p. 368 | The Basis of Our Hope by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 17, 1913

The Basis of Our Hope

By F. M. W.

The Lord’s Return—No. 1

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:35-39.

The Basis of Our Hope

WHAT assurance have we that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to this earth the second time? How may we know that things will not continue for ages as they have existed from the foundation of the world? Our answer is found in the revelation of God to man. That word which tells us of the coming of the Lord in humility nineteen hundred years ago as clearly proclaims his coming a second time in glory and majesty.

This faith has been cherished by the church of God in every age. It was contained in the promise to Adam that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied” of the coming of the Lord with “ten thousand of his saints.” Job, in the days of the patriarchs, declared his faith in a living Redeemer, “that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,” and that in his flesh would he for himself, with his own eyes, behold the Lord. In the writings of David, the sweet singer of Israel; of Daniel, the prophet-statesman; of Joel; of Amos, the herdsman; of Zechariah, in his highly figurative description of the coming kingdom; of Malachi, whose prophecy closes the Old Testament scriptures, the coming of the Lord is set forth as the grand fruition of the Christian’s hope. It was made the chief object of prophetic vision. Of it the bards sang and the poets wrote. Even in the days of darkness and depression, when Israel was a stranger in a strange land, the glories of the coming state and of Israel restored, were the hope that kept the heart from sinking.

The same blessed hope is set before the church of God in the New Testament scriptures. Of his coming in his kingdom, of the time when he shall be seated on the throne, of his glory when he shall descend to earth with myriads of the heavenly hosts to gather his children to himself, the Lord speaks in no uncertain terms. Note his prophetic utterance as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

It was this hope which cheered the hearts of the disciples and nerved them for the conflict when separated from their divine Lord. Listen to the words of the angelic messengers: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11.

“This same Jesus!” How these words must have thrilled their hearts! From one they had come to love better than life they had been separated. The one who had been their companion in trials, a sharer of their joys and griefs, their comforter in many trying hours; the one with whom they had labored and toiled and watched and prayed, with whom they had made common cause in hope and purpose, in persecution and suffering, for whom in following they had forsaken all and subordinated every earthly ambition; the one who had become life of their life and hope of their hope, had left them to go to his Father, and they were deprived of his blessed presence. But before leaving he had breathed upon them his own blessed Spirit. Their hearts had thrilled and responded anew to the hope and desires and purposes which possessed his. They joyfully assumed the commission he had given them to perform, realizing that his watchful eye was upon them; that he took account of their labors, and that though absent from them, by his own blessed Spirit he would still continue to share in their experiences; and then as the climax of all there was the assurance of a renewal of that blessed association which they had enjoyed with him so intimately. “This same Jesus” was to come again and take them unto himself.

This hope cheered John, James, and Peter alike, as is evidenced by their later epistles. Peter tells of the coming of the “chief Shepherd,” the one who had commissioned him during his absence to feed his sheep (1 Peter 5:4); James exhorts the believers to be “patient . . . unto the coming of the Lord;” and John professes the same abiding faith in the coming of his beloved Master. The great inspirational hope in the heart of Paul was the coming of the Master. Read his weighty argument on the resurrection in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. See

how he sets forth the grand climax, the hope of the church in every age, as the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the saints at that time. Read his comforting word as contained in the fourth chapter of the first epistle to the Thessalonians. It was the hope he placed before the believers at Colosse, at Philippi, in Galatia, and the church at Rome.

There can be no mistaking the character of this hope. It was more than a fantasy, an ideal. It was a vision, a revelation to the soul, a part of the very life. It furnished inspiration for labor, and nerve for the conflict. It was a real, tangible, genuine, enduring hope, and all this it remains to the church of to-day.

In these days of darkness to what other source shall we turn for relief? How else shall we obtain freedom from the pall of sin? In what other way will misery and crime and sickness and death be banished from the earth? How else can there come surcease from pain and crying and tears? Lost and undone indeed would be our condition without the blessed assurance in the Scriptures of Truth of our Lord’s return.

Thus the hope of the saints of God in every age, of apostle, priest, prophet, and king, is our hope to-day. The basis of that hope is the unchanged and unchangeable word of our blessed Master. Upon this we may rest with assurance.

F. M. W.