Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

May I just for the moment speak about the nature of our new birth. Perhaps the young people need to have this made clear, and we all need to be reminded of it. You know we all have a human spirit, and we all have a human soul, and of course, we all have a human body. But not many people understand or know the difference between our spirit and our soul. Our spirit is that which God gave in order that we might have fellowship with Him Who is Spirit. Jesus said to the woman, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth."

Now God gave Adam a spirit as well as a soul and a body. Before Adam was disobedient, he had fellowship with God in his spirit. God was able to speak to him because Adam's spirit was alive to God. Adam had the faculty in him for receiving things from God. When Adam sinned, his spirit died unto God, that is, he was separated from God in his spirit - the link between himself and God ceased to be. Fellowship with God, which is always spiritual, was destroyed, and the spirit sank down into subjection to man's soul. The soul came to dominate the spirit! What is the soul? Well, it is our reason, it is our emotion, and it is our will. Everybody has that, more or less. You have a reason. That is why you argue about things. And you have a will. Some people have a stronger will than others, but we all have a will. And you have feelings. You have strong emotion. All that makes up your soul. But that only has to do with this world. It has nothing to do with God. And, of course, I need not say anything about the body. We all know that we have a body. And until we are born again, we cannot understand the things of God. We cannot hear God speaking in our spirit. We cannot have fellowship with God. Now what happens when we are born again? That spirit in us, which has been separated from God, is brought back into life. Then God becomes alive to us again. We are able to hear God speak to us. We are able to begin to understand the things of God. We now call God "Father." Before, if ever we spoke of Him, we thought of Him just as Almighty God. Now He is our Father and is very near. The spirit in us which died, which was separated from God, has been brought into life. And now we are called upon to live in fellowship with God in the Spirit.

But there is another thing that happens when we are born again. The Holy Spirit Who is the Spirit of God comes into our new spirit. We do not hear God speaking out from heaven to us. But we know that God speaks in our hearts. We know that the Holy Spirit in our spirit tells us when we are wrong, and gives us the joy of the Lord when we are right. That is the order of this new dispensation. Does it sound very difficult to you young people? Really it is very simple. I think this is one of the first lessons that ever I learned in the Christian life. I used to do certain things before I was born again. I did not see any harm in it at all. Indeed, I would argue with this soul of mine, 'What is wrong about that?' I will not tell you what those things were. They are just the things that all the people of this world do, and the places to which they go.

Well, I used to do those things before I was born again. Then I had a very real experience of the Lord. No one said to me, 'Now you are a Christian, you may not do those things.' But one day I just did one of those old things, and do you know - all the joy went out of my heart. I had been able to do that for years and not be troubled about it. Now when I did it, I lost all my joy. Everything seemed to have gone wrong, and I had to go home and go into my room and got down on my knees, and ask the Lord what had happened. Why do I feel so miserable, what does this mean? And the Lord simply said, 'You are bringing over the old life into the new. And I cannot have this mixture. You are now a new creation in Christ, and the old things are passed away.'

Now I say that was one of the first lessons I learned in the Christian life. This was very real then. I was born again, the Holy Spirit had come in, and He was just teaching me what the Lord was pleased with, and what the Lord was not pleased with. You can all understand that, I am sure. That is how it ought to be at the beginning of the Christian life. But it ought to be like that all the way through the Christian life. You, my dear friends, along with myself, who have known the Lord for a long time, who have worked for the Lord for a long time, we must remember that these laws of the beginning remain to the end. We may not bring into our Christian character the old life. We may not be two things, a Christian, and something else. The Lord will not have it. His blessing will not be upon that. In our Christian work, we may not bring that which is of the world alongside of that which is of Christ. There must be no worldly methods in our Christian work. God will not have that mixture. Sooner or later it will all be brought to confusion. The Lord will never have mixture in life or in work. He says, "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch no unholy thing, and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and My daughters" (II Cor. 6:17,18).

So you see the great lesson that the Lord was teaching the simple woman of Samaria: Everything around her and in her spoke of mixture. But the Lord spoke to her about THE WATER OF LIFE in which there is no mixture. You know when you get to the end of the Bible, to the last chapters of the Book of the Revelation, we have another great parable of God, another great illustration. It is the heavenly Jerusalem. It is just a representation of the perfected work of God in the Church. GOD'S PERFECTED WORK IN HIS NEW HEAVENLY ISRAEL. It is a new spiritual Jerusalem. And it says that right in the center of that city is the river of THE WATER OF LIFE, clear as crystal. There is no mud in that river. You can look into it, and look right through it, it is so clear. It is the river of THE WATER OF LIFE. And in that, God is saying that in the end, all defilement will have been removed! All mixture will have been put away and everything will be perfectly clear and pure. So the Lord is calling us to a life of holiness. And holiness just means everything is of God and nothing else, not some of us and some of the Lord, not some of the Lord and some of the world, but ALL and only of the Lord. That is the meaning of our verse: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

[Shammu]

Meeting 14 - The New Israel's Passover

Fourteenth Meeting
(February 9, 1964 P.M.)

Read: Exodus 12.

This evening I am going to say just a little to you about the Lord's Table. This is perhaps the most universal of all the features of Christianity. Almost every section of Christianity in some way or another has the Lord's Table. In the different sections, of course, it goes by different names. The Roman Church calls it by one name. And other bodies call it by other names. We call it "The Lord's Table." But in some form or another, by some name or another, it is an almost universal characteristic of Christianity. It is so general and so often observed that we are in danger of losing something of the greatness of its meaning. It has become something that we do as a part of our order of things, perhaps every week. And there is, as I have said, a peril attached to that. We preserve something of its value. We rejoice in something of its meaning. But, as I have said, the peril is that we may lose something of the greatness of its meaning.

I think we all understand that the Lord's Table or the Lord's Supper is the new Israel's passover. The Lord's Table is the successor of the Jewish passover. When the Lord Jesus began to form the new heavenly Israel, He put the Lord's Supper in the place of the old passover. But although the form of it was somewhat changed, the meaning was never changed. The Lord Jesus took over the spiritual meaning of the passover into the Lord's Supper. I am just going to speak a little about the passover as it is found in the Lord's Table. I think perhaps we are a little apt to forget that there are two sides to this matter. And we spend most of our time on the one side, which is, what the Lord has done for us. Now we can never make too much of what the Lord has done for us. And this table of the Lord does speak of the wonderful thing that the Lord has done for us in His Cross. So that we are quite right in being very largely occupied with praising Him for all the love that He showed in dying for us.

If I say that is only one side, I do not mean to take anything away from it, but there is another side to this. It is what this involves us in. On the one side, it is what the Lord has done for us. On the other side, it is the greatest possibility that it brings upon us. Of course, this evening we ought to have read the twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus, but there is no time to do that. As you are all the Lord's people, I take it that you know that chapter. It is there that we have the account of the first great passover in Israel. That great passover night, when Israel went out of Egypt. And you will remember that passover was the climax of a mighty conflict between God and all the gods of the Egyptians. All the gods of the Egyptians represented the prince of this world, the great kingdom of Satan, which had set itself against the redemption of the people of God. God had determined to redeem His people from that evil world. And all the gods of the Egyptians said, 'They shall not go.' It was not only Pharaoh and the Egyptians, the Lord said it was the gods of the Egyptians - the evil spiritual forces behind the Egyptians and Pharaoh. And God entered into a great conflict with those forces of evil. He sent judgment upon judgment on them. Nine terrible judgments He poured upon the gods of the Egyptians. But still the battle went on. Then God said, 'I am going to finish this. One more judgment, and we shall have victory.'

You remember that last tenth judgment. It took place on this passover night. Now the point that I want you to notice here, first of all, is that the passover marked the climax of a great spiritual conflict. When Jesus took up the meaning of the passover in His Own Person, to give His Body like the passover lamb, and His Blood, He entered into this great conflict with all the power of evil. AS HE WENT TO THE CROSS, He cried, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12:31). And Paul says, "He stripped off principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His Cross" (Col. 2:15). THE CROSS OF THE LORD JESUS WAS THE CLIMAX OF A GREAT BATTLE WITH THE POWER OF EVIL. That was the first meaning of the passover. And that is the first meaning of the Lord's Table. The Lord's Table means that we have been brought into the great victory of the Lord Jesus over all the power of evil. We sometimes forget that, if ever we remember it, when we come to the Lord's Table. In this table we are celebrating the victory of the Lord Jesus, and we are brought into the good of that victory. Let us remember that! Whenever we come to the Lord's Table, we are celebrating the victory of our Lord. And when we take of the symbols of His body and blood, we are saying, 'We stand into the good of His victory.'

Now the second thing about the passover. The focal point of the passover, was the first-born son. The Lord said, "I will go over the land of Egypt, and I will slay all the first-born in Egypt." Now the first-born in those days was always the representative of the whole family. Really, the first-born was the family. If the first-born son died, it was as though they had lost everything. All the fathers' hopes were gone because they were centered in the first-born. The first-born son was the priest of the family. He represented the family before God. He functioned as a priest for the whole family. We, in our day, do not understand how important the first-born was in those times. The Lord was going out with this final judgment to kill the first-born in every family in Egypt.

[Shammu]

But He gave a sign to the people of Israel. It was in the blood of the Passover Lamb. And He commanded them to sprinkle that blood on their door posts. He said, 'When I come to Egypt to smite all the first-born, when I see the blood, I will not smite the first-born in that house. I will preserve all the first-born alive.' You see, the focal point of the whole thing was the first-born. In the Letter to the Hebrews, which has so much to say about this matter, the writer called the Church, the Church of the First-born ones. This means that judgment and death lie upon all those who are not protected by the blood. But the blood of THE PASSOVER LAMB has saved the Church of the First-born ones from judgment and death. This is a great thing that the passover means. If this has its true meaning in our lives, then we belong to the Church of the First-born ones. All that I said about the First-born is true of us; we represent the whole family of God. We are made priests unto our God. Ours is a place of great honor in the Father's house. We are in that position because of the blood of the Lamb. And that, again, is something that could occupy a great deal of time.

And another thing about the passover, there is a picture behind this passover in Exodus twelve. It is the picture of the rightful King coming to claim His rights. He is coming to a country where His authority and His rights have been rejected. In New Testament language they have said, 'We will not have this Man to reign over us.' They have refused to recognize His position as King. And they have refused to recognize His right amongst them. So the King comes to claim His rights and His place. And He brings His executioner with Him. Now He has sent a messenger before to tell the people that if they will put a certain sign on their door, He will not send His executioner in there. So He comes with His executioner. And as He passes through all the streets, He is looking at every house. He is looking for this sign on the doorposts. And when He sees this sign, He says to His executioner, 'Do not go in there, leave them alone, they are My loyal people, they recognize My authority.' But where He does not see the sign on the door, He says to the executioner, 'You go in there and slay the firstborn.'

That is the picture that is behind the story of the passover. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. You shall be delivered from judgment and from death. That is the meaning of the precious blood of Jesus, being taken by us and being put upon our lives. That sign of the precious blood is our salvation, our deliverance from all the power of judgment and of death. That is what is meant every time we come to the Lord's Table. We are a people who have been delivered by a mighty deliverance from all the judgment of God, and all the power of death. Why is that? Because we have taken, by faith, all the virtue of the precious blood of Jesus. And in taking the blood of Jesus, we have said we are the Lord's people. We are on the Lord's side! We own Him as King! We recognize all His rights! He is our Lord. He is our King. That is the meaning of the Lord's Table.

One other thing for now. The passover marked the absolute divide between the people of God, and this evil world. It was an absolute separation. Though sometimes when Pharaoh was having a bad time under those judgments, he relented a little. And he said, 'Well, some of you can go out. Leave your women and your children behind. Just some of you men go.' What did Moses say? He said, "We shall go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds." When we go, we go absolutely. We will not leave anything behind at all. It has to be an absolute separation from this world. 'This whole world', says the apostle, 'lieth in the wicked one.' And we do not belong to it. The passover, then, marked a complete and absolute separation of the people of God from this world. And you know how the Lord put that into effect. First of all, He smote all the first-born in Egypt. And when later Pharaoh repented and pursued the Israelites, the Lord drowned all the army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and put the Red Sea between the Lord's people and Egypt.

The passover marked a very clear-cut division between the Lord's people and this world. And it is so clear that is what the Lord Jesus meant by the Lord's Table. As He was praying as the High Priest before He was about to offer Himself as the sacrifice, He said to the Father, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world... I pray that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one." That is another meaning of the Lord's Table. When we come to the Lord's Table, do we mean this? Do we mean, I am of the people whom God has absolutely separated from this world? I have been delivered from this evil world. I do not belong to it. The only thing that I am going to do while I am in it is to testify for the Lord Jesus. So we remember or testify to the Lord's death every time we come to the table.

Now I think you understand what I meant when I said at the beginning, we are in danger of forgetting something of the great meaning of the Lord's Table. While we rejoice exceedingly in all that He has done for us in His Cross, we must remember that it involves us in something. It involves us in recognizing the Absolute Lordship of our Lord over us. It involves us in recognizing that we are not of this world, because Christ is not of this world. May the Lord give us spiritual understanding. And, the next time we come to the Lord's Table, may we remember these things.

[Shammu]

Meeting 15 - God Has Shown Us the Pattern: He Has Shown Us That Pattern Who Is Christ In Perfection

Fifteenth Meeting
(February 10, 1964 A.M.)

As this is the last of these series of special morning meetings, I think that it would be most helpful if, at the beginning, I were just to go right back and remind you of the ground which we have been covering. We commenced with saying that Christianity has become something very much more than it was at the beginning, that much has been added to the foundation which does not belong to the foundation. So that we find ourselves today in a Christianity very different from that which was at the beginning. Christianity today is a very complicated thing. There are all the divisions, and the organizations, and so very much more than was in the simple basic realities of the beginning. And we said that we were going to ask the Lord to bring us back to those first beginnings of that Divine work in our Lord Jesus. We went on to say that we believe that the Word of God shows that there is going to be a great shaking of everything at the end. And in that great shaking, only the things which were and are really out from heaven will remain. A very great deal of what has been built upon the foundation will disappear. We believe that this is stated in the Word of God.

Then when that time comes, and we feel that it has already begun, everything will be tested by the foundation. The ultimate question in the great shaking will be just how much the Lord is Present. So we went on to consider that fundamental thing, the Presence of the Lord. That is where the Lord began with the old Israel. And we quoted Exodus twenty-five, verse eight, "Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." That is the eternal thought of God, which goes beyond all time, THAT I MAY DWELL AMONG THEM. We saw that that tabernacle or that sanctuary was, for the old Israel, the place of God's Presence.

Then we passed over to the New Testament, and found the new Israel being formed by the Lord Jesus. When the old Israel was put aside by God, then it says, "That the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us." So that in this dispensation, THE TABERNACLE IS THE LORD JESUS. It is not a thing, it is a Person. The Presence of God is wherever the Lord Jesus is. That governs everything. It is all a matter of whether the Lord Jesus is Present. Where He is, there is the Tabernacle of God. Just as in the Old Testament where the people were gathered around the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the governing thing in their lives by which they were made one people. All united by that one center, receiving all their life and their light from it. So in this dispensation, the Lord gathers people to Himself, He becomes the center of everything. It is in Him that they are united as one people, and from Him they received all their life and light. And this is all the matter of the Presence of the Lord.

So we went on to see something of the meaning of the Presence of the Lord as illustrated in the tabernacle of old. The first thing that we saw was that it was something presented to them by God from heaven. The Lord said, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern shown thee in the mount." The mount was a type of heaven, where the Lord came down to meet His servants, and there He showed the pattern of all things. That pattern was brought down from the mount and made known to the people. It was a presentation to them of the pattern that was in the mind of God.

We know that that tabernacle was a representation in every detail of the Lord Jesus. So that in this new dispensation, everything begins by a presentation of the Lord Jesus. That is why we have the Four Gospels, which were written after many of the Epistles, put in the first place in the New Testament. Those Four Gospels contain a presentation of the Lord Jesus. And He is there as God's pattern for His Presence. We must recognize the very great importance of those Four Gospels. They are God's pattern given down from heaven for us to see. God has shown us the pattern: and He has shown us that pattern in perfection. When Jesus finished His life on this earth, He was able to say, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." What was the work that God gave Him to do? Well, supremely it was to reveal the mind of God, so that He was able to say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In other words, He could say, 'I am the expression of the mind of God. And I have come down from heaven that you may have in Me the expression of the mind of God in every detail.'

Of course, I can only say this in a general way this morning. I could take up these Gospels and show you a thousand ways in which the Lord Jesus was revealing the mind of God. In everything that He said, and in everything that He did, there was something of God. And He was personally the comprehensive embodiment of the thoughts of God. Now God has given that pattern to us. In giving His Son, He has given the pattern of all things for His Presence.

May I, dear friends, appeal to you on this matter. I told you when I first came that I have not come to give you Bible teaching as such. When I go away from this country, one question that will be in my heart will be this: 'What is the practical results of it all?' That is going to be the great deciding factor on the value of this time together, so I have to seek the Lord very earnestly every time I speak to you. And I have to ask the Lord that He will not just give me a lot of things to say but that He will leave you with something that you have to face up to. So I say to you, that the fundamental thing is always the Presence of the Lord. It is not any one of the thousand things that make up Christianity. The ultimate criterion is, 'Is the Lord there?' and 'Is the Lord in all things there?' 'Is the Lord in what they do?' and 'Is the Lord in how they do it?' Because with the Lord how things are done is as important as doing the things. Is the Lord in the people individually there? And are their lives marked by this supreme thing? THE LORD IN THEM.

[Shammu]

I have no doubt that you love the Lord. I am not raising any question about that. But, I do say again, we are involved in a great system which is a very complicated thing, and a great deal of it is not of the Lord. It is something that man has brought in. Man has put his hand upon the things of the Lord, and man has made things according to his own mind, and therefore a great deal has come in which is of man and not of the Lord. And when we say that, we are not only thinking of Christianity in general, we are thinking of ourselves. This is true of ourselves. We have all come into something called Christianity, and we have all taken on something of Christianity, and there may be a great deal that we have to get rid of, and come back to the simple fundamental reality. And the fundamental reality of all realities is THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. We have got to know that the Lord is with us, and that the Lord is with us in all that we do, that this did not originate in our mind. It did not originate in our will, it did not originate in our emotion. It did not come from our soul, this thing has come from the Lord in every detail like the tabernacle. Just like Jesus Christ, in every detail it has to come to us from God.

That ought to send us back to our knees - to go through all our work. It may be necessary for us, from time to time, to stand back and ask the Lord about all that we are doing. 'Is this out from God, or is it something out from ourselves? Is this way of doing things the mind of God, or is it our mind? Is the Lord in this, or have we come into it?' You see, that is a great deciding matter. Make no mistake about it! Everything that is only of man is going to perish. Sooner or later it will be shaken. Every man's work shall be tried in the fire, says the Word of God.

So the first thing, then, is a presentation and a seeing of the Lord Jesus. I wonder if I may refer to a personal experience in this matter. I do not want to talk about myself, but I want to help you by illustrating. For many years, I was what was called a minister in the denominations. I was a minister of what are called churches. I was a minister of two denominations at the same time. So I had the big religious buildings. And I wore a clerical collar and attire, and I was in that whole system of organized Christianity. I had a big pulpit. And I preached sermons, and I was paid to do it. Well, I was very earnest. I really believed that I belonged to the Lord. My heart was reaching out to the Lord.

But, the time came, when the Lord showed me Jesus Christ. He began to reveal His Son in me. You see, I knew the Bible. I was teaching the Bible everywhere. When I went to a big church in the north of London, they had no Bible teaching meeting. They had only a very small prayer meeting. But I decided that we would have, what we called, a Bible school. So I got a big blackboard made, a blackboard as big as this whole platform. I decided that I would give Bible lectures. So I started going right through the Bible. I went from Genesis to Revelation. The result was that that place was crowded with people for the Bible lecture. I say that to show you that I did know something about the Bible.

The day came when I saw the Lord Jesus, and all these other things were like nonsense. All this church business was like little children playing at going to church. All this dressing up in clerical clothes, oh, how silly it was! I really had not seen the Bible. I had it all in my head, but really the Bible was a closed book. When the Lord showed me His Son, all these other things went. It was like nonsense to me, I saw that the Lord Jesus is the Church, not these things. I saw that the Lord Jesus is everything in the Bible. The Bible is not a book, the Bible is Christ. I saw the Bible in Genesis, I mean, I saw Christ in Genesis. All through the Bible I saw Christ. It made everything else so foolish. It simply turned me inside out and upside down. All those other things had to be left behind. I saw the Lord Jesus. I do not mean I saw Him with these natural eyes. But what Paul meant when he said, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." That is what happened in my case.

And a new thing began from that time. A new ministry began, a new work of God began. And I am here today on the other side of the world because of that. I have come to you not as a Bible teacher, but to speak to you of what I have seen of the Lord Jesus, and to say to you that the fundamental thing is seeing Jesus. Of course, that is not something that happened years ago. It only began to happen forty years ago, and it is still going on today. If I am faithful to the Lord, it will go on to the end of my life. It is a continuously growing seeing of the Lord. You see, that is where it began in the Old Testament, and that is where it began in the New Testament. We have to come back from all our things to the Lord.

Now after the pattern was shown, both in the case of Israel in the tabernacle, and in the case of the Lord Jesus to the apostles, the next thing was to instruct the people concerning the pattern. So the people were told about it. It is quite clear that all the people were gathered and told about this pattern. They were all involved in this. They had to do the making of all things. They had to provide the gold, and the silver, and everything else. So, although it is not said in the Bible, it is quite evident that Moses called all the people together. And he said, 'Now the Lord has shown us a great pattern.' And then he would have begun to explain to them all the detail. He would say, 'Now there are things to be of gold, and there are other things to be of silver, and then there are the various fabrics that are needed, and the different colors of the different fabrics.' And so he would go through the whole pattern. He would say, 'Now this is what the Lord has commanded, and all you people are involved in this.' He instructed them concerning the pattern.

Now the Lord Jesus came from heaven as the Tabernacle. "HE TABERNACLED AMONG US," said John. He is the full revelation of God's mind. And then the Lord Jesus began to instruct His disciples concerning Himself, by word and by deed, He was instructing them concerning Himself. As they watched Him, and listened to Him, they were really coming to the knowledge of God's mind for them. So we have our New Testament, and the New Testament is the embodiment of all things concerning Christ, with one object only in view. All these many details about the Lord Jesus relate to only one thing. It will take you a long time to count up all the details of the tabernacle. It will take us all eternity to sum up all the things concerning Christ. But in the New Testament we have a great many things concerning the Lord Jesus. But in the great many things is only one thing. And that thing is the Presence of the Lord. You see, it is a comprehensive thing; it is a detailed thing. The Presence of the Lord relates to that little detail. I could show you that from the New Testament. If things were not done according to the mind of the Lord in the New Testament, everything went wrong. The Lord only went on with them when everything was according to Christ.

So the second thing is for us to be instructed concerning Christ. There is a little fragment in the New Testament, which to me is a very important and significant one; the apostle is writing concerning things which were wrong. He just used this phrase 'You have not so learned Christ!' That is not the way in which you learn Christ; that is not the learning of Christ. See, how important that is? It is as though the apostle was saying, everything must come from your having learned Christ. These things have come from men, from yourselves. In all things we must learn Christ.

[Shammu]

Now the third thing. We spoke about the two men, Bezaleel and Aholiab. It says that these men were filled with the Spirit of God, for all manner of workmanship. So that the work, when it began and was carried on, was not just done in the wisdom of men. The Lord did not say, 'Now, here is the pattern, you get on with it. You take it into your hands and just work it out.' The Lord did not do that. He took these two men, and He filled them with the Spirit. And they became His instruments in showing how things have got to be done. My point for the moment is not the men, the Lord may take hold of men for this kind of thing. But my point is this, THAT IT HAS GOT TO BE DONE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. If men come into this as God's instruments, they must be men filled with the Holy Spirit. As we pointed out, this is how it began in the New Testament, 'Seek ye out seven men filled with the Holy Spirit.' That related to the carrying on of the work. It must all be done under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Dear friends, today I can see in much of the Lord's work, men who are in positions for which they are not anointed. They have been put into the position by men. Men have thought that they would be, well, good men to have in the work. Of course, they love the Lord, they are very devoted to the Lord, and they want to work for the Lord. So, the leaders take them and put them into positions. As you go on you will see they were never anointed of God to hold that position. Leadership in the work of God is anointed leadership. It has to be seen by all spiritual people that that man and that woman is anointed for the position which they hold. They are not there because they themselves have pushed themselves in, and they are not there because the other responsible people thought it would be a good thing to put them in. No, it is quite evident that the Lord had anointed them for that position, and therefore the Lord is with them. They may have many human imperfections, there may be things about them that you naturally do not like. You know how faulty they are naturally, but you have to say, the Lord is with that man and that woman. They are in the right position because the Lord has put them there.

The anointing is the great factor in all things concerning Christ for this reason, it is not individual anointing. There are not so many anointings as there are people. There is only one anointing, and that is on Christ as the Head. We only come into the anointing when we are in Christ, and when we are under the Headship of Christ. We are not under the anointing if we choose our own position, or if men put us into positions. The anointing is Christ's anointing, we have the anointing when we are entirely under His Headship. Well, of course, that is too big a matter for us to consider just now. But my point is here in the course of the formation of things according to Christ, the governing principle is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

The next thing that we saw was that all spiritual progress is governed by the Presence of the Lord. You can imagine a situation in the wilderness. I can imagine that all these people, when the tabernacle was taken down and packed up, and the trumpets were blown to march on, the people were full of enthusiasm - 'Now we are going on to the promised land, now we shall soon be in the promised land.'

So they were all full of interest about this going on business. And then the cloud over them stopped, and the Lord told them to unpack the tabernacle, and to set up the tabernacle. We are going to stay here for a while, and perhaps the people said, 'Oh, why have we got to stop and wait and lose time, we want to get there, why stop here and wait? How long are we going to stay here?' And if the cloud remained many days, as it did, they could have said, 'Oh, why are we losing all this time? Why are we not getting on with the business?' And why was it? You see, the Lord wanted them not to be occupied with the journey alone, but with Himself. He wanted them to move as they were occupied with Him, and so when they had some time of being occupied with the Lord, the Lord said, 'Now, we will go on.' He did not say so, but He meant, We will stop again later on. Now the Lord does that in different ways. We get hold of things and we want to go on with things. We get full of our own energy in the things of God and we say, 'Now let's get things done.' And we go on like that. Sometimes the Lord says, 'Stop a bit.' He may bring us up short by something that happens, some kind of adversity, or suffering. Something happens and we know the Lord has said, 'Stop, you are too busy to listen to Me, you are too occupied with My things to be occupied with Me personally.' And so we must have a time of being occupied with the Lord. My point is that all spiritual progress is by the Lord's Presence.

Now when Moses called the people together, all the willing hearted people brought what they had for this work. In that way, the Lord put responsibility upon the people. You see, the tabernacle did not fall out of heaven all completed, only the pattern came out from heaven. And then the Lord said, "See that you make all things according to the pattern." He put responsibility for this matter upon the shoulders of the people. They had to understand the pattern and take the responsibility for the fulfillment of it. When they did that, then the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

But there were some times when they departed from the pattern, we will look at just one of those times. Aaron had two sons, they were Aaron's two elder sons. Their names were Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu came after Aaron in the priesthood. Now Nadab and Abihu must have known all about the pattern. They must have known what God had said about every detail, and there was one thing amongst all the others that God had said. When the priests go in before the Lord with their censers, they are to take the fire from off the altar. Now where did that come from, that fire on the altar? I expect you have read the story. Here is the altar, here is the wood on the altar, everything is ready. Did the priest go and strike a match and light the wood? Or, whatever was the way in which they made fire, did they do it like that? Did they make the fire and take it to the altar? No, that altar fire came from heaven. When the altar was set up, and the wood was put on it, and the sacrifice was slain and laid on the wood, the fire of the Lord came down, and that fire never went out. They never had to do that a second time. All the time that the tabernacle was in that place, the fire continued day and night. No man had to make fire. Nadab and Abihu did not take the fire from the altar, but they went and made some fire themselves. They got it from somewhere else by some other method, and they put that fire in their censers, and went in before the Lord, and the Lord smote them [so] that they died before the Lord. They offered strange fire. It was not the fire that had come from the Cross. It was their own fire, the fire of the flesh, the fire of the natural man, the fire of their souls, and not of the Spirit. The Lord says that is strange fire. It was not according to the pattern, and the Lord judged that. I must leave you to interpret it.

You see what a big thing 'responsibility for Christ' is? THE LORD HAS PUT THE RESPONSIBILITY ON US. He says, 'If you make all things according to the pattern, I am with you. You will have blessings; I will go on with you. If you begin to introduce things that are not according to the pattern, but of man, that will bring spiritual death.' May the Lord give us spiritual understanding.

[Shammu]

Now the third thing. We spoke about the two men, Bezaleel and Aholiab. It says that these men were filled with the Spirit of God, for all manner of workmanship. So that the work, when it began and was carried on, was not just done in the wisdom of men. The Lord did not say, 'Now, here is the pattern, you get on with it. You take it into your hands and just work it out.' The Lord did not do that. He took these two men, and He filled them with the Spirit. And they became His instruments in showing how things have got to be done. My point for the moment is not the men, the Lord may take hold of men for this kind of thing. But my point is this, THAT IT HAS GOT TO BE DONE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. If men come into this as God's instruments, they must be men filled with the Holy Spirit. As we pointed out, this is how it began in the New Testament, 'Seek ye out seven men filled with the Holy Spirit.' That related to the carrying on of the work. It must all be done under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Dear friends, today I can see in much of the Lord's work, men who are in positions for which they are not anointed. They have been put into the position by men. Men have thought that they would be, well, good men to have in the work. Of course, they love the Lord, they are very devoted to the Lord, and they want to work for the Lord. So, the leaders take them and put them into positions. As you go on you will see they were never anointed of God to hold that position. Leadership in the work of God is anointed leadership. It has to be seen by all spiritual people that that man and that woman is anointed for the position which they hold. They are not there because they themselves have pushed themselves in, and they are not there because the other responsible people thought it would be a good thing to put them in. No, it is quite evident that the Lord had anointed them for that position, and therefore the Lord is with them. They may have many human imperfections, there may be things about them that you naturally do not like. You know how faulty they are naturally, but you have to say, the Lord is with that man and that woman. They are in the right position because the Lord has put them there.

The anointing is the great factor in all things concerning Christ for this reason, it is not individual anointing. There are not so many anointings as there are people. There is only one anointing, and that is on Christ as the Head. We only come into the anointing when we are in Christ, and when we are under the Headship of Christ. We are not under the anointing if we choose our own position, or if men put us into positions. The anointing is Christ's anointing, we have the anointing when we are entirely under His Headship. Well, of course, that is too big a matter for us to consider just now. But my point is here in the course of the formation of things according to Christ, the governing principle is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

The next thing that we saw was that all spiritual progress is governed by the Presence of the Lord. You can imagine a situation in the wilderness. I can imagine that all these people, when the tabernacle was taken down and packed up, and the trumpets were blown to march on, the people were full of enthusiasm - 'Now we are going on to the promised land, now we shall soon be in the promised land.'

So they were all full of interest about this going on business. And then the cloud over them stopped, and the Lord told them to unpack the tabernacle, and to set up the tabernacle. We are going to stay here for a while, and perhaps the people said, 'Oh, why have we got to stop and wait and lose time, we want to get there, why stop here and wait? How long are we going to stay here?' And if the cloud remained many days, as it did, they could have said, 'Oh, why are we losing all this time? Why are we not getting on with the business?' And why was it? You see, the Lord wanted them not to be occupied with the journey alone, but with Himself. He wanted them to move as they were occupied with Him, and so when they had some time of being occupied with the Lord, the Lord said, 'Now, we will go on.' He did not say so, but He meant, We will stop again later on. Now the Lord does that in different ways. We get hold of things and we want to go on with things. We get full of our own energy in the things of God and we say, 'Now let's get things done.' And we go on like that. Sometimes the Lord says, 'Stop a bit.' He may bring us up short by something that happens, some kind of adversity, or suffering. Something happens and we know the Lord has said, 'Stop, you are too busy to listen to Me, you are too occupied with My things to be occupied with Me personally.' And so we must have a time of being occupied with the Lord. My point is that all spiritual progress is by the Lord's Presence.

Now when Moses called the people together, all the willing hearted people brought what they had for this work. In that way, the Lord put responsibility upon the people. You see, the tabernacle did not fall out of heaven all completed, only the pattern came out from heaven. And then the Lord said, "See that you make all things according to the pattern." He put responsibility for this matter upon the shoulders of the people. They had to understand the pattern and take the responsibility for the fulfillment of it. When they did that, then the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

But there were some times when they departed from the pattern, we will look at just one of those times. Aaron had two sons, they were Aaron's two elder sons. Their names were Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu came after Aaron in the priesthood. Now Nadab and Abihu must have known all about the pattern. They must have known what God had said about every detail, and there was one thing amongst all the others that God had said. When the priests go in before the Lord with their censers, they are to take the fire from off the altar. Now where did that come from, that fire on the altar? I expect you have read the story. Here is the altar, here is the wood on the altar, everything is ready. Did the priest go and strike a match and light the wood? Or, whatever was the way in which they made fire, did they do it like that? Did they make the fire and take it to the altar? No, that altar fire came from heaven. When the altar was set up, and the wood was put on it, and the sacrifice was slain and laid on the wood, the fire of the Lord came down, and that fire never went out. They never had to do that a second time. All the time that the tabernacle was in that place, the fire continued day and night. No man had to make fire. Nadab and Abihu did not take the fire from the altar, but they went and made some fire themselves. They got it from somewhere else by some other method, and they put that fire in their censers, and went in before the Lord, and the Lord smote them [so] that they died before the Lord. They offered strange fire. It was not the fire that had come from the Cross. It was their own fire, the fire of the flesh, the fire of the natural man, the fire of their souls, and not of the Spirit. The Lord says that is strange fire. It was not according to the pattern, and the Lord judged that. I must leave you to interpret it.

You see what a big thing 'responsibility for Christ' is? THE LORD HAS PUT THE RESPONSIBILITY ON US. He says, 'If you make all things according to the pattern, I am with you. You will have blessings; I will go on with you. If you begin to introduce things that are not according to the pattern, but of man, that will bring spiritual death.' May the Lord give us spiritual understanding.

[Shammu]

Meeting 16 - "I Will Not Offer Unto the Lord That Which Cost Me Nothing"

Sixteenth Meeting
(February 11, 1964 P.M.)

Read: I Chronicles 21:1,7-30.

I think that you will probably all know that this threshing floor of Ornan became the site of the great temple. It was the place where the great temple built by Solomon was constructed. And this setting up of the altar there marks the movement of the house of God from Gibeon to Jerusalem. It is very impressive that the house of God was built upon a threshing floor. We all know what a threshing floor is. It is the place where the rod is brought heavily to bear upon the wheat, the place where the wheat is separated from the mere husks. And that is exactly what happened in a spiritual way in this threshing floor. It was the place where sin was judged. The first thing about the house of God is, that it is built upon the ground of the judgment of sin. David had already said, "I have sinned greatly, and done very foolishly." His sin was terribly judged by God. And the foundation of the house of God was where sin was judged. We know that is true in the New Testament.

Before you have the Church, you have the Cross. Before there can be any house of God, there must be the threshing floor where sin is judged. It is the place where all pride is abased. This sin of David was a sin of pride. When Satan moved him to number Israel, the idea was that David might be able to boast of the greatness of Israel. Even Joab, who was a very carnal man, warned David that he was doing wrong. He said to David, Israel is a very great people, you need not bother about counting them. It was just pride that prompted this. To be able to say, you see how many people we have got. See what a wonderful people we are. See how many converts we have got. The Word says, "And the Lord was displeased with this thing." And that threshing floor was the place where all pride was brought down to the dust, the place of confession of sin, and the judgment of sin, and then forgiveness of sin. The place where judgment and mercy met together. That is the foundation of the house of the Lord. Before the altar could be set up publicly, it had to be in the very experience of David himself. That altar had struck into the heart of David like a sword. THE CROSS HAD DONE A DEEP WORK IN DAVID, BEFORE DAVID COULD SET UP THE ALTAR PUBLICLY.

These are abiding principles of the house of God. But in this brief word in II Samuel twenty-four, I want to come to that verse twenty-four. "Neither will I offer unto the Lord that which cost me nothing." To have a part in the house of God is a very costly thing. There is nothing cheap and easy about this. No, it is a very costly thing to come into the house of God. First of all, it cost God everything in giving His only begotten Son. It cost that Son everything in emptying Himself of all the fullness and glory of Heaven. The sin of man is a very costly thing. We cannot come into the good of that in the house of God without recognizing that it is a costly thing to come into God's house. A house of God is the place of fellowship. A house of God is the fellowship of the people of God. But fellowship is a costly thing. Surely you are learning that lesson as you go on. The fellowship of God's people is not a cheap and easy thing. Everything to do with that fellowship costs us something.

If that fellowship is disturbed between two people in the house of God, it is not an easy thing for one to go and confess that they are wrong, not an easy thing to apologize for doing that harm. It is not easy to humble ourselves before one another, we will do anything rather than humble ourselves to another brother or sister. No, fellowship is a costly thing. It costs humiliation and confession. What is true between two is often true between a number. If we are going to keep the fellowship in the house of God, it's got to cost us something to do that. There is a price attached to it. And if we are not prepared to pay the price of fellowship, it is because we hold fellowship cheaply. You see, if a thing to us is of little value, we are not prepared to pay very much for it. If we really do love the house of God, that is, the fellowship of the Lord's people, we will be prepared to pay any price to keep that fellowship. A thing which is of value to us is a thing for which we will pay the price. It is the same in our service to the Lord.

Here we are gathered this evening for prayer. Well, you know, sometimes in our gatherings for prayer, some people can pray without it costing them very much; it is very easy for some people to pray. It is like turning on the tap, and it just comes without any effort. But for some people it is very costly to pray. If some people pray, it is not at all easy for them. It is something that is just rung out of their hearts. It is when prayer costs us something that it is really of value.

The same is true of ministry. Now, all here tonight are not ministers of the Word. But there are those people who just love to get on the platform and talk. They are never more happy than when they are in public speaking. And they can do it so easily. Now that which really is of value costs something. The Cross, the Altar, has got to be right at the heart of our praying. It has got to be right at the heart of our ministry. So that we cannot minister unless the Lord does it through us. We would rather run far away from the platform than speak on it unless the Lord is going to do it. Well, I think you see the point. 'I will not offer unto the Lord that which costs me nothing.'

How much does the house of God really mean to us? How much does prayer really mean to us? How much does the fellowship of the Lord's people mean to us? Do we value it very highly? Then we will be prepared to pay a big price for it. If we do not value all this, and what the Lord has done for us, we will just throw it over so easily. Now this story of David has many lessons for us. Read it again, and think as you read. But always remember this one thing: THAT WHICH IS OF VALUE, WE ARE PREPARED TO PAY FOR; AND WHAT WE VALUE MOST, WE WILL PAY MOST FOR!

[Shammu]

Meeting 17 - The Parable of the Two Seeds

Seventeenth Meeting
(February 13, 1964 P.M.)

Read: Matthew 13:24-30.

I feel that the Lord has very definitely led me back to these parables of the Kingdom. Therefore, I can only give you what the Lord has told me to say. These seven parables in Matthew thirteen are a prophecy. The Lord Jesus was foretelling things that would happen during this dispensation from the time of His first coming to His coming again. You will notice that the last of these parables ends with THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE. The Lord knew that in this dispensation up to His coming again, certain conditions and situations would come about. These conditions which would come about would greatly perplex and distress His servants. Therefore, by means of these parables, He did two things.

Firstly, He made it very clear that these things would happen. He provided a Word which perfectly described what would arise in this dispensation. In these seven parables, we have a perfect description of the things which have really come about in this age.

Then He did the second thing. He showed that, however difficult it would be for His servants to understand, all these things would be within the compass of the Sovereign Rule of God. When He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto," He meant that all these things which would happen, which would be so discouraging and perplexing, would be within the realm of the Sovereign Rule of Heaven. The name, the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God, simply means the Sovereign Rule of God or of Heaven. It is within that Sovereign Rule that all these things are permitted. We do not understand them. They give us a lot of trouble. They are very discouraging, but they are all under the Sovereign Rule of Heaven. You notice that is how it comes out at the end of every parable. It is the end which matters. It is the end of every parable that we have to take note of. Certain very difficult things would come about, but in the end, GOD WINS. God has the end in His hands. This is the only way in which to read these parables. Sometimes you read a book. It begins very good, and then trouble arises. Everything seems to go wrong. And some people, when the trouble begins, turn over to the end of the book and see how it ends. And, of course, it always ends all right. Well, that is how it is with these parables. Things began very well, soon trouble arises. But when you look at the end of the story, it is all right.

We were thinking the other day of the parable of the sower. The sower went forth to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side. Well, when he started, it was all right. Things have gone wrong. Some seeds fell by the way side, some seeds fell on the rocky soil, some seeds fell among thorns. All three of those seem to be wasted. That is very discouraging. To the workers who go out with the seed, it is very discouraging to see how much of it seems to be wasted. A lot of people do not seem to bear very much fruit, if any at all. But the end of the parable, some fell ON GOOD GROUND, bringing forth an hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold. It is the end which matters. All is not in vain at the end. At the end everything is not wasted. However people may react, Heaven Rules. It is all within the compass of the Sovereign Rule of Heaven.

Now we come to this second parable, the parable of the two seeds. Of course, the disciples called it the parable of the darnel. That is the word which is in the original, it is not tares but darnel. We shall see that in a minute. They called it the parable of the darnel. I call it the parable of the two seeds.

Now let us break up this parable in order to get to its message. There are eight parts to this parable, we can pass over them very quickly and come to the message at the end. First of all, there is the field, and here we must get our mentality quite clear. This thing has been very much misunderstood because men have thought that this field was the Church, and that the two kinds of seed were in the Church. That is not the teaching of the parable. The field is the same field as the sower went to sow. And the Lord Jesus said, "The field is the world." No, we are not dealing with the Church now, we are dealing with the world. It is important to recognize that for this reason. This field or this world is the rightful property of the Son of Man. He that sows the seeds, it says, is the Son of Man, and the field belongs to Him by right. It is His property. This world really belongs to the Lord Jesus, and this world is intended to be occupied by His people. The seed that He sows are the children of the Kingdom. And this world which belongs to Him is intended to be inhabited by the children of the Kingdom. It is very important for us to recognize that. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." When we go out to the Lord's work, and come into any place, we have the right to say, this place by right belongs to the Lord Jesus, and we put our feet down there and claim that for the sovereign rights of the Lord Jesus. The field is the world and it by right belongs to the Lord Jesus. The good seed, it says, is the children of the Kingdom which He sows in the world. What the Lord Jesus is doing through this dispensation is sowing children of the Kingdom in this world. We are here in this world as children of His Kingdom to claim His rights in this world.

Then the next thing is the enemy. He comes to sow his bad seed. Jesus says, 'The enemy is the devil.' You notice this devil, this enemy, comes into what does not belong to him. Satan is a trespasser in this world. He is an invader. The world does not belong to him by right. He has come into it as an enemy. It is enemy occupation. He comes to sow his seeds and to sow his seed alongside of the seed which the Son of Man sows. This one hates the Son of Man. Jesus calls him an enemy, and He gives him the name 'the devil', which means, 'the adversary,' the one who just hates this Son of Man, and is determined, as far as he can, to spoil the work of the Son of Man. And so he comes into the field of the world and sows his own seed alongside the good seed.

Now you have got to note a very special thing here. The Lord Jesus is not here saying that all the unsaved people in this world are the children of the devil. There is truth in that. The Apostle John says, "The whole world lieth in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). There is a sense in which it is true that all unsaved people are in the power of the devil. But that is not what the Lord Jesus is teaching here. He is not here teaching especially that all unsaved and all unevangelized people in this world are children of the devil. If He were teaching that, there is not much point in the parable. Everybody knows that there are children of God, and that there are other children in this world. There are children of the Kingdom and there are those who are not children of the Kingdom. We all know that. We know that the other children are alongside of us every day. We do not need a parable to tell us that. We do not need the Lord Jesus to especially teach us that, we know that.

[Shammu]

But you see, here is the point. These children of the devil, of whom the Lord is speaking are a special kind. Jesus calls them darnel. Now, darnel in the east is something that is almost exactly like wheat. It is so much like the true wheat that it is not until it is full grown that you see the difference. This darnel is something that is false. It is something that is an imitation. It is something that is a lie. It is something that pretends to be like the children of the Kingdom but is not.

The enemy comes and sows something that looks very much like the true thing but it is false. It is something that is the devil's lie. This kind of people talk the same kind of language as the children of the Kingdom. They can use the Scriptures. They can use the same phraseology. They can talk about Jesus. They can talk about the Scripture. They can talk about the death of Jesus. But they mean something different.

The Jesus of whom they talk is not God incarnate. They talk about Jesus, but they do not believe in the deity of Christ. They can talk about the Bible, but they do not believe the Divine inspiration of the Word of God. They can talk about the death or crucifixion of Jesus, but they just mean something quite heroic like other men's death. They take out of the death of Christ all the Divine meaning of atoning sacrifice. And in many other ways these children of the devil speak the language but they have not the voice. They are imitation Christians. They have not been born of God. They are not the fruit of a definite work of the Spirit. And the devil brings them alongside of the children of the Kingdom in order to make confusion, to make the children of the Kingdom look something different. It is just this work of mixture amongst people. Very often you cannot on the surface see the difference. So the servants of the householder went to Him and said, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Whence then had it darnel?' And the Lord said, 'An enemy has done this thing.' Remember, this is one of the works of the devil, to imitate Christianity. To set up alongside of the truth something that is false.

Then the servants said, 'Shall we go out and root up these darnel?' The Lord said, 'No. If you do try to do that, you may not be able to discriminate between the true and the false, and you will be pulling up some of the true as well. Let both grow together unto the harvest.' This is the Lord's governing principle in this dispensation. Oh, there is a lot of meaning in this. Our business is not to be always trying to expose what is wrong. Many servants of the Lord had been caught in doing this. They are spending their lives and their energies in trying to track down something that they think is false and to root it out. This world is full of suspicion, suspicion among the people of God. It is almost impossible to go anywhere without somebody saying, 'Now what is wrong with this man? We must find out where he is not sound in doctrine. We must not trust him until we have examined him.' This world is full of that sort of thing, all the time trying to find some error somewhere, to find out the imperfection of this one and that one. And they are using their own judgment about this. The result is, that many who are true children of God are being rooted up by these people. Many a true servant of God has been simply rooted up and thrown away by this kind of suspicion. The Lord Jesus has said very emphatically, do not do that, that is not your business, just let both grow together, and as things grow, you will be able to recognize what they are. The evil will show itself more and more as time goes on, you will be able to recognize that that is not of the Lord. By the process of development it will show its true nature. In the course of time and in the end it will be manifested that that thing is of the devil; it is against the Lord.

But on the other side, and this is the real message of the parable, that which is truly of the Lord has got to grow and grow and grow more like the Lord. It is, of course, true that the Church is in the world, and what is true of the world can be true of the Church. There can be those who are not truly born-again children of God. They mix with the Lord's people. They profess to believe the things that are in the Word of God. My point is that there are a lot of people mixing with the true children of God who are not really born-again. They are not truly children of the Kingdom. The Lord Jesus wants us to understand that the true children of the Kingdom will grow more and more like the Lord Himself. The others will not grow like the Lord. They will just be false professors.

Now the message of the parable is this, when the Lord comes or at the end of the age, those who are His will be perfectly clearly known as His. There will be no mistake in the children of the Kingdom. You will know who are the children of the Kingdom. There will be no doubt about it. They have been growing more and more like the Lord. The true divine nature which He had put into them at the beginning is showing itself more and more. This process of intensification is the law of the Kingdom. The parable raises this big question for us all, 'Am I growing more and more like my Lord? Is there more and more of Christ in me as time goes on?' The great consummation of the age is the manifestation of the sons of God. The word is, 'When He shall be manifested, then we shall be manifested with Him.' In the end, the sons of the Kingdom will be clearly identified, but that is a thing which has got to go on every day. See, these two seeds were growing every day, and as they grew, it was possible to see which was which.

Let me say to the young people here, begin by making very sure that you are a truly born-again child of God, that you are a true child of the Kingdom, that you are not just where you are because other people have said you ought to be there. But it is because of a very real work which God has done in your own heart. And that being your beginning, make sure that you are growing and growing and growing more like your Lord every day. So that those who look on are able to say, there is no doubt about that man or that woman, that boy or that girl. They are the true and genuine things. There is no falsehood about them, there is no hypocrisy about them. They are not pretending to be Christians; they are the real thing. In the end, it will be manifested to all the world who are the sons of God!

One other thing to notice here. What happens at the end? Well, the Lord here says that it is that which is of the devil, which is to first be destroyed. It is all that which the devil has done, which the devil has planted, which will go to judgment first. He says, 'First gather the darnel into bundles and burn it.' All that is false, all that is not true, is going to burn in the judgment. And then the Lord says, 'Gather the wheat into My barn.' It is a long story of the evil work of the enemy. It created great difficulties for us, but in the end the Lord wins. In the end the Lord has the true thing, and all the other has gone. It is the end that matters.

Now, I do not know why the Lord made me say this. I said to the Lord, 'Now if I say this to that company of people, they will all think that I am teaching them like little children. They have got so much teaching. They know so much of the deeper things. If I go right back to this picture book of parables, they will think that I am just regarding them as a kindergarten.' But the Lord said, 'You say what I tell you. We have got to get right back behind all this Christianity. We have got to get right down to [the] foundation. We have got to make sure that everybody knows exactly where they are. The great judgment fires are coming. We are working for a future day, the day when everything will be manifested for what it is, and we must be very faithful, and leave nothing to chance. We must not assume that the people who think they are the Lord's people are really the Lord's people. We must do everything that we can to remove falsehood. The devil has put very much falsehood into Christianity. He has brought very much that is a lie alongside of the truth, and we must be very faithful to see that people know exactly what they are and where they are before God.'

So you must forgive me for being simple in this way, I can only say what the Lord tells me to say. Well, I think that most of you will agree that this is the sort of thing that has to be done. If you are a true child of God, you will not mind being talked to like this. Well, if you are not a true child of God, take a word of warning, nothing that is false or a lie is going to get into the Kingdom. Only that which is the truth. So, may we all be those who are children of the Kingdom, and are growing day by day like Him Who planted us.

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Meeting 18 - An Impossible Situation was Turned into a Glorious Possibility by the Presence of the Lord Jesus

Eighteenth Meeting
(February 14, 1964 P.M.)

Well, it is very good to be here tonight, and we want to thank our dear friends for inviting us. And what we have just listened to forms a very good background to what I have to say to you.

In thinking about this feast today, and about a little word that I might say to you, there came to my mind three feasts in the New Testament; and every one of them had an unnaturally impossible background. It was an impossible situation naturally in every case. BUT THE CENTRAL FIGURE OF EACH OF THOSE THREE FEASTS WAS THE LORD JESUS. And because He was at the center, what was impossible was made possible. The situation was changed from one of absolute impossibility to one of actuality. I think you are wondering what feasts I am referring to.

Well, one was the marriage at Cana in Galilee. All of you remember that story. There was a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee. Jesus and His disciples were invited. When they got to about the middle of the feast, all the wine failed. I do not know which of all these many dishes is the most important. I do not know which one, if it were to fail would let the whole feast die, and make our friends who provided it feel very embarrassed. But in that marriage feast at Cana, the wine was the most important thing, and the wine failed. The most important thing of the feast failed. And the mother of Jesus, full of consternation, turned to Him and said, "They have no wine." Well, you remember the rest of the story. That was a naturally impossible situation. Nothing could be done. No one could do anything about it. There it was; all the wine had gone, and the feast was not halfway over.

But Jesus was at the center. That made all the difference. He commanded that they fill the big waterpots with water. Now, those waterpots were not filled with water to drink; they were not there for that purpose. The water had been used up, but not by drinking. It had all been used up in washing the feet of the guests. They were empty. They were quite big vessels. Jesus said, "Fill the waterpots with water." The servants would have been very surprised at this. They would have said, 'We used all the water for washing the feet. Why wash their feet again?' But the mother of Jesus said to the servants, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." So, they filled the waterpots with water, wondering what this meant and what was going to happen; perhaps wondering if they had to wash all the people's feet a second time. Well, they filled all the pots with water, and you know what happened. Jesus, with His heart lifted to His Father, probably lifted His hand over those waterpots, and the water immediately turned to wine. An impossible situation was turned into a glorious possibility by the Presence of the Lord Jesus. It was so remarkable that the master of the feast said, "The best wine has been kept to the last." It is usually like that when Jesus does anything. We have to say, 'Well, this is better than anything before.'

We leave that one and go to the next feast. It is a feast of a different kind. There was a little man, a little man in every way. Not only in physical stature, but in every other way he was a little man. He was a little man morally and spiritually. Of course, you all know his name. The story is this: When the Romans came and took possession of Palestine, they imposed taxes upon the people. All the people had to pay taxes to Caesar. But there was one difficulty. It is the same difficulty as we have here tonight. It was the language difficulty. The Romans could not speak the Jew's language. What were they to do? The only thing to do was to get some Jews to work for them; some Jews to go and collect these taxes. Now that was something that was a very very low-down sort of thing to do. Everybody despises people who do that sort of thing. People who not only work for an enemy in occupation, but those who take advantage of the opportunity to get a lot for themselves as well. And these men who lent themselves to that kind of thing not only exacted the tax for the Romans, but they put something extra on for themselves, and they made themselves very rich in that way. Therefore, they were the most despised people. They were regarded as the low-down moral people.

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Now the little man of whom we are speaking was one of them. He was a little man in every way. You remember the story of Zacchaeus. Great crowds of people were coming and Jesus was with them. Everybody had heard of the wonderful things that Jesus was doing. So the little man thought he would like to see this Jesus. Here was a big crowd, and he, a little man, even by stretching his neck, he could not see Jesus. So he climbed up a tree, and to his surprise, Jesus came out of the crowd and looked up into the tree. And He said, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for I must abide at your house today." Jesus went into his home, and Zacchaeus made a great feast, and called all his friends together. I expect that most of the people were like himself.

Zacchaeus was wonderfully saved that day. If you had asked the people before then, if Zacchaeus could ever become a true Christian, they would say: 'Impossible.' Why? 'Because that little man worships money. That little man thinks everything is a personal advantage. He will do any unkind thing to get something for himself.' You tell me that that man could be saved; that man could be so changed; that he will say, 'What I have got, I give; everything that I have taken, I will restore.' That was a wonderful feast. When Zacchaeus gave his testimony before all his old friends, it was another impossible situation naturally. But because Jesus was there, the impossible became real.

Now we pass on to our third feast. And if the other two were impossible, this was very much more impossible. We are going to Bethany, the little town of Bethany. There was a lovely home in Bethany with two sisters and a brother, and they loved one another very deeply, and Jesus used to love to go to that home. If ever He could get away from the crowd and from the city, you would find Him at Bethany. But now Jesus is a long way up country, and something quite serious is happening in that little home. The dear brother, Lazarus, is very sick; so sick that it is quite clear he is going to die. I think they were people who were not poor. What we read of that home and those sisters and that brother would say that they did have some means. Therefore, I think that we can conclude that they got the doctor. They paid for all the help that they could get to get that brother well. But nothing made any difference. The brother was sinking to death. And they thought of Jesus, and they sent a messenger swiftly to Jesus. The message he carried was: "He whom Thou lovest is sick."

Jesus received the message. And then the writer of the story says, Now Jesus loved Mary, and Martha, and their brother Lazarus, and yet He did not then respond to their appeal. It says, He stayed where He was for two days, and then He said, 'Let us go, our friend Lazarus sleepeth, our friend Lazarus is dead, but I go that I may awake him out of his sleep.' I think you know the rest of the story. Yes, Lazarus died. Lazarus was put in his grave clothes and put in the tomb. And four days in that country was quite serious. Jesus came. Well, to make the story short, Jesus went out to that tomb. He said, 'Take away the stone from the mouth of the tomb.' They said, 'Lord, Lord, by this time he is decomposed.' Jesus said, 'Did not I say to you, that if you would believe, you should see the glory of God?' Then they took away the stone. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." And he that was dead, and had been dead for four days, came forth. Then the next chapter tells us they made Jesus a feast. Lazarus sat at the table and Mary sat at the table and Martha, as always, served, BUT THE FEAST WAS FOR JESUS. The feast was made in thanksgiving for the One Who had changed an impossible situation into something so glorious.

Now two things are related to all three of the feasts: One thing was that in every case the situation was naturally impossible. The other thing was that Jesus took hold of the impossibility and turned it upside-down. I think that this feast tonight contains all of those three feasts. Most of us here know something about the disappointments of this life and this world. We tried to find our satisfaction in the wine of this world, and that wine failed us; it let us down. We tried to find our satisfaction in these broken systems, and they failed us. Like the wine in Cana, we were disappointed with this world, and we said, 'This life is impossible.' Then Jesus came in and changed the whole situation for us. We are all enjoying the new wine of the Kingdom tonight. That is the eternal life which Jesus gives. And we all know something about the impossibility of this natural life.

We may think badly of little Zacchaeus, but we are a poor lot ourselves. We are no better than he. We would do just as mean a thing as he. Naturally we are quite impossible people. And if it had been said that we would be entirely changed into a new creation, people would have said, 'No, I do not think so.' But Jesus has done it. He has changed these Zacchaeuses. And we were all dead in trespasses and sins. We were all dead to God. We were as dead as Lazarus. BUT THE LORD JESUS HAS COME INTO OUR LIVES, AND WONDERFULLY RAISED US FROM THE DEAD, AND MADE US TO WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. All these things are in this feast here. Therefore, this feast is a wonderful testimony to the glory of the Lord Jesus in our history. Our brother John has told us a little of the impossibility of the situation which the Lord changed. And we all have, I hope I can say all of us here have, a testimony to the wonder-working power of our Lord Jesus. So it is good to have a feast when it is like that. It is not just a social occasion, it is a testimony to the glory of our Lord Jesus.

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Meeting 19 - The Absolute Necessity of Our Receiving the Holy Spirit

Nineteenth Meeting
(February 15, 1964 P.M.)

I want you to read with me two or three short passages of the Word of God:
"I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Holy Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself - but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come" (John 16:12,13).

"And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:16-19).

"And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, 'Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?' And they said unto him, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Spirit." And he said unto them, "Unto what then were ye baptized?" And they said, "Unto John's baptism." Then said Paul, "John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him Which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied" (Acts 19:1-6).

Now what I want from these verses are just two fragments, "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth." And the other one is this: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" These Scriptures, which we have just read, present to us a matter about which the apostles were very particular. And what was it that the apostles demanded as the proof of this matter? It was that these people had definitely received the Holy Spirit. I expect some of you may say, 'Well, how do we know if and when we have received the Holy Spirit?' Now there are quite a number of things that are the proofs that we have received the Holy Spirit. And I am just going to choose several of the most normal things in this connection.

The first thing is that we have recognized and acknowledged the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ over our life. You notice that when the apostles preached, they always began their preaching by setting forth Jesus Christ as Lord. The first thing that they said about Jesus was not "He is Savior," but the first thing that they said about Him was "He is Lord." "God has made this Jesus Whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ." They said, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord. It was the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ that came first in their preaching.

Now this coming of the Holy Spirit was only the earthly side of what had taken place in heaven. Jesus had been received up into glory, and in glory God made Him Lord: God had said to Him, "Sit Thou at My right hand." In heaven, Jesus Christ was recognized as Lord. All the angels of heaven worship Him as Lord. The Father God called Jesus, "Lord." This is what happened in heaven. When that happened in heaven, the Holy Spirit came right down from heaven to this earth, and He came down to make what was in heaven true here on this earth. He came to make earth and heaven agree on this one thing, "Jesus is Lord." The first proof that you and I have the Holy Spirit is that Jesus Christ is absolute Lord in our life. We bow to the Lord Jesus and we say, "Lord." And we mean from that time Jesus is Lord of all things in and over our lives.

When Jesus is Lord, there is always one thing that the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit brings into the heart the glory of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was glorified in heaven, because Jesus was Lord there. When Jesus becomes Lord in our lives, some of that heavenly glory comes into our lives. You notice how the people in the New Testament were filled with joy because they had received the Holy Spirit. And that joy was the expression of the glory of Jesus. That is why when we truly make Jesus Lord, we feel so happy, so joyful. We cannot keep it to ourselves. We want everybody to know about it. The Holy Spirit has brought the glory of the Lord Jesus into our lives. That is the first way in which you can tell whether you have received the Holy Spirit. Have you got something of the glory of Jesus in your heart?

You know that Christianity is the only true singing religion in the world. Some other religions make some very funny noises. Perhaps they think it is singing. But it is a miserable noise. It is just an awful noise that they make. We Christians sing, and why do we sing? Because the Holy Spirit makes us sing. You notice what a good time Christians have when they are singing about the Lord Jesus. Well, that is the first evidence that we have received the Holy Spirit.

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Another thing, which is the proof that we have received the Holy Spirit, is the complete change that is made in our lives. Now you have only to look in your New Testament to see how true this is. Look at the disciples before the day of Pentecost. Look at them up to the time that Jesus was crucified. Now we cannot say very much that is good about them up to that time. Those disciples up to the time of Pentecost were defeated disciples. When Jesus was taken by the soldiers, they all ran away from Him. Not one of them stayed with Him. They were so afraid. And Peter, poor Peter, went down lower than all of them. Three times, Peter very strongly denied that he knew Who Jesus was, he said, "I know not the Man." Just think of Peter talking like that. That wonderfully self-confident Peter behaving like that, seeking to save his own life by denying his Lord. Yes, they were all defeated men when it came to the Cross.

Now look at them on the day of Pentecost, and from that time onward, they are men in absolute victory. Let the same rulers that crucify Jesus take these men prisoner, and threaten to put them to death. And what do these men do now? Do they run away? Do they say, 'We do not know Jesus?' Oh, no, they are very different men. They are just full of courage. They stand up to the rulers. And it says, "They counted it joy to suffer shame for Christ's Name." Before they received the Holy Spirit, they were men who were very much afraid, very fearful indeed. You know, we are told that after Jesus rose from the dead, these disciples were all in the room and they had bolted the door for fear of the Jews. If they heard some footsteps coming along the road, all their faces went white, and they began to tremble, 'Are they coming for us now?' Men full of fear. Now look at them, after they have received the Holy Spirit. No white faces now. No trembling with fear now. Fear has given way to a wonderful courage. They can stand up to anybody.

Then look again at them after Jesus was crucified. It says about two of them who were walking to a village called Emmaus, that they walked and were sad. They were very sad and unhappy men. And I think that was true of all the disciples at that time. They thought that they had lost everything. Yes, they were very sad men.

Now look at them when they had received the Holy Spirit. It says they were full of joy and of the Holy Spirit. Rejoicing had taken the place of the sadness. How weak they were before that. They could not stand up to even a little servant maid. You remember the story? Jesus is being tried, and Peter is in the hall near by, and he is warming his hands. You know, you always feel cold when you are afraid; and Peter was feeling very cold, because he was very afraid. And there came a little maid - just a little girl, a serving girl. And she said to him, "You are one of His disciples." And he was afraid of a little girl. He said, "I do not know the Man." Yes, he was afraid of a little girl. How weak they were. Now after Pentecost, you can bring all the girls and all the men in the world, and you can let them say all they like to Peter and the other disciples, for now they are no longer weak, but they are strong.

Then there was another thing. Before the day of Pentecost, the Bible was a closed book to them. They knew it as a book. They had read Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, but they did not understand it. They did not understand what it was all about. They knew it as a book, but to them it was a closed book. Now look at them on the day of Pentecost. Why, they had a new Bible! I would like for you to read carefully Peter's address to the multitude on the day of Pentecost. See how much of the Old Testament he quotes. See how he explains the Old Testament. Now his eyes are opened, and he sees Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament. Yes, they had a new Bible. The Bible was no longer closed, it is an open book. All these things were marks of their receiving the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit made defeated men into men of victory. The Holy Spirit made fearful men into men of courage. The Holy Spirit made sad men into rejoicing men. The Holy Spirit made weak men into strong men. And the Holy Spirit gave them all a new Bible. This is the proof that they had received the Holy Spirit. Now I am sure you will agree with me that the Holy Spirit is very important.

These are the true characteristics of a Christian life. I am not going to keep you any longer tonight. Perhaps at some other time we will have another talk, and I will go on from this point, showing something more of the meaning of the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit means to us in our lives. But for tonight this is the point: The absolute necessity of our receiving the Holy Spirit. And be sure that we have received the Holy Spirit. And we can test this matter by these things that I have mentioned. We can test it and prove it because to us Jesus is Lord of all. He is absolute Lord of our lives. It is the Holy Spirit that does that. If that is true of us, then we have the Holy Spirit. And these other things that I have mentioned must also be true.

We can prove it by this: 'Have you received the Holy Spirit?' Or to put it in Paul's way, 'When you believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit? Have you really got the Holy Spirit dwelling in you?' And you say, 'How do I know?' Well, I have told you just a few of the things which can make you know whether or not you have received the Holy Spirit. Of course, we often put it in another way. We ask people if they have received the Lord Jesus. And we speak about having the Lord Jesus in our hearts, but it is just the same thing. Jesus said, "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30). And the Holy Spirit and Jesus are one. The Holy Spirit has come to make Jesus live in us. It is the same thing. But it is something that we must be very sure about.

Well, I will leave the question with you. You see, I am trying to be very faithful, and really to get right down to the foundation of the Christian life. I think that one of the greatest weaknesses in Christianity of our time is that we take too much for granted. That is why the apostles were so particular about this matter. They made it a personal matter. They made it a matter of supreme importance. They said, "When you believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit?" THE ONLY TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS THE LIFE IN WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES JESUS LORD.

Well, that is my simple word to you this evening, but it is a very important word. I have come a long way to speak to you, I may not be here very long, then I shall be gone and may never meet you again on this earth. But I want to be quite sure that when I speak to you, I am very faithful with you, that I leave you in no doubt as to the true nature of the Christian life - the life in which the Holy Spirit makes Jesus Christ Lord! Perhaps we shall say something about the going on of the Christian life, but this is how it must begin.

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Meeting 20 - "This One Thing I Do"

Twentieth Meeting
(February 16, 1964 A.M.)

We are going to read some Scriptures in the Word of God:
"And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?' And I answered, 'Who art Thou, Lord?' And He said unto me, 'I Am Jesus of Nazareth, Whom thou persecutest.' And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me. And I said, 'What shall I do, Lord?' And the Lord said unto me, 'Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.' And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus" (Acts 22:6-11).

"Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19).

"For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in Whom we trust that He will yet deliver us" (II Cor. 1:8-10).

"Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches" (II Cor. 11:23-28).

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13,14).

"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"; "This one thing I do." IN THOSE TWO SHORT WORDS, THE APOSTLE PAUL SETS THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF HIS LIFE. The beginning of his Christian life was when he said, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" When he wrote the Letter to the Philippians, he was at the end of his earthly journey. He was in prison in Rome waiting to be executed. Right at the end of his life, he was still saying, "This one thing I do." He began with, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" He ended by saying, "This one thing I do." There were thirty years between the beginning and the ending of his Christian journey. And what a tremendous thirty years they were. All his traveling and all his labors, all his teaching and his preaching, and then, as we have read, all his sufferings. How very full his thirty years of Christian life were. And there was plenty in those thirty years to bring him to an end. Many of those sufferings might have brought him to an end. He might have despaired long ago, he might have said, 'I cannot bear any more, everything is too much for me, I must give it all up.' But he went right through to the end. And among his last words are these, "This one thing I do. I press on toward the mark of the prize of the on-high calling of God."

Now, what we are concerned with this morning is just this, we must know the secret of being able to go right on to the end triumphantly. We may not have all the kinds of sufferings that the Apostle Paul had. But there will be enough difficulties in our Christian experience, and sometimes they will seem to be too big. And we shall wonder whether we can go on any longer, and perhaps we shall be tempted just to give up. What we want to know then is the secret of victory at the end. You know there are many Christians who do not go right through to the end. Perhaps you know some, and I know many, who have given up. They made what looked like a good beginning, they were full of promise. And then they left the Lord. They went away from the Savior. And there are very many in this world like that. They have begun but they have not gone through. Many, many Christians have gone away from the Lord. And many have gone away because they found the way too difficult.

So it is very important that we know how we are going to be able to continue unto the end. And the case of the Apostle Paul has something to teach us on this matter. Everything depends so much upon our BEGINNING. The end so often relates to the beginning. In the case of Paul, it was his beginning that kept him going right to the end. The Apostle Paul put his beginning into a very short sentence. He called it "the heavenly vision." When he was on trial before king Agrippa, he said, "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision!" And we have read what the heavenly vision was. The heavenly vision for him was the Lord Jesus. Paul had not decided to come into Christianity, to turn from one religion to another. Paul had not decided to accept certain teaching about Jesus Christ. It was not because some people had persuaded him to become a Christian. It was none of those things. And it was none of the many other things that call some people to become Christians.

Paul saw Jesus Christ. For him the beginning was not a religion or a teaching, it was a Person. Later on, he put it in this way. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1:15,16). He had a very personal encounter with Jesus Christ; it was very personal. Paul, at that time, or Saul of Tarsus as he was, was one of a crowd. We do not know how many were going with him to Damascus. But it is quite evident that there were a number of others with him. He says that they saw the light, but they did not hear the voice. He was the only one who met the Lord Jesus; it was very personal. Jesus knew his name. He said, "Saul, Saul." Jesus knew exactly where he was. Jesus knew where to find him. And Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. You see, Jesus knew all about this man. And He came down to him on very personal grounds. This beginning of his Christian life was something very personal between himself and the Lord. Let us look again at this beginning.

Oh, let me say again how important the beginning is. You know if you are putting up a building, and you want that building to last a long time, and to stand up against all the storms of wind and rain, and to carry all the heavy weight that is going to be put upon it, you must have a good foundation. Everything for the building depends upon the foundation. And so it is with the Christian life. Everything for our endurance is going to be a matter of our foundation. So we look at this foundation again. We have seen that it was something very personal between the man and the Lord. It must be like that with every one of us. We must be able to say, 'The Lord has met me personally, and I have met the Lord personally. This is not something that other people told me. This is not something that I read in a book. This is not something that was taught me in the Sunday school. This is not something that I heard the preachers preach about. This is something very personal between me and the Lord. If there was not another Christian in the world, I know where I stand. If I am the only Christian in the world, I am a Christian because I have met the Lord Himself. I know the Lord for myself.'