"REDEMPTION OF THE ACQUIRED POSSESSION"
M.J.Welch
I am thinking, beloved, of how the Spirit may be preparing us for the Lord's coming. What our brother has said is right, we need to keep near to the Spirit in His activities in preparing us for the Lord's return and the imminence of it. One thinks of the beloved men and women in the beginning of the gospel of Luke that were prepared (no doubt by the blessed Spirit) so that there would not be surprise. Think of Simeon as he comes into the temple; there is no surprise as he takes the Babe into his arms and blesses God and utters that prophetic announcement. I think we need to keep near to the Spirit so that we are prepared. If He is giving us a sense of urgency at this moment as to the imminence of the Lord's coming and the imminence of the redemption of the acquired possession, we should be sensitive. What sort of ministry meeting will we have just before the Lord comes? What sort of morning meeting and readings will we have just before the Lord comes? Will we believe the content of them, will we believe that it will be the last time or will we think, Well, we have had this before and therefore we do not need to be on the alert? I think the Spirit of God would stir us; and the confirmation of this would be that more than one of us, in fact all of us, are conscious of the urgency of the movements of the Spirit. There should be the witness of the Spirit with the saints generally and the alerting of the saints and the preparing them for the imminent coming of the Lord Jesus and the imminence of the redemption, as it says here, "of the acquired possession". How touching that is! The possession has been acquired, we have been redeemed by precious blood; but, beloved, our bodies are about to be redeemed, we are about to be changed and we shall have bodies of glory like His own body of glory. So we need to be alert, (I do not presume to tell the brethren anything) but we need to be alert as to the urgency of the Spirit, as to how He would move us in respect of the coming of the Lord Jesus. May He help us, the blessed Spirit, to be sensitive, to be ready, in our affections and in every sense, for the Lord's coming.
LONDON
4 March 1975