t
candlestick waiting time will end, and He will take a forward step in
connection with His plans for the earth. And it should be keenly noticed
that what follows now in this book of Revelation is the run of events
that will immediately follow that next step of His.

Yet this step is taken up _in heaven_. The first action of the new move
will be there. There will be nothing to be seen on the earth to indicate
the change. Things there will go on as before, eating and drinking,
buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, all unconscious of
the tremendous events being worked out.

But now the waiting time still waits. Our opportunity is still open. If
we might only be simple enough to be true to our absent Lord Jesus
during this waiting time.

A bishop of the American Episcopal Church, widely known for his saintly
character, his culture, and long years of tireless service, was visiting
in the South. In the town there lived a judge of wide repute for his
scholarly learning as well as for his culture and uprightness. Now he
was seriously ill, and had requested an interview with the bishop.

He asked the bishop to talk to him about personal religion. And the
clergyman talked to this thoughtful, scholarly judge in choice
philosophical language about the fatherhood of God, the character of
Christ, and the essential harmony of man's true nature with God. The
judge listened attentively for some time.

Then he apologetically interrupted his visitor, and said:

"Bishop, I'm dying. Won't you please talk to me just like you'd talk to
my black boy, Jim?"

And the bishop could, and did. He told him in simplest talk that he was
a sinner. Jesus died to save sinners. His blood washes away our sins. We
must take Christ as a Saviour, just trust Him, as simply as a child
trusts its mother.

So he talked. And the judge listened. And the tears came, and the peace.
He came as a child, and trusted, and he knew the peace that passeth
understanding. It was the simple telling of the simple story of the
Saviour who died, and the simple, child-like acceptance of that Saviour.
The scholarly bishop helped the learned judge best, in the crisis of his
life, by talking as simply as to a child.

If we might only be simple enough to be true to this Jesus who died,
during the remnant of waiting time that remains.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] W. O. Cushing.

[84] Rev. iii. 4-5.

[85] Rev. iii. 18.

[86] Rev. vi. 11.

[87] Rev. vii. 9.