The Coming of the Lord

I DESIRE to say a few words upon the hope of the church-the coming of the Lord; and upon the effect of expecting to see Him come.
We have too much overlooked this hope. The servant in Luke 12 said: " My lord delayeth his coming," he dropped the idea of meeting the Bridegroom. It is that which marks first love; the desire to see Him; and the church of Ephesus lost it. It is the sense that I cannot do without Him; it is not affection merely; it is that the heart has no full joy except with this blessed One and in His presence.
I do not think the servant preached it; I believe he acted on it. He said it " in his heart," and then he went and mixed with the world. The effect on the church of such service was that " they all slumbered and slept." Sleep is inactivity. In Canticles the bride says: " I sleep, but my heart waketh." There is none of the activity that first love gives; an activity that you never could describe, but it is always equal to the occasion. A mother does not pre-arrange what she will do for her baby. Thus the true heart has such love for Him that it is quick-sighted to know the minute attentions that suit Him. The outcome of first love is practically first works.
They all slumbered and slept for a long time; but at midnight there was the cry: "Behold the bridegroom!" This cry went forth fifty years ago. It had an immense effect. But the most ardent advocates of the Lord's coining became the greatest opposers of it. It was not intentional opposition on their part; it was an effort of Satan to get rid of the light that was shining in.
They said, Truly, the Lord may come tonight, but you cannot go forth to meet Him, for you have not the Holy Ghost. Pray for the Holy Ghost; pray that you may have oil in your vessels. So they had prayer meetings for the Holy Ghost. Thus they made the Holy Ghost, not Christ, their object; whereas the object of the saint is Christ. It is remarkable the way in which Satan will manage to set up a counterfoil to contravene what God is about.
The cry was: " Behold the bridegroom!" This addresses the heart. It is not a historic event. As sure as you hold any truth intellectually you will eventually become an opposer of it. If you hold the coming of the Lord as a historic event, I am bold to say that you will become an opposer of it in practice. I have seen people who talk much of this truth, and yet are the most impatient people as to things down here. They seem trying to grasp all they can in the world, just because they think He is coming, so they will not have much time for it. It is quite a different thing when the heart is so occupied with Christ that its one desire is to see His face.
But you might die?
Well, if I did, I should have a grand installment of it. " To depart and be with Christ is far better;" and a shorter way of waiting for His coming too; for the apostle has no idea of time up there, whilst He waits with Christ for His appearing; we suffer from time here, but there is none there.
But do you really look forward to this-I shall see His face? What is the effect of it upon you? I should like to hear some one tell me the effect it would produce.
For myself, I believe it would produce a character of behavior suitable to Himself before He comes. He consoles me in the present; He manifests Himself to me; I have communion with Him; I have His joy; but I look forward to a greater delight than all these; it is that of seeing Him face to face; and, when I see Him, I ' shall be like Him.
In John 14 He tells me how He consoles me in the interval, great correspondence takes place between Him and the true heart; just as two beloved friends when separated will continually communicate with one another. But these communications, though they relieve the heart in absence, really increase the desire for presence. The deeper, the more continued the intercourse that I now have with Him, the more it will rejoice my heart to see His blessed face. The very thing that makes up for His absence is that which intensifies the desire of my heart to see Him.
I desire that we may be exercised about two things. One is, the effect produced upon us by His coming before He comes; the other, the effect when He comes. I hear it sometimes said: " Oh, the Lord will settle everything when He comes, and make it all right then V I say, I would to God He would settle me; and that now, before He comes. If I am the bride, and I know that my Lord is coming, I want to have all in order for Him when He comes. " The Spirit and the bride say, Come." And as that moment approaches, I feel like Elijah on his last day. It was the busiest day of his life. While I am saying, Come, I am really all the more earnest, all the more active, all the more intent upon what concerns Him on the earth, so that my last day may be the busiest of my life too.
(J. B. S.)
The Coming of the Lord
THE words that have just been spoken have touched a very deep chord in my heart; one that was first touched sixteen years ago. For was slumbering and sleeping, like others. I had gone to a far distant land, and there God in His mercy wrought with me for His name's sake. I got the truth doctrinally first, but God soon made it a deep reality to my soul. And this truth has, I believe, been the great quickening truth throughout Christendom in these days. Just as three hundred years ago God wrought through that of justification by faith, so now, I believe, He has quickened souls, roused them up by this truth of the Lord's coming. As it comes with power before souls it wakes at once the question, Who is this Person, and what is my relation to Him?
Now it is one thing to be holding correctly the doctrine that He is coming, and quite another to be going out to meet Him. I do not believe that it means coming out of the different systems of religion or different worldly associations. I believe it means our being really ready in our hearts, in our lives, in our ways, in everything connected with us:-ready to see Him. Are we ready to see Him to-night? Is everything about us ready? As to all our associations, as to our hearts' affections, are we ready? What is the state of our hearts? Is my heart set on this one thing, to see His face?
I believe that we lose power ofttimes in speaking to others, or in exhorting them, just because we have very greatly lost hold of this truth. There is a want of freshness to us in it. The teacher perhaps feels: Here is a congregation which needs rousing, but speaking to them of the coming of the Lord will not rouse them; for the subject is stale, they know it perfectly. Now the Lord's coming ought never to be stale; it ought always to be fresh to our hearts.
If the Lord has taught me anything in bringing Inc to these meetings it is our want of power. I mean the need we have of being simply fashioned by the operation of the Holy Ghost. We need power; we need the grace of God working in us and among us. Whereas, alas, too often in individuals He is a grieved Spirit; and, when we come together as a congregation, He is a quenched Spirit. I believe we need to cultivate this power; we need to seek power more; that power which is got through seeking our " Father which seeth in secret," and who " rewardeth openly," in order that there may be a growth in life and an inward strengthening in our souls.
(B. F. P.)
The Coming of the Lord
As we were singing the fifty-sixth hymn, " Lord we await thy glory," my eyes and my heart went up, and I felt, " Lord, I do." I felt that I was awaiting His glory. And I enjoyed the hymn greatly. I sang it with my spirit; I sang it freshly, freely, as one often does not, but as one ought always to do. Our words go to the Lord, and our hearts should go with the words, as they often do not. I felt truly I was waiting to see the glory of Christ, and I was happy in the thought of it.
Next we sang: " We have no home but there." And I felt that that was true too, and I was happy in singing it and in the prospect of the home reserved for us in the Father's house.
Well, further on in our meeting, when it became a question of our going forth to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the unfaithful servant, and the consequences of being one, I did not feel so happy; and in connection with this, these three verses presented themselves to my mind, on which I should like to say a word for us all who are here, but more especially for those who are young, and may be not fully established in the grace of God.
Now, as already referred to, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is never " stale;" it never can be to the heart that loves Him. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself must be ever fresh and bright where there is faithfulness to Him.
The first of the verses that I have read is very beautiful: "Behold, I come quickly: blessed is lie that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." Well, the sayings of this book are beautiful sayings, beautiful words. They are words that touch the heart and conscience; they are words of holiness, words of truth, words of light. They are words that come to us from Him whose feet are as burning brass, and His eyes as a flame of fire; and therefore the words are beautiful words, and the sayings are beautiful sayings.
Let me quote a few of these beautiful sayings of Jesus: He says to the church at Smyrna that they were to have tribulation, but He adds, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." What a beautiful word is that!
Then, again, take His word to Philadelphia: "I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth." He says, I will take care of you; you shall be sheltered by me in the day of trial. That, too, is a beautiful word.
And now, He says, I am coining quickly. Blessed is the man who keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book. " Blessed " is the same as " happy." Happy is that man. Well, I doubt not there are many here who are keeping these sayings. But mark, there is no response here to the promise of the coming of the Lord Jesus, connected as it is with " keeping his words;" there is no answer from the church to it.
Now look at the next verse. " And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." How gracious! All that we do for the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter how small it may be, is owned of Him; nothing is forgotten; though, as David says, " All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given unto thee." I have nothing of my own. If I bring an offering to the Lord, it is of His own I offer unto Him. If a man is devoted, it is no thanks to him that he is so; if he does great things for the Lord, gives up much for Him, there is no credit. due to him. It is all the Lord's work in him. " What maketh thee to differ? "
Nothing in us. It is all of the sovereign grace of God that worketh in us by His Spirit. And yet the wonderful thing is that He says, I will give you a reward! To me, who ought to be in hell long ago if I had what I deserve, to me the Lord says, I will give you a reward! Why, it is a beautiful verse, that! Enough to stir us to the very depths of our hearts, is it not Thus we have these two things: keeping His word, getting these blessed and beautiful sayings; and then the reward by-and-by, when grace shall have culminated in glory.
But still there is no response to this announcement, "Behold, I come quickly." There is no answer from anybody; no one says "Come" to it yet.
But now I pass on to the last verse: " He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." The Lord Jesus says: Surely I come quickly; I say nothing to you about the sayings; nothing about the reward; I say nothing but what will make you think of, me; I am coming. And immediately there flows out the response: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It is nothing but the supreme and sovereign grace of the Lord Himself that makes me give the response-that calls it out from my heart. It is this alone that makes me happy in the thought of meeting Him. If I think of my devotedness, alas! I shall not have confidence before Him; it turns me upon myself, to what I am and to what I do, and I shall not be free to say, "Come." The word of God should search us; I trust it has searched us at this time. But if we go home from these meetings with the best possible desires to put everything right for the Lord's coining, to deal with every single thing that we judge unsuitable to Him, it would not make us happy at the thought of His coming; it would not lead our hearts to say, " Come." That which sets us free in the thought of seeing Him is the free, sovereign grace of God, and that alone. Does that make us tremble at the thought? does that fill us with fear? Not for a moment! Contrariwise. It is grace that establishes our hearts in the hope of His coming, and it is grace that quickens and encourages our steps in the path of devotedness to Him meanwhile.
I just turn from this to one other word in 2 Timothy: " For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." Here is a crown of righteousness for all who love the Lord's appearing. The apostle might say: The crown is my reward; my portion for my faithfulness; and I could only answer: Well, good-bye, Paul; you and I shall never meet again. But no, not so. There is no question but that every man's reward shall be according to his own labors, and the apostle will have the full reward of his own labors as he says: " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy." But the crown of righteousness is not given to a certain class; it is not promised as the result of special devotedness. True, Paul says, "the Lord shall give it unto me" in that day; but that he may not in anywise discourage certain souls, timid ones that need encouragement by the way, he adds immediately: " and not to me only but"-mark well the words-" unto all them that love his appearing." It is the common portion, surely, of every true Christian.
Well, I was trying to ask myself, as our brother said, what would be the effect on me if I knew the Lord was just about to appear. I can only answer, I think my feeling would be: I am His; and that would settle all for me. The grace that has saved me will, I am assured, carry me right on to the end; that free and sovereign grace which has set my heart at rest from the judgment, will also set me at liberty in His presence, when He comes in glory, as it keeps me now while waiting for Him. (E. C.)
The Coming of the Lord
I AM sure our hearts have been stirred, and our consciences too, by what has been brought before us as to the coming of the Lord; and I am sure not one here will go away from these meetings without earnest desires of heart that the truths we have had before us may be more to our hearts' affections than they ever have been before.
I have read these three verses because they bring before us in a practical form the hope that we have in Christ-a present relationship and a present hope. Our association with Him, united to Him at the Father's right hand by the power of the Holy Ghost, sets us before the world in the place in which Christ Himself was when here upon earth-in a path of separation and rejection. Conformity to Him is what we seek even now, being even now " the children of God." But when it comes to looking for Him, that which surely every heart longs for, then it is: " It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
And where this hope is real and true-and oh, beloved brethren, the Lord make it more real and true to each one of us every moment-what does it bring with it? " Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." There is the purifying of ourselves, of our ways, of our surroundings, of our lives in holiness; the separating ourselves from every single thing that is unsuitable to Him for whom we wait, and whom we shall he perfectly like in the glory.
The Lord make it the desire of every heart to be more like Him now-to be now " purifying ourselves even as he is pure."
(A. P. G.)
The Coming of the Lord
I SHOULD like to say just a word on the passage we began these meetings with: " Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it."
One remark I would make in passing, is that this meeting to-night recalls the memory of those held some years ago when the truth of the coming of the Lord always had such a prominent place in the ministry of the word, much more so than it has done of late.
I think we must confess that we have in some degree lost the sense of the reality and blessedness of this truth, and the same " constancy of hope " has not been maintained in our hearts. We can therefore only thank the Lord that He is reviving in our souls that which should be the joy and delight of our hearts, the hope of soon seeing Him face to face. " To wait for his Son from heaven;" such is the hope of every believer who knows Jesus as his deliverer from the wrath to come.
But to return to this scripture with which we began, and which brings before us the Lord's present interest in and care for His church here on earth, which tells us thus of His interest in each one of us individually as part of that church, and of His service for us on high at the Father's right hand.
There is no scripture that so fully brings out the perfect love of Christ for His church as this. We get here, as has been often remarked, the past, the present, and the future activities of the love of Christ. It is a perfect love, for it is a love that never wanes. He loved the church; and here is the most perfect proof of it: " He gave himself for it." That is the extent to which He values the church. A man values a thing in proportion to what he has paid for it. How does Christ value the church? Poor, miserable things though we be, He gave Himself for us. It was a love that kept nothing back; He gave Himself; He could do nothing more.
And then: " That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." This is His present action. Do you think He has lost sight of us because He has gone up on high? No; He loves us right on to the end. His very bringing us together, as He has now done, that our hearts may be encouraged and built up in Him, is a manifest token of His present love and care for us, of this love that never wanes.
And then the third point, and this is one that, I believe, will awaken in our hearts the desire for His coming; He is waiting for it Himself: " That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." If our love has waned, and in some measure we have forgotten that which is our "blessed hope," His love and patience never fail. He still waits with loving desire for the moment when He will present all-glorious to Himself, the church which He has purchased with His own blood.
If you loved a person with a perfect love, no matter what their present condition, you would never be satisfied until you had brought them into your own condition. Suppose a man really loves a woman whom he finds in a low estate, he will never be satisfied until he has placed her by his side in his own estate; he says she must share with me fully all the joy, the pleasure, the honor, the riches that are mine; I must have her altogether in my own estate. Less than this would not be perfect love. And so Christ will never be satisfied until He has brought His church into His own estate. What are all these spots and wrinkles? They are the marks of our estate. But He will wipe out every mark, every trace of them, and bring us into His own estate, into a condition and position worthy of Himself.
Whatever the calling now, whatever the blessedness of it, and it is great, as it is made known to us and sustained in the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost, yet it is not the fullness; it is only a part of that which shall be. The day is coming when we shall no longer see obscurely, but face to face, when we shall know " even as we are known."
When these-things come before our souls with any degree of freshness, does it not make us feel what a small, dim, feeble apprehension we generally have of them? This epistle tells us of "the hope of his calling." The calling itself is a wonderful one, and we have that; it is a present thing to us; we are even now united to Christ. But there is a hope connected with it; a hope of something that we have not yet; and that is the obtaining of the full realization of all that results from this most blessed union, to be one with Him, to be the sharers of His glory, to see Him face to face. And therefore there is "the hope of his calling."
In these bodies of humiliation, in this world of sin, we are not yet fully in His estate. But we shall be, we shall be like Him.
And where shall we he? Where He is, and nowhere else.
Nothing awakens so powerfully in our hearts the desire to see Him as the thought that He is waiting too. He says: I shall not be satisfied until I get you at home with myself in my glory.
Is there but feeble response in our hearts to this perfect love? What will augment it? Dwelling on that love we see in Him. It is always so. Nothing save occupation of heart with Christ produces in us the state that is suitable to Christ. It must produce a response in my heart when I see Him sitting there in patience, waiting to come and fetch me. I am the object of His perfect love. And I am waiting for Him to fetch me; I am waiting, with the whole church so scattered and torn now, to be brought home and presented to Himself, and in a state altogether worthy of Himself, " without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."
The Lord grant that our hearts may be awakened to look more constantly for Him, so that our path here may be as the path of the just, "shining more and more unto the perfect day."
(F. H. R.)