Beloved of the Lord,
We do not know how many further issues of the "Witness and
Testimony" will be possible, or whether this may be the last, at
least for a time. Many parts of the world to which it has been going
for some years are now closed to this ministry, and others are
threatened. We want to say, then, at once, that we recognise that,
as with everything else which has been related to the Lord, now is
the time when the one crucial test is being pressed home. How much
of all that we have is just teaching and interpretation; and how
much is the Lord Himself, and of practical working value? To our
readers we would like to say again that the great fact of the
oneness of the Body, to which we have testified, and for which we
have stood, will be our ground when all outward communications and
ministries cease. We shall all the time be ministering to you all by
prayer and supplication, and we shall seek to stand with you in
spirit for your triumph in the testing days. Truly we are seeing a
development of the 'overturning, overturning', but we know that it
is said that this will be God's act "until he comes whose right it
is".
This letter will come to a great number of our friends further West
than England, and to them I would just say this. If what is taking
place on the earth today is something more than "European political
strike"; that is, if it is related definitely to the close of the
dispensation, and is a part of the final Satanic battle for the
domination of this world through antichrist (not necessarily any man
at present in view) then you cannot keep out of it, you must become
involved. It therefore becomes of the utmost importance that, before
conditions arise which will make it so difficult to secure true
spiritual ground, you - with us - should examine your foundation to
be sure that it is the Lord Himself Who is your life and Everything,
and not Christianity in any one or more of its mere externals. The
one thing which has governed our ministry and been the principle of
all our goings throughout these years has been the fact - as we
believe it to be - that in the dispensation commencing at
"Pentecost" and ending with the Lord's return, all the Divine
interests and activities are spiritual; not temporal, earthly, nor
merely visible. His object is to make spiritual people of believers;
a spiritual church, a spiritual ministry, with a glorious spiritual
consummation in rapture and the receiving of a spiritual body. Only
what is spiritually the measure of Christ will abide. Hence it is
gratifying to us that we have so little of the material and temporal
side of Christian work to lose when the test sets in. The blessing
of the Lord upon any temporal means is only on the basis of its
spiritual fruitfulness. But, we believe that as we get nearer to the
end the Lord will be more direct and seek to reach His spiritual
purpose by allowing the means to be set aside, and spirituality be
our immediate matter. We leave this with you as something to
consider in the light of what is happening in so great a part of the
world.
Not what we have done or may do, not what we know of Christian
truth, but the measure of Christ is ultimately the criterion with
God.
The Lord give us all grace to abide in Him when all things crash
around us.
Yours in Him Who is Faithful and True,
T. AUSTIN-SPARKS.