The Cross, The Church, and The Kingdom # 47

The Triumph Of Righteousness (continued)

b. Yieldedness and Obedience (continued)

Because of that principle of possessiveness at work, the Father asked the Son, 'Will You be made sin? Will you allow all the consequences of that evil to be laid upon You to the extent that the great divide takes place between You and Myself, and You go out into the land of forgetfulness, far, far from Me, where You will cry and not be heard?' - and much more than that. And, He became obedient. He said, 'Yes, I will'; and He died of a broken heart because of all that. Paul says to Euodia and Syntyche, two people on this earth - 'That is the range of this situation between you, that is the significance of it; this thing has got to come to its right relationship and focus.' "I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord." "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). 'Yield! This devil is in this; he has a foothold here and is aiming through you two to disrupt the very Church of God, to do here what he did in heaven long ago, and what he has done on earth all through the centuries. It is the kingdom of satan that is here. The only way to undo it is by yieldedness." So (keeping in mind that setting) a little later in the letter the Apostle says, "Let your forbearance (yieldedness) be known unto all men." The translation in the Authorized Version - "moderation" - is unfortunate and weak. "Let your yieldedness be known unto all men." The Lord Jesus was the great Master of the art of letting go. There is a sense in which His whole life on this earth was a life of letting go. All the time He knew how to let go; in that way He came to possess. "Thou hast ... hated iniquity," goes to the heart of the whole thing. "Therefore God ... hath anointed Thee." You have the Kingdom because You let go.

He was "as a lamb that is led to the slaughter" (Isaiah 53:7). There can be no more perfect picture of yieldedness. "As a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." You remember that when He was before His accusers, before those who were to slay Him, they did everything they could to get Him to open His mouth in self-defence, but "He gave ... no answer, not even to one word" (Matthew 27:14). That was yieldedness. But oh, that we knew something more of the power of yieldedness, the spiritual power of that kind of thing! We ought to dwell upon it long, we ought to search our hearts. We are not naturally made that way. We are very ready to give a back answer, to justify ourselves, to vindicate ourselves, to stand up for our rights, to take offence, to be very upset if in any way our interests are challenged or cut across. Yes, in the bus, in the train, when things do not go easily and people do not treat us as we think they ought to treat us, we are up in a moment. It is so easy to be caught; the spirit of meekness is not always there. We have a lot to learn.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 48)