The Way to God's End
The Book of Joshua
We are not going to read at the moment, but we shall have the book of Joshua open before us, for reference as we go along.
The End of the Way
It is necessary for us at the outset, before considering the way to the end, to bring the end of the way right into view. We commenced by noting that God began with the heavens and then proceeded to the earth, and at the end of the Bible it is that which comes down out of heaven which consummates the whole process of His activities through the ages, so that the end is a full expression of what is heavenly, or an expression of what is heavenly in fullness. That is the end. We said to begin with that the heavens govern everything. As it is in nature, so it is in the things of the Spirit. Everything is governed by the heavens, and the earth and all that is earthly has to reckon with and answer to what is heavenly.
Get that as a spiritual truth. What is true in the realm of the natural creation is but an expression of the spiritual mind of God: and that means that, just as this world, this earth, is so governed and controlled by heavenly forces and heavenly bodies that if it should get out of right adjustment or relationship with those bodies it would disintegrate, it would cease, it would freeze up or burn up, it would cease to function as an organic whole: the same thing is spiritually true. The whole Bible is taken up with this fact, that what is here is related to what is in heaven, and everything comes out from heaven and has to answer to heaven and keep adjustment to heaven - everything in our lives: because the Holy Spirit, having come down from heaven, is the link between what is here and what is there.
These thing are not just abstract ideas. They are the factors which lie right behind everything we have of Divine revelation in the Scriptures. The whole of the Bible from the first verse to the last can be summed up in that one thing - that heaven is challenging this earth, and this earth has got to make an answer to heaven. There are countless details covered by that, but it is a fact; so that the end of all things will just be that heaven is fully realized in the creation and, especially in a spiritual way, in the people of God. That is the end which we bring into view at once.
Now, in relation to that end, we must note another governing truth. But let me first say something in parenthesis. Some of these phrases are very familiar, and I am always a little afraid that familiarity with phraseology may take something of their edge away. When we use that phrase "a governing thing', let us stop to get the force of it. It means that, if we are under the government of a law, we cannot escape that law. There are laws of nature, in our bodies, in this world. They are there, and if you disregard those laws it does not put them out of operation. You find that in the long run they will break you; in the long run they find you out. But come into line with them, and they will mean your salvation, your life. They are "governing", whether you like it or not. Thus, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6;7). That is a law; you cannot escape it. There are numerous laws like that. So when we speak of a "governing" law or truth, it is something established by God in His universe, and it is best discovered and obeyed.
God's Sovereign Choice of Vessels
Let us come, then, to this further governing truth, in relation to God's end: that God chooses vessels, individual and collective or corporate, and brings them in a peculiar way sovereignly into relationship with His full end, and then does that in them which He means for a much larger company than themselves. He sovereignly chooses vessels - whether individuals or companies - the Bible is just full of that - and then sets to work with those vessels to do something in an extraordinary way, in a very much fuller way, in order that, by means of what He is doing in such elect vessels, He may reach out to many others beyond them. That is a governing truth. He does something in an elect vessel which is meant for many more than itself or its members.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 21)
No comments:
Post a Comment