Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Summer Edition 2005
What Is The Awakening Of The Midnight Hour?
Can we be precise about what constitutes
the celebrated "awakening" of the midnight hour?
The question presupposes the existence of such an awakening
in the first place. Where is it taught in the Bible that the church will get
woke up just before the Lord returns?
It is clearly taught in Matthew 25:1-13, and again in
Revelation 11:11-12.
Matthew 25:1-13 teaches that in the interim of the Lord's
return the rapture-expectant church-world will fall asleep. At the proverbial
"midnight hour," however, they will all be powerfully awakened: "and at
midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet
him. The all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps" (verses 6-7).
Revelation 11:11-12, likewise, is the parabolic portrayal of
a great awakening and revival movement in the true Christian church-world of the
very last days. (Please read our article entitled "New Testament Prophecies
Fulfilled In Modern Times" in the 2004 Fall Edition of this paper to learn how
this parable is to be interpreted.) Here is a synopsis of the main details:
At the end of the age (symbolized by the 1,260 days), the
witnesses of God are killed, then resurrected. Their death in old Jerusalem, or "Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified" (verse 8) typifies
the last day's fundamentalist church-world's return to Judaism under the
auspices of her near universal embrace of the Darbyite dispensational
premillennial system of ideological heresy. The church that buys into
"antinomianism revived" (as Methodist theological Dr. Daniel Steele once called
John Nelson Darby's nineteenth century dispensational theory) is overcome by the
ravages of the Devil, typified in the parable of Revelation chapter eleven as
being slain by the Beast.
Then, at the very end, the crucified, once-upon-a-time
witnessing church-world will be resurrected—awakened: "The spirit of life
from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet" (Rev. 11:11).
Notice carefully that it is at this very time, too, that the witnesses of God
are caught up into heaven (Rev. 11:12). Friend, here is exactly when the true
Bible rapture of the church takes place—it takes place at the time of the
general resurrection of the dead at the seventh, or last, trump sounding
(compare Rev. 11:15-19 with I Cor. 15:51-52).
Now the dispensational premillennial church-world, like the
ten virgins of Matthew 25, is asleep at the midnight hour. And, like the
witnesses of God who ended their messianic testimony and are overcome by the
devil in the article of their ideological return to old Jerusalem, is swallowed
up in antinomianism.
T'is the calm before the storm: the eerie stillness of the
midnight hour!
Next the authentic cry awakening!
Related Article Links
End-time Bible Prophecy Truths That Wake Us Up
The Logic Of The Awakening