WHEN CHRIST COMES

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 16, 4 October 1929, Page 3

WHEN CHRIST COMES

By PASTOR L. R. HARVEY. ! * i The magnificence and glory ol’chrisfs seccqd coming will pi'eseni a terrible contrast to the gloom and the harbingers of evil that will sur-vou-nd this world. For Christ “shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. Luke 9'. 20. Then, “thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. Ha. 33: 17. Nahum 1: 5 says “the mountains shall quake at Him, and the hills molt, and the earth is burned'at His presence, yea, the world, and all tlmt dwell therein,.” And the Psalmist says: “A lire goeth before Him, and burnetii up His enemies round about. . . The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord.” Ps. 97: 3-5. This fire will destroy all the work s of man. If the lulls made of dirt and rocks, are to melt like wax, then the great “fire proof” buildings of which men boast will burn as if made of pitch. When this is accomplished, then will be fulfilled’ the saying of the prophet Isaiah: "Behond the Lord maketll the earth empty, and makelh it waste, and turhetli it upside down.” “The land shall be utterly /emptied, and utterly spoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word.” He gives the reason for this; “The earth also is defiiled under the inhabitants thereof. . . Therefore the in- ' habitants of the earth are burned and few men left.” Isa. 24: 1,3, 5, 6. The few men left will be those who have followed the Bible. “He 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.” I Thiss. 4: 16, 17.

HE GREETS THE REDEEMED. Jesus—the One on whom every eye is fixed at thih time—will receive His people. It is for these that He has suffered—suffered only as God could suffer. In one of His last prayers while He was on this earth, He said, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, he with Me where I am.” John 17: 24. At last His prayer is answered. The most important tiling that we can now consider is, What shall he our relation to that great event? We should consider that “the day of the Lord'is great and very terrible; and who can abide it ” And we should

spare no time or energy in preparing for that day, that we may he able, by the help of Christ, to abide it. We must be humble, teachable, submissive, and obedient to His common, dments. Heaven will be cheap enough, at any cost: why sell pur souls for the little that this world can only lend us?