BELOVED OF GOD,
With this last issue of the
paper for this year (and it will not reach many of you until very
near the end of the year) I feel a strong desire and urge to look
back and on with you. For myself, it has been a very full year.
So far as movements are concerned, the fullest year of my life. I
have travelled by air alone twenty-six thousand miles, and quite
a bit in other ways. This has involved many conferences,
meetings, etc. so that there has been a very great deal given
out. To this must be added all the ministries and labours of my
colleagues and fellow-workers. This is not mentioned just as news
or information, although it will show that "a great and
effectual door" is opened to us. But I mention this because
it will indicate that we are not spending our time up in some
corner, imagining things, and ministering to hypothetical
situations. We are in immediate and direct touch with the
spiritual and actual situation as represented by a very large
area. We have no hesitation, though much sorrow, in saying that
the situation spiritually is very, very sad and deplorable. It is
our well-considered and deeply-rooted conviction that some great
and drastic judgment from heaven of Christendom is absolutely
imperative. We are equally convinced that it has commenced and is
moving obdurately and inflexibly across the world. Just as the
Assyrians were the instrument under the sovereignty of God to
sift Israel in the last dispensation, so it is most likely that
the power moving over the earth today - a combination of Satanic
forces with human instruments - is going to test the whole of
Christendom as to its real spiritual measure. This may very well
be the counterpart of what took place is the year 70 A.D. when
Judaism was shaken to its foundations and fell. The Scriptures
quite definitely foretell a tribulation coming upon "the
whole world to try them that are upon the
earth". This is something much more than Jewry.
The words quoted from the
prophet seem yet to be capable of a fuller-ranged fulfilment than
even the above-mentioned 'shaking'. "Yet once more I shake
not the earth only, but also the heavens". (Hebrews
12:26,27).
There is no doubt that the
Letter to the Hebrews was a supreme effort to get Christian
believers detached from an earthly form of Christianity, and
attached to Christ in heaven. That effort had as one of its
strong reasons the fact that a great shaking was foretold,
foreseen, and imminent. That shaking was to be in two parts, an
earlier and a latter; an entirely earthly, and later an earthly
and heavenly combined. The effect of the shaking, and, indeed,
the purpose of it, would be to test everything as to abiding
values. The former and earthly shaking was Jewish, but it had all
the elements in principle and type of the latter.
In the destruction of Jerusalem
- toward which the Letter pointed - the whole earth was shaken so
far as Jewry was concerned. The Temple, as the focal point of
that whole world, crashed even with the ground. The priesthood,
as gathered up in the high-priestly order, passed away. The
temple service ended, and the nation ceased to be an integrated
and unified people.
These were things capable of
being removed. And yet how long they had stood! What forces they
had withstood! What confidence there was that they could never
cease to be! How assured they were that God was so bound up with
it all that it could never be destroyed and cease to be! How they
fought and clung to it to the last terrible extremity! But it was
of no avail. God was no longer wanting the framework and earthly
system, which had taken so much room, and energy, and
expenditure, before the really spiritual was reached. The
percentage of spiritual value was so small after all, and
spiritual interests lay so far along the labyrinthine ways of
religious machinery and tradition, that it was not worth while.
The means to the end was not immediate, that is, there was far
too big a distance between the means and the end. There was no immediate
touch with the real Divine requirement, and there was far too
much that was intermediate. And so it had to go, and, rather than
preserve it, God Himself shook it.
What remained after the shaking
was just that, and that only, which was Christ in a spiritual and
heavenly way: Christ in heaven, and here by His Spirit, the
gathering point, or occasion of assembling; Christ in heaven the
High Priest and Sacrifice; the order of God's house here a purely
spiritual and heavenly one - not formal, arranged, imposed,
imitated, or material. Order grows out of life, and if that life
is Divine, and unchecked, Divine order will be spontaneous.
The amazing thing is how blind
and unbelieving Christian people are, and therefore how unwilling
to seek to know the way of the 'unshakable'. In a very small part
of our lifetime the phrase 'world evangelization' (from one part
to another) has been rendered unusable, and all that mighty
machine is having to be revised. Countries which were until quite
recently the greatest spheres of 'missionary' activity are now
closed as such. There is a feverish race to try to move ahead of
the flood in other countries which are already encircled and
undermined. In those overrun countries nothing but a true and
living knowledge of the Lord is stemming the tide. The framework
and organized structure of Christianity is gone. Deeply,
stealthily, and irresistibly this sinister work is paving the way
for swift and paralysing movements in all the rest of the world,
as much in the West as in the East. The result will be the same
everywhere, little as it may seem possible because of long
traditions and strong establishments. It seems a terrible thing,
even to think, but as we have touched so very much of what is
called 'Christianity' we are bound to believe that, because vast
numbers who call themselves Christian are in an utterly false
position, and the system itself has become so largely an earthly,
traditional, formal, and unspiritual thing, this world-wide
shaking is quite necessary and will be eventually justified. If
we were writing a treatise, we could show that what is called
'Christianity' is really the greatest enemy of Christ.
It will be seen that it is not
a matter of substituting another and better system for an
old and poor or bad one. Some people seem to think that it is all
or largely a matter of the order, technique, and form, and if we
returned to the 'New Testament' form or order of churches all
would be well. The fact is that, while certain things
characterized the New Testament churches, the New Testament does
not give us a complete pattern according to which churches
are to be set up or formed! There is no blue-print for churches
in the New Testament, and to try to form New Testament churches
is only to create another system which may be as legal, sectarian
and dead as others. Churches, like the Church, are organisms
which spring out of life, which life itself springs out of the
Cross of Christ wrought into the very being of believers. Unless
believers are crucified people, there can be no true expression
of the Church.
This brings us to our
particular point. What is the pressing imperative in view of this
oncoming flood of testing, which has already carried away very
many of those who were called Christian, and even evangelical
Christians?
Surely there is only one
answer:- On the one hand, a ministry which has as its substance
and object the "rooting and grounding", the
establishing, the building up, of believers, the real increase of
"the measure of Christ". This must get behind
evangelism, so that the work is deep, not superficial; enduring,
not transient; intrinsic, not general! On the other hand,
believers must really take stock of their Christianity. Is it
just a tradition, an assumption, an external system, the thing
which is common acceptance - more or less? Or is it really
"by revelation of Jesus Christ" in the heart? A real
walk with God, and a growing knowledge of Christ, a life
in the Spirit? God has said it: the things which can be shaken
will be. What have we got that, being unshakable, will remain?
So, with our review and
outlook, we gird up the loins of our minds, and feel that the
small bit of this 'building' ministry committed to us must be
pursued with greater devotion. How we wish that it were possible
to gather the people of God together in every country and
minister Christ to them, and more than we have done!
Dear friends, let us away with
suspicions, prejudices, misunderstandings, and fears; these
things which are such successful means and methods of Satan to
defeat God's purpose in many lives - His purpose of the fulness
of Christ; and let us pray much - as Paul besought the saints to
pray - that "a door may be opened to speak the
mystery"; that a mighty new movement of the Spirit of God
will take effect in the direction of spiritual purity, strength,
and reality. Oh, that such a movement might begin before this
year closes, and the critical year - 1953 - be marked by a deep
movement of the Lord's people toward Himself!
Make this a matter of prayer as
to yourself, and then for all His own.
Pray also for us that we may be
very truly and faithfully led as to what the Lord wants of us,
and where. Calls and needs are so many; our burden is so great!
We do want to do that which will have the greatest measure of intrinsic
spiritual value. You know that it is not a 'teaching',
a 'movement', or any 'thing' that we are interested in or
concerned with. It is truly "the measure of Christ" in
His members and Body.
The Lord continue to make this
ministry effective to His end. Thank you for all your loving and
faithful cooperation and fellowship.
With greetings in Him,
Yours in His grace,
T. AUSTIN-SPARKS.