A Vessel of Recovering

What is the nature and the condition of a vessel to be used by the Lord in recovering His full testimony - the testimony concerning His Son? That vessel - that instrument - is, and must be, one upon whose heart, genuinely, the condition of things as so clearly contrary to the thought of God lies with very great pressure.

It is one thing for us to get a kind of public concern about things and then begin to make a lot of noise about it amongst men - to advertise, to demonstrate, and to give it a public form in utterance and effort and organization; to join ourselves to some cause or to join some cause to ourselves. . . and then, in that cause, to make a great big affair of it; - that is one thing.

It is quite another thing for the Lord to put into our hearts in secret an almost unbearable, intolerable burden, which is His own heart-burden, and for us first of all to bear that thing upon our hearts in a deep outpouring of travailing prayer secretly in the presence of God; - quite another thing to come to the Lord’s interests in that way.

It is one thing to come to a situation from the outside, link ourselves on with it, and take it up and make it our bit of work for life - our life-interest. There are plenty of people whom you could get interested in a cause, whom you could get to take up a piece of work requiring help. But it is another thing to have that spiritual fellowship with God which results in God’s putting His travail into your soul.

What kind of vessel must the Lord have in order to do things? He does not want “workers” to take up His work; He wants travailers to travail with Him for His spiritual interests. He does not want employees; He wants sons. He does not want experts; He wants those who have a passion - those to whose heart the whole thing comes so closely that it bends them down before Him in an anguish. . . who are so much in the matter that it is their matter before God - it is theirs. It is no mere mental apprehension of teaching and of truth; it is a heart burden, a desperate concern for the Lord because of things as they are spiritually amongst His people.

Have we taken up work for the Lord? Have we associated ourselves with the cause of Christ? Or, have we come to know God’s own burden of travail in our souls to the point that this is to us a thing which saps our life, saps our very vitality - the thing for which we are pouring out our very blood, the thing which costs everything? And yet we can do no other. There is no question of resigning - of giving up; the thing is ourselves. For His purpose, God must have something like that at the end.
Oh, let us wipe the slate of all these other ideas of organizing something, running something, getting a movement going. Let us see that God brings His thing into being out of travail.

He baptises a soul into an anguish; He throws upon someone - or some little company - the mantle of His own terrible disappointment, dissatisfaction, and grief because of things as He sees them spiritually amongst His own people. That is how God brings things into being. Men do it in other ways, but that has always been God’s way. It has cost the instrument its life every time (not necessarily that it has died a sudden death, or even laid down its life in martyrdom, but it has cost the instrument its life).

Oh, may the Lord save us from having the preponderance, the greater measure, before men and the lesser measure before Himself. May all that is before men come out of what we are before God. That should be a matter of exercise for us, and we should ask the Lord that our secret life with Him over these matters shall be kept well abreast of all our public ministries and our outward activities.

If the balance is on the side of what is public and toward men, there will be weakness and failure. Strength and effectiveness will be the measure of our secret history with God, and others too are able to take account of us and say: “There is nothing put on in this matter; this is no mere professional thing; it is not some habit - something they are interested in. This is something which to them is a matter of life and death; it is a matter which goes right to the heart with them.”

And men are able to discern whether it is like that or not. Oh, they know, better than perhaps we think they do, whether we are real or whether it is put on; whether we are speaking out of a book or out of our hearts; whether the thing is something we have collected or something born of anguish.

May I urge this upon you, that you seek ever to have your own heart deeply exercised in everything that you have to say publicly. Yes, it will cost, it will be anguish, it will be sorrow of heart, it will mean a price; but it is the way of spiritual fruitfulness and effectiveness.

The Lord can make you His messenger in His message; that is, a sign unto the people of what you are saying. Men are able to say: “Yes, that is not something he has read or studied and prepared; that has had a working in the life, and it has cost something. It will cost, but it is the way of effectiveness and fruitful service.

And what is true as to public ministry will be true in relation to any instrument that the Lord will use for any special purpose; it must have the thing wrought into it, and it must not be something that it has adopted. The Lord keep us from adopting things. . . but work the thing right into us.

T. Austin-Sparks