The One Great Reality Part 10

"I have been looking into my Bible," said a working man, "and I find a great many men trusted G.o.d, and whatever they trusted G.o.d for, they always got it; He never failed them, and it is the same now."

You have all heard of Florence Nightingale and her life of devotion in nursing the sick. She was asked to tell the secret of her earnest Christian life, and after a pause she said, "I have kept nothing back from G.o.d." Faith in G.o.d is unreserved confidence, telling Him all and keeping nothing back. But before we can do this as a daily habit we must definitely commit ourselves and all we have into G.o.d's hands.

It says in Isaiah xliv. 5, "One shall say, I am the Lord's." I have a mark in my Bible which I made many years ago by the side of these words. I put the date and then I wrote these words: "He gave Himself for me and I give myself to Him. He takes me and I take Him." Ever since then it has been my delight to tell others how simple it all is. It is the sinner taking the Saviour and the Saviour taking the sinner.

Are you asking, What must I do? First believe what G.o.d says about you in His Word. He says, that you are guilty, lost, ruined. Then He presents Christ to us as the Saviour and calls on us to believe what He says about Him. "He that believeth not G.o.d hath made him a liar because he hath not believed the record that G.o.d gave of His Son. And this is the record that G.o.d hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son." [Footnote: I John v. 10, 11.]

"Have faith in G.o.d." Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of G.o.d, and "faith is the gift of G.o.d." And the wonder of it all is that G.o.d says to the weak ones like poor Jacob, "I have chosen thee and not cast thee away," and He never will, for "_G.o.d keeps all His failures_," not like man who throws his failures on one side as worthless.

Oh! to trust Him then more fully, Just to simply trust.

Then instead of "limiting the Holy One of Israel" we shall be singing at the top of our voices, "The LORD hath done great things for us whereof we are glad." [Footnote: Ps. cxxvi. 3.] So then let us "trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is Everlasting Strength." [Footnote: Isa.

xxvi. 4.]

ADDRESS IX

THE CHURCH OF G.o.d

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--Ephesians v. 22-33.

"Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it." [Footnote: Eph. v.

25.] Two precious truths shine out in these words. He _loved_, He _gave_.

He not only gave Himself for the Church when He died on the Cross, but He is still sanctifying and cleansing it, and by and by when He comes again "He will present it unto Himself a glorious Church." [Footnote: Eph. v.

27.]

So we have the history of the Church in the past, in the present, and in the future. We look back to the past and we see Christ giving Himself, that is, laying down His life on the Cross; but we must also look far, far back into the past Eternity to find out another precious truth. (Perhaps you have never thought about it.) It is, that the Church was in G.o.d's thoughts from the very beginning! The Son of G.o.d was in the bosom of the Father "in the beginning"; and it was then--before the world was created, that G.o.d chose us in Him and gave us to Him. [Footnote: Eph. i. 4.]

Now we see why "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it."

What is the Church? The word "Church" means "called out," so the Church embraces all who have been "called out" during the present age to form the "Body of Christ." In the Old Testament we find that the Jews were G.o.d's chosen people, [Footnote: Exod. vi. 7.] so they had all the privileges, but in later times, the Jews rejected the Gospel of the grace of G.o.d, and then G.o.d graciously visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people to be called by His Name. [Footnote: Acts xv. 14.]

When did this special "_calling out_" begin? Nearly 1900 years ago on the Day of Pentecost, and it has been going on ever since, and when the number of "the called-out ones" has been completed, then "The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of G.o.d: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." [Footnote: I Thess. iv. 16, 17.]

Each of those three words, "_chosen_," "_called out_," and "_caught up_,"

leads us on to something more. We were chosen in Him to be holy; [Footnote: Eph. i. 4.] we are called out to be the Body of Christ now, and by and by we shall be caught up to meet the Bridegroom and to be with Him for ever. If you are a child of G.o.d, you can say with holy wonder, "G.o.d has done all this for me."

The Church was formed out of a little company of 120 men and women who were gathered together praying in the Upper Room at Jerusalem. [Footnote: Acts i. 14, 15.] Suddenly they heard a wonderful sound and saw a heavenly vision, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost; and before the day was over that little company increased to the number of 3,000 souls. How many does it number now? No one knows, but it is a "mult.i.tude which no man can number." [Footnote: Rev. vii. 9.] Some are already in glory, some are still on earth, but it matters not where they are, they belong to the "whole family" of G.o.d "in heaven and in earth." [Footnote: Eph. iii. 15.]

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, His special work was to create a new thing--it was then that the Church of G.o.d was formed into one Body by the Holy Spirit, "For, as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." [Footnote: I Cor. xii. 12, 27.] "Now ye are the Body of Christ and members in particular," that is, individually, for every saved soul is a member.

The Church is a living body united to Jesus Christ, for He is the living Head of the Body. He needs His Church just as much as His Church needs Him. It is the Holy Spirit who unites us to the risen and glorified Christ Who is the Head, and then He unites us to one another in Him. It is a _living_ union, because we pa.s.s through death into the resurrection life of Christ, for by "One Spirit we are all baptized into One Body, and we have all been made to drink into that One Spirit." [Footnote: I Cor. xii.

13.] The Holy Ghost sustains the life of the Church. In Him we live and move and have our being. As the bird lives in the air, as the flower lives in the sunshine, so we live in the Spirit, and when we drink in His fulness there is growth and fruitfulness.

Have we ever felt this need of drinking into that One Spirit? Everything connected with the true Church of Christ must be spiritual, it is this which is being lost sight of in the present day, and it is the reason why there is so little power and so few conversions.

Have you ever tried to understand why the Church is called "the Body of Christ"? Think first about your own body. It is the only part of your real self that can be seen. I cannot see your heart or your thoughts, but I know what your thoughts are by your words, and what you feel by the look of joy or sorrow in your face, and by the way you go about.

It is by your body that your real personality is made known to others; what you really are would never be seen unless your body made it known. In the same way the Church is the Body in order to make Christ known in the world. He is hidden from our view, He is unseen, but He manifests Himself and shines out through us, and He sends us to carry His messages and to do His Will.

This was the earnest desire of the Apostle Paul when he said that he was willing that the old self should be taken away so that "the _life_ also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." [Footnote: 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11.]

This is what the Church is here on earth for, to make the unseen Christ known. Just as every drop of water reflects the light, so every member of the Church, however weak and small, can reflect His love.

Is His compa.s.sion for sinners beaming in your eye? Is His purity seen in your daily life? Do you judge things from His standpoint?

I remember when some one was telling me why she loved a Christian worker whom we both knew, she added, "I love her for what I see of Christ in her."

Think of Christ exalted in Heaven far above all things, and remember He is there not for Himself, but for _you_. "He is Head over all things to His Body, the Church." [Footnote: Eph. i. 22, 23.]

It is wonderful to think of this union with Christ, that we are His Body and He is the Head; but there is another wonder quite as great, it is that He is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. When we speak of the Church as the Body of Christ, it is a living union, _life_ is the one thought brought out; when we speak of Christ as the Bridegroom it is _love_ which is the chief point. It brings out the affection, tenderness and nearness of the Bridegroom. "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, He that loveth His wife loveth Himself." [Footnote: Eph. v.

28-30.]

We have nothing so wonderful in the Old Testament. Think of the depths out of which we have come, and the heights to which we are raised. "He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory."

[Footnote: 1 Sam. ii. 8.] Think of the sinner lifted out of all his bondage and ruin to be the Bride of the Lamb! There is nothing higher that G.o.d can give than this. This will be our glorious position by and by when the Bridegroom comes to take us to our Heavenly Home, for His parting words were, "I will come again and receive you unto Myself." [Footnote: St. John xiv. 3.]

There will be three great surprises on the day that He comes again. These surprises have been kept secret, but on that day the glorious secrets will all be made known.

The first surprise will be when we shall see all the saints who have died in Christ called back from the unseen world and clothed with their new, glorified bodies. What a joyful meeting it will be.

The next surprise will be that we who are still living on earth when Christ comes will be changed, we shall not die, we shall escape from the hand of death. "It is appointed unto men once to die," but "Christ was once offered to bear the sin of many," [Footnote: Heb. ix. 27, 28.] and when He comes the saints who are living will be changed "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." [Footnote: 1 Cor. xv. 52.] You know how long it takes for you to shut your eye and open it--it will not take longer than that for the change to be made. Three great changes will take place--our _bodies_ will be changed, no more sin, or pain, or weariness; our _minds_ will be changed. "We shall _know_" then what we cannot know now, we shall see all as G.o.d sees it, we shall know the love of Christ and we shall love Him as He deserves to be loved, and best of all "we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is."

The third surprise will be that our _circ.u.mstances_ will also be changed; we shall be no longer on the earth, for as soon as the great change takes place we shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. He will then look into our life work, and He will say to His faithful ones who have been true-hearted and loyal: "Well done, good and faithful servant." [Footnote: St. Matt. xxv. 21.] Then the heavens will resound with the Hallelujah chorus, "Let us be glad and rejoice and give honour to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come and His wife hath made herself ready."

[Footnote: Rev. xix. 7.]

But the glory will be only then beginning, it will be "_glory upon glory_." Remember there are two stages in Christ's Coming; He will come _for_ His saints, and then He will come down to earth _with_ His saints.

As it is written: "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints." [Footnote: Jude 14.] "When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." [Footnote: Col. iii. 4.]

We shall come _with_ Him when He comes to reign on the earth.

But there is something still grander than the glorious position of having a place with Him on His throne. We look on and on into the Eternity that is coming (and it is a wonderful outlook) and what do we find? It is that we are wanted for the ages to come to show forth, and to be living personal ill.u.s.trations "of the riches of G.o.d's grace." It is not only that we shall be saved and glorified, but that G.o.d will use us personally to show forth all His love. The grace of G.o.d is the love which flowed down to us in our great need, when we were dead in sins, slaves to sin and Satan and deserving nothing but G.o.d's wrath.

It is we ourselves who are wanted for the ages to come for "the praise of His glory." The expression "_the riches_ of G.o.d's grace" [Footnote: Eph.

i. 7.] meets our personal need, but there is something else that will shine forth, it is called "_the glory_ of G.o.d's grace." [Footnote: Eph. i.

6.] All that G.o.d prepares for us is worthy of His greatness and power. The inheritance which He has in store and the beautiful Home above will be worthy of G.o.d Himself, all that is in it and around it surpa.s.sing everything that we can imagine in its glory and beauty will be worthy of G.o.d Himself. It is only as our eyes are spiritually enlightened that we can get a glimpse of "the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." [Footnote: Eph. i. 18.]

The words of this old hymn describe what it will be like--

"I go on my way rejoicing, Though weary the wilderness road-- I go on my way rejoicing In hope of the glory of G.o.d.

"Then no more in the earthen vessel The treasure of G.o.d shall be, But in full and unclouded beauty, O Lord, wilt Thou shine through me.

"All, all in Thy new creation The glory of G.o.d shall see; And the lamp for that light eternal The Bride of the Lamb shall be.

"A golden lamp in the heavens, That all may see and adore The Lamb who was slain and who liveth, Who liveth for evermore.

"So I go on my way rejoicing That the heavens and earth shall see His grace, and His glory and beauty, In the depth of His love to me."