I have it on my heart, beloved, that these days before us we shall in the will of God, be occupied with "That which is born of the Spirit," or "The New Creation in Christ Jesus"; and this morning, for a little while, we want to set the object in its place, or in His place, and see exactly what it is toward which the Lord is moving; what we might call the pattern in the heavens.

We are familiar with that phrase, we know to what it relates in the Old Testament, and I think by now we know that that pattern in the heavens, according to which all things were made in relation to the tabernacle of old, was but a revelation of Jesus Christ, and that tabernacle was the Lord Jesus in His many-sidedness, right to the very last detail; an expression of the mind of God. We know that in the Letter to the Hebrews that is taken up again, but there this difference is made that, whereas in the Old Testament it was a pattern of things in the heavens, here it is the very things themselves and you are introduced to the very things by the first words of that letter, "God Who in old times spake unto the Fathers in divers portions and divers manners, hath in the end of these times spoken in His Son," and the whole theme of the Letter to the Hebrews is the Lord Jesus Christ as the consummation of the whole of the Old Testament revelation. He in Person gathering up consummately all that God had before spoken, and thus not being a part, or parts, but being the whole; not being a shadow or a type, but being the very thing itself.

So truly, the Lord Jesus is the pattern and the reality toward which God is working; and we want now, immediately, to get that Object into its, or His place, because until that is so we shall be held to something less; we shall have an inadequate objective and dynamic for our lives here on earth.

T. Austin-Sparks

1. The Travail for the Man-Child
2. The Power of the Blood is Primarily in its Incorruptibility
3. The "Overcomer" Stands on the Ground of the Perfections of Christ, and Meets the "Accuser" by Faith's Appropriation Thereof
4. Satanic Tyranny Through Self-Occupation Broken by a Right Apprehension of the Blood
5. The Blood Represents Total Separation to God
6. The Paralysis of a Divided Heart
7. Losing the Crown
8. The Blood is a Weapon to be Wielded

Now first of all, beloved, I want to gather together several things which I believe represent the significance of that statement, that to which the statement belongs. I am one of those who believe (I do not ask you to believe it because I do, but that you will go to the Lord with open hearts about it) that the man-child of this chapter represents a company of the Lord's people at the end-time who, in a peculiar way, stand in the fullness of the virtue and power of the Blood of the Lord Jesus; and, as we have often said, we believe that it is that people, that company, the man-child, that God in a special way is seeking to secure for Himself at this time; the thing which, in the midst of other things, He is peculiarly, particularly concerned to bring into being. It is a company called into a peculiar relationship to the Lord Himself for the fulfillment of a priestly ministry in relation to the universal kingdom of our God and His Christ - and I use the word "universal" there with care; not just an earthly aspect of that kingdom, but also the heavenly aspect.

We must understand that there are two sides to the kingdom; there is the earthly side and there is the heavenly side. There will be those who are in the earthly side who will not be in the heavenly side, but there will not be any in the heavenly side who are not in the earthly side. Get the heavenly side and you get both. This particular company, the man-child company, is, in the purpose of God, to be brought into relation to Him for the fulfillment of a priestly ministry in relation to the universal kingdom of our God and His Christ; a priestly ministry, in relation to the kingdom and the throne, the universal sovereignty of the Lord Jesus; an administrative instrument in heaven, to rule with Him, from the heavens, the whole range of His dominion.

Before we come to what may be more technical we must recognize the spiritual foundation of prayer, and that has to do with the ingredients and the sacredness of the incense which was to be burnt upon the golden altar referred to in Exodus 30, verse 34 onwards.

1. The Lord's Reaction to a Reactionary Movement
2. The Inclusive Charge "Neither hot nor cold"
3. The Challenge "I counsel thee to buy..." "Be zealous... repent..."
4. The Final Issue

Now, beloved, as you are aware, we are being led these days to consider the Cross and the Overcoming Life and one wants right at the very beginning to tell you something in order to settle you, and this is — not any one of you will ever be an overcomer. You may take that as the key to the Conference, in the sense in which for many years many of us have thought of being overcomers. Of course I know that wants a lot of explaining, but I simply say that because it is necessary to settle it once and for all that we, in ourselves, will never be overcomers, and that opens the way for the whole of this theme and its reality of meaning to come from the Lord to us. There is only one Overcomer in the universe, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and if there are ever any other overcomers, they will not be others at all, they will simply be the extension of His overcoming — the expansion of His victory. It will be by reason of that vital corporate oneness with Him which is not two lives, two distinct experiences, but which is one and the same experience shared. That is the nature of overcoming. It will simply be the impartation on His part of His own triumph, the sharing of His own victory, so that it does not become several victories, or a thousand victories, but it becomes one victory in One Body, not in a host of bodies; and in order to apprehend that truth, and the meaning and nature of that, you have to go a long way back. Not to Calvary, but much, much farther back than Calvary; you have to get right back before the world was, and there discover the secret of God's heart. The thing which was wrapped up in His own mind as His secret purpose toward which He would work through the ages, and in the fullness of times disclose, so that it no longer would be a hidden mystery, but still a mystery, though a disclosed mystery.

T. Austin-Sparks

Table of Contents
Chapter 7 - The Subjective Work of the Cross
1. The Negative and Positive Aspects
(a) The Negative Aspect
(b) The Positive Aspect
2. The Cross and the Spirit
3. The Nature of the New Creation — The Joining of the Holy Spirit with the New-born Spirit of Man
4. The Holy Spirit Brings New Faculties
Chapter 8 - The Cross in the Epistles
1. Three Observations with Regard to the Later Apostolic Times
(i) A Startling Feature
(ii) The Note of Warning
(iii) The Cross as the Remedy and Ground of Appeal
2. Romans — The Cross and the Christian's Position
3. 1 Corinthians — The Cross and the Christian's Walk
4. 2 Corinthians — The Cross and Ministry
5. Galatians — The Cross and Spiritual Fullness
6. Ephesians — The Cross and the Eternal Purpose
7. Philippians — The Cross and the Fellowship of Saints

The Man Created
The Man Ruined
The New Man Pre-figured
The New Man Provided
The New Man Tested
The New Man Proved
The New Man Perfected
The Man Installed
The New Man Related, and Corporately Expressed
The Seamless Robe and The Sovereignty Of God

“They part My garments among them, and upon My vesture do they cast lots.” Psalm 22:18 (A.R.V.).

“The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore one to another, “Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be:” that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, ‘They parted My garments among them, And upon My vesture did they cast lots.’ ” John 19:23–24.

Considering the Gospel of John, T. Austin-Sparks writes:
"Throwing a look back over this record, one thing may be taken up profitably for notice and re-emphasis. With all the beauty and wonder of what is gathered into this account, it is not possible to avoid the realization that from beginning to end the writer was up against something. Both in what he himself said about Jesus, and in all the scenes, incidents, and utterances recorded of Jesus, there is a strenuous element, which varies from controversy, reserve, antagonism, and question, to lack of capacity to appreciate, understand, or believe.

This (either positive or negative) difficulty covers the religious leaders, the people in view generally, and particularly disciples and friends. There is something to be overcome, to be broken down, or to be changed. Jesus is a mystery; that is what it amounts to. He is other, different - an enigma. He cannot be interpreted in any of the standard terms of either human nature or religion, as generally known and accepted. He is a stranger, an outsider, and the easiest thing is to be against and not with Him. Indeed, it is difficult not to be offended with Him, even in the case of the closest friends. All this in spite of the great amount said as to His love.

What, then, does it all amount to? Is there something in this which is as much the message of the book as anything particularly recorded in it? I think there is, and it is this. There are two realms which, while at times and in certain cases seeming to be nearer than at others, never do actually meet or overlap. They are two separate realms, and not two shades or degrees of one. The one never does or can fully understand, appreciate, or comprehend the other, and religion - traditional religion - gives no great advantage, if any, in this matter.
It is just the wide and unbridgeable difference between the spiritual on the one hand, and the natural - even though devoutly religious - on the other. The gap remains and that is the reason for so much of the difficulty, the trouble, the perplexity! It explains the aloneness and loneliness of Jesus. Paul drank deeply of this cup. The way of the Spirit and spirituality is a lonely way, a misunderstood way, and often an antagonized way. Adjust everything to the reason of man and the traditions of men, and this element of hard going will be eliminated. Walk by the Spirit, and you are with a minority."

1.Grace as a Ground of Confidence and Assurance
2.Grace in Conduct
3.Grace in Character
4.The Source of All Grace

"It is when faith is tried, when circumstances are difficult—they speak evil against you falsely, and other things are present which create a set of difficult circumstances—when you are suffering for conscience' sake, and when you are assaulted by the enemy who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (v. 8); then remember that the God of all grace called you, and so there is grace for everything, for all situations and all demands. It seems as though 1:2 is the spring, then there is the stream breaking out in its varied applications and meanings and values, and then it seems as though all converge into the sea—the God of all grace; the spring, the distribution over the whole land to meet every situation, and then the coming back and flowing into the great ocean—the God of all grace for all situations."
T.A-S.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Bond-Servant
Chapter 2 - The Servant Spirit and the Servant Mind
The Servant Spirit and the Servant Mind
Chapter 3 - The Wise Master-Builder
Chapter 4 - The Gospel of the Wise Master-Builder
The Nature of the Gospel of the Wise Master-Builder
An Adequate Setting and Motive
An Adequate Dynamic
Chapter 5 - The Servant in Whom God Delights
The Cause of Failure is Idolatry; What is Idolatry?
Worldliness is Idolatry?
The Servant in whom the Lord Delights.
Blinded and Deafened by Devotion.
A Whole Burnt Offering.
Chapter 6 - The Service of the Lord
Hindrances in Service
“But Satan Hindered” (?)
Satan Buffeted
Satan Traduced
Rewards of Service
Reproach for Christ was His Present Riches
The Vital “How” and “What”

1. Offended with God?
2. Elisha Offended?
3. John Offended?
4. Offense vs. Confidence
5. The Heavenly Way

The first thing then to take note of is that the word of God does take account of the possibility of our being offended with Him. It does not say anywhere that that possibility should never arise and will never arise. The Lord has nowhere said that we shall never have any occasion for being offended with Him. He HAS indicated that there will be PLENTY of opportunity for so stumbling at Him, falling over Him, coming down because of Him - if you like: crashing because of Him. There will be plenty of occasion or opportunity for doing so. He has never said that it will never be so. It is as well for us to recognize that.

Temptation is never sin. We all are tempted in this as in many other ways. And as you know, temptation is only another word for trial, so it is translated in some places “trial”. And there’s nothing wrong with trials, with being tried, if you like, with being tempted. And there will always be plenty of opportunity for being tempted to be offended with the Lord.

I believe that in this book there is that which can touch the need at this present time in a very real way; for, indeed, this is a time when the Lord's people need help to meet the many activities which are meant by the adversary to lead them away from, or prevent them from coming to, the place where the Lord has all that His heart desires in and through them. This first part will be occupied with a few general principles which govern the book.

Our Scripture says here that life is a law, and it further says that that life is in the hands of the Holy Spirit - "the law of the Spirit of life...".
A law is a fixed and established principle. It has potentialities. It means that, if you are adjusted to it and governed by it, certain results are inevitable; that the potentialities which it contains will most surely find expression when that law is established. So that, what we have here is, that the mark of things being of God the Holy Spirit is life. If anything is of God the Holy Spirit, it will live; its chief characteristic will be life. That is a law, an established principle. What is according to God lives, having God's own life in it, and that is, as a principle, a rule of guidance. It is a principle for the direction of the people of God.

But there is another thing we must notice at the outset. This is that, in the matter of life as a fixed principle, the life is in Christ Jesus: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Upon that fact, the Scriptures are more than emphatic, that all that is of God is in Christ Jesus; and inasmuch as the mark of all that is of God is life, then life is in Christ Jesus and in Him alone.
T. A-S.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Human History of Tragedy
The Conditions at Corinth
Christ, the Second Man — the Last Adam
The First of a New Type
Human History

Chapter 2 - The Human History in Recovery and Glory
Christ Replaces the First Adam
Peace
Security
Dominion
Reconciliation
Sense of purpose
Spiritual experience

This book contains 365 daily meditations from the writings of T. Austin Sparks who was one of the leading Christian spiritual giants of the 20th century. To all those who want to grow in the knowledge of Christ this book is without comparison. Austin-Sparks emphasizes the centrality and supremacy of Christ, the Church and the Cross. For the serious Christian this is an outstanding collection of spiritual ministry and refreshment. It has been said that to read Sparks is to discover Christ as few men have ever known Him.

The golden chord that runs throughout Sparks’ books is the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The object of his ministry was to contribute to the Divine end which is presented in the words of Ephesians 4:13-14: “…till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge (literally full knowledge) of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we be no longer children …”

Day by Day with T. Austin-Sparks is a compilation of excerpts from his ministry, a daily meditation - one for each day of the year.

"If it is true that all the distress, disruption, discord, and misery through the ages is to be attributed to this divided worship, then the new creation, the new and joyous order prophesied in the Scriptures, will come about, or will be realized, on the sole basis of God being 'all in all.' This has its rise in every individual in whom divided allegiance is ended. It takes its larger and corporate form in the Church 'which he purchased [for this purpose] with his own blood.' This, again, is the motive and dynamic of every Holy Spirit-initiated and energized movement of the Evangel and it gives meaning to all His urges to holy living, loving fellowship, patient enduring, and spiritual warfare.

Reading: 2 Cor. 4:1-7

The first verse contains the little clause upon which everything in this letter hangs, "Therefore, seeing we have this ministry" - "This ministry." — We recognize that this letter is being written to the believers at Corinth, and one of the features of this letter, and the letters of Paul in general, is the way in which he unites those to whom he writes with himself, and himself with them, and makes it one matter. He is not saying, "Therefore, seeing I have this ministry." He is saying, we have this ministry, and if we just look back and on we will see how he brings them into oneness with himself. It is one of his great principles. It is basic to what the apostle is seeking to do, because these Corinthians had challenged him very seriously and raised many questions about him, some disputing his apostleship, and he has met with a good deal of suspicion and doubt and opposition. He is a man in the presence of people in the church who do not like him, and who do not want him, and who would rule him out and would prefer others to him, and he has to meet a difficulty like that. The difficulty that many ministers have had to meet. How are you going to meet people in the church who really do not like you, and do not want you, and are saying all kinds of things about you that are unworthy? An expression of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit is that He unites Himself to them and involves them in his own position and involves himself in theirs and deals with it as a common thing. Paul comes right down to them and speaks to them as though they were all facing common difficulties.

And so he says, "We have this ministry." Why I mention this is that we shall all recognize that we have this ministry. This does not belong to a certain set called "ministers" or "missionaries" in any official sense. It is the ministry of every child of God. It has its intensified forms in those who are separated unto the gospel in a special way, but we all have it. We are not thinking of "ministry" as some detached and hedged-around thing belonging to a certain class of people, but it is the whole house of God and the whole body of Christ. It is the ministry of every member, and every one of us in the ministry, and therefore these words apply to you in a very definite way. We have this ministry.

Captivity In The Lord
I. The instrument of the Lord's testimony in a place of limiting by the will of God.
II. The importance and value of seeing and accepting things into God's light.
I. The instrument of the Lord's testimony in a place of limiting by the will of God.

Prison - Vision - Provision
1. Prison: God only knows all the exercises of an eager heart when shut out and shut in by -what seems to be - the unkindness of men, or the overtaking of adversity!
2. Vision: And yet such times can be times of an 'open Heaven' and much spiritual enrichment
3. Provision: And the fruit may be life to many in a time of spiritual famine

This is the all-governing end of all His dealings with us. This is the greatest of all our needs. It is the secret of strength, steadfastness, and service. It determines the measure of our usefulness to Him. It was the one passion of the life of the apostle Paul for himself. It was the cause of his unceasing striving for the saints. It is the heart and pivot of the whole letter to the Hebrews. It was the secret of the life, service, endurance, confidence of the Lord Jesus as Son of Man.
T. Austin-Sparks

1. The Conflict Between Two Kingdoms
2. Righteousness The Expression of The Righteous One
3. Features of the Righteous One
(a) Meekness
(b) Yieldedness And Obedience
(c) Dependence
4. The Effects of Sin Negated by Righteousness
5. The Issue of Righteousness: Life
6. The Kingdom Established Within by the Tests of Faith

You will at once recognise that those three things are clearly seen in the passage in the book of Ezra. They set the altar in its place. That is the Cross. They came to build the house of the Lord. That is the Church. And when the adversaries saw it, they drew near. That is the conflict.

In the passage in the Gospel by Matthew, chapter 16, you have it again. "Upon this rock I will build my church." "From that time Jesus began to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day raised up." That is the Cross; and the Cross and the Church being in view, the conflict is begun. And so you will find it everywhere.

Go further back in the Old Testament to the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus, and you have the same thing, remembering that the book of Exodus opens with a presentation of the sons of Israel, and you know that the sons of a prince with God are found in bondage and are about to be emancipated. Typically the Church is in view. Chapter 12 brings the Cross in as the ground of that emancipation, but it is all surrounded by intense conflict. The battle is joined when the bringing out of those elect people is begun, and the ground upon which the battle is really fought out is the ground of the Cross. You come to the book of the Acts, and it is just the same: the Cross, the Church and the Conflict. It is the three C's all the way through the Scriptures. Well, then, we need to see God's mind about this matter.
T. A-S.

We have witness borne to that fact in all directions, and we can gather those up into some specific forms of expression.

We begin with the widest range. There is the witness to the fact in the realm of the ungodly. Upon that we need not dwell very much, but it is quite patent that the world outside of Christ is showing in a new way, with a new strength, its desire for life, its need of life. It has its own ideas of how that need is going to be met, and its quest for life takes its own peculiar forms, the forms peculiar to the world's own blindness, darkness and ignorance. Nevertheless it is manifest that the world is seeking life. We do not mean by that that it is seeking its life in God. We do not mean by that that it is seeking what we understand by life, Divine life, spiritual life, eternal life, but it is seeking what it would call "life." Life is the thing which it desires.
T. A-S

"Of all the books that have issued from this ministry, I regard this one as that which goes most deeply to the roots and foundations of our life in Christ with God."  T. A-S.

The School of Christ by T Austin-Sparks: A series of addresses originally published in A Witness and A Testimony magazine in 1942-43. Vols 20-3 through 21-4.

God has summed up and centered all things in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. This means that Christianity is not a number of things as in themselves, such as beliefs, doctrines, dogmas, practices, forms, rites, orders, or virtues. It is not salvation, regeneration, sanctification, power, life, joy, peace, etc, as things; it is just Himself…

There has been a great deal done in recent days to bring the greater magnitudes of the universe within the intelligence of the ordinary man and woman. This means that many people are interested in the explanation of the universe, and, no doubt in particular, of the course of this earth and of the creation and history of man; but we believe that we have the positive and final answer to the inquiry. For us there is but one definite and conclusive explanation of the universe, and that explanation is a Person - the Lord Jesus Christ, with all that is eternally related to Him. However much we read and study we shall never get the explanation of the universe, in whole or in part, until we come to see the place of the Lord Jesus in the eternal appointment of God.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for the weapons of OUR WARFARE are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strong holds)” (2 Corinthians 10:3–4).

"While there is much for which the enemy is not to be blamed as the first cause, but which is due rather to our own foolishness or un-guardedness — our own faults — yet there is still very much more that is attributable to his interest, to his interference, to his action. Our need today is not so much to be informed as to the reality of spiritual conflict — we know that to be a fact! — as to be more alive to the extra factor lying behind situations, the situations with which we are trying, with so little success, to cope. We try to cope with things, as though they were everything, and so often we miss their real underlying significance.
"What we need, therefore, is understanding and wisdom —for wisdom means the ability to apply knowledge —wisdom as to this whole spiritual campaign, our warfare and its principles. But let me say at once: we are not embarking upon a study of Satan, or demons, or demonology! It is a very favorite trap of the enemy to get people occupied and obsessed with himself, and, by the help of God, we are not going to fall into that. Our object is to study spiritual warfare itself, as viewed mainly from the Lord’s side."

T. A-S.

1. A Victory To Be Appropriated By Praising Faith
2. The Battle Already Won In The Cross
3. The Enemy’s Only Ground Of Hope
4. The Enemy’s Suggestions To Be Repudiated
5. Confidence Essential To Victory
6. Introspection Leads To Defeat

The question is this -What has God revealed as His supreme objective resultant from the Cross of Christ? The question which springs out of that is - how has God revealed that the objective shall be secured and expressed? Probably it will be that subsidiary question which will occupy us largely in these meditations, leading to the answer to the main question.

"As we approach this main question, we may do so by a series of enquiries. Is the supreme outcome of the Cross of Christ found in there being so many Christians enjoying the knowledge that they are saved? Further, is it found in so many saved people seeking to get other people to the same position - enjoying the fact of being saved? Further, is the answer found in having so many saved Christians mainly occupied with their own sanctification, the way of victory, and a fuller life? And, yet again, is it to have so many Christians devoting themselves to the knowledge of deeper things, the deeper things of God? And if we put all the four together, have we got the objective, that is, God's full objective, in the Cross of Christ? All the things that I have mentioned certainly are part of it; but when we have them all - salvation, soul-winning, sanctification, education - does it end there? Are any, or all, of these the end? Will that satisfy God? Will that fill up His desire and expectation and be an adequate outcome of Calvary? Well, that is what we are going to look at, as the Lord enables."
T. A-S.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - God's Standard
Chapter 2 - A Presentation of the Man
Chapter 3 - The Sealing of His Brethren
Chapter 4 - The Spirit's Work in This Dispensation
Chapter 5 - The Process of Reproduction
Chapter 6 - God's Standard of Judgment
Chapter 7 - The Bride
Chapter 8 - The Man Who is Alive
Chapter 9 - The Man Child

"That word 'ordained' is a very interesting word. It is the Greek word from which we get our English word 'horizon.' It means, basically, to set bounds or limits, to mark out a defined or determined realm. In this passage, the Man is the realm, the marked out limit, the defined sphere in which God will judge the world. It is suggestive that the phrase in the original Greek is, literally, 'IN the man.' (Compare 1 Cor. 6:2: 'if the world shall be judged IN you.')

T. Austin-Sparks

When anything which has received the imprimatur of the Lord Jesus in any measure has become the object of special assault on the one hand, or peculiar insufficiency of consideration on the other, the suspicions of the watchful should be aroused. Surely this must signify that the enemy back of human minds is especially concerned to obscure something of vital account to his opponent the Lord Jesus. If ever this was true and exemplified in any direction it is true in the case of "Jonah". Here in this short narrative and the three references to it by the Lord Jesus, there is a comprehensiveness of the most vital, profound, and far reaching truth, which it would be difficult to find in so narrow a compass anywhere else in the Scriptures. That is saying a tremendous thing, but we have weighed our words, and hope that as we proceed the statement may be seen to be justified. Our method will be, not so much an exposition of the text as a recognition of the great truths; and these may not be brought out strictly in the order of the narrative, but in the order of practical application. Firstly, then, we shall take the Master's own use of Jonah as in Luke 9:29, 30.
T. A-S

"The messages are in harmony with — if only a poor echo of — the heart-expression of the Apostle who provides the title — '...whom we proclaim, admonishing every man, and teaching every man ...that we may present every man perfect (complete, entire) in Christ; whereunto I labour...' (Col. 1:28, 29). May this ministry be prospered unto that end."
T. Austin-Sparks
Forest Hill,
London.
1964

"That word 'ordained' is a very interesting word. It is the Greek word from which we get our English word 'horizon.' It means, basically, to set bounds or limits, to mark out a defined or determined realm. In this passage, the Man is the realm, the marked out limit, the defined sphere in which God will judge the world. It is suggestive that the phrase in the original Greek is, literally, 'IN the man.' (Compare 1 Cor. 6:2: 'if the world shall be judged IN you.') Everything is to be brought for its judgment into the realm of what this Man is. Everything and everyone will be judged according to the significance of the Man whom He has ordained."
T. Austin-Sparks

We are very thankful for the rich blessing, brought to wider circles of the Lord’s people, through the ministry of our brother. Our great desire, in presenting these addresses in printed form, is that the Lord may place them into the hands of those whose heart is set upon Christ that He may become their All. We have sought to retain, as much as possible, the original form of the messages — spoken in English — which we ask our readers to bear in mind where certain ways of expression are used.

Gümligen, Switzerland,
December 1935.

The definition will wait upon all that we have to say; I do not stay to try to explain that in any preliminary word. You will notice that I leave out the article and just say “Overcomer Testimony”, not something new in itself perhaps to any of us, but I believe in the intention of God, new in emphasis. We begin by reminding ourselves of the fact of overcomers throughout the whole history recorded in the Scriptures, the fact of Overcomers in Divine history.

1. The Ground Of Satan's Power
(a) The World
(b) Uncrucified Self
2. The Need For Persistent Determination

"Avenge me of mine adversary!" That means that the people of God will be pressed into recognizing that they are not up against some human situation, and therefore their cry will be in relation to this ultimate issue, being avenged of the adversary - pressed into crying.

When you get back of things to the adversary and bring that adversary up before the Throne of God and the Church cries, "Avenge me of mine adversary", you have touched the realm of spiritual effectiveness, you have got behind things. My longing, my craving, is to find the Lord's people seeing this and acting accordingly.

We are going to be occupied with the meaning of Christ. Before we come immediately into touch with that matter, there are a few preliminary words that I want to say, and they have to do with something of which we are all conscious, a matter which is troubling, I think I can say, the majority of real Christians. It is the matter of the lost impact of Christ, of the Gospel, of Christianity. We are suffering from a handicap, and that handicap is tradition. Christianity has become that - a tradition so largely, something handed down from generation to generation. It has become a theology, a set of doctrines, of statements about God, about Christ, about the Holy Spirit, and many other things, and as such it has passed very largely into the mental realm - a thing to be worked out in thought, a matter of reason. It has also become a great mystical cult. It has passed into the realm of art, and music, so that you can accept Christianity on that basis and be a Christian along that line, and yet that it shall stand completely out of relation to your inner life. Think of all that goes to make up Christianity as it is known today, of the external, the soulish appreciation; and it has no impact. There is the great need, surely, - and this is what we are seeking to come to at this time.
The great need is to get back to the real meaning of Christ, so that a new impact may come upon ourselves, and there shall come a new impact upon the world through us.
T.A-S.

"How many times has the Spirit broken loose and moved in a new and free way, only to have that way brought under the control of man and crystallized into another 'Form', Creed, Organization, Denomination, Sect, 'Order', Community, etc.! The invariable result has been that the free movement and life of the Spirit has been cramped, or even killed, by the prison of the framework into which it has been drawn or forced."

It is a grand thing and a source of tremendous strength to come to the same position as that of Christ as Man, where we know that boundless heavenly resources are available. I think we only come there progressively, and not all at once. We only come there by the way of discipline - discipline which takes the form of bringing us to an utter dependence but which is yet not an emptying and a breaking down as an end in itself, but one which is accompanied by that grace of God - that graciousness of God - which, when we are empty, makes His fullness to abound.

There is a positive as well as a negative side. God is no believer in negatives as being the ultimate goal; but when He breaks and when He empties, He does something on the positive side which ever causes us to marvel, and we have to say every time: Well, that was the Lord, not ourselves. We come progressively by that way of discipline to know that there are heavenly resources which far outstrip all human possibilities, and these resources are operative.

1. The Need For Balance
2. Complementary Truths
3. The Adversary Using God's Work Against Him
4. A Peril With Every Blessing
5. The Objective Side
6. Perfect Salvation When We Believe
7. The Perils Of The Objective Apprehension
a. The Peril Of Shallowness
b. The Peril Of Delayed Maturity
c. The Peril Of Contradiction
d. The Peril Of Truth Taking The Place Of Life
e. The Peril Of Missing The Prize
8. The Subjective Side
9. Identification With Christ
10. The Peril Of The Subjective Apprehension

We are become partners with Christ, that is the true rendering. The correct understanding and apprehension of what is here is very important, because it is strictly in keeping with the whole object of this letter. The letter has as its object partnership with Christ. The object is intimated at the beginning of the letter by such words as "Son" and "heir"-"God... hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son... whom he appointed heir of all things..." The words "Son" and "heir" are key words to the whole letter.

1. THE PRIESTLY MINISTRY OF CHRIST AND THE FATHER'S LOVE
2. AN OPEN HEAVEN
3. THE MARKS OF THE MINISTRY
(1) Life
(2) Peace
4. GOD'S JEALOUSY OVER THE LEVITES
5. THE CHASTENING OF THE SONS OF LEVI
6. SATAN'S HATRED OF LEVITICAL MINISTRY

Familiarity with words and ideas very often takes something from their value. Few passages in the New Testament are more familiar to us than 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation..." (R.V.M.), but the full force of the one governing word there has, I am quite sure, not fallen upon our hearts, and we have still very much to learn as to that essential newness of the new creation in Christ. Indeed, we may say that many of our troubles, our difficulties, our weaknesses, our failures, our problems, our perplexities are the result of our having failed to sufficiently grasp the import of that one word "new." We have, very largely, proceeded with a good deal that is old into the new creation, or we have tried to do so, and we have discovered sooner or later that that cannot be done, that we are attempting an impossibility. So that it may be quite profitable for us to dwell for a little while upon this essential newness.

That natural birth, even though it might be into surroundings where the kingdom of God is the one interest, never brings into it. No one can come into the kingdom of God by natural birth. One may be born into a Christian family, and into the midst of Christianity as a religious system, or what is called the Christian Church, but no one is in the kingdom of God on account of such birth. This is another kingdom altogether, wholly other than the kingdom of nature, even though it may be religious nature; and this, being a new kingdom, and a wholly other kingdom, requires a new and wholly other life. It is a Divine kingdom; it is the kingdom of God, and therefore it requires a Divine life, a life which is God's life. "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have life in himself". Thus, in the whole universe, the Father and the Son alone have that life in themselves. It is important that we should know that, even when we have received eternal life, we do not have it in ourselves. We will speak further of that presently. "God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son". It remains in Him. "He that hath the Son hath life". It is never parted from Him.

The miracles of Christ are not only called "wonders" (that which arrests and bewilders the reason) they are also "signs" — that which points to something else; they are indicative of something more and simply something beyond or behind. While it is doubtless true that the healing miracles implied and signified that in His redemptive person and work Christ would at length deliver the human body from its corruption and all the painful fruits of sin therein, we believe that the present emphasis is to be placed mainly upon illustrative suggestiveness of the maladies specifically dealt with although not all specifically named (Matt. 4:23, 10:1; Mark 1:34).

The Holy Spirit does not hesitate to reveal or affirm in the records that many maladies and infirmities had demons directly behind them, and Satan directly responsible for them, as well as specific sin as an immediate ground of them. From the illustrative, the parabolic, in the gospels we work through the Cross into the more spiritual and heavenly realm by the resurrection and ascension of Christ and have more to do with the spiritual counterpart than with the physical; while still there remains in the Church a testimony and a prophecy to the entire redemption of spirit, soul, and body.

There are diseases and morbidities which relate to the "inner man," and in so far as he is of greater importance than the "outer man," so the temporal is subservient to and waits upon the spiritual and eternal. We do not propose to deal with the relationship of the two, but suggest in passing that the quickening of the mortal (dying) body depends upon a life in the renewed and energised spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.
T. A-S

Genesis 3:15. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (I need not remind you that that was addressed to the serpent.)

Revelation 17:14. .”..and they also shall overcome that are with him..."

"That which I believe the Lord has laid on my heart very definitely and strongly for this season of our gathering together is what is represented by those passages, and many others, namely: The Battle for the Throne."
T. Austin-Sparks

What is a Christian?
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
What a Christian is Not
(1) To become a Christian is not to become 'religious', or to adopt a new 'religion'.
(2) To become a Christian is not to join an institution called 'The Church'.
(3) To become a Christian is not to become a part of a new movement.
What a Christian Is
(1) "Who art thou?" "I am Jesus."
(2) "What wilt thou have me to do, Lord?"
(3) "Christ in you".
Chapter 2
1. Something Absolutely Personal
2. Christianity - Not a Religion, but a Person

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Living "Before the Lord" and "Unto the Lord"
"Before the Lord"
"Unto the Lord"
Chapter 2 - Heart-Revelation of "the Mystery"
Two Mysteries
The Twofold Mystery of Christ
The Mystery Known Only by Revelation
The Church Heavenly and Corporate
Chapter 3 - Subjection to Christ as Head
Christ's Absolute Headship
Our Position in that Headship
Our Progress in the Position
The Practical Application of Christ's Headship
Chapter 4 - Living "In the Heavenlies"
The Limiting Effect of Things 'On the Earth'
Only Spiritual Value Counts with God
Knowledge of Christ in Heaven the Measure of Spiritual Value
Earthly Features Must Not Govern
Only Spiritual Values to Concern Us

There is a word on one's heart in connection with proximity to Christ. It is very clear in the Lord's Word that there are differences in the matter of proximity to Christ; that distances from Christ are very different; are greater and lesser. You have but just to take that thought and carry it for a moment into the New Testament on the literal side to see the bearing upon the spiritual side. There is this passage here in Matthew 26:30, and you begin at the most advanced point where the Lord is alone "and He went a little farther." His "little farther," of course, was going all the way with the will of God. That bit just spoke of the utterness, the completeness of His separation unto His Father's will. He went the bit farther than anyone else, He is seen there alone. From that point you get differences of distance from Him.
T. Austin-Sparks

1. The Blood
2. The First Need of the Sinner
3. The Believer's Conflict with the Accuser
4. The Cross
5. The Name

Let us for a moment reflect upon that well-known statement: "...that I might live unto God... I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and that which I now live... I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God..."

I think it is a matter of very great importance indeed that we should recognize the objective aspect of the Apostle's faith, and of the faith which is to be likewise in us. I mean that the Lord Jesus is the object of faith as presented here, and that makes faith objective, and if we grasped that as we should, clearly and strongly, it would make us very safe, and it would deliver many of the Lord's people from those perils which so often beset them.

Now note: the Apostle says, "I have been crucified with Christ..."; not, I am being crucified with Christ; not, I am going to be crucified with Christ; not, I once started being crucified with Christ and am going on being crucified with Christ to the end. That is not what is said, but, "I have been crucified with Christ". What he means is that the thing was done in totality when Christ was crucified; not that a part of me was crucified, and a good deal more left to be crucified, but the whole was crucified in Him. Now says he, in effect, I have definitely accepted that as a full and complete thing, an actuality: in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me, I have been crucified. That is where the life of faith begins. It was done.
T. A-S.

"Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spake forth unto them, saying... This is that which hath been spoken through the prophet Joel, And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: yea and on my servants and on my handmaidens in those days will I pour forth of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:14,16-18)

"The knowledge of Christ is THE basis of the whole of the life of the child of God, and underlies every phase and aspect of that life. That is, it underlies our very relationship with God; it underlies all our growth in grace; it underlies every fragment of our service. There is nothing which comes within the compass of the life of the Christian which does not depend upon the knowledge of Christ. But that knowledge is a thing which will never be exhausted here, however long we live, and however rapidly we grow. We shall never overtake the finality of that knowledge. That is why an apostle, at the end of his life, still more than at any other time in all his history, gave expression to the deepest desire and longing of his heart as being to 'know Christ' (Phil. 3:10). We may say that for every increase in spiritual life, spiritual strength, spiritual effectiveness, spiritual usefulness to the Lord, some further measure of the knowledge of Christ is essential. We increase by this knowledge; we progress by this knowledge; we are more for the Lord in accordance with the living knowledge of the Lord Jesus which is coming to us.

"This knowledge is essentially a spiritual thing. It is a knowledge which is altogether closed to any capacity or ability or faculty, save that of the spirit. The measure in which we represent the Divine thought and fulfill the Divine purpose, will be the measure in which we are learning Christ after the Spirit."

T. Austin-Sparks

"Although the Bible contains so much about the warfare of God’s people, and although we as His people may have had much teaching on the subject, it would probably be true to say that we have largely failed to apply the instruction we have received—to situations, to circumstances, to happenings; and that this accounts for many of our troubles, individually and collectively. While there is much for which the enemy is not to be blamed as the first cause, but which is due rather to our own foolishness or un-guardedness — our own faults — yet there is still very much more that is attributable to his interest, to his interference, to his action. Our need today is not so much to be informed as to the reality of spiritual conflict — we know that to be a fact! — as to be more alive to the extra factor lying behind situations, the situations with which we are trying, with so little success, to cope. We try to cope with things, as though they were everything, and so often we miss their real underlying significance.
"What we need, therefore, is understanding and wisdom —for wisdom means the ability to apply knowledge —wisdom as to this whole spiritual campaign, our warfare and its principles. But let me say at once: we are not embarking upon a study of Satan, or demons, or demonology! It is a very favorite trap of the enemy to get people occupied and obsessed with himself, and, by the help of God, we are not going to fall into that. Our object is to study spiritual warfare itself, as viewed mainly from the Lord’s side." T. A-S.

In approaching this matter of the candlestick of pure gold, we do so from a more distant point. We stand back, withdrawn. I think that we are all conscious of a growing sense of need among the Lord's people for a new spiritual position. It may not be universal or general, but it is something which we are meeting a good deal in these days, and, when you come to think about it, it is a thing which marks the Word of God throughout - that is, a challenge to reach a new place. You find it in the Word, you find it in subsequent history. Even when the Lord's people are in the right way or in the right direction, this need is constantly brought before them - the urge not to stay there, not to rest there, but to move on. That is very true in a general way as to the spiritual history of the Lord's people and all the ways of the Lord with His people - constantly challenging, constantly creating a sense of need to reach some position which has not been reached, or, it may be in some cases, to recover a position from which they have receded.

But among ourselves (and when I say ourselves, I mean those of us who have been related here in this ministry, in what we have often called this testimony) this sense is growing - a sense of the need of coming to a new spiritual place. One and another has expressed that to me during these past months particularly - 'I must get to a new place with the Lord, I must somehow get to a new position.' It is expressed in different ways, but what lies behind it is this sense that we are being exercised, wrought upon, and that prevailing conditions are forcing us to this. We must somehow get to a new spiritual place. I think that many of you will find a response to that in your own hearts.

T. Austin-Sparks

Abounding in Love
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1948
"I Have Loved Thee"
From "The Work of the Ministry" - Volume 2
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-Jun 1954

1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.” (NIV) (Editor)

In the light of the Lord's coming, it is very important to be well instructed and to have all the light that the Lord can give us, but never let us think for one moment that light and truth and teaching are inevitably the building factors, for there are many people with a vast amount of truth and love who are not very large spiritually; they are very small, shrunken and closed up. It is love that builds. Moreover, it makes differences in those who exercise it, it brings them into rest.

The Body of Christ: Its Heavenly Aspect
1. The Eternal Oneness of the Body
2. A Heavenly Position Necessary to Apprehending the Oneness
3. Our Attitude Towards Differences

God's Mind About the Church
1. Spirituality
2. The Apostle Paul
3. The Value of Spirituality

The Family of God
Introduction:
The Divine thought is … to have spiritual families.

The New Birth
1. What it is to be Born Again
2. Why We Must Be Born Again
3. How We Are Born Again

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The State of the Overcomer
1. What the Overcomer is — His Position, Vocation and Adversary
2. Three Aspects of the Overcomer: His State, His Position, His Testimony
3. His State
(a) Righteousness which is of Faith
(b) A Life Governed by the Principle of Righteousness
Chapter 2 - The Position of the Overcomer
1. The Assault upon the Church's Life
2. The Church's Position
(a) In the Heavenlies in Christ
(b) Ascendancy in Christ over the Power of the Devil
3. The End of Heavenliness - The Manifestation of God's Glory in the Church
4. Satan's Objective - the Nullification of the Church's Position and
Warfare through Corruption
5. The Prophecy of Balaam

In this introductory word it will be necessary for us to take a broad view of what is before us and to be occupied mainly in a general outline. The more specific spiritual application will remain for subsequent consideration and you will understand that the peculiar nature of this present time is just in preparation for what may follow.

We shall have to take what this book ('Daniel') brings into view along a two-fold line, in the main. Firstly the historical and prophetical; and then secondly, the typical and spiritual. But I would like here immediately to say that it is not in one's thought or intention to deal with the book of Daniel in any way exhaustively along prophetical lines, that is, it is not just prophecy as contained in this book which will occupy us, although that will be latent and sometimes patent all the way through.

We are aware that prophecy by itself need not be spiritually helpful or enriching or building up. It may be very interesting, very fascinating, very educational, but it does not always have a spiritual effect, and I do not think the Lord ever intended His people just to study prophecy as a subject, but to recognise that everything in His thought is intended to reach down into the life and to make very radical changes there, and in order for prophecy to do that, you have to do a great deal more than study dates, times, seasons and signs. There has to be a spiritual interpretation and application, and it is that which we have especially in mind here. But for the present moment we just take some more or less broad view of what is here brought before us.
T. A-S.

"Some time before these messages were given, desiring to be quiet and away from many things, I went down into the country with my heart very much to the Lord for His word. In the early hours of the morning it seemed as though the heavens opened and everything became alive: it all opened up wonderfully, and centered in one phrase – 'Pioneers of the Heavenly Way.' That really does sum up the verses that we have just read, and, while we are going to think and perhaps say much about the heavenly way, it is this matter of pioneering the heavenly way that will be our main concern. It is necessary, to begin with, for us to consider to some extent the heavenly way itself, but I repeat that it is this whole tremendous business of pioneering that way that I believe to be the main concern of the Lord, and hence of ourselves, at this time."
T. A-S.

The word "cannot" stands written as an impassable barrier - "cannot understand or receive the things of the Spirit of God." In reality, our lives are set in a realm of things spiritual. God is Spirit, therefore the supreme Reality, the supreme factor, the ultimate environment of this universe - God - is Spirit. Man, in the deepest and truest nature of his being, is spirit. He has a soul and a body. Evil forces in great power encircle man on this earth, and they are spiritual forces. But more, the entire temporal order is constituted upon spiritual principles and meanings. The visible things are but symbols of spiritual things; the seen things are types of unseen things. God has constituted this whole universe, in every aspect and detail, upon a basis of spiritual principles; they are tokens of something more than themselves.

1. Accrediting Linked to Sufferings
2. Discrediting Spiritual Ministry
3. Accrediting Linked to Sufferings
4. Accrediting Linked to Resurrection

Chapter 1 - The Wisdom of the World
1. Wisdom That Issues in Division
2. A Wisdom That Issues in Unrighteousness
3. Divine Wisdom: Stature According To This Wisdom
4. Zero in Man — The Divine Starting-Point
5. The Cross — The Divine Means
Chapter 2 - The Wisdom Which is From Above
1. Wisdom’s Fruits
2. Wisdom Solving the Supreme Problem
3. Righteousness
4. Sanctification
5. Redemption

Responsibility For What We Have
1. The Matter of Responsibility
2. Application to Us
"But Ye..."
1. It is You
2. We are the Key
Christ Our Life

The Burden of the Valley of Vision
1 Prophetic Vision
2 End-Time Overcomers

The Importance and Value of God-Given Vision
1. IT IS CONCRETE WITH GOD
2. IT IS COMPREHENSIVE
3. IT IS CONSTANTLY ENLARGING
4. IT ALWAYS MOVES UPWARD
5. IT IS THE GROUND OF OUR TRAINING
6. IT MAKES MEN OF PRAYER

There are two great things which must impress thoughtful readers of the Word of God. These two things run from start to finish of the Scriptures. One is the breaking in of God in relation to this world, and His persistent and unwearying intervention in its course and history. The other is the unbroken chain of attempts to cast Him out of the world and to rid it of God. It would appear that something like this latter had taken place before the creation, one was recorded in Genesis. After that attempt had been made which is recorded there, in which Adam was involved, and through him the entire race, the breakings in of God are for a time connected with individuals. These stand to represent Him and His rights, and to maintain His testimony, and the most conspicuous thing in that representation and testimony is an altar. Thus it was with Abel, Noah, Abraham, and Isaac. These men, standing by their altar, formed a break in the well-nigh universal usurpation of God's rights in the possession of the world and its government. Upon them fell the weight of holding it in token for God, and the test of faith was terrific. When we reach Jacob, while there is an inheriting of what has be featured the testimony until then, there is a new development. This new and extra factor is the House of God. The greatest experiences and crises of his life are in some way connected with Bethel. The introduction of this feature is a landmark in the course of the ages. It is not merely a man's dream, it is a Divine intervention. Not many times do we read of the heavens opening and God speaking through the rifted clouds, but it is significant that whenever it is so in some way it relates to the great spiritual truth which is central to what happened on that night at Luz, and which cause it to be known forever after by a new name - Bethel - the House of God.
T. A-S

Table of Contents
Chapter 3 - The Testimony of the Overcomer
1. The Overcomers Testimony
2. The Nature of the Testimony of Jesus
3. The Blood the Ground of Life
4. The Blood Effectual through the Cross
5. The Lesson of the Candlestick
Chapter 4 - A Heart Matter
1. A Man after God's own Heart
2. The Overcomer Characterized by the Same Feature
3. The Real and the Unreal
4. The Challenge and Possibilities of a Supreme Devotedness to the Lord Himself

The ground upon which we stand is very much more positive at this present time than even the Old Testament saints enjoyed, for we look back to Calvary’s triumphant accomplishment. Yet the Old Testament position and condition is also a true picture of our own time and condition spiritually; I am thinking in terms of books of the Bible and not of verses.

We want to see what the Books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther have to say to us. I feel convinced that we are living in a time very truly represented by these books, and in that sense we are living in Bible times, so that these books are very up-to-date, and have their abiding meaning for our time.

T.A-S.

The clause in the thirteenth verse (of Col. 3) very largely represents what has been laid on my heart for this time: "The Son of his love"; then that which follows, the position which He occupies according to the will of the Father - "He is before all things, and in him all things consist" and He in all things having the pre-eminence: then, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." I think we can well sum up all that in the phrase "The Centrality and Supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ," and with that be wholly occupied for the rest of our lives, not only for this present time.

And so it is upon the centrality and supremacy of the Son of God's love that we shall dwell as the Lord will enable us. The Word of God brings into view four spheres in which that thought and purpose of God concerning the Son of His love is to be realized. There is the sphere of the believer's own individual life; then secondly, there is the sphere of the Church which is His Body; in the third place there is the sphere of the kingdoms of this world, the nations of the earth; and in the fourth place He is to be central and supreme in the whole universe, heaven and earth and what is under the earth.

We may not be able, in the time which we have in these days, to reach unto all those spheres and see what the Word of God has to say about the Lord Jesus in relation thereto, but we shall move as the Lord enables and at least take the first one or two of those spheres. But before coming to the first of them may I remind you also that the centrality and supremacy of the Lord Jesus is the pivot and the key to all the Scriptures.
T. A-S

It embraces the counsels of the Godhead before the world was — it embraces the creation; it embraces redemption; it embraces the final glory. All that is in the face of Jesus Christ. Indeed, there is nothing which concerns us, as creatures related to God and eternity, which is not to be found in the face of Jesus Christ. God comes to us in the face of Jesus Christ, and all that ever we shall or can know of God is to be found in the face of Jesus Christ. The face is the human medium of communication. The face is the medium of personality.

The personality is the character formed in secret, the sum of all secret history, and it embraces itself in the face. Sooner or later, somehow, the personality will betray itself in the face. But in order to read the personality through the face, there has to be a certain amount of qualification. You cannot off hand read a person through their face. You need to have certain ability to do so. If all that is of God is in the face of Jesus Christ, there has to be given revelation in our hearts, as well as in His face. We have to be able to see the face of Jesus Christ.

All that is but a wide and sweeping survey or intimation of what the face of Jesus represents. It must be brought nearer to our hearts in a practical way, but I want to remind you of this before we go further, that it has ever been by reason of a vision of the face of Jesus Christ, that God has secured lives and instruments which have reflected His own glory.
T. A-S

Table of Contents
Chapter 3 - The Supreme Importance of a Living
and Clear Apprehension of Christ
1. The Nature of the Building
2. The Nature of the Trying Fire
3. Only What is Christ Will Endure
Chapter 4 - The Appeal of God's Full Thought
1. The Example of Levi
2. The Cause of Failure at Corinth
3. A Positive Attitude Against Evil Essential
4. The Reward of Faithfulness
5. The Cost of Faithfulness

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place?” The answer — “I saw the Lamb standing on the mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand.” The beginning and the end; the anticipation, the realization; the question, the answer.

T. Austin-Sparks

1. Features of the End-Time
2. An Angel Talking What is God Saying Today?
3. An Awakening to What God Has to Say
4. "Behold, A Candlestick all of Gold"
5. The Instrument of the Testimony in the House of God
6. Absolutely According to God
7. The Two Olive Trees and the Two Anointed Ones
8. The Great Mountain
9. The Day of Small Things?

"...THE GOSPEL OF THE GLORY OF THE BLESSED GOD, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:11).

"In whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION, - in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:13-14).

"With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL" (Eph. 6:18-19).

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Sign of the Ultimate Purpose.
2. The Security of the Ultimate Purpose.
3. The Law of the Ultimate Purpose.
4. The Basis of the Ultimate Purpose.
5. The Mind and the Method of the Ultimate Purpose.
6. The Instrument of the Ultimate Purpose.
7. The Cost of the Ultimate Purpose.

We are to consider briefly that solemn watchword of our Lord's life on earth by which the stages of His advance toward His ultimate purpose were governed and marked: for He went toward that ultimate purpose by stages governed by a conscious¬ness which found its expression in a familiar phrase, “Mine hour.” That was the solemn watchword of our Lord's life and progressive movement into and unto His ultimate purpose, and we shall look at some of those movements as defined by that expression.
T. Austin-Sparks

To my readers I would say that, although the main subject of the tripartite nature of man is such a controversial one, this book is not entered as a part of the controversy. Such a course would only be to contradict its main contention—that Divine things can only be entered into by revelation and never by reason. Indeed, I have no wish that anyone should read this book unless they are really exercised about reality and spiritual things. I would ask for openness of heart as the one concession to the Spirit of truth if, peradventure, He might be ready to use what is written here for enlightenment.

"No claim is made to any expert knowledge. The contents represent more the result of observation and experience amongst Christian people over a wide area during a good number of years, than of study of the subject itself."

T. A-S.

1. An Earthly Objective with Heavenly Significance
2. The Objective - The Church and its Heavenly Function
3. The Objective Divinely Conceived
4. Mistaken Human Attempts to Reach the Objective
5. Divine Sovereignty Ruling and Overruling
6. God's Objective not Frustrated by Human Frailty
7. The Break-up of all that is of Man
8. God's Objective Certain of Ultimate Attainment

1. Christ is a Heavenly Order
2. The Kingdom of God is Jesus Christ
3. Christ is a our Sanctification
4. A Personal Note

We take the Epistles and we think of them as having to do within the building of the Church and the churches, the superstructure of Christianity, and so we take the technique of the Acts and the Epistles as a technique, as a system of doctrine and a system of practice, a system of Christian order, and the Epistles become - and have become for so many and for Christianity in general - a crystallized system of practice, order, form, teaching; and the weakness in the whole position is just this, that that is something as in itself and the Lord Jesus has just been missed and lost.

1. The Time and the Instrument
2. “Such a Time as This”
3. The Nature of God’s Instrument to Meet the Situation
4. “Thou and This”
5. The Grace of God in the Instrument
6. The Life of God in the Instrument

It is impressive to realise what a large place the Lord gives to the ear, and how much Scripture is occupied with hearing; and, as we put the various Scriptures together, we come to find that the matter of hearing, or of the ear, goes right to the root of the spiritual life. It was by capturing the ear of Eve that all sin was introduced into the human race. She consented to listen, she lent her ear when the adversary, Satan, said, "Hath God said...?". That was the beginning of all spiritual evil among men, and since then Satan has ever sought to propagate his kingdom by getting the ear, by securing a consent to listen. It was in exactly the same way that he went to the Lord Jesus in the days of His fast in the wilderness, saying, "If thou be the Son of God..." There is something in that very much akin to "Hath God said...?", because it was only a short time previously that God had said, "This is my beloved Son". But the last Adam refused to listen; He closed His ear. He would not consent to entertain the suggestion or the insinuation, and, by His persistent refusal to give ear to the adversary, redemption was accomplished. All the mischief of the first failure in that very respect was overcome.

When we come to the book of the Revelation, we find that it is to the ear that the appeal is made. It is the time of consummations. The first chapters have to do with things that must be listened to as from the Lord; the last chapters see the result of that work of the Spirit-life in fulness; the same principles as in Genesis. It is the question of life in fulness, lost by lending an ear to Satan, gained by listening to what the Spirit saith.

T. Austin-Sparks

This book originally appeared as a series of messages in A Witness and A Testimony Magazine in 1928 and 1929 (Vols. 5-8 through 6-1), but was subsequently published as a book. This version is from Emmanuel Church. The scientific references are obviously outdated, but the spiritual value is not diminished.

The Theme is "The Holy Spirit and the Cross, the Church, and the Coming Again of the Lord." As to the first part, the Holy Spirit and the Cross, we can see that the one great and inclusive question in view was, and is, the securing of God's rights in the universe for Him. God, as the Supreme and Sole Object of all worship or worth-ship; the breaking in before this world was created of another will and thought, to divide that worship, to rob God of it, a disputing of God's sole right in the universe; an uprising to ascend into the heavens above the clouds to be equal with the Most High on the part of one, Lucifer; bringing about his downfall and the casting out of heaven of a company of "angels which kept not, their first estate," and who are now, we are told, "reserved in everlasting chains," in chains unto everlasting perdition and darkness: the reappearing of that one upon this earth, and assailing the citadel of God in the soul of man, and therefore dividing the rights of God, the worship of God, and securing recognition, acknowledgment, obedience, thus worship. Then right down through the ages, the two Gods, the true God and the god of this world - the false god; the two worships; the worship of God and the worship of this other, in many forms, by many systems, in divers manners, but always the one thing behind to take away from God, to divide the rights with God. It does not matter how it is done, it will be done always in the way which is most calculated to succeed.

1. Calvary was victory
2. Imprisonment Meant Liberty
3. The Sentence of Death
4. Spiritual Service
5. In the Train of His Triumph

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’” (John 14:6).

“Saul… went to the high priest, and asked letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, whether men or
women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2).

“Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, ‘These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation’” (Acts 16:17).

“But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples” (Acts 19:9).

“About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way” (Acts 19:23).

“And I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons” (Acts 22:4).

“But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers” (Acts 24:14).

“But Felix, having a more exact knowledge about the Way, put them off” (Acts 24:22).

The Lord Jesus said of Himself that He was the Way. Almost immediately after He had gone back to heaven and the events of the day of Pentecost had inaugurated the new era, Christianity became known as "The Way". Christ, Who always had to speak in a kind of parabolic way without giving explanations because the Holy Spirit had not yet come as the Interpreter, meant that He was the Pathway. Just simply, undefined, unexplained, He was the Pathway. Christianity took that up, but by the Holy Spirit embodied all that Christ meant by that, but did not explain. Christianity became the fulness of the meaning of Christ as the Way. These two aspects, then, Christ’s own simple statement as to Himself, and Christianity becoming the full expression of what He meant, just resolves itself into several quite simple, but quite important things: firstly, what the Way is; secondly, what Christ meant as to Himself, and thirdly, what Christianity was at the beginning, and was always intended to be. Those things will be the ground of our consideration and enlargement at this time.
T.A-S.

"I have found the Lord putting it into my heart quite strongly to say something about the service of God; and I think we can gather it under that first clause - 'Behold, my servant.' Of course, here the words are prophetically related to the Lord Jesus. There is no doubt about that, because they are actually quoted in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, verses 17 and 18 - '...that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, Behold, my servant whom I have chosen; my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased'; and there are other passages in the New Testament which are a repetition, in part of these very words."