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Jesus. Every time we break bread there is an announcement
made in relation to the death of the Lord until He come. For us
undoubtedly it involves the rapture, but more than that is in
mind. We desire to be amongst those who love His appearing,
when He will come to take up His rights. His inheritance, in the
very scene where He has been betrayed, rejected and
crucified. There is grace available for us; the Spirit is here, and
we have the word of God, so that each one may be enabled,
as committed to these things, to endure until the morning
dawns. Maybe there is someone here who has not yet come.
The door is not yet shut; such can still come. And then the final
words, “And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him
take the water of life freely”. How that encourages every one of
us to seek to spread the word. The evangelical appeal is to go
out without any reserve or any discrimination.
Whosoever will may have it; how easy, how simple, it is!
John 21 is a kind of supplement to John’s gospel. He really
finishes the theme he has in mind as to life eternal in chapter
20. He wrote, “that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”
(John 20: 31). But chapter 21 is additional to that. No doubt in
the prophetic sense it pictures another dispensation; but I want
to give it a present bearing. I want us to think of Jesus
standing on the shore. It is a wonderful scene; everything
under His control, nothing amiss, perfect tranquillity. These
seven men had been out during all the watches of the night on
a fruitless escapade, labouring and taking nothing. The Lord is
standing there on the shore in perfect control of everything. He
says,
“Children, have ye anything to eat?” It is really a touch as to
the millennial scene when Christ as the Father of the age will
put His blessed