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CHRIST IS COMING

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 6, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 40.

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CHRIST IS COMING.

By X.

“How long, O Lord, how long?” has been the agonizing question of God’s seers, and poets, and prophets of all ages. Being in sympathy with the great Heart of infinite justice, and love, and purity, and tenderness, they have been intensely pained as they have beheld the earth overspread with injustice, oppression, slavery, war, strife, impurity, hatred, cruelty, and all forms of wrong, and sin, and crime. In agony of heart have they raised their cry to heaven, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
So also has the cry of the oppressed arisen. It may not have taken the form of those words, but so the Spirit has shaped it. The oppressed poor have raised the cry.
The worse than orphaned children and widowed mother (once a fair young happy bride), whose father and husband is a victim of the rum fiend and the greed of men, who mock her misery, have looked to what seemed an unbroken, frozen sky, and cried, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
In ceaseless rhythm to the clank of the coffle chain, or the driver’s lash, from the poor, toiling slave (a man in God’s image) has the cry ascended, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
So also the blood of the martyrs of Jesus Christ crieth to God. So also from many hearts, unheard by human ear, struggling on in agony of soul, the mute cry rises, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
The earnest reformer, having Christ’s Spirit, touched by the woes of the children of men, cry: “How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall black lust triumph over innocence and debase womanhood? How long shall truth be crushed to earth, and error, honored, stalk abroad? How long shall war’s fiery visage loom threatening in the heavens, while thousands are offered in holocausts at his demand? How long will God’s professed children choose hoary and lying tradition instead of the truth of His Word, and sacrifice Jesus the Saviour anew at the altar of science falsely so called?”
There is but one answer to all these as respects the earth in general. Individual hearts may find release from agony in death, in some combination of providential circumstances, in the reception of the presence of Christ in the heart; but the general multiform agony and chorus of earth will be prolonged till

Christ Shall Come.

One of the reasons why He is coming is to forever banish all sin and evil. This is as much a part of the great plan which began with creation’s dawn as His coming as the Babe of Bethlehem, or the Christ of Calvary. He is coming again to finish His work. He is coming to gather out of the world of misery, and want, and wo, and death, those who are linked to Him by faith and righteousness.
His coming will reveal His glorious refulgent presence, before which the moon and stars will be banished, and the sun will refuse to shine.
Then the wicked will perish by the forthshining of His presence. Not having His glory within, having refused it as veiled in the humanity of Jesus, they can not endure its revelation from without.
But those who have received that glory by accepting the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ, will with joy hail the Saviour when He comes. They will say: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him; and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” He is coming again to renew the earth, to change the kingdom, to restore the reign of God, to banish sin and death forever. “In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.”
Reader, “this same Jesus” who is coming again is the sinner’s Friend. The truly righteous know Him to be their Friend; for in His righteousness alone they boast. But, sinner, He is thy Friend. He came to this world for thee. He lived the life of a man in this world of sin for thee. He met temptation of every description and potency and conquered it for thee. He died for thee upon the cruel cross. He lives again on high, the great High Priest, for thee, that thou mayest overcome all sin, and be ready to greet Him as thy Friend when He comes again. O, will you not accept Him now, that you may know Him then as thy Friend?
X.