THE KING’S BUSINESS
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ing in earth or heaven knows the day or the hour, or the year, I believe, the century, or the millennium, when the Lord Jesus will return in glory. There are signs of His coming, I know; but there is no sign when He will come, the hour or the day. If you set the time, you are wise beyond what is written. One brother said to an other, “I think He will come within the next five years,” and the reply was, “That is good proof to me that He will not, for the Bible says He will- come in an hour that ye think not, and your thinking is -rather a proof that it is not so!” The Lord Jesus in His humanity did not seem to know the time of the return in glory. It is a secret with God the Father; the times are in His hands. Really this glorious doctrine has been brought into disrepute by some good people setting times, being so very certain when the Lord would come. I heard a lecture in Baltimore some years ago upon the Lord’s re turn. The lecturer told us that He would certainly come in 1901, and that Boulanger was the Antichrist. I met that lecturer seven years ago in Lon don and told him I heard that address. The good man dropped his head as he replied, “We become wiser as we grow older!” It would have been better for the cause of Christ and the truth if that good man had grown wiser before he made that lecture, for it brought a glorious doctrine of Scripture into dis repute in that, great city of Baltimore. It is certain that Christ will return ; it is absolutely certain that no finite being knows when. We leave the time completely with Him. He May Come at Any Time 3. The third certainty to my mind is that He may come any time. He will come. Nobody knows when, and therefore I am going to look for Hirr^
body, to be waked at the Resurrec tion; but for the soul it is enlarge ment, it is waking up, it is going into a larger sphere. There is a difference between looking for a hole in the ground for the body to drop into and decay and turn back to dust and the coming of the Lord in glory, when that body shall be transfigured into His own likeness. A world of dif ference. Fpr my part I do not like to live .with people who are looking for death, who want to die. They are the most disagreeable folks I ever met. They become morbid and gloomy. I had a man in my congregation in Brooklyn who sent for me at one o’clock one night to come and see him die. I knew his peculiarities so well that I sent back word that I could not come, but that 1 hoped he would come and see me tomorrow morning at half •past nine o’clock in the morning. His physician had told me that “this man has a morbid appetite for death. He wants to die, and he thinks he is go ing to die, because he is suffering from nervous collapse.” He was the gloomiest looking man in the congre gation. Oh, what a time a husband would have with a wife who always wants to die, and what a time a wife would have with a husband that wants to die? Why, you would be tempted to pray that their desire might be gratified! But there ig no gloom in the expectation of the coming King. It never gives morbidness, never gives a groan, never gives a sigh. Its magic .keeps to the major note. It is no fu nereal procession, but it is the march of a King. Christ will certainly come in Person. The Time of His Return Uncertain 2. The second certhinty is that no body knozvs when He will come. That is as certain as the first. No finite be
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