But not only did the Lord's coming and kingdom occupy a prominent place in the _preaching_ of the apostle, it also shines brilliantly forth in all his _teaching_. Not only were the Thessalonians converted to this blessed hope, they were built up, established and led on in it. They were taught to live in the brightness of it every hour of the day. It was not a dry, barren dogma, to be received and held as part of a powerless, worthless creed; it was a living reality, a mighty moral power in the soul--a precious, purifying, sanctifying, elevating hope, detaching the heart completely from present things, and causing it to look out, moment by moment--yes, reader, we repeat it with emphasis, moment by moment--for the return of our beloved Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who loved us, and gave Himself for us. It is interesting to notice that in the two epistles to the Thessalonians there is far more allusion to the Lord's coming than in all the other epistles put together. This is all the more remarkable inasmuch as they were the very earliest of Paul's epistles, and they were written to an assembly very young in the faith. If the reader will just glance rapidly through these two most precious writings, he will find the hope of the Lord's return introduced in every one of the eight chapters, and in connection with all sorts of subjects. For example, in chap. i. we have it presented as the grand object to be ever kept before the Christian's heart, let his position or his relationship be what it may--the brilliant light shining at the end of his long pilgrimage through this dark and toilsome world. "Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for"--what? The time of their death? No such thing, no allusion to such a thing. Death, for the believer, is abolished, and is never presented as the object of his hope. For what, then, were the Thessalonian disciples taught to wait? "For God's Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead." And then mark the beauteous addition! "Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." This is the Person for whom we are waiting; our precious Saviour; our great Deliverer; the One who undertook our desperate case; who took, on our behalf, the cup of wrath from the hand of infinite Justice and exhausted it forever; who cleared the prospect of every cloud, so that we can gaze upward into heaven, and onward into eternity, and see nothing but the brightness and blessedness of His own love and glory, as our happy home throughout the everlasting ages.