THE BLESSED HOPE LOOKING FOR
THAT BLESSED HOPE AND THE GLORIOUS APPEARING OF THE GREAT GOD AND
OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. TITUS 2 VERSE 13 What a bright
rainbow for the storm-wreathed sky! Hope is a joyous emotion. Poetry sings of it. Music warbles
its lofty aspirations. But, alas! how often does it
weave fantastic visions, then vanish! In the morning the flowers
of life are flourishing and growing up. In the evening, a mysterious
blight comes and they lie withered garlands at our feet. The longing
apparitions of the whole life seem realized, but one wave of
calamity overtakes us and washes all away. Nevertheless, there
is one blessed hope beyond the possibility of blight or decay,
the hope of the glory of God, the hope which makes not ashamed,
the glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour. If we
long on earth for the return of an absent friend or brother,
separated from us for a season by intervening oceans or continent,
If we count the weeks or months until we welcome him back again
to the parental home, how should the Christian long for the return
of the brother of brothers, the friend of friends? I will come
again, is his own gracious promise, to receive you unto myself. O happy day, when he shall be
glorified in his saints, when his people will suffer no more,
and sin no more! No more couches of sickness,
or aching hearts, or fevered brows, no more opened graves,
or bitter tears, and, better than all, no more estrangements
and traitorous unholy hearts! it will be the bridal day of
the soul. The body, slumbering in the dust,
will be reunited, a glorified body, to a redeemed spirit. The grave shall be forever spoiled,
death swallowed up in eternal victory. So shall we be forever
with the Lord. Listener, do you love His appearing? Are you looking with the eager,
expectant attitude of those who are looking for, and hastening
unto the coming of God? Yet a little while, and He that
shall come, will come. If you are a child of the covenant,
having conscious filial nearness to the throne of grace, you need
not dread the throne of glory. true, He is the Great God. But He is our Savior. It is a
kinsman-redeemer who is ordained to judge the world in righteousness. Yes, turn your eye oftener towards
this bright rainbow spanning a glorious future. For remember,
it is to them who look for him that he shall appear the second
time, without sin, unto salvation.