THE NEW COMPANY ON THE EARTH DURING THE ABSENCE OF CHRIST (1)
[p. 247] THE NEW COMPANY ON THE EARTH DURING THE ABSENCE OF CHRIST (1)
My desire this evening is to point out to you the traits of the new company on the earth during the absence of Christ. I have endeavoured to present to you the blessings peculiar to the christian, and which come to us from Christ in exaltation: not merely all that He effected on earth, but those blessings which are consequent on His exaltation to the right hand of God. I desire now to conclude this evening and the following, if the Lord permit, with the traits of the new company on the earth during Christ’s absence. If your hearts simply accepted the fact that Christ was rejected here, surely it must be of deep interest to you to know how to be for Him in the place where He was rejected. We have seen that His treasure is hid in the field; but now I would draw your attention to your “manner of life” here as awaiting His coming and kingdom.
There are two parts: first, our manner of life as He is our object; and secondly, what our portion is as awaiting His kingdom. The characteristic of those who really look for the Lord is that they are looking out for Him to reign; hence the closing character of the church is, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. You get it in the parable of the wise virgins; the kingdom of heaven is likened unto ten virgins. The cry was, “Behold, the bridegroom”, and they went forth to meet him. I have remarked before that you get very little in the epistles about going to heaven. Christians, as a rule, talk about going to heaven; and there is no doubt that we shall all go to heaven - the youngest believer. But you do find a great deal in the epistles about the kingdom; we overlook the kingdom too much; we overlook how we shall be on this earth [p. 248] for Christ eventually. The way you are now indicates the way you will be then; many do not think so, but if you suffer with Him you will reign with Him. If you endure now, you will be honoured by and by; but if you have an easy time now, you will have a small place in the kingdom. It is not that you will not go to heaven and be in all the blessedness there; but I am dwelling on the place we shall have with the Lord when He reigns. We can understand how James and John wished to sit one on His right hand and the other on His left; the Lord replies, “It shall be given to them for whom it is prepared”. Still, that was a right wish; I should like to be with Him in His kingdom, and to be for Him here. In the description of the new Jerusalem, we read, “His servants shall serve him”.
The first trait of the new company is the word of God and prayer: these are to mark them. But I must premise, because it is of great importance that we have to be free from all the religious element. The legal element, and anything that recognises man, is a great obstruction. Anything that gives man a place really hinders your true position, because if man has rejected Christ - and he has - it is plain that that man can have no place. Talk not of cultivating man, and getting beautiful ideas from him, and all that sort of thing! If man rejected Christ, no good can come from him; all must be of the Spirit of God.
The first thing you get in the scripture I have read is the difference between Mary and Martha. Mary sat at His feet and appeared to be doing nothing, but she was hearing His word. It is a great comfort at times to think that there are many unobserved, unostentatious people who are really nearer the Lord than the most busy people, because the latter are thinking of doing; and, as has been said, there is more or less of the legal character about their doings. Martha was thinking of her work. Mary sat at His feet and heard His word. That is the first part of the [p. 249] first trait; you are here to hear His word, you are to learn and study His mind. It is not merely knowing a great deal of Scripture; many know much who do not know His mind. The Lord says, “Why do ye not know my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word”. It has been said, and it is a very good remark to bear in mind, that you know a man’s meaning by his words, but you must know God’s mind before you can understand His words; and nothing can give you that but the Spirit of God. Mary sat at His feet hearing His word, learning what would please Him. I see this defect in natural life: people think others must like what they like; it is themselves they have studied, and they act from what would please themselves, instead of studying a person so as to know what would please him. What would please the Lord ought to be the great thought with me; if I am in a place where the Lord has been rejected, the very first thing I should like to know is what would please Him.
The second part of the first trait is prayer. Here (Luke 11: 1 - 13) the Lord gives them a prayer to suit their then condition, and there are very instructive elements in it. They could acknowledge that God was their Father; they could take that ground because they had seen Him in Christ, and they also looked for the kingdom. But it was a prayer suitable to the time when the work of the cross had not yet been accomplished, sins had not yet been put away; but I need not dwell upon this. Then the Lord goes on to explain what prayer is. He says, “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet [p. 250] because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth”. Here you learn how to pray. The way is set forth here - that you know your friend has the thing you want, and that you do not look for it elsewhere. I believe that is an immense thing. It is sometimes the case with us all that we pray to the Lord about a certain thing, and yet we have a reserve in our minds that if one plan does not succeed we will turn to another. That is not prayer; prayer is that I know He has it, and that I want it, and I know that if I do not get it from Him I cannot get it elsewhere; that is, I am actually shut up to God. And you will find that is what the Lord continually does; He shuts you up to Himself. For an individual the way of prayer is ordinarily what we get in Philippians 4 you make known all your requests; you may not get the answer, but you get what is a great deal better, the peace of God; though you did not pray for it you get it because you are near God. The Lord here (Luke 11) announces that “every one that asketh receiveth”; and He winds up by saying, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” The Holy Spirit had not come yet, but that was the highest thing they could get. These - the word and prayer - are the first trait.
Now I read a verse or two further in chapter 11 to show you the second trait. Verse 33 reads: “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light” - it is really ‘brightness’. This is a [p. 251] wonderful statement; your body is to be a body of light. The Lord was the Light of the world, and He has gone out of it; now the point is that if your eye is single, your object is that Light. It is on the same principle that if you walk in the Spirit you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. A person is walking in the Spirit when Christ is the paramount object to him. It is not a question of having this thing or the other thing before him, it might be a good work or the like, but he has an object, and that object is the Lord Himself. Then the eye is single, and the effect is that the body is light; luminous is really the idea, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give its glare, its brightness. It is a wonderful thing, if you think of it for a moment, that in the place where my Lord was rejected I am to come out in the light of my Lord. The Light has gone out of this world now; He has gone, but in the very place whence the Light has gone, I look to Him, He is my object; and as the light takes possession of me, there is no part dark. If you had no part dark, and were completely under the rule of the light, your body would express it; I do not mean merely your dress, I mean the whole of your bearing. It is what is morally contrary to the darkness; people could say, That person is moving differently from everybody else here; he is separate from all the darkness around. It is very hard to explain, but it is a moral influence, and I have no doubt that many a one has the sense at times that there is a moral influence about another, so that you would not like to say anything to offend in that person’s presence; you would feel it was unsuitable, his very presence checks it. What a wonderful relief to your heart to think that though the Lord has gone away, and you are here in the world where He was rejected, yet He says that if your eye is single you will be a body of light, you will not be in concert with the darkness around, but in complete antagonism, or rather contrariety to it. Light is a [p. 252] reflection of Himself here upon the earth. The moon has no light of itself, but if the earth does not come between it and the sun, it is a full moon. If you have nothing between you and Him, you will come out as light. That ought to be an immense consolation to you.
I turn now to the hindrances; the hindrances must be removed, and therefore I must know the nature of the conflict which precedes a body of light. The Lord says (chapter 11: 21), “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils”. The first thing you have to learn is that Satan has been turned out, and Christ has full possession; He is the ‘stronger’, in fact He has abolished Satan’s power in that sense; He went into death that He might destroy him that had the power of death - a wonderful thing! Satan had power over man’s body, but he has been expelled. Further on I may be able to show you that even his power as to infirmity is gone; the woman (chapter 13) is loosed from infirmity. But now I am dwelling on the fact that the actual power of possession is gone, and therefore we read in another place that your body is the Lord’s: “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” Satan’s power is gone; that is one thing. The other is what you get in verse 27: “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it”. As has been remarked, it is not miracles, it is the word of God now; the word of God is the real power of the kingdom of God; the King is not here, but the power of the word is here. You might say of man’s mind, That is a beautiful [p. 253] sentiment, with very deep feeling. Yes, but it is not the word of God. It is very hard, beloved friends, to eliminate the human sentiment; nothing is practically so difficult: the finest sentiment that ever came out of the human mind does not suit the Spirit of God; spiritual things are only conveyed by spiritual means. I have alluded to it already in connection with Colossians, that the snare there was that they thought they could contribute to Christ’s service by human ability and religiousness.
The Lord now adds, No sign shall be given to this generation but the sign of the prophet Jonas. Jonas and Solomon combined to set forth Christ in a twofold aspect; one, Christ in suffering, and the other, Christ in glory; as Peter puts it, “The sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow”. He is the One who has lain in the grave, as typified by Jonah, and He is the true Solomon. Then, He says, no man lights a lamp but he sets it upon a lamp-stand, an open place, that all that come in may see the light; and then if your eye is single your body is full of light. I trust what I have said may lead you to study this interesting scripture, and get more out of it than I can convey to you.
Having set forth this wonderful statement, that your body is to be light, we come to the difficulties of the way: “As he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him”. Here is the first thing you have to contend with. Many a pious person can say, I desire to have Christ as my simple object, to have my whole body full of light; but now comes out the snare of Pharisaism, and that is, to make an external appearance. That was the case here, and there is an imitation of light in christendom in this day. There never was a great reality yet without an imitation, and the only way to correct an imitation is to present the reality.
The great instruction here is that you must be on your guard, or the religious element about you will [p. 254] baffle you; and therefore the Lord exposes the Pharisees in a very scathing way, because they were seeking to make clean the outside of the cup and platter, while their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness. The Lord, on the other hand, would set the light inside. What is the practical effect? Your body will be indicative of the condition within. I have referred to it on a former occasion; and it is important to remember that the body is always indicative of the measure of the Spirit’s work in you. It is not effort, but the Spirit’s work.
Now I turn to chapter 12 in order to set forth the characteristics of the body of light. The first great characteristic is that you do not fear them that kill the body. “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows”. The moment I fear God, I find out the wonderful care He has for me; what I could not number myself He numbers: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered”. I want to keep definitely before you that if you are here where He is not, and glad to be here for Him a body of light, your first great characteristic as a body of light is that you do not fear them that kill the body. You see it in Stephen, and you see it in the apostle Paul. I have no doubt that if a person were thoroughly with the Lord, it would be easier to suffer for Him as a martyr than to endure a lingering illness. What a beautiful position a christian may be found in on this earth where the Lord was rejected! He seeks nothing from the earth, but he gets, while on the earth, from his Lord who is not here. Then the Lord adds that He will reward you in the kingdom:
“Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall [p. 255] the Son of man also confess before the angels of God”.
I just refer to verse 13, because there you get again the nature of the conflict; it will disclose to you the Jewish element. A man wanted the Lord to speak to his brother to divide the inheritance with him; he was looking for something on the earth, and the Lord gave him an example of a man who so prospered in earthly things, that he had to pull down his barns and build greater; but God said to him, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee”. That only comes in as a check; and then we get the next characteristic in verses 22 - 32. Here the Lord, after saying to His disciples, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on”, directs their attention to the ravens, how God feedeth them, and to the lilies, how they grow, and how God clothes the grass of the field, and adds:
“And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”. As I have said, the first great characteristic is not to fear them that kill the body. If Christ were simply my object, I should not fear them that kill the body. That is what is outside of me; and the second characteristic is inside; instead of taking thought what I should eat, or what I should drink, or being of doubtful mind, I say, My Father knoweth that I have need of these things, and it is His good pleasure to give me the kingdom; and therefore the principle is, “Seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you”.
Then verse 35 brings in the exhortation connected with it: “Let your loins be girded about” - that is that you are ready for service, “and your lights burning” - that is, your candles, “the light of the body is the eye”; your loins girt and your lights burning, “and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding” - that is, you are waiting for Him to come here. And what will happen? Verse 37 tells you: “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching”, etc.; they are serving Him now, and He will serve them then. Peter wants to know whether the parable is spoken to them or to all. “And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath”. It has been said there are two things here, the expectation of the Lord, and service. I desire to press much that if you were looking for the Lord, and really expecting Him to come (and that is the meaning of watching) you would be occupied with Christ’s household. He is not speaking here of the church dispensationally, but of His household. Matthew 24: 45, 46 will make it plainer: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing”. That shows you that the characteristic of a servant watching for the Lord to come back is that he is looking after the interests of His household, giving them their meat in due season. In that sense it is brought out very distinctly at the close of Revelation, where we read, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. Then is added, “Let him that heareth say, Come”, you are not occupied with yourself, there is another range, another circle of things that you are occupied with - the circle of His interests. “Let him that [p. 257] heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”. I believe it is of deep importance to understand that you are not only watching, with your loins girt and your lights burning, but you are taking care of the Lord’s interests. The force of the word ‘watch’ is that you are keeping awake. Watchmen used to walk about at night, and tell the hours of night; so one that is watching is wide awake, looking for the Lord to come; and not only so, but he proves it; he is not looking out of the window to see if there is any appearance in the sky of His coming. No, he is so assured that the Lord is coming that he is taking care of those who belong to Him. See how Paul speaks to Timothy of the Lord’s appearing, and His kingdom. And John says, “That ... we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming”. He does not say, ‘That you may not be ashamed’, but “we” - that he may not be ashamed of his work; and in another epistle we read, “But that we receive a full reward”, and again, “They watch for your souls, as they that must give account”. We shall all have to give an account. How little we have served! You may say, Do you mean that only one person is to do it? I think if you are set for it, you will be glad of every one who contributes to it; if you contribute, you are seeking to support it, as the apostle speaks of the women who laboured with him in the gospel; they were not preaching, but they were aiding, helping on spiritually, and thus contributing to the service of the apostle.
I need not dwell upon how judgment comes upon those who are not prepared (Luke 12: 45, 46), because I desire to bring before you the place of privilege to which we are called; but I will say a word or two on chapter 13. You understand, I trust, that you are to be here a body of light; that is your true place here. In chapter 13 there is an important warning - you are [p. 258] not to seek to be anything on the earth; the chapter closes with, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets ... your house is left unto you desolate”. What you get in this chapter is the kingdom of God upon earth, how man has used the word of God; that is in verse 18: “Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened”. The word of God by the human mind has produced this. The more a man adopts the word of God with his human mind, the more influence has he with men, because he suits men; and the huge system of christendom is the result. You are not to be that; the fig tree, the Jew (verse 6), has failed, but do not seek to be a mustard tree. What then? There are two characteristics that are to mark you; one is that of the woman who was eighteen years bound and who is loosed from her infirmity; and the other is that the only path for you is to enter in at the strait gate. It is really conversion: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate”, and you cannot seek any distinction or any acknowledgment from the world. The thing that had acknowledgment, that had a place, was Jerusalem, and the Lord says to it, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together” - but it is all over. What has brought about the state of things in christendom is the word of God appropriated by man’s intellect. And we see it, alas! very often even among christians, the truth appropriated with the carnal mind; and instead of helping the truth, the very truth they have only makes them of the mustard tree. It is not pleasant to dwell upon the unhappy side [p. 259] of things, but it is very blessed for us to see the beautiful path that is set before us.
The Lord grant that each one of us may understand what are the traits that belong to those who really care for the Lord in His absence. And what are we to do? Are we to do any great thing? If your eye is single your body will be full of light. Many christians are taken up with their doings, and this thing or the other comes out, and not the Lord. It is true that Christ is at the bottom of the heart of every christian; but the great thing is that He should be at the top, should have the whole; and then your whole bearing would be characteristic of Him.
The Lord grant that you may see what a wonderful path of privilege it is to be found here upon the earth for the Lord in the place where He was rejected, so that you may be looking for His return, and as you look for His return be a body of light, and be serving His household, giving them “their portion of meat in due season”, looking after the interests of your Lord.