THE Lord had gone through every principle which could act as warning and instruction to His disciples in bearing testimony in an adverse and evil world, and in answering the one who came to Him to judge between him and his brother, shows the folly of man in laying up treasure here; but then goes further to encourage His disciples, and assures them that the Father has His care about them. They need not fear as to this world, for it was the Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom; but He then goes on to tell them also in what spirit and attitude they were to walk in accomplishing His will meanwhile. Their whole character and condition were to be the result of waiting for their Lord; not merely holding the doctrine of His coming, but in truth of heart waiting for Him. There was service for Him meanwhile, “occupying till He came; " but they were to be going on through the world as always expecting Him. We get in Thessalonians how they were converted to wait for God's Son from heaven, and that this expectation was what characterized and gave its color to every relationship of the Christian life, holiness, love to the saints, their thoughts as to those who fell asleep in Jesus, and how this expectation kept all right. Whereon the other hand, the servant says, "My Lord delayeth His coming," he begins to beat his fellow-servants, and to be drunken, and it is this that has been the ruin of the church. Not saying He will not come, but that He delayed His coming, the loss of the pie-sent expectation of Christ. On the other hand, what wakes all up from slumber is the cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh." Some were real Christians, and some were not, but as the original calling was to go out to meet the Bridegroom, so what woke up the sleeping saints was the cry that He was coming. All, real or not, had got in some comfortable place to sleep, and all had to wake up when the cry came. The original call was to wait for God's Son from heaven, and in the interval all, wise as well as foolish, go to sleep. The true saints had oil in their vessels, real grace, but they, too, had lost the present expectation of the Bridegroom, and with it faithfulness to the true and original calling of the Church of God. The second coming of our Lord is not some truth hid in the bowels of Christianity, which only those advanced in the things of God can know about, or some special notion which only a few by research can get hold of; but it was what they were converted to-to wait for Him, Jesus, who delivered from the wrath to come. If the apostle speaks of the joy and crown of his ministry, it was at the coming of the Lord he sees it in those he had been blest to. If he speaks of holiness in them, it was at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, it was connected with everything that interested the Christian. And the Lord Jesus," leaving His own in sorrow, the comfort is, "I will come again." He does not send for us, nor is it merely that we drop away one by one to be with Himself, but He comes Himself to receive us to Himself. So with the disciples looking up into heaven after the Lord Jesus, the words to them are, "This same Jesus shall so come in like manner," etc. The last words, too, that the Spirit of God leaves imprinted on the Church of God is, " Surely I come quickly." Now it is not the place His coming holds in prophecy which is to occupy us, but Himself, made distinctly and personally precious, that we get in it. Himself we are looking for, to see Him as He is, and to be with Him, and to be like Him. The only proper hope of the Christian is the Lord's coming (2 Cor. 5). We are going to be with Him, bearing the image of the heavenly; to be perfectly like Him in the glory, and it is when we see Him as He is (1 John 3).
I refer to all this, not so much to prove the doctrine of the Lord's coming as taught in scripture, as to show how the coming of the Lord is associated with every thought and feeling of the Christian. We should be blessedly happy with Him by the way; all His fullness is ours to enjoy; but we wait to know fullness of joy with Him when He comes.
Anybody in G- can understand that if I am waiting for Christ it will regulate all I am in, in my daily walk. The person of Christ is the direct proper object of the heart in this hope. It makes the blessed person of the Lord the subject of thought. You do not even get such an expression in the word of God as going to Heaven; it speaks of departing and being with Christ. What fills the mind of the Spirit is Christ. First, His life of grace down here, His love to us in it, “He loved us and gave Himself for us," etc., and then the soul wants Him.
There are other things connected with. His coming, but the blessedness of it for us is that He is coming. And He is waiting for us Himself. The Father has said to Him, " Sit on my right hand till I make Thy foes Thy footstool," and there He sits at God's right hand, waiting, and the first thing He does when coming, is to take us to Himself. And then, if we can say, "He is satisfied in seeing of the travail of His soul," we can say, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness." We, because there with Him; He to have us there; we are never fully satisfied till there. For all this blessing and glory with Himself the Lord has taken upon Him the form of a servant, which -He never gives up." I am among you as He that serveth," was His word on earth. Service will be still His character even in the day of glory. Love delights to serve. How blessedly this marks the path of the Lord Jesus down here, and where the heart is right we see it to be His glory; and for every eye that could look through all that humiliation, what divine glory was there to be seen.
"He took upon Him the form of a servant," has divine love stamped upon it. When I see the Lord of glory coming into all the ruin of this scene, it is wonderful. Peter seeing this, says, Thou shalt never wash my feet." The Lord proves the necessity of it for them. "If I wash thee not thou past no part with me." He was never more glorious than in thus employing of Himself. " Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him," He says as He looks on to the cross.
Before arriving at this 13th chapter of John God had put His seal upon Him in three characters in 11Th and 12Th chapters. As Son of God in raising Lazarus; as Son of David riding into Jerusalem; and as Son of Man going on to the cross. Then in 13th chapter we get " Jesus knowing the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God and went to God," returning to God in the perfectness in which He come from Him, in the consciousness that all things were now put into His hands, girds Himself, and washes His disciples' feet. That was saying, " I am still, though the One the Father has given everything to, the servant of my people in love." Peter does not give Him His place as the servant, and the Lord says, " You have no part with me. I cannot stay here as your companion, and if I do not wash you so as to be fit for being with me, you can have no part with me." And this is what He is doing now. It is not the cleansing as to being born again, but every-day washing in respect of defilement-the cleansing of our feet by the way when cleansed already by the word. We get what this service of the Lord is in the Hebrew servant in Ex. 21 " He refuses to go out free, and has his ear bored with an awl." That is just what Christ has done. He might have gone out free, having done His Father's will and finished the work He had given Him to do. But no, "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." So it will be His delight to minister to me in the glory.
What will that day be to us? Not merely that I shall have the happiness of heaven, but I shall have Christ ministering it to me. And now, while waiting for this, my place is always watching-not rest, but blessedness. You must have all tucked up and in order in your hearts and affection, and light burning.
We have not got service here but watching; service comes in after.
It is the state of the heart He is looking for. "As men that wait for their Lord." He has accomplished all for us, washed us from our sins, and now our place is to wait for Him, to see and be with Him who has so loved us. His presence, fullness of joy, and He says to us "My joy will be to minister to you in that day. Your part now is watching and waiting for me -ever on the watch for my coming."
We are then, when all things are as He would have them, set at the table of heaven, and His joy will be to serve. We do not think enough of His interest in us. The way to get warm is to get near the fire. His love is what we want. Where really Christ's love is felt in our hearts, that is our love to Him. The love of Christ while absolutely divine, has come down to us in the things in which we were and are, to be thus known by us. The Lord with the leper who came to be cleansed, could have healed with divine power, but touches the poor defiled being, uncontaminated by it, but with the realness of one who could thus show how He took part in his sorrow. Love perfectly divine but came down to us in our need and ruin-Job's daysman-fear taken away, and one to put his hand upon both. The word which proceeded from the Father and brings heaven down to me, enters into all our state here in ruin and sorrow, to be known by me thus.
Thus all our cares are met. Are we watching for Christ? True blessedness it is. You may say, What harm is there in building, planting, buying and selling? It is not that the evil is in what is done in itself. He does not speak of sins, but that we are going on as though He was not coming. " We wait for God's Son from heaven," meanwhile there is also service.
" Find so doing,"-not only watching, but serving Him while waiting for Him. And what is the end of this for us is, not the table of joy in His presence, but reigning with Him. Each is in character. We get here that where service comes in, reigning with Christ is looked to because we are joint heirs with Him. We have two things characterizing the saint-watching and serving, and each its proper blessing answering to these. The joy of the Father's house, and reigning with Christ.
Then He takes the dark and solemn side-the state the unfaithful were got into, because not waiting for Him. Solemn warning! In it we have the whole history of the Church taken up, and in the end the judgment of the professing body. The unfaithful servant gets his portion with unbelievers.
One word at the end. We shall meet with difficulties in the way. " He had not come to give peace on earth," etc. When first come into the world, it was " glory to God in highest and peace on earth,"-afterward, when riding into Jerusalem, we get peace in heaven; not on earth. Then, when Satan is bound, we shall have peace on earth, but it is not now here. The Prince of Peace was a rejected One by the world.
And this is always so in the history of man. God sets up Adam in innocence in the garden, and he fails (Luke 12), and all is ruined. But God never restores a fallen order of things. He comes in in grace, and brings in Christ, as the seed of the woman. And all through it has been the same. What God has setup, Satan ruins when unbound. Adam fails-Noah gets drunk. The golden calf is made when the law is given. In priesthood (those to stand between God and the people) strange fire is offered the first day. Solomon, established in the kingdom in the height of Israel's glory, loves many strange women, and the kingdom is ruined. Church-my Lord delayeth coming, and all seek their own, and after the apostles decease all fails.
The angels (Luke 2.) announce peace. The Lord says, "Do you think I am come to bring that now?
Indeed, I am not." Why? Because rejected. "I am come to kindle a fire," etc. Before the cross they were ready to kill Him; " the fire was already kindled," and why was this the effect of His coming as He did? Because the enmity of man's heart was so great that when through the fullness of grace in Christ God was manifested, this drew all the enmity out.
People talk of progress in the world. Beloved friends, what progress? Railroads and telegraph there is progress in, but how about the moral character of things? Are children more obedient, do they know more than fathers and mothers? Are servants more trustworthy and faithful?
We do not look things in the face, for every one knows that evil is in progress. It was not to dwell on this that was my object, but to awaken your minds to the blessed hope before us. I find the blessed truth that though the fire has to be kindled, where this fire was kindled in its fullest form was at the cross. "The baptism He had to be baptized with," and there we get the fullest expression of His grace. And there is nothing that now comes to us as a trial that has not the stamp of the cross upon it, and does not bring tenfold blessing. Look at Job, and all he is brought through in the hands of Satan. But who started that? God it is that says to Satan, "Nast thou considered my servant Job?" etc. He brings him before the notice of Satan. Satan says, " Try him and see if he will not curse Thee."
Then we get Satan allowed to touch all but himself, and after Job is proved here, Satan again says, " All that a man hath will he give for his life; just touch that and see if he will not curse Thee to Thy face." But look at the result, the end of the Lord in it; " Job humbled, sees God and abhors himself." It is not now as before, " When the eye seeth me it blesseth me," but, " Now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." It is no longer self-complacency but self-abhorrence. But at the cross we get this in its fullest and most wondrous expression. Love till then had not been free to flow out. The place of man's judgment is the place of God's richest blessing.
There the love was in Him and the world would not have it, and His own people had little understood or entered into it, but the moment man had fulfilled their enmity against Him, all the infiniteness of His grace was set free. And now through His cross, it " reigns through righteousness unto eternal life."
And in the path of this we are set now, viz., the enmity and evil of man's heart against Christ, and the power of God's love displayed in Him in the midst of it. We do not get a statement that all Christians shall suffer persecution, but " all that live godly." And our little measure of trial is the same in this respect, as in fullness the cross was, but an outlet for the full and blessed love of God to flow out. It teaches us this, beloved friends, that walking in godliness and waiting for Christ here, whatever the wickedness and evil of man may be against us, that His perfect love as flowing out in the cross is ours to know and enjoy.
The Lord give us to be as men that wait for their Lord, serving Him in this hope. Only remember this, " that if a man serve me let him follow me," are His words to us. You cannot serve Him without walking in His footsteps.