THE LORD IS COMING by J. Clarke

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 2, 1860

THE LORD IS COMING.

By J. Clarke

“The Lord is coming! let this be The herald note of Jubilee, And when we meet, and when we part, The salutation from the heart.”

Those who love the Lord, and anxiously desire his return, would love this salutation; but suppose you should salute a lover of the world in this manner; he would deem it very much out of time and place.

But those who heartily believe the message of the third angel, would appreciate such a greeting. It is the one and universal sentiment of all those who have the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Why then is it not oftener used?

There is a reason, a cause for this apathy; and it is apparent to the candid inquirer. Salute your brethren in this way, and how would it be received? Some would cordially reciprocate the sentiment, while others would wonder, and perhaps feel quite shocked, and probably would ask, When?

Now why is it so? Simply because the doctrine of Christ’s soon coming is not fully believed, even by those who profess faith in the third message; they have doubts; sometimes these doubts are expressed in words, and sometimes acted out.

Vain and worldly conversation on the part of some, uncontrolled, unsubdued wills and passions on the part of others, covetousness, pride, variance, and other evils, manifest that their belief is not a practical belief. It is no doubt very often only theoretical, and adopted rather as a man insures against fire, and adopted as a safeguard against a possible contingency, which he hopes may not take place, at least at present; he hopes that he may have time to complete this or that, to arrange this or that, a good deal as many prepare on sixth-day for the Sabbath, by crowding much work into this preparation day, and the coming of the Sabbath finds them in a heat, an excitement of cares, and so the Sabbath is lost to them in its best sense. So will it be with those who want to put off the coming of Christ. They will take up the mournful lamentation, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

To the one class, as you meet them on sixth-day, you might say, “To-morrow is the Sabbath,” and the response would be pleasant and hearty, Yes, and I am making arrangements to keep the whole of it. To the other class you might say, “To-morrow is the Sabbath,” and the response would perhaps be, My work is urgent, or, O, I have such a crowd of work! or, if you urge the necessity of cutting the work a little short, in order to avoid infringing upon holy time, the answer might be, I do not believe in going to extremes; God does not require us to lose our property, by needless strictness; and so the Sabbath is trodden under foot by its professed advocates.

So it is with many in this “day of preparation,” for the glorious advent of Jesus. Many are doubly anxious for mammon, and while they trample the Sabbath under foot, they also pave the way to be trodden under foot themselves in the awful day before us.

Brethren, let us on sixth-day prepare for the keeping of the Sabbath, as we would now at all times, be fitting up for the coming of the just and holy One.

J. CLARKE.