TOPIC: Death; Ingathering
TITLE: CHRIST DOES NOT PRAY - How We Should Relate to Our Ingathering! [Outline and some text adapted from: Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening, "Morning", May 2]
TEXT: John 17:15
Spurgeon comes to terms with the sheep's weariness from life's tribulations and the selfishness of a spiritual-philosophy that says, "Let me out of here. I can't take it any more!"
FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: Why does the Lord hold back our ingathering?
“We fear it is not so much because they are longing to be with the Lord, as because they desire to get rid of their troubles; else they would feel the same wish to die at other times when not under the pressure of trial. They want to go home, not so much for the Savior’s company, as to be at rest.
“Now it is quite right to desire to depart if we can do it in the same spirit that Paul did [Philippians 1:21], because to be with Christ is far better, but the wish to escape from trouble is a selfish one. Rather let your care and wish be to glorify God by your life here as long as he pleases, even though it is in the midst of toil, and conflict, and suffering, and leave him to say when ‘it is enough.’”
TITLE: CHRIST DOES NOT PRAY - How We Should Relate to Our Ingathering! [Outline and some text adapted from: Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening, "Morning", May 2]
TEXT: John 17:15
I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.TRUTH CLAIM/CONTEXT: "It is a sweet and blessed event which will occur to all believers in God's own time – the going home to be with Jesus."
Spurgeon comes to terms with the sheep's weariness from life's tribulations and the selfishness of a spiritual-philosophy that says, "Let me out of here. I can't take it any more!"
FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: Why does the Lord hold back our ingathering?
I. BECAUSE WE ARE NOT YET READYA. WE HAVE WORK YET TO DOWe can say with Spurgeon that “in a few more years the Lord's soldiers, [those] who are now fighting ‘the good fight of faith,’” and that theyB. WE ARE NOT YET RIPE FOR THE HARVEST1. “will have done with conflict and”But that time is not yet … “although Christ prays that his people may eventually be with him where he is, he does not ask that they may be taken at once away from this world to heaven. He wishes them to stay here”
2. will “have entered into the joy of their Lord”Spurgeon says,1. “Yet how frequently does the wearied pilgrim put up the prayer, ‘O that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest’
2. but Christ does not pray like that, he leaves us in his Father's hands, until, like shocks of corn fully ripe, we shall each be gathered into our Master's garner”II. BECAUSE OTHERS ARE NOT YET READYA. THINK OF OTHERS [Philippians 2:3-4; Christ's love]1. “Jesus does not plead for our instant removal by death”B. ABSTAIN FROM EVIL [1 Thessalonians 5:22; our witness]
2. “for to abide in the flesh is needful for others if not profitable for us”1. “He asks that we … be kept from evil”
2. “But he never asks for us to be admitted to the inheritance in glory till we are of full age”
3. We must not hide our light from the lost
APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: “Christians often want to die when they have any trouble. Ask them why, and they tell you, ‘Because we would be with the Lord.’
“We fear it is not so much because they are longing to be with the Lord, as because they desire to get rid of their troubles; else they would feel the same wish to die at other times when not under the pressure of trial. They want to go home, not so much for the Savior’s company, as to be at rest.
“Now it is quite right to desire to depart if we can do it in the same spirit that Paul did [Philippians 1:21], because to be with Christ is far better, but the wish to escape from trouble is a selfish one. Rather let your care and wish be to glorify God by your life here as long as he pleases, even though it is in the midst of toil, and conflict, and suffering, and leave him to say when ‘it is enough.’”
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