T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

A People Expressing the Lord's Whole Desire

Reading: Psalm 132.

We will continue our contemplation of Zion. [Unfortunately we do not have the previous message]. We know now what Zion stands for. We will just proceed to interpret some more features of Zion, some of those things which bring us into a very real, living and active, and responsible relationship with Zion, with the Lord in Zion.

When we read passages such as those that we have just read and Psalm 48, in all these references both in the psalms and in the prophets to Zion, there is one thing which becomes very clear. It is a feature which embraces almost everything else, and which stands as governing the whole position. We may call it the supreme element in relationship to Zion. It is that the Lord is the ultimate feature in Zion. I use the word 'ultimate' there not as being in the sense of the end, of course, but as being behind everything else when you have worked your way back of everything which lies nearer the surface. There may be a heap of things which meet you first, but when you have got right through all this, you come to the Lord, you reach the Lord; the Lord is the feature of Zion. You must not allow the word 'Zion' to give you such mental pictures as to take away that which we are after.

We have to be helped by the Word in these things and the Old Testament does help us get to the New Testament things. When we speak of Zion, it means that people which represent His full intention and desire, and when you get behind everything else in relation to that people, whatever it is that may circle round and meet you on the outward side, you find the Lord. The Lord is the ultimate feature in relation to that people expressing Him in that fuller way. As we read all these passages, the one thing behind all else is the Lord. You may have many forces playing on Zion, many elements, many conflicting things, many things which are real and many things which are not real, but imaginary and seeming. But the one fact that stands behind is that Zion is no mere idea or hypothesis; it is bound up with God, and God is bound up with Zion. And when you have cleared up everything that can be cleared up, you come to God in relation to a people expressing His mind in fullness - you find that you are dealing with God.

As the nations looked upon Jerusalem, and many of them thought that Jerusalem stood perhaps as any other great city and could be dealt with as other cities, and Jerusalem could be taken and spoilt. While things were in a right relationship with the Lord, and it had its heart open unto the Lord, Jerusalem could not be besieged and taken as other cities, Jerusalem could not be destroyed as other cities had been destroyed. They found that they were up against another feature which was more than Jerusalem, it was the Lord. God is bound up with Zion and when everything else has been taken into account, then you have to meet the Lord in Zion.

Now, for us we should hope that we belong to Zion, believe that we do belong, although we are only fragments of Zion. This is not of man or man-made, or what man has tried to bring about, to maintain. Zion stands for God's full thought; that thought has come out from God. The very idea of Zion was a Divine idea before Zion ever was, and the very existence of Zion can only be accounted for of God. "God is in her, she shall not be moved." You see what that may mean to us. Those of us who have been shown Zion in a spiritual way, to whom God has made clear His full purpose, are much burdened about it, but there is a place to which we must come. While having a responsibility, a ministry, an interest in relationship to Zion, all a right kind of ministry, and while having a share in the Lord's concern and having a heart burden, there is nevertheless alongside of that a rest to which we should come in the certain assurance that God is bound up with that. It is God's affair initially and finally. That is a tremendous thing if we could really grasp it. The Lord does not need us to coerce Him into this thing, but what He does want is for us to stand with Him in that which He is after. The Lord is bound up with it, God is tremendously concerned about it. Everything seems to contradict the fact that God is concerned about it. There are many things which would seem to give the lie to such a statement. The evidences of the Lord in the matter are so few, the manifestations of God in the matter of the whole thing are so hard to find, and there seem to be no expressions of the fact that God is in the midst and that He is concerned. It is in this realm that we so often find our greatest difficulties. It may seem that the Lord is not working on a big scale for such a great thing. It is just there that we look for real help. Our lives have come out at such a great cost from mere generalities in Christian activity and interest, because we have seen something which seems to be God's objective. And we have come to the place where we would say that that is not getting far enough and that God wants something more than the mere general. We would really stake our lives upon it; it is not our enterprise but it is God's predominant thing. Then we come up against things which seem to say: What is the Lord doing? How is the Lord going to work to realise this? We do not seem to have the Divine proofs that would seem to justify such a costliness of position. Now this is only one other way in which we fall back upon this initial thing.