The Coming of Our Lord by George W. Rine

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 13, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 31.

The Coming of Our Lord

By George W. Rine

Will There Be Announcement of His Coming?

THE most tragic mistake that the professed church of God has made repeatedly, is her failure to recognize the signs of the times. Because the race had become irreclaimably sunk in wickedness in the time of Noah, God saw that the only merciful thing He could do, was to destroy, by a world-wide deluge, "the world that then was." In His love and pity He sent to the world an explicit and protracted message to that effect through His servant Noah. We all know the painful sequel of that message. Of the millions of mankind, only eight souls, including the messenger, believed the warning, and accordingly escaped the cosmic catastrophe.

Now, Jesus explicitly announced that as it was in the days of Noah, so would it be in the time when the Son of Man was about to come. Matt. 24: 37. The parallel that our Lord pointed out between the time of the Noachic message and the time of His coming in glory, can mean only two very definite facts: first, an equally definite message of warning would be given at the proper time, respecting the imminence of His final coming; and, secondly, that relatively few would believe and embrace that message.

Similarly, when Sodom and Gomorrah had become irretrievably abandoned to sin, God sent to the people of those cities an explicit warning as to their impending doom. Between that event and the time of His second coming Jesus again enunciated a parallel. "As it was in the days of Lot," He declares, "they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed." Luke 17: 28-30. Just as surely, then, as Lot bore a warning message to the people of Sodom, so surely will a clear, definite message of warning be given to the world at the time when the second advent of the Son of Man is impending. This fact is further attested by the clear-cut testimony of the Spirit, declaring, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." Amos 3: 7.

Jesus' Additional Testimony

Our Lord unequivocally asserted that of the day or the hour of His coming in glory can neither man nor angel know. His verdict is final. Where He has spoken, there is no room for difference of opinion. No person loyal to the Master can be a "time-setter."

But in terms just as terse and lucid, Jesus also taught that when His coming is near, His believing children will know that it is near. Not the day or the hour can they know, but they will and ought to know that the day and hour are imminent. In answer to the question of the disciples, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Jesus declared definitely, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity." In order to lay stress upon the certainty that His coming is near when these signs in the heavens should be given, He added the following piquant illustration: "Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." Luke 21: 25, 29-31.

Through the apostle Peter the Holy Spirit bears witness to the same truth, as follows: "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts [desires], 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." 2 Peter 3: 3, 4. It is in the last days, observe, that scoffers will utter these words of contemptuous unbelief. It is certain that these scoffers would never think of asking, "Where is the promise of His coming?" if the Master's faithful servants were not definitely announcing to the world that the coming of Jesus is close at hand. Note, please, that the Spirit of God stigmatizes as scoffers all those who flout the preaching of the advent message. Hence that message proclaimed to the world "in the last days" bears the impress of the sanction of God. This fact shows unmistakably that God designs that His people shall know that they are living in the last days, when those days shall have come. And if they know that they are living in the closing days of "this present evil world," assuredly they know too that the coming of the Lord is near, inasmuch as that momentous event marks the close of the history of the kingdoms of this world.

Summoned to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb

The following sublimely eloquent passage is found in verses six to nine of Revelation nineteen: "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb."

The Lamb is, of course, Christ, to whom John the Baptist referred as the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The Lamb's wife, or bride, is clearly shown by the text to be the countless hosts of the saints taken collectively; that is, the church universal. The following scriptures further identify the spiritual bride of the Lord as the universal church: "I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Cor. 11: 2. Again, in the nineteenth verse of the second chapter of Hosea the Lord declares to His church, "I will be-truth thee unto Me forever." See also Eph. 5: 31, 32.

We are strikingly impressed by the distinct blessing, or benediction, pronounced by the Holy Spirit upon all who respond to the gracious invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now note that it is called the marriage supper, not the marriage dinner, of the Lamb. Supper is eaten at the close of the day. Accordingly, this spiritual or gospel supper will be eaten by the Bridegroom with His bride, immediately after the close of the gospel day. It is evident that this blessed invitation is virtually a call to all people to get ready to meet and greet the Bridegroom when He comes.

This solemn and stirring truth is impressively enunciated in the following words uttered by our Lord near the close of His earthly ministry: “Let your loins be girded about, and your light’s burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” Luke 12: 35-37.

The significance of these words is obvious. Jesus is Himself the nobleman, or “lord.” He went back to His Father, from whom He receives in marriage His church. In the end of the gospel age He “will return from the wedding” to take “His wife,” or church, back to His “Father’s house,” where He will cause her to sit down to meat, that is, partake of the “marriage supper.” We remember that when He instituted the “Lord’s Supper,” Jesus declared to His disciples: “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

How beautifully and impressively all this shows that when our Lord is about to be revealed from heaven, that when the Bridegroom is about to return to claim His spiritual bride, the church, a message to that effect would be proclaimed to all the world! Dear reader, precisely such a message has been preached for more than half a century, and is still preached and taught by thousands of devoted, Spirit-guided gospel messengers. These messengers are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of . . . our Saviour Jesus Christ,” and are appealing to others, through the power of the Spirit, to “look” for the same blessed hope. For by prayerful study of the prophecies, they have been led to see that all things to-day portend the solemn fact the “coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

But the one question of eternal moment to each one of us is, Am I responding to this blessed call? Will I be ready to open to Him “immediately” when He comes and knocks? In one of His own parables our Lord enunciates clearly the sad fact that relatively few who hear the invitation will accept it. While Jesus was partaking of food, as a guest at the home of a Pharisee, one of His fellow guests said to Him, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” Jesus replied by going on to say that a certain man made a supper and bade many; that he sent forth his servants at supper time to say to those who had been called that “all things are now ready.” But they all began to make excuses. One offered the pretext that he had bought a piece of ground; another, that he had bought a yoke of oxen; another felt he could not respond, because he had married a wife. Of course these excuses were all, on their very face, preposterous.

The servants were next sent out into the streets and lanes of the city. Some of those found there responded, but not enough of them to make up the prescribed number. The servants were therefore commanded to go out into the “highways and hedges” and compel them, by the sheer urgency of their invitation, to come in, that the master’s supper might be furnished with guests. When finally the forerordained number of guests was made up, the master solemnly declared that not one of those who had flouted the gracious invitation should ever taste of his supper.

Does not this parable strikingly illustrate the tragic fact that when Christ sends forth His servants—gospel messengers—“at supper time” to announce to the nominal church and to the world that all things appertaining to the marriage supper of the Lamb are ready, very few, indeed, would respond to the divinely sent call? In the words of the inspired prediction, they will sneeringly reply, “Where is the promise of His coming?”

When the Lord of Glory came to our world, as the Lamb of God, to be offered in sacrifice for our sins, “His own received Him not.” “He was despised and rejected of men.” Just before He appeared as the Saviour of the world, John the Baptist was sent of God to herald the advent of the long-expected Messiah. The Jews, the nominal church of Jehovah, rejected the message and despised the messenger. They were wilfully, and hence culpably, blind to the signs of their times. They heard the invitation sent from heaven, through John, to prepare for the gospel dinner—to prepare to meet and welcome their coming Lord and King. “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.” As a nation, the Jews rejected with scorn the distinctive gospel message for their day. They sowed to the wind; and think of the terrible whirlwind they reaped—national extirpation and world-wide dispersion!

When our Lord, at the time of His last entry into Jerusalem, so graphically predicted that their enemies would come upon them and cast a trench about them, and shut them in on every side, and lay them low, even with the ground, and would not leave one stone of their temple, or of their city, upon another, He declared that it was because they knew not the time of their visitation. The Jews ought to have known the time of the appearing of their Messiah; for a score of Messianic prophecies found in their Scriptures, all conspired to attest that He would come at the very time He did come. A few of the Jews did recognize the message of John as the voice of prophecy, and eagerly accepted the call to the wedding dinner. This was their salvation, and also the guaranty that they will be raised to immortality at the first resurrection, and be present at the marriage supper of the Lamb and His bride.

We should not forget that our Lord, after setting forth the definite signs which should portend His coming as impending, commanded His people to know that His coming is near, when they should see those signs. Mark you, He did not state that they might know, or should know, but He put it imperatively—“Know that it is near, even at the doors.” True it is that the day or the hour we can not know; but we can know, and are commanded to know, when that day and hour are approaching—are about to dawn,

Through His apostle, Jesus says further as to the time of His appearing: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day.” 1 Thess. 5: 2-5. If this shall be true of us, we will have on the wedding-garment of divine righteousness, and with all the host of the redeemed, we shall hail Him with gladness, when He comes—with joy unspeakable and full of glory.