David J Hutson
Matthew 18: 20
John 14: 18
Revelation 3: 10, 11; 22: 20, 21
I am thinking of the way in which the Lord Jesus in these scriptures uses the present tense. What a comfort that is! It would indicate what a place the saints have in His heart. It would indicate, putting it simply, that He is always thinking of us. I know I am saying things that are very simple, but they are very real and they should affect us.
I read first of all in chapter 18 of Matthew because there is a certain challenge to us there. It does not simply say “where two or three are gathered together”, but “gathered together unto my name”. Others could say more as to that, but there is something which gathers us: “unto my name”. I feel searched myself in saying what I do; I am not putting anything on anyone save what I am searched in myself as to whether I am conscious of being “gathered” unto His Name. We come together; thank God for the liberty we have to come together in this way! The frequency of our comings together we can be thankful for, Lord’s day and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and other meetings too, fellowship meetings, the three days meetings we are looking forward to when we can be together, “gathered together”; and this is something specific here, “gathered together unto my name”. So it is not simply like persons in the world might come together for a meeting, a conference, or something like that, but “gathered together unto my name”. If He were here, surely we would gather to Him. How He would delight when He was here to have those around Him who came to hear what He had to say, although sadly some came in opposition and criticism, and now we can gather to His Name. We recognise that He is absent, but we recognise that there is somewhere where He can be known at the present time. A person’s name is that by which he is known, and there is somewhere where we can know Him at the present time, and I challenge my heart, beloved, as to whether I am here for that reason. As I say, it could be that we enjoy the company of the saints. Thank God if we do! Thank God for the company of the saints! But more than that we are gathered together unto His Name. We gather because we have the wonderful possibility which He gives of Himself being with us even if we may be only “two or three”. Thank God we have more than “two or three”, but His promise is there, and I am struck with it that He does not say, “where two or three are gathered together unto my name”, ‘there will I be’, but “there am I in the midst of them”. What an assurance, beloved, what an incentive for us to gather in the recognition of His absence, but in the recognition that there is somewhere here where He delights to come, and where there is no question from His own side. As He says here, “there am I in the midst of them”. I speak feelingly and humbly as to it, but it is just that fact that He says, “there am I”. It seems to imply His own delight to be there. Surely, beloved, it would be an incentive to us as we come together to consider the wonder of the provision that has been made for us that we can be together, and thus prove His presence. It would regulate us in the way we come together so that we may prove the blessedness of this.
And then He says again in John, and there are other similar references in these chapters, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”; not ‘I will come’ but “I am coming”. There are other references that I have read and other references that I have not read that speak of this, “I am coming”. It seems as though He is always on the way; He is always ready. What a promise that is, beloved, as we feel the character of things in which we are as orphans in that sense, but we have this wonderful promise: “I am coming to you”.
Again, in Revelation, writing to Philadelphia it is conditional. He says, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world”. In a sense we can see it coming, but we are to be those who keep the word of His patience. He says elsewhere, wonderful mystery as to the reality of His humanity, that He does not know the day nor the hour when He will come to take His own, Matt 24: 36. How patient He is; “the word of my patience”! We do not know, but what we do know is He says, “I come quickly”, not ‘I will come’, but “I come quickly”! How wonderful that is! As another has said, it seems as though He is on the way. “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”. So we are to be prepared. What a crown it will be, all our hopes and expectations - our brother has referred to our hope - the substantiality of what we have. What a crown it will be when He comes!
And, finally, the very last words in this book that we have in the Scriptures, “He that testifies these things says, Yea, I come quickly. Amen; come, Lord Jesus”. Meantime there is every provision for us: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints”. Well, this would be our response, beloved. As He says, “Yea, I come quickly”, the answer from our longing hearts is: “Amen; come, Lord Jesus”. It just occurs to me as I speak that a beloved brother has been taken suddenly and unexpectedly in New York. It might be something any one of us has to face, our readiness for Him to come quickly in that sense. He came quickly in relation to our brother, I would just suggest, in applying the idea. Are we ready for Him to come? “Amen; come, Lord Jesus”. So we would be preserved here in the expectancy of His coming and the imminence of His coming; and not only His coming for us in view of His coming with us, but His coming to us according to His promise while we are left here in the scene of His absence as gathered to His Name.
I trust what I have said may be an encouragement to us of the Lord, in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Edinburgh
15th July 2014