When I first met the source in sparks,
47 years ago, and then when I actually
came into this place just 40 years ago
in 1931, I little thought that after all
these years it would fall to me here
today to gather you to offer our sympathetic
condolences to his family, and more than anything
to offer thanksgiving to God for him.
But thus things have worked out.
Not been always an easy 40 years, it
wasn't for him, but thank God we went
right through it together, and here at the
end are able to worship God for all
his goodness.
Many of you will be familiar with his
books, and if so you will know the
title of one of them, The School of
Christ.
I think that title enshrines his concept of
what the Christian life is all about.
We are here, as long as we are
here, to be taught by the Holy Spirit
in the school which has as its objective
the making of us like the true, the
perfect son who is our model, even Jesus
Christ.
We are here to learn Christ.
That of course means many things beside actual
Bible study, and it was in the chastening,
or as he much preferred to render it,
the child training of that school of Christ
that brother Sparks himself was a pupil, although
thank God also he was a teacher, you
can be both, and I think he was
most able to help people just because he
himself recognized that he was always a learner.
His discipleship began when he was only 17
years old and was walking down a Glasgow
street feeling rather miserable on a Sunday.
Have an idea, Glasgow on a Sunday could
be miserable in those days, but it wasn't
the outside, it was the inside that was
miserable, and there was a crowd of eager
young people holding an open air meeting, and
he stopped, and he listened, and that night
in his own room he trusted Christ as
his saviour, and next week he was out
with them.
He also was a witness, and before very
long he'd taken his hat off and got
into the ring to start preaching.
He went on preaching for 65 years, and
we thank God for that long and fruitful
ministry represented, but to the end, though a
teacher, he always regarded himself as a learner
in the school of Christ, and indeed I
think I can say in all respect, and
indeed with great respect, that in his last
years he was more ready to confess how
little he knew, and how many mistakes he
had made, than ever he had been before.
That's as it should be, that's the sure
evidence of growing maturity.
Like the great apostle whose words were his
favourites, and have been read to us, he
was always ready right through to the end
to say, I have not yet apprehended, but
I'm pressing on toward the mark for the
prize.
He always taught that in the school of
Christ, one learns more by suffering than by
study, and in one way and another, our
dear brother suffered more than most of us.
However, we are not going to pity him
in that, but rather to give thanks to
our Heavenly Father, for this was the authentic
child training.
The father was dealing with our brother, as
with a son, not sparing the pain and
the perplexing problems that must come to those
who are in this school, and being conformed
to Christ.
I have thought back quite a bit during
these past days, and have come to this
conclusion, that if it is true that the
father chastens the man whom he loves, God
must have loved brother's father very much.
We thank God that through the chastening, he
proved, as one always can prove, the abundance
of grace.
Indeed, those of you who have your motto
card, they used to come every year so
regularly.
The one for this year, 1971, contains those
very well-known and loved words, my grace
is sufficient for thee, it was for him.
Those of us who knew him 40 years
ago, might perhaps testify that they saw God's
grace in him.
Those of us who knew him right to
the end, will gladly affirm that there were
new and fuller evidences of that grace, even
in the closing years and months of his
life.
To God be the glory.
Now many of you have come here with
appreciative recollections of our brother's life story, and
I'm sure could supplement what I can say,
but the truth is that even I am
not able to deal with even the main
features of his life adequately, because it was
not only a long life, it was a
full life.
It was a full life of publishing.
In 1922, when he came over from North
London, there began, in a very humble form,
what most of you will now know as
the magazine, a witness and a testimony, which
this year entered on the 49th year of
its worldwide ministry.
And as I have told you already, we
have many letters from readers all over the
world, saying how much the ministry has meant
to them, a full life of sending out
the printed word into many lands.
It was a full life of preaching the
overcomer testimony, with his ministry in Christian conferences
in many lands of Europe, India, the Far
East, and America, as well as, he never
called them conferences, you know, we did, he
didn't.
You look it up on your witness and
testimony, special gatherings, and they were special gatherings
too.
How many of them in this place, up
in Westminster, and of course, I mustn't forget
Kilfragen, many other places, in the British Isles,
and then that series in Switzerland, culminating last
year at Hilterfingen, with what everybody felt to
be the best, just like the Lord, isn't
it, to leave the best wine to last.
Seemed rather puzzling, having found such a marvellous
site, that it wasn't possible to re-book
it for 1971.
Brother Sparks couldn't understand that, but the Lord's
plans are always perfect, and I'm sure all
of us who were there, were full of
praise to God, for the ministry we received,
for the fellowship we enjoyed, and for the
wonderful way in which our brother seemed thoroughly
to enjoy himself there.
I have things to say about him, of
his spiritual ministry, but you might have only
seen him from a distance, but I can
assure you, he was very human.
I've seen him blowing balloons in this hall
at a Christmas party, and in the old
days, I can assure you that the cricket,
before they put the terraces out in the
garden, he was a really cunning, left-hand
slow bowler.
Of course, sailing on the Clyde was his
great love, and that's why I mentioned Hilterfingen,
because even at his age, if he could
have got on to Lake Toon last year,
he would have done it.
We're full of praise for all the ministries,
the preaching ministry that Brother Sparks was able
to give, but of course, his ministry was
not only on the platform, it was off
the platform, in conversations and counselling, but whether
on the platform or privately, I have always
felt that his greatest helpfulness was when, through
the word and by his experience, he was
interpreting to you what you'd been through.
The people that hadn't been through it couldn't
always understand, and sometimes he would say, you
know, you don't understand what I'm saying, but
you'll know one day.
But those who had been through something, a
puzzle, didn't quite know what it was all
about, and what God was doing with them,
often found that our brother was a true
interpreter, and could make the Word of God
to have a very personal application.
These were the lessons that he had learned
in the school of Christ, and in the
Battle for Life, that's another book, and it's
not only a book, the Battle for Life.
But I think I should say that although
his sense of calling was to expound the
Scriptures to believers, he was always concerned about
carrying the Gospel message to those who did
not know the Lord as Savior, not only
as a teenager in the open air in
Glasgow.
As a matter of fact, the last public
message he ever gave was to a group
of London city missionaries, the complete span of
all those years, from the men witnessing in
the streets of Glasgow, to the men witnessing
in the city of London.
And as, if I'm right, the time he
spoke before that, which was toward the end
of last year, was to that great crowd
of OM, people waiting to be let loose
on Europe with the Gospel message.
A number of people, a surprising number of
people, came to know Jesus Christ through Brother
Sparks.
And while we are praising God for the
blessing brought to his people through the Word,
let us praise God also for those who
would be wandering out in the darkness, but
for his ability, and what an ability he
had, for making Christ real.
Some of the most fragrant memories that I
have of Brother Sparks' ministry are not those
of which I can write down the details
and points of the message, though I could
do quite a bit of that, but it
was of the times when somehow one was
melting.
Christ was so real.
The love of God was so precious.
The call of grace was going up.
A brother could preach the Gospel and did,
and we thank God for that too.
A life full of preaching, not without significance
that in his book of supplementary hymns, with
the great hymns of worship, and you know
about more light and truth and all that,
there's also, and he chose to have it
there, I love to tell the story of
unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory,
of Jesus and his love.
Of course, to fulfill his ministry he had
to travel, and so we have to say
his was a life, a full life of
traveling.
He was privileged to carry his message and
vision to many lands.
He counted it a privilege, greatly regretted when
he wasn't able to respond to the many
calls that were coming to him, right up
to the end of last year, and no
doubt in this year, if they could have
reached him.
His first flying experience in Switzerland was very
unnerving.
In those days before the war, when navigational
aids were not particularly developed, he was at
a conference at Gumligen, and due to fly
on the direct flight from Baal to London,
but in order to get to it had
to take a little, really a little toy
-like plane from Bern to Baal.
The pilot lost his way, the clouds made
him overshoot Baal.
At one point he didn't even know whether
he was flying upside down or right side
up.
By the mercy of the Lord they found
a gap in the clouds and came down,
landed on a French military airport and were
promptly surrounded by gendarmes.
And in the end he had to get
back to Baal by road, and we traveled
by train and boat back to England.
And at the time he came to the
conclusion that flying was not for him.
As is often the case with all of
us, it was a wrong conclusion.
Indeed he did what nobody much here would
probably have done.
He even went in a flying boat once
to the east.
How many thousands of miles he traveled right
through to 1970.
We thank God for safe journey.
Could have been a tragic end over in
Switzerland all those years ago.
We are grateful also that strength was given
to him in journeys off we may say
of him.
Now I can't take time to say any
more except that I must stress what I
feel is the most important way in which
his life was full.
And that was in the realm of prayer.
He taught us to pray.
Make no mistake about it.
At the funeral service I said that could
I appeal to people to stand up and
say I learned more of Christ through Austin
Sparks.
Most of them would have stood up.
I think I can say today that if
I put this question, have you learned something
of prayer through Austin Sparks?
Every one of us will say yes.
And some of you young ones who didn't
know him, if you belong here, I can
tell you that the foundation of prayer life
which by God's grace we're trying to build
upon was well and truly laid by brother
Sparks.
It's not only that he prayed, he brought
prayer before us.
That's the great supreme occupation of the Christian.
His favorite phrase, well you see everybody will
say he had a favorite phrase and I've
said several different things already.
But I would say to say, I think
I will, his favorite phrase was, now of
course he often applied that to the word
and open heaven because the light of God
shone into his heart and he was able
to speak not just from study but from
what had shined in from heaven.
But I think the phrase quite equally applies
to prayer.
Perhaps even more so, his favorite thought was
heaven is open to the man, the woman,
the church that cares to take the time
and the trouble to pray.
There's a throne, remember his book, in touch
with the throne, that was his idea of
prayer.
Not just a little wishful thinking with the
tag of amen on the end, but in
touch with the throne.
He taught us that prayer was worship, new
idea to most of us.
Couldn't get through many sentences in prayer without
asking God to bless us or teach us
or do something or other for us.
He taught us no, there's a prayer which
is a pure wholehearted offering of thanks and
praise and worship to God with no requests,
just adoration.
Don't let's forget that lesson, for such prayer
is precious to God.
He also had a great belief in what
he called executive prayer and by that he
meant not just in a vague and general
way asking God to do something, but really
laying hold of God, really touching that throne,
really expecting something to happen, merely claiming that
something should happen in answer to prayer.
Mr. Taylor, who's too old and frail to
be with us, but would have loved to
have been here this afternoon, told me that
when he worked as an engineer in town
and Mr. Patterson, the other one of the
trio, was in his government office, Brother Sparks,
the pastor here, or rather down at the
church down the road, used to take a
train and go up to town and they
would give their lunch time to praying together.
No wonder God worked.
No wonder foundations were laid for a testimony
here.
And as they prayed and claimed things from
God, God was glad and responded and those
prayers were answered.
He introduced many of us into the reality
of prayer warfare.
Himself was conscious sometimes a bit apologetic because
when the prayer meeting tended to be rather
saggy and rather flat, somehow he was a
bit impatient.
But oh how thrilled and how wholeheartedly he
rejoiced when in our prayer gatherings we didn't
allow the blanket to settle on, but in
the name of the Lord, claimed victory, fought
the fight, broke through and indeed touched the
throne.
That was what he called prayer.
And that's how he taught us to pray.
And we must go on making use of
this that has come to us through our
brother, the challenge and the inspiration to pray.
I think in calling you to give thanks
at this memorial service, I would like to
stress above all, thanks for the throne of
grace.
This is the heritage which brother Sparks has
left us.
His preaching will no longer be heard.
His traveling days are over, but his prayers
continue.
Because the throne continues and as one of
those for whom he prayed, and as a
member of the church here, over which he
longed in much earnest prayer, I thank God
not only for the past answers which have
already come, but for those which are yet
to be.
In this sense we believe, more than any
other, he being dead, yet speaking.
Wasn't it he who put also in the
supplement, the chorus that he brought us from
Miss Barber in China, with the music which
his daughter wrote, he cannot fail, for he
is God.
He cannot fail, he's pledged his word.
He cannot fail, he'll see me through.
It is God with whom I have to
do.
God saw him through and he'll see us
through.
Now most of what I have said has
concerned the past, but we have to face
the future.
And so the rest of the occasion that
we have here of being together will be
devoted to the future.
Two members of the new generation have something
to say.
A brother Roger Forster we have specially asked
to give us a message on this scripture,
Philippians 3, and then a brother Alan Barrow
will lead us in a final prayer of
dedication to God.
Thank you.
I must first of all ask your indulgent
sympathy as I stand before you this afternoon,
one for the high honour and privilege of
speaking at such a time as this and
being so unqualified to do so.
I'm sure there are many of you in
our presence this afternoon who would be far
better equipped and whose words would add far
greater weight to the things that have already
been said and give a greater note on
which to conclude this occasion, this unique occasion,
than possibly my words could.
My acquaintance with our brother Sparks has been
a shorter period than many of you.
My time involved here has been much shorter.
Please therefore give me your sympathy and indulgence
as I seek to do something which you
could do far better.
Secondly, I've been asked to speak about the
future.
We've spent so much time, of course, rightly
so, looking back at the past, and I've
been asked to speak a word concerning what
shall be in the future.
Well, have mercy on me please once again.
What can I say?
We've had brought before us the life of
a man whose age certainly is more than
double mine, and certainly his walk with Christ
would be more than double.
How on earth could I, as it were,
go beyond what has been presented to us
or what he has presented to us in
his ministry, and how can I dare look
forward to the future and say anything which
would be really positive and which would lay
any sort of guideline?
Then have sympathy with me for that.
I've been asked also not to eulogize, and
I've been asked not to mourn.
I'm following on after two other speakers.
You've heard already a lot, and to cap
it all, I've been given less than ten
minutes.
Nonetheless, I should do my best to go
back to that passage which was so familiar
to our brother and which so often he
brought before us in writing and in speech,
and that is that Philippians 3 passage which
has been read to us, for I suppose
we can't really look forward at all unless
we know where we stand, for that'll show
us the direction in which to look.
And if we find our feet firmly planted
in the things that, well, we've been considering
already this afternoon, that came to us through
our brother's ministry, then we'll be in the
place in which to have at least some
sort of possibility of looking forward to the
future.
Perhaps you'll turn with me to the third
chapter of Philippians.
It's the passage which brings before us the
sort of one thinginess of Christianity.
There's nothing more, in a sense, that can
be added than what Paul says here is
one thing, not even so much one thing
I do.
The I do is an italics.
But the one thinginess that belongs to Christianity
as a whole, and which in a sense
we can't go beyond, but if we have
our feet firmly secured in it through past
ministries and through future ministries, we'll be in
the place to know where it is that
God is taking us to, in which direction
he is leading his people.
This one thing, forgetting the things that are
behind, and looking forward to the things that
are before, I press on, says the apostle,
I press on.
We start to read at verse 10, that
I may know him, the power of his
resurrection, and fellowship of his sufferings, being made
conformable unto his death, if by any means,
by execution here in prison, by release and
further preaching, by dying later on, many years
hence, if in any way I might attain
unto the resurrection from the dead, not as
though I'd already attained, either were already perfect,
but I press on, if that I may
get hold of that because of which I
have been got hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I myself reckon not to have laid
hold, but one thing, the things behind forgetting,
and the things before forthreaching, towards the goal,
I press for the prize of the supernal
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect,
be thus minded, and if any other thing
you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even
this unto you, only where unto we've already
attained, let's walk by the same means.
I think it must have been about 13
years ago, I first called on Brother Sparks
in his home, and there we had an
afternoon together.
I shared with him my a few years
of Christian experience, and how God had been
leading me, and then he shared with me
his many years of experience of walking with
Christ, so we took all afternoon.
His story is about 10 times longer than
mine at the time, I've been catching up
a little bit, the years have gone on,
instead of just being a tenth, and it
becomes after a few years a quarter, and
then it comes on after a while to
nearly a half.
But that was an afternoon of fellowship.
When we came to the end of the
period, I was due to go off to
take a meeting.
It was not a very consequential meeting, I
would have thought, handful of youngsters getting around
the word of God, and one was seeking
to share something of Christ with them.
He knew I was going to take this
meeting, so when it came to praying together,
he began to pray concerning this particular ministry,
this service that I had before me.
I was very surprised.
I was surprised because he prayed for the
meeting as though it was going to be
about the last meeting on earth, and every
other thing else seemed to hang upon it,
and that how important it was that we
were in the place where he recognized that
everything was absolutely hanging on this one vital
meeting, and it didn't even seem very vital
to me at the time at all.
But I was beginning to get the spirit
of the thing.
It wasn't so much, I would say, that
was contributed to me in those moments of
sharing fellowship with our brother Spart, of his
teaching, the things that he had to say,
but it was his spirit that was doing
the very thing that this passage we've been
reading about was doing in those moments and
sharing it with me, so it never left
me.
He was showing me the importance of the
moments in time, of the things that we
were doing, that they were pressurizing moments, pressing
on moments, moments of getting hold of eternity
while we're in time, because it was only
as each individual moment of time was something
to do with stretching forward to eternity, reaching
up to the high calling, laying hold of
the supernal calling which is in Christ Jesus,
that the moments of time became something of
any consequence.
And yet moments of time are consequence, they're
all that we've got, but it's whether we're
laying hold of them in terms of eternity,
whether the high calling is touching the temporal
thing, whether what we are doing is involved
with our pressing on to the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus.
That was the atmosphere that was left with
my spirit, and at times has been recaptured
and relived, but has not always been, as
I suppose most of us must testify, the
overall approach to every minute of our lives,
that obviously it was for the apostle some
degree translated to us by a brother, and
which is the ideal for every Christian.
We're pressing on, and that pressing onness means
that every single moment we're pressing on, and
that pressing onness means that every single moment
now is what we must get related to
eternity, related to God's high calling in Christ
Jesus.
Ah, but a man's reach must exceed his
grasp, or what is heaven for, says the
poet.
And that is the Christian viewpoint.
What is heaven for but to grasp, to
reach forward, to seek to lay hold of
it.
The apostle saw life just like that.
He didn't see the Christian life as something
that was already obtained, as something which had
reached a perfection, something which was an accomplishment,
and therefore we have arrived.
There was nothing about the apostle Paul's view
of Christianity in those sort of terms, but
rather, as Luther would put it, commenting on
these ideas of the apostle in this chapter,
the Christian life is more a thing of
taking than of having.
It's more of a becoming godly than being
godly.
It's a going-on business, which is never
culminated, certainly anyway, not in this scene of
things.
It's a continual reaching into the eternal.
It's a continual bringing heaven in touch with
time.
It's a continual relating of God's eternal purpose
to our little temporal affairs.
That's Christianity for Paul.
That's the sort of Christianity which we've been
exalted to in our brother's ministry.
This is the sort of Christianity we've got
before us in the third chapter of Philippians.
It certainly is not a self-righteous perfectionism.
Paul says, I am not already perfect, so
that's excluded.
There's nothing self-righteous in the Christian experience
of Philippians 3, because we're not yet perfect.
There is nothing about it of self-complacency,
of self-sufficiency.
We've not yet arrived, we've not yet apprehended,
so we're not to be self-complacent.
That isn't a Christian experience at all.
Just as self-righteousness isn't, and could never
be, not by Paul's definition.
It isn't a kind of lazy, imperfectionism.
Well, we're all sinners anyway, never get very
much better here on earth.
You know the sort of thing.
It isn't that either, for the Apostle Paul
tells us that he is pressing on.
Rather it's this one thinginess business, this one
thing, forgetting the things that are behind, reaching
forth those things which are before.
And here Paul is painting a picture of
the life right the way through our earthly
scene, that runs right the way through the
grave, because it's a kind of race.
It's a race.
Like a runner who has got his eye
on the mark.
That word mark of the prize of the
high calling is the tape in front of
us.
It's something we set our eye on, in
which we are gearing our whole being, and
we're steering our direction.
It's something which is calling forth our hand,
as the runner puts his hand forward, stretching
forward.
It's something which, well, our feet have got
to move if we're in a race.
We pursue a word of hunting until we've
captured.
The whole of our earthly life is a
pursuing to capture something.
It's a stretching forth because we haven't got
it yet.
It's an eye on the goal, and our
whole being is being geared into this intense
aim.
We've got to go on.
We must press on, says the Apostle, if
we've learned anything about Christian living at all.
It's a pressing on one thingness, running right
through life, running through the grave, and perhaps
then we find the goal, and perhaps only
then.
Maybe that's why Paul says, if by any
means I might attain to the resurrection out
from the dead.
He doesn't mean when he goes on to
say, I've not yet attained, that he hasn't
yet attained the resurrection, because that's self-evident.
He is still there.
The resurrection hasn't taken place yet.
He couldn't be saying that.
But the thought of the resurrection has once
again awakened in him.
The concept of knowing Christ in the fullest
possible way, which will only be ours, in
that day of the resurrection, when we have
run, and run, and run, and run right
through the grave, and out the other side,
and in that day, oh, to know him,
the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of
his sufferings, conformed unto his death, to achieve
that moment of running out of the grave,
and knowing our Lord face to face, perfectly,
as we've never been able to know him
here in this scene.
That's the aim, and the striving, and the
intensity of the Christian experience.
Some of us have run right into the
grave.
Others are still running.
There are more who have run into the
grave than are still running, praise the Lord.
And one day, all together, we will be
knowing him in the completion of this experience
which has begun.
That we may know Christ as fully as
a man may know him, when we know
him face to face, and have become like
him, because we shall see him as he
is.
The aim of the Christian intent running, is
to run through life, and out the other
end, into the arms of the Saviour, that
already we've been longing, and yearning, and aching
for the touch that's already come to our
souls, to know in an ever-deepening way.
So then, there's no time to see how
far we've got.
There's no time to assess what we've run
thus far, but forgetting that, because if you
do, well, in a race, others would overtake
you.
And it's not our concern that others overtake
us or not, but it's our concern to
run as though we were running the race,
and we want to win.
So there's no time to see how far
we've got.
That belongs to the past.
Runners don't do that sort of thing.
All they're concerned to do is to get
on to the next step, and the next
reach, and to see the tape just that
little bit more clearly, because we're that little
bit nearer, and to keep on, and to
keep on running.
We press on for the prize, we press
on to the mark of the supernal calling
of God in Christ Jesus.
What is it that Paul has got in
mind when he says, forgetting those things that
are behind?
Perhaps if you look in the context, you
would say, well, his Jewish righteousness of works,
that he'd seen himself as a Pharisee, as
one who'd kept the law blamelessly, as one
who'd done so many religious works to be
counted as high in his Pharisaic culture, one
who was born of the tribe of Benjamin,
and so forth.
But I think Paul must have realized, as
he used those words, that these are the
expressions of man's righteousness, of man's attainment, the
attainments you know you've got when you really
have arrived, and you've got it, and there
it is, it's complete, and it's perfect.
And anything in my Christian experience, Paul would
say, that I think I've got it, and
I've arrived, it's forgetting those things, forgetting those
things, I've got to press on.
Are we prepared to forget those things and
press on?
For that is the Christian life, that is
the Christian spirit, this is what our brother
touched me with as he prayed, and it's
what really he would redirect our steps to,
surely, as we come back to this, of
all prominent passages in his ministry, to press
on, and to hold nothing as our achievement,
that is the righteousness which we must be
left behind, unconcerned as to how far or
how little we've got.
None of us are perfect, none of us
have totally apprehended.
Keep running, and the pressing on, until the
eternal purpose which has touched our souls, and
we can't lose it, we can't forget it,
energizing us to get hold of that for
which I've been got hold of, I've been
pushed on to that end, I must lay
hold of it, it's to know Him.
He is the prize, just as equally as
He is the author of the race.
He who has laid hold of us is
the one that we want to lay hold
of, to know Christ, this one thing, this
one thing, forgetting everything else that will stand
in the way, one thing is to know
Him.
One thing of our desire to the Lord,
and that what I seek after, that I
may dwell in the house of the Lord,
and behold the beauty of the Lord, and
inquire in His temple all the days of
my life, this is David.
One thing is needful, Mary, and you've chosen
it, and she's had the Lord speak, to
know Him.
Young man, if you'll follow me, tell what
you have, and come follow me, one thing
is needful, follow me, I'm what is needful,
one thing I know.
Once I was blind, and I opened my
eyes one day, and I saw Him, and
I see that one thing I do, one
thing, the one thinginess of Christianity is Christ,
and that we can never get beyond.
But if we have really learnt the apostles'
lessons, which have been so often brought before
us, by a brother in whose memory we
meet this afternoon, that is that Christ is
all, and is therefore to fill all things,
and is the object and the pursuit of
our spiritual lives, I wonder if I can
just take on for one second what has
been hinted at by Brother Patterson.
If I'm taking hold of the moments of
time, and running to pursue that which is
eternal, to get them related to that which
is eternal, then I will begin to know
what it is in this end of the
church age that I must be, and be
accomplishing, and achieving in the new sort of
society which is forming rapidly around us.
The way to do it has always been
the same, and always will be.
It's Christ.
He's the end.
He's what we're aiming at.
He is the one that we pursue.
But if I'm taking hold of the subculture
strata of our Western civilisation, if I'm taking
hold of the moments of our atomic, polluting
world, if I'm taking hold of the revolution
undercurrent that's running through our economic and student
society, if I'm laying hold of the permissiveness
that's round about me in my experience, if
I'm getting hold of these moments, and running
by the eternal purpose to know Christ in
these moments, then the most wonderful thing of
all is there'll be a translation in our
experience of the eternal purpose of God down
into time.
Something will happen there in 101 different ways.
None of us can anticipate what there'll be,
for they've never been before.
This is another phase, another sort of world,
a very rapidly changing world.
The same old answer, the apostle Paul gave
it to us, our brother's ministry emphasised it,
but for the future then we must express
it by taking our moments of time, hitching
them into the eternal of knowing Christ, and
the result must be an impact in the
world, like the apostle Paul's impact of the
first century, like our brothers have been throughout
the earth, but for this generation.
He has served his generation and fallen asleep
as David, got after nothing more than any
of us, for in that way the resurrection
spirit can take place, and people can be
served throughout the earth as what has gone
into the ground comes up in new sort
of life, to meet a new sort of
world in a new sort of way.
The foundations are laid, we know where we
stand, we pursue the same Christ, we're going
to express him in 101 fresh and thrilling
and new ways in all the different avenues
that God so privileges to put us in
the coming days.