'TROUBLE' INEVITABLE WITH SPIRITUAL SIGHT

When, therefore, there is the purest testimony, the fullest expression of what is of God, the heavenly over against the earthly, the spiritual over against the carnal or the natural, the enemy gives a turn to things, a twist to things, and lays the responsibility at the door of a spiritual and a heavenly ministry.

He says: 'You are the cause of all the trouble - you are the troubler!'

But no. The trouble lies deeper than that, and in another realm. 

The truth is, there is something here that, in its very nature, MUST create trouble, MUST be a source of trouble, so long as God's known will, His revealed mind, is being violated; while the full expression of God's purpose is being withstood.

To bring in something that stands for that, there is going to be trouble.

It is a costly thing to have seen God's full purpose and thought concerning His people.

It is always a costly thing.

The Lord Jesus set a very vivid example and object lesson of this truth right in the foreground, in the incident of the man born blind (John 9).

There is no doubt that the Lord intended that man to represent Israel and Israel's condition at the time.

He gave that man sight - and what happened to the man?

They cast him out, that is all; they cast him out, they excommunicated him (v. 34).

That is an object lesson, an instance of this very thing.

If eyes have been opened; if, in any sense - not officially - you have become a 'seer' - one who sees: it is going to cost you a lot, it will involve you in a lot of trouble.

This matter of 'seeing' does that.

It was Elijah the SEER, over against the BLINDNESS of Israel.

It is a costly thing to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman in this universe.

It is a costly thing, yes, very costly, to hold to a heavenly and spiritual position.

It is a costly thing to hold for Christ's full place; it involves you in trouble. 

It is a costly thing to have light - if it is true light, God-given light.

It is a costly thing to have life.

But remember, it is here, in this, that the power is resident.

It is with this that God is found ultimately to be committed.

You know the story again.

God will have no compromise with the thing that lies behind.

Take the prophets of Baal! They were all slain. 

There is no compromise with that spiritual thing. 

But God is shown as to where He stands, to what He is committed, and where the power is.

For I suppose that, if Elijah represents one thing more than another, he does represent spiritual power.

When we think of spiritual power we always refer to Elijah - 'in the power of Elijah'.

It is proverbial. Why?

Not because of anything that he was in himself; no, not because of the man. 

He was a man in touch with the Throne; he was a man who had seen; a man who was committed, of whom it was true that he was "very jealous for the Lord".

God was with Elijah.

John came 'in the power of Elijah' (Luke 1:17); he was the Elijah of his time.

The Lord Jesus said of him: "If ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah" (Matt. 11:14), though John himself denied this (John 1:21).

Elijah is a sort of phantom in a certain realm. 

Poor Herod was scared of his life - he began to see things, to get strange ideas - when he heard about Jesus: some suggested to him that this was Elijah returned to life, but he thought it was John the Baptist risen from the dead (Matt. 14:2; Mark 6:14-16).

The fellow just lost his mental grasp of things. 

This Elijah man counts for something.

Power is with him; the verdict is with him.

And - let there be no mistake about it - in the end it will be found that God IS committed to that which is utterly committed to Him for His full purposes. 

It is costly; it causes much trouble; BUT - the issue is with Him, and He will look after His own interests. 

~T. Austin Sparks~