Now, here we have a work which has been going on for nearly nineteen long centuries. During all that time, here spoken of as an "hour," the voice of Jesus, the Son of God, has been heard calling precious souls from death to life. If, therefore, in the very same discourse, our Lord used the word "hour" when speaking of a period which has already extended to well-nigh two thousand years, what difficulty can there be in applying the word to a period of one thousand years?
Surely, none whatever, as we judge. But even if any little difficulty yet remained it must be thoroughly met by the direct testimony of the Holy Ghost in Revelation xx., where we read, "But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. _This is the first resurrection._ Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (verses 5, 6).
This settles the question absolutely and forever, for all those who are willing to be taught exclusively by holy Scripture, as every true Christian ought to be. There will be two resurrections, the first and the second: and there will be a thousand years between the two. To the former belong all the Old Testament saints--referred to in Hebrews xii. under the title of the spirits of just men made perfect--then the church of the firstborn ones--and finally all those who shall be put to death during "the great tribulation," and throughout the entire period between the rapture of the saints and the appearing of Christ in judgment upon the beast and his armies, in Revelation xix.
To the latter, on the other hand, belong all those who shall have died in their sins, from the days of Cain, in Genesis iv., down to the last apostate from millennial glory, in Revelation xx.
How solemn is all this! How real! How soul-subduing! If our Lord were to come to-night what a scene would be enacted in all our cemeteries and graveyards! What tongue, what pen can portray--what heart can conceive--the grand realities of such a moment? There are thousands of tombs in which lie mingled the ashes of the dead _in_ Christ and the ashes of the dead _out_ of Christ. In many a family vault may be found the ashes of both. Well, then, when the voice of the archangel is heard all the sleeping saints shall rise from their graves, leaving behind them those who have died in their sins, to remain in the darkness and silence of the tomb for a thousand years.