Sunday, October 25, 2015

"The Rights of God" # 7

Dependence Upon God (continued)

According to the word of Elijah, and this demonstrates his attitude towards God, we would expect anything else but the instruction: "Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith." How is it that a man who stands before God should hide himself away? Is that not a contradiction? And then, "I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there... and he drank of the brook."

Let us say the following. Should we wish to represent anything for God, then for the sake of the people and with the people of God we must suffer, so that the purpose of God can be carried out.

We see this also with Paul. He was a personal embodiment of all that the church means in the present dispensation. For this reason he goes through a lifelong experience in order to be a representation of all that the church should be in this time. In his last letter, he writes: "All they which are in Asia be tuned away from me" (2 Timothy 1:15). He saw the breaking up of the church on earth. Without the heavenly vision, he would have to say: Everything is falling apart. Everything that I have fought for all my life is collapsing. But instead, he rejoices. He had seen that the church is not earthly, but heavenly; and that she exists in an indestructible unity in Christ and holds together in Him. Paul went through more suffering than anyone else. That is why he lives  today more than ever before.

In the end, God lets Elijah know that He still has seven thousand, who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18). Elijah believed he was alone. The seven thousand were a remnant. They were a testimony of faithfulness in a day of declension. But God's purpose was not just to rescue His testimony. He wanted to bring it to a yet greater fullness. For this reason Elijah had to go through all this suffering - the same for Paul.

It was a time of famine. Elijah suffered along with the rest, and this has always been the case. Whenever God takes up an instrument for a particular purpose, He lets them live through that which is to be the experience of others. God brings His vessel through all the sufferings that are necessary for bringing His purpose about in others. God has never done anything on this earth without first having realized it in a particular instrument.

The prophets are called "signs." We even read of Jesus that He was set as a sign, that is, He must Himself go through all the experiences that are necessary for the purpose of God in connection with Him that are to be realized. With God, no theory is valid. God is reality. And those experiences are reality that God trusts to those whom He sends through particular depths in preparation for a particular ministry.

"As the Lord liveth." We can stand before the Lord, and still be in battle. To stand before the Lord does not mean to be saved from pain. Quite the opposite.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 8)

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