THE LORD’S COMING

Hebrews 9: 24–28; John 14: 1–6; 1 John 3: 1–6; Revelation 3: 8, 10, 11

RT I thought the Lord may help us to speak of His soon return; something that should be of prime interest to every believer. The Lord left it to be the hope of His saints that He was coming again. The devil has sought to nullify it and has been largely successful; not saying that the Lord will not come, but that He delays to come. You can see that came in very quickly in the history of the church. People began to doubt if He was coming, they doubted the fact of the resurrection and the result is that people have been put to sleep; consciences have become dulled and hearts have become laden with cares of life. It is very obvious that a great deal of our anxieties, troubles in many ways are extended because we have lost the hope or the expectancy that He is coming soon. If we knew that He was coming tonight we would be very active, would we not? Just let us think for a moment about our own hearts. If the Lord was coming just now is there something we would like to do first, some place we would like to go, and some ambition we would like to realise first? These are things that the enemy, because of our weakness, works on to hinder the joy and the expectation of His coming soon.

I read the scripture in Hebrews to show that there was nothing to hinder Him from coming. He has already laid the groundwork to have His own with Him in eternal conditions, having been once manifested. In John’s gospel He is leaving the disciples and directs their hearts to another world. Someone has well said, from John 13 onwards the word is there instead of here. I think that is very appropriate, that everything is centring the hope of the saints on there above, instead of here below. These things, dear brethren, test us as we think of them, because most of our hopes are here; but the Lord’s grace in these chapters in John is to transfer them to “where I am”. In John’s epistle we just get a touch of the effect it has upon us, and we may consider Revelation where we will see the practical effects on our life.

But, first of all, I thought in Hebrews, the Lord would endear Himself to our hearts, because the whole matter depends on our affection for Christ. The reason the enemy has gained so much ground is that the Lord has lost His place in the affections of His people. He came once to resolve the sin question and to settle the question of our sins—now that, dear brethren, should endear Him to our affections. He did not do that to leave us here, He did that to secure the ground that we may soon be with Him. People publicly say, Where is He, what is He doing, but John 14 and Hebrews 9: 24 show us He is very active; and He would have us to be active in our affections in looking for Him. I trust the Lord will guide us and the Spirit will touch our hearts as to how He has met our condition and our sins, in “having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear to those that look for him”. It means that we are expectant, there is nothing to be done, He has settled the sin question, He has established His rights to the whole universe, and in the appearing, as it is spoken of in Scripture, He will take them up. But first, He shall appear to those that look for Him, without having to say to sin. It means it is a settled matter in my life, that sins are not hindering or disturbing my relations with Christ; I am expecting Him soon to come and take me to be with Himself.

DTP That is certainly an encouraging line to occupy us; indeed we need to be occupied with it in our daily lives. I was just thinking of Mary, she felt the loss of the Lord and went to the tomb, but then she is directed to the saints, to prove really what was there livingly, that had their interest in Himself. These things would be an encouragement to us in our assembling, to be together, because that is where we prove something that the Spirit gives.

RT Yes, she brings up the point we have stressed, that it is affection that finds Him. The disciples did not find Him, but she was one who felt that she could not live here without Him. We often criticise Mary, but she was a young sister who felt that she could not live here without Him, and she found Him. The others were at their own home, it seemed, but she could not be satisfied without Him. That shows the need for our affections being kept alive, and I think it would touch us all as to how, in the incarnation and in His death, the Lord has dealt with everything that stood in the way of coming again to have His own with Him in eternal conditions.

DM Jr I noticed during the week it says, “For whoso findeth me findeth life, and obtaineth favour of Jehovah”, Proverbs 8: 35.

RT Well, it says earlier, “they that seek me early shall find me” (Proverbs 8: 17), and that was Mary. That is life in a scene of death, because that is what we are in; but He is to be found in the circle where He is loved, and He is to be found nourishing our affections in view of keeping them alive until the time when He comes to meet us in the air.

TDB Is His coming to be a governing factor in our lives? I was thinking of the apostle when he says, “for me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1: 21), he lived with that kind of outlook.

RT Well, it is very encouraging, when Christ, who is our life shall appear, it will not be a surprise to us, but it may test our affections. I sometimes wonder myself if I would recognise Him; do I know His voice enough to be ready to answer to His call? These things are learned in our pathways, as we are brought to appreciate the glory of His work, that He has cleared everything out of the way that it may be true that we find He is our life.

GCMcK It is touching that He was offered to bear the sins of many, and then He is going to come in view of salvation. Does the same love lie behind both would you say, the bearing of our sins, and then to come to take us completely out of this scene of adversity?

RT Yes, it says He has been once manifested to put away sin by His sacrifice. It was not an act of power that atoned, He took a body, “But now once in the consummation of the ages he has been manifested for the putting away of sin by his sacrifice”. That is, He put it away from before God, He broke its power as the dominating principle of the world; it is still here but its power has been broken by the manifestation of Himself. Then it comes much nearer, “And forasmuch as it is the portion of men once to die, and after this judgment; thus the Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many”. Well, dear brethren, we put ourselves in there, that He was once offered to bear our sins, so there is no cloud to hinder us from looking for Him. If we were in our sins, if there is sin unjudged in our life, we will dread the fact that He is coming. But He has been once offered to bear those sins. He has taken them away so that my conscience is clear and my heart is kept alive to be among those that look for Him. He is coming to receive to Himself those whose sins have been washed away in His precious blood.

RG Is that what Paul delights to commend in the Thessalonians? He says “how ye turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath”, 1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10.

RT I meant to refer to that as the normal Christian position, to turn to God from idols, that is our first step, that we turned away from idolatry, that means other gods; and to serve the living and true God, awaiting His Son, shows how their affections were stirred up. These were young Christians, newly converted, and this was their life, looking for His Son from heaven.

JTB(Gr) I suppose that is intended to be an immediate and continual consequence of putting our trust and faith in the finished work of Christ.

RT He did not take away our sins to leave a void, but that He may fill our heart with Himself, and with the gift of the Spirit. But largely what has happened is persons having their sins forgiven and they settle down; then what happens is, as the Lord says in that parable, the enemy comes back and he finds the house unoccupied, swept and adorned, and fills it with doubts and fears and confusion (see Matthew 12: 44, 45). Persons may be saved at the end, but in the meantime their hearts are left in a confused state as the enemy has come back and occupied them.

CKR So the word here is “look for him”. Could you say a bit more on that because it is about your outlook? The event is one thing, precious as that is, but it is the Person, you are looking for Him.

RT That brings us to John 14, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself’. I thought we may link John 14 with the verse in Hebrews that He has gone into heaven itself. I am often charmed with that verse. I can understand Him going into heaven, He had a right to be there in the glory of His Person, but the verse does not finish there, it says He has gone “into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”. You have a place there, dear brother and sister! Think of that day by day in your exercises; Christ is in the presence of God to appear before the face of God for us. The type is the high priest in Exodus 28 who went in with the breast-plate on his breast and every name was on it. He has given us a place there. Does that not lift our hearts away from here to there? That is where our place is, the Father’s house, what a place! But He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. Well, there is something of the Lord’s longings. What about ours?

DTP So, occupation with Christ really is the great preservative for us in our lives, is it not? If you are occupied with Christ you leave the things that are related to this scene, and what you find is everything that is glorious is in that blessed Man. That is a stay and comfort to the soul.

RT Yes, and occupation with Him where He is. Largely as you speak to people, they speak about Christ where He was, and what He did, but how much do we know about Him where He is and what He is doing. He has gone into heaven to appear before the face of God for us; that is His occupation today; great high priest, apostle, mediator, active that we may know Him as He is. Not only a historical Jesus that was a man here once, who died for me, but He lives for me in the power of a life that is soon going to manifest itself in a fresh way, in coming to receive us to Himself.

NJH The Lord Jesus has a lot to say in these chapters as to the Holy Spirit. I was just thinking what you said earlier as to these chapters, it is there and here, is that important? I was thinking how He enters into the preparing of our outlook; Christ-ward He enters into the matter of saying “come” and as to us it is “Behold the bridegroom” (Matthew 25: 6), is that right?

RT Yes, that is possibly one of the first things the Lord did as He went into heaven; he sent the Holy Spirit, another Comforter, that is part of His activity. I have often been touched that the Spirit of God, a divine Person, has that title, another Comforter. They had known the Lord’s comfort, but He says, I will send another Comforter that He may be with you for ever, and it says, that He may be in you, to be our link with Christ where He is and our place there with Him in glory.

NJH We should really have the same outlook as the Spirit.

RT Well, that will be the great climax of this dispensation. A divine Person and a creature vessel will say the same word at the same time, “Come”. That shows how near we have been brought into the divine thoughts that the Spirit and the bride say “Come”.

JAB At the end of Revelation He said, “I come quickly”, and He said that twice. Why did He say “I come quickly” when He knew that at least two thousand years would elapse before He came?

RT I do not know. He does not speak of it that way. When asked about times and seasons, He says I leave that in the Father’s authority (see Acts 1: 7; Matthew 24: 36). I think “I come quickly” is not so much a matter of time, it is His attitude and disposition, and you can see that in those chapters in John; He is not speaking of it being two thousand years away. He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. He has the rights to the whole universe, but the present period that we are in is a peculiar time. It does not form part of prophecy, it is a time when the Lord is engaged exclusively with the saints of the assembly; and He would remind them that that is His whole occupation, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself’.

JAB So, is there something that has been worked out in the length of this dispensation that could not have been worked out any other way?

RT I think so. Maybe the length of time is because we are not ready. The Lord saying “I come quickly” shows He is ready. He has cleared the ground, but it may be (these things we can just think about) we are holding it up, like Laodicea for example, through not being ready. He is saying, I am ready, and He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”.

JAB It is helpful, I am glad of what you say.

RT Well, it is true that The Lord does not delay his promise, as some account of delay, but is longsuffering towards you”, 2 Peter 3: 9. He once in the consummation of the ages dealt with everything that needed to be done. If He had come in the early Acts, it would have been a very fine assembly, but you and I would not have been in it; hosts would not have been there. The length of the dispensation is not because there is any further work to be done, save to gather together the great wonderful company that will be presented in Revelation 21.

GBG “Receive you to myself” is what is for the Lord’s own heart, do you think?

RT You will enjoy it also, will you not?

GBG Oh yes, that is right. In the resurrection He says, “I will see you again” (John 16: 22); so there is the Lord’s side, that is the resurrection; when He says “shall receive you to myself”—that is the church complete for His own heart.

RT And in His beauty dressed. Yes, it brings up His joy, I am glad you refer to that, it is His expectation; it is ours (if it is) but it is His prime expectation, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”, that will be in His Father’s house.

RG “I am coming” is characteristic, is it not? He is not putting it off, He does not say, I will come, He says, “I am coming”; that is the characteristic heart of the Man that beats in heaven, and His characteristic is that He is on the move.

RT Yes, I remember it once being described very simply that a child was crying and the mother just shouted ‘coming’ and the child stopped crying. The mother knew that the child needed her, and she just said ‘coming’. I think that is just like this; He knows we need Him and says that He is coming to receive us to Himself; then the distance will be over for us. But what a joy for Him to receive the assembly to Himself and see then the glory of His workmanship, see then what this time of patience and waiting has yielded; He will have His bride, suited to be with Him in eternal conditions.

JSp In the parable He says, “Trade while I am coming”, Luke 19: 13. Is that not to enrich the saints in the glory of the Person, so that when He does come there will be something worked out by the Spirit that will be a suitable vessel for Himself? I was thinking of the time that has elapsed, it is so that we can be enriched in the glory of the Person. The Spirit of God is active, is He not? I am thinking of the journey of Rebecca to Isaac, it was a very prosperous journey; typical of the Spirit of God bringing out the glories of the heavenly Man.

RT Yes, indeed, the time publicly may seem wasted, but in the inside you can see there is a great work going on. It is not sinners that are going to be taken to heaven, they would not be happy there. There is nothing going to be taken to heaven except what has come out of heaven, and that is at the present time, the work of the Spirit of God, forming this wonderful vessel, the assembly, to be suited to heavenly conditions. It has been often said that the assembly is heavenly in origin and heavenly in destiny; in the meantime, she is taking on these heavenly features, and soon to be at home.

EJM In Exodus 21 it says, “he shall be his bondman for ever” (Exodus 21: 6). Do you think that shows He is serving His own today, interceding?

RT Well, he said distinctly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children”. You can see from John 14 onward there are communications going on all the time between Christ and His own. These things are part of the trading that has been spoken of, trading with heavenly light and heavenly things and acquiring substance, so that the Lord is securing a company in this dispensation that has a distinctive glory.

MC What we touch at the Supper by way of experience in our spirits would engender a greater desire to see the Lord in actuality and to be with Him. We do see His glory, do we not, as by the Spirit? and when we see Him actually we shall see Him as He is.

RT Yes, and we shall be like Him. I am glad you bring in the Supper; He says in this chapter “I am coming to you”, that is what is filling out this dispensation, that He comes to us. He is coming for us, but He comes to us, and then at the appearing he will come with us, that is spoken of distinctly in Scripture. It may seem a long time but what wonderful results there will be when He comes to appear to take up His rights. He will bring with Him what has been formed in this waiting time.

DTP The suffering side relates to the assembly too, does it not? It maybe comes in more in the wifely side; the bridal side is more the side of joy, but the wifely side works out something. It has been a long period and that brings in an appreciation of grace, which would lead us on then to take on glory, would it not?

RT Well, there will be no glory without suffering. The Lord says that about Himself, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?”, Luke 24: 26. In the suffering there is something formed that is not superficial, that is why she is called the bride, the Lamb’s wife, because she has been identified with Him in the suffering position.

But while the sufferings are going on she has also enjoyed this inside position, that He comes, and gives us some touch of Himself as He comes. Well, it is very beautiful that He just does not say He was going, but He says, I go to prepare you a place in my Father’s house. I think that is something that we are learning, too, in this period of waiting, something of our place there in the Father’s house.

MC I would be glad if you could say more about that. You have spoken about the Lord being active and it is very blessed to contemplate that He is preparing such a place as this, this character of the place, would you say?

RT Well, I would I knew more about it. He says, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes”. It is obvious He wants to gain our confidence about it, “were it not so, I had told you—for I go to prepare you a place”. It is an area where sin or any imperfection can never enter; “my Father’s house” connects us with the purpose of God.

RG Do you think the two at the beginning of John’s gospel had some sense of it when he said, “Come and see”, John 1: 39?

RT Yes, I think they did, but it is right what you say, it was only some sense of it.

RG It is interesting that often in John’s gospel you get a preview, that seems to be what they got, but once they got the preview they would not be content until there was a full answer in them as to what the Father’s house was to Christ, do you think?

RT They abode with Him that day, what a day it must have been, and here He is, the Son, preparing a place for us in that home of love.

GCMcK He goes on to speak of the way, “No one comes to the Father unless by me”. It seems as if He has in His heart something like what Mr Darby has in his hymn,

‘The Father’s glories soon

Shall burst upon our ravished view’. (Hymn 47)

Do you think there will be something of that as He receives us to Himself, the Father’s glories? It is clearly running through this gospel, the thought of the Father and what He was to Christ, what He would be to His own.

RT Yes, it is wonderful how it has been opened up to us,

‘Father, Thy love, the source of all,

Sweeter than all it gives,

Shines on us now without recall,

And lasts while Jesus lives’. (Hymn 26)

The Lord is seeking to interest us in a place far superior to anything we can ever think of here, a place there. It puts things here in a different perspective, if we were only able to enjoy it more. So, we are encouraged to seek the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth. If we had some taste of such a place, how active we would be to know more about it. If you are going away to some foreign part you get a brochure and try to find out as much as you can about it, but this is far superior to that. He has prepared a place there and says, I am coming to receive you to Myself, that we might be at home in that place; it will be far beyond our expectations but we will be perfectly at home in it, as He receives us to Himself.

DCB “If therefore the Son shall set you free” (John 8: 36), that is where we get His mind, that He Himself should give us the liberty of His Father’s house.

RT The Son setting you free is now. As you get a touch of His glory, He would set us free to look there, His Father’s house, and to explore something about it. Paul speaks about it in Ephesians, every family named of the Father; all the work of God from Adam onwards will have a place in the Father’s house, every feature Christ reflecting; family after family will be there all with their own glory and distinctiveness at home in the Father’s house. He says, “I go to prepare you a place”; that is a place of peculiar favour for the saints of the assembly. You will not find the Father’s house spoken about in the Old Testament, Israel’s hope is the millennium, but here the Lord has opened up something beyond that, He says I go to prepare you a place in this home of love.

NJH While it says He is coming again it does not suggest He is leaving His own area, does it? It is stressed in Thessalonians descending from heaven, and He will leave His place when it comes to His manifestation publicly, but here it seems to be that He does not leave His own area in coming again. Is that right?

RT That is why it goes on to say, you know where I go, and you know something about the Father’s house because no one comes to the Father but by Me. So that those things are opened up to lovers of Christ. In actuality we await the fulness of it, but in the meantime it is opened up because we know that the Man that died for our sins has gone in and is there for us.

GBG “I am the way”, would it be involved in that His love for His Father and the love of the Father for a Man? I wondered if we learn it in Christ, the love of a Son for a Father, the love of the Father for the Son; that is opening up this area of things for ourselves, is it not?

RT It brings us to know Christ and to know God in a way that He was never known before, because the man Christ Jesus, our Saviour, has gone in. And He says, “my Father and your Father”, John 20: 17. What words to fall on human ears. It connects with Hebrews, the new and living way, through the veil; by His death is the way into the whole purpose of God, to be enjoyed by us now in these conditions we are in. Now you can understand the effect this had on these grieving hearts; maybe some of ours are grieving, dear brethren, as many exercises and sorrows press on our spirits today, and here is the Lord’s word. We see things breaking up around, we have many burdens that are heavy to bear perhaps, but the Lord brings the light of this unfailing purpose into such hearts and He says “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. Now, are we ready for these words to be enshrined in our affections? Well, if there are any doubts, as there was with them, they say, We do not know, but He says the whole link is Me, “I am the way”.

TDB Mr Darby spoke in his hymn about the voice from the unseen world, is that something of this you have been speaking about? I was just thinking about “where I am”, not only to receive them to Himself, but “where I am”.

RT Well, it is maybe unseen but it is not to be unknown. It says, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me”. We often say on Lord’s day that we have access, but here is the title to the access, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me”. The way He is speaking he expects us to be interested, and to seek to explore something of our place in the Father’s house.

DTP What would you say about verse 10 where the Lord says, “I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me”? And

then He goes on to speak about “the Father who abides in me, he does the works”. What would you say about these words?

RT Well, he is speaking there to answer the question, “Lord, shew us the Father”. He says, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”. You will not be strange, His grace, His love, His affections have all been displayed in the man Christ Jesus. Then He goes on, “The words which I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does the works”. In thinking of the Lord’s coming the whole divine economy is active. We have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, as it says, “shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you”, Romans 8: 11. What it will be to be received into these holy habitations.

DTP From the divine side the time is short; we maybe find it long but the work is going on, is it not? It is the enrichment of what has to be taken out of this sphere altogether, and divine joy will be in it.

RT Well, we speak about the time being long, but none of us expects to be here for one hundred years; our point of looking for anything is far short of that. So, it is a short period. From Pentecost, you may say it has been long, but think of the great harvest that has been gathered in that interval. None of us can say that we are going to be here very long, so it is short. But the point is now. That is the Lord’s attitude and it is to be ours, to be ready now.

That is what He is saying here, “I am coming”, no time is spoken. That is how the scripture presents it. It is true that Paul and Peter were told that they would die, but Paul says, “we, the living who remain”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 17. He was not looking for death, he was looking for the Lord to come.

NMcK Is the Father’s house an area where we enjoy known relationship? I was looking at the beginning of the previous chapter where it speaks about the Lord departing out of this world to the Father, “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”, John 13: 1. He was here but He was going to be with the Father and leaving His own here; but now He has in mind Him being with the Father and having His own with Him to enjoy these relationships.

RT It is where sons will be at home. Every family will have some mark of sonship about them, but here He says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. Sons today enjoy sonship away from home, in a sense, but there it will be sons at home in the area where everything is speaking of Christ, and everything is for the Father’s pleasure and delight.

JMM I was thinking of Mephibosheth, he avoided even the ordinary preoccupations of life with a view to the return of David. I wondered whether it was because he had known in practice what it was to be loved and taken into favour for Jonathan’s sake, in a certain sense typically taken into favour in the Beloved, do you think? He had known something of the kindness of God, he had sat at David’s table, these things had been practical aspects of his life; they were not theological abstractions to him.

RT He said, “What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?”, 2 Samuel 9: 8. I believe, dear brethren, that is the key to what we are speaking about.

Do we really have a full sense of what it is that our sins have been forgiven us for His name’s sake? Think of God doing that! Mephibosheth knew that he deserved eternal banishment, as of the line of Saul, but David said, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God to him?”, 2 Samuel 9: 3. That is when the Lord looked on us. Has that ever flooded your heart that you were shown the kindness of God, to bring you, as it says of Mephibosheth, to “eat bread at my table continually” (2 Samuel 9: 10). Well, that is a very fine example for us, a man who was disadvantaged in so many ways, but he was living in the sense, day by day, of divine favour. You invite him to the parties, he would not go. Men tried in that day to make a whole system of things without David but he says you will not find me there. He had neither washed his feet, nor trimmed his beard while David was away; he was loyal to the absent David because he knew something of his place as one of the king’s sons at David’s table.

JTB(Ed) I was just struck by the reference to the Christ in the scriptures in Hebrews. Does that inspire confidence in Him, One who is God’s anointed and has accomplished everything for God? Then, even at the end, we who are the Christ’s at His coming, we are the Lord’s possession in that way; but here it is more the name of affection, Jesus, the relationship of affection in John. In Hebrews the Christ, the One who has accomplished everything for God, what confidence it inspired; and we are the Christ’s at His coming, that is what Corinthians points out, but here it is the simple enjoyment of the facilitation of love, is it?

RT So that the Christ is finality, is it not? If Christ did it no one can improve on it; it has been established once in finality. But it is very beautiful what you say, this is Jesus. One of the things that will make heaven so attractive is that the Man who was here, the Man of the gospels, the Man whom we have learned to love here below, is the centre in that heavenly scene. He will make us at home in it.

JTB(Ed) So, He is the Son of the Father’s love here?

RT Yes, indeed, and everything is shining and radiating in Him, the Son of the Father’s love, for us.

GCMcK Is it a beautiful intimacy and holiness almost in this section, “were it not so, I had told you”? Then Thomas asks a question, and Philip, and later on Judas, not the Iscariote. Was He drawing the disciples near to Him then with a sense of intimacy, to draw them into these things, do you think?

RT Very beautiful. The mount of transfiguration was that; it says they talked with Him. If you look at the mount of transfiguration from one point of view it may look official, but they saw His glory and talked with Him with a sense of being at home. Formalities will be dispensed with, each will be in a body of glory, we shall be there in sonship. Jesus alone with themselves is another touch on the mount, that is exclusive, is it not?

AMB I was just thinking that the more we enjoy the foretaste of these things then the better prepared we are for when the Lord does come, and the more keen will be our anticipation, our looking forward to that day. Would you encourage us to enjoy spiritually now something of what the Father’s house would be, the presence of the Lord and our link with Him and our love for Him, these things are to be real with us?

RT Yes, it very much goes on to John 17, that is where the Lord opens it up. He is going away but He is telling them where He is going, so that they have another interest. The enemy was going to bring in many things, the world was going to continue, rejoicing that He had been rejected, but here is a company of persons who are left, they know where He has gone, they know what He is doing, and they know they have a place where He is, and He is coming.

AMB The actual rapture, and the experience that will be, when it comes is not to be strange to us, it will take us into a sphere that we have already had some experience of.

RT That is what Mr Darby says,

‘There no stranger-God shall meet thee—

Stranger thou in courts above!—

He, who to His rest shall greet thee;

Greets thee with a well-known love’. (Hymn 76)

It has to be something in our experience now. We learn at the Supper something of our place in the Father’s house, but how does it affect us? John’s epistle says, “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. In the previous chapter it says, “abide in him, that if he may be manifested we may have boldness, and not be put to shame from before him at his coming”, because of the intercourse we have had with Him now. And then he says, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. The hope of that has a sanctifying effect on us; if I cherish that in my affections where will my chief interest be, what kind of manners will I have in a world like Mephibosheth was in? I think that he purified himself, because he had some sense of his personal link with David, even while he was rejected.

MGW Is this another instance where the light of something, or some wonderful truth by itself, does not mean anything unless we are actually affected by it? I am thinking of Hebrews 9, those who are looking for Him. In Luke 12 the blessedness attaches to the bondman who is watching, and now in this section does it look as though this is the believer working at his moral exercises in view of the very great blessedness of what we are coming into?

RT Yes, light received stimulates faith. Light itself makes us increasingly responsible, but light and faith bring experience, and what we are speaking of is experience.

Hope is not in ourselves, to do better or be sanctified by our own abilities, but hope in Christ has a sanctifying effect and we want to be like Him in our measure now.

RG Do you think this is seen in the old dispensation, “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him”, Genesis 5: 24? Do you think the walking with God was the time of attraction, Christ becoming precious to him, to put it into where we are reading today, so that as he purified himself then the time came when God said, Come and remain with Me?

RT Well, in Hebrews 11 it says about Enoch, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him”. But then the next part is what you are saying, “for before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, Hebrews 11: 5. There is nothing going into heaven except what has come out of heaven. We say when the Lord comes He will put it all right, but that is not the attitude. He is coming to translate persons who, before the translation, have the testimony that they pleased God—Enoch walked with God. It does not say God walked with him, but he was walking in God’s circumstances, he was not trying to attach God to his circumstances, he changed his way of life, he changed his outlook to be walking with God. Now God is not in all these things that the world is going on with. If we are walking in them, dear brethren, we are not walking with God. You try to entice Enoch with all these worldly things, whatever they may be, would he be tempted? No, he would say, I am walking with God. He could not go to these social events that men have, because he was too busy walking with God. Who would want to miss that, dear brethren, by the paltry things of this world, and the temptations by which the enemy so easily deceives us?

Now, we are not speaking of things we do not know. The enemy would use all kinds of things, even nature, our families, our possessions, to hinder us from walking with God. The Lord has opened the way that we might walk with Him.

NJH Enoch walked with God after he had a family. It meant he did not use any excuses to divert him from that purpose.

RT Well, these things are very practical. We know what family life is and family demands, but are they hindering us from walking with God? As you say, the scripture is very definite in stating that he walked with God after he had begotten sons and daughters; it meant that the family exercises did not hinder him walking with God; in fact his walking with God enabled him to be a better father, a better husband and a better brother in the local meeting.

DTP Is that not like what Peter says in his epistle, having done with sin (1 Peter 4: 1)? Really that condition was in Enoch, he had settled it in himself and that made him walk with God.

RT That is what we began with, that He has dealt with sin and has dealt with our sins, in view of holy conversations being enjoyed between Christ and His own. May these things encourage us, dear brethren, and be the hope of our hearts.

Reading at Kirkcaldy
18 February 2006

KEY TO INITIALS

T. D. Beveridge

R. Gardiner

D. Matthews Jr.

A. M. Brown

G. B. Grant

D. T. Pye

D. C. Brown

N. J. Henry

C. K. Robinson

J. A. Brown

J. M. Macfarlane

J. Spinks

J. T. Brown (Ed.)

G. C. McKay

R. Taylor

J. T. Brown (Gr.)

N. McKay

M. G. Wood

M. Cowan

E. J. Mair