Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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Let me tell you that this is a very important thing. Although I have not had all the experiences that the Apostle Paul had, I have been in the work of the Lord many more years than Paul was in it. You know sometimes as we look at Christianity, our hearts sink. We see all the divisions, we see all the inconsistent Christians. We see so much in Christians and Christianity that is not the Lord. And we could easily give it all up and say, 'Well, we have made a mistake, we are on the wrong road!' What is it that keeps us going when there are all the false teachings and the false teachers? You notice that Paul included in his list of sufferings, false brethren. When there are many false brethren, oh, how easy it would be for us to wash our hands of the whole thing. Perhaps you may feel like that sometimes; you may look at other Christians, and you may be disappointed. And you may say, 'Well, I am sick of Christianity, this is not what I expected to find.' What is it that will keep us going? Only one thing, we know the Lord for ourselves personally. To us the Lord is very real. Our foundation is very strong. Our foundation is not a teaching, a religion, or a society. Our foundation is a Person. Do remember that as the very first thing and seek to have that as your foundation.

Then there was another thing about the beginning of Saul or Paul. You notice how he spoke to the Lord? Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Now I do not think that Saul knew what he was saying when he said the next sentence. We sometimes say things and we do not know what we are saying. The next thing that Saul of Tarsus said, he did not know what he was saying at that moment; he said, "Who art Thou, Lord?" And when Jesus said, "I Am Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 9:4,5) I wonder if Saul, just for a moment, said: 'Oh, I did not mean to call You Lord. I am persecuting Jesus of Nazareth. I had no intention of ever calling Him Lord.' But Saul did not do that. When he realized that he had called this terrible Jesus of Nazareth, Lord, he did not take it back. He did not say, 'I have made a mistake. Oh, I apologize for saying that.' He doubled it. And said, "What wilt Thou have me to do, Lord?" To call Jesus of Nazareth 'Lord' twice was a tremendous thing for this man.

If you had met Saul when he started out on that journey to Damascus, with authority from the chief priest to imprison all that followed Jesus of Nazareth; and as it says, "Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the people of this way" (Lit. "The Way"). If you had met him when he started on that journey and said to him, 'Saul, before you finish this journey, you will be calling Jesus of Nazareth, Lord.' What do you think Saul would have done? Well, he would have put you in prison right away. The last thing in all the world that ever this man intended to do was to call Jesus of Nazareth, "Lord." It did represent a tremendous surrender.

In that word, "Lord," there was the surrender of everything. That was his beginning. A complete and absolute surrender to Jesus as Lord. It was a tremendous thing for him. Notice, "What wilt Thou have me to do." Here was a young man who had always decided for himself what he would do. Here was a young man who had a very strong natural will. No one could stand against that will. If his parents had pleaded with him, he would not have listened to them. No matter who would have urged him to change his mind, he would have said, 'I will not, I am going to do this. It does not matter what anybody says, I will do this.' That is the kind of will that Saul of Tarsus had. And now, here he is saying, "What wilt Thou have me to do." That strong self-will was completely surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That was a very deep thing. You see, that is the kind of beginning that is going to see a man right through to the end. That was his beginning. He put everything over into the hands of Jesus Christ as his Lord. In effect he said, 'It is no longer my will, but Your will. It is no longer my way, but Your way. It is no longer my plans for my life, but Your plan for me, Lord.' That was a foundation which would carry a very heavy load. You think of all those things that we have read that came into the thirty years. Just go home and read them again.

The thirty years of sufferings, of afflictions, and of trials prove two things. First, they prove how genuine Paul's surrender was to the Lord Jesus. Now this man did not say, 'Lord, I will live for You if You give me an easy time. I will be a good Christian if only You see that no troubles come into my life. I will be a Christian and follow You if only You would just fill my life with blessings.' He never said anything like that to the Lord. What he meant was, blessing or no blessing, You are my Lord, and I am Your bondservant. And for thirty years, that kind of surrender was tested by all these trials. He said, "Three times I was beaten with rods." "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes except one" (II Corinthians 11:25,24). Why did he say except one? Because the fortieth stroke was always regarded as the fatal stroke. Thirty-nine strokes and the next one, you are dead. Three times that happened with him. Don't you think the devil said to him when that thirty-ninth stroke came on him, 'Now, do you still surrender to the Lord? Do you still call Him Lord? If you would like to stop calling Him Lord, you can stop having all these strokes. A whole situation can change for you for the better, if only you will stop this surrender to Jesus Christ.' I expect Satan often spoke to him like that. And as the strokes were coming on him, Satan would say, 'You are still going to call Him Lord?' But there was very much more than three times with thirty-nine strokes. There were the imprisonments. Once he was stoned and left for dead, then he was in the shipwrecks at sea, and all these other things. There was plenty in all that kind of thing to make him reconsider his surrender to the Lord Jesus. But those troubles were only proving that his surrender was genuine. This was not just some artificial thing. This was something more than the man himself.

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That leads us to the second thing that the thirty years were proving. All these thirty years of difficulty and trial were just proving how great the Lord Jesus is. The Lord Jesus is greater than all the imprisonments. He is greater than all these many kinds of sufferings. The Lord could bring a man through all that, and often at the end, saying, 'I am still going on.' Paul used the phrase in one of his later letters. He spoke of, "according to the power that worketh in us!" It was the power of the Lord working in him.

Now here is a thing that we must all remember. The mighty power of the Lord may be working in us and we may not be conscious of it at the time. Appearances may argue that Satan is having it all his way. Things may seem to say that Jesus is not Lord, but circumstances are Lord. But what is it that decides whether the power has been working in us? It is not that we are conscious of that power at the time of trouble. It is that that power brings us through the trouble. That mighty power of the Lord Jesus working in Paul brought him through all those troubles to the place where at the end he said, "This one thing I do." So the troubles were necessary in order for Paul to discover what a great Lord had come into his life. If everything was easy, we could never discover how great the Lord is.

Now you come over to this letter to the Philippians. In chapter three, from which we have taken that little fragment, the Apostle Paul is telling of all the worldly advantages which were his before he met the Lord Jesus. He says, 'If any man thinketh that he can boast, I can go beyond any man. Any man thinks he has confidence in the flesh, I have much more than any man. Circumcised the eighth day, that made me a true child of Abraham, and that is a big thing. Of the stock of Israel, I come right up out of the root, I am not something that has put on the outside. I belong to the tribe of Benjamin. And Benjamin produced the first king of Israel. I belong to the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew of Hebrew parents, there is no mixed blood in me. As touching the law, a Pharisee. A proud, self-sufficient Pharisee. As touching zeal, persecuting the church. As touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.' What does a man want in all the world more than that? Here is a young man who has got to the top of his profession. He is a great success in this world. Now what does he say? 'The things which were gain to me, I have counted it loss for Christ. Yea, I count all things but refuse for the knowledge, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. There is nothing that all this world desires for fame and success which can compare with the Lord Jesus.' How the Lord Jesus had captured this man's life. He said Jesus is Superior to all these things.

Well, we must hurry to the close now. There is a lot more that we could say, but we just close with one thing. When Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians, he wrote it from his prison. As we have said, he was waiting the sentence of death. He was no longer able to travel about the world preaching. He was no longer able to visit his beloved people in all parts of the world. A lot of his friends had left him. There was not much that he could do in a public way now. All that is at an end. So that it was not the churches and it was not the works; it was the Lord Jesus. Paul's life was not just his work. It was not just his traveling about all over the world preaching. When all those things were taken away, he says, 'I am still going on.' 'This one thing I do, I press on. Take away my work, I am going on with the Lord. Take away my friends, I am going on with the Lord. Take away my liberty, I am still going on with the Lord.' How great a Lord He must be.

Well, when the Lord Jesus is like that to us, we will go right through to the end. Paul started with saying, "What wilt Thou have me to do, Lord." He finished by saying, "This one thing I do." One thing, how important it is to have a single eye. Not one eye looking this way, and the other eye looking that way, not two hearts divided, but one eye, or both eyes on one object. I have but one interest in life, and that interest is the Lord Jesus. In my business, it is the Lord Jesus. In my college, it is the Lord Jesus. In my home, it is the Lord Jesus. Among my friends, it is the Lord Jesus. In all things in this life, I have but one interest, that is, that my Lord Jesus may have all that He ought to have in my life. I say, if it is like that, while many others will fall out by the way, we shall go through to the end.

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Meeting 21 - It is Real Worship to be Broken Before the Lord

Twenty-First Meeting
(February 16, 1964 P.M.)

I want to say just a brief word again about the Lord's Table. I would like to read three passages of Scripture:

"For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of Me. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me" (I Cor. 11:23-25; ASV).

"Him Who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (II Cor. 5:21).

"How much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:14).

HE WHO KNEW NO SIN HE MADE TO BE SIN. He offered Himself without spot unto God. Here are two statements which seem to be a direct contradiction of each other. They both refer to the same time. That is, they both refer to the Cross of the Lord Jesus. One statement is, that He Who knew no sin was made to be sin. The other statement is, that He offered Himself without spot unto God. It looks like a contradiction, but there is no contradiction. They are only two sides of one thing. That is, two sides of Christ's work on the Cross. One is what He was in Himself, that is, a Lamb without spot. One Who knew no sin. That is what He was in Himself. Absolute sinlessness, without a spot of sin.

The other is what He was made to be on our behalf. He was made to be sin although He knew no sin. There is an Old Testament type of this twofold work of the Lord Jesus. You will find it in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Leviticus. It is the account of the two goats. These two goats were brought before the Lord by the priests. They were both without spot or blemish. One of them was offered to God a burnt offering there on the Altar. The goat without spot or blemish offered to God. But there was the other goat. That goat was equally without spot or blemish. But the priest laid his hands on the head of that goat, and confessed the sin of the people over that goat, and in figure transferred the sin of all the people to that goat. And then the priest took the goat and led it out through the camp, right away from the Presence of God, out beyond the farthest bounds of the people of God, right away unto the wilderness. The people all turned to watch the priest leading this goat away. They watched it until it had gone right beyond their sight. And then the priest let it go. He drove it away into the wilderness. And he returned to the Presence of God without the goat. That is the Old Testament illustration of this very thing.

On the one side, Jesus was an offering without sin, acceptable to God. On the other side, He was made sin for us, and was driven out far from the Presence of God. He cried in that moment, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" If that scapegoat could have spoken far away into the wilderness, it would have just used one word, he would have cried, "Forsaken." 'I am forsaken: I am driven far from the Presence of God and man. I am despised and rejected of men.' That is the other side of the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross.

Now, I am just going to speak about one thing in that connection. When Jesus on the night of the passover sat down at the table with His disciples, He took a loaf and He broke it. He tore it to pieces, and He said, "This is My body which is broken for you." And then He took the cup, and Matthew tells us that He said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you." My body broken, My blood poured out. What did that mean? I am only speaking of this one side of things just now. Jesus had taken the place of our broken humanity. Sin is that which breaks our humanity. It tears our human nature to pieces. Sin disintegrates us. That is what happened at the beginning.

After Satan had done his work and Adam had accepted the temptation, the humanity of Adam was no longer whole. It was a broken humanity. Before that, it was complete, it was just one thing. But after that unbelieving disobedience, that humanity was torn asunder. It was just broken to pieces. And that is how God views humanity now. When Jesus was broken, He was just taking the place of our broken humanity. He was saying, 'I represent the whole human race in its broken condition. I enter into the brokenness of the world's humanity. My life is no longer in Me, it is poured out unto death.' That is the effect of sin and Satan's work. And in that day at the Cross, on that one side, that is what Jesus meant by, 'My body broken, My blood poured out. I represent the state of all men, no longer whole, no longer complete.'

Now, when we come to the Lord's Table, we should always remember this. We should always remember when we take the broken bread, and the cup, we are acknowledging and confessing before God that in ourselves we are broken. There is no wholeness about us. Sin has destroyed that wholeness. We are broken in the sight of God. That is what we mean when we take the loaf and the cup. We are acknowledging that before God in ourselves we are a broken humanity. We cannot stand up before God as something that is whole and complete and perfect. He was made sin for us. He was broken as we are broken. He took the place of our destroyed and disrupted humanity. And God had to turn His face away. Just as that scapegoat in the desert felt its utter desolation, not one eye to pity it, not one word of consolation, not one hand to help, alone, far away from the habitation of God and man. That is where the Lord Jesus went on our behalf, bearing the judgment of God upon our broken humanity. Before ever the other side can become true of us, the other side is that we are made complete in Him. All our brokenness is mended in Christ; we who were afar off are now made nigh. We can now, through faith in Jesus Christ, stand before God as those who have been made whole. But before we can do that, and have a standing in the Presence of God, we have got to recognize that naturally we are broken.

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You see how these two things are blended in the New Testament? Take the great Apostle Paul, before he met the Lord Jesus, he thought he was a very whole and complete being. He thought that he could stand up in the Presence of God. He thought that there was nothing wrong with him but everything was right. There was no brokenness about Saul of Tarsus. When he met the Lord Jesus, it changed that situation. The first thing that he discovered was that he could not stand in the Presence of God. Before God, he was a broken man. There was nothing whole about him. That was one side of history; and he went all through his life keeping that always before him. How many things he said about himself referring to his own weakness. He said, 'I am weak, but I glory in my weakness.' I have entered into the brokenness of the Lord Jesus. I have shared His broken body. In myself I am worthless. I am like a shattered vessel. But on the other side, how the Lord blessed that man, how the Lord was with that man. Yes, he was now accepted by God. Now he could stand up straight before the Lord. Two sides.

If you and I want to stand well with the Lord, if we really do want to find favor with God, if we want to come onto the life side of the Cross, and come right into the Presence of the Lord, and offer our worship to the Lord, we must first of all be very conscious of our own brokenness. God only really uses broken men and women, those who have come to recognize that in themselves they are very poor creatures. There is about them a spirit of real brokenness. Such ones come into this wonderful word of the Lord, 'To this one will I look, even to him who is of a broken and a contrite spirit' (Isa. 66:2; Ps. 51:17).

Now you notice that this was all to do with the service of God. In the Book of Leviticus, it is the service of God; it is all service being offered to God. And that just means this: That before ever we can receive the blessing from the Lord, the Lord has got to be satisfied. It has first got to be unto the Lord before it can be from the Lord. This brokenness is our offering to the Lord. It is real worship to be broken before the Lord. The broken and contrite spirit is the spirit of true worship. That is acceptable service. That is the real service to God. And when God is satisfied, then we can come into the blessing. The proud man, the self-sufficient man, the man who stands up in his own strength, he is not the man who inherits the blessing. He is not the man whom the Lord will use. He is not the man who can really serve the Lord. But the man who dare not lift up his eyes to heaven, but with bowed head says, "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:11-13). This man goes to his house justified. This man has the recognition and blessing of the Lord. Will you always remember this word when you come to the Lord's Table? When the loaf is broken, in your heart you say, 'This is my brokenness. He was broken for me. He was broken as me. In myself I am broken before God. He was broken in order to make us whole.'

So, when we take the broken bread, we are testifying and acknowledging our brokenness before God. But not only at the Lord's Table; the Lord's Table is the center of our whole life. Our entire life is gathered into the Lord. The Lord's Table has got to have a meaning every day and every hour, and this has to be the meaning: I in myself am poor and broken before God. And I can only dwell in the Presence of God because Jesus makes me whole. "This is My body, broken for you."

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Meeting 22 - The Prayer of Our High Priest: Father, I Want My Whole Family to be There With Me

Twenty-Second Meeting
(February 18, 1964 P.M.)

Read: John seventeen.

There is another prayer in the New Testament which the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples. That prayer is usually called the Lord's prayer. You remember that prayer, that it begins: "Our Father Which art in Heaven." But that prayer was not the Lord's prayer. That prayer never could be the Lord's prayer. He gave it to the disciples just to indicate lines along which they could pray. It is a mistake to call it the Lord's prayer. The Lord Jesus could never say to the Father, "Forgive us our trespasses." He never had to ask for forgiveness. That would have made Him a sinner. And in Him, there was no sin. The true Lord's Prayer is the one that we have just read. John seventeen is truly the Lord's prayer. Here, we can learn much from His prayer as to how we should pray. So we will follow Him through this prayer.

I expect most of you know that this prayer has been called 'the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus.' And I think that is the right name for it, because in this prayer the Lord Jesus is following the course of the high priest of old. The high priest of old prepared himself to pass through into the most holy place, and there meet God. He took the blood from the altar. He took the fire from the altar. He took a censer and put the fire into it, and then he put the sweet incense on the fire into the censer, and passed from the outer court through the holy place and through the veil into the most holy place. And there he swung his censer before the mercy seat, having sprinkled the blood upon the mercy seat, and there rose unto God a cloud of sweet incense: - something acceptable and well pleasing to God, a savor of Christ.

Now you will see by the position of John seventeen, that Jesus is just beginning that course. He is about to go to the great Altar of sacrifice - the Cross. He is about to take His Own blood from the Cross. He is about to take the fire of judgment from the Cross. And He is about to pass through the veil. We are told that the veil is His flesh. His body is about to be rent from top to bottom like the veil of the most holy place. And His body, having been broken, He is about, in the spirit, to enter into the Presence of the Father. HE IS NOW GOING THROUGH, IN SPIRIT, TO THAT HEAVENLY HOLY OF HOLIES WHERE GOD IS. And there in the Presence of God He will sprinkle the blood of testimony. And in the Presence of God He will present the sweet savor of a perfected work, well pleasing to God. And all that is gathered into this prayer. As this High Priest, our Lord Jesus is moving toward the heavenly sanctuary, He is praying, and He is praying for the people who are represented by Him. He is praying for the family that He is leaving outside.

You notice this is a family matter. He begins His prayer with the word, "Father," and He ends the prayer with "Thy name." They are the things which make the family - The Father and His name. Now you notice how He prays for the family. As He moves toward the Father, He says, first of all, "For their sakes I sanctify Myself," on their behalf "I sanctify Myself." And if we want to know the meaning of the word, "sanctification," it is the same word as being made holy, same word as consecration. It just means being wholly set apart for God. For their sakes I wholly consecrate or set apart Myself unto God.

You must realize that that is the first basis of effectual prayer. If that is the basis of the prayer of the Lord Jesus, how much more ought it to be our basis of prayer. If He said, 'For their sakes I consecrate over to God everything, I Am wholly separated unto God. God has everything where I Am concerned.' That is His basis of prayer, and that is our basis of prayer. When we come to pray, or whenever we go to the Lord in prayer, I think the Holy Spirit would ask this question: Are you holding anything back? Are you keeping something back for yourself? Have you any personal interest? Or has the Lord got everything? Is it as true of you, as it was of your Lord, that everything is on the Altar? You have only one motive in life, and that is to be wholly for the Lord, ourselves for the Lord, our homes for the Lord, our business for the Lord, everything in life for the Lord. That is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said, "I consecrate Myself." That is the essential basis of effectual prayer. The Lord Jesus said this because He was setting an example for the family.

There are three directions and respects in this prayer in which the Lord Jesus wanted the family to be consecrated or separated. Firstly, what He meant by saying, "I sanctify Myself - Myself. I separate Myself from My Own will - separate from My Own interest." You see, the Lord Jesus had a human nature as well as a Divine nature, and all through that earthly life this question was arising for Him. Could He be tempted to take the life of His human nature, instead of the Divine. It was not a sinful human nature, but it was a human nature. You see, those temptations of the devil in the wilderness were just the temptation to get Him to come down onto the ordinary ground of human nature. And from the temptation immediately after His baptism right up to the Cross, that was the battle. In the garden of Gethsemane, the battle was this: "Not My will, but Thy will." His was not a sinful will, but it was a human will; and He had the power to choose. It was within His power to say, "No," and when it came to the Cross, that choice was a great battle. It was a terrible battle in the garden; between what He called, "My will, and Thy will."

Now, if that was true of the Lord Jesus, how much more true it is of us. If it was true of One Who had no sinful will, how much more true is it of us who have a sinful will. So He said, 'I consecrate Myself. I step away from what I am in My mere humanity over onto God's side. I leave My ground for God's ground.' You know, that is a part of true prayer. We shall never get through in prayer to God, if we are standing on our own natural ground. We have got to take God's ground, even if that means against ourselves and our own wills. So, He said, 'I consecrate Myself, I put My whole self onto this Altar of the Cross.' That is the way He prayed as He moved up to the Father.

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Do you notice the second thing that consecration meant? Listen to Him praying for the family. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but Thou shouldest keep them." He knew that the world is one of the greatest powers against consecration. What a big force this world is to cause us to keep something back from the Lord. In this prayer, the Lord Jesus makes it perfectly clear that the world is an enemy to God. The world is an enemy to the spiritual life of God's people. The same man, John, who recorded this prayer, later on recorded this: He that is a friend of the world is an enemy of God. So that consecration is separation spiritually from this world while we remain in it. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world!" So consecration for Him and for us means that the world has no place in our hearts. And that again is a great principle of true prayer. I think that much prayer is defeated, and is a failure, because there is so much of the world in our lives.

And then the third thing that He said about consecration was this: "I pray that Thou will keep them from the evil one." That evil one is always very near, he is always trying to do his evil work, he is always trying to lead or to ensnare us into something that is of himself. He is always trying to tempt us. Jesus says, "I pray, Father, 'That Thou wilt keep them from the evil one.'" You know, when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, the final chapter of that great letter brings us into this realm of conflict with the evil one and the evil powers. And he says that conflict is in prayer. He says, in effect, THAT THE GREATEST BATTLE WITH THE FORCES OF EVIL IS THE PRAYER BATTLE. We have got to get into a position of victory over the evil one in order to pray effectively. So that is the Lord's basis of prayer.

I have said it in a very few words. It needs very much more, but that is not the whole prayer. He breathes out His desire to the Father about this family, and He makes two requests of the Father: "I pray that where I Am, there they may be." Where He is going, we shall come. And where is He going? He said, I am going to the Father, and I want My whole family to be there with Me. And He has to pray that, because they will not be there unless He does pray. Our coming to the Father so much rests upon the prayer of our High Priest. That is one of the great inheritances of the Lord's family.

I do not know how it is with you, but very often I pour out my heart to the Lord in prayer, and when I have prayed all that I can pray, I have to add this: 'But Lord, it is not, after all, my prayer; it is the prayer of Your Son that is going to get me through.' He said to Peter, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have prayed for thee." And He believed so much in His prayers, that He said, 'When you turn again, strengthen your brothers, because I have prayed for you' (Luke 22:31-33). Peter, you will come through it all. You will come out on the other side. And that is how it is with us now. "This High Priest ever liveth to make intercession for us" (Heb. 7:25). And we owe far more to His prayers for us than we realize.

And then the second part of that petition was this: "That they may behold My glory!" That is very beautiful. They have beheld My humiliation. They have seen Me despised and rejected of men. And they will share that rejection themselves. They will know something of this humiliation which I know now. But Father, I want them to see the result of it all. I want them to see how all the rejection and the humiliation and the suffering will turn out in the end. I pray that they may behold My glory, and when they behold My glory, they will say, 'It was all worthwhile.' The suffering and the rejection were worthwhile.

So His prayer for us, done here, is going to have its glorious end in our beholding His glory. Now, as I said at the beginning, all this is a way of praying. I left a lot out from this prayer. He prayed for the family THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE. And surely that is something to pray about, perhaps more than ever in history today we need to pray about the Lord's people, THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE. Well, I just leave that brief meditation with you. Let us follow our High Priest through into the Presence of the Father, praying as He prayed.

"That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one" (John 17:21, 22).

The End

Up next, "That They May All Be One, Even As We Are One" - Volume2

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"That They May All Be One, Even As We Are One" - Volume 2
by T. Austin-Sparks

Letter (by T.A-S)

The following was written by brother Sparks in the January-February, 1964, edition of the magazine "A Witness And A Testimony," shortly before he and his wife left for Manila.

Dear fellow-travelers,

With this issue of this little paper we have entered upon one more year of its ministry - the forty-second. Let us immediately express our very sincere wish that this year will be one of great blessing to every one of our readers. May it be a year in which our beloved Lord has a great increase in the possession of His inheritance, and one in which His people come into a great enlargement of theirs in Him.

We shall count upon the continuous prayer-fellowship of each one of you that we shall be enabled to help in both of these directions by the medium of these pages. Need is undoubted: Christ is all-sufficient; but our capacity is so small. In a new way, or with a new emphasis, we have been burdened with the need of so many scattered and hungry sheep. We do need to know the mighty resurrection-life which can make the small handful of 'loaves and fishes' expand to the multitude for whom the Great Shepherd has compassion.

I personally take this opportunity of once again sharing with you, and asking you to share with me, this very practical concern. Does the Lord really want me to spend this year in 'journeys oft'? The calls are many; some quite pressing, and these would lead me practically right round the world. But the physical condition of the increased years [he was 77 years old] make it necessary to be very sure of the Lord's will and to know His enablement in a fuller way than ever.

At the time of writing I am having to face a very urgent and pressing 'Macedonian cry' from the Far East again, immediately. It may be that a note will be added in this connection before this issue is mailed.

The sense of urgency and shortening time is making us press on with more literature. Some twelve books and booklets (including reprints of those not available for some time) are now with the printer, and three new books are ready to go to press. One of the books most called for - What Is Man? - is now at the binders.... Announcement will be made as the books are on hand. This is a ministry which can go on when we have gone to the Lord, and it can go where we are unable to go personally.

When you think of the Editor and pray for him remember also his three helpers; our faithful brother, Clifford Ogden, who has printed A Witness And A Testimony singlehanded for a long time, and who printed many of the books. Also my two devoted secretaries - Miss Guy and Miss Read. We four carry the full weight of all that is entailed in getting this ministry out over the world.

There are many fierce battles related to it all, but 'He Who hath delivered, doth deliver, and we trust will still deliver.' What a glorious thing it would be if, this should be the year of His appearing! Let us walk with our faces toward the light and our hearts inspired by "that blessed hope" to pour ourselves out for Him, "till the day breaks, and the shadows flee away."

Yours in His grace,
T. AUSTIN-SPARKS

P.S. to the Editors Letter.
Further to the note in the above letter, it is now possible to say that provisional arrangements have been made to leave for the Far East toward the end of this month, January. We, my wife and I, will, the Lord willing, fly direct to Manila.

P.S. 2002: And, dear ones, these two volumes entitled, "That They May All Be One, Even As We Are One," are the results of that journey taken in 1964, as our brethren gathered together before the Lord.

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

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Meeting 23 - Within Christianity There is Great Mixture

Twenty-Third Meeting

(February 20, 1964 P.M.)

We are coming back to Matthew's Gospel, and this evening we are going to be occupied with Matthew 13:31 and 32, "Another parable set He forth before them, saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof."' You note that what is in this chapter has two names. One name is "the parables of the Kingdom." Jesus called them "the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven." Whether you call them parables or mysteries, the meaning is the same. The meaning is that something is being said which has a deeper meaning than the ordinary mind of man can recognize. Anybody can read what is said, and everybody may think that they do understand. But the very meaning of the parables and mysteries is that you may read and not understand. It is not what you read that is important, it is what you understand.

We are told that great multitudes gathered to hear what Jesus had to say. The great multitudes heard Him and went away with the story but without the meaning. Only a very few of those who heard got the meaning. We must remember that, because that is the governing thing all the way through of what we have to say.

Now before we come to the meaning and the message, let us look at these parables in a general way. We have seen that there are seven parables in this chapter, and they are divided.

Firstly, they are divided between those which were spoken to the multitude, that is from verse eleven to verse thirty-five. The parables spoken to the multitude were the parables of the sower, the darnel (the tares), the mustard seed, and the leaven. So that four parables were spoken to the multitudes. And then it says Jesus left the multitudes, and went into the house. And He gave three more parables to the disciples alone, from verse thirty-six to verse fifty-two. The parable of the treasure hid in the field, the parable of great price, and the great net let down into the sea. The first two parables were explained by Jesus. The next four were not explained.

Now it is very important for us to recognize one or two general truths. First of all, we must recognize the law of consistency. When Jesus used any symbols more than once, He always meant the same thing. If He spoke of the sower, He always meant the same person, He meant the Son of Man. If He speaks of the field more than once, He always means the same thing, which is the world. In the first place, He is not speaking of the Church, He is speaking about the world. If He speaks about the birds of the air, and in the parable of the sower, He says the birds of the air were the evil one; then, when He says that the birds of the air find a place in the great tree, He means the same thing. The same words mean the same thing every time.

Perhaps you wonder why I say that. It does not sound very interesting or very important, but it is very important, because these parables have been misinterpreted. You will see what I mean as we go along. Jesus never did confuse people's minds by using the same thing for two opposite purposes. If He spoke of birds, He always meant something evil. In one parable, He speaks of the birds and He says that is evil. In another parable, He speaks of the birds, but He does not say they are not evil, but He means the same. So the law of consistency is important, and you have to notice that through these parables.

Now let us look at some of the overall facts. The first overall fact is what He calls the "Kingdom of Heaven," and we have already seen that the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven is the Sovereign Rule of Heaven over all things. It does not mean that the Kingdom of Heaven has a lot of wicked things in it - the Kingdom of Heaven has a lot of evil birds in it - the Kingdom of Heaven has the darnel (the tares) in it. It simply means that over all these things is the Sovereign Rule of Heaven, and all these things come under that Rule. Good things and bad things come under the Rule of Heaven. That is one of the great truths in these parables.

The second general thing is this: These parables are intended to show what will come into this world under the Rule of Heaven. What the Rule of Heaven will allow and what the Rule of Heaven will do with it. Is that quite clear to you? There are a lot of things here that have got to be dealt with in judgment by the Rule of Heaven. And there are a lot of things here that would come under the blessing of the Rule of Heaven. So the great overall truth is that the Rule of Heaven takes account of everything. And the Rule of Heaven deals with every thing according to what it is, whether good or bad. Jesus is doing two things with these parables. As you notice, first of all, He is speaking to the unbelieving nation. He says of that nation that they are blind. Their blindness is due to their unbelief. They had not believed the prophets, and as Isaiah is quoted here, "blindness came upon them because of unbelief."

[Shammu]

Now Jesus in the first place is speaking to this unbelieving nation in order to find out whether there are any people there who want to believe. Do they want to see, or do they not want to see? Will any of these people forsake the ground of their blindness and take the ground of faith?

You will remember that on several occasions, Jesus gave sight to blind people, but He only gave sight to blind people who came to Him to have their sight. They cried out, "Jesus, Master," and He said, 'What do you want Me to do?' They said, 'Lord, that we may receive our sight,' and He gave sight to those people. So, He is testing the unbelieving nation to see if there are any people in it who want to see. All these people heard the parables, most of them went away. They only heard the words, but there were a few who said, 'Now we do not understand what He means, but we are going to find out.' They were not satisfied with the parable, they wanted the meaning. He was testing the faith of these people by speaking mysteries to them.

You remember that is always a principle of teaching. You have a lot of teaching, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to say, 'Well, I do not understand what he is talking about,' and you go home. You seem to say, 'I do not understand,' and that is the end of it. Will you go with the multitude, or are you going to say, 'I believe that he has something that I do not see. He has seen something that I do not see, but I am going to find out what he has seen.' It is always a law of teaching. It is a test as to what our reaction will be. If you go back to the parable of the sower, that is exactly what Jesus meant by the ground, He meant an honest and good heart. The honest and good heart ground brought forth thirty, sixty, and hundredfold. All the others said, 'Well, we do not understand so we are going away.' It is just a matter of whether you really want to see. So in the first place, the Lord Jesus was testing these people as to whether they had an honest and good heart; and, as to whether if they did not understand, they would not give up until they did understand.

Now Jesus was doing a second thing. He was instructing and warning and preparing His own disciples for what was going to come into Christianity. He was preparing them for what they might expect in the future. It is always a very good thing for us to be able to say, 'Well, it is exactly what He said would come.' You see, quite a lot of people just forget what He has said. Jesus said, "Through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom, or in the world you shall have tribulation." Well, the tribulation came, they knew the tribulation in the world. They were able to say, 'This is just exactly what Jesus told us would happen.' So they were prepared and fortified. They were not surprised. And that is exactly what Jesus was doing with His disciples, He was preparing them for what was coming.

Did you notice that in the first four parables, He shows the things which are against the Kingdom of Heaven? Here are many antagonistic elements to the Kingdom of Heaven. Go back to the first parable again, the parable of the sower. A sower goes forth to sow, and the first three parts of his work falls by the way side, on the stony ground, and amongst thorns. Well, the apostles had to go out with the seed of the Word of God. Jesus had already taught them that a lot of their work would be in vain. There were the birds of the air that would be carrying away the seed. There will be evil things against their work, and a lot of their work would be destroyed by the devil. It is well to note that He was warning them that it would be like that.

Then the parable of the darnel (the tares): The Lord has sown His true children in the world, but the enemy comes in and sows false children. The Lord says that would go on right to the end of the age. Do not be surprised if all those who professed to be Christians turn out not to be true Christians. A lot of them will take the name of Christian and prove to be false. The apostles met that sort of thing later on. The Lord had already warned them that it would be like that.

Well, He is saying on the one side, there are a lot of evil things that you have to meet which are against the Kingdom of Heaven. That brings us to our present parable, the parable of the mustard seed. Another parable is just like this: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a seed, which a man sows." It is like the mustard seed, and the mustard seed is amongst the smallest of all seeds. But the mustard seed can grow, and it can be cultivated until it becomes something very big, and the birds of the air lodge in it.

[Shammu]

All right, what are you going to make of that? Now this is where the parable has been wrongly interpreted; and this is where our law of consistency comes in. This parable has been interpreted as meaning the Kingdom has a small beginning, but it grows and grows until you can find anything and everything in the Kingdom. It is going to become so big that it will embrace everything. THAT IS A FALSE INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLE. Jesus was not meaning that. He is not using birds here as good things when He called birds bad things before. The birds mentioned by Him, are always bad things. It is quite true that the beginnings were small. It is quite true that things grow and spread over the world. The Church did expand and it has become something big. But not this: The mustard seed does not naturally become a tree. Naturally it is not a tree. It only becomes a tree when men take hold of it and cultivate and develop it themselves. So the mustard seed was developed for commercial purposes. If you really want to get money for your fruit, you will have the biggest fruit you can get. The very commercial element in it must make it as big as possible. So by all kinds of artificial means you make it big, but that is not its true nature. You have done something with it! You have put your hands on it! And now it represents the work of man, rather than the true work of its own nature.

Now Jesus is saying that is what is going to happen between the time that I am speaking to you, and the time which is the end of the age. Men will take hold of the things of the Kingdom of Heaven, and make them something bigger than they are by nature. There will be an artificial and abnormal developing of Christianity. And because men do that with Christianity, Christianity becomes like a tree with every kind of bird lodging in it. Can you count all the birds that are in Christianity now? Do you know all the kinds of birds that call themselves Christians now? Christianity, as we know it, can just cover anything; and Jesus is saying that is not good. He says that is bad, this is evil work. And it has come about in history, just as Jesus said it would. This thing would be developed by man's hands until it would cover anything you like. I am not going to try to name all the things that are embraced by the word, "Christianity"; but there are many many things which go by the name of Christianity which are not Christianity at all.

Now do we have anything in the Word which proves that we are right in this interpretation? Well, let us look at this matter of the birds. We can go back in the Old Testament. God came to Abraham once, and God was going to make a covenant with Abraham about His seed. He was going to tell Abraham that his seed would become a nation, and that that nation would go into bondage and be in bondage for four hundred years. Then God would deliver those people, and bring them into the land of promise. God said, 'I make a covenant about this and these are the terms of the covenant. You take a sacrifice, and you divide it in two, you put one part there, and you put the other part here. That part is you; this part is Me. We are going to be joined in a covenant.' So Abraham took the sacrifice. He divided it down the middle. He put one half there, and the other half here, then he waited. What happened? The fowls of the air came down, and tried to devour the sacrifice before the covenant could be completed. But Abraham drove off the fowls of the air, and he kept on doing that until the sun went down. Then when the sun went down, a light appeared. The natural light had gone, a Heavenly Light came in; and God completed the covenant.

Well, we know the story that Israel went into captivity for four hundred years, and then God delivered them and took them into the land of promise. But the point is this: Those fowls of the air represented the evil powers who want to destroy the covenant. I say this to show that these birds of the air are evil things. Now we come over to the parable of the sower, and Jesus says that the birds of the air are the devil, who comes to snatch away the seed in order to destroy the work of Christ.

However, we can go on further in the New Testament. In Ephesians, chapter two, the apostle says to these Ephesians, "We all had our conduct according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air." He says, 'Our former life, before we came to the Lord, was according to the prince of the power of the air.' That is only another way of saying, according to the evil power that is all around. Note that this is the beginning of the Letter of the Ephesians.

Now when we come to the end of that letter, in chapter six, we have this: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of the wicked spirits" (ASV). Now I want you to notice something. At the beginning of that letter, Paul speaks about the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. You would remember the words: "The exceeding greatness of God's power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His Own right hand, far above all rule, and authority, and principality, and power." JESUS IS ENTHRONED OVER ALL THE FORCES IN HEAVEN AND IN HELL AND ON THE EARTH. But although that is true, and the apostle has said that, he goes on to say, our warfare is with principalities and powers and hosts of the wicked spirits.

[Shammu]

The fact that Jesus is Exalted far above all, does not mean that our warfare is at an end. In this world, we are still wrestling with principalities and powers, with hosts of the wicked spirits, in other words, the birds of the air, the prince of the power of the air. And this big tree called "Christianity" is the place in which we meet many of those evil powers.

Now this is a very difficult thing to say, but it is quite true that many Christians find their real enemies amongst Christians. The world does not treat you as badly as Christians do sometimes. That is a terrible thing to say, but it is true, oh it is so true. It is within this big tree called "Christianity" that we find so much that is not of the Lord. In this parable of the mustard seed becoming a great tree, that is what Jesus is saying to His disciples. You will find the evil powers working in the world. They will turn the world against you. You will be persecuted by the world; but always remember that you will also find a great many of your difficulties in Christianity.

I think I need not enlarge upon that. Some of us have to say the greatest sorrows and sufferings that we have met have been amongst Christians. The most disappointing and discouraging things that we have met are inside of Christianity. Yes, those birds of the air have gotten into this tree. Jesus said to His disciples, in effect, do not be surprised if it is like that. I am preparing you for that. When it comes, do not be perplexed; I have told you that is how it should be.

Now one last word, we come right back to where we started when we began this parable. The great need is that we have to be able to discern between the good and the bad, not only in the world, but in Christianity. This Christianity has become such a big tree, and there are so many kinds of birds in it. Very often, we just do not know what to make of this or that. What kind of a bird is this? Is this a good one or is it a bad one? How we need spiritual understanding in Christianity, that we may be able to discern what is of the Lord, and what is not of the Lord, even in Christianity. You notice how the Lord concludes all this. He says, at the end of the age He would send forth His angels, and note this - be very careful to note this - and He will take out of His Kingdom all things that offend. So within this Sovereign Rule of Heaven, there are a lot of things that offend, a lot of things, to use His Own words, "which make people stumble." Within that range of the Sovereign Rule of Heaven, there are many things like that. But in the end, He will send His angels, and He will take out everything that offends.

Do not be surprised, therefore, if you find things in Christianity and amongst Christians that are not good. If you realize that the Lord Jesus said it would be like that, it will save you from some trouble. I have met some Christians, and some young Christians, who have gone away from the Lord. They are no longer walking with the Lord. And when I asked them why, they have said, 'Oh, I saw a certain Christian who was so bad that I felt that I did not want anything to do with Christianity. A certain Christian treated me so badly that I am giving up Christianity.' That sometimes, of course, is an excuse. But sometimes they are made to stumble by Christians. If they realized that Jesus said it will be like that, they would not be surprised. Then they would say, 'Well, Jesus told me that it would be like this, and they would be saved.' That is the message of the parable: Within Christianity there is a great mixture. There is good and bad in the branches of the tree. It has become something so big. Almost anything can get into it.

But, beloved, Jesus knows what is the right and what is the wrong. And the Holy Spirit in us will teach us what is the right, and what is the wrong. We leave it there for the time being, we may have something more to say on this at another time.

[Shammu]

Meeting 24 - The Holy Spirit Creates In Us Tremendously Strong Desire For Everything God Has

Twenty-Fourth Meeting

(February 22, 1964 P.M.)

I am going to continue this evening where we left off last Saturday night [19th meeting]. So I would ask you just to turn again to the passages of Scripture which were before us then. In the Gospel by John, chapter sixteen, at verse seven, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you." Verse thirteen, "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth." Back to chapter fourteen, at verse sixteen, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." And verse seventeen, "The Spirit of truth; Whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you" (ASV). And the Book of Acts, chapter nineteen, at verse two, "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?"

So we are going to say a little more about this very important matter of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest needs of our time is to recover the realization of the greatness of those things with which we are very familiar. There are many things in our ordinary everyday life which are very wonderful things, but we take them for granted. I have in front of me five microphones, and through these microphones, people some miles away might hear what I am saying at exactly the same moment that I am saying them. Although it may not be true of these microphones, yet in this city men can speak into a microphone and be heard at that very moment three to six thousand miles away. It does not take one hour, one half hour, nor five minutes, on the other side of the world, while a person is speaking, other people can hear. Now when I say that to you there is nothing on your faces that makes me feel that you think that is very wonderful. You see, it has become just a common place thing that we take for granted. The same is true about a great many things in everyday life.

I remember the day when the first motor car came onto the street, it traveled at about four miles an hour. It made a terrific noise, and everybody rushed into their houses. Well, now look at our streets today, but we do not think it anything very wonderful. It is so common place that we take it for granted, and so it is with many other things in natural life. Because we are so familiar with them, we have lost the sense of wonder. We never look at the motor car now and say, 'oh! what a wonderful thing!' It is just a motor car, and that is all there is to it. Now you know that this has become true of many of the greatest things in this universe.

In the beginning of the Christian era, the world was startled and shocked by the preaching of the apostles. The things that they said from day to day just shook the world. Some people said, 'The men that had turned the world upside down had come here.' What they said was just turning the world upside down. Of course, we should have said, 'They were putting the world the right side up.' But that is how the people felt about the things that they were saying. We are not shaken by these things, we are so familiar with them, they do not mean to us a turning of everything upside down. We can hear them every day and every week and we are never shaken by them. They are the same things as the apostles said. But they do not affect us as they affected the world in those days. We know them so well. We are so familiar with them. They have lost all the sense of wonder for us. And the world is not shaken by these things when we say them. Perhaps that is because they are not wonderful enough to us.

You see, the things with which we are familiar are things which are the greatest things that have ever come into this universe. But the fact is that Christianity has been made too small, too easy, too cheap, and too popular. We here this evening are just thinking about one of these things. It is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened in this world. That is the coming from Heaven of the Holy Spirit. You have read the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and you know what it meant in those days. We had a great fire here in the last twenty-four hours. All the city is talking about it. Perhaps all the country is talking about it. Perhaps the newspapers of the other parts of the world have got the report of it. But that fire is nothing compared with the coming of the Holy Spirit. This fire was put out in a few hours, bad as its work was, it was finished in a few hours. The fire that came into Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost has never yet been put out for two thousand years, and that fire was not just localized to a little area. That fire had gone all over the world. It is still burning today, and it will go on burning until Jesus comes again.

You see, John the Baptist said about Jesus, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and fire." I do not suppose they had any fire engines in the days of John the Baptist. If they had any fire engines then, I think John the Baptist would have added: 'and all the fire engines in the world will never put out that fire.'

Now look at one of the passages which we read, Jesus said, "It is expedient for you that I go away, if I go not away, the Holy Spirit will not come." Do you recognize what that means? It was of tremendous importance that Jesus Himself came into this world. It was of tremendous importance that He spent thirty-three and a half years on this earth. But do you notice, He said, 'It is far more important that I go away.' Now, if Jesus were on the earth today, if He were living in Palestine, you know the people from over the world would be making pilgrimages to go and see Him. People would go from every country of the world to get His help. Well, you say, that makes Him very important. It would be a very important thing for Jesus to be here on this earth. But Jesus Himself said, 'It is far more important that I go away.' Just think about that! 'It is far more important that I go away, because if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit will not come.' Therefore, it must be much more important that the Holy Spirit could come, than that Jesus should stay here in the flesh.

Jesus, while He was here on the earth was always using one phrase, the phrase was this, "In that day." He was constantly saying, "In that day, in that day." He put tremendous emphasis and importance upon what He called, "that day." And, if you look to see what He meant, you will see "THAT DAY" was the day when the Holy Spirit would come. It was not only a day of twelve or twenty-four hours. It was not only the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost only began that day. The sun has never gone down on that day yet. That day is not closed yet. The day to which Jesus referred was the day which will last from the day of Pentecost, till Jesus comes again (John fourteen through sixteen).

[Shammu]

It was not only a matter of time; it was a matter of a "new order." So Jesus constantly said, "In that day, in that day, in that day." And He said tremendous things about that day. Do you realize that we are now living in that day? That day has come! It came when Jesus went back to the Father. We are living in that wonderful day of the Holy Spirit. THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BROUGHT IN A NEW AGE AND A NEW ORDER. The coming of the Holy Spirit was the first thing in Christianity. And Jesus said that He would be with you, and He will be in you, and He will abide with you for the age. This wonderful Holy Spirit, more important than Jesus being here in the body, is in you. I am looking at your faces to see if you see how wonderful the thing is that we are living in. We are living in the most wonderful age of the history of this world. I say that to you on the authority of Jesus Christ Himself. "It is necessary that I go away in order that the Holy Spirit may come." You know we ought to get up and go away feeling tremendously impressed with the day in which we are living. Why is it so wonderful that the Holy Spirit should come? What is this great importance of the coming of the Holy Spirit? For this reason, among others, but this is the first reason, because the Holy Spirit makes a new creation, because the Holy Spirit when He comes into us makes different creatures of us.

Forgive me for asking you a very impersonal question. Do you know the difference between a vegetable and an animal? I expect you will say, of course we do. We know the difference between a cabbage and a dog. Let us go further, Do you know the difference between an animal and a human being? Well, if you had any doubt, you people who love music, get your dog by the piano, and then begin to play one of the great composers - a Beethoven or a Chopin or someone like that. Then say to your dog, 'Now do you hear this? I am interpreting to you Beethoven or Chopin.' And you tell him all about it, and then you look at your dog, and the poor fellow looks terribly bored. The look on his face is, 'I do not know what you are talking about. That may be all right for human beings, but that is not all right for dogs.'

Now we know the difference between a vegetable and an animal. Now we know the difference between an animal and a human being. Do you know the difference between a human being and a child of God? It is just as big a difference between a child of God and an ordinary human being, as there is between a cabbage and a dog. The word says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: the old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." And that is why the Holy Spirit came to make such a difference in us that we are a new and different kind of creature. You so often hear about being born again, you know the word of the Lord to Nicodemus, "You must be born again." Perhaps you have heard that a hundred, or a thousand times, you know it so well. But do we really know what that means? When we are born naturally, when we come in this body of ours into this world for the first time, we come into a new world that we have never been in before. The little baby has come into a new world. It does not understand everything. It does not know what everything is. It is quite a new world.

You must be born again, which means that the Holy Spirit brings us into an altogether new world. Now do test the work of the Holy Spirit in your life by this. Do test your Christian life by this simple fact. When you came to the Lord Jesus, when you gave your life to the Lord Jesus, when you believed that the Lord Jesus came into your life, your first realization was this: That you have come into an altogether new world. You have come not just into a world where people are called Christians, not just into a world or a system called Christianity, but for you in your consciousness, everything was new. The Holy Spirit said, "Behold, I make all things new." You did not understand everything, and you do not understand everything now in that new world. But we, by the work of [the] Holy Spirit have come into another world altogether. A whole new world had opened to us.

Now this is the Word of God. This is why the Holy Spirit came. Is that true for all of us here tonight? We know that we have come into a world where we never were before, and in Christ all things are new for us. We have a new consciousness. What is our consciousness? We use the Word of the Scripture, "We have passed from darkness into light." Just as truly as if we put all these lights off now, and then we were in total darkness, we could see nothing and no one. We would have to try and find our way out, all is dark. Then someone puts all the lights on, and we said, 'Now I can see, my consciousness now is that I am in the light.'

You know that is the simple truth of the beginning of the Christian life. It is not just a doctrine of Scripture, it is an experience. As a new creature we have the consciousness of having come into the light. THE REIGN OF DARKNESS IS FINISHED FOR US. But again, the Scripture puts it in this way, it is the consciousness of having passed from death into life. Of course, the darkness and light illustration is a simple one, and easy to understand.

Now no one here tonight has been actually, literally dead. You have not been a corpse in a coffin, with the life having gone right out, and you had someone come along and raise you from the dead, so that you could really say, "Well, I was dead, but now I am alive." But the Bible says that is how it is outside of Christ, we are dead. It says, we are dead, as dead as any corpse to God. In Christ we are made alive, and the consciousness is, I am alive now. The most wonderful thing is: I know I am alive, but it is another kind of Life. It is God's Own Life. It is not just natural life, it is another Life that has come to me from God Himself. The point is that I have a consciousness, I am alive. I am alive with a new Life which I never had before.

Now there is another thing about this new consciousness. You see, we are following a little baby. A little baby comes into this new world. A little baby comes from darkness to light. A little baby comes from death to life. What is the next thing about the little baby? I tell you a secret. I had a new little grandson two or three weeks ago, and I am told that he is a very big boy. And the difficulty about this new baby is that he never can be satisfied. He is shouting all the time for more food. He was born with a great new desire, a wonderful new appetite. Well, you understand that about the baby, do you not? You know one of the first things they do is to scream for food. They have a strong desire for something.

Now I have been very simple, for the sake of the young people, but no matter how old we are, we can test our Christianity by this. The Holy Spirit creates in us a tremendously strong desire for everything that God has. What the Bible calls, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. The Psalmist cried, "My soul thirsts for God" (Psa. 42:2). Have we all got this consciousness of a wonderful new desire and craving for everything that the Lord has to give us? These are simple tests as to whether we have the Holy Spirit.

Now because my time is gone, I have got to finish there. I have got a lot more to say to you about this. We will hold it over for the time being, but, dear friends, these are the simple basic facts about the Holy Spirit. These are wonderful things. You know a little baby is a wonderful thing. You look at a little baby, you look at his eyes, his little fingers, his little fingernails, you say, that is a wonderful thing. Well, to be born again is much more wonderful. It is a very wonderful thing that the Holy Spirit has come to do. HE HAS COME TO MAKE A NEW CREATION OF US.

We all know this teaching, so I go back to where I started because we are so familiar with it, a great deal of the wonder of it has been lost. Shall we all ask the Lord to bring back the wonders of our salvation? And make us realize what a marvelous thing it is to be born again. How great a thing it is that the Lord has made us new creatures. Then we shall realize something of what He meant. It is very important that the Holy Spirit comes. When Jesus was here, He could only mend broken bodies, He could just heal physically sick people. The Holy Spirit has come to mend broken souls, but IT is the same Person - IT is the Spirit of Jesus. IT is Jesus Who is coming in the Holy Spirit, but is just changing the nature of His work. When He was in the flesh, His work was outward. Now that He is in the Spirit, His work is inward. And the inward is very much more important than the outward.

[Shammu]

Meeting 25 - "Not by Might, Not by an Army, Not by Power, But by My Spirit, Saith the Lord of Hosts"

Twenty-Fifth Meeting

(February 23, 1964 A.M.)

Read: Zechariah 4

That whole chapter centers in one verse, and that is verse six. "Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, "This is the Word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.'" I shall not take time this morning to remind you of the history in which this chapter is set. All I want to do is to mark the spiritual condition that is found here, because here is a spiritual situation which has often occurred in the history of God's people. The historic situation may only have occurred once in the history of Israel, but the spiritual situation has been repeated many times in the history of the Church. The spiritual features of this story are just these: Everything of the Lord had suffered a great setback. The house of the Lord, the place of the Lord had received many heavy blows and much damage. Because of that experience, many of the Lord's people had turned away. They had decided not to go on with this work of the Lord. They had given up faith and hope. The majority had said, 'It's all too difficult,' and they had decided that it was easier just to stay in the world.

A small number, however, had said this situation is not what the Lord intended. They said, 'This situation is all wrong, it is dishonoring to the Lord's Name, and something must be done about it.' This small minority were the Lord's instrument in recovering what was to the glory of God. There were some leaders among them who encouraged them in that. There were those who saw what ought to be. They saw what the Lord wanted to have, and they inspired these few people to get to work to have that which the Lord wanted. That is the spiritual interpretation of this chapter. And I am quite sure you will agree that this situation has occurred more than once. Now, because the things of the Lord have received much damage, and much dishonor has been brought to His Name, a lot of His people have just given up the fight. And like Peter after the Cross, they have said, "I go fishing. I am going back to my old life and my old work. This way of following the Lord is all too difficult." So this large company decided to go back to the business of this life in the world. That, of course, was the big number of Israelites which decided to remain in Babylon.

But here were these few, who did not feel like that. They had a great concern for the honor of the Lord's Name, and they said something must be done about this; we must do something to recover the honor of the Name of the Lord. And there were these leaders who knew what ought to be done, and who encouraged them to do it. You can read the whole story in the light of what I have just said. But there were some very great difficulties.

First of all, they were just a small number of people comparatively. That is indicated by verse ten. The Lord said, "Who hath despised the day of small things?" This was a comparatively small company. And the people were implying: 'Well, we are so small, we are so few, and this work is so great, we are not strong enough to do this.' When they looked at themselves, they felt completely discouraged. They did not say what we have just been singing. They did not say, 'I dare not be defeated.' They just said, 'Well, we are so small, what can we do?' The Lord said, "Do not despise the day of small things," because it has so often been that the Lord has used small things to do big things.

Now that opens the door to a very big consideration. I will give you one illustration. In Bethlehem one night, there was a stable and a manger, and in that manger lay a little new born baby. The great representative of the Roman Empire was wanting to destroy that little baby. And later on, the whole Roman Empire tried to destroy everything that belonged to that little baby. Herod was a very powerful ruler. The Roman Empire was a very powerful empire. And they were set against that little baby. Well, you know the rest of the story. You know what happened to Herod. He had a bad end. And you know what happened to the Roman Empire. You know that it is no longer in existence. But what about that little baby? God very often uses very little things to destroy very big things. So the Lord said to these discouraged people, "Do not despise the day of small things." The Apostle Paul said, "God has chosen the weak things and the foolish things." Well, the first big difficulty was their own smallness. And the Lord said, 'That is not really a difficulty with Me.'

[Shammu]

Then the next difficulty was that there was a great opposition from outside. If you read the other books connected with this special movement, the Books of Ezra, and Nehemiah, you will see how much opposition there was to these people and to this work. That is what verse seven here refers to, "Who art thou, O great mountain?" There was a great mountain of opposition to what these people were desiring to do, and as they looked at that great mountain of opposition, they said, "It is all so impossible." But the Lord said, 'Who art thou, O great mountain? What are you after all? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain, and people will look for the mountain, and they will find it is not there.' But to them at that time, it was a great mountain; it was another difficulty.

Then there was still a further difficulty. These people said, "We have no outward support. We have not got any soldiers to fight for us. There is no army to defend us. We are just a helpless, defenseless people." What did the Lord say to that? He just said this, "Not by might, nor by power" and perhaps in the margin of your Bible you will see a correction. Because, what the Lord actually said was this, "Not by an army, nor by power." You don't need an army; you don't need the great world power, because you have got more than all that. So the Lord said, over against these difficulties, "Not by an army, not by worldly power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Now we have got two things in that. The all sufficient factor is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is greater than all weakness, all mighty mountains, and all lack of outward support. If we have the Holy Spirit, we have all that we need.

You see, the Lord said, "Not all that which you think is necessary, not all that which the world thinks is necessary, not any of that at all." He put over all that: "NOT." And then He put on the other side: "BUT by My Spirit." And that is more than all the other.

And, then, do you note the Name by which He calls Himself. "BY MY SPIRIT, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS." Whenever there is a big, big piece of work to be done, that is the Name by which the Lord comes in. You go back to the Book of Joshua. The Lord had brought His people, Israel, out of Egypt; He had brought them through forty years of the wilderness, and now they were to go in and possess the land. But the land was full of mighty nations, you know that there were ten nations in that land, and they were very strong. You have only got to look at the first city, Jericho, to see how strong they were. And Jericho stood right at the entrance of the land. And all these other people were strong in the land. When the spies were sent into the land, they came back and they said, "We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. We were poor little creatures of the earth in comparison with them." But "Joshua lifted up his eyes and he saw a Man standing with His sword drawn." And not knowing Who He was, "Joshua went up to Him, and he said, 'Are You for us, or are You for our enemies?'" And this One answered, "Nay, but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I come." Joshua bowed himself to the earth. In effect, Joshua said, 'It is all right. This thing is not left to me. The conquering and occupation of this land is not my business. The Lord of hosts has taken on this business.' "As Captain of the host of the Lord am I come." I wonder who that was. Might it have been the Lord Jesus before His incarnation? Because He is the Captain of the host of the Lord. One of His New Testament titles is Captain. He is called: "The Captain of our salvation" (Heb. 2:10b).

So the Lord gave the answer to all their problems by just saying, "Whatever you may lack naturally, I am going to make up spiritually. You may be a small people. There may be a great mountain of opposition. You may feel that you have no army to support you, but I, the Lord of hosts, I am with you, and I am with you by My Spirit." Well then, if we have the Holy Spirit and the Lord of hosts, anything can be done. Did you notice a rather strange verse in this chapter? It spoke about the seven eyes of the Lord. And it said that the seven eyes of the Lord would rejoice. When they saw the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, they would rejoice. Of course, that is only symbolism. Seven is always the number of spiritual perfection. So this just simply means, the perfect spiritual vision of the Lord. The Lord sees everything perfectly. There is nothing wrong with the eyes of the Lord. He takes in the whole situation. He knows all about it.

Now it says, when the Lord sees the plummet in the hands of Zerubbabel, His eyes will rejoice. Well, what does that mean? The Lord is very glad and happy when He sees a people who are set upon His honor. And there is nothing more inspiring than to know that the Lord is quite pleased. You know, dear friends, that if you have any sense that the Lord is pleased, how full of joy you are! What a strength it is to us to know that the Lord is pleased with this! We can do anything if only we know the Lord is in this. In that other book to which I have referred, the Book of Nehemiah, you will remember that Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, and there were all these enemies opposing the work, and Nehemiah said to the people, "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Neh. 8:10). The thing that will give you strength is to know that this is something the Lord wants done and something that will please Him. I repeat, it is always a great strength to know that the Lord is on your side. As the Lord looks out upon everything, as the Lord takes in the whole situation, there is joy coming into His eyes. There is joy on His face. He says, "This is the thing that I want." There is nothing that takes the strength away from us more than knowing that the Lord is not in it. When the Lord sees what He wants, that means strength for us.