READINESS FOR THE LORD’S RETURN

R. Taylor

Luke 19: 11–15; Matthew 25: 10

The hope of the Lord’s return for us is something that the Spirit of God would, I believe, seek to strengthen and revive in our affections. It is very fine how much the Lord spoke of that as He was leaving His disciples. He says, “I am coming again”, John 14: 3. The waiting time would test them but He left that promise, and you can see in the Acts of the Apostles how it was enshrined in their affections, that He was coming for them. Not that He was coming back to set the world right, He will do that in due course, but the prime thing in the Lord’s mind, and is to be in our mind, is that He is coming for us. It will be selective, He is coming to change our circumstances, to bring us into His circumstances. He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. What a hope that is left in our hearts in a world that has lost sight of it! Indeed the public position is, Where is the promise of His coming? Where is it? Well, it is enshrined in the affections of the saints where, by the Spirit, it is kept alive in our hearts.

The Lord is coming soon to change these circumstances. In large measure, because of what we are and how we feel, we look for that time as a matter of relief, no longer to be tested and tempted, no longer to feel the weakness and the pressures and sorrows of the way, it will be that. But the great expectancy is that we shall be with Him and we shall see Him. The hymn-writer says to see Him who has loved us, then face to face, whose grace we have known in the circumstances, His compassion, but then without a cloud His features trace. It is not only to be relief, that will be very real, a change of condition entirely, but what the Spirit of God would be at, I think, would be to be with Himself, to know Him in His own circumstances.

The apostles got some view of that on the mount of transfiguration. They had known Jesus, the lowly Nazarene, but there they saw the Father’s Son in His own glory and His own beauties. What an impression it left on their hearts, and that is the One they would know as He comes again, know Him in those circumstances in His own beauties and distinctiveness.

But what I call attention to in these passages is that while it will be a great day for us, dear brethren, the hope of our hearts, it will be a great day for the Lord, wonderful time for Him when He will see then the great first-fruits of His service. It will be another day when He will see the whole universe come into the gain of His work, but the first thing is that He will have His bride, He will have His

saints of this dispensation. What it will be for Him to have them, no longer serving in His priesthood and His advocacy, but He will have them then as His own companion. Think of the Lord as looking forward to it. These passages would serve to bring that out. The setting of them is when He comes in His kingdom, but the same features and thoughts would apply to receiving us at the rapture; the Lord’s expectation, that from a world where they said they did not want Him, to have persons who have been looking for Him. What it will be for Him to have persons who have been waiting for Him!

I read in this passage in Luke where it says, “Trade while I am coming”, not while I am away, but while I am coming. It is to have an effect on our lives that there is something for Him when He comes. The world will have nothing for Him, but He looks for these persons with whom He has left something, to have something for Him. You get some touch of it in the Revelation, where it says, “they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy”

(Revelation 3: 4), not just because I redeemed them, but because they are worthy. That would be like these men who had been trading with the minas. Think of the joy of the Lord, in having persons walk with Him in white because they are worthy. What a glory it gives, what an urgency it gives, dear brethren, to the present time, that there is something being formed now that will be for the Lord’s heart and for the Lord’s joy as He comes to receive His saints.

May we be encouraged to be more diligent. There was one man who just wrapped things up, although the Lord left him with something. He has left us all with something, left us with the promise of His coming. As He goes over those chapters in John, He was leaving them with the gift of the Spirit. He has left us each with something. He has left us with faith, left us with grace, and He says, “Trade while I am coming”. It is an active matter. That man was not trading when he wrapped things up but there were some persons who were anxious that when He comes back He would have something for His heart.

I believe the Spirit of God would encourage us to think on that line of things. It says that on His arrival back He called His bondmen; think of His joy. He says, “Well done”. Think of Him saying that about some of these simple things in our lives. Trading involves our companionship, a trader would not do anything just on his own. That man who wrapped up his mina, he was just on his own, an isolationist, but these men who were trading were trading in good company. They set out their wares in good company. It would show the value of the brethren, the value of one another to speak over these things. That is all part of the trading. These are very simple things, but they are all accumulating, so that there is something for Him when He comes. It says, “Thou has been faithful in that which is least”—

that which is least, simple things. He takes account of someone who had given a sip of cold water to one of His disciples. These were persons who were trading with what they had and you can see that they increased through trading, through putting things in circulation. Simple things, but they were ready to speak about Christ, they were ready to say their impressions about Him, they were ready to speak, I believe, of His soon return. You can think of them as they were trading, saying, When will He be back? When He does come, the thing is that He finds persons who have something for Him.

It would be, too, as He comes in among us at the Supper there is something for Him, something for His heart, for there is nothing abroad. He could speak in the Song of Songs about being abroad and His locks were wet with the dew of the night—nobody had ministered to Him; His name professed much but there was nothing for His heart. But as He comes into His garden, He finds something for His heart. Well, He is looking for that and

much more, so as He comes for us He is looking for these persons who would be ready to be changed into those conditions that He is in and to be at home in them. I often think about that, how much would we be at home if the change came tonight? The things we live in, the things we depend on for our livelihood in life would not be there. How much would we be at home if He brought us tonight into these circumstances? Well, He comments on that to these overcomers that they would be at home in those circumstances, and He would make them at home. Think of how He made these men at home—“Well done”. He says to the first, “be thou in authority over ten cities”, and to another He says, “thou, be over five cities”. How ready He is to value every small appreciation. May He encourage our hearts that we would be ready and watching.

In the next passage I read of the ones that were ready. It brings up their links with the Spirit of God. It would make us ready at any moment, not like these persons who professed much but when the cry came they were not ready. That verse I always think is very telling; if you look at it without the brackets it says, “and the ... ready went in with him”. All they waited to hear was the call. Oh, the spirit that would keep our affections alive, so that all we are waiting for is the call, ready to go in. No regrets about one thing or another. Joseph said that to the brethren when they were coming to him, “let not your eye regret your stuff”, Genesis 45: 20.

They were ready to leave so much because of him and the expectance of being in his company. I believe the Spirit of God is active today, and it is needed today perhaps more than ever, that there is a vibrant, living hope in our hearts of being with Christ and to hear His approval. Think of what it means to Him! This dispensation has been long for Christ, He is waiting. He has already done the work. He is already worthy of praise from the whole universe, but what He is waiting for is those who are His own, whom He is going to call to be with Himself.

May we be encouraged, dear brethren, that there is something for Him; that we would be seeking to minister to His affections, strengthened and active in the trading, so that there is something that He can take into those courts above. What joy He will have in introducing us into the Father’s presence! Joseph said, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here”

(Genesis 48: 9), and he brought them into his father’s presence. What joy Christ will have in the persons who have been faithful, who have been trading, who have been with the Spirit of God in the affections that have been kept tender, so that when He calls we will be ready to go. May we be among them, dear brethren, may our hearts be encouraged to be strengthened, that the Lord may have His portion and His joy in that day, but, too, increasingly in this day in which we are, for His own name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
15 July 2003