Your ShelfYour Projects

Advent Thoughts

20%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 3.

Read the full edition

Advent Thoughts.

How will it startle and confound the wicked and the unbelieving to see one in the form of man sitting upon the throne of judgment, armed with the power of the almighty God! to discover too late that He whom they have rejected and despised has power to pronounce the dreadful sentence of everlasting exclusion from the divine presence! And how will it fill the righteous with confidence and joy to see, for their judge, Him who loved them and gave himself for them—who, in the days of his flesh was in all points (except sin) tempted like themselves; who, in all their affliction, was afflicted, sympathizing with all their sorrows, putting their tears into his bottle, noting all their trials in his book, feeding them with his body, refreshing them with his blood, that going through the vale of misery they might use it for a well, till he should come to present them faultless before the throne, washed and purified, and clothed in the white robes, the fine linen of the saints!
And “when shall these things be?” and what the sign of the coming of the Son of Man? When men are least prepared, putting far off the evil day, scoffing most freely at those who deem it near, saying most confidently, “Peace and safety,” rejoicing in material progress, utterly regardless of spiritual decay.
“Even thus amid thy pride and luxury, O earth, shall that last coming burst on thee— That secret coming of the Son of Man.
Have not God’s judgments always taken men by surprise? Not because warning was not given, but because it was not taken. It was so in the days of Noah; it was so in the days of Lot. It will be so in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed. Suppose this day were the very advent day—would it find us ready?—ready as the wise virgins? ready as the good and faithful servants? ready as the diligent steward? Would it find us with our hearts habitually fixed on the thought of his coming—our affections set on the hope of his kingdom? Or would we that he delay his coming, because we are not prepared to meet him?—The Churchman.