WAR
BEFORE THE ADVENT
Scenting
victory: young rebels on an armoured vehicle:
I saw them with my own
eyes. British passport holder Mahnoud Elgin told me that he was savagely
beaten up by Gaddafi thugs who chanted as they sung:
Who is your master? Gaddafi is your
master! (Daily Mail, Friday
February 25, 2011.
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ESCAPE FOR
THE CHRISTIAN IS CONDITIONAL
The possibilities of future war put beyond all
possibility of doubt the imminent intervention of God.
It is extraordinary how even keen missionary
enthusiasts can see the worlds swift plunge downward with no faintest perception of all that Christ and the Apostles have
foretold of the last crisis.
We shall understand the awful judgments of God,
now on the threshold - todays iniquities are rapidly growing blacker than any
on record:- They have no respect for any
person; old ladies, women, teenage girls and boys are being raped and abused;
and children, even infants, are being abused in evil ways. My hope of the
worlds salvation, said Dr. Dinsdale Young, lies not in any evangelisation but in the personal return of
Christ.
CATASTROPHE
Back in 1945, Sir Stafford Cripps wrote:- The atomic bomb has entirely altered the history of the
world. With its coming the whole scene
has changed radically and completely.
The whole strategy of war has been transformed; and there is now no
doubt whatever that a war fought out with atomic bombs would most certainly
destroy civilization. The Duke of Bedford said truly in the House
of Lords (that same year):- It is because people have
persistently neglected to give Christian principles a trial that they have been
brought hard up against a situation in which further neglect will involve the
world in utter destruction.
TRIBULATION
The post-tribulationists,
who consign all believers whether watchful or unwatchful to the Great
Tribulation, but contend that the tribulation
is
not the wrath of God, a wrath which is expressed only, in the great and terrible day of the Lord which follows
it, are silenced by a single fact. That
the Great Tribulation is in the Great and Terrible Day of
the Lord no prelude to it, but part of it is proved by our Lords words
describing it. Then
shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the
world until now, NO, NOR EVEN SHALL BE (Matt.
24: 21). Since so much horror
will occur again, the Tribulation must include, nor forestall, the Day of the
Lord.
RAPTURE
So the pre-tribulationists,
who are sure that all believers even the grossest backsliders will be rapt en
masse into the sudden glory before the Tribulation starts, overlook the
warning of our Lord Watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may
prevail to escape all these things He has just described the Great
Tribulation, days of vengeance (Verse 22) that shall
come to pass (Luke 21: 36). The Old Testament type, which our Lord
stresses as a warning to His disciples concerning His return, is
extraordinarily illuminating:- Remember
DIVINE WRATH*
[* The wrath of God is just as much a perfection as His love, for there is nothing that is not
perfect in Him. Wrath in God is not
mans passion elevated to a divine sphere and level. This is a total misconception. Wrath in God is not a passion at all, it is
rather a principle. It is not variable,
capricious, changeable; it is eternal, and immutable,
like everything else in Him. When a
magnetic needle is set on its pivot it swings towards the pole. If approached at one end with another magnet,
it attracts; if approached at the other, it repels; by the same law it attracts
at one, and repels at the other. So the
same attribute of divine benevolence attracts holiness at one pole, and repels
wickedness at the other. A. T. PIERSON, D.D.]
Both groups base their teaching on 1 Thess. 1: 10 the
pre-tribulationists asserting that all believers will
escape the Tribulation wrath, the post-tribulationists
that the Tribulation is not wrath. But
while we are fundamentally and eternally delivered from the wrath
to come [in the lake
of fire], Paul states that we [regenerate] believers
[if disobedient]
can incur the wrath of God, even in the day of grace. After speaking of fornication and
uncleanness, he says, - Let no man deceive you with empty words; for because of
these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the sons of disobedience: be not ye
therefore partakers with them
(Eph. 5: 6).
So also:- Mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
passion; for which things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience (Col.
3: 5). It follows indisputably
that the incestuous brother, whose body was committed to Satan for destruction [of his flesh] that
his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5: 5), incurred the wrath of God.* One word of our Lord, upsetting both
groups, explicitly states that the overcomer will escape, and the
overcomer only, the coming judgments.
Because
thou didst keep the word of my patience
not because he was a believer, a saved man I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the
whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth (Rev. 3: 10).
[* We do well to realise the tragic sufferings
of millions today, both to promote more keenly sympathetic prayer, and for our
own closer walk with God in case such tribulations await us.]
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WAR BEFORE THE ADVENT
Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and
maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth
abroad the inhabitants thereof (Isa. 24: 1). And from verse 17
to verse 21 of the same chapter we have a
picture of a war that will devastate the whole earth. Men have experienced something of this in the
so called
One can see, after
reading this scripture, that war has not reached the intensity here described
except in scattered areas. These verses
show that it will compass all of the earth.
The noise of the fear here expresses
the terror produced by the roar of bombing planes, as they swooped down upon
helpless towns and cities in this last war.
The pit (air-raid shelter or shell hole) might afford some protection,
yet those coming up again are targets for the strafing
of the enemy overhead. All this has
already been experienced by some of the nations of the earth.
Evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be
raised up from the coasts of the earth.
And 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, neither gathered, nor buried;
they shall be dung upon the ground.
This pictures what horrors may be expected with the atomic bomb or its
successor within the control of the anti-Christ. We can understand that the after-effects of
the destroying bomb, whether the atomic or one still worse, will make it too
risky for anyone to go into the bombed areas to gather the dead and bury them.
The Midnight Cry.
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THE SORROW
OF GOD
By JAMES S. STEWART
When we think how persistently man has
desecrated and made havoc of this earth, which is Gods creation, how stubbornly
the human heart has crucified Christ afresh in every age and put Him to an open
shame, how defiantly it has refused the light of life, preferring the darkness
and chaos of its own wrecking passions and ruthless self-assertion - when we
think of these things, do not we, like Luther, stand amazed at the self-control
of heaven? Why has the great Creator not
despaired utterly of His creatures? Why
is the whole tragic performance not swept away into oblivion? The sin of man - how can God bear it?
One of the most moving statements*ever given of
this bewildering patience of God is to be found in the pages of the prophet
Hosea. This man, out of an experience of crushing personal sorrow, was able to
bring for Israelite religion and for the world a new philosophy of history and
an amazing discovery of the mind and heart of God.
It seems to have happened like this: one day,
when he was brooding in secret on the domestic tragedy which had wrecked his
home and darkened his life, it suddenly occurred to him that there was
something strangely similar in national history.
But stay,
thought Hosea, Here am I, crucified in the region of
my affections, and yet knowing that if Gomer came back
to me tomorrow I would sing for joy and take her to my arms and forgive
everything‑I love her still so utterly.
Shall God love less? If I
would do that for my dearest possession, shall God do less for His? This was the swift insight which made the man
a prophet, this daring logic of faith rising from the human to the divine. If human love can
know such agony, how much more love divine!
If I can suffer so for Gomer,
how much more God for
So this man Hosea, seven hundred years before
Christ, arrived at three of the greatest truths of religion.
First, the
Sorrow of God. The tragedy which had
happened in his own home was a kind of miniature of the vast tragedy which had
happened in Gods world. Gods relation
to the nation, as he now pictured it, had been one of marriage and romance,
Jehovah was the husband of Israel ...
I will betroth thee to Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in
righteousness and in justice, in real love and in tender mercies: I will
betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know Jehovah. It is a forecast of that lovely New Testament
picture - the Church as the Bride of Christ.
The misery of the worlds tragic wrongness and
rebellion is not that it breaks a law, but that it smites love in the
face. An impersonal law cannot suffer;
and if God is a kind of Philosophic Absolute, then, of course, God cannot
suffer, and those who declare that the notion of suffering is incompatible with
divinity and a degradation of the idea of God are perfectly right. But it is quite certain that love can suffer
terribly; and if God is love, then immeasurable must be the agony, overwhelming
the burden, that weighs on God to-day.
That is why the central symbol of the Christian religion is a Cross.
Beyond this first great
truth, so decisively relevant to our situation to-day, Hosea discerped another - the un-discourageable
patience of God. His own love for Gomer, he found, survived the wrecking of his home: he
loved her still, and could not let her go.
How much more would God refuse to let
There was a third truth which Hosea saw shining
like a beacon above the chaos and corruption of his time. This was the ultimate Victory of God. The
midnight of his own domestic tragedy led on to a brighter day; for he found Gomer in the far country, and brought her back to the home
of her youth. How much more would God
win the Israel of His love! Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak comfortably unto her; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her
youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the
What is this but the Christian evangel? In Jesus Christ, crucified, risen and
exalted, God has acted in history. In
that life and death and resurrection, God has intervened decisively against the
hosts of evil. The fact of Christ is the
living God going forth to war, with power and great glory, against every
wrecking force that desolates the earth, and every sin that rots the souls of
men. The Cross is not a poignant memory
of a moving human heroism. It is God in
action. It is God defeating evil
irrevocably and for ever at the very point where all the concentrated forces of
evil were boasting their greatest victory.
It is God turning the wrath of man to His praise. It is a lever strong enough to move the
world.
Can there be any doubt of the issue? Even Hosea, in the dim ages before Christ,
had no doubt: O
death, I will be thy plagues; O grave I will be thy destruction. All the deadly forces of history, the tyrant
principalities and powers, the ruthless blight of wickedness in high places,
and the sins from whose stubborn grip no man can ransom himself or be his own
redeemer, shall yield to the Name that is above every name.
-
World Dominion.
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THE ATOMIC
BOMB
By
ROBERT E.
D. CLARK, M.A., Ph.D.
[All who are interested in the creation of the
atomic bomb will find a thoroughly adequate scientific unfolding of this
appalling discovery in Dr. Clarks booklet, - The Atomic Bomb: What of the Future. But the far profounder interest of our
readers and, as we hope of all its readers
- will centre in the overwhelming coming events which the discovery
manifestly indicates, and which the author puts on the lips of a Christian
emerging from a century ago. We take but a few extracts from the final pages.‑
D. M. Panton.].
Obviously, the situation is fraught with
danger. If national States continue to
take it for granted, as in the past, that they have a right to make their own
weapons and organise their own armies, the next war will be frightful beyond
description. And, moreover, the
probability of there being another war will be greater than ever before - for
in time the new weapon is certain to prove an irresistible temptation to a
political adventurer somewhere in the world who, sure as fate, will be tempted
with the prospect of becoming ruler of the world.
These possibilities are so alarming that
thinking people everywhere are beginning to see only one possible
solution. The day of national States is
passed. The only hope for the world
rests in a central authority. Since the
coming of the atomic bomb many even of those who have long resisted this
inevitable conclusion have been forced
to accept it at last.
In the end there is one very likely
outcome. It is a familiar fact that,
taken as a whole, human beings are almost incapable of loyalty to a cause or a system. They require a definite person to whom they can show allegiance. If, like the Emperor of Japan, such a person
can be regarded as a demigod, so much the better. Indeed, the time will come when all men will
be waiting for such a leader. And, if he comes, will it not be said that he is
superhuman? Even children in
The belief that, in the end, a. world leader
will be necessary and will be thrown up at the crucial moment is now quite
widely held. Expressions of this view
have appeared in the purely secular press over a number of years. The belief is undoubtedly founded on sound
psychology and will be immeasurably strengthened by the advent of the atomic
bomb. If there is to be a really
effective system of international control, it would seem that it can be made
effective only by a process of almost ruthless tyranny.
Let us imagine that a
man who lived a century ago is suddenly imported into our world. The thing that
amazes me most, he says, is that you moderns
studiously avoid everything which savours of the beliefs which we used to
hold. Just try to listen to my point of
view. We Christians believed that just
before Christ returned there would be a dreadful period of destruction and
unhappiness on earth. We called this
time the last days or the day of the Lord.
We believed that before this period started there would be an apostasy
in which a majority of the nations would depart from the faith and give heed to
a fable - the fable that there are no divine interventions in history. So we believed that men would begin to laugh
at the very idea of a second coming of Christ, but that nevertheless they would
keep up an outward show of religion.
We learned that, in time, the whole world would become a single great
kingdom possessing irresistible might.
At the head of this kingdom there would arise a very wicked man whose
true character would not, at first, be apparent. By uniting the world he would earn the
gratitude of all men, but before long he would announce that he was a kind of
Christ, and would compel men to worship him.
We called him the antichrist. But
at the climax of the power of this evil creature, Christ was to return to the
earth in actual fact to set up His Kingdom on earth.
The last days are almost certainly upon you. Both antichrist and Christ will really come
as the Bible foretold. You have got to
decide whether you are on Gods side or on the side of the world that rejected
Him, and still rejects Him. If you turn
to Him now He will save you from the consequences of your evil deeds. In the New Testament you will even learn of a
plan by which you may be delivered from the things that are coming to pass on
earth. You may not have much longer to
decide; dont fool yourselves into thinking that anything else is more
important than this. Remember, it is
Christs promise that if you come to Him, He will not cast you out.
The man has gone. We sit gazing blankly into space. Is there just a chance perhaps - that this
man was right? Is his story only a phantasy?
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CHURCHES AND THE TRIBULATION
By SAMUEL F. HURNARD
What of Christian
believers as this age of grace hurries to its close? The book of Revelation is addressed to us of the
churches, and through us to the world and to the Jew. Consequently the church messages in chapter 3 are vitally important. The last four churches exist concurrently
almost to the end of the age. It would
appear that three of them have to pass into the fiery purifying furnace of the
great tribulation period. From chapter 17 we learn that Thyatira is to enjoy a
brief ascendancy in league with the beast,
when her old persecuting spirit comes again into action. Then she in turn is persecuted and in great tribulation.
In Philadelphia the saints, including faithful
ministers of the Gospel, missionaries and intercessors, are the Lords
ambassadors, strangers and pilgrims on the earth, who will be recalled to His immediate,
presence before His judgments are outpoured upon His enemies. In fact, the impression deepens that the
first sign that this age of grace has closed and the Lord is about to manifest
His power in a public and unmistakable way, will be the escape - the
translation - of the Philadelphian Church.
How wonderful, should this prove to be the case! While it is just as clear that
If these things be so, and we are living on the
threshold of them, what a call they make to watch,
to pray, to be sober and diligent that
ye (we) may be found of Him in peace, without
spot and blameless.
In this, country a strangle hold is being forged
over enterprise and liberty through the policy of nationalising trade and
industry. Both personal initiative and
responsibility are thus being seriously threatened. While not wishing to judge the motives or the
wisdom of increasing government control in our national life, it is easy to
realise that this is preparing for and playing into the hands of the coming
world ruler. He will seek to coerce men
and nations, partly by fear and display of power, and partly by the machinery
of registration and centralisation, so that no man
might buy or sell, save he that bath the mark, or the number of the beast, or
the number of his name. There is
grave development of this feature.
Are we fearful, or anxious, with danger
near? Are we perplexed over the
strangeness of the way? The Lords word
for each one of us, his own blood-bought children, both writer and readers, is
TRUST ME.
It is not honouring to our Lord to be despondent or pessimistic, even
over material losses, and if the old order of our national life be overturned
and evil seem to triumph. Such an
attitude is to give place to the devil, one of whose most effective weapons is
to depress and to terrify. Does not the
Lord say, In the world ye shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. He tells us also, When
these things begin to come to pass (as at this present time), then look up, and
lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. So for the
Christian who is walking with his Lord and watching unto prayer, there should arise a great hope and a comforting assurance that all is
well. The night
is far spent, the day is at hand.
Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also
we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that we may rejoice in hope of the glory of God. What a prospect! For the darker the night, the nearer we are
to the dawning of heavens perfect day.
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THE PURPOSE OF PROPHECY
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The Holy Spirit has expressed, in one vivid
phrase, exactly what prophecy is:- a lamp shining in
a dark place (2 Pet. 1: 19).
The world is in profound blackness; the human
race is heading for horrors of which they are totally unaware; and prophecy -
the revealing of things to come - is a blazing searchlight which uncovers both
the dangers ahead and the path by which we can escape them. Never did the Church so need this lamp. Thousands of Christians suppose prophecy to
be so difficult, so unintelligible, so obscure that it is, they think, itself a
darkness to be avoided: on the contrary, it is a blazing lamp, carrying exactly
the right light for a midnight pilgrimage.
God lit this lamp; and no man ever put out a lamp of God without
plunging himself into dangerous midnight.
Dissolution
At this moment we are witnessing extraordinary
confirmation of what is coming. All prophecy culminates in the
Meteorites
Already we have indications of the final
God-sent atomic bombs. In those days, after that tribulation, the stars shall be
falling from heaven (Mark 13: 24): The stars of the heaven fell unto the earth (Rev. 6: 13). Professor
Berbert Dingle says (Spectator, Aug. 24, 1945):‑The
meteorite fall which occurred in Siberia in 1908, with more destructive energy
than that of an atomic bomb, may be repeated at any time, and it was no
contrivance of ours that it did not occur in London or New York. The annihilating power of this fire from
heaven has already been proved in history. Then the fire of the
Lord - that is, a
peculiar fire, coming from the Deity - fell, and
consumed the wood, and the STONES,
and the dust (1 Kings 18: 38). So the present heavens and earth will be
totally annihilated: earth and the heaven fled away,
and there was found NO PLACE for them (Rev. 20: 11).
The
Purpose of the Revelation
So now we arrive at the
throbbing heart of prophecy. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved
- that is, basing your conduct absolutely
on these appalling prophecies what manner of twice the moral is brawn, that
we may not miss it. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found
- found by the returning Christ - in peace, WITHOUT
SPOT AND BLAMELESS in his sight.
This at once unveils the judgment Seat.
For every child of God the vital element in prophecy is how he will be
found by Christ: to be discovered without spot and blameless is no mere
fruit of salvation: this marvellous possibility is the product solely of
unceasing diligence: give diligence that ye may be so found. As
a child of eternity (every one of us can say): I want a purer heart, a more
melted spirit; I want a lowlier mind, a more sensitive penitence; I want a
sweeter temper, a quicker love, a richer grace.
Expectation
Actual life gives proof, in the lives of Gods
saints, of the effect of prophecy. There is nothing left to the faithful, says Calvin, but
with wakeful mind to be always intent on His second coming. Ardently,
says
The crucial and final fact in prophecy lies in
what it has not revealed. The day of the Lord will
come AS A THIEF (2 Pet. 3: 10): no warning, no dating, no time for preparation:
the sole safety lies in unceasing readiness. MY SOUL
LOOKETH FOR THE LORD MORE THAN WATCHMEN LOOK FOR THE MORNING (Psa. 130: 6).
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MEASURED
Pressed out of measure
above strength. (2
Cor. 1: 8 (A.V.).
Exceedingly, beyond power, we were weighed down.
(2 Cor.
1: 8 (
He measured
and
brought me through. (Ezek. 47: 3-4).
A measured life! Whose measure can be true?
Weak human yards in
inches can but fail
Remotely een to judge Gods threshing flail.
Mere human standards
cannot sure construe
The balancing of clouds
that blot the blue,
Divine intention in
lifes chastisement,
The heavenly meaning in
lifes trials sent,
Or plan the path or time
of coming through.
For who can measure
pressure? who but God
Can hold the scales
exactly and not swerve
A hairs-breadth from
the true appoint the rod
Determine if I suffer or
I serve?
Out of, above, beyond all that I knew
I plunge, - to find He
measured and brought through.
E. G. W. GRIMWOOD
PRAYING
FOR THE LORDS RETURN
By
D. M. PANTON
Probably no generation since our Lord ascended
has had such urgent reasons as our own for praying for our Lord to come back,
and as few, exceedingly few, will share in thus producing the vastest event
this old earth will ever know, let us be among that few. GOD WORKS ACCORDING
TO THE PRAYERS OF HIS PEOPLE (Evan
Roberts); and the date of the Advent is a loose end which prayer can affect:
since God has made all His actions in this lower world to depend on faith and
prayer, He may be depending on us for the Advent more than we dream. The Lord Himself,
in the words of Canon
Simpson, would never have bidden us pray, Thy Kingdom come, if those seasons, which no man knows, were so irrevocably
fixed that our efforts could not hasten, or our sins retard, the wheels of His
chariot. If the Jewish disciple,
by praying that his flight may not be on the Sabbath or in winter (Matt. 24: 20), can so modify the date (if that
flight as to change not only the day of the week but even the season of the
year, much more is it in the power of the Church, and therefore our responsibility, to HASTEN the
coming of the day of God (2 Pet. 3: 12,
marg.).
The Holy Ghost
First we learn what is the mind of the Holy Ghost. The
Spirit and the Bride say, Come (Rev. 22:
17). It is (as far as I
know) the only recorded prayer of the Holy Ghost: He Who prays with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom. 8: 26),
when they are uttered, their
summary is, COME. The significance of this is extraordinary. The Spirit has a myriad ways of affecting the
world for good, yet His prayer is, Come: He knows perfectly all evolution, all
progress, all revival, all Gospel advance, yet His prayer is, Come: He knows
the inexhaustible resources, the unrevealed powers, the lost secret plans of
God, yet His prayer is, Come. The
Holy Ghost knows no solution to the problem of the universe except the Second
Advent of Christ; and it is
His own supreme prayer; thus the fuller we are of the Spirit of God, the surer
we are to pray His prayer.
Our Saviour
Next we learn the mind
of our Lord. He says: When ye pray, say, Thy kingdom come (Matt. 6:
10). This,
more than ever in these last days, ought to be the first and last of the Churchs
prayers; for all that she desires for herself, for the world, and for her Lord Himself, is comprised
in this (Dr. H. Bonar). We are apt to see men to the exclusion of mankind; when we pray for the Kingdom, we plead for thirty generations
against one; for God will amputate a single generation - and that only after
countless pleadings in grace and judgment - to save an entire race. It is the most practical of all possible
prayers, for there is no other way whereby the worlds political and social salvation
can be wrought, and Gods love for the world at last fulfilled. There is no remedy,
as Lord Shaftesbury,
who wrought more social amelioration for his generation than any other man,
said, for all this mass of misery, but in the return of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Why do we not plead for it every
time we hear the clock strike?
The Apostles
Next we learn the mind
of the Apostles. Jesus says, Yea, I come quickly. Amen, cries
John: I accept the doctrine, I hold fast the promise, I rejoice in the speed: Come,
Lord Jesus (Rev. 22: 20). It is the last prayer from an apostles lips;
it is the last and crowning prayer of the Bible; it is the last prayer of the
last apostle of the Lamb: the whole canon of inspiration closes with a direct appeal
to Christ to come. There may be many years of hard work before the consummation,
but the signs are to me so encouraging that I would not be unbelieving if I saw
the wing of the apocalyptic angel spread for its last triumphant flight in this
days sunset; or if to-morrow morning the ocean cables should thrill us with
the news that Christ the Lord had alighted on Mount Olivet to proclaim
universal dominion. O you dead Churches,
wake up! O Christ, descend! Scarred temple, take the crown! Bruised hand, take the sceptre! Wounded foot, step the throne! Thine is the Kingdom (Dr. Talmage). It is Johns last prayer, and happy shall we be if, falling asleep, it is the last prayer upon
our lips also.
The Church
Next we learn the mind
of the
[* This word to the
hearer will remain in full force even after the watchful of the Church or the
whole Church are borne away. Jesus
coming is, to
Ourselves
Next we learn our own need. All holy and Scriptural desire is legitimate
fuel for prayer; and it is our peril so to be concerned with the doctrine of
the Advent that we forget the prayer. In twenty-four volumes of the Quarterly
Journal of Prophecy (1849 to 1873) there is not a single article on
prayer for the Coming. Is it nothing to us that our Lord wishes to come back? Why is He coming quickly if it is not the speed of desire? Many Christians do not realise that the Lord is waiting
until He is invited by His own to return: we may need to be urged; He does not
(
[* 1 John 3: 3.
Be it also remembered that the rapture,
the first act of Gods response, may precipitate life in the very souls unsaved
on whose behalf our anxiety might make us hesitate to pray the prayer.]
The Creation
Finally, we learn the unconscious mind of the
world. The
whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain, waiting for the revealing
of the sons of God (Rom. 8: 19). Can you say, More than they that wait for the morning, my
soul waiteth for Thee? Does your heart leap when you think that the
Christ, ever present, is drawing near to us?
All the signs of the times, intellectual and social: the rottenness of
much of our life; the abounding luxury, the hideous vice that flaunts un-blamed
or un-abased before us: all these things cry out to Him, whose ear
is not deaf - even if our voice does not join in the cry
and beseech Him to come (Dr.
Alexander Maclaren). For all the creation needs can be met only by
the Advent. In this prayer is summed up
all that the Christian heart can desire the destruction of the power of
Satan; the deliverance of the creature from the bondage of corruption; the
banishment of sin and sorrow from the individual heart and from the world; the
restoration of all things; the establishment of the kingdom of righteousness;
the beholding of Jesus in fullness of the travail of His soul, the bestowment
upon Him in completeness of His promised reward. Let each member of the Church militant unite
with the Apostle in the longing cry Amen; Come, Lord
Jesus (Dr. E. R. Craven). Says Bishop
J. C. Ryle: Come, Lord
Jesus, should be our daily prayer. Shall we not make a compact together that, so
long as breath lasts, we will, without a single days intermission, pray, EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS?
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FOOTNOTE
I often say my prayers,
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my
heart
Go with the words I day?
I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of
stone,
As offer to the living
God
A
prayer of words alone.
For words without the
heart
The Lord will never
hear;
Nor will He to those
lips attend
Whose prayers are not sincere.
Lord, teach me what I
need,
And teach me how to
pray;
And do not let me seek
Thy grace,
Hot meaning what I say.
JOHN BURTON, 1803-77.
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THE OVERCOMERS
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that
loved us Romans 8: 37.
When you are forgotten or neglected, when you
are pushed constantly aside, and you submit to it, thank
the Lord for the humbling this is victory!
When the good you do, or intend, is slandered,
when your wishes are crossed, when your taste is offended, your advice
despised, your opinions laughed at, and you take it all quietly in love and
patience this is victory.
When with any kind of food or clothing, with any
climate, any company, any position in life, or state of loneliness into which
the Lord may lead you, you are content this is victory.
When every ill-humour in others, every
complaint, every irregularity and unpunctuality, while not condoning, you can
bear without anger this is victory.
When every foolishness,
perverseness, even spiritual unfeelingness, every
contradiction of sinners and every persecution you can meet and bear this is
victory.
If you are not concerned to bring yourself or
your works into conversation or to look for commendation, if you are truly
willing to remain unknown this is victory.
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I COME QUICKLY: HOLD FAST THAT
WHICH THOU HAST,
THAT
NO ONE TAKE THY CROWN: (REVELATION 3: 11, R.V.).