EV 21:9-27{EV 22:1-17{THE New Jerusalem and Babylon are, to use common language, rivals to one another. In the one there is nothing of man, it is all Christ; in the other there is nothing of Christ, it is all man. The one is the expression and the exhibition, and that is the wonderful thing, of the beauty seen in the man Christ Jesus; it is His fullness. The fullness is a word not easily explained in our language, but it is not what some people call it, the complement. Complement very often in men's minds means only supplement. The real meaning of the word fullness is just what you would call a full blown rose with every petal seen. The church-the rose-is here; the Lord is there. He has left the earth, driven away, so to speak, and now all comes out through His body. Christ is the fullness of God, and the church is the fullness or plenitude of Christ. Nothing therefore, can be clearer than the fact that the church, notwithstanding that it has failed, and it has failed grievously, will come out in the future as a magnificent exhibition of the beauty that is in Christ as a man. All will contribute to it then; now we only contribute to it as we are suitable to Christ; but then only Christ will be there.
The great instruction for us is, that nothing that is not Christ will be there. This comes home very practically to us, for we may decide as to everything by the question: Is it Baby-ion, or is it the New Jerusalem? Which is it for? Is it for man's interests or Christ's? Babylon is the aggregation or collection, the bringing together of everything that suits man: while the New Jerusalem is the exhibition of the divine beauty that was seen in Christ on earth.
But why do we get this picture of it here? Why, that being made acquainted with what we are to be in the future, we may learn what will suit Christ now, and that is an immense point. I know what will suit Him. You say, I have heart fox: Him. I hope every Christian has a heart for Him; but you may love a person, and not know what will suit that person. There is such a thing as awkward love. But here I learn what will suit Him. and hence I know what does not suit Him. I know what I have to set aside, and what to cultivate, and that is the great point.
Here we get a picture of the Bride before the nuptial day. If I may use a familiar illustration, the wedding clothes are brought home before the marriage to be, tried on, and thus we can see what suits Christ morally now. We have the same thing alluded to in a passage similar to this: " Like a bride adorned for her husband." So that I can tell a person a great many things that will suit Christ from this Scripture.
So far as I can count them, there are seven distinct things that show us what will suit Christ. It is not merely something to be put on for the time, but what will suit her forever as the Bride. the Lamb's wife, made meet for Himself.
One word before I pass on to confirm what I have said, for it is important that there is nothing in the Holy Jerusalem that is not Christ, and that any one thing of self, no matter what it be, will have no place there.
There was not a thing He did that was not beautiful to God. If He ate and drank it was beautiful to God. Whether He looked at Him in private or in public life it, was all beautiful. There were thirty years we know little about, but the testimony of God at its close when He came up out of the 'Jordan after His baptism was, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And the testimony on His public life, which culminated on the Mount of Transfiguration, was the same, " This is my beloved Son." Thus, whether in His private or His public life, He equally pleased God and it was from that point He became a victim. He was the expression of righteousness till then, and then He went down to be the sufferer for unrighteousness. That is the difference between the Mount of Transfiguration and the cross. You do not understand Him if you say, as is often said: He went from the cradle to the cross. We see a man in the flesh entitled to go up into the glory: as Peter says, " We were eye witnesses of his majesty " in the flesh. But He comes down to die, for " Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." He goes down to be nothing at the cross, and there glorifies God under judgment as a man. First the glory saluted. Him, and then the glory claimed Him, after He had borne the weight of our judgment. There the Son of man was glorified. He went down into death, but God raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His own right hand, so that I have a Savior. in the glory. Not only One who was entitled to glory for Himself, but One who went down under the weight of my ruin, and entitled me to glory also, and thus I get it, thus I shall have glory by and by; and this is the first characteristic of the Bride: she has " the glory of God."
Now what comes out and is so interesting to mark in the book of Revelation is, that it is at the close you get the Bride, not at the beginning. We have there the church, and of course it is the Same thing only in a different aspect. We get the church first, and that all a failure as a vessel of testimony on earth. We see Christ walking through the seven golden candlesticks with His eyes as a flame of fire, for He is indignant at the state of things, in dignant that His love for His church is so unrequited. Nothing makes one so 'indignant as unrequited love. Well, that is the state of things at the opening of this book: And here I make a remark which, though an old one, it is important to keep in mind, namely, that, as soon as the Revelation was given, the Lord could come. When the book of Revelation was given then was fulfilled what was said of " John, " If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee? " When the book was given, so to speak, Christ had come. Of course I do not mean that He literally came, but there was nothing to prevent Him, and there has nothing happened since that which must have taken place before He could come. Things have grown since then, but everything was there at that time that there is now. Just as I might say twenty trees were planted in a certain lawn 1800 years ago, and not one since. The trees may have grown since, but only the same twenty trees are there; there is no new tree in the lawn. Well, here at the opening of this book I find the church a failure as a testimony to man. It should have been the light of the world, the representative of Christ as the light to the world when Christ had gone away, like the moon- shining in the light of the absent sun where the sun not. That is what the church ought to be, but it has lost that character-lost its place as the vessel of testimony: True, it retains its responsibility still, but no one in his senses would say that it has maintained its responsibility, unless it be those connected with Romanism and such like.
All the light that is in the world is in the church. Still, when Christ restored to the church, as He did to Philadelphia, the truth of His relationship to the church, He did not send Christians to read all the books that had been written by theologians, nor to study the light in the church, but to go back and learn exactly as the disciples did at the first; they had to begin anew. After 1800 years of light they had to go back where they began. To' speak plainly, when the light and truth that-have come out within the last half century began to come out, the Lord acted exactly as He did with the two disciples at Emmaus, as if not a single book or tract had ever been written, nor a sermon ever preached for the last 1800 years. He says you must go back and begin as at the beginning, as He taught the disciples at Emmaus, when, " beginning at Moses and the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." That is the way He makes Philadelphia; He revived the truth of His relationship to the church. That is the 24th of Luke, or man's side, our side, of the 20th of John.
Now what I say is that the church has failed in being the expression to the earth of Christ. When John sees the Lord at the opening of the book of Revelation, he sees Him indignant at what He beholds, and I believe we ought to be more indignant ourselves. I believe that if a person mixed up with ecclesiastical corruption got near the Lord, instead of being happy in His presence, he would be frightened. And Why? Because he would encounter His eyes like a flame of fire. His eyes to the church properly should be as doves' eyes. Why is this? Because, He says, you are mixed up with the evil, the corruption, and I cannot suffer it. Do you think the Lord is not indignant at the state of corruption throughout Christendom? Do you think He tolerates it? He is indignant at it.
I never preach ecclesiastical corruption, I preach nearness to Christ; but I do not think, indeed I am perfectly certain, that the soul who is in this corruption will, if he is near Christ, get frightened; not about his salvation, but distressed because Christ does not greet him cheerfully.
John knew Him best of all the disciples-had lain on His bosom, knew what His heart was-yet now He falls at His feet as dead. He says, I do not know Him with that countenance at all, and the Lord has to tell him I am the same person I used to be. Well, I speak of the fact that there is a change, not in the Lord's heart, but in His manner. When in the 20th of John He comes to His disciples, they are all glad to see Him, feeling His side and seeing His hands, and He breathing on them, and bringing them into all the blessedness of His own position as the One risen out of the ruin. There He stands among them all, calm, and making their souls to know that there was for them a region of light with not a single cloud to disturb the peace, and then sending them forth into the world with their mission in peace. But He is all changed. now.
Let us trace a little how this change came in. I will first give you a sentence, and then I will try to explain it to you. So long as the church maintained its character as the Bride, it was true in its aspect to man; but as soon as the church gave up its bride aspect, that is, its heart for Christ, then it failed in its other aspect to man. Its aspect to the Lord is love, its aspect to man, light: It gave up love to Christ, and it lost its light to man. When it gave up the bride aspect, it lost the place of the candlestick, and it not only lost the place of the candlestick, but the light. A person may say it is the candlestick still, but what -is the good of a candlestick without the light. It lost the light at any rate.
Turn now to the latter part of the 24th Matthew. Here we see the servant failed. " And if that wicked servant shall say in his heart, My Lord. delayeth his coming," &c. Now it is a heart saying, -my Lord delayeth His coming. That was not the Bride looking out for the. Lord. The true state and position of the church was that of a bride waiting for the bridegroom who had gone away. Now-let me make one remark I omitted just now. When all the animals were brought to Adam to see what he would call them, he gave them names, and' search was made to find a helpmeet for him, but it says, " For Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him." That word " helpmeet " is very difficult -to understand. The German translation, it is said, is the best rendering of the word, and the meaning is " something over against you." Then there was a rib taken from him,. and with it God builded a woman and brought her to Adam. Hence the word. " that he might present it to himself." What for? For Himself and entirely of Himself-something over against Himself. " That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, -or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."
Now, I say that the church has failed in the bride aspect, and why? Because the teacher has failed. It is always the case. We might be sure the church would fall after the fall of the teacher. As sure as the teacher goes down the congregation goes' down too. Like priest like people. The servant was made responsible, and it was the servant who said in his heart, " My Lord delayeth his coming," &c., and then he goes and mixes up with the world. The church, too, has gone down into the world, but the servant went first.
Now look at the first verse of the 25th chap, ter. " Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened." It was not always likened. " Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened. to ten virgins who went forth to meet the bridegroom; but while the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept." There is a sleeping saint now, and I will tell you what a sleeping saint is. He is one that has neither the sense nor the activity of life. He gives everyone the idea that he he is not awake. It is not the question whether life is there, but there is no activity of of life. And now what we come to is this: the Lord, at midnight, which I believe was about fifty years ago, says, I will wake up the church in her aspect to myself. He does not say He will wake her, up and make her a luminary again to the earth. I do not think a thing that -fails in the eyes of then in this earth is ever restored to the eyes of men. But why, because it has failed in its aspect to men, and lost its character before men, should it lose its heart for Christ? Now what I see Christ does is this. He says, I will wake up the *church in its relationship to myself; and then comes the cry, and I ask you to mark the terms of that cry: " Behold the bridegroom." Not " Behold the bridegroom cometh." " Cometh " is an interpolation. If I tell you the Lord is coming, I am putting all upon that coming, not upon Himself. " The Lord is here," that is the cry. And it is a very solemn and yet happy thing, and I am sure I seek to get my own soul awake to the reality of that cry-" He is here." Suppose some one came to the door and cried " He is here, go ye out to meet him," see how we should all drop everything and go. It means an appointed place of rendezvous. We have no word in our language to express it properly.
'Now, what is the way in which the. Lord acts to His church? He acts upon the heart and the affections of those waiting for Him. He says as it were, I will awake them up, not in the way in which I awoke up Israel, by threatenings and by judgments; that is the way I took with Israel; but I have another way of acting upon the church. And, beloved friends, how blessed a way it is! Of course, He says, I know they have love for me in their hearts, and I will -arouse them by a cry, and they will hear. And I believe the truth about the cry is gone abroad. I ask my own soul, " Have I heard the cry from Christ, " Behold the Bridegroom? " What a wonderful loosening effect it would have upon all of us to hear the words, "Behold the Bridegroom." " Then they arose and trimmed their lamps." I believe it is bringing out saints to a church position—to a certain testimony; that I do not deny at all, but it is the effect of having got heart for Christ, not that you are looking to make yourself any testimony to man. You -know very well the effect of trying to make a testimony of this kind. Man is always a failure. But I am not looking for this, and I do not expect it to be restored. We have lost our character. In plain words, I do not know anything a greater scandal upon the face of the earth than the church of God. I do Lot care -What part you take in it, but we belong to the family, and we cannot shut ourselves out. I belong to the Romanists; I cannot deny it; I have got relations among them. You say, But I am not one myself. Ah! but you have got relations there nevertheless, and you cannot deny- them. How can you say I have nothing to do with them? That is independency. Independency was thinking it could place itself outside the house of God. All my relations are there.. Some of them may be obnoxious, but be it so that they are obnoxious, still I cannot get myself out of it. Like a member of a disgraceful family, I am not to do what disgraces them. If I belonged to a family of thieves, I am not to be a thief myself.; still I should belong to the family of thieves. Just as a Jew might say, We rejected Christ. We have His blood upon Us as a family, but I will not do it myself. It is to our interest 'to understand this, because of what Christ awakens the church up to. He awakens up the church to Himself, and the proof is you go out to meet Him. You leave things behind, and this brings out—practically that He has become the object of your heart. Now I must give you an example of one thus waiting for Christ. A person may say, I really should like to hear of a person thus waiting for Christ. Well, you always get cases in Scripture.
I turn to the 20th John, which brings out a great point, and a very interesting thing, that what we have in infancy, at the beginning, comes out at the end. Well, what we have here is this, that what marked the dawn will mark the close. There was a bride at the early dawn, and there will be a bride at the close.. I look for a bride, beloved friends. I say it is the church I am speaking of, not a select company. I do not think Christ will have an elect company only when He comes, but all the saints on earth to greet Him. I do not Predict His coming to-night, but I look for Him in my lifetime. I am looking for Him to come as one of those ready to serve, as one of " a people prepared for the Lord."
But what I get in Mary Magdalene 'is this: the Lord transferring her from the sense of the earthly to that of the heavenly bride. The earthly bride is one who has no enjoyment when she loses the Lord personally. There is no sense of union in the earthly bride. When she loses Sight of the bridegroom she is unhappy. So with Mary Magdalene. But the great point I am pressing is this, which to me is the grand characteristic feature of the closing hour, and which I would urge with all the stress and energy I can command, that what marks the closing hour is heart, not intelligence. The ruin of the church is intelligence without heart. Laodicea is intelligence without heart. Let me tell you, beloved friends, that when the truth was first revived it was heart, and very little intelligence. I do not object to people's setting themselves to get knowledge about the One their heart is set on, but heart is what. Christ is looking for now, and the first gross characteristic feature in the failure of the church was giving up heart for Christ.
See the case- of the church at Ephesus. The church that has had the greatest favor bestowed upon her is the one to whom He has to say, 'Thou hast left thy first love." I look at a saint sometimes, and I see there is great intelligence; he is very anxious to get some particular arrangement of truth, dispensational or otherwise-all right in itself; but a greater thing than this is heart. Heart gets intelligence; intelligence never gets heart. If you have got heart you are sure to get intelligence, for the Lord loves to communicate to a person who has got heart.
Now the thing of unspeakable value to the Lord in the case of Mary is her affection for Himself. She has lost. Him, and she says, The whole world is intolerable to me without Him. The apostles come to the grave, and John gets intelligence about Him, and then they go home. Mary says, I could not go home. I say I would rather be Mary Magdalene than John; and we find the Lord communicates to Mary Magdalene, and does not to John. Thus the Lord comes to her, and transfers her from the sense of the earthly bride to the light of the heavenly one, and gives her the intelligence which sets her in the right way: that is the intelligence for the heart.
This is what I find is working out in the present day: too little heart and a great deal of intelligence, but the intelligence is doing the mischief, because absorbed with the intelligence and not heart. If intelligence does not form Christ-in us, beware of it. Beware of a bit of intelligence that does not form Christ in you: it ministers to man, and helps on Babylon. What, you say, helping on Babylon with Christian knowledge! I say it could never be Babylon without Christian knowledge. If the truth does not produce Christ, it subsidizes man; and if you help on man,' you are diverting from the building Christ is set upon. Christ's building is the church, the New Jerusalem, which He is building out of Himself.
Now the Lord comes and tells Mary, " Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. He actually communicates truth to her which is the kernel of the Epistle to the Ephesians. At any rate, He communicates truth which suits her; transferring her from the feeling of the earthly bride to that of the heavenly one; and giving her intelligence suited to the heavenly one. She can say, I know -where He is, and that is a11 I want to know. I know Where I have to do with Him, and my heart is satisfied. What satisfies the heart of the Bride is this, I know where my Lord is. First she says, I do not know -where He is. " They have taken my Lord out of the sepulcher, and I know not where they have laid him." She gets truth concerning the place and the relationship of the church. She is the One to whom is communicated these two great truths; and she is sent as the messenger to convey these truths to His brethren. Now she goes off' happily; not a bit of distress now.
The church failed in its aspect to Christ, and then lost its aspect to man; and now Christ wakens it up to be in its true aspect to Himself; and, as I am true to Him, I really am in my proper aspect to man.
I leave the things unsuitable to Christ, and go out to Meet Him, and I know what will Suit Him. That is what I find if I turn to Rev. 21 There I am looking on what really suits Christ. A person may say, You are not suited to Him. Perhaps not; but I do not admit that I do not know what will suit Mini and I am thinking of what will suit Him, not of reforming the church. I am thinking of the bride. People may challenge me and say, " Where is the church? Surely you do not call that little meeting of yours the church." I say I do not, but what I and looking at is the principle; I mean that the hearts Of the saints Should be in longing, earnest, looking-out for the return of the Bridegroom, and that they Should be in a suitable state to receive Him when He comes.
I say, if you get into suitable circumstances for Mm to come, you will find you are far more in church order than if you made order your object. You could not be in church' disorder. It is not that I am looking for church order, but I am looking to be brought out of everything unsuitable to Christ. I want to be according to Christ—according to His word.
There are two things which should characterize the Christian: the first is, I must have my her alive to Him, to His return; and the second is, I am to be representing Him here till He comes back. As the Lord says of His disciples, " I am glorified in them." I study to be unlike the world that will hot have Him, and to be like the rejected One.
The greatest glory the Bride ever had, or will have, is to be like Him. It is the Bridegroom forms the Bride. What the apostle gets here is a picture of the New Jerusalem. " I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.
Now the first character of the Bride is its appearance, and this gives it its whole character: it has " the glory of God." " And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal."
What a wonderful thing it is! I cannot dwell upon it, but it is extremely interesting. There is not one single thing that has failed in the hands of men that will not be resuscitated and brought into divine beauty by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have failed as the candlestick, but we shall come back again in all the 'brilliancy of Christ to the earth. It will need no candle, nor light of the sun or moon to lighten it. We shall come back in all the magnificence and brilliancy of divine beauty to the very place where we have been such a complete failure.
And so with the Jew He will be set again upon the earth in all the perfection of the law -the Lord maintaining it all. No Matter what has failed in the hands of men, He will restore it all. So there will be an earthly Bride and an earthly paradise, as well as a heavenly Bride and a heavenly paradise.
I do not believe any soul can have a sense of union with Christ except where He is. I do not want to distress any soul, but you must know Him where He is. I have union with Christ where He is, in glory. You cannot be perfectly clear of all your state here if you have not got into that region of calm. You have to do with an ascended Christ. How talk of perfect peace. if I have not to do with an ascended Christ? Practically we have to learn what the frigate bird. does. When a storm comes on it gets above the region of storms, above the clouds, where there is none, and there it stays even for days until the storm is over. I am placed beyond the reach of storms; I am a frigate bird, in that sense, through grace, for I am with Christ in a scene where there is no storm and no clouds. I am united to an ascended Christ. The Lord says, " The glory which thou hast given me I have given them." A person might say, I cannot get this now. I answer, I belong to the glory now; I possess Him now in glory, and I am changed into the same image by the Spirit. I belong to the glory. That is the Solomon aspect. Every believer knows Him in the Jonah aspect; but He is just as much his in the Solomon as the Jonah aspect. If you do not know Him in the Jonah aspect you are not clear of your sins. But He is the King of Glory, and I have come to Him in a scene "of unclouded light, which is the expression to my soul of the perfect satisfaction that God has in the One who died for my sins, and I have perfect deliverance and perfect rest in Him.
This is the first characteristic of the Bride; but properly it is not a characteristic, but the expression of the whole thing.
The second are the walls. These are not for protection merely, but for exclusion. Everything is excluded that defiles. Nothing can come in but what' properly suits Christ. Anything that does not suit Him must be excluded.—That is a main point with me. The walls therefore are high as heaven. ' The walls are undoubtedly a figure; but nothing can be clearer than that they were to shut out everything not suited to Christ. It is not looking to be a church, nor to get into church order; not looking to• be, as set forth in 1 Cor. 12, a manifestation of divine power to tell upon the whole town. But I am to separate from everything and everybody that does not suit Christ. Why so? Because I know it is the one grand principle with Him, displayed in these walls as high as heaven; it is exclusiveness.
The next characteristic we get is receptiveness: the gates. Here I have to let in everything that is suitable to Christ. There-lore the names of the twelve tribes are here. So the foundations have the names of the twelve apostles. There was no person connected with the city prior to the apostles. People who talk of Old Testament saints being in the city make a mistake. Every builder knows the foundation is put in the first thing. And so with Christ and His building; for it is Christ's own building. He brings in this entirely to eclipse what man has built, and therefore it is " a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
The foundations, then, are the first laid, and the names of the twelve apostles are in them. The twelve tribes are connected with the gates, showing, figuratively, that all the people of God would come in, all belonging to God would find a place there. But then they are not the city. The church is the city; the Lamb's wife is the city. There will be many persons enjoying the city, but not the city. The walls and the houses of this place are the city, not the people who inhabit it. His church is the city, and the nations walk in the light of it. It is only confounding the figure to make other saints a part of the city.
Let me lay aside the figure for a moment. Let me try to understand what a wonderful thing the church will be coming down as a body of light-coming back to earth as a beautiful expression of what Christ is. Everything and every person to be kept out that is not of Christ, and everything that is of Christ to come in. It gives much for contemplation, but who can understand it without the figure? This figure is used that the saints on earth might have the benefit of knowing what the glorified church is like, and it is for this purpose.
Everyone knows a candlestick is a figure, but how expressive. God is obliged to use figures from the' greatness of the subject, and the incompetency of language to express it. Often great minds use a great deal of figure, because they have not sufficient command of language to express their ideas. God does, because of the greatness of the subjects He is dwelling on. Who could sit down and write a book and tell me what that city means without the figure? He would have to explain a wonderful thing, the very size of the walls and everything else.. Take the whole character of the thing.
Then comes the streets of gold. I know from this characteristic what will suit Christ: perfect, divine righteousness in walk. That is the streets of gold. That is what I shall be by-and-by. I am not it now, but I know what will suit Him, though I shall not be it actually till I am with Him. It is the bridegroom forms the bride, and I get like Him as I get near the Bridegroom, because, as I know what will suit Him, I. get clear of the things that do not suit Him. I say He will not have this or that, and I walk away from it. It is really the effect of going forth to meet Him. It has produced this.
I say I am not seeking to revive the church, but what I am seeking is to have souls alive to the coming of the Lord, because they who are waiting for the Lord seek to maintain what is due to Christ in their walk and ways on earth.
Then, " there is no temple there," no oracle. Man has his temple, that we all know. We have none. We gather on this principle. When we come together we have Him in the midst. We have nothing imposing to look to as a temple.
The next characteristic is, " no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it," which means natural light. We do not need human learning, we have Christ. We do not want natural light, for Himself is the light thereof.
Now the more you look into all these beautiful characteristics the more you see how the Bride will be when she comes down from heaven, a beautiful exhibition-I cannot find a better word-of Christ. She will come down arrayed with Christ, one magnificent display of all the beauty of Christ. There is the moral expression here of all that Christ was upon earth.
And now comes the seventh-the water of life. This is the only one at present available. In the 17th verse of the 22nd chapter we get what is her behavior, what her mode of acting. What is she to do? What ought a bride to do? I am not talking of individuals, I am rather looking for the church. I do not know how the Bride will awake., I see the Lord loosening people out of system, but they become Laodicean. Laodicea is as much out of system as Philadelphia. I dread people getting out of system, and not getting to Christ. If you have real heart for Christ you separate yourself from everything unsuited to Christ, because you know what suits Him.
Now what is the remarkable point here? In the 10th verse, " I am the bright and morning star." Bright because it is the approximation of His coming. It is an approximate thing, for " the Spirit and the Bride say come." Now I am talking of your mission. What is your duty? what are you doing? If you are asking Him to come, you, must be in a state of readiness to do it. That is what I feel is necessary, for a person to be real. To use a plain word, it is an impertinent thing to ask a person to come to you, when you are not ready to receive him; it is not-good taste. The very fact that I ask Him to come implies that I am ready for Him; I wish-Him to come, in fact; " The Spirit and the Bride say come," that is the first thing. A real person can say this; that is, one who is ready to go to Him; because, he says, I have nothing to keep me here, nor to distract me, I am perfectly free of the things here.
Then we drop down to another stage: " Let him. that heareth say, come." Now I am anxious to know what you are doing. I say, first, our work is to ask the Lord to come; and, secondly, to say to all the saints, Let us all see to it. I do not, like to be alone; like Mary Magdalene, I go and tell them to say " Come." Let us all say, " Come."
Now we drop down to a yet lower stage: " Let him that is athirst come." Is there an unsettled one? Let him come. The corporate thing is maintained.
Then I go down still lower to the lowest, the greatest point of need of all, and that is the evangelical point: " And whosoever will let him come, and take the water of life freely." I get down from the highest occupation the heart can be occupied with to the lowest state of soul upon earth. Well, that is the church's mission. Traveling down, like every good thing does, " for every good and every perfect gift" cometh. downwards. A person who has the true spirit of an evangelist here goes with delight of heart while looking to the Lord to come, looking to the saints to join him in the cry, " Come," and dropping down to the thirsty soul, going out to-the utmost boundaries of the earth, crying, " Whosoever will let him home, and take the water of life freely."
Thus, beloved friends, I have endeavored to trace for you what Christ is occupied with now, what He is now forming. "He loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, having purged it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it unto himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing."
I have no doubt you will find it a comfort and a joy to your heart to say, I have heard the cry, and I am looking to Him to come, and I am going out to meet Him, dropping everything in my ways, and habits, and associations, unsuitable to Christ. I say I know what will suit Him. I may be a bad hand at getting clear, but I know what is pleasing to Him, and I am determined, through His grace and power, not to connect myself with anything that will not suit Him.
(J. B. S.)