Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 5

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 5

The Cost of Enlightenment

We know that the book of Joshua is the book of the inheritance. The people are going in to possess, to occupy, to exploit, in inherit. But what was the very first move, when Israel had come to the borders of the land, forty years previously? The setting up of Intelligence. Spies were sent to spy out the land. Joshua sent over intelligence officers, his intelligence Corps. Intelligence was a tremendously important thing here. We might say that Joshua and Caleb were themselves the very embodiment of the principle of intelligence. It was they who brought the report which, in the long run, resulted in a people going in and possessing. But note at this point an interesting and impressive and significant thing. The people thought to stone them! You see, the enemy is not only over there in the land - he is entrenched in the very hearts of the people themselves, he has got a footing there. How true that is to principle and to history! Let any of the people of God begin to get some new light, and, as the Lord's instrument, they will become the object of satan's hatred: he will stir up forces to stone that instrument. He hates instruments of spiritual enlightenment.
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The Word Of The Lord For Now

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

What is the work of the Lord? What is Christian service from God's standpoint? It is contributing to the fullness of Christ. It is in the measure of each several part ministering to that end, that all things shall be summed up in Christ, and that He shall be the fullness of all things. That great Divine goal has many ways and many means of attainment, and it is not a matter of whether you or I are serving the Lord in the same way as someone else. That is not the point at all. We standardize and departmentalize Christian work, and we think of the activities of ministers and missionaries and suchlike functions, and we call that work of the Lord; we think of that when we speak of going into Christian service. The work of the Lord is, and can be, no more than contributing to the fullness of Christ and ministering of that fullness to Him and from Him. How you do it is a matter of Divine appointment, but that is the work of the Lord. You might aspire to be an apostle Paul - probably if you understood a little more you would not! But you see, whether Paul is doing it along his Divinely appointed line, in his Divinely appointed way - or Peter - or John - or this one or that one - the object comes first, the way afterward.

The beginning of all service in relation to God is the servant himself. What makes a servant of God? We think of a servant of God being made by academic training, Bible teaching,by this or that form of equipment,and we think when we have all that, when we have been through the course and have in our minds all that can be imparted of that kind, we are the Lord's servants. But that is not the way the Lord looks at it at all. The Lord is going to require that He shall be able to say, "Behold, my servant", and the servant to whom He will call attention will be the servant who is the impression of Christ. Yes, Christ registered, Christ presenced, Christ apparent, in the servant. God is far more concerned with having His servants in a right state than He is with having them furnished with all kinds of academic qualifications and titles.

You can use the Scripture and it may have no effect at all, or you can use it, and it may have a mighty effect. A great deal depends  upon who uses the Scripture. It is the man of God who can use it in that way and be attested as the true servant of the Lord.

It is with you and with me that the Lord is concerned; it is with what we are, it is with our personal knowledge of Himself. It is that we may have within us the secrets of the Lord, that it may be true of us as it was of the Lord Jesus and of others that the key to the situation spiritually is in our hands.
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The Need to Press On

There is a vast amount in the Kingdom that we have never suspected - do believe that. There is more for all of us to know than anybody on this earth knows - for more than the very greatest saints, the most advanced Christians, know of the purpose of God. Paul intimates that. In his Philippian letter he makes it clear that even at the end of his life, he has yet to apprehend, he needs still to know. "That I may know..." (Phil. 3:10). There is far more to know. Are you going to allow your life simply to be boxed up within the measure that you know, or within the measure of other people? No - it is the measure of Christ that is God's end..."till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). No movement, no society, no evangelical organization, no church on this earth has come to that yet, but that is the objective in view.
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The Testimony Before the Work

The Lord is more concerned for a testimony than for a work. We need to get clear on that. A good deal of confusion comes in when you begin to think of things in the light of a work. When you get a lot of people leaving their employment to go into "the work", all kinds of complications arise; and really the Lord is not, in the first place, after the work. I am not saying you are not to work for the Lord, but in the first place it is not the work the Lord is after, it is a testimony, it is a light, a living flame.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 6)