"They knew not... the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath" (Acts 13:27).
If the prophecies of Ezekiel were read in the Synagogues, as no doubt they were, the hearers would hear a phrase three times repeated - "I have set thee for a sign"; "Say ye, I am your sign"; "Thou shalt be a sign unto them" (Ezekiel 12:6,11; 24:27). This designation as applied to the Prophet embodies and signifies the greatest of all of God's methods with man. It is therefore something of which to be taken very careful and serious notice by all who are called to represent God in this world; and what Christian is not so called? Indeed, that is the vocation of the Christian and of the Church! This supreme method of God is that He incarnates the truth in His messengers: that means that He does not just give a message in words, but He makes the messenger the message. It is not just that something has been said, but that there has been a person in the place. It means that the spiritual history of the representative is the ground of the message. That is why the factor and element of life is so very prominent in Ezekiel's prophecies. God is not working mechanically - machine-wise, but by "Living creatures". It is the life which is the essence of the testimony.
How strongly this law is applied to Ezekiel! This Prophet is not saying: 'I have an address, a teaching, a discourse, to pass on to you.' He is saying: 'I AM your sign.'
So the Lord makes him painfully set forth the message in his own body, and causes things to happen in his life, even his domestic life - the death of his wife - to make very personal and ocular God's message. This is very challenging and searching; but it is also very enlightening as to why God deals with His servants as He does. We can see the close identity of the persons and ministry of Paul, Peter, John and others. They had to go through the ministry before it could go through them. We could enlarge upon this at many points, but it would involve us in such an extensive necessity. We must keep close to the law of God's ways. It will now be seen how and why our basic Scripture - Acts 13:27 - is related to Christ by Paul. The argument of the Apostles was always that there had been a Man amongst men, and that that Man was Himself God's message, not only His messenger. Jesus enunciated this law and Divine method every time He said: "I am!" He was God's representation! To see Him, He said, was to see God. Not so to see Him was the very nature and judgment of spiritual blindness. Read John's Gospel again in this light. So 'the voice of the prophet' has become a living person.
When it came to the incarnation of the Son of God, that incarnation came to be shown as something vastly more than God taking flesh and blood. When John wrote: "The Word was God... and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" (John 1:1,14), that was just the introduction or preface to his Gospel. He then went on to elaborate and extend that, and to show what the incarnation meant. This - in his Gospel and the fight given him from heaven - resolved itself into two contrasted things. On the one line John brings out into clear definition that everything relating to God had, by the Jews, been resolved into a crystallized system; a fixed tradition, as such; an institution, a creed; a ritual; a form; a binding legality; and, although they might not use the word, an organization.
Along the other line, John shows throughout that Jesus was persistently, unbendingly, and with a constantly reiterated ''Verily, verily" - "Most truly, most truly" - bringing everything to the Person, making it all personal. He was the Law. He was the Temple. He was the Lamb. He was the High Priest. He was the inclusive Shepherd and the Vine, both of which were Old Testament symbols of Israel as the Lord's flock and the Lord's planting respectively. Jesus would not allow the people of His time to get away from Himself. Everything in the incarnation had become a Person, and that Person was - when the Holy Spirit came - to be not only the personal Christ (that would remain) but corporately manifested.
All those things mentioned above, which Judaism had become, had been displaced by the Person. This was the Sign. This is what the inspired Simeon meant when, taking the infant Jesus in his arms, he said: "This child is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and a sign that is spoken against" (Luke 2:34). This is the significance of Christ.
True Christianity is therefore not an organization, an institution, a tradition, a form, a creed, a ritual, etc.; it is the presence and expression of a Person, the Living Son of God! The living Son of God and an organization are complete antitheses. Organization is mechanism, committee, congress, directorates, arrangements, schemes, and so forth without end. It is man's hand of control, and man's mind of ideas as to the work of God. Christ repudiated all this, and the Spirit of Christ just brushed it all aside and took independent control, and the comparison is obvious. Have we travelled a long way from Ezekiel? Not in spiritual truth or principle!
Because the Jews failed through their fixed position, prejudice, pride, and bondage to the system, to hear this voice of the Prophet, they missed the significance of the Sign as tragically as they did in Ezekiel's time, with such baneful consequences. The Sign is a test, a stumblingblock for the rise and fall of many. This will be the effect of every ministry which is a personal embodiment of the truth, as differing from a secondhand retailing of studied material.
May it be ours to be so concerned for reality as to hear the 'voice' as more than words, and, above all, may we be the embodiment and not the imitation of the truth and testimony!
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T. Austin Sparks (1888 – 1971)
He was ordained as a Baptist pastor at the age of 24, and from 1912 to 1926 led three congregations in Greater London. During these years, he was also closely related to Jessie Penn-Lewis and her publication and speaking ministry, the "Overcomer Testimony."Among the many books that he wrote, at least three are regarded as Christian classics: The School of Christ, The Centrality and Supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ and We Beheld His Glory. The primary theme of Sparks' books is the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He mentored Watchman Nee for many years and was very influential in his understanding of the Church Life.
Recommends these books by T. Austin Sparks:
Daily Open Windows: Excerpts from the Messages of T. Austin-Sparks
Discipleship in the School of Christ by T. Austin Sparks
More of Christ: From "The Stewardship of the Mystery" by T. Austin Sparks
"Mr Sparks", as he was affectionately known, was born in London, England in 1888. He came to know Christ as a teenager and later became a Baptist pastor. However, his "ecclesiastical" career took a decidedly different direction when a physical crisis brought him to a place of brokenness.
At the same time God also delivered him from his previous prejudice against anything that was related to the "deeper life". As a result, he joined Jessie Penn-Lewis in the ministry of the spiritual growth of believers; a ministry to which he devoted his life and which also cost him his reputation and his career in the denominational circles of England.
He was based in southeast London at Honor Oak Christian Fellowship which is where Watchman Nee met and fellowshipped with him during a visit to England in 1933. Nee's refusal to disavow Austin-Sparks later became the grounds for him being disfellowshipped by the Taylor Brethren. It has been said that Watchman Nee considered Austin-Sparks as his spiritual mentor, and their fellowship appears to have been rich and fruitful.