In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were no clouds, we should have no faith. "The clouds are but the dust of our Father's feet." The clouds are a sign that He is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God! God can not come near without clouds, He does not come in clear shining.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child - God and my own soul, other people are shadows. Until other people become shadows, clouds and darkness will be mine every now and again. Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been?

There is a connection between the strange providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God's character, we do not yet know Him.

"They feared as they entered the cloud . . ." - Is there anyone "save Jesus only" in your cloud? If so, it will get darker; you must get to the place where there is "no one any more save Jesus only."

The exclamation is a striking one. The Greek word “behold” means “See; look!” It is used to quickly call attention to some striking spectacle which suddenly breaks upon the gaze—as though one should say of some great sight appearing in the heavens before all eyes, “Behold the meteor!”

Suddenly in mid-heaven, without a second’s warning, is staged by God the most stupendous sight upon which human eyes have ever gazed—the out-flashing, dazzling, awful splendor of the personal coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory.

Thus in Thine arms of love, O God, I lie, Lost, and for ever lost to all but Thee. My happy soul, since it hath learnt to die, Hath found new life in Thine Infinity.

The earth beholds and thrills with the first ecstatic moment of her deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

The angels behold and cry, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (Revelation 11:15).

The kings and princes of the world behold and cry to the rocks and hills to fall upon them and hide them from His presence.

The Antichrist beholds and falls palsied and helpless before the breath of His mouth and the glory of His coming.

The nations of the earth behold and wail because of Him.

Behold! Let us study the picture as the Scripture word-paints it. For not since the skies were stretched by the omnipotent hand of God in the ages that are past has their blue canopy been the setting for such a scene as now floods them with its glory. JAMES H. MCCONKEY

“Midnight is past,” sings the sailor on the Southern Ocean; “midnight is past; the Cross begins to bend.”

It is high time to awake out of sleep. Our Lord will come.

The Morning Cometh! A shout! A trumpet note! A Glorious Presence in the azure sky! A gasp, A thrill of joy, And we are with Him in the twinkling of an eye!

A glance, An upward look, Caught up to be with Christ forevermore! The dead alive! The living glorified! Fulfilled are all His promises that came before! His face! His joy supreme Our souls find rapture only at His feet! Blameless! Without a spot! We enter into heaven’s joy complete! Strike harps, Oh, sound His praise . . . We know Him as we never knew before! God’s love! God’s matchless grace! ’Twill take eternity to tell while we adore! ANNE CATHERINE WHITE

As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.—The Spirit of truth . . . will shew you things to come.

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

I beseech thee shew me thy glory. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.—No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.—I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh.

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.—I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.—We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.—The Lord himself shall descend from heaven . . . the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Enoch . . . the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all.—Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.