IC 2:10{" Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven."
1 Peter 1:3, 43Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, (1 Peter 1:3‑4).
Scripture shows us that true joy and happiness cannot be had in connection with the earth, or in the circumstances and history of the world, in their present state, nor till the earth is made the scene of righteousness; and such is not to be, till the Lord have ridded it of all that offends, and all that do iniquity (Matt. 13:4141The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; (Matthew 13:41)). The sword of judgment must go before the throne of glory. The earth must be cleared of its corruptions, ere it can be a garden of holy, divine delights again.
The Gospel is not producing a happy world, or spreading out a garden of Eden. It proposes no such thing, but to take out of the world a people, a heavenly people for Christ. But the presence of the Lord will make a happy world by-and-by, when that presence can righteously return to it.
The close of the Psalms shows this. Beautiful close! All praise—untiring, satisfying fruit, of lips uttering the joy of a filled heart, and owning the undivided glory of the Blessed One! But this had been preceded by the sorrows of the righteous in an evil world, and then the judgment of that world. For that Book gives the cries of the righteous in an evil world, the joys of the Spirit in the midst of that evil, the varied exercises of the soul by the way, and the end of the righteous in the joy of praise. All, however, forbids the heart from entertaining the thought of joy in the earth till the judgment have cleansed it; the rest is to be prepared for Solomon by the sword of David.
The proper thoughts of this will keep the heart from being tossed by disappointments, and take it off from the expectation of any progress to rest and stability for the world, or in it, till the Lord have executed judgment. Our joy now is to be in Himself, in spirit, in the thought of His love, and the sense of His peace, helped onward, day by day, in the hope of full and righteous joy with Him, when the wicked have gone from the scene forever.
How sensitively does the Lord's mind recede from the thought of joy in the earth, when the people were wondering at all things that He did! Turning to His disciples He said, " Let these sayings sink down into your ears; for the on of man shall be delivered into the hands of men." But this, I may say, was only a sample of all His mind, as He looked to the earth in its present condition. It was ever in His thoughts connected with trial.
Psa. 75, strikingly utters this. There Messiah looks on the earth as all dissolved and disordered, about to drink the cup of judgment at God's righteous hand. For the present He expected nothing from it. But then, after the exhausting of that cup, He does look on it as the scene of joy and praise and exaltation of righteousness, He Himself bearing up its pillars, and leading its songs.
I feel it, however, to be a very solemn truth, that God is allowing man, giving him space and time, to ripen his iniquity, that the judgment may fall upon him in the height of his pride, and crush the system which he is raising in its point of greatest pretension and advancement. It is surely a solemn truth. But even in such a purpose, as in all others, " Wisdom is justified of all her children." The believer may be awed by such a fact in the divine dealings with man, but he approves it, understands it to be a fitting thing, that man should be allowed to produce the fully ripened fruit of his own departure from God, to present it and survey it in the pride of his heart, and then receive his righteous answer to all his boasted and enjoyed apostasy, from the signal judgment of God. The iniquity of the Amorites was to be fall, ere justice should overtake it. The Lord bore with Babel till the cry of it went up to Him. Nebuchadnezzar had built " great Babylon," as he gloried, by the might of his power, and for the honor of his majesty (not for the glory of God), when he was driven from his high estate; Haman was full when God emptied him even to the dregs (Esther 7:1010So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified. (Esther 7:10)). And the great man of the earth, at the last, shall come to his and, just as he has planted the tabernacles of his palace in the glorious holy mountain (Dan. 11:44, 4544But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. 45And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. (Daniel 11:44‑45)).
When the scene around is getting full of man's inventions and man's importance, it is well to look to those regions of light and purity, where GOD, supreme and all sufficient, will gather together all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. Regions of light and purity indeed, where all will tell of intimacy or nearness, and yet of the full sense of the position of the Creator and the creature, the Sanctifier and the sanctified. In many a delightful page of God's word is this brightly reflected. The Lord dwelt in the midst of t he camp of Israel while at rest, and, as it took its journey, went along with it, whether by night or by day, whether the road lay right onward, or turned back to the mountain or the sea. But still He was GOD, the Lord of the camp.
How does all that commend itself to our souls! We bow to this. We rejoice to know that He dwells in a light that no man can approach unto, and yet that He has walked through the villages and cities of earth; that He is One whom no man hath seen, nor can see, and yet that none less than the One who is in His bosom has declared Him to us, been in the midst of us, our Kinsman in the flesh, as well as Jehovah's Fellow. (Zech. 13:77Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. (Zechariah 13:7)).
His supreme authority, as Lord, is infinite; His distance and holiness, as God, are infinite. And yet He is " Head over all things to the church." and God Himself is "for us." (Eph. 1:2222And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (Ephesians 1:22); Rom. 8:3131What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)). At the very moment of His commanding Moses and Joshua to take their shoes from their feet, because of His presence, He was manifesting Himself to them in symbols or characters significant of the deepest sympathy and of the most devoted service. (Ex. 3; Josh. 5).
In the days of increasing gloom and perplexity, like the present, the soul is the more sent to the sure hiding-place of safety, or to the sunny Pisgah heights of hope and observation. It gets the more accustomed to meditate on the strength of those foundations which God has put under our feet—the intimacy of that communion into which He has even now introduced our hearts—and the brightness of those prospects which He has set before our eyes.
I ask, beloved fellow-believer, Are we pressing in desire after this portion? Are we unsatisfied with all in comparison with it? Are we refusing to form any purpose, or to entertain any prospect, short of this? In Psa. 84, the heart of the worshipper is still on the way, unsatisfied, though he have " pools," and " rain," and " strength " of the Lord, till He reach Zion. In Psa. 90, all which the man of God sees is the vanity of human life and the " return " of the Lord. He does not anticipate changes and improvements in the condition of things, but looks to being " made glad" and of being " satisfied " at the " return " of Christ.
Is this our mind? I again ask. Are we still prisoners of hope, refusing to let anything change the expectant attitude of the soul? The Holy Ghost is given to us, not to change that, but to strengthen it. His very presence does but nourish present dissatisfaction of heart, and the longings of hope and desire. He causes the saint to " abound in hope " (Rom. 15:1313Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13)), and gives breadth and compass to the cry. " Come, Lord Jesus." Spirit of truth, the other Comforter, as He is, He does not show Himself for the Bridegroom, nor propose to make His refreshings " the marriage supper of the Lamb." The energy of hope, the desirings of the soul after our still unmanifested Lord, only speak the Spirit's presence in us the more clearly and blessedly. It is His very design and workmanship. He draws us forth to hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And is He our Object? The heart well knows the power of that which is its object. Do we make JESUS such? Are we able to say, " When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?"
May the Spirit shed abroad more and more, in the heart of each of us, these and the like affections. And to HIM that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, be glory and dominion forever!
Amen.