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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 41. A World Event
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A World Event
I am frequently asked some question about the Lord's return. There is usually an eagerness in eye and tone when the question is asked. I can feel the longing of the heart for Him, and His promised coming back again. And yet with it, frequently—not always—there is a vague feeling as though there were so much uncertainty about the matter. And if we talk a while there is oft-times—not always—a lack of familiarity with what the Book teaches about it. I always feel deeply sympathetic. I have been in just that position so long, eagerly longing, yet confused, and not familiar with just exactly what the Book teaches. And now all I can do is to bring what I have been getting out of the Book.
I want to gather up in this talk, in a very simple way, for busy people whose leisure is limited, what is given in the talks that have just gone before. In the preceding section, "On the Knees," the method of getting at the teaching is given, as well as the result. It involves a good deal of detailed study for which all may not have opportunity. This present talk gives simply the results, grouped in such a way that one may get something of a clear, simple grasp of the teaching. It will be an immense advantage, even for those whose time is crowded, to go through the more detailed study, bit by bit, after having read through this chapter.
I think it will be well to be reminded that these talks do not take up the discussion of whether any of these things seem likely or unlikely to us. They are not a study of conditions now in the world, but only of what the Bible itself teaches about our Lord's return.
The answer found here to questions about our Lord's return is apt to seem startling, at least that is the way it came to me. It includes so much more than we are apt to suppose. But then there is a good deal bigger sweep to the whole subject than most of us have thought about. We are apt to think of its personal meaning for ourselves, "with a general sort of hazy thought that it means a righting of things that are wrong. It includes these, but it includes much more. This is because of Who it is that is to return. The arrival or return of some one takes on the size of the one coming.
It's because it is Jesus who is to return that the event sweeps in so many other things. He is the one through Whom our world and all its life were created, and through Whom its affairs are administered for the Father. His coming again, therefore, is to be a world-event, even as His first coming was, and gradually came to be so recognized. When He wrapped Himself in the garb of our humanity, and walked amongst us, it was a garb of Jewish weave. Humanly He became a man, and a Jewish man. It is because He is the centre of all, and touches each of these things so vitally, that His return takes in such a broad swing of events.
It concerns the whole world movement. It concerns the system of evil which is dominant in the world. It concerns the Jew, the Jew nation, its capital—Jerusalem, and the centre of its national life—the temple. It concerns the whole race, which is His child creatively, and for which He died. And it concerns future affairs on the earth. It is quite possible, and not difficult, to get a simple but clear and firm grasp of the group of events concerned. And as we do, it clears our vision, steadies our steps, and gives new strength to our praying, and new simplicity to our faith. We can pray more intelligently and earnestly "Thy Kingdom come."
When the Gospels and Epistles were written the Jews were still a nation, though a subject-nation. Jerusalem was standing, and the daily sacrifices were being offered in the temple. This is the standpoint from which things are looked at. We should keep this in mind.