CHRIST'S PRESENT INTEREST IN HIS PEOPLE

CHRIST’S PRESENT INTEREST IN HIS PEOPLE

Revelation 3: 7 - 22

The book of Revelation is of particular interest, because it is the book that was handed to John. In that fact is included this important truth, that all is now determined. It is the closing up of the word. It is final. From the moment it was given to John, there was nothing more to be revealed. There was no more progress. To use a familiar illustration, there were no more trees to be planted, although those that were planted might grow, and, of course, they did grow, but from that time there was nothing to hinder the Lord from coming.

In these seven churches we do not get the church looked at in the aspect of the body, for that is united to Christ, and can no more fail than Christ Himself. It is part and parcel of Himself. The very weakest member of that body is as secure now as ever it can be. It is the church in the aspect of the house of God upon earth that is brought before us here. It is as a candlestick - a light-bearer for Christ in this dark world, that put the Light of the world out of it, and we have seven churches representing seven different phases of the church as the vessel of testimony. The first three recall the church back to its original standing, as set up by God on the earth, and, in a certain sense, disappear; the last four suppose all hope of recovery gone, and run down to the coming of the Lord. All intelligent commentators agree upon that point, so that I am stating nothing new or strange. They are like the seven colours in the rainbow. You may not always see the seven, but still it is the rainbow. At one time one colour might predominate, and another colour at another. Sometimes it might be green, at another time yellow. So the particular feature represented ^[p. 229] by each of these seven churches predominates at a certain period in the history of the professing church. One feature predominates, though there may exist along with it some of the characteristics of the others in a less distinct degree, just like the colours of the rainbow. I do not speak more of that, however. It is not my present purpose.

What I want to show you - and it is the great thought before my mind, because so deeply interesting and so profound - is the Lord’s present concern for His people, His thoughts about the church in its present state. The last four churches, as I have said, run down to the end, to the coming of the Lord, as all commentators of ordinary scriptural intelligence agree, representing four different phases of things in the church. Thyatira is Romanism; Sardis, Protestantism; Philadelphia, Separation; and Laodicea, Latitudinarianism, that is, no rule at all. These are the four phases, and they run down to the end, four concurrent streams running to a point. Thyatira and Sardis I do not mean to go into; but I am taking the two last in order to see Christ’s present thought about His people. There is blessing even in thinking of it. How I wish I could convey to you the importance of studying this subject. Great blessings are ever derived from a patient study of true subjects, but nothing could give a deeper or more impressive blessing to your souls than simply occupying yourselves with considering what is Christ’s present thought about His people. Just sit down for a quarter of an hour and consider what Christ thinks of His people, and see if you do not get a blessing. You will get a blessing, even though you may not get much light on it. Well, as I was saying, the book of Revelation is the last thing we get. It is not that the trees have not grown, but there have been no more planted. Trees may grow a great deal bigger, but the beech, the oak, the ash, is the same that was planted at first. So here, there is ^[p. 230] no more addition. There is growth and development, but there is no new element since, nor to come; therefore everything was ripe for the coming of the Lord from the time the book of Revelation, the last book, was given.

If everything was going right, it would be easy to understand what the manner of the Lord’s dealing is; for it is the expression of His heart; and when everything is in accordance with His mind, He expresses Himself to that effect. Now, the first thing I ask of you is this, What do you understand about the heart of Christ? We will see afterwards how He expresses it. If everything is according to His mind, He is free to unbosom Himself to the soul in all the fulness of His affection without restraint; but if things are not according to His mind, He changes His manner; there is reserve. He never changes His heart, but He does change His manner. What, then, is the heart of Christ? You know already what the nature of His love is. I will turn you to Ephesians 5: 25, to see what the heart of Christ is in itself: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish”.

In this passage I get what the heart of Christ is, presented in three great characteristics, which I ask you to note - Christ’s past, present, and future thought about His church. First, that He “loved the church, and gave himself for it”. That shows the depth of His love, a love stronger than death. It is not only that He did great things for us, but He gave Himself. Beyond that, love could not go. Do you understand this, my beloved friends? - “Christ .. . loved the church, and gave himself for it”. What deep meaning this conveys to the heart!

The second characteristic is, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it”. That is what Christ is doing now. Have you got a sense of the fact, that the same love of Christ which made Him give Himself for you is now occupied in separating you from everything that would separate you from Him? Nothing can express more the profound depth of the love of Christ for you than this, that His present occupation in heaven is devoted to removing everything that would cause distance between you and Him. When He was leaving His disciples, He poured water into a basin, girded Himself with a towel, and washed their feet, as expressive of His present service for us in the glory. I am going to glory, He says, but I am going there to serve you; My mind’s attention will be rivetted on you, My heart’s affection will be set on you, and I shall take care that nothing shall break the intimacy that subsists between us. I shall make it My business there to detach you from everything that would separate you from Myself. That is the wonderful nature of the heart of Christ, that He not only loved the church and gave Himself for it, but His present occupation is day by day bringing His word to bear upon you that He may set you apart from all that would hinder communion, and prevent any break between you and Himself. Nothing can - would that I could lead your hearts fully to respond to it - nothing can show more the depth of the interest He has in you than this - that he takes care that nothing interferes with the intimacy, that there shall not be the slightest reserve. A father loves a child, and a friend loves another friend, and their most earnest thoughts are to see the objects of their love free from blemish. But where love is connected with truth, you are very much more quick to detect any blemish either in your child or your friend than in any one you do not love so much. When you see the blemish, what do you think of? You think of the best means of removing it, because ^[p. 232] you want to see the object of your love without a spot. This is the nature of Christ’s love, and that is Christ’s present occupation for you.

The third characteristic is “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish”. I do not think this means that we are all to meet Him in the air, though that is quite true; the idea here is that He might present us to Himself all fit and ready for Him. It is like Eve when she is presented to Adam; he immediately accepts her as the one ready for him, perfectly suited for him, and made for him. And so Paul, in some measure answering to the thought of Christ - alas! that there are so few like him - says to the Corinthians, “I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”. This is the heart of Christ about the whole church, and my heart must go out to that extent. I get Christ’s heart here in its integrity, in its nature, what it is in itself. He “loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word”. With this intention, for this purpose of presenting it to Himself thoroughly prepared for Him, “that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”. This is His thought about His church, and He carries out His thought. You hear people say, Oh, when we meet the Lord, we shall drop everything that is unfit for Him. That is not the idea here. It is that Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify it, set her apart from everything that would separate from Himself, and that when the presentation comes, He presents it to Himself all ready and fit for Him, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, holy and without blemish. So that were the Lord to come at any moment, the church is ready for Him. The same idea is in 1 Thessalonians 3: 13:

“^[p. 233] To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness”. Well then, having seen what the heart of Christ is, I shall now look at its expression. Love has got a manner. It has a mode of expressing itself; and the first thing I ask here is, What would be Christ’s manner if there was nothing wrong, if all was going right, if there was nothing to check the expression of His love? There is no question of the love being there. He has the love; we have already seen that in all the marvellous fulness and profound depth of its nature; but the manner in which He expresses it is according to the state in which He finds saints. He expresses it either in approving or disapproving as the case may be. A father may have reserve towards his child, but that is his manner; his love is still the same.

Now I turn you to a scene in John 20, to show what His manner would be if there was nothing to check His love. It is the first interview Christ had with His disciples after He rose from the dead. He enters the room where they are gathered and He enters it as the risen One, in all the magnificence of His new position, and standing on this new, this wonderful platform, He introduces them into the same new place as He is in Himself, and imparts to them the benefits that belong to that place - benefits which were never imparted to any before. Read from verse 19: “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week”. Everything was new, you see; it is a new day. “When the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord”. What I have read this for is to show, first, that I know the nature of His love; and secondly, I know how He would express that love if there was ^[p. 234] nothing to check it. Here we see that everything was in order. The disciples are assembled together on the first day of the week. Christ comes into the midst of His gathered saints, where they were shut out from all else, and imparts to them what belongs to His new position. This is never repeated, though we get a fresh benefit ever from it. What I mean is, if you lose your peace you seek the same peace that you lost. You do not get a new peace. It is elementary, this scene, I admit. It is the alphabet. But one who learns the alphabet does not lose it when he gets further on; he is always using it, could not read if he were not using it. Now I want to show you from this passage what would be the expression of Christ’s love, if everything were according to His mind. I cannot imagine anything more beautiful or more cordial than the way the risen Lord expresses Himself to these disciples thus met together. So complete is the absence of all reserve, not a symptom of restraint. There is perfect freedom to tell out His love, nothing to hinder the outflow of His affection. He salutes them with “peace”. He shows them His hands and side. He imparts to them all the wonderful benefits which belonged to Him in His new position. How magnificent the whole scene! What could exceed its beauty and grandeur to one who values the heart of Christ?

We have thus seen (1) what the expression of Christ’s love would be if there was nothing to hinder it. Let us now (2) look at the expression of the same love when things are not according to His mind. I am going on carefully, you see. As I have said already, Christ never changes His heart, but He does change His manner. It is not because there is any change in His heart that He changes His manner, but because we are not acting according to His mind, and I turn you to Revelation 1: 14 to show this: “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow;

^[p. 235] and his eyes were as a flame of fire”. Is not that a change of manner? How different from the scene we were looking at just now. John, who knew Him best of all the disciples, fell at His feet as dead. He says, I do not know that manner. Christ’s heart was not changed; only His manner. Where is the person who does not change His manner, if things do not please him? I ask any affectionate parent in this room, and I say, Do you never change your manner towards your child? He replies, I do change my manner towards my child if I am disappointed in what the child does. I cannot express my love in the same way to a naughty child as I do to an obedient child, though I love the one as dearly as the other. If I did not change my manner, if I treated them both alike, it would show a want of truth. You change your manner soonest to the one you love best. So with Christ here. He is indignant at the state of the church. “His eyes were as a flame of fire”. I ask any person to contemplate the huge break-up and desolation of the house of God, the sad failure and ruin of the church as God’s candlestick in this dark world, and the dreadful things that are going on under the name of Christ on the earth, and say if he can look on all that with a calm eye. And if you cannot look upon it with a calm eye, can you wonder that the Holy One of God changes His manner? What are His eyes like naturally? “His eyes are as the eyes of doves”; but here they are as a flame of fire. Why the change? Because He is indignant; His affection has been slighted. He has changed His manner because of a change in your condition; because of the condition of the whole professing church. Ecclesiastical corruption has come in. He feels His love has been trifled with, and nothing makes a person so indignant as slighted affection. I never preach to people about ecclesiastical corruption, but I preach nearness to Christ; and I find that if anyone is mixed up with ^[p. 236] ecclesiastical corruption, he very soon gets uncomfortable if I can get him near enough to get but one look of those eyes that are as a flame of fire. A man may go on long enough with it if he does not get so near Christ as to see those eyes, but the moment his eye meets Christ’s eye, he begins to feel uneasy. There is a person who has got relief to his conscience; he says, I believe Christ died for my sins, and I am quite happy and contented where I am. That may be, but I say that person has never made the acquaintance of Christ, has never got near Him. If you have learned what Christ has done for you, you must make the acquaintance of the Person who did it.

Take the woman in Luke 7. She goes into the house of Simon the Pharisee to make the acquaintance of Christ. What did Jonathan do after Goliath was killed? Before he saw the head of Goliath in David’s hand, he thought of nothing but Goliath, but from the moment that he saw David with Goliath’s head, he knew deliverance was wrought. He says, I will now make the acquaintance of David. Would the acquaintance of David make Goliath more dead than he was? Not a bit of it; but the acquaintance would bring out what his relation was to the one who killed Goliath. Now, what I want you to understand is that if Christ does not find things according to His mind He changes His manner. When He came into the midst of the disciples in John 20, He was as free and cordial as possible, because He was there in all the delight of reciprocated affection; but here, in Revelation 1, He has so changed His manner that John, who knew Him best, does not recognise Him. The love of the church has cooled down, and corruption has set in; His affections have been trifled with, and He feels the slight - feels it all the more keenly because His love has never cooled, His heart has never changed; but you see what a change has taken place in His manner. Many an honest person seeking to get near the Lord, instead ^[p. 237] of the effect being happiness, is made uneasy and uncomfortable, gets alarmed and afraid. Why? Because of the condition of things in which he is, because he is mixed up with what the Lord disapproves; there is something wrong, and the Lord changes His manner. Those searching eyes search the person through and through. He looks round to see where he is, and the result is he wants to get out of the position he is in. Does Christ love the person any less? Has a father lost his affection for his child because he treats him with reserve? Certainly not. Just so with Christ. If you are going on badly, depend upon it Christ will change His manner, and treat you with reserve. Not because He does not love you, but because He loves you, because His affection is unchanged. You often hear a person say, I do not find the same enjoyment in Christ that I used to do. Surely Christ must be changed towards me. No, Christ is not changed; the change is in you. You have turned aside from Him in some way, and He has been obliged to change His manner, but His heart is as full of love towards you as ever. There is not a conscientious person in this room, who is going on with the Lord, but knows well that Christ takes him to task - I use the plainest language possible - for the way he behaves himself. Many of you are afraid to be alone with the Lord, to go into His presence, because you know He will take you to task. See how Christ deals with Peter. He had got the most wonderful revelation from Christ ever made to man, in Matthew 16, and a few minutes after, what did Christ say to him? He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan”. Do you think there was no change of manner in that? He does change His manner, not His heart, and, therefore, I have to learn a great deal from His manner.

In the chapter I have read, the manner of Christ towards the church of Philadelphia is clearly described. “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,

^[p. 238] These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an opened door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. I am not going to interpret the passage. My only intention is to show Christ’s manner in dealing with these two phases - the Philadelphian phase and the Laodicean phase. This, my beloved friends, is a very grave subject; but still, I thank God that the very thought of the subject is a comfort to me, and I have this comfort in my heart, too, that every one of you who occupies himself with it will get a blessing.

This message to the church of Philadelphia is to me one of the most marvellous exhibitions - I was going to say the most marvellous exhibition - of divine grace recorded in the whole history of God’s dealing with man. He says, Before the catastrophe, before judgment clears the scene, I will have a people who are an expression of faithfulness to Christ. That to me is a most wonderful thing. Before the final close, before the great catastrophe, God says, I will revive the truth through Philadelphia, that is, separation from evil, and faithfulness to Christ, and He is doing it. I am not going to interpret the passage, but I want to point out two things: first, what the mark of a Philadelphian is, and second, how God makes a Philadelphian; that is, how He extricates the saint out of entanglements of ecclesiastical corruption. If you allow me to use a homely figure, it is like a great cobweb, and saints are the flies entangled in that cobweb. The disentanglement of God’s children from this cobweb is like that most remarkable event in Scripture history; I refer to the bringing up of the captives from Babylon. The manner of their deliverance, the exercises of soul through which they passed step by step from Babylon to the house of the Lord, are given in the fifteen songs ^[p. 239] of degrees, Psalm 120 - Psalm 134, of which I have already spoken in a former address, but I ask you to look at a verse in Psalm 124, to see how they spoke of their extrication from the entanglements of Babylon. Read verse 7, “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped”. That was the most wonderful emancipation, the most blessed unfolding of grace. It was turning them from captivity to liberty, setting them free from all the entanglements in which they were, and bringing them into the happy enjoyment of God’s house. This is exactly what the Lord is doing now with souls who are entangled in the Babylon of ecclesiastical corruption. He breaks the snare. He extricates them from the cobweb. He has not only converted you, but He has disentangled you, liberated your feet, and brought you into a line of separation, into a holy walk with Christ, and for Christ on earth. Well, then, there is a mark, a distinct mark, so that anyone may know that you are a Philadelphian, and that is, an opened door, which is the very opposite of Laodicea. There the Lord is looking for a door, here He gives a door. I do not agree with the popular notion of what a door is. You hear people saying, Oh! there is a great open door at such a place, a great ear for the gospel, crowds coming to hear.

Look at Paul at Corinth; Acts 18. He wanted to leave it because he did not see much fruit of his work, but the Lord says to Paul, Remain in the place; do not leave, I have much people in this city. He stayed there for a year and a half. There was a door opened up to him by the Lord leading him on in true service. A door is the way of the Lord. A door is to faith. Take the case of David himself, for the Lord presents Himself in this address to Philadelphia as the One who has the key of David. Take his history till he reaches the throne. Everything is against him. He is beset with difficulties on every hand. He will not ^[p. 240] succeed, is the thought about him in the minds of Israel. David thought so himself. He says, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul”. When everything is against him the Lord finds a way for him out of all his difficulties and trials. That is a door. It is the wonderful sense that a soul gets that there is no fear of not getting through; the Lord saying, I will open up a way for you. It is not a person making a great proclamation of his services or what he is doing, but the settled conviction that all will be right, be the difficulty what it may. Paul’s mantle is that which every saint should wear: “All men forsook me.... Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me.... And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work”. Stephen’s mantle must be worn in relation to the earth, and Paul’s mantle in relation to the church. Take another example - the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were faithful for God in their day, and had to go into the fiery furnace for it, but there was a door God opened up, a way out of it, and such a door as few of us would like. What was the effect of this wonderful deliverance, this open door out of the fiery furnace? The whole kingdom of Babylon was revolutionised as the result.

So it was with Joseph; see how the Lord opened a door for him. In fact, if there is anyone who is faithful to Christ in the day in which he lives, Christ opens a door for him, and that is the mark I am now speaking of. I will not dwell on it longer, but what I have been anxious to show is the manner of Christ towards those in the present day who are true to Him in the midst of general ruin and failure, and that is, whatever the difficulties, Christ will open up the way, use them, there set before them an opened door. The Philadelphian is the only one in all the time of failure who escapes censure. Nothing that you can say can affect the circumstances, but Christ will open a door for you if you are faithful. You may be like David ^[p. 241] at first, you may not feel you have a door, but David had a little one as he knew himself. I have to do with the One who is the Holy and the True, and my path must be holy and true, and I have to do with the One who has the key of David, and He will open a door just as He did to David, be the difficulties and trials what they may. I come from Christ, that is my base; Christ opens a door, and that is my course in service.

Now, I will try to address myself to a much more difficult point, my second point.

How does God produce a Philadelphian? A Philadelphian is one who is extricated out of Thyatira, which is Romanism, and Sardis, which is the Reformation, Protestantism, out of all ecclesiastical systems to walk a path of separation from evil, doctrinal and moral, in holiness and truth, and refusing to have to say to the latitudinarianism of Laodicea. As I have said, these four phases, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, run like concurrent streams on to the Lord’s coming, and the only one that escapes rebuke is Philadelphia, which is characterised by a “little strength” to rise superior to all the evils, and retain and maintain pure ground as Christ’s witness in the midst of general failure, having purged itself from the corruptions of christendom, and returned to the simplicity of keeping Christ’s words and honouring His name. But the point I am now desirous of showing is how a Philadelphian is produced, and with a view to this, I turn you to Hosea 2, where you will find the great principle by which this is effected. You there get the mode in which God brought the captives out of Babylon, which, in principle, is the mode of extrication the Lord employs to disentangle His saints from human systems. I never saw a godly man yet, whatever his system, who did not confess that he was hampered by that system. And what is his excuse for staying in it? He says, I do not see anything better. That may be quite true, because that ^[p. 242] is the state of his intelligence, but still he owns that he is hampered. There are in this chapter two actions in the Lord’s mode of extrication. The first is in verse 6, which I shall read: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths”; and on to the end of verse 13. Time will not permit me to enlarge upon this, but you will see at a glance that what is meant here is adverse circumstances. God makes circumstances irksome to you, things go against you, and you are thrown back upon Himself. He begins by putting His hand on what nature lives upon, and trusts, too, that He may draw the heart to Himself. How true this is when we come to deal with the history of souls. Look at Naomi. She had left the land of Jehovah and gone to the country of Moab. The God of Israel had been neglected, and she would have been content to stay in the far-off land. But God had His eye upon her. He takes away her husband; but still she remains. He takes both her sons, and snapped every link that bound her to the country of Moab. “Then she arose”, Ruth 1: 6. How wonderfully the Lord deals with His saints - faithfully, yet tenderly. The beautiful thing about Hosea 2 is that it was written long before the captives went into Babylon, and yet there you have described the modus operandi by which God delivers them out of the captivity.

The second action of God’s mode you will find in verse 14, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt”. This action is His own word, “I will... speak comfortably unto her”. What pains the Lord takes with souls. If you find a person who has been delivered from all his entanglements, and he tells you ^[p. 243] his history, the way he has been led, there is nothing strikes one so much as the great pains the Lord has taken to extricate him, sometimes breaking down a man’s health, and this to prepare the way for his second action, His own word entering his soul, and showing him God’s mind about things. He not only uses circumstances, but He will allure you, draw you into the wilderness, speak comfortably to you, give you a vineyard, a door of hope, and you will sing as in the days of your youth. How wonderfully true this is in the case of souls now. This is exactly what he does. I will give you another passage, which will perhaps express this more definitely to you. I turn to Luke 24, and you will find there how beautifully it is set forth in verse 27. I think, my beloved friends, this is of immense interest to you, because it shows you how the Lord leads people into the truth. Does any person here tell me he clearly understands any doctrine? Then I say you neither learned it from your parents nor from your pastor. What doctrine? Any doctrine. Take eternal life, anything you please. For instance, there is the church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, how do you find it defined in the standards of orthodoxy: ‘The church is the congregation of faithful, where the sacraments are duly administered and the gospel faithfully preached’? Where is that in the Bible? “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. As a godly Presbyterian once said to me, I have been reading the Bible for fifteen years, and I never saw Christ in it before; but now I see Christ in every page. I trust I am conveying the meaning of this to you. I feel it deeply myself, that God should take such pains to enlighten me. Why should God vouchsafe this deliverance in these latter days just before the final catastrophe? To magnify His grace. Why am I extricated out of the entanglements? Why am I not like others, in ^[p. 244] the confusion and darkness of human systems? Yea, many more besides me delivered out of them too, thank God. Is it that we were any better than they? Is it due to anything in ourselves? No, but because Christ Himself has taught us, and taught us about Himself. What brought out heresy, do you think? It was advocating one truth apart from Christ. Read all the heresies, from the days of the apostles downwards, and you will find that they were all the result of good men, so occupied with a particular truth, that they distorted all the other truths. Like a man who was so much occupied with his eye, that he spoiled his whole face. That is how every heresy has sprung up; well-disposed men so advocating a truth, and bringing it into such prominence at the expense of other truths, that they became unsound in the faith. What ought they to have done? Brought out Christ. Here you find the Lord expounding unto the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Not about this truth and the other truth, not about the presence of the Holy Spirit or any other particular doctrine, but the things concerning Himself. Thus you have the Lord’s mode of instructing His people. He enlightens them about Himself. I need not say anything more upon this, but I trust the Lord will lead your hearts to understand it. But some may say - many who have been newly converted - I was never in the cobweb. Well, you must learn how to keep out of it, or you will never be established or settled.

Having seen what the mark of a Philadelphian is, and how God produces one, we will now look at the last phase - Laodicea, where it is not a question of system either, for Laodicea is as much out of system as Philadelphia; but there is no rule at all. It is latitudinarianism, not of the other three. There is no testimony for God in it, and Christ presents Himself as the Amen, the faithful and true witness, so completely had they lost their standing as to witnessing for Christ,

^[p. 245] or a testimony for Him that He has to take the place of witness Himself. And this is not all. He is the beginning of the creation of God, because they were asserting that they had need of nothing. The Laodicean does not deny grace, but he is so embellished by the morality of Christ, that he can dispense with Christ Himself - imagines that man can be improved without the new creation. There is nothing within or without on which Christ’s eye can rest. There is no fine gold and there is no white raiment. There is not the creation of God within, and no walk for God without. The tried gold of divine righteousness is wanting, and the white raiment, the true and proper clothing of the saint, is lacking, and the eye is defective, there is no apprehension of what meets God’s mind. But all is display and boast. There is great success, all is going on beautifully, everything is thriving, there is great prosperity, and all in the garb of a so-called christian profession. “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”. But where is Christ in all that? You are talking of how rich you are, but where is Christ? You are embellished by the form of godliness, but where is the power? Like a Christmas-tree, many beautiful things stuck on to it, but not one of them grew on it. This is exactly like Laodicea, many things derived from Christ, but Christ Himself left outside. And why? Because the moment you bring in Christ you displace man. In Laodicea man is everything. I am this and I am that, but Christ nowhere. Christ is the beginning of God’s creation, and therefore, where the improvement and embellishment of the first man is all their concern, no wonder He is distasteful, for Christ sets aside the first man and brings in Himself. This is the secret of why, when Christ was on earth, that one singular Object of divine beauty, that unique Man, who walked for God in this world, and was separate from everything else, men did not like Him. He set them aside. It is not that ^[p. 246] there is a denial of the truth; there is a general acceptance of the truth and of the place where the truth sets one, but there is indifference to Christ, lukewarmness. This is what Christ complains of. He does not say there is no warmth, but the mixture of two opposite elements, hot and cold; the result of which is a state of things highly satisfactory to man; it is, in fact, in a human way altogether, but a mixture extremely nauseous to Christ, which He is to spue out of His mouth. This kind of thing is very difficult to deal with, and becomes a great snare, a splendid appearance, with Christ left outside. Nothing could be more decided than the manner Christ assumes towards this mixture. He very markedly expresses His disapproval in terms that cannot be mistaken, and what will be the fearful end of it? It makes one shudder to think of it. But what is so interesting is, He does not give up His heart. The manner is unmeasured rebuke. The heart is the same, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock”. For what purpose? That “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”, in order to make Himself known as the object of love. The idea is taken from the Song of Solomon, quoted from chapter 5: 2, “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night”. “I sleep, but my heart waketh”. A sleeping saint has no activity, though there is life. “It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me... my dove, my undefiled”. This is one thing most interesting to my heart, that Christ always works upon the affection of His people. When He comes upon the sleeping virgins, what does He do? Threaten them with destruction and desolation? No; the cry is, “Behold, the bridegroom”. The word ‘cometh’ should not be there. He reckons on the fact that there ^[p. 247] is affection there. Do you tell me that if a message were to come to this room that the Lord was at the door you would not be roused. up? You know in your hearts that you would. The Lord knows there is affection for him in your hearts, and he appeals to it. The bride in the Song rises to open, and He withdraws. He does not answer to feeling or impulse, He withdraws. If your feelings are only excited, you will suffer under great depression when they subside. On listening to a very interesting preacher on Sunday, I used always to be afraid of the dullness of Monday. What comes after that? When you are in a dull state, you read the Psalms. And why the Psalms? Because you like to read an account of a person who was in the same state as yourself. But the man who wrote these Psalms did not write them till after the exercise, so you must be in the same state as the one who penned these Psalms. A psalm is always the record of what a soul has gone through, a hymn is praise, and a spiritual song is the exuberance of the mind. Well, He withdrew; and, when challenged, what does the bride say of Him? Mark her description of Him, from verses 10 - 16. And what should you be occupied with? With the beauties of Christ. You say, Where shall I find them? In the gospels. There you get the features of Christ. Let me try to explain it. Here is a mother disconsolate because her only son has gone away, and she has not heard of him for a long time. I come to comfort her, and I say, Here is a beautiful photograph of him. This cheers her heart, and when her heart is cheered up, I know what I am about, and I open a side door, and say, Here is your son for you. She has now got himself, and she is overjoyed. If you read chapter 6: 2, you will see the bride has found Him. “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies”. I have turned you to ^[p. 248] this in order to show the lovely attitude of Christ towards Laodicea, so far as His heart is concerned. Though unsparing in His rebuke, and threatening unmitigated judgment in the vessel of testimony, He says, I will never give up my love. I look for admission, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock”, and where I get admission I will sup with that one, and that one with me. Now, if Christ comes in and sups with me, my heart is established through His word, and I am so occupied with His beauties, that I am actually getting His features, so to speak. And what follows? “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices”, etc. I do recommend you, my beloved friends, to study the beauties of Christ, for then you will find out where Christ lives. He has gone down to His garden. There is no more distress because of His going away. “My beloved is mine, and I am his”. The Lord lead us to understand this. I am sensible of how little I am able to present to you a subject of such depth - the nature and character of Christ’s interest for His saints on earth at this present time. Still I feel immense encouragement in it, because it must have given you a clue to the true state of things.

We have, then, seen Christ’s present interest in His people. What His heart is in itself, in all its unchanging affection. We have seen His heart in the deep lines of His love and purpose, apart from and above any check or anything to limit or circumscribe it, in giving Himself for us, in separating us from everything that would separate us from Him, with the intention of presenting us to Himself, according to His own mind, without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. We have seen, too, that though the heart of Christ never changes, He does change His manner. He has one kind of manner when things are right, and another kind of manner when things are wrong. His mode of expressing His heart when things are to His ^[p. 249] mind is the free outflow without check or hindrance of what He is to the objects of His love - the most beautiful and cordial exhibition of the closest intimacy; whereas, if things do not suit Him, do not please Him, He alters His countenance, His eyes are as a flame of fire, He wears an awe-inspiring aspect, He puts you under reserve.

We have seen His manner towards Philadelphia, and His manner towards Laodicea, and we learn much. Christ expects us to learn much from His manner towards all these different phases in what bears His name. He has expressed Himself towards them all, and surely nothing should be of greater interest to every true saint than to see what He approves and what He condemns. No information, no instruction, should be more prized by every one who has a heart for the Lord, than that which shows what He rebukes, and what He regards favourably, because it ought to be his joy to avoid the one and adopt the other. Is it nothing to you that Christ has distinctly marked what is distasteful to Him and what suits His mind, has informed you of how He views everything in the professing church? Are you then to remain identified with what He condemns? Do you say, Oh, I am saved, and it will be all right in the end; it does not much matter where one is ecclesiastically? Alas! that so many should thus speak and act, and even persons who preach perfection are themselves found mixed up with all kinds of ecclesiastical iniquity. Is that how you treat the One who died for you? He gave Himself for you, and it is no concern of yours to please the One who saved you? Is your own salvation all you think of, and is the Lord that bought you never to be considered? I admit it is not a question of salvation, but it is a question of what suits the Saviour. Does He approve of one course and disapprove of another, and is it nothing to you whether you meet His approval or are spued out of ^[p. 250] His mouth? Has it ever struck you what could be the meaning of that alarming appearance of Christ in Revelation? If it does not much matter, why is the Lord so changed that John, who knew Him best, falls at His feet as dead? Why is He in the midst of the churches in that terrifying and unapproachable character, I want to know? He is judging and rebuking, and is it a matter of no moment to you to escape His censure? Is ecclesiastical corruption a light thing with Christ? Behold here the sense which He has of the failure of the church. The very terribleness of His manner intimates the extent and depth of His estimate of its evil. Why should He appear among the candlesticks in that altered and fearful aspect, if not to denounce the condition of things, to reach the conscience of every living soul, and in deep searchings of heart cause it to turn to Him in true separation from all moral, doctrinal, and ecclesiastical evil? It ought to alarm souls unto death to be mixed up with the disorder and corruption of christendom when they see the Lord’s attitude towards it. It caused John to fall at His feet as dead. You say, What am I to do? What did the captives do? They left Babylon, and went up to Jerusalem to the house of the Lord. But I want to be sure of the right thing, you say. Well, whether it was right to remain in Babylon, or to go up to Jerusalem? There cannot be two answers to the question. It was no question of their being Israelites; those who remained were as much Israelites as those who left; but who met the mind of the Lord, I ask, who pleased Him? Those who went up to Jerusalem undoubtedly. It is not a matter of your salvation; if you were not saved, I would not speak of it at all; but just because you are saved, it is what the Lord expects of you, that you endeavour to please the One who did it. Well, I will put another question, Were these few captives who left Babylon and went up to Jerusalem to the house of the Lord right, and all who remained ^[p. 251] wrong? There can only be one answer to this question, though it is a very annoying answer to those who remain in Babylon, and are not willing to leave it. It is by no means a choice of evils, as many put it, to ease their consciences. Choosing evil can never be according to God. I must “cease to do evil; learn to do well”. Supposing all were evil, would that make my position in the sight of the Lord any better? My position would in that case be admittedly evil, and I must give up the evil and follow the good; I must have nothing short of the right place if I am to answer to the mind of Christ. No lover of holiness could be satisfied with less. You say, What is the benefit? Well, in the first place, there is responding to the desires of the Lord, and meeting His approval, which is the chief thing, and which ought to be to the delight of every godly soul. But there is more. This handful of captives, despite the failure and ruin of the nation of Israel as a whole, counting on the faithfulness of an ever-faithful God, were enabled, though a feeble few, to give such a beautiful expression of faithfulness to the Lord, and got such blessing to themselves as had never been experienced by any in the nation, since its very palmiest days. They actually kept the feast of tabernacles, which had not been kept since the days of Joshua.

We have seen what makes Philadelphians, and how God produces them; how He disentangles souls from the cobweb, how He extricates them from the corruptions of christendom, just as He did these captives from Babylon; and like that little faithful company, all such will find now, in returning to the simplicity of keeping the word of Him who is the Holy and True and not denying His name, blessing such as was only experienced in the brightest and best days of the church. The darker the day, the brighter may the faith of individuals shine. This little delivered company, while fully owning the failure of the church as their common ^[p. 252] sin, too, believe it to be their strength and blessing to have faith in that which never has failed and never can fail; and, though in weakness and feebleness, endeavour to act on the imperishable principle of the church of God, for “there is one body, and one Spirit”, counting on the presence of Christ. The Lord lead us all into the full apprehension of the interest of Christ for His people at the present time, and keep us faithful till He come.