THE WAITING TIME
I wish to speak of the waiting time. It is a very testing time, and yet is to be a very blessed time. The first scripture and the last we read refer to us as waiting, and what we wait for will require new conditions for its fulness, yet it is to regulate us in the present time. I feel the importance of that, dear brethren. God has brought His choicest thoughts within our reach, and we have been given the earnest of the Spirit that these things, which as to their fulness are yet to come, should have a regulating influence upon us now. I think you can see that in the ways of God it has always been so. Enoch, in a difficult day, had the light of the Lord coming judicially, and the effect of that was that he “walked with God”, while the rest of men were living to themselves. Enoch was thus regulated in his walk; he did not go where the rest of men went or involve himself in what the others were involved in. It says, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him”, Gen 5: 24. God was pleased to translate him because he was already walking with Him.
It brings to my mind a Christian who at the end of his life said, ‘Death does not hold any fear for me. In death I shall change my condition, but not my company’. He was already enjoying Christ’s company. Enoch did not change his company; he walked with God, and God took him. I wonder, dear brethren, at the rapture, will you and I change our company? When the Lord comes to take us to Himself, what will the change be? In Philippians here it says it will be a change of body; He will “transform our body of humiliation”, a change of condition. Will it be the same company? How often we have proved His patient grace; then we shall see His face, we shall be like Him. What about being like Him now? What about that great matter of the rapture having a bearing upon us now? Paul says “we await” a well-known Person. We do not look for an event; we do not search through the calendar to see what date it will be; we await a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour—that Man—what a title!—the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s heart is full of Him here, the One who has been here in lowly circumstances, who has taken up the question of our sins, ministering forgiveness, maintaining us by His priestly grace and service—we await the Person. Are we ready? Are we looking for the Person who “shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”? What a body it will be! John says, When we see Him we shall be like Him. Oh that there could be stirred, by the Spirit, some deeper longings in our hearts for Himself and what it will be to be with Him. The rapture is presented so often as a matter of deliverance and comfort, which it is, and will be, but Paul is speaking here about the Person so engaging his affections that he was longing to be with Him. It says, “who shall transform our body according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself”.
We know from 1 Thessalonians 4 what a time of power it will be; the dead in Christ shall rise first; they will hear His voice. How can you explain that? It brings the glory and the power of the Person before us, that nothing shall hinder the Lord as He comes in those movements of power; then, ‘So shall we be ever in heaven’? No—“and thus we shall be always with the Lord”. The Person is to be before our affections. I think it should have a very regulating effect during the waiting time. I only leave the question—Do we regulate our lives in relation to the early return of our Lord?
In Corinthians Paul is still speaking about the change. What is here in this earthly tabernacle house, a treasure, housed now in mortal weak conditions, will go through to glory. “Now he that has wrought us for this very thing is God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit”. Not only the light of it, not only the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, but the earnest of the Spirit means that a divine Person is here to maintain alive in our hearts a longing for Christ in the waiting time. What grace! He says, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” (John 14: 18), and He has also given us the earnest of the Spirit. The earnest of the Spirit means you have the thing in its essence, not yet in its fulness, but you have more than light, you are able to live in the joy and assurance of hope now.
Another thing that is before us is “the judgment-seat of the Christ”. This is very sobering; I know of nothing more sobering. I feel a lack of power to speak about it. Why are some things so prolonged? Why do exercises remain unsolved? May it be that we are not walking in the light, or not allowing the bearing of the judgment-seat of Christ to be with us? May we each take it home to ourselves. Things will be reviewed then. All believers “must ... be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body, according to those he has done, whether it be good or evil”. There is no sense of penalty, but some will suffer loss. Would it not be a sobering thing just to think about our present exercises, and have them reviewed, as they will be at the judgment-seat of Christ? We are so easily influenced by other persons and circumstances, which may hinder us from getting Christ’s view. I am sure matters would be much more quickly settled if we allowed the bearing of the judgment-seat to be regulating us now in our exercises.
It is not a question here of penalty, not at all; it has been said it is a review. The things I have done; the opinions that I have expressed; the kind of personality that I have exercised that may have influenced others, rightly or wrongly, will all be reviewed. May the bearing of it just rest on our spirits, dear brethren—“according to those things he has done, whether it be good or evil”. I feel a lack of power to speak much about it, but I would encourage us that the bearing of it may come home to us now. Are we not meant to be intelligent? Are we not meant to be able to exercise judgment? It starts in self-judgment, in being able to distinguish in myself what is good and right, and what is wrong. Dear brethren, it is a matter of great sorrow that there are things that might have been solved, but now they are left until the judgment-seat of Christ. Some who have been wronged have gone to be with Christ; some things cannot be repaired; they await that time when Christ will give His view, and we shall be adjusted in view of entering into the joy of our eternal home. Would it not have been better if they had been adjusted now? There are things lying among us, I say with deep respect, that we may well allow the bearing of the judgment-seat of Christ to apply to us now, to ourselves, our localities, the things we do, the opinions we voice so freely, the judgments that we offer—sometimes so profusely—are they in accord with the judgment-seat of Christ? Well, may He have His own voice to us in that.
At the judgment-seat of Christ we shall already be in bodies of glory. It will not be there a matter of shedding tears. It will work out in view of the kingdom. You get some idea of it in the parable of the kingdom in Matthew 25. The lord of the bondmen reviewed with persons how they had used the talents, some received praise and other suffered loss. What did you do when the Lord spoke to you? Perhaps your conscience was alerted. You maybe allowed somebody else’s opinion to sway you. It will come up at the judgment-seat of Christ. You maybe allowed yourself to be governed by somebody else’s personality or by your links with someone who may not have been in the full light of the truth. These things will be reviewed at the judgment-seat of Christ. As I say, Why not have them reviewed now, in view of praise to God? Paul says, “we walk by faith ... we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord”. There was nothing in him that he knew of that was left unsettled. He was looking forward to being with the Lord; the judgment-seat of Christ was an up-to-date matter with him; he was “zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him”.
In 2 Timothy 4 Paul is looking for the appearing. He speaks of “all who love his appearing”. What a day that will be, dear brethren, what a day! Do you long for it? Tomorrow morning, if the Lord will, we shall remember Him in the Supper. I like to think as I remember Him at the Supper of His appearing. When He appears the whole scene will change. Do you not long, beloved, to see Him honoured? He will appear to a world whose last words were, Away with Him; crucify Him; we will not have this Man! Ah! as He appears the whole world will be subject to Him; indeed there is the suggestion that the whole scene will arise in tribute to Him, the Lamb that had been slain. We long for His public vindication. We long that that One who has done so much, that One who is so great, may be publicly adored. It says, “all who love his appearing”; we bear the rebuffs for the moment; the Lord bears them; how He feels them! Paul is speaking here of what will be in that day in the way of reward “to all who love his appearing”.
May the bearing of these things affect us practically in our circumstances here. Peter was affected by them. He had already seen the Lord in His glory. He speaks in chapter 1 of some “having been eyewitnesses of his majesty”, 2 Pet 1: 16. He saw something of that glorious One. It says His garments became white, and as he speaks about it in his epistle Peter says, We have not followed cleverly imagined fables. We are tested as to the substantiality of these things, beloved. How substantial are they to me—the rapture—the judgment-seat of Christ—and the appearing? Peter says they had not followed cleverly imagined fables; the Person was enshrined in his affections.
So as Peter closes the epistle, he says all these events are going to take place, “Wherefore, beloved, as ye wait for these things, be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless”. There is the bearing of the judgment-seat of Christ; there is the bearing of the rapture, and of the appearing; the bearing of new heavens and new earth, upon the saints; “as ye wait for these things, be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless”.
May the long-suffering of our Lord not be taken advantage of, as it has been publicly, but may we be diligent as we wait. The certainty of them, beloved, is maintained in our hearts by the Holy Spirit of God. We could never be maintained apart from that. Apart from the Spirit’s grace and power in our hearts we would say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? Things are pretty much as they always were’. But by the Spirit we wait in hope, and as we wait let us “be diligent to be found of him in peace”.
Peter’s final exhortation to the saints is, “Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things before, take care lest, being led away along with the error of the wicked, ye should fall from your own stedfastness: but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen”. May it be so with us, for His Name’s sake.
BUCKHURST HILL
31st December 1988