Till We Meet Again

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Revelation 22:21

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

This is an expression suitable to the most gracious heart, a prayer wherewith the believer may vent his best wishes and express his most devout desires.

I. CONSIDER THIS BENEDICTION.

1. What is this which John desires? The word is "charis." It has for its root "joy." There is joy at the bottom of charis, or grace. It also signifieth favour, kindliness, and especially love. Jesus Christ Himself is generally mentioned in our benedictions as having grace, and the Father as having love; and our usual benediction begins with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. Is that the proper order? The order is correct to our experience, and in an instructive benediction the Holy Spirit intendeth this for our learning. The Father's love is, as it were, the secret, mysterious germ of everything. That same love in Jesus Christ is grace; His is love in its active form, love descending to earth, love wearing human nature, love paying the great ransom price, love ascending, love sitting and waiting, love pleading, love soon to come with power and glory. This grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is therefore the grace of a Divine person. We wish you, as we for ourselves, the grace of God Himself, rich, boundless, unfathomable, immutable, Divine; no temporary grace such as some speak of, which keepeth not its own, but suffereth even the sheep of its own pasture to go astray and perish; but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it is written, "Having loved His Own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end"; that grace most potent which said, "None shall pluck them out of My hand." This is no small treasure — this grace of a Divine Person. Yet is our Lord Jesus also human, as truly human as He is Divine, and, believing in Him, you have the grace of Jesus Christ the Man to be with you all. May you feel His tenderness, His brotherliness, His grace. He is your Kinsman, and He graciously favours His own kinsfolk. Read the text again, and pause a while in the middle to enjoy "The grace of our Lord." The grace that cometh from His Majesty, the grace that cometh from His Headship, the grace that cometh from His Divinely human supremacy over His Church, which is His body — this is the grace which we desire for you all. Read the next word: "The grace of our Lord Jesus." May that be with you; that is to say, the grace of our Saviour, for that is the meaning of the word "Jesus." All His saving grace, all that which redeems from guilt, from sin, from trouble, all that which saves us with an everlasting salvation — may that be yours to the full. Then comes the other word, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you"; may He, as the Anointed One, visit you. May you have that anointing from the Holy One which shall make you know all things.

2. Our next division is, How? "May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." What meaneth this? Our first answer is the wish that the grace of our Lord may rest upon you as a matter of fact — that He may love you truly and intensely; love you, not only as He loves the world, but as He loved His own which were in the world. Next, may you believe that grace, may you trust that grace, may it be with you because your faith has closed in with it, and you are relying upon it. Still further, may His grace be with you as the object of faith, so that your belief comes to be full assurance, till you know the love which Christ hath towards you, and no more doubt it than you doubt the love of the dearest friend you have on earth. And may His grace be with you, next, as to the favours which flow out of it. May you enjoy all the blessings which the grace of Christ can yield, the grace of a peaceful conscience, the grace of a cleansed walk, the grace of access to God, the grace of fervent love, the grace of holy expectancy, the grace of self-denial, the grace of perfect consecration, and the grace of final perseverance. And may grace be with us, next, so as to produce constant communion between us and Christ, His favour flowing into our heart, and our hearts returning their gratitude. Oh, to come to this pass, that our Well-beloved is with us, and we enjoy sweet mutual intercourse: this is to have the love, or grace, of Jesus with us. May our Lord Jesus Christ thus in His grace be with us, and may He work for us all that He can work. What better benediction could John Himself utter?

3. But, now, the third part of our discourse comes under the head of "to whom." "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Every now and then you come across a book written by one who is a long way off from understanding all the truth, yet he knows Jesus Christ, and as you read the sweet words that come from His pen concerning the Master you feel your heart knit to Him. If a man knows Christ he knows the most important of matters, and is possessed of secret quite as precious as any in our own keeping, for what know we more than Christ, and what hope have we but in Christ? There is a life which is the same in all that have it, however diverse they may happen to be upon opinion or outward ceremony. There is a life eternal, and that life is Christ Jesus, and to all that have that life we do with intensity of heart say, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."

II. THE POSITION OF THIS BENEDICTION. First, I draw what I have to say from the fact that it is the last word of Scripture. I regard it, therefore, as being the apostle's last and highest wish. We cannot do with less than this, and we do not want more than this. If we get grace from Jesus we shall have glory with Jesus, but without it we are without hope. Standing at the end of the Book of Revelation as this does, I next regard its position as indicating what we shall want till the end comes; that is, from now till the descent of our Lord in His second advent. This is the one thing we require, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." May it be with us daily, hourly! May it be with us, instructing us as to our behaviour in each generation! Placed as this blessing is at the end of the book there is but this one more thought — this is what we shall wish for when the end cometh. We shall come to the end of life, as we come to the end of our Bibles. And oh, aged friend, may thy failing eyes be cheered with the sight of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the last page of life, as thou wilt find it on the last page of thy well-thumbed Bible. Peradventure some of you may come to the last page of life before you get grace: I pray that there you may find it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Or, suppose we should not die; suppose the Lord should suddenly come in His temple. Oh, then may we have grace to meet Him.

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