Preparing a place

 Even though the Lord Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Heb 13: 8) we change with time. As He works in the world our needs change but He is always ready for these changes because He is always prepared. Nothing takes the Lord by surprise for He knows the end from the beginning and His will happens whether we like it or not (Is 46: 9, 10).

John 14: 1-3, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. 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 unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

The Lord spoke these words at the beginning of the Upper Room discourse, He knew that He was going to the cross and He was preparing His disciples for that experience. Even though He is Divine, they were simply men and had to deal with the situation with the resources that were available to men at that time.

While we think of our hearts as just a pump that moves the blood around our bodies the Bible sees the heart in a different light. In Gen 6: 5 we read “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” We also read about great Babylon, “How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” (Rev 18: 7) These verses tell us that the heart is the seat of our attitudes and, for sinful men, the source of their sin. The Lord Jesus Christ knew that His disciples would soon be attacked by the evil one (compare Luke 22: 31, “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:”) so He was deeply concerned about His disciples’ hearts.

When Achan coveted and stole treasure from Jericho “Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.” (Josh 7: 25) We learn from this that the Lord’s people can be troubled by sin and led into severe times but when sinners are troubled by sin they perish.

The Lord was encouraging His disciples to battle against the attacks of the evil one that they were soon going to experience and to overcome them. The only means they had to overcome under these circumstances was that they believed in God and that they should also believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The first time that we read about believing in the Bible is when Abram spoke to the Lord about having his own child and He believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness (Gen 15: 6) Anyone who believes in God is counted as righteous so they face the problem of being troubled by sin while those who don’t believe face the prospect of perishing. At that stage, the Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that He is God because they were able to believe in Him in the same as they were able to believe in God.

After telling His disciples not to be troubled, the Lord Jesus Christ gave them a good reason for them to feel secure in the hearts and believe in Him. He pointed to the fact that He had access to the Father’s house. Every time we read about the Father we can remember the Lord’s words to Adam, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen 2: 24) A father always give us the idea of belonging. The Lord Jesus Christ didn’t belong on the earth, He belonged with His Father, in His Fathers’s house. A house is not just a place where people dwell for the Lord said to Noah “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” (Gen 7: 1) A house also is a word indicating that someone belongs. When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke those words, He spoke of His Father’s house but He was going to make that place the place where His disciples would belong as well.

This is the only place in the Bible where we read about mansions but the idea of a mansion is one of permanence and security. Ordinary people don’t live in mansions but those who belong to household of God (see Eph 2: 16) deserve to live in superior accommodation simply because the Lord our God loves us (compare Deut 7: 7, 8, “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”)

Heaven is not a place where we dwell in tents as though we are sojourners for Abraham lived in a tent (Gen 18: 6, “And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.”) and he had to ask for a place to bury his wife because he was a sojourner (Gen 23: 4, “ I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”) Those who go to the Father’s house have a permanent abode and will never have to move to another place.

The next issue concerns the fact that there are many mansions. The Lord promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (Gen 17: 4). There are enough mansions for a vast multitude of people. The Lord Jesus Christ had a far greater vision of the size of His Father’s house than anyone else (compare 2 Pet 3: 3, 4, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”) When the Lord created man and woman in His own image,  He told them “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Gen 1: 28) One of the big problems with any, so called, advanced society is the fact that the population tends to stagnate and not grow. The Lord Jesus Christ is not delaying His return because He is weak or unfaithful, He is just waiting until there are enough people to fill the many mansions. He stressed this fact by telling His disciples that if this was not the case He would have told them.

At that stage the place of many mansions were not ready because the Lord said that He was going to go and prepare a place for His disciples. This message was given for the benefit of all believers because there were only twelve disciples, far to few to fill many mansions.

When something is prepared it is completely ready for use. When Abraham’s servant went to Abraham’s home country to find a bride for Isaac, he met Rebekah and Laban told him, “Come in, thou blessed of the LORD; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.” (Gen 24: 31) At that very time the place was completely ready for that servant to reside for a while.

We can assume from this that the Lord Jesus Christ is still preparing the many mansions in His Father’s house or we would already be called to go and live in them.

The last thing we should consider is the world “place”. Gen 1: 9, “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” A place is continuous and has no divisions. The Lord Jesus Christ is preparing one place for all those who believe in Him. (Compare this with the Lord’s words, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (John 10: 16))

In order to prepare this place the Lord Jesus Christ had to go away because this place is in the Father’s house. At that time, the Lord Jesus Christ was living as a man in Israel. However, even though the Lord Jesus Christ had to go away, He promised that He would come again to take His disciples back to His Father’s house so that they could be with Him and dwell in the many mansions.

This reminds us of another aspect of the Lord’s going away. In Matt 10 we read the parable of the ten virgins. They were waiting for the bridegroom to return. There were three phases to a wedding: first all the legal arrangements were made by the families and the couple were espoused (See Matt 1: 18, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together...”) Later, when the wedding supper was prepared the bridegroom went to the bride’s house and took her to the wedding. This is what is being discussed in the passage in Matt 10. Lastly the couple were legally married and they were joined together.

The Lord Jesus Christ made all the legal arrangements for His marriage when He died on the cross and paid the penalty for the sin that separated between our God and us (compare Is 59: 2, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”)

Now that all the legal arrangements are complete we are waiting for the next step and that is for the Bridegroom to come and take His bride away to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Rev 18: 7-9, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.”)

At this very moment the Lord Jesus Christ is still preparing a place for us, as He promised. This reminds us that even though the work of our salvation is complete the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is not complete. He moved from the phase where He prepared to deal with sin to the phase where He dealt with sin and now He has moved onto another preparation phase where He is preparing for the wedding supper of the Lamb which will occur before the new heavens and the new earth are created and the first heavens and the first earth are passed away (Rev 21; 1) The message for everyone concerning this time is, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev 22: 17) The Lord Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and we will be with Him forever in that new place if we believe in Him.