THE PROMISED RETURN
by John MacDuff - 1800s
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said" —
"I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also." — John 14:3
Another "word of promise" concerning the Church's "blessed hope." Orphaned pilgrims, dry your tears! Soon the Morning Hour will strike, and the sighs of a groaning and burdened creation will be heard no more. Earth's six thousand years of toil and sorrow are waning; the Millennial Sabbath is at hand. Jesus will soon be heard to repeat concerning all his sleeping saints, what He said of old regarding one of them: "I go to awake them out of sleep!" Your beloved Lord's first coming was in humiliation and woe; His name was, "the Man of Sorrows;" He had to travel on, amid darkness and desertion, His blood-stained path; a crown of thorns was the only crown He bore. But soon He will come "the second time without a sin-offering, unto salvation," never again to leave His Church, but to receive those who followed Him in His cross, to be everlasting partakers with Him in His crown! He may seem to tarry. External nature, in her unvarying and undeviating sequences, gives no indication of His approach. Centuries have elapsed since He uttered the promise, and still He lingers; the everlasting hills wear no streak of approaching dawn; we seem to listen in vain for the noise of His chariot wheels. "But the Lord is not slack concerning His promise;" He gives you "this word" in addition to many others as a keepsake — a pledge and guarantee for the certainty of His return, "I will come again."
Who can conceive all the surpassing blessedness connected with that advent? The Elder Brother arrived to fetch the younger brethren home! — the true Joseph revealing Himself in unutterable tenderness to the brethren who were once estranged from Him — "receiving them unto himself" — not satisfied with apportioning a kingdom for them, but, as if all His own joy and bliss were intermingled with theirs, "Where I am," says He, "there you must be also." "He who overcomes, will I grant to sit with Me on My Throne."
Believer, can you now say with some of the holy transport of the apostle, "Whom having not seen, we love"? What must it be when you come to see Him "face to face," and that forever and ever! If you can tell of precious hours of communion in a sin-stricken, woe-worn world, with a treacherous heart, and an imperfect or divided love, what must it be when you come, in a sinless, sorrowless state, with purified and renewed affections, to see the King in His beauty! The letter of an absent brother cheering and consolatory as it is, is a poor compensation for the joys of personal and visible communion. The absent Elder Brother on the Throne speaks to you now only by His Word and Spirit — soon you shall be admitted to His immediate fellowship, seeing him "as He is" — He Himself unfolding the wondrous chart of His providence and grace — leading you about from fountain to fountain among the living waters, and with His own gentle hand wiping the last lingering tear-drop from your eye. Heaven an everlasting home with Jesus! "Where I am, there you may be also." — He has appended a cheering postscript to this word, on which He has "caused us to hope" —
"He which testifies these things says, surely I come quickly."
"Where I am, there you may be also."
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