THERE is an important statement in Rev. 22:17: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." It is connected with the whole book of Revelation, which was given to John when everything was ready for Him to come. The Holy Ghost, sent down to testify of Christ on earth, at a certain moment invites Him to come. True, things have developed since that time, but here it is stated that the Spirit and the bride, in company with Him, invite the Lord to come. He is the Bright and Morning Star. The answer to that is, Come! John speaks of "the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ." The Lord is enduring the whole state of things here, and His saints are spoken of as having "kept the word of my patience." Again, " The long-suffering of our Lord is salvation;" He waits in patience.
There are two things I wish to consider: first, what the Lord's return is to Himself; and, secondly, what it is to us.
The church has lapsed from this hope, because the servant said in his heart, " My Lord delayeth his coming." He did not preach it, he said it in his heart. The ten virgins went forth rightly, but they stopped on the 'road; the Bridegroom did tarry, and they all slumbered and slept. Inactivity ensues. This was always the case when the church had lost a true sense of the coming of the Lord.
It is the principal charge against the church of Ephesus. They had lost their first love, were asleep, had dropped down into inactivity. " I sleep, but my heart waketh." They had love, but not that first love which is characterized by the Object that commands my attention where-ever I am-at my work, in my family. " Forget thine own people, and thy father's house, so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty." You preferred me to your own: that is first love. Not what He can do for me, but what He is to me. It is personal affection for the blessed Lord; it is saying to the Lord, like Ruth to Naomi, "Entreat me not to leave thee."
In John 13 He Himself makes provision for unbroken intimacy between us and Him; if subject to Him, He will never allow a break. He will take care that there is no interruption between my heart and Him while I am down here.
Now the cry comes: " Behold the Bridegroom!" This woke them up. " Go ye out to the meeting."
The cry began about fifty or sixty years ago. It caused great alarm at first, because of the sense of the reality of having to meet the Lord. I do not want now to speak of fear, but to cultivate the delight of seeing Him, so that one would shape oneself to it, as a wife, expecting her husband's return, seeks to have everything in order for him -everything as he would like it-is not afraid of his reproach.
Some speak of the Lord's coming because everything here is in confusion, and say He will settle it. But I want to settle myself first, to be divested of everything that is unsuited to Him before He comes. The apostle says, " That I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." I covet to be a servant like that. He says, "I am jealous over you.... because I have espoused you to one husband." How his one thought is to have them for the Lord's own eye.
The coming of the Lord is connected with the fact that He is rejected from this world. "Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." The more simply I own that blessed One who was refused a place here, the less can I belong to the place where He is refused. I cannot get my rights: nothing can be set right till He, whose right it is, is come-until His foes are made His footstool. Nothing can be complete till He comes. He is rejected, waiting, expecting. I pray that I may enter into His own feelings in coming back. I believe, if I were more in His confidence, He would tell me what He feels about being refused His rights here, and how He looks for the day when He will come. " Henceforth shall ye see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."
2 Peter 1:19 gives us what His coming is to ourselves; it is the dawn of day to us; it is the day star in our hearts. But we want to be more like friends to the Lord-to know His feelings, like the heavenly company in the Revelation, who give thanks because He has taken to Himself His great power, and has reigned. Here it is the day-dawn, but, before the day, the Star arises in our hearts, the Morning Star in Revelation, the bright and Morning Star," the prelude of the day. I can remember, in old coaching times, the long dark nights, and the effect upon us all when some one would sing out, " The morning star," the prelude to the day. It is the actual prospect of the Lord's coming before the day comes, the harbinger of the day in our hearts.
Nothing has done more harm than the way in which people talk of the Lord's coming, without seeking to put everything straight in themselves. This has led to the infidelity about it: " Where is the promise of his coming?"
Peter puts it very solemnly: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." All here is going to be burnt up; everything here must go. This has a wonderful moral effect.
Not only am I looking for that bright moment when I shall see the Lord, but also I know that all here is to be dissolved; I am practically set free from all that would detain me. There is not a word about the millennium here; it is skipped over. I am to be connected with the Lord; and what manner of person am I to be? Like a balloon, which not only requires gas to carry it up, but also all the cords and grappling irons must be loosened, to free it from the earth. Monks are like those who try to loosen the cords, but it will not go up without the gas. Peter gives the day-star in our hearts, but he says, Remember everything here has to go-the grappling-irons, &c.-all will be burnt up.
1 Peter 1:13 speaks of the coming of the Lord as it affects the flock: " Gird up the loins of your mind; be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation [or apocalypse] of Jesus Christ."
One thing I desire to cultivate in the heart: What it is to see Him! "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." All heaven is for it! He descends from heaven with a gathering shout-a voice; the angelic host supporting; the trump of God announcing the amazing fact that He is returning. The dead in Christ rise first. Every believer-not the church only, but every believer -every one caught up in that momentous rapture!
In Ephesians we do not get the coming of the Lord at all; there Christ is in the heart. But the more we know what that is, the more we long to see Him-the One who has done everything for us, who is gone back to heaven to make a place for us, who is cheering our hearts along the road with His own company. And the greater the correspondence between your soul and Him, the more you want to see Him; the greater the communication, the greater the longing, as we all know with absent friends:
" The draft which lulls our thirst,
But wakes our thirst anew."
The Lord tells His disciples, In that day you shall know what union is. If my heart is true to Him, my heart would break if I lost Him. This is Sol. 5:6-8, or like Mary Magdalene: " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." Disciples cannot comfort her, angels cannot pacify her, till she sees Him. He says, " I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God." The whole thing dawns upon her. She is quite changed. She finds out that she is associated with Him. He was everything to her; the world was intolerable without Him; but the sense of union with Him alters everything " Ye in me.
It does not come out fully till the Epistle to the Ephesians, because Paul gives the counsel, John the nature. Sit down for half an hour, and tell me if your soul has got hold of that? There is very little to see, but a great deal to get into. Very little is told to Mary Magdalene, but she went off quite tranquillized. A little bit of divine light had shined into her heart, and now she can bear to be absent from Him, because she knows how she stands in relation to Him.
Paul says, I long to depart. Paul has been eighteen hundred years with the Lord; it is the next best thing to seeing Him. I desire that we should cultivate affection, and what satisfies affection; and if you do not know your relationship to Him, you cannot have any activity of affection. Paul has not yet seen Him as He is. " Christ the firstfruits, then they that are Christ's at his coming."
Nothing is finished or complete till He comes. " For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, 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." These are the advantages. It suits the heart that nothing should be perfect till He comes.
Our politics, all that concern us, belong to that country from whence we look for the Savior. The Jews looked for Messiah, but it is a Savior for whom I look-One I expect great benefits from. I look for the One from whom I have already received incalculable benefits. What more, then? Much more. He is going to change this vile body, and make it like unto His own glorious body, " according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself."
When He comes, the first wave of His power will traverse the whole earth, to call up the dead, from Adam onward, first. Then the living saints will be caught up. His first act is to liberate all His own. Like a mighty victor entering a besieged city, His first act is to let out all His own family. All will spring up in glorious bodies, like His own.
If I turn to James, he looks at it as relief from the pressure of this world, " Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receiveth the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish you hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
Again, in 1 John 3 "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." Those who are now sons of God are expecting to be like Him when they see Him. Therefore he that hath this hope in Him is chaste now, separate from the world now; he seeks to be fit for Him. John looks to be ready for Him; he says, I drop this: it will not suit Him. The bride going to see Him must have everything suitable to Him. She says: He is coming home to-day; everything must be ready for Him as He would like it; there must be the loins girt, the first love, the first works. There must be watching; that is the character of first love-not asleep. He " commanded the porter to watch." The watcher does not go to bed; he is watching all night; he is expecting Him to come. This is the real desire of the heart. It is the place of the servant.
Again in chapter 2.: " And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming." He exhorts them in order that he that is the servant may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. It is not the people there; it is the servants. Oh to be servants like that! seeking to do the work well, that we may not lose the full reward; that we may not be ashamed of our work; that we may be able to count on a full reward! Paul says, " I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
Now I want you to carry away an impression of the immense blessedness of seeing the Lord. " The Spirit and the bride say, Come." If your hearts are right-your lamps trimmed-I am not afraid but your feet will be right. Practically it is the King's daughter, all glorious within. " She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework," everything done stitch by stitch.
The one thing to cultivate is the desire to see Him as He is. And where is my heart, if practically sensible of being united to Him, and enjoying every expression of His love and interest in me down here, if I am not longing more and more to see His face? He counts on our love. lie says, " I am the bright and morning Star." He counts on being that to our hearts.
" The Spirit and the bride say, Come." Then comes activity. I turn round to him that hears and say: You are not saying come; say, come. I cannot be isolated at such a moment. If I see a brother or a sister not saying come, I turn to him and say, I wish you to say come. " And let him that is athirst (the anxious one) come." Then my desires reach out to every one, I become widely evangelical. If you have not found out the streams that make glad the city of my God, come and drink of the water of life freely. The whole earth is swept while I am looking after everything that belongs to Christ, because I want to have everything ready for Him when He comes.
And now, how do you gain affection? By being occupied with what Christ is to you, by learning His interest in you. A parent does not ask his child to love him, but he gains the love by the way he seeks the child's welfare. The Lord seeks my true interest; He thinks of me; He serves me. He is reserved to me if I walk unworthily of Him. His love desires my perfection. Abraham going up mount Moriah learns Jehovah-Jireh. You cannot speechify about affection, or argue a man into it, but you can promote in your soul a deeper acquaintance with Christ's interests in you, and your heart will get more enlarged in the knowledge of His love. It is thus we become devoted to Him, so that we look for Him, longing for that day when we shall see His blessed face.
" Thus the wish grows deeper, stronger,
Friend of friends, Thy face to see."
(J. B. S.)