THE first prophecy of Zechariah was given in the eighth month of the second year of Darius. This was about one month before the last prophecy of Haggai. We thus see that the two prophecies overlap, and that they all refer to the same time and conditions.
The opening words of the prophecy of Zechariah are an explanation of the past history of the Jewish people as exampled in the captivity. The Lord had been sore displeased with the children of Israel. Because of their sins, their rebellion, their continued lapses into idolatry, He was at length compelled to leave them to their fate. Unprotected by the Lord, they became the sport of the king of Babylon just as fully as the other nations about them; all were subjected to the Babylonian power.
But there was hope.
"The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Turn ye unto Me, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts." Zech. 1: 2, 3.
What God had done was not arbitrary; it was simply the working out of the law of cause and effect. Disobedience and sin had brought the disfavor of God and calamity; and now, just as truly, repentance and obedience would bring the favor of God and prosperity.
The Lesson of the Captivity
The captivity with all its terrible experiences, was not to discourage them; it was to teach them a great lesson. From it they were to learn not to do as their fathers had done.
"Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor harken unto Me, saith the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever? But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us." Zech. 1: 4-6.
The Lord had given His Word; He had predicted calamity; He had assured them of captivity as a result of their disobedience and sinfulness. But they refused to follow His instruction. They would not turn from their evil ways and their evil doings; and so they perished. In this was verified the fact that "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever."
That enduring Word overtook the rebellious. As the servant of the Lord had said in olden time, If you sin, "be sure your sin will find you out," so God's Word had overtaken His children. They could not escape from the penalty of the transgressed Word. They could not escape from the punishment which that Word had predicted, and in this way they fulfilled one of the warnings of the New Testament:
"For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard HIM?" Heb. 2: 2, 3.
No matter in what age of the world a man may live, it is impossible for him to avoid the penalty of transgressed law.
Missing Their Mission
God's people had been placed in the midst of the nations to be a light. They were to manifest the truth; and that manifestation could only be by a godly life. When they ceased to obey the Lord, when they sank into sin, and became like the idolatrous nations around them, they ceased to witness for Jehovah and His truth; they ceased to be a light in the earth. And by just as much as they possessed more light than the nations around them, by just so much were they more guilty and amenable to punishment.
God had done much for His people, and they were thereby debtors to Him; and the moment that they refused to make a proper return of gratitude and well-ordered lives, they passed under the displeasure of God, and were threatened with His chastising rod. Not only did the prosperity of God's people depend upon their faithfulness; but more, their salvation, and the salvation of the nations, depended upon their faithfulness to God.
It is therefore nothing strange that God worked so earnestly, so faithfully, and yet so kindly, to make them a power and a glory in the earth.
Let us remember, therefore, that as God's Word overtook those who sinned then, so it will overtake those who sin now. The sinner can not move fast enough to get away from the judgments of God.
What an overwhelming thought is this which is here so graphically thrust upon us by Zechariah — the transiency of the things of earth, the permanency of the Word of God!
Did you ever stand within some old church building that had done service for generations? Did you note the worn-down threshold where the feet of the vanished generations had worn away even the hard rock at the entrance door? If so, there came, with an almost disheartening consciousness, a realization of the fleeting march of your fellow men, here but a little time, taking their animated part in the things of life as you are doing, and then they pass out of sight.
Moses, who had seen a whole generation of his fellow men fade away in the wilderness, and who realized therefore the terrible transiency of the transient, could utter in tragic poetic measures his stupendous Ninetieth Psalm:
"Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men." "Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep." "They are like grass. . . . In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth." The picture alone is disheartening. It appalls the heart to gaze upon it. We need with the view a glimpse of the abiding. And so we turn to the Word, to the enduring, the permanent.
"Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." Altho all flesh is grass, and the grass withers, yet the Word of our God abides. And he who does the will revealed in that Word, endures forever. The plants of God's planting shall never be rooted up.
Moses endured the great trials of his time, and the disheartening failure of things earthly, because "he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." He looked "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal."
"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne" — the passing away of the mortal shadow of kingly power revealed the immortal and real King, Him who abides and rules forever. Amidst the ever-changing, we need a heavenly vision to behold the never-changing. Just as the leaves, dropping from the trees in autumn, reveal the enduring rock cliff where the trees root, so the passing of the temporal and human should cause to stand out for us all the more clearly the rock background of the enduring God and His unchangeable Word.
A Lesson from the Past
Zechariah pointed back to the past history of the Jewish people. He appealed to God's providence as revealed in His dealings. He exclaimed, "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever?" There could be but one answer. All must acknowledge the frailty of man and the stupendous sovereignty of God.
Since then, more than twenty centuries have added their weight to the unimpeachable testimony. Since then, the mighty Christ has appeared, and the lessons of the ages have stood forth whiter than before. Transcendently transfigured by His glorious life, God's Word of all ages, of which He is the personalization, still endures unchanged, and ever shines with untarnished luster.
If the Jews were inexcusable for rejecting the Word, we shall be more so. If they could be confident, we may be doubly certain. If they escaped not who refused then, much more shall we not escape who refuse now.7Turning away from the disheartening transiency of things here, we may behold the permanency of the things of God.
"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." Heb. 4: 1.
Out of Babylon to Zion. By Prof. Lucas A. Reed.
Written on the Heart
By Prof. J. A. L. Derby
By Prof. J. A. L. Derby
BEHOLD, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. . . . This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people." Heb. 8: 8, 10.
Most serious consequences to one's attitude toward the law of God, and consequently toward the rule of moral guidance, result from a misunderstanding of one sentence in the scripture copied above; namely, "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts."
It is easy to infer from a superficial view of this promise, that in the Gospel dispensation, the written will of God, as it is recorded in the Old Testament, is abolished, and is replaced by a new code of morality, a code with no copy external to one's own mind and heart.
It is evident that both the content and the authority of such a code or law of conduct must rest either on individual inspiration or on one's impressions. We do not, of course, doubt the power of God to teach all men by direct inspiration; but His actual method, as explained by Jesus and Paul, is surprisingly more in accord with what we should regard as natural means. The following scripture is in point: "Go ye," was the last commission of Jesus to His disciples, "and teach all nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matt. 28: 19, 20. And Paul's only rule for getting to men a knowledge of God and His requirements, is by carrying it to them; as he clearly showed not only by his own missionary zeal, but by explicit statements like the following found in Rom. 10: 14, 15: "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?"
Nothing can be plainer from even a general knowledge of the purport and tenor of the New Testament writings, than that to ignore the written law of God given in the Decalogue, and to put in its place the promptings and impressions of our human hearts, is not only to open wide the door to fanaticism, but to impose on the Holy Spirit an office never undertaken by Him.
"But," inquires the person anxious to evade the law of God as it stands, "isn't the new law to be written on the heart?"
Most decidedly no!
"But doesn't the Bible say so?"
Nowhere, brother.
"But didn't you just quote that promise above?"
No; the promise is, to write the old law on the heart. And it is precisely this change of the old law that constitutes the new covenant.
"At any rate, we don't need any Old Testament; for if even the old law is in our hearts and minds, the written records are entirely superfluous."
But are you quite sure that your implied meaning of this writing on the heart is correct? Your interpretation of the phrase evidently is, that the verbal commands of the divine law can somehow be known merely by meditation, introspection, or intuition—by simply looking into our own minds.
With all regard to the wonderful grace of a Spirit-filled church, we are yet constrained to admit that we find no warrant in Holy Writ for such a view of the source of our knowledge of the will of God.
What, then, is the meaning of the promise to write His laws in our minds and hearts?
We answer: Just the motive power to the doing of the divine will—found either in Scripture or received from the mouth of His prophets—which is inspired by the all-compelling strength of a love generated by the transcendent force of a Living Example of our highest ideal.
Let us try to simplify the meaning of this rather long and involved sentence.
As Carlyle has said, all men are hero-worshipers. "No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. Religions, I find, stand upon it; not paganism only, but far higher and truer religions—all religion hitherto known. Hero-worship, heartfelt, prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest, godlike form of man—is not that the germ of Christianity itself?"
"If I be lifted up," said the Master of men, "I will draw all men unto Me."
The contrast between the old covenant and the new is that between the power of a written code alone (or enforced chiefly by a manifestation of power, as at the Exodus) and that of a person to excite enthusiastic obedience.
Which has the more power over conduct, theories or examples, creeds or deeds, codes or persons, abstractions or concrete illustrations, law or love?
Which has more power to excite devotion and loyalty,—a thundered prohibition, or the infinite sacrifice for love's sake?
Jesus did not ask His prospective disciples what they believed. "Follow Me" was His requirement; not a theory, but a life; not adherence to a code or creed primarily, but willingness to accept the inspiration and compelling power of love to undertake any code or any creed for love.
Philosophies, creeds, and abstract principles are cold, lifeless, powerless. Commands and advice are alike weak. But love, the love that endures the cross for me—that warms, glows, fires, moves. Love is triumphant.
And so "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." How easy any yoke for love's sake! how light any burden!
"The Son of Man"—why? Because He is what humanity means; what it is intended to be; its highest product, its finest fruitage, its noblest expression.
This Ideal our own longings, aspirations, our truest selves recognize and acknowledge as our completest self-realization. And when, through forgiveness of sin and the promise of power to keep from sinning, we may attain to the holiness and purity of our divine Exemplar, we are proud, with Paul, to be "slaves" of Christ, with no desire to avoid His laws; only longing to know, that we may do.
Perhaps no better interpretation of the principle we are trying to explain can be given than the words of one who knew from blessed experience what it is to have the law of his God written on his heart:
"When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a tribute far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all."
It must not, of course, be thought that the new covenant is only an example and an enthusiasm—no, not even the enthusiasm of loyalty or the "enthusiasm of humanity"—which Seelye declares to be "the source from which all right action flows." He speaks more truly when he says, "The Christian law is the Spirit of Christ." But we must add even to this that it is not a spirit (disposition) imitated. It is the Spirit lived. It is a life whose source and power are Christ. Paul declares, "For me to live is Christ." Jesus proclaimed, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." It means conquest over sin in the heart now, and everlasting life in heaven. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3: 16.
Music
By George E. Tack
By George E. Tack
Or ever morning stars their anthems sang,
Or throngs angelic waked the ecstatic lyre,
Whose voice sang love's praise with poesy's fire,
Immortal music's notes through heaven rang.
Eternity its glorious beauty knew,
And through its raptured soul the wondrous sound,
In waves harmonic, flowed to Time's brief bound,
And to its lovely temple vot'ries drew.
There Life's great symphonies outbreathed their souls.
The list'ning air, throughout each court and grove,
Caught sweetly and flung back the blithe bird bliss,
The bell-like fountain laughter, pealing rolls
Of thunder-clouds. Lo, music is but this,—
Sweet echoes of the rhythmic pulse of love.
Bath, N. Y.
Seven Bible Reasons for Observing the Seventh-Day Sabbath
By M. C. Guild
As there is an ever increasing number of people both in our own country and foreign lands who have begun the observance of the original Bible Sabbath, commonly known as Saturday, it may be of interest to note some of the prominent reasons for their belief and practise.
1. The Making of the Sabbath
Of this we read in Gen. 2: 1-3: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made."
When at the close of the sixth day the earth came forth complete from the hand of the Creator, and "God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good," the Sabbath was then ushered in, thus making it the birthday of the world. It is therefore the memorial of creation. As long as the works of creation endure, so long will the Sabbath stand as a memorial of that great event; and we are told that the earth is established forever. Ps. 78: 69. Our Saviour says that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2: 27, 28.
The statement that the Sabbath was made for man is unlimited, hence it was designed for all mankind in all ages. It is not Jewish, for it was made two thousand years before there was ever a Jew in the world. It was made in Eden before sin entered, hence it is not shadowy or typical in its nature. It could not therefore be affected by the passing away of the ceremonial law which came in later as a result of sin, consisted of types and shadows, and which was abolished at the cross.
It is not a new doctrine, but is one of the "old paths" laid down for man to walk in from the beginning. If man needed it in sinless Eden, surely we need it now.
2. The Sabbath and the Law
The Sabbath was placed, at Sinai, in the center of God’s eternal and unchangeable law. In that law we read:
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor they stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20: 8-11.
Moses informs us in Deut. 5: 22 that God spoke these commandments with His own voice in the hearing of all the assembly. And the Lord positively asserts, "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips." Ps. 89: 34. It must therefore be plain to all that since these commandments came from the lips of God, they can never be altered or changed in the smallest detail, much less in so important a matter as the change of the Creator’s sanctified day of rest.
The psalmist says: "All His commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness." Ps. 111: 7, 8. "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. 22: 14.
3. The Sabbath Is a Sign Between God and His People
"Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Eze. 20: 12.
The company who are "redeemed from among men" at the second coming of Christ will be especially distinguished by having this sign, or seal, placed upon them. Rev. 14: 1-5; 7: 1-4.
We wish, dear friends, to be among those who shall greet Him with joy and be found of Him in peace when He comes, keeping all of His commandments.
4. The Sabbath Kept by Christ and His Apostles
"And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagog on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Luke 4: 16.
From the time our Saviour was a little child, it was His custom to keep the Sabbath. And nowhere in the Word of God do we ever read of His keeping any other day.
In this as in other things He was "leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps." 1 Peter 2: 21. Over twenty years this side of the crucifixion the record states that Paul observed the same day. "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." Acts 17: 2.
At a later period the Jews, Gentiles, and the apostle Paul attended divine worship for a year and a half at the same time and place and observed the Sabbath together. Acts 18: 1-11. Paul worked at tent making during the week, but he laid aside his work and attended divine worship on the Sabbath day. Thus it is plain that Paul was a Sabbath-keeper.
All the early Christians kept the Sabbath, for we read in Heb. 4: 3, "For we which have believed do enter into rest." The "rest" into which they entered was the sweet rest that comes alone through Christ in Sabbath-keeping; for we read further of this same rest: "As He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest: altho the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works." Verses 3, 4.9
5. Christ’s Presence and Rest
The special presence of Christ is in the Sabbath as in no other day. Since He existed before the world was made (John 17: 5), and "all things were made by Him" (John 1: 3), it follows that He was the one who rested upon, blessed, and sanctified the Sabbath, after He had finished the great work of creation. It appears very appropriate that He should call Himself its Lord.
It is His presence in the Sabbath that imparts to it a divine rest which can be found nowhere else.
In ancient times the showbread, or bread of the presence, was prepared fresh every Sabbath. 1 Chron. 9: 32. This bread represented Christ, the living bread that was sent down from heaven to give life to the world. In like manner the believer who keeps the Sabbath as it should be observed, will find that the presence of Christ, the living bread, and His blessing, are renewed to him in a very special manner on the Sabbath. He can thus on that day especially—
"Draw from Christ that sweet repose
Which none but he who feels it knows."
This part of our subject, to be fully understood, must be experienced.
6. Sabbath Reform
Prophecy predicts a Sabbath reform in the last days, and clearly states that God’s remnant people will be a commandment-keeping and Sabbath-keeping people.
"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. IF THOU TURN AWAY THY FOOT FROM THE SABBATH, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
A breach, or gap, has been made in God’s law by taking out the Sabbath commandment, and putting the first day of the week in its place. For centuries men have trampled the Sabbath underfoot. Now a people are being raised up all over the earth who are building up the old waste places by restoring the Sabbath to its rightful place in God’s law and by teaching it to others. They call it honorable, and cease to trample it underfoot.
This same people are brought to view in Isa. 56: 1, 2. Please read the text. This scripture can apply to none other than the last days, for it is when "salvation is near to come." Peter says that this salvation is "ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1: 5. It will be noted that those who keep their hands from doing any evil lay hold of the Sabbath and keep it, no longer polluting that holy day.
In Rev. 12: 17 and 14: 12, also in many other texts, the remnant people of God are described as commandment-keepers. This they can not be if they are found breaking the fourth commandment.
7. The Sabbath of the Eternal Future
The Sabbath will be kept by all the redeemed in the earth made new.
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord." Isa. 66: 22, 23.
Thus the Sabbath is like a golden chain binding Eden lost to Eden restored. When rightly observed, it still brings to us something of the sweetness and fragrance of that Eden which man has lost, and gives a foretaste of what it will be in Eden above.
Reader, these are a few of the reasons why there is a people being raised up throughout the length and breadth of the land who are turning away from the precepts and traditions of men to keep all of God’s commandments, including the ancient Sabbath of Jehovah. Would you not like to be numbered among them and share in their final reward?
Cadillac, Mich.
Lessons from Judah’s Last Kings
THE readings for the first four days of the week conclude Second Chronicles, beginning with chapter 24, and dealing wholly with Judah, covering the reigns of Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Then come the destruction of Jerusalem and the fulness of the captivity to Babylon.
THESE chapters are filled with wonderful lessons of the awfulness of sin; the sure judgments which sooner or later follow, as well as God’s wonderful mercy in pardoning His people when they return to Him. A striking example of wickedness is given us in Manasseh, and a marvelous manifestation of God’s mercy in the pardon of the repentant king.
DURING the reigns of these last kings from Josiah onward God’s faithful prophet in Jerusalem was Jeremiah. His home was in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, who belonged to the tribe of Levi and to the priestly family. The scope of his priesthood is outlined in the first three verses of his prophecy. The time of his prophecy was from about 629 before Christ to 588. He was called to the prophetic office when a young man. Unlike some of our modern prophets, he did not feel himself qualified to do the work that God gave him to do, and by expressions which he uses he shrank from it all the way through. It was an awful task to which God called him, pointing out the sins of Judah and continually giving them reproof after reproof until his own heart seemed to be constantly immersed in a fountain of tears. He is well called the weeping prophet.
The reader who sees in the Old Testament Scriptures what the Lord in the New Testament teaches is there,—that they were written for our learning,—will notice again and again that some of the prophecies of Israel in those days apply to the professed people of God now, and that the judgments pronounced against sin then are applicable in larger measure now. It is good to know also that the same God who was willing to pardon then is as willing to pardon now.
An Interview
By H. F. D’Ath
“My friend,” said I, holding up the Bible, “do you believe this book is the Word of God?”
“Certainly,” she replied.
“And,” I continued, “do you know that in His Word God has expressly commanded you to keep holy the seventh-day Sabbath?”
“I do,” said she.
“Then,” I asked, “what excuse can you offer before God for your wilful and continued desecration of His holy day?”
“Well,” she answered, “I have a living to get.”
“Are you, then, prepared to risk eternal life in striving to get that which God expressly guarantees to all His faithful children in this life?” I inquired.
“Well,” responded she, evasively, “I am engaged in Christian rescue work in the city, and I think God will accept that even tho I do not keep the Sabbath.”
“You do, do you?” I rejoined; “and, pray, what do you undertake to rescue these poor, degraded mortals from?”
“From a life of sin and degradation, of course,” she replied.
“What excuse do these poor, fallen individuals usually offer for leading such a life of sin?” I asked further.
“O,” she declared, “most of them say that times are hard, and that they have to get a living somehow. Isn’t it horrible,” she continued, “that so many will sacrifice their souls for the bread that perisheth, while God has distinctly promised to all His faithful and obedient children, ‘Your bread and water shall be sure’?”
“But,” I insisted, gently but firmly, “has it ever occurred to you that those unfortunate sisters of yours make exactly the same excuse for violating the seventh commandment as that which you offer for trampling on the fourth? Both you and they are selling your souls for the bread that perisheth; both of you are selling your birthrights for a mess of pottage; both are offending in one point; therefore, on the authority of this Word which you profess to believe, both you and they are guilty of the whole law, for God is no respecter of persons.”
“O,” she gasped, “I never saw it like that before.”
“Then, my friend,” I concluded, “may the Lord help you to see it as He sees it, and may you, together with those whom you are endeavoring to rescue, heed the injunction of the Master, ‘Go, and sin no more.’”
— H. F. D’Ath, in “Present Truth.”
Our Bible Reading
The Second Advent of Christ
1. As surely as Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth once, so surely will He come again.
“CHRIST also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, SHALL APPEAR A SECOND TIME, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, UNTO SALVATION.” Heb. 9:28.
2. His coming will be personal.
“The LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN, with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God.” 1 Thess. 4:16.
3. He will come as He went away, in a cloud.
“He was taken up; and a CLOUD RECEIVED HIM OUT OF THEIR SIGHT. And while they were looking steadfastly into heaven as He went, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? THIS SAME JESUS, who was received up from you into heaven, SHALL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER AS YE BEHELD HIM GOING INTO HEAVEN.” Acts 1:9-11.
4. He will come visibly.
“Behold, He cometh with the clouds; and EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM.” Rev. 1:7.
5. At His coming Christ will reward every one.
“For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and THEN SHALL HE RENDER UNTO EVERY MAN according to his deeds.” Matt. 16:27.
6. The record of the wicked will be destruction.
“And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the LORD JESUS SHALL SLAY with the breath of His mouth, and BRING TO NAUGHT by THE MANIFESTATION OF HIS COMING.” 2 Thess. 2:8.
7. The reward of the righteous will be the everlasting kingdom.
“WHEN THE SON OF MAN SHALL COME IN HIS GLORY, and all the angels with Him, THEN shall HE SIT ON THE THRONE OF HIS GLORY. . . . Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matt. 25:31-34.
8. That coming will bring joy to the righteous.
“And it shall be said in that day, Lo, THIS IS OUR GOD; we have WAITED FOR HIM, and HE WILL SAVE US: this is Jehovah; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” Isa. 25:9.
Sin’s Slavery
By Whittier
A BITTER cup each life must drain;
The groaning earth is cursed with pain,
And, like the scroll the angel bore
The shuddering Hebrew seer before,
O’erwrit alike without, within,
With all the woes which follow sin;
But bitterest of the ills beneath
Whose load man totters down to death,
Is that which plucks the regal crown
Of freedom from his forehead down,
And snatches from his powerless hand
The sceptered sign of self-command,
Effacing with the chain and rod
The image and the seal of God;
Till from his nature, day by day,
The manly virtues fall away,
And leave him naked, blind, and mute,
The godlike merging in the brute!
— Whittier.
