THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PRESENT TIME
Kenneth Robinson
Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 2; John 7: 37-39; 2 Corinthians 6: 1, 2; Mark 14: 8
I want to say a word on the advantages of the present time. We live in a glorious day and I would like to interest every one of us in that.
Where I read in Ecclesiastes is about a time to be born and a time to die. Between these two dates is the life of a person. Every one of here including the young boys and girls will know when their birthday is. That is the time you were born, the date, the month and the year. What you do not know is the time of your death. What I want you to think about for a moment is that you are now in the time of your life and I want to say, you are living your life in a wonderful day. You are living your life in the time of a glorified Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit of God. Do you realise that? Remember, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”, 2 Cor. 6: 2. There are four lines that say:
Time was – is past: then canst not it recall,
Time is – thou hast: employ the portion small,
Time future is not and may never be,
Time present is the only time for thee.
You say, I hear a lot said about a day of breakdown, a day of small things, a day of this and that – that is absolutely true, but never let us forget that we live in a glorious time. For the believer it is a wonderful privilege to live their life in the light of a glorified Christ and the present service of the Holy Spirit of God. We live in the Spirit’s day, a wonderful time to have your life. Mr. Coates said it would be better to live one year in the current time than a hundred years in the time of Methuselah. Maybe you are wondering about your life, which way is it going to go? I would appeal to you, “now is the well-accepted time”, because you live in the light of a glorified Christ in heaven. The sun is shining upon you. You say, but you do not know about my problems, you do not know about my concerns, my worries. Well – for the moment I want to occupy you with the glory of the Lord Jesus Himself stood and cried in the last, the great day of the feast – that we are in such a day.
We finished the reading with a touch in Philippians 2 of the humiliation of Jesus. He was One who, “subsisting in the form of God … emptied himself, … and having been found in figure as man, humbled himself”. Do you understand the incarnation? “Sonship in conscious nature” was seen in Jesus and had never been seen before. The types in scripture all look on to it, but then the moment itself arrived when God in Christ came into manhood in the manger and there was the babe, “wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger”, Luke 2: 12. The incarnation is not the time that I am speaking of exactly: that is a distinctive time in itself and is a holy subject to consider. It is helpful to realise that the whole dispensation of time involving the revelation of God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the time in which your life has been set. All God’s thoughts and all God’s purposes secured in Jesus are now being brought into demonstration. He is the anti-type and nothing compares, because Jesus is unique and incomparable as He comes into manhood, and displays in it grace of a lowly manhood, teaching and doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for God was with Him (see Acts 10: 38). Think of Him going about doing all these good things and His wonderful teaching, and yet He had to go on to the cross. He “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, Phil. 2: 8. Man humiliated Him and in the third hour to the sixth hour on the cross His moral glory shone as He endured at the hands of men the scoffing, the spitting and the denial. Yet there were deeper matters later when from the sixth hour to the ninth hour there was darkness over the whole land, and God forsook His Son, when Jesus made sin (see Matt. 27: 45,46). “From the sixth hour … until the ninth hour”, the absolute forsaking of Jesus:
Did Thy God e’en then forsake Thee,
Hide His face from Thy deep need! (Hymn 302)
I am going to speak in a moment of a glorified Christ, but initially let us contemplate the One who is glorified now, who was publicly humiliated here. The One who is glorified now is the One who was made sin. The work is now complete. The penalty of sin was death, but on Jesus there was no penalty of sin because He was holy and sinless. Vicariously He went into death and the soldier then took that spear and pierced His side, “there came out blood and water” (John 19: 34). The first order of man is now gone in judgment, and then the whole dawn of a new time begins. The glory of resurrection follows in that after three days and three nights, He is raised from amongst the dead. God raised His Son from amongst the dead in virtue of a work of accomplished righteousness. As the old hymn says:
Up from the grave He arose
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes
We touched on it recently in a meeting locally that there was a time on that resurrection morning when the Father had Christ for Himself in resurrection. The Father displayed His glory when His Son came out of death, knowing and looking on to the fact that every attribute and every thought of His had been righteously accomplished. Following His resurrection, forty days afterwards, He is taken up into glory. Now He is glorified and we live in the time of His glorification.
In John 7 it says, “In the last, the great day of the feast” (v 37). As I would understand it, He is looking on and introducing what is eternal. The seven days and the feast were celebrated according to Leviticus 23, on the tenth day (v 27) and the fourteenth day (v 5). But then there comes a further day, that is referred to here as the great day of the feast. “Jesus stood and cried” and He is heralding forth the glorious matters regarding His own glorification and the coming of the Holy Spirit, “this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (v 39). In our time the gospel preachers of Christianity following the descent of the Holy Spirit have borne witness to the fact that God has glorified His servant Jesus. He is the Saviour who died on Calvary but now do you realise that He is glorified in heaven? That is the time you live in. What a wonderful privilege it is to live in the present time, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”. Now is the time of your salvation, now is your time to focus your life through faith on Jesus glorified in heaven.
Received in glory bright up there,
The Father’s greetings, honours rare,
Are heaped upon His Son’s blest brow
He is the mighty Victor now. (Hymn 350)
I thank God that I know a glorified Christ. The only Christ we know is a glorified Christ. It is a wonderful to have the light of a Man in heaven, shining upon you, radiant upon you, always available for you. The One who is your Saviour is now your High Priest above, your Shepherd, your Friend, the One you can link on with, the One you can and will have a link with eternally. It is a great privilege for the believer to have a link personally with the Father and with the Son in glory and with the Holy Spirit of God. That is the day you live in. Maximise the opportunity that you have, your life is today; “To-day if ye will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3: 15). “Now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”. How wonderful these things are!
I want to refer to four people in scripture who are examples of those who proved the present opportunity and took advantage of it. For them “now … the well accepted time”. The first person I want to speak about is Ruth. I trust we have all read the book of Ruth, four chapters, a very interesting story, much in it, some interesting people and names in it, starting off very sadly, but finishing in great triumph and glory, looking on to David. The history in the book of Ruth is very wonderful. Ruth was a Moabitess who found that her links according to nature had gone. She had lost her husband as had her sister and her mother-in-law. Then they hear that Jehovah is visiting His people to give them bread, and they come back, the recovery begins to happen. But in chapter 2 Ruth has come in touch with Boaz and Boaz’s administration. She goes out into the field and she is gleaning and gathering. She illustrates a young believer going in for the things of God and who takes full advantage of the time that is available to her. It says, “her sitting in the house has been little as yet” (v 7). I trust all the young believers here are diligent in the things of God. I would encourage and exhort you to become more diligent in the things of God. We all need to start early and young and Ruth takes advantage of the opportunity. She realised she was never going to have it again. We are in the environment of great blessing, living in the day of a glorified Christ and the Holy Spirit here, and you will find in reading and meditating on the scriptures and through prayer and exercise that substance is gathered in the things of God. You say, My life is busy. I know it is, all our lives are busy, but do not lose the advantage of the current time. The time of your life is now. Therefore it is the time available to you to go in for the things of God. She came at the time of the barley harvest and she went through to the time of the wheat harvest. This was an important period in her early contacts with Boaz. Now is our opportunity to gather substance and to gain experience in the things of God. I exhort you to read, to pray, to converse, to talk about the things of God, to endure and to enjoy the blessedness of having a link with a glorified Christ in heaven and the Holy Spirit down here. We live in the Spirit’s day; we live in a wonderful day. That is the impression all should take away – we live in a wonderful day, let us take advantage of it because now is the well-accepted time for us.
Now as life goes on, another verse says:
When as a child I laughed and wept,
Time crept;
When as a youth, I dreamt and talked,
Time walked;
When I became a full grown man,
Time ran;
When older still I daily grew,
Time flew;
Soon shall I find in travelling on,
Time gone;
And face eternity begun,
Time done.
Think of that. We are all saying it, ‘time flies’. You get to the end of your life and time has gone, the opportunities are gone, so take advantage of the present opportunity that you have as you live in a wonderful day. The time of the glorified Christ and the Holy Spirit down here.
The second person I want to talk about is Lydia. She is another example of one who took advantage of the time available to her. In this case we are talking about the testimony, and in particular the light of Paul’s ministry relating to a glorified Christ, the Head in heaven and the working out of the truth of the assembly. We need to realise that there is something down here that is being wrought out that has never been wrought out before. Great as the history of the children of Israel was – and how full was God’s care of them, and blessing for them – the truth of the mystery is that Christ is securing an assembly, a heavenly vessel, formed by the service of the Holy Spirit. This is taking place in the affections, lives and souls of people like you and me. What a great privilege it is to have the light of the mystery. It says of Lydia, “whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16: 14), I think that was a present experience for her. I would desire that everyone here has their heart opened to Paul’s ministry. I would desire that in every one of our hearts that we have some appreciation that we live in a wonderful day and we have the light of a wonderful ministry. These are souls whose heart and soul are together in the things of Christ and are eternally linked with the Man above. Take advantage of this opportunity as Lydia did. Paul’s ministry is for today, the light and practice of Paul’s ministry is for today, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”. Every feature of Paul’s ministry has been given for our day, and our desire ought to be to be consistent it and enjoy the benefits from it. One of the aspects of Paul’s ministry is the placing of the truth of the Lord’s Supper in the assembly. What an opportunity that is! I trust everyone here remembers the Lord in the breaking of bread. I trust every young believer here, if we are left here, will partake of the loaf and of the cup of the Lord’s Supper tomorrow. You manifest the desire to remember the Lord who died for you and shed His precious blood. The One of whom another old hymn says:
I gave my life for thee
What hast thou done for me?
He could say, “this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22: 19). Where will you find the opportunity to remember the Lord? It is among the saints in the light of the Paul’s ministry. The opportunity is now. I was seventeen when I asked to break bread but I should have done it a lot earlier. I remember being affected in a preaching but I did not respond to it, when the preacher said, As you stand before the Lord in the day to come, and He says to you ‘Why have you not remembered me?’ The opportunity is now. May every young person think of that, it is a very great responsibility, but a wondrous privilege to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread.
The next person I want to speak about is Paul. Paul in Acts 26 gives a demonstration of a living testimony with the light of a glorified Christ shining on him. The setting in Acts 26 is that the assembled company gathers and the prisoner is brought in bound with a chain, “And Agrippa said to Paul, It is permitted thee to speak” (v 1). What would he say? It does us all good to re-read it again and again. Paul’s testimony was to a glorified Christ that spoke to him on the Damascus way. This chapter is the highest point as we know of his description of it, previously having described it in chapters 9 and 22. The sun was shining upon Paul as he was there bound with a chain giving testimony to Christianity. We are all tested on the brightness and vitality of our Christian testimony, but the opportunity for Christian testimony is now. I can stand here today and say we live in a glorious day, we live in the light of a glorified Christ. Inwardly that is what I want to say when tested, I want to give expression to my love for my Lord and my Saviour, and that He is my life. However we find excuses and express some weak statement. But you think of the joy to the Lord Jesus when a younger or older believer says, I love the Lord Jesus and this is why I do not do this or that. Think of your name being confessed before the Father and before His angels. How wonderful and touching these things are!
The last person I wanted to refer to is Epaphras. Epaphras brings up the question of how I am now as a local brother. We speak to the brothers and the sisters because it would apply equally. Having taken up a position out of affection for Christ and having followed through certain moral principles in separation, we come together as a local company. Your opportunity to be a good local brother or sister is now. It will not be in heaven. What is the testimony of Epaphras? He prayed for his local brethren that they would stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (see Col 4: 12). The opportunity for that is now. You will say, I will do that when I am older, I will do that when I am such and such an age. I do not know what age Epaphras was, but the testimony came through to Paul that Epaphras was a local brother who combated “earnestly for you in prayers, to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God”. What a fine example for us. We need to pray for one another more, pray for our local meetings, pray for the households of the saints, pray and keep praying. As another has said, if I had to live over again I would study less and pray more. Beloved brethren let us pray more, the opportunity to pray is now.
I leave these thoughts: in every one of these cases, I think the Lord would say, “What she could she has done”, Mark 14: 8. What Ruth could she did, what Lydia could she did, what Paul could he did, what Epaphras could he did. May we just heed the appeal. The time of our present committals, our present salvation, is now. May these things just encourage us, For His Name’s sake.
LONDON
November 2002