| Tribute | An Appreciation of T Austin-Sparks
by
Harry Foster
Reprinted from "A Witness And A Testimony" magazine, July-August 1971.
After forty years of active association with brother Austin-Sparks in the things of God, it fell to me to lead the praiseful funeral service on April 19th, 1971 when a large number gathered at Honor Oak to magnify the Lord for our brother's long life a ...read |
| Tribute | Theodore Austin-Sparks: Reflections on his Life and Work
by
Angus M. Gunn
Introduction
THEODORE AUSTIN-SPARKS, best known as TAS to those of us who knew and loved him, was a preacher and teacher who lived and worked for most of his life in the Forest Hill District of southeast London, England. With a high view of the Bible as the word of God, coupled with an exceptional ability to draw out its ...read |
Pamphlet | A Candlestick All of Gold - Table of Contents
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1949-1950
Reading: Ex. 25:31-40; 37:17; Zech. 4:1-7.
"And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold." (Ex. 25:31). It is the latter part of the sentence that is the more important - "a candlestick of pure gold," but there is something very significant and important about the former ...read |
| Article | A Child Over the Nations
Reading: Jeremiah 1
This title has nothing to do with a youth's conceited idea of his own importance, but the very reverse of any such idea, for it indicates how God selected a weak and insignificant instrument through whom He could bring His own throne to bear upon the nations. The rule committed to Jeremiah was a spiritual one, and God still s ...read |
| Article | A God That Hideth Himself
"Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Isa. 45:15).
It is as though the Prophet was suddenly overawed and struck with amazement at what he was being made to prophesy! In the midst of his ministry something of its wonder broke upon himself and he interjected this ejaculation.
Leaving, for the present, much of ...read |
| Article | A Good Man in Danger
It was no small thing that Jesus should have said of a man "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile", thus marking him out as one apart from the majority of his nation, as being more spiritual than fleshly or carnal: a son of Israel rather than of Jacob. Further, it was no small thing that this man came to a fuller revelation and apprehensi ...read |
| Article | A Good Warfare
"This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them thou mayest war a good warfare" (1 Timothy 1:18).
"Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses" (1 Timothy 6:12 ...read |
| Article | A Heart for God's Testimony
That little romance - the Book of Ruth - stands as a link between the terrible spiritual tragedy - "Judges" - and God's reaction thereto in David. "Ruth" ends with "Boaz begat Obed; and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David." The beginning of 1 Samuel sees the terrible hang-over of "Judges" and reveals the unspeakably low state that things were i ...read |
| Sermon | A Holy Nation
Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in May 1960. The spoken form has been retained verbatim.
In the Gospel by Matthew, chapter 21, at verse 42: "Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner: this was from the Lord, and it is marvellous ...read |
| Article | A House of Prayer For All People
Reading: 2 Chronicles 6; Isaiah 56:6-7; Mark 11:17; Ephesians 6:18.
"My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people."
The sixth chapter of the second book of Chronicles is a magnificent example and illustration of these words of the Prophet. In the dedication of the House by Solomon, prayer of a universal kind inaugurated the minist ...read |
| Article | A Jigsaw Puzzle
A Message to Young Christians - and Others
"In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord" (Eph. 2:21).
"...for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect ...read |
| Article | A Man in Christ
"I know a man in Christ" (2 Corinthians 12:2)
The object of our consideration is manhood in relation to the Lord's testimony, and for it we take a little phrase used by the apostle Paul about himself: "I knew a man in Christ". To it may be linked a few other simple phrases:
"I JESUS have sent my angel to testify unto you..." (Revelation 22:16) ...read |
| Article | A Man in Heaven and Christ in You
"Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Bu ...read |
| Article | A Man in the Glory
From "The Work of the Ministry" - Volume 1.
Reading: Hebrews 2:5-12.
This portion of the Scriptures is a condensation of all that the Bible, and especially the New Testament, is about. It is a strange thing to say, yet it is quite true, that at this late hour in the New Testament dispensation our greatest need, as the people of God, is to know ...read |
| Article | A Message for the Hour
The Vital Importance of Spiritual Vision
"Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint" Proverbs 29:18. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6.
The first quotation above is from the Book of Wisdom. The wisdom of that statement has been overwhelmingly proved by much history and experience. There is a sense in which t ...read |
| Article | A New Creation
The all-inclusive rule of the new creation is that "all things are of (out from) God." Concerning this fact the Apostle Paul uses the word "but" - "But all things are of God" - as though he would anticipate, intercept, or arrest an impulse to rush away and attempt life or service upon an old creation basis, or with old creation resource.
The great ...read |
| Article | A Peculiar Vessel
"FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS"
1 Samuel 1.
The state of things today is very similar to that which existed at the beginning of the first book of Samuel. Three things in particular seem to stand out there as features of those days.
The first was a formality in the things of God through being pursued in the energy of the flesh; resulting in mixture ...read |
| Article | A Positive and Purposeful God
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Genesis 1:1-3).
"I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no ...read |
| Article | A Right Thing Done in a Wrong Way
(1 Chronicles 13-15)
The inclusion of this episode in the Chronicles of Israel has evidently a very definite purpose; it conveys a message which the "Israel of God" - the Church - has been, and still is, all too slow to take account of.
Precisely, it is this. A right thing done in a wrong way can be as disastrous as either not doing it at all o ...read |
| Article | A Talk to Young Christians on the Nature of the Christian Life
I am going to talk to you very simply. I trust that the people who 'know all about it' will not think it is too simple! But I feel we want to be quite clear about our foundations, our beginnings, and so in what I have to say I shall risk being as simple as I possibly can.
I am going to take as the foundation the eighth chapter of the letter to the ...read |
