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VOL. LXXXVni. RICHMC
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W atching
"Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord
when he coineth shall find watching; verily I say
unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth
and serve them. And if lie shall come in the second
watch, or come in the third watch, and find
them so, blessed are those servants."?Luke
7 :37-38.
First, the Lord will come. He that has come
once is to come again ; he will come a second time.
The Lord will come.
He will come again, l'or he has promised to return.
Wo have his own word for it. That is our
first reason for expecting him. Among the last
jof the words which he spoke to his servant, John,
*are these: "Surely I come quickly." You may
read it: "1 am coming quickly. I am even now
upon the road. I am traveling as fast as wisdom
allows. I am always coming, and coming quickh/v
Our Lord has promised to come, aud to
come in person. Some try to explain the second
coming of Christ as though it meant the believer
dying! You may, if you like, consider that Christ
comes to his saints in death. In a certain sense,
he does; but that sense will never bear out the
full meaning of the teaching of the Second Advent,
with which the Scripture is fulL No; "the
Lord hitnself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, wkh the voice of the archangel, and with
the trump of God." lie who went up to heaven
will come down from heaven and stand in'the latter
day upon the earth. Every redeemed soul
can say with Job: "Though after my skin worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God;
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behold, and not another." Christ will as certainly
be here again in glory as he once was here in
shame, for he has promised to return.
Moreover, the great scheme of redemption requires
Christ's return. It is a part of that scheme
that, as he came once with a sin-offering, he
should come a second time without a sin-offering;
that, as he came once to redeem, he should come
a second time to claim the inheritance which he
has so dearly bought. He came once, that his
heel might be bruised; he comes again, to break
the serpent's head, and, with a rod of iron, to
dash his enemies , to pieces-as potter's vessels. HeT;
came once, to wear the crown of thorns; he must
come again, to wear the diadem of universal dominion.
He conies to the marriage supper; he
comes to gather his saints together.; he comes
to glorify them with himself on this same earth.
where once he and they were despised and rejected
of men. Make yon sure of this, that the
whole drama of redemption cannot be perfected
without this last act of the coming of the King.
The complete history of Paradise Regained requires
that the New Jerusalem should come down
?
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)ND, NEW ORLEANS, / ?XANTA, JANUARY
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C. H. SPURGEON
from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband; and it also requires that
the heavenly Bridegroom should come riding forth
on his white horses, conquering and to conquer,
King of kings and Lord of lords, amidst the everlasting
hallelujahs of saints and angels. It must
be so. Th?''mailtof Nazareth will come again.
None shall'spit in his face then; but every knee
shall how before him. The Crucified shall come
again; and though the nail-prints will be visible,
no nails shall then fasten his dear hands to the
tree; but, instead thereof, he shall grasp the sceptre
of universal sovereignty; and he shall reign
forever and ever. Hallelujah!
My Guide
There is no path in this desert wa|te.
For the winds have swept the shifting sands;
The trail is blind where the storms have raced,
And a stranger, I, in these fearsome, lands.' 'I t
But I journey on with a lightsome tread? . *' -?
I do not falter nor turn aside;
For I see his figure just ahead?
He knows the way I take?my Guide.
There is no path In this trackless sea;
No in?P is limned on the restless waves;
The ocean snares are strange to me
wnere tne unseen wind In Its fury raves;
But it matters naught; my sails are set,
And my swift prow tosses the seas aside;
For the changeless stars are steadfast yet.
And I sail by his star-blazed trail?my Guide.
There is no way in this starless night;
There is naught but cloud in the inky skies;
The black night smothers me, left and right,
I stare with a blind man's straining eyes;
But my steps are firm, for I cannot stray;
The path to my feet seems light and wide;
For I hear his voice?"1 am the way!"
And I sing as I follow him on?my Guide.
?Robert J.'Burdette.
I-I-H-H-H. ! H 'I H-I-l'M-l 'I -H-HH"!When
will he come? Ah, that is the question,
the question of questions! He will come in his
own time. He will come in due time. A brother
minister, calling upon me, said, as we sat together:
"I should like to ask you a lot of questions
about the future." "Oh, well!" I replied,
"I cannot answer you, for I daresay I know no
more about it than you do." "But," said he,
"what about the Lord's Second Advent? Will
there not lie the millennium first?" I said: "I
cannot tell whether there will be the millennium
tirst; but this 1 know, the Scripture has left the
whole matter, as far /is I can see, with an intentional
indistinctness, that we may be always expecting
Christ to come, and that we may be watching
for" his coming at any hour and every hour. I
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s Coming
think that the millennium will commence alter his
coming, and not before it. I cannot imagine the
kingdom with the King absent. It seems to me
to Ikj an essential part of the millennial glory that
the King shall then lie revealed; at the same
time 1 am not going to lay down anything definite
upon that point. He may not come for a thousand
yeai-s; he may come tonight. The teaching
of Scripture is, first of all, 'In such an hour as
ye think not the Son of man cometh.' It is clear
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tuni, 11 it were reveaieu mat a tnousana years
must elapse before he would come, we might very
well go to sleep for that time, for we should have
no reason to expect that he would come when
Scripture told us he would not." 1
Now, the Lord bids us watch for him. That is
the marrow of the text: "Blessed are those servants
whom the Lord when he Cometh shall find
watching."
Now what is this watching? Not wishing to
use my own words, I thought that I would call
your attention to the context. ,The first essential
Aftrt of this watching is that we are not to be
iaken up with present things. You remember
that the twenty-second verse is about not taking
thought of fthkt you shall eat, or what you shall
drink; you are not to be absorbed in that. You
who are Christians are not to live the fleshly,
selfish life that asks: "What shall I eat and drink?
How can I store up my goods? How can I get
food and raiment here?" You are something more
than dumb, driven cattle, that must think of hay
and water. You have immortal spirits. Rise to
the dignity of your immortality. Begin to think
of the kingdom, the kingdom so soon to come, the
kingdom which your Father has given you, and
which, therefore, you must certainly inherit, the
kingdom which Christ has prepared for you, and
for which he is making you kings and priests unto
God, that you may reign with him forever and
ever. Oh, be not earthbound! Do not cast your
anchor here in these troubled waters. Build not
your nest on any of these trees; they are all market!
for the axe, and are coming down, and your nest
will come down, too, if you build it here. Set
your affection on things abov$y up yonder?
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up wnere eicrnaf ages roll,
Where solid pleasures neper die,
And fruits eternal feast the soul."
There project your thoughts and your anxietieB.
and have a care about the vfrorld to come. Be not
anxious about the things that pertain to this life.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
eousrtess"; and all these tilings shall be addefc. unto
you." M
Reading further down, in the thirty-fifth verse,
you Will notice.that watching implies keeping our.?l?^
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