CHRIST’S DAYS, AND OURS
J. Lovie
I am moved to read these verses because our brother’s days were shortened. He did not reach the span which the ministry of Moses allows (Psalm 90: 10), and in that sense he was really cut off in the midst of his days. What has entered into his life involves completion and fulness. The
work of God began early and is now completed. It has been here in obscurity as far as this world is concerned. The day is soon coming when it will be displayed. When God begins a work in the soul of a believer, He completes it unto Jesus Christ’s day (Philippians 1: 6). The work that God has wrought in the soul of our brother will shine, and when Christ comes out in manifestation our brother, as of the assembly, will come out with Him in glory. That will be the day of display.
God’s work has gone on here sufferingly, in patience and committal—a representation, I believe, of what God is looking for in the soul of the believer, that is, committal to God’s interests and support of them day by day, month by month, year by year. These are the things that shine in relation to the completion of God’s work in our souls, and development in the divine nature. Be assured that if He has begun a work in your heart He will complete it unto that day, that is the day when Christ will be publicly manifested and every feature of His work in the saints will shine for His glory.
In this, one of the salient suffering psalms, we get the feelings of Christ in manhood and the sense in which He loved His days. Every day of the life of Jesus was filled for the will of God. This comes home to us forcibly at a meeting such as this, promoting a fresh desire that we should be energised to fill our days for the will of God. Peter reminds us of that when he says, “no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh to men’s lusts, but to God’s will”, 1 Peter 4: 1. What a privilege, what an opportunity, for those who are young and just beginning their Christian path. What an opportunity even for those of us who are older, into whose time perhaps many misspent days have entered, to make a fresh committal—the rest of our time for the will of God.
“He weakened my strength in the way”. Think of the Lord Jesus in manhood here feeling what this involved. Think of Him “being wearied with the way he had come” at Sychar’s well, and yet available to one woman. He is available to you here today if you do not know Him and if you do not yet have a link with Him by faith. The Lord is serving, and would serve you personally, so that you might come to know Him, come to know Him as the Saviour of the world, as the Revealer of secrets (see Genesis 41: 45). The Lord would serve so that you come to have a link with Him for yourself.
“He shortened my days”. How precious those thirty-three and a half years—three and a half years of public service, eighteen years of hidden life, and before that His boyhood up to the age of twelve showing His committal to the Father’s business (see Luke 2: 49). In that hidden life there was what was so pleasurable to heaven. Consider Him beginning His day, each day,
“He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”, Isaiah 50: 4. Mark’s gospel shows He was engaged in communion long before the sun was up (Mark 1: 35). After the sun had gone down they were bringing all kinds of needy persons to Him and He was available to them (Mark 1: 32). Not only was He meeting the needs of humanity but affording such pleasure to God. John’s gospel gives us the value of the burnt-offering for the pleasure of God, a Man in whom His pleasure centred every day—a path and a life that were filled for the glory and pleasure of God. One is reminded of Abel’s offering; it speaks of fatness, of the firstlings of the flock and the fat—in type the excellence of Jesus and the excellence of that life. Noah’s offering speaks of the cleanness of that life; Noah took of every clean animal, speaking of the moral purity of the life of Jesus. Thirty-three and a half years, day by day, every day, for the pleasure of God. The burnt-offering in relation to Isaac is the side of affection, the Father and Son going on together in intimacy. Christ accepting all that His place in manhood involved in obedience, having come into the position to which obedience applies and going on in the devotion of love and service.
“My God, take me not away in the Midst of my days!” The Lord felt His days being shortened. Immediately the divine answer comes, “Thy years are from generation to generation”. What a touch as to the Deity of the One who was here in manhood. God Himself had come within the creature’s range in Jesus, in lowliness. He had come down in relation to the needs of humanity. His days being shortened, yet ministering comfort to everyone in need. He would minister comfort to our dear sister, the family, and all of us today. Every one of us should experience comfort because the One of whom we are speaking is the Same. He is not bounded by generations; He is not bounded by dispensations, He is the Same. Deity enters into this title—“But thou art the Same, and thy years shall have no end”. Yet the One who is the Same came down here into self-imposed conditions of limitation, into manhood, and His days were cut off at thirty-three years and a half.
I commend this to myself and to all our hearts, dear brethren, that we should value time in view of what it will yield for God. May our days be fuller and richer in the sense of what they can afford for God and thus remind Him somewhat of what He had here in Christ.