THE COMING OF THE LORD
THE COMING OF THE LORD
There can be no doubt that this is a subject which has attracted much attention in recent years. It is a theme which ought, surely, to excite the deepest interest of every heart that loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I dare say that very many of the children of God who will read this little paper are expecting to end their pilgrimage on earth by death, but I hope to show from the plain testimony of Scripture that
DEATH IS BY NO MEANS CERTAIN
to a believer: on the contrary, no believer on the Lord Jesus Christ ought to expect to die. The proper object of a Christian’s hope is not death, but the coming of the Lord.
Many believe and teach that the Lord Jesus comes at the death of the Christian, and they quote such scriptures as “Be ye therefore ready also; for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not”, in reference to death. To look at one or two scriptures will prove in the clearest possible manner that death and the Lord’s coming are entirely different events.
John 21: 20 to 23. The Lord had been pleased to signify to Peter the manner of his [p. 22] death. Peter turns, and seeing John, says to Jesus, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” The Lord replies, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” Now, if we suppose that the Lord’s coming takes place at death, we not only rob these words of all meaning, but make them positively ridiculous. If death and the Lord’s coming are the same thing, these words simply mean, “If I will that he lives till he dies, what is that to thee?” It is evident there is no sense in such a statement.
Then we have the clearest possible proof that the disciples who heard these words did not think that death was what the Lord meant when He spoke of His coming, for immediately they began to say that John was not going to die; though, as we are told here, Jesus did not say that he should not die, but “IF I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” The Lord Jesus suggested that it was possible that he might tarry until the coming, but did not say that he would do so.
1 Thessalonians 4: 15. The apostle, writing by the Holy Spirit, penned these words: “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord”. Is it possible that he meant “we which are alive until the time of our death?” Certainly not: no one could suppose such a thing. It is clear then that the Lord’s coming is not the same thing as the death of the believer.
THE PROMISE.
Read John 14: 1 - 3. Surely the blessed Lord meant these words to be precious to the hearts of His disciples. From an earthly point of view their circumstances and prospects were of the most dark and gloomy character. The priests and the people were all against them. Satan had entered into Judas, who was at the very moment bargaining with the [p. 23] chief priests for the betrayal of his Lord. Dark clouds of satanic enmity and human wickedness were gathering round the heaven-sent Saviour. Men and devils had joined hands in a hideous conspiracy against the Lord of life and glory. He had gathered His disciples round Him for the last time to tell them He was about to leave them. It was in the darkest, blackest hour that ever came upon the disciples of Christ, in the moment of their deepest sorrow, that He said to them in all the tenderness of His loving heart: “Let not your heart be troubled .. . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I WILL COME AGAIN, and receive you unto myself”.
Dear fellow believer, our whole position as Christians hinges upon those words “IF I GO”. Put yourself, if you can, in the place of Peter or John as they hear these words. They were Jews with Jewish hopes of earthly blessing, and they had been following the Lord Jesus for three years and a half with the expectation that He would soon take His throne as the Messiah and set everything right on earth. And now He speaks of going away without having effected any improvement on earth at all. Nay: He was going away as a despised and rejected Man, by a death of untold ignominy and shame. How rudely must every cherished hope have been shattered! All earthly expectations must have been blown to the winds!
But listen! He speaks of a new place! “In MY FATHER’S HOUSE are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU”. Do you not see, my fellow believer, how our blessed Lord by these words transfers the interests and the hopes of His own from the earth to the Father’s house? I press this upon your attention because there are teachers of very evil doctrines who beguile unstable souls by speaking of the Lord’s [p. 24] coming, but you will find that such people almost always speak of it as connected with events on earth. I wish you to see that the hope of the Lord’s coming for the church is
A HEAVENLY HOPE.
The Lord Jesus Christ who died for us on the cross, and whose blood cleanseth us from all sin, is now glorified in heaven. His work on the cross was of such wondrous atoning value that repentance and remission of sins are now preached in His name to all nations. Yea, Scripture declares that by Him all that believe are justified from all things, and that such are perfected for ever by His one offering. Now made new creatures in Christ Jesus we can give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Yes! the precious work of Christ makes every believer in Jesus ready for the Father’s house, and now the presence of our glorified Saviour yonder prepares the Father’s house for our reception. We have a hope laid up for us in heaven, Colossians 1: 5, and it is from thence that “we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ”, Philippians 3: 20.
The earth-rejected Saviour is honoured and glorified IN HEAVEN, and it is not our business to improve the state of things on earth, but as the apostle says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”, setting our mind on things above, not on things on the earth, Colossians 3: 1, 2. The Lord Jesus has gone from this earth, where He had but a cross and a grave, into the heavenly blessedness of the Father’s house. With what heavenly meaning then do these words fall upon our ears: “IF I GO AND PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU, I WILL COME AGAIN, AND RECEIVE YOU UNTO MYSELF: THAT WHERE I AM, THERE YE MAY BE ALSO”.
[p. 25] WHEN WILL THE LORD COME?
Read Mark 13: 32 - 37. There are other parables in Matthew and Luke whose teaching is similar to this one. In all of them there are servants waiting for the return of their master, and exhorted to watch because the moment of his arrival is uncertain. There are two events to which these parables are commonly applied. Some teach that they refer to the coming of Christ at the end of the world. They cannot mean this, because as all Christians agree, according to Scripture, there is to be a millennium — a thousand year’s of peace and blessing — before the end of the world, and how can you tell a man to ‘watch’ for an event which he knows to be a thousand years off?
Then another and more usual explanation of these parables is that they refer to death. I have already given scriptural proof that the Lord’s coming is not death. Moreover, in all these parables the coming of Christ is spoken of as being at an unknown and unexpected time. Now this is not usually the case with death, which in the vast majority of cases gives full warning of its approach.
It is clear that these parables neither refer to the end of the world nor to the hour of death. Their application is to the coming of the Lord. Christ tells us most distinctly here that no man knoweth the day or the hour. If these servants had known that the master was not coming until morning, they would have gone to sleep, but he desired them to watch till he came, and therefore he did not tell them the hour he was coming. The Lord has not told us when He is coming, that we may watch for Him always. If it had been recorded that the Lord was not coming for nineteen hundred years, it would have robbed the early Christians, and all past generations of believers, of that ‘blessed hope’ which had such a prominent place in the teaching of the apostles,
[p. 26] and was such a cherished part of the faith which believers held in those early days.
Much discredit to the truth has been brought about by the vain imaginings of men who have pretended to discover from prophecy the exact date of the Lord’s return. One simple scripture is sufficient to disclose the unspiritual character of their pretensions. You will always find that these men fix dates more or less distant from the present moment. If they say the Lord is coming in ten years, or one year, or next week, it is saying in substance, “My Lord delayeth his coming”, and that is the utterance of the wicked servant. Luke 12: 45. The Lord’s coming may take place AT ANY MOMENT, and He expects every believer to be waiting and watching for Him.
But has not
THE WORLD TO BE CONVERTED
before Christ comes?
In 2 Timothy 3 we have a prophetic description of the professing church in the “last days”. Do we read anything there about a triumphant gospel, and a converted world? On the contrary, we find there a picture of evil which is almost identical with that which the Spirit of God has given us of the heathen world before Christianity came in it. Compare with Romans 1: 29 - 32.
Be not deceived; the future of the professing church is summed up in one dark word — APOSTASY. Soon Jesus will come and receive every saved soul, every true believer, to Himself. He will then completely disown the great mass of empty profession which will be left behind, spewing it out of His mouth, Revelation 3: 16. The professing church, deprived of every living member of Christ’s body will continue its history on earth as Babylon, whose haughty pride and whose fearful doom are so vividly described in Revelation 17 and 18.
[p. 27] Believe me, I speak the truth in Christ. There is not one prophecy to be fulfilled before Christ may come. His coming is our present hope.
But does it not say plainly that it is
“APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE?”
Read the scripture, Hebrews 9: 26 - 28. Speaking of Christ’s one offering, it says, “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation”.
It is in the order of nature that men should die, but why is this stated here? Simply to bring out the fact that Christ has taken man’s place and endured the death and judgment which man and his sins deserved. The believer sees the judgment of his sins at Calvary, by faith reckons Christ’s death as his own, and has eternal life in the risen, glorified Son of God. Read John 5: 24, where the word translated “condemnation” is the same as is here in Hebrews 9: 27, translated “judgment”, and tell me if your deliverance from death and judgment could be more complete. Everlasting glory be to God and to the Lamb!
If the Lord should tarry we may fall asleep, but “we shall not all sleep”. If the Lord comes this hour “we shall all be changed in a moment”, and have our vile bodies fashioned like unto His glorious body without dying at all.
I might quote many scriptures to show how real the hope of the Lord’s return was to
THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.
The defrauded labourer, suffering injustice, was exhorted to “be patient .. . unto the coming of the Lord”, and was comforted by being told that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh”, James 5: 7, 8. The saints at Corinth were “waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 1: 7. The believers at Thessalonica had been converted “to God from idols, to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven”, 1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10. The Lord’s coming was not to them a vague, visionary idea, of little or no importance, as it is alas! to many believers nowadays. It was the object of their fondest hopes, a source of deepest joy. Are you, my fellow believers, imitating their example? The Lord is coming. We are drawing near the glorious and happy termination of our wilderness journey. BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH.