Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. The wind bloweth where it likes. You cannot say, 'Today wind you blow this way, and tomorrow wind you blow the other way.' The wind takes things into its own hands and blows where it likes. And you can talk to the wind as much as you like, but it will take no notice of you. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. What has Nicodemus got to learn? What have you and I got to learn? That the Spirit of God is the Sovereign Spirit of God. And the only thing to do is to let go to the Holy Spirit. You will never see the Kingdom, or enter into the Kingdom, until you have surrendered to the Sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.

I am going to close with this point. You know the disciples were men who had a lot of self-confidence. When Jesus said to them, 'All of you will be offended because of Me.' And Peter, "this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me." Peter pulled himself up straight. He said, 'Though all should be offended with Thee, yet will I not be offended. I will go with Thee even to death.' Now note what the writer puts there, the writer puts this in, "Likewise also said all the disciples" (Matt. 26:31, 34, 35).

They were all people with a good deal of self-confidence. They believed that they could do wonderful things. And if they were put to the test, they would come through it all right. But look at the sad story, when Jesus was taken into the judgment hall, even before He got to the judgment hall in the garden, when Judas betrayed Him, and the soldiers took hold of Him, it says they all forsook Him, and fled. Now Jesus is crucified. What a poor lot of men they are.

We hear two of them speaking as they walk to Emmaus. And the stranger draws near, and hearing what they were saying, He said: "What manner of conversation is this that you have as you walk, and are sad?" And they stood still, and looked at Him, "Are you only a visitor in Jerusalem? Do you not know what has happened there in these days?" And He said, "What things?" And they said, "The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, He was a prophet mighty in Word and in deed before God. We had hoped that it was He Who should redeem Israel, but our rulers condemned Him and crucified Him!' I think we could take it that those two represented all the others.

What had happened? All their expectations had gone. All their hopes were disappointed. All that they thought they believed had broken down. We say, 'the bottom had gone out of everything.' Dear friends, that had to happen. The Holy Spirit could never come until that had happened. Until these men had entirely lost all confidence in themselves. Until these men had come to see that what was in their heads was not in their hearts. They had heard it with their ears, and seen it with their eyes, but they had no spiritual understanding. They had to come to that position before the Holy Spirit could come.

There always has to be the devastation of the natural man, before the spiritual man can be born. Before we can have the spiritual understanding that leads us into the Kingdom, we have got to have our own understanding brought to an end. Many of you here tonight are thinking that because you have got a good brain and a good education, and that you are very religious, that is a guarantee of your seeing the Kingdom. You are suffering from a great illusion. Only spiritual men and women can see and enter the Kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you, 'You must be born anew.'" What is true about the beginning of the Christian life, that is, entering into the Kingdom, is also true about everything in the Kingdom when we are there. We can know nothing of what is in this Kingdom, only as we are growing spiritually. Very often our intellectual life goes ahead of spiritual life, and when that happens, we have to come back a long way and start again. We sometimes think we know a great deal more than we really do know. Only a life in the power of the Holy Spirit learns the things of the Kingdom.

Now, I am going to stop. I told you I was not going to give you any new truth, everybody here could say, 'We know all that', but how do you know it? Do you know it because other people have said it? Do you know it because you read it in the Bible? Do you know it because you have studied it as you study other subjects? Or, can you say, 'Truly the Spirit of God has revealed in my heart what is in that Book?' And can you go further and say, 'The Spirit of God is continuously revealing in my heart the things of the Kingdom?' Now, I must say one more important thing, and it is this: We are in just as big a crisis as Israel was in the days of Jesus. It may be that the Lord knows what is coming on us very soon. We are so often in danger of saying, 'Oh, it may happen there, but it will never happen to us.' What has happened in China, of course, will not happen in the Philippines. I beg to suggest to you that it has happened once in the Philippines. It can happen again. It can happen anywhere in the world.

There is a great unrest in all the nations. Men's hearts are failing them for fear. Anything can happen almost any day. It could come this way much more quickly than you would believe. If all the outward forms of Christianity were removed, what have you got left? If you could not have your lovely meetings and enjoy your beautiful spiritual fellowship, what have you got left? If you could have no more teachers, what have you got left? That is the mark of the crisis. The crisis is, what have we got in our heart? What has really been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit? What has become so much a part of our life that you cannot take it away without taking our life away? The end of this dispensation is going to be marked by crisis like that. And that is the big question. How much have we got by the Holy Spirit? "Have you understood all these things?" Make sure that you have spiritual understanding.

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Meeting 9 - Has it Come From Heaven by the Spirit of God?

Ninth Meeting
(February 7, 1964 A.M.)

There may by one or two who have joined us this morning who have not been with us on these other mornings this week. For their sake and for the sake of all of us, may I just repeat what it is that is occupying us at this time. We are all aware that during the centuries, Christianity has become a tremendous buildup of things which were not at the beginning. The Christianity which we know today is a very complicated thing. The hands of men have come upon the things of God, and men have tried to build this great thing according to their own judgment. And so we have all the confusion, all the divisions, and all the complications. It is really hard going in Christianity. Christianity has become its own great hindrance. So what we are being led to do in these mornings is to get back behind all this accretion of Christianity, and to rediscover and redefine the first basic principles. We are asking the Lord just to bring us into a clear definition of those things which are true to Christianity. We have said quite a lot in these mornings which we cannot repeat. And those who join us for the first time must understand that.

We are proceeding this morning from a somewhat advanced point. May I remind you of the two fragments of Scripture which are governing our consideration just now. One in the Old Testament, and the other in the New. In the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus, chapter twenty-five and verse eight: "LET THEM MAKE ME A SANCTUARY; THAT I MAY DWELL AMONG THEM." The other is in the Gospel by John, chapter one, verse fourteen: "AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US." We have seen that word "dwelt" is really in the original: "Tabernacled." "THE WORD BECAME FLESH, AND TABERNACLED AMONG US." In these two passages we have the eternal thought of God, first set forth in type, and then set forth in reality. That thought of God was always that He might dwell among men. We have seen how, when things were according to His mind in the beginning, the Lord God came into the garden, found His pleasure in dwelling with man. And then He had to withdraw. The desire of God for the time being was suspended. Now in the Book of Exodus, we find God taking up His thought, and commanding them to build the tabernacle, that He might dwell among them. That was all imperfect. We cannot say that God was always happy to be amongst the people of Israel. There was something that still needed to be done to make Him perfectly satisfied. So that it was only in a type and figure that God was with them. But when it comes to His Son, God is in Christ, and GOD'S SON BECAME FLESH, AND TABERNACLED AMONG US.

Now it is at that point that we are going to take things up this morning. Christ, the Son of God, is the Tabernacle of God. We need to be very clear about that. The dwelling place of God now and for eternity is in His Son. The Person is the residence of God, not in type, but in reality; not for a time, but for all eternity. Christ is God's Tabernacle. His name is Emmanuel, "God with us." His ministry was, and is, the service of the Tabernacle. His sacrifice, His Cross was the all-inclusive sacrifice of the Tabernacle. As there was an outer door to the Tabernacle, He is the door. He, alone, is the Way unto God. As there was the great altar just inside the door, His Cross is the altar. As there was the laver of brass a little further on, so through His Cross and by His Spirit, the Spirit of life, He cleanses us to come into the Presence of God. These things, and everything, had to do with just one thing: God's Presence with man. Everything is related to this one issue, the Lord being with us.

Now, just as God was very particular about every detail in the old tabernacle, so God is very particular that everything for His Presence expresses Christ. With God there are no mere things. Things are not sacred to God. It does not matter what it is; it is not sacred to God apart from one thing. It is in this matter that we have got to change our whole mentality.

You will go about this country, you will go about this city, and you will see these great religious buildings with a cross at the top. And when people enter those buildings, they bow themselves; they look very reverent. And they think that this is a sacred building. If you interfere with anything there, it is called sacrilege. To God that is all nonsense. It does not mean anything at all. The only thing that matters to God is not the wonderful building and all the wonderful things inside the building, and not even the cross on the top. The one thing that matters to God is whether He is there. Is God Himself present in this place?! For God, it is no different from any other place, if it is not the place of His Presence.

Of course, most of you here this morning agree with that. But what about ourselves, we hear Christians who come into a meeting like this speaking about coming into the house of God. Perhaps they say when they are going to this meeting place, 'I am going to the house of God.' And when they pray, they say, 'We are very glad to be in the house of God this morning; it is a good thing to be in the Lord's house.' What makes any place the house of God? What makes this place sacred? If it is sacred at all, what makes it sacred? It is not the building, this is not a sacred building. It is not a congregation gathered here. The only thing that makes it sacred is that the Lord is Present. The Lord is not interested in our places or in our congregations; He is only concerned that He may find a place for Himself where He may be present in pleasure. I wonder where the tabernacle in the wilderness is now?! I expect it is buried somewhere deep under the earth. I wonder where the great temple of Solomon is now?! I think you would be wasting your time to try and find it. You see, God had buried those things. Well, they were so sacred that God ought to preserve them. But He has not done it. When the tabernacle ceased to fulfill its real meaning, it was no longer sacred to God.

When the temple ceased to fulfill its real purpose, God just left it. And again and again, He allowed the heathen to come and destroy it. THE PURPOSE IS THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD.

Now all this sounds very elementary and simple, but we are right back at the first thing. John begins by saying, "In the beginning, God," and it is not only God in the beginning, it is God right through to the end. God is only where His Son is. But, wherever His Son is, God is there. We have got to be very careful indeed that we do not set up false ground for the presence of God. It is not here or there, in this mountain or in Jerusalem, it is where His Son is. And we will have to put aside all other matters and say, if the Lord is with you, I am with you. But in order for that to be true, there are two things that are most important.

We are keeping very close to the beginning. We got right back behind Christianity as we know it. You see, the Christianity that we know is not like that. Indeed it is very largely very different from that. Of course, we could spend a lot of time showing how different Christianity is from that. And that is all negative. We want to keep to the positive.

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Now note then, the first thing that relates to the Presence of God is this: God always begins with a presentation of His Son. In some way, a revelation of the Son of God is the basis upon which God always begins. If it is in the Old Testament, it is in a type or a figure, but whether men saw and understood it or not, there it was. Of course, that is a very big Bible study. If you understood the works of God in creation, as in the Book of Genesis, you would see Jesus Christ. You would see in every detail some expression of God in Christ. That is a very wonderful thing for those who have had their spiritual eyes opened. It says about God's Son, 'that all things were created by Him, and through Him, and unto Him.'

Now when you create something, you may be an artist and you may be painting a picture, you may be a sculptor, you may be making a statue, or it may be something else. If you are really a craftsman, if you are not just doing things for the sake of doing them, you put yourself into your work. When people see your work afterwards, they say, 'What a wonderful man or woman they are.' They can see your mind in this. They can see your heart in this. The whole thing speaks of the creator. You pass from the thing that was made to the one who made it. If the Son of God really did make all things, He did not do it just in an objective way, He put Himself into it. And if you have spiritual understanding, you will see more than the creations. You will see in everything the One Who created it. There it is, God has presented His Son. It is a revelation of the Son of God. That is where God began. That is the beginning.

When you come to this matter of the tabernacle, do remember that man never thought of this. This never came out of the mind of man. This came out of the mind of God. God said to Moses, "See," saith He, "that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the mount" (Heb. 8:5). God has only one object in His mind, and He works everything in relation to that one object. The one object which God has in His mind is His Son. So that this TABERNACLE was a typical representation of the Son of God in every detail. This was another beginning of God. The beginning was the constitution of the nation Israel, a definite people on this earth.

Let me just re-emphasize this: with God everything begins with a revelation of His Son. If we go beyond that, God will bring us back to it. That is true in the matter of Salvation. There is no true beginning of the Christian life without a seeing of Jesus Christ as God's Son. And that is true of all the progress of the Christian life. God keeps all our spiritual progress true to the revelation of Jesus Christ. And that is true of all the work of God. All the true work of God has got to be done by our seeing the Lord Jesus. Jesus Himself lived on that principle. He said: 'The works that I do, I do not out from Myself, but whatsoever the Son seeth the Father doing, that doeth He.' 'The words that I speak, I speak not out from Myself. The Father doeth the works and the Father gives the words' (John 5:10; 14:10). Jesus lived His life in full view of the Father. And He would not speak, or do one work, unless the Father told Him to. What is true of the Lord Jesus has got to be true of us all. We can only live this life of the Christian as we see the Lord Jesus.

To return to the tabernacle, we will use it as an illustration for a little while. The inclusive fact about the tabernacle is that it was not a thing. It was not a thing at all. It was a Divine meaning. That meaning was covered. If other people, which were not of Israel, came and looked at that tabernacle, they would have said, 'Well, that is a funny thing, what sort of a thing is that?' But the truth was inside. The truth was a mystery, and it required the opened eye of the heart to see the truth in that.

John, many years after the life of the Lord Jesus, said: "He became flesh, and Tabernacled among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." He was only saying, in other words, 'We saw inside of Him. We saw the Divine meaning in Him.'

Now when Jesus was here on this earth, He was the very Tabernacle of God. He was the very Dwelling Place of God in this world. But what did men see? Well, Isaiah said, "And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men" (Isa. 53:2,3). Just as the stranger would have said about the tabernacle, 'There is no beauty in that. It is all covered over with these skins. We see no beauty in that.' They would have despised and rejected it. But John said, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14). John had the inward revelation of Jesus Christ.

And, of course, John was not the only one. The Apostle Paul placed everything upon this truth. All his life and all his ministry was the result of what he said, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1:15,16). It is a revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart, which is always God's beginning, both for life and for service and for the Church. We ought never to do anything in the work of God, unless we get it from the Lord.

That is why committees are often very dangerous things. We gather together a number of men. Why do we gather them together? Well, we think that they are intelligent people. Perhaps they have been successful in business. And perhaps they have influence in this world. And we get them together to consider the work of the Lord. Well, do not be surprised if the work of the Lord goes slow. In the New Testament, THE PRAYER GATHERING WAS THE TIME WHERE ALL THE WORK WAS ORIGINATED. Now I have got a lot to say about this later on.

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But let us come right back to the beginning. Nothing whatever in that which is of God begins with man. When this tabernacle was to be made, first of all, the pattern came from Heaven. That was a revelation of Jesus Christ. But, even then, the Lord did not say, 'Now put this pattern into the hands of the people and let them get on with the work.' It says that the Spirit of God filled two men, and it was by the Spirit of God filling these two men that all the work was produced. They were anointed by the Spirit of God, it says, "unto all the manner of work." Whether it was this kind of work, or that kind of work, or another kind of work in relation to the tabernacle, it all came through the Spirit of God. Jesus Himself did not begin His great work until He was anointed by the Holy Spirit. It says, "God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit." And if Jesus Who was born of the Spirit, and lived a good, a perfect life up to thirty years of age, if He needed the anointing for the work of God, surely we do.

There is a difference between being born of the Spirit, and being anointed by the Spirit. To be born of the Spirit is to be brought into the new life, to be made a child of God, to enter into the Kingdom. But the anointing has to do with the work of God. We need anointing for the work of God. These two men, Bezaleel and Aholiab, were anointed. It says, "filled with the Spirit unto all manner of workmanship" (Exodus 31:1-6).

This tabernacle in the wilderness, when it was finished was the work of the Holy Spirit, passed from the type to the anti-type, passed from the tabernacle in the wilderness to the Lord Jesus, THE TRUE TABERNACLE, and every detail about Him is the work of the Holy Spirit. And if the Lord said to Moses, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." Now He says, just as particularly about the work of God, "See, that thou make all things according to My Son." Every detail has got to be according to Christ.

You notice that God never left anything to the mind of man. It was made known that many kinds of things would be required. Gold for the things of gold, silver for the things of silver, the different colors and the different kinds of fabric. No one ever said, 'Now if you [have] got any kind of material, just bring it along and we will fit it in.' No woman came along and said, 'Now I have got some good material, just use this for the curtain.' Bezaleel and Aholiab would have said, 'But that is not the right color, that is silver, and for this purpose I need gold.' Nobody was allowed to come along and say, 'Now I have got something for this job, and I am prepared to give it. You just take it and use it.'

The Spirit of God was saying, is this thing of Christ? Is it an expression of Christ? It is not what you think about this work of God. Not your ideas and your judgments, not how you do things in the world. It is, Has it come from Heaven by the Spirit of God? Have you waited on God to get it from Him? That is how it has always been in the beginning. That is how it was in the beginning of THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

I have dealt with a lot of beginnings this morning. I have not got as far as I thought I would get, but I do hope that you are seeing more than I am saying. Everything that is not of Christ is going to be dissolved. Make no mistake. This whole structure of Christianity is going to be tested according to Christ. Christianity is just going to be tested as to how far it was the work of the Holy Spirit of God according to Christ. Yet once again, says the Lord, "I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." The things which can be shaken shall be removed. The things which cannot be shaken shall abide. And what is it that abides forever? Not the tabernacle in the wilderness, but Jesus Christ. ALL and only ALL that is Christ will remain.

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Meeting 10 - Jesus Came to Form a New Heavenly Israel

Tenth Meeting
(February 7, 1964 P.M.)

We began last night by pointing out a very great truth. It is: that all the teaching and all the works of the Lord Jesus when He was on earth related to one of the greatest crises in history. That crisis was the removal of Israel as a nation from the eyes of the Lord for at least this whole dispensation. That crisis had already begun when Jesus commenced His ministry. And it was sealed and established when Jesus finished His ministry. The nation of Israel, which had held the central place in the interest of God in this world for many hundreds of years, was then being set aside. The prophets had foretold that that would happen. And it began to happen when Jesus came into His ministry in this world. When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, and the multitudes went out to him, he saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming. These were the representatives of all Israel. And he said to them, "You generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father:' for God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones." That is only another way of saying, that those children of Abraham were rejected.

Now this is a very important thing when you read the four Gospels. Everything that is in the four Gospels relates to this great crisis. On the one hand, there was the rejection and the removal of a people that had been called the people of God for many centuries. As we said last night, that is what Israel as a nation has been through all these nearly two thousand years. But that is only one side of the story. Jesus had come to do a new thing. And by His teaching and His works He was showing what the new thing is. And that new thing has been going on all through these two thousand years. It is going on today. It is going on in this very hall. The thing which Jesus began to do - and is still doing - was and is the formation of a new, heavenly, spiritual Israel. While that nation which bore that name is removed from God's sight, God never gives up His idea. And Jesus came to take up that thought of God about a new Israel. If you carefully read the Gospels, you will see that Jesus took up all that was of God in the old Israel, and brought it over in a spiritual way into a new Israel. For instance, Israel of old was God's Kingdom in this world. Amongst the kingdoms of this world, Israel was God's Kingdom. That is dismissed with Israel.

But the idea of the Kingdom is introduced again with Jesus Christ in a new way. Jesus said to Israel, "The Kingdom of Heaven shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." So the first words of Jesus, when He began to preach, were: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." This is a new Kingdom that He is building. This Kingdom is a spiritual and heavenly Kingdom. Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." But that does not make it any the less real. Indeed, this SPIRITUAL KINGDOM is a far more real thing than the old temporal kingdom. But, you see, the first thing that is taken over by Jesus is God's intention to have a Kingdom. Matthew prefers to call it "the Kingdom of Heaven," John prefers to call it "the Kingdom of God." We will not take the time to discuss whether there is any difference. The fact is, that it is a Kingdom. It is God's Kingdom. And it is a Heavenly Kingdom.

Then you notice that the old Israel was built upon the twelve sons of Jacob. Twelve is the number of representation. Those twelve sons of Jacob represented the whole nation. Jesus chose twelve disciples. They were a representative company of the new Israel. Moses had seventy elders that went up into the mount with him. Jesus chose seventy apostles and sent them out two by two.

Israel of old had a tabernacle. John says, "The Word became flesh, and Tabernacled among us." Jesus is the Tabernacle of the new Jerusalem. It is in Him that we meet God. And in Him all the spiritual meaning of the old tabernacle is come to fulfillment. Israel of old had a high priest. The New Testament teaches us that Jesus is the High Priest of the new Israel. Israel had the great sacrifice, the whole burnt offering. Jesus has become THE GREAT SACRIFICE. Israel had a great altar. The Cross of the Lord Jesus is THE GREAT ALTAR of the new Israel. And so we could go on. But, I think, we have said enough to indicate that Jesus came to form a new heavenly Israel.

Now, when God began the formation of the old Israel, He began with Abraham. And Stephen tells us that the God of glory appeared unto Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees. Do you notice the title given to God? "The God of glory appeared." That was the beginning of the old earthly Israel. The beginning of the new spiritual Israel is on the same principles. You open your Gospel by John, at the first chapter, and after that wonderful description of the Son of God, John says, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of an only begotten of the Father." That is where the new Israel began. The God of glory appeared. Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it." We do not know exactly when that was, or where that was, but somehow Abraham saw the day of Jesus Christ and was glad. That is always a mark of glory. Where there is glory, there is always rejoicing. "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2). And it is as though the Apostle John was singing a song when he opened his Gospel: "We beheld His glory, the glory as of an only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." I am surprised that there is not a smile on every face in this hall, "full of grace and truth." Surely that is glory. Surely that is something to make us rejoice. The Grace of God has appeared in Jesus Christ. But we must get on.

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Will you just look for a moment at those first verses in John's Gospel? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness overcame it not." And verses eleven through thirteen: "He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not." THE WORD WAS GOD. And they that were His own received Him not. "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (KJV; NASV). So the new Israel is introduced. It is formed of those who received Him, and to whom He has given the right to be the sons of God. That is something better than was ever true of the old Israel. Here is introduced the greatest idea that has ever been revealed from heaven, and the idea is that our God is to have sons of God. First of all, you see the Son, and then the sons, and the sons with the Son form the new Israel.

Now I want you to turn to another part of the New Testament. It is, listen to me, it is the Book in the New Testament which embodies the whole of this truth of the new heavenly Israel. If I were to ask you, 'What is that book?' I wonder what you would say. What book in the New Testament gathers up into itself everything about the new heavenly Israel? It is the Letter to the Hebrews. It is interesting that it has that name, because it is all about the new Israel. Will you please open your Bibles at the Letter to the Hebrews? We have seen that John introduces the new Israel with a presentation of the Son of God. Now this great letter to the Hebrews begins with a presentation of the Son of God. It has eight wonderful things to say about Him, but let us begin.

And we begin with God. God is always the beginning. Well, what about God? "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son." Now, what does that mean? I am trying to be very simple for the sake of the young people. That just means this: that God has gathered up all His old ways of speaking into One Person. In old times, He spoke in various portions and in different ways. Now, at the end of those times, He has gathered it altogether in His Son. That is the first thing about the Son. He is the final and the full speech of God. After this, God will not speak again. At the end of these days, He has spoken, and that is final. Reject the Lord Jesus, and God has no more to say to you. But in His Son, God has everything to say. He gathers together all His speech in His Son. Christ is final, and Christ is full, as to the mind of God.

I do not know whether you have the saying in Chinese, or in the other languages which you represent, but in England, we sometimes speak about the person and say, he or she is speaking their mind. That is, they are letting you know what they are thinking. Now in that way, in His Son, God has spoken His mind. And having spoken His mind in His Son, He has said, 'That is all I have got to say to you.' Well, that is the first thing. God has spoken unto us in His Son.

The second thing: "Whom He appointed heir of all things." As we said yesterday, at some time God said, 'I appoint My Son to be heir of all things.' And when God makes an appointment, nobody can set it aside. So He gathered up His created universe, and put it into His Son as His Son's inheritance, "Whom He appointed heir of all things."

The third thing: "By Whom He made the ages." The Son was employed by the Father for the making of the ages. That is what John said at the beginning, "through Whom He made all things." The Son was the Father's instrument in creation. "All things were created by Him." Of course, we usually speak about God as the Creator, and we sometimes overlook this fact that God did it through His Son.

Now, the fourth thing: "Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance." That simply means that the Son is the full expression of the Father. Jesus said, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." He is the full expression of God.

The fifth thing: "And upholding all things by the Word of His power." That is a tremendous thing to say of anybody. There is ONE PERSON in this created universe Who is upholding all things by the Word of His power. The world cannot go to pieces until Jesus Christ says the time has come for that. Let there be as many atom bombs as man can create. Everything is going to hold together until Jesus says it can go. He upholds all things by the Word of His power.

The next thing, number six: "When He had made purification for sins." Out of glory, into creation, and then redeeming creation by His blood, making purification of sins. My, that could hold us for many hours, but we have to go on.

The next thing, number seven: "When He had made purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." He took His seat at the right hand of God, and that is where He is now, at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The right hand is the place of honor. The right hand is the place of power. And that is where the Son is. He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Now, number eight: "Having become so much better than the angels." He is Superior to all the angels. Now, of course, I would like to stop to put in about an hour on angels. But you just go through your Bible, and see how mighty they are. What tremendous things one angel could do. A mighty army came against Israel once, and they besieged the city, and they vaunted themselves and spoke of how great they were. No one had ever been able to stand against them. All right, you mighty Assyrian armies. It says that God sent an angel, just one angel. And when men arose in the morning, the whole mighty army was dead. And the captain of the army went home without his army. Only one angel. Angels are mighty beings. And they are a mighty host. Jesus said, "If I were to ask My Father, He would send Me twelve legions of angels" (Matt. 26:53).

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Now, here it says, that Jesus is Superior to all the angels. Why have I said all this? Not just for a Bible study. Of course, it is all very interesting. But we have one object. We are talking about this new heavenly Israel. And this new heavenly Israel, which the Lord is now building, rests upon the greatness of the Lord Jesus. Until we understand something of the greatness of the Lord Jesus, we cannot understand what we are called to as members of this heavenly Israel. What a wonderful Israel this must be, if it is built upon such a One as He is! If all this that we have been saying about Jesus, the Son of God, is the foundation of Israel, how great a thing this Israel must be!

Now, Christ has this place by God's own act. Earlier, we quoted Matthew twenty one, and verse forty three: "The kingdom of Heaven shall be taken away from You, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Now, if you look at that verse in Matthew twenty one, you will see that it follows something very impressive. It follows this quotation from the Old Testament: "THIS IS THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, Which has become the Head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes." Israel rejected This Stone, and Israel was rejected in turn. But This Stone was appointed Head of the corner by God. And, therefore, Head of the corner He will be. He is the Headstone, the corner of this new Israel.

Now my time is practically gone, and I have not gotten anywhere. I wanted to take you further along this line of the correspondence between the new, and the old, on spiritual principles. I will try to get something more of this important thing into the next ten minutes.

We are saying that the new spiritual Israel follows in principle the line of the old Israel. We have seen that the beginning of the old was in the appearing of the God of glory. So it is with the new. But what was it that the God of glory said to Abraham? "I will make of thee a great nation." "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed." What was the first seed of Abraham? It was Isaac. Isaac was a miracle in his birth. He could never have been at all but for a miracle of God. But this is our point: Isaac must go down into death and come up on the ground of resurrection. Why was that? Why did Isaac have to go into death? And I think everybody here knows the story of Isaac. When God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and offer him a sacrifice." Isaac had to go into death. And in type, Isaac had to be raised from the dead. Why was that? You see, God's principles are eternal. The means that He uses may change from time to time, but His principles are always the same. And this going down into death of Isaac, and being raised as from the dead, was in order to keep everything on supernatural ground. His birth was supernatural, but now his life work was to be supernatural; it must all be on God's ground only.

Now, I expect, I think I know that there are some doctors here tonight. You can do a lot for people while they are alive. And we thank the Lord for all that you can do for us while we are alive. We say, 'While there is life, there is hope.' And we never give up until the last breath has been breathed. But when that last breath has gone out of the body, all the doctors have to walk out. You might bring all the doctors from all over the world into that room, all the cleverest doctors that there are, they may all have wonderful names and reputations, but when they look at that body, they all have to say, 'We can do nothing. All our learning and all our knowledge and all our skill is as nothing. He is dead. Nobody can do anything at all.' Now you see, if that one is really raised from the dead, that is something more than natural. That is supernatural. And only God can do that. There is no other being in this universe who can do that. And if anybody is raised from the dead, that is God's work only. That is why Isaac had to die and be raised. Because this Israel that was coming through Isaac had to be something of God only. Nothing of man about this. All man's education, and all man's skill, is put out. "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God." Every member of this new Israel has to be on that ground.

Dear friends, the deepest reality about a child of God is the most wonderful thing in this universe. The deepest thing is this, that there is something there in that life which only God could do. No man, or number of men, can make a child of God. There is nothing in this universe that can make a child of God. Only God can make a child of God. So that this new spiritual heavenly Israel is something which in its very beginning is on supernatural ground. We are a wonderful lot of people. We do not look like very much. Of course, I do not mean to insult you, I include myself. We do not look like very much. In this world, we are not very much. But God has in this world the most wonderful thing that He has done. He has a people which are of the result of His own unique Divine work. That is the beginning of the new Israel.

You see, we are right back with Abraham and Isaac as the beginning of this thing. God has brought that over into this new Israel. That is the beginning. Oh, that the Lord would give us spiritual understanding about this. I had thought that I might be able to say something about how true this is of the Christian life after its beginning. But if the Lord wills, I have got another evening tomorrow, and we can go on then.

Oh, but we have said enough surely to make it very clear that Christ is doing a very wonderful thing. Our name is Israel. That means a prince with God. May the Lord help us to live up to our name, recognize the great dignity that has been put upon us, and to understand the wonderful thing that He has done in us. The Lord bless you.

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Meeting 11 - The Presence of the Lord: "The Lord is With Us"

Eleventh Meeting
(February 8, 1964 A.M.)

Reading: Exodus 25:8; John 1:14:
"And let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them."
"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 going to continue this morning with this great desire of God to dwell among men. In our own personal life, in our life together as the Lord's people, in all the work of the Lord, THE MATTER OF GREATEST IMPORTANCE IS THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. There is nothing so important as the Presence of the Lord. I think we realize that because we pray very much about it. We pray every day that the Lord will be with us. When we come together for our meetings, we pray that the Lord will be with us. When we go to any part of the Lord's work, we pray that the Lord will be with us. But we very rarely realize that no amount of prayer can secure the Presence of the Lord. We may pray all day and all night, and have many nights of prayer for the Presence of the Lord. And we may think that because we pray so much for the Presence of the Lord, that that is going to guarantee that He will be Present. It is not only a matter of how much we pray for this. The Presence of the Lord depends upon whether things are suitable to the Lord. We may pray for the Lord to be Present, but because things are all wrong, the Lord will not be Present.

No, it all depends upon things being suitable to the Presence of the Lord. There is a sense in which the Lord is not with people. The Lord is only with His Son. And it depends upon how far things are according to Christ, whether the Lord will be Present. When the Lord Jesus said, "Wheresoever two or three are gathered into My Name, there I am." It did not mean wherever a few people gather together, and say, "We are here in the name of Jesus." Anybody can say that. All Christian religion says that. Jesus said, "Wheresoever two or three are gathered into My Name." THE NAME OF JESUS IS ALL THAT JESUS IS IN HIMSELF. The Name gathers up all that He is. All that He is to God the Father. And all that He is from God the Father to us. See, it is INTO the Name of Jesus. It is being found in what Christ is.

That brings us back to this matter of the Presence of God as in the tabernacle of old. We were seeing yesterday that the Spirit of God took hold of Bezaleel and Aholiab, so that they could fulfill the pattern which had been shown to Moses. Now, you see, you have three things. You have the pattern which had been shown. Then you have the people who are to do the work. Between the pattern and the people is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes hold of the pattern. And the Holy Spirit takes hold of the people. And the Holy Spirit makes the people carry out the pattern to the finest detail. All things according to the pattern shown.

Now do you see, why the Holy Spirit takes men off of the natural ground, and puts them onto the spiritual ground? So that the men will not do the work of God with their natural understanding or with their natural strength. They do the work of God by the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps, one of the things which we take the longest to learn in this work of God is this: It is that God leaves nothing to man's own judgment. I wonder how many of us have really learned that lesson.

You see, some of us had the idea at the beginning that we were called into the work of the Lord. Well, the idea may have been quite right. And then we had our idea as to what the work of the Lord is. And so we got busy about it. We use all our mind and all our strength to do this work of God. We organize the work. And we organize the people. And we appointed this one to do this work, and that one to do that work. We were like the general manager of a big business. And for many years there was very little or real spiritual results. The fruit of all that was spiritually very small. We may have built up big things. People may have said, 'Well, that is a very successful work.' But, as we look back upon it today, we see how poor it was in spiritual value. It is not the number of people. It is not the amount of work. It is not wonderful organization and machinery. It is just how much the Lord is in it. And it is better to have something quite small with the fullness of the Lord in it, than something quite big with just a little of the Lord in it.

Now Bezaleel and Aholiab were given understanding by the Spirit. How important that is. The Holy Spirit is very particular about the work of God. What a lot of trouble and waste of time would be saved if we were really led by the Spirit in what we do.

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I give you an illustration from my experience. Many years ago when the Lord was doing something, and it was something that the Lord was doing, a dear man came along and he said, 'I think this is the Lord's work.' And he came to the meetings. And he prayed in the meeting and he was one who had been used to preach in different places. And I thought at one time, Well, it might be a good thing to have this brother in the work. So, I asked him to preach. Well, he did preach. And then I asked him again, and he gradually became a part of the work. But the time came when I realized that that brother had not got the same vision. We who were in that work of God had gone through a very deep experience. We had come to know something very truly of the work of the Cross. The Cross had broken all our old ideas about preaching and organization. Now this dear brother had never gone that way. He had not come up from the root. He had been added from the outside. The real basic revelation had not come to him. So he was a preacher and a Bible teacher. But the time came, years afterward, when I said: 'Oh, I made a terrible mistake in bringing the brother in.' The day came when he went away. He tried to start some other things. And though we still loved him, and recognized much of the Lord about him, it brought a great deal of trouble and distress among us that he had come into the heart of the work. And when he went away, it meant a lot of difficulty.

Another brother came a little later. This was before I had learned the lesson. He was a dear brother, he really loved the Lord. He had been an evangelist. And he had done some Bible teaching. But he was a lonely man. And he came to me one day and he said, 'You know I feel the need of being a part of something else. I need to have a company of people around my ministry who will pray for me when I go out and where I can find spiritual fellowship.' Oh, in my sympathy for him, in my desire to help a brother, I said: 'Brother, we will provide you with what you need. We will gather around you. We will pray for you. You just find your place amongst us.' He had not grown up from the root. He may have been quite good fruit. But you know, there is a difference between the fruit that grows out of the root, and a piece of fruit that you come and tie on the tree. Now I have no fault to find with that brother. But I lived to see the day when I felt very sorry indeed that ever I had brought him in. He also went away and tried to start something else. And that has caused us quite a lot of trouble. We love him very much, we have no fault to find with him.

But, you see, God was doing something. And those who were connected with that had to come up from the inside. You cannot just put your hand on people, this one and that one and say, come and join us. Come and take up work amongst us. They have to be right in that which God is doing with you. The work of God is an organism, not an organization. And everything has got to grow out of the root. I hope you understand what I mean. It is so important that everything should be in the Spirit and not by man's judgment.

I began these morning meetings by telling you that the Second Letter to Timothy, which is Paul's last letter, was in order to correct things in the house of God. And one of the things that he was correcting there, was elders in the house of God. We are sure that they had already commenced that condition of things, which led to the organization of the Church - in man appointing officials in the church. I do not know whether you can understand the differences between an official and a living organism. Do you understand that difference? See, we have got organisms in our body. We do not call them by official names. They are just living organisms. They function by life. We do not say, 'Now this body needs a heart. Let us go and find the heart somewhere. And we give it some official name and we put it in.' No, the heart grows out of the whole organism. Now in late New Testament times there was this thing beginning, when men began to call elders bishops and archbishops and deacons and then at last popes.

Now that was beginning before Paul finished his ministries. And Paul wrote that letter to Timothy to put that right. In effect, Paul was saying this, "Elders in the church are not just officials. They are not chosen because they are intellectual men. They are not chosen because they are wealthy men. They are not chosen because they have influence in the world. They are not chosen because they are known to be successful businessmen. Elders are elders before ever they are called elders. Do you understand that? It is not the name at all. It is what the man is. And what the man is, is wholly a matter of how much of the Lord is in him. It is the Presence of the Lord which decides what the man is. You can leave out the name if you like. We just use the name for convenience. The name has taken on a meaning which it was never intended to have. Elders in the church are nothing more and nothing less than spiritual men. Let me repeat, IT IS JUST A MATTER OF HOW MUCH OF THE LORD IS IN THAT MAN.

You see, I am keeping true to the New Testament. Right at the beginning it was like this: 'Choose you out men filled with the Holy Spirit.' That was the thing that decided the man. Whether they were deacons or whether they were elders; whether they were apostles, it was a matter of man filled with the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit makes everything according to Christ. And when we meet a true elder, we do not meet the man first, some important man, some very forceful man, some man who has gotten everything in his hand: WE MEET THE LORD JESUS. That is the thing that makes us what we are in any capacity. And these are very important principles. "See, that thou make all things according to the pattern shown." And although the people were to do the making, they could only do it by the power of the Holy Spirit. If it is not like this, there will be a waste of time, and a waste of strength.

Several years ago, I was having a long talk with a leader of a great world movement. It was something that had a very blessed and beautiful beginning. God raised up a servant of His, and took that man through a very deep experience, then began to use him in this work. It became a world wide work. Many of you would know about it if I mentioned his name. But you need not ask, I shall not tell you. The thing is that in its early years it was a great spiritual power. I think it was one of the most spiritual things God has done in the last hundred years. But today it has lost its original power. It goes on; it is a big worldwide evangelical movement. It has hundreds of churches all over the world, but it has lost its original spiritual depth. It is quite different today in its character from what it was in the early years. Now I was having a talk with one of the leaders of this work, and he was deploring this loss of spiritual life in the work. He was very sad about it. And he said to me, 'Mr. Sparks, what would you do?' And that was a very big question to ask any man. So I had to think for a moment, and then I said, 'I think this is what I would do. I would call all the leaders together, and take them right away from all the work, and for two or three weeks I would wait on God. I would ask them to seek the Lord to recover the original vision and life.' He said, 'Mr. Sparks, you are right, that is the only thing to do.' But then he said, 'It cannot be done.' I said, 'Why?' 'They are all too busy. You see, we have got into something which so takes up our time and our strength that we have not the time to keep our spiritual life deep and strong.'

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That brings me back to another very, very important thing about this tabernacle in the wilderness. Not only did all things have to be made according to the pattern, but when that was done, the people set forth led by the testimony. The tabernacle was taken down, and all its parts were put upon the shoulders of the Levites, and the camp went forward. Well, that is very good, we like to think of that. But it was not long before the Lord said, 'STOP, we are not going on, put up the tabernacle again, and stay here till I say MOVE!' That happened again and again. I wonder why that was. You know, we cannot get things on our shoulders, and we cannot go on, and just keep going on. The Lord says: 'Stop, I want you to have a further understanding of My Son. I want you to understand that progress is only by My Presence. You have got to gather round this tabernacle, but realize that I am Present there in the midst. Now, for a time you have got to be occupied with Me. So far, you have been occupied with getting on; but I say STOP, and be occupied with Me for a little while.' The point is, that spiritual progress is always a matter of the Presence of the Lord, and of our understanding what that presence means. So if it happens in our lives that the Lord sometimes says, 'Stop, stop all your going on, stop all your activities, stop all your work, be still and know that I am God. Be occupied with Me for a little while.' Progress, spiritual progress is only by THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD.

You know, when the people came to the border of the promised land, they refused to go over and take the land because they heard from those who had spied out the land that there were giants in the land (Numbers 14). Therefore they would not obey and follow the Lord. Then the Lord said to Moses: "Say unto them, 'As I live, saith the Lord, surely as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, that have murmured against Me, surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning what I sware that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, that ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness" (Numbers 14:28-33; ASV).

When Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly. And they rose up the next morning and they said, "We have sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised." But Moses said, "Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord, when it will not succeed? Do not go up, lest you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned back from following the Lord. And the Lord will not be with you." The people said, 'We are going over.' And the Lord said, 'No.' But they said, 'We will go over, we are going on.' The Lord said, "I AM NOT GOING ON." And they went on, or tried to go on, and it was a most disastrous thing. And at the end of forty years they all died in the wilderness, just as the Lord had said (Num. 14:41-43; NASB).

It is a dangerous thing to go on without the Lord. We can only go on if we know that the Lord is with us. And so in all our activity, it is very important that we know that the Lord is in what we are doing, that we are not going ahead of the Lord.

It is just as dangerous not to go when the Lord does go. Supposing on one of those days when the priests sounded the silver trumpets, sounded that call on the trumpets which said, 'Today, we move on, today the Lord is going on.' Supposing the people said, 'Oh, well, I am not going. I am going to stay here, I am not going to move.' All right, the Lord would have gone up, and they would have been left alone in the wilderness without the Lord. See it works both ways. The Lord is going on, we must go on. The Lord says, 'Wait a little while, and get a new knowledge of Myself.' Then we must be prepared to wait. You see, I am giving you the foundation principles of life with God.

I think I am going to finish there this morning. I have said a lot of things. I do not want them all to be lost in the mass. I want you to be able to see this because that is a vital factor in the Presence of the Lord. It is not always what we think the Lord wants to do. We must bring our thoughts into the Presence of the Lord. 'Lord, it would be a good thing for me to go to such and such a place. I think they need me there. Indeed, they have invited me to come, and it seems to me to be quite good if I were to go.' Is that all that you have to consider? We have got to bring all that back to the Lord, and we have to say, 'Lord, do you want me there, and do you want me there at this time? If I get out of the Lord's time, I am going to waste time. Perhaps the Lord means it for next year. If I do it now, I have wasted a whole year.' You see what I mean? This is life in the Spirit, and the Lord can only be with us as we live in the Spirit.

Now, we are not perfect, we make our mistakes. I have told you a mistake that I have made. It was not because I had not got a heart for the Lord, it was not because I was not very jealous for the Lord, but you see I had not learned the lessons in the school of Christ. I have told you at the beginning that I was just going to bring you some of the lessons that I had learned in that school. I have learned them by failure, and I have learned them by suffering. God is very practical. You see, God never puts a textbook into our hands and says, 'Now you study that textbook and do things just as in the textbook.' Oh no, God never does it like that, that would be easy. Perhaps we would like it like that, but God teaches us by experience. He leads us into situations, and then we learn His deep lessons, that is the only way in which we really learn. True knowledge is the knowledge which comes by experience. Somebody else may write a textbook; they come along to you with the textbook. They say, now this is the textbook of the New Testament church, and you have got to do everything as we put it down here, and it is not long before you find yourself in a lot of confusion.

The Holy Spirit is our textbook, He knows it all. He has got all the principles, and it is only as we live in the Spirit that we learn by experience. But there is some value in our being able to tell you these things. I do not say to you now do this because I tell you to do it. I tell you that this is what I believe to be the way of the Lord. You give heed to it. You let the Spirit teach you, try to remember these things and they may save you from a lot of the trouble that I have had. But it all comes back to one thing, THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. That is the most important thing in the world. It is truly a great thing to be able to say, "The Lord is with us."

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Meeting 12 - "This Kingdom is an Everlasting Kingdom

Twelfth Meeting
(February 8, 1964 P.M.)

As this is the last meeting of these series this week, it will be necessary for us to do a little reviewing of what has been said. Not very much, but just enough to be able to go on from where we left off last night. But before we come to that I want to take you back to the Old Testament. Those of you who are familiar with the Book of Daniel, will remember that in the second chapter of that book we have the account of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw a great image. The different parts of the body of that image from the head downward to the feet were made of different materials. The head was made of gold, and the other parts of the body were made of other materials, until the feet and the toes were made partly of iron and partly of clay.

When Nebuchadnezzar woke up from his dream, he wondered what it all meant, for people in that part of the world always believed that dreams meant something. Perhaps you do that. If you have an unusual dream, you wonder what it is all about. The next morning, you tell somebody about it, hoping that they will be able to explain your dream. Well, that is what Nebuchadnezzar did. He called all his wise men, but he did not tell them his dream. Now he said, 'You tell me what is the meaning of this dream.' But none of them could give the interpretation.

Then at last Daniel was brought in and Daniel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord explained the dream to Daniel, and Daniel said this: 'These four parts of the image represent four great kingdoms. The head of gold is great Babylon, your kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar. After you will come another kingdom, and then that will pass away, and another will come; and then that one will pass away, and another one will come.' Daniel told him the names of most of these kingdoms, but the last one he did not name. Well, Daniel explained all that, and then he said this: 'In the days of those kingdoms, the God of Heaven shall set up a Kingdom. And that Kingdom, unlike all these others, will never pass away.' The Kingdom of the God of Heaven - what the New Testament calls the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven - and, beloved, we are living in the days of that Kingdom.

Now that is what we have been talking about this week. We are just going to leave that for the present and come back to where we were last night. It is rather impressive that in the days of Daniel, Daniel said that the God of Heaven would set up a Kingdom even while Israel still existed. The kingdom of Israel had not yet passed away at that time; although Israel was in captivity in Babylon, it was not finished with. A remnant did come back to Jerusalem, and rebuild the city and the temple, and for some four hundred years Israel went on. It was having a bad time with these other kingdoms. But what we have been seeing is that when the God of Heaven did begin to set up His Kingdom, the kingdom of Israel began to disappear. This great kingdom of Israel was also set aside by the God of Heaven. And what we have been seeing is that the God of Heaven brought in a new Israel, a heavenly and a spiritual Israel, to take the place of the older one. The God of Heaven, Who had dismissed the others, now brought in His new spiritual Israel. We, who are the Lord's true born-again people, are the new Israel. And this Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom. It will never pass away. Everything is being done in the world to destroy it. The world powers are seeking to destroy this Kingdom. But as surely as those other four kingdoms had gone, and the Kingdom of the God of Heaven remains, so they are doomed to failure. THIS KINGDOM IS FOREVER.

Now we are coming over again to where we left off last night. We come into the Gospel by John. I think you know that John wrote this gospel toward the end of the first century of this dispensation. All the other apostles had gone to be with the Lord. John had had a long life, and through long years, he had meditated much upon the relation between Jesus and the Old Testament. John knew the Old Testament very well, and through all those years of his life, he thought about it. More and more clearly, by the light of the Holy Spirit, he saw the connection between Jesus and the Old Testament. John knew that the old Israel of the Old Testament had been rejected by God, and he knew that Jesus had come to form a new Israel.

This new Israel was not something of this world. It was a heavenly Israel, a spiritual Israel. Everybody knows that the Gospel by John is the most spiritual of all the Gospels. John had come to see that the new Israel embodied all the spiritual principles of the old Israel - although the Old Testament Israel had been put away. God's thoughts in Israel were eternal thoughts and John saw that all those thoughts of God, which were represented by the old Israel, were now taken up by Jesus in a spiritual way in a new Israel. John saw that when God began with the old Israel, He appeared as the God of glory unto Abraham. "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham," and that was the beginning, the first step of God toward the old Israel. Then John took that over into the new Israel, so that when he began to write his Gospel, he spoke about this coming of the God of glory. "And the Word was God... and we beheld His glory" (John 1:1,14).

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So John began the new Israel where God began the old. And then he knew that God promised Abraham a son, and through that son He would make a great nation, and through that son all nations of the earth would be blessed. He introduced a new idea. This was not creation. He was not creating a new man; He was bringing one to birth. There is a difference between being created and being born. The new idea was sonship. Isaac was to be Abraham's son.

Now John begins in his first chapter all about the Son, God's Son. And then God was going to have a new Israel of sons in His Son. So John says, in His birth. Isaac was on supernatural ground, he was "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And then John knew another thing about the beginning in the Old Testament. He knew that the God of glory had appeared to Abraham, he knew that He had spoken about the son, and then he knew that that son was quite impossible along natural life. Isaac could not be born in the natural way. Probably you know all about that. We simply make the statement. Isaac was a natural impossibility. Nevertheless, Isaac was born.

Now John takes that over, and he knew quite well that Jesus was not born in a natural way. JESUS WAS THE RESULT OF A DIRECT INTERVENTION OF GOD. Isaac was a miracle. Jesus was a miracle not on natural ground. Jesus was on supernatural ground from His birth. But then we saw that even Isaac had to go into death and resurrection. You know the story quite well. I am having to take it for granted that you know your Bible. If you do not know what I am talking about, go back and read your Bible (Genesis 22). You will find it all there. Isaac had to be offered as a sacrifice, and then as in a figure raised from the dead.

Now here is a rather impressive thing! You are not far into the Gospel by John in the first chapter before this Son of God comes to the river Jordan. He comes to be baptized by John the Baptist. You know the meaning of baptism; it is a figure of death and burial and resurrection. But the impressive thing is this: John has been talking about the eternal Son of God, through Whom all things were created. And now, before he had got much further, he calls Him "The Lamb of God." There you have it repeated, "Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world" (verse 29). The Lamb has to be slain. When you come to the Book of the Revelation, the Lamb is in the midst of the throne, and all are worshipping the Lamb (Rev. 5). This great Isaac has gone into death and into resurrection.

Now we must just stop in this course for a moment to make the application. You see, we have said that believers in this dispensation are God's new heavenly Israel. What is it that makes us members of this heavenly Israel? In the first place, it is that we have seen the greatness of the Lord Jesus. We are able to say in a measure, "We have beheld His glory." Every true believer ought to be able to say that I have seen at least something of the greatness of the Lord Jesus. You may not put it in these words, but this is what it means, "that the God of glory has appeared to me." "I have seen the Lord of glory." We may put it in different ways, but that is what it amounts to. Something of the greatness of the Lord Jesus as God's Son has been revealed in our hearts, that is the first step toward the new Israel. I wonder how many of you in this hall tonight can say, I am a member of that Israel; I have seen the Lord! The Lord of glory has appeared in my heart. If not in the same words as Paul, you could say the same thing. "For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 4:6). That is the beginning of the new Israel.

The next thing is, we have become sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We are amongst those of whom it can be said, our real spiritual life is not by the will of man, it is not by natural blood. We have not inherited it from anybody. We have not got it because some people persuaded us into it. Not by the will of man, not by natural blood, but we have been born of the Spirit of God. We are children of God by the will of God. Now all that is very simple and very elementary, I know, but we have not finished yet.

The next thing in this new Israel is this: You and I have got to come through death unto the ground of resurrection. We have got to know something of the power of His resurrection in our life. What Paul calls, "being in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. 6:5). This is a very important thing, not only at the beginning of the Christian life, but this is something that has got to characterize the new Israel all through history. Just look at the history of the people of God during these two thousand years. Before God finally destroyed that great Roman Empire, that Roman Empire massacred ten million Christians. How many Christians there must have been? That mighty iron empire determined to destroy this new Israel, that was the first great historic baptism into the death of Christ. You wonder that anybody remained. But it was the Roman Empire that was destroyed. The only thing you know about that Empire today is to go to the city of Rome and see a few ruins.

But where is the heavenly Israel? It is everywhere in the world. You see, this Israel is indestructible. But since that first baptism into death, it has had many others, right up to our own day. The heavenly Israel has been baptized into death in China, has been baptized into death in Russia, and it is the same in other parts of the world.

Well, what is going to be the end of this? It is a great pity that those people who do this do not read history; if only they would read history, this is what they would see. The Jewish nation tried to kill Christianity and the Jewish nation has been set aside. The far greater Roman Empire determined to kill the heavenly Israel, but it is the great Roman Empire that has been killed. The heavenly Israel just goes on and many other great powers have tried to do that. But where is the heavenly Jerusalem? This spiritual Israel just goes on. THE GOD OF HEAVEN HAS SET UP A KINGDOM WHICH SHALL NEVER BE DESTROYED.

Now this baptism into Christ's death and resurrection is not only a historic thing, it is not only a thing in history, it is a thing in personal experience. The Lord, again and again, takes us into an experience of death - an experience when we feel that the end of everything has come, and it looks as though we are never going to get through. It may be for one reason or another, but there it is. It looks as though we are at the end. And that has happened to us many times. But we are still alive. We are still going on.

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The Apostle Paul spoke of his own experience of this when he said, "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of what befell us in Asia. We were pressed beyond our measure. We had the sentence that it was death. We despaired of life, that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God Who raiseth the dead" (II Cor. 1). When the apostle wrote that, that was an experience in the past, and he was now writing in resurrection. Sometimes, it is like that in the work of the Lord. Things seemed to go right into death. We feel that the end has come - there is no more. We go through deep experiences like that. Why does the Lord allow this? Why has He allowed it in the history of the Church? Why does He allow it in His own work? And why does He allow it in our own personal experience?

Well, why did He allow it in the case of Isaac? You remember where we finished last night, we said that it was in order that everything should be kept on supernatural ground, This new Israel is a supernatural thing, and it has got to be kept on that ground. Because resurrection is something which belongs to God alone, and it has got to be said about everything that is God's. "This is of God, and not of man." Our lives have got to bear the mark of God in them. While we have strength, we feel we can go on. But sometimes the Lord takes away our strength, and we feel that we can go on no more, and then His strength comes in. His strength is made perfect in weakness. Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is not only something which happened 2000 years ago. It is something that has got to be continually happening in all of us. The Apostle Paul had lived a long life. He had lived a very full life. I doubt whether there was anyone else who had a fuller knowledge of the Lord than he did. But right at the end of that life, he was saying, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection" (Phil. 3:10). Right to the end, there is still more in the power of His resurrection for us to know. That is the nature of the new Israel. You see how John is following the course of the old Israel in a spiritual way?

I wonder if I have time just to take you one step further. Do you notice the next thing that comes in John's Gospel? You will find it at the forty-third verse of the first chapter. Now note how true to principle John is keeping. At that point Jesus is calling His twelve apostles. He is saying to this one and to that one, "follow Me." He is selecting twelve. That is the number of the tribes of Israel. So, He is constituting the new Israel on the principle of twelve. But as He is doing this, He calls one man, and that man's name is Nathaniel. One of the others brings Nathaniel, and as Nathaniel is coming and Jesus sees him, Jesus says, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no Jacob!" Nathaniel said, "Master, how do You know me?" Jesus said, "Before your friend called you to come, I saw you under the fig tree." Why had Nathaniel gone under the thick fig tree? He wanted to pray, and he did not want anybody to see him. He wanted to be alone, quiet, where no one would see him and disturb him, and so he went under the fig tree. Jesus said, "I saw you when you were under the fig tree." It must have been a very thick fig tree, because Nathaniel was so surprised, so surprised that anybody could have seen him that he said, "Master, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel." Now listen to what Jesus said to him. "Because I said, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than that. Afterward thou shall see the heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Starting with Abraham, we went to Isaac, now we come to Jacob. Everybody knows the story of Jacob's dream - how he journeyed and when the sun went down, he lighted upon a certain place, and he went to sleep, and he had a dream. He saw a ladder set up on the earth. The top of it reached into heaven. And he saw the angels of God ascending and descending upon the ladder. And the Lord was above the ladder. And the Lord spoke to Jacob. Now John has taken that over also. Perhaps we would be better to say the Holy Spirit is taking it all over. So we come to Jacob. Where did everything of God begin with Jacob? What is the great thing about Jacob? There are many things about him that we can forget for the moment. And we just remain with this dream because Jesus put His finger upon that. He said to Nathaniel, "an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" And then to him He said afterwards, "Thou shalt see the heavens open, the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Of course, that was all type and figure. We will see in a minute what it meant. We have got to go back to the Old Testament again. You know right from the day when Adam sinned in the garden, the presence of God was shut and closed to him. All through the Old Testament, God is so separate from man that man cannot come near God. Everything in the Old Testament says to man, "Keep out! Come not near, this is holy ground." That court around the tabernacle said to man, "Keep out. You cannot come in here, only the priests can come in here, you keep out." You see, man was excluded from the Presence of God. It was a terrible thing to come into the Presence of God. If ever anybody felt that God had come near, they would have been afraid for their life. Heaven was closed. The old Israel had a closed heaven. "Thou shalt see the heaven open." A WONDERFUL FEATURE ABOUT THIS NEW ISRAEL IS THAT IT HAS AN OPEN HEAVEN IN JESUS CHRIST.

When did Nathaniel come to experience what Jesus said he would? You open your New Testament at the beginning of the Acts of the apostles. You will read the names of the people who were gathered together after the resurrection of Jesus. It says now there were so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, and Nathaniel. Oh, Nathaniel is there! And they were all gathered together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven the sound as of a mighty rushing wind. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). The heaven is open. Why? Because Jesus has gone through and opened it. And on that day, and from that day, they lived under the open heaven. That is, they had a freeway through to God. No longer were they kept outside. The Holy Spirit says now you can come with boldness to the Throne of Grace. It is no longer a closed door to God. The heavens are open. That is the inheritance of the new Israel.

I think we are having a little bit of the experience of that today. We have an open heaven here tonight. We know something about the Lord speaking to us from heaven in the Lord Jesus. God's messages are coming to us from heaven. I trust that is true. That is our great privilege as the new Israel. Now I have got to stop. And I only got to the first chapter of John, and that goes right through the whole Gospel of John to the end. All that which is in that wonderful gospel has to do with this new spiritual Israel. We are brought into a wonderful thing through the Lord Jesus, to the God of glory, to the wonderful miracle of spiritual sonship. We are learning to know the power of His resurrection and we are coming to experience more and more of the meaning of the open heaven. This is not just Bible teaching. This is wonderful spiritual experience. IT IS ALL THE INHERITANCE OF THE CHILDREN OF THIS NEW ISRAEL!

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Meeting 13 - The Lord Will Never Have Mixture in Our Life or in Our Work For Him

Thirteenth Meeting
(February 9, 1964 A.M.)

We are going to read again the fourth chapter of the Gospel by John. (And the reader will benefit from reading this chapter). I want to turn you again, especially to verse twenty-three in that chapter:
"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father doth seek such to be His worshippers."

I want to put alongside of that passage a verse from the Letter to the Hebrews, the fourth chapter, verse twelve:
"For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit" (ASV).

We have been noting during the past week that the teaching and the acts of the Lord Jesus all related to a time of transition from one old order to a new. Jesus stood between these two orders, the old order which was passing and the new order which He was bringing in. And this fourth chapter of the Gospel by John stands in a very real way in that transition period. In this chapter the two things are meeting, and here we find the state that is not by any means clear.

Let us look at some of the features. It was not just an accident that Jesus went through Samaria and met that woman. It was all a part of one great whole of this gospel. Jesus is in Samaria, and Jesus meets this Samaritan woman. Now if you know anything about the Samaritans, you know that they were a mixed race. When Jerusalem had been invaded by a foreign country, and the whole land of Israel had been overrun by those foreigners, many of the Jews were taken away into captivity. But some remained in the land, and they married the foreigners. Jews married those who were not Jews. So, the Samaritans were a mixed blood people. They were neither one thing nor another. That is why they were hated by the Jews, as it is said, "The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." The Samaritans were a mixture in their very makeup (John 4:4-9).

Then it was at the well that the Lord met this Samaritan woman. And you notice that it was Jacob's well, and that Jacob gave this land to his son Joseph. So here in this mixed situation is something of old Israel: Jacob and Joseph are here. And you notice that that well never satisfied this woman. She came out every day to draw water from that well but was never satisfied. Jesus said to her, 'Those who drink of the water of this well will just be coming, and coming, and coming again. They will never be satisfied.' That is the old dispensation. It never satisfied anybody.

You remember all the millions of sacrifices that were offered in Israel in the Old Testament. Sacrifices were offered morning and evening every day for hundreds of years. And still there had to be more sacrifices because they never made anything perfect. The priests went into the tabernacle or the temple and offered their prayers every day. But all their praying every day never brought anything to perfection. The law of Moses was read to the people continually, but it never made any difference to their character. It never brought satisfaction to their hearts. And that is just how things were in the old dispensation, and this well where Jacob and Joseph are found represents the old dispensation. You may come and drink of it every day of your life and you are not satisfied. Because as the New Testament writer says, 'The law could make nothing perfect.' So that this poor woman came out every day to get her water and had to do it all her life and was never satisfied. Well, we have got the Samaritan woman. She represents a mixture of two things, nothing distinct or nothing clear, neither one thing nor the other. And we have got the well, and it speaks of the disappointment of the Old Testament.

What about these disciples? We read that the disciples went away into the town to buy bread. They left Jesus alone. The woman was not there when they went into the town. But while they were gone, the woman came out of the town to the well. And then there commenced this conversation between Jesus and the woman. When the disciples came back, and saw Jesus talking to this woman, of course, they did not know what kind of woman she was, they did not know all about her sinful life. They only knew that she was a Samaritan woman. And they were very shocked when they saw Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman. They were Jews. The Jews have nothing to do with the Samaritans. And here is their Master talking in a friendly way to a Samaritan woman. They thought that was a terrible thing. Why? Just because they were Jews, they belong to the Old Testament, where Jews and Gentiles have nothing to do with each other. They are still on Old Testament ground. They have their Old Testament prejudices, and they thought this was a terrible thing, so they had better break in on this.

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And so they brought their bread, 'Master, here is the bread we went to buy. You must eat.' They thought they would just break up this little conversation. They said, "Master, eat." Jesus said, "I have meat to eat that you know not of." Once again, they were found to be people without new understanding. They said, 'Has anybody brought Him food?' They can only think in terms of the material and not of the spiritual. Jesus said, 'My meat and My drink is to do the will of My Father' (John 4:27-38).

Now you can see that in almost every feature of this story, on the one side, there is mixture. Nothing is distinct. It is neither one thing or the other. But when you move over onto the side of Jesus, there is no mixture here. The water that He says He will give is quite clear water. There is no mixture in that water. It is the water of Life. And it brings perfect satisfaction. IT IS THE WATER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Now you know our verse, verse twenty-three. It is interesting that although this woman was such a great sinner, Jesus said, 'You have had five husbands; and you have got somebody now who is not your husband.' Although she was such a sinner, Jesus is speaking to her about some of the most wonderful things in the Bible. Why I say that, is this: Some people may think that the things that I am going to say this morning are for advanced Christians, that they are not for beginners. But I want to say that what I am saying is right at the very foundation of true Christianity. This is not something for those who have been on the way for many years. Although I think that many people who have been on the way for many years need to go back and learn the first lesson. But here is a woman right back there at the beginning of the Christian life. And Jesus is saying to her this one thing. Everything in this story points to this one thing. The beginning of the Christian life, like all the rest of the Christian life, must be absolutely clear as crystal. Now all the old Christians as well as the young ones can take notice of this. The Bible reveals that there is one thing that God hates. It is the one thing that God will not accept and will not bless, and that is mixture. Mixture is the bringing together of two contrary things. A situation where you bring in something that is not of God and try to link it up with something that is of God. That is mixture. That is what the devil did at the beginning and God hates it. He will never accept mixture.

There is an Old Testament illustration of this. One of the commands of the Lord to Israel was this, 'Thou shalt not wear a garment made of two kinds of materials. Thou shalt not wear a garment made of wool and cotton.' Of course, today a lot of people do that. There are various kinds of materials that are made up into our garments. But God said to Israel, You are not to wear a garment made of wool and cotton together. You see, that is an Old Testament parable. It is an outward story with an inward meaning. What did God mean by that? Well, there are not many people in this hall this morning wearing woolen garments. And I think in a few weeks time, there will not be many people in this whole city wearing woolen garments. Why is that? Because wool makes you perspire. The heat of your own body is brought out. The natural life expresses itself in wools. But most of you this morning are wearing cotton. Why are you wearing cotton? Because cotton keeps down the natural heat.

Now you see God's lesson. You cannot bring together in your own person that which is of the flesh and that which is of the Spirit. You see, clothes speak of our character. Perhaps not so much in this country, but if you were to go to the West, you would see how people dress there. You would say of this person, 'Well, I do not think much of her.' Or you might say about someone else, 'What an extraordinary person!' You would be judging their character by their dress. And dress is usually an expression of character. So God in His Old Testament parable says, 'You cannot have two characters, if you are a true Israelite. My people must be one thing or the other. I cannot have mixture.'

But God did not leave it there. He added something else to it. He says, 'Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.' What is the difference? Well, the ox in the Old Testament is a clean beast. It is included among the clean beasts. You are allowed to eat the ox. Its flesh is clean. The ass is included amongst the unclean creatures of the Old Testament. That was particularly the case in Israel. Now God says, 'You shall not bring into your work for Me this contradiction.' The plow is the symbol of work. And God, by His parable says, 'When you do My work, you must not do it with two things that are of contradictions. I will not have a mixture of what is spiritual and what is carnal in My work. I will not allow there to be what is the flesh and what is the Spirit brought together in My work.' I think I have said enough about God's parables in the Old Testament. It shows how God will not have mixture. Everything with God must be quite pure. It must be one clear thing. There must be no contradiction in life or in service.

Now we come back to our chapter in John. We have seen that on the one side, everything was mixture; and therefore, it was all disappointing. It did not go through. It just went so far and then it failed. But there is the other side. There is the side of the Lord Jesus. What is He talking about when He speaks about the water that He will give? Well, He is only illustrating these words, spirit and truth. He says: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." The Holy Spirit is the characteristic of this new dispensation. I think it would be a good thing if you have not done so; if you would just take this gospel by John and go through it looking for the Holy Spirit. You will find that the Holy Spirit is mentioned thirty times in this gospel. And the Lord Jesus gives large sections of His teaching to this matter of the Holy Spirit. You see, the movement is from the old to the new. AND THE NEW IS THE LIFE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.