The end of the state of waiting of the blessed dead, the end of our present state of waiting will be, that day of His appearing. Let us fix this well in our minds; and do not let us be kept from doing so by being told that there is danger in allowing the fancy to exercise itself on the unfulfilled prophecies. No doubt there is. But I am not exhorting you to exercise your fancy on them. Faith and fancy are two wholly distinct things. To my mind, there can be hardly anything more detrimental to the faith of the Church, than always to be fitting together history and prophecy, magnifying insignificant present or past events into fulfilments of prophetic announcements. They who do this are for ever being refuted by the course of things; and then they shift their ground, and come out as confidently with a new scheme, as they did before with their old one. Nothing can more tend to throw discredit on God's prophetic word altogether; and it is no doubt in part owing to such speculations, that faith in the Lord's coming has become weakened among us. He Himself has told us the great use of His announcements of the future. "_These things have I told you, that, when the time is come, ye may remember that I told you of them_." When and as each prophecy comes to its time to be fulfilled, just as the years of the captivity predicted by Jeremiah were interpreted by the Church in Babylon, so the Lord's predictions, and the predictions of His apostles, will fall each into its place; and the Church, if she endure in faith and watchfulness, will stand on her look-out, and be prepared for the sign of His coming. Let us, my brethren, with regard to those who have left us in the Lord,--let us, with regard to ourselves and our own future, be ever looking for and hasting to that day of God; the day when that better thing which God hath provided for us shall be manifested, and they with us shall be complete, who without us were not perfect. And let us not be discouraged by unpromising signs, or by prevalent unbelief. Remember what our Master has said to us in the services of this day, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away." III. WE have traced the condition of the blessed dead, from their departure and being with Christ, to the glorious day of the resurrection. Their spirits are safe in His keeping, till that day when He shall call their bodies out of the graves, and they shall be once more complete in manhood, body, soul, and spirit. And our present consideration is, What, on that resurrection, is the next thing which shall befall them? Now the best, because the most general text on this matter, is that in Heb. ix. 27, "IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE, BUT AFTER THIS, THE JUDGMENT."