exactly the measure of our abandonment to go on, and He takes us up on that ground. It is not the measure of our understanding of truth but the measure of our utterness for God that gives Him the opportunity of taking us on to increasing fulness in Christ.

Let us remember that God is toward us what we are toward Him. "With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure; and with the perverse Thou wilt show Thyself froward" (Psa. 18:26). If we are utter toward the Lord, the Lord will be utter toward us. If we are half-hearted toward Him, we shall find that the Lord Himself will be limited to our measure. He cannot be other with us; He cannot be more for us. He cannot show more to us, or lead us into more than we are really purposing by His grace to come into.

Thus in the case of Elisha, though it is his later life that represents heavenly fulness, he came to it as being a man who had always meant business with God. Our first glimpse of Elisha, before ever he came into association with Elijah, shows him to be such a man. Elijah was passing by, and he saw Elisha the son of Shaphat ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen. Here was a man who had all his resources in the field. He had brought out into action, into operation, all that he had at his command. He was putting everything into his business. Why should the Holy Spirit record that? Surely He is not interested in merely embellishing narratives with interesting details. This man was ploughing, and he was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen. The Holy Spirit takes account of what sort of a man he is, and of whether he means business or not. Elisha was found to be such a man, a man of purpose who put all that he had into commission. God met him, and found that to be a suitable avenue for His self-expression in that man’s life spiritually in service of another kind. So we first find this man ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, and then later in another connection refusing to be turned aside, but persisting right up to the point where he could go no further. He was a man who went as far as he possibly could.

Zeal for the Lord, devotion, is a great factor. Elisha’s reality was tested. The Lord always puts our declarations to the test. He subjects them to test after test, tries us by what we say, to see if we are really in earnest. Another rebuff comes, another set back, another check, another discouragement, another experience which seems to say that the Lord does not want us. It may be a strange way of putting things, but I believe that the Lord sometimes brings us to the place where we have to take the attitude that we will not be put off by Him. Perhaps you do not understand that language. I can put it in another way. We sometimes have to come to the position where we say, Well, we are going on, whatever the appearances may be; and it may even seem that the Lord is discouraging us and working against us. The enemy may interpret things in that way, and, were we to yield to things as we find them, to the circumstances, to the experiences, we should simply give up and cease to go on. At such times we have to say in cold deliberateness, without anything to encourage, without any inspiration, without anything at all to support us, We are going on! God allows us to come to positions like that, and tests us in that way. When the Lord gets men and women who, despite every kind of discouragement, every lack of encouragement, even from the Lord Himself for the time being, say, Well, in spite of all, we are going on, He has something there that gives Him an opportunity, and such lives will come into His greater fulnesses.

We mark then these things which lead to fulness. It is most interesting to note the inner history of the spiritual life that this story reveals, and the lessons are not difficult to read. When Elisha had been subjected to testing as to his reality, as to whether he were really in earnest, and had shown himself approved, then we are able to see that these occasions of his testing themselves represent the advancing stages of fulness toward final fulness. The very places mentioned in this journey indicate heavenly fulness. We look at them briefly, to get the main thought connected with them.

[Shammu]

The Meaning Of Gilgal

You notice, in the first place, that they started from Gilgal. We are not told that they came to Gilgal, but it appears rather that they had their residence there. Then, further, it is stated that Elijah went with Elisha, not that Elisha went with Elijah. It is a good thing to remember that the initiative is with the Lord. From the Lord’s side the position as a start is made may be thus expressed: Now, you come with Me! Thereafter it is a following of the Lord, a going on with Him. It is always a means of great strength to be able to point to the fact that it was the Lord Who initiated the work—“...He which began a good work in you will perfect it...” (Phil. 1:6), “For it is God Which worketh in you both to will and to work...” (Phil. 2:13). What He works in us we have to work out; there comes the Elisha side, the following.

Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. That was their starting point, and perhaps their place of residence. Maybe you know the meaning of Gilgal.  Gilgal has two aspects. Firstly, it stands for the setting aside of the flesh. Turning again to the Book of Joshua, we see that at Gilgal the new generation which had grown up in the wilderness was circumcised. There, in a typical way, the flesh was set aside, in order that they might come into the land and possess its fulness. The very first step toward heavenly fulness is the setting aside of the flesh. This speaks of the separating work of the Cross, the cutting off of the whole body of the flesh, the self-life.

I prefer the use of the term “the self-life,” because when we talk about the flesh, many people have no other thought but of all that wicked, evil, base sort of thing that everyone is glad to get rid of, that is recognized by everyone as evil, and cannot be tolerated. Those ideas are associated with the term “the flesh.” But what is the flesh? The comprehensive definition of the flesh is the self-life, and if you know all the aspects of the self-life, you know a great deal! Who can comprehend the self-life? It comprises self-will, self-energy, self-glory; there is no end to the catalogue once we attempt to define.

The will of the flesh, which is the will of ourselves as a part of the old creation, stands in the way of heavenly fulness. The more serious aspect of this, in the light of what the Lord is saying to us about His rights and His interests, is that self-life in any form destroys the testimony to what Christ is in heaven. Christ is in heaven because of what He is, because of the utter repudiation of the self-life in every way. He emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. He repudiated every suggestion to act from His own human life apart from the Father. Every evil offer made to Him, every temptation presented to Him which had in it the thought of serving Himself, His own interests, was immediately quenched. “All these things will I give thee...” said the Devil pointing to the kingdoms of this world (Matt. 4:9). To have heeded the appeal at such a time, and from such a source, would have been a serving of Himself.

On that principle, self, in every form, and shape, and suggestion, was set aside in the interests of the Father. It was not mere æstheticism, as of one who was denying himself and being an æsthetic on the basis of other worldliness. No! He was positively living unto the interests of His Father—“...make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise” (John 2:16). It was then that the disciples remembered that it was written, “The zeal of Thine house shall eat me up” (verse 17). On the ground of His complete triumph in thus setting aside all that could have been the expression of His own life, as apart from the Father, He is what He is in glory.

That is to have an expression here in the Church which is His Body, and in its individual members. But that testimony to what Christ is in glory is eclipsed, is hidden, is marred, when you or I are actuated by anything of the self-life. It is a searching thought. When we consult ourselves, what we would like or what we would not like, what we want or do not want; when in any matter we refer to our own feelings and consult our own inclinations in the presence of something that is of the Lord the testimony is spoiled in us personally, spoiled in our homes, and in any other direction where we are living with a self-interest of any kind. And it is only as we are brought to the place where we ourselves are ruled out that we perceive in what measure the Lord was seeking to work, whilst we were holding fast the ground in our own interests; consulting our own will, our own preference. In that realm heavenly fulness can never be ours. We shall be as the children of Israel were, limping from one side to the other; crippled, unsettled, restless; never coming to an established position, because this question of the Lord’s interests has not been fully settled.

Gilgal is the place where that question is settled. The Cross has cut off the whole body of the flesh. Perhaps we do not know how selfish we are. We can only discover that at the Cross. Most of us have a blind spot about ourselves, but at the Cross we shall discover our own hearts.

[Shammu]

Gilgal And The World

But there is another side to Gilgal. It says that at Gilgal the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. What was the reproach of Egypt? If Egypt is the world, in type, what is the reproach of the world? For what are the people of God reproached by the world? The most common thing that the world is ready to pounce upon, and to cast back at any child of God, is inconsistency. The world has a very shrewd idea of what things ought to be. It has a good conception of consistency. It knows when anyone professes to be something, and is not what he professes to be. The world knows. Israel came under reproach for contradiction, inconsistency, denial of their own God, their own testimony. That is very true. They became a reproach; they are a reproach today. Ah, but not Israel only. Is it not true of many, and to some extent of the whole Church? The reproach is that it is not what it claims to be, is not what God meant it to be, nor what God has made possible it should be. It is something other, a contradiction; and that is its reproach. How has this reproach and contradiction come about? Because of the flesh, the personal interests, the personal elements! Look at it where you will, it largely speaks of that. Our inconsistency finds its cause there, that God wants one thing and we want another; that God means one thing and we do not mean that; that God has called us by a certain name and we are not coming up to it. He has called us by the name of His Son and we do not bear that name with honour. We are a reproach simply because of these personal, fleshly elements.

Gilgal must get rid of that, that the reproach should be rolled away, and the glory of the Lord should be seen in the place of the reproach.

We are dealing with very solemn things. It is so easy for us to speak of being very zealous for the Lord, of wanting to be out and out, wholly consecrated. We can use this language so easily, and no doubt if it were put as a personal question, the response would be, Yes, I mean to be out and out for the Lord. How are you giving expression to your zeal for the Lord? Is it by a multitude of religious activities? That is not the root of things. We may be in such activities for our own pleasure, for our own satisfaction. It may greatly gratify us to be in that realm of things. The question is a deeper one than that. It is our jealousy for God that counts. Does our jealousy for God really mean that we are setting ourselves aside, what we want or do not want, what we like or do not like? Do we come into the matter in any connection whatever? Are we found not accepting God’s will for us on any point because we have made ourselves believe that it is not God’s will? Because we do not like it, do not want it, therefore it is not God’s will for us! Let us be honest. To be jealous for God means that we have set aside ourselves altogether to give God a full place. In any situation can we say, Now, Lord, this thing may be the last thing in the world that I want and that I like, but dost Thou want it? Is Thy will in that direction? If so, there is no argument, no controversy, I gladly accept Thy will. That is being zealous for the Lord; that is giving the Lord His rights. Oh, how zeal for the Lord has been misinterpreted and made an external thing. The people who think they are very zealous for the Lord may be the most self-willed with regard to things which are bound up with the Lord’s testimony in their lives, in their homes, in their families, in their businesses. To give God a full, clear way, not merely in a resigned manner that says, Oh, well, the Lord can have His way! but in one which comes in with the Lord to co­operate, that is zeal for God. Gilgal brings us there.

The Vital Reality And Meaning Of The House Of God

When Gilgal has set aside the body of the flesh, and rolled away the reproach, and put us on ground consistent with our testimony, and with what Christ is, we can move on. That opens the way for heavenly fulness, and we can then move from Gilgal to Bethel. Gilgal leads to Bethel.

You must remember that the Word of God is written by a non-progressive mind. The mind of God is not a progressive mind. The mind of God is full and final at one instant. It has comprehended everything. There is no room for improving the mind of God. In the mind of God, Bethel is one with Gilgal; that is, the House of God is intimately associated with the Cross. If we go on with God, the Cross leads us immediately to the House of God. The Cross opens the way to the House of God, to Bethel, and the House of God depends for its full meaning upon whether the Cross has done its work. A great many people think that the Church, the House of God, or whatever you may term it, is a doctrine, a part of a system of Christian truth. Have you thought that? Well, let me say that you are wrong. What is the House of God? We may first name a number of things which it is not. The House of God is not a part of a system of Christian truth or teaching. It is not a congregation with religious services. It is not a Christian society with a membership. It is not a religious association for religious purposes. Yet these are the ideas that are in so many minds when we speak of the House of God. People think of it as a place where religious observances are carried on, or as a society set up for religious purposes. The House of God is the spiritual relatedness of believers.

“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body...” (1 Cor. 12:13). That is the House of God, a spiritual relatedness. But it is more. The House of God is the recognized and active relatedness of believers. It is not a nebulous thing. It is not an abstract idea. The spiritual relatedness of believers is very wonderful, but there must be a recognition of it, and that relatedness must be made an active thing. That is the House of God.

Then the House of God represents a greater measure of Christ than is possible to any number of separate individuals. Separate individuals can never come to the Lord’s fulness. It will necessitate all the believers for the Lord’s fulness to be entered into, but to come to it believers must needs be in a relatedness, and that an active relatedness. That is very practical. Any life that is a free lance, independent, detached, will be limited, even though there may be belief in the spiritual relatedness of all believers. This thing has to become practical, an actual working thing. Fellowship is essential to fulness.

We know that is why the enemy has never ceased trying to scatter the Lord’s people; to divide, subdivide, and divide again. He is always after that, because he knows that actual relatedness is the way to the fulness of Christ, the way in which what Christ is in heaven becomes expressed here on the earth. Fellowship, relatedness after a practical sort is an important thing on the earth, and it cannot be repudiated. We cannot, without robbing the Lord of something, pass it off as something which has irreparably broken down and can never again find an expression. Not at all. The Lord has not taken that attitude. That represents surrender to the Devil, the Devil’s triumph amongst the Lord’s people. Actual relatedness, persistent fellowship is the way of heavenly fulness. That is Bethel, the House of God, the heavenly fellowship of born-anew children of God here on this earth.

You see that a feature of the House of God is fellowship, actual fellowship. Given that, another feature arises and becomes manifest, and that is life. Oh, what life there is in fellowship, the life of the Lord, His risen life, is manifested in fellowship, and that is a feature of the House of God.  And is not the House of God, the Body of Christ, intended to be the expression in a corporate way of the fact that Christ is alive, is risen?

Then life leads to light, and in the fellowship of the Lord’s people there is a ground for the Lord to communicate the knowledge of Himself, in a way that He cannot do to isolated individuals; that is, if they are isolated by their own fault. We are not talking just now about that geographical isolation which cannot be avoided, but we are dealing with spiritual isolation, separateness. The Lord reveals Himself in the midst of His people in His greater fulnesses.

Thus the House of God is a very practical thing, bringing us on the way to heavenly fulness, and we have to recognize that we are under a great responsibility for what the House of God represents in the matter of spiritual fellowship. There is no Bethel until there has been a Gilgal, the place where the personal is put out and we no longer live unto ourselves but unto one another, unto Christ, for Christ, in order that there may be an increase of Christ.

[Shammu]

Faith That Overcomes

From Bethel we move to Jericho. It almost looks as if there is a going backward as we note the order in the Book of Joshua; but we are in the spiritual course of things now, and are going onward. It is onward from Bethel to Jericho, not backward. What is the meaning of Jericho? Jericho stands for the faith which overcomes. When you really come into the spiritual meaning of the Church, the House of God, the Body of Christ, it is not long before you find that you are verily in touch with principalities and powers. It is a costly thing to stand on the ground of the Church, which is His Body. You cannot accept that merely as teaching. If you really accept that in your heart you will meet something before long, and you will find you come to the endless “I,” and can only get through by being stripped of everything that is not Christ. When you get on to that ground you find you are in touch with the naked forces of evil, principalities and powers, world rulers of this darkness and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies. That is the realm of the Church, as we know from the Letter to the Ephesians. You have come to Bethel, the Church, and now to Jericho. What is represented by Jericho? Jericho is the faith which overcomes the principalities and powers, and is the outcome of Gilgal and Bethel.

“The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” What is the meaning of this? So many have thought that the chariot had come to fetch Elijah, but it had not; he went up to heaven by a whirlwind. You will find that the chariot of Israel and the horsemen come upon the scene in connection with Elisha. They appeared three times in the life of Elisha. They were the symbols of heavenly supremacy. Whenever the chariot of Israel and the horsemen appeared to Elisha there was victory in view; it was triumph every time. The Lord opened the young man’s eyes when the city was besieged. He could only see the earthly forces before his eyes were opened, and then he saw that the mountain was full of chariots, a fact which told of forces superior to those that were besieging and hemming in on the earth. The last view of the chariot was at Elisha’s deathbed. The king came in, and there was the question of Assyria and victory. As the king came in to the deathbed of Elisha he cried: “...the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” Then you remember the story of the bow and the arrows, and the smiting. Victory was in view.

Jericho is the faith which overcomes in the spiritual realm. You come to that when you come to Bethel; you come to the heavenlies and to the heavenly victory in Christ. Heavenly fulness by faith is represented by Jericho.

If you are contemplating the forces of evil, and wondering what is the secret of victory, let me suggest to you never to launch yourself against the enemy until you have been to Gilgal and come to Bethel, or you will be smashed, you will be broken. Get the flesh out of the way. That is the ground of the enemy to beat you. Get the self-life put away, or else he will have the advantage over you: come to the place where you can say, “...the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me” (John 14:30).  It is only when the Cross has dealt with the self-life that we are in the way of advantage, of ascendency over the enemy. But that is not all. It requires fellowship, it requires the corporate action of the Lord’s people to deal with spiritual forces. We have to come to Bethel, the House of God. We shall never, as isolated individuals, bring down the forces of evil. If we try we shall have a bitter experience. We must act on the principle of the Church, which is His Body: “...I will build My church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Get out of fellowship and the enemy will worst you; come into fellowship and you stand and withstand, and having done all you stand.

The Conquest Of Death

Finally we look at Jordan. This is not going backward, although it may look like it. It is onward still. What is the lesson of Jordan? Jordan stands for victory over death. Is that a step backward? No, it speaks of moving onward. Elijah and Elisha came to Jordan together, and at Jordan, death in type, in representation was overcome; its power was broken, and two men went through. One man went up to glory, triumphant over death, and the other took up that victory and went round quenching death wherever he went. Elisha retraced his steps over this way back to Jericho, encountered death and turned death to life.

We are called to that. That is a fulness of Christ; not just victory over physical death, but victory in physical death it may be; and victory over death itself, whatever its form may be, spiritual or physical. Death is conquered in Christ. That Man in the glory has entered into the fulness which speaks of victory over death; He has vanquished it, He has swallowed up death victoriously. The Apostle writes, “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). Wherefore? Because He has swallowed up death victoriously. That is for present experience. That is heavenly fulness for the Church now.

You see the issue; heavenly fulness. You see the way; utterness for the Lord. You see what that means; Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, Jordan. The Lord teach us what it means and keep it alive in our hearts.

The End

Up Next: Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory

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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.


"Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory"
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Church's Vocation

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil... Again, the devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him... Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. 4:1,8-10).

"Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever" (Matt. 6:13).

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."

"Lead (or bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

"...showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; ...said unto him, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me."

"Deliver us from the evil one: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever." As one who greatly believes in the Revised Version, perhaps it becomes necessary to say just a little word here, because the Revised Version leaves that Doxology out of the text and puts it in the margin. It is a very great question indeed as to whether the Revisers were right in doing that. Out of some fifty original authorities, only eight omit that Doxology, and therefore an overwhelming mass stands for it; and personally I feel, and I believe a great many others feel, that there is every reason in the Word of God why it should be retained in the text. For me, the greatest reason is the significance of it, and I have tried to allow the Word itself to suggest that significance by bringing together these two different parts. I am quite sure that most of you have perceived the complementary element in these two passages, how they go together in principle, how they are a part of each other in meaning. We shall, therefore, seek to abide rather in that realm of spiritual values than of mere technical interests, with regard to the Word of God.

We are not going to dwell upon fine points in what is called "The Lord's Prayer", but to look at some great spiritual features which come up in this great final clause of the prayer. "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory" - Kingdom, power, glory, as belonging unto the Lord for ever and ever.

The Real Issue Behind Temptation

The first thing of which we take note is the significance of that little conjunction, "for". "Deliver us from the evil one; for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory". Carry that back to Chapter 4, where the kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof are offered by Satan to the Lord Jesus, and refused with a reminder from the Scriptures: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve." That surely corresponds to the first declaration, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory". Bring us not into trial, but rescue us away from the Evil One; for Thine is the kingdom. When you translate the words thus literally, you get nearer to their significance. Trial in this particular respect from the Evil One's standpoint would have as its objective the inducing of us to have the kingdom as on the lines of this world and lose it as on God's lines; for that is exactly what it meant in the case of the Lord Jesus. That is the essence of the enemy's pressure and assault, to bring us down and to cause us so to compromise for an easier way as to come into present possession of a kingdom on earthly and temporal lines, and miss the great thing which God has reserved in heaven for us. That is the object of all Satan's trying of us, as of the Lord Jesus, and it was because the Lord Jesus was able to see through the enemy's strategy and effort and detect what he was after in offering something seen, something tangible, something present, something great, apart from suffering and sacrifice and in the place of that which was eternal in the heavens, though costly for the time being; it was because the Lord Jesus was able to detect this, and perhaps feared that His Church would not see through the enemy's strategy, that He said to the Church, 'Pray thus: Bring us not into trial, but rescue us away from the Evil One'. In other words, Save us from falling a prey to this subtle thing which, under intense pressure, would make us turn away from the kingdom; unseen, heavenly and eternal, to something offered us now, glorious apparently, yet in reality a thing which must come under Divine judgment and be destroyed and prove to be an empty substitute for the great and glorious thing which God has for them that love Him.

Now that has a very real message for us in itself. I have no doubt that it goes to the heart of everyone of us, for we all know that kind of pressure and temptation from the enemy. It is ever present. Ah yes, and when adversity is strongest, the evil most intense, the suffering keenest and the way before us most obviously the way of the Cross and of rejection and of ostracism and of loneliness, then the enemy's suggestion, to turn aside and have something here and now, both gathers force and gathers point. If only we will let go something and take a lower level, a less utter position, we can have something; we can have some of the glory of this world, we can have a kingdom now. Thus he is ever seeking to bring us into a position where, with that fiery dart, he can lay us low and rob us of the kingdom. The Lord Jesus says to His own, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32); but Satan is always seeking to offer a kingdom as well.

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The Vocation of the Church

Well, that is only a fragment of the message in these words. There is always bound up with the simplest and briefest statement from the lips of the Lord Jesus a very great deal of Divine meaning, much more than lies on the face of things in the actual words themselves. Thus here in these words, amongst the most familiar words on Christian lips, in what is called "the Lord's Prayer", we have something of tremendous meaning. It has been but little recognized, but it can be caused to stand out by bringing together these passages from chapter 4 and chapter 6 in the way we have done. To me, it says so clearly that the Lord calls His people to pray and to take up a certain position in prayer. That position is set forth as a stand for God's rights against the counter-claims of the adversary, the claims of the adversary to power, to authority, to the right to give, and to glory. On the one side, he displays himself as one who is in a position, and that of great authority and power, and he seeks to show off his power, to make us conscious of his power in respect of his position, and this, of course, unto his glory. On the other side, there is God. God is not always vaunting Himself, nor making His authority and His power and His glory a matter of display. Between these two stands the Church - the people of God stand in the gap - and this prayer puts the Church in a parallel position to that of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. There, on the one hand, we see Satan standing out and making a display of his authority and his power; that is, of his rights, what he can do, what he has the ability to do; and of his power and of his glory. On the other hand, God! But where is the display of power authority, glory? It is hidden, it is not in manifestation at all. In between the two, the Lord Jesus is standing as in the gap and repudiating this that is demonstrating itself, for that which is not seen, not at the moment manifest, but which to Him is the supreme thing, far more real than this and, moreover, eternal. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve": For Thine, not his, is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

The Inward Nature, Character, and Cost of True Testimony

But that is taking a tremendous stand when you are in a wilderness and have nothing whatever to prove it, and all you are conscious of is of the fierce and bitter assault of the Devil in power and ostentation. It is something which belongs to an inner relationship. Do you see the significance of that? The point, beloved, is that the Church is called to stand in that gap and, toward the ostentatious display of assumed right, authority, power and glory, to maintain a position of fixed repudiation; but toward that unseen spiritual, eternal, heavenly reality of the kingdom and the power and the glory, not now ostentatiously displayed, but hidden, to stand as a testimony. And when you have said that, you have summed up the Church's vocation. In this prayer, the Lord Jesus puts the Church there. These petitions may become personal, but remember, the Lord Jesus did not say, 'When you pray, pray after this manner - My Father'. No, it is "Our Father". The deepest and the inmost reality about the Church is that it is a family, and that means that it is the glory and power and kingdom which has become the real concern of the Church.

This is not some temporal thing, this kingdom, this power, this glory. This is something which is our Father's, and we have an inner, heart relationship with this. That is what I meant just now when I said it is a matter of an inward relationship. Our King? True, He is our mighty Potentate on high. Yes, quite true, but not so presented here. "Our Father": "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"; and what is implied is a repudiation of any kind of relationship with that other one and all that belongs to him.

Well now, all that I have to say for the present is wrapped up in that. What is the Church's vocation? To occupy the position into which it is put by the Lord Jesus in prayer; to stand in the gap for a testimony, as over against all that is display and ostentation and demonstration from the Evil One, to the fact that "Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory". That is not a mere testimony in words. Oh, if all the people who use those words so frequently, perhaps almost every day of their lives, as a formula, really came into the spiritual meaning of them, what a time they would have! What an awful time they would have! You know it is true that we cannot really in a spiritual way make a declaration without drawing upon us some challenge. In a formal way, out of the mere mental conception or by way of learning by heart, you can say anything, go to any length, and not meet any challenge at all. But come into the wilderness in the power of the Holy Ghost and say something, touching ultimate forces, and then your testimony - Thine is the kingdom! - will become more and more a grim thing, and there will be times when, in face of the enemy demonstrating fiercely and furiously, you will be on your knees simply wrestling to hold to that position - Thine is the kingdom! - nevertheless, Thine is the kingdom! It is standing in battle for something. Thine is the power! Thine is the glory! That is what we are here for, to maintain that position for God. That issue is becoming a very real one for many of the Lord's children today in an outward way, as well as in a spiritual.

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The Conflict for World Dominion

Now, just look at these three words - kingdom, power, glory. They represent two histories from eternity to eternity. On the one hand, Satan seeking a kingdom, world domination; displaying power, terrible power. Look at it today: awful power, ruthless power, startling power, to that end - world domination. That has been so all the way through the centuries, Satan seeking to build his kingdom, and in doing so displaying his power, and making for himself a reputation, glory. Is this not reflected in some of the great episodes in the Scriptures? Is it not that which is seen in Egypt? A kingdom, a sphere of supreme government in the earth, power, display of power, glory, and all at the expense of what was of God; for the chosen seed was brought under that power in that kingdom to be made the instrument of that glory. The Pyramids, again, an abiding monument to the fact that a great world power or kingdom exploited something that was of God for its own glory. Of Babylon the same may be said. "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" said Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, interpreting the dream, "God hath given thee a kingdom": but that kingdom, that Gentile kingdom, was taken for the glory of a man and not the glory of God; and that was the interpretation of the dream. Nebuchadnezzar was driven from amongst men to have his habitation with the beasts of the field, because he gave not glory to God in his kingdom, and when he came back and his reason returned unto him, and he walked again in Babylon, his great proclamation was to this effect, This God of heaven is the only God.

So we could pass down history and see it repeated again and again. But today we have it perhaps more manifest than ever. A kingdom, world domination, a display of awful Satanic power, all for the glory of Satan in the Antichrist eventually, so that he, sitting in the Temple of God, claims to be God, taking God's place. A kingdom, power and glory in the place of God.

I said that many of the Lord's children are right up against that thing in a literal, as well as a spiritual way today. How far all will be involved in the outward and literal expression we do not know, but we are all involved in this thing spiritually. It is a mighty thing that we are in.

There is the other side - His Kingdom, His power, His glory. But the ground of the testing for us is that His Kingdom now is not a Kingdom to be seen, His power now is not a power which is being outwardly displayed, His glory now is something which is in the heart in a spiritual relationship and knowledge of Himself. It is what He is, what we know Him to be. The Church has to stand for that against this other. It comes down to us in our lives every day, is pressed home to us, and is going to be pressed home - to be able at all times to stand under intense trial and say, "Thine is the kingdom". Ask friends just now in certain parts of Europe whether it is easy to say that right into the face of the Lord as the hordes of iniquity sweep on and do their devastating and devilish work and seem to meet with so little power to resist or throw them back, and no display from heaven. It seems they are doing as they will. Then ask these children of God whether it is easy to say after all, Nevertheless, Thine is the kingdom, and Thine is the power, and Thine is the glory! It is a very living question. It presses in upon faith. That is where we are. That is our vocation, that in the heavenlies in a spiritual way we stand for God in the breach and maintain in spirit and in faith that testimony.

A Final Word on Temptation and Vocation

Let us get away from all the romantic elements, (if indeed there be such,) of a great world situation, and see that this comes right down to our own personal life. It is the supreme question in all our personal trial, our sufferings, our afflictions, and all that we meet at the enemy's hands. It lies behind all our temptations; for all temptations are one in essence. The one end of them all is to force us, or entice us, to let go the heavenly for something that may be had here and now. All trial has that at its heart. You know quite well that in the secret place, under trial and difficulty and adversity, it is always this question that is cropping up - 'Must it be like this? Is it necessary for it to be this way? Are we not being too utter, too heavenly? Could there not be something of real gain if only we were to (we would never use the word) compromise?' Yes, that is what it means; to let go a little, slacken a little, drop down a little. In some form or other, that is the heart of all our temptation, and the question which it raises is whether we are standing for God's rights or for something that will come to ourselves.

Now have you got the heart of it, of this temptation of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness? In order to stand firmly for the rights of the Father right through to the glorious issue, He had persistently to refuse to listen to suggestions which would bring Him advantage, get Him out of a difficulty, make His way easier. Showing Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, the Devil said, "All this power will I give thee and the glory of them..." The Lord Jesus refused. "Thine is the kingdom"! If we go to Daniel, we meet the same declaration: 'The kingdom is the Lord's! He gives the kingdom to whomsoever He will. He will give the kingdom to the saints'. We will wait for that, we will stand for that, and we will repudiate the other. Whatever Satan might give us would be a very poor substitute indeed.

I do wonder if you see the point in this word. It is simply one thing. The Church is here, by the Lord Jesus, placed in a position. It is a prayer position, and the earnest of that which is fully developed in Ephesians 6, the conflict with principalities and powers, world rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies; and we are bidden there to pray with all prayer. The Church is to function in prayer against an assumption, against a demonstration, against a claim, against an ostentation, against presumption on the part of the Evil One, all of which is to get us drawn into his domain and under his power, and to use us for his glory. To resist that, to stand against that, to stand clear of it all for God's rights is the Church's business. Thine is the kingdom: Thine the power: Thine the glory, for ever and ever! That is our calling, that is our vocation. There is much more in it than that, but that is where the thing begins, where the Lord Jesus puts His people by this prayer as in a testimony to God's rights, against the one who would deny the Lord those rights and appropriate them himself. The Lord strengthen us unto it.

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Chapter 2 - Ministering to the Glory of God

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil... Again, the devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him... Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. 4:1,8-10).

"Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever" (Matt. 6:13).

"For not unto angels did he subject the world to come, whereof we speak. 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 madest him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, And didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he subjected all things unto him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb. 2:5-10).

This passage in the letter to the Hebrews fits very truly into the other passages read from Matthew. In chapter 4 of Matthew, we see the last Adam, the second Man, entering upon the field of trial at the hands of the Evil One, and being tempted on the same principle as the first Adam, namely, that of having things in Himself and for Himself, and of Himself, instead of having them in relation to God on a basis of faith and dependence. In this record, the last Adam, the second Man, triumphed where the first failed; holding everything into God, and having nothing save as in God. His declaration "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" reveals Him as recognizing and standing for the rights of God.

Now, when we pass on to chapter 6 of Matthew, the Lord has His own near Him, and He instructs them in the matter of prayer. At the end of that which is not a form of prayer to be repeated continually, but a gathering up of principles of prayer, He introduces exactly the same factors as are found in chapter 4. There is the Evil One, there is the testing or trying at the hands of the Evil One, and there is the acknowledgment of all things as being in God - "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." As we said in our previous meditation, by such words and spiritual principles there enunciated, the Lord Jesus puts His own people, His Church, into the position of standing against the Evil One, against his kingdom, his power, his glory and of repudiating all that, and, on the other hand, holding to the Father, His kingdom, His power, His glory, and testifying thereto. The point of our message is that this is what the Church is called for - to stand in that gap on the one hand, all the time repudiating certain claims which, with ostentation and demonstration, are constantly being asserted by the Evil One, and, on the other hand, declaring and holding to what is God's rightful position and what belongs to Him - the kingdom, the power, the glory. This position, as we have said, is constantly raising issues in our own lives and they become the one big cumulative issue of the Church's vocation.

The Position of a Church Governed by the Holy Spirit

There are two or three things that should help us as we recognize that. The first is this - the position in which the Church will be found when it is governed by the Holy Spirit. There are a good many ideas as to what such a life or church will be. Many of them are right, many of them are doubtful, but this one is perfectly clear.

1. Standing in the Gap

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."

A life or church which is governed and directed by the Holy Spirit, will be led into the breach where the testimony of God's rights, God's honour, God's glory, is the main issue in view. That is most certainly a mark of the Holy Spirit's government. Under the Holy Spirit's direction, such a position is inevitable. That may comfort us in all our affliction. Satan would like very often to make of our affliction, of our suffering, a ground of accusation: to insinuate that, because of all this having come upon us, we must be wrong; the Lord must be against us, or at least have reservations about us - things cannot be as they ought to be, whereas the truth is just the opposite. Look at God's own Son in the wilderness and see Him alone and in need and pressed by the enemy, and doubtless suffering in soul and weak in body, and know that this is a situation created by the Holy Ghost for a testimony, for the glory of God, for the kingdom of God, for the power of God. So it is a great thing, and a glorious thing, if we did but recognize it, to be put into the position where that testimony hangs, as it were, upon us, in a day of fierce and terrible assaults from the enemy. Such is a Holy Spirit-led church.

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2. Maintaining the Spirituality of the Kingdom

The next thing, which runs closely in accord with it, is this: a life or people governed and directed by the Holy Spirit will come to the place where the kingdom, the power and the glory are essentially spiritual. That is a challenge. The Church has lost its real, powerful, effective testimony because it has sought a temporal, seen, tangible kingdom, power, and glory, and Satan has triumphed along that line. As he sought to triumph with Christ, so he has sought to triumph with the Church, and, in a great degree, has triumphed by bringing the Church into the realm where present kingdom, present power, present glory, is the thing sought after, reached unto, accepted, whereas the true kingdom, power and glory is spiritual, not temporal; is heavenly not earthly; is manifested not amongst men as Divine demonstrations, but manifested in the spiritual realm back of men and can only really be appraised, appreciated, recognized there.

See the example in the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. These chapters in Matthew all have to do with the kingdom. The kingdom was with Him; the power was with Him; the glory was with Him. "We beheld his glory", said another writer, "glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14), and that is not the kind of glory that men appreciate as on this earth as we see today. The glory that they are flaunting before the eyes of the world has nothing of grace and truth about it. It is another kind of glory that belongs to the Lord Jesus, just the opposite of this world's glory; it is full of grace and truth, and cannot be appreciated as amongst men of fleshly mind, worldly mentality. The Church must come into that place where, like its Head in the wilderness, it is stripped of everything that man calls a kingdom and power and glory, yet nevertheless demonstrates a kingdom and power and glory which is superior, though not capable of being appreciated by the natural mind. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Satan said, "Command that these stones become bread". The word is, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink" (Rom. 14:17). The power is not that by which you demonstrate fleshly might over man. It is that by which the spiritual forces are dethroned and upset, and so the glory is also spiritual. The kingdom, the power and the glory were with Him, but it was not in manifestation, it was hidden. All the issues were with Him, but in such a realm and in such a way as to give no gratification to the natural life at all. Satan was out to get Him to gratify His soul, His natural life, His humanity as such, and He was refusing to move on that plane, in that realm, and maintained His heavenly relationship with His Father, and it was there that the kingdom came, and the power and the glory were felt.

Now you see the principles. The Church will come into the same position and state as the Lord Jesus came into because of the essentially corporate nature of this thing. That is one reason why we have read Hebrews 2. There you have the uniting.

"For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one."

That leads you back to this - What is man, that thou are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou makest mention of him? In relation to what? - the subjecting of "the world to come, whereof we speak". We are speaking not unto angels but to man, but we see not man collectively in that Divinely appointed and designed position yet. But we see the Man in Whom all the others will be found, we see Him there, and so He goes before and they follow on. They come into the same position as He was led into, to the same end - the kingdom, the power and the glory, with Him and in Him.

3. Attesting the Accomplished Triumph of Christ

There is, however, a third thing which has to qualify that somewhat. It is this - that we are not doing what He did. There is a difference between Matthew 4 and Matthew 6. In Matthew 4 He fought the fight through and, so far as the foundation of the kingdom, the power, and the glory were concerned, it was a settled matter when He emerged from the wilderness. The victory was in His possession. Of course, the fulness of it was carried forward to the Cross and all accomplished there; but here as an initial, basic encounter with the enemy, He emerged in the power of the Spirit as Victor, and the thing was done. It was a settled issue, perhaps we should say potentially, for on the same things there were to be many more battles in His life; nevertheless, potentially the thing was settled.

When you come to Chapter 6, where we are brought in, it is not our being put into the position to fight that battle to a victory, and we must be very careful lest the enemy should gain a tremendous advantage by our having a mentality that the thing is not settled. You have to be careful here, because the enemy is always trying to get us into a position where the issue is not a settled one. If he can get any weakness in this matter, you may take it that he is going to win that battle. In Chapter 6 the Church is put into the place to stand not into something that is now being fought out as an issue, but into something that is very positive. "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory", not - Thine is going to be, will be, when the battle is over. You see, this is a Book of spiritual laws. All this is opened fully in the later parts of the New Testament. So here the Church is put into a position as on its knees in battle in the presence of the assailing Evil One, and its position is that of attestation, declaration, repudiation. In effect it is a repudiation - 'His is not the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Thine is...' and before ever you can win in the assault of the enemy, you have to be settled upon the fact that already that issue has been won, and that position established.

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The Church's Vocation

That forms the ground of a good deal of valuable consideration. What is the Church here for? The Church's primary object and purpose in being here is to minister to the glory of God, That is the first thing, whatever that means, however that is made effective, that is the thing above everything else. The Lord's people are here before and above everything else to minister to the glory of God. You know how much there is in that letter which has more to do with the Church than any other letter in the New Testament - the letter to the Ephesians - bearing upon this very thing. You are so familiar with the words.

    "...to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory" (1:12).
    "...the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory" (1:14).
    "...unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever" (3:21).
    "...that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (5:27).

"A glorious church"; "unto the praise of his glory". Let me repeat. The primary object for which the Lord's people are here and will be wherever they are through the eternity to be, unto all ages for ever and ever, is to minister to the glory of God. That means that we are here to maintain a testimony to the glory of God.

There are many ways, I should say countless ways, in which that is effected, in which glory is brought to the Lord by us, in which we minister to His glory, and it would be quite impossible for me to get anywhere in trying to set down how the glory of God is ministered to by the Church. But it is the fact that we need to recognize, for it must govern our minds and our attitude in all considerations. It has to resolve itself into this. All things in our lives - in our conduct, in our demeanour, in our manner, in our speech, in our relationships, in our position, the position that we take, our attitudes, our home life, our business life - the thing which has to govern us is, Does this minister to the glory of God? for that is the thing for which I am here. If only we could settle this matter finally, it would make a great deal of difference.

Let us ask ourselves, beloved, one question, one all-embracing question. For what am I on the earth? Why am I here? What interests have I, what are my purposes, and what, above everything else, is the thing which will have marked my course through this life? Now, if I said quite simply that our response to such a question would be, 'Lord, I am here for You', you would all say Amen to that. 'I am here on the earth for God.' But what do you mean by that? It is the practical application of that that matters. What do you mean by that? 'I am here for God.' You will probably begin to work in your mind along the line of various activities in which you would engage yourself, all kinds of things that you would do for the Lord. Beloved, in the course of our lives here as we really come under the government of the Holy Spirit, where there is real subjection to the Lord, we do arrive at a point where it becomes quite clear to us that the primary thing with the Lord is not what we do for Him, not the number of things or the amount that we do for the Lord. It is not a matter of things for the Lord at all. It is just how much the Lord is being glorified in us and by us. That is the thing that matters, and very often the Lord thinks that a greater amount of ministry to His glory can be fulfilled by our being laid aside from doing anything than by any amount of activity. We discover that.

The question arises at such a time, 'Oh, why this? Why am I not allowed to do this? Why am I shut up, cut off? If only I could be working for the Lord!' The Lord has taken it all away. He closes us down and in, and then, if we wait long enough and if we are true of heart and listen for the Lord, it comes to us by the Spirit that what the Lord is after is not so many things that we might do for Him, but to get more glory to Himself in us. And who of us will dare to say that God has not got as much, if not more, glory through some who were never able to do very much for the Lord outwardly, but glorified Him in affliction? It is true, is it not? We have to recognize that to be here for the Lord means not what we think will serve the Lord, but what the Lord decides will be most for His glory; and our attitude must be always that, if a thing really is for the glory of God, although we may not be able to see it, we are content, we accept it. It is very important. The Church is here for that - to His glory. That must be the all-governing consideration in everything.

That must also determine for us the meaning of the Lord's dealings with us. His dealings with us are sometimes very strange to us, and, to our flesh, very hard. The way by which He leads us is a painful way and a sorrowful way to our flesh, but we have to judge of all the Lord's dealings with us in the light of the amount of glory that He is getting in the unseen realm where true spiritual values can really be appraised. We can settle it, and let us do so, that His dealings with us are positively in order that we should be to the praise of His glory, we who first trusted in God.

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Now, that very attitude, that 'mindedness', that devotion, settles for ever the question of value to the Lord in us, in His Body, and I believe, beloved, that that goes to the root of what we have come to call 'the overcomer'. Look at the Church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7 and the same church addressed in the letter to the Ephesians, and listen to what the Lord has to say to that church. "I know thy works, and thy toil and patience (I know the things about you, all the things that are true of you)... but... thou didst leave thy first love... To him that overcometh..." so that the overcomer there is directly and immediately related to first love. What is first love? We are not going to discuss that very fully, but first love surely is gathered up into this, that there is no other person in all the universe who can compare with the one loved. No one else may see all that magnificence, all that splendour, all that is so wonderful to the lover, but he sees that and sees very little else, and there is not another to compare with that one. That one is everything, everything that is good, everything that is right, everything that is proper, everything that is splendid, and no one dare say a word against that one. The heart, the life, is wrapped up with that one entirely. The world, the horizon, is bounded by that one. That is first love. '"Thou hast left thy first love". Oh, yes, you are doing things! Ah, but that essential, central, basic thing is no longer there. It is no longer the case with you that you have nothing else in all the universe and in all life as your object of heart devotion but Myself. "Thou hast left thy first love".'

That, I think, is why the words in the Ephesian letter, Chapter 5, are brought in in relation to Christ and the Church - "...that he might present the church to himself a glorious church", and what is that? - "not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing". Of course, a spot means defilement - 'not having defilement'. What is it to be without defilement? "Unspotted from the world" - that is John's way of putting it. In the Old Testament, when Israel had any kind of voluntary fellowship with another nation, with a heathen nation, that was called fornication. That was the virgin daughter of Israel falling from her chastity. That is the great cry of the prophets about Israel. They had committed fornication, they had fallen from their purity. How? Simply by indulging themselves in relation to the other nations and the gods of the other nations. In the New Testament, the whole thing is gathered up in one word - the world. The world has brought in interests. There is a reaching out to the world in some matter. The Lord does not satisfy, fully and finally. The Lord is not everything. We must have something to make up. We must look over the hedge and satisfy some whim outside of the Lord. That is being spotted by the world, and those that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth are the ones who are not defiled. Do you remember that? It is just a matter of the Lord being everything. That is being unspotted, without spot, not having spot.

"Or wrinkle." The Greek word is 'contraction' Of course it is the same thing, and what is it? A mark of time! It is the mark of age. Even a little child can have wrinkles, and we say 'a little old woman'. That is not the eternal, the ever-fresh life of the Lord. That is something of time; something that is here, has left its mark. The Church has come into the realm where it is touched by the changing, the passing, the transient. It has come down to earth and become part of that which is perishing and decaying. "Not having... wrinkle." A Church whose countenance, whose complexion, is as fresh as the morning; to present a Church like that. For such a Church to be presented, a glorious Church, there must be this living only on the Lord, out from the Lord, by the Lord's life, the Lord satisfying us. It is a high level. But I do believe that the more the Lord becomes our satisfaction and we come to rest in the Lord, the fewer wrinkles we shall have. We know in our hearts that as the Lord becomes more to us, the less we worry and fret and are anxious, the more we rest ourselves, and that is a good remedy for wrinkles! The Lord help us to learn that lesson!

Now, the glorious Church is that which is satisfied with the Lord, and therefore is not tainted, spotted by contamination with the world, and is not marked by that which is perishing and decaying, belonging to time. Well, that is first love. When first love is gone, the wrinkles come and other considerations come. You know it is true in human life. You begin to look elsewhere when first love is gone. Interests are divided. The overcomer, then, is one who has no divided interest, has no look elsewhere, to whom the Lord is everything, full satisfaction to the heart. "Thou hast left thy first love. Consider from whence thou art fallen." That goes to the heart of the overcomer question. It means simply that the church or the overcomer has come back to the place for which it was designed, to minister to the glory of God, and we can never minister to the glory of God unless we are wholly taken up with Him. That is what made the Lord Jesus the chief Overcomer.

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The Practical Outworking of Ministering to the Glory of God

In practical outworking, that ministering to the glory of God, to His satisfaction, means, as I see it, two things. It means the maintaining and preserving of a full revelation of God here for His people. I think of the Apostle Paul. Here is an overcomer indeed. Here is one whose devotion to the Lord is without reservation. Here is one who can say truly, on the ground of what he really has practised, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:. Here is a representation of the glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. Here is the overcomer. But then, what was it that so characterised the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul? Was it not that he kept, maintained, a full revelation of the Lord for the Lord's people? He was never content with half truth or partial light and revelation. He would never have said, 'Let us be content with the simplicities and leave all the other things alone'. It is a wrong way of putting it, of course, but what is meant by that is a very mistaken apprehension of God's pleasure. What the Lord wants is that His people should have a full revelation of Himself, and we minister to the Lord's glory and satisfaction when we are standing truly for all that the Lord wants for His people. That is very practical, and we will accept nothing less for ourselves than all that the Lord wants, and we can accept nothing less for the Lord's people than that. That is one thing which marks ministering to the glory of God.

The other thing is a standing for the full life of God's people, and being deeply and terribly affected by the fact that so many of them do not really know life in any fulness. This is true, I am sure, of a great number of you. The thing that affects you, distresses you, the thing that constitutes the greatest problem for you and makes you groan more than anything else is to see people who belong to the Lord who are only half alive, or in whom there are very few marks of life at all. Their Christian life, their Christianity, is very largely one of forms, one of tradition; that loving, throbbing going on with the Lord where the mark is life and you can say, they are alive unto God, is absent, and the absence of it constitutes the greatest difficulties. You cannot get anything across to them, you cannot help them. They have no life basis upon which to build. It becomes a great and terrible concern, and you know that an enemy hath done this thing. This is the one who had the hold of death who is affecting them evilly, and bringing their life into bondage, and nullifying it as far as possible. To minister to God's satisfaction is to have that concern for the life of God's people and to be tremendously exercised. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly", said the Lord Jesus. Then the Church must be the vessel and channel of that life, and must take up this question, this interest of the Lord, that they might have it abundantly. That will minister to the satisfaction of God.

Now one last word. For the Church to minister to the glory of God and for the Church to be a glorious Church, the Church must have a deep - I was going to say, a terrible - sense of what the glory of God is. The glory of God, beloved, is the holiness of God, the moral excellence and perfection of God, the truth that God is, the purity that God is. It is God's nature that is the glory of God, and to minister to God's glory means that we must have a very acute sense of God's holiness, so much so that anything arising which is unholy in our midst immediately becomes an agony to us, a real distress to us. It is like an evil germ that has got into the body system, and is working havoc and bringing about disorder and pain, and when a germ like that, an evil germ, gets into anything like a healthy human body, all the organism begins to work to eject it, to overcome it. That is health. Health is the power, the vitality, the energy in a body to overcome the invasion of disease, of disease germs. What is true in the physical must be true in the spiritual in the Body of Christ. The mark of our health is that, when an evil thing comes in amongst us and invades us, we in the Spirit feel it, react to it, and will not have it, strive to eject it, and make it a matter of real concern before the Lord.

The church at Corinth was in a bad state of spiritual health because it did not take seriously the evils in its midst until the Apostle wrote a severe letter, a very severe letter, about things. They did not spontaneously react to the things until they got this stirring up and energising and stimulus from the Apostle. But a healthy church, like a healthy body, will at once sense there is something wrong, and recognise that something as being against the glory of God, and will rise and say, 'This must not be! This will destroy the very thing for which we exist. Our vocation goes if this remains, for we are here to minister to the glory of God, and that means satisfying Him as to what He is in His essential nature'.

The Lord just speak His word into our hearts.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - Life in the Spirit

"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God... Again, the devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." (Matt. 3:16-4:3,8-10).

"And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." (Matt. 6:13).

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God" (Rom. 8:14).

"And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance... Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified" (Acts 2:2-4,36).

In the first of these passages we see the link between the Holy Spirit and sonship: the Spirit is seen lighting upon the Lord Jesus and a voice out of the heavens is heard saying, "This is My beloved Son". That truth is taken up again in the passage in the letter to the Romans, chapter 8:14: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God". In the second passage, Matthew 4, the Son, under the government of the Spirit, is led into the wilderness, and the issue of that particular leading of the Spirit was a mighty victory for the rights of God. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him for a season." That is the end of that battle and it is victory in the hands of the Son under the government of the Spirit.

What I feel the Lord wants us to recognize at this time is what a life or church that is led and governed by the Holy Spirit does, what it means to be led and governed by the Holy Spirit so far as we personally and collectively are concerned: in other words, what are the marks of sonship. You see, beloved, we have to begin here, that sonship is proved by our being led by the Spirit. How do we know that we are sons, what is it that evidences sonship, in what way does sonship manifest itself and work itself out? The clear precise statement of the Word of God is by being "led of the Spirit". It was so in the case of the Lord Jesus. The marks of His Sonship were in His being led of the Spirit. The statement moreover is quite positive in Romans 8:14. How tremendously important it is, therefore, that we both have the Spirit and are governed by the Spirit. That is fundamental to everything. I venture to say that, if that which I feel the Lord wants to bring to us could be truly got over to us now, it would be a matter of tremendous value to every one of us. Let me repeat: the basis, the foundation of everything, so far as our relationship with God and God's purpose is concerned, is the presence and government of the Holy Spirit, and that government, of course, means and presupposes the absolute Lordship of the Holy Spirit; because the Holy Spirit does not come save on the ground of the death, the burial and the resurrection. It was when Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water that the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and baptism, as we all well know, sets forth in testimony the fact that, so far as any other government is concerned, be it the government of Satan, or that of the world, or be it the government of the self-life, that government is broken and we are out of it; and our resurrection, typified in our coming up out of the baptism, means that we are alive and alive unto God only. Thus the ground is provided for the Spirit to come in as Lord, and so become the basis of everything in our relationship with God and God's purpose. The thing that I feel we want to recognize is what that really means.