The Sign of the Prophet Jonah # 4

Secondary Lines

There are some very clever moves of the enemy to turn this testimony off and change the nature of the test. "Fundamentalism," as such, may meet the arguments of rationalism as to the Person of Christ, the inspiration of the scriptures, etc., and serve a good purpose for those whose faith obtains largely in a mental realm, and who must have an intellectual counter to intellectual assault. Such may have a place of value, but it is completely secondary and is never the evidence of truth. Neither "Christian Evidences" nor "Fundamentalism" nor "Apologetics" are the final proof of anything. Sometimes and very often these are cold, cruel and spiritually dead and ineffective, even though pursued with zeal, intensity and fierceness. At best they are in the realm of the soul (psyche) and therefore the "natural man", that is "the inner man of the heart" (always treated in Scripture as another and different man from the "soulical").

No, the real testimony after all is the fruit of the Risen Lord as born in a garden of death. The real monument which is irrefutable evidence is lives and places which were once bound in fetters of iron, held in the grip of "him that had the power of death," "the habitation of dragons," transformed, raised and throbbing with the life, love and joy of a living Christ. It is this to the building of which all the attention of God's true people should be given. Many a great spiritual force is lost to the church by this turning work of the enemy from primary to secondary things; from the building up of areal spiritual life to the championing of that which is after all in the safe custody of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest tragedies of our day is that of men who were once used of God to build up the spiritual life to His people and the making of saints has turned to be "fundamentalist" leaders, caught in the intellectual current of the times to meet the age on its own ground. Too often the result of this is that those taught have an argument from the head without a deep experience of the heart: a daily and ever deepening heart knowledge of the Lord.

Watertight Teachings

Then again there are those turnings from the ultimate and primary test and proof which take the form of "teaching" as teaching. There are all sorts of watertight "teachings" about; companies of the Lord's people occupied with some interpretation, line of teaching, wonderful vistas of truth. The doctrine may or may not be right; it may be more or less right, but the point is this: does it work out in a definite and mighty impact upon the destruction of the forces of death as these forces hold lives in their grip and deny the "active" sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. Too often the effect of this kind of thing is to turn the people concerned in upon themselves, and curtail their effectiveness in the larger sphere of testimony. It is the power of death, the spirits of death, the prince of death with whom the church has ultimately to reckon. It is the triumph of the Lord Jesus in that realm which is the final witness of the Lord's people. The more spiritual a people or a work are, the more intense will be the pressing in of death and spirits of death. These will sometimes come like a thick blanketing cloud; descending upon a gathering or upon an individuals spirit like the vultures upon Abraham's sacrifice. They seem sometimes to paralyze prayer, muffle praise, destroy fellowship, give lying impressions, create hatred, baffle testimony, confuse ministry and throw back utterance. Sometimes it is as though the bottom of everything has fallen out, and there is an overwhelming feeling of unreality, as though everything was a myth. Because of a touch of this, many have decided to seek "safer ground" and have gone back to what they call the "simplicities" of the gospel. And yet, and yet, there it all is in the Word. This was the common experience of the Lord's people and servants in the New Testament times. But, they had a secret and they triumphed.

Their testimony was not only a doctrinal and objective truth, but a living and inward reality. The Holy Spirit had brought the death-conquering Christ into their hearts, and He made even death the instrument of His Sovereignty. This brings us back to the sign of the Prophet Jonah. In the first place then the sign - not only the signified - is in the hands of God alone.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 5- "God's Unique Miracle")