all look
upon Him whom they have _pierced;_ and they shall _mourn_ for Him, as one
mourneth for his only son." _There_ is a future meeting of the rejected
King and His rejecting people, and this time with sorrow for their former
conduct, which implies different conduct at this meeting time. And to this
agrees the whole swing of the New Testament teaching. Peter says the
going away of Jesus is to be "_until_ the restitution of all things." He
is to return and carry out the old plan.

It's a bit unfortunate that some earnest, lovable people have pushed this
phase of truth so much to the front as to get it out of its proportion in
the whole circle of truth. Truth must always be kept in its place in the
circle of truth. Truth is fact in right proportion. Out of that it begins
to breed misstatement and error. Jesus' coming back is not to wind things
up. It is to begin things anew. There will be certain phases of judgment,
doubtless, a clearing of the deck for action, but no general judgment till
long after. The kingdom is to swing to the front, and bring a new life to
the earth for a very long time. Then after that the wind-up.

The gospel preached in the Acts is the "gospel of the _kingdom_." They are
always expecting it to come. Paul constantly alludes to the Master's
return as the great thing to look forward to, as distinctly at the close
as at the beginning of his ministry. The book of Revelation is distinctly
a kingdom book, and however it may, with the versatility of Scripture to
serve a double purpose, foreshadow the characteristics of history for the
centuries since its writing, plainly its first meaning has to do with the
time when "the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and
of His Christ." The King is coming back to straighten matters out, and
organize a new running of things. This is the church's surprise, and a
great surprise it will apparently be to a great many folks, though not to
all.

<u>The Surprising Jew.</u>

There is a third surprise growing out of this tragic break, the greatest
of all--_the Jew_. The first surprises were for the Jew, the later
surprise for the church; this surprise has been and is for all the world.
The Jew has been the running puzzle of history. A strange, elusive,
surprising puzzle he has been to historians and all others. Not a nation,
only a people, flagless, countryless, without any semblance of
organization, they have been mixed in with all the people