21

The Second Sunday in Advent.

EVENING SERVICE.-First Lesson: Isaiah xxiv.

Verse 23.-" Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

THIS chapter is similar to the cloud which stood between the camp of the Israelites and the camp of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, having one side light and the other dark. The dark side is full of anger and indignation facing towards the enemies of the Almighty, whilst the light side is full of promise and blessing facing towards the friends of God. I take it to refer to the times of the Messiah, presenting a general view of the overthrow of His enemies; first the apostate Jews, and next the apostate Gentiles; and of the first and final triumph of the Gospel when the righteous remnant shall joyfully praise Him. The strongest language is here employed to describe His fearful judgments upon His enemies :

Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth." These are images taken from the different methods of hunting and taking wild beasts which were anciently in use, and they serve to teach the solemn truth, that Jehovah had and has instruments of judgments at His command to consume all His own and His people's enemies; those who escape the one, shall be overtaken by the other. He has heaven and earth ready to serve Him: "For the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake." As in the time of the deluge, "the windows of heaven and the fountains of the great deep" combined to destroy the old world; so all things will combine to destroy universally and utterly the enemies of Christ.

They shall be gathered together and shut up in prison until the time of the final visitation, which will be on the day of judgment. "Then," at that time, "the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

There are two things in the text worthy of our consideration. First, the incidents; and Secondly, the coincidents of our Saviour's advent.

I. The incidents of Christ's coming. We are told here that the Lord of hosts "shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." This may be understood to include both His spiritual reign under the Gospel dispensation, and His personal reign amongst His saints, and over His enemies in the last day.

1. He is here brought before us under the title of the Lord of hosts. This title is often applied to God in Scripture, and it is equally applicable to God the Son as it is to God the Father. He was predicted by Jeremiah as the Lord our righteousness, and by Malachi as the Lord whom the people sought. His disciples acknowledged Him as their Lord and Master, whilst Thomas, having had his doubts removed respecting His identity after His resurrection from the dead, "answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God."

The term signifies a position of power and dominion which our Saviour Himself declares that He possesses pre-eminently, for when He gave the last commission to His disciples to go and preach the Gospel, He encouraged them with the assurance" All power is given unto me in heaven and earth."

2. He is Lord of hosts. He has hosts under His authority and at His command. He has a host of angels—a host of men-a host of elements, and a host of circumstances all prepared to obey His will. He can say to one, "Go, and he goeth;" and to another, "Come, and he cometh;" and to His servant, "Do this, and he doeth it."

3. He shall reign. He is not only Lord, but He is also King. In both positions He stands pre-eminently above all others. If He be Lord of lords, He is at the same time. King of kings. His kingdom truly "is not of this world," hence the reason why He was despised by the Jews of old, and by millions of Jews and Gentiles in the present day. The Jews expected Him to appear in the capacity of a temporal monarch to sway the sceptre of Israel-to crush the Roman yoke under which they groaned, and to make them a free and glorious nation upon earth. But when He appeared as the Son of a poor virgin, was born in a stable, cradled in a manger, and exercised His ministry as the humble "Jesus of Nazareth," they would not have this man to reign over them. Now, also, because His kingdom does not come with observation, but is an invisible rule within the hearts of His people, the same disposition of contempt is still to be witnessed governing the human mind. As the preaching of Christ crucified was formerly unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, so it is in our day unto a great majority of even a nominally Christian people.

However, the reign of Christ is not always to be invisible; He will openly and publicly vindicate His right to the crown, when both all men and devils must acknowledge His dominion.

4. He is declared to reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem. Salem, mount Zion, and Jerusalem are here evidently employed to represent the Church. As mount Zion in Jeru salem was formerly the seat of God's chief glory, so the Church was to be the seat of Christ's chief glory upon earth. The ark and mercy-seat-the altar and the sacrifice-the Urim and the Thummin-the Cherubim and the Shekinah, all symbolized the presence of the Divine glory in Jerusalem. In the Church we have the ordinances of Divine grace, which are still the symbols of the Saviour's presence: "Where two or three," said Christ, "are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The manifestations of

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His presence in those ordinances of His Church far excel all other manifestations either in creation or Providence. the latter we have the manifestations of His power, of His wisdom, and of His goodness; but in the former we find the manifestations of all His attributes combined, and all tend to display the magnitude of His love in the restoration of fallen man. His Church will be the seat of His government for ever upon earth, whilst all other things shall be made subservient to the furtherance of His glory here. He "shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem."

5. This reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, is to be a glorious reign. This glory is now declared in the influence which the Gospel exercises over the minds of His people, and over the world. We see that wherever the reign of Christ through the Gospel extends, civilization is furthered, morality is fostered, the arts and sciences are cultivated, commerce is expedited, and all that is conducive to the happiness and prosperity of man is encouraged. Is this not glorious? Compare a Christian country with heathen lands, and see where does the chief glory exist. Is it in the disorder-the confusion - the opposition- the cruelties—the bloodshed which exist among the barbarous nations, or in the orderthe fairness-the peace-the love which are taught to the people of Christian nations by the religion which they profess? A heathen king lately sent to ask the Queen of England what was the reason that her people seemed to be the happiest, and her country the most prosperous, of any on the earth? In reply Her Majesty merely sent him a copy of the sacred Scriptures, signifying that all the glory of England consisted in possessing that blessed volume as the foundation of its government. Yes, take away the Gospel from England, and "Ichabod" can be written on all her portals. The reign of Christ seems the glory of all who are under its influence.

But the glory of His reign will not appear in its perfection until He Himself will appear personally in the last day. It will not be until then that the imposing grandeur of the principles of His Gospel shall be impressed upon all intelli

gent beings; it will not be until then that the magnificence of His person as God-man shall be fully revealed to heaven, earth, and hell; it will not be until then that He will make a full display of all the power and influence which He possesses. He shall then indeed reign "gloriously." This brings us to observe—

II. The coincidents of His reign in the last day, or at His second advent. Some of those coincidents will be pleasing and vivifying, and others will be solemn and crushing.

1. He will come with a numerous retinue. It will occur "before his ancients gloriously." He will appear personally, but not alone. When He came to suffer for sin, He declared "I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me." Not so at His second coming. He allowed none to share His shame, but others shall share His glory. He will then be accompanied by "thousands of saints and his holy angels." This imposing retinue of angels and saints will compose the ancients before whom He will reign gloriously. The angels who had surrounded His throne in heaven before the creation of this world will accompany Him to behold the glory of His final appearance to earth. They had often administered to Him while on earth at His first advent. "The sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow," are things which they always "desired to look into." With joy, therefore, we conclude they will attend to witness the consummation of those things at His second advent.

All His ancient saints will also accompany Him to witness His glorious reign. From pious Abel, who, by faith, "offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," to the last believer that shall be "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air," all will stand before Him. "The glorious company of the apostles," "The goodly fellowship of the prophets," "The noble army of martyrs" will all be there. Everyone, even the most insignificant upon earth, shall find standing room before the great white throne. Not one of His beloved ones will be missing. He will reign "before his ancients gloriously."