There are times and moments in our history when God in His grace comes very near to us and makes us sensible of His presence and love, when the redeemed soul tastes for a moment a sip of that eternal future that is awaiting it. In no way is this more distinctly realized on earth than in that which was the delight of the church in the beginning: “The disciples came together to break bread” (Acts 20:7).
We ought never to lose the sense of His presence with us and of what grace has done. He is always with us, and there is the eternal, and therefore changeless, sunshine of His favor always beaming down upon us. The clouds are not from Him, although He does at times allow them to come. Most of us have times in our lives when it is not God in the fullness of His grace that is prominently before us, but rather the pressure of other things. It is the hour in our history when we are “perplexed, but not in despair; cast down, but not destroyed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” and “for a season in heaviness through manifold temptations.” In such a season God often sees there is a “needs be,” as Peter says.
The Lord’s Goodness
But He is the One that lifts up. “God, that comforteth those that are cast down,” does this Himself. The way He deals with us in this has been the manner of His grace to all His people from the first. He makes His goodness to pass before us, and we are bowed by the sight of it before Him. Thus was it with Moses (Ex. 33). When crushed and almost in despair as to the people, he had desired to see God’s glory. The Lord said, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee” (vs. 19). But what would God do for him that he might not be overpowered by that glory? “I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with My hand while I pass by” (Ex. 33:22). “The Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. ... And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped” (Ex. 34:6,8). What could he say, as sheltered there, while he beheld it and heard it all? He made haste, bowed the head, and worshipped. Thus is it always, and thus is it too with us whenever He makes us sensible of His goodness and of His presence.
“Who Am I?”
Thus was it too with David when he went in and sat before the Lord. Words were wanting or died away in silence, the silence of worship, for he too was contemplating God, who had caused His goodness to pass before His soul. “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is mine house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto? ... What can David speak more to Thee for the honor of Thy servant? for Thou knowest Thy servant” (1 Chron. 17:16,18). This is all he can say. Words and expression both fail while the heart is bowed in worship and thanksgiving, for expression or language are not necessary for worship; often silence marks it. It is as sheltered that we are called upon to contemplate “all His goodness”; “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,” we see Jesus (who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death) “crowned with glory and honor.” Soon our portion will be to see Him as He is, but the Spirit often causes all His goodness now to pass before us.
Gathered to Break Bread
It is as sheltered and, beyond all, as guests invited to listen and partake of the unfolding of all God’s goodness that we are gathered together to break bread on each first day of the week. May we know how to value the privilege and also how suitably to behave ourselves in the midst of such abounding grace. Here passes in review before the soul the destruction and overthrow of the enemy and all his host in the Red Sea, while the ark stands firm in the bed of Jordan—both figures of the death of Christ. His goodness had passed before these poor slaves of Egypt, and the desert rung again with a song that has not yet died away, nor ever will. It is renewed and understood now by those who sing it in the desert of this world, which is just as barren for us as it was for Israel. The Lord Jesus, who is with us (Matt. 18:20), the One who has come out of death and judgment, says, “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation” (Psa. 22:25). He sings in the midst of the church—the Leader of the song—and claims us as His brethren (John 20).
To Be Where He Is
How blessed, then, to be where the Lord Himself condescends to be—“where two or three are gathered together unto My name.” Who would, who could, be absent, if there were any possibility of being present? It is the place where He causes all His goodness to pass before us and sends us out (if into a desert) as a rejoicing people, with the song of praise and thanksgiving in our mouths! We are like the disciples of John 20—“glad”—for they saw the Lord and heard the blessed accents of His voice proclaiming, as the result of His death, “Peace be unto you.”
Have we passed into this blessed, this unclouded scene? It is what we declare week by week. Would we change places or be anything other than what God has been pleased to make us, and through Christ, “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”? Would Israel on the shore of the Red Sea go back again? Would David before the Lord change his circumstances? Would Job, before whom God had in those wonderful chapters (38-41) caused all His goodness to pass, do anything but bow?
And when the disciples have learned and when we have learned that He claims us as His “brethren,” what will the effect be upon us? What will it be, brethren, in each one of us if we are still left here? Will we live for Him, whom the world in its pride still rejects, as a filled and worshipping people? May it be so while we are left here to show the Lord’s death and to wait before Him in the blessed anticipation of His speedy coming the second time, “without sin unto salvation.” “The night is far spent; the day is at hand.”
H. C. Anstey (adapted)