“WHO may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth ?”
- Shall the infidel—he who has “rejected the counsel of God against himself,” Lk. 7:30 against argument and entreaty, and appeal, and perhaps assuming a bolder port and form of impiety, has announced the record of inspiration as but an imposture and a lie—shall he stand ? No; for it is pronounced, “He that believed not, is condemned already.”Jn. 3:18 “He that believeth not, shall be damned.” Mk. 16:16
- Shall the sensualist—he who he degraded the high and immortal gift of reason for the vulgarities of animal appetite, herding with the drunken, with the gluttonous or with the lewd, and thus “glorying in his shame”—shall he stand? No; for it is pronounced of all such, “They shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God.” Rev.21:27
- Shall the worldling—he who has concentrated his activities and desires on that which perishes in the using, prostrating his faculties and his powers in idolatrous service to mammon—shall he stand No; for it is pronounced, “Whosoever would be the friend of the world, is an enemy of God.” Jm. 4:4
- Shall the pharisee—he “who being ignorant of God’s righteousness, has gone about to establish his own righteousness,” Rm. 10:3 and who, repudiating the grand evangelical principles of the gospel, has believed that by the merit of his own penances and works, he can establish a claim to acceptance before the heart-searching God—shall he stand? No; for it is pronounced, “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;” Lk. 14:11and that “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.” Isa. 28:17
- Shall the hypocrite—he who assumed the “form of godliness.” 2Tim. 3:5 while he knew that he had not the power, and who, deluding his fellew-men with a falsehood, will pass into eternity with “a lie in his right hand,” Isa. 44:20as though he could deceive and delude the omniscient One—shall he stand I No; for it is pronounced that God abhors the sacrifice, when men draw nigh unto him with their lips, when their hearts are far from him, and that into the New Jerusalem “there shall in no wise enter anything which defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.” Rev. 21:27
“Who may abide the day of his, coming? or who shall stand when he appeareth?” Mal. 3:2Brethren, none but those who have repented towards God, and who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; none but those who have been justified by the blood of the atonement and sanctified by the influence of the Spirit. As to all beside— and still it is a solemn and heart-searching truth in all —that if they be found in any of the classes which have been enumerated, or in any other classes which embody especial forms of the impenitent and unbelieving sin, they will amid the burning grandeur and tremendous development of the two worlds presented before and around the tribunal of the great and resistless Judge, themselves have to cry out, in the last accents of despair, “Rocks and mountains, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Rev. 6:16, 17
“When thou, my righteous Judge shall come,
To bring thy ransomed people home,
Shall I among them stand?
Shall such a worthless worm as I,
Who sometimes am afraid to die,
Be found at thy right band?”
James Parsons.
The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald Sept. 23, 1858