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e Midnight
Cry!
e Hope of the Church of God
By Alfred Henry Burton
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e Midnight Cry!
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Contents
e Midnight Cry: Or, e Hope of the Church of God 5
Part I.
“ey Went Forth to Meet the Bridegroom.” ......................10
Part II.
“ey All Slumbered and Slept.” .........................................19
Part III.
“At Midnight ere Was a Cry Made.” ............................... 21
e Midnight Cry: Or, e Hope of the Church of God
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171820
e Midnight Cry: Or, e
Hope of the Church of
God
IN the following pages it is our desire to bring before
the reader a subject of daily increasing interest to every
child of God, and in doing so we most earnestly ask the
prayerful and serious consideration thereof which its
importance demands.
e return or the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
is the subject to which we allude, and in approaching it in
company with our readers, we would urge upon them the
importance of doing so Bible in hand, and of examining
for themselves every passage which may be referred to, in
dependence upon the teaching and guidance of the Holy
e Midnight Cry!
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Ghost — that Spirit of truth sent down from heaven at
the day of Pentecost by the ascended and gloried Christ,
and whose blessed oce it is, amongst many other things,
to guide us into all truth, and to show us things to come.
(John 16:13.)
It may be, however, that some into whose hands this
paper may fall have not yet found “peace in believing.” e
great question of their souls’ salvation has not yet been
settled, and consequently they have no inclination to look
into this subject, for something seems to tell them that
they are not ready to meet the Lord if He should come at
this very moment.
We would remind all such of the blessed fact that
Christ has already been here. His sinless feet have trod this
sin-stained earth, and on Calvary’s cross He who knew no
sin “once suered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He
might bring us to God.” (1Peter 3:18.) Yes, dear anxious
soul, this spotless One has died in your stead, has suered
for your sins, has borne them “in His own body on the tree.”
(1Peter 2:24.) He has endured the judgment which you
deserved, met every claim of divine justice on your behalf,
and eternally gloried God in reference to the question
of sin itself. Yes, He has done all this, and innitely more
than tongue could tell or thought conceive. Listen to those
peace-giving words to which He gave utterance upon the
cross — “It is nished” — words which have been the solid
and eternal resting-place of multitudes of sin-burdened
hearts.
e Midnight Cry: Or, e Hope of the Church of God
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“Hear the Lord Himself declaring
All performed He came to do;
Sinners, in yourselves despairing,
is is joyful news for you.
Jesus speaks it:
His are faithful words and true.”
Say, beloved reader, can you not rest there If the justice of
God has been satised in reference to your sins, what more
do you need in order to enjoy peace with God?
On the other hand, some who read these lines may be
truly converted, may have the forgiveness of their sins,
may possess peace with God and the certainty of being in
heaven any moment that God may see t to call them, and
yet perhaps feel no interest in this subject. ey are not
lled to overowing with the “blessed hope” of meeting
face to face that precious Savior who suered on the cross,
and bled and died to save their guilty souls from hell, and
to secure for them an eternal title to be in that same glory
with and like Himself.
Some time ago we met, while taking a railway journey,
with one whose condition was pretty much what we have
described above. He was unquestionably a child of God,
and seeking to serve His Savior. But on being asked if he
was waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, “Ah,
well,” said he, “I do not dive into these matters so deeply as
you. is question does not trouble me much. I know that
I am ready to go any moment God may see t to call me.
If I were to die on the spot, I have no fear; and therefore
it seems to me of very little consequence whether He
comes tomorrow or not for a hundred years, for I am ready
whenever He comes.”
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“Let me imagine,” was our reply, “that you had gone
to India to transact some business, and that you had left
behind you your wife and family. ough left behind,
you do not forget them; they are still the objects of your
deep aection. Not a day passes but what your thoughts
travel back to those dearly-loved ones, and you long for
the time when you will once more enjoy their company.
Your business nearly completed, with intense satisfaction
you write home to tell them that they may expect you to
arrive at any time now. You cannot tell them the exact day,
but they may be on the look-out for you. Condent of their
love, you imagine that it will cause them as much joy to
receive this announcement as it has given you to make it.
“Soon after the receipt of this letter I pay them all a visit,
and on inquiring whether they had lately heard from you,
I am told, Oh, yes, he has just sent us word that he is soon
coming home; indeed, that we may expect him back at any
time. But after all it does not much trouble us whether
he returns tomorrow or not for another year, for we are
quite ready to receive him whenever he thinks t to come!
Would not this,” we inquired, “manifest a lamentable state
of things? Where would be the aections of their hearts?
Trouble than! I should think not, indeed! If they had any
love for you at all it would make their very hearts leap with
joy to think of so soon seeing you again.”
And has not the blessed Savior left us here? And though
in heaven, dues He not constantly think of us? And is not
His love for us now as deep and fervent as it was for His
beloved disciples when He walked with them through this
world? “Having loved His own which were in the world,
He loved them unto the end.” (John 13:1.) And has He
not sent us word to say that He may return at any moment?
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Yes, dear Christian reader, He has. ree times over in the
last chapter of Revelation, which furnishes us with His
closing communications to His people in this scene, He
has made use of those thrilling words, “I come quickly.”
And shall our aections be unmoved by them? Shall
our hearts be untouched? We trust not; but rather let our
willing voices take up the joyful response, “Even so, come,
Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 22:20.)
We would now ask the reader to open his Bible at Matt.
25, and to read carefully the rst thirteen verses, and let
him keep his Bible open at the very page, whilst together
we cast our eyes over its contents.
A very little attention will suce to show that this
parable of the Ten Virgins is divided into three parts,
which very remarkably coincide with three distinct periods
of the Church’s history here on earth.
We would observe in passing, that the history of the
Church commenced at the day of Pentecost. ough in
the counsels of God, no doubt from all eternity, it was
nevertheless “a mystery kept secret” (see carefully Rom.
16:25; Eph. 3:3-7; Col. 1:24-28), and had no actual
existence as such in this world until, at Jerusalem, on
the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost came down from
heaven (Acts 2:1-4), and baptized all believers into one
body. (1Cor. 12:12, 13.) It was there, then, and thus that
the Church began. We cannot now go into this deeply
important subject, but merely make the foregoing remarks,
in order that it may be clear to the reader to what especial
period we refer; namely, to that which began at the day of
Pentecost in Acts 2, which has continued up to this present
moment, and will continue until the Lord descends into
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the air, and we are caught up to meet Him there. (1ess.
4:16, 17.) en the Church’s history on earth will be closed.
Part I.
“ey Went Forth to Meet the
Bridegroom.”
is characterized the Christians at the very
commencement. “ey went forth to meet the Bridegroom.”
He who had just died for them had gone away from them
into the glory of God. He, as a Man, was sitting there at
the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; but ere going
away had left them a promise, that He would return to
take them to the same place of glory where He was going
Himself. Cheered by this promise, and lled with this
hope, they went forth to meet Him. e world, which had
just cast out and rejected Him whom their hearts loved,
presented no attractions to them. ough in it, they were
not of it. (John 17:14.) ey coveted not its glories, they
courted not its honors, and they sought not its pleasures.
oughts of their absent Lord lled their hearts, and they
longed for the moment when they should see Him and be
with Him.
We lately met a young and ardent Christian. He was
seeking to serve the Lord by preaching the gospel, and
Hoped ere lung to leave his native shores, and go as a
missionary to the heathen.
“Have you ever thought of the coming of the Lord?”
“No,” said he; “I cannot say that I have.”
“Have you never noticed,” we replied with surprise,
“how repeatedly the New Testament speaks of it?”
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Again he answered in the negative, hinting at the same
time that it spoke more of death than of the coming of
Christ.
Reader, will you be as surprised as he to learn that
death — for the Christian — is not mentioned more than
four or ve times; whereas the coming of the Lord is
treated of in all the gospels, in the Acts, in almost every
epistle
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— in two of these epistles (1 and 2ess.) in every
chapter — and lastly in the book of Revelation over and
over again?
He was quite astonished at this, and promised to search
the Scriptures, to see if these things were so.
And now, beloved reader, is it not strange that Christians
in the present day should be occupied so much with death,
which is but seldom mentioned in the Word in reference
to them; while the bright and blessed hope of the Lord’s
personal return, which is its constant theme, and shines on
almost every page, is ignored, forgotten, or looked upon
as one of the eccentric views of a small portion of peculiar
Christians? No, dear Christian friend, be assured it is a
vital truth of God, given to us as our true and proper hope,
and interwoven with our every right aection and duty.
But let us briey look at a few of the passages which
speak of it; we cannot attempt to do more, or this tract
1 It is most instructive to notice the reason why the Lord’s
coming is omitted in Galatians and Ephesians. In Galatians
the fundamental truths of the gospel wore being given up,
as to justication by faith, &c.; consequently the apostle has,
so to speak, to lay the foundation again, and cannot occupy
them with the blessed hope of the gospel. He has to travail in
birth again for them. (Chap. 4:19.) In Ephesians the believer
is looked at as already seated in heavenly places in Christ, and
accordingly, in this aspect of our position, His coming is not
needed to bring us there.
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would expand itself into a volume. First of all we would
turn to John 14:1-5. Here the blessed Lord is about to leave
the world. Rejected by men, and knowing that “His hour
was come that He should depart out of this world unto the
Father” (John 13:1), He gathers around Him “His own,”
whom He was about to leave behind “in the world.” He
draws them to His side; for He nds Himself at home with
this little company, and He knows that to them He can
speak in all the unrestrained freedom of His deep aection
for them. Judas too, the betrayer, is gone out, “and it was
night.” (v. 30.) How strikingly suggestive of the appalling
moral darkness which enveloped the world at that very
moment! Jesus, we read, “was troubled in spirit.” (v. 21.)
It was not only the hatred of man, deep and long-felt
as it had been, nor was it the treachery of Judas, nor the
unfaithfulness of His disciples, bitter as must have been
the sorrow caused by all this; it was not only this, we
repeat, which oppressed His spirit at that terrible moment.
Deeper shadows still were casting themselves across His
lonely path. e cross, in all its intense reality, was rising
before His soul. e storm of divine judgment against sin
was about to break upon His devoted head, and its heavy
clouds were now passing before Him. But amidst it all He
looks beyond, to the glory which He is straightway about
to enter (13:31, 32), and now distinctly communicates
to them the sad intelligence that He is going away. He
knew what trouble would ll them, and, forgetting for the
moment His own deep sorrow, He seeks to lift their poor
hearts above this world, by telling them of the Father’s
house, where He was going Himself, and where He would
prepare a place for them — a place better far than all this
world could give.
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But how should they reach it? Ah, that is the point!
Read, and as you read imagine that you are listening to
the blessed Savior Himself: “If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also.” (14:3.) What cheering
words for them! What comfort for their broken hearts! “I
will come again!”
“But did He not, by these words, refer to their death?”
some may inquire. Surely not. When they died, they departed
to be with Him. (Phil. 1:23.) He did not leave the Father’s
house and come to fetch them. We believe it would have
been simply impossible for them to have understood His
words in any other sense than that of His own personal
return; and, further, we are convinced that it is because His
absence is so little felt by us in these days, that the thought
of His return, lls us with so little joy. e blank which
the absence of a dearly-loved one makes can be lled up by
nothing but the presence of that very one. And what friend
have we like Jesus? Can we not, in some little measure, say,
“Whom having not seen, we love”? (1Peter 1:8.)
“True,” we hear some saying; “but did He not return
to them after His resurrection? And is it not to this that
He refers!” Undoubtedly He did come back after His
resurrection, but only for a brief moment. Forgetful of
His own words, which assured them that He would rise
again the third day, and refusing to accept the combined
testimony of Mary Magdalene, and of the two disciples
returning from Emmaus, who had actually seen Him alive
and spoken with Him, they are lled with fear and alarm
when “Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them.” (Luke
24:36.) So unbelieving are they, that they cannot realize
that it is in very truth their own beloved Lord and Master
e Midnight Cry!
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once more in their midst. ey think it is an apparition,
and suppose it to be a spirit. He upbraids them with
their unbelief, bids their fears begone, and reassures their
trembling hearts by those touching words, “It is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not fresh and bones,
as ye see me have.”
Ah, no! His resurrecon was no mere spiritual manifestaon,
but an actual fact. There He stood before their very eyes — a
real Man. As truly a Man aer His resurrecon as He had
been before His death, He even asked for food, “and did eat
before them.” (Luke 24:43.)
Being seen of them forty days (Acts 1:3), He now leads
them out “as far as to Bethany” (Luke 24:50), and, as He
blesses them, is “parted from them, and carried up into
heaven.”
Let us turn aside and look at that wondrous scene
described in Acts 1. See that little company gathered
around the risen Savior. See their eager faces as they listen
to His parting words, bidding them return to Jerusalem,
and there await the corning of the Holy Ghost, who in
a few days would descend from heaven, and take up His
abode with them, and in them (John 14:17), and who
would thus be their power for service and testimony whilst
the Lord was away. “When He had spoken these things,
while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received
Him out of their sight.” How steadfastly they look toward
heaven as He goes up! How eagerly is their gaze xed upon
that cloud that has just hidden Him from their eyes! ey
scarcely seem to notice the presence of those two angelic
messengers. But listen! “is same Jesus, which is taken
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen Him go into heaven.”
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To what did they refer? To death? Most certainly not.
By no possible means could these words be so interpreted.
No, no, they do but repeat the same blessed truth the.
Christ Himself had expressed in John 14; namely, the fact
of His own personal return.
We would now briey consider 1ess. 4:13-18. By
reference to the rst chapter, and comparing it with Acts
17, which gives the historical account of the visit of the
apostle Paul to essalonica, and of the rst preaching of
the gospel to that people, we shall see that many of them
were nothing but heathen idolaters, but that to them and
also to the Jews were announced the wondrous glad tidings
of the death and resurrection of Christ. He had died for
their sins, been delivered for their oenses, and raised again
for their justication. (Rom. 4:25.) At the cross He had
stood as the holy spotless Victim, charged with all their
sins; and now God had raised Him from the dead, and put
Him at His own right hand in heaven. How better could He
have proved His entire satisfaction in that sacrice?
“All His billows rolled o’er Jesus,
ere exhausted all their power.”
“Some of them believed” (Acts 17:4), we are told, and
no doubt their faith rested on the word of God, but we
cannot pass on without noticing a beautiful contrast in
the case of the Bereans, their neighbors. Of these last we
read, “erefore many of them believed.” (v. 12.) Why
this dierence? “ey searched the Scriptures daily.” (v. 11.)
Ah, there was the secret! And may this earnest spirit be
increased a thousandfold in the present day amongst all
who desire to grow in the knowledge of God and His truth!
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But what a marvelous eect was produced amongst
those who did believe at essalonica, few in number as
they may have been! ey “became followers of the Lord,”
“examples to all that believe;” and by their changed manner
of life, the word of the Lord was “sounded out,” and their
faith to Godward “spread abroad.” And having turned to
God from their idols, they were waiting “for His Son from
heaven.” (1ess. 1:6-10.) Yes, beloved Christian reader,
this formed an integral part of their conversion. Not only
had they been “delivered from the wrath to come,” not only
saved from eternal judgment by His death, but now, He
having been raised from the dead and seated in heaven,
they were eagerly waiting, not for their own death, but for
His personal return.
ey were expecting Him to come back even in their
very lifetime. ey had been taught that at His return,
and not at their death, would every desire of their hearts
be satised; but as the days and weeks rolled on, and still
He for whom they were waiting and watching did not
return; and as death too began to make its appearance in
that little company, they were lled with dismay, imagining
that those only who were alive would reap the full joy of
His coming, and that those who had passed away would in
some way or other be losers. Accordingly the apostle writes
the rst epistle to revive their drooping spirits and reassure
their desponding hearts.
Does he reproach them with ignorance for expecting
their Lord so soon to return Does he comfort them by
assuring them that they themselves must soon die, and
thus follow those of their number who had fallen asleep?
Not at all. “Let not sorrow ll your hearts,” he says. “Be
not like the poor world which has ‘no hope’ in death; ‘for
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this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we
2
which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord,
shall not prevent (or go before) them which are asleep.’”
(1ess. 4:15.) It was as though he said, “We shall in no
wise outstrip them, for (1) the Lord Himself shall descend
from heaven … and (2) the dead in Christ shall rise rst:
then (3) we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air.”
It is inconceivable how anyone, who gives the smallest
thought to the subject, can imagine that all this refers to
death! Do, beloved reader, let your eye rest upon the words
of verse 16 “e Lord Himself” (is that death?) — “shall
descend from heaven with a shout.” When a saint of God
dies does death come down from heaven with a shout?
And further, “the dead in Christ shall rise rst;”
3
this is
resurrection, and not death. At death the body is put down
into the grave and there sees corruption; but at the glorious
moment of which this passage speaks three events take
place, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1Cor.
15:52), (1) the Lord Himself descends from heaven into
the air, (2) the dead in Christ rise, and, as 1Cor. 15:43
tells us, they are “raised in glory,” and (3) the living saints
are “changed in a moment” (1Cor. 15:51, 52), and “caught
up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air,” and so to be forever with Him. Blessed hope!
Comforting words!
2 Notice how careful the apostle is to place himself, along with
those to whom he was writing, amongst the number who
might be alive at the very moment when the Lord should
return — ”we which are alive,” &c. — he does not say, “they
which are alive.”
3 On this subject see a little book entitled e Two Resurrections.
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e meeting-place, observe, between Christ and His
gloried saints, both raised and changed, is not the earth,
nor is it exactly heaven, but in the air.
ere it is that we shall meet our blessed Savior. And
oh, what shouts of triumph, and what songs of praise, shall
ll the vaults of heaven as He takes us back with Himself,
and ushers us into the Father’s house! (John 14.) Alas! for
this poor world which is left behind, and which will then,
for a short while, go on increasing in iniquity with fearful
rapidity, until the heavens open and Christ comes forth
in majesty and power accompanied with all the gloried
saints to execute judgment.
e scriptures which we have thus briey looked at are,
we trust, sucient to show the reader who desires to be
taught of God, and to learn in subjection to the word of
God, that the early Christians were expecting the speedy
return of the Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself was the rst
to put the thought into their minds. (John 14.) He had
even said of one, “If I will that he tarry till I come” (John
21:22), thus showing that He might, though not positively
stating that He would, come back before the death of the
disciple to whom He was speaking. e angels, too, after
His ascension, took up similar language (Acts 1); and
lastly the apostles on many occasions were inspired of God
to repeat the same comforting words. Is it any wonder,
therefore, that this blessed hope lled the hearts of God’s
people then, and that “they all went forth to meet the
Bridegroom”! But, alas!
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Part II.
“ey All Slumbered and Slept.”
At the beginning “they all went forth to meet the
Bridegroom.” is, as we have seen, characterized the early
Christians. ey were not of this world, their “conversation
[or citizenship] was in heaven, from whence also they
looked for the Savior.” (Phil. 3:21.) ey had taken up
their cross to follow Him, and amidst the many trials and
persecutions with which their path was strewn, their hearts
were cheered by His parting promise — “I will come again,
and receive you unto myself.” (John 14:3.)
But still the Bridegroom tarried. e weeks, months,
and years rolled by, and still there was no sign of His
return. Had He forgotten His promise? Had He led them
to expect what He never intended to fulll? By no means.
eir faith, no doubt, was being tested; but “ye have need
of patience,” says the inspired apostle, “for yet a little
while, and He that shall come will come, and will not
tarry.” (Heb. 10:37.) But, alas! their hearts grew weary of
waiting, and their eyes grew heavy with sleep. e world
too grew weary of persecuting them, and began to spread
out before their eyes its bright and glittering attractions.
how quickly the direful eect of all this was felt! e evil
servant had no sooner said in his heart, “My Lord delayeth
His coming,” than he began “to smite his fellow-servants,
and to eat and drink with the drunken.” (Matt. 24:48, 49.)
He did not say, mark, “My Lord will never return,” but
“My Lord delayeth His coming;” in other words, instead of
treating it as his daily expectation, his immediate hope, he
postponed it to an indenite time in the far-distant future.
Worldliness swept in like a ood, and the Church began to
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seek her home and portion in the scene from whence her
Lord had been cast out.
“We are but strangers here, we would not crave
A home on earth which gave Him but a grave.
His cross has severed ties which bound us here,
Himself our portion in a brighter sphere.”
Instead of breathing such a spirit, “ey all slumbered
and slept.” Yes, all, without exception, wise and foolish
alike — those who were real Christians as well as those who
were mere professors. All were fast asleep; for the hope of
the Lord’s return was completely forgotten.
Centuries rolled by, and still the slumber of the
professing Church continued. Search through the books
that were written, and the sermons that were preached,
not a mention will you nd of that which lls the pages
of the New Testament, not an allusion to that bright and
purifying hope (1John 3:3) of the coming of Christ.
Let us not be misunderstood. Warnings of judgment
there were no doubt; appeals to ee from the wrath of
God, which would eventually be poured out upon this
earth when the Lord Jesus should be revealed from heaven
in aming re; but of His coming into the air to gather
His people home to glory, of His descent into the clouds to
remove His own in the twinkling of an eye from the earth,
which would then, and not till then, become the scene of
all those terrible judgments — of this blessed hope not a
line do we read, not a word do we hear. Alas, alas! “they all
slumbered and slept.” But hark!
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Part III.
“At Midnight ere Was a Cry Made.”
e midnight hour has arrived, the cry has gone forth.
Some fty years ago, we believe, its rst notes began to fall
upon the ears of the slumbering Church. e Lord who
loved His Church, and still loves her, all-forgetful of Him
as she has proved herself to be, at that time led some of His
servants to search the Scriptures more attentively, and the
Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, unfolded before their eyes
and revived in their hearts the same blessed hope that had
led the Christians at the beginning to go forth to meet the
Bridegroom.
Render, has that cry reached you? If not, may God use
these few pages to make it ring in your very ears, and reach
your very heart.
“Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”
(Matthew 25:6.)
Behold, the Bridegroom! Yes, beloved reader He is
at the door. No time for slumber now “Awake, thou that
sleepest!” e history of the Church is about to close, its
sojourn on earth is about to cease. “e coming of the
Lord draweth nigh.” (James 5:8.) “en all those virgins
arose.” (v. 7.) What a stir was made! e foolish as well as
the wise begin to open their eyes; but, oh, what a discovery
do they make! ey had “no oil with them;” the lamp of an
external profession they had, but its light was fast going
out. (v. 8, margin — “Our lamps are going out.”) Of what
use is a lamp which has no oil? In like manner the outward
profession of Christianity is useless without the inward
reality which the possession of the Holy Ghost alone can
give.
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Reader, we would earnestly press upon you the
importance of these things — consider them well, we
beseech you. We are living in a day of great profession, but
God looks for reality. He searches the heart, and how often,
alas! does He see that, though He is approached with the
lips, the heart is far from Him. (Matt. 15:8.)
It may be that some, upon whose ear this warning note
may fall, are resting on the sandy foundation of a Christless
and lifeless profession. Baptized, conrmed, and a regular
communicant you may be; and yet, reader, have no saving
knowledge of Christ. You may be a Sunday-school teacher,
a tract distributor, a district visitor, and even a humanly
ordained preacher; but if still unsaved, all this is but the
oil-less lamp which ere long will go out, and you will be
plunged into the awful darkness of an eternal night.
“Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 7:21.) Oh,
Christendom, Christendom, heed these solemn words in
time! — words spoken by the lips of him who cannot lie.
And again, “when once the Master of the house is risen up,
and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without,
and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto
us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not
whence ye are then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten
and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our
streets.” And cannot multitudes say this in our day who yet
have no real love fur Christ in their hearts, We have taken
the sacrament, they can say; we regularly attend our parish
church; we are subscribers to many benevolent institutions.
All this, beloved reader, may be true of you; but, remember,
it is quite possible to be very religious, and yet unsaved,
unconverted; and if this is your case you most assuredly
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23
will hear those terrible words, “I know you not … depart
front Me.” (Luke 13:24-28.)
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh! and long had his coming
been foretold; many a time, no doubt, had these very words
been read, but the blessed truth they contain was unheeded,
unnoticed, and unseen. And why? Ah! the professing
church was slumbering with the world, the warmth of rst
love towards Christ had grown cold — she was sleeping
instead of watching. But the night is now far spent, yea, the
midnight hour is past —
“Soon will the morning break,
In radiance through the sky.”
e cry has gone forth, it is spreading to the remotest
corners of Christendom, and multitudes of souls are being
awakened to the fact that Christ is about to return. May
every soul that reads these lines be stirred up! Professor, see
to it that you do not lack the oil! Christian, see to it that
your lamp is trimmed; for it is quite possible to possess the
oil, and yet the light be very dim!
Let everything be removed that hinders the light of
testimony for Christ shining forth; examine your walk,
ways, and associations, and give up everything of which
you would be ashamed if Christ were to return this very
day. When we see Him as He is, we shall be like Him;
let us seek to be as like Him now as we can. “Every man
that hath this hope in Him purieth himself even as He
is pure.” (1John 3:3.) Purposely is the moment of His
coming left uncertain, in order that we should always be
like unto men who are waiting and watching for their lord.
If we turn to Luke 12:33-49, we shall see what the Lord
Himself desired should be the attitude of the hearts, and the
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24
occupation of the lives of all his people, and it is His desire
still. Our treasure is in heaven — a treasure inexhaustible,
for it faileth, not; no thief can approach it there, and no
moth can corrupt it. How unlike everything in this world
of eeting joys and crushing disappointments! en let our
hearts be there also
But if our hearts are in heaven, and through grace they
may be, in ourselves and as to our bodies we are still on
this earth, a scene of delement and darkness. We need
therefore to gird up the loins, lest our garments should pick
up the delement of the scene through which we pass; and
we need to have our lights burning, in order that some little
ray of light for Christ may cast itself across the darkness of
this world.
And while He tarries we must wait, and wait too
with the hand upon the latch of the door, ready to open
immediately the rst sound of His footstep is heard. en,
“when He cometh,” He will make us sit down within those
heavenly courts, in the eternal rest of His own presence. No
delement there. We shall not need to gird ourselves; but,
blessed be His name, it will be His delight to gird Himself,
and serve us, and thus throughout eternity to minister to
our joy.
Oh, what an eect would be produced upon our whole
life and conduct if we more constantly remembered that
there is absolutely nothing between us and that glorious
moment but the twinkling of an eye!
e foolish, who represent the mere professors of
Christendom, now begin to understand the gravity of their
position. “Give us of your oil,” they say, as they behold
with alarm the smoldering embers of their oil-less wicks.
But no, this cannot be; for salvation is an individual and
e Midnight Cry: Or, e Hope of the Church of God
25
personal matter. ey now begin to bestir themselves, and
with redoubled energies seek to buy, by their own eorts,
that which can alone be had as a free gift on the principle
of faith.
While thus engaged the bridegroom came, “and they
that were ready went in.” Mark these words, reader. Not
“they that were getting ready,” or “they that hoped to be
ready;” but “they that were ready.” Reader, are you ready? For
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the Bridegroom
will come. en the door will be shut. It will be too late
then to knock at the door; for when once that door is shut,
it is shut forever.
But perhaps you say, “I desire to be ready. What must I
do?” Come as a poor, lost, guilty, hell-deserving sinner to
the Lord Jesus Christ, who has died for sinners, and risen
again. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved.” (Acts 16:31.) His precious blood alone it is that
“cleanses from all sin.”
“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the
hour.”
Ere closing, we would most earnestly warn the reader
against supposing that this earth is the scene of the
Christian’s blessedness. When the Lord Jesus comes into
the air, He comes not to bless us upon the earth, but to take
us to the Father’s house in glory. Our hope is laid up for
us in heaven. (Col. 1:5.) It is “an inheritance incorruptible,
and undeled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven”
for us. (1Peter 1:4.)
It is ever Satan’s eort to drown the truth of God in a
sea of error, by which means some of the children of God
are frightened away from the study of those particular
truths; while others, alas! imbibe those fearful errors to the
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26
damage, not only of their own souls, but also of all whom
they may inuence by their teaching.
Hence, in the present day, the great importance of
taking heed what we hear and read; for many are now
lecturing, preaching, and writing about such truths as the
coming of the Lord, who are in reality saturated with every
form of the nineteenth-century indelity. Some denying
the divinity of Christ, and others His humanity; some
denying the atonement, others the plenary inspiration of
the Scriptures; while multitudes are giving up the deeply
solemn truths of the immortality of the soul, and the
eternity of punishment.
In such a day, amidst such perils, and threatened by
the withering storms of skepticism and indelity, we most
earnestly commend our readers to God, and to the word of
His grace. May we search the Scriptures more diligently,
prize them more highly, and hold them more tenaciously,
“until He come!”
“e night is now far spent,
e day is drawing nigh:
Soon will the morning break
In radiance through the sky.
Oh, let the thought our spirits cheer,
e Lord Himself will soon appear!
“ough men our hope deride,
Nor will the truth believe;
We in His word conde,
And it will ne’er deceive.
Soon all that grieves shall pass away,
And saints shall see a glorious day.
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27
“For us the Lord intends
A bright abode on high;
e place where sorrow ends,
And naught is known but joy.
With such a hope let us rejoice,
We soon shall hear the Savior’s voice.”
We may add that the second coming of Christ has a
double bearing, according as we consider it in relation to
the Church, or in relation to the world. In the foregoing
pages we have conned ourselves exclusively to the rst
aspect thereof. e Lord willing, we may, on a future
occasion, turn our attention to the second.
In the rst
Christ comes for His saints.
He comes into the clouds, and we are caught up to meet
Him in the air.
He comes as our Savior to take us home to glory.
In the second
He comes with them.
He comes to the earth, and His feet stand upon the mount
of Olives.
He comes as a thief in the night to execute judgment
upon a careless, Christ-less world.
ough both are spoken of as His coming, yet an
interval of time elapses between these two parts of it;
and during this interval will be fullled all the prophecies
concerning the restoration of the Jews, the time of great
tribulation, the preaching to the heathen of the gospel of
the kingdom (not the gospel of the grace of God, and the
glory of Christ, as now oered to the world; we must most
carefully distinguish between the two). During this interval
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also all the judgments described in the book of Revelation
from chap. 6 to chap. 19 will take place.
Unless this twofold aspect of the coming of Christ be
clearly understood, all will be confusion. Once seen, all is
as clear as the noonday sun.
A. H.
