Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

There was a time when Jesus spoke to His disciples about His coming death at Jerusalem. Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, and said, "This shall never come to Thee." The Lord Jesus turned to Peter, and said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of man" (Matt. 16:22,23). If My Father says, I am to go up to Jerusalem and be crucified, that is the last word. I will never do anything to save Myself.

Later on, near the end, Jesus said to His disciples, "Let us go into Judea." Now it was in Judea that they were going to arrest Him and crucify Him. Thomas said, 'No, let us not go to Judea, Lord, in Judea the other day they were going to stone You, will You go back there?' Jesus said, 'What My Father says, I must do. I know that it is going to mean the Cross, but I must abide in My Father.'

Satan was always trying to separate Jesus from His Father, trying to get Him to act without His Father. Those three temptations in the wilderness were just a determination to try and get in between Jesus and His Father. All through His life, Satan was trying to separate Jesus from His Father. When He was hanging on the Cross, in that terrible suffering, Satan came along in some evil men and said, "Come down from the Cross, and we will believe." Now Jesus could have come down. He had said a little while before, that "if I were to ask My Father, He would send Me twelve legions of angels."

Well, you will remember what one angel could do. One angel went out in the Old Testament and killed a whole army of men. If one angel could do that, what could twelve legions of angels do. Jesus had only to ask His Father for the legions of angels, and they would have brought Him down from the Cross. No, He let the angels stay where they were. He had said, "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11). Right to the end, Satan tried to get in between Him and His Father, but Jesus knew the very great importance of abiding in God.

And now, here at the end the situation has changed. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Jesus is out of God. Jesus is separated from God. There is a great distance between Him and God. That had never happened before. Not for one moment in His life had He had such an experience. God is now far away. There is a great divide between the Father and the Son. Not only is Jesus separated from the Father, He is knowing of the terrible desolation that that means. There is a terrible, terrible thing bound up in that word, "forsaken," forsaken by God. There is nothing more terrible than that. It is the most awful desolation of soul. Not only distance and desolation, but darkness.

That word "why" is a word which means, 'I do not understand. I am altogether in the dark. This is something that I cannot understand.' "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Then, further, He was in absolute weakness. The Apostle Paul says, "He was crucified through weakness." It was spiritual weakness as well as physical weakness. When they mocked Him, and said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." There was a lot of truth in that. "No," He could not save Himself. He had not the power to save Himself. He was in complete weakness, without any strength for saving Himself.

Perhaps the worst feature of all is the sense of God's anger. 'God is no more pleased with Me. God is angry. All this says that God is angry. I am suffering the wrath of God.' Can you imagine what that meant to this One Who had lived all His life in the Father? Well, why was all this happening?

You know that one of the titles of Jesus is the last Adam. We have got to go right back to the first Adam to explain all of this. All this that Jesus was experiencing on the Cross was what the first Adam had brought upon the human race. It began in heaven; Satan rebelled against God. Before he rebelled against God, he lived in God. When he rebelled, he was cast out of God. Not only from the presence of God, but from his life in God. From that moment, Satan was outside of God, there came about a great distance between God and Satan. Satan became the prince of darkness. He was thrown out into the darkness, and he went out under the wrath of God.

Now Satan came to Adam, at that time Adam had his life in God; he was dwelling in God. He lived in God. He had everything in God. And then, through Satan's temptation, Adam did exactly the same thing that Satan had done. He disobeyed God. He rebelled against God. You notice what happened, he was separated, thrust out from God. He was separated from God. He no longer had his life in God. He went out into desolation. The earth was cursed because of him. All the bad things and evil things began to grow in the earth. What had once been a beautiful garden has now become a wilderness. Adam went out into the darkness.

[Shammu]

After that, Adam did not understand God. He had not the knowledge of God; and then he was in perfect weakness, entirely incapable of saving himself. He was under the wrath of God, and as the father of the human race, he brought the whole race into that position. Every member of Adam's race is in that position by nature. There is no member of the human race who naturally knows what it is to live in God. Everyone knows that they are far away from God, and God is far away from them. And everybody who truly knows that condition, knows that they are in desolation.

The cry of the human heart is, 'Oh that I knew where to find God! I am out here away from God. I am as though I were in the wilderness. I am in the dark. I do not understand God at all. All these problems of life, I have no explanations for them. Why is this and why is that? I am in the dark about it all. And I have such a feeling that God is against me.' That is what the human race is because of Adam's rebellion. Man and the world are out of God.

Now we come to the real meaning of the Cross. Jesus as the last Adam takes the place of the first Adam. He takes on Himself all the conditions that Adam brought on the race. He goes out from the presence of God. He goes out from the place of life, out of the place of the Light into the dark. The place where Adam was and where we are. All that is gathered into this word, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The answer is this: in order to open the way back into God.

Dear friends, you and I must recognize that we are in that position by nature. By nature we have no life in God. We are separated from God. We have no ability to save ourselves. We have no power to understand Divine things, and we are children of wrath, but the Lord Jesus took all that on Himself.

And now we turn from chapter twenty-seven, to chapter twenty-eight, of the Gospel by Matthew. Chapter twenty-eight is the resurrection. Chapter twenty-seven is a closed chapter; it is a closed history. In resurrection there is a return into God. Everything in the resurrection of Jesus, says, He is back in the Father. That awful story is finished. He is no longer separated from His Father. He is back in the bosom of the Father. And if in the Cross, He represented you and me and all the race, then in resurrection, He represents us all who are believers in Him. It is a new position, but what I want to emphasize is this one little word. It is not only that He has brought us near to God; it is not only that He has joined us with God in an outer way. The great thing is He has brought us into God. Our position now is supposed to be in God. That is why we read that little fragment from John seventeen, "that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us" (ASV).

You see, our life as the Lord's born again children is supposed to be a life in God, not just walking alongside of God, but living in God. God is our sphere of life. All that is of God is the realm in which we live. I want to get this over, so be very patient with me, because there is a lot that is hanging upon this. I suppose there is a baptistry here somewhere. When you were baptized, you did not come along and just sit down by the water, perhaps get as near to the water as you could, or perhaps just put your hand in the water. You did not say, I have come to the water of baptism; you got into the water. When you were baptized, the water was all around you, and over you. A Christian life is not just coming to live alongside of God; a Christian is called to live right in God.

Now, the next thing is that the Holy Spirit is given unto them. Why was the Holy Spirit given? Why have you got the Holy Spirit? Why is He in us? Just to teach us what it means to live in God. That is, to make us understand what is in God, and what is not in God. If the Holy Spirit is in us, and if we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and we speak in a certain way that is not right, the Holy Spirit will say, "That is not the Lord speaking, that is you." If we behave ourselves in a certain way that is not right, the Holy Spirit will say, "That is not the Father, that is you. That is outside the Father." So, the Holy Spirit has come to teach us and make us know what is in God, and what is not in God.

If we live in ourselves, we shall not live in God. Jesus says, "Abide in Me, as I abide in the Father." You abide in Me, by that He means you get everything from Me, as I get everything from the Father.

Now did you notice what the great work of the devil is? It is first of all, to come between God and man. Everything in our life, which is not of God, is of the devil. The great work of the devil, first in heaven, then on earth, was to bring division. Every division, which touches the things of God, is of the devil. It is not God. No division amongst the Lord's people is of God, that is the work of the devil. And it is because those concerned have been living in some other place than in God. Perhaps, they have been living in themselves and what they want, and what they think. Or, they may have been touching the world, there is nothing like the world to divide the Lord's people. Or, it may be they have been living in someone else, you know it is possible for us to live in a man. Be careful about living in a man. If you do that, that man is going to let you down. There will be division sooner or later. Do not make any man, no matter how wonderful he is, how great a preacher or a teacher he is, do not make him your life. If you do, you may find yourself out of the Lord. The result is division. That is always what the enemy is after. So abide in God, do what the Lord Jesus always did. 'Father, do you want this? Father, is this what You desire? Father, is this Your way? There are strong arguments that I should do this and that I should do that. At the other side of it, it looks as though that is the thing I ought to do, but, Father, that is not good enough. By nature I am a child of darkness. Father, do you want this, and do you want this now?' We must get it from the Lord, and like the Lord Jesus, we may have to wait for the Lord to speak.

Now, He had gone to the Cross, in order to destroy all that which has come between God and us. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is a great return movement into God. You will have to read your New Testament in the light of this. Just take up the Book of Acts, see how it works there. Peter, you know had some difficulties. He thought it was wrong to go and have a meal with Gentiles, he called them unclean things. He had a difficulty about it. He said, "Not so, Lord, not in that way. I have never done anything like that before!" Peter was then abiding in his religious tradition. The Holy Spirit says, "Look here, Peter, I know you are religious, but do you want tradition or God?" Peter came to see the point and to abide in God. He had to do what he never had done before. That opens up a lot, does it not?

I have tried to lay the most important law of spiritual life. I just beseech you, seek to have your life in God, not in things, not in people, not in places, not in circumstances, not in arguments, not in human intelligence, but in God. God's thoughts are different from ours. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5). We have been brought by resurrection into a return INTO God.

May we learn all that this means, and it is going to be a life-long education. May the Lord help us.

[Shammu]

Meeting 3 - "He Loved Them Unto the Uttermost"

Third Meeting
(February 2, 1964 P.M.)

We will read a few verses from the Gospel by John, chapter thirteen, verses one to twenty. You have had it announced that tomorrow night there will be a love feast, but I want to say that the true love feast is tonight. We all believe that the Lord's Table is the full expression of Divine love. All the hymns that we have been singing this evening were about God's love. There have been hymns gathered round the Lord's Table. That table has been speaking to us anew of the love of God in Christ Jesus. In this chapter which we have just read, we have the Lord setting forth His table for the first time. This was the first time that He gathered with His disciples around that particular table. Do you notice how the chapter begins? "Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end - unto the uttermost" (ASV).

So, over that table, He wrote His love for His own. In effect He said, 'This table, at which we are now going to eat and drink, is the embodiment of My love for you. Having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the uttermost.' And, then, all that follows in that chapter is an explanation of that love. If I tell you that there are seven things in those twenty verses which define His love, please do not be afraid that I am going to preach a long sermon on seven points. In a short time, I can just point out these seven features of that love of Christ.

"He loved them unto the uttermost." And I think in that statement, there is the most wonderful thing that ever came into this world. Jesus had had a lot of trouble with those men. They had often misunderstood Him. They had often disappointed Him. They were really a very poor lot of men. He knew their history during the past three years. But He also knew what was going to happen after this night. He said to Peter, "Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice" (Matt. 26:33b-35; ASV). He knew that Peter would deny Him three times, saying, "I know not the Man." He said about them all, 'All of you will be offended because of Me this night. You will all run away and leave Me, and I shall be alone, yet I am not alone, because the Father will be with Me.' He knew what a poor lot of men they were, but He loved them unto the uttermost.

That is the first thing about this love. It is not offended by our failures. He does not withdraw His love because we make mistakes. We may often disappoint Him, we may often fail Him, we may often grieve His heart, but He goes on loving us. He loves us unto the uttermost, right to the end. He is not offended by our failures. That is a very different kind of love from our love. This is God's love in Christ.

The second thing about this love is how condescending it is. You notice in verse three, the first statement in the chapter, "Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands." The Father had given all things into His hands. How great He is. Greater than all others. That could never be said of anyone else. God has given Him everything. But it did not make Him too proud to love these men. He was not superior to them, He came right down to them. Great as He is, He loved such men as these. With all His greatness, He came down to their level. How condescending is the love of God. It is great enough to come down to the smallest and to the weakest.

Sometimes we think of God's greatness in terms of power, in terms of the wonderful things He can do. When we think of men being great, we think of their greatness in terms of the big things they can do. The greatness of God is this, that while He has the whole universe to look after, all the big things of the nations, He can look after the smallest things. Sometimes we say, 'Oh, that is too small to ask the Lord for it. The Lord is so great, He cannot be bothered with our little things.' But, that is the greatness of God, to be able to do that. A really great man is one who can come to small things and make a lot of small things. The Father had given all things into His hands, and then He came to these men, and loved them unto the uttermost. How great is His love!

[Shammu]

Point number three: Then look again at the chapter, and see that this love makes no distinction in classes of people. You heard it read this evening, "You call Me Lord, and you are right. I am your Lord. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet...." You  see, He had taken the place of the servant that no one else would take. Just outside the door of every guest room, there was a basin and a pot of water and a towel. If it was a wealthy house, there was also a servant. And when the guests had sat down, the servant came, took off their sandals and washed their feet. But this was not a wealthy house. Jesus was poor. The disciples were poor. Now, can you see them going into that room? Perhaps Peter is leading the way, he usually did lead the way. Peter saw that basin and that water, he knew it was there, but he really was not seeing it. He walked past, and all the others followed. They all knew that that basin and that water and that towel were there, but no one was going to be the servant. They all went and sat down.

Jesus took the towel, poured the water into the basin, and went straight to Peter, the man so important in his own eyes, too important to be a servant. The Lord and Master was the servant. They were making distinctions between classes of people superior and inferior. Perhaps Peter said, 'Now, I am superior to this other man, let him do the job.' And perhaps they were all feeling superior. But Jesus knew nothing of that spirit. Love knows no distinction between classes of people. Love knows no distinction between nationalities. The Love of God in Christ Jesus looks upon us all just the same as needing His love. His love is above all earthly distinctions.

Point number four: You know, it is so easy to talk about love, to pretend to love, to use the language of love, to sing hymns about love, and it can all be sentimental; perhaps we all know people who have told us that they love us, but very often they are the very people who have hurt us most. Now, the love of Jesus was not sentimental, it was practical. He did not go in with His disciples and say, 'Brothers, I do love you very much.' He showed that He loved them by what He did for them. It was not sentimental love, it was practical love. And this is the love with which He loved them unto the uttermost.

We have got to point number five now. What was the meaning of this washing of their feet? Our dear brother, Watchman Nee, used to speak about the earth touch, he used to say, 'If you touch this earth, you touch evil, you touch death.' These men had walked along the dusty dirty roads. Their feet were literally covered in the dust of this earth. But in this symbolic act, Jesus was saying, 'You have to live in this world, but you must be kept clean from the world.' And this washing of their feet was His way of saying, 'Love, My love, will keep you free from the evil that is in this world.' The love of Christ is a cleansing love. It is not just words, but it helps us to live on a higher level of life.

Point number six: This love is full of spiritual instruction. He said to them, "What I do now, you do not understand, but you shall understand afterwards." This love is going to instruct us as to what God loves and what God does not love. Up to this point, these disciples loved the world. Their hearts were set upon a kingdom in this world. They wanted the chief places in the Kingdom. They wanted to be important people in Christ's Kingdom. And their idea was that He was going to set up a kingdom in which they would be important. It was the spirit of the world. They loved the world. See what the love of God did in their hearts! It took all love for this world out of their hearts. They went out into the world, and suffered from the world, because of His love in their hearts. They lost all interest in being important people in this world. After all it did not matter whether they were important people in the Church. They had no ambition to be the teachers and the preachers. They had no ambition to be the elders of the Church. The love of Christ had done away with all that kind of thing. They went out to suffer and to die for Him. To lay down their lives for Christ. It was a tremendous thing that His love did in them.

Now we come to point seven, which is not in this chapter, but do you notice that all this came just before Jesus began to speak to them about the Holy Spirit. Jesus is going to give them that wonderful teaching about the coming of the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall guide you into all the truth. He shall not speak of Himself, He shall take the things which are Mine, and show them unto you." What did that mean? The Spirit Who was coming would be the Spirit of love. And the Holy Spirit would work in them to produce this same love for others as Christ had for them.

Dear friends, if we have the Holy Spirit, these things at least ought to be found in us. These things which characterize the love of Christ for His own ought to characterize us in love for others. That is why the Holy Spirit has come. So that as He loved us to the uttermost, so ought we to love one another. Forgive me, I have gone four minutes over my time. But, if only we learn this great lesson of His Love, it would be worth staying here all night!

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Meeting 4 - "Jesus Christ... Both Their Lord and Ours"

Fourth Meeting
(February 3, 1964 P.M.)

Dear friends, it is not my intention to keep you very long. Indeed, I think I shall not say much to you this evening, but there is one thing I must say. How very grateful I am for the opportunity that this love feast has given me. It has given me the opportunity to meet so many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I am not conceited enough to think that this love feast has been arranged because I have come to the Philippines. But I do think it is a very great blessing that so many of us can come together like this. Perhaps many of us would not meet at this time were it not for this opportunity. So, I thank my brothers here for making this provision. If you had told me when I was speaking here last night that over seven hundred people would be gathered around the tables in this hall, I think I should have had difficulty in believing it. And what a wonderful feast it has been, but there is something more wonderful than the crowd, and there is something more wonderful than the feast. It is the love of Christ which is in every heart in this hall tonight.

When I was thinking and praying about this time this evening, and asking the Lord for just a little word to give you, there came into my heart the first words of Paul, in the First Letter to the Corinthians, I will just read those words to you. "Paul, called an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours." It is the last part of that verse which is very much in my heart, "With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours." I think the Apostle Paul was a very wise man. He was a very clever man, and in these two verses, that cleverness comes out. You notice he begins by addressing the church of God which is in Corinth. Now the Corinthians had a great gift of division. Later on the apostle would say there are divisions among you. And their divisions were marked by their circling round different men. One group said, "We are of Paul"; another group said, "We are of Apollos"; another group said, "We are of Peter"; so they were people who are very much marked by divisions. It was to those people and to those divisions, that the apostle said this, "To all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus, their Lord and ours."

How big is the church? It is just as big as Jesus Christ. The trouble with the Corinthians was that they were making Jesus much smaller than He really is. So the apostle, right at the beginning, said: No, Jesus is bigger than all the groups put together. To all those in every place who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus, their Lord and ours.

Divisions are always the result of making Jesus smaller than He is. Our Lord Jesus is greater than men. We have a hymn which has a line like this, 'The love of God is greater than the measure of men's mind.' We are always making God, and the love of God, about the size of our own mind. And if people do not agree with our mind, that is where the love of God stops with us. We, here tonight, represent many groups. Perhaps we have our own mind about things, but if this feast really lives up to its name, it represents something much bigger than our mind. We are not gathered to men or a man. No man for us can measure Christ. We are here tonight because this is a true love feast. And that means that the love of Christ is in our heart. We left our groups. We left our divisions. We are here on the common ground of Christ. What a grand thing it would be if all Christians just took that ground! The ground of so many Christians, the ground of some denominations, some organizations, some special teaching, or many different things, that is their ground. But the real ground of the Christian is Christ. If we all had a greater concern for the Lord Jesus than we had for religious things, what a different thing it would be in the world.

Now, I expect you all agreed with that. You agreed with it in theory, but you know this is very practical. To live next door to some people is a very practical matter. It just finds you out, does it not? How you get on with your neighbor. Now, there is another thing that you will all agree with in theory. It is that this life is a preparation for heaven. You believe that? You would say that you are on your way to heaven. And you expect one day to be there. And you will agree that this present life is a preparation for heaven. Do you really believe that? Because it is very practical. We are all going to be neighbors in heaven. We are all going to live next door to each other. Do you remember that there is a description of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Bible?

I am afraid that the people who have written our hymns have gone astray on this. There is a hymn which says this, 'The streets, I am told, are paved with pure gold.' That is false doctrine. In the Bible, it says there is only one street. Only one street in the New Jerusalem. That one street is of gold. Dear friends, we will all get to live on the same street in heaven. We are all going to be neighbors there. If it is to be taken literally, we shall not be able to go out of our houses without meeting everybody in heaven.

Someone came over to England from America once; they had traveled on the same boat as we had. They had never been to England before. We got into the train to go from the port to London. This person saw all the long rows of houses joined together and she looked shocked at this. 'Look at all the houses joined together. How do you get on if you do not like your neighbor?'

In heaven there is one street. It is paved with pure gold. Now I do not think we are to take that literally. I think it is symbolic, and is meant to teach us two things. (1) We are all going to be in the closest fellowship in heaven. And (2) the gold is the symbol of the love of God. We are all going to be together in the love of God.

Now I said you believe that this life is the preparation for heaven. Do you believe it? You had better begin to know how to live with your neighbor now. I mean your Christian neighbor. All those in every place who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus.

What is going to be the chief characteristics of heaven? It says that Christ will be all in all. Will the characteristics of heaven be the Christ of everything? Not things, not institutions, but just Christ. If it is going to be like that, then we had better begin to make Christ everything now. If we are going to have anything as a foretell of heaven in this life, it will only be just as Christ is more than anything and everything else. So our daily prayers must be, 'Lord, prepare me for heaven, and do it by filling me with more and more of Christ.' Do take these words of the Apostle Paul, "With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours." The Lord bless you all, dear friends.

[Shammu]

Meeting 5 - "Worshipping in Spirit and in Truth"

Fifth Meeting
(February 5, 1964 A.M.)

I think it is understood that in these meetings I am not giving formal addresses. I am just seeking to bring you to the foundation principles of the work of God. There is one thing that we must be prepared to recognize and accept. It is this: That before the apostles had finished their work on this earth, Christianity was beginning to move away from its foundations. That is, Christianity was moving away from its first position; and, therefore, the later ministry of the apostles was very largely corrective. Their ministry at the end was a ministry of adjustment to the first position. In their first writings, they were mainly concerned with getting life into line with Jesus Christ. They were seeking to bring these converts to Christianity into adjustment to the Lord Jesus. In their later writings, they were concerned with adjusting back to the Lord Jesus. It was not very long after the apostles had gone, that all those things came into Christianity with which we are familiar today.

Christianity became organized into an ecclesiastic system with "Bishops" and "Archbishops" leading on to a Pope. The vestments and ritual of later Christianity came in just about that time. People who were in authority were put there, not because they were spiritual men, but for other reasons. This tendency was already beginning to manifest itself before the apostles had finished their ministry. It is very important for us to take note of this, because we have inherited a Christianity which is not true to the beginnings.

Now take what may be the Last Letter of the Apostle Paul, that is, the Second Letter to Timothy. Of course, there are lots of things in that Letter that we all like very much. We like Second Timothy two fifteen, "Give diligence to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of God." But we do not always recognize that those words contain a corrective. They may be a call back to the original position. Of course, we very much like, "Thou therefore, my son, endure hardship, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." But we do not always recognize that that goes with: "Fight the good fight of the faith" (1 Tim. 6:12). The battle of the soldier of Jesus Christ is the battle for the purity of the faith. That is, the purity of Christianity as it was in the beginning. We have to read Second Timothy in the light of this truth. It was written because people were not behaving themselves properly in the house of God. Paul said that he wrote that Letter that men might know how to behave themselves in the house of God. There was misbehavior in the house of God. And you know that Timothy was, probably, an elder in the church of Ephesus. That was a terrible thing to say to Ephesus. Think of all that you know about Ephesus. And then, Paul said, even at Ephesus men are not behaving themselves properly in the house of God.

Later on we shall touch upon some of the things that had to be corrected. But for the moment, our point is that even so early as that, things were beginning to deviate from their original position. The Last Letters written in the New Testament were the Letters by the Apostle John. He wrote all his Letters and his Gospel probably after all the other apostles had gone to the Lord. I suppose we all like the Letters of John. And I suppose we like John's Gospel perhaps better than most. But have you really noticed the character of John's Letters? He begins his First Letter with these words, "That which was from the beginning." It takes them right back to the beginning. And then the letters have to do with correcting doctrine and correcting character. They are departing from the original teaching. And they are departing from the original standards of life. Now, note again, John was probably writing his letter to Ephesus. Then, when you come to his Book of Revelation, the Lord begins with Ephesus. And he says to Ephesus, "Thou hast left thy first love." You have moved away from your original position. I think I have said enough to prove that at the end of the New Testament writings, on the one side, things were beginning to go away from the original position. And on the other side, the apostles were concerned with bringing the believers back to the first position.

For a long time I used to wonder why the Gospels were written so late in New Testament time. Because Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came first in the New Testament binding, as we have it. Because they are the First Books bound up in the volume of the New Testament, we are inclined to have the impression that they were the earliest writings. I want to correct that, if that was your idea. These four Gospels were written after many of the Epistles were written. I used to wonder why that was? Why should these writers of the Gospels go right back to the earthly life of the Lord Jesus after all these marvelous revelations had been given? They have received the wonderful unveiling of the risen and ascended and heavenly Lord. They have received the wonderful revelation of the Church, which is His Body. They had come to see something of the eternal counsels of God. And when they had received all that, they went right back to His earthly life of thirty years. Now, for a long time I used to wonder why it was like that? It seems to me like coming from heaven to earth, like coming back from eternity to time. I did not understand that. So I went over to the Epistles, and for many years, I was wholly occupied with the Epistles. I was taken up with these eternal counsels of God. I was taken up with the spiritual Body of Christ, the Church. And I almost entirely lived in the later writings of the New Testament. And yet the fact remains that these men wrote those Gospels after many of the Epistles had been written. Now you see I had a question, and for a long time my question was not answered. I did not understand why the Gospels were written so late. And although they were later than some of the Epistles, the Holy Spirit put the Gospels as the First Books of the New Testament.

Now, for you, here is the spiritual law. The Holy Spirit is not always very concerned with chronology. Chronology is one thing, spiritual order is another thing. Have you got that? The Holy Spirit is always concerned with spiritual order. Well, here was my question, but I have had that question answered in my own experience. Later, the Holy Spirit led me right back to the Gospels.

Now I want to put in there some other things, and this is a very important thing. You see, when I started reading the Bible, and especially the New Testament, I did what most other people do. I read the Four Gospels as the story of the earthly life, work, and teaching of Jesus. It is a very interesting story of how He was born a little baby in the town of Bethlehem, all about the shepherds and the wise men and the star and all those things. That is very interesting. And then how He grew up in the carpenter's shop in the town of Nazareth. Then how at twelve years old He was taken up to Jerusalem to the temple. Then how He came to Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist. And He went about the country healing people's sicknesses and helping them in their troubles. How great crowds of people followed Him everywhere, because of the help which He could give them, usually in the physical way. Then how the rulers became jealous of all this, and they took council to put Him to death. It is a wonderful story of how He was condemned and crucified, then how He rose on the third day. All that makes up a wonderful history. Of course, that is how I read the Gospels. I got those standard works, books on the earthly life of the Lord Jesus, very interesting books, and that is all it was to me. And I thought that when Jesus died and rose again that was the end of the Gospel.

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Now we go over to Acts. Now we live in the Epistles! I have come to see that is all wrong. Everybody can read the Gospels in that way. I suppose any unconverted person would be interested in reading the story of the earthly life of Jesus, but we have failed to recognize that no one can really understand the Gospels until they had passed into the experience of the Book of the Acts. That is the experience of Pentecost. You know even the disciples themselves did not understand that until after Pentecost. They did not understand the work and the teachings of Jesus when He was on earth until Pentecost. I can fill a whole hour now in showing you that. They were moving all through the earthly life of Jesus with a closed heaven. That was the trouble that the Lord Jesus had with them. He said: "Have I been so long with you, and yet thou hast not known Me." And all the way along, His trouble was that they just did not understand what He was talking about.

And because of that spiritual blindness, instead of seeing that in His crucifixion all the Old Testament was fulfilled, they were all offended. About His death, He was always saying to them that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And when it came to that, He said, 'This is just what I had been trying to tell you all the time.' But they did not see it, and therefore, they were all offended. They all forsook Him; and you know the position that they were in when you look at those two men going to Emmaus. They said to Him, we had hoped that it should be He Who should redeem Israel. All our hopes are disappeared. Our faith has been mistaken. See how blind they were. It was not until He opened their eyes that they saw. Now my point is this, No one can understand the Gospels truly until they have received the Holy Spirit, and have come into a true deep experience of death with Christ, burial with Christ, and resurrection with Christ. Because that experience, not that doctrine, that experience brings an open heaven. When I came into a new experience of resurrection union with Christ, and of a new life in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit began to lead me back to the Gospels. He began to show me the real meaning of the Gospels. The Gospels had become a new life in a new way. Now all that is preparation for what we are going to say.

Now we come then to that adjustment, which our spiritual life demands, and we are going back to the beginning. We are going to begin in the Fourth chapter of the Gospel by John. This chapter, as you know, contains the talk which Jesus had with the woman of Samaria. At a certain point in that talk, the woman said these words to Him, as we have them in verse nineteen. The important part of this whole chapter is these verses nineteen to twenty-four. The woman saith unto Him, "Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus saith unto her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." You turn to chapter five, verse twenty-five, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." Now I wonder if you recognized the tremendous things that are contained in those words. First of all, they represent a complete change in dispensation. Up till now, it had been Jerusalem and Samaria; that is, it had been the temple in Jerusalem and the temple in Samaria. These temples represented a whole historic order of things. It was a matter of a special place in Samaria or in Jerusalem, according to whether you were a Samaritan or a Jew. If you were a Jew, Jerusalem was the center of everything. In the temple there, you will find God and no where else. The order of things in the temple of Jerusalem was everything, and you would never find it anywhere else. The priests and the sacrifices and the altar and everything, that temple was the center of all things.

So it was for the Samaritan in the temple in Samaria. Now Jesus says this tremendous thing. The hour cometh and now is, when neither in Jerusalem nor in Samaria, neither in this special place nor in that special place. Everything is not going to be centered and contained in some special places. The worship of God is no longer going to be in a certain form. Neither - nor! That is wiping out with one stroke the whole dispensation. That is a tremendous thing. Suppose you were to write on the blackboard and fill the whole blackboard with all your doctrine and your practices, how things had to be done. You said that is Christianity. Someone came along with a wet sponge and wiped the whole thing out and said, 'That is nonsense; that is not it at all.' What would you do with that one? You will crucify him. That is what Jesus did. He wiped out the whole dispensation with one stroke of His hand. Then He puts something else in its place. What did He put in its place? God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

All that old system of things may be very real to you, but it may not be the "truth." It may only be a system of symbols and types, and that is not the truth. You may become wholly occupied with what is on the surface, and what is seen. What you hear with your natural ears, what you see with your natural eyes, and you may not understand the meaning of that at all. It is the meaning which is the truth, not the things in itself. The very center of everything for the Jew was the ceremony of circumcision. That was the sign that you were a Jew and a true Jew. You could never be a real Jew unless you had been circumcised. The Apostle Paul says this: Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing. Hear the Jew saying that. You are not surprised that they try to kill him. Now it is not the thing, and dear friends, in Christianity baptism takes the place of circumcision; but baptism as baptism is nothing. In Ethiopia, the Christians are baptized every year. You could be baptized every day if you like. You could be baptized every hour of every day, and it may make no difference. If you go to the Lord's Table every week, it may make no difference. You can take up all the forms of Christianity, and really know nothing about it. That is what we are going to come to in our morning study.

When Jesus said, "Believe Me, the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth"; that need not be fixed in Jerusalem nor Samaria nor Antioch nor anywhere else. "Wheresoever two or three are gathered into My name, there I am." John three and verse sixteen is the universal word for our salvation. "Whosoever believed in Him," that includes everybody called to salvation. Matthew eighteen, verse twenty is another side of things, there you come to the Church. And you have another universal word for the Church. It is not in this place nor in that place; it is not on this ground nor on that ground. It is not Church ground; it is Christ ground! Wheresoever two or three are gathered into My name, worshiping in spirit and in truth. The dispensation has changed. It is the very first correction that is needed today. Christianity has become very largely a legalistic system. You must do it here! You must be here! You must do it in this way, or you are not the Church. The Lord Jesus had wiped this out in the beginning. He says the only ground that is necessary is in spirit and in truth in Me. Christ has taken the place of all other systems. CHRIST IS THE ONLY SYSTEM. But we have got to learn Christ.

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Meeting 6 - "The Most Important Thing is Spiritual Understanding"

Sixth Meeting
(February 5, 1964 P.M.)

We are going to read the Word of God in the Gospel by Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses one to seventeen:
"The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto Him, so that He went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, 'Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.'

And the disciples came, and said unto Him, 'Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?' He answered and said unto them, 'Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.' But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, 'That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.'"

And then verses fifty-one and fifty-two:

"Jesus saith unto them, 'Have ye understood all these things?' They say unto Him, 'Yea, Lord.' Then said He unto them, 'Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.'"

For some weeks before I knew that I was coming to Manila, the Lord was speaking to me about a certain matter. And then when I knew that I was coming, the Lord indicated that that was the matter about which He wanted me to speak to you. I feel that it is the most important matter in the Christian life. I hope that you will take note of that statement. What is the most important thing in the life of a Christian? It is: "SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING." I do not think that there is anything more important for us than spiritual understanding. Perhaps you noticed that that is the matter around which this thirteenth chapter of the Book of Matthew circles. Everything centers in and focuses upon this matter of SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING!

The Lord Jesus is here speaking about the Kingdom of God. That is the great subject with which He was occupied. It is the all inclusive matter, the Kingdom of God. Everything is gathered into this matter of the Kingdom of God. We must understand that the Kingdom of God is an eternal matter. It goes right back into the past eternity. It comes through all ages of time; then it is completed in the eternity which is to come. All that we have in the Bible is gathered into this one matter, the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is God's Sovereign Rule. The Government of God is over all things in the universe, and especially in this world. That Kingdom was given by the Father to His Son as the Son's inheritance. In the beginning of the Letter to the Hebrews, we have these words about God's Son. It says, "Whom He appointed heir of all things." That must have taken place before this world was created. God, the Father, appointed His Son heir of all things. In other words, He gave to the Son the Kingdom. God's Kingdom is God's Son's eternal right. The Son of God is appointed to reign over all things.

The next thing that is revealed to us in Scripture is that man was created in order to be a joint heir with Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God. God created man in order that man should reign together with His Son. Again, in the same letter to the Hebrews, the question is taken up: "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" "Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands." "Thou hast put all things under His feet." So we have these three things to begin with; (1) God the Father over all things. The Kingdom belongs to God, the Divine rule over all things. (2) The Son is given a place beside the Father in the Throne. The Father says to the Son, "Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet." (3) And then man is created in order to share the Kingdom with the Son. Those are the first three things, the first three things in the Bible.

Then we begin again. The next thing is that man handed over that Kingdom to Satan. Man gave his inheritance into the hands of the devil. So that Satan became the prince of this world. And the Kingdom of this world was taken away from God's Son. There was this usurper who came into the place of the Son of God. The Apostle John says, "the whole world lieth in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19b). That is number (4).

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Now number (5). The Son cannot be eternally deprived of His inheritance, but He has come to win it back again. So the Son of God left the Father's side and came down into this world. He came to redeem the Kingdom unto Himself and unto His Father. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. So He came to preach the Kingdom of God, and to redeem the Kingdom unto Himself and unto God, and to redeem man as the instrument of the Son for reigning with Him in the Kingdom. So that in and through Christ Jesus, we are called back into the eternal Kingdom, into the Kingdom of God.

Now you notice that this Gospel by Matthew is all about the Kingdom of God. And this chapter thirteen is a particular chapter in relation to the Kingdom of God. But we will come back to where we began. The Kingdom of God can be lost because of one thing. We may miss our inheritance in Christ because of one thing. All that the wonderful Kingdom means may be missed because of this one thing. The Lord Jesus focuses the whole of the Kingdom of God upon this matter of SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING. And He prescienced, He foreknew, to illustrate this matter of spiritual understanding with this parable. He makes this matter of spiritual understanding the most terrible thing on the one side. He says if you have not got spiritual understanding, you may miss it all. And He says on the other side, if you have spiritual understanding, that is the way into the Kingdom. So we come to this parable, as it is called, of the sower. It is a simple explanation of the meaning of spiritual understanding.

Now the Lord Jesus gave that parable to a great multitude of people. They were perhaps all Jews, that is, they had all the history of the Old Testament behind them. They knew all that the Old Testament contained. They knew all that Moses had written. They knew all that the prophets had spoken and written. They had that wonderful possession of the Old Testament. And yet the Lord Jesus spoke to them about the Kingdom, just like little children. In a sense, any little child can understand the parable of the sower. It is a very pretty little story for children: 'A sower went forth to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side; and some seeds fell on the rocky ground; and some seeds fell among thorns; and then some seeds fell on the good ground.' Who cannot understand that? If Jesus had said to the multitude, 'Do you understand?' they would say, 'Of course we understand.' What do you understand? Well, the sower went forth to sow, and this is what happened to his seeds. But Jesus said, 'You do not understand at all. You do not understand a little child's story.' And even the disciples did not understand. Think of the disciples of Jesus not understanding that!

If I were to ask anybody here tonight, if they understand the parable of the sower, they would say, 'Of course we understand.' Anybody could understand a sower going forth to sow. The disciples of Jesus did not understand. And they came to Him and they said, "Explain to us the parable of the sower." What they really meant was, 'You mean something more than You are saying. There is something behind Your story, and we do not get what it is. Now will you explain it to us?' So He gave the explanation. Then He asks them, "Have you understood?" Oh, yes, we understand. But it is quite evident that for the rest of their life until Jesus was crucified, they did not understand. They were among that great crowd of people who live today, who think they understand the truth, but they do not. They have got all the words of Christian teaching. They have got all the doctrines of the New Testament. They have the Book itself, and the Book is well within their heads. They can quote the Scripture from anywhere and still they have not spiritual understanding. That is possible, dear friends. It is possible to have all the teachings without having the spiritual understanding. And all the trouble in Christianity today is because of this absence of spiritual understanding.

Now I am not going to spend time on all the details of this parable. You know what the Lord Jesus said about the seed and various results. But before we come to those details, let us notice one or two general truths.

First of all, the sower is the Lord Jesus Himself. It is from the Lord Himself that the Words must come. What we receive of the Word of God must come to us directly from the Lord Jesus. So it is said, the sower is the Son of God. What is the seed? Now note, Jesus calls it the Word of the Kingdom. If any man receives or when a man receives the Word of the Kingdom, the Word of the Lord Jesus is intended to bring us into the Kingdom. That is the all inclusive purpose of the Word of God. Not that we should know the Bible, although it is a very good thing to know the Bible. Not that we should commit the Bible to memory, and have it all in our heads. That is a very good thing. But God's object is that the Word of God should bring us into the Kingdom.

Now notice the different kinds of ground upon which the Word fell. How many kinds of ground are there here? We would say for the moment there are four, or there are six. These different kinds of ground represent different kinds of people.

Now I want you to notice this: The same Lord comes with the same Word to every kind of person. The Lord Jesus knew that some people would be like the way side ground, but He did not say, 'Oh, I know that they are no good; I am not going to give them My Word. I know quite well that they will not bear much fruit so I shall not waste My Word on them. Leave them where they are.' And, then, what about the rocky ground people? Well, I know quite well how they will respond. I know, of course, that they will be very pleased to have it. They say, 'Oh, this is very good. I see that I am going to get something from this.' And then after a little while, things begin to get difficult, persecution and suffering arises and they are not interested any longer. That is the end of them. Jesus knew all about them before He started it. But He did not say, 'I just waste My time, if I give them My Words. I will leave them alone.' And what about these thorny ground people? Well, they were the people who are very much occupied with the business of this world, commerce is their great concern, how to make the most money and how to make it quickly. Their business is everything to them, and then their profession is taking up all their time. And the others, they are altogether concerned about the pleasures of this life. 'I know quite well that their business and their profession and their pleasures will just choke the Words I give to them. I will not waste My time on them.' Jesus never said anything like that. And He did not say, 'Now I know that this is good ground. I will concentrate all My attention upon this. I know that they will give Me what I want, so they are the only people I am interested in.' No, He never said anything like that.

Jesus brought His Word and brings His Words to all kinds of people. Why does He do that? Now all you business men here tonight would not do that. And you very spiritual people would not do that. You would say, 'That is not using common sense. That is not good business. It is not good judgment to do that. Let us concentrate only upon what we are sure of. It is bad business to take any notice of those other unreliable people.' But you see the sense of Jesus is different from our sense. And that is where SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING comes in, so different from the natural understanding.

Why did Jesus do this thing which the men of the world would call foolish? He did it for one reason. He puts the responsibility for His Word upon everybody. The reaction to the Word of God is our responsibility when once He has given it. When once the Lord has brought to us His Word, He has put the responsibility away from Himself unto us. He says to the way side man, 'You can have just as much as the good ground man if you like.' He says to the rocky ground man, 'This Word of Mine can do in you just as much as it can do in anybody else.' He says to the thorny ground people, 'My Word is just as powerful for you as it is for anybody.'

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Now what would you really say if God's Son had come into this world only to save the good people, those people of fine character, those people who had everything in themselves. And if He left everybody else aside, I know what you would say. You would say that is not fair; that is not righteous. Here I am a poor kind of creature. My makeup is of the poor kind. I am just like a way side creature. My heart is a very stony ground heart. I know that I have a great love for this world. Does that mean that I have no chance to get into the Kingdom? It would not be right, would it?

So Jesus comes with His Word and He says, 'This Word has ITS same power to all kinds of people.' What you are naturally is not the point. Now He comes to the point. Do you notice one word that repeatedly occurs in these parables? It is the word: "HEART." Heart, a good heart, IT IS A MATTER OF THE HEART, it is not a matter of your poor kind of humanity. It is altogether the matter of where your heart is. Have you got a heart for the Lord? Have you got a heart for the Kingdom of God? Really, this is a heart matter. For the Lord says, If you really have a heart, that is going to mean SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING. So He takes the terrible passage from the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, "By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive; for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed." The prophet had given the Word of God to these people. The Word of God was read in their hearing every day and every week. But they had not got a heart for the Word of God. They did not respond from their hearts. So the Lord brought the judgment upon them. He says, 'You have closed your eyes; I will close them. You have closed your ears; I will close them. When you want to see, you will not be able to see. When you want to hear, you will not be able to hear. I will take away from you the power of spiritual understanding.' There is a warning for us here. I am afraid we sometimes do meet Christians like this.

May I say this very solemn word to some young Christians? It may be that you have been brought up in a Christian home. You know what your parents have taught you about the Lord. It may be that you have been taken to the meetings; perhaps you were in Sunday school. You know all about it. Yes, you know about the Lord Jesus. You know what is in the Bible. But you are not going on with the Lord. Perhaps you are breaking the heart of your parents. You are not just rejoicing in the Word of God. You are not really a living Christian, taking your place amongst the people of God, coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty evil forces. If you are a Christian at all, you are only a Christian in name. Something happens to you, or something is happening to you, that which you had is being taken away. You are losing the power of spiritual understanding. You are losing the power of spiritual sight and spiritual hearing. You see all that is going on amongst the Lord's people, but it does not interest you very much. You hear all that is said in the meeting, or in the home, but it does not matter to you.

There are a lot of Christians like that. And this very thing is happening to them. They are in danger of losing all SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING. And, therefore, they are losing all the wonderful meaning of the Kingdom of God, of sharing the Kingdom with God's Son, of reigning together with Him in glory. You are in danger of missing it. Spiritual understanding is the necessity. And SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING COMES FROM HAVING A HEART FOR THE LORD. Not being way side Christians, people who really do not have a mind for the Lord. Here comes the Word with all the mighty possibilities. Because you have not got a mind for the Lord, it means nothing.

Or you may be the rocky ground kind, superficial nature, living only on the surface of things, showing that is true by a quick response. Oh, that is a lovely thing to see young people make a quick response to the Lord. But if you have lived as long as I have, you will know that many of those who have jumped very quickly and say, 'Oh, here is something for me', do not last very long. They come to see that the Kingdom of God is not just for their blessing, but for the Lord's glory. You see, there is a wrong idea of Christianity, that it is something all for our good, so we want the blessing, we want the good. We say like Peter said one time, 'not my feet only, but my head and my hands.' He said that because he wanted everything he could get for himself. Later on, he came to see that everything was to be for the Lord. And he did not lose anything when he came to see that. When his heart was changed, and he now had a heart only for the Lord, then he came into the fullness of the Kingdom.

Oh, what about the thorny ground? These are the people that have all these wonderful occupations in this life, business and profession and pleasure. And these things take first place with them. Their hearts are divided hearts. A bit of their heart wants the Lord, but the larger bit wants this world. Their heart is not wholly set upon the Lord. They are in danger of missing the Kingdom. It is not until the Lord has the whole heart that we come into the real meaning of the Kingdom. Paul prayed for the believers of Ephesus, that the Lord will give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation; that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened. What is your reaction to the Lord? Is it really a whole hearted reaction?

Now I am coming back to that disputed point on how many different kinds of ground there are. You say four: way side, the rocky, the thorny, and the good. Is that all? But what about the different kinds of good ground? The Lord says even the good ground brought forth, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. So that even the good ground can be different. It can produce three different degrees of the Kingdom. We can leave the one hundredfold people. That is quite all right. But what about the sixty and the thirty? There must be something wrong even with good people. Why are not all the good people a hundredfold?

Oh, yes, there are people whose hearts are not rebellious to the Lord. They are not the people who say, 'I will not have the Lord's Words.' They make response to the Lord, and it comes from their hearts. But some good people have reservations. Some very good people say, 'Now if I go all out for the Lord, you know what my friends will think of me? You know what the people in my church would say about me. And you know, perhaps, my position in business will be interfered with. I must be very careful. I must not lose my influence with others. I must think about what other people will think and say. Now my committee expects this of me. If I really go all out for the Lord, my committee will be very angry. Perhaps they will ask me to resign.' You see what I mean?! Very good people, but they are influenced by policy.

I was talking to a man once, and as I talked to him, he saw what I was meaning. And when I finished, this is what he said. 'Yes, Mr. Sparks, you are quite right. I quite agree with you. But if I was to go the way that you are going, I should offend all my friends. And in my work for the Lord, people would begin to withdraw their support money. So I must think about my people and about the Lord's work.' These are very good people, very devoted to the Lord. There is no doubt about it that they love the Lord, but you see this reservation. It says that Caleb of the Old Testament, that he had another spirit, and he wholly followed the Lord. He, with one other man, Joshua, of that whole generation came into the Kingdom. That is what we mean by SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING.

I say to you: HAVE YOU UNDERSTOOD ALL THESE THINGS? I have much more to say to you about spiritual understanding. But, oh, how important it is! They should have eyes to see, to see behind the things that are done by Satan, and see the meaning of the Lord. These people only heard His Words, and saw His works, but they did not understand the meaning. And they lost so much. Ask the Lord to give you spiritual understanding. And if you do not understand, do not say, 'I do not understand.' Go to the Lord and say, 'Lord, make me to understand.' 'Open the eyes of my heart.' That will show that you mean business with the Lord. And if you mean business with the Lord, the Lord will mean business with you.

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Meeting 7 - Christ Corporate is the Church

Seventh Meeting
(February 6, 1964 A.M.)

Reading: John 4:19-23; Exodus 25:8:

"The woman saith unto Him, 'Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.' Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.'"

"And let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them."

In the Gospel by John, chapter 1:14:

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

We are seeking to get right back behind all that Christianity has become to its fundamental principle. I think we all recognize that Christianity has become a great buildup system. And very soon after the apostles had gone to the Lord, men began to put their hand upon Christianity. They put its truths into a set system of creeds. They put its testimonies into a form of ritual. Somehow or other man must put his hand on things. From the day when Adam put his hand on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man has always wanted to put his hand on the things of God. That is, to bring the things of God into his own control. We use our hands in order to bring things under our control.

But when it comes to the things of God, that is a wrong use of our hands. Man has always been doing that. The Philistines put their hands on the ark with disastrous results for themselves. Uzzah in the days of David put his hand on the ark; and the Lord smote Uzzah [so] that he died. And for the time being everything came into confusion in Israel. The ark of the testimony had to be turned aside. The whole progress toward God's end had been brought to a standstill. And even David was angry with the Lord. All the results were man putting his hand in the things of God. It has always been like that. And it is like that in Christianity.

Christianity began in a simple beautiful living way. It was all in the life and the liberty of the Spirit. And while the Holy Spirit has His hand on things, everything is all right. Now men came in and they took hold of Christianity and the result is what we have today. There is no place where there is more confusion than in Christianity. The Lord's testimony is under arrest. It is in limitation because man's hands are upon it. Man has brought it under his control. That is always a dangerous and a disastrous thing. The Lord's attitude is like this. 'I will keep My hands off until you take yours off. While your hands are on My things I will leave it to you.' And things go from bad to worse. Now I think we all recognize that. The more a man or any man puts their hands on the things of God, the more confusion there is. When man brings the things of God under his control and dominates them, that means trouble. That is why the Lord so often had to weaken man and make man know his own weakness. Paul, the apostle, was a strong man naturally. And as Saul of Tarsus, he put his hand on the things of God. And then the Lord met him and smote him. And in the end, the apostle said, "I will glory in my infirmity and in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Now let us take note of these things as we go along. I am not concerned about giving you a great mountain of teaching. It does not matter to me how much I give you or how little. The important thing is that you take note of every little bit. And what I have just said is a very important thing. Let me say to my brothers, and sisters, be careful how you put your hand on Divine things. Be careful how you try to bring the things of the Spirit under your control, it may be that the Lord will smite you if you do that. If you do that, you will only bring confusion into the church. With all this tremendous confusion, the system of Christianity exists because man put his hand on Divine things. This brings Divine things within the compass of their own mind, and to say: 'This is how it has to be done. This is what we must do and this is what we must not do.'

Now as we so often said, Peter started doing that, when the Lord showed him that he has to go to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. Peter always took the position that Jews had nothing to do with the Gentiles. When the Spirit told Peter to go to this home of the Gentile, Peter said, "not so, Lord"; he put out his hand, and he said, "Now Lord, You are wrong and I am right; You must come into line with my Old Testament understanding." That was a very critical day for Peter. And it was a very critical day for the Church. When Peter took his hands off, it became a wonderful day for the Church.

[Shammu]

So we have got to get right back to Christianity as a system as we know it. And get right to the first simple spiritual principle of Jesus Christ. And we said yesterday that this passage in the Gospel by John, chapter four, verse twenty-three takes us right back to the beginning. It is the beginning of a new dispensation. Jesus said to the woman, "the hour cometh, and now is." Then He dismissed the whole system that had existed up to that time. It was the whole system of Judaism according to the Old Testament. In one sentence, He dismissed the whole dispensation. And He introduced an altogether new order of things.

What did He mean? Because when He said the hour cometh, and now is, He did not mean literally just an hour and so many minutes. He meant that it was the first hour of the new day. With this hour an altogether new day has come. What is the new day? If you would have asked Jesus to put it into a short sentence, He would have said, 'Well, I am here.' The hour is not just a matter of time but a matter of PERSON. The new dispensation is the dispensation of Jesus Christ. Christ is the new dispensation. I am here, He said. You go through that Gospel of John. He is centering everything in Himself. I am the Way; I am the Truth; I am the Life; I am the Shepherd; I am the Vine; I am the Resurrection. IT IS A PERSON. It is that which lies behind everything. Christianity is Christ. Christ is Christianity. That is where it all begins and it never departs from HIM. The development of the Christian life is only the development of Jesus Christ in the life.

Now in this fourth chapter of John, the focal point is the House of God. The woman said, "Our fathers worshipped God in this mountain." She is referring to the mountain Gerizim where the Samaritans worship. Our fathers said, 'This is the place where men must find God.' But you Jews said, 'It is the temple in Jerusalem.' All the Jews said, 'If you want to find God, you must go to the temple in Jerusalem.' So that was their idea of the House of God. Now Jesus takes that up in relation to the new dispensation. He says, 'The hour cometh, and now is, when neither in Samaria, nor in Jerusalem.'

Now we come to those two passages that we have read at the beginning. Exodus twenty-five, verse eight says: "Let them build Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." That presents to us the great truth of the whole Bible. It begins the Bible and it ends the Bible. And the whole Bible is taken up with this one matter. In the beginning of the Bible we have God dwelling in men. And the Lord God came into the garden. Showing that God's great desire is to be with men. He made men for this very purpose: That He might dwell among men. Not to be the God far away somewhere that you do not know, but the God Who comes down and dwells with men. That was something always in the heart of God. So that the one thing - all through history - is God's desire to be present with men.

The Bible shows what a wonderful thing it is to be in the presence of God. Oh, when the Lord is present, what a blessed thing it is. And the most terrible thing that the Bible shows is for the Lord to withdraw Himself from men. I expect all of us here know something about that. I mean that the most difficult thing in our experience is not to sense the Presence of the Lord. If, when we have a day, when it seems that the Lord is far away, that is a very very hard day. When we have a day, when we realize the Presence of the Lord, that is the best day in our life. You remember the Lord's servant of old says, "If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." He could not contemplate going out without God. The Lord says, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." And so they were able to go on.

Now the Presence of the Lord is always the most important thing. Do note that, because I am going to make a lot of that now. When the Lord said to Moses, "Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them," He was, of course, referring to the tabernacle, the tabernacle in the wilderness. And then God gave them the pattern of all things concerning the tabernacle. And when all things were made according to the pattern, God came down and filled the tabernacle. He PRESENCED Himself among the people.

Now we come to John one, and verse fourteen. Here is a little bit of Bible study for you. See if you can trace in the Gospel by John how many allusions there are to the Old Testament. John was a Jew and he was full of the Old Testament. And whenever he wrote, he brought in something from the Old Testament. Now that is a very rich and profitable study. I just leave it to you for the present. He begins his Gospel with, "In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh." There, note the word that he uses. "THE WORD BECAME FLESH, AND TABERNACLED AMONG US." That is the original word, He made His Tabernacle among us. In John's mind he was relating Jesus to the tabernacle in the wilderness. And he is saying that as God came to dwell among men in the tabernacle in the wilderness, so GOD HAS COME TO TABERNACLE AMONG MEN IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. What is the Tabernacle of God in this dispensation? It is His Son. What is the House of God? It is Jesus Christ. What is the Church? I wonder what you would put down on paper if you were asked that question. If I were to ask you to write down on one sheet of paper the answer to this question, "What is the Church?" I wonder what I should get. I am sure somebody will give me a wonderful system of Church truth. A wonderful order of Church practice. The answer is simple. The Church is Jesus Christ, nothing less than that, nothing more than that. If Christ is in a number of people, it is He Who forms the Church. It is Christ in us that makes the Church, not first our doctrine, not first our practice, not first the way we carry on when we come together: but first of all the Presence of the Lord. The Presence of the Lord in those who are gathered together, that makes the Church.

[Shammu]

But note, I have commenced with the Church. And I am thinking of the Church universal, worldwide. There is no geography in the Church. You understand that? It is not in this mountain or in Jerusalem. There is no geography in the Church. There is no time in the Church. We are here at nearly nine o'clock in the morning. In England, it is eight hours earlier. Take eight from nine and you have one. It is about midnight in that country. You go further west and it is earlier still. But that does not exist in the Church. The Lord never goes to sleep. Darkness and light are both alike to Him. There is no day or night in heaven. Time does not exist with Him. I am very glad about that. Well, we will leave that for the time being. We may show that again at some other time, in some particular connection.

We want you to come back to this. Christ is the same at all times in every place. Therefore, the Church is the same. The Church is not American, British, Chinese, Philippine, etc. The Lord does not take notice of that. All that matters to the Lord is that He has a place in the heart, and it does not matter where it is in all the world, or what time it is at all. The Church takes its character from Christ. CHRIST CORPORATE IS THE CHURCH. You have got to prove that Christ is not in me, in order to say that I am not in the Church. And you have no right to say to anybody who has Christ dwelling within, that they do not belong to the Church. Do you understand that? Do you agree with that? We are getting right back behind Christianity to Christ. Right back behind what man calls the Church to Christ.

Now, having spoken of the Church, we are going to speak of the churches. What are the churches? Here we have got to do a lot of rethinking, and make some very big adjustments. Do you know that most people think that the apostles had the idea that they have got to get out to the nations and form churches? They believe, for instance, that the Apostle Paul's business was to go out and form churches everywhere. The real object of Paul was to go out into Asia and into Bithynia and into Galatia and form churches. Their idea was, we must have a church everywhere. Do you believe that? If you think that, you are all wrong. Now do think seriously about this. Because this is going to revolutionize our whole thinking.

What did Paul and the apostles believe was their work? It surely was not to bring churches into being. They believed that their business was to bring Christ into every place. Will you tell me where in the New Testament you have any apostle arriving anywhere saying, 'Now, we have come to form a church. The Lord has sent us to this place in order that we may form a church.' Well, you will spend a lot of time trying to find anything like that in the New Testament. It is not there. There are lots of other things that are not there, which we think are there. Things we have come to teach as being there, and they are not there at all. That is not there; you get back to the Gospel. "And Jesus sent forth His apostles two by two." And it says, "He sent them into every place, where He Himself would go." He has never changed that principle. He does not send us to form churches or set up Christianity. He sends us before His face to bring Himself there. That does not mean that churches have no meaning. But that brings us right to the point. What are churches? They are just people gathered into Christ where He Himself is. The supreme thing is this eternal thought of God, the Presence of the Lord. The Presence of the Lord, that is the purpose of anything that is called the church. And that is the only Purpose.

You remember in the Old Testament, there was the tabernacle or there was the temple. And when the Lord withdrew from the temple, it was no longer sacred. It did not matter to God one little bit whether it existed or not. It was just an empty shell. The Lord is not a bit interested in that. That is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said that in the temple at Jerusalem, "Your house is left unto you desolate. The day cometh when there will not be left here one stone upon another." That is how sacred this thing is to God when His presence is gone. it is no different from any other piece of stone. That is what the Lord meant when He came to the churches in Asia. He said, 'I know all about your works and your labour. I know all about your Christian doctrine. I know all about your services. But repent, and do the first works; or I will remove your lampstand out of its place.' The thing has no longer any meaning or purpose when the first thing has gone.

What is the first thing? It is not teaching and doctrine. it is not certain Christian practices. It is not continuation, of your meeting. It is the Presence of the Lord. The first thing was, when they came in from outside, they said: "God is with you." It says they fell down and said, "GOD IS WITH YOU." Go back to the Old Testament when the Lord filled the tabernacle and the temple, It says that; even the priest had to go out. They could not stay in the Presence of the Lord. They were but men. And they were sinful men. And men as men have no place in the Presence of the Lord. Oh, what a thing men have made of Christianity. In Christianity, man has made man everything. Sometimes I go to some places. I am introduced to the congregation. The one who introduces me says, 'Mr. Austin-Sparks, the great Bible teacher from Europe.' And then a lot of other things. My heart sinks; I feel ill. I have to stand up and say, 'Do not take any notice of that. I am nobody. The Lord is everything.' Man has no place in the House of God. We come into God's House in our own importance, in our own strength, putting our hands on things, our minds on things, our wills on things. We are changing the whole nature of the House of God. The Lord will be limited there. Indeed, He will not have a clear way for Himself. This Jesus Who was the very presence of God says, "I am meek and lowly in heart."

So I finish on this note, I have said we are here to get instruction on the foundation. I am trying to be very faithful with you. The day is coming when everything is going to be shaken from heaven. Christianity has suffered a terrible shaking on the main-land China. And now the system of Christianity is practically gone. And the only true thing that remains is what is of the Lord in the heart of the men and women. That kind of shaking is going on all over the world. The Bible says it is going to be so. Christianity is going to have a terrible shaking. And only what is the Presence of the Lord will remain. Perhaps the meeting will go, and be impossible. Perhaps Christian fellowship will be exceedingly difficult. Perhaps the preaching of the Word will be suspended. Perhaps all the externals will just disappear. And then the only thing will be, have we got the Lord? Do we know the Lord? Is the Lord with us? Be sure! that is something that the Lord will bring about. He very often does that with the individuals. If our Christian life rests upon things outward, the Lord will separate us from them. He very often does that. And then the big question is, how much of the Lord have I got? That is the ultimate thing, because that is the first thing. Do remember, dear friends, that THE TEST OF ANY CHURCH IS THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD! Not whether it is here or there; not whether it is done this way or that way. But just how much we find the Lord there. Just how much men find the Lord there. And to have the Lord in a larger way means having men in a very small way.

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Meeting 8 - "Have You Understood All These Things?"

Eighth Meeting
(February 6, 1964 P.M.)

We will read again the Gospel by Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses one through three:

"The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto Him, so that He went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, 'Behold, a sower went forth to sow.'"

And verses fifty-one and fifty-two:

"Jesus saith unto them, 'Have ye understood all these things?' They say unto Him, 'Yea, Lord.' Then said He unto them, 'Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.'"

When we read these parables of the Kingdom as given by the Lord Jesus and the many other things which He taught, we are in danger of looking upon them as something in themselves. For instance, we take these parables of Jesus and teach them to the children in the Sunday school, just as stories told by Jesus, and perhaps that is how we read them ourselves. They are very interesting stories.

In Matthew thirteen there are seven of them. Seven very interesting stories, and in other places in the Gospels, there are many more. We are all familiar with the three stories in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. The story of the ninety and nine sheep and the one that went astray. That is a very interesting story. We have heard many sermons on that. Then the story of the woman who had a necklace with ten pieces of silver on it. It was given to her by her husband, when they were married. And one day one of the pieces of silver fell off the necklace. She lit the lamp and swept the house to find it - very interesting story. Then the story of what is called the prodigal son, everybody knows that story. And so with all these teachings of Jesus, we read them as something in themselves, and we forget the most important thing of all.

The teaching of Jesus was given in a day of very great crisis, perhaps the greatest crisis in the history of this world. That is until the day when Jesus comes again. That will be the greatest crisis of all, but Jesus was giving His teaching in a day of very great crisis. The crisis was this: there had been a people in this world who had been the center of everything for thousands of years. That people had been the center of God's interest in this world. All the other nations of the world were watching that people. There was a sense in which that nation was the center of all the nations. What happened to that nation affected all the nations. God had chosen that nation. God had revealed Himself to that nation. God had given to that nation all the wonderful truth that is in the Old Testament. God had raised up the greatest leaders in history to lead that nation. He had given them the greatest prophets that men have ever had. He had given to them the greatest king that ever nations had had. What a lot God had done for the nation of Israel. From the day when He put His hand upon Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees, and had said to Abraham, "I will make of thee a great nation.... And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:2, 22:18). What a wonderful history it was from that day right up to the day when Jesus Christ came into this world.

And now with the coming of Jesus Christ, all that is brought to an end; that nation is being set aside by God. God is rejecting Israel. It will not be long now before Israel ceases to be a nation. Their city will be destroyed. Their great temple will be overthrown. Their priests will be killed and scattered. And from that day until now, they would have no city, no king, no temple, no priest, no altar, no sacrifice. That all has happened, and Jesus knew that that was going to happen. And all these parables were prophecies in relation to that, and He was giving them in connection with that great crisis. He was saying, 'Now the end of your whole history is coming. All that which has made up your life is going to be brought to an end, and an entirely new order of things is going to be brought in and put in its place.'

So the parables, as they are called the parables of the Kingdom, related to the passing of one kingdom and the bringing in of another to take its place. With the passing of that one kingdom and the destruction of all that had to do with it, John the Baptist came on the scene, a voice crying in the wilderness, a great multitude going out to hear what he had to say, and what did he say? "Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). That was the message of the forerunner of Christ. When Jesus came from the Jordan, having been baptized, and began to preach, He said the same thing. He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And that was the message of the apostles. As Jesus was about to go from this world back to the Father, He spoke to His disciples after His resurrection, and it says that He was speaking to them about the things of the Kingdom. On the day of Pentecost, the great message was the message of the Kingdom. And when the apostles went away over all the world they were preaching the Kingdom. When the Apostle Paul was at the end of his life in prison in Rome, a number of people came to see him in his prison room, and it says he spoke to them concerning the Kingdom.

At the end of that great letter to the Hebrews, everything is gathered up into this. All that the writer has been saying in that wonderful letter is gathered up into this statement, "Wherefore, receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken." The literal tense of the word is this: "Wherefore, being in process of receiving a Kingdom, which cannot be shaken." And the great triumphant cry at the end of the Bible in the Book of the Revelation is this: when all the story is told the cry goes out, "Now is come the Kingdom of our God, and of His Christ" (Rev. 12:10). See what a large and important place this matter of the Kingdom has in the Word of God. What a great thing it is to be in the Kingdom of God. What a terrible thing it is to miss the Kingdom of God.

Israel, as a nation, missed the Kingdom of God. Jesus said a most terrible thing about them, that the children of the Kingdom would go into outer darkness. There would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I ask you, is not that true for the last two thousand years where Israel is concerned? Israel has been in the outside darkness for two thousand years. Israel's history for that time has been one of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. We know the terrible stories of Israel's history right up to recent time. Oh! how Israel is hated. Their city is divided in two, and on one side of their own city is a people who hate them and want to destroy them. All this, because they lost the Kingdom of God. It is a terrible thing to miss the Kingdom of God. But on the other hand, it is therefore a wonderful thing to be in the Kingdom of God. Now we come back to where we started last night. May I remind you of what we said then: If the Kingdom of God is a very great and important thing, if it is a terrible thing to miss it, and if it is a glorious thing to be in it, we must have the secret of getting into the Kingdom of God. You notice how these two things are always put together by the Lord Jesus. Here is the Kingdom of God, and the way into the Kingdom of God is by SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING. Because they had not spiritual understanding, Israel lost the Kingdom. They could have had spiritual understanding. It was not because it was not possible for them to have it, they could have had it just as well as anybody else, but they were unbelieving and disobedient. And because of their disobedience of unbelief, their spiritual eyes were closed, and they could not see. They lost the Kingdom, because they did not see.

[Shammu]

Now keep that in your head for a few minutes. Jesus spoke these parables, all seven of them, and then He challenged His disciples, "Have you understood all these things?" Everything to do with the Kingdom hangs upon this matter of SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING.

Now let us move over to a very familiar part of God's Word. The Gospel by John, chapter three. You know it is a very convenient thing to have the New Testament divided up into chapters. However, sometimes it is a very unfortunate thing, and here we have an instance of that unfortunate division. Chapter three really ought to begin at verse twenty-three of chapter two. I am glad to see that you have got your Bible, that helps me so much. Now, verse twenty-three of chapter two, "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, because they beheld the signs which He did." Before we go on, let us ask this question: Do you think that that is true faith? They believed because they saw His signs. Is that good enough? All right, we will leave it there.

Let us go on. "But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and because He needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man." Now note: 'now there was a man... He knew what was in man, and He did not trust Himself to man.' "Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came unto Him by night, and said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these signs that Thou doest, except He be from God." But Jesus did not trust Himself to him, for He knew what was in man. But what did He say? Jesus answered and said unto him, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 'Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."'

Now we will see whether Nicodemus was seeing or not. "Nicodemus saith unto Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?'" And Jesus did not answer his question or explain anything to him. He did not commit Himself to him. Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 'Except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit'" (John 3:4-6). All right, now Nicodemus, who is he? What is he? He is a representative of all Israel. In the person of Nicodemus, that night all Israel was represented. And to all Israel, in the person of Nicodemus, Jesus said, "You cannot, you cannot. You cannot see and you cannot enter. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. In order to see, and in order to enter the Kingdom, you must be born from above. Naturally, you are a man of the flesh. Only spiritual people can enter a spiritual kingdom. Only spiritual people can see that kingdom." And it is true for Nicodemus.

When Jesus had said these things, Nicodemus said, "Oh, how can these things be? I do not understand this. I do not see what you are talking about. How can these things be?" Jesus said, "Art thou the teacher of Israel and understandest not these things?" There was nothing of all the history and all the teaching of Israel for thousands of years that Nicodemus did not know. He knew all the Old Testament. He knew all that Moses had taught and written. He knew all that was in the Psalms. He knew all that prophets had written. He knew it all. You could not have taught Nicodemus anything about Israel's history, and Israel's doctrine, and yet this man had no ability or capacity for seeing the Kingdom of Heaven.

I am going to stop there for a minute. That is a very solemn thing. It lies behind why I am here in Manila in these days. I have not come with the idea that I can give you any new teaching, I expect whatever I might say, somebody here would be able to say, 'Well, we have heard that before.' Somebody would say, 'Well, that is not new.' That is not the point, dear friends. There is all the difference in the world between knowing it all here, and seeing it with your spiritual eyes. Now I say this is the most solemn thing. One of the most tragic and sad things that has come into my life has been this: I have known people to come and accept all the teaching that we could give, and to profess to believe it, and then to go out and preach it, teaching it in various parts of the world. And if you had seen them and heard them, you would have believed that they knew it all, and then afterward they have so acted as to deny it all. Just to repudiate it all by their conduct and their behavior and by their way of life. I have known that to happen in more than one case, and it leaves you asking very big questions. They seem to have taken it all. They seem to have believed it all. They talk to other people about it everywhere. And then they have taken a course in life which denies the whole thing. And their whole position and teaching afterward is a contradiction of all that they profess to believe.

What is the trouble? You can only conclude that after all, they did not see it. They saw it in their intellect. They accepted it with their mind. They taught it with their natural ability. But they never really saw it. You know, if you have once really heard the voice of the Son of God, you are never the same again. Many believed on His name, because they saw the signs. But they were like Nicodemus. They thought they understood. They would have said that they understood, but Jesus did not commit Himself unto them. He knew what was in man.

Let us look at this man Nicodemus very closely. He is a very intellectual man. He has a fine brain, he is a highly educated man, he is a devoutly religious man, he is a teacher of other people, and he is a lot more than that. Everybody thinks that Nicodemus is a wonderful man. But Nicodemus did not see the Kingdom of God. It is not a matter of intellectual power at all. That may be very useful in other matters. It is not a matter of education. It is not a matter of being very religious. Nicodemus was all that and much more. What is he?

Now we come to this thing that Jesus said to Nicodemus, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." What does that mean? What did that mean to Nicodemus? What does it mean to us? Have you been in a great storm of wind, on the land or on the sea? Have you been in a hurricane? A really bad one? When the wind really blows, what can you do about it? Can you withstand it? Can you resist it? Can you say to it? 'Oh, I am not going to be moved by you?' Can you say to the wind, 'Oh, who are you? You are nothing?' What can you do about it? You cannot do anything. You are utterly helpless. You are just weak before the power of the wind. You are as nothing before that mighty storm. What is the only thing that you can do? Surrender, let go, you say, 'It is no good, I cannot do anything with this. I must just let the wind have its way.'