Editor's Letters

by T. Austin-Sparks

August 1926

Beloved of the Lord,

"He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

There is no time with God. He permits the succession of events that represents the tragedy of this cosmos into which has intruded the will of evil. But He has broken across that succession with one supreme and final act, CALVARY, that brings the eternal "NOW" of God into time, and has thus concluded it. The clock of the cosmos, has struck its last hour, so to speak. The hour came; the hour of the crucified Christ in which all things, in heaven and upon earth, were reconciled unto the Father. By the Blood God has broken into time and space in sacrificial Passion; just as by the Blood we believers are presented in the Eternal Spirit before God in Christ. The ends of the ages have arrived. Little children, it is the final hour. God's "NOW" has come in. As far as He is concerned, time should be no longer: there should be no more delay.

This is His revealed and declared will. But we, as His children, must will it also. Eternal Life, now our portion in the Body of Christ, is transcendent to all wills and acts, human and Satanic, now. It is not for us to cry, "How long, O Lord, how long? Until when?"

"Now," saith the Lord; "behold, now!" Throughout this calendar of "man's day" and "the hour of anti-Christ," it has always been "a little while: how little, how little!" from the point of heavenly possibility. The Kingdom of the heavens hath drawn nigh. It is at the gate of time, knocking. Calvary brings in the Eternal Sovereignty of God in Christ (and we are in Him) for all who believe. The world is judged; its prince cast out, for those who, by faith in its triumph, pass out of death into life, out of time into eternity.

Therefore the hour is "NOW": God's "Now." We need not wait. The Word has been spoken; the Blood shed; the Holy Spirit given! All the promises are consummated in the Amen of God, who is Jesus Christ. "Go ye unto all the world," stands as a present, instant service. The long suffering of God has foreknown and allowed the period. He knows the hour when the church shall awake, and put on her garments of grace and glory to appear in His Presence. But the hasting of the day of God is our part. A maxim of this world speaks of taking time by the fore lock: it is the faith of Christ that takes hold of the eternal "NOW" of God. There should be a great out-going of testimony by the Spirit in the church NOW. A great universal witness, NOW. The time has come for the saints to take the Kingdom; it has come ever since the day of that Pentecost. We must therefore refuse delay, "ransoming the time, because the days are evil" with the precious Blood of the Christ.

All our previous exhortation, beloved of God, concerning unity, fellowship, and the universality of our witness waits upon no postponement of God's good pleasure. "Behold, now is the time - and the day." Go forward, NOW! Wield the rod, NOW! Pray the prayer of God, NOW. Take the oath of the Covenant in the Lamb's Blood, NOW! and silence the enemy and the avenger.

Yours for this "present truth,"
T. AUSTIN-SPARKS.
T. MADOC JEFFREYS.