Here, then, we have presented to us what is commonly spoken of amongst us as the rapture of the saints--a most glorious, soul-stirring, and enrapturing theme surely--the brightest hope of the church of God, and of the individual believer. The Lord _Himself_ shall descend from heaven with a summons designed only for the ears and the hearts of His own. Not one uncircumcised ear shall hear--not one unrenewed heart be moved by, that heavenly voice, that divine trumpet call. The dead in Christ, including, as we believe, the Old Testament saints, as well as those of the New, who shall have departed in the faith of Christ--all those shall hear the blessed sound, and come forth from their sleeping places. All the living saints shall hear it, and be changed in a moment. And oh! what a change! The poor crumbling tabernacle of clay exchanged for a glorified body, like unto the body of Jesus.
Look at yonder bent and withered frame--that body racked with pain, and worn out with years of acute suffering. It is the body of a saint. How humiliating to see it like that! Yes; but wait a little. Let but the trumpet sound, and in one moment that poor crushed and withered frame shall be changed, and made like to the glorified body of the descending Lord.
And there, in yonder lunatic asylum, is a poor lunatic. He has been there for years. He is a saint of God. How mysterious! True; we cannot fathom the mystery; it lies beyond our present narrow range. But so it is; that poor lunatic is a saint of God, an heir of glory. He too shall hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and leave his lunacy behind him for ever, while he mounts into the heavens, in his glorified body, to meet his descending Lord.
Oh! reader, what a brilliant moment! How many sick chambers and beds of languishing shall be vacant then! What marvellous changes shall then take place! How the heart bounds at the thought, and longs to sing, in full chorus, that lovely hymn,
"Christ, the Lord, will come again, None shall wait for Him in vain; I shall then His glory see: Christ will come and call for me.
"Then, when the archangel's voice Calls the sleeping saints to rise, Rising millions shall proclaim Blessings on the Saviour's name.
"'This is our redeeming God!' Ransomed hosts will shout aloud: Praise, eternal praise, be given. To the Lord of earth and heaven!"
Amen and amen!
How glorious the thought of those "rising millions!" How truly delightful to be amongst them! How precious the hope of seeing that blessed One who loveth us and who gave Himself for us! Such is the hope of the Christian, a hope concerning which there is not a single line from cover to cover of the Old Testament. "The word of prophecy" is of all importance. We do well to take heed to it. It is an unspeakable mercy for those who find themselves in a dark place to have a bright lamp to cast its light athwart the gloom. But let the Christian bear in mind that what he wants is to have "the day star arising in his heart;" in other words, to have his whole heart governed by the hope of seeing Jesus as the bright and morning Star. When the heart is thus filled and ruled by the proper Christian hope, then the eye can intelligently scan the prophetic chart: it can take in the whole field of prophecy as our God has graciously opened it before us, and find interest and profit in every page and in every line. But, on the other hand, we may rest assured that the man who looks into prophecy in order to find the church or its hope there has his face turned the wrong way. He will find "the Jew" there, and "Gentile" there, but not "the church of God." We earnestly trust that not one of our readers will fail to lay hold of this fact--a fact, we may safely say, of the very deepest moment.