Israel. He had His sufferings in connection with His Passover. He will have His glories, in connection with Israel also, when He has His Feast of Tabernacles. Pentecost is not mentioned by Ezekiel, nor in the Gospel of John, where Passover and Tabernacles are both mentioned, because Christ has His Feast of Pentecost while absent from the earth and while Israel is left to her unbelief. While Pentecost is unknown by name in John's Gospel, our Lord, in miniature, walks through it, as He does through Passover and Tabernacles. His Pentecostal program is: "But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In John the Shepherd goes before His sheep. Beginning at Jerusalem, He gathers first-fruits, and goes out into Judea, where John greets Him as Bridegroom of His church; He proceeds through Samaria and passes on into Galilee of the nations (John 3 and 4). While He has His Feast of Pentecost, our Lord is in heaven, His church is on earth, Satan is the god and prince of this age, and Israel is scattered among the nations. In the age to come (Eph. 1; Heb. 2), the Feast of Tabernacles, Christ will be on earth and His church in heaven, Satan will be in the pit (Rev. 20) and Israel in the holy land. Only the Lord Jesus can bring these things to pass. He says that He will.

Passover and Tabernacles being largely the

theme of the Old Testament, we are not surprised to learn that the church is "a mystery": that is, not revealed to Moses and the prophets. It was foretold by Christ (Matt. 16), but fully developed by the Holy Ghost, after the day of Pentecost. Christ chose Paul, and the Holy Spirit used him, for this purpose. Peter knew of the character and glory of the kingdom of heaven when Christ returns. He had been given a vision of it on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17; 2 Pet. 1). But he did not know of the calling and destiny of the church. From the glory, after Paul's conversion, Christ gave Peter a vision of the heavenly calling and destiny of the church, in the sheet let down and caught up into heaven. There is no one common or unclean in that sheet. All are washed in the blood of the Lamb. When He gathers all His church, the sheet will be caught up into heaven.

If the church is a mystery, so is its destiny. It is so called by Paul (1 Cor. 15:51-58). The church's destiny is, to be caught up from among the dead and living nations, in resurrection bodies, to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4: 13-18); and, in the "age to come," to reign, from the heavenlies, with Him over the earth (Rev. 5). This is Christ's coming into the air for His church, and not His coming afterwards, with His church, to the earth to redeem Israel and the nations and nature.

BEFORE CHRIST RETURNS TO THE EARTH

The mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity must be completed before Christ will stand again upon the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14).

"And, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (1 Tim. 3:16). God was manifest in Christ, and now in the church born of the Spirit. Christ was received up into glory before He was received by the Gentiles. The mystery of godliness includes both Christ and His church. "Received up into glory" refers to the destiny of the church. It is conditionless and timeless.

After the mystery of godliness is completed, by the church being caught up into heaven, then the mystery of iniquity (2 Thess. 2) will rapidly develop and head up in Satan's Antichrist, the man who will claim to be God. When Satan brings forth his man-God, the God-man, Christ Jesus our Lord, will return to earth and smite him with the brightness of God's glory.

Lucifer was a brilliant creature before God's throne (Isa. 14; Ezek. 28). He became the devil by attempting to get out of the realm of his creaturehood into the realm of God. He came and put the same prize before Eve in the garden of Eden. She attempted it by believing Satan's lie, and her first child was, like Satan, a murderer and a liar. She had been created in God's likeness.

But the Lord Jesus (Phil. 2) thought it not a prize for Himself to become God, for He is God. But He thought it a prize to stoop beneath angels, and down beneath the power of Satan, and be numbered with transgressors: to enter the sphere of our death and judgment and identify Himself with us, that He might identify us with Himself for ever. When by death He had put away our sins and condemnation, He arose from the dead, taking with Him His redeemed, and, passing by principalities and powers, placing us in a nearness to God created beings will never have: only His redeemed. Israel! His glory shall cover thee on the earth. Church of God! His glory shall shine in you in the heavens. We are daily looking unto Jesus in His grace. We are daily looking for Jesus in His glory! "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

WILL THERE BE ANY TEARS IN HEAVEN,

AND WHY?

REV. P. W. PHILPOTT

I am to talk to you this morning about the Judgment of Believers' Works. There is a great deal of confusion regarding the judgments spoken of in the Scriptures. Not a few Christian people talk about a "general judgment day" some time in the future; when all kinds of people will stand before a great judgment throne and find out whether they are sheep or goats. Now I am not saying that sarcastically, though I may have given that impression myself some time when I have been speaking on the Judgment that is sure to come. But this morning we want to be clear. There are at least four judgments spoken of in the New Testament. Three are yet future, while one is past; that is, past for all those who have accepted Christ as their Saviour. That was the judgment of sin and Satan that took place on Calvary, when the Son of God met every claim of justice, every demand of the law, and all the penalties of sin, for those who trust in the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

You remember that, in the sixteenth chapter of John, when speaking of the coming of the Holy