Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

Not only is this true of seeing, it is also true of hearing. In the old dispensation, they heard everything with their natural ears; but they were quite deaf to the Voice of God. It did not go any further than the drums of their ears. Now in the new order of the Spirit, we are given a new faculty of hearing. We Christians have a way of saying, 'The Lord has spoken to me.' We do not mean that we have heard something with our natural ears. We know what we mean, 'The Lord has spoken to me. I have heard the Lord speaking in my heart;' that means we have received a new faculty. And this new dispensation is built upon this principle. When Jesus spoke His parables, He finished by saying this, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matt. 11:15). And you know that was His Own Word to the seven churches in Asia. After He had spoken to those seven churches, He repeated seven times, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith" (Rev. 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22).

But you must remember that speaking to the churches was not with an audible voice. Those churches did not hear a voice from heaven with their natural ears. It was what "The Spirit saith to the churches." And spiritual speaking is spiritual. It is not physical. We could illustrate this in many ways. We speak of spirit to spirit speaking. We meet some other child of God, and we do not have to say much with our lips, but we know that is a child of God. Their spirit speaks to our spirit. We have a spiritual language. We know that we belong to the same family. We can discern the Spirit in one another. We have got this new faculty of spiritual hearing. It is not outward hearing, but it is inward hearing. And what is true of seeing and of hearing is true of all the other senses.

What shall we say about spiritual smelling? Do you know what spiritual smelling is? Well, you have only got to go into some atmospheres, no one has to say anything to you, but you sense that something is wrong; you sense that it is not life here, it is death. This is not the Lord, this is man. This is not the Spirit, this is the flesh. You sense this with your spiritual faculty of smell. You may meet another person. You do not have to speak, or they do not have to speak, but you know that there is suspicion in that person. There is prejudice in that person. There is a closed heart in that person. They are not open to you, they are trying to deceive you, they are holding something back from you. How do you know it? You smell it. It is a spiritual sense. But it is a very important faculty. By this faculty we sense what is of the Lord and what is not of the Lord. You see, the incense in the old dispensation was a sweet fragrance. It was something very pleasant. The corresponding spiritual faculty of smell is, this is very pleasant. This is something very pleasing to the Lord. This is an atmosphere of life.

Therefore, it is a guiding principle. When naturally you go into a place where there is a bad smell, you hold your nose and you say, let me out of this. This is unhealthy. Your nose may save your life from a fever. Your nose may save your life from one of the bad diseases. And that is very true in the spiritual life. If this spiritual sense of smell, or this faculty for spiritually discerning were really keen and alive, we would know what is life and what is death. We would know what is spiritually healthy and what is spiritually unhealthy. I am not going to follow this further. I am just saying that when we are born again, we are given a new set of spiritual faculties. And just as the physical faculties governed in the old dispensation, it is the spiritual faculties which are to govern in the new dispensation.

If you will read the First Letter to the Corinthians, you will see that that letter is built upon this very difference. The Corinthian Christians were living on the basis of natural things, and they were not living on the basis of spiritual discernment. So Paul said to them, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." The natural man cannot receive those things, because those things are only spiritually discerned. And then he adds, "He that is spiritual discerneth all things, yet he himself is discerned by no man." He is the mystery of the world. A spiritual man and woman is a mystery to the world, they just do not understand. Paul illustrates it in this way, "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" If you and I are going to understand one another as human beings, we have got to be human beings and have human nature. Other orders of creation do not understand the human order. Men understand one another simply because they are men. Now Paul says in the same way, "No one understandeth the things of God except the Spirit of God that is in him."

[Shammu]

Now I must get to perhaps the most difficult part of it all. If you will look at the Letter to the Hebrews, we will come to it. Chapter four and verse twelve begins in this way, "For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (ASV). We can leave the second half of the verse for the present, and just note this, "The Word of God is quick, and powerful, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." You notice how that statement begins. It begins with a conjunction. It relates to something. It connects with what the writer has just been saying. What has he been saying? He has been speaking about Israel in the wilderness, and Israel's failure to enter into the promise land. And it says, "If Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another rest." He is saying that Israel after the flesh failed to enter into God's rest. They failed to enter into that for which God had brought them out of Egypt. That whole generation with the exception of two men died in the wilderness. And they never did come into the purpose of God in their redemption. Now that is the statement, that is the background, and then you have this conjunction. For, or because, the Word of God is living and powerful, piercing to dividing asunder of soul and spirit. What does that mean? The Old Israel lived entirely upon the basis of the natural soul. They lived entirely upon the basis of these natural senses. Everything for them was a matter of what they could see and handle down here on this earth. Theirs was an entirely soul life. And the writer says, because of that they failed to enter in.

The Word of God cuts clear in between the soul and the spirit. The new dispensation and the new people who are going to enter into all the purposes of God must be a spiritual people, not a soulish people. They must be constituted on the basis of what is spiritual and not what is natural. This whole letter to the Hebrews is built upon the difference between the old and the new. It takes a lot of space to show how the old fails. The old law fails, the old priesthood fails, the old sacrifices fail, the old tabernacle fails, the old temple fails. It was complete failure, because it was built upon natural ground. The ground of the soul.

Now the new is not going to fail, the letter brings in the new order. A High Priest is in Heaven. The One Sacrifice has been offered forever, and so on. It is all a spiritual order. And the Word of God divides between those two. When you get to the end of that letter to the Hebrews, to chapter twelve, the writer is saying this, 'We have had fathers after the flesh, they chastened us as it seemed right to them. And we gave them reverence.' I wonder if that is true of all of us. When our fathers after the flesh gave us a good thrashing, did we revere them? We did not say, thank you, we felt very bad about our fathers after the flesh. When we grew up to be men, we said, 'Father was right, that chastening was the best thing for us.'

However, the apostle says, 'We had fathers after the flesh, who chastened us as they thought was right and good. And we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of our spirits?' The natural is down on that level. The spiritual is so much higher, the Father of our spirits! Is that what happens when we are born again? Not our souls born again, but our spirits. That innermost part of our being which died with Adam, was separated from God in Adam's sin. So that by nature all the children of Adam are dead in that spiritual sense. Our spirits died with Adam.

In Christ they are made alive again. The new birth is not the new birth of our body. It is not the new birth of our soul, because we have got a soul. It is the new birth of our spirits. And God is the Father of our spirits. That is why I pointed out in the Letter to the Galatians - which marks the great divide - the word Spirit occurs twelve times. The Father of our spirits, then we are not the children of Abraham, we are children of God, and that is a very big difference. You see, this is what Paul is arguing in the Letter to the Galatians. He is saying to these Galatians, "Oh! foolish Galatians, how foolish you are! You began in the Spirit, and now you are going back to the flesh, you came out of the old dispensation and out of the old order, you came into the new life of the Spirit, and now you are going back, you are going to forfeit your rest, the very purpose of your redemption. Oh! foolish Galatians, how foolish a thing it is to live in the old dispensation!"

But note this, dear friends, the Christianity with which we are familiar is very largely constituted on the old dispensation. It would take another hour to show that in any fullness. But do you see how Christianity goes to work now? It begins by building religious buildings. They are called churches, of course, a false name entirely. The Church is not a building made with hands. And then they set up a certain order in it. And then they appoint certain officers to do the work. When they've got the building, and when they've got the officers, the minister and all the others, and when they have got their order of service, then they ask the Lord if He will come into it. The organization comes first. The outward thing comes first. It all builds upon the principle of the soul. It is all a matter of reason and emotion and doing. That is Judaistic Christianity.

It is just the reverse with God's method. Where does God begin? God does not begin with churches even if they are companies of people. He certainly does not begin with buildings. And He does not begin with ritual, or with a system of things. And He does not begin by calling a congregation together. A congregation is not God's beginning. God begins by a work of the Holy Spirit in individual lives. It may just be one to begin with, and then another and then another. And if those two or three find themselves in one city, they are joined, not because they have accepted Christianity, but because they have the one Spirit in them. That is the beginning of the Church in that place.

And what is true of the beginning, has got to be true of everything afterwards. Man's hands must be kept off the things of the Spirit. Man must not try to form something that is of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, Who began this, is perfectly capable of forming what He wants. Hence our responsibility is to be led by the Spirit, to always seek the guidance of the Spirit. And until we are sure that the Holy Spirit is really guiding us, we keep our hands off. We will do nothing about it. This thing must be of the Spirit. This is the order of this dispensation.

Do you see the difference between the beginning and what we have today? In the first thirty years of Christianity, the Gospel spread all over the world that then was. There were churches in almost every country of the world. Thousands and thousands were joined to the Lord. It was a mighty thing. It only took thirty years to do that. We have had two thousand years since then. We have put multitudes of missionaries into the world. We have spent millions of dollars upon this. We have worked tremendously. In two thousand years, there is nothing to compare with those thirty years.

Why has it not continued? Because they brought it all back again unto a soul basis and not unto a spiritual basis. When things are out of the hands of men, and in the hands of the Holy Spirit, things happen. My great concern is that there should be something like that here. That is what I have come to say to you. If things are wholly of the Spirit, you will see something happen, the enemy will be stirred up against it. And that is always a good sign. If the devil feels that there is something that he has got to fight, he knows that means something against his kingdom.

So I must stop now. I have not finished this part yet, we have another morning, but do not leave it till tomorrow morning. This is the word for us today. If I were to go away tomorrow, and never see you again on this earth, I feel that I have spoken to you the most vital word that could be spoken. This represents the complete change from the old to the NEW, from the natural to the spiritual in the things of God, from the things which are of men to the THINGS which are of God.

[Shammu]

Meeting 32 - The Matter Which is of Supreme Importance is: "Christ Fully Formed In You"

Thirty-Second Meeting
(February 29, 1964 A.M.)

We come to this last morning of our consideration of this great question. That is, the great question as to the true nature of the dispensation which came in with the Lord Jesus. We have this morning therefore to gather up all that we have been saying into one matter. We have covered a lot of ground, but it all amounts to one issue. It is not a matter of one system over against another. That is, it is not a question of Judaism over against Christianity. It is not a question of legalism over against spirituality. It is not a question of the Old Testament over against the New Testament. And it is not a question of Paul over against his enemies. All these things have come into our consideration, but they are not the special issue. The great battle which began with the coming of the Lord Jesus, and for which the Apostle Paul was a chosen instrument, is not the battle for a special interpretation of Scripture. It is not the battle for a particular form of doctrine. And it is not the battle for a particular form of worship. It is a much bigger battle than all those things.

And so we have this whole letter to the Galatians which touches all these things gathered into one word. The whole letter, and all that has to do with it is gathered into one verse. It is, so far as words are concerned, a very short verse. But you see that it is a very big verse. It is in chapter four, verse nineteen, "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you." One slight alteration or correction ought to be made in the translation. The word "formed" ought to be translated "fully formed." So that the verse should read, "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be fully formed in you."

So you will see that this whole battle with all its aspects is gathered into this matter of Christ being fully formed. It is nothing other, nothing less, and nothing more, than the question of the formation of Christ in fullness, the formation of Christ fully in individual believers, and the formation of Christ fully in the Church. So you see, that brings the whole matter down unto one question. Christ is the test of every man and of everything. Christ is the test of the Church and the churches. Christ is the test of every teaching.

Whether a thing is right or whether it is wrong is decided on this one point. How much of Christ is there in it? How much of the Spirit of Christ do you find in it? You can reduce all your questions and all your problems to that one thing. It is always a matter of how much of the Spirit of Christ do I find either in this people or in this teaching or in these things? I do want you to take special notice of that, because it is the deciding factor. It was the deciding factor in the churches in Galatia.

In this verse which we have read, the apostle does not say that I am travailing for one system over against another. He does not say I am travailing for one teaching against another. He does not say I am travailing for one form of worship against another. He does not say I am travailing for one meaning of the Church and the churches against another. He does not say I am travailing for Christianity against Judaism. He does not say I am travailing for spirituality against legalism. Paul did not say any of these things or all of those things put together. It was a very much greater concern than all those things. He says, "I am again in travail until Christ be fully formed in you" (Gal 4:19, ASV). You remember that on more than one occasion we pointed out that the name, "CHRIST" occurs forty-three times in this short letter. Therefore, that is the key to everything. We have just been singing a hymn which we sing very often here, "Christ only Christ." And that was Paul's concern.

Now that brings us to the greatest thing that has ever been revealed by God to man. And it is centered in one word in this letter. Six times the word, "Son" or "sons" occurs, and that which is meant by sonship is the greatest thing that God has ever revealed to man. Paul began with that. In chapter one, he laid the foundation for the whole letter. And he says, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." That was the thing that upset the whole life of Paul. That was the thing that made the great change in him as in the dispensation.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the foundation of everything. So Paul laid the foundation by saying, "God revealed His Son in me." Presently in the letter he will say this, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts" (Gal. 4:6). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of sonship in the believer. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son of God. And so the Holy Spirit coming within constitutes the believer a son of God potentially.

Now do you notice the word that the apostle uses, "My little children." If you were able to read the Greek, you would notice something about that. The apostle does not say, my great big son. He does not even say, my sons. He says, "My little children." And there are two different Greek words used. Children means someone or something that is born, but has not grown up, something that is still very small and immature. Another Greek word is used for son, and it relates to those who have grown up. Now you can see how this whole letter turns upon that difference. He says, "O foolish Galatians!" He meant - you are like silly little children. You have been born but you have not grown up. You have made the beginning but the full formation of Christ has been arrested. And so he says the Holy Spirit is given to us with the intention of bringing about the full formation of sons.

[Shammu]

So in this letter, the apostle contrasts the old dispensation with the new on this one point. He says that in the old dispensation Israel was just a nation of little children. And the mark of little children is this: First of all you have to teach them by illustrations and by pictures and by models. And you have to teach them by everything outside of themselves. You teach them by presenting things to them as objects. And you teach little children by saying, now you must do this and you must not do that. If you want to be a good boy, or good girl, you would do what I tell you.

That is how you treat a little child. The difference between a little child and a grown up person is just the opposite. A grown up son does not always need to be told what he ought to do. A truly grown up son is not one to whom his father has to say, 'You must do this, and you must not do that.' A truly grown up son knows inside himself what he ought to do, and what he ought not to do. It does not have to be presented to him in pictures and illustrations. In himself he knows. A son who is really a true son knows in himself what his father would like and what his father would not like. The father does not have to keep on day after day saying, 'Look my boy, this is what I want.' A true son knows in his own heart what his father would have.

It is intuition, not command, and that is the difference. And the difference, therefore, between the old dispensation and the new is one of spiritual intelligence. Because that is the difference between a child and a son. The child does not have the intelligence in himself. The intelligence is outside of himself in other people. But a grown up man has the intelligence in himself. And that is the big contrast that Paul is making in this letter. He says to these Galatians, 'My little children, you are lacking in intelligence. The true mark of maturity, which is spiritual intelligence, is not found in you yet.'

Then another difference between the child and the son is this: A little child has to have everything done for it by someone else. You have to do everything for the little child, whatever that child needs you provide it and you do it. You provide the food. You provide the clothes. You provide the family. You provide the home. You provide everything for the little child. The little child provides nothing for himself. The grown up son is different. The grown up son takes responsibility. The father knows that he can have confidence in that son. He does not have to be worrying all the time as to whether that son will do the right thing or the wrong thing. He is at rest about the son, and he says, 'I know I can trust him. I can put the responsibility on him, he is capable of taking the responsibility.'

Do you see from the history of Israel in the Old Testament, how irresponsible they were? Just look again over their history in the wilderness, and their history after the wilderness. They are having to have everything done and provided for them. They are having to be told everything that they ought to do. It is the law, and the law is written on tables of stone. It is not written on their hearts. They are a very irresponsible people, and neither the servant of God nor God Himself could trust them. Leave them by themselves for one day and they go all wrong. They are like horses. You have to put a bit and bridle on to keep them straight.

You know that is one of the illustrations used in the Scripture. Now growing up in Christ is just altogether different from that. SONSHIP MEANS SPIRITUAL RESPONSIBILITY. Because the Holy Spirit is inside, you are able to say, 'I know that they can be trusted, I know that the Lord is in them. I know that they know that the Lord is in them. And I can trust the Lord in them.' Do not you wish that all these people were like that? This is the difference between little children and sons. When the apostle says here, that because ye are sons, the Spirit has been given you as the Spirit of sonship. "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts." He was not contradicting this truth of the difference between children and sons. He says when you received the Holy Spirit you received sonship potentially. That is, the Holy Spirit makes the fullness of Christ possible. All the fullness of Christ is in the Holy Spirit in you. But the question is: Are you going to continue as children, or are you going to live in the Spirit and grow up to be full grown sons?

Now the Apostle Paul makes another contrast in this letter. He contrasts sons with servants. And here he is not so much in the first place teaching of Israel and Christianity. He is taking an illustration from Greek life. In the Greek system a servant is one who took the little child of the family by the hand. And took him to the school master. He steered him down the road through all the traffic. He took him across the road and all the dangerous points. He took care of the little child, and did everything for him. And then he delivered him to the one who would educate him. He delivered him into the hands of the principle of spiritual education.

Now Paul says, the law was the servant - intended to take us by the hand and lead us to Christ. As you see, the law has to do with little children. The law does everything for the little child. The law was intended to hand us over to the Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit would bring us to sonship. So Paul makes the difference between the servant and the son. The servant does everything for us on the outside. But the Spirit does everything for us on the inside. So Paul put his emphasis on this, "Until Christ be fully formed in you." The whole character of this new dispensation is Christ in us.

[Shammu]

So we are back to chapter two, verse twenty again: "It is no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." The Holy Spirit in us, is with us, in order to make us capable of understanding the things of the Lord. The Spirit is bringing into us spiritual intelligence about the things of the Lord. In another place the apostle will say, "Let the Word of God dwell in you richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." Before you can have the wisdom and the spiritual understanding, you have got to have the Word dwelling in you richly. It is the foundation of the Holy Spirit's work that the Word of the Lord should be in us richly. We must have a good and thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. It is the foundation of the Holy Spirit's work. The Holy Spirit is never going to do anything apart from the Word of God.

I cannot tell you how glad I am, that before I ever had a great spiritual crisis, I had very thoroughly studied the Bible. I had studied the Bible systematically right through. I could put on a big blackboard the outline and analysis of every book in the Bible. And I could give Bible lectures, but it was not until I had a real spiritual crisis, that I came to understand the Bible which I knew so well in my head. Then the Bible that I knew became a living Book.

You see that is what happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. They were Jews and they knew Jewish Scripture very thoroughly. That is, they knew what was written in the Old Testament. They could have told you all that Moses had written. They could have told you all that David had written. And they could have told you all the prophets had written. But on the day of Pentecost their Bible became alive. They inherited, in a spiritual way, all that they knew in only a mental way. But the Holy Spirit could not have done His work, had they not had the foundation in the Word of God. Do you remember that? Are you reading your Bible thoroughly? Are you really studying the Word of God? Can it be said of you that the Word of God dwells in you richly? (Col. 3:16). If it is dwelling in you, then you have the foundation for spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Do you notice that was the difference between Jesus and the scribes? Now the scribes were the authority on the Bible. They were the people who had committed the Bible to memory. They knew everything that was in the Bible, which was the Old Testament. And if anybody wanted to have an explanation of any part of the Old Testament, they went to the scribes, because the scribe was supposed to know all about it. Now when Jesus spoke to the multitudes, the verdict upon His teaching was this: "He talked as One having authority, and not as the scribes" (Matt. 7:29). And yet, the people thought the scribes were the authority. But they said of Jesus, "He taught as One having authority and not as the scribes." What was the difference between Jesus and the scribes? He had the spiritual understanding of the Scripture. And they only had the letter of the Scripture. The apostle says, "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6).

Now we have to hurry to a close. We come back to Galatians four, and verse nineteen, because this gathers up everything. What was it that Paul was working for? What had he given his life for? What was he suffering for? What was he so troubled about with these Galatians? You can rule out a whole number of things, and you can say it was not that, and it was not that. He said, "I am again in travail until Christ be fully formed in you." When he uses the word "again," that is, a second time. He means that I was in travail for your new birth. It cost me a great deal of suffering and pain to see you truly born again. It meant a great deal to me to see that Christ was really planted in you. Your new birth was a travail to me. But now I am having to go through it all again. My real object was not just to get Christ into you, my real object was that Christ should be fully formed in you, that Christ should grow up in you and you should grow up in Christ. And so I am today in travail again because you stopped. You are putting other things in the place of Christ. You are putting form in the place of Christ. You are putting mere teaching in the place of Christ. You are putting law in the place of Christ. You are putting a legal system in the place of Christ. Paul says that just throws me into agony.

I am going to apply that to ourselves. If we are suffering at all, what are we suffering for? If as in the case of Paul we have enemies, those who are against us, and who are working against us, why are we suffering? What is the nature of our suffering? Is it because of something personal? Are they working against us? Is it because of some piece of work for which we are jealous? Is it for some place in which we are interested? And against our way of going on? Is it any of these things? Is that why we are suffering? I say, The Lord deliver us from all of that. The only real and true reason for any spiritual suffering is that Christ is being hindered. We see that these things limit the Lord. They dishonor the Lord. And they will cause spiritual limitation. They are against the enlargement of Christ in us. All our suffering ought to be for the sake of the Lord Jesus, and not for anything else, "Until Christ be fully formed." That is the last word I am going to leave with you for this time.

I know something about your troubles. And I know something about the cause of your troubles. But I am going to bring it back here. Are you and I in travail over things, or for the full formation of Christ? Is all our suffering in our hearts related to the increase of the Lord Jesus? Is it that He may have His fullest place? Is it that He shall be fully formed in us? Have we, therefore, got this true kind of travail - not travail for something, but travail for Christ? I ask you the question, if you are suffering at all, and you ought to be suffering, what are you suffering for? Is it your genuine concern for the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus? Is it that in every one of these believers, from the children, to the young men and women, to the grown up people, that in every one of them, Christ should have a full place? Are we travailing in pain for that?

So all that we have said this week about these contrasts: Legalism and spirituality, Judaism and Christianity, and all these other differences, they focus down upon this one question: THE FULL FORMATION OF CHRIST. How far does legalism limit the growth of Christ in us? How far does our technique get in the way of Christ? It is all a matter of Christ.

So I leave that question with you. I leave that emphasis with you. Now when I go away from you, the one thing that I want to be sure of is that I preached Christ to you, that I was not just giving you Bible teaching. And I was not trying to put you right on the technique of the Church, or the churches. But I was keeping Christ always in full view, and telling you that the matter which is of supreme importance is: "Christ fully formed in you - Christ fully formed in us!"

[Shammu]

Meeting 33 - "A Sword Shall Pierce Through Thy Own Soul"

Thirty-Third Meeting
(March 1, 1964 A.M.)

Will you please turn to the Gospel by Luke, chapter two, verse twenty-five: "And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon." And verse thirty-five, "Yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." I want to add verse thirty-four to that verse thirty-five, "This Child is set for a sign which is spoken against." "Yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."

Now turn to the last chapter of the Book of the Acts, chapter twenty-eight, and verse twenty-two, "But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest; for as concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against." "This Child is set for a sign which is spoken against." "Concerning this sect, it is known to us, that everywhere it is spoken against" (ASV).

We do not worship or pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus. We do not ask things from her as though she were God. We do not put her alongside of the Divine Trinity. But we do honor her. We give her respect and honor because of the great service which she rendered unto God. And we find some real help from some of the things which have come to us through her. Some of the things which were said to her by the angel, by Simeon, by others, have very real value in them for us. Some of these helpful things are in the Word which we have read; in the prophecy of this old man Simeon. And we shall this morning seek to draw from what he said about some of the helpful implications.

Here is a conversation between Simeon and Mary, the mother of Jesus. And it is perfectly clear that Mary was recognizing that something of very great importance to God, was being entrusted to her. This was something of great value to God Himself. Then Simeon said, it was something of great value to the world, "A light to lighten the nations." Then it was something of great value to the Lord's people, Israel, "And the glory of Thy people, Israel." All this was bound up with the little baby now in the arms of Simeon. And Mary realized that she had been chosen by God to serve Him, to serve the nations, and to serve His people in some special way. This little Child was set for a sign; and all peoples would come to recognize what Jesus signified.

So Mary had been the vessel chosen by God for that great purpose - an angel had come from heaven and told her of the great vocation to which she was called. Mary was just a simple country girl, who had with her husband been living in a small house in a far away city of Nazareth. Then a little while after Jesus was born, she came up to the city of Jerusalem, took the Child to the temple and we have this further wonderful thing said by Simeon: "This Child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel; and for a sign which is spoken against." As she listened to these things, no doubt her heart was filled with wonder. What a wonderful thing it is that the Lord has called me to! What a great purpose God has called me to serve. It is something far too big for me. I have no natural qualifications for this. I am only a simple country girl. I am the wife of an ordinary carpenter in a little town, and that town is a very despised one. One man said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" And yet the Lord has called such a one as I to serve Him in this great world purpose. Perhaps there was some fear in her heart, but undoubtedly her heart was thrilled when she listened to these things. She would be saying inside herself, "Can it be possible that I have been called to this?" And then as she looked at her little baby in the arms of Simeon, she would say in her heart, "Little Baby, these are great things that are coming through You. These very wonderful words that Simeon is saying. It must be a marvelous Life that is here given to us. God must have some very great things that He is going to do through You." So she listened to these words of Simeon, and astonishment and amazement filled her heart.

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While she was listening to those wonderful things, suddenly a cloud came over the whole situation, and already she felt something like a stab at her heart. Because Simeon finished with these words: "And a sword shall pierce through thine own soul; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." Wonderful things, mighty things, precious things, most important things - but a sword. With them all, a sword shall pierce thine own soul.

I expect Mary often wondered about that in the following days. But we know how this prophecy of Simeon was fulfilled. The day came when she saw that Son of hers despised and rejected of men, taken to the judgment hall and accused of the worst sins; and then led to calvary to be crucified. It says that Mary stood by the Cross of Jesus. Yes, she lived to know the meaning of, "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul."

Now our word has got to be a very brief one this morning. I have about seven minutes left. But perhaps you already can see the meaning of what we have said. Was Mary called to be the vessel and instrument of this great world purpose of God? Mary was a woman, a simple woman, without any great qualifications, but chosen of God for this great purpose. Do you know that the Church is always spoken of in the feminine? The Church is always represented as a woman. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." And always, the Church is spoken of as a woman.

But this Church, the bride of Christ, this Church, the wife of the Lamb, is called and chosen for this self-same purpose: That through this Church, this CHRIST of God shall be manifested to the whole world. That through this Vessel, CHRIST may be a blessing to all the nations, and a blessing to all God's people. Mary was not called for a greater purpose than the Church is called for. You and I, who form part of the Church of Christ, are called for this very purpose. Paul says, "We are called according to His purpose," and the purpose is exactly the same as that one spoken of by Simeon to Mary. We are called to be a light to lighten the nations, and a blessing to God's new spiritual Israel. Wonderful things are bound up with the Christ Who is entrusted to His Church. If the little Baby was entrusted to Mary, the great eternal Christ is entrusted to His Church. He is committed to us for this great world purpose. If it was a great honor to Mary, it is an even greater honor to us. If it was a wonderful thing to Mary, it ought to be a more wonderful thing to us. Yes, wonderful things, precious things, glorious things - but a sword.

Anything that is really precious to God will have suffering associated with it. Perhaps the first thoughts of Mary about Jesus were - He is going to be a great public figure whom everybody thinks wonderful things about. What a wonderful Man He is going to be, everybody will think highly of Him. All people will speak well of Him; but she lived to find it just the other way. A sign that shall be spoken against. And these Jewish leaders in the prison of Paul were saying, "This is something that is everywhere spoken against."

We are called to the fellowship of the great purpose of Christ in this world. We are called into the greatest things that ever God has done for this world. Ours is not less an honor and glory than that of Mary. But we are also called into the fellowship of His sufferings. However great this Christ is, and however great the honor entrusted to us in having Him, strangely to say this great preciousness to God will never be popular in this world: there will always be the sword to pierce our souls; there will always be the sign that is spoken against. The Cross of the Lord Jesus is not a popular thing. Man has tried to make it popular, but it is never popular.

So I say to you all this morning, and especially to the younger people here, you are called to a very great purpose. God has called you to a service for Him that is the greatest service in this universe. God has entrusted into your hands His Own wonderful Son. But remember, however wonderful it is, it will never be popular; there will always be suffering attached to it.

In a few minutes, you are coming to the Lord's Table. Is that table the symbol of something popular? No, it is the symbol of the most unpopular thing in this world, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. He said, "Do this in remembrance of Me. As often as ye eat this loaf and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death." When we take these symbols, we are only saying, "We come into the fellowship of His sufferings." To be a blessing in this world, a sword shall pierce thine own soul, a sign that is everywhere spoken against. May we be given the grace to share with Him His sufferings.

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Meeting 34 - The Presence of the Lord is Power! The Presence of the Lord is Life! The Presence of the Lord is Holiness!

Thirty-Fourth Meeting
(March 3, 1964 P.M.)

We turn to the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter four, verse one through three, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, as I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world."

Chapter six, verse one through three, "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit."

In our first series of special meetings, the Lord led us to be occupied with the matter of His Presence with His people. I think every one here will agree that the most important thing for us is the Presence of the Lord. I expect, when we gather together like this, our prayer in the first place is for the Presence of the Lord. And probably those of you who prayed at the beginning of the day, will always pray for the Lord's Presence. We realize that the all-important thing in our lives and in the lives of God's people is His Presence with us. We should all be afraid to go on unless the Lord was with us. We cannot think of life without the Presence of the Lord. The Lord's Presence means everything to us.

Now you will remember that we pointed out that this is the greatest desire of the Lord Himself. He said to Moses, "Let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." The greatest desire of the Lord is to be amongst His people. But there are some conditions upon which the Lord is with His people. The Lord has His own terms upon which He will be with us. You will notice that this letter to the Hebrews from which we have read is all the time referring back to the life of Israel in the wilderness, that period which was covered by those words to Moses, "Let them build Me a sanctuary." It was the period from the Red Sea to the border of the land to the river Jordan.

Now during that period of forty years, although there were many difficulties, and the Lord had much trouble with the people, the Lord was with them. There were, as I have said, many difficulties during those forty years. There were many very serious times. We read of Amalek coming out to fight against Israel. We remember the story of Balaam, the false prophet who was hired by Balak to curse Israel. These were some of the very critical times during that journey. There was the crisis of bread and the crisis of water. There were the crises of enemies. But through all that time the Lord was with His people. He did not allow Amalek to succeed in their war against Israel. He turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing. The Lord was with them. That meant victory, that meant support, that meant the supplying of all their needs, that meant that the Lord helped them in spite of their own weakness, the Lord was with them.

There was one reason why the Lord was with them through all their troubles and difficulties. The Lord was with them because of one thing: They were a people who were going on. They had set out to go to a certain goal, and in spite of many hindrances, they were a people going on. Sometimes their troubles just stopped their progress for a little while, but then they went on again. And the Lord was with them, because they went on. When they went on with the Lord, the Lord went on with them. And that is one of the fundamental terms upon which God is with His people. They had started out with a vision. Perhaps you will remember that when they had crossed the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's army had been drowned in the sea, then Moses and Aaron and the people of Israel sang a song. And in that song, the vision arose. They said, "The Lord has brought us out in order to take us in." The Lord has brought us out, not to let us die in the wilderness, that is not the Lord's idea for us. The Lord has brought us out of Egypt in order to take us into the land. They put it this way - "to bring us unto His holy hill" (Psa. 43:3). That was the vision with which they started. And while they kept that vision before them and went on, the Lord was with them.

The Lord gave them that mighty victory to begin with in order to encourage them to go on. The victory of the Red Sea corresponds to the victory of the Cross - the victory of death, and burial, and resurrection with Christ. That was the great foundation. And with that foundation behind them and under their feet, they went on. But there came a time when they stopped going on. You will remember that the tabernacle was constituted for transit; it was not a building to be put down in one place and to stay there forever. It was all made so that it could go on. And the tabernacle was the place where the Lord was. So that the Lord's idea for them was to go on.

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I wonder how interested you are in the Book of Numbers. The Book of Numbers is a very wonderful Book. If you have not studied it, I advise you to study it. It can be called the Book of the Goings-On, the Book of progress with the Lord. And you will come to one chapter, chapter thirty-three, and in that one chapter, you will find one phrase used forty-three times. Now if one thing is repeated forty-three times in one chapter, it must mean something. Numbers, chapter thirty-three, and in that chapter, this phrase occurs forty-three times - "And the people of Israel journeyed." It says, forty-three times the people went on. They took their journey. And that is the Book in which you find the Lord so mightily with His people.

Now you know that when they came to the other side of the wilderness, they came to Kadesh-barnea, they came to the border of the promised land, they stopped. You do not read again - and they journeyed. They stopped. And you do not find the Lord with them. All, but two men, of that whole generation died in the wilderness. That is not the idea of the Lord for His people, for His people to die in the wilderness is not the Lord's idea. The Lord is not in that. Indeed, as we have read in Hebrews, the Lord is against that. So the term on which the Lord is with His people is that they keep going on. We have read in Hebrews, chapter four, the terrible warning that the Lord gave because they did not go on. He said, "I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest." They lost everything because they did not go on. So we read in chapter six, "Let us go on." Do not let us stay with our beginnings, but let us go on.

Now what does going on mean? Well, of course, for us it is a going on in a spiritual way. We are in a new dispensation, and this is a spiritual dispensation. But there is one thing that I want to suggest to you as meaning our going on. It is true of Israel in the wilderness, although it was an earthly thing with them, the same thing is true with us in a spiritual way. If you look again into this letter to the Hebrews, you will discover this, THAT GOING ON SPIRITUALLY IS A MATTER OF PUTTING INTO PRACTICE WHAT THE LORD HAS SAID. Do you realize that we never go on by being told things by the Lord? Now that sounds like a very strange thing to say. The Lord can speak to us Himself. We may have His word, we may have all the teaching that He can give us, we may know all the truth of God, we may have had it all for many years, and yet, although we may have had it all, we may be standing still. No, it is not a matter of knowing what the Lord has said. It is a matter of putting that into practice. Doing what the Lord has said, that is the only way of going on.

How are we to go on then? We are to sit down quietly and say, "Now what has the Lord said to us?" Perhaps it may be over these past four or five weeks, or it may be over years past. The Lord has spoken in this place, or to you through the ministry of His many servants. Now through the reading of His Word you may have a great mountain of truth, and yet you may not be going on, and the Lord may not be with us, as He wants to be with us. The Presence of the Lord is power, the Presence of the Lord is life, the Presence of the Lord is holiness. Oh, the Presence of the Lord means much, but it is all very practical. The Lord does not believe in theory. He does not believe even in textbooks. The Lord is a very practical Lord. And His attitude toward us is this: Look here, I have said this to you, you have heard it. Perhaps you have rejoiced in it. Perhaps you have believed it to be true. Perhaps you thank the Lord for it. But what have we done about it?

Have we taken each thing that the Lord has said, and brought it up and said, 'I have got to do something about that. We, as the Church, have got to do something about it. We have got to put that into effect. If we do not do that, we will not make progress. And the power of God will not be manifested among us.' We may go on for years, and we may fill the years with teaching, but we may still be years behind. We may not be coming into what the Lord means that we should be in. Why all these exhortations in the New Testament to go on? Why is the New Testament just made up of exhortations and encouragements and warnings to the people of God about going on? And why is the New Testament such a practical Book? Because real spiritual progress and the Presence of the Lord depends upon bringing everything that we know right up to date.

I wonder if you could tell me the number of times in the New Testament that that one thing occurs. It is a quotation from Israel's life in the wilderness. And it is this: "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart." Again and again, those words are put in the New Testament. Today! Today! Today! You see, all this is got to be brought into NOW. All our progress for the future depends upon what we are doing with what we know NOW. So the Lord says to us, I am with you if you are going on. And going on means putting into practice and effect all that I have said to you. Our growing knowledge of the Lord depends entirely upon our daily obedience to the light which we have.

Now we want the Lord to be with us, and we want Him to be with us in fullness. Our hearts are really set upon that. I am quite sure I am speaking for everyone here tonight. If I were to come to every one of you personally and say, 'Do you want the Lord to be with you? Do you want the Lord to be with you as fully as He can?' I do not think there is anyone here tonight who would say, 'No, I do not want the Lord.' You would say, 'Yes, that is one thing for which I pray and long, the Presence of the Lord in fullness.' And that is what you want as a company of the Lord's people in this place.

So when the Lord speaks, and we bring that which He has said, and we say: There is something to be done about this. I do not just put that into the store of my knowledge. I do not just add that to all that I know. I look to see what that requires of me in a practical way. And when I see what that means, then I get to the Lord to have that made real and living in my life. Brethren, the people who do that will be going on. They will be entering the promised land. They will be entering into His rest. They will be entering into the joy of the Lord. Because that is what the Lord wants - people who take hold of everything that the Lord says, and make it practical.

So the writer of the Hebrews says, "Let us go on." In what other way can we go on? We are not on a literal journey on this earth. Our promised land is not somewhere on this earth, in this world. No. Christ is our promised land. Christ is God's fullness of purpose for us. So, we have got to take everything that has been said to us about Christ, and put it into practical effect. That is what it means to go on. And that is what it means to have the Lord fully with us!

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Meeting 35 - John Set Out to Confirm the Faith of Believers in a Difficult Day

Thirty-Fifth Meeting
(March 4, 1964 P.M.)

We are going to be occupied with the First Letter of John. I want to read the first five verses of chapter one:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us,) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

Between the time that John wrote this letter and the Lord Jesus had fulfilled His ministry on the earth, quite a long time had passed. John was writing this letter after all the other apostles had gone to be with the Lord. In that long period since the Lord Jesus went back to the Father, up to this time of John's writing, many things had happened. Many things had invaded Christianity to destroy the certainty of believers. A great number of different teachings had come in, there were many opposing interpretations of the teaching of Jesus. A variety of sects and parties had arisen. Divisions and separations between Christians had taken place.

In addition to these things, the world had invaded the Church. The world had gotten into the churches. In the Book of the Revelation, chapters two and three, we see how the world had gotten into the churches in Asia. Whenever the world gets into the churches, it always weakens their testimony. And it was just like that when John was writing his letter. To realize all this is to understand why he wrote this letter, that very difficult background gives a very good explanation to this letter of John. It is easy to understand how difficult the Christians were finding things. Of all the different teachings and interpretations, they did not know which to believe; they did not know which was the right and the true one. Of all the divisions amongst Christians, they did not know which one was right. And the world had brought in such confusion and such weakness that the believers were in a state of great difficulty.

Therefore, because things were like that, John wrote this letter. He not only wrote this letter, but he wrote two other quite short ones, and much about the same time, he wrote his Gospel and the Book of the Revelation. It is quite clear that John had a very special object in writing. In the first place, his object was to try to help these believers in their difficulties, to bring them back to the fundamentals of their Christian life, to tell them in all this confusion what was the true thing. That was his general objective. Then, if we look at this letter more closely, we shall see how he got to work to fulfill his object.

John has set out to confirm the faith of believers in a difficult day. And it is good to note that John himself was altogether untouched by all these conditions. There was no question in his mind as to where the truth was. He had no doubts whatever as to what was right. And so in this short letter, he uses a small phrase thirteen times. I suggest that you take your pencil at some time and underline these two words in this letter. Of course, I do not know whether it is two words in the Chinese language. In the English, it is just two words, and those two words John repeats thirteen times in this very short letter. And the phrase is this: "We know." Thirteen times he says, "We know." You see, there is no question in his mind. He has no doubt about things. He knows where he stands. And so he says repeatedly, "We know."

Then he had another phrase. Ten times he uses this other phrase, and that phrase is, "This is." And he links that "This is" with ten things. We have read the first one in verse five: "This is the message." The next one is: "This is the promise." Number three is: "This is the commandment." Number four is: "This is the witness." Number five is: "This is the love of God." Number six is: "This is the victory." Number seven is: "This is the confidence." Number eight is: "This is the antichrist." Number nine is: "This is He that cometh." And number ten is: "This is the true God, and eternal life." "We know," "This is," all questions, all doubts are set aside. And in this way, the apostle seeks to confirm the believers in Christ.

Now there are some other very distinctive marks. And I want to say here that I am not doing your Bible study for you. Perhaps you would like me to do that, but I am not going to make lazy people of you. So I am not doing your Bible study for you. That is why I have not given you the references to all those words. You go through the Letter and mark each occurrence of this: "We know." Thirteen times you will see it. And then go through the Letter again and mark every occurrence of "This is." That is a very helpful way of studying. That is what I mean when I say I am not doing it for you, I am giving it to you to do.

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I have said that there are other distinctive marks in this letter, and these marks have to do with this matter of confirming faith. I think it is unnecessary for me to say that the conditions with which John was dealing are conditions which we have to meet in our time. We have to meet these many kinds of teaching, these many interpretations of the Scriptures. We are familiar with the many divisions amongst God's people, and we know so well how the world has invaded Christianity, and how the world has robbed the churches of their pure testimony. We have to face these conditions. Many of the Lord's people, especially the young people, ask: 'Which of all these is right? Which of these different teachings is the right one? Which of these divisions amongst the Lord's people is the right one?' It is a time of much perplexity, especially for young Christians, and that is why we are looking into this letter of John. We are going to let John help us, just as he helped the believers of his own day.

So I want to point out three other great words in this letter. For these words are words which will solve many of our problems. Indeed, John said that these were the things that would solve the problems of the Christians in his day. And the three words are: "Light," "Life," and "Love." You will probably remember how often John uses those words. They are the great words of Christianity: Light, Life, and Love. And John links with that last word "Love," the word, "Fellowship." He says a lot about fellowship in this letter.

Now we are going to begin with the first of these great words. We come back to the fifth verse of chapter one: This is the message, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. "God is Light." This is the message. Now we must remember that John is just full of the Old Testament. John always has the Old Testament as the background of his mind. I could give you a good hard piece of work now. If you were to take the Book of the Revelation written by John, you would find that there are four hundred allusions to the Old Testament in that book. I do not mean that there are four hundred quotations, but there are four hundred ideas taken from the Old Testament. I say, I will leave that to you. We are not going to attempt to look at four hundred Old Testament allusions.

But having said that, that brings us right to this matter of the message. THIS IS THE MESSAGE, THAT GOD IS LIGHT. And do you notice that John takes us back to the beginning? He says, "In the beginning." That is how he opens his Gospel. And in this letter, he is taking us back to the beginning. What is in the mind of John? He is thinking about the creation. And he is referring to the fact that the first thing in creation was light. God is Light. The first thing, of course, is God. That is the first thing in creation. It all begins with God. But what is God? What is the effect of God anywhere? When God comes on the scene, what happens? What is the first result of God coming in? John says, as in the creation, it was light. So in this present difficult situation, the first thing is God and Light.

Now we must go back to the beginning of the Old Testament. You know how the Bible begins, "In the beginning, God." Then the next thing, "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep." A state of terrible chaos existed, everything was in a condition of disruption, disorder and barrenness. "The earth was empty, without form and void." There was no beauty there, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

Now it is believed by many that this condition was the result of a previous judgment. It was not the beginning of the existence of the world. The world was there, but it was in this terrible state. It is believed that this condition was the result of a judgment which had come upon the world in an earlier time. Literally, the world had been destroyed. And it is believed that the New Testament teaches that is going to happen again to this world. All things here are going to be destroyed in the judgment of God. When the Lord has taken away His people, then, as Peter says: 'The earth will be destroyed and burned up.' And John says, 'There is going to be a new heaven and a new earth.'

Now we can understand better today, than anybody in those days could understand, how easy that could be. It is known that there is in existence power enough in hydrogen bombs to destroy this whole earth. It has been definitely stated that that could be done in a very short time. Peter in his letter prophesied that that is going to happen. If there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, then the old one must be destroyed.

But John here is not particularly concerned with the destruction of the material earth. What he is concerned with is a spiritual condition which corresponds to the condition in the second verse of Genesis. If in the beginning of Genesis, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, if that is how it was with the material creation way back there, John sees that there is a spiritual condition just like that in his own time. Everything has gotten into a state of disorder and disruption. Everything is broken up. There is no beauty to look upon. All these spiritual conditions just speak the one word - "Chaos." The verdict is, darkness over the face of the deep.

Now God intervened in that situation. In effect, God said, 'This is never how I intended to have things. This state of things does not express My Mind for the world.' So God came in to redeem the world from that condition. In Genesis, God intervened through His Son. John says in his Gospel, that it was through God's Son that all things were created. Then John goes on to say, that in this spiritual chaos, God has intervened again by His Son. In exactly the same way as He intervened in the material creation, so He intervenes in the spiritual. God said over the material creation, "Let there be light." And God says over the spiritual chaos, "Let there be light." And that light comes in through His Son. You will remember that in his Gospel, John said, "In Him was Life, and the Life was the light of men. And the Light shineth in the darkness." The Light came into the world through the Son.

Now John is looking at this state of things spiritually in his own day, and he says that God's way of redeeming this situation is to bring the Light in, to come in Himself in the Person of His Son as Light. God is going to reverse this whole situation, by His Son, in terms of light. The first thing in redemption is light.

First of all, light reveals the state of things. When Jesus came into this world, He made all see what the condition was. Men began to see things just as they were. It is wonderful to see how everything was made plain wherever Jesus came.

Are there wicked men about? Well, people did not see that they were wicked men until Jesus came. Of these scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said, "You are of your father, the devil." No one had ever thought that about scribes and Pharisees before. These were outwardly very religious men, and Jesus says, "You are of the devil." And as He goes on in this earth, it becomes perfectly clear that He is right. These very people whom the world thought were the religious people will one day crucify Jesus Christ.

[Shammu]

As the true Light, He has brought out into the open the true condition of men's hearts. And you know, that is always the effect of Jesus coming anywhere. The first thing that we feel when Jesus comes near us is, What bad creatures we are! On one occasion, Jesus came into the life of Simon Peter. Simon Peter cried, "Depart from me, Oh Lord, for I am a sinful man." The first effect of the Light in Christ is to reveal the true state of man's heart. If man does not like to have his true condition revealed, he will crucify Christ. He will persecute and fight against the Lord Jesus. But if we are prepared to have our true condition revealed, we shall go down on our knees, and say, 'I am a sinful man, O Lord.'

The first effect of the Light is to reveal the state of things. The true meaning of such a revelation is to bring us to repentance. Any man or any woman who has never felt the awfulness of the sin of their own natures, has never met Jesus Christ. This is a test as to whether we have come to the Light. No man or woman can ever come near to Jesus Christ without crying out, "I am sinful." Like the prodigal, we have to say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight." Let us have no doubt about this. A touch with Jesus Christ means we realize how sinful we are in ourselves. No true union with Jesus Christ can mean that we have any pride in ourselves. We can never have any true relationship with the Lord Jesus and feel that we are ourselves quite all right.

The man or the woman who lives nearest to the Lord Jesus is the man or the woman who feels they are the worst people in this world. The cry of their heart is, "HAVE MERCY UPON ME, O LORD." They are not just words, not just religious words, they come out of a revelation of our own hearts in the Presence of the Light. Will you remember this thing, that in one sense, the pathway to heaven is the pathway of discovering more and more how sinful we are in ourselves. The person who gets nearest to heaven is the one who knows best that they ought not to have a place in heaven, they are the people who are most ready to say, 'I am altogether unfit for heaven.' So the Light reveals the state of the human heart. It has to be like that before there can be redemption. This is the first step toward redemption. It was so in the case of the material creation, and it is so in the case of the new creation in Christ.

But then watch Jesus again as He moves about the country. You notice what happens? Here are poor people bound in affliction, here is a poor woman who has been suffering for many years, here is that poor man moving about the tombs, filled with devils, no one could tame him, every chain that they put on him, he snapped. Wherever Jesus went, He showed that behind these awful conditions was Satan. People had not thought of it like that; they thought, 'This poor woman.' Well, she is suffering from some malady; Jesus said, "Whom Satan has bound these many years." This poor man in the tombs, people said, 'Well, of course, he has lost his reason, he is mad.' But Jesus says, 'It is the devil in him.' And so, whether it is sickness or whatever it is, Jesus sees another power behind this. And when Jesus comes on the scene, the evil spirits cry out, "I know Thee Whom Thou art."

You see, the evil power hidden behind the chaos in this world is brought to light by Jesus. There are many conditions which are not according to the will of God. But we accept them because we say, 'Well, they are just human conditions.' If we had the Light, we should see that another power is responsible for that. So wherever Jesus went, He showed that by the Light these things were not according to His Father's will. Everywhere that He went, it became clear that this is not as God would have it, this is all wrong, God would have it different from this. That is what became clear by Jesus coming into the world.

Now come to this first letter of John. We have spoken of the conditions, the conditions that John was having to meet, the conditions that the Lord's people were having to meet - confusion in teaching, divisions amongst the Lord's people, and a lot of other things. John is saying, "That God is Light, and in Him is no darkness." All these are contrary to the mind of God. That is what the Light shows. False teaching is against God. Divisions amongst the Lord's people are against God. Any disorder and disruption is contrary to God. Therefore, the Light demands some reaction. Light is never passive. You realize that?! Light is never passive. Turn off all the light, and darkness is everywhere. Switch on the light, what happens? Well, something happens. The darkness goes. It cannot abide the Light. Light is effective. Light is active. Light does things.

Now that is the challenge to us. Do we claim to have much light? Do we think that we have got the truth, that we are a very enlightened people? Well, what is happening with all the Light that we have got? Is it just passive light? There is no such thing. If it is not active light, it is not light at all. Light is intended to do something. Light is intended to change conditions. Just imagine, how can people who claim to have the Light be responsible for division amongst the Lord's people? That is a contradiction of light. So John says, "If we walk in the Light, we have fellowship." One effect of walking in the Light is having fellowship one with another. And some people think that having light means to make divisions, to break up fellowship. John says, that is a lie, that is not the truth. Light means that we must walk in it. "And if we all walk in the Light, we shall have fellowship one with another."

You see, light effects things. "Light" is a practical matter. I am not content with just giving you theory. My object in coming here is not just to give you more teaching. Probably, this week will see the end of my special ministry here, and before long I shall have gone again. What I am really concerned about is this: Not that I have given you a lot of words, but that I have given you light, or the Lord has given you Light. Because true Light always does things. The darkness cannot abide the Light. The darkness cannot overcome true Light. That is what John said about the Lord Jesus, "And the Light shineth or was manifested, and the darkness overcame it not." Light ought to be something very effective. Are we walking in the Light? Or are we just claiming to have light? Do remember that every bit of true Light is power. There is power behind this Light.

Light is power. It is always power. Is all that which we claim to have as Light, really power? Is all the Truth that we possess, power? Does it do things? Or is it only in our heads? Is it only a theory? You see, when Jesus came a Light into the world, something happened wherever He went. And that is how it all came to be. "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

THIS IS THE MESSAGE. This is the thing that we carry with us. Not just something in words and theory, but something that does something. We must examine all our truth, just to see what it is doing. How much it is changing the situation from chaos to light, from disorder to order, from emptiness to fullness, from ugliness to beauty. These are all the effects of light. That is what Jesus does, because He is the Light of the world. That is how it ought to be without teachings.

Now I only commence on this first message. I may have more to say on this particular thing, if God wills tomorrow night. But do not wait until tomorrow night, start tonight. Ask the Lord how much of all that you have in your heads is doing things. What changes are being made by the Light, for no light is true light that does not make changes.

[Shammu]

Meeting 36 - Jesus, as the Light, Brings to Light the Works of the Devil in Order to Destroy Them

Thirty-Sixth Meeting
(March 5,1964 P.M.)

I am going to continue this evening where we left off last night. We will read again the first five verses of the First Letter of John:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us,) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

Now as we broke off before we had finished this particular word, we must just look back a little in order to get the connection. You will remember that we said that John wrote his Gospel, his three Letters and the Revelation at a time when everything was in confusion; especially was that true in relation to believers. Believers were turning aside to something either different from Christ or less than Christ. They were becoming occupied with certain interpretations of Christian truth, and so there were separate groups of believers all circling round some particular aspect of truth. And these various aspects of truth divided the Lord's people, so that certainty had almost disappeared. Many of the Lord's people did not know just where they were. They were full of doubts and questions, and the testimony of Jesus was losing its power because of these divisions.

So John wrote because of that situation, and his Gospel and his Letters are his answer to that situation. John's great purpose was to bring the Lord's people back to certainty. So over against all the questions John said in this First Letter thirteen times, "We know," by which he meant there is a ground of absolute assurance for the Lord's people. Then as we mentioned last night, ten times he said, "This is." Ten things he said, "This is" the foundation. This is the ground of assurance.

Now we take it up there this evening, and we include all that John has to say in one thing. The Lord's people had gone off in all different directions on some teaching. So they were divided by many teachings. You will see that John employed one solution to the whole problem, and John said that this solution is a sure and certain one. Sometimes you will see an advertisement for a certain medicine, and the advertiser will tell you that this medicine will cure all troubles. You can suffer from any malady, but this will cure it. Of course, nobody believes that, WE are very suspicious about advertisements of that kind. But John is right. He says, I have got the cure for all your troubles; and he says it with great emphasis. He says, 'That which we have seen, and heard and handled, that which was from the beginning, this is the cure for all Christian troubles.' John has no doubt about it, because he himself had proved it. John had lived a long life. He was older than anybody in this gathering tonight when he wrote this. He was the last of the apostles. Paul spoke of himself as "Paul the aged" (Philemon 9). But John was much older than Paul. He had lived a long life. He had seen many troubles. He had met many difficulties amongst the Lord's people. He knew about all those conditions of which he wrote in the first, second and third chapters of the Revelation. He himself had suffered great persecution for Christ's sake. But after all, John says, 'We know." - And this is the solution to all our troubles.

We ought to be prepared to listen to a man like that. We ought to say at once, 'Well then, John, what is the solution? We have a lot of trouble. The Lord's people are divided. Many groups of the Lord's people are even fighting against each other. There are many contrary teachings. John, you say that you have got the solution, what is it?' Well, come again to this letter and he gives it to us. It is very simple in words. It may not be so simple in practice. But what John says in effect is this: You come right back to the Lord Jesus Himself. Leave all those things which are just things in themselves, all those things which are occupying your time and your energy, all those things which are causing so much trouble to you, all those things which make you ask questions as to whether we are right or whether we are wrong. Are we right or are the other people right? Are we wrong or are they wrong? All such questions, just leave them, and come back to Christ Himself. John seeks to bring the Lord's people right back to the Lord Jesus Himself. That is, he seeks to show them what came in with the Lord Jesus.

What was it that was bound up with the Person of the Lord Jesus when He came into this world? What is it that comes wherever the Lord Jesus comes? What is the effect of Jesus coming into touch with any person or any situation? Because everything is bound up with the Lord Jesus Himself personally, and the test of the Presence of the Lord Jesus is the effect that He has. The Presence of the Lord Jesus always does have some effect. The Lord Jesus can never come anywhere without something happening. That is the difference between the Presence of the Lord and teaching about the Lord. You may have all the teaching about Christ, and you may have some special teaching about Christ, and it may have no result whatever. There may be no effect. It is just some teaching. It may be some teaching on the Church. It may be some teaching on the local churches. It may be the teaching of holiness. Oh! there are a thousand different teachings connected with Christ. You may have one of them or you may have the whole thousand, and it had no effect in your life, and it may make no difference amongst you as a company of the Lord's people.

If the teaching has any effect at all, it makes you tired of teaching. Sooner or later you come to the place where you say, 'Oh, we have heard that all before. There is nothing new about that. We know it all.' And you are not very interested to hear any more of it. Perhaps you would say, 'Well, give us something new.' Then the new thing gets old. You would say, 'Give us something new again.' You are wearing out everything, until you get to such a place that you cannot take any more. And that is the effect of teaching. It does not transform the life. It does not make a difference in the situation. That means that you have separated the teaching about Christ from the Presence of Christ Himself. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD ALWAYS MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

[Shammu]

We saw last night that wherever Jesus went, something happened. Now have you noticed the difference between John's Gospel and John's Letter? At the end of the Gospel by John, John sums up the whole of that Gospel in one statement. John says, 'Many other signs did Jesus, if they were all written, I suppose the world would not contain the books; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing, you may have life in His name' (John 21:25). So, the whole of John's Gospel is gathered into this, that you may believe.

That is very good, but look how John sums up his Letter. He sums up his Letter in another way: "That you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). The Gospel is, that you may believe and believing you may have eternal life. The Letter is saying, "That you may know that you have eternal life." And John says: What is true in Him in the Gospel, is to be true in you, in the Letter. He says, What I have said about the Lord Jesus in the Gospel has got to be true in you - true in Him and true in you.

Now in the Gospel, John told us of what Jesus said about the day when the Holy Spirit would come. He said, "If I go away, I will send the Comforter. He will abide with you forever, and He will be in you." These people to whom John wrote his letter were living in the day when that was fulfilled. The Holy Spirit has actually come, John fourteen has been fulfilled. The Spirit has come. You are living in the day of the Spirit. And the Spirit is supposed to be in you. What was true of Christ, must be true of you, and it can be true of you. The truth as it is in Jesus has got to be the same in us.

I think we need to recapture the realization of the day in which we are living. John the Baptist came preaching, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Jesus came preaching, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And everybody was looking forward to the day when the Kingdom would come. They were waiting for the Kingdom to come. Are you waiting for the Kingdom to come? Are you still looking forward to a day when the Kingdom will come? The Kingdom has come. The Kingdom is here now. If you are born again, you are in the Kingdom. We are living in the day when the Kingdom is here. It was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. We are not looking for the Kingdom to come. We are only looking for the Kingdom to be consummated. But it is here now, and that ought to mean something to us.

While all the prophets prophesied to the day in which we live, John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, also prophesied toward this day. Jesus said that day is coming; but He said, there are some standing here who shall not see that until they see the Kingdom - and that was fulfilled. The day of Pentecost, the Kingdom came; and that Kingdom has never yet been taken away. We are living in the day toward which all the prophets prophesied. What a wonderful day we must be living in. The Kingdom came in with Jesus Christ. You cannot have a Kingdom without a King. If Jesus is King, you have got the Kingdom.

Now what did come in with Him, that is, what is the nature of this Kingdom? We come back to where we were last night. We saw that the first thing that comes in with Jesus Christ is Light. He brought in this Light from heaven. He said, "I am the Light of the world, He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness." So John says here, THIS IS THE MESSAGE, THAT GOD IS LIGHT, AND IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL. Then immediately John points to Jesus Christ. And through his Gospel and through his Letters, he says, This is the Light of God come in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We referred to three effects of the light. It makes people able to say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). I was blind. You remember the man who said that? He was a man who was born blind. He never had seen. He did not know in his own experience what anything looked like. Any knowledge that he had, he received from other people. He could never say, "I see." He was born blind. He never did see. When Jesus touched him and gave him sight, he was able to say, "I was blind, but now I see."

Now I want you to note that there is a principle there. Perhaps there is no one in this gathering, I hope there is no one, who is physically blind. Perhaps everybody here tonight has their natural sight. If I came to any one of you and said, "Look here, you are blind. You cannot see anything." What would you say? "Well, you are not speaking the truth. I know I can see. I can see you. I can see the other people. I can see all that is here." Well, that is all right naturally.

But the fact is this, it is not until Jesus touches you and me that we really do see. Not until we get a personal touch of the Lord Jesus upon our lives, do we realize that we have been blind. Not until we get that touch of the Lord Jesus are we really able to say, "I was blind, I thought I could see, I imagined I could see, I believed I could see, but now I know I was quite blind. The way in which I now see, I never could see before." That is the effect of a living touch with the Lord Jesus. Of course, all the people of this world will not believe you if you tell them they are blind. They think you are mad. But let them get a touch of the Lord Jesus, and the first thing they will say, "I can see now, and therefore I must have been blind before."

That is the effect of Jesus, that is not the teaching of Jesus. You see, the teaching does not always open people's eyes. The teaching may be very useful and very important, but if the Spirit of Jesus does not touch our spiritual eyes, we are still blind.

[Shammu]

Now I must go back over something that we said last night. The three things that came to light when Jesus came into the situation. First of all, His Presence revealed the true nature of the human heart. At once, people began to show their true natures when Jesus came into the situation. And it is very interesting and significant to note that this started at the highest level. Here is Nicodemus. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Art thou the teacher in Israel?" He did not say, "Art thou a teacher in Israel," but "Art thou the teacher in Israel?" Which put Nicodemus very high up in the saddle. Here is a man of great intelligence and natural enlightenment. There was nothing that Nicodemus could not talk about in the realm of religion. He was a Pharisee. That means he represented the top level of people in Israel.

If you had met Nicodemus before he met Jesus, he would have told you quite frankly that he knew everything. He had been to college. He had sat under the greatest teachers. He was a man of great education, he himself occupied a very high place in the academic world. If you had then said to Nicodemus, "Nicodemus, it will not be very long before you will be saying that you do not understand anything at all." Nicodemus would have said, "That is quite impossible. I do understand. The day will never come when I will have to say that I do not know." Very well then, let us see what happens.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He comes into the Presence of the One Who is the Light - and Jesus begins to speak to him. And it is not long before Nicodemus is saying, "How can these things be? I do not understand what You are talking about. I do not understand what You mean?" He is constantly saying, "Oh, how?" One great big question! Jesus says to him, "Art thou the teacher in Israel, and understandest not these things?" This great scholar is a poor little ignoramus. He has come into the Presence of the Light, and he has discovered his own darkness.

But look at all these other Pharisees, they are like Nicodemus, educated men, proud religious men; when Jesus came among them, it stirred up in them all their hatred for Jesus, and they will seek by enemies to put Jesus to death. Why is that? Because Jesus is bringing to light their true nature. He is making them feel how bad they are with all their religion. And Jesus says, "This is the condemnation. The Light has come, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." So the first effect of the Light is to show up the evil in our own hearts, and to make us feel what poor creatures we are, after all. The Light brings conviction of sin. There is no hope of salvation without the Light that brings conviction of sin.

What is true of the beginning of salvation is true of the whole course of salvation. If the Lord Jesus is really with us, we ought always to be aware of how sinful we are in ourselves. Let me put that in another way. If the Lord Jesus is with us, the one thing about us will be - oh, our greatest need is the grace of God. That will be the greatest word in our vocabulary. Grace, Grace, marvelous Grace! You do not understand the meaning of Grace unless you know your own heart. The deepest note in Christian worship is the note of thanks for the grace of God. That is the first effect of Jesus coming into touch with us as the Light.

Then I remind you of the Life of Jesus as He went up and down the country. Everywhere that Jesus went, He found trouble. He found sickness of every kind - the blind, and the deaf, and the dumb, the lepers and the palsy, they were everywhere. But Jesus put His finger upon the cause of all this. One day, the scribes and the Pharisees were gathered together, and there came in a man who was sick of the palsy, and it says, "And they watched Him to see what He would do because it was the Sabbath Day." Jesus looked at this poor man. He had compassion upon him, and He said to him, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." The scribes and the Pharisees said, "Who is this that forgives sins, only God can forgive sin." Jesus said unto them, "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee'; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?"' Of course, they did not answer that one. So Jesus said, "But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins," (He saith to the sick of the palsy) "I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house." And the man arose, and went to his house.

You see the point? This man is an example. He represents all the sick. And Jesus says about all the sicknesses, that behind all these conditions, the thing that is responsible is sin. If sin had never come into the world, none of these things would have come in. All the suffering and the misery in this world can be traced back to sin. Adam let sin into the human race, and with sin came all human suffering. When all sin has been removed from believers in the end, there will be no more suffering. The time is coming, as it is written in the Revelation, when there shall be no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain. God shall wipe away all tears from all faces. That is how it is going to be. A little girl heard that read, God shall wipe away all tears from all faces, and she turned to her mother and said, 'God must have a very big handkerchief.' Well, of course, that is how a little child will think of it. How does God wipe away all tears? Not by taking a literal handkerchief, but by removing the cause of tears. And the cause of all tears is sin.

So that when Jesus came into this world, all these conditions were shown to be something wrong. The Light made it manifest that all this is wrong. And Jesus had come to remove the cause of all this. And He bore our sin in His Own body on the tree.

Then the third thing that the Light revealed. It went back behind the suffering, it went back behind the sin, and it went right back to the cause of the sin and the suffering, and He showed that all this was the work of the devil. In the First Letter of John, he actually uses this phrase, referring to the darkness, referring to the divisions, referring to all the confusions, he says, "The works of the devil." "And the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil." So, confusion is a work of the devil. Division amongst the Lord's people is a work of the devil. Make no mistake about it, the devil is behind that sort of thing.

What is it that the devil is wanting to do all the time? He is wanting to bring dishonor upon the Name of the Lord. Division brings dishonor upon the Lord, confusion amongst the Lord's people brings dishonor upon the Lord, teachings that divide the Lord's people bring dishonor upon the Lord. And that is the supreme work of Satan - to bring dishonor upon the Name of the Lord. So that when Jesus came and met all these conditions, and knew that Satan was behind them, that Satan was the cause of them, it was His jealousy for the honor of His Father that calls Him to deal with these situations. Jesus, as the Light, brings to light the works of the devil in order that He may destroy them.

Now John says, "If we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another." The cure of those difficulties is to come into the Light, and to walk in the Light. Dear friends, if you and I are walking in the Light, we shall hate every work of Satan. We shall turn violently against anything that brings dishonor on the Name of our Lord. So, Light is power, Light does something in us, Light sets up a reaction to darkness. The Light is good, and therefore, the Light sets up a reaction against all that is evil and bad. So it will be if the Lord is in us, because HE IS THE LIGHT.

You see, I want to put the emphasis on this, that light is not just some abstract thing. You can call it by the other name, if you like, Truth. Truth is not just some abstract thing. Truth is not just a theory. Truth, like Light, is power. It has an effect, And we can test our idea of light by this - what is it doing? How is it reacting to the works of the devil? I am afraid that quite a lot of the Lord's dear people are encouraging the devil rather than discouraging him. They are making divisions. And the devil is rubbing his hands, very pleased. He says, that will bring dishonor on God. Do not help the devil. Do not help him in any of his work. Walk in the Light, and react against all the works of darkness. And still, we have not finished this matter, but we have got two more evenings, if the Lord wills.

Now may the Lord make all this talking more than words. We are going away with a lot more words. Ideas, which may be new or they may not be new to you, if it just remains there, we have come here tonight in vain. It would have been better if we never came; because we are only going to be responsible for what we hear. But do lay up these words in your hearts, and just tell yourself that the Presence of Jesus Christ in my life is going to have real effect. Jesus cannot be Present without something happening. And if He is Present all the time, something ought to be happening all the time. May He make it like that for His Own glory. Amen.