I had the opportunity to read a chapter from a T. Austin Sparks book this past weekend. If you’ve ever read Sparks you know that you can write an entire book review based on just one chapter. If you try to write about the whole book… well, it will be a long review!
Here are a few thoughts (mostly direct quotes) from the chapter I read, “A Man After God’s Own Heart.”
“The Bible abounds with men. It abounds with many other things, with doctrine, with principles; but more than anything else it abounds with men. That is God’s method, His chosen method to make Himself known.”
I found the above statement (Sparks’ opening paragraph) wonderfully profound. He went on to talk about how each person mentioned in scripture represented a feature/character trait of God. Abraham – faithfulness, Job – patience, Moses – meekness. No one person, other than Christ, has been able to display the attributes of God in their entirety, but each person has been designed to show something of his nature. Sparks said, “It is as though God had scattered one Man over the generations, and in a multitude of men under his hand had shown some aspect, some feature, some facet of that one Man, and that one Man is able to say, ‘Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.’ (John v. 39).”
“There is a Man spread over the Bible, and all who have come under God’s hand, have been apprehended for the purpose of showing something of his thought, which in it’s fulness is expressed in his son, the Lord Jesus.”
I realize this concept is incredibly thought provoking so I’ll stop there on that subject and move on to what the rest of the chapter talked about, which is becoming a man or woman after God’s own heart.
Sparks used the examples of Saul & David—two Kings of Israel, both anointed by God, but entirely different in personality and morality. Saul represents a type of person (or church) who, though directly called upon to display the very nature of God, chooses to walk according to his own moral judgments and emotions. In other words, a Saul personality walks according to the passions and desires of his flesh rather than in obedience to the Spirit. David, on the other hand, represents a man who was completely dependent on and entirely devoted to the will of God. He had no desire to be an independent ruler. He knew that in order to honor the God who set him apart for kingship, he had to obey him whole heartedly, not just part of the time or when it seemed right to his own moral judgments.
It’s amazing that Sparks wrote these things many years ago because he might as well have described the current state of pop-Christianity. “Saul was governed by his own judgments in the things of God.”
“If God commands us to do something which on the face of it would seem to deny something in God’s command to give another complexion to the matter, to take obedience out of our hearts, we have set our judgment against God’s command. In effect we have said, ‘The Lord surely does not know what he is doing! Surely the Lord is not alive to the way his reputation will suffer if this is done, the way people will speak of his very morality!’ It is a very dangerous things to bring our own moral judgment to bear upon the implicit command of the Lord.”
Have we not done this? How many scriptures have we taught ourselves to ignore because we don’t want to be assumed unloving or narrow? As a result of our desire to be accepted by the world we have become little Saul’s. The name and honor of Christ is associated with our every action and word yet we do not tremble. We are arrogant enough to think we can do our own thing and make our own judgments (interpreting the scriptures however we like) and still be blessed. It is a shame, really. We miss out on so much… “If Saul is there, David cannot come.” In other words, if we are sitting on the throne, even if it’s called Christianity, Christ cannot sit on that throne. We’re standing in the way of God’s honor. Ouch, Mr. Sparks. This hits very hard!
Sparks went on to talk about how those who obey God will often be misunderstood—Christ was and so was David. People said of them, “It is all for themselves.” But it doesn’t matter. God will prove himself true through whatever man or woman chooses to honor him with their obedience.
“Saul was influenced in his conduct by his own feelings, his own likes and dislikes, and preferences. . . . it was his judgment working through his sentiments.”
He went on to talk about the Philistines and how they were always after the things of God without having any desire to actually serve him. Another “type” of person or church. “They are called ‘uncircumcised.’ We know from Paul’s interpretation that typically that means this uncrucified natural life which is always seeking to get a grip on the things of God apart from the work of the cross; which does not recognize the cross; which sets the cross aside, and thinks that it can proceed without the cross into the things of God; which ignores the fact that there is no way into the things of the Spirit of God except through the cross as an experienced thing, as a power breaking down the natural life and opening a away for the Spirit.”
“David’s heart is to have nothing of that. . . . there shall be no place for nature here in the things of God, but this natural strength must be destroyed. ”
David and Saul, though part of the same brotherhood, ended up on opposite sides, even though they should have been one in Spirit. David was not welcome in Saul’s kingdom. David and the Philistines were lifelong enemies. In the same way, those who have the heart of David will be at odds with the Saul’s and the Philistines of our time. David’s will always be misunderstood, mocked, and considered outcasts to those who refuse to embrace the cross.
“It has not merely to do with a sinful world. There is that in the world which is opposed to God . . . but that is not what we have here. This is something else that is to be found even amongst the Lord’s people, and which regards nothing as too sacred to be exploited. It will get into an assembly of saints . . . natural wisdom, the wisdom of this world expressing itself as the mentality even of believers, and thus making the gospel of no effect. This spirit that is not subject to the cross creeps in and associates itself with the things of God, and takes purchase upon them.”
“This has been the thing that has crippled and paralyzed the church through the centuries; men insinuating themselves into the place of God in his church.”
Here’s our challenge:
“Do you see the man after God’s heart? Who is he? What is he? He is a man who, though the odds against him be tremendous, sets himself with all his being against . . . that which contradicts the cross . . . which seeks to force its way into the realm of God other than by the gate-way of the cross . . . ”
“The man after God’s own heart is the man who will have no compromise with the natural mind; not only with what is called sin in its more positive forms, but all that natural life which tries to get hold of the work of God and the interests of God, to handle and to govern them.”
“Will this man surrender his own judgments, his own feelings, his own standards, his entire being to the will of God, or will he have reservations because of the way in which he views things and questions God?”
“May the Lord give us a heart like David’s for that is a heart like his own.”
One of my favorite quotes from the chapter is: “God’s new creation is not a patchwork of the old; it is an entirely new thing, and the old has to go.”
——
All excerpts taken from the book, “The Stewardship of the Mystery” by T. Austin Sparks. Other comments by Stephanie Staples-Rostad.
