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Enjoying God Blog

Can you imagine what life now would be like if we had no assurance that Jesus will return to consummate his kingdom? Here is how Baxter addressed this issue in The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.

“Imagine, fellow Christian, what would we do if our Lord did not intend to return? What misfortune! But will he really leave us among wolves (Acts 20:29), in the lions’ den (Dan. 6), among a generation of serpents (Matt. 23:33), and here forget us? Would he buy us at so dear a price (1 Cor. 6:20) and then cast us off? Will he leave us sinning, suffering, groaning, dying daily, and come no more to us? It cannot be! Never fear: it cannot be. That would be like how we deal with Christ. When we feel ourselves warm and comfortable in the world, we hardly care about coming to him. But this is not like Christ’s dealing with us. He who came to suffer will surely come to triumph. He who came to purchase will surely come to possess. Where else could we place all our hopes? What would become of our faith, our prayers, our tears, and our waiting? What would all the patience of the saints be worth to them? Would we not be left of all men the most miserable (1 Cor. 15:19)? Reader, consider that Christ has called us to forsake all the world and be forsaken by all the world – and all this for him, so that we might have him instead of all. Do you really think that he will, after all this, forget us and forsake us himself? Far be such a thought from our hearts!

Oh fellow Christian, what a day that will be, when we who have been kept prisoners by sin, by sinners, and by the grave will be fetched out by the Lord himself. Christ will surely come from heaven to conquer his enemies and set his captives free. It will not be like his first coming, in poverty and contempt. He will not come to be spit upon, buffeted, scorned, and crucified again. He will not come, oh careless world, to be slighted and neglected by you anymore. Yet even his first coming, which was necessarily in infirmity and reproach for our sakes, did not lack its own glory. The angels of heaven brought tidings of joy to all people, and the heavenly host praised God with that solemnity, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill toward men’ (Luke 2:14)” (44-45).

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