HOW WE SHALL BE WITH CHRIST.
By John Nevins Andrews
"AND so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4:17. The manner is indicated with most vivid distinctness. The Lord comes after his saints himself. He takes them to be with him with such a display of his divine majesty as no heart can conceive. This is the revealed method of taking the saints to the Father's house. See John 14:1-8. But there is another and much more popular manner of going to Heaven now taught almost everywhere. The religious world now virtually say to the Saviour that he need not trouble himself ever to come back to this earth with his triumphal chariot. The typhoid fever, the small-pox, or the consumption will answer equally well as the means of their entrance to the city of God. But what a contrast between that method of entering Heaven which God has revealed, and that one which men have devised to take its place! Sickness, death, the burial train, the grave, are these the agents of our salvation? How unlike is the funeral procession to that descent of Jesus in his Father's infinite glory, with the sound of the last trumpet, and with the presence of all the heavenly host! Who knows of the dead whether they are accepted of God or not? They are sown in dishonor, in weakness, and in corruption. This is not the way that the saints shall leave the earth. When they go, it shall be with exceeding glory; our Lord himself shall come after them. When Paul and Silas had been imprisoned at Philippi, the magistrates in the morning sent the sergeants to release them. But Paul said, "Let them come themselves and fetch us out." Acts 16:37. Paul wanted no deliverance of a doubtful character. The coming of the magistrate, and their public deliverance would attest their innocence. The sergeants were fit to conduct them to prison, but quite incompetent to give them the proper deliverance therefrom. Others may accept of death as their deliverer. He is only a sergeant to shut men up in prison. We look for him to come who has the keys of death and hades. His coming shall attest our innocency. His mighty power shall bring us deliverance. His own hand shall unlock our prison. His own voice shall address us in words of heavenly tenderness. His own body-guard shall bear us in their arms to his presence. He shall bid us sit in the chariots which he has taken for the purpose of conveying us to the holy city. At length, the city of God shall heave in view. Its gates shall be open to this vast company, the whole family of Heaven and earth. Heaven that had been emptied of all its angels, now receives again the angelic host, and with them the entire company of the redeemed. They behold the face of the Father. They enter his presence where there are pleasures forevermore. Every one finds a mansion prepared expressly for himself by the dear Saviour, before he set out on his descent to earth to gather his people to himself. Death can only consign us to hades. Our Lord has been in hades, indeed, but he is not there now. It is the land of the enemy. Our Lord has most precious jewels there. He is coming after them. He shall awaken them with his own voice. They shall be satisfied when they awake in his likeness. They shall be caught up to meet him in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord. J. N. A.