It was not for the Church to know in Paul"s day when the Lord should come as the bridegroom for His bride.
No revelation has been given in any epistle to the Church since.
What was true in Paul"s day as to the att.i.tude of the Church is true in this day. Listen to the commended att.i.tude of the Thessalonian Church:
"Ye turned to G.o.d from idols, to serve the living and true G.o.d; and to wait for his Son from heaven."
There you have it.
The Church is to wait; that means to watch, to expect, to be ready.
This is what the Apostle said.
This is what the Son of G.o.d Himself said and still says to-day.
He affirms we do not know the hour.
He exhorts us to watch.
The affirmation and the exhortation hold for this hour.
If therefore the Son of G.o.d be not incarnate falsehood; if He seek not to play with my heart and make me a spectacle to the lost souls of the pit as well as to the mockers among men--He means what He said.
If He meant what He said, then He means that any day, and any hour of the day so far as I know I may meet Him at any turn of the road.
And what would that mean if He should come to-night or to-morrow?
I have told you what it would mean to me.
What would it mean to you, to some of you who have so much invested in Laurel Hill, in that white and beautiful city of the dead, by the banks of your winding river?
When I was a boy my father took me there and I watched as the winds rippled through the long gra.s.ses, and I could hear the wash of the river below, I was startled and sometimes shivered as I walked under the shadow of tall monuments, carved figures, and by stately tombs of marble. And once I started back and broke into tears at the sight of the sculptured form of "Old Mortality" bending above a slab with chisel and mallet in hand--and I suppose is there still, grown older in his stony face because more stained with the pa.s.sing years.
What would it mean to you whose loved ones are lying in that cemetery or any other of the sleeping places of the dead?
Ah! it would mean the home-coming, the greeting, the rapturous kiss and hand-clasp of recognition, the joy of that heaven life that shall know no end and that immortality that shall compensate for all the weariness and the heartache of the mortal path here below.
Yes! it would mean to those of us who by faith in Christ Jesus are children of the living G.o.d, the gathering to our arms again of those who have left us and for whom our arms still ache to enfold them once more. And O my soul! it would mean the seeing of Him whom our soul loveth and who unfailingly has loved us; it would mean that boon of boons--seeing Him face to face.
Do you wonder the Holy Spirit who is the finger of G.o.d has written over against the word "hope," that qualification, "blessed," and affixed to it the demonstrative, "that," so it doth read: "That blessed hope"?
And yet! and yet! there are men who call themselves the ministers of Christ who would blot out that hope and take away the vision of it from our souls.
With cold, acute, metallic voices in which you may hear the sound of the wheels of machinery and the buzz of business, they tell us that should the Lord suddenly come it would paralyze all industry, put an end to commerce and to trade, overthrow all progress, make worthless every high endeavour for the betterment of man, shut the doors of school, of college and university, render useless the architect"s and builder"s plans, throw down the mechanic"s tools, the artist"s brush, the sculptor"s chisel, the writer"s pen, still the orator"s tongue, make null and void the legislator"s high emprise and draw a line of atrophy across the unfolding processes of human life.
Oh, foolish, blind and slow to believe, do you not see that if the Lord should come it would lift our so-called civilization out of the slime and shame of its brazen folly and reeking, though perfumed sin into the glory of eternal righteousness and peace?
Do you not see that it would, at last, make men immortal and give them such beauty of form, such sanity and such culture and worth of being as all the gymnasia and all the eugenics of the hour have failed and will ever fail to achieve?
Do you not see that if the Lord should suddenly come it would at once open the gates of knowledge and bring us face to face with the secrets of the universe and make us masters under G.o.d of all natural laws such as all the curriculae of all the inst.i.tutions of learning, of applied science and philosophy have failed to impart?
Do you not see it would be the fulfillment of the highest ideals and aspirations and would make man what the creator of heaven and earth originally intended man should be--not an animal working with tools and breaking his heart in vain finally to achieve--but a very G.o.d who should speak and it should be done, command and it should stand fast; and who should be the incarnate revelation, the eternal enthronement of the invisible G.o.d, in power, in character and holiness?
Do you not see it would change this old earth from the swinging cemetery of the dead into the home of deathless men, the home of the eternal and worth-while life?
Oh, listen to me all who hear me!
The hope for this world of daily toil and tears, of graves and unceasing tragedy, of pitiful woe, is not that slow creeping thing called evolution, wallowing on its serpentine belly amid the dust of death and the crime and sin of unchanged and unchangeable human nature--but G.o.d Himself--G.o.d in Christ, the personal Coming of Him who is the maker of heaven and earth, coming to bring in the new dawn, the new day, the new earth and the new empire of G.o.d and man.
Oh, tell me those of you who have been redeemed by blood, regenerated by the Spirit, made partakers of the divine nature, turned heavenward by the power of G.o.d, who see cloudless daylight in the Bible, even in the darkness of a spiritual night, hear music in its promises and whose souls are filled with love to G.o.d and love to man, tell me would you like Him to come, would you like to see your Lord face to face?
Oh, you who have had the vision of His cross behold it, I beseech you, there!
The head crowned with thorns, the nailed hands, the nailed feet, the pierced side, the blood pouring out of those hands, gliding round His body, weaving itself in its sinuous course over the white flesh into a robe of crimson, and then streaming out into a fringe of intense scarlet as it drops, drop by drop to the thirsty ground, dripping, dripping there. Oh, I can see it and I seem to feel the warm touch of it, the strange, the wonderful cleansing touch of it, the only thing that can make a blackened sinner white; and as it drops each drop seems to say till it turns to very music in the soul:
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
Listen to the dropping of that blood out of the heart of G.o.d, every drop the price current of the merchant, the half shekel of the sanctuary, the purchase price of your redemption and mine and the seal of infinite love, of measureless grace.
Oh, tell me would you like Him to come, transfigure you into the beauty of His likeness and put the benediction of His peace upon this old sin-smitten, tear-stained earth?
Do you ever pray the last prayer recorded in Holy Scripture, the last prayer of the Holy Apostolic Church?
Listen to it! Listen to it well!
"Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
Is this prayer in your heart?
Does it ever come to your lips?
Do you ever genuinely and openly offer it, wishing with all your heart it might be so, might be answered in your time; or, have you forgotten it like the Church at large?
Do you feel ashamed or afraid to offer it in public?
When you try to offer it in private or public does unbelief smother it?
I once heard a boy say to his mother:
"O mother, don"t do so much for me; love me more."
I tell you the truth whether you hear or forbear: as preachers and teachers many of you are doing too much for the Lord. You are busy, morning, noon and night in His name, running here and there, tinkering religiously and morally, putting things together and increasingly active; so busy doing for the Lord that like Martha you have no time to sit still at His feet as did Mary and hear His Word, hear what He has to say to you; so busy doing for Him that you are losing sight of Himself. This was the "somewhat" He had against the Ephesian Church.
That Church was full of works and labours. They had tested false doctrines and false teachers. They stood squarely for fundamentals and were theologically sound; but they had left their "first love,"
love to Himself, love to His person, devotion to His person, a flaming, outbreaking, overflowing enthusiasm for a personal, a realistic Saviour and Lord. They were taken up with what they were doing for Him rather than with Himself. They had got away from the loving, impelling touch and contact with Himself.
The personal touch with Christ!
That is what He wants from us. Not so much what we are doing for Him, but what He is to us personally. He wants to be the first and the last, the chiefest among ten thousands and the one altogether lovely. This is the definition of true and efficient Christianity --personal devotion to a living and loving Saviour.