As another year goes by that was not ordained to be the year of the Lord’s return, we submit a few thoughts. Many are disappointed, but they needn’t be. Neither one year or three-score years and ten, have the same meaning to our Creator, as to us.
God’s time is boundless and eternal, a thousand years no different from a day in the finality of His purpose. We read history and study prophecy, yet we cannot help viewing the return of our Lord, as something we would hope to be awake and see.
We may be sleeping, as countless others of God’s Elect are, at this time, and if this is to be our lot, we can fall asleep, knowing we will be wakened in time to join his true friends in welcoming him back to his native earth.
According to our own limited comprehension of time the day of the Lord seems a long time coming. But according to God’s time the coming of the Kingdom is precisely and exactly on schedule.
I would like to relate a true incident, of some time ago, as a sort of parable in connection with Christ’s return. Two quite young people had been spending the summer with the family of an aunt in the Santa Ynez Valley. The time had come to go home; which meant a hard and weary trip by stage coach to Gaviota, where the train would pick them up.
The stage schedule brought them to Gaviota at noon, while the train would arrive quite late at night. So there would be a long wait in a dull and dreary place. The long wait could be endured, while daylight continued by keeping busy at various activities, wandering and exploring the neighborhood and trying not to think how long it would be before the train got there, and they could be on their way home. When darkness fell they were reduced to looking up the track to see if the train was coming. But of course, it wasn’t due yet, so they couldn’t very well see it, except in their faith that it would eventually come.
The station agent was a kindly man and understood both their eagerness and their impatience. Also a little of the upsetting effect of the surrounding darkness. He assured them the train wasn’t late. He pointed up the track and said, “There is a point up there a ways, that you can’t see now, in the dark. But the train is soon going to pass that point and when rt does, you will see the glow of its headlight. It will still be quite a way off, but you will know for sure rt’s coming.
The light will keep getting brighter, and first thing you know, you will hear the whistle and the rumble. You will know it’s coming because the light will get brighter and the rumble louder, and first thing you know it will be here.” And it was.
When our train comes in, may we be waiting—and ready.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One