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THE K I NG ' S B U S I N E S S to us—“Surely I come quickly”—may come now with fresh sweetness and power to our hearts and may have their full effect in our lives. Our Lord will come suddenly. Our Lord will come soon. The very next moment may he the great moment, the moment in which He will come, the moment in which we shall be changed and caught up to be with Him forever. How wonderful is the grace of our God! But for His grace we could never have looked forward to participating in the joy of that coming moment. We were sinners indeed, yet “He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propi tiation for our sins” (I. John 4 :10). How wonderful that “He by the grace of God should taste death for every man!” (Heb. 2 :9 ). By that wonder ful salvation-bringing grace of God, through the finished work of “our Sav iour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us,” we who believe in Him have been saved. “Not by the works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the wash ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 2:11-14; 3: 4-7). By that wonderful grace of God we have been redeemed and regener ated, and now we “wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which de livered us from the wrath to come.” (I. Thess. 1:10.) How wonderful that coming moment will be! As we have seen, it will be a moment of many marvels. One of those marvels is specially emphasized in I. Thess. 4:17. From that verse we learn that it will be the great moment of meeting. We shall meet again our loved ones who are now absent from the body and present with the Lord (II. Cor. 5 :8 ). Who among us has not known the pain of the moment of parting, the sad sense of loss, the empty place in the home,
when some loved one was taken away? We have known the sorrow caused by that separation, even though we did not sorrow as. those who have no hope. But soon we shall have the joy, the inde scribable joy, of meeting those loved ones again. Well may our hearts over flow with praise and thankfulness to our God as we think of the coming mo ment of meeting. Soon that moment will come, that wondrous moment, when we shall be “with them” once again, and when "together with them” we shall be caught up to meet the Lord. We shall see our loved ones again in that moment. Who can describe that marvellous time? Who can tell a tithe of the joy of that meeting? But, glor ious as that will be, there will be an even more glorious meeting in that mo ment. We shall meet the Lord Him self—the One “Who gave Himself for us,” the One Whom we love “because He first loved us.” We, who are alive and remain until that coming moment, shall see then for the first time the One Whom having not seen we love. In that moment we shall “meet the Lord,” and then, and forever, we shall be "with the Lord.” If we cannot find words to describe the joy of meeting out loved ones once again, still more do we feel the utter inadequacy of words to describe the joy of meeting that Loved One. But that inexpressible joy will soon be ours. We shall soon be “with them” once, more, and, "together with them,” we shall be “with the Lord” (I. Thess. 4 :17 ). Oh, the wonder of that moment of meeting! The moment when we shall meet never more to be parted. Oh, the wonder of the grace of our God! The grace which has made that moment of meeting possible for us. May the moments—be they few or many—which have yet to pass ere that grand coming moment, be spent by us in adoring worship, earnest work, and con tinual watchfulness. May we, until that
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