The Father's House: June 2018
Table of Contents
Our Father's Heart
In giving us the story of Abraham and his life, God our Father gives us a glimpse of His heart of love for His Son and for us. In Genesis 22 we see what the Father and Son meant to each other when they went alone “to worship” while the rest waited for them. There the Son, in figure, passes through death and resurrection. When this mighty work is done, Abraham, the father, is ready to provide for his son a wife. When our Lord had finished His work, the time had come for the Father to provide for Him a wife. Abraham’s requirements for his son’s wife reflect on our Father’s requirements in love for a suitable bride for His Son, His only Son whom He loves. Abraham’s servant was told that the chosen one was to be “of my family, and out of my father’s house.” Our Father wanted a bride taken from His own family and of His own house. His heart wanted the best for His Son. And the best was one who, as family, could share in and enjoy with Him and His Son all those things that delight His heart and His Son’s heart. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ ... having predestinated us unto the adaption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.”
The Father's House
John 14:1-3
Very little is said about the Father’s house save what we find in John 14. One is never weary of those verses because they tell of the personal love of the Lord Jesus to His church. The location of the house is not defined, nor the thought of heaven introduced as meaning any particular locality. But Jesus lifts up His eyes to heaven.
Whenever my faith goes up there, what does it experience? The thought of the One there who was once in all my circumstances of sorrow down here—the thought of home up there with Him. Oh, what a warm, happy feeling the heart experiences at that thought—not the circumstances of that home, but the being there with Him. A man’s heart is in his home, not because of its circumstances, but because the object of his affection is there. It is the same with regard to heaven. I find uncommonly little of detail as to circumstances there, but I find unfading reality in one or two simple verses; for instance this: “If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father.” What a volume in that expression! Christ wants us to enter into the joy of His heart at the thought of the Father’s home, saying, in substance, “I want to share with you this thought of My joy; I want you to rejoice with Me because in a little while I shall be with My Father, and not only that, but you also shall soon be there with Me.”
If we could see all the glory of heaven, it would be poor in comparison with the thought of seeing the Son sitting on the throne of His Father, and ourselves seated together with Him in those heavenly places. What perfect rest of heart there is in that expression, “Made us sit together in heavenly places,” thus bringing us into the blessed taste of the glory He has!
The character of our rest and our power to walk as risen men are laid down in Colossians 3. When God’s eye looks upon you, what does He see? That you are one who has a place up there. And when His eye rests on Christ, it rests as not expecting to find a blot. How impossible, as the eye of God turns on us, that He should find anything but imperfection! But He turns round to see us hid in Christ, and to meet in those who are hid in Christ, Christ’s perfection. By His work and in that perfection we are prepared for the Father’s house.
G. V. Wigram
Heaven Our Home
John 13:1-10; John 14:1-18; John 20:11-18
It is a wonderful thing for our souls to have the Father’s house revealed to us, so that we can enjoy it before we get there. There is no moral link between the Father’s house and this world—no possibility of putting them together in our hearts. Do we know anything of the complete break between these two places? The moment the Lord knew His hour was come, His first thought was to give those whom He was leaving in this world part with Himself where He was going.
There is the first communication of divine life and nature that brings with it the capacity for the entrance into our souls of all these things: It needed the knowledge of what He had wrought to enter into them. But He knows the need we meet at every turn, and He provides for it. All this is preliminary; up to this the Father’s house has not been mentioned. When the Lord Jesus is able to count upon the sorrow of hearts that will miss Him, He says, “Let not your heart be troubled. ... In My Father’s house are many mansions.” What a revelation! There had been no such thing up to this time in Scripture. Much of the Lord’s ministry had prepared the way for it; now the moment has come for the full revelation to break on us, a home where He has gone, His own home, now revealed and made ours.
The Way
Then He goes on to address His disciples: “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” How were they to know it? Philip thought, if only he knew the Father, he could know the Father’s house. Jesus says, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Every trait of the blessedness of the Father’s house was revealed and shining forth in the Person and ways of the Son here below. The heart that knows the Son knows the Father too, even the feeblest babe, for it is no matter of attainment; the Lord Jesus would start us with it. The cardinal truth of the revelation of the Father is found in the Gospel of John, as the One to whom I am related. For this reason, we all turn to the Gospel of John, for there we have all the precious revelation of the Father in the Person of the Lord Jesus here.
The Preparation
“I go to prepare a place for you.” There is nothing more important than to seize the meaning of that little sentence; it is not that any preparation is going on now, but how did I ever come to have a home prepared up there? Accomplished redemption prepares us for it. The Lord Jesus, in closing our whole history here, opens to us a heavenly home, fitting that home for us by His presence there and fitting us perfectly for that home. Thus, at the very opening of our way, we can give thanks to the Father; He has made us meet. Truth only becomes real to us as it supplies a need created in our souls. That need had been created in Mary Magdalene. The disciples were satisfied when they had inspected the sepulchre; they returned to their homes, but separated from the Lord, Mary’s heart had no home to go to, and she stood without the sepulchre weeping. He had delivered her from the fearful power of Satan, and the sense of what He was detained her there, until His voice broke upon her ear. She wished to resume the nearness with which she had known Him before, but He says, “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” He was going to introduce her into far deeper and fuller blessing than she could have known before. “Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God and your God.” What additional light this is upon all that we have found of the revelation of the Father’s house. He is now able to open to us the place where He has gone and to associate us in the fullest way with Himself. “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” How simply this gives us our place; the yesterday of my life closed in the cross of Christ, the tomorrow to be with Him in glory, and the present so wonderfully filled with all we have been brought into while here. Are we living in the power of the things that are ours already? Do we know what it is in a little measure to bask in the light of the Father’s love? We have the Holy Spirit to be the power of the enjoyment of all these things in our souls, while we are waiting on the tip-toe of expectation for Him to come again, that where He is, there we may be also. What I seek is that we may enter into the power that is given us for the enjoyment of these things. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Arrested by this thought, many of us stop there and put it all off to the future, but the Apostle only quotes this from Isaiah to contrast it with what we have. “But God hath revealed them unto us, by His Spirit.” The things that God has prepared in His eternal counsels are now revealed to us by His Spirit, that we may know them and enjoy them as our present possession, that our hearts might live in them as a present realty.
Seeing the Unseen
“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Cor. 4:18). Do we know anything of such an attitude? Have we been looking at the things which are seen today or at the things that are unseen? These things are revealed so that we can look at them. “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2). Associated with Him, risen with Him, set your mind (JND). The affections and the mind are distinct things; the Spirit assumes that the affections will follow Christ there, but is the mind there? The cross upon earth answers to the heavenly glory. How fatal the influence of man that comes between me and that risen, glorified Christ. Are our hearts lingering in the scene out of which He has gone? Or are our hearts and minds set upon Him, where He is in the glory? “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). Citizenship was everything to a Grecian; it came before the dearest relationship. All that forms the moral life is in heaven now. How feeble is the grasp of these things! What is the practical power of them? Does everything about us bear witness to them, so that we are only waiting for Him to come, to take us to Himself, in whom all our joys and our hopes have centered while here? Not one thing has been withheld from us, and He is engaged in service for us in the glory, so that there may be no hindrance to our enjoyment of these things, so that we may be going about this dark world with our faces lit up, or at all events our hearts, with His love. We have found what satisfies us divinely and forever.
J. A. Trench
The Father's House
John 14:1-6
There is no portion we are more familiar with than John 14. Surely there is no chapter more frequently read and turned to for comfort—and rightly so. “Let not your heart be troubled.” The Lord anticipates the disciples’ being found in circumstances of sorrow and trouble. Of course, He refers mainly to His own going away, but when He comes down to verse 27 and has spoken of His going away and of giving the Holy Spirit, He again says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
The Rejection of Christ
Christ has been refused; men would not let Him remain here. He had a title to everything here, but He accepted this place of rejection. As long as the disciples had the shelter of His wing, they knew what it was to dwell under His shadow and have a place of refuge. Whatever opposition and trouble they met, they had One to whom they could go and tell their sorrows; they “went and told Jesus.” No one can tell what it was to those disciples to walk in the Savior’s presence here. Who can tell what it was to them to hear His voice, to have His ear ever open to them, and to know His care and His presence? Think what it was for these poor men, who walked in the company of the Son of God in this world, to hear Him say that He was going away and that He was going to leave them in a world where He Himself met with rejection. He said He would not leave them comfortless, but they, for their part, looked at the terrible blank the absence of Christ would make to their souls. We must place ourselves in the very circumstances the disciples were in at that moment in order to understand it.
“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Matt. 8:20). He had not a place here, but He was going to speak to them about heaven, with which He was perfectly acquainted. He knew all that was there, though it was an entirely new revelation to the disciples. Where can you find in Scripture anything before about the Father’s house? There had never been anything unfolded about it before, and now we speak about the Father’s house as a place we have heard of all our lives! But think of the Lord’s going away and leaving these dear ones He had drawn to Himself—perhaps, but they loved their Master.
A Prepared Place
In an earlier day (John 6), when the Lord had been speaking of His rejection and some went back (men who had been outwardly near to Christ and had seen what they had never seen before, but had no real link in their souls with Him—merely a passing interest—and when the moment of testing came, they parted company with Christ), yet still these disciples were true to Him, and when He said, “Will ye also go away?” there came that beautiful answer, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” They could answer in all the certainty of what they had learned from Christ, and they could answer rightly. They were not intelligent perhaps, but where a person’s heart is true to Christ, everything else will follow rightly.
Christ has gone to prepare a place for those that are His in this world. It is one thing to have a place prepared outside this world, and another thing to have it prepared inside this world. The gospel of God does not propose to prepare a place for us in this world; there is the unfolding of that which is heavenly, and not the giving us a place or anything down here in this world. Christianity gives us the most wonderful circumstances outside, but it does not propose to give us anything in this world.
Christ the Object and Way
“Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” We have God before us as an object of faith. The invisible God, they had believed in; now the Lord was going away, and He was to become an invisible object likewise, but He claims their faith. The Savior who stood upon this earth is now up in heaven, but He is just the same Lord Jesus and, in the midst of our sorrow, we can know how real a thing it is to be brought into personal acquaintance with Christ in heaven.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is no other way to God. The fact of Christ saying He is the way declares that man has lost the way. What man wanted was a way back to God, to the Father, and Christ says, I am that way. And, He is “the truth” as to everything—the truth in relation to God, in relation to man, in relation to time, in relation to eternity—and if you do not know Christ, you do not know the truth about anything. Your judgment of things in this world is a false judgment if Christ is unknown to you. And is He not “the life” too? He claims these three things for Himself.
His Home
Having claimed their faith, He speaks of His Father—a new thing to them. Who can tell what the Father’s house is? It was home to Christ. Christ had not a home here; He came from heaven, and He measured things here by it. He saw the poverty, the sorrow, the ruin, and death here, and He came down from heavenly glory to tell us what the Father was in Himself, to open up the way to Him, and to speak of the Father’s house. Is not that a divine reality? Supposing it were possible to annihilate the opening verses of John 14, would you feel a blank as to the future? Supposing you had never read them before, what a revelation it would be to you! What could be more wonderful than that the Savior should tell us all about it? It is as if He said, I do not propose to find you comfortable nests down here and to guard you from every anxiety, but I open up a place for you in heaven.
A place! That is the whole thing in this chapter. No place here, but a place in heaven, a place for man, a place in the Father’s house. And when the soul has learned that, it has got hold of divine possessions, of surroundings which God has given for our comfort in this world.
The place which Christ prepared for them is prepared for every believer in Christ today. Our place was prepared the moment Christ went in as a man. If Christ is your Savior, where He goes you go. Christ never goes anywhere that the believer has not a place with Him. As a man on the ground of accomplished redemption, He goes up into glory and there prepares a place. We have a place in heaven, not among men, but a place, a present place, in heaven. The moment Christ is our Savior, God is our Father, and, in virtue of what Christ has done, we are brought into the family of God, and that which is proper to the family is the home. You never get into the thought of verse 2 unless by meditation and prayer before God. The Father’s house is greater than the glory of the kingdom.
His Coming
A Christian is a person who can stand in this world and say, I am ready at this moment to step into the Father’s house. As surely and as really as Christ stood on this earth and told them what He was going to do, so surely did He tell them that He was coming back. Do you believe Christ is coming for you? I do not mean, Do you believe in the second coming? but, Is it Christ coming for you? If you believe it, it would settle ten thousand things for you. It is blessed! It is the heart of Christ which will find out in this world every loved one, wherever they are; the heart and eye and hand and almighty power of Christ will gather them out of this world. That, next to the cross, will be the greatest expression of divine affection. Do you know that may take place now? There is not a word of Scripture to be fulfilled before He comes, and, before another hour has passed, Christ may be here. We do not know what the circumstances of the rest of our pathway may be, but we do know Christ is coming.
Our Imminent Expectation
Have you weighed and measured everything connected with you in the light of God’s eternity? Can you say, Thank God I have a Father and a place in the Father’s house, and thank God I have a future so brilliant and so blessed that nothing can touch or disturb it? Is it not wonderful that Christ is really for us, that notwithstanding the poverty of our testimony for Him, His heart has not grown cold, and He never loved His people more than at this moment? He was never in greater activity for them. You can look up to heaven and say, Christ never loved me more than at this moment, and He is only waiting to have me with Him forever. One moment we shall be here, and the next moment up there, received unto Himself. Then there will be no separation from Christ forever. Is it not beautiful?
But the moment Satan gets anything in between our souls and the coming of Christ, it has no power over us. If the coming of Christ is a near thing to you, it has power. Make it tomorrow, and its power is gone; you cease to wait and to watch. Christ has been refused here, but He is accepted there, and the weakest saint that ever looked to Him is dear to Him, and He will come and fetch that one.
May God make His coming the next thing to us!
E. P. Corrin
The Father's House
Luke 9:34-36
The disciples were permitted to enjoy the glory of Christ before the moment of His manifestation. They did not then understand the bearing of the scene which later on served to support their apostolic authority. Not having been called to behold it from this point of view, we only know it on their testimony; but we also are in present possession of a scene of glory, for it is said, “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Glory of the Mount and the Cloud
However, the holy mount is not only the scene of the future vision, or the present contemplation of the glory, but it gives the disciples a near portion with Christ. Peter, who a few days previously had incurred the Lord’s displeasure, is brought by grace with his companions where man had never before entered. A cloud overshadowed the disciples, and they entered into it with Jesus. For a Jew it was a terrible thing. How could they do anything but fear to penetrate into the cloud which was the sign of Jehovah’s presence? How not tremble at the remembrance that even the high priest, in order that he might not die when he went into the sanctuary of God, had to envelop himself with a cloud of incense? But the disciples might be reassured; the cloud was no longer for them the abode of Israel’s Jehovah, but the Father’s house. The presence of Christ with them in the cloud was the means of revealing to them the name of Him who dwelt therein. They became companions not only of the Son of Man in His glory, like Moses and Elias, but of the Son in the Father’s house. To dwell in the glory is indeed a future blessing which not even one of the saints fallen asleep has yet attained; to dwell in the Father’s house is a present as well as a future portion. If I can say in speaking of the future, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever “ (Psa. 23:6), I can just as well cry in speaking of the present, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (Psa. 27:4). The prodigal son was brought into the Father’s house when he was converted; clad in the best robe, and standing in the dignity of a son, he was there given to share in all the Father’s possessions, and in the joy which He had in communicating them to him. This house is the secret abode of communion. Many things attracted the gaze of the disciples at the transfiguration; the face of Christ shining as the sun; His raiment white as the light; Moses and Elias, two celebrated men, appearing in glory. There was none of this in the cloud. Like Paul, caught up into paradise, the disciples saw nothing, for Moses and Elias disappeared; but it was in order that the disciples might give undivided attention to a word in which all the mind of God is summed up.
The Pre-Eminence of Christ
Peter forgot the pre-eminence of Christ as long as he saw Moses and Elias. He said, “Let us make three tabernacles.” He wanted to put the law and the prophets on a level with Christ by associating them with Him; and there are many Christians who unconsciously do the same. Poor Peter! How unworthy he showed himself of the vision! His language, his sleep and his fear, betrayed the state of his soul, and the more the perfection of Jesus shone out, the more Peter’s imperfections were multiplied. We find it so at every turn, until he has fully judged himself. The Spirit gives him power, the flesh deprives him of it; the Spirit enlightens his understanding, the flesh shows its ignorance, above all, concerning the cross; the Spirit directs his gaze to the glory of the kingdom, the flesh lowers this glory to the level of failing man. The same thing comes out in the scene of the tribute money, at the supper, in Gethsemane, and in the court of the high priest, until Peter learns what the flesh is, and receives power from on high, The excellent glory, far from repelling the disciples, attracted them to Christ, and set them at His feet as disciples, saying to them, “Hear Him.” Thus Peter, with the rest, was brought to enjoy the thoughts of the Father towards the Son of His love, and the Father’s house was the scene of this revelation. The disciples, as we have said, heard one word, the brief expression of what the presence of the Son called forth from the Father’s lips, but it is a word which lets us into the secret of His heart: “This is My beloved Son: hear Him.”
Such is our present blessing. We have been allowed to share the secret of the Father. He has brought us now into intimacy with Him which cannot be exceeded even in the eternal state, although, of course, it will be more perfectly enjoyed. We shall there see all the display of Christ’s glory, and we shall be seen in this glory; but now we are the depositaries of the Father’s thoughts revealing the Son, the Father revealed by the Son. “When the voice was past, Jesus was found alone.” As we listen to this voice we shall learn more and more what the Father is to Him and to us.
H. R., from Christian Friend
God's Tabernacles and the Father's House
Psalm 84
What answers now for the Christian to the “tabernacles,” in the fullest sense of the term, is the Father’s house. God has His habitation through the Spirit on earth, and many instructive applications might be made from this psalm to it, but never until the Father’s house is reached shall we enter upon the perfect blessedness of the eternal occupation of praise. It is then the antitypical significance of the tabernacles, with the added thought of relationship, revealed only in Christianity, which is to be kept in view in our meditations on this beautiful psalm.
Let it then be observed, first of all, that the essential thing for us, while passing through the wilderness, is to have our hearts on the Father’s house. This is, in fact, the key to the psalm, as it commences with the words, “How amiable,” how beloved (as the word is), “are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts” (vs. 1)! It is indeed an immense thing for the soul to know that it does not belong to this scene, but to the place where Christ is—in the Father’s house—and consequently to have the heart already there. This indeed is the blessed secret of being morally outside of everything by which we are surrounded here. Stopping short at the benefits we receive through the work of Christ, and not pressing on to the joy of knowing Him by whom the work has been accomplished, the heart will scarcely ever travel outside of this world. But when we follow Christ to the place where He has gone, meditate upon, delight in, and adore Him there, our hearts will constantly turn to Him as their one and only satisfying portion.
The Heart’s Longing
As a consequence, we shall desire to be where Christ is. As the psalmist proceeds, “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God” (vs. 2). God dwelt there, and the psalmist longed to be where He was, not to obtain relief from the sorrows of the wilderness, or even to enter upon the joys and blessings that filled the place, but simply because the living God dwelt there. So now the soul that knows Christ most intimately desires to be where He is, in order to be with Himself. Like Paul, he desires to depart, if death be in prospect, to be with Christ, assured that, if absent from the body, he will be present with the Lord. And this is in accordance with the Lord’s own mind, for when promising to return for His own, He said the object was, “That where I am, ye may be also,” and again, when speaking to the Father, “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.” It could not be otherwise than that if Christ possesses our hearts, we should long to be with Him where He is.
The Affections
Entering into this, the blessedness of dwelling in the house is at once apprehended (vs. 4). It is always true that we live in spirit where our hearts’ objects are. So that dwelling by faith in the Father’s house is entirely a question of the affections. It is so, as we have seen, in this psalm. First, the heart is on the tabernacles, then there is the desire to be where the living God is, and next we have the blessedness of dwelling in the house. Does anyone enquire, What is it to dwell in spirit in the Father’s house? It is the mind, the mind of the new man, the thoughts, the desires, and the affections being continually there, ever reverting to the place where the Father is and where His beloved Son is. Remark, moreover, that those who dwell in the house have but one occupation, and that is praise—incessant praise. As we read of the singers in the temple, “They were employed in that work day and night” (1 Chron. 9:33).
A Well in the Desert
To have our hearts in the Father’s house makes this world a desert, and ourselves pilgrims and strangers in it. But there is blessedness also in this, if, as will surely be the case, our strength is in God, and the “ways,” the ways to the house above, are in our hearts. For the soul that has already found its true object and rest is a chastened soul; it has ceased from self-occupation, after many a weary trial and experience, and it has learned that it has no strength save in Christ. It is a dependent soul, and as such cherishes the “ways” that lead to the possession and realization of all its hopes and desires. But there will be exercises while treading the ways; yea, such a soul will find the scene through which it is passing to be the valley of Baca—of weeping. Weeping must endure through the moral night of this world, and even the sower must sow in tears. There will be exercises innumerable, but sorrowful as these must be, they will become a well—a wellspring of life, for “by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of [the] spirit” (Isa. 38:16). Moreover, the rain, God’s blessed and fertilizing rain, will also descend and fill the pools. He will bless the tearful pilgrim by the ministrations of His Spirit within, and from above He will give heavenly blessings.
From Strength to Strength
Although the journey of the pilgrims lies through the valley of Baca, they will yet go from strength to strength. This does not mean that they will acquire an increase of strength in themselves, but that, at every step of their wilderness path, they will learn ever more fully their own utter weakness and, together with this, that their strength is in the Lord. An increased realization of dependence must bring increased strength; only it must always be remembered that the strength is never in us—never in us as a fund on which we can draw, but always in the Lord, and only to be received moment by moment according to the need. This is the blessed lesson the Lord taught Paul when He said to him, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Supported thus by divine strength, every pilgrim “in Zion appeareth before God.” Not one can ever perish by the way. Every child, through whatever trials he may be passing, must reach the Father’s house.
“Let cares, like a wild deluge, come
And storms of sorrow fall;
Yet I shall safely reach my home,
My God, my heaven, my all.”
Under the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ, in the enjoyment of heavenly relationship to the Father, in association with Christ, no power on earth nor in hell can hinder a saint from reaching his eternal home.
Prayer
We learn also that as praise is the occupation of those that dwell in God’s house, so prayer will characterize the pilgrim in the wilderness. In truth, a dependent soul is always a praying one, but if he prays, he presents not himself, but Christ, as the only efficacious ground on which he can expect the answer to his cries. “Behold, O God,” he says, “our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed” (vs. 9). How blessed to be sheltered in Christ, to present Him as our security, and to pray that God would look upon the glorious face of His anointed! Yea, it is in the Beloved that we are accepted, and to know it gives boldness and confidence. Next, the praying saint pours out the delights of his own heart in the contemplation of the courts of the Lord. “A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in [sit at the threshold of] the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (vs. 10). Liberty to look in upon the joys of the Father’s house were infinitely preferable to all the pleasures to be found in the abodes of those of this world. And nothing so weans the heart from present things, or so strengthens for the pilgrim path, as the anticipation of the blessedness of our Father’s house.
Grace and Glory
All is based upon three things. First, what God is in Himself. He is a sun and a shield. He is the source of life and light to His people. In His rays of glory as concentrated and displayed in Christ as seated at God’s right hand, in Christ glorified, is the fountain of life, and in His light we see light. Second, He will give grace and glory. He will give grace for all the journey. We can never be in circumstances of any kind—of trial, sorrow, or temptation—for which His grace will not be sufficient. And remark that He will give it, and thus, as in Hebrews 4, we have only to come boldly to the throne of grace to receive (not obtain) it. As James also says, He gives more grace—always more, for it is grace upon grace out of His inexhaustible fullness, like wave flowing in after wave, one succeeding the other, from the bosom of the ocean. What a provision! Then, too, He will give glory at the end, and the very same glory which He Himself has received of the Father (John 17:22). Last, in His present government, He will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly. Many things the Lord is compelled to withhold from us because of our practical condition, and hence, as we learn here, our capacity of reception is made dependent upon our walk. It is always in His heart to bestow good things upon us, and hence we need to be exercised to maintain an upright walk, that there may be no hindrance to our reception of His gifts of blessing (see Psalm 81:13-16).
The Preciousness of Christ
The last verse is almost a burst of adoring wonder, for it is after the consideration of all the details of the blessedness connected with Jehovah’s tabernacles and their effect upon the soul that the psalmist overflows with admiration in the presence of such ineffable grace and tells out the emotions of his heart in this one word, “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.” And surely we, with more light, and even larger blessing, according to the fuller revelation God has been pleased to make of Himself in Christ, can endorse this utterance of the psalmist with our hearty Amen.
The more you make of Christ, the more precious He becomes to the soul, the more you will enjoy His presence and company.
Christian Friend
God's House and the Father's House
The Father’s house is a different thing to God’s house, for it puts us in the relationship of children. When He speaks of sovereignty, it is God; but when He speaks of grace, it is the Father. John 4:23-24. The Father first, then God; so also in 1 John 1:3-5.
J. N. Darby
Preparation for the Prepared Place
The Lord Jesus apprehends us not just for what we are, but for what we shall be. It is impossible, when we come to know Christ, to stand still; we pass on from childhood to manhood and to fatherhood. Every separate saint is being prepared for an already prepared place in the Father’s house. Seeing this, it becomes impossible to settle down here the question of self and all connected with it as dung and dross—the question of work—the setting Christ before you, pressing on towards the mark of the high calling of God in Him; these questions can only be settled in view of our heavenly position, our life up there. Are you saying: “Christ loves me, and I must press on till I see Him; nothing can satisfy me till I can get to Him”?
Christ has seen exactly where I shall be in the glory; the jewel will not be lost which is to be put into His crown. The believer can walk in this world as one who is apprehended of Christ for glory. Are your hearts occupied with Him in the glory? It will be as a stream of heavenly blessing in all troubles. Is it the thought of my soul that I am up there with the Son of God in the glory which He has apprehended me for? My citizenship is there amid all the wretched shortcomings of my own heart. Up there the child of God may have present rest and peace. If I have a consciousness of my fellowship with Him in life up there, there will be a throbbing of joy in my heart, flowing from its living communion with the Christ in heaven, which is to flow on forever and forever, and which I date back to the quickening in His grace, His life then flowing to us.
G. V. Wigram
A World in Turmoil and God's Purposes
As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know “deep down inside” that God’s purposes will be fulfilled, no matter what the plans and movements of man. God’s counsels were made in a past eternity, and nothing that man does in time can change them. They have always been fulfilled perfectly in the past, and prophecies for the future in the Word of God have always been accomplished according to God’s time. However, in the uncertain and chaotic world of today it may happen that even believers find that their hearts are “failing them for fear,” as they are “looking after those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:26). And there is certainly plenty, humanly speaking, about which to be concerned.
North Korea
Probably the most serious problem is the current confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea, for the ramifications of this are enormous. Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea has tested six nuclear devices, and it appears that there are more to come. Its leader Kim Jong Un has consistently directed his aggressive rhetoric against the U.S., while from their side, American leaders have given warnings that North Korea cannot be allowed to build weapons that threaten American territory. China, the only country with the real potential to “rein in” its belligerent neighbor, is not anxious for a face-off with the U.S., but neither is it happy to see a strong American presence in East Asia. While China is enforcing some U.N. trade sanctions against North Korea, it appears to be trying to placate America, but without causing enough pressure to make North Korea collapse. If forced into a conflict, U.S. President Donald Trump has promised “fire and fury such as the world has never seen,” while James Mattis, current U.S. Secretary of Defense, has commented that a Korean conflict would “probably be the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” Another senior administration official in the U.S. government has predicted that 2018 will be “a very dangerous year,” while still another official has stated that “the potential for conflict is very high.”
Superpower Status
But there are other reasons for hostile behavior between the great powers of China, Russia, and the U.S. Ever since the end of World War II, the U.S. has enjoyed superpower status, and it has had the strongest economy and military in the world. With changes in technology and methods of warfare, this supremacy is being challenged. The collapse of the Soviet Union stung Russia, and especially its current leader, Vladimir Putin. After the Soviet Union crumbled, Putin was greatly angered that Russia seemed to be relegated to a position of strategic irrelevance by the rest of the world. Since coming to power, his objective has been to put Russia into “great power” status once again. Likewise China, for different reasons, has “come of age” and wants to exert its influence in its part of the world. While neither Russia nor China is presently in a position to challenge the U.S. in a real way, they are practicing what has been termed “hybrid warfare.” In the words of one official, this consists of actions that “reap some of the political and territorial gains of military victory without crossing the threshold of overt war.” Such warfare is conducted in ways that make it difficult to nail down the real responsible party, using such tactics as cyberattacks, sabotage, proxy forces, propaganda, and perhaps economic blackmail.
Russia and China
Russia is exerting its influence in places like the Ukraine and other former Eastern Bloc countries, while China is asserting its control over the South China Sea, even to the point of constructing artificial islands which are then strongly fortified. All of this is intended to weaken Western and particularly American influence in Russian and Chinese orbits and to give them a stronger place in the world.
The Middle East
Finally, there is the Middle East, a boiling pot that threatens constantly to boil over. Syria is in chaos, with many different nations getting involved. Recently Turkey, with the second-biggest army in NATO, opened a new front in this war, going after the Kurdish insurgents that border Turkey. The Palestinian problem continues, with shaky regimes in places like Egypt and Iraq as well. In addition, there are many other “hot spots” in the world, sparked by the nationalism of various ethnic groups or disputes over certain pieces of territory. We see indeed “the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25), although we realize that the full-blown manifestation of this awaits a time after the church is called home. (The sea in Scripture generally typifies the nations of the world in restless motion.) The complexity of modern warfare, combined with the ability of terrorists to wreak havoc in almost any part of the world, has quite naturally left many wondering if there is any safe place left in the world.
Public and Private Debt
Up to this point we have considered mainly the chances of military conflict, but there are other major and equally serious problems in the world. Public and private debt remain a key issue in most Western countries, with governments having to deal with ever-increasing deficits, while credit cards and other easy methods of living beyond one’s means have caused astronomical increases in private debt. Eventually a reckoning day must come, but few are willing to face it. While government debt often “grabs the headlines,” it is private debt that is much larger in the world today and is far more economically serious. Yet few are willing to take the bitter medicine which is needed as a remedy.
Moral Decline
Perhaps more serious than all of these things is the moral decline, especially in countries that have known the Word of God and have had Christian backgrounds. Leaders seek to deal with the problems, only to have their careers ruined by the exposure of some serious immoral or illegal behavior in their past. Personal and corporate integrity is fast disappearing, with many simply doing as little as possible in their jobs, while serving their own ends. Where once righteousness was commonplace, “situational ethics” has become the way of dealing with matters. In Canada, a recent decision by the Supreme Court of the province of Ontario admitted that a particular law did indeed infringe on the individual’s right to religious freedom, yet at the same time ruled that the law placed a ”reasonable limit on religious freedom, demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
God’s Rule
Where does all this leave the Christian? We are reminded of a remark made well over 100 years ago by a well-taught brother. He said, “God’s ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes which He is behind. We have to learn this and let Him work, and not think much of man’s busy movements: They will accomplish God’s; the rest of them all perish and disappear. We have only in peace to do His will.” The world is truly in a serious condition, and we cannot deny it. However, we must also remember that right at the beginning of the times of the Gentiles, God humbled Nebuchadnezzar to the point where he said, “The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men” (Dan. 4:17). Over the centuries since that time, God has generally worked out His purposes by allowing the basest of men to rule. We can be thankful for some exceptions to this, but for the most part, rulers in the times of the Gentiles have not been God-fearing and upright men.
We know that during the so-called church period, it is not God’s purpose to resume the reins of government in the earth. That will come when Christ comes to reign, but not before. However, God has not left the earth to wallow in wickedness with no government. How then does He do this? Let us quote from a well-known writer of the nineteenth century:
“He controls them, not by acting directly, so as to maintain the testimony of His character and His ways, but by means of instruments whom He employs, the result of whose activity is according to His will. The only wise God can do this, for He knows all things and directs all things to the accomplishment of His purposes. This is the reason that we see all sorts of things morally in disagreement with His ways in government, which yet succeed: a chaos as to the present, but the issue of which will furnish a clue, that will make manifest a wisdom even more profound and admirable than that which was displayed in His own immediate government in Israel, perfect as this was in its place.”
An Intelligent Outlook
The true Christian is the only one who can look out on the condition of this world with real intelligence. He knows where it will end and knows that, despite the turmoil and seeming confusion, God is in control and is working out His purposes amidst it all. The plans and even the wrath of man may be evident, but we read that “surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psa. 76:10). God is keeping man from the full extent of his evil purposes, in order that His will may be accomplished.
Many years ago a group of artists was challenged as to who could paint a picture most accurately depicting the theme “peace.” A prize was offered for the best painting that was produced. When the results were put on display, there were many charming scenes. Some were of a sunset over calm water, some were of a pretty meadow, some of a calm lake with trees reflected in it, and some of beautiful gardens. But the one that won the prize portrayed a terrible storm on a seashore, with a strong wind blowing, lightning zig-zagging through the sky, and waves crashing on the rocks. In the midst of all this, there was a crevice in the rock cliff on the shore, in which was a small bird singing its heart out. This was real peace—made more evident by the contrast with everything around.
Peace
Thus the believer can walk through this world with peace in his heart: peace as to his eternal salvation and peace as to his circumstances. This does not mean that we will necessarily have an easy path; no, we have been promised tribulation in this world, and also persecution. But Paul could say that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). The suffering is temporary—for a moment—while the glory is eternal.
More than this, if we accept our circumstances from the Lord, we may take our difficulties to the Lord. Again, this does not mean that we will obtain instant relief from the circumstances, but we can have peace about them, knowing that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). It is worth it to go through hard circumstances, for it is then that we enjoy more intimate communion with the Lord. Truly, as Paul could remind the Corinthian believers, “All things are yours ... the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours” (1 Cor. 3:22).
W. J. Prost
How Blest a Home
How blest a home, the Father’s house!
There love divine does rest;
What else could satisfy the hearts
Of those in Jesus blest?
His home made ours: His Father’s love
Our heart’s full portion given,
The portion of the Firstborn Son,
The full delight of heaven.
Oh what a home! The Son who knows—
He only—all His love;
And brings us as His well-beloved
To that bright rest above;
Dwells in His bosom; knoweth all
That in that bosom lies;
And came to earth to make it known,
That we might share His joys.
Oh what a home! There fullest love
Flows through its courts of light;
The Son’s divine affections flow
Throughout its depth and height;
And full response the Father gives
To fill with joy the heart;
No cloud is there to dim the scene,
Or shadow to impart.
Oh what a home! But such His love
That He must bring us there,
To fill that home, to be with Him,
And in His glory share;
The Father’s house, the Father’s heart,
All that the Son is given,
Made ours, the objects of His love,
And He, our joy in heaven.
Mrs. J. A. Trench