TIME

^[p. 380] TIME

Acts 1: 6 - 8; Revelation 1: 9 - 13; John 20: 19 - 23

I have in mind to speak about time. In the first scripture the Lord dissipates in the minds of His disciples all thought of fulfilment of prophetic events indicated in Old Testament scriptures save in so far as these prophecies entered into the period in which we are, saying to them that it was not for them to know the times and seasons which the Father had kept in His own power. As regards time, they were, therefore, left without any definiteness as to it. In truth, it would be in the hands of the rulers of the world under God. They, as for instance the Romans, would name the days and arrange all that pertained to government, days and weeks and months and years. They would arrange them according to their own outlook, and they are doing that, and have been doing it. The disciples were left without any definiteness as to times or seasons. Instead, however, they had a great substitute; that is, the Holy Spirit; and they could well afford to put themselves and all questions of time and history in His hands. They were to traverse countries over which the rulers of this world had dominion, not to make maps of them for military purposes, or for farming purposes; still they were to go to the countries as others would go according to their names, as the Lord specifies: “Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1: 8), a very wide field. There was no thought of their marking off the earth for any purposes. They were to take it as it was. It belonged to the Lord Jesus by right of purchase and by right of creation. But all that was left; no information was given in answer to their enquiry as to the earth or as to the ^[p. 381] times or seasons. They were shut up to the Holy Spirit who was about to come, and to themselves. What corresponded with this earlier was that after the great display of glory on the mount, the Spirit tells us that “they saw ... Jesus alone with themselves”. That is how the matter stood. So that whilst momentous things were happening, very like things prophesied of old, the Lord gave them no clue as to when and where. They were to be preoccupied with positive things, namely the things that the Holy Spirit would bring down from heaven. The Lord Jesus had brought them down, too. The Holy Spirit would give understanding of them and they would become His witnesses. They could not be really without the Holy Spirit. They could tell many things to reporters at a press conference, Peter or any of them, about the doings of Jesus. There never had been such doings on the earth before, but we do not ever hear of anything like a press conference attended by or afforded to any apostle of Christ. They never at all gratified human enquiry or curiosity. They were shut up to the Spirit and their business was to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth. How many questions they could have asked; for hours and days they could have kept on asking about things, and He could give them an answer too, but He did not. He just gave them those few facts and instructions and went up to heaven. What are they going to do? Just a handful of Galileans in the midst of Jerusalem; their Master went up to heaven after saying that to them. So that they do not need any maps, no means of physical research, nor is there any question about money, nor about preparatory education for them to be representatives of their Master. Nor is there any thought of how long they are to be here. The Lord went up and they saw Him and they kept looking after Him, and two men in white stood by them and said,

Enough of that! “Why do ye stand looking into heaven?” What were they seeking? The cloud received Jesus out of their sight. What else could they see? The cloud did not yield much. It concealed Jesus from them.

Well, you can see, dear brethren, what the position is. Some man in Jerusalem might see the apostles (I suppose they were all there on the mount of Olives looking up into heaven). Suppose he were a merchant, the Jews are the best, you know, he would enquire as to what they needed, what he could buy or sell, and a number of things could be proposed to them. Seemingly they were just alone, eleven of them; the Lord had just gone up. Well, Peter, we may say, or, Bartholomew or James or John, how long are you going to stand looking at one another? Not very long. Jacob said to his sons, How long will you look at one another? What will they get from looking at one another? Well, they went back to Jerusalem and went to the upper room. We are told who were there. The eleven were there and the mother of Jesus was there, and His brethren were there. They soon found the way; that was the inauguration of the way, as it is called in this book. People spoke of the way, but they did not flounder about; they went to the upper room; they did not notify any of the religious authorities that they were there awaiting orders from the high priest or from some other officer. They took counsel among themselves. They found a leader. Peter stood up, and the first thing was this matter of Judas. This matter must be settled, this matter of another apostle. It had to be settled. You see, I am saying these homely things to show you the way. The Lord was gone. They could not ask Him any more, but they had the holy page of Scripture and they had been taught how to pray. They had no prayer book, I am certain. They had been taught how to pray. If there is anyone ^[p. 383] here calling himself or herself a christian and he does not know how to pray, he had better learn. They had learned and they employed prayer and they employed the Scriptures, they employed the lot, and they found the apostle that was needed. They set up the position that God intended to be set up, that would be victorious as witnessing to Jesus, whether it were for a year or a century or twenty centuries. They had found the way. There is no question of years or maps or boundaries. They had already been there.

Well, that was how matters stood. God had left them in that way, and the matter of an apostle to take the place of Judas was settled. It never came up again. Never did any of these decisions come up again. They are all settled, and they could go on to something else. So they are found together. They are all together in one place, and they heard a sound from heaven: ‘Hark’. That is the idea: ‘Hark to the sound’. Jesus went up and the sound comes back. Can I not hear them? Can I not see them; their gestures; visualise them, ‘Hark to the sound’, and it filled the house where they were sitting, nowhere else. They are the objects of heaven. There is no such sound in the temple or in the sanhedrim. It is nowhere else. It is with these people. Well, I want to belong to these people, you say. If I were in Jerusalem I would make no delay; I would take the hand of Peter and the hand of John like the man in the temple who was healed. These are the people.

Well now, you say, What about them? Well, the Lord dissipated in their minds all thought of the times. There is plenty to do; never mind the times and the seasons. There are times and there are seasons, but you have plenty to do without going into that. Do not buy any books about times or about seasons. You have more than your hands can hold, so that, dear brethren, the point I am making ^[p. 384] is that there is plenty to occupy our hearts in the most positive way, as we have hearts to be occupied; or are they occupied with the war and the possibilities of it and the potentialities of it and business, and a thousand things, or are they occupied by the Spirit of God? Think of that sound filling the house. It was a mighty breathing, from the very innermost of God. Speaking reverently, and it filled the house where they were, nowhere else. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit; there was no room for anything else. That is the principle; filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak. Never had there been such speaking in Jerusalem before as that speaking. What were they speaking about? The great things of God. You cannot bound the great things of God with time. They are brought into an unbounded scene in the Spirit. As a matter of fact, there is no time limit at all to the feast of Pentecost. All the other feasts are bound by time, but not that. That is what they had just come into, and it is a feast. They have joy; they have the means of joy; joy in the Holy Spirit, so that time can be left alone. Well, you say, what about Daniel? But the Lord did not say a word about Daniel. He could have given them a long discourse about the book of Daniel and about the seventy weeks. No, not a word. It is not for us to know; not simply not for us to hear about, but it is not for us to know. We are put under restrictions. Very few of us accept restrictions; take up any book at all, a novel or a newspaper and drink into the dregs, no restrictions, but the Lord is putting them under restrictions in regard of times and seasons. It is not for us to know, He says. Well, you say. What did the apostle Paul mean in the book of Thessalonians when he says, I do not need to write to you about times and seasons, which you know perfectly well? But what did they know? That “when they may say, Peace and safety, then sudden ^[p. 385] destruction comes upon them ... and they shall in no wise escape”. How did they know? The apostle says, You know yourselves perfectly well. But he did not tell them very much; they knew enough. No doubt he told them when he was with them. He did; he told them about the man of sin. He says, “When they may say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them, ... and they shall in no wise escape”, 1 Thessalonians 5: 3. There is not much to think now if that is the outlook, and it is. Let no one think of a Utopia after this terrible struggle. They will make a peace, and I hope they will too, just long enough for the testimony of God to finish, for that is all it will be. They will make a peace and think they are secure, but sudden destruction, a most solemn thing, shall come upon them and they shall in no wise escape. The League of Nations, whatever covenants or understandings they make, will be broken up in an instant and they shall not escape. We are not told who the ‘they’ are, I do not want to be one of them. Anyone who is going along with this world may be one of them. Well, that is all about 1 Thessalonians. The Lord has, therefore, shut us up, beloved brethren. Shut us up? you say, Yes, shut us up. He has restricted us in regard of these things I have been speaking of, but He is shutting us up in infinitude. There is no restriction in that connection at all; there is scope far beyond any measurement man can devise. There is a divine scope in the divine realm, and we are to know it. As the apostle Paul says, the breadth and length and depth and height, but what else? The love of Christ which passes knowledge and the fulness of God, which is illimitable, so that there is no restriction on those lines, and the way is into that, I hope I am speaking so that people will understand. There is a certain moral in what I am saying. There is restriction on this side, but infinitude on the other. The apostle says, “They shall in no wise escape”. Who are they? Well, do not you belong to them, let me urge you. There are millions of them. “They shall in no wise escape”. Sudden destruction. That is how the Lord leaves them, and it was in perfect wisdom, perfect calculation. He just went up; He just said a few words to them and went up.

Well now, I am afraid I have said too much on this scripture, but I want to go on to Revelation to show you how time is named there. It is called the Lord’s day; the bit of time of John’s consciousness as he spoke. It was not the year of the Lord nor the day of the Lord, either; it was the Lord’s day. That was the bit of time he was living in in Patmos when he heard that great voice. He was restricted as to time. Well, the Lord would say, John, you know there are seven days in the week and thirty days in the calendar month, and so many days in the year. Now, I have just taken this one day out of this week; that is My day. That limits us, you say; that is time. If you are going to reckon time, think of this: the Lord’s day. Well, you say, there is not much time for taking walks and the like, or playing games; we are very limited as to time. Well, the Lord says, I have taken that day out; that is My day, I made time. He could say to John; I made time and I was the first to use it. Now I am just satisfied to take one day out of the seven; fifty-two days out of the year. Are you satisfied, John? Can you get along with that time? John says, I was in the Spirit that day. I had a wonderfully good time. Not any one in Rome or in Jerusalem or in Athens had such a time as I had, and as I am having. I was in the Spirit, he said, I was using the day. Now there is a good deal of overtime, I have been speaking of this lately, and you say the government requires that I should work overtime. Are you sure that is the motive? Are you sure you have to? You get twice as much,

^[p. 387] you might say. Well, that is the Lord’s day, and the Lord is telling you that is a very precious day. It is My day, and John, the one that I love so well, was in the Spirit on that day. He was not working overtime. You say, He was in prison. He was in the Spirit and he was not in prison when he was in the Spirit. He had access to infinitude on that day. But it is the day of authority. If you want overtime, twice as much as you get on ordinary days, you have to consult the Lord. You are trespassing on My day, He would say. It is not a bit of a field or a farm, it is time I am dealing with, and you are to redeem the time. You are not doing it at all, if you are making money out of that precious day. The Lord says, It is the Lord’s day; it is the only time you get this expression in the Scripture. You get the day of the Lord; that is another matter. This is a sort of dominical day; it is a day in which the Lord says, I want all things My way on this day, I want you to do your work on Monday or Tuesday, but I demand a right to you, if you are professing Me, on this day. He told Paul to speak about the Lord’s supper, and those two things go together. Those two things fit, and you are casting both to the winds. You want to make money. Well, that will not do for the Lord. John says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet”. I do not know that I have ever stopped to think of what that voice would be, what volume there would be until now, today. The word is, “a great voice as of a trumpet”. It is the voice of Jesus. He had cried when He was here, but think of the volume of that voice! Think of the power of sound that came at Pentecost into that room at Jerusalem and filled it. Now it is in Patmos and it is behind John, and it is “a great voice as of a trumpet”. The Lord is saying, There is something wrong. It is not a voice of love. It is not a question here of the activity of love, or dove’s eyes and the like, the singing of birds. It is a great voice as of a trumpet. It is a great military idea. He does not tell us yet, he tells us later what happened as to him. I am speaking now of the great voice. Something is wrong and the Lord wants John to write about that thing. This is on the Lord’s day, remember. Were you at the meeting last Lord’s day? Did you break bread last Lord’s day? Did you miss the voice on that day? You cannot afford to miss any voice spoken by the Lord, especially on His day, because He is speaking with authority. It is the Lord’s day, I will say a word presently about the first day of the week. I am speaking now about time, how He takes one day for His purposes; He visits Patmos on that day, and He finds His servant in the Spirit on it, and He uttered a great voice as of a trumpet. Well, that is remarkable. What effect did it have on John? The effect of it was — the voice was the Person; and that is the truth, if the Lord speaks so loud to me, it is a question of the Lord, and so John turns around to see the voice. Did you ever see a voice? But it is a Person, and all that that Person is enters into that voice on that day, and He is saying there is something wrong, and we do not want to be doing wrong on the Lord’s day. We want to be right as we have to do with Him. As Paul says, Are we stronger than He; do we provoke Him to jealousy?

John turns to see the voice, and he tells us what he did see. “And I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned, I saw seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the seven lamps one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle: his head and hair white like white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire”, Revelation 1: 12 - 14. That is what he saw. Well, dear brethren, this is a very solemn matter; this voice and then what is ^[p. 389] accompanying the Person; the habiliments that He is wearing. They are judicial, and I would gather from that that the Lord’s day is a judicial day. The first day of the week is not a judicial day; it is a day of love. It is a day on which the Lord Jesus came in, not as the Son of man. The scripture in John 20 tells us about that incident. That is not judicial; that is love. It is His hands and His side; that is love. I will come back to that in a moment. I want to speak of this judicial day and how, first of all, it began in the Lord’s being seen in the midst of the golden candlesticks. There is no throne yet. The throne is in chapter 4. It is not so severe as the throne, but the Judge is there. There is no courtroom yet, but the Judge of all the earth is there. The Judge of all mankind is here, the Judge of the assembly, the Judge of the professors of Christianity, and that is what He is dealing with; and so John sees that and He tells John to write, and to write in a book, too, not on scraps of paper, or a notebook, but a book. That is a whole idea; something to be kept for all time, and it is to be kept in the possession of the assembly. They have had the status of an assembly; they are not yet rebuked, but the Lord is saying, Things are not right and I want what I am going to say to be written in a book and sent to those assemblies. They are to have it in writing. They can refer to it in every care meeting. Every elder in every meeting can look into the book at any time. If he has to deal with lawlessness in a meeting, he can look into that book and he will find a description of Me, the kind of garments I wore, the kind of eyes I had, as a flame of fire, and if you have to deal with persons tell them about Me. I have authority to restrict. I gave them plenty of scope in the spiritual realm, but I will restrict them as regards this world. I have restrictive powers. I have just taken one day and I want you to be on that day for ^[p. 390] Me. That is what He would say. Write to Ephesus, write to Smyrna, write to Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea the whole book, what you have seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to be after these.

Well now, as I said, dear brethren, there is not a throne yet. He is in the midst of the golden lamps. The assembly is the Lord’s seat or place of authority yet, and that is not the throne. He is walking in the midst, visiting the assemblies in His grace yet. The addresses will tell us what these are. Of course, I cannot go into it now. I am seeking to show how the Lord takes account of time. He is saying, You asked Me before about times and seasons; I am telling you now about time, I am speaking on the day that is the Lord’s day. It is that day. It is not three hundred and sixty-five days; it is one day, and it is My day, and it represents My authority. Those that profess My Name have to do with Me on this day, and this day is to be a test to them.

Well now, when we come to chapter 4 we have a throne. That is the outlook now for the world. He is finished with the assembly. He is not finished with it yet; this meeting here tonight belongs to the assembly. In chapter 4 we have the throne, and Him that sat on it; and in chapter 5 we have a Person in the midst of the throne as a Lamb slain, a precious thought, a touching thought! He is in the midst of the throne and then we have the book opened. That is, now you can take your maps out; now you can take your bearings; I am speaking about the earth. The Lord says, I am going to have to do with the earth, and when I come to do with the earth I will take the sea first. You say it is very different from what He said in the Acts to them. We are now coming down to the earth, I will take the sea first, the Lord says. The nation that has the power of the sea has the power of victory in the wars.

^[p. 391] The Lord knows that. He takes the sea first, but He says, I am going to take Asia and Africa and Europe and America and Australia with all the waters of the sea and the rivers and the lakes. They are all going to be Mine. I am going to take them; I have the power to take them, I am armed with power to take them. Why not? He bought the world; He made it and He bought it as well. And then, He says, I am going to take the people I want, I am not going to take them all. The lake of fire is at the end and there are a lot going there; an awful thing. But then how precious it is! The Lord says, I am going to have the people I want to have, I will have one hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel, I am going to have an uncountable number as far as man is concerned out of the nations. He is on the throne, or in the midst of it. He says, I have a lot of horses and men on them that I am going to send out among the nations to deal with them, so that way should be made for My assumption of My rights here below. And then you will have had times and seasons for seventy weeks. That is all I am going to say about that.

I just want to say a few words about the first day of the week. What I have said ought to help as to what hinders us, young people especially, on the first day of the week; people that do not mind whether they break bread or not. The Lord’s day means little to them. In fact, young people would rather it was not there at all because they are so restricted. They cannot do as they please. But the first day of the week is the love day; a time for love. The Lord said, Do not say anything about times or seasons, but in John He says, It is a time for love. That is a beautiful thought, a time for love. The leaders of the present time, most of them, would say it is a time for war, and we want to make war and instruments of war. The Lord says it is a time for love. That is a ^[p. 392] beautiful thought. The wise man says there is a time for certain things and among them he says there is a time for love, a time for embracing and a time to refrain from embracing, a great balance. It is a time for love. I want you to think of that, dear young people. That is, the love of Christ; that is the love that is spoken of. What kind of love is that? It passes knowledge. Nobody can describe it; it passes knowledge. But there is a time for it, and the Lord says, I know the time. It is the first day of the week, that is the time. That is the day I have taken out. It is the same as the other. The other is My authority; this is My love. I want to assert My authority so that you may enjoy My love. Unless I accept the restriction of Christ’s authority, I shall never come into the favour or to share the greatness of His love. It is in subjection I get into the love of Christ. “To know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3: 19), and again, “For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this”: so that we are called upon to judge about things, “That one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”, 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15. These are the terms, and so we are told in this passage I have read in John 20, a well-known passage to most of us. He had been talking to Mary; He had got up very early Himself that morning; the Father raised Him by His glory, and then a good deal happened after that, among the things happening was that Mary Magdalene was brought around from a measure of darkness to call Jesus, Rabboni — my Teacher. Jesus is the Teacher. She says to Him, Rabboni! which is, my Teacher. She has the right Teacher, and the Lord says, You can take a message to My brethren. Who can take a message to the brethren save one who is taught by the Lord Jesus? It is no mere ^[p. 393] thing written down; she had seen the Lord and He had said these things to her. I do not think she took notes. She kept the things in her heart. The Lord’s mother herself had been accustomed to that, but this is Mary Magdalene. Mary, the Lord’s mother, kept the things in her mind and pondered them in her heart. They are much better than notes. I am not discrediting notes. Thank God for the sisters who take them, and we pray they may take them better. They are valuable. But she did not seem to have any notes. She came to the brethren and said, I have seen the Lord and He said these things to me. That is all. That is how the passage reads: “Mary of Magdala comes bringing word to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her” (verse 18). They are not repeated; that is all. And then, “When therefore it was evening on that day”. The Lord is now dealing with time. He is dealing with this same day, the Lord’s day in Revelation, the first day of the week in John. He uses the time of this day first to establish His authority over our souls, and then to tell us what He is going to do with the world when we are in heaven. That is Revelation. He told the disciples before, according to Mark, how that as regards these things that should happen, the Father alone knows the time, I have no doubt the Revelation modifies that, because it is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place”. It is an enlargement of things that have happened and are yet to happen that we are to be instructed in. The Lord got a revelation from God and He made it known to John by His angel, and it was on the Lord’s day He made it known. That is how He used that day, but on the first day of the week it was a love day, and He comes, as it says, “When therefore it was evening on that day, which was the first day of the week, and the doors shut where the ^[p. 394] disciples were, through fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and says to them, Peace be to you. And having said this, he shewed to them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced therefore, having seen the Lord. Jesus said therefore again to them, Peace be to you: as the Father sent me forth, I also send you. And having said this, he breathed into them, and says to them, Receive the Holy Spirit: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained”. Now, dear brethren, this is a different story from what we have had in Acts 1. The Lord here does not tell them about the coming Spirit; He breathes the Spirit into them, and He says to them, “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”. And then, too, If you remit sins I will remit, and if you retain sins, they shall be retained. So that you see, on this love day, dear brethren, the Lord is setting the brethren up. He is going, although He does not speak about going here, but He is opening up love to them. This, He would say, is the time of love, and I have come to assure you that I have plenty. It is My day and if you want to know what I do out of My love, there are My hands and My side. Think of what you see! Then He says, I am going to commission you, I am going to set you up in My Spirit. I want you to understand you have an inlet into heaven. It is not only the Spirit now, but My Father is your Father, My God is your God, and you are My brethren. I am setting you up here. You have access up there. You have full liberty. It is the first day of the week, the beginning of eternity. The Lord would say, I am setting you up in the full light of divine counsel, and that My Father is yours and My God is yours. Can you ask any more? They would say, No. Do you need any more? No. We have the Holy Spirit; we have Your full confidence. That is the point. The Lord is now, instead of stressing restriction, instead ^[p. 395] of stressing His authority, He is stressing His love and what His love will do, what divine counsel has thought out, what the disciples were brought into; how they were set up here, if they are to be for the Lord, full of love; as it were, enveloped in love — the Father’s love and the love of the Son and the love of one another, and He says, I have full confidence in you. I do not know of anything so comforting as when one realises, as having responsibility about certain things, that one can confide in the Lord. It is one of the most comforting things. But if you discover in moving with the brethren and seeking to serve the brethren, disloyalty to the truth, disloyalty to Christ, to His authority, and disloyalty to all that belongs to christianity or anything that belongs to christianity, what pain of heart it brings! The Lord is telling the brethren here that He has full confidence in them. Lord, I would say, Can I betray that confidence? Can I be so mean, as I might call it, after all the gifts of love and the feasts of love, the liberties afforded to us, the relationship into which we are brought, can we afford to betray or deny the rights of Christ? We cannot. Love would say we cannot. And that is what the Lord would put upon us. He says, I am counting on your reliability. I am counting on your trustworthiness, I am counting on it. Will you betray it? That is what is in these statements. Can I afford to betray such a love? On the contrary, as John says, as He laid down His life to teach us love, so ought we to lay down our lives for the brethren.