“Our Gathering Together” At His Coming.
WHEN aged Wilberforce lost his only surviving daughter, he wrote thus: “I have often heard that sailors on a voyage will drink, ‘Friends astern!’ till they are half way over; then ‘Friends ahead!’ With me it has been ‘Friends ahead!’ this long time!” He had evidently got God’s great gathering of glorified guests before his mind.
What will that meeting be which unites in one vast assembly every meeting of believers for past centuries; which finds gathered together by the power of the Spirit every saint from every corner of the earth, and gathered together to celebrate the amazing triumph of good over evil? “Vessels of mercy” they once were; “vessels of glory now”; and every one of them brimful and overflowing with God’s own delight in Him at whose personal cost Love’s great victory was won. How unspeakable the joy! And filled with glory!
To that blissful moment God’s called ones are moving. They are on their way to God, and soon shall gain His rest. How naturally an Alleluia bubbles up from the heart with such an end in view!
But how happy to view every saint we daily meet in that light; and, along with ourselves, to regard them as sharers in one all-embracing love, one overflowing joy, together with all who have already gone to be present at that blissful gathering. Are you assured of a place amongst them, my reader? Can you truly sing,
“We look to meet our brethren
From every distant shore;
Not one will seem a stranger,
Though never seen before;
With angel hosts attending,
In myriads through the sky;
Yet midst them all, Thou only,
O Lord, wilt fix the eye.”
Of course, you know that you are invited to the feast made in honor of the Son. Are you not equally well aware of the consequence of making light of it? Will you not prove your appreciation of the gracious proposal by coming to Christ at once? Then will both reader and writer be found at that blessed meeting, with all His “friends,” and ours.
“Mercy’s full power we then shall prove,
Loved with an everlasting love.”
GEO. C.