have a new conception of truth and duty. Too late they see that the
Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late
they see the true nature of their spurious sabbath, and the sandy
foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have
been fighting against God. Religious teachers have led souls to perdition
while professing to guide them to the gates of Paradise. Not until the day
of final accounts will it be known how great is the responsibility of men
in holy office, and how terrible are the results of their unfaithfulness.
Only in eternity can we rightly estimate the loss of a single soul.
Fearful will be the doom of him to whom God shall say, Depart, thou wicked
servant.
The voice of God is heard from heaven, declaring the day and hour of
Jesus’ coming, and delivering the everlasting covenant to His people. Like
peals of loudest thunder, His words roll through the earth. The Israel of
God stand listening, with their eyes fixed upward. Their countenances are
lighted up with His glory, and shine as did the face of Moses when he came
down from Sinai. The wicked cannot look upon them. And when the blessing
is pronounced on those who have honored God by keeping His Sabbath holy,
there is a mighty shout of victory.
Soon there appears in the east a small black cloud, about half the size of
a man’s hand. It is the cloud which surrounds the Saviour, and which seems
in the distance to be shrouded in darkness. The people of God know this to
be the sign of the Son of man. In solemn silence they gaze upon it as it
draws nearer the earth, becoming lighter and more glorious, until it is a
great white cloud, its base a glory like consuming fire, and above it the
rainbow of the covenant. Jesus rides forth as a mighty conqueror. Not now
a “man of sorrows,” to drink the bitter cup of shame and woe, He comes,
victor in heaven and earth, to judge the living and the dead. “Faithful
and true,” “in righteousness He doth judge and make war.” And “the armies
which were in heaven follow Him.”(1103) With anthems of celestial melody
the holy angels, a vast, unnumbered throng, attend Him on His way. The
firmament seems filled with radiant forms,—“ten thousand times ten
thousand, and thousands of thousands.” No human pen can portray the scene;
no mortal mind is adequate to conceive its splendor. “His glory covered
the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. And His brightness was
as the light.”(1104) As the living cloud comes still nearer, every eye
beholds the Prince of life. No crown of thorns now mars that sacred head,
but a diadem of glory rests on His holy brow. His countenance outshines
the dazzling brightness of the noonday sun. “And He hath on His vesture
and on His thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords.”(1105)
Before His presence, “all faces are turned into paleness;” upon the
rejecters of God’s mercy falls the terror of eternal despair. “The heart
melteth, and the knees smite together,” “and the faces of them all gather
blackness.”(1106) The righteous cry with trembling, “Who shall be able to
stand?” The angels’ song is hushed, and there is a period of awful
silence. Then the voice of Jesus is heard, saying, “My grace is sufficient
for you.” The faces of the righteous are lighted up, and joy fills every
heart. And the angels strike a note higher, and sing again, as they draw
still nearer to the earth.
The King of kings descends upon the cloud, wrapped in flaming fire. The
heavens are rolled together as a scroll, the earth trembles before Him,
and every mountain and island is moved out of its place. “Our God shall
come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it
shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens
from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people.”(1107)
“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the
chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman,
hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to
the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day
of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”(1108)
The derisive jests have ceased. Lying lips are hushed into silence. The
clash of arms, the tumult of battle, “with confused noise, and garments
rolled in blood,”(1109) is stilled. Naught now is heard but the voice of
prayer and the sound of weeping and lamentation. The cry bursts forth from
lips so lately scoffing, “The great day of His wrath is come; and who
shall be able to stand?” The wicked pray to be buried beneath the rocks of
the mountains, rather than meet the face of Him whom they have despised
and rejected.
That voice which penetrates the ear of the dead, they know. How often have
its plaintive, tender tones called them to repentance. How often has it
been heard in the touching entreaties of a friend, a brother, a Redeemer.
To the rejecters of His grace, no other could be so full of condemnation,
so burdened with denunciation, as that voice which has so long pleaded,
“Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?”(1110) O that
it were to them the voice of a stranger! Says Jesus: “I have called, and
ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have
set at naught all My counsel, and would none of My reproof.”(1111) That
voice awakens memories which they would fain blot out,—warnings despised,
invitations refused, privileges slighted.
There are those who mocked Christ in His humiliation. With thrilling power
come to their minds the Sufferer’s words, when, adjured by the high
priest, He solemnly declared, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of
heaven.”(1112) Now they behold Him in His glory, and they are yet to see
Him sitting on the right hand of power.
Those who derided His claim to be the Son of God are speechless now. There
is the haughty Herod who jeered at His royal title, and bade the mocking
soldiers crown Him king. There are the very men who with impious hands
placed upon His form the purple robe, upon His sacred brow the thorny
crown, and in His unresisting hand the mimic scepter, and bowed before Him
in blasphemous mockery. The men who smote and spit upon the Prince of
life, now turn from His piercing gaze, and seek to flee from the
overpowering glory of His presence. Those who drove the nails through His
hands and feet, the soldier who pierced His side, behold these marks with
terror and remorse.
With awful distinctness do priests and rulers recall the events of
Calvary. With shuddering horror they remember how, wagging their heads in
satanic exultation, they exclaimed: “He saved others; Himself He cannot
save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross,
and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He
will have Him.”(1113)
Vividly they recall the Saviour’s parable of the husbandmen who refused to
render to their lord the fruit of the vineyard, who abused his servants
and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence which they themselves
pronounced: The lord of the vineyard “will miserably destroy those wicked
men.” In the sin and punishment of those unfaithful men, the priests and
elders see their own course and their own just doom. And now there rises a
cry of mortal agony. Louder than the shout, “Crucify Him! crucify Him!”
which rang through the streets of Jerusalem, swells the awful, despairing
wail, “He is the Son of God! He is the true Messiah!” They seek to flee
from the presence of the King of kings. In the deep caverns of the earth,
rent asunder by the warring of the elements, they vainly attempt to hide.
In the lives of all who reject truth, there are moments when conscience
awakens, when memory presents the torturing recollection of a life of
hypocrisy, and the soul is harassed with vain regrets. But what are these
compared with the remorse of that day when “fear cometh as desolation,”
when “destruction cometh as a whirlwind”!(1114) Those who would have
destroyed Christ and His faithful people, now witness the glory which
rests upon them. In the midst of their terror they hear the voices of the
saints in joyful strains exclaiming, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited
for Him, and He will save us.”(1115)
Amid the reeling of the earth, the flash of lightning, and the roar of
thunder, the voice of the Son of God calls forth the sleeping saints. He
looks upon the graves of the righteous, then raising His hands to heaven
He cries, “Awake, awake, awake, ye that sleep in the dust, and arise!”
Throughout the length and breadth of the earth, the dead shall hear that
voice; and they that hear shall live. And the whole earth shall ring with
the tread of the exceeding great army of every nation, kindred, tongue,
and people. From the prison-house of death they come, clothed with
immortal glory, crying, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
thy victory?”(1116) And the living righteous and the risen saints unite
their voices in a long, glad shout of victory.
All come forth from their graves the same in stature as when they entered
the tomb. Adam, who stands among the risen throng, is of lofty height and
majestic form, in stature but little below the Son of God. He presents a
marked contrast to the people of later generations; in this one respect is
shown the great degeneracy of the race. But all arise with the freshness
and vigor of eternal youth. In the beginning, man was created in the
likeness of God, not only in character, but in form and feature. Sin
defaced and almost obliterated the divine image; but Christ came to
restore that which had been lost. He will change our vile bodies, and
fashion them like unto His glorious body. The mortal, corruptible form,
devoid of comeliness, once polluted with sin, becomes perfect, beautiful,
and immortal. All blemishes and deformities are left in the grave.
Restored to the tree of life in the long-lost Eden, the redeemed will
“grow up”(1117) to the full stature of the race in its primeval glory. The
last lingering traces of the curse of sin will be removed, and Christ’s
faithful ones will appear “in the beauty of the Lord our God,” in mind and
soul and body reflecting the perfect image of their Lord. Oh, wonderful
redemption! long talked of, long hoped for, contemplated with eager
anticipation, but never fully understood.
The living righteous are changed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye.” At the voice of God they were glorified; now they are made immortal,
and with the risen saints are caught up to meet their Lord in the air.
Angels “gather together the elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other.” Little children are borne by holy angels to their
mothers’ arms. Friends long separated by death are united, nevermore to
part, and with songs of gladness ascend together to the city of God.
On each side of the cloudy chariot are wings, and beneath it are living
wheels; and as the chariot rolls upward, the wheels cry, “Holy,” and the
wings, as they move, cry, “Holy,” and the retinue of angels cry, “Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” And the redeemed shout “Alleluia!” as the
chariot moves onward toward the New Jerusalem.
Before entering the city of God, the Saviour bestows upon His followers
the emblems of victory, and invests them with the insignia of their royal
state. The glittering ranks are drawn up, in the form of a hollow square,
about their King, whose form rises in majesty high above saint and angel,
whose countenance beams upon them full of benignant love. Throughout the
unnumbered host of the redeemed, every glance is fixed upon Him, every eye
beholds His glory whose “visage was so marred more than any man, and His
form more than the sons of men.” Upon the heads of the overcomers, Jesus
with His own right hand places the crown of glory. For each there is a
crown, bearing his own “new name,”(1118) and the inscription, “Holiness to
the Lord.” In every hand are placed the victor’s palm and the shining
harp. Then, as the commanding angels strike the note, every hand sweeps
the harp strings with skilful touch, awaking sweet music in rich,
melodious strains. Rapture unutterable thrills every heart, and each voice
is raised in grateful praise: “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from
our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and
His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”(1119)
Before the ransomed throng is the holy city. Jesus opens wide the pearly
gates, and the nations that have kept the truth enter in. There they
behold the Paradise of God, the home of Adam in his innocency. Then that
voice, richer than any music that ever fell on mortal ear, is heard,
saying, “Your conflict is ended.” “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Now is fulfilled the Saviour’s prayer for His disciples, “I will that they
also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am.” “Faultless before the
presence of His glory with exceeding joy,”(1120) Christ presents to the
Father the purchase of His blood, declaring, “Here am I, and the children
whom Thou hast given Me.” “Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept.” Oh, the
wonders of redeeming love! the rapture of that hour when the infinite
Father, looking upon the ransomed, shall behold His image, sin’s discord
banished, its blight removed, and the human once more in harmony with the
divine!
With unutterable love, Jesus welcomes His faithful ones to the “joy of
their Lord.” The Saviour’s joy is in seeing, in the kingdom of glory, the
souls that have been saved by His agony and humiliation. And the redeemed
will be sharers in His joy, as they behold, among the blessed, those who
have been won to Christ through their prayers, their labors, and their
loving sacrifice. As they gather about the great white throne, gladness
unspeakable will fill their hearts, when they behold those whom they have
won for Christ, and see that one has gained others, and these still
others, all brought into the haven of rest, there to lay their crowns at
Jesus’ feet, and praise Him through the endless cycles of eternity.
As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the city of God, there rings out upon
the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to meet. The
Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the father of our
race,—the being whom He created, who sinned against his Maker, and for
whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the Saviour’s form.
As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does not fall upon the
bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at His feet, crying,
“Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Tenderly the Saviour lifts
him up, and bids him look once more upon the Eden home from which he has
so long been exiled.
After his expulsion from Eden, Adam’s life on earth was filled with
sorrow. Every dying leaf, every victim of sacrifice, every blight upon the
fair face of nature, every stain upon man’s purity, was a fresh reminder
of his sin. Terrible was the agony of remorse as he beheld iniquity
abounding, and, in answer to his warnings, met the reproaches cast upon
himself as the cause of sin. With patient humility he bore, for nearly a
thousand years, the penalty of transgression. Faithfully did he repent of
his sin, and trust in the merits of the promised Saviour, and he died in
the hope of a resurrection. The Son of God redeemed man’s failure and
fall; and now, through the work of the atonement, Adam is re-instated in
his first dominion.
Transported with joy, he beholds the trees that were once his delight,—the
very trees whose fruit he himself had gathered in the days of his
innocence and joy. He sees the vines that his own hands have trained, the
very flowers that he once loved to care for. His mind grasps the reality
of the scene; he comprehends that this is indeed Eden restored, more
lovely now than when he was banished from it. The Saviour leads him to the
tree of life, and plucks the glorious fruit, and bids him eat. He looks
about him, and beholds a multitude of his family redeemed, standing in the
Paradise of God. Then he casts his glittering crown at the feet of Jesus,
and falling upon His breast, embraces the Redeemer. He touches the golden
harp, and the vaults of heaven echo the triumphant song, “Worthy, worthy,
worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and lives again!” The family of Adam
take up the strain, and cast their crowns at the Saviour’s feet as they
bow before Him in adoration.
This reunion is witnessed by the angels who wept at the fall of Adam, and
rejoiced when Jesus, after His resurrection, ascended to heaven, having
opened the grave for all who should believe on His name. Now they behold
the work of redemption accomplished, and they unite their voices in the
song of praise.
Upon the crystal sea before the throne, that sea of glass as it were
mingled with fire,—so resplendent is it with the glory of God,—are
gathered the company that have “gotten the victory over the beast, and
over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.”(1121)
With the Lamb upon Mount Zion, “having the harps of God,” they stand, the
hundred and forty and four thousand that were redeemed from among men; and
there is heard, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of a great
thunder, “the voice of harpers harping with their harps.”(1122) And they
sing “a new song” before the throne, a song which no man can learn save
the hundred and forty and four thousand. It is the song of Moses and the
Lamb,—a song of deliverance. None but the hundred and forty-four thousand
can learn that song; for it is the song of their experience,—an experience
such as no other company have ever had. “These are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” These, having been translated from the
earth, from among the living, are counted as “the first-fruits unto God
and to the Lamb.”(1123) “These are they which came out of great
tribulation;”(1124) they have passed through the time of trouble such as
never was since there was a nation; they have endured the anguish of the
time of Jacob’s trouble; they have stood without an intercessor through
the final outpouring of God’s judgments. But they have been delivered, for
they have “washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb.” “In their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault”
before God. “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him
day and night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell
among them.”(1125) They have seen the earth wasted with famine and
pestilence, the sun having power to scorch men with great heat, and they
themselves have endured suffering, hunger, and thirst. But “they shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on
them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall
feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”(1126)
In all ages the Saviour’s chosen have been educated and disciplined in the
school of trial. They walked in narrow paths on earth; they were purified
in the furnace of affliction. For Jesus’ sake they endured opposition,
hatred, calumny. They followed Him through conflicts sore; they endured
self-denial and experienced bitter disappointments. By their own painful
experience they learned the evil of sin, its power, its guilt, its woe;
and they look upon it with abhorrence. A sense of the infinite sacrifice
made for its cure, humbles them in their own sight, and fills their hearts
with gratitude and praise which those who have never fallen cannot
appreciate. They love much, because they have been forgiven much. Having
been partakers of Christ’s sufferings, they are fitted to be partakers
with Him of His glory.
The heirs of God have come from garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from
scaffolds, from mountains, from deserts, from the caves of the earth, from
the caverns of the sea. On earth they were “destitute, afflicted,
tormented.” Millions went down to the grave loaded with infamy, because
they steadfastly refused to yield to the deceptive claims of Satan. By
human tribunals they were adjudged the vilest of criminals. But now “God
is judge Himself.”(1127) Now the decisions of earth are reversed. “The
rebuke of His people shall He take away.”(1128) “They shall call them, The
holy people, The redeemed of the Lord.” He hath appointed “to give unto
them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness.”(1129) They are no longer feeble, afflicted,
scattered, and oppressed. Henceforth they are to be ever with the Lord.
They stand before the throne clad in richer robes than the most honored of
the earth have ever worn. They are crowned with diadems more glorious than
were ever placed upon the brow of earthly monarchs. The days of pain and
weeping are forever ended. The King of glory has wiped the tears from all
faces; every cause of grief has been removed. Amid the waving of
palm-branches they pour forth a song of praise, clear, sweet, and
harmonious; every voice takes up the strain, until the anthem swells
through the vaults of heaven, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the
throne, and unto the Lamb.” And all the inhabitants of heaven respond in
the ascription, “Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving,
and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever.”(1130)
In this life we can only begin to understand the wonderful theme of
redemption. With our finite comprehension we may consider most earnestly
the shame and the glory, the life and the death, the justice and the
mercy, that meet in the cross; yet with the utmost stretch of our mental
powers we fail to grasp its full significance. The length and the breadth,
the depth and the height, of redeeming love are but dimly comprehended.
The plan of redemption will not be fully understood, even when the
ransomed see as they are seen and know as they are known; but through the
eternal ages, new truth will continually unfold to the wondering and
delighted mind. Though the griefs and pains and temptations of earth are
ended, and the cause removed, the people of God will ever have a distinct,
intelligent knowledge of what their salvation has cost.
The cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed
through all eternity. In Christ glorified they will behold Christ
crucified. Never will it be forgotten that He whose power created and
upheld the unnumbered worlds through the vast realms of space, the Beloved
of God, the Majesty of heaven, He whom cherub and shining seraph delighted
to adore,—humbled Himself to uplift fallen man; that He bore the guilt and
shame of sin, and the hiding of His Father’s face, till the woes of a lost
world broke His heart, and crushed out His life on Calvary’s cross. That
the Maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside
His glory, and humiliate Himself from love to man, will ever excite the
wonder and adoration of the universe. As the nations of the saved look
upon their Redeemer, and behold the eternal glory of the Father shining in
His countenance; as they behold His throne, which is from everlasting to
everlasting, and know that His kingdom is to have no end, they break forth
in rapturous song, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath
redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!”
The mystery of the cross explains all other mysteries. In the light that
streams from Calvary, the attributes of God which had filled us with fear
and awe appear beautiful and attractive. Mercy, tenderness, and parental
love are seen to blend with holiness, justice, and power. While we behold
the majesty of His throne, high and lifted up, we see His character in its
gracious manifestations, and comprehend, as never before, the significance
of that endearing title, “Our Father.”
It will be seen that He who is infinite in wisdom could devise no plan for
our salvation except the sacrifice of His Son. The compensation for this
sacrifice is the joy of peopling the earth with ransomed beings, holy,
happy, and immortal. The result of the Saviour’s conflict with the powers
of darkness is joy to the redeemed, redounding to the glory of God
throughout eternity. And such is the value of the soul that the Father is
satisfied with the price paid; and Christ Himself, beholding the fruits of
His great sacrifice, is satisfied.
41. DESOLATION OF THE EARTH.
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