Steadfastness In FIERY Trial

Php 1:9  And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment

Php 1:10  That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ

Personal, inward, spiritual intelligence is a very rare thing. No wonder that the enemy has such a successful line in delusions, counterfeits, and false representations.

Our greatest safeguard against such will be a deep knowledge of the Lord through discipline. To know the Lord in a real way means steadfastness when others are being carried away steadfastness through times of fiery trial.

Those who know the Lord do not put forth their own hand and try to bring things about. Such are full of love and patience, and do not lose their poise when everything seems to be going to pieces.

Confidence is an essential and inevitable fruit of this knowledge, and in those who know Him there is a quiet restful strength which speaks of a great depth of Life.

Let me point out that in Christ "are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden," and the Lord's will for us is to come to an ever-growing realization and personal appreciation of Him in Whom all the fullness dwells. We have only stated facts as to the Lord's will for all His own, and their greatest need. The absence of this real knowledge of the Lord has proved to be the most tragic factor in the Church's history.

Every fresh uprising of an abnormal condition has disclosed the appalling weakness amongst Christian people because of this lack. Waves of error; the swing of the pendulum to some fresh popular acceptance; a great war with its horrors and many-sided tests of faith; all these have swept away multitudes and left them in spiritual ruin.

These things are ever near at hand, and we have written this message to urge upon the Lord's people to have very definite dealings with Him that He will take every measure with them that they might know Him.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Dark Experiences

                             

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

God does not tell us what He is doing when taking us through dark experiences. If He did, it would be all right. If He said, "I am going to lead you into a bad time, it is all going to be dark and strange and perplexing and bewildering and helpless, but it is all right, I am working a tremendous thing, this is what I am going to bring out of it," if He said that, the faith element would fade out.

If only He would tell us He is doing something, and what He is doing, instead of leaving us in the dark and seeming to be so far away and without any interest in us! If only! Ah yes, but He did not do that, and we know He does not do that, He does not explain. But here is the challenge.

This is what is meant by Hebrews 11 and the men of faith, that is what it means. And thank God we have the heritage, we have a great heritage, we have more than they had. These men did not have a Bible, it was not written when they were going through it. We have their story and so many more. We see the issue, we have the sequel, but is it really helping us? 

When you are having a bad, dark time and feel that all has gone wrong, read the story of Joseph again... starting on it you will not want to put it down. Take its great lessons. The God of Joseph is our God and He is doing the same thing, and we know that that is true to life. 

What I have been saying is so true to life. We have that evidence. That, at any rate, is very much like my experience, and therefore I have reason to think and believe that the same thing is involved. The God of resurrection is working this to glory.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Temptress

        The Temptress The Whore Will Destroy Your Freedom

Mat 4:8  Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
 
Mat 4:9  And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
 
Mat 4:10  Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
 
Mat 4:11  Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Gal 5:1  Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.  

ENTER Into HIS Rest

Heb 3:18  And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?

We have no right to go to the unsaved and bid them come to Christ and find rest until and unless we ourselves know that rest.

Our testimony and our ministry is jeopardized, weakened, limited and discredited if we are not ourselves in rest; and this is the object of the enemy's activity in this matter – to discredit us by taking from us that very birthright of our union with Him Who is never perturbed, never anxious, never in doubt as to the issue, the One Who reigns.

You see, rest is the practical outworking of our belief that He is LORD and the very LORDSHIP of Christ is struck at by the unrest of the people of God.

Do not think that it is necessarily such-and-such things that account for our condition. These may be contributing factors, they may be very testing, may bear upon us very heavily. Physical matters – yes, they do press, they do make the situation exceedingly difficult, they do make a difference. Circumstances in which we have to live our lives, they do make a lot of difference, they make the situation exceedingly difficult. 

We say, "If only the Lord would deal with this physical matter or these circumstances or this something else! It is all due to that, that is the cause of it, the reason for it." That is our way of reasoning, but it is not the Lord's thought at all.

The thing is deeper down than that, and it is simply a matter of believing God; resolute faith, confidence in God. The Lord is trying to get us out of our variable and varying soul life where we are at the mercy of all our feelings, thoughts and reasonings and all that kind of thing, into a realm where, in spirit, we are steadfast.

That is the point upon which it is all fixed in the Psalm. Their heart was not steadfast with Him (Psa. 78:37), and around that the whole of their forty years is gathered.

The key to this is spiritual; tested by every other line, every other means, it is a spiritual matter ultimately. To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inward man (Eph. 3:16) is the answer to it all.

~T. Austin Sparks~

                                                                                                                  

GOD Will See It Through

                                                                          

If you had been standing near the fire listening to Peter you may have thought, Is this the man who was on the Mount of Transfiguration? The one who laid hands on the sick and they recovered? The one entrusted with the keys to the kingdom? Listen to what's coming out of his mouth! How could he walk so intimately with the Lord and then blow up like this, lying, cursing and denying Him? It's all over for Peter. He might as well go back to his fishing nets. He'll never be heard of again.

Had you run to the Lord exclaiming about Peter's cursing,He would have answered,Yes Peter has failed Me but I know his heart. He's going to be on a hill in a few hours weeping and coming back to Me. In fact he is on his way to Pentecost to a life of ministry for Me.

If we believe not yet he abideth faithful he cannot deny himself 2 Timothy 2:13.The actual Greek reading of this verse is: If we are faithless yet He remains faithful. It is true that Peter was terribly unfaithful but God remained faithful and His eternal purpose in Peter's life was not thwarted. Why? Because God cannot deny who He is.

No matter what you have been through this past year, God looks on your heart. If you have a broken and contrite spirit He will be there for you. His eternal purpose for you will not be ruined because He will see it through!

 ~David Wilkerson~

The Paralysis Of A Divided Heart

                                        
Now, beloved, the trouble with a good many of us has been this divided heart. We are not sure, not absolutely sure about the Lord, about our own position, about the testimony that we are perhaps standing for and talking about; we are not sure about it, we have secret questionings. 

It does not matter what we say in public and to others about it, God knows the secret of our hearts, whether we are absolutely true in secret with Him over this matter.

And there is no way of victory, no way to ascendancy, no way through to the realization of the Divine end~a people to fulfill a priestly ministry in the universal sovereignty and kingdom of our God and His Christ UNTIL we are on the ground of an absolute undividedness of heart for God in the matter of His testimony. 

The challenge to our hearts is, Are we utterly in or are we only partly in? Half in three-quarters in? Is there some lurking fascination of Egypt? How Egypt had fascinated and held part of their hearts when they were in the wilderness!

Out here everything is uncertain; we never know from one day to another whether we are going to have our food! In Egypt there was at least certainty~we did know what our program was.We were sure that things would be pretty substantial, that while we had our work we got our food!

Out here you are forced to depend upon God, and that is a precarious business. Is it? God is more certain than Egypt. There are Christians who feel that this walk of faith is such an uncertain thing. You do not know what the Lord is going to bring you into next,what is going to happen to you. 

In the world you at least have solid ground under your feet. This flesh wants a basis of evidence for itself~solid earth. This heavenly life~you never know ah! but do you know the Heavenly ONE?

Let me ask you - Do you believe, beloved, that when, having committed yourself to God, having been consecrated to the Lord, having had an understanding with the Lord, and having been obedient to Him up to all the light He has given you, do you believe that when you get to the glory you will be able to say to the Lord: You let me be deceived, my life has been ruined, I have gone wrong? Is that possible?

I do not believe it! I believe that whatever the Accuser may try to bring upon us, and whatever others may say about us, if before God in the secret we are honest with Him, if we are cut off by the precious Blood from our own will, our own way, our own schemes, our life interest, and are putting our trust in Him and following the light that He gives, I believe that when we get there, beloved, we shall not have been deceived, but we shall have to say: Lord, You were good to our trust and You led us by a right way that we might come to a city of habitation! 

The Lord will accept a charge on His honor
when we are cut off from ourselves and from all personal and worldly interests, and are wholly for Him. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

When I Make Up My Jewels

                             

Mal 3:17  And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

If we have committed ourselves to God thoroughly and really meant with the Lord that we want His full will and we do not want our own, and by His grace we will go the way that He leads and shows, whatever it costs, if we have done that and then situations have arisen which look terribly complicated and seem to contradict the faithfulness of God, what am I to conclude? What are we going to conclude?

We have to conclude one of two things – that God cares nothing for all our devotion and consecration, and just lets us get into any mess, or else this is all under His eye. That is ultimate. We have either to believe God or not to believe Him. 

You have all this here in the Word, and it all bears down upon this, that people who are related in Divine foreknowledge and Divine sovereign action come into situations like that, but in the end that sovereignty has been shown to relate to something unusually precious to the Lord, and they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even Mine own possession, in the day that I do make up my Jewels

  

The Lord is after something more than ordinary and He needs a people for it, but such a people will have unusual experiences, inside and out. It will not be the ordinary, normal course where everything goes well and straightforwardly. It will not be like that for these people. They go through ways that are tortuous and exceedingly difficult, but there is a sovereignty at work.

That is my way of analyzing and summing up the situation as I see it in the Word, and I can only say to you that it is not foreign and strange to God's special purposes to have experiences like that. Whether it be the remnant of Israel, whether it be the reactions of God in this Christian dispensation, in the book of the Revelation, the messages to the churches which are just on this ground, it is all like this.

Nothing seems normal with a people like that, because God is not going to have anything that is just normal, as we call the normal. It is something more, something extraordinary, and our experience therefore is extraordinary.

~T. Austin Sparks~

TESTED STONES

                                        
Strength! Very evident in Solomon’s building, the element of strength: those mighty stones, those weighty stones and those great cedars of Lebanon. It is all the impression of strength.

It’s taken a long time to secure those stones, they have a long history, indeed it might be impossible to trace the beginning of those stones. That rock-like substance goes back a long way and has a long history. Those cedars of Lebanon were not planted yesterday, they speak of many a testing storm, many a long year of growth.

There’s nothing superficial about these things, nothing light and fancy about them, nothing will be able to carry them away; they’ll stand, they’ll endure. They are the embodiment of the very principle of patient endurance. There's eternity in their very constitution.

They have passed through many a tempestuous testing; they are here in the House because of that. The King will dwell there because of that. They have been exposed to the elements, they have never been coddled and covered and protected from adverse elements; they’ve been exposed to all the forces that could destroy. 

Here we have strength. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

PRESSED BEYOND MEASURE

                                                                        
Perhaps like Paul, you are being pressed beyond measure, tested beyond your endurance. Your strength is nearly gone, and you are on the brink of giving up. You want to run, but there is no place to go. Now you say with Paul, "This is above my strength!"

So, what is the way to victory? All I can tell you is how God continues to  bring me out. Here are two important truths He has given me:

1. Don't think you are experiencing some strange, unique battle. On the  contrary, you are in good company. Recall Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, David, Paul and even me. What you are going through is common to believers throughout the centuries.

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,  as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:12-13).

2. When you think you can't go on another hour — when everything looks  absolutely hopeless — cry out to God with all that is in you, "Lord, help!"

Consider the counsel of the psalmist in the following verses:
As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and  morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me" (Psalm 55:16-18).

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. . . . In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears (18:1-2, 6).

O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit (30:2-3).

Here is a key verse: "For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor  also, and him that hath no helper" (72:12). Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to be your helper and He will not turn a deaf ear to your cry for help!

~David Wilkerson~

So The Wall Was Finished

Often Satan will attack you in order to stop a great work for God. He will put enemies in league together just to hinder your labors. They will come against you in unison, trying to discount the minister in order to stop the ministry.
                                                                                
You can be sure of this: If you are on a divine mission — if you are called to do a work for the Lord and are busy fulfilling that calling, trusting in Jesus~none of their plots will work against you.

Nehemiah was called by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The work was progressing wonderfully, with the walls going up steadily. Suddenly Satan stirred up a hornets' nest to hinder it all. Four prominent leaders joined in a plot against Nehemiah: “They thought to do me mischief” (Nehemiah 6:2).

Four times these leaders set a trap. They called out to Nehemiah, "Come down off your wall. We want to have a conference with you. We insist you talk to us!" But four times Nehemiah answered, "I'm not coming down off these walls! I have work to do here because God has ordained me to do it" (see Nehemiah 6:3)

Beloved, you cannot get involved in arguing with people just because they want to argue. It's all meant to be a distraction. You must go on with God's work.

The reason Satan comes against your prayer life, your consecration to God, your walk with Him, isn't just to bring you down. He also wants to ruin the ministry God has given you. He wants to destroy anything you're doing that brings glory to God!

These four VIPs started a rash of rumors against Nehemiah. They claimed, "You're doing this for yourself, not for God!" One of them, Tobiah, sent slanderous letters to other leaders in Israel. All the slander, plotting and snares were designed to put fear into Nehemiah's heart, in hopes that he would get discouraged and run. Nehemiah sums up the scheme in verse 13: “[He was] hired that I should be afraid . . . that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me.”

But none of those snares could stop the work of God! Scripture states: "So the wall was completed. . . . When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” 


~David Wilkerson~

The Danger Of Living On The Past

                                                  
In the first case, in Matthew 3, you have an historical and traditional thing which has occupied the place of that which claims to represent the Lord and has had much in its history which was of the Lord, in blessing and in use and service; with which much of the Lord has been associated, and which has been associated with much of the Lord in His purpose and His ways; but which has come to a time when it is no more than a past history, a reputation without present life; something that belongs to a by-gone day; whose life, whose vitality and energy and spiritual progress is not up-to-date and abreast of its present claims.

A time of testing comes in the sovereign ordering of God for all such, and it is found by reason of its present root-dryness, lack of vitality, of energy, of up-to-dateness of life that it cannot go through the testing, it is rooted out.

A simple word that, and yet a challenging word which shows us two things: that God, in His sovereignty, does most definitely appoint a time in which He will test the state of everything and everyone which makes a claim to be related to Him. He will do that, and then no amount of past history, good history, Divine history, will stand that thing in stead for the day of His testing. 

Or to put it another way, God tests to find out just exactly how up-to-date spiritual life and spiritual experience is.
There are quite a lot of people who have had a very sound, thoroughly genuine conversion, but who live back on their conversion of ten, twenty, or forty years ago; and while it is true the history was quite sound, it is something of the past.

Its vitality has not been continuous, it is not up-to-date, and such people will find that when the winds of God begin to blow they are lacking, they are wanting, and they will be carried away, not necessarily to be eternally lost, any more than Israel is, but to very great loss.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Is Jesus Christ Everything In All Matters?

                                                           1Co2:15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

We have to continually ask the question: "Is Christ everything in this matter, or am I wanting my own way? Am I allowing my own feelings, desires and likes to dominate or is Christ everything? Is Christ in all here, so far as it is within my power, in the energy of the Holy Spirit, for it to be so?" That has to be reduced to the minutia of daily life.

We have to get away when we are upset, annoyed, provoked, irritated, and fight that battle out and say: Lord, You have to be everything in this matter: it does not matter how my interests are affected.

And from those details of everyday life and experience out to the wider ranges, and up to the place where we may be the Lord’s responsible servant, the Word and the Spirit have to govern; and the Word and the Spirit have one object: Christ – everything and in all.

Recognizing that, we see that this further thing is necessary, that we are a truly spiritual people. It is very often difficult to define what is meant by spirituality, or a spiritual people. It is one of those things better experienced than explained. But for the moment it can be put quite simply and quite safely and soundly in this way, that a spiritual people is a people who are governed by the Word and the Holy Spirit to this end: that in everything within and without, Christ is All and in all. That is true spirituality.

~T. Austin Sparks~

PRIDE And It's UNDOING

     

John 1:29  The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

What is the sin of the world? It is pride. You may not think so; you may not see it: but I would ask you to consider again and see if all that is called sin cannot be traced to this, if it is not this in some form of expression.

For what is the root of pride? What is pride? It is selfhood come to life, risen up, active – that is the root of pride; and the branches and the fruit – how many they are! – jealousy, covetousness, wrath, and all the rest. How is wrath pride? Well, wrath, if it is not holy, purified, blood-purged wrath like the wrath of the Lamb, if it is wrath which is actuated by ourselves and our interests, is the wrath of selfhood.

So often our anger is our self-preservation, our reaction to some threat to our interests or our likes. Rebellion, stubbornness, prejudice, and much of our fear, are all traceable to pride.

What are we afraid of? What are we fearing? If we examined our fears, why are we afraid? If we were utterly severed from the personal interest – that is, if we could hand entirely over to the Lord and get out of the picture ourselves would not a lot of our fear go? And so we might go on: but we do not want to indulge in a wholesale analysis of human nature or of pride. 

We have mentioned enough to show that pride is the root and that there are countless fruits traceable to that root....

 

So may this be a word of interpretation as to why the Lord is dealing with us as He has and does – on the one hand, overcoming this evil thing, breaking, emptying, grinding to powder, until there is nothing of us left in the matter of self-sufficiency; on the other hand, giving Himself, increasing Himself. Now this is not a word, perhaps, of great inspiration, but I feel it to be a word of very great importance. This must be true of us individually.

There must also be a corporate humility. This is the way along which the Lord will commit Himself. He will never give us anything to feed our flesh, to enlarge and strengthen our natural life. He will hold us to the way that keeps us safe where that is concerned. How wonderfully the Bible becomes alive when you look at it in this way!

 
~T. Austin-Sparks~                                                                                                                                              

FAITH And ESTABLISHMENT

                                      
We have seen the thought of God to have things in a state of stability, endurance, steadfastness, trustworthiness; something substantial, something deeply rooted and grounded and immovable. 

God works along that line, seeking to eliminate all those elements in us which are weak, unreliable, unable to carry a weight and take responsibility; to bring us to the place where we are established in Christ.

But every bit of this work of confirming, establishing, rooting and grounding is connected with some further testing or proving of faith.

Every fresh storm sends our roots deeper down, to take a firmer hold. It is along the line of faith's proving that we become established.

Where there is no testing or trying, no adversity, we are weak and unreliable. So we see that, right through the Scriptures, God is moving towards having things settled and fixed, after His own nature: eternal, abiding, enduring for ever. 

The whole Bible shows that this is brought about by faith.

~T. Austin Sparks~