THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

T. E. Druckenmiller

Matthew 28: 20 (last sentence); Mark 14: 7 (last phrase); John 12: 8 (last phrase) One is touched, beloved, to say a word as to the presence of the Lord. I believe the Lord would speak to our hearts as to the value of His presence. It is interesting to note that at the close of Matthew’s gospel, as a Man in resurrection life, the Lord Jesus says to His own as about to leave them, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”. We are still in that age; that age that the Lord spoke about here is the dispensation of divine grace. We are in that time when the Lord in His love is appealing, I believe, and we sense it at this time, to every one of our hearts that we should value His presence in a way that we have never valued it before. Our beloved brother is now with Christ, as the scripture says, “Absent from the body and present with the Lord”, 2 Corinthians 5: 8. Oh the value of His presence eternally!

How we just await the moment when the Lord will call His own to be with Him; then we shall be with Him eternally.

But as the Lord was about to depart from the scene He assured to His own the value of His presence, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”. Hence we would enquire in our hearts, How do I know His presence? How will I be assured of His presence? I believe our brother’s touch as to John 14 and keeping His word shows that the assurance and the consciousness of the Lord’s presence now in the time of His absence is known and proved by those who value His word, the word of the Christ. We are exhorted, “Let the

word of the Christ dwell in you richly”, Colossians 3: 16. We would enquire in our hearts, Does the word of the Lord Jesus Christ dwell in us richly? Have I made way for it? Has it directed my steps? Has it governed me in my ways, my household, my movements with precious persons who value the movements of Christ in the testimony? It just searches our hearts.

One has been impressed by these touches in Mark 14 and in John 12, as well as in Matthew 26: 11, which we did not read, where the Lord Jesus says, “but me ye have not always”. It tests our hearts, How will I do in His absence? What does it mean that in the end of Matthew He says, I will be with you, but then, “me ye have not always”? One just feels the impress of it, beloved, that we need to value the Lord Jesus more and we need to value one another more. We have to think of it in relation to a beloved one departed; one has been taken from us, but, the Lord is to make up the void. The Lord is near; He would prove Himself near to our beloved brother’s widow, and He would prove Himself near to his children and to those that were near to him, and to the beloved saints, and to anyone who is ready to allow the Lord way in his heart. I believe the Lord would prove Himself near to us now.

In these sections in both Mark and John there is something proceeding that brings about this expression of love for Jesus. There is the pouring out of a broken flask; having an alabaster flask she broke it. It was a woman who came into Simon the leper’s home in Mark and she had this vessel of ointment and she broke it, and it says in verse 3, “She poured it out upon his head”, (Mark 14: 3). And then in John 12, verse 3, “Mary therefore, having taken a pound of ointment of pure nard of great price, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour

of the ointment”. This act of love brought out feelings of resentment, and so it has been through the years in the sorrows of the testimony; persons moving on in faithful love for Christ have brought out these feelings of resentment. Oh that the Lord would work in all our hearts that we may value His presence amongst His people and be concerned to provide what would be for the pleasure of Christ, to value His headship and to value His pathway in faithful love to His God and Father. Let us value those thoughts, beloved. The headship of Jesus is valued in Mark; she poured it upon His head. The footsteps, the faithfulness of the walk, of Jesus are in mind in John, where it says she “anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment”.

I believe that at the present time the preciousness of the presence of Jesus is known in simplicity and in love among lovers of Jesus. Let us commit our hearts, beloved, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to value His word, as our brother has said, and to prove the Father coming and the Lord coming; “We will come to him and make our abode with him”, John 14: 23. That promise is to you personally and is to us as together. May we value it increasingly; may we make way for it in our gatherings as submitting ourselves to the headship of Christ and valuing His movements in His pathway here, the way He went in love to Calvary’s cross of shame and woe where He provided a way for our salvation. Oh, the love of Jesus! what it is, as the hymn says, none but His loved ones know. May we be among His loved ones; let us commit ourselves to Jesus, prove the value of His presence, and be contributive to it collectively. As our brother was just saying, let us not be hindered from being at our gatherings. There is what you can enjoy yourself in the presence of Jesus, but then there is what you can

enjoy as being a contributor to His presence known among His people as convened. May we be contributors to it. I believe we shall as we value the words of Jesus. Our beloved brother valued the words of Jesus. We would value the word of the Lord Jesus Christ and commit ourselves, I believe, afresh in view of going forward in the testimony until the completion of the age, when the Lord will come, and to the word in Revelation that we have had as to the endurance of the saints. May we be encouraged to endure to the end and prove the salvation of the Lord, and may we be contributors to His presence as known among His people, for His name’s sake.

Words at the burial of Mr. A. Macdonald, Brooklyn, N.Y.
12 March 1984