THE PRESENT TIME
I would like the Lord’s help to say a word as to the “present time”. In its widest application it would refer to this whole dispensation. There has never been a time like the present dispensation which has been enriched and illuminated by the fact that a Man has gone into heaven. There is a Man already in final conditions. That has never been before. We are in provisional surroundings and circumstances, but into them, as never before, has come the light of final conditions. In previous dispensations there was the idea of covenant, man’s responsibility, but into this dispensation has shone the glory of a Man who has gone into heaven. As if that were not enough, scripture says He has gone into “heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”, Heb 9: 24. Nothing I could say could enhance the richness of these words. He has gone into heaven to appear before the face of God for us. So while we are in provisional circumstances and surroundings, the present time has been enriched by the light and glory of final conditions. This is to regulate us in our present circumstances. Paul says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are the most miserable of all men”, 1 Cor 15: 19. Our aspirations, our objectives, our plans for our careers, are they bounded by death? Is that going to terminate all the aspirations that are beating in your heart tonight? May our hearts be filled with the glory of another world. The embracing of it is to enrich us, to encourage and strengthen us in the midst of the present surroundings. You remember the Sadducees brought to the Lord the case of a woman, enquiring, ‘In the resurrection whose wife would she be?’ They reasoned round it, how could it work out? The Lord’s answer to that was about another world. He says, “they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage”, Luke 20: 35. The light of that world can solve countless difficulties. Administrative matters may come up or questions in our histories and we may enquire what men would say about them. The light of another world brings a different viewpoint into the present circumstances. That world has different standards by which it administers, that world of which Christ is the blessed centre. The Lord would encourage our hearts by the light of that coming into these difficult times in which we are. Even as the people were in the wilderness, God was bringing to them the light of the land. He says to them, “When ye come into the land of your dwellings”, Num 15: 2. They were not to dwell in the wilderness. They were to pass through it. Some of them died there. It was all they knew. How sad that was. Caleb and Joshua came into the land they longed for. May the longings grow in our hearts for that heavenly land we love!
I read in Peter because there we have persons who were suffering under the governmental circumstances that God had brought in. That is our position today. I do not use that word lightly. The economic problems of today in this country, you may say, are in the government of God, and we are part of it. The recession, unemployment, people having to economise, these are all part of God’s ways. Peter here is encouraging the brethren not only to accept them but to live in them in the light of another day. There is, too, what has come into religious circles, scattering, reproach, dispersion. People are suffering, and we suffer through not having our brethren. We never come to this place without thinking of some of them. We miss them. God misses them. What are we to do—despair? Some have looked on the breakdown and have given up. They have said, Things are so broken and confused, how can we know a right way? We see here in Peter, that in the midst of these happenings, God is bringing in the light and glory of another set of circumstances where all depends on Him. Peter says, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”. These verses bring out that divine Persons are very near and very real to us. The Father has had to do with us. Is He going to change His mind? In the ways of God there are things that we pass through individually and collectively, but the government of God is always for us. It may be reducing us. Maybe we got too big. It may cause us to pull in a bit, but I believe in the end it is all to cause us to value divine things increasingly, that our faith and hope might be in God. We may rest in these other things. These people were driven out of their country. They did not only lose their jobs, but they were driven out of their country. But Peter says, Be that as it may, you are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Before ever these happenings were necessary in His ways to chasten and discipline us, He elected, He chose to have us. He passed by many others. Elect, not because men have made the selection, but “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. See how God has come into this dispensation. Divine Persons have made themselves very real to us and very near to us, and maybe the sorrows and sufferings of the present time are to make the Father and the Spirit and the Son all the more real to us. They never change. If in my ways I have departed, the Father still looks on me as one of His sons. There is no mistake in that, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. The economy has come onto view. The Persons were always there but they have come into these relationships in the present time, in grace making themselves indispensable to us. May we learn, dear brethren, that the government of God is for us.
In it all there is “the proving of your faith”. But before that Peter speaks of, “an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance, reserved in the heavens for you”. It is the great goal on which our eye is to be set. No man could ever propose this for you. It is reserved in the heavens beyond the reach of man and unaffected by the breakdown; unaffected too by your history and mine. God’s ways and His thoughts and His counsels all revolve round Christ, “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. There is a whole new world opened up, founded on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that is the light that has come into these circumstances in which we are at the moment. He is the blessed assurance that we will come into it, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead. What powers were there against Christ. Scripture says the kings of the earth were there against the Lord and against His Christ; Herod, Pontius Pilate, the nations, all the power that men could muster was gathered together against God, Acts 4: 26, 27. They sealed the stone at the tomb. The whole power of the world that the enemy could energise was there to keep Christ in death, but He has been raised from among the dead, given a place of glory and honour, the blessed assurance that we have an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance. It is all centred in Him, and the power that raised Christ from among the dead is working for us, on our behalf. Paul says, “all things are yours, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death ... all are yours”, 1 Cor 3: 21, 22. Our faith is being proved. Where is it? Is it in a company? Is it determined by the numbers in the company? Is it determined by the social standing of persons? No, our faith is in a Man who has been raised. The amount of it may vary, it may be “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (see Matt 17: 20), but what is important is that it is in a Man who has been raised. We are being tested at the moment as to our links with Christ.
When other props on which we have leaned are broken and removed, we are brought to lean more heavily on Christ. Our faith is in a Man who is already in final conditions. May He become increasingly precious to us! That is what Peter is trying to develop with these suffering brethren, “To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious ... To you therefore who believe is the preciousness”, 1 Pet 2: 4–7. How precious Christ is! How real is it to me that God, through grace, has given me to have part in another order of things outside of what this world can provide? It says, “the proving of your faith, much more precious than of gold”. It will go through. What is worked out through faith will go through from these provisional circumstances into eternal conditions. The faith of the saints, the righteousnesses of the saints, that is what comes out through the proving of our faith. The Lamb’s wife is said to have made herself ready and be clothed in fine linen which is the righteousnesses of the saints, see Rev 19: 8. What the day will declare of the proving of our faith! Peter says it is much more precious than of gold though it be proved by fire, and it will be found to praise and glory and honour in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
That is what we are looking for, we do not expect wonderful things here. We are thankful for the mercy that meets us and helps us through, but what we are looking for is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the One who at the moment is hidden from the world. We are looking for the time when He will be manifested. He will not be alone then, but the saints will be manifested with Him in glory. What a time it will be! What a tribute it is to the Spirit’s work that there has been gathered up in this present time a vessel which will be eternally the counterpart of Christ. Be it in administration or be it in praise Godward, whatever it is, He will never be alone again. Once He was alone, once He tasted loneliness as no one else could ever do, but when He is manifested the assembly will be with Him. Those whose faith has been proved will be justified too in the revelation of Jesus Christ. It will be seen then that what men despised was precious to heaven. May it encourage us, dear brethren, in all that there is at the moment, that we are looking for the revelation of Jesus Christ. How worthy He is to be revealed! All shall bow in honour and tribute to Him then. “Whom, having not seen, ye love”, he says, “on whom though not now looking” with the natural eye, “but believing, ye exult with joy unspeakable”. May we be helped, dear brethren, to have more of this “joy unspeakable and filled with the glory”. Peter then says, “receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls”. It is not body salvation; it is soul salvation. The saints are suffering in their bodies, there is much weakness, but this is what is vital. May our hearts be strengthened in these ways that God is passing us through, the hand of His love lying behind them all. May our feelings be developed as we feel the present time, but may we see that our faith is nourished, and seek to nourish and stimulate faith in one another.
Paul speaks about the sufferings of the present time. He says they are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory. How real they were! He was soon to be in Rome, bound with a chain. I do not think he changed his thoughts. I do not know how much he had suffered to this point, but he had known what it was to be in a city shut up and to escape the hands of men by being let down through the wall in a basket. He had known humiliation and the plots of the Jews. He says, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory”. He did not speak about them too much. We may speak too much about the sufferings of the present time and not enough about the coming glory. Later, as I said, Paul was in this city, bound with a chain. I like to think of one and another going to visit him. You can think of them saying to him, ‘Well, Paul, that is a heavy chain you have round you’. Perhaps a hard soldier was standing by his side. Paul’s answer would refer to the coming glory. He would not allow them to speak too much about the sufferings of the present time, real as he felt them, and as we are meant to feel them. As they were visiting Paul, perhaps taking him a present, they would be thinking of his sufferings, but if they looked over his shoulder maybe Paul was writing to the Ephesians about the counsel of divine love. Perhaps when they went in he was praying, and maybe they would hear his prayer, “I bow my knees to the Father ... of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named”, Eph 3: 14, 15. There is a man who believed that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory. May our hearts accept Paul’s reckoning. It was not a light matter with him. He had weighed it all up and the balance is all on one side, the coming glory. The sufferings are not worthy to be compared. He said no more about it. He did not check the books again to see whether he had made a mistake. The matter was finished in his eyes. The coming glory shone within him. How real is it to us, dear brethren?
It may be tonight we shall be ushered into it, but it is coming anyway. The fulness of it will be the day of display, but for us who believe it will be when we see Him. John says, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2. That will not be public, it will be private, and John’s heart was longing for it. How great and blessed the change will be when we see Him, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. Do we know much about Him, dear brethren, as He is? It has been well said, ‘We may know more about Jesus as He was than Jesus as He is’. It is what He is today, what He is in heaven, the same Man as the Man of the gospels, the Man who was here in humiliation, we shall see Him then in all His personal glory. What a sight! The same Man but the surroundings will be different. It is like the mount of transfiguration. The Man who went undistinguishable from the rest of men, we may say, but on that holy mount His garments became changed. His face shone as the sun. Oh, what a sight Peter had! You can understand Peter encouraging the saints as he had a sight of the glory in the face of Jesus Christ. How precious the mount of transfiguration was to Peter! You can understand how he would bring out in his epistle the majesty that was in Christ. Majesty is not in the governments of this world. Majesty belongs to Jesus. Governments may be persecuting the saints today, but majesty in its finality is in the hands of Christ. Things are working out from Him. Paul says, “the coming glory to be revealed to us”. May we be encouraged to speak more about it than the sufferings of the present time. We are not unfeeling, but may the coming glory be more real to us. The service of God goes on by overcomers, in whose hearts the light of the coming glory is precious. They are strengthened in the Spirit’s grace to give glory and honour and praise to their blessed and glorious Lord.
In Corinthians we have the collective setting as to the present time. Paul is writing to this company where man’s will was very strong. Present circumstances at Corinth were stamped, you might say, by man. Paul has to write to them that that is not how things stand. There was mixture at Corinth as there is with us. To correct that Paul strove in that local company to present Jesus Christ, that Man alone. The great leaders at Corinth are all put out of court as Paul presents Jesus Christ and Him crucified, see 1 Cor 2: 2. So he is bringing before them, and before us, the foundation, “other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. It has been laid. It is the ground on which we would seek to gather. It is what is to give character to the local assembly. We should just test ourselves as to the ground we are on, to use a common expression. Is our ground of gathering this foundation, Jesus Christ? There are many companies, but what is the foundation that has been laid? In his second epistle to Timothy Paul speaks of the foundation of God, “the firm foundation of God stands”, 2 Tim 2: 19. That is the general position. What men may do brings in confusion but there is what stands that can be laid hold of. This is not quite the same but it has the same character. “Other foundation can no man lay”. There has been interference with what Paul has said. That is the day we are in, men have interfered with the apostle’s teaching and have introduced something else; churches that have men’s names in them, for example. How can that be a foundation or ground of gathering? Paul says, “other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. Our gathering together is to be in accord with that precious blessed Man, Jesus Christ.
Paul says, “if any one build upon this foundation”. We gather together and what is before us is this Man, Jesus Christ, no other man. At Corinth there were other men, and the saints may have patterned themselves after some of those leaders, taken on their habits and so on. Paul says the gathering is to be marked by no other man but Jesus Christ. So he says, “if any one build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones”. Can I bring a touch into the local meeting that is in accord with this Man, Jesus Christ, or am I bringing in something of myself, or of a party leader? Am I promoting some person that appeals to me, or is what I am contributing in the local assembly patterned after and in accord with the foundation which is Jesus Christ. Paul is really saying that if you give out a hymn in the meeting, or make a remark in the reading, or give a word in the ministry meeting, is it in accord with the foundation? Is what I am contributing promoting Jesus Christ? Well, to obtain these things you have to be a miner. You do not just gather them on the way to the meeting. You do not just put out your hand and pick what is on the by-ways. Gold, silver and precious stones are mined, they involve divine workmanship. Did ever man make gold? They have tried it, but this is referring to what God alone can make. There are no imitation pearls there. Gold, silver and precious stones refer to what is gained through exercise by looking at the foundation. So our contributions (and we all make some contribution in our ways, our habits, our dress, our attitude), are they in accord with the foundation? You see the brethren coming in and you see something of Christ in their histories; you can take account of the gold, the silver and the precious stones. There may be other things, but may we be encouraged to contact the gold, the silver and the precious stones in one another and seek to stimulate that. Paul says, “if any one build upon this foundation”. So let us look at our contributions to the local meeting in our manner of life, our habits, our attitude to life. Are they in accord with the foundation which is Jesus Christ? Nothing else! Jesus Christ, that Man who had endeared Himself to them, that is the foundation.
He says there are other things, but each will be made manifest, the day will declare it, because it will be revealed in fire. There are things about us that will be burned up, “but he shall be saved”. But how blessed to have part in contributing something that will go through the fire. It will be tested but it goes through. It is all the brighter, all the richer, all the more valued as it has gone through the fire. It says, “the fire shall try the work of each what it is”. That is very sobering. We are apt to become very loose as to what we may bring in and the standards that we employ. There are two points—one, we look to the foundation, which is Jesus Christ, and the other, we are looking on to the day when the fire will try the work of each. There is nothing which passes His holy gaze. Careless words, a careless manner of handling divine things, a wrong spirit, these things do not pass by His gaze, “the day shall declare it”. We do not look on it with fear, but in order that in that day we may be well-pleasing unto Him. May the day in which the work will be tried thus regulate us. Spurgeon had a dream one night, during a most successful period of his ministry, in which someone appeared to him who said that he was going to analyse his zeal. He took it and ground it all down in a mortar and at the end of the day it was analysed. Spurgeon awaited the report, thinking that it would be good. The report said, Zeal to God three per cent, the rest man. He said he prayed as never before, Lord save me from myself. He saw that previously mixture had come into his service, but now he saw that the whole point was to glorify Christ, to magnify Him. So that, “If the work of any one which he has built upon the foundation shall abide, he shall receive a reward”.
The Lord has committed certain things to us, the parable of the minas would bring that out. The Lord has committed something to us all. There is a very beautiful touch in that parable where it says, “Trade while I am coming”, Luke 19: 13. He might have said, ‘Trade while I am away’, but that would not have been the same. He says, “Trade while I am coming”. So in the trading, the contributions we are making, we are looking on to that day, to the time when, “the day shall declare it ... and the fire shall try the work of each what it is”. May our hearts be sobered and yet encouraged to fill out our part in the local gatherings of the saints. So Paul goes on, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God”. What beautiful adornment the temple had. Are those glorious precious stones and the gold that the temple was adorned with to be marred by man’s intrusion? No, dear brethren. “Do ye not know”, he says. At Corinth, with their parties and their habits and customs, they must have been arrested by that word. May it arrest us too, in each local company where we are, small, feeble it may be, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God”. It is to enhance the local gathering in our eyes and may it enhance our contributions to it, so that in every place where God has placed His name, there is what is according to His mind and for His glory, and for His glory alone. May it be so, for His Name’s sake!
GRANGEMOUTH
14th November 1992