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among them, 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
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Sabbath, and the sandy foundation upon which they have been build-
ing. 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
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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
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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, and the armies of Heaven
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follow him. With songs of triumph, a vast retinue of holy angels
escort him on his way. The firmament seems filled with shining
forms, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.
No pen can picture, no human mind conceive, the glory of the scene.
As the living cloud comes still nearer, Jesus can be clearly seen. He
does not wear a crown of thorns, but a crown of glory rests upon
his holy brow. His countenance shines as the noonday sun. Upon
his vesture and thigh is a name written, “King of kings, and Lord of
lords.”
Before him every face turns pale, and upon those whom God
has rejected, falls the blackness of despair. The righteous cry with
trembling, “Who shall be able to stand?” The song of the angels
ceases, 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.
God’s People Delivered
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The King of kings descends upon the cloud, wrapped in flaming
fire. The earth trembles before him, the heavens are rolled together
as a scroll, and every mountain and every island is moved out of
its place. Says the psalmist: “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. Gather my
saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me
by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for
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God is judge himself.” [Psalm 50:3-6.]
“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?” [Revelation 6:15-17.]
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,” [Isaiah 9:5.] 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 covered by the rocks of the mountains, rather than meet
the face of Him whom they have despised and rejected.
Those who mocked Christ in his humiliation are in that throng.
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.” [Matthew 26:64.] Now they behold Christ in his glory, and they are yet to see him sitting on the right hand of
power.
That voice which penetrates the ear of the dead, they know. How
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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; for why will ye die?”
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Oh 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.” [Proverbs 1:24, 25.] That voice awakens memories which they would fain blot out,—warnings despised, invitations
refused, privileges slighted.
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
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their heads in Satanic exultation, they exclaimed, “He saved others;