I have often said to friends,
when we get to glory at last, we shall look at one another and
just say, “Well, we’re here”. We
often thought it would not be, we wondered, but at last, here we
are. So our being here this evening in this place is a very
small representation of that great truth and reality; it’s
been battle all the way. We were ready and started out early
yesterday morning, frustration upon frustration found us at six
o'clock or half past six in the evening back again in our home
after being in airports and other places all day long. We got
away this morning and just as we were going through to the plane
the loudspeaker called “Will Mr Austin-Sparks please call at
the TWA desk and see the representative” and I said “Oh
no, what’s this one?” Well, we got away and as our
brothers will tell you, we took the wrong turning this evening on
our way from Washington and went I suppose twenty miles out of
our way, and I said here’s another one! But here we are and
that’s how it will be and it has often been; many
frustrations, many problems, many difficulties along the way...
sometimes “shall we ever get there?” that is, to glory.
But we shall.
I was early this morning reading
the Word before setting out again and I read this: “Jesus
Christ, He is Lord of all” and that came as you see right in
the midst of all this yesterday and today. I just had to lay hold
of that; He is Lord of all. Now, that by way of
introduction and we spend no more time on personal matters and
for this little while you will not expect too much I am sure, for
my time, my time in London time is twenty minutes to one in the
morning! Well, the Lord will help us.
So now I do not think that I
shall get really into that which is on my heart for ministry this
week just now, but I think I can move toward it in this way: by
reminding you that there is one fear that ought to be
characteristic of every true Christian. I know there’s much
that forbids fear and tells us to fear not. There’s very
much about that and that’s the kind of fear that we must not
indulge in. But there is one fear that ought to
characterize every true Christian and child of God and that is
the fear of unreality: the fear of having divine truth without
divine power, of having divine light without divine character, of
having knowledge of things without the formation of Christ in our
lives. That is, having a great deal of teaching without it
becoming effective in our lives. That is what I mean by
"unreality". There’s a vast amount of that -
teaching, truth, mental knowledge - given to us in a spoken
ministry and in book form and yet... no corresponding measure of
Life, Power, and Christ-likeness. Reality. That is the ultimate
test of everything that we have or think that we have. That’s
the test.
The test will never be how much
we know of what is in the Bible, how much truth we have received,
the test will be ever and always: what does that amount to in our
case, in a practical way? Now that is the burden with which I
have come here. I don’t know whether the devil has been
trying to play upon my fear and my reservation, for in a very
real sense I have not wanted to come to Wabanna this year. Not a
second guess but in a very real sense I’m afraid, afraid of
more talking, more addresses, more unfolding of biblical content
and truth. I’ve been doing it, you see, for so many years;
sixty years I’ve been preaching and I at this time have to
look out and say: what has it amounted to? What does it amount
to? I know it is not all without blessing, help, usefulness to
the Lord, but... seeing the mountains of teaching over these
years, dare I add to that? Have I the assurance that if I go and
do more, it’s going to lead somewhere? That’s my fear,
my question. So I want, right at the beginning (I don’t know
what has been said to you already last night and today) but this
is what I want to say is I come amongst you that we must have
this fear this week, a right kind of fear, I believe a
divine fear, that we do not fill our notebooks or our minds with
more teaching, truth, substance, but that every time as far as
there is something that can really affect us, result in something
in us, so far as we are concerned we are going to apply our
hearts to that. Then day by day and when the days are past, we
are different people. That’s the only justification of our
coming, friends, we are different people. We certainly are not
the same in spiritual life at the end as when we came.
And it does not require a very
large or deep knowledge of the Lord Jesus - His Life, His
movement amongst people, His teaching - it does not require
profound knowledge to recognize that this was a characteristic of
Himself. The one thing that He hated... with all the beautiful
things that He said, the kind things, the gracious things He said
and did; He said some terrible things - words of wrath, anger,
came out of His mouth like fiery swords. Some of his
denunciations are really terrible! Really terrible.
There was this element about Him... it was about his
forerunner John the Baptist. John the Baptist said some pretty
terrible things if you get the literal meaning and statement of
what he said. He turned to these people who came out from
Jerusalem to see him, hear him, he said: “You generation of
vipers! Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
You get the picture? There’s a bush fire, it’s
spreading and as it spreads the vipers leap out and make for the
river to escape the flames. John says, “That’s what
some of you people are doing coming down here to the river where
I’m baptizing. You’re a generation of vipers just
seeking to escape the wrath to come.” That’s a pretty
terrible thing to say to people isn’t it? But the Lord Jesus
said equally strong things, “Ye hypocrites! Ye hypocrites!
You whited sepulchers!” and much more like that. His
words... all because His soul was consumed with this passion for reality.
One thing he could not tolerate was hypocrisy,
falsehood, unreality, pretense, make-believe, play-acting. No!
Reality
Not even a Nicodemus, a great
teacher in Israel, stalwart upholder of the best traditions... he’s
not going to escape, he will be told very frankly that it counts
for nothing in the kingdom of God. If this is the
effect of the Lord’s words, if there is not reality (and
what Christ meant by reality is the heavenliness of
nature; not even the best nature amongst men, but another, by
another) well, I need say little more. It’s perfectly clear
that the one thing that Jesus was set upon with all His heart was
that there should be no gap whatever between truth as
truth, teaching as teaching, doctrine as doctrine, Bible
knowledge as Bible knowledge, and life and heavenly character and
Christ-likeness. No gap between the two! One may be very good,
but if it stops short of this, it counts for nothing after all.
The Lord Jesus was so definitely set upon this reality and He is
now. And I want you to remember and to note that both the Bible
in its teaching and history as it unfolds and is moving now so
swiftly toward its consummation, both of the scriptures and
history and especially the end of this dispensation, are marked
by this: that as we go on with God, if we are, let me
put it this way. If we are going on with God and as we go on with
God, we shall have a deepening, deepening concern about reality.
That is, that the very essence of things will become more and
more our concern.
You see, the parables of the
Lord Jesus were along that line. What about the wheat and the
so-called tares? Well, the suggestion of it was “Let’s
pluck up the tares”. The Lord said in so doing you may
destroy the wheat as well; let a process ensue, give it time and,
sure, sure as can be, in time that process of
intensification will reveal without any doubt or possibility of
making a mistake, what is what and which is which. And other
parables are on the same principle. You see the sower... itself
such a simple parable it seems, but what is it? One sowing, two
sowing, three sowing, four sowing... failure. Failure. Next,
reality in two degrees: sixty, less or more? The measure of
reality.
The issue is this: in the end
after all the giving of the Word, all the broadcasting of the
Truth, all the preaching of the Gospel, in the end, what is the
criterion? Not how much has been given, or how much has been in a
general way received, but how much of the real thing comes out at
last? At last, what have you got? Now, of course I could spend
much time on the Word showing that, both in the teaching of the
Lord Himself and later in the New Testament but history is
bearing this out that it is a true law, a true principle. And who
is so blind today amongst Christians as to fail to see this
process of intensification going on? It’s spreading; it’s
spreading. It has tested everything in China to the last degree;
what is going to be found after all the years of missionary
enterprise and expense and cost and what-not? What is going to be
found in the end that is the thing which stands eternally?
It’s spreading all over the
world isn’t it? Oh, ask some of these dear Christians in
Africa, in Egypt today, in Israel today, it’s coming on you
know, it’s coming on here. The Sovereignty of God is going
to press it over more and more this issue: “After all
that I have given to the nations of this world, after all
that has come to people from heaven during these centuries, what
will there be that is essential reality?” Am I wrong? Isn’t
it obvious? It’s patent that is what’s happening, and
even if there are not the outward persecutions in our part of the
world, the western hemisphere, that there are in the East, my
mail, dear friends, brings continually letters from everywhere;
people, dear people of God saying: I never in my life knew so
much pressure as I’m knowing today, spiritual pressure,
spiritual trials, sometimes I just do not know where I am, which
way to turn or to look, the conflict is so intense. Well, some of
you here perhaps know something about that.
It is increasingly difficult to
go on in the utter way with God. The enemy is going to stop that
if he can by any means. And so, we here will be receiving one and
another much, I trust, from the Lord. That must not be the end of
it. We’ve heard it, we know it, but let us step back and say
but do I? Do I?
Now, dear friends, I am not
standing before you to preach, that’s not the idea, I want
to say to you that after these many years of seeking to
walk with the Lord, and know the Lord, and to serve the Lord,
minister to the Lord and to His people… with a very wide
and, I think, deep experience spiritually, I say to you that the
year between now and when we were here before has been the most
terrible year of my life from a spiritual standpoint. The
conflict, the pressure! The intense determination of the devil
that if it is possible he will get us out before we reach the
end. Does that sound too serious, heavy? No, I want to say to you
that you are bound sooner or later to come up against this issue:
has all that I have heard, and received and know, become Life
to me? My very life? A part of my being? Or is it here, just
stored here. That’s the thing which must govern us and the
fear of it being otherwise must be with us continually.
I expect somebody will say to me
afterward: well you have put a heavy load on, you have brought
heaviness on the whole thing. No, no, this has got to be a time
of fortification, of knowing the Lord in an inward way, of
an increase of Christ to go through triumphantly to the end and
stand at last - having stood and withstood - stand at last,
triumphant here.
Now that just brings me to the
point where I can only indicate what it is that I feel the Lord
is going to have me say to you this week. All that I have been
saying and the much more that I could say on this matter of
reality, is focused, in the Word of God, is focused and
concentrated and summed up in one thing. Apart from the person of
the Lord Jesus (we take that for granted) but after the
recognition of the place, the immense place of the Lord Jesus,
the next thing in the Bible which is central, which is supreme,
which is all-governing and which is persistent, is the Cross of
the Lord Jesus. He is the supreme reality but after himself, the,
the predominant reality of the Bible is the Cross. It is!
No one can truly contemplate the
cross of our Lord Jesus without being overwhelmed with the sense
of what a real thing it was, there’s no fiction
about that, there’s no imagination about that, there’s
no pretense about that. Terribly, terribly real was that cross...
to Him, to His first disciples. The Cross. And the Cross is not
only a reality in history, the New Testament makes it perfectly
clear that the Cross is as real in experience for the
child of God as ever it was in history. Today it is just as real
in the spiritual experience and history of the child of God as it
was when it was enacted those centuries ago at that spot called
Calvary. Why it is so real is for us to see in what little time
we shall have this week, but I want to draw your attention to
this, focus it upon this as the central reality in God’s
universe, in creation, in human history.
The Cross... as the apostle Paul
calls it -
The Cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ
In every book of the New
Testament the Cross is either explicit or implicit. That is, it
is either definitely referred to, mentioned, brought clearly into
view, or it is implied. It is in the very heart of
things as you read through the New Testament.
In the gospels, the
four gospels, they vary in their content, what one writer leaves
out another puts in. You find only a little of John in the
others. They all have their own different points of teaching, of
the work of the Lord, but they are on common ground over this one
thing. Not one of them fails to head everything up to
the Cross, they crown all they have said in that. And John said
what he had written was a mere modicum of what he could have
written, he said if everything were to be put down the world
couldn’t contain the books! Well, was he exaggerating? Well
we’ve learned through 2000 years that the world is full of
the books and they’re still pouring out but whatever it was,
the lesser or the greater measure, not one of them failed to make
this perfectly clear: that the Cross is the crown. The Cross is
the great and consummate point of everything, which gives meaning
to everything else, both the person, the work, and the teaching;
the Cross it is that gives power to everything else. Yes, they’re
on common ground there, whatever they’ve had to say, they
all find themselves being led up to that one thing as the end.
But in the gospels it is the historic facts of the Cross,
something enacted in history at a certain time, in a certain
place, because of certain things; took place in history. It had
to be like that.
When you move over from the gospels to the book
of the Acts you find that out of the history has come a gospel, a
preaching, and those who are found in that book are heralds of
the Cross. Note the place that they give to the Cross and how
they hold everything to that centre.
The day of Pentecost... Peter
has come to see now what he didn’t see at the time that he
denied his Lord. He can see now and now he is telling the people
very frankly and very strongly that the Cross is the key to
everything that’s happening, “Whom ye crucified, God
raised”. Out of that everything proceeds and the whole
book of the Acts is based upon the Cross. The heralds of the
Cross are going forth to the ends of the earth.
You move on to the letters, they’re
called the epistles, you will find as I have said, the Cross is
either explicit or implicit in every one! That is what we are
going to see, I trust, as far as we can get, but in every one of
these, some particular aspect and application of the Cross is
brought to light and applied. Is the Cross being applied
on this situation or that situation, because of this and because
of that? Every letter has in it in some way the law, the
principle of the Cross to touch a particular need, or condition,
or state and situation. There’s the many sided Cross running
right through all these letters.
This, with this, I perhaps will
close for the present. This surely is enough to impress us that
there’s something here that we’ve got to know and
understand, more than we do, about this... about this, what we
call the Cross, “the message of the Cross”. I told you
last year how tired I am of that phrase... people write and people
speak and seem to think that I’m a kind of either a crank or
an expert on this matter of what they call “the message of
the Cross”. Oh no, may the Lord save us from “the
message of the cross” as that, as such, and show us the
tremendous, the eternal significance of this central theme in
Christianity. Not only as basic to becoming a Christian, the
Cross as “the Cross where I first saw the light and the
burden of my heart rolled away”. That’s good; never get
away from that blessedness, but dear friends, that’s not all
that the Cross has got to say and to do. It is going to follow us
through, follow us through all our years if we are going to move
with God. And at the end, at the end we shall not have got away
from the Cross. We will need it as much at the end as at any time
beginning or subsequently.
I think what I’ll call them
to you, an American audience, may sound strange but perhaps you
know the phrase: what are called the Victorians, the Victorian
era. Does that convey anything to you? Well, if you don’t
know about the phrase you’ll find it in your hymnbooks. The
Victorians, I think, had the more ready apprehension of the place
of the Cross for the end of the Christian life. They may have
been a bit morbid, I think they were a bit! Well, so many of
those hymns you know, you take up Moody and Sankey’s
hymnbooks, you know how many hymns you will find closing with the
last gasp of breath when I pass, you know it sounds a bit morbid
doesn’t it?
I did hear, I think it was Miss Carmichael of
Dohnavur, who said
that she was a child and taken to church and so wearied with the
church service and not least with the preacher, that she opened
her hymnbook and made a study of all that people were going to
say when they died; a collection of all their last words in the
hymns when the last breath comes and so on. Well, that may be a
bit morbid, depressing. We don’t sing those hymns so much
today, we do sing some of them, but I think those people had a
more ready apprehension of the place of the deliverance, the
victory, the triumph of the Cross at the end than perhaps is
common.
We put so much emphasis upon the
beginning of the Christian life and the place of the
Cross there, forgiveness and so on. Thank God, thank God for it,
never lose our appreciation of that but, we’re
going to need all that mighty work of the Cross more and more as
we go on with God and at the end. Yes, we are going to need to
know the reality of what Christ has done by His Cross and what
that Cross stands for, for us, for time, and our eternal destiny.
Well, that’s my
introduction. I do feel I want right at this point to
come in on this: dear friends, get adjusted in mind and heart
over this week if you have not already done so. It may have
already had the appeal, I don’t know; but get adjusted to
this: I am not here just to get my notebook full of what the
preachers are saying, either to have it for myself or to use it
for some other people. I’m not here to accumulate fresh
stores of truth, I am here to come under the hand of God that He
may effect in me what yet remains to be effected and can be at
this time. Would you adjust to that? Say to the Lord at the close
of this day and every day and in the morning, “Lord, now,
not just teaching today, but power, power effecting something. If
it’s going to be the Word like a sharp two edged sword
piercing to dividing asunder, alright Lord, better that than that
I should be whole in unreality.” Will you do that?
The Lord help you, I trust that
although what I have said may seem to make the Cross rather
terrible, rather dreadful, I trust we shall see the other side
and be really with the apostles, “God forbid that I should glory,
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
May the glory of the Cross come to us as well as its challenge in
a new way in these days.