Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation

by S. D. Gordon

Yet though His coming has such a broad sweep, it is quite possible to get a grasp of the few essential items in the programme. And this will make our footing steadier, our vision clearer, our praying more confident, and our soul-winning and witnessing warmer and truer. We turn now to try to get this simple, helpful understanding.

The present is the time of the candlesticks. The Man of Fire is in our midst unperceived. The unseen Eyes of Flame see. Our Lord Jesus still waits, and depends on the faithfulness of His Church. The light is still shining out. The dark places are getting some light. The light has not yet wholly failed to get out through the human lantern to the crowd in the dark.

The characteristics of this waiting time, so long prolonged, are plainly put. In the outer world there will be an increasing lawlessness and disregard of every sort of restraint, and an increasing power of organization and centralization. There will be an increasing getting together for more effective action.

In the Church world there will be an increasing formalism, a compromise with evil and with the world spirit. There will be a decrease of warm personal devotion to the Lord Jesus as the controlling motive power. And there will be a growing inclination to make light of, or ignore, or jeer at, the idea of the Lord Jesus' return.

As this period wears on toward its close, and so on toward the events to follow, there will be a coming together of the Jews scattered throughout the world in an attempt to regain Palestine and reconstitute the Hebrew nation there with its temple and old sacrificial ritual. These are the three chief tendencies that will characterize the present waiting time preceding the group of coming events.

The decisive index-finger, that this present period is actually coming to its close, will be this movement among the Jews. The movement to regain control of Palestine may rise and fall back, gain and lose again. But some day it will come to its head. By some arrangement with the nations concerned the Jewish nation will actually be set up again in Palestine, and the building of the temple in Jerusalem begun. This will be the decisive indication. This is an unfailing index-finger. The hands of the clock are moving then toward the striking of the hour. Soon the sands will be run out and the hour-glass turned.

The Beginning of the End.

At some time soon after that point is reached two unseen events will occur, that is, unseen on earth. Roughly, it will be three and a half years after, though the whole tendency of the Scripture is to discourage the figuring of exact time. Yet information is given that the outlook may be intelligent. These events are unseen on the earth. They take place in heaven.

The Holy Spirit will be withdrawn from the Church. He will not be withdrawn from individuals. He abode in men before the Church was formed, and will after the Church has cast Him out. He is withdrawn only because He has been practically and wholly cast out.

The Lord Jesus, who sent Him down to form the Church and witness through it, will withdraw Him from the Church. The candlestick has moved out of all touch with the light. And now the light is withdrawn, and so the candlestick moved out of its place as the light-bearer. This is probably the advance step taken by our Lord Jesus that marks the beginning of the end.