We will meditate on the parable of the nobleman who went into the distant country. But I refer to it as illustrating a cluster of Scriptures in Luke, just as we got a cluster of Scriptures in Matthew.
We are going to look at chaps. 17:21; 19:11; and 21:8; and, together with these three, we will look at a passage in the 1st chapter of Acts, and we shall find that, though in different language, they speak one language. The terms may be different, the teaching is the same.
Now, as you read these passages, does your mind suggest this thought as common to each of them:—that it was the suggestion of the human mind in the Pharisees, the multitude, the deceivers, and the disciples, that the kingdom of God was ready to appear? There may be a little progress, Perhaps, but in each the coming of the kingdom was a question of time and circumstances, not a moral question. I get the Pharisees asking, “when the kingdom of God should come?" just as if nothing delayed its manifestation but reaching a certain moment of time. Then, the thought of the multitude was, that they had only to reach the city and the kingdom would appear. The deceivers come with the lie, " I am Christ, and the time draweth near "—the positive deceit that the kingdom was at hand already. Then we get the same mind in the disciples in Acts 1. We shall see presently that the Lord answers each suggestion by saying that the kingdom of God does not depend on the mere lapsing of time, but on certain moral conditions. And if any one say, now, the kingdom may be here to-morrow, he is fraught with a lie from the devil. This is the answer to a quantity of moral energy that is abroad at present. If you were asked, Do you think the kingdom of God is about to appear? you ought to say, "Indeed I do not,—the earth is not in a right moral condition to receive it. God could never deposit His glory in such a vessel as this present evil world. He must rid it of the evil before He can fill it with His glory." That should be the moral conclusion of your soul. The Lord Jesus would be utterly ashamed to own the world as it is now as His kingdom. And it is blessed to see how the prophetic leading concurs with the righteous judgment of the mind.
Now, we will just go over the passages a little shortly, because I am going to contrast with the manifestation of the kingdom the rapture of the saints. The rapture of the saints may be at any moment; the manifestation of the kingdom not till a certain moral action takes place here. But before we go to the rapture we will look at the kingdom. Now, we will turn to chapter xvii. The Lord is asked when the kingdom should come. " Oh," He says, " the kingdom of God is a moral, spiritual thing. It takes a form within you, now. I must take you to your own moral conditions. Do not be talking about it as a foreign thing. It is within you." Then He turns to His disciples and talks to them about what must take place before the kingdom shows itself in external, moral glory. He tells them that they are first to tread the path of desire after an unmanifested Jesus: " Ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and ye shall not see it." Then He goes on to details: deceivers shall come, and so on. And the kingdom will be introduced, when the world is lying in iniquities, by the judgment of the carcass. That is His answer to the Pharisees, who thought it was a question of time. Christ must pass through a time of rejection; the church must pass through a time of desire; the world must pass through judgment; and then we may talk of the manifestation of the kingdom. So, if people say, "Oh, it is only a little progress, a little evangelical labor, a little advance of science and civilization," it is all a delusion.
In chap. 19., we get the multitude, awakening the same line of thought in the Lord's mind. With them it was a question of progress, as it is at this very hour. Your men of science and literature are in the company of the poor multitude. They thought that when they got to the royal city the kingdom would show itself. The Lord rebukes them in the parable of the nobleman. A. different phase of the interval, I grant you, from that which He showed the disciples in chap. 17. He tells them that the nobleman went to a distant country, and the spirit of the age sent word after him, " We will not have him to reign over us." And is not that the language of all the activity of the children of men? Has pride a welcome for Christ? Have selfishness and covetousness a welcome for Christ? No. In every lust of the human mind the language is, " We will not have this man to reign over us." There is a thing here that must be judged and got rid of before God can manifest His glory.
So when the Lord comes back He judges the citizens. And here He shows the interval also in Christendom. The servants have gone forth, some faithful, some unfaithful, to occupy till He comes. Thus the Lord is teaching us, in the mouth of witness after witness, that things are not morally ready for the kingdom.
Then in chap. 21., where the Lord speaks His great prophetic word, which we were looking at in Matthew, they ask, " when shall these things be?" He says, " Take heed that ye he not deceived." There will be two declarations on the lips of the deceivers in the last days, " I am Christ; and the time draweth near," " Go not after them." And the Lord, in order to rebuke the thought, goes through a solemn portraiture of what must take place before the kingdom can possibly appear.
Now we come to the disciples in Acts 1, " Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? " Is not this a kindred thought with what I have just read? The blessed Lord had words of tenderness and of rebuke for them. " It is not for you to know the times or the seasons." Leave them in the hands of Him to whom they belong; but do you go about your own business. Now we see how differently the Lord treats the mere ignorance of the disciples, and the captiousness of the Pharisees. For the Pharisees He fills up the interval with the most awful scenery. For the thoughts of the disciples He fills it up with most blessed scenery: " Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea." But in all these passages we get the same mind, and that mind disposed of in exactly the same way. And we must boldly take our stand on this well accredited ground. If we went through the prophetic words in the Old Testament we should find exactly the same language. God will have a testimony to His own name to go forth. Then judgment will purify the scene, and the purified vessel will be filled with glory.
I will remind you now of a few Scriptures in which we see the rapture of the saints in contrast with all this. When we turn our thoughts from the kingdom to the rapture, we find Scripture after Scripture speaking in a totally different way. I will give you four Scriptures to show this, as we had four referring to the kingdom. In John 14, we read:—" I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Now, I ask, is there a single thought in the Lord's mind here, that any necessary delay attaches to that moment, or, that before we can be taken to meet Him in the air a single thing must take place? Why cannot the Lord return to His kingdom? Because He must first cleanse the scene. You cannot put Christ and Belial in company. The earth must be prepared for glory. But what does He tell us in John 14? He is doing now, by His presence in heaven, for the resurrection-saints, the very thing that judgment will do for the earth by-and-bye. Heaven must be prepared for us, but the Lord does not tell me that that scene wants judgment. His presence will do there on our behalf, what judgment will do on behalf of God's glory on the earth. The presence of the Lord Jesus in heaven is all that is needed to get it ready for me-judgment is not needed there.
Then we come to 1 Cor. 15, where we get the story of the children of the resurrection again. And is there a single breathing there that tells me I must wait, till I put on my glorified body? There is a thing shining before me, for which everything is ready. It may take place to-morrow.
So, when we travel on to 1 Thess. 4, there we see the rapture of our glorified bodies. I take up my glorified body in 1 Cor. 15, I carry it to heaven in 1 Thess. 4 And, is there a single suggestion that that cannot take place till something else takes place before it? As for any necessary delay, there is not the slightest word about it. Here we are in company, not with the manifestation of the kingdom on earth but, with the children of the resurrection,—the saints of glory in heaven—a different mystery and connected with a different line of thought. I am a liar if I say the kingdom is immediately to appear: I am astray if I say I may not be glorified to-morrow. If we keep in mind these two mysteries, that will introduce us to 2 Thess. 2, because the Spirit there comforts them against the day of the Lord, by the coming of the Lord; thus distinguishing these two things. Therefore the saints of this day are to comfort themselves against the thought of the day, by the thought of the coming. It comes to keep these two mysteries apart in our minds.
Then in Rev. 4, we read of a door opened in heaven. And when John looked into heaven, he saw the glorified saints there. How they got there I know by 1 Cor. 15, and 1 Thess. 4, but when they got there, not a Scripture tells me. They are there when God pleases. The fullness of that time is known to Him.
So that in these two strikingly beautiful clusters of Scriptures, we are in company with two distinct thoughts: the manifestation of the kingdom here, and the appearing of the sons of glory there. O that we may know a little of the constraining power of these things, if we have apprehended them! What manner of persons should we be? Should we be busy with calculations about things down here? We have reason to be humbled when the apostle Peter stands before our hearts and says " What manner of persons ought ye to be? "
(Continued from page 120)