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THE KING’S BUSINESS
Take the Capital and Labor prob lem. If every employer loved every employee well enough to die for them, and every employee loved his em ployer well enough to die for him, there would never be another strike, world without end. All these agita tions that ferment the public mind would be settled in less than twenty- four hours. So Paul swept the whole horizon of salvation and multiplication—mis sionary progress—as well as civiliza tion, when he said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” , “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross.” As you study the Bible, let the Cross ever be the centre. Pray that. in our experience it may be the cen ter in our ministry, in all our pur poses. Now the texts for our subject this morning you will find first in Mat thew 24:14:' “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the consummation come.” I am certain that is the right translation, “the completion,” “the finishing up,” rather than just the terminus, “Then shall the consum mation come.” Then in. 1 Corin thians 15:23, 24, “Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. Then cometh the consummation, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” Our subject has been the Birth of Jesus, the Incarnation of Deity; the Temptation of Jesus, the Testing of the Incarnation; the Transfiguration, the Unveiling of the Incarnation; the Cross, the Glory, of the Incarnation; and now the Second Coming, the Consummation of the Incarnation. I
wish we might have time to study the Miracles of Christ in confirmation of the Incarnation, and the Resurrec tion of Christ as the Seal of the In carnation. All of these lead up to the climax in the Second Coming. . THREE CERTAINTIES ABOUT THE SECOND COMING There are three certainties about the Second Coming. The Return Personal 1. The first certainty is, to my mind, that the Lord Jesus zmll return in Person. He said He would, and I believe Him. One word of the Lord Jesus with me outweighs the British Museum and all its libraries. When the Lord speaks, let the kings, of the earth keep silence. If Jesus said He was coming back just as He went up,, I believe He meant what He said. If He did not, it is the only time that He ever spoke without meaning what He said; and I am sure no Christian would accuse Him of that inconsistency. Now, if you will turn over to Acts I, you will find exactly what He said. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This; same Jesus”—speaking to us through the inspiration of the Spirit—“this same Jesus,, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” That is simply the unfold ing of the briefer word of the Lord from His own . lips, “I will come, again.” “I go to prepare a place for, you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I zmll come again and take- you unto Myself; that where I am,: there ye may be also.” The Word of Christ here is wit nessed to by the Holy Spirit. All the Greek words that I know (they
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