62 - Revelation 22:20

’Surely I come quickly; Amen.’ -Revelation 22:20.

God is about to close this great book of revelation, in the writing of which so many of his servants have been engaged through so many successive centuries. The last words of the Bible are falling from the pen of the inspired and beloved apostle. A solemn warning has just been recorded against all those who shall seek to cut off the people of God, or mankind at large, from the inspired Scriptures, or from any portion of them, or who shall seek to impose, as equal in authority to the Scriptures, words of their own; and thus: a new indication has been given of that Babylon upon which the woes of the Apocalypse are to be executed. When we speak of Babylon, we need not let our minds go too far away; within the pale of what is called Protestantism we find too much of what is here indicated; too many who have laid what they call the axe of criticism at the root of many of the inspired writings, or who are seeking to pass off the inventions of men as of Divine authority. God knew well how men would deal with this crowning marvel of his condescension and love, the completion of the Divine Testaments; how, recovering gradually from their awe, and emboldened by its gentleness, they would take the Bible in hand, and gradually seek to drape it, and alter it, and modify it, and introduce into it their own ideas, and, in a word, accommodate it to their own fancies. The eighteen centuries that have gone by are a striking commentary upon these closing intimations. Up to this hour men have been fighting with the Bible, and studying the art of neutralising what is most distinctive in it. But the Book of Revelation does not close with these warnings. We hear the voice of the Son of God. He has just four words to say to his people, who are commissioned to obey, to defend, and to declare his words in the world. Are they words of farewell? Does he bid them rest satisfied with what they have known? Does he tell them that there is nothing in the future but what they can achieve for themselves? Does he say, Heaven has nothing more to give you? Are they to renounce the attitude of expectation? No. We are saved by hope. The God of the Church of Christ is the God of hope. As the Old Testament closed with intimations of the Messiah that should come into the world, so the New Testament closes with intimations of another advent of the Christ of God. And as under the former dispensation men prepared for the coming Messiah, not by turning their backs upon the Old Testament, but by searching it more carefully, and obeying it more implicitly, so we are notified that our desires for the appearing of the Lord of glory are to find expression in earnest, wise, and persevering endeavours to understand the Divine communications made in the Scriptures, and to be fully conformed to them. "Blessed," says our Alpha and Omega, Revelation 22:14, "are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." The city is the New Jerusalem that cometh down from God out of heaven; the gates are the gates of pearl; the tree of life grows by the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The blessed enter in by faith, but they enter in not without obedience. Thus, in all holy conversation and godliness, we are to look for and hasten unto the coming of the day of God, as Peter warns us. Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb; and the bride, the Lamb’s wife, is none other than the city whose light was like unto a stone most precious, which John saw (in his vision of the latter day) descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Find me therefore one who is most heartily and intelligently intent on getting the whole revealed will of God accomplished by him, whose pure and holy ambition it is that the word of Christ and the Spirit of Christ may have full sway in and through him, with entire crucifixion of his own nature, and you will have found me the man who, above all others, is hastening the coming of the Lord.

"Behold, I come quickly." ’How quickly? So quickly that you have no time to lose in doing the things which I have given you to do. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not one tittle of my word; my prophecies concerning the Church and her enemies must be fulfilled; my commission to preach the Gospel among all nations must be obeyed; my prayer for the union of my people must be their prayer and their desire and their whole-hearted aim. The bride must make herself ready. It is nothing in heaven that hinders my coming; when you marvel at the seeming delay, look around you and see how much of the appointed preparation has been neglected. In vain you say, ’Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, if you allow anything in yourself to block my way to the throne of your heart.’ Would it be pleasant, at the coming of the Lord Jesus in glory, to find that some work which he had given to you, and to which he attached a very high importance, has been left undone by you, has scarcely been perceived by you as an obligation at all? The Lord Jesus would fain not have you covered with confusion in that supreme hour; he would not have anything to mar the joy of the meeting between you and your glorified Master; and when he says to you, "Behold, I come quickly," he would have you hasten to do his will in this and that neglected particular. You respond, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," but the best way to make this response is by seeking, with all self-sacrifice, to have Christ formed in you, the Hope of glory; by seeking to live his own divine life, and be in the world as he was in it.

What is the meaning of the rapid movements of Divine providence which we are now witnessing? This shaking together of all the nations of the earth? This running to and fro; this deportation and migration of races; this wonderful interfusion whereby each country is representing herself in every other country? What is the meaning of these inventions and appliances whereby facilities of locomotion and communication are furnished, the very idea of which would formerly have savoured of the Arabian Nights? The prodigious increase of knowledge and of material comforts, so that the mechanic has as many books and as much furniture as a king would have had some centuries ago? The last two generations have seen more than twenty previous generations saw. A mighty impulse has been given to all parts of the world’s machinery. What does it all mean? What are we hurrying to? The answer comes from above: "Behold, I come quickly!" O that we may hear the voice which thus speaks; and the Amen which seals it, and seals all the recorded words of Christ. Scoffers say, ’Where is the promise of his coming?’ they make a mock of his Amen; ah! he will come too quickly for them.