by T. Austin-Sparks
Conference messages given in Gümligen, Switzerland in 1935. Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.
There has to be a wilderness first in our lives before we can experimentally know the all-sufficiency of Christ for us. Israel's life in the wilderness meant a complete separation from the old nature, and an utter dependence upon resources outside of this earth. The wilderness in itself provided nothing for them, and all their natural capacities were of no use in such a place. But these conditions were just given to make the wilderness a place of revelation where they had to learn Christ, in a special way, as their sufficiency. Christ is the living Bread which came down from heaven. He is the Water of Life. The "spiritual rock that followed them" was Christ. Let us therefore emphasise again that in order to know Jesus Christ in fulness we have to come to the place where the world and all its natural resources cannot help us, and have to be completely ruled out.
