Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 488
Revelation 11:12.
WHAT may be the particular meaning of the prophecy concerning the witnesses clothed in sackcloth, their death, their resurrection, and their subsequent entrance into Heaven, I am unable to guess. Nor am I clear that anybody else has hit upon it. Although I do not despise prophesying, I entertain a very intense disgust of those who know nothing about them, and yet pretend to be their interpreters. I am free to confess that I have not the key to the Book of Revelation and dare not set up to be its expositor.
This, however is no great matter—for without my venturing upon that line of things—there are quite enough who are always studying the apocalyptic mysteries, and a sufficient number who believe that they can comprehend them. No branch of literature has more devoted students, and in none are men more successful in refuting one another, or more sure that they have established their own theories by demolishing those of others. It may be that there are some whose office it is to open sealed books—I know that it is mine to enforce the teachings of the unsealed volume.
They may have a call to expound Daniel and Ezekiel—mine is of a much humbler, but, I think I may add, of a much more useful character—not so much to foretell the fall of dynasties and the deaths of monarchs as to deal with matters of vital godliness—and with eternal realities. With things that are plainly revealed, which certainly belong unto us, and unto our children, I had rather be a sweet savor unto God in souls converted, than explain all the last vials. And I would prefer rather to comprehend the heights and depths of my Great Master’s love, than to count the number of the beast, or calculate the duration of the little horn.
I. Waiving, then, all attempts at explaining the text from its connection, I intend to use it as the voice of God to His people. We shall regard it, first of all as A SUMMONS SENT AT THE APPOINTED HOUR TO EVERY SAINT. When the time shall come, fixed by irreversible decree, there shall be heard “a great voice from Heaven” to every Believer in Christ, saying, “Come up here.”
This should be to us—each one of us if we are in Christ—the subject of very joyful anticipation. Instead of decoding the time when we shall leave this world to go to the Father, we should be thirsting and panting for the hour that shall set our soul at liberty, and give our spirit, once and for all, its full discharge from an imprisonment of clay and from the bondage of “the body of this death.” To some Christians it will not only be joyful in anticipation, but it will be intensely delightful when it arrives. It is not true, as some suppose, that death when it really appears, is necessarily a dreadful and hideous apparition—
“Death no terrific foe appears. An angel’s lovely form he wears, A friendly messenger he proves To every soul whom Jesus loves.” I doubt not that many Believers welcome the kind approach of death as the arrival of their best friend, and salute their last hour with intense delight. Witness the saint who has been for years bedridden. She is tossed to and fro as on a sea of pain, never resting at the anchorage of ease. She cries at night, “Would God it were morning,” and when the light of day affects her eyes, she longs for the returning darkness that she may slumber for a little season and forget her pains. Her bones have worn through her skin by long lying upon a bed made as soft as kindness can render it, but, alas, still too hard for so weak and tormented a body.
Pangs have shot through her frame as arrows piercing the foe. Every vein has been a river flushed with agony, and every nerve a telegraph conveying messages of pain to the spirit. Oh, how welcome shall it be when the Voice shall cry from Heaven, “Come up here!” No more weakness now! The joyful spirit shall leave all bodily pain behind. The last tear shall be wiped away by the Divine Father’s hand. And she that was a mass of disease and decay, shall now become an embodiment of intense delight, full to the brim with satisfaction, and infinite pleasure in that land where Jehovah-Rophi reigns. The inhabitant shall no more say, “I am sick.”
With what joy will the Voice from Heaven sound in the ear of the man wearied with labor! The world shall know of some of us, when we die, that we have not been idle—that we have served our God beyond our strength. He who finds the ministry an easy profession shall find the flames of Hell no pleasant resting place. Oh, there may be some of you in whose name I can speak now who have served God with throbbing brow, with palpitating heart—weary in your Master’s service, but never weary of it—springing to the collar when the load was far too heavy for your single strength. Ready to labor, or ready to fight, never putting off your armor—you stand harnessed both by night and day, crying in your Master’s name—