“WHEREFORE WATCH”

E. Palmer

John 14: 1–3; Mark 13: 33–37; Acts 20: 28–32

The reference to the Father’s house and to the matter of watching came into our earlier conversation and I feel, beloved brethren, that both have a very significant importance. The actuality of the Father’s house is a future thought; it is a sphere of things where the Father Himself finds His pleasure and where things are arranged and ordered in such a way that the Person whose house it is is ministered to for His own satisfaction.

I believe we are able to touch the affections that belong to it, and the liberty that is proper there, in spirit, in the power of the Holy Spirit, even now, and that in the sense of being there in association with the Lord Jesus. But we are looking forward to the time when what we now touch in spirit will be an abiding and uninterrupted experience that will minister eternally to the Father’s pleasure; when the responsive affections that belong to sonship, so perfectly reciprocated in the full sense of what that word means by the Lord Jesus as Man here upon earth, will be, by way of extension, the Father’s portion in the response of His sons.

The coming of the Lord has a vital and distinct bearing upon this side of the truth. Ofttimes we may be inclined to think just of the relief that will be ours, the setting free from the incubus of what we are according to nature, and the test that the flesh is, as distinct from nature—sinful flesh that would raise its head at any time. We are inclined to think of the relief of being actually and practically set free from these things to have a full and uninhibited part in response to the Father’s heart. That is very blessed, very real, something to be looked forward to surely—but not the greatest thing.

One would not underestimate the greatness of any one result of the sufferings of Jesus. Think of what it will be to be clear of every hindrance. Would you not like to be like that? I would!

But evil thoughts can even now be dismissed in the Spirit’s power immediately; let us not concede that evil thoughts cannot be dismissed, because they can, but then evil thoughts will never get an entrance because of the character of the Person who is there. But that is not the greatest thing.

I believe the greatest thing is that the Father will have in His house those who will minister to His own pleasure. Think of the satisfaction of a Father’s heart in the felicitous relationship of His sons, where love is free and where love is expressed and where there is an environment that is conducive to all that love rejoices in. This is the Father’s house. I believe that the Spirit would help us to get away from what is geographical and would help us in relation to what is moral and what is spiritual. I think we always need that, to get away from the idea of what is geographical. What is moral and what is spiritual is just as real, in fact more real, and the Holy Spirit is on our side to help us to touch these things.

Now the Lord speaks to His own at a time of crisis—a time of tremendous crisis. A betrayer had already been brought to light and had departed from the circle where Jesus was loved. He went immediately out and it was night. How the Lord Jesus felt that One who would deny Him was yet to come to light. How He felt that too. And He Himself was about to depart to the Father and His own were to be left in the place of testimony. This is the situation, and He says, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me”. Beloved, I think the Spirit would help us to hold the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ in a constant way in our minds and in our affections, and when I say ‘in our affections’ I mean to hold Him as loving Him all the time. That is what I mean; I do not use it in any technical sense at all, but as loving Him all the time.

“Believe also on me. In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you”; think of the confidence, think of the intimacy, think of the regard that He had for His own. Is it any less today? Does anybody think that it is any less today? The constancy of His love is something to be relied upon, something to be trusted in, something to quell every thought of unbelief, because it is a question of believing on Him. This would silence any infidel thoughts. And He adds, “Were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place”. The object of His going He states categorically, “I go to prepare you a place”. As believing on Him we believe that too.

It is a prepared place, it means that care and activity, the activity of holy love, are in it. How He must regard the persons for whom the place is prepared! Would that we had a deeper appreciation of what the greatness of the love of Christ is—not only for each one of us personally, but His love for His own as together. It is not exactly the assembly in John, but

the personnel of the assembly, the persons who compose it. And so He says, “I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you”. To the place? Oh no, “To myself”. Is not that precious? Of course the place is what it is because of the One who is there—“To myself, that where I am ye also may be.”

Now when He said it, what He said as to His going was future, but in our day it is an accomplished fact. He has actually gone, but He said, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. We might say, is not this to be known in the Spirit even now? I think the power of it is to be known, but the actuality of it is future. It is a glorious prospect that every believer in Jesus is entitled to have. Whether every believer in Jesus really lays hold of it is something else, but the title to it is theirs on account of Himself and what He has done. He says, I “shall receive you to myself”. For whose satisfaction is that? His!

I believe the Spirit, dear brethren, would, help us to adjust our thinking, that we might begin to think from Himself. I think that is worth dwelling on; to begin to think from Himself in everything—for it makes a wonderful difference: It makes a difference practically, it makes a difference in the testimony practically, and it makes a difference spiritually too, to begin to think from Himself. You know, if we begin to think from the right point our thoughts are right, but if we are slightly off the right point our thoughts are inclined to be off the point too.

And so He says, “I … shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. Now we know where Jesus is; we know that even now, for through Him and by the Spirit we have access to the Father. We know that; but we are to be there in that holy environment of perfect love into which nothing that is unsuited has ever intruded. These things, beloved, we lay hold of, not only in faith, but by the Spirit’s power. And they are to affect us. I would raise that with you as I raise it with myself.

Are we really affected by these things? Do we really believe them? I do not mean mere acquiescence of mind, I mean in the activity of faith. And the activity of faith means that I am governed by what I believe. Now the present moment is a waiting time, because He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. You may say, ‘How long is it?’ We were saying in the reading it may be today. Who could define the waiting time? There is only one Person who knows when the time is, and that is the Father Himself.

Meanwhile, whilst we would be on the tiptoe of expectation, we are not to be inactive.

Certain things are committed into the hands of the Son. The Father loves the Son and has given all things to be in His hand. That is not just one thing—it is everything. So it says in Mark 13, “It is as a man gone out of the country”, (but he is coming back) having left his house and given to his bondmen the authority, and to each one his work, and commanded the door-keeper that he should watch”. What holy activity is to be entered into! Whose activity is it, whose interests?—His! The question was raised with Jesus, “By what authority doest thou these things?” (Matthew 21: 23). He raised certain questions that His opposers failed to answer and therefore He did not tell them by what authority He did them, but He tells us. It is the authority, it is His authority; the Lord’s authority. Who is He? The One who is absolutely supreme. He gave to His bondmen the authority. To do what? To do His work, the authority to do His work.

And then it says, “And commanded the door-keeper that he should watch”. What is the doorkeeper watching for? I think he is watching for the master. And while he is watching (and

he is watching all the time) do you think he will let into the master’s house anything that is unsuited to that master? I think, beloved, that the maintenance of what is suited to the Lord is guaranteed as we are watching for Him personally. I feel persuaded that that is right. All the time the doorkeeper was watching he had been watching for his lord. As the Lord says, “Watch therefore, for ye do not know when the master of the house comes—evening, or midnight, or cock-crow, or morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping”.

Watching for Him will guarantee that nothing that is unsuited to Him will be allowed to enter into the house. Is that how you regard the local assembly? As watching for Him, nothing that is unsuited to Him will be allowed to enter that house. You say, ‘Who is the door-keeper?’ I am; you are’. ‘Oh’, but you say, ‘there is other work’. Yes, but door-keeping belongs to everybody, it belongs to the boys and the girls at school. You are a door-keeper. It belongs to these young folk just starting out in life, in their businesses; you are a door-keeper, you are watching for Him. It belongs to the more mature persons: it belongs to the housewives at home; pre-eminently it belongs to those who have regard for what is due to Him in the local assembly, that is where it is exercised.

And so He says in the verse that we read, “Take heed, watch and pray”. That is watching in dependence. It is not watching in self-confidence, it is watching in dependence “Watch and pray”. And then He says in the last verse, “But what I say to you, I say to all, Watch”. Let us watch ourselves in regard to what is unsuited, but primarily watch for Him. If that could be conveyed here and now it would be well worth while our being here. Let us watch for Him.

In Acts 20 there is the matter of the local assembly and the responsible element in it is addressed. Paul called the elders over from Ephesus and laid this charge upon them, and having laid the charge upon them he says that he is clean from the blood of all, “For I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”. But he says, “Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God”. When the Lord refers to the flock in John he says, in regard of it, “one flock”. That is a feature of the flock, “one flock; one shepherd”.

Here Paul refers to the flock, “all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers” (that is, the local expression of it) “to shepherd the assembly of God”. That is, the saints are regarded in the light of what the assembly is universally. You say, ‘Why do you say that?’

Because, dear brethren, we are responsible in our own locality, but we are linked with the saints universally who walk in this light. The idea of independency in the local assembly is foreign to what is proper to the assembly. I believe that needs to be underlined at the present

time. I believe we need to re-affirm before the Lord our allegiance to the truth as to the assembly in its universal bearing. The fact is that the expression of it as we walk in that light is to be substantially seen in the localities where we are. And of what value it is! “The assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.

The idea of purchase is that what is purchased becomes the possession of the One who so valued it that He was prepared to pay the price needed to have it for Himself. So the apostle brings us in, not only for us to understand how God values the assembly, but that we might value it in the same way. So Paul speaks about what will enter in. Nothing will enter in, of course, up there. It is down here where things enter in, these perverted things, things that are off-centre—that do not begin with Christ. That is perversion. They are viewed from some other consideration. Do you know something about that? I do—consideration for persons rather than for Him. It is very near, it is nearer perhaps than some of us would like to concede.

These responsible people were to watch. Paul says, “Wherefore watch”. And he brings himself forward, in his comely way, as if to say, ‘I have watched night and day. Not only have I watched night and day but I have served night and day; served in watching’. And what is he watching for? That what is so valuable to God, and for which He has been prepared to pay such a price, might be preserved for His pleasure until it is translated, taken to a place where watching will never be needed any more.

Meanwhile, beloved, to your heart and mine, on account of what is precious to Christ, in such a scene as this is, the word is, Watch. It is His own word. It is the Spirit’s word through the apostle, but what I am seeking to convey, if I can, is the necessity for watching on account of what is so precious to God and to Christ. May we be helped and value more and more what He has, and be alerted, stimulated and revitalised in regard to the imminent return of the One who will come again to receive us to Himself. May God bless the word.

Address at Southend-on-Sea
29 September 1973