Luke 12:22-48

SOLICITUDE

Luke 12:22-31. This item of our Savior's discourse is so identical with a paragraph in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6), that I forbear quotation, the substantial repetition of the Great Preacher sufficing to illustrate its transcendent importance, as solicitude is out of harmony with that perfect soul-rest in Jesus, which not only gives us a heavenly prelibation, but is absolutely necessary to our greatest efficiency as soul- winners, from the simple fact that a well-rested man will do much more work than one who is tired and jaded. Here our Lord also exhorts all to seek the kingdom, with the assurance that everything else shall be added.

THE COMING KINGDOM

Luke 12:32-34. “Fear not, little flock, because your Father is pleased to give unto you the kingdom.” The people of God in the world have never been numerous at any one time. The faithful few, scattered through all ages, from Abel down to the second coming of the Lord, have the glorious promise of the millennial kingdom as the faithful subordinates of our glorified Savior, crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. As kingdom here certainly is not restricted to the reign of grace in the heart, which all the members of the little flock already enjoy, hence it must refer to the glorious Millennial Theocracy. “Sell your possessions and give alms; make to yourselves purses that will never get old, treasure that will not be stolen in the heavens, where the thief dost not draw nigh nor the rust corrupt. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Hence, if you would be a member of the little flock, enjoy a place in the bridehood of Christ, and be promoted to imperishable honors in the glorious kingdom coming, your heart must be weaned from earth, set on heavenly things, so you will lay up all your treasures in heaven, living a pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth.

THE LORD IS COMING BACK

Luke 12:35-48. “Stand, your loins girded about, and your lamps burning.” The girding of the loins is the preparation of the Oriental traveler for his journey. So we should be every moment ready for the journey all the way from earth to heaven. The lamp is lighted in regeneration, and the vessel filled with oil in sanctification, preparatory for this long journey. “And be ye like unto people waiting for their Lord, when He may rise up from the marriage, in order that coming and knocking, they shall open unto Him immediately.” The Greek ganion, the plural of excellence, marriages, here sets forth the fact that, as a wedding is a place of joy and festivity, it here vividly symbolizes the felicity of heaven, where, in all ages, there is a constant wedding festival. Since our Lord ascended into glory, He has been the constant participant of this heavenly wedding festival, which He is liable to leave at any moment to come back to this world. Therefore He admonishes His disciples, not only to be ready, but on the constant outlook. Some of the Lord's people at the present day are on the incessant outlook for His return to the earth, and admonishing all others to do likewise; while others do not seem to be on this constant outlook. Will you be like the former or the latter? Jesus here tells you to be like the people who are constantly looking out for their Lord to come. I hope this is your attitude. “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, having come, will find watching.” Are you watching, with loins girded and lights burning? You see most unequivocally that this is the true attitude of saintship. The Lord help you to occupy it! “Truly, I say unto you, That He will gird Himself, and have them sit down, and having come, will serve them.” O how beautiful and wonderful and transcendent the idea, that my Lord will transfigure me, take me up, and sit me down at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and He Himself wait on me! O glorious paradox! This is the last reminiscence of our Lord's humiliation in order to redeem a guilty world.

“If at the second or the third watch He may come, and so find them, happy are they.” The second watch is nine to twelve, and the third, twelve to three, thus including the six hours of midnight, when deepest sleep falleth on men, illustrating the infinite importance of the most perfect vigilance. If we keep awake through the six hours of midnight, certainly we will not go to sleep during the other eighteen. “Know this, that if the landlord had known at what hour the thief cometh, he would not have permitted his house to be broken into.” Do you not know that every one who is not watching will have his house broken into; i.e., get into trouble? Of course, you know that Jesus Himself is the thief, coming back to this world to steal away His bride, who has found no congeniality in the groveling things of earth, and is watching and waiting for her Lord to come and take her away. O what an inspiration to constant vigilance! “Be ye also ready, because you know not at what hour the Son of man cometh.” Downright disobedience and contempt of this commandment will certainly prove an awful risk. “And Peter said to Him, Lord, do you speak this parable to us or to all? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful, wise steward, whom His Lord will appoint over His household, to give unto them their food in season? Happy is that servant whom His Lord, having come, shall find so doing. Truly, I say unto you, That He will appoint him over all His possessions.” The steward here is none other than the preacher or leader of the Lord's people; while the food, which is to be given in its time, is the great and wholesome truth of entire sanctification, the only qualification to meet the Lord at His coming; and this truth, energized by constant vigilance, every moment looking out for our Lord to come; thus these grand cognate doctrines of holiness and vigilance, serving as the two oars of the boat which row us over time's stormy ocean, till we land on the bright, golden shore of eternal felicity. O what a blessing the Savior pronounces on the preacher and leader who are so faithful to His commandments as to have their people sanctified wholly, and incessantly looking out for their coming King! “But if that servant may say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming, and may begin to beat His manservants and maidservants, to eat and drink and be drunken.” “Beating His servants” means oppressing them by heavy assessments, and ruling over them with rigor, which is so often done; as Peter says, “Domineer over the heritages,” forgetting that they are pilgrims and strangers, having nothing, the people and Churches all belonging to the Lord. “To eat, drink, and be drunken” mean high and extravagant living, like kings in their palaces, which is the bane of ministerial homes this day, giving currency to the already trite maxim, that “preachers' children are worse than others,” thus scandalizing the ministerial calling, clogging the wheels of Zion, and grieving the Holy Spirit. “The Lord of that servant will come in a day in which he does not anticipate, and in an hour in which he does not know, and will cut him off, and appoint him his part with unbelievers.” The preacher here described is a counterfeit, living high, and oppressing his people. Find one of that kind (and you will not have to go far, as their name is legion), and you will never hear him preaching entire sanctification and the coming of the Lord; that is one way you can know him. Of course, the coming of the Lord will oust him from his citadel, reveal his counterfeit, and put him over in the ranks of the unbelievers, where he belongs. Our Savior's preaching on this momentous subject is plain and clear, leaving all without excuse. You see clearly that the preacher who is delinquent on experimental holiness and the constant outlook for the Lord's return to the earth, is walking over enchanted ground, liable to drop him through a trap-door any moment. How can there be any controversy over the Lord's return, when His own preaching on that subject is so clear and unequivocal? Awful is the responsibility of the man who, by speech or pen, relaxes the obligations of the Lord's people to do their utmost to get everybody in the only safe attitude; i.e., sanctified wholly, and constantly looking for the Lord's return. Shall we preach holiness and leave out the coming of the Lord? In that case we certainly incur the responsibility of the steward who neglected “to give them their food in season;” as that food is not only entire sanctification, but such warning and instruction as we all need to keep us truly vigilant every moment, with “loins girded and lights burning, looking out for our Lord.” “But that servant, having known the will of his Lord, and not having prepared or done according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” The Bible is a plain book, and Jesus the plainest of all preachers. Are you preaching the coming of the Lord? Look well that you do not fall under this awful condemnation, and be beaten with many stripes. If I have any dogma to sustain, I am unworthy to do this writing. The ink will scarcely be dry till we all meet Jesus. I am only writing for Him. I know no controversy with any man. Look out, my brother! If we do not preach faithfully what Jesus has given us, we would better never have been born. “And the one not having known, and having done things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few.” So here you see our responsibility is in proportion to our knowledge of God's Word.

Search it diligently, as you will not be judged by what I say, but what the Lord says. “But to every one to whom much is given, much will be required of him; and to whom they committed much, they will demand of him the more abundantly.” Awful is the responsibility of those who teach the people. Hence the transcendent folly and the crying iniquity of the man who tries to bend God's Word to suit a theory. Such a man is walking on a rotten plank over hell.