| Sermon | Man's Alternative to God's Best
Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in Los Angeles, March 1962. The spoken form has been retained verbatim.
When I left New York to come here, I had a very strong sense that sometime while I was here, the Lord would have me speak on a certain matter. So far and up till now, He has not underlined that but in waiting upon Him it s ...read |
| Article | Man's Way vs. God's Way
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8,9).
There are two kinds of starting points -- man and God's. Man usually starts with big frameworks, with a big plant, machiner ...read |
| Article | Maturity - The Lord's Desire for His People
The great feature of the dispensation in which we live is the gathering out from the nations of the members of the Body of Christ, and then the bringing of them on to as full a measure of maturity as is possible. It is not only the salvation of souls, and it is not only the collecting of believers into a spiritual Body. It is afterward - their comi ...read |
| Article | Mental or Spiritual
There is a vast amount of intellectual comprehension of truth and doctrine which is not touching the situation, not meeting the need... A person may know Scripture most thoroughly and yet be the most awkward, cantankerous and peevish person in daily life; or go into business relationships, drive a hard bargain and send another man to the wall for h ...read |
| Article | Mentality of the Spiritual Warrior
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds); casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." ...read |
| Article | More Pioneers of the Heavenly Way
Genesis 45:5,7 "God did send me before you to preserve life" "God sent me before you to preserve... a remnant"
It is clear from this double statement - "God sent me before..." - that Joseph was one of God's pioneers of the heavenly way. His history holds some very helpful things in relation to the goings of God. Let us repeat what we have said b ...read |
| Article | Not Here, and Not Now
"...to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose" (Eph. 3:10-11).
"Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isa. 42:23).
In those two fragments w ...read |
| Article | Not Now But Afterwards
"Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isaiah 42:23).
Without considering the context of these words, we use them to ask ourselves if we really believe that there is a time to come. Do we believe that the time to come is a bigger time than now, that the afterward is much greater tha ...read |
| Article | Not This Way Before
(Joshua 3:4)
The third chapter of the Book of Joshua is, in itself and in Israel's history, a very great chapter, marking as it does the consummation of a long, long story related to Divine purpose. But in its figurativeness it represents the greatest crisis and event in human history. There are some fragments in this chapter which are tense and ...read |
| Sermon | Oil for the Light
Transcribed from a message given in July 1955.
The book of Exodus, chapter 27 at verse 20: "And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the tent of meeting, without the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in ...read |
| Article | On Knowing the Lord
"That I may know....." - Phil. 3:10.
"Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know Me." - John 14:9; (A.S.V.). Phil. 1:10; Heb. 8:11; 1 John 2:20, 27.
It is of the greatest importance for the Lord's children to recognize fully that, above all other things, His object is that they should know Him. This is the all-governing end of al ...read |
| Article | One New Man
The Revelation of Christ
READING: Gal. 1:15-16; Eph. 2:15-16; 4:15-16,24; Col. 3:10.
The phrase which I feel is to engage us at this time is that in Eph. 2:15 - "one new man". But before we speak about that specifically, there is a word which must lead to it.
The question that is exercising many hearts today is that which relates to the need ...read |
| Article | One of the Greatest Needs
One of the greatest needs of our time is to plough our way down through the heavy and tangled growth of Christian doctrines to the virgin soil of spiritual life and reality. A master-stroke of the great subverter, in his purpose to neutralise spiritual effectiveness against his kingdom, has been the resolving of Christianity into an endless system ...read |
| Article | One Universal Answer
Perhaps one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the difficulties of the Christian is to accept in a practical way, and establish as a governing rule of life, the things "most surely believed" as truth. We are all greatly oppressed with some of the big problems and questions which are related to Christian life and experience, either subjectivel ...read |
| Article | One Universal Spiritual Remedy
It would be a wonderful thing if, in the realm of medicine, one remedy could be found whereby every conceivable malady could be most certainly cured. What a tremendous amount of complications and confusion would at once be removed. It is almost too big a thought or prospect for us to take in; there is so much of life taken up with the endless syste ...read |
| Article | Our Ministry
My word to you is one of reminding you of the ministry which we have felt to be committed to us by God. It is but one among many given to His people, but it is one which is fulfilled with an ever increasing sense of its necessity.
May I say again, in the first place, what it is not. We claim no new revelation. We aim at no new "movement". We desir ...read |
| Article | Overcomers
You see, the Remnant and Overcomers have as their function to be God's vantage ground in a day of widespread spiritual declension and failure, to be vantage points, that upon which God can act and say. Here is my thought positively expressed; here is the thing that I am after! 'That is the function of Overcomers to be to God like that. 'Here is the ...read |
| Article | Parenthetical Christians
"And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus, and found certain disciples: and he said unto them, Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" (Acts 19:1-2).
A Lack of the Spirit That May Accompany Believing
I want to speak to you for this little while on what I be ...read |
| Sermon | Partners
Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in 1958.
In the letter to the Hebrews chapter 3 and the first verse:
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus."
I want to put a ring round that fourth word: "partakers" - of a heavenly calling. That is, f ...read |
| Article | Personal Testimony
Years ago I was unquestionably stretched out to the full for God's best (as I trust I am now), and there was no doubt whatever as to my devotion to the Lord. I was right in the full tide of every kind of evangelical activity, and especially in conventions everywhere for the deepening of spiritual life. I was a member of many Missionary Boards and C ...read |
T. Austin-Sparks