When the Jewish nation was looking for the Messiah, about the time that Daniel the prophet pointed to, there appeared in Jerusalem some strangers from the East, Magi, who made no secret of the object of their visit. Led by a star, which they had understood signified the birth of the long-looked-for King of the Jews, they came to the city loudly inquiring for the place where they might find the newborn King. When this came to the ears of Herod, he was troubled--naturally so. It might be his knell of doom. If this expected King had indeed come, he would shortly put an end to Herod's iniquitous power and overthrow his menial throne. That, I say, was natural. But when we read that all Jerusalem was troubled with him, we stop to wonder. Had it come to that? Had the hope of their fathers and the desire of the generations past become a dread unto them? Surely the gold had become dim! And where were their scribes, those well-versed Bible scholars, the expounders of the law; the scrupulous, hair-splitting Pharisees, sticklers for the minutest points of the law and for the tradition of the elders ? Surely they are glad--they have nothing to fear. But they also are troubled. Can it be that they feel instinctively that their gold, too, is but tinsel; that their "loyalty" to the law is more a matter of human dogmatism and conformity to accepted teachings than love for God; that they have but used the name of their God and have taken his word upon their lips for selfish ends, to gain honor and office and position and recognition among men ? Then no wonder that they were troubled. But when among us the midnight cry of the Lord's coming again is sounded out, how will it be ? Shall we be glad ? Are the men of the world going to rejoice? Is the church going to sing happy songs ? Are the preachers going to leap high for joy? Or are they going to be troubled, all together, as Jerusalem was when she heard of the birth of her King? Alas, could it be possible that it has come to that? Has the hope and the joy of the early church become our dread and dismay ? How deep must be our ignorance; how conscious we must be of unfaithfulness, of ease-loving, narrow selfishness; how aware that it is not loyalty to Christ and the love of God that inspires even our religious work, worship teaching, and contention; and how convinced that we are unfit for the coming of Christ! "He cometh"--and instead of a cry of glad relief, like John s "Even so come, Lord Jesus"--behold, consternation, terror, trembling, and cries of distress! Let us hope this picture is overdrawn. But I say unto you, watch, take heed, that ye may be found in peace, and be found among them that "love his appearing," ready to hail it with glad delight.

It was when Jesus was leaving the earth and his ascending figure was veiled with a cloud from the eyes of his disciples as they stood and gazed after him, there came a reassuring message from God: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven." Then returned the apostles to Jerusalem "with great joy," as the gospel of Luke tells us--joy, not because Jesus had left them, but because this very same Jesus should come again just as they had beheld him leaving. And was it not a cause for joy ? Had they not walked with him through his earthly ministry and learned to love him with an unbounded devotion? Had they not hung their faith on him and borne the shame of his seeming failure, and mourned for him the days he lay in the tomb as one mourneth for an only son? And when he had risen and the fact which seemed too good to believe was overwhelmingly demonstrated to their senses, how the fires of faith and love and hope blazed up anew, this time unquenchably! And now he had left them again. He had not restored the kingdom to Israel as they had hoped, but had met their anxious question with the answer that the times and seasons of that event were among the secret things that belong to the Lord our God; at the same time making them the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and of consequent power and privilege to be his witnesses unto the uttermost part of the earth. Then he spread out his hands and blessed them, and the while he blessed them he was taken up from among them. So he left them again, but this time not in clouds of gloom and disappointment as before, but as when the sun sets in a sky of clear gold with the promise of a fair morning. He left an appointment with his disciples, that they should wait for him. He said he was coming again. When? He did not tell them. But assuredly he would sooner or later; and every day that rolled round made his coming more likely and by one day more imminent. They were anxious for his return, they knew him and loved him, and no sweeter hope existed for them than just this, that their beloved Master would surely return. They could not but believe him, and were assured that as he was the author of their faith, he would also be the finisher of it.

One of the marks of the apostolic churches, in every way as essential as any other characteristic of worship or doctrine, was their constant expectation of the Lord's return. Corinth was waiting for it, and taught to look forward to the event with hope, despite the defects that were then attaching to them. (1 Cor. 1:7,8.) Thessalonica had turned to God to serve him and to wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thess. 1:9,10). Philippi had their citizenship in heaven, whence also they waited for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phil. 3 :20.) The brethren at Colosse were admonished to be unworldly and to wait for their glorious reward at the manifestation of the Lord. (Col. 3:1-3.) The doctrine of grace which Titus must proclaim gives the return of the Lord prominent place. Tit. 2:11-13.) To the Hebrew brethren it is declared that Jesus would come a second time to them that wait for him unto revelation. (Heb. 9:28.) James makes it the ground of the Christian's patience under trial and suffering. (James 5 :7-11.) Peter does the same. ( 1 Pct. 1:7; 4:12,13), and makes Christ's coming a motive for elders of the church to do their work, and do it well (S: 1-4). In his second epistle, some of his last words to us are: "Give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight." And we might continue. This much is evident: that much mention is made of the coming again of our Lord; that great weight was placed on it; that it furnished the basis and motive of all faithful Christian life and unworldliness; and that all the churches of apostolic time were in an attitude of constant expectation of the Savior from heaven. No church or Christian that has lost view of, or ignores, this doctrine, fills the true pattern left to us in the New Testament. Let us make up this deficiency. It is high time to study and preach and teach this wonderfully great and wonderfully neglected portion of God's holy truth.

In studying the teaching of the Lord's coming it is quite as essential to lay aside "preconceived notions" (and little as we know and say about this subject, there is no lack of preconceived, superficial notions) as in the study of baptism or anything else. There is difficulty connected with it. We may not be able to combine all the statements concerning this vast matter into one harmonious, coherent, systematic arrangement--likely not. But we are not obliged to. Two things only are absolutely needful: first, to believe just what God has told us, without twisting or quibbling; and, second, to seize upon the practical import of this teaching and carry it out in the power of a living faith. Nothing will so change our conduct and life; nothing will so turn us away from the earth and make us work, and inspire us to keep unspotted and to witness for our Lord in the midst of a crooked, perishing generation.

As for a connected theory of the things pertaining to the coming, I may have one, but I place no weight on it; and I will not quarrel with my brother for having a different idea of the sequence of events. What we want is the great truth, and the truths connected with it, and the practical lesson of the doctrine is what we need. But any theory which would do violence to the word, or, especially, frustrate the practical end God had in view, ought to be abolished. If there is one such practical aim in this doctrine, it is to put us on guard to be constantly ready, constantly waiting, watching, since we know not the day nor the hour --at a time when even we think not the Lord cometh. I would thank no man to rob me of that with his subtle and ingenious theories. I would thank no man for putting the coming to the other side of a millennium, so that in any case one thousand years must intervene before the Lord comes. For this takes the point out of the doctrine. Who could wait for a thing so far off as that ? Who would prepare and look daily for such a distant event ?

Probably nothing could have put a more effective quietus on all zealous ado about the Lord's return than the doctrine that not until after the thousand years' reign mentioned in Rev. 20 would Jesus come. That was a damper! Who, believing that, will trouble himself for such a dimly distant incident? They inevitably cease to look for him, for they are not so constituted as to momentarily expect what they know can not occur for at least a thousand years. Now they prepare for death--a thing which the Lord did not tell them to do at all; and death becomes the cynosure of all hearts. The mention of the Lord's coming dies out of their mouths. The doctrine of it has become unpractical, dreamy. There is no more need of it, no essential place for it. This describes only too well the state of affairs now, and it is largely due to the "postmillenarian" theory which came into prominence during the eighteenth century, a man named Whitby being chief apostle of it. And today this theory holds most of Christendom (members of the church of Christ not excepted) in its grasp. Even those who do not consciously profess it are indirectly affected by its teaching and spirit and attitude. We have shaken off human yokes on other lines, but in this matter we are still held in bonds--partly by the difficulty of readjusting old ideas, and partly, perhaps, because in fighting Adventists and their ilk we have suffered prejudice and the convenient speciousness of the position to confirm us in it. Now against the postmillenarian theory I hold just this, that it robs every Christian, in effect, of the whole import and benefit of the doctrine of Christ's coming We must look for Jesus now, today, as, indeed, today he is likely to come. We have no centuries to convert the world in, but must hasten to the distant lands to witness the gospel to all, and that quickly. Yes, if the church had to absorb the world first, we might go to sleep on this matter, for no such prospect is at hand. But the Book shows that Jesus on his return will not meet a converted world, but a handful of persecuted disciples that look for him anxious as the watchmen for the morning; that conditions in world and church will be fearful at the end, and that the Lord will, at his coming, personally clash with the Antichrist. The millennium? If human civilization and progress and even the advance of truth must bring it about, then there is no room for aught but discouragement and despair. Save your statistics. There are no Christian nations. There are even today only a few whom Christ can call his own; and the population of the world is increasing out of all proportion with the number of conversions even in this country, to say nothing of heathen lands. But God says Christ is coming, coming soon. God wants us to see that these multitudes and nations shall have a chance to hear the gospel. But how leisurely we are at this our task! "The millennium is on now," said a certain brother. "But how about Satan's being bound ?" "He may be bound now," replied he. "Then," I said, "I should not like to see him turned loose." Another, feeling the force of this point, ventured the idea that while Satan was bound his angels were still abroad! As if that would make any difference!

But it is no object of ours to engage in controversy on this point. What we now need is faith in what God said, a living faith that will live in full view of Christ's imminent coming and forgets the earth and self in this onward, upward look, this daily glorious hope, and striving to be found of him in joy and peace. The time is at hand, much nearer than when Paul and Peter wrote. The passing days have only made the event more certainly near, and it can not be far now. It may be that one of these Lord's days we shall take the loaf and cup to show forth the Lord's death "till he come" for the very last time. It may be that one of these evenings you may close your eyes in sleep and open them suddenly in his presence. One of these mornings we shall see the rising sun, and before the evening falls we shall be forever with the Lord. May his grace keep us and make us fit for that moment, as surely it will if we live in faith of our Lord's imminent return. "For yet a very little while, he that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him."