Part 1 (1/2)
Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation.
by S. D. Gordon.
PREFACE
Crowning the Christ is an intensely practical thing, whether taken in the _personal_ sense or the _world_ sense. He has been crowned in the upper world. With wondrous patience and graciousness He pleads for the personal crowning in our lives. Some day--no one knows just when--He will begin to _act_ as the crowned Christ _in all the affairs of our earth_.
The initiative of all action to-day on the earth is in man's hands. Some day the initiative of _governing_ action on the earth will be in the hands of the crowned Christ, even while the personal initiative of each man's life will still be in his own hands.
G.o.d is intensely practical. Jesus was never concerned about speculation nor mere discussion; He was too intent on helping people. The Bible is wholly a practical book. It is concerned only with helping us. It does not tell us all the truth there is; we shall be constantly learning more in the future life. But it does tell us all we need to know now. And its purpose in telling us what it does is wholly practical,--to urge us to right choice, and to lives that square with the choice. This is the purpose that decided just what truth should be told in the Book.
There is one book of the sixty-six devoted wholly to this subject of the crowned Christ,--”The Revelation of John.” Every one of these books touches Him at some angle, and finds its deepest meaning in what He was to do and did do, and yields up its secrets only under the touch of His hand. But this book, the closing and climax of all, the knot in the end of the inspired thread, this deals wholly with the action of the crowned Christ.
No book of the sixty-six has seemed so much like a riddle and set so many a-guessing. And without doubt much of its meaning will be clear only as events work themselves out. Events will prove the only expositor of much. But it is with the deep conviction that this is wholly a _practical book_, written wholly from a practical point of view, and concerned wholly with our practical daily lives, that I have ventured to take it up in this series of simple, wholly practical, Quiet Talks. And it is only this side of its teachings that will be dealt with here. The Book is a street leading into the true overcoming life the Master would woo us to.
It is only after many years' study of this Book of the Revelation, and a special study the past three years and a little more, that I have ventured to put these talks together. And now they are sent out with the earnest humble prayer that others may find some little practical help in prayerfully reading, as I have found much in prayerfully studying, under the Master's gracious faithful touch.
I.--THE CHRIST CROWNED, THE FACT
”When G.o.d sought a King for His people of old, He went to the fields to find him; A shepherd was he, with his crook and his lute And a following flock behind him.
”O love of the sheep, O joy of the lute, And the sling and the stone for battle; A shepherd was King, the giant was naught, And the enemy driven like cattle.
”When G.o.d looked to tell of His good will to men, And the Shepherd-King's son whom He gave them; To shepherds, made meek a-caring for sheep, He told of a Christ sent to save them.
”O love of the sheep, O watch in the night, And the glory, the message, the choir; 'Twas shepherds who saw their King in the straw, And returned with their hearts all on fire.
”When Christ thought to tell of His love to the world He said to the throng before him, 'The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep--'
And away to the cross they bore Him.
”O love of the sheep, O blood sweat of prayer, O man on the cross, G.o.d-forsaken; A shepherd has gone to defend all alone The sheepfold by death overtaken.
”When G.o.d sought a King for His people, for aye, He went to the grave to find him; And a shepherd came back, Death dead in His grasp, And a following flock behind Him.
”O love of the sheep, O life from the dead, O strength of the faint and the fearing; A shepherd is King, and His Kingdom will come.
And the day of His coming is nearing.”[1]
Coronation Gift.
Christ is crowned. Not in any vague far-fetched meaning, but in the plain common-sense meaning of the word, He is _crowned_.
For crowned means put in the place of highest power, with full right to exercise that power at will. And when the crucified Jesus went up that Olivet day, before the astonished eyes of the disciples, into the sightless blue, on the cloud, He was received in the upper world by the Father. And He was lifted up into the place of highest honour and greatest power. He sat down at the right hand of the Father.[2]
He had said it would be so. Breathing the air thick with bitter hate on the night of His trial, He had quietly said to the Jewish rulers that even so it would be, bringing at once about His person the bursting of the storm of hate.[3] Now His unfaltering trust in His Father has its sweet reward.