"Ye Are Come to Zion" - by T. Austin-Sparks
by John Mark on 03/10/24
Dear Saints,
This series originally posted in September and October of 2014.
My
notes:
As Doug introduces us to this message from
Hebrews, he breaks down the word 'heritage' as another word for 'inheritance' -
a word we are much more familiar with and hear so regularly in Doug's teaching
over the years. The other point to be made is that that inheritance is ours,
even as the land of milk and honey was given at the beginning of Israel's
journey out from Egypt, but it had to be occupied and fought for - to be theirs
it required dispossessing the enemy and possessing the inheritance. For the
church, the heritage (inheritance) is ours in Christ and obtained through and
by Christ in us. "'You HAVE come' - with the fact and reality that you
remain there forever.
The concept of inheritance is two-fold: God has
us as His inheritance (Ephesians 1:18); and Christ is our inheritance
(Ephesians 1:14). As the inheritance is promised to us, it requires us to fight
for it and possess it. The promised land to Israel is the example we have.
Though the entire land was promised, they had to conquer it but dispossessing
the enemy and possessing the land. As we've heard Doug teach many times,
salvation is given to us as a gift without works; the inheritance is obtained
by conquest: "heaven suffers violence, and violent men [seize] take it by
force" (Matthew 11:12)
[Doug] "So our inheritance in Him is
complementary and completely dependent on Him obtaining the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in us."
[Sparks] "In Christ God has wholly, fully
consummated the redemption, the new creation, and you and I have no part
whatever in making that, but you and I are called to inherit it."
"God has in Christ compassed all that is bound up with man's glorious
destiny, and has offered it to faith."
[Doug] "When we're born again, we have a
responsibility to possess our inheritance - and to keep it and to guard it...
we have immense responsibility upon us to enter into and come to the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ."
Speaking of our entering into our rest, Jesus
Christ being God's rest, Brother Sparks adds, "If Christ has really become
our home in terms of rest, has He not become the very centre and sphere of our
delight, of our pleasure? ... Christ in Person and Christ's work: our pleasure,
our delight."
In our Father's house where there are many
abiding places, we "come to the place where we can abide forever and go
no more out and find eternal satisfaction and rest ... And where, in all God's
universe will that be if it is not in Christ? He is our abiding place."
"So Christ should be all this to us,
because He is all this to God. God has come to rest. God has come to settlement
and to certainty in the Person and work of His Son. God finds all His pleasure
in Him and all His interest in Him. All that. And God has given Him in all
these terms and senses to us as a heritage. It is a challenge to faith isn't
it? Is Christ to us rest, our delight and pleasure, our abiding place, our one
absorbing interest?"
In Doug's conclusion of this message, he
challenges us: "The message of Christ and His inheritance has to be true
of us. We can't be just people who believe we have an inheritance in Christ. We
have to be those that are actually coming into possession. We have to be in
some measure in possession of what we're reading here in this first
chapter."
Link
to Audio:
https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/9-14-14+Sunday+Assembly.mp3
The Discussion following the message went very
deep and includes Doug's very emotional testimony. This message by T.
Austin-Sparks obviously had a tremendous effect on the assembly.
Link to Discussion:
https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/9-14-14+Sunday+Assembly+-+2.mp3