The church—the authoritatively called-out ones, the body of Christ—is one of God’s living witnesses to the world. She is His chosen instrument to bear to the world His gospel message for the salvation of men. When faithful to her trust, she is powerful and mighty in her work of soul winning; when false to her trust, while she loses power as a soul winner, still in the great wisdom of God she is even then one of the two-fold witnesses that is irrefutable. We find both phases of experience and witnessing in the Christian era, but with the first only, in the early church, we will deal in this article.
1. The First Witness
As in the witness of Jesus Christ, the primal witness is the Word, the immutable, infallible word of God, uttered through various human voices from Moses to Malachi.
That inspired word is the guide and teacher of God’s people. In the patriarchal age God dealt directly with His own children, as with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or through messenger and prophet, as with Noah and Enoch. Often the patriarch of the family is the prophet, and sometimes the prophet of the tribe. We may well believe that the human conscience and soul were more responsive in those early days, before sin had hardened the human fiber against the voice of God. When the human race had become so degenerate that it was no longer thus responsive, God gave them His written word.
Among His first revelations of this character was the written law of moral conduct. It was a revelation of God’s government and God’s character against sin, and of His love to the sinner. That law as recorded in Exodus, the twentieth chapter, verses 1-17, became the very center around which all other services and worship revolved. Its high preeminence is shown in the fact that God spoke it with His own voice from heaven, wrote it, or engraved it with His own finger on tables of enduring stone. Then it was placed in the holy ark that was especially prepared for it, over which was the mercy-seat and the Shekinah, or living presence of God’s glory. See Ex. 32:16; Deut. 5:22, and other scriptures.
All the display attending the giving of this law was designed to impress His people in all generations with its majesty and holiness. The fact that it was engraved on stone showed its immutable character. This, too, is expressly declared in the written word: “The works of His hands are verity and judgment; all His commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.” Ps. 111:7, 8. By the prophet Isaiah, chapter 51:6-8, is drawn a contrast between the things of earth which are perishing, and the things of God which are everlasting. He directs man to lift up his eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth,—the things that to man seem the most stable of all things,—and yet the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and all that dwell therein shall die; but God’s salvation shall be forever, and His righteousness shall not be abolished. And then that we may know what that righteousness is, we read, “Harken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law.”
This law therefore became a test of all teaching and all doctrine, of all conscience. Would other prophets arise? Would other teachers set forth new doctrines? Would there be supernatural manifestations by which the people of God were likely to be led astray? God gives us the means by which these shall be known: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20.
It may be thought sometimes that God has given us many commandments, and how shall we discriminate between them? But He has already given us clear evidence by which we may discriminate in the manner of the giving of the law, to which “He added no more.” Deut. 5:22. All other moral teaching of the Old Testament apart from the Decalogue is but the drawing out of the principles of the Decalogue. And so God says to His rebellious children, “I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My law; but they are counted as a strange thing.” Hosea 8:12. God gave His law in the form He did because He loved His people. They looked upon its giving as terrifying. This is clearly shown us in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. Moses saw in the giving of the law the wonderful love of God, and so records it in a later song: “And he said, Jehovah came from Sinai, and rose from Seir unto them; He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came from the ten thousands of holy ones: at His right hand was a fiery law for them. Yea, He loveth the people.” Deut. 33:2, 3.
Moses had had experience that to the man of faith who would by faith look into the face of God and receive His law, God in His love and grace would shine that law into the heart and into the character. So He did with Moses, and therefore when the people asked, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die,” Moses said, “Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” Ex. 20:19, 20. Moses saw the gospel in the6revelation of the law, and the power of God wrote it in his heart. The people saw the law, did not want God to speak further, and rested in condemnation. To them the glory was the glory of condemnation, but to Moses it was the greater glory of justification. Such God would have His witnessing church to know.
His people who were called out of Egypt, in the great majority, did not see this. Moses and Joshua and Caleb, Eleazar, and others did, and then for fifteen centuries God witnessed to His people, developing among and in them through prophet and teacher “the great things” of His law—the “ten thousand” things.
Light and Appeal
That witnessing word of God is a light, and designed so to be to the path of each one of His children. Therefore the writer of the 119th Psalm, almost every verse of which refers to the law of God, says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The wise man speaks in kindred terms, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Prov. 6:23. While the prophet Micah, four centuries later, thus sums up man’s duty: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
The Witnessing Church
When we find the second witness, whether in individual or church, it will be witnessing in harmony with this wonderful word. Jesus was the light of the world. He Himself declares, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” But He is careful to qualify this at a later time by saying, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” His word is the light of the world. “The commandment is a lamp; and the law is light.” “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” What made Jesus the light was because He was the incarnate Word itself. John 1:1. Therefore as long as He was in the world He was that word personified, shining forth in living character. But He could not always remain in the world; He must leave it. It was expedient that He should go away.
But has He left the world without living, personal witness of the power of His word?—Nay, not at all. In the wonderful Sermon on the Mount He declares to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world;” and they themselves become the light of the world by permitting the light of God to shine through them,—“that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life.” Phil. 2:15, 16.
By that word were the individuals of that early church cleansed: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you,” said Jesus to His disciples. John 15:3. By that word are they sanctified, separated from the world, and set apart unto God. So Jesus prays, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.” John 17:17.
An apostle testifies: “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever.” 1 Peter 1:22-25. The last part of this is a direct quotation from Isaiah 40.
The word of that gospel is the power of God to save, and therefore Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Rom. 1:16. It mattered not whether the one who believed it was incased in the hard shell of human tradition, or struck through and through with the rites and wretched sins of heathenism. The word of God is able to save to the uttermost. The sin might be as scarlet; it should be made white as snow. It might be as crimson; the gospel could make it wool.
Thus was demonstrated the power of that word in the early church. In Pentecost we have the record of the first sermon that was preached by the apostle Peter. It goes without question that we do not have the whole of the sermon, simply a synopsis of it. It is not noted for its eloquence; it is marked by its directness. He did not dwell upon abstract speculations or Greek philosophy; he told them the simple truth of the One who died and was risen, and of their own part in it. When they listened they were pricked to their heart, and cried out to Peter and the apostles, “What shall we do?” And the reply was equally simple: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” and they yielded, thousands of them. Acts 2:41.
It was not upon that day alone, however, that all that work was done. We find at the close of Peter’s sermon somewhat of the fruit of our Lord’s labors for three and a half years. This people had heard of Jesus; they had known more or less of His teaching; they had pondered it, doubtless, in their hearts, and when the Spirit in mighty power brought it home to them, there came the harvest of the three thousand souls.
The same power of the word is manifest in the record of the next chapter, in the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple. The poor cripple came as he had repeatedly come, having given up all hope of healing, and asked simply for alms. He meets two common, ordinary-looking men who are coming into the temple, and he asks alms of them, and one of them turned and said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” And this simple miracle, just like the miracles that Jesus had Himself wrought, again stirred the people, and again fruit was brought forth for the Son of God.
The apostles’ work was gaining among the people. More and more the people were turning toward them. In a way it was becoming somewhat popular. Devoted men were giving their all to it, like Barnabas. God did not demand it, but they gave it freely. They were held in honor among the people. Ananias and Sapphira his wife thought that they could gain all this honor and credit and fellowship and support from the common fund by giving a part of theirs and keeping back the other in case there was a failure in the early church. But this was checked by the power of the Spirit of God. The presence of God which destroys sin, slew those who had identified themselves with sin, and kept the early church pure. Those who were like-minded did not dare join themselves to the apostles. Those who were seeking God did yield themselves, and five thousand more were added to the church of God in Jerusalem. Deacons were set apart. The power of God rested upon the deacons. Therefore we read, “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.” Wherever a soul accepted God’s word he was a witness of that word in his own life; and so the word of God multiplied in the multiplication of believers.
But the church of God could not stay in Jerusalem. They were getting too many of the witnesses there, when the great world needed witnesses elsewhere; so the Lord suffered persecution to come upon that little company, and they were scattered everywhere, but wherever they were scattered they carried the word. Philip is sent down to a certain point in the desert where nobody lived, where nobody was ever expected to live; but at the same time God by another route sends to that specific place the Ethiopian eunuch. To him the gospel is preached from the book of Isaiah from which we before quoted, and the eunuch becomes a changed man, baptized into the faith. He himself carries the gospel to his own people.
In the ninth chapter we have the record of the miracle of the same word raising Dorcas from the dead. In the chapter following, the gospel is first preached to the Gentiles—the center of which is the Roman centurion—bringing astonishment to Peter, the very one who preached it, to think that God could do such a thing as save a Gentile. His word, however, is potent to heal all. The story of “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” did its effective work there, until Peter could say, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized?”
In the twelfth chapter we have a record of how a king rises up against that word, how he put one of the apostles to death and imprisoned another. By that very means he separates himself from God, is smitten in judgment, and dies. But we read in the twenty-fourth verse, “The word of God grew and multiplied.” It does not mean that there were more words of God, so far as the written word was concerned. It means that that written word had multiplied itself into more and more souls, and they themselves were bearing the word on to others.
In the nineteenth chapter we have a record of the wonderful work the word did in the exceedingly wicked city of Ephesus, that was given up to the licentious idolatry of Diana or Artemis. But there, though meeting with fearful opposition, it takes hold upon hearts until men who had the books of curious arts of idolatry brought them and burned them before all men, the price of which was 50,000 pieces of silver. “So7mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.” And these are but incidents of the work which was wrought at that time in the great heathen world. Thousands were longing, in the darkness of that heathen world, in the dead, dry husks of heathen philosophy, for something which would give life; and when that word came, the word of that wonderful gospel showing God’s regard for man, for the individual man,—His power and His willingness, His longing to cleanse the heart from sin and give liberty to the soul that believed,—there were thousands that responded, from the poorest among the people to those who were next to kings upon the throne.
There is a reference to where the word went down to heathen Thessalonica and moved them to turn from their dumb idols to serve the living God. We quote it because it shows the power of that word. The apostle declares: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” No wonder that it made them witnesses of a new power in that part of the heathen world. The apostle could indeed say that he could remember without ceasing their work of faith, labor of love, patience of hope. It was the same in Philippi, another heathen city. God called out of that city those who would glorify His name, those who could be “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life.”
Thus those who received the word became apostles of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone but in tables that are hearts of flesh. They were His epistle known and read of all men. There might be thousands who would not read and could not read the word written, and which had been written for centuries; but the living epistles and the living books in human lives could be read of all. Even so would the gospel witness doubly to-day, if received by living faith as it was received in those days. The mighty power of God then witnessed to both Jews and Greeks, and saved them; it is equally potent to-day. But that most fine gold of the early days became dim; that church which had been so earnest and devoted departed from her Lord. Would she witness still? Would she still become a living witness of the word? This we will study in our next.
An Incitement to Zeal
By E. W. Ballinger
Our Lord’s coming when held in the power of the doctrine, is the greatest possible incitement to missionary work, and to pastoral fidelity, integrity, and zeal. Look at 1 Peter 5:2-4: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” And 2 Tim. 4:1, 2 (R.V.): “I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom; preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching.” And Phil. 2:16, “Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.”— E. W. Ballinger.
Glory of the Advent
By Ebenezer Erskine
THERE is an account come of the arrival of King George, and a great rejoicing for it in Edinburgh. I see the fires and illuminations of that city reflected on the skies. O, how will the heavens reflect and shine with illuminations, when the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, shall erect His tribunal in the clouds, and come in His own glory, and His Father’s glory, and in the glory of the holy angels! O, what a heartsome day will that be! When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory. We shall then lift up our heads with joy, because it shall be a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.—Ebenezer Erskine.
The Mother
By N. D. Anderson
By N. D. Anderson
O thou above whose gentle brow
The bays of peace are woven now,
Thou hast surcease from sorrow.
Sleep through the night, in quiet nook,
That thou, refreshed, may happy look
Upon thy King to-morrow.
More honored in thy weary fight,
Untrumpeted, than men of might
And war with banners flying.
Thou leavest, as thou liv'dst, unsung
And unapplauded by man's tongue,
A glory never-dying.
Dream not of us who marred thy peace,
Nor yet of us who sought to ease
Thy life's, thy clinging burden;
For thou didst give thy rest to pray
For us, the wanderers, to this day,
O, rest then be thy guerdon!
A Priceless Lesson
By Arthur V. Fox
By Arthur V. Fox
I've learned as days have passed me,
Fretting never lifts the load,
And that worry, much or little,
Never smoothes a stony road;
For you know that, somehow, always,
Doors are opened, ways are made,
When we work and live in patience
Under all the crosses laid.
He who waters meadow-lilies
With the dew from out the sky,
He who feeds the fluttering sparrows
When in need of food they cry,
Never fails to aid His children
In their stress, the great or small,
For His ears are always open
To their faintest far-off call.
A Joyous Day
By Nellie M. Butler
By Nellie M. Butler
O, hasten on O joyous day
When we shall see Him face to face;
The One who died that we might live,
And saved us by His wondrous grace;
Who prayed for strength, when all alone
That dark night in Gethsemane,
To bear the load of guilt and sin
That we might be forever free.
When we can fall before His throne
And worship Him—all Heaven's King—
And praise Him for His love to men,
Or of His blessed grace to sing.
O, that will be a joyous day—
A day that is not far away.
Worship
By Leroy A. Morrison
By Leroy A. Morrison
I sing the praises of the Lord
Who shelters and protects me;
I magnify the mighty word
Wherein His mind directs me.
The ills endure,
I walk secure
By ramparts that surround me;
The perils hide,
My joys abide
Since Christ, my Lord, hath found me.
To praise Him were a little thing,
If words were all we brought him;
A vagrant lip might lightly sing
As if a soul had sought Him;
But when the heart,
From speech apart,
Thanksgivings fain would pour Him;
Ah! then the tongue
Hath quickly sung
The measures that adore Him.
We should not rush unheeding in,
Forgetting our unmeetness;
For lips like ours, befouled by sin,
Need sanctifying sweetness.
The cleansing blood
By Jesus shed,
Which doth our altar sprinkle—
That blood, I ween,
Doth wash us clean,
Without a stain or wrinkle.
We worship Him, God over all,
Who reigns in light above us;
Low at His feet, before Him fall,
Because He doth so love us.
O’er all our days,
In all our ways,
His mercy faileth never;
With soul aflame,
We praise His name
Forever and forever.
“Lo, He Comes!”
By Worthie Harris Holden
By Worthie Harris Holden
Anxious for His blest anointing,
Forth ye go to meet the King,
All awaiting His appointing
For the joyous welkin ring.
Soon some zealous ones grow weary,—
What can darksome hours beguile
Through the lonely watches dreary?
So they slumber for a while.
See, their flickering lights soon perish,
While these watchers slumbering lie!
But each faithful one will cherish
Well his torch, to raise on high.
“Lo, He comes!” will find some sleeping;
Wilt thou be among the throng
Who aroused exclaim with weeping
“We are lost!—we slept too long”?
Scenic-Worship
By Fred F. Hanchett
By Fred F. Hanchett
The sailor drifting on a shoreless tide,
Nor chart, nor compass, at his hand to guide;
And he athirst on burning desert drear,
No cooling spring his fevered eyes to cheer,
May well despair. But who shall tell the woe,
The floods of anguish that upon him flow
When he, to still a yearning heart’s desires,
In wordy creeds and scenic altar-fires
Would find surcease of nameless fear and pain;
Yet seeks the mystic unknown God in vain!
The Wail from the Lake of Fire
By Deloire Ross Buckner
By Deloire Ross Buckner
O, for cool water to allay our thirst!
For, in our torment, whereso'er we turn,
The frantic flames our tortured bodies burn,
Until our eyeballs seem about to burst,
While there sits He, whom often we have cursed,
His frown upon us, merciless and stern,
Meanwhile He smiles on those we once did spurn.
The first indeed are last, the last are first!
O, moist our swollen tongues! We strangle—choke,
Our plumes but adding fervor to the fire,
Meanwhile our molten jewels eat to the bone.
But worse than pain—remorse! For, through the smoke,
With golden harps and crowns, we see the choir
Of the redeemed about God's rainbow throne.
What Christ’s Coming Means
He Comes in Great Glory and Majesty
1. What does our Lord say in regard to the glory and majesty that shall attend Him when He comes the second time?
“For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works.” Matt. 16: 27.
“When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” Matt. 25: 31.
NOTE.— Christ will be clothed in His Father’s glory, in His own glory, and will be attended by “all the holy angels.” Then it will be literally true that all the majesty and glory of heaven will be poured out in this great event.
2. How does the prophet endeavor to convey to our minds the majesty and glory of the “Ancient of Days,” or God the Father?
“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.” Dan. 7: 9, 10.
3. How does the psalmist express himself in regard to the view he had of the coming of the Lord?
“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.” Ps. 50: 2, 3.
4. What is said of the brightness of Christ when His unveiled glory was presented to the disciples in vision at the transfiguration?
“Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” Matt. 17: 1, 2. See also Mark 9: 3.
NOTE.— It will be seen from these texts just given that the dazzling splendors of the sun, and the brightness of fire, and the glory of light, are all used in conveying to our senses the glorious majesty of God and His Son Jesus Christ. And all this glory is to be manifested in its majestic splendors in the Lord’s second coming.
The Glory of Angels
5. What was the appearance of the angel that was seen at the sepulcher at the resurrection of Christ, and how did his presence affect those who saw him?
“And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.” Matt. 28: 2-4.
6. How does the prophet Daniel describe the appearance of the angel that visited him?
“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.” Dan. 10: 5, 6.
7. What effect did this angel’s presence have upon the men who were with Daniel?
“And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.” Dan. 10: 7.
NOTE.— Thus, a single angel bears the wonderful glory of heaven. We are assured in Heb. 12: 22 that there are “innumerable hosts of angels;” the revelator speaks of the hosts of angels that he saw in vision as “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” Ten thousand times ten thousand is a hundred million, or more than the present population of the United States. But this vast number is not adequate, for he immediately adds, “and thousands of thousands.” The hundred million is only a part of the company of angels; there are thousands of thousands more. There are “innumerable hosts” of them. They are beyond man’s numerical calculation. Then think of the splendor that will be manifested in the second coming of Christ, when He shall come in the unapproachable glory of His Father, and this blended with His own glory, and the glory of all His holy angels. How absurd to speak of such a spectacle, as some are doing, as a thing that can take place in such an unobserved “spiritual” manner that no one will know it has been done!
8. When our Lord appears in the clouds of heaven, what will be the effect of His glorious appearing on the wicked?
“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” 2 Thess. 1: 7-10.
9. What view did John have of the terrors into which the wicked are thrown by the great day of the Lord?
“And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Rev. 6: 14-17.
Christ’s Coming and the Sleeping Righteous
10. What does the apostle Paul assure us will be the happy portion of the righteous dead at the second coming of Christ?
“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” 1 Thess. 4: 16.
11. What other encouraging promise is given upon the same subject?
“Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15: 51, 52.
Christ’s Coming and the Living Righteous
12. What takes place with those who are alive at the second coming of Christ?
“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4: 15-17, A.R.V.
13. After giving the foregoing instruction, what admonition does the apostle give us?
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess. 4: 18.
NOTE.— Carefully observe what the foregoing scriptures say, and thus see how plainly they tell that the resurrection of the righteous takes place at the second coming of Christ; and, furthermore, that the living righteous are made immortal at the same time, and “together” they are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, evermore to be with their chosen Master. With such thrilling and joyous events centering in the second coming of Christ, why should we not all look forward with longing for the time to come? One of the closing verses of Revelation reads: “He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Rev. 22: 20. And may every Christian earnestly join in the prayer.
The Coming of Our Lord
By D. L. Moody
IN the first place, I want to show you the importance of this subject. The denominations all make a good deal of baptism—I don’t know of one that doesn’t make a good deal about it, unless it be the Quakers. Take Paul’s last letters; he writes about baptism thirteen times in his epistles, but he writes of the return of our Lord fifty times. There are two hundred sixty chapters in the New Testament, and three hundred eighteen passages about the return of our Lord; so that there is an average of more than one passage to every chapter.
Another thought: What is it that makes certain chapters very precious to all the churches? Now, I suppose that no one will contradict the statement that the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is one of the sweetest9portions of Scripture, and very precious to the whole church of God. Perhaps there is not one single chapter in all Paul’s epistles that is read oftener than that fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. Why is it that this is so precious? It not only tells us what the gospel is, that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification, but it tells us that Christ went back to heaven and that
He Is Coming Back Again
I used to read that chapter, but I did not get the sweetest part of it. In the fifty-first verse he says: “I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Now that is what makes that chapter one of the most famous in the Bible. I suppose the high mountain peak of the gospels is the fourteenth chapter of John; I don’t think any one will challenge that statement. It is read oftener in the sick-room and at funerals than any other chapter in all the Bible. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I Will Come Again
and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
“I go to prepare a place for you.” I used to think that was what made that chapter so famous; but there is something even sweeter than that. He is coming back again: “I will come and receive you unto Myself.” I do thank God for the promise of His return—of His coming back. Mark you—we have the same authority to believe that He is coming back as that He was going away. It was an angel that told Daniel He was to come; it was an angel told Mary He would come; that told the shepherds He was already come; an angel that told that He was risen from the dead, and an angel told us He was coming back again. An angel dropped down, and said, “Ye men of Galilee, . . . this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner.” That is how He is coming—just the same body He took up from this earth. That is the declaration of this blessed Book, and we have the same authority to believe that He is coming back as we have that He came first.—D. L. Moody.
Come, Glorious King
COME forth out of Thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth! Put on the visible robes of Thy imperial majesty! Take up that unlimited scepter which Thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed Thee! For now the voice of Thy bride calls Thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.—Milton.
