Permit me to nominate the word “come.” We have all heard the squeal of a little child when someone says, “Here I come; I’m going to get you; here I come ….” As children we have played hide-and-seek, and the afternoon rang out over and over again with the words, “Ready or not, here I come.” And then there were those days when wed fell and scraped our knee, and mother called with the words, “Come here, and let me make it better.” But of course, for almost every good thing there are bad things and corrupted things. The Ghost of Christmas Past met Scrooge with the word “come with me.” My mother used to quote an old poem which began, “ ‘Come into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly.”
What about the Biblical uses of the word “come?” Would it surprise you to learn that word is found 1817 times in the Bible? Of course in some places the word is far more outstanding than in other places Genesis 7:1 – “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” Psalm 24:7 – “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” Isaiah 1:18 – “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” John 14 – “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” And some of the last words in the Bible are – “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” One of the greatest examples of the use of this word is found in our scripture: Matthew 11:28. No matter who speaks, the word “come” can very often have a transforming and uplifting effect. But it’s meaning is greatly enhanced when we think of it in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have a little topical message for you this evening..
There are those cases when Christ said, “I AM come…”
He often used this terminology, and sometimes its opposite, to describe the purpose of His incarnation. For instance he said, “I came to do the will of Him that sent me” – John 6:38. The Lord Jesus was a perfect example of the Ambassador of Jehovah. He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. That verse in John 6:38 is perhaps the first step towards interpreting II Corinthians 5:20 – “Now then WE are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” As Christians, we are expected to be Christ-like. It is our duty, as it was the Son of God’s duty, to do the will of our Heavenly Father. But in respect to Christ, the words of that verse, “I came to do the will of Him that sent me” have some interesting intellectual and theological implications. And as I said last week, I’m not sure that I can adequately explain them. This verse tells us that despite His equivalence to the Father, Jesus was subject to Him as His Son. He is the eternal God – the Creator as much as Father, and the Comforter as much as the Holy Spirit, and yet He came into the world to do Jehovah’s will. The Lord Jesus never did anything that was disrespectful, contrary or outside the will of the God-head. And yet, He was not beneath, inferior or anything less than the Father or the Spirit.
We play with our children as babies; we teach them simple Bible truths; and eventually they repent before God and believe on Christ Jesus. As they continue to mature, they marry and have children of their own, becoming equals to us, their parents; they become teachers themselves. The relationships that we have to our adult children, in some ways, change throughout our lives, and yet at the same time some of them never change. It’s all quite complicated. What if at some point one of your children became the pastor of your church? In that case he would be your child, your equal as a Christian, and your God-ordained spiritual-leader. In an upside down sort of way that occurred between the Son of God and God the Father. As the Creator of the Universe, the incarnate Christ could have assumed total authority over Creation, but He never did anything that was outside the will of the Father. There is something worthy of a person’s Sunday evening meditation.
Then in John 5:43 the Lord Jesus said, “I am come in my Father’s name.” That is a corollary to coming to do the Father’s will. As I’ve explained many times, this means that Jesus came with His Father’s authority. Christ Jesus came into this world under His Father’s authority and at the same time with that authority. A military general may have many men under his command, and he can order them to do his will, yet he has no authority to initiate a war. With Christ there is no higher authority, except that He wilfully subjected Himself to the Father. He came to do the will of the Father, and that will included His death and sacrifice on the cross. He was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” to come a willing sacrifice in the hands of the corrupted priests of Israel. And similarly, you and I are to bear a resemblance to the relationship between Christ and the Father.
The Saviour also said in Matthew 10:34, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Despite what took place on the plains of Babylon about 4,000 years ago, unthinking people today have the idea that we should all look alike, think alike, behave alike and believe alike. At Babel the Lord showed to the world that such a philosophy is foolish and sinful. And even though, at the incarnation, it was said that Christ was to “give light to them that sit in darkness … and to guide our feet into the way of peace,” and the angels shouted, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” that was not the kind of peace that Green Peace and the United Nations are talking about. Two thousand years ago Christ did not come in order to establish political – or even religious – peace. In some future day, perhaps not too far away, He will come again and do exactly that, but in His first coming, Christ Jesus said, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” How can these things both be true? This doesn’t make sense. Actually it makes complete sense. The peace that Jesus provides today is spiritual peace – which is quite different from religious or political peace. But in His incarnation – His coming to earth, in His preaching and in His righteousness, He highlighted man’s native spiritual enmity against God. And He set sons against their fathers by revealing their respective sins. He broke the peace between mothers and daughters, by showing each of them that they were both naturally at variance against God. When sinners, whether they are parents or children, priests or parishioners, come to the realization that they are sinners living in sin – in their repentance before God, peace can be established. But before the peace, there has to be an understanding of the nature the warfare between us. In the coming of Christ that warfare was accentuated and intensified.
Something else about Jesus’ coming: somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t in order to be served or worshiped. He “came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give (his) life a ransom for many.” Not once did God seek to establish man’s worship by appearing or coming to earth. He came to instruct; He came to call and ordain. But He has not yet come to earth, regally sitting on a throne, expecting the world to bow before Him. He revealed himself to Abraham in order to call that man to Himself – “Come with me, Abraham.” He came to Isaiah to commission him into the ministry – “Come with me, Isaiah.” He visited Moses in order to give to him the revelation of His law – “Come with me, Moses.” He revealed Himself to John in order to give us the Book of Revelation. He appeared to Saul of Tarsus in order to save him – “Come with me, Paul.” I suppose the only exception to this might have been in Eden before the fall of man, when he appeared in the evening to fellowship with Adam and Eve. The Lord Jesus didn’t come here in order to be served; He came in order to serve. He came to meet the great need of humanity; the needs that we have before God. Wouldn’t it make this a better world if we all tried to imitate the Lord in this? How many sports figures have forgotten that they are merely entertainers; not gods to be worshiped? How many children try to demand that their parents worship them and meet their every whim? How many politicians forget that they are supposed to be servants of their electorate. How many pastors think that they are popes? And how many Christians in this world have forgotten that they are supposed to be Christ-like servants not spiritual VIPs awaiting their ultimate glorification?
Something else – Christ came to be the light of the world. Do you suppose that John the Apostle had ever been afraid of the dark? Do you suppose that there were some blind people in his family? I say that because he refers to light and blindness more than all the other gospel writers combined. For some reason Matthew and Mark didn’t record the Lords’ references to these things as often as John did. John wrote of Christ – “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” and “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”
In John 12 especially the Lord Jesus sat in this shaft of sunshine for a while. “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. “Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.”
Proverbs 4:19 says that “the way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble.” Just as real as physical darkness and blindness is spiritual darkness and blindness. Isaiah says that the wicked “wait for light, but behold obscurity;” they wait “for brightness, but …walk in darkness.” The Lord Jesus came in order that those unbelievers – us – might have light. God “commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” One of the saddest of all things to witness are those professing Christians who appear not understand the simple principles of right and wrong. God doesn’t try to hide these things from those who want to see them? He will not leave us in the dark about such things? Christ came in order to be a light revealing the truth.
And one more thing which Jesus said about the purpose of His coming, was that He came not merely to invite the righteous to join Him. He came “to call sinners to repentance” – Matthew 9:13. Again this is contrary to popular opinion, yet it came straight from the lips of the Lord Jesus. One of Christ’s greatest services to mankind was to lead us to a changed attitude about sin, righteousness and the judgment for sin. He taught us what it is to truly repent, and He gave us a Saviour/solution for sin in which to trust. Or to put it another way He “came to seek and to save that which was lost” – us. He came to provide the eternally dead with eternal life. Jesus came to this earth with a purpose, and He perfectly accomplished that purpose.
But there is another sense in which He is YET to come.
He is not finished with planet Earth. He said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” He said, “Behold, I come quickly.”. James said, “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” “Surely, I come quickly,” said the Lord. Amen, even so come Lord Jesus.
This church still believes in the Biblical declaration of the soon-coming of Christ. “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” We, with Paul, are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” That coming will be as a thief in the night, but still we are to be watching. We know that it will begin a period of judgment, and yet still we are waiting and watching. We know that many will be ashamed in that day, and so we watch all the more diligently.
But the only way to be prepared for the soon-coming of Christ is to have properly received His first coming. And in this light there are the words of the Lord Jesus in our opening scripture. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Are you ready for the second coming of Christ? Perhaps I should ask, are you as ready for death as you are for the return of the Lord?. The answer to both questions lies in your current relationship to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you wearing the yoke of Christ?