The Authority Is Invested In the Man on the Throne (continued)
Wheels Touch the Earth and Are Lifted Up
Then point number three: they touch the earth and then they are lifted up from the earth. And then it seems that they come back to earth and stay. The living ones let down their wings, and for a time everything seems to be standing still, and then the inference is that they go on again. I think there is a lot of history in that.
The Lord began on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). He began at Jerusalem. We might say that He began, as it were, on the earth. And then His movements are above the earth - He is there through that book in a position over the earth, and then He stops. This is not a contradiction of what I have just been saying. There are times when the Lord has to wait - He has to wait for something - His onward movements seem to tarry. What a lot of history there is in that - the whole history of the Church is just that. God moves on and then He has to wait and then when He gets what He is waiting for, He goes on again. There are these movements of God which we can see in history. We need to very seriously consider that matter of God having to wait for something!
Take our own lives. There is movement of God, and then there seems to be some waiting period - the Lord is waiting for something. It may be He is waiting for our adjustment to some light that He has given. It may be that He is waiting for the removal of something that has come in that is not of Himself. It may be many things, but we do know that in our own lives there are periods when the Lord does not seem to be going on.
Perhaps He has been stopped in His going on - He is now waiting for something. During that time of waiting, we ought to have very serious exercise - "Why is it that the Lord is not going on? Why is the Lord not going on with me? What is it that the Lord is waiting for? What adjustment have I got to make? What is it that I have got to put out of the Lord's Way?" You see, we ought to have exercise about every seeming staying and waiting of the Lord.
Also, that is true of the Lord's work. That is true in our own spiritual life, and it is true also in the work of the Lord. There come periods when the Lord seems to be waiting. It looks as though He has stopped going on. There may be any one of many reasons for that. It is not because the Lord has given up His purpose! It is not because the Lord has ceased to be a God of movement, but He is waiting for us! He is waiting for His people - He is waiting for something in His people. At all such times, we should have very great exercise about this: "What is the Lord waiting for?!"
Well, if we take the history of the Church during the last two thousand years (and it is a very instructive study), on the one side we see those movements of God from heaven - it is as though the Throne was lifted up from the earth and was going on. The Throne was overriding things of the earth - going on in its power. That has happened again and again. On the other side, we see those dark times in the history of the Church, such as what we call the Middle Ages, and other times when it seemed that the Lord was standing still. It has been like that many times. The Lord is waiting for something. And then a people arose who took on that matter and had deep exercise about it. That is the history of the Church. Out of that exercise God went on again!
It would be quite easy for me if I had the time, to give you those movements and those stayings of the Lord, but we shall not take time for that. We are just putting our finger upon this principle: The Throne moves, the living ones let down their wings and the Throne stands still for a time, and then it moves on again. Well, think a lot about that. It is full of instruction.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 29 - "Wheels Are Full of Eyes")
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