Gathering the Elect Jews.
WE HAVE already seen that when the Lord comes in His glory, it will be with swift judgment against the transgressors in Israel. But it will be the time of blessing for the godly ones, who will have been scattered by the power of the Anti-christ. Jesus tells us that “He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” These elect are God’s chosen ones among the Jews—the godly ones, who are to be gathered for blessing.
In Lev. 23, we find that one of the feasts, of the Lord is “a memorial of blowing of trumpets.” And this is just a type of the gathering together of the Jews at the coming of the Lord. The Lord says to them: “I will take you frock among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.” (Ezek. 36:2424For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. (Ezekiel 36:24)). And there are many other scriptures which show that the Lord will gather together the scattered Jews, in order to bless them in their own land. The blowing of the trumpet is a figure of the call of God that will thus gather them.
Our verse tells us that the angels will gather together these elect ones. When Jesus comes, His holy angels will come with Him, His willing servants to do His bidding; and these He will send everywhere to gather His sheep which “have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.”
This will be a wonderful day for the Jews. They will then get their eyes opened to see that the very One whom they pierced and slew is their Saviour; and they will be full of sorrow and self-condemnation. The Lord says: “They shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one, mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first born.” It will thus he a time of deep sorrow for their sin—a time of weeping and great mourning—but it will be the time when they will be brought to Jesus as their Saviour, and when He will bless them in their own beloved land.
Surely our hearts may well rejoice, to think that God will have mercy upon the poor Jews; and that though they have been so long scattered, He has not forgotten them, but has watched over them in all their wanderings Jesus will return in His glory to the Mount of Olives, and will send forth His angels to gather them from all places where they have been driven; and He will speak to them comfortably, as Joseph did to his brethren, and will place them in the land which was given to their fathers; and there He will bless them, and nourish them, and make them to rejoice in His goodness and love. Bitter as they feel toward Him now, their hearts will he melted then, when they learn that the blood which they shed with wicked hands will have put away their sins forever.
Happy for us if we now know that that blood has washed our sins away.
ML 06/05/1904