God's Spoken Word – No.37
April 1993
The
Work of the Elect in the Regeneration
In the regeneration,
In the Sabbath Rest of my Kingdom,
I shall be as Boaz, the Kinsman Redeemer,
The Restorer of Life,
And this name shall be written on the foreheads of my resurrected sons,
And they shall bear the impress of my character.
And those who had been weak will become strong;
They shall rebuild ancient ruined cities;
They shall raise up former desolations;
They shall be repairers of breaches;
And they shall restore the paths that lead to home.
And these my strong ones shall bear upon their shoulders
The burdens of the weak,
And new life will spring up
Even as you have seen the spring flowers growing all around you,
And the blossom on the trees,
Even so in my Kingdom you shall see the fullness
Of all those things for which you now pray and yearn with a full heart,
But only witness a small return.
Be patient therefore unto the coming of the Lord,
And you will surely witness all these things,
And your hearts will be full, says the Lord.
There's a light upon the mountains, and the day
is at the spring,
When our eyes shall see the beauty and the glory of the King,
Weary was our heart with waiting, and the night-watch seemed so long,
But His triumph day is breaking, and we hail it with a song!
In the fading of the starlight we can see the coming morn,
And the lights of men are paling in the splendours of the dawn,
For the eastern skies are glowing as with lights of hidden fire,
And the hearts of men are stirring with the throb of deep desire.
There's a hush of expectation, and a quiet in the air,
And the breath of God is moving in the fervent breath of prayer;
For the suffering, dying Jesus, is the Christ upon the Throne,
And the travail of our spirits is the travail of His own.
He is breaking down the barriers, He is casting
up the way,
He is calling for His angels to build up the gates of day,
But His angels here are human, not the shining hosts above,
For the drum-beats of His army are the heart-beats of our love.
Hark! we hear a distant music, and it comes
with fuller swell,
'Tis the triumph song of Jesus, of our King Emmanuel;
All thy sweetest and thy dearest for the triumph of our King!
Henry Burton 1840 - 1930
Afterword. Some who
peruse the words of these modern prophecies will undoubtedly be quite new to
such an experience, and wonder what guarantee there is that God has spoken at
all. We can give no such guarantee, any more than a single living soul can
guarantee the genuineness of say Isaiah's or Hosea's prophecies. However, as
John said in his epistle, we have that anointing from above which means we have
no need of a (human) teacher. This being the case, the Holy Spirit should
witness with our spirit if and when God has truly spoken.
Some may think we
are saying we belong to a group that fancies itself to have
"arrived," and that God will surely use us as His ambassadors in the
coming Kingdom. Once again, we say that there is no such guarantee. Yes, we
hope and pray continually that God's re-creative work in us will reach a
satisfactory conclusion, but we have no certain knowledge of what will be said
to us when we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Apostle Paul, after
probably 23 years of Missionary work, and in prison at
Our Lord gave us
the true and humble approach when He spoke about taking the lower seats in His
feast. If we deserve to "come up higher", then we can rejoice at His
call, but how shamefaced we should be, thinking ourselves to be worthy of a
higher place, only to be asked to "move down."
Our whole reason
for living is to seek a deep and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. But
His lifestyle teaches us a great deal about humility, child-likeness, and
servanthood. These are the qualities we should now and always be attending to.