“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.”
One feels very distinctly and solemnly the desecration of the Lord’s Day—the day that you and I know in particular as the first day of the week. That day has a wonderful place in the thoughts of God.
O, what a day it was, for God, for the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit too! We find in connection with it, that God “brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” And when the Shepherd Himself arose triumphant over all the powers of death, and Satan, a mighty day it was! That day has a special place in the Word of God.
The way in which God has sanctified the first day of the week to His people is thus: It was on that day He raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. And that was a wonderful day in the history of God, if one may speak in that way, and in the history of Christ! And in man’s history too! And in the history of the world!
When the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, on what day did He come? He came on the first day of the week.
When the disciples gathered together to break bread, as recorded in Scripture, they did it on the first day of the week.
And in Revelation 1:1010I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, (Revelation 1:10), on that same day the apostle is in the Spirit. It is a state of soul. And in that state of soul, he receives a communication.
I would give a word of exhortation to each and all, as to the sacredness of that day in the sight of God. We forget that. O, what a day that was with Him when redemption was an accomplished fact, and the Redeemer alive from the dead! We have little conception, perhaps, of what that event was to God, and to His Son, when He arose from the dead. It was the beginning of a new creation.
Now, the sacredness of that day has been largely lost. It may be so with His people, but not so with God. That day is still sacred in the thoughts of God; and it ought to be so in the thoughts of His people. Is it sacred with us?
Is it the day when the Lord and His claims are specially before our hearts? Do we arrange our affairs with a view to this? Do our friends and neighbors know it?
Are we constant in our attendance at meetings on the Lord’s day; or does a shower or a shift in the weather, or worldly company at the house keep us away?
We would not so easily be turned aside if in our soul we had any adequate sense of the sacredness and the privilege of that day—nor indeed of the LORDSHIP of Christ, of which its very name speaks.
It is the one day in the week when we are called upon in a special way to own His authority—His claims over us. It is HIS. May our souls know more of the meaning of this.