He has prepared a mansion for his bride, and he promises for our joy and
comfort that he will come himself and bring us to the place he has been
all this while preparing.
My friends it is perfectly safe to take the word of God as we find it.
If he tells us to watch, then watch! If he tells us to pray, then pray!
If he tells us he will come again, wait for him! Let the church bow to
the word of God, rather than trying to find out how such things can be.
"Behold, I come quickly," said Christ. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus,"
should be the prayer of the church.
Take the account of the words of Christ at the communion table. It seems
to me the devil has covered up the most precious thing about it. "For as
often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show forth the
Lord's death _till he come_." But most people seem to think that the
Lord's table is the place for self-examination and repentance, and
making good resolutions. Not at all; you spoil it that way; it is to
show forth the Lord's death, and we are to keep it up till he comes.
Some people say, "I believe Christ will come on the other side of the
millennium." Where do you get it? I cannot find it. The word of God
nowhere tells me to watch and wait for the coming of the millennium, but
for the coming of the Lord. I do not find any place where God says the
world is to grow better and better, and that Christ is to have a
spiritual reign on earth of a thousand years. I find that the world is
to grow worse and worse, and at length there is to be a separation. "Two
women grinding at a mill, one taken and the other left; two men in one
bed, one taken and the other left," Luke 17:34,36. The church is to be
translated out of the world, we have two examples already, two
representatives, as we might say, of Christ's kingdom, of what is to be
done for all his true believers. Enoch is the representative of the
first dispensation, Elijah of the second, and, as a representative of
the third dispensation, we have the Saviour himself, who is entered into
the heavens for us, and become the first fruits of them that slept. We
are not to wait for the great white throne judgement, but the glorified
church is set on the throne with Christ, and to help to judge the world.
Now, some of you think this is a new and strange doctrine, and that they
who preach it are speckled birds. But let me tell you that most of the
spiritual men in the pulpits of Great Britain are firm in this faith.
Spurgeon preaches it. I have heard Newman Hall say that he knew no
reason why Christ might not come before he got through with his sermon.
But in certain wealthy and fashionable churches, where they have the
form of godliness, but deny the power thereof,--just the state of things
which Paul declares shall be in the last days,--this doctrine is not
preached or believed. They do not want sinners to cry out in their
meeting, "What must I do to be saved?" They want intellectual preachers
who will cultivate their taste, brilliant preachers who will rouse their
imagination, but they do not want the preaching that has in it the power
of the Holy Ghost. We live in the day of shams in religion. The church
is cold and formal; may God wake us up! And I know of no better way to
do it than to get the church to looking for the return of our Lord.
Some people say, "Oh, you will discourage the young converts if you
preach that doctrine." Well, my friends, that has not been my
experience. I have felt like working three times as hard ever since I
came to understand that my Lord was coming back again. I look on this
world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a life-boat, and said to me,
"Moody, save all you can." God will come in judgment and burn up this
world, but the children of God do not belong to this world; they are in
it, but not of it, like a ship in the water. This world is getting
darker and darker; its ruin is coming nearer and nearer; if you have any
friends on this wreck unsaved, you had better lose no time in getting
them off.
But some will say: "Do you then make the grace of God a failure?" No,
grace is not a failure but man is. The antediluvian world was a failure;
the Jewish work was a failure; man has been a failure everywhere, when
he has had his own way and been left to himself.