When that last elect one will be called you do not know, it is not known to a single soul on earth. Since you do not know when the last elect of God shall be called, and it is sure the Lord will come when that last elect one is called, then you do not know when the Lord will come; and so far as you are concerned, and so far as any revelation otherwise is given, it may be any hour and, therefore, "any moment"; consequently the Coming of the Lord for His Church is--imminent. Thus the imminency of the Lord's Coming for His Church is grounded on election. Imminency is so absolutely linked up with election that you cannot deny imminency without denying election; and to deny election is to deny God Himself, deny Him in the very essence of His own prerogative, the prerogative of foreordination, of decree. The imminency of the Lord's Coming for His Church is grounded on the Lord's own declaration that He is coming for her as a thief comes. This is His declaration and warning to the Church at Sardis, that Church which is the symbol of Protestantism in the closing hours of the age. The warning is given to the pastor, through the pastor to the Church and through the local assembly at Sardis to the whole Church. This is what the risen Lord actually says: "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard; and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will arrive over thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will arrive over thee." The characteristics of thief coming are marked and clear. The thief does not come with strident voice, with thunderous noise, nor in open daylight, but between the midnight and the morn, with shodden feet, silently, softly, and takes the treasure while all in the house are sunken in the depths of sleep. When the sunbeams of the morning pelt the eyelids of the laggard sleepers they awake to find the thief has come and gone and in his going has taken the treasure with him. If the symbol be of avail and not a mere exercise in logomachy then will the Lord, indeed, descend in the moral and spiritual night of the world while men are sleeping and in fancied security pleasantly dreaming. He will descend unseen, unnoted. If men shall hear the sound of a trump it will have no greater significance to their spiritually deaf ears than any other passing sound. He will take, not the "great house" of religious profession, but those alone in that profession who have been regenerated and are indwelt by the Spirit, the dead who have fallen asleep in His name and the living who abide in Him. Above all--imminency is grounded in the integrity of the Son of God and His apostles.