"The World Is A
Stage"
Long ago
Shakespeare wrote, "The world is a stage." Perhaps he said more than
he knew, but he was exactly right. This world is a stage for action, a scaffold
upon which God does his work, and a place for graves in which the bodies of
sleeping saints are laid to rest in hope of the resurrection. When the human
race shall have performed their various predestined parts, when the Building of
mercy (the church of God) is complete, when the appointed day of resurrection has come,
time shall be no more. That will bring on the long-awaited midnight cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom
cometh!" (Matt. 25:6). Then this stage shall come down. The scaffolding
will be put away. All that "sleep in their graves shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and
contempt" (Dan. 12:2). At last, when all that must be has been, the
Sun of Righteousness shall arise! His glorious beams shall bring on the blessed
morning of that great, eternal day, "in which the upright shall surely
have dominion" (Psa. 49:14). In that day, when the Son of God makes all
things new, the wicked, the unbelieving, who seem always to prosper in this
world, shall be turned into hell; and the righteous, the believing, who seem
always to suffer, "shall inherit all things" (Rev. 21:5-7).
Don Fortner