Having a Distinctive Voice

Having a Distinctive Voice

by T. Austin-Sparks



He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 3:22).



A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times... Why is it so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system? A system which puts preachers so much upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and programme? Not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of "Christianity" as we have it in the systematized form today.



Speak The Word of The Lord



There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when "the burden of the word of the Lord" is upon the prophet, or when he could say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me." The present order requires a man to speak every so often; hence he must get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our programme and asked to meet it (which He will not do) or the preacher must make something for the constantly recurring occasion. This is a pernicious system and it opens the door to any number of dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices, a confusion of voices, but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time...



Here we have the necessity for an awakening to what God has to say. In the Revelation this is "He that hath an ear, let him hear," and in the case of Laodicea - which represents the end - it is "I counsel thee to buy of me eyesalve that thou mayest see." "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me," said John. God is speaking, He has something to say, but there must be "a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened."


T. Austin-Sparks