The coming of the Lord is to be earnestly desired, and yet the thought of his coming fills one with dread and awe. Yet we are told that such feelings indicate that there is something wrong with us, just as there is something wrong with a wife if she feels uneasy at the home-coming of a good husband. We are reminded that the faithful wife gladly meets the devoted husband when he returns from a journey, and that children joyfully run to meet their father when he comes home, and this should be our attitude and feeling when the Lord comes. If we tremble at his presence, there is something wrong! Is it possible that any one so thinks? Does any one really think that we can meet the Lord on the same basis that one human being meets another? To teach that we should have such feeling of familiarity as a wife has toward her husband or as children have toward their father is hurtful to piety and reverence. If the author of the foregoing illustrations does not mean all this, his illustrations do not mean anything. For years I have had an earnest desire that the Lord come while I live, and yet I know that when I appear before him in his majesty and glory, I shall, like the beloved John, fall at his feet as one dead. (Rev. 1:17.) I cannot think that any Christian will feel otherwise. When Jehovah spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, “Moses trembled, and durst not behold.” (Acts 7:32.) Was there something wrong with Moses and the beloved John? But the author who presented the aforementioned illustrations is wrong, as he himself will learn when he appears in the presence of the Judge of all the earth.
Perhaps you have wondered what people do in heaven. The redeemed are before God’s throne, ready always to do his bidding. In teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus put in this petition: “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” Heaven is not, therefore, a place of idleness. But obedience is a thing that must be learned. “Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” The service of God in this life is the school in which we learn obedience; we must learn to serve here, or we will not have the joy of service over there. “He that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.” They will be secure in his service—have his constant care.