Looking For His Appearing

Chapter 3

Practically every great move of the Spirit of God has been accompanied by the proclamation of the soon coming of the Lord. In times of spiritual revival there is always a childlike readiness to look and long for Christ. It has been a remarkable feature of the vast majority of spiritual visitations that either by preaching, prophetic utterance, tongues and interpretation, visions, dreams, or other spiritual phenomena the Lord has declared in the midst of His people, "I am coming soon!"

It was noted by many, in the early centuries of the church, and during the revivals of the past few centuries, that it seemed to be a necessary companion to the quickening which God was then effecting, that they looked for the coming of the Lord, that they were filled with the expectation of His presence, that it was not merely a mighty blessing that had reached their souls - as indeed it was; but along with this, and above this, there was the fixing of the heart on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. They yearned to behold Him and know Him in deeper measures.

A great many who read these lines can bear living witness to the fact that in the great Pentecostal outpouring at the turn of this century, the overriding message spoken by divine utterance was just this: "Jesus is coming soon!" The question follows, "In all these moves of the Spirit of God through the centuries, where the soon-coming of Jesus Christ was proclaimed, DID HE COME? Did those who prophesied lie, or did "soon" mean two thousand years later, eighteen hundred years later, two hundred years afterwards, or a century thence?"

The Holy Spirit does not lie, neither does He create illusions, nor does He tantalize us with something which we have no hope of seeing within our lifetime. Most assuredly HE CAME! Ah - He came not in the way people expected; He came not in the manner that the saints were looking for Him; but His word was certain, and I can assure you that every time He said He was coming SOON -- HE CAME!

All through the 1800's, in revival after revival, throughout various parts of the earth, the Spirit of God thundered out the message, "Jesus is coming soon!" Then Jesus came. In Pentecostal power, at the turn of the century, He came! But the sad fact is that the complacent and lukewarm Christians and ministers in the historic churches of that day missed His coming altogether. They were unprepared for such a coming. They were no more aware that the Christ was present among His people in a new and fresh manifestation of His person, than the Jews were aware two millenniums ago that their prophesied and long awaited Messiah walked among them.

It happened as the scripture declares of His coming of old: "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not" (Jn. 1:10,11). In the days of the Pentecostal move some eighty-five years ago Christ came in mighty power, but the nominal Christians remained untouched and unmoved by His presence. In fact, like the Jews, they rejected Him. He came in manifest glory, but the church world never beheld His glory. He came with a mighty voice, but none of the religionists had ears to hear. He came and they knew Him not.

Again the Spirit sounded forth the message: "Get ready - Jesus is coming soon!" And all the Pentecostals thought they knew what that meant. Midway through the twentieth century, again there was to be a mighty cry unto God for a fresh and deeper manifestation of His glory. Bands of saints across the land and around the world prayed and interceded for more of God. When God responded this time the glory erupted in a Bible School in Canada and within a matter of months swept across America and around the world. God did a new thing that for a time was destined to shake the church all over America.

Christ came as The Prophet in the mouths of His holy prophets, and the prophetic word of the Lord flowed like great Niagara's of Living Water. Christ came as the Song of the Lord in the mouths of vast multitudes as the praises of God echoed down the corridors of the soul and the music of celestial choirs on earth went sweeping up the sky steeps. He came in healing, delivering, and miracle working power and great beyond the telling were the signs and wonders brought by His name. But the leaders in the old established Pentecostal denominational churches had not prepared their hearts for this coming of the Lord. They perceived not that it was HE. They were too busy building their own petty kingdoms and gazing heavenward, expecting to be snatched away from the earth by rapture. They knew not the hour of their visitation, and all who joyfully drank at the ever flowing fountain of life were rejected and promptly excommunicated from their ranks, pronounced fanatics and branded as heretics. He came to His own, and His own received Him not!

He came in the Old Testament, He came in Bethlehem, He came in the resurrection, He came on the day of Pentecost, He came on the Damascus road, He has come to His people again and again in seasons of refreshing, in quickening, in judgment, and all these comings will be finally consummated when at last the Christ has conquered every enemy, filled all things with Himself, and God becomes All-in-all. The many comings will then be seen to be but the ONE COMING of the Lord in extremely varied circumstances, stages, and unfoldments.

It has been asserted that other than the epistle to the Galatians, Paul used a secretary or scribe to write all his letters. Paul dictated a long letter to the saints in Corinth and at last comes to the end. He takes the manuscript away from Sosthenes or Achaicus (whoever it was that was writing) and with his own hand writes the salutation. Then he adds this startling statement: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha" (I Cor. 16:22). These are strange words, indeed, but without doubt Paul knew by the Spirit that all of the problems that existed in the Corinthian church, which were many, would not be solved by anything other than a sincere and intimate and intense love of Jesus Christ in the hearts of the believers.

The word ANATHEMA means devoted to the wrath of God; it means to be lifted up to the wrath of God; it means to be accursed. It is the word found so often in the Old Testament of the accursed thing - that which had been devoted to the curse of God. If anyone love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be devoted to the wrath of God; offered up unto the withering curse of the Almighty, to be duly processed by His judgments. The result of a lack of love for Christ is the ANATHEMA, the curse of God. It begins right here in this life with the withering of the soul, with the withering of its capacity to love those things which are good and true and beautiful and noble.

Paul concludes with a second strange word: MARANATHA! In the King James version that is part of the same sentence. It makes little sense that way, however. Linguistic scholars have concluded that it is properly a separate sentence; that Paul stopped after the word ANATHEMA (accursed), and lifted his pen only to place it down again to write a new sentence composed of two words in the Aramaic language, that form of Hebrew which was the lingua franca of Palestine at that time: Maran-atha. The words mean "the Lord is at hand." The Jews of that time frequently had upon their lips the word "mara" which means "Lord." It was a plea, a prayer, "Lord, come." They looked for the Messiah. But those who rejected the Messiah that came continued to cry out, "Maran! Maran!" looking for the Lord to come, having rejected Him who had already come. And so the Christians took upon their lips the words "maranatha." It can have several shades of meaning. It can mean "the Lord hath come."

We cannot love one who is simply a myth or a legend and so we are called to love One that lived a life of flesh and blood, One who suffered on our behalf, One who endured the agony of the cross for us, One who rose from the dead, One who ascended into heaven, One who came again on the day of Pentecost in mighty Spirit power, One who now dwells in our hearts by faith, the One who has already come. We are not called to love merely a promise, but a present Christ who has lived and died and rose again for us. Furthermore, it means that the Lord is at hand; even now He is with us, always accessible to us. He is present. We cannot love simply a memory, but a living Christ. He is here to work mightily within us in the present.

"THE LORD IS AT HAND. MARANATHA." Finally, it calls us to a remembrance that Christ will come again, and even that is at hand. The Lord is on His way. His coming is imminent. He has come and continues to come. He comes and He shall come and shall continue to come. He will come in as many and varied ways and manners as there are needs in your life and mine and in the whole world of men and movements and nations. MARANATHA! JESUS IS COMING! THE LORD IS AT HAND!

BEHOLD! HE COMES!

I would draw your attention to the book of Revelation, the unveiling of Jesus Christ. This marvelous book contains deep and rich teaching for the elect saints concerning the coming of Christ; symbolic, mysterious, wonderful, but always to be approached reverently, humbly, with head bowed low and shoes removed from off our feet, as people standing on holy ground. Nineteen hundred years ago the beloved disciple on the lonely isle of Patmos saw unfolding before him the enthralling drama of the coming of his Lord. As the awesome sight began to unfold he cried out in astonished wonder and surprised joy, "Behold! He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him" (Rev. 1:7).

The coming of the Lord as revealed in the book of Revelation is complex and progressive, extending through a variety of diverse scenes, stages, events, and manifestations, until He has come in such measure of fullness that we know Him finally in that dimension where HE IS the glorious fulfillment of all that our heart has yearned for, and desired so earnestly. All the lacks swallowed up into completeness, all the voids filled with His fullness, and we know the bliss of HIMSELF as our All-in-all.

BEHOLD! This is the word with which John begins his description of what he saw. Someone has said that the word "behold" in the scriptures is the "Stop, Look, and Listen" sign of the Bible. It always calls for special attention and directs our focus to a truth of unusual importance. The word comes from the Greek IDOU, a demonstrative participle. There are four things we should understand about this word. First, it bids the reader or hearer to give attention to what is being said, as if we were to say, "Now listen!" Second, it is used when an event is specified which seems impossible, yet occurs. Third, it is an exclamation of one pointing out something and calling attention to it. Fourth, it means to observe what is about to be said and consider it thoroughly.

Now let us look at the two words that follow: HE COMETH. "Behold! He cometh." This phrase is from the Greek word ERCHOMAI. It is the third person singular, present indicative. Any reader who knows the conjugation of verbs knows what that means. First, it means HE COMES as a present tense reality. The verb is present indicative. He comes. He is in the act of coming. Behold! He is (now) coming! In other words, He has been coming, He is still in the act of coming, and He continues to come. This is extremely important. More than once the coming of the Lord is spoken of in this tense throughout the book of Revelation. It's not a future thing, not something that shall happen somewhere down the course of history, but it is something that IS. Oh! that God with flames of His holy fire would burn this truth indelibly upon the hearts of all who read these lines.

The church world is either looking back to an historical Christ, or forward to a futuristic coming of Christ, and they miss this word ERCHOMAI which means "Behold, HE COMES, He is coming, He continues to come, He will continue to come." It is something that can happen right now. It means that He comes from one place to another. He comes out of the realm of spirit to be manifested in flesh, expressed and revealed in a visible, tangible way to the material creation. ERCHOMAI means to come, to make one's appearance come before the public. It means that He comes and appears before the view of the people round about. And this coming, has already happened, it is now happening, and it shall continue to happen. This is the revelation that so captivated the apostle John that he could only stand and in amazement exclaim, "Behold! He comes!"

The coming of the Son of God did not begin with the lowly birth at Bethlehem; it began when time began; it is still going on. The Christ was in the world ages before Jesus was laid in the manger beneath the lowly cattle-shed; He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. And the Christ never went away to stay; He always leaves in one form in order to come in another. He is in the world today, known and loved and trusted by multitudes of those who through Him have received the spirit of adoption as sons. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Christ is born anew every morning, and as many as receive Him to them gives He power to become the sons of God. "The dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Lk. 1:78-79).

JEHOVAH - THE COMING ONE! That glorious Name by which God is known in the Old Testament, "Jehovah," is a name which indicates a Coming God. This is neither the time or place to enter into a lengthy technical and linguistical study, but the word Jehovah, the greatest rabbis will tell you, means the Coming One. For many years I have read various interpretations of the name Jehovah. Some say it signifies, "I am." Others say, "The Coming One." Other scholarship seems to consider "The Eternal" as the most satisfactory. Another definition has been given as "The Self-existent One." Actually there is merit in all of these interpretations. God is eternal just BECAUSE He is Self-existent and therefore not dependent on any outside help or support. He is the One who in Himself embodies essential life, permanent existence, derived from no source outside Himself, and absolutely dependent upon no other person, thing, or circumstance for its continuance. And because He is Self-existent and eternal He is the One who always has been, who now is, and who always will be. Therefore, He is the One who is always coming, always at hand.

How graphically this grand truth is expressed in the introduction to the book of Revelation with these words, "Him Who is, and Who was, and Who is coming" (Rev. 1:4). And again, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who WAS, and Who NOW BEING, and Who is the COMING ONE" (Rev. 4:8). The trilogy of holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, refers to the threefold time, past, present and future. The holy One Who was from eternity, the holy One NOW BEING, and the ever COMING ONE. The Lord God Almighty is not someone to come sometime in the distant future. He is the One Who WAS coming, Who IS coming, and Who shall CONTINUE to come, manifesting Himself to His people in blessing and judgment and redemption until every eye has beheld Him and every heart has acknowledged Him, Lord of all.

In the Hebrew scriptures salvation is of Jehovah. No other name is given which His own people could invoke for help. Even when the Messiah came in flesh in order to be the Saviour there was no real change, because in Hebrew HE IS JEHOVAH-SAVIOUR, which is the meaning of the name Jesus. Peter could assure the Jews that "there is salvation in no other: for there is NONE OTHER NAME under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Does this deny that there is salvation in Jehovah? Quite the opposite! It insists that Jesus IS the Jehovah in Whom salvation is. So that, as a matter of fact, the name Jehovah occurs every time that we find the personal name of our Lord. Salvation is united with the Name in a compound. It is no longer Jehovah, but Jehovah-Saviour Jesus.

How few realize the fullness which is in our Lord's redemptive name! Suppose we spread it out before us and unfold its meaning. Then "Jesus" is the SAVIOUR WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS COMING. How wonderfully this fits into His history! Most of those who saw Him in the flesh saw only the One who is. Of His past glory with the Father they knew nothing. Of His future exaltation they did not dream. They saw little more than His present humiliation. Anyone who really knew His Name realized what He had been, and what He would be, as well as what He was. He is a Saviour who plans and performs and perfects, in the past, in the present, and in the future. The one who has come to you and has begun a good work in you is the same One who will come and come in your today and in all of your tomorrow's to perfect that good work, bringing it to completion, and present you faultless in the image of God. It is an on-going process, an ever-unfolding salvation.

Jehovah is the ever-coming One. The Coming One is my Lord and my God. Various Jehovah combinations or compound names are used in the scriptures, each indicating how He comes to us:

· ·JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU, the Coming One, thy Righteousness.

· ·JEHOVAH-JIREH, the Coming One, thy Provider.

· ·JEHOVAH-ROPHI, the Coming One, thy Healer.

· ·JEHOVAH-NISSI, the Coming One, thy Banner.

· ·JEHOVAH-MEKADDISHKEN, the Coming One, thy Sanctifier.

· ·JEHOVAH-SHALOM, the Coming One, thy Peace.

· ·JEHOVAH-SABAOTH, the Coming One, thy Warrior.

· ·JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, the Coming One, Present with thee.

· ·JEHOVAH-ELYON, the Coming One, Most High.

· ·JEHOVAH-RA-AH, the Coming One, thy Shepherd.

Vast multitudes of Christians leave heard of these wonderful covenant names of God and thrill to the things they hear, but their hearts cannot comprehend nor understand the vital truth and reality of the message. They "listen to the music, but never hear the song." How often through the years I have encountered this lack of comprehension among the Lord's people! They have eyes but they do not see. They examine the outer shell, but never taste the kernel within. They say they understand, but their spirit has not grasped the truth. They will talk long and loud about "Christ IN YOU the hope of glory," "the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you," "Ye are the BODY of Christ," and then turn around and with the next breath say that the "coming" of the Lord is still a distant, singular, future event. When men profess that they have seen this truth of the ever-coming Christ and confess that the Christ is their Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, Baptizer, Provider, etc., and then wistfully add, "and my soon-coming King," I know they have not seen it.

They have seen nothing. Do they not make Him their COMING King because they are not sure whether they want this Man to rule over them? Most folk do not mind Him ruling over Castro and the devil and the millenium, but they feel they are free moral agents and have little desire to own Him as King of their present domain. That is why so many have kept Him COMING. The Lord wants to be King NOW. He wants to come to you today and invade the foundations of your heart and life and reign gloriously within the temple of your being. Christ is coming to me constantly. I feel Him near. I sense His presence and behold His glory from realm to realm. He manifests Himself to my consciousness in close and glad communion. He transforms my mind and heart and life and flows from my innermost being so that deep calls unto deep. I am not saying that He is not yet to come, even to me. Certainly He has not come to me, or to you, in all the fullness of Himself! But His coming in God's great tomorrow is not a single, once for all, event - it will be but the consummation of that glory in which He is appearing to us, in us, and through us in our today.

So many people wonder, Will Jesus come in my lifetime? Will I live to see the return of the Lord? Well, start living and allow Jesus to come again in your lifetime! How many lifetimes do you have? You have only this one lifetime - let Jesus come in your lifetime! As someone has said, Let Jesus come in your lifetime and begin to have the TIME OF YOUR LIFE! Then you can cease gazing up into the skies wondering when Jesus is going to come, and you can step into the NOW of God and begin your progression back into God where He is all-in-all in your life. NOW is always the best time to live. TODAY is always the best time to walk with God. THE PRESENT is always the best time to see and know the Lord. I have this peculiar trait of enjoying life NOW. You can dream of tomorrow and you can look back into the past, but all you have or will ever have is RIGHT NOW. It is always NOW. God is NOW. Get into TODAY, into God's NOW and begin living - JESUS HAS COME!

My heart earnestly cries that the day may speedily come when all of God's elect will know assuredly and understand thoroughly that Christ is always coming again, and each new quickening of the eternal Word, and each fresh inworking of His grace brings Christ throbbing upon earth. Christ always comes to hearts that are opened to receive Him. A soldier of World War I told how on the battlefield and in the trenches some saw a white Christ coming to them in their hour of need and they were strengthened by that vision. In our hour of need, if we trust in Him, the Presence is always near. Lift up your heads to the hills, the high places of God in the Spirit. Can you see the Christ there? Isn't it your weakness and carnal-mindedness if you cannot see the Blessed One?

Christ also comes in judgment against our carnal and traitor lives. What a mess we make of the testimony of our Holy Lord, even if we finally never succeed with our carelessness! Christ comes as the Convicting Spirit that calls the soul on the block of judgment and asks why the failure! Christ does come every day to judge, to bless, to transform. Have you not felt that Presence? Been aware of it? Experienced it? "No!" Then, God pity your soul. Some day, you, too, in your far country will come to yourself. Then you will see the Christ and find He was dogging your footstep as you went down and tried to escape Him. Christ is the "Hound of Heaven," and, though we flee Him down the nights and down the arches of the years and through the procession of the ages, He never gives up. Our fears cannot keep us moving fast enough to escape Him and our speed can never outdistance His movement of love. He will pursue us to the lowest hell and there demand our heart's surrender.

God has purposed to reveal every aspect of His purpose through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. So we are living this very day in a progression. God is marching on! He wants to reveal Himself and unfold this glorious One that we call the Lord Jesus Christ. He is standing at the door knocking. Open the door and invite Him and He will come in to you and will sup with you on a plane where you have never before known Him. God is preparing a people at this very time who are waiting for a further revelation of God. These apprehended ones are not saying, "Oh, if I could just tell you about those good old days when God moved in mighty power ... if only we could have continued to move in those days of glory."

This people God is preparing today is not lamenting or trying to recapture or perpetuate the glory of the past. It is a true and wonderful fact that for every day there is fresh manna, there is that fresh unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a time for God's sons to try to recapture the past, or try to warm over the glories of yesterday. There is something brand new for you and me today in the economy of God! The elect of God are now in a time of patient waiting as they are being prepared for the hour when the younger sons of God shall come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the firstborn Son. This is not a time for those who treasure the beautiful hope of sonship to get excited about doing exploits for God in the waning anointing of yesterday or by the threadbare methods of the past. The glory that fills our expectant souls today is born of the knowledge that the hour of His manifestation is at hand - the hour when the Christ shall come in fullness to be revealed IN HIS SAINTS, and they shall reign over the earth.

I am prophesying a new and fresh revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The night is falling on the present order. Already we are seeing evidence of the dawning of a newday breaking forth upon us and many thousands of the Lord's elect are even now arising to behold the first rays of the dawn and to drink in the intoxicating freshness of the morn. There is a mighty cry in our hearts for the Lord to move in a fresh and altogether new way in our lives and in the earth. Many things are happening in the Pentecostal and Charismatic realms today, but I do not hesitate to tell you that all of these things are but stale "left overs" from previous.visitations. We are due for a fresh move and a new work of God in the earth today!

So the night is coming, bringing an end to particular forms of the movings and operations of the Spirit of God. Though all the manifestations of the past have been precious and needful, yet our God in this hour is moving on. A new manifestation and revelation of the Christ is coming in the midst of us, and I hear and see the signs that He is beginning to come. We are living in the early dawn of another APPEARING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. This appearing will be through the long-awaited manifestation of the sons of God. This truth is burning within my bones, pulsating within my bosom. I am being quickened by these things. My one desire is to be available to be a part of this appearing of the Lord that is preparing the sons of God for the wind-up of this age and the inauguration of a far greater age of glory.

Every time there is a change in the working of God we are thrown into a crisis situation. There is something about us that is never quite prepared for change. There is always that shock of seeing a cherished order vanish away, while wondering what the next order will be. But this is how it is. The Lord God reveals His glory and it accomplishes a purpose. Then the end of that day comes. The night steals in upon that era. God is ready for a new order, a new day, another phase of His workings.

Again, even as I pen these lines, there is a fresh working of God in the earth. Again there is a "going forth" of Jesus Christ, released in another form through a many-membered body of sons of God. God moves on and a new glory is ready to be revealed. It will not be revealed upon those unspiritual souls who sit by saying, "My God delayeth His coming; He has not come and is not now coming; He will come bye and bye and take us up to heaven." Ah, those who for two thousand years have kept Him coming in a singular event away out there in the future some where fulfill exactly the words of Jesus these are the "evil servant" who says in his heart, "My Lord delayeth His coming!"

I must speak very plainly, my friends. This next move of God, the manifestation of the sons of God, will not come through those who are waiting for a rapture to whisk them away to the skies. It will come through a people who are crying out from the depths of their spirits, "Oh God, visit us afresh. Do a new thing! We need YOU! Creation groans for deliverance! Come! Lord Jesus, and meet us on a higher order, in a higher dimension. Come to your temple in fullness. Come! with the power necessary to purge and cleanse us and transform us into your image. Come! that we might behold your glory and be changed from glory to glory. Come! that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened, that we may see Thee today in present revelation. The whole earth is waiting with bated breath for the glory of the Lord to be manifested. Come! and cause righteousness and praise and deliverance to spring forth before all the nations. Even so, Come! Lord Jesus!

It is the beautiful time of waiting and watching for His appearing. It is the time to listen for the glad heralds of the morning.