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THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD JESUS

I feel guided to speak about knowing the consciousness and the joy of the presence of the Lord. I am sure that this must be a subject of prime importance to the heart of every true lover of the Lord Jesus. I believe that there is a great and increasing yearning in all of our hearts as the days pass by for the fulfilment of our hope. It has been most manifestly so in the affections of many believers who have given expression to their thoughts in song, in poems and in writings, and I am sure that it is shared by us all at this time. The very atmosphere enjoyed in an occasion like this surely makes us increasingly yearn for the fulfilment of our hope to be in the actuality of Christ’s presence. If for any reason it may not be such a prominent thought in the affections of anyone here, it is so in the heart of the Lord Jesus for us. I very greatly value that. If it was merely some conception of our own, surely it would be a very right and true thing that we should long to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus, but it has been expressly set out by Himself in His own words with such affection to His own.

I would like to quote from two scriptures to verify that, firstly from John 14, where the Lord Jesus says, “for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be” (vv.2,3). I also refer to John 17, where the Lord Jesus in addressing His Father says, “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me” (v.24). How remarkably precious, beloved brethren, that the Lord Jesus should directly express to His own the feelings of His heart that they should be with Him where He is, and confirm that when addressing His own Father, desiring that the objects of His love might be with Him to behold His glory. What a prospect is before us, beloved brethren! It has always been in the mind of God that He should find a place of dwelling amongst His people. We can hardly estimate in one way what it must have meant to the heart of God, so early on in the history of time, when He drew near to speak to Adam and Eve only to find that they sought to hide from His presence. That word is used, “And Man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim”, Gen.3:8. Think of them seeking to hide from God who had drawn near in order to speak to His creature man. Thank God, He has never abandoned the proposal of His love, conceived before time began and before sin came in, that He should find His eternal abode with men and His response from men. How great are the thoughts of God!

It was mentioned in the address yesterday that God indicated to His people, through Moses, that they should make Him a sanctuary where He might dwell. There is another allusion to the sanctuary that is of particular interest, which comes in a little earlier in the book of Exodus. It said in chapter 15, “The Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared” (v.17). Think of God taking steps to prepare a sanctuary for Himself amongst His people. The proposal of divine love was grasped by Moses and he gave expression to it in the song that the people of Israel entered into at that point. What a wonderful proposal God made, that His presence should be enjoyed among His people eternally. The people had the audacity, in the first scripture from which we read, to question whether God was among them or not. What a thing to say, when the evidences of God’s hand were there amongst them – the pillar of fire and the cloud accompanying them every day of the wilderness journey. What a remarkable thing! They murmured, they complained and yet there were the witnesses to the presence of God in care for them and in merciful protection over them. That particular thought was emphasised after the tabernacle was made. The glory descended upon it, as we are told at the end of the book of Exodus, and we are given to understand that it never departed throughout the whole of the wilderness journey – a very remarkable thing. It says in chapter 40, “For the cloud of Jehovah was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys” (v.38). Think of the continued evidence of the presence of God there. O, the marvellous grace and condescending care of God for His people!

Now the question arises, Have we the consciousness of the Lord’s presence among us at the present time? To carelessly claim it would be a very sad mistake. Such a time arose some years back when a claim of that nature was made. I believe it has pleased the Lord to humble us very greatly, but it has been a necessary thing. May we be helped to walk humbly before the Lord. I think there is a very great need for that and I call upon the saints to take sober account of that, so that we might walk carefully and humbly in these days we are in. But that gives no licence for wandering. The consciousness and joy of the Lord’s presence becomes an immense preservative to us. It is not a thing to be claimed but it is a thing to be enjoyed by His lovers who would seek it out. It is something to be consciously known, and I trust we may not err, as the people of Israel did, by failing to take account of the evidences of the Lord’s love towards us currently. Have we not had some witness of it during these times together? Have we not had a sense that the presence of the Lord has been very near? We are not yet in our final home. There is a particular blessedness connected with the sphere of our eternal happiness where there will be nothing adverse to pervade, and no disturbance ever to arise in the mind and affections of any. It will be undisturbed eternal happiness there in the presence of the Lord Jesus and before the Father, the joy of the Father’s presence being known as through Christ.

These things should be immediately before our affections. The rapture, as we speak of it, is imminently approaching, and the prospect of it ought to be continually burning brightly in the affections of us all as if it could happen at any moment. Why should it ever be otherwise? Why should I sit back a little and wait for some public evidence to confirm my heart? Is the joy of it not in our affections now? May it burn brightly! It is before the heart of the Lord Jesus. He is yearning for the moment when He will come and take His own to be with Himself. I might say that it will be true satisfaction and joy for me, as we would all surely agree, but it will bring satisfaction to the heart of the Lord Jesus when all His own will be with Him then without one shade of variation. We cannot limit the presence of the Lord to any particular group of Christians; that is a mistake. Christ is where the truth is and His presence is enjoyed where that is maintained and where there is affection for Himself. I do not wish to be too dogmatic in making statements that may need some later review, but I do believe the presence of the Lord is to be enjoyed where there is affection in the hearts of those who would seek after it. Those were the circumstances into which the Lord was pleased to come in John chapter 20. What a remarkable day that was, the first day of the week. If we are left here – and I use that word ‘if’ because even now I believe our hearts would yearn for the Lord to come – but if we are left here, the first day of the week is before us. Are we not exercised with desire in our hearts to provide conditions that would be suited for the Lord’s presence to be enjoyed? We were reminded in the address yesterday that He maintains us in the wilderness journey; what resource to help us along the way. But there is something special about the first day of the week. We come together in the wilderness, but when Christ comes in amongst His own, we are not left with the consciousness that we are in the wilderness – we are left with the deep joy of the consciousness of His presence. He is not then exactly acting sympathetically as a Priest towards us in regard of our needs, but He is coming in to enjoy what is suited to Himself amongst His own. He is coming in to find satisfaction where there might be an answer to His love. May we be in a condition ready to provide it in view of the joy of the Lord’s own heart.

But think of the way He did come in amongst His own on this remarkable day; “the doors shut where the disciples were, through fear of the Jews”. There was a different atmosphere inside from the one which existed outside and the Lord came in and took that place in the midst of His own. We are not exactly told that He was given that place. I have no doubt the disciples rejoiced that the Lord should have it, but He came and took that place. He came, it says, “and stood in the midst”. How worthy He is to have that place of supreme honour in the midst of His own. May our hearts be ready to fully accord the Lord that place. He comes in bringing with Him a sense of peace and joy amongst His own. That is what the Lord would do, beloved brethren. Sometimes we have burdened hearts. I can understand that, and so does the Lord; He knows what burdens us and troubles us. But when He comes in amongst His own, He lifts us above those circumstances. That is why I used the expression at the beginning that we might know what it is to have the consciousness and the joy of His presence, for He would lift our hearts up and give us to experience the joy of being in His presence. What a blessed thing to participate in. No wonder the hearts of His lovers are then at liberty to flow out in answering response to Himself.

Certain conditions are suited to the presence of the Lord. That is somewhat indicated in Hebrews where we read. He comes in and takes His place in the midst of the assembly. I just mention again that that is the place which is truly the Lord’s, “in the midst of the assembly”. Not a particular group or sectarian gathering, but in the midst of “the assembly”. I think that in the affections of the saints, we are helped by the Spirit to rise to the thought of that anticipatively at the Lord’s supper. We gather with the light of the whole in our thoughts and in our affections. We have to walk in a separate path, but when we are gathered, that is what is before our affections – the place that Christ truly has amongst His lovers. He is the Sanctifier; “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one”. I might say, what a perfect work is carried out by the Sanctifier. It is not so much there the thought of a process of sanctification being worked out, but it is something accomplished by the Sanctifier Himself so that He might have the answer suited to His own heart. He takes His place amongst His own where He is rejoicing; He says prophetically, “in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”. What joy fills our hearts when we have some sense in our own affections of Christ’s joy in the place He has amongst His own. One would seek to be caught up in the atmosphere where it is proper and normal to such conditions on the first day of the week. It is a wonderful privilege to be enjoyed. It means so much to the Lord Jesus; think of the joy of the Lord thus expressed. He would reassure us of His love.

As we gather, the emblems before us bear their own witness freshly to our hearts concerning the love of the Lord Jesus. When He came in amongst His own on the first day of the week, as we read in John chapter 20, He showed them His hands and His side. From one point of view, those were witnesses to the hatred of men against the Lord Jesus, but it is not my impression that that was particularly what the Lord was freshly portraying to His own at that time. I think He was calling their attention to the witnesses of His own love which had risen in superiority beyond and above all the hatred of men. There was the assurance of the superiority of the Lord’s own suffering love to fill their hearts afresh in the extent to which He had been prepared to go in love to secure them.

Now in Hebrews, we see the joy that is secured by way of an answer to the affections of the Lord Jesus when taking His place amongst His own. The joy of the Lord is indicated in singing: what a remarkable thought. Isaiah speaks of Him as “a man of sorrows” (Isa.53:3), but He does not come in amongst His own on the first day of the week as a Man of sorrows. He is coming in to take His place amongst His lovers as the “minister of the holy places” (Heb.8:2), quickening the affections of His own in response to Himself and leading us forward in all that is before His heart. Such is what He finds in the assembly; there is a sympathetic and intelligent answer there in relation to what is before Himself in all that He would lead us into. No wonder that the Lord indicates that He would take His place in the midst of the assembly in singing these praises. What a time of rejoicing in holy joy when Christ has His true place among us. I come back to my earlier point – may we all be helped to enjoy the consciousness and the joy of the Lord’s presence.

How can that be known when we are not yet in glory above where Christ is? Clearly it requires two principal things. One is faith and the other is the service of the Holy Spirit to give us that joy consciously and anticipatively. It cannot be known apart from the help of the Holy Spirit, who would give us the joy and the consciousness of the presence of the Lord Jesus and help us in participating in the responses that flow out from the joy that His presence would prompt among us. These things are needed now. Faith will cease when we are ultimately in the joy of the Lord’s presence. There will be no more need then for faith to be exercised, because it will be changed then for actuality. How blessed! We can hardly take in the fulness of the joy that it will be, to be for ever in the presence of the Lord Jesus in undisturbed repose and joy, His heart free and our hearts free. O, what joy to be held in the present anticipation of it and to have some touch of the experience of it by the Holy Spirit. These things are not imaginative. I can say, beloved brethren, and I am sure many can support me in saying this, that it is a very real and definite thing to be enjoyed – something not to be forgotten, something that brings about change. That is what happens when the presence of the Lord Jesus is experienced. How could you be in the presence of the Lord without being transformed by the shining of His glory? It would seem very strange to think that we could somehow enter into that, but go out unchanged? How could it be? O that our hearts might experience the reality and the effect of being in the presence of the Lord Jesus, so that the radiancy of His shining and the consciousness of His joy among us may have its answer in the springing up of deeper affection on our part.

That is what led me to the passage in the Song of Songs, because while we do not have the bride presented in the Song, we have feelings appropriate to the bride brought out, and we have language suitable for the bride to express given to us in the passage. Here she is saying to the beloved that he is like “the apple-tree among the trees of the wood”. That is, in type, Christ in all His distinctiveness and glory, enjoyed in the affections of His lover. She says, “In his shadow have I rapture and sit down”; think of the complacency expressed there. Exercise, and I believe continual exercise, sometimes very severe exercises, are involved in the course of our journey here, and our brother reminded us last evening that there is resource to meet these. We have been thinking of Christ as Priest able to provide that needed sympathy meantime to meet all that is required. But then when touching the joy of His presence, especially on the first day of the week, we are in a different atmosphere altogether where we are sitting down, as it were, in all the complacency of the known experience of His love. Clearly there was a yearning on the part of the spouse here to be maintained in the joy of that.

“He hath brought me to the house of wine”, she says, carrying some consciousness of being brought into a time of particular rejoicing. That is what the house of wine would speak about; it is a place of happiness. Are we looking forward to gathering together with lovers of the Lord Jesus to remember Him? He would bring us into the house of wine. His joy is found among His own, but so is ours. It is a great revival at the beginning of the week to freshly experience that – some sense of the intimacy of joy as belonging to this wondrous vessel, the assembly, answering to the affections of the Lord Jesus and enjoying the fruit that He would minister. That is also part of our experience; “his fruit is sweet to my taste”. Think of the communications of the Lord’s love. Think of the Lord imparting impressions, thoughts of Himself to our hearts, fruit sweet to our taste. Do you find joy in, and have you a taste for, such fruit that the Lord would minister? May it be so in all our hearts increasingly.

She says, “his banner over me is love”. I often ponder over that interesting reference. I do not think it is a reference to a military banner. That might be connected with the forward march of a regiment, but it is not a time for marching in the journey or facing warfare; she is sitting at His feet. What is the significance of the banner? It is the witness over her to His love; it is the consciousness that is borne evidence to of the unchangeable love of the Lord Jesus, One who has gone all the way, as His disciples would have learned from the display of His hands and His side. It is love that remains in Christ out of death, love that is enjoyed as Christ would come in among His own. We would have some sense of the restfulness and joy of the atmosphere, with the banner over us indicating love. It is the time of love to be enjoyed and the time for love to be responded to. She yearns, it would seem, that that might not be lost. She says, “Sustain ye me with raisin cakes, Refresh me with apples”. No doubt we feel the present weakness of our bodies and in some sense the limitations of the circumstances in which as yet we are. I do not think we will need the sustaining and the refreshing eternally; we will be in a condition to constantly and forever enjoy that love of Jesus. But we do need them now so that we do not lose these impressions of Christ, or the joy of what we are speaking of, but rather we are sustained in them. The Lord would minister to our joy and as we said already, the Holy Spirit would help us to enter into the consciousness of it and sustain us in the joy of these things, so that we might be held in the atmosphere of rapture.

I do not speak as one who assumes that these things just belong to a few. I take it that it is the joy of every true lover of the Lord Jesus and in the hearts of all by way of desire who are gathered here at this time. I credit my brethren with that, and I sense in my heart that I am in an atmosphere where Christ is loved. I have the consciousness that the Lord loves to take account of it. I have a sense in my soul that just as I am looking forward, and saints here are looking forward, to the first day of the week, if we are left here, so is the Lord in view of freshly coming in among His own with joy, imparting that fruit, sweet to our taste and delightful for Him to minister. She says, “His left hand is under my head, And his right hand doth embrace me”. I love those two thoughts, beloved brethren. It is as if she was saying that she was conscious that she was held intelligently in the understanding of the feelings of His heart, and His right hand embracing her, holding her in the undeviating conscious power of His love.

May our hearts yearn increasingly for it, because it is clearly in the heart of the Lord Jesus for us. May it be our joy to minister to His joy as opportunity would provide. May we be strengthened by the Spirit to render Him the joy that He seeks for amongst His own and that we in turn may prove the refreshment and joy of His own presence now as will be our eternal portion, for His glory and our blessing.

Address at three-day meetings, Dundee

6 April 2019

J. Laurie

Edited and Published by John Brown and Paul Martin

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email notesofministry@virginmedia.com or paul@nofm.co.uk

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