Brethren, I may add, Christ is certainly the desire of all nations in this respect, that we desire him for all nations. Oh! that the world were encompassed in his gospel! Would God the sacred fire would run along the ground, that the little handful of corn on the top of the mountains would soon make its fruit to shake like Lebanon. Oh! when will it come, when will it come that all the nations shall know him? Let us pray for it: let us labour for it.
And one other meaning I may give to this: he is the desirable one of all nations, bringing back the former translation of this text. He is the choice one of all nations. He is the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. He, whom we love, is such an one that he can never be matched by another, his rival could not be found amongst the sons of men. There is none like him; there is none like him amongst the angels of light; there is none that can stand in comparison with him. The desire, the one that ought to be desired, the most desirable of all the nations, is Jesus Christ, and it is the glory of the Christian Church, which is the second temple that Christ is in her, her head, her Lord. It is never her glory that she condescends to make an iniquitous union with the State. It is her glory that Christ is her sole King; it is her glory that he is her sole Prophet, and that he is her sole Priest, and that he then gives to all his people to be kings and priests with him, himself the centre and source of all their glory and their power.
I cannot stay longer, though the theme tempts me, but must just give you the last word, which is this, the visible glory of the true second temple will be Christ’s second coming. He, himself, is her glory, whether at his first coming, or at his second coming. The Church will be no more glorious at the second coming than now. “What!” say you, “no more glorious!” No; but more apparently glorious. Christ is as glorious on the cross as he is on the throne; it is the appearance only that shall alter. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” but they evermore are brightness itself, in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, brethren, we are to expect, as long as this world lasts, that all things will shake that are to be moved. They will go on shaking. We call the world sometimes “terra firma”; it is not this world, surely, that deserves such a name as that; there is nothing stable beneath the stars; all things else will shake, and as the shaking goes on, Jesus Christ will, to those who know him, become more and more their desire. I suppose, if the world went on, in some things mending and improving, and were to go up to a point, we should not want Christ to come in a hurry; we would rather that things should be perpetuated; but the shaking will make Christ more and more the desire of the nations. “The whole creation groaneth,” is groaning up to now, but it will groan more and more “in pain together travailing”—the apostle saith—”even until now.” The travailing pains grow worse and worse, and worse, and it will be so with this world; it will travail till at last it must come to the consummation of her desire. The Church will say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” She will say it with gathering earnestness; she will continue still to say it, though there are intervals in which she will forget her Lord, but still her heart’s desire will be that he will come; and at last he will surely come and bring to this world not only himself, the desire of all nations, but all that can be desired, for those days of his, when he appeareth, shall be to his people as the days of heaven upon earth, the days of their honour, the days of their rest—the day in which the kingdoms shall belong unto Christ. Oh! brethren, it is not for me to go into details on a subject which would require many discourses, and which could not be brought out in the few last words of a discourse. But here is the great hope of that splendid building, the Church, which is desired. Her glory essentially lies in the Incarnate God, who has come into her midst. Her glory manifestly will lie in the second coming of that Incarnate God, when he shall be revealed from heaven to those that look and are waiting for and hasting unto the coming of the Son of God—looking for him with gladsome expectation. And this is the joy of the Church. He has gone, but he has left word, “I will come again, and will receive you unto myself, that where I am, ye may be also.” Remember the words that were spoken of the angels to the Church, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here, gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is gone up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven.” In propria persona—in very deed and truth, he shall come:—
“These eyes shall see him in that day,
The God that died for me:
And all my rising bones shall say,
Lord, who is like to thee?”
Then shall come the adoption, the raising of the body, the reception of a glory to that body re-united to the soul, such as we have not dreamed of, for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love him. Though he hath revealed them unto us by His Holy Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, yet have our ears heard but little thereof, and we have not received the full discovery of the things that shall be hereafter. The Lord bless you! May you all be parts of his Church, have a share in his glory, and a share in the manifestation of that glory at the last.
Dear hearer, I would send thee away with this one query in thine ear—Is Christ thy desire? Couldest thou say, with David, “He is all my salvation and all my desire”? Could you gather up your feet in the bed, with dying Jacob, and say, “I have waited for thy will, O God”? By your desire shall you be known. The desire of the righteous shall be granted. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart.
But the desire of many is a grovelling desire: it is a sinful desire: it is a disgraceful desire—a desire which, if it be attained, the attainment of it will afford very brief pleasure. Oh! sinner let thy desires go after Christ. Remember, if thou wouldest have him, thou hast not to earn him—fight for him—win him—but he is to be had for the asking. “Lay hold,” says the apostle, “on eternal life.” As if it were ours, if we did but grip it. God give us grace to lay hold on eternal life, for Jesus from the cross is saying, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth,” and from his throne of glory he still is saying, “Come unto me,” exalted on high, to give repentance and remission of sin, and he will give them both to those who seek him. Seek him, then, this night. God grant it for his Son’s sake. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
