The Believer Established
The Lost Hope
The promise of John 14:3, is on the eve of being
fulfilled; the threefold summons of 1 Thess 4:16 will soon be heard; the wise
and foolish virgins of Matthew 25 are about to be eternally separated: in
short, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again.
That promise, first
falling from His own lips in John 14, formed the substance of a special
revelation given to Paul (1 Thess 4:15), and was thrice repeated in the last
message which a glorified Christ sent down to the waiting Bride. Rev 22:7,12,
20.
The Lord did not intend these words to be an empty sound, devoid
of meaning, power, or effect upon the hearts of His loved ones; they were
uttered to kindle there a responsive flame of joyous expectation. And this was
the effect upon the hearts of the early believers. The Lord's return was to
them a "BLESSED HOPE." It was no visionary prospect, but a reality which
commanded their affections and could be seen expressed in their everyday lives.
They waited "for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:7); the waited
for God's "Son from heaven" (1 Thess 1:10); They "went forth to meet the
Bridegroom."
It was this that made them practically a heavenly people.
Links with earth were broken; connections with the world were severed. Earth's
wealth and splendour, its gilded attractions, all its bewitching sorceries,
have lost their charm and power over a man who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as
his Saviour, and who is continually expecting that Saviour's voice to translate
him in a moment to endless glory. He is so dazzled by the bright visions which
pass before `faith's transpiercing eye,' that this world's glory seems dull and
dim. So the early Christians were a separate and an unworldly people. Their
hearts had been touched by a Saviour's love; they knew that His precious blood
had washed away all their sins, and their whole souls were fired by the
expectation of seeing His face and being with Him and like Him forever. The
language of their hearts was--
"Oh, worldly pomp
and glory!
Your charms are spread in vain!
I've heard a sweeter
story,
I've found a truer gain.
Where Christ a place prepareth,
There is my loved abode!
There shall I gaze on Jesus;
There shall I
dwell with God!"
Their heavenly mindedness drew down upon them
the scorn, contempt, and violence of men. By their separation from the world
they testified against it that its deeds were evil, and the world hated,
despised, and rejected them, thus affording them the high honor of fellowship
with their adorable Master. They could afford to "take it patiently" knowing
that His coming drew nigh (James 5:7, 8), when the contradiction of sinners
they had to endure. Ah! The Lord's coming was not to them a doctrine, or a
theory, but a HOPE of strengthening, sanctifying, transforming power.
Satan sought by every means to quench their testimony. The fiery sword of
persecution was unsheathed against them with relentless severity, until Satan
found that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and "the more
they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." So when violence
failed he tried corruption, and began to seduce the church by offering her the
very things which Jesus had refused - the world and its glory.
Would
she have them? Would she accept flattery and aggrandizement, at the hands of
the world, those very hands which were stained with the blood of her rejected
and murdered Lord? Alas! She forsook her first love. She laid aside the gory
crown of martyrdom and assumed the glittering tiara of earthly grandeur and
supremacy. As the world crept in, the hope of the Lord's return died out. That
hope which had burnt with such a vehement and ardent flame gradually grew dim.
The heart ceased to long for Him; the eye eased to watch for Him. Solemn words,
"While the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." A worldly church
could not cherish the prospect of the Lord's return. At the same time the
glorious truths of eternal redemption, the present forgiveness and
justification of all believers and their possession of eternal life in the
knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ, His sent One, were obscured,
perverted, or denied; so that all certainty and assurance was taken even from
those who were really the children of God; and the thought of the Lord's coming
became a terror for the conscience rather than a delight for the heart.
The Lord's coming was referred to the end of the world, and invested
with ideas of terror and judgment, which plainly proves that the church had
sunk down to the level of the world. The world's guilty conscience can only
predict a day of certain judgment if Jesus comes again. But believers know, or
ought to know, that there is no judgment for them (John 5:24); Jesus has borne
their sins at His first coming, and has whispered the wonderful love-secret
into their ears that He is coming again to receive them unto Himself, that
where He is there they may be also. He is coming for us not as a Judge, but as
a Bridegroom - coming that He may have us where every affection of His blessed
heart can flow out unhinderedly upon us. How strangely sad that such a hope
should have been lost! Yet so it was for more than fifteen hundred years.
Theologians wrote of the Lord's coming, it is true; but how did they
write? They wrote of His appearing as the Judge of quick and dead; of His
solemn session on the Great White Throne; of His dividing the sheep from the
goats; and they spoke of that day as being the time when we should know whether
we were saved or not; for they had not the present knowledge of forgiveness of
salvation which God gives in His word to all believers. See Jn 5:24; Acts
13:38, 39; Col 1:12-14.
Jesus will appear as the Judge and every eye
shall see Him; but this is not the character of His coming for believers.
Before He comes as the Judge to the world, He will come as the Bridegroom to
call away His saints. Hence we find that when He appears publicly in glory and
power, His saints appear with Him. Col 3:4; Jude 14; Rev 19:8-14. His coming as
the Bridegroom is the Hope of the church, and this was lost sight of when the
church became worldly in the time of Constantine; and all through the dark ages
of papal supremacy, and even in the brighter days of the Reformation, it was
never recovered, and might truly be called
THE LOST HOPE
A little over a century age, God
was pleased to restore many precious truths from the obscurity into which they
had been driven. Amongst others, the full present knowledge and enjoyment of
the forgiveness of sins, and the possession of eternal life, were seen to be
the portion of every believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. The perfection of the
atoning work of the Son of God in clearing all believers from all their sins
was apprehended more fully than before. The fact that believers are seen of God
as dead and risen with Christ, and now by the Holy Spirit have power to reckon
themselves dead indeed unto sin, was discovered to be the secret of liberty,
and of a holy life. It was also seen that believers are indwelt by the Holy
Spirit, and thus united to Christ in glory as the members of His body; then
shone forth again that blessed Star of hope which had been hidden so long by
clouds of worldliness and unbelief. The Lost Hope began to burn again in a few
loyal and devoted hearts. The midnight cry began to ring out -"Behold the
Bridegroom; go ye out to meet Him."
It was at once felt that
conformity to the world's fashions, customs, and conversation was inconsistent
with The Hope; in fact, as it was cherished it exerted its purifying effects (1
John 3:3) upon the hearth and lives of those who had it, and they were marked
by separation from the world, by simplicity in life, and by godliness in
conversation. Their watchword seemed to be "Let us watch and be sober." They
were a holy, happy, heavenly people.
Years passed on. From those in
whose hearts the cry first sounded it went forth to a sleeping church. What
numbers of slumbering ones were aroused by that cry! What a trimming of lamps;
what a girding of loins ensued! Thousands will have cause to bless God
throughout eternity that it reached their ears. Professors who had but an empty
lamp, were led to obtain a supply of the precious oil of which they were
destitute; doubting believers to rest in the finished work of Christ, and to
rejoice in a known and accomplished salvation; and many dear saints of God saw
new glories in Christ as the Head of His body, the Church. God was preparing
the way for the return of His Son.
Yes, a hundred years and more are
passed and that "blessed hope" remains unfulfilled. The Lord is still seated on
His Father's throne, and His people await the moment of His rising and descent
into the air. Precious and true as ever is His closing word -"Surely I come
quickly!" and He looks for the fitting response -"Even so, come Lord Jesus."
Can it be untimely or inappropriate to ask, is this the present
attitude of His bride? Alas! even yet many saints are actually ignorant of the
fact that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh"; while the scoffer asks boldly,
"Where is the promise of his coming?" On the other hand, multitudes in
Christendom have heard that Jesus is coming, and have been convinced from
Scripture of the truth of the doctrine. Some have heard that midnight cry, and
it has had the effect of causing them to go forth "to meet him"; hence, for
more than a century small companies of believers have gathered to His name, to
remember Him who was once offered to bear their sins, and who will appear the
second time, apart from the question of sin, to effect the salvation of the
body; to these latter a few words are now addressed.
Are you, beloved,
WAITING and WATCHING? Is such the character which is expressed by your lives?
Very loth should we be to give up the doctrine of the Lord's coming, but do we
know the reality of it as a HOPE? Lest the truth be faced and owned. Do our
words, our ways, our surroundings bear testimony to our profession that we have
"turned to God form idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His
Son from heaven"? Does He who reads our hearts and discerns our secret thoughts
know that we dearly cherish this precious truth, possess in power this blessed
HOPE, and day by day eagerly await its fulfilment? Must we not confess that in
many cases where the truth of the Lord's coming is held, it fails to detach the
heart from the world, to separate it from earthly things, and connect it with
brighter things above? Surely in such cases, though the truth is held,
THE HOPE IS LOST.
For aught we
know the Lord may come today. If so, in what state will He find us? With what
are our hearts taken up, and on what subjects are our tongues moving? The Lord
Himself? His unchanging love? His speedy return? The Lord grant that we may be
in a state
"Like that which was found in His
people of old,
Who tasted His love, and whose hearth were on fire
While they waited, in patience, His face to behold."
And what
was the spiritual state of that "people of old "- THE Simeons and Annas of that
day? The Spirit of God tells us (Luke 2) that they were "just and devout";
serving God "with fastings and prayers night and day"; speaking "of Him to all
them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem"; men and women in the power and
current of the Holy Spirit. Oh! Saints of God, what course can we adopt other
than to bow low before Him, and own that we have lost the reality and freshness
of "that blessed hope"; that we have allowed the things of earth to enter our
hearts, and frustrate its separating power; meanwhile praying that in His great
mercy He will revive again in our hearts, and restore in sanctifying power to
our souls, this most precious HOPE? Nor let us forget that cheering word
-"Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh shall find
watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to
sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them."
Oh! Beloved
saints, let us awake to the fact that He is just about to return! Let us
re-trim our lamps, if need be, again and again; let us "be fille with the
Spirit," that we may possess, enjoy, and exhibit the effects of this HOPE in
living power; meanwhile seeking, in the power of the same Spirit, to "occupy"
till he come.