The Personal Preparation for the Coming of the Lord
M. C. WILCOX
There is nothing in a personal way, to you or to me, of more importance than our relationship with God, and the answer that we shall make, by our record, when the Judge shall pass sentence. How shall we meet him when he comes? Over and over we sing—sometimes almost thoughtlessly—the eternally vital question:—
“When thou, my righteous Judge, shalt come
To call thy ransomed people home,
Shall I among them stand?
Shall such a worthless worm as I,
Who sometimes am afraid to die,
Be found at thy right hand?”
Let us seriously, thoughtfully, humbly, prayerfully study what is involved in the subject.
Our Lord is coming again. By promise and prophecy he has proclaimed a thousand times that he is coming again. Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the living God, our Brother in the flesh, is coming again,—coming personally, not by a representative; coming visibly, for every eye shall see him; coming for the eternal salvation of his children, salvation from sin, disease, death, and all related troubles; coming, not as a Man of sorrows, in humiliation, but as King of kings, in glory transcendent, bringing to his children salvation and eternal progress and bliss. Do we not all want a part in that salvation?
Jesus is coming soon. More than twelve lines of prophecy focusing in our day, all of them bearing in fulfilment the focal point, declare that his coming is near; twelve different time-tables all declaring that the prophetic train on each line is nearing the grand central station, the coming of Jesus.
There are a score or more of special signs, omens, precursors, heralds of that coming, lifting up burning banners, shouting in stentorian voices, pleading in unutterable tenderness, in the physical, social, religious, and political worlds; yet all unite in harmony with the prophetic word in declaring that the opening heavens will soon disclose the forthshining of the glory of our Lord’s personal presence. We cannot delay it, we cannot veil the awful glory, we cannot hide from it. Do we not wish to share its life-giving, body-transforming, immortality-bestowing power?
God has warned us, his professed children, of that awful, glorious event. In thus doing, he recognizes our lean spiritual condition, clearly diagnoses our cases, and warns us of our danger. He does not deceive us, he does not flatter us. He knows as we do not know. He knows the dire results of cherished sin. He alone has the remedy. Listen to his warnings in that great discourse of his second coming as recorded by Luke. After faithfully portraying his coming, summarizing the signs which precede that event, knowing the ways in which Satan would work to draw mind and soul20away from the things of paramount importance, he says: “Take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare: for so shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth.” Luke 21: 34, 35.
Listen to the words of our Lord again, in his last letter to the churches: “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”
Do these diagnoses meet our cases? God’s “Take heed” means something. Invariably it is a warning, whenever used, concerning dangers into which his people are likely to fall or have fallen. Are we drunken in pleasures? Are we surfeited to the benumbing of heart and soul and conscience? Do the cares of the world shut out Christ, and give no time to get acquainted with him? Are we earth dwellers, satisfied with heaping up treasures here, or are we pilgrims and strangers bound for a better land? Are we lukewarm, indifferent, without a real sense of the meaning of the times? The day as a snare is approaching,—a day whose approach will be marked by nothing visible. What if it should come next month, next week, tomorrow? Are your deeds tasteless and nauseating to God? Are you so indifferent as to be satisfied? These are vital questions. If we do not answer them, to God now, how shall we answer them when our Lord shall come?
The Lord’s Appeal
Listen to his appeals to you and to me: “And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Rom. 13: 11-14.
We are children of the day, and the day is just at hand. We must be sober and watchful, and put on the whole armor of God. It is ours by faith. We must put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation; put on the Lord Jesus Christ, for God has not appointed us unto wrath.
How earnestly the prophet cries to us! How he would arouse and hurry us to decisive, holy action! “Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together” in Christ. Seek him, “seek righteousness [his righteousness], seek meekness.” Before the decree of wrath bring forth, before the day of salvation pass as lightly as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Jehovah falls upon sin and all identified with it. “It may be ye will be hid.”
WORKERS IN ARMENIAN MISSION FIELD, IN ASIATIC TURKEY
These men are laboring amidst peril from Catholic and
Moslem fanaticism.
The uncertainty is ours. How could a plea be stronger or more urgent? What language could God better use to arouse us from the lethargy of sin?
But he makes a still stronger, mightier plea to our poor, insensate, lukewarm hearts. Nauseating as Laodicea is, he comes down to its homes. He knocks at each door. He speaks with infinite love to each poor, life-barren heart: “I counsel thee to buy of me” the gold of faith and love, tried in the fire of affliction. Buy the white raiment of God’s righteousness to cover thy nakedness. Anoint the sin-blinded eyes of heart and mind with the eye-salve of the Spirit of light and discernment, that thou mayest no longer walk in darkness. All are free. Our Lord’s very reproof and chastening are evidences of his love. He would not have us lost. He would not have us deceived. “Be zealous therefore, and repent.” Feeling or no feeling, be zealous in the repenting. Turn from the sin. Open wide the door. Let in the Holy Ghost, who brings with him all the riches and benedictions of heaven. He will take all our sins, partake of all our toil and labor and sorrow, and he will spread our board with heavenly, delectable food. Let him in! O, let him in!
A Clean Heart
Is there aught to do, dear soul, then, but to believe the Master? Is there any other safe way, when the Great Physician declares that our heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,—desperately corrupt, desperately sick, as differently rendered? Shall we not believe him? When he tells us—he who had the human heart of flesh—that “from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness,” shall we not believe? Do we not know that many of these sins have been manifest in our own lives? Do we not know that the saved will be without guile, without fault, even in the sight of the all-seeing, all-piercing eye of the holy God? Knowing all this, should we not confess our sins and cry to God for cleansing? He asks this. Could he ask less?
Does not he want us to pour into his ear our sins, our crimes, our filthiness? He knows all now, but he wants us to be rid of them, to break partnership with sin forever; and this is done by confessing and forsaking sin, and confessing and uniting with Christ. Listen! “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
The real heart of confession is that it separates from the sin, and separates unto God. It breaks the wicked band which binds us to the traitor of God’s kingdom, and places us in the army of King Immanuel.
Let us pray. Let us confess the sin. Let us believe that he does forgive our sins, our backslidings; that he does cleanse from all unrighteousness. Thus has he spoken; our God cannot lie. Nay, let us pray not only for cleansing for past sins, but for strength in the place of weakness, victory in the place of defeat, courage in the place of cowardice,21patient endurance in the place of yielding, love in the place of selfishness, a glad, hopeful heart in the place of gloom and moroseness, for life in the place of death.
Fearful are the struggles and trials of the closing journey, deadly the miasma of the enchanted ground. We must have the constant presence and atmosphere of God. Note these messages from the book “Early Writings,” pages 71, 270, 271:—
“I saw that many were neglecting the preparation so needful, and were looking to the time of ‘refreshing’ and the ‘latter rain’ to fit them to stand in the day of the Lord, and to live in his sight. O, how many I saw in the time of trouble without a shelter! They had neglected the needful preparation, therefore they could not receive the refreshing that all must have to fit them to live in the sight of a holy God. Those who refuse to be hewed by the prophets, and fail to purify their souls in obeying the whole truth, and who are willing to believe that their condition is far better than it really is, will come up to the time of the falling of the plagues, and then see that they needed to be hewed and squared for the building. But there will be no time then to do it, and no Mediator to plead their cause before the Father. Before this time the awfully solemn declaration has gone forth, ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.’ I saw that none could share the ‘refreshing’ unless they obtain the victory over every besetment, over pride, selfishness, love of the world, and over every wrong word and action. We should, therefore, be drawing nearer and nearer to the Lord, and be earnestly seeking that preparation necessary to enable us to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Let all remember that God is holy, and that none but holy beings can ever dwell in his presence.”
“As the praying ones continued their earnest cries, at times a ray of light from Jesus came to them, to encourage their hearts, and light up their countenances. Some, I saw, did not participate in this work of agonizing and pleading. They seemed indifferent and careless. They were not resisting the darkness around them, and it shut them in like a thick cloud. The angels of God left these, and went to the aid of the earnest, praying ones. I saw angels of God hasten to the assistance of all who were struggling with all their power to resist the evil angels, and trying to help themselves by calling upon God with perseverance. But his angels left those who made no effort to help themselves, and I lost sight of them. . . .”
“Said the angel, ‘List ye!’ Soon I heard a voice like many musical instruments all sounding in perfect strains, sweet and harmonious. It surpassed any music I had ever heard, seeming to be full of mercy, compassion, and elevating, holy joy. It thrilled through my whole being. Said the angel, ‘Look ye!’ My attention was then turned to the company I had seen, who were mightily shaken. I was shown those whom I had before seen weeping and praying in agony of spirit. The company of guardian angels around them had been doubled, and they were clothed with an armor from their head to their feet. They moved in exact order, like a company of soldiers. Their countenances expressed the severe conflict which they had endured, the agonizing struggle they had passed through. Yet their features, marked with severe internal anguish, now shone with the light and glory of heaven. They had obtained the victory, and it called forth from them the deepest gratitude and holy, sacred joy.
“The numbers of this company had lessened. Some had been shaken out and left by the way. The careless and indifferent, who did not join with those who prized victory and salvation enough to perseveringly plead and agonize for it, did not obtain it, and they were left behind in darkness, and their places were immediately filled by others taking hold of the truth and coming into the ranks. Evil angels still pressed around them, but could have no power over them.
“I heard those clothed with the armor speak forth the truth with great power. It had effect. Many had been bound; some wives by their husbands, and some children by their parents. The honest who had been prevented from hearing the truth now eagerly laid hold upon it. All fear of their relatives was gone, and the truth alone was exalted to them. They had been hungering and thirsting for truth; it was dearer and more precious than life. I asked what had made this great change. An angel answered, ‘It is the latter rain, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord, the loud cry of the third angel.’”
O brethren, friends, young and old, let us verify in our own lives the precious assurances of the word of the living God, “They that stumbled are girded with strength.” “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.” “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up among the grass, as willows by the watercourses.”
God is more willing to give his Spirit to us in these last days in its outpouring than is an earthly parent to give good gifts unto his children. Believing this, we can indeed say, and say forever, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again; he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”
