"Men Whose Eyes Have Seen the King" (Transcript)

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 6 - The Glory of the Lord

I would like, for the moment, to focus upon the twenty-eighth verse of Ezekiel 1:

"As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness roundabout." Now this in particular: "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord."

The Appearance of the Likeness of the Glory of the Lord

That fragment seems to me to sum up all these prophecies. Not only does it in particular apply to the first chapter, but it can be taken all the way through; for everything in these prophecies is being governed by what is there: the glory of the Lord.

There is a very practical and immediate relationship between ourselves here and this word; this word and ourselves. I am quite sure that in the case of most of you, at any rate, there is a sense, a deep and strong sense, of the need that the Lord should do a new thing. I think that is very widespread. What that new thing is, may be given different interpretations. In the whole evangelical world there is much prayer and talk about 'revival'; that perhaps is only another way of expressing this sense of a need for the Lord to move in, in a new way, and do a new thing. Others would put it in other ways. But nevertheless, there it is everywhere and one finds it amongst Christians wherever we go: the Lord must do something, the Lord must move, the Lord must do a new thing, the Lord must take a fresh step.

And we here this morning are not less burdened with that concern than others. It is our prayer and our sense of need. We need to be very intelligent and understanding about this matter. The Lord has His ways and His means, and we need to know something about them if we are going to be in line with the Lord in any movement that He purposes to take. Therefore, I say this word is very appropriate to the situation. For, whenever God has moved in a new and a further step in His Divine purpose, He has prefaced that movement by bringing His people, bringing the instrument concerned, in the first place, and then, through such an instrument, His people, to a fresh apprehension of His glory.

That is a statement which will bear investigation and confirmation. God's one end in all things is glory. Make no mistake about that. If you want to know what God is after, moving toward, in all things, that compasses countless details in every realm: in personal life and corporate life; in the nations - in every direction and connection, the answer is that God's end is glory. And if that is so, it is to be noted that He sets and establishes that principle always at the outset of every movement. He puts it there as a thing which is going to govern that movement, that step, or whatever it is He is about to undertake. It is going to be governed by that end which He brings to every new beginning.

That may sound a little difficult for the moment, but take some instances. We will all agree that when God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and separated him, that was a new movement of God. There is no doubt about that: a clearly-cut and defined breaking-in to human history on the part of God, with something new, or a further stage in the Divine programme in view.

Now, Stephen tells us that: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Ur of the Chaldees". Why? The God of glory! The end toward which God was moving was glory - His own glory in a people to be manifested among the nations. And so, as the God of glory He appeared unto Abraham. He put the glory there as the principle, the law, the basis upon which He was taking that step, and was going to follow it through.

Some centuries later (revealed to Abraham even to the very period), the Lord had that people out of Egypt. He brought them to Sinai; and there the fresh step of changing them from a rabble crowd, an unconstituted and unorganised mass and multitude, into a corporate nation. That was the new move at Sinai: by the law and the testimony and the revelation given in the mount, the people were constituted a nation. And it was done in glory. Moses went into the mount, and saw the God of Glory, and came down with that glory on his face. Again, God had put the principle of everything at the beginning of His new move: He was moving on the pathway of glory.

A further step in the Divine plan was reached in the days of David and Solomon. The temple was indeed a development of the Divine thought in representation; and it is all in glory. The issue there is glory; the glory of the Lord filled the place. It was a glorious time with the glory of the Lord; it was a glorious place. It was all just enunciating and preserving this principle: that God is moving all the time with this thought governing - glory!

But we are told that the day came when the glory departed from Jerusalem. It went away. We know why and that brings us to the prophets of recovery, and to this prophet Ezekiel in particular.

Here, at the opening of these prophecies, in the day when the glory is eclipsed amongst the Lord's people, as lifted up and departed from Jerusalem, the Lord of Glory appeared to Ezekiel: "This is the likeness of the appearance of the glory of the Lord". It's impressive that that comes right at the beginning of the prophecies, isn't it? Now everything that follows is going to be but the outworking of that law of glory. God is more concerned, and in these various ways He is concerned, and showing His concern, for the end of glory to be reached.

You have that in the Old Testament, you come into the New and everybody will agree that the Incarnation is a new movement of God - the birth of the Lord Jesus into this world. That is indeed a great step forward in the Divine programme. And therefore it is accompanied with glory - heavenly glory: "Glory to God in High Heaven!" We've sung it in our hymn this morning. It's glory again at the inception of this new, mighty movement of God, because the end of that thing is indeed going to be glory: He has come for the recovery of the glory of God in this earth. That is heaven's song.

And we move on still, and again we will all agree that the Day of Pentecost is another great step forward in the plan of God. God is moving on, and this is a clear mark in that progress of God through the ages. The Day of Pentecost was a step of God from heaven! And what glory! What glory! John tells us quite clearly that the coming of the Holy Spirit was upon the basis of Jesus being glorified. He had said, or said: "The Spirit was not given; because Jesus was not yet glorified" - implying that when the Spirit was given, Jesus was glorified. It was on that ground. You see, God is moving on this all the way along.

And so we could go on. We think of the individual instruments of God's new movement. We will agree that a new movement was in hand through Peter. There is no doubt about it. It's a real new movement. Although Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, we must remember that Peter opened the door both to Jew and to Gentile for the new dispensation, in Jerusalem and in Caesarea. It was a mighty new movement. But Peter had his ministry set in this glory. He tells us, as we have been seeing in these days, that he was with Him in the Holy Mount, and beheld His glory and that had been a tremendously dynamic thing in Peter's life, there's no doubt about it. The Holy Spirit interpreted everything to him on the Day of Pentecost. He got a new Bible, because he had got a new Lord, and an open heaven; an opened heaven! It was this great principle of glory which accounted for Peter's ministry, and Peter's work, and Peter's endurance to the end.

That is perfectly clear in the case of John, who was with him for so long as his co-worker and fellow-apostle, in Jerusalem at least. Well, we will again recognise when we come to the beginning of the book of the Revelation, that we're in the presence of a new movement - a new movement for the recovery of the glory, which has become so limited and obscured in the churches. The Lord comes to John in vision in Patmos; but it is such a glorious thing, and the visions are so glorious, that more than once John is down in utter prostration before the Lord, and has to be lifted up, helped to rise, because of the overwhelming impact of the visions of the glory.

And you're all anticipating that I'm going to bring Paul into it and just say this again, that this wonderful ministry, so full, so rich, so glorious, was all born in the day when he saw the glory on the Damascus road. He came out of that.

The Lord put the glory (that's the point) at every occasion when He was going to move again with some new step in His purpose. All these things that I have mentioned are steps onward of God in His age-long purpose. And every one of them is based upon an apprehension, a new apprehension of the glory of the Lord by those who were concerned, so their ministry became that. In the case of the prophets and apostles, it was really a ministry of the greatness and the glory of the Lord. And as those to whom they ministered saw that, they became a people with a very tremendous significance in this world. It was this apprehension of the glory of Christ that gave character and meaning and power and value to their being here in this world. All this, then, has but one meaning: it is God's end, and God's object is glory, and everything that He does is governed by that.

Now, dear friends, this is something that must really take hold of us, and of which we must take hold. Oh, if there is to be real issue from our being together, one feels that it should be this: that the glory of the Lord should take hold of us. It should take hold of us! Oh, that we should become mastered by this truth: that in all things - see, in all things, to the minutest thing in our life under the hand of God, He intends that to work out for glory, that God, in everything, is working with glory in view. Do you believe that? Ah yes, you believe it as a statement and as a truth; perhaps you believe it in your heart; but it's not always easy, you know, to believe that. It's not always easy to believe that, because we just don't see how it can be. Indeed, what we do see convinces us that anything but glory can come out of this! Oh that the Lord would just grip us with this - grip me, grip you - with this, individually, and as companies of His people where we are. What He is doing, what He is allowing, is under the control of this one law and principle: it's going to be for His glory. For He intends it so to be! That is what He has in mind, and will do, if He is not finally thwarted in His purpose.

Well, everything may seem to contradict this. We come to the prophecies of Ezekiel, and there is plenty that seems to contradict this glory. You can't get away from it, you just cannot get away from the fact that this is in the first chapter. It is not reserved to the end, and you wade through all that is in this book, a wearisome tale of judgments and woe and what-not. You're not left to wade through it all and then at last find that God comes out with things in His own hands and manages to survive. You are told right at the very beginning that everything is governed by glory. Everything that's going to happen, everything that's going to be said, right on to the end, the governing thing is the glory of God. It's there as the very foundation of everything, so we must take note of that.

What is God's end? Well, Paul has seen it, and has given it to us in a matchless fragment: "Unto Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus unto the ages of the ages". You can't get beyond that! That's finality; that is the end - "unto the ages of the ages, glory in the church by Christ Jesus". Well, there it is.

Now we're coming then, to:

Ezekiel.

There is much here to help us as to God's own concern for His glory. We may have a concern for the Lord's glory, the Lord has a far greater concern for His glory than we have. And this book is just a book full of God's own concern for His own glory. So, with a precision, Ezekiel comes into view. Notice how precise it is, even to the day of the month, and the year: "The word of the Lord came unto Ezekiel, son of Buzi..." - where he was, when he was, how he was. It's like the Lord, moving so exactly, so meticulously in this matter, and laying hold of this man. And remember, it had to be a laying hold of him, because it resulted in a complete change in the whole vocation of this man.

Ezekiel was a trained priest; he belonged to the priesthood. And he was a young man who was expecting that through his life he would fulfil the ministry of a priest. This broke in and upset his whole career and his whole vocation: he had to change his whole manner and method of life, from priesthood to a prophet. It was something very strong in this man's case. It is interesting to notice that his name, Ezeki-el, means 'God will strengthen'. God will strengthen - for the glory of God that is very necessary, especially in conditions such as those in which Ezekiel lived.

Ezekiel, thus, as a young man, was carried away with the captives to Babylon, and was with the captives by the river Chebar, he tells us. And, from what we know, and what we read, it was a pretty hopeless situation. We know something of the conditions in Jerusalem from the prophecies and ministry of Jeremiah: it was pretty bad there; poor Jeremiah had his heart broken, as he had ministered in Jerusalem. But there are reasons for saying that whatever it was like in Jerusalem, it was more difficult in Babylon - that is, so far as the people were concerned to whom Ezekiel ministered. Their recalcitrance; they were a difficult people. Read these early chapters; see Ezekiel's encounter with them, encounters with them, the things to which he had to resort.

You see, I don't want to stay with too much detail, but it is very necessary for us to get the setting of the glory of the Lord, for our encouragement. Here he is with these captives. And you know, a man, a man who has to bring home to a people the reasons for their condition and the judgments of God and has to speak faithfully in the name of the Lord, without compromising on any principle at all; who will put his own very life and future in the balances of his ministry and be thoroughly faithful. Thoroughly faithful: he will not condone any wrong, he will not compromise on any principle in order to preserve their favour and his own position. The man who really has the glory of God at heart at any cost is a very unpopular man. Make no mistake about it, he's an unpopular man.

And Ezekiel was an unpopular man among the exiles - so unpopular that he had to resort to all sorts of seeming tricks to gain their attention, to get a hearing. Look at the things to which he resorted, and had to do - spectacular things; unusual things; and unnatural things. Sometimes he seemed to act the fool to draw attention, so that people would look in his direction. No, he was having a hard time to get a hearing, to have any attention at all; he was the most unpopular man, perhaps, in the country. It was a desperately difficult situation that he was in amongst his own people there.

In the midst of such a situation (which I don't think I exaggerate; indeed, I could add much more to it from these very chapters) in the midst of such a difficult and seemingly hopeless situation for the time being, Ezekiel says he was with the captives by the river Chebar and the heavens were opened, and he saw visions of God!

He saw visions of God... there is no situation so hopeless as to make it impossible for the glory of God to break in; it says that, surely? There's no situation that can shut God out and be too impossible for a fresh manifestation of His glory. Don't you take heart from that, if it's true? Well, here it is! Here it is, it's an amazing thing when you take the whole setting, and the whole circumstances, and the whole position. You could say, "Well, that's, that's altogether beyond any hope; that has broken Jeremiah's heart; that has brought the wrath of God in this way: destroyed Jerusalem and sent the people far away. What can you hope for in such a situation?" And, right in that, Ezekiel says: "I saw the heavens open, and visions of God". And he sums it all up: "This is the likeness of the appearance, the appearance of the glory of the Lord."

Oh, dear friends, difficult as it is for us to take hold of that, really believe it, this may be a message to us. Sometimes we are very near to despair over the whole situation. Let it come to us as a message from the Lord in our own lives, perhaps in the place where you are, as a company of the Lord's people, things create such difficulty that you sometimes get near to giving it all up. Ezekiel might well have done that, and had far more occasion to do it than you or I have; but right in there - there: "This was the likeness of the appearance of the glory of the Lord... The heavens were opened".

The Heavens Were Opened

We have thought and said much about an opened heaven. All we need say, all we'll stay to say about that, for this moment, is that, if, if there is any indication at all that the heavens are open, that is always the most hopeful thing in any situation.

You may be having some difficult times in your company of the Lord's people; perhaps you have got some difficult people - well, Ezekiel had some difficult people; you may be having much discouragement; there may be things that you feel to be very wrong, and so on and so on. And yet, when you come together and give yourself to the worship of the Lord, there is a wonderful sense of unction. You just become occupied with the Lord! For the time being, at any rate, you let the other go, and the Lord becomes your Centre - the heavens are opened! The heavens are opened! While that lasts, dear friends, there is every hope for your assembly; there's every hope for the future. There is nothing more hopeless than a closed heaven. A closed heaven!

Look at Calvary: "There was darkness over the face of the earth... and Jesus cried with a loud voice, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:45-46). Heaven was closed, because of what He was doing there - taking the sin of the whole world. Heaven closed down, was shut up; there was no way through. That is the most hopeless situation that could ever possibly be. The hopelessness of that situation killed Him. Killed Him! That was the final stroke to bring about His death. It was not the nails; it was not the thorns; it was not the action of men: it was the broken heart, because He had lived His life all the way through with a clear way through to the Father - an opened Heaven. He had it! You see it all His days; He had an open heaven, He was in communication with Heaven, with the Father. He had never known until then, one moment when He couldn't get through in an instant. Here that all ended: there was no way through; no response; no answering voice - a closed Heaven. That's hope-less.

If you and I have any answer to prayer, any little indication of token that the Lord has not forsaken, given up, shut down on us; if we have anything, heaven is still open, and that's very hopeful for the future. Oh yes, let us cherish the opened heaven of our times of worship. Many, many dark things may be about; many difficult things; situations, like Ezekiel's, may be full of evil, or perplexities, problems, difficulties, sufferings and what-not, and yet when we come together, and focus upon the Lord, and sense His presence, sense His presence, that's our open heaven. And an open heaven is always a sign that there is hope yet; there is hope yet, there is still a future for glory!

The Lord forbid that ever we should come to the time when we are closed down by heaven, and can't get through. "I saw the heavens opened...", and that meant God hasn't finished with things yet; God has not closed down yet. There may be judgments; and the following chapters show the judgments. There may have to be judgments; there may have to be disciplines; there may have to be chastenings; there may yet be a lot to be done. But whatever it is that has got to be cleared up - perhaps by the jealous wrath of God for His glory; hard things to be gone through, sufferings and afflictions because of the wrong; nevertheless, nevertheless it is all governed by this: a hope of glory - a hope of glory - if the heavens still remain open.

"I saw visions of God" - that is, visions given by God. What did Ezekiel see? What was it that comprised those visions of God? Well, as we have seen in chapter 1, he saw a throne; and then he saw "the likeness of the appearance of a man" upon the throne above. And then he saw a two-fold symbolic medium of the administration of that throne - the cherubim and the wheels. (We just mention these things for the moment and pass on, coming back for further consideration later). Then, as we know, he saw a house - the House - which he was commanded to show to the people of Israel. He saw the House in later glory. He saw the river coming from under the threshold, circling the altar, passing through the courts, and away down, broadening and deepening, and making everything live "whithersoever it came". Then he saw the land and the inheritance possessed. And finally he saw the City, and inscribed there: "The Lord is there". That is the end of it all - the Lord is there!

All of these things are related to the glory, are the result of the government of that One on the throne above. What I want to emphasise and stress particularly is all that is in this book is the result and the expression of that throne, and of the 'Man upon it above'. It is the inclusive factor in the whole book. Of course that's very simple to understand: everything emanates and results from the fact that there is One in the place of supreme government and authority. And for us, and for them, and for all time by the eternal appointment of God, that One is the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. It's the great, inclusive fact of His being exalted to: "the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens". "We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour". "God raised Him and set Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority, principality and power, and every name that is named". Everything comes out of that. If that is true, then everything is all right; it will be all right in the end. And everything that is here is but the expression of that throne and the Man upon it, of God.

Now dear friends, this is very up-to-date, isn't it? Very up-to-date. I have spent time in speaking of the conditions in which Ezekiel fulfilled his ministry and spent his life - the time and place and the state of things. Well, yes, he had a very difficult situation. But the Church has got a pretty difficult situation now and things are far from easy today. There is, as then, very much that is wrong, and very much that is evil. And who will say today that the glory of God pervades His people? Ezekiel's was a difficult time; but it was at that time, and in those circumstances, that this expression of the throne came in, came in for a new movement of God. Or shall I say, this apprehension, on the part of an instrument, of the supremacy of that Throne and the Man upon it, had this wonderful result: that, in time, the whole situation was changed, and God had something for His glory.

It had a tremendous effect upon Ezekiel, true, it saved him - that vision, the opened heaven, the throne and the Man upon it above - it saved him in his day, from despair. It saved his ministry; it saved his testimony; it saved his life. And it is only that that will save us; only that can save us, dear friends.

I perhaps sound a bit pessimistic. I don't want to be a pessimist, but you cannot, you cannot today be acquainted with the state of things on this earth, even amongst what is called "Christianity" or Christians, without sometimes feeling fairly hopeless about it. I may be all wrong, and I don't want to speak about myself, it may be partly due to me, but I confess to you that in recent months I have almost despaired of the Christian situation as I have seen it. I've wondered is it, is it possible that the great revelation given to us, the Church as we have it here in the New Testament, can in any way be realised in our time?

Look at the divisions; look at the quarrels; feel this awful atmosphere, an awful atmosphere that has spread, that has spread and grown! When I first went to the United States in 1925, there seemed to be such an open, clear way everywhere for something new of the Lord. The atmosphere seemed so clear, and hearts seemed so open. You go back there today (and this is not personal) everybody is suspecting everybody else! The spirit of criticism has got into the most devoted Christians, about both Christians and Christian things. The very people who are really most devoted to the Lord, you can't have a half-an-hour's conversation with them but somebody gets it, somebody is lashed, somebody is mentioned for warning, somebody is suspect. It's like an awful miasma, fog, that has crept over the whole world and you cannot go anywhere but you find it. You find it, amongst Christians! You cannot go into religious bookshops without seeing line upon line of pamphlets and books which are occupied with denouncing some thing. Denouncing something! Men are giving their whole lives to this kind of horrible work of trying to expose what they think to be error because they don't agree with it.

Now, that's strong language, but it's not too strong. It is the state of things, and you might despair of having something that you have seen to be God's purpose. You can't, the Lord won't let you, if you have seen the Lord, if you really have seen the Lord, you just can't give it up. You may say, like Jeremiah, that you won't speak in this way any more - he did. He resolved and determined that he would never speak again on this matter. But he said, "While I kept silent, while I mused, the fire burned, then spake I with my lips", it's out again, you can't keep it in.

And you and I have often resolved we just have to stop talking about it and give it up, because it doesn't seem to work; things seem to go from bad to worse, and worse to awful! And yet, and yet here we are again! We are here. I've been calculating very much in recent weeks as to how much I would say; calculating to keep back a lot. I can't help myself, we're back here again in full view of God's declared purpose.

The Spirit won't give it up, and won't let us give it up. However bad the situation is, the heaven is not closed yet; the Man on the throne has not evacuated the throne yet; there's hope. We have got to have the mastery of that great reality that He is still there, where God put Him. And if this is true, if this is true - difficult as it sometimes is to believe it, to see it, at any rate - He is "far above all rule and authority, and principality, and power, and every name" - be it Stalin, Khrushchev, or anybody else - "far above every name in this age and in that which is to come". Only as that gets hold of us, and in return we take hold of it, will there be any prospect at all; but that is the prospect.

I think perhaps I'd better stay there. You see, there's so much and we can overload and lose the real value by getting too much. My point for the moment is to see the glory is always a strategic movement of God in a difficult and unpromising day and situation. I think that was the meaning of the transfiguration. It was a difficult day; things were closing in on the Lord and His little band of men; the atmosphere was impregnated with hatred. It was a difficult day, and the cross, the cross was there immediately before. How shall they meet it? How will they survive it all? The strategy was the transfiguration - they "saw His glory". And although for a time afterward it seemed to be eclipsed, as we have said, when He was risen from the dead, they understood all things. And I'm quite sure the transfiguration took on its full meaning in the light of the resurrection.

Stephen was having a pretty hard time, wasn't he? Things were going very hardly for the church in Jerusalem on the day that that wonderful young man, Stephen, was dragged outside and done to death with that so vicious hatred of the Lord Jesus. It was a difficult time for Stephen, and for the others. But Stephen saw the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. It saved the situation for him, and I think it had a much farther reach than just himself; I think it handed on something. It handed on something at any rate, one man there who became a very potent factor in the Church for all time, was tremendously affected by what he saw in the face of Stephen, and heard through the lips of Stephen; he never got over it. He never got over it and he never forgave himself. You see quite clearly he says: "And I, I was standing by and giving my vote, my consent!" The seeing of the glory was a saving thing in a dark and difficult day.

Paul is in prison; Paul is in prison at the end of his long, full life and ministry, with all those many churches - far more than we have tabulated by letters addressed to them - many churches which he had been used to bring into being, many converts, and many who owed everything spiritually to him and his ministry. Now he is in prison, shut up, and he can't go to them and the churches are in a state of decline; many are turning against him and away from him as he says, a lonely man, a lonely man: "only Luke is with me". A man in difficulty, if ever a man was, naturally. Circumstances in every way, oh, what a situation, for a man like that! Fancy coming to an end like that! What saves him?

It is, my dear friends, it is astoundingly impressive, that right in that, knowing it all - knowing his own position, knowing his own prospects, his own prospects which were pretty poor for this life; knowing the state of things far away in the churches; getting news of these secessions and these disaffections; the seeming breakdown of his work; disappointment with believers and with churches - and all that. Enough to crush a man in despair. I say that it's an amazing thing that out of that, in the midst of that, he has an open heaven, and says: "Now, now unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all ages forever and ever!". He is saved by the glory; he is delivered by the glory. What a different end it might have been but for this apprehension of the glory!

Here he writes then, that this One, this Man, is in the glory on the Throne above, far above all rule and authority. Caesar may be there next door, governing the whole world, and bringing it under his mighty and evil heel, seeming to be able to carry out his fell designs against the church of Jesus Christ. While Paul, right alongside of Caesar and Caesar's city and stronghold, says: "He hath set Him far above all rule and authority, and every name - Caesar or any other - in this age, or in any other age... putting all things in subjection under His feet...". That's a vision, a saving vision, of the glory.

And I think with just a reminder that it was that that saved John in his difficult and desperate situation in Patmos, for it was indeed something to break a man's heart and to send him deep down in dark despair. The position of John, the one lonely survivor of the whole apostolic band; they've all gone, cut off from his beloved church, alone, isolated, exiled, with all the conditions which must have accompanied that exile. Well, that's enough to make a man despair, to feel that he has lived his life in vain, and that there really is no hope at all. But he had an opened heaven, and saw a vision - and what visions he saw! It was the opened heaven that saved him. The Lord give us that, and a new apprehension of the Throne and the Man upon it.

If anything has been said that would have been better left unsaid, we beseech Thee to cover and nullify that, oh Lord. Whatever has been right, according to Thee, do make it more than words, and ideas, and statements. Make it Life. Make it our salvation, make it our strength in this difficult day. Oh Lord, in this day, this very day in which we are gathered together, may there lay hold of us, and we be able to lay hold in a new way of the Throne of all thrones, and the Man above all upon it. We ask this, that glory may come back into our hearts and into our assemblies and amongst Thy people, in the name of the Lord Jesus.