"The Coming Of The Lord Is At Hand."

by T. W. SALT | Category: General | Oct 1944

James 5. 8.

The precious truth of the Lord's coming ought to thrill our hearts. Our Lord, just before He went to the cross, used the blessed fact of His coming to comfort the apostles, whose hearts were full of sorrow (John 14.). 1 Thessalonians 4. gives a description of the Lord's coming for His own. He will come Himself. This truth should not only comfort us, but should also have a purifying effect upon us. "Everyone that bath this hope set on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" ( John 3. 3). We read in Genesis 24. of Abraham (type of God the Father) sending forth his servant (type of the blessed Holy Spirit) to bring a bride (a type of the Church, the Body) for Isaac (a type of the Son of God). This faithful servant had nothing to say of himself, it was all, "My master," and "My master's son." Not only so, but he was able to shew Rebekah something of the riches and goodly things of his master. What a picture of the work of God's Holy Spirit! Our blessed Lord

spoke of Him in John 16. 14, "'He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you." The Spirit of God is preparing a Bride in this wilderness scene for a Greater than Isaac. James wrote of His coming drawing nigh. in his day; how much nearer it must be to-day! Do we not realise that "the night is far spent, and the day is at hand"'?

"We wait to see the Morning Star appearing

In glory bright:

Thisblessed hope illumes, with beams most cheering,

The hours of night."

The writer well remembers opening the door early one summer's morning and there on the horizon was the rising sun, and just above it was the morning star. Our God would have us to think of His blessed Son as the Rising Sun (Malachi 4.2), in His appearing for Israel, but to us in this dispensation as the Bright and Morning Star (Revelation 22.16). Just as the morning star heralds the dawning of day, so that blessed One is the Harbinger of that eternal day that shall never know a night. Will He not be, as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds? In the light of His near return, may we be of those who long to see their Lord. May we also watch and pray (Mark 13.), and "work for the night is coming, when man works no more " " Yet a very little while He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry " " Behold I come quickly and My reward is with Me, to render to each man according as his work is."

T. W. SALT | Oct 1944
General