All right, if we can go ahead and get started.
And if you’re wondering, I have my notes on here today, so I’m not without anything.
Lord, we’re thankful that we can continue in Your presence. Even as we look back through history, we see the great working of the King of Glory. Lord, in spite of man’s failures and even the religious ways in which we would try to reach You, You’ve ever proved Yourself faithful. You continue to reveal Yourself to us, and we’re thankful.
We offer ourselves to You today, that we would be true disciples, true learners—ones being taught by You to know how to live in the days that we find ourselves in. In Jesus’ name, amen.
A couple of Scriptures to start with today: 2 Chronicles 16:9. Even though this is an Old Testament Scripture, you’ll notice it is in the present tense. It’s applicable today.
The eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth,
that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.
That’s always upon our Lord’s heart. We’ve seen it throughout history, how He’s always looking. He’s looking for those whose heart is toward Him, that He can draw them to Himself in a fuller and greater way.
Also, another Scripture for today is Isaiah 59:19, from the New King James Version:
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
We’re thankful that we’ve seen throughout history—and we’ll see today—how, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord moves in a marvelous way to raise up a standard. He raises up that testimony of Jesus to continue on and to be the great work that He’s doing in this hour.
Today, we wanted to look at the twentieth century. When I started trying to summarize some of the things that have gone on in the twentieth century, I didn’t have enough space. If you just stop and think about all that has gone on in the last hundred years, it has been an amazing thing.
Consider computers. At the beginning, a computer was really just a fancy adding machine. Now we’ve got the internet, PCs, AI, and all this stuff going on. The progress that has been made there is amazing.
Consider automobiles. At the beginning of the twentieth century, you had to start one with a hand crank. Now there are remote starts, self-driving vehicles, and everything.
Or think about telecommunications. Back then, you had operator-assisted calls, and most of us remember having party lines. Some of this stuff I’m sharing will tell your age.
These people over here have no idea what a party line is. They would string a line between three or four houses. The first house was the first ring, the second house was the second ring, and the third house was the third ring. You would pick it up, and then you always had a nosy neighbor who picked up too and listened to everybody’s calls. So, it was a wonderful way that we’ve made progress all the way to cell phones, watches, and everything.
Airplanes: you had the Wright brothers, and now we have space tourists. I mean, just think of all that has gone on.
The century was also impacted by major wars: World War I; the Russian and Chinese civil wars; the Sino-Japanese War; World War II; Korea; Vietnam; the Soviet-Afghan War; Kosovo; Croatia; and Bosnia. These are just some of the major conflicts throughout that time. Really, the intensity of the conflicts was beyond what others had ever imagined.
Even think about health care: X-rays, insulin, penicillin, and vaccinations. Now we do not have to worry about smallpox or polio. I think most of us remember children around our age having polio. You don’t see that anymore. Mumps, measles, and whooping cough—now they have chemotherapy, pacemakers, and all this stuff. It is amazing, the progress of man.
Then there was culture. We had the civil rights movement, women’s liberation and women’s rights movements, and the counterculture. This was a dynamic hundred years, if you think about it.
If you look at any area of life, there has been such major change. We went from outhouses to smart toilets. I mean, it’s just amazing. You pick an area, and it works now. It is amazing all that we’ve gone through.
A lot of it involved turmoil too, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Within the church, in the twentieth century, we looked at Azusa Street last time, which most people mark as the beginning of the charismatic movement. During the 1930s, there was a recovery of the truths of God’s eternal purpose in the church. These truths were really beginning to be formed within people’s hearts.
A major event in the outreach of the gospel was Billy Graham’s Los Angeles revival. It really kicked off some of the major, significant revival movements that went on not only throughout the United States but throughout the world.
Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, came the charismatic movement. One of the things about the charismatic movement was that it spread across all divisions that man had made. It did not matter whether it was age, race, sex, denomination, or economic condition. It was just going forth in a marvelous way.
We saw the unity of believers in a great way through that. It involved recognizing and appreciating the Person and work of the Holy Spirit.
I believe one reason the Lord did this mighty work through the charismatic movement, and then also through the Jesus Movement, was because Christianity by the late 1950s had pretty much crystallized. Everybody had become very comfortable. Everybody had their own little set of denominations.
Back in the 1950s, there was no non-denominational stuff at all. Everybody knew exactly what to do. Everybody knew that we had all the laws of the land, the blue laws, so that nobody could do anything on Sunday except go to church. We know how everybody had to go, and the deacons would be out on the steps smoking their cigarettes. Then they would put them out and go in.
There was an outward form of godliness in this country, but very little spiritual reality. And God did a great shaking. He did a great shaking.
Out of that shaking, we had the charismatic movement and also the Jesus Movement. This was predominantly among young people. It started on the West Coast and came this way.
If you speak to anybody who was living during that time and is a believer, most of us were impacted. I know that was when Stella and I really gave our hearts to the Lord in a full way. Many people in here, during the 1960s and 1970s, really came into a personal encounter with the Lord.
The thing that blesses me most about the charismatic movement and the Jesus Movement is that you cannot find either one attributed to a man or a person. I was trying to do some research—I cannot say I did it exhaustively—but you cannot find it attributed to one person.
Some revivals in the past had certain ones praying or doing this or that. But at this point, it could not be attributed to one person. It was like the Lord just swept through with a mighty breeze, touched many hearts and lives, and drew them to Himself. Whether you were Protestant or Catholic, huge barriers were broken down, and many came into Him.
The Jesus Movement, as I said, was predominantly among young people. Out of that, you see a lot of house groups and non-denominational assemblies growing and springing up throughout the country.
At the beginning, it was the creation of the Christian music industry. It has changed a lot now. There was a purity back then. Now it has changed a lot.
Among those being saved during the Jesus Movement, there was an evangelistic fervor, a desire for the Lord’s return, and a desire for the truth of His Word.
Why was this? Why did it occur so much during the 1960s and 1970s? There was something spiritual going on. There was something in the heavenlies, because it was like all hell broke loose, and then all the Holy Spirit broke loose at the same time.
In the 1960s, there was this counterculture that came. I remember sitting in my Spanish class on November 24, 1963, and we had an announcement over the loudspeaker: President Kennedy had been assassinated. That shakes you. That is why people say, “You remember where you were” for something like that.
A few months later, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. You were wondering—the world that you knew was changing. The Vietnam War was dividing the country as it had never been divided before.
The peace protests were breaking out throughout this country. There is another date that I remember: May 4, 1970. I don’t know if people remember that date. If you were at Kent State, you would remember it.
There was a group of college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State College, right around Cleveland. The National Guard was there and opened fire on them, killing four students. Many others were injured. That shakes your world when you see stuff going on like that.
During the 1960s, the United States was invaded by England: the Beatles and the Rolling Stones came. It changed everything. There was a whole upheaval that occurred.
The drug scene started coming out: marijuana, LSD, acid, whatever was going on—the psychedelic drugs. Not so much the heroin and cocaine of today, but there was this psychedelic feeling that you were trying to get high to find truth and reality. That is where hippies came about.
In 1969, Woodstock came about. You see the culture of this world and how men, in many ways, were seeking something. Through protests, drugs, and everything, there was a searching for something because they saw how this world was crumbling.
Tragically, Christianity had crystallized in such a way that it was not able to reach people. But God moved in a mighty way. It took a great shaking, a shaking to wake up many. But thank the Lord for that, and for the unity that came out.
Through both of these movements, many saw Christ. They had a simple desire to return to a simplicity of gathering in Him. They saw that they were not bound by walls, buildings, and old laws. There was a life that was leading them.
Now, there were extremes. In any movement, you are going to have extremes. But that does not mean you can throw everything out, because God was in it. The Lord was in that.
Many people came back to a very personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ that they had never known before, and He was able to draw many unto Himself. We reap the benefits of that.
During this century, particularly the latter part, there was a lot going on. But praise God, in a marvelous way, the Lord proved Himself faithful.
I think, as we see the times we are living in, sometimes it can be a time of despair because the enemy is coming in like a flood again. But throughout history, the enemy has come in like a flood, and the Lord has raised up a testimony for Himself. That is the hope we have.
As He has touched our hearts, we want to be strong in Him, able to be the testimony He has called us to be. We pray that our brethren throughout this world would be strong to be the testimony for Him also.
As we come into this century, I just wanted to touch on a couple of people who had a very solid impact. The first one I want to speak about is Brother A. W. Tozer, a twentieth-century prophet.
He went by A. W. because his name was Aiden. He did not like Aiden. So, instead of Aiden Wills Tozer, he went by A. W. He was born in a small town in western Pennsylvania, and by the age of seventeen, he was converted to Christ in Akron, Ohio.
He was working and walking home from work when he heard a street preacher. It is interesting how many street preachers we will hear about today. But he heard a street preacher call out and say, “If you don’t know how to be saved, just call on God, saying, ‘Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
That pierced his heart. He went home, got in his room, and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” The Lord came in and transformed his life.
He was self-educated, with no high school education. Within a few more years, in 1919, when he was about twenty-two years old, he took his first pastorate in Nutter Fort, West Virginia, near Morgantown. I had to Google that one.
Then he moved to Chicago, where he had most of his ministry—thirty years in Chicago. He was with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and he finished up in Toronto, Canada.
Another thing to keep an eye on today, as we talk about different ones, is that Tozer had no formal training or formal education through university or Bible school. He was self-taught by the Lord. He had a hunger for the Lord, and the Lord met him in that way.
He became a prolific writer. He wrote his first book in 1940, when he was about forty-three years old. He waited a little while. Some people write a book too early. He waited until he was forty-three and had some experience with the Lord.
If you look at lists of the one hundred most significant Christian books of the last century, several of Tozer’s books are normally on there. If you really want to get to know him, first read The Pursuit of God, because many of these books come out of his own personal testimony. Then move on to The Divine Conquest and The Knowledge of the Holy.
He had a powerful, straightforward way of speaking. One person summarized Tozer’s ministry this way—and if you read him, you’ll understand it:
To listen to or read Tozer is about as safe as opening the door of a blast furnace.
If you are looking for comfort, he is going to pierce right into your heart—right into where God wants to touch, those sensitive areas that maybe we do not open. But he would pierce right through. We will see by a couple of his quotes how he did this.
Tozer was also what is called—and called himself—an evangelical mystic. He said, “I’m the evangelical mystic.” Most times, we do not put those two words together: evangelical and mystic.
We think of mystics as being out there, all in the subjective realm. You do have to be careful when we read mystics, but there is a treasure out there in them. Tozer called himself the evangelical mystic, and that is what he encouraged others to be.
As you read through what he described as an evangelical mystic, I believe most of us would fall into that category, hopefully. He said it is one who has been brought into intimate fellowship with the Godhead, and whose theology is no less and no more than is taught in the Scriptures.
They walk the high road of truth like the apostles and those down through the centuries: martyrs, Reformers, Puritans, evangelists, and so on. They are rooted and grounded in the Word of God.
Some mystics are very experience-oriented, and that can be to the neglect of the Word of God. Tozer was very grounded in the Word of God.
He said that the evangelical mystic differs from the ordinary orthodox Christian only because they experience their faith down in the depths of their hearts, while the other does not. They know that the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality. There is a reality that you touch in the Spirit, and you know that this is real.
It is like Moses: he endured as seeing Him Who is unseen. This is Tozer’s testimony.
Finally, their religious experience is an immediate acquaintance with God by union with the Son. It is to know that which passes knowledge. It is beyond merely physical, head knowledge.
There is a wonderful testimony by Martin Lloyd-Jones in one of his books. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a famous preacher and a great commentator in England. He was very influenced by the Puritans.
If you ever want to get an overview of the history of the Puritans, Martin Lloyd-Jones has a book called The Puritans, and he brings a great history to that.
Once Martin Lloyd-Jones and Tozer were together at a conference. As Lloyd-Jones recalled:
Dr. Tozer and I shared a conference years ago, and I appreciated his ministry and fellowship very much. One day he said to me, “Lloyd-Jones, you and I hold just about the same position on spiritual matters, but we’ve come to this position by different routes.”
Lloyd-Jones asked, “How do you mean that?” Tozer replied, “You come by way of the Puritans, and I came by way of the mystics.” Lloyd-Jones said he was right.
Martin Lloyd-Jones came to the fullness of the experience of Christ through the Puritans, which we think of more as the objective teaching side. Tozer came to the fullness of Christ through the mystics, which we think of more as the subjective side. But both had an experience with the Lord, led balanced lives, and came to the same place: a greater revelation of Christ.
There is one path that we are on, but each of us has personal experiences along that path, and the Lord works with us in different ways. The goal is always the same, and the end product is what He desires. But we go through various experiences.
Sometimes we try to pattern everybody else after our experience or the way we go. “I got there this way. That’s the way.” But the more you go on, the more you find out that there is one way, but there are different experiences and different ways in that one way.
A couple of quotes by Tozer here. I really appreciated this one:
Whatever comes into your heart and mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.
When you think about the Lord, what comes to you? What is your image of the Lord within your heart and mind when you stop and think about Him?
He also said:
To have found God, and still to pursue Him, is the soul’s paradox of love.
You found Him, but you are still pursuing Him—that great paradox of love.
Then, in some of his bluntness, he said:
When you kill time, remember there is no resurrection.
We talk about killing time and wasting time. There is no resurrection there.
Again, you see a little of his bluntness here:
Christians don’t tell lies. They just go to church and sing them.
So, you can see how he could get under your crawl there for a bit if you are a little sensitive. That is a little bit of the blast furnace of him. But the impact he had was amazing.
He was with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, formed by A. B. Simpson, and was greatly used of the Lord. The help that people can receive from Tozer is timeless, and thankfully, they have kept his books in print.
Another dear saint greatly used of the Lord during this time was our dear sister Jessie Penn-Lewis. Throughout history, the Lord has used many sisters in many different ways.
Sadly, because of the prejudice of many historians and the way we have looked down on sisters throughout the years and not given them recognition, many of them do not receive the credit they rightfully deserve. They do not receive recognition for the place of influence they had.
In Miss Penn-Lewis, we see one who was greatly used of the Lord to help many—her peers and many who were even older than she was. The Lord used her in a very wonderful way.
She grew up in a strong Christian family and was saved at an early age. She was the oldest of eight children. Her father died, and she helped her mother care for them.
Throughout her whole life, Miss Penn-Lewis wrestled with frailty, sickness, and weakness. But through it all, she found the Lord as her sufficiency. Many times she would be laid up, but the Lord would meet her and raise her back up.
At the age of nineteen, she married William Penn-Lewis, an accountant and a very revered person within England. They moved to Richmond, England, and lived on Halford Road. The house where she lived is about three or four houses down from where Lance met at Halford House—of course, with a lot of time difference there.
She attended what was called at that time Holy Trinity Church, pastored by Evan Hopkins at Keswick. We talked about him before.
She had a great desire for the Lord to grow within her. She was very active. With Mrs. Evan Hopkins, she founded the YWCA in Richmond. She also worked and taught at the rescue home for girls in Richmond.
She was pouring out her heart. She had a desire to serve the Lord and was involved in many good works. She felt that the more she loved the Lord, the more she had to do. She wanted to encounter the Lord in a fuller and greater way.
Then came the year that transformed her life. She had been laboring for the Lord and serving Him in many different ways, but she was never satisfied. She felt insecure in her service: “How can I do enough for Him?”
She had been reading the ministries of Madame Guyon, Andrew Murray, and Henrietta Soltau, a China Inland missionary. She came to the wonderful realization:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.
The Lord revealed to her that all of her consecrated self was filthy rags. Everything she had been doing in herself was filthy rags. But she saw that out of death came life. As she saw that she was crucified, she testified, “I’m dead. I have been crucified. I’m dead to the world and everything.”
Yet she entered into great liberty and great freedom. As she was before the Lord, she prayed for the filling of the Holy Spirit and for His power for service.
As she prayed for God to fill her with the Spirit and grant great power for service, she said that He asked her three questions:
He challenged her with each of those questions. As she gave herself to Him, she saw that all of herself—even all our good works—was filthy rags.
This revelation of the experiential side of the cross helped so many. There was a lot of teaching on the cross and our salvation, but there had not been much teaching, up until Miss Penn-Lewis, on experiencing the cross in an experiential way: our being crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I living, but Christ Who lives within me. That new life really liberated her. It was very similar to what Hudson Taylor had gone through with the exchanged life, and to others at Keswick.
Her books on the cross brought into focus this truth and reality. She called the cross the touchstone of faith.
Many people think of the cross as negative. But whenever she shared it, she saw that the cross was victory. The cross was resurrection life.
How do we get resurrection life? We experience the victory He brought, and we are set free. It sets us free from ourselves, the sin of the world, and the flesh. We are free to serve Him in a great and powerful way.
There was a great impact that she had among believers. As she had given herself to the Lord in this way, she and a couple of other sisters started having conferences through the YWCA. She was so popular that over thirteen thousand would attend these conferences.
She started traveling all over Sweden, Ireland, and Denmark. She came to the United States and ministered with R. A. Torrey and A. B. Simpson in New York City, where Simpson had his Christian and Missionary Alliance work.
Then, in 1897, she visited Keswick for the first time. The next year, she started speaking there. They were so touched by her.
But it sparked a debate about women ministering to mixed audiences. When she saw that, she backed out. She was not interested in an agenda.
At first, they set up a women’s tent for her to minister in, so women could go hear her speak. But even though it was the women’s tent, almost half of it was filled with men. They wanted to hear.
Later on, you hear different stories of some of the great sisters who were co-workers in China, and the brothers would sit outside the door and listen to them. But Miss Penn-Lewis did not want to get involved in that debate at that time, so she withdrew.
We mentioned earlier how, in the Welsh revival, the Lord used her to help bring balance when there were many works of the flesh going on. Her teaching on the cross and the crucified life brought a needed balance with Evan Roberts and allowed that work to go forth in a full and solid way.
In 1908, she started a monthly magazine called The Overcomer. T. Austin-Sparks ministered and wrote with her for several years, until 1926. The Overcomer magazine still continues today. It has changed significantly, but it is still being printed.
One of the ways she was used a lot was in the matter of spiritual warfare. Sometimes we try to make it so complicated. She expressed it in a very succinct way.
This is a quote from her book:
Briefly, prayer warfare simply means holding unceasingly the power of the finished work of Christ over the hosts of evil in their attack upon some place or person, until the victory is won.
Just as Moses lifted up his hands steadfastly until the victory was won, so the prayer warrior holds up steadfastly the victory of the cross—the finished victory of Christ over Satan—until the forces of evil retreat and are vanquished.
They are standing on that completed work, standing in victory for Christ and holding that up. That is the secret she shows us of spiritual warfare.
She was a dear sister used by many, and we are thankful for her. As I mentioned, she had an impact upon Brother Sparks’ life, and we will move on to him now.
I appreciate Brother Sparks because, even though he was not a man of great personality, in his writings he was very transparent. He had a magazine called A Witness and a Testimony.
If you go through A Witness and a Testimony, in many ways it is a personal testimony of his growth in the Lord. We will touch on those in a minute, but I appreciate his transparency in that.
The reason he used T. was because he did not like Theodore. So, Theodore Austin-Sparks was born in London, but he grew up with his father’s family in Scotland.
When he was about seventeen years old, he was saved by a young street preacher in Glasgow. A group of youngsters were out there preaching the gospel on the street, and through that he was saved.
As soon as he was saved, he was out there preaching too. What was he preaching? He was just sharing his testimony. He said, “I was blind, and now I see.”
He was a young man, seventeen or eighteen years of age, and immediately after he was saved, he began going out and testifying of Who Christ was to him. There was a lot he did not know, but one thing he did know was that the Lord had saved him. He testified of that without hesitation.
Again, without real formal training, from 1912 to 1926 he served as a Baptist pastor for three churches in London. During that time, he sat under the teaching of G. Campbell Morgan and established a close, lifelong friendship with F. B. Meyer.
That was a lot of good preaching in London at that time. You had Morgan over here, Meyer over there, and Sparks here. Where do you go?
But you see how the Lord moved in his life. Again, the Lord trained him up. He did not go to college. He sought the Lord, studied the Word, and the Lord trained him and brought him into this fullness.
In 1923, while he was still pastor of Honor Oak Baptist, he started the publication A Witness and a Testimony. It was published bimonthly until its final issue, when he died in 1971.
It is interesting: when I talk about how A Witness and a Testimony shows his personal growth, by 1947 or 1948 the cover had changed to include the golden candlestick. The golden candlestick represented the testimony of Jesus to him.
At first, many of the messages were gospel messages. Then came sanctification messages and consecration messages. Throughout the years, you can see how the Lord was growing him.
One of the things about Brother Sparks was that he was never satisfied. He always knew there was so much more of Christ. As he sought the Lord with an honest and open heart, the Lord continued to show him more things and reveal to him His desire for a church and for a testimony.
The turning point in his life came in 1926, when the Baptists had a campaign called “Make More Baptists.” He replied, “We can only make more Christians.”
So he resigned his Baptist pastorate at Honor Oak Baptist. Honor Oak is the name of a street in part of London. That is where the gathering of the Honor Oak Christian Fellowship Centre began.
This is a rendition of what it was like in those days. It does not look like that at all now, because it was bombed heavily during World War II. They rebuilt it, but this is what it was like at the beginning.
Honor Oak became a teaching and training centre for many dear ones. But because of the stand he took—leaving the Baptist Church and establishing this independent assembly in 1926—he was ostracized and rejected by many believers.
He wrote:
They closed every door on me that could be bolted and barred, but God opened doors. He opened so many doors throughout the world in ways and places I never could have imagined.
He went from what appeared to be a pinnacle—a respected Baptist pastor—to what looked like being rejected and brought down to nothing. But in God’s kingdom, he was promoted. God used him as a great servant in that way.
At Honor Oak, they always had a heart for others. They sent out people to many different places throughout the world. Many brothers from there would go out to different places, and they received brethren from throughout the world.
In 1933, Watchman Nee first visited there, though Brother Sparks was not there. Nee returned in 1938. Later, three sisters from the assembly there—Mrs. Clark, Featherstone, and Taylor—moved to Shanghai and met with the assembly there.
A little after that, Brother Bak Singh, from India, visited and established a close relationship. Two brothers from the Honor Oak assembly, Brother Fred Flack and Raymond Goldsworthy, went to India and co-worked with Brother Bak Singh throughout India.
Brother Nee came to meet Brother Sparks in 1938 in London. They had sweet fellowship together.
It caused Brother Nee some trouble because he had been associated in fellowship with a group then called the Exclusive Brethren. They had been a support and encouragement to him. But after he met with Brother Sparks, who was not part of the Exclusive Brethren, they severed their relationship with him.
Basically, among the Exclusive Brethren, you had to meet with them or nobody else. You could not meet with other Christians. Nee never bought into that. He met with Brother Sparks and other believers, and they severed their relationship with him.
It is sad. They may have thought they had good intentions and were doing the right thing, holding to the faith and contending for the faith. Yet they were blind and did not see. They saw in part, but they did not see the fullness of all that Christ was doing.
One of the great people Brother Sparks impacted was a sister named Lady Ogle. Lady Ogle was a very wealthy widow, a very aristocratic lady.
She testified that she really felt life was meaningless after salvation. You got saved, waited, and went to heaven. She did not feel there was much meaning in life.
One time, she went to a Swanwick conference, which Jessie Penn-Lewis held. She heard a young man share about God having an eternal purpose. God has saved us with a purpose. He has saved us to be His testimony upon this earth—for the bride to make herself ready, and for there to be a visible testimony of the church upon this earth.
It revolutionized her life. Her eyes were opened for the first time. She saw there was meaningful life, and it revived her. She served the brethren for many years.
We have heard from Stephen and Lance many stories about this dear sister. I remember one Lance told, and I am going by memory, so give me a little grace if I mess up a couple of facts.
Lady Ogle was so given to the Lord, and she was very wealthy. She was wealthy before she got married, and when her husband died, she was double wealthy.
She had been supporting a lot of missionary groups. There was a missionary group with a ministry in Egypt, and she wanted to go. She applied, but they told her, “You are too frail. You can’t go. Conditions are tough there.” They would not support her going.
They found themselves in an awkward spot because she was one of their main contributors. But she said, “Well, I’m just going.” So she went.
She was with another missionary who was a doctor, and they were ministering to the down-and-out, the poor, and neglected people throughout the cities there.
One day, the doctor got a message that a particular woman was in bad shape. She was rejected by everybody. She was a prostitute, dirty and filthy—everything you could imagine: lice, filth, and degradation.
The doctor and Lady Ogle went out to meet the woman. The doctor said, “You’re going to need to hold her so I can take care of her.” Lady Ogle was repulsed, but by the grace of God she responded and held the woman.
She said she had never even come close to that kind of filth in her life. As she held the woman, she heard the Lord say within her heart, “Kiss her.”
She said, “No way.” There was not a clean place on the body to kiss, just sores and everything. But the Lord said, “Kiss her.”
By faith, she kissed that woman. She was so filled with the love of Christ that it overwhelmed her heart. She saw, in many ways, that is what the Lord has done to us. He has kissed us in our filth and our rags. He left the splendor of heaven.
It opened her heart and life, and she continued to serve in many different ways.
She was a very modest lady. She had mansions in Italy, England, Scotland, and India where saints could go. I remember Brother Kong talking about how, when he came out of China, they had to leave. He went to Singapore, then India, and ended up at Lady Ogle’s place.
He did not know her. When he arrived, he saw this lady dressed so simply that he thought she was one of the servants in the house. Then the lady he thought was a servant came in—it was Lady Ogle—and she cared for him with gracious hospitality.
You see people throughout history. Wesley and Whitefield had Lady Huntingdon; the Brethren had Lady Powerscourt, who really laid her life down; and Lady Ogle gave of her heart and resources. Some, like C. T. Studd, gave all their money away. Others the Lord used in different ways.
We do not know how He works, but we are thankful that the Lord can capture those who, in the world’s eyes, have everything and need nothing. Yet within them, they know there is a great void. A simple message of the gospel can transform a life. Thank the Lord.
From 1947 on, after the war, Brother Sparks continued ministering throughout the world. He went through Manila, Taiwan, and many varied places.
His first visit to the United States came in 1947. He was invited by Dr. Thornton Stearns—not the one we know; that was his father. Thornton was not that old.
Dr. Stearns had been a missionary in China, had been associated with Watchman Nee, and had served as an elder at the assembly in Shanghai. During the war, he was imprisoned by the Japanese. He cared for other prisoners and became so exhausted that he almost died in the prison camp.
In 1943, through the Red Cross, prisoners were exchanged and he was able to return to the United States. Watchman Nee had told him that whenever he returned home, he needed to search out Brother Sparks and invite him to the United States.
So, through Thornton Stearns, Brother Sparks first came to the United States. He continued for many years, traveling throughout the world. He held conferences in Europe, Australia, Taiwan, India, and many other places.
In 1966, there was the first conference at Wabana Camp in Maryland with Stephen Kaung and DeVern Fromke. As Kenny shared at the memorial service, that had a great impact. After it ended, a conference was raised up here. We see part of our heritage as we look back at how the Lord used these dear ones.
Brother Sparks also held training conferences throughout Europe, calling many different leaders together. The Lord brought these people together, trained them, and gave them a heart to learn and serve together. The impact of this handful of people was felt throughout the world, and we are greatly indebted because of that.
If you look at Brother Sparks’ ministry, which is far more important than just his life, many ask, “Explain to me Brother Sparks’ ministry.” The book that captures it most is The Stewardship of the Mystery. His books are available free online through the T. Austin-Sparks website.
Watchman Nee shared an interesting thing, and I think this was early in his life. You can see how Brother Sparks was growing as you look at the different aspects of his ministry.
Brother Nee said:
The world did not know what resurrection was. Resurrection was spoken about, but the world never knew what resurrection really was. It was not until Brother Sparks wrote and spoke on resurrection that you got the substance of it.
There is a real resurrection life for us to enter into. Resurrection was not merely one event in history; there is a resurrection life that He wants each one of us to live in.
When Sparks was asked about the essence of his ministry, he wrote in a booklet called This Ministry:
It is the revelation of the significance of Jesus Christ in God’s universe. Just as the sun is the centre of the solar system and the source of all its light, life, and energy, so Christ is the divine centre of the spiritual universe, governing all things, giving light, life, power, and purpose to all in that sphere.
Yes, it is the absolute ascendancy of the victory of Christ and His filling of all things, which is this ministry.
It was a very Christ-centric ministry. Before that, so much ministry was egocentric and man-centred. It was revolutionary how he saw the significance of Christ—His centrality and universality.
If you read Brother Sparks, your vocabulary will be expanded. Put a dictionary beside you as you start reading. But he was focused on Christ. That was what he wanted to bring people back to.
People also asked him, “What is the local church?” He said:
The local church is a company of born-again Christians brought together by the Lord in any given place, and over whom the headship of Christ is an established, operating reality.
That was what they desired at Honor Oak Christian Fellowship Centre as they gathered. They did not want to form another sect. They did not want to form this or that. They wanted simply to form a testimony unto Him.
Any born-again believer brought together by the Lord in any given place, over whom the headship of Christ is an established, operating reality—that is the local church. Praise God for that clarity of vision.
Finally, before he passed away, one of the last things he wrote was in A Witness and a Testimony in 1967. People wanted to know about the ministry, and he summarized it in four main points.
He died in 1971, so this was written after many years of experience. He was looking back and reflecting over what God had revealed to him.
The greatness of God’s Son.
The purpose of the ministry was “to convey the eternal counsels of God, firstly in relation to His Son—the superlative and transcendent place and greatness of His Son.” The focus was bringing people to Christ.
The greatness of man in the thoughts of God.
He said, “What is man?” has remained unanswered as to man’s usefulness in God’s purpose concerning him. In spite of man’s fall, he remains a conception of God for glory, honour, and dominion over the inhabited earth.
Brother Sparks was able to bring to light the necessity of man in God’s purpose. God has chosen to work through man. We can look down so much on man, but through Sparks’ ministry we see how redeemed people can really be used of Him.
He clarified that he was not talking about humanism. He said that humanism is the Antichrist counterfeit.
Some people wanted him to put number three first: the greatness of the church. But he said that unless you first convey the greatness of Christ, and then see the necessity of man, you cannot really see the essence and fullness of what God has purposed for the church.
I appreciate how, to me, he concisely pulled together the very heart and essence of his ministry.
We read these truths, and because of Brother Sparks and others who followed, they are not so strange to us. To many, they are very strange. But we have been entrusted with much, and to whom much is entrusted, much is required. We want to be those who are faithful to that.
I am thankful to the Lord that He was able to find these people who were really unknown by the world. They were not the finely educated ones. Throughout history, God has used greatly educated men, but the people we have considered today—Tozer, Sparks, and Penn-Lewis—were not educated according to the world’s standards. They were not the great ones of the world.
But the Lord found them. His eyes went to and fro. He found one whose heart was completely His, and He said, “I can use that vessel.”
Praise God, they responded. Each one of them was never satisfied—never satisfied with enough. They always knew there was much more of Christ. May that really capture our hearts too.
As we wrap it up today, remember that the Lord is ever looking for people whose heart is completely toward Him. And remember: when the enemy comes in like a flood, He will raise up a standard.
One whose heart is completely His is never satisfied. One whose heart is completely His is often rejected by other believers.
One of the greatest sufferings is not physical but being misunderstood and rejected. If you read the biographies of many, you see the pain of being misunderstood by those you love and rejected by those you thought accepted you.
But thank the Lord: one whose heart is completely His forsakes the world and the praise of man because he knows he is accepted in the Beloved. He has been captured in a fresh way.
One whose heart is completely His endures that momentary light affliction because he sees that eternal weight of glory. There is something that keeps you going.
One whose heart is completely His receives, as Paul said, the crown of righteousness. There is a glorious reward.
May we be those whose hearts are completely His. We are thankful for how the Lord found these people, opened their eyes and hearts, and enabled us to benefit from them.
This is getting pretty close to our age and our time. We have a great conflict going on as the enemy is flooding in in many ways today. May we be strengthened to be the testimony He is calling us to be.
Lord, we thank You that we can call upon You. We are thankful that we can draw near to You.
Lord, we are thankful that You are the One Who is accomplishing a great purpose. Outwardly, it would look like You are a failure. But we are thankful that, as we started today, the King of Glory has come in.
We are thankful that You have won the victory. We thank You for the work that You have begun and that You are going to complete.
We are thankful, Lord, that as You show us these people who have gone before us, and as we are challenged within our hearts, we can say, “It is not I, but Christ.”
We do not want to respond in ourselves, but to know the reality of Who You are—the reality of the death and resurrection that we have in You. Lord, it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives within me.
We give our hearts to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.