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CHAPTER ELEVEN

WAITING FOR HIM WHO IS MOST WONDERFUL

THE END, THE CALL, THE COMING, THE RESPONSE

IN THE DAY OF JESUS CHRIST (Philippians 1:6)

In the Old Testament, we often see reference to the day of the Lord, as in Isaiah 2:12, Joel 2:30, and a great and terrible day it is, as you see in the counting over of all those to be affected in Isaiah 24:2.

In the New Testament, the world is facing a thing even more specific. It is the day of Jesus Christ, as met in Philippians 1:6. To that day, Paul believes, God will keep them, having begun a good work in them, with no provision for their loss.

Therefore, he says in Philippians 2,

"if there is any consolation in Christ,
if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit,
if any affection and mercy, fulfil my joy by being like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

He goes on to exhort them to " let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit..."

He goes on to exhort them to remember what Christ gave up so that we might be taken into His fold, giving in to Him in surrender, but not to sin in its squalid splendour.

What then of this day ? Many are its features, by which we recognise it, but today I want you to sense again the drama, the sequence for as you are tested, so also He has much invested in you, and it is well that you see clearly the race before you, as you do in the Tour de France, where they outline on a map. There is the journey to come for the day, with mounts and valleys, showing a wiggly line where the pelaton is to go. Our race is to go straight in its path (Hebrews 12:13), safer, but all the greater in its challenge while we are on it, for that!

THE END

              is unexpected (Matthew 24:11ff. 48);

             for many will be pre-occupied with false prophets,
             whose words beguile, mislead, and more will think nothing is about to happen, so blatant
             is unbelief even in Churches (as II Peter 2 forecast).

             is sudden,

             as seen in Matthew 25, when some securely sleep just at the time the
             Lord comes like a bridegroom: it is NOW and not later, so be ready.

             is deep in the night, 

             when action seems out of the question ('midnight' in Matthew 25:6).

             awakens sleepers

            (Matthew 25:8) so that at last they eagerly communicate
             with the elect, goaded now past further compromise, to seek spiritual reality (25:8-9),
             yet fear is not its source, but faith.

             interrupts temporisers

             (Matthew 24:48) whose thoughts are not on the Gospel and the
             grace of God in salvation to the lost, but on what they have to do to keep in the swirl of
             things ecclesiastical. 

             dashes unruly and arrogant disputants, 

            warring in selfish strife,
            even in the Church (Matthew 24:49), having only apparent fellowship with each other
            Matthew 25:8), but now seeking what no man but only God can communicate (the 'oil').

    HIS COMING

             confronts

             hostility to and confrontation with sound, biblical doctrine, weird
             and hellish divergences and diversities, deceit with cunning (II Peter 2, II Timothy 4),  

             calls

             the spiritually diligent (Matthew 22:1-10), operating at His will.

             culls

             the restlessly argumentative, filled with fictitious faith (Jude 15).

             outwits

             the time-servers (Matthew 24:48).

             excludes

             the trash collectors (II Peter 2, II Timothy 4).

             exposes

             the petulant (II Timothy 3), whose form of religion is not informed with
             the power of God or His morals or His ways.
             
             draws

             His own people, each one (Matthew 24:31).

             bares

             the residue like so many rotten apple cores, ready for trashing
             (Matthew 25:12, 24:50-51).

     PART II

 

FROM COMING TO RETURN

In Part I, one spoke of the above topic in terms of  The END as unexpected, sudden, deep in the night, interrupting temporisers and dashing unruly and arrogant disputants. The all but universal call in the human heart for justice, equity, is not to be thwarted, just as it is not to be found in any allowable measure in international courts, the judges of which may themselves, as in Bunyan’s case of Lord Hategood, be if not ignoble, then blind. There is a far vaster provision for justice than that; and a profoundly superior assessment, which KNOWS the motives of the heart and understands exhaustively all that is in man (cf. Jeremiah 9:6, 17:9-10).

This is not a form of racial insanity, but a detestation of what is morally insanitary, inclement, brash, brutal or manipulative for ulterior purposes, a desire for us to be in action as sound in principle as is our body in staggeringly sophisticated and gloriously wrought marvels. Man both wants and needs justice, but this tempered with untampered mercy, so that what is right is done, but what is forgiven is pardoned, and this by One who KNOWS what is mere pretence, and what is purgation, purification, redemption.

Not for nothing does man so yearn that continually he is so desperate or lustful, that bypassing God, the God of His creation and information – for there is no other source for the mini-mind of man with its information but that Information Exporter who gives to all its status and stature and role – but God. The heavens themselves cannot exist without His information, as well as formation. We yearn for His action, but only in unbelief of what is and has long been manifest, can the conundrum remain. For any and each, for all and sundry, there is but one solution: that is the spiritual provision of the Almighty, in the Redeemer of which and of whom He has spoken for these millenia, fulfilling each step on the way (cf. Barbs … 17, TMR Ch. 3).

He HAS come. That was to provide the answer to the enduring puzzle of unbelief, which is too blind to understand (cf. Romans 1:17ff., SMR). He WILL  come. That is to end the affair of information and freedom, faith and rebellion, so marvellously now exposed as every human invention to replace the Almighty in politics and science, in education and society, becomes a vapid and arrogant mess. Its time is coming; and so is HE!

It is then not only the END which is coming of this amazing spectacular of grace and majesty, liberty and irresponsibility on the part of our race, but it is to be CONDUCTED to and in its end by that same CREATOR who informed it and formed it into its beginning. It is the same author, whether of existence for things limited and delimited, or of salvation and its correlative, when this is despised or deferred, the judgment.

We have moreover already considered a little, this HIS COMING, which arrives as a personal climax to that profound alteration which leads to the turmoil and troubles which escalate with only limited restraint.

What then ? As man has managed to ignore gender, grace, love, wisdom, reliability, faithfulness, mercy and gravity, so the very state of this world begins, and will continue to grow into, its drastic phase. From this, at His own appointed moment, not before many have suffered, but before there is no place left to testify of Him, His people are by Him removed, just as children were often removed from London in the last war, in order to be sent to Australia, Canada or the countryside of England.

Then, it took money and effort and adaptation and organisation to do it; but it was done. It marked an intervention in the system, and a transformation; but what is wit and wisdom, power and kindness for, if it is not to be used!

This is a far greater war and a far worse crisis.

God’s children, when the teeth of the gale is gross, will be removed just as those English children were. It takes effort and organisation and intervention; but children are precious. What has to be done, is done!

At HIS coming, as you see in the parable of the ten virgins, there is a sudden change, in this, that the One awaited is now here. They come to Him at ONCE, being ready, and He takes them to the ‘wedding’ without delay; and this so much so, that those who rushed off in a vain effort to ready themselves, having been fast asleep, though appearing to be His only farcically, could no more come. The doors were closed. So Revelation 19 shows us the Lord’s people in heaven, clad in white because cleansed raiment, and Himself the groom, soon to issue forth to deal brusquely with the power of disorder and evil, which are daring to mount a challenge. Then is His return!

With them He comes, those dressed in His cleansed garments, washed in the blood of the Lamb as Revelation 7:14 informs us, covered and given place by grace. Since however the war is now as blatant as was Hitler’s on England, when the rockets were whirring their way in, there is a further intervention. The rulers of deception, beast and prophet, are summarily and devastatingly exposed in their ludicrous vulnerability and destroyed (Revelation 19). How could they have imagined otherwise ? It is of the grace of God that it is even possible to imagine any other end. Mercy flouted, love doubted, judgment beams.

His return, says II Thessalonians 1:8, is in flaming fire and there is a reward to the violent, vengeance on the predators, the unjust, the incendiary in spirit: it is a fire so strong that they have nothing more to say or do, but receive judgment.

No wonder all the tribes of the earth as in Revelation 1, will mourn at His return. As the parable of the vineyard showed in Matthew 21:33ff., there has been robbery from God, there has been refusal to respond, to labour for Him, to act in His name truly and truthfully; and there has been violence and murder against His people, and especially against those who have reminded this earth of its position before God. The light of this world shows up, as well as encourages on!

The sheer vanity, folly, incandescent cruelty, the vices, the evil thoughts and the incitement to evil actions, the very misuse of His name for the latter: such things bring mourning indeed, and the reward of malice is to receive the evil itself, like a producer of wickedness, given his own (cf. Proverbs 1),like an echo, a reflection!

Just as Christ’s coming, seen in Acts 1, is a matter for seeking and desire, the disciples wanting to know when His kingdom would rule; so His return with His saints is a matter for impact, as by lightning; for when the light is abhorred, at judgment its presence is blinding. Its results cannot be avoided. Our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) and indeed He makes His servants a flame of fire (Psalm 104:4).

      HIS RETURN -

amid HIS PEOPLE

              collapses

                      the world powers (Revelation 19:19, 1:7, II Thessalonians 2:8-9)  
                      with their leader.

              is incendiary

                      to organised unbelief (Revelation 19:20).

              vindicates in victory

                       the persecuted (II Thessalonians 1:5-7).

II Thessalonians gives indications of the severe change, when the misused powers of traitors to Christ, is replaced by the due power for the vindication of His servants who have waited for Him. He will take “vengeance,” we read in II Thessalonians 1:8,

“on those who do not know God, even those who do not heed the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. These will be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.”

It is, says Paul to those of Thessalonica (1:6),

“a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you.”

It is the day when He comes (1:10)

“to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.”

Kept by His power, now they rejoice with refreshed hearts (I Peter 1:3-8, Ephesians 1:11), glimpses yielding to straight sight.

That is then. What of now ? Hear what the apostle tells those to whom he writes (1:4):

         “we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God
         for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure”.  

What then is to be done now ?  Hear II Thessalonians 2:15ff.:

“Therefore, brothers, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or our epistle.”

The apostolic instruction is not to be sacrificed or subjected to slew, nor is it to be wrought anew. Therefore, hold it … FAST. 

What then has the Lord prepared for His people ?

“He has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace”

(II Thessalonians 2:16, cf. Ephesians 1:11, John 5:24, 4:14), and the apostle seeks that the Lord would comfort their hearts, and establish them in every good work.

So does the army of the Lord receive grace to serve, in attestation of love, truth and sincerity, despite the sheer contrariness of this world; and the results are profound as they shine like lights in a dark place (Philippians 2:15). Indeed, this Paul declares, this desideratum: “

“That you may be blameless and harmless, children of God without rebuke,
in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,
among whom you shine
as lights in the world,
holding forth the word of life,
that I may rejoice in the day of Christ,
that I have not run or laboured in vain.”      

 This then is what we wait WITH, a sense of wonder in His grandeur of grace, willingness to keep and to deliver from every evil work (II Timothy 4:17-18), delight in anticipation of the realisation in full of what is now a deposit for faith, even a presence by His Spirit (Colossians 1:27). Further, we wait FOR HIM, whose coming is so close, and whose ensuing return with His people proceeds from that, like a morning sun when clouds disperse, while the day is still young.

      OUR RESPONSE is

              to apply the heart in the power of His Spirit (Romans 8:8ff.),         

              to be patient, diligent, gracious,

              self-controlled, expectant (Revelation 22:20, Philippians 1:27-28, 2:15, II Peter 3:9),

             not seeking vindication, but victory, now within (Romans 8:1-11, Galatians 5),
               but then visible externally:

      for at His coming, His righteousness will be present to the very sight and hearing
      (Isaiah 2, 11, Habakkuk 2, Micah 4, Psalm 72), with joy of heart
      (I John 2:28, I Peter 4:12-13).

              to expect and ignore  

                the devious, undisciplined taunters, scarifiers, fraudulent churches or wandering,   
                unless they may be snatched from burning (Jude 23).          

              to avoid

                the harvest of false crops, GM spiritual frauds now (I Timothy 6:5),
                from whom you are commanded to “withdraw yourselves”,
                being instead, content in Christ
               (I Timothy 6:6, Ephesians 1:6-7, II John 9-10, Romans 16:17).

              to make Christ our goal,

                not sin our gaol (John 8:34-35), by the word of the Lord,
                  through the promises of Christ (II Peter 2:1ff., Colossians 1:18),

             to be willing to suffer for His sake  (Philippians 1:29, II Timothy 2:8-9, 3:12).

             to be deep in understanding  

               Luke 21:24-28). looking up for Him with assured faith.

             to be ready to grow in wisdom and knowledge  (II Peter 3:18, Colossians 1:9).     

  to remember 

      that just as they did not know in Noah's day that the flood was on them,
      till it came, being occupied with building and the arts of satisfying appetite
      (Matthew 24:38),
      and just as they did not know in Lot's day
      that calamity was coming to Sodom,
      but were intent on building, buying, selling, as if activity and immorality were
      to be covered by being active in all things,
      yet still the events swept in like tsunamis:

      so it will be sudden and swift in the day of Jesus Christ.
      It is then that He comes to be glorified
      in His saints, all His people (II Thessalonians 1:10),
      evoking admiration in His disciples.

 May the good Lord make you content in your discipleship  (II Timothy 6:6), full of faith, hearty in love, willing to learn, gracious in demeanour and helpful in His kingdom, ready to set about your task, pulsing to pray, more than ferocious animals to prey (Ephesians 6:18): and may you roar with appetite for His coming (Rev. 22:20), His ebullient charity and His stark clarity, seeking in all sincerity and grace, to be worthy of your calling (Ephesians 1:4), through mercy worthy of God (I Thessalonians 2:12), yet resting in Him, through grace by faith (Matthew 11:28ff.).

In so doing, remember the Lord’s word to His disciples about the Pharisees, “Let them alone!” (Matthew 15:14). It is enough to be assaulted by gospel mockers, innovators with His word, synthesisers (as in Luke 11:53ff.); it is forbidden to mingle with them (I Timothy 6:5, Romans 16:17).

 To those still sleeping: it is time to wake (I Corinthians 6:1ff.)! for in this race, to sleep is no more useful than in any other race: and the way for the dead to be  raised incorruptible is not to sleep and slumber, but to hear the call, the trumpet that sounds (I Corinthians 15:51-52). It is hard to heed it when you are deaf, dead to Him who calls - because this world has your soul, and your ears are dead to heavenly sound. 

Let this not be. Wake therefore to His salvation, trusting your God and Maker through His redemption, to establish your heart; and waste no time. The 5 unwise virgins wasted most of their lives; and when it was timely to be ready, they were like those who took religion as poetry, and slept on it.