BETHANY - THE LORD'S THOUGHT FOR HIS ASSEMBLY
by T. Austin-Sparks
The upper room of the first chapter of the Acts corresponds with Bethany, the
"house of figs", and Bethany with the upper room. We are going to take up
that thought and, as the Lord helps us, follow it out to greater fullness.
What is before us is the Lord's desire to have at the end what He had at the
beginning - to have in His people, spiritually, that which He Himself
constituted by His own presence at the beginning: and if I were asked to put
into a word what I feel the object of the Lord to be, I should say, speaking
symbolically, that it is 'Bethanies'. For Bethany, to my mind, most fully
corresponds to the Lord's thought: He would have things on the basis of
Bethany, constituted according to Bethany, and have His universal Church
represented locally by 'Bethanies'. Now I am going to ask you to look at
seven passages where Bethany is mentioned.
THE LORD RECOGNISED AND RECEIVED
Luke 10:38. "Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a
certain village (do not forget that villages represent local assemblies): and
a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. (You know whose the
house was now, who was the head of that house.) And she had a sister called
Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was
cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said..."
Now here, in this first mention of Bethany, we have one or two things which
in principle represent that Church, and that assembly, and that house, which
the Lord has His heart set upon, and I fasten at once upon one word: "And a
certain woman named Martha received him into her house." The word "received"
is the key-word to this whole thing, and it represents immediately a great
difference. It is a discriminating word, a differentiating word.
One remembers that it was said concerning His coming from glory to this
earth: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John 1:11). We
shall remember that He said of Himself: "The foxes have holes, and the birds
of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head"
(Luke 9:58). And if it really did break upon us with anything like its real
meaning, when we reflect as to who it is of whom the first is said, and who
is saying the second, it would leave us astonished. Here is the Creator of
all, the Proprietor of all, the Lord of heaven and of earth; the Lord who has
greater right to everything and anything than any other being in the
universe; the Lord, for whom and through whom all things were made - and He
came and had not where to lay His head in the world of His creation, in the
realm of all His sovereign rights. He was not received, but, as truly
expressing the attitude even of His own kinsfolk to Him, He represented them
as saying: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his
inheritance. And they took him, and cast him forth..." (Matthew 21:38,39).
But here we read: "And a certain woman named Martha received him..." "My
church" - "My church" - His assembly, His spiritual house, is the place where
He is gladly received and finds His rest. It is His place, His place in a
world which rejects Him; it is the place where He is recognised. Do you
notice that when assemblies are being scattered over the face of the earth it
is always that which is the beginning of an assembly? They "receive" the
word. Pentecost was that: "Then they that received his word..." (Acts 2:41).
At Philippi, "a certain woman named Lydia... whose heart the Lord opened, to
give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul. And when she was
baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to
be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there" (Acts
16:14,15). That is the beginning of the assembly - it is like that everywh
ere. It is a spiritual perception issuing in an open-hearted reception. That
is the first thing which befeatures His Church: "received". It is the giving
Him a place, the place of honour.
Now that is very simple, but it represents much to the Lord, and it carries
us a long way, because it represents something more than the Lord coming just
to be a sojourner in the midst. It represents that the Lord has got a
footing, a foothold, a place which provides Him with that which is necessary
to Him to secure all His rights universally. Let me illustrate.
You remember the tragic story in II Samuel 15, of the rejection of David in
the usurping of Absalom. It is a pathetic story - David driven away from his
place; leaving, passing out of, the realm of his rights. One and another
accompany him, and Zadok the priest brings the ark of God with him, but David
turns to Zadok and says: "Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall
find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both
it, and his habitation" (vs.25). The inference is: 'When I come back, I shall
have in the city, in the place of my rejection, that which is sympathetic
with me, to which I can come back. I shall not come back a stranger; I shall
not come back to nothing; I shall not come back to find no place; I shall not
come back and find there is no home for me: I shall come back to something
that is one with me. Zadok, you are one with me; yes, you wanted to come out
with me - this is a perfect sympathy. Now go back into the city, and when I
come back I shall come back to something that is with me'
And that is the principle here. The assembly here provides the Lord with that
in which He is now, by His Spirit. It declares that He has a foothold in a
rejecting world, and He is coming back to that. He will have something to
come back to which is on His side and which, being on His side, will provide
Him with the ground for re-establishing His universal rights, just as Zadok
did for David.
And that is why the Lord would have His Church here in assemblies, local
assemblies, over the face of the earth. They are testimonies to His rights,
in a world where those rights are disputed and disowned; and they stand there
to say: 'Yes, His rights are the supreme rights in this world, not the rights
of the usurper', and they maintain that testimony. When He comes back, they
are to be the means, the instrument, of His recovery of those rights which
have been disputed and from which He has been driven out. There is a good
deal bound up with receiving the Lord. He is coming back to His own because
He is already there in possession.
You understand why the Devil is always out to destroy, if possible, the local
expression of the Church; to destroy the little companies of the Lord's
people who are living in heavenly union and fellowship with Him. It is
because they represent His rights - the Lord's rights - and they are there
all the time disputing by their very presence the rights of the usurper. The
ark of the testimony is there; and while that is there, on the side of the
Lord, the usurper has not universal sway. He knows that it represents that
his kingdom is defeated, is menaced, and it is a constant thorn in his side.
And so, if possible, he will quench it, break it, divide it, do anything to
get rid of that local expression which is according to Christ and in which He
is. That is what the Church ought to be as locally represented; that is what
every believer ought to be here on earth: a foothold to the Lord in this
earth, a testimony to His sovereign lordship and right. To receive the Lord
provides Him with such a foothold and such a testimony.
And so we see that the very first step as related to Bethany is of the
greatest significance. It represents a principle of tremendous importance.
The Church is constituted, to begin with, upon the simple principle that
Christ has found a place: amidst all the range of rejection He has found a
place.
HIS HEART'S SATISFACTION
Now we continue with the passage: "... received him into her house. And she
had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word."
Literally the words are: "who also took her seat at the feet of Jesus and
went on listening to His word." "Took her seat at His feet and went on
listening." It was that which irritated Martha: she went on listening. What
Martha really said to the Lord was in the same tense, the imperfect. When she
came to the Lord she said: "Dost thou not care that my sister doth KEEP ON
LEAVING me to serve alone?" "Keep on leaving me" - because she "kept on
listening"!
What is this? Well, it is that which provides the Lord with what He most
desires. It is the heart satisfaction of the Lord that is represented by
this. The heart satisfaction of the Lord was found in what Mary did. It is
here that we understand the meaning of Bethany. You go over to Matthew 21,
and you will find the story of the fig tree. Jesus is moving between
Jerusalem and Bethany; He has been into Jerusalem and has seen things in the
temple, and His heart has been pained, shot through with the agony of
disappointment. He has looked round upon all things, and has said nothing,
and has gone back to Bethany. In the morning, as He is in the way, being
hungry and seeing a fig tree, He comes up to it, to see whether perhaps it is
bearing fruit. But He finds none, and says, "Let no fruit grow on thee
henceforward for ever"; and as they return, the disciples mark that the fig
tree is withered and dead; they point out the fact.
Now that fig tree, as we know, was bound up with Jerusalem, and was a type of
Judaism as it then was. The heart disappointment which the Lord had met in
the temple was one with His heart disappointment in coming hungry to the fig
tree and finding no fruit; the two things are one. That order of things,
then, passes out of His realm of interest; Judaism goes out for the rest of
the age - "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever" (Gr. "unto the
age"). It cannot satisfy Him, and it goes; it is a withered tree providing
the Lord with nothing.
But when that heart disappointment is felt so acutely, and registered in that
way by Him, He goes to Bethany, and Bethany means "the house of figs". Not in
the temple, and not in Jerusalem, does the Lord find His satisfaction, but in
Bethany. That is why He was always going there. Heart satisfaction for Him
now was not in the cold, lifeless, formal religious system of the day, but in
the living, throbbing, warm atmosphere of the Bethany home. He always knew
that, while His words were rejected in Jerusalem, they would be accepted
there, and listened to eagerly, and there would always be someone who would
'keep on' listening.
I am impressed with Acts 2; it says that after Pentecost those who believed
"continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching" (vs.42). You see, there the
Church came in, and that is its feature: "they continued stedfastly in the
apostles' teaching." We are so used to those words that they do not seem to
convey very much to us. Will you bear with a simple practical way of seeking
to apply it?
In these pages certain things are being said. Now you will read them, and you
will go your way, and perhaps you will remember them for a certain length of
time; perhaps for a long time you will remember Bethany. Mention of Bethany
will bring back something - certain things that you have read. You may speak
of this message as a more or less good one, an interesting message, or
something like that. What a difference between that and your going away and
'continuing stedfastly in the teaching'! You must yourself interpret this,
and say to yourself: 'Now what does it mean for me to continue stedfastly in
that?'
The word really is 'persisting'. "They persisted in the apostles' teaching".
There is all the difference between persisting in the teaching, and going
away and saying: 'Well, that was a very nice message'. 'Persisting'
represents the practical, positive application of the heart to the truth, and
that constitutes His Church; it is where that which comes from Him is
received and the whole heart, the whole life, is given to it. There is
abandonment to it.
And that was probably what Martha did not like. Mary was abandoned to it, she
was given to it; and that is what the Lord is seeking. I wonder what would be
the result if we took that attitude toward every word of Divine truth that
came to us. When I think of the mountains of truth that have been built up, I
cannot help asking the question: 'What is the percentage of real application
to that truth on the part of those who hear it?' It was because those at the
beginning took such a practical attitude toward the things which they heard,
and persisted in them, that you had the effectiveness there. They did not go
away and say: 'What a wonderful sermon Peter preached today!' No, they
persisted in the apostles' teaching.
That is what the Lord wants. That is what satisfies His heart. Mary took her
seat at His feet and went on listening to His word, and that satisfied His
heart when all else disappointed Him. Heart satisfaction must be a feature of
the life of the Lord's people; and heart satisfaction to Him is just this,
that we hang upon His word, we appraise it rightly, we regard it as the
supreme thing. The assembly must be the "house of figs" for the Lord.
ADJUSTED SERVICE
Next let us look at Martha. "But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and
came to him, and said..." The Greek is very strong: it means that she walked
up to Him and involved Him in this. It implies that she regarded Him as
responsible, and if she had said all that was in her mind, she would have
said: 'You are responsible for this, You are involved in this, and it is up
to You to put it right.' That is what is implied by the original words here -
regarding Him as the one involved in it, and He could if He would, and He
ought to, put it right. It implies that she burst out. She had been bottling
this thing up, and at last, able to contain it no longer, she went up to Him
and burst out: "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve
alone? Bid her therefore that she help me."
Now I want you to get the force of the situation, and it will help you with
Martha. We must understand Martha's mood and position. "Cumbered about much
serving" hardly conveys to us what really was the situation. We get from the
translation an altogether imperfect impression, I think, of exactly how
things were. The Greek word here is a word which means "was distracted",
"pulled in different directions". Probably her anxiety showed in her face.
And what was the anxiety over? Many household cares, perhaps many dishes;
preoccupations of all kinds. And the Lord said to Martha: 'Martha, you are
bothered about all sorts of secondary considerations; you have got more than
you can handle. There is but one thing that is really necessary -'.
You are beginning to understand the situation now, are you not? It was simply
that there was necessary an adjustment of things on the part of Martha, so
that what was most important should have its place. It was not that the Lord
was out of sympathy with Martha's providing them with a meal, but He saw that
she was causing this meal business to become such an elaborate and extensive
thing as to be altogether out of proportion, and to put the more essential
things into a place much less than the non-essential.
Yes, a meal may be right, but oh, let us put things in their right
proportion. Let us see to it that temporal things do not overwhelm spiritual.
Do not let us become so anxious and distracted about the passing things that
the spiritual things are eclipsed. For the one thing which ought to be made
to keep all the other things in their right places - they are all right in
their places - is the thing which comes from the lips of the Lord.
You see, it is a matter of proportion, it is a matter of where you are
placing the most emphasis. It is a matter of whether you are allowing the
things of this life so to absorb, and to occupy, and to draw you round with
anxiety, that the greater things are not getting a chance. And we all agree n
ow, we have no more quarrel with the Master over Mary, when we see it like
that. What was necessary was that there should be an adjustment of things: so
that, while these other matters had a place, and a right place, they were in
their place and in their own measure; whilst the supreme things were allowed
to predominate and were not submerged in those lesser matters which, after
all, are not the abiding things.
Now, that was the whole situation. In the House of God, the thing that
matters more than all our business, all our feverish activities to do a
thousand and one things of Christian work - the one thing that matters is
getting to know the Lord, and giving the Lord a chance to make Himself known.
Feverish activities so often, in what is called 'the church', exclude the
voice of the Lord, shut Him out; it is all what we are doing, and so little
of what He is getting a chance to say. The place that satisfies Him is the
place of adjustment to the supreme things.
Well, that is Martha.
PRECIOUS OINTMENT POURED FORTH
Now we turn for the fourth thing to Matthew 26:6-13. It is the same village,
and now the woman with her "alabaster cruse of exceeding precious ointment".
The incident speaks to us in the first instance of the recognition of the
worth of the Lord Jesus. The recognition of the worth of the Lord Jesus. All
who looked on, as good as said: 'He is not worth it'; that is what it
amounted to. 'He is not worth it.' Of course they would not have put it like
that. She recognised His worth - that He was worth the 'exceeding
preciousness'. It was the exceeding preciousness of Christ that was in view
here, as something recognised. That, I think, is the main feature. It is a
feature of Bethany, it is a feature of the upper room, it is a feature of "My
church". It is a feature of the Lord's assembly, it is a feature of the
people who are after His own heart: the recognition of His exceeding
preciousness, His exceeding worth; that there is nothing too costly to lay at
His feet. "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious (is the
preciousness)" (I Pet. 2:7).
Now, that is very simple, and yet again it is a thing that draws forth the
deep appreciation of the Lord Jesus. It is again a thing which gives feature
to a very much beloved village. In other words it is a thing which makes His
assembly of great value to Him, that there His worth is recognised, and He is
appreciated and appraised at His true value. That must mark the house of the
Lord. It is a feature that must be developed more and more. It is a thing to
which we must attend, that we have a ready and an ever-growing recognition of
the preciousness and worth of the Lord Jesus. Oh, how different this is from
the merely formal church system! We can hardly say that the outstanding
feature of that is a true heart-appreciation of the worth and of the value of
the Lord Jesus. Where that appreciation is, you have the assembly; where it
is not, whatever else you may have of ornate and elaborate presentation, you
have not got the assembly, it is not the place of His delight.
I think I see something else here. The brokenness of the cruse brings out
into expression the preciousness of the ointment. It is the 'vessel of
fragile clay' which, being broken, makes possible the manifestation and
expression of the glories of Christ. While that cruse is whole, strong, and
sound in itself, something which you would look at and take account of in
itself; something that would cause you to say: 'That is a beautiful vase,
that is a wonderful piece of alabaster'; - you are not getting at the secret.
We may take account of men, as splendid intellects, splendid men, wonderful
preachers and so on - be occupied with the vase, the cruse - and the other be
sealed, be hidden; but when the cruse is broken, shattered, then you get at
the tabernacle secret of the glory of Christ.
You see it in Paul. I suppose Saul of Tarsus was a wonderful bit of alabaster
intellectually, morally, religiously. He tells us that he was; he tells us
all that he was, all that he gloried in and that men looked at and no doubt
praised; but he was smashed and it is no longer Saul, and it is no longer
Paul, but it is the beauty and glory of Christ. The fragrance of Christ comes
out when the cruse is broken.
And, beloved, it is just like that in our experience. The Church, the true
Church, has been allowed to be shattered, and shattered again, and the
members individually are so often allowed to be broken and broken again; but
has it not proved through history that, for the Church and for the
individual, the breaking, the shattering, the smashing, has brought about an
expression of the glories of Christ in a wonderful way? It is just like that.
We go through a new experience of being broken - we put it in other ways
sometimes and say we are being brought more deeply into the death of Christ,
coming into a fresh experience of the Cross: however we may put it, it means
breaking, it means the breaking of the cruse - but believe me, beloved, it
means a fuller expression and knowledge of the glory of Christ, and it will
bring us to a new appreciation of Him. We shall discover Him in the time of
our brokenness. And in the same way the Church passes through the way of the
Cross, but comes by the breaking to the worth of the Lord Jesus.
THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION
We pass to John and the well-known chapter 11. Here is Bethany again in view,
and this time it is the raising of Lazarus which comes before us. We will not
go through the whole story and take its details, but simply come swiftly to
its one conclusion at the end. Bethany, in this instance, becomes the scene,
the sphere, of the manifestation of resurrection power, resurrection life.
There are many other things here. There is a wonderful expression of love;
there is a wonderful expression of fellowship here in this chapter. Far away
from Bethany the Lord said to His disciples: "Our friend Lazarus is fallen
asleep". "Our friend"; not "My friend", but "our friend". You see, it is
fellowship. "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." It is
love. All these are features of Bethany; but the outstanding feature here is
the manifestation of His resurrection, the power of His resurrection,
resurrection life.
And here again Bethany is an illustration of the Church that He is building.
We know this from Ephesians, the 'Church Epistle', as we call it. We very
soon come to our being "quickened... together with Christ" (Eph. 2:5). The
Church is the vessel in which the power of His resurrection is displayed; and
here again we not only testify to the fact, to the doctrine, but we have to
apply the test, that the assembly according to the mind of the Lord is that
in which His resurrection power and life are displayed.
Now, I know, when things like that are said, so often there is that vacant
feeling that remains: 'Yes, we know it ought to be so, just as we ought to be
crucified with Christ; we know we ought to be risen with Christ, and it is
quite true that we ought to know the power of His resurrection, and His
resurrection life'. That is said again and again, but we leave it there. The
point is: how is it to be?
Now, we have to recognise that the Lord has brought His Church into being for
the specific purpose of displaying the power of His resurrection, and we
should dedicate ourselves unto the Lord for that very end. That is the way:
in recognising that the object, the very object of our being in that Church,
of that Body, is that He might display in us His resurrection power and life.
We, recognising that, have a definite understanding with our Lord that we are
consecrated to Him; now our responsibility ends there, if it is from our
hearts, and the Lord will begin His work.
We shall not be able to raise ourselves any more than we can crucify
ourselves, but we must recognise that the Lord's dealings with us are with
that in view. In order to display the power of His resurrection, He will very
often have to take the attitude toward us of letting things get well beyond al
l human power to remedy or save, of allowing things to go so far that there
is no other power in all the universe that can do anything whatever to save
the situation. He will allow death, disintegration, to work, so that nothing,
nothing in the universe is of any avail, except the power of His
resurrection.
We shall come to the place where Abraham came, who became the great type of
faith which moved right into resurrection: "He considered his own body now as
good as dead" (Rom. 4:19). That is the phrase used by the apostle about
Abraham: "as good as dead". And Paul came into that: "We had the sentence of
death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which
raiseth the dead" (II Cor. 1:9). Whatever else men may be able to do in the
realm of creation, they stop short when death has actually taken place; they
can do no more. Resurrection is God's act, and God's alone. Men can do very
many things when they have got life, but when there is no life it is only God
who can do anything. And God will allow His Church and its members oft-times
to get into such situations as are altogether beyond human help, in order
that He may give the display, which is His own display, in which no man has
any place to glory.
So said the Lord Jesus: "This sickness is not unto death, but for THE GLORY
OF GOD, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." Glorified! We have
dedicated ourselves to that course of things - that is, we have dedicated
ourselves to a line of human despair; but how slow we are to accept it in its
outworking. When things get to a desperate situation, we kick so much and
think that all has gone wrong. It may be just going right for the Lord! Oh,
yes, it is desperate; that consideration does not take away from the
desperateness of it, the awfulness of it; but if it is going to provide the
Lord with His supreme opportunity to raise His pre-eminent testimony, then it
is right - that is, it will be right in its issue.
When at last, in eternity, we read the story of the Church, which is His
Body, and see all that it really did come through, we shall have to confess
that no human institution, no man-made thing, could have survived, could have
gone through that which the saints went through. When it is understood in the
light of eternity and appraised by true spiritual standards, we shall say
that none but God Almighty could have achieved that, could have brought it
through: that it has undoubtedly become the vehicle of the expression of "the
exceeding greatness of his power" (Eph. 1.19); and that is to say a great
deal. If "the exceeding greatness of his power" is necessary to this, well,
that says much for what we have to be brought out of, doesn't it? If "the
weakness of God is stronger than men" (I Cor. 1:25), what must "the exceeding
greatness of his power" represent?
Well, that is in resurrection; as you know, the words are connected with
that: "the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according
to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when
he raised him from the dead" (Eph. 1:19,20). That is "to us-ward who
believe". Now the Church, the Bethany testimony, is to be a testimony to the
power of His resurrection, and if His methods with us are making that
necessary, then let us take encouragement and comfort from the fact that we
are thus to be a true expression of what He desires of His Church.
CELEBRATING HIS VICTORY
We pass from chapter 11 of John to chapter 12. "Jesus therefore six days
before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised
from the dead. So they made him a supper there: and Martha served" (evidently
she had not gathered, from the Lord's words to her, that service was wrong;
she is still serving - it is all right now); "but Lazarus was one of them
that sat at meat with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of
spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet
with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment."
Here we have the feast, and the feast has several elements. One, represented
by Mary and her action, speaks of worship. Once again, it is the appreciation
of Christ that is in view. That is worship. Worship - according to God's
thought - is always simply the appreciation of the Lord Jesus; bringing up
before God the sweet odour of a heart-appreciation of His Son. That may sound
simple, but worship in its purest essence is what we think of the Lord Jesus,
expressed to the Father. That is worship. The assembly is for that. Bethany
speaks of that.
Martha - yes, Martha served. But it is adjusted service. She is still
serving, but it is all right; there is no rebuke now. There is no circling
round of her face with anxiety now; she is not drawn around with care: she is
serving in a resurrection house. Here is adjusted service, and service in the
Lord's house is quite according to His mind when the service is in fellowship
with, and in right proportion to, the worship. There is an adjustment between
the sisters now, you see. They were disjointed before, because things were
ill-proportioned and out of place; now the adjustment has been made and they
are just getting on constantly together. It is adjusted service.
Lazarus sat at meat, and of course he is the principle of life, resurrection
life. That, again, is a mark of the Lord's spiritual house. So we have
worship, adjusted service, resurrection life.
Yes, but there is always some sinister thing not far away: "Why was not this
ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" When you get
the assembly just as the Lord wants it you will always find that the Devil is
lurking very near. That may be a compliment to the assembly, for anything
that the Devil does not cast his eye on jealously will surely not be that
which is satisfying the heart of the Lord. But it is always like that. Just
begin to get something that is according to the Lord's heart, and you find a
sinister thing begin to circle round with a view to destroying that worship,
to divert that appreciation of the Lord. It becomes a feature of the very
assembly itself, that the Devil jealously casts his eyes upon what the Lord
is getting, and would have that for himself.
You see, the Church is that which brings to the Lord Jesus what He ought to
have, and from eternity the Devil has been out to rob him of that, and he
will do it in the assembly if he can, because the assembly is that in which
the Lord does get what His heart is set upon.
OUTWARD AND UPWARD
Now we close by noting the last thing in Luke 24:50-52.
"And he led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up
his hand, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he
parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him,
and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."
Three words: "led out", "blessed", "carried up": out with the Lord, in His
place apart; under His blessing; and linked with Him in heaven - to use
Paul's words, "made... to sit together with him in the heavenlies."
That is Bethany, that is the Church, that is what the Lord wants to have in
the life of His people today.
Go back over Bethany again and just allow your heart to exercise itself on
these things, and seek very definitely that the Lord shall have in you just
these features which are according to His own mind. And what we do
individually, let us seek to do in those fellowships, those assemblies, with
which we are connected, that they shall be true Bethanies, the
village-expression of the great city of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem.
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Austin-Sparks, T. (Theodore) (1888-1971)
Born in London; his ministry was based in southeast London at the Honor
Oak Christian Fellowship Center but extended world-wide through
conferences in the U.K., personal visits abroad, and publication of the
periodical, A Witness and a Testimony (1923-1971); co-worker of Jesse
Pen.n-Lewis (1923-1926); conducted conferences in Taipei (1955, 1957);
emphasized the truths concerning the Body of Christ and the crucifixion
and resurrection of Christ; used such terms as "all-inclusive," "recovery,"
and "incorporation into Christ"; writings: The Stewardship of the Mystery,
2 vols., What is Man?, The Centrality and Universality ofthe Cross, and
others.
