The Overcomer at the End-time
by
T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 2 - The "Overcomer's" Pathway to the Throne
We are now going to consider the pathway of the Overcomer to the
Throne. We have seen that the last thing said in the Church age is
"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne
even as I overcame and am sat down with My Father in His Throne."
Rev. 3:21. "And the 'man-child' was 'caught up to the Throne.'"
Rev. 12.
Now the first step in this pathway has to do with the Blood, the
Cross and the Will of God. That is primary. That comes before
anything else because it was the first issue; it will be the
ultimate issue - the will of God. Before ever we have to do with sin
by the Blood and all the aspects and phases of the redemptive work
of the Lord through His cross by His Blood; before ever the question
of sin arose, the question of the will of God arose. That is where
we begin. The sin question and all the redemptive work of Christ by
His Blood in His Cross is subsequent to and consequent upon the
violation of the will of God. Thus before ever we reach the stage of
dealing with sin specifically by the Blood we have to get behind it
and recognise that the foundation of it all is the Will of God. I
want to be just as clear as possible so that we shall not get into a
merely theoretical or theological realm, but remain very practical,
and we want just to get before the eye of our heart what is in view.
What is in view is the position of victory and power over the
adversary and his hosts. That is what is before us here. Revelation
12 brings that clearly into view. The great issue, the all-inclusive
issue of the ages for eternity is bound up with this, the reaching
on the part of a company to a position of victory and power over the
adversary and his hosts. Now that is not done mechanically, we do
not reach that position automatically. It is not reached by our
recognition of certain doctrinal truths, and adopting certain
attitudes and terms. I say that to try and clear the ground of
misconceptions, because there are those I fear who think that if
they take a certain attitude towards certain doctrinal propositions
about victory and employ certain terms and phraseology, they are in
the way of being Overcomers, and that they are in a place of
authority over the enemy.
That is not the case. Many who have adopted such attitudes and
employed such terms and phraseology have just been the playthings of
the enemy, and he has made fun of their phraseology and their terms
and their attitudes. It has not worked out. This thing is not
realised in that way, beloved: we do not get power over the enemy
and his hosts by terminology, phraseology, or by the acceptance of
teaching about this thing, or even taking up attitudes. There may be
a place for the truth, there is a place for doctrine, teaching, and
there is a necessity for attitudes, but these are not sufficient,
and we do not attain to the position in that way, but it is a matter
of a certain spiritual inwrought work of the Holy Spirit; it is a
matter of certain spiritual elements being in the very nature and
constitution of the Overcomer. Something has to be put into their
very constitution. It is spiritual, not technical. What is the basic
thing wrought into the constitution of the believer which makes him
or her an Overcomer and brings him or her to the attainment of this
power over the enemy and his hosts? What is it? The root of all is
the will of God. The battle of the ages has ever had as its main
issue the will of God. That little phrase, one of the commonest
phrases amongst Christians, "Thy will be done" is the focal point of
the battle of the ages; of all the forces of heaven and hell; they
are concentrated upon the issues of that, "Thy will be done." The
ages converge upon that, that is the issue between heaven and hell
in the battle that has raged all the way through, and when you add
the clause, "In earth as in heaven," you have set the stage, the
place where that issue is settled. This earth becomes the stage upon
which there is wrought out that issue of the will of God, and
therein of course, is the explanation of the incarnation of God in
Christ. Now we are able to gather that up into several concrete
factors which we have to recognise. One is this; the fact of the
presence of a will which is not subject to God's will, and that
in us.
Now you all agree to that and accept that. It is almost a
commonplace, it does not need a great deal of emphasis, it would in
certain realms, but not with us. The man who does not believe in
"the fall" would not accept that, but here I think we can take it
for granted that we universally agree that there is a will in us
which is not subject to the will of God, by nature. We are all too
frequently made alive to that fact. But why does one say such an
obvious thing here? Because you and I often forget it, and we are
surprised when we come up against it, and are very disconcerted
sometimes because of it. We find even these consecrated lives, these
lives which we have declared as wholly the Lord's, ourselves as
being all for God, about which we would unhesitatingly say we have
no wish whatever but that the Lord should have all His way in us,
even we from time to time have the most terrific conflicts, and all
because of that other will. The surprise to us of the thing! We who
thought we were all for the Lord are surprised from time to time
that we have a bad time because things do not go just as we thought
they ought to go, as we wanted them to go, as we prayed they should
go, for the Lord's interests, ostensibly for the Lord's interests.
As far as we knew our own hearts, we believed in our absolute
sincerity that it was for the Lord, and yet we have bad times in
that realm. Now we have got to settle it beloved, that there remains
another will in the flesh which is not God's will, in nature, and
which is not subject to the will of God in itself. There is another
will, there is the will of the flesh, there is the will of nature,
and I do not understand any of the teaching of God's Word about
progressive sanctification unless I admit of that.
The next thing we have to recognise is the dealings with us by God
to bring us to be governed inwardly by the Divine will; and then the
third thing is that the Lord Jesus has perfected the will of God in
Himself once for all, and has given the Holy Spirit to them that
believe, to inenergise toward that position in us. That is, of
course, the positive side, which is the most encouraging. "It is God
Who worketh (energiseth) in you both to will and to do of His good
pleasure." Phil. 2:13.
The Will of God deeper than Doctrines,
Phraseology, or Attitudes.
Let us go over that ground a little more carefully. The first, the
presence of another will in this universe and in us by nature. Now
beloved, this is not merely a mental or conscious attitude. I
suppose there is not one of us who would not say, if we were asked,
that we were wholly devoted to the will of God, that we wholly
wanted the will of God, that we were wholly on the side of God's
will. As to attitude and present consciousness we stand - we should
say we stand - in the will of God and for the will of God. Our
strongest affirmations are of that character. And yet the strange
thing is that, while in all sincerity, we may affirm our position in
this matter, we may at the same time be full of prejudices,
preferences, personal interests, strong-minded, holding or seeking
to hold things to our own liking or desire. We may be gripped and
held imprisoned by traditional systems and common acceptances. This
is not a matter of just our conscious attitude or our consciousness
at all. The Will of God is a truth deeper than consciousness and
deeper than our present attitude. We may take that attitude this
moment in relation to what we call the Will of God, and in half an
hour's time, or perhaps tomorrow we may be tested very severely on a
point in the Divine Will and our attitude may change and we discover
that it was not a question of attitude at all but something deeper;
it was not a matter of our consciousness, it was deeper than that.
We never know how strong our will is until God puts us into
situations where we behave as we never thought we should behave,
where we betray ourselves because of the Lord's dealings with us. We
have a controversy with the Lord, where the prevailing test of all
is the will of God, where up to that time we have been saying, "Of
course, all the will of God." Ah, but that was on the surface and we
did not know what was involved, something deeper down; this other
will would rise in our very nature, and in so far as that is true,
we are in weakness and the enemy has got his ground, the ground to
defeat us, the ground to hold power over us. And that is what I mean
by this being a matter of something wrought into our constitution,
not something we adopt as a mental attitude. And so we want the will
of God, not something we believe about ourselves, not something
which today - when things are not quite so difficult - we have as
our consciousness towards God and His will, but something which is
right beyond the reach of changing attitudes, something deep down.
We have come to a place where it is so and changing conditions
cannot shake that thing because it has been wrought into our
constitution: the will of God wrought in us and becoming our nature.
We have become partakers of the Divine nature. It is a matter of
nature, beloved, not of attitude, not of temporary consciousness in
acceptance of truth; it is a matter of nature, new nature. We must
recognise that. Until that is done we have no power over the enemy.
You see what I mean by taking up attitudes towards the enemy on the
basis of doctrine and thinking we have ascendancy. It does not work.
It is this Overcomer company being put to the test through the fire
and having the will of God wrought into their very constitution. On
that basis we are overcomers. You see where it comes in in
Revelation 12. It comes in in the blood. "And they overcame him
because of the blood of the Lamb." What does that mean? Why "He
poured out His soul unto death." When? How? "Father if it be
possible let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless not My will but
Thine." "The hour is come that the Son of Man shall be glorified...
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth
alone... but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth
his life shall lose it..." Do you see in the pouring out of His
blood, His soul life in the blood unto death, it was His utter
acceptance of the Divine will and that blood poured out registers
the triumph of God's will, and that blood has been taken by Him into
the presence of God as a testimony to a will perfected.
Now "they loved not their souls unto death." The "word of their
testimony" led them far on the ground of His blood. The principles
are all patent; that the overcomers - though not with the same
universal redemptive effect but with the same issue over the enemy -
the overcomers come along the line of the will of God as perfected
in Jesus Christ. The blood represents God's will perfected in the
first and supreme Overcomer, the Lord Jesus, and by the word of our
testimony we stand on the ground of that blood testifying to the
blood which has overcome the other will in the will of God. That is
the word of our testimony; not doctrine, but the thing wrought in
experience.
"They loved not their souls..." The doctrine is made good, the
testimony is established through the trial, and an erect dragon,
standing to swallow us up is a good enough test as to whether we
will stand for the will of God or not. This is a very practical
thing. It goes deeper than attitudes, doctrine, consciousness; it is
something wrought into us that makes us Overcomers, and that
something is the will of God becoming constituted in our very
make-up so that gradually we emerge from battles over the will of
God and come to the place - not of passive resignedness - but of
positive standing for God's will. There the power of the strong
fleshly will is broken, which is the Satanic will which has been put
into our very nature by the sin of Adam.
The Will of God wrought in us through
Suffering.
The second thing; God's practical dealings with us to bring us to be
governed inwardly by that will. This is the explanation of all our
temptations, all our trials, the seeming contradictions that come
even from the Lord Himself. I say "seeming contradictions." Very
often we find ourselves in a position where it looks as though even
the Lord contradicts Himself. The Abraham trials. God promised a
son, and then said that in that son - which it has taken a miracle
to bring into being - everything in the Divine promise and covenant
was bound up. Then the Lord said go and slay him and offer him a
burnt offering - a burnt offering, there is nothing left. The Lord
seems to be turning round on Himself sometimes and contradicting
Himself. The seeming contradictions, the Divine delays, the
disappointments, the set-backs; all these things find out our will.
These are not the ordinary common-place experiences. I am talking
about the spiritual experiences of the Lord's children who are, so
far as they understand their own hearts, sincerely devoted to the
will of God, and yet we all are passed through this course of
testing where we come up against severe temptations and trials,
contradictions, delays, disappointments, set-backs, and all this
sort of thing, and they find us out.
The Lord knows us better than we know ourselves, and "the heart is
deceitful above all things." The Lord knows we may be sincere in our
own eyes, but He knows just how much we would like that, how
much
that is a secret appeal to what we would like, we would
take; how there is that to which we would not open our eyes wide, we
keep them half closed and say if only that comes about how
delightful! There is something after all that we would wish, that we
would desire; just that half or three parts element of self
gratification. We would not admit it, we hardly recognise it, and
yet we find our own soul responds to it. Beloved, you may say this
is analysing very closely and making things difficult, but we have
to get right down to the truth of things. There is something there
which weakens the ground for God, and it is a tremendous triumph
over the enemy when a child of God can come to the place where the
greatest hopes and most cherished desires and ambitions are handed
up to the Lord and are as dead in the acceptance of what the Lord
may desire.
If there is any personal, fleshly - I do not mean gross, I mean
natural fleshly - ambition, preference, like, will, in any
direction, if there is that, you may settle it once and for all that
that is the ground of confusion. You will not get clear guidance
from the Lord if there is mixture of the will of God with the will
of the flesh. The Lord cannot guide us clearly if we have personal
desire in the matter; if we have a little bit of personal strength
moving; if our soul comes in, whether it be the reasoning or
affectional soul or the volitional soul, the choosing soul; it is our
soul-life. If that comes in one little bit we have no ground of
clear guidance from the Lord. We have to stand back and say, not as
I desire, will, or think, but absolutely as God wills. We have to
get to the place where, by the grace of God, we can truly occupy the
position that it does not matter to us personally so long as the
Lord gets what He is after. Believe me, beloved, then you have
provided a ground for clear guidance; but if there is strength of
soul life as such getting into any question or issue, it brings
about confusion and we shall simply get contrary guidances and not a
clear way with the Lord. It is a ground of weakness, we cannot stand
up, we cannot meet the situation, we are weak, and, therefore it is
the ground of defeat, a ground of the power of Satan.
The Ground of Satan's Strength.
Satan's power is maintained not merely by what he is in himself but
by the ground that he has in man, he must have a ground, a judicial
ground of his own somewhere, upon which to operate. The Lord Jesus
was able to overcome because He could say "The prince of this world
cometh and hath nothing in Me." We are defeated on that ground, our
defeat takes place on the ground of our own strong will. Yes, often
that which we colour and dress up as being desired for the Lord. We
never know whether our protestations that it is for the Lord are
really genuine until submitted to a severe test. We have said, "All
the Lord's will in that," and the Lord has put us in something
pretty hot, and we come back and say "this is exacting more than I
thought it would, this is finding me out: I was a bit rash..." You
invoke the challenge of God when you take that position. You see the
Overcomer must come to the position where there is wrought into him
or her this will of God as a part of their constitution through
testing, trials, adversities; where they come to the place where
nothing is worth while but the will of God.
It is a great thing to find yourself eventually experimentally and
positionally where you once were doctrinally, and sometimes it is a
long and trying and terrible journey from where we say, "Yes, all
the will of God," until you get there. We are not there by saying
it, we are there by a thing wrought in us. There must then finally
be a letting-go to the Lord. The corn of wheat must fall into the
ground and die, because there is that of this creation which must be
cast off. The motive may be good, the sincerity may be all right,
but there are personal things bound up with it, desires, ambitions,
things which would give us much pleasure. There is this secret
mixture of ourselves, and although the Lord is going to save
something - there is something very precious for Himself - He has to
put the whole thing down into death that in death it shall be
stripped of every bit of personal, natural soul interest and raise
in resurrection a thing which is wholly of Himself - and then you
get the enlargement - the Son of Man glorified.
I will close, reminding you of the third thing. While we stand face
to face with the severity of this thing (it is a tremendous thing
when you are coming through it and having the will of God wrought
into you and all things are being brought to death) it is blessed to
remember that the will of God has already been perfected in Christ
and He has in Himself secured our perfection in the will of God.
Read again Hebrews 10:10 "By which will we have been sanctified..."
Perfected for ever by the will of God done in Christ. "I come to do
Thy will, O God." "By which will we have been sanctified." He has
done it, He has secured it, and He has secured our perfection in God
in Himself and now, on the ground that something has been done, a
living, standing reality, a fact to which nothing can be added, He
has sent the Holy Spirit to enter into us who receive Him, to be in
us the inenergising power of the will of God. God the Holy Spirit
working, energising in us both to will and to do of His good
pleasure. It is a blessed thing to get linked up with something that
is done. Not a doctrine but a living Person, by a mighty power, the
Holy Spirit, God Himself working in towards something He has
achieved. It is not enough to take hold of that as doctrine. We have
to take hold in a practical way. On the one hand, let go to the
Lord, and on the other hand reach out strongly and take hold of the
energies of the Lord that there shall be a fulfilment in us of the
words "It is God Who worketh in you to will and to do..."
In the hour when we are challenged, when after all, the will of God
is not so easy to accept, when we are passing through the test and
when we are in our Gethsemane, when the cup is offered to us - then,
what is it to be? Oh fulfil that word in Philip. 2:13, "It is God
which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."
Unless He does it we will not go through, but by that inenergising
of God, "strengthened with might by His Spirit into the inner man"
we shall become Overcomers, we shall come to the place where Satan
is robbed of his ground of power in us because the will of God
perfectly done is now a part of our being, we have approximated to
that experimentally.
I leave these closing words of the Hebrew letter with you, "The God
of peace Who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant
make you perfect in everything to do His will, energising in you
that which is well pleasing in His sight."
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