Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

by H. J. Vine.

The Holy Spirit’s Witness and God’s Children

We have previously seen that the right to take the place of the children of God has been given to us by THE SON. To those who are born of God and have believed on His Name, He has given this right. THE HOLY SPIRIT too bears witness that this same relationship is ours. And we are invited to behold how THE FATHER has loved us, in granting to us this hallowed favour of being God’s children. All three Persons of the glorious Godhead are deeply concerned as to our entering into this relationship, in the joy of faith and love.

Speaking of the Holy Spirit’s witness, we read in Romans 8:15, “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ABBA, FATHER. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”

This gives us guidance in regard to the activities of the Spirit, and of the spiritual experience of believers, but we have not the ground of peace and salvation here. The great question of our sins, and a divinely acceptable settlement of them, needs to be perfectly answered before the soul is at liberty to rejoice in the holy freedom of God’s children. That perfect answer to the question has been given. The perfect settlement has been accepted by God; His Son who made the settlement is seated now at His right hand; and the Spirit has given us witness; therefore we happily have peace and liberty.

The Holy Spirit’s witness for this is found in Hebrews 10:12-18. The former witness is IN us; but this is TO us. The former as to our relationship with God is “with our spirit,” but this as to the question of our sins being eternally settled is “to us.” The former reads “Beareth witness WITH our spirit,” but this says, “Is a witness to us.”

When that absolutely reliable witness is received, the believer is thankfully at peace; and he is free to be led on in liberty by the Spirit to enjoy the blessedness of what God has for those that love Him. True peace and rest before Him however are entirely unknown apart from the righteous putting away of our sins by Christ’s sacrifice. We are told, “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God … By one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” What a complete, everlasting and triumphant clearance is here! So complete, that the One who has settled all is seated at God’s right hand! So perfect, that the sanctified (set apart) believer is perfected in perpetuity before God as to this. All is done; done abidingly and we read, “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a WITNESS TO US.” Nothing more is needed. God says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (verse 17). And the sure word is added, “Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” Jesus has settled all! He is seated! God is satisfied! The believer is at peace, and free!

The work of the Spirit does not cease with this priceless peace-giving witness to us. The sacrificial work of the Son is finished. On the ground of that the work of the Spirit goes on. He is spoken of in Hebrews 9:14 as the eternal Spirit by whom Christ made His spotless offering to God.

Yes, be it earnestly and reverently noted, “THE ETERNAL SPIRIT.” In Matthew 28:19, we read of “the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” All three Persons of the Godhead are there named together. The Spirit as we have seen is “eternal.” This single mention is sufficient for us. We need no repetition. It is enough. He is the “eternal” Spirit. Then who can rightly question that the Father and the Son are also “eternal”? The new covenant, since the Son came, is called in God’s Word, “the eternal covenant”; the redemption He secured, “the eternal redemption”; the inheritance, “the eternal inheritance”; and the salvation of which He is the Author is “eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:9). Since the Son’s coming has put such a stamp upon these, He must Himself be eternal. We read in John 5:12, “He that has THE SON has life,” and that life is “eternal life” (John 3:36), and THE SON HIMSELF on whom he believes must be “eternal”? Does not Colossians 1:17 say, “He is before all”?

He that believes on the Son has been the subject of the Spirit’s operations. He has been “born of water and of the Spirit”; and “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Word of God (the water) and the Spirit have effectually done their work in the believer; and, as we have seen, the Spirit’s witness to us has given peace and liberty. The Holy Spirit has sealed the believer, and He gives the cry of relationship it his heart, “ABBA, FATHER.” He is the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter. The Unction, by Whom the truth is made known to us, and by whom we draw near with others to the Father. While the Son intercedes with the Father for us on high, the Spirit gives present help in our weakness, and intercedes for us here below: bringing home to our hearts that all things are working together for our good, giving us a taste beforehand of the joys that await us; for He is “the Earnest of our inheritance”, and is called “the Holy Spirit of promises.” There is doubtless a great adversary power in the world, through which we are passing to the glory, set before us; but the word is true, “Greater is He that is in you than be that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). The Spirit of God has been given to us, and He dwells in us. May we not grieve Him individually or quench Him collectively, but gratefully prove His power as we journey homeward.

He witnesseth “with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:15); not that we ought to be, but that we ARE God’s children. At peace and free through His witness to us, we rejoice in this new and changeless relationship of which He is the witness in us. Great and glorious things are inseparably joined to this, though a thorny pathway may lead to the full fruition. Therefore we read, “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us” (Romans 8:17-18). The joy of God’s children is ours as we tread onward through trials, and the joy without the trials will be ours in fadeless glory for ever.

Meanwhile there are certain things which should mark as “as God’s beloved children. After being told not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30), we read, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Such painful disorders and discords should disappear. Grace with harmony should prevail, seeing that God has so graciously blessed us by His Son, So it is added, “And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you. Be ye therefore imitators of God as BELOVED CHILDEN; and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” The power of the Spirit is sufficient for this.

Again in Philippians 2:13-14, we learn that God works in us in view of our working out that which is pleasurable to Him. So we read, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless, THE CHILDREN OF GOD, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine AS LIGHTS in the world; holding forth the WORD OF LIFE.” Irreproachable behaviour before others shines like a calm luminary across a troubled sea, and the Word of life held out is like a welcome lifeboat to the shipwrecked mariner. Such divinely blessed activities may well be encouraged. Brought into holy nearness and rejoicing in the Son and in the Father, in the freedom and unction of the Spirit, well may God’s children seek that the outshining of the light and the forth-going of life’s message should prosper. A world of darkness needs it! A world of death needs it! Those who abide rightly in light and life and love have what is needed in communion with God.

Finally, there is a wonderful word for us in Romans 8:21,—“THE LIBERTY OF THE GLORY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD,” for so it should read. The present time of creature bondage and corruption is to pass! First, the Lord Himself will come, and take His own up to be with Him in glory. God’s children, who are God’s heirs and Christ’s joint heirs, will share together with Him in the appointed inheritance. The exalted blessedness of that glory shall be theirs with Christ, the pre-eminent One. Its surpassing splendour and magnificence theirs along with Him. There is the glory; and there is “the liberty” of that glory also. Meanwhile, “we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (verse 22). But the outshining of “the glory of the children of God,” will mean blessed liberty for the creature, through God’s salvation, It may not quite be said that the glory of God’s children will be theirs; but, freed from bondage then, they rejoice in the liberty of that glory. Blessed be the glory which is ours with Jesus! Blessed be the liberty of that glory for creation! Blessed be the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, who gives God’s children a foretaste of its blessedness even now, before that longed-for glorious coming day. Thanks be to God for that Word—“The liberty of the glory of the children of God.”

The Kingdom and the Returning King

Notes of an address in Edinburgh on Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 13:36-52; 16:28; 17:1-8

It may be well to commence with taking a wide view of the truths that belong to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and particularly of the kingdom as presented in Matthew’s Gospel. In this gathering there will be present “babes” in Christ—those who have quite recently been brought to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ—the young in the faith. Then also there will doubtless be present those who have grown in the faith, spoken of in Scripture as “young men” in Christ—those who are strong and spiritually robust, as having received into their hearts the unfoldings of the word of God, made strong by feeding upon the Word which God has given to abide in them. Then there will be present, it may be, those who are still more advanced, spoken of as “fathers” in the faith. John has simply one thing to say concerning these, but he says it twice. It is this, “Ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (1 John 2:13-14). They know Jesus! and, my dear friends, to know Jesus, the Son of God, is to know all that you need to know. We begin by coming to Him as our own personal Saviour, and we grow by the Word of God in the wonderful things of God, and also deepen in the knowledge of the One whom God alone fully knows—for “no man knows the Son, but the Father,” i.e., in all the impenetrable depths of His holy Person; the Father only comprehends Him thus; but, nevertheless, we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Himself increasingly.

So we purpose to speak for a few moments about the King and the Kingdom—the Kingdom as the kingdom of heaven—and to look at it in its commencement—its lowly beginning; also as it is today in a state of mixture and confusion; and then finally in its glorious completion when the King shall shine forth in His glory above the brightness of the sun.

Only in the Gospel of Matthew have we the Kingdom designated kingdom of heaved. John never speaks of it in that way, indeed only two or three times does he mention the Kingdom at all. Mark never speaks of the kingdom of heaven, nor does the Gospel of Luke, but it refers to the kingdom of God thirty-two times. Matthew alone terms it the kingdom of heaven, and he does so thirty-two times likewise; 4 times 8, suggestive of this new world-wide order which was to be brought about, that had never previously been seen, but which was Divinely introduced in view of certain things before the mind of God.

Matthew speaks much of the Lord Jesus as Son of Man, but introduces Him as the King first of all,—as the Son of David (1:1). As with the kingdom of heaven, Matthew speaks also thirty-two time of Jesus as the Son of Man. It is in Daniel we have the wonderful truth of the Kingdom in the form of the kingdom of heaven first indicated (2:44), and Daniel in his night visions (7:13) saw a Man,—one like unto the Son of man, brought to the Ancient of Days, and to Him is handed over all the marvellous splendour and glory connected with the dominion and the Kingdom that is yet to be brought out in its fullness and display in this world; to that Man was given dominion and glory and the Kingdom, that all peoples—not only Israel—but that all peoples and nations and languages should serve Him, and it was said, His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Faith sees even now the One who is soon going to have publicly all that dominion and glory. We look to the throne of God and see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. We do not see the Kingdom and the glory brought in yet, but faith looks upward and says, Our Saviour is at the top! The One who has saved us is the One who is glorified on high, and the Man at the right hand of God who has redeemed us by His blood shall soon be supreme over all

But this Kingdom (yet to be displayed) had a very humble beginning. John the Baptist said, it had drawn nigh. He called on the people to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He said in regard to that, “There is One coming after me,” and He pointed the people to Jesus. From his time began “the kingdom of the heavens,” as it is more correctly translated (11:11, 13). Up to John’s time was the law and the prophets; but now we see a lowly Man upon this earth—Jesus, the Son of Man, seed-sowing! And, oh! what wonderful seeds the words of the Son of man are! They outstrip the ken of the greatest scholars from that day to this! Though simple, yet they are infinitely profound, and their fruits are everlasting.

The King, this meek and lowly Son of Man, was first the Seed-sower. Daniel viewed Him coming in His splendour and glory, but when Matthew discloses Him to our gaze for the first time He had “not where to lay His head” (8:20). He came down into this world by the way of the manger and the stable, and He left it by a cross of shame: but meanwhile seed was sown in many hearts before His final rejection, and He committed to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven (not of the Church), and these he used in Acts 2 and 10.

Mark this, in chapter 13:37 it is said the Son of Man saws good seed. This refers to persons who have received the Word. It is not because of their intellectual abilities that they are the good seed of the kingdom of the heavens, but because of their moral and spiritual qualities produced by the Word in them. In this day of boasted intellectualism and loose living we need young men and women of true moral worth, with character formed according to the Word of God, who, when a false teacher comes and suggests something that is a lie, will stand courageously for the truth of God, who will stand for the Word of God and witness to its Divine origin by word and work, lip and life, showing forth the fruits thereof in all meekness and lowliness.

Moreover, the Lord, knowing all, said to his disciples over and over again, The Son of Man must suffer. That was as necessary as the seed-sowing! How was a race of ruined sinners to be saved? How were we to be saved? The Son of Man came not only to set up the Kingdom in righteousness, but the Son of Man must suffer, and He suffered as none other did. He was spit upon, scourged, spitefully entreated, and put to death. It was an absolute necessity that He should die, if, on the one hand, the Kingdom was to be established, and, on the other, we were to be saved and all the blessing of eternal life was to be ours with the Father. He had to die, and blessed be His name, He went to that Cross and suffered for us. He never turned away back. He gave His back to the smiters. He hid not His face from shame and spitting, and there on Calvary’s Cross the Son of Man was lifted up, and, my dear brethren, each believer can say, He died for me!

Truly He laid the foundation for the Kingdom; and having laid that foundation, and having sowed the good seed in His field, His enemy is at work now, as He foretold, sowing bad seed. Do not think so much of the devil as your enemy. He is that, but he is the enemy of your precious Saviour, as it says—the Son of Man’s enemy came and invaded His field and sowed the bad seed. The good seed are the sons of the Kingdom, and the bad seed are the sons of the evil one. That is their nature and character. Satan sowed the bad amongst the good, and the Word says, “Let both grow together till the harvest”; but what a mixture, meanwhile, of real and unreal! This, it should be remembered, is in regard to the wide sphere of Christian profession called “the kingdom of the heavens,” and not “the assembly” built by Christ within that sphere against which the gates of hell cannot prevail (16:18).

If I had time I would have liked to go through the parables. There are at least seven which show the mixture that is in the kingdom of the heavens at the present time; but this mixture, this apparent outward confusion, has by no means got beyond the control of our Lord Jesus Christ. You may depend on it, the confusion we see is no confusion to Him. He will see that all is eventually put right. It makes us all the more dependent on the Lord to recognize this. When we look around and see evil apparently going strong, let us remember He sees and knows all about it. And He says I will look after the final separation. My angels will attend to that (13:41). “Let both grow together till the harvest,” He has said. Then He will send forth His angels and they shall gather the bad into bundles. Darnel (the tares spoken of) is exactly like the real thing at first, but by-and-by the true character is seen, and so at the end the bad are put into bundles! Who are going into these bundles for the burning? Take the great bundle of anti-Christian teaching, which is neither scientific nor Christian, but is miscalled Christian Science!—those who deny the Deity of Christ and His atoning work go into that bundle! Yes! that is a big bundle, and it is being gathered in the field of Christian profession—“the kingdom of the heavens.” Presently all will be cast into the burning—that bundle and every other such system—and “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:42); but before that takes place Jesus will gather the wheat into His barn. True believers will be caught up to be for ever with the Lord!

All this is made known to us that we may be intelligent as to the present state of things. Do not lose heart at the confusion in Christendom, but let us be rallied rather to seek together to follow righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. This is the day when we have an exceptional opportunity of being true and loyal to the rejected King, to our absent Lord.

Having spoken of the past lowly beginning, and of present confusion, I would like to say just a little about the future glory. The Lord said, “There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.” Afterwards Peter wrote, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” “We have not followed cunningly devised fables” (2 Peter 1:16). They saw His glory. He was transfigured before them, and there He gave in the holy mount a resplendent, living picture of the Kingdom in glory, as His face shone like the brightness of the sun, and His raiment became white and effulgent. The three honoured disciples who were taken apart by Jesus actually saw the coming glory, with God’s beloved Son the Head and Centre of it all. Oh! that we may be so laid hold of that we may be taken up in Divine power and faith to behold His glory, and be led on in the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord! For this let us get much alone with Himself, and ask Him to prepare our hearts to receive what He has for us! What a glorious day it will be when He reigns as King over all the earth, and fills it with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea!

When that voice from the excellent glory declared, “This is my beloved Son in whom is all My delight,” it also added, “Hear Him!” May God grant that we may hear Him! The voice which thus singled out for us the beloved Son of God was such a voice, there was no language could express its heavenliness. Peter says it was a voice from heaven—“Such a voice” (2 Peter 2:17). And when they looked around they saw “Jesus only”—Mark adds, “with themselves” (9:8). He has not yet returned to set up the kingdom and glory publicly. This He will do very soon, after He has gathered the wheat into His barn, after He has taken the assembly—His body and His bride—to be with Himself on high for ever, but even now we can sing:

“O blessed Saviour, Son of God,

Who hast redeemed us with Thy blood

From guilt, and death, and shame—

With glad rejoicing faith we see

The crown of glory worn by Thee,

And worthy Thee proclaim.”

The Liberty of Grace

“No longer I … but sin” (Romans 7:17-20).

What a great relief it is, and what a lift it gives us when we realize that we are the subjects of the grace of God, that we are “justified freely by His grace”—saved by it—and freed consequently from the dominion of sin, for we are “not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14-15), and grace reigns (5:21)! We need a right appreciation of God’s grace to walk before Him in holy, happy liberty, and to serve Him in freedom from the intrusion of self, and this His grace would give us. The dictionary does not state the full truth concerning the grace of God when it tells us that grace is unmerited favour. It is that, but it is more, for His grace justifies the sinner who believes though he merited the opposite!—though he merited judgment! What did Paul deserve when he was “a blasphemer and a persecutor, and an insolent, over-bearing man” (1 Timothy 1:13)? … Yet he became a devoted servant of God, and could say, “For me to live is Christ!” He discloses the secret, and yet it is no secret—“By the grace of God I am what I am!” And what did we deserve, my reader, you and I? Yet God has justified us, saved us, and would fill us with all joy and peace in believing.

Paul tells us, however, that grace was not bestowed upon him in vain, and he did not set aside the grace of God by seeking righteousness on the principle of law, i.e., by his own merit or works. He had learned what it was to be under law by bitter experience with new and holy desires, which were his as a result of his being born again, but which he was powerless to fulfil. The law of sin which was in his members brought him into captivity during the period of struggle, for he had not then learnt what it was to be set free in Christ Jesus, risen from among the dead. In that wretched experience, however, grace taught him how to distinguish himself from sin which dwelt in him and which he now hated; this is a great advance and relief to a sincere soul. Then the next step was to connect himself with the new desires which resulted from “newness of spirit”) to seek deliverance through Christ Jesus, so that he might do what he now desired, and not the sin which he hated. Healthy and valuable was this painful lesson; and the transition could only thus be experimentally his. He could then say, “It is no more I … but sin” (Romans 7:17, 20). He does not exactly say, “Not I,” as elsewhere, but, “No more I” or “No longer I,” for it was “I,” before the change took place. Afterwards he could say, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made ME FREE from the law of sin and death” (8:2). Why made free?

As under grace we are set free—having got freedom from sin in Christ Jesus (who has died to sin once and now lives to God), so that liberty to yield ourselves to His service is ours, and fruit unto holiness is the sure result, as sure as the end which is eternal life in all its fullness—God’s gift to us in Christ Jesus! Grace not only gives us freedom, however, but enables us to pursue the path which is pleasing to God, giving the needed help, encouragement, cheer and strength all along our journey right on to the end; “that as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Living One

Believers have come to a living Saviour! The Lord upon whom we call is a living Lord! The Head of the assembly to which we belong is a living Head! He can never die! He ever lives!

The Lord Jesus Christ, though still refused by the world, is precious to God. He is the living Stone, rejected by the religious builders; but in connection with whom God is building up a spiritual house, for His own praise. In this house, of which every true believer is a stone, the word of Hezekiah is abundantly fulfilled, “The living, the living! He shall praise Thee!”

It is true that many sincere souls might yet be asked the question, “Why seek ye the Living One among the dead?” for death still seems to overshadow all for them. The life, and love, and liberty which are in Christ Jesus, raised from among the dead, they do not enjoy. They know little of the meaning of the words, “In the light of His countenance is life; and His favour is as a cloud of the latter rain.”

There are, however, many who speak of a “living Christ,” who show by what they say that it is not the Christ of Scripture which is in their thoughts. It is a mere experience that they are seeking after, or an ethical ideal which fills their imaginations; with some it is simply an example or a moral principle. The Son of God, a living, loving, personal Saviour, who having died for our sins, has been raised again from among the dead, and who now lives, the Man Christ Jesus, in the glory of God—to Him they are strangers; nor is He owned by them to be the Christ who is over all, God—the Creator, the Controller and Sustainer of all.

In speaking therefore of the Living One we shall not follow the fancies of such, but shall seek grace to gather what the Scriptures of Truth tell us concerning Him, as made known to us by the Holy Spirit, that other Comforter. Here we shall be on ground that is solid, safe, and sure, because God-given.

But there are those who sincerely love our Lord Jesus Christ, who, seeing the abounding lawlessness, and the miserable state of the assemblies, as responsible witnesses on earth, have become depressed and downcast. Knowing something of the majesty and holiness of the Lord, they feel the more the failure they deplore. Too much occupation with the sad state of Christendom has left them low in soul. This is wrong, though often the outcome of great sincerity, sincerity which feels that which is inconsistent with the holiness of God. The eye must be lifted up from the confusion and departure from truth to the Lord Himself, the living Son of God; the heart must afresh be cheered by His own changeless love. This will set the soul free according to God.

He that Lives

When John turned and beheld our Lord Jesus Christ standing in judicial majesty, like unto the Son of Man, in the midst of that which symbolized the seven assemblies, he fell at His feet as dead (Revelation 1:17). Why was this? He had leaned on the Lord’s breast at supper; he had enjoyed His confidence and His love; these had been so real to him that he had styled himself “The disciple whom Jesus loved.” Had that love changed? Far be the thought! Then why is he so overcome? It was because of the fiery holiness which he saw in the midst of the assemblies. He beheld the Lord shining in the supreme splendour of His pre-eminent majesty as the divine Judge. Who could stand before Him thus?

The blessed Saviour, however, would not have him cast down. He would cheer and strengthen and encourage him. He laid His right hand upon him, and said, “FEAR NOT!” Now often he had heard those words fall from His gracious lips before, and they banished all terror from his heart. And those words were spoken for us. Oh, may we be enabled to hear them, for surely we need them. The state of Christendom has not improved; worse and worse have things become; the assemblies have not returned to that first love which they so early left; nevertheless, “FEAR NOT!”

We may feel the right hand of His strength upon us, for it is upon all His own. He holds them; and none else can ever claim them. Heed carefully His encouraging words, “I am the First and the Last.” This is Jehovah Himself (Isaiah 44:6). There was none before Him; none can come after Him. “I AM HE THAT LIVES, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18).

There could be no doubt left in John’s mind as to who it was that thus spake. It was Jesus in very truth. It was the Living One, whose love was so precious to him. He had become dead, and thereby expressed that love, and also overthrown the power of the devil. He is now alive for evermore, the victorious One, the triumphant Conqueror of Death and the grave and Satan. He holds the keys. He has all power now. And whatever the state of the assemblies may be, nothing can hinder Him building His own assembly. This He is doing upon His Father’s revelation of Himself as the Christ, the Son of the living God. And as He said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). There may be all sorts of Satanic schemes laid; they will utterly fail. The Living One goes on building in life and resurrection; and all will come out in perfection. He may give Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven; but He builds His church Himself and holds in His own hands the keys of death and Hades.

We are in safety as we cleave to the Lord. At the beginning the believers were exhorted, “with purpose of heart to abide with the Lord” (Acts 11:23, New Translation). This is of immediate importance for us also, if we would be kept bright for His glory whilst waiting for His return; serving Him faithfully, and walking in the truth, as we look and long for the blissful moment of His coming, to receive us to Himself.

Time after time Jeremiah sought to arouse the people of God with the cry, “THE LORD LIVES!” “THE LORD LIVES!!” “If thou wilt return, O Israel, says the Lord, return unto Me … and thou shalt swear, The Lord lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory” (Jer. 4:1-2). This is the way of true revival, and of overflow for others.

It is our Lord Jesus Christ who is for us the Living One; once dead, but now alive for evermore. All authority is given to Him. He is our living Saviour; our living Lord; and He is the living Head of the assembly to which we belong; in whom all fullness resides; and the Holy Spirit of Truth is here to enable us to abide with the living Lord.

This will not make us indifferent to the abounding evil; it will however keep us from getting under it. And constrained by His love, we shall still keep His commandments, and serve Him, as we wait and watch for His return.

He Loves

The love of Christ has already been proved. “Hereby we have known love, because He has laid down His life for us.” That love, however, though told out fully at Calvary, is not a past thing. It still fills His heart for us. Expressed at the cross, it endures on the throne. Always the same; the glory into which He has gone has not changed His love for us. In all its active perfectness, that love still serves us. His past service of love was perfect; so also is His present service. He is “The Friend that loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17, New Translation).

How suitably the Book of Revelation begins by speaking of His present love for us before unfolding the coming judgments upon the assemblies, the nations, and the wicked. Glory is ascribed in chapter 1 verse 4, to “HIM THAT LOVES US.” It is not “loved us” simply, as if it were past; it is a present, living love. That which the waters of death could not quench, nor the floods drown. That which is in the heart of the One who is above all things; once in the depths of suffering, shame, and death; now in the heights of gladness, glory, and immortality; Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the first Begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of the earth; He it is that “loves us.” Blessed be His holy name!

Our hearts need to be encouraged by the knowledge of the present activities of His love for us. He may have to pour out judgments upon the lawless; but for His own, His dealings are all in grace and love. Let us allow none to cheat us of this divine fact.

His Present Service of Love

The Lord is constantly solicitous concerning the spiritual education of each of His own. To this end He deals with us individually. He has a present mind concerning us, each one according to the progress we have made in our schooling. To understand the activities of His love we must grasp this. It is a most marvellous fact that He Himself learned from the things which He suffered, though He were Son (Hebrews 5:8). He lives now, and lovingly watches our progress. If it is true of an earthly father, “He that loves his son chastens him betimes,” for he seeks his good; it is also true, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens” and we know it is “for our profit.” If we are without this educational dealing, we have no part in His love at all. He loves His own too well to leave them alone.

In our weaknesses, too, He sympathizes with us at all times. He is not indifferent to the infirmities of those for whom He died. He knows our feeble frame. And He ever lives, that blessed Man in the glory of God, to make intercession for us. His love sustains Him in His present service on our behalf, for we are weak and wayward. How blessed it is to know that “He continues ever.” Men tell us that they have now discovered that the spirit continues always, and that there is no such thing as discontinuity. Those who know our Lord Jesus Christ understood this long ago. Jesus, however, not only in Spirit, but in His body, raised from among the dead, “CONTINUES EVER.” He is a real, living, loving, sympathizing Man at the right hand of God. He said in resurrection, “Handle Me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have” (Luke 24:39). But He not only sympathizes, He saves to the uttermost His own who draw near to God by Him. This is beyond the ken of the unregenerate, however scholarly they may be.

Let our hearts then be encouraged in the Lord! We are His! He has unfurled the banner of His triumph over us! His banner is love!

“O blessed living Lord, engage our hearts with Thee,

And strike within the answering chord to love so rich and free.”

HE LIVES; HE LOVES; BEHOLD, HE COMES; His love will then present us to Himself with exceeding joy, and conduct us into the riches of redemption, giving them to us to share with Himself. Blessed be His name for ever.

The Lord’s Coming, as it will Affect the Assembly

“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).

The first thing we see from God’s Word is that it is the Lord Himself who is coming. It is this same “Jesus” (Acts 1:11). He is coming in like manner as He was seen go into heaven. He is coming in that same body that bears the very marks of His sufferings. He is coming again, as He was here, a Man, only in a body quickened by the Spirit. He is not going to depute another to come for us. “The Lord HIMSELF shall descend from heaven with a shout” (1 Thessalonians 4). He is the same blessed Jesus who walked on this earth, the same One who died for us, and who was seen and known by His own in resurrection.

What a glad moment it will be for His heart! The glorious answer to His sufferings and His travail for us upon the cross. Think what it will be for Him to have us there, in answer to all those terrible sufferings which He endured upon Calvary’s cross! And what will it be for the church, for the assembly, after her journey through this world—after all her testings and trials? What will it be for that loved company to find herself in a moment in the presence of her Bridegroom—in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ? And as individuals, what will it be for you, dear brother, and for me? What will it be for each one of us to be there in the presence of the Lord—to see the One who loved us and died for us, the One that the Apostle Paul could speak of as “the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me”? But whilst it will be blessed for the assembly, and blessed for each one of us individually, to be caught up to be with Him and like Him for ever, HE HIMSELF is going to have His own deep joy in having us there. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. There will be no regrets in His blessed heart on account of all that He suffered for us. He will never regret having toiled and travailed so much to make us His. He is going to see the assembly, His body, His loved bride there, a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2), and His glad heart will be perfectly satisfied. You and I are going to be satisfied, too, for we are going to see Him. He “shall see” the redeemed! We “shall see” the Redeemer!

There are many Christians who do not believe in the Lord’s second coming at all. They trust Him as their Saviour, but they do not believe what Scripture makes known to us, that a moment is coming—we believe coming very quickly—when He will take us to be with Himself for ever. There are others that, whilst they see it in Scripture, fear to face it. There are many children of believing parents, taught in the truth, who are deeply convinced in their souls that the moment is coming when the Lord shall return; they trust in Him as their Saviour, but fear to dwell upon His coming again, not understanding that it is what Scripture speaks of as “the blessed hope,”—the happy hope for each believer’s heart. They do not seem to understand that the Lord loves them so perfectly that He will never be satisfied until He has them there with Him. Oh, when our hearts drink in a little more of that love which led Him to go to Calvary’s cross, there to bear all the judgment due to us, then all fear will disappear, like the cold before the warm sunshine. Perfect love will cast out all fear. We are told fear has torment, His known love expressed at the cross will drive that away. Divine love would not leave a little bit of dread or torment in the believer’s heart. I know there is a reverent fear, but that is a very different thing to slavish fear; and when the love of Christ is known, that sort of fear disappears.

Dear believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, your Saviour came the first time to put your sins away; He is coming the second time to take you away! He is coming the second time to satisfy His love towards you by having you in His blissful presence in glory, never to know another moment of suffering or unhappiness for all eternity!

Some of us who have known the Lord for many years are apt to get a little impatient, and say, “Why does not the Lord come soon?” We would like to “see His face” now. We need to get a little of His own patience into our hearts. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 says, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ” (New Translation). He loves us, and yet how patiently He has waited to have us with Him. All the glory is His, and yet how patiently He has waited the Father’s time. We are to account the long-suffering of our God as salvation (2 Peter 3:15). We are not to think for a moment that His love has cooled at all towards us. We can say, However long He waits, we know that His love has neither cooled nor weakened; but for a divinely wise reason He still waits there with the Father. He desires that more sinners should be saved and brought in to know Him. For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I will just say a word about some difficulties concerning Christ’s coming again which are commonly raised. It is said, “Christ comes again when the believer dies.” But that is not so. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 tells us that when Christ comes, “the dead in Christ shall rise first.” When a believer dies, his spirit is absent from the body and present with the Lord. Instead of Christ coming for him, he departs to be with Christ. It is a very blessed moment, looked at properly according to God, when the believer’s spirit passes to be with Christ; it is “far better” than to remain here (Philippians 1:23).

It is also said, The Lord’s second coming is when He comes to the faithful believer, and manifests Himself to him. But that is a spiritual coming, spoken of in John 14:21, and a very precious thing, too, and I would encourage even the youngest here to go in for it. Keep the Lord’s words and do His commandments and you will experience it. “If a man love Me, he will keep My commandments.” If you do this the Lord will make Himself precious to your heart, and you will get a precious sense of His drawing near to you. But that is not the Lord’s coming for the assembly, for the bride. That is individual, and it does not take us off the earth. When He comes, He will come in the air, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, and so shall we be for ever with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4). Our being with the Lord in His home is different to having Him with us in this world.

Another error which used to prevail amongst Nonconformists was that they were going to get the world converted, and when the world was converted, the Lord would come. But if one thing is plainer than another it is that the world is not being converted by the gospel. At the present time the Mohammedans—although they have no evangelical or missionary societies, nor paid representatives as the sects of Christendom—are making more converts than the so-called Christian church is making! We need not be misled by the idea that the world is to be converted through the gospel before the Lord will come, for the Bible tells us that evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. The blessed Lord will come into the air, just when perhaps things in the world look the blackest outwardly. He will catch us up out of it to be with Him and like Him for ever!

The world is going to be put right before He reigns in kingly glory over it. It will be put right by the judgment of God, not by the preaching of saving grace. When the first mutterings of the thunders of God’s judgment are heard men will cry to the rocks to fall on them. They will not cry to God to save their souls. They will blaspheme His holy name, we are told in the book of Revelation. God will sweep the wicked away with judgment; and when the scythe of judgment has swept through the apostate nations, then will be fulfilled the time spoken of in the Psalm, which says, He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.

There is another popular error. It is a common idea that Christ’s coming will be the time of the general resurrection and the last great judgment: the time when men will have to stand before the white throne to be judged. But if you read Revelation 20 you will see that those who truly believe in Christ have part in the FIRST RESURRECTION; and the general judgment, as it is termed—which is not a general judgment at all—is the judgment of the unregenerate, of the wicked dead, and takes place at least a thousand years after the Lord has taken His own people to be with Him. It is said of the just, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years (verse 6); but of those who are to be judged, they live not till the thousand years are finished (verse 5).

HE IS COMING PERSONALLY. He will come with an assembling shout, a shout of command. Military terms are used for this victory of grace and power. His voice will ring into our ransomed hearts, and there will be instantaneous answer in a rising shout of praise from the dead who are raised and the living who are changed. There will be the providential action of the archangel, and the mighty trump of God. We shall be for ever with the Lord. I think the emphasis is—“For ever WITH THE LORD.” It is not that you are just going to heaven for ever, but you are going to be with the Lord for ever. We shall go to the Father’s house. That is the affection side, the side that every true heart seems to constantly move towards. Then we see in Revelation He is going to come back, and He is going to take up the wide earth, and rule it in a way that the greatest and best British monarch never did rule the British Empire. But wherever Jesus is, we are WITH HIM. If it is in the Father’s house we shall dwell there with Him. If He comes out in His glory and splendour and majesty, and reigns right royally, we are with Him. Wherever Jesus is, we shall be with Him. Blessed be God, that is just what our hearts long for!

HE WILL COME INTO THE AIR—only to the border of this world’s atmosphere—to the outskirts of this particular part of the universe that cast Him out as a malefactor. He will come and call those who belong to Him out of the whole scene before the judgments fall; for He is our Deliverer from the coming wrath. We are not appointed to wrath! Do you think He is going to leave His bride in the tribulation that He Himself is going to send, spoken of as the “great tribulation”? He is not going to leave His bride, His assembly that is so dear to Him amidst the worldwide judgments that will flow from His own opening of the seals of the book (Revelation 5). Never! His own will be kept from the hour of that tribulation, as we are told in Revelation 3:10. God knows the hour—the exact moment when the prophetical clock will strike for this great tribulation, and He says—I will keep thee from the hour. Before ever the hour comes you shall be taken away to be with the Lord; for the force of the reading is, I will keep thee out of the hour. He does this by catching us up to Jesus in the air.

WHEN WILL HE COME? No one knows the day not the hour! Doubtless we see signs all around us telling us that the time is very near! When the Jewish temple is rebuilt (and I have no doubt this will follow quickly after the break up of the Turkish empire), and the abomination of desolation—the image is set up, then the believing remnant of the Jews will count up the exact time, the very number of days, when the Lord will appear, for times and seasons belong to the Jewish believers, not to the assembly. When you have the special instructions relating to us, to the assembly, no times or seasons given—no dates given. They abound in other parts of Scripture. We see them in relation to the Jew, and that there will be a time when they will be able to count up the “1260 days,” the “42 months,” the “3½ years,” the period called “times, time and half a time,” all equalling. And see His love and care for these Jewish believers. He says, as it were, regarding that distressful time, I do not want you to be cold and suffering unnecessarily, so “pray that your flight be not in winter—nor on the Sabbath day,” to upset the sensitiveness of their Jewish consciences. The Lord cares for His earthly people, and surely He does for the assembly, His heavenly bride.

When will He come for us? Very soon. I am assured of this, beloved brethren, that the time is near. Look at Germany. It was outside of the Roman Empire. It can never have world dominion. The Roman Empire must be revived for this, and now we see things moving quickly. Italy, whose capital is Rome, has broken away from Germany, and has fallen into line with those earthly powers which belong to the old Roman earth. They are combining already, but before the actual revival of the Roman empire takes place we have to go. All this shows the coming of the Lord is very near. If you knew the Lord was coming in twelve months’ time you would say, “No more waste time for me! I will fill in every day for the Lord!” But we cannot fix the time. There is not a single prophecy to be fulfilled, so far as the Lord’s coming for His assembly is concerned. Let us then be diligent, waiting, watching, and ready for His coming at any moment.

FOR WHOM IS HE COMING? He is coming for the assembly—His body and His bride. The two figures of body and bride are used almost interchangeably by the Spirit. Why did Adam go into that deep sleep? That from himself might be taken that rib, and that he might consequently receive the one who was made from it for him, his bride—Eve. Christ, the Last Adam, went into the deep sleep of death, that through that death He might have His assembly, which will be consequently presented to Himself as the result of His death. That is the company for which He is coming. Do you belong to it? Are you a member of that body? There is no need to pray for the members of this body to be saved. They are all saved, sealed by the Spirit, and have a living link with the Head, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord nourishes and cherishes the assembly. We may be among the feeblest of the members of His body, but we are every one alike dear to Him. People sometimes say to me, “What church do you belong to?” I say, “Thank God, I belong to the church the Bible speaks of.” “But what church is that?” “Well, it is called ‘the church,’—‘the assembly of God.’ It is called ‘the body’ and ‘the bride.’ I belong to the assembly Christ is going to take up and present to Himself.” Let us beware, brethren, lest we get sectarian in spirit, and try to build up a nice, happy party, or sect, or school, and say, “What a nice assembly we’ve got.” No, let us rather say, “What a precious assembly Christ has got; I belong to no other.” I see many dear saints of God here, and I say, “Thank God, you belong to Christ’s assembly.” Be satisfied with that. When you believed the gospel of your salvation you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13). The price was paid for us at the cross. What was the price? Christ’s own precious blood. The Lord looks down on all His own, and He knows them all, and loves them all. Those who trust in Christ are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise until the time when He will take us to be with Him in the glory for ever. We are to be for the joy of His own heart. Our joy will be full doubtless, but He is going to present us TO HIMSELF without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. He has every right to have us for Himself.

We read in Revelation that when that precious bride, that loved assembly, comes out from heaven she will be arrayed in shining glory, and the mighty hosts will cry, “Hallelujah, the marriage of the Lamb has come.” That will be the public celebration of the marriage. But the communion that takes place inside between the assembly and Christ is too deep for words. You do not get that in the book of Revelation. She goes in in wrought gold: she comes out arrayed in fine, bright linen—the righteousnesses of the saints. The coming out is in view in Revelation. She will come out with Christ. The throne will be in her midst. And by the glory which shines from Him she will be used to light up the earth, and make it sing for gladness. The glory of the Lord, and the knowledge of the Lord will then cover the earth. But there is very little said in the Bible about what takes place inside. We know that the heart of the blessed Lord will be fully satisfied. He will have us there with Himself. Then He will bring us out with Himself and fill the universe with glory. She is seen shining with the glory of God, and her radiance like a stone most precious, clear as crystal.

Let us remember that every one redeemed by Christ’s blood forms an integral part of that glorious city, the Lamb’s wife. May God give us, as we wait for that blessed moment when the Lord will catch the assembly up and take her inside to be with Himself where He is, to be a little more true to Him now, a little more faithful to the One who has loved us, and given Himself for us, and to say “No” a little more firmly to the friendship of that world whose hand is still stained with the blood of our beloved Bridegroom. The friendship of the world is enmity against God. Jesus says, I want all your love. He loved us and gave Himself for us.

This ends our reading for this session. Until next time, have a great day, and God bless.