Saturday, November 25, 2017

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 3

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 3

Spiritual Gifts vs. Spiritual Persons

There is a difference between spiritual gifts and spiritual persons. The gifts - what are they? The result of the Spirit coming upon a person. The spiritual person - what is he? He is spiritual as the results of the Spirit forming within. There is a lot of difference between inward formation and merely outward action.
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Accredited Ministry

Truly accredited ministry is through suffering. Accredited ministry represents a tremendous victory, set in a background of great conflict.

A determined effort is made through the age to discredit spiritual ministry, and to do so through the one engaged in that ministry.

One who counts for the Lord, is a joint of supply, who can be of value in any way to the Lord's people, and stand in His testimony, will know the enemy's effort to render those spiritual values nil by discrediting.

All ministry that is to be accredited will be bound up with suffering; a decision we have to make is as to the object of our ministry. A good many things can be taken into consideration, but there comes a point where all other things have to be ranged on one side, and one thing on the other side - the real spiritual value, without alloy: that which is wholly of God and not at all of man. In the measure in which that is true there will be suffering. To stand utterly for what is spiritual is a costly thing.

There must be a willingness to be dealt with by the Lord, in such a way as to keep the ministry living and pure. All ministry which issues from such suffering is going to count. It may not be welcomed or desired by the mass, but where there is need and a call for that which we have gained through suffering, there will be response.

But the treasure is in vessels of fragile clay; the vessel is being broken day by day.
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Holding the Ground

We do not know why we are in the place that we are in. Everything seems so difficult, so contrary, and then we see things begin to break up. It looks like calamity, and in the end there is something secured for God. But it necessitates our being there pronouncedly the Lord's to secure it. This does not just happen.

He may hold us in a place and not let us go until that testimony is there established, and then perhaps He will give the situation, or those there, into our hands.
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Enlargement Through Perplexity

The facts are that there is often a large service through a certain curtailment, a fuller life through a deeper death, a richer gain by a keener loss, and we have to look for the impact of the operation of God in us in a realm where the eye of man cannot trace...Supposing the deepest purposes of God can only be realized by His hiding from our flesh all that that flesh craves for its life, and - more - supposing His work in us, whereby triumphant faith and obedience reach their highest form, necessitates His concealing Himself and accepting the risk of being considered to have been unfaithful? There is no doubt that most of those who have been called into some of the most vital expressions of the eternal purpose have been trained in the school of apparent Divine contradiction, delay, withdrawal, and darkness.
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The Faith That Challenges Mountains

Here is a situation full of difficulties, full of threatenings, full of adversities; why, it is almost an appalling prospect, yet nevertheless give me a chance there! You see the challenge. Do difficulties appall you or do they at once present a great opportunity for the Lord? How are we facing the big difficulties? and there are difficulties! there are problems! and these mountains seem to pile up upon one another as we go on. Sometimes it seems an impossible outlook and prospect, a hopeless situation. Perhaps for our own lives individually for some reason withing ourselves or outside of ourselves, or for that work to which we are called, the ministry, the testimony that is laid upon us, it seems so utterly hopeless, the mountain is impossible. Well, what about it? Is it - Give me this mountain! Nothing but a real faith in God can take things on like that, and say - All right, it is difficult, there is no doubt about it, it is an appalling prospect naturally, a hopeless outlook; nevertheless let us take it on in the Name of the Lord; it may be that the Lord ... THE LORD - looking at the mountain through the Lord, and not at the Lord through the mountain.

I think that is the kind of faith that we need, that brings into rest. A mountain - yes, it is a mountain right enough, a physical mountain, a circumstantial mountain, a mountain of outlook in the work Naturally we would do the right thing, the wise, commonsense thing if we said, No, we are not going to touch that! But faith says, I am not going to try and skirt that mountain, I am not going to turn my back on it and run away; give me this mountain!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 4)

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 2

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 2

Leaving Room for God

On the day of Pentecost there was "a sound as of a mighty rushing wind." Have you ever been in a really mighty rushing wind? The thing about a real wind storm is that it takes the government out of all other hands and proceeds to do as it chooses without reference or deference to conventions, traditions, common acceptances, inclinations, or fixed ideas. While it lasts,k it is sovereign. That is how it was then; but there were those who were offended, shocked, scandalized, and who said in effect that such a way could never be of God... So we see that for all enlargement and increase, we must leave room for God to do 'new' things, strange things, things that we cannot understand for the moment. We only put ourselves outside of His intention to enlarge spiritually if we bind Him to our own fixed judgments.
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Reaching Divine Fullness

Divine fullness is only going to be reached by a progressive and ever-increasing revelation of Christ and His significance. Such a revelation - unless we misunderstand the record of God's ways from of old - comes firstly to an apprehended instrument which is taken into the deeps with God; then it is given forth as His truth for His people; and then it becomes the inwrought experience and knowledge of such as really mean business with God - not as to their blessing, but as to His purpose and inheritance in them.
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The Present Need

URGENTLY NEEDED!
Men (and women) of stature - (Isaiah 65:14; Ephesians 4:13).
In whom the Cross has done a deep work as to self-interest.
Who are not so concerned to preach, or to try and influence others to a doctrine or theory, but whose main influence will be one of LIFE.
Who have come to know the Lord in a way of proving.
Whose reaction to every situation, circumstance, and proposition is: Does it glorify God? and whose touchstone by which all things are tested and determined is: Can it work out to an increase of Christ?
For such there is a pressing need, in the Church, in the Lord's work, and in all the nations.
Inquire in the Secret Place.
Basis of considerations: (Romans chapter 6).
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Christ Only and Fully


Whenever and wherever, by a new revealing of Himself, His purpose and method, the Lord has secured those who have moved out on to the ground of Christ only and in fullness, they have always had to meet a great and painful cost. Usually it has been their own brethren in Christ who have exacted it ...The truth is that - in many cases - they have only taken the ground which everybody knows is the ground of spiritual fullness, where questions of "church connection" and orders, etc., are never raised; where such things or practice are never mentioned, but "Christ is all and in all"; and the one concern has been that He should have what is His ground and way of continuous increase.

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The Way of Fruitfulness

If you are going to be an overcomer... if you are going with the Lord wholly and utterly, to persecute in a thoroughgoing way God's will end, to pursue it...and pay the price...there is undoubtedly going to be tremendous enrichment of others, and the fact is, and it is a settled law, that the enrichment of others can only come in this way. Those who will not pay the price forfeit the fruitfulness. The real values of Christ have come all the way through the centuries through men after this sort, men of this mind... Your greatness and your value and your fruitfulness will be according to the utterness of your abandonment to God's full thought. He will see to the rest, and many will thank God that you paid the price, that you suffered for an utter way for the Lord, that you counted not the cost too great.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 3)

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Words Of Wisdom and Revelation # 1

Words Of Wisdom and Revelation # 1

Introduction:

Very shortly after his departure in 1971, the Norfolk Christian Gathering of Norfolk, Virginia, issued a statement of "MEMORIES AND THANKSGIVING FOR THE DIVINE CALLING, LIFE, AND MINISTRY OF GOD'S SERVANT - T. AUSTIN-SPARKS." That statement said, in part:

"We thank the Lord that...
the distinctive emphasis and message of the Word revealed to Brother Sparks reached us in America years ago through "A Witness and a Testimony," its associated literature, and his personal visits for conferences...

"We thank the Lord that...
in his person and his messages, the Lord enabled Brother Sparks to bring fresh spiritual values out of living experience - messages wrought in him - evidencing the illumination of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ and of the Father's eternal purpose in His Son. All of our brother's spoken and written ministry came to us as bearing the unction and imprimatur of the Holy Spirit.

"We thank the Lord that...
He gave our brother that much-needed ministry for the remnant in this current end-time period. By it we were greatly encouraged in faith to 'go on' into God's full purpose in spite of misunderstandings. 
"In his spoken and written ministry the Lord has bequeathed to us a great legacy of truth - a trust so vital that it imposes on us a serious challenge and responsibility..."

Because we brothers have been spiritually enriched in such great measure over a forty year span by Mr. Sparks' ministry, we are deeply concerned to make some little part of that wealth available to others. So for the following pages we have culled a number of choice passages from Mr. Sparks' writings - though mostly from "A Witness and a Testimony" magazine covering the years 1941 through 1971 - and have loosely arranged the selections under three headings:

1. Individual Christian Life and Service
2. Christianity and the Church - the New Testament Model vs. the Contemporary Scene.
3. The Lord's Coming and its Challenge to Christians.

Our desire and hope for these pages - reflecting in a small way Mr. Sparks' own heavy burden through many, many years of service and suffering - are that they may contribute to the building up of others to more mature spiritual stature, and as a consequence further their preparation for the Lord's return. May He do it in all of us!

Individual Christian Life and Service

God's Mysterious Dealings

If God were dealing with us as sinners, that is, if He were dealing with us because of certain personal sins and personal faults, we could quite clearly understand that; but when He is dealing with us in relation to Divine purpose, as His servants, His dealings with us go far beyond our understanding. We are taken out into a realm where we do not understand what the Lord is doing with us, and why the Lord takes certain courses with us. We are out of our depth; we are altogether baffled; and we are compelled - that is, if we are going on with God - to move with Him according to whatever light we may have, and believe that these dealings with us, so far beyond our understanding are somehow related to that purpose with which we are called, and that the explanation waits some distance ahead, and we will find it when we get there. God does not explain Himself when He takes a step with us.
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The Holy Spirit's Objective

...the Holy Spirit has one object in view, and all His activities are toward that one object, namely, the establishment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That is what He is after, and if you want the Holy Spirit to operate, to work in your life and through you, remember it is to that He will work, and it is not always the Holy Spirit's way to give us lovely sensations and beautiful experiences which would bring us into prominence, and make something of us. The Holy Spirit may take us into deep depths in order to get the Lordship of Jesus Christ established, and He will do it in the way which will reach His end best. He will dethrone, He will break down all our strength, our glory, and our kingdom. His end is the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit prayer is, "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever."

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2)



Saturday, November 4, 2017

Five Principles Of Interpreting the Bible # 2

Five Principles Of Interpreting the Bible # 2

Our measure of understanding of the Bible will be just in accordance with the measure of our spiritual life. This is why the Lord takes us through experiences in order to bring us to understanding. The measure of our death to the natural mind will be the measure of our understanding of the things of the Spirit. Please remember that in these days which are before us. Something has got to happen in us before we understand the Scripture. We cannot understand the Word of God by just deciding that we are going to have a training course, that we are going to have some classes for Bible teaching. No, that is not the way in which we come to understanding of the Word of God. We shall only understand according to the measure of our spiritual life. That is a principle of Biblical interpretation. Now we come to the fourth.

(4) The Final Mention

The final mention of any particular matter in the Bible is usually a key to all its meaning. That is something that we must think about. We find certain things mentioned again and again in the Bible; but when we come to the final occasion where that thing is mentioned, we usually find the key to all that has been said before. If you take a particular matter, where it is mentioned for the last time, and then note the setting and the context and the relationship, you will get the full meaning of all that has been said about that before.

Now that is a statement that I have made, and you will need to think and to work on that, but I will help you by taking just one illustration. In the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation twenty-two and verse two, we have the last reference to "the tree of life." Now when we go right back to the beginning of the Bible, we have "the tree of life" mentioned, but we are told nothing about it - it is just referred to as something that exists. We have no explanation, we are not told what that tree is, or what it means; it is just referred to as "the tree of life." We have to go to the end of the Bible for the explanation, and when we come to this last chapter of the Bible, by the context and relationship, we have a very large explanation.

Let us look at the passage. Revelation twenty-two: "And He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb," - note the context, "the throne of God and of the Lamb." You have got to read the whole book of Revelation to understand that. There is a tremendous amount in the early chapters of this book about "the throne of God and of the Lamb." And you need to understand what the throne of God is and what is the significance of the throne of the Lamb, - "For the Lamb is in the midst of the throne."

Now in relation to "the throne of God and of the Lamb," there is "a river of water of life... in the midst of the street thereof. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner (kinds) of  fruit, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His bondservants shall serve Him." There is "the tree of life." It bears immortal fruit. There is no place for death here. Its fruit is born every month: this is fruit immortal, or fruit without death. The leaves of this tree are for the health of the nations. I am sorry that in most versions the word "healing" is wrongly translated. I do not know what the word is in your translation, but the original is not for "the healing of the nations," but for "the health of the nations." You may ask, 'What is the difference?' Well, one is the removal of disease, and the other is the prevention of disease.

In Revelation twenty-two, we have come to the time when the spiritual diseases of the nations have been healed, but the health of the nations needs to be preserved. It is a state that is to be maintained. Thus, the leaves are not for healing, they are for preservation. And so it says: "And there shall be no curse any more."

You see, you have got the whole history of the Bible in those words. You have got all that came on the nations through Adam's sin. You have corruption and death - natural disease - the result of a curse. All that is now cleared up, and "the tree of life" represents Victory of Life over all that, Life Triumphant, and Life Abundant. Here the full meaning of "the tree of life" is revealed. And it is like that will all other matters. When you come to the last mention, you have the key to the whole subject. That is a principle of the interpretation of the Bible.

(5.) The Only Real Value Is The Spiritual

Now I come to the last principle for the present, number five: the only real value is the spiritual. We must remember this when we are reading and studying the Bible, and we must keep this in mind in these times  in which we are together. We must not come here just with a thirst for more information or a craving for more knowledge. There are people who just want to get more and more knowledge and education. Now that constitutes a danger. That is exactly how Adam was caught. You see, satan said: "If you take of this tree, you will know"; it was "the tree of knowledge." And there is always a danger of eating of that tree. It might just lead us into death and not into life. So, I repeat this principle of Biblical interpretation: the only read value is the spiritual. And spiritual value is just how something affects our life with God. I do wish that Adam had recognized that. When satan tempted him to take of "the tree of knowledge," if only Adam had said, 'How will this affect my life with God?' He, and we, should have been saved all the trouble.

So, let me say this again, spiritual value is just how something affects our life with God. Shall I put that in another way - spiritual value is just how much something increases the measure of Christ. If Christ is the interpretation of the Bible, then the spiritual knowledge of the Bible results in an increase of Christ. If our days together do not result in an increase of the measure of Christ, we have missed the Way. If we do not go away more Christ-like men and women, with a larger measure of the Lord Jesus, this training course has failed. So I beg of you to pray all the way through that this time together may mean spiritual increase, spiritual knowledge, and not intellectual enlargement.

Everything has got to be judged by how much it contributes  to the Ultimate Purpose of God! We have to ask, "Where does this lead us? Is it Is it leading us somewhere? What is it leading us to? All spiritual knowledge leads to an increase of Christ; it contributes to the ultimate purpose of God. The question always is "How much of life is there in it?" It is not a matter of interest; it is not a matter of fascination with Bible truth; it is not a matter of making us more important people by the enlarging of our natural stature, but it is just a matter of the measure of Christ. This is the real spiritual value!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(The End)