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March 1930
with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent [precede] them which are 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 which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Where fore, comfort one another with these words (1 Thess. 4:13-18). T hree G reat P romises But the best of all reasons for believing that Jesus Christ is coming back, is that He said He would, in the most explicit and definite way. Have you ever noticed that just before He went to the Cross He made three great promises to believers ? The first was, “ Upon this rock I will build my church.” Notice that this promise is in the future tense: “I W ILL build” ; the Church was not yet in existence. The “ rock” upon which it was to be built was the profession of faith in His deity— “ Thou art the Son of God.” The second promise referred to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said: “ I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.” The third promise was, “ I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” No one doubts that the first promise is being literally fulfilled; He is building His Church. Every true believer is a member of the Church, His body. The second promise was likewise fulfilled when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. He is still baptizing believers into the body of Christ. Why, then, should we doubt that the third promise is to be just as literally fulfilled? The testi mony concerning His return was given perhaps half a dozen times during the closing hours of His earthly min istry. He knew that He was going up to Jerusalem to die; but listen to His startling words: 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: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them, one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. He had not been upon a throne, rewarding men accord ing to their works; but when He comes again all nations will be gathered before Him for judgment. It is not a heavenly, but an earthly, throne that He is here por traying. H is L ast M essage Remember, also, the last message of the Lord on that night when the hearts of the disciples were filled with gloom, apparently because of their bitter disappointment. They had hoped that He would restore, the Kingdom to Israel. This is clearly intimated by the explanation of their sadness which was given to Jesus by the two dis ciples on the Emmaus road. Thinking Him a stranger, they rehearsed the story of the happenings of those tragic days and said: We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. It was the blasting of their hopes concerning the Kingdom, crude and imperfect as that hope may have been, which caused such sorrow and gloom to settle upon them. To encourage and comfort them Jesus gave that farewell message in which He said: Let not you® heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house' are many mansions................ I go to prepare a place for you, And if I go. . . . I will come
again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. T he T estimony of P eter To the testimony of Jesus and of the Scriptures in general, can be added that of other competent witnesses. For instance, Peter said: We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty . . . . when we were with him in the holy mount. I believe that in that transfiguration scene to which Peter refers we have a symbolic picture of the future kingdom of bur Lord. He is seen, not in humiliation but in glory. Moses is there, symbolically representative of the redeemed who have passed through death into the Kingdom. Elijah is present, representative of the re deemed who have entered the Kingdom by translation. T he T estimony of J ames You recall that James wrote about some of the social and industrial problems of the day, and o f the cries that were going up to the Throne from the downtrodden and oppressed. To all such he said: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of. the Lord draweth nigh. How we need the testimony of James even in these days! Men are trying to solve the problems of which he speaks by means of legislation, and we are thankful for every measure of relief that can be brought in this way. But such improvement as is possible leaves much to be desired, and the final solution awaits the rising of the Sun of righteousness, whose beams will bring healing to the nations. At His appearing, and not till then, will social and industrial wrongs be righted. T he T estimony of J ohn John foretells the coming of false prophets, false spirits, foreshadowing the appearing of Antichrist. Fore seeing the danger to Christians by reason of these errors that might tempt many to go astray, he said: And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. T he T estimony of P aul It would be impossible to quote much of what Paul says concerning this truth. Two whole epistles, First and Second Thessalonians, deal almost entirely with this one subject. He calls this doctrine “ the blessed hope o f the glorious appearing o f the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” T he T estimony of the T wo W itnesses You recall that as the disciples looked up into the bright cloud that had received Jesus on the day o f His ascension, two men in glorious array stood by them and said: Ye men o f Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? 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. We have reason to believe that these two heavenly wit nesses were the same who appeared on the mount of trans figuration to testify concerning the approaching death of Jesus, and then again testified to the resurrection of Christ on that first Easter morning. Were the heavenly messen gers right in their prediction concerning the death of Jesus? And were they correct in their announcement of His resurrection? There is no question as to their accu-
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