The Golden Candlestick Nos. 184-185 starts with a series of messages given by T. Austin-Sparks with the title ‘God’s New Thing’. We do not know when or where these messages were given. As Christians we me long for ‘something new’, an act of God, a revival. What does God mean when He says, ‘Behold, I will do a new thing’?. A lot of Biblical phrases are about ‘new’: the New Testament, newness of life, ‘I will make all things new,’ a new creation in Christ. If God’s fullness is in His Son, Jesus Christ, ‘a new thing’ can only be a new aspect of Christ. It is better to say that God’s new thing is a fresh revelation of His Son, which is needed because somehow we have lost an awareness, a conception of the greatness of our Lord Jesus. In that sense the words in John 1:1 are painfully humiliating, ‘In the beginning was the Word…’ God is taking us back to the beginning, where His fulness is, in His Living Word, Christ Jesus His Son. This is what brother Sparks wants to stress upon in these articles, that Christ has to become real in our lives.

The Golden Candlestick No. 185 has two more messages by brother Sparks: Spiritual Foundations, given on Sunday evening September 1933 as part of a conference, and
Spiritual Death and His Risen Life: Sunday morning 1st April 1934, Easter Conference.

What these two messages have in common is an emphasis on the necessity of union with Christ in the daily lives of believers. As children of God we can make the mistake of thinking we poses the life of Christ apart from the Living Christ Himself. But of course that life is only in Christ and we only enjoy the benefits and blessings of it in a living relationship with our Lord Jesus. It is the life of faith, trusting completely on the Lord, finding Him to be utterly sufficient, from the beginning of our walk with Him until spiritual maturity.