The Setting and Background of the Issue (continued)
The Cosmic Conflict (continued)
Shall we leave it there for the present? It is not in the amount that is said in words, it is in the thing that is said that we shall find the real value. Recognize this, then, as one thing that governs everything else. It simplifies the Bible. Go back to your Bible, and you find one thing, after all, one thing embracing, covering everything that you can think of: one issue - Who is going to have the "worth-ship" without question, without reserve? And the answering of that question involves us in the conflict. You know, or you ought to know by now, that if you are the Lord's, and you have any spiritual perception as to why you are the Lord's, and why you are here on the earth as the Lord's, you ought to know quite well that you are a marked man or a marked woman. Before you have said anything about it, you are marked. The more utter you are going to be for the Lord, the more you are marked, without asking for it or saying anything about it. satan has real spiritual discernment. He is able, without weighing up the pros and cons, to jump to very right conclusions very quickly as to the significance of an individual. He can foresee what you are going to count for in this one issue. Therefore you are marked out as an object to be by any possible means subverted, turned away, destroyed, got out of the way, nullified. If you are going to contribute to God's being worshiped in the sense of which I have been speaking, you are involved; and remember that you never do count for the Lord in this matter, nor against the enemy, until you have received the Holy Spirit. The devil does not mind how many people go to "public worship." it is of no account to him, in the ultimate sense, how many go go "public worship." You begin to count spiritually in this matter of really drawing toward God only when you receive the Holy Spirit. Therein is your salvation. We have the Holy Spirit Who is the Spirit of worship, Who is the power of accomplishing His end. Oh, thank God, He has determined to have the unquestioned place at last, and He has sent His Son to secure it. It will be by His Spirit that we are fulfilling this holy vocation. The power of the Holy Spirit is our salvation. The shield will be anointed and the battle will be in the power of the Holy Spirit. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). So we need not be frightened, scared at the outlook and prospect. What has been said is in order that we may really see we are in something immense. Sooner or later every Christian, every young Christian, will find that he or she is in something more than just having signed a decision card to become Christ's. They will find they are in something for which they need resources beyond their own to get through. It is a great thing to understand the nature of what we are in, to have some light on this matter.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 6 - (The Relatedness of All Else)
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