Till He Comes

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. MATTHEW 24:14

Everything in Simpson’s life converged on one verse, and it is the one at the head of this chapter. He read it as a task with a stated relation to the return of Christ, and it made him incapable of rest. The gospel is to reach all nations; then the end comes. The work is unfinished; therefore go.

A task with an end in view

Simpson’s contemporaries who shared this conviction expressed it in a phrase that became the watchword of a generation: the evangelisation of the world in this generation. They believed it might be done, and done soon. It was not. A century and more later the task remains unfinished, and the confident timetables of the 1890s look naive. But the failure of the schedule does not touch the substance, and this is worth being clear about. The Lord did not say when. He said that it would happen, and He gave the command in the same breath as the promise of His presence.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. MATTHEW 28:20

The believer’s business is not to calculate the completion date. It is to be found working when it arrives.

The end that is certain

What kept Simpson from despair at the size of the task was that he knew how it finishes. It is described, and the description is not ambiguous.

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. REVELATION 7:9

Every nation. Every language. A multitude beyond counting. That is not a hope that the mission might succeed; it is a report of its outcome.

Which means the missionary enterprise is not a gamble. It is participation in something already certain. The only open question is who will have the privilege of being involved.

Hastening the day

There is a striking phrase in Peter that Simpson took seriously and that most readers pass over.

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God. 2 PETER 3:12

The margin of many Bibles renders it hastening the coming of that day. The idea that the church’s obedience bears some relation to the timing of the end is difficult, and Christians have understood it differently. But Peter places it immediately after a statement about God’s patience — that He is not willing that any should perish — which suggests the connection is precisely the one Simpson drew.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise …but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 PETER 3:9

The delay is mercy. It exists so that people still outside may come in. Which is an argument for urgency and against impatience at the same time.

How it ended for him

Simpson’s last years were hard. He grew frail and confused, passed through a season of spiritual darkness that distressed those who loved him, and stepped back from the movement he had founded. He died at Nyack on the twenty-ninth of October, 1919, at seventy-five. He had spent nearly forty years telling people the King was coming soon. The King did not come in his lifetime, and Simpson died the way everyone does. He left no money. He left a training school, a magazine, a hymnbook, a tabernacle full of poor people, and several hundred workers on fields he had never visited. The movement that grew from it is now largely made up of people in the countries he prayed for, and is considerably larger outside his own than within it. He asked for that, and he did not see it, and it happened anyway.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:58

The last word of the Bible on this subject is a request, and then a reply.

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. REVELATION 22:20

Simpson spent his life on the interval between those two sentences. So do we all. The only question is what we do with it.

Living backward from that day

Simpson often urged his hearers to make decisions from the far end — to ask not what seems best now, but what will seem best then.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:10

This is not the judgment that determines salvation, which for the believer was settled at the cross. It is the assessment of a life’s work, and Paul describes it elsewhere as a fire that tests what each has built.

If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:14–15

Two things follow, and Simpson held both. There is real security. He himself shall be saved — the believer whose work does not survive is not thereby lost. Nothing in this doctrine should produce terror in someone trusting Christ. And there is real seriousness. It is possible to spend a Christian life on things that will not last, and to arrive with very little to show for a great deal of activity. Simpson thought most of us are in more danger of this than of gross sin, because it requires no decision — only drift. The practical exercise he suggested is to project forward. Consider the thing occupying most of your energy at present, and ask honestly whether you expect to be glad of it on that day. Then consider the thing you keep postponing — the reconciliation, the giving, the going — and ask the same question. The answers are usually available immediately, which is itself instructive.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Stop waiting for a clearer sense of the timetable. The command was given without one. 2. Take up one piece of unfinished work — a person, a place, a task — and commit to it for a year rather than a week.

3. Let Revelation 7:9 settle your discouragement. The outcome is reported, not hoped for. 4. Treat the delay as mercy for those not yet in, and let that shape how you speak of the world’s condition. 5. Ask what you would want to be doing when He appears, and begin doing more of it this week.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You said the gospel would reach all nations, and then the end would come. I have believed that and lived as though it had nothing to do with me.

The task is unfinished. Show me my part of it, and let me not wait for certainty about the timing that You have declined to give.

Thank You that the outcome is not in doubt — that there will be a multitude from every nation and tongue before Your throne, and that no labour spent on that is wasted.

Keep me steadfast to the end. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.