Christians who understand something of the dispensational dealings of God as revealed in His Word, know that this present period is a parenthesis in God's prophetic revelations concerning the earth. This is the time when God is visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name—for heavenly glory (Acts 15:1414Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. (Acts 15:14)). When the Church has been completed and translated to heaven, then God's purposes and plans for this earth will begin to unfold. The prophetic clock has, as it were, been stopped while a heavenly people have been gathered. but as soon as the Lord takes them home, the clock will accurately and surely tick off the appointed times for the fulfillment of God's purposes for the earth. Men, save those who are in the current of God's thoughts, do not know that God has a program which He will put into effect on earth. Christianity is not going to prepare the earth for the righteous rule of the Son of man: unparalleled troubles and direct judgments from God will do that. God has not forgotten the earth, nor what it did to His Son when He sent Him into it in grace. A day of reckoning is fast approaching.
This parenthesis began after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and went back to heaven. He then sent the Holy Spirit down into this world, and He has been personally present ever since. As Abraham's servant went into a far country to secure a bride for the son who had been on the altar, so the Spirit is here seeking the heavenly bride for Christ. As the servant led the bride across a trackless wilderness to Isaac, so the Spirit is leading the bride home to the One of whom Isaac was but a type. The parenthesis has been more than 1900 years long—a vast space of time when we consider that God's prophetic disclosures for the earth deal with years, months, and even days. But let us ask how close we are to the closing of that great gap, that long parenthesis. Everything indicates that the moment which will complete it is almost here. It may happen at any instant now. There will be the shout, the call, the departure of every true believer in the Lord Jesus from the earth, and from the tomb, and the Holy Spirit's leaving with the Church; then the parenthesis will have closed. Our present position in regard to God's parenthesis might be illustrated by the placing of an X to indicate where we are; thus, ( ... ... ... X)
We are so connected with sight and sense that we are apt to forget how late it really—is much, much later than we think. If we realized our close proximity to the end, we would be daily, even hourly, expecting to hear that shout. And if we lived in such expectancy, our sense of relative values would be much altered. One real obstacle in the way of Christians' discerning this time is the unparalleled prosperity in the Western world. Never before in history has any people reached such a high level financially or attained to such an elevated standard of living. The mad scramble for material things is blinding the eyes of them that believe not, so that they rarely think of having to meet God in their sins. Even Christians who believe that the Lord is coming before long are being caught in the swirl, and seldom cry:
Lord Jesus, come!
Nor let us longer roam
Afar from Thee and that bright place
Where we shall see Thee face to face.
Lord Jesus, come!
Lord Jesus, come!
Thine absence here we mourn;
No joy we know apart from Thee,
No sorrow in Thy presence see.
Lord Jesus, come!
Troubles tend to force our poor hearts out of the world, but attachment of heart to the Lord Jesus should continually draw them out under any circumstances. In John 20, Mary of Magdala is found with a bereaved heart. She has lost Him whom her soul loved, and nothing else mattered. She did not go away to her home like the two apostles; there was no rest for her troubled heart where He was not. Not even the sight of angels could enthrall a heart thus bereaved; she saw the angels but turned her back to them. O for a little of a kindred spirit!
May the Lord grant us to be more heavenly-minded, and may we more earnestly lay up in heaven a treasure that faileth not. With the disintegration of all that man has set his heart on here coming apace, may we who have a hope that is sure and steadfast, and that cannot fail, have our hearts weaned from this poor world, and our thoughts, our hopes, and our aspirations set on the goal that is before us. P. Wilson