www.bymonline.org | May 2020 | page 14
living shall see Him. The good shall see Him, and
the wicked shall see Him.
Some shall see Him and shout: “Lo, this is our
God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us:
this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be
glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa. 25:9). Others
shall see Him and cry to “the mountains and rocks:
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sits
on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for
the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be
able to stand?” (Rev 6:16, 17).
“And they which pierced Him.” Though His
manifestation shall be absolutely universal, it has
an awful distinction with reference to some. Of all
beings who shall then wish to be saved that sight
will be those who murdered Him. But they shall not
escape it. They must each and all some day
confront Him and meet His all-penetrating gaze.
From the wretched man who betrayed Him, down
to the soldier who pierced His side, and all who
have made common cause with them in wrong,
persecuting, wounding and insulting that meek
Lamb of God, shall then be compelled to face His
judgment seat and to look upon Him whom they
have pierced.
“And all the tribes of the land shall mourn
about Him.” Is not this a special word for the Jews?
Is it not an allusion to a wail of penitence which
shall be elicited from long apostate Israel when they
shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and
doubt of His messiahship no more?
Does it not refer to the fulfillment of Zechariah
12:10, where the house of David and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem shall mourn for Him, as
one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in
bitterness for Him as one is in bitterness for his first
born? Oh, the intensity of that bitterness!
Consternation Of Unconverted
Brethren, I do not wonder that worldlings and
half-Christians have no love for this doctrine, or
that they hate to hear about Christ's speedy
coming. It is the death knell of their gaieties and
pleasuresthe turning of their confidence to
consternationthe conversion of their songs to
shrieks of horror and despair.
There is a day coming, when “the loftiness of
man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of
man shall be made low” (Isa 2:17); when there shall
be “upon the earth distress of nations, with
perplexity” (Luke 21:25); when “all the tribes of the
earth shall mourn” (Matt 24:30); when men shall
“go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of
the earth” (Isa. 2:19); “into the clefts of the rocks,
and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the
Lord, and for the glory of His majesty” (Isa. 2:21);
when men “shall seek death, and shall not find it;
and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from
them” (Rev 9:6).
And that day is the day of Christ's coming,
and those dismayed ones are such as love not His
appearing. Fear and dread shall fall upon the
wicked; trouble and anguish shall make them
afraid; and men's hearts shall fail them for fear,
and for looking after those things that are coming
on the earth.
The saints will then have been caught away to
their Lord. From the same field, the same shop, the
same bed, one shall have been taken and the other
left. And on those remaining ones, who had not
watched, neither kept their garments, nor made
themselves ready, shall the tenors of judgment fall,
and not a family or tribe of all that live shall escape.
“Even so, Amen.” Some take this as the seal
and ratification of the solemn truths which have
just been uttered. If this be the true meaning, what
particular stress is to be laid upon these thingshow
sure to come to passhow unmistakably certain!
Brethren, it does seem to me, when I look at
the Scriptures on this subject, that even the best of
us are not half awake. May God arouse us by His
Spirit, and not permit us to sleep till the thunders
and terrors of the great day are upon us!
To Be Eagerly Awaited
But I find another and more natural sense of
these words“Even so, Amen.” I find in them John's
acquiescence in all that the great day is to bring,
and his prayer, as repeated at the end of the book of
Revelation, that the Lord would hasten its coming.
Terrible as it will be to the wicked, and the
unprepared, and those who refuse the warnings