(Concluded from page 10)
Now, what follows? The characteristic of a person who has his ear open to the Lord, is—watching. “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat (that is a figure), and will come forth and serve them.” I find Him serving then, in divine love, still in the same character. He comes and brings us to heaven—to His Father's house, that where He is, there we may be also. While you were in that wicked world, He says, I was obliged to keep you on the watch, in a state of tension, with diligent earnestness to keep the heart waiting, but I bring you to a place where you are to sit down, and it will be My delight to minister to you.
It is one of the greatest comforts to me that I shall not want my conscience in heaven. If I let it go to sleep for a moment now, there are temptations and snares; there, there is no evil, and the more my heart goes out, the more good it is. Here, I dare not let it, but I must watch and pray. I shall not need that in heaven. The full blessedness of it is, the Lord being there, of course; and next, the saints being perfect. What does the heart desire that cares for the Lord's people? That they should be just what Christ's heart would have them. That will be there; He will see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. Then there is after that this comfort, that my heart can go out—here it cannot—to God and the Lamb, and to the saints in measure too; but then, roam as it will, there is nothing to roam over but a paradise where evil never comes, and it can never go wrong.
He comes then, and takes us there, and what heaven can find there for the heart to feed on is spread on the table of God. You shall rest there and feed on it, He says, and I will gird Myself and come forth and serve you. I am not going to give up My service of love. Thus, while I have the blessedness of feeding on what God has to give, I have the increased satisfaction that if I put a morsel of divine meat into my mouth, I receive it from the hand of love that brings it to me.
When He brings us there, all is turned round. Here, He says, you must have your lights burning, and be watching; when I get My way, I must put you at ease, and make you happy. “Then shall the Son also himself be subject.” He was serving here. It was man's perfection to serve—the very thing the devil tried to get Him out of. If he had, it would have been doing His own will; but “though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” But when all things shall have been subdued unto Him, He is subject after that. In the meanwhile He has been on His own throne; now, He is on His Father's throne, our High Priest; but He will take His own throne and power, and reign, bringing everything into subjection. Then it is not serving, but reigning: afterward He gives up the kingdom in that sense to His Father, for everything is brought into order. In the millennium it is a king reigning in righteousness; but then it is new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Innocence dwelt in the first paradise; sin dwells in the present earth; and then, in the new heavens and earth, it will be “wherein dwelleth righteousness.” He gives up the mediatorial kingdom (as it is called) to God, and takes His place as a Man, “the firstborn among many brethren.” He never gives up a place in which He can own us as associated with Himself in the blessedness of First-born of many brethren. As all was ruined in the first Adam, all shall be blessed in the Last. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Then, I find myself enjoying everything that God can give to the objects of His love, and enjoying it with Christ then at the head of everything—Son of God and Son of man; we associated with all the blessedness, and He administering it to us, so that the heart can taste His love. And He does not just bring us there, but it is to all eternity. He has purchased us too dearly to give us up. His love will be in constant exercise towards us. It leads us to adore Him more than anything can be thought of; but we can trust a love that never ceases in heaven.
You see here His heart going out to do it. Then you must have your lights burning. “Let your light (not your works) so shine before men” that they may know where your works come from, and, “glorify your Father which is in heaven,” that they may attribute them to God. I do whatever God tells me to do, and it is a testimony to Christ; people say, That is what comes from a man being a Christian! It is that there may be no uncertainty as to what we are, a well-trimmed lamp, the testimony of the life of Christ, that it may be manifested what I am, and what I am about—a pilgrim and a stranger, in a thousand different circumstances, the ordinary duties of life to perform, but one service, to be the epistle of Christ. I may be a carpenter, or a shoemaker, I must be a Christian. In various relationships, servants, masters, in eating or drinking, in our houses, wherever it is, I must be a Christian.
What characterized these servants was waiting, and they got the blessing. “Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find so watching.” Ah, beloved friends, are you watching, waiting for Christ practically? I cannot be watching, and going on in my own way. Are our lights burning? Or have we slipped down to the ease and comforts of this world like other people? That is not having our loins girded. And it is not as a doctrine we are to have it only.
He refers to serving in ver. 43, but the reward is connected with another thing—made “ruler over all that he hath"; it is the kingdom, the lower part. In my calling, I look up; in my reigning, it is looking down. It is better to look up than down. The watching person gets the Person he is watching for. The calling is better than the inheritance—heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. You find in Rev. 4 the elders sitting on thrones ("seats” they put in, for they thought it too much for us to be seated on “thrones” and crowned when He is there, but that is what it is); but when the nature of God is proclaimed, they leave their thrones, and that is the higher place. When they were on their thrones they had their own glory; when they are prostrated, they adore His glory. So, in the transfiguration, the voice came out of the cloud (the cloud was always the sign of Jehovah's presence in Israel), and they went into the cloud; that was more than the kingdom. A voice came from the excellent glory, and where it came from, they went into. It was a great thing to be standing there on the mountain, but still greater to go into the cloud—the Father's house, and they were afraid. It is a wonderful thing that the ruling is for us (ver. 44); but it is not the greatest thing. His love takes us into the enjoyment with Himself of every place He has—not the Godhead, of course—but of everything He has received from the Father as Man. He, in divine love, gives it to us; He gives not as the world gives. It gives liberally sometimes, but it gives away. Christ does not give away; He takes us where He is, and gives us what He has His own peace, His glory.
It seemed strange to Peter that the Lord should wash his feet. But where should we be if He did not wash our feet? In one sense we ought to be ashamed; but where should we be? If He were not a servant now, we should have our feet dirty, poor creatures that we are. Then it will be fullness of joy, His ministering of God's table in heaven to us, and half the happiness would be lost if it were not that. Now the Lord takes pains to assure us of His love, to persuade us of His love. “Ye are of more value than many sparrows.” He says, Do not fear; and then gives the strongest motive to serve Him. In the Epistle of John it does not say, We ought to love Him, because He first loved us—it is quite true; but that “we do love Him” (1 John 4:1919We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)). Where there really is the sense of the Lord's love to us, there is the return of it. If you hear a child saying, Oh! if you only knew my mother, her patience, her love, I am so tiresome, she never fails in affection, I cannot tell you what she is! I say, That child loves its mother; it has the sense of its mother's love in its soul. And that is love. It is the going back of the heart in the consciousness of the blessed love He has to us. The inflow of the love, with a new nature capable of receiving it, is the love.
How sweet and blessed is it thus to see how He has come down! He has not loved us from on high. He never says to the poor sinner, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,” till He had come to them. He never called for confidence in His love till He had come to them Himself, however vile they might be. It will surely make us adore Him. A divine Person come to be a servant! that our hearts may know His love. And He wants us to know it. Does the Father say, This is My Son whom you ought to love? No, He tells His affection for Christ, to lead us into it. Therefore, we are in fellowship with the Father. What is that? It is having the same thoughts and joys in blessing, the same feelings and affections in blessing. Depend on it, if you get near to God, it will not make you think lightly of Him. If you get near to the greatest man in the country you will find out his foibles; but being near to God will never give you want of respect to Him; you find out what God is. It is not dangerous, as people often say, to be on the mount; but to have been there. When Paul got out of the third heaven, he wanted the thorn in the flesh. Then there was a danger of his saying, No one but you, Paul, has been there! Everything is dangerous for the flesh to get hold of—law, gospel, and everything. Being near to God, never lets the flesh in.
If the Spirit is the spring of our thoughts and feelings, He can never give us anything but thoughts of the Son. We are poor, feeble things, and He is infinite—there is that exception of course. But if I look at Christ's death, I say, Look at that obedience—there is love to the Father, and giving up Himself, and love to us! Look at His devotedness, obedience, and giving up of self-love beaming through the agony of the cross if ever it did! Did not the Father delight in it? To be sure He did! Of course, all our thoughts are poverty itself; but He brings His love down to us in grace, and then takes us up to the glory. We learn the power of His obedience when nothing stopped Him. He brought it to us in grace here; washes our feet by the way, and then will serve us in glory up there.
The Lord give us to have our loins girded, and our lights burning, that we may be found watching, living in this town, or in any other, in our common every-day life; but that we may be there with our loins girded, and our lights burning, and we like men that wait for their Lord, that, when He comes and knocks, we may open to Him immediately! Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching. “He shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” May the Lord's love and approbation be the things that govern us, and not the things that fade away! J. N. D.
“Wonder not, brethren, if the world hateth you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not the brother abideth in death. Every one that hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath life eternal abiding in him. Herein we know love, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives. Dear children, let us not love with word nor with the tongue, but in deed and truth.”
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.