A Word to the Young Believer
A certain king, who had long ruled over his country wisely and humanely, became, without reason, the object of hatred to every class of his subjects. They rose in rebellion, drove him from his throne, and set him, with one or two of his followers and a little food, adrift in an open boat on the wide sea. The king had just time to whisper a few words to his queen before the rebels had got him into their power. He told her she must go into obscurity, and there, unknown, watch how affairs went; look after his interests during his absence; and that as soon as he could he would send for her, hoping to be able afterwards to return with her, crush his foes, and re-establish his authority.
Now let us follow the fortunes of the little boat. Nature is kinder by far than the rude hand of man. Gentle waves and winds carry the little bark across the seas.
By-and-by they come in sight of land. Before them more distinctly grows the outline of the shore, and as they draw near they behold a magnificent country. There were broad, stately rivers flowing into capacious natural harbours, and towering mountains, whose tops, clad in eternal snow, glittered like burnished silver beneath the rays of the great orb of day.
They glide presently into a fine harbour. To their unbounded astonishment the place is thick with people. Untold thousands are assembled on the shore. As the rejected king steps on land they set up mighty huzzas, cheer after cheer rend the sky, which are vociferously renewed as the great officer of state steps forward and places upon the brow of the rejected monarch the glittering crown of that fairer and better country.
Amidst the utmost enthusiasm they conduct him to the throne, where there file past him, doing him glad homage, bronzed warriors, the heroes of a hundred fights; statesmen who have grown grey in the service of their country; the great and noble of that land.
The king seizes his first opportunity, and sends to his queen a long account of the reception he had received, of the country over which he had been so wonderfully called to rule, adding that the same reception that met him awaited her.
Now TWO GREAT FACTS would greatly affect the queen.
First, her husband was rejected wrongfully by his own country.
Second, he was accepted in the brighter and better country.
The more she loved her husband, the more these two great facts would influence her. The only reason that could reconcile her to stay in the land that had rejected its king would be this: that in remaining she might care for his interests during his absence. But all the while she would ardently long for the moment when he would place her beside him on the throne of that fairer and better country. She would love the people of that land. Her heart would go out to it, because she loved her husband better than all beside.
Dear young Christian, do you read my little parable and the lesson that it teaches? I had known for many years the TWO GREAT FACTS I have sought to emphasize, viz, the Lord is rejected from this earth and accepted in glory. I had heard preachers use their double adjectives, talking about an “earth-rejected, heaven-accepted, glory crowned, quickly-coming Saviour.” I never dreamt of disputing their statements. I gave them a hearty credence, but they meant little then to my soul. And I dare say very many of my readers are in the same position today. And why? Because they so little love the Lord. There lies the secret of the whole matter.
The Lord cares greatly for the affections of your heart, young believer.
Look at that man. Thousands flock to hear him. His words thrill and stir his hearers to the last degree. He is a great orator, and speaks with the tongues of men and angels. Yet God says he is no better than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Why? Because love is lacking. Nothing makes up for love.
Look again. See that man. He prophesies, he understands all mysteries, he has all knowledge. Hundreds sit at his feet and drink in the words of the great teacher. No question puzzles him. Nay, more, he is a man of mighty faith. Difficulties—like great mountains—vanish before him. Yet that great man, whose words are treasured, and whose company is eagerly sought, is nothing. It does not say he knows nothing, and can do nothing, but that he is nothing. He is an absolute nobody to God. Why? He lacks love.
Look again. Was man ever so compassionate and philanthropic? See! He gives all his goods to feed the poor; nay, further, he feels it his duty to hold to his principles, though it lead him to the martyr’s stake, and he perish in the faggot-flame lit by the hand of fanaticism. Yet his self-denial and surrender and constancy profit him absolutely nothing. Why? Love, that powerful, potent influence, that divine quality, is wanting. All goes for nothing if that be absent.
Look again. See that highly gifted Ephesian assembly. The Spirit of God says, “I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience.” Yet to the Thessalonian assembly—the fruit of a three-week visit, young in the faith—the apostle could gladly call to mind their “work of faith, and labour of LOVE, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Ah! the spring was present in one and not in the other. Intelligence, gift, outward order, seeming faithfulness, could not bridge the awful chasm there existed between Ephesus and Thessalonica as regards their spiritual state.
Sadly does the Lord say of the Ephesian assembly, “Nevertheless I have … against thee, because thou hast left THY FIRST LOVE. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come to thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”
Nothing made up for lack of love. Though all might seemingly be perfect, yet the waning of love meant the solemn setting aside of that assembly from its high position of being an exponent of the truth in all its freshness and purity. It is as if the fair bride had fallen from the Bridegroom’s side to the level and coldness of the world.
Dear young Christian, I ask you again, Do you love the Lord?
In the light of your affection for Him remember this world absolutely rejected Him. When He came, full of grace and truth—the revealer of the Father, the dispenser of blessings at every step, the long-promised Messiah—all united in rejecting Him.
No eye, unless illuminated by the Spirit’s light, saw any beauty in Him, or discerned in the feeblest degree the moral excellencies of His Person. All united in rejecting Him, from high priest to soldier rabble, from Roman governor to mocking thief; the great, the noble, the gifted, the philanthropic, banded with the base and cruel and vile to cast out of this earth the only Man who was here solely for God’s glory. Apart from the Spirit’s gracious operation not one single heart beat in sympathy with Jesus. He was the Man of sorrows, the grief-acquainted One. The fox had its lair, the bird its nest in the forest tree, but the Son of man—the Man of Psalm 8—had nowhere to lay His head.
And finally on the cross the world got rid of and rejected Him. And in that rejection the world has absolutely and irrevocably proved that there is nothing in man for God, that he is a moral wreck, without one spring that can be touched for God.
Can we, then, young believer, care for its pleasures, take part in its politics, and seek to get on in it? We may be prospered in this life, but we are here only and altogether in the interests of our absent Lord. And affection would not have it otherwise. Have you recognised this great fact yet, and does it affect your life? The blessed Lord says of His own, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
Well, if the death of the Lord Jesus has closed the door for ever upon this world for us, how gladly do our hearts turn to the glory, and see the One who died for us, and who has won our hearts, as the accepted of God, as the Lord of glory, as the administrator of all good for man! How gladly can we look upon His face, in which shines all the glory of God, and know that the measure of His acceptance is ours; that we stand before God in all the worth and acceptability of a risen Christ, soon to be made absolutely good to us by God, when we shall be “conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren.”
Oh, dear young believer, can we afford to go through this world in a lazy, slipshod, careless, easy fashion, little caring for the interests of our absent Lord? It is a marvellous privilege—in this world of self-seeking, money-loving, and pleasure-hunting—to be identified with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For if that death has closed the door for us upon everything of this world, be it coarse or refined, be it rude or intellectual, it has, blessed be God, opened the door for us into that new world—the Father’s world, whose sky never knows a cloud, whose day never knows a close, where sorrow and death are absent, where chill and disappointment are never known. And we are to live in the light of that world even now, and can by love, drawn by the Spirit’s power, enter its domain and enjoy these affections which flow between the Father and Son; in short, enjoy eternal life.
It was in the sense of this that the apostle Paul could say in a Roman prison, with the shadows of the evening of life closing in upon him, with the gleam of the executioner’s axe before his eyes, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
He lived for Christ here: His interests alone kept him in this world, and when the moment of his departure came it was absolute unalloyed gain, for it was to be WITH CHRIST.
But he awaits with us that moment when the Lord shall come for His people, and when we shall rise to meet Him in bodies of glory like His, conformed to His blessed image, like Him and for ever with Him.
Young Christian, I press upon you my question again, Do you love the Lord? And do these TWO GREAT FACTS affect you every moment here? Are you living alone for His interests? And does your heart know, while sharing His rejection, the communion of the Father’s house even now, cheered by the near prospect of being there, with Him, and like Him for ever?
May it be HIMSELF that is ever before our hearts! For His name’s sake. Amen.