The Israel of God - Part 2 — T. Austin-Sparks

In the further opening up of that which the Lord has brought for our consideration in this conference, we bring forward some of the passages of Scripture which have been guiding our thoughts. Again, the words from Isaiah's prophecies, chapter 53, verses 10 and 11.

The Spiritual Seed and the Sons of Abraham

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall see of the travail of his soul, shall be satisfied. His seed, the travail of his soul. And then this other passage in the letter to the Romans, chapter 9, verses 6 and 7.

For they are not all Israel that are of Israel, neither because they are Abraham's seed are they all children. That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.

Letter to the Galatians, chapter 3 and verse 7. Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. The travail of his soul, I can say, being led at this time of fresh apprehension of that upon which the heart of the Lord is set.

A divine and spiritual seed born out of his travail. In these few minutes this morning, I want to dwell upon another of this whole matter, which is in these last words that we have read. Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.

Faith as the Foundation of the Christian Life

There is one supreme characteristic of this divine seed, and that is faith. We like it or not. Christianity rests upon one word. The beginning of the Christian life rests upon that. The continuation of the Christian life rests upon that.

The confirmation of the Christian life, the completion, rests upon that one thing, faith. It relates to salvation initially. It relates to and governs the whole course of progress spiritually. It relates to service.

It relates to prayer. It relates to the perfecting of the believer. It relates to final victory. There is no faith, no aspect, no stage of the Christian life with which this issue is not bound up. It is from beginning to end, at all times, in all things, just a matter of faith.

It is a matter of faith. It is just there that we find the weakest point in human nature. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Sooner or later we discover that that's our weakest point. There was a time when I used to look at certain people who seemed to have natural faith, with whom it seemed to be not a difficult thing at all to believe in God.

It seemed quite natural to them to believe in God and to have no difficulty about it. Here was I, born with an unbelieving heart, an infidel mind. They seemed to have none of those difficulties. And I have lived a few years, and I have watched those same people, and I have seen them come to the place or time when the most difficult thing in all the world for them was to believe God.

Sooner or later we discover that this is our weakest point. But on the other hand, this is the strongest point in the divine nature. This matter of faith, then, is basic to our union. If this is the strongest point in the divine nature, and it's the weakest point in our nature, those two things cannot exist and obtain in a true union.

They are contradictions. They are quite against one another. And the issue is, it's either God or ourselves. And union with God always rests upon this matter of faith. The same is true of communion. The continuation of union and living in the good of it, the expression of it.

Faith and God's Pleasure in His People

Communion. It's all a matter of faith. It's a matter of God's pleasure in us. And that's an important matter. Without faith, it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him. A matter of God's pleasure in us.

You know, dear friends, that goes very deeply. It is possible, thank God, for him in grace, in mercy, to bless us and to use us as instruments. But at the same time, not to take very much pleasure in us.

Just to be used of the Lord. And yet know, and yet know, the Lord is not taking pleasure in using you. Doing it in grace and mercy. You may not be able to understand that, but it's true. Somewhere, even in the servant, there's a reservation about the Lord, which holds up the Lord's good pleasure in his servant.

It's something more than having blessings from the Lord. It's something more than even being used by the Lord. The Lord having delight in us. And mark you, the point at which the delight actor comes in, is just a matter of faith.

It does not say, without faith it is impossible to get any blessings from the Lord. It is impossible to do any work for the Lord. But it does say, without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing. And then, quite a lot of other things depend upon and rest upon this foundation thing of faith.

The Christian Virtues Resting on Faith

I only mention them and leave you to think it out. You know, after all, love rests upon faith. Think about this. It depends upon faith, doesn't it? Joy rests upon faith. Think about this. You know as well as I do how miserable you are if you've lost your faith, or if you've got any doubts and questions.

Only when your faith is clear and bright that you're really happy. Dear joy, joy hangs upon faith. And does not peace hang upon it? Would you like to change the word for rest? That's the biblical way of putting it.

Rest. Peace. Within is just rest upon faith. There is no rest or peace unless there is faith. Rest and peace are proportionate to the faith. Then again, meekness, meekness. What is the opposite of meekness?

Meekness is trying to force things. Assert. Going out from yourself. Trying to hold your own ground. Vindicate yourself. Faith undercuts all that, doesn't it? It undercuts all that. You need not worry at all about anything.

You can be perfectly restful about issues if you have faith, patience. Well, so obvious, isn't it? Patience rests upon faith. Those two things are put together in the word of God. And so are all the other things.

Hope and long-suffering and kindness. All the divine virtues rest upon the foundation of faith. And if faith is not there, these other things are either wanting or they're weak. It's a tremendous matter, this matter of faith.

The Tragedies Caused by Unbelief

You look in the Bible, you see all the tragedies and the calamities there were resultant from a lack of faith. The first great tragedy and calamity of God is called the Fall simply because of faith. Faith was not there.

Israel's tragedy in the wilderness, same reason. Israel's going into the exile and captivity, same reason. And perhaps worst of all, Israel's present dismissal and setting aside. There are personal instances such as Ishmael, a perpetual open sore in the history of God's interest.

Many more, but I mention it again, pass on the tragedies and calamities. Whether they have been the personal, national, collective, they all be traced to this one cause, breakdown somewhere in this matter of faith.

Faith Focuses on the Character of God

Now let me say a platitude, faith is always faith. Faith is always faith. It will always be objective. It will always focus upon the very character of God. That's the focal point of faith, the very character of God.

And remember, remember that any weakness or absence of faith, and I'm speaking of course about spiritual faith, is an impugning of the character of God. That's where we begin our Bible. As God said, as God said, an impugning of the character of God, a calling into question of the character of God, a throwing doubt upon the character of God, and that was the initial and inclusive breakdown.

And it's always been that, you see, because the focal point of faith is nothing less than other than the very character of God. Whether we believe that God is what he says he is, the ultimate matter in relation to faith, but it's always faith.

We are always wanting faith to be something other than faith, trying to turn it into something else, either sight or experience or what we get, what God does for us, but God always keeps this thing in the realm where it is.

After all, it's faith. Faith never moves it out of that realm at all. Never moves it out of that realm. Now look at the tremendous implications of this one fragment of Paul's statements on this matter in Galatians 3, 7.

They that be of faith are Abraham's. He has said, not all they that be of Abraham are children, but are a seed. To thy seed, to thy seed. He said not to seeds as to many, but to thy seed, which is Christ.

Christ as the True Seed of Abraham

This is the true seed of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And for a moment or two, let us look at these implications of Abraham's seed, whom the covenant was made, not after the flesh, that is laid down.

It's a spiritual thing. And turns out, as we see in the scriptures, turns out to be that which is born out of the travail of Christ, the fruit of his crop, the reproduction and multiplication of himself as the corn of wheat, having fallen into the ground, died.

This is the seed. All the covenant promises made to Abraham are fulfilled and realized in Christ and his seed. We inherit all that. Of course, you're familiar with that as fruit. But all that comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ.

Because we are the seed mentioned to Abraham. Look at Abraham, therefore. God's great example of faith. Far too big a thing for these moments. But we can just glance at it again and see God carried through the whole system and purpose from eternity to eternity in creation, in redemption, and in established fulfillment.

Abraham's Faith in the Promise of the Land

He carried that all through the soul of one man. Yes, Abraham rightly has a large place. It is as though God forced through the very soul of that man the whole of his divine purpose and redemption. It is all on the principle of faith by a long succession of demands for faith, here written for our instruction, the promise of a land at the outskirts, thy kindred, thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.

And then he promised him that land. He promised him that land. I will give thee his promise and his covenant. Abraham did it. Left his country and subsequently his father's house and came into the land.

All his life went up and down in it, dwelling in tents and never got a foothold. Never got a foothold really according to the covenant and promise. We can read the story in a few minutes, but it took a few years and many years.

Many years. What are you going to do about that? Plenty of scope through the years and all the demands of patience and what not. Difficulties, trials, the adversities of many years. But plenty of scope for saying, I've made a mistake, a fundamental mistake.

I got an idea. Evidently I was wrong. Something happened and I got out on the wrong line altogether. Nothing that I was told is being supported. Plenty of room for all that sort of thing and we can enlarge upon it and I don't think we could exaggerate what Abraham had to encounter in his own home on that one question of the land.

Abraham's Long Wait for the Promised Seed

But that's not enough. He was promised a seed. Thy seed. To all families of the earth is blessed. Thy seed, thy seed. Again and again that word is on the mouth of God in covenant to Abraham. Seed. And not a child.

And not a child. Not one. And naturally little or no prospect of anything like this. His own situation utterly contradicted God's promise concerning this seed. Plenty of room there isn't there to have a controversy with the Lord and to get all sorts of tangles in your own soul.

What a mess you could get into with a situation like this. Well, it was not for a day or a week or a month or a year that Abraham had to cope with a problem like this. And then, and then, God came and repeated this, reiterated this and focused down this matter upon child Isaac.

This child, in all natural hope, had receded and went away and left him with a promise for a few more things said to him. And nothing to support or bear it out in actuality. Went away and left him. And if the hope had receded far back to the horizon before the promise was actually crystallized, surely it's gone beyond the horizon now.

He looked at his own body as good as death, as fall and terror. Hopeless! He's gone and said it would be and is leaving him with that situation. And then the child is given. Yes, the son is born. The great test of faith that came in for that period between the promise and the realization.

Even, even Abraham broke down. We know about Ishmael. We leave that. Nevertheless, child is born. Child is there. There's the infant. And with what wonder they must have looked at that child. There's the little child growing up in their home.

And how they must have cherished that child in the night of all that God had bound up with his life. And he has grown to you, no doubt, an object of great love, care, devotion, watchfulness and expectation on things that no fell.

The Sacrifice of Isaac and Faith's Greatest Test

Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest. God seems to be rubbing salt in that. Thine only son. You haven't got any others. Whom thou lovest. And offer him. We need not press this. Abraham went on.

Came to his very old age and died. Not having received. These all died in. The writer, not having received the promise. No, he hadn't got the land. He hadn't got the seed. In any commensurate way. But he died in faith.

That's the point. Faith survives. Now friends, we've got to break off there. They that be of faith are Abraham's seed. This seed, this seed, these children, this people, this true Israel of God is on that basis, that principle and after that kind.

Faith in God's Delays and Contradictions

Let us make no mistake about it. I started by saying whether we like it or not. And we don't like it. At any rate, I don't. No, we don't like it. It's the most difficult thing. But there it is. Take it or leave it.

It's a matter of believing God. And believing God not because of what he can do or will do, but because of what he is. And it goes a long way and very deep down that finds us on everything. Finds us on everything.

God's postponements. God's delays. God's seeming contradictions and paradoxes. Thousand and one things. The end is after all. Well, what are you going to do about it? Is God? Is God? And is God what he says he is?

Or not? Does your interpretation, your argument, your position, your mind about things, does it really set aside God? Does it? God knows what he's doing. Now, if I had time, I should carry that into the realm of spiritual life.

Faith and the Believer's Spiritual Transformation

Spiritual life. You know, in our spiritual lives, in our spiritual growth, in the perfecting of us, in the likeness of Christ, there are lots of things that we think the Lord ought to have removed long ago and he hasn't removed.

Even matters of our character. If we could, we would make God make us absolutely sinless this very moment. But he doesn't. And he does not. He's dealing with us on the matter of faith, even over our spiritual transformation.

And how many other things would we have God do for his own glory and he doesn't do them? For the facilitation of his own interest. Work. What not? And he doesn't do them. Well, either God is or he is not.

Either he is faithful or he is not. He is either consistent or he is not. You see, after all, dear friends, we're brought back to this. We're just brought back to this. The question of faith. They that be of faith are Abraham's seed.

What is Abraham's seed? Christ and those born out of his flesh. And what travail there is related to the fruit of faith. There is no real fruit that is not the fruit of travail. Travail is always a matter of faith.