Quoteworthy: Looking for the Saviour's Appearing

Each of the apostles, of whose writings we have any inspired record, taught their converts to look for their Saviour's appearing. Alas! that this testimony was not maintained. Alas! that this Blessed Hope should ever have become dim. Alas! that it should, for more than a thousand years, have been almost totally lost to the Lord's people. Yet so it was.

The immediate successors of the apostles turned their attention to other things: as it was with the Pharisees in the days of our Lord, so these tithed anise and mint but "omitted the weightier matters." Instead of expounding the Prophetic Scriptures and setting before the Church its one great Hope, the early "Church fathers," for the most part, spent their time in wrangling among themselves. Even before the apostles themselves had left the earth, false teachers crept in and began to devour the flock, and within three centuries the whole professing Church had become Paganized. Then followed the Dark Ages—aptly named, for the lamp of Prophecy had ceased to shine and the prospect of the speedy return of the Morning Star had completely disappeared.

As our Lord Himself had foretold, the virgins all slumbered and slept: no longer were His people looking for the Coming of the Bridegroom.

From The Redeemer's Return by AW Pink. Published in 1918.