I don’t know if this matches your experience, but I find that I am most susceptible to sin or discouragement under these two circumstances: When things are going well and when things are not going well. When things are disastrous, I tend to pray more, study more and miraculously (by God’s grace) survive. When things are stupendous, I’m grateful and careful because I want things to stay that way. But anything in between is fertile ground for falling.
So, how does one retain spiritual life in the bulk of human experience when neither overwhelming crisis nor ‘living the dream’ are happening (which is most of the time)? Only one way – get outside the soul. That will take some explanation and a few definitions.
First, the soul is mind, emotion and will. Pretty standard definition. But the confusion comes in when we don’t distinguish between soul and spirit in our experience(Hebrews 4:12. Though everyone has a soul, only Christians have the option of living in the spirit. The soul is the earth-attached, sensual part of us. It is made up of intellect, emotion, reason, wisdom, experience, etc. It’s where we lived our whole lives before we came to Christ (and where many Christians still live their lives).
In 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:2 when Paul classifies humans he draws three distinctions: “carnal” (which is a Christian controlled by the flesh), “spiritual” (a Christian living and walking in the Spirit) and “natural” (or in some translations “soulish” or “animal”). This is the man outside of Christ with no spiritual capacity. Christians can also live in this realm of “soulish” or “animal” experience if they are controlled by the flesh (“are you not carnal, and walk as mere men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3; see also Romans 8:5-6).
So, again, how do we get outside the soul? Faith is a means of spiritual perception. When we attach by faith to God and His Word through the ministry of the Holy Spirit we aren’t attaching by our soul, but by our spirit. As an example, when we are taught things in the Bible, we can be taught in the soul (the human intellect’s grasp of Biblical information) or we can be taught in the spirit.
“Which things also we teach, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches (soul-based) but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 2:13).
The only way to be fed spiritually is to be taught in the spirit comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Information can stop at the soul, but when the Holy Spirit is involved through our faith (our determined dependence upon Him to teach us) then spiritual enlightenment and growth occurs, not just a soul-based accumulation of information. But if we don’t know what the difference is between a doctrinally sound soul-driven message and a genuinely spiritual ministry, or if we don’t how to depend on the Holy Spirit to teach us, all we will ever get is soulish knowledge of the Bible (“ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” 2 Timothy 3:7).
As a side note; this is why our churches are for the most part soul-based. They depend on emotion, doctrine, sight, practical instruction, videos, music, community (social interaction), etc. to draw and hold people. This is the world of the soul. Cults do the same, but not in the Name of Jesus. For the most part what we are doing is simply corporate soul life in the Name of Jesus. We think we are doing things better than TBN and the cults because our doctrine is sound. But the soul is still the soul, and nothing based in the realm of the soul can produce spiritual life. If one were to present a spiritual ministry of truth and life to a church operating in the soul, that person would be considered either incredibly boring or out of touch with the real practicalities of life (1 Corinthians 2:14; cp. 3:1-2). But for anyone in the church who is truly hungry for spiritual life, it would be a breath of fresh air (Luke 24:32).
Now, let’s apply this to how we live in the world of daily pressure. One of the things the soul can never achieve on its own is rest. The soul can experience rest if that rest comes from living by faith, but rest never comes by reason, logic, techniques (‘10-steps to rest’), etc. Deep, sustaining rest is not psychological; it is spiritual, though it may have positive psychological effects. It only comes to the soul though the spirit. Rest is only “accessed” by faith in God, Who is Spirit.
The things which characterize the soul life are fret, anxiety, uncertainty – all the things which are the opposite of calm assurance, quiet confidence, the spirit and attitude and atmosphere which says, 'don’t worry, it is all right.’ The latter comes through faith which is energized by spiritual growth and sight. Our enemy is always trying to disturb that rest, to move us from our spirit (faith in God) to the fluctuating emotions and self-examinations of our soul, to pre-occupy us with us, instead of the Lord; to take away our confidence in God, to destroy that, rob us of that, harass us, churn us up, anything to take away our rest or prevent us from entering rest.
Rest is actually the practical outworking of our belief that Jesus is Lord. The Lordship of Christ is discounted in expression by the unrest of God’s people. When we spiritually apprehend Him as He is and respond by trusting Him, we are in a sense expressing or proclaiming His Lordship. But to rest in Him as Lord we must know Him and believe in Him as Lord. He is “head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:22). Not some things, all things. Our lives are not too big a challenge for Him. Our circumstances, failures, weaknesses, or the mountains we face are not beyond God’s ability to address. If the little things of life are what trip us up and steal our rest then those little things are big things to God and we can give them to Him. The things themselves may or may not change, but faith establishes the glory and Lordship of Christ in a world that denies both. What matters most is the inner man, the spirit, and that issue must be settled first. The rest of faith must be our position, our stand, in His Lordship.
The Lord wants us out of our soul life where we evaluate everything, whether related to the church or related to personal issues, by that which the soul has the capacity to evaluate. Again, soul life is an appeal to our intellect (the academics of theology, not the spiritual content and depth of the Truth) or an appeal to the emotion (the energy of our worship music). Our excitement, our rational mind, and our social and relational needs and experiences; all that is soulish and sensual (i.e. of the senses). None of these things will line up with ultimate spiritual reality until the spirit, not the soul, is their source. There is spiritual community, spiritual understanding of the Word, spiritual emotion (“Jesus rejoiced, Jesus wept”, Jesus worshipped”, etc.) but though these experiences impact the soul, they did not originate in the soul or world or body, but in the spirit. For most of us our senses and our soul are the source and basis of our so-called spiritual life. It is the life of faith, the life in the spirit that is to form the basis of our experiences in the soul and body, not the other way around.
We are facing extreme difficulties in life. We are up against constant tests which will determine whether we live by faith or by our soul resources. Faith trusts in God alone, whereas the soul simply considers God, or factors God in. Faith takes us outside the soul, above the soul, and places us in the spirit. So, as I said at the beginning, whether we desire to experience spiritual reality in the church or spiritual reality in our own lives as individual disciples of Christ, we must get outside the soul and live by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”. The answer to the question we consistently ask (about the church or about our personal circumstances) is, “What is Truth”. This is not answered in the soul, but in the spirit.
“But the natural (or soulish) man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritual discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
For the person outside of Christ or the Christian who lives in his soul, spiritual reality is unreality. It is neither understood, received or sought. So, rest is lost since rest comes only by faith, and faith if it is to be effectual, must detach from the world and attach exclusively to the spiritual realm of the Lordship of Christ. Rest is found “above” where we have been placed in Christ, seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1-3). We are always seeking to bring Christ back to earth so He can do in our lives what He did in the lives of those in Palestine 2000 years ago. But He is seeking to bring us spiritually to where He is, so we can experience the inner rest that comes from living in the resurrection power of the Lord – the power that emanates not from earth but from the throne of Heaven through the Holy Spirit Who was not given until Christ had ascended (John 7:39).
We access or appropriate the power of God’s Spirit in regeneration by faith in Christ through the hearing of the Gospel. When we trust Him at salvation He brings all the power of an eternal life into our innermost being and we are “born from above” (John 3:7-8, 16). We access/appropriate the power of God’s Spirit for resurrection life after we are saved by taking a stand in faith regarding our position in Christ above, where He (and we, Ephesians 2:6) are “. . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.“ (Philippians 3:10).
We are born from above by faith and we live above by faith. We are introduced to our home in heaven at salvation and we are occupied throughout this life with our home, our source of life in Christ in spiritual growth, having our “affections set on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). The soul will merely respond to that which our heart is set upon. If our desires are earthly, our soul will be in unrest; if our desires are above, our soul will experience the spiritual realities of the kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Overcomers
As we approach the close of this age, it is vital we understand what, specifically, the Lord desires to see in His people. We often look at our ‘purpose’ along the lines of certain accomplishments, whether in ministry, missions or personal evangelism. And of course all those things are good and will happen to some extent through each of us as we grow and remain obedient to the Lord. But that which is most important is inward rather than outward; more related to personal spiritual advance than to performance.
God will never put work or service in the place of character; and if we do that, eternity will reveal that however much we may have (accomplished), we are very small among the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by the measure of Christ . . . the ultimate test is not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present.
T. Austin Sparks
In the letters our Lord sent to the seven churches of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 Jesus sums up His overarching purpose for His people at the end of this dispensation. We see one consistently reoccurring exhortation for Christians – “to him who overcomes.” Above all other things, our Lord desires that each of His children become overcomers. Therefore, it would be good to look briefly at what this designation means.
In approaching this subject there are two things we must avoid:
1) Creating the impression that overcomers are super saints and that those of us who are not super saints could never achieve overcomer status
2) Making overcomers less than they are. They are not some elite class of super Christians but neither are they status quo.
The word overcomer comes from the root word (nikao) meaning “to overcome” - literally, “to conquer”, “to carry off the victory”, “to “prevail”. Overcome does not mean achieving success, recognition, acceptance, prestige, health, wealth, or popularity. In the context of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 its usage is exclusively related to the spiritual life of the one overcoming.
The meaning of this word presupposes and calls attention to the presence of war, contests, battles, and conflicts in man’s struggle with evil. The Bible clearly teaches us, as does life itself, that we are in a conflict, indeed, a holy war, with specific adversaries. The conflict rages in and against the life of the Christian. This is everywhere evident in Scripture and so obvious in life that one has to deny reality to ignore or disclaim it.
J. Hampton Keathley
In the letters to the seven churches (Revelation 2 and 3) we see an extensive discussion of the challenges the overcoming believer must face.
Ephesus: The loss of first love. We must never lose the personal, intimate, absolute first-place love that Jesus has in our hearts. Nothing must ever rival this love.
Smyrna: Remaining faithful even, if necessary, unto death. Our spiritual lives may ebb and flow, but the overcomer, when pressed, will sacrifice his life to retain his stand for the Lord Jesus.
Pergamum: The resistance and rejection of false doctrine and, as is often the case, resultant immorality or idolatry. It would be impossible to effectively overcome false teaching without sufficient understanding of the Word to recognize such teaching (cp. Hebrews 5:13-14; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 2:15).
Thyatira: Similar to Pergamum (there the teaching was related to the Nicolaitans and in Thyatira it is identified as that which “Jezebelian” in nature). In both cases the false teaching was able to lead those who embraced it to immorality and idolatry.
Sardis: Maintaining a holy dissatisfaction with all things “partial”. In other words, the overcomer will press forward past infancy and past a limited expression of Christ unto maturity and fullness regardless of personal cost.
Philadelphia: Patience. Those in Philadelphia were exhorted to “Not deny His Name. . . and keep the word of His patience”. Overcomers endure even if their strength is small (Revelation 3:8), which it often is. They will fall, but they will get back up. That which characterizes their lives is not a pattern of never failing, but of not giving up when others have given up (like Demas, 2 Timothy 4:10).
Laodecia: Lukewarmess. Those who love God, hate what God hates. Lukewarmness is status quo – what we sometimes call “churchianity”; simply going through the motions each week without any regard to the importance of personal spiritual advance. The result of this mediocre commitment is inevitably deception.
How is overcoming accomplished? Faith is the ultimate foundation of an overcoming life (1 John 5:4-5; Hebrews 11). It is not faith in us; it is faith in the power, faithfulness, presence and love of the Lord Jesus. As our knowledge of Christ increases our faith increases (Romans 10:17).
What is gained by becoming an overcomer? The main emphasis underlying the benefit of attaining overcomer status is the securing of the expression and image of Christ in the overcoming believer. This has always been God’s intent for us and in the overcomer we see this purpose brought to fullness. If you consider in summation each of the things which are to be overcome, you will see the perfections of overcoming demonstrated in the life of Jesus – whether resisting the world and the devil, recognizing and exposing false teaching, the avoidance of compromise with the immorality of the culture or a His ever present dissatisfaction with that which was partial or incomplete (Revelation 3:2b). Our Lord was always pressing His disciples to higher ground, to a greater understanding of Himself and His purpose – forcing the issue time and time again of attaining to God’s highest calling for them. The Lord lived out the perfections of the overcomer and through demonstration and instruction sought to bring His disciples to this same ascendency.
God’s intention from the beginning was to “. . . create Man in our image, and let him have dominion . . .” (Genesis 1:26). The Last Adam in union with His bride will fulfill God’s ultimate intention of securing a race of humanity conformed to His image and in a place of authority over all God has made (2 Timothy 2:11-13; Revelation 2:26; cp. Ephesians 1:20-21,23; 2:6; Revelation 3:21; 1 Corinthians 6:3). The church is destined for the throne.
God will never abandon His original purpose for humanity, but because of the fall of the first Adam and the resultant fall of the Adamic race, this original purpose had to be recovered in the Second Man, the Last Adam, and will ultimately be realized in the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:17-19). The overcomer demonstrates the first fruits of this purpose in the way he or she lives, resisting whatever would diminish the realization of God’s intention. This remnant company of believers embodies the original intention of God.
The enemy’s work is to frustrate this purpose so he may remain “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But soon he and his angels will be displaced by the rapture and ascendency of the body of Christ. Satan will be cast out (Revelation 12:9). There will be a corporate Man on the throne of Heaven (cp. Ephesians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 12:12; Revelation 4:4).
As that time draws near the anger of Satan grows. As he fights to prevent his dethronement, the conflict within and around us intensifies. The birth of the kingdom of God’s Son is near and this nearness signals the casting out of Satan and the practical enthronement of the saints (1 Corinthians 6:3a)
Because of the numerous verses that make reigning conditional on the attainment of overcomer status, it is my conviction that only those who achieve this status will share the throne of Christ in this way. Though all Christians have secured heaven through faith in Christ, only those who overcome shall “sit with Me in My throne, even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne” (Revelation 3:21). Jesus did not overcome by being “saved”; He overcame by overcoming. One does not reign simply because he is saved; he reigns by becoming like Christ to whatever extent is possible for him in this earthly pilgrimage and battle. And to that extent he may be granted authority over five cities, ten cities, etc. (Luke 19:17-19).
At this point I want to share some insights from others who have studied this concept of overcoming.
Faith is not a power that we exert in order to change our circumstances. It is the assurance we have inwardly even if our circumstances do not change. Living independently of our circumstances is what makes us overcomers. I think that’s worth repeating: Living independently of our circumstances is what makes us overcomers! It’s a matter of putting legs and feet to the promise that we find in Romans 4:17, which says, “Calling those things that are not, as though they were.”
In other words, if I have no money, I still believe that God is my infinite supply. If I am still sick and not healed, I can believe that God is the life of my body. If I am attacked and even defeated, I still believe that today Christ is my victory! Christ is our all-in-all no matter what the outcome.
Source Unknown
____________
You see, the Remnant and Overcomers have as their function to be God's vantage ground in a day of widespread spiritual declension and failure, to be vantage points, that upon which God can act and say, ‘Here is my thought positively expressed; here is the thing that I am after!’ That is the function of Overcomers to be to God like that. ‘Here is the thing ’(God is saying); ‘look at this..... look at Christ and His own as God wills them to be and you have what I am after, what My mind is!' The Remnant is for that: God's vantage ground in a day of declension to show the thing to others.
God's thought concerning His Church is that it should be gathered out of the nations, slowly but surely formed into a bride worthy of giving to His Son as a gift, without spot or blemish or any such thing - given to Christ as His bride to be for Him the instrument, the agency, of filling and fulfilling the coming Kingdom throughout the ages. That is God's thought about the Church. Can we say that that is being realized in any commensurate way? No, but God holds to His thought and He seeks an inner company whom we are calling a Remnant or an Overcomer Company to stand for Him in this service, to be a link between Him and His full thought in His people, and to be that instrument for the realization of His full thought, to serve Him, to see His face. What is that? To be to His Son the agency of filling the Kingdom and fulfilling the Kingdom in the days to come. That is tremendous service. It is unto that that the Overcomers are called.
If you want to be in the work of the Lord, if you want to be the Lord's servants, it is not given to a special class called ministers and missionaries. It is to a whole company, to every one who overcomes. ''He that overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne'' (Rev. 3:21)
T.A. Sparks
God will never put work or service in the place of character; and if we do that, eternity will reveal that however much we may have (accomplished), we are very small among the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by the measure of Christ . . . the ultimate test is not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present.
T. Austin Sparks
In the letters our Lord sent to the seven churches of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 Jesus sums up His overarching purpose for His people at the end of this dispensation. We see one consistently reoccurring exhortation for Christians – “to him who overcomes.” Above all other things, our Lord desires that each of His children become overcomers. Therefore, it would be good to look briefly at what this designation means.
In approaching this subject there are two things we must avoid:
1) Creating the impression that overcomers are super saints and that those of us who are not super saints could never achieve overcomer status
2) Making overcomers less than they are. They are not some elite class of super Christians but neither are they status quo.
The word overcomer comes from the root word (nikao) meaning “to overcome” - literally, “to conquer”, “to carry off the victory”, “to “prevail”. Overcome does not mean achieving success, recognition, acceptance, prestige, health, wealth, or popularity. In the context of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 its usage is exclusively related to the spiritual life of the one overcoming.
The meaning of this word presupposes and calls attention to the presence of war, contests, battles, and conflicts in man’s struggle with evil. The Bible clearly teaches us, as does life itself, that we are in a conflict, indeed, a holy war, with specific adversaries. The conflict rages in and against the life of the Christian. This is everywhere evident in Scripture and so obvious in life that one has to deny reality to ignore or disclaim it.
J. Hampton Keathley
In the letters to the seven churches (Revelation 2 and 3) we see an extensive discussion of the challenges the overcoming believer must face.
Ephesus: The loss of first love. We must never lose the personal, intimate, absolute first-place love that Jesus has in our hearts. Nothing must ever rival this love.
Smyrna: Remaining faithful even, if necessary, unto death. Our spiritual lives may ebb and flow, but the overcomer, when pressed, will sacrifice his life to retain his stand for the Lord Jesus.
Pergamum: The resistance and rejection of false doctrine and, as is often the case, resultant immorality or idolatry. It would be impossible to effectively overcome false teaching without sufficient understanding of the Word to recognize such teaching (cp. Hebrews 5:13-14; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 2:15).
Thyatira: Similar to Pergamum (there the teaching was related to the Nicolaitans and in Thyatira it is identified as that which “Jezebelian” in nature). In both cases the false teaching was able to lead those who embraced it to immorality and idolatry.
Sardis: Maintaining a holy dissatisfaction with all things “partial”. In other words, the overcomer will press forward past infancy and past a limited expression of Christ unto maturity and fullness regardless of personal cost.
Philadelphia: Patience. Those in Philadelphia were exhorted to “Not deny His Name. . . and keep the word of His patience”. Overcomers endure even if their strength is small (Revelation 3:8), which it often is. They will fall, but they will get back up. That which characterizes their lives is not a pattern of never failing, but of not giving up when others have given up (like Demas, 2 Timothy 4:10).
Laodecia: Lukewarmess. Those who love God, hate what God hates. Lukewarmness is status quo – what we sometimes call “churchianity”; simply going through the motions each week without any regard to the importance of personal spiritual advance. The result of this mediocre commitment is inevitably deception.
How is overcoming accomplished? Faith is the ultimate foundation of an overcoming life (1 John 5:4-5; Hebrews 11). It is not faith in us; it is faith in the power, faithfulness, presence and love of the Lord Jesus. As our knowledge of Christ increases our faith increases (Romans 10:17).
What is gained by becoming an overcomer? The main emphasis underlying the benefit of attaining overcomer status is the securing of the expression and image of Christ in the overcoming believer. This has always been God’s intent for us and in the overcomer we see this purpose brought to fullness. If you consider in summation each of the things which are to be overcome, you will see the perfections of overcoming demonstrated in the life of Jesus – whether resisting the world and the devil, recognizing and exposing false teaching, the avoidance of compromise with the immorality of the culture or a His ever present dissatisfaction with that which was partial or incomplete (Revelation 3:2b). Our Lord was always pressing His disciples to higher ground, to a greater understanding of Himself and His purpose – forcing the issue time and time again of attaining to God’s highest calling for them. The Lord lived out the perfections of the overcomer and through demonstration and instruction sought to bring His disciples to this same ascendency.
God’s intention from the beginning was to “. . . create Man in our image, and let him have dominion . . .” (Genesis 1:26). The Last Adam in union with His bride will fulfill God’s ultimate intention of securing a race of humanity conformed to His image and in a place of authority over all God has made (2 Timothy 2:11-13; Revelation 2:26; cp. Ephesians 1:20-21,23; 2:6; Revelation 3:21; 1 Corinthians 6:3). The church is destined for the throne.
God will never abandon His original purpose for humanity, but because of the fall of the first Adam and the resultant fall of the Adamic race, this original purpose had to be recovered in the Second Man, the Last Adam, and will ultimately be realized in the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:17-19). The overcomer demonstrates the first fruits of this purpose in the way he or she lives, resisting whatever would diminish the realization of God’s intention. This remnant company of believers embodies the original intention of God.
The enemy’s work is to frustrate this purpose so he may remain “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But soon he and his angels will be displaced by the rapture and ascendency of the body of Christ. Satan will be cast out (Revelation 12:9). There will be a corporate Man on the throne of Heaven (cp. Ephesians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 12:12; Revelation 4:4).
As that time draws near the anger of Satan grows. As he fights to prevent his dethronement, the conflict within and around us intensifies. The birth of the kingdom of God’s Son is near and this nearness signals the casting out of Satan and the practical enthronement of the saints (1 Corinthians 6:3a)
Because of the numerous verses that make reigning conditional on the attainment of overcomer status, it is my conviction that only those who achieve this status will share the throne of Christ in this way. Though all Christians have secured heaven through faith in Christ, only those who overcome shall “sit with Me in My throne, even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne” (Revelation 3:21). Jesus did not overcome by being “saved”; He overcame by overcoming. One does not reign simply because he is saved; he reigns by becoming like Christ to whatever extent is possible for him in this earthly pilgrimage and battle. And to that extent he may be granted authority over five cities, ten cities, etc. (Luke 19:17-19).
At this point I want to share some insights from others who have studied this concept of overcoming.
Faith is not a power that we exert in order to change our circumstances. It is the assurance we have inwardly even if our circumstances do not change. Living independently of our circumstances is what makes us overcomers. I think that’s worth repeating: Living independently of our circumstances is what makes us overcomers! It’s a matter of putting legs and feet to the promise that we find in Romans 4:17, which says, “Calling those things that are not, as though they were.”
In other words, if I have no money, I still believe that God is my infinite supply. If I am still sick and not healed, I can believe that God is the life of my body. If I am attacked and even defeated, I still believe that today Christ is my victory! Christ is our all-in-all no matter what the outcome.
Source Unknown
____________
You see, the Remnant and Overcomers have as their function to be God's vantage ground in a day of widespread spiritual declension and failure, to be vantage points, that upon which God can act and say, ‘Here is my thought positively expressed; here is the thing that I am after!’ That is the function of Overcomers to be to God like that. ‘Here is the thing ’(God is saying); ‘look at this..... look at Christ and His own as God wills them to be and you have what I am after, what My mind is!' The Remnant is for that: God's vantage ground in a day of declension to show the thing to others.
God's thought concerning His Church is that it should be gathered out of the nations, slowly but surely formed into a bride worthy of giving to His Son as a gift, without spot or blemish or any such thing - given to Christ as His bride to be for Him the instrument, the agency, of filling and fulfilling the coming Kingdom throughout the ages. That is God's thought about the Church. Can we say that that is being realized in any commensurate way? No, but God holds to His thought and He seeks an inner company whom we are calling a Remnant or an Overcomer Company to stand for Him in this service, to be a link between Him and His full thought in His people, and to be that instrument for the realization of His full thought, to serve Him, to see His face. What is that? To be to His Son the agency of filling the Kingdom and fulfilling the Kingdom in the days to come. That is tremendous service. It is unto that that the Overcomers are called.
If you want to be in the work of the Lord, if you want to be the Lord's servants, it is not given to a special class called ministers and missionaries. It is to a whole company, to every one who overcomes. ''He that overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne'' (Rev. 3:21)
T.A. Sparks
Monday, June 21, 2010
God's Specific Work in Us in the Final Generation
The following is a series of excerpts from “The Work of God at the End-Time” and “The Earth Touch”, By T.A. Sparks. The principles contained in this brief essay are extremely valuable both in terms of understanding our circumstances in this last generation and for our own spiritual survival individually and corporately as the body of Christ.
We are being led at this time to take note of the fact that we are at an end-time, and that God does a peculiar work at such a time. Things become very strange and very difficult at an end-time; everything seems to be thrown into a state of disturbance, upheaval, intense pressure and conflict. The great conflicting forces in this universe register very terribly and intensely upon that which is of God and upon those who are of account to Him, so that there often arises the sense that this is an actual end, and a question as to what more is possible. Inwardly we feel that the way is becoming exceedingly hedged up: 'frustration' is the word which seems to prevail, and outwardly everything is in a state of serious and great question as to the future. Indeed, it becomes more persistently the experience of the true people of God that they could give up and abandon everything. The ways in which this works out are numerous, but the whole effect is to paralyse and put out of commission that which is of God and bring it to a complete standstill. It is this, then, that will govern our consideration at this time - that we are in an end-time and that in end-times the work of God takes a particular form and is of a peculiar nature. It obviously becomes supremely important and necessary for the Lord's people to know the time in which they live, what the portents are, and what it is that God would do at such a time.
I suggest to you that that constitutes a real reason for getting together in serious and solemn conference, for it is not something that we can take just as a part of a sequence of meditations. Our consideration of it may be supremely crucial and in a peculiar way related to a time in the history of this world, and of God's work in this world, which is of tremendous importance and will not be repeated.
Man has put his hand on heavenly things and tried to bring them on to this earth. It might be a 'New Testament Church' of a composite nature: certain things taught, enacted, and done in conformity to the record in the New Testament; a certain order, technique, program, outreach development and construction (encompassing what is popular, ‘successful’ and in vogue). These things have been drawn together for a doctrinal statement, a form of procedure, and made the basis, the form and standard, the constitution of a body, an institution, a community: man's mind and man's hand defining, controlling, holding. The verdict of history is that God will not commit Himself to any such thing.
When the Church first actually came into being, it was "born from above", composed of such as had experienced a tremendous crisis, a devastating crisis in relation to the Cross of Christ. When the churches came into being, in every case, it was a local repetition of this inward upheaval and revolution. The churches were never made by man or men, be they the greatest Apostles. The Apostles did not take a 'Blue Print' of New Testament churches wherever they went. The outcome of their work was a crisis, a climax to an old creation and the fiat of the new; a transition from one humanity to a new humanity. What followed of order and knowledge was organic, not organized; spontaneous, not imposed; life, not legality; and - above all - heavenly, not earthly. It was only when man pulled this down on to the earth that things went wrong.
In the last days Christ Himself emerges from the framework of things, from all the scaffolding of the past, from all the figurative and typological and symbolical, and transcends the things by His own Person. There is all the difference between Himself and His things. God's people have been occupied with the things concerning Christ: now they must be occupied with Christ Himself. This is what will be at an end-time. That is the point. An end-time is transition from a lot that has had to do with Christ to Christ Himself, transition from frameworks and representations to the essential and the intrinsic, transition from all the works and the things related to Christ to that which is known of Him personally.
All the other is going to be stripped off and we are in the day when that stripping off has seriously commenced. The issue is going to be - may I put it this way? - how much we have actually in our hands of the very Christ Himself versus how much we are occupied with the things concerning Him, the encasement of Christ.
In Heb. 12:27 we have, "And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." That word 'removing' really means the transferring or the transposing on to another and different basis. The fact that that comes at the end of the letter to the Hebrews is significant, for that letter is just full of that earthly system of Judaism with all its forms, its ritual, its make-up and constitution.
All that is earthly, even in relation to God, is going to be removed, and everything is going to be transferred to another basis - a spiritual, a heavenly basis; and when things begin to happen on the ground of an end-time, that is the character of what is taking place. The earthly is now going to be forced to give way to the heavenly, the temporal to the spiritual, the outward to the inward. Then it will be proved just how much we have that can be transferred, for there are many things that are not going to be transferred. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50). That signifies and implies that there is a whole order of creation which is not going to constitute that eternal order; it is to pass away. Everything is going to be transferred to another basis, and this kind of thing intensifies at an end-time. Do you see that?
Let me put that more simply. What God will see to, by sheer force of conditions, is that anything that is only temporal will go and that which is spiritual alone will remain. There must therefore be intensifying processes to bring out the spiritual. Is not that where we are? I do not know what your experience is, but touching one and another here and there I find there is some real understanding of this. We never knew such spiritual conflict, pressure and difficulty as we are knowing now; things seem to be getting beyond measure. May this not be the explanation? The Lord seems to be concentrating upon bringing out spiritual values, making spiritual men and women, and if I am not mistaken (and I claim no gift of prophecy in the foretelling sense), we are going to see, and are already seeing, the removal of so much, the external things, upon which Christians have been relying as though these things constituted their Christian life.
We are going to be forced back to the place where the one question that faces us is, After all, what have I got of the Lord Himself? Not, What can I do, where can I go? but, What have I got? I believe that is a very present and appropriate question in many parts of the world just now, and it will be increasingly so as everything outward is brought to an end.
There are always, sooner or later, reactions from cheapness and superficiality, and that usually under duress and compulsion and a sense of being unable to go on without something fuller. On the one side, there is a sense of disintegration with regard to what has been, and on the other hand a sense of something pending, a new situation and a new set of conditions coming, with certain very definite and serious issues arising in the meantime.
Firstly, it may be asked, how much of all that has been is going to survive and be carried on into the new situation? - for a great stripping is taking place, a great sifting of the spiritual as over against the temporal, even in relation to the things of God. Or how much of the Lord have we really got in hand in a time of transition and of break-up and of pending new conditions? On the other hand, how much of all that is associated with the Lord is of that external order and system which is purely earthly and transitory, temporal, the framework, the mould of things? These are very important questions and issues, and they are all forced in at a time when things are about to change. Then very grave strain and pressure and conflict comes into the atmosphere. It is as though something is about to be brought forth which stirs the enemy to his utmost resistance, oppression and frustration, so much so that at such a time the whole fabric of the spiritual life is under strain and test, and it would be much easier to give up or take some line of less resistance. These are things which belong to an end-time, and we were noting that there is no doubt that we are in such a time today. That is the significance of this very hour. Things are going to change radically, one order is going to pass and another to come in.
To be a link with God's purpose by receiving from the Lord a vision of what that purpose is is a tremendously emancipating thing. It is one thing just to go on from day to day and week to week and year to year in a kind of piecemeal way: we go to a church service today and to the conference next weekend, and that is repeated again and again, and so the whole rota of Christian activity and occupation is just something in itself. It is quite another thing to be caught up in the grip and the throb of a mighty, dominating vision corporately, so that the very atmosphere seems to proclaim there is something more than just the occasion - there is something big, something far-reaching in this - and you are brought into it by the Holy Spirit.
You find you have not just joined something, linked yourself on with some thing which goes along as on wheels which are square, bumping over and bumping over, but you are in a course, like the wheels of Ezekiel's vision, full of life, going straight forward - tremendous vision! - to One in the Throne.
There is a great deal of difference. You may be able to mark in your own minds the difference between these things - on the one hand the thing that is just something in itself, that is just going on, being kept going perhaps by its own momentum or drive, or by other interests brought in, something very much an end in itself, and it does not matter very much whether you go or come. On the other hand there is that which is so different - a coming right into line with the great purpose of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, seeing what God is after as far beyond the present attainment.
We are coming to the time when a great many changes are going to take place in the set system of Christendom, and when the spiritual will alone be of account, and when it will be of vital consequence that God should have a people who are a link with His fuller purpose. He has always required such. If we were inclined to do so, we could go back to the Bible and mark transition periods again and again, and see just what God put in at the point of transition as His link between the two, and as His bridge from the one to the other. But there is the fact. If we have any reason to believe that such a change is imminent, when it will not be possible to carry on on the old lines and to go on organizing things with all the old machinery, and when the people of God are going to be forced by world conditions on to a spiritual ground where their concern will be just the Lord Himself, if we have any reason to feel that has commenced, then this must follow - that there should be something that becomes for God a ministry which links on with His fuller purpose, which stands vitally related to Him in His greater intentions, which brings in the Lord in fullness.
It is a very critical business. We must be in possession, and under the mastery, of this heavenly vision, the purpose of God. We must see the nature and meaning of what is happening, of the trend of things, the issues that are involved, and we must be found in co-operation with God in these movements of His from heaven, able to serve Him now.
It is not merely a question of that in which we have been brought up and taught in church services, seminaries and conferences, but of what has really been revealed in us of Christ, of which we can say, "Mine eyes have seen." No one can take away from me what I have seen; nothing can destroy that; I have seen, and it has become a part of my very being. That is the crucial point in a day like this. We must be able to recognize the changing directions of things, and we must be able to move with God.
There is something which has still to be met, some question still to be answered, some compelling sense of our standing in relationship to something more and higher. That is a mark of God's having a greater purpose in our lives, for He never lets us be satisfied with anything less than the full object for which He has called us. We may think we now have our field, but if that is less than all God's thought we may explore and exploit our field but we shall discover that we have not found all that in our heart of hearts we know to be the answer to our existence, to that sense of destiny, of Divine purpose, which casts an emptiness and dissatisfaction upon all else.
Have you had an experience like that? Do you know something of what that means? - waiting, longing, praying, feeling, and then the Lord brings you into touch with that thing which is peculiarly of Himself, and you say, 'This is what I have been sensing the need of, this is it.' That is the dealing of the Lord with a servant of His, or an instrument, be it personal or corporate, that is chosen for something more than the ordinary, that is called unto the fuller instead of the partial.
You see, I feel the Lord is wanting to say something to us at this time about the end which is at hand, and of His concern to have a vessel that will serve Him in this fuller way regarding His Christ in a time of coming spiritual need; and of what, therefore, we may expect as to our own experience, our own handling, in view of our having to meet forces so unusual, the awful drive of the enemy. How necessary it is for there to be more than an ordinary abandonment to the Lord - coming to the place where He is Master and Lord in very truth, and where we are utterly subject to Him. Let us make this a very definite matter of prayer. If we can at all discern these signs, both as to the world and the coming phase of things, as well as in our own spiritual experience, let us see that they are of tremendous meaning, and get very much to the Lord that He shall find us a vessel to hand, completely under His mastery.
The eternal counsels of God, comprehending all ages and realms, and centering in a redeemed people, are so full of meaning, so vast in their import, that much deepening work has to be done to bring about a correspondence with them. We have to come to a realization of what it means to us that we have been called into fellowship with so momentous and so vast a One as God's Son. There are three aspects of "the fellowship of his sufferings:" the first, co-operation with Him in His work of delivering souls from a jealous and bitterly hostile enemy; the second, the discipline and purifying which makes for Christlikeness; the third, the enlarging of capacity, and developing of faculties for apprehending and understanding the greatness of Divine things, particularly the knowledge of Christ. All this is suffering indeed. We cannot attain unto this knowledge along the line of merely being informed; it has to be inwrought.
As indispensible as teaching is, no amount of listening to teaching will bring it about. Often a large amount of long-standing teaching only springs into life when the one possessing it passes into an almost devastating experience of suffering and testing. One world seems to be entirely breaking up and falling away, and a new one is essential to survival. Those who know Christ more fully and really are those who have discovered Him in deep spiritual agony and perplexity. Christ is the door into an immense realm of Divine meaning, and there is nothing casual or haphazard about that way. The whole being becomes involved in this issue if we are really going to represent spiritual measure for others.
We are being led at this time to take note of the fact that we are at an end-time, and that God does a peculiar work at such a time. Things become very strange and very difficult at an end-time; everything seems to be thrown into a state of disturbance, upheaval, intense pressure and conflict. The great conflicting forces in this universe register very terribly and intensely upon that which is of God and upon those who are of account to Him, so that there often arises the sense that this is an actual end, and a question as to what more is possible. Inwardly we feel that the way is becoming exceedingly hedged up: 'frustration' is the word which seems to prevail, and outwardly everything is in a state of serious and great question as to the future. Indeed, it becomes more persistently the experience of the true people of God that they could give up and abandon everything. The ways in which this works out are numerous, but the whole effect is to paralyse and put out of commission that which is of God and bring it to a complete standstill. It is this, then, that will govern our consideration at this time - that we are in an end-time and that in end-times the work of God takes a particular form and is of a peculiar nature. It obviously becomes supremely important and necessary for the Lord's people to know the time in which they live, what the portents are, and what it is that God would do at such a time.
I suggest to you that that constitutes a real reason for getting together in serious and solemn conference, for it is not something that we can take just as a part of a sequence of meditations. Our consideration of it may be supremely crucial and in a peculiar way related to a time in the history of this world, and of God's work in this world, which is of tremendous importance and will not be repeated.
Man has put his hand on heavenly things and tried to bring them on to this earth. It might be a 'New Testament Church' of a composite nature: certain things taught, enacted, and done in conformity to the record in the New Testament; a certain order, technique, program, outreach development and construction (encompassing what is popular, ‘successful’ and in vogue). These things have been drawn together for a doctrinal statement, a form of procedure, and made the basis, the form and standard, the constitution of a body, an institution, a community: man's mind and man's hand defining, controlling, holding. The verdict of history is that God will not commit Himself to any such thing.
When the Church first actually came into being, it was "born from above", composed of such as had experienced a tremendous crisis, a devastating crisis in relation to the Cross of Christ. When the churches came into being, in every case, it was a local repetition of this inward upheaval and revolution. The churches were never made by man or men, be they the greatest Apostles. The Apostles did not take a 'Blue Print' of New Testament churches wherever they went. The outcome of their work was a crisis, a climax to an old creation and the fiat of the new; a transition from one humanity to a new humanity. What followed of order and knowledge was organic, not organized; spontaneous, not imposed; life, not legality; and - above all - heavenly, not earthly. It was only when man pulled this down on to the earth that things went wrong.
In the last days Christ Himself emerges from the framework of things, from all the scaffolding of the past, from all the figurative and typological and symbolical, and transcends the things by His own Person. There is all the difference between Himself and His things. God's people have been occupied with the things concerning Christ: now they must be occupied with Christ Himself. This is what will be at an end-time. That is the point. An end-time is transition from a lot that has had to do with Christ to Christ Himself, transition from frameworks and representations to the essential and the intrinsic, transition from all the works and the things related to Christ to that which is known of Him personally.
All the other is going to be stripped off and we are in the day when that stripping off has seriously commenced. The issue is going to be - may I put it this way? - how much we have actually in our hands of the very Christ Himself versus how much we are occupied with the things concerning Him, the encasement of Christ.
In Heb. 12:27 we have, "And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." That word 'removing' really means the transferring or the transposing on to another and different basis. The fact that that comes at the end of the letter to the Hebrews is significant, for that letter is just full of that earthly system of Judaism with all its forms, its ritual, its make-up and constitution.
All that is earthly, even in relation to God, is going to be removed, and everything is going to be transferred to another basis - a spiritual, a heavenly basis; and when things begin to happen on the ground of an end-time, that is the character of what is taking place. The earthly is now going to be forced to give way to the heavenly, the temporal to the spiritual, the outward to the inward. Then it will be proved just how much we have that can be transferred, for there are many things that are not going to be transferred. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50). That signifies and implies that there is a whole order of creation which is not going to constitute that eternal order; it is to pass away. Everything is going to be transferred to another basis, and this kind of thing intensifies at an end-time. Do you see that?
Let me put that more simply. What God will see to, by sheer force of conditions, is that anything that is only temporal will go and that which is spiritual alone will remain. There must therefore be intensifying processes to bring out the spiritual. Is not that where we are? I do not know what your experience is, but touching one and another here and there I find there is some real understanding of this. We never knew such spiritual conflict, pressure and difficulty as we are knowing now; things seem to be getting beyond measure. May this not be the explanation? The Lord seems to be concentrating upon bringing out spiritual values, making spiritual men and women, and if I am not mistaken (and I claim no gift of prophecy in the foretelling sense), we are going to see, and are already seeing, the removal of so much, the external things, upon which Christians have been relying as though these things constituted their Christian life.
We are going to be forced back to the place where the one question that faces us is, After all, what have I got of the Lord Himself? Not, What can I do, where can I go? but, What have I got? I believe that is a very present and appropriate question in many parts of the world just now, and it will be increasingly so as everything outward is brought to an end.
There are always, sooner or later, reactions from cheapness and superficiality, and that usually under duress and compulsion and a sense of being unable to go on without something fuller. On the one side, there is a sense of disintegration with regard to what has been, and on the other hand a sense of something pending, a new situation and a new set of conditions coming, with certain very definite and serious issues arising in the meantime.
Firstly, it may be asked, how much of all that has been is going to survive and be carried on into the new situation? - for a great stripping is taking place, a great sifting of the spiritual as over against the temporal, even in relation to the things of God. Or how much of the Lord have we really got in hand in a time of transition and of break-up and of pending new conditions? On the other hand, how much of all that is associated with the Lord is of that external order and system which is purely earthly and transitory, temporal, the framework, the mould of things? These are very important questions and issues, and they are all forced in at a time when things are about to change. Then very grave strain and pressure and conflict comes into the atmosphere. It is as though something is about to be brought forth which stirs the enemy to his utmost resistance, oppression and frustration, so much so that at such a time the whole fabric of the spiritual life is under strain and test, and it would be much easier to give up or take some line of less resistance. These are things which belong to an end-time, and we were noting that there is no doubt that we are in such a time today. That is the significance of this very hour. Things are going to change radically, one order is going to pass and another to come in.
To be a link with God's purpose by receiving from the Lord a vision of what that purpose is is a tremendously emancipating thing. It is one thing just to go on from day to day and week to week and year to year in a kind of piecemeal way: we go to a church service today and to the conference next weekend, and that is repeated again and again, and so the whole rota of Christian activity and occupation is just something in itself. It is quite another thing to be caught up in the grip and the throb of a mighty, dominating vision corporately, so that the very atmosphere seems to proclaim there is something more than just the occasion - there is something big, something far-reaching in this - and you are brought into it by the Holy Spirit.
You find you have not just joined something, linked yourself on with some thing which goes along as on wheels which are square, bumping over and bumping over, but you are in a course, like the wheels of Ezekiel's vision, full of life, going straight forward - tremendous vision! - to One in the Throne.
There is a great deal of difference. You may be able to mark in your own minds the difference between these things - on the one hand the thing that is just something in itself, that is just going on, being kept going perhaps by its own momentum or drive, or by other interests brought in, something very much an end in itself, and it does not matter very much whether you go or come. On the other hand there is that which is so different - a coming right into line with the great purpose of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, seeing what God is after as far beyond the present attainment.
We are coming to the time when a great many changes are going to take place in the set system of Christendom, and when the spiritual will alone be of account, and when it will be of vital consequence that God should have a people who are a link with His fuller purpose. He has always required such. If we were inclined to do so, we could go back to the Bible and mark transition periods again and again, and see just what God put in at the point of transition as His link between the two, and as His bridge from the one to the other. But there is the fact. If we have any reason to believe that such a change is imminent, when it will not be possible to carry on on the old lines and to go on organizing things with all the old machinery, and when the people of God are going to be forced by world conditions on to a spiritual ground where their concern will be just the Lord Himself, if we have any reason to feel that has commenced, then this must follow - that there should be something that becomes for God a ministry which links on with His fuller purpose, which stands vitally related to Him in His greater intentions, which brings in the Lord in fullness.
It is a very critical business. We must be in possession, and under the mastery, of this heavenly vision, the purpose of God. We must see the nature and meaning of what is happening, of the trend of things, the issues that are involved, and we must be found in co-operation with God in these movements of His from heaven, able to serve Him now.
It is not merely a question of that in which we have been brought up and taught in church services, seminaries and conferences, but of what has really been revealed in us of Christ, of which we can say, "Mine eyes have seen." No one can take away from me what I have seen; nothing can destroy that; I have seen, and it has become a part of my very being. That is the crucial point in a day like this. We must be able to recognize the changing directions of things, and we must be able to move with God.
There is something which has still to be met, some question still to be answered, some compelling sense of our standing in relationship to something more and higher. That is a mark of God's having a greater purpose in our lives, for He never lets us be satisfied with anything less than the full object for which He has called us. We may think we now have our field, but if that is less than all God's thought we may explore and exploit our field but we shall discover that we have not found all that in our heart of hearts we know to be the answer to our existence, to that sense of destiny, of Divine purpose, which casts an emptiness and dissatisfaction upon all else.
Have you had an experience like that? Do you know something of what that means? - waiting, longing, praying, feeling, and then the Lord brings you into touch with that thing which is peculiarly of Himself, and you say, 'This is what I have been sensing the need of, this is it.' That is the dealing of the Lord with a servant of His, or an instrument, be it personal or corporate, that is chosen for something more than the ordinary, that is called unto the fuller instead of the partial.
You see, I feel the Lord is wanting to say something to us at this time about the end which is at hand, and of His concern to have a vessel that will serve Him in this fuller way regarding His Christ in a time of coming spiritual need; and of what, therefore, we may expect as to our own experience, our own handling, in view of our having to meet forces so unusual, the awful drive of the enemy. How necessary it is for there to be more than an ordinary abandonment to the Lord - coming to the place where He is Master and Lord in very truth, and where we are utterly subject to Him. Let us make this a very definite matter of prayer. If we can at all discern these signs, both as to the world and the coming phase of things, as well as in our own spiritual experience, let us see that they are of tremendous meaning, and get very much to the Lord that He shall find us a vessel to hand, completely under His mastery.
The eternal counsels of God, comprehending all ages and realms, and centering in a redeemed people, are so full of meaning, so vast in their import, that much deepening work has to be done to bring about a correspondence with them. We have to come to a realization of what it means to us that we have been called into fellowship with so momentous and so vast a One as God's Son. There are three aspects of "the fellowship of his sufferings:" the first, co-operation with Him in His work of delivering souls from a jealous and bitterly hostile enemy; the second, the discipline and purifying which makes for Christlikeness; the third, the enlarging of capacity, and developing of faculties for apprehending and understanding the greatness of Divine things, particularly the knowledge of Christ. All this is suffering indeed. We cannot attain unto this knowledge along the line of merely being informed; it has to be inwrought.
As indispensible as teaching is, no amount of listening to teaching will bring it about. Often a large amount of long-standing teaching only springs into life when the one possessing it passes into an almost devastating experience of suffering and testing. One world seems to be entirely breaking up and falling away, and a new one is essential to survival. Those who know Christ more fully and really are those who have discovered Him in deep spiritual agony and perplexity. Christ is the door into an immense realm of Divine meaning, and there is nothing casual or haphazard about that way. The whole being becomes involved in this issue if we are really going to represent spiritual measure for others.
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