Oh, what a scene it will be! The glory, the judgment! our Christ on His White Horse; His eyes a flame of fire; on his head many crowns (diamens,) vestured and girded with his t.i.tle "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS!" his bride is with Him--for the "_Marriage of the Lamb_" has taken place; the bride is every believer who has been gathered out of the world by the Spirit. You, who read this, he who writes this, if so be we are in Christ, "_looking for, and hasting the coming of our Lord_," yes, we shall be there, we shall be His army.
"_On white horses_," whether literal horses or not does not matter, the term implies force, power, swift movement, even triumph. Christ"s army will be a cavalry force. Like our Lord we shall wear no armour,--"clothed in fine linen, white, pure,"--we shall be immortal, "_no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper_."
Every enemy, every foe of Christ will be there. The earth-armies, the dwellers of the earth, Demon-possessed, will be blinded, deluded by the lie of the Anti-christ, and "The False Prophet." There is no madness or delusion into which the most rational of men will not run when they are demon-possessed.
"_Outside the city_, the battle takes place, for the city has become Holy by the recent presence of Christ. Not even a private soldier of Anti-christ"s hosts is _inside_ the city, for, it may well be, that Christ has already appropriated it.
"_Outside the city, the wine-press is trodden_!" wonderful figure!
"Fully ripe," is said to be the condition of the "_grapes of the vine of the earth_." What grape, more so a _ripe_ grape, can stand the weight of a man as his foot crushes down upon it? And the iron heel of "The Lion of Judah," crushes out the life of these gathered h.e.l.l-led, h.e.l.l-inspired hosts, "_and blood came forth out of the wine-press of G.o.d"s wrath, up to the bits of the horses for distance of 1,600 stadia_." A river of blood 160 miles in length, and reaching to the horses" bits in depth! Even if it be taken as a figure only, the figure is never so great as the fact it prefigures! "_The land shall be drunk with blood, and its dust made fat with fatness, for it is the day of Jehovah"s vengeance, the year of recompenses for the controversy against Zion_." Isaiah x.x.xiv. 7, 8.
As a picture of the absolute triumph of G.o.d, on this occasion, the Psalmist uses the most awful figure of any in the Bible--THE LAUGHTER OF G.o.d! "_He that sitteth in the Heavens SHALL LAUGH; the Lord shall have them in derision_." Ps. ii. 4. "_G.o.d is not mocked_!"
"_And the Beast (Anti-christ) was taken_." The ring-leader is first taken, not slain with the others. Taken alive, he is cast into the Lake of Fire. The confidence of the mighty host of h.e.l.l-inspired warrior hosts, had been "_Who is like unto the Beast? Who can war with him?_" But they see him taken, taken alive, taken without being able to lift a finger against his captors. Tophet had been prepared for him, and into that awful abyss he sinks to rise no more.
"_And with him the False Prophet who wrought the miracles in his presence_." Colleagues in evil on earth, the two are hurled into the same Lake of Fire.
"_And the rest were slain with the Sword of the Sitter on the horse_, (The Conquering Christ,) _which sword proceeded out of His mouth_."
"_He speaks and it is done_."
"_And a certain angel standing in the sun_," has been placed there ready to call forth the final actors on this hideous battle-field, "_cried with a great voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in mid-heaven, "Hither be gathered together to the great supper of G.o.d, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and flesh of captains of thousands, and flesh of mighty men, and flesh of horses, and of those that sit on them, and flesh of all (cla.s.ses of people,) both free and bond, and small and great . . . and the fowls were filled from their flesh_."
Rev. xix.
At the great and terrible conflict there are lightnings and thunders of unheard of force and might. "_The Lord of Hosts_," says Isaiah xxix.
6, "_shall visit with thunder, with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire_." All through G.o.d"s judgments, during the seven years of Anti-christ, aerial convulsions will be continual. One reason for this, during the later events will doubtless be to overwhelm and destroy the myriad _aerial_ engines of war used by the senselessly deluded attacking hosts arrayed against Jerusalem and against Christ and His Saints.
"_And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great_." Rev. xvi. 18.
Jerusalem will be split into three parts, as a result of this earthquake. But the effect upon the nations is _utter_ ruin,--"_the cities of the nations fell_." London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, every other city, collapses like a rent balloon, and the opened earth swallows up palaces and cots, men and women, and what the overwhelming and the falling shall not slay, shall perish in the awful conflagrations produced.
"_And Babylon the great was remembered in the presence of G.o.d to give her the cup of wine of the fierceness of His anger_." Babylon, the great, the colossal city of mighty splendor, re-built, as we saw earlier in this book, will have become exclusively a _commercial_ city.
All the vice and sin and voluptuousness of all the vilest cities of the whole world, through all the ages, gathered up into one whole foulness, would be as virtue compared with the foulness and vice and voluptuousness of the Great Babylon.
"_Fallen, Fallen, Babylon the Great_." May we gather from the twice-repeated word "Fallen," that the collapse comprises the two things "_Babylon, mystery!_"--the foul religious system, the false worship,--and also Babylon _the city_?
G.o.d does not settle His accounts every Sat.u.r.day night as petty tradesmen do. Babylon had been garnering judgment for herself, from the beginning. And the cry of doom goes out against her, from Heaven.
"_Render to her even as she rewarded, and double the double according to her works; in the cup which she mixed, mix for her double; insomuch as she glorified herself and was wanton, TO THAT PROPORTION give to her torment and grief. Because she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am not a widow, and shall see no mourning, therefore, IN ONE DAY, shall come her plagues, death, and mourning and famine, and with fire shall she be burnt, because strong is the Lord who hath judged her_."
And never more after this shall the foul city arise.
Awful convulsions of the earth will take place all over the world. The whole configuration of the earth shall be changed. Mountains and islands, well known before, will disappear.
With all the other aerial and other convulsions of nature, a hailstorm, covering an enormous area, will be one of the horrors, when, putting the weight of the stones at the lowest average, they will probably be quite a hundred-weight each.
And so event will follow event in such rapid succession as to puzzle the writer how to place them wholly in consecutive order. Satan will be taken and bound for a thousand years. The _living_ nations will have been judged as regards their treatment of the Jews, and as to their acceptance of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
On, on, on, event upon event, until the glorious millennial reign of Christ shall be ushered in.
But before anything of which we have written in these pages can come to pa.s.s, our precious, loving Lord must come into the air to take up His own people to Himself. For this every true Christian should be looking, waiting, watching,--and _working_ while they wait, for He has said "_Occupy_ till I come."
"So I am watching quietly Every day, Whenever the sun shines brightly I rise and say,-- "Surely it is the shining of His face,"
And look unto the gates of His high place Beyond the sea, For I know He is coming shortly To summon me.
And when a shadow falls across the window Of my room, Where I am working my appointed task, I lift my head to watch the door, and ask If He is come?
And the Angel answers sweetly In my home,---- "Only a few more shadows, And He will come."
"Even so, Lord Jesus! Come! Come quickly!"
"FINIS?" No! WAITING!