CHRIST WILL SAVE HIS CHURCH.
But he will save them finally by taking them out of the world. Now, do not take my word for it; look this doctrine up in your Bible, and if you find it there, bow down to it and receive it as the word of God. Take Matthew 24:48,50: "But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth his coming ... the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Take 2 Peter 3:4,5: "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Go out on the streets of Chicago and ask men about the return of our Lord, and that is just what they would say: "Ah, yes, the Lord delayeth his coming!"
"Behold, I come quickly," said Christ to John, and the last prayer in the Bible is, "Even so, come Lord Jesus, come quickly." Were the early Christians disappointed then? No; no man is disappointed who obeys the voice of God. The world waited for the first coming of the Lord; waited for 4,000 years, and then he came. He was here only thirty-three years and then he went away; but he left us a promise that he would come again; and as the world watched and waited for his first coming and did not watch in vain, so now to them who wait for his appearing shall he appear a second time unto salvation. Now let the question go round, "Am I ready to meet the Lord if he comes to-night?" "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."
There is another thought I want to call your attention to, and that is this: Christ will bring all our friends, with him when he comes. All who have died in the Lord are to be with him when he comes in the clouds of heaven. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years," Rev. 20:6. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were past; this is the first resurrection" (verse 5). That looks as if the church were to have a thousand years with Christ before the final judgment, when Satan shall be cast out, and there shall be new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Now, I want to give you some texts to study.
When we eat the Lord's supper we show forth his death, until he come. 1 Cor. xi. 26.
We are using our talents, until he come. Luke xix. 13.
We are fighting the good fight of faith, until he come. 1 Tim vi. 12-14.
We are enduring tribulation, until he come. 2 Thes. i. 7.
We are to be patient, until he come. James v. 8.
We wait for the crown of righteousness, until he come. 2 Tim. iv. 8.
We wait for the crown of glory, until he come. 1 Pet. v. 4.
We wait for re-union with departed friends, until he come. 1 Thes. iv. 13-18.
We wait for Satan to be bound, until he come. Rev. xx. 3.
And so let us watch and wait till he comes.
D. L. Moody, who is perhaps the most popular and efficient preacher of the gospel of Christ in the world, to-day, is evidently fully committed to a belief in the speedy coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, to judge the world and establish his eternal kingdom. Looking over the published reports of his sermons in Great Britain and in this country, since the beginning of 1874, I give extracts which go to show in a plain light the man's inner love and hope as relates to the last things, and his warm, bold, consistent manner of expressing the same. Thousands pray, God bless D. L. Moody.
1. Mr. Moody proclaims that the grand symbols of Daniel's, second and seventh chapters, announce four dominant world empires, and but four, to cover all centuries of human probation.
2. That these kingdoms are and were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.
3. That these have had their day of earthly supremacy and the last has nearly passed away.
4. That the fifth kingdom of Daniel is God's, to come in its order as the fifth, to overthrow all previous kingdoms, to be a visible and eternal kingdom, and to be established by Christ in person at his second coming.
5. That the stone cut from the mountain denotes "Christ himself," "at his appearing and kingdom," whose advent "is not far distant," and for whose advent "the whole creation groans." Rom. 8:19-22.
6. That the last days, described by our Saviour in Matt. 24:37-39 as resembling the days of Lot and Noah, are already here; observing, "I do not think the day is far distant when our Lord will return." And again, "just as judgment overtook Belshazzar carousing at his feast, so will judgment come suddenly and swiftly upon the world revelling in its sins."
The foregoing he preached in the City Hall, Glasgow, March 15th, 1874, before three thousand people. On the same day he preached on "Christ's Second Coming" in the Free church (Pres.), telling the churches that every thirtieth verse in the New Testament bears on that glorious coming; and says the London Christian, "With his usual power he showed what a mighty motive this doctrine is to all who are winning souls. He himself had found it rousing him to ten-fold more effort to save all that could be rescued from the coming wreck."
In Philadelphia, in a discourse on Daniel's second chapter, he said: "This dream has been nearly fulfilled as Daniel interpreted it. In the present age the prophecy is nearly completed, and the hour of the Lord's second coming is close at hand." D. T. T.
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