Arrival

And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

Some seem to think that God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit are somehow huddled in a quiet corner in heaven solemnly consulting a magic eight ball to determine when the second coming ought to be. Pardon the irreverence of that picture, but is it so far afield of the notion that the second coming is little more than a passive event for the followers of Jesus?

Our 'Just barely' Entrance

Friends, we won't just "turn up" in heaven. We will arrive. We will arrive with Jesus.

And Jesus won't just "turn up" at earth. He will arrive. Nor are the clouds He arrives with composed of soda-bubbles wearing emptyheaded smiley-faces. Of this indescribable event our Lord said, "Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:30). Before Jesus returns a message of "peace and safety" (1 Thessalonians 5:3) will go out, and it will go out with great fervor. But when Jesus arrives, sudden destruction will come upon its proclaimers. "All the tribes of the earth shall mourn."

We shall see our Jesus coming in power and great glory, but we will not at that moment forget the wretchedness of our sinning, or the price He has paid to save us from it. We'll be caught between a dark red blush and a ghastly pale whiteness. Listen to what one said who saw the moment in vision:

His [Jesus'] eyes were as a flame of fire, which searched His children through and through. Then all faces gathered paleness, and those that God had rejected gathered blackness. Then we all cried out, "Who shall be able to stand? Is my robe spotless?" Then the angels ceased to sing, and there was some time of awful silence, when Jesus spoke: "Those who have clean hands and pure hearts shall be able to stand; My grace is sufficient for you." Early Writings, p. 16.

When Jesus comes we will cry with trembling: "Who shall be able to stand?" Our faces will gather paleness. Today some are saying that it is easy to be saved and hard to be lost. But Peter says, "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter 4:18). And the line before that he says, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17). Unless I misread my Bible, although God is "not willing that any should perish," i.e. not desiring that any should be lost, it remains true that the righteous are just barely saved! This truth raises the ante considerably for those who are playing with sin and so are playing with being lost.

When Jesus comes all the hype will have long before evaporated. The peace-and-safetyisms will be silenced, and even the saved will recognize how close it was for them. They almost didn't make it.

Of course, we all plan to be there. And it is also true that most of us (all of us?) Have wondered at one time or another whether we finally will be in the kingdom. Sometimes we've been unsure. We said to ourselves, how could God value me enough to save me? I've been struggling with sin, and I still love this sin. But I also hate this sin! God help me. I do want to be saved.

Our Abundant Entrance

But our paleness-gathering faces is not all there is to say about that awesome event. Consider this text from Ellen White:

If Christ is my Saviour, my sacrifice, my atonement, then I shall never perish. Believing on Him, I have life forevermore. Oh, that all who believe the truth would believe in Jesus as their own Saviour. I do not mean that cheap faith unsupported by works, but that earnest, living, constant, abiding faith, that eats the flesh and drinks the blood of the Son of God. I want not only to be pardoned for the transgression of God's holy law, but I want to be lifted into the sunshine of God's countenance. Not simply to be admitted to heaven, but to have an abundant entrance. Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 381.

When Jesus comes, all faces shall gather paleness. The angels will stop singing. A thick silence will reign. Everyone will feel their life is hanging in the balances, perhaps on the wrong side. But sister White here calls to us, saying that we should not simply be admitted to heaven, but have an abundant entrance. That's what I want. I want the abundant entrance. We don't even feel like we could ever be there, but we can have an abundant entrance into heaven. Something is going on here.

Did you see our opening text: "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men." We won't just "show up" in heaven. But as the Lord changes us, and causes us to increase in love toward each other, the attitude of our hearts will be reshaped. We will be established "unblameable in holiness before God!" Make no mistake: An abundant entrance awaits a holy people made holy by a holy God.

Holiness Not an Accident

Heaven has not forsaken us. God is not off on a tangent somewhere. The second coming has not been forgotten. Jesus is preparing to come back for us, that He may take us to Himself. But first He is preparing a place for us in His Father's house, in His Father's family. And in the Father's family are those who love. And those who have God's love in them are those who have His holiness in them too. And we don't just "show up" holy. Holiness is not an accident that happens or a random mutation or a quirk of evolutionary or hereditary fate. Holiness requires a purposeful attitude. It is what happens when we live with God inside us over time. It is not the work of a moment. Really, we could call it a change of nature. Two passages from the Holy Spirit now through Ellen White:

Christ has said, "Without Me ye can do nothing." A great change must take place in us before we can live a true Christian life. We must become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions which are in the world through lust. We must be nourished by the life of the Living Vine, and then we shall become fruit-bearing branches. Christ has said, "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." The branch planted in Christ will bear the same order of fruit as He Himself has borne. If we are in Christ, we shall love the things which He loved, hate the things which He hated, and be obedient unto all the commandments of God. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so will the soul pant after the things pertaining to the Spirit of God. And we shall make manifest to the world that we are the children of God by the fruits we bear. Signs of the Times 1 June 1891.

In the new birth the heart is brought into harmony with God, as it is brought into accord with His law. When this mighty change has taken place in the sinner, he has passed from death unto life, from sin unto holiness, from transgression and rebellion to obedience and loyalty. The old life of alienation from God has ended; the new life of reconciliation, of faith and love, has begun. Then "the righteousness of the law" will "be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:4. And the language of the soul will be: "O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." Psalm 119:97. Great Controversy, p. 468.

God changes His people. Then Jesus arrives. God's people permit themselves to be changed. Then Jesus arrives. We receive His love, we let Him make us holy, we co-operate with the laser-focused mission of heaven to save us. Then shall the end come. Matthew 24:14 says "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." But how is "this gospel of the kingdom" preached? It is preached by God through our lives. Our work is to co-operate. God is the preacher. Your life is the sermon. Your life is His "witness unto all nations." Your life is His story book.

Your life is meant to tell the story of His grace. Not Satan's false peace-and-safety style of grace, but God's own re-creating grace. Satan's grace is just recycled disgrace. It is sin and live, sin and live, sin and live. But God's grace is live righteous and live, live righteous and live, live righteous and live. And how can we live righteous? Only as we let Him make us holy. Only as we permit Him to establish our hearts in love and holiness. Unblameable.

Does the gospel as you know it do that?

You may say, "no it doesn't." But hold on. It may indeed do that. It just hasn't done that in you yet. Friends, I am more and more convinced that it is not knowledge that we are lacking, or a heavenly outpouring of the Spirit. All these are fully available to us. Perhaps it is not even will-power that we lack. We cannot "will" ourselves into a state of holiness. But we must understand the right action of the will. We must exercise our power of choice to be Christians. Not a one of us who fails to do so will ever be in the kingdom.

Choosing the Abundant Entrance

We can't make ourselves love. But we can choose to let God cause us to love. We cannot make ourselves be holy. But we can choose to let God cause us to become holy. He has given us the choice. But He has kept in Himself the power. When we choose Him He will ignite the deadened faculty within us and we will be changed.

Father's promise to us is, "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). Sounds like Jesus, doesn't it? We must fight against our selfish nature.

Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life. By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the power that is above all principalities and powers. You will have strength from above to hold you steadfast, and thus through constant surrender to God you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith. Steps to Christ, p. 48.

We must be allied to Christ before Christ will arrive. We must be united to the vine to experience His abiding. "Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life." An entire change. And that is precisely what we need. It's nothing more or less than the Holy Spirit says to us through Jeremiah, with the statement "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart." We will find Him when we seek Him wholeheartedly. And with our whole-seeking will come entire change.

Away With Passivity, and Let's Go Home!

To choose God is not just to say "I receive" and then go one's way. We must plead with Him to break through our stoney hearts giving us a heart of flesh, and then we must co-operate with His work in us. If we are really seeking Him with our whole heart, then we won't limit our time with Him to a-minute-and-a-half on our knees. When we rise to our feet our mind will still be fired with the desire to co-operate. We won't march off onto the yellow brick road of sin again. We'll pause. We'll be asking at every point of decision, is this the way of the Lord? We won't limit Him, but we'll say, "Father, the whole space of my life is open to you. Show me your way." When we give ourselves to Him like this, then our affection for the world will finally be "on the block," and all the less obvious ways that our environment impacts us, through music and image and sensation and pride, will be ready for chopping-off.

But until we make this choice, and habituate ourselves to continually remaking it, we'll be weak, hardly growing in love and holiness. The Bible says "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). We won't see the Lord because the Lord won't come to an unholy people. Jesus won't just "turn up" at earth. He will arrive. He will come to take to Himself those who have taken Jesus to themselves—not by their own power, but by choosing to receive His power. We will seek Him and find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.

And why will we linger? Why will we think of the second coming as just a passive event? Why will we receive the prescription of those who are hostile to the gospel of Christ? Satan has trained us through the media surrounding us. He wants us to be passive. He wants us to think that serving God is just another "entertainment" we are involved in. His trap is that holiness is not required of God's people. He says, "sin and live. Ye shall not surely die." But God says, "without holiness no man will see the Lord." Whom shall we believe?

Let us make an abundant entrance! Let us co-operate with a holiness-causing God. Let us leave behind the notion of our sittinf idly by while deity twiddles its thumbs. God is not idly waiting. He is ready to change you now.

And just in time. When He comes to make up His jewels you'll want to be there. Make your choice afresh today.