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It is an absolute right that He has to take His own when He

pleases, when it suits Him to do it, and He knows that the case

in question is ready for Him, to take that person away. He

makes no mistakes.

I went through .a stressful time about three years ago when a

verse brought great comfort to me where the psalmist says,

“Jehovah will perfect what concerneth me”, Psalm 138: 8. I am

quite sure, dear brethren, that that will be the case; in spite of

our failings and short-comings, whatever it might be, (there are

not any on His side). God will have His way, and His end will

be reached. So the psalmist says at the end of that verse, “thy

loving-kindness, O

Jehovah, endureth for ever; forsake not the works of thine own

hands”. That is what it is; that was the work that was

accomplished in the soul of our sister. God’s work, divine

work, and it is finished. She is now with the Lord, with the

myriads that are waiting, at rest I am sure; at peace, happy,

waiting for a body of glory. May the thought of it lift us, and

especially our brother with us. Our sister is with Christ, and

she is waiting for the full thought, when the Lord will claim all

His own, as we sang in the hymn.

The hymn passed from the individual side to the thought of the

assembly. That encouraged me to link these scriptures

because I think we need lifting to Christ’s side of these

matters.

Now, what is next His heart, you might say, is His coming to

claim the assembly, and it must be very near. So in this

wonderful chapter, Ephesians 5, it is put remarkably—“Christ

also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”,

in order that certain things might be fulfilled—“in order that he

might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the

word”. How good it is just to make way for that, each of us,

“the washing of water by