Portents of the Day of the Lord
While students of prophecy are occupied with historical signs of the approaching advent of Christ, there are three spiritual portents that should be carefully taken note of.
1. A phenomenal world-encirclement of the Gospel. Never before has there been such a sovereign movement of God to see that "every nation" has had the Sound of salvation in J ...read
Article
Pride and Its Undoing
If I were asked to choose a text for what is on my heart I should have very great difficulty. I can only say to you that the whole Book is the text, so I give you the whole Bible as my text, and what I have on my heart I am going to present, in the first place, in the form of three propositions or questions.
Firstly: If there was one particular th ...read
Article
Priesthood and Life
What is a priest? He is not an official or a member of a religious caste, but a man who withstands death and ministers life. The one all-inclusive issue of the ages, the great purpose of God from eternity to eternity, can be described in New Testament language as eternal life. As soon as sin entered the world then death ensued, and so men needed an ...read
Article
Principles of Divine Guidance
"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward, throughout all their ...read
Article
Prison - Vision - Provision
"And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison" (Genesis 39:20).
"Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon... and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream... I have heard say of thee, that when thou hear ...read
Article
Remembering and Forgetting
Reading: Deuteronomy 8.
"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee..."
"Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things that are before, I press on toward the goal, unto the prize of the on-high calling of God in ...read
Article
Reproduction by Divine Life
An organism is never an end in itself... and is never something for itself. It is a means to a larger end - a channel for larger purposes - and the object of an organism is to reproduce itself by life. That reproduction is always sacrificial. It always costs. It is always by the vessel's yielding up of itself in some way. That is to say, death is t ...read
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Responsibility For What We Have
"They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.... If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead" (Luke 16:29,31).
That is a strange parable, or illustration, that our Lord gave about the rich man and the poor man and their places and conditions after having passed from this life! How m ...read
Article
Resting in the Lord's Care
"For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men" (1 Pet. 2:15).
"For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully... For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps... who, ...read
Article
Resurrection, the Hallmark of Sonship
In the terrible darkness of the Cross, Jesus uttered the cry of desertion and forsakenness in which He could only use the term: "My God..." (Matthew 27:46), but before He died He was able to say: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). After He had risen from the dead, among the first words that He spoke were these: "Touch me not ...read
Sermon
Resurrection, the Hallmark of Sonship - 2
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46).
"And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46).
"God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he raised up Jesus; as also i ...read
Sermon
Resurrection: A Living Personal Reality
Transcribed from a message given by T. Austin-Sparks in 1959. The spoken form has been retained verbatim. Words which were not clearly discernible have been enclosed in [square] brackets.
Reading: 2 Kings 6:1-33
In the second book of the Kings, chapter six: "And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell bef ...read
Article
Rooted and Grounded
The Lord's Object with the Overcomer
"And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward." (Is. 37:31).
Reading: Isaiah 36:1-22.
"And even now the axe lieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Matt. 3:1 ...read
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Satan's Main Objective
The main objective of the forces of evil is by some means - no matter how - to rob the believer of real spiritual fighting force; not talking force, working force, organizing force, advertising force, holding-and-going-to-meeting force, listening-to-teaching force, soul force; but genuine fighting force in which the impact of the victory of the Chr ...read
Article
Seeing Christ by Revelation
He (the Lord Jesus) is the sum of all Divine thoughts, and the Incarnation is the supreme expression of this one thought of God, to be truly, adequately, fully, perfectly represented; so that it was possible for the Lord Jesus to say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). There is the mystery of Christ.
What is the mystery of Ch ...read
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Service
There is so much - and there are so many ways - which claim to be "God's service" and "mighty works in the Name of Jesus." Thank God, however, that we have not to judge and decide what is and what is not true service to God. It is given to us, nevertheless, to recognize and emphasize basic principles by which all who claim to serve Him must judge t ...read
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Significant Salutations
Reading: Romans 16
This is a chapter which I expect you do not often read. The letter proper seems to end with the "Amen" of 15:33, and it is easy to regard the final chapter as of little importance. But even though it may be a struggle to read it, I suggest that the effort is well worth making. Like some of the Old Testament chapters devoted to ...read
Article
Simulation - Exaggeration - Predomination
Bible interpreters have been convinced that the words ostensibly addressed to "the king of Babylon" in Isaiah 14 have a larger context and can only be exhausted if seen to refer to some erstwhile angelic being. This conviction is strongly supported by other statements and allusions in different parts of the Bible, such as Jude 6, II Peter 2:4, Luke ...read
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Some Principles of the House of God
Reading: Psalm 132
"Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, which he made ready in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" 2 Chron 3:1
There is much related Scripture which we ought to read, but must only refer to as ...read
Article
Spiritual Exercise
"But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil" (Heb. 5:14).
"All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous: yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness" (Heb. 12:11).
That ...read
T. Austin-Sparks