p. 5 | THE LORD'S COMING by D. L. Moody

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 51.

THE LORD'S COMING.

By D. L. Moody

EVERY true doctrine is assailed by the devil from all quarters. He gets the friends of it to make mistakes. Then he gets them to set the time, and figure it out. When I see a man figuring it out as to when He will come, I think he doesn't know much about it. I have had experience with those people.

When a man tells me the day and the hour of Christ's coming, I know he knows nothing about it. He is coming suddenly, and all things will be wound up in the world. But you don't want to be frightened. He always brings joy and gladness. He drives away darkness and disperses our fears. You need not be afraid of Christ. We want to thank God that He is coming in His own way, and we are to watch and be ready for His coming.

Some one will say that means death. I don't believe it. We are told to watch, not for death, but for Himself. There is a good deal of difference between watching for death and watching for the coming of the Lord. Now it is always safe to do what God tells us to do. If He tells us to run, we should run. If He tells us to stand still, we should stand still. That is the true attitude of the child of God.

Some tell us it is too wonderful to be true. My friends, we have a wonderful God, who likes to do wonderful things. Christ will return to this world in all the pomp and glory of the divine. But that is not so wonderful as for Christ to be born in a manger as a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes.

Now the true attitude of every child of God is to wait and watch for His Son from heaven. I don't know anything that is going to have such power in taking the church out of the world as this watching and looking for the Lord. It is better than reading the papers on the Sabbath—something better than buying and selling bonds and stocks and piling up wealth for our children. It is to take the church out of the world quicker than anything else I know.

You are to watch and wait. Who are they that see the morning star?—They who are watching and waiting, not for the building of Jerusalem, not for the return of the Jews, but for the return of Christ.

I believe our Lord is really coming back. That which is prophesied is literally to take place. How men can study that Book, and not see that it is all going to be fulfilled, I can not understand—it is a mystery to me. Every man and every woman ought to do all that is possible to get their loved ones out of this world and into the kingdom of God, for we know not the day or the hour when He may come back. But if we watch and wait, and look forward, and try to rescue every one, and get all that we can out of this world, we are fulfilling His commands.—D. L. Moody.