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THE BOW IN THE CLOUD

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 25, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 30, No. 2.

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THE BOW IN THE CLOUD.

By ANGELIA J. EDMUNDS

Tuesday evening, May 28, 1867, after the many gloomy days of rain, what a joy filled our hearts when the bright rays of the setting sun shed a halo of splendor abroad, dispersing in a moment all the melancholy forebodings of nature, and causing the yet descending rain drops to sparkle and glisten like diamonds in the sunshine. While I was thinking that the light I then looked upon must be but a shadow of the glory that will fill the earth when the curse is removed, I heard an exclamation, “A rainbow in the east.” My friends, doubtless every one of you like myself hastened to gaze upon the lovely scene, the bow of promise.
Poor sinners, while you were gazing with admiration did not your hearts thrill with a feeling of pleasure? Did you not feel to exclaim, There is a Creator whom I should worship? If you would repent of your sins, if you would make Jesus your friend, what glory you might behold in Heaven. “As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.” Eze. i, 28. Oh! that poor sinners would heed the still small voice that is constantly warning them. John, on the isle of Patmos, saw the throne of God in Heaven surrounded by a rainbow. And soon we may stand on the sea of glass before that throne, having harps of gold. We shall cast our crowns before it saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Rev. iv, 11.
Once it rained forty days and forty nights, “and the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.” All flesh was destroyed off the face of the earth except Noah and they that were with him in the ark. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every thought of the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
It is now as it was in Noah’s time. Go where we may we see nothing but wickedness. God cannot bear with poor sinners much longer. By nearly every tongue does he hear his name taken in vain, and every other commandment is as extensively broken; but he will not deluge the earth again with water, for he said, “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Gen. viii, 22. “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” Gen. ix, 11. “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” Verse 16. My friends, while you and I looked upon the rainbow God looked upon it also and remembered his promise. In a little while “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” 2 Thess. i, 8, 9. Soon saints will be permitted not only to see the rainbow of bright glory that surrounds the throne in Heaven, and the exceeding and eternal weight of glory that fills the place where they need no light of the sun, for “the Lamb is the light thereof;” but they will enjoy a home where there are no long stormy days, no dark nights, neither of nature nor of the soul; there we shall bask in the smiles of our Creator forever.
ANGELIA J. EDMUNDS.