Immediately after the tribulation of these days shall the sun be darkened.
The manifestation of Christ in judgment
I. There will be a manifestation of Christ in truth and unmistakable reality. Till the moment of His coming, it will be possible to deceive. False prophets were the bane of the old dispensation; false Christs are the bane of the new. Then He will stand before men as the true Messiah. “I am the truth” will be condemnation for millions in that day.
II. Christ will be manifested in universality. At present He is here and there as men carry the message. His coming then shall be like the lightning flash, which penetrates everywhere, awfully beautiful, irresistibly destructive, and fearfully silent.
III. The awful, majesty in which He will appear. This is set forth in the appalling changes that will come over the material heavens.
IV. Christ will be manifested as in search of his own. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,” not secretly as before; but His angels shall conspicuously gather together the dead. (E. T. Marshall.)
The sign of the Son of Man
The Jews, with carnal spirit, were continually saying to Jesus, “Master, we would see a sign from Thee.” They were refused. But to His people He does give signs-distinct, striking, and unmistakable-signs which constitute at once the seal and epitome of the truths for which they stand.
I. The sign of Christ’s humiliation. “This shall be a sign unto you” etc. (Luke 2:12). A most disappointing sign this must have been to the shepherds, if they shared the current expectation of a regal and triumphant Messiah. A sign of exquisite tenderness and attractiveness to us.
II. The sign of Christ’s glory. Our Lord, in answer to the question of the disciples, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming,” etc., sketches a solemn prophetic picture of the events that are to precede it-the apostasies, and wars, and famines, and tribulations-and then finishes with this as the final omen, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens.” Vast conjecture and speculation have been awakened as to the nature of this sign. The many descriptions of Christ’s coming given in Scripture agree in one particular, that He comes in clouds. Examine this sign, and seek to interpret it … As in the sign of Christ’s first coming there were marks of glory accompanying the marks of humiliation, so in the sign of His second coming there will be marks of His humiliation accompanying the marks of His glory. Both signs are true, they shine on the pages of prophecy as we read, like the dazzling lenses of a revolving lighthouse, first one and then the other; now the glory and now the humiliation; now the suffering and now the conquest. The one has been fulfilled. Glory, then, in the accomplishment of the one. Watch for the appearing of the other. “What I say-unto you I say unto all-Watch.” (A. J. Gordon.)
The last congregation
I. The persons of whom that assembly will be composed.
II. The process by which that assembly will be collected.
III. The manner in which that assembly will be arranged. Only two classes will be recognized. The last division of the assembly will be public and visible. How momentous the events which that division has created and displayed!
IV. The decision which on it will be pronounced. The principles by which the decision will be guided. The consequences which the decision will involve. (J. Parsons.)
Tokens of perdition
I. Vicious habits.
II. A resort to infidelity or universalism to relieve the mind from presentiments of a judgment to come.
III. A false hope and a false profession.
IV. The approach of age without religion.
V. Carnal security.
VI. Satisfaction with worldly good.
VII. A loose and presumptuous confidence in God’s mercy.
VIII. Increasing hardness of heart.
IX. Neglect of prayer and the means of grace.
X. The rejection of many calls. How many of these marks of death do you find upon yourself? (E. Griffin, D. D.)
The kingdom comes in crises of judgment
The kingdom of God is within you, but the crises of judgment are periodical and outward. The kingdom is within the individual the kingdom of habit, which eludes observation; silently formed day by day, growing as seed grows in the earth, full of slow, secret developments; the kingdom of impressions received-no change on the face showing the inner working; the kingdom of life discipline-lessons quietly, privately learned-experiences which only you know of laid to heart-memories hoarded; the kingdom of prayer, aspiration, spiritual communion, into which you can enter alone, none knowing how or when you pray-the Divine Host coming in silently, “without observation.” It comes also, this spiritual kingdom, to nations, “without observation;” slowly beneath its invisible sway slavery disappears; the place of woman is secured; human law brought into nearer affinity with Divine law; the brotherhood of man gradually acknowledged, in theory, at least; even the horror of war alleviated. Thus slowly, without observation, do the kingdoms of the world tend to become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. But, oh, how much remains to be done! Philosophers talk of the military barbarous phase giving place to the industrial phase in civilization, and we enter the Inventions Exhibition, 1885-that late product of the nineteenth century-and the first things which meet our gaze are certain awful cannons and war implements for the destruction of human life, and the unfaternal torture of human beings. Cold steel, gunpowder, and the big battalions have it all their own way in a world which laughs at arbitration, sneers at right, and still swears by Christ. And now see how the judgment crises of this kingdom within work themselves out, and are as startling and as terrible as any appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, surrounded by His angelic heralds of judgment. Every time the measure of a nation’s iniquity is full, there comes such a judgment crisis. It came to Jerusalem when the armies of Vespasian, in the year 70, trampled out the heartless and effete ecclesiastical system of the old Judaism. It came to Rome when the unparalleled corruption of the Caesars had spread to the provinces, and in due time the empire went to pieces, under the weakness of its head, and was broken up to be re-constituted in the Christian nations of modern Europe. It came to England when the Reformation stamped the authority of the Pope out of the kingdom. It came again when huge popular oppression and political wrong nerved the people to strike for justice in the execution of an English king. It came to France after centuries of organized selfishness and robbery of the poor by the rich, in the French Revolution and Reign of Terror, 1793. It came again with the overthrow of an adventurer, who in our time rose to power by treachery and massacre, and wielded the sceptre of France for more than twenty years until the judgment fell upon him at Sedan and hurled him from the throne. People were taken in by Napoleon III. and the glitter of his empire. They thought that he at all events had outdone Providence. But neither he nor any one else can do that. One Frenchman at least saw clear-stood firm for the permanence of spiritual principle, and waited for the kingdom of God which cometh not with observation. That was Victor Hugo. Nothing could induce him to enter France whilst Antichrist was on the throne. The day after Sedan he presented himself at the ticket-office in Brussels, and left that night for Paris. (H. R. Haweis, M. A.)