The Lord's Coming by Jesse Dorcas

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 17, 1866

The Lord's Coming.

By Jesse Dorcas

ThE prophet in contemplating this glorious subject, breaks out in the following language: "But who may abide the day of his coming?" Mal. iii, 2. Though this, like some other portions of Old Testament prophecy, may have had its fulfillment in some measure in the past, it still awaits its great and final fulfillment. This prophecy we understand to be synonymous with the declaration of Rev. vi, 17, "The great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" To the question asked in this scripture we answer, in brief, the holy in heart and life. Those who take unto them the whole armor of God, that they may be able to stand the evil day. We see from Isa. vi, 13, that there will be "a holy seed" that will be the substance in the end of the desolation when "the cities are wasted without inhabitant," and the land made utterly desolate. It will be those who are the seed of Abraham, by faith in Christ. But men will persistently refuse to understand and obey the truth, though ever so faithfully declared. Such cannot abide that day.

If this text has an application to the first and second comings of Christ, as we think it has, how striking the similarity of those two periods and events, in some points. In those days his people were looking for him, yet when he came they knew him not. John, the Elias that was to come, pointed out to them their sins, and their departure from their God. Him they hated and killed. He possessed the spirit of Elijah, had an uncompromising spirit toward those who departed from the living and true God, and he rebuked the vanities of the age in which he lived. So with the people of God in the last days. As it was in the first coming, God's professed people were observing a tradition of men in the place of the fifth command; so also in the second coming, his professed people will be observing a tradition of men in the place of the fourth commandment. Yet nevertheless, according to the word of the Lord, Isa. ii, 3, there is no end of their professions of loyalty, and willingness to hear the law. Let us ponder carefully the whole of this chapter, especially verses 6-9. It should be carefully observed by every Bible student, that the Lord calls our attention to the remembrance of the law of Moses his servant, just before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. See Mal. iv, 4. And doubtless those who remember and love the law, will think carefully of the fourth precept, and keep it holy, as well as the other nine.

Those also who abide the day of Christ's coming will have a family altar, a patriarchal religion, not confined merely to churches, or Sabbaths. They who hear the warning of the third message, and understand its meaning, will worship neither the beast nor his image, nor receive his mark; but as is seen in Rev. xiv, 12, a class will be found remembering the law, to keep both it and the requirements of the gospel. These will stand on the Mount Zion. Jesse Dorcas. Tipton, Iowa.