God's Sovereign Activities

God's Sovereign Activities  by T. Austin-Sparks "And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel" (Numbers 10:35,36). The book of Numbers is concerned with a militant movement on the part of God, in the midst of His ordered people, in relation to His testimony. The ark is called 'the ark of the testimony', and the place in which it was resident or deposited was the 'tabernacle of testimony'; and everything centred in, circled round and was governed by that testimony - the testimony of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. That has an abiding message for the Lord's people at all times and at all stages of spiritual progress. I would point out that this is not some peculiar testimony belonging to any one particular company of God's people. It is the testimony of Jesus. We will not stay to explain what it is, but we do know that, in the book of consummations - the book of the Revelation - where everything is brought out to its final fulness and dealt with in finality, "the testimony of Jesus" is the dominant factor from beginning to end. In the first chapter the testimony of Jesus is presented by Himself in His own Person. Then everything - the churches and the Church comprehensively, the nations, and ultimately the kingdom of darkness - is all dealt with and settled in the light of the testimony of Jesus; and finally that testimony of Jesus is brought out in glorious fulness in the symbol of the City, and everything about that City speaks of Him, and speaks of Him in glory in the saints. That is just by the way, lest we should think, when we use the phrase 'a testimony', that we are talking about something other than the testimony of Jesus in its fullest sense as in the Word of God. I do want to deliver minds from the idea that, shall I say, 'Honor Oak' has a 'testimony' of its own. 'This testimony' - how I hear that all over the world from people who are associated with the company and the Lord's work here in this place. Please strip your mind and your tongue of that phraseology. It is not some private testimony we are talking about. It is the testimony of Jesus in its fulness, and it is, as I have said, God's movements in connection with that that the whole of the Scriptures reveal. 1. Sovereign Selectiveness We start with Genesis. God's creative activity was there; we may deal with that more fully later. It brings us back to the whole outline of God's goings. But when things departed from the Divine intention, and that so early, God reacted in relation to His testimony, and we find that the whole book of Genesis is occupied with the sovereign selectiveness of God in this very connection. And here I am going to pass again to the key - to the whole Word of God, His Divine principle. If you get the Divine principle, you will understand the Scriptures. If you have not, you will do what has been done and is being done, that is, you will make theories and interpretations without number and without end. Take, for instance, all that has been produced on the book of Revelation. It is perfectly hopeless. Of all the multitudes who have sought to interpret it, you find hardly two that agree. The only sure key to the Scriptures as a whole or in any part is a Divine principle. When you have that, the whole thing opens up. I suggest that the Divine principle with which God reacted to the fall was this sovereign selectiveness. It begins with the seed of the woman, and then it moves on along a thin line of witnesses, reaching to Abraham, and then, through Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob and then through them to the nation. There is a movement of God within the world of men, sovereignly laying hold of people in relation to that testimony which He in His eternal counsels had determined to realise. The testimony of Jesus began before this world began. It has been taken up along this line by the sovereign act of God, and it is there that we must find our strength. There are, of course, always the two sides to any Divine movement - the Divine initiative, and man's responsibility - but the Divine initiative always comes first - and that is our comfort, consolation and strength. "Ye did not choose me, but I chose you." (John 15:16). "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world". (Eph. 1:4). That word 'chose' is a marvellous key to God's goings right down through the ages. The goings of God are seen along this line of sovereign selectiveness - and how much we owe to that! The very holding on our way, our very being kept by the power of God to the end, is simply because in the first place God chose us; God, if I may use the word, selected us. God looked and saw us and laid His hand upon us, and that, we are told in this marvellous revelation of the eternal goings of God, happened before ever we had a being. We were foreknown. All sorts of difficulties are gathered into that, but let me say here that it is not so much the individual, as that elect company for a Divine purpose, which is the occasion of this sovereign selectiveness. You can see God moving in this way right through the Word. You cannot explain it. We shall come on to the mystery of God's ways sooner or later, but there is no ground of explanation outside of God Himself. The Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples. There is no ground of explanation, none whatever, outside of Himself. "Did not I choose you the twelve?" (John 6:70) - and that is all there is to it. 'I chose you'. He never explained why; none of us could explain why. But He has done it; and what we know, immediately we come under the government, the control, of the Holy Spirit, is that we have come into line with something which is not incidental in life, something which has a very long history; we have become a part of something that reaches beyond time, both backward and forward, something beyond the limits of this world and this life. We are conscious of being related to some immense purpose. I say again, we are not always able to explain or define it; but a consciousness comes to us that after all, whatever we may have felt or thought about it before, our birth is not just an incident, we have not come on the scene by chance - there is something more in it than that. No one knows that until they become linked with the Lord Jesus and thus become a part of God's testimony concerning His Son, which is the ground of all God's movements from eternity to eternity. We have come into something that is very near to the heart of God, and the more utterly you come into line with that, the more God stands by you, the more God is going to vindicate Himself and His wisdom. It is a tremendous thing to be wholly and fully in the mid-thoroughfare of those eternal goings of God. So Genesis sees the beginning of this principle, which continues all the way through the Old Testament and New Testament - the principle of sovereign selectiveness in relation to God's testimony concerning His Son, the testimony of Jesus. 2. Sovereign Separation We come to Exodus for the next phase in the goings of God, and here it is a matter of sovereign separation. There is the elect people, but the elect has got rather entangled in things, mixed up in things; the elect is in bondage, the elect, is in the world; and God must move sovereignly again. And God retains that sovereignty in His own hands. Moses tried to assume the sovereignty of God in separating the people from Egypt, and it was a terrible disaster. God retains the sovereignty in relation to His purpose. When God's time came, when the hour came for God to move, He did it from Himself, on His own account, right out from Heaven. You find God saying all the time, in relation to that emancipation:"I...", "I...", "I...", "Now, thou shalt see what I will do..." (Ex. 6:1). "Come now therefore, and I will send thee..."(Ex. 3:10). "Thus shalt thou say... I AM hath sent me unto you" (Ex. 3:14). God in sovereignty, the great I, is taking charge of this matter.

Submit to the appointments of our Maker!

by John Newton (author of Amazing Grace)

How highly does it become us, both as creatures
and as sinners, to submit to the appointments of
our Maker! and how necessary is it to our peace!

This great attainment is to often unthought of and
overlooked; we are prone to fix our attention upon
the second causes and immediate instruments of
events; forgetting whatever befalls us is according
to His purpose, and therefore must be right and
seasonable in itself, and shall in the issue be
productive of good.

From hence arise impatience, resentment, and secret
repinings, which are not only sinful but tormenting;
whereas if all things are in His hand, if the very hairs
of our head are numbered, if every event, great and
small are under the direction of his providence and
purpose; and if he has a wise, holy, and gracious
end in view, to which everything that happens is
subordinate and subservient; then we have nothing
to do, but with patience and humility to follow as
He leads, and cheerfully to expect a happy issue.

The path of present duty is marked out; and the
concerns of the next and every succeeding hour
are in His hands.

How happy are they who can resign all to Him,
see His hands in every dispensation, and believe
that He chooses better for them then they
possibly could for themselves! 

The world's religion

Spurgeon, "Hidden Manna" #980. Jer. 15:16

Blessed are they who go to their Lord outside
the camp, leaving the world's religion as well
as its sin, in obedience to that sacred call:
    "Therefore, come out from them
        and separate yourselves from them.
    Don't touch their filthy things,
        and I will welcome you.
    And I will be your Father,
        and you will be my sons and daughters,
        says the Lord Almighty."  2 Cor. 6:17-18 

Lord, how can we know the way?

(J.R. Miller, "Evening Thoughts" 1907)

Thomas said to Him, "Lord, how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way" John 14:5-6

This is the first day of a new year. We are setting out on a journey of which we can have no knowledge in advance. The road is one on which we never have gone hitherto. We know not what any day will have for us . . .
  what our duties will be,
  what burdens shall be laid upon us,
  what sorrows we shall have to endure,
  what battles we shall have to fight.

"You have never traveled this way before." Joshua 3:4. We cannot see one step before us! How can we know the way?

As we sit in the quiet, this first evening, and ask the question, we hear an answer which is full of comfort. Jesus says to us, "I am the way!"

All we shall have to do, therefore, will be to follow Jesus. He has made a way through this dark world for us. He has gone over all the journey and opened a road for us at great cost. He went over the way Himself--we shall find His shoe-prints at every step. 

He has a definite way for each one of us. Every mile of the journey He has chosen--and every place where I pitch my tent He has selected for me!

"Leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps!"1 Peter 2:21

  ~  ~  ~  ~

We have published J.R. Miller's insightful 5 page new year's article, "Numbering Our Days".

"Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Exod. 14:15).

 
Streams in the Desert

      March Forward
     
      "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Exod. 14:15).
     
      Imagine, O child of God, if you can, that triumphal march! The excited children restrained from ejaculations of wonder by the perpetual hush of their parents; the most uncontrollable excitement of the women as they found themselves suddenly saved from a fate worse than death; while the men followed or accompanied them ashamed or confounded that they had ever mistrusted God or murmured against Moses; and as you see those mighty walls of water piled by the outstretched hand of the Eternal, in response to the faith of a single man, learn what God will do for His own.
     
      Dread not any result of implicit obedience to His command; fear not the angry waters which, in their proud insolence, forbid your progress. Above the voices of many waters, the mighty breakers of the sea, "the Lord sitteth King for ever."
     
      A storm is only as the outskirts of His robe, the symptom of His advent, the environment of His presence.
     
      Dare to trust Him; dare to follow Him! And discover that the very forces which barred your progress and threatened your life, at His bidding become the materials of which an avenue is made to liberty. --F. B. Meyer
     
      Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life, Where, in spite of all you can do, There is no way out, there is no way back, There is no other way but through? Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene Till the night of your fear is gone; He will send the wind, He will heap the floods, When He says to your soul, "Go on."
     
      And His hand will lead you through-clear through--Ere the watery walls roll down, No foe can reach you, no wave can touch, No mightiest sea can drown; The tossing billows may rear their crests, Their foam at your feet may break, But over their bed you shall walk dry shod In the path that your Lord will make.
     
      In the morning watch, 'beneath the lifted cloud, You shall see but the Lord alone, When He leads you on from the place of the sea To a land that you have not known; And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed, You shall be no more afraid; You shall sing His praise in a better place, A place that His hand has made.--Annie Johnson Flint

The Evening and the Morning were the First Day. Genesis 1:5

  
Our Daily Homily

      The Evening and the Morning were the First Day. Genesis 1:5
     
      How different is God's method from man's! The creature works from day to night, his best is first; but darkness overshadows his fairest hopes and best-concerted schemes. The Creator's days begin with the preceding eve. He reckons the evenings and nights into the days, because out of them the day is born; they usher in the light, and recreate body and brain for the busy hours that follow.
     
      Art thou disappointed in Christian work? - Remember that God wrought on through long dark ages, ere His schemes were evolved in order and beauty. Human schemes begin with blare of trumpet and roll of drum, but are soon plunged in darkness. The heavenly seed is sown in autumn shadows; the foundation-stone of redemption was laid amid the gloom of Calvary; the work that lasts generally begins amid disappointment, difficulty, and heart-break, but inevitably passes into the day.
     
      Art thou passing through the bitterness of soul-trouble? - For weeks there has been no ray of comfort, no sign of deliverance. Yet every dark hour is hastening toward the dawn. Thou shalt see thy Beloved walking toward thee in the morning light.
     
      Art thou in despair for the worm? - The times are dark, and threaten to get darker. But if the first creation began in the dark, can it be wondered at that the second must begin there to? But as the one emerged in daylight, so shall the other. The morning cometh; see the star of day standing sentry! Time, is bearing us to a day that shall never go down to night, but shall mount ever toward its meridian.

Jeremiah 51:21-23

21 And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider;

22 With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;

23 I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.