The Lord's Coming: February 2009
Table of Contents
Bride of the Lamb! Awake!
Bride of the Lamb! awake, awake!
Why sleep for sorrow now?
The hope of glory, Christ, is thine,
A child of glory thou.
Thy spirit through the lonely night,
From earthly joy apart,
Has sighed for One that’s far away,
The Bridegroom of thy heart.
But see, the night is waning fast,
The breaking morn is near,
And Jesus comes with voice of love,
Thy drooping heart to cheer.
He comes, for, oh, His yearning heart
No more can bear delay,
To scenes of full, unmingled joy
To call His bride away.
This earth, the scene of all His woe,
A homeless wild to thee,
Full soon upon His heavenly throne,
Its rightful King shall see.
Thou too shalt reign; He will not wear
His crown of joy alone,
And earth His royal bride shall see
Beside Him on the throne.
Then weep no more; ’tis all thine own:
His crown, His joy divine,
And sweeter far than all beside,
He, He Himself is thine.
Eternal Life
The Lord’s Coming
When we think about the Lord’s coming, what is the first thought that comes to our mind? Is it “about myself” or is it “about Him”? In other words, do we immediately think about what His coming will mean for us or what it will mean for Him? As another has said, “If I think of the rapture of the saints, I begin to think of what I get, but when I think of the appearing, I begin to think of what He will get.” Which is more important — what we will get or what He will get? The answer is easy and obvious. May the Spirit, as we go through the articles in this issue, give emphasis to our hearts of what His coming will mean for Him and for God’s glory. Even when we do think of the rapture, who will have the most joy, we or Him? His heart is so full of desire for our happiness that the look on His face when we meet face to face will be one of supreme joy—a look that will rapture our hearts. And when we think that He, whom we love and who was despised and cast out and crucified, shall return in power and glory, may we be among those who “love His appearing.”
Theme of the Issue
What to Desire First and Foremost
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1).
The circumstances of rejection in Matthew 22, which led the Lord Jesus at the close of His ministry to quote from Psalm 110:1, are an indication of the course He was about to take. A right understanding of these circumstances under which He took His seat on high gives us to apprehend how morally necessary it is that His coming again should be the eager, constant expectation of His people here on the earth during His absence.
The Lord Jesus is called to sit down above until His enemies are made His footstool, and there He is now waiting. His quoting Psalm 110 when He did shows that He was aware of His rejection.
He is set down at the right hand of power. All power has been given Him in heaven and earth. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the promised seed, the true Son of David. But being rejected, the Jews having refused the sure mercies of David, the times of refreshing, which should come from the Lord’s presence on earth, are postponed. He sits down at God’s right hand waiting until His foes are made His footstool. He foregoes His right and rule for a season, but this makes His return necessarily the first expectation of His people, as also the true criterion of the state of their hearts respecting Him.
His Desire
Scripture supplies us with four reasons why the coming of the Lord should be the first of our expectations. First, it is the Lord’s own desire to come. There could be no greater incentive or motive for any expectation or desire to the true heart than the simple assurance that it is the Lord’s own desire to come. And is it not so? He says that He goes away until His foes are made His footstool, thus plainly intimating that it is because of His foes that He, for a time, is absent, and therefore it is the time of His patience, as John says, “the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.” He waits and has patience until the time of His returning arrives, but His heart is set on it. He says, “I go to prepare a place for you,” and “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:23). In Revelation 22, His own reply, when the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,” is, “Behold, I come quickly.”
Our blessed Lord also declared to them the blessing that should accrue to them if they were found waiting for their Lord. Such faithfulness of heart is so grateful to Him that He pronounces, “Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching.” He continues, disclosing from His heart how He appreciates such a state of soul: “Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” No attitude is so pleasing to Him as watching and waiting for His return. There will be unbounded manifestations of His satisfaction in the rich servings of His love to those thus engaged. If His people are true to Him, they must be those who mourn His absence, and their heart demands it of them that they should wait for Him from heaven (1 Thess. 1). It is His own desire to come again to receive us unto Himself, and, therefore, surely the heart that is true to Him, that is near to Him, must respond to this desire of His heart, keeping the Lord’s desire to return as their leading expectation. The soul near Him imbibes His own purpose and desire and feels the desolation here during His absence and the misrule of everything because it is not the day of His power.
His Rights
And this brings us to the second reason why His coming should be our first expectation, namely, because His rights will not be established until He comes. What righteous soul or what loving heart can survey the disorder and misrule of this world now in the hands of man, under the god of this world, without being oppressed with the sense that its rightful Lord is not here, that the King of kings and Lord of lords is neither owned nor ruling. We know that He is the rightful Lord, that God has set all things under His feet, and yet we see not all things put under Him (Heb. 2:9). We know that it is man’s day, and therefore we judge nothing until the Lord comes, until the day of His power. The righteous feel that His place is occupied by another. Therefore the faithful servant is in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. The place of the believer now is to be at the Lord’s supper, announcing the Lord’s death until He comes.
The more we know of His rights on earth that are usurped by another, the more we will be separated from the world — the system which still rejects Him. The more we are conscious of this, the more must we, because it is righteous, desire that He whose right it is should come and reign. He cannot reign until He comes. The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ were displayed in the holy mount. That was the kingdom of God come with power, disclosed for a moment to a few faithful ones on the earth. How blessed and how wondrous! A true feeling and sense of His right to rule over things here will cause me to be earnestly longing for the day of His glory when He will come and reign. I cannot be truly in His kingdom and patience without an eager longing for the time when He shall take to Himself His great power and reign. So as soon as the seventh angel sounds, saying, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” there is the response, “We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come: that Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power and hast reigned.”
The Apostle (1 Tim. 6:14-16) exhorts Timothy of the “appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That was to be his incentive to keep the commandment without spot, unrebukable, because He, in the suited time, would display it — He the blessed and only potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords. The heart necessarily turned to the time when He should be set in His true place and in the full exercise of His power. Also, in the second epistle he characterizes the saints as loving His appearing. It is His right to reign. He is now waiting until His appointed hour arrives. The establishment of His right will also be our gain, which is a third reason why we should desire His coming.
His Desire, Our Gain
Therefore Peter writes, “Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace which is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13). His coming, His exaltation, will confer the greatest blessings on the saints. First, the resurrection of the bodies of the saints does not take place until He comes. “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Cor. 15:23). “Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). When Christ enters on the day of His power, the first display of His power will be the resurrection. The moment He ceases to wait — when He takes to Himself His great power, even before there is a manifestation of His rule on earth and before His appearing to the earth — the resurrection will take place. The first action of His power will be to clothe His body, the church, and all those who without us could not be made perfect, in glorious bodies like His own. His own desire is that we should be with Him where He is, that we may behold His glory, and until He appears we cannot appear in glory. How many and how blessed are the motives to our hearts to desire His coming! How suited it is that such varied blessing for us should be thus inseparably connected with His coming. Our happiness in any blessing depends greatly in the happiness of those we love, and surely in our hearts we could not desire to reach perfect blessing while our Lord was still waiting for the consummation of His glory and position. We wait for His coming “until the day dawn, until the day-star arise in your hearts.” His coming will bring perfect blessing for us. We do not see Him till then; we are not like Him till then. The more our hearts are taken up with Him in His absence, the more must we desire His coming when all these varied and marvelous blessings will be perfected to us.
We do not pass the judgment seat of Christ until He comes, that wondrous moment when all we have been in the presence of His long-suffering and continued grace will be brought forward and stand out in contrast. This cannot take place till He comes. There will be no rewards or defined sphere for us in our relation to Him until He comes. And if our hearts are thus true, if we are in any degree impressed with the force of the above reasons for desiring the coming of the Lord, the fourth, and last, reason would be only natural for us, namely, that our hearts would not consent to suggest anything else to Him but to come.
The Natural Response
Hence, the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” There is no other suggestion to offer; no other action of our Lord could meet the necessity of the heart but His coming. It can suggest nothing except “come.” Anything else would imply that there was something which would be of more value to us than His coming, or be a substitute; nothing else is so precious or so valuable to us. His coming is so connected with the desire of His own heart, with His rights, and with our great, perfect blessing that the Spirit who acts for Him here can say nothing else but “come.” Likewise, it is the one desire of the heart of the bride. If we are in the Spirit, we say, “Come,” for the desire of the Holy Spirit is for the day of His power, and His coming for the church is the beginning of it, the day-star of it.
In conclusion, I may repeat that I have not here drawn any distinction between His coming and His appearing, my object being to set forth the moral of both rather than the details. It is my desire to engage the souls of saints with their Lord’s desire and His right, as primary even to their own gain, great and wondrous though the latter be. The heart that is true to Him will readily discern the difference between the earlier and later actions of His coming—between the moment when He no longer waits but rises from the throne and the full glow and power of the day when He appears, and when “every eye shall see Him.”
May He keep our hearts in such simple allegiance and devotedness to Himself that we may not afford ourselves any other suggestion to Him but that which alone suits the love and fidelity of our hearts, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Amen.
Adapted from
Girdle of Truth, 10:1
The Christian’s Blessed Hope
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:13-14).
Oh, what a word that is — blessed. It will be fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore. You will then never shed another tear. You will never have another sorrow. You will be so richly and fully blessed that you will never know the end of your blessings. You never will be able to calculate that eternal weight of glory, that joy unspeakable, that perfect rest, or that ceaseless and uninterrupted delight which you will have when you first gaze upon the face of your precious Jesus and begin to raise the eternal anthem, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 5:12).
A Soul-Stirring Hope
It is also a soul-stirring hope. It is a truth for the affections. Consider the reality of bridegroom and bride. Can anything more thoroughly stir the emotions of a true heart? I ask, What faithful, loving, chaste bride would not be delighted with her lover’s promise, “I am quickly coming for you”? What would move the affections, what would stir the deepest feelings of the heart, like the testimony from Himself that “in a little while I am coming for you”? Again, in reference to the preaching of the gospel, can we conceive anything more stirring? Can anything more powerfully urge the faithful Christian to testify of the grace of God to poor sinners than the knowledge of the fact that the Master is quickly coming for the saints and that then the ungodly will be left behind for judgment. I cannot imagine anything either that will constrain us to real faithfulness to the Lord and care for His saints, His truth and His glory like the Master’s voice — “Behold, I come quickly” (Rev. 22:7)!
Do we know this hope to be so soul-stirring? Are we so living and walking as to be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless? Would the Master, if He came today, say to you and me, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (see Matt. 25:23)?
A Comforting Hope
This hope is set before us in Scripture as a comforting hope: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18). How many a child of God has had a dear parent, a dear child, a darling wife, or a long- and fondly-loved husband who have died in the Lord? The heart has been made to feel very sorrowful by the separation, but the testimony of the scriptures is that the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, and then the dead in Christ shall rise, and we who remain shall be changed, and then all will go up together into the air to meet Him, and so shall we be forever with the Lord. “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
And surely those who have gone before are waiting with patience for the coming of the Lord. Let us not have wrong thoughts with regard to those who have died in the Lord, for though they are absent from the body and present with the Lord, yet their bodies are in the grave. That they are with the Lord and in the enjoyment of full felicity and happiness as far as they are capable there can be no doubt, but they are waiting for the coming of the Lord, when they will know the redemption of their bodies too and then be capable of receiving and enjoying the full measure of their promised blessings. Christ is expecting to come, and those who have fallen asleep in Him are waiting for the Lord to come that their bodies and spirits may be united, and then we shall all meet and be forever like the Lord and with the Lord.
A Purifying Hope
It is plainly set before us in Scripture as a purifying hope. The Apostle John says that he “that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). It is impossible that we can be really hoping for the Lord’s return from heaven and be walking carelessly. Our great adversary often cheats us, or we cheat ourselves, by putting knowledge in the room of faith and hope. Many persons have a great deal of knowledge of the letter, but that is very different from the power of truth in the heart. Therefore it is said, “He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself.”
If we are looking for Christ, we cannot be associating ourselves with what we know He will disapprove. We cannot be upholding now what we know we should be ashamed of then. Those who have not yet thought of the coming of the Lord as a great practical truth would do well to consider that Scripture. It is found in the third chapter of the first epistle of John: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.”
Such a believer lives in this hope like a man separated unto God. We do not know when He is coming, but we are to wait and hope for Him. It is possible that the Lord Jesus Christ may come today. I do not say He will; to say so would not be according to Scripture. But I say He may come, and if we are looking for Him, we cannot be occupied with what we know would be hateful in His sight. We may be very ignorant, but we cannot walk in disobedience and at the same time be saying, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Therefore it is that he that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.
A Rejoicing Hope
Again, it is a rejoicing hope. What can give a Christian such joy as the hope of seeing and being with Christ Himself? But you say, “I hold the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, and I have not this joy.” That is what I have been saying. Knowing the Scripture about it is one thing, but believing it to be God’s truth to you as the present hope of your soul is another. If you believe it to be God’s revealed truth that you are delivered from the wrath to come, that your sins have been blotted out, that your old man has been put to death on the cross, that you have received life in a risen Christ, and that He is quickly coming from heaven for you — if it be to you a blessed hope, surely it is calculated to fill the heart with the deepest, purest joy. If that does not give the heart joy, nothing will. I grant that the foundation of all joy is the accomplished redemption of Christ, but the crowning joy is the hope of seeing Him. We shall, through wondrous mercy, have a crown and a robe, but what are the robe and the crown compared with Him? They are not Christ, and it is a precious reality that
“Greater far than all beside,
He, He Himself is thine.”
When Paul thought of his service in the gospel, his joy was that the Lord was coming. It is said in 1 Thessalonians 2, “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?” Thus Paul, who was persecuted, almost stoned to death, rejected and in poverty and imprisonment, says, I am looking with joy for the coming of the Lord, for then I shall know and have the joy of the results of my labors in the gospel. Again, if we for a moment consider that even now, knowing Him by faith whom we have never seen, we so love and rejoice in Him as to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, what must it be to see Him? What must it be to have His smile continually before our eyes? What must it be to be always in the atmosphere of His changeless, personal, perfect love? What must it be to have the delight of our hearts always before us? What must it be to see Him in all His glory?
I do not believe there is anything of a higher quality than that, for whatever blessings we may have before us, whatever happiness we may then know, or whatever joy surrounding us, there would still be something wanting if we did not, could not, see Jesus. But surely we shall be satisfied when we awake with His likeness, gazing on His face, and, blessed be His name, He will be satisfied too, for He will then “see of the travail of His soul, and . . . be satisfied” (Isa. 53:11).
H. H. Snell
Loving His Appearing
We need all Scripture. All is given for our profit. One of our dangers is being taken up with certain parts of the sacred writings to the neglect of others. This has been apparent in the acceptance of our Lord’s coming for us as our hope without being exercised about the Lord’s reign and judgments at His appearing and kingdom. It is this latter line of things to which Peter refers when he says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn” (2 Peter 1:19). No doubt the light of unfulfilled prophecy, when received in faith, casts its light on the path we are now treading, and thus clear guidance and much blessing are vouchsafed to those who take heed unto it. The Apostle Paul, in writing to Titus, by the Spirit says, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Here the Lord’s coming and His appearing are connected, as being both looked for — not only “that blessed hope” of our Lord’s coming to receive us unto Himself, but also His “appearing” after that in manifested glory and taking His rightful place on earth as “Heir of all things” and “Lord of all.”
The Intelligence of Events
It is not that many believers are not intelligent as to the events which will follow the Lord’s coming for us and able clearly to distinguish between that blissful moment and our subsequent following Him out of heaven, when “every eye shall see Him.” But our hearts need to be in conscious sympathy with our loving Lord Jesus in His present rejection and to be therefore anticipating with joy, in deep fellowship with Himself, that glorious appearing, when He will have His rightful place of universal supremacy accorded to Him by all intelligent beings in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
The fact is that while some have been holding and rightly contending for the truth of “the church [or assembly] of God,” they seem to have let slip the truth of “the kingdom of God.” Paul was emphatically a minister of the assembly, but he tells us also that he testified “the gospel of the grace of God” and preached “the kingdom of God” (Col. 1:24-25; Acts 20:24-25). Such a prominent place in the Apostle’s public ministry had the reign of Christ and its kindred subjects that, though his visit to Thessalonica probably did not exceed three weeks, we are told that he suffered persecution for having preached “another King, one Jesus.” And in his second letter, when he referred to “the man of sin” and the Lord’s destruction of him “with the brightness of His coming,” he said, “Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” (2 Thess. 2:5,8).
It is a mistake, we believe, to suppose that we learn prophetic truth for soul profit by merely grouping events together as we would link together a series of political facts. It is easy for an active mind thus to occupy itself. But to have the heart and conscience so moved by the divinely-given “word of prophecy,” because it so sheds its light on our present path as to produce walk and conduct suited to it is a very different thing. For example, it is perfectly true that in a little while it will be said, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.” If then the Lord’s interests are our interests and we believe He will yet be manifested as Lord of all, how can we have any relish for the political excitement and party struggles of today? Why not rather wait till “He come whose right it is” and who said, when nearing the cross, “Now is the judgment of this world”?
Sanctifying Truths
These truths are eminently sanctifying. How can they be otherwise? To suppose, therefore, that we can really hold them as divinely-given doctrines and go on in worldly and carnal associations is to do the greatest violence to them. If we really believe that it is possible the Lord may come for us before midnight, could we go on with anything today which we knew would be displeasing to Him? Should we not rather choose to suffer for His sake and do what we know would suit His mind? If we are truly waiting and watching for His return, could we spend a day without caring in some way or other for some of the members of His body? And is not caring for His household one of the special marks of a wise and faithful servant (Matt. 24:45)? Moreover, if we believe God’s Word that the world lies in the wicked one and is under judgment and the Judge is soon coming in flaming fire to carry it out and judge the quick and the dead, how can our hearts but rejoice at the thought of the once humbled Nazarene having His rightful place on this earth as King of kings and Lord of lords?
Do We Really Love
His Appearing?
Do our hearts burn within us at the thought that in a little while He will be publicly manifested as “Lord of all”? We doubt not that the comfort of accomplished redemption, the consciousness of His present ministry and care of us while He is hid in the glory, and heartfelt sympathy with Him as to His present rejection will accompany loving His appearing. How strange it must appear to the authorities and powers in heavenly places, who know by the church the manifold wisdom of God, that we are so little moved and acted on by the prospect of the Saviour’s appearing and reign! But when we are stirred in our inmost souls to be practically getting ready for His coming, then will the hope be known in brightness and power, and the more we ponder what He has told us about our reigning with Him, the more we shall realize His present rejection and love His appearing. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and of things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11).
H. H. Snell,
The Christian Friend, 1887
Christ’s Joy in the Church
“The church will have her joy in Christ, but Christ will have His greater joy in the church. The strongest pulse of gladness that is to beat for eternity will be in the bosom of the Lord.”
“Abundantly Satisfied”
It is a cheering thought, and no less animating than it is happy, that, richly as we are blessed as saints of God, He has not exhausted His measureless ability for blessing us. And His profound delight in blessing us being commensurate with His resources, no more can His desire be impaired than His resources diminished. The present scene and character of blessing can never be reproduced, it is true, but the unexplored fields of blessing that lie before us are as ample as their fertility is everlasting. If He has endowed us with the unsearchable riches of Christ and in the mystery enriched us with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, yet He reserves to Himself infinitudes of fresh blessing for us when He receives us to His own rest. Nor does anything so conduce to give us a true apprehension (be it but a feeble one) of the supreme joys that await us as the heart’s bathing itself in its present blessedness, for every bit of appreciation by the Holy Spirit of our portion in and with Christ now enlarges our capacity for apprehending by faith that to which He loves to conduct us in spirit — the final blessedness in His own presence.
If we look at the closing verses of the Lord’s utterance in John 17, we find how He by the Holy Spirit, on the night of His betrayal, endowed His saints with a dowry, which we by the Holy Spirit should now in spirit be enjoying, seeing how solid is our title to it in His own Word. Four things are mentioned:
1. There is the glory given Him by the Father, which He shares with us (vs. 22).
2. The Father’s love is equally shared with us (vs. 23).
3. He further shares with us His own place in the Father’s presence (vs. 24).
4. The Father’s name He shares, as it were, also with us (vs. 26).
Thus His inheritance from the Father is here rehearsed, and title thereto is granted to His saints. It is the reward given from His Father of His faultless work and faithful testimony on earth, won by toils and tears and terrors, in anguish and in blood. He solaced His own heart with it in the hour of untold sorrow by sharing with the men whom His Father had given Him out of the world! They were the Father’s, and the Father had given them to Him, and how could He mark His appreciation of this primary gift more definitely than by sharing with them all else that the Father had given Him? Thus the endless love of Christ to the saints is the suited answer of His heart to the Father’s expressed delight in Him.
But Scripture supplies other features of our blessing. These I take to be:
1. The being in His presence at home.
2. The bearing His likeness in glory.
3. The partaking of the fatness of His house and of the river of His pleasures.
4. The speaking of His goodness and singing of His righteousness.
5. The beholding His glorification.
In Thy Presence
In Psalm 16:11 we read, “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Now, however true these words were of Christ to Jehovah, they are for His saints also, and it is Himself who opens this path of life, really by putting forth, as He will before long, the power of His resurrection to them who in the meantime are privileged to know it by faith.
How enjoyable must be the atmosphere which His presence fills in unclouded glory! In that supreme moment we shall taste, as never before, that which the Holy Spirit speaks of as the fullness of joy! And His right hand, too, is our place of honor. He loves to invest us with a dignity befitting Himself when He has us at His side, and He installs us there that we may be regaled in His banqueting house under the banner of His love!
The Crowning Joy
I only add that in John 17 there is one verse which appears to set forth the crowning joy of the saints. “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” Wonderfully blessed as it is for us to share the glory of Christ, how much greater a thing as to its moral qualities is here! And the principle upon which this shall constitute the culmination of all our joys is seen in John 14:28. “If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I.” His heart counts upon this, that our affection for Him is such that heaven’s highest delight for us will be the supreme sight of His glorification. He is the Man who is Jehovah’s fellow, God over all, blessed forevermore! Not until then will He see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Not until then will Jehovah rest in His love.
W. R., Christian Truth, 31:246
My Lord Delays His Coming
Satan always seeks to corrupt what he cannot destroy, and the truth of the Lord’s coming as the blessed hope of the believer is no exception to this. Since the Lord has graciously revived it in this closing period of the day of grace, it has taken so firm a hold upon the souls of His saints everywhere as was never known before since apostolic times, nor was it since those days ever before so generally accepted as it is now. We have no reason to think that, as a doctrine of Scripture, it will again lapse into forgetfulness as it did during post-apostolic days.
“Behold the Bridegroom”
At the beginning the virgins all went out to meet the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1), but how soon this testimony was given up, and “they all slumbered and slept.” So silent was true Christian testimony! But at midnight there went forth an arousing cry, (1) “Behold, the bridegroom!” (2) “Go ye out to meet Him!” (Matt. 25:6). How perfectly this has been fulfilled, and how closely connected these two things are — the person of Christ and the meeting Him — the outgoing of heart to Himself as the coming One! We thank God that the power of the Holy Spirit has so accompanied this testimony that Satan’s mightiest efforts will achieve no success in depriving Christians of what God has so graciously restored to His church. But there is danger that the very depth of our convictions on this truth may close our eyes to the more subtle snare to which we are exposed, even if we are scripturally sound on the doctrine itself. The finest characteristic, which that hope possesses, regarded practically, is its dateless imminence, or, in other words, its undefined but certain nearness. If Satan, therefore, could succeed in removing this peculiar feature, he knows well he would so nullify it that while the shell of the doctrine remained in its structural integrity to satisfy its adherents, the kernel would be abstracted. Its intrinsic value would be surrendered, since it would no longer be an ever-operating power and “blessed hope” before the soul.
The Present-Day Danger
This is the peculiar danger of the present day, and foreseeing this, the Lord has furnished a parable expressly to warn against this singular snare which the enemy lays for professing Christians (Matt. 24:45-51). Another scripture warns against the scoffers of the last days (2 Peter 3), but that phase of the subject is not now before us. The special snare of Satan in this post-midnight hour is that of the retention of sound doctrine as to the advent and personal reign of Christ, along with the worldliness and the like which the Lord sets forth in the beating of fellow-servants and eating and drinking with the drunken. Such violence and wantonness, whether exerted or restrained, are the real workings of the flesh and the allowance of the world when developed and displayed.
We would therefore bring home to our own soul and to you the deep importance of watching against this declension of heart as to the Lord’s return, which is the last snare of our cunning foe. Having been looking for Him so long, can we say that we are more and more convinced that He is near at hand? Are both the desire for and the expectation of His coming growing every day stronger within our souls? This is the true reckoning and conclusion of faith.
Our Desires Rekindled or Cooled
One of two things must be true of us. On the one hand, if the dearly-cherished desire of our hearts has not yet been gratified, we have therefore clung the more tenaciously to it, having the desire rekindled afresh in our affections each recurring day, and our daily expectation approximated more and more towards a certainty that He is close at hand. On the other hand, we may have allowed our faith to fail, our desires to cool, and our expectations to falter. We have said, as it were, “We have expected Him all these years, and He has never come, nor do we know at all when He will.” Thus the sense of it, as an increasingly “blessed hope,” has escaped from the heart. No wonder that the poor, faithless heart then turns to the world which it had unwittingly allowed to betray it into declension, saying within itself, “My Lord delayeth His coming,” and in consequence giving license to the flesh and its works.
How different is it to faith! Are earth’s scenes at their darkest, the poor body brought down to death’s door, and life rapidly ebbing away? For us there is no darkness that cannot be penetrated by the piercing rays of “the bright and morning star” — no time so short as to preclude His coming therein, since if there be but time for an eye to twinkle, there is time for Him to come. To the joy of His own heart, the first act of His coming will be to produce its full effect upon the bodies of the untold multitudes of His saints in the same twinkling of an eye! It is equally the privilege of faith to find the Lord’s coming the very brightest thing in our horizon, engaging our hearts supremely and asserting its full place and power, even when divine favors upon earth are in their most sparkling array before our grateful hearts. If it is not so with us, we may well challenge our souls as to whether the person of Christ and the promise of His coming again have ever assumed their place in the heart as they should.
The Lord’s Table and His Coming
We would add to this that we know nothing that is used of the Holy Spirit more powerfully and more refreshingly to revive this precious hope in the hearts of the saints than the Lord’s table. The Lord’s supper indeed possesses the unique property of converging into one focus His death and His coming, bringing back His death as “our only yesterday” and bringing forward His coming as “our only tomorrow.” Our yesterday is a dead Christ whom we remember, our today a glorified Christ to whom we are united, and our tomorrow a coming Christ for whom we are longing! He shines upon us as the “bright and morning star” while we keep vigil through the long night of His prolonged absence.
May the Holy Spirit keep freshly before our souls this “blessed hope,” nor allow it to be impaired by any of the changing scenes of earth. Above all, may we be preserved from, in ever so remote a degree, saying in our hearts with Laodicean levity and worldliness, “My Lord delayeth His coming.” It is not in the quantity of service we do, but in the measure of how much of Christ is presented that the value of our service is determined, in a world where there is nothing of God.
W. R., The Christian Friend, 6:32
This Present World
In reviewing the Scriptures concerning the character of the believer in this world, we cannot help but be impressed with how the coming of the Lord ought to pervade every aspect of our lives. In the New Testament, we find the coming of the Lord mentioned in all of Paul’s epistles, excepting Galatians and Ephesians. (In Galatians it is left out because they had adopted teaching that undercut one of the basic principles of Christianity, while in Ephesians they were already seen as risen and seated in heavenly places in Christ.) Likewise, John, Peter, James and Jude all mention the coming of the Lord in connection with their particular lines of truth.
The Grandeur of the
Roman World
When the epistles were written, the world was witnessing the largest and possibly the most powerful empire the world had yet seen. Rome was at its height, and Roman law, cultural achievements, military power and administration were a byword in the civilized world. Yet scarcely anything is said in Scripture about all this, except in passing, when it bears on the moral and spiritual truth being conveyed. Paul (and others) do not dwell on the accomplishments of the Roman Empire or on its grandeur. In all his travels, we do not find him commenting on engineering feats (such as roads, aqueducts or monuments), military campaigns, cultural achievements, or anything else that would appeal to the natural mind. Rather, he remarked that “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10). Evidently the glories of the Roman world were more appealing to Demas than the company of a man who was a prisoner for the name of Christ.
The British Empire
About 150 years ago, when God was graciously restoring to us the truth of the church and also the truth of the Lord’s coming as the proper hope of believers, the world was witnessing Britain at the height of her powers. Her empire was large enough to prompt the boast, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Her military power, especially her navy, gave her the role of policing the world, so that the period from 1815 to 1914 is often spoken of as the “Pax Britannica” (Britain’s peace). Yet once again, we find that those whom the Lord used to recover the truth made scarcely any allusion to scientific achievements, politics, military power, or various wars that were fought. Rather, their lectures and writings centered on the theme that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7).
Present-Day Politics
Much of this issue of “The Christian” was put together during the last few weeks of the campaign which culminated in the U.S. elections on November 4, 2008. On October 14, Canada held a general election, and on November 7, New Zealand also held a federal election. Feelings ran high among many, as liberals were pitted against conservatives in all three countries, and believers were also caught up in it. All of this speaks to us as Christians who are, according to Hebrews 3:1, “partakers of the heavenly calling.” If the Lord’s coming is not before us as a present hope, it is easy to get taken up in the national feelings and patriotism that come so naturally to the human heart. Instead of seeing the sentence of death on all that is in this world, we find our hearts becoming upset if God allows a government to be elected that would not have been our choice.
Prayer for the Powers That Be
It is quite right to pray for the powers that be and to ask that God’s people be able to lead “a quiet and peaceable life,” but beyond this, we must remember that, just as Christ is hidden for the moment, so is the church. Our hopes are heavenly, and all the movements of man in government, whether by believers or otherwise, will only accomplish God’s purposes in the end. We can thank God for those in government who seek to rule in the fear of God, but we must remember that they are ruling a world system that will soon end in the judgment of God. If we live in lands where there is liberty, we can be most thankful for the privileges granted to us, but let us remember that the severest judgments will ultimately fall on those who have enjoyed the greatest light.
Our Involvement
God has told us that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse” (2 Tim. 3:13), and believers who involve themselves in the affairs of this world will find that their efforts will continually be frustrated. Our part is to “shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15), while expecting the Lord to take us home at any moment. Rather than being like Demas, who loved this present world, we are to “live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:12-13). Let us not allow anything to dim that hope or spoil our proper testimony to the world! Let us hold the truth of the Lord’s coming, not only as a doctrine, but as a fresh and living hope that shows itself clearly in our lives.
W. J. Prost