The Rest And The Courage Of Faith
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 2 - Christ - God's Eternal Way


The cry of all godly hearts is that of the Psalmist: "Teach me thy way, O Lord"
(Psalm 86: 11) ... "Shew
me thy ways, O Lord"
(Psalm 25:4).




We who know the Lord know that He has answered
that cry in fulness in His Son. Christ is the answer to
that cry. He Himself said: "I am the way" (John 14:6). Christianity very early became known by the name
of 'The Way', and, as we know, it was because the
substance of all the preaching was Christ.




Now here is this comprehensive fact that right from
the beginning God has marked out a way, a particular
way, a specific way. If we could draw a map of all the
ways of men, of nations, of things, through history,
how many lines there would be on it indicating the
various and numerous ways which make up this
world's history! But if we looked on that map with
God's eyes we should see a
straight red line, undeviating, running right from the
creation to the consummation of this world's history,
and, following that line to its end, we should find that
it is Christ, it ends in Christ. God has drawn that line,
that red line, straight, direct, through all the deviations
of this world's life, experience and happenings - the
line of Christ.




If we want to find God we have to get on to that
line. It is the touchstone of human blessing, the lifeline of men.




That is a key both to the Bible and to our experience
in our relationship with God. God put Adam on that
line when He created him. He put his feet, so to speak,
immediately on the line of Christ, in order to take a
course which would bring him eventually to all the
meaning of God's Son, conformity to His Son:
conformity to His image. Adam went off the line of
Christ, with all the disastrous consequences which we
know.





The next move was to bring man, who in Adam had
deviated from that line, back on to the line of Christ.
God laid hold of Abraham and brought him right on to
the line. Watch carefully all his movements under the
hand of God, and you will see that every divine step in
that life related in some way to Christ. The great
culminating point of these activities, the offering of
Isaac and receiving him again as from the dead, as you
know, speaks as loudly as anything in all the Bible of
the Lord Jesus. God put Abraham on the line of Christ.
Abraham deviated from that line once or twice, and
immediately he lost the Lord, and the Lord was not
with him until he got back to the point from which he
had departed, the line of Christ.




God put Israel on to that line. When He brought
them out of Egypt by the Passover, the sprinkled
blood, the shared lamb, He put them as a people on to
the line of Christ, initially. They got off that line and
trouble followed. They lost the Lord. Later, as you
know, when they went out of the land into exile and
captivity, they were off the line of Christ. There was
no blessing, no Lord. The glory had departed, and not
until they came back on to that line did they find the
Lord and come back into blessing.




Ultimately, the tragedy of Israel is that of the Cross; nay, today we have to speak, as far as they are
concerned, of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. It was
their most disastrous departure from God's line, Jesus
Christ. They went off that line with the result that
there have been two thousand years of the most awful
consequences that people have known. They will not
find God until they get back on to the line of Christ.




God has put the Church on that line. He put the feet
of the Church on to the line of Christ right from its
birth on the Day of Pentecost, and while it has
remained on that line He has been with it. Every
deviation from Christ to something other has resulted
in tragedy.




It is instructive and impressive to note how
selective God has been in His activities. He has been
undeviating in the matter of His selectiveness. He
selected a land, a little land, the size of the Principality
of Wales or the County of York, and no bigger. He
selected that land, out of all the countries of the world,
in relation to His Son. His Son was to come from
heaven into this world through that land. He brought
His people into that land.




Now note the battle! It is the story of Ruth over
again - the battle to force out, to draw away, to rob of, and in some way to get them off, that ground,
that they should lose that ground. Oh, the history of
that circles round that little country! God selected that
land, and when His people went out of it they lost the
Lord. They lost the purpose of their being chosen of
God. It is impressive! Abraham had to fight that battle,
and he went down to Egypt under pressure.




So we could put our finger upon this selective
activity of God. As He said: "In every place where I record my name I will
come unto thee and I will bless thee"
(Exodus 20:24). There, just there, and
only there!




Now that, of course, is Old Testament. What has it
to say to us?




Well, this is a governing matter in the Christian life.
It is the thing which governs the very purpose and
meaning of our being the Lord's people. He has
chosen us from the foundation of the world in Christ.
He has selected One in whom we shall find Him, and in
whom alone we shall find Him. All the forces of hell
will be at work, in the first place, to keep us out of
Christ. They rage to prevent people coming into
Christ, and when once they have come in, these forces
are unceasing and relentless in their efforts to get
them off the ground of Christ, on to things possibly,
or on to any other ground. There is an immense meaning in Christ's word: "Abide in me... except ye
abide in me..."
(John 15:4). It is a warning,
governing word. Where and how shall we find the
Lord? Only on the line of Christ, where Christ's
interests are the object of our being here, where it is
true "For me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21).
You find the Lord there. Get off that ground, be driven
off, be allured off, and you lose the Lord. It is there, on
that ground, that the explanation of the Christian life is
found. It is on that line that the very purpose for
which we are created will have its out-working. It is
on that line that we shall find divine guidance.




This Divine law of God's way has many practical
applications in the life of the Christian. How many
spiritual tragedies we have known brought about by
human selectiveness apart from the first and supreme
interest of Christ. It might be the choice of residence,
location, for instance, for reasons of convenience,
pleasure, escape, or seeming necessity, as in the case
of Abraham to which we have referred. No less a
question than having the Lord with us is bound up
with such choices and decisions. We cannot move off
the Lord's ground without the consequence of
spiritual disaster. How costly it was in the case of
Elimelech!




If Christ is the Way, the Directive; then He is the
Example. How meticulously careful He was not to
move, or be moved by any consideration but the
directive of the Father!




Many motives were put to Him for action and
movement, but He abode in the Father, and, often
at great cost, refused other considerations.




We must seek to know that we are where we are
because God has put us there in the interests of His
Son, and then it must be God who just as definitely
moves us when the time to move has come.




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