Dear brethren,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! How grateful we are to share again with you another series of unpublished messages given by T. Austin-Sparks. When first we heard these messages on tape, we said, 'Oh, if only we had had this teaching in the beginning of our Christian life, how it would have greatly helped us to know how to study the Word by the Spirit, and to save us from "the letter of the law," for the letter killeth but the Spirit edifieth.

At this Bible conference, many brothers and sisters in the Orient had gathered together for this Bible training course, in which Brother Sparks taught them many Divine principles concerning the Father's method for ministering Christ's fulness. And in these meetings, Brother Sparks expounded at length upon these Divine things.

The bulk of these messages, entitled The Persistent Purpose Of God, came out of the Book of Ezekiel. And so, in order to have a greater understanding of these messages, it would be helpful before reading this book to read Chapters 1-3; 40-46; and 47 of Ezekiel. Also, as readers of this book, one should put himself or herself in the place of a student in order to gain the revelation of the Holy Spirit shared during this concentrated time before the Lord in preparation for ministering Christ.

In this book, each chapter is one of the Bible training sessions that was held. Thus, the punctuation used in editing the tapes from these classes is minimal. We do pray that you will find this book enlightening for your service unto Christ through the message of the Spirit contained in it. And so, we pass it on to you and say, as Brother Sparks said: "Pray over it, do not take it as some Bible study. Everything must have spiritual and practical value. So I say, brethren, pray over it, think over it, and ask the Lord to make it all true where you are"!

Your brethren at Emmanuel