One morning, when starting on a long trip by train, I asked at the bookstall for a copy of the periodical, "The Christian." The attendant replied to me in the words at the heading of this paper, "Not one left.”
As I walked away I pondered those words and thought, Yes, there is a day coming when there will not be a Christian left in this world, when every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ will have been caught away, and "not one left." What a solemn thought!
There is a portion of God's Word in which this great fact is plainly declared (1 Thess. 4:14-1814For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:14‑18)), and the end of this Christian dispensation is stated with no uncertainty. The Lord Jesus Christ, whom the heaven has received, will some day (we know not how soon) leave that heaven and descend into the air. There He will meet all His resurrected saints from Adam down to the last who has fallen asleep in Christ, as well as all those saints who are living on the earth at the time, and both companies will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So shall they ever be with the Lord.
Not one true believer will be left behind from every quarter of the globe, from every position of life, the babe of yesterday who has just touched the hem of His garment, the aged saint who has lived in the joy of this hope for many a long day, not one will be forgotten "not one left.”
But what will be the fate of those who have rejected the offer of mercy? What about those who have turned a deaf ear to the many entreaties they have heard to turn from their sins and to trust in the Lord Jesus as their Savior? Those who have listened to addresses and sermons until they were gospel-hardened?
Their awful fate is left in no uncertainty, for we read (in 2 Thess. 2:8-128And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:8‑12)) that they will be left here to be deceived by that Wicked One, the Antichrist. He will then manifest his Satanic power, with the result that all those who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness, will be cast out of God's presence. In the solemn words of Scripture, "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth.”
Reader, where will you be? To which company will you belong? Will you be one of those who will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, or among those who will be left to incur the terrible judgment of God's wrath forever and ever?
Which is your portion?