The Lord Jesus appealed in His day to the Jews (Matthew 16:1-4) to discern "the signs of the times," even by the force of natural conscience and to judge what was right. His word should find an echo in many a Christian heart now that has sunk down to sleep among the dead (Eph. 5:14). Everything around us in the present day—religion, the state of men, nations, powers and kingdoms—is each gradually and perceptibly taking its place for the closing scenes of judgment.
The Christian, instructed beforehand of these things, can watch them calmly and quietly, awaiting the coming of his Lord. He knows his calling is a heavenly one where judgments cannot come. The coming of the Lord, the Son of God, for His people is the one boundary or horizon of his hopes. His actions, service, plans and sojourn here are arranged in view of that event. If called to serve his Lord and Master here, he does so in the sense that he serves as in the last days. May a deepening sense of this fill the souls of His people. And may this, their proper hope before the day dawn, be formed in their hearts and serve to direct their ways!
It has been said that the Old Testament Scriptures end with the hope of the coming of the Sun of Righteousness, and the New with that of the Morning Star. This is sweetly beautiful. The godly remnant of Israel who feared the Lord and spake often one to another (Mal. 3) had that precious consolation before them—that of the coming of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings (Mal. 4). And we find them in Luke 2, the Simeons and Annas, and "all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (vss. 25,38), rejoicing in the advent of the "Sun of righteousness," the consolation of Israel.
But alas, His beams fell coldly on the hearts of His nation; they had no heart for Him. Men were morally unfit to have God among them. So He was obliged to hide His beams of blessing in the darkened scene that surrounded the cross and to reserve the day of blessing until another season. Meanwhile, our calling was revealed and our hope presented to us, not as the Sun of Righteousness, but as the Morning Star.
The more we contemplate the fitness of this symbol of our hope, the more does its divine origin appear. It is the watcher during the long night who sees the morning star for a few moments, while the darkness is rolling, itself away from the face of the earth, and before the beams of the sun enliven the earth with their rays. So it is with the Christian's hope, as he watches during the moral darkness of the world till the dawn. Just as the darkness is deepest and is about to roll itself away before the beams of the advent of the Sun of Righteousness, his hope is rewarded in seeing the Morning Star (Rev. 22:16) in His earliest brightness. He comes to take His people to Himself that they may shine forth with Him as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43), when He reveals Himself to the millennial earth as the Sun of Righteousness!
May He, who alone can give blessing, abundantly bless the consideration of these things and give that hope its own sanctifying power in our souls! "I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.... He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
F. G. Patterson