[kisstheson]

Dear ones, sanctified in Christ Jesus,

A hallmark of TAS’s ministry in the 1960’s and very early 1970’s (he went to be with the Lord in 1971) was a deep, all-consuming, longing that the things he spoke would become a lived-out reality in the lives of those who heard his words. He had a very godly fear of merely adding to the already-existing “mountains of teaching”. He really knew something of God’s desire for spiritual reality, for “truth in the inward parts”.

In a portion I have already quoted from Message Eight, TAS stated:

“We can know nothing of what is in this Kingdom, only as we are growing spiritually. Very often our intellectual life goes ahead of spiritual life, and when that happens, we have to come back a long way and start again. We sometimes think we know a great deal more than we really do know. Only a life in the power of the Holy Spirit learns the things of the Kingdom."

Personally, this sheds a lot of light on my experiences in the LC, particularly from the mid-1980’s onward. We had a lot of intellectual understanding of terms and concepts which were new to us, first “Life Study” terms and concepts, and then “High Peak” terms and concepts. Such intellectual awakening can be, and was, a very profound experience. Respeaking the things we had seen, often with voices raised and fists pumping, was reality to us at the time. We were all so sincere and it all seemed so real and so exciting.

Without downplaying the importance of “seeing”, the value of “seeing” became greatly exaggerated, at the expense of gaining the reality of the things we “saw”. Even more exaggerated was the importance of being able to speak "these things”. And so we went on, conference after conference, training after training, always gaining new knowledge, new intellectual understanding, new utterances. In between conferences and trainings we had our time to learn to “prophesy” the latest terms and concepts. But where was the mutual concern and love for one another that we would learn to live out these things, that these things would become not just intellectual understanding, but spiritual reality to us? This is a big area where TAS could have rendered so much help to us.

Here are a few portions from related speaking by TAS in the 1960’s:

"'Thou desirest truth in the inward parts' . . . He undercuts all our professions, doctrines, assumptions, pretensions, illusions, and customs . . . God is ever working toward the most inward parts. Do you recognize that? Do you understand what He is doing with us? . . . Here it is: 'Create in me a clean heart'; 'Renew a right spirit within me'; 'A broken spirit and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise'. You see, it is all this innermost realm of things that has now arisen as the real need. No more deception, no more falsehood, no more mockery, no more make-believe, no more going on as though it is all right when it is not all right; no more using external means to cover over inward unreality; no more going to meetings, and saying prayers, and joining in the whole system, when the inward parts are not right before God. Seeing then that we are what we are by nature now, this represents a re-constituting of us. Anything that does not minister to that is false in itself. Any system of religion that just puts on from the outside, and covers over the inner life by mere rite and ritual is false, it is not true.” (Truth in the Inward Parts, 1962)

“In a very real sense I’m afraid, afraid of more talking, more addresses, more unfolding of biblical content and truth. I’ve been doing it, you see, for so many years; sixty years I’ve been preaching and I at this time have to look out and say: what has it amounted to? What does it amount to? I know it is not all without blessing, help, usefulness to the Lord, but... seeing the mountains of teaching over these years, dare I add to that? Have I the assurance that if I go and do more, it’s going to lead somewhere? That’s my fear, my question. This is what I want to say is I come amongst you that we must have this fear this week, a right kind of fear, I believe a divine fear, that we do not fill our notebooks or our minds with more teaching, truth, substance, but that every time as far as there is something that can really affect us, result in something in us, so far as we are concerned we are going to apply our hearts to that. Then day by day and when the days are past, we are different people. That’s the only justification of our coming, friends, we are different people. We certainly are not the same in spiritual life at the end as when we came . . . If this is the effect of the Lord’s words, if there is not reality (and what Christ meant by reality is the heavenliness of nature) . . . It’s perfectly clear that the one thing that Jesus was set upon with all His heart was that there should be no gap whatever between truth as truth, teaching as teaching, doctrine as doctrine, Bible knowledge as Bible knowledge, and life and heavenly character and Christ-likeness. No gap between the two!” (Reality Through the Cross, 1967)