Will He Come? by C. N. Stuttle

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 5, 1878

Will He Come?

By C. N. Stuttle

SHALL we be prepared for that great and awful day that is about to dawn upon the world, when the Lord shall appear in the clouds of heaven surrounded with an innumerable throng of shining attendants? When the dead in Christ shall rise and the living wicked shall be slain by the brightness of his coming?

How anxious were the disciples to know and understand the time of the end. They came unto their Lord privately and asked, "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Matt. 24:3.

Should we be less anxious than they to know just where we are? Shall we believe that all things continue as they were from the beginning? Let us not endorse what men may say or teach, but take the word of God as the man of our counsel. Hear the answer given to their inquiry:—

"Take heed that no man deceive you." Matt. 24:4. "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage."

Noah used his greatest efforts to convince the people of their errors, but their whole study was to gratify their own passions and desires. The faithful Noah labored a hundred and twenty years to deliver his message to that people, that they might forsake their evil ways that in the infinite mercy of God he would have pity upon them and they might yet be able to avert their doom.

Noah entered the ark and they knew not until the flood came and swept them all away. "So shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

Will the people of to-day take heed to the message that is being given at the present time?

Listen again to the words of our Lord: "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven."

The signs have been fulfilled, and the great day fast approaches. Can you, dear reader, be still careless and indifferent to the many warnings that ring in your ears? "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."

And he still further says that the generation that shall see these things shall not pass till all be fulfilled. How important that we be found keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Let us take heed to ourselves lest at any time our hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life so that that day come upon us unawares; "for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Luke 21:34, 35.

C. N. STUTTLE.

Vernon, Mich.