PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE
P. Martin
Luke 9: 28–31, 51–55; 1 Thessalonians 4: 13–18; 2 Timothy 4: 1–8
I desire to speak simply of our preparation for departure. I suppose we could say there has never been greater evidence than there is among us today that we are on the eve of our departure to be with Christ. There is no greater hope for the saints of the assembly than that we shall soon be with Jesus; we shall see Him face to face—“whom having not seen”, Peter says, “ye love; on whom though not now looking, but believing, ye exult with joy unspeakable and filled with the glory”, 1 Peter 1: 8. The Lord is adding the finishing touches to His work here. It may be through exercise, it may be through pressure, but He is placing the finishing touches in preparation for departure. The Lord would lift our hearts, I think, in a time of sorrow, and a time of pressure, to see what is immediately before us. I do not exactly wish to speak of an event, but I would like to say a word as to the preparation and the finishing touches in relation to our going to be with Christ.
I have read of His departure, for I believe it should affect us; not that there was need for
preparation, or for finishing touches, with Jesus; He was always ready. We have been reminded that in this passage in Luke He could have gone straight from the mount to the glory. There was never a moment in the life of Jesus when that was not true. We have to say that in our lives there are times when there would be need for adjustment, perhaps great adjustment, if the Lord were to take us. Maybe as to the places we go to, maybe the way we behave, the Lord might have to show that there is need for great adjustment, but that was never so with Jesus. He could have gone straight to the Father at any moment in that perfect pathway. There was this point in His life where it says these two men appeared in glory and spoke of His departure. You get the two sides in this chapter in Luke; you have His departure which He was about to accomplish, and you also have His receiving up. It is a wonderful thing that the Lord’s love for the Father underlay His departure, and the Father’s love for Christ and His delight in Him gave Him such pleasure in receiving Jesus in glory. O, dear brethren, how pleasurable that was when He was received up in glory! Let us ponder the ascension of Jesus. The Spirit, I believe, would give us an insight into the Father’s feelings as to His reception of His blessed Son.
In this first section it says, “taking Peter and John and James he went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance became different”. We should be affected that that should be said of Jesus. There is need for us to persevere in prayer, to be maintained in prayer, and as we pray, dear brethren, do not things become different? I believe they do. The more we prayed about matters of which we talk, the more we would see that they would become different. I am not saying that in exercises the issues would change, but we would get the Lord’s
view of matters. Whether it be together, or in our histories individually, it is only the Lord’s view that matters. The fashion of His countenance changed, and things change as we are maintained in prayer. It is a wonderful experience that is open to each of us; it is not limited to brothers; how thankful we are for the prayers of the sisters; how much we have to give thanks for sisters who pray while they are in occasions like this, maybe praying in occasions that are difficult; they pray, dear brethren, and we get through. Let us value them, let us count on them more, but let us each commit ourselves to prayer.
It says as to Jesus that “lo, two men talked with him, who were Moses and Elias, who, appearing in glory, spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem”.
What an affecting expression that is, “of his departure”. John speaks of it in his gospel, that “he should depart out of this world to the Father” (John 13: 1). He departed out of this world because He did not belong to it, and we shall depart out of this world because we do not belong to it; we belong to Him who died for us and has been raised. The Lord Jesus says,
“they are not of the world, as I am not of the world”, John 17: 14. We belong to another world, a glorious world, where Jesus is the centre. Is He the centre of my life, the centre of yours? He would desire to become that, to become everything to you; He is able for it. He is able to be everything that you ever require in your pathway here. But let us be careful that features of the world do not mark us; if we do not belong to it then it should not be attached to us.
I believe what we touched in the reading, the habitations of Jacob, needs to be watched, that worldly things do not come into our houses. I speak carefully and soberly, but may I just refer
to home computers? Let us be careful as to what we bring into our houses. I am not saying there is anything wrong with a computer; I am not saying that at all; many of us have to use them at school and at work, but let us be careful what we have on them; let us be careful that we do not bring into our households things that would occupy our time to the exclusion of our occupation with Christ. These things easily get a hold on us, as do music and tape recorders; these things have been referred to before, but let us be careful. “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob”, but He does love the habitations of Jacob; He loves the households of the saints, and as we come up for our gatherings together I believe the Lord looks both at the way we come and where we have come from. He loves to see what is in keeping with the gates of Zion maintained in the houses of the saints.
I just touch these things briefly to remind us that we are not of the world. You may say, Well, that brother or that sister is worldly, but you can also say as to God’s work in such a person that he or she is not of the world but is secured by the death of Jesus. Beloved, let us be in keeping with what our calling is; it is not a worldly one, it is a heavenly one, and the Lord Jesus here was departing out of this world; He was going on before; He was going on because He did not belong to this world, He was going out of this world to the Father. Think of the joy that was in the heart of Jesus that He was going to the Father, involving that undisturbed relationship in which He lived and was in the enjoyment of here and in which, by extension, we are to find our enjoyment. I thank God that there is that among the saints that finds its pleasure in the wonderful relationships of divine love.
Now Jesus was departing, but, on the other hand, as we have later, He was being received up. Think of the Father’s delight in receiving Jesus.
One Man was out of death; in that Man everything for God was centred. In Him, Paul says, is the yea, and in Him the amen, for glory to God by us (2 Corinthians 1: 20). Think of everything for God being centred in Christ out of death and received up. What a triumph!
When man had done his worst against Christ in opposition against God, God receives His well-beloved Son. I was impressed on Lord’s day by the reference at the end of this gospel where Jesus was “separated from them and was carried up into heaven”. Who took Him? I do not want to be fanciful, beloved, but think of the Father’s delight in receiving Jesus.
I touch on these things briefly that we might as we separate have something to dwell upon, beloved, for our affections, that we might find our delight in the Man the Father delights in, and have some appreciation of the One who could be received up without any need of adjustment. His own quickly showed that they needed adjustment; they say, Shall we call for fire from heaven, as did Elias? The Lord has to say, “Ye know not of what spirit ye are”. The question that was raised in the reading as to our spirits is of all importance. Think of how Moses for one moment went beyond where he should have gone; he said, “Hear now, ye rebels” (Numbers 20: 10); his spirit was moved to anger, and because of that he was not given the privilege of going into the land. It shows us how divine Persons view the spirit in which we move and speak amongst the people of God; let not a hard spirit mark us. It was just for a moment with Moses as he moved in his anger and it says in the Psalms, “and it went ill with Moses on their account”, Psalm 106: 32. Let us be careful, let us be kept in communion with the Spirit that in our walk here privately, and in our walk collectively, we may reflect the atmosphere in which the blessed Spirit is to be known.
Paul in writing to the Thessalonians is not only giving them the truth as to the rapture, which we have in the verses read in chapter 4, but his desire was that, while meeting their enquiry as to the truth as to it, they might be prepared for the coming of the Lord. The Lord in His grace would do the same to us; He would prepare us for the rapture. So Paul says in the beginning of chapter 4, “We beg you and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, even as ye have received from us how ye ought to walk and please God, even as ye also do walk, that ye would abound still more”. Paul was concerned that the walk of the saints should be such that at any time the Lord could come and find that which was pleasing to Himself—“how ye ought to walk and please God”. We are in a day when men are pleasing themselves, under the authority of darkness. What a moment we are in! As you look at the state of the world what darkness there is. The apostle speaks in the next epistle of the apostasy. The man of sin will rise up, and what lengths he will go to. We are almost at that day. That character of rising up is in the world around us; the man of sin will set himself down in the temple of God and say that he is God. What a solemn thing is working in the world around us! May we be preserved from it; may we be preserved from the spirit of it, man rising up and asserting himself. There is only one thing that can rightly be asserted and that is the rights of Christ, and that asserted in the Spirit’s power. O, young people, keep away, keep away; as far away as you can, from the world’s system; you have to go out into the world to work, but keep as far away as you can from it, because there is a system rising up that is against God.
Paul says, “ye ought to walk and please God, even as ye also do walk”. Thank God there is that which marks the walk of the saints. I believe heaven rejoices to see the pathway of a righteous person going through the world, maybe in business, maybe at school, in the midst of lawlessness and corruption. How God loves that, a man pleasing to Himself! He sees the saints coming up from their households to the gatherings of His people; beloved, what a testimony there is in that—persons walking through the streets of this great city with their Bibles in their hand; you know, there is a testimony in that. People take account of these things. Do not put your Bible into a briefcase so that men cannot see it. I would encourage the younger brethren. Do not hide the fact that you belong to the Lord Jesus and that His word has sway over you; take it up soberly that you might be here in keeping with God’s word to you. It is a wonderful thing that God has given us His own word, so that we have the written word in our hand; let us value it. I suppose most houses here have several Bibles, but, you know, there was a time in this country when persons could not get hold of one. Let us not disregard the written word of God; let it govern our walk.
So Paul says, “even as ye also do walk”. He is not criticizing them, he is encouraging them so that what is for the pleasure of God might increase. We need to encourage one another, so that there is that which is for God’s pleasure. Let it increase! So he goes on to the time of our departure. Dear brethren, how near this is. Paul says, “For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep”. Then he says, “for the Lord himself shall descend”—the Lord Himself; He is the One who is before us; this is the One who means everything to His saints, the Lord Himself. It is not an angel; no, in wonderful grace He is not sending an angel; it is Himself. There is that in the affections of His people that could be satisfied with nothing less than Christ. Dear brethren, where are we looking for satisfaction? Where are we looking today for our hope? It is to Christ Himself. May it increasingly be so! May He fill our affections increasingly and hold them. He will as we let Him have His way with us.
It says, “the Lord himself, with an assembling shout”; what a shout that will be! We shall hear it then in its distinctiveness, and we shall not hear it until then, but the character of the assembling shout should be found in every gathering of His people. We should look for it in every meeting. If the Lord is speaking, why is He speaking? It is in view of preparation for the time of departure; He is assembling His own in relation to Himself. Finally He will assemble all His own. What a wonderful thing that will be! We think of the great variation that there is among those that belong to the Lord, and yet there will be one assembling shout; the Lord Himself has the power to assemble all His own. What a triumph, dear brethren, what an answer to the chaos that the enemy has caused among the people of God; there will be one shout and the saints will be together. But it says, “with archangel’s voice”—bringing out the authority, and the triumph over every foe that has raised its head; there will be supreme authority in that voice.
There is to be authority among us now, not specially seen in one person, as in God’s ways we have known it in the past, but there is to be the spirit of authority, marking the occasions of the saints, authority in the Lord’s voice to us. Let us be sober in the presence of such speaking; let us go from our occasions to the presence of the Lord. Maybe we would thus get more gain than—by saying to somebody else, ‘Did you get on all right? What did you think of that?’ Let us go to the Lord and see what He had in view, and get His judgment. I am not saying that we should not judge; one speaks and the others judge, but, dear brethren, let us judge soberly in the presence of Christ, that we might realize His authority in the ministry that He gives. His authority has never ceased to be present in His word, but the question is, Have I discerned His word? How much ministry we have had in recent years! What effect has it had? Let us get before the Lord to see if in principle there has been the character of the archangel’s voice. I would say there has been. The Lord would encourage us that He has been speaking, and speaking in view of our preparation to be with Himself.
Then it says, “and with trump of God”; that is the final trumpet. There was the final trumpet upon which the army moved forward; this will be the final trumpet and it will not give an uncertain sound; this is the trump of God. The trumpet needs to give a certain sound in our local companies today. We come to an occasion and we are to understand clearly what the Lord has been saying to us. Let the trumpet give a certain sound; let there not be discord among those that serve, but let us come from the presence of the Lord so that the trumpet may give a certain sound, that there may be clarify and authority in conveying what the Lord would say to us—and He would say it in His love because He is preparing the saints for the final move forward. The saints will go out in order; what a wonderful moment that will be!
We shall go out together, go out in order; there will not be chaos; there will not be confusion; everything will be under the touch of Christ.
This is what is immediately before us; we shall know the quickening of the Spirit as we have it in Romans 8, “But if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you” (Romans 8: 11). May we know something now of the quickening of the Spirit, the quickening touch that He would impart, even in these mortal bodies; it is not the spiritual body, it is not the changed body, that will be quickened in Romans 8, it is the mortal body, the body in which there has been so much weakness, the body in which the pressures of the testimony have been felt, the bodies in which there has been so much pain and sorrow; the Spirit will quicken those bodies. What a thrill it gives to contemplate what is immediately going to happen, that the Spirit Himself will touch us in such a way. But we are to know something of quickening now. I believe we do know something of it, particularly at the Supper. You find yourself physically moved as you are in the presence of divine Persons; you find that your mortal body is changed—not changed finally, I do not mean that—but there is a change in the bodies of the saints as we are in the divine presence. These things are reality and they are to become more so, that the rapture is not just to be a moment lying ahead of us, but we are to be in the expectancy of it, so that the character of it affects us at the present time.
So it says He “shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first”; that is their privilege, they shall rise first. How many there are we do not know; but those that belong to the Lord are known of Him and those that do not belong to Him. Each will appear before Him. Those that are His shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. We shall all be manifested.
Paul, says, before the judgment-seat of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5: 10). It is intended to sober us, but for every lover of Christ it is a moment he looks forward to, when he shall see every matter as the Lord Jesus sees it, even why the Lord allowed my failings. I am not attributing failure to the Lord, but I shall see why, in His love, He allowed me to go a certain way. He did it that I might be brought back to Himself with an appreciation of Him that I did not have before. What wonderful grace! and we shall see that at the judgment-seat of Christ. We shall see the end of every way in which He has moved, and that everything He has done has glorified Himself. There will be matters that will have to be adjusted, but let us not leave things to the judgment-seat of Christ. We stand here today as those who are about to depart, but let us stand here as those who have every matter cleared before the face of Christ. I believe it stirs the affections of the Lord Jesus when there are those who are desirous to have every matter clear before Him now so that He might make Himself known to them in His love.
So, “then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds”; we shall go up the way He went up; a cloud received Him out of their sight—and “thus we shall be always with the Lord”. That is the prospect, dear brethren; whatever the pressures of the pathway, and there are many, the outlook is that we shall be always with the Lord. Let us face matters in the light of that.
Now when we come to 2 Timothy it is Paul who is about to depart from a scene where there was much failure all around him. Persons had turned away from the truth; how he must have felt it. We are thankful that we have such a good number to walk with. Think of what Paul must have felt—“all who are in Asia ... have turned away from me”, 2 Timothy 1: 15. We are in that day, too, it has continued to the present time, but thank God that in His grace there has been a little recovery, and it will go through. What the Lord has recovered as to the truth of the assembly will be maintained somewhere; let us be in exercise that we may be in the gain of it. Publicly the church is in ruins; the shipwreck has taken place; that is the public side and we cannot opt out of it. It comes into this very epistle; there are vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour, and we have to take up our responsibility in relation to that; but from the divine side the church will go through complete. What a triumph, dear brethren! There will be no breakdown in God’s thoughts. From man’s side there is breakdown on every hand, but from God’s side there will be no breakdown; the church will go out complete, she will go out in full sail. Nothing inferior in relation to God’s thoughts will mark her, but all will be the result of divine workmanship. Could there be failure with divine workmanship? Indeed there could not. Beloved, let us be sobered that from man’s side everything is in ruins, everything. We cannot expect the ruins to be put back together, but what we shall find is that from the divine side everything will go through according to the divine thought, and God will be glorified in it.
Now Paul says, “But thou, be sober in all things”. How we need to take heed to that word at the moment, to have a sober judgment, a quiet judgment, of everything, not, as men say, jumping to conclusions, but having a sober judgment, weighing matters up before the Lord to get His assessment—how much that is needed! “Be sober in all things, bear evils, do the work of an evangelist, fill up the full measure of thy ministry”. Then he says, “For I am already being poured out, and the
time of my release is come”. I think that is a beautiful expression. Paul had longed for departure to be with Christ; he had spoken of it; there was that in Paul which could hardly continue to be contained in the feeble, mortal condition in which he found himself. It is the same with us; there is a work of God in us; you reach a point where you feel that it is the treasure in earthen vessels; it is almost ready to break forth. Paul says, that is just where I am—“the time of my release is come”. The work of God would then be released from the mortal vessel to be in the presence of his Master. We are about to follow where the apostle has gone, to be in the presence of Christ, released from these poor vessels in which there is so much weakness, but to be given a body of glory like unto His own body of glory, to which weakness will never attach. It will in every way be equal to the work of God which has been accomplished in each one of us. Let us value the work of God in ourselves. We spend time on our bodies here, the way we dress, and so on; of course we need to dress in keeping with our walk, but let us learn to value and give attention to what is within, what is more precious, that which is about to be released from these poor bodies.
Paul says, “the time of my release is come. I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. Paul could say that of himself. What combat Paul had known; we are all to have our part in it, dear brethren; let us take it up. It is not a question of sitting back, allowing brothers on the front row to take up the combat; that is not the thought at all, but to take up my own part as coming in at the close of this dispensation in which others have laboured before us. Some of us here may not have gone very far, but let us all run with our eye on the goal that is before us. If we look elsewhere we shall never finish the race; let us keep our eye on our Lord Jesus. Oh, may He increasingly be our object. If you have Him as your Object you will feel the need to move towards Him in the supply of the Spirit. The finish is so near, dear brethren; the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’. What a call that is!—let us ponder it, when the voice of a creature vessel merges as one with the voice of a divine Person in saying, ‘Come’
to Jesus. What a triumph! How near she is to Deity, yet ever a creature vessel, indwelt by the Spirit and united to the heavenly Man. Let us ponder the glory of what we have been called into, and livingly take up our part in saying, ‘Come’ to Jesus. May the preparation go on with each of us, that we may be ready for our blessed Lord when He comes. May the Lord bless the word.
Address at Redbridge
8 March 1986