T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

The Time and the Instrument

"Then Mordecai bade them return answer unto Esther, 'Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house will perish: and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?'" (Esther 4:13-14).

The message could very well be gathered into two words in that last sentence of verse 14 - "thou", "this". "Such a time as this", "Thou art come to the kingdom". The last clause is a very significant one - "such a time as this". It represents what God does at given and particular times and what He needs and how He works. We might very well take that clause and set it down at different points in history. We could do that in both the Old Testament and the New and find how it fits in with its connected features and elements, going back many years in time and history and noting "such a time as this".

We move on - "such a time as this", and yet again - "such a time as this". And we shall eventually arrive at our own time and find that the features are very similar, the situation is very much like these others into which this fragment so aptly fits with its own particular associations. God had a peculiar method, a peculiar vessel with a peculiar object. It was apt, fitting, necessary, vital, just at this and that particular time. You could not always fit this particular word into the situation. There have been times when it would not be apt, that is, things were not in that condition which made this a fitting means and method of God. What is here, therefore, does represent something for a particular time and the thing which should strengthen us and help us is this, that such times, having recurred not infrequently through the course of the ages, God has always come into that time in exactly the same way; that is, in principle. He has come into that time in the same way, with different vessels, but always with the same object and the same governing principle: "Such a time as this".

"Thou". The 'thou' can apply to this one and that one and another one, always representing God's instrument of reaction to a situation which has constantly recurred in the history of His dealings with men. What is the nature of "such a time as this", and then what is the nature of the means sovereignly chosen and appointed by God to meet that situation?

"Such a Time as This"

I think the first thing that we can say about these times is that they have always been, and are always, times when there is a particular and peculiar uprising of the forces of evil in terms of spiritual death. That has not always been. There have been the great days of power and aggression and glory among the Lord's people, but there have constantly recurred times when the Lord's testimony seemed almost to be lost, and the forces of evil, working by spiritual death, seemed to be well-nigh triumphant.

You can see how true that was in the day of Esther. The Lord's people had spiritually fallen very low, had gone far out of the way of His thought, had become enslaved by the world powers, were in a position remote from that which was the Lord's choice for them, and in a condition very much other than He would have had - captivity and exile. And being there, the enemy determined his final stroke and having got them so far, he wanted to complete the work and wipe them out altogether. He wanted to bring them wholly and utterly and finally under his weapon of death. It was a day when the hatred for what is of God, the hatred for that seed of God in the earth, the hatred for what that meant, implied, and represented as being here in the kingdom of this world, when that hatred was making itself known and felt, manifest in a very intense and a very utter form. The issue here is undoubtedly one of finality. You are going to die or you are going to live, and whichever you do, you are going to do it thoroughly this time. It is forced up to that.

And I have no doubt that some of you are feeling that that is very apt, at any rate, that we are individually sometimes brought pretty near to that position; it is one thing or the other now, no shadows about it, it is black or white, it is life or death this time. We are facing the final, the ultimate, and not one of us is prepared to accept anything less than something utter in this situation. The situation is such that it is now one thing or the other. We are not prepared to just go on in a state of far greater defeat and bondage. We know that we cannot accept anything less than victory, than liberty, than life. We are right up against a situation so that we must have a knowledge of the mighty deliverance of the Lord and we can accept nothing less or else we are finished. Is that not how you feel about it? One of the results of the Lord's sovereign dealings with His people is really to bring them there. In a certain sense, it is not a bad position in which to be, (yet very bad for those who are experiencing it), but from the Lord's standpoint, He is striking for a position in which there are no half measures where it is one thing or the other, where there is no mixture, no compromise, and no uncertainty. The issue is perfectly clear. He forces up to that position, He allows things to precipitate that crisis: "such a time as this".

That is how it was in Esther's day, that is how it was in all the other similar days in Scriptural history and since, and if I am not mistaken, that is how it is today. I think that more and more of the Lord's people are steadily progressing towards situations like that where they are no longer able to accept a position which is only in some measure satisfactory, in some measure victory, in some measure knowing the Lord, but where they have got to know as they have never known. What has been will not, cannot, support them for the future; there has got to be something more. I think there is a steady movement in that direction. It may be comparatively small, but we are coming to a day like that. There has got to be a new knowing of the Lord because it is a question now of no less significance than life and death.

Well, such a situation has arisen from time to time, and the Lord has, at all such times, moved in His own way, by His own means, to meet that situation. But let us be quite clear about this: it is a time, not when new conditions are created or brought about, but when what has been there all the time becomes more manifest and more felt. That is, the abiding, the age-long hatred of Satan for that which is begotten of God, because of the significance of what is begotten of God. It is of immense significance, more to Satan than perhaps to any other, that there is something begotten of God. We might dwell much upon that, and I would beg of you to think much about it - begotten of God, a Divine seed in this universe. That is of immense, immeasurable consequence and of ultimate consequence to Satan and his kingdom. His final doom and utter overthrow is bound up with that Divine seed as surely as Haman's was in the case of the Jews. From time to time that seed becomes aware of that hatred. That hatred will fill the very atmosphere; the spirit of death will be breathed everywhere and you will be environed by this sense of an evil, inimical antagonism of a spiritual kind which has precipitated this situation. You have got to know the power of life triumphing over death in some way which you have never known before. God, the God of Life, has to come in as you have never known Him coming in, because of this outbreak of the forces of evil and death, this manifestation of naked malice and hatred from hell against that Divine seed. That is the nature of this little phrase, "such a time as this".

Maybe some of you are having a thoroughly good time, all is going well. If so, then my word is not for you - carry on with your good time; I would not have you come under any cloud. But maybe some of you know (in your experience) what I am talking about. You know that this is such a time when the force of hatred from the enemy is being sensed very intensely, very acutely. The power of death to quench and finally quench, seems to have come out with determination, and sometimes there is a very narrow, very thin point between the going under and a deliverance from the Lord. Those two things are not very far apart, you seem to be getting very near to the edge, "such a time as this". Well, let us recognise these things and perhaps they will help us, that there is, as there has always been from the beginning, this deep and awful malice and hatred against that which is begotten of God and against anything that can produce that begetting of God.

We are begotten by the Word of God, and that hatred is against the Word of God. That the very Word of God should be given is a matter of conflict, something withstood and challenged. It is a begetting thing. Whatever has in it the possibility of bringing into being something begotten of God, whatever there is that has already been begotten of God, is the object, the focal point of this continuous and awful hatred of the enemy. And the more potent or the more calculated to effect spiritual life, the more that hatred will be sensed and known. If we are really going to count at all in this matter of the survival of what is of God here, we are going to be the objects of that hatred all the more. I mean that if you are content with an easygoing, superficial kind of Christian life, you will not be bothered very much by this wrath of the enemy, this fury of the oppressor, this hatred of the dragon. If you are going on, if you have set God's ultimate as your goal, then you are going to know "such a time as this", the uprising of the forces of death and evil to finally quench, if possible, to put right out and bring to an end, if that can be. That is the first thing about "such a time as this".

The Nature of God's Instrument to Meet the Situation

That in itself sets forth immediately the method and means of God's reaction. Esther is such a clear and simple illustration of God's method. There are two things about Esther which gather up everything else in this movement of God at such a time. One is: chosen of God in relation to the throne; and the other: the spiritual power of that relationship is throne life.