The Altar and the Name

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 3 - Called According to Purpose

Just by way of continuing, may I bring to you these words from Judges 6:11,12,14: "And the angel of the Lord came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite; and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour... And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee?"

And I want to link with that words which are amongst the best known words in the New Testament: "And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Gideon does very truly fit into that. He was a real example of being called according to purpose.

I have but one particular emphasis and note in my heart this morning, but I feel it to be a very important and vital one. It has to do with this matter of being "called according to His purpose". We have seen, just a little, I think, in the earlier hours of this conference, that God was certainly moving according to purpose when He came and sovereignly called Gideon. And God is still moving according to purpose; no more in the days of Abraham, or Moses, or Gideon, or David, or Elijah, or any other, no more then than now. Until the purpose is reached and fully realised, God will still be moving according to purpose and will still be choosing according to purpose. The purpose is comprehensive and quite clearly defined. Through one brief letter the apostle Paul has given us comprehensively and definitely the purpose. We are not going to dwell upon the purpose this morning, but rather upon the calling according thereto.

The Ultimate Purpose to Govern All

The purpose is the ultimate of all God's activities. The ultimate of the initial apprehending of lives and calling into fellowship with His Son in what we variously call conversion or being saved or being born again, however we put it, it is the initial movement of God in bringing us into relationship with Himself in Jesus Christ, but the purpose is more than that. It is the ultimate of all the progressive preparation, training and discipline of those who have been brought into that relationship with Himself. These are not things or ends in themselves.

All this beginning and continuation of the Lord in lives is moving on according to purpose. The great need where you and I and all the Lord's people are concerned is to really become gripped and mastered by that fact. It is as though the Lord would come to us and say, 'Now stand at My side and look on, look right on to the end, to the ultimate; look with Me right over all time and all vicissitudes to the end, and see with me a universe peopled with those who are just showing forth, manifesting forth, My glory, My eternal glory'. "Called... unto his eternal glory" (1 Pet. 5:10). That runs alongside "called according to His purpose". "Called... unto His eternal glory". Now the Lord says, 'Do you see, that is the ultimate, that is the purpose, the showing forth of My glory in a people'. He would perhaps say, 'But, of course, there will be different degrees of glory; there will be one glory as of the sun, another glory as of the moon, another glory as of the stars; there will be differences in glory and of glory. Those differences will depend entirely upon the people concerned, how much glory there will be in and manifested through and by those people will depend entirely upon how much their hearts are set upon My glory, how far their hearts are undivided hearts, pure hearts, in this sense that there is no alloy, no mixture, no two things which cannot be reconciled. That is purity of heart, and "blessed are the pure in heart". He would say that.

Purpose Within Purpose

And then He would say to us, 'That is the end. Have you got that vision? You see the purpose'. If you are called according to that purpose, then He would say, 'Now for the moment look around, look upon the many who have not yet been brought into that initial relationship with the purpose, and then look upon all those who are the Lord's, and what do you see, how much glory do you see, how much going on to glory?' Ah, how much there is very, very contrary to the glory of God. 'Now then', He would say, 'although I have called you according to My ultimate purpose, I now call you to some situation which exists which is not in line with that ultimate purpose in order that you may be used to bring it into line'. That is purpose within the purpose. "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2), the God of glory, the initial step to get a people. That step was taken with Abraham, but look at the seed of Abraham in Gideon's day: not at all in line with the great purpose revealed to, and intended through Abraham.

Particular Callings

Look at this strange thing. He called Abraham with the whole purpose in view. Now He must call him because of something that has interrupted the realisation of the full purpose, something that has arisen, some contingency, some digression, some declension on the part of the called. And so the Bible is just full of this, shall we call them, intermediate callings, these occasional callings, these specific callings within the calling; this purpose which has become a necessity in the light of the whole final purpose.

Do you see the position? I say the Bible is full of these particular callings. Moses is one, Joshua another, and so you go on with all these callings within the calling.

I think that we see the situation. Not one of you here this morning would say that the Lord's people as a whole are right in the main line and thoroughfare and direction and way of the eternal calling, of the glory. You would rather think, 'Oh no, there is a very, very great deal that is not only short of the glory of God, but contrary to the glory of God.' We were trying to stress that yesterday. When a people are, as the people in Gideon's day, weak and defeated before their enemies, starved and poor, without food and wealth, when there is no cohesion and authority under which the people of God are moving like an army with banners, that is something contrary to and other than the purpose of God, and God's movement in sovereignty is to call to deal with that. "Go... and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee" (Judges 6:14). That is a specific calling made necessary because of a general declension. Well, I think probably you will agree to that, mostly, at any rate.

Divine Resources Bound Up With Divine Callings

But I want to follow that with this; that divine presence and divine support and divine resources are always bound up with divine callings. If you are not in the specific thing that God wants done at any given time, you cannot count upon God's support. You cannot just generalise about this thing, and just heap it altogether, this work of God, without discrimination. At different times, in different realms, God has to act specifically and distinctively, so that, within the compass of His inclusive purpose, there are essential purposes because of situations which have arisen, and He calls in relation to those specific purposes which are the present time purposes of God, and God supports, sponsors, and commits Himself to that.

Dear friends, let us be very, very honest about this thing. There is a great deal of activity which is ostensibly for the Lord which does not have the Lord's support, and the result is that anything and everything has to be done to get support for that which is called the work of God, and that compasses the whole range of what is called "organised Christianity". It is one great system of launching schemes and enterprises and doing everything that art and wit and cunning can do to get support for it.

If God wants a thing done, and has sovereignly decided that that thing shall be done according to purpose and He can get hold of a people and bring that people right into line with that line, God will commit Himself to it and support it and lift the onus of resource from the people and take it on His own shoulders. Yes, the presence of God, the support of God, the resources of God go with His calling. He never - it is an old, old saying - sends us warfaring at our own charges, He never gives us a commission and then leaves us to find what is required for its carrying out. He stands into all the liabilities. If these resources are withheld, something is wrong. The motive may not be wrong, the intention may not be wrong, the sincerity may be not lacking, but let it be understood that motive and idea and enthusiasm have never been substitutes for divine purpose, specific purpose. David found that out over the bringing of the ark on the Philistine cart. He made a very, very serious discovery by a very tragic happening. He found that the responsibility rested upon him for what happened. No, the purpose of God must govern.

Everything Must Be Brought Into Line With the Ultimate

Firstly, the whole purpose, the ultimate, must always be in view, and everything must be brought into line with that. It just must be brought into line with that. Everything has got to be considered and contemplated from the standpoint of how is that going to reach God's end in the manifestation of His glory? And then, what would God do now, or what is God wanting to do now? What is God doing now in relation to that? What is the present movement, or what are the present movements of God to which God has committed Himself?

Do you not agree with me when I say that the deepest cry in our hearts is this: 'Oh, Lord, bring me into the thing that You are doing, save me from the things that I am doing for you and want to do for you, and that I think You want done, bring me not into things that are a kind of abstract vision, but into what You are doing, that with which You are occupied now'. That is the deepest cry of our hearts, and that is a cry which enters into His heart, that we should be found, not doing a lot of Christian work, hunting round for a job in the work of God - oh, pathetic situation! - and yet there are a lot doing that, trying to find a job, a place, in the work of God, going round all the time, trying to be taken on in the work of God. Is that not terrible? I cannot tell you how badly I feel about that. My understanding with the Lord is this - 'Lord, if you have not got a positive and definite place for me in something that You are doing, I am going to give it all up, I am going out'. It is a very utter thing, this. No one ought to be looking for a job in the realm of God's purpose. No, not at all.

Well now, there is a tremendous strength, as well as a tremendous value, in the consciousness of being bound up with a specific calling of God in relation to the full and ultimate calling. I say, there is a tremendous value bound up with that. It is a perfectly wonderful thing to know, to realise, that you are not just called to be a Christian, nor to be saved from sin and its consequences now and hereafter, and to get to heaven, and all that sort of thing. But there is a great, definite, positive purpose in your being saved, and that purpose relates to nothing in this life, that this life is to be characterised by something quite precise and quite definite in the ultimate purpose of God. There is a tremendous strength in that, and a tremendous value in that.

A Church Purpose

But there is this extra factor, that, while that is true and must be, (perhaps I had better stop here for a minute to put in a parenthesis. Let no one think that this implies that they are individual Gideons or Elijahs or any other of this company, of the chosen. We are not going to label ourselves Gideons, and this and that and something else. You see, you must realise that God's whole purpose embraces the Church, it is a church purpose. It is not just individuals, and in line with that full thought of God concerning the church as "the called," you and I are parts of a whole, parts of something comprehensive and inclusive. We are not just individuals...) and what I want to impress upon you and I want you to see is this, that it may be that you are called to be a part of an instrument which is collective and corporate, which God is seeking to have for Himself to meet need, and your definiteness of calling is a related one. It is not just an individual and separate one.

I know how that appeals to our romantic hearts. I know how, when a young man I read about D. L. Moody and read those so well-known words about D. L. Moody that he said that he had heard someone say that if God could get hold of a man, He would show what He would do with and through a man whose heart was wholly towards Himself, and D. L. Moody said, 'I said, I am going to be that man'. Well, that was all right for Moody, and I suppose it is all true. But you know, there is an appeal of that to this man, "I am going to be a D. L. Moody..." or something like that. I am going to be... Rather the emphasis is upon the first five words - I am going to be. There is an appeal. No, no. The discipline of that all may come along the line of our having to be a part of something that God is doing, just a part, but a part, and it is in that whole in a related way that I have to have just as great a sense of being called as I would have if I were singled out as an individual. Have you got that? This is a tremendously important thing.

You might have a tremendous sense of vocation if the angel of the Lord came to you as he came to Gideon and singled you out and mentioned you by name and said great things to you personally, you would say, 'That is calling indeed, I am called according to purpose'. But we have got to have that in a related way and corporate way just as strongly and really. God has made me a member of the Body which is the vessel of His eternal purpose, and as a member, not as the whole Body, and not as separate from the rest, but as a member my eternal vocation is found. It has got to be very real. The ends of God may be reached through companies, through groups, just as much as through individuals.

Well, having got that, let us go on.

Succession by Divine Call

We must be very careful that we bring every phase, every part, every aspect of the Lord's movement towards His ultimate full purpose into line with the great end. The point of that, the importance of that, is this, that God has again and again raised up instruments individual and collective in relation to His ultimate purpose, and by them done something in their day which was quite definite and distinctive and positive, but the thing has become bound up with them, and they have become the beginning and the end of it. And when they have gone, well, there has been a carrying on of the work that they started, but that distinctive and specific thing has not gone on. It is something now being carried on. Responsibility is lying upon men to carry it on, and then there is a reverting again to this other way of getting support to carry on this and that.

Now my point is this: all succession, all continuation, has got to be as definitely by divine call as initiation. Therefore succession is not official, it is by anointing. The church does not belong to any one time, any one age. It is an eternal thing. It is the eternally elect vessel of the full purpose of God, but the church is the anointed vessel. You cannot carry on the church with an organisation. You cannot carry on the church by any human means at all. The church is instituted at the beginning by the anointing, and it has got to go right on to the end by the anointing, so that this continuation of divine purpose requires fresh and ever-fresh anointings where specific vessels and instrumentalities are concerned. You cannot get a conception of the divine purpose, and then say, 'We will have a committee, we will have a board, and we will have an organisation, and we will have this and that in order to do this thing that God wants done.' You just cannot do it. You can have them if you like, but you will find that you have got to take responsibility for them for everything.

You see, every vessel has got to be God-chosen, God-anointed, in relation to something that is eternal, and not of time at all, and not of this earth. And in our place in our relationship to what God may be doing at any given time in our own time, we have got to come really under the anointing of the Holy Spirit for that, just as much as those who went before, who were the chosen instrument of God to bring that instrumentality into being. Just as much as they were anointed in their calling, we have got to be anointed if that thing is to go on. Heaven has got to come in and carry it to the next stage, we cannot. Nothing is an end in itself. Everything is related to the so much more of God's intention, God's purpose.

Your salvation is no end in itself. Any dealings of God with you are not just for the time, they are not an end. Anything that God has raised up and brought into being must not become an end in itself, a crystallized, rounded off piece of work with a hedge round it that is something inclusive and exclusive. Everything has got to be in line with, and open to, the ultimate fulness of God's purpose. Therefore we must be open to the Lord for something more and something fresh all the time. That went so far, but God intended more. Have you not seen how many a thing started by God, definitely under His anointing, many an instrumentality serving Him was wonderful, but has just gone so far and stopped? And from that time it has gone no further, it has come under arrest and it really belongs to the past, although it is being kept going. It is living on a tradition, it is living on a past, it is living upon a name and a reputation of the last generation or generations ago. There is nothing right up-to-date in fulness. Why? Because it was not realised that that was only in line with something more. It was never intended to be something by itself. The ultimate full purpose encompassed that and swallowed it up. It was related.

Some of you will perhaps see the point of this more than others, but it is tremendously important that we recognise that any vision that we have must not stop short with the thing that we are in, must not stop short with the present aspect of things. Any God-given vision which is for a specific time is only related to the ultimate and must give place to the ultimate, and the fuller must come in and swallow it up. Oh, let us ask the Lord to save us from settling down into something less than He intends. There must always be with us this sense, this deep-down consciousness, that we are called according to purpose not yet fully realised. There is a wonderful future with which we are related, and this is not the end of everything. We must have that sense. Have you got it? Have you got what we have here before called this sense of divine destiny, this something calling you on, pulling you on, not allowing you to accept anything less than all God means? That is vision in reality. Or does your vision just reside within the narrow limits of a piece of work that you are doing for God, or trying to do for God? Is that your vision? It is not adequate. No, "called according to His purpose".

I must close, but I have read in conjunction with these chapters about Gideon the later chapters of the prophecies of Zechariah. Of course, you wonder how they can be brought together, but they are part and counterpart. Those later chapters of the prophecies of Zechariah still have in view God's full purpose and its realisation where Israel is concerned. Oh, read them. You are amazed, you are almost bewildered, at what is said there of God's purpose yet concerning the land and the people. Why, here in these prophecies you have the uttermost things said, that all from all over the world shall come and worship at Jerusalem, and if anyone will not come and worship the Lord at Jerusalem, there will be a curse upon him and upon his cattle and upon all that he has, a terrible curse, and it is described in language that we today can understand better than Zechariah could understand when he penned it. "Their eyes shall dissolve in their socket" (Zech. 14:12). We understand that, do we not? "Their tongue shall consume away in their mouth". The atomic age; there it is. All who will not come to worship the Lord at Jerusalem are going to be involved in it. That is tremendous; the divine purpose. But here I look at the book of Judges, and I say, 'My word, something has got to happen to get Jerusalem into that position, to get Israel into that state where all will come and worship the Lord at Jerusalem from every nation.' Something has got to happen. Yes, but Gideon - this is the point - Gideon was apprehended in relation to that ultimate.

So far as God was concerned, the full vision was still in view when He took hold of Gideon, and it is like that. We may have conditions such as those in the days of Gideon, but the Lord has still got His full purpose in view, and He will lay hold, and say, 'Have not I sent thee, go and thou shall save Israel from this unto that'. Oh, that there might fall upon us this new sense of divine calling and apprehending in relation to His full purpose, though meantime it may be connected with something that is out of line, out of accord with that purpose. And the purpose, where we are concerned within the whole purpose, is this. It may be evangelism, it may be to bring in those who are called unto His eternal glory, it may be any aspect of ministry, but it must be in full view of the end. It must be a related thing. It must be under the anointing and not just some piece of work that we have taken up, are trying to do for God, but this sense of tremendous calling, tremendous vocation, tremendous apprehending "This is the thing to which God has called me." So many there are who are wandering about and missing the way and are in a state of ineffectiveness because they are in the wrong position, they are trying to do something that God never called them to do. They have seen Christian work is such-and-such, and so they have taken it up and they are trying to do it, but no, there is no sense that God laid hold of them for that.

I wonder if you have grasped the emphasis this morning. "Called according to His purpose", ultimately, in its fulness, at present in some ways necessary unto the ultimate. Whatever it is, it has got to be this: that you and I know that our lives are apprehended lives. Until we get there and have that consciousness, there will be weakness, there will be loss, there will be confusion, we have got out of the purpose.

The Lord draw us by a mighty new sense into the thing that He is Himself concerned with at this present time.