Transcribed from a message given
by T. Austin-Sparks in April 1959. The spoken message can be found on the Audio page of this website.
The spoken form has
been retained verbatim.
I turn you again to the letter to the Hebrews, in
chapter 2, at verse 1:
"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things that were heard lest haply we drift
away from them."
If you know anything about this letter at all, you know
that it is the great letter of spiritual crisis. The
writer compares what he has to say with the crisis of
Israel at Kadesh Barnea where they came after so long a
period of instruction, to the point where it was all to
mature into the realization of its purpose or all to fade
out so far as they were concerned and they miss it all.
This writer gives quite a lot of his message to that
particular application. Indeed we would all agree that
that was a very great crisis in the life and history of
Israel. And this letter really circles round a spiritual
crisis comparable to that. As you know, there is here
throughout, the blending of two dominant notes; one of
warning, the other of exhortation. Nine times in the
letter we have this warning note: Lest. Lest...
it begins in the verse that we have just read, Lest
haply we drift away and then it goes right on to
chapter twelve. The other note which is struck ten times
through the letter is Let us. Let
us
Lest. Its not our intention to
trace the warning and the exhortation through the letter
but just to note the fact that it is a crisis which
continually arises in the history of the Lords
people. It arose as we have seen with Israel in the
wilderness. Here, quite evidently, it had arisen at the
time of the writing of this letter; a very serious crisis
indeed for those to whom the letter was written. And its
the kind of crisis that arises from time to time and it
just amounts to this: taking this first verse of chapter
two, there has been a deposit, there has been much given,
the Lord has revealed Himself to His people. Now, after a
period, a sufficient period, a period of probation and of
testing in relation to that, the question arises: Are we
going right on into the full meaning and value and
realization of all that He has given or are we going to
drift away, to fail to enter in? It's something that the
Lord presses periodically. It came with Israel after
forty years of testing in the wilderness. Its a
point of interest that most probably this letter was
written about forty years after the Lord Jesus commenced
to present all that we have here in chapter one, in the
incarnation in His presence in this world.
It was a crisis and the crisis had two particular
points, one, as to all that the Lord had given which He
would never allow to just pass without some very real
effort, some entreaty, some warning that all that He
meant could be missed. The other, the fact that very near
to the time of the writing of this letter was Israels
own great crisis. If the letter was written as we have
suggested, somewhere about the year 60AD or in the
sixties, we know that it was 70AD when Israel and
Jerusalem were completely shattered and scattered over
the earth by the Roman destruction of their city, their
country. And their temple and all that it represented,
the synagogues - these were to be finished. And now the
test would be, what of the spiritual value of it all?
Take away their meeting places and their public meetings
and their public ministries and all that upon which they
depended so much externally; remove it all! That was
imminent. What remains? The Holy Spirit had these two
things in mind in directing the writing of this marvelous
letter. It was indeed a great crisis. Who is to say that
that on the second point will not be repeated worldwide
as it is taking place in quite a large part of the world
today? The Lord may know of a day not far away when that
will spread and all those things which are the externals
of Christianity, upon which Christians depend, will be
swept away and no longer available. Weve had a
little touch of it in our lifetime, many Christians have
in this very country, and it could be very much more so
and very quickly, that crisis may be looming upon the
near horizon.
So this letter is indeed a letter of crisis in both
ways. We ask what was the cause or what were the causes
of this crisis? On the spiritual side, firstly, I think
there's no doubt about it, it was the cost of
the way that these Christians had embarked upon and had
been called upon to follow. You read the letter again and
you will see the suggestions or the indications that it
was because the way was proving so hard. They had started...
started upon the heavenly way, partners in a heavenly
calling, they had taken a position with Christ. That
position is hinted at at the end of the letter, Let
us go to Him without the camp. To be outside of the
religious camp, outside of the popular camp, outside of
the traditional camp, is a hard place and a hard way.
They had taken a position with the Lord but were finding
that it was a very testing way indeed. They were
being tested on every point in every
possible way. It was a hard way. A hard way.
Reference is made to what they suffered as they took that
position.
Now, this suffering came largely from without. We dont
know where these believers were, whether they were in
Jerusalem or in Rome; theres argument for both, but
we can very well imagine that if it were in Jerusalem
they were right up against a very, very severe testing of
their position spiritually. They were in the place where
the Lord Himself was crucified, the place where Stephen
had been martyred, where the believers had been
scattered. If they were in Rome, it was only quite
recently that Claudius had issued his edict against the
Christians and they had been expelled and scattered and
martyred. Whatever it was, it came from the outside in
the beginning and it was a hard and costly way, but it is
significant to note that before were at the end of
this letter, the writer (the Holy Spirit through the
writer) speaks of all this suffering as the child
training of a father. My son despise not thou the
chastening, the child training of the Lord, for whom the
Lord loveth He chasteneth... and so on. Their
sufferings may have come from devil-driven men, from the
very devil himself, and yet theyre in the hands of
a Father, Father has hold of those sufferings for the
training of His children. Thats impressive! But it
doesnt altogether ease the situation to know that...
the sufferings are still the sufferings wherever they
come from and whatever their nature is and even if the
Lord has hold of them theyre still sufferings. And
because of this costliness of the way, these
believers were losing heart, becoming discouraged, and
the crisis of their going on arose. Hence this tenfold
repetition: let us, let us, let us go on.
Perhaps also in addition to that, it was occasioned by
some disappointment that the Lords coming was so
long delayed. I think that is hinted at, at one point at
least, where it says, Yet a little while and He
that cometh will come. They were evidently a bit
disappointed that all the promises of His coming and the
assurances that He was coming soon had not matured and He
delayed His coming. It was a real test of faith and
patience over that. We may know something about that too.
Sometimes, you know, it loses its charm and its
helpfulness to be told the Lord is coming, you say,
"Well weve heard that for so long and so often
and thats what people have looked for in every age
and He hasnt come yet". The hope fades. Well,
it began then. It began then and they were disappointed
and, because of that disappointment, inclined to let go
instead of go on.
There are hints also in this letter that the crisis
was occasioned by the deceitfulness of the soul. I think
chapter 4 verse 12 hints at that: The word of God
is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit.
The deceitfulness of the soul... I think that will be
borne out in what we have yet to say. You know our own
souls can lead us astray. Our own soul desires and
ambitions and conceptions and what we feel and think
ought to be. Theres a contrast in this letter
between a realm of Christian life in the soul and a realm
in the spirit. I think we could immediately, almost
immediately, take that up for a minute or two.
The nature of this crisis... there are the causes,
what was the nature of it? That, I think mainly, if not
entirely, is a matter of contrasts. Contrasts... a new
era had come in. A new economy or order had been
introduced with Christ and now, the changeover was the
change, the tremendous change, from the earthly to the
heavenly. With the Son of God from heaven, there had come
in the heavenly order and from that time onward, the old
earthly order of the things of God, as we have in the old
economy of the Old Testament, ceased.
I dont think, dear friends, that we, or
Christians at large have yet grasped the tremendous,
the immense significance of the martyr Stephen.
You know that he was a young man full of faith and full
of the Holy Ghost, who did mighty things and then was
martyred. Have you studied Stephens discourse? Have
you seen that in that discourse, right there in Jerusalem
under the very shadow of the great temple and all its
system of many centuries, right there, Stephen simply wiped
off the slate, the whole of the Old Testament
regime! God dwelleth not in temples made with hands
said he. Say that over against the temple at
Jerusalem and see what youre going to meet!
In that discourse Stephen clearly declared
that all that earthly system was finished with, all
finished with, and a new heavenly system had come
in. And the Lord put His seal upon that as he was passing
from the earth himself, he saw the heavens opened and the
Son of Man seated at the right hand of God. The only
occasion after Christ Himself in the New Testament where
that title occurs of Jesus, Son of Man - the
Man is at Gods right hand. Everything now is
heavenly; its passed from earth. But what a testing
position is a heavenly position! Its a crisis! It
creates a crisis, its the very essence of a crisis:
Pull that down to earth, have something here,
something on this earth, have something here, abandon
that heavenly position, (that heavenliness by which those
who so speak, mean that which is so abstract and unreal),
lets get down to earth, to reality! That was the
nature of this crisis: the contrast between the heavenly
and the earthly, and they were at the point of leaving the
heavenly for the earthly. Great warnings are connected
with that and all the exhortations, let us go on,
let us go on... The contrast between the tangible
and the spiritual. The soul wants something that it can
take hold of, can manipulate, can grasp! That is the
soul, to have something tangible... and all this talk
about the spiritual and spirituality, how "unreal"
it is... Thats the crisis, is it?
With the coming into this world of Christ, the whole
thing changed: not in this mountain, not in Jerusalem but
in Spirit, in Spirit and in Truth from this time the
whole thing is a spiritual thing. But how they longed for
the thing that was here! To be grasped... thats a
crisis. The contrast between the temporal and the
eternal. Do you see how in this letter, and oh do read
it again with these things in mind, how in this letter
there is always the forward look, the look to the end.
You come to that great chapter of faith, chapter 11,
its the onward-looking faith, its still
onward, "let us, let us, look off, let us run",
is the great summary of it all; its still onward,
it's still before us! The eternal is the thing to govern.
This life and all that is here is not the whole by any
means. Its all unto something that lies in eternity.
With Jesus Christ the eternal has invaded time and the
Church is taken out of time into eternity. We belong to
eternity but the soul wants it now, now!
The only, the only place for now in this
letter is that now is the last hour of time. Now, today,
is the acceptable time, this is the last hour of time,
that is the only "now" here. It is the eternal
that is everything. But how difficult for our souls to
let go the "now"... the present, for the
eternal. Were not made like that. Our whole being
says, "Lets have it now, we must have it now!"
Its not natural for us to live for an
unknown future - if thats the right way to put it -
the contrast between the visible and the invisible. Of
Moses this writer says he endured as seeing Him who is
invisible. Oh, but we must see, we must see it,
our soul says that, our whole nature says we must see it,
we must see it today, we must see it here, we must see
it! There's something that our eyes can see, can behold!
In other words, something that we can grasp with our
physical senses.
This letter is constructed upon the principle of the
invisible. They in the old dispensation had it all
visibly, they had an earthly tabernacle and priesthood
and all that belonged to them, but now, the reality is in
heaven, its not seen! That was but a shadow, the
reality is unseen, but its far more real! But it's
unseen, and thats the test of the soul. Im
sure you'll know the meaning of this.
Well, all this constituted this crisis of whether they
were going to choose this or that, the one or the other.
Go back to something earthly from the heavenly, to
something tangible from the spiritual, to something
temporal from the eternal, something visible from the
invisible. And it is quite evident I think, in this
letter before youre through, that a division was
coming about between these believers. They were dividing
into two camps. That is the point of the exhortation
"forsaking not the assembling of ourselves together as
the manner of some is". Some were saying,
"Were not going on with that any further"
and they were having their own meetings and their own
circle and not going on, not going on in this way. A
division was taking place; two companies. Here were those
who had seen the heavenly calling and the heavenly vision
and were going on with it; here were those who, if they
had seen it, were letting it go, were drifting
away from it. And what a forceful word that is! It has a
nautical meaning in the original, as you know. Its
the picture of a ship approaching its moorings on the
current and missing its moorings and drifting away and
onto the rocks. Lest we come up to this and miss it and
drift away and as Israel at Kadesh Barnea were wrecked,
we should be wrecked. Its a warning, its an
exhortation.
It surely does, dear friends, touch us in our own
individual lives and it touches us as a company of the
Lords people. It defines very much for us, but may
we all hear not only the warning, yes the warning, but
the constant note of exhortation, let us fear, let
us go on. The Lord help us.