THE IMPORTANCE OF RECEIVING THE LORD JESUS
C. K. Robinson
We are gathered together today, beloved brethren and friends, for the burial of one whom we love, who truly was a beloved brother. What characterised that, drawing on the scripture that I have read in Luke 2, was that our beloved brother received the truth regarding the Lord Jesus into his affections and into his life. Simeon was a man in Jerusalem—our beloved brother has spent all his life in this city, in Glasgow—and from teenage years onwards he cherished the truth regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust everyone here has a link with that blessed Man. In Luke 2 He is described as a child, “brought in the child Jesus”. This is the distinctive coming into manhood of a divine Person, into a condition in which He could accomplish and open up what was to be “a light for revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. A blessed Man has accomplished everything for God. He took up the liabilities that were on the race, shed His precious blood, and has laid a basis whereby many in this room, and millions of souls worldwide have found faith in that precious blood. They know that their history is dealt with before God, and they have the light and glory of another world and eternity before them. I trust everyone here has that. I just say that as an appeal to all. The opportunity now would be in an environment where there is much prayer and comfort to be proven, that you might for the moment just pause and consider the One whom Simeon embraced in his affections. Have you done that? May you do so, and may every one of us here freshly do so.
Our brother embraced the truth regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. He embraced every truth that flowed out from that blessed Person. Our brother took into his affections the greatness and glory of the light of God in Jesus, and all that is opened up according to divine purpose. God has as a result secured everything both for His pleasure and for our eternal blessing. What a privilege, therefore, to receive such truth regarding Jesus into our minds and into our affections. What this gave Simeon, as it gave our beloved brother, was spiritual capacity. Simeon’s whole soul and being, we may say, lit up with the light and glory of all this. There he is with this precious child in his arms, embracing it—what a sight for heaven this is. Similarly, what a sight for heaven to consider that our beloved brother, as with many of us, through God’s mercy, have some appreciation of the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. How precious that is. And so he received him into his arms. This must characterise the life of a believer, and it characterised the life of our beloved brother. We can go back many years and consider and reflect upon his growth and spiritual capacity, and his availability under the hand of the Lord and the Spirit to bring out the truth regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether it was to touch on John’s ministry regarding the divine family in sonship, whether to touch on Paul’s ministry and the greatness of the truth of Christ and the assembly and the purpose of God, or whether to touch on Peter’s ministry as to the truth of the kingdom and the house, our brother served His Lord and His people so well.
All these truths grew from an understanding of the scope of Scripture, whether the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the gospels or the epistles. Our brother knew the Scriptures well and received Jesus as the Spirit of all Scripture. That is open to us all.
And so we delight to be together in sympathy and in comfort, and have the desire that our beloved brother’s widow and family may prove comfort. He cherished a blessed Man who now is the centre of another world. Our brother has died but he is now with Jesus. The body is here but he is with his Lord and Saviour whom he served in his life. He desired he would be an influence, as I trust that every one of us desires to be, to draw souls away from this world, and attach them to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the centre of another world. Oh let us receive the truth regarding Jesus into our affections! What a stay it will be. We can reflect upon discipline coming into one and another’s lives, and how it has come into our brother’s life, but how he was given the capacity to endure. In this way the work of God becomes formed, and spiritual characteristics develop as the Spirit of Jesus Christ becomes formed in one and another. Oh, beloved brethren, let us all give ourselves more to the service of the Lord Jesus, and to that of the Holy Spirit, so that the characteristic features of Jesus might be formed in every one of us. Our brother received the truth regarding Jesus.
The Lord Jesus has received our beloved brother to Himself. In John 14, the Lord Jesus says, “I go to prepare you a place ... I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. What a beautiful appeal of affection this is. The glory of the rapture is imminent, but our brother has gone a little ahead of us. The Lord Jesus, in a very, very personal moment, laid our beloved brother to sleep. He received him to Himself. And the Lord Jesus will come soon and He will receive us and all believers to Himself. We shall never be separated from our Lord and Saviour eternally. What a wonderful matter that is so let not our hearts be troubled. We may be anxious, we may be sad, but let us prove “ye believe on God, believe also on me”. We believe that the Lord Jesus, risen and glorified, will soon come from heaven and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we the living who remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4: 17). That is Paul’s presentation; and John here quotes the Lord Himself says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. What a heavenly portion is before us, beloved brethren. May these things encourage us. May comfort be proved. May every one of us have the desire to embrace the truths concerning the Lord Jesus Christ into our affections and into our lives, knowing anticipatively there is a moment coming when He will receive us to Himself. May these things encourage us all for His name’s sake.