‘TILL I COME’

N. T. Meek

Luke 19: 11–13; 1 Corinthians 11: 23–26; Revelation 2: 24, These scriptures, you will have noticed, are in the setting of ‘till I come’. It does not say when it will be, but ‘till I come’ or, as Mr. Darby has rendered it in the first scripture, “while I am coming”. It almost looks, dear brethren, as though the Lord Jesus is on the way—“Trade while I am coming”. While He was away and not yet come they were to trade. What a governing matter, what a clock, so to speak, to govern our movements by, “while I am coming”! We are to trade; the Lord is absent, and He is rejected in His absence, as this scripture shows, but we are to trade.

That means you will have to seek out persons with whom you can trade; I would say quite simply that you cannot trade on your own. You can see from a scripture like this the abnormality of a believer choosing to be on his own. In God’s ways, of course, John the apostle was on his own and yet

he addresses the saints as “your brother”; physically on his own but not morally; he is linked with the brotherhood, “I John, your brother and fellow-partaker”, Revelation 1: 9. He was not one who elected to stay at home as, alas, some of our beloved brethren do. How could I trade if I had no one to trade with? You see the abnormality and error of a person isolating himself; he cannot trade, he has no one to trade with, no one with whom to exchange his impressions.

He may still have what he has received, a mina or whatever it was; he has had something given to him. But he never meets anyone, and there it remains in his pocket; he is waiting for the Lord to come but he has perhaps been so shattered by events (I would not speak unfeelingly) that he is not trading. One would long that in the private reading of the Scriptures by such persons the word may become meaningful to them.

“Trade while I am coming”—the Lord is coming. He has given us something; He has given everyone something; you have some impression of Christ that is valuable, in fact I would go as far as to say you have your own distinct and unique impression of Christ. Some feature of His glory, some feature of His Person, has especially laid hold of your soul and it is enshrined there; you are to trade with it, you are to know what it is to exchange it. One wonderful thing that has been said about trading is that it works like this—you have an impression of Christ, and I have an impression of Christ; that is, you have one and I have one; but you share yours with me, and now you have still retained your impression of Christ. By trading with it you did not lose it, you shared it with me; so now you have one and I have two. Then I trade my impression, I share my impression with you; now I possess two, and you possess two. So from one each we have got

two each; that is quite good interest! We should do this, dear brethren, whatever our age, with the brethren we most commonly speak to, gather with, and spend our free time with; we should learn what it is to trade our impressions—‘till I come’. The Lord wants to receive something on His return. He has given you something; is He not worthy of the profit? Is He not worthy of the increase?—“Trade while I am coming”.

I can remember a time when one never did this, never spoke about Christ to others of my generation. Whatever your generation is, whatever the ages of those you meet with, you trade with what you have got; you start it, you start this trading process. When you are with someone you know, you perhaps talk about many things, but try and work in a bit of trading; maybe you will not sustain it for long, we all feel very limited in it, but ask him, that friend of yours, whether he read that piece in the monthly book. Why not in your conversation find time to fit in some thing of this sort, it may not be much, about the Lord’s things, perhaps about somebody’s gospel you still remember? There are gospels that still hang in your mind, you know; you do not have to pretend that you are very spiritual, just be simple about it; ‘I heard him preach once and I can still remember it; he spoke about the glory of Christ’; or,

‘He spoke about faith and how near it was for me to grasp; he helped me over that, he helped me over the matter of faith’. You do not know, but that may become a valuable commodity to that person you have traded with.

Well, the Lord puts it on us all. It does not say what the ages of these bondmen were; I suppose they would cover a wide range of ages, but he asked them to trade and he gave them all something. Now it is obligatory on us, dear brethren, to trade with

what we have. Some have gift; some persons, alas, are not using their gift; there are believers who have gift and they are isolating themselves; it should be a very solemn exercise to them.

Let us all take it to ourselves as to what we have. After all, the Lord gave it to us; it is not our own. There it is, that mina, it is given to you. You look at it sometimes; you may polish it; it is still only a mina; you might rub it, get the ‘Brasso’ out and make it look bright, but it has not gained in value by polishing; you want to trade with it; use it, and get an additional one back. You will find that instead of one mina you have two in your pocket, and then you will have two to trade with, that is, two impressions to share; and you trade again and you finish up with four. Young persons know about arithmetical progressions and geometrical progressions, in some of which a thing is added to while in others they multiply. Well, that is how things develop in christianity, and you can see how persons become enriched by trading.

Some of the nations developed by trading; companies such as the Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company were set up and they traded things abroad and brought things back, rich things, valuable things, rare things. There is such a thing as that spiritually. You see the whole process will cease one day, when you will have made your final transaction. You will have done that final trading, so to speak, and you will be able to present the result to the Lord.

What will it be? What sort of increase will it be? Well, there are many trading persons here, persons you can trade with. Show them something of value and they will trade back something of value. I think the Lord would encourage us to do this, and it is ‘till I come’—

“while I am coming”.

Now in Corinthians we have the Supper. Everyone would know about that, and in the setting here “ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come”. I say again, I trust with a certain amount of feeling, there are some who are not doing this, they are not announcing the death of the Lord until He come. Let our prayer be, dear brethren, that the Lord may in His sovereignty work with such to gather them in to answer to Him. Paul received it from the Lord; it is really obligatory on us to take the Supper as soon as we are able to. If we have love for the Lord, and desire for it, and are able to appreciate at least something of what the Supper involves, we are to do it—“ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come”.

Maybe some young one here is exercised about it. There is some stirring, some desire in relation to it; you have love for Christ; you realise He died for you and shed His blood. You understand when you look at the emblems on the table on the Lord’s day that the loaf represents His body in which He did God’s will, a body that was wholly devoted to God’s will. You realise that the cup speaks of His blood, the blood that was shed for many for remission of sins. You by faith have accepted that it was shed for you. There is, week by week, some stirring in your heart to do what He requested you to do. Do not let the exercise drop. If you have any feeling that way, any stirring, any desire, learn to ask yourself why you want to do it—not just because your friend does it, or someone older, or maybe someone younger; that is not a sound enough basis; but if you want to do it out of love for the Lord Jesus, and if you have some appreciation, some understanding, of what it involves, I do not think you will find the brethren will make it difficult. You do not have to be a particular age.

At school the authorities

have arbitrarily drawn a line at certain stages in your life, at eleven years, for instance, but God has not done that; you do not have to be a certain age, and yet you need to understand something of what you are going to do. ‘Till I come’; it will not be for always, you see, and the Lord will come soon. We announce the death of the Lord till He come.

Now I would like to refer to Revelation. The saints are here envisaged in this aspect of the church, Thyatira. We sometimes speak of this historically; it represents Romanism; Sardis represents Protestantism; both are around us, and there are some in both whom the Lord notices. It is a great comfort, dear brethren, that the Lord notices persons; you say, ‘Even in Rome?’, yes, even in Rome. To “the rest” He says, “to you I say”, as if the Lord is addressing them in the midst of a profession that has become so political, claims so much, and in fact in many ways has come so near the truth, and yet has handled it so badly. The Lord looks right through the whole fabric, the whole of the system with all its appurtenances and all that is around it, and He addresses you, “To you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira”.

Now we can bring it forward to ourselves. The Lord searches out in any circumstance, or any failure of the church; His eyes see, the Lord sees, dear brethren, and His judgment is absolute.

His inclement is unerring. His judgment is exact; what precision is in the Lord’s judgment!

We may have a general judgment that may be right, but we may over-err in one direction; the Lord’s judgment is precise. “To you I say, the rest ... I do not cast upon you any other burden”. What grace, dear brethren! ‘I know the problems you have got; I know you find it difficult; everyone else goes to

church or chapel, you go to a little meeting room, maybe into somebody’s house; persons ask you where you go and you have to say it is to So-and-so’s house’. It is a burden, is it not?

You would fain go to a more impressive building, I am speaking to young ones especially. It is a burden, the Lord will not add to your burden. He says, “To you I say … I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come”. So what have I? We were encouraged at one time actually to write down what we have. It is not a bad idea; many spiritual men have kept notebooks in which they wrote down thoughts on certain scriptures, or certain impressions.

Now supposing we were given a pencil and paper and wrote down what we had. You say, ‘I have the forgiveness of sins; I have the Spirit’. Can you write that down? Would you say, ‘I think I have the Spirit’? Well, I was once in a stage like that; no one is going to be cross because that is as far as you write; but you write it down, let the thing become crystalized in your soul. It often helps to ask oneself questions as to where am I, and what have I that I am sure of? I think, the Lord would develop us in this, in integrity, so that we speak not in terms but as knowing the possession of a thing. What you have, the Lord says, hold fast.

What have you, dear brethren? What have I? I may say, in a general sense, I have the truth; well, what truth? It is too general; if you had the truth, then you could write it all down. Do you think you could? I do not think I could write all the truth down. Of course, we know what we mean when we say, ‘He has got the truth’—the general bearing of the truth, the general outline of the truth. Paul laid that on Timothy; he said, Have an outline of it; not a compendium of it, an

encyclopaedia in thirty-odd volumes, but an outline of it, a notebook of it. Get a notebook and write down what you have; fill it up with what you have in the way of the knowledge of God, what you are sure about; not what you think you should have, but what you have; be real, learn to develop integrity in yourself, so that you do not assume to know more than you have. We have all failed in this, dear brethren, probably none more than I, but the Lord is very tender; even in relation to that He is very tender; He does not cut you off because you say something more than your measure and more than you know, you perhaps use some borrowed expression.

You remember that man in 2 Kings 6 who borrowed an axe and as he was felling a beam the head of the axe fell off; it was not his, you see. It went in the water and he said, “Alas ... and it was borrowed!” A very humbling experience, is it not? ‘Well, I thought I had it, but now I find I have not got it, it has gone; it is down there somewhere’. The Lord is very tender; the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” He cast in a stick and made the iron to swim. And he said, “Take it up to thee”. Get it, make sure; “Lay hold of eternal life”, the apostle says to Timothy. Do not be nebulous about it, be concrete, learn integrity. We all feel very shallow; we all use borrowed expressions, but the Lord is very gracious to us. “What ye have”, the Lord says, “hold fast till I shall come”.

Well, you say, what have I got? The Lord has left certain things; He has left certain impressions; generally the truth is known amongst us, thank God; we have had an outline; there is such a large amount of ministry that the teaching is known; what we have is extremely valuable, but let us make sure that we have it, not only in terms, but that we have got it, so that we actually express the thing. You

talk about the new covenant, God shining, and Moses coming down with his face shining, but you come into the meeting and display it, the new covenant, or reconciliation. If you have it, you will display it; the truth shines out in persons. Mr. Taylor said it is greater to represent God than to minister the truth. It is greater to be able to represent a thing than to speak about it. What you have, the Lord says, hold fast till I come. Well, there is a good deal that has been granted in the area of the recovery; in the midst of christendom there is an area in which God worked; it was for the whole of christendom, but not everybody took advantage of it, but many did, thank God, and the continuation of that is still to be found. What you have, what I have, dear brethren, let us hold fast. You see, it is for us to maintain it and to pass on to the generation to follow, but let us hold it in integrity and reality, not only in terms but in the vitality of it.

So Paul says to Timothy, “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings”, 2 Timothy 1: 8. Mr. Darby’s note on that verse speaks as to the ‘personification of the gospel’. Paul might have said, ‘Suffer evil along with me’, but he says, “Suffer evil along with the glad tidings”; there was a personification of the glad tidings in Paul. In fact, he indicates to the Corinthians that his gospel was so clear that if it was veiled it was veiled in those that were lost, in the unbelieving. So “What ye have hold fast till I shall come”. Well, may we, dear brethren, be helped to do it; it is just while He is coming, you see. Will the Lord find the real thing, or will He find merely the doctrine, the letter? The Pharisees and the scribes often had the letter. The Lord asked the young man about the neighbour and he could

quote, but did he have the real thing? Have I the real thing? When the Lord comes He will look for the real thing. Someone will have it, some souls will have it, both old and young, the real thing. Well, let us be real, dear brethren; therefore may the Lord help us—it is just while He is coming, ‘till I come’—for His name’s sake.

Address at Redbridge
11 September 1976