The Lords Return Is Near

© 2011 Jasper Life Publications

1st Edition in English – October 20111st Edition in Portuguese – January 2009

The Lord’s Return is NearTranslated from Portuguese with permission of

Editora Árvore da Vida

All rights reserved byJasper Life Publications Inc.

Jasper Life Publications725 Viscount Road

London, Ontario, Canada N6J 4G9Phone: (519) 472-6620

[email protected]

ISBN 978-1-926970-10-3

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Bible text from the New King James Version® is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000.

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CONTENTS

Preface ............................................................................5

1 God’s Creation and Judgment ...........................................7

2 God’s Creation and How it Can be Applied to Us ..........25

3 The Seven Days of Creation and God’s Will ..................41

4 Cooperating with God .....................................................55

5 The Age of the Spirit of Reality ......................................69

6 Being More Useful to the Lord ........................................85

7 The History of Mankind ..................................................99

8 The End of the Age .......................................................111

9 Serving God ...................................................................121

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PREFACE

In this book, Dong Yu Lan, who is faithful to his spiritual experience and relationship with God, describes what is in God’s heart and also in his: the Lord’s return must revolutionize, transform, and change our lives completely. The most important matter is not when the Lord will return, but whether we will be ready or not for that moment.

If the second coming of Christ is only an article of faith, a fact in which we believe without being touched by it, it will become a mere doctrine to us, mere theological information. We do not question the truths, but we would ask to what extent these truths are part of our life. Are they constituted into us in reality?

The content of this book is based on conferences ministered by the author in Brazil in Campinas-SP, Piracicaba-SP, and Belo Horizonte-MG in 1997 (January 25th and 26th, February 1st and 2nd, March 8th and 9th respectively).

We pray that these words may awaken you to the importance of being prepared for the second coming of Christ. May they also help you in your spiritual pursuit and lead you to have a normal church life today so you

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may become an overcomer and reign with the Lord in the coming age.

Enjoy!

São Paulo, January 2009.

The editors.

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Chapter One

GOD’S CREATION AND JUDGMENT

I usually do not mention the things that happen to me, but in this book I will share a personal experience which was permitted by God to reveal to me something about His Person and word. I pray that these words may encourage the people of God.

One time when I went to Chile to minister the word of God to the churches, I was suffering from a sharp pain in my spinal column. The pain was constant and kept me from walking more than ten steps without stopping. Moreover, it prevented me from standing up for a long period of time.

One of the cities to be visited was in a volcanic region, in Pucon, where the volcano Villarica erupted in late 1984. Our hosts had planned a hike up the volcano before the conference, but the pain in my back got worse. The saints prayed for me and gave me an injection. By the Lord’s mercy, the next day I felt no pain and was able to go with them to the volcano. What a spectacle both wonderful and terrible!

The eruption of Villarica created a lava flow of about forty miles that took nearly three years to solidify. On the one hand, it is a scene of desolation, destruction, and death.

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The Lord’s Return is Near

On the other hand, at the foot of the volcano there are five beautiful lakes with crystal clear waters and several islets filled with exuberant vegetation. What a contrast between life and death, beauty and destruction!

While I was observing all those things, the Lord spoke deep into me, causing me to ponder the situation of humanity and especially the situation of the church. I also realized that that scene is an indication of the nearness of the second coming of the Lord.

That natural beauty reminded me of Romans 1:20 which says that man cannot deny the existence of God upon seeing the things that were created. God made everything so beautiful and harmonious! Who can deny the beauty of natural spectacles like sunsets, rainbows, lakes, seas, and flowers? God made everything for mankind, which is the masterpiece of His creation.

God created man for Himself to cooperate with Him in fulfilling His eternal purpose. However, man has sinned and distanced himself from God throughout the centuries. Man does not recognize God as such and does not accept His love which was revealed in Christ. Man remained rebellious against God, Who then felt obliged to judge him. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and so many natural disasters are consequences of the rebellion and indifference of the creatures in relation to their Creator. If man had been submissive to the will of God since the beginning, all people would continually enjoy His presence, grace and reality.

While I was viewing such a paradoxical scene, the Lord gave me a deep inner feeling regarding God’s creation and the destiny of mankind: God’s creation is very beautiful, but the destiny of mankind is the judgment of God. We are

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God’s Creation and Judgment

certainly very close to the second coming of Christ. However, most people, including many Christians, are indifferent to it without realizing—or without accepting—that God will exercise His judgment upon the earth. People are living the life of the five lakes without realizing that the volcano is about to erupt. While I was contemplating that view, I was deeply touched by the Lord that it is time for us to prepare ourselves for His return which lies at the door.

The Many Riches to be Explored

How can we prepare for the return of the Lord? His word is the only thing capable of making us ready to meet our Beloved. Among the books of the New Testament, none is as useful and practical as the Gospel of John. Several conferences based on this gospel have been recorded in the Daily Food booklets and in some other books. However, there are many spiritual riches in the book of John that must be discovered, especially with regard to the second coming of Christ.

John wrote his Gospel about fifty years after the other gospels were written. Apparently, the Holy Spirit realized that what had been recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke was not enough and therefore He inspired John. This happened because the first three gospels emphasize the work accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross: He died for us, we received Him as our Saviour, and we were saved. However, the emphasis of the Gospel of John is the dispensing of the divine life into us.

We know that God’s eternal purpose is not only to save us and free us from eternal damnation. God’s full salvation

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has a purpose: He wants man to be His complement and counterpart in order to carry out His eternal will.

He created man with this goal; however, man sinned. Sometime later, He called Abraham and through him, the people of Israel. The people of Israel were chosen by God but they also failed. At the beginning of the present age, God Himself came and became a man not only to redeem us, but mainly to release Himself as life into mankind.

John says that when Jesus was on the cross, not only blood came out from His side, but also water (19:34). The blood redeems us from sin while the water releases the divine life into us so that through this life the eternal purpose of God may be fulfilled. This record and emphasis can be found only in John’s writings, which are his gospel, epistles, and the book of Revelation.

An example of such emphasis can be found in John chapter 3, in which there is the following statement of Jesus to Nicodemus: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.… You must be born again” (vv. 5, 7). Jesus said that it is necessary for every man to be born again: of water and the Spirit. Here, the divine life is represented by the water that flowed from the Lord on the cross (19:34).

Word, Spirit and Life

How can we receive the divine life that Jesus released on the cross? We can receive it through the Spirit. And how can we contact the Spirit? On the one hand, the Spirit is in the Bible, which is the written word of God and, on

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the other hand, it is also in Christ, who is the living and incarnated Word of God.

The Word, which was in the beginning with God and is the very God, became a man called Jesus. Once, while explaining the reason for His coming, Jesus said: “I have come that they may have life” (John 10:10). This refers to receiving the life of God at the moment we believe, being regenerated and born of water and of the Spirit. Many children of God are satisfied with only having this experience, but Jesus reveals to us that His mission does not stop there, for He concludes, saying: “And that they may have it more abundantly.”

The Lord’s statement clearly indicates that the divine life in us has to grow, develop, and increase until becoming abundant. This process occurs in the same way as we grow physically: through a healthy diet. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples and to the Jews: “I am the bread of life” (6:48). They, however, did not understand what that meant. Jesus then explained that their forefathers ate the manna—which was called the bread from heaven—in the wilderness and yet they died. However, those who eat of Jesus—the true bread that came down from heaven—will not die.

After this explanation, the listeners understood even less. The Lord tried to explain it again, saying that they should eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus repeated that three or four times, but the Jews withdrew, for the more He spoke, the more confused they got. Afterwards, the Lord explained it to the disciples: “The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (v. 63). It was as if Jesus were saying: “It is not profitable to eat my physical flesh. I used it as an illustration to indicate that you

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need to feed on Me in order to grow spiritually. I am not asking you to eat My flesh, but I am telling you to eat My words, which contain the life-giving Spirit.”

The Age of Grace—The Age of the Spirit

God completed His creation in seven days. The Bible affirms that, for the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day (2 Pet. 3:8). We believe—as many Bible scholars also do—that these two statements together indicate that the seven days of creation represent the entire history of mankind since Adam.

Some Bible expositors divide this time into periods or ages. First, we have the age of innocence, which lasted only for the time in which Adam was in the Garden of Eden, in other words, before he sinned.

After man ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, his spirit became deadened, without function. God, however, kept man’s conscience—which is part of the human spirit—alive and active in order to control him. Through the conscience, man is able to know what is right and what is wrong. That was the age of conscience and it began after Adam’s fall.

Nevertheless, mankind continued to practice even worse sins to the point of having fallen angels cohabiting with their daughters (Gen. 6:1-2). God had created man according to His image, but the fallen angels corrupted human race by mingling themselves with it. Later, came fornication and, because of fornication, violence. Then God decided that His Spirit should no longer strive with man

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and, because of the extreme evil in which mankind fell, He sent the flood to destroy it (6:3, 7-8, 11-22).

Among the entire human race, God preserved only eight people: Noah’s family. Later, Noah’s descendants multiplied and filled the earth again. In this period the age of human government began, initiated by Noah, who had the position of ruler as well as God’s delegated authority to rule over people. However, there came a person named Nimrod from among his descendants, a mighty hunter and leader. Under his leadership, humanity denied the name of God and tried to make a name for itself through building the tower of Babel. God had made a covenant to never again destroy human race with the flood, so this time He confused people’s language and scattered them throughout the earth so they could no longer unite against Him (Gen. 11:1-9).

Even so, God did not give up on His purpose, which was to have an expression on earth, and therefore called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans, a land of idolatry (12:1-9). Abraham had constant fellowship with God and was always attentive to His speaking, so this stage of history was regarded as the age of God’s government. This period also failed, for Abraham’s seed were made slaves in Egypt (cf. Exo. 1).

After this, God used Moses to establish the age of the law (Exo. 20), which lasted until the coming of the Lord Jesus. Since then, we have been living in the age of grace or the age of the Spirit. The Lord Jesus said that no one could tell the day and hour of His return. Any claim to know the time is not biblical. So, since we do not know when this age will end, we must prepare ourselves, for our Beloved will return soon at any time.

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Grace and Truth

The Gospel of John says that the Lord Jesus was full of grace and truth. It also says that of Him we have received grace upon grace (1:14, 16). This is why the period in which we live—from the Lord’s birth to His return—is called the age of grace. We do not have to pay anything, as illustrated in Isaiah chapter 55, for grace has been given to us by the Lord as water springing from an inexhaustible fountain; we only have to be thirsty and drink.

We were sinners, so God sent His Son to redeem us from our sins. The Son of God became flesh and endured many tribulations and sufferings. After His short ministry of a little more than three years, He was crucified and shed His blood to justify and sanctify us. Thus, the divine nature came into us (2 Pet. 1:4). We only have to believe and the redemption of Christ is applied to us. That is how we receive grace.

However, there is an important detail. John says that the Word that became flesh, Christ, was not only full of grace, but He was also full of truth. The word truth in Greek also means reality. We can say that before being applied to us, Christ is truth, but when we receive Him, He becomes reality to us. Before the incarnation, truth, which is Christ Himself, was out of us and far from us. When He became flesh, He came full of grace and truth. So, when we received Him, truth became our reality.

In John chapter 14, Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.… And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—

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the Spirit of truth” (vv. 2-3, 16-17). This means that every spiritual fact becomes reality to us through the Spirit we receive by believing in the Lord. Therefore, reality is the Spirit and the Spirit is reality. In his first epistle, John also underscores the fact that the Spirit is truth, the reality (5:6).

Therefore, we can only enjoy grace through the Spirit in our spirit, for it is the Spirit who brings us the reality of everything that God is. In other words, grace only becomes reality to us when we enjoy the Spirit. This is why we can say that this is not only the age of grace, but especially the age of the Spirit.

The Spirit in the Gospel of John

The people of God enjoy His grace only through the Spirit. How would we enjoy grace if the Spirit did not dwell in us? We receive the Spirit of the Lord in our spirit and they mingle, becoming one (1 Cor. 6:17). For this reason, we can only enjoy the reality of every spiritual fact through the Spirit when we turn to our spirit!

Thus, the Spirit is the most important item mentioned in the Gospel of John, for God wants us to have abundance of life through the Spirit. Life, which is Christ, has already come, but if we do not turn to our spirit where the Spirit dwells, we will not be able to receive more life. Actually, in the eyes of God, the unbelievers are dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), even though they seem to be alive, because without believing, they will never receive the divine life.

Since the resurrection of the Lord, we have received life through the Spirit. On the evening of that day, the Lord

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Jesus breathed on the disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). That was when the age of the Spirit began.

The importance John gives to the Spirit is made clear from the first chapter of his gospel, in which we see the testimony of John the Baptist regarding the baptism of Jesus. At that time, John the Baptist saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and remaining upon Jesus. This was the fulfillment of what God had said to John: “Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33). The Lamb of God can baptize us with the Spirit because the same Spirit remained upon Him.

In chapter 3, the Lord Jesus talked to Nicodemus about the need to be born again of water and the Spirit. After studying and pondering, we concluded that the water here does not refer to baptism, but to the water that came out of the Lord Jesus’ side, representing the divine life. The water of the baptism does not represent life, for it represents the death and burial of the old man. Thus, to be born of water and the Spirit means to be regenerated through the divine life that is given to us by the Spirit.

Chapter 4 also mentions the Spirit by saying that He is God Himself: “God is the Spirit” (v. 24). Therefore, His worshippers must worship Him in spirit and truth. Chapter 6 brings another important statement about the Spirit by saying that the words spoken by Jesus are Spirit, through which we have life (v. 63).

In chapter 7, the Lord Jesus said that the rivers of living water flow out of those who believe in Him, out of all those who thirst and come to Him and drink (vv. 37-38).

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The evangelist adds a little comment: “But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (v. 39). Only those who believe in the Lord can receive the Spirit, which then flows from them as rivers of living water.

When the Lord Jesus said that on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles which preceded His death, the Spirit was not yet, according to some versions of the Bible. Undoubtedly, at that time there was already the manifestation of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of Jesus, but the Spirit was not yet. The Spirit mentioned here became real only when the Lord Jesus was glorified.

What does it mean to be glorified? Chapters 11 and 13, which also mention the Spirit, explain that being glorified means to die and resurrect. In chapter 11, we see the resurrection of Lazarus, which resulted in glory to Christ—meaning that the Son of Man was being glorified. Chapter 12 reveals that the Son of Man would be glorified when He would fall into the ground and die like a grain of wheat, bearing much fruit (v. 23). Falling into the ground refers to His death, while bearing much fruit refers to His resurrection. Finally, in chapter 13 we see that after Judas left in order to betray Jesus, the Lord Jesus said: “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (v. 31). Judas went out to call the soldiers who would arrest Jesus. That indicated that His death was near; therefore His glorification was also near. The Spirit came after this event.

In chapters 14 and 17, the Spirit who is the Spirit of truth—of reality—is mentioned several times. Here John emphasizes

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the crucial fact that it is through the Spirit mingled with our spirit that we can enjoy grace and all spiritual facts. In chapter 20, we see that Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on the disciples. At that moment, the disciples received the divine life through the Spirit and were regenerated.

Chapter Twenty-One of John

While reading the Gospel of John, we may think that the author could have concluded the epistle with chapter 20. However, another chapter was necessary, for it is in chapter 21 that we see in a very practical way what it is to live according to the Spirit and what it is to live the church life by the divine life together with the members of the Body of Christ. The way to do so is by following the Lord and by practicing love towards the saints. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him. After each positive answer given by the disciple, Jesus told him to shepherd and nourish His lambs and sheep. This is the normal church life.

What is love? We can say that love is the divine life flowing, moving, and functioning. When we receive the divine life, we receive love. Thus, the more the divine life grows in us, the more love we have and the more we are enabled to love. Therefore, for us to have more love, we need to have more of the divine life, for the amount of love that flows from us demonstrates the amount of the divine life there is in us.

Following the Lord

How, then, can we have more of the divine life and what

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should we do for it to grow in us? After talking to Peter about feeding the saints, represented by the sheep and the lambs, the Lord said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish” (v. 18). Being young does not only mean to have lived less, but it mainly means to be spiritually immature and to have an artificial and rootless spiritual life. When we are like this, we behave as we wish, in a careless manner. This is what happens in human life: a baby does the typical baby things for it is a baby! There is no use in scolding it for needing diapers or for not knowing how to speak. These things will be spontaneously solved when it grows and matures.

When a baby is no longer a baby, however, it will not use a pacifier or a feeding bottle, for the life it now has is no longer pleased by these things. Then, when it matures more, it will not do certain things, for it will know what it should or should not do and what is healthy and what is not. The same thing happens in our spiritual life. The more we allow the divine life to grow in us, the more restrained and less free we will be to speak and behave according to our own thoughts, concepts, and opinions. We will no longer do things because we want to or because we like doing them, but we will allow the divine life to restrain us instead.

Being spiritually mature and having more of the divine life is not a stage to be reached only after decades of being a Christian. Rather, we should be a little more mature a month after receiving the Lord. After believing in the Lord, we should grow a little each day, gaining more and more of Him. The spiritual experience we have one day cannot be the

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same we had the day before. We used to talk about anything but now we need to be constrained by the divine life when speaking lightly. We used to do what we liked to do while serving the Lord, but now we do whatever is established for us. That is maturity.

Simon Peter is a clear example of someone who acted rashly because of being immature. Sometimes he was moved by his good intentions, which still manifested his immaturity. The most serious example is of when he advised Jesus not to go to Jerusalem to be crucified (Matt. 16:21-22). Peter was motivated by his natural and immature human love for the Lord. At the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter showed his childishness once again when he said that he would build three tents, considering Jesus equal to the law and the prophets. It was necessary for God to speak from heaven, warning him that Jesus is the beloved Son and that we should hear only Him. On another occasion later, Peter answered hastily, saying that Jesus would pay the temple tax. As a result, Jesus told him to go to the sea, cast in a hook, take the first fish and open its mouth to find a piece of money, with which they could pay the tax.

Peter behaved like that because he had not received the divine life in his spirit, for he had not received the Spirit yet. After receiving the Spirit, however, he did not behave like that anymore, and even when he did, something bothered him.

After saying that, the Lord added, “Follow me” (John 21:19). The church life is perfectly defined here. The church life is a life of following the Lord. Both in John 21 and 12:26 and in Matthew 16:24, following the Lord is about denying oneself. The only way of following the

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Lord is by denying our soul-life and by taking up the cross. We cannot follow the Lord according to our own will, preferences, and considerations, but we must allow someone else—the Lord Himself—to gird and lead us. Only this way can the divine life grow in us. As a consequence, we will love the saints more.

“What About this Man?”

Peter expressed his discontent by asking about John: “What about this man?” (John 21:20-21). It is as if he were saying, “Why am I the only one being treated like this? Why am I often reprimanded? Why do You always deal with me so severely? How about this man whom You love, who is always at Your side? Does not he also need to be dealt with?”

Are we not also like that? How many times do we feel envious or dissatisfied in relation to someone else because we think the Lord deals more severely with us than with them or because the Lord allows others to be more successful than we are in their spiritual or secular life? These things are manifestations and considerations of a natural human life that is accustomed to being independent from God. Therefore, we must always deny ourselves; always deny our soul-life.

The Lord said to Peter: “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me” (John 21:22). This shows us that the Lord deals with us in a specific, individual, and special way. It does not matter how He treats the other saints, but how He deals with our soul-life. He can allow us to fail temporarily in our job while He makes another brother very successful. What does it have to do with us? As

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for us, we should only follow the Lord.The Lord lovingly prepares many opportunities for us to

deny our soul-life. When He deals directly or indirectly with us through an external situation or even through another person, His intention is only to cause us to deny ourselves and follow Him.

The Signs of the End of the Age

The Gospel of John begins with eternity past (1:1) by mentioning the incarnation of the Word—which is the first coming of the Lord—(1:14), and is concluded with the second coming of Christ (21:22-23).

We are in the line of demarcation, the threshold of the kingdom, for we live in the most important period of human history! Some people say they would have liked to be Christians in the 19th century, when the movement of the Brethren was very strong or when the Pentecostals were emerging and were very pure and simple in their pursuit for the Lord. The Lord, however, preferred to have us born now in a generation which is likely to see His return and the end of all things. Therefore, we have been constantly encouraged by the word of the Lord to intensively cooperate in the preaching of the gospel throughout the inhabited earth as witnesses to all the nations (Matt. 24:14).

When the Lord told Peter about John, saying, “If I will that he remain till I come”, a rumour spread among the disciples that John would not die until the Lord’s return. It obviously was not correct. We believe the Lord was referring to John’s ministry in its latter stage, for the final words of his ministry brought great help to the churches in the late first

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century. There is a great possibility that the Lord will find us alive, for we are very close to His second coming. These words should cause us to rejoice and praise the Lord and desire to remain alive until He returns.

We must be watchful and aware. We should desire to be alive when the Lord returns, for if we live the normal church life by denying our soul-life, we will be caught away alive! We are in the age of the Spirit, which makes it possible for any child of God to be an overcomer. No doubt we are in the age of grace, but we need the Spirit in order to receive grace. If we have the Spirit, we have grace; if we do not have the Spirit, there is no way we can receive grace. If we persevere in following the Lord by denying ourselves and by receiving more of grace and the Spirit, we will be overcomers. Are you prepared for the second coming of the Lord?

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The Lords Return Is Near

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