Jude is the smallest, that is to say, the shortest, of all the epistles. It is a clasp between the Old and the New Testaments.
Jude tells us Enoch the seventh man who lived on the earth testified, not of the first, but the Second Coming, saying:
"Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints."
Then we find ourselves in the Revelation.
This is the book of the Consummation.
The supreme subject is the Second Coming.
There are twenty-two chapters.
Each of the chapters portrays conditions and circ.u.mstances leading up to the great climax--the Second Coming and the immense and measureless consequences--the millennial reign and the eternal state.
The book is like the roof of a great cathedral, like the interior of the roof, groined and panelled--each panel a chapter.
It is like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in which, however, may be found figures and forms such as Michel Angelo never drew nor such even as his imperial and suggestive mind could conceive.
You will find in these chapters the figures of wild beasts, the dragon, fallen angels, fiends from the pit, that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan. If you will read and listen you will hear the blast of trumpets, the breaking of vials, the sounds of woe, the tramp of marching feet, the clash of battle, fire falling out of the heavens, trees and gra.s.s in flame, the waves of the sea turned to blood, fountains and streams become as wormwood and gall, the sun as black as a starless midnight, the moon hanging in the lowering heavens like a clot of blood, earthquakes, the scarlet tongues of outpouring volcanoes, thunderings and lightnings, all manner of wickedness and pervading sin, a world quivering as a ship in the storm, the bending heavens as though unbolted and insecure, all foundations apparently shattered and the universe itself as though rushing forward to its funeral pyre.
Heaven opens and the Lord comes forth riding a white horse, followed by armies on white horses, the horses the symbols of His power, each hoof beat as it smites the slant of heaven the sound of swift descending judgment.
On the Lord"s head are many crowns.
He is wrapped in a garment dyed in blood.
His eyes are as a flame of fire. His glances penetrate to the secret intents and purposes of the heart. They get behind every cloak of deception and every pretense. All the spotted nakedness of interior and intensive sin is revealed. Nothing remains in shadow, everything is illuminated to bareness, and the searching light of His looks goes through every fibre of being.
He is coming to reign and rule.
All the things the chapters record have been driving us to look forward to that; the woe, the anguish and the h.e.l.l on earth have been pleading and crying out for a master to master and put an end to the cataclysms of catastrophic iniquity; the very nature of things has been testifying that He must come.
He is responding to the demand that lies in the nature of things.
He is coming to reign and rule as a king. He is not coming with an olive branch in one hand and a cooing dove on His shoulder.
Nay!
He is coming with a rod of iron. He is coming to trample all opposition beneath His feet, put down all rule and authority, break to pieces and shatter as a potter"s vessel the pride of nations and the self-exaltation of man.
He is coming to establish peace, but not by means of compromise, by gentle and persuasive ways, but by war and as a man of war, as the man who is very G.o.d and judge omnipotent.
The book closes with the thrice repeated announcement from the Lord Himself:
"Behold, I am coming quickly."
This is the last utterance of the Lord from heaven.
To this the Church replies with its last recorded prayer:
"Amen, even so, come, Lord Jesus."
When you close the book you feel the next thing is--the Coming of the Lord.
If the value of a statement or doctrine is to be measured by the number of times repeated, then, since from Genesis to Revelation, in every form of human language the Second Coming is proclaimed, is stamped upon almost every page of the Bible, is inwrought with every fibre of truth it finally presents; since in the New Testament alone it is mentioned directly and indirectly more than three hundred times, as there is no other theme in the Bible that approaches it in frequency of repet.i.tion, it should seem that this event and doctrine of the Second Coming with all its promises and certified consequences should easily be of supreme and all-compelling importance; and because the Holy Spirit has made it of such importance I am under bonds to preach it.
Those who persist in saying it is incidental, secondary and sporadic might well be said to be of that cla.s.s of theological disputants who never study their Bible; for the fact is should you cut out every reference to the Second Coming, its cognate truths and all the events to which it gives emphasis, you would have but a fragment of the Bible; and the Book upon which faith is founded, from which hope casts its glances heavenward, sees light in the grave and immortality a.s.sured, would be but as a broken reed, a garment of beauty torn and shredded, or as a harp whose main chord had been snapped asunder.
II
The Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ is Bound up With Every Fundamental Doctrine, Every Sublime Promise and Every Exhortation to High, to Holy and Practical Christian Living
IT is bound up with every fundamental doctrine.
The resurrection from the dead, the transfiguration of the living, the judgment seat of Christ, the judgment of the living nations, the consequent judgment of the white throne, the rewards of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked.
It is bound up with every sublime promise.
The recognition of the dead, the overthrow of Satan, the deliverance of creation, the triumph of G.o.d and Christ and the eternal felicity of the saints.
It is bound up with every exhortation to high, to holy and practical Christian living.
We are not to forsake the a.s.sembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. On the Lord"s day we are to break bread and drink the fruit of the vine, show forth the Lord"s death and make known to heaven and to earth that the only ground of approach to a holy G.o.d is the sacrificial offering and vicarious sufferings of the Son of G.o.d and G.o.d the Son, and that on the ground of His atoning blood as our sin offering and personal subst.i.tute we claim Him as redeemer, saviour and interceding priest.
We are to love G.o.d and love one another.
We are not to judge one another.
We are not to cast stumbling blocks in each other"s path.
We are to walk worthy of our vocation.
We are to let our moderation be known to all men.
We are to be patient, long-suffering and forbearing.
We are to engage continually in prayer and supplication.
We are to live blamelessly before men and holily before G.o.d.
As pastors we are to shepherd the sheep over whom G.o.d has made us to be overseers.
We are to feed the flock, not with the philosophies and fictions of men, but with the truth of G.o.d.