Sydney, June 14th, 1877.
Your letter comforted me. Any one standing by, and not in the eddying whirl that another may be in, can often see that which the weak one in the eddy cannot see-some grace and mercy of the Lord's, the very naming of which is responded to by the other. I am such a poor, weak thing, that often nothing but the dire necessity of the case forces me on, to make me stand firm. Oft I am firm because I have to say, " To whom shall I go, Lord, but to Thee?" and often, when inclined to be still, the truths that the mass is perishing for the lack of the clear gospel, or the saints are asleep as to the return of the Lord Jesus, force me to make an effort.
Certainly we are on the flat that runs down to the end, and certainly we ought to seek to get every child of God into the light of His coming. Jesus Christ is coming back! What tremendous changes must take place on earth, in the heavenlies, in heaven and in hell below! And all we here, who know all this, and know the bearing upon Christendom and men it, surely we may well look up to be enabled to speak a word to those around. And it is in the light of that great action of God that the Christian sees light. If He is coming back, how did He leave His Church? If He is coming back, how did He leave His people? and are they where He left them? The Holy Ghost was the Guardian or Paraclete on earth: where is He? He has not gone away; but those put under Him have slipped away from hallowed ground, down into the world and flesh and Satan, and Satan has blinded their eyes as to the insults and griefs put upon the Spirit.
On the other hand, how blessed a thing that we have not to preach man's failure, but how, notwithstanding all that man has done, God remains God still-His Son as bright as ever, His humiliation, obedience, death, resurrection, and ascension remain as important as ever. Expiation is accomplished for the believer in Him on the throne-Himself alive from the dead, in heaven until He rises up to come and fetch His people thither, and the Holy Spirit here to vindicate and make good the claims of the Lord Jesus over sinners and saints.
The Lord is good, and doeth good. The conviction grows deeper and deeper in my soul, that the Lord is coming quickly, and that the Father and God is separating a people down here to meet Him at His coming. Happy they who, alive and seeing Him, are able to say, "This is our God; we have waited for Him." And if I love any down here, no wish can be so good for them as that they may be ready in heart, and in their circumstances, to welcome Him-have nothing about them practically inconsistent with the hope, and be unworldly, so that they can amalgamate with the scene then opened to them.
The body will be changed, and all its death lost; but beside this, we may be in such a state as to find nothing lost but that which we had curbed and struggled against. Selfishness, for instance, cannot cross the border, nor self-confidence, nor self-complacency. But these, however, may have got the mastery of us here, and if so they are our plague and vexation now (for the root is in us, ever ready to crop up); but when He comes, no law of sin in our members to be watched and kept under!
If we are not victors now, here, over these and everything unlike and contrary to the Lord, humbling will be the first thought-or if not first, for the power of the presence of Christ must be that; but the second thought-humbling is the folly which had kept us going on still with the old self, and allowing it liberty. But besides this blessedness being surely the blessing of those for whom He comes, there is another truth; and that is, He ought to have a people waiting for Him-and the Father must think He is worthy of this. The close of the book of Revelation (xxii. 16-20) always leaves the impression on my soul that there are to be such. Some would build on this the needs-be for a lapse of time between to-day and the time when such a people (not now found on earth) could be found; but this is a fallacy.
If the Lord were coming to-day at one o'clock, His Spirit could awaken thousands that are His, in one place even, to the truth, " He is coming back," and that, too, from among those who never thought about it.
They would not be at home in the subject, perhaps, nor practically their lives made ready for it; but as those to be alive and waiting for Him, they might have a child's joy in expecting Him
Ever in Christ (for He letteth me not out of the ark),
Yours, G. V. W.