A GRACIOUS MESSAGE
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this
is the place of repose"—
"He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming
soon.'" Revelation 22:20
No one had so enjoyed the privilege of sitting under the
shade of the Divine Heavenly Palm as the writer of this Book of Revelation,
the apostle John. No wonder that he should sigh and long for a renewal of
the personal presence and fellowship of his ascended Lord —and that the
well-known keynote of his last writing—the farewell inspired legacy
to believers of the future, should be, "The Lord is coming!" Again, and
again and again (four times in the one chapter from which our motto-verse is
taken) do these notes sound in the ears of a waiting, expectant Church.
First, in verse 7, "Behold, I come quickly." Second, in verse 12,
"Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me." Third, in
verse 17, where 'the Coming One' had beautifully announced Himself as "The
Bright and Morning Star;" the response—the longing prayer rises in blended
harmony from the Church on earth and the Church in heaven: "And the Spirit
and the Bride say, Come." Once more, in verse 20, the last audible
voice of the Great Redeemer, until that voice be heard on the Throne—gives,
too, the assurance of His speedy coming. We close the Divine record
with this "blessed hope," like a rainbow of promise spanning the sky of the
future, "He which testifies these things says, 'SURELY I COME
QUICKLY.'"
We may appropriately compare these repeated references in
the last Book of the Bible, to the ringing of the chimes with quickening
peal, as the worshipers are gathering to take their places in the Heavenly
Temple.
The prospect of that promised Advent put music of old
into the lips of Patriarchs and Psalmists, Apostles and Prophets. "Let the
heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad…before the Lord: for He comes, He
comes to judge the earth." "The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints
with you." The Apostle Peter, like a watcher on cliff or tower, eager to
catch the earliest beam of sunrise, speaks of "looking for, and hastening
unto, the coming of the day of God." "Looking for that blessed hope," says
Paul, "even the glorious appearing of the Great God our Savior." "I am
persuaded," says the same in one of his dying utterances, "that He is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." By
the Great Lord Himself, believers are represented as servants, cheerfully
working on, during their Master's absence; but all alert for the sound of
His footsteps, that, "when He comes and knocks, they may be ready to open
unto Him immediately."
As we now listen in the message at the head of this
meditation to the last voice of the Great 'Testifier'—the last toll of the
Advent bell, let it sound to us like strains of seraphic music floating on a
midnight sea. Let it proclaim in our ears blended comfort and warning;
tempering prosperity, mitigating adversity, moderating the world's
ambitions, stimulating to holiness, preparing for heaven.
Whatever may be the antecedent or intervening events
described in the other parts of the Apocalypse—events in which, whether as
regards the Church or individuals, we are, doubtless, deeply interested—let
"the Second Coming" tower above them all, like some colossal Alp, with plain
and valley and lowlier mountain between, but rising peerless in the blue
horizon, its top golden with heavenly sunlight; and from its eternal snows
and hidden springs, sending forth ten thousand streams of hope and joy.
Bright and Morning Star! Harbinger of eternal day! Who
will not bid You welcome? Who will not help, in the noblest sense, to "Ring
in the Christ that is to be"?
"The Spirit says, COME!" The Divine Agent, whose
own "coming" as the Paraclete or Comforter, was declared by the departing
Savior to more than compensate the Church for her Redeemer's absence, hails
the advent which is to crown and consummate His own work as "the Glorifier
of Christ."
"The Bride says, COME," the ransomed Church on
earth, longing for the bridal day of perfected bliss—the ransomed Church in
heaven, saints, martyrs, departed friends, who have fallen asleep in
Jesus—take up the antiphonal strain, and cry "COME!"—A groaning creation,
weary of the bondage of sin and sorrow, and longing for liberty, cries
"COME!" Can we take up one of the multiplying echoes, and, uniting
our prayer with the sons of God, give willing response to the Apostle's
closing invocation: "And let him who hears say COME?" Can we include
ourselves in the words of another 'Watcher' for this Day-spring. "For the
Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
first. Then we who 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!" "Therefore," he adds, Waiting Pilgrims! seat yourselves in calm
expectancy under the shade of this choice Elim-Palm—let the glorious outlook
cheer, refresh, and solace you—"Therefore, encourage each another with
these words!"
"His voice on earth we did not hear;
His steps below we could not trace;
But when His glory shall appear,
We too shall meet Him face to face.
"So surely as the leaves and flowers
In summer time come back again—
So surely as in sultry hours
The dark clouds bring the pleasant rain.
"Shall He, who, in His lowly love,
Came down that we might be forgiven,
Break, glorious, through the clouds above,
And take His children home to heaven."
"My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for
the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning."