“To the Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”

“To the Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”

By T. Austin-Sparks

Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Reading: Judges 5:1-23.

The clause which gathers up that whole chapter, and will give us our key for this present message, is at the end of verse 23: “to the help of the Lord against the mighty”.

You will remember that the book of Judges has a peculiar correspondence with the situation which obtains in our own time. That is, it represents a state of things resultant from a work entrusted by God to His people, imperfectly carried out. The book of Joshua is the book of the great trust. The Lord called, equipped, commissioned, assured in relation to the completing of the work which He had commenced when He brought His people out of Egypt and constituted them a vessel for His purposes.

The book of Joshua closes with the work not perfected, and because the thing had not been carried through to completion in the same spirit, the same devotion, the same earnestness as that with which it was commenced, the enemies of the Lord found their opportunity and made good their opportunity. And then the book of Judges gives us the same result; the enemy constantly taking the upper hand, the enemy constantly encamping upon the Lord’s ground; the Lord’s people constantly suffering defeat. They are being reduced to a state of weakness and impotence, with periodical breakings in upon the tragedy under the various Judges, but more defeat than victory, more shame than glory, more weakness than power. These breaks which are spread over a long period of time, while glorious in themselves, are only set over a much greater background of spiritual tragedy, and at length things decline to a state of much shame and disappointment.

That corresponds to things as they are now. You cannot read the book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit without finding that you are very much in line with the book of Joshua. You have something there in the two which is a parallel. In Joshua and the Acts it is the mighty released energies of the Holy Ghost carrying through to victory after victory; fresh territory always being taken, possessed, with a fight, yes, but a fight in victory all the time. But you know quite well that you do not reach the end of the book of the Acts without finding declension setting in.

If the book of the Acts spreads itself over the history of the early church, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossus, Galatia and all the rest, you know quite well that when you read the letters to those churches you are finding in almost every one of them, if not in every one, traces of spiritual weakness and failure. And you know that within forty years of the death of the apostle Paul, John wrote the seven messages to the seven churches. Forty years only have passed since he wrote his letter to the Ephesians, and now the letter is coming to the Ephesians: “…you have left your first love”. You see the work has not been carried through, declension has set in. And so since the apostolic day, with breaks here and there, and there, glorious breaks, yet by far a greater period of spiritual tragedy; the book of Judges is repeated. There is defeat, weakness, shame, the enemy encamping, holding the ground, possessing himself of the Lord’s own inheritance.

Well, that is the position into which we are brought when we come to read the book of Judges. And this particular clause which we have lifted out for the moment, or lifted into clear relief, is the key not only to the whole book of Judges, but it is the key to the whole history of the church, “…to the help of the Lord against the mighty”. That is the situation; that is the background.

The fact is that there are mighty forces set in definite and positive opposition to the completing, the perfecting of God’s age-long, nay, eternal purpose. They are out to circumvent the accomplishment of that which God took in hand from the beginning. They are out to malign God, to rob Him of His glory, to quench His testimony in the earth. They are out to bring His people into spiritual bondage, to bring His people out of a position of spiritual ascendancy, to bring about a state of spiritual weakness, decline, to set up over against the people of God a testimony to the power of the enemy that he should take the glory from God right alongside of God’s own people. That is very true to spiritual history, and that is true now. The issue is just this: “…to the help of the Lord against the mighty”. That throws the whole situation up for us to a point, a very solemn challenge.

The testimony has got to be completed; the purpose of God has got to be perfected; the enemy has got to be fully and finally blotted out, stamped out. The kingdom has to become the kingdom of our Christ, He is to be known in all the earth as Lord, and in the midst of His people He is to be glorious – but not if the enemy can help it! And there is committed to the Lord’s people, in His Name, by His call, by His commission and by His equipment, the settling of that issue. He is not going to do this independently of His people. He is going to do it through them, by them, in them; and it is a matter of co-operation with the Lord for the perfecting of the Testimony, and the consummating of the eternal purpose of God. And the call is: “to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”

The Lord, in a right sense, let us say it, is counting upon our help in this matter, upon our co-operation. Not that we can give Him anything, not that we are anything, not that any help of ours in ourselves can profit the Lord at all. But inasmuch as He has given us His Spirit of might and of power, He calls upon us to come in the power of the Spirit to His help against the mighty. Now that issue is resting upon us. That issue is resting upon me; that issue is resting upon you, upon every one of you. And it is for you, and for me, to definitely face that issue and say in our heart of hearts at this moment: “Now am I really counting for all that God, by His grace and enablement has made possible, as a co-operating factor with the Lord against the mighty?”

Now we come to our chapter. That clause, “to the help of the Lord against the mighty”, divides the chapter into two. It divides between those who do, and those who do not. I am not able to take this whole chapter, but I am just taking part of it in order to indicate on the one hand what the Lord delights in and approves of; on the other hand, what the Lord condemns. And you will find that the chapter just naturally falls into those two sections: that which is to the Lord’s pleasure and comes under His commendation; on the other hand, that which is to the Lord’s displeasure and comes under His condemnation. We will just look at some of those things, taking first of all that which comes under:

The Divine Commendation.

We begin at verse fourteen. Deborah brings into view all the forces which were active in co-operation, and those which were out of co-operation. And she begins to mention them by name, specifically, “Out of Ephraim came down they whose root is in Amalek.” I do not know whether you see the significance of that; it may not lie upon the surface, but it is a tremendous suggestion. What does that mean? It means this, that Ephraim had their place domestically, right where Amalek was, where Amalek was in evidence. And you will at once recall the history of Amalek, that Amalek was a hereditary foe of Israel, always a thorn in their side, always causing trouble, always creating problems. And there they were, and Ephraim had their roots in the midst of Amalek.

Ephraim might have said, when the call rang out to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty: “Well, I have got my own domestic problems, my own local difficulties, my own personal affairs, and they are sufficient to keep me occupied.” The commendation of Ephraim was this, that in effect they said: “Yes, we have personal problems, God knows we have! We have local difficulties, and domestic difficulties, and trials, but there is a bigger issue than that. The universal is bigger than the local; the general is more important than these merely personal matters.” And what Ephraim did was this: “We will leave our local thing to the Lord and get out in His main business.”

Commendation! Oh, glorious thing. It is one of those fine principles that you and I ought to get hold of; it is a New Testament principle. If you get locked up in your own personal, domestic, local problem, or spiritual difficulty, you will be absolutely useless to God in the great universal interests which are in hand, and the best way to solve your own problem is to get out into God’s main problem. The best way to settle that local difficulty is to put your own whole life at God’s disposal for His own eternal purpose. You will find deliverance from that introspection, or from the main local situation, if your heart is right out in God’s greater thing. That is the way of emancipation.

What is the history of assemblies? Just that. Let the assembly all be gathered in a circle looking inward, all the eyes are inward, and they are simply down on their own spiritual affairs, something local, something detached. That assembly is never without problems. It will be occupied and the Devil will occupy that assembly with its internal problems. When an assembly takes up the great universal purpose of God throughout all the earth, the testimony of Jesus on its widest range, it has got the key to the solution of all its difficulties.

What is true of an assembly is true of an individual life. Immediately we begin to draw into ourselves personally, or even collectively, and are simply there locked up with our own local situation, we are incapacitated, neutralised, so far as the great things of God are concerned. You see the point. It is an important one.

The Lord commended because Ephraim, having a local problem with Amalek, left the local matters to the Lord and got on with His bigger business. Ask Him to show you how that applies to you. It is something that works. It works for individual lives and it works for assemblies, companies of the Lord’s people. Oh, that all the Lord’s people were out in the universal! You would see something happening locally then. The Lord comes in along that line.

Verse fourteen: “After thee, Benjamin, among your peoples.” On the side of commendation; why? Why is Benjamin brought into view for commendation, for praise, for honour? Well, Benjamin was the small tribe. “There goes little Benjamin”! In this book of Judges, chapter twenty, you have an awful story – I consider it the most terrible story in the Bible – and the result of that which happened in the tribe of Benjamin, was that Benjamin suffered an awful slaying, and was reduced by thousands.

The book of Judges is not written in chronological order, and this probably took place before the record of chapter five, so that in addition to being the baby tribe, they had suffered an awful slaying as a result of their sin. And yet now, chastened, corrected, restored, but very small, very weak, when the call of the Lord came for help against the mighty, Benjamin was found there. And it just says this beautiful thing. Benjamin might well have said: “What am I? What is the use of me? I am only a very small, very weak one, I hardly count. Surely I need not take this call seriously, it does not apply to me. There are greater people than I.” And so Benjamin might have declined by excusing themselves, that they were such nothings, nobodies, so small, so weak! But then the call came: “After you, Benjamin among your peoples”.

Now, some of you weak ones take it to heart, “to the help of the Lord against the mighty” and the Lord commends the smallest heart contribution in this thing, however weak, however small. And Benjamin had a great history afterwards you know. Follow the history and see what Benjamin provided. The great apostle of the Gentiles came from the tribe of Benjamin. What a contribution a little one may make after all when the Lord gets hold of the little one; when the little one does not stand back and say: “I am too weak, too small; I do not count”; but when the little one in all the consciousness of being so small, so weak, says: “Nevertheless there is a great matter on hand and the Lord must have even the weak ones; I am in this for the Lord’s sake”, see what the Lord can make of a little one, what He can do. He puts them on the list of those who are commended as being small, but marvellously fruitful. The Lord help you to take that to heart.

Perhaps some of you are always feeling your own nothingness and that therefore you can be of very little use to the Lord. Now look at Benjamin! And only one of the fruits of Benjamin was Paul the apostle. But if that were all, he stands, he ranks himself alone among very few in the history of this world. There are very few who stand alongside Paul the apostle as his equal in the influence which they have brought to bear upon this world spiritually. That is only one of the fruits of little Benjamin! Give God a chance with your little and see what He will do. The Lord encourage you with that word.

The same verse: “Out of Machir came down governors”, (or lawgivers, leaders). These Machirites had a special capacity for leadership, and having that capacity for leadership, in the hour of the Lord’s need they made their contribution after that kind. You find that later on David got his captains from among them. Now we are not speaking in the natural realm at this moment, of natural leadership. What is leadership really in principle? Leadership is just this, that you recognise that a good many people want stirring up and you start stirring them up. You recognise that there are a lot of people who are not up to a hundred per cent for the Lord and you say to them: “Now we must be out and out for God”. That is leadership. You do not need a great deal of capacity for that, a great deal of education and training, to be out and out for God and give others the lead for out-and-outness.

Have you got that spirit, that quality which is so needed amongst the Lord’s people, of seeing to it that no one lags behind so far as you are concerned? Are you out to help everybody to come on to their best and fullest for the Lord, arousing the Lord’s people because you have a right apprehension and appreciation of the greatness of the issue? Have you seen what is at stake, what is in the balance? Have you seen the enormous issue of this conflict? If that has come to you, has come home to your heart, you will never be satisfied in seeing any child of God living only up to a point for the Lord. You will be out to get them, as the apostle Paul was, presented perfect in Christ Jesus. That is leadership.

Out of Machir: governors, leaders, in the hour of need. Now, that is an appeal “to the help of the Lord against the mighty”, which has this aspect. While you yourselves cannot take the full responsibility for the people, you can stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance, and seek to bring upon them the responsibility of the present issue. That is leadership. The Lord make some of you leaders who have been laggards, and stir you to stir others. You and I need to be there, where we are all the time seeking to bring one another up to the full measure of the grace of God.

Verse eighteen: “Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death, and Naphtali, upon the high places of the field.” Well, that lies right on the surface doesn’t it, and there hardly need be a comment. Here Zebulun and Naphtali were valiant for the truth to the point of loving not their own lives even unto death. They gambled with their lives in the interests of the Lord, they ceased to put any value upon their own interests, upon their own lives. They jeoparded their lives even unto the death upon the high places of the field. There was no covering, no protection out in the field. They got out into the high places, the open places, out of cover where they were exposed, and on the high places they jeoparded their lives.

I sometimes think you and I do try and save our lives. We are just a little bit afraid of the cost, just preserving ourselves a little bit, listening to the tempter: “Save yourself: pity yourself.” Zebulun and Naphtali jeoparded their lives, upon the high places of the field. You and I must become prodigal in one way. That is, the giving of ourselves unstintingly because we have seen what is involved in this spiritual warfare. No reservation! Are you really laying down your life for the Lord? Are you really spending yourself unstintingly for the Lord? Are you trying to preserve a measure of comfort and ease for yourself, or is everything out for God? The Lord make you like Zebulun and Naphtali; the Lord make me more like them.

Turn to verse fifteen: “And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; as was lssachar, so was Barak; into the valley they rushed forth at his feet.” It was the last clause that gives you the clue. The heart state of Issachar: “at his feet”. What does that picture to you? Here is Barak, the captain of the host; here is Issachar gathered around as near to the captain as possible for protection purposes, and they rush into the battle in as close a devotion to their captain as possible: “at his feet”. It is a picture of devotion to the captain, as near to him for the safety of his interests as possible. They are those nearest to him and they rush into the battle in their devotion to their Lord. It brings us very near the heart of things.

Issachar tests us upon this. What about our devotion to our Lord? What does our devotion amount to? Does it amount to this, that because He is involved in this thing, we are in it; not hesitatingly, reluctantly, but in it utterly, rushing into the battle in a spirit of devotion to Him. Now the test of everything is our devotion to Christ. And our devotion to Christ will be at once settled by the measure in which we rush into the battle. You see that rushing into the battle proves the devotion when it is in such close touch with Him. If you do not rush into the battle there is a serious question about your devotion. If you are going hesitatingly, reluctantly, reticently into the battle, if you have to be dragged in, all the time stirred up, appealed to, if there is a lack of spontaneity, if there is a lack of that eagerness in this matter, in this great spiritual conflict, whether it be in the prayer aspect of things, in the testimony aspect of things, or in any other aspect of things, if it is a matter of being constantly stirred up, then that seriously raises the question of devotion to Him.

Beloved, if we have the Lord really in our hearts, and there is a real devotion to Him, you will never have to be constantly prompted. There will be initiative, there will be a wholehearted rushing into the battle. Well, I feel condemned. I am not in it as I ought to be. Now is the time for us to determine that by the grace of God we will be in it as we have never been. Will you determine?

Now we have to turn to the other side. This is, for the time being, the last of the commendations; there are others, but I think we have enough to search us. There is the other side:

Condemnation and Reproof.

Verse fifteen: “By the watercourses of Reuben there were great resolves of heart”. This is condemnation, mark you, not commendation. They sat by the sheepfolds, by the water courses, and there were great resolves of heart. They were not in the battle, their resolves led to nothing. They sat there and said: “Yes, we are going into this thing; we must be in it, of course, it is our duty; we must not fail.” And they talked and talked about the battle and what they were going to do, where they were going to be, how they were going to do it, but they never did it.

Now, does that find us out? You hear the call; and very few of you have definitely refused and positively disobeyed. You heard the call of the Lord: “to the help of the Lord against the mighty”; you have the situation presented to you constantly, and under the impact of the appeal you say: “Yes, I am going to be all out for the Lord, fully consecrated, out and out, yes.” And if you were asked there and then on the spot to indicate a full consecration to the Lord your hand would go up – but what does it mean to you? Does it work out? Do we find you in the battle afterwards? Are you there in the conflict of the prayer room? Are you really taking positively, deliberate responsibility for the testimony of the Lord? When the next time comes round are there more resolves of heart: “I am going to be out and out for the Lord” and so it goes on week after week, month after month, and you have done it perhaps for years, every time you have heard the appeal; but you are still by the sheepfolds, still by the watercourses making great resolves of heart, but not working them out.

Are you in the list of the condemned? You are; you come in the category of those who, after all, in spite of every resolve and intention, come not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Forgive me if I seem severe, but we are not just dealing with past history, we are not in some fictitious affair, we are in the grimmest business of the ages. We are in the matter of the consummation of the Lord’s testimony, and the fight is desperate – and some of us know it. It is a terrific fight, and it is going to become more and more terrific, and there is need for reinforcements. There is need for you to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Are you content to say: “Yes, I am out and out for the Lord” and it have no outworking? We are fighting a battle; come into the prayer gathering and you will know it. What are you doing? Just resolving that you are going to do something and never doing it? Do not be a Reubenite: many resolves of heart, but still sitting where you were.

Verse seventeen: “Gilead abode beyond the Jordan.” We all know what “beyond Jordan” is. That meant a refusal of the Cross. At this moment I just want to say a word about this. You see, beyond Jordan meant that they were really, personally, not involved in this thing. They were far off, their position was out of touch with the real issue. Their proximity was not that which made it for them a matter of real concern. They were right out there on the fringe of things and so this matter did not come home to their hearts and they abode beyond Jordan.

That simply says that it is possible to have a remote spiritual position which is out of touch with the essential, vital issues of the Lord’s testimony; to be spiritually remote from the great things which are on hand with the Lord and the thing does not touch you. Does the appeal touch you? Have you seen the situation? Has this thing come home to your heart? Do you not see that the Lord’s testimony is in the vortex of a great spiritual conflict in this day? If you have not felt it, if it has not come home to you, if you are not moved by it, if you do not feel yourself involved in it, it is because you are spiritually out of touch, spiritually out of the way, and it is a terrible position to be in. People who are in most are the people who feel most intensely the spiritual issues in conflict. Are you out there, remote from the matter, not touched? Yours is a bad spiritual state. The Lord save you from being on the fringe of things and bring you right into the heart.

Verse seventeen: “And Dan, why did he remain in ships?” Dan owned the Port of Joppa, and the Port of Joppa was a very busy place commercially, and all the goings and comings of a busy commercial life so occupied Dan that he had no time for the things of the Lord. He was in big business in the world and that kept him out of the business of the Lord. The message is obvious. I do not know how many of you are touched by it.

What is the proportion of your time in spiritual exercises and activity compared with that to which you give to the world? Does the world come in and take such a large place in its business and demands that you excuse yourself from the work and interests of the Lord because of that, and you are not in the fight? You say: “It is all very well for you, you do not know what it is to be in the business of the world.” I think we might have some answer for that, but beloved, if we were not seven days a week in the business of the Lord, not for what we could get spiritually out of it, but suffering every hour of our lives for the testimony of Jesus, we would have no right to speak to you like this. But because this thing is swallowing us up, eating us up, we have a right to speak to you, and ask you: are you allowing this world to eat into your lives so that you are rendered useless in the things of the Lord, and you are making that monopoly of daily toil and duty the excuse for not coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty?

Beware! It is wonderful what you can do when your heart is in a thing. It is wonderful what the Lord can do with a man who has upon his shoulders a tremendous responsibility in this world, if that man’s heart is on the Lord’s side. Many a man has come home tired and worn out from a day’s work, but after a clean-up has gone off to the local gathering, to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and has been quite refreshed, and he leaves behind a testimony that although the world has made great demands upon him, the Lord has got His quota. It is a matter of the heart.

“Asher sat still at the haven of the sea”. Asher sat still – that is all. He is too comfortable. He did not want to be disturbed. You never sit still unless you are comfortable, but when you get like that you do not want to be disturbed. I do not say you are comfortable and satisfied, but are you in the place where you do not want to be disturbed, you do not want to have your life broken in upon by these spiritual demands, by this conflict of the Lord? Are you with Asher? Sitting still, unmoved, not moving? That comes in the list of those condemned.

Verse twenty-three: “Curse you Meroz… because they came not… to the help of the Lord against the mighty”. Why does the condemnation reach such intensity in the case of Meroz? Well, I will tell you. They dwelt nearby the battlefield and they commanded the passes. They were in a position to render help because they were in close proximity to the situation. Formerly they were right near the matter, in close touch with it. If only they had been livingly, vitally in the thing and on the business, it would have been different, but being in the way of being a strategic help to the Lord, in touch with the battlefield, and commanding the passes, they let the enemy escape.

It was simply a matter of carelessness, indifference, letting things slip through their fingers. It was want of being wholeheartedly in the thing with which they were closely associated. Does not this search our hearts? Here we are, we are closely enough in touch with the conflict, with what is going on. We are in a position to be a strategic help to the Lord because we are there where the thing is very much alive. We are near this matter, but are we only formally in touch with the testimony, or are we vitally in touch with it? Pardon me if I press this; I do not want to be personal, but I do want that the Lord should have all that is His right, all that He ought to have.

Are there any here who do not really count for very much; there is a sort of formal association, proximity; the condemnation is the greater. To be in touch with the great spiritual issues of the Lord, to be there where those issues are being challenged and disputed by the enemy and yet not to be in the thing, will lead to far greater condemnation. “Curse you Meroz, because they came not, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Because being in a position to count, they did not count; being in a position to help the Lord against the mighty, they did not. So far as they were concerned the enemy was just having it his way and they presented no barrier to him.

Oh… where are you? My heart aches in this matter. I cannot tell you how much I am inwardly concerned that anybody can be associated with things here for any length of time and not count one hundred per cent in things spiritually. If you are not taking your place in coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty, in the prayer ministry, or in any other aspect of the testimony, then your condemnation is a terrible one. Oh, may the Lord have mercy upon you; you have to answer for so much more than those who have not had that proximity, that close touch, or been in that position of vantage.

Oh, in this end time when the battle is becoming more intense may you not be out of it, but come “to the help of the Lord against the mighty”.

Genesis 1

Prophetic Ministry By T. Austin-Sparks

Prophetic Ministry
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 3 – A Voice Which May Be Missed

“For they that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning Him” (Acts 13:27).

The above statement as a whole carries a significance which embraces a very great deal of history, but its direct and immediate implication is that if the people referred to – the dwellers in Jerusalem and their rulers – had been in the good of the most familiar things, they would have behaved very differently from the way in which they did behave. Every week, Sabbath by Sabbath, extending over a very great number of years, they heard things read; but eventually, because of their failure to recognise what they were hearing, they acted in a way entirely opposed to those very things, though under the sovereignty of God fulfilling them in so doing.

Surely that is a word of warning. It represents a very terrible possibility – to hear repeatedly the same things, and not to recognise their significance; to behave in a way quite contrary to our own interests, making for our own undoing, when it might have been otherwise.

The point is this – that there is a voice in the prophets which may be missed, a meaning which may not be apprehended, and the results may be disastrous for the people concerned. “The voices of the prophets”: that suggests that there is something beyond the mere things that the prophet says. There is a ‘voice’. We may hear a sound, we may hear the words, and yet not hear the voice; that is something extra to the thing said. That is the statement here, that week by week, month after month, and year after year, men read the prophets audibly, and the people who heard the reading did not hear the voices. It is the voice of the prophets that we need to hear.

As you go through this thirteenth chapter of the Acts you are able to recognise that this little fragment is in a very crucial context. This chapter, to begin with, marks a development. There in Antioch were certain men, including Saul, and the Holy Ghost said: “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” That was a new development, a moving out, something far-reaching, very momentous; but you are not through the chapter before you come upon another crisis, which became inevitable when in a certain place a great crowd came together, and the Jews, refusing to be obedient to the Word, stirred up a revolt. The Apostles made this pronouncement: “It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (vs. 46); and they quoted a prophet (Isaiah 49:6) for their authority: “I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles.” These were epochs in the history of the Church; and the Jews, as a whole, were turned from, and the Gentiles in a very deliberate way were recognised and brought in, because of this very thing – that the Jews had heard these prophets Sabbath by Sabbath but had not heard their voices.

Big things hang upon hearing the voice. Failure to hear may lead to irreparable loss. Very big things concerning Israel have come into the centuries since the time of Acts 13. It is not my intention to launch out on matters of prophecy concerning the Jews, but my point is this. On the one hand, it was no small thing to fail to hear the voices of the prophets. On the other hand, you notice that the Gentiles rejoiced. It says here, “As the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of God.” Well, on both sides, it is a great thing to fail to hear what could be heard if there were an ear for hearing and it is a great thing to hear and give heed. I think that is a sufficiently serious foundation and background to engage our attention.

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Let us now look more closely at this matter of “the voices of the prophets”. A fact of very great significance is this, that the prophets have such a large place in the New Testament. I wonder if you have taken account of how large that place is. You will not need to be reminded of how largely the Gospels call upon the major prophets, as they are called. “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet…” – how often that statement alone occurs in the Gospels. It came in from the birth of the Lord Jesus, and in that connection alone on several occasions the major prophets are quoted. But when you move from the Gospels into the Acts and the Epistles, you move largely into what are called the minor prophets – not minor because they were of less account than the others, but because the record of their writings is smaller. It is tremendously impressive and significant that these minor prophets should be drawn upon so extensively in the New Testament; they are quoted over fifty times.

PROPHETS MEN OF VISION

From that general significance, two factors emerge. One as to the prophets themselves: why do they have so large a place in the New Testament? Well, the answer to that will be largely another question. What do prophets signify? They are the ‘seers’ (I Samuel 9:9); they are the men who see and, in seeing, act as eyes for the people of God. They are the men of vision; and their large place in the New Testament surely therefore indicates how tremendously important spiritual vision is for the people of God throughout this dispensation. Of course, the other thing is the vision itself, but I am not concerned just now to speak about what the vision was and is – that, with other aspects, may come later. At the moment, I feel the Lord is concerned with this factor – the tremendous importance of spiritual vision if the people of God are to fulfil their vocation. It resolves itself into a matter solely of vision unto vocation, and the vocation will not be fulfilled without vision.

VISION IMPARTS PURPOSE TO LIFE

So for a moment let us dwell upon the place of vision – and you will not think that I am talking about ‘visionariness’. No, it is something specific, it is the vision, it is something clearly defined. The prophets knew what they were talking about – not merely abstract ideas, but something very definite. Vision is something quite specific, something with which the Lord is concerned and which has become a mighty, dominating thing in the life of those who have it; clear, distinct, precise, specific; taking hold of and mastering and dominating them, so that the whole purpose of existence itself is gathered into it. Such people are at the place where they know why they have an existence, they know the purpose for which they are alive and are able to say what it is, and their horizon is bounded by that thing; they, with their whole life in all its aspects, are gathered into that, poised to that. It is an object which governs everything for them. It is not just living on this earth and doing many things and getting through somehow; but everything that has a place in life is linked with this definite, distinct, all-governing objective. It is such a vision which gives meaning to life.

It is not necessary for me to take you through Israel’s history as governed by that very truth. You know quite well that, when Israel was in a right position, that is how things were – focused, definite, with everybody centred in one object. And, before we go further, let us say again that all these prophets – men who were the eyes of God for a people, and signifying to that people God’s thought and purpose concerning them, their Divine vocation, God’s interpretation of their very existence – these prophets who embodied that are all brought into the New Testament dispensation and into the Church, with this clear implication, that that is how the Church is to be if it is to get through. The Church is to be a seeing thing, dominated by a specific object and vision, knowing why it exists, having no doubt about it, and poised in utter abandonment thereto, bringing all other things in life into line with that. Our attitude has to be that, while in this world we necessarily have to do this and that, to earn our living and do our daily work, yet there is something governing all else: there is a Divine vision. These things have to bend to that one Divine end.

That is the first implication of the fact that the prophets have such a large place in this dispensation. We cannot now stay to follow that out in detail from the Word, but it would be very helpful to go through the New Testament, and see how the bringing in of the prophets is made to apply to the varied aspects of the Church’s life. It is very impressive.

VISION A UNIFYING FACTOR

The prophets are governing this dispensation in this way. This vision, the vision, was the very cohesiveness and strength of Israel. When the vision was clearly before them, when their eyes were opened and they were seeing, when they were in line with God’s purpose, when they were governed by that end to which God had called them, they were one people, made one by the vision. They had a single eye. That little phrase, “If… thine eye be single…” (Matthew 6:22), has a great deal more in it than we have recognised. A single eye – it unifies the whole life and conduct; it will unify all your behaviour. If you are a man or a woman of one idea, everything will be brought into that. Of course, that is not always a very happy thing, though in this case it is. People who are obsessed and, as we say, ‘have a bee in their bonnet’, with nothing else to talk about but one thing, are often very trying people. But there is a right way, a Divine way, in which the people of God should be people of a single eye, a single idea; and that singleness of eye brings all the faculties into coordination.

During the rare periods when Israel was like that, they were a marvelously unified people. On the other hand, you can see how, when the vision faded and failed, they disintegrated, became people of all kinds of divided and schismatic interests and activities, quarrelling amongst themselves. How true is the word: “Where there is no vision, the people perish (go to pieces)” (Proverbs 29:18). And so it was with Israel. See them in the days of Eli, when there was no open vision. What a disintegrated, disunited people they were! That happened many times. The vision was a solidifying, cohesive power, making a people solidly one, and in that oneness was their strength, and they were irresistible. See them over Jordan in their assault upon Jericho! See them moving triumphantly on! While they were governed by one object, none could stand before them. Their strength was in their unity, and their unity was in their vision. The enemy knows what he is doing in destroying or confusing vision: he is dividing the people of God.

VISION A DEFENSIVE POWER

What a defensive power is vision like that! What little chance the enemy has when we are a people set upon one thing! If we have all sorts of divided and personal interests, the enemy can make awful havoc. He does not get a chance when everybody is centred upon one Divine object. He has to divide us somehow, distract us, disintegrate us, before he can accomplish his work of hindering God’s end. All those features of self-pity, self-interest, which are ever seeking to get in and spoil, will never get in while vision is clear and we are focused upon it as one people. It is tremendously defensive. The Apostle spoke about being “in diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11). Moffatt translates “fervent in spirit” as “maintaining the spiritual glow”. Being centred upon an object wholeheartedly is a wonderfully protective thing. Such a condition in a people closes the breaches and resists the encroachments and impingements of all kinds of things which would distract and paralyse.

VISION MAKES FOR DEFINITENESS AND GROWTH

Vision was like a flame with the prophets. You have to recognise that about them, at any rate – that these men were flames of fire. There was nothing neutral about them; they were aggressive, never passive. Vision has that effect. If you have really seen what the Lord is after, you cannot be half-hearted. You cannot be passive if you see. Find the person who has seen, and you find a positive life. Find the person who does not see, is not sure, is not clear, and you have a neutral, a negative, one that does not count. These prophets were men like flames of fire because they saw. And when Israel was in the good of the Divine calling, Israel was like that – positive, aggressive. When the vision faded, they came to a standstill, turned in upon themselves, went round and round in circles, ceased to get anywhere.

This aggressiveness, this positiveness, which is the fruit of having seen, provides the Lord with the ground that He needs for a right kind of training and discipline. It does not mean that we shall never make mistakes. You will see in the New Testament – and I hope you will not charge me with heresy – that even a man as crucified as Paul could make mistakes. Peter, a man so used and so chastened, could make mistakes. Yes, apostles could make mistakes. And prophets could make mistakes. “What doest thou here, Elijah?” (I Kings 19:9). ‘You have no business to be here’ – that is what it means. Yes, prophets and apostles could make mistakes, and they did; but there is this about it – because they had seen, and were utterly abandoned to that which they had seen of the Lord’s mind, the Lord was abundantly able to come in on their mistakes and sovereignly overrule them and teach His servants something more of Himself and His ways.

Now, you never find that with people who are indefinite. The indefinite people, those who are not meaning business, who are not abandoned, never do learn anything of the Lord. It is the people who commit themselves, who let go and go right out in the direction of whatever measure of light the Lord has given them, who, on the one hand, find their mistakes – the mistakes of their very zeal – taken hold of by Divine sovereignty and overruled; and, on the other hand, are taught by the Lord through their very mistakes what His thoughts are, how He does things, and how He does not do them. If we are going to wait in indefiniteness and uncertainty and do nothing until we know it all, we shall learn nothing.

Have you not noticed that it is the men and women whose hearts are aflame for God, who have seen something truly from the Lord and have been mightily gripped by what they have seen, who are the people that are learning? The Lord is teaching them; He does not allow their blunders and their mistakes to engulf them in destruction. He sovereignly overrules, and in the long run they are able to say, ‘Well, I made some awful blunders, but the Lord marvelously took hold of them and turned them to good account.’ To be like this, with vision which gathers up our whole being and masters us, provides the Lord with the ground for looking after us even when we make mistakes – because His interests are at stake, His interests and not our own are the concern of our heart. The prophets and the apostles learned to know the Lord in wonderful ways by their very mistakes, for they were the mistakes, not of their own stubborn self-will, but of a real passion for God and for what He had shown them as to His purpose.

VISION GIVES ASCENDENCY TO GOD’S PEOPLE

And then note that the very ascendency of Israel was based upon vision. They were called of God to be an ascendent people, above all the peoples of the earth, set in the midst of the nations as a spiritually governmental vessel. The Lord did promise that no nation should be able to take headship over them. His thought for them was that they should be “the head, and not the tail” (Deut. 28:13). But that was not going to happen willy-nilly, irrespective of their condition and position. It was when they had the vision before them clearly, corporately, as an entire people – dominated, mastered, unified by the vision – it was then that they were head and not tail, it was then that they were in the ascendent.

And that brings in these prophets again. (We think now of the later prophets of Israel.) Why the prophets? Because Israel had lost their position. Assyria, Babylon and the rest were taking ascendency over them because they had lost their vision. It is in the minor prophets, as they are called, that you have so much about this very matter. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). That is a note to which all the prophets are tuned. Why this state of things? Why is Israel now the underdog of the nations? The answer is – lost vision. The prophet comes to try to get them back to the place of the vision. The prophet has the vision, he is the eyes of the people: he is calling them back to that for which God chose them, to show them anew why He took them from among the nations.

VISION NEEDED BY EVERY CHILD OF GOD

All this is but an emphasis upon the place of vision. It may not get you very far; you may wonder what it all leads to. You are saying now, ‘Well, what is the vision?’ That is not the point at the moment; that can come later. The pointis that that is the necessity, the absolute necessity, for the Church today – for you, for me; and let me say at once that, while it is pre-eminently a corporate thing – that is, it is something which is to be in a people, even though that people be but a remnant, a small number amongst all the people of God – while pre-eminently a corporate thing, it must also be personal. You and I individually must be in the place where we can say, ‘I have seen, I know what God is after!’

If we were asked why the Church is as it is today, in so large a measure of impotence and disintegration, and what is needed to bring about an impact from heaven by means of the Church, could we say? Is it presumption to claim to be able to do that? The prophets knew; and remember that the prophets, whether they were of the Old Testament or of the New Testament, were not an isolated class of people, they were not some body apart, holding this in themselves officially. They were the very eyes of the body. They were, in the thought of God, the people of God. You know that principle; it is seen, for instance, in the matter of the High Priest. God looks upon the one High Priest as Israel, and deals with all Israel on the ground of the condition of the High Priest, whether it be good or bad. If the High Priest is bad – “And he showed me Joshua the high priest… clothed with filthy garments” (Zechariah 3:1-5) – that is Israel. God deals with Israel as one man.

The prophet is the same; and that is why the prophet was so interwoven with the very condition and life of the people. Listen to the prophet Daniel praying. Personally he was not guilty; personally he had not sinned as the nation had sinned; but he took it all on himself and spoke as though it were his responsibility, as if he were the chief of sinners. These men were brought right into it. There is such a oneness between the prophets and the people in condition, in experience, in suffering, that they can never view themselves as officials apart from all that, as it were talking to it from the outside; they are in it, they are it.

My meaning is this, that we are not to have vision brought to us by a class called ministers, prophets and apostles. They are here only to keep us alive to what we ought to be before God, how we ought to be; constantly stirring us up and saying, ‘Look here, this is what you ought to be.’ It ought therefore to be, with every one of us personally, that we are in the meaning of this prophetic ministry. The Church is called to be a prophet to the nations. May I repeat my enquiry – it is a permissible question without admitting of any presumption – could you say what is needed by the Church today? Could you interpret the state of things, and explain truly by what the Lord has shown you in your own heart? I know the peril and dangers that may surround such an idea, but that is the very meaning of our existence. It will be in greater or lesser degree in every one of us, but, either more or less we have the key to the situation. God needs people of that sort. It must be individual.

VISION CALLS FOR COURAGE

But remember it will call for immense courage. Oh, the courage of these prophets! – courage as over against compromise and policy. Oh, the ruinous effects of policy, of secondary considerations! ‘How will it affect our opportunities if we are so definite? Will it not lessen our opportunities of serving the Lord if we take such a position?’ That is policy, and it is a ruinous thing. Many a man who has seen something, and has begun to speak about what he has seen, has found such a reaction from his own brethren and amongst those where his responsibility lay, that he has drawn back. ‘It is dangerous to pursue that any further.’ Policy! No, there was nothing of that about the prophets. Are we committed because we have seen?

There will be cost; we may as well face it. There is a little fragment in Hebrews 11 – “They were sawn asunder.” A tradition says that that applied to the prophet Isaiah – that he was the one who was sawn asunder. Read lsaiah 53. There is nothing more sublime in all the literature of the Bible, and for that he was sawn asunder. Was he right? Well, we today stand on the ground, and in the good, of his rightness. But the devil does not like that, and so Isaiah was sawn asunder. There are tremendous values bound up with seeing, and with uncompromising abandonment to the vision, but there is very great cost also.

We will leave it there for the time being; but we must have dealings with the Lord and say, ‘How much have I seen? After all I have heard of the prophets week by week, after all the conventions, the conferences, the meetings I have been attending, have I heard the voice of the prophets after all? I have heard the speakers give their messages and addresses: have I heard the voice?’ The effect will be far-reaching if we have. If we have not, it is time we got to the Lord about it. This must not go on! What happened in Acts 13? Hearing they did not hear; but where there was a hearing, oh, what tremendous things happened, what tremendous values came!

The Angel of the Lord: for an adversary against him. Num 22:22

Our Daily Homily

The Angel of the Lord: for an adversary against him. Num 22:22
      
      The Angel of Jehovah is often referred to as a very present help, and as encamping round about those that fear God; but here, as an adversary with a drawn sword. When we serve God His sword is for us, as for Joshua at Jericho; but when we turn as here from His way to our crooked paths, it is drawn against us. That which seems to be full of menace is, when we look deeper, an angel force seeking to stay our further progress toward destruction.
      
      Look for the Angel with his drawn sword in every pain of body, anxiety of circumstance, or suffering of mind. You were intent on pursuing your own way, and obtaining the rewards of unrighteousness, when suddenly you were stayed in your course. Another step would have brought you to the edge of the precipice; but you were suddenly arrested by that which forbade advance. Do not curse the hindering obstacle. Beneath it is God’s gentlest angel, endeavoring to turn you from your evil purpose; and though his sword may be drawn against you, yet he is but keeping you from taking that step which might result in lifelong regret.
      
      Too often our eyes are holden. We fret and chafe against God’s kindest providence. Our anger is kindled at the ass which sees the angel, and thrusts herself against the wall. Let this day be one of humble searching of heart. Try to learn the reason why God has frustrated your plans, and blocked your progress. Ask for the opened eyes. Be sure that there is mercy in every broken plan. He sees the end from the beginning. Bow your head, and acquiesce in His appointments. Fall on your face, and bless Him whose kindliest angels sometimes assume the roughest disguise.

“The anointing which ye have received” (I. John ii. 27).

Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      “The anointing which ye have received” (I. John ii. 27).
      
      This is the secret of the deeper life, but “That ye may be rooted and grounded in love,” is the substance of it, and the sweetness of it. The fulness of the divine love in the heart will make everything easy. It is very easy to do things that we love to do, and it is very easy to trust one whom we love, and the more we realize their love the more we will trust them for it.
      
      It is the source of healing. The tide of love flowing through our bodies will strangely strengthen our very frame, and the love of our Lord will become a continual spring of youth and freshness in our physical being. The secret of love is very simple. It is to take the heart of Jesus for our love and claim its love for every need of life, whether it be toward God or toward others.
      
      It is very sweet to think of persons in this way, “I will take the heart of Jesus toward them, to let me love them as He loves them.” Then we can love even the unworthy in some measure, if we shall see them in the light of His love and hope, as they shall be, and not as they now are, unworthy of our love.

Partners- T. Austin-Sparks

Love’s Wastefulness

George H. Morrison – Devotional Sermons

  Love’s Wastefulness
      
      To what purpose is this waste?–Mat 26:8
      
      A Strange Deed Lives Forever
      
      The scene was Bethany, and the time was near the end. A few more days and the earthly life of Jesus would be over. Jesus and His disciples are seated at their evening meal, when a woman, whom from other sources we learn to have been Mary, did this strange deed that is to live forever. It is not always true that “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” The harm that Mary did, if she did any, lies sleeping with the other gossip of the street of Bethany. This deed still lives, like a choice framework for her heart and hand. ‘Tis one of those countless actions of the just, that smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
      
      A Simple Act to Express Love
      
      And the deed, however unforeseen, was very simple. It was the breaking of an alabaster box, and the pouring of the ointment on the feet of Christ. How much this Mary owed to Jesus, perhaps we shall never know. We cannot tell what a new peace had stolen upon her heart, and what a new glory had fallen upon her world, when first this guest entered her brother’s home. But when her brother died, and Jesus came, and called him from the dead, and gave him back to Bethany and to Mary, why then, by any passionate thankfulness we have felt in getting back our kindred from the gates of death, we can touch the fringes of the gratitude of Mary. And that was the motive and meaning of her act. She loved Him so, she could not help it. Christ’s love had broken her alienated heart. Now let it break her alabaster box. The best was not too good for Him, who had given her a new heart and a new home.
      
      This Was a Deed Only Christ Could Understand
      
      But there are deeds so fine only Christ can understand them. There are some actions so inspired, that even the saintliest disciple, leaning on Jesus’ bosom, will never interpret them aright. And this was one of these. Peter, and James, and John–they understand it now, but they did not understand it then. They were indignant. It was a shocking extravagance of an impulsive woman. What need to squander so a year’s wages of a working man–for the ointment never cost a penny less. If it were not needed now for Lazarus, it might have been sold and given to the poor.
      
      You call them narrow? And you are irritated by their lack of insight? Stay, brethren, there were some noble features in their indignation. And had you and I been lying at that table, I almost hope we should have fallen a-fretting too. These men could not forget, even at the feast, the gaunt and horrid form of destitution that sits forever in the chamber of the village pauper, crying aloud for clothing and for bread. It may be, too, that at their evening worship they had been reading that he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord. And had they not had it from their Master’s lips that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister? Till in the light of that, and in the remembrance of the woes of poverty, their hearts began to burn with a not so dishonourable indignation. And each began to ask his fellow, “To what purpose is this waste?”
      
      Her Wastefulness Was the Expression of Her Love
      
      But these disciples had forgotten one thing. They had forgotten that this woman’s wastefulness was the native revelation of her love. There is a wasteful spending that is supremely selfish. There is a lavish giving that is disowned in heaven, because the giver is always thinking of himself. But God suspends the pettier economies, and will not brook a single murmur, when He detects the wastefulness of love. It is the genius of love to give. It is love’s way to forget self and lavish everything. And Mary’s way was love’s way when she brake the box and poured the ointment on the feet of Christ. And being love’s way, it was God’s way too.
      
      God Lavishes His Love
      
      And so we reach the truth that I am anxious to press home on your hearts. If God be love, and if a prodigal expenditure like that of Mary be of the very essence of all love, then in the handiwork of God we shall detect a seeming wastefulness. I scan the works of the Almighty, and everywhere I see the marks of wisdom. I look abroad, and the great universe assures me of His power. But God is more than wisdom or than power. God is love. And I can never rest till I have found the traces of that love in all I know and all I see of God. Here, then, is one of love’s sure tokens. It is a royal expenditure, a lavish and self-forgetful waste. Can I detect this prodigality in the various handiworks of God?
      
      In Nature
      
      First, then, I turn to nature. I leave the crowded city, and find my way into the field, and there, amid the hedgerows, under the open sky, I see a prodigality like that of Mary. God has His own arithmetic, it is not ours. God has His own economy, but it is not the economy of man. Things are not measured here and weighed in scales, and nicely calculated and numbered out. The spirit that breathes through universal nature is the spirit that brake the alabaster box. That heather at my feet is flinging off its seeds in such countless millions, that this one patch could cloak the mountainside in purple. Yon birch that shakes its leaves above my head could fill with seedlings the whole belt of wood. The sun is shining upon dead Sahara as well as on the living world that needs it. And the gentle rain that falls on the mown grass is falling just as sweetly on the granite rock. What mean these myriads of living things? Was He utilitarian who formed and decked the twice ten thousand creatures who dance and die upon a summer’s eve? Have we not here in primal force the spirit that prompted Mary to her deed? There is a royal extravagance in nature. There is a splendid prodigality. There is a seeming squandering of creative power. Let men believe it is the work of carelessness, or of a dead and iron law; but as for us, we shall discover in it some hint that God is love, until the day break and the shadows flee away.
      
      In Beauty
      
      Or holding still by nature, let us set the question of beauty in that light. This world is very beautiful, the children sing; and so it is. And the only organ that can appreciate beauty is the eye of man. No lower creature has the sense of beauty. It serves no purpose in the world’s economy. Beauty unseen by man is beauty wasted. Yet there are scenes of beauty in the tropics on which the eye of man has never lit. And there are countless flushings of the dawn, and glories unnumbered of the setting sun, that never fall within the ken of man. Arctic explorers tell us that in the distant north there is an unsurpassable glory in the sunset. For a brief season in declining day the levels of the snow are touched with gold, and every minaret of ice is radiant. And every sunset has been so for centuries, and never an eye has looked on it till now. O seeming waste of precious beauty! Until the heart begins to whisper, “Why, to what purpose is this waste?” Ah! it is there! that is the point. We have observed it now in the Creator’s work.
      
      In Providence
      
      But now I turn to providence. If Mary’s action was in the line of God’s, we should detect even in providence something of the prodigality of love.
      
      When aged Jacob sat in his tent in Canaan, nursing the hope that Joseph still was living, he would have been content to have had his son again though he came home in rags. And when the prodigal of the parable came home, ashamed of himself, and sorry for his sin, he wished no better chamber than his father’s kitchen. But God was lavish in His lovingkindness, and gave a prince and not a beggar back to Jacob. And the father of the prodigal was himself so prodigal of love that he must put a ring upon that truant hand and bind the shoes upon these wandering feet.
      
      Now do not say all that was long ago. And do not think the God of providence has changed. Even now, in every heart and home, He is still working with lavish prodigality. O brother, what opportunities that God of providence has squandered upon you! Come, to what purpose is this waste?–unsaved heart, you tell me that. Justice would long ago have settled things. Nothing but love could ever be so lavish in letting down from heaven these opportunities. And when I think of all the gifts of God that seem to be given only to be wasted; of sight that might have seen so much, and sees so little, and that little can be so vile; of speech that might have done such noble things, and does so little, and that little can be so mean; of hearing and of memory, of thought and of imagination, lavished so royally on worthless men; then dimly I realise the prodigality of providence, and feel my hopeless debt, and the hopeless debt of all this fallen world, to the seeming wastefulness of Him who quickened Mary to her wasteful deed.
      
      In Grace
      
      So, in the realm of nature and in the sphere of providence, we have observed a spirit akin to Mary’s. But in the world of grace it is clearer still. Indeed, when Jesus said that Mary’s deed was always to be coupled with His death, He must have recognised that the two were kin.
      
      Now think: the death of Jesus is sufficient to pardon all the sins of every man. Why do we make a universal offer, and why do we carry the Gospel to the heathen, if we are not convinced of that? Yes, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” There is no soul so sunk, nor any heart so ignorant, but turning may be saved. And all the teeming millions of the continents, coming to Jesus Christ for mercy, could never exhaust the merits of His blood.
      
      But tell me, are these millions coming? And do you really believe that the whole world is being saved right now? Are there not multitudes for whom life’s tragedy is just the “might have been”? And souls unnumbered, here and everywhere, galloping down to the mist and mire? And there was room within the heart of Christ for all! And there was cleansing in the Saviour’s death for everyone! O waste! waste! waste! And to what purpose is that wasted agony? And why should Jesus suffer and die for all, if all were never to accept His love? Ah, Mary, why didst thou break the alabaster box and pour the precious ointment upon Christ? That prodigality was just the Saviour’s spirit that brought Him to the cross and to the grave. Love gives and lavishes and dies, for it is love. Love never asks how little can I do; it always asks how much. There is a magnificent extravagance in love, whether the love of Mary or the love of God.
      
      If, therefore, you believe that God is love, if you take love as the best name of the Invisible, then, looking outwards to the world and backwards to the cross, you can never ask again, “To what purpose is this waste?” If you do that, come, over with the love as well, and go and find a calculating god who is not lavish because he does not love. Find him! and be content! Only beware! Be self-consistent! Never look more for strength when you are down. Never again look for help when you are weary. Never expect a second chance when you have squandered one. Seek not for any sympathy in sorrow, or any fellowship of love in loneliness. And never dream that you will find the Christ. Come, will that do for you, young men and women? And will that do for you, housewife or businessman? You want the loving arm and voice of God. You want the loving ministry of Christ. You, poor rebellious and staggering heart, are lost but for the lavish scattering of a love that never wearies, and will not let you go. And I believe that is mine in Jesus, and I believe that is yours. Claim it and use it. And when you see that love breaking the alabaster box, ask not the meaning of that waste again.

Psalm 45

YOUR HOUR for BOLDNESS – A Word

YOUR HOUR for BOLDNESS – A Word

by Andrew Strom

Last year I put out a word about what would happen at the end of this “pandemic” season and the “sudden stop” it has brought about. The article was called, “Remnant – This is Your Hour.”

I am still utterly convinced of its truth. Despite all the bad, the pandemic has also brought a massive change of season – andwith it will come massive opportunity – but only for those who are bold. Here is a portion of that word:

“To those who have been “waiting” in the caves and the rocks and the depths of the wilderness – I say, “Lift up your eyes.” Thevery season you have been waiting for is here. Your true ministry is about to begin… Like World War II, like the Great Depression -this is the hour after which nothing will ever be the same. And Remnant – this is the season you were built for.

I am speaking to those who have been set apart. You have allowed yourself to be broken. You have trained yourself for battle. You know how to preach Repentance and Conviction of sin. You have been trained in the healing of the sick and the moving of the HolySpirit. You know how to baptize, to pray powerfully – and to train others. You are a fully-equipped preacher of the true gospel… You have a boldness and an audacity about you. While others shrink back, you will jump forward. You were built for such a time as this..

“Fortune favors the brave,” goes the saying. And this has never been more true than it is now.

While others fear – you are bold.While others play it safe – you see this hour for what it is – and you seize the moment. Those who shrink back will miss out.Those who are alert – and move forward with boldness – will have
the field almost to themselves… Remnant – this is the hour you were built for. Don’t let it pass you by.”

I am writing today to loudly confirm every word that I said back then, and to encourage every person on this list to lift up youreyes and see this “new day” not with a mindset of fear and negativity, but as a season full of new opportunity.

Yes – there are plenty of negatives that we could be dwelling on. But this is a call to look with different eyes – and see the massive opportunity that awaits those who are bold enough to seize theday. It is just like the motto of the British Special Forces –
“Who dares wins.”

Right now we see postings every day on the Internet by Christians who are stoking our fears over what is happening in the world -causing many to shrink back in alarm. And many will indeed hideaway in their basement, fearing to go forth in such stormy times.
But Jesus didn’t promise us a rose garden. In fact, as I have said before, this is the hour of the “storm harvest” – a harvest that can only be brought in by those who are prepared to reap in chaotic conditions. And what a great hour awaits such ones – for the fields are indeed whiter than ever – especially in the poorer nations where fewer and fewer will dare to go. The harvest is ripe beyond words – yet the laborers are so few.

Will you be such a “storm-harvester,” my friend? Will you be one who dares all for Christ – to bring in such a mighty harvest? Lookup, for the season has changed. Remnant, this is indeed your hour. The fields are ripe, the time is short, and the “Lord hasneed of thee.”

Special blessings to all,

Andrew Strom.

Jude

“(For she was the sister of Ahaziah)” 2 Chronicles 22:11

OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (17)

“(For she was the sister of Ahaziah)” 2 Chronicles 22:11

IN Bible Quizzes not many people would be able to identify Jehosheba or, as the Chronicler calls her, Jehoshabeath, yet she made a vital contribution to divine history, for it was she who saved and sheltered the one tiny living link in the Davidic dynasty which was left after the wicked Athaliah had murdered all the other descendants of King Ahaziah.

SHE was Ahaziah’s sister, so we are told. That means that she was the aunt of the infant Joash. She was only an ‘auntie’, but I suggest that she was the most famous aunt in the Bible.

Her husband, Jehoiada, was God’s instrument for establishing little Joash on the throne and was a tremendous influence for good in the royal court so long as he lived. This was so much the case that he was given the unique experience for a commoner: “They buried him … among the kings” (2 Chronicles 24:16).

JEHOIADA was the prominent figure and he got the limelight, but he could have done nothing if his wife had not first taken responsibility for safe-guarding her baby nephew by hiding him and his nurse in her own bedroom.

LATER he was smuggled into the house of the Lord. That was a master stroke. I wonder if it was her idea.

The house of God was the one place which the ungodly Athaliah would not wish to enter. This move must have meant that Jehosheba’s part was only a brief bridging operation which gave her no more part in the matter and little if any recognition.

Perhaps this parenthesis, which only repeats the twice-given information that she was the daughter of King Jehoram in another way, may serve to ensure that she is remembered. Somehow aunts fail to find much place in the Scriptures.

TO me she stands as the prototype of all those godly aunts who play such an important part in the lives of their young nephews and nieces. During my lifetime I have often noted and appreciated the great value of an aunt’s loving and prayerful concern.

I would like to think that King Joash remembered how much he was indebted to this aunt of his, but I doubt it.

Never mind! God saw! God had it written down in His inspired Word. And we do well to pay tribute to the woman who stood in the gap for God when the whole future of the Davidic throne was so direly threatened.

The Kingship of Jesus Christ

The Kingship of Jesus Christ
by T. Austin-Sparks

Transcribed from a message given in January, 1965.

Now in these few minutes I’m going to take you back again to what we have read a few minutes ago, this great, wonderful story of the Lord Jesus giving His life for men. And you will have noticed that this whole scene circles round and centres in one issue. It was that that brought things to this position. It was that that governed all that was happening. And that issue was: the kingship of Jesus Christ.

The Kingship of Jesus Christ

You notice how that was the trouble with the Jews, their rulers, their priests, and many of their people. The charge that they leveled against Him was that He claimed to be a king. He claimed kingship. You notice that it was that that disturbed and worried Pilate, the Roman ruler. “Art Thou a king?” he said. “Art Thou a king?” All that that involved for him was no small matter.

As to the Jews, as a nation they had been without a king for hundreds of years. David, the great king of Israel with his son Solomon, were really the last of the great kings. Quite a few other men took the throne and tried to be king, but every one of them was a failure, a terrible failure; they died in tragedy. And it could be said over the whole lot, hardly one of them was really a king. Kingship came to an end with David and Solomon. And over all the centuries up to the time which we’re reading, they had no king.

At this time the Romans had overrun their land, and the Roman representatives, like Pilate, were in charge of things. The Jews, for hundreds of years of being without a king, but the one thing that they wanted and needed more than anything else, was a king. All their prophets, during those hundreds of years were prophesying about the coming of a king, their king. The one thing they longed for was this king. And the one thing they certainly needed for their salvation, and for peace, and prosperity, was a king – a true king. For when David reigned, the situation was such as to bring the nation into real blessing and prosperity. That has all gone.

Jesus came. He presented Himself (or was presented to them) as the king in answer to all their hopes, expectations, desires, needs, and longings, according to all the Scriptures and the prophecies. He came in fulfilment of them all and here He is. It’s not a false issue, it’s not a wrong thing, He is not pretending, He is no pretender. He is the king. He is the One that they need. He is the One of whom the prophets have spoken, but although He was God’s appointed King (there’s no doubt about that, as I think we shall see before we’re through) you see what happened where the Jews were concerned. They had their own ideas about the kind of king they wanted, and He did not just fit in to their ideas. What they wanted was that the king that they had should just make possible the gratification of every earthly, selfish, desire; just answer to all that they wanted in this world – a perfectly selfish thing – and for them the question of right and righteousness and purity of life, all such matters, they were of quite a secondary importance.

Jesus was not that kind of king. Jesus put the matter of a right kind of life first; the kind of life that satisfies God, He put that first. He was to be King in this sense: He was to reign over the hearts of men and not just over their bodies to gratify and satisfy them, but to change their hearts. And these people were not interested in that! They were not concerned about that. And when they saw Him, in many ways, He did not just fit into their ideas of a king, and so this is what happened. This is what happened.

You see, it was the question of sin. Sin! Jesus as King must deal with the sin question. He knows quite well that that’s the trouble, that it is sin that ruins and wrecks men’s lives, that robs them of the peace that they need in their hearts. It is sin that lies at the root of all human troubles. And to be King, in His case, means that that’s got to be dealt with. That’s got to be dealt with, He must get right to the root of all men’s misery, and men’s disappointment, and men’s suffering, and men’s wretchedness, and the evil that is in this world because of men’s nature. He must get right to the root of that and deal with that. That’s the kind of King He is. But they didn’t want that sort of thing. No, that was not what they wanted. And as He, as He continually pointed out, this, this cause of trouble in them – sin, sin – made them rebel and rebut. And this awful thing grew in their hearts until at last when they could get their chance, they take Him, bring Him before the ruler, and their cry is: “Away with Him, crucify Him.” That was their choice. That was their act, and you notice how far men will go when they get stirred right down there where really the cause of the trouble is and they’re not prepared to have it dealt with.

If you had gone to any of those Jewish rulers or priests at any other time and said to them, “So, uh, Caesar is your king, is he?” You know, they would have killed you on the spot. You, your life, wouldn’t have been worth anything if you’d suggested such a thing to them – that Caesar was their king. They would have said, “We absolutely refuse to recognise Caesar as our king! We will not allow the suggestion that Caesar is our king. Why should we for a moment admit that a foreigner who has come in, taking possession of our land and subjected us to him and made us pay tribute and taxes, why should we admit that he is our king? Never! Never!” But see how far they would go when this sin question is touched, this matter of life: “We have no king but Caesar!” How far they went to get rid of this One who was really touching the cause of all human trouble: sin. “We have no king but Caesar…” hold on to that a little while and you see what they do – “away with Him, crucify Him.” And they will, they will accept no argument, they will accept nothing other than the death by crucifixion of this One who touches the sin question.

Leave that for a moment and look over to Pilate. Pilate, this representative in their city, their capital, in their country, of the Roman Empire. It’s a very impressive story, this. If you read the different accounts in the different gospel’s records, it’s tremendously impressive. This is the thing that is so impressive, that this man Pilate is like a rat in a trap. If that sounds too strong, he is like a lion in a cage. He’s a man who has been trapped, who has been caught, and he is doing everything conceivable, resorting to every imaginable cause to get out of this predicament, out of this situation. Look at him, he’s writhing. He’s doing everything; he’s going round. He tries this. It doesn’t work. He tries that. It doesn’t work. He tries something else. It doesn’t work. Every time he tries to find a back door out of this situation, he finds there’s no escape at all and he has to come to the front door again. You notice how in the story that we’ve read again and again, it said, “Then he came out, then he came out…”. He went in and he made an effort to get out of the difficulty, but he didn’t get out and he had to come out again to the front door like that; the man is just trapped.

In the government of God Pilate was confronted with this issue. Jesus, God’s appointed King and Saviour, has been presented to Pilate, in a sense put into his hand, and it is as though God was saying, “What are you going to do with My King? What are you going to do with Him? You have got the chance of a lifetime. What are you going to do about it?” And this man is wavering between what he knows in his own conscience he ought to do, his conscience is working, and he says repeatedly, “I find no crime in the man. I don’t find any fault in Him. So far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong with Him. Then if that’s true, and I’m in a position to do anything about it, what is the thing, the right thing for me to do?” Other things, you see. You see: “Um, my position and my interests in this world and my name. All that; these are matters I’ve got to think about, you know: policy, diplomacy, and my future, how it’s going to affect me, what I am going to lose or gain. These are things to be looked at quite seriously…” and so he prevaricated with his conscience, his duty, and with what he thought to be his worldly advantages. But the point is this: that God was shutting him up to a definite and deliberate decision. He could not get out of it. He had to do it in the end.

Don’t you think it’s a terrible thing? I don’t think there’s anyone here, however low we might have got, however many lies we might be prepared to tell in life, I don’t think any of us here but feels as we read this story, “Well, well, Pilate is not a very admirable kind of man. Not really the right kind. Pilate was wrong.” I think we all have a sufficient moral sense to say he was a coward. He was afraid. He was thinking of number one when he knew quite well – he knew quite well and he said with his own lips what he ought to do with Jesus and with this conviction that the man was not wrong at all, no crime in Him, nothing worthy of death. It says at last, “Then delivered he Him to them to be crucified.”

Now, you say, “That’s all right, that’s in the Bible, that’s a story of history long long ago. What’s the point?” Just this is the point: that God has set aside a whole period in the history of this world, and that is the period in which we are living tonight. And He has set aside this period to bring men and women to that decision, to present His Son Jesus Christ to them as King, as Lord, as Saviour. And He just faces them up with this issue.

Don’t let us think that it’s just an accident, or a hap, or a chance, or a coincidence that we’re here in this place tonight. There’s a sovereignty of God behind all this. And this is the age in which God throughout this whole world is presenting His Son to men and saying, “What are you going to do with Him? What are you going to do about this matter of whether My Son is to be King in your life or not? What’s your answer?” See, when Jesus rose from the dead (and He rose from the dead after they had crucified Him) He called His disciples together, the first group of men, and He said, “Now you go into all the world. Go into all the world and preach.” And preach. What did He say? “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth”. He’s King. “Go into all the world and say so. Preach it. Offer Me as King to men.” And that’s been going on all these years. It’s going on all over the world today.

Everywhere, everywhere men and women are being presented with this issue: Jesus is God’s appointed King for your life. What are you going to do about it? And you can go over this world today – some of you no doubt have been in different parts of this world – and go to countries of this world and you can see all the difference it has made to the lives of men and women, that they have allowed Jesus to become King of their life. Tremendous difference, marvelous difference. On the one side, it does mean salvation. It does mean peace within. It does mean fellowship with God. Oh, it means so much. You go to any – why, you can go to some here tonight and ask them about it. They know the difference that Jesus has made. Go all over this world and you will hear what men and women have to say as to the tremendous difference that Jesus has made.

If you went to a country like India, for instance, I know it’s a dark country, a country of awful sin. Well, whether we ought to talk like that about another country… because this country is pretty awful for its sin, but sin seems to be so naked in such countries as those, and darkness and misery, people, people of that country so oppressed and depressed, so evil, so miserable, and so unhappy. But then as you move about you see other kinds of people. This is the thing that impresses. It’s the thing that impressed me more than anything else when I first went to India, and every time I went to India: here are people whose faces are beaming with smiles, who are singing and are happy. Yes, thoroughly happy. There they are together having such a good time, and clocks and watches don’t matter in that country. Indeed they have no patience with watches and clocks. Hours and hours and hours together singing. What’s done it? They let Jesus be King. You ask them! That what’s made the difference. And here are these two entirely different kinds of people – the depressed and miserable, wretched and the happy and the joyous. It’s because when God through His messengers brought Jesus before them and offered Him as King and said, “What are you going to do? What are you going to do?” And they had (to use the words of Pilate): “What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? What shall I do?” and they said, these people said, “He will be King. He will be what God intended Him to be: King of our life.”

Oh the difference, what a difference it would have made for the Jews if they had taken that course. But you see, on the other hand, what a difference it made. They said (and I told you a few minutes ago to hold on to something): “We have no king but Caesar“. They chose Caesar and they got him, and they got him. A few years after this, Caesar’s legions came in full force to their country, destroyed their city, brought it level with the ground, destroyed their temple, killed their priests, drove the people all over the earth and scattered them. From that day to this, they’ve never had a king, they have never had a temple, a house of God. They chose Caesar; they got him.

We can choose something as an alternative to Jesus Christ and get it. That’s a terrible thing to choose an alternative to Jesus Christ. Pilate represented the Roman Empire, and he made this decision about Jesus. He said, “No, I’m not going that way. I’m not going to accept that. I have my own interests to look after. I’m not going that way.” He decided. What happened? Presently the Roman Empire followed the way of the Jews – the whole mighty Roman Empire from Caesar downward followed that way to destroy everything that belonged to Jesus Christ. All over the world. They massacred 10 million Christians. They said, “We will not have this Man reign over us. Crucify Him.” I ask you today: where’s the Roman Empire? Where is it? Well, it’s in the history books. And you can see the ruins of it if you go to Italy and to Rome today. It isn’t. It isn’t. It’s gone! It suffered an awful destruction – the greatest empire that this world has known and it’s passed out.

Where is Jesus Christ today? In millions upon millions of lives all over this world today, you’ll find His subjects in almost every country if not every country of this world, and that has been going on for nearly 2,000 years. Think of the vast, vast host of subjects of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that there must be in heaven as well on this earth. No wonder the last book of the Bible puts it like this about them, “10,000 times ten thousand and thousands of thousands.” It’s beggaring language to describe the number of those who have made Jesus King!

You see the Jewish nation, how it has suffered through the 2,000 years. Oh, how they’ve suffered. The Roman Empire, how it’s been wiped out. And that is true of every other one who has tried to take the place of Jesus Christ as universal King. In our own life, why, we’ve known some men who’ve done that, who wanted to have the whole world under their control. What’s happened to them? What’s happened to a Hitler, to a Mussolini? They all set themselves to be the reigning force over the whole world. What’s happened to them? No, God has reserved this for One and that’s His Son. It’s a tremendous thing to reject Jesus Christ. It’s a glorious thing to accept Him.

And that’s all I need to say. You have to say tonight to your own heart, “What should I do with Jesus?” I’m quite sure that if you knew all that is involved in your decision – for good, if you let Him be King, for loss, for tragedy, if you refuse to do so – you would say tonight, “I make Jesus King. I accept Him as my Lord, as my Saviour.” And you (it will not be long, I think probably before you go out from this place) you would know at once in your heart that you’ve done the right thing and you’ve done a glorious thing. For that has been true of many, many, many in this world. They’ve known when they have received the Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts as Lord and Saviour, they’ve done the best day’s work that ever they did and a better day’s work than ever they thought they would do. It’s like that.

Shall we pray. We ask, oh Lord, that Thou would come upon this simple word and press Thine own issue on to every heart and give to any here who have not come to a decision about this matter, give them the help tonight to say, “Jesus shall henceforth be my Lord, my Saviour. He shall reign over my life.” So help… we ask it in His Name.

After God’s Silence – What?

After God’s Silence – What?

By Oswald Chambers

 ‘When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days in the same place where he was.’
      John 11:6

      Has God trusted you with a silence – a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? God will give you the blessings you ask if you will not go any further without them; but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvellous understanding of Himself.

Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, praise Him, He is bringing you into the great run of His purposes. The manifestation of the answer in time is a matter of God’s sovereignty.

Time is nothing to God. For a while you said – “I asked God to give me bread, and He gave me a stone.” He did not, and to-day you find He gave you the bread of life.

      A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that the contagion of His stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident – “I know God has heard me.” His silence is the proof that He has.

As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of silence.

If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, He will give you the first sign of His intimacy – silence.

Strengthened with all might . . . unto all patience

Strengthened with all might . . . unto all patience

By A.B. Simpson

The apostle Paul prays for the Colossians to be strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long suffering with joyfulness. It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, seeming to say with every wrinkle, “Why doesn’t someone sympathize with me?” It is another thing to endure the cross, despising the shame for the joy set before us.

There are some trees in the garden of the Lord which shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit (Jeremiah 17:8).

Let us set our faces toward the sun rising, and use the clouds that come to make rainbows. Not much longer shall we have glorious opportunity to rejoice in tribulation and learn patience. In heaven we shall have nothing to teach us long-suffering.

If we do not learn it here, we shall be without our brightest crown forever and wish ourselves back for a little while in the very circumstances of which we are now trying so hard to rid ourselves.

Isaiah 60

60 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

² For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

³ And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

⁴ Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.

⁵ Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.

⁶ The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.

⁷ All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory.

⁸ Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?

⁹ Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.

¹⁰ And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee.

¹¹ Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.

¹² For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

¹³ The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.

¹⁴ The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee; The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵ Whereas thou has been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

¹⁶ Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

¹⁷ For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness.

¹⁸ Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.

¹⁹ The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

²⁰ Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

²¹ Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.

²² A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time.