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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 07. Taking with Your Life
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Taking with Your Life
But—ah! listen, there's a wonderful "but" to put in here. But, while waiting He puts all His limitless power at our disposal. If that simple sentence could be put into letters of living flame, its tremendous meaning might burn into our hearts. When Paul piled up phrase on phrase in his eager attempt to have his Asiatic friends in and around Ephesus take in the limitless power of the ascended Christ, he added the significant words, "to the Church." [Note: Eph_1:20-22.] All that power is for the use, and at the disposal, of the Church.
The Church was meant to be a unit in spirit in loyalty to her absent Lord, wholly under the dominating touch of the Holy Spirit, not only in her official actions, but in the lives of the individual members. If she were so, no human imagination could take in the startling, revolutionary power, softly, subtly, but with resistless sweep, flowing down from the crowned Christ, among grateful men.
Not being such a unit it is not possible that that power shall be as great in manifestation as was planned and meant. For no individual nor group can ever take the place in action of the whole unified body of believers, acting as a channel for the power of the crowned Christ. That power shall be realized on the earth only when the Church is so unified, and at work, under the reigning Christ, from the new headquarters up in the heavens.
But meanwhile all of that power is at the disposal of any disciple of Christ—the humblest—who will simply live in full-faced touch with Christ, and who will take of that power as the need comes, and as the sovereign Holy Spirit leads.
It is of this, this personal taking, that Paul is speaking when he piles up that intense sentence: "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us." [Note: Eph_3:20.] The great bother in Paul's day and ever since, and now, is to get people to take. The power is fairly a-tremble in the air at our very finger-tips. And we go limping, crutching along both bodily and mentally and in our spiritual leanness.
Those tremendous words of Jesus, "because I go unto the Father," with the whole passage in which they occur, [Note: Joh_14:12-14.] must be read in the light shining from the throne. Only so can they be understood. But then, so read, they begin to grip us, and grip us hard, as we see what He really meant and means.
He who has the warm, child-like touch of heart with Jesus, that the word "believeth" stands for, shall—as the Holy Spirit has full control—do the same works as Jesus did, same in kind and in degree, and then shall do even greater than Jesus ever did. Because it is now the glorified crowned Christ who is doing them through some child of His, simple-hearted enough to let Him have full control.
And the means through which He will do them is simple, child-like, trusting, humble prayer. The man using the power is on his knees. The lower down he gets the more and more freely the power flows down and out among men.
As one learns to keep in touch—learns it slowly, stumblingly, with many a stupid fall, and many a tremble and quiver—as he learns to keep in simple touch with the crowned Christ he will find all the power of that Christ coming with a soft surging throb of life wherever needed. We may have all we can take. But the taking must be with one's very life. No mere earnest repeating of a creed in Church service will avail here. The repeating must be, syllable by syllable, with feet and will, with hands and life, in the daily tread where each step is stubbornly contested.
This is the bit of truth for the waiting time. This is the song to be singing in this present "not-yet" interval. And the song will help cut down the length of that "not-yet," until the friction of our lived faith shall wear off the "not" and wipe out the "yet," and we shall find the crowned Christ a reigning Christ.
For some day this patient waiting crowned Man will rise up from His seat at the Father's right hand. He will step directly into the action of earth once again. Man will have had his fullest opportunity lengthened out to the last notch of his possible use of it. Then we shall see the crowned Christ quietly stepping in, taking matters wholly into His own hands, and acting in all the affairs of earth as the Crowned One. Then He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates out to where the ends of the earth become a common line on the other side. The Kingdom will have come, for the King will be reigning.
The night will be gone. The day has come. The shadows flee. He has come, whose presence puts the new day at dawn, with the East all aflame, and the fragrant dew glistening gladly on every tender green blade. This time of expectancy is over; [Note: Heb_10:13.] the time of making real has come. Then comes the restoration of the old original love plan to earth and beast and man. [Note: Act_3:21.]
"Thou art coming, O my Saviour!
Thou art coming, O my King!
In thy glory all-transcendent;
In thy beauty all resplendent;
Well may we rejoice and sing!
Coming! In the opening east,
Herald brightness slowly swells;
Coming, O my glorious Priest,
Hear we not thy golden bells?
"Thou art coming, Thou art coming!
We shall meet Thee on Thy way,
We shall see Thee, we shall know Thee,
We shall bless Thee, we shall show Thee
All our hearts could never say!
What an anthem that will be,
Ringing out our love to Thee;
Pouring out our rapture sweet
At Thine own all-glorious feet!
"Thou art coming! Rays of glory,
Through the veil Thy death has rent,
Touch the mountain and the river
With a golden glowing quiver,
Thrill of light and music blent.
Earth is brightened when this gleam
Falls on flower, rock, and stream;
Life is brightened when this ray
Falls upon its darkest day.
"Not a cloud and not a shadow,
Not a mist and not a tear,
Not a sin and not a sorrow,
Not a dim and veiled to-morrow,
For that sunrise grand and clear!
Jesus, Saviour, once with Thee,
Nothing else seems worth a thought!
Oh, how marvellous will be
All the bliss Thy pain hath bought!
"Thou art coming! At Thy table,
We are witnesses of this,
While remembering hearts Thou meetest,
In communion clearest, sweetest,
Earnest of our coming bliss.
Showing not Thy death alone,
And Thy love exceeding great,
But Thy coming and Thy throne,
All for which we long and wait.
"Thou art coming! We are waiting
With a hope that cannot fail;
Asking not the day or hour,
Resting on Thy word of power
Anchored safe within the veil,
Time appointed may be long,
But the vision must be sure;
Certainty shall make us strong,
Joyful patience can endure!
"O the joy to see Thee reigning,
Thee, my own beloved Lord!
Every tongue Thy name confessing,
Worship, honor, glory, blessing,
Brought to Thee with glad accord!
Thee, my Master and my Friend,
Vindicated and enthroned!
Unto earth's remotest end
Glorified, adored, and owned!" [Note: Frances Ridley Havergal.]