THE LORD’S LONGINGS TO HAVE US WITH HIM

R. Taylor

John 17: 24; Genesis 45: 18–20; 2 Samuel 19: 33

We speak a lot about the Lord coming for us and have been speaking quite a bit in the last few weeks of our eternal portion, the blessedness of what it will be to be with Christ. We also sing for the Lord to come, and I feel tested every time we sing it how much do I really want Him; but what I have read about is how much He wants us. That is absolute, no qualifications about that. His prayer is that they “may be with me”. Think of the Lord’s longings to have us with Him! He has demonstrated the reality of those longings in that He died for us; He cleared the way for us to be with Him. What liabilities lay upon us; afar off, without hope, without God, but He cleared away all those liabilities—every one of them. He is speaking here anticipating His death and resurrection. He says, “Father”. Think of how the Father’s ear was ever open to hear the requests of His Son. He said earlier in the chapter, “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17: 4), and now here He is making requests to the Father; the chapter has a few of them and it is very beautiful. He says, “Father ... I desire that where I am they also may be with me”.

What love was expressed in those deep longings. Has He never assured your heart about them, how much He wants you? Has He never given you a touch perhaps on Lord’s day morning, of what the joy will be for Him to have you with Him in His presence, cleared of all the liabilities?

On Lord’s day we spoke of how our body of humiliation will be transformed into conformity to His body of glory (Philippians 3: 21). You can hardly envisage it, but that is the condition He will have us in, beyond anything that we can yet fully compass. Peter got some impression of it on the holy mountain, I am sure, and it grew in Peter’s soul so that he is able to speak later of us “hastening the coming of the day of God”, 2 Peter 3: 12. He was longing for it, having anticipated something of it. Well, dear brethren, I am sure that we have anticipated it, may be even in our own private communion. The Lord has maybe said to us often, ‘just come apart’; that is what communion is even more than reading the Scriptures; it is one to one, personal communications from the Lord of glory. He desires our company far more than we do His, I am sure of that for myself anyway. I just want to leave that verse on our spirits, the longing the Lord has for our company. As I said, He has cleared the ground completely, He has given everything.

He says, “I desire that where I am”, and now He tells us why—“that they may behold my glory”. We shall see Him in His own environment. We shall see Him with all the honours

that the Father has bestowed upon Him; what a sight it will be for our eyes to behold that glory. It says, “which thou hast given me”. Well, we have some anticipation of it. This very dispensation is some tribute to the glory that the Father has given to Christ, in that the dispensation has continued. You may say, It has continued because the Spirit is here, and that is true, but also it has continued because the Lord has been enthroned in glory, and He has been specially equipped, furnished with all that is needed to see us through. Part of that glory is that He serves us as Priest, in our sorrows, and burdens, and the anxieties of the testimony.

That is part of the glory He has been given to serve the saints, held and sustained in the place they have in divine affections till with Him we see His glory and, as Mr Darby says,

‘There with unwearied gaze

Our eyes on Him we’ll rest’ (Hymn 79).

Well, dear brethren, I say these things to entice and encourage our hearts as to the reality of what it will be, and the Lord’s desire will soon be fulfilled and ours too. May our hearts be stirred to have some of those longings.

I referred to Jacob who is so like ourselves; he was set in his circumstances, he had become discouraged, he had lived for quite a while without his eye on Joseph. He had thought about Him every day, I am sure, but there he is discouraged and set in his circumstances; not very good maybe, there with his family round about him, and he became slow to move. We get very set in certain circumstances, we may feel they are not fully right, but we get accustomed to an environment that suits the natural man. It does not cause too much exercise, we can excuse ourselves a great deal. Then the day comes when the glory dawns on Jacob’s soul—Joseph was still alive and desired his company. They said about Moses that they did not know what had happened to him—that is the world we are in, they do not know what has happened to Christ. Now here is the light of a glorified Jesus, in type, shining into this great patriarch who had been discouraged. I only wanted to call attention to this word—it says, “come to me; and I will give you the good of the land”.

It is a Person we have come to, dear brethren. We have company, we are thankful for it, but let us never forget, that what we have come to is a Person, a glorified Man and that is who is appealing here, “come to me”. Joseph was not going to go to them to justify them in the circumstances they were in, but he did send waggons and provision for the way, as he says, “come to me; and I will give you the good of the land”. Do we have longings for it? As I said, we have foretastes of it, and now I just want to call attention to this word to my own heart, “let not your eye regret your stuff”.

We have far too much stuff, whatever it may be; we may say it is not wrong, but we may allow too many things that appeal to us naturally and that would keep our hearts from being quickened, dear brethren, to answer to the Lord’s appeal to come, as he leaves that word with them, “let not your eye regret your stuff”. They had acquired a great deal, but they had to leave the country they were in, they had to leave the circumstances they were in, their house, all that they had; they could not take it to Joseph, it would not fit into Goshen. You know, that is just what we are like; what we have naturally will hardly fit into those eternal conditions, we will leave it all. It was asked about someone that had died, ‘How much did he leave?’ The answer was, ‘Everything, he left everything’. That is what it will be, we brought nothing into the world, we will take nothing out. So he says, “let not your eye regret your stuff”.

David says to Barzillai, “I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem”. Barzillai had been a very fine man. In an earlier chapter, when David was in rejection, it says that he had brought beds and other things (2 Samuel 17: 28), he had done all that he could to serve him for his comfort.

David had appreciated it, but now he says to Barzillai, “Pass thou over with me”; there is the word. It meant a move, he would have to leave things. It is like going over the Jordan; their eye was on the ark. That is what it says there, “When ye see the ark ... remove from your place”, Joshua 3: 3. May our heart be quickened to have a clearer view of Christ in His own glory. It says here, “Pass thou over with me”, that was the test. David says, “I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem”. Can anything compare with that, dear brethren, “with me in Jerusalem”? That is a type of Christ in His own circumstances; that is seeing Him there with a quickened heart. May it be so, dear brethren, that we are more ready, more desirous, more longing. Barzillai had a servant called Chimham, his name means ‘Longing’.

May that be in our hearts dear brethren; a longing, an increasing longing to be with Christ, for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy
17 October 2006