"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump" (1 Cor. 15:51,52).

Changed in a moment! "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump!" That last trump is clearly a military reference. There were other trumpets to prepare the army for marching; the last was the marching trumpet.

The last trump alone is mentioned here, because, I take it, the Christian is looked at as being ready—ready in the perfect work of the Lord Jesus—ready in all the perfection of the blessed obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the sound of that last trump, the marching one, we rise, changed into His image.

But who shall tell the joy supreme of that moment! It is His face, yes, His—at last! The heart that has long thrilled as it has exclaimed, "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me"; that has often responded with joy, "Whom having not seen we love; in Whom though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory"; what will that heart prove in that supreme moment when all its longings are more than met, when the eye first gazes face to face upon Him?

Ecstasy, will it be? or calm, peaceful contemplation? or both? Oh, Saviour and Lord, to prove it now!

"To find each hope of glory gained,
   Fulfilled each precious word,
And fully all to have attained
   The image of our Lord!"

"For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." The Christian is always looked at as waiting for Christ; "and we shall be changed." God give us to take this place. God give us who know Christ as our Saviour and Lord to be ever saying in our souls, "And we shall be changed!"

The world may smile at such hope, but faith reposes with unquestioning certainty upon the Word of the living God. The children of the prophets did not believe that Elijah had been taken up to heaven without dying. They sent to seek him upon the mountains. Vain search! The folly of unbelief can never soar beyond the poor contracted horizon of what it sees, or of what its feeble understanding can grasp.

When the church is gone, unbelieving men may send to seek some of us on the mountains. My soul, weep in secret places for those who refuse the grace that now seeks the lost, and who will be left to seek in vain the church upon the dark mountains of this world, from which the last Christian will have risen to meet the Lord in the air.

And if the sons of the prophets did not believe it, neither did the people; for even the children, who speak all they think, and all they are taught, cried out to Elisha, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head."

It was not only mocking; it was the mocking of unbelief that laughed at the idea of God calling up "the chariot of Israel with the horsemen thereof." And swift judgment came upon them.

—T.N.