THE SON OF MAN COMING IN HIS KINGDOM
[p. 243] THE SON OF MAN COMING IN HIS KINGDOM
Matthew 16: 28; Matthew 17: 1 - 8
The thought I have, beloved friends, is to seek to engage your hearts with the Lord in relation to His own sphere of things and for this I have chosen this scripture in Matthew. I might have taken up a parallel passage in either Mark or Luke, and spoken from it, but I have chosen Matthew’s account of the transfiguration because of the way he puts it “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom“Matthew 16: 28. It is the Son of man viewed in relation to the kingdom in perfection and glory; and because of this it has a peculiar charm. Not that the others are not very blessed; they are; but I think, if you will consider it, that you will admit that Matthew’s account has a very peculiar charm — at least to those who love the Lord. I think every Christian heart would say, I should like to see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.
As I said, I might have taken up a parallel passage in Mark or Luke, but it is not quite the same thought in either. In Mark it is the kingdom of God in power. Now I should like to see the kingdom of God in power; but in a certain sense one might see the kingdom of God in power, and not see the Son of man at all. To give you an idea of what I mean: I have seen the power of Great Britain oftentimes, and proved it. I lived in Great Britain, and in the colonies of Great Britain, and in both places I had abundant evidence of the power of the kingdom; but there are a great many British subjects who have never seen the king. I, for one, saw the king but once, but, as I said, I have oftentimes seen demonstrated the power of the kingdom. It is one thing to see the power of the kingdom, and quite another to see the king in state.
[p. 244] I think the point in Mark is the kingdom of God come in power, and in Luke it is the kingdom in itself, and that is another thought. I am sure there is wonderful instruction in each presentation of the kingdom. It is one thing to see the kingdom, and another to see the kingdom in power; and another, to see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.
Now you will find you have to ascend, as it were, in order to get a glimpse of the kingdom, especially if you are to see it from the point of view last mentioned. I think the kingdom does come down to the valley; and if you are in the valley, where the power of Satan is, you are exceedingly thankful if the kingdom of God in power comes down there. It is just what you need: I think it is just what is required in the valley. When I speak of the valley, I refer to what comes out in the latter part of this chapter (Matthew 17). What you come in contact with in the valley is the power of evil. That is where man is: man is in the valley, where Satan dominates, and the kingdom of God has come in power into the valley. There is no possible hope for man in the valley unless the kingdom descends into it and that is, I think, the idea of the gospel: it is that it has pleased God to come down in power into the domain of Satan, where man is, and to establish His kingdom in power there, for the deliverance and protection of man.
Now, before I proceed to call your attention to what is in the passage I have read, I should like to say just a word about the way things are presented in the gospel of Matthew. I think Matthew gives you the entire history of the kingdom, but more particularly as connected with human responsibility: the different phases of it are presented in a series of parables. But there is not only the responsibility but also the inevitable accompaniment of it — failure. Failure is seen in each, but you will find that in [p. 245] result things are adjusted by a divine hand. Now I think there is great encouragement in that. It is an immense comfort to see that whatever confusion may arise in what God has set up here in connection with man’s responsibility, in the end all is divinely adjusted.
The parables I refer to begin with chapter 18 and end with chapter 25. Much confusion is detailed in the history, but in the end all is perfectly adjusted; the Lord relegates everything to its own place. Now, it is an immense encouragement in a day like this, to know that the Lord has foreseen all that would come in; He knew what things were coming to in the hands of men, but He has never given up the reins; hence every parable that He sets forth here ends with a perfect adjustment of affairs.
Take, for instance, the parable of the labourers. Did not the Lord vindicate Himself? Did He not adjust matters? Did He not show clearly that He was perfectly right in what He did? Then in chapter 22 (I only speak of these as illustrations) you get the man who came in to the feast without a wedding garment. The Lord adjusted that: the king saw to it. I do not know how the guests felt about it, whether they were offended at the man coming in unsuitable attire, whether they were in sympathy with the king or not. It does not say how they were affected, but certainly the man was entirely out of accord with the scene, and the king was quick to discern this. He says, “How camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” Matthew 22: 12. The king very quickly removed him. “Bind him”, he says, “hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Matthew 25: 13. The man found his own place. In this way there was divine adjustment.
Then in chapter 25 you get the parable of the virgins. The wise virgins did not seem to be much [p. 246] concerned about the unwise virgins not having oil in their vessels but as the latter went to buy, the bridegroom came, and what was the result? Things were perfectly adjusted. The wise virgins found their place. Who gave them their place? The bridegroom. They entered in to the marriage; but what about the others? The door was shut: they found their place. It was not arbitrary: it was their place morally. What business had they in the bridal chamber at the wedding feast? They had no oil in their vessels. They had no place there morally, for the bridegroom had no place in their hearts, and hence the door was shut.
So it is as you proceed. Take the parable of the talents. The Lord adjusted matters in regard to those who had received the talents. Each man got his reward. Each entered into the joy of his lord except one, and he was incapable of entering into it. He got what was due to him morally; that is to say, what he had was taken away from him. He judged the lord to be an austere, hard man; a hard taskmaster such as Pharaoh had been. His state was demonstrated by this; he really did not know the lord at all, and his talent is taken away from him. He is cast into outer darkness. The same principle comes out later on in the chapter. There are the nations, and when you come to the end, everything is perfectly adjusted by the Lord. I have no doubt all the parables, including the one just mentioned, refer to the present moment, which I might call the church period. But the Lord is not content only to adjust matters in regard to the present period: He goes right on to the end. The Son of man sits on the throne of His glory, and all the nations are brought before Him. Statesmen in every country of the world are at their wits end to know just what to do, but the Lord will not fail to adjust matters in regard to the nations. It is not arbitrary. The Lord has a [p. 247] perfect right to assign the nations to any place He pleases, but He assigns them to the place they belong to morally. There is nothing arbitrary about God: everything is adjusted according to the nature of God, Each finds his own place. Take Judas, for instance. What place belonged to him morally? He got to the place to which he belonged. No other place would suit him, and he would suit no other place; hence that is the place he reaches. Every nation will find its place. The Lord regulates the place of the nations according to their treatment of His brethren. The wicked “shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal”. Matthew 25: 46. Now, that is a very great encouragement in a day like this. Most of us, if we are concerned about divine things, are affected by the conditions prevailing in what we call the church. But the Lord will adjust it all. You cannot adjust them, neither can I, but the Lord can and will. The Lord knows all that is going on, and He will assign everything to its own place. You may depend upon it you will find your place wherever you are, or whatever your state is, you will find your own place. We shall all find our own places. In a certain sense we are all creating our own places, and to say that is not at all trenching upon the authority or rights of Christ. The Lord will designate each one’s place, but the place He designates will be the one to which we belong. The Lord Jesus Christ will give the place which belongs to each morally.
I think that is a very great encouragement in a day like this, because it turns you to Christ in all the confusion around. Your heart is turned to the Lord the One who is capable of adjusting everything.
Now I have only referred to these parables in order to show you the present state of things, but I wish to dwell upon the thing in perfection. As I said before, and as you can see from the parables, every [p. 248] single one involves failure; and why? Because human responsibility is supposed in every instance. The devil has always watched what God has set up: he has been interested from the very outset in regard to divine operations, and his great aim in regard to anything God has instituted has been to capture it. That has been the devil’s aim from the very outset. We know how he captured humanity at the beginning. Man was perfectly constructed. God was the creator of man, and of everything, and, having created all, He expressed His approval of His own work. All was “very good”. Everything God has created or instituted has been in perfection. So God creates man in perfection, and sits in judgment on His own work, and pronounces it “very good”. Now, I think the devil’s point was to capture it. Man was the best God had created, and would he not be a wonderful servant to the devil? Could not Satan use man? I believe that was Satan’s thought, and the same holds good as to everything God created and established down here. I could go over the Scriptures following the account of the creation, and point out how everything that God set up down here fell a prey to the devil. Why? Because it was committed to human responsibility. The result was this: Satan was more than a match for man, and hence whatever has been committed into the hands of men has become a prey to the devil, and thus has it been with the church. One has to admit the success of the enemy in capturing the church and the explanation of it is this, that it was committed into the hands of men. The church was set up in perfection by God: there was nothing lacking. Everything that was required for the comfort, satisfaction and support of the Lord’s people was furnished; and not only for that moment, but for the perpetuation of it; but as in the hands of men it was captured by the devil. And what has he done with it? He has done more with [p. 249] it than with anything he ever touched. Further, wherever God has moved in the way of recovery, Satan in turn has succeeded in capturing the result of the movement; and for the same reason — failure on the part of those responsible. Take the Reformation: that was a mighty movement of God. It was a movement of the Spirit of God. How long did it last? As a purely divine movement it was very brief. The leaders, instead of leaning on the Lord alone, accepted the patronage of the world and in this way fell a prey to the devil. I speak with reverence of those men; but as a matter of fact they all became system-makers. I do not know of one of them who did not become a system-builder, and in that way they were used of the devil. I am not saying they were not Christians: unquestionably they were, and also servants of God; but the devil was more than a match for them, and the result was they fell under the power of the world, and began to build up another system. Even Luther set up a system. They began to build up another system in the world. That is what Rome had done. Rome was the result of the original capture of the church. When Satan captured the church he set up his throne there. “Where the throne of Satan is”, the Lord says (Revelation 2: 13). Do you think the Lord is not observant of what is going on? He knows everything that is going on; He is perfectly aware of what has been carried into the church. He knows how Satan has got in, and what use Satan has made of the church, that he has set his throne in the church. There is more wickedness committed in the name of the church than ever has been committed before in the history of the world. That is the church in the hands of the devil. Look at her there. A public market for the souls of men! That is what things came to. That is what Rome was until the Lord mercifully came in at the time of the Reformation; and the devil then,
[p. 250] as I said, captured that too, and has built up Protestantism out of it and he has been adding material to this within the memory perhaps of some of us here. There was that remarkable movement of the last century. What has been the outcome? The devil has captured it. The bulk of those affected by the movement, primarily, turned aside from the truth and fell into system.
That has been the history of things, and if you are not in dependence every single moment on the Spirit of God you may be captured. Depend upon it, the devil is bent upon your capture. He does not care much about you if the Spirit is not moving in you: he will leave you alone: you are not of much account to him; but if he finds a man with the Spirit of God active in him, he will capture him if he can. Look at the apostle’s exhortation to Timothy, to labour patiently with those who are in error, “That they may awake up out of the snare of the devil, who are taken by him for his will”. 2 Timothy 2: 26. That is the purpose for which the devil captures men. He is building up a system, and wants the very best servants he can find, and those are servants who are enlightened by the gospel. We are never out of danger. If there is any movement of God the devil is bent upon its capture. He has captured everything that came into the world from God. If that marvellous structure reared up in the beginning of the Acts by God has fallen a prey to the devil, you are in danger, and I am in danger; we are all in danger of falling a prey to the world-system. It may be you are not in much danger from Rome; I think that snare was broken a good many hundred years ago, but there are other dangers. Probably the greatest danger in this country is prosperity. This is the most prosperous country in the world today, and we are living in it. The greatest danger we are exposed to is the prosperity of the country. A great [p. 251] majority of people here have emigrated to this country. Did they come here for God? I do not think so. I think most people have come here because there is prosperity here. The devil will give you prosperity so long as you yield yourself to him. He has a great many ways of helping you. He would hold out prospects to you. It does not take much to become prosperous in America. Any fairly intelligent person who comes here bent upon being prosperous can succeed, and I think if you are a Christian the devil will help you. It is policy on his part to do so.
Now I have not touched much on my subject. It is because I feel concerned about what I have spoken of. I think it is a most essential thing to be on our guard against the world-system. If there is any movement of God, you may depend upon it the enemy will do his utmost to capture the result of it. The world in its varied features is his great net, his great snare. What was that by which the children of Israel were captured? The world-system. Babylon was the great system Satan had been working at for hundreds of years.
Do you think he did not set a snare? The moral end of the church as such is Thyatira. Ephesus was properly the public beginning of the church, and the history of the church publicly closes with Thyatira. When we look at things in the face it must have a very humbling effect upon us, but now what we have to do is to look up to the Lord, and wait for His coming. “The Lord shall deliver me”, says Paul. If you do not remain close to the Lord, you may depend upon it that the devil will capture you. The Lord is the only One that can deliver you. He “shall deliver me from every wicked work”. 2 Timothy 4: 18.
But now I want to say a word about Matthew 17. What I should like to engage your hearts with for a moment is a scene without failure. Christ is presented [p. 252] in Revelation as the First and the Last; the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God. The point is, He is the faithful and true Witness. Now it is to Him that we want to have our hearts directed. I think the Lord took pleasure in taking Peter, James, and John up to the mount of transfiguration. Have you ever been up there? It is your privilege. I do not think Peter, James, and John felt quite at home there. Peter said it was good to be there, but at the same time I do not think he felt quite at home there. In a certain sense, the time for it had not come. You will remember that in the end of the chapter before us, Peter said of the Lord that He certainly would pay the tribute. What did that mean? It meant that Peter did not understand that the Lord was a Son; and he certainly did not understand that he himself was a son in the thought of God. Now, it is your privilege and mine to know that we are sons. We have had this before us a good deal, but it is our privilege to know that we are sons, and I think what that means is that von can go up. Sonship refers to Israel also, but I think in our case the thought of sonship involves that we can go up. It is our privilege to go up. In Ephesians 2 we read, God “has raised us up together, and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. Ephesians 2: 6. That indicates our great position. When I say we can go up, what I mean is that our place is in heaven, and there is nothing to hinder us from ascending; and so I should like to call your attention to this passage in Matthew in that connection. The Lord takes Peter, James, and John up into a high mountain apart in order to give them a blessed sight of Himself in relation to His kingdom. It is not Christ in relation to the kingdom in the hands of men, in responsibility, down here. The parables give that. The Lord is seen in relation to the kingdom in every phase of it in the parables, but I think the [p. 253] Lord would feast the eyes of His people on Himself in relation to His own blessed kingdom on high. He says, “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. Matthew 16: 28. I was saying that Mark presents the kingdom of God come in power, and Luke presents the kingdom in itself. I take it the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost as Luke presents it, but here it is the Son of man. To see the Lord in this connection is a wonderful sight; and it requires that you should ascend. We have to go up in order to see it. In a sense it is Christ in relation to the coming age; and I believe the Holy Ghost would enable us at the present time to get a glimpse of it. I think you can read between the lines in the address to the church in Philadelphia that the saints there saw something of it. I believe the thought there is that their hearts were engaged with Christ — Christ in relation to His own system of things.
These three disciples were nothing in themselves, but look at what they saw! The Lord was transfigured before them. “His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light”. Matthew 17: 2. Look at the blessed Person there! See Him as compared with the kings of the earth. There is nothing morally beautiful about any of them. But look at Him! He goes up quietly to the mountain with the disciples whom He loved, and is transfigured before them. His face shone as the sun, and His raiment became white as the light. There is that blessed Man alone with Moses and Elias, and the Father comes into view. Ah, there is no failure there, no human responsibility there! It is the Son of man in His kingdom. Would you not like to see the Son of man in His kingdom? “The Son of man” is a marvellous expression and He is here viewed as coming in His kingdom. Would you not like to see that sight? To be taken up to [p. 254] the mount of transfiguration? Peter tells us about it: “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. 2 Peter 1: 16. Talk of majesty! There is majesty. In Christ you see majesty. Peter further says, “He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. 2 Peter 1: 17. Doubtless the Lord took this way of confirming and making things sure to the apostles, who were to witness to the kingdom. Peter was a witness: it was no fable: We “were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. If you want to be confirmed in regard to the truth, you have, in the power of the Spirit, to be a witness of the Son of man coming in His kingdom, and that is our privilege. I feel how unequal I am to dilate upon it, but it is marvellous, especially in view of the dark background, the history of all that had been before upon the earth. As I said, there was not one single trait of moral beauty in any of the Gentile monarchs. Nothing for God. But here is the embodiment of all moral beauty. That is what Christ is: that is what the Son of man is. What a sight to see such a Person coming in His kingdom!
Now it was a wonderful thing for Peter, James, and John, but they did not understand it. Indeed one might say they were not sons in their heart’s affections and minds. Think of Peter talking about a tabernacle for Moses and Elias! The voice of the Father said, “This is my beloved Son”. Matthew 17: 5. Had they really known sonship, how entranced they would have been in that blessed scene! As it was they were not equal to it, but it seems to me that Paul was equal to it, and doubtless Peter, and all the apostles, afterwards, when they had received the Spirit, and I think you can see in the church in Philadelphia an [p. 255] appreciation of Christ in relation to His kingdom. I think it is a marvellous truth that Christ should have a kingdom. There were those who had kingdoms before, but now the Lord is going to have a kingdom of His own, and, as I said before, the parables present Christ in relation to the kingdom down here, for the good of man, and He adjusts everything in relation to it; but this wonderful scene on the Mount presents Christ in relation to His own kingdom in its perfection, and the apostles were privileged to be witnesses. As Peter says, To be “eyewitnesses of his majesty”. 2 Peter 1: 16. Peter could estimate it afterwards. In his epistle he does not tell us anything about the three tabernacles, or about what he said. I think he would then feel what he said to be entirely out of place but he says, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. 2 Peter 1: 16. He does not say a word about Moses and Elias, but tells of the majesty of Christ. Now we shall all feast on that in the future, but I think, by the Holy Ghost, we might ascend to the mount of transfiguration, as it were, now, and see what Christ is with God. Did you ever think of that? What Christ is Himself, in relation to God, as His Father, and in relation to His kingdom? He has a kingdom. Is it not a matter of joy to you that He has a kingdom? Do you not love Him? Then, I say, you must be interested in what He has: in what He is coming into. May the Lord enable us to rise to the region of the Spirit! The region of the Holy Ghost is infinitely elevated above the region of this poor world.