What God Has Revealed

Be ready to spread the word whether or not the time is right. Point out errors, warn people, and encourage them. (2 Timothy 4:2 GW)

Even good people who have been blessed of the Lord, to whom He has shown His favor and whom He has used very greatly, may in the end be involved in spiritual tragedy if for some reason compromise has entered in. It may have come in because of policy. What a snare policy is! We tell ourselves we must be very careful that we do not do this or that because it may have such and such a result. It is all policy and diplomacy. "We must be careful to avoid..." – what? Just what we seek to avoid betrays the whole case. Are we afraid of losing prestige with men, support, friends, position, opportunity? Do these things weigh with us as over against implicit obedience to the Lord? If so, there is divided loyalty; and if we allow it, we may at the end pass into terrible tragedy; the tragedy that always follows compromise....

If spiritual fullness is to be reached, we have to be governed by Divine and heavenly principles, and not by human considerations. Divine principles; not, "What will the consequences be?" not, "What shall we lose?" not even, "What will the Lord lose?" because that is a very subtle argument. The Lord does not ask us to reason this thing out on that level at all. He says, "What is the Divine principle? Let that principle govern and guide." You may not see at all how it is going to work out. If you are governed by Divine principles you may seem to lose a lot here; you may, for a time, have to go out with David and wait. But in the end the principles will be vindicated. You have to recognize that compromise on principle only brings disaster. You see it everywhere.... We must say, "What has the Lord revealed? It will mean this, it will cost that, it will involve me thus; but that is not the point. I am not going to be influenced or governed by consequences at all. Policy must have no place with me. What God has revealed – that is the only argument for me."

By T. Austin-Sparks