T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 3

The Initial New Thing

"They therefore, when they were come together, asked Him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And He said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath appointed within His own authority. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had said these things, as they were looking, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight" Acts 1:6-9.

In this message we are aiming at simplicity in the presentation and to be pre-eminently practical. There will be nothing which in itself will be new, and nothing that will be very profound, but I trust that its impact and challenge will be new and that it will come to us in very truth as the Word of the Lord for this time.

The Need of a New Thing

There is a growing sense and conviction that a new thing on the Lord's part is a pressing necessity. There is a feeling that we have gone so far and have come to a place where it is at least difficult to go further without some fresh movement from the Lord's side. I think most of the Lord's true people are sensing something like that, and it is put into this phrase - 'a new thing'. But we must be careful as to what we mean when we use a phrase like that.

What do we mean by a new thing on the Lord's part? We must be careful because we must realise that the Lord has not been experimenting and as the result of His experiments, finding things to fail and discarding them and then trying something else. That is not the case. The Lord has never experimented. Experimentation on His part would imply at once a limitation of knowledge, that He did not know how things would work out, and that He was just trying it out to see. When the Lord started, He started with what was absolutely successful. There is no question there. The Lord's first way and first means were absolutely successful. It is Christianity that has deviated from the effective, successful way of the Lord, so that what will be a "new thing" with the Lord's people will just be a return to the original. Perhaps it sounds like a charge, almost an accusation, to say that to return to the original would be quite a new thing. Nevertheless, to a very large extent that is true, and the necessity for that return proves the validity of the original. You will have to come back to it because it is the only way.

So then, the beginning of God's work in this dispensation and the nature of that work throughout this dispensation is summed up and found in germ and essence in these three verses which we have read in Acts 1:6-9. But of course what is needed is an adequate recognition and apprehension of what is included in this statement and of how it is to be fulfilled. There has been an all-too-superficial grasping of this statement. It has been taken up with and run off with: "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." It is only a part of the statement and I repeat that it is very necessary to have an adequate recognition and apprehension of what is in the whole statement before the thing can be effective. Very largely, Christianity has been based upon this eighth verse; at any rate, upon a part of it. The whole idea of the worldwide mission of Christianity takes its rise from this word here, superficially grasped it is true, but nevertheless from this - "My witnesses... unto the uttermost part of the earth." But who will say that Christianity has been anything like as effective as at the beginning? It has not maintained or preserved its original character and force, and that for this reason: that it has been so superficially grasped.

The Negative Side

Well now, let us approach the whole statement. First of all, there is a negative and a positive side to it. "They therefore, when they were come together, asked Him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And He said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath appointed by His own authority." That is the negative side. "It is not..." is the negative aspect of the statement, and it is of as vital consequence as the positive, as the other side.

The 'not' relates to their question and dismisses a whole misconception concerning this dispensation. This is not the kingdom age in the sense in which they asked their question. The fundamental mistake throughout has been the constant endeavour to give to this present age and dispensation an imprint which God never meant it to bear. As you look at Christianity today - the word 'Christendom' might be better - you see it is stamped throughout by this misconception and the endeavour to carry the misconception into operation. God never did intend that in this dispensation His Kingdom, the kingdom of God, should be a temporal system on this earth with the church in the position of power here to rule in social, political or material things. That is the kingdom of God for the next dispensation, not this. You can see gathered up into that numerous things.

The temptation is always there, the tendency is always there. It finds its way in where people do not intend it to come in, but it is a part of this whole make-up of the self-life of even Christians to see something here on this earth as a monument and as a demonstration, a proof and evidence, an order of things which is the kingdom of God. It is found right at the very heart of evangelical enterprise; it is a spirit which works through all Christian activity. It is the constant peril of everything that is truly spiritual to be resolved into something here with a name, a title, a reputation, a recognition, an acceptance and a proof in the realm of the senses. It becomes something here of this world and in this world.

I say it is the peril within the innermost circle of what is spiritual and it works out to that outer, wider circle of the Christianisation of the world and of society and of politics, and the reconstruction of a new world upon Christian principles; and it is all nonsense. God never intended that to be in this dispensation. That, I say, belongs to the next age, not to this. "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" That is dismissed as being a misconception of God's thought for this particular dispensation, and that misconception in its application and in its spirit, in its constant tendency, without intention has done more to delay the Lord's return than anything else. The fruit of that misconception in Christianity is the greatest menace to the Lord's purpose in this age that this world has seen.

If you ask concerning things here or abroad, "What is the great obstruction to the real spiritual purpose of God?" it will be told you without hesitation - the organised church, Christianity in its earthly form, its system. It is delaying the Lord's return, it has held up His coming. The Lord here is not giving any dates at all. He is carrying it out into the realm of things spiritual and the Lord does not say anything about whether it is now or then, but what He says, in effect, is this: The matter of the times and the seasons appointed by God in His authority is a matter of the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter of dates and times at all; it is a matter of how far the Holy Spirit can do His work. When the kingdom comes back to Israel, it will be on the consummation of the work of the Spirit, not necessarily any period of time, but primarily a matter of the Holy Spirit's free course to accomplish the Divine purpose.