March
20
Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the
Spirit and understand what He is saying (Revelation 3:22 NLT).
A striking feature of
our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a
painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times.... Why is it so? May
it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part
of a system? A system which puts preachers so much upon a professional basis,
the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of
providing for the established religious order and program? Not only in the
matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of
"Christianity" as we have it in the systematized form today. There is
not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when "the burden of the
word of the Lord" is upon the prophet, or when he could say, "The
hand of the Lord was upon me." The present order requires a man to speak
every so often; hence he must get something, and this
necessity means either that God must be offered our program and asked to meet
it (which He will not do) or the preacher must make something
for the constantly recurring occasion. This is a pernicious system and it opens
the door to any number of dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man
and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it
results in voices, voices, voices, a confusion of voices, but
not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time....
Here we have the necessity
for an awakening to what God has to say. In the Revelation this is "He
that hath an ear, let him hear," and in the case of Laodicea – which
represents the end – it is "I counsel thee to buy of Me eye salve that
thou mayest see." "And I turned to see the voice that spoke with
me," said John. God is speaking, He has something to say, but there must
be "a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of
your heart being enlightened."
By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Candlestick All of
Gold
This photograph is by Kristofer Rowe.
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