Address—J.N. Hyland
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I'd like to begin this evening by connecting two portions of the Word of God. The first one is in John's Gospel chapter 14, John's Gospel chapter 14, and I want to read a clause just about the middle of verse three. I will come again, and then I want to connect it with a fortune in Luke's Gospel chapter 19.
Luke's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 13.
I just want to read the last expression of the verse occupied till I come. Well, I had it on my heart this evening to speak a little bit about the Lords coming, but I'd like to speak of it this evening in connection with our responsibility and view of the Lord's return, because I've been impressed to realize in the Scripture that everything in Christianity is in view of the coming of Christ.
That's the pivotal point. Everything looks forward to that moment when we're going to hear that show and be hauled away to be with Him in the Father's house. And so I begin in John chapter 14 because here we find the Lord Jesus just about to depart out of this world.
He was going to go to the cross and then He was going to return to the Father. If we were to go back to the 13th chapter, we would read that the hour was come that He should depart out of the world under the Father. He was going to leave the disciples. And I might just say before I comment on this report, this verse I read.
Enjoyed this upper room ministry that is chapters 131415 and 16 of John here and then the Lords High Priestly prayer in the 17th chapter. I've enjoyed it in connection with the Lord making full provision for his own in his absence.
In other words, he gathers the disciples together and he says, I'm not going to be with you the way I have been as you walk with me during my public ministry, but in my absence, I'm going to make full and abundant provision for you. And so it just seems that he covers everything in these chapters.
The truth of feet washing, the refreshment that comes from the private application of God's Word in our lives. He brings them before them the privilege that they're going to have of coming in prayer and addressing the Father and making requests in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Raised before them the coming of the Spirit of God, He brings before them the joy of abiding in the vine himself and the fruit that that was going to produce in their lives. And then, as I say, he lifts up his eyes to heaven at the end of it all, and he prays for his own, but not only for that little company that was around him on that occasion, but his prayer embraced all those that would believe. And it was just a little foreshadow.
Taking up that office at the right end of God, where he is tonight, praying for his own every hour of every day. But here in the 14th chapter, he gives them a hope because they always needs an eye to the future. A faith always needs a hope. Faith looks ahead. There's no such thing as blind faith. Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is true, takes one step at a time, but it acts on the light that God gives for that step.
There's always light at the end of the pathway. And so he gives them this hope. He says, I will come again. You know, as the Lord Jesus looked at this little company, he knew what was in their hearts. He knew that they were troubled. He knew they were afraid as they thought of the Lord Jesus going away. And how could he say to them, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. How could he give them any comfort on this?
One promise rather I will come again. Has that promise sunk down into our souls? I realize it's been almost 2000 years since the Lord paid His precious promise, but has the promise failed? There has not failed one word of all His good promise wherewith He have failed. It tells us that all the promises of God and Him are gay and in Him. Amen to the glory of God by us.
You know, sometimes I make promises and I'm very sincere in those promises that I make, but sometimes I promise too much. And when the time comes to carry out and fulfill that promise, I have to shake my head and say I'm sorry, I can't fill that promise. But here's a promise from the very lips of the Lord Jesus Himself and make it get ahold of our souls, because it says everyone that hath this hope, I want you to notice this, this hope in Him.
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Purify themselves even as He is pure. Is that hope for reality in our souls? I don't mean Is the truth of the works coming something that we can enumerate as one of the doctrines of Christianity? Good to be able to enumerate these doctrines of Christianity and to have it clearly in our minds from the Word of God.
But it's more than that. When we get up in the morning, is it with the realization that before another sunset we may hear that assembling shall and be called, say, Bone when we go to bed at night, Is it with the thought that perhaps the next time we open our eyes, we'll be on the cloud to look into his lovely face?
And the measure in which we have this hope as a reality in our souls, it will have a practical purifying effect on our lives and will be encouraged to go on day after day and year after year, running with endurance the race that is set before us. Paul spoke of running a race, and he had the prize in view. And rather the prize in the Christian life is always Christ. And one of the difficulties with Israel and the wilderness was that.
Often lost sight of the end of the journey. So often they look back, so often they look around at their present circumstances. They murmured and complained. I think of when they were not long in the wilderness and they were murdering and complaining. And Moses cried to the Lord. And what does the Lord tell Moses to say? He told him to tell the children of Israel turn around. They were looking back. They were looking in the wrong direction.
And when they turned around and looked out over the road, and as what did they see? All the things that no doubt were difficulties and hindrances. No, they saw the glory of the Lord in the cloud, and with not before them they were encouraged to go on. They were going on to a land flowing with milk and honey, rather than we're going to the Father's house. And where there is no vision, the people perish. Let's get a vision before our souls of the coming glory. Let's.
Eyes on the goal that we might be encouraged to go on in the path of faith. And so the Lord Jesus says here I will come again. And when the apostle Paul later develops this truth in First Thessalonians, he ends by saying, Wherefore comfort one another.
With these words, I have the privilege recently of sitting down with a sister in the Lord who was 103 years of age, very bright in her mind, and we enjoyed the things of Christ. And when we spoke of the Lords coming, she said, isn't that a wonderful hope? I went on my way. Three days later I got a phone call from her daughter-in-law that she had quietly slipped home to be with the lawyer. But there was a sister who.
For the Lord's coming, what else? To sit down with a sister 103 if you couldn't look ahead, if all we had were memories and to look back, what a sad thing it would be. Because it says if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are all men most miserable. And it's true, we have hope in Christ for this life, but we have far, far more than that. We have opening Christ for the next life. And so we're going to see him.
Today heard of a brother he recently who had on his bathroom mirror in his home that little motto perhaps today. I thought that was very nice because he wanted to be reminded every morning when he looked in the mirror that this might be the day of the Lords return. We speak about it, but I say, is it a reality?
In our souls. Well, as I said, I want to look at it in connection with our responsibility in light of the soon return of the Lord Jesus. Because you know what? Whatever line of truth we take up, there's always responsibility connected with it. And the joy and the fruit and testimony come in our Christian pathway as we seek by grace to walk in what God has said before us and to fulfill in the fear of the Lord.
Our responsibility. And that's why I read the portioning looks gospel occupied.
Until I come Now we know the story here the Lord Jesus was telling about the nobleman who took his journey into a far country and in his absence he gave responsibility to his service. This is just a little aside, but in the same incident in Matthews Gospel you find that it's a difference in the responsibility and the same reward when the nobleman returns because Matthew's gospel brings.
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God's sovereignty. But here in Luke's gospel, where we have man's responsibility, we find that it's just the opposite. There's the same responsibility given to each one He delivered unto them. 10 lbs And a difference in the reward when the nobleman returns.
God has committed the truth into our hands and can denotes responsibility and we're going to be held responsible for what God has committed into our hands. And so he said to them, occupy till I come. Now the path of faith is just that. It's a path of faith and you know there are many steps and decisions that we take in our Christian pathways that we have to say well, we trust we.
Mind in doing this or that? Sometimes we look back in retrospect and we say, well maybe I didn't have the Lords mind or maybe we would look back and in some way he confirms that it was according to his will. But I want to go on now and look at some verses that bring before us some very, very definite things that he would have us to be occupied with.
In view of his return and as we look at these things, brethren, it's not so much a question of should I be occupied with these things?
But it's going to be a question of am I occupied with these things? Because when we have a definite word from the Lord, the only happy thing is to act in obedience. If you know these things, have your knee if you do them. And in James we're exhorted to be doers of the word and not hearers only. So with this in view, these are well known portions. Let's go first of all the First Corinthians Chapter 11.
First Corinthians Chapter 11 and verse 26 were as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lords death till he comes. What we find in the chapter before the 10th chapter he has taken up the subject of the Lord's table in the 11Th chapter here he has taken up the subject of the Lord's Supper and to my own soul everything that has gone before.
In connection with the Lord's table and the Lord's Supper is summed up in this precious verse. For as often you know, I think this is one of the wonderful things about being gathered to the Lord saying. And that is that we have the privilege of remembering the Lord Jesus not just twice a year or once a month or on a special occasion. But as you trace through the book of the Acts, you find that in the early history of the brethren.
It became very quickly became the exercise and the joy.
The people of God to come together on the first day of the week to pray bread. Just read that little accountant of the apostle Pauls visit intro as in the 20th chapter of Acts and find that they came together there in troas for that purpose. That speak was before their souls on the first day of the week. And brother doesn't mean something to your heart and mind to have this privilege from week to week.
As often because you know when Lord Jesus instituted the Feast of Remembrance, it looks Gospel chapter 22 There in the upper room.
He not only knew what my heart was going to be like, but He knew her. Not only knew what the hearts of the disciples were like on that occasion, but He knew what my heart was going to be like. And He knew that I was going to need a reminder and that I was going to need it often. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup. Now I want you to notice the fact that there's something physical that the Lord has asked us to do.
In remembrance of him.
I say that because I've heard people say, well, I can remember the Lord in my heart. Well, that's true. We can remember the Lord in our hearts. And I trust every day of our lives there's a remembrance in our hearts that we stop and consider what the Lord Jesus has done for us and that we thank Him every day of our lives for that mighty work of Calvary. And then he reached out to us in grace and drew us to himself. But notice he wants us to eat and.
He's given us a way to give expression to what is in our hearts. God likes the expression of the truth. And so he's given us something physical to do, the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup. And I am saddened sometimes on Wednesday morning, as the low from the copper passed from one to another, to find that there are often some who I know belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. But they let that local.
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They left that cup pass them by. Does the work of Calvary mean no more to our souls than to bring bread in the way that He has asked us to do? And where is the heart so hardened? And who is so wireless? He that see if the Savior suffer and set it is nothing to me. How can we sit in His presence on Thursday morning and there not be some response in our hearts? I often think of that question raised.
In the book of Lamentations, is it nothing to you? All ye that pass by as we pass by the cross, as those hymns or Son that bring before us various aspects of the person and work of Christ as one another reads Scriptures bringing before us His death, and whatever the Spirit of God may lay on our hearts on that occasion.
As there is Thanksgiving and worship expressed from the lips of one and another, Brother, does it mean nothing to us?
To just sit there week after week and not remember him. He says this do in remembrance of me. And so as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, now I realize that we no doubt understand the significance of the loaf and the cup.
That flow on the table yesterday morning, it wasn't many loaves, it wasn't wafers, it was one lobe. And that loaf, if we were to go back to the 10th chapter, we find, speaks of every member of the body of Christ, every St. alive on the face of the earth. And brethren, we need to keep this before our souls. That hope doesn't just represent those who are there on that occasion.
Nor does it just represent those who express this truth practically in the breaking of bread. But that load represents every single live on the face of the earth, every member of the body of Christ, and God looks down and he says there is.
One body, and if we lose sight of that truth, brethren, then we become narrow and sectarian in our view. Then when we break that loaf, it is to be a fresh reminder of the Lord's body given in death for us. Then the cup speaks to us of His precious blood, the couple blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And you notice that it's given separate from the lobe. It's not all combined in one because.
Separation of the blood from the body was the fruit of death, and that's the way the Lord instituted it, and that's the way we always celebrate it. But I'd like to pass on just another little thought in connection with the loaf and the cup. And I know some have heard me express this before, but you know, I've pondered why the Lord Jesus chose a local bread and threw the blind. And yet, you know, I've been impressed to realize that it's almost 2000 years since the.
Of this blessed feast and you can go almost anywhere in the world today and in some form with very little effort and very little cost in some form you can obtain a loaf of bread and fruit of the wine It may not be exactly the way we have it on the table yesterday morning, but in some form you can secure those two things and I've had the privilege of breaking Grant with my brother and bury his pockets of.
Sometimes very, very poor as far as this world is concerned, but they're on the table on Wednesday morning. They have been able to secure those two things. And I know it's a little bit out of context, but I often think of that question raised by name of service long ago.
He said give the Anastasi to do some pirate thing would stop not have done it. Brother, Has he asked us to do some hard thing? Has he asked us to secure emblems that are costly or hard to find? No, he's made it so very, very accessible so that his own would have the privilege of remembering him in any age in any part of the world. And how long till?
He comes and brother, he wouldn't say till he comes if he wasn't going to provide a scriptural ground on which to do it.
Because people say today it just doesn't matter anymore. Things are so broken up and outwardly fragmented and they're such ruin come in, but it just doesn't matter anymore. But brethren, it does matter. And he has said till he comes and I believe with all my heart on the authority of God's Word that he is going to provide a place where we can break bread according to his Word is the main very adventure of water that we speak so often about.
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And if he's going to maintain that ground for us until he comes, then the challenge that ought to come home to our own souls tonight is that by the grace of God, and it is only by the grace of God, but by the grace of God, may we be found there where he has provided so that we cannot just pray for it. There's many who break bread, but so that we can partake of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table where he delights to be in the midst of his own. Now let's go to.