T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5
The Honour and Glory of the Lord's Name
We resume our occupation with this matter of the recovery of the honour and glory of the Lord's Name in His people. Just a few words to link up with what we were saying earlier when we were pointing out a certain correspondence between the time of Gideon and our own time. On the one hand a state of things amongst the Lord's people, which is altogether contrary to the glory and honour of His Name, that state being weakness before their enemies, so largely at the mercy of their foes; defeat and helplessness. Then poverty, no real enjoyment of the wealth of the land which still was the land of promise and , flowing with milk and honey, but not for them in their state - food very scarce and far to be sought. Confusion - a big question continually dominating their minds as to the meaning of it all and as to the way out. Disintegration and confusion: no cohesion, no oneness, no solidity and without leaders to speak with that finality of authority in the Name of the Lord which would put new hope and new confidence into them. These were the conditions of Gideon's time. And, as we have said, there is something like that today. We will not traverse that ground again to emphasise or prove it is true. But on the other hand, God moving in a way for His Name's sake, to recover its glory and its honour by changing those conditions; for the honour and glory of the Lord's Name is in a people who are strong against their enemies, strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
His glory and honour is to be found in a people who are enjoying their inheritance in Christ of wealth and riches - where there is not spiritual poverty all the time. The Lord's people have not got the resources by which they flourish in the land, His glory is found in people who are really, truly, enjoying the depth of the riches in Christ and in people who have food, who are not starved and miserable because there is no real provision for them to feed upon. A well-fed people is what the Lord wants for His glory, a people who are sure and have confidence and certainty, and not all the time dogged and dominated by questions which disturb and unsettle and rob them of their sense of security. They've got the great answer in their hearts; that is, they know where they stand and why they stand there. Theirs is an assured life and further, the Lord's Name is certainly glorified in a united people. His honour has been sorely and grievously destroyed by the breakup of the Lord's people and all their scatteredness. It seems that the great, great prayer of our Lord recorded for us in John's gospel at chapter 17 very largely centered in that one thing, that there the unity of the Lord's people should be the great contributing factor to the glory of His Name. The Lord Jesus in that prayer repeatedly referred to the Name: "Keep them in Thy Name." It was for the Name's sake. Now to have a people like that, it is not just idealism, a vain hope, but something very near to the Lord's heart, for as we said, Gideon in the very first place sets forth the fact that the Lord wants it otherwise and moves to have it otherwise and Gideon brings into view the movement of the Lord to change that state of things for His Name's sake.
So we went on to see, to look at Gideon, as the kind of instrument that the Lord will use for the recovery of the honour of His Name by bringing about these name-honouring conditions amongst His people. At that point we take things up to date. It is a matter then, of the recovery and continuance of the testimony of the Name of the Lord.
While Gideon on one side does set forth the absolute "sovereignty of God", as we were saying, on the other side he indicates the ground on which that sovereignty works. It is not a contradiction to say that while God acts in absolute sovereignty, He does look for certain things to bring that sovereignty into action. Even the sovereignty of God where God's people are concerned, demands certain conditions. And those conditions are to be found indicated, at least, in the case of Gideon, this representative instrument of God's honour.
Now I am going to take some space to say some things that I doubt if I have ever said here before, but which comes out of a very real exercise of my own heart, and which I feel to be of very great importance; and it centers in the first thing about Gideon.
Gideon was a Young Man
Gideon was a young man - in saying that and what it implies, we really do get to the point of God's reactions, God's recovery and the continuance of His testimony - the honour and glory of His Name. What is true in nature is true in the realm of things spiritual: the great factor and principle of spiritual youth. The law of nature is ever fresh reproduction; as soon as any organism in nature ceases to reproduce, death has commenced and death is the law. The law of life is reproduction, God having once created, does not create a second time. He proceeds by reproduction, not by fresh creations. Every new generation is made by God to be the past values brought into freshness. No new generation is a new creation.
Creation and generation are two different words belonging to entirely two different things. I think some young people think that they're a new beginning; they're not. They are to be the gathering up and carrying on of what has been, but to gather it up and to carry it on in freshness. They are to be the sum of what has gone before, but brought back again to its primal freshness. That which is past (if you like, "old" - I repudiate that word, but for the sake of explanation I use it) is kept fresh by new generations.
Now, this has two sides: the side of ourselves, we who are a passing generation. Some of us are a passing generation, but if you are included in that, listen: our freshness and life will be just in so far as we equip the next generation. If we hold things to ourselves - and oh, what tragedies are resultant from old Christians keeping everything to themselves, old servants of God still hanging on, keeping it in their own hands - if we keep everything to ourselves the thing will die, and die with us, and we are bringing things to death.
This, of course, is the spiritual law of the blessing of families. You see, everything has a spiritual law behind it in God's mind. The blessing of families is, on the one side, to keep the old people young! Find the old people who have no young people around them and they are old indeed, they are older than they ought to be. You might sometimes feel that you must qualify that, they have a way of wearing you out! But nevertheless, the principle holds good. It's a Divine principle. The blessing of families, on the one side, is to rob old people of their age, to stop them getting old; that's the principle, that's the law, that's the Divine thought. You see, a mark that God has not come to an end, is not finishing up, but means to go on, is that He brings young people in. My older friends, take note of that, don't you be jealous of the young people, don't feel that they are getting in your place and you are having to hand everything over to them and they are being too much made of. We will talk to them in a minute, let me talk to you first.
No, you see, we are getting old some of us, and we are seeing the day of our departure drawing near, and we can become weak, we can lose our freshness. That thing can creep on us and over us and begin to bring us into severe limitation. We need something to save us, we need to be delivered, or as I have said, we may cling and cling and in so doing bring in death. What is our salvation? What is the renewing of our youth? What is the way out of that sense of an end, pending end, and growing limitation? What is the way out? It is, it is to equip and provide for the generation that follows, to do everything in our power to see that the thing is passed on to them and that they are ready to take it up - not to suspect their youth, not to criticise them because they are young, not to do what certain ones evidently were inclined to do over Timothy; the apostle had to say "Let no man despise thy youth."
When I first started ministry I was quite a young man and I had to assume the responsibility for a church and there were some old men who were saying, "But he is so young," but I had a champion among them who said, "But he is getting over that every day!" It's a better attitude isn't it? Yes, let me repeat, a mark that God is going on and means to go on, is that He brings on young people, that He brings in young people. Thank God, thank God! We are not going to die if this gathering is true to that. But you see, it is not years after all, that govern, years are not the criteria; spirituality is the criteria and that need not be a matter of years at all. There are some people old in years who are babes spiritually. There are babes spiritually who are far ahead of many of their time - elders. It is not that, it isn't. But let us turn over to the other side.
A new generation must succeed in an inward way to that which is passing. I underline certain words: in an inward way to that which is passing. The young people, the followers on, must succeed those who have carried the testimony of the Lord before them; they must succeed, not officially, they must succeed spiritually, inwardly. Here is the rigid law of the Bible and its principle again. Oh, there is always something deeper than what is on the surface of anything that's in the Bible, that rigid law of the Bible in the penalty of dishonouring and repudiating parents. There were fewer, if any more rigid laws and penalties in the old dispensation than those connected with children dishonouring or disparaging or repudiating their parents. In those days you had only to do that as a son to your father and stoning was the penalty, your life is forfeited. I say behind that there's a Divine principle. The Divine principle is this: that a father, a mother, a parent from the Divine standpoint, is supposed to have a knowledge of the Lord which is indispensable to their children. And let the children despise or set aside the parent, and they despise the very thing that they need for their own life, and their life is forfeited if they despise it. That's strong, but it's true. You see the Lord does not just take account of any rebellion against parents or disobedience to parents as in itself, He looks at the principle behind it. For when things are on the Divine pattern and level, it is like this: that the children cannot live without the parents, they die without the parents in this sense: that they are absolutely dependent upon what the Lord has already developed and stored up for them in a previous generation. Yes, it's a very, very strong law that, in the Bible.
You see, as I said before, young people are not a new created humanity, but they are generated, a fresh expression of humanity with the good that has been before. It's significant, isn't it, in this connection that when Gideon became an old man and the men of the country came to him and said, "Be our king and rule over us" and Gideon would have nothing of it, but his seven sons were to rule over them, "Instead of the father shall be the children." It is the principle again, you see. Age giving place to youth, but mark you, in terms of sonship that means spirituality. Now, have you young people got that? If you've got that, and all of us, we're on the way to the recovery of something: the recovery of the Lord's Name.
You don't need that I stay to discuss with you how, on the one hand, that which is spiritually old and worn out and finished with, takes from the glory and honour of the Lord. Let me put that another way: the Lord's glory and honour is expressed in perennial youth. You do not need me, on the other hand, to argue that if young people just as young people repudiate the older and take hold and put themselves in and begin to govern and rule and arrange the things of God's house as though everything began with them and ended with them, how much dishonour has been brought to the Lord by that. No, these are spiritual things to be taken note of, and perhaps they will be helped out by what I have yet to say this evening.
Let us look at some of the qualities in Gideon upon which the Divine sovereignty operated, some of the qualities which marked Gideon, a young man. And here we find a tremendous amount of spiritual maturity. And what were the marks of spirituality and spiritual maturity in this young man? And the first, and it shouts at you everywhere, was his humility.
