ONCE, as we read in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus entered into Jerusalem “riding on an ass, and on a colt the foal of an ass.” He came as the Son of David to take His inheritance had it been ready for Him. Alas! it was not ready and when He beheld the city He wept over it, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou at least, in this thy day, the things which bong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:42).
Once again He will come, and this time from heaven, riding on a white horse, King of kings and Lord of lords, to judge and make war in righteousness.
At His first coming He had been the meek and lowly One, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Nevertheless, He had passed through the world as a Victor, but not in such conquests as men boast of. He had met and defeated Satan, not by putting forth His power as He could have done, but as the dependent One, using the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. All along the way which led Him to the cross of shame it was,
“By weakness and defeat,
He won the weed and crown,
Trod all our foes beneath His feet,
By being trodden down.”
This was a new kind of victory—the victory of the defeated. It seems too wonderful for words; here in the place of man’s disobedience and distrust of God, here where the enemy had sown these bitter seeds in the heart of every man, the Lord Jesus, in the most terrible circumstances possible, had gone through all with never a shadow of distrust, never a flaw in His perfect obedience. “In His humiliation, His judgment was taken away, and who shall declare His generation? for His life is taken from the earth” (Acts 8:33).
In His death on the cross, as made sin for us, the Lord Jesus was alone, none could be with Him or follow Him there, but, in resurrection and ascended on high, He has given the victory unto death to many of His saints, enabling them to lay down their lives most gladly for Him. And still He makes His people sharers in His victory, teaching them the same unfaltering trust in God, working in them that they may be here to do the will of God, and that they also may be victorious against all the power of the enemy, even as the apostle Paul wrote, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37).
We love to trace the pathway of the Lord; from the manger at Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary every detail was perfection. He could say, “I do always those things that please Him.” He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. We can never dwell too much nor too deeply on these words and ways of the Lord. No life-time, nor any number of life-times would be long enough to praise Him adequately; eternal days will surely mean eternal praise. But one wonders if the precious truth connected with His riding on the white horse has its due place in our hearts. He is now, and ever shall be, the highly exalted One, He shall yet come forth as the mighty conqueror, the Prince of the kings of the earth. We read in Psalms 45 “In Thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things,” and again, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter.” Again, “He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). In the scene in which He was despised and rejected it shall be manifest that all things in heaven and earth are subdued under Him.
Can you picture Zechariah writing those words concerning the King coming to Jerusalem (9:9), five hundred years before, and wondering of whom they spake? Or the Psalmist earlier still, writing of His sorrow and of His glory, and “searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:11)?
Can you picture the earnest interest of the four Evangelists as they all told the story (Matt. 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-9; Luke 19:29-38; John 12:12-15), each one giving sonic detail peculiar to himself? or the joy with which John would depict that scene of triumph in Revelation 19:11-16?
It is well for us to remember the greatness of our Lord and Saviour. He has a Name which is above every name, and the throne and scepter of the universe are His. Oh! that we may have better thoughts of Him. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies are made His footstool. He is coming again, no longer the lowly Rider on the ass’s colt, but the mighty Conqueror on the white horse―His eyes as a flame of fire, and on His head many crowns, with the white-robed armies of heaven following in His train.
“Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.”
Perhaps there may be a reader of these pages who, like the dumb creatures of which we have read, is standing, as Mark tells us, “tied by the door, without, in a place where two ways met.”
TIED―in bondage to sin and Satan,
AT THE DOOR—so near to the entrance into blessing,
WITHOUT—having no place in the City of God, no part in the communion of saints,
IN A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MET—even now at the parting of the ways, one leading to eternal life, eternal light, eternal love, the other leading to the blackness of darkness forever.
With all the urgency of which we are capable we beseech you to come at once to the Saviour, who can set you free, and set your feet in “the path of life,” in the power and gladness of His victory, so that you may henceforth yield yourself wholly to Him and to His most blessed service. It is no mean thing to be a Christian, but rather the greatest honor that could be put on anyone. All earthly titles fade into insignificance and are as nothing compared to this.
The Lord grant to writer and reader that this name may be more truly descriptive of us until He come.
L.R.