p. 47 | At the Last by John Cumming

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 20, 1874

At the Last.

By John Cumming

When the last day of this dispensation shall arrive, much that is now available for our salvation will be gone forever. When the last day, not of a year, but of an age, shall come, every opportunity for seeking grace will be gone forever. It will be a day of testing character that is, not of creating a character that is not; the day of reaping, either in tares for the flame, or in wheat for eternal garners, the seeds that we have sown in the present world.

Suppose this day were the last of the age, and the great white throne and the dread Judge were there, and the books were opened; have you to seek what you would then give infinite worlds if you had—a God, a Saviour, pardon of sin, adoption into the family of God, fitness for the kingdom of Heaven? Were this day your last on earth, or were this day earth’s own last day, are you ripe for gathering? are you prepared to meet your God? You must feel this momentous thought in that day; anticipate the experience of it, lest that experience may be agony at last. Then the Sun of grace will have set behind the hills of the west, only to rise as the Sun of glory in the eternal east upon them that fear him. The throne of grace will have been merged into the throne of judgment; and the gates that shut out all that defile, and shut in all that is holy, will be sealed, as they will be shut forever. Upon that last day, you will have heard your last sermon upon earth. A sermon is the least valued often of all things that are spoken and printed now; but it is a very solemn thing to hear; it is a very precious thing, however feeble, if faithful, to be privileged to listen to. For what are sermons? Voices crying in the desert, “Prepare ye to meet your God.” Their excellence is their earnestness, their simplicity, their faithfulness. Now, they may be vehicles of light, and life, and everlasting peace. Their echoes will rise and reverberate at the judgment throne; but not as summonses to believe, but as witnesses either that you have profited by them, or that they have hardened you in your transgression.

Suppose, then, that no more appeals were to be addressed to you; suppose that the day were come when it shall be no more said, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” when no kind voice will say, “Behold the Lamb of God;” when no earnest accent will reverberate in your hearing, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Are you now in that state in which such invitations will be unnecessary? Are you now what you would wish to be then, when what you are will endure forever, and no transition from darkness unto light, or from sin to holiness, can take place any more?

How dreadful if in that last day of the last dispensation—the one that now is—these words should be addressed to you, when you cry, “Open, open, Lord;” “I have called, and ye refused. Because I have reached out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you; then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” A day comes when that text shall be actual: it is not true now, it is not fulfilled yet. Have you sought God, and found him? Have you called and been answered? Is Christianity a name, a profession, a decent robe; or is it an inner experience, a life, a power, in the sight of God and before all mankind?

In that last day, the last prayer that will be heard on earth will be offered unto God, and no answer, in mercy and in love, can be given. Now, however, the suppressed moan of the lowly, humble, and believing heart, cleaves the air faster than an angel’s pinion, and is heard by God upon his throne amid the voices and songs of the seraphim. But at that day the loudest cry of the strongest spirit in its agony will provoke an echo, but it will obtain no answer. Now we may come with boldness to the throne; then there is no throne of grace to come to. Now it is “seek and ye shall find;” then, “Ye shall seek me, but not find me.” Now it is, “God never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek my face in vain;” then, “They shall call, but I will not answer them.”

At that day the last affliction that will be sanctified to the people of God will have been dealt out, no more to be repeated. We thank God often for his blessings; how rarely do we thank him for the afflictions that he sends us, which are his richest blessings in disguise! The baptism of sorrow often prepares the heart, as the dew does the soil, for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. God knocks now at the door of every heart by affliction, by trial; but then he will knock at hearts no more. A day will come, when the afflictions of the people of God shall cease as chastisement, for they have no need of them; and when the afflictions of those that are not the people of God shall cease as admonitions, for their lot is fixed forever. Realize that day; conceive it is come; and ask your own selves in the sight of God, What is my trust and hope against that day?

—John Cumming, D. D.