Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

The Practical Outworking

Now we are going to turn at this point to bring this into a very practical realm. I am going back to a section of the Old Testament, not to study it, but to remind ourselves of it. At the end of the first book and the beginning of the second book of Kings you have the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, and when you look into those ministries you find that the distinctive characteristic of both was life. I am not going into all the incidents, but just to dwell with the issue. The distinctive characteristic being life, it indicated what was the issue for the Lord's people to whom they were called to be prophets - and for those beyond the Lord's people; because, you remember, their ministries went beyond Israel. That is the point that the Lord Jesus made at Nazareth. "There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah... and unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon... And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:25-27). The testimony was to go out to, and through, Israel; keep that in mind. And it was the testimony of life; and that was the issue which was in view for the Lord's people as seen in the fact that these men were prophets of Israel.

Therefore, again, that ministry necessitated situations which were humanly quite impossible. The characteristic feature of their ministry was life. That indicated the issue that the Lord had with His people - their life, their spiritual life, their testimony to the nations; and being a question of life in the ministry, to recover that testimony it became necessary that they should be brought continually into situations of human impossibility which could not be met on any other than Divine ground.

Now in these two men, of course, you have typically Christ and the Church - Christ in Elijah, eventually coming to Jordan and from Jordan going up in glory, and in his ascension his mantle falling upon his successor; and the Church in Elisha taking up the ministry of the ascended and glorified Lord in the power of His Spirit, fulfilling His own word - "and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father" (John 14:12). What does Elisha represent? We have said that he represents the Church, but we must be more precise than that. He represents the ministry of the Church on this basis - that he speaks of the Holy Spirit present in the Church bringing out all the values, all the potentialities, of the resurrection and ascension and glorifying of Christ. You see, they have both been to Jordan, they have both passed through Jordan, the one with the other - speaking in New Testament language, the one in the other - and on the other side of Jordan the glorious rapture of the master has taken place; and then the successor, taking up the mantle - taking up the Spirit, receiving the Spirit - moves to put to the proof all the mighty virtues and powers of that risen life. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"

Now that question is going to be answered in numerous ways, every one of which is set in a situation of death. If you can grasp that, you have the key to the whole matter. Then some other people come into view, called the sons of the prophets. Well, of course, from the story as it is written, you do not become very enamoured of these sons of the prophets. However, they mean something. What do they stand for? Well, just this - those who will serve among the Lord's people in relation to that energy of the Spirit which is present with Elisha; those who will serve among the Lord's people in the testimony of Jesus. It is the testimony of His risen life. That is very simple.

Now note what happens. These sons of the prophets must have experience in order to serve, and their experiences will be identical with this particular ministry that is going on - the ministry of life conquering death. Now consider the matters recorded - the waters of Jericho, the poison in the pot, the axe-head that fell into the river and was made to swim. All are suggestions of death working in various directions, in various ways, in various connections (each of which has its own significance) and of life coming in to triumph over death in all its operations. These sons of the prophets are having experiences in this, and they are learning by being terribly tested about it. Every time it is like that. "Master, what shall we do?" is their immediate cry, as it is ours in similar dilemmas. But the point is that it was through severe, deep testing that these men came to prove the power of resurrection life in order that they might be sons of the prophet.

You see how that corresponds to our passage - "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders." They signify something which is altogether outside of the human realm - something wonderful, which cannot be accounted for on any ground other than that it is of God. They are for signs and wonders, and the sons of the prophets alongside of Elisha are taking their character from him, learning in his school in an experimental way.

Now we too are right there. We have the Spirit present. The ministry of the Spirit is the ministry of life conquering death in all manner of ways and directions, and our education is in that connection. If we are to come into this service, this real service amongst the Lord's people, we must know through experience in this way and in that way the power of His resurrection. The only thing that will really serve is life which conquers death. Now let me repeat; in a testimony which is not a testimony of words and phrases and doctrines and systems of truth and interpretations, but a testimony in very truth, in very power, in utter reality, we have to be brought constantly - not once nor twice - in different ways, different connections, different places, into situations where only God can meet the need - the God of resurrection Who alone can raise the dead. That is the testimony, and it is not something that you can hear talked about and then take up; don't you try it! If you want to be in the good of the ministry of the Spirit of life, you have to face this - you are going to be plunged into situations where no one can help, nothing can meet the need, but God Himself. That will happen more than once, and you, like the great Apostle will have to say "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead" (2 Cor. 1:9). When iron swims, you have a testimony that there is life triumphant over death! One is tempted to take up the various incidents in Elisha's life, but it would take far too long. All the way along it is life triumphing over death in this way and that.

Succession a Question of Life

The point I want to make is that succession is a question of life, life which has proved itself again and again as more than sufficient for all the power of death. Elisha's testimony went on after he was gone, that is, the power of life was there even when he himself as God's servant and instrument had passed off the scene. You recall the incident of the dead man coming to life when he touched Elisha's bones. The testimony of that is this - Elisha may be dead, but this life is not dead. The vessel of it for the time being may be laid aside but the life itself goes on. If it touches what is dead, it will restore it to life. It is the whole principle of succession. God's principle is life - that is my point. You cannot have succession of personal ministries or of instrumentalities, of means or anything else; you cannot have a guarantee that the thing will go on fulfilling the original purpose by appointing successors. It must be a testimony of life, and it would be better that things were allowed to cease when the original life is no longer there. We should not try to keep going something which no longer has that life of God in it. The earth today is cumbered with the lifeless corpses of works, organisations, which had a beginning in life, but which have lost it and are now being kept going at tremendous expense and yet fulfilling no vital purpose. Succession is a matter of life. Let us remember that. Oh, if we are concentrated upon anything at all, let it be upon that. We do not want to get something going with a name; we do not want to keep things, places, ministries, teaching, going. No, no, not at all! If the thing is to continue when we are gone, it can only be if the life of God is in it to carry it on, and still prove that it is of God and not of ourselves. We can go, but if the thing is of God it will go on; it does not depend upon any thing or people, but upon the Lord Himself. The Divine principle of succession is life, and that the life of the Holy Spirit.

[Shammu]

Life by the Cross

Well, one more word - the contrast between Elisha's servant, Gehazi, and the sons of the prophets. Gehazi is a very despicable figure. You call to mind the outstanding incidents of his association with so great a man as Elisha. Gehazi represents that professional association with the testimony. You remember when the widow's son died and she went after the prophet, and the prophet said to Gehazi, "Take my staff in thy hand... and lay my staff upon the face of the child" (2 Kings 4:29). The woman saw through Gehazi, as women usually do see through people like that, and she was not putting any confidence in him. She clung to the prophet, but Gehazi went off with the rod, and arrived, I expect, very self-important, very professional - the servant of the great prophet! In he walks and makes his way to the room where the boy is lying, puts the rod upon the lad, and stands back expecting to see something happen, but nothing does happen. No doubt Gehazi exhausts every method of making this thing work. Perhaps the rod is not in the right position; try it another way! - but nothing happens. At last he has to admit defeat and go back a confessed failure.

The sons of the prophets, on the other hand, are brought into touch with equally difficult situations where acts of God are called for, but they see the things happen. What is the difference? What is the explanation? I think we find it here. You remember that when the Lord came down from the mount of Transfiguration, He found some of His disciples at the foot, and a poor father had brought to them his son that the son might be healed; and the father said to the Lord, "I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him" (Matt. 17:16). Afterwards the disciples privately said to the Lord. "Why could not we cast it out?" Well, you remember the end of Gehazi. He had seen the miracle upon Naaman, who, when he found himself cleansed from his leprosy, wanted to make a present to the prophet, and the prophet refused it. But Gehazi was governed by personal interests and so he went after Naaman and concocted a story and obtained the present. When he came back, his master said, "Went not my heart with thee, when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee? ...The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee" (2 Kings 5:26,27). Gehazi became a leper. Now it is a very solemn thing to carry this over to the New Testament; but do you see Simon Peter in that Judgment Hall denying his Lord thrice with oaths and curses? What is this? He is closely associated with this very Lord of life, this Prince of life, but in Peter as in the others, all the way through the time of that association you can trace personal interests; they had personal interests in the Kingdom, they wanted position in the Kingdom, they quarrelled amongst themselves as to who should be greatest in the Kingdom. Yes, there were personal elements. The end of that is spiritual leprosy and death. Anything that is personal, professional, in the way of our association with the Lord, is going to end in our undoing; it will not carry the testimony through.

The sons of the prophets are in another position. They are themselves in living union with this one whom they call Father. There is nothing that you can trace of personal interest with them. Whatever you may have to say about them and their faults and weaknesses and failures, you have to recognise that these men are really in spirit, in heart, one with their master, and they are recognising that everything for them depends upon that master. Is there poison in the pot? Well, he alone can meet the situation. Is this crowd of people hungry and needing to be fed and there is nothing for them? He alone can do it; he will feed them. Has that axe-head gone to the bottom? It is he who can recover it - not Gehazi! The power is in him and in him only. They are in spirit on the other side of Jordan, in the place where the self elements have been dealt with. I know the type is imperfect, but I think there is no doubt that this is what it is.

If the Cross has not done its work, we are 'something' in the work of God, and that is the way of death, not the way of life. When we come into the picture it is the way of death, as for Gehazi, and that must go out in the end in shame and failure. When the Cross has been planted well into that self-life, it is no longer I but Christ; that is the way of life. We may come into very difficult situations which may look like death, but no, this "is not unto death but for the glory of God" (John 11:4).

Death an Opportunity for the Manifestation of the Glory of God

This is one big argument for the fact that the testimony of Jesus to be in us, to be borne by us, necessitates in the first place the setting aside of ourselves by the Cross, and such a union with Christ on the ground of His risen life that He can allow us to come into situations which are death and seem to be the end of everything, but those very situations are the ones that are definitely foreordained for the glorifying of God. Remember there is that sovereignty behind these experiences, they are not accidents, they are not just haps. "Who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? ...Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him" (John 9:2-3) - that God may be glorified. Strange sovereignty in a man born blind!

Lazarus is sick and dies, and there is sovereignty behind it. The Lord Jesus is standing back to give place to that sovereignty. "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" (John 11:40). That is the thing that governs this.

How do we view our situations - as tragedies? as judgments of God? Let us ask again whether the Lord has not got something wrapped up in them which, when it breaks out, will be tremendously for His glory. That is Elijah, that is Elisha. It is life triumphant over death as a sovereign thing in the hands of God to bring out His glory. I do want that all the words and ideas and material used shall not just be the stuff of a message, but that we shall really get to the heart of what the Lord is saying. The Lord is after a vessel with this testimony - that here is that which is of God, very God, all of God, not of man at all, and which will therefore bring all the glory to God. But to have part in such a 'Zion' vessel for His glory we have to come by strange, unusual ways, and many times we shall come to situations which look like the triumph of death, and the answer in ourselves will be death. "We despaired... of life: yea, we... had the answer of death within ourselves" (2 Cor. 1:. But then there is sovereignty in it - "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead." Let us look at ourselves for a moment; have one glance at yourself. What is the hope? Is there any hope? The sentence is that it is death. All right; but go the next step. It is not the end with God; it is only "that we should not trust in ourselves." Are you trying to find something in yourself in which to hope? Is that a part of the trouble? What is the meaning of all this introspection, this accursed introspection, which is death, death, death? Oh, let me say to you from my heart - be as objective as you possibly can in your faith. Leave the subjective side to the Lord; that is not your business at all; that is God's side. Our business is to hold on to Him, to look off unto, His is to do the rest. We simply recognise it has to be done, and commit ourselves to the Lord to have it done; then we hold on to Him, but we do not hope in ourselves. Let us stop looking for any ground of hope or trust in ourselves - "that we should not trust in ourselves." Why has the Lord brought you to despair? - in order to stop you looking for any ground of hope in yourself; that you should not trust in yourself, but in God Who raiseth the dead.

[Shammu]

Chapter 7 - The Mystery of the Gospel

"The mystery of the gospel" (Eph. 6:19).

"I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).

"...in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will" (Eph. 1:11).

We have remarked that the mystery of the gospel relates to the deep and hidden counsels of God before creation. If we want to know what those counsels were, we have that given to us mainly in this letter to the Ephesians. There are three aspects of this whole counsel of God, or of this mystery of the gospel. In dealing with it we are, of course, touching perhaps the most controversial matter that has ever come under the discussion of the Church and probably the most difficult thing that has to be resolved; indeed, I do not think that it can be resolved. We have simply to accept statements of fact. You will see what I mean as we go on.

The Mystery of the Eternal Counsels

There are three aspects of this whole counsel of God, or of that which is called the mystery of the gospel, the mystery or the secret of the good news. Now, a secret is not a thing which lies on the surface; you have to get deeper down to find a secret. It means that there is something here in the good news of God that has a very deep meaning. If God has a secret, you may be sure that it is not some trifling matter. No, it is something tremendous; and the first aspect of this mystery, or secret, or whole counsel of God, is the mystery of the eternal counsels. What are those counsels? We must, of course, speak after the manner of men; but we must not try to bring such things within the limits of our understanding and knowledge. We do not know exactly how it happened, but what we do know as a fact is this, that before the world was, God is represented as taking counsel with Himself, projecting an intention - a great, comprehensive intention - which is called here 'the purpose', 'the eternal purpose'; a purpose, an intention, which has a centre and a circumference with a good many aspects of outworking and realization.

The centre was God's Son, known to us as the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the pivot; that in the fullness of the times God should "sum up all things in Christ" (Eph. 1:10). That is very comprehensive, for if you have "all things", you have all; you cannot add to that. "To sum up all things in Christ". That is the heart of the purpose and of the counsel.

But then there is the marvellous statement - words around which there is so much controversy - that He saw us, He had us in His eye. When I say 'us' I refer to an elect company which at a certain time, in a certain dispensation in the history of this world, would be gathered out of the nations; and He foresaw every one of them. Now this is the mystery of the gospel, and it is beyond us. Imagination reels here; the statement seems almost fantastic. If the word means anything at all, those concerned were individually foreseen, foreknown and chosen in Christ, and foreordained and predestinated. Those are words you cannot overcome; every member of that elect body was foreknown, every member was predestinated. Now listen: predestination was not to salvation or otherwise - that is where so much interpretation has gone wrong. Predestination has to do with specific purpose, not with salvation. It is according to His purpose in Christ Jesus that we were foreknown and foreordained "to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom. 8:29). We were predestinated with a purpose, and - marvellous to relate! - given to Christ. It is as though, before ever we had a being, before the creation, the Father had the Son and brought each one of us and gave us to the Son as His. Does that sound extravagant? Well, what is the meaning of the Scripture? Have you read thoughtfully through the seventeenth chapter of John? What is the thing which is constantly recurring in that chapter? Repeatedly we read there of "those whom thou hast given me". And in another place He has said, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me" (John 6:37). It is tremendous in its implication. Those are the eternal counsels, this is the mystery of the gospel; and although that mystery, that secret, is said to be disclosed now, who of us has got to the bottom of it yet? I doubt whether any of us will get to the bottom of it in this life, but we have at any rate got it opened up. But this mystery of the gospel is so boundless, so unfathomable. Here are statements of fact concerning a people given to Christ in God's foreknowledge. I know, of course, your mental problem about election, but wait a minute; let us begin there, and we will come to the other in a minute.

That, then, is the first thing about the mystery, the wonder, of the gospel, the secret of God which was hidden from ages and generations but now made known (Col. 1:26). I say, that startles our imagination, but there it is; and we can do no more than point it out.

The Proclamation of the Mystery

(a) Essential, Despite Divine Foreordaining

The second thing about it is the proclaiming of it. "I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God". And here in the end of this letter Paul is asking for prayer from believers that he may be able to open his mouth to utter this mystery, that he may have boldness to speak it (Eph. 6:19); and does it not want boldness to say things like that! See what such preaching makes of Jesus Christ, see where it puts Him; all things summed up in Christ! Go out and say that to Mohammedans and see what they will have to say to you! Well, you want boldness to declare that to those who have not seen. However, the Apostle is concerned with the proclamation of the whole counsel, the mystery of God.

That proclamation brings us up against another matter. If eternal counsel is all this - foreseen, predestinated, given - then why proclaim the gospel? Surely it must happen if God has decided upon it! If it is all settled like that and they are given, why proclaim? Immediately you introduce the question of man's responsibility, and that seems to be a contradiction. That is the great theological trouble; but all I am going to say about that is this, that responsibility in this matter of proclaiming does not undercut what we have just been saying about predestination. It does not mean for one moment that in putting before people an option you rule out predestination. No, you are put into the position of responsibility for declaring the whole counsel of God, and people are put into a responsible position by hearing it. The one truth does not neutralize the other.

It is the same in prayer. If God knows what He is going to do, why pray? Will it make any difference? But we cannot argue like that. We are told we have to pray, that is all. The responsibility comes back on us, although there is all this other side concerning the Divine counsels.

[Shammu]

(b) A Full Gospel Essential to Full Growth

Then - and I want to say this very precisely - the full counsel of God is the only safe thing. I wonder if a very poor spiritual condition in converts, in Christianity, is not due to very inadequate preaching. Men are afraid to go too far, and they say, 'Preach the simple gospel of sins forgiven and judgment past and hope of heaven' - making the individual in question the object of it all instead of God's eternal counsels. Yes, the poor state amongst Christians is due to their not having been taught the whole counsel of God at the beginning. I do not believe that it is necessary to reserve the whole counsel until they reach some stage along the road where they can accept it. Why should we not go and declare to unsaved men that God from all eternity had them in view and has now come to tell them so, and to tell them why He had them in view, and what the great goal of it all is - His Son Jesus Christ? I think we should get better converts and a far better state in the Church. I believe that people should be very much better born than they are. Many are very poorly born, and their infancy is far, far too much extended in time. Well, Paul said to the Ephesians, "I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God"; and that was before he wrote his letter to them. Yes, a full counsel is the only safe thing. I must leave that there, we have a long way to go.

(c) The Message Essentially Spiritual and Heavenly

The next thing about this proclamation is that it must ever be kept in mind and in view that the gospel is an essentially spiritual and heavenly thing. When Paul speaks about the mystery of the gospel he does so in relation to all that he has been saying about "in the heavenlies in Christ". "The heavenlies" is not merely a matter of location, it is the nature of things. Again, the trouble with ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians is that they are so earthly in their Christianity, so earthbound, and the gospel has become after all such a matter of temporalities - how it affects things here in time, and the temporal and material outworkings of Christianity. As we were saying in our previous meditation, the real measure of Christianity is the measure of spirituality, and that means the measure in which the Lord Who is in heaven is known and manifested in us here. Everything takes its rise from a Christ ascended to glory outside of this world. While He was here, He was limited - limited by everything, and most of all limited in the apprehension of those in closest association with Him. When He went to heaven and the Spirit came, they received marvellous enlargement of apprehension of Christ. It was no longer an earthly one, a temporal one. It had to be a spiritual one because He was outside of this world, He could not be seen with natural eyes; in no way was it possible to have any link or communication with Him other than by the Holy Spirit. It is a very wonderful statement that Peter makes in his letter - "whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Pet. 1:. You do not see Him, yet He is most real to you. How does that come about? Because you went to Jerusalem or Capernaum and had an interview with Him? Not at all, you do not know Him in that way; your knowledge of Him is entirely spiritual. That may be true, of course, right at the beginning of the Christian life, but the principle of spirituality and heavenliness ought to mean more and more to us as we go on, as Paul wrote to the Colossians - "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory" (Col. 3:1-4).

And the need today of proclaiming the whole counsel of God lies firstly in the direction of the Lord's own people. They must know the whole counsel of God; they ought to have known it at the beginning. And then beyond them, the whole counsel of God must reach to the unsaved. But what do we find? We find this sad state in the Church, and therefore the Church cannot lift the unsaved higher than its own level. We find the Church earthbound, tied up with things here in all sorts of ways, with vision purely earthly, on this low level. The great heavenly vision of that eternal purpose of God concerning His Son is not the thing which the Church has seen and is seeing and is therefore ministering. No, the Church has to be saved from its own earthly condition and to come to the original position of the Church, a purely spiritual and heavenly thing. The whole ecclesiastical system proves the truth of this. What a thing of earth the Church has become in respect of its ecclesiastical architecture, its buildings! And that is pointed to as evidence that the church is something! The more ornate, elaborate, impressive, the building, the greater evidence that the church is something! But that is purely earthly, it is not a bit necessary to real spiritual life and effectiveness. Indeed, very often the real spirituality is found in places very different, or in no place at all - the Lord's people gathered to Him under an opened heaven. That is where the testimony is.

(d) Preaching Directed by the Holy Spirit

Then in this proclamation, the preaching must be directed or precipitated by the Holy Spirit. Why? For this very reason - and it is a principle that is borne out and shown us clearly in the book of the Acts - that only the Holy Spirit has the Divine knowledge as to where there are those given to Christ who are ready to come to Him. You cannot just go out willy-nilly and be sure of results. We have cited Paul in this matter and here is the principle stated. They were "forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, and they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not" (Acts 16:6-7). Paul might go to Bithynia and Asia at another time, but not then. The Holy Spirit is in charge. "Forbidden of the Holy Spirit... the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not". Why? - that is for the sovereignty of God. When Paul came to Corinth, he was up against a terrific situation and the Lord the Spirit said to him, "Be not afraid... I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:9,10). "I have", not 'I am going to have'. Do you see the working of eternal counsels and foreknowledge?

The whole book of Acts is constructed upon that principle. There is a lonely man crossing a desert. God in heaven has seen him and known that he is ready for the gospel, and sends Philip to make contact with him. "Go near, and join thyself to this chariot". The issue is straightforward immediately (Acts 8:26-40). Then away up in Caesarea there is a man praying; he is evidently asking the Lord to lead him on, to show him all His will. He is living up to the light he has, but he wants more. The Lord in heaven is taking notice of him. To Peter, away at Joppa, the Lord says, 'Go, make contact with that man who is ready' (Acts 10). This is the sovereignty of the Spirit in relation to eternal counsels and foreknowledge. The point is that the Holy Spirit must precipitate the proclamation and govern it, or we waste a lot of time and effort. You cannot do this sort of thing by having committees and drawing up programmes. You must be a Holy-Spirit-governed instrument for this work. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28). It is like that all the way along. It must be a matter of the Holy Spirit in charge of things; the proclamation must be entirely governed by Him like that, and precipitated by Him.

[Shammu]

The Responsibility of the Hearers

Yes, but then, you see, we come to this next thing - the responsibility of the hearers. In the mental realm this is another problem in the light of what we have been saying. Never mind, put that aside. The responsibility of the hearers. First of all, look at it in this way - the sovereignty of God which lies behind the very fact that the message has come across your path. It may be at work here at this very moment. Yes, away back there in those eternal counsels (this is no stretching of imagination) God saw you, and He said, 'I want that person for My full thought concerning My Son'; and here you are being told it and all the eternal counsels of God may sovereignly be behind your receiving this message. But the point is this, you are here where the message is being proclaimed. Do you just happen to be here? God is consistent, and if He decides upon a thing in His counsels He works to it and there it is. You say it just happens; but there it is - we are here, and it is that which begins our responsibility. Responsibility begins when God sovereignly puts His plan into operation and brings it across our path.

But you are saying, 'Man has a free will and he can refuse in spite of God's predestinating'. That is where the clash comes. Yes, he can; but we are not talking about salvation at this moment, we are talking about the purpose of our salvation. Oh yes, we can refuse our salvation, and the clash is there between God's foreknowing and predestinating, and our free will; we cannot resolve that. But here is the fact - that at this very moment God is telling us that we were called with a holy calling, that there is a tremendous thing bound up with our being saved. We can refuse the Lord what He intended; we can forfeit that which He had in view. You cannot reconcile these two things, but there they are, and there is a responsibility laid upon us. That is where that other side of the New Testament comes in, all the time warning, warning - "if", "if", "if" - and it is said every time to people who are already saved. There is a mighty 'if' constantly being pressed upon them; and are you going to say, as some, that you never know whether you are saved till you get to heaven? I am not going to accept that; I know I am saved. It is not a question that if you do something, you will be saved; and, after you are saved, if only you do something else you will keep your salvation. The 'ifs' relate to this purpose of your salvation, and you can miss that. That is where responsibility comes in on the side of the hearers. It is a mystery, true; but it is a fact.

But what does this amount to? what are we saying? Well, here you are; you believe in the Lord Jesus and believe you have eternal life; you are saved. But then the Lord comes along to you in His sovereignty and shows you that there is an 'unto' as well as a 'from'. It is a great thing to be saved from hell, from sin, from Satan, but now the Lord is saying that you were saved unto something; and if there is a lot from which to be saved, there is infinitely more unto which to be saved. Oh, it is the mighty 'unto' that governs this mystery of God. You see, the 'from' is incidental, the 'unto' is eternal. The mystery of God, our salvation, does not date back simply to when sin entered, the beginning was not the fall of man. Salvation overlaps that point and goes back to purpose - all these counsels of the Godhead before the creation and therefore before the fall. That is the object in view in the end, and God is working to that. He would have worked straight on to it but man sinned and fell. Now God must make a dip in His course and reach down with salvation to bring back to His original intention. Salvation is in relation to the eternal purpose which was before the fall. It is 'unto' more than it is 'from'. 'From', I say again, is incidental - terribly, tragically incidental, but incidental; it is not the eternal. It is the 'unto' that is governing everything, that purpose of God. Of course, in the 'from', God clothed Himself with extra glory. In the letter to the Ephesians, we have the two things - "that we should be to the praise of his glory" (1:12), that is one thing; "the glory of his grace" (1:6) is another thing. The glory of His grace is the extra that God gets when Satan interferes and man goes wrong. God is never beaten by wrong, He always gets more. So through grace, He adds to His glory.

But, mark you, that was not His intention in the beginning. I have had it said to me that God was glad when man sinned and fell, because it gave Him the chance He wanted of showing He was a gracious God. I repudiate that. No, not at all! Nevertheless, God cannot be defeated, and interference with His purpose cannot leave Him just where He was - He will get more every time. It will be the interferer who loses, and man's sin has only made possible extra glory to God along the line of grace; but it was not His intention, it was His triumph. And He is doing that with us all the way along; He is making good our need of grace in order to get extra glory to Himself. Through grace, He is getting glory where we are concerned.

God's Need on Earth of a Representation of His Full Counsel

(a) Experimental, not Theoretical

Now, God has set His heart upon having His whole counsel represented - that is the real heart of these meditations. God must have that whole counsel found in representation or He is defeated, and so He sets to work to bring those who will come, who will pay the price, into this position which, in the first place, satisfies Him, and in the second place, serves Him in that purpose; and a basic essential is a passion in our hearts for God's fullest thought. If He is going to lead us into it, He must have that response in us for His own satisfaction. Now in His dealings with us in this connection, He may lead us by permissive ways - ways, that is, which are less than His ultimate and full thought, and yet, in His permissive will, He will lead us by those ways. We find that in the sovereign government of our life we are led into something that is not wholly God's thought. That is true.

If you will allow a personal testimony, I can say with the utmost confidence that the years I spent as a denominational minister were the sovereign permissive will of God. It was right for me to be there at that time, although, as I came to see later, that realm of things was not God's full and final thought for me. But my coming to that fuller thought had to be on the basis of experience and not of theory. In that narrower realm I learned something of weakness and limitation and disappointment, both in myself and in the sphere in which I moved, which made me reach out for something better - I knew not what, and I would not have sought it but for the experience of disillusionment in the lesser realm. It was the lesser thing that made me cry out for an opened heaven, and for an order of things where I would not have to preach so many times a week simply because it was required of me as a duty, with all the terrible labour of trying to work up something to preach about - an order of things where ministry would be by revelation out from heaven, and only as and when the Holy Spirit gave and required it. Oh, the heart cry for deliverance from that old realm and order! And God in His mercy brought me through to something else on an experimental basis. Yes, God, in His sovereign permissive will, leads us in certain ways which are not His full thought at all in order to make our ultimate position to be based upon a real spiritual experience, and not upon a doctrine or a theory that we have taken on or that has been imposed on us. There are multitudes of Christians in doctrinal positions today which they know nothing about experimentally. They have accepted a tradition, a system of teaching; they are in it, they believe in it, but they know nothing about it in their own experience. That is not God's way.

The point for the moment is that we must be very careful that we do not take God's permissive will as His ultimate will. We must not say, 'The Lord led me into this, therefore I must stay and I must never move'. Be careful; you must always give God a free hand. He will not explain Himself at the time; He will seem to be contradicting Himself sometimes; you will understand later on. The thing is, never fix anything for God. If there is one thing that is made clear in the book of the Acts, it is this - God is not going to be tied up to men's ideas as to what He ought to do. That sheet let down from heaven in Peter's vision is a declaration that in heaven things exist which men will not allow here. Heaven's view is very different. Peter is going to argue this thing out with the Lord: "Not so, Lord". He might have added, 'and I can give Scripture for it! Lord, look at Lev. 11'. And the Lord makes it perfectly clear that He is not going to have anything of that. Sovereignty demands a clear road. God is always doing that sort of thing, and He demands that we shall be in such a position that He can do as He likes with us and we will not argue. That is the only way to fullness. If you are tied by your tradition, by your upbringing, by the thing that may have been of the Lord at one time, if you are tied with it and you say of it, 'as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be', you cut clean across the path of the Spirit of fullness. It is only as we are open to the Lord without prejudice, without fixity, stretched right out to the Lord, only so shall we come into the full counsel of God.

[Shammu]

(b) The Purpose, Not Self, Dominant

You see the real starting point - the point which is the guarantee of fullness - is this, that everything is governed by God's purpose and God's will, and not by our need or our desire. We are called unto His eternal glory, we are called according to His purpose. If we are going to limit the gospel of salvation to just the meeting of our need, we are going to limit things. The full thing is not just to be saved from a fall, it is to be saved back to that which we missed in the fall - and that is not just a life marked by a certain kind of behaviour, but a mighty purpose of God. It is when we see that, and only as that becomes a dominant thing - God's will, God's purpose: not even my need, and certainly not my desire - only then are we on the highway to God's fullness; and you will find, if you are going to be entrusted with the fellowship of the mystery, that will be the way the Lord will take you. You will constantly be coming up against this. We have to be governed by eternal purpose, not by what we think necessary, not by what we would like, even for the Lord.

This mystery of the gospel - we realise even now how it defeats every attempt to explain it; but if we cannot grasp the terms, that is, if it does defeat our minds, let us open our hearts to the Lord on this simple but very sound basis - 'Lord, there is something very great in Thy thought; I see it is something infinitely more than that I should be saved. I do not grasp it, I cannot explain or understand it; but it is something very great to which Thou hast saved me and called me in Christ; and I want it, and I commit myself to Thee for all that. I trust Thy grace in whatever it may cost; I trust Thy power to perfect that which concerneth me, to work it all out; I commit myself to Thee for all Thy will, for all Thy purpose, for the whole counsel, for all that is so far beyond my apprehension; Lord, work in me that which is well-pleasing in Thy sight'.

The End

Up next, The Gospel of the Kingdom

[Shammu]

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

The Gospel of the Kingdom
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 - The Kingdom of God

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14).

Overshadowing and encompassing all else in the Bible, and especially in the new Testament, is the phrase: "the kingdom of God". "John the Baptist [cometh], preaching... saying... the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:1,2). Jesus preached it and taught it and said that it had come nigh (Matt. 4:17). Before His transfiguration He had said that there were some there who would not see death until they saw the Kingdom coming in power (Mark 9:1). After His resurrection He spoke with His disciples about the Kingdom (Acts 1:3).

This was the theme, too, of the apostles. Paul himself spoke of it to those in Rome as late as his imprisonment: right up to the end, it would seem, it was concerning 'the Kingdom of God, and the things of Jesus Christ', that he spoke (Acts 28:31). The letter to the Hebrews is summed up in one phrase: "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." (Heb. 12:28) literally, 'being in the course of receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken'. That explains all that is in that letter. And the book of the Revelation itself can be gathered into one sentence: "Now is come... the kingdom of our God..." (Rev. 12:10).

All this amounts to a very full, strong and comprehensive statement, and it is therefore surely necessary for us to acquaint ourselves with the meaning of the Kingdom of God. At the outset, therefore, let us spend a little time in defining the Kingdom of God, for we must be clear on this matter of definition.

A DEFINITION

What is the Kingdom of God? It is generally agreed that the word 'kingdom' is not a very good translation of the Greek word which lies behind it. The root meaning of the original word translated 'kingdom' in our English Bibles is 'sovereign rule', or 'reign', so that it should be more correctly translated 'the sovereign rule of God', and we must keep that in mind all the way along. We shall go on using the word 'kingdom', for we shall find it difficult to get away from it, but let us be very clear that, when we are using the word 'kingdom' in this connection, we are thinking and talking about the sovereign rule or reign of God.

Now, in the light of the teaching of the New Testament, this has three aspects.

Firstly, it does mean the kingly rule of God. Then it leads on to an order or nature of things characteristic of the One who rules. Note how it is to be: the one LEADS ON to the other. The latter condition is not always present. God rules: that is a fact in itself; but that is sovereign rule where over a very large area there is nothing characteristic of God, nothing which sets forth the nature of God. But the fact and truth of God ruling LEADS ON to the next thing, and that is an order which takes its character from Him who rules. That is what it is intended to lead to, and in the New Testament you will find that that has a large place, as we shall see later.

And then, going one stage further, the sovereign reign or rule of God leads to an actual realm in which that order and nature operates and is expressed. This is something into which you can enter, but you cannot enter it apart from the other two things: the fact of His absolute Lordship, and the fact that you, by some mighty work of God, have become a 'partaker of the Divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4) - the very nature of God has been introduced and a new order of things has been set up.

That is the definition of the Kingdom of God. It is very important, because I hope you are going to be led to a new reading of all that is in the Word about the Kingdom, and you will be in confusion unless you have clearly grasped that definition in its threefold aspect.

It hardly needs to be said that the 'Kingdom of God' and the 'Kingdom of Heaven' are not in any sense two different things. Matthew prefers the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. There is a very good reason why Matthew preferred the title 'the Kingdom of Heaven', the sovereign rule of Heaven - or rather of the heavens, for the word is not in the singular, it is in the plural. Mark, Luke and John always call it the 'Kingdom of God' - again, for very good reasons, into which I leave you to dig. But the two titles denote the same thing.

[Shammu]

THE KINGDOM OF GOD PRESENT

Now, we are expressly told by John the Baptist and by the Lord Himself that the Kingdom of God or of Heaven was "at hand", was "nigh", had "drawn nigh". On one occasion the Lord put it "...is come nigh unto you" (Luke 10:9) on another, "...is in the midst of you", or "within you" (Luke 17:21). And, as we have already quoted, before His transfiguration the Lord said, 'There are some here who in their lifetime will see it come in power'. So we are told that it is present. But we may not perhaps realise what a tremendous amount hangs upon that statement. A whole system of teaching has arisen which says that the Kingdom has been suspended and will come in with the Jewish age later on. But John said, 'It is at hand'. Jesus said, 'It has come nigh'. Jesus said, 'You shall see it come in power in your lifetime', and, 'The Kingdom is in the midst of you' - 'IS in the midst of you'. It is present.

But here a question arises. If the sovereign rule of God and of the heavens is universal and eternal, as the Bible declares it to be - in the book of Daniel the phrase which governs everything is "the heavens DO rule" - in what way is it more particularly so in this dispensation? God is the Ruler of the universe, and always has been and always will be. How is He more so in this dispensation than at any other time? In other words, in what way is the kingdom at hand, or has it come nigh, in THIS dispensation? And the answer is a very full, a very comprehensive and a very wonderful one.

The Kingdom of God was always, by Divine appointment, the heritage of God's Son. God purposed that Kingdom for His Son as His inheritance. Through Him, by Him, He made all things, and unto Him were all things created (Rom. 13:36; Col. 1:16). But, further, it was intended to be man's in union with God's Son. There is much about that. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou puttest him in charge? ...Thou madest him to have dominion..." (Ps. 8:4,6). "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). This is not something extra. It was eternally in the thought of God for man, to be realised through union with His Son. Man was in the picture from the beginning - man was created for that very purpose.

And that very truth opens the door for the tragedy. By man's act and by man's consent, by man's rebellion against the expressed will of God, the Kingdom passed into the hands of a usurper. Yes: the dominion over this world passed into the hands of one who is, even by the Lord Jesus Himself, designated 'the prince of this world' (John 14:30), and by Paul 'the god of this age' (2 Cor. 4:4). It went into alienation from its rightful Heir - and from man in union with Christ as a joint-heir - it went into alienation, which demanded restoration. It went into enmity against God, which demanded reconciliation. It went into captivity, demanding release. It went into moral ruin, demanding reconstitution. There is the answer to the question as to why in this dispensation the Kingdom has a particular meaning.

THE KINGDOM AT HAND WITH THE COMING OF THE HEIR

Thus, you see, the Kingdom, or the rule, in all its meaning as we have defined it, came to hand with the appearance of its rightful Heir. This dispensation is covered and dominated by the fact of the Son of God having become incarnate. As the Heir of all things, He has come to seek and to save that which was lost - and it was an immense 'that'. So the Kingdom or the sovereign rule has come into this dispensation, in this particular and peculiar way, with the Person of Jesus Christ, God's Son, the rightful Heir. It has also come in with Him as the alone Redeemer of the inheritance, the only One who could redeem, the redeeming Kinsman who alone had the position and the right and the resource to redeem - the "Son of man". And so the Kingdom has come near in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus, and this phrase, "the Kingdom of God", defines, explains and sums up the whole meaning and purpose of the incarnation and the mission of the Lord Jesus.

Do you say, Why was God's Son made man? Why did He come in the flesh? Why did He come into this world, and then why did He suffer and die and rise again? The answer is: In order that the sovereign rule of God might be recovered, restored, reconstituted, the enmity dealt with and reconciliation made, the captivity broken, release brought in. You will no doubt be recalling much Scripture in support of this. "To proclaim release unto the captives..." (Is. 61:1): that was His mission - to reconstitute things from their moral ruin. We may consider this more fully later. What is called 'the Sermon on the Mount' is, as Dr. Campbell Morgan calls it, 'the whole manifesto' of the Kingdom of God: it shows what the Kingdom of God is like - the constitution of it in moral principle.

So, He came, and He finished His work to recover and secure His own God-given inheritance of the Kingdom; and, rising from the dead, He says: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18) - literally it is, 'has just been given to me' - and from that moment all authority is vested in the Name of Jesus. The remainder of the New Testament is the demonstration of that fact. The book of the Acts, from the beginning onward, sets forth in a very, very concrete and forceful way the authority of the Name. "By what power, or in what name...?" was the interrogation. 'If you ask concerning the Name, be it known unto you that by the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth...' (Acts 4:7-10). The authority is not only claimed by the Lord Jesus, but demonstrated by Him in the power of the Holy Spirit.

CHRIST'S WAS A 'COSMIC' MISSION

This inheritance was something very comprehensive. The mission of the Lord Jesus was, if I may use the word, cosmic: that is to say, it did not just relate to the earth as the beginning and the end. It had to do with the whole spiritual sphere in which this earth moves. Paul defines that as: 'principalities, powers, world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies' (Eph. 6:12). There is much more of that kind, and that is what we mean by 'cosmic'. It is supra-earthly, if you like - the whole spiritual setting of everything here. In that whole realm of the heavens which were polluted and defiled, the mission of the Lord Jesus was efficacious and effectual; it was not only for man on the earth and for the earthly creation. The very heavens had to be purged, we are told (Job 15:15; Heb. 9:23). Yes, the inheritance is a large inheritance. His rule, His sovereign rule, is a very, very great thing. It moves out into the vast expanses where these hosts of evil spirits have their sphere of operations. His rule is there, it is extended there.

But, of course, it operates also amongst men. That hardly needs to be said, and certainly not emphasized. I refer again to the book of the Acts. But was the book of the Acts ever finished? It is the one book in the Bible which has no finish. It just breaks off. How we would like to know the rest! But no, it just breaks off; it leaves Paul there on his chain in Rome, tells us no more. Ah, but, you see, the book of the Acts was never intended to be finished until the end of this dispensation. It has gone on and on, and it is still having chapters added to it, and it is still on the same lines with the same meaning - the sovereign rule of the Lord Jesus and His securing of His inheritance by His own authority. But for His authority nothing would come to Him. You and I know quite well that we cannot just bring people into the Kingdom willy-nilly. It requires the exercise of the very throne of the Lord Jesus to bring a soul through by new birth. And those who are receiving the Kingdom, that is, those who are still 'in course of receiving' the Kingdom, know quite well that every inch of this territory is contested, and that we never come into one extra fragment of our inheritance in Christ without some exercise of His sovereign power.

[Shammu]

A REDEMPTIVE MISSION

Christ's mission was also a redemptive mission. How great does that word 'redemption' become, when we view it in the light of this whole purpose of God as to the place of His Son universally. Not only men and women, but the whole earth and the whole cosmos, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus. The day will come when the glory of that redemption will be manifested universally.

A RECONSTRUCTIVE MISSION

Then the mission of Jesus was reconstructive. That, of course, is spread right over the New Testament. What is He doing with you, with me, with His own who have come under His sovereign rule? What is happening to those of us who have come under the Lordship of God in Christ? We are just being reconstructed, that is all, and we are learning as we go along how much we need reconstructing. Things have all broken down, all gone wrong. We cannot put them right. Something has to be done to reconstruct this whole fabric. Hence, all the dealings with us by the Spirit of God, in trials and testings, in afflictions and adversities and sufferings, are reconstructive works unto the Kingdom of God. They often seem to be destructive works - and it is true that you have got to get rid of the rubbish, of the debris, before you can build; the two things are two parts of the one thing - but, you see, the receiving of the Kingdom comes through afflictions.

Is it not stated quite clearly and definitely: "Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22)? Now go beyond the primary idea of a sphere as interpreting the Kingdom, and see that the tribulations are bringing you into that sovereign rule of the Lord, which is going to prove itself so beneficent, so glorious, so wonderful. You agree with me that it would be a grand and glorious thing if everything were just as God would have it. That is what He is working toward with you and me. 'Through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom': we are coming into the inheritance, we are coming into the sovereign rule.

THE GOOD NEWS OF THE KINGDOM

So much for the explanation of the term 'the Kingdom of God'. What is the inclusive issue? "This gospel of the kingdom" - 'This GOOD NEWS of the sovereign rule of God'. The sovereign rule of God is good news! That comprehended the whole message of the apostles and of the Church for this dispensation. It is the good news of the Kingdom - the good news that the Throne exists and is occupied and is dominant. The good news, to begin with, in the most elementary aspect of the proclaiming, is that there is a Throne, and on that Throne is Jesus Christ; that the authority is vested in Him, and that that authority is a very real thing: and that the Holy Spirit is working all things in us and in this world in relation to the authority or Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Take an illustration from the Old Testament - Israel in Babylon, that great, immense world power; a people broken, shattered, crushed, ground to powder, in despair. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. 137:4). They hung their harps upon the willows in the hopelessness of the situation. But listen! A prophet is speaking. "For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all their nobles" (Is. 43:14, R.V. Mg.). "For your sake" - "for your sake" - a broken, crushed, hopeless people. This overthrow and destruction of one of the mightiest empires that this world has seen has an explanation in a poor, despised, broken, captive people.

Now bring that up to date, and realise that this Throne is operating now in history. Mighty world powers are going to be shattered and broken and disintegrated because of the Church. Antichrist will be given his tether. He will be allowed to 'exalt himself above all that is called God, sitting in the temple of God, giving out that he is God' (2 Thess. 2:4). How much further can anyone go than that? Antichrist will be given liberty to go even as far as that. But then he will be smitten and destroyed by the very countenance of Christ Himself. For the authority of Christ to be displayed in all its intrinsic power, it is necessary that all this other be allowed. The Devil is allowed to go a long way, but behind there is always the Throne. The Throne is saying, 'Go as far as you can, and then I will destroy you out of hand.' That is the good news of the sovereignty.

What we have said so far is but an introduction, but I trust that it may help towards a new understanding of this wonderful phrase - "the kingdom of God" - and I believe that we shall be thrilled as we look more deeply into it. But let us be quite clear about this. That Kingdom has come, that Kingdom is present; that Kingdom, in spite of all that seems to be working to the contrary, is functioning. That One at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens is Lord, and this is something to be apprehended by faith, and stood upon in the day of ordeal.

For surely it was that assurance and confidence, that certainty, that accounted for the wonderful stability of the Apostles and the Church at the beginning, when it seemed so otherwise. Is it not this that has astonished us, and perhaps perplexed us? Here is all this persecution, all this martyrdom, all this seeming triumph of evil and of evil men and of the Devil, and yet these people do not bow inwardly to it, they do not accept it. Whether they be individuals, or whether it be the Church, they just do not accept that this is the last word and that this is the supreme power. They repudiate it, even to death. Why? There is no other answer than this, that they had come to a fixed and final position about the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the Throne in the heavens. It was a settled thing, and it was so real in their hearts that nothing that this other could do could ultimately destroy them. They go to their deaths singing in triumph.

It is easy to speak glibly of these things: and yet - and yet - is it not true that the Lord has special reserves of grace for special ordeals? If ever you feel that you could not go through a certain trial, that if you had to face that, you just could not go through with it, you are taking on something that you have no right to take on. If the Lord calls you to go through fire or water, He has a special reserve of grace for you in that. And that grace will be from the THRONE of grace. "Let us... draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may FIND grace to help us in time of need" (Heb. 4:16). It is a throne above, mediating grace for need and suffering as it is required.

[Shammu]

Chapter 2 - The Operation of the Kingdom of God

In the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, which we may have open before us by way of reminder, we find the operation of the Kingdom illustrated in a sevenfold way.

THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM

I do not propose to attempt an exposition of that sevenfold way, but will simply lift out from the chapter the salient features of the operation of the sovereign rule of God. We have here that operation illustrated, in what have come to be called 'the parables of the Kingdom'. That is the title which men have given to them, but it is well to remember that the title which the Lord Jesus gave to them was 'the mysteries of the Kingdom'.

THE KEY TO THE PARABLES

These parables, or mysteries, of the Kingdom of Heaven are really impossible of understanding, except in the light of the definition of the Kingdom which we have just given - that is, as the sovereign rule of God. If you interpret them as indicating primarily a realm or nature, then you have gone beyond their warrant, and you will most certainly get into confusion. Few parts of the New Testament have been more subject to controversy than these parables. The various interpretations that have been given to them have divided students and teachers into irreconcilable schools. We shall see something of that as we go along. It is therefore necessary to discover the key to the parables, in order to be saved from this confusion and contradiction; and that key undoubtedly lies in the definition of the Kingdom as THE SOVEREIGN RULE OF GOD. Let me repeat: I am not embarking upon an exposition of these parables, but seeking to get at something of very great importance and value to ourselves at this time.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

The first is what is called the parable of the sower (vv. 18-23). The Lord Jesus said that the seed is the word of the Kingdom. "When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom", He said. Now re-translate that as 'the word of the sovereign rule'. The word of the sovereign rule has gone forth. What is the result? Very largely failure. The success in the positive sense is very limited, cornparatively - some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold. You see how impossible it is to impart to the Kingdom the idea of a realm or a nature. That would imply that within the realm where God rules you have very largely failure. But that is not the teaching of the parable. The teaching of the parable is this. The word of the sovereign rule is sent forth, like seed; and, no matter if there is a large failure in response and reaction to that word, God is successful in the end with a body that is productive of that which is implicit in the Word.

Yes, man may fail. He may receive apparently with gladness, and then it may all come to nothing. He may respond in a way, and seem to be going to turn out all right - and then, because of difficulties and adversities, just fade out. But let there be failure, disappointment, breakdown: no matter - God gets something in His sovereignty. There is something that this sovereign government of God secures. You see, this is a tremendous word of the sovereignty for labourers. You labour, you scatter, you give, you work, you travail; but, if it is the word of the sovereign rule in very truth, it cannot ultimately fail. There may be much disappointment, but there will be an issue which answers to the intention of the One who gave it. Very simple: but you see how important it is to recognise the all-governing law of the sovereign rule which cannot, fully and finally, ultimately be defeated. A great deal may seem to argue that the labour is in vain; but the Lord is saying here in this parable: 'No! When it is a word of the rule of God, it cannot ultimately return wholly void; there will be something resulting from it.' The sovereignty is governing.

THE WHEAT AND THE TARES

The next is that commonly called the parable of the wheat and the tares - the darnel (vv. 23-30). Here from the word the thought passes to persons. It is not the word that is now sown - it is persons that are sown. Children of the Kingdom are sown in the earth, and then by night the enemy comes and sows his own children, children of his kingdom. They are the children of the Devil. His method is suitable to his object. His object being completely to nullify what is of God, his method is to imitate it. That is a wile of that evil wisdom of Satan - imitation children of God mixed in with the true children of God in order to nullify. The workers are represented as coming to the owner of the field and telling him what they have found there, and he says, 'Ah, an enemy has done this.' And they say, 'What would you have us do? Shall we pluck up this other thing?'

He replies: 'No - let the sovereignty have its way! Let them both grow together, and the sovereignty, the rule of Heaven, will progressively make very clear which is which, and the end will be an easy and a safe course. If you start doing that now, you have not got the wisdom of Heaven to discriminate. It is not your business, and you have not the faculty or capacity, to disentangle this deep work of the Devil, by trying to mark out what is true and what is an imitation. That is not your job, and you are not qualified to do it. Only Heaven can do that. So let it go on, and the sovereign rule will make manifest what is of itself, and what is otherwise.'

It is the sovereign rule that is going to solve and settle this whole problem. You cannot say that the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is like that which is pictured in this parable - an awful mixture. It is not. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is one thing, and only the sovereign rule of God can bring out into clearness what is of God.

But that will happen as we go on. We can trust the sovereign rule. That is very practical: it works like this. There are those who are truly of God, of Heaven; and then there are those who come in - who perhaps sing the hymns, use the phraseology, carry on the same way, associate with those of the Kingdom; but there is a difference. Deep down, they are really "not of us". They are just imitations; they are not real, not the genuine thing. We may discern, as these men discerned, that there is something here that is not the same thing, something that is foreign, that is alien and strange. What are we going to do? Had we better turn them out, tell them to go?

No, no! Go on long enough, and they will go of themselves. The two things will be self-manifested, and it will be quite easy in the long run. "They went out from us", said John, "...that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). This is a heavenly principle, you see - there is a manifestation. It is difficult to endure patiently those people who you sense have not, as we say, the root of the matter in them - who are just camp-followers. But, as with the mixed multitude that left Egypt with Israel, time and testing will find them out. This is the way if the Kingdom, the sovereignty, operates, and it calls for much faith, and much patience.

[Shammu]

THE MUSTARD SEED

The parable of the mustard seed (vv. 31, 32) is one of the most difficult of all, and one that has perhaps been the occasion of some of the worst interpretations and teachings. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches." Do you really believe, in the light of all these other parables and of His whole teaching, that the Lord Jesus said, 'This is the Kingdom of Heaven - the Kingdom of Heaven is like that'? If the common and popular interpretation is to be accepted, then we are involved in some real difficulties. Admittedly, the parable does seem to mean that Christianity, or "the kingdom of heaven", has very small beginnings and then grows to very great dimensions. There may be an element of truth in that. The beginnings in Jerusalem WERE small, and in the course of the centuries Christianity has become worldwide. But is that just what the Lord meant by the parable?

There are at least three things that would pull us up and make us think again, and think more energetically.

One is that at other times the Lord definitely used terms of strict and severe limitation in relation to salvation, the way and the issue. So much was this so, that His disciples were startled into ejaculating: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" (Luke 12:23). He spoke of the way to life being straitened, and few finding or accepting it: of the gate being narrow, and few entering thereby (Matt. 7:13,14). He called His disciples (representatives of His Church) the "little flock" to whom it would be the Father's good pleasure to give THE KINGDOM (Luke 12:32). There are contrasting ideas between "wide" and "narrow", "broad" and "straitened", big and little, popular and unpopular. All this does not agree with the usual superficial interpretation of this parable.

Then what about the "fowls of the air"? Did He use this metaphor in a contradictory way? In the parable of the sower He had spoken of these in a bad sense: is He employing the same terms in a right and proper sense here? This violates the principle of consistency in inspiration.

Thirdly, is it COMMONLY true that the "mustard seed", the smallest of all, grows into a tree so great as is here depicted? No, it is positively not true. If our Lord saw such a thing - and He may have done - and drew attention to it, He was drawing attention to something abnormal and not natural. It was sufficiently abnormal and unnatural to attract attention.

This brings us to the factor that is common to ALL the parables and all the teaching of Jesus, and of the Apostles subsequently. In all these parables there is a selective, discriminating, contrasting, comparative, good-and-bad element. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that: the sovereign rule is all-comprehending, but it is very particular, selective, and judicial. Consistency in every direction demands that we interpret this "tree" of Christianity as an abnormal, unnatural development, capable of housing many things that are not in keeping with the true NATURE of the Kingdom. These "fowls" are NOT the born-from-above people who alone can see or enter the kingdom (John 3). They are all the accretions, the camp-followers, the parasites, the various kinds of people and things that take advantages of Christianity, and use its cover, but are not of its nature.

The Lord was letting His disciples know that this is what would happen, and that the sovereignty took all this in its stride. It is as well that we should know that the Lord has foreseen the developments of Christianity and its abnormalities, but it is to great detriment that His spirit of discernment and discrimination does not have a way with so many Christians.

Does the New Testament, to begin with, indicate that there is any such thing as abnormality, or this kind of abnormal development, about the true work of God? It rather indicates that, although ultimately the sum of many, many centuries will be 'a great multitude which no man can number', there will be, as we get nearer and nearer to the end, a tremendous sifting out and falling away. It is definitely stated that that day will not come before there is a great falling away (2 Thess. 2:3), and that "judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Pet. 4:17). Well, then, if this is right - a great falling away - the Bible contradicts itself. As we have said, the teaching of the Lord seemed to be so clear to the disciples on this matter that they exclaimed: "Are there few that be saved?" What is all this about the broad and the narrow way? The broad way - many go by it; the narrow way - few find it. The Bible does not contradict itself; but it says that God takes account of these things, and God in His sovereignty permits them. He does not come out and destroy this freakish thing popularly called 'Christianity'. That may be there, but God in His sovereignty is pursuing His own course to secure what He is after. Though all this may be quite true, the sovereign rule of God goes on, the sovereignty is preserved.

THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN

The same principle is implicit in the next parable.

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened" (v. 33).

(a) THE LEAVEN

The popular interpretation is that the leaven is Christianity: Christianity being taken by the Church and put into the world until the whole lump is leavened - the whole world is 'leavened' with Christianity. It is suggested that we shall see the world saved by the deep, silent movement of Christianity, working strongly and deeply and hiddenly, like leaven. It is easy to say that sort of thing, but it is superficial reasoning. In the light of history, and in the light of the Word of God, it is very difficult to believe.

Look again. The world-population is vastly more in excess of the Christian population than at any time in the dispensation. After these almost twenty centuries of Christianity, an immense number over a very great part of the world have never heard the Gospel yet. Look at this - 1,200 million out of the 2,000 million people of the earth are still without the knowledge of Christ. Then what of the unspeakable revelation of iniquity in countries which have had the Gospel for centuries? We could make an immense build-up of facts which would shatter this interpretation of the leaven beyond reconstruction.

What, then, is the meaning of the leaven? I do not believe that leaven here stands in a different category from leaven anywhere else in the Bible. Consistency of Scripture demands that we interpret leaven always as the same thing, in the same light: and everywhere else in Scripture leaven is evil - something that has to be purged out. In the old economy they had to light their lamp on the eve of the Passover, and search the house high and low, nook and cranny, for any leaven and purge it out. The Passover could not be eaten till it was certain that there was no vestige or trace of leaven anywhere. They had to eat unleavened bread in the Passover. The Lord Jesus spoke of "the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matt. 16:6) and "the leaven of Herod" (Mark 8:15). And Paul spoke of 'purging out the old leaven' (1 Cor. 5:7). Everywhere it is something evil. The function or effect of leaven is to disintegrate, to break up, to tear apart - every housewife knows that. And it is not different here: still it is leaven and still it is evil. If you say that the Kingdom of Heaven, as a realm, is like that, you are in trouble. But the sovereign rule of God knows all about this deep, secret movement of disintegration, of evil, that has come into the realm of Divine things. It is not the Kingdom of Heaven that is like an alcoholic fermentation, disintegration, putrefaction.

[Shammu]

(b) THE WOMAN

It is only necessary to look at such passages of Scripture as Revelation 2:20-23 ("the woman Jezebel"), and Revelation 17 ("the great harlot") to realise that a "woman" so often in the Bible is the symbol of a system. Again and again it has been a woman, either personally or symbolically, who has corrupted Divine things, or brought corruption into relationship with them. See Samson; see Solomon; see later kings for examples. In the message to Thyatira, this insinuation of evil and corruption into the House of God is the occasion of the severest judgment - for it is called "the deep things of Satan" (Rev. 2:24). What foreknowledge and foresight our Lord had in these parables! But let us go on.

(c) THREE MEASURES

Three measures. Remember that three is the number of Divine Persons and Divine things. Evil has spread even through the Church, so that within Christianity itself the very Divine Persons have been subjected to questions and doubts. God Himself - the Son, the Spirit - has been misrepresented. With many other things of God, evil has come in to break them up - to destroy their effectiveness and power by destroying their solidity. What are you going to do about it?

The sovereign rule of God takes account of it - the working of evil, the working of falsehood, the working of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the things of God. History is just full of it, as we know. We hate using terms and labels, but is it not just that which has happened in the last hundred years in the realm called 'Modernism' or 'Liberalism'? Is it not the leaven disintegrating Divine things? The very Person of Jesus Christ is stripped of His Deity; the very Word of God is denied its authority and its finality; the very Holy Spirit is degraded from His dignity as a Divine Person; and so on. The Lord Jesus discerned the future, saw the way things would go, and spoke like this. He was saying. 'This very generation will not be out before all sorts of heresies and errors will come into the realm of Divine things' - which they did.

But the sovereign rule of God goes on. This does not spell God's confusion and God's defeat. His sovereignty is greater than all this. It is the only way really to be consistent both with the teaching of Scripture and with history itself. Surely it must be sheer blindness that reads history in any other way. As I said, I am not expounding these parables, but lifting out the point that is common to them all. From various angles, for various and differing causes, in differing situations, right down the age: whatever may be permitted by that sovereignty, that sovereignty is equal to it all, and will be fully vindicated in the end.

THE PARABLE OF THE DRAG-NET

We reach the last parable, that of the great dragnet let down into the sea - the sea always speaking of humanity - and gathering a great multitude of fishes. Yes, the sovereignty of God does that: in comes the net, with its multitude of fishes of all sorts, and then sovereignty gets to work and separates the good from the bad, and in the end God has what He was after from the beginning. He has got it at last. That is how the sovereignty works. There is much instruction here for Christians and for Christian workers. If we had our way, we would go to work to see to it that we always and only have the thing that is absolutely and certainly and positively according to God's mind: we would select that, and put a hedge round it, and set up walls about it, and we would protect it and keep it, as an exclusive company. But these parables say, No! The sovereignty of Heaven does not do that sort of thing. The sovereignty of Heaven permits and tolerates very much that will ultimately be found to be not according to Heaven. Yes, it takes account of much; but it is driving its own course, and, in the end, through all, God will have what He set His heart upon.

THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE RULE OF GOD

To sum up - see how comprehensive is this rule of God. The sovereignty of God is one of the most problematic and perplexing things to Christians, in relation to what God will allow even in association with His own work. We would not do that at all. We would be very, very particular. But see how comprehensive God is. He allows a very great deal. He not only allows it - He even uses very much that perhaps we would never use, or about which we would have a question. He comes through things in His sovereignty to get His ends. It is HIS END that is the great testimony to His sovereignty. We say: How could God get anything out of this, or out of that? Well, He does, that is all. How could God get anything in that way? He just does! Look at this, look at that, look at all these things: is anything possible for God? The verdict at the end is that God sovereignly did get something.

You see, this is the great heart and core of this whole teaching and revelation of the Kingdom of God. It does not mean that you and I need not be sensitive to the Lord - that is another thing altogether. We may come to that later, when we say something about the Kingdom and the Church. It does not mean that, because we see that God's sovereignty reaches His ends in spite of everything, we are just to be careless and insensitive to the mind of the Spirit; to do all sorts of things that God, if He could have His way, would not sanction. But it does mean that this sovereignty of God is going to cover a lot of ground: it is going to get its end through many, many ways and means which in themselves, intrinsically, are not of Him. It is this rule of the heavens that is, so to speak, 'getting on with its job'.

[Shammu]

We, left to ourselves, are so fussy, so particular, that we would not leave room for the sovereignty of God. The great appeal here is: Leave plenty of room for God. That is what it amounts to. Never despair over any situation as being finally and utterly hopeless. In the presence of the spread of this evil thing, this leaven - the expansion of this abnormal, 'freak' Christianity, with its contradictions and disappointments - we are forbidden by this sovereignty to give up and say it is a hopeless thing. We have to come to the place where we say and believe and take our stand: 'That looks a pretty hopeless situation, but God can get something out of it, and He will.'

That is the good news of the Kingdom, the Gospel of the Kingdom. I know that many of you who read these words can bear this out. You have known the most awful and impossible situations of mixture and hopelessness. You have despaired - and then you have seen God do something. What a strength and force that gives to the remainder of the statement! "This gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed... for a testimony unto all the nations". In His sovereignty, God can turn the most unpropitious and unpromising situation, the most hopeless state of things, into a glorious testimony. Yes, He allows so much, but He governs all. And He makes use of all manner of agencies - even the Devil himself. That must be sovereignty! "An enemy hath done this." Very well: we will use the enemy to show what is right and what is wrong, to make all the more manifest what is of God and what is not. The work of the Devil shall be employed to that end. That is the rule of Heaven.

All this is borne out in the later New Testament. "The things which befell me", writes Paul (Phil. 1:12) - what were they? They were the Devil's work. Again - "We would fain have come unto you, I Paul once and again; and Satan hindered us" (1 Thess. 2:18). Strange, mysterious statement! Yes, the Devil is busy; "a messenger of Satan" (2 Cor. 12:7) - he is very active. And what is the verdict at the end? "The things which befell me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the gospel"! Under the sovereignty of God the very works of the Devil are being used to reach God's end.

Perhaps that is common knowledge, so often said. But we must come more definitely to this settled position, that GOD AND CHRIST ARE ON THE THRONE. This Kingdom is a present reality. There are many things which contradict it and work against it. God does not consume and annihilate them: He permits them, and then takes hold of them; and the end is that His throne is established and it is made manifest that "his kingdom ruleth over all" (Ps. 103:19).

What these parables say to us is this - that God faces facts and has no illusions. He faces the fact that a large proportion of the sowing of the word of the Kingdom will fail. He faces the fact that Christianity will become an abnormal conglomeration, without any distinctiveness of testimony. He recognises that there will be a secret hidden working of error, of evil, of falsehood, all to disintegrate. He faces it all - all the work of the Devil, all the work of evil, all the failure of man - and then He declares His sovereignty over it all. That is what arises here. Let us ask for strength to believe it.

GOD'S JUDICIAL WORK

I have not said much about another aspect of these parables: namely, that there is a judicial, discriminatory work going on all the time. Do not fail to see that. All through these parables, He is cutting a line, He is discriminating, He is acting judicially. God is not just saying, 'Everything is all right - do not worry. Sit in your armchairs, ye Christian men; sit down, the Kingdom is coming.' No; rather - 'Rise up, ye men of God!' God is not passive, indifferent, careless, saying, 'Oh, it will be all right, this is all right; do not worry about it.' He is not like that. He is acting, and will act, judicially. He is really putting things in their place, and dividing between, as He does with the churches in the Revelation. He is discriminating. He is putting this here and that there, and saying that they belong to two different realms. That is a part of His sovereignty.

But our chief point is this: The operation of the Kingdom, or the rule, of God is to bring in at last the triumph of that rule. Whatever else may come in, it means the triumph of that rule. The rule of Heaven, the rule of God, comes out in the end triumphant.

[Shammu]

Chapter 3 - The Kingdom and the Church

"In those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:1,2).

"I... say unto thee, that I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

"And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church" (Matthew 18:17).

It is a very significant fact that it is in the Gospel by Matthew, which is essentially the Gospel of the Kingdom, that the Church is first brought into view in the New Testament.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH

The first question which arises is as to what the difference is between the Kingdom and the Church. What is the difference? Are they two things, or one? The attempt has been made, by one considerable body of teaching, to prove that they are two different things entirely: that the Kingdom is one thing, belonging to one age, that it is now in this dispensation in suspense, but that it will come in with the restoration of the Jews in the next dispensation, the present dispensation being that of the Church. If you want to believe that, you will have to do a lot of juggling with the Scriptures - as has been done. As far as I can see, that system of truth is absolutely unsupported by the Scripture itself. However, I do not want to introduce a controversial element or source of confusion. I am simply saying that this is a question that we must face.

What is the difference? Are they two things? The answer is really Yes and No. They are not the same thing, and yet they are. That does not help you very much, I know, but we must go on to explain.

The sovereign rule of God and of the heavens, which has come to be called the Kingdom, is, in the first place, as we explained earlier, an announcement, a proclamation, a declaration, of a Divine fact: namely, that the sovereignty of God has been established in and through His Son Jesus Christ IN THIS DISPENSATION, in a new and immediate way. That fact was proclaimed for the first time, in the power of the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost. God had made Him Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). From that time onward, the note was made to ring out through the nations in ever-widening circles - Jesus Christ is Lord! That is the first phase of the sovereign rule or the Kingdom - a proclamation or an announcement.

Then, as we saw, it is an activity. Something is going on. When it is announced, when the proclamation is made, something begins to happen. Heaven is moved, and believing souls are saved. Hell is roused, and the heralds are persecuted. It is an activity - not just a doctrine, a truth, a theory. This sovereign rule or Kingdom is a mighty energy. And so, from a presenting of a fact, it becomes the demanding of an answer, and thereby a sifting and sorting of mankind into two categories, into one of two kingdoms.

We saw, further, how comprehensive is this rule, spreading itself sovereignly over everything, taking up everything into its sovereignty. Even the antagonisms and oppositions are taken hold of by this sovereignty, and made to serve the end which they were intended to defeat. It is all-comprehending, knowing all the course of things through history, as those parables make so clear. That last parable in Matthew 13 brings us right to the end of the age, and from the first - the sowing of the seed, the word of the Kingdom - through all the phases and stages and variations, and everything that arises, to the last, the end of the age, we see that this sovereign rule has comprehended the whole, foreseen and foretold exactly what would happen and how things would develop, and has laid hold of all; so that at the last the sovereign rule is triumphant. That is the essential meaning of the 'Kingdom'.

[Shammu]

THE CHURCH AND THE FRUIT OF THE KINGDOM

What is the Church? Well, the operation, the activity, of the sovereign rule works like this. The effect of the challenge and demand and sifting out, brought about by the proclamation, is that all along certain people are found who make the right reaction and response, and are thus brought right into the meaning of that sovereign rule: people, that is to say, who first acknowledge, and then themselves declare, that Jesus Christ is Lord. The sovereign rule has done its work so far, and then the fruit of that sovereign activity in the nations is gathered into a body called the Church. The Church becomes the vessel, the repository, of the work of the sovereign government of God. It gathers into itself as a vessel the fruit of the sovereign activity: so that the Kingdom leads to the Church, and the Church is the result, the embodiment, of the Kingdom.

It is interesting to note in Matthew's Gospel how very clear that is, if we can only see it. The last parable of the seven in chapter 13, the parable of the drag-net, brings us, as I have said, to the end of the age: the angels are sent forth, and the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad are cast away. Now turn over to chapter 24, verse 31, and here you find that the Lord is definitely answering that part of the disciples' question - "What shall be the end of the age?" (v. 3). "He shall send forth his angels... and they shall gather together his elect". Now, chapter 13 is the casting away of the bad fish; chapter 24 is the gathering of the good; and between the two, in chapters 16 and 18, we find the Church introduced.

Is that clear? The work of the Kingdom, the activity of the Kingdom, is the searching out, finding out, challenging, receiving, gathering, bringing into the Church. Strange that nothing is said about the Church coming into existence, other than - "I will build my church"! Nothing is said about Church teaching at all. It is simply introduced, almost as though it were a recognised thing, and then the final picture is of the elect being gathered. The Church is the fruit and sum of that first activity of the sovereign rule of God. And the Church is the 'elect', the 'chosen'. Peter and Paul speak of the Church in this very language. "Elect... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1:1,2). And "he chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4).

I trust that we are clear now that the Church and the Kingdom are not two things, and yet they are. They are not the same thing, and yet they are. If you like, they are cause and effect. They are the complement of each other. There is a sense in which the sovereign rule is a 'bigger' thing than the Church - that is, if you will use the word 'bigger' in the sense of dimensions and not intrinsic value. It is so comprehensive. As we have seen, it takes up anything - almost everything - even the work of the Devil, the enemy who sowed his children amongst the children of God. This sovereign rule is such an expansive and wonderful thing. But then it focuses down upon certain results, and gathers them into a concrete entity called the Body of Christ. So that we have part and counterpart: they are one, and yet they are not one.

The Church, then, is the embodiment of the triumph of His rule. That is not only a statement of fact or of truth - it is a glorious testimony. It says what the Church is in the thought of God, but it also says what the Church ought to be in itself - the very embodiment of the triumph of the sovereign rule of God. Of course, it is so, if it is the Church in reality at all. Every one of us, if we really are in the Church and of the Church, according to New Testament conception, is an embodiment and an expression of the triumph of His sovereign rule. You can use another phrase, if you like, which only defines that - sovereign grace, for His rule in this dispensation is the rule of grace. We are here by the triumph of sovereign grace, and we shall remain here on that ground alone, and at last we shall be found in that elect company simply because of the triumph of His sovereign rule through grace. That is the Church as the fruit of the Kingdom.

SOVEREIGN ACTIVITY IN RELATION TO THE WORD

Next, the Church is the embodiment of the sovereign activity in relation to the word of the Kingdom, as given by the Sower. While there is a large proportion of failure and disappointment, there is the thirtyfold, the sixtyfold and the hundredfold, and the Church takes that in. The Church is found to be composed of the triumph of the word of the Kingdom. Some of us are only 'thirtyfold' results, some a bit more, some perhaps may be even a hundredfold. At any rate, something has happened, and the Lord has got something in us. We want Him to have all that He can have. But that is just what the Church is - it is the thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold result of the word of the Kingdom. It is the wheat as over against the tares, the children of the Kingdom as over against the children of the Devil. We thank God that we can truly claim to be His children.

Again, the Church is the embodiment of the truth of unleavened bread. It 'keeps the feast' with 'unleavened bread' (1 Cor. 5:. Spiritually that means that the leaven has been purged out. Praise God that all the corrupting, disintegrating work of sin and of the world has been dealt with.

The Church takes up the inner principle of the tree - the great, abnormal, 'freak' tree, as we called it - a mustard seed growing into a great tree, which it never does normally and naturally. It must be something absolutely abnormal to do it. But, over against that, the Church is something spiritually normal and healthy. There is nothing freakish about it. The Lord deliver us from all that is abnormal and all that is freakish. Ask the Lord to save you from being freakish! The Church is the true thing, and not the false thing like that great tree.

The Church is also the vessel of the good fish. Perhaps you do not like to think of yourself as a fish! But that is what the Church is. We may not think we are good fish - we may feel we are very poor fish! - nevertheless we are different; there is a difference.

And to crown it all, the Church is the "pearl of great price", and the "treasure hidden in the field".

All this, mark you, is within the compass of the teaching about the Kingdom; it all comes in the same chapter on the mysteries or parables of the Kingdom. They all issue in something positive, as over against something either negative or wrong; and the Church comes in and takes up all that is positive and right as the fruit of the word of the Kingdom. The Church then becomes the chosen, the elect, the holy nation, to whom this 'Kingdom', in this sense, is given. I will not enlarge upon that now; you will recall the Scriptures which I have cited.