.V ^ .^ < .^^^,^^ ^ ^v .0, -^^ ^^^ °-' " ^ 9j,'"rf:'-/-' V'"-^\^^^ # /a¥a^\,# .' W^^ ^Y ^ -/ ;, s^ -A<^ . ^ ' ^ ^-s ^. I %r'--\/: ^llf,,]^^ ^' cS A %^,^^ ^^^%i/K^. ^<,. .0.^ «.>>^ • ^^ -;< •=^j,d« '^^ ^^0^ .^^^^ ■. ^ -"^o...^ V. ^ 0-, '' •„ 'fi , ^My^ ;1^^'^ ^^v 0-. ^ N _ X <- n . ^. V ^ V . ^ ^ V^ ^ ^ * ° :. .^ ^^ 0" -"^^^ %;^ ^ .^ %,^ ^ ^.^'''T:^^'^^^^ \^ :%,^^ ex -v r. ^ ^^d< ^^ ^i " ^ °^ 4°^ S ^. .- .V ^ V^^^P/^^^ ,^^'^ -^ s^ .xO % TEN SERMONS ON THE SECOND COMING of Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached in the First Baptist Church, New York City from October 15 to December 17, 1916 BY THE PASTOR \Ha, haldeman, d.d. Author of Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture, How to Study the Bible, The Second Coming of Christ Pre-Millennial and Imminent, The Signs of the Times, Christ, Christianity and the Bible, The Mission of the Church in the World, Millennial Dawnism, Two Men and Russellism, Could Our Lord have Sinned, Does it make any Difference, What is it to Believe on Jesus, Why are we to Believe The Bible is inspired, etc., etc. NEW YORK CHARLES C. COOK 160 NASSAU STREET »A ~BT88S ■ Has Copyright, 1916, 19 17. By CHARLES C. COOK OEC 20 1917 ©Ci.A481U52 / Gf 7^ CONTENTS I — Our Lord Jesus Christ is Coming to this World a Second Time i II — The Second Coming of Christ in Rela- tion TO Doctrine, to Promise, and to Exhortation 63 III — Is THE Coming of Christ Before or After THE Millennium? 139 IV — The Secret and Imminent Coming of Christ 211 V — ^The Judgment Seat of Christ . . . 283 VI — That Blessed Hope 359 VII — The Great Separation 435 VIII — The Great Tribulation 521 IX — The Falling Stone, or the Overthrow OF THE Last Kaiser 591 X — The Thousand Years and After . . . 665 I OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS COMING TO THIS WORLD A SECOND TIME OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS COMING TO THIS WORLD A SECOND TIME By Rev. I. M. Haldeman, D.D. OU will find my text in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, ninth chapter, twenty-eighth verse : "Unto them that look for Him shall He ap- pear the Second time." I desire to begin a series of sermons on thd SECOND Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many long years before I became Pastor of this Church, it was my privilege to present the truth, and at a time when my voice was almosti the only one in the land that upheld it. In my extended pastorate here I have preached it in season and out of season; so that almost every sermon, exegesis and exposition has centered itself in it or proceeded forth from it. I de- sire to preach upon the theme again, not only in its complete and sequential order, but in relation to all dispcnsational and proph- 6 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST etic truth. I am led to do so because al- though many are now bearing testimony to the return of our Lord, the ignorance concerning it is still widespread and abysmal. There are Christians who actually read their Bible and yet statement after statement which ought to gleam and scintillate with power to awaken interest passes across their vision or through the mind and leaves no trace. The average minister with an open Bible before him knows nothing about it, — ignores it, — is afraid to preach it, or when he does not pervert it, radically rejects it. The prejudice against the doctrine is amaz- ingly great. It is said to be non-essential (and here I desire to speak parenthetically and say to you that of all foolish, absurd and actually stupid things uttered by the tongue of Christians or written by pen, nothing is more excuseless than this attempted arraignment of "non-essen- tials." If the Bible be the revelation of God, as He is the great economist and never wastes or does anything that is unnecessary, it is evident He could not and would not introduce into His infallible Book anything that was not essential. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 7 Whatever statement or doctrine therefore may- be in the Bible, however apparently inconse- quential and insignificant, is, nevertheless, es- sential. Since this doctrine of the Second Com- ing is very manifestly in, and a remarkable part of, the Bible it ought to be evident, to say the least, that the term "non-essential" cannot in any wise be applied to it.) It is held by many to be sporadic, the outcome of an unsettled state of theological definition in the early centuries ; that it has been handed down by ignorant, or half educated, or unequally bal- anced minds. The man therefore who in this hour of wheels, of machinery, of delicate mathematical constructions and the tidal sweep of materialism and sensuousness, dares to stand forth and preach the SECOND COMING of Christ is thought to be mentally uneven, the rider of a hobby, up in the air, and, at the very best — only a light and easy visionary. His sermons are supposed to have in them little that is practical, much that is sensational; and that their tendency is to disturb the Church, bring about schism and lead those Christians who accept the doctrine to go off at a 8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST tangent. The study of it, it is said, gives birth to foolish vagaries, to grotesque schemes of inter- pretation, encourages many to look upon them- selves as certified prophets, and gives play to hectic and irresponsible imagination, rather than the cultivation of a sane and sober application of the principles and rules of a daily and dutiful life. And yet — in the face of all this, it is a fact / v^hoUy beyond dispute that of all the wondrous I things in this book written in letters of light, re- splendent with the glory of God and resonant with the divine music, not one of them, not the fiat creation of the world, the stupendous fall of man, the birth of Christ, His death and resurrec- tion, none of these immense facts occupies the space or receives such mention as the SECOND COMING. The First Advent is without question, basic, fundamental, so much so that apart from it — Christianity could not even find letters to spell its / name — and yet — -foundational as it is — it is al- most insignificant when compared to the men- tion of the Second Advent. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 9 Neither the tongue of angels, nor men can fit- tingly describe the measure, the marvel and the glory of the cross ; even the Holy Ghost with all His measureless powers finds Himself limited by the limitations of human vocabulary when He seeks to portray it. In all the speech of men there is no word so great as this word, "Atone- ment." It is the revelation of the genius and the wisdom of God, of His law and His love, of His justice and mercy, His hatred of sin and His love of the sinner. His rejection of merit and His gift of grace. It is a revelation of how He has found a way in which He can be just and yet a justifier of the ungodly: and yet — that word "Atone- ment" occurs but once in the New Testament, and there should not be translated atonement — but "reconciliation," the consequence of atone- ment; but the statement concerning the Second Coming of Christ occurs in the New Testa- ment — once in every twenty verses, u It begins with the beginning. \/ In the first chapter of Genesis God speaks and sun and moon and stars, constellations, systems of constellations, and measureless nebulae sweep V I 10 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST forward in that infinite harmony which the si- lence of the skies proclaims. In the second chap- ter man is formed from the dust of the earth, his soul kindled with the flame of the divine breath. In the third chapter he sins, he falls and the whole race goes down in the wreck of his sin. Side by side with his sin and woe is the promise of redemption. The first woman stands forth in all the beauty of her fresh creation, but stands there with the shame of her sin, and as she listens to the voice of judgment which condemns her husband and herself to go forth as wanderers in the earth, learns, not only that the serpent shall bruise her seed, the foreseen and promised Re- deemer, but this very Redeemer shall bruise the serpent's head. Turn to the last chapter of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans and you will find the serpent (that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan) is to be bruised be- neath the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Second Coming: and if you will turn still fur- ther to the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation you will behold a scenic description of that event in the hour when the door in heaven opens and THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 1 the Son of God, as the Word of God, as King of kings and Lord of lords is seen coming down the slant of heaven with the thundrous echo of His steeds of judgment, followed by the throng- ing armies of His righteousness clad saints. He v^ lays hold on Satan, binds him with a great chain, casts him into the bottomless pit and bruises him beneath His heel for a thousand years; and thus it is evident that side by side with this first an- nouncement of the First Advent in that far away Eden time is the first announcement of the SEC- OND. In the sixth chapter of Genesis you will see the flood gates of heaven opened, the fountains of. the great deep broken up and all but eight of a guilty world swept away, while over the rush and terror of the seething waters the voice of the Son of God is heard saying, ^^But as the days v of Noah, so shall also the Coming of the Son of man be;" and when next you stand upon some mountain height and see the line of shells de- posited there by invading waves which once drowned all the high hills and made the swing- ing globe a dark and watery waste, pick up that 12 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST shell, hear in it still the sound of the receding deep and let it repeat to you, that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes : and let the flood proclaim to you the Son of God is Coming a SECOND time. If it be your privilege to journey to Palestine, j/ go yonder to that Dead Sea whose every wave rolls over the spot where the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, went down in the wrath of Him whose breath like a fiery flame consumed them; and above the depths where the buried cities lie hear the voice of the Son of God saying, "as it was in the days of Lot (in Sodom) even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed;" and let the Dead Sea as the burial place of a dead city and the judgment tomb of indescribable vice, tell out with its bituminous swirl and swish that the Son of God is coming a Second timjs and coming not only with grace but with vengeance in His heart. Not only is the Second Coming portrayed in the open statements and quivering accents of in- spired prophets, but in the pictured prophecies of illuminating types, living figures and colorful symbols. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 13 Abraham under the command of God took his son to the top of the mount which he reached after a three days' journey, laid him upon the prepared altar, lifted his knife to slay that un- resisting son (doing so in the confidence God would raise him from the dead) when the voice of the Almighty bade him take a ram caught by its horns in the thicket and sacrifice it as a substitute in his stead. He raised him up from the altar in an act which was typical of res- urrection: the son then disappears from view; but Abraham calls his servant Eliezer and bids him go forth to find a wife for his son. He finds her at a well drawing water. He enters with her the house of her brother Laban, the fleshly man, takes out the pack of precious things sent from the father in the name of the son and shows them to her; and as she consents to be the bride, leads her forth to meet him, talking to her of him by the way; when, suddenly, unheralded the son appears, comes forth to meet her and take her to himself. Two thousand years after, on this very spot, the Son of God offered Himself as a sacrifice 14 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST for sin, a substitute for the sinner, then on the third day rose from the dead; for two thousand years He has like Isaac disappeared from view; but the Holy Spirit like Eliezer has come forth from the Father in the name of the Son to seek for Him a bride and to call her by His name, — the Church, THE CHRIST. He is finding her at the Gospel well, the well of glad tidings and of living water. One by one as we believe we become members of that bride, because we be- come members of His spiritual body; the Spirit enters into our fleshly lives, as Eliezer into the house of Laban, and unfolds the Bible as the pack of precious things sent from the Father in the name of the Son. He is leading us along the way of time and circumstance, talking to us of the unseen and absent Bridegroom when, sud- denly, He will come into the air and take the Church to Himself, and thus this story of Eliezer seeking a bride, and the coming forth of Isaac to meet Rebekah, is the full and analogic, but prophetic picture of the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Head of the Spiritual Body, and His Bride, the Church. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 15 Jacob wearied with his flight from home lies down at eventide there in the plain of Luz and takes for his pillow a cold and barren stone, while the quiet stars watch him from afar. As he sleeps he dreams ; and then a vision of the night is on him. He sees a ladder of gold leaning against the shining sky. At the top of it he beholds the Holy One of Israel, none other than the Christ of God who is to be. He sees Him coming with ten thousands of the heavenly host. He listens while the Lord declares to him that all the land on which he lies shall be his and his posterity's after him; and that of his seed shall come a na- tion — and this nation shall have temporal sover- eignty in the end of days ; he wakes to learn, and we learn with him, that the nation of Israel shall find its permanent and abiding place in the land of Palestine, be the head and no longer the tail of nations, and find its consummation in the hour when the Son of God shall come as the covenant seed of Abraham, the seed of Is- rael, the seed of Jacob and heir of David's throne; and this, when He comes a SECOND time, ..-.- 1 6 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Joseph is the son of his father's old age, goes out to visit his brethren, is rejected by them, is cast into the pit of death, taken out alive and sent into the far country, into Egypt, is there exalted to co-rulership on the throne, takes a wife from among the Gentiles and at a determined hour, with her, goes forth in his chariot of glory that he may bring his father's house and his brethren after the flesh in to Goshen the promised land of Egypt. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of eternity, the Son of the infinite Father. He was sent to His brethren in the flesh, they rejected Him, cast Him into the pit and place of death. God took Him out alive. He has taken Him into that far country, into the highest heaven itself. He has exalted Him to the throne as a co-ruler with Himself, He is now, as also typified in the story of Isaac, getting a bride from among the Gen- tiles. At a predetermined moment He will come forth with His chariot with ten thousand times ten thousands of His angels that He may bring His father's house, His brethren after the flesh, the Jews, into the promised land of earth, into THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 17 Palestine; and thus the story of Joseph is the typical story of the Lord, and finds its prophetic climax in His Coming a SECOND time. David goes up the slopes of Olivet, bare- headed, bent back, bare-footed, his face washed in tears, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a rejected king. Later on, he comes back with a mighty host, the victor's shout, crosses Jordan, enters Jerusalem, and sits a king in lordly fashion on Zion's heights. Surely, we know our Lord was a man of sorrows and ac- quainted with grief. Behold Him on the slopes of Olivet, weeping over the city of His love as His gaze sweeps down the centuries of the com- ing woe, by that city is repudiated, goes forth a rejected King, goes forth to death and the grave. But, behold. He is to come back with the victor shout and song, cross Jordan from the east as He comes from Idumaea up, enter Jerusalem and enthrone Himself on Zion's heights as Lord and King; and this when He comes a SECOND time. And this Second Coming of Christ inspires David to draw his fingers across his golden harp i 1 8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Strings, evolve the loftiest notes and sing in his most daring and exalted symbols. He speaks of that hour when the heavens shall bow down to the earth; when the waves of the sea shall lift their tidal voices and break with triumphant tu- mult on all the shores ; when the hills shall melt and flow down as the sea ; when all the trees of the wood as transfigured witnesses shall clap their hands ; when all voices in earth, in hell and heaven shall cry out till the whole universe is full of the refrain, "He cometh. He cometh — He cometh to rule the earth in righteousness and truth : He is coming a second time." The prophets choose their choicest words and find their noblest phrase when they seek to por- tray the Second Coming of our Lord. Isaiah sees Zion exalted above all the hills and the Lord's house crowning all the lifted heigths. He hears the war sword's final clangor as into plough shares beaten, and beholds the spears as pruning hooks amid the gathered fruitage of the growing vines. The law goes forth from Zion and the Word of God prevails; and this they teach, when the Lord comes, not the first, but "the SECOND TIME.'* THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 19 Micah announces when the Lord comes the second time war shall cease and men shall learn its ways no more, but each beneath his own vine and fig tree shall sit, none daring to molest nor make afraid. Joel declares the voice of the Lord shall be ^ heard from Jerusalem. He will overthrow the enemies of Israel and Zion shall be His dwelling place forever. Zechariah testifies the Lord is coming, coming ^ with all His saints: that His feet in that day shall stand upon the mount of Olives which is on the east before Jerusalem, it shall cleave in twain and roll forth as a platform for His feet, and the feet of His saints; and because this has never taken place, it is not at His First, but at His SECOND coming. When you open the last chapter of Malachi, y the Lord is seen, not at His First Advent, but at His Second, arising as a sun of righteousness with healing in His wings, ready to cast His benediction and His bounty on the earth before He smites it with a curse. Then we close the Old Testament with its mul- 20 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRISt tiplicd and precise announcements of the Second Coming of our Lord, and lean across four cen- turies of prophetic silence. As we listen we hear the sound of angel song; we hear the Gloria in Excelsis; beneath the star lit sky a babe is born, , and we rejoice at the First Advent of the Christ; V but scarcely have we done listening to this rapt announcement of the First Advent when we hear the Christ Himself grown to manhood and to ministry proclaiming not His First Coming but His SECOND. He speaks of it in parable, in open discourse and story. He tells His disciples that a householder called his servants about him, gave to each one of them a work to do, bade the porter watch and said, "I am going into a far country, but I am coming back at an hour when ye think not. It may be at evening when the sun is low, it may be at midnight, in the deepest darkness and when the stars arise. It may be in the cock crowing when the night begins to advance, or it may be in the gray of morning when the dawn begins to turn through rose and purple to the gold of day." THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 21 And the Lord said to them, "You are the house and you are the servants, you have each of you your work, and the Holy Ghost shall keep the door. I am going yonder into .the land of ^far distance,' into heaven above; but I am coming back, I am coming a second time and at an hour when ye think not. It may be in the evening as the age draws to its close. It may be in the mid- night when the spiritual darkness is deep. It may be at the cock crowing when the sound of trumpets begins to be heard. It may be in the blaze of the morning, in the splendor of that new day that shall dawn as the Day of God. What I say unto one I say unto all — Watch ! Watch ! be ready! for I am coming a SECOND time." He compares His return to that of a bride- ^ groom who comes at midnight to meet the wait- ing bride's maids and with them enter into the marriage chamber, to the marriage supper and the joy. He says He is coming as King of glory to sit ^^^ upon the throne of His glory, as the throne of the Lord, in Jerusalem, to enter into judgment of the nations, and to judge them according to the 22 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST fashion in which they have treated His brother in the flesh, the Jew. Then in that last discourse upon Olivet when His disciples come and ask Him what shall be the sign of His coming, He tells them of mul- tiplied war, of famine and pestilence walking to- gether cheek by jowl, of shattering earthquake, of false apostles, of deceitful workers, of distress of nations, of men's hearts failing them for fear; and then declares He will come as the lightning shines from the east to the west and with all His holy angels. ^ But on that night of nights, at the last supper, 1/ when every heart was mute with sadness; when they were quivering at the very thought that He who had led them so long among the hills and vales of earth was going away. He bids them look up at the crystalline arch of the nightly stars, and speaks to them words that should be let with diamond pointed pen into the face of an eternal rock, such words as these: "Let not your hearts be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it ivere not so, I THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 23 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." And then, in that tragic hour, in that gaiish . morning light when He stood before His judges, mocked, spit upon, bound, a rope about His neck as when a lamb is to slaughter led ; standing on the threshold of His shameful death, He said to them that thereafter they should see Him sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then they crucified Him. They put Him to death. They laid Him in the grave and rolled the stone to the door of His tomb. His sun seemed to go down at mid-noon; but the third day He rose, forty days later He ascended from the midst of His disciples, and as they saw Him swallowed up and lost to gaze in the deeps of the upper infinite; even while they watched Him through their wonder and their tears, two men in white from the other country stood by their side and said unto them : "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up H THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like man- ner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." After the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter ^ v^ith John went up into the temple to pray. They saw a lame man there. Peter in the name of the Lord Jesus bade him rise up and walk. He did so leaping and running into the temple. The people followed him and a great crowd gathered about the Apostles, asking them how it was done. Peter answered he had not healed the man with his own power but by the name and, therefore, by the power of Jesus. Then he told them that He whom they had crucified and put to death was the Prince of life, the Au- ^.-sthor of life — and if they should repent and turn unto the Lord, the Father would send Him back. Having said this he quoted all the prophets from Samuel and assured them these prophets with one accord foretold that this cruci- fied but now risen Lord would come a SEC- OND time. Yonder in Jerusalem a great council, the first council of all the Churches, was gathered to de- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 25 liberate and determine upon spiritual things. James the Apostle rose up and said it was nec- essary Christians should understand this age: in this age God was not seeking to convert the world, but was calling out from among the Gen- tiles a people for His name, a people to faith in the name of His Son; when this taking out was complete, when the Church number was filled up, the Lord would come back, would build up the nation of Israel; and in support of his testi- mony turned to the Old Testament, quoting from the prophet Amos, and thus from Amos pro- claimed that the Lord is coming a SECOND time. Paul writes to the Church at Rome that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain ^ together until now. If you will put your ear to the bosom of the earth, the mother of us all, you will hear the moaning, the heaving sigh, the plash of tears, the tread of tragedy, the footstep and the voice of suffering; everywhere anguish and sorrow, heartache, mystery, confusion and in- creasing lamentation ; but, lo, the whole creation is on the tiptoe of expectation, waiting for the 26 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST manifestation of the sons of God, waiting for the Coming of the Son of God and His glory host; then shall creation break her bands of corruption, be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Son of God and flash on amid the rythmic splendors of the shining spheres. Thus shall this battle stained and sin scarred earth be delivered at the SECOND COMING of our Lord. He tells the Corinthian Church in the first chapter of the first epistle to see to it that they come behind in no gift, waiting for the Coming ^ of the Lord. In the fifteenth chapter, in which ^ every verse is like a string of pearls, he says the Lord is coming to waken the dust of those who sleep in His name. The trumpef^hall sound, the dead shall be raised and the living changed ; and this resurrection and transfiguration, it is af- firmed, will take place among those who are ^^ Chris fs at His Coming/' He tells the Philippian Church that we who ^ believe are citizens of a country which is in heaven ; from whence also we look for a Saviour, even our Lord Jesus Christ. He is coming to change these bodies of our limitation. (And lol THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 27 we are limited, indeed). Here is a man with a ^ will like iron and a body too weak to sustain it; a mind full of leaping desires and plans and high suggestions, and a body that cabins, cribs and confines them, a body full of tempermental and physical hindrances; but Paul says. Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming from heaven a second time and by His power, the same power by which He rose from the dead and upholds the universe, will change these bodies of our daily limitations and fashion them like unto the body of His glory. He assures the Colossians when Christ died on ^ yonder cross we who believe, died with Him, and were put to death judicially in Him, as our representative and substitute. When He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, we rose and ascended in Him representatively. He is there as our life, our spiritual and eternal life. Our life is therefore hid in Him, and as He is hid in God, we are doubly hidden and secured in the deity of the Father and the Son; but Christ is coming forth: He is coming forth a second time and in glory, and therefore says 28 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Paul when He who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Paul's first epistle to the Churches was written \/to the Christians at ThessaJonica. In his letter he commends them because they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. He finds them sorrowing over their dead and not cer- tain as to what relation they should sustain to the Coming of the Lord; and he says to them they are not to sorrow as others which have no hope ; but just so surely as these Christian dead have been put to sleep by Jesus, even as a mother puts her babe to sleep, so surely when He comes He will bring them with Him; and Paul says, I am saying this to you by a special revelation from the Son Himself, that when the Lord de- scends from heaven. He will do so with a shout, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then these who are alive and remain shall be caught up to- gether with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. He says the Coming will be like a thief in the THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 29 night. In the first epistle to the Thessalonians he makes it plain the Lord is coming for the Church ; in the second epistle he shows that after He has come for His Church He will come with her, and she shall be associated with Him in that hour of hours when He overthrows the man of sin, puts an end to the hierarchy of the Devil and brings in the reign of righteousness and peace. So full is the Apostle of this theme of the Second Coming that at the close of each chapter in both epistles he speaks of and describes it. To Timothy the young preacher, he writes and . says: "Timothy, I am an old man now. I am Paul the aged; but Timothy, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also, that love His appearing." A crown, a crown of righteousness, not a re- buke for having dealt with that which was non- essential, but a crown of righteousness to all who love the Second Coming of the Lord. 30 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST He writes to Titus and testifies the Second ^ Coming is the blessed hope. "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." \/ He writes to Hebrew Christians and talks to them about Yom Kip pur. Yom signifies "day," and Kippur comes from a Hebrew verb "to cover." Yom Kippur means the "day of covering." Yom Kippur was recently celebrated all over the world wherever there was a colony or company of Jews. Yom Kippur was that day in October when the Jews first, in the Wilder- ness, assembled about the Tabernacle while Aaron the high priest slew the bullocks and took their blood within the vail, sprinkling it upon the mercy seat. He did the same thing with the blood. of the sacrificial goat. The blood made atonement, reconciled the people ceremonially to God, covered over their sins typically in His sight; hence it was called the day of covering. Then the high priest took the live goat, confessed upon it the sins of the people and handed it over to a chosen man, a man selected for the occasion and called the fit man, the man of opportunity. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 3f He put a rope around its head and led it away into a part of the country uninhabited, out of sight. The people waited for him to return, ex- pected him to come back. Presently, they saw him coming, but without the scape goat, without the sin offering; and thus for another year the people were ceremonially secured from judg- ment, and guaranteed the care and fellowship of God. Paul tells the Hebrew Christians, and in tell- ing them tells us, that yonder on the cross our Lord Jesus Christ died as the great sin offering; that when with a loud voice He cried "It is fin- ished," He was announcing, not only that His covenant promise with the Father was kept, but that the type, the figure and symbol of Yom Kip- pur was fulfilled in Him; as it is written: "Once in the end of the age hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself/' Our Lord Jesus Christ is both victim and high priest, as the high priest He arose, ascended, and with His own blood went within the upper veil and there full atonement made. He ascended there also as the chosen maiij the fit man, the 32 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST man of opportunity. From that hour to this has been Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur was but a shadow. The real Yom Kippur is to-day. To- day we are living in the age and dispensation of Yom Kippur or Atonement. But like the Chil- dren of Israel our gaze as believers is turned to- ward the far country, the country unseen, heaven itself; and we are waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to come the Second time as the chosen man, the fit man, the man of opportunity. Wherefore says Paul to the Hebrews, ''Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the sec^ and time without sin (that is without the sin of- fering) unto salvation," unto the guaranteed and etern-al salvation of all who claim Him as sacri- fice, sin offering, scape goat and substitute. Do you understand this text now, and do you catch the voluminous accent of its meaning? "Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." V Peter declares we should love, and rejoice in, the appearing of Christ. James testifies the "Coming of the Lord draweth nigh.,'* "The judge standeth at the door." THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 33 The Apostle John says the world did not know our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and they do not know we are His sons now. They do not know what we are to be; but we know we shall be like Him. We shall see Him as He is — and the very sight of Him will transfigure us with His likeness and His glory. And this hope, the hope of the Second Com- ing, he says is a purifying hope, it is not a mere empty and inefficient vision, but a hope so but- tressed on reality that it will lead those who really hold it to separate themselves from all evil and sin and to walk becomingly in the name of Him for whom they wait. John is not satisfied with saying all this. He affirms there are those who do not hesitate to deny our Lord Jesus Christ is coming a second time in the flesh. He says all who deny this, all who for a moment refuse to believe He is coming a second time in the flesh, in bodily fashion, as the man who died, are antichrists, and deceivers. With inspired speech he says if any one should come to you and not bring the true doctrine of God and Christ, you are not to 34 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST receive him into your house, nor bid him God- speed ; if you do, you are a partaker of his evil deeds and God will hold you as guilty as he. Then we take up the little epistle of Jude and find he quotes from the book of Enoch, Enoch the seventh man from Adam. We find this Enoch walked with God for three hundred years amid the riot and the revel of an ungodly world; so walked above its iniquity and shame in fellow- ship with truth and righteousness that God took him home without dying; and this Enoch, in his book written more than three thousand years before the first advent, testifies not about the first, but the SECOND saying: ^'Behold the Lord V Cometh with ten thousands of His Saints." This brings us to the last book of the Bible, the • book of the Revelation. The book was written under peculiar circumstances and specially and specificially inspired. When our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, God the Father gave Him a full revela- tion of His Second Coming. Our Lord gave that revelation to an angel and bade him give it to John, the John who had THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 35 leaned upon His breast at supper, and the John who wrote the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of Grace and Glory. John was in the island of Patmos, a persecuted and Roman prisoner for his Master's sake. To him the Lord appeared in glory in the island prison and bade him write the Revelation in a book and send it to the Churches. The subject of the book, the whole book, is the SECOND COM/A^G of the Lord; for, this very word "Revelation," is "Apocalypse" and signi- fies "Unveiling." It is the unveiling and reveal- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full and won- drous picture of His Second Coming; wherefore in the very first chapter and in that portion of it which is the introduction to the whole book, he says, "Behold He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him." Every chapter is related to this Second Com- ing, weaving about it the movement among the nations, the gathering for the conflict, the loosen- ing of the spirits and the bonds of evil, sickness and disease and pestilence, falling out of the very air; unseen and demoniacal powers behind visi- 36 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRlSf ble wickedness, hardening judgments which only tend to inflame the Satanism of the hour; in- creased wickedness and monstrosity responding to every judicial whip lash and probing; and then at the end of a description in which we hear the sound of trumpets, and the rush of the multitude, like the rushing of the seas ; after we have been given a picture of the climacteric moment when the Lord shall descend and crash into the dust with the iron flail of His Sceptre the organized iniquity that has opposed Him, we hear Him saying in a speech full of persistent and per- suasive pathos, "Surely, truly indeed, I am Com- ing. I am coming quickly. I am coming a SECOND time." And thus it is evident this doctrine of the Sec- ond Coming is inwrought with every fibre of the Bible and from end to end is an essential and vital part of it. So inwrought is it with all its texture and testimony that if I should take out of it every direct statement made concerning the Second Coming, all correlative propositions, doc- trines, promises and exhortations, together with the wide sweeping ultimate concerning it, there THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 37 would be nothing left of the Bible but shreds and tatters. Who is he then who talks about the Sec- ond Coming of Christ being non-essential and unimportant? Unimportant! I hope by the grace of God later on to show it to be so important that it is bound up actually and indissolubly with every fundamental doc- trine, every practical exhortation, every sublime promise and every radiant hope; and that unless you know this doctrine you cannot read your Bible intelligently, you have no key to open its locks, slip back its bolts and fling wide the doors to the ivory galleries of the King. Who is he then who will say we can talk too much and preach too much about it? But not only does the doctrine of the Second Coming have to suffer from ignorance, indiffer- ence and prejudice, but from lawless perversion and false teaching. There are those who teach the Second Com- ing of the Lord means the coming of the Spirit; but the Lord's own statement about the coming of the Spirit ought to be all sufficient answer. > 38 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST He said, "If I go not away the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send Him unto you." "If I go the Spirit will come," and therefore the Com- ing of the Spirit does not mean the Coming of the Lord, but going of the Lord. Get it and hold it fast. The Coming of the Spirit is the Going of the Lord; and the presence of the Spirit means the bodily absence of the Lord; therefore the Coming of the Spirit is not the Coming of the Lord. It is said the Lord came at the siege of Jeru- salem ; and there are those who make the twenty- fourth chapter of Matthew and the tribulation therein described as the base of such teaching; for the sake of argument admitting the suffer- ing and anguish of the siege to have been the great tribulation (which it was not) , it is written, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days . . . shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven . . . and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." I suppose you have read history, and you know THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 39 after Jerusalem had been taken and Titus had run his plough share over the ruins, the sign of the Son of Man did not appear in the heaven; neither did the Son of God Himself appear with His cohorts of Holy Angels and all the earth bending, some in adoration and others in fear be- fore Him. In the nature of the case, and overwhelmingly so, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem was not the Coming of Christ. There are those who teach our Lord Jesus Christ comes each time a Christian dies; and I have no doubt you have heard funeral sermons or addresses delivered from the text "In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh" and the application of it made to the hour of death. But the Scriptures make it demonstrably clear and plain when a Christian dies the Lord does not come to the Christian, but the Chris- tian goes to the Lord; as it is written by the Apostle, "I have a desire to depart and be with Christ;" and again, "Absent from the body and present with the Lord." But yonder in the assembly of the Jewish Sanhedrin the whole 40 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST truth is demonstrated and proved. Stephen is before them. He arraigns them for their unbe- lief and charges them with guilt in rejecting Jesus as their Messiah. By the power of the Holy Ghost he looks into the opened heavens and sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God and cries out and says, "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." They rushed upon him with gnashing of teeth, cast him out and stoned him and he kneeling down cried with a loud voice, "Lord Jesus receive my Spirit." He did not say, "Jesus Come to me," but "Jesus Receive me." And this great action on the part of the Lord, and this relation of the believer to Him, takes place each time a Christian dies. The Christian at death goes to be with the Lord, and as each redeemed spirit departs and ascends to Him, He rises up to receive and welcome that spirit to its new abode. The death of the Christian then is not the Coming of Christ, but the going of the Chris- tian to Christ. There are those who teach our Lord's Coming takes place in providential dealings and events. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 41 He comes each time a cyclone lays waste a city or a land ; each time a tidal wave lifts itself upon the shore, invading homes, destroying industries and swallowing up the lives both of evil and of good; each time a bridge breaks down, a ship sinks, a train runs off the track, the shiver of an earthquake or the pestilence that offers its holo- caust. Think of the grotesque conception of any school of theological interpretation which en- deavors to pass off a pestilence, a fever, or the shadow of death, as the Coming of Him who is life and health itself, the victor over death and the grave; but there is a threefold answer to all this fumbling and folly of excuseless and irre- sponsible interpretations. First of all it is written, ^'The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven." The Lord Him- self, not winds, nor clouds, nor storm and dark- ness, not fever nor pain nor disease nor imper- sonal things, but — The Lord Himself. Second. When the Lord comes in His final glory every eye shall see Him. Third. And this is the cumulative, climac- teric, and irresistible demonstration and proof, 42 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST this scheme of providential events is not only not true, but scarcely worth the while to answer; for, if our Lord Jesus Christ came when the Holy Ghost came, at the siege and destruction of Jeru- salem, each time a Christian dies, at every mani- festation of providence, in all cataclysmic and catastrophic events and circumstances, then He has not come twice nor thrice nor ten, nor a hun- dred, nor a thousand times, since He went away, but millions of times ; and this would reduce the whole proposition of the Coming again to monu- mental nonsense, childish perversion and a farci- cal exegesis worthy only to the crowned with cap and bells; but the text from which I am preaching, thundrously and irresistibly answers all this folly; as it is written, ^'Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the Second time." Not three times or four times and all the rest of it, but a 6'E CO A^D time. From all this then which so far has been said, it ought to be evident, altogether self evident, that the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is a personal, definite and SECOND COMING. And because this Second Coming is so bound THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 43 up and interwoven with every filament and fibre in the fabric of the Book, and has employed all the wealth of human speech, all figure, symbol and type, all the powers of the Eternal Spirit to set forth, portray and intimately illustrate; be- cause the Book opens with the announcement of it, and ends with the voice of the Lord in special accents of gentleness and tenderness, graciously and yet authoritatively assuring it, it is not only of supreme importance as so manifestly pro- claimed, but of immense and insistent necessity. // is necessary, in order that our Lord Jesus Christ may demonstrate the validity of His per- sonal and essential claims. He claimed to be Son of God and God the Son, the heir of the world and the disposer of the destinies of men. He made heaven and hell for a human soul depend upon the relation of that soul to Himself, and so claimed the right and prerogative as infinite God that were He not such. He was the most arrant and wicked de- ceiver who ever sought to blind and entrap the sons of men : as such the Jews denounced Him, and hailed Him, and sent Him to the cross of shame. 44 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST But let Him come down the dome of yonder sky with His eyes as a flame of fire and His voice as the sound of many waters, and men shall call the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and will own that He is God and Lord and Judge of human kind. It is necessary He should come to make good His claims as the King of Israel, He carried His credentials as such with Him. He could point to Joseph His adopted father, a prince of the house of David, as the channel of His legal claim to David's throne. He could point to His mother as a princess of the House of David, and through her by actual descent through Nathan from David himself, as lineal heir of David's throne, as David's Lord and Is- rael's King. He carried His credentials every day in the miracles He wrought. Miracles which had been foretold, stamped, sealed and made so clear no man could blunder nor mistake, to- gether with fulfillment of events and conditions so marked and true, that at every step they pro- claimed Him and proved Him to be the Sent of Qod; but in the face of the most marvellous THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 45 verification ever made, either by God or man, the judicially blinded and guilty nation rejected Him, nailed Him to the cross, while over Him was written by a Roman Governor's divinely di- rected hand, ^^This is the King of the Jews,'* But let Him come with His schekinal clouds, His encircling host of angelic guards, with song of seraphim and might of cherubim, with the echoing of ten thousand times ten thousands of celestial harps, and all the music of a choral uni- verse; let Him stand on that Olivet from whose slope He ascended; let Him blaze forth in the meridian splendor that shall cause the sun to dwindle as a shadow beneath His feet, and the repentant Jew, always moved by signs and won- ders, will fall down, confess, and say unto Him, "Lo thou art our God, we have waited for Thee." It is necessary that He should come to justify the faith of the long, long, waiting ages. O, how men have believed and trusted and watched and hoped and died, as they called on His name. He must come to justify the rack, the stake, the torture. If the God of heaven do not send Him back, if He has looked on at all this 46 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST sacrifice and agony and faith and unhesitating death for Christ's sake, has had no intention to, and never will, send Him, then God is, Himself, unspeakably guilty of allowing the sons of men to be ensnared, entrapped and wholly deceived in the false statement and misrepresentation of the Word He Himself has inspired. Nay! the blood of the martyrs cries out from every gibbet, and from every place of heroic devotion, "Come » Thou Son of God, Come once more." It is necessary He should come to give peace, not only to individual hearts, but to the world as a system of government among men. Up to this hour human government has been a huge and costly failure. From the beginning it has been a series of unbroken war, battle, blood, tyranny, oppression, anguish and woe. At the present moment some twenty of the nations of the earth are at each other's throats, trampling one another in the mud and red mire of blood. The banner of civilization woven through centuries of self gratulation has been torn into shreds and the rags and tatters of it flung out upon the gusty winds and driving storms of the loosened temp- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 47 est of man's wild beast and brutal passions. And there is no betterment promised for the future. Whatever nation comes forth victorious from the war, England, Germany, or Russia, there will be the impulse for greater conflict. If Eng- land win, she will have a sentimental score to settle with America; and both America and England will face each other with intensity of national determination on the issue of the world's commerce and the-world's industry. If Germany win, she too, will have a score to settle with this country, and heavy answers to give to what she will count as comfort to her foe; and that little yellow spot of self exalted heathenism in the East, growing and throwing out its octopus like tentacles over the Pacific's waters is reaching far beyond its island home. If Russia win, England and India and the East will become factors in complications whose peril no man can measure. Everywhere and at every turn the multiplication of complications and the frenzy and insanity of self-interest under the leadership and culminat- ing ambition of the Devil, will make the earth the arena for the wars and rumors of wars of 48 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST which the Son of God foretold, and for the uni- versal impact that shall gather all nations to battle. On all the horizon no angel of peace is seen, only the black formless things of discord, of con- fusion and of ever resounding conflict. It is necessary, therefore, that He should / come to lay His hand upon earth's fevered pulses, to evoke order out of chaos and bring in that government of righteousness and peace whose wide fulfillment shall be earth's most golden hour. He must come to make Salvation complete. Salvation is not complete, Paul in yonder heaven with Christ is only half saved. All the saints of God who are there and every Christian who dies and departs to be with Christ, are only half saved. How can any Christian be more than half saved so long as the body which was redeemed by blood and sealed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, lies mouldering in the grave? That other half is still under the DeviFs grip. The Devil has the power of death; on all THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 49 mortal bodies he has a legal mortgage signed and sealed. The grave is his house, the bodies are his goods, and he is the "strong man armed," armed with that law which says, "Death has passed upon all men," and "It is appointed unto men once to die." The Devil holds the goods. The saints of God in heaven, though they be clothed with robes of white, wrought in the looms of God, are at best but manifested ghosts, disembodied souls, who wait the clothing which their bodies alone may give. They lack their full salvation. Hear what the Apostle says: "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." How can Paul say that when he above all other apostles has declared all who believe, and from the very moment when they believed, were then and are now securely and doubly saved because their life is hid with Christ in God? How can our salvation be nearer when the Son of God Himself has said, "He that be- lieveth on Me hath everlasting life," and that none can pluck them out of His Father's hand? 50 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The answer is, salvation is threefold, for us, in us, and upon us. It is ours in the death of Christ which delivers us from the penalty of sin; ours in the communicated life of Christ and indwelling of the Holy Spirit which are able to deliver us from the power of sin; and ours, when our bodies are redeemed from the clasp and corruption of death, and made immortal. Not till a Christian receives his body from the dust or is changed while living and transfigured; not till he is clothed upon by an immortal body, is salvation according to the eternal purpose and promise of God complete. And the resurrection of the body and the transfiguration of the saints can take place only when the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, He who is the resurrection and the life, shall come the SECOND time. It is necessary that He shall come. It is necessary that He shall speak, and bid the graves, on land and sea, give up their purchased dead. Thus the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ a THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 5 I second time is not only a supreme necessity, but the hope of all hopes. It is the hope of the world. The hope of all the nations of the earth; the Gentile nations, the white, the black, the red, the brown and yellow, peoples of all kindreds and tongues. It is their only hope for that hour when war shall cease, and be learned no more; when swords shall be beaten into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks. It is the hope of the Jew, Not till He come will the Jew find his abid- ing place in Palestine. Not till He come will the solemn oath and covenant and promise of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, be fulfilled. And not till the Jew is in his place in Palestine can the world be at peace; not till the Jew is at home and one with God will the Gentile be ruled by God. The Coming of the Lord is the hope of the Church, Not till the Lord comes, girds the Church with His glory, fills her with His fullness, makes her like Himself, can she occupy the throne of 52 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST power and associated rulership with Himself, and bring the world into the fellowship of God and truth. Yea and Amen! the Coming of the Son of God a SECOND time is the ^'Blessed Hope" of the Church, the bloom, the beauty, and the fru- ition of all hopes. Oh! if He do not come, it is the withering and the blight and the overthrow. All Scripture goes down pell mell into the abyss of untruth and unreality, or, is whirled away like fallen leaves of a dying tree and scat- tered on the windy blast. And the cross of Christ looms against the fire smitten and lurid horizon, a crimson failure, an instrument of cruel agony whereon a man failed and went down to the yawning grave that waited for Him. The failure of a Man! Nay ! the failure, the bankruptcy of the world ; a grave into which all hope and faith fall dead and lie hopeless as a rotting corpse. But the Word of God cannot fail. It is settled in the heavens forever more. Each utterance is filled with the breath of God and the speech and THE SECOND CO AUNG OF CHRIST 1 3 promise are of His very tongue. He, the living God has said it — and it is true — Christ the Lord, His Son, is coming a Second Time. He is coming as a man. He is coming with the marks of the cross upon Him. When I was a boy, there was a man in my town who used to move me with admiration, with childish wonder and, almost with adoration. He had been a soldier in the Mexican War. He had been wounded at Palo Alto. He bore the scars of that far away conflict; when I looked at those wounds they spoke to me of a heroism, a living loyalty, a life's outpaid tribute to the flag, that stirred my youthful pulses. But great and mov- ing as were the wounds to me then, they were as nothing to what filled my vision in later days. It was in the hour of the great war between the North and the South, when the problem of the life or death of our nation was being solved on the battlefield. I lived through that struggle and in some small degree was a part of it. One day when the sound of cannon came on the wind I 54 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST was halted with others on the side of the road that a convoy of the wounded might pass. They were loaded into great carts and wagons im- pressed from neighboring farms. And these wounded! they were young men, the flower and freshness of the land; and when I saw the band- aged heads and arms still reddened with their blood my heart melted within me, the tears leaped to my eyes. I saw in these men the radi- ance of that self sacrifice, that high and lofty con- cept which counts a flag and all it banners forth to be worth more than any single life; and these wounds and blood stains were to me as the stig- mata of unfaltering faith and abiding glory, the decorations and brevet of honor, of high attain- ment and of splendor, nor rank, nor pomp, nor wealth, nor crown of prince could give. But what were these stigmata, these seals of honor and devotion on the part of those who had breasted death that a nation might be saved, what were these compared to the stigmata of Him who died for you and me good friend, that we might live and be with Him in after days the sons of God forever? THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST S5 He is coming back with the marks of the nails and the spear wound He received for you and me. And I shall see Him, see Him by the right of the purchase price paid in the blood of those very wounds. I shall take His hand ; how can I endure the wonder, the glory, and the anguish even of the joy and reality of it? I shall put my fingers into the marks of the nails in His right hand. I shall do it as Thomas did, and yet not as Thomas did. I shall not do it to prove Him, to verify Him, but to thank Him; and I shall say, "It was for me." I shall put my finger into the wound of His left hand, and I shall say, "It was for me." I shall put my hand into His side where the spear point was sheathed in His breast, and where water and blood came forth from His broken heart, and I shall say, "It was for me;" and I shall fall down and kiss the nail marks in His feet and every full running tear of joy and praise shall say, "These were for me." Yes, He is coming back with the stigmata of the cross. He is coming back — not a phantom. 56 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST He is coming back a man, the man whom death could not kill; the man the grave could not keep; the man whom centuries could not wither and whom custom cannot stale; the man who is the Prince and the Giver of Life to men. He is coming back the Same Jesus. In spite of all His glory and splendor and in- finite crowning, He is coming back the same Jesus who sat by the well side in Samaria, — taught by the blue shores of Galilee, climbed the hills of Judea, and turned to music the dis- cord in human hearts by the words He spake such as man never spake before, the words of ten- der compassion, infinite love and measureless grace. He is coming as Bridegroom of the Church, as King of Israel, as David's Son, as King of kings, as the Restorer of the Earth, as its Recre- ator, as its Prince, its manifested and Eternal God. He will come first for the Church that she may share with Him the rapt beginning of His triumphant joys when He shall take to Himself His great power to reign and rule. Then with her He will come forth to begin the long and THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 57 wondrous unfolding deeds that shall lift the earth once more into the orbit from whence it fell, into the full music of the spheres, to become no longer the footstool, but the throne of God and the center on which shall fall the gaze of a fascinated-and adoring universe. He is coming in a threefold glory. He is coming in the glory of the Father. He is coming as His Son and, therefore, not only as the Son of God, but God the Son ; as the Word of that Father by whom He spake cre- ation forth and by whom He uttered His mind and will. He is coming in the glory of the angels. The angels are the spirit men to whom winds and storm and forces of nature are the easy in- struments of their constant service. He will come as their master and their Lord, at whose feet they shall pour the tributes of their power and own Him Lord and King. He is coming in His own glory. The glory of the Son who was born of a woman. 58 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The glory of Him who was the Babe of Beth- lehem. The man of sorrows. The atoning sacrifice. The risen man, the immortal man, the infinite and eternal man. He who is both God and man forever. And all the signs of the times indicate His coming is at hand. The signs in the Protestant Church. Its world- liness, its covetousness, its love of pleasure, more than the love of God. Its unwillingness to en- dure sound doctrine, its itching ears, heaping to itself teachers and ready to be turned by them from the truth of God to the fables of men. The signs in the Romish Church, the already reaching forward to that hour when once more as the ''Scarlet" woman she will for a season be feted and carried by the nations of the Roman Earth. Signs in the nations themselves, the rush of multitudes, the roar of battle, the shouting of the captains, the conclave and deception of the kings, the getting ready for Armageddon. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 59 Signs in the social world. The outbreaking of the people, the throwing down of old customs, the trampling under of old covenants, no master below, no master above. Signs everywhere that the old order is chang- ing, the new order coming; that new order which is disorder, disaster and unrest. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Is the church ready to welcome Him? Do Christians want Him to come? Are you as a Christian ready for Him? Are your accounts all correct? Have you drawn your contracts and drawn them with truth, the truth that has in it no reservation? Have you lived the whole truth or only a half truth? Do you know that a half truth is worse than a whole lie. Do you know that a half truth is the para- mour of a whole lie? Make no mistake Christian man, Christian woman, you must answer for your stewardship. And if He should come for you to-day, how would you answer Him? If He should ask, ^What have you done for Me to-day?" would you answer Him with joyful gladness and say, 6o THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST "I have done what my hand found to do, and done it with all my might for Thee." What He said to His disciples of old, He is saying now and saying it to each of you: 'Watch and be ready." And to you who are not saved! Let me warn you not to be living in a fooPs paradise. This world in which you are living is no holiday world, and it is no holiday answer you will be called to give for living here; no easy account to render for all the benefits He has bestowed upon you, and the grace in which He has dealt with you. You must meet and answer to the living God. You must meet Him in the person of the cross rejected Son of God. He is coming back, not only to recompense those who own His cross as an altar of sacrifice whereon He died for men, He is coming back to avenge that cross, and charge it as a crime against all who do not own and confess His name. 1 You must meet Him either as an Avenger or a Redeemer, as Saviour or as Judge. Let me beseech you to hear the sounds of THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 6 1 warning that are coming down the gale, in the tumult and the storm, and the gathering black- ness as it lowers on the rim of a startled and astonished world. Turn to God^s Christ and now in this hour of His waiting and grace, claim redemption and the saving shelter of His blood — before too late. II THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST IN RELA- TION TO DOCTRINE, TO PROMISE. AND TO EXHORTATION The Second Coming of Christ In Relation to Doctrine, to Promise and to Exhortation I DESIRE to preach to you the second sermon in the series on, "The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." My theme a week ago was, "The Second Com- ing of Christ, the one event more often spoken of than any other in the Bible." I affirmed, I demonstrated and I proved that in its narration, delineation and illustration, it was inwrought with the entire fabric, the con- struction and essential constitution of the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. My theme tonight is, "The Second Coming of Christ, the one event, the one doctrine bound up with, and fulfilling, every fundamental doctrine, every sublime promise, every radiant hope, giv- ing inspiration to every practical exhortation, and furnishing the basis of apostolic appeal to the highest type of Christian living." 66 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST My text may be found in Saint Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, second chapter and first verse : ''Now, we beseech you, brethren, by the Com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are those who preach and those who teach and multitudes of Christians and others who really believe that the doctrine of the Sec- ond Coming affords no warrant for appeal, either to the Church or the world ; that it is a question- able doctrine, wholly unimportant, and without practical value; that its tendency is to unsettle those who preach it and all who believe it, lead- ing them to speculation, to exalted imagination, and taking them away from the serious and sober side of responsible daily, Christian duty. I am here tonight to affirm, to demonstrate and to prove that, so far from this excuseless con- cept and almost brutal misinterpretation being true, the truth is, the Second Coming of Christ is not only the one event more often spoken of than any other in the Bible, it is so woven into, is so absolutely a climacteric necessity to Chris- tian doctrine, exhortation and promise, that if THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 67 you should take it out of the Bible, as some preachers have taken it out of their theology, Christianity as a system of divine revelation, and the Book as a record of it, v^ould fall to the ground, be broken into fragments and swept away as the withered leaves are whirled by the autumn gale. / affirm the Second Coming is bound up with the resurrection of the dead in Christ. ^The dead in Christ r What a far-flung phrase is that. It bids us go back to the hour in time's begin- ning when the faith of men and women looked forward through the intervening ages to the Cross, the resurrection and the shining glory, saw the promises afar off, embraced them and died. Through the continuing centuries they died. "The dead in Christ!" They are everywhere, under monumental piles, storied urn and marble bust, sleeping in unmarked graves, in the lonely church-yard, be- neath the moaning waves of the restless sea; those who have died by rack, by stake and tor- 68 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ture ; those who have fallen on the field of battle ; those who have passed out through the gates of disease and pain; and others, who have gone as when the sun sets and the colors fade softly and quietly from the evening sky. And they shall rise, e'-cery one in his own order, in his own company. Such an one as Ahel, who first told the story of redeeming blood, and whose lamb to slaughter led, was a picture of Him who was the Crucified, and is now the glorified Lamb of God. Enoch, who amid the slime and indescribable slush of antediluvian iniquity walked with God, and walked so intimately that God took him to Himself without dying. He shall not rise from the dead, but in the company of those who shall rise, he shall stand forth among the transfigured, changed and glorified. Noah, a preacher of righteousness who for one hundred and twenty years testified of the way of salvation, in the building of the ark condemned the world, and warned a mocking and gainsaying generation of the woe to come; Noah, who from within the security of the impervious ark, heard THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 69 the rush and thunder of the mighty flood, and in every crash of it heard the accents of the Son of God saying that as it was in the days of Noah so should it be when the Son of Man should come; Noah who, on the hither side of the flood died in the faith of Christ. These shall rise in their own particular com- pany. The Patriarchs shall rise a separate and won- drous company, Abraham, who kept the flame of faith and de- votion burning on the altar of the home. Isaac, who yielded to his father's uplifted knife in the full confidence that, though he died, God would raise him from the dead. Jacob, who when Pharaoh said to him, "How old art thou?" answered, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been ;" Jacob, who when the night of death came down, turned his face to the east, caught a gleam of the coming and eternal morn and with prophetic vision foretold that the sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a law- 70 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST giver from between his feet till Shiloh should come; Jacob the memorial witness to the grace of God. Joseph, the one man in Holy Scripture against whom no charge of sin is made; Joseph, who when he was dying told them to wrap him up as a mummy is wrapped, put him in an Egyp- tian cofEn, carry him up to Palestine the Prom- ised Land, and place him in the cave of Mach- pelah. These shall rise and shine in their own par- ticular company. Such an one as Moses shall rise. Moses, who stood on Sinai's height as it shook and trembled; and who, amid the crash of thunders and the play of lightnings, waited while the finger of the living God wrote the ten commandments on their tables of "unquarried" stone; Moses, who hid- den in the cleft of the rock as the glory of the Lord passed by, beheld what that Lord should be in after days when, as incarnate God He should walk amid the sons of men ; Moses, who yonder on the bald and barren top of Nebo, be- neath its cloudless sky, at God's command laid THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 7 1 down to die; and whose incorrupted body was buried by the hand of God ; Moses, who fifteen hundred years after in that body preserved from corruption as the perfect type of the body of his Lord, appeared with Him upon the Mount of Transfiguration and spake of the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem; Moses, who shall revisit the earth and die once more. Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his priestly sons. Joshua, the captain of the Lord's host who led them through the divided waters of the swell- ing Jordan. These and those associated with them, men and women of the unfaltering faith, whose spir- 'itual eyes caught visions of the sacrificial cross, these shall rise together in their band. The prophets will rise in their own company, Isaiah, who wrote the fifty-third chapter, that chapter in which you see the lamb dumb before her shearers; in which you see the cross and the thieves on either side, the rich man's tomb, the resurrection and the triumph over death and the grave; that fifty-third chapter from which 72 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Philip, the evangelist, preached the Gospel to the wayfaring eunuch as he went from Jerusalem to Gaza down, and ''beginning at that same scripture preached Jesus unto him." Jeremiah, the weeping prophet who, with his face washed in tears, looked forward to the woe of Jerusalem when the holy city should be tram- pled under foot. Ezekielj who by the river Chebar saw visions of God, and one like unto the Son of Man en- throned, high and lifted up above the glory.^ Daniel, who under the impulse of the Spirit of God looked down the coming ages and saw twenty-five hundred years of unrolling human history. He saw Cyrus at the head of his Per- sian followers, saw him open the two leaved gates of Babylon and overthrow the golden city. He saw Alexander arise from the midst of the Macedonian hills and with his brazen Greeks sweep eastward across the Granicus, beyond Ar- bela to the Indus and the Oxus, turn back to Babylon and die in the welter of a drunken de- bauch as the hand of God fell smashingly upon his far extended empire, breaking it into its four THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 73 great and prophetic fragments. He looked on and saw Rome rise like a mighty colossus from the side of the yellow Tiber and stand with one foot on Europe and another on Asia. And his gaze has come on down to the surge of this red war, and beyond it to the rise of the ten demo- cratic kings and the last Kaiser who with his armies shall find their fateful overthrow beneath the walls of Jerusalem and in that ^Valley of de- cision," which is Jehoshaphat. There is Hosea who writing centuries ago foretold the very state of the Jews today, and Amos, and Joel, who tells of the gathering of the Gentile nations and the beating of ploughshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears be- fore it is possible that the swords shall be beaten back into ploughshares and the spears into prun- ing hooks; all the minor prophets to Malachi the closing pages of whose prophecy is bathed in the golden light of that sun of righteousness who shall arise with healing in His wings. These shall rise together, the company of ''the holy men of old" who spake as they were carried 74 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST along by the Holy Spirit, and whose words are the outbreathed words of God. In one of the great libraries of this country, in a building of noble architecture and sober, deco- rative beauty, an American artist has wrought around the hall a frieze in which the iavo- lution and genius of it consist in the rugged and gothic like, solemn and all warning figures of these prophets, a wondrous frieze, speaking to Americans of the need of righteousness and truth; but in the morning of the resurrection these prophets, risen and living in glorified bodies, shall stand forth the shining, scintillating and quickened frieze of human immortality, giv- ing emphasis and splendor to the redeemed of God who with them shall constitute His won- drous and living temple. Among the risen and glorified throng shall be seen such an one as John the Baptist who dared to tell a debauched Herod he had no right to his brother's wife; that John the Baptist who was put to death because the wanton woman whom he had rebuked sent her half-naked and lawless daughter to dance before the king and THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 75 SO appeal to his lust that at her request (and in- spired by her mother) he gave her the Baptist's head in a charger; John, of whom none born of woman has ever been greater, shall rise and con- front the murderous king and this dancing girl as together, they two, shall pass across the thresh- old of a final and deserved hell. John shall rise in the benediction of the First Resurrection and with him all who like him waited for the Mes- siah and prepared His way. Then amid the resurrection host shall be seen that mystic Body, that elect and covenant Bride, the Church. In that Church there will be distinct and sepa- rate companies. There shall stand forth the blessed company of the Holy Apostles. Peter, who drew forth his sword to defend the Lord, then denied Him with oaths and cursings, went out into the black night with broken heart, bitterness of remorse and tears of repentance; Peter, who at the close of after days given in full surrender to the Master's name refused, when they came to crucify him, to be crucified like his Lord, but demanded they 76 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST should nail him to the cross head downward and let him die like that. James, who though he stood for law and much of Judaism, has given, under God, and by his in- spiration, the clearest vision of this age and dis- pensation of the ^^taking out." John, who leaned upon the Master's breast at supper and heard the inmost beating of His heart; John, who dwelt at last in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, saw His glory above the bright- ness of the noonday sun, heard His voice as the sound of many waters; at His dictation wrote the amazing seven letters to the seven churches, and the twenty-two chapters of that book of Revelation which like the ceiling of a Sistine chapel gives the solemn frescoes and the sculp- tured outlines of the Consummation hour. And last of all, that ''Called" Apostle Paul whom the Lord met on the road to Damascus, blinded for a moment with His glory, then trans- formed him into his ''bond slave" forever; through whom He sent fourteen epistles of the New Testament to the Church of Christ; that THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 77 Paul whose one device is bannered forth in his far exultant cry, ^Tor me to live is Christ." This company of Apostles shall rise together. And along with them, the fathers of the Church, the mention of whose names recalls their genius, faith and consecration to the cross. Company after company will rise of saints and martyrs; men and women who did not count their lives dear unto them that they might pro- claim the story of redeeming love and grace and seal their faith with generous blood; multitudes whose names have never been known ; each shall rise in his or her own order; and as the stars differ one from another in glory so shall also these. And they shall arise in the bodies in which they died, the same, and yet, not the same; for, in the body of the believer there is inwrought at regeneration the basis of a new, yet old, body. Do with the dead body of the genuine Chris- tian what you may, that nucleus of the new one, like the heart of a planted seed, will be held by the Holy Ghost in union with the body of the risen Lord, and will wait the hour of germina- 78 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST tion, the resurrection hour when, at the sound of His voice who is the Resurrection and the Life, it will bloom and burst forth to be the dwelling place, the unfading garment of the disembodied Christian soul ; a body of glory, shining brighter than any star of night or sun of day; a body of power and no longer of weakness; a pneumatic, and no longer a soulical, body; a body that shall be, not the beastly minister to the soul, but the flashing instrument of the spirit. This is the First Resurrection, And that word, ''resurrection," rang across Asia and Europe like the sound of silver trump- ets ; with the far echo of the sound there came a light as when the dawn breaks over a long and starless night. To know the sudden awakening, the marvel- lous effect produced by the utterance of that word, you need to look at the world of that hour. Look at Rome! What a Rome it was, with the golden house of Nero, the piled up palaces of the Palatine, the Forum crowded with basilicas, with arch and column. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 79 Look down the Appian way as it stretches to Ostia and the sea. Receding right and left as far as the eye can reach the undulating Campagna, filled with cypress tree and garden, and red- roofed villas and far away vineyards where the swelling grapes purpled in the sun of slanting hills; and rising up and bordering this unique and inimitable roadway, temple like tombs and monuments and marble bastions. Draw near and read the sculptured epitaphs, each letter like a frozen tear congealed in the heart of despair as the living bid good-bye to the dead, and in the ^ stony speech of their own dead hopes, bid them good-bye forever. Over those tombs, those milestones of the dead, there breaks no single ray of hope. Then, suddenly, everywhere, men went forth proclaiming the resurrection of a man who had triumphed over death and the grave, and the as- sured resurrection of all who confessed their faith upon Him. He had risen. He would cause them to rise and live again. Death took on a new meaning. Men went forth to die; but no longer entered it as stoics 8o THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST pass to hopeless doom, they approached it with joyous smile and entered it as conquerors pass be neath triumphal arch and scattered wreaths. A new name was given to the place of burial. It was no longer the spot where life went down to corruption, to dust and silence forever; on the contrary, these graveyards became '^cemeteries," "sleeping places." Here the body was laid away in the name of Him who is the victor over death, laid away to sleep, until the morning voice should bid them wake. And when, think you, shall this resurrection take place? I answer you — 'At the SECOND COMING of our Lord Jesus Christ. As it is written : "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's, at His Coming . . . For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 8i first ... for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." Hark! "If a man die shall he live again?"' Who is asking that? It is Job, asking it out of the long, long ago. Let us answer him. "Yes, Job, the dead in Christ shall rise and live again. They shall rise, and live and be im- mortal when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come a second time.'' Take away the Second Coming, spiritualize it, take it out of the preaching, repudiate it, say Paul and all who taught it were mistaken. What then? I answer, apart from the Second Coming of Christ you have not a single fragment of Scrip- ture which, under legitimate exegesis, warrants you even to expect the resurrection. Without the Second Coming of Christ there never will be a resurrection of the dead in Christ, If you deny the Second Coming of Christ, then go to the graves of those you loved, em- balmed in your tears and laid away in hope, and write over them the words, "never-more." 82 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST If our Lord Jesus Christ does not come a Sec- ond time every Christian who dies will remain a disembodied ghost forever. And yet there are would-be wise and advanced teachers who talk about the unimportance of the Second Coming. Nay! The Second Coming is so important, so vital to faith and hope, that it is bound up with, inwrought with the whole principle and promise of the resurrection of the Christian dead, the dead in Christ. It is bound up with the doctrine and promise of the transfiguration of the living. It is written, that by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and that death has passed upon all men ; and that it is appointed unto men once to die. From the beginning the scythe of death has swung an unhindered swath. It has spared neither rank nor sex, nor age; king and cotter, prince and peasant, high and low, young and old, have fallen before it like ripened grain before the reaper's blade. Tho3e of us who have passed the meridian of THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 83 life have seen them go, great figures on the hori- zon of time; we have seen friends and relatives fall before the unhesitating blow. We who are alive begin to look at the gray hairs swiftly and surely coming amid the black or brown, at the wrinkles multiplying on face, on neck and hands. We wonder why we cannot walk so far today, or do so much, or so quickly in a day as we used to do. The fact is, death is approaching us, even while we talk of life and years and plans. Be- cause death cannot be ignored; because there is but a step betwixt us and that sudden snapping of the chord, that instant breaking of the pitcher at the well, business, contracts, marriage, are made in view of death; and because of its all- pervading presence and demand, men every- where say (and it is a phrase common to all lan- guage) , ^^one thing is certain, and that is, death." And yet, men and women, hear me! The one thing that is absolutely uncertain is death. Nothing in all the world is so uncertain as death — to the Christian. It is uncertain because it is absolutely sure and certain there will be a 84 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST generation of Christians on the earth who will never die. They will be going about their daily avoca- tions. Some will be carrying burdens, stabbing themselves with the sharp daggers of perplexity; some will be standing at the cross-roads of hesi- tation, not knowing whether to turn to the right or the left, and the night and darkness coming down. Some will be old and some will be young. Some will be languishing on beds of pain, and some may be entering into the shadow of death ; when, suddenly, each shall feel a thrill, a quiver, a throb of ecstasy and delight, a sense of freedom and splendid power; the dim eyes will see, the feeble knees will become strong, the nervous, trembling hands will become fresh and young. Youth, like an elixir, will run through every fibre, each Christian shall shine, and each shall see the other shine in immortal beauty. They shall stand changed, transfigured, glorified; Christians who shall never be measured for a shroud, and for whose bodies the graves shall never yawn. And when is this to be? THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 85 I answer, At the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, As it is written : "We shall not all sleep (we shall not all die) but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound . . . and we shall be changed (transformed) for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality/^ Immortality. What a word is that ! How men have dreamed of it, and sung of it, and written of it, and sighed and turned their faces to the wall and given it up. Years ago I stood before the Rostra in the Forum and tried to recall the hour when Cicero, yonder on the Velian hill perhaps, talked of im- mortality, read the Phaedo and sighingly said: "Plato thou reasonest well, but — " And that was all. And all the speech and all the writing, and all the rhetoric, and all the philosophizing to-day, leaves man standing at the edge of the grave without any answer that does not make it a guess, 86 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST forcing from his lips the bitter soliloquy, ^'To be or not to be — that is the question?^' But, listen to the proclamation that the Son of God is coming a Second time, and that His shout will ring down the heavens and raise the dead, and then, it is written : ^^We which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." The dead raised, the living changed at the Second Coming; and this might be any moment, any hour, ^^when ye think not!^ And yet, there are men standing in the pulpit with an open Bible and the very promise and as- surance of God leaping to their vision, who actu- ally dare to say to the hungry souls before them that the Second Coming of Christ is an unimpor- tant doctrine, a questionable event. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is not only bound up with the doctrine ef the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the cer- tainty of a non-dying and gloriously transfigured generation of Christians, it is hound up with the THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 87 doctrine of sonship with God and likeness to Christ, Sonship with God is not a natural prerogative. All men are not sons of God. God is n*ot the Father of all men. He is the Creator of all men, but Father only of those who believe in His Son ; as it is written : ^Tor ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." The moment an individual believes in our Lord Jesus Christ; the moment he oflfers Him by faith as his sin-offering, his sacrifice for sin and his personal substitute, that moment God the Father accepts the death of Christ on the cross as though the believer had been executed and done to death there. He transfers the obedience of Christ to the benefit of the believer. He ac- cepts Christ risen from the dead as his repre- sentative, as his righteousness ; so that it is writ- ten, "God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the right- eousness of God in him/' Then Christ the risen Lord as the Second Man, as the new head of the race, communicates His own perfect life to the 88 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST believer and gives him the Holy Spirit to dwell in him as the seal of redemption, the guarantee of salvation, and the pledge of immortality. The believer is then linked up to the body and life of the Lord. He becomes so identified with Him that it is said, he is ''joined to the Lord," and that he is ''one spirif with Him, of His Ytvy essence. He becomes a son of God, not only by sacrificial and legal relations but by actual union with the Father through the Son. But, while as believers, we receive a new life, a new spiritual nature, and exalted, heavenly de- sires, the old nature remains in us. It never changes. You may starve a tiger, so starve him that you can keep him under. Give him a taste of blood and he will turn on you for more. This old nature is the flesh, and will be flesh to the end of the age. It is our privilege to starve it and keep it under by means of the new nature; for, while we have two natures as Christians, we have but one responsibility, and one responsibility be- cause we remain but one personality. Again and again we fail to exercise that responsibility, gratify the demand of the old nature, and falling THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 89 under its claims do not live in nor reveal the di- vine life that is ours by spiritual birthright. The world which never reads the Bible but reads us as living epistles takes note of our failures and registers them against the profession we make as sons of God ; but even when a Christian lives on the highest plane and seems to fulfill every re- quirement of the profession he makes, even then the world, while admitting his moral value, can- not see that essentially he is any different from others who make no such profession. They do not believe he has any distinct nature, or is any more entitled to be called a son of God. The truth is, we are kings and princes in disguise. The world does not know us; as it is written: ''The world knoweth us not/^ But our sonship shall be made manifest and our likeness unto Christ revealed when He Himself shall come a SECOND time. Once Peter the Great, so it is said, after a day's work as a common laborer in the shipyard (but his identity unknown) stood with a group of fellow-laborers not far from where the Im- perial Guards were changed. The men were 90 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST full of talk and grew quite bitter in their de- nunciation of the government, and the condi- tion of the times; as the group increased the matter for a moment looked moblike and threat- ening. Just then the sound of a trumpet was heard with its vibrant note quavering upon the frosty air. In a moment Peter loosed and flung back his workman's blouse and revealed beneath it the uniform of the Guard, blazing with the in- signia of royalty. There was silence in the crowd, then with one accord they fell at his feet to own their Czar. Our Lord is coming, the trumpet will sound, and the fleshly garment that doth disguise us will be flung aside and we shall stand forth in all the beauty and all the glory of our imperial sonship. Many years ago when preaching in the coun- try-side, some one gave me a half-dozen poplar sticks with huge lumps of dried mud on the ends, telling me to keep them in my study; that some day those mud lumps would open and I would be surprised. I placed them in a long neck jar and forgot them. Some weeks later when re- turning to my study after a day spent in pastoral THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 91 visitation, I noticed the sticks were disarranged, some had fallen on the table, all were cracked and pieces of dried clay lay on the floor. I won- dered who had been disturbing things when a whirring sound made me look up, and floating gracefully here and there against the walls were six of the largest and finest red-bodied moths I had ever seen. They had been shut up as chrys- alids within these muddy cases, and in the ful- ness of their time had broken forth and soared into a realm of light and air. Like them, we too, the dead and the living shall break forth from this muddy vesture of mortality which doth en- cximber us, soar into the realm of light and air to meet a descending Lord and be like Him. It is written, "We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." As the dawn breaks through the night and paints the lifted mountain peak with roseate hue, fills the valfey with its waves of light, turns river, rivulet and stream to silver and pours forth its illumination, until each tree and branch and 5tone and blade of grass stands forth as though 92 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST it had been etched in fire and flame by artist needle; so, at the sight of Him, each child of God will be transfigured, clothed upon with heavenly beauty, and made like unto Him. And this apocalypse of personal splendor, let it be remembered, is at the SECOND COMING of our Lord. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the doctrine and the promise of rewards. As believers we are saved without good works of any sort; but saved that we may do good works of every sort. We do nothing to be saved, that we may do something after we are saved. We are not only called to faith but service in His name. The Christian who says he believes and then sits down and is a spiritual do-nothing is a pitiful puzzle to the angels of God and a source of mockery and rejoicing to the demons of the pit; and the time is coming when as believers we shall have to render an account to the Lord for the gifts He has bestowed upon us, for the opportunities He has placed before us, and for the devotion or the lack of it which may have THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 93 been the character of our days. No matter how small the service if it has been rendered in His name to the full of our ability and opportunity, we shall receive a reward. But when are the rewards to be given? They are not to be given at death, when the departing believer enters Heaven. Not a single saint of God has yet been re- warded. Paul has not received his reward. Listen to what he says : "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." And what is that day? When the Lord comes a SECOND time; as it is written : "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then shall he re- ward every man according to his works." And again it is written: 94 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man as his work shall be." If you have only given a cup of cold water in His name, or given the glad hand for His sake that you might lift some soul out of the deep and guide his feet into the way of life, you will not be forgotten ; you will get your reward when the Lord comes. But mark this! The Lord is so interested in His own coming, He is waiting for it with such patience, such hope, and such profound interest, that His attention is specially drawn to those who love the thought of it, and wish Him to come; so much do those who love the SECOND COMING appeal to the Lord that in the day when He is revealed He will give a special crown to those who love it, have been devoted to it, and stood forth to proclaim it; as it is written: "And not to me only (that is, not to Paul only will a crown of righteousness be given) but unto all them that love his appearing/' If you wish a crown of righteousness let your heart go out In love and devotion and earnest de- light at the thought of His SECOND COMING, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 95 The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the promise of satisfaction. Satisfied! Who in this world has ever been satisfied? Go back to that far time v/hen Solomon was king. He had wealth such as no king before nor since ; gold and silver poured into his coffers like waters from exhaustless mountain springs. He built palaces and temples. He had stables with thousands of horses. He had chariots. He made parks and lakes and water courses. He planted gardens and orchards. He had pools and ponds for fish of all sorts. He gathered musicians and instruments of music. He had men servants and maid servants born in his house. His table was loaded and groaning with luxuries. He was clothed in robes woven on Tyrian looms. He gave himself up to art, to literature. He had more wisdom and knowledge than any man who ever lived before or since. He gave himself up to every desire of his heart. He refrained his hand from nothing his heart desired. He be- came an epicure, a gourmand^ a materialist, a 96 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST confirmed sensualist. He had a harem of seven hundred women, wives, concubines and mis- tresses. He drank of every fountain. He tasted of every joy. His glory was so great, the Queen of Sheba who came from the uttermost part of the earth to see him, said the half had not been told; and after he had tasted every spring of human pleas- ure, drained every cup to the dregs and passed through every experience wealth and absolute power could give, he cried out that all was vanity of vanities, and there was no profit in anything under the sun. Satisfied! None has ever been satisfied. Not Midas, turning to gold all things he touched; not Croesus, burning on his funeral pyre of heaped up and useless wealth. Satisfied! Not the beggar at the gate ; not the decent poverty that painfully seeks to make ends meet; not the man whose desires find no finan- cial barrier. Go under the lustre of the rich man's chandeliers, sink your feet in the yielding soft- ness of his easy carpets, walk through his galleries of priceless paintings, admire his garnered THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 97 bibelots from every land, let him tell with pride of his poor beginnings and the plans his ambition and wealth make possible ; and in an unguarded moment you will hear him sigh and know there is yet some one, and lacking, thing, that keeps him from being satisfied. Satisfied! O no, men are not satisfied. They are tossed and restless, and the chief desire of their hearts, the one thing, whatever it may be which they imagine will make them satisfied, like the will o' the wisp, flies ever before and eludes them. But hark! j I hear a voice coming across the ages. "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." What is that? It is the sound of a harp and the refrain of a song. It is David the king and he sings and he says, he shall be satisfied, satisfied when he awakes in the likeness of the Lord. He and all the dead in Christ shall awake at the SECOND COMING of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, my soul! that is the hour of satisfaction; 98 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST that is the one event that will not disappoint — THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. And when He comes we shall fall at His feet and confess the half has never been told us. In any hour of sorrow or trial or burden and great unreached desire, remember, you shall be satisfied and fully satisfied when Jesus Comes. Your perfect satisfaction shall greet you at His SECOND COMING. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is hound up with the doctrine of the recognition of the dead. There is one question which rises involunta- rily to the lips of those who are bereaved of their loved ones. They ask : "Shall we see and know them again? In the great hereafter shall we meet and joyfully greet each other?" And this question is asked because death is a great awakener and a great revealer. When some one with whom we have been living is suddenly taken from us we realize we have not appreciated them as we should; that we have been almost brutal with them at times, not in THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 99 word or deed, but in the lack of that warmth, that sincere recognition, we should have given them ; and we feel we would they might be given to us again that we might repair the sad mistakes, and that we might try over again and make the relationship of life to life all it should have been. Some years ago at the close of one of my meet- ings a man of about forty or thereabout ap- proached me, and I saw by his manner that he was greatly moved. With a sort of hesitating and yet earnest manner he said: "Do you think we shall know each other in Heaven?" He saw my look of inquiry. Then he told me he was the youngest of three boys. The family lived in the New England hills on a small and scrubby farm. The father died. The mother and the two boys endeavored to carry on the home. This youngest son had been of a hasty and passionate temper. He was quick to speak, saying often rash and regrettable things, but just as quickly and sincerely sorry for them. His mother was devoted to him, and In spite of his unconscious tendency to a lawless spirit, loved lOO THE SECOND COA/fiNG OF CHRIST his mother. He went away from home. He married, had a family, was successful. Twice a year perhaps, once always, he would visit the old homestead, while the mother, growing old, still lived with the eldest son. She had recently died — and looking at me, this one-time boy and now grown and successful man, said, with a tremor in his voice he could not conceal : ''Mother died some weeks ago. I went back to the old hills to see her laid away side by side with my father in the village church-yard; and Doctor Haldeman," he said, 'Vhen I stood in the narrow little parlor with its faded paper on the walls, and looked down at the thin, worn face and the white hair, all my boyhood days came back to me, and I saw my mother as I never saw her before. I saw how often she had just waited for some word from me that might have told her how I really loved her and appreciated her; and Doctor," he said, and the man moved me to the core as he said it, "Doctor, I'd give ten thousand dollars if I could have that little old mother back again for ten minutes that I might just tell her all that is in my heart about her now. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST loi Do you think I'll — I'll have that chance, Doc- tor?" And I tell you what I told him, that if you sincerely believe in the Son of God as your Re- deemer and Lord, you will meet and know the Christian dead who have gone beyond you. Listen to the word of comfort that comes sing- ing to your soul from the lips of an inspired apostle : '^Then shall I know even as also I am known." And that ''then' shall be when He comes a SECOND time : when we shall see Him as He is ; for, it is written that He, Himself, shall descend from heaven. He will raise the dead, transfigure the living and both shall be caught up together to meet Him in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord; and because of this the apostle bids us not to sorrow over our dead even as others which have no hope; and to comfort one another with the assurance that at the Lord's Coming we shall be together again. It must be plain to you and the simplest or most callous mind that should the Lord come and we not know each other the exhortation to I02 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST comfort one another with the thought of the risen dead and the transfigured living meeting together in His presence would be an exhorta- tion of meaningless and useless words distilling for us, not the essence of comfort, but of bitter- ness and disappointed longing. Nay, there shall be no disappointment. We shall know even as we are known, and that when our Lord comes the SECOND time. Resurrection from the dead, transfiguration of the living, the manifestation of sonship with God, likeness to Christ, rewards of faith and service, the satisfied soul, recognition and cogni- tion of the dead, are all bound up with, and de- pendent for their fulfilment on, the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet men in the face of all this have the hardihood to say it is an unimportant doctrine; and that it is an unsettling and disturbing theme to preach. What shall be said of those, whether in pulpit or pew, who have either the boldness or the ig- norance to utter such things? Not only is the Second Coming of Christ THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 103 bound up with every fundamental doctrine, it is equally bound up with every sublime promise. It is bound up with the promise of victory over the devil. God never created a devil. He created an angel of the rank of cherubim and their head, beautiful, full of wisdom, might and power. God gave him this fresh created world as a province of the infinite empire. He was carried away with the contemplation of himself, saw in himself limitless possibilities of rulership and glory, was unwilling to sub- ordinate his immense personality to that of an- other, revolted against the all-enclosing impact of the divine presence, determined to break through, make his own selfhood the sufficient and all-pervading environment, rebelled against God and lost the world. The second verse of the first chapter of Genesis tells us that the earth which had originally been created under the light of sun and moon and stars, fell into chaos from which after a season whose length is not determined God delivered it, reforming it In six days and creating man, set him up In the 104 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST place of Satan to be its head, the ruler and ad- ministrator. Satan led man to turn his back upon the of- fered partnership with God, and enter into part- nership with himself. In this Satan became the master and man the dupe and slave. He has led man into idolatry, into all false religions, into war and rapine, murder and lust. He has in- vented false philosophies, and transforming him- self into an angel of light, has sent forth his min- isters as ministers of righteousness, but a right- eousness which denies the blood. He is the adversary of God and man. No sooner do you seek the path of righteous- ness, of spirituality, and truth than you find him flinging his barricades across the way, or thrust- ing out the hand that will misguide and lead astray. He is every where and in all things op- posed to God, and the adversary of whatsoever may turn the thoughts of men to God. Go, attend your evening prayer-meeting. At its close go down the brightly illuminated street. Everywhere red lips, white hands, jewelled fingers, lives full of passion, the glare, the glitter, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 105 the clink of glass, the sparkle of wine, the care- less laughter, the insidious speech, the wide-flung doors of amusement, the offered pleasures of sin, at every turn the invitation to gratify, to culti- vate the flesh, to excite the blood, to stir the ani- mal, to set on fire the veins, to appeal to ambi- tion, to pride, to envy, to disregard all restraint and — to forget God. Talk about converting the world by the Gos- pel, changing, moulding, making over all this steaming, sweating, seething mass of unspiritual flesh and palpitating sensualism, making it over into cool, clean unfevered spirituality! Talk about the Church, by the doors of whose dark- ened buildings the crowd is surging; talk about the Church overthrowing the devil and bringing in the reign of abiding purity, chastity and devo- tion to the things of God ! Let the carnival of the devil, this grip of Satan on the bodies, on the unloosed animalism of man, his directing and compelling inspiration for the mad service he invites warn you against the folly of any such concept. Nor is he simply the smiling fiend behind the Io6 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST gay and mocking crowd, but in the name of science, free thought, progressive ideas and lib- eral spirit; in the name of culture and charity and the betterment of human life every day lead- ing men away from the written Word of God, away from the light that shines from an open grave, shutting out from men the vision of a risen and a loving Christ who is alone the God to be revealed to men. Without efifort every day he seems to win and the crowd like dumb driven cattle follow in the way. He seems to win, and God again and again seems far off, and faith faints, and hope seems wingless. Is it always to be so? No! Thank God. No. The devil is to be overthrown and bound and wholly vanquished at the last. The long descending career from the cherubic glory will reach its nadir, the end will come. God and Christ and righteousness will win. But how and when? THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1^7 Again I answer you — at the SECOND Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It will be at that hour and under those circum- stances so tremendously painted by the Holy Spirit in the nineteenth chapter of the Revela- tion; in that hour when He shall come forth followed by the armies of heaven, riding on the steeds of judgment. Then shall He lay hold on Satan, bind him, cast him into the pit and shut him up for a thousand years. From thence shall he be transferred finally to that cage whose every bar is a flame of fire ; and where forever he shall be tormented as the result of that consciousness which sought to eliminate from itself the will and way of God. Forever as a prisoner of state, he shall be the eternal witness that he who seeks to exalt himself shall be cast down; from the depths of his awful misery he shall bear witness to the exaltation of that Christ who, although from unbegun eternity clothed with the form and appearing of God and from everlasting His visibility and word of utterance, did not, Satan- like, grasp at and hold on to that equality, but for the sake of us men and our redemption, and lo8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST for the display of divine and infinite grace was willing to lay it aside, put off the robe of His splendor, and clothe Himself with the limita- tion, the poverty and humiliation of our hu- manity. Victory for God and overthrow of the devil is certified at the SECOND COMING of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the promise that creation shall he delivered from the bondage of corruption. When man sinned and fell from his exalted plane, God put a ban, a curse and limitation on the earth. He said it should be checked on the side of its fruitfulness in worthful seeds: but that it should bring forth the hindering and sterilizing thorns and thistles. And God has kept His Word and held the ban. Go into that field, subsoil it deeply with your modern plough ; then plant it well with best of seeds; and lo, weeds and thorns shall spring up to choke and keep them down. Plant a garden, and unless with tireless vigil you watch both THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 109 night and day, root out and overturn with merci- less stroke of hoe and spade the multiplying thorns and creeping, worthless vines, they will so grow, invade and insist their rights upon the elect and chosen ground, that almost before you are aware of it, they will, like lustful villains and brutal robbers, be strangling and robbing the honest plants of life and fruitful gain. Everywhere it is so. You must sweat and toil and labor on to bring forth your harvest; but, you need never turn a hand's breadth to help the weeds and thorns and worthless multiplying things ; leave them alone, ignore them, let wind and rain and storm, the wind and rain and storm that devastate and ruin your blooming flowers and precious growths, let them alone, and they will grow and thrive and riot in a perfect de- bauch of rank increase, running over stoniest and most repelling ground to show their strength, reach out and spoil all not of their kind. To poisonous weeds and evil things there is no apparent limit, no needed care to make them bloom; but always and everywhere and in all things there is limitation and hindrance when 1 10 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST you seek to expand and make more fruitful that which is good. There is limitation in the earth. There is a ban upon it, sterile wastes, barren deserts and re- sisting rocks. Because of this limitation and hindrances hu- man life is a struggle ; a struggle which begins at birth and manifests itself in the very hour V article of death. Ever}^vhere under this ban and curse of thorn and thistle and the iron bond of hindered good, there is corruption and the helpless bondage of it. Everywhere there is the disintegration, the moaning and the lamentation; everywhere there is, as the apostle calls it, ''The sufferings of this noiv time/^ That the earth is capable of a million fold greater yield of bounty is demonstrated every day as science slowly applies its increasing knowl- edge, and here and there lays hold of some hitherto unknown and operating force; but no matter in what direction the push, always there is the interfering force and hindrance. That man is capable, has in him mentally, as- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 1 1 sets of power for greater things, is demonstrated not only by the things he does, but by the things he attempts to do and cannot. But this ban is to be taken off. This imposed curse is to be removed. The earth is to be loos- ened from her gyves. She is to bound forward as a fruitful mother and from her quivering bosom bring forth in such abundance that the xry desert shall blossom as the rose. It will only be necessary to touch the earth and waters will spring forth from the wilderness, fruit from the naked bough. Famine and hun- ger, weariness and the sweat of toiling men shall come to an end. Pain and disease shall depart. Sorrow shall cease to brew its tears. The in- habitants of the land shall no more say, "I am sick." And the earth, creation itself, we are told, is on the tiptoe of expectation waiting for this promised deliverance. And when shall it come? Neither the genius, the science, nor the in- creasing knowledge of man can bring it about. It is to be brought about at the "manifestation 112 THE SECOND COMIXG OF CHRIST of the sons of God;" for, as it is literally writ- ten: ^'The creation is on the tiptoe of expectation waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God . ,, . the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God." And when shall the sons of God be manifested so that their manifestation shall be the signal for the loosening of creation's bond and bond- age? The answer is, and should be self evident, at the SECOND COMING of our Lord Jesus Christ; as it is written : ^'When Christ who is our life* shall be mani- fested, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory." Not only is the Second Corning of our Lord Jesus Christ bound up 'tcith every fundamental doctrine and subli?ne promise, it is, also, hound up ivith every practical exhortation to Christian obligation, service and character. It is bound up icith the exhortation to meet together on the Lord^s Day, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 1 3 The apostle exhorts believers not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, "as the manner," he says of some is. It was the manner of some in the apostle's day. Absenteeism had begun in the apostolic Church. It is a widespread contagion today. There are said to be a million Protestants in this city who rarely, if ever, attend church. Multitudes of professed Christians remain in bed on Lord's Day morning; or, spend the fore- noon reading the Sunday newspapers; in the afternoon go out on the plea of health and recre- ation to play golf or drive in automobile; or, taking time off of God turn the day which is the Lord's and not theirs into a day of visitation, family reunion or social pleasures. It is a holi- day, no longer what the word originally meant, a "holy day." Some of the reasons Christians give for stay- ing home or away from church on "Sunday" are so amazing, that the insincerity and folly of them are openly manifest, even to those who half shamefacedly make them. So marked has become this deterioration in re- 1 14 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST spect to the Lord's Day and the house of God, that a "go to church" campaign has been in- augurated, even, by the daily papers. Some of the reasons suggested why people should go to church are fairly good, others grotesque. Many, if not most of them are written by persons who are "religious'^ rather than spiritual. The Chris- tian who goes to church conscientiously, even though he should sleep through the service, nevertheless, by his presence testifies his faith in an empty tomb and the throne of God filled by a man who rose from that tomb. But the motive by which the apostle appeals to Christians not to forsake the assembling of themselves together on the Lord's Day is the fact that our Lord is coming a SECOND time. He says : "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is ; but exhort- ing one another; and so much the more as ye see the day approaching . . . for yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 1 5 is bound up with the exhortation to Break Bread, to eat the Lord's Supper. The Breaking of Bread, or the Lord's Supper, is intended to memorialize the Lord's death. The bread is the symbol of His crucified body. The wine is the blood poured forth as the seal of the covenant. The ordinance is intended to teach that the blood of sacrifice is the only ground of approach to a holy God ; that the death of Christ is a sac- rifice for sin (not the death of a martyr, not the death of one who came too far ahead of his time and was "torn in pieces by the whirling wheel of the world's evil") ; that His body was given to bear the judgment due to our sins; that Hi? blood is a witness He has by and through His death met and answered all the claims of divine righteousness against the chief of sinners. The Lord's Supper is a memorial picture of the scene outside the gates of Jerusalem, of that sacrificially stained cross whereon He died for us; and when we gather at the table we may well by faith suddenly see Him hanging there. 1 16 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST turning His blood-stained face towards us, look- ing at each one of us and saying in voice that should' penetrate to the very depth and core of our souls : ''I am dying here and giving my life a ransom for thee! What art thou ready to sac- rifice and give to me?" This ordinance is to be celebrated; so it is v^ritten : "Till he come." Hear v^hat the apostle says : "Ye do shew the Lord's death till He come." The horizon of the Lord's Table then is — The second coming. Seated at that table on the Lord's Day (the day of resurrection) we are on resurrection ground, judgment behind us, glory before us. Behind us the cross where we were judged in the suffering and death of our substitute; be- fore us the Coming of our Lord and the glory and immortality He will bring us. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to love God. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 117 "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ." Is there anything more practical than the ex- hortation to love God? And here it is bound up with and identified with the attitude of waiting for Christ. On the margin it is written, "the patience of Christ;" but the patience of Christ is that pa- tience He exercises because of the exhortation of His Father who when He received Him into heaven and bade Him sit upon the throne, said unto Him, "Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." He tells Him that the rod or sceptre of His power shall be extended from Zion, that He shall rule in the midst of His enemies, and that His people (the Jews) shall be willing in the day of His power. (Psalm no.) This is the patience of Christ, and when the apostle prays the Lord may direct our hearts into the love of God and the patience of Christ, he is praying that while our hearts flow out in love and praise to God the Father we are to be full of the patience of Christ, and with Him 1 1 8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST wait in confidence and peace for tKe hour of His return. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to love one an- other, "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another ... to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable before God, even our Father, at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." We are to love one another as Christians. It was the love of Christians for each other, their desire to help and bless each other which drew the attention of the world to the early Church. They said, "See, how these Christians love one another." And we are exhorted to keep this flame of mutual love and helpfulness burning because the Lord is coming. Surely if He came and found a lack of love and Christian sympathy in the Church it would be an unhappy revelation and would afifect such a Church and such Christians as they should stand before His judgment seat. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 119 The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to patience. "Be patient brethren unto the coming of the Lord ... Be ye also patient, stablish your heart : for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh/^ This is an exhortation to patience in the midst of life's trials and perplexities. The trials and perplexities are great; but all problems will be solved when the Lord comes. The apostle does not say they will be solved when we die and go to heaven and thus bid us to hold on and endure till such a summons comes; nay! he bids us to be patient not only because the Lord is coming, but because the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to a holy life. He who imagines it is permitted him to pro- fess faith in Christ and then live a careless, god- less life, greatly deceives himself. By faith we come into union with a once crucified, but now risen and living Christ; and if this faith be genuine; if it be something more than idle words upon a thoughtless tongue; if 120 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST the confession of our lips be the expression of our heart, the conviction and seal of the Spirit, then there must needs be, ''the things which ac- company salvation; ''there must be a hearty turning away from the old life, the old char- acter, bringing forth of fruit meet for repent- ance, and the daily demonstration of a life that shall demonstrate, not only that the Son of God is on His Father's throne in heaven, but that He is as to life and nature, enthroned in that Chris- tian, is in him the radiant and inspiring hope of glory. The endeavor to live this life finds its appeal in the fact and doctrine of our Lord's SECOND Coming; as it is written: "And I pray God your whole spirit, and soul and body he preserved blameless unto the Com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ/^ The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to moderation. "Let your moderation be known to all men." The word, "moderation," is "mildness," and really means "gentleness." Our Lord Jesus Christ while true Son was THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 2 1 real man ; as a real man He was in essence and character — a gentleman. He was full of com- passion and gracious sympathy. He moved among men as quietly as the sunlight falls upon the earth; like the sunlight, He revealed the stain, but took no spot upon Himself. He spoke with authority, but His voice was modulated and His speech exact. When He bade the storm be hushed on Galilee, it was as when a mother softly bids her babe be still, and fret no more. Master- fulness and power were His, but gentleness so great that children rested peacefully on His breast. It is never said He laughed, and there is no record that He smiled (how could He when He knew the woe of men) , but in His mien there was the calm of an unruffled soul, and the dig- nity and refinement of a life whose every thought and word and deed was the mode of holiness and love. The keenest invective He spoke had in it none of the vituperation of men of coarse and noisy mould, but the clear and trumpet-sound of unapologetic truth. The Apostle Paul, inspired and moved and fashioned by the risen Son of God was a pol- 122 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ished soul, a courteous gentleman. Writing to the Thessalonians he says: 'We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children." Watch him in his attitude before kings and governors, the women gathered by the seashore or the trembling jailer at his feet. He it is who under the inspiration of the Spirit exhorts us to let our moderation, our gentleness be known. The Christianity that does not make a maq in all his speech and ways a gentlermn and a woman in all her attitude and words a gentle- woman, is not the Christianity of a Paul nor the inspiration of the Son of God. And this apostolic exhortation to mildness, to moderation and gentleness is made in view of, and by an appeal to the fact of, the SECOND Coming of our Lord; as it is written: 'Xet your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand/' The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to watch- fulness. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ^ ^3 It is the Son of God Himself who gives the exhortation. He says : "And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch." And He says it because of His antecedent warning to them, that although He is going away like the householder into a far country, into heaven, like that householder He will come back, and in an uncertain hour; an hour so un- certain that they must needs watch — "lest," as He says, "coming suddenly, he find you sleep- ing." The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is hound up with the exhortation to Christian activity. "It is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer (that is, the coming of the Lord to save our bodies — raise the dead and change the living) than when we believed. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand (and therefore His coming for us; it is His coming which introduces the day) let us there- fore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light" 124 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST This dispensation is going, another is coming — the Day of Christ, the day of right and truth and divine triumph. That day will begin by the Coming of the Lord for His Church, coming in the night. He is coming as a thief. It will not do for us as Christians to be asleep. We must keep awake. We must be on the alert; not only wearing His name, but acting in His name. Could you find any stronger or more practical exhortation than this? Awaking, putting ofif the night clothes, putting on the day clothes, putting on armour, living as though we were already in the day of Christ; and this appeal made by the fact and imminency of His Coming? The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is hound up with the exhortation to abide in Him. "And now little children, abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His Com- ing." Nothing could be more shameful than to pro- fess His name, stand for the faith and then be filled with doubt, with uncertainty; now true to THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 125 "Him, now false, now exalting His name, now allowing it to trail in the dust; shouting halle- lujahs and full of coronation songs, then falling away, holding empty hands as we walk with stumbling feet and making ourselves stumbling- blocks to others. That is shameful here, and should the Lord come while we are in that state, we would be put to shame when we should be gathered up and called to stand at the judgment seat. And this is not a far off contingency is it? No, says the apostle. He is coming. He might come any time. That is his meaning. Arouse then, take your place as a Christian and abide, be no more like the waves of the sea driven and tossed. No exhortation could be more practical or more insistent; and it is an exhortation which grows out of the apostle's belief that the Lord is Coming, and may come while we live. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation not to judge one another. 126 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST "Therefore judge nothing before the time, un- til the Lord Come/' Should the Lord come tonight the judgment seat would be immediately set up. As Chris- tians we should have to stand there and answer, not for our lives, but for our work as Christians. It is sorely out of place for those who will have to answer to a common master to judge those who will have to answer to that master also. It is not worth while to be engaged in judging one another now. All things will be brought out and the truth declared. "The hidden things" of darkness will be declared. Every one shall get the praise that is his due. There will be a perfect adjustment. The highest plane of judgment now is to judge ourselves. If we judge ourselves we shall not have much leisure to judge others. When we stand at the judgment seat of Christ we shall find little occasion to plead against others. It will take all our time to plead in our own behalf. It is written, each one of us shall "give an ac- count of himself to God ;" and this God shall be our Lord Jesus Christ- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 27 By the SECOND Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ then the apostle urges us not to judge one another. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with the exhortation to pastoral fidelity. What the Church needs today, what the Christian in the Church needs above all other things, is to be spiritually fed. The new spirit- ual nature cannot feed on the things which pertain to the flesh. Sheep cannot feed on that which is satisfactory to swine. To offer to spir- itual men and women the food that fills the worldling would be to offer a stone for bread, a scorpion for a fish. The spiritual nature can be sustained only by the Word of God. It is to be nourished up in '^the words of faith and good doctrine." A growing Christian must feed on the ^^milk" of the Word, and the ^'strong meat" of doctrine. He must be able to say with the prophet, '^Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts," 128 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Christians are not being fed today. They are not being fed because they are not taught; and only by teaching can the spiritual mind be fed and sustained. The weakness of the Church is the multitude of preachers. It is full of preach- ers, but not teachers. The people get sermons, essays and certain lines of homilies. They need exposition, an expose of Scripture. The Scrip- ture opened and exposed to their gaze. They need m.ore than that. They need the teacher who will '^rightly divide the word of truth." Eating of food for proper assimilation needs right division of food. You cannot give the same diet to all. There are certain classes of food which belong to certain classes of persons. Just so, there are certain classes of persons indi- cated by Scripture and certain classes of food for those persons. The Word of God divides all mankind into "Jew, Gentile and the Church of God." There are some things in the book which belong exclusively to the Jew, some to the Gentile, and some to the Church. You can- not give the food which belongs to the Jew to the Christian. The promises made to the Church THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 129 do not belong to the Jew. The teacher, the true teacher, must give to each the food that belongs to each and in due season ; the men who have been called to shepherd a church, to deal with an assembly of Christ as with a flock of hungry sheep, are exhorted to feed such a flock; and they are exhorted to do so faithfully in view of the fact that when our Lord Jesus Christ Himself shall come as the great, the chief, shep- herd of the flock He will reward all such faith- ful teachers (not preachers), all such faithful teachers with an amaranthine, that is to say, a fadeless, crown; as it is written: ^Teed the flock of God which is among you ... and when the chief shepherd (pastor) shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Thus it is manifest that pastors are exhorted to be faithful teachers of the flocks, and are so exhorted by the thought of the SECOND Coming of our Lord. The Second Coming of Christ is hound up with the exhortation to faithfulness in preach- ing. I30 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST It is true the minister of Christ is to preach. He is to proclaim, but always his proclamation must be based on doctrines. He is to exhort, he is to rebuke, he is to reprove; but, always he is to do this with unfailing note of doctrine. The apostle warns that the time would come when the Church would not endure sound doc- trines. The time would come when with itching ears the Church would seek teachers who should respond to their demands, teachers who should give them the fables and the fictions of human imagination and turn them away from the truth. That time is on us now both in the pulpit and the pew. The people in the pew, as a rule, do not want doctrine. They do not want sound doc- trine. They do not want the old faith once for all delivered. They are willing to listen to the modification of God's Word and the break- ing down of the old standards. There are men in the pulpits who are responding to the de- mand. They reject the doctrine of fiat creation, the fall of man, the virgin birth, the atonement by blood, the bodily resurrection of Christ, His Second Coming, They set aside the idea of an THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ^31 inerrant, infallible Bible fully and entirely in- spired of God, and set up a Christ between Bethlehem and Calvary; a Christ of exclusive humanity, or exclusively of humanity; and set Him up not as a redeemer and regenerator of men, but as an example to draw out of men the sonship with God claimed to be already inher- ing in them. They preach, not redemption by blood, but salvation by character. There never was a time when the Christian minister needed more to be faithful than now, needed more to have the wisdom as well as the knowledge of God, to be led by the Divine Spirit; and never more did he need to speak the whole counsel of God, hew to the line and fear not. The apostle appeals to the Christian minister in this hour to be faithful. In proportion as the Church refuses doctrine, let him give it. In proportion as it seeks darkness let him pour on the light of truth; and the apostle appeals to this faithfulness by appealing to, and exhorting by, the SECOND Coming of the Lord. 132 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Hear what he says. According to the literal rendering of the passage he says: ''I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing (and by his ap- pearing) and his kingdom; Preach the Word : be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and doctrine." The SECOND Coming of Christ is the basis on which the apostle bids the Christian minister to preach, and so preach that he may sustain the sound doctrine committed to his charge. The Second Corning of our Lord Jesus Christ is hound up with the exhortation to comfort and console those who mourn their Christian dead. It is true, blessedly true, that should we die, we as Christians, ^^depart to be with Christ;" and it is a state advanced upon this, better and "far better." It is true, consolingly true, that should we die we shall be ''absent from our home in this body and present at our home with the Lord;" and just as surely as Saul recognized Samuel in his disembodied state, and Abraham THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 133 recognized the rich man though both had died and their bodies been buried, just that sure is it, should the Lord bid us to ascend to Heaven through death before He comes, that we shall see and know each other; yet the apostle does not seek to comfort the sorrowing concerning the dead in Christ by any such appeal as that. On the contrary, he ofifers what to him is a quicker^ more imminent com.fort, the comfort that the Lord Himself is coming from heaven; and just as he called Lazarus from the grave and gave him to the weeping sisters and they rejoiced in a reunion that triumphed over death and the grave; so will He descend, it may be any moment, into the upper air, and calling the dead from their graves and transfiguring the living, lift them up as in clouds that are chariots to meet Him and one another, and forevermore be with Him and with one another. Hear how the inspired apostle comforts Christians who sorrow above their Christian dead: ^'I would not have you to be ignorant, breth- 134 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus (whom Jesus has put to sleep) will God bring with him. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent (go before) them which are asleep. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- angel and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: "Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord "Wherefore comfort one another with these words!' Thus have I demonstrated and proved what I have affirmed; that the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is bound up with every funda- mental doctrine, every sublime promise, every THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 135 radiant hope, every practical exhortation, and affords the basis of apostolic appeal in behalf of the highest type of every day Christian living and devotion. Repudiate the Second Coming and you take away the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the hoped for transfiguration of the living, the mani- fested sonship with God and likeness to Christ, the assurance of reward, the promised satisfac- tion of the soul, the victory over Satan and the deliverance of this earth from the bondage of corruption. Take out the Second Coming and you take out of the New Testament the appeal to meet to- gether on the Lord's Day, the appeal to meet around the Lord's Table and break bread, the appeal to love God, to love one another, to pa- tience, to a holy life, to watchfulness, to Chris- tian activity, to moderation, to abiding in Christ, the warning against judging one another as Christians, the appeal to steadfastness, to pas- toral fidelity, to faithfulness in preaching, and the inspired words of comfort with which we 136 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST are to comfort one another above the Christian dead. The doctrine of the Second Coming unimpor- tant! Unim.portant, when it is inwrought with doc- trines without w^hich Christianity would be as a half-naked and pitiable beggar asking for alms, even the indifferent consideration of a careless world. The doctrine of the Second Coming not prac- tical! Not practical, when it is the very basis on which, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the apostles appeal to all that can make Christianity a living, a fruitful and helpful profession among the sons of men. Certainly, those who repudiate the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ are excuse- lessly ignorant of the Word of God, w^ilfully prejudiced, or brutally unbelieving and iniidelic. Those who are ignorant of the Word have no right to speak about it, those who are prejudiced are unqualified, and those who are infidelic ought to have no place in the Church of Christ. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 137 It must be evident, and in the very nature of the case, that the promises and appeals coinci- dent with the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ require there should be, and so demon- strate there is, a stage or part of the coming in relation to the Church which makes it imminent. What folly, what utter w^aste of words, what altogether meaninglessness, not to say stupidity, in exhorting me, a living man, to be patient unto the Coming of the Lord, if the Lord cannot come for, at least, a thousand years, and on the theory the world is to be converted by the Gos- pel, for several thousand years. What an insult to intelligence, what a shock to faith, what an appeal to unbelief in the whole thing to add, ''The coming of- the Lord drawxth nigh;" and then to give it still greater emphasis, to say, "The Judge standeth before the door." Tell me the Lord's Coming is so nigh, that already He is on the eve of summoning me with the Church to Kis judgment seat; and then for me to discover that by no possibility could He come while I am alive! What would that be but a striking, an in- 13B THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST disputable proof that the Scriptures contradict themselves, and are wholly unreliable? If the Lord will not come, and cannot come while I am alive, how utterly grotesque, worse even than that, is the prayer in which the apos- tle prays my whole spirit, soul and body shall be preserved blameless unto the Coming of the Lord. If it is not possible for me to live till the Lord comes, of what downright deception or childish babbling is the apostle guilty when he writes such a sentence as this : 'We who are alive and remain unto the com- ing of the Lord." And again: "We shall not all sleep (that is, die), but we shall all be changed;" not die, but live till the Lord comes and transfigures us into His own likeness. If the Lord may not come any moment for the Church, of what trifling verbiage is the apostle guilty when he commends the Thessa- lonians because they have turned to God from THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 39 idols to serve the living and the true God and — to wait for His Son from heaven? If the Lord may not come any moment, of w^hat possible value can His own most solemn exhortation be? This solemn and intense exhortation: ^^ Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." If these exhortations, if the v^hole trend of these appeals, do not mean imminency ; if they do not mean the Lord may come vs^hile we are alive, in some unexpected hour or moment, and, therefore, so far as our knowledge is concerned, any moment, then the New Testament, as an in- strument for the transmission of intelligent thought must be set aside. But why discuss it! The language is clear, plain, unmistakable. You must accept it, or re- ject the book. You must accept the words of the Lord as He speaks them or reject Him as one who does not speak the truth. The words are so simple, so direct, without the slightest sinuosity or double turning, that the puzzling word "in- terpretation" cannot come in to misplace or at- HO THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST tempt to define them. There they are. He says I am coming. Be on the lookout for me, watch for me. He meant that or He did not. He told the actual truth, or He did not. There is no middle ground. You must take them or reject them. The apostles say, 'Wait." They meant it just as the Lord meant it. They were as honest as He was; or, both v/ere dishonest. He says the hour is unknown. The moment is equally unknown. There is only one thing certain about it. He will come, not only when the world is not thinking about it, but when the Church is not thinking about it; and it is dead certain the Church is not thinking about it to- day. "Be ye also ready." He said so. He who is the Son of God, the truth and no lie, He said it. He said it for the Church that should be after He should ascend to heaven. He said it for the Church in any and every hour after He had ascended to heaven, "Be ye also ready." THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 141 It would be amazing foolery to attempt to ap- ply it to any generation but a present generation. ^'Be j^- also ready." It means we are always on the threshold of His Coming. It is impossible to mean anything else. It does mean that. It means the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is imminent. Since the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is imminent, it ought to be an incentive and a hope. It should be an incentive to the highest Chris- tian living. If the Lord should come tomorrow you would not wish Him to find you doing what a Christian ought not to do ; nor, would you like Him to find you where a Christian ought not to be. You surely would wish to meet Him with your accounts all straight, your responsibilities discharged and your life without fault. You would not wish to be put to shame at His Com- ing. Because He is Coming, and because our place in the kingdom will depend upon the character 142 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST we are living as Christians; then the ''any moment" Coming of the Lord should be an in- centive to the noblest type of Christian living, Christian service and devotion. Since the Coming of Christ means all for which our hearts are yearning; since it means the fulfilment of our redemption, the exaltation of the Church into the place of rulership and power, and the transformation of the world into an arena for God, for righteousness and peace, it is as it has been divinely called: 'The Blessed Hope." It is to be held, not merely as a doctrine, but as a hope; and we are told that he that hath it as a hope upon the Lord will purify himself even as He is pure. If the Lord is Coming: yea, if I really wish Him to come, then will I truly seek, and invol- untarily, each passing moment to be in full ac- cord with Him. With the apostle, therefore, I beseech you brethren, by the Coming of the Lord that ye be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel, "the hope of glory;" that ye let no time be THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST ^43 wasted; that ye be always ready ; for, in an hour when ye think not He may come. Already the air is blowing as from suddenly opened gates in heaven; already the sensitive earth is shivering as though His presence were drawing nigh, in- deed. If He should come this night He would bid you stand before Him, and at once, without delay, give an account for the deeds done in the body, for the life you have professed to live in His name. Be ready, Christian, for you, and not another, must give an account of yourself to Him, He who is none other than our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is true He will bring to light every hidden thing of darkness uncon- fessed; but it is, also, blessedly true that every Christian shall have praise of Him for the slightest thing done in His name; neither the cup of cold water given nor the word fitly spoken will be forgot. Men out of Christ! You are not safe a moment out of Christ. Get into Christ. He is your only shelter. 144 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST I say get into Christ; and you can get into Him. You can get into Him by letting Him get into you. He will enter into you and possess you if you will but throw your soul wide open by faith in Him. The exercise of that faith should be clear, simple, direct and objective. Claim Him on that cross as the sacrifice for sin provided by God Himself. Claim Him as your personal substitute. Offer Him as such to God, and God the Father will accept Him on your behalf. In a moment you shall be deliv- ered from the penalty of sin. You will be legally justified. You will be safe, as safe as the children of Israel under the sprinkled blood of the Passover night in Egypt. The moment you believe Christ becomes your Passover. His blood meets your case and answers all demands of divine righteousness. The Risen Christ will impart His perfect life; and thus, redeemed, justified, regenerated, you shall belong to Him; and were He to come,, even now, this minute, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 45 you, the sincere believer, would be in Him, He would be in you; and by grace, through faith you would be forever saved and glorified. Now is the accepted time. Now is yours and not tomorrow. Tomorrow may not be grace. Tomorrow may be judgment. Delay not, lose no time, fly to the shelter of the blood. Ill IS THE COMING OF CHRIST BEFORE OR AFTER THE MILLENNIUM? Is the Coming of Christ Before or After the Millennium ? "ND Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying. The Lord Cometh with ten thousands of his saints." (Jude 14.) '^And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old ser- pent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, "And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season. * * * "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." (Revelation 20: 1-6.) 150 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The ^^thousand years'' is the term which in Scripture represents that golden era fortetold by prophet, priest and king, when our Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords shall set up His kingdom of righteousness and peace and reign and rule in undisturbed authority among the sons of men. The thousand years of Scripture are com- monly known by the word, "millennium." This is a Latin word compounded of mille, a thou- sand, and annus, a year. The doctrine of a millennium is believed in and accepted more or less by all Christians. All Christians do not agree as to the manner in which it is to be introduced. There are those who believe and teach that as the age goes on the Gospel will be less and less successful, the Church instead of overcoming the world will be overcome by the world, sin, in- iquity, lawlessness and war will increase. At an undetermined moment the Lord will suddenly come into the upper air, raise the dead in Christ, transfigure the living and genuine Christians and take them to Himself to Heaven; the world, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 5 1 for a season will be given over to Satanic power; iniquity will head itself up in monstrous and blasphemous forms; then the Lord with His previously caught-up saints will descend in maj- esty and might, execute judgment against all un- righteousness, cleanse the earth, and having bound Satan and rendered him helpless for a thousand years bring in the kingdom of life and peace. Because those who teach this believe the Lord must come before the millennium, that it must precede it, they are called! Pre-Millennialisfs. Another class of persons believe and teach that the Gospel will win its widening way, dominate society and government, the spirit of Christ will pervade all hearts, all will believe in the Father- hood of God and the brotherhood of man, envy, jealousy and hatred will be banished, war shall cease, swords will be beaten into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks, for a thousand years the arts of peace will be cultivated and the genius of man revealed. At the end of this period of peace and spiritual 152 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST triumph the Lord will come; there will be a general pell-mell resurrection; the righteous will be separated from the unrighteous; the earth will pass through purifying fires, become the abode of the finally righteous and sweep on forever to the music of the spheres. Because this class of persons believe and teach the Lord will not come till after the millennium, they are known as : Post-Mil lennialists. They constitute the majority in the professing Church. They furnish the presidents and facul- ties of our theological institutions, editors of our religious periodicals, fill the pulpits and lead and shape our denominational interests. They call themselves "orthodox." They look upon pre-millennialists as pessimists clad in the garb of darkness and despair, giving utterance to words and testimony which deny all hope. They consider them unsound in doctrine, de- pressing in method, a hindrance to the enthusi- asm and progress of the Church. They call themselves optimists, the people of the sunlit message and defenders of a triumphant Gospel. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 1 53 In the face of all this I afBrm, I shall demon- strate and prove, the post-millennial theory of the world's conversion before the Coming of the Lord to be extra-Biblical, wholly unscriptural, without a single foundation in the Word of God, confusing in exposition, utterly absurd as exe- gesis and contradicted by the facts of history, ob- servation and experience. The history of the Gospel to this hour and the attitude which the post-millennialists hold con- cerning the Second Coming carry in themselves presumptive evidence that the proposition of a world's conversion by the Gospel is entirely false. Since that hour when the Son of God sent forth His disciples to preach the good news of His death and resurrection to every creature, two thousand years have passed. And to-day after the most unexampled display of heroic de- votion, of unqualified consecration, the unstinted outpouring of life and treasure and the claimed presence and power of the Holy Ghost, of the sixteen hundred millions of the earth's popula- tion, not more than four hundred million, one 1 54 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST fourth, make an actual profession of the name of Christ. And of that number not more than a third, if so many as that, give evidence of the in- dwelling life of Christ. In other words, there are more heathen, more idolaters, more unbe- lievers, infidels and mere professors of religion than when Christianity began. At the same rate of progress it will take six thousand years before the whole world makes a confession of Christ; and then in the same diminishing ratio spiritually not more than one- ninth would be actual Christians. But admitting for arguments' sake that to- morrow at twelve o'clock noon, every, man woman and child will be genuinely converted, even then, according to the post-millennial theory a thousand years will have to elapse before the Lord can come. It is clear enough long before that time every man, woman and child now liv- ing would be dead, turned to dust, and forgotten ; but you know and I know the world will not be converted by to-morrow, nor many to-morrows; and that at this present rate of Gospel advance, plus the thousand years or millennium, it will be THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 155 seven thousand years before we can legitimately hope for the Coming of the Lord. What interest can you have in that coming? What interest can I have in it? Why should I dig and delve and seek to find the heart of every passage which speaks of that coming? There is no reason for me to have any interest. There is every reason to lose all interest, to be wholly in- different to it. And this is just the attitude of the post-millen- nialist to the Second Coming of our Lord. He has no interest in it. He never talks of it. It is never in his heart or mind. If he is a preacher he never preaches it; and, in truth, his ignorance of what the Bible really says concern- ing it; what it plainly and continuously teaches about it is, as a rule, as deeply midnight as the palpable darkness of Egypt. But — I have shown you in previous sermons that the record of the Second Coming is in- wrought with the whole constitution of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation ; that it is inwrought with and woven into its very fibre and essence; that it is more often spoken of than any other 156 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST event or doctrine in the Bible; that while the word "atonement" occurs but once in the New Testament and should not be at all translated "atonement," but, "reconciliation" (the conse- quence of atonement) the mention of the Second Coming occurs once in every twenty verses. I also showed you that not only is the statement of the Second Coming woven into every fila- ment of the Bible, but is bound up with every fundamental doctrine, every sublime promise, every radiant hope and every practical exhorta- tion ; and that it affords the basis upon which the apostles make their appeal for the highest type of daily and dutiful Christian living. Not only this, but as I hope to show later, the New Testa- ment exhorts us as Christians to take the attitude of waiting for the Lord, looking for the Lord. We are exhorted to watch, be ready, and are warned that He will come suddenly like a thief and in an hour when we think not. The Apostle Paul writing to the Church at Thessalonica com- mends them, not c«ily because they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, but to wait for His Son from Heaven. I have THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 157 gone into and examined all the words in the New Testament in respect to His Coming and if it do not mean ^^imminency/' if it do not mean that we are always to live as though it were pos- sible in our day, or at ^^any moment," then lan- guage has no certain meaning and words are sim- ply instruments to magnify darkness and dimin- ish the light. Now since the indifference, the absolute in- difference of the post-millennial attitude to the Coming of Christ is a straightforward, unquali- fied contradiction of the attitude demanded by the Scripture; as this attitude is produced by the post-millennial proposition that the world must be converted before the millennium, then this proposition carries with it the presumptive evidence of its own fallacy, of its utter untruth. But the evidence is not only presumptive, it is direct. The direct evidence is given by our Lord Jesus Christ. He gives this evidence in a series of parables recorded in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, the parables of the Sower, the Wheat and the 158 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Tares, the Mustard Tree, a woman hiding Leaven in the Meal, and the Drag-net Cast into the sea. The sower cast his seed, some fell upon the wayside and the birds picked them up. Some fell upon a rock and immediately sprung up, but since there was not sufficient earth to take root, they withered and fell away. Others fell among thorns and were choked. The rest fell upon good ground and brought forth fruit in different degree. Two things are clear enough in this parable. First, only a portion of the whole ground sowed over received the seed. Second, there were three hindrances to the re- ception of it: The birds which picked it up. The rocky ground which resisted it. The thorny ground which choked it. Our Lord explains the parable. The sower is any one who preaches the Word of God. The seed is the Word of God. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 159 The four kinds of ground represent four kinds of hearers: The wayside hearer. That is, the indifferent hearer. He over whose heart as a beaten pathway the providences of God and the Gospel of His love pass on and leave no impression. The rocky ground hearer. That is, the emotional hearer who responds with enthusiasm, but in whose soul the truth finds no root; one who is a professor, but not a possessor. The thorny ground hearer. That is, the worldling who is occupied with his business responsibilities, the claims of the world and the pursuit of riches. The birds represent the work of the DeviL The rocky ground represents the flesh. The thorny ground the world. Two things there are to be learned in the ap- plication of the parable: First, during the absence of our Lord the Gos- pel would have, not a universal, but fractional reception. 160 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Is it necessary to recall to you what has already been said, that after two thousand years of Gos- pel preaching, out of the world's population only a fourth part have made any pretence to re- ceive it? Seco7idj during the absence of our Lord there would be a trinity of persistent, unchanging op- position to the Gospel, the world, the flesh, and the Devil. It requires little demonstration to show that this opposition has continued all along the ages and was never more manifested than now. The world offers its cups, its sparkling wine, its dance, its places of amusement, its pleasures of sin, the crown of ambition, the glitter of gold and silver, the promise of wealth, of ease and comfort. It stretches out its arms soft and ca- ressing, saying with siren voice, ^^Come and en- joy me." The very sound of its laughter and music drowns the notes of the Gospel. The flesh opposes the Gospel often as much by its acceptance as its rejection ; for, it makes pro- fessors and not possessors. The flesh, like the rock, is impervious to the Gospel; it is the ene- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 161 my of the Gospel because it is the enemy of the spirit. The Devil is that unseen but all-pervading genius who combines the world and the flesh and leads them into continuous assault against all who would turn to God. There is no hint or suggestion in this parable of a world converted and surrendered to Christ during His absence. A householder, the Lord tells us in the next parable, sows good seed in his field. While his servants slept an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. When the wheat appeared the tares appeared also. The servant wished to go out and root them up. The householder forbade them because in rooting up the tares they might root up the wheat. Both must grow together till the harvest. Then he would send out the reapers to bind the tares in bundles to be burned, but the wheat should be gathered into the barn. Two things are plainly set forth here. First, the wheat and the tares grow side by side till the harvest. 162 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Second, at the harvest the field instead of be- ing all wheat is seen to be a mixed field of wheat and tares. The disciples did not understand the parable. When the Lord entered the house the disciples came to Him and asked Him to explain it. He explained it to them. The field, He said, is the world. The good seed the children of the kingdom, the tares the children of the Devil. The enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. At the end of this age the Lord will send forth His angels (they will both precede and be with Him at His Coming) and they shall gather out of His king- dom all things that offend ; then shall the right- eous shine forth and the reign of righteousness begin. Two things are taught in the application : First, side by side with the Church of Christ in the world there would spring up as the work of the Devil, counterfeit systems of Christianity. These systems are here. The Roman Catholic Church, a church of in- vented human doctrine, an apostate church, a THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 163 monstrous compound of Judaism, Paganism, and Christianity. The Greek Church, full of image worship, idolatry and multiplied popery. The Universalist Church, assuring salvation to all both good and bad and making the Gospel and the preaching of it unnecessary. The Unitarian Church, denying the deity of the Son of God and the penal sacrifice of the cross. The Christian Science Church, which says the blood of Christ was of no more avail when shed on the cross than when flowing through His veins in daily life, denies the Trinity and the personality of God, teaches Jesus and Christ to have been entirely distinct, Christ the principle of truth, Jesus simply an ^4dea conceived" by the Virgin Mary, and as a material appearance, non-existent to-day. Emmanuel ism, which locates the powers of salvation in the subconscious mind instead of interpenetrating it with the mind of Christ. New thought, and a whole crowd of cults and systems which borrow the name of Christ, pa- rade as Christianity and deny both. 164 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Second, at the end of the age when the Lord comes He will find, not a world in which all are children of God, but a world divided be- tween children of God and children of the Devil. A mixed world of good and evil. Is there any suggestion, any ground here upon which a teacher loyal to the truth of Christ can stand and preach the conversion of the world by the Gospel? The Lord continues His discourse by speaking of a grain of mustard seed cast into the ground. It springs up, becomes a great tree and spreads forth its branches. In proportion as it expands, it roots itself deeper in the earth. It becomes a shelter and a dwelling place for birds. Two things are declared: First, the tree becomes a shelter for birds. Second, it is deeply rooted in the earth. The mustard tree represents the beginning and expansion of the professing Church. It began with a hundred and twenty members. It has grown and multiplied until to-day its branches are to be found beneath every sky, in every land. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 16^ The birds according to the Son of God Him- self (as set forth in the parable of the sower, for the word '^fowls'' there, is the same word, "birds," here) are symbols of Satan and his agents. Two things are thus definitely taught by the parable: . First, During our Lord's absence the pro- fessing Church would afford a shelter, a dwell- ing place for Satan as well as for Christ. Startling as the statement may seem you have only to read Church history to find it confirmed. When you read of the wickedness committed in its name ; when you read of racks and stake and torture set up and wrought by its authority; when you hear the tramp of contending factions and see the very altars and shrines in its build- ings drenched with fratricidal blood ; when you listen to the false doctrines which from time to time have been promulgated by it; when you know the paganism of the Romish Church, the idolatry of the Greek Church, and the infidelity, the worldliness and unspirituality of Protestant- ism, you may well believe the professing Church 166 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST has been a dwelling place for evil as well as good, a habitation for Satan as well as Christ. Second, In proportion as the Church has ex- panded^ it has rooted itself in and identified it- self with the world and the life that now is. More and more every day the Church is moving down from the plane of the supernatural to the purely natural and ethical; more and more it. is transforming itself into a society for competitive morality; more and more becoming identified with civilization, becoming one of its coincident factors; more and more in turning away from spirituality, from regeneration and the things that are eternal is it taken up with the endeavor to make this world a better place for the natural man to live in, and to make the natural man a better man to live in it. The professing Church repudiates the whole law and principle of unfoldment in wheat. Wheat as it ripens at the top loosens at the root, lets go its hold on the earth. This is par- ticularly so with corn. In proportion as the spiritual life develops in a believer he lets go his grasp on earth and THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 167 earthly things ripening and maturing heaven- ward. The professing Church fails here utterly. Its whole course is a repudiation of those symbols. Every day it is laying aside its heavenly char- acteristics and becoming more and more earthly; more and more a world Church, a church of the world, included in and a part of that system of man. Surely, this is not a Church to lead men out of the world ; nor is it a Church to bring a spir- itually-conquered world to the feet of a tri- umphant Christ. In the next parable a woman is seen hiding leaven in three measures of meal till the whole lump is leavened. The post-millennialist seizes upon this para- ble with uncommon avidity, declaring the ope- ration of the leaven hidden in the meal till the lump is wholly pervaded by it is a clear and conclusive illustration of the way in which the Gospel is to pervade and possess the world. But some things about this parable ought to be clear, indeed! 168 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST You will note that the woman takes three :neasiires of meal. Three measures/ but three measures out of any quantity is not the whole. If I take three measures of apples out of a full barrel I certainly am not taking all the apples. I cannot be said to have taken the whole. If I take three measures of meal out of a barrel of meal I am not taking all the meal in the barrel. Three measures of any thing is not the whole of that thing. And as the Gospel is to be preached, not to a measured number, but to the whole world, then the three measures of meal cannot possibly set forth the whole world ; and, therefore, the prop- osition that the leaven entirely pervading it, leavening it, is the Gospel filling the world and converting it breaks down of its own weight. But, there is not the slightest need of a mo- ment's darkness, nor a moment's waste of time concerning the identity of the '4ump" of meal so leavened. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, the fifth chapter, the apostle tells us the '^lump" (and the three measures of meal became a lump) is a THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 169 symbol of the professing Church. The Church is exhorted to purge out the old leaven that it may be a ''new lump." In hiding leaven in the lump of meal the woman is symbolically hiding whatever it sym- bolizes not in the world, but in the professing Church. Now it is a startling fact that the professing Church of Christ in the world to-day is divided into three great measures: — The Roman Catholic Church, The Greek Church. The Protestant Church. As the Gospel is to be preached to the world and not to the Church; and since the lump or three measures set forth the Church and not the world, then the leaven hidden in the meal cannot he the Gospel pervading the world. But, mark you well ! the leaven is to be hidden. This is not the method in which the Gospel is to be introduced into the world. Our Lord said what He told the disciples in darkness must be spoken in the light; what they heard in the ear must be preached upon the housetops. 170 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The very word, ^^Gospel," signifies, "glad ti- dings," and '^tidings" are things, not to be hid- den but told abroad. The very symbol of the Gospel, that is to say, a trumpet, denies that it is at any time or in any place to be hidden. There is nothing secret about the Gospel, like the trum- pet, its sound is to be heard by all ears. Leaven may be hidden, but the Gospel, in the very nature of the case, cannot be hidden. But let us consider what leaven actually is. It is a sour, corrupt, putrid and putrefying thing. Is it possible that that which is wholly cor- rupt and corrupting shall be the chosen symbol of that which is wholly incorruptible, pure, good, and true? But, look you ! When the Passover was cele- brated leaven must be entirely removed from the house. To allow the leaven to remain was to subject the individual to the judgment of God. Every Israelite who permitted it was excommunicated. The Passover is the symbol or type of the Cross of Christ, His death and the redemption THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 171 achieved by His blood. It is the type of that which is the very heart of the Gospel. If leaven be the symbol of the Gospel why should it be cast out of the house under an anathema of threatened judgment and not per- mitted to remain as a constituent part of the Passover? To ask the question is to answer it. Its repudiation during the celebration of that which sets forth the sacrifice of the Son of God is a demonstration that leaven is not and in the nature of the case cannot be the symbol of the Gospel. The Son of God, the very headquarters of truth leaves us in no possible doubt as to the meaning and application of leaven. He tells us it is the symbol of false and corrupt doctrine. He speaks of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees stood for ritualism and reli- gious hypocrisy. The Sadducees stood for annihilation. They 172 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST denied both angel and spirit. They repudiated the resurrection of the body. Thus leaven is a symbol of ritualism, religious hypocrisy, annihilation and the denial of the resurrection. The Apostle Paul tells us that it symbolizes vain glory, malice, legalism, the works of the flesh, the old nature of enmity with God. Ritualism, Religious hypocrisy. Annihilation, Denial of the Resurrection Vain-glory, Malice, Legalism, The works of the flesh. The Flesh. What an arraignment it is against any such proposition that leaven signifies or in any fashion whatever symbolizes the Gospel. It is beyond all question the Scriptural dec- laration that leaven is false and corrupt doctrine, and is here set forth as false and corrupt doc- trine introduced into the Church. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 173 A woman in Scripture is used either in a dis- tinctively and uncompromisingly good or bad sense. A good woman sets forth the true Church. K bad woman the false church. The action of this woman (considered symbol- ically) is not good. It is bad. She hides false doctrine in the Church. She makes this false and corrupt doctrine to permeate the whole pro- fessing Church. This symbolic woman may be seen in the book of Revelation. There she is presented as Jezebel and the woman clothed "in purple and scarlet colour," the Scarlet Woman, the Mother of Harlots, whose name is Babylon, These women are symbols of Rome. Rome is the inventor of false and corrupt doc- trine. It was Rome that invented such doctrines as the Immaculate Conception, Transubstantia- tion, the Mass or a perpetually sacrified Christ, Purgatory, Papal Indulgences, and Papal in- fallibility. It is Rome that exalts the Church above the Bible, above the Word of God, and 174 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST makes the final authority in the human con- science to be, not a ^Thus saith the Lord," but '^thus says Rome." From the beginning the Church began to be filled with false doctrine. The apostles clearly foretold these evil teachings would be more and more manifested as the age should go on. So far from the professing Church filling the world with truth we are taught by the Son of God that it would become the purveyor of false and evil doctrines filling the world with theo- logical errors. Our Lord's final parable is the story of a net cast into the sea — a great drag net — which when men drew to the shore they found to be full of fish, both good and bad. They gathered the good into vessels, the bad they cast away. This net is the purpose of God as expressed in the Gospel, sweeping on through the age and like a net gathering into the professing Church out of the troubled waters of the world all sorts, both good and bad. At the end of the age there will be a separation. The good will be taken away, the bad cast away. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 175 The very statement is an unequivocal declara- tion that the professing Church would be made up of regenerate and unregenerate members; that, at least, there would be in the great sea of the world those who professing the name of Christ should be regenerated, and those who, also, professing the name of Christ should be unregenerated. Just as the field was a mixed field, a world divided between Christ and the Devil; so, the professing Church would be divided and, in the end of the age, those truly Christ's would be taken out of the world and made immortal, given bodies as vessels of glory and others re- jected and left behind. In the face of such testimony as this, and with an open Bible before him, on what basis does any man pretend to teach that the Church through the Gospel is to convert the world? In another and distinct discourse our Lord corroborates what He has said about the divi- sion of the professing Church. He delivers the parable of ten virgins who went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five werQ 176 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST wise, five were foolish. The foolish took their lamp, and took no oil with them. The wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept. At midnight a cry was made that the bridegroom was coming. All the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish found their lamps go- ing out and sought to borrow oil from the wise. They bade them go and buy for themselves. While they went to buy the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut. Then came the foolish virgins, knocked at the close shut door, plead with the bridegroom to open unto them; but he refused, answering that he knew them not. The virgins represent the assemblies of Christ. Paul tells the Corinthian Church (and this is the Church of Gospel order ; that is to say, the Church which furnishes the occasion for the Apostle Paul speaking by the Spirit in his epistle to put one thing after another in order according to the mind of God) , Paul tells this Church that it has been presented to Christ as a chosen virgin. At the beginning the Church was told to wait THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 177 like an affianced virgin for the return of the Lord, not as a king, but as the bridegroom. At the beginning the Church accepted this ex- hortation, separated herself from the world and with upward look and heavenly walk waited for the Coming of the Lord. This was the attitude Paul commended in the Thessalonian Church as the model Church of the New Testament. He said : 'Te turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven." The Lord did not come. The Church lost the hope of His return. It fell asleep on the bosom of that world to which it at once surren- dered itself. About seventy years ago the cry rang through the Church: ^'Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him." The cry has been an arousing one. Many are preparing to meet Him. How will He come? 178 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Will He come when the sunlight is falling on the earth? Will He come at the midnoon of Gospel triumph, when all the world is singing hosannas and praises to His name? Nay! He is represented as coming at midnight. Midnight is a symbol of spiritual darkness, ignorance and indifference. He is coming then, not when the world is wide awake and filled with the light of His glory, but asleep in the black midnight of sin, of shame and woeful ignorance of Himself. And what will take place when He comes? One part of the professing Church, like the wise virgins (who with oil in their vessels rep- resent Christians with the Holy Ghost in their bodies) will be taken to Heaven and to the marriage of the Lamb. The other part like the foolish virgins (who represent mere profession in the shining of the lamp, but have no oil, no Holy Spirit in their bodies) those who are unregenerate, will be left behind, shut out to judgment, to tribulation and to woe. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 179 The official voice of the Son of God will de- clare : ''Verily I say unto you, I know you not." What think you of that? A church, a pro- fessing Church, one-half saved, the other half unsaved? Where, I ask you, is there any indication of a united Church marching on with the sound of a triumphant Gospel to the purple and the gold of immediate millennial days? Our Lord now tells the story of a woman who went to a judge, a lawyer, to ask him to take up her case and deliver her from the adversary. The judge was unjust and refused at first to listen to her cry. But she continued, persistently demanding deliverance. He became wearied with her importunity. He answered her prayer. He vindicated her cause. He delivered her. The Lord teaches that this woman is Israel and here, particularly, the Jew. The Lord is the true and the just judge. By this parable He declares He will hear the cry of His people, just as of old He heard the 180 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST appeal for help from among the brick kilns of Egypt. In that near-coming hour when their adver- sary the anti-Christ shall rise to persecute them His ear will be open to the cry of the "elect rem- nant." He will come down to deliver them; but in giving this parabolic assurance He asks the far-meaning question, "When the Son of Man Cometh shall he find faith on the earth?" The manner of this question, the use of the negative particle in the Greek demand that the answer shall be in the negative ; in other words it is our Lord's positive and affirmative declara- tion that when He comes the faith once for all delivered to the saints will have gone from the earth. In all this, so far from holding out any hope that the Church during His absence would con- vert the world, the Son of God makes it plain that the Church will fail by the way and the world becoming more and more rebellious to the will of God will become indifferent to and reject the Church. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 181 The apostles corroborate the testimony of the Lord. The Apostle Paul on his way to Jerusalem summons the elders of Ephesus to meet him at Miletus and warns them that false teachers will arise and seek to draw away disciples after them, perverting the faith ; that grievous wolves should enter in, not sparing the flock. He writes to Timothy, the young preacher, and warns him the Spirit speaks expressly that in the last times there should be a departure from the faith, a giving heed to wandering spirits and to doctrines preached and pro- claimed by demon-inspired teachers. In the second epistle he affirms the professing Church will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ; there will be a form of godliness, but a denial of the power (the Holy Ghost) ; the Church will refuse to listen to sound doctrine, accepting teachers who shall turn them away from the truth. So far from Christianity becoming the domi- nant fact, at the close of the age there will be a great apostasy, a falling away, a down grade; 182 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST and while the deity of Christ will be denied and rejected, the deity of man will be exalted and proclaimed. The Apostle James warns that the professing Church will be guilty of spiritual adultery. Just as a faithless woman yields to her paramour the Church will surrender to the temptation and se- duction of the world ; and the apostle cries out, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God." Peter tells us false teachers should enter the Church, even denying the Lord that bought them, the truth of God should be defamed and many led astray; in the closing hours of the age many would arise in the Church who should mock, laugh at and deride the doctrine of the Second Coming, saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the be- ginning." Jude admits that certain men (teachers) had already crept into the churches unawares; and . THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 183 that it would be necessary to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. John says there would arise those who should deny the Lord had ever come in the flsh; still others who should deny He would come back in the flesh ; and he joins hands with Paul in testi- fying that the final characteristic of the age will be, not the Spirit of Christ, but anti-Christ. John is arrested by Rome because of his testi- mony for the Lord. He is banished to the island of Patmos. He receives there a vision of the Lord. The Lord bids him write seven letters to the seven churches of Asia. In these letters he gives His post-mortem testimony concerning the course of the professing Church in the world during His absence, just as He had given His ante-mortem testimony concerning it in the par- ables recorded in Matthew. Each of these churches as indicated in the let- ters represent a stage in the history of the Church at large. The predicted course it takes through the world is one of departure and final declension. In Ephesus it runs away from first love, from 184 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST personal devotion to Christ, is taken up with the things of Christ, but not with Christ^ Himself. The letter to Smyrna announces that Juda- izing teachers would enter the Church and en- deavor to put them on the ground of law and not grace. In Pergamos the Church turns its back on the hope of the Lord's return, unites itself with the governments of the world, becomes a Church of State and seeks to set up the kingdom of Christ while He is still an absent and rejected king. In Thyatira the Church is seen to be a com- posite of Judaism, Paganism and Apostate Christianity, teaches works of merit, fills its buildings with images, and leads the people to unite in a worship which though Christian in name is idolatrous in practice. In Sardis the Church sets up a great name, professes to stand for spiritual things, fails to accomplish the work given to it and becomes spiritually dead. In Philadelphia there is a revival of the old faith, the return to a pure Gospel and the hope of the Coming of the Lord. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 185 Laodicea is the last stage of the Church in the world. It has grown great and rich. It is the Church of the people. It is a world Church. It has need of nothing. It is not dependent on the Lord. It can carry on its affairs without Him. It is luke-warm. It is indifferent toward Him. He is seen outside of it; He knocks on the door, He is forced to knock that He may gain the at- tention of the Church. He arraigns it as spirit- ually blind, naked and poor. He declares He will spew it out of His mouth. He will refuse to own it any longer as His witness in the earth. You have only to take up history to find the corroboration of this forecast. It was not long before the Church lost the vitalizing sense of a personal Lord. He was out of sight. The clouds of Heavn shut Him from mortal gaze. The' Church could neither see nor handle Him. Christians became occupied with doing rather than believing; doing things for Him, rather than thinking of Him or com- ing into conscious relationship with Him. False teachers came out from Jerusalem and sought to put the Gentile converts under law, 186 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST making circumcision an integral necessity to sal- vation. Paul's epistle to the Galatians under God, and by the inspiration of the Spirit, is the outgrowth of the endeavor. It is in this epistle he rebukes those who having begun in the spirit seek to be justified or made perfect in the flesh. It is in this epistle he warns that the Christian who puts himself under law has fallen from grace. After the victory at Saxa-Rubra and the Mel- vin Bridge Constantine, who professed to have seen a cross in the Heavens with the words "By this sign conquer," adopted Christianity as the religion of state. The Church at once lost its vision of Heaven and was filled with the dream of conquest, taking the world for Christ and setting up His Kingdom. Like the mustard tree the Church began to root itself in the earth and was soon invaded by the ambitions, the powers and the works of the flesh. Instead of a simple company of believers walking by faith and waiting for an absent Lord, depending wholly on Him, the Church bloomed with wealth, with outward show and pomp. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 187 The priesthood of Israel was introduced, the temples of the gods were turned into churches, the heathen images were consecrated as saints, the feast days of Paganism were celebrated as feast days with Christian names or titles, the doctrines of Christianity were perverted to suit the demands of the times, other and new doc- trines were invented and an apostate and idola- trous Christianity filled the earth until the centuries of its dominance became so dark, so actually black with ignorance and a sensual, ritualistic worship that they are called and known as the ''dark ages." Four hundred years ago under Luther and others a protest was made against Rome and her iniquities. Protestantism arose as an historic schism, professing to stand for the whole Bible and a spiritual Christianity. For a while it threatened to overthrow Rome, then lost much of the ground it had gained, became unspiritual and to-day, while thoroughly religious and full of fleshly, administrative ability is spiritually dead. Each year it is breaking up into fresh sects. Each year Rome seems to regain new life 188 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST vigor, aggressiveness, and with an unbroken solidarity is marching steadily forward to the temporal sovereignty foretold of John in the seventeenth of the Revelation, where under the figure of the scarlet clad woman, she rides the symbolic beast of the revived Roman Empire. Within the last century and particularly with- in the last twenty-five years there have been those who have been awakened to the truth of a pure Gospel, a present salvation and the return of the Lord as the Blessed Hope. This move- ment has been one of individuals rather than of churches; although, there are assemblies here and there which have placed themselves on rec- ord as standing for the faith once for all deliv- ered to the saints. The last vision of the professing Church is given in the amazing letter to the assembly at Laodicea. Like Laodicea the professing Church has be- come a world Church, whether considered in the light of Romanism or viewed as the Protes- tant section. The Church is rich (not only is Rome rich, but Protestantism, also; that is to THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 189 say, the wealth of the world is in the hands of professed Christians). The Protestant churches are becoming more and more identified with the civilization of the world, seeking to become more and more a factor in it. Its advanced men repudiate the Bible as the wholly inspired Word of God, make sub-conscious influence the final standard of spiritual authority, and cutting out the eschatology of the Bible, turn their backs on the hereafter, are taken up with this world, the life that now is and seek with fleshy energy to make the world a better world for the natural man to live in, and the natural man a better man to live in the world. Every day the evidence is manifest that the power of the Spirit is being withdrawn and the professing Church being left to its own way. If the Son of God and His apostles give clear outline of the course of the Church in this world during His absence, they give equally clear and unqualified outline of the course of the world itself and the characteristic finality of the age. In His last discourse upon the Mount of Olives the Lord draws a startling picture of the things that are to come to pass while He is away. 190 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST He announces the battle line will be flung round the circumference of the earth. There shall be wars and rumors of wars. Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against king- dom. The conflict will be both racial and dynastic. Earthquakes shall shatter the solid ground. Famine and pestilence shall walk hand in hand. Truth smitten and wounded shall fall in the streets ; while the lie, chariot-rolled, shall sweep on its unhindered and unwelcomed way. The Devil will go about, not with hoofs and horns, but transformed as an angel of light. False Christs shall swarm and work miracles which, if it were possible, should deceive the very elect. There shall be distress of nations and world-wide perplexity. The Heavens will seem as though every star had loosened and the un- bolted sky would fall. The sea and the waves roaring shall break upon the resounding shores. Men's hearts shall fail them for looking upon the things ^that are coming on the earth. Law- lessness shall be multiplied and iniquity like a thick and turgid tide rise up and overflow the foundations of the righteous j and that we may THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 191 in no wise misunderstand the moral breakdown of the foreseen hour the Son of God in terrible « but incisive words declares, ^'As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man." "Likewise as it was in the days of hot^ We know what it was in the days of Noah. The earth was filled with sin, iniquity and shame. Violence and lawlessness reigned su- preme. Murder was a fine art, vice a virtue. The intents and purposes in the heart of man were evil and evil only, continually. It was a time of civilization, a civilization that builded cities and planted gardens, wrought in brass, constructed organs, instruments of music and had a literature of its own. It was a civilization which for illustration and demonstration might be compared to a man who carries in his hand a bouquet of beautiful and fragrant flowers while he walks in the midst of unspeakable filth and slime whose nauseating depths reach to his waist. We know what it was in the days of Lot. We know what it was in that city of Sodom in which to his shame and confusion he dwelt. 192 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST A city so filled with vice and lust its name has passed current for ages as the concrete expres- sion of all that is unnameable in sin. And the Son of God, He who is the headquar- ters of truth, who is the very truth and no lie, says the world in the end of this age will be morally as it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Sodom. Now and then there are doors opened in our underworld and glimpses given which cause a shudder. From time to time other doors are opened in the upperworld, in the realm and reign of culture, and revelations are given which make it manifest that between the upper and the nether strata there is a common bond of corrup- tion and the unchanged demands of the flesh. Let the boast go on that the world is growing better and the sudden down-swing of the words of Christ, "As it was in the days of Noe, like- wise as it was in the days of Lot," ring over against the baseless boasting as an alarum bell bidding us to know they sleep or deceive who cry, "All is well." The Apostle Paul lifts up his corroborating THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 193 note of warning that in the last days there shall be, not peaceful, but perilous times, evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiv- ing and being deceived. He warns us that at the very moment when men shall be crying peace and safety, at that moment, sudden de- struction shall fall upon them as travail upon a woman with child. James gives a description of the closing hours of our own time which may well make us pause and reflect. There will be those who are spe- cifically designated as ^^rich" men. They shall, by means of their heaped-up riches (^^heaped-up treasures," the Spirit calls them) syndicate and control the affairs and the products of the world. They shall keep back the just wages of the la- borer. These wages kept back by ^^fraud" shall cry aloud in the ears of the God of Sabaoth and demand the thrusting forth of His arm and the smiting of His vengeance. The rich and the poor shall stand facing each other. At the end the hand of violence shall lay hold of the rich, scattering their treasure, while the cry of their anguish goes up to the unanswering skies. 194 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST It will be a time of class and mass, of violence and hatred ; and when the thought of the "broth- erhood of man'' shall be only as when a laugh smites against the face of sorrow and pity is turned to mockery. Peter tells us there will be those who shall walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanli- ness, despising government, presumptuous, self- willed, repudiating dignities and lashing the loosed tongue of scandal. Even though he would speak in the accents of love John cannot hold back the warning which breaks through his speech as he declares foul spirits of evil will go forth to lead the whole world to battle. No matter from what point you scan the world, whether from the Mount of Olives or the isle of Patmos; from the point of view of the Son of God, or His apostles ; whether it be the discourse of the Christ or that John who lay upon His breast, there is no sign upon the hori- zon of the angel of peace. In all the winds that blow there is no other sound than the cries of warring nations, the hiss as of serpents in the THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 195 way, the jangle and confusion of tongues, anger, hatred, envy and jealousy, the stains of murder, the rising forms of sunless unbelief, the demon figure of infidelity and the beast whose manifold names write the word of blasphemy. And yet in the face of these outlines flung forth by the tongue and pen of inspiration men talk of a world moving with cumulative step and Gospel victories to the splendid glory of millennial days. But not only do Christ and His apostles testify that the Church instead of overcoming and con- verting the world will be overcome and con- verted by the world; not only do they testify with unbroken consent that the age in which we live will increase in sin, in wrong, in open unbe- lief and sinister infidelity, they testify with com- mon accord that the kingdom is to be introduced, not by the preaching of the Gospel, but by hard- ening judgments poured upon the earth, judg- ments that shall precede and those that shall ac- company our Lord Jesus Christ at His Coming; and that it is by His personal appearing and 196 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST glory the millennial kingdom is at last to be brought in and established. Our Lord says His Coming shall be, not as when the first sound of a song breaks in harmony on the ear; not as when a smile wreathes the lips of love ; nor as when the even tones of peace pro- nounce a benediction and the hand of greeting gives the touch of grace — No — but — as it was in the days of Noah. As it was in the days of Noah! And again let it be said, we know how it was in the days of Noah. The crowd laughed as it went by while Noah preached. Noah builded and preached while the crowd laughed and went by. Each day he builded the growing ark became an increasing condemnation to the careless world. Then, suddenly, without warning, the Lord called Noah into that finished ark, shut the dooi and bolted him in. For seven days no sound was heard without: but the mockery of men and now and then some wonder at the preacher's sudden disappearance. But after seven days! THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 197 Clouds now rose hither and yon. The Heav- ens bent low over the earth. The upper gates, the gates "above the expanse" were unlocked as when the rings of Saturn should be broken. All the ocean tides of the upper deep poured forth. The fountains of the lowest deeps were broken up. The rain came. The waters descended. The waters rose. They ascended above the high hills. There was only the sullen and awful roar of the waters. The cry of men and beast was lost in the smashing thunder of the rising and the falling and the up-leaping waters, waters that rose and fell and leaped like monster beasts as they might leap and spring and sink their fangs in helpless and in yielding prey. All ex- cept those in the ark were swept away. The ap- peals for help to the silent and pitiless sky, the agony of despair were unheard. There was only the lifted and falling dead, lifted, fallen and flung back by the maddened, resistless and re- lentless waters. And like that He will come. Suddenly, without warning to the world He will come unseen into the upper air, call the 198 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Church into His presence and hold them with Him there secure against any threatened woe. Then seven years, at least, will pass, while a guessing, a bewildered and Devil-led world will discuss the disappearance of the "few." Seven years/ And then as when great beams in a mighty building crack; as when rocks are rifted under driving blasts; as when the solid ground seems to vanish beneath the feet; as when the Heavens above sway and swing as though they turned about the mast-top of a toss- ing ship, then crash of thunders, each crowding on the other, and lightnings that are as awful as the unmasked face of an executioner about to swing his axe ; yea, as when the flood of a long pent-up wrath that is none other than the wrath of God shall burst forth; so will He come to sweep away with the besom of destruction all that is unclean and untoward in that earth He has purchased by His blood. Then will He set up the kingdom of His righteousness. As it was in the days of Lot. And again let it be said, we know what it was THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 199 in the days of Lot in that Sodom in which he dwelt. First of all, let it be remembered, if we would read aright the story of Lot, he looked toward Sodom. Then he pitched his tent toward Sodom. He became a dweller in Sodom. He took office in Sodom. He went into politics in Sodom. He vexed his righteous soul in Sodom. (He had vexed it by the filthy conversation of the wicked.) He lost his testimony in Sodom. Then the Lord sent his angels and snatched His incon- sistent and worldly follower from the doomed city. He was snatched out of Sodom at the close of a day — at eventide. When the morning broke, it broke in flames, the fires descended and de- voured the impossible city. Like Lot many in the Church are identified with the world. There are those who seek to cleanse it, purify it and make it better. They have lost their testimony. They cannot talk about separation from the world, seeing they have themselves become a part of it. Their tes- timony produces laughter, not faith, repudia- tion, not repentance. 200 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Suddenly, the Lord will reach down and snatch them out to meet Him in the air. After that will come the morning. The wrath of God like devouring flames will fall upon a world sunken in sin. The Lord Himself as final judge will come and then — the longed and looked-for kingdom. The kingdom is introduced by judgments at the Coming of the Lord. The aspostles corroborate the Lord. The Apostle Paul says He is coming with His mighty angels in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who know not God and who have not obeyed the Gospel. He is coming to find Satan incarnate in the man of sin. With the breath of His lips and the brightness of His presence He will overthrow him and bring in that kingdom in which the Devil and the Devil's man shall be bound be- neath His feet for a thousand years, James says the Lord is coming. He is com- ing as a judge. He already stands, even, at the door. Jude says He is coming with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 201 Listen well ! He is coming, not to find a converted world, a world filling the air with songs and hallelujahs to His name. No! He is coming to find a world of ungoldly sin- ners, a world filled with hard speeches spoken against God. Hard speeches! If all the hard things that have been spoken, the rebel words, the fretful words, words of fault-finding and murmuring uttered against Him; if all the unclean, cursing, obscene words could be gathered together and made to roll down each of the m_ain streets of all the towns in all the world, there would be seen such a tide, such a surging, awful monstrous tide of filth and poison, the spume of serpents and the black, fes- tering of corruption; words leaping up and tak- ing such form that they would appear in all their horror like great clots of gangrene and sickening miasma and fever, by the side of which the Cloaca Maxima with its fetid and unceasing stream of pollution of more than twice a thou- 202 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST sand years should be as a crystal stream when it breaks beneath a cloudless morning from moun- tain fastnesses. He is coming to find a world polluted by six thousand years of indulged sin. He is coming to execute judgment upon it, cleanse it and then set up His millennial kingdom of purity, chastity and righteousness. What Christ and His apostles say about the introduction of the kingdom the prophets of the Old Testament Scriptures without exception say. One after another announces that in the latter days the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as waters cover the face of the deep. The Lord will be the King and God of the whole earth. All the prophets say that. They look forward and bid us look forward with unstinted faith to that glorious and good time coming when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together; when they shall no more hurt, nor destroy in all the earth. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 203 But how do they predict this glorious king- dom time is to be introduced? The answer is — always by judgments and never by the Gospel. Always, and climacterically, by the Coming of the Lord, The testimony of one prophet may do as a sample of all. Zephaniah testifies that all shall call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one con- sent. But when is this to be? Speaking by the mouth of the prophet the Lord Himself says: ^^My determination is to gather the nations (the ten nations of the revised Roman Empire under the last great Kaiser), to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then (mark you that) for then {after He has poured out His anger in judgment) then will I turn to the people a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." 204 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Between the last days of the Old Testament and the last days of the New there is the Second Personal Coming of the Son of God. He is away. He is the light of the world. While He is away there will be spiritual dark- ness and blackness of iniquity. He is Coming. He is coming to smite iniquity, to execute judg- ment, to dissipate the darkness, then will the kingdom shine forth, and those who are His, in the glory of it. Judgment and the climacteric, catastrophic Coming of the Son of God — the only way to the millennium. That is the testimony of Christ Himself. It is the testimony of the apostles. It is the unbroken testimony of the prophets. But now turn to the book of Revelation and read from the sixth chapter to the nineteenth, fourteen chapters, a double seven. Turn to these chapters and you will find there a word painting such as can be found in no other literature on earth. There Is the breaking of seals, the sounding of trumpets, thunderings and lightnings, and hail THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 205 Stones weighing hundreds of pounds. Fire flows down from the heavens like a river of scarlet. It burns up the trees and the grasses. The very air is inflamed. The seas are turned to blood. All living things therein die. The rivers and streams and fountains of waters are turned to wormwood. They gave Him wormwood and gall to drink when on the cross, but He would not. Now the waters are turned to the same bit- ter draught. Those who are thirsty must drink of this bitterness and be maddened with increas- ing thirst. The sun becomes a great black blot. The moon is turned to a clot of blood as though all the blood of all the battlefields through all the circling years had poured forth into one great deep, indelibly centered spot; as when all curves and all bending lines are at last drawn up and thrown down in one single, final spot. The Heavens are undone and the stars like drunken things go tottering and stumbling in their orbits. The bottomless pit is opened and uncounted hosts of the disembodied, imprisoned and un- righteous dead come forth. They enter the bodies of men and torment them. Men seek 206 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST death and death flees from them. Men are crazed with desire for suicide. They cannot kill themselves because these lost spirits know that it is their last opportunity for embodiment — that the Gehenna of eternal disembodiment awaits them; they will not let their victims kill them- selves. They possess them and hold them in the torment of life. After a season the earth will be filled with the murder of those who are un- willing to die. Plague and pestilence will run a race with famine. The heat of the sun will be as when the doors of a furnace heated seven times hotter than its usual wont are opened and the flame for a moment beaten down by the draft flies out and fills the air till it seems itself like a circumambient flame. It will be a time of agony, anguish, despair, of tribulation unparalleled and greater than mortal flesh can bear. Yonder in Europe, in the territory once occu- pied by Rome the red waves of war are seen lashing the shores of England and then rolling eastward to break with their bloody surge upon the plains of Persia. They swell upward, mount and break with the spume and froth of blood till THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 207 the Danubian solitudes and German forests are crimson and the fields are full of the tide of war. They recede, they drive downward to the Afri- can shores and the yellow sands of the desert. The people revolt. They rise and rush like the rushing of the seas. Out of the tempest and the tossings ten Democratic kingdoms are seen (you may read of these ten in the thirteenth and seven- teenth chapters). Six of these kingdoms are west of the Dardenelles, Four are eastward and include Persia. Forth from the East there comes a figure, a soldier, a conqueror. He sweeps westward. None can make war with him. No matter how many or skillful the combinations against him he breaks through them all. He is superior to all. In mingled despair and adoration the world cries out: "Who can make war with this wild beast?" None can. The ten kings own their helpless- ness. They elect him king over all. He takes the double-headed eagle, the monstrous two-headed and one-bodied bird displayed on the ensigns of Austria, Germany and Russia, He points to the 2o8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST two heads on the one body. One head represents the Western Empire of Rome. The other the Eastern Empire of Rome. He declares the two halves now united in him, one body, one head. Rome is revived under this tenfold form. This man symbolized as a Wild Beast, the man of f rightfulness and terror becomes a King of kings and Lord of lords. He is a devilized and de- monized Kaiser. He rushes eastward. He crosses the Dardenelles. He marches beyond the Taurus. He fights his battles in Armenia and in Assyria. He turns and rushes through Syria. He overthrows all opposition. He gath- ers his armies under the walls of Jerusalem. He fills the valley of Jehoshaphat with his troops. His banners float on the very heights of Olivet. Then comes the climax ! By the inspiration of God the seer of Patmos describes it. The door in Heaven is opened. In the fourth chapter it opens that the elect Church may ascend and pass through it into Heaven. It opens just as the door of the ark opened to take in Noah and his family. Just as THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 209 the door of the marriage chamber was opened to take in the wise virgins. The door in Heaven is now flung wide open and the Son of God comes forth. He is riding on a white horse. He has many crowns on His head. His eyes are as a flame of fire. A two-edged sword goes out of His mouth. The hoofs of His horse beat down the slant of Heaven. The hoof beats are the thunders of judgment. Behind Him there ride other horse- men. These are the saints of God, the redeemed of the Lord. There are tens of thousands and ten times thousands of thousands of the angels of God who accompany them. The flaming cheru- bim and the singing seraphim are there. All the universe is moved at His Coming. Every- thing is in vibration to the heart of it. The farthest worlds send their hosts. The very move- ment of them is the unloading of uncounted and immeasurable volts of electricity. His eyes cause all eyes to look upon Him. What eyes they are! They have looked behind the doors of palace and of hut. They have looked behind the doors 210 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST in the homes of king and cotter, prince and peas- ant, rich and poor. These eyes have looked upon sorrow, upon an- guish and pain. They have been filled with such tears as He wept by the grave of Lazarus. These eyes have witnessed scenes of inde- scribable iniquity, debauchery and sin, from the wild orgies of Babylon, the Messalinian ban- quets of Rome to the equally shameless festals of our day; and the fire of wrath has been kindled in those eyes. Those eyes have looked down into the intents and purposes of the heart. They have pene- trated to the roots of desire, to impulse and mo- tive. These eyes are blazing now. All the pent-up fury of righteous indignation ; all the antagonism of holiness to sin is burning as on a brazier where every coal is taken from the depths of God's essential being of holiness. The glances of His eyes flash forth as when lightnings pierce the thick and fetid cloud. They reveal, they make manifest every secret thought and hidden deed. They scorch. They THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 2 1 1 burn. They wither and consume all that is un- clean, unrighteous and untrue. He is coming to tread the wine press. He is coming to tread it alone. The wine press is the earth, the earth in Pales- tine. The grapes are the bodies of men. The juice as it bursts forth and runs red be- neath His feet, a red that is a deep, dark red, is the red of the blood of the arteries of men. And this blood will run a stream sixteen hun- dred furlongs in length. He is coming, not with an olive branch, but with a rod of iron. He is coming, not to touch the earth as softly as a kiss on upturned and waiting lips. Nay! Not with a kiss is He Coming, but to smite the earth which gave Him a cross of wood, a crown of thorns and a borrowed grave. He has not forgotten and the earth shall ter- ribly remember. And why is He Coming in this fashion? And what will He find when He comes? Will He find a world whose swords have been 212 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST beaten into plough shares and whose spears have been beaten into pruning hooks? Will He find a world where uncounted church spires point to Heaven and where church bells are ringing to bid Him welcome? Will He find the inhabitants of the earth standing like white robed choirs singing ho- sannas to His name and casting garlands of wel- coming praise at His feet, every voice bidding Him come? Nay! Nay! and alas, Nay! He will find a world arrayed in organized re- bellion against Him, ready to deny, reject, and if needs be, crucify Him. A world filled with the shouting of the captains, with the voice of phil- osophy, the assaults of science, the treason of those who should be His ambassadors. He will find human genius in partnership with the powers of darkness against Him. In short, a rebel world will rise up with all the insolence of its unbelief and senseless infidelity to defy Him. Devil duped and Devil led the world of hu- THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 213 man culture, human progress will fling itself against the bosses of Jehovah's buckler. Then will He smite as wiien the delayed light- ning falls. He overthrows the armies of the Beast. He scatters them as the leaves of autumn are scattered by the windy blast. He binds Satan in the pit. He shuts him up for a thousand years. And THEN — And NOT TILL THEN, does the kingdom of the thousand years begin. .0 that I had the genius of a supreme artist, I would paint this picture in such a fashion that the blindest and most self-determined post-mil- lennialist could not fail to see the truth. Take up this nineteenth chapter of the Reve- lation and read it. Let the scene paint itself before your very eyes. Christ and His saints coming down those heavens. The world in rebellion and banded iniquity before Him. 214 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST He executes judgment against this organized system. He overthrows it. He binds the Devil. Then He sets up the kingdom and those who are His, and come with Him, reign with Him a thousand years. He comes first. He comes before the thousand years. He comes before the millennium therefore. A child can see that. He comes in visible glory. Accept all the figures, make them as figurative and symbolical as you like, and then after you have done all that you face the fact that away back yonder under the star-studded sky of Judea, on that last night of the Supper He said: "I WILL COME AGAIN." Not '^My Spirit;" not a phantom of Himself; not some emanation of Himself, but as Paul dynamically says : "The Lord Himself." All this reality, personality and promised visi- bility are back of, supporun^ and sustaining all THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 215 the figurative and symbolic color you may see fit to crowd into and upon this descriptive chapter. Whatever else you may see, you must see that the Lord is coming out in glory and that the mil- lennium comes after He comes. And it is not begging the question to say this. Put it in any shape you like, twist it into all the spiritualized vacuity you please, the fact re- mains that He is represented in the words of Holy Writ as Coming First, and the millennium — Second, Thus God writes Pre-Millennialism in the colors and forms and figures af these nineteenth and twentieth chapters of the Revelation. The book shows us the professing Church go- ing from departure to repudiation. It shows us the true Church inside the profess- ing Church separated from the great mass of meaningless profession, caught up to Heaven and enthroned in power. It gives us the record of fourteen chapters of hell on earth, the marriage supper in the nine- teenth, the Coming forth in visible splendor in open glory, in executive judgment — 21 6 the second coming of christ And then. And then — What? Satan bound, the kingdom set up, the millen- nium begun. What shall be said of men who with an open Bible before them, with the unbroken testimony of Holy Scripture that there can be no millen- nium till Christ comes, that He must come be- fore the millennium comes; that parable and figure and symbol and definite discourse demon- strate and prove that He must so come; that His Coming is pre-millennial; what shall be said of men, of teachers who in the face of all this teach the world is to be converted by the Gospel and the millennium run its course of peace before Christ can come; that the world is growing every day spiritually better? What shall be said of men who as the globe turns from night to day and finds the red line of war meeting each sunrise ; who in an hour when the banner of a boasted civilization has been torn to shreds and every standard of righteousness and truth is being trampled in the mire and mud and red slime of an unchecked barbarism; who THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 217 in an hour when Belgian women and children lie quivering and helpless under the heel of self- vaunted supermen ; when women are worse than slain and children mutilated; when art and re- finement and all highest human culture are made to give way to the genius of war and the demon of destruction; what shall be said of men who with all this piled-up heap of undeniable testi- mony, preach the world is to be and now is be- ing converted by the Gospel and the millennium as consequent set up; who deliberately and in the face of the inspird Word of God, banish the Son of God from the threshold of the earth, from nearness to the Church and give Him a horizon on which to appear, a horizon remote with the remoteness of a thousand years after a converted world, a conversion for which there is not a single promise from one end of Scripture to the other. What can you say of such teachers? Allowing charity to dictate the terms the most conservative and conceding thing you can say is that they are blind leaders of the blind. I say unto you, post-millennialism is the dry 21 8 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST rot in theological exposition. It is a teaching whose collocation of terms are words without knowledge. It is this pre-determined concept that the world must be converted by the Gospel which formulates the theology of the schools. It is this pre-determined and so-called optimism of human invention which sends the young semi- nary graduate out to better a world system which God has judged ; which carries him down from the ground of the supernatural to the natural; which leads him to lose sight of the age to come in the uninspired endeavor to set up the king- dom of Christ in a world which rejected Him and where the shadow of His cross still falls as the shadow of an unexpiated crime. It is this post-millennialism which is abso- lutely without the very first principle of Biblical exegesis, which denies the very first law of a sane exegesis, ^Wightly dividing the word of truth/' it is this utter lack of exegesis which is the bane of post-millennialism, giving to Scripture the propositions it never makes, the theological formulae which have no basis, leading men to expect results which are never achieved, reacting THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 2 1 9 upon the enthusiasm of the Church and taking away from it the only hope which can warrant it to look beyond the warring nations, beyond the hideous face of infidelity, the snarl of doubt and all the inrushing tide of mere religiousness and all enslaving materialism to that moment when He who is both God and man shall come by right of creative power and redemptive blood to take His own world to Himself and reign and rule in it for God and men. Post-millennialism ought to be repudiated by the Church. The Church ought to awake, arouse, and searching Holy Scripture make it impossible for such teaching to find a foothold. I exhort you as Christians to awake. Christ is Coming! Every day bears witness the age is drawing to an end, and to an end pre- dicted and warned of God. Your opportunities to serve Him here in the hour of His rejection are passing. You cannot afford to stand still. Some of you are not as near nor in such fellow- ship and communion with Him as you were a week ago. You are allowing yourselves to drift 2 20 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The comfort and the joy which should be yours in Christ you do not have. You are rapidly be- coming like the one in Sardis, having a name to live and yet dead — spiritually dead. How many have you brought to Christ in a week, a month, a year? If the Lord should come to-night and take you within the upper gates would you pass all your eternity without being able to find one soul whom you had led to Him or brought to Heaven? What an eternal sense of selfishness would be yours ; and how your empty handed- ness may be the back sweep of an eternal regret emphasized in proportion to your own selfish en- joyment there. I would exhort you while you have time, to arouse and make your calling and election sure. Not all who say, "Lord, Lord," shall enter in, even though they may have done great and nota- ble things in His name. You have no time to lose, Christ is Coming. Let me exhort you who are unsaved to turn and take the salvation which is now so freely of- fered you. Let me exhort you to awake before the trumpet sounds. The Lord is Coming. Any THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 221 moment He may come and snatch the Church away and shut you out to the smiting of His eternal wrath. But even while I invite you to come, I lift up my voice and utter this prayer: "Accomplish, O Lord, the number of Thine elect; get through the preaching of Thy Gospel those who shall be eternally Thine, and eternally Thine because eternally chosen of Thee. Come, execute Thy righteous judgment, make clean this sin-stained, tear-drenched earth and bring in the glad millennial day. Come, Lord, come and tarry not; for every day every need of the earth is ever crying — 'Come/ *" IV THE SECRET AND IMMINENT COMING OF CHRIST The Secret and Imminent Coming of Christ "Behold I come as a thief." (Revelation i6: ^'Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." (Revelation 1:7.) In the first text the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is compared to that of a thief who comes secretly and of course unseen. The other is a declaration that He will come publicly and be visible to all. The texts appear to contradict each other. Actually, they do not. Each is the description of a distinctive part of the Second Coming. The Second Coming of Christ has two well defined parts. In the one He comes secretly for His Church. In the other He comes publicly with His Church. In presenting the theme I shall follow three lines of development: 2 26 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ while one great event is twofold in order: He will come for His Church and after an interval with His Church. The Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for the Church will be secret and is imminent. As a Church we are to wait and be ready for the secret, and imminent Coming of the Lord. I. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ while one great events is twofold in or- der. He will come FOR His Church and after an interval WITH His Church. The twofold order of the Second Coming is set forth in type, symbol, parable, construction of Scripture, specially inspired words, direct decla- ration and scenic illustration. It is set forth in such typical personal figures as Enoch, Noah, Lot, Joseph, Moses and Zip- porah. Enoch lived at a time antecedent to the flood when the sin, the iniquity and shame of the world rolled the slush and the slime of the festering, thick waves of an indescribable materialism over every possible foundation of righteousness. It COMING OF CHRIST 227 was a time of lawlessness, lechery, measureless violence and — civilization, a civilization found- ed by Cain and set up in the blood of his mur- dered brother. Although living in the midst of this civiliza- tion, violence, crime and lust; in an environment that made an appeal through every avenue of the senses to the flesh and to its innate desires for grati- fication, Enoch walked apart from it all. He lived, not merely a negative life, refusing to have fellowship with the world and walking apart from it; but, on the contrary, made his walk a positive and aggressive testimony against it; for three hundred years, which eventually swept all but eight persons into the uprising and irresistible tide of evil, he walked with God, went on with God, in God's way, taken up with the things of God, holding converse and intimate communion with God, pleasing God at every step till, at last, one day, he walked on so far and intimately with Him he found himself, suddenly, and without — dying, in Heaven with God. The Lord had translated Enoch from earth to Heaven, 22 8 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The Church has been set up of God in a world of sin, a world which in proportion as it shall in- crease in knowledge, in wisdom, in culture and civilization, will repudiate the mind and thought of God and refuse to walk in His way. The Church is not here to modify human na- ture, become a factor in its civilization, make the world a better world for the natural man to live in, or make the natural man a better man to live in the world. The very name and title of the Church repudi- ate such an idea. The word, ''church" signifies in its root meaning a body of persons called out and separated from the world, separated from it as a system whose principles and way are not the principles and way of the Spirit, but of the flesh. By its constitution and calling the Church is here to protest against the world, and no matter how refined and beautiful that world may be- come, no matter how efficient as a system, to pro- test against it and refuse its civilization. The Church like Enoch is to walk the path of separation, to walk with God, to be taken up with the things of God and to live such a COMING OF CHRIST 229 heavenly life, a life of obedience and guidance by the Spirit, that man shall see in that Church the manifestation and revelation of God, and re- ceive from it the impact of divine power and presence; in short, the Church is here to be a spiritual light in spiritual darkness, and the voice of God warning the world against the evil of its way, the certainty of coming judgment and inviting men to faith in a crucified and risen Christ as the only path by which the sons of men may find the Fatherhood of God and life eternal. The course of the Church has its limit. Chris- tianity was never intended to be permanent in the world. Like Enoch the Church will be trans- lated, the dead in Christ will be raised, the living will be changed and together caught up to meet the Lord. The Church will be taken into the place the Lord has gone to prepare and will be at home in Heaven with Him. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. The Spirit was his coadjutor. For one hundred and twenty years he strove with men. Under de- tailed instructions from the Lord he builded an ark for the saving of his household. It was a 230 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT warning that God was about to judge the world, to smite it for its sin, its violence and crime. It was a condemnation of the world, a definite dec- laration that the end of all flesh had come before Him. He was through with it. He had no longer any hope in it. He could no longer be patient with it and would sweep it away. Every hammer stroke driving a nail, every sound of building and construction in the ark was an ac- cent, an emphasis of God's condemnation against the world. At the same time, the open door was a daily invitation to flee from the wrath to come, to find shelter and security in the way of salva- tion which God Himself had provided. One day, without warning, the Lord called Noah and his family into the ark, closed the door and shut them in. Seven days passed, days ominous in their silence, a silence broken only by the discordant laughter of men and the mock- ing questions concerning the sudden disappear- ance of the woe burdened preacher and his fam- ily. Then there was the crash as of opening gates in Heaven, the uprush as of loosened fountains in the deep, and the flood in all its limitless fury and desolating power was upon the earth. COMING OF CHRIST 231 The Church is here like Noah to condemn the world, to testify against it. The foundation fact of Christian experience condemns it. The foun- dation fact of genuine Christian experience is re- generation. The fact of regeneration is the dec- laration that no matter how well born you may be the first time you can not enter into fellowship and peace with God unless you are born the sec- ond time. Each church building, if the Church be true to the faith which warranted the build- ing, is a proclamation to every passerby that the old nature of the flesh is repudiated of God ; that no matter what ef^fort may be made to cultivate or purify that nature of flesh, God has set it aside and set it aside forever. The Church is here, like Noah, as a warning. It is here to arouse men from the sleep, from the torpor, of self-gratification and satisfied self- righteousness ; here to cry aloud that men must flee from the wrath to come. Each Christian church building should be like a danger signal, a red light in the growing spiritual darkness. At the same time the Church should be an abiding invitation, calling out to the careless passerby, 23 2 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT bidding him to enter by the open door of faith to find in the risen and living Christ the way of sal- vation which God Himself has provided. But some day, unknown to the world, and an equal surprise to the Church, the Lord unseen will descend into the upper air and through an opened door in Heaven, and at the sound of a trump, call the Church into the place prepared, close the door and shut His saints within, keep- ing them there above the coming storm. Seven years at least will pass. Ominous will be the silence of Heaven and derisory the laughter of men at the disappearance, not of a multitude, but of the relatively few. Seven years in which evil unrestrained shall head itself up in blasphemous mockery and open assault against God and His Christ. Then there will be a crash as when fly- ing worlds collide and foundations are destroyed. The heavens shall seem aflame, the earth on fire, and the Son of God shall be seen coming in the clouds of heaven with all His holy angels and all His saints to execute His long-waiting judgment upon the ungodly and the sinner. The flood of His pent-up wrath shall break and the earth I COMING OF CHRIST 233 shall be swept clean of its stain of shame and guilt, the kingdom of righteousness shall be es- tablished and the Lord shall be King over all the earth. Thus the Coming of Christ will be twofold. Like Noah, the Church will be called of the Lord into the place prepared. After an interval, and as when the flood fell, the Lord will descend with all His saints to execute judgment and es- tablish righteousness in the earth. He will come for the Church and then with the Church. The story of Lot is equally suggestive. Lot is an historical fact and a typical and prophetic figure. He looked toward Sodom, pitched his tent to- ward Sodom, took office in Sodom, vexed his righteous soul with the filthy conversation of those who lived in Sodom and then lost his testi- mony in Sodom. The angels of God came suddenly one day as it drew on toward evening, laid hands on him as the night deepened and snatched him out of Sodom. In the morning as the dawn broke the 234 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT fire out of Heaven fell upon the guilty, vice- laden and shame-stained city, consuming all that Lot with painful toil had accumulated and builded in Sodom. Lot represents that side of the professing Church which is bound up and identified with the world; that side of the Church which seeks to clean up, purify and make the world better; that side of the Church which is down on the ground, has ceased to be a pilgrim and a stranger in the earth, has become a dweller therein, is joining hands with the world to help it, to Chris- tianize it and make it acceptable to God; that side of the Church which has lost all spiritual testimony, fails to have the true vision of God, mixes flesh and spirit, law and grace, the right- eousness of man and the righteousness of God, enters into partnership with all secular ministra- tions, and forgetting that the judgment of God hangs as a suspended doom over the world, fan- cies that the world which slew a Christ and re- pudiates His Gospel can be lured into the king- dom of God by open and unhesitating appeals to the flesh. COMING OF CHRIST 23 5 Everywhere you will find Churches whose buildings are filled with all instrumentalities for the culture of the flesh, gymnasia, swimming pools, reading rooms full of the latest novels, en- tertainment bureaus; church buildings which are headquarters for boy scouts, literary socie- ties, clubs, employment agencies; churches which seek through pleasing of the flesh to take away the offense of the Cross and by coordina- tion with the things of this world to lead men into accepting the antagonistic and flesh contra- dicting things of God. Lot represents that side of the Church which is endeavoring to build wood, hay and stubble on the foundation of Christ ; that side of the Church which is vexed every day with the increasing sin- fulness, mockery and materialism of the world and fools itself with the vain hope that by using worldly means, fleshly methods and "up-to-date" ideas it may make men friends of that God who through the lips of a chosen apostle has testified that they who are in the flesh, who walk in the flesh, who are governed by the very best and so- 236 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT called sanest principles and practices of the flesh — ^^ cannot please God!' But suddenly the Lord will come. He will snatch the Church up out of the world. He will take even those who constitute the worldly side of the Church and like Lot have been spiritu- ally blind enough to think they could clean Sodom; they will be taken because if they be in truth and reality actually regenerate, with all their blindness and fleshly mixtures they are still in the bond of the covenant. He will take them out of the world and up to Himself. After that, after they have been clean snatched out of the world will the Lord sweep down as with the besom of destruction, overthrowing and destroy- ing not only all the art, the culture, the pride and refinement of the natural man, but all the or- ganized effort the Church has made to gild, to paint, to decorate and make attractive that lech- erous world whose sin and iniquity remain open to the gaze of Him with whom we have to do. Lot was saved out of Sodom by being burned outoi Sodom. He was saved ''so as by fire/' COMING OF CHRIST 23 7 The Coming of Christ and the taking of the Church will be to some Christians like a dis- aster, it will be wrenching them loose from their rootage in the earth. They will be as those who are saved out of and through a great fire, but have had all their goods burned up. But mark it well! The Lord said He could do nothing till Lot himself should be come out of the city. He could not and would not burn it up till Lot was safe outside. Lot in Sodom was the only thing that stood be- tween Sodom and the fire of God. And here indeed is the amazing and certain truth : In spite of its inconsistencies and worldliness the Church is the only barrier between the world and the judgment — wrath of God. The Church is as the salt of the earth. It alone saves the world from utter corruption. It alone saves it from the downpour of the fire of God. The value of the salt, that which gives it pun- gency and power is the savor. The savor of the Church, the final deposit which makes it as salt is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, 238 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT dwelling in the Church corporately, and in the truly regenerated portion of the Church, indi- vidually. After the Lord had caused Lot to be snatched out of Sodom the fire fell. After the Church shall be taken up to meet the Lord the judgment of God will fall. The action at Sodom was twofold. The Lord came on the mount and by angelic power took Lot out of Sodom. In the morning He came over Sodom and poured His judgments upon it, and poured them forth out of the full cup of His indignation. The Lord will come into the air for His Church; then, later on. He will come with His translated and ascended Church in judgment on the world. Joseph was rejected by his brethren, sold into Egypt, after various dramatic and providential experiences became coruler with the king, took to himself a Gentile wife, and brought her into his palace. Then famine, sorrow and bitter trib- ulation fell upon his father's house, upon the brethren who had so cruelly betrayed and sold COMING OF CHRIST 239 him. After allowing them to suffer for a season the providential penalty of their blindness and sin and to endure a short but sharp tribulation, he took his wife, entered his chariot accompanied by his resplendent guards, revealed himself in all his fulness and royal dignity to his repentent brethren and established them in the land of Goshen, the land promised by the king, the promised land in Egypt. Joseph first took his wife into his palace, into the place prepared for her, took her to himself, and then came forth with her in the glory of his kingly splendor and established his brethren in the coveted land. Our Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by His brethren. They sold Him as Joseph's brethren sold him, into alien hands. For two thousand years he has been an exile from this world. God the Father has taken Him into associated ruler- ship with Himself upon the Heavenly throne. During these years of His exile He has been get- ting a bride from among the Gentiles. He is ob- taining that bride through the preaching of the 240 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Gospel and the quickening and convicting call of the Spirit. Some day He will descend into the region just above the confines of our earth. He will call the Church as His affianced bride (the dead raised, the living changed) into that star-set home He so long ago went to prepare. There His banner over her shall be love. When the Church goes from the earth the Lord's dealings with His brethren in the flesh will begin. Famine, sor- row, the anguish of the Great Tribulation shall come upon them (they will in the meantime have returned to their own land) . At a given moment He will come forth with His Church as His married wife. He will come forth in His chariot and surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand chariots of glory. He will make Himself known to His brethren. They will re- pent at the sight of Him and own Him as their once rejected Lord. He will reveal Himself to them fully and establish them in the land which is theirs and His, the land of the covenant prom- ise, COMING OF CHRIST' 241 The Coming of Christ is like that of Joseph. As Joseph sought his bride, came for her, then took her into his palace and afterward came with her in his glory, sharing it with her, so the Lord will come, first for His Church and then with her. The Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is illus- trated and avouched as twofold. Moses, like Joseph, took a Gentile wife. The Lord representing the law sought to slay him till his wife circumcised their son. When she had done this she called him her ^^bloody hus- band." Before Moses entered Egypt to execute the judgments of God upon Pharaoh and the land he sent his wife back and took her into the inn where she had been led to announce him as her bloody husband. An inn is the stopping place for pilgrims and travellers. When the judg- ments of God had been executed upon Egypt Moses came with his wife and the delivered Children of Israel to the Mount of God and the glory of the divine presence. 242 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Let it be noted, Moses first came for his wife, and then with her in the hour of deliverance and glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ is to the Church, in- deed, a bloody husband, a husband by blood; but the blood is His own, the blood which He shed to deliver us from the penalty of death; and, at the same time, the blood by which He purchased us for His own. The blood of the Cross is the dowry which He has brought to the Church, the seal of His love for her, and the crimson seal of her union with Him. Before He descends to execute His judgments upon a gainsaying world ; before He descends to enter into judgment with and overthrow that anti-Christ of whom Pharaoh is the fitting type; before He flings His hardening judgments on the earth, He will call His Church up to meet Him. He will take her into the inn. He will take her up as one who was called to be a traveller, a pil- grim and a stranger in the earth. He will put her in the resting place He has prepared. Then, after He has executed His judgments and deliv- ered the elect remnant in Israel He will come COMING OF CHRIST 243 with His Church to the Mount of God, even to the Mount of Olives, and thence to Mount Zion and reign gloriously ^^before His saints." The Coming of the Lord is twofold. The twofold Coming is set forth by symbols. It is symbolized by the coming of a thief. We know how a thief comes. He comes at even, between the dark of mid- night and the gray of morn. He comes with un- sandaled feet, silently, suddenly, softly. He comes while all are asleep, when no one is watch- ing. He comes to steal the treasure. The house- hold awakes in the morning. The thief has come. He has taken the treasure and is gone. So, between the midnight and the morn our Lord will come. He will come softly, silently, suddenly. He will come when none are thinking about Him. When all are asleep and wholly un- watching. He is coming to steal a treasure. He is coming to snatch away a pearl of great price and get that jewel of all jewels as His; but His so-called stealing is not stealing. He comes with the silence and the unwarning step of a thief; but He is coming to take His own. The pearl is 24.A THE SECRET AND IMMINENT the Church. It is 2i pearl oi great price. A price so great you have no values on earth with which to measure or compare it. There is a pearl lying down deep and buried in the slime of the under- tow and tangled weeds at the bottom of the sea. A man throws aside his garments. He divests himself. He leaps, he plunges into the far de- scending deeps, down and down. He lays his hand upon the imbedded pearl. He brings it up. There is no beauty in it. He gives it to the burn- isher. He spends his labor and artful care upon it. He sets it in a rim of gold. It flashes white and spotless, soft as incrusted moon light. It is fastened in the diadem of a king. It is worn on the day of his crowning. The price is put upon it. It had none itself as it lay there wrapped and stained and dull in the depths of the sea. The price of it is brought out of the down plunge of him who took his life into the dark under the swelling tide. The price of it is accumulated and made beyond measure by the place it holds in the diadem upon the king's brow. Such is the Church. COMING OF CHRIST 245 As individual believers we contribute to and constitute the Church. Like the pearl we indi- vidually lay in the depths of the tide of sin. The Son of God disrobed Himself. He divested Himself of His form and appearing as God. He plunged downward and still downward into the depths until the billows of sin, your sin and mine, rolled over Him on the Cross. Then He found us. He laid hands upon us. He lifted us up. He has given us to the One who could polish us and make us gleam, the Holy Spirit. He has burnished us on the wheels and rims of circum- stance. We have in us and shining out of us a light that is as the moonlight. Moonlight is reflected sunlight. The light in us is the reflec- tion of Himself. We are His individually, but when massed and viewed together we form the pearl of great price. The price was put upon us. We had none in ourselves as we lay wrapped and stained and dull in the deeps of sin and the tangled ways of sin. The price at which we are valued was brought out of the down plunge of Him who took His life under the dark and swell- ing tide that rolled over Him on the Cross. We 246 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT are the most costly things in the universe of God. We cost the heart-break of God, the agony, the blood and the death of God — even that God man- ifest in the flesh and nailed to the Cross for us. The price put upon us is cumulative and will find its excess which no adjective can qualify in that hour when He shall wear us forth as the perfect jewel of His perfect crown. Surely the Church is the pearl of great price. And He is coming to take that jewel out of the world. He will take it that He may wear it in the diadem of His glory. The world will awake and discover the Lord has come, taken the Church and gone. Then for the first time will a sordid world awake and arouse to the worth and value of the Church. The Coming of the Lord is symbolized by the lightning. Many years ago I was pastor of a church in the country, yonder amid the southern Penn- sylvania hills. It was a summer night, the night of a close and sultry day. The air grew heavier and the night blacker than any raven's wing. I COMING OF CHRIST 247 drove steadily. As my horse's feet and the wheels of my light wagon echoed in the old- fashioned covered bridge spanning the river be- tween me and my home, the gathering storm broke. There was a flash of lightning which seemed to split the sky in half. In a moment I saw the hill top, every tree and rock. Through an opening in the side of the bridge I could see the stream leaping, dashing over rock and stone and like a frightened thing under the smiting and pelting of the rain and the crying of the winds, leaping again with greater bounds and breaking into whitest foam against the lower shore ; every detail was visible even to the rusty nails in the beams of the bridge. My horse cowered and sunk between the shafts. Then Heaven and earth seemed suddenly to come together in one deafening roar and multiplied echoing crash. Like that the Son of God will come. There will be the lighting down of His glory. It will illuminate the earth, not only the hills and vales, but will pour down the flood light of its revelation into the intent and purpose of every heart. 248 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT He is coming as a thief comes, unawares and in the silent night, for His Church. He is coming as the lightning in the splendor and effulgence of His glory with His Church. The Coming of Christ is compared to the morning star and the rising sun. He Himself says He is the bright and morn- ing star. The prophet Malachi says He will arise as the sun of righteousness with healing in His wings. The star comes before sunrise. This year, as often before, while in the moun- tains I took occasion to watch the morning star, and near the hour of dawn. It hung suspended in the upper skies like a lamp of liquid light. Sometimes it seemed like a melting diamond, elongating and ready to drop. Anon, it was as though an angePs tear were ready to fall upon a world of tears. The mountains stood in dim and ghostly out- line. The road slipped by white and straight. In the distance I heard the bark of a dog and the clarion note of chanticleer. Then a human COMING OF CHRIST 249 figure passed swiftly on and was absorbed in the mysterious vagueness of the hour. It was a time of silence and waiting. Lower and lower sank the star as though an invisible hand were letting out instalments of an unseen chain, and then, suddenly, without warn- ing, it dropped behind the etched outline of the mountain's westernmost ridge. There remained a while of continued watch- ing. There was fascination in it. To wait and watch, still watch and note the Coming Change. Presently in the east a lifting as though the sky itself were rising in a strip of light. Then streams of light. Then arrows shooting upward to the zenith, arrows tipped as with flame of fire. After that as though an army with banners of crimson and amethyst and purple were rushing on in an assault of riotous color. Suddenly, a great rim of glowing, scintillating red gold against the sky's edge; and then steadily thrust- ing upward the wheel of the chariot of day and the sun ascending to his place to reign and rule. 2 50 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Now his beams were upon the eyelids and the laggards awoke — hut the star was gone. Our Lord is Coming as the star comes before the hour of sunrise, before the day breaks in its fulness. He is coming quietly and softly for His Church. Those who are His will ascend to meet Him. Then with them He will disappear from the region of the earth. But star rise is prelude to sunrise. As the sun in all His glory He will break upon the view. The light of His splendor will fill the earth. He will come to reign and rule, and all the earth shall behold Him in His majesty and might. He is coming for His Church. He will come with His Church. The twofold Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is illustrated in parable. It is illustrated in the parable of the Bride- groom and the Virgins. Ten virgins go out to meet the bridegroom. While he tarries they all fall asleep. At mid- night they are awakened by the warning cry that COMING OF CHRIST 2 5 1 he is coming. Five of the virgins are without oil for their lamps which they find are going out. They can not borrow. They go to buy. While they are gone the bridegroom comes, and they that are ready go in with him to the marriage and the door is shut. In the morning the bride and bridegroom go forth to enter upon the bride- groom's domain and there to reign and rule over his servants. Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming for His Church, not as a king to rule over her, but as the Bridegroom of her heart; as He who has loved her with an everlasting love from before the foundation of the earth. He is coming to take her as His Bride into the place prepared. Then, in the morning, in all the radiance and wonder of its dawning, He will come forth with her to reign and rule as King of kings and Lord of lords in the wide domain of His righteousness and truth. The twofold Coming of Christ is set forth in the Construction of Scripture. It is set forth in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. 252 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT In the first part of the chapter our Lord comes as a Bridegroom. In the second part He comes as a King. In the first part He comes to meet virgins. In the second part He comes to meet nations. In the first part He comes to a marriage cham- ber. In the second He comes to a judgment throne. In the first part He comes to be married. In the second He comes to execute judgment. In the first He comes at night. In the second He comes in the morning hour. The twofold Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is proclaimed by two distinct and specially in- spired words. The words are Greek words : Epiphaneia and Parousia. Parousia signifies, "presence." Epiphaneia is "manifestation." The two words may be found in a single text. "And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.'^ (2 Thessalonians 2:8.) COMING OF CHRIST 253 The words "brightness" and "coming," are re- spectively, the words, Epiphaneia and Parousia. The verse therefore should be rendered : "Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the bright- ness or manifestation of His presence/' Before manifestation the presence is there, but unmanifested, unknown, secret. The Lord is coming down into the air for His Church. After an interval He will come down to the earth with His Church. His presence for the Church will not be mani- fested to the world. The world will no more see Him or be aware of His Coming for the Church than when He ascended from the Church at Olivet. When He comes with His Church, He will come in the clouds of Heaven. His presence will then be manifested to every eye. The two words selected by the Holy Spirit testify that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus 254 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Christ while one great event is twofold in de- velopment. This twofold Coming of Christ is dynamically taught in the direct statement of Holy Scripture. In Saint Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalo- nians and in the fourth chapter he tells us the Lord is coming down into the air with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; that the dead in Christ shall rise first, then the living who remain shall be caught up wdth them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And let it be noted and remembered well that this verb, ^'to meet," has in it the idea, not only of meeting, but returning; as though the Lord were on His way to the earth and the Church had gone up to meet Him halfway that she might come back with Him. If you will turn to the fourteenth chapter of the prophet Zechariah you will see that Jeru- salem is surrounded by Gentile armies, the city is taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished, half the population taken captive, the other half cut off from the city; then the Lord and all His saints suddenly descend from Heaven in COMING OF CHRIST 255 manifested glory, overthrow the allied armies and the feet of the Lord stand on the Mount of Olives; and in order that we may see this Com- ing is not spiritual or symbolic, it is added that this Mount of Olives is on the east before Jeru- salem. Now it is evident the Lord must come down into the air before He can come to the Mount of Olives; and, as in his letter to the Thessalonians Paul represents the Lord as coming into the air for His Church, and the Church is seen going up into the air to meet Him with the idea of return- ing; and in his prophecy, Zechariah says the Lord is coming with all His saints to the Mount of Olives, it follows irresistibly that the Coming into the air for the Church precedes the Coming to the mount, and that this Coming to the mount is none other than Christ coming in manifested glory with His Church. The going up into the air to meet the Lord has nothing to do with the Jews, with Jerusalem nor the world, it has to do exclusively with the Church. 256 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The coming down to the mount has to do with the Jew, with Jerusalem and the Gentile world. Thus the apostle Paul and the prophet Zecha- riah testify the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is twofold, and that the first part concerns only those who are in Christ; while the second part is unmistakably related to Israel and the world. In Saint Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessa- lonians and in the first chapter we learn the Lord is coming with all His angels in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who know not God and who obey not the Gospel. These are to be pun- ished with everlasting destruction from the pres- ence of God and the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints. This latter expression as italicized is in the future tense ; but it is the subjunctive aorist and should read: ''When He shall have come to be glorified in His saints." That is to say, the Lord will not be revealed with His angels in flaming fire and taking venge- COMING OF CHRIST 257 ance till after He has come and has been glori- fied in His saints. He must come and be glorified in His saints before He can be revealed in the glory of His angels. There is one supreme way only in which He can come and be glorified in His saints, and that is, when He comes to raise the dead who died in His name and transfigure the living. And this Coming and glorification is described in the fourth chapter of the First Thessalonians where the Lord descends into the air to meet His Church. Thus in his second epistle Paul elabor- ates the first and teaches in unquestionable clear- ness that the Coming of the Lord is twofold. The twofold Coming is announced in the sec- ond chapter of the Second Thessalonians where the Apostle in the first part of the chapter be- seeches them by the Coming of the Lord (the word '^coming'' here is parousia) and by our gathering together unto Him. This is his definition of, and inspired termi- nology concerning, the Second Coming as pre- 258 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT sented in the fourth chapter of the First Thessa- lonians. According to this inspired definition the Com- ing of Christ for His Church is His unmani- fested presence to the world in the air; and the going up of the Church to meet Him is, OUR GATHERING TOGETHER UNTO HiM." ^^Our gathering together unto Him/' is there- fore the Scriptural and inspired title of the first part of our Lord's Second Coming. In the latter part of the chapter the apostle announces the Lord is coming to overthrow the man of sin, the son of perdition. He will con- sume him with the spirit of His mouth and de- stroy him with the brightness (manifestation) of His Coming (presence). This Coming to overthrow the man of sin is then after the Church shall have been gathered up into the air to meet Him, and coincides with that Coming of which Zechariah speaks when he declares the Lord shall come with all His saints. Thus the Coming of Christ is twofold. It has two distinct parts. COMING OF CHRIST 259 In the first part He comes into the air and the Church is caught up to meet Him. In the second part He comes with the Church to overthrow Anti-Christ and set up His king- dom. The twofold Coming of Christ is finally dem- onstrated and proved by the scenic construc- tion and dramatic illustration of the book of Revelation. In the fourth chapter John is caught up at the sound of a trumpet-like voice through an open door in Heaven. Immediately he beholds twen- ty-four elders clothed in priestly garments, with crowns upon their heads and seated on thrones. In the fifth chapter the Lord is seen as a lamb who had been slain, but is now risen from the dead. He is seen in Heaven as the Son of David and as David's Lord, as the King of the Jews. He takes a seven-sealed book, His title deed to the kingdom in Israel and likewise to the king- doms of the world. Each of the sealed portions of the book contains a section of judgments to be executed on the earth before He comes forth to take His kingdom. These judgments are in- 26o THE SECRET AND IMMINENT tended to cleanse the kingdom, the area of the kingdom, and take out of it all iniquity, all things which offend. The twenty-four elders sing a tri- umphant song when He takes the book, declare He has a right to take it and break the seals, because He had been slain, by His blood had redeemed them out of every nation, people, kindred and tongue, had made them priests and kings unto God, and they should reign on the earth. John is a figure of the true Church caught up to Heaven to meet the Lord when He shall de- scend into the air with His trumpet-like voice. The twenty-four elders represent the trans- figuration and enthronement of the Church as a body of kings and priests. The twenty-four elders singing the song of redemption and rule represent the Church getting ready to come forth with the risen Christ when He shall have broken the seals and begun His hardening judg- ments on the earth. From the fourth to the fifth chapters inclusive you have a picture of the first part of our Lord's COMING OF CHRIST 261 return and its effect upon the Church after it has been translated to Heaven. From the fourth chapter to the nineteenth, the Church is not once seen on the earth. From the fifth chapter to the nineteenth you have a picture of what will take place on the earth after the Church has been removed to Heaven. Hardening judgments are sent from the hand of God. Anti-Christ and his wild-beast kingdom are set up and run their course. Heaven and earth are full of tumult. It is a time of hell on earth. It is a time when all men's hearts are failing them for fear. It is a time when fear and the pit take hold on all. Then in the nineteenth chapter there is the sound of marriage bells. The Church as a Bride makes herself ready for the marriage ceremony; she clothes herself in the beautiful, white byssus worth its weight in gold. The invitations are sent out to the marriage supper. The marvellous marriage takes place. The indescribable marriage supper is on. 262 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The door in Heaven is again opened and the Lord Himself comes forth as a man of war rid- ing the steed of His immaculate judgment. He comes forth as the undisputed and supreme Word of the living God. He comes as King of kings and Lord of lords. He is followed by the Church as an army of horsemen. Nor is this transformation surpVising. The Church is like a chameleon. She changes her color to suit her Lord. When He is the Rejected One she walks on earth as a stranger and a pilgrim awaiting His return. When He is a Bridegroom, she is a Bride. When He is King, she is a Queen. When He is a warrior, she is an army of war- riors. When He comes forth to judge, she comes forth as His associate in judgment. When He is unmanifested in Heaven, she is unmanifested and hidden with Him. When He is revealed in glory, she is revealed in glory with Him. COMING OF CHRIST 263 Thus the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is twofold. He comes for His Church. He comes with His Church. And this twofold Coming is set forth in Scrip- ture from the first book, Genesis, to the last book. Revelation. The doctrine of the twofold Coming of Christ is an inhering and integral part of the very fibre and constitution of the Bible. II. The Coming of Christ for His Church is secret and imminent. It is secret. The taking away of Enoch was secret. The world knew nothing about it till he was gone. The taking of Noah into the ark was secret. The people went on eating and drinking, mar- rying and giving in marriage and knew not till the day Noah and his family entered into the ark. The snatching of Lot out of Sodom was secret. The Sodomites ate and drank and bought and 264 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT sold and planted and got much gain, till the day Lot went out of the city. They did not know he was gone till the rain of fire and brimstone came down and destroyed them all. The taking of Asenath, Joseph's wife, into the palace with him was secret, was altogether un- known to his brethren till he came forth with her in the chariot of glory. The entrance of Zip p or ah, Moses' wife to the inn was secret. It was not known or revealed till after she had entered there. The Coming of the Lord as a thief in the night corroborates the personal and parabolic types. The Coming of the Lord for His Church is not open, but secret. He Himself says to the Church : "I will come on thee (arrive over thee) as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee (arrive over thee)." (Revela- tion 3 13.) After He has warned His disciples that His Coming will be as it was in the days of Noah, He says : COMING OF CHRIST 265 ^'Watch therefore ; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." I do not know what hour the Lord will come. You do not know what hour the Lord will come. The Christian who presumes to fix the hour and set the date contradicts the Lord Himself; but striking as the Lord's statement is and posi- tive as is His assurance that no one knows when He will return, the force and impact of the warning lies in the exhortation to watch. The meaning of that is so clear and simple that he who runs may read. It meant to those disciples to whom He spoke that after He should go to Heaven and His Fa- ther's throne His return would be so uncertain and withal so imminent they should be constantly in the attitude of expectation and readiness. As they did not know what hour, so far as they were concerned, it might have been any hour. As an hour is made up of moments and no mo- ment was designated, it might have been — any moment. 266 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Our Lord's exhortation to the disciples there- fore meant, and cannot mean anything less, that they were to be in a state of expectation and readiness every moment. In the parable of the householder who went away leaving his house in the care of servants and the porter telling them that he was coming back in a day unknown to them, that he might in the day he did return come in any one of the four watches, at even, at midnight, at cock-crowing or in the morning, and thus increased and em- phasized the uncertainty of his return, our Lord ends by applying the parable and bidding His disciples to watch for His own return after He should be gone into Heaven, adding an exhor- tation which insistently applies to the Church and Christians now. He says : "What I say unto you, I say unto all^ WATCH." We, as Christians, as well as the early dis- ciples, are taught that the return of the Lord to His house, the Church, is uncertain as to the day or the time of the day; and since it might be in any one of the four watches or hours of the day, COMING OF CHRIST 267 might be aay watch or hour of the day and, there- fore, any moment of any hour. The exhortation of the Lord and its present and inevitable application is the headquarters and indisputable demonstration that His Com- ing always has been and is now imminent. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle Paul exhorts Christians to recognize that they have not come behind in any gift while waiting for the Lord; they have been equipped and made ready for that event as an imminent possibility in their daily lives; and while it is true the Coming here signifies the appearing, as that appearing is inclusive of the Coming of the Lord for His Church and cannot take place till He does so come, the exhortation is of itself a demonstration and a proof that the Com- ing of the Lord for the Church was then and is now — imminent. In the fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle affirms the Lord is coming, that the dead in Christ shall arise, and the living be changed. In those who should be "living" when the Lord should come he in- 268 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT eluded himself as having expected the Lord might come in his day. He says : ''We shall not all sleep (die) but we shall all be changed." It is his declaration that there will be a genera- tion of Christians alive in the earth when the Lord comes and that this generation might be the generation of any day, this day as of any day. In his Second Epistle to the same Church he announces his absolute confidence should he die, if his body like a tent habitation should be taken down he would still have a house, a building not made with hands, a dwelling place in Heaven which death could neither invade nor touch; but he does not want to die. He does not want his body to be removed and himself, even for a moment, remain a naked spirit, a disembodied soul. He wants the Lord to come while he is alive and to change him, transform his mortal body and clothe him with His heavenly and im- mortal body. Paul says all this because, according to his testimony, he believes the Lord might come in his day, might come any time and save him from COMING OF CHRIST 269 dying, from the worm, from corruption and the grave. Paul teaches the Coming of Christ for His saints was imminent in that day. To the Church at Philippi he writes that he is sometimes weary, the chain of his Roman im- prisonment weighs heavily upon him. He has been used of God to make saints even in Caesar's household ; but, he longs to depart and be with Christ which he is assured would be, ^'far bet- ter;" to remain, however, and still witness for the Lord he sees clearly enough is his prime duty. He realizes therefore that he ought not to be wishing for death and thus longing to lay the Christian armour down. As a consequence in the third chapter and at the close of it we find him saying he is a citizen of a country which is in Heaven. He is no longer yearning for death nor expecting it. With clear vision he sees the Lord is Coming. He is waiting for that Coming. He is waiting for the Lord to come as the Saviour of his body. He is expecting Him at any time and according to His measureless power to change this mortal body, this body of 270 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT limitation and humiliation and fashion it like unto His own body of immortality and glory. Every word he writes combines to utter and proclaim the immense fact that in the hour when he wrote the letter he with the rest of the Church looked upon the Coming of the Lord as immi- nent. He writes to the Church at Thessalonica, the first inspired epistle he ever wrote. In this letter he commends the Christians of that Church, not only because they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, but because they were waiting (expecting) the risen Son of God who had delivered them from the wrath to come, to descend from Heaven and take them to Him- self. He tells those who were sorrowing over their dead, those who had fallen asleep in Christ, not to sorrow as others who had no hope, because the Lord was Coming. He would come down into the air and even before He should manifest His power upon the living He would raise the Christian dead. Then he says the living should be changed and both the risen and the trans- COMING OF CHRIST 271 figured be caught up together and meet (and necessarily know one another) in the Lord's presence. In saying all this he uses the simple but tremendously significant words : ^^We which are alive, and remain unto the Coming of the Lordf^ It would be impossible to state in any more forceful or dynamic way the apostle's belief that he might not die; that in all probability he would continue to live till the Lord should come ; and as he fixed no date nor time nor season — it might be any day. If this language and attitude do not mean im- minency; and if he does not involve the whole Church in the same attitude of expected immi- nency, then the language of the apostle Paul may as well be repudiated as having any capacity for intelligent meaning. In writing to these same Thessalonian Chris- tians he sincerely prays the entire spirit, soul and body of each may be preserved blameless unto the Coming of the Lord. In no stronger, more absolutely positive way could the Apostle put himself on record as pray- 272 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT ing that not one of them should die till the Lord should come. He writes to Titus that the Coming of the Lord is the ^^Blessed Hope;" and that the grace of God teaches us as Christians to be expecting it while we live. Take up and reflect upon this startling state- ment of his. This is what he says : , ^^The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, "Teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, right- eously, and godly, in this present world; "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glori- ous appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Grace teaching us how to live, and as the cul- mination of that grace-taught life, to be looking that is, expecting the Lord to come while we live. If this is not imminency and if we are not here taught that this attitude of expectancy is bequeathed as the gift and teaching of grace to the Church through all ages even to the present COMING OF CHRIST 273 hour, then the language of the New Testament is a compound collocation of trifling and mean- ingless phrases. Paul writes to the Hebrew Christians to re- member Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and just as the Israelites after the sacrifice were waiting and expecting the chosen man who had led away the scapegoat to come back without the sin-offering unto their complete and full, typi- cal salvation, so they should be waiting and ex- pecting the Lord to return as one who had dis- charged their sins and cast them behind His back. This is the testimony of the apostle Paul, an unbroken testimony that the Coming of the Lord was imminent in his day and, therefore, since he was writing to the Church for all time, imminent in our day. James declares the Coming of the Lord draw- eth nigh. He is even at the door. He is standing there as judge. The time has come for judgment to begin at the House of God before it begins upon the world. Should the door open and the Lord come, the Church would find itself face to 274 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT face with the judgment seat where Christians must answer, not for salvation, but for the stew- ardship of salvation. The Lord Himself is the supreme witness of His own imminency. He bids the apostle John write a letter which He Himself dictates to the Church at Sardis, and which He bids all the Churches to hear as the message of the Holy Ghost for this age. He says: ^^If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will ar- rive over thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will arrive over thee.'' In this He says to the Church at Sardis, and to the Church in the world everywhere to-day: ''I am coming. There is not a predicted event between us. My coming is so imminent, the only safe attitude for you to take is to be waiting and watching for me." Later on He exhorts them to hold fast because He is not only coming at an unexpected moment, but coming so quickly, when He does come, that should they be found wanting in such a moment COMING OF CHRIST 275 He would take from them the crown promised to the faithful. In the midst of further revelation given to John who is then in Patmos for His sake, He de- clares abruptly that He is coming as a thief and warns those who profess His name to keep their garments lest coming suddenly He should find them sleeping, snatch away their garments and put them to shame in all their nakedness. In the temple there were nightly guards. They wore a special robe which indicated their place and function. The robe was therefore the profession they made as temple guards. They had a captain over them. He was liable in any one of the night watches to come forth and in- spect them. When he found any one asleep upon his post he quietly removed his garment. When the sleeper awoke and went forth all saw his shame. As Christians we have been put on guard. We are to keep the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We make profession of the name of Christ. The Lord who is the Captain of our sal- vation may come at any time. There is no calen- 276 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT dar in which His Coming is dated or fixed. Those who have made a profession of His name and nothing more; who have no real, indwell- ing, spiritual life; who at the most have been merely ''church members," professors and not possessors, will be left behind. Their repudia- tion will be the stripping off of their garments of profession. They will be put to shame before all eyes. The Lord's exhortation to hold on to the gar- ment lest He should come and snatch it away is a startling and clear emphasis of His imminency. The book of Revelation closes with the cli- macteric demonstrations and proof that the Com- ing of the Lord for the Church is always immi- nent. In the closing lines of this book our Lord gives His last message to the Church. He says the Spirit is asking Him to come from Heaven. He says the Bride (the truly regenerated por- tion of the professing Church) is asking Him to Come. He commands those who have heard that He is to come the Second time to lift up the voice of prayer and invite Him to come. COMING OF CHRIST 277 Then He gives this last message to the Church, a startling and amazing message. Listen to it well! Here are the very last words sent down by the risen Lord to the Church : ''Surely I come quickly." By these words He says to the Church: ''The next thing is My Coming." "The thing for which you are to wait, the thing which you are to be expecting, and for which you are to be every day ready, is the next thing/' "The next thing for the Church, the thing that is always next and nearest and therefore possible at any moment is — My Coming/' Thus from Heaven with all the authority of infallible utterance and all the solemnity of last words, the Risen Son of God declares His Sec- ond Coming is the thing next and nearest to the Church, and thus proclaims as headquarters, as indisputable and undebatable, truth that His Coming is imminent and will always be immi- nent till He actually does come. 278 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The Bible therefore closes with the divinely Authorized doctrine of — The Imminency of the Second Coming. And it so closes with the preceding and warn- ing words of the Son of God Himself that should any one seek to take away this doctrine now written into and imbedded in the book, he will do so at the peril of having his part taken out of the book of life. It is no light thing to deny the imminency of the Lord's Coming. He who does so jauntily and carelessly does so at fearful peril. He denies that which the Lord declares lies most weightily upon His own heart; and that to which He wishes the Church to respond with expectant faith and fervent prayer. He who denies imminency takes a risk con- cerning which the Lord has clearly warned. Let it be repeated then, the Bible closes with the doctrine of — The Imminency of the Second Coming. But — if, as some do not hesitate to teach, He is not to come for a thousand years after the COMING OF CHRIST 279 world is converted why should the Holy Ghost ask Him to come; why should the Church in its best estate ask Him to come; why should I or any individual Christian pray for Him to come? If He cannot come till nineteen twenty-five or nineteen fifty, as some teachers who are wise above what is written affirm, why should you or I pray for Him to come? If certain fixed events must take place before He can come for the Church why should any of us insist that He should come? On any other ground than imminency such attitude and prayer would be idle mockery and worthless mummery. Nay! if the language of Scripture does not teach the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to be imminent; if the statement that He is Coming as a thief; that the hour is unknown; that He will come when the Church is not expecting Him; if the exhortation to wait, to expect, to watch, to be ready; if the expression, ^Ve who are alive and remain unto the Coming of the Lord;" if the clear and explicit statement of the Lord Himself, His disciples and apostles do not 2 Bo THE SECRET AND IMMINENT mean imminency and are not to be accepted by the Church as teaching imminency, then lan- guage is meaningless, words are a confusion, all promise is a lie and Scripture, instead of being a revelation, is a misrepresentation, a bundle of childish incoherencies, or devil-inspired fool- eries. If Jesus Christ and His apostles do not teach His imminent Coming, then He and His dis- ciples were the most mistaken of all men, or of all men most guilty of insincerity and deception. If they were mistaken in one respect they might have been mistaken in others. If they were in- sincere, they were cool and predeterminate de- ceivers and both the Lord and His disciples must be completely and forever set aside. In the nature of the case, seeing the Lord is very and essential truth itself, and what His dis- ciples and apostles said were the inspiration of the truth He gave them, no conclusion as to the insincerity or intent of deception on the part of the Lord and His disciples can be accepted for a moment. On the contrary, the statement and ex- COMING OF CHRIST 281 hortation of the Lord and His apostles must be accepted as absolute, and infallible truth. The Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ must therefore be received as a promised and always imminent event. To this fully proclaimed and overwhelmingly demonstrated and proved Scriptural doctrine of imminency, it is objected that our Lord revealed to Peter that he should die, and some years later appeared in a vision to Paul, assuring him he should go to Rome and there testify in His name. Since Peter was to die before the Lord should come, and a future experience of Paul must be fulfilled before the Lord could come, these two announcements ought to be sufficient, so it is said, to prove that neither in Peter's day nor in Paul's day was the Coming of the Lord imminent. This flat contradiction, and by the Lord Him- self, removes this doctrine of imminency and all attempts at the construing of Christ's Coming as such from the field, not only of acceptance, but even of consideration. The answer to this subtle suggestion is simple and direct. 282 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The statement to Peter and the commission to Paul contain within them an unexpressed hut well understood contingency. That contingency is, always, the Lord's Com- ing. Nor is this begging the question by mere asser- tion, or by impracticable and unwarranted prin- ciple of action. Go down the streets of the city to-morrow. You will find them packed with the thronging crowds. Every man, every woman there has a plan or some degree of intent and purpose. You yourselves here have plans for to- morrow or next summer, or it may be ten years from now. But you have no guarantee of to- morrow. You do not know what a day may bring forth. Give you a week! What do you know about a week? In less than that time you may die, be buried out of sight and forgotten by the hurrying crowd. David said there was but a step betwixt him and death. He told the truth. It is true of you. God has only to withdraw His finger from your pulse, your heart stops, you are gone and all your to-morrow's plans fall out of your dead hand, break to pieces and are blown COMING OF CHRIST 283 away as when so much dust is blown by careless winds. By every law of your body, by the sen- tence that is upon you, by your helplessness to avoid the ruthless germ, the unexpected blow, death is always imminent for you and human kind. And yet plans for the building of houses are taken out, journeys are planned, trips over mountains and across the seas. You say, and peo- ple say, ^'I expect to go here and go there. I ex- pect to do this and do that." All the time the contingency of death is understood. We shall do certain things. We shall go into certain places. We shall take certain journeys — // we do not die. That is understood all over the world and by every human being. That is a contingency which remains as a silent understood factor in every detail and plan of life. This principle of understood contingency is illustrated in the message of the Lord to Jonah and in the subsequent result of that message. The prophet was commanded to announce to the idolatrous city that in forty days it should be 284 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT destroyed. Jonah delivered the warning in clear and unmistakable terms, as it is written : ''He cried, and said. Yet forty days, and Nine- veh shall he destroyed." But more than forty days passed and Nineveh was not destroyed. Nineveh was not destroyed because the people repented and turned to the Lord. And this fact of repentance was a contingency foreseen and in- wrought as an inclusive part of the Lord's state- ment that Nineveh should be destroyed. Like the contingency of death, like the con- tingency of repentance as noted, the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is an abiding contingency. Since it is a proclaimed immi- nence it is always an interior and understood contingency, lying back of, and ready as a factor in, every circumstance, every planned and pro- claimed event. Peter would die and Paul would go to Rome — // the Lord did not come. This Coming was always possible. It was pos- sible at the moment when Peter faced death. It was possible when Paul contemplated Rome, COMING OF CHRIST 285 The Coming of the Lord is an everyday con- tingency — as much so as death, and more so. More so because by divine inspiration the Apos- tle has said, ^We shall not all sleep (die)." Because there will be one generation of Chris- tians who shall not die ; one generation of Chris- tians who shall continue to live till the Lord comes. Between us and the appearing of Christ in glory there are many predicted events, events which concern the Jew and the nations of the Gentiles, and not the Church. Between us and the Coming of the Lord into the air for His Church there is not a single pre- dicted event which is not contingent on that Coming. Because the hour and the moment have not been set before the Church what the Lord has said unto one of His disciples He has said and is now saying to all: ^Watch." And every letter of that word and every accent of the sincerity of the Son of God spells and em- phasizes the all impressive and appealing word : ^'Imminency/' 2 86 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT III. As a Church we are to wait and he ready for the secret and imminent Coming of the Lord. The twofold motto of the true Church of Christ is — 'To Serve and Wait." 'Te turned to God from idols, to SERVE the living and true God ; And TO WAIT FOR HIS SON FROM HEAVEN."" ( I Thessalonians i : 9, 10.) And because we are to serve and wait; be- cause the Lord may come any hour, any moment to take an account of our service and to examine into the sincerity of our waiting, He bids us to be ready. 'Therefore be ye also READY: for in such an hour as YE THINK NOT, the Son of man cometh/' (Matthew 24: 44.) We are to be ready! That means — JVe must make our calling and election sure! We can neither elect nor call ourselves; but we can be sure that we have been called and elected by bringing forth those things which "accompany salvation." COMING OF CHRIST 287 We must come out and be separate from the world. The world we are living in is a world under judgment, it is a world taking its breath and thinking of its pleasures under a suspended sen- tence, suspended only by the grace of God; but a world for all that steadily marching each hour to certain doom. As Christians we should come out of it, come out of it as a system, nor touch the unclean thing lest the stain of it be on us irre- vocably. We should keep out of it as Abraham kept out of Sodom, lest we be mixed up with it as Lot was with Sodom and like Lot be saved at last (if saved at all) only so as by fire. We must establish character as spiritual, and not fleshly, people. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. If we live in the Spirit we are to walk in the Spirit. In this the children of God are to be made manifest. The children of the flesh walk according to the course of this world and God is not in all their thoughts. 288 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The Christian is to walk under spiritual im- pulse, with outward and upward look, joying in God and ready with heart unafraid to meet the Lord at any turn in the road. As Christians we are to walk as children of the light and children of the day. We are not to sleep as others do. We are to watch and be sober. We are to put off the night clothes and put on the day clothes, even the armour of light, even the whole armour of God. We are to put on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for an helmet^ the hope of salvation (the ^^blessed" hope that the Lord may come any moment to "save" the bodies of the saints, raising the dead and changing the living) . We are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no pro- vision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. We must be full of service. As Christians we are here to serve. In proportion as we serve here we shall reign hereafter. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to Him who bought and paid for us. COMING OF CHRIST 289 We cannot afford to neglect our spiritual gifts nor waste our time; for both gifts and time are His. We shall have to give an account to the Lord how we have used our time, whether for Him or for self first: how we have used our substance, whether for our own pleasure, or to magnify His name. It is necessary, indeed, that we should be ready, because those who are mere professors, who are as unprepared as foolish virgins, will be left behind. It is necessary because the Coming of the Lord for His Church means the judgment seat. Are you ready as a professed Christian to be summoned any moment to the judgment seat of Christ? At the judgment seat of Christ you will either receive a reward or suffer loss. Your place in the kingdom of Christ will de- pend on the degree of your readiness when you stand at the judgment seat to give an account of yourself and not another. 290 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT The imminency of our Lord's return is empha- sized by the ''signs of the times." The signs of the times primarily have nothing to do with the Church. The signs of the times are related to the Ap- pearing of Christ. The signs of the times indicate that the day of Christ's appearing is drawing nigh. Signs in the Protestant Church. Every day Protestantism is losing its solidarity in respect to the things of God. Every day there is a new sect, a new schism, a new psalm or a new doctrine. More and more every day there is the reign of unbelief, unspirituality and undisguised infi- delity. Signs in the Romish Church. Steadily and with unbroken ranks Rome is marching on to temporal sovereignty and that hour when she shall be carried and sustained by the nations of the earth. Signs in the increase and extension of travel. It was foretold that in the closing hours of this age the means of communication among men COMING OF CHRIST 291 should be multiplied and the multitudes should come and go. Within the last fifty years the means of travel have been enormously increased. We sail over the seas at railroad speed. We rush across the land on tracks of steel and with lightning im- pulse. With constructions like winged monsters we fly up and through the astonished sky. Everybody travels. The whole world is in com- motion, interchanging and moving its popula- tions to and fro till the earth has become like a seething ant-hill. The globe has become so small that time and space are nullified. Signs in the increase of human knowledge. It was foretold that coincidently with travel knowledge should increase. Children are wiser to-day in some things in science and the application of science than men of a generation ago. Everybody reads, and in the morning newspapers the doings of a whole world lie gathered and sifted in a single para- graph. Signs in the nations of the once Roman empire. 292 THE SECRET AND IMMINENT Amid the nations which to-day are the frag- ments of the once Roman empire, the war so long threatened, so clearly foreseen by some, and so blindly unforeseen and disbelieved in by others, is on. The map is changing. The ten kings are coming and that eleventh king who is the Devil's madman and the man of sin. The sign of the clay. Clay represents the people and the rule of the people — Democracy, The prophet Daniel foretold that clay (de- mocracy) would be the last material in the prophetic image; that democracy would be the last form of rule just before the Lord should come to set up His kingdom of stone. Democ- racy is here. It is expanding in Europe, in Asia. Out of it will come the ten kings, kings elected by the people, democratic kings. The hour of iron and clay is here. Signs among the Jews, Whether they know it or not, they are, nation- ally, homeward bound; as the exiled King is about to return, the exiled nation of itself is get- COMING OF CHRIST 293 ting ready to meet Him, to repent at the sight of Him and own Him as God and King. And because all these signs indicate infallibly that the time is drawing nigh for Christ to ap- pear in glory to take to Himself His great power and reign; and because He must come secretly and unobserved of the world for His Church before He can come with her in glory, it is evi- dent, immensely and overwhelmingly evident that the imminency of His descent into the upper air and the call to His elect Church to meet Him there is startlingly and arousingly emphasized, and should impel every Christian to be awake and ready. ^^What I say unto you, I say unto all, WATCH." For you who are unsaved there is only one place of shelter, and that is under the blood of the Cross. Claim that blood I pray you before it may be too late. V THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST The Judgment Seat of Christ. My theme to-night is the Judgment Seat of Christ. I have selected eight texts : (Revelation 22:12. Romans 14:10. 12. 2 Corinthians 5:10. i Corinthians 4:5. Mat- thew 25:21. I Corinthians 3: 15. Revelation 3:11. James 5:9.) Together these texts read: "And behold, I come quickly; and my re- ward is with me, to give every man as his work shall be." "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." "So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God." "That every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will 298 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God." ^Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." "If any man's work (any Christian's work) shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he him- self shall be saved; yet so as by fire." "Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." "Behold the judge standeth at the door." Before presenting the theme I shall give as briefly as possible an exposition of the Bible doctrine of judgment. I shall then lay down certain propositions to prove that our Lord Jesus Christ is coming to take the Church to His judgment seat and that Christians will there be tried not for life and salvation but for work and service as Christians. The Lord will reveal Himself as judge. Each Christian will have to render a personal account of himself. Those who have been faithful in service will take part in the joy of the Lord. Those who have failed to THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 299 meet the standard will suffer loss. The immi- nency of the judgment is indicated by the fact that the Lord is represented standing before the door ready to judge. The Bible is a book of judgments. These judgments are manifold and recorded in fullest detail. Some are immediate and brief. There are others extending in their course over a thou- sand years. There are four great and distinctive judg- ments. The judgment of the cross. The cross was neither the place nor the act of a suicide. It was not a martyrdom. It was something more than a brutal murder (though murder and brutal it was) . It was a judgment. It was the judgment of God against man. It was God's judgment against man's nature as well as deeds. It was God's judgment against the world considered as a system. On that cross God was judging Christ His Son as the representative of the natural man and his system called the world. From the beginning God had been pursuing 300 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST sin. At the cross He came up with it and over- took it in the personal representation of it by His Son. He dealt with Him there as very sin, as the Great Criminal of the Universe. All the essential as well as governmental an- tagonism of God to sin swept forth and broke like a descending deluge upon that perfect and sinless Son. Speaking anticipatively of this hour the Lord Himself by the Spirit through David cries out: ^^All thy waves and thy billows are gone over mer And again through David He cries: "Mine iniquities (the iniquities of those whom He represented and whose iniquities He made His own) have taken hold on me, so that I am not able to look up ; they are more than the hairs of mine head." By the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, look- ing forward and entering into the ordained an- guish of the cross. He pours forth the soul-stir- ring and pathetic lamentation of His heart: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? be- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 301 hold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord (the Father) hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger,'* Out from the midst of that black tempest of wrath, indignation, and judgment where He suffers in the name and as the representative of sinful men, suddenly there comes the amazing cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken mer That uttered agony expresses a fact and fore- tells a condition. The fact is, the sinless, holy, perfect Son of God and God the Son, the Son who from all eternity was in the bosom of the Father, the Son who in the flesh He assumed for the Father's glory, told Him out and ceaselessly magnified Him, that Son in that hour upon the cross was forsaken of the Father, the Father turned His back upon Him, hid His face from Him and left Him in the sunless, starless midnight of a com- plete and infinite repudiation; withdrew from Him every manifestation of His Fatherly love, 302 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST left Him to sink under and be swallowed up by the endless, measureless billows of wrath in which every surge of every wave was a deeper and ever deeper drowning agony of helpless and hopeless despair. The condition foretold by that cry which rent the earth, echoed to the farthest reach of the universe and pierced with pain the heart of lis- tening angels is the condition of every soul for- saken at last of God. A fact and a condition ! The fact — that all who have not received the salvation bought at this fearful price of the cross will be forsaken. The condition — agony, agony uttered and ex- pressed in one eternally repeated and eternally unanswered question, ''My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The aspect of the judgment of the cross is two- fold. Because the death of Christ met the law, the government and the being of God, it has ob- tained a stay in proceedings against the indi- vidual sinner. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 303 Because that cross is the demonstration of the unimpeachable righteousness of God, it has en- abled Him to bring the world upon mercy ground where He can deal with it in grace, justify the ungodly and still be just. The cross has set Christ before the world as the sacrifice for sin provided of God, and as the substitute the sinner is invited of God to claim. The moment any sinner be he never so stained, so sunken and hopeless in sin offers up Christ on the cross by faith as his sacrifice for sin and claims Him as his personal substitute, as having taken his place and suffered for Him, that mo- ment the Father accepts the death of the cross for the believing sinner, counts him to have died in the person of His Son, counts the wrath which fell upon the Son as having fallen on the believer, reckons the believer's sins as fully trans- ferred to the Son (so that He is made sin for the believer) reckons that the righteousness of Christ's obedience unto death is freely trans- ferred to the believer, sees the believer as having passed through the judgment with Christ on the cross, justifies him before the demands of the 304 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST law and accepts him as His own very righteous- ness in His now risen, ascended, glorified and priestly Son. On the basis of this divine and exact justifica- tion the Son of God in His office and function as the Second Adam, the New Head of the race, communicates of His own life and nature to the justified and accepted believer. That believer has passed out of death into life. He is one with God in Christ. He is eternally saved. He has been delivered and saved by the judgment of the cross. So complete, so ample and so immediately available is this provided salvation that to-night, at this present moment any individual sinner here though he be as black as hell's deepest dark- ness and no man on earth be willing to lend him a hand, if he will in child-like simplicity take God at His Word, claim the crucified Christ as his sacrificial substitute, say believingly in his inmost soul as though he talked face to face with God, "Almighty and Holy Lord, I ought to be eternally ruined, swept out of Thy presence and denied every joy, death, endless, hopeless is my THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 305 due ; but I claim Thy Son hanging on that cross for such as I, accept all the judgments that fell on Him as having fallen on me and as having satisfied for every claim against me. Count His agony and damnation as mine and as completely and finally suffered there." Let any sinner here say that, mean that in honest, claiming faith and God will accept you, accept you quicker than the flash of a second. He will brush away every cloud of condemnation that hangs above you. You shall never stand at the judgment bar of doom. You shall be saved now and safe forever more. This is the judgment of the cross and the sal- vation it brings. The Judgment Seat of Christ, This is the judgment next in order. I shall speak of it later on and in full detail. The third in order is. The Judgment of the Living Nations. This will take place when the Lord descends in glory to the Mount of Olives ; as it is written : ^When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and the holy angels with him, then shall 3o6 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST he Sit Upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations" (Matthew 25:31-46). That this throne will be at Jerusalem is the declaration of the prophet: "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord : and all the nations shall be gathered unto it" (Jere- miah 3: 17). The nations gathered before Him will be the ten nations of the revived Roman empire under the last Kaiser, the demonized, Devil-led anti- Christ. The nations will be living and gathered as armies under his leadership, against Jerusalem; as it is written : "I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle" (Zechariah 14:2). Under no circumstance, nor in any way is it a resurrection judgment. There is no thought nor suggestion of resurrection in the scene. The basis of judgment will be the treatment by these nations of the Lord's brethren in the flesh — the Jews. After the Church has been removed from the THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 307 earth the Lord will send out elect and believing Jews who will testify that the Messiah, the true King is coming. It will be the Gospel, not of grace as it is in this hour, but the Gospel of the Kingdom. Many of these heralds will be im- prisoned, some of them will suffer hunger and thirst and nakedness. If among the gathered armies in this hour of judgment any may be found who had dealt kindly with them as oc- casion offered, gave them food or raiment, took them in, treated them with hospitality or visited them in their confinement and need, the Lord will count it as having been rendered to Himself and will permit such men to remain and live in the kingdom He is about to set up. Those who have maltreated these Jews shall die before the Lord even as the rest in the armies shall die. They shall melt away while they stand upon their feet; as it is written: "Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall con- sume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth'^ (Zechariah 14: n)- 3o8 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST The Judgment of the Great White Throne. This will be revealed a thousand years later, at the end of the Kingdom on its earthly and time side. At that judgment throne the Christless dead of all ages shall be raised and stand; as it is written : "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away: and there was found no place for them, And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, accord- ing to their works. "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them : and they were judged every man according to their works" (Rev. 20: 11-13)- The dead, small and great, the high and the low, the rich and the poor^ the king who sat on THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 309 his throne and the slave who served in his hall, the open and out-breaking sinner and the sinner secret and unknown, the worst and the best — Out of Christ shall be there. They will be judged according to the standard of God in every age : by His handiwork in the heavens as the star written and nightly rebuke to idolaters; by the moral law which was in- tended to reveal the immoral helplessness of man and his need of a regenerating God ; by the cere- monial law which proclaimed the way of re- demption by blood and spelled the name of a Coming Christ in every offered sacrifice, in the death of every substitute victim ; by conscience which leads men to accuse and excuse them- selves and thus on the one side emphasize the demand of the moral law and on the other to confess, even unconsciously, that they have failed and sinned ; by the Gospel which invites men to the way of salvation revealed in the cross ; and by their deeds recorded and indelibly stamped upon the soul. In all that motley throng not one shall be saved. 310 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST All will die a second time. The second death is, constitutionally, the same as the first — separation of soul and body. As the soul does not cease to exist in the first death neither will it cease to exist in the second death. The body will be destroyed in fire. The soul will continue; as there is no resurrection after the second death the soul will continue in a dis- embodied state shut out from God, a wandering human derelict tossed on the measureless waves of eternity and drifting through the darkness of its endless night forever. This is the final and Great White Throne judgment and its unspeakable consequences to all who shall be called to stand there. I shall now consider and expound the Judg- ment Seat of Christ. In doing so I shall lay down certain propositions. 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming to trans- late the Church to heaven, take His place upon the Judgment Seat and enter into personal ex- amination of each Christian. 2. At the Judgment Seat of Christ the Chris- tian will not be judged in respect to life and sal- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 311 vation, but exclusively for work and service as a Christian. 3. At this Judgment Seat our Lord Jesus Christ will reveal Himself as very God, and each Christian will have to give a faithful and intimate account of himself or herself to Him. 4. The Christian who at that Judgment Seat is judged and determined as faithful shall re- ceive a reward. He will be permitted to share in the joy of the Lord, 5. The Christian who shall not be found faith- ful will suffer loss. He cannot enter into the joy of the Lord. 6. The Judgment Seat of Christ will have a two-fold consummation — the judgment of the Christian and the judgment of the nations. 7. Christ as judge is already imminently be- fore the door of the Church. It is evident no man can preach from eight texts and talk in sixthlys and seventhlys and hope to be eloquent. The most to which it may be possible for him to attain is to be informing and instructive. I desire to be both. I shall therefore take up the first proposition: 312 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST I. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Coming to trans- late the Church to Heaven, take His place upon the Judgment Seat and enter into personal ex- amination of each Christian. This Judgment Seat of Christ comes in be- tween the judgment of the cross upon the one side and the judgment of the nations upon the other. It will take place at the Coming of the Lord into the air /or His Church. I have told you in previous sermons that our Lord Jesus Christ is coming in glory. He is coming in the glory of the Father — as His Son. He is coming in the glory of the angels — as their Master, He is coming in His own glory — as God the Son. It will be the Coming in which He shall judge the nations at Jerusalem. All the heavens shall be filled with His glory. It shall be as though they were aflame with His Majesty. The earth shall own His Coming. The seas shall lift up their voices. The concourse of on- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 313 looking worlds shall fling down their wreaths of hallelujahs and intone the exultant and trium- phant "All Hail" ; but as already told you, before He comes in glory, before He is visible to an as- tonished earth He will come into the upper air for His Church as suddenly, as unwarningly as the lightning's flash; as secretly^ softly and si- lently as a thief in the dead of night. He will call up the Church to meet Him, not the great, outward professing body calling itself the Church (so calling itself from Apostate Roman- ism and infidelic Protestantism through all the various offshoots, Unitarianism, Universalism, Emmanuelism, New Thought, and Christian Science) , but those, rather, who are genuinely the Lord's; those who have been made partakers of the divine nature; who are indwelt by the Holy Ghost and are one in life and purpose with the Lord. He will call these. He will raise the dead who have fallen asleep in His name. He will transfigure the living. He will take them into the place He went to prepare two thousand years ago, into the third heaven, into paradise, into the city four square, the city of the jasper 314 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST wall, the golden street, the wide-flung gates of pearl and the river of crystal, the free flowing river of life. There He will set up His Judg- ment Seat and require a personal accounting from each Christian. II. At the Judgment Seat of Christ the Chris- tian will not be judged in respect to life and sal- vation, but exclusively for work and service as a Christian, And this in the nature of the case, Primarily, because the death of Christ has met the judgment originally due the believer. When the believer claimed the death of Christ as his sacrifice for sin and claimed Him as a personal substitute the believer was at once de- livered from his standing and place as a sinner under doom of forfeited life, accepted as not guilty, justified and reckoned as righteous in the righteousness of Christ and in Christ as his actual righteousness; that is to say, he received not only an imputed but, imparted righteousness. So clear and clean is this transaction between the believer and a once-crucified Christ that were I with other believers at this moment sum- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 315 moned to that Judgment Seat, did justice ap- pear before me with a naked sword and in stern and merciless tones say unto me that my life was a sinful failure, or infraction of divine law, and that I must pay what I owed with my life, that rightly and fittingly I deserved to be bani- ished from God and the glory of His presence forever I would turn and point to that great crimson blot uplifted on a cross between two thieves and I should say: "O Justice, as much as you know of all the sin in my nature, all the sin I am and all the sin I have done, I know it too; but, Justice, yonder on the cross I was judged, punished, executed and done to death in the person of my substitute, the substitute whom the infinite and Almighty God Himself provided. I have paid all the debt I owe to the law, the government and the being of God. I have not fallen short in one jot or tittle of the law's demand. I have paid to the last element of my being every thing the conscience of God could require. God has not winked at any debt I owe or have partially paid. He has required it all. He has got it all, and He 3i6 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST got it all in my substitute, in every drop of blood His Son, my Substitute, shed for me. The con- science of God is satisfied concerning me and my conscience is at rest in the satisfied conscience of Godr I would say that, When I said that Justice would sheathe the double-edged and gleaming sword and turn away. No matter who you are, worst or best of men the moment you turn and claim the crucified Son of God as your sacrificial substitute you are safe. Safe because Justice cannot demand payment twice, once from your surety and then from you. But, that Christians cannot be judged for sal- vation at the Judgment Seat of Christ is cor- roboratively demonstrated and proved by the im- mense and indisputable fact that when they are there it will be in their glorified, immortal bodies, bodies whose very immortality will be the seal they have passed out of alienship and condemnation into sonship and fellowship with God forever. For, let me repeat what I so often say, "irn- rHE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 317 mortality" does not apply to the soul. There is no such thing correctly speaking as an "immor- tal soul." No such term can be found in Holy Scripture; nor is such a thing in the nature of the case possible, since the soul is immaterial, and immortality has to do with that which is material. In saying the soul is not immortal and that the word is never so applied, it is not in- tended to suggest even in the most remote pos- sibility that the soul could ever cease to exist. This is not true. The death of the body does not touch it, makes no essential impression on it. You may kill the body, you cannot kill the soul. Once created the soul continues and will continue forever. The words "immortal," and "immortality" in Scripture are applied only to the body and signify a deathless, incorruptible body. A deathless and incorruptible body be- longs only to the sons of God saved with an ever- lasting salvation and wholly beyond the possi- bility of any judgment for life or denth. The Christian will not be judged for salvation at all, but for work and service done down here as a saved person in the name of Christ. 3i8 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST As Christians we are not saved by works. You might be the best person who ever walked the earth. No mortal being might be able to bring a charge against you. All the shadows might be under your feet. You may be free from any arraigning footstep of the past, but if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, if you do not accept Him by faith as your personal Substitute you are lost, hopelessly and forever lost. You are lost under inherited nature of sin and origi- nal condemnation passed upon all; for, by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. The worst man on God's earth who does not believe on Jesus Christ is lost and the best man on God's earth who does not believe on Jesus Christ is lost. Added to this, if when you hear the Gospel you do not immediately own the estimate of God concerning you and accept His Son as your only Saviour, you violate a command given to all, be- come a sinner if never before, and vitiate any work no matter how good you may seek to offer to the Lord. You cannot be saved by anything you do. You cannot buy salvation by anything THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 319 you give. It is wholly on the basis of the fin- ished and accepted work of the cross and can be received only by simple and surrendering faith in Jesus Christ. In no wise, in any direction, nor under any circumstances can you be saved by good works ; as it is irrevocably written : ^'Not of works, lest any man should boast/' We receive salvation through faith by and because of the unconditional grace of God. We receive it as a gift, pure and simple. We receive it by faith and nothing more. As saved persons we are as much witnesses to omnipotence as the widespread creation about us. God and God alone could and did save us. If in any fashion we respond to and own Him as our Lord and God, it is because He fashioned the way by which we might be brought into union with Him and has wrought the work which gave our souls the impetus toward Him. "It is he that hath made us, and not we our- selves ; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." And again it is written: "We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus." 320 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST I like to take up that word "workmanship," and repeat it again and again; for, that word means, literally, "poems." Old Horace in his song of the Alban hills and the fair Sabinian farm never wrote such hexa- meters as the living Spirit has wrought in having wrought us. God intended us who are Chris- tians to be full of measured, syllabic, songful harmony, the revelations of divinest grace and infinite perfections. The Greek called anything that had harmony and unity of form a poem. A statue, a work of art of any sort, a temple, a perfect piece of liter- ature even though it were the straitest prose, was a poem. The gold and ivory statue from the hand of Phidias was a poem. The Parthenon dismantled and in sorrowful ruin as it is to-day is, nevertheless, the fragment of a poem in stone. God created us as Christians to be poems, to be beautiful in all the terms and forms of spir- itual life, of living faith and in every word and thought to bear witness to the hand of grace and love which has so wondrously and unerringly wrought us. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 321 Let it be remembered! let it never be forgot- ten! We have done nothing as Christians to save ourselves. God has done it all. The work of salvation is all His and none of ours, and though the natural man lived the whitest life and lived it a thousand years without a single mistake nothing he could do, nor any character he might establish of morality and truth would avail to save him — Salvation is not and never can be by any work that man can do. But while it is true that we as Christians have done no work, nor could do any that would save us, we have been saved that we might do good works; as it is written: "Created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." "What wilt Thou have me to do?" was Paul's first question. It is typical, suggestive and all revealing. We are here, as Christians, for service, we are here to take the place of witnesses. There are many Christians who imagine if they just live what they call the Christian life 322 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST and never say a word about Christ they are effi- ciently and satisfactorily witnessing for Him. It is a great and grievous mistake. Before all else we must speak of Him. Our lips must give clear and vibrant testi- mony concerning Him. We must tell about the death of the cross. We must talk of the empty grave, of a risen, ascended and Coming Lord; we must assure those about us that there is a present salvation in His name and we must be clear and strong to say there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This is what the early disciples did. This is what Paul did. Think of him going into the synagogues every Sabbath day and testifying to the Jews out of their own Scriptures that Christ must needs suffer, die and be raised again and that this Jesus whom he preached unto them was Christ. Look at him going yonder to Athens, the city of culture, of intellectual power, of artistic re- finement, and not only in the synagogue but in the market place, as Socrates before him hailing THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 323 the passers-by, arresting their attention and talk- ing to them of Jesus and the resurrection until moved profoundly the very philosophers hailed him to the Areopagus that they might the more fully know of his doctrine. What a record he leaves in Corinth where his eyes even as he spoke could look upon Parnassus and the Castalian Spring; but where, turning his back upon any temptation to preach with ^'enticing words of man's wisdom," he set the Gospel of the Crucified before them in "demon- stration of the Spirit and of power." Surely in all history nothing is more dramatic nor more appealing than the scene *in Herod's judgment hall at Caesarea where with manacled hands and guarded by Roman soldiers he stands before the dissolute king and his beautiful para- mour, speaking with unfaltering lips and divine passion to the astounded and brilliant throng of that Christ of God whom blinded Jews had hung upon a tree; whom God had raised from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heaven far above all principalities and powers, higher than the heavens as the Redeemer and 324 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST Saviour, not only of Jew but Gentile also, even the very Romans before him; and speaking in such fashion, with such deep set convictions and consciousness of truth that he wrenched from the lips of Agrippa himself the involuntary cry, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Not only Paul, not only the called apostles spoke, but Christians in the quiet of private life. Wherever they went and in whatsoever occupa- tion engaged mind and heart were full of the wondrous truth that God had so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son to die for men. The light from an open grave so flashed upon them that they could not hide it in the dark of silence. Their hearts were so full of the won- der, the glory and the benediction of a risen Lord that out of the abundance thereof their lips spoke with gladness the joyful tidings. Testifying of Christ with the tongue, that is the function of the Christian. This dispensation began with tongues. Pentecost was the risen Lord's declaration that He would have His dis- ciples go forth and tell the story of His death and resurrection. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 325 This is the function of every Christian, to talk of Christ, not the Christ who lived and walked among men and blessed them merely, but Christ crucified, Christ th^ sacrifice for sin, Christ the substitute for the sinner, Christ risen, glorified, the present Saviour of every believing sinner. You need not wait for the preacher to tell it. You can tell it. This is your obligation as a wit- ness. But a witness must have a character. A witness whose character is not good is of no avail. He may tell the truth, but his testimony does not count. Yonder is a man on the witness stand. He has told the truth, the exact truth in the case, nothing less and nothing more than the absolute truth ; but if the attorney who is against him is keen enough he will summon those who will declare this witness is not to be believed upon his oath ; that his reputation for dishonesty is widely known, he can be bought and sold. Let him do this and the testimony of that witness will be ruined, the jury will pay no heed to it. A Christian who lives an inconsistent life, whose speech is full of unbelief, of doubt or 326 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST worldliness, carelessness and open sin; a Chris- tian who continually does things no Christian ought to do and who goes where a faithful and devoted Christian ought never to go, becomes sooner or later in so far as the world outside goes a worthless witness. No matter how much truth he may tell, nor how well and earnestly he may tell it, the world will not believe him; they look upon him as a fakir, a hypocrite, an unworthy betrayer of the Lord whose name he wears. In order to be an efficient witness for Christ so that our testimony shall have a hearing and the work of the Spirit be unhindered, we are under bonds as Christians to build up individual character, a character that shall verify what we profess and preach. And do you think this is an easy matter? an easy thing in this world, here in this city where ten thousand forces are seeking to drag you from the path of Christian consistency and faith, and when the coordinate and resisting power of evil and unbelief come from within yourself. You never know what depths of sin and wick- edness of hell are in your nature till you turn THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 327 and start to walk the path that leads to God and Christ, the path that is paved with righteousness and truth, but bordered with grinning fiends or smiling serpents who stretch out hands to help the traitor in your soul; a path in which some times the Devil meets you arrayed as an angel of light and in the name of righteousness seeks to guide your feet into the way of enticing sin. I have had earnest genuine Christians come to me filled with heart-aches and lamentation. I have had them say to me, ^^We never knew what sinful and perverse natures we had till we tried to serve the Lord." You cannot escape from that nature. Like Saint Anthony you may flee from the city and hide in the cave, but sin and shame and Devil and beautiful wantonness will be there in vision of a thousand-fold quickened imagination with whispered word and pictured form to tempt, to fool and lead you all unwillingly astray. I say to you it is a fight, a battle fierce in which all the powers of darkness will rise up within you and about you to pull you down and away. Neither by tongue of orator nor pen of 328 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST logician could the jM/>^r-naturalness, the abso- lute divinity and Heaven birth of Christianity be more overwhelmingly and unanswerably demonstrated than by this upheaval of evil and wicked antagonism and this internal revolt of human nature in the regenerated Child of God. To live the Christ life, the life of spir- ituality and heavenward aspiration, to say "no" to material appetite, to rebuke passion, offer love for hate, purity for impurity and unselfishness for selfishness; in short, the dethronement of the flesh and the enthronement of the Spirit, surely this is not natural, it is not of man nor of earth, but of Heaven and God alone. If you are a Christian this is the conflict into which you are called and this is your work, to meet assault and resist, to go forward, fight the good fight of faith and to win. The supernatu- ral life must be uppermost in you; as it is written : "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: " (For the weapons of our warfare are not car- nal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.) THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 329 "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." This is a part of our function, if we would be faithful and truthful witnesses for Christ, to so live that we win for Christ and Christ wins for Himself in us in the life we live. As Christians we are each one of us called to be good "ministers" of Christ. But ministering in its true sense means serving others in the name of Christ. We are to minister to the saints, to look after the "household of faith," to visit the sick and the fatherless in their affliction, to take care of the needy, comfort the troubled, build up and strengthen the faith of others. We are to give of our substance. Do you imagine that God prospers any of us in this world that we may wholly spend our sub- stance on ourselves? The only time I recall the Son of God applied the epithet "fool" to any one was when he spoke of the man who laid up treasure for himself and ^^was not rich toward God;" so He said was every one like 330 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST him who made his own life the deposit of his wealth and had nothing for God — a very fool, a fool of fools. Again and again God pours the sunshine of prosperity upon Christians. In spite of their mistakes, their blunders and follies He com- bines ways and circumstances over which they have no control and brings them unexpected comfort and blessing, — comfort and blessing they never could have obtained if left to their own efforts. And then, when after repeated warnings, a little touch of disaster here, a loss there, they still refuse to be great hearts and lib- eral with Him, He causes their riches to take wings and fly away. I have said to you the Son of God never wasted a moment of His time. He was no idler finding a place of rest in some unoccupied and empty moment. No ! I assure you, No. It was there- fore not idleness nor loitering of curiosity which led Him to take His seat one day in the temple where He could look at the great chest with its trumpet-like mouth into which the people put their contributions, their offerings unto God. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 331 That He should sit there and watch and carefully note how the people gave, the manner of their giving; that He should do this so that the record of His observation has been written in all the languages of earth, that the rich gave of their abundance wihout an element of sacrifice and that a poor widow gave only a mite, giving it out of her deep poverty, but gave all that she had ; and that the mite in His mind outweighed in moral value the whole sum of what the rich had given; this stopping aside to view and com- ment on the attitude of the people to the treasury in the temple is the clearest and most definite testimony He could make of the interest He feels to-day in the spirit and manner in which Christians hold their substance from His hand, how far they feel it to be their privilege as well as obligation to deny themselves and be liberal and rich with Him. The matter of giving is at bottom a moral and spiritual test. Many Christians count it no sacrifice to give largely for that which gives them the return of satisfaction, of personal comfort or ioy. They 33^ THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST Spend it on themselves, considering self always first, giving self the benefit of lavish expenditure and economizing on God. The Christian who refuses to give to the " r j, who holds back on the plea of economy bears wit- ness that his heart is not right with God and that his appreciation of the salvation which for a while robbed heaven of its glory, goes no greater length than the lip which professes what the heart does not feel. We are here as the stewards of God. We are here to give liberally and that liberality is meas- ured not alone by the amount but by the impulse of the heart, the quickness of the hand and the spirit in which the gift is made. We are here to win souls for Christ, to bring them to Him that He may save them. As of old wherever He came they sought out the sick, the lame, the blind, the leper and the halt that they might but touch the hem of His garment and be healed, we likewise are to seek the sin sick, the spiritually blind, the morally paralyzed, the so- cial leper, those who are undone and lost and bring them with the hands of faith and prayer THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 333 and lay them at His feet. We are to speak the simple word and tell them to touch Him with the touch of faith, to believe and "only believe" and they shall be saved. We are to speak this word of hope and invita- tion on the street corner, in the seat of cars, in the ofRce, in the store, wherever and whenever the door of opportunity is opened by the Lord. A word spoken in season how good it is. It is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. We are here as Christians to do whatever our hand finds to do. We are to do it with all our might, for the night cometh when no man can work. We are here to mean business for God, and we shall be examined at the Judgment Seat of Christ for the way in which we have en- deavored to fill our mission as Christians. It is for this we shall appear at the Judg- ment Seat of Christ. III. At this Judgment Seat our Lord will reveal Himself as very God and each Christian will have to give a faithful and intimate account of himself or herself to Him as such. From all eternity He was God, God the Son 334 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST and God the Word. From all eternity He was in the ^^form" of God, and therefore the visibil- ity, the outgoing and forth putting of God; so that a prophet writes : "Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting/' He was ever the utterance of the eternal si- lence as He had been the revelation of the eter- nally unseen. He was the commanding energy which vocalized creation and sent the universe upon its course. By Him were all things made, and without Him, apart from Him, was not one thing made that was made. He is and was the reason of all tliliigs. By Him all things were and are upheld. In Him all things subsist. He was and is the accent of Godhead. The Father originates, the Spirit executes, but the Son trans- lates the will and the purpose of Godhead. In- carnation was one of His mightiest acts. As Son He took of the seed of a virgin woman and created a human nature, a nature consisting of spirit, soul and body. He united this nature to His unchangeable, eternal personality. Thus constituted He had two natures distinctly human THE JUDGMENT SEAT OE CHRIST 22S and divine in one body and one person forever. In this embodied humanity He walked the earth God manifest in the flesh, serving the Father un- failingly as His eternal Son and yet, always, as actual man, real man and true God. He was a man among men, eating and drink- ing with publicans and sinners, showing forth His interest in and compassion for men ; and yet, there were times when the deity in Him revealed itself unconsciously through the thin texture of His spotless flesh. If as God He lived in hu- manity, as God He died in that humanity. By virtue of His humanity as God He was able to know and understand humanity. By virtue of His humanity He was able to taste the bitter draught of death for man. Only God can atone to God; but as the atone- ment is in behalf of man it must be by man. Therefore although He was God He became man that through His death as man He might atone as God for man. As God and man He rose from the dead. As God and man He ascended to heaven. As God and man He took His seat upon the thronq 336 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST -where at the Father's right hand He had sat from all eternity, clothed Himself with the glory He had had with Him before the world was and sits on that throne to-day as the God who is real man, as the man who is true and very God. In the hour when His Judgment Seat is set each Christian will be summoned to meet Him, not only as the crucified and risen man, the Sav- iour of all who own Him, but as living God and eternal Judge. Each Christian must give an account to Him. You cannot give an account for me. I cannot give an account for you. You must give an account for yourself. I must give an account for myself. That word "account" means "speech," "narra- tive," "reason." We will have to make our speech to Him, give a narrative of our lives as Christians. We shall have to give a reason for what we did and what we did not do. We shall have to tell Him why we neglected His Holy Word, the exercise of prayer, the house of God; and why again and again we refused to meet the responsibility of THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 337' the profession we made or the service into which ^ He called us. Everything will come out in that all searching light. The good and the bad will come out. In that hour our souls will be like the wax cylinder of the phonograph. The slightest ac- cent of the voice is marked on the cylinder. Long after the voice has ceased, after the lips are turned to dust, the very word and the very tone in which it was spoken may be reproduced and heard in all its original force and clearness. Every word you have spoken in your life is re- corded on your soul, every deed and back of deed and word every thought, impulse, intent and purpose. Now and then the yesterdays come back to you, the outline of a landscape through which you have passed, the breath from of¥ a mountain peak gleaming with the touch of morning light, or a draught of salt sea air blown in by ocean winds, a face that looks at you across the crowd and passes on, some roadway, some sylvan spot where you drove or walked in company with 338 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST those you loved, a careless word you spoke on easy tongue, some impulse that rose but never moved beyond the half veiled purpose and the plan — this is not mere memory, the kaleidoscope turning of the brain, but the soul rising up to witness for or against itself as its own indelible recorder. But stop ! Note this ! You can take the wax roll and shave off the impressions so that they may no longer confront you. There is a way in which the sins and failures, the short-comings and the mistakes of your life as a Christian may be removed from your soul. One way in which these things may not be known, may not confront you at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and that way — Confession; as it is written : "If we (Christians) confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Confessed sins will not appear at the Judg- ment Seat of Christ. Unconfessed sins will be revealed and will weigh the scales of judgment in relation to our work and service. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 339 O that I could impress you as Christians with the necessity of confession. The Romanist goes to confession. He bares all things. He pours all out in the ears of the listening priest. The priest gives him what he claims to be full and complete absolution. You need to go to confession. You need to pour your heart out into the ears of the listening priest, not in the ears of any priest on earth, no such confession is warranted of God. The doc- trine is the invention of man. The claim to give absolution is treason to God and wicked blas- phemy. You have a priest. That priest is in heaven. He is your risen Lord and Saviour. He is in heaven within the veil, seated upon the throne a high priest after the order of Mel- chizedek. He is there to act on your behalf. This is His great and ever unfinished work. The work of redemption was finished, but His work as priest, as intercessor and advocate for His Church, for individual Christians is unceasing. His ears are ever open to hear. He is waiting always to take up our slightest petition and pre- sent it before His Father's throne. He is anx- 340 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST ious to hear our confession. He is ready to make that confession turn to our welfare and peace. The mode and way of this action is very sim- ple. Come to Him. Confess all that is upon your heart and soul. Keep nothing back. Make no attempt to exculpate or justify yourself. Give up the idea of seeking scapegoats for your own responsible failure. Tell the truth at any cost to your pride. Take sides with the Lord against yourself. Put your confession free and full into His hands and leave it there. He will take that confession and spread it before the Father. He will say to the Father : "O Father, long ago and anticipatingly I died for these very sins here so fully confessed. The confession bears witness of the believer's faith in me, his sorrow over sin and his desire to walk in fellowship with Thee. I claim the forgive- ness and the cleansing of this believer, not as an alien and rebel, but as a stumbling child of Thine. I claim forgiveness and cleansing in the value of my blood and according to the terms of the everlasting covenant wherein Thou didst THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 341 pledge to give them unto me and fulfill my will concerning them." The Father hears the priestly and interced- ing plea and because He is faithful and just to His covenant He will forgive the confessing be- liever and cleanse him from all unrighteousness, as it is written : '^If we confess our sins, he (the Father) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." There is immense moral and spiritual value in this act of confession. As you confess, as you bring to light the evil in you and judge it with the judgment of God you will learn more and more to hate it and turn away from it. At this Judgment Seat all things will be ad- justed by the Lord. All things will be righted and regulated. If any one owes you a debt, it will have to be acknowledged and paid. If a Christian has wronged you in any fashion, hurt you by an idle word or the spreading of a false and irrespon- sible report, such an one will have to apologize to you before high heaven and the assembled host; and all this is in the nature of the case, for 342 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST the Son of God Himself has said here in rela- tion to this world : "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, "Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and ofJer thy gift." If reconciliation and adjustment must be made here, how much more in that hour when every- thing is to be settled and the crooked made straight. At that Judgment Seat no good thing you have ever done in the name of Christ and for His sake will be forgotten ; as it is written : "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of Godf The kindly smile, the cup of cold water in His name, the cheery word spoken in the fitting sea- son, the clasp of hand by which you lifted an- other to firmer footing in the way of faith; all this will be remembered. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 343 IV. The Christian, who at the Judgment Seat of Christ is judged and determined as faith- ful will receive a reward. He will he permitted to enter in and share the joy of the Lord, The "joy of the Lord" is twofold. There is the joy which enabled Him to endure the cross, despising the shame; as it is written: "Who, for the joy that was set before him, en- dured the cross, despising the shame." What think you was it which made Him press forward to Jerusalem in that last and awful pass- over time when He knew He was Himself to be the chosen and eternal victim? What held Him in the heart-break of that last supper when all the shadows were deepening round Him? What made Him bend His will in Gethsemane and yield it wholly to the Father's claim, drinking the cup the Father gave Him to the very dregs even while the blood sweat dripped from His brow? What sealed His lips in the hour of trial and made Him withhold the power by which He had raised the dead and stilled the storm? Why did He not use that power in His own de- fense and scatter His foes as by the blast of a 344 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST whirlwind? What led Him to restrain the prayer for the sixty thousand tall, strong-limbed angels the Father was ready to give Him, had He but asked it? Why did He hang in such amazingly apparent helplessness upon the cross when with but a word He gave salvation to the repentant thief dying by His side and opened paradise to the fresh believing soul? Why did He endure the agony, the horror, all the untrans- latable woe but partially expressed in the uni- verse-splitting cry as of one forsaken? What gave Him impulse and furnished Him strength whereby He not only endured the cross, but ris- ing in moral grandeur and balanced conscience above its shame, endured it, despised it, and counted it as naught? There is but one answer. And this is the answer — ^'The joy that was set before Him/^ The joy through that agony, that anguish and shame of becoming your Redeemer, your Saviour and mine. It must be a joy no tongue can tell, no niind conceive — the joy of unlimited power. To be able to speak and by a word create a world, or THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 345 send a lot of shining systems flashing on their course ; but to Him such a joy is not comparable to the joy of recreating a human soul, filling it with divine life, the divine nature, linking it to the eternal Godhead and making that soul one with Himself in eternal Sonship before the Fa- ther's throne. This is the joy He saw might be His on the other side of the cross, the joy of taking the place of the First man, becoming the Second man and the new, the perfect, the eternal life-giving Head of the fallen race of man. For the sake of that joy He endured the cross, endured the agony, the hiding of the Father's face, rising above all the stinging, smiling^ mock- ery of the crowd and all the shame, the piercing sorrow of the bloody and torturing gibbet. He has illustrated this joy that held Him fast to the course He chose and all the horrors He at last endured in the wondrous threefold parable which He spoke. He has illustrated it in the shepherd who hav- ing lost his sheep went out to seek it, found it, placed it on his shoulder, carried it back to the 346 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST fold, then called together his neighbors to re- joice with him because he had found the wan- dering sheep he had mourned as lost. He saw you as the wandering sheep out on the mountains cold and bare, the mountains of sin and shame. He saw you wandering amid the deep defiles, He heard the growl of the seeking wolves and the hiss of the hooded serpents of sin; He saw the precipices, the sharp rocks, and the bottomless pit whither your footstep led and He came down to seek you. The thought of finding you, lifting you to the shoulder of His strength and bearing you home to the Father's fold filled Him with joy, hastened His feet to find the cross and gave Him strength to be nailed thereon for you. He illustrates His joy in the woman who lost her piece, lighted her candle, swept the house diligently, found the missing coin, then bade her neighbors come in and rejoice with her because that which had been lost had been found again. He saw you as a coin of the realm, as an in- finite value of God, stamped with His image, but no longer a medium of exchange or circula- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 347 tion for Him, fallen into some by and hidden corner, a lost value, lost to God and the best uses of yourself. To die and on the basis of His death to found a Church, send it out like the woman with the lighted candle of the Word in the energy of the Spirit and in His name to seek for worthful but lost and helpless souls, find them and make them of infinite value to God that they might pass and repass revealing His image and be returned at last to the treasury of heaven, that was the joy which held Him where nails otherwise would have had no power. This was the joy that despised the shame. He illustrates His joy in the story of that fa- ther whose son turned his back upon the goodly home, spent all he had in riotous living, sank down amid the swine, and lower than they, came to himself, thought of the father and the far away home, turned his face thitherward with beating heart and trembling step to seek no better place than that of a hired servant amid the serv- ants he once had ruled and suddenly beheld that father coming to meet him with outstretched arms and loving kiss; that father who said so 348 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST that all the world in every tongue has heard it since: "Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.'' You who now believe were that anticipated son He foresaw. He saw you as one who had turned his back on the Father's house; as one who had no higher function than to feed the swine, the beast appetites and passions which throng and crowd and thrust their hungry de- mands of the flesh upon the soul. To die upon the cross pay your debt to justice; yea, all the debt you owed, rise again and have power to ar- rest you, awaken you, bring you to yourself, give you vision of the Father's house on high, make your soul to turn and seek the Father's face in willingness to be a servant amid all the servants of His will, and then fling round you the em- brace of the Father's love, bring you into fellow- ship with Him on the basis of that sacrificial death of the cross, clothe you with the seamless robe of the divine righteousness, give you the ring of the endless life and cause you to be shod THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 349 with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, this was the joy He would drink out of the dregs of agony the cross had in store for Him. Never forget it! the joy set before Him, the joy which made Him endure the cross and de- spise the shame was the joy of being your Sav- iour and mine. But there is yet another and climacteric joy set before Him, the joy which has enabled Him to endure with patience His exile to the Father's throne. That joy is announced in the Father's promise. After His resurrection and ascension to the throne the Father bade Him sit there till He should make His enemies His footstool. He promised Him He should come back to this world and sit upon His holy hill of Zion as King of the Jews as it is written in the second psalm : "Yet have I set (that is, I will set) my King upon my holy hill of Zion." He was crucified as the Kmg of the Jews. He will come back to be enthroned as the King of the Jews, 350 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST Not only of the Jews but of the Gentiles; as again it is written in that second psalm : "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen (Gentiles) for thine inheritance, and the utter- most parts of the earth for thy possession." Consider what a joy it will be for Him to come back as the King of the Jews ! Recall that scene in Herod's guard room where they threw an old cloak upon His shoul- ders, a soldier's used and soiled cloak, bowed the knee before Him, mocked, spit upon and abused Him. Think of the people. His own people whom He came to save, repudiating Him, sending Him to the cross, clamoring for a robber and honoring him in His stead. Think of that writing above His head : "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," and placed there not for coronation but as accusation. What a joy will it be for Him to come with all His cohorts of splendor to make that writing not a shame but glory, not an accusation but a verification. What an hour that will be when the elect and repentant Jews delivered from the tyranny and THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 351 terror of the wild beast King and His merci- less scourging shall look upon Him whom their fathers pierced and own Him as Messiah, Lord and God, the Holy One of Israel, their own anointed King. What a joy it will be to Him who was whipped and gibed and hung on a rob- ber's cross to come back, not only as the Son and heir of David's throne, but as King of kings and Lord of lords, the God of all the earth. What joy it shall be to enthrone Himself at Jerusalem, to sit on Mount Zion and for a thou- sand golden years to administer righteousness and truth to the glory of God the Father, and to the far-reaching and measureless blessing of men. This will be the consummate joy of the Lord. The Christian who has passed his civil service examination at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be invited to share that joy. The Lord will say to him: "Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord/' 352 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST Here as plainly as language can put it, the Lord's power and authority to appoint rulers on the earth is His joy. That appointment of ruler- ship is the declaration that He is acting in His office as King; that the region and sphere of ap- pointment is the kingdom. Acting as King on the earth then is His joy. The faithful Christian will share this joy by being appointed a ruler in the earthly or mil- lennial kingdom. Thus it is evident that rulership with Christ on earth is not a common but restrictive privi- lege, restricted to those who are faithful, to whom the Lord can say specifically, ^Well done, good and faithful servant." One of the joys in that joyful sharing of the joy of Christ will be the privilege, not only of rulership, but sitting at the feet of the King Him- self, and from time to time, listening as He shall unfold the written Word w^hich long ago. He Himself as the living Word, inspired ; for in let- ters of light I read this rare and wondrous af- firmation: ^'And it shall come to pass in the last days, that THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 3S3 the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- lished in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all the nations shall flow into it. "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Who can measure the joy of listening to His divine and human voice as He shall unfold the first chapter of Genesis and tell the story of that wide sweep of ages between the first and second verses; that hour when with His own spoken Word, and as Himself the Word, He set the heav- ens and the earth in their course; that mysteri- ous moment when the cataclysmic crash came which flung the earth from its original orbit out of the original sunlight into the dark and form- less void of chaos, the resurrection of the earth out of the woful night and watery waste, the six days remaking of it as the dwelling place of man and the long ordained arena of redemption, the revelation of the love of God. 354 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST What a joy to have Him take up the book of Daniel, verify each written prophetic word, the deeps of meaning in each impacted symbol, and on the dust of broken empires make manifest how through all the tortuous and bloody cycles of their history His hand was steadily guiding the march of events till they culminated in that kingdom of stone of which He Himself is basic rock and apex. What joy to hear Him expound the Gospel of John and from every gleaming splendor of His now fully manifested deity justify the opening words of that Gospel: ''In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word/' hear Him affirm the truth of John in that wide open and bottomless phrase : ''No man hath seen God (the Father) at any time, the only begotten God (true rendering) which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." What a moment when He shall fully reveal the book of Revelation, the apocalyptic radiance of fulfilled and still fulfilling glories. O the joy of walking with Him through the THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 355 sacred ways of Palestine, sitting with Him as did the disciples of old, and with those very disciples again upon the brow of Olivet, listening while He unbares the deeper secrets of the cross, the countless eternity, the mysteries and the endless wonders of redeeming grace. Think of it! The joy of being fed with knowl- edge, of having veil after veil of mystery taken away and finding the reason, the wisdom, the love and the glory in all the providences of God, seeing the good always behind the evil, finding the straightness, the directness and the perpen- dicularity of the divine dealings behind all the complications of the wrath of man, the ingenious malignancy of the devil and the apparent contra- dictions of the way. Surely this will be entering into His joy and sharing it. Beyond question this will be rich and royal reward, to reign as kings, to rule with Him, to take the place of associate and inter- ceding priests, to be the chamberlains who shall attain access for others to His welcoming and enriching presence. Ah ! to be kings who shall rule creation's ways 356 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST and priests who shall lead and intone creation's praise; to be the sharers of His earthly king- dom and to rejoice with joy exceeding in His joy. V. The Christian who shall not he found faithful will suffer loss. He cannot enter into the joy of the Lord. Those who have preached and by their preach- ing have built nothing better than wood, hay and stubble on the foundation of Christ will be judged as unfaithful stewards of the Word of God. At that Judgment Seat the preachers who have been willing to make the Church a rubbish heap will be fully revealed. Men who have mixed law and grace, the righteousness of God with the righteousness of man; who have preached prohibition, socialism and state legislation; like Lot, have endeavored to clean up Sodom, and like Lot in Sodom have vexed their righteous but unspiritual souls with their daily and mani- fested inability to keep it clean. O what rubbish heaps some churches are! Everything under heaven preached but the THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 357 Gospel of the Grace of God. The life of Christ proclaimed, but not His death, evolution from below instead of regeneration from above, the first birth and not the second, appeals made to the inhering, self-redemptive powers in man in- stead of exhortation to claim redeeming blood. Everywhere the watchword, "Toleration." The right to think and go as you please in matters of religion; modern thought and not first century thought, the word of man and not the Word of God, goodness taught and not Godness ; the pres- ent life the only life worth while, one religion as good as another: Romanism which teaches an earthly priesthood and a continually sacrificed Christ as good as Protestantism which teaches one sacrifice once for all and one priest alone and in heaven; Judaism which denies the deity of Christ and looks upon Him as a cool deceiver or a weakling failure, and Christian Science which denies the Trinity, the personality of God, the fact of sin and death and owns Jesus simply as an idea and no longer a fact, just as good as any other system that makes use of the name of God; Christ Himself owned as a moralist, at best a re- 358 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST former and never a personal and only Saviour of men, the Bible not the exclusive Word of God and by no means the only revelation of God to man. O the rubbish heaps some churches are! All sorts of means used to draw the people, street cleaners with their band, base ball experts to talk on the benefit of physical sobriety, regu- lar habits and cleanliness, lectures, moving show pictures, ice cream suppers, dramatic entertain- ments, social clubs, military companies^ minstrel shows, burlesques and dancing. All this is wood, hay and stubble. Like wood, hay and stubble, it is big, bulks greatly, gives the idea of being busy, occupied, doing things; but like wood, hay and stubble, the bigger the bulk the bigger the bonfire it will make; for all such religious rubbish will be burned away on the day of the Lord. Not only so, multitudes of those who are brought into the churches, who become its members give no sign of a change of life, give no evidence of spiritual income and spiritual outgo, who are in reality as lifeless as wood, hay and stubble; who have THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 359 swelled the list of "conversions" and have made a good numerical showing in annual reports, these will be shown on the day of the Lord as elements of churchly rubbish, and witness of the worthlessness of the work of those who "added" them to the Church. The preachers who in spite of all the blind- ness and blundering of their wood, hay and stub- ble work have been really regenerated, have had some element of divine life, the foolish and de- ceived workers who have mistaken quantity for quality, will in that hour when they stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ be accused of unfaith- fulness to their trust and shall suffer loss. None of these shall enter into and share the joy of the Lord. They cannot take part in the kingdom on the earth. Christians who have refused to give of their substance; who have been willing to spend it on themselves, but not on God; that class of Chris- tians who are always revolting against "expense" in the Church and Judas-like are continually talking of "this waste," these shall miss the joy of the Lord. 360 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST Christians who live notoriously and intention- ally inconsistent lives; who openly dishonor the name of Christ; who are impervious to spiritual appeal; who claim the assurance of salvation; who no doubt really believe, but refuse to bring forth the things which accompany salvation, these shall suffer loss. Amiable Christians, de- cent Christians, Christians who always go to church, but never do anything for Christ; who sit still on the cushioned seats of easy security and repeat to themselves as complacent justifica- tion, "not of works lest any man should boast" — Think of it! Redeemed by blood, made par- takers of the divine nature, indwelt by the Holy Ghost, linked up to a risen Christ, claiming all the guarantees of salvation; and yet, never do- ing anything for Him who has done all things for them. O the pitiableness of it. Redeemed and doing nothing for Christ. And these all shall suffer loss, the loss of what they might have had. They will miss the "well done." They cannot enter into the joy of the Lord. They will have no part in the kingdom of THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 361 the thousand years on earth. During the thou- sand years they will be in the kingdom, but in heaven, in the Holy City, and not on earth. VI. The Judgment Seat of Christ will have a twofold consummation. It will continue for three years and a half and then Satan, the Devil, will be cast out of heaven. There need be no astonishment at the sugges- tion of the Devil being in heaven. He is the prince of the powers of the air, the head of the hierarchy of evil spirits and angels who occupy the d^rk void surrounding the earth. That Satan has access to the presence of the Lord is revealed in the first chapter of the book of Job. He comes into the presence of the Lord and accuses Job. This is his role. He is both an accuser and a slanderer. He is prosecuting at- torney for righteousness. He will be there to ac- cuse the brethren. Then will be seen the ad- vantage of confessing to the Lord down here. Whatever has been so confessed down here can- not appear up there. But Satan will bring to light every unconfessed sin and failure on the part of the Christian. Those who have been 362 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST faithful, against whom he can bring no accusa- tion will overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. They will meet the charges he shall make by an appeal to the redeeming and cleansing power of the blood and to the record of their faithfulness in testimony when here. He will be finally cast out into the earth and his angels with him; as it is written : "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which de- ceiveth the whole world ; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him, and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven. Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which ac- cused them before our Lord day and night. "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." That the Judgment Seat of Christ will last three years and a half and that the casting out of Satan is the terminal point of the Judgment Seat of Christ is demonstrated by the fact that Anti- THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 36;^ Christ, the man of sin who will be reigning on the earth after the Lord has translated the Church to heaven and set up the Judgment Seat, will enter into a covenant or alliance with the Jews in Palestine for seven years (called in the prophecy of Daniel ^'oneweek"; that is, a period of seven, and by the context sig- nifying years) . In the midst of the seven years (that is at the end of three years and a half) he breaks his alliance with the Jews; now it is at this very point of breakage he exalts himself with greatest power. An examination of Revelation thirteenth will show that it is after Satan has been cast out that he himself gives all his own power to the "beast," or Antichrist. The casting of Satan out of heaven then is coincident with the exaltation to power of the man of sin; and as this exaltation takes place in the midst of the week or at the end of three years and a half and during that three years and a half Satan is rep- resented in heaven accusing the brethren, and this accusation implies and includes a trial be- fore a judge, then evidently during that three years and a half the Judgment Seat of Christ has 364 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST been in session; that long at least, and as much longer as may be the lapse of time between the moment when the Church is taken up and the Antichrist enters into his seven years covenant with apostate Jews. During the final three years and a half on earth Satan will sway the whole world through this man of sin, the son of Perdition, the world's last Kaiser, the Antichrist. Then will come the climax. Christ and His translated and adjudged saints will descend in manifested glory to the Mount of Olives to exe- cute judgment on the kingdom of Satan, over- throw iniquity and set up the reign and rule of righteousness. All the saints will come with Him ; for it is written : ^This honor have all his saints." But, after the judgment of the nations, those who are not to share in the earthly kingdom will, and in the nature of the case, return to the upper city and remain there during the thousand years. Rulership and participation with Christ dur- ing the thousand years on earth is wholly and THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 365 altogether a matter of reward. It is for those to whom at the Judgment Seat our Lord shall say: "Well done thou good and faithful servant." VII. Christ as Judge is already imminently before the door of the Church. This is the Divine and Holy Ghost way of saying that the coming of Christ for His Church is imminent. So imminent is it that the Holy Ghost says He is before the door. If the door should be opened the Church would find herself face to face with Him, not only as her Saviour but as her righteous Judge. And this is the announced order; as it is writ- ten: "The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God!* While many predicted events are between us and the appearing of Christ in glory, many things which form the burden of prophetic warn- ing and find their amplified accent in our Lord's discourse and are uttered and illuminated for us in the parenthetic chapters of Revelation, those terrible chapters which extend from the sixth to 366 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST the nineteenth, between us and the coming of the Lord for the Church, there is not a single fore- announced event. It may be at any hour and therefore at any moment. He has only to speak, the door will be opened. According to the Word of God^ the testimony of the Son of God and the corroborative and un- broken testimony of the Apostles, there is not the thickness of tissue paper between us who are Christians and the Judgment Seat of Christ. In the light of this tremendous judicial immi- nency the corollary of the present opportunity is immensely self-evident. As Christians we ought to arouse. We ought to make our calling and election sure. What an unspeakable experience it would be if before morning we should be summoned to the Judgment Seat of Christ and learn sooner or later that we could not pass the examination with honor to ourselves nor glory to the Lord ! The Apostle John speaks of being put to shame in that hour. THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 367 O what disaster, what shame if for the sake of a dance, a game of cards, a glass of wine, a night in the theatre; what a disaster if for the sake of self pleasure, self gratification of any sort, an unwillingness to be strong and steadfast and to stand for truth, a compromise and failure by the way; what disaster, what indescribable shame if we should find we were shut out from that gold- en hour, tbat splendid sweep of a thousand heav- en illuminated years. It is time to awake and let go the grip upon the things of earth; time to let the vision of heaven and heavenly things enter in and possess the soul ; time to let go the handf uls of dust we call our plans, plans already slipping through our loosening fingers and falling into the ever opening trench men call a grave ; time to realize God in our daily experience, be as conscious of God as we are of the winds that blow or the heat that burns, or the circumstance that dis- turbs, hinders or makes us turn; time to arouse because should the voice call and the hand of power lift us to the judgment seat we should be ready without hesitation and wholly unafraid to answer and say: 368 THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST "Here Lord am I." To you who are unsaved listen to the word of warning: If Christ should come to-night, or to- morrow you would be left behind to certain woe and sorrow which even the symbols given of God fail fully to reveal. At the last you would die. For a thousand years you would be held in the prison house of the underworld. Then would come the second resurrection, the second death. As a forever disembodied soul you would pass out into eternity where the cry of anguish would ring through the endless and hopeless darkness, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Hear me, I pray! Get into Christ, let Christ get into you. Take God at His word, believe the record, stand on the promise, offer Christ as your sacrifice, claim Him as your substitute; say, "O God, death is my doom and death is my due; but, Thou hast given Thy Son for such as I. Ac- cept the judgment which fell on Him as though it had fallen on me. By His bloody pains. His anguish and His woe, let me go free. Accept me in His name, make me Thy child and Thine for- ever more." THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST 369 Say that and mean it, and quickly as you say it God will accept and save you. God forbid you should trifle! God forbid any one of you here in spite of the love of God, the blood of Christ, the call of the Gospel, the conviction of the Spirit and the prayers of those who love you, God forbid you should be among those in eternity who shall take up the cry, not the cry of adoration and praise from the lips of the blood-washed and enraptured hosts, but the cry wrenched from the sunless souls of the unre- deemed, that unspeakably awful cry which shall make a universe to quiver — "Lost! Lost! We are forever lost" — God forbid it. VI THAT BLESSED HOPE The Blessed Hope. My theme to-night is, '^The Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Hope of the Church." My text is Saint Paul's epistle to Titus, second chapter and thirteenth verse : "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glori- ous appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." The text may be rendered : "Expecting that blessed hope, and the mani- festation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." The text is preceded by a context of several verses. I shall quote them inclusive of the text. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. "Teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glori- 374 THE BLESSED HOPE ous appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." In presenting this theme I shall consider, First, the doctrine of grace. Second, the grace of God has been manifested. Third, the grace of God brings salvation to all men. Fourth, the grace of God teaches those who accept salvation what to deny. Fifth, the grace of God teaches those who are saved how to live in this present age or world. Sixth, the grace of God sets before those of us who are saved the hope which the Spirit calls, ''blessed." Seventh, grace teaches us the attitude we should hold in relation to this blessed hope. The grace of God ! This is an immense phrase. Immense because it links the word ''grace" to the name and title — God. God is the God of grace. Grace in its simplest definition is "free favor," *^unmerited, undeserved favor." THE BLESSED HOPE 375 The grace of God is the free, full, unmerited, undeserved favor of God; that favor which in- cludes all there is of love, mercy, blessing, bene- fit of every sort, and bestowed on man without money and without price; blessing, mercy, and measureless love which no man in any wise, un- der any circumstances could merit, deserve, buy or earn in any way or fashion whatsoever. This is grace, and grace of God. This grace of God was manifested in and through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace was poured into His lips. He spoke words of loving compassion and tender sym- pathy. His deeds co-ordinated His words. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb. He made the lame man to leap as a hart, cleansed the leper with a word, raised the dead and to those who were weary and heavy laden He said, "Come unto me and rest." All that He said and did, He said and did in the name of the Father and as sent by Him; so that His words and deeds were the revelation of 37^ THE BLESSED HOPE the Father's heart and the manifestation of His grace. Every time His feet touched the earth they gave it a benediction, every time He breathed the air He sweetened it and every word He spoke filled it with music; yet, overflowing with love and mercy, perfect as His life was in the demonstration of the Father's grace and proof that Heaven looked with yearning and compas- sion upon a world of sin, it is not the grace to which the Spirit draws our attention here. The grace we are invited to contemplate is not His life on earth among men but His death, for- saken of God upon the cross. On the cross our Lard Jesus Christ died as a sacrifice for sin. By that sacrificial death He satisfied the law, the government and the being of God. He satisfied and honored the law of God by meeting and paying the penalty of the law which said, ^The soul that sinneth, it shall die." He honored God's government by recognizing the law as coming from the hand of God as the THE BLESSED HOPE 377 lawgiver of the universe, and therefore as its ruler, administrator, and governor. He honored the being of God by acting as the representative of man in sin, sin of nature and sin of transgression, thus appealing to and draw- ing forth from God all His legal and essential antagonism to sin till the heat and wrath and hate of it poured down as onrushing sweeps of divine and eternal judgment The death of Christ was not academic, nor merely dramatic. It was not accidental nor in- cidental, but integral, constitutional, the very fibre and make-up of the purpose and prede- termination of God. The cross was the center of the eternal counsels before the foundation of the earth was laid. The death of Christ was motived and ordained before His birth. By the cross the righteousness of God was dis- played. By the cross God's hatred of sin, His un- changeable wrath and pitiless, unending de- termination of ceaseless judgment against it and punishment of it were so proclaimed and made 37^ THE BLESSED HOPE manifest that with law, government and being honored, He could hold back judgment from a guilty, sin-loving world and deal with it in un- deserved favor, mercy, and grace. Thus was the grace of God proclaimed by the wrath of God. Out of the wrath and hatred of God against sin; by the inexorableness of that law which sheathed its sword of justice deep into the quiv- ering soul of the divine victim; by the holiness, perf ectness and absolute integrity of the Father's essential being which made Him turn His back upon His Son, turning away from Him until the blackness and darkness of the infinite forsaking fell upon Him and drowned Him under its over- flowing billowSj the grace of God was made manifest. This grace of God brings salvation to all men. The salvation is threefold. It is salvation from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and identification with and par- ticipation in the multiplied, resplendent glories of a Coming Christ. THE BLESSED HOPE 379 Salvation from the penalty of sin is to be had by claiming our Lord Jesus Christ as a personal substitute. Under the Levitical law the Jew who wished to be ceremonially clean from the judgment of sin selected a lamb, put a rope about its neck, led it to the priest, put his hand upon its head and confessed his sins, the knife of the priest leaped forth, the throat of the victim was cut, the blood was shed and the offerer pronounced clean, went forth free of judgment. Just so you are to look back by faith to the cross of Christ (and faith can link you to that cross quicker than wireless telegraphy can fling its message across the intervening seas) ; you are to claim the death of Christ upon the cross as your sacrifice for sin; then you are to turn, face God and say to Him : "O God, no matter though I may deem my- self the whitest and finest of men; no matter though those who know me may testify that not a spot or charge is against me, I accept the esti- mate which Thou hast formed of me, that I am a 380 THE BLESSED HOPE sinner both by nature and transgression. I own and accept Thy judgment that I ought to die; but, I offer to Thee now the sacrifice which Thou Thyself hast provided. I claim Thy Son crucified and dead on yonder cross as my sub- stitute." Immediately God the Father will accept the death of His Son as though you had died. He will accept the judgment and the billowy down- rush of wrath that fell on Him as though it had fallen on you and lo ! you are legally clean, not guilty, forgiven, justified and accepted as right- eous and so presented before that court where holiness is the fashion. And this is undeserved mercy and free favor. This is grace, pure and unqualified grace. You have no righteousness of your own. You could not even dare to offer it to God. Your best righteousness in His sight was no better than unclean, filthy rags. He did not ask goodness of you. God does not want goodness. He wants Godness, His own quality and character. Just as you, if you have respect for yourself THE BLESSED HOPE 3^1 cannot afford to associate with one whose char- acter is not equal to your own, neither can God accept in fellowship with Himself those who are not holy, spotless, and pure. "Without holi- ness no man shall see the Lord." In default of that holiness you must pay the penalty in death. You never can get beyond paying of it; and since you can neither live according to the standard of God's righteousness, nor pass beyond the liquidation of your penalty. He has provided the sacrifice for sin and will accept the death of Christ as the full payment of the penalty which is your due and will credit you with the "obedi- ence" of Christ unto that death when you be- lieve, that through faith you may be linked up to Him, not only as the one made sin for you, but as your righteousness, so that in Him you shall be the very righteousness of God. Undeserved mercy and freest favor this — who can doubt it? Grace, pure and unqualified grace this — who may dispute it? 382 THE BLESSED HOPE Grace it is that saves from the penalty of sin. But you need to be saved, not only from the penalty, but from the power of sin. You can be saved from the power of sin only by a life that is superior to, and will reign above, sin. This life is not in you by nature. It is to be found alone in a risen Lord on the throne at the right hand of God. You cannot buy it. You cannot earn it. There is nothing you can do will make you de- serve it. It is to be had only as a gift. It is as much a gift as the sunshine which pours its flood of light upon you, as the air you breathe. And it is to be had as all other gifts of God are to be had. All the money in the world will not buy the gold of sunshine, the silver of moonlight, starlight, nor the circumambient air. You must receive them. The life that overcomes sin, the life that is the power of righteousness and truth in the soul is to be received, and received by faith, simple, child- like faith; for, the wages of sin is death, but THE BLESSED HOPE 383 eternal life is the gift of God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and since by faith you are deliv- ered from death and bound up in the bundle of life with the risen Christ, and are one with Him, you shall take part in the glories that are His. You shall be heir of God and joint heir with Christ. This is undeserved mercy, the free, full, and unmeasured favor of God. This is grace and grace beyond degree. This grace and salvation by grace is offered to all men through the gospel of the grace of God and is commissioned to be preached to every creature. This is the age of grace. Herein is the explanation why iniquity runs riot, lawlessnesses are multiplied and sin rolls its unchecked, mad waves of sensualism and shame over all the foundation of righteousness and truth. Here is the reason why men may blas- pheme the name of the Holy God, raise their hands in proud disdain of His every claim and no thunderous judgment break forth to smite 384 THE BLESSED HOPE them where they stand. Here is the reason why the heavens are silent, why no miracle, no inter- vention takes place, why no wing of angel is thrust through the blue of yonder sky: it is be- cause God is dealing in grace; and He and the Heaven host are waiting, silently watching to see what man will do ; whether he will despise this hour of grace or turn and accept its offer ere the wheels of judgment turn. Grace, that explains the silent God, the con- tinued down flow of mercy, rain falling upon the just as well as upon the unjust, the wicked flourishing like the green bay tree, the continu- ance of the gospel and the Spirit's insistent pleading. But, grace not only brings salvation, it teaches those who accept that salvation. It teaches them what to deny. That word "deny" is in itself a revelation. It is a revelation either of power or weakness. He who cannot deny, who cannot say, "No," is a pitiable slave. Passions, appetites, desires like hungry beasts with lolling tongues and bloodshot eyes will rush in and leap upon him. THE BLESSED HOPE 385 Here is the appetite for drink. Days and even months may pass and the poor fool thinks himself immune, the very master and boasts his freedom, when, suddenly, it leaps upon him, clutches him by the throat and bids him yield. If he cannot deny, if he cannot say "No," and say it with a round and ringing circle of en- closed determination, authority and power, then will he follow like an ox to slaughter led: or like swine Circe fed will wallow in his swinery a sickening slave and brute till the appetite is gorged to fulness and then is he flung down a limp, lost, helpless thing, full of self-contempt and all the agony and bitterness of biting re- morse, filling himself with a thousand fresh- made pledges to resist, till again the beast leaps on him, claims him for its own and drags him still deeper in the filthy mire. Or, it is lust, lust coming with lean and lecher- ous lip, clammy hands and hateful breath to poison every vein of chastity and snakelike coil about the soul. 386 THE BLESSED HOPE Not always in such beastly ways as that, but in ways and fashions that take you unawares and smother you and leave you stricken, struggling, panting in the treacherous embrace; leap upon you so quickly, and for a moment seem to be so beautiful, so winsome, so appealing to all that is in you, so deceiving you and disarming you, so hypnotizing and charming you that you sur- render with responding pulses and are gone be- fore an angel of God can descend and lift you out of the mire that awakens you with its foul and pitchy smear. But the grace of God can teach you to deny. I saw a company of men and women terror- ized by a brute beast of a dog. He saw they were afraid of him. That encouraged him to terrorize them more. He showed his white fangs, his quivering, nervous, slobbering lips till not one of the startled, fear-smitten party dared to move. Then I saw the master come. He looked the brute full in the eye and there was an almost cruel smile upon his lips. He THE BLESSED HOPE 387 walked forward indifferent to the low and warn- ing growl, seized the beast by the scruff of the neck, heaved him up and flung him to the earth, put his feet upon the snapping jaws and with a voice that had in it the sound of a whiplash said, "lie there." Then he released him and with a howl of fear and conscious defeat the cowed beast slunk away to its kennel. Like that I have known men to lay hold of the beast of passion, fling it down and put their feet upon its neck, bid it lie there and be still. The grace of God taught them that. Sometimes it has been a fight, terrible, awful, straining at everything of life and hope in the soul, but grace has won. I know men who are Mount Vesuviuses, Etnas, and Chimborazzos in themselves. They are, in- deed, like burning volcanoes. Their veins are hot with inward fire, an easily provoked and maddened temper ready to blaze, to kindle into flame at a word or look, burst forth and wantonly destroy. They are always on the threshold of riotous words and impulsive acts. Anger, re- 388 THE BLESSED HOPE sentment, quick burning hate and a bitterness that for the moment would rejoice to ruin every- thing that opposed or antagonized them are in them like bloodhounds straining at a leash. You would never know it, never dream it. They are calm, self-poised and self-controlled, never for a moment under keenest provocation losing the grip upon themselves. The grace of God has not only given them life, but taught them. With Paul they are able to say: ^'By the grace of God I am what I am." The grace of God teaches those who are saved, not only to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, it teaches them how to live. Of all the blunders a human being can make, none are so supreme as the blunder of thinking you can profess the name of Christ, be baptized, join the Church and then live and do as you please, fill your lips with evil speech and walk in by and forbidden paths. If you be a true child of God, if regeneration be a fact in you, if you have passed into the realm THE BLESSED HOPE 389 of a new and spiritual genesis, if Christ be really in you, then every evil deed and treasonable speech, betraying thought or impulse will find itself opposed, rebuked by that new and inward force, a force that will proclaim you and make you in spite of your own revolt, proclaim your- self a hypocrite, a worthless thing; so that, to continue in your careless and wilfully inconsist- ent life you must deliberately strangle the ever- protesting voice of God in you. Before you are saved, before you believe on our Lord Jesus Christ, the best character in the world will not avail you, it will not avail you because God is not asking for the best you can do, but for that which is absolutely perfect, for a character like His own, sinless, holy, far-flash- ing in hate against sin; and because you do not have it; because by nature you never can evolve it ; because in default of it you were under doom of death ; and because you can neither meet the demand for life, nor satisfy the demand for death, out of pure grace He provided this right- eousness in Christ whereby you might be clothed 390 THE BLESSED HOPE and stand before Him in all the perfectness of character which He Himself requires. No character of your own before you are saved, however good it may be, will save you. That truth needs to be repeated over and over again and sunken deep into your consciousness and the consciousness of every human being on earth; but, after you are saved, then you are to give to God the most beautiful and perfect char- acter the eternal life committed to you can un- fold. The grace of God will teach you to live so- berly, righteously, and godly in this present world. To live the life that is discreet, equipoised and balanced. It will teach you to keep your feet in the path of righteousness and truth, to live the life of godliness, to let God and Christ and all spiritual things exude from the very pores of your being; to be a contagion, not for sickness, not for impulses of the flesh, but for spiritual health, for divine vigor and all the inbreathing and outbreathing of the Holy Ghost. You are to live in this present world (this THE BLESSED HOPE 391 age) an age which is against the sons of God, and to find yourself fought against and hindered ; so that, time and again you will find yourself in- voluntarily saying, "the Christian life cannot be lived, everything is against it, it is wholly im- practicable, it makes a man try to live in the air while the law of gravitation forces him to stay upon the ground." You will find yourself say- ing, "I am perplexed. I am puzzled and do not know which way to turn. How can I meet my social obligations, my business responsibilities and be true to the spiritual profession I make?" The grace of God will teach you. No matter how great the problem it will teach you how to solve it. No matter how narrow the path that leads to the Kingdom of God it will teach you how to walk in it. It will deliver you from the truth half told, an evil thing worse a thousand fold in its reaction and outward effect than a whole and barefaced lie. It will deliver you from the insincerity and purposelessness which can ruin the noblest lives. Yes, the grace of God, if you are willing, if you wish it, even if you do 392 THE BLESSED HOPE not deliberately hinder it will teach you how to live. And now, this grace having brought salvation, having taught us what to deny and how to live, sets before us the hope which is to animate us, encourage us, make us more and more willing every day to listen to the admonitions of grace and hold us fast and unswervingly in the faith as the anchor holds when clouds and darkness gather and wild storms break upon the vessel's side, the hope which the Spirit specifically calls —''that blessed hope!' It is well the grace of God should set this hope before us. Without hope it is impossible to live. No matter what may be your equipment, you cannot live, you cannot achieve without hope. There are some six millions of peoples in this great city to-night. To-morrow men and women will go forth to meet duties, obligations, responsi- bilities, calls of every sort. There will be prob- lems to solve and questions to answer that well may take the heart out of the bravest and the THE BLESSED HOPE 393 best. There will be burdens to be borne whose staggering weight will threaten to crush the burden-bearer to the ground. And what is it, think you, will make this vast army arise and go forward and press on in the mighty struggle even with a smile upon the lips? What is it, what else could it be — but hope? Take hope away from man, the strongest, the bravest, and the best of men and despair like an octopus will thrust forth its foul and greedy tentacles and suck out the very soul of him. Look at that man lying down utterly crushed, unnerved, full of mental darkness and soul hor- ror. You can do nothing with him. No rebuke of yours will affect him. He is indifferent to all you say. Even if you warned him, shouted aloud his danger, he would not pick himself up out of the way of a swift advancing car. Tell him it will kill him — ^what does he care; indeed, he would rather die than live, and the peril is should he arise and make any effort it might be to put an end to life he can no longer endure — that man has no hope. 394 THE BLESSED HOPE But let some one bend down and whisper in his ear the gladsome word of hope and lo! a new dawn will shine in his eyes, a new light will break across his face, he will arise, he will leap to his feet, his hands will outstretch and take on their grip, he will face the world and win. The Christian cannot be without hope. Without hope his feet are weak, his steps are laggard and his hands drop nerveless by his side. If he has no better outlook than the things of time and sense; if the horizon does not lift and expand into promised and better to-morrows, he is defeated ere the fight of faith begins. Grace teaches there is a hope for the Church and inclusively a hope for the Christian, an in- dividual and corporate hope. In no direction have there been greater blun- ders and more excuseless mistakes than in re- spect to the corporate hope, the hope of the Church. For generations the Church has been taught the conversion of the world as its supreme, its all-inspiring and definite hope. THE BLESSED HOPE 395 By the preaching of the Gospel the whole world was to be brought into subjection to the way and will of Christ. This was the hope held out to the Church. To-night, after twenty centuries of Gospel preaching, the world is farther away from con- version than when Christianity began. So far from the world being overcome by the Church, the Church is rapidly being overcome by the world. This promise of a Gospel-converted world has been the hope deferred that makes the heart sick. It has been a disappointment that has turned to bitterness and unbelief. And there never has been any warrant for such hope. The Church is commanded to preach the Gospel in the whole world to every creature, and to every creature in each and every genera- tion. It was never intended some should hear it in this generation, some more in the next, more in each succeeding generation till the whole 296 THE BLESSED HOPE world at last should have heard it. Never at all ! There is no such thought in the commission. It was intended that every creature in each genera- tion should hear this Gospel before he died. The whole world should hear it completely from generation to generation. None should appear at the final bar of God and plead he had never heard the tidings. The Apostle Paul affirms it had been universally heard in his day. Writing to the Colossiafis in one generation after the Gospel commission had been given he says, "The Gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature (literally, in all creation) which is under heaven." This was the divine ideal and purpose. But while this is the age for universal preach- ing, it is not the age for universal salvation. This is the age of restricted salvation, it is the hour of selective election. By the Gospel of His grace God is calling out here one and there another into faith and union with His Son. He is not seeking to save the world, but to call men out of it. THE BLESSED HOPE 397 If you knew a ship was out there in the bay, hard and fast upon hidden reefs would you go forth, buy a lot of paint, gold leaf, and gilding, get into a lifeboat with a company of house painters and decorators and when you had reached the ship, even though you saw the water coming in over the gunwales would you begin to paint the ship in true Louis Fourteenth or Fifteenth style? Would you make the white panels still whiter? Would you put on the gild- ing and the^gold leaf? Would you say, ^^On with the song and the dance?" Would you tell any- body your great hope was to save the ship, then continue to put on paint and gold leaf? Surely you would not. No ! you would leap into that lifeboat. You would gather your sturdy men about you. You would take life lines and life preservers. When you reached the deck of the ship you would go into the saloon where a lot of women might be found dawdling over a game of bridge, and you would cry out to them warn- ingly, the ship was sinking and they must fly for 398 THE BLESSED HOPE their lives to the boats in waiting. You would go into the barroom where you might find a lot of men drinking, mixing high balls and profan- ity, settling their bets on the ship's run, and you would cry to them, '^up and flee for your lives." God looks upon the world as a sinking ship. By the "world" is not meant the earth, but this human system, society, government and all the organized relations of man to man. The judg- ment of God is against it, already it is running on the rocks, the sound of the breakers may be heard, and there is a strain and quiver every- where throughout the length and breadth of it. The tide is rising higher and just as in the days of Noah, God will suddenly loose the whole flood of long withheld judgment and sweep away the present order of things, sweeping it away forever. He is not calling the Church to go and better the world, to paint it, decorate it, make it more beautiful and attractive, leading men more than ever to boast of it, glory in it. THE BLESSED HOPE 399 The Church is not here to deceive herself with the idea that the world can be saved as it now is. God is commanding the Church to save men out of it, to get them out of the old creation in Adam and get them into the new creation in Christ, get them out of the old system of the flesh into the new and eternal system of the Spirit. No! the hope held out to the Church is not the conversion of the world by the preaching of the Gospel. To hold out that hope is to play the Church into the hands of the Devil. It shuts men's eyes to the terrific fact that God has already passed sentence upon the world ; that He has said this present system shall come to a cataclysmic end, "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." It shuts the eyes of men to the fact that the death of Christ is not only a sacri- fice for sin, but a crime, a murder of murders and must be answered for by the world as such. Holding out the hope of a world converted by the Gospel blinds men's eyes to the analysis God has given of it 400 THE BLESSED HOPE Listen to the analysis: "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." And these three things, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life God says, really, fundamentally constitute the world. Take them away and the world as we see it fades from view, its activities and its "progress" come to an end. The hope that the Church is to win the world for Christ through the Gospel blinds men to the unbroken testimony of the Holy Spirit that as the age draws to its consummation there shall be "perilous times," "a form of godliness, but deny- ing the power thereof," and increasingly marked departure from spiritual things and the ways of God. The hope of a world converted by the Gospel leads men to ignore such unmistakable and dynamic warning and to paint for themselves the vision of a world to be made growingly better. It leads men to talk about the triumph of de- THE BLESSED HOPE 401 mocracy, the elevation and brotherhood of man, the establishment of free and righteous govern- ment, the abolition of war. It leads the preacher unconsciously and involuntarily to fellowship every effort of this nature. It leads him to turn his pulpit into a platform for prohibition, for purer politics. More and more he identifies himself and his Church with the life that now is. Every day he seeks to congratulate himself and all who hear him that the world is marching on to the purple and the gold of millennial days; and yet, all the while the shadow of Anti-Christ is growing, unbelief is hiding itself under at- tractive and deceptive forms, the thunder of the surf grows louder and the judicial forces in the hand of God are being assembled for the awful blow that shall awake a Devil-fooled world to its final doom. If there has been a false hope held out to the Church corporately, an equally false hope has been held out to the Christian individually. The Christian has been taught that Heaven was his hope, and that he could get there only by 402 THE BLESSED HOPE way of death, the undertaker, the shroud, and the grave. When I came to New York many years ago I went round the city looking at the different church buildings. I looked, naturally, to find the names of pastors. I could not find them. No matter what church building there was but one name upon all the structures, some of them massive and splendid, and that name always in largest letters and with wealth of gilding was the name of the undertaker. It appeared to be so settled the way to Heaven was alone by the graveyard that the undertaker seemed to be the most important personage next to death in the service and value of the Church. The churches seemed like monuments dedicated to death, they were monumental advertisements of the graveyard and the funeral end of the Chris- tian life. The first thing I did was to have the name of that ubiquitous, respectable, but dis- mal personage taken off the walls of my church. Can you conceive of anything more amazingly inconsistent, contradictory, and discordant than I THE BLESSED HOPE 403 to have a church erected to Him whose very name is life eternal, and then to have the build- ing v^ritten all over with the symbol of death? But neither death nor Heaven are held out as the hope of the Christian. * The hope held out to the Christian and the hope held out to the Church is the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ into the air to take the Church up there to meet Him. This is proved by Saint Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. He had taught them the Lord was coming from Heaven. He had bidden them wait for and expect Him. Some among them had died. The living were troubled lest the dead in Christ should miss the Coming. Paul writes and tells them they are not to sor- row over their dead as others who have no hope (as those, indeed, must sorrow whose dead do not die in Christ). The Lord is coming down into the air; so far from the dead in Christ missing that great event they will be the first to realize it. The Lord will raise them first, then the living who are alive at His Coming will be 404 THE BLESSED HOPE changed and caught up together with them to meet the Lord. The apostle exhorts them to comfort one an- other with these words : They were to comfort one another with the words Paul, under special inspiration and par- ticular revelation had written them, that the Lord was coming to raise their dead and bring them all together into His presence. This is the hope set before them. This is the hope set before us. This is the hope of which he wrote to Titus, "that blessed hope." It is blessed because it touches this matter of the Christian dead. Last summer I drove about a great deal in the mountains. Sometimes the road wound round and up and over lifted heights, some- times under arching trees, by broad expanse of turquoise-tinted lake, through cloven ridges and narrow impasses where rivulets rippled in drowsy murmurs or noisy babble over rocky beds and deeper rivers slipped in silence to the wait- THE BLESSED HOPE 405 ing valleys far beyond ; but wherever I drove, by lane or beaten highway I saw the memorial of the dead, in lonely churchyard, in family burial plot, in more extended cemetery near town and village. The larger the town, the larger and whiter the city of the'Uead and the old sorrowful refrain came to my mind : 'They that dwell upon the earth are but a handful ^ To those who sleep within its breast." But I said softly, "Thank God, the day is coming when the dead shall hear a voice and rise, the day when death shall be defeated, and a grave never more be dug nor filled with human kind." That hour of resurrection triumph will be at the Coming of the Lord. There are three records in the New Testa- ment wherein the story is told how Jesus raised the dead: the young maid who had just died, the young man on his way to burial, and Laza- rus four days dead and corrupting. 406 THE BLESSED HOPE In each of these cases the dead was raised at the Coining of the Lord, The daughter of Jairus was dead and the fa- ther's heart was broken. Jesus came. He entered the house where all were mourning. He said, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." They laughed Him to scorn. He put them all out (as He will put out of His house and shut out of His kingdom all who mock or make light of Him). He took the young girl by the hand and bade her rise, and straightway she rose and walked. A funeral procession was just turning out of the street of the City of Nain on its way to the cemetery. The mother walked behind the open bier. She wept as with bowed head she walked; for, this was her only son and she was a widow. Much people also followed, wept, and sorrowed in sympathy with her. At that moment Jesus and His disciples came up over the brow of the hill. He stopped the procession of the dead. He bade the young man THE BLESSED HOPE 4^7 arise. He who was dead, in obedience to the master word, sat up and began to speak.* Then Jesus delivered him to his mother. Lazarus was dead. Lazarus whom Jesus loved. The sisters had sent for Him while even yet their brother was sick. They had warned Him that, he whom He loved was grievously ill. But Jesus waited till death came, and now He ap- proached the house of mourning. Martha met Him. She reproached Him because He had de- layed, because He had not come at once in an- swer to their earnest pleading. She said: "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." Then it was Jesus answered in those words in which every syllable is a symphony of love, of grace, of tender compassion and infinite and Almighty assurance; "I am the resurrection and thf^ life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." He goes to the grave. 40 8 THE BLESSED HOPE He tells them to roll away the stone. He bids them do this because it is in their power to do it, and because the eternal and all- powerful God will never do what we can and what we are responsible to do. Then with a loud voice He bids Lazarus come forth ; and he that was dead, heard, lived, and came forth, but bound hand and foot with grave clothes. And again Jesus bids them do what they could do and what because of it He had no need to do, to loose Lazarus, unbind the grave clothes and let him go (and in this the Lord illustrates the work into which the Church is called after the sinner has been spiritually raised through hear- ing the voice of the Lord in the Gospel — loosen- ing the converted soul from the bonds of spirit- ual death, teaching him the truth; as it is writ- ten: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Unless rightly taught the quickened and saved soul, like Lazarus, remains bound, can neither see, use the hands, nor walk aright. Teaching must come after the Gospel — it is loosing and letting go). THE BLESSED HOPE 409 In each of these cases the dead was raised by the Personal Coming of the Lord, It is by the Coming of the Lord, and by the Coming of the Lord alone that the dead in Christ will be raised. If the Lord do not come Himself the dead in Christ will never be raised, resurrection will never take place. There is not the slightest warrant in the Word of God to hope for the resurrection of the Chris- tian dead apart from the Second, personal Com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Take the Second Coming out of the Book and you pack the grave clods down hard and fast upon the head of your hopelessly dead. Take the Second Coming of Christ out of the New Testament and there is not one word of hope you can hold out that the Christian dead will ever be anything more than disembodied ghosts. Even though they be in Heaven and with the Lord, so long as their bodies lie mouldering in the earth and part of its wind-blown dust their 410 THE BLESSED HOPE victory over death is only partial. The victory of Christ over death is only partial. The Devil who is the ^^strong man armed" (armed with the law which says it is appointed unto men once to die) holds them as his "goods'' in his "house" of the grave. Not only that, but in so far as the Christian dead are concerned the Lord does not become for them the "resurrection and the life" He claimed; on the contrary, He becomes an amazing concrete of contradiction; for, while Himself a risen, immortal man, His resurrec- tion and immortality seals of His own complete triumph over death, He is surrounded by ghostly beings whose bodies purchased by His blood He has not raised and whose bodiless es- tate bears witness that His redemption for them has not been complete; an incompleteness all the more emphasized by His own risen, immortal body. Nay! every moment that this risen body flashes forth its splendor, it proves the incom- pleteness of those for whom He died and testifies. The Devil has cut His victory in two and divided even honors with Him. O, no, Christians as THE BLESSED HOPE 41 1 eternal ghosts in Heaven with Christ do not be- come His glory but dishonor. Because Christ is surely Coming a Second time and that Coming means the deliverance of the body of the dead Christian ; because it means the Christian's complete redemption from the power of death; because it means the revelation of the Christian in an immortal glorified body' like His own, the Coming of the Lord is right- eously and logically held out as the blessed hope, both to the Church and individual Christian. Not only are the Christian dead to be raised, but Christians living in that hour are to be changed, transfigured, made deathless, incor- ruptible, immortal. In a moment, at the Coming of the Lord the wrinkles will disappear from the brow of age, the sick will be cured, health will leap through every vein and youth immortal shall clothe each changed, transfigured and translated saint. This is the hope held out to us. Blessed, indeed, or, as it means, "happy" is this hope held out to us. 412 THE BLESSED HOPE It means our gathering together on the plains of light, our reunion, and our knowing one an^ other in His presence. If He were to come to-night the first one I should seek would be my father. I believed in him when I did not believe in God. He stood between me and the world for years. For long years he stood there; and when I went forth from his roof to make my way he laid his hand upon my shoulder and with depth of love in his tender, but never lowered eyes he said (and do you think eternity will ever make me forget it) he said, ^'My son, if it does not go right with you; if things are not as you hope them to be, remember so long as I live you have a home." And I banked on that. It gave me strength to stand and courage and hope in many an hour of loneliness and sad perplexity. If the Lord were to come to-night and take me into the upper city I would go straight up to that father and tell him all over again the love he knows I bear him. Do you think I would make my mother merely a second? Impossible! THE BLESSED HOPE 41 3 She would be there and I would put my arms about them both, and how much I would thank her; for, I am here to-night and preach because she greatly prayed me into this ministry. I never sought it. I shut the door upon it. I turned away from it and would none of it, but her prayer helped to swing the door wide open and I entered into that ministry wherein the Lord Himself had called me and with strong compelling hand had bid me enter. But to-night if I were lifted up into that glory place within the vail and looked about upon all the shining host of the blood-redeemed and looked, and looked in vain and could not recog- nize either my father or my mother, what mean- ing think you would there be in the apostle's words exhorting me to be comforted with the thought the Lord is Coming and that I shall be caught up with the risen and transfigured dead? What comfort would there be in his words for me? Surely none. Nay! Those words would be but meaningless mockery and bitterness of disappointment he himself had wrought and 414 THE BLESSED HOPE made. But, since he was honest and his words are the inspiration of the Holy Ghost this prom- ise of our Lord's return and our reunion in His presence carries in the heart of it the assurance that we shall meet and know each other then. But we are left to no induction, no conjec- tural or presumptive conclusion, for the apostle writes : ''Then (that is, when the Lord comes) then shall I know even as I am known." There will be cognition as well as recognition. We shall know the generations old. I shall know Abel who first from afar through his bleeding lamb saw the bleeding and Heaven ordained victim on the cross. I shall know Abraham, who had faith to go whither he knew not because he trusted that the God who had called him would also lead him. I shall see and know Moses, he who stood amid the flaming glories of Sinai's cloud-capped height and saw the finger of God write the law on tables of stone. I shall see David whose harp strings have evoked the songs that have filled a world with hope and THE BLESSED HOPE 415 consolation. I shall see and know Simon Peter, who drew his sword to defend his Lord, and John, who leaned upon the Master's breast. I shall see Paul, glorious, much suffering, Paul. I shall see and know the martyrs of succeeding years; such as Zwingli and Huss, a Savonarola who walked to the cruel stake with quiet dignity amid the falling tears and quivering hearts of a silent, grief-stricken city; Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who amid the piled up, burning fagots and from their tortured bodies kindled a flame of faith and undying devotion for God. I I shall know the Wesley brothers and Whitfield and see again, but glorified, the Moody, who filled the eyes of men with tears and led them with no burlesque speech nor clownish platform tricks, but a sweet, old-time Gospel and a plead- ing, Christ-filled spirit to the Master's feet. It is a blessed hope because it means the Church, all genuine Christians, shall be deliv- ered from the hour and horror of the Great Tribulation, which with swift and steady stride is coming on the earth, 41 6 THE BLESSED HOPE Everywhere we are told from pulpit and from press the world is growing better and that days of peace and prosperity are about to fill the earth. Everywhere men have been cry- ing peace and safety. But the sons of God and all His apostles lift up their voices and warn against the fallacy and folly of those who talk peace when there can be no peace. The Son of God Himself talks in terms of war and rumors of war, of famine, pestilence, and earthquake, of lawlessness multiplied, Sa- tanic powers and miracles. He speaks of an hour when the heavens shall seem to fall, the earth to shiver and tremble as a cottage shaken by the storm, the sea and the waves roaring, the doors of the unseen world wide flung, distress of nations with perplexity and men's hearts failing them for fear for looking after the things that are coming on the earth ; everywhere confusion, conflict and all the loosened might of wrong and cataclysmic climaxes in the closing hours of a cataclysmic and catastrophic age ; a time so ter- THE BLESSED HOPE 417 rible none has ever been like it nor ever shall be again ; a time so terrible that unless those days were actually shortened no flesh should live. The Coming of the Lord means the deliver- ance of the Church from all that. You will find the scenic proof and demonstra- tion of this in the book of the Revelation. In the fourth chapter John is caught up to Heaven at the sound of a trumpet voice as the representative and figure of the translation of the Church at the Coming of the Lord. In the fourth and fifth chapters the Church is seen un- der the symbol of twenty-four kingly and priestly elders enthroned in Heaven. From the sixth chapter to the nineteenth chapter you have a picture of the tribulation, the woe on earth and the mad course of the Devil incarnate Anti- Christ. Not once in all these chapters, not in a single line nor by the most faint and shadowy suggestion of the smallest fraction of an infer- ential hint can you see even the first outline of the Church on earth; on the contrary, in the thirteenth chapter and sixth verse you have a 41 8 THE BLESSED HOPE dynamic and corroborative declaration that dur- ing all this time the translated Church is in Heaven, In the sixth verse it is written: "And he (the beast, the Anti-Christ) opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blas- pheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven/* The last conjunctive particle ''and" is not in the Greek text. It should be omitted. The clause then properly would read: "His tabernacle, them that dwell in heaven." The tabernacle of God is the dwelling place or habitation of God. The Church is the dwelling place or habita- tion of God ; as it is written : "In whom ye also (Christians at Ephesus) are builded (are being builded) together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.'' The sixth v^rse of Revelation thirteenth therefore paints the picture of the fruitless fury of the Beast, the Anti-Christ, against the Church, and the security of the Church at that moment because dwelling in Heaven, THE BLESSED HOPE 419 The twelfth chapter shows us the Devil cast out of the heavens and down on the earth, the thirteenth chapter shows us the Church taken out of the earth and enthroned in Heaven. The Coming of Christ takes us out of the earth and puts us in Heaven ; so that as Christians we shall not go through nor even enter the edge of the Great Tribulation. And because this is so the Coming of Christ for His Church is above all others, the blessed hope. It is a blessed hope because it means immor' tality. In Scripture the words "immortal," "immor- tality" are not applied to the soul, but to the body. They mean a deathless, incorruptible, pneumatical body. They mean lifting man into the place God in- tended he should have. Look at man as you see him now, sick, faint- ing, fallen down, and dying. The other day as I passed one of the great cemeteries I said, musingly, "What mighty mental powers have 420 THE BLESSED HOPE gone down into the ground there, minds that moved forces, wills that controlled vast enter- prises, moulded and shaped destinies. Is that the best God could do? set such powers to work in frail and easily shattered bodies, let them break, turn to dust, the spirit disappear and seem to be no more?" Nay! the revelation of God's real and infinite purpose shall be seen in the immortal bodies Jesus will give us when He shall come again. Each body shall be a storage battery, all the laws and hidden forces of the universe shall be con- centrated in such a body. The nexus shall be the will. The immortal Christian shall speak and it shall be done. He will command and it shall stand fast. In this we shall be like the Son of God Himself. We shall be masters whether on land or sea or in the air. Blessed is this hope of a coming Lord, coming for those who are His. Blessed because it will lift the Church into the place of associated power and rulership with Christ over the world. THE BLESSED HOPE 42 1 For two thousand years the Church has tried to rule the world. The Roman Church tried it, became apostate and failed, became political and unspiritual, at- tempted to win by stake, by blood, and .torture, and not by grace and truth; by blood and tor- ture till scarlet became the fitting color her priesthood wears. The world rose up, broke the shackles and for a while refused to hear her speak. Then the Protestant Church dreamed that by the Gospel it could lay hold of the world and bring it in due submission to its will. It failed. Then it entered into partnership with civiliza- tion, education, and human culture. It modified its ancient theology, it cut out some pages from the Bible, got rid of miracles, repudiated full inspiration and turning itself into a system of ethical culture and competitive morality has hoped to win the world by coming down to the level of its materialistic naturalism. And here it has utterly, derisively and de- servedly failed. 42 2 THE BLESSED HOPE Neither owned of God nor much respected by the world it is fast traveling to that Laodicean threshold where the Son of God has threatened to spew it out of His mouth. The Church while down here cannot rule the world. It is incapable of ruling the world, not only because Christ the living Head is still a rejected King and exile from His covenant throne, but because between us and the line of light which breaks like whitened surf of wide sea splendor against the black and sunless void surround- ing this earth, there is a hierarchy of evil spirits; so that the apostle has said, ^We wrestle not with flesh and blood," as did the Israelites when they sought to gain possession of the Promised Land, but with wicked spirits in the atmospheric heavens. These spirits dwelling in that zone of darkness are called ^'Kosmokrdtoras Tous Skotous Toutouf' '^The world rulers of (or from) this darkness." They are under the leadership of him whom our Lord calls, "the prince of this world," and who is none other than THE BLESSED HOPE 423 "that old serpent which is called the Devil and Satan." Under him and governed by his subtle wisdom they stand behind the thrones of kings, of emperors and the chairs of presidents, dictate the policy of cabinets, inspire confusion, complication and war among the nations. The Apostle John in vision sees three of them going forth to gather the nations to that final world- wide war rendezvous at Har Mageddon. No matter what attitude the Church may take, no matter how spiritually it may live, this is an age when Satanic power will send abroad those forces which will array themselves now in open wickedness and anon as angels of light against divine rule and Heaven's ways of righteousness. The Church is not here to rule the world but to protest against it. It bears the same relation to the world to-day as did the ministry of Noah. We are told that he "being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world/' The ark was a warning of coming judgment 424 THE BLESSED HOPE from the hand of God, a protest against sin and unbelief; and by so much as it stood for the saving of men out of the wojld, condemned the world. Such is the responsibility and should be the attitude and function of the Church. The Church is here to save men out of the world; by so much it is a protest against it as a system, condemns it and is a witness, God has ordained it shall pass away. For the Church to assume the place of ruler- ship while the Lord is an exile from His own particular throne would be open treason to Him. It would be as much treason as though a queen should attempt to rule while her husband was ^'despised and rejected" as king. Such an at- tempt would be proof that she had not only parted company from himself, but had rejected his principles. A church in the place of world pomp, power, and glory would be proof irresistible that she had forgotten the faith of Him whose name she wears; had forgotten that He walked this earth THE BLESSED HOPE 425 a pilgrim and a stranger, a faithful witness of coming judgment; and that it was He who has said : "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." No! this is not the hour of Church rulership. With keen and spirit-inspired arraignment the apostle rebukes the Church at Corinth be- cause they thought the hour of world rulership had come. He says : ''Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you." Then he goes on to show that so far from reigning and ruling in the world he and the apostles were suffering from the evil and perse- cution of the world. He says : "For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed unto death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. "We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are 426 THE BLESSED HOPE wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised. "Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; "And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it. "Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day." Surely there is no royal rulership in this; nor can there be till the Lord comes. The rulership of the Church is coincident with the Coming of the Lord, When He comes to reign, when He appears in glory as King of kings, then as a Queen the Church will appear with Him and reign over the world in glory; wherefore it is written: "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." Not till after the Church is taken to Heaven does she take up the triumphant song of antici- pated rulership. THE BLESSED HOPE 427 In the fifth chapter of the Revelation where the Church is seen translated to Heaven and dwelling there under the figure of the twenty- four elders, and at the moment when the Lord takes the title deeds to the kingdom and is about to break the seals and send down the judgment which precedes His appearing, the Church breaks forth into this exultant announcement, this new, new song of redemption and rule : "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou (the once slain Lamb, the risen Lord) art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on (over) the earth." When He shall appear to take to Himself His great power and reign, the Church shall be en- throned in light. Then shall she rule with Him. Where now the world walks in the spiritual darkness of this hierarchy of evil, then will It 428 THE BLESSED HOPE walk in the light of the exalted and glorified Church of Christ, the Church of the first born ones. All this is consequent upon the Coming of the Lord into the air to take the Church up to Him- self in the Holy City. Blessed, indeed, is this hope set before us, be- cause the result of it will be the manifestation and* complete revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ as ^^our great God and Saviour/' We shall see Him as — Our great God, When I was a stranger to Him; when I knew Him not and was filled with questions I could not answer and none could answer for me ; when there was no rest and peace ; when the universe seemed a huge mistake or a fearful and brutal thing crushing me at every turn wherever I lifted and posed an investigating thought, I said within myself had I the fashioning of a God, He should be human, with a human heart and human understanding, with capacity to enter into my sorrows, my perplexities and cares, and, at the same time a God who should have all THE BLESSED HOPE 4^9 power to match and fulfill the promises He should make to me. I did not know then, I did not understand, this was, indeed, the very God who had en- tered the earth and died for men, the God who now sits on yonder throne in glorified and in- finite humanity. We shall see Him with His perfect, immortal humanity, the center of the effulgent deity that is His and clothes Him, very God of very God, real man, true and everlasting God and everlast- ing man. Everlasting God, our human and divine Saviour! The Saviour who gave Himself to die for us. Paul will kneel at His feet and cry: "Thou lovedst me and gavest thyself for me." And I shall say that, and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands shall say that and fling their tribute of praise and adoration before Him as when ingots of gold are flung into the treasury of a king. Not only this, but the Church, as a Church, 430 THE BLESSED HOPE shall take part in the manifestation of His glory; as it is written: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." When He appears in glory, He will appear from Heaven. When the Church appears with Him in glory, she also, must appear from Heaven, Before the Church can appear from Heaven she must be caught up into Heaven, She is caught up to meet the Lord when He descends into the air ; as it is written : "We which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them (the risen, Chris- tian dead) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air/' This being caught up to meet the Lord in the air is declared by the Holy Spirit officially, to be: "Our gathering together unto Him." Our gathering together to meet Him in the air in the very nature of the case takes place be- fore we can appear with Him in glory. THE BLESSED HOPE 431 The Coming of Christ into the air to gather the Church to Himself previous to His ap- pearing in glory is, strictly speaking, the actual, preeminent, blessed hope of the Church. The appearing in glory is made a conjunctive part of it and the statement of the text reads : "That blessed hope, and the glorious appearing," be- cause the glorious appearing (appearing of the glory) is included in and (although a distinct stage of it) is a resultant part of the Blessed Hope. It is because of this blessed (happy) fact that Christ is coming first for the Church that we shall appear with Him in the glory. The glory! Who can describe it? What words, or forms, or symbols can re- veal it. Take suns and systems, take the twelve thou- sand millions of suns (suns alone) that are spread within the radii of the telescope; take all the suns and their circling and depend- ent systems, all the universe, and focus them into one colorful fusion of astral splendor; 432 THE BLESSED HOPE turn all the clouds into shekinal chariots; gather all the unnumbered and innumerable an- gels of the unnumbered worlds in our Father's house and concentrate the coruscation of their blinding beauty, the illumination of their kingly faces ; take all the songs that have been sung by them over every repentent soul on earth ; let the earth lift up its voice from all its hills and vales ; let the sea bid "the white priesthood" of its waves to kneel on every shore and chant in foam written hallelujahs; let all the wide, measure- less spaces, the endless, infinite extensions sound the music of their ever rolling spheres in such inwrought and perfect unison that earth and the inhabitants thereof shall hear the farthest and the faintest accent; then let the Son of God come forth in all His personal and essential glory now for the first time fully revealed, until sun and moon and stars shall pale and all beauty fade and there remain but one vision of visions to fill earth and Heaven: till His face and His alone be seen, and His voice be heard as the sound of many waters, mightier than all the THE BLESSED HOPE 433 sounding waters of all the seven seas when lifted and flung with crashing, tempestuous thunders on every rock-bound shore ; then let the Church, the saints of all the ages be seen with Him, re- flecting Him as the moon reflects the sun, but when the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun is seven-fold as the light of seven days ; and then when all has been done and all words in all the best speech of man have been used to describe it, the very words themselves shall break and be as dust, and every phrase shall be as a beggar pleading for better garmenting and richer form to hide his nakedness; because no word can describe, no tongue can speak the glory of that wondrous hour when Jesus and His blood redeemed, spirit regenerated, and exalted Church shall come forth to reign. This, and all the glories that are to follow are the consequence of the Blessed Hope. But, not only does grace set the hope before us, it teaches us the attitude to take as Christians now, in respect to that hope. 434 THE BLESSED HOPE It teaches us to be ^'expecting," to be ready and waiting in our day as though, at any mo- merit, the Lord might come. Human wisdom does not teach that. Human wisdom and human conceit will give us calendars and dates and times, bidding us be busy with them and not with Him. But we are to be '^expecting" the Lord. That is the meaning of the word, ^'looking." What utter betrayal of language, what sheer and shameful accusation it brings against the apostle, nay, against the Holy Ghost Himself who inspired the apostle, to say ^'expecting'' this hope means we are to be looking for signs, for predicted events, studying the map, figuring out times and seasons, putting up tribulations and wars, even the thickness of a shadow between ourselves and the Coming of the Lord. If ^'expecting" the blessed hope does not mean the Lord may come to make good that hope while we are expecting, then has the apos- tle deceived us wilfully, cruelly, brutally, or himself has been helplessly deceived and the THE BLESSED HOPE 435 whole scheme and concept of the Blessed Hope falls to the ground as a worthless delusion and contemptible snare. If the word, ''looking," "expecting," means anything within the range and realm of human intelligence and decent, undeniable sincerity, it means— IMMINENCY. It means, expecting the Lord Himself as the Hope which makes hoping for Him — blessed. It means logically and legitimately living from day to day in the confidence and the hope He might come any day. Grace teaches us to rise above every hin- drance, every object that may be thrust in the way. I knew a wife who waited for the coming of her husband, and when trains failed to bring him and time passed and wise people shook their heads and said it was no longer worth while to wait, she continued to wait and expect. He had bidden her to watch for his return any day. Love and hope and yearning desire for him taught her to wait and expect. And at last, in 436 THE BLESSED HOPE spite of all the clear deductions against his any day coming, he came at last and her expectation was fulfilled; not only fulfilled, but all the while she waited, and hoped and yearned and loved, there had deepened in her heart her sense of all he was to her, her need of him ; so that, in the hour of fulfillment she was able to pour forth the long-pent-up wealth and worth of her waiting and expectant love. Grace teaches us to hold that attitude toward the Blessed Hope. It teaches us to hold it as — a hope, not merely as a doctrine. It is doctrine and is true whether you hold it or reject it; but grace will tgach you to hold it as a hope; to hold it as a hope deep down in your very soul, hoping every day that in that day it may be realized for you. He who treats it simply as a doctrine, soon loses it as a hope, and presently will be occupied in finding reasons why it will not come in his day, or must be delayed many days. Listen to the teachers who deny it as an any THE BLESSED HOPE 437 day possibility or hope and you will find the thought of the Coming of the Lord does not af- fect or shape their daily lives. They are simply doctrinaires, not those who mould and fashion their lives by daily hope. But mark, I pray you, the benefit of this hope to those who hold it as such. It is as an helmet ; so it is written : "But let us, who are of the day (Christians, saved people), be sober, putting on the breast- plate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation/' What is the salvation for which as Christians, as saved people, we are to hope? Surely, after having just written to the Thes- salonians that they were "children of light" and therefore saved (as he says corroboratively, in- cluding himself with them, "God has not ap- pointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation/') in speaking of the *^hope' of salvation the apostle could not have intended to raise any question of uncertainty in respect to \ht\x present salvation. What then does he mean by "hope of salva- tion?" 438 THE BLESSED HOPE The answer is to be found in his epistle to the Romans. He says : '^Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand/' He is speaking of the salvation which will come in the Day of Christ; and as the day of Christ begins with the Coming of Christ for His Church, then the salvation hoped for is that which will take place at the Coming of Christ. That salvation is not in respect to the soul, but — the body. Salvation is threefold: for us, in us and upon us. For us — on the cross. In us — by regeneration. Upon us — by the resurrection of the bodies of the Christian dead, and the transfiguration of the bodies of the Christian living. This salvation of the body unto immortality is accomplished at the Coming of the Lord for His Church; and as the Coming of the Lord is — the blessed hope of the Church, then the Com- THE BLESSED HOPE 439 ing of the Lord to deliver, immortalize and save the bodies of those who form the Church is the salvation the apostle bids us to hope for, and which he declares is as an helmet. You know the Greek and Roman helmet! With that great high ridge running through the center of the casque the blow of sword or spear fell slanting and glanced away an in- efficient, harmless stroke. Just so I have this blessed hope as though there were an helmet on my head. All sorts of blows come, questions and prob- lems that cannot be solved and ever return, de- manding and insisting on solution: the question of sin, of culture, of education, of life and death, of the being and character of God in the face of human sin, suffering and woe; a thou- and askings that find no answer. Questions, which, if persisted in would crush the brain, break the heart and leave you mad with cursing, agony, and despair; but all these questions and their insidious poison strokes fall harmlessly on my head; for, at once, I answer, every ques- 440 THE BLESSED HOPE tion, every problem, every difficulty in life will be settled in the twinkling of an eye by the Com- ing of the Lord. What hope have I when I look out upon all the mystery, misery, sorrow, anguish, shame, and wrong, and all the helplessness of man to meet and settle things? You ask that? When I see the costly breakdown and failure of government in the hand of man; when I see the rending and tearing to pieces of the banner of civilization and learn that culture is a thin veneer that for a moment hides the brute beast in human kind — what hope have I? What hope have I when I see a world to-day soaked in blood and tears, and ghastly horror keeping vigil at the blackened hearthstones of one time happy homes? What hope have I, you ask, in the midst of all this? I answer: The Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is my hope, that is the one thing that will THE BLESSED HOPE 44 1 solve the problems and bring eternal rest for a tumult tossed and troubled world. That is my hope and this hope the Holy Spirit writes is — blessed. It is an helmet which saves my head, my brain, my heart from all the questioning, mad- dening blows, keeps me sound and sane, stand- ing steadfast and with peace, even where con- flicts rage. Mark the benefit of holding this Coming of the Lord as an imminent fact and hope: It is written : "And every one that hath this hope in (upon) him purifieth himself, even as he is pure!* You know if you found yourself in the pres- ence of some one very courteous, very refined, of finished manners and discoverd you were not so well equipped and furnished, when you retired to the privacy of your own home you would take yourself to strict account and determine when next you met you would seek to stand on equal plane. You would make an effort in that di- rection. 442 THE BLESSED HOPE Hold this Coming of the Lord as an actual hope within your soul. Say within your inmost self you wish He would come; fall on your knees and pray; with the Spirit and the Bride say, ''Come," lift up the closing prayer, the last recorded prayer of Holy Scripture: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus;" do this and mean it sin- cerely, and sooner or later you will find that al- most unconsciously and involuntarily you are seeking to purify yourself from evil thought and impulse, making whole-souled and earnest en- deavor to be clean, to be true within, to live upon the Christly plane. You put on your best garments for an expected guest. Expect Christ and you will clothe yourself with holiness, with purity and truth. Hold this Coming of the Lord as an actual hope and it will inspire you to redoubled service in His name. If you wish Him to come, if you believe He might come at any time, you would not be con- tent that He should find you doing nothing in His name. If you were an employee and THE BLESSED HOPE 443 wasted your employer's paid for time; if he came and found you using that time for yourself alone you would be discharged and put to shame. To be doing nothing when the Lord comes, using the time He paid for with His blood for your- self and not for Him, you would be filled with the sense of shame. Hold this Coming as a hope, believe it really as the Word of God, as the Son of God Himself declares it to be — imminent, and you will be impelled to do all your hands find to do and with all your might. This blessed hope is an incentive to work, to serve the Lord and a quickening impulse to seek and save the souls of men; in short to live, to make tremendous effort to live and manifest the life of Christ. Where were you last night, you who profess to be a follower of Christ? Were you at the theatre, the dance, the card party; were you side by side with those who were not Christians and who, from your conver- sation did not know or even imagine you were Christians? 444 THE BLESSED HOPE What if the Lord should come to-morrow? Who can measure the horror of awakening that would be yours to see these very friends and pleasure companions shut out to the endless woe and you saved in spite of all your treasonable inconsistency because the Lord kept faith with the covenant of the blood you once had claimed? But — listen — listen well — not all who profess, not all who say Lord, Lord, are saved. There are things which accompany salvation and those who are really saved have more or less of those accompanying things. It might be, after all, in spite of your profession your outbreaking in- consistency would prove that you were a mere professor and not an actual possessor; that if the Lord should come and you had not repented and changed your way you would be left behind with your godless company to judgment and to woe. O, if you are true, if you are genuine, if you really wish the Lord to come, if you believe the time is short, it will move you to go forth, speak the Word in season and lead the unsaved, the THE BLESSED HOPE 445 thoughtless and the lost to a seeking Saviour's feet. And now listen to me ! One of the joys I anticipate in that hour when I shall be caught up to meet the Lord is the joy of meeting those who have heard me preach, who have believed the Word and have been made one with a living Christ. In the long years of my ministry thousands have thronged before me. What joy if I shall meet them and have them tell me that some simple word I uttered in the Master's name helped to turn their faces to the God I serve. But — there is sometimes a horror of black- ness and great darkness comes over my soul as I look, as I do to-night, at this great throng and ask myself the question — "Will all these meet me at the throne of peace and light inside the upper city's gates? or when I shall sit in asso- ciated judgment with the saints of God in that last and awful judgment hour at the Great White Throne, will I see some such as you who have heard me preach? shall I see you stand with downcast eyes and speechless lips, and shall 44^ THE BLESSED HOPE I hear above you sound the awful word — ^^De- part?'' O, it is that I cannot bear to think upon and I plead with you here and now to arouse before too late. If Christ the Lord came to-night you would be left out to certain woe; for you there would be, indeed, no gleam of hope, only one long mid- night of starless despair. Turn then to Him who bids you come, He who in rare and gracious words has said: "Him that Cometh to me I will in no wise cast out;" who no matter what you may have been or done will never say you nay. Turn and claim the shelter of the blood and with those of us who hold the Blessed Hope, and hold it as a hope, rise to meet Him when He comes and be with Him and the happy company of the gathered saints forever more. Let grace then save you now, let grace teach you how to live and let grace lead you day by day to be ^^looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ'^ VII THE GREAT SEPARATION The Great Separation, My theme to-night is : "The Great separation that will take place when our Lord Jesus Christ comes for His Church." My texts are three in number: (Mat. 7: 21-23; Lu. 13: 25; Mat. 13:47, 48.) "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father in heaven." "Many will say to me in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work ini- quity." "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know not whence ye are." 450 THE GREAT SEPARATION "The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: "Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into ves- sels, but cast the bad away." Out of these texts I present to you four prop- ositions : 1. In this age God is calling upon, and giv- ing an opportunity to all to profess faith in the name of His Son. 2. There is a profession of Christ which gives all the evidences of being genuine and accept- able to God. 3. There is a profession which gives no evi- dence of being genuine. 4. A great separation will take place when our Lord Jesus Christ comes down into the air to receive His Church unto Himself. I. In this age God is calling upon and giving opportunity to all to profess faith in the name of His Son. The history of the world has been divided of THE GREAT SEPARATION 45 I God into distinct ages or epochs, each with its definite beginning and ending. God the Father set apart and ordained these ages by the pre-incarnate action of His son; as it is written: ^^By whom he made the worlds!* "Worlds" here signify and should be ren- dered, ''ages." The word "made" has the sense of "ar- ranged." By and through His Son, therefore, God the Father planned the successive ages of His deal- ing with man. In other words, the history of man is not an accident. It lies within the infinite purpose of God and moves on as He intended from age to age, and will steadily and surely move to the consummation of the age of the ages. These ages are seven in number and in each God acts in ways distinct and peculiar to that age. The First begins with the creation of man and ends with his fall and expulsion from Eden. It is the Edenic age, or age of Innocency. In it God deals with man as a creature with- 452 THE GREAT SEPARATION out antecedent or predisposition, and as inno- cent. He deals with him on the basis of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which he is forbidden to eat. The issue is — Obedience to God. If he will obey the Word and command of God he shall have eternal life, an immortal body, he shall be enthroned of God, His visi- bility and incarnation. It is the forecast, the promise and the outline of The Incarnation, It is the outreach of the living God to become God manifest in the flesh. If the man disobey he shall die. He shall be separated from God morally and intellectually. The Spirit and soul shall be separated from the body. The body shall return to the dust from whence it was taken. He himself, finally, shall wander through endless spaces, lost forever, a wandering star unto whom is reserved the black- ness of darkness forever. The Devil tempts. He raises a doubt concern- ing the truth of God's Word. He suggests that man, if he eat will not die. He shall be as THE GREAT SEPARATION 453 God. They shall, like God, create beings in their own image. They shall be independent of God. The woman yields, the man partakes, death begins and they go forth from the sunset side of Eden to fill the world with sin and sor- row and lie down at last in the grave that waits for them. The second age begins with the birth of Cain and ends with the flood. It is the Antediluvian Age, or the Age of Con- science. Adam begets a son in his own image, but it is the image of a fallen man. The woman was mistaken in the birth of Cain. She thought he was the promised seed, the com- ing deliverer. She gave birth to Abel, her second son. The first was a tiller of the earth. The second a keeper of sheep. God takes off all law. He shuts man up to conscience. (Conscience is not the gift of God. It is not His endowment. It is the logical con- sequence of the fall of man and comes in thereby. 454 THE GREAT SEPARATION It is the self accusation of sin. It is the shadow of God's judgment throne on the soul.) Cain kills his brother. God sets aside the penalty for murder. The evil, the sin and lawlessness now inherent in man become so great God is forced to drown the whole world, all but Noah and his family, who are saved in and by an ark ordained of God. The third age begins with the going forth of Noah and his family from the ark and ends with the death of Joseph in Egypt. // is the Patriarchial age — from Pater, father, and Archon, ruler. The age of the father rulers. God tests man in the relation of the family. He sets up government in and for the family and rulership by the father. He now legislates the death penalty for mur- der, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." Justice and righteousness are to be adminis- tered in the earth. Ordained government in the hand of man is given the right to take life, to magnify law, jus- tice and righteousness. THE GREAT SEPARATION 45 5 Government is based on atonement by blood — life for a life. The individual patriarchs stand for distinct and individual truth. Noah represents grace from God. ''Noah," it is written, "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Abraham is the fruit of grace — the place and exercise of faith. Isaac is the fruit of faith, and that is — Son- ship. Jacob is the fruit of sonship — that is service (faith is shown by works) . Joseph is the fruit of service — that is, first, suffering, and then, glory. The fourth age begins with the going of the children of Israel out of Egypt and ends with the coming of John the Baptist; as it is Vv^ritten: "The law and the prophets were until John." It is the Mosaic age, or the age of the law. The people of Israel are chosen of God as His peculiar people, the one and only divine na- tion. They are brought nigh on the ground of blood. By blood they are redeemed from the sentence against the first-born. They are 456 THE GREAT SEPARATION brought out of Egypt by the hand of power. They are set on their course to the promised land. At Sinai they turn away from the uncondi- tional covenant of Abraham which guaranteed them the land. They put themselves under the covenant of the law. In Israel, therefore, God is testing man na- tionally, in responsibility to government, and under bond to law. The fifth age begins with the baptism of our Lord by John in Jordan and ends at the cross. It is the Messianic age, or the age of God made visible and incarnate. God tests the character of the natural man by the supernatural character of His Son. Man proves himself to have the Cain spirit of murder. He commits deicide by slaying God in the person of His human as well as Divine Son. The seventh age will begin with the coming of Christ and all His saints from heaven to set up the kingdom of heaven, and will end with the THE GREAT SEPARATION 457 Great White Throne, the second resurrection and the second death. This is the Millennial age, or the age of the kingdom. In it God tests man with a perfect government in the hand of a perfect and right- eous King. He looses Satan, who had been bound during the thousand years, that he may reveal the unre- generate in the kingdom. They rebel against God and are destroyed by fire from heaven. The Christless dead of all ages are judged at the White Throne. The death sentence pro- nounced in Eden finds its consummation. Through gates of fire the lost soul passes out a bodiless ghost to its eternal wanderings in unil- lumined space, to join the first rebels of the pre- Adamite race. The eighth and final age begins with the new heavens and the new earth and — never ends. This is the eternal state, or the age of the end- less years and the accomplished purpose of God in man. The earth is regenerated, created anew out of the womb of fire, born into a new orbit under 45 B THE GREAT SEPARATION new and life-filled heavens, and becomes the dwelling place of man and incarnate God. Man is fully linked to Godhead. He is the multiplied and eternal incarnation of God. The fulness of the Godhead bodily is mani- fested in Christ. With Christ dwelling upon it the earth becomes the moral, governmental and spiritual center of the universe. Of the increase of the Kingdom of God and Christ, and man in God and Christ there shall be no end. The sixth age is the age in which we now live. It began secretly when Christ rose from the dead, breathed on His disciples and gave them the Holy Ghost. It began publicly on the day of Pentecost when the ascended Christ endued the Church with the power of the Holy Ghost. It will end secretly (and may end at any moment) by the coming of Christ into the air FOR His Church. It will end publicly when the translated Church shall come WITH Christ to begin the kingdom. This age differs from all which preceded it. THE GREAT SEPARATION 459 It differs from those which shall follow it. In this age God is not calling upon men to be- lieve in His existence as a personal God. There is no need that He should do so. In yonder nightly sky His name is written in each shining star. Each star is but a letter in the syllabication of His name. Each mountain peak of earth, each river slipping to the sea, the sea thundering on the shore, each blade of grass and growing, fruited tree, the succession of day and night, the sequence of the seasons, every- where the adaptation of means to an end, every- where the operation revealing intent, purpose, thought, and back of the thought the unfailing Thinker, the old earth flying on its course about the sun and returning whence it came to start afresh, law, order, authority, power, all pro- claim the living, the uncaused, the eternal, self- existent, self-sufficient and ever efficient God. There is no need to invite men to believe in a supreme, personal being. Only a fool in his heart (never in the brain) can say there is no God. The apostle Paul arraigns the beautiful and cor- rupt civilization of his day and declares its idol- 460 THE GREAT SEPARATION atry, its paganism, without excuse because the might, the majesty and the power of God are seen in the work and manifestation of an all- surrounding creation. God is not calling on men to believe in the Holy Spirit. There is no need that He should. The operation and work of the Holy Spirit is manifested every day in contrast to the spirit of lawlessness, wickedness, evil and the mad riot of sin which would win its way were it not for the hindering and pervading presence of this same Holy Spirit. God is not dealing with men to-day on the issue of sin. He gave His estimate of man as a sinner long ago, as a sinner by nature and by transgression. He enforced His estimate by the flood which swept away all but the chosen and selected eight. He emphasized and culminated that judg- ment in the cross. On the cross He judged the natural man and his world. The cry of agony from the divine victim, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" THE GREAT SEPARATION 461 tells the doom which would now fall upon the world did not the cross hold back the individual judgment and permit men to live under the grace of a suspended sentence. Did God deal with man on the issue of sin but for a single day, all would be driven from His presence and the glory of His power. The issue now is not man^s sin — but, God^s love. The great, the all-important, the one supreme question is not the sin question at all, but — the Son question. "What think ye of Christ?" That is the question the Son Himself asked. That is the question God the Father is asking. "What think ye of My Son?" He is sending the Church out to ask that ques- tion. That is why the Church has been created, and this is its function and mission, to set the issue squarely up to every soul and ask insistently, probingly, "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" The Church is commanded in this age (and this age has been marked out and set apart that 462 THE GREAT SEPARATION the Church might fulfill the command) ; the Church is commanded to climb the mountains, cross the plains, search the valleys, sail the seas, tread the wilderness, enter villages, towns and cities, and ask of every creature in all the wide world what each one thinks of Christ. By and through the Church and the Gospel committed to its charge God is calling on men to believe in His Son, to believe on Him at once — without delay. He is not asking men to believe in His Son as a mere man. He was a real man. He began His human life as a babe. He lay upon a woman's breast with a babe's need and a babe's weakness. He grew in strength of body, in stature, in knowledge and favor with men. He worked and toiled as a man. He wrought as a carpenter. He earned His bread in the sweat of His brow. He went forth at thirty years of age to preach the kingdom of heaven. He was led by the Spirit. He surrendered to the Spirit. He had all the experiences of men. He was tempted. THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^3 He was sorely tried. He hungered. He thirst- ed. He grew tired and weary. He endured poverty. The foxes had holes, the birds had nests. There were times when He knew not where to lay His head. He was sensitive. When they brought Him the woman taken in sin, He bent down to hide the blush upon His virgin cheek and wrote with His fingers in the sand the worthlessness because of the hypocrisy of their charge. He was full of sympathy. He wept at Laz- arus' grave. He was moved with compassion for the troubled and the heavy laden. He was so keenly sensitive that when they came to arrest Him, He protested, not at the arrest, but at the manner of it. He said He had openly taught in their synagogue. He had done nothing in secret. Why then should they come out against Him with lanterns and staves, as though they had come out against a thief? He drank deeply of the cup of sorrow. He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death." He died as other men die. He was wrapped 464 THE GREAT SEPARATION in a shroud and laid in the grave as others are laid. He was a real man. The record is plain enough. But God is not sending the Church out speci- fically and supremely to demonstrate that, to ask men to believe that. He is not calling on men to believe in Him merely as a good man. He i£;«5 all that! He was much more than good. He was sinless. He was a sinless man. He stands out in contrast to natural men as a white, polished marble shaft might rise up out of the midst of a black, tossing midnight sea; as a white rose in the midst of scarlet poppies; as a song in the heart of discord; as a blue space of quiet sky in the midst of encircling, storm-swept clouds; as a smile of love in contrast to a face of hate. He challenged those who knew Him best, who came in contact with Him every day, who knew all His goings out and coming in, what He was in private and what He was be- THE GREAT SEPARATION 465 fore the crowds that followed Him, to convict Him if they could of a single sin, a wilful or an accidental wrong. None took up the challenge then. Across all the shame, the falsehood, the conspiracy and the treasons wrought in twenty centuries none has taken it up since. His sinlessness, His divine, His miraculous holiness is so self-evident, so unimpeachable, so far above assault that it needs no exhortation to believe it. God is not calling on men to follow the earth- ly example of His Son, to copy it in order that they may be saved. Take the best man you know. The man against whom his most intimate friends can find not the slightest charge; who stands with all shadows beneath his feet; who is so perfect that his praise is in every mouth, and place that man alongside the Christ of God and he shall be as unclean, unwholesome and repellant as the black stream of thick and turgid slime that runs its course in the foulest filled and most repulsive ditch. All our righteousness in His sight are as filthy, sickening, germ-laden rags. 466 THE GREAT SEPARATION Take him who has followed Christ, one who has followed Him more nearly and clearly than any other on the earth, and whose motives have been sane and pure and always loyal, and he shall seem as near to actually following and being like Christ as the crawling worm is to the heaven-flying meteor. Put the attainment of the loftiest human char- acter on earth by His side and it reaches to His moral and spiritual elevation no nearer than the grain of sand at the bottom of the Alps is to their snow-clad heights. God is not calling on men to match themselves with Christ or make Him the merely perfect human model for their natural lives. He is calling on men to believe in His Son, not as He walked the earth but — As HE DIED ON THE CROSS. That cross was set up in the counsels of God- head before ever the earth or the heavens were formed. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world that He might go to that cross. The cross was the objective of His birth. THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^7 He was born to die on the cross. The artist who pictured Him standing in the carpenter shop at Nazareth, in the light of the setting sun with His hands outstretched until the shadow fell on the opposite wall in the form of a cross, depicted with true perception the pur- pose of His life and the daily deepening shadow of the approaching fact. Continually He told His disciples He was going up to Jerusalem to be crucified. He set His face steadfastly thither. He went to that cross as straight as the arrow from the bow, as a beam of light from the sun. God is calling men to believe in His Son, His Crucified Son, This was the theme of the Apostle Paul. Standing there in Corinth, surrounded by Greek culture, himself a scholar, standing where his eye could take in the scenes of classic inspira- tion, and where everything might tempt him to parade his learning, his rhetoric and scholastic skill, in simple and downright terms he said: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified/' 468 THE GREAT SEPARATION Through the Church God is calling men to believe in — Christ on the cross. He is not telling the Church to go preach the earthly life of Christ at all. It is amazing that men, that accredited preach- ers with an open Bible, should think so. Turn over the sermons of the apostles, read their let- ters to the churches ; they are not taken up with how He lived and what He did on earth. No! they are occupied with what He did so tremen- dously and triumphantly on the cross. They are possessed, held with amazement as well as awe and delight and overflowing joy as they con- template Him on that cross, and pour out the fulness of their souls as they seek to speak and write about it. God is calling men to believe in Christ on that cross as a sacrifice for sin, as the antitype and fulfillment of all the sacrifices and offerings that had gone before, as the true burnt offering, peace offering, sin and trespass offering. He is calling on men to believe in the empty grave, the light of immortality that flashes forth THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^9 in the resurrection of His Son; to offer Him as the sacrifice provided by infinite love and meas- ureless grace; to claim Him as personal substi- tute; to own Him as Lord, as God, as Saviour and only Redeemer. This is the invitation. This is the function of the Church. And this is the age in which to fulfill the func- tion, to give broadcast the invitation. But it is more than an invitation. It is a law; as much a law as the law of Sinai. You are commanded to believe on our Lord Jesus Christ. It is an invitation that holds within it all the energy of a command. It demands obedience, the obedience of faith; as it is written: "The preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlast- ing God, made known to all nations for the obe- dience of faith/' 470 THE GREAT SEPARATION It is certainly an invitation, a gracious invita- tion. It is, beyond all doubt, a commandment, an insistent and absolute commandment. You have no choice about it. It is not open to discussion. The Gospel does not present a theme for de- bate. It is a law legislated in agony and written in blood. The Christian minister as an ambassador of Christ is authorized to utter it as such and pre- sent it as God's ultimatum to the nations. If you accept and believe it, the results are immediate. The moment you believe you are counted of God as obedient. You may have been the worst of sinners and the chiefest of rebels against His way and will ; but, so soon as you believe you are reported at the throne of God, no longer a guilty, death-doomed rebel, but an obedient and ac- cepted son, your sins all forgiven; though they may have been as scarlet they are made whiter than snow. You are justified, accepted as right- THE GREAT SEPARATION 471 eous before God; you are made a partaker of the divine nature ; you are indwelt by the Holy Ghost and through Him linked up to the body of a risen and glorified Christ, made heir with Him, coheir throughout eternal ages — you are saved. If you do not believe the results are just as marked. You have transgressed God's law. The transgression of the law is sin. You are a sinner before God. You may be here to-night the whitest man who ever lived upon the earth. You may have no yesterdays to haunt you, no Nemesis coming with wool-shod feet, with hammer and nail, swiftly behind you with sudden blow to smite your throbbing temple. You may have no fears of to-morrow. Your character may be such that men salute you as you pass and you yourself so confident in your own integrity you could look unwinkingly in the eyes of God. You may be all that and yet, if here and now I ask you to be- lieve and accept our Lord Jesus Christ as your only Saviour, your Lord and God; if you re- 47 2 THE GREAT SEPARATION spond to me and say no, tell me you have no need of Him, that you are ready and willing to stand on the merit of your own character, then I tell you, if never a sinner before, you are a sinner now. And not only that! in God's sight you are the worst of sinners. You have committed sin great- er than any other written in the calendar of many. Make no mistake! the sins that are cata- logued and read and known of men will have to be answered for. All sin of every description unpardoned will be punished; but great as the worst of other sins may be, your sin is greater than all others combined. I cannot make you believe it. No archangel from heaven could make you believe it. The Holy Ghost alone can do it. He alone can convict man of that sin of all sins, the sin supreme, — the sin of refusing to be- lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and own Him as Saviour through His redeeming blood. That is why the Holy Spirit personally is down here in this age. Our Lord said when the Spirit whom He calls the Comforter should THE GREAT SEPARATION 473 come He would convict the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment to come. And note the words : '^ "Of sin — Because they believe not on Me." The Holy Ghost did not come into the world to convict men of the sins of lust, of lying, cheat- ing, theft, robbery, drunkenness, profanity, mur- der. The laws of the state will do that. The ac- cusing remorse of a man's conscience will do Ihat. That is not the work of the Holy Ghost. He came into the world to convict men of but ONE SIN^ the sin of sins, the sin of disbelieving in and rejecting Christ, the crucified and risen Son of God. I cannot convict you of this sin ; but I can tell you why it is the greatest of all sins. What would you say of the man condemned to die for whom his fellow citizens felt such compassion that they signed a protest and sent out a plea to the governor of the state to pardon him, to let him even go free? What would you say of that man who when the pardon came, 474 THE GREAT SEPARATION signed and sealed with the great seal of the state, when it was handed to him, took it, spat upon it, then flung it in the face of the pardon bearer, by so doing flinging it in the face of every one who had been moved with sympathy in his behalf; by so much not only insulted also the governor but the great and worthy state he represented; what would you say of a man who so trampled on the grace of men? Surely you would have no words with which to describe the shock it gave you, the wound upon all your human sensibilities; certainly words would fail you to depict the shame, the outrage and the added sin of such an one. And yet, that is your attitude, the attitude of every one who rejects the Son of God, crucified and risen as Lord and Saviour; the attitude of every one who refuses the salvation offered through Him. You take God's grace, you spit upon it and fling it back in His face. Surely this is sin and the aggravation of sin. It is sin exceedingly sinful. But your sin is greater than that. THE GREAT SEPARATION 475 What would you say if a man saw another killed arfd weltering in his blood, if he should leap upon that murdered man; upon his muti- lated body and grind it in all its clotted crimson beneath his heel? Could you fittingly cry out against the unspeakable brutality, the beastly outrage? And yet this is what you do when you reject Jesus Christ as God presents Him to you, hang- ing on that Roman cross. The blood spilling out from His fast-nailed body is the blood of the covenant, the red seal of the fore-determined purpose of God. It is the most holy, the most sacred thing in the uni- verse of God — that blood of Christ, When you reject this crucified Son of God you are trampling this blood as it flows earth- ward under your feet and counting it an unholy and common thing. Who may describe the monstrosity of such a sin? The angels of God look at you with amaze- ment, pain and horror. But you do more than trample the blood of 47 6 THE GREAT SEPARATION Christ beneath your feet when you refuse to ac- cept Him. The death of Christ was either a heaven- ordained sacrifice for sin, or just an inconse- quential and brutal murder. If you claim it as a sacrifice God will accept it on your behalf as an offering for sin. If you refuse so to claim it you become a re- jecter of Christ, take sides with those who cruci- fied Him and whether consciously or uncon- sciously justify the attitude of those who killed Him, killing Him as they did, for a deceiver and blasphemer. But, since He was neither de- ceiver nor blasphemer, their action in killing Him was murder; and as you reject Christ be- cause you do not believe in His claim you be- come identified with them as rejecters and with them guilty of murder in God's sight. But mark the category of this murder. There is patricide, matricide, sororicide, sui- cide, but this is nothing less than — deicide, the murder of God. The murder of God! How is it possible? THE GREAT SEPARATION 477 I answer : The Son of God was God the Son. He took humanity into union with Himself, a new, dis- tinct humanity which He Himself created for Himself that in it He might taste death as a sac- rifice for every man. Through His humanity then He is either sacrificed or murdered. When you refuse Him as your sacrifice, you stand, whether intentionally or not, with those who slew Him. He Himself has said there is no middle ground. If you are not for Him you are against Him; as it is written: "He that is not with me, is against me!' You are guilty as an accessory to the act. You — the rejecter of Christ — are guilty of dei- cide. What a sin of sins is this ! But you do more than join or justify or be- come accessory to the crowd that killed Him. You proclaim God to be a liar. As it is written: "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record which God has given of His Son, 47 S THE GREAT SEPARATION Every moment you hesitate to accept and be- lieve God's testimony concerning His Son you proclaim openly and squarely, in the face of the whole universe that He is a liar. Think of it! standing under the high heavens of God, walking about every day, enjoying His providence, His mercy and care and yet, at every step, announcing that — God is a liar, O you who reject Jesus Christ, who deliber- ately repudiate Him from your life; you who reject the crucified Christ as the sacrifice which God in His infinite mercy and grace offers you, and pleads with you to accept, you are the great- est of all sinners on earth. You are guilty of the sin of sins — Unbelief. Atonement has been made for every sin under heaven but — the sin of unbelief. Every other sin under heaven, no matter how black, may be forgiven. There is no atonement for unbelief. There is no possible forgiveness for unbelief. God Himself cannot save an unbeliever. THE GREAT SEPARATION 479 So great a judgment, you say, so terrific an attitude for so small a thing as unbelief! Small is it, think you, this thing of unbelief? Unbelief has brewed every tear on earth, caused every disease, inspired and operated every tragedy, nerved the hand of every wicked- ness. It separates parents and children, hus- bands and wives, friends and comrades, nation from nation; breeds the viper of suspicion, of envy, jealousy and hatred; lights the flame of every war and digs every grave. It is lawless- ness, anarchy, repudiation of dignities, the breaking down of standards. It is the father and mother of blasphemy, and were it unchecked, would blot the name of God from every book, would turn righteousness into unrighteousness, virtue into vice. Had it all the power it seeks, could it accomplish all which its malevolent genius ordains, it would fling God from His very throne and turn the universe into a chaos of recriminating, self-accusing and hopeless hell. For such a sin God, even Almighty God, has no choice of action. 48o THE GREAT SEPARATION For it there can be only judgment, condemna- tion, damnation. Thus, and in the nature of the case, the Gospel brings, not only free and full salvation, but or- dained, definite and sure damnation. That is what the apostle means when he says it is a ^^savour of life unto life, and of death unto death." It will bring you to justification or condemna- tion. There is no place of compromise. You cannot come into this place, and hear this Gospel I preach and then go out as you came in. I am no mere Bible lecturer. I should con- sider such a title a dishonor. I am an ambassa- dor of Christ. I am standing here not as a de- bater, but as a messenger of the Most High God. I am here to magnify my office. I am here to proclaim the truth whether men hear or whether they forbear. This Gospel I am preaching to you will save you or damn you. It will bring you to Christ or it will put you in the place of those who reject and crucify Him. This is the reason why the heavens are silent THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^1 God and the heaven-host are waiting to know what you will do. God has done all He can do to make salvation complete. You have only to believe and to receive, God is patiently waiting to know what you will do. He has called. His very patience and waiting is a call. This is my first proposition : God is calling on all to profess faith in the name of His Son. II, There is a profession of Christ which gives all the evidences of being genuine and ac- ceptable to God. The genuine professor is first and beyond all things else — a believer. Any fool can doubt. It requires neither intellect nor genius to dis- believe. "I don't believe it," is oftentimes the response a man gives to a statement the first time made to him upon some matter with which he is not ac- quainted. 4^2 THE GREAT SEPARATION Unbelief is the common state. Faith is the sign and seal of divine election. While it is true faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, it is also true that faith, through grace is the gift of God. The moment of faith, of genuine faith, the in- dividual bears witness of this endowment of God and union with Christ. It is written: "He that believeth hath life/' The genuine professor believes in the Bible from cover to cover. He believes in fiat creation, original sin, the fall of hian, the virgin birth, the atoning sacri- fice, the resurrection of Christ and the whole body of Christian doctrine. He believes in the Bible, not because he is al- ways able to reason about the things it pro- claims, but because he accepts it as the Word of God. He starts with that proposition. He rests upon it as a "thus saith the Lord." The genuine prof essor has been regenerated, God has wrought more omnipotently in him than when He formed the worlds. He has THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^3 wrought and formed within him the very life and nature of His Son. He has made him a living, daily miracle. He has transformed his body into a temple, into the sacred blood-re- deemed and blood-washed shrine of the Holy Ghost, He who is the personal, essential holi- ness of the Godhead. The genuine professor of Christianity reverses his old life. He hates the things he once loved. He once loved sin. He rolled it as a sweet morsel under his tongue. His heart was a cage of unclean and untamed things. He did not love the things of God and Christ. Now he hates sin. He hates the memory of his past life. It embitters and shames him to think of it. He seeks more and more to hide it, bury it deep beneath the obliterating blood of Christ. He loves the things of God and the "way" of Christ. He seeks to do the will of God, The one thing he supremely wishes to know is the mind of God, — what God's thought and will concerning him may be. 4^4 THE GREAT SEPARATION He yields to the Spirit. He seeks to bring forth the clustered fruit of the Spirit. His unceasing aim is to build up a character for God, to become the reincarnation and translation of Christ to men. He loves the House of God, With the Psalmist he will say: "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord." He loves to pray. Prayer to Him means something more than prayer by rote. It is true he will bring his bur- dens and his cares and spread them out before the Lord. He will call upon Him for deliver- ance and daily help; but his true joy is to go into his closet, shut the door, be alone with God, talk to Him, pour out his heart, feel the conscious response of God in his soul, joy in the intimate communion which permits him to talk with God, till, sometimes in the rapture of it the tears are on his cheek and ecstasy in his soul. He loves the written Word of God, That Word to him is as a fountain of crystal water; it is an oasis in the desert; it is daily food, THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^5 it is bread from Heaven; it is light in the spir- itual darkness ; it is music ; it is song in the night ; it is a harp touched by invisible fingers; it is a trumpet full of the shouts of victory; it is a tele- scope with which to look into the ''far country," the city of God and the throne of Christ; it is nexus with God; it is a wireless telegraph, the Holy Spirit is the Hertzian wave, the pages of the Book the receiver; it is a mirror in which he may behold the glory of the Lord and by con- templation within it be transfigured into the same image from glory unto glory; it is a uni- versity, the president the Holy Spirit, the fac- ulty, prophets, priests and kings, the curricu- lum the eternal truth of God. The genuine professor recognizes that he is the bond slave of Christ, He owns that he has been bought and paid for with the precious blood of Christ. He confesses that he does not belong to himself but wholly to Christ, all he has and is. He gives Him his time, his talent, his substance, and, above all, himself. He is a worker. 486 THE GREAT SEPARATION He cannot comprehend how a Christian can be redeemed and saved, then loaf on God. He has no place in his thought for any one who names the name of Christ, then sits down, folds his hands and is willing to do nothing while he receives the bounties of the Lord. With Paul he is ever constrained to ask: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" He is anxious to save the lost. He knows the difficulty in reaching them. Time and again he feels himself helpless in the matter; but his heart is earnest, his purpose sincere and he is ready to be used whenever the door of opportunity is opened. The word fitly spoken that is so good to utter comes easily to his lips at the appointed moment. The love of Christ constrains him. Not his love to Christ, but the love of Christ to him. Now and then he may feel his own love grow cold or failing, but every glimpse at the cross of Christ, at the crimson stain made there for him, fills him afresh and holds him, carries him through desert places, stays him in hours of THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^7 conflict and brings him over many a bridgeless gulf, through many a doorless wall. What he does, he does for Christ's sake. This is ever his rallying cry and the impulse that lifts him above his natural wish. He rejoices in the Lord his Saviour. The joys of earth fade, the pleasures of the flesh wither, but in the Lord there are joys which flow as from a never-failing fountain. He is full of assurance. He knows, should he die, he would be absent from his home in this body and present at his home with the Lord. He knows in a moment he would pass through the gates of the upper city and walks on the banks of the river of life. If he has been well taught he knows the Coming of the Lord is imminent, and that any moment which shall please the Lord he may be caught up to, meet Him, be clothed with. immortality and be with Him forevermore. He is a saved man and knows it and daily brings forth ''the things which accompany salvation." He is compared in Scripture to the wise vir- gins. 4B8 THE GREAT SEPARATION The wise virgins not only took oil in their lamps but in the vessels with their lamps. He not only bears the lamp of profession, he has the Holy Spirit in his body as the continual re- plenishment of the light he bears. He is compared to the man who built his house on a rock. The black clouds gather. Midnoon is turned to midnight. The surcharged clouds break. They pour forth their flood. The winds sweep the rain in gusty raffles. The downpour be- comes a tidal wave. Wave after wave beats upon the rock and the increasing winds roar and shriek and fling themselves in mad, discord- ant fury against that house, but it falls not — it is founded upon a rock. That rock is Christ, the risen, immortal Christ. The professor is a true and genuine Christian. He has done the will of God in founding him- self upon that Rock; founding himself in all sincerity and truth on Christ, his profession is as the storm-smitten but immovable rock. THE GREAT SEPARATION 4^9 ///. There is a profession of Christ which gives no evidence of being genuine. Unregenerate professors do not love the House of God, There are, it is said, in this city, a million per- sons, Protestants, who once professed the name of Christ who rarely, if ever, go to church. Dislike for the house of God and the assembly of the saints bears tremendous witness against the genuineness of such professors. They do not love the Word of God. They vO^ill read anything else but that. They will read the daily blanket sheet filled with false- hood and current scandal. They will read the lightest novels whose worthlessness is so mani- fest they slip from the mind with such ease that continuous reading destroys memory and fills the brain with emptiness. They do not love to pray. They never pray except when they are sick; or some one whom they love is near to die, or when their own plans fail and they are shut sheer up in some impasse from which they can- not emerge, then they cry out in despair. They 49C> THE GREAT SEPARATION know nothing of the prayer that breathes out the soul and carries it as on wings to God. They do not actually pray. They may say prayers, but they do not pray; they do not talk to God. A prayerless soul is a godless soul. A prayerless professor gives no evidence that he or she is aught else but a mere professor. They do not care for Christian company. They prefer to find their friends among the worldlings. They are at home with them and not with spiritual Christians. Spiritual Chris- tians exceedingly bore them; their conversation annoys them; they do not feel at home or at ease with them. They do not change their old life nor their old way of living. Their speech is careless, flippant. The speech of professed Christian men is sometimes filled with slang, with "inconvenient" jest and not in- frequently, with profanity, and is more or less redolent with the suggestions of down-right un- belief. They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers t^t God. THE GREAT SEPARATION 49 1 They show none of the fruit of the spirit. They have a name to live and are spiritually dead. They may at times be religious, but are never spiritual. Between religiousness and spirituality there is an Atlantic ocean difference. The difference is as great as that between death and life. An idolator is religious, but he is spiritually dead. Religious forms and beautiful ceremonies, with- out the Spirit of Christ, are like the flowers laid on the breast of the dead, their very beauty of form and delight of fragrance serve only to draw attention to the fact of death. Professors who do not manifest Christ in their daily lives are stumbling blocks to non-prof es- , sor^ They are a scandal to the church. They are a dishonor to God. They do more harm to the cause of Christ than all the open sinners and infidels in the world. IV. A great separation will take place when 492 THE GREAT SEPARATION our Lord corhes down into the air to receive His Church to Himself, In previous sermons I have shown you the Lord is coming in a three-fold glory. He is coming in the glory of the Father — as His Son. He is coming in the glory of the angels — as their Master, He is coming in His own glory — as God the Son. He is coming with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of the angelic host. Every cloud will be a chariot of burnished glory. The wide, measureless spaces of the heavens yvill be filled with song, — the songs the Heav- enly choirs have been practicing since that hour when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. The earth will quiver at the sound of ap- proaching glory. The mountains will melt and flow down. The ocean from all its depths will break with awe-inspiring thunder on all its shores. THE GREAT SEPARATION 493 Every voice in heaven, in earth and under the earth will salute Him as He comes to reveal Himself the wonderful, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But, before He comes in glory such as this. He will descend in sudden soft and secret fash- ion, like a thief in the night into the upper air. He will call every genuine professor of His name up to meet Him. The dead in Christ will be raised, the living will be changed. They shall be clothed with His likeness. They shall be made immortal. He will take them through the wide, open gates of pearl into the golden and transparent city. They shall pass through a civil service examination at His judgment seat of re- ward. He will reward the slightest deed done in His name, the cup of cold water given, the kindly word spoken, the hand of helpfulness ex- tended. He will assign to each the place he is to occupy in the coming kingdom. But as soon as He takes the church up to meet Him He will shut the door of Heaven. This will be the moment of the great separa- tion. 494 THE GREAT SEPARATION Up to that hour all the living will have lived together, the good and the bad, the righteous and unrighteous, believer and unbeliever. AH will have enjoyed the common providence, the unfailing grace. There has been outwardly no distinction in the relation of human beings to the Heaven of God; but now, all those of the living who belong to Christ, who are really His, will be taken out of the earth. All who are not His will be shut out from Heaven's gates, Heaven's joys and left behind to the hardening and scourg- ing judgment, the certain woe and the long time and often warned anguish that is coming on the earth, and for a space will make of it an arena of indescribable anguish and suffering, a world in which all who have missed the invitations of grace and rejected the mercy of God will ifind themselves in their woe and suffering sealed unto the coming and final doom. There will be four classes left behind to meet this fearful hour: Unregenerate church-members. False systems of Christianity. False teachers. THE GREAT SEPARATION 495 The world of unbelievers. Unregenerate church-members. The very title seems appalling. But such are all those who are mere profes- sors of the name of Christ. Multitudes are made such by the doctrine and practice of Infant Baptism. There is no such teaching in the Word of God. If I were to offer a man a million of dollars to find a single direct text authorizing the bap- tism of infants, or a single instance recorded in the New Testament where an infant of days was baptized, and should I give the seeker after the text a million years in which to find it, should he in the providence of God be spared to live that long, he would die poor and be buried in the tattered rags of his long-time poverty. Baptism in Holy Scripture is a confession of individual faith, that Christ died, was buried, and rose again. Such baptism must be preceded by intelligent personal and responsible faith. 49 6 THE GREAT SEPARATION The disaster in the doctrine of infant baptism is not merely in the fact that it is not taught in nor warranted by the Word of God and is in it- self a denial of the basis and ground of true bap- tism, but in the fact that it is taught as the means and mode of regeneration. Infant baptism is only another name for bap- tismal regeneration. The word of God knows nothing about baptis- mal regeneration. It may be objected the son of God Himself has said: "Except a man be born of (out of) water and of (out of) the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." It may be affirmed that in speaking of water the Son of God was referring to baptism and declaring that in and by and through the act or administration of baptism the Spirit operated upon the soul of the baptized and produced re- generation. The answer to this is to be found in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, fifth chapter, twenty-sixth verse. '^The washing of water by {in) the word/' THE GREAT SEPARATION 497 The Lord is speaking of the cleansing and sanctifying of the Church in and by the Word. In His address to the disciples at the last sup- per He declared they were clean, sanctified and set apart by His Word, He said: "Ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you." In the expression, "washing of water in the word," the spiritually quickening and cleansing power of the Word to the soul is compared to the washing and cleansing action of water upon the body. The energy which gives the Word its quicken- ing, cleansing power is the Spirit. When therefore, our Lord says, "except a man be born (quickened) of water and of the spirit," He is not using water as a symbol of baptism; for, that would be making a symbol, the symbol of a symbol and in the connection would have no meaning at all as coordinate with the spirit. On the contrary, He is using water as a symbol of the Word. And in this the water is legitimately coordinated with Spirit. The Lord is here set- 49 S THE GREAT SEPARATION V ting forth the fact that the Spirit and the Word are the alone efficient means of regeneration. The Spirit is the agent, the Word the instru- ment. The Word is preached, the Spirit quickens it, the spiritual life enters in, the individual re- ceives the new birth. This operation of the Spirit and the Word is illustrated by our Lord in answer to the ques- tion of Nicodemus. Nicodemus cannot understand how a man may be born again; or, rather, ^^quickened from above," when he has already been quickened, and born from below, on earth. The Lord tells him that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The bitten Israelites got life by looking away from themselves to the crucified serpent on the cross (it was a cross). They got life by taking God at His word about it. Just so, you look away from self and all the hopes self hold§ out, You look at Christ on the THE GREAT SEPARATION 499 cross. You take God at His Word about Him. You accept Him on the authority of God's Word. The Word enters your soul like a seed, the Spirit quickens it, you have life in Christ, you are saved. Baptism cannot do that. All the water in the world though it were poured upon you like a flood; all the water in the world though you were plunged in it as in an ocean; all the baptism in the world be it scriptural or unscriptural and though the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost were pro- nounced upon it a thousand times in each indi- vidual case, would never quicken a human soul, nor give it a vision of the kingdom of God. No! only the Spirit and the Word in coordi- nation through the exercise of personal faith can do this. Baptismal regeneration then is impossible. The very proposition would shut out from Christ and the kingdom the one person on earth whom He particularly said should be with Him in paradise and be assured of the kingdom. The thief on the cross — and every believer in Christ 500 THE GREAT SEPARATION who died and for one reason or another had not been baptized. Infant Baptism is unthinkable. It does not take the place of circumcision as the seal of the covenant. The seal of the cove- nant of grace is the Holy Spirit, as it is written: "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise." And again: "The holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Infant baptism could not take the place of circumcision in the very nature of the case. Cir- cumcision applies only to the male sex. Infant baptism is unthinkable because in every case of recorded baptism in the New Testament it is preceded by the exercise of personal faith. But, infant baptism produces measureless dis- aster. It deceives the individual. At confirmation the person who has been baptized in infancy is confirmed in the. belief that through this so- called act of baptism, through the agency of water the Spirit operated independently of the THE GREAT SEPARATION 501 individuaVs own personal attitude in the matter, and on the strength of the faith of others, of those who stood sponsors for him; and that during all these years from childhood, no matter what may have been his character he has had the Christ life in him. Again and again such a person counting himself sincere in his early regeneration feels no further responsibility, accepts confirmation and is made into a natural and unregenerate member of the Church of Christ. But, let no one go away under the impression I am saying all those who have been baptized in infancy are unregenerate. God forbid I should even suggest such a thing; for again and again in the days leading up to confirmation or "first communion," many are laid hold of by the Spirit through the Word of the Gospel and are actually quickened, regenerated, saved. What I am saying is this — that baptism does not do it and no infant that ever lived was regen- erated by it, or ever will be. The grace of God can and does rise above human failure and hu- man error and call the elect. But it is beyond all possible dispute that through the unscrip- 502 THE GREAT SEPARATION tural doctrine of infant baptism or baptismal regeneration in any case, multitudes have been made into unregenerate members of the profess- ing Church. Unregenerate members are made through the appeal to and the exercise of merely fleshly emo- tions. Our Lord speaks of a certain class who are like the seed which fell upon rocky ground. It sprang up immediately, but soon withered away and did so because — // had no root. In these days of "modernized" evangelism through appeals made to the natural emotions, the organized effort in the name of Christ for a moral and fleshly "clean-up," there are multi- tudes swept into the profession of Christ. They imagine because they no longer drink, nor use profane language, nor lead immoral lives and are more gentle and better mannered, that they are Christians. Many of them awake to their own self-deception, grow indifferent and fall away. They become members of the professing Church. They never were regenerated. They had no root in Christ. THE GREAT SEPARATION 503 All unregenerate members of the professing Church will be shut out of Heaven and left be- hind to judgment when our Lord Jesus Christ comes for His true Church. False systems of Christianity will be left be- hind. Our Lord Jesus Christ warned there would be such false systems. He foretold it in the par- able of the wheat and tares. The wheat was sown in the field. An enemy came along in the night while men slept and sowed tares (cheat, darnel) among the wheat. They grew side by side. They appeared so much alike the farmer com- manded his servants to let them grow till the harvest. All the while they were growing side by side it was a mixed field. At the harvest time the reapers went forth and separated the tares from the wheat, gath- ered them into bundles and bound them that they might be burned. It is to be remembered the field does not sym- 504 THE GREAT SEPARATION bolize the Church. Our Lord says it is a sym- bol of the world. The wheat is a symbol of the children of the Kingdom, those who are not only professors, but possessors of Christ — Christians. The tares also represent the profession of Christ in the world; but tares are counterfeit wheat. Tares therefore represent counterfeit Christianity, counterfeit Christians in the world. The world is full of these Devil-wrought and counterfeit systems of Christianity. Unitarianism is a counterfeit system of Chris^ tianity. Unitarianism denies the triunity of God. According to Unitarianism Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but not God the Son. In this proposition it denies the declaration of the Apostle John that in His pre-existent state our Lord was God the Word and created all things. It denies the later statement of John that Jesus Christ is true God and eternal life. It denies Paul's affirmation that before the THE GREAT SEPARATION 5^5 Son of God came into this world He was in the "form of God." It denies Paul's statement that by Him God the Father created all things, that in Him all things consist, that the fulness of the godhead dwelt in Him bodily and that He upholds all things by the Word of His power. It denies the Lord's own statement that He was of one substance and being with the Father; that before the world was He sat on the infinite throne in Heaven with Him, sharing and man- ifesting His glory; that He was self -existent as the Father and could do all that God the Father could do. It denies the overwhelming, climacteric and conclusive statement of the Father: Unto the Son the Father says: ^^Thy throne, GOD, is forever and ever!* The Apostle John says : "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." The Father and the Son are one in being and essence. To be without the one is to be without the other. 5o6 THE GREAT SEPARATION The Unitarian who denies the deity of Christ, has not the Father, is not a child of God, and cannot be saved. The Unitarian who believes in Unitarianism will with that false system be shut out from Heaven when the Lord comes for His Church. TJniversalism is a system of counterfeit Chris- tianity. Universalism teaches that Christ died for all men and in His dying paid the penalty against all. This is true of all, whether they accept the death of Christ as a sacrifice or claim Him as a substitute. Since the penalty of all has been paid, all will be saved from the original doom. No matter though men continue in sin up to the hour of death they will be saved. Such a system if it does not put an actual pre- mium upon sin does put a premium upon spir- itual indifference and nullifies every appeal and warning against continuance in sin. But above and beyond all this, in assuring sal- vation to all men, Universalism denies the sol- emn and warning utterance of the Son of God Himself. THE GREAT SEPARATION 5^7 He said: "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him. Could anything be plainer than that? The unbeliever shall not see life. If the unbeliever dies in his unbelief he shall not only not see life (the eternal life of Christ) but the wrath of God will abide on him on the other side of death and the grave — through eter- nity will abide on him. To teach men they are saved; to fill them with the hope of life and then let them go into eternity to exist forever unsaved, forever under the down pressure and weight of the abiding wrath of God ! Is there anything more wickedly deceptive and betraying of the soul than that? Universalists who have not turned in faith to Godj who have not been regenerated by the Spirit will be left behind when the Lord comes, to meet and suffer the unspeakable woe. Roman Catholicism is a false and counterfeit system of Christianity . It is a compound of Judaism, Paganism, and Apostate Christianity. It has the priesthood of 5o8 THE GREAT SEPARATION Judaism, the idolatry of Paganism, and the in- vented and perverted doctrines of Apostate Christianity. It teaches that the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper may be transformed by the word of the priest into the actual body and blood of Christ. It teaches that the priest has power to offer up the Son of God in sacrifice, that His crucifixion is continual, teaching this in plain and open contradiction to the word of the Apos- tle that Christ died once for all and by one sac- rifice has perfected forever those who believe. It teaches purgatory, a half way purifying hell for those who die, out of which for a certi- fied sum of money they may eventually be liber- ated by the priest and having been purified by the fire may enter heaven at last. It teaches the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, that she was specially conceived without sin in order that she might be the sinless mother of her sinless Son. It miraculously re- moves her from earth and sets her up to be the queen of heaven. It thrusts her in as primd.ry and supreme intercessor between the Christian THE GREAT SEPARATION 5^9 and the high priestly interceding Christ Him- self. It teaches the supremacy of the Church to the written Word, holds the written Word to be de- pendent on and secondary to the authority of the Church, claims the right to originate doc- trine, claims temporal sovereignty over the kingdoms and nations of earth, teaches the in- fallibility of the Pope and makes his decisions inerrant and binding. The Holy Scriptures in an amazing forecast and altogether divine prophecy paint the pic- ture of this system under the figure of the woman who hides leaven in the meal, as Jezebel of Thy- atira, as the scarlet woman, the mistress of the ten-horned beast, as Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, as the city which in the days of the Apostle John ruled over the Kings of the earth, even Rome, and as filled and drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. The history of this church has been the his- tory of bloody persecution, of stakes, of racks, of inquisitorial torture to all who opposed or pffended her, 5 lO THE GREAT SEPARATION Wherever the Church has been dominant she has sunken the people into ignorance and super- stition and is in the very nature of the case a menace to the liberty of peoples and a barrier to spiritual growth in and knowledge of God. There are, undoubtedly, many in Romanism who are sincere and devout Christians and in spite of error and false teaching are filled with genuine faith in and devotion to the Son of God. But the system with its doctrines of baptismal regeneration, auricular confession, the priestly power of absolution holds out the false salva- tion of an unscriptural Christ, a deceptive and soul destroying hope. When the Lord comes this system will be left to terrific judgments at the hand of the nations which once supported and have been controlled by it. All those who have not received the life of the risen Christ in the soul through sanc- tified and genuine faith in Him will be left to share the fearful judgment and the anguish of the system of which they have formed a part. Christian Science is a system of Counterfeit Christianity. { THE GREAT SEPARATION 5 1 1 It is neither scientific, nor Christian. It is not scientific. It is not scientific because it denies the exist- ence of matter. When a Christian Scientist strikes his head against a wall, by the logic of his proposition he must deny not only the contact, the concussion and the reacting blow, but the wall itself. There is, there can be, no other wall than such as the imagination of mortal mind may self-deceiv- ingly fashion for itself. It is of little consequence therefore what Christian Science may say about matter. It is not Christian. It is not Christian because it denies every fun- damental doctrine of Christianity. It denies the Trinity of Godhead. It denies the personality of God. It denies the blood of Jesus was of any more avail when shed on the cross than when flowing through His veins in daily life. It denies Jesus was an actual person. In giv- ing birth to Him the Virgin Mary only gave birth to an abstract idea, not to a body of flesh. 5 1 2 THE GREAT SEPARATION Jesus and Christ are distinct. Jesus is the human idea, Christ is the eternal principle of truth. Jesus was an apparition only. Christ is the abiding principle. Jesus never actually died. How could that die which never actually had been born? and yet with remarkable reasoning Christian Science makes Him continue alive in the tomb during the three days in which the disciples had been self-deceived in imagining he had ever lived. But this method of reasoning is of a piece with the whole system. It denies that Jesus exists to-day. Taking them in order, Christian Science is guilty of four fundamental falsehoods. The denial of matter. The denial of sin. The denial of sickness. The denial of death. The other evening I witnessed a glorious sight. It was the vision of sunset. All the far upper dome of the heavens was turning into the blue of night, with her^ and THE GREAT SEPARATION 5 ^3 there a pale, faint star. Below them was a golden city with towers and turret of sapphire beauty. There was a river that poured its mar- velous silver by shores of amethyst and rose. Toward the horizon great clouds like glow- ing embers from a burning palace broke and fell. Then through a highway of shattered and splintered color the chariot of the sun went down leaving the night winds as they rose to sweep away the dust of gold and crimson the fiery wheel had flung as its farewell to the day. I have seen the mountains standing in senti- nel outline against the descending sky. I have seen the valleys and the plains of earth, wooded hills and waving fields of grain. I have seen the rivers gliding to the sea and have watched the great ocean as it broke in billowy waves upon the resounding, rock-ribbed shore. I have trodden upon shifting sand, on granite rock, and yielding soil. I have touched and seen and known matter in every form. And yet, this Christian Science has the au- dacity and the mendacity to stand and say there is no matter. 5 1 4 THE GREAT SEPARATION Little wonder is it that it has no place upon the field of carnage, amid the hell of battle thunder, in the wards of hospitals, by the beds of wounded men, smitten with shot and shell and shrapnel. Little wonder that it dare not go amid these scenes and lifting up the blatant, babbling talk, with insulting, outrageous utter- ance insist that these awful visions, these facts of blood and anguish are but the phantasies of mortal mind and that matter in a soldiers' wrenched and torn and bruised body, and the sword, or bayonet or gun that wrecked him and made him a broken, helpless thing for life, do not exist. Everywhere in the earth there are judges, law- yers, courthouses, prisons, men behind the prison bars, gibbets and electric chairs. Everywhere there is violation of law, the tragedy, the flowing tears, the spilling of blood, anguish, sorrow, re- morse. Everywhere bodies are suffering, hearts are aching and lives are blasted because of sin. So great, so wide-spread, so universal is sin, so indisputable the fact, so great the mystery, so measureless its power, its insistence and the in- ability to overcome it, abolish it or even modify I THE GREAT SEPARATION 5 1 5 it, that men who have studied it, sought to re- sist it, put lock and bar and chain upon it, have shrunk back aghast at its force, its undeniable re- ality. And yet, this Christian Science has the auda- city and the mendacity to stand up and say there is — no sin. Everywhere in the world you will find doc- tors, surgeons, hospitals, sanitoriums. Every- where you will find human beings suffering the torture of pain, stricken, eaten up, devoured by disease, disease so multifarious, so complicated, so variant, so involving of every square inch of organic animal existence; disease so awful, so terrible, making human beings so repulsive, so dangerous that even those who love them are forced to hide them from the public gaze ; sick- ness, disease, pain so immense, so all-pervading and threatening to the common weal that the keenest brains, the most unwearied study and the most loyal and unselfish devotion of man to man have been employed to combat, to relieve, to cure; and yet, in spite of ages of consecration; in spite of poured-out means, of genius, of inven- tion and application; although men have 5 1 6 THE GREAT SEPARATION searched nature's laboratories and brought in the service of nature's laws, disease, suffering, sickness in every shade, degree and form, con- ceivable and inconceivable lay hold sooner or later in one fashion or another upon every hu- man body, even upon the body of the most ex- pert and persistent healer of Christian Science itself. And yet Christian Science has the audacity and mendacity to say there is — no sickness. Everywhere in the world you will find the silent cities of the dead. Wherever you go you will see the white shaft, the tombstone, the mar- ble urn, the mound that hides the buried body of the well beloved. Everywhere some one is leav- ing these mortal shores, and the living close their no longer seeing eyes, fold their dead, still hands and prepare them for that sleep within the dust from which no tears, no heartache of long- ing, no beseeching, petitioning word of yearn- ing love can wake them. Ever5rwhere are the dead. In every house, sooner or later, with unbidden and unwelcome step comes the silent messenger — death. THE GREAT SEPARATION 5 1?' And yet, Christian Science has the audacity and mendacity to stand up before the sons of men and say there is — no death. Yonder at Boston, in Mount Auburn, behind the iron and guarded bars, deep within the depths of a voiceless tomb lies the mouldering and corrupting body, the dust, the whitening bones of a woman, who, in contradiction to that Lord who never called a woman to be an apostle, never appointed a woman to any office in the Church, never authorized or commissioned a woman to preach; in direct repudiation of the Holy Ghost and apostolic law which forbids a woman to teach and expressly commands her to be silent in the assembly of the saints; in that grave at Auburn lies the body of a woman who set up this false, this so called ^'Church" of Christian Science, denied matter, sin, sickness and said there was no such thing as death. To-night, over the tomb where this much- married, much-divorced woman lies moulder- ing, corrupt and forever broken, the living God whose Christ she burlesqued, counterfeited, be- trayed and denied, writes in burning letters of 5 1 8 THE GREAT SEPARATION scintillating light these fearful and amazing words: ''HERE ENDETH THE GREAT LIEr Russellism is another system of counterfeit Christianity. Annihilation of the finally impenitent is a doc- trine held and taught by different sects. The most prominent, the one whose books, whose literature has had the widest circulation and has been made known to, and more or less affected millions of people is the cult generally known as Russellism. Russellism teaches that before He was born into this world our Lord Jesus Christ was the Archangel Michael; that in giving birth to Jesus the Virgin Mary was giving birth to the archangel in human form. Jesus had but one nature, the nature of Adam before he sinned and fell. The fundamental principle of Russellism as of its kindred systems is, that death is the — cessa- tion of being. The fundamental principle of redemption is, that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, not THE GREAT SEPARATION S 1 9 only as a sacrifice for sin but as a substitute for the sinner, A substitute must pay in kind the obligation or debt of the principal whose place he takes. Since our Lord Jesus Christ must take the place and pay the penalty of those whom He re- deems and saves; since, according to the teach- ing of Russellism death is the cessation of being, then when our Lord Jesus Christ died. He ceased to be, He went out of existence, He was actually annihilated. The logic is unerring, sure, beyond question. The founder of Russellism accepted the logic and taught — The Annihilation of Our Lord's Hu- manity ON THE Cross. He taught that the man Jesus had ceased to exist; that when He died on the cross He was dead forever. That you may see this is no mere partisan, nor imaginative deduction of mine I will read to you some extracts from the text book of Russel- lism, ''Bible Studies," the very words and teach- ings of Russell himself. 520 THE GREAT SEPARATION Bible Studies, Volume J, page 3^^- ''Our Lord's being or soul was non-existent during the period of death.'' Bible Studies, Volume I, page 2^0. ^^His human existence ended on the cross/' Bible Studies, Volume ^, page 454- ''It was necessary, not only that the man Christ Jesus should die, but just as necessary that the man Christ Jesus should never live again, should remain dead to all eternity." Bible Studies, Volume 2, page 155- "He has no further use for a human body." Bible Studies, Volume 2, page I2g. "We know nothing about what became of it (the body of the Lord after death) whether it (the body of our risen Lord) , was dis- solved into gases no one knows." Bible Studies, Volume ^, page 466. "The man Christ Jesus suffered for us death in the most absolute sense of the word — 'EVER- LASTING Destruction?' " Bible Studies, Volume ^, page 454- ''The man Jesus is dead — FOREVER DEAD." In the nature of the case, if the personality of THE GREAT SEPARATION 5 2 1 a being is destroyed, it cannot be raised again from the dead — There is nothing to raise. Any so-called resurrection would not be a resurrec- tion but a distinct, new creation, as much so as that of the first man. As it would not be the same personality, but another and distinct personality from that which died, then, if Christ were ac- tually destroyed on the Cross as to soul and be- ing (and this is personality), any pretended res- urrection of Christ would be simply the pre- tended resurrection of another Christ. It would not be the original Christ but — a false Christ, This is the Christ Russellism preaches. The Christ Russellism preaches is a false Christ before he dies and another and pretended Christ in the pseudo-resurrection after he dies. The teaching of Russellism that our Lord Jesus Christ was the Archangel Michael, that he was annihilated on the cross, that His hu- manity was forever destroyed, and that His body was possibly turned to gas, to say nothing of the different bodies which it is said He assumed after His resurrection, bodies that were put on and dissolved into thin air at will, is a teaching 522 THE GREAT SEPARATION SO full of blasphemy, so coarse, so utterly brutal, so wholly devilish and wicked that human lan- guage furnishes no vocabulary of sufficiently keen and cauterizing words or phrases whereby I may denounce as I describe its vulgarism and mad treason against the Son of God. Like the author of Christian Science the founder of Russellism has descended into the grave, and as the rich man of old, has awakened to find that death does not end all ; and that the being and existence which denied the wonder and glory of the person of our Lord still con- tinues, but as a condition where repentance is of no avail, where the awakening comes too late. I am unwilling to go into any further analysis of this system now, this system which offers a second chance to all who have died out of Christ and puts a premium on sin by assuring those who are determined to die without Christ that the more they yield to sin here, the more probable it will be when the second chance is given they will accept and at last be saved ; and that those who do not care to accept the Gospel of- fered them will be permitted to die the second THE GREAT SEPARATION 523 death and be blotted out of existence. In other words, no matter how often they may have re- jected Christ they will have another chance to be saved, and if they prefer annihilation, if they wish to be asphyxiated, smothered out by fire into eternal unconsciousness, everlasting destruc- tion, eternal cessation of being they can have that privilege. According to Russellism there is no such thing as future, endless, conscious punishment for sin. This Gospel of Russellism ought to be hailed with joy by every thief and murderer. There are always two immense outlooks : Reject the Gospel, commit all the sin you like, die, be unconscious, be brought into existence again, have another chance to hear the Gospel, accept, be saved and enjoy eternal felicity. Reject the Gospel, live a life of sin to the full- est capacity, then become unconscious or go out of being, be brought to life again, have the gos- pel presented, be given a hundred years of pro- bation to live as Adam lived before he sinned, then reject the Gospel and go out of existence. 524 THE GREAT SEPARATION Surely, this is a gospel that ought to win con- verts in every jail. Beyond question it is a gospel that fills the Devil with delight. When Christ comes the followers of Russell will be left outside the gate to woe and death here — then will they indeed be raised from the dead in the second resurrection, die a second time, lose their bodies in the destroying fire, but instead of annihilation — as bodiless ghosts exist forever under the wrath of that God and Christ they were taught to deny. False teachers in the professing Church will he left behind. Teachers in the Church who deny the Virgin Birth, The issue in the Virgin Birth is clear and sim- ple. It is, whether God the Father actually as a father begot Jesus out of Mary; or, whether He was begotten by a human father. If he were begotten by a human father (asr^ personality comes from the father and not the.^/ mother) his personality was finite, not infinite. If He were finite and not infinite He was not THE GREAT SEPARATION 525 God. If He were not God He was not the Sec- ond Person of the Trinity. If He were not the Second Person of the Trinity then none is, there is no Trinity. If He were not the Second Per- son of the Trinity and therefore not God, He could not raise Himself from the dead; but since in Scripture the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit are always seen working together and never apart; as the Father is said to raise the Son, and the Spirit is said to raise the Son, and the Son is said to raise Himself; and as the Father and the Spirit could not raise the Son unless the Son worked as God in concert with them, then as He was not God and could not raise Himself and therefore could not work in concert with them, then the Father did not raise Him, the Spirit did not raise Him, He never was raised from the dead. Deny the Virgin Birth, the logic of it not only sweeps away the divine Trinity, it shuts Christ up in His grave forever and sweeps Christianity as a revealed faith from God out of the world forever. No matter how much the teacher may say he 5^^ THE GREAT SEPARATION believes in the resurrection of Christ, his doc- trine belies his profession the moment he denies the Virgin Birth. Without that, on the basis of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity resurrec- tion is impossible. Such teachers deny the Lord who bought them and can have no part v^ith Christ v^hen He comes. Teachers who deny the blood of Christ will be left behind. Those who deny the redeeming value of the blood of Christ are like Cain, who ignored the moral and judicial distance between himself and God, refused to recognize that the penalty of death was upon him and that his only ground of approach to a holy God was by and through an atoning sacrifice; his only hope of accept- ance in offering a substitute to meet the claims of God against him. Like Cain they turn away from the sacrifice, the sacrifice of the cross, offer to God the culture of the flesh, their own good works, their own character, and like Cain are re- pudiated and rejected of God who insistently and graciously bids them offer the sin-offering THE GREAT SEPARATION 5^7 which, as in Cain's day ^'lieth at the door," the crucified Christ, offer Him and be saved. In denying the blood these teachers and all who follow their evil way are face to face with the solemn Word of God. ^^ Without shedding of blood is no remission/' No! it is blood all the way down from the be- ginning, blood the only way of hope for lost and sinful man. Blood there at Eden's gates, the blood of sac- rifice, the covering of nakedness with the cover made from the skins of the bleeding victim, blood the only ground on which the guilty pair could turn and face the world and claim the right to live. Blood on Abel's altar making it a better offering than that of Cain. Blood on Abraham's altar on Mount Moriah, the blood of a provided substitute which saved his son. Blood on that passover night in Egypt which saved the people of Israel from the sentence of death against the first born in the land. Blood on the brazen altar and the golden altar and the ark of the covenant in the wilderness. Blood sprinkling the book of the covenant Blood yonder on the cross, the 528 THE GREAT SEPARATION blood of Him who was the foreordained Lamb of God. All the blood of all the offerings spell- ing as they spilled, the blood of Christ and out of every crimson drop crying, ^^The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Blood on the throne of God, turning it from a throne of judgment to a throne of grace. The blood that alone gives right and undisputed title to enter the gates of pearl. Yes ! those who deny the blood deny the whole crimson illuminated path from grace to glory, deny the only way of salvation God has revealed to men. He who denies the blood of Christ proclaims himself outside the blood-sealed covenant of grace and will be left outside the blood-bought and Heaven-provided home. All unbelievers will be left behind when Christ comes for His Church. What a fearful separation will take place. The fearfulness of it lies in the fact of its im- minency. It might be at any time. There is nothing between us and that separa- tion but the coming of Christ THE GREAT SEPARATION 5^9 There is nothing between us and that coming but the sound of His trump. Should the trumpet sound the elect of God in Christ would be caught up to meet a coming Lord. All others would be left behind. And there is no hope for those who shall be left behind. They did not care for the truth when they had it. They ignored it. Some of them resist^td it Others mocked and made light of it God does not forget. Since they would not have the truth, He will send them strong delusion. He will allow them to be taken as in a snare. He will allow them to be captivated, seduced and completely caught by the Great Lie that is coming on the earth. They would not have the true Christ. They shall be caught in the toils of a false Christ. They would not be saved. 530 THE GREAT SEPARATION He will see to it that they shall all be damned. Hear what is written in the Holy Book: "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie: "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth." He sent the Spirit to convict them of the truth. They resisted the Spirit of truth. He will send them the deceiving spirit of un- truth. They will yield to that spirit and accept the lie. The Holy Spirit would have been their seal unto life eternal. The Spirit of untruth of open falsehood shall be their seal unto eternal death. Unbeliever! if Christ came to-night the door of hope and salvation would be shut. You would be left out. Separation from all who have believed. What a separation! To all I have said there are two corollaries: I. Every one of you who professes the name of Christ should come out and make your call- ing and election sure. THE GREAT SEPARATION 53^ That means, find out whether you really be- lieve or whether you have only a name to live and are actually, spiritually dead. Find out whether you are indifferent to the claims of God and Christ. Find out whether the Christian profession is an irksome or a joyous thing to you. Arouse ! because the time may be short. Arouse! because a separation will take place between those who are really Christ's and those who have only the profession of His name. Nothing could be sadder than to be a mere professor when Christ comes. Nothing can be sadder than to hare your name written in the book of the Church down here,, and not in the book of life of the Church in Heaven, up there. Nothing could be sadder, more heart-breaking than to hear Him say — in that hour: ^^I know you not whence ye are — depart from mer 2. It is time that you who make no profession of His name should arouse. There is no question, no need to question what 532 THE GREAT SEPARATION would befall you if Christ should come before morning. If He came and found you as you are, an un- believer, walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit you would be left behind to certain woe. Do not trifle with your purchased oppor- tunity. Grace offers it to you. Judgment will not return it to you. Of all follies none is greater than to purchase a cup of eternal woe hereafter for the price of a brimming, but brief cup of pleasure now. Whatever else hell may be, it is hell, and will be hell, to look back at lost opportunities. It is hell to have enjoyed the pleasures of sin for a season, and lose the pleasures of heaven forever. The gulf is not yet fixed. If Christ should come, then between you and those who are His — the gulf will be fixed for- ever. There is no bridge. It yawns bridgeless forever — a wide — meas- ureless — eternal gulf of separation. THE GREAT TRIBULATION The Great Tribulation. "For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matthew 24: 21). In presenting this theme I shall divide it into four simple parts : 1. The Cause of the Great Tribulation. 2. The Character of the Great Tribulation. 3. The Dramatic Ending of the Great Tribu- lation. 4. The Beginning of the Great Tribulation. I. The Cause of the Great Tribulation. The cause is threefold : Moral. Satanic. Judicial. It is moral. The moral cause is found in the failure of the Gentile nations to fulfill the commission granted to them of God. God granted this commission in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. ^^6 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. He granted it to them because of the failure of the Jews to fulfill the commission He had originally given to them. He had called the children of Israel to be His peculiar people. He had separated them from all other nations unto Himself. He had by an outstretched arm and mighty power planted them in the land of Palestine. He ordained this land to be the geographical center of the earth and His chosen people to be the political and governmental center. He purposed to send them His own Son to be their incarnate King and through Him and them rule the world in righteousness and peace, bringing blessing and benefaction to every creature. The nation had utterly failed. Ten tribes had gone into idolatry. The Assyrians came and carried them captives into Adiabene, into the East, and for twenty-five hundred years they have been nationally and historically lost. The remaining two tribes likewise turned to idolatry. Then Nebuchadnezzar, king of Bab- ylon, besieged Jerusalem, took it and carried the people captive to Babylon, the golden city. THE GREAT TRIBULATION 537 The Lord at once proposed to transfer the rulership of the world officially from the hand of the Jew to the Gentile. He would put an end to Jewish time and bring in Gentile time — ^^The times of the Gentiles/' He now purposed to rule the world through four successive Gentile world powers. These powers He indicated in the different materials of the statue or image which Nebu- chadnezzar saw in his dream and forgot, and which Daniel, one of the Hebrew captives in Babylon, under the inspiration of God inter- preted. There were four metals in the image : Gold. Silver. Brass. Iron. The iron was mixed with brittle, incohesive clay. The gold set forth Babylon. Silver — Medo-Persia. Brass — Greece. Iron in the two legs the Roman empire under 53 S THE GREAT TRIBULATION. its first political division into Western and Eastern Empire. The iron and clay mixed in the ten toes, the ten-fold confederation or the second and final division of the fourth or Roman empire. These four empires or kingdoms are corrob- orated and further illustrated by a vision which later on God gave to Daniel himself in which he saw four wild beasts rise up out of the Mediter- ranean Sea. The first was — a lion. The second — a hear. The third — a leopard. The fourth — a monster with ten horns. The lion is — Babylon. The hear — Medo-Persia, The leopard — Greece, The monster — Rome, Two of these kingdoms were precised and named in a still later vision given to Daniel. He saw a ram pushing toward the west. He saw a he goat rushing to the east to meet him, overthrow him and trample him under foot. The ram is Medo-Persia, the he goat Greece, THE GREAT TRIBULATION 539 and the symbolic prophecy concerning Greece comes on down to our day. The Lord warned that this rulership in the hands of the Gentiles would prove a failure as everything which God has ever entrusted to man. This announced failure is to be seen in the de- terioration or descent in the character of the metals as named in their order in the image. First, gold, then silver, then brass, after that iron, and last of all clay which is corrupt, disin- tegrated stone, is brittle, incohesive, may be massed together, but is never united. Gold sets forth rulership directly from the hand of God and is the symbol and seal of '^the divine right of kings." The clay stands for the people, for man in the mass. This may be seen in the statement of Saint Paul: "O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it. Why hast thou made me thus? "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of 540 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour/' Man as man is here compared to clay. This is corroborated by the prophet Isaiah. "But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter." The Lord Himself speaking to Israel says: "As the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel." Israel is the figure of the natural man, man seen as to genus, in the mass, the people. Clay sets forth the people. As each material of which the statue is formed indicates distinctive political rule, then the clay symbolizes rule in the hand of the people. The Greek word for people is deemos, from which we get our word democracy. The rule of the people, government in the hands of the people. Thus the clay in the image is a picture of de- mocracy. Gold represents monarchy, is the first in order in the statue, and sets forth that form of government which is directly from the hand of God — as Daniel says when addressing Nebu- chadnezzar: THE GREAT TRIBULATION 541 "Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. * * * and hath made thee ruler/^ The clay is the last form of rule, is the result of the overthrow and departure from the previ- ous forms of monarchy and is the farthest away from the direct ordination of God. Clay is brittle, easily broken into separate pieces and scattered. It is in itself the symbol of weakness and final failure in government. It was a prophecy that rulership in the hands of the Gentiles would become successively far- ther and farther away from God. This symbolic prophecy has been and is now being fulfilled. Cyrus at the head of his Persian host came against Babylon and overthrew it. Babylon failed because Nebuchadnezzar for- getting he had received his grant of power from the hand of the Most High God, walked about Babylon, and as he looked at its grandeur, at the lifted height of the tower of Belus, the arcaded, marble streets, the hanging gardens and all the 542 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. wonder and glory of the marvellous city, filled Vith pride and boastful exaltation said: "Is not this great Babylon, that / have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?^' After him his grandson, Belshazzar, gathered his debauched courtiers, his harem of beau- tiful concubines and holding high revel in the banqueting hall of his palace, drank wine out of the golden vessels taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, praised the gods of Babylon, praised, debauched and danced at the very hour when Cyrus and his glittering soldiery sweeping in upon the drunken revellers, slew them and took the kingdom. Greece overthrew Medo-Persia. Medo-Persia failed because, although God had named and ordained Cyrus before he was born, the kingdom under successive rulers de- parted as a nation more and more from the will of God. Then from her seven hills Rome arose and overthrew Greece. Greece failed becauee Alexander of Macedon THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 543 led his Greeks to Babylon, won victory after vic- tory, swept everything before him and forget- ting that the hand of God had opened the gates of conquest for him, exalted himself and claimed the place, the honors and the adoration belong- ing to God. God smote him in a drunken Baby- lonian orgy, smashed his empire into four great parts, brought Greece back to her original boundaries ; and it was this Greece, crushed and limited that Rome overthrew. In fulfillment of the symbolic forecast of the two legs of iron Rome was divided into Western and Eastern Empire. The Western Empire came to an end in the fifth century. It began with a Romulus and ended with a Romulus. It lasted about twelve hundred years. The Eastern Empire came to an end in 1453, when the Turks defeated John Palaeologus and took Constantinople. The empire had lasted a thousand years. The nations occupying the territory of these four original kingdoms have been erected out of them or built upon their ruin§, 544 THE GREAT TRIBULATION All these nations, with the exception of the Turkish Empire, are, so-called, Christian na- tions. The Turks are neither idolaters nor pagans. They are believers in God, but repudiate our Lord Jesus Christ, as God the Son and only Saviour. Only one of these so-called Christian nations is Protestant; all the others are officially Cath- olic. The history of these professed Christian na- tions has been a history of intrigue, diplomatic gambling, chicanery, fraud, war, conflict and confusion, tyranny, oppression, revolution and despotism. To-day all the nations within the limit of the once Roman Empire are engaged in the blood- iest and most wanton of all wars. Millions of lives are being sacrificed in battle, in hospital, in sickness and disease. Treasure is poured out like flowing streams. All the standards of civ- ilization are broken down and trampled in the mire of blood. We have now reached the stage of the clay — ^ THE GREAT TRIBULATION 545 ^democracy; or, if you like, republicanism — the rule of the people. The rule of the people, democracy, is, practi- cally, universal. England is more democratic than the United States. George the Fifth, king of England, is nothing more than a figure-head, whose word, thought, advice, wish or sugges- tion, count for nothing. He is a negligible quan- tity. He has no influence in legislating a law, shaping a policy or moulding a campaign. All the insignia of royalty and the baubles of rank and power are in final terms, meaningless. France is a republic built upon a decapitated monarchy. Spain has a king, but the present dynasty is the result of a revolution, the people are waiting the opportunity to overturn the kingdom and like Portugal set up the rule of democracy. Italy, like England, is a monarchy only in name. Legislation is in the hand of a demo- cratic parliament. In incohesion, revolution and lack of unity constitute some of the elements and character- istics of democracy, then Greece is democratic. 546 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. The Balkans in their increasing conflict, riot, confusion and rebellion bear witness both to the rule and misrule of the people. Before the war the Socialists in the Reichstao' of Germany were the emphasized and aggressive minority which put a check upon and gave warning to the monarchy. The war has simply damned up the spirit of revolution and unrest, in the meantime gathering force and determina- tion to break, sooner or later, over all bounds. From the days of Nebuchadnezzar until this day human government in the hands of the Gen- tiles has been a costly failure. It is not necessary to speak of Nebuchadnex- zar nor the debauchery of a Belshazzar. It is not necessary to speak of Rome, of the Twelve Caesars, of emperors elected by Praetorian guards or made such by an assassin's knife or a poison- er's cup. Come down to the days nearer our own time. Read the story of England. The conflicts and the wars. Read the record of the War of the Roses, where professedly for the sake of a white or a red rose men cut each other's throat .and THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 547 soaked the land in blood, but fought actually that the few might live at the expense of the many. Read the story of the Four Georges as described by the incomparable pen and the keen satire of a Thackeray. Look at France in the zenith of her glory under a Louis Fourteenth, le rot soliel, the sun king. Look at that palace at Versailles, built in the place of a swamp, the foundation alone cost- ing so much that it bankrupted the nation. Go through the palace where titled women felt it their highest privilege to yield to the demands and pleasures of a king's unbridled sensualism. Go through the palace and read the things scrib- bled on wall and door by a lecherous monarch; go out into the green park, into the Grand and Little Trianon; observe the traps, the secret doors, the sliding panels, the tempting boudoirs; read the story of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, the man who was more successful as a locksmith than a monarch; go down to the little Swiss village built for a queen that she might play the part of a beautiful milk-maid; watch her sur- rounded by her court of light and easy virtue 548 THE GREAT TRIBULATION, beauties, the crowd of polite and profligate princes as they laugh and jest and say, ^'After us the deluge" ; while over the hedge row there the gamins from the streets of Paris, the bag and hatchet women, the women from Saint Antoine and the markets are crying, "bread, bread, give us bread." Go behind the cabinet doors of the nations now engaged in war. See the treaties torn to shreds as of no more value than so much "white paper," listen to the intrigue, the kingly and min- isterial lying that caused the swords to leap from scabbards and the shells to echo from the can- non's mouth. The Gentile governments have failed to glor- ify God and establish righteousness. They have been unable to maintain peace except at inter- vals and then only by the sharpness of the sword. They have failed to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. They have made the rich to grow richer and the poor, poorer. They have filled the earth not only with tryanny and oppression, riot, revolution, rebellion, war and confusion, but, led men to repudiate God and cry THE GREAT TRIBULATION 549 out against His rule as well as the rule of tyrants and oppressors, the conquerors and despots who claimed authority in His name. This utter and moral failure on the part of the Gentile nations and particularly so on the part of the so-called Christian nations is one of the contributing causes which will bring on the Great Tribulation. The second cause is Satanic. God created a great angel, the Chief of the Cherubim. He was perfect, beautiful. He was Lucifer, son of the morning. God gave him this world in its original crea- tion as a province in the infinite empire that with his subject angels he might live in it and rule it to the glory of God. He became lifted up with pride at his own beauty, wisdom and power. He was unwilling to be a subordinate god. He would rule the world for himself. He and his angels rebelled. God overthrew them. The earth received the shock and fell into a cataclysmic chaos. Like a great funeral hearse it glided through space, a 550 THE GREAT TRIBULATION black, sunless, silent thing. How long this state lasted is not of the record. Then God lifted it out of its rayless night, reformed it, created man and set him up to be the ruler in the place of him who by his rebellion had become a Devil, a scan- dalizer and that Satan who is the adversary, the antagonist and abiding negative to God's eternal positive. The Devil tempted man with the same ambi- tion which caused his own fall. He offered him role and rulership as God of this world, but, in partnership with himself. He led man to turn his back on God. Man became the Devil's incarnation, his dupe and slave. The Devil led him into false religions, into idolatry and infidelic philosophies. He it is who has been behind the governments of the world, behind the thrones of emperors and the chairs of presidents; behind intrigue, diplomacy and war. Two thousand years ago God sent His Son into the world as the new, the second and the last man. THE GREAT TRIBULATION 5S^ The Devil attempted to tempt Him as he did the first man. He offered Him the rulership of the world in partnership with himself on condi- tion that He would own him as supreme, then he would use all his power to make Him the outward and manifested God of this world. As he had destroyed the relation between God and the first man he would now invalidate the incar- nation by making the humanity of Christ the medium for his own manifestation and visibility in the flesh. He failed. The Son of God was crucified as a sacrifice for sin, rose, ascended to heaven and took His seat upon the infinite throne as the giver of new and eternal life to men. He began the creation of His Church as His spiritual Body on the earth. The Devil at once sought to tempt the Church and render it inert. He offered it the same old temptation he had offered to the Son of God — the rulership of the world. The Church yielded to the temptation. It repudiated the attitude of separation from 552 THE GREAT TRIBULATION and pilgrimage through the world. It became a Church of State, supported by the governments of earth and identified with them. Rome is the historic professing Church. For centuries she ruled the world till the very men- tion of her name caused even kings to tremble. She so ruled and terrorized, tortured and slew all opposed to her; so filled her pathway with the blood of martyrs, shut out light and truth; so brought in spiritual ignorance, ecclesiastical superstition and idolatry, that the epoch of her unhindered domination is known as ^Uhe dark ages!^ Some four hundred years ago the Reformation broke out and on the waves of its protest Rome for a while was tossed and swept downward to the Mediterranean. The Protestant Church went forth with the rallying cry of "The world's conversion," and the spiritual conquest of it through the Gospel, and — failed. To-day, the professing Church (the Protestant) is seeking to make an alliance with world thought and world culture, concedes to the modern idea of socialistic redemption, yields to the so-called i THE GREAT TRIBULATION 553 ^'higher" criticism of its Bible and theology and does so that it may get a more influential grasp upon the world itself and fulfill its now inhering ambition for rulership. By this Satanic suggestion of world empire has the professing Church been deceived, so blinded and hindered that it has lost sight of the original ministry*committed to it and the place it should occupy till the Lord returns. But, in the professing Church the Lord has His elect, those who constitute the real body of Christ and through the operation of the Spirit dwelling in them Satan has been checked and restrained. Since the incarnation of God's Son, however, the supreme ambition of the Devil has been to match it with the incarnation of himself. He seeks to find a man in whom he may enthrone himself with all the marvel and miracle of the Christ and through him become the unique and indisputable god of the world. He knows his doom. He knows God will per- mit him to find his man and for a season through him deceive the sons of men and reign in the 554 THE GREAT TRIBULATION midst of their welcoming applause as very god incarnate. He knows his time is short, and as the age draws to a close and the hour of consummation comes on, he will unloose all the bonds of wick- edness, stir up all hindering forces of unright- eousness, unbelief, infidelity and lawlessness and prepare the way for his anticipated and long coveted moment of subtle, yet spectacular triumph. There are two immense movements of thought which may well inspire every thinker to stand upon the alert. On the one side there is the constantly grow- ing effort to deny and entirely repudiate the doc- trine of the deity of Christ. You will hear and read eulogium after eulogium of His manhood and the exceeding greatness and marvel of that manhood; but, the slightest analysis will show that this exaltation of His human character is a blind behind which His enemies are seeking to undermine His essential standing and relation- ship as God of God and very God of very God. This setting aside of the plain scriptural state- THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 555 mcnt that the fulness of the deity dwelleth in Him bodily comes not only from open infidels, from those who refuse to accept the Bible as a revelation from God, but from those inside the Church, from those who profess to be ministers and teachers of Christ; men who have been graduated from our theological institutions; who enter our pulpits and talk mouthingly of the sweetness and beauty of Christ; who dwell upon His moral grandeur. His moral sacrifice. His devotedness of self in the interests of others; men who pass lightly over His birth, who find in it no greater miracle than that which occurs in the wonderful birth of every child; who find His miracles only in His deeds of kindness, in the purity of His every day life; who talk of His death as a martyrdom due to the ignorance and intrigue of men; who talk of His resurrec- tion simply as the passing on of a deathless spirit and the rising up on account of the unselfish character of His death, of the truth and strength of the larger and more advanced humanity He came to represent. These men speak so much 556 THE GREAT TRIBULATION of Christ on earth that little thought is awarded Him as a living person in heaven. The skill and subtlety with which these teach- ers denude the Son of God of His deity, His divine attributes are so great, so thoroughly "modern" and "progressive," that insensibly Christ comes to be regarded rather as a living principle and is no longer thought of and wor- shipped as the mighty God, "Maker of heaven and earth," and the final personal and visible judge of all mankind. On the other hand, everjrwhere there is the exaltation of man. The great things he has done and is doing are catalogued and continually re- peated. He bridges gulfs. He tunnels moun- tains. He sails the sea, on the sea and under the sea. He can talk without wires and send his mes- sage round the earth in a quick and girdling flash. He can fly up Into the heavens with ma- chines that are heavier than air and hopes some day (and secretly believes it) in spite of atmos- pheric pressure to cross the threshold of other ^vorlds. Winds and waves obey him. He has harnessed nature's forces. Because of his multi- THE GREAT TRIBULATION 557 plied and amazing triumph the question is in- creasingly repeated : ^What will not man do next?" Everywhere man is being exalted into the realm of deity. In proportion as the deity of Christ is openly denied, the deity of man is per- sistently suggested. If I were to stand before an audience of the world and afBrm that Jesus of Nazareth was God manifest in the flesh; that He it was who before His incarnation created all things; that He is even now the great God who upholdeth all things by the word of His power, there might be a few who would not be startled ; but, the great majority would give no sign of acceptance or approval; should I, however, stand before the same audience and suggest that man might yet show himself to be divine, to have in himself resident deific powers that would eventually make him as very god in this world, there would be an almost instant acceptance of the proposi- tion and generous applause. And when you look yonder at Saint Peter's in Rome on a feast day, see the vast building 5 5 8 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. filled with thousands of people; and when the pope is brought in on the shoulders of ^'the noble guard," the people falling down, prostrat- ing themselves and calling him "Holy Father," "Our Lord God, the Pope"; when women in this country kneel before a "swami" from India, kiss his not over clean feet and beg the privilege of touching but the hem of his garment in the belief that some deific and harmonious wave will be distilled and undulate within their wide open and receptive souls; when thousands of the baser sort will pack the streets of a city to see a victorious prize fighter, some superior bruiser of his fellow man and give him an ovation ; when, in short, the spirit of hero worship seemingly innate in man waits only an opportunity to ex- press itself sometimes in a delirium of surrender to the idol of the hour it is not difficult to see how, should some man arrive with occult pow- ers, doing great signs and wonders, proving him- self the master of nature's laws, it is not difficult to see how such an one might be owned and worshipped by the impressionable multitude as very god. THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 559 The way is being prepared for Satan's man and Satan's exaltation through him as the god of the world. The third cause which will bring on the Great Tribulation is — Judicial. It will be the judicial action of God. God judges and punishes nations as He judges and punishes individuals. Just as He smote Israel and Babylon, Medo- Persia, Greece and Rome, so will He smite the nations of the earth to-day. He has a contro- versy with them and, specially, with those na- tions which calls themselves, ^^Christian." He will allow evil to multiply and head itself up in all its hideousness. He will take off re- straint that iniquity may reveal itself. He will allow it to grow bold, aggressive and defiant. He will take the wickedness of man, violence, the sword, famine and pestilence, all the logical consequences of sin, of disobedience to His will and law. He will take all these forces and make use of them as His scourge, as ^'the rod of His anger," 56o THE GREAT TRIBULATION. It is worse than folly to attempt to apologize for God or eliminate Him from relationship to the forces of unrighteousness, of moral and phys- ical destruction in the world. He Himself dis- tinctly says : "I will send the sword, the famine and the pestilence among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I have given unto them." "And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence." "I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence." "So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pesti- lence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee, 1 the Lord have spoken it." "He that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him." "If I send a pestilence into that land.*' "I have sent among you the pestilence after the THE GREAT TRIBULATION 561 manner of Egypt; your young men have I slain with the sword." He makes use of one nation to punish another. 'Tor thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field." Thus the threefold cause of the coming Great Tribulation will be moral, Satanic and judicial. The moral failure of the nations in the grant of power given to them, the activity of Satan look- ing and moving toward his pseudo incarnation in humanity and the judgment of God, using these things as the whips and the scourges with which to smite the unrighteousness of man. II, The Character of the Great Tribulation, There will be world-wide war. The battle line will be flung round the far cir- cumference of the earth. There will not be a spot on the globe where the tramp of armed men shall not be heard and the roar of conflict filling 562 THE GREAT TRIBULATION the air. It will not be the battle of mere armies, forays and predatory expeditions, but the rush of nation against nation and race against race. The whole earth shall be filled with violence. Lawlessnesses shall be multiplied, not only the lawlessness that shall violate all national and in- ternational pledges and look upon a treaty as of no more value than a "scrap" of paper, but law- lessness in social and individual life, the break- ing down and throwing to the winds of old stand- ards. The people will be in a state of revolt, not only against kings and rulers, but against condi- tions. They will rush like the rushing of the seas, unrest, tumult and turmoil will sweep like tidal waves bursting over all distinctions be- tween rich and poor, capital and labor. The rich will become the prey of the mob and ac- cumulated wealth in the hands of the few will be seized and scattered like grains of sand; as it is written: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and wail for your miseries that are coming on you. "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 563 "Your gold and silver are covered with rust; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. Ye have stored up treasure for the last days." There shall be distress of nations. We are told that women shall enter into rule and because of the scarcity of men women shall seek after them and desire them. ^Tn that day seven wom- en shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach"; then shall there be a time of manners and customs in which the license of the days of the Directory shall seem in comparison as virtue itself. Famine shall be abroad, not local famine, but world-wide, gaunt faces and starving multitudes. Everywhere the cry for bread, young and old dying for want of food. Green-eyed pestilence will walk hand in hand with famine, the pestilence that will rise ghoul- like from the unburied dead of battle, the poison floating through the air, speeding on its way at midnight and wasting at noonday. 564 THE GREAT TRIBULATION Out of this famine and pestilence vice and crime as twin terrors shall be born and clutch the throats of righteousness and truth. As a consequence of war there will be a revolt of revolts. People will refuse any longer to be led like beasts to the slaughter. They shall ask them- selves, "Why should we fight or die like sense- less brutes for kings, for the sake of a name, a dynasty, a throne?" There will be a smash up politically in all di- rections. Cabinets will fall, kings and rulers will be set aside. The people will seize the powers of government; but they will soon dis- cover that democracy left to itself is no better than brittle, breakable clay, incapable of cohe- sion, without inhering strength, susceptible of being massed, but not unified, massed and com- pacted and held together only by a weight and pressure exterior to itself ; for the immense truth is, the strength of democracy is its weakness. Its strength is individualism, the protest of personal- ism against the limitation of personalism; but the moment one or more individuals begin to THE GREAT TRIBULATION S^S combine to secure increased strength in govern- mental administration then individualism re- volts against the combination as a menace to personalism, a limitation of its freedom. In the nature of the case therefore, there must always be an inner spirit of revolt in democracy; al- ways democracy must be on the point of giving birth to a revolution. Revolution is and must be the chronic outcome of democracy. There can be no finality, no fixity in personalism. It must always be developing, "progressing/' seeking wider freedom for itself. Necessarily therefore, there can be no final fixity or form in essential democracy, it must be always on the threshold of change, of overthrow of existing things. But back of every other element in human na- ture is the law of self defence. Sooner or later this law operates in democracy and in propor- tion as there is suffering from the anarchial tend- ency inherent in it, there is an instinctive, in- voluntary outreach and swing over to centrality, the demand for a strong hand to control. The self interest of personalism produces this final demand for concentrated power to save it from 566 THE GREAT TRIBULATION atomic attrition, the lawless independence of one personalism with another. Such a condition of things will cause the re- volting people to seek for "iron" men, with "iron" hands who can rally the elements of law and order and under the pressure of external power bring in the cohesion required for secur- ity. The people therefore will elect for them- selves, soldiers, conquerors, men who can control the mob. As a consequence of this surge and resurge and the constant changing of the map ten democratic kingdoms will be erected within the territory once occupied by the Western and Eastern Em- pire of Rome, the territory once covered succes- sively by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Four of these kings or kingdoms we know. They will be the four into which the empire of Alexander was divided and which Scripture as- sures us will be revived in the closing hours of this age. These four are the kingdoms of Selu- cis, which included Syria, all east of the Taurus mountains, Babylon and Persia; the kingdom of Ptolemy which took in Egypt; the kingdom of THE GREAT TRIBULATION 567 Cassander, that is, Greece and Macedonia; and the kingdom of Lysimachus, covering Rou- mania, all the country to Constantinople and east to the Taurus. Egypt and Greece have already been revived, and whatever the course of the present war, and in spite of the senseless, dila- tory and fumbling tactics of the Allies, Greece will yet have Macedonia. The war in the Bal- kans is preparatory to the setting up once more but in more westward detail the kingdom of Lysimachus. The onrush to Bagdad and the East will again put Babylon and the Euphratean valley on the map for daily study. Then will arise the Devil's man, the man whom God has ordained shall be the Devil's long sought for incarnation and through whom he will make his final and desperate effort to capture and rule the world for himself. This man will be thrown up by the red waves of war. He will come out of the East as a soldier of reputation, a conqueror. He will sweep every- thing before him. His course will be westward. He will be hailed with enthusiasm as the only 568 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. man who can lay hold of the troublous and tur- bulent times and bring order out of chaos. The kings in convocation will elect him as their head and superior. He will take the title, ^^Prince of Rome/' and thus the old Roman Empire, the fourth great world power, will be revived under its last form as a tenfold kingdom, a confedera- tion of kings over which this prince shall rule king of kings and lord of lords. Already the promise of these things is in the air. The present Kaiser of Germany has said should he win he will restore the old Teutonic, Roman Empire with such glory as it never dreamed in its most resplendent days. With his sword he has said he will hew his way to Baby- lon, and from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, from the English channel to the Dardanelles he will rule with the sceptre and the cross of iron. This prince who is to come will triumph over all who set themselves in array against him, till on every lip shall be the cry: "Who can make war with him?" Having overcome all enemies he will seek to ^ THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 569 establish peace. He aims to be known as the '^Prince of Peace." He will enter into league with the Pope and make the Roman Church a church of state. In order to secure his eastern possessions and defend Babylon; (Babylon will again be built. It is as the ruler and king of revived Babylon he will enter on his role as conqueror and march to the West) ; in order to secure the East from Russia and the confederacy of Asiatic nations of .which she will be the center and to form a bar- rier against the combined movement of Germany and Russia to Constantinople and Palestine, he will set up the Jewish state. By means of the navy one of the western kingdoms he will en- able the Jews in the uttermost parts of the earth to return to their own land. With the head of the Jewish state he will make a treaty of seven years. The Jews will hail him as a political Messiah; and since he will be a Jew many will be ready to receive him as actual Messiah. Hav- ing rejected the true Messiah when He came in His Father's name they yviH accept the false Messiah when he comes in his own name. He 570 THE GREAT TRIBULATION will rebuild their temple and accord to them their ancient rites and ceremonies. For three years and a half a deceived world will be lulled with the dream of peace. At the end of that time the prince will turn like a madman upon the Church in Rome and in concert with his kings overthrow it and hurl it from its place of privilege and power. With increasing madness he will turn upon the Jews, break his treaty with them and rage against them with a wickedness, a terror and brutality of per- secution such as they have never known in all the anguish of their history. It will be the hour of the Great Tribulation. For the sake of the elect among the Jews the Lord God will now send hardening judgments on this wild beast, king and kaiser, even as He did for the sake of Israel upon Pharaoh and Egypt. He will rain upon the nations hail and horri- ble tempest. From the eighth chapter of the Revelation to the nineteenth you have a record and picture of those judgments in which every THE GREAT TRIBULATION 571 word that records them seems to be written in brimstone and sulphur. Those of you who were in the northwest some years ago can remember how because of the drouth and the all enveloping heat, fire leaped out of the very air to consume everything before it. The very trees became so dry the moisture was so completely evaporated that in rubbing their branches together they emitted sparks that ignited the wilted and crisp leaves till whole forests were ablaze, each several tree like a hid- eous burning torch, or in the deep darkness of the night like an upright serpent flinging forth its forked tongue. The grass and the harvest will be burned up. The waters will be turned to the appearance of blood. The springs and fountains and rivers of water will become bitter as wormwood and gall. All living things will die therein. The sun and moon and stars will fail to give their full and perfect light. The stars shall fall as when a tree casts its untimely fruit. The un- bolted heavens shall be torn apart. The foun- tains of the deep shall be broken up. Tidal 572 THE GREAT TRIBULATION waves shall drown the land. Earthquakes shall rive the solid ground. Volcanoes shall vomit forth their fiery streams. Hail stones weighing hundreds of pounds shall fall until it would seem as though giants of wrath stationed on the bor- ders of heaven were storming the inhabitants of the earth to send them bruised and mangled to their painful death. There will be an invasion of lost spirits. There was a time when men believed in spir- its, in sprites, in denizens of an unseen world. Then men (as they thought) grew wiser. They believed henceforth only in what they could see or feel, in nothing beyond the length of their eyelashes or the tips of their fingers. To-day there is a revirement, a coming back. Men now talk of the sub-conscious mind, of telepathy, hypnotism, levitation and spiritism, communi- cation with the dead. One of the leading scien- tists of the world has published a book being read by thousands in which, seriously, he details his communications with the dead. The follow- ers of spiritism are to be numbered by millions and there are representative thinkers and stu- THE GREAT TRIBULATION 573 dents, men of large attainment and scholarship, who do not hesitate to believe in demons, in dis- embodied souls seeking in this, our day, to inter- penetrate and possess the bodies of the living. Of all the anguish in the universe nothing is so great as the anguish of disembodiment. The Christian soul does not suffer in disembodiment because that soul both by regeneration and the Holy Spirit is linked up to the body of a risen Christ, and Christ for the time being is the hous- ing of that soul in heaven ; but to the soul out of Christ, it is unspeakable agony. The proof of this is to be seen in the interview of our Lord Jesus Christ with the demon-pos- sessed man of Gadara. The man cried out, ''I beseech thee, torment me not." Luke, who gives the account, says this appeal was made because the Lord ^^had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man." It was a protest of the demon against disembodiment. This is further proved when the Lord asks the man his name. He answers, "legion," because many demons "were entered into him." As soon as the command was insisted upon the demons 574 THE GREAT TRIBULATION besought that they might not be sent into the deep. The word used for ''deep," signifies, not the waters of the lake (immaterial spirits could not be afraid of drowning) but hades, the unseen abode of disembodied, unrighteous souls. They cried out against going back to the abode of the disembodied. They plead for embodiment. They asked the Lord to let them go into the bodies of the swine feeding by the lake. Em- bodiment in beasts was better than being a naked soul. To the Christless soul disembodiment is hell. The one aim of such a soul is to get em- bodiment. This is proved and demonstrated in the story related by Matthew, of the unclean spirit that went out of a man, went back to the underworld, walked through it, could find no rest, then took seven other spirits more wicked than himself and returning with them, entered again into the man. Disembodiment is torment, embodiment the ^i^earning desire of the lost. The Lord will permit the doors of the unseen abode to be flung wide open, and these lost spir- its will come forth in monstrous hordes to pos- THE GREAT TRIBULATION 575 sess and torment the bodies of men. Men shall seek for death, but will not be able to find it. For a season God will surrender the world to these lost spirits. It will be a time of terror and anguish. Everywhere there shall be heart failure, men's hearts failing them for fear, for looking after the things that are coming on the earth. But as in the days of Pharaoh instead of soft- ening, the plagues and judgments will only serve to harden the hearts of men. Wickedness will increase, murder, fornication, robberies, thefts, conspiracies of sin, of shame, of unbridled in- iquity will fill the earth. The Devil's man shall be completely possessed by him and do according to his Satanic will. Then will be reached the blasphemous climax. This Devil's man at the head of a chosen army will march to the East, to meet another army threatening him from the Euphrates: kings and armies from the "sunrise" land, "sunrise" kings and their people. He will halt and form his army at the plain of Esdraelon or Harmageddon. 576 THE GREAT TRIBULATION Here he will be reinforced; for Harmageddon is the "gathering" place of his final strength. From Harmageddon he will turn more south- ward and march swiftly upon Jerusalem, be- siege it, take it, put it through all the horrors of a city given up to lawless soldiery. He vnll set up his image as Roman emperor. He will seat himself in the temple and demand the tribute and payment of divine honors. He will proclaim himself as very God. His prime minister, an incarnate demon, a master of occult science, a very wizard with nat- ural and supernatural forces will cause fire to come down from the heavens at his command. He will make the image of the emperor to speak as with the breath of a living man. All who re- fuse to do homage to the image shall be put to death. It will be a time of woe and suffering no tongue nor pen can describe. No one shall dare to buy or sell unless he is wearing on his fore- head or his right hand, the mark or stamp of the Devil's man. Such lying signs and wonders will this pri- mate of the king perform, and so completely THE GREAT TRIBULATION 577 will he proclaim these miracles as due to the power of the king, so insistently will he exalt him as God of gods and show him forth as such, that the very elect are in peril of being deceived. It is the hour when the Devil will seem to have triumphed; when all the world is at last at his feet; when he reigns supreme and with- out dispute. It is the hour for which he has longed and wrought. Such are some of the characteristics of the Great Tribulation coming on the earth. Ill, The Dramatic Ending of the Great Tribulation. It will end by the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory. He will come with ten thousand times ten thousands of His saints. Again and again I have described that Com- ing. I have no more vocabulary. I have exhausted speech. He will come to the Mount of Olives, 578 THE GREAT TRIBULATION It is impossible not to recall that last night when He went into the garden there. He had come out from the Paschal Supper. With His heavy-hearted disciples He went through the streets of the almost deserted city, crossed the brook Kedron and went up the slopes of the Mount to the garden entrance. He bade Peter and James and John remain at the gate and watch while He went farther in amid the leafy solitude to pray. The moonlight fell in silently soft and silver waves amid the shadows and broke like shafts of splintered light against the trunks of gnarled and century-old trees. The silence was broken only by the voice of His prayer and the distant murmur of the brook as it babbled on its tortuous and rocky way to the solemn and prophetic vale below. Out of the night and the silence comes His pleading prayer: ^Tather, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt/' Think of His agony! Think of His cup! THE GREAT TRIBULATION 579 Think of what He saw in that cup ! A world's sin, a world's iniquities. The hiding of the Fa- ther's face, Himself made sin, treated and pun- ished as sin, as the criminal of the universe. The enduring of God's wrath in your place and mine. Think of it! Why try to think of it? You cannot imagine it. You cannot picture it. It meant hell as only those will know and experience it who refuse to own Him now. He shrank from it. His soul's purity and hol- iness revolted at the stain and horror of it. The horror even of imputed sin. He had a right to refuse to drink this cup. He had right to refuse if He considered only Himself, only His own will. Had He considered Himself and exercised His own will. He would have failed the Father, He would have failed you and me. Then, alas, we would have known by actual experience what was in that cup. But He did not come to do His own will. That rails Him off from all others. SSo THE GREAT TRIBULATION That proves His humanity to be of different stuff from ours. That demonstrates His being and nature to be more than human. He comes to do the will of God the Father. That proves Him and the Father to be of one mind. It proves Him to be the Son of God and God the Son, the world's divine and consecrated Re- deemer. It was a night of nights, that last night on Olivet. But it will not be night on Olivet when He comes again. All the suns and systems like flaming glories will flash their concentrated splendor before Him and pale and fade away in the effulgence of His own unrestricted majesty. The moment His feet touch the mount it will split in twain and roll a wide uplifted plain for the feet of His saints. Then will He take this false king and his false prophet and bid them be cast into the valley of Hinnom. It will open like a gulf and into the THE GREAT TRIBULATION 581 upleaping fire they will be cast alive. Thus will end the Great Tribulation. As it ends the Lord as King of kings, as Potentate Supreme shall stand upon the threshold of that glorious king- dom unrolling a thousand golden years. IV, The Beginning of the Great Tribulation. The beginning, not of the actual Tribulation itself, but of the epoch in which it runs its course has three distinct steps. /. The Holy Ghost will be taken out of the world as the convicting and restraining power of evil. For one hundred and twenty years during the ministry of Noah the Spirit strove with men and held back the evil of the world. For two thousand years during this age of grace the spirit has been striving to lead men to faith in the Son of God, seeking to convict them of the sin of unbelief and using His infinite power to hold back and restrain iniquity. The only thing that keeps New York to night from utter riot and brutal lawlessness is the presence of the Holy Spirit, not only as an in- dwelling presence in the true Church of Christ, 5^2 THE GREAT TRIBULATION. but as the energy which resists and breaks the conabination of evil forces, expanded evil sug- gestions and evil men. The Holy Spirit will be taken away. That is to say, He will personally depart as Slti official and restraining power. The world will be given over to the unhin- dered working of the Satanic spirit. But, the Holy Ghost dwells officially and per- sonally in the regenerated Church. He came to dwell in the Church corporately and individu- ally as a seal, sealing believers unto the day of redemption; until the hour when the dead in Christ shall be raised and the living changed. He is committed to remain the indwelling and guiding presence till the Lord comes into the air for the Church. In the nature of the case He cannot be taken away or separated from His official and essen- tial relationship to the Church. Since He can- not be separated from the Church, the taking away of the Spirit means the taking away, the translation of the Church. As the translation of the Church is at the Coming of the Lord, then at THE GREAT TRIBULATION 5^3 the Coming of the Lord for the Church the Holy Spirit will be taken away. That the Holy Spirit, as the restraining power of evil is to be taken out of the world at the close of the Church age is the plain teaching of Holy Scripture. The Apostle Paul says the Antichrist cannot be revealed till "he who now hindereth be taken out of the way." There is only one power can hinder and restrain Antichrist who is the culmination of evil, because that power is the only one that can restrain and hinder the devel- opment of evil which culminates in Antichrist, and that is the Holy Spirit. Antichrist is the beginning of the Tribulation, the Tribulation cannot begin till the Church is taken out of the way. This is the direct promise of the risen Lord Himself. He says to the regenerated Church in this time: "I also will keep thee from {out of) the hour of temptation (trial, affliction, tribulation), which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." As the Tribulation cannot come till Antichrist is revealed and the Church is to be taken out of 584 THE GREAT TRIBULATION the way of the Tribulation, then Antichrist cannot be revealed till the Church is taken out of the way; as the Church and the Holy Spirit can not be separated then Antichrist cannot be revealed till the Holy Spirit is taken; and as the Holy Spirit is the alone restraining power of evil which culminates in Antichrist, then the Holy Spirit it is of whom the Apostle speaks when he says, "He who now letteth (hindereth) will let (hinder) until he be taken out of the way." Scripture therefore teaches that when the Lord comes into the air for His Church the Holy Spirit as the restraining power of evil will be taken out of the world. The Tribulation epoch will thus begin by the secret and Sudden Coming of the Lord for His Church and the removal of the Holy Spirit. 2, The Devil's man, the great and final Kaiser will make a covenant with the Jews in Palestine for seven years. Daniel tells us the "Prince that shall come" will "confirm a covenant with many for one week." The word "week" here used is the He- THE GREAT TRIBULATION 585 brew for a period of seven. The context shows the period to be one of years. The week means a period of seven years. As already stated the Jews will receive this "prince" as their political Messiah; others, be- cause of his claims and apparent miracles as the actual Messiah. It is this action of the Jews in relation to the Prince that shall bring the judgments of God upon them nationally; and it is this action of the Prince as the head of the Gentile nations that shall bring the judgments of God upon them, driving them forward as agents to the blas- phemous climax of the imitation king of kings, J. At the end of three years and a half, spoken of in Scripture as a ^Uime, times and a half!* ^s '^forty-two months'' {lunar months) and as ^Uwelve hundred and sixty days/' the King will break his treaty with the Jews. This will be the actual beginning of the Trib- ulation. It will last for three years and a half. For three years and a half it will be hell on earth. 586 THE GREAT TRIBULATION It will fulfil the solemn and prophetic words of the Son of God, ^'For then shall be the tribulation, the great one, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." The Coming of the Lord into the air for the Church might be at any moment. That coming will be the sounding of the *'last trump" of Corinthians, and the "trump of God" of Thessalonians. There is not the thickness of the thin vapor that rises above the morning hills between us and the sounding of the trump. Any moment we may be gone and the prelude to the Tribulation begin. Because we are thus always on the threshold of the Tribulation I have three things to say to you: I. // is an absolute crime to go out and de- ceive people with the talk about peace; to tell them there will be no conflict between capital and labor; that nation will not war against nation; that through the preaching of the Gos- pel and the evolution of national and social THE GREAT TRIBULATION 587 righteousness peace, wide, universal and abid- ing peace, is coming. Again and again we hear the familiar quota- tion about swords beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; but no one seems to realize that the prophet Joel tells us before that time can come the ploughshares must be beaten into swords and the pruning hooks into spears. In other words war, war universal, war en- gaging and devastating all nations must come be- fore peace; that the only threshold over which the nations can cross into peace is war — war, bloody, fearful, full of slaughter and anguish. Hear what the prophet says : ^Troclaim ye this among the Gentiles; pre- pare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up; ^^Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears/^ Hear what Jeremiah says: ''The slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, 588 THE GREAT TRIBULATION neither gathered, nor buried ; they shall be dung upon the ground." Hear what the Son of God says in that last address upon the Mount of Olives: '^Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom." Hear what Paul says : 'When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them ; as trav- ail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." Hear what James says: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Ye have heaped treasures together for the last daysr Hear what John says: He says, in the closing hours of this age, wicked spirits will "go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Al- mighty." THE GREAT TRIBULATION 589 Hear again what the Son of God says. He says: There shall come Tribulation such as the world never saw, distress with perplexity of na- tions, famine (world-wide famine), pestilence, earthquake, the going forth of false Christs, the multiplication of lawlessness, the falling away from God, the utter apostasy from righteousness, every man's heart failing him for fear — fear everywhere — at home and abroad, in the family and in the mart, in the palace and the cot, in the town and in the hamlet — fear, fear for looking after the things that are coming on the earth; war, confusion, conflict, Satanic triumph, peace utterly taken from the earth. Talk about peace in the face of all this warn- ing! Talk about any legislation, any movement, any organized effort on the part of men to set up a peace which shall deny and make void these sol- emn warnings ! To so talk and so preach is to deceive the peo- ple. There are three classes who are talking about 590 THE GREAT TRIBULATION peace : Men who utterly ignore the fact that the basic force in man, his capital, his asset, is self- interest, self will. Take self-interest out of men and you will stop every wheel and every machine in every manufactory on Manhattan island to-day. Self- interest, self-consciousness, the consciousness of self's power and the determination to put the individual self first and to the front is the in- spiration in man for all his achievements. Not until men are absolutely and universally regen- erated, made all over, filled and crowned with the love of God and the unselfishness of God's Christ, made into a new and distinct race, can the law of self and self's interest be set aside. And till it is, the antagonistic interests, the com- plex and contradictory plans, man with and against man will produce warring forces and always increasing conflict. Another class who talk about the steady evolu- tion and progress toward peace are those who are ignorant of God's mind and will. Because of their total ignorance they cannot come into court, their testimony is of no avail. It is waste THE GREAT TRIBULATION 59 ^ of time, even, to listen to their propositions and amiable chatterings about peace. The third class are men who stand in the pul- pit and with an open Bible before them and statements as plain as the shining of Jupiter or Mars on a clear night, — statements that foretell war and sorrow and tribulation; statements which picture a world filled with anguish and torment and tragedy, — these men dare to stand up and talk about peace, about the purple and the gold of millennial days just at hand; who cry "peace," "peace," when there is no peace. Hear I pray you what the Word of God says about those who in this hour and in face of this warning talk about peace; who seek to lull the world to sleep on the threshold of the coming conflict. "The ambassadors of peace shall weep bit- terly "Saying peace, when there is no peace "Destruction cometh, and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none " "They have deceived my people, saying peace when there was no peace " 592 THE GREAT TRIBULATION ^'The prophets which see visions of peace, and there is no peace, saith the Lord." It is because of this talk about peace, this re- pudiation of the warning of God that Scripture tells us the Tribulation and sorrow will come like a snare upon all those who dwell upon the face of the earth. It will come upon them un- awares and they will be as those taken in a gin and trap. I warn you that dire and terrible times are coming on the world; and that there can be no real, no abiding peace upon this sin-cursed earth till the Prince of Peace Himself shall come ; till He who is King of kings and Lord of lords shall come to put down all authority, all principali- ties and powers, all unrighteousness and evil, bind the Devil beneath His feet and reign and rule with a rod of iron, dashing in pieces as a potter's vessel all opposition, all who rebel against God and His way. He will establish a peace based on righteousness, the only founda- tion on which it can abide. 2, It is time for those of you who profess to I THE GREAT TRIBULATION 593 be Christians to make your calling and election sure. There are two classes of professors in the Church. Those who profess the name of Christ and possess His life and nature; those who every day in one way or another manifest the truth and reality of this relationship. There are those who profess the name of Christ but give no evidence of possessing the life of Christ. To which of these classes do you as a profes- sed Christian belong? What is your estate? Are you indifferent to the House of God? Have you no joy in prayer? Do you scarcely ever read the Word of God, never search it and find little in it for profit, or peace or pleasure? Do you prefer worldly things, worldly ways and companionship to the things of God and the companionship of godly people? If these are your experimental characteristics and you still claim the name and make the open 594 THE GREAT TRIBULATION profession of Christ, still allow your name to re- main upon the Church book, then I call upon you to awake, arouse and find out whether you are deceiving yourself and your fellow man. Awake, arouse, I bid you; for, should the Son of God come before the morning you would have no time to get your scattered baggage together. Your name is on the Church book! Is it in the book of life? What a horror of horrors if, after having pro- fessed the name of Christ He should come and you be left, outside the door. O the a^ony of that moment when in spite of all your crying and beseeching appeal you should hear Him say: '^Depart from me, I never knew you." Now is the time to make your calling and election sure. You cannot elect yourself; but you can find out, and that very quickly, whether you have been elected; whether the root of the matter is in you; whether deep down in your heart you are sorry for all your carelessness and lack of consistent Christian living; whether really you THE GREAT TRIBULATION 595 wish to own and serve Him. You have no time to lose, and you ought not to let this night pass into the morning until you have found out and settled for yourself. If you really would get close to Him and enter into fellowship and com- munion, clutch that desire and do not let it go till your face is turned to Him and hands out- stretched. Do this and He will touch you with His power even here and now. Do not delay, you must arouse. J. The only place of security is in the Church of Christ. Listen! Do not make a mistake. I am not speaking of the mere outward, professing Church, but the true, the genuine, spiritual Church of Christ. The only way into this Church is by regener- ation. The only way of regeneration is through sin- cere and honest faith in Christ, the faith which claims Him as personal sacrifice, substitute, re- deemer, Lord and Master. He is the way, the 59^ THE GREAT TRIBULATION truth and the life. He is the only door. By Him you may enter in and be saved. This is the time for decision. This is the time for taking sides. God is separating the wheat from the tares, and the tares from the wheat. Some exceedingly foolish and would be teach- ers pretend that the gathering out of the tares first represents the destruction of the wicked be- fore Christ comes for His own, and that there- fore the Church, the true Church, if it does not actually go through the Tribulation is at least greatly scorched by its fiery trials. You have only to go into the country and you will find the farmer is not foolish enough to burn up the briars, the weeds and thorns before he has reaped his wheat and gathered it into the barn. He may cull out the useless stuff, but he will put it aside in heaps and wait till the harvest is housed before he sends the burning flames to clean the refuse of the field. This word "to gather together" used by the Lord in the parable has in it the idea of organiz- ing, assembling, each after its own kind, separat- THE GREAT TRIBULATION 597 ing them till they stand out in their special and distinctive characters. The tares will be assem- bled, organized by themselves, and the wheat will by the very separation be made distinctive in itself. The Children of the Devil will more and more get together and organize, the Chil- dren of God will more and more get together and seek their own. This spirit of organization and separation is going on now. There never was a time in the history of the earth when so much organization was going on as to-day. Two men can hardly meet that they do not say, ''Let us get together; let us form a company, a club, a corporation, or a society. ''Organize, get together." That is the watch- word. Some churches, following the common rule, have so organized, indeed, that as churches of Christ they have almost organized themselves out of existence. But it all has profound significance. It means God is calling on men and women to take their places. 598 THE GREAT TRIBULATION He is calling on each individual to take sides. He says ''He that is not for me is against me." The hour of decision is here. The day of compromise has gone by. There is no such thing as neutrality. There is nothing in it except the profession and hypoc- risy of it. You must stand for something. I have preached many years in this Church. I have preached a long while to-night; but I am speaking to you from my heart and because the conviction and fulness of it bid me speak. There is only one thought that impresses me at this moment, you men and women, this great crowd of men who are here must either go through the gates of God and have eternal fel- lowship with Christ; or, you must go through the gates of hell into eternal woe. There is no more doubt about a hell to come than there is doubt about a hell here. There are men and women in New York who to-night are living in hell and enduring every moment the torments of the damned. If you have ever done anything wrong in the THE GREAT TRIBULATION 599 years gone by it is more of a hell to you to-night than it was then. You may wither with age, your body may be outwardly as a shrivelled mummy, but inside, in your consciousness, in every fold of your memory, deeper, more terrible, fresher than ever is the sin or failure of those years gone by. Your body will go, but this memory, this con- sciousness of your sin or sins and the sting and agony of the conscience will go on forever. The most terrible words which break on the ears in that hell whither the rich man went are these words which come across the bridgeless gulf : "Son — remember.^^ Men, you must meet God, and there is only one place where you can meet Him in security and that is underneath the blood of Christ. I should feel myself a traitor to God and man if I did not make an effort to reach you to-night. I want every unsaved man or woman to become a saved man or woman. There is no reason why you should not be saved to-night and now. God has done everything necessary to save you. The salvation is all provided in a risen and glorified Saviour. 6oo THE GREAT TRIBULATION The issue of your salvation is all summed up in these questions : "Will you believe?" "Will you accept?" "Will you receive Jesus Christ now?" Do not say you cannot understand and there- fore cannot believe. You cannot understand, you certainly cannot realize how a flame of fire can leap five hundred thousand miles in height from the heart of the sun, but on the testimony of scientist astrono- mers you believe it. You cannot fully under- stand how it is when a child at the first uses its right hand it is the left brain and not the right which becomes the instrument of thought. You do not understand it but you believe it on testi- mony. There are a million things you cannot reason about, cannot fully understand when you do reason, yet they are facts, they impress them- selves on you as facts, you do not make any at- tempt to understand them, but you accept them. If you should refuse to believe or accept any- thing you could not explain or demonstrate or understand you would write yourself down a fool before you had gone ten steps in a world THE GREAT TRIBULATION 60 1 whose mode and environment are both mystery and fact. men and women, with the shadow of eter- nity falling across you this night, you must hear me. 1 tell you the days are coming when the door of grace will be shut. The day is coming, the hour, the moment, when your opportunity will be gone forever. I want you to hear, believe and be saved. Hear me as I repeat the wondrous message of God: ''If thou shall confess with thy MOUTH the Lord Jesus, and shall BELIEVE IN THINE HEART that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt he saved/' I do not ask you to do things. I do not ask you to promise things; but, in face of the fact that every beat of your heart like a "muffled drum" is sounding your march to the parade ground of eternity; in face of the fact that the wisest, the best and the most intellectual of the earth are turning to and bowing down be- fore this Christ of God; in the face of, and by 6o2 THE GR-EAT TRIBULATION the verification of a Christian consciousness two thousand years in extent, universal, all per- vading; in face of the indisputable fact that you have no guaranty of an hour or even a moment this side of eternity, I ask every man and wom- an among you, all who are willing and ready to accept Jesus Christ as a personal and present Saviour; all who will take God at His Word about Him; all who will step out on the promise of God concerning Him to do it now; do it for the sake of husband, wife, child, friend, and loved one, for the sake of your own soul. O man, O woman, young or old, if you will receive this risen Lord, this living and only Saviour, this Coming King, then I ask you to rise to your feet and by that act say, ^'I hereby accept and confess Him." Do that and the woe and anguish of the Great Tribulation and the endless judgment shall never fall on you. Note. — In an audience which crowded the auditorium and packed the galleries, and where men seemed to predominate in number, scarcely a half dozen remained seated. With marvelous spontaneity the people responded to the invitation and rose to their feet. v-fi IX THE FALLING STONE, OR THE OVERTHROW OF THE LAST KAISER I The Falling Stone or The Overthrow of the Last Kaiser. My theme to-night is : "The Falling Stone; or, God's forecast of world politics now being fulfilledj the over- throw of the Last Kaiser, or Caesar, and the set- ting up of the Fifth and final great world power." My text is to be found in the book of Daniel, second chapter, thirty- fourth, thirty-fifth and forty-fourth verses: "Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which ghall never be destroyed," 6o6 THE FALLING STONE In the previous sermon I spoke on the ^'Great Tribulation." In presenting that subject I gave a general exposition of what is popularly known as ^'Daniel's image," together with corrobora- tive testimony of the wild beasts Daniel saw in his own visions. I shall go over exactly the same ground to-night. I shall, however, give a more detailed exposition of the image and the sym- bolry of the beasts, verifying all from history till I reach the prophetic climax of the fourth empire. I shall then expound the mountain out of which the stone was cut, the stone itself, the falling of the stone and the setting up of the fifth and final kingdom. From all this I shall draw the corollary that God's forecast of world politics is now being fulfilled and that these ful- filling events are the daily demonstrations that this Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I shall close as usual by an ap- peal to professed Christians and to those of you who may be unsaved. Nebuchadnezzar was King of Babylon. Bab- ylon, as a Kingdom, was in the zenith of its glory. It had been built on and out of the ruins 1 THE FALLING STONE 607 of Assyria. It was so identified with it that classic writers like Herodotus and Strabo speak often of the Babylonians as Assyrians. The kingdom extended over Asia Minor, Syria, Pal- estine, Arabia, Egypt, part of Greece, the Af- rican littoral and Spain, as far as the pillars of Hercules. The City of Babylon was in the noontide of its splendor. The hanging gardens swept up, terrace on terrace of verdant foliage and playing fountains, to the palm fronded heights. The tower of Belus rose hundreds of feet higher than the pres- ent Tour Eiffel. It was ascended by an exterior spiral roadway. At the top was a sanctuary for worshippers and crowning it all, a statue of the god worth its weight in millions of gold. The walls of the city were three hundred feet in height, looking down upon a trench half as high, a trench that could be flooded from an ar- tificial lake operated by locks of modern con- struction. The walls were pierced by a hundred brazen gates. Behind each gate a thousand men stood armed and ready to spring forth at the 6o8 THE FALLING STONE first sounding of alarm. On the top of the walls was an esplanade or boulevard where chariots three abreast could be driven without incom- moding one another. Bridges connected the flat roofed houses; so that there was an upper as well as lower city. In the lower city the streets crossed each other at right angles. They were paved and arcaded. The river Euphrates ran through the center of the city between marble banks or quays. Artistic bridges spanned the river, ferry boats glided back and forth, while here and there arched tunnels enabled the peo- ple to pass from side to side. In the heart of the city was the king's palace — eight miles square. The inhabitants were wholly given up to pleasure, to unbridled lust and drunkenness. Here virtue had no place and vice was crowned with flowers. In self satisfied pride and abounding content, Nebuchadnezzar ruled over this wide and wealth-filled kingdom. One night, in the depths of his luxurious sleep be dreamed a dream. When he awoke it had THE FALLING STONE 609 gone from him. Although he could not recall a single outline of it the impression weighed upon and terrified him. He summoned his wise men and astrologers. He commanded them to recall the dream and give him the interpretation. They protested. No king had ever made such a demand. Let him tell them the dream, they would give the interpretation. Nebuchadnez- zar was filled with anger, with madness and fury that the absolutism of his will should be ques- tioned or arrested even for a moment. He com- manded them to be put to death. Among the Jewish captives Nebuchadnezzar had led in his triumphal train after the siege and taking of Jerusalem were four young men, princes in Israel, among whom Daniel, the prophet, was easily preeminent. With the three others he had been placed by the king in the col- lege of astrologers that they might become versed in the science, the knowledge and wisdom of the Chaldeans. The sentence included them. When Daniel heard of it he went to the Chamberlain and through him sought an interview with the king. It was accorded him. He presented him- 6 10 THE FALLING STONE self before Nebuchadnezzar. He asked for a respite, giving assurance should it be granted he would tell the dream and give the interpretation. The petition was accorded him. Immediately, he called together his companions, with them held a prayer-meeting and insistently besought the living God that He would give the longed- for revelation. The Lord God met his faith, gave him both the dream and the interpretation. He went in to the king and spread them before him. This was the dream : Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image. Its head was of gold. Its breast and arms of silver. The belly and thighs were of brass. The legs were iron, but the feet and toes, part of iron and part of clay. There was a stone cut out of the mountain without hands. The stone fell and smote the image on the feet. It broke the image to pieces. The pieces became as the chaff of the summer's threshing floor when it is swept by the fanning and separating breezes of the western wind. THE FALLING STONE 6 1 1 The stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Speaking by the spirit of God Daniel says: ''The dream is certain and the interpretation sure." And this is the interpretation as spoken to the king: "Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength and glory." In saying this Daniel was announcing not only that the head of gold symbolized the king, but, also, the kingdom, and that Babylon therefore was the first in the politico-prophetic series. At the same time, this direct gift of dominion and power from the hand of God was His official proclamation and authoritative affirmation of the "divine right of kings." The commission to Nebuchadnezzar was the transfer of world rulership to Gentile hands. It was the end of Jewish time. It was the beginning of Gentile time. God had purposed to rule the world govern- mentally through the elect and chosen nation of 6l2 THE FALLING STONE Israel. He purposed to send His incarnate Son to be their king and through Him and them to administrate righteousness and truth in the earth, bringing benediction and blessing to every crea- ture. The nation had failed, grievously and utterly failed. They had sinned against light. Ten tribes had deliberately and from political motives gone into idolatry. God had punished them by sending the As- syrians to carry them into captivity. They still exist in their descendants, but, for twenty-five centuries all identification has been concealed. They are known as "the ten lost tribes." The other two tribes gave themselves up to moral rebellion against God and ended, like- wise, in idolatry. God again smote with the hand of judgment. He sent Nebuchadnezzar to besiege Jerusa- lem, overthrow it and bring the people captive to his golden city. The hour in which Daniel was now speaking, a captive and forced into the role of an astrol- THE FALLING STONE ^13 oger, was proof of the helplessness of the peo- ple, the seal of God's wrath and judgment against them as a nation. The transfer of national authority to the Gen- tiles waSk the climax of the judgment. Jewish time had come to an end. Gentile time had begun. Jerusalem was down. Babylon was up. Jerusalem was a political cypher. Babylon had become the political center. Babylon as the head of gold had become the first depository of divinely granted world power in the hand of the Gentiles. The breast and arms of silver symbolize the kingdom that should come after Babylon. If you would know that kingdom and know it from the pages of the Word without going into a library or needing to read history written by men ; if you wish to see it in a scenic and dra- matic revelation from God, open to the fifth chapter of this amazing and far-seeing book of Daniel. 6 14 THE FALLING STONE The scene as recorded is in the City of Baby- lon. The era is the reign of Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. The time, night. The particular location, the banqueting hall of the king's palace. All that the lavish wealth of a king's inexhaustible treas- ury; all that the genius of Babylonian craftsmen and the skill of Babylonian artists could do had been done to make this banqueting hall a dream of wonder and an appeal of beauty. The ceiling was made to imitate the star-fretted sky of night, concealed lights flashing through gold and silver centers as from very stars themselves. The walls were paneled and filled with frescoed forms and scenes that told the license of the hour. The floor was a mosaic of marbled colors. In the center were great tables loaded with gold and silver vessels and groaning with the profuse pro- visions for the feast. Fountains tossed up and down their streams of crystal music. From hid- den openings in the walls sweet perfumes were sprayed upon the guests. Dancing girls with tinkling silver bells on arm and ankle, posturing THE FALLING STONE 615 in lithesome, thinly veiled bodies filled the air with the tintinabulations of their rhythmic mov- ing feet. Long couches were drawn to the tables that the revellers might recline and eavt and drink at ease. Belshazzar had invited a thousand of his lords, their wives, concubines and mistresses, the most dissolute of all women in a city where every woman to be a woman must be unchaste and dissolute. They gave themselves up to the riot of pleas- ure, to the freedom of indescribable debauch. In the midst of the orgy in which each was bound in honor of the god whose feast they cele- brated to become beastly and wantonly drunk, Belshazzar bethought him of the golden vessels taken by his grandfather from the temple in Je- rusalem. He commanded them to be brought. They filled them with wine. Lifting them high they drunk and gave praises to the gods of gold, of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and stone. Suddenly, when the saturnalia was at its worst, most sensual, most godless and blas- phemous pitch, a hand without a sleeve was 6i6 THE FALLING STONE thrust forth and began to write on the plaster of the wall. In a moment the drunken crowd was hushed and sobered. Strange were the characters the fingers so swiftly wrote and then vanished, leaving them there to smite with terror the frightened, rolling eyes which could not decipher them. The king sent for his wise men and astrol- ogers. He offered wealth and rulership in the king- dom to whomsoever among them could read and make plain the writing. None could read it. Then the queen suggested that Daniel was In the city. He had been an interpreter to the king's grandfather. Nebuchadnezzar had ex- alted and honored him. He had in him the spirit of the holy gods ; let them send for him. Daniel was sought for, found and brought in. The king offered him the bribe of wealth, of high honor and rulership in the kingdom. Daniel bade the king keep his gifts, give his bribes to another. He would speak as an am- THE FALLING STONE 617 bassador of God. He would tell the truth with- out fear or favor. He said: ''Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy re- wards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known unto him the interpretation." The words were: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." And this was the interpretation: "Mene: God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. "Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. "Peres: Thy Kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians/' Scarcely had he gone and the sounds of his footsteps died away when there was the tramp of marching feet, the quick word of command, the flash of gleaming spears, the shouts of vic- tory and the Persians swept into the hall. Belshazzar was slain and Darius the Median, under the command of Cyru^, took the kingdom. Thus Medo-Persia was the second kingdom. 6i8 THE FALLING STONE the kingdom therefore symbolized by the breast and arms of silver; even as Daniel had foretold: "After thee (after the head of gold) there shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee" (in- ferior as silver is to gold). The third metal in the image and the third portion of it, the belly and thighs of brass rep- resented a third kingdom, the kingdom which, necessarily, should come after Medo-Persia ; for, Daniel said: "And another third kingdom of brass." To find this third and brazen kingdom I shall ask you to turn to the eighth chapter of this book of Daniel and find there the record of a vision given to Daniel himself. In this vision he saw a ram pushing westward and northward and southward. It had two horns, but one higher than the other. Then a he-goat came from the west. It had a notable horn between its eyes. It rushed upon the ram where it had taken its stand on the banks of a river, overthrew it and stamped on it. The goat waxed exceeding great; but in the moment of THE FALLING STONE 619 its greatness the notable horn was broken and in its stead came up four others. The angel Gabriel came to Daniel and gave him the interpretation of the vision: The ram with the two horns, he said, repre- sented the kings of Media and Persia (that is to say the Medo-Persian kingdom) the rough goat symbolized Greece, the notable horn between its eyes the first king. The breaking off of the notable horn was the sudden end that should come to the first king. The four horns coming up in place of it — four kings or kingdoms that then should arise as a consequence of the abrupt ending of the first king of Greece. Let us take up the page of history and read it in the light and interpretation of this vision. The Persian Kingdom, like the ram, pushed its conquering arms northward and southward and then westward. Then appeared Alexander of Macedon. At the head of his Greeks he crossed over into Asia Minor. He swept on to the river Granicus. The Persian host were drawn up in battle array on the other side. Alex- ander committed a tactical fault. He made a 620 THE FALLING STONE frontal attack on a superior enemy behind a river. Nevertheless, with his troops he plunged in. In spite of the scythed chariots and the heavy cavalry of the foe he out-generalled, out-flanked, and defeated him. He rushed on to Issus, smashed into fragments the army of six hundred thousand men Darius had opposed to him. A year and a half later after having subjugated Syria, Palestine and Egypt he marched against the million of men Darius had recruited from more than twenty nations and with the might and wisdom and scintillating splendor of incom- parable military genius overthrew the Persians and brought to an end the second great Gentile world power. He entered Babylon, advanced to the rivers of India and because his troops would go no further returned, enthroned him- self in the licentious city and died suddenly as the consequence of a drunken debauch. His four great generals took his kingdom and divided it among themselves. I shall speak of these kingdoms presently. Since the rough he-goat overthrowing the ram is Greece; since the ram is the symbol of THE FALLING STONE 621 Medo-Persia and Medo-Persia is the second kingdom, and is represented in the image by silver, then Greece is the third kingdom and is represented in the image by brass — the metal that comes after the silver. Previously to the vision of the ram and the he-goat Daniel had a vision of four wild beasts coming up out of the Mediterranean Sea. The record of this vision is to be found in the seventh chapter. The first beast was like a lion, with the wings of an eagle. The second was a bear. It had three ribs be- tween its teeth ; and a voice bade it arouse and devour much flesh. The third beast was a leopard. It had four wings of a fowl. The fourth beast was a monster with great iron teeth and ten horns. The angel tells Daniel the fourth beast is the fourth kingdom or world power on earth. As this fourth beast is declared to be the sym- bol of a kingdom, it follows that the other three are also symbols of kingdoms. ;622 THE FALLING STONE The four wild beasts therefore represent four kingdoms or four world empires. And I would have you notice and let it sink deep in your minds as the picture which God Himself forewarningly gives that these are Wild Beasts and set forth the character of gov- ernment in the closing hours of this age; not lamb-like governments, NOT GOVERNMENTS OF PEACE, but wild-beast governments; govern- ments which, like wild beasts, will slay and tear and ravage and glut themselves with blood and prey. Since the four parts of the image, the gold, the silver, the brass and the iron represent four great Gentile world powers, it is evident that the four wild beasts also representing four great world powers are the corroborating symbols of the same kingdoms. The lion with eagle's wings is the first beast, is the first of the four gentile kingdoms, coordi- nates by position the head of gold in the image and is therefore, necessarily, the symbol of the kingdom of Babylon. THE FALLING STONE 623 There are thus three symbols of that king- dom : The golden head. The lion. The lion with eagle's wings. Turn to the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah and you will find Babylon there described as a "golden" city. "Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppres- sor ceased! The golden city ceased!" The prophet Jeremiah writes: "Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord's hand." (Jeremiah 51 : 7.) In the fourth chapter of his prophecy he speaks of evil coming upon Judah from the north. The "north" is characteristically in Scripture applied to Babylon; as it is written: "I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar (Nebuchadnezzar) king of Babylon, a king of kings from the north/' The "evil" then of which Jeremiah warns is the king of Babylon and Babylon as a power of 624 THE FALLING STONE evil. He speaks of this evil as the ^^lion that is come up from his thicket." (Jeremiah 4: 6, 7.) Thus the lion is a symbol of Babylon. The eagle is a symbol of Babylon; as it is w^ritten : "I raise up the Chaldeans (the Babylonians) they shall fly as the eagle." (Habakkuk 1:6,8.) If ever the opportunity shall come to you to visit the British Museum in London, or the Louvre in Paris you will see the winged lions in stone that once guarded the doors of the palace in Babylon; and down there by the Birs Nim- roud, in the ruins of the golden city they have found a porcelain plaque on which Nebuchad- nezzar caused to be stamped the figure of lions. Thus history affirms Babylon to be the first of the four Gentile world powers. The second beast was a hear, and as it symbol- izes the second kingdom coordinates the second part of the image, the breast and arms of silver. We have seen this part of the image to be the symbol of Medo-Persia, the kingdorn which comes after Babylon. THE FALLING STONE 625 Medo-Persia therefore has three symbols. The silver breast and arms of the statue. The devouring bear. The ram with the long and short horns that was overcome by the he goat. Turn again to the page of history. You will find the '^Immortal Guard'' of Per- sia wore silver corslets or cuirass. Read history and you will find the Medes and Persians and specially the Medes were as cruel and devouring in their slaughter as a wild and voracious bear. As you pursue your reading you will learn that the king of Persia rode at the head of his army wearing a ram's head made of gold and set with sparkling jewels: and if to-morrow you could go to Persepolis you would see sculptured on the pillars still standing there the figure of a ram's head, one horn longer than the other. Thus history affirms Medo-Persia to be the second prophetic kingdom. The third beast is a leopard with wings. It is the symbol of the third kingdom. It coordi- nates the third part of the image, the belly and 626 THE FALLING STONE thighs of brass. As this third and brazen part sets forth the kingdom that should come after the second part, after the silver, after Medo- Persia, and in Daniel's vision of the ram and he goat, Greece overcomes Medo-Persia, then Greece is the third kingdom. Greece has three symbols. The brass or brazen part of the image. The winged leopard. The he goat. When classic writers speak of the Grecian army, they use such words as these : Chalkachitones achaioi. That is, '^Brazen coated Greeks.^' The leopard is a small animal, but strong, quick in action and exceedingly swift. The four wings give quadruple power and as a symbol signify extraordinary speed. Alexander, like Napoleon, was small, and like him, capable of great endurance. The distinc- tive feature of his strategy was the swiftness of his march. He so led his army that the para- sangs or miles seemed to flee beneath their feet. But now note the wonder of corroboration. THE FALLING STONE 627 When, according to Justin, Caranus, the founder or first king of Macedonia was seeking with a great company of Greeks a new habita- tion, the oracle they consulted bade them follow a herd of goats. A storm broke out. They saw a herd of wild goats trying to escape from the windy tempest. The people followed them. They were led to the town of Edessa. The king made it his capital. He called it JEgx "the goat's town." The people were thenceforth known as iEgaedoe, "the goat's people." Alexander of Macedon himself named his son Mgus, the "son of a goat." When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (that Pyrrhus of whom Hannibal is reported to have said of all generals he was the first) put on his helmet hav- ing goat's horns for a crest he did more to con- quer the Macedonians than by all his splendid feat of arms; when they saw it they broke forth into wild acclaim, recognizing it as the symbol of their land. But now, I bid you take up your map, look at the waters of the Mediterranean as they roll be- tween Greece and Asia Minor and it will be 628 THE FALLING STONE seen the name of the Grecian Archipelago is the Mgean Sea, and that means the Goat Sea, the sea of the goat. Thus history testifies that Greece is the third great world power. The fourth beast is a monster with great iron teeth and ten horns. The angel tells Daniel this is the fourth king- dom upon earth; It corresponds with the fourth part of the im- age. The fourth part of the image consists of the two legs of iron and the ten toes, part of iron and part of clay. To find the fourth kingdom or empire as thus doubly symbolized without going to a ref- erence library, and to find it in the Bible, turn to the New Testament. There we learn our Lord Jesus Christ was born, not only under the shining stars and the angel song, but under and during the reign of Augustus Caesar emperor of Rome; and that he was put to death under Tiberias Caesar of Rome; THE FALLING STONE 629 that Rome was the great world power, the power that succeeded Greece. The characteristic element of the fourth part of the statue is: Iron. In the fourth beast the teeth are iron teeth. As school boys and school girls we read of the ^^iron legions of Rome." The fourth empire, Rome, included all the territory of the three preceding kingdoms, Greece, Medo-Persia and Babylon, For a moment, let us go back to the vision of the goat, to the four horns that came up when the great and notable horn was broken. These four were Alexander's generals: Se- leucus, Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus. Seleucus took Babylon, Persia, Syria and Pal- estine. Ptolemy had Egypt, Cassander received Greece and Macedonia. Lysimachus possessed the countries now occu- pied by Roumania, Thrace and Asia Minor as far as the Taurus Mountains. 630 THE FALLING STONE Then Rome began to expand. The fragments of the Grecian empire were conquered one after another and incorporated. The victorious eagles flew west and east Under Trajan Rome ruled from the Scottish hills, from Britain and the Pillars of Hercules to the Eu- phrates and the Persian plains ; from the Rhine and the Danubian Solitudes to Africa and the glittering sands of Sahara, and thus included under her far-reaching and iron sceptre the world kingdoms that in turn had ruled before her. We go back to the fourth part of the statue and find it consisting of the two legs of iron, the feet and the ten toes. We discover, at the same time, that the fourth beast has ten horns and that these ten horns are said by the angel to be ten kings. As the fourth beast coordinates the fourth part of the image then the ten toes are equiva- lent to the ten kings. This is confirmed by Dan- iel, who after speaking of the toes, refers to them again and uses the words "in the days of these kings." THE FALLING STONE 63 1 These kings or kingdoms are to be partly strong and partly broken. The iron is the element that is strong. Clay is the element that is weak. Iron is the symbol of monarchy. Clay as I have shown you in a previous ser- mon is the symbol of the rule of the people — de- mocracy. Monarchy and democracy cannot unite, or re- main united in any one form of government. Such a government must be partly strong and partly broken. The breaking, separation and fragmentation are found in the clay, in the rule of the people, in democracy. There are three things therefore to be consid- ered in this fourth part of the image : The two legs. The ten toes. The mixed condition of iron and clay. The two legs symbolize the division of the fourth, or Roman empire, into two equal parts. The ten toes signify a second and final divi- sion into ten kingdoms. 632 THE FALLING STONE The mixture of iron and clay in the ten toes is a symbolic prophecy that these ten kings — (since clay is the last in order) will be elected by the people and will be democratic kings. Let us turn to history. A thousand years after the prophecy Rome was divided into two great halves under the brothers Valentinian and Valens. The Western Empire had its capital at Rome. Constantino- ple or Byzantium became the capital of the East- ern Empire. The Western Empire continued some four hundred years after Christ and then began to break up under the incursion of Teutonic hordes into smaller states. The Eastern Empire with varying fortunes lasted till 1453, when it was taken by the Turks. The Turkish Empire has held it intact to the Persian boundaries till within the last few years and specially within the last decade. Like its own eastern boundary river which according to prophecy is to be dried up, it has dwindled in extent until to-day only a relatively small por- tion of territory surrounding Constantinople is THE FALLING STONE 633 under the rule of the crescent and the power of its scimetar. On Christmas day, 800, the great basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome, was filled with a wor- shipping throng. Pope Leo Third came down from his pontifi- cal chair to the high altar before which Charle- magne, the king of the Franks, was kneeling, and placing on his head a golden and splendid crown, saluted him and proclaimed him — Em- peror of Rome. Thus was the Western Empire revived and through succeeding centuries recog- nized as the "Holy Roman Empire." It attempted to influence and control the East- ern Empire. Through war, internal convulsion and intrigue it became more Teutonic than Latin, more German than Roman and finally degenerated into a heterogeneous company of petty German, or German-controlled states. Eventually the emperor of Austria under pres- sure took over the title of Caesar, Emperor of Rome. A double-headed eagle became his en- sign. It was the shadow of the claim that as this monster in spite of two heads had one body, so 634 THE FALLING STONE Rome even though divided remained one em- pire. It was the mystical affirmation that what- ever divisions might come in the territory occu- pied by it, Rome as the fourth and final ordained world power, would continue as such till the end of Gentile time. This ensign is still borne on the banners of Austria. It is, also, the ensign of Russia, which, in the intimacy and secrecy of imperial plans and councils, believes itself to be the legitimate heir and rightful possessor of the one time Eastern (and really, Greek) Empire; believes Constan- tinople, or Byzantium (and neither Petrograd nor Moscow) to be its genuine capital and the true metropolitan center of the Greek Church. This mysterious ensign is now borne aloft and thrust into the eyes of a startled world as the blazon of Germany, whose feudal war lord and Kaiser aims to be the Caesar of a revived Teu- tonic Roman Empire; for, this word Czar in Russia, and Kaiser in Germany is the fatefulj old-time and abiding title — Caesar. The Holy Roman Empire degenerated into such a political condition that the satirical Vol- THE FALLING STONE 63^ taire wittily said of it, that it was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Then Napoleon arose and burst over Europe like a cyclone, smashed Austria, and made a peace in which emperors played second parts. The emperor of Austria was forced to lay aside his title as Caesar of Rome. Napoleon set up the Confederation of the Rhine. He unmade and made kings at his will. He took the thrones of nations and gave them to whom he willed. He purposed to establish a confederation of subordinate kings in which he should occupy the position of a king of kings and lord of lords. He called the Jewish Sanhedrin together and planned to set up the Jewish state. He aimed to take over Syria, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, dreamed of Babylon and the East. He drew up plans for the conquest of England and had as- sembled his troops on the shores of the English Channel. He had placed on his head with his own hands the crown of Charlemagne. He openly affirmed that he was the true heir of that Prankish king. Had he realized his ambition he would have restored the Roman Empire as a Gi,6 THE FALLING STONE confederation of kings over which he would himself have reigned supreme as the master of the world. In all this he was throwing down the shadows of coming events; for, according to the proph- ecy of the image and the beasts the Rom^an Em- pire, or the territory once occupied by it, was after the first division to be divided a second and final time among a confederation of kings — ten in number {ten toes, ten horns). And as the toes were five on each foot, at the end of each iron leg, so these ten kings would be apportioned — five in each of the first great political divisions — five in Western and five in the Eastern Em- pire; that is, in the territory distinctively occu- pied by each division. No such tenfold division has ever taken place. It does not exist to-day. It is, therefore, future. - Four of these kingdoms we know. They arc the four into which Alexander's kingdom was divided. Babylon with Persia, Syria and Palestine. Egypt — with the African Littoral. THE FALLING STONE 637 Greece with Macedonia. The Balkans, that portion covered by Thrace, Bythinia, Asia Minor to the Taurus. These kingdoms (the entire ten) will be brought about in their final state by the action of the people; but because of the mixture of mon- archy and democracy, it will be a state of inco- hesion and weakness. Daniel tells us that among the ten horns of the fourth beast a little horn arose before whom three horns were plucked up. This little horn therefore is an eleventh horn, and according to the symbol, an eleventh king. If you will now turn to the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation you will find there the descrip- tion of a composite beast. It is like a leopard. It has the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. It has ten horns. The lion is the symbol of Babylon, the bear of Medo-Persia and the leopard of Greece. The ten horns are the ten kings. This is the picture of a kingdom which in- 638 THE FALLING STONE eludes Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, and is, therefore, the fourth or Roman Empire, The ten kings are a declaration that it is the Roman Empire in its final tenfold division. The beast, consisting of these distinct national characteristics, carrying and therefore control- ling the coming and the going of the horns or kings is the symbol of a person whose sphere of action is the region of the fourth or Roman Empire, and who has power and authority over the ten kings. That he is a person is seen in the fifth verse where it is written that to this beast was given "a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies." As a person authoritatively superior to the ten kings this beast stands related to them as an eleventh king, or horn. He is therefore identi- cal with the little horn which rose among the ten as seen by Daniel. Thus the little horn and this beast of Revelation thirteenth set forth a su- preme king, the head and chief of the ten kings. This conclusion is corroborated, made definite and clear in the seventeenth chapter of the Rev- THE FALLING STONE 639 elation, the twelfth and thirteenth verses, where it is written : "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour (or, liter- ally, ^at the same time'), with the beast. "These have one (or the same) mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast." The little horn of Daniel and the ten-horned beast of Revelation set forth a supreme king, a supreme Caesar or Kaiser who will rise to reign and rule over the ten democratic kings who are to come into associated power with him in the territory and realm of ancient Rome. He is a coming king of kings and lord of lords. He is an imitation, a counterfeit king of kings, a forerunner and antagonist of the true King of kings. He is spoken of in Scripture under various titles. He is known as the little horn. (The attempt of a certain school of expositors 640 THE FALLING STONE to make the little horn of Daniel eighth distinct from the little horn of Daniel seventh is a piece of disastrous, contradictory and confusing ex- egesis conceived in absolute error and certain to darken counsel with words without knowledge.) He is the prince that shall come. The king of fierce countenance. The king who under- stands dark sentences. The king of the North. The wilful king. He is known as the Rod of God's anger. The ax that hoasteth itself against God. The staff that lifts itself up. The man of the earth. The shaker of nations. The proud man. The spoiler. The extortioner. The nail that seeks to fasten itself in a sure place. He that Com- eth up out of the pit. Leviathan. The destroyer of fortresses. He who plans destruction while proposing peace. The piercing serpent. The crooked serpent. The transgressor. The man whose desire is as hell. The man who cannot be satisfied. The man who maketh the earth to tremble. The man who heapeth all nations to himself. The king. The ultimate fool who says in his heart there is no God. The king for whom Tophet is prepared. The wicked one. The law- THE FALLING STONE 64 1 less one. The man wiser than Daniel, The man from whom no secret can he hidden. The man of sin. The son of perdition. The man who says *^I will be like the Most High,*' The man who exalteth himself as God, The man whose coming is after the energy of Satan, The man who will come with all lying signs and wonders. The Assyrian, The Chaldean, The king of Babylon, He will arise as a military leader and then as king from Babylon. Babylon will rise and grow like a mushroom. It will come up as in a night. It will be the commercial center of the East and West. Already railway tracks are pointing to Bagdad and the ruins of the ancient city. I have read a letter recently written from Baby- lon in which the writer said, could we but see how the old canals of the Euphratean valley had been redigged and how every sign indicated the "Drive to the East," we would be startled at the near approach of that prophetic hour when the golden city should once more rise in all her power and glory. This man of many titles is he who is symbol- 642 THE FALLING STONE ized by the 'Wild Beast," and is definitely de- clared by John to be 'The Anti-Christ" He is foreshadowed by Nimrod, the original builder of Babylon, and who is called, literally, the "mighty rebel," by Chedorlaomer, by Saul, by Absalom (the denier of the Father) by Herod, and by such an one as Antiochus Epiph- anes. By intrigue, by diplomacy he will become king and possessor of Babylon. He will subdue or bring under control, Persia, all Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, On account of the troubled and reactionary times the ten kings will invite him to* become dictator, world ruler. He will accept. He will take the title of the Prince of Rome (Daniel says he will be the prince of the people who de- stroyed Jerusalem. The people who destroyed Jerusalem were Romans; therefore, he will be the prince of the 'Romans, Prince of Rome). Thus will Rome be revived under its tenfold form. Elected as head of the ten kings, he will be a king of kings and lord of lords. THE FALLING STONE 643 His character is clearly set before as in Scrip- ture. He is a man of "fierce countenance," of such immense personality, such greatness of individ- uality that men will humble themselves before him. His military genius is so supreme none can be compared with him; not Alexander, who con- quered a world at thirty-three; not Hannibal, who trod the Alps beneath him as though they were but hillocks; not Caesar, who triumphed over Gaul; not Napoleon, who combined and exceeded the genius of all; not Napoleon, who stands as a soldier without a peer; not one nor all of these are more than pigmies by his side. His forethought, his knowledge of detail, his ability to penetrate and know the secret thought of his foe, his anticipation of events, will enable him to pass through all opposition as though it were an open door and made ready for his pur- pose. He will stride from victory to victory. He is a scientist, a high priest of the occult. His hand is upon the forces of the unseen. He has a god he worships, an invisible presence, a 644 THE FALLING STONE mighty spirit whose bidding he gladly obeys. This god is he whom Scripture defines as ''that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan," "the great dragon." The Apostle John says the drag- on, or Devil, will give him ''his power, his throne, and great authority." The Apostle Paul says his "coming is after the working (or en- ergy) of Satan." Because of this Satan whom the apostle calls "the god of this world," and whom our Lord affirms to be the "prince (and ruler) of this world," he will come with "all power and signs and deceiving wonder s,^^ won- ders and signs so great that were it at all possible, the Son of God says, he would deceive the very elect. He is a statesman. He sees that Germany and Russia will seek to combine for the possession of the East. He will pass into Palestine. He will restore the land to the Jew. He will use the ships of one of the ten nations to bring them from distant countries. He will set up the Jew- ish state. He will make "Zionism" a political fact. He will enter into a treaty with the head of the state for seven years. His object will be to THE FALLING STONE 645 build Up a buffer against the inroad of either Germany or Russia. At the end of three years and a half he will break his treaty. The judgment of God will be loosed upon him and his kingdom as upon Pharaoh and Egypt. It will stir up the fierceness, the wickedness and blasphemy of the king. He will turn in fury upon the Jews. He will become their most bit- ter and cruel persecutor. It will be the time the prophet has foretold as the "day of Jacob's trou- ble." It is the hour of which the Lord has warned as the "Great Tribulation," a condition so fearful, so full of suffering and mortal an- guish, suffering from the hand of man, from devils and the judgments of God, that He has said there has never been anything like it since the world began, there never will be anything like it again; a time so full of agony and woe, of darkness, despair and deep depression that unless God should shorten the time "there should be no flesh saved." Rebellion breaks out against the emperor. Egypt rebels. 646 THE FALLING STONE He gathers his armies. He marches thither. He lays his hand upon the treasures. He spoils the land. He sweeps back the rebellious tide. A rebellion breaks out in Jerusalem. Witnesses have arisen who testify against him as the son of perdition. They seek to turn the hearts of the Jews back to the faith of the fathers. They proclaim that Jesus of Naza- reth was the true Messiah, that He is the true and covenant King, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth. They announce He is coming to Jerusalem to deliver His elect. They appeal to the people to turn away from the em- peror as the "refuge of lies." They affirm the covenant with him to be a "covenant with death and hell," and call upon the people to disannul it and repudiate him. The "elect remnant" hear the call and re- spond. They deny all allegiance to this "man of the earth." In fury he enters into "the land of the glory," the Holy Land. He marches with mad haste and threatenings toward Jerusalem. In the midst of his rush "tidings out of the THE FALLING STONE 647 East and out of the North trouble him." He hears that Babylon is threatened. The waters of the Euphrates are drying up. The armies from the '^sunrise" kingdom are moving west- ward. He goes forth with increased fury to de- stroy. He changes his route and marches north- ward to the plain of Esdraelon, called in Scrip- ture, Har Mageddon, From the beginning this plain has been the gathering place of armies. The dews of Hermon have fallen here upon the banners of nearly every nation of the earth, upon Assyrian, Arabian, Babylonian and Egyptian. Here Crusader and Saracen have met, the squares of France have withstood the dash of Mamelukes, the West and the East have clashed for victory, scimetar and spear have answered sword and gun and the blood of men poured out without measure has fructified the soil, given growth to grasses, lush and long, and painted with deeper crimson the scarlet poppies of the field. In this great gathering place he is joined by fresh contingents. After a pause, he turns south- ward again and marches toward the sacred city. 648 THE FALLING STONE Isaiah describes his march. With hurrying footstep he moves. He will not allow his bag- gage to detain him. Here to-night scarcely halt- ing, miles away ere noon to-morrow. Terror fills the air. The inhabitants of villages flee at his approach. Women wail at the mention of his name. He comes in sight of the city. Like Titus of old he pitches his headquarters on Sco- pus. Jerusalem is surrounded. His troops fill the valley of Jehoshaphat. The prophecy of Joel begins to be fulfilled ; as it is written : "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of de- cision; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.'' For the Lord has said: "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there." It is the valley of decision. It is the hour of decision. The hour of consummation and that deter- mined on is at hand. The city is taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished, half of the people are made prisoners.. THE FALLING STONE 649 The king goes to the temple which he had per- mitted the people to rebuild. He seats himself in the Most Holy place. He claims that he is very God. God is force, He is energy. En- ergy and force are God. Man is the highest ex- pression of that energy and force. He is the en- thronement of it personally and intellectually. If men will worship the idea of God, he the King as supreme among all men is the supreme, the ultimate manifestation of that idea. In him men may find God. There is none other God than man, and as supreme man, he is supreme God. By the hand of his prime minister he works signs and wonders that might well de- ceive the elect. He brings down fire out of heaven. He sets up an image of the king. He causes it to be placed on the pinnacle of the tem- ple in the sight of all. He commands men to worship it, to pay divine honors, as of old they were paid to the image of Rome's emperors. All who would do business are commanded to wear the mark, or the name, or the number of the name of the emperor, either on the fore- head or on the right hand. 650 THE FALLING STONE The whole world trembles before him, and yet acclaims him. He seems to have reached the apex of his glory. And now note — In giving the description of the image Daniel begins with the golden head, then the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron and the toes, part iron and part clay; but when a statue has been cast we begin to build and set it up at the feet and work upward to the head. The head is the last piece set on. It is the climax. This is the fashion in which the antitypical, the actual political statue will be set up. The ten kings will come into view. These kings or kingdoms will comprise all that was once Rome as to territory, the kingdom of Greece in its fullest extent, Medo-Persia, Babylon; and then — this eleventh king, the king who is over all will come as the antitypical golden head. He will be the real king of Baby- lon whom the prophet sees in his shadowy form standing behind Nebuchadnezzar when he says unto him, "Thou art this head of gold." THE FALLING STONE 65 I There he sits in the temple of God. the head of gold, the king of Babylon, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the lawless one, the Anti-christ. And there for a moment I shall leave him and ask you now to consider with me the falling stone which as it fell smote the image on its feet and broke it in pieces. There are five things to be considered. The mountain out of which the stone was cut. The stone cut out of the mountains. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands. The falling stone. The stone becoming a great mountain and filling the earth. The mountain out of which the stone was cut. Strangely enough expositors and commenta- tors have ignored this mountain, or passed lightly over the mention of it; and yet, it is in itself a key and factor among the symbols. In the thirtieth psalm and seventh verse, David says : "Lord, by Thy favour Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong." 652 THE FALLING STONE By "mountain" David means his throne and kingdom, the throne and kingdom of Israel. The mountain out of which the stone was cut is the nation and kingdom of Israel, but specially that side of the kingdom which is Judah. In saying the stone was cut out of the moun- tain Daniel is saying it was taken out of Israel, out of Judah. The stone cut out of the mountain. The stone is our Lord Jesus Christ. Standing before the Jewish Sanhedrim and answering concerning the healing of the lame man, as recorded in the book of Acts, fourth chapter, tenth and eleventh verses, the Apostle Peter says: "Be it known unto you all, and to all the peo- ple of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole. ^^This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner." THE FALLING STONE 6 S3 In his first epistle Peter says of our Lord Jesus Christ that He is: ^^A living stone, disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious." He quotes the Word of God in the twenty- eighth chapter of the prophet Isaiah: ''Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him (the stone) shall not be confounded." To those who are unbelievers the apostle says our Lord Jesus Christ is: "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." In His discourse recorded in the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, our Lord Himself affirms that He is the stone and in warning and far- reaching words says : 'Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fallj it will grind him to powder," Beyond all question, then, our Lord Jesus Christ is the stone cut out of the mountain. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands. As "hands" stand for the use of means which 654 THE FALLING STONE are natural, ^Svithout" hands signifies means that are not natural, means that are beyond natural. It is the inspired and adverb way of saying '^ sup ernatur ally/' As the mountain is Israel, and the stone is our Lord Jesus Christ, then our Lord Jesus Christ was supernaturally brought out of Israel. To be brought out or cut out of Israel, signifies to originate in Israel. To originate in and out of Israel is to be born in and of Israel. The statement that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands is the sym- bolic way of saying the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as an Israelite, as a Jew, was supernatural. It is the symbolic way of saying our Lord Jesus Christ should not have a natural father, that God should be His Father, and therefore as He would be directly begotten of God, His mother, in the nature of the case should be vir- gin. It is the prophecy that our Lord Jesus Christ should be virgin born, Son of God and God the Son. Thus away back in that far dream of a Baby- lonian king, God the Almighty stamped in the midst of the symbols, in the story of the image, THE FALLING STONE 6SS the foredetermined and amazing fact of the vir- gin birth. The falling of the stone. The stone should fall upon the feet of the image and break it to pieces. The falling of the stone is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is the falling of the stone the symbol of His first Coming, as it is so taught by some? To answer that question I will ask another : When our Lord Jesus Christ came the first time did He fall upon the Roman Empire, over- throw it and break it in pieces? Nay! on the contrary, the Roman government at the instiga- tion of the Jewish Sanhedrim fell on Him and nailed Him to a cross. He was so despised and rejected of men, His own nation so refused to own or accept Him as King, that God the Father took Him to His own right hand in Heaven where for two thousand years He has been seated as an exile from His own land and throne. He did not fall upon the feet of the image when He came the first time. Has He, as some teach, during this time of His 6s6 THE FALLING STONE absence in Heaven, set up His kingdom on earth ; and has this kingdom consumed and set aside all the other kingdoms of the earth? Is he now ruling over a world universally sur- rendered to Him, singing His name in praise and walking in the ways of righteousness and peace? The kingdom of Christ here! The kingdoms of this world become the king- doms of our Lord and His Christ! Christ reigning and ruling in all lands and owned of all men as the authoritative Prince of Peace! How can men have the hardihood, the blind- ness of soul and the deafness of spirit even to suggest such propositions when every gale that comes across the sea brings the sound of battle and the shout of contending foes? The kingdom of Christ here! or, the slightest hint or shadowy indication that it is enlarging, expanding with growing power and all compel- ling word! How can men find it in their hearts to proclaim such things in the ears of men when capital and labor are in daily conflict; when law- THE FALLING STONE 657 lessnesses are multiplied, when crime and vio- lence are on the increase; when there is distress of nations and perplexity; when the people are tossing and rushing with the unrest of the seas ; when the Church is divided; when sects spring up like the weeds of the field, each sect with a doctrine in the name of Christ which contra- dicts or antagonizes the other; so that, since the hour when Christ offered the prayer that His disciples might be "one," the prayer was never so far from being answered and never seemed so hopeless; when infidelity is multiplied and men in the pulpit openly deny the incarnation of Christ, His bodily resurrection and refuse to accept the Bible as the inspired, the infallible Word of God! To talk and teach that the kingdom of Christ is here, that it came when Christ first came, that His first coming was the falling of the stone — may well lead any one familiar with Holy Scrip- ture to ask whence comes the inspiration to such teaching. But there is one fact which overwhelmingly confutes these follies and rebukes the excuseless- 658 THE FALLING STONE ness of the errors, the fact which demonstrates the kingdom has not been set up, that the stone has not fallen. And this is the fact: When the stone falls it is to smite upon the ten toes of the image and break it in pieces; and as the ten toes represent ten kings and their king- doms, the ten kings and the ten kingdoms must he politically existing when Christ comes. In addition to that, they must be organized and confederated under the supreme or eleventh king represented by the head of gold. No such political conditions existed when our Lord Jesus Christ came the first time. They have never existed at any time since He left the world. They do not exist to-day. And as the Coming of Christ is to smash these kings and overwhelm them with their blasphe- mous head before the kingdom can be set up then not only has the kingdom of Christ never been set up, but the falling of the stone does not rep- resent the first Coming of Christ. If the falling of the stone does not represent THE FALLING STONE 659 the first Coming of Christ (and it does not, and cannot) then the falling of the stone is the divine symbol of our Lord's Second Coming to set up the fifth and final world power, the fifth and final and eternal kingdom. And mark how He is coming. Not silently as when the dawn steals over the night; not as when the kiss of love is pressed upon the lips; not as when the fragrance of a flower is borne on the air, but, as when a stone is flung from the hand and comes crashingly down, smiting and breaking, crushing and destroying that on which it falls. He is coming to smite the image on its feet. He is coming to smite the ten confederate kings. He is coming to overthrow the colossal, the Devil-inspired combination and lay the golden head in the dust. He is coming where these kings and their armies shall be gathered, and where this golden head shall exalt himself in wanton bravado against the God of heaven and against His Christ. 66o THE FALLING STONE They will be gathered at Jerusalem. Hear what God has said, and what He will do: "I will gather all nations (that is the ten na- tions) against Jerusalem to battle." "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat." Our Lord will come to Jerusalem to meet this gathering of the nations. He will destroy the armies of the king. He will cast him and his prime minister, the false prophet, into the lake of fire. Then will He set up that kingdom which shall never be destroyed, that fifth and final kingdom which shall never be destroyed, concerning which, if the Lord should tarry, I shall speak to you on the coming Lord's day night. From all this I learn : God's forecast of world politics is now being fulfilled, and every fulfilling event is the daily demonstration that this hook, the Bible, is the fully inspired, inerrant Word of God, Stand with me here in Babylon and look down THE FALLING STONE 66 i the sweep of twenty-five hundred years of human history foreseen and forecast of God. Through the lips of His prophet He said the Persians should come and overthrow Babylon. And there on time, some forty years later, comes Cyrus with the silver corsleted Persians. He enters the golden city and claims it as his own. God, in His unfailing Word, said the Greeks should come, trample the Persian host beneath their feet. Behold Alexander at the head of his brazen- coated Greeks, plunging through the waters of the Granicus and enthroning himself here at Babylon as the master of the world. God the Lord said Rome should be the great world conqueror. Behold it rising from its seven hills, stretching out its grasp upon the nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, till everywhere is heard the tramp of the iron legions and the shouts of victory. And we have reached this hour. In this hour, the culmination of all that has gone before, all the nations and peoples who once 662 THE FALLING STONE formed the Roman Empire are at war with one another. Over the sounds of conflict the ominous words of the Son of God sound more ominous than ever: ''Nation shall rise against nation, and king- dom against kingdom." The "clay" is beginning to make itself known. The people are full of murmuring and dis- content. The spirit of revolt is in the air. The people are sick of kings and dynasties. Presently there will be national upheavals. Kings will lose their crowns. The form of a government will be changed in a day. The cry will be democracy against autocracy. The people will break the bands of centuries and cast aside the cords of custom. Democracies will move to the threshold of anarchy. License will offer a bribe to liberty. Everywhere there will be the need of iron hands. THE FALLING STONE 663 These conditions are already in travail. The birth throes are giving their pains and the sense of woe is in the body politic. The shadow of iron men is falling even while the people in their unrest talk of freedom. The way is being prepared for remaking the map of Europe and Asia. Out of the new making must come sooner or later, the ordained and fatal ten. Over all is the shadow of the great world head. As the conflict deepens, as conditions become complex men talk more openly about the neces- sity of concentrating powers. Whether in com- merce, in trade, in politics or the prosecution of war. The people while they demand liberty on the one side, are calling for men who can unify their wishes, execute their will, and yet do it with au- thority, personalism and power that in other days would have been called absolutism of govern- ment, usurpation of privilege. Deeper and darker grows the shadow of the great world Head, the shadow of that Devil-be- gotten man who is the forerunner of the Christ, 664 THE FALLING STONE the imitation king of kings and lord of lords — the Anti-christ — the world's last Kaiser or Caesar. Every day the events of the day are fulfilling the forecast, and the warning of God. Every thunder of cannon, every shriek of shell, every groan of the wounded, and moan of the dying, all the unrest, the fear and the quiver- ing uncertainty paralyzing men and nations are crying aloud in our ears if we will but hear it. "Fulfilled! Fulfilled!" Because all the downsweep of history, all the combination and move of circumstances are pro- claiming this prophetic word to be the Word of God; and because every day the words of Dan- iel to the Babylonian king are being echoed and re-echoed in the march of events, "the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure;" be- cause all the signs of the times indicate that the way is being rapidly prepared for the rise of the ten kings, the revival of the Roman Empire, the appearance and exaltation of the man of sin; because all such signs indicate that the great day when the Son of God shall appear in glory and THE FALLING STONE 66^ like the stone flung down upon the image will come to smite all that is opposed to Him, to exe- cute wrath and judgment upon all who are not in union and fellowship with Him; and because, as I have taught you consistently through these sermons that before our Lord appears as King He will descend into the air and call His Church up to meet Him; because He is coming as the Bridegroom for His Bride, for the real, the true, the genuine and regenerated part of the professing Church ; and because He might come for her at any moment; because between us and that solemn event there is not the thickness of the vapor that floats above the morning hills, I ap- peal to you who are professing Christians that 5^ou make your calling and election sure. There is something more required of you than to say: "I believe," be baptized, join church, have your name on the church book and pay your pew rent or contribution : There are "things which accompany salva- tion." You are called to turn your back on the old way, to live the life that is new and sweet and 666 THE FALLING STONE clean; to walk in the highway of holiness, of righteousness and truth; to ascend to the plane of spiritual experience and translate the life of Christ in daily character to the sons of men. A Christian is one who seeks to walk in fel- lowship with God and make His Son the Master of his days. "For Christ's sake" he will do the one thing, and "for Christ's sake" he will refuse to do the other. "For me to live is Christ" will be his watchword, his inspiration and the im- pulse of every hour. He may stumble, he may fall, but he will not lie still ; if the root of the matter be in him he will arise and go forw^ard with renewed determination to live the Chris- tian life. I shall never forget what I once saw when a Christian much provoked in a sudden flash of anger at the unjust attitude of another, uttered on oath, and the unbeliever who had so greatly tried him said, "That is fine, and you are a Christian too." But the Christian who had spoken so unadvisedly, so profanely with his lips turned to the man who had been so mocking, so pitiless, and with actual tears staining his cheek THE FALLING STONE 667 replied, "What I have just said has broken my heart, not because you think of me as you do, but because I should have done so evil a thing. God knows I love my Lord with all my heart. Forgive me that I may have led you to think lightly of His Name, even for a moment." What a back ground that was ! black enough to be sure, but a background on which that care- less and most provoking unbeliever could read in the light of penitent tears and in the evidence of genuine heart-ache that this stumbling Chris- tian taken unaware was a Christian not only in name but in fact. You will make mistakes. We all do, because that old nature bequeathed from Adam is still within us and seeks to assault us when off our guard; but, if the divine life be there in you, you will hate the sin, confess it and call on God to lift you more and more above the flesh, and more and more to fill you with His Holy Spirit, with His power and grace. Nothing will keep you back. Like the apostle you will for- get the things that are behind. You will press on in spite of every hindrance to the shining 668 THE FALLING STONE mark, the goal of constant fellowship and un- broken communion with your Lord. You will repudiate each weakness and snatch victory from defeat. If you do not love the things of God; if you do not care for the House of God and the exer- cise of prayer; if you prefer the world and the ways of the world; if your heart is set on the pleasures it offers and you are determined to drink of its cups at any cost to the profession you make; if with all this indifference, this unre- strained carelessness to the claims of Christ and the manner and fashion in which those who wear His name should walk, you still keep that name and allow the breath of scandal to breathe upon it and the mire of worldliness to stain it, then I exhort you to arouse and satisfy yourself, and others as well as yourself, whether the profes- sion you make is but an empty sound on a care- less tongue; or, whether the life of the risen Christ be really in you, slight and unmanifested though it may be. You cannot elect yourself, but you can find out whether you are elect; whether down in the THE FALLING STONE 669 core of your heart you care to love and serve the Lord. You have no time to lose. If the Lord should come and you be left out- side, revealed to all the world as no more than an idle professor your fate of all v^ould be the worst; for, I read that such will be cast out into outer darkness where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Make your calling and election sure to-night. Do not wait for to-morrow. And now to you, the unsaved. Unsaved! What a word is that. And what does it mean to be unsaved? It means to miss union and fellowship with Christ. It means to miss communion with the sweetest and tenderest man who ever lived. It means to miss the touch of the power that healed the sick and quickened the dead. It means to miss all that makes life worth living in this world; all that can give strength in weakness, joy in sor- row, hope in despair; all that can make life to 670 THE FALLING STONE be more than mere existence, brute-being and limited self-consciousness. It means to be blind, so blind you cannot see the wonder and the beauty of the landscape and Him who painted it. It means to be deaf, so deaf you cannot hear the symphony nor the song the spirit sings in trusting souls. It means to be dumb, as dumb as the man who has great whelming, surging thoughts within his soul and cannot speak them. So dumb you can- not speak the word of faith. It means to be half-paralyzed, and only that alive in you which is not worth the living by itself — the animal, the brute innate in you and in all men. It means to be dead, dead as the man wrapped in the shroud, dead, spiritually dead, without God without Christ, and without hope in the world. What hope has any man outside the Bible and the Christ of God? What do you know of the beyond? Are you a fool of fools? THE FALLING STpNE 671 Are you willing to stand on the edge of eter- nity as it crumbles under your feet? Are you willing to stand there and liable to go any moment? In eternity and unsaved! Unsaved! Forsaken of God at last. Listen! What does it mean to be forsaken of God? It has been defined in the most tremendous words that ever came from human lips; that cry on the cross : "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is the cry of God's Christ. He died on that cross as a sacrifice for sin. He died as a substitute for the believer. He was forsaken of God that the believer might never be forsaken. If you do not believe, if you do not accept Him, you will be forsaken, and the cry of agony will be your cry. To be forsaken of God! The Lord Himself has endeavored to tell us what it means. 672 THE FALLING STONE He has told us of the rich man in hell. He could not get a drop of water for his parched tongue. He could not send a warning to his five breth- ren that he might keep them from the place of torment. Between him and the rest beyond there was a great gulf fixed, bottomless, measureless, with- out a bridge. He had only two things. The memory of the good things he had left behind him. The certainty of a hopeless, endless future before him. O man, to be unsaved! Think of it! To take your soul into eternity without a guarantee. You may have wealth, you may have an in- come of a million a year. You may live for fifty years and in perfect health, drink of every joy, gratify every desire, then die and leave your millions to some fool to squander. The body will be put in the ground. It will moulder. It will decay to dust but your squU THE FALLING STONE 673 Ah! There are things in the soul that hurt us. The pain, the regret, the anguish in a soul last up to the final second, to the last breath; and in some souls have been more intense than in all the preceding years. What is the logic of that? It is simple enough. It is the truth that your body may wither, die, but your soul will con- tinue, and continue to suffer. O man! if the race for wealth, your desire for the things of earth have kept you away from God and Christ; if your social relations and ambitions have made you put Christ aside you will go into eternity an empty soul, a beggar of beggars. All you have accomplished, all you may have achieved in the world will but serve to make your sorrow and suffering the greater. O man, man, unsaved! You have no right to face such a failure. You have no right to imperil your soul. The memory of happiness fled. The certainty of sorrow forever. Where are you going to spend your eternity — and how? 674 THE FALLING STONE In all the universe of God there is no ques- tion so important as that. The mothers of some of you men are in yon- der Heaven. You have no right to go back upon the prayers their faith breathed out to God for you. You have no right to fling back the love of God, deny His Son, trample on His grace and destroy your soul. You can be saved now. The work has been done. There is nothing to do but receive and believe in a crucified and risen Lord, as it is written : ^^If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." He is coming. When, we know not. The time is short, the days of grace are pass- ing. If you die as an unbeliever before Christ comes, you are lost forever. If Christ comes before you die while you are an unbeliever you are lost forever. THE FALLING STONE 675 On the edge of the grave on the threshold of our Lord's imminent coming you are lost now. I call upon you. I call upon every man and woman in this house to-night to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, get under the blood of the cross. The blood He shed for such as you ; get on the side of eternal salvation, se- curity, and peace. Get there now lest He come, and it be too latel X THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER The Thousand Years and After. My theme is : "The wonderful government God has prom- ised to set up on the earth in which every prob- lem of capital and labor, wealth and poverty, war and peace, health and disease, life and death will be perfectly and forever solved." The texts are three in number. (Revelation 20: 4, Micah 4: 3, 4, Revelation 21 : i.) "They lived and reigned with Christ a thou- sand years." "They shall beat their swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn w^ar any more. "But, they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree ; and none shall make them afraid." "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." Human life is the most colossal failure in the universe of God. 68o THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER In all the universe of God there is nothing equal to this failure. This failure is indicated and marked by four amazing characteristics — brevity, uncertainty, mystery and inadequacy. The brevity is measured by seventy years as the official term of life. Out of these seventy you must take twenty that the individual may reach majority; out of the fifty, you must take ten for the finding of a place in life; out of the forty, ten years more in which to achieve possible success; out of the remain- ing thirty, you must give one-half to sleep, to eating and drinking, and probable sickness; of the final fifteen, five years must be allotted for steps down the slant of life to the grave. Ten years of actual, possible living. And what are ten years? What is a decade? What are seventy years to the centuries and the ages gone, or the ages to come? O, it is brevity, indeed. And in such brevity, what is your life? It is a vapor, a mist above the morning hills, a bubble on the tide, the spume of a broken THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 68 1 wave, a touch of the lips, a pressure of the hands, a sigh, the last notes of a song, a tale that is told; it is the flying of a bird out of the night through an open window across a banqueting hall with its light, its warmth, its clink of glass, the laughter and song, and out again through an open window into the night once more, the whir of a wing, a flash — and gone. O, it is brief, this life of yours and mine. If it be brief, it is unc*ertain. David, the king, said, 'There is but a step be- twixt me and death." He was wrong. There is only the beat of your heart. Here! let me put my finger on my pulse, one, two, three. I listen to my heart. I feel the thud of it here, striking under my ear. Let it stop ! — gone. A man and his wife sat at a table under the shade of the evening lamp, in the quiet of the home. He reached round and asked her to give him one of the new books from the rack. She passed it to him, remarking, she was sure he would like it. 682 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER He answered kindly and loyally: ^Tou have read it. If you liked it, I know I will." There was silence between them. Then, after a while, she asked, and naturally: "What do you think of it?" There was no answer. After a little longer silence, she said, calling him by his name : "I really believe you are asleep." Still he made no answer. Somewhat annoyed, she arose and looked at him. He was asleep. But it was that sleep, from which no man could wake him. The eyes were open, the book was in his grasp, but, he had gone. Over there in France where they put a crimi- nal to death they do not tell him the hour of his execution. There he lies asleep, across his narrow, iron bed. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 683 The gray light of the early morning comes filtering in through the bars of his cell. He is dreaming, dreaming of the days of boy- hood and the hours of innocence, some far away sunny day when he played in poppy-filled field or loitered by the murmuring brook. Suddenly he feels a hand laid on his shoulder. He awakes with a start to confront the stern gaze of silent men. Then they announce his appeal has been rejected. There is one imperative word spoken, ^^Come." He arises and follows. There outside the prison door is the hideous, red thing that will take his life. That is just your case. You are under sentence of death. You do not know the hour. You are here to-night full of your plans and ambitions. Any moment the hand may be laid on you, the voice may bid you come ; and a week from now you may be under the sod, the wheel of time rolling over your grave and the place that knows you now knowing you no more forever. Uncertain is your life. 684 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER If it be brief, if it be uncertain, it is a mystery. The scholar of Baliol has said, "The dust the summer winds waft hither, are not more dead to whence and wither?" Whence did we come? From some seed flung down by a swift passing world, or from a drop of protoplasmic matter that through long and weary ages evolved a snake, a serpent, a lizard, then anthropoid ape, a brutal beast of a man? Did we come from above or below? Have we fallen down or fallen up? What are we? Are we mud or mind, matter or spirit, angel or devil? What are these floating, fragmentary, remi- niscent things in us, the sound of a song, a laugh, the glimpse of a landscape, the babble of a stream over its stones, half felt emotions and blurred concepts? Are they the left-over things from a former existence? Is there any real, actual personality in us we may honestly call our own? How many indi- vidualities of past generations are struggling in THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 685 US? Is our personality the concrete, or the multi- plication of other personalities; so that, some- times in a dozen moments a dozen different per- sons seem to be in us; or, we seem to be these different and distinctive persons? Have we a soul, after all, or is the soul noth- ing more than a function of a material construc- tion, and when the construction is broken up by death the function at an end? Whither do we go? When I die, when I breathe my last breath shall I step into an unseen chariot and be swept upward to the open gates flung wide to welcome me to the inviting and longed-for city of peace and joy; or, when I die, does the bell ring, the curtain drop, the footlights go out, the play over — the house empty — night and silence? Oh, listen. I listen, and all I can hear is the plash of a tear or the sound of the clods as they fall on the coffin lid. Over all is the abiding question: 'To BE, or NOT to BE?" And the question is always followed by — a Guess, 686 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Brevity, uncertainty, mystery and crown- ing all — Inadequacy. Ask a man who has lived seventy years, who has arrived, who has achieved something in life, whether he is satisfied ; whether all he has put into his years of effort and toil finds its compen- sation in his success. He will smile at you. We know more at twenty than w^e do at seventy. A man has to live many years to find out how little he knows, how little he can know. You have read, perhaps, that story of Balzac, the "Peau de Chagrin." A man found a wild ass's skin. It enabled him to obtain his wish; but each time a wish was granted the skin shrank, and when the last wish was accorded, it shriv- eled up. You have to pay for what you achieve. It costs tremendously. Your soul shrinks, your mind shrinks and your body shrinks. You pay out your soul, your mind, your body. You give away your life forces. That is the reason why men who have achieved things have wrinkled foreheads and bent bodies. They are a mass of THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 687 quivering nerves. Their bodies are like torture chambers. They are full of anguish and pain. Tell me, does this effort, the labor of mind and body, the heart ache, the lamentation, the tragedy pay for what you get out of life; for the suffering, the intensity? Ah, some of us have lived a million years in a moment. In that mo- ment was concentrated all there is of feeling, experience, the innermost of damnation. Does it pay? But, I am speaking of the man who has suc- ceeded. Look at the great mass. They are like dumb driven cattle, like galley slaves chained to the oar, pulling at the oar but making no progress. They have nothing. They have no home, nor even a piece of ground to be buried in. They live from hand to mouth. They are whip- lashed by necessity. They have no hope. There is no light in their countenance. They are like machines wound up. At last a cog breaks, or a wheel, something falls out of place, they go to pieces and are cast aside like a lot of scrap into the dump heap of dust we call the grave. 688 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Nor is this all. Men are filled with passions, with appetites; and these passions and appetites leap upon them like wolves, like wild beasts. Men hate them, cry out against them and then, follow them, yield to them, shiveringly obey them as rod-smitten bond slaves. Nor even, is this all. Men do not die as the day dies, softly, but again and again with agony, fearing to die; but because of their sufferings cursing each moment they do not die. Look about you, look upon the world, a world full of agony, of tragedy and unspeakable an- guish in body, soul, mind, and tell me that this is the best and most perfect life; tell me that human life is a triumphant success; be brave, honest and independent of convention and speak the truth. The incompleteness of life mechanically is daily demonstrated. You use a telescope and boast of it, but you use it because your eyes fall short in vision. You use a telephone because your voice will not carry. You have rapid transit to overcome the $lownes$ of your natural locomotion. Every sur- THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 689 geon, every physician is a protest against the failure of the body; every teacher is a testimony to the need of the mind ; every act of legislation, all the efforts at reform are protests on the part of man against his present condition. All these bear witness that human life is not complete, that in so far as its incompleteness it is a failure. And the failure of life individually is empha- sized by its failure governmentally. The record of human government is the rec- ord of battle, bloody tyranny and oppression, tragedy and lamentation, murdered men, vio- lated women, orphaned children, ruined cities, monuments overturned, fields scorched with fire, civilization destroyed; the history of the world is the history of one civilization after an- other destroyed. At this present moment fifteen or twenty of the foremost nations of the earth are leaping at each other's throats gorging themselves with one another's blood. All the genius and science of man is engaged in invent- ing instruments of destruction. The victory is reckoned by the number of the enemy killed, 690 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER wounded, maimed or made prisoners. Each is seeking to do the other the greater harm. Each is looking over the trench at the other in the hope the other will starve and agonize. And if to-night the world should end the angels of God would look eastward in horror at Ypres, La Chapelle, the Somme, Verdun and the battle- fields of the South and East and say, "there human government went down in blood and shame." If peace should now be made it could not abide. It would only be the prelude to fiercer conflict. England could not demobilize. An English admiral has said if Germany had moved by sea and land upon England at the beginning, England was so unprepared, so defenseless she would have been at the feet of Germany and her vassal for a hundred years. England just came too near to disaster to disband her army now. France was too near being caught and held at Calais to set aside her heroic and self-devoted army. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 69 1 Russia has learned that no matter how many millions of men she may have they are of no avail without artillery and guns, plentiful ammu- nition and strict discipline. Germany after nearly three years of war in which she has been able to keep the invaders' feet from off her soil, feels herself justified in the forty years' preparation that gave her at the outset the best guns and gives her to-day the present strength in organization, in generalship and power. Germany cannot disband that army which so far has been a rampart of steel against which the Allies have dashed in vain. But admit for the sake of argument the na- tions should disarm and peace be declared, the Word of the living God has said that at the very time when they shall say peace and safety sudden destruction shall come upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape; and over all is heard the words of the Son of God declaring that to the end wars and desolations are determined; that till He Himself returns there will be wars and rumors of wars, that nation shall rise against nation. 692 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Admit that peace will be made, it could not be permanent. The need and the law of expansion among the nations would make it impossible. Germany must expand. She feels her need to push eastward and to the Persian Gulf. Should she do so she would be at the back door of India and this' would cut the British Empire in two. She would be a barricade in the way of Russia to that Constantinople she has coveted for cen- turies. Germany must expand upon the sea. Within the last ten or fifteen years she has shown her ability to compete in the markets of the world and her ^'Made in Germany" was a chal- lenge and an issue with every nation. Should she expand her marine she would menace the su- premacy of England on the sea, and when the supremacy of England on the sea is set aside she is shorn of her power and sooner or later would be cut loose from her ^^little lions," her colonies across the seas. Should the North Sea become in reality the German Sea, should Germany ob- tain control of the English Channel it would be THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 693 English no longer and France would be reduced to a province. In the nature of the case the effort at ex- pansion made on the part of each nation would require the support and need of armies to en- force and sustain it. But let it be said that disarmament remains and war upon the battlefield is at an end, there will be seen rising on the horizon that immense and spectrelike thing we call the social revo- lution. At noontide look upward to the sky. There it is like the blue dome of an infinite temple. The sun is hanging in the midst like a scintillating censer and pouring forth the wealth of its golden light. The mountains rise in the distance like the altars of the gods. The valleys are like laps of bounty, the rivers stretch like silver harp- strings to the sea. The sea thunders back its diapason and pours its foam-fringed waves like ^^kneeling worshippers" upon the shore. The forests range over hill and dale like unbroken ranks of marching armies, the waters of river and lake and sea are full of fish, the woods are 694 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER full of game, there is land everywhere in rich- ness and beauty, land enough and room enough for every man to have a home and gratify his every natural and implanted need. And yet, it is not so. It is to-day as it always has been. The few are rich, the many are poor. In spite of all pro- test against the phrase, nevertheless it is true, the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. In olden times when the multitude began to murmur they gave them cornships, distributed bread to the hungry or gave them public shows to entertain them and turn their minds away from their straitened circumstances and their discontent; and when this would not satisfy the rulers fomented foreign wars and sent the peo- ple out to the slaughter pens of battle that the ranks of insubordination and revolt might be thinned. But that will not do now. Education is universal. ^Knowledge is cheap, the means of it at every hand and many run to and fro. The peoples of every clime visit each other, mingle and mix. What is known at one THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 695 end of the earth is known at the other. Every- where the Gospel of discontent is preached by word, by written article, by picture, by speaking cartoons and moving film. A man buys a cheap chromo, the copy of a masterpiece. As he stands before it he asks him- self why he should not possess the original as well as another. He sees a car go by, the fa- ther and mother lying back soft-cushioned in luxury with their pampered child. He looks down at his own boy covered with grime bend- ing to work as he did and his fathers before him and a frown wrinkles his brow, it deepens, and he gives a fiercer turn to his knife-blade as he sharpens it on the revolving stone. Before the war the socialistic discontent be- gan to mutter in the German Reichstag. It made itself felt in the laboring class in England. It gave sabotage to France. It was a rising and deepening tide in this country. The laborer, the wage-earner, took on a sullen and resentful mien and sought more than equality with the em- ployer, ownership and mastery were seen to be the brooding and fermenting ideas. They have 696 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER grown lawlessly independent. No man is so in- dependent and insufferable as the employee who has nothing. His independent manner and his incivility are his asset, as he thinks, of liberty, of freedom. The demand is for higher wages, shorter hours, less work,. Let the war stop to- morrow and this socialistic demand, this spirit of revolt against capital will rise and sweep all before it and instead of national we shall have social and industrial war. The Word of God in solemn warning tells us the rich are ^'heap- ing" their treasures together for the last times that it may be seized and squandered by the mob. But, let it be said the social republic is estab- lished, it cannot abide in peace. It is doomed by the basic law of human life. That law is self-interest. Self-interest is a magnificent factor in human history. It levels the mountains, fills up the valleys, builds cities and changes the wilderness into fruitful fields. The thing which will send you men out to mingle in the swirl and rush and tide of life to- morrow will be this impelling factor of self- interest THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 697 It has been the secret of human achievement, but it carries its penalty, the penalty of the impingement of personality upon personality. The strength of a man is in ratio to his personal- ity. If your personality is actual and of avail you will resent anything that seeks to hinder or undervalue it. You will resent even a frown of disapproval as an assault upon that individual- ism. You will not tolerate it; and it is this in- tensity of personalism as the expression of self- interest that strikes against other personalisms and produces conflict. Here is a man who is a laborer. He becomes a walking delegate. He exercises authority over others. He becomes a contractor, then a grafter (the transition is easy) then a capitalistic oppressor. Others re- volt and the conflict is on. And there is no hope of changing the out- come. No matter how far you may project human life the end of every proposition and scheme for abiding human peace and personal satisfaction will be a failure unless you can change the con- stitution of man himself. 698 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Unless you can make one man set up the per- sonality of another and consider it and its inter- ests before his own; unless you can make him an entirely new creature (and this is impossible by evolution), no matter how far you may pro- ject human life it must end in failure. No matter how far you may culture the indi- vidual you can never eliminate these funda- mental characteristics: brevity, uncertainty, mystery and inadequacy. No matter how far you may project the line of human government, whether autocracy, aris- tocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, democracy, at the end is — failure. Think of it, brevity, uncertainty, mystery, in- adequacy, war, famine, pestilence, poverty, dis- ease, agony, suffering, suffering of body, and soul and mind, death, the grave and — silence. Would you dare to stand up and tell me in the face of all that, in the face of this phantas- magoria that human life and the experiment of human self government have been a success? Nay I They have been a colossal failure. The cause of this failure is twofold. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 699 Primarily, because man refused to fulfil the purpose of God concerning Him. God purposed to make man His vicegerent, His representative incarnation. The one condition: man should surrender himself to the personality of God, allow God to become enthroned in him. Had he done so he would not have been through all these long ages a mere animal work- ing with tools, but a god who should have com- manded and it would have been done ; he should have spoken and it would have stood fast. In- stead of belonging to the chain gang of labor, earning his bread in the sweat of his brow, he would have been a prince upon his throne, his royal sceptre his slightest will. God never meant man to be a toiling slave. He never meant him to be dependent on second- ary means. He meant him to move and act as the Man of Nazareth. When He came to the waters of the lake He just stepped upon them and not a drop touched the arches of His instep as He walked like one upon the motionless mosaic of a marble floor. 700 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER But man listened to his own self-conscious- ness. He was taken up with himself. He would be the god of this world and un- aided of any other personality than his own. He turned his back upon God and became an intellectual and immoral animal. The second and instrumental cause of man's action and resultant fall and failure was the en- trance into and the impact of an immense per- sonality upon the world. That personality we call the serpent, the Devil and Satan. Serpent because 'of his sinu- ous, silent and gliding way, everywhere distill- ing and infusing his poison; Devil that is, slan- derer and, therefore, liar; Satan^ that means, adversary, hinderer, rebel. He is the opposite of God's positive. He is the emphasized nega- tive. He is not holy. He is not pure. He is not righteous. He is not good. He is not truth. He is not anything God is or likes. He is night to morning, darkness to light, evil to good. He whispered to man that man was in no need rf being in leading strings to any superior God; THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^1 he had in himself all the elements, all the re- quirement, all the endowment sufficient to en- able him to make the world his own and rule it as God. Man entered into partnership with the Devil, became his enthronement instead of the en- thronement of God. He became the Devil's dupe and slave. For six thousand years he has led man into the debauchery of brutism, self- gratification and sin, into idolatry, false religion, and unbelief. Full of self-consciousness and self-exaltation man has endeavored to regain the place from which he fell. All his inventions have been an expression of his determination to be the god and master of nature and thus the god of the world; but all his inventions have been and are but crutches revealing his shortage and descent from original power. In spite of his partnership with the Devil, that partnership which the Son of God recog- nized when He said to men, ''This is your hour and the power of darkness/' (or, literally the potentate of darkness) ; in spite of all the efforts 702 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER he has made, seemingly at times almost super- human, he has failed and every hour only evi- dences he must fail. He is a dethroned god under the ban, and has no power now to reach the place, by any effort of his own, that might have been his. He is a failure. A colossal failure. But when God is rejected upon one plane of His purpose He always (speaking after the man- ner of men) rises to a higher. When the natural man whom He created re- fused to walk in partnership with Him, He brought into view that purpose which He had purposed from unbegun eternity, His purpose concerning the earth. Whatever may have been His purpose in detail in the creation of other worlds I do not know. The Psalmist has told us in general terms. He says the heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse showeth His handiwork. The omnipotence of God is told out in yonder sky in the terms of suns and nebulae and systems, and in every coruscation of light that breaks like THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^3 foaming waves on shores of countless universes; but this world of ours is one of the most insig- nificant of all. He did not create it as the su- preme expression of His omnipotence. It does show omnipotence in every pebble on the shore, in every blade of grass as well as lifted mountain range, but He did not create it for that. He created it that it might be the arena for the reve- lation of His love, that it might be the revelation of His heart. He anticipated the creation and the fall of man and purposed to send His Son into this world to become the incarnate redeemer and saviour of men. He ordained the place of the cross and the hour of His death thereon. In the fulness of time He came. In coordina- tion with the Father and the Spirit He formed for Himself a human nature from the seed and cell of a virgin woman. At the appointed mo- ment He went to His death. He offered Him- self as a sacrifice for sin. He arose. He as- cended. He sits in yonder Heaven the eternal God-man, God and man, two natures, human 704 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER and divine, in one body and one person forever, the Second Man, the new Adam, the spiritual Head of the race, able to give new and spiritual life to men. For two thousand years an immense spiritual gestation has been going on. There has been forming in this world as a babe is formed under the bosom of the expectant mother, a spiritual body. That body is the Church. By the Church I do not mean the great professing system of Christianity, but the true, the genuine Church of which we are members who by faith in Christ crucified and risen have been made partakers of His life. His nature, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit are linked up to His risen and glorified body in Heaven. Each member of this body is a son of God in embryo. Like the gestation of a human body the spirit- ual body will have its birth hour. That birth hour will be at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Coming as King, as Lord of lords, as the God of the whole earth ; but before He comes as such He will descend softly, silently as the Head of the Body into the air. He will THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^5 raise the dead who have died in His name. He will transfigure the living who are His. He will gather them to Himself and take them tempo- rarily into the upper and golden city. As soon as this birth takes place then will be seen the acceleration of that other and terrible gestation which has been going on since the be- ginning of the fall. From the beginning of human history there have been but two men in the sight of God, the First man and the Last, Adam and Christ; so, have there been but two seeds, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The seed of the woman is the Christ of God, Christ the Head and Christ the Body, the Church. The seed of the serpent is the natural man and this system we call ^^the world." Through the ages this system has been developing in sin, in animalism, in idolatry, in philosophy, science and unbelief. After the departure of the Church it will de- velop with amazing rapidity along lines of gov- 7o6 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER ernment and blasphemous repudiation of God and His Christ. I have told you in preceding sermons that twenty-five hundred years ago God gave the rulership of the world to the Gentile nations occupying the territory from Scotland to the Euphrates, from Germany to Africa; that this rule was ordained to, and did, descend through the four great empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome; that Rome should be the last Gentile world power; that in the closing hours of this age Rome should be revived under the form of ten democratic kings, five in what was once the western empire and five in the eastern; that this revival and division would come about, not only by war, but by the uprising of the peo- ple who should elect the kings ; that due to the state of anarchy more or less ruling throughout the territory a mystic person continually fore- told in Scripture should arise and becom.e the accepted head of these kings and kingdoms, tak- ing His place as King of kings and Lord of lords; that he should be the last Kaiser; that he is the man of sin, a pro Christ, an Alter Christus, THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^^? When the mask is off and the features seen we know him. He is the Devil's Son, the Devil's man, the fulfilment of the Devil's long ambi- tion and aim. He and the revived Roman Em- pire are the consummation of the gestation of sin. He and the empire stand in contrast to Christ and His Church. This political combination, this confederation of kings is the system, the evil body in which, and this man the evil head through whom, the Devil finds his way to imitate the incarnation of God's Son and by this great counterfeit become the accepted God of the world. He, the Devil's man, will restore the Jews to their own land. He will set up, as you have heard, the Jewish State. He will offer himself to, and be accepted by, the Jews as their political, if not real Messiah. He will make a treaty with them for seven years. At the end of three years and a half he will break the treaty. Under the hardening judg- ments of God he will become their persecutor. He will bring in the Great Tribulation which the Lord has said will be unparalleled in its 7o8 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER horror. The world never saw anything like it before, and never shall again. In his madness, a demonized man. Devil- filled and Devil-crazed he will rush with his army to Jerusalem. Like Julian of old he will seek at one fell blow to wipe out and destroy every remaining tradition of Christianity. He will seat himself in the temple he has permitted the Jews to rebuild. He will declare man to be the highest expression of the God idea in the universe. He will claim to be the super man, above all other men and the perfect and final representation of the God idea. He will op- pose all other idea of God. He will show him- self that he is God. He will set up his image, his effigy. He will set it on the battlements, that is, the pinnacles of the temple in full view of the people. He will demand that men shall pay homage to it; not in a mere, vulgar, coarse, idol- atrous way, but as an expression of their faith in him and their belief in the deity of man. In worshipping him, they will be exalting hu- manity in themselves. Now will come the fulfilment of the promise and prophecy made in Eden. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^9 It was affirmed the serpent should bruise the heel of the woman's seed and the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. The serpent with his seed or system did bruise the heel of the woman's seed, there at the cross. Our Lord Jesus Christ, even though God the Son, God of God, and very God of very God, was clothed with a humanity in which He could die. While it is true He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin; while it is true no one took His life from Him; while it is true He dis- missed His own spirit, His human spirit, and thus acted in dying, yet as He made use of the instrumentality of the men who crucified Him; so, in some mysterious way He made use of the Devil of whom it is said he had "the power of death," and thus at His own determination and will was bruised by the serpent. The hour is coming when He will bruise the head of the serpent, that head and front of of- fending who is none other than the man of sin, the Anti-Christ. I have told you the Lord is Coming as the stone cut out of the mountains without hands 710 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER which fell upon the feet of the image and broke it in pieces. He is Coming to Jerusalem to overthrow this man and his blasphemous and political confed- eration. I have in these sermons continually described the Coming of the Son of God in glory. I have said to you my vocabulary is exhausted. It is. I am a beggar for words. It would be impos- sible for me to represent this apocalyptic splen- dor, the consummation triumph, unless I could' talk in the parabolic phrase of sun, of system, of nebulae and constellation; unless I could speak to you in the hallelujah chorus of angel choirs and clothe my thoughts in all the colorful beauty of the throne encircling iris; unless I could so describe the Son of God Himself till you should see Him through the transparency of the terrible crystal and from His face there should blaze the radiance of His unmixed, essential glory that should make suns and moons and stars and all the light of Heaven as no more than darkling shadows beneath His feet. I cannot more describe it. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7 1 1 But the Lord will come with all His saints and the innumerable hosts that have been wait- ing since the first birth hour of the world for this anticipated moment. The Mount of Olives will cleave in twain at the touch of His feet. One-half of the moun- tain will roll back like a fold to the north, the other half to the south. There shall be a very- great valley for the gathering of the saints. At the word of the Lord the Devil's incar- nation and his false priest shall be cast into the fiery gulf that will open in the valley of Ge- hinnom. He will send an angel to lay hold on Satan, bind him and cast him into that underworld whither he has caused multitudes to descend. Then will come the judgment on the armies of the nations gathered there. You will remember that after the~ translation of the Church to Heaven the Lord will send out elect and converted Jews to preach the Gospel of the kingdom and to announce the Coming of the true Messiah, the true God of all the earth. Any one among the armies of the Anti-Christ who may have given to such a Jew nothing more 7 1 2 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER than a cup of cold water will be spared and per- mitted to remain in the coming kingdom; but the rest will melt away as wax before the sun, or as the wind-swept chaff that is devoured by flame and fire. The Jews gathered from every quarter of the world will fall down before the Lord in bitter- ness of soul. They will ask Him (as the question shall be asked a false prophet) whence came the wounds they see in His hands. He will tell them He received them from their fathers, from the blind and unbelieving house of Israel. They will repent with lamentations and tears. A fountain will be opened in Jerusalem for uncleanness and sin. He will Himself be that very fountain. He will pardon. He will for- give. They will take up the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and cry: "We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. "But he was wounded for our transgressions, THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^3 he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastise- ment of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ^^All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." This will indeed be repentance unto life and salvation. This will be the fulfilment of the promise that the Deliverer should come to Sion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The Lord will receive them. If in the wisdom and foreknowledge of God the "casting of them away" has been the "recon- ciling of the world," the receiving of them again can be nothing less than "life from the dead." There in this new conformation of the Mount of Olives the Lord will make unto all the people a feast of fat things. He wall swallow up death in victory. He will wipe away tears from ofif all faces and the rebuke, the shame and stigma that has been upon the Jew will He take away from all the earth. Filled with joy and gladness this repentant and now regenerated people shall cry aloud: 714 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER "Lo this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us : this is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and re- joice in His salvation." At the head of His redeemed nation and amid the gaze of the encircling hosts of Heaven, in the fellowship of that Church that long before had owned and followed Him, He will enter in kingly triumph into Jerusalem. It will be the true and anti-typical — Palm Sunday. Then as written in the twenty-fourth Psalm the voices shall cry: ^Xift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." From within the gates of the city voices reply and ask: ^Who is this King of glory?" And the full and choral answer will come as when the sea breaks all its thunders on the shore : ^The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7 1 5 "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." The atmospheric heavens that now surround the earth are full of dust, bacteria and every germ of disease and death. With a word the Son of God will cause them to roll away and in their stead shall be a new atmosphere which like a crystal river shall pour its waves of life around the far-flung circumfer- ence of the earth. Through its pure transparence there shall be seen shining in its golden glory that holy city, that promised "place" in the third heavens whither our Lord went two thousand years ago to prepare for His Church. Into this city whose glory and wonder can alone be described in terms of gold, of jasper, of pearls, of precious stones and cloudless light the main body of the Church shall return. Those who at the previous judgment seat of reward have been noted for special faithfulness in this hour of the Lord's absence will remain on earth. They will enter into the "joy of the Lord," 7l6 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER even into this kingdom which is to be His reward as well as theirs. They are to be His associated rulers and administrators in the new day that is to dawn upon the earth. A mighty river will break out from the tem- ple area of Mount Zion and flow down to the Dead Sea, changing it into a lake of fresh, trans- parent water. The whole country through which the river shall pour itself will be made beautiful and fruitful as the garden of the Lord. Jerusalem shall be rebuilt and made resplen- dent. It shall be built unto the Lord. It will be His throne and dwelling place. To-day its ancient foundations are sunken deep beneath the accumulated debris of centuries; but the promise of God long ago given by His prophet Jeremiah is that this shall be cleared away, the old stones with their hewers' marks shall be uncovered and once more as the prophet says, the city shall be builded "upon her own heap." "It shall be built from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner," and the measuring THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7 17 line shall go forth from Gareb to Goath. It shall be so built that never more will it be "plucked up," nor "thrown down" by the hand of man. The great temple will be erected. It will be set up according to the plan laid out in the closing chapters of the prophet Ezekiel. Sir Inigo Jones, the great English architect, once declared should the temple really be built according to the lines there laid down, the struc- ture would rise in such proportions of beauty, majesty and resplendent glory that the wonder of it would fill the earth. When the city has been built, the temple fin- ished and the vast "suburbs" or gardens designed of the Lord shall encircle Jerusalem, the city, "beautiful for situation," will indeed be, "the joy of the whole earth." Many years ago when I went to Rome and across the wide and historic campagna — beyond the ruins of gigantic aqueducts and under the blue sky, shining white and towered and glisten- ing on her ancient hills of seven, and against the background of purple-tinted mountains, for 7 1 8 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER the first time I caught a view of the eternal city, involuntarily I cried aloud, ''Rome," and felt a quivering thrill in all my pulses. Some Italians by my side rose and with voice of exultation, of pride, of triumph and seeming adoration cried out involuntarily even as I had done, but more softly in their native tongue, ''Roma." When the multitudes of pilgrims shall come from the uttermost parts of the earth to visit and worship the Lord in Jerusalem, to fall down be- fore Him as Thomas did and say, as he did, "My Lord and my God"; when they get their first glimpse of the holy city they will cry out ere they know it : "The Lord is there." Yes, that will be the name of the city; as it is written : "The name of the city from that day shall be THE Lord is there." He of whom men have dreamed, whom men have denied, whose very existence has been ques- tioned, whose form has been sought amid the clouds and far stars. He will be there in all the fulness of His godhead bodily, in His deity, His THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 719 humanity, the mighty God, the Son of God, Son of Mary, Son of Man and Prince of Peace. And the heart of multitudes will throb and the lips will give utterance to poeans of praise as they cry: "The Lord is there." It will be as when the mariner on tempest- tossed sea after long days and nights of weary vigil sees the distant shore break into view and cries, "the land, the land." It will be as when dying with thirst in sandy deserts men see the clear and flowing stream and cry, "water, water." O, the multitudes as they see the wondrous city, the glorious temple and breathe the pure and health-giving air will cry: "The Lord is there." That will be the name of the city: ^^Jehovah Shammah — The Lord is there." The Lord will remember His covenant with all Israel, with the ten tribes as well as the two, with Ephraim as well as with Judah. For twenty-five hundred years their identity has been lost amid the nations of the East whither 720 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER they were carried. They have never been hid- den from His eyes. By the exercise of His om- nipotent power He will reveal them to the world and to themselves. He will call them out and separate them as the fine gold is separated from the dross. With His own stretched-out hand He will gather them; as it is written: ^Tor thus saith the Lord, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. "Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth w^ith child together: a great company shall return thither. "They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say. He THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 72 1 that scattered Israel (the ten tribes) will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock/' (Jeremiah 31 : 7-10.) He will bring them into the land of Palestine. They shall no longer be two nations. They shall no longer be separate peoples, the one wanderers among the Gentiles, and the other sunken in them as those who be in their graves. They shall be one nation upon the mountains of Israel; as it is written : ^Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: "And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all ; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms, any more at all." (Ezekiel 37:21-22.) According to His promise the Lord shall make them the head and no longer the tail of nations. They shall be above only and not be- 722 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER neath. They shall be plenteous in goods, in the fruit of the body, in the fruit of cattle, in the fruit of the ground. The Lord shall open to them the good treasure of heaven, to give them rain in season and to bless all the work of their hands. They shall lend to the nations and not borrow; and all the people of the earth. shall see that they are called by the name of the Lord; that they are a redeemed, a regenerated and a holy people. The twelve apostles, themselves Jews, will be their rulers, administrators and judges, accord- ing to the promise which the Lord Himself promised: as it is written: '^I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me; "That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel/^ (Luke 22: 29-30.) The Lord will take His seat in the temple. He will sit there as Son of Abraham. As the Son of Abraham He is the covenant owner and possessor of the land, THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 723 In the far away centuries God made the cove- nant with Abraham ; as it is written : ''Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt (from the Nile) unto the great river, the river Euphrates." (Genesis 15: i8.) And writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the Gentile believers in the Church at Galatia, the Apostle Paul says : "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, WHICH IS Christ." (Galatians 3: 16.) He will sit in the temple as the Son of David. As the Son of David He is the heir of David's throne ; as it is written : "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: "And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." (Luke 1:32, 33.) He shall sit in the temple as the Son of the Virgin Mary. 724 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER As the Son of the Virgin Mary He shall be Jesus still, He who shall save His people Israel from their sins: as it is written: "She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name jESUS : for he shall save his people from their sins." (Matthew i : 21.) He shall sit in the temple as the Son of Man, As the Son of Man He is the supreme, the final Judge; as it is written: "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; "And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." (John 5: 26, 27.) He will sit in the temple as the Son of God. As the Son of God, He will be, God the Son, avouched as such by the Father and proclaimed the eternal and righteous king; as it is written: "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of righteous- ness is the sceptre of thy kingdom." (Hebrews He will take upon Himself His office as Teacher. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^5 He will teach this Old Book, the Bible. What a spectacle that! What dynamic of suggestion! What a commentary on some men in the pulpit, the recent graduates of modern theological schools or those resident in their atmosphere and overcome by them; men who have little place in their ministry for the Bible except as a storehouse for texts with which to prove to their own satisfaction and the undoing of the faith of others, that it is not the inspired, infallible Word of God. What a commentary on the men who have gone through the Bible and are ready to accept any authority as final but that: He will teach the Bible as we have it to-day. He will justify the cosmogony of Moses and verify the forecast of all the prophets. He will make His face to shine from the dull- est page till the simplest lines shall be as a flood of effulgent and apocalyptic glory. He will take His listeners over the hallowed Aground of His earthly life; to Bethlehem where He was born, to the place of the wayside khan wherein He lay the night the angels sang. He 726 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER will take them to Olivet where His soul seemed to ooze from His body in the blood of agony; and He will show the place of His cross where He died and paid the ransom of a world. He will point out the true and holy sepulchre from whence He arose true God and real, im- mortal man. The Word of the Lord shall go forth from Jerusalem. It will be a worldwide evangelism. Redeemed and regenerated Israel will be the ministers ; as it is written : "Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God." (Isaiah 6i : 6.) With their polyglot tongue they shall carry the tidings to the ends of the earth. The very name, the very word, "Jew," will lend honor to him who wears it. Men of the nations will seek out him who is called a Jew that they may learn the things of God. The nations of the earth will look upon a Jew as the depositary of divine truth and will seek them out; as it is written : THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 7^7 ^'Men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you ; for we have heard that God is with you." (Zechariah 8: 23.) Isaiah tells us that "all nations" shall flow unto Jerusalem. They will come from the utter- most parts of the earth to behold the Lord. The universal and perfected means of com- munication will flash the news to every hamlet, to every spot where human beings dwell. All shall come to know the Lord is in His holy temple. All shall know it from the least unto the greatest. As the result of His presence and the outpour- ing of all the ends of the earth to own and con- fess Him vast multitudes shall be genuinely re- generated and made one with Him. As a result of this universal change in man, this coming in of a new nature and the domina- tion of the divine spirit in the heart and con- science, self-interest in its selfish and aggressive form shall be dethroned. As a consequence of this denial of self as an aggressor against an- 72 8 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Other, envy and jealousy will be like serpents with their stings extracted. War will come to an end. Men will no longer butcher each other for an imagined right or wrong. The fields will no longer be sown with the dragons' teeth of hate. Blood will not drench the earth, nor slain men's bones fertilize the grave-filled soil. Swords will be beaten into plough shares, spears into pruning hooks, nation shall no more lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more. Colleges and schools to train men in the art of war will cease to have either stu- dents or teachers. All the material of war will be converted into instruments of peace and means for conserving and not for destroying life. The sound of trumpet and of drum will be hushed and the tramp of marching feet no more be heard. Individual land ownership will be abolished. There w411 no longer be such a monstrosity on God's fair earth as of one man owning thousands of acres and another not even enough of ground to be buried in ; one man worth millions and an- other worth nothing; one man able to gratify THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 729 every desire and without an effort, and another with the sweat of his brow, the weariness of his body and the ache of both heart and brain scarce able to meet his minimum need. The day of graft and syndicate privilege, the conspiracy of the few against the many will be over. There will be but one ownership of land, the ownership of the Lord. Round the wide earth the proclamation of the twenty-fourth Psalm will be repeated: ^'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein." All property will be held in trust from the Lord. Each individual will be a tenant of the King. Each man will be given a home ; as it is writ- ten: "They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid." There will be competition among men, but it will be a competition in righteousness, in devo- tion to God. It will be a competition in which 730 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER he who is most filled with truth and holiness and love, love to man and love to God, ever ex- panding and deepening love to God through ever expanding and deeper love to man; he who seeks most in all things to please the Lord, shall be most exalted, most renowned. It will be a competition in which the success and en- richment will be measured not in land, but in love, in spiritual life, in soul dominion. The ban will be taken off the earth. For six thousand years it has been under the original curse. The earth is a deep and fruitful m.atrix. It is filled with seed. It is ever in travail, ever it seeks to bring to the birth. Were it not re- strained and hindered and held in check it would bring forth in such abundance that neither ache of back nor sweat of brow would be required to reap and eat and drink of all the wealth of bounty it could bestow. But God ordained its fruitfulness should be limited. The sin of man had brought the seed of woe and filled earth's flanks with evil and with THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 731 poisonous things. Henceforth there should be weeds and briars and thorns and trailing vines to strangle and choke the good seed, to dwarf and kill the fruit. No care is needed for these hindering things. Weeds and thorns and poisonous vines will come up in the night. They will grow in the desert and flourish in the flinty rock; but if you would have the good seed grow, you must toil and labor and water it with your sweat and encourage its tardy growth with ybur painful care. Rain or drouth, chill winds and frost will little hinder the worthless thorns and weeds; but the good seed must be shielded from burning sun, from torrential rain, from mildew, from blast, from east winds that blow unwelcome storms and from insects which like heartless marauders, like the enemy in the dark, go forth to spoil with bite and sting the hoped-for, toiled-for yield. But in this new day the ban will, indeed, be lifted, and then will the desert blossom as the rose, the orchards will bend low with freighted fruit, the vines will hang their purple clusters in the sun, the earth shall be as the Paradise of God, and man its happy keeper. 732 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Once a year the nations will be under bond to send their representatives to Jerusalem to return thanks for fruitful fields and unfailing seasons. It will be true, and real, and universal Na- tional Thanksgiving. There will be no sickness, no disease. And this, primarily, because the Devil will be bound. Sickness comes from the violation of God's will in mind, in soul and body. This violation is stirred by Satan. He is its inspiration and cause. But Satan himself has the direct power of disease as he also has the power of death. This is taught by our Lord in the case of the woman who was so bowed and bent with a spirit of infirmity that for eighteen years she had been unable to lift herself up. The Lord healed her on the Sabbath day, and when the ruler of the synagogue protested, the Lord answered and said: '^Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on th^ sabbath day?" THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 733 But Satan will be bound for a thousand years. During his incarceration in the pit there will be no sickness nor disease among men. The in- habitants of the land shall not say, ^^I am sick." The atmosphere as the river of life shall bathe the bodies and invigorate the soul. Doctors and undertakers will lose their func- tion. There will be no more outbreaking of sin and violence. There will be no need of police, no judges, no courts, nor prisons, nor hangman's rope, nor elec- tric chair. The Lord Himself will rule. He will rule in righteousness. He will rule with a rod of iron. He will dash in pieces and break all opposi- tion as a potter's vessel. He will put down all rule and authority. He will reign as the Prince of Peace; but it will be a reign based on righteousness and law. The righteousnes and the law will be inex- orable. If any one shall tell a lie he shall die in his tracks ; as it is written : 734 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER ^'He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." (Psalm loi : 7.) Human life will be prolonged. There will be no more an ''infant of days." Infancy will not be spoken of in the term of days. The sinner who dies a hundred years old will be considered an infant; but he will die ac- cursed. His death will be the sign and seal of God's judgment. Consider what this prolongation of human life will mean. What a development there will be of the knowledge and powers of man. Imagine what an effect this prolongation of life and health would have had upon such an one as Shakespeare or Bacon. Take some of our great inventors, let them live five hundred years, who can tell the out- come of their ever developing genius? And the fact that always out of the earth new things can be taken, always fresh discoveries are made of hitherto unknown forces and laws and energies, rhe exhaustiessness of nature's treas- THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 735 ures, all these things prove that the earth was not made for a man of sixty or seventy years, but for men who could live forever. For a thousand years this government of Christ shall last. A thousand years in which every problem will be solved. Human life will no longer be judged as brief, uncertain, a mystery and inadequate. Government will no longer be built on the sword, cemented by blood, throbbing with hate, pulsing with fear and ruled by oppression, but a government of God administered by the hands of a righteous man who Himself is very God. A thousand years of prolonged life, with defi- nite aim, the revelation of truth, the fulness of light, of knowledge and understanding, the ban- ishment of sin, sickness and natural death, com- pensation, satisfaction and a limitless future for the unfolding of human powers and human hopes. A thousand years of peace, of divine glory and ever-increasing human splendor. A thousand years in which the humanity of 73 6 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER Christ will continually show the limitlessness of its resources, its infinite union with Godhead and interpenetration by divinity, but divinity which never mixes with or changes the human- ity. A thousand years in which the deity of Christ is ever manifesting itself as enthroned in His humanity and through the succeeding years pro- claiming the unsullied virginity of His human mother, proving and glorifying the infinite be- getting of His infinite Father. The government and kingdom of the thou- sand years. But the thousand years is only the time limit of the kingdom. It has its eternal side. At the end of the thousand years Satan will be loosed from his prison. He will be loosed that he may test the world. He is like acid upon metal. In spite of himself he is the revealer of the true by revealing the false. In this immense moment of test it will be found that a great multitude who lived under THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 737 the law of righteousness all these years and had their lives prolonged were never regenerated; never actually accepted the Lord. They sur- rendered to Him simply as the conquered yield to the conqueror. Scripture speaks of them continually as those who have ^^ feigned faith/' In spite of a thousand years of righteousness and peace; in spite of all the benefits they en- joyed, they are not of God, have not His life and the moment restraint is of¥ and the opportunity given they rebel and come against the holy city and its Holy King. It is a fearful proclamation of the unchange- ableness of human nature. It is the revelation and pilloring of evolution as the great and all Satanic lie, the lie that has deceived and is fooling the souls of men to-day. Fire from Heaven falls upon them and de- stroys them. Satan is cast into the lake of fire, the never dying, eternal suffering prisoner of state. The Great White Throne is set. The final assize is on. 738 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER The Son of God takes His place as the su- preme Judge of human kind. The Christless dead of all ages are raised, even those whose bodies have just been slain by fire. They will be judged and tried on many counts. All idolaters will be judged and witnessed against by the handiwork of God in the wide creation. The flaming sun of day, the burning stars of night, the whirling earth in its change of seasons all proclaim the one mind, the one will, the one thought, the one thinker behind it all, the eternal God — and render each image worshipper, each follower after a strange god without excuse. Men will be judged according to the oppor- tunity of the age in which they lived. They will be judged by: The Theophanies of Christ, By the ministry of angels. By the law. By the manifestation of God in the flesh — Christ at His first advent. By the Gospel ^y the thousand years. THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 739 None will be found to have his name in the book of life. The sentence of death originally passed upon them will be reaffirmed. They will die the second time. They will die by fire ! From this second death there is no resurrec- tion. They will be disembodied souls. They will be sent out into the wide universe, into the "outer darkness." They will be as "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." They shall wander through this unlit dark- ness of eternity as derelicts of humanity, tossed upon an endless and shoreless sea; souls that have missed the purpose for which created — union and fellowship with God. The earth will then be subject to purifying fire. The very heavens shall be as a winding sheet of flame. Every stain of sin, every mark of evil, every scar of wrong, every memory of unrighteousness, every trace of pain, of sickness, of sorrow, of death and the grave will be washed 740 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER away by this all-cleansing flood of elemental and judicial fire. The earth will not be destroyed. It will be made new. It will be renewed. As there has been a re- generation of the soul, a regeneration of the body, so will there be a regeneration of the earth. In the old creation God began with the earth, then the body of man and after that the soul. In the new creation He begins with the soul, refashions the body and the earth. Made new and beautiful, clean and holy, it will be lifted into the center of all the universe. Already our solar system is sweeping, astronomers tell us, with accelerating speed toward that star- less, that "empty place" in the North of which Job ages ago before telescopes were known so accurately and scientifically spoke. The earth, redeemed, regenerated, made pure and holy will now be handed by the Son back to the Father. God shall get His own world again as it was in that original creation recorded, not in the second, but in the first verse of Genesis, It will be the same world, but that same world with plus — plus a race of redeemed and glori- THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 74* fied men, one time sinners, lost and undone, but now filled with eternal life, made sons of God and forever more the trophies of infinite love, of measureless grace and that divine wisdom which found a way whereby God could be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly, justifying every one who should believe in Jesus. A world of saved men, the center of the amazed, the adoring gaze of the measureless hosts of Heaven, glorifying God because of the OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE. A world upon which the angels of God shall look with rapturous joy, repeat and proclaim to Heaven's remotest bound the all-embracing truth — GOD IS LOVE — Father, Son and Holy Ghost— GOD IS LOVE. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, the Church as the Tabernacle of God shall descend into the regenerated earth. The Lord Himself will take up His abode among men. As He has revealed God to be Redeemer and Saviour, King of righteousness and truth, He will now reveal Him in all His fulness as the Father. He will be in His own person the Fa- 74^ THE THOUSAND Y.EARS AND AFTER ther of the everlasting age; so that, in Him the Christian may behold the Father's face and hear His voice; and yet, find Him to be this same Jesus, our great God and Saviour in whom shall continue to dwell all the fulness of the deity bodily. The earth shall be, no longer the footstool, but the throne of God. The whole universe will swing about this radiant center, looking with adoring wonder upon Jesus, the Christ, the Son as the revelation of the infinite God, the disclosure of His heart. The redeemed shall be men. They shall be God-men. There shall be no longer the organized dis- tinction among men known as nations. Nations are for administration and govern- mental restraint. Nations bear witness of the presence of sin, needing restraint There will be no sin and therefore no need of human government restraint. Israel, however, will be retained in national form, not for administration of government, but THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 743 as a memorial of the days of time and the nation specially chosen of God. The order of the Eternal State will be: The Father. The Son. The Church. Israel — the memorial nation. Men. The condition of life is described in Holy Writ: "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his peo- ple, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Eternity has opened for man. God and man are in partnership forever. God and man and God in man rule the uni- verse. The hideous, ages long nightmare of sin and rebellion is over. 744 the thousand years and after God is all in all. There is only one word to describe this KING- DOM OF God. That word is "INCREASE." "Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end." The government of Him who while David's Lord is — David's God. No END, only INCREASE, always increasing, al- ways unfolding fresh wonders, fulfilling that immense, measureless promise made to the Church and always to be realized in and by the Church first, in which "in the ages to come." God will "Shew the exceeding riches of His GRACE, IN His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." This is the eternal future for all who own and confess Jesus Christ crucified, dead, buried, risen again, ascended to Heaven and now seated at the right hand of God the Father; all who own Him as Redeemer, Saviour and Lord. The prelude to this immense kingdom and glory of God may take place at any hour by the secret, sudden descent of the Lord into the air THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 745 and the calling up thither of His true and re- deemed Church. If the Lord should come to-night those of you who have not accepted and owned Him would be left behind to woe, to anguish, to the final second death, to eternal disembodiment and ban- ishment in the endless darkness and as hopeless suffering wanderers forever. This is my last sermon of the series. During ten weeks I have set the truth before you and warned you of coming events and the only way of salvation. How shall I appeal to you in this hour, for now is the accepted time, now is the day of sal- vation. Shall I appeal to you by the sorrows of eternal regret, the agony of eternal remorse? Shall I appeal to you by all the ties of human love ; by the father who loved you and stinted himself for you; by the mother who bore you, was de- voted to you and' never ceased to pray for you? Shall I appeal by the little child, the song and the sunbeam in your life, that child that was taken from you, dwells in Heaven, but whose ab- 74^ THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER sence has made your home empty? Shall I ap- peal by the goodness of God; by the providence that has been round you and preserved you to this moment? Shall I appeal by the wounds of Christ? The other day, over there in the trenches a young French soldier lay dying on the field where he felL He heard the shouting and felt the rush as the column swept by. He raised his head and asked the meaning of it. They told him the enemy's lines had been taken and the tri-color was waving above them; as he fell back into the death that waited for him with his last breath he cried aloud, ^^Vive La France. I have not died in vain." Will you let Christ die in vain? Shall His blood be shed for naught? I can make no more appeal. You remember, do you not, when you were a boy, when you were tired or hurt, how good it was to lean your head against your mother's breast and feel her loving arms go round you, and hear her gentle words that bade you lie still THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER 747 and rest there above her beating heart, beating for you? They say among the last words soldiers utter who die over there, not mere boys, but sturdy, brave, heroic men is the one word — ^'Mother,'' With all a father's sacrifice, a mother's gentle- ness, the eternal God wants to put His arms around you (those arms He flung out wide and had them nailed on the cross for you). He wants to put His arms around you, caress you, soothe you, calm you. He is saying to you in soft, persuasive, sympathetic tones, "Come unto Me and rest.'' , All that is required of you is to yield your- self, confess your faith in Jesus Christ the eter- nal Son. Hear my last words, words whereby, if you will receive them, you may be saved, saved now, saved forever, find joy in God, take part in the coming thousand years and in all the after eternal glories. These are the potent, all-meaning, all-saving words for you, if you will. Hear them I pray you: ^- 748 THE THOUSAND YEARS AND AFTER ^^If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved/' (Romans 10:9.) R 10 1950 ^^ % 'J><\- ^ -^ "'^ .^ ^ o. %.0^ .%: ^V f:* i^ %>/■ /^^^^^^'; -^^ ^^M^-H %/' / w%?; ^^^ <^ ■v ^ '"^%iny^' V. " A<:>^ .-.■\ ■^ N>"^-»/% \c^^ # ^^ ' ^^ %!^-< .^^ ./ ^^^ ,r ^ o. ^^>^%^ ^^' <^^ rV ■\ V A*^ - <^ ^'7;. s^ A<^ lS ^. ^% ^-lii^^ ..^^ ^ G 0^ <> ^ . .'^^ A^ <^ '"/ ;. s^ A^' ^^i^.^^.,-^^ ^' /^^^ ' /^ ^ ^^ \\ M^. A- ^'J ^- / % \t