Second Coming of Christ.
By WM. FELL
THE coming of Christ will be the greatest event that the world has ever witnessed. The awful grandeur and glory of that day will infinitely surpass anything that the finite mind is capable of conceiving. Prophets, apostles, and saints in all ages, have looked forward to that day with the profoundest interest. At the present day, the children of God are waiting patiently for their Lord and King. Though it is not essential to our salvation to know the time he is coming, yet the Lord has told us to “watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.” Matt. 24: 42, 44. These words are very applicable to us, who are now living in this wonderful and eventful age. “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” 1 Thess. 1: 2. “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2: 3. These words of the apostle have been literally fulfilled in this nineteenth century. Jesus did not reprove his disciples for asking the question with regard to the signs of his coming and the end of the world, but said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” Matt. 24: 4. He cautioned them, and then told them the awful state the world would be in before his coming, and said, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matt. 24: 36, 37. He never said one word about the millennium, as modern professors do at the present day who are waiting for the world to be converted, and imagine they are living on the eve of that day; but said, “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?” Here is where the Gentile world will be deceived in the second coming of Christ, as the Jews were in his first coming. Christ will find a few that are waiting and living for him when he comes; but oh! how precious few they will be in comparison to the masses that are unsaved! Christ saw the awful state the world would be in just before his coming. He saw that they would be covetous, grasping, and seeking for position and honor; connecting themselves with secret societies, and organizations of various kinds, so that he was led to ask the question, “Shall he find faith?” There is no room for faith to work, where men and ministers are trusting in secret societies, wealth, and position: faith is dead with nothing but skin and bones hanging to it. Why! it don’t even compare with the faith of the devils: for they “believe and tremble.” It means something to have faith in God. A man that is trusting in God is not trusting in anything else. Take property, friends, reputation, and all that he has, from him—yea and his life—and he is trusting in God, and he is like “Mount Zion, which cannot be removed.” God can do as he pleases with him; he is living for God, and doing all the good he possibly can. His life is a life of faith on the Son of God; and when “Christ, who is his life, shall appear, then shall he also appear with him in glory.” The Lord let the beloved Paul have a view of the awful state of things that should be on earth just before his coming. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3: 1–5. This is a correct representation of the present day. There never was a time when people loved worldly pleasures more than they do now, especially professors of religion. Talk to them about the power, and they will scout at the idea. Talk money to them—they know what that means; talk theater, tea-meetings, festivals and fashions, and they are right at home with you on that subject. But the power—the real life of God in the soul—they are strangers to. And the real child of God is as much of a wonder to-day as ever. It requires as much grace and courage to live for God, as in the days when the bloody ax and the torturing wheel were the test of every man’s religion. Yes, Christ is coming very soon; for he says, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22: 12. He is coming, to take his children home. “Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matt. 24: 30, 31. This will be the end of their sorrows, and the beginning of their eternal joys. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” Rev. 1: 7. Children of the Most High, look up and regulate your lives in view of this glorious day! Worldly professors do not like to hear much about the coming of Christ; but God’s children do, and so did the apostles: for they referred to it in almost all their epistles,—they kept it fresh in their minds, and it was a glorious incentive to a holy and useful life. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself.” 1 John 3: 2, 3. Oh, glorious hope! big with immortality. Christ is coming quickly, to avenge his children who call on him day and night. “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day.” 2 Thess. 1: 6–10. He is coming soon—much sooner than many of us expect. He told John to “seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at hand.” Rev. 22: 10. The world is growing old with age, and ripe for the Judgment fires. The armies of Heaven are preparing for this great and glorious day. “Great triumph day of God’s incarnate Son,—
Great day of glory to the almighty God.
Day whence the everlasting years begun.
Their date, new era in eternity,
And oft referred to in the songs of Heaven.” Christ is coming as a mighty conqueror. He has conquered death, hell, and the grave, and ascended up on high and led captivity captive. “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” The busy world will be suddenly startled at the unexpected appearance of Jesus Christ in the clouds. Behold, he cometh, not as the once despised Nazarene, and the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, but as the “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” and as the “Judge of the quick and the dead.” “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.” Ps. 50: 3, 4. Stop, dear reader, just a moment. Are you living and regulating your life in view of this “great and terrible day of the Lord”? This will be the day that is to end the affairs of this world, and to determine the destiny of all mankind. Have you a living faith in God and not in circumstances, a faith that overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil? Are you kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation? Are you living a holy, useful life, and doing all you can to win souls to Christ, and to help on the cause of God? “He that winneth souls is wise.” Should we fall asleep in death, it will not be long before the trump of God will sound, and we must all march to the “judgment-seat of Christ.” “And every eye shall see him.” “For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. “Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15: 51, 52. Oh, glorious and happy change! “Behold him, ye followers of the Lamb, and wonder and love! This is he who bore all your iniquities on the ignominious cross. This is he who fulfilled all righteousness for your justification. Behold him, ye despisers of his grace, and wonder and perish! This is he whose merciful overtures you have contemned, and on whose precious blood you have trampled.” You would not give Christ the pre-eminence in your heart, but now he comes to gain it by conquest. Christ will come with a shout, and every living creature will hear it, and the trump of God will sound, and that will shake the pillars of heaven and startle the dungeon of hell; and the sleeping millions will hear that sound, and understand what it means, and come forth—“they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” The world moves on, and has for several thousand years, and the coming of Christ to many has become an old fable; and the apostle Peter says, “Beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. . . . But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Pet. 3: 1, 3–10. Dear reader, what a dreadful day this will be for you if you are unsaved! And oh! what a consternation and excitement will seize the guilty world then! All business, of every description, stops at once; all the busy marts have closed. No idle spectators looking on now, but every living soul that God has made is tremendously interested. They had no time for these things once, but now they must take time. Everything of an earthly nature sinks into insignificance. The children of God have been living for this day, and they are prepared to meet it with triumph and joy. All earthly pomp and display sink into contempt. The rich and the noble—where are they now? They, with the multitudes, are trembling and frantic with fear, and rushing here and there in wild amazement, looking for escape. But alas! alas! escape is hopeless. “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Rev. 6: 14–17. The uprisings of nations, and the downfall of kingdoms and empires; the dethronement of the man of sin, the pope, and his right-hand man, Napoleon, and the turbulent state that mankind are in, and the dreadful corruption of both church and state—are fulfillments of the word of God. “He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Rev. 22: 20, 21.—WM. FELL, in Earnest Christian.