Faith Unto Enlargement Through Adversity (Transcript)

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 5 - In Relation to God's Principle

I bring you back again to the eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, to the two statements regarding Abraham and his faith. First in verse 8: "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went...".

Verse 17: "By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back."

While we first said, or what has already been said, has been of real value and help, it has merely been speaking in a very general way about these matters related to faith - what God is after in enlargement, establishment and life. We are now able to go further, and see these things being worked out in the life and experience of His people, individually and collectively, bringing these truths into practical application and relationship to life.

And so we return to this very practical outworking of truth in the life of Abraham. You know that Abraham's life can be gathered up into four things. That is: faith in relation to God's purpose, faith in relation to God's principle, faith in relation to God's patience, and faith in relation to God's passion. We are not going to thoroughly examine and discuss those four things, that is a comprehensive statement that covers the whole life and the meaning of the whole life of Abraham.

We know, I think, without any further comment or explanation, what God's purpose was in calling Abraham. That is perfectly clear in the very statements that we have read from the book of Genesis. What the Lord said to him as to what He was going to do with him and through him - making of him a great nation, and from him a multitude of nations and so forth and so on - a great purpose, to have a seed according to God's own heart. And into that purpose, Abraham was called. But the realisation of the Divine purpose and the calling (for you notice that's the word that is used: Abraham being called by God) the realisation of that calling was along the line of many testings of faith.

I want to come this evening particularly to the second of those four things.

Faith and God's Principle

We all know, that is, all of us who know anything about Abraham and his life and history given to us in both the Old and the New Testaments, we know that at a certain point in Abraham's relationship with God, and God's dealings with him, a covenant sign was established in the form of a rite, which was indelibly registered in his flesh and became the covenant sign for all his seed. And that covenant sign or rite (which is called circumcision) became the central meaning of Abraham's life, the very basis of all the thoughts of God where he was concerned. Its significance (for it was, after all, only a sign; Paul makes it perfectly clear that this is not a rite, but this is a principle) the significance of this sign or rite gathered into it everything of God's meaning.

And the principle of the thing had already been at work in the life of Abraham before it was formulated into the definite act, sign, or rite. And it continued to be applied in principle right to the end of his life - that is, from the introduction of Abram on to the platform of Divine activities, right on, not only through his life, but through the whole history of Israel, and then taken up in a spiritual way in Christianity. The significance, the meaning, the spiritual meaning of that rite, that principle, is always the basis upon which God works.

It is found here right at the beginning, then, with the introduction of Abraham into our known history: "By faith Abraham, being called of God..." Stephen said: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Ur of the Chaldees". And you remember what the God of glory said to him, you remember the terms of the call: "Get thee out, out from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show you... By faith, Abraham, being called, obeyed": he went out. The principle of circumcision began to work right at that point. It was faith's basic renunciation, by which there began to be placed between the old life and relationships and set of things, an entirely new one. It was a severance, a cutting right in, a separation. The principle began to work then. On the one side - Ur of the Chaldees, and all that that meant - was the ground of judgment. On the other side, the ground of righteousness - the whole argument of Paul in his letter to the Romans about Abraham. From the ground of judgment to the ground of righteousness by a distinct act of severance. So far as God's mind was concerned, it was intended to be that. "Get thee out from thy country."

Separation or Severance From His Country

The twenty fourth chapter of the book of Joshua tells us that Israel's seed, Abraham, "served other gods" beyond the Euphrates. Recent excavations in Ur have revealed a good deal about the times of Abraham. And amongst these uncoverings and disclosures, it has come to light that in Ur in the time of Abraham there were no fewer than five thousand names of gods, the names of five thousand gods who were worshipped by the people of Chaldea in Ur. "Your fathers worshipped other gods beyond the River... Get thee out of thy country". The significance, then, is: right out from every other object and form of worship, right out from anything and everything that shares the ground with God, right out from all that which disputes the rights of God - that is the ground that lies under judgment. That is the answer of, "thy country".

Idolatry is a principle, not a form. When we speak about idolatry, we usually conjure up in our minds, or there is conjured up in our minds some form of idols which the heathen worship, to which they bow down, or the ikons and images of a false Christian system. Paganism and heathenism, wherever it is found, of any kind, we think of that as idolatry. But no, no no! Idolatry is a far, far bigger thing than that.

If there were five thousand gods in Ur of the Chaldees, there are fifty thousand in the world. They are everywhere. They are here tonight; they're in your heart and in mine - that which challenge's God's ground, that which disputes the rights of God, that which divides between God and something else. That's idolatry. I say: it's a principle, not just a form. The principle is a very much bigger thing than a form, just as the principle of circumcision is so much bigger than the rite. That's what the New Testament is set to make clear, how this thing, this thing is something much more than a rite in the body. This is something that ranges the whole realm of the flesh, the natural man. "Get thee out of thy country". This is thorough-going, drastic, tremendous; it leaves nothing outside.

"From thy kindred, and from thy father's house". Well, Abram started out from his country, but as we know, instead of fulfilling the whole commandment, he took his kindred and his father's house with him, and so the journey was arrested. The fact is that they moved to Haran, which was still in Chaldea, and still under the government of those gods. So that even yet, they were still in that territory, on the ground of judgment, still in the place where God's rights were challenged and disputed. And so God said, "We can't go any further while there is anything of that left." And the move never came until his father died.

Now, this may represent many things, but for our purpose tonight, I want to indicate that this means that we are not only called upon in an objective way to leave the world. The world has got to leave us. You can take a certain position in an outward way in relation to Christianity, but you may have carried it all with you in your heart. You see, that's what Israel did in the wilderness. They left Egypt, but Egypt hadn't left them: Egypt was still in their hearts, and they were constantly harking back to Egypt simply because Egypt was still in their hearts. And there it was. This, this had got to become no mechanical profession, no attachment and association in an outward way to the things of God. This has got to become a matter of the heart. The father's house, the kindred - the sentimental associations, the affectional relationships, the deep-down hereditary connections - these have got to be severed. It has got to be a fundamental and drastic renunciation: "Out from thy country... thy kindred... thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee".

And, when his father was dead, he moved. But he still took something of his kindred with him which, until that was finally severed, was a constant nuisance to him, with Lot. We will come back to that again but, however, he did move into the land. But here he is, moving up and down in the land and not possessing one foot of it, dwelling in tents; in the land, but no possession.

Why? Well, I think for two reasons. He knew something had got to be done in Abram; but, on the other hand, the land itself was full of idolatry. We know what the land was like at that time, full of idolatry. So that on the one: idolatry, on the other side: idolatry. In between: a wait, and a long wait, before his seed could possess the land.

You see, God is not realising His full purpose while there is any idolatry at all on the right hand or on the left; anywhere. For God is establishing and standing by His irrevocable position: "I am going to be all or nothing. Whether it be Ur of the Chaldees or whether it be the land of Canaan, I am not going to share it with anybody. And so, Abraham, I have got to bring you to the place where I am your all, and you have nothing else, before we can realise our full purpose."

That's the principle of circumcision - of the rite of the covenant. It's a deep cutting in, it's the registration of a very, very drastic work of God. Paul says that it's the Cross of the Lord Jesus. He puts the two together and says quite clearly that the circumcision of the Old Testament and of Israel was only a type and symbol of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, by which this very utter separation is made, between all the ground where God's rights are challenged or disputed or reserved, and the ground where God is all.

Now, you notice that the process and the progress of this application of a principle was from without to within, and ever more deeply within. From without: "thy country". That may be very much outward, and yet, and yet it is a very real thing. Unfortunately, still (although it may not be true here in this gathering, it may be in some cases) unfortunately we still have to use a phrase which is a contradiction in terms, and a very, very terrible phrase it is when you think in the light of the Cross of the Lord Jesus: 'worldly Christians', 'a worldly church'. I say it's a contradiction in terms. From God's standpoint there is no such thing, and yet, here it is: where still, in some form or other, this idolatry that is in the world is associated with Christians, and Christians associated with it.

Well, I dare not go into detail, but it's there. And perhaps the best way in which I can speak of it without going into details is this. You notice that when the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in a life on the principle of the Cross of the Lord Jesus - that is, our death and burial with Him and our resurrection with Him to newness of Life - when He is allowed to apply the principle of the Cross, you see all sorts of things happen in the lives concerned. Spontaneously they begin to change lots of things. Lots of things, things which shock those who long ago left that land, of which at the beginning they seem to be hardly conscious, but as time goes on and they are seeking to follow the Lord, you notice they're dropping them. They're changing in appearance and in many other ways. The ground that lies under judgment is coming under the Holy Spirit's conviction. And these people say, "Well, the Lord has shown me that He is not pleased with that, He doesn't agree with that." I think you know something about that.

It starts on the outside. Don't you think that you've got very far on when you begin to do that sort of thing! That's only the beginning; that's only leaving your country. There's lots more to be done yet: but you won't get any further until that's done. It's got to be done. You hold the Lord up on some little matter like that; it may be only dress (now I am going into details!) it may be a matter of 'make-believe'. Oh yes, oh yes, it's very sad how much of this still clings to Christians. Oh, how I've been shocked and saddened [very often]. Know this, and it isn't a very advanced point, you're going to deal with things like that; it's quite elementary. Quite elementary! If you haven't dealt with those things, you haven't got very far. And I'm not telling you you've got to go and deal with them, the Holy Spirit's got to tell you that. Don't you do anything because I say you should - that's legalism. But you ask the Lord, that His Spirit may work in your heart on the principle of the Cross of the Lord Jesus. You'll find that the Holy Spirit will be quietly singling out things, and there will be changes.

That's only leaving your country. That is moving from the outside, you see, the outside. And the progress and the process is from the outward to the inward, country and kindred, the world and the clinging of natural likes and dislikes, preferences and sentimental attachments here. From the outward now to the inward, see, from the outward now to the inward.

The Things of the Heart

The Lord is getting inner, more and more to the inner, to the heart. He is going to press that thing right to the very heart and leave nothing, moving more and more inwardly. "Thy country... thy kindred" - that's getting in, isn't it? Those affectional relationships to which we cling.

On that I'm not going to dwell, but many, many a life has been held up, and many another life has found its complete release by dealing with some affectional relationship. Oh, the tragedies, the tragedy of unequal marriages of Christians, of Christians! The unwillingness, you see, at a certain point before the covenant was entered into, to face this whole matter of common ground in the Lord. The awful tragedy [that we have seen it is]. On the other hand, suffering, oh the knife, the knife of circumcision applied to something in that realm, to some relationship which is not on the common ground of Christ, yet very near to the heart. And oh, the wonder of a release of this kind when the knife has been taken to that, in great suffering. And here held up until it's done, is the point with Abraham; held up, the whole purpose of God held up. Ah, this is applying principles in a practical way. It's like that.

So the Lord goes on and in the next phase he's in the land. He's in the land with no possession, and this represents a still more inward movement of the knife. Was there some mixture in the heart of Abraham? It's not for me to say there was, to judge him; but, I wonder from certain things that arise, to which I'll refer in a moment, was there, after all, some mixture in his heart of ambition in relation to the Divine call? "Unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation..." See? "I'd like to be a great nation, I'd like to become something great". See, is there ambition in the life? I say that I am not charging Abraham with anything, in a moment, in the next step, you'll see that there may be some justification for raising a question like that, that there may still have been just some personal interest, associated with his act of obedience, seeing something for self-realisation, seeing something for himself in this way.

Now, dear friends, whether it was true in Abraham's case or not, we don't know our own hearts, but you know, there does come into the whole matter of our relationship with the things of God a good deal of personal interest, this word ambition. Oh, what pathetic stories can be told of the tragedy of ambition in the realm of the things of God!

I have recently had very close and painful association with such a case. I can't give anything that would indicate where and who, but a situation like that of one who went into what is called 'the ministry', married a wife who was tremendously ambitious for her husband and did everything to get him on, and to get him up. And he became actuated by this idea of getting on. Now, that man started with a real sense of Divine things. And I tell you (and this is the only detail that I can give of that kind) that he was closely associated with Oswald Chambers in the heyday of his ministry. And I knew him then and we together had much fellowship and much to talk about in the things of the Lord. And then this. And by this ambition of his wife and himself, he got on and got on and got on and got to the very top in one of the biggest of the denominations, and was granted a very high honour in a degree from a well-known university for his work. He got it all. Today, that man has no assurance of salvation. He is a complete wreck - mentally, physically and spiritually. I have spent long and terrible hours trying to help him, to get his faith on to its feet, to believe God at all.

That's ambition in the realm of the things of God. You may say that's an extreme case: but you see, it started just in a simple way at a certain point - some opportunity of an advantage in the realm of God's things, God's things! And that led to the next. Now, God is going to have none of that in relation to His full purpose. Let's be before God about ambition: a terrible, terrible snare. In the end, it can mean the frustration of all that God ever intended in our lives. "He made Himself of no reputation".

Pressing inward, was this long waiting, so to speak, between the two worlds - the world of the past and the world of the promise - this marching up and down, living in tents, was it God's way of pressing circumcision more inward still, over this matter of dividedness of interests, to really sever the last fragments of personal interests? Was it? Now look. If that's true, that goes very inward, doesn't it?

Take the matter of patience. You know, dear friends, the thing that will slay anything of that kind, ambition, more thoroughly than anything else, is being kept waiting. There is nothing that disciplines our motives more than being kept in suspense, being kept in, or being made to know how impatient we are, and how much patience we need. And so he had to be brought into oneness with God's patience. But being brought there, the sword was entering his soul and searching out all this personal interest.

Now, in order that you may see that I am not altogether imputing something wrong to Abraham, we come to the next, and see Isaac.

Isaac

Isaac became the point at which the point of the sword entered most deeply. "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest... and offer him." Is this inward? Is this inward? Can anything ever be more inward than that? No. No. God has driven the thing right to its innermost point now. But why? Why? What is the explanation?

Oh yes, I know that in principle and in figure God is bringing this man into fellowship with Him in His own passion, the offering of His own well-beloved and only Son. Yes, but there's another factor. Do you remember, when the Lord one day was speaking to Abraham, what Abraham said to the Lord? In effect he said this, "But that's all very well - but what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and that which is born in my house is not my child?" 'What wilt Thou give me? What wilt Thou give me?' God gave him Isaac, but God had to root out that "for me", see? Even so, this, this element of "give me" had got to be destroyed. And so Abraham was called upon to give back to God, to have the last fragment of 'me' eliminated; and then he got Isaac back, and there was no 'me' in it at all. How inward does this work, as a principle, doesn't it? There it is.

Well now, we need not stay much longer, we've got the thing clear, but it comes back to us, dear friends. You see what God wants, what God is after. Where are we? It may be there are some listening to this word who have not yet made the first response to the call to leave that which corresponds to their country. You are still on the ground where God has not got His place, where other lords have dominion, where the principle of idolatry is at work in some way in your life, keeping you from responding to the Divine call. Well, let me say this to you, that the great, vast purpose of God in Christ, is that to which God has called you. You are not called just to be "Christians". You are not called just to say 'I accept Christ as my Saviour', and to do what these other people called Christians do. You are called with a great, an immense calling, which is only commenced in time and reaches to, and spreads over all the ages to the ages to come. That's the calling with which you are called. [That's the calling.]

Abraham, while he emerged at last into that of which I am speaking in his life here on earth, it's only a figure of that. God said to Abraham, "Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the sea-shore for a multitude... the land which I will give you", it had its literal fulfilment; but it's a figure, it's a type after all, as the New Testament shows, of something very much more than that. Its full realisation is in Christ - so the apostle Paul makes clear. We are called in Christ to the realisation of a great, eternal purpose; but nothing is possible until you have made that first response to the call: "Get thee out of thy country".

It may be that there are some here tonight who have made that response. They are no longer in that sense in the world. They have made a gesture, and a movement, and gone so far with the Lord, and stopped - because there's still something in them of that from which they are not prepared to separate.

Well, we could take it, stage by stage, right up to the final application. My point is this, dear friends, taking it altogether: Have any of us here and now stopped short? Have we really made this fundamental and complete renunciation? You see, there's something in this that is more than appears.

The Lord Jesus said this, a most drastic thing: "Whosoever there be of you who will not renounce all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple". 'Renounce all that he hath'. Why? Why? You see, dear friends, if there's anything of that whatsoever, that is satan's foothold in our lives. Yes, it's satan's foothold in our life, it's dividing things with God! It is, in effect, saying, 'The Lord is not all'.

No one else and nothing else but the Lord - till it's like that, it's a hazardous Christian life - our Christian life is in jeopardy. The Lord says, "For your own safety, and for your own eternal future, for the realisation of My purpose, I must just be all. You must have no gods besides Me; you must have nothing that divides the ground with Me at all".

See that man Paul there, we quoted it: "...as always, so now Christ may be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death. For me to live is Christ...". The principle of circumcision is just this - God having all the ground, and nothing else being there to dispute it with Him.

To give God that ground calls for an act of faith. "By faith Abraham... by faith Abraham..." and God is not going to give you anything that will undercut faith. He will say, "Look here, in this matter I am telling you nothing about it, into a land which I will show you". He went off, out, "not knowing whither he went". God had not given him a rosy painting. Up to that time, God had not defined or described the inheritance. He simply said, "I will show you; as you go on - I will show you. When you have taken the step, I will show you". In the meantime, it was not knowing, not knowing, not knowing - the principle of faith. "I believe that, God having called me, God knows that it's worthwhile to call me to make such a renunciation, and that's all I want to know."

God doesn't do this sort of thing to get us into a trap, to deceive us, to rob us of anything at all, to lessen our lives, to take anything away. God does this sort of thing because He is the God that He is, of Purpose, whose aim is fulness. That's all I want to know. Faith in God - faith that believes that, whatever it means, God means more. "By faith Abraham... obeyed... went out, not knowing..."; but faith was this - "God has called, and I believe that God never calls without some real justifying purpose. If it costs, the compensation must be far greater; it must be, because God is what He is".

And I ask you: Have all your gods of Chaldea been gods like that? Have they really 'filled your bill'? Have they really satisfied you? Are you really content by holding on to that something, or those some things? Are you? Oh no, you're not. You know you're not.

Well, the final word is this. Oh, let us hasten to the point where we say, "The Lord only! By God's grace, it's going to be the Lord only. It's not going to be just a move, so far, and it's not going to be just another move so far, and then stop. It's going to be, by the grace of God, all the way - right to God's end, with no reserve; the Lord; all." Let Him make that real.

And I say, that if God ever says a thing, you can believe there's a great deal more behind it than appears in what He says. That's how I look at the Bible. If I find something in the Bible that is a statement or a requirement, a command or an exhortation, where on the face of it, it says, "That's what is to be done, or that is what's not to be done", but I never stop there. I say: why not? Or, why so? What has God got in His mind when He says that? Because God is not just giving out platitudes, little rules and regulations for our life. God has got the immensity of all His full knowledge behind everything He says. There is such an immense reason behind the least thing that God says. It's as big as God Himself, now I want to know what's behind this. What is behind this? Why should I not? Why should I? There's an answer to that 'Why?' which I say again is as big as God Himself. You may take it that He calls, and the reason is as big as Himself - and you will never get to the end [of that].