Climactic Moment
Who may abide the day of his coming?
and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and
like fullers' soap. Mal. 3:2.
The people of Israel, because of their sinfulness, were forbidden to approach
the mount when God was about to descend upon it to proclaim His law, lest
they should be consumed by the burning glory of His presence. If such manifestations
of His power marked the place chosen for the proclamation of God's law, how
terrible must be His tribunal when He comes for the execution of these sacred
statutes. How will those who have trampled upon His authority endure His glory
in the great day of final retribution? . . .
When the divine Presence was manifested
upon Sinai, the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire. . . . But when
Christ shall come in glory with His holy angels the whole earth shall be ablaze
with the terrible light of His presence. . . .
Never since man was created had
there been witnessed such a manifestation of divine power as when the law
was proclaimed from Sinai. . . . Amid the most terrific convulsions of nature
the voice of God, like a trumpet, was heard from the cloud. The mountain was
shaken from base to summit, and the hosts of Israel, pale and trembling with
terror, lay upon their faces upon the earth. He whose voice then shook the
earth has declared, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also
heaven." . . .
When Moses came from the divine
Presence in the mount, where he had received the tables of the testimony,
guilty Israel could not endure the light that glorified his countenance. How
much less can transgressors look upon the Son of God when He shall appear
in the glory of His Father, surrounded by all the heavenly host, to execute
judgment upon the transgressors of His law and the rejecters of His atonement.
. . .
But amid the tempest of divine
judgment the children of God will have no cause for fear. "The Lord will
be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel."
The day that brings terror and destruction to the transgressors of God's law,
will bring to the obedient, "joy unspeakable, and full of glory."
From My Life Today - Page 37
