and nourished
by his ministry as his glory and joy in the coming presence of the
Lord. "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not
even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Coming? For ye
are our glory and joy" (1 Thess. ii:19). The most successful
evangelists and missionaries have been and are believers in that
blessed hope. If we believe that He may come at any time, we shall
certainly lose no time to do the work into which His grace has called
us.

4. It is a sustaining hope. It sustains in suffering and in sorrow.
David wrote: "The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing;
thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness" (Ps. xli:3). It is the
blessed hope of imminent glory which in sickness and pain gives
strength, "yea songs in the night" will come from our lips if that
blessed hope is ever first before our souls. And then it sustains the
believer in conflict and keeps him faithful in the days of declension
and apostasy.

5. It is a comforting hope. "Comfort one another with these words"
the apostle wrote after he gave the great message. It is the comfort
when our loved ones leave us. When we stand at the grave of the
departed ones, who fell asleep in the Lord, we know that the day is
coming when that grave opens and they come forth and we shall be united
with them "caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air."

[1] Some have perverted the meaning of "sleep," and instead of applying
it, as Scripture does, to the body, they apply it to the soul.
Soul-sleep is nowhere taught in the Bible and is therefore an invention
by those who handle the word deceitfully.

[2] _Our Hope_, February, 1902.

WHO WILL BE CAUGHT UP WHEN THE LORD COMES?

The doctrine of the first resurrection and the coming of the Lord for
His saints is nowhere taught in the Old Testament; it is altogether a
New Testament revelation. As it is so well known, the Apostle Paul,
who received from the Lord the revelation concerning the church, the
one body, received also directly from the Lord the revelation
concerning the glorious removal of the church from the earth. As the
church had a definite beginning, so she will have a definite end. This
end of the church on earth is made known in 1 Thess. iv: 13-17. To
read these familiar words and meditate on them, as we have already done
in the preceding chapter, and to realize a little of what it all means,
fills the heart wit