There are two things I desire to say before proceeding with what is indicated to us in these verses. The first is, that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is not a doctrine. Many people consider it to be such, and then regard it simply as a matter to be received or refused at their pleasure. It is not a doctrine! It is a part and parcel of Christianity, and I want you to understand that very distinctly; indeed, if you eliminate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ from Christianity it is destroyed altogether in a certain way, because redemption is not completed until the Lord returns. You remember we have a scripture for that in Romans 8:2-32For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:2‑3). You will therefore see that Christianity cannot be complete until the Lord returns, that is, as to the revelation and the truth of it. Moreover, if you leave out the truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus you miss a power for holiness that God has given to us (see John 3:33Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3)).
The second thing is that we cannot wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ unless we are in a right state of soul; and this chapter—a part of which I have read—reveals to us how the Lord would prepare His people to wait for His coming. You cannot wait because you believe the Lord is coming back, or because you try to wait, but you must be in that state of soul without which it is impossible to be found in the attitude of the expectation of His return.
There are some here tonight who will admit to me very readily, “Yes, we do believe the Lord Jesus Christ is coming; but we also find day by day that we are not waiting.” Now, beloved, let me put to you a simple question: How many of you have said today in your hearts, “The Lord Jesus Christ may be here before the day closes”? It just shows us how that our knowledge goes far beyond our state and condition, and thus it is that the Lord is concerned in this chapter to prepare us in our souls to wait for His return. I may say He goes right down to the bottom, and builds up from there to the top. Now the Lord Jesus does that in this chapter, as I hope to show you.
In the first place, He seeks to deliver us from the fear of man. And why does He do that? Because if you are not delivered from the fear of man you will never be able to confess Christ, and, if you do not confess Christ day by day as you pass through this world, you will never be waiting for Him. Then you get the principle, which is continually found in the Scriptures—warning and encouragement intermingled.
In the first place, He says, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do”; but then He goes on to say, “I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell.” He gives us warning—don’t forget, then, that God is able not only to kill, but to cast into hell. But, then, in connection with that warning, He turns to the other side and gives a very sweet encouragement. You do not need to be afraid of man, he cannot touch you except by divine permission. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. “Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows” (vss. 6-7). Man may rage against us, but he cannot touch us; it is impossible without God’s permission. I have seen men out shooting, and I have seen them aim at birds, and I have said to myself, “You may be skillful shots, but you cannot hit one bird without divine permission.” That is taught us here. “If that be so,” says Christ, “remember that God is watching over you; you are dear to Him; the very hairs of your head are all numbered, and you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Then He gives a further blessed encouragement. “If you confess Me before men, I will confess you before the angels of God.” I want to say a word or two about confessing Christ. Suppose you are going to town tomorrow, and some one in the carriage should take out a Bible and read. You might say, “I wouldn’t make such a display in the presence of other people.” Why not? Suppose I were in the carriage tomorrow, and that I had a thought about the state of the souls of the people there, and I were to say to myself, “I cannot speak to them, but I would like them to see that I am a Christian,” so I take out my Bible. Would you condemn me for that? No, don’t condemn me! On the other hand, remember, if I do it to make people think I am a very devout person, it would be wrong; but if the motive of my heart is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and to magnify Him, then it is a blessed thing.
Well now, beloved, I think there are many ways of confessing Christ. I once said to a young Christian, “Have you confessed Christ?” “Yes, I have,” he said. “Are you confessing Christ now?” I got no answer. You see it is a daily thing; it does not mean confessing that you belong to Christ once when you connect yourself with the people of God. It is much more than that, it should be the habit of our lives. I will explain what I mean. I was in a certain town when one very dear to me was suddenly taken ill; I had to send for a doctor, and he was not in the house two minutes before he let me know that he was a Christian. He owned the Lord; he did not say, “I hope to be able to pull her through,” but “the Lord will bring her through, I hope.” What a difference! You see he owned the name of the Lord, and did it really, for I found afterward that he was known as a real and devout Christian.
If you are not confessors of Christ, you won’t want to see Him, and if you don’t want to see Him, you won’t be waiting for Him, and thus I attach the utmost importance to what the Lord teaches in the beginning of this chapter, namely, that we should be confessors of Him.
Then see the encouragement to do it. Here we are in all our weakness, and yet by the grace of God we are enabled to confess Christ. Well, if we confess Christ in that way, what is the encouragement? “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God.” Now imagine for one minute the time has come when the Lord will recompense His people, and down here in this world there has been a humble Christian who has been in the habit of confessing the name of the Lord Jesus, delighting to speak His name, because “Thy name is as ointment poured forth,” then the Lord Jesus Christ will speak his name before the angels of God. Now, I have been told, and I believe it is true, that there is nothing an officer in the army during a campaign so covets as to be mentioned in the dispatches concerning any battle that has been fought. If he is mentioned, it leads to his promotion. He longs for the distinction; but how much greater the joy to the simple Christian, wherever he may be, or in whatever circumstances, or in a small circle unnoticed day by day, whose delight it is to mention the name of Christ. The Lord says if you do that, He will confess your name before the angels of God. What an immense honor to have one’s name told out by the lips of the Lord Himself in the presence of all the angels.
I want you, dear young people, especially to remember this, because there are many temptations to conceal that you are Christians. We all know the temptations, but the Lord brings in the blessed encouragement. Don’t conceal that you belong to Him, let your heart be so full of Him that you will delight to speak of Him, and then He will by and by confess your name before the angels of God.
Now He turns to the other side, and it is very solemn. It does not apply to a Christian, because the statement is absolute: “He that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God “; but there may be many a professing Christian who does that. It is a very solemn thing if a Christian does even once deny the Lord, but the Lord Jesus is not speaking of Christians in this verse. If you are not confessors of Christ you cannot love Him; love has waxed feeble when you don’t confess His name; and if you are not confessors you will not be in a state to wait for His return.
Now just to connect this part of the chapter with what follows—and the connection is very beautiful—you will notice in verse 13 that one of the company said to the Lord, “Speak to my brother, that he may divide the inheritance with me.” But the Lord said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you?” He had not then come for that purpose; and then He draws the lesson, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” Then He brings in a parable in verse 16, and thus the foundation is laid on which the second lesson is built up. The man in the parable has his abundant crops, but he has not sufficient room to garner them. He says, “What shall I do? I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” That is, all his thoughts were confined to the present moment. He wanted, as many of us have often wanted, not only abundance in this world, but also enough to last as long as we continue in this life. And that was all he cared for, I am sure many of us have known that temptation. If you set your hearts upon things in this life, you are shutting out your responsibility; and so in the parable God says, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee”; and then the question is put, “Whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” And now comes the lesson: “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” I will not dwell upon that, but I wish to call attention to one point in the next verse (22) which shows the connection. The Lord says to His disciples, “Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat.” Therefore, the whole thing turns upon that word; it is the deduction which the Lord draws from the example He has given in the parable.
Now we come to the second lesson. The first is deliverance from the fear of man, the second is deliverance from anxiety, from that care, which often times robs us of our peace. In the parable of the sower in the Gospel you get this, the seed that fell among thorns is choked by what? Cares, and the pleasures of this life. The cares are in the same category with the pleasures of this life. The Lord thus proceeds to deliver His disciples from care, that they may be able in their hearts to maintain the attitude of waiting for Him. If my thoughts are down in the dust, how can I be found waiting for Christ? He therefore comes in, and would deliver us from the cares of this world, from anxiety concerning what we may put on, or our daily food. “No,” He says, “there is no need for that”; and He gives an example, firstly, of the ravens, and, secondly, of the lilies of the field. They are not anxious about things, but the ravens are fed, and the lilies are clothed, and clothed in such a way, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of them. If we take that home, we shall understand how foolish it is to be anxious. The truth is, beloved, we are dependent upon God.
He next gives the way of deliverance from anxiety. He says in verse 29, “Seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” If we did but live in the sense of that! “I am in want,” you say; well, the “Father knoweth.” There is not a single thing that can affect one of His people that does not affect the heart of God. A sentence which I read many years ago, and which has never passed from me is this: “Whatever might be a care to you produces a care for you in the heart of God.” And so it does; do we not read in the Epistle of Peter, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” “Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” He watches over us even to the smallest and most minute things that might trouble us. Will He forsake us? No, beloved. If you remember the Apostle Paul brings it on in the Epistle to the Hebrews; he says, “Be content with such things as are present, for He has said I will never leave you nor forsake you,” so that, as the apostle goes on to say, “We may boldly say the Lord is my helper, and I shall not fear what man will do unto me.” So the Lord casts us upon the Father’s knowledge and the Father’s heart. Then, beloved, He gives the reason why it is we don’t enter into the comfort of this: it comes out in the next verse, “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you” (vs. 31). Now let me point out one beautiful thing. In verse 30 He says, “All these things” (eating and drinking and clothing) “do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things”; then, “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things” (about which He has been speaking) “shall be added unto you.” But there is a condition annexed, and I will just call attention to it for one moment. It is all summed up in two lines of an old hymn—
Make you His service your delight,
Your wants shall be His care.
Seek ye the kingdom of God, that is, God’s interests, and all these things shall be added unto you. So, beloved, there is no need that one of us in this meeting here tonight should be troubled by a single care; and we shall not be troubled if we only get into our hearts that God loves us, and cares for us, and is watching over us because He cares for us, and thus He will not allow one of His children to want if he seeks first the kingdom of God. The condition is put in this way because God needs to chasten us sometimes, and He does when we need drawing to Him and to His interests. If we make His objects our supreme end, then we shall want nothing as we pass through this world.
Thus the first two lessons of the chapter are deliverance from the fear of man, and deliverance from anxiety. The Lord would have us free from the fear of man and from anxiety. “How happy we should then be!” you say; yes, you would be very happy. The poorest Christian in the world would be able to say, “I am poor, and I have nothing I can call my own, and yet I know I shall never want, because the Father knoweth that I need all these things.” How the Lord encourages out hearts; and He seeks to do this in order that we may be in a state of soul to wait for His return.
There is another thing. I will suppose for a moment that all fear of man is gone, and that you can rest upon the heart of God and say, “Yes, I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, or where tomorrow’s food is to come from, yet I know that God cares for me.” Now the other thing is that the Lord seeks to establish us in grace now, and we must be, if we are to wait for the Lord’s return; and so you get, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (vs. 32). There is an exhortation to seek in the previous verse, now it is all grace. He wants to establish the hearts of His people in the grace of the Father. I want to point out two things. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom; that brings in relationship. It is His delight as the Father to do it. It connects itself with the passage in Matthew 13 “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:4343Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13:43)). It goes on to the display of the kingdom by and by, when all God’s people will be seen in the same glory as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It is then that He will come forth as the Sun of Righteousness, and it is then that, in connection with His people, He will take the kingdom and reign from the river to the ends of the earth, and all His people of this present period, and past periods too, will be displayed in the same glory with Him. I have alluded to the passage more than once: “When He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Then just see the contrast! Look at the conditions now; most of us know what bad health is, and to be weak in body in passing through this world. Now just raise your thoughts to that day when all the saints will come out with Christ and be displayed in the same glory as Himself. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The whole force of the scripture lies in that word “GIVE”; it is the grace of the Father, and what the Lord wants to do is to establish us in the sense of this grace of which He is speaking.
There are, in the next place, two other things. The first is this, until I am established in grace I will never grow. I wonder if you understand that? A legal soul may be very pious, but it won’t grow, and so Peter says at the end of his first epistle, “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” If you want to grow you must be established in grace. When a saint falls into temptation we sometimes have an idea that we shall help him best if we go and bring a little bit of law to bear upon him. We feel we ought to be hard and find fault. No, beloved, you will never restore a soul in that way; you must go in the truth of grace if you would touch his heart. I knew a lad once who had a father and mother. The father was a good father, but he was very severe to his boy, and when the boy fell into any mistakes, or was guilty of any disobedience, the father chastised him severely. The mother, on the other hand, tenderly looked, though pained. It was a look of love, but she had far more influence than the father. She acted in grace, he acted in a legal way. So it is with ourselves. We will never grow unless we are established in the grace of God. You get illustrations of it in Scripture. In 2 Timothy 2:11Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:1), where everything has gone to the bad, the apostle writes to Timothy, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus.” It is that only which will give us power to deal with souls in days of difficulty, and so here I need to be established in grace, and when I am so established, then it is I shall grow, because then I shall be in the holy atmosphere in which God would have me be, and my heart is melted by the revelation of His grace to me in His beloved Son.
May I add one thing to that, and, say—we never get established in grace until we get to God’s side of things, and view ourselves from God’s side? Why were you born into this world? Only for one reason if you are Christians, namely, to be connected with the purpose of God. It is all of grace. It was God who brought me into the world, who revealed Christ to me, who sustains me every day, and will take me all through the wilderness, and preserve me unto that moment when I shall see the blessed Lord face to face. It is all grace, and I need to be established in grace to understand the heart of God, and to be able to wait for the Lord’s return.
Now I pass to another thing, and it is this. If I am established in grace, then I have to become a representative of grace to those about me, and thus the Lord says—for it is the connection in the thought of the scripture—“Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (vss. 33-34). I think you will see plainly that unless I am in the truth of grace I cannot express grace. Now it is a principle in Scripture that the believer in any dispensation is to reveal God as known in that dispensation; that is, the Jew was to express a righteous Jehovah, but now He is revealed as the God of all grace, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the God of our salvation. He is a giving God; “giving” characterizes the day of grace, and we are to be givers too, and so express the heart of God in our contact with men as we pass through this world.
The Lord now goes back to the principle He laid down at the end of the parable. “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.” Now, consequently, you get treasure in heaven —“a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.” I was exceedingly struck in meditating upon this today with a scripture that came across my mind in connection with it: “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in My name, because ye belong to Christ, verily, I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” How marvelous! You meet a child of God, who is weary and thirsty; you give him simply a cup of cold water in Christ’s name. This act becomes a treasure in heaven, and by and by it will be acknowledged, for “he shall in no wise lose his reward.” The Lord points out the same truth here, and there will be a treasure laid up for you in heaven. That is the principle which the Lord teaches us here, and then He adds, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” If somebody is very dear to you, you are always thinking about that person, your thoughts follow your treasure; and so the only way to have your minds set upon things above is simply to have your treasure in heaven. We may consent to that, and say Christ is our treasure. If Christ is my treasure my thoughts will be with Him. That is the last point in the condition of soul needful for waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ.
When a brother gets up and commences to read at, “Let your loins be girded about,” I have always said to myself, “How?” My loins never will be girded about unless Christ is my treasure; if not, I have not the motive or the power for it. Every one will admit that where your treasure is there will your heart be, but that shows the importance of having Christ as our treasure in the heavens.
I am conscious of it myself, and I am sure many of us are while I am speaking, how our thoughts are so often upon things of earth, and yet God is beckoning us on to be occupied with things which are where Christ is at the right hand of God. It you want to be heavenly-minded, the only way is to have your mind upon the things of heaven.
I have given you tonight a kind of preliminary address to show the necessity of a right state of soul to wait for the Lord’s return. I trust the Lord will lay it upon our hearts to consider what has been advanced this evening, that we may all seek to be in this condition, so that day by day it may be a constant thing for us to be waiting for the Lord’s return—a real expectation. Where there is a real expectation there will be power in the soul, because the Spirit of God will lead to it, and there will be a holy walk and conversation, for “every man that hath this hope in Him (that is, Christ) purifieth himself, even as He is pure.”