Setting the Stage

For the Last Act of the Great World Drama

The Christian’s hope is the personal return of our Saviour, “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him.” It is with Him, therefore, that we are to be occupied. The eye of faith looks on to His advent, and it is well not to be too much taken up with lesser persons, whether good or evil in character, or with world-events as such. While there is no real soul-food in being occupied with what I might call the politics of the Bible or the alignment of the nations on the prophetic field, yet it is this very aspect of things which will be before us—not that our interest should be centered in them, however, nor that our attention should be simply fixed upon the great movements which indicate the near close of the present dispensation. These are only of moment because they tell us, like the budding fig-tree, that “He is near, even at the door.” It is for Himself we wait. It is His voice we long to hear. It is His face we earnestly desire to behold. For we know that when He is manifested we shall be made wholly like Him, and this is the consummation for which His people yearn.