Books by T. Austin-Sparks

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Chapter 6 - The Testimony of the Blood (continued)

There is nothing which Satan fears so terribly and contests so fiercely as a true and living testimony concerning the Blood of the Lord Jesus: not a teaching, doctrine, creed or phraseology, but that which is wrought out in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is therefore necessary for us to seek to recognise this fact, to understand, as far as we can, why it is so, and to know our position of victory because of the Blood. Unto this threefold apprehension we shall begin at the ultimate issue of the testimony, which is –

THE DIVINE SEED IN PROSPERITY AND SOVEREIGNTY

It is this that Satan cannot bear to contemplate, and against which he is bitterly set, because it represents a menace to his kingdom at every point.

There is a very great significance attached to the introduction of the book of Exodus with “the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt”. The title “sons of Israel” represents their dignity as sons of “a prince of God”. They came into Egypt and were in great prosperity and strength, while yet a separate and unabsorbed people. This dignity, prosperity and power came to be regarded as a distinct peril to the king of Egypt, and he projected a plan for humbling them, bringing them into bondage, and making them rather to contribute to his own prosperity and power.

Thus Exodus presents, firstly, God’s mind concerning the princely dignity and spiritual prosperity and ascendency of the “sons”; then the activity and object of the adversary concerning them; and finally the Divine thought and intention established in the realm of “far above all rule and authority” in virtue of the shed blood of chapter twelve. So then, sonship and sovereignty are the two factors present throughout. Sonship is the basic principle. Sovereignty is the issue involved in the conflict. The Blood is the instrument by which both are established. “These are the names of the sons of ‘the Prince of God’...” is the introduction. “Let my son go, that he may serve me”, is the challenge to Pharaoh; and “Thou hast refused... behold, I will slay thy son”, is the sovereign factor at issue (Ex. 4:23).

Now these elements are carried forward throughout all the Scriptures. It does not matter where you look: that which lies behind all the conflicts in the history of the people of God concerns the existence of a Divine seed in prosperity and power – spiritually - and the factor which is mainly involved is that of the altar and the blood. Everything hangs on that. This all heads up and finds its supreme expression in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. As with Moses typically, so with Him anti-typically, there was the recognition of the one through whom this Divine seed would be constituted in its “authority... over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). So from birth a ‘dead set’ was made for His destruction - not only by direct onslaught, but by subtle subterfuge to get Him to act upon a level of self by which the Divine protection would be forfeited.

The point at which we meet this whole matter of the testimony of the Blood is with –

AN ELECT IN BONDAGE

There is abundant Scripture to show what was the original thought and intention of God for His spiritual seed, and this is a very important matter for the apprehension of the Lord’s people. But what particularly concerns us now is its realisation. It is not a little impressive that of the twenty-seven ‘books’ of the New Testament at least twenty-one have to do with the bringing of the Lord’s children into their right spiritual place. And how many of them are directly concerned with the matter of the actual or threatening loss of spiritual prosperity and ascendency through some form of bondage. There is the bondage of iniquity, of sin and sins, of the Law, of tradition, of fear, of the flesh, of the carnal mind, of reason, of the righteousness of the flesh, the wisdom of the flesh, the ‘spirituality’ of the flesh, and many other forms of bondage. The bonds of Satan are very numerous, and he suits the kind to the case. A prince in chains, a member of the seed royal in servile oppression, is a pitiable sight, and this is what the Devil delights in. The “man-child”, whether individual as in Moses and Christ (Exodus 1 and Matthew 2), or corporate as in Revelation 12, is the object of the Dragon’s venom. This is the Divine seed.

Think of the sons of the ‘Prince of God’ engaged in building store-cities for Pharaoh, and thus adding wealth and glory to his world-system instead of serving the Lord in freedom and victory! Such is the state of the elect, more or less. From the position of servitude to sin, self, the world and the Devil before salvation, through all the stages and phases of spiritual weakness and defeat to paralysing introspection and spiritual self-analysis, the true dignity of princeliness, of sonship, is assailed.

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Now, if we did but know it, there is always some ground for the bondage. Satan must have ground. His power cannot function without ground. He was utterly impotent in the case of the Lord Jesus because there was no ground. “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). The ground which issues in defeat and bondage at the hands of the adversary is as varied as the bondage itself.

Is it the natural condition of the sinfulness of human nature, that what is in man is quite unfit and unsuitable for the presence of God? Is it that the Divine will represents a standard of perfection in moral excellence which sets back from God even the very best among men? Is it a secret thing, hidden in the inward parts, which in itself becomes a weapon in the enemy’s hand to knock us down? Is it sin done in ignorance, where the intention was good, but where fuller light reveals that it was wrong after all? Is it sin unconsciously committed, in the sense that we did not even know that we did the thing?

Yes, all these, and many more, are grounds that Satan uses - and rightly so, if we fail in one all-embracing respect. This failure is in the matter of recognising the virtue of the precious Blood, and the worth of Him who shed it.

In saying this we are but bringing into view the offerings of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. A close study of these offerings will reveal two things. One is that God has searched out sin and tracked it to its most hidden and secret lair, even to the place of unconsciousness. The accidental, unwitting, and unsuspected is all taken into His consideration. He regards sin now as a state, not merely as a matter of a deliberate act. It is here, universal, operating in innumerable ways and finding common ground of affection in the whole race. This all comes out so clearly in a careful reading of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

But, having tracked sin to its remotest haunt, God has made provision for dealing with it to the very last suggestion.
1.  A whole Burnt offering, that the believer may stand accepted and perfect in relation to all the will of God (Col. 4:12). (Lev. 1; Heb. 10).
2.  A Meal offering, that he may be able to come into possession of moral perfection, not his own, but presented by faith. (Lev. 2; Rom. 12:1, 2; Heb. 10:10; 13:21, etc.).
3.  A Peace offering, that there may be not only access and standing, but fellowship and oneness with God. (Lev. 3; Col. 1:20; Rom. 5:10, etc.).
4.  A Sin offering, that sin in its more positive aspects, and sin in ignorance and without consciousness, may not interfere with living fellowship by bringing in spiritual death, either through our own failure or through the contamination of contact. (Lev. 4, 5, etc.).

And not only in the matter of our relationship with God does the Blood make an all-sufficient provision, but in co-operation with God by priestly ministry, in effective spiritual service in its many-sidedness.

So, then, the first and primary thing in a living testimony to the complete overthrow of the dominion of Satan and the destruction (bringing to nought) of his works is a due and adequate apprehension and appreciation of the Lord Jesus in the value of His Blood.

There is something almighty in the death of Jesus Christ. Many of God’s people have failed to recognise the important distinction between His crucifixion and His death. The crucifixion is man’s side. The death is His own.   All the crosses ever made, and all the men who ever conceived them, could never have brought about the death of the Lord Jesus, apart from His own voluntary act of laying down His life. “I lay down my life... No man taketh it from me... I lay it down of myself. I have power (jurisdiction) to lay it down, and I have power (jurisdiction) to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17,18).

The preaching of Christ crucified is not the preaching merely of what men did to Him, but of what He ALLOWED men to do, and, in and through what they did, what He did. The DEATH of Christ, in its real meaning, is not man’s act, nor is it the Devil’s act. Satan and men had made many unsuccessful attempts to kill Him, but HIS hour had not come. HE fixes the time for what HE will do. The rulers said, “Not during the feast” (Mark 14:2), but the Lord Jesus took it out of their hands, and out of the hands of Judas, and precipitated it on that day in the Upper Room; so deftly heading up that Judas was as one under authority: “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).

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When He ‘lays down’ His life that He may ‘take it again’ there is infinitude in the deliberate act, and it relates to universal sovereignty. Sin, as the principle; the old creation, as the sphere; Satan, as the ruler in that realm; death, as the consequence; and judgment, as the inevitable prospect and reality: all are involved in the death of Christ. That entire ground was dealt with, and that regime brought to an end, in that death. The whole thing centres in the Person of the Lord Jesus. The same person must be able both to act as representative of man rejected of God because of sin, and, as representative, receive all the judgment of God upon man and sin, and yet at the same time, because sin is not inherent in Him, but in Himself He is utterly sinless, render death and hell incapable of holding Him. There never was such a one, other than Jesus Christ: Son of man - Son of God.

The pouring out of His Blood was, on the one side, His voluntary yielding to wrath and destruction from the face of God, as Man for man; and, on the other side, a saying in effect to death, the Devil and the grave, ‘I concede you all your claims unto the last atom, and exhaust all your demands, in being made sin and a curse. But you have another in Me also, over whom you have no power or rights, because you have no ground in Him. You cannot hold Me - I defy you; and, what is more, I now take you as My prisoners. Henceforth I am your Lord, and I will plunder your domain and rob you of your spoil.’
 

“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor, 15:55).

‘Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes”.
‘...He invaded death’s abode
And robbed him of his sting’.
‘...He hath crushed beneath His rod
The world’s proud rebel king.
He plunged in His imperial strength
To gulfs of darkness down,
He brought His trophy up at length,
The foiled usurper’s crown’.

So He, because of His sinless perfection, can stand in complete acceptance with God, suitable to God, and this representatively as man (though more than man), His Blood, therefore, representing His sinless and victorious life, is given to us, and in virtue of it there is constituted that princely seed in all the good of His triumph. This does not make us sinlessly perfect, but He who is in us is so.

What remains to bring us into that good is a spiritual appreciation and apprehension of the transcendent greatness of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit revealing Him in us; and then the link of faith unto obedience between what we are not and what He is. The bridge is faith. Some act as though it were struggle or puzzle, or any one of a number of things which are in the nature of self-effort. It will be found, indeed, that faith is no mere passive acquiescence. But it is not the DEGREE of faith only, but the OBJECT of faith. It is, after all, the place which CHRIST has in the apprehension of HIS people which makes for the prosperity and ascendency which should characterize them. The supreme days of Israel’s history were those when Christ in type was largest and most dominating. The Feast of the Passover was the focal point and the pivot. There never was such rejoicing as then; and, in later times, when idolatry had gained a strong footing, it was after the restoration of this feast that the people instinctively returned to destroy the false system.

Thus the testimony of the Blood is basic to victory, ascendency, and spiritual prosperity, and is the most deadly force against all the works of the adversary. 

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Chapter 7 - "A Candlestick all of Gold"

We are going to look at the fourth chapter of Zechariah, which features in a remarkable way conditions and Divine aims in the ‘end times’. There are striking similarities in it, as we shall see, to certain things mentioned in the first chapters of the Revelation. Its great value lies in its concentrated presentation of essentials. When you have these you have everything vital.

What first comes into view is -

AN ANGEL TALKING

“The angel that talked with me” (verses 1, 4). The parallel to this in the Revelation is the phrase, seven times repeated (note: seven=spiritual perfection, completeness): “what the Spirit saith to the churches”.

The Lord has something to say at the end. The book of the Revelation is full of voices. It begins with: “I turned to see the voice” (1:12). A strange way of putting things! Did anyone ever see a voice? There is, however, no mistake made. A vital reality is in this seeming error, as we shall see. We have known much to be made of this “voice” factor in the Bible. True as it is that God can make Himself vocal and audible, taking up men and articulating His thoughts through them, as He has ever done, we would point out that in this case it is not the voice of man; indeed, it is not primarily the voice at all. It is that God has something to say, and a very important something.

The most pertinent question that can possibly be asked at this time is –

WHAT IS GOD SAYING TODAY?

A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times. While there are many good preachers of the Gospel, and while we are not without champions of the vital verities of the Faith, we are sadly in need of the Prophet with his “Thus saith the Lord”, which he has received in a commission born of a peculiarly chastened fellowship with God.

Why is it so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system: a system which puts preachers so largely upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and programme? And not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of Christianity as we have it in the systematized form today. There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when “the burden of the word of the Lord” is upon the prophet, or when he could say: “The hand of the Lord was upon me”. The present order requires a man to speak every so often: hence he MUST get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our programme and asked to meet it (which He will not do), or that the preacher must MAKE something for the constantly recurring occasion.

This is a pernicious system, and it opens the door to many dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices - a CONFUSION of voices - but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time. Too often it has the effect of causing men to hear and read just with a view to getting preaching matter, subjects for sermons; the value of things is judged by their suggestiveness of themes. The man may be a godly man and the message may be the truth, but there is something more than this - is it THE message which relates to the immediate time-appointed purpose of God? There are many good men who are giving out what they know and believe of the truth, but at the same time there are many of the Lord’s children who are hungry and not being fed.

The food question amongst the Lord’s people today is a very acute one, and a more or less good ministry is not going to meet the need. There is a growing concern to know, as distinct from the generalisations of truth and service, what is the Lord’s word for now, where we are, and what in the Divine purpose belongs to this present hour.

This brings us back to the first thing in our chapter: God has something to say; but it also leads us to the next thing: “The Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep”. Here we have the necessity for –

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AN AWAKENING TO WHAT GOD HAS TO SAY

In the Revelation this is: “He that hath an ear, let him hear”, and in the case of Laodicea - which represents the end - it is: “I counsel thee to buy of me... eyesalve... that thou mayest see” (Rev. 3:18). “I turned to see the voice which spake with me”, said John. God is speaking; He has something to say; but there must be a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; “having the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph. 1:17,18).

Spiritual discernment, perception, understanding and intelligence are all too rare. The causes are many. The engrossment with the work and its multifarious concerns; the rush and hurry of life; the restless spirit of the age: these, with an exhaustive provision of external religious facilities, all tend to render the inner place of Divine speaking inoperative or impossible of functioning. Perhaps we have forgotten that the Bible not only IS a revelation, but also CONTAINS a revelation, and that that deeper spiritual content is only possible of recognition and realisation by such as have had their eyes and ears opened; in other words, by those who have been awakened. Some of the Lord’s most faithful servants are still only occupied with the letter of the Word, the contents of books, topics, themes, subjects, outlines, analyses, etc., and are not, IN THE DEEPEST SENSE, in spiritual understanding. (This is not meant as a criticism.) The difference too often is that between a ministry to the mind or head, and one to the heart or spirit. The former will sooner or later tire and weary both the minister and those ministered to. The latter is a ministry of life to both, and is inexhaustible in freshness.

Whether it comes at the beginning or later, it is the greatest day in our history of which we can say: “It pleased God... to reveal his Son IN me”. ‘I received it, not from man... but by revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1:15,16; 12). That is the beginning of an inwardness of things which may have many critical issues. One of these is that of which we are particularly thinking now, namely, the awakening to see what is the thought and desire of God at given and specific times. Such a revelation - through the Scriptures - is nothing less than revolutionary, and usually costly.

Would to God that there was an adequate number at this time who, like the men of Issachar, “had understanding of the times” (1 Chron. 12:32).

We now proceed to see what comes into view when God’s instrument is awakened, and is able to answer the heavenly interrogation: “What seest thou?” 

“BEHOLD, A CANDLESTICK ALL OF GOLD”

Every ministry in the Scriptures appointed by God was constituted upon something having been SEEN. The test of a Divine commission may be found in this question, “What seest thou?”, and the answer, upon the basis of God having shown something very concrete, may well provide the credentials. It is not the matter of winning the sermon or winning the audience, but declaring the truth for the time as it has been made a fire in the bones. It would be pertinent, rather than impertinent, to challenge the servants of God with this question, relative to the time in which they live, and relative to the immediate concern of God – “What seest thou?”

There is no doubt that what God has seen at all times as His objective is “a candlestick all of gold”, but from time to time there has been a special necessity for Him to bring it into the view of the people, and especially of His prophets. It is for this that He reacts, and the end-time must see a renewal of His reaction.

Now, ignoring the fact that there is a difference between the seven-branched candlestick or lampstand of the Old Testament, and the seven lampstands of the Apocalypse, there is a relationship of the two in a common principle. That common principle is that they both represent -

THE INSTRUMENT OF THE TESTIMONY IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

While that innermost light of the Most Holy Place - the light of Christ in the presence of God - remains un-dimmed and inviolate, there is that which is midway between Heaven and earth - the Holy Place - where the testimony has to be kept clear both Godward and man-ward. Concerning this - as differing from the other - God has given very careful and explicit instructions and injunctions for its perpetual maintenance. He is peculiarly jealous over this testimony. Thus, we find that it is here in the sphere of this, that the prayer-life (Altar of incense) and the feeding-fellowship (Table of shewbread) of the Lord’s people have their true value and vitality.

The instructions for the making of the Candlestick in Exodus 25 and 37 are full of the richest significance. First in these is the material – “pure gold”. If it is to have a SEVENFOLD fullness, intensity and expression, which refers to spiritual completeness, then it must be pre-eminently suitable to the Divine purpose. The meaning of the “all of gold”, then, is that it is –

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ABSOLUTELY ACCORDING TO GOD

Be sure to get the force of this: an instrument of the testimony wholly according to God! There is only One who is thus wholly according to God’s mind and heart - the Lord Jesus, and if the whole Tabernacle in every part came firstly from God and then was Christ in type throughout, then this lampstand speaks of a vessel of the testimony of God in which the Lord Jesus is absolute and complete. God would have everything according to Christ. This fact governs the whole revelation in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. It is typified and prophesied in the Old Testament. It is presented in the Gospels; demonstrated in the Acts; defined in the Epistles; and consummated in the Revelation. But, alas, what a tragic and heart-breaking history is associated with this fact, and how difficult has it ever been to get anything wholly according to Christ.

In an earlier chapter we saw God’s reactions to this in Bible times, and suggested that since then He has again and again so reacted.

The Reformation was such a reaction, and by it He recovered the great foundational truth of Justification by Faith; which puts Christ into His absolute place as the Chief Cornerstone of the House of God. It was a grand thing, though very costly. But all too soon men pulled it down to the earth, and the ‘Protestant Church’ as such issued; a tree in the branches of which almost every kind of credal bird can lodge. Protestantism, as such, is by no means a synonym for what is wholly according to Christ.

Since then the reactions of the Lord have been seen in many other instances.

The Moravian Brethren, through a great fight and affliction, were used to recover the great truth of the Church’s responsibility for the testimony of Jesus in all the nations. Not the responsibility of a missionary society or adjunct to the Church, but of the Church itself directly. This was, and is, wholly according to Christ. But again, human hands mould this movement into a ‘church’ with all the outward elements of a religious order. There is no question but that there has been considerable spiritual loss.

A further reaction of God was seen in the Wesleys and Whitfield. Here, in addition to a mighty recovering of soul-saving evangelism, there was the recovery of the doctrine of practical holiness. This was grand while the instrument remained; but alas there came those human hands again, and an earthly organizing into a system - the ‘Wesleyan Church’. We are perfectly sure that Wesley would not have wished this.

Then about a hundred years ago, there was what all ought to recognise as a movement of God in the shape of the ‘Plymouth Brethren’. There were several most precious recoveries made in this instance. The Lord Jesus was given an exclusive place which was not common in those days, nor is it common now. The great truth concerning the Body of Christ - the One Church - was brought again into view, after perhaps centuries of obscurity. God was in this, and is still in it, but the most ardent devotee to this community is both grieved and ashamed to contemplate its divisions today. Is it that men have again been insinuated or have insinuated themselves? Has this, like so much more, been taken into the governing hands of men? Has that subjective work of the Cross, by which in a very deep way man is cut off and the Holy Spirit governs, failed of adequate application or acceptance here? These are questions, not charges; we are seeking to speak, not destructively, but constructively.

Many more are the reactions of God through the past nineteen centuries; we only use these by way of illustration. It will be seen that each fresh movement was an advance upon those that preceded it in the matter of truth recovered: from the Divine standpoint it was a movement nearer to the original position. The big question which at once arises is: Will the Lord do a new thing yet? Are we to know of a fresh reaction to His first position? The only answer we can give to this question is that, whether or not there should be anything in the nature of a movement as open to general recognition, we are certain that there is a more or less hidden movement on the part of the Spirit of God, working through deepening dissatisfaction with things as they are toward that which is nearer the original thought than has been since the beginning. It will be such a thing as cannot be ‘joined’ by men, but in which only those will share who are moved by deep inward exercise, so that it becomes a matter of a common spiritual travail.

What next comes before us in Zechariah’s vision, which is more than Jewish, but has that invariable double application of Old Testament revelation, is –

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THE TWO OLIVE TREES AND THE TWO ANOINTED ONES

The symbolism here is familiar. Two is the number of testimony or witness. Trees are very often symbolic of man as witness, or men as witnesses. The olive, as is apparent in this chapter, especially relates to the oil. The position of these two trees is on either side of the candlestick. From verse 14 we learn that “These are the two anointed ones (sons of oil), that stand by the Lord of the whole earth”.

There is no doubt that the two olive trees bring into view, firstly and historically, Joshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel the Governor. Chapter 3 deals with the one and chapter 4 with the other. The first discourse concerned the High Priesthood and its ministry; the second (4:1) concerns the Government or sovereignty. This, interpreted prophetically, relates to the Lord Jesus. His High Priestly work and position come first into view, and are established in glory; then He is established by God as Lord and Sovereign Head. On these two sides of His one Person He ever gives the meaning of the candlestick: that is, He defines the nature of its vocation, and supplies the unfailing resource for that testimony. It is, as we have said, constituted according to Christ, and maintained by Him in all the fulness of His anointing.

The Divine explanation of this is: “This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (verse 6). Here we reach the central meaning of the vision as to the execution of the purpose of God. It speaks for itself. Its clear affirmation is that this instrument and this testimony must be utterly in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Not might, nor power, of brain, will, emotion, organization, machinery, committee, influence, reputation, numbers, name, personality, outfit, enthusiasm, etc., but solely the Holy Spirit! The accounting for this will never be, IN TRUTH - whatever superficial observers may say - attributable to any human force or resource, but all who have any spiritual intelligence will have to recognise that its energy and power is Divine. This will also be proved by its endurance and persistence through the intense fires of opposition and antagonism.

Here the Holy Spirit is allowed to govern and dictate, to direct and choose or reject, just as in the “Acts” at the beginning. To have such an instrument and such a testimony there will need to be a very revolutionary re-shaping of ideas. It will be necessary to realise that all those things, upon which men have come to count as most important factors in the Lord’s work, are really not necessary factors at all. It will have to be recognised that education, personal ability, business ability, worldly wisdom, money, etc. AS SUCH have nothing to do with the work of the Holy Spirit or with Christianity. The Lord may use these, call them in, and if they are kept in their right place they may serve Him greatly; but they are secondary, and He can easily dispense with them. It is of infinitely greater importance and value that men should be filled with the Holy Spirit, and if a choice is to be made, this should ever be the very first consideration. There is a wisdom, judgment, discernment, knowledge, understanding by the Holy Spirit which alone is equal to the demands of that which alone is to be wholly according to God.

Thus the Lord Jesus, as the Great Mediator and Sovereign Head, would maintain His testimony wholly in accordance with His own nature and mind in the fullness of the Spirit of His own anointing. When things are thus there is no need to be unduly oppressed by –

THE GREAT MOUNTAIN

“Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubhabel thou shalt become a plain” (verse 7). The mountain is a figure of the accumulation of difficulties. The completing of the House of God will be no less fraught with difficulty and obstruction than the commencement; but, as then, so at the end, where the Holy Spirit is absolute Lord, these difficulties will be proved rather complementary than otherwise. The “many adversaries” will only be sovereignly used to further, rather than arrest, the consummation of “the eternal purpose”.

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, his hands shall also finish it” (verse 9). The Greater Zerubbabel laid those foundations at Pentecost. The finishing will be by His hands alone. The same glorious Lord Jesus will "bring forth the top-stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it”.

Then there is presented for our contemplation, by way of an interrogation, a matter which is indeed very challenging –

THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

“Who hath despised the day of small things?” (verse 10). There is amongst the Lord’s people in these days an unhealthy lust for big things. Something to attract attention; a demonstration to capture, an appearance to impress. Big names, big places, big titles, big sounds, big movements, big sweeps! If the dimensions are big according to men’s standards, the success is judged accordingly.

In order to obtain and maintain that which will preserve the recognition of wholly Divine factors, God has ever found it necessary to reduce. End-times are always days of small things: see the testimony in the Revelation - it is only represented by the few who ‘overcome’. Bigness is material or temporal. Greatness is spiritual and eternal. Too often men - even Christians - despise that in which God delights. The significance of things according to God is so often seen in an “upper room”, as over against the whole city, but the city succumbs to the upper room. When dealing with the “world rulers of this darkness” the Lord has frequently made an upper room His Throne-room.

“These seven eyes of Jehovah shall rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel” (verse 10). What is this? The seven eyes symbolize the perfection of spiritual vision, which takes in everything as it is. The plummet is that by which crookedness is brought to light and made manifest. When Jehovah sees the Lord Jesus with that instrument in His hand, which so represents His own standard that by it He can correct all that deviates, and expose all the unsuspected leanings, bulgings, angles, and dangers of that which is related to His House; when He has that instrument by which He can make manifest how His House should be built according to Christ - then His perfect spiritual vision will rejoice and be satisfied. This is what He needs. O, that we might be to Him such an instrument! It will not be a popular ministry; it will cost; but it will be precious to the Lord.

As we close, let us just note the names of the Lord in this chapter. The purpose as in view is related to Jehovah - the Almighty, Eternally Self-Sufficient One (verses 6, 10). The executing and sufficiency of the purpose is related to Jehovah-Sabaoth - the Lord of Hosts (verse 6). The place of the testimony is related to Adon - Master, or Lord (verse 14); that is, He who owns and has the rights of proprietorship.   

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Chapter 8 - Gather My Saints Together

“Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice” Psalm 50:5.
“Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him...” 2 Thess. 2:1.
"Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh” Hebrews 10:25.

In all the above passages there is one common factor: namely, that an end-time movement and feature is dominant. It must be remembered that the Psalms themselves represent what remains when a history of outward things, as to the general instrumentality, has ended in failure. The history of Israel in its first great phase closed with the book of Kings in a calamitous and shameful way. Weakness, paralysis, declension, reproach, characterized the instrument in general. But out of that history now so concluded the Psalms are carried forward, as that which represents permanent spiritual gain.

This is pre-eminently a personal, inward spiritual knowledge of the Lord, gained through experience. That is why they always reach the heart and never fail to touch experience at every point. To them the saints have turned in times of deep experience. They are the ministry of experience to experience - the only ministry which is permanent. The end-time instrument will always be that which knows the Lord in a deep, inward, living way, through a history fraught with much experience of the heights and depths.

What David gave to the Chief Musician for the wind instruments and the stringed instruments touches the highest and deepest notes of a mortal’s knowledge of God. Worship, Salvation, Sorrow, Appeal, Victory, Battle, Faith, Hope, Glory, Instruction, are great themes interwoven with the mass of matters touched; but the point is that all came in REAL LIFE - he passed through it all. It is this, and this alone, which can serve the Lord when what He first raised up has failed Him as a public instrument. So the Lord would take pains to secure this, and this may explain much of the suffering and sorrow through which He takes His chosen vessels.

The Psalms form only one of the four books born of the history of Israel, each of which has its own feature to contribute to that which represents the permanent work of God, but especially as relating to an instrument of Divine reaction. But the Psalms show clearly where God begins and what in principle is basic to the first and most abiding work of God.

It does not need pointing out that, in the other two passages with which we commenced, the end-time is in view; they definitely state it. There is a further common feature of the three, however, which is more particularly the subject before us. They all definitely refer to GATHERING TOGETHER as something related to the end-time.

A history of a religious system, born out of something which the Lord raised up in the first place, has ended in weakness, chaos and shame. Therefore, there is to be a re-gathering to the Lord of His saints.

The Lord is coming, and there is a gathering to Him.

The Day is drawing nigh: therefore there is to be a “so much the more” assembling together. 

THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE GATHERING

Before we deal with the nature of this end-time gathering, we must have clearly in view those that are concerned in it. The passage in the Psalm would embrace and include those referred to in the other two passages.

“My saints... those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

It need hardly be remarked that, when all has been said and done through type, symbol and figure, the covenant means an entering into what the Lord Jesus has done by His shed Blood. It is an appreciation and apprehension of Him in His great work by the Cross. But we need to be reminded of what that involves as a covenant of God into which we enter. It is a theme which demands a book to itself. In order to reduce it to a few lines, let us consider a concrete instance. We find a conspicuous illustration of this matter in the life of Abram, as recorded in Genesis, chapters 15 and 22.

In chapter 15 we have the basis of a covenant concerning Abram’s seed. Firstly, there is the comprehensive inclusion of the offerings which came in later in Leviticus: a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtle-dove and a pigeon. These - with the exception of the birds - were divided in the midst, and laid one half on this side and the other half on that side. These were the two sides of the covenant, God’s and Abram’s. Later we see a flaming torch passing between the two halves (verse 17).

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Now, it is clear that Abram knew what this all meant. He realised that it involved him in something. God was saying quite clearly that He was wholly for Abram, that all that He was and had was being committed to this covenant. He would keep nothing back from him, but would, so to speak, place His very life, honour, name, glory, to the good of His word to Abram. This was adequately proved in the long run when He became incarnate in the seed of Abraham for universal blessing. But there were two sides to the covenant, and Abram understood this. He also was handing himself over to God with all that he was and had, to the very dearest possession, and if need be, to death. That burning torch - that Fire of the Spirit - sealed the oneness of the consecration or devotion of each to the other.

Now this explains chapter 22. By that time Isaac was born and had grown out of childhood. He had taken his place, and was to Abraham what a first-born son is to his father in the East. But he was more, because of the miracle of his birth and the long-deferred hope. He was everything to Abraham - more than life itself. All his father’s hopes, expectations, vindications, promises and Divine assurances were bound up with him. Accordingly –
“It came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac... and offer him... for a burnt offering...”

This ‘proving’ was concerning the covenant. Did Abram mean his part of it? Would he stand to it? Did he so utterly believe that God would be faithful to His part that, no matter what happened to Isaac, God could be trusted and His promise would be fulfilled? What a test! But “Abraham believed God” (Rom. 4:3). His faith in God enabled him to stand by his part of the covenant, and “he wavered not” (4:20).

The issue was that, when Isaac had virtually been offered, the Lord said to him: “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son thine only son, from me” (Gen. 22:12).

And then the Lord came in with His oath: “By myself have I sworn... because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven...” (verses 16-18).

Do we now see the meaning of ‘a covenant by sacrifice’? Then we shall see who it is that will be in this ‘gathering together’. It will certainly be only those to whom the Lord is everything, to whom He is all and in all; those who are all for the Lord without reservation, without personal interest, without anything less or other than Himself. Spiritual oneness is only possible on this basis.

The Lord’s word at the end to Abraham was: “Now I know that thou fearest God”. Malachi’s end-time word was: “Then they that feared the Lord...” (3:16). The fear of the Lord is an utter abandonment to Him, at any cost. It is His will being supreme, claiming and obtaining the measure of a whole burnt-offering.

THE NATURE OF THE GATHERING

Being, then, clear as to WHO are concerned - and that constitutes a test, even as they constitute a testimony - we are able to look at the nature of the ‘gathering together’.

We are well aware that there is a widespread doubt as to whether we are to expect anything in the way of a corporate movement or testimony at the end. Indeed, it is strongly held by some that everything at the end is individual - a conviction that rests, for the most part, upon the use of the phrase, “If any man...”, in the message to Laodicea (Rev. 3:20).

Let us hasten to say, then, that we have nothing in mind in the nature of an organized movement, a sect, a society, or a fraternity.

Having said this, however, there are some things which need saying quite definitely on the other side.

The Church of the New Testament never was an organized movement. Neither was there any organized affiliation of the companies of believers in various places with one another. It was a purely spiritual thing, spontaneous in life, united only by the Holy Spirit in mutual love and spiritual solicitude. There were other factors that acted as spiritual links, which we will mention presently. Further, and still more important, there was the abiding fact that a ‘Body’ had been brought into being. This is called ‘The Body of Christ’. You can divide a society and still it remains, but you cannot divide a body without destroying the entity.

Are we to understand from the exponents of the individualistic interpretation that all the teaching of the Lord, in nearly all the Scriptures concerning the House of God, and concerning the Body of Christ in nearly all the letters of Paul, is now set aside or is only an idea without any expression on the earth? Are we to blot out the mass of the New Testament and live our own individual Christian lives with no emphasis upon working fellowship with other believers? Surely not. This would be contrary to all the ways of God in history, and would certainly spell defeat, for if there is one thing against which the adversary has set himself it is the fellowship of God’s people. Ultra-individualism is impossible if the truth of the ‘One Body’ still stands. What is more, the Lord’s people are becoming more and more conscious of their absolute need of fellowship, especially in prayer. The difficulty of getting through alone in prayer is becoming greater as we approach the end.

What, then, is the nature of this ‘gathering together’?

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(1)  UNTO HIM

It is a gathering to the Lord Himself.

“Gather my saints together UNTO ME...”
“Our gathering UNTO HIM...”

In times past there have been gatherings to men, great preachers, great teachers, great leaders; or to great institutions and movements, centres and teachings. This is not now the Lord’s way. Not that men sought to draw to themselves, or that the Lord was not reached through them, but people have a way of making a greatly used servant of God the object of attraction.

God’s End is Christ, and as we get nearer the end He must take the place even of instrumentalities and become almost immediately the only object of appreciation. Our oneness and fellowship is not in a teaching, a ‘testimony’, a community or a place, but in a Person, and in Him not merely doctrinally, but livingly and experimentally. Any movement truly of God must, as its supreme and all-inclusive feature, confess that it is the Lord Jesus alone who is the object of heart adoration and worship: not things, themes, experiences, but the Lord Jesus Himself.

(2)  PRAYER-FELLOWSHIP

This gathering is a gathering together in prayer-fellowship. One of the last things said in the Epistle which presents for all time and eternity the true nature of the Church as the Body of Christ - the Epistle to the Ephesians - is:
“Praying at all seasons in the Spirit... FOR ALL THE SAINTS” (Eph. 5:18).

If the first thing in spiritual gathering together is “holding fast the Head” (Col. 2:19), or having the Lord Jesus as the centre, the second thing is prayer-fellowship with and for all the saints. “Gather my SAINTS together.” This is geographically impossible of full realisation, but it is spiritually possible by prayer. There is no space or time in the realm of prayer. A deep and travailing concern in prayer for the spiritual well-being of all the saints has ever marked an end-time movement of God; not alone for those who were true and faithful, and had gone all the way with God; but for ALL the people of God - although such as were more immediately the objects of Satanic malice, by reason of their faithfulness, might provoke a special cry to the Throne.

What we see is the Lord having a prayer-instrument in every end-time, when total destruction threatens that which represents Him. And the very burden of prayer which He lays upon His own in every part of the world is His way of uniting. If we prayed more for all saints we should find many of the things which divide - and wrongly divide - falling away and ceasing to do so. Prayer is a wonderfully ‘gathering’ factor.

(3)  SPIRITUAL FOOD

Another great factor in gathering spiritually is food.

The Old Testament brings before us many an instance of fellowship by feasting. Indeed, feasts were the nature of the fellowship, although not the occasion of it.

The New Testament takes up the spiritual principle, and the Lord Jesus makes the ‘breaking of bread’ not only the remembering and proclaiming of His death and Himself, but the testimony of the ‘one Loaf - one Body’. The Lord’s Supper is represented as food and fellowship.

In the first years of the Church, Christ was ministered to the saints by the Holy Spirit through ministering servants who moved from place to place. It was thus that the saints were brought into fellowship with one another. Not - let us say again - by an organized affiliation, but by a ministration of Christ through His Word in the Spirit. The ministers were “joints of supply” (Eph. 4:16).

It is all too obvious a thing to say that today there is a very real hunger amongst the Lord’s people. They are not being fed. What so many of them are getting is not ‘bread’. In every part of the world there are such hungry ones; one here, another there; a little company in one place, another in another, and often unknown to each other. The persistent and perplexing question asked almost everywhere is: ‘What are we to do? There is no spiritual food where we are.’

(4)  MINISTRY

Will not the Lord raise up a ministry to these? We are persuaded that He will, and that He is now seeking to do so. A method of gathering together according to Christ will be that a ministration of Christ is sent forth and the hungry will be found gathered in spite of everything. For as there is a dissatisfaction with the religious systems of the day on the part of so many who want to go on with the Lord, so there is springing up in the hearts of many of God’s servants a longing to be free to minister to the saints irrespective of traditional ties and distinctions.

There is no mistaking the fact that this matter of food as a uniting factor was ministered to the churches through anointed ministries. In the book of the Acts we see how the scattered churches were held together largely through the ministries of servants of God who were qualified to build the body corporate. They were everywhere recognised, accepted and honoured, and they were in a very large way a substitute for organized affiliation, government and centralisation. As the individual members of Christ form one corporate Body, so the individual churches were like corporate members of the whole corporate Body, and there was great gain to all by corporate ministries passing between them.

This all has its own perils, but we cannot fail to see the movement of God at the present day, and it is a gathering movement - to Himself.

The passage in Hebrews (10:25) specifically has the local assembling in view. No one can deny that this is the Divine order. The Lord desires to have in every place a representation of and a testimony to His House. His will is to have all such constituted according to Christ. But only the Holy Spirit can do this constituting. We cannot take a New Testament mould and pour people and places into it. We must come into it by the Spirit. This necessitates that the Holy Spirit have absolute sovereignty, clearness and right-of-way; and this, in turn, requires that the flesh be crucified and man be absolutely subject to Christ.

We see nothing in Scripture to lead us to conclude that this can never again be. It may be a “day of small things”, but in the hands of God such days are mightier than all the great movements of men.
The End of part 1

Tommorrow, I'll post God's Reactions to Man's Defections - Part 2

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

God's Reactions to Man's Defections - Part 2
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Reinforcement of Spirituality

In the life of the people of God, whether individually or corporately, there constantly occur times of crisis, or turning-points. The Old Testament describes many such times of particular and peculiar peril in the life of the Lord's people, and shows how God has moved to meet the situation at such times. This has been true also in the history of the Church, again and again, ever since New Testament times; and it is true in the life of any local company of the Lord's people. When, for some reason, conditions are critical, and a turning-point has been reached, at such a time it is very important to know how the Lord would meet the situation and the need.

The Corner Boards of the Tabernacle

May I remind you of a provision which the Lord made in the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness? The Lord gave instructions that, in the erection of the boards of the Tabernacle, at the corners there should be an extra board, reinforcing the turning-points. Of course, corners are always delicate things, perilous things; turning-points are always fraught with great possibilities. You come up to a point where a turn is going to made, a new course is going to be followed, and that turning-point needs to be negotiated with much wisdom and care. Something extra must come in there to cover it. And in that infinite wisdom of God - the recognition not only of the weakness of a corner in natural things, but of the perils connected with turning-points in spiritual life - the Lord made and makes a provision; He covers it, prescribes for it. As in the boards of the Tabernacle, there must be some real reinforcement at that delicate and dangerous point of crisis.

Let us just dwell for a moment or two upon the Tabernacle; we shall come back to it again presently. You know that it was, in type, the shrine of God's testimony. It is called the "Tabernacle of testimony", or "The Testimony". In type it was what Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, calls "the mystery of Christ" - the shrine of the mystery of Christ into which no natural eyes may peer. And in this shrine of the testimony of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, there are these turning-points; and because this testimony is involved, they are, as we have said, always precarious places and times. If something goes wrong here, if something goes wrong at this juncture, it is going to have very serious effects in the future. The next phase of things is going to be affected by what happens as we turn this corner, by just how far we negotiate this present difficult situation - whether in our lives, or in the work of God, or in the history of the Lord's people, locally or generally. The future is involved.

We have come up to this point: here are the boards all leading up to it, and from this point onwards a new course has to be taken; but oh, this new course has got to be very, very carefully safeguarded. All that has been in the past, all the labour, the work, the suffering and the cost, may be hazarded at a point of crisis by any weakness or lack of care, when we come to this issue. All the future may be made unsafe, weak, clouded by regrets, if this turning-point is unguarded.

Paul's Letters to Timothy: A Critical Point

Now it is with such a turning-point in the Church's history, and with the Lord's way of handling it, that we are confronted when we take up Paul's two letters to Timothy. We find ourselves at one of the major turning-points in the history of the Church - a turning-point fraught with momentous issues; and those issues have thrown their shadows right down the centuries to the present day. We need to know what was God's provision - which remains as His provision - to meet that which came in at the turn of the road then. For the values that we have given us here in these two letters - and you will never call them 'little' letters again, if ever you have - were meant to cover this whole age, because the Holy Spirit, who gave these letters through Paul, foresaw the far-reaching effects of what was happening. And what is of general and comprehensive importance here has its own application to all those minor crises that occur in our own personal lives, or in our life together as God's people.

Such a crisis, then, was the occasion of Paul writing these two letters to Timothy. And may I say again, for I do want to make clear this very, very important thing: this is an inclusive and comprehensive example of all crises in the spiritual life, an example in principle and in nature: that is, it has all the features of any spiritual crisis, and it therefore contains all God's method and means of meeting any spiritual crisis. We are not just dealing with Church history - we are dealing with our own history. We need to be met at that very point in our own spiritual lives.

Inclusively, then, the Divine method of meeting any critical situation is - what? It is the reinforcement of fundamental and essential realities. That is what these two letters contain. The reinforcement of the boards at the corner, in the re-INforcement - and ENforcement, if you like, for Paul commands here, as well as exhorts - of fundamental and essential realities, is God's inclusive method of dealing with any threat, or any possibility, or any actual change in the course of things. And there is one all-comprehending fundamental of true Christianity, and that is spirituality - its essentially spiritual nature. So that God's method in meeting any critical situation in the Christian life is to reinforce, or to recover, spirituality.

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Christianity Wholly Spiritual

For true Christianity, from its very beginning, through all its growth, to its final perfecting, is wholly spiritual. A true Christian is fundamentally and essentially, by his very being and existence, a spiritual person. All our growth in grace is not the growth of time, of years, or of the acquiring of knowledge about the things of God. True growth is just our own spiritual growth, and before God there is no other stature, no other growth. God takes infinite pains to see that our growth is spiritual growth. And the consummation and the perfecting of the life of the Christian is a wholly spiritual thing. For the consummation is a spiritual body. "If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body... that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural" (1 Cor. 15:44,45). Those words, as you know, apply to the resurrection body. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (vs. 44). So it needs a spiritual person to occupy a spiritual body; and if the spiritual body is the consummation of the Christian life, then the Lord would have, not a poor, little spiritual person occupying a consummate body; He would have us full-grown, so that the perfecting of the Christian life is in keeping with its consummation: it must be spiritual.

Everything else in the Christian life is spiritual. As the people are spiritual people by their very birth by the Spirit, so their work and service are spiritual. It is not a matter only of how many things we do, but of the spiritual quality of what we do. There can be tremendous spiritual value intrinsically in a 'small' thing done in the Holy Spirit, while very little may come of a vast amount of feverish activity in what is called Christian work. Everything is judged in Heaven by its spiritual value. The warfare is spiritual; you have no need to be reminded of that. "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but... against the spiritual hosts of wickedness..." (Eph. 6:12). Our knowledge and our understanding as Christians are spiritual. Our fellowship is spiritual - our relationship with one another is a spiritual relationship, in the unity of the Spirit.

All government amongst Christians is spiritual. It is not autocratic, it is not official - it is spiritual. Very, very few Christians today are able to discern and discriminate between human government and spiritual government in the House of God. They confuse the two, and thereby bring in many, many complications. Government in the Christian realm is spiritual government. Guidance is spiritual guidance "led by the Spirit" (Rom. 8:1-4). The methods and resources of the Church, of Christians, are spiritual methods and resources. All this makes up the comprehensive truth that the fundamental reality of the true Christian life is spirituality: that is, that it is all of the Holy Spirit.

In one of the closing chapters of the prophecies of Ezekiel (47:1-12), there is brought into view the river - the river rising in the sanctuary, broadening and deepening on its way - and on its banks trees, bearing fruit every season, and the leaf unfading. I believe that to be a foreshadowing, a pre-figuring, of what we have in the book of the Acts. The trees are men, planted by God, drawing their life from the river of God. How that river broke out in the sanctuary in the days of the 'Acts'! And how we see the men planted then by God on the banks of that river; and the fruit - how abundant was the fruit! Trees, sustained by heavenly life, carrying on a heavenly testimony: in a word, spiritual people, men and women whose life and resource and everything was the Spirit of God - for it was the Spirit of God who broke out in the sanctuary on the day of Pentecost. God's testimony down the whole course of the river requires spiritual people, drawing upon spiritual resources, and that is what we have there.

Spirituality Must Be Recovered or Reinforced

Now, all the troubles inside of Christianity - and 'Christianity' is a big term; it comprehends a very great deal; you can localise it and personalise it, if you like - all the troubles in Christianity are due to loss or lack of spirituality. God's method, ever and always, in getting over some trouble in us, whether personally or together, locally or in His Church, is always a reinforcement of the spiritual life. We never get over any trouble without some strengthening of our spiritual life. Is that not true? When we are faced with some crisis, we are not going to be able to patch it up, put it right, do something about it outwardly - we have got to come into a new spiritual position about this. We shall never get through until we have got a new spiritual position, or until our spiritual measure has been increased.

It is futile to try to get rid of any troubles in Christianity at large, or locally, or in ourselves, along any other line but God's line: recognising, 'This is a crisis - everything in the future depends upon how we get round this awkward corner, this difficult situation - all the past is going to be jeopardised if we do not negotiate this spiritual situation triumphantly.' How will it be done? By an extra board - by the reinforcement of what has been in the past against the future, holding everything intact by a strengthening of our spiritual life. So the Divine safeguard, or remedy, for every trouble is the reinforcement, or recovery, of spirituality.

Just look again at those boards of the Tabernacle. Firstly, they were made of acacia wood, which is known for its great strength and power of endurance. Secondly, they were of considerable height - ten cubits - which is higher than any man naturally: this is something of greater stature than you or I are naturally - we who comprise the House of God. Thirdly, they were upright, standing on their feet. Those three things are very significant. Here is something that needs strength that is more than ordinary strength, for endurance. Here is something that means stature that is more than ordinary human stature, to rise above. And here is something that must really be on its feet, established.

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Spiritual Strength of Christianity at the Beginning

Now you have the New Testament crowded into those few things. And these letters to Timothy, from which we have momentarily digressed, are just full of those very things. How wonderful these things are seen to be in the beginnings, are they not? For, you know, even at the beginning of the Church's history, it was a tremendous corner that was being turned. The coming of Christ Himself represented the biggest crisis in all history. It was a universal turning-point; from that time onward, things were going to change. And into that tremendous crisis right at the beginning the Church was thrown; it was a delicate, dangerous, perilous time. All the succeeding generations would be coloured by how the Church behaved and got through those critical days.

Look at the strength of the human 'boards'! Was it just human strength? Think of Peter only a very little while before: how much could he take, by that fire in the courtyard, with the finger of the maid pointing at him? He just crumpled under it! But look at him - and the others - now! Are these men on their feet? are they standing upright? They are not only standing on their feet in the Lord - they are putting other people on their feet! Look at that poor fellow who has been lying there at the gate all those years, unable to use his feet (Acts 3). Peter takes him by the right hand, and up he comes - he is on his feet right enough! The same thing happens again later (Acts 14:8): they are putting people on their feet.

And out of that grew the rich ministry that we have in the New Testament about being "established". Being established just means 'standing up'. You and I will be no good to the testimony of the Lord unless we are spiritually on our feet, standing up. When we lose our feet, when we break down, when we let go, it means that the testimony is let down. If you have lost your feet, been knocked off your feet, or if you have not been on your feet for a long time, or if you have been up and down over a long period, you will have to have a crisis over this. You have got to get round that corner. All that has been is in the balances with this present issue; all that the Lord would have in the future is made possible, or will be all wrong, unless you get round this corner quickly, and get your feet in the Lord.

You know what I mean by 'getting your feet in the Lord': it is having what Paul calls "full assurance" - "assurance" - that is, about your salvation. For these boards, as you know, were founded in two basic things - two sockets - made of silver. Now silver signifies redemption, and the double testimony under their feet emphasized or reinforced this twice over. Two is always sufficiency of testimony, is it not? - and they were in that. We need to have assurance of our salvation, certainty about this matter. Until that is so, there is no strength and there is no uprightness; there is no endurance, no stature; no measure. And that applies to many other things besides our foundation, our confidence, our faith, our certainty with the Lord. These are things which must really characterize the true Christian. These are the constituents of a spiritual man, or a spiritual Church.

A Dispensational Crisis

Now, if you have been thinking in Timothy's letters, if you know those letters at all, does it not all come back to you? Paul's Lord was making him write those letters on these very things at a time of tremendous crisis. The whole crisis in Christianity, at this turning-point in its history, was focused in this young man himself. These letters to Timothy are nothing less than dispensational in their significance. They contain far more than those favourite texts: "Take thy part in suffering hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 2:3); or, "Fight the good fight of the faith" (1 Tim. 6:12); or, "That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work" (2 Tim. 3:17); or, "A vessel unto honour... prepared unto every good work" (2 Tim. 2:21).

How we love these fragments! Yes, but do remember that every one of them is set in the background of a crisis for the dispensation, for, until you recognise that, you have not really got the value of the fragments. Why 'take your share of hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus'? Because the dispensation hangs upon it, Timothy! This is not only for you, but for the future. Why be "a vessel unto honour", why "lay hold on eternal life", why "fight the good fight"? There are far, far-reaching issues at stake, right on to the end of Christianity's history - that is why! These letters were not written to Timothy just for Timothy's sake, for the time being, to help this young fellow along in his own Christian life. And they were certainly not written just to give us nice fragments for our own Christian life. These letters were written at a most critical time in Christianity's history, and all their fragments relate to that.

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Imminent Departure of Paul

Now take the fragments in their setting, and they acquire new meaning, new significance. You will understand why Paul is so serious - his appeals, his exhortations; his repeated "O man of God", "O man of God" (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17). Was there a crisis on? Well, there are plenty of proofs in the letters themselves of that fact. You can pick out some of the indications. First of all, be reminded that these were the last writings of the Apostle. The second letter was probably the last thing that Paul ever wrote, and he wrote it within perhaps hours of his execution. Paul is going, Paul is passing from this scene; Paul's personal ministry, in word and in writing, is coming to a close. There is going to be a real loss and a real gap, tremendous loss to the Church. It is a crisis. If God takes away any servant of His through whom He has met His people in some rich, full way, there is always a great gap, and that gap does not become smaller as time goes on. You are always wishing that that servant of God were back to help; you are always saying, 'Now what would he say, what would he do?' I do not exaggerate the point. This letter contains this. Paul says: "I am already being offered up" (2 Tim. 4:6). Is that a crisis? Well, if it is - and it is - we need something, Paul, from the Lord to meet this situation. The Lord must reinforce us at this turn in the road.

Secession from Paul

And these letters do that! You see that, as we go on. Ah, but not only so - the letters reveal a secession from Paul. He cries: "all that are in Asia turned away from me" (1 Tim. 1:15). And, although we know that some did leave him because it was too costly to stay with him, and that the peril of his death was overshadowing any association, it is difficult, in looking into this matter, not to conclude that the turning from Paul by those in Asia was on DOCTRINAL GROUNDS. You say, 'Where have you the evidence for that?' The evidence is abundant, and will be brought forward presently. There is a secession from Paul because of his teachings, his line of things; because of the standard that he has raised, because of the level that he has insisted upon. They cannot go on with Paul, and that is a crisis. Anticipating somewhat, we may go further, and say that the outcome of that secession from Paul may be seen in the first chapters of the book of the Revelation. The condition of the very churches in Asia that Paul had been used to bring into being, beginning with Ephesus, of which Timothy was the overseer - the condition of those churches in the first chapters of the Revelation is seen to be resultant upon their turning from the man whom God had used to bring them into being. It is a very critical thing to let go something that God has done, to lower your standard. We shall come back later to consider how terribly the standard was lowered. It is most dangerous, it represents a tremendous crisis, to weaken on anything that the Lord has shown to be His will. So, they were leaving Paul.

Spiritual Decline

And then, look at the change in the nature of things indicated by these letters. They are just full of a lowering level of spiritual life, in every way, a loss of spirituality, a decline. It is a crisis. Without going into details, all I will say at this point is this: that, where God has given richly, where God has given in any fullness, where God has called to anything more than the nominal and shown His mind to be spiritual fullness, the peril is always present of losing, letting go, declining, dropping away to some lower level, perhaps because of the cost of going on, or for some other reason. This peril is always present.

Now I come back for a moment to where we started: reinforcement. The Lord is always seeking to strengthen our spirituality in order to guard against these threats and perils which are ever imminent, never far away. And is it not impressive that, when there is a time of danger, of peril, of a threat, of a crisis in the spiritual life, the Lord puts us into such a state of agony and suffering and distress that we have got to get a new position with Him altogether, or we shall not get through? How faithful He is! Because of a threat, because of a danger, He may plunge us right into a sea of difficulty and trial, in order to strengthen our swimming powers, to get us into some fuller measure, so that we shall not so easily be caught there again. When anything like that reappears, we shall recognise it for what it is, and know that we have got to keep our feet, keep our balance, keep steady.

So these letters are just full of exhortations to Timothy "Be strong", in other words 'Be steady'; "Take your share of hardship"; "Lay hold on eternal life" - all because of what Timothy signifies in the whole dispensation.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - The Divine Reaction

Let us consider a little further some of the indications of the existence of a real crisis at the time when Paul wrote these letters to Timothy. We have noted the first feature of that crisis in the imminent departure and withdrawal of Paul himself from the scene. Undoubtedly the Apostle was writing largely for that very reason. The things he was saying to Timothy were said largely because he was going. These things needed saying, because the responsibility was going to be left to others, and to Timothy in a particular way. It constituted a very big change that Timothy and the faithful men mentioned by the Apostle (2 Tim. 2:2) were to take up the work and the responsibility, to stand in the place that Paul had occupied. And so the Apostle was laying the burden very heavily upon Timothy and these others, because of his near-at-hand departure.

Then we took note of that secession from himself, to which he refers. All those who were in Asia had turned from him; they were no longer prepared to follow Paul, no longer standing with him in the truth and purpose for which he had given his life, no longer faithful to the great revelation which God had given him. Perhaps they did not have an adequate apprehension of how great a thing it was that had come through Paul. For it is difficult to believe that anyone who had a real apprehension of the greatness of those things could turn away like this. However, be that as it may, they were leaving Paul, which meant that they were leaving what Paul had sought to realise.

Peril of Moral Laxity

Furthermore, we began to note the change toward a real state of spiritual depreciation, indicated by the content of these two letters. I will not turn you to every fragment and every passage indicative of these things, but it does not take very long to read these letters, and I would suggest that, after having had it pointed out, you take them up anew and read them carefully. Read them again and again. The Apostle refers to some things that are worse than sad or grievous - they are quite evil. There are things creeping in and having a place amongst Christians, such as moral laxity - carelessness in moral conduct and relationships; truly a sign of a lowering of spiritual temper, temperature, standard. The beginnings of it, so far as the Church, so far as Christianity was concerned, are traceable in these letters. The Apostle is saying, in effect: 'These two things cannot go together: spirituality - a real, true spiritual life - and moral laxity.'

Perhaps you think that that is a terrible subject even to mention. I do not know whether that is so, but the world is a terrible place, a terrible place, morally, and we all have to live here. The atmosphere is full of it, the papers are full of it, and it is not always easy to keep that atmosphere, if not that kind of life, altogether at bay. It insinuates itself, and it is a very, very persistent means employed by the Devil to ruin the spiritual life. The enemy will not scruple to catch the people of God on the line of moral laxity, and if he can do that, he has ruined their testimony.

You remember that we began our last chapter by referring to the Tabernacle as the shrine of the testimony of God, and to God's recognition of the need to reinforce the corners, the turning-points - that is, to reinforce spirituality against the perils and dangers of a corner, a change-round from one line to another. You see, it is the TESTIMONY that is involved. And let me say this: that, far from being the least involved, or the most immune, Christian people are more in danger of this very thing than anyone else. If the enemy can get a Christian on that low level of life, at that point, he has struck a masterblow. If he can get a servant of God overcome there, he has surely consolidated his ground against the testimony of Jesus. Therein is a long and terrible history; it explains much. Hence - 'Timothy, Timothy, "flee youthful lusts" (2 Tim. 2:22): beware of the encroachment and inroads of this moral laxity that is in the world - flee from it.' Is that an unnecessary word? Forgive me, if you think so. But we have got to reinforce against anything like that for the testimony's sake.

Becoming Behaviour and Apparel in the House of God

But that is not the whole of it. I must say here some things that I would rather not say, and if they do not apply to you personally, your enlightenment and being made aware may be helpful to some others in danger. For another feature of the change and the lowering level of spirituality marked in this letter is unbecoming behaviour in the House of God. The House of God is mentioned, as you notice here, and one of Paul's emphatic words here is "how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God" (1 Tim. 3:15); that is why he wrote this. There is such a thing as unbecoming behaviour. And he touches upon the women - the women with unbecoming dress, or lack of becoming dress. Now that is not something that we like to mention but should it not be mentioned? It is a mark of poor spiritual life, of a low spiritual level, when that happens; these things are a barometer of spiritual life. For spirituality is pre-eminently practical. When we speak of 'spiritual' things and 'spirituality', people sometimes make a joke of it and say, 'Oh, they are so spiritual!' Well, if you can think or talk like that, you have not any idea of what spirituality is. Spirituality is tremendously practical: it touches your dress, it touches your behaviour, it touches your conduct as a Christian! Spirituality says, 'You will not overdo it and you will not underdo it; you will have a proper, dignified behaviour'. That is what is here.

But is it not a pity that these things which Paul wrote, concerning women, sisters, for instance, have been taken out and made subjects in themselves, so that Paul has been reproached that he ever said such things? That is complete mishandling. Why not recognise that this is set in a decline of Christianity, and that these things are marks of spiritual decline? That is why they have to be spoken about; they are not things in themselves. Naturally, you may have your feelings about them. You might, for instance, be called old-fashioned, not up-to-date; you have not moved with the times. But if you are spiritual, you will have another kind of argument. You will not be behind the times, and you will not be moving with the times: you will be moving with Heaven, and that is a different standard altogether.