Today, we continue our new series on the Second Coming of Christ. When was the last time you heard a message on this topic? When was the last time you heard a man of God call the church to repent? Time is drawing short, the Antichrist is coming, and the great apostasy is happening now. In this series, we will explore the signs of His coming, the manner of His coming and much more. This will be a series that may read like a daily news broadcast because we are living in the last days. These messages will establish that point beyond any reasonable doubt. This lesson will be "The Manner of His Coming." When you have finished this study, you will be seeing the signs yourself. He is coming again, and we must be ready.
Introduction
The world is slowly sinking into spiritual midnight darkness. The light is slowly going out on the road to Hell. The church is married to the world and has lost her hope of His coming. The call to repentance is no longer heard from the church. Christ is standing outside the door of His church and knocking for entrance. The church is unmindful that she has lost the presence of Christ, being lost herself, and as a result there is no compassion for the souls of the lost. Old time prayer meetings are a thing of the past, and there is being substituted today every type and form of religious movement and programs such as religious movies, civil causes (social justice), "fun, food, and fellowship," all designed to boost morale, to increase the crowd size. The desire is to get a crowd, increase its size, and thereby increase finances.
There are at least four things wrong with the world today:
1. The believer is out of place; we ought to be home with Christ.
2. Christ is out of His place; He is outside the worldly compromising church.
3. Satan is out of his place, he ought to be in hell.
4. The Jew is out of his place; he ought to be in Palestine.
When Christ is in His place and the believer is with Christ, when the Jew is in his place and Satan is in his place, then we will have the thousand-year reign of peace on earth. God will bring this to pass.
Section 1: Manner of His Coming
Against the dark background of our times, there is a ray of hope; the return of the Lord Jesus Christ back to earth again. The Lord Jesus Christ will come back to earth in two stages. First, He comes to the earth, but He does not actually stand on the ground. Rather, He stops in midair FOR His saints. This is the first resurrection of the believing dead and the transfiguration of the living believer, which is commonly referred to as the RAPTURE, or the catching away of the believer. The second stage of His coming is known as the REVELATION or the "appearing," or manifestation, of Chrisy WITH His saints., when He comes to earth to reign. There are many Scriptures which tell of His coming that would seem to contradict each other if we do not understand the distinction between the rapture, or first resurrection, and the revelation, the two stages of His coming back to the earth.
The word "rapture" means "to be caught up, or caught away, or kidnapped, taken by force" from this earth to be with Christ. The revelation of Christ, or the unveiling, means the appearing, or the shining forth, or the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ in all His glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. The rapture occurs when the born-again believer is caught up to meet Christ in the air, and this takes place before the Great Tribulation, according to 1 Thessalonians 4: 14, 17: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. 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 revelation occurs when Christ comes WITH all His saints to end the Great Tribulation by the execution of righteous judgment upon the earth, according to II Thessalonians 1: 7-10: "And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."
Section 2: Distinguishing Between Rapture and Revelation
At the RAPTURE Christ comes into the air FOR His saints, according to John 14: 3: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." At the REVELATION the Lord Jesus Christ comes to earth WITH His saints, according to 1 Thessalonians 3: 13: "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." The Lord must come FOR His saints before He can come WITH His saints. Some day before long the Lord Jesus Christ will lay aside His priestly garments as our High Priest and deck Himself in the robe of the Bridegroom and leave heaven with a shout, coming for His own. He will descend into midair, and the Holy Spirit will call forth all the believing dead at the sound of the first trumpet, and at the sounding of the second trumpet He will translate all the living believers; then the two companies are united together; the resurrected believers and the translated living believers. They will be taken away or caught away by force by the Holy Spirit. Friends, does your heart cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus, come!" Mine does.
The RAPTURE is the first stage of His coming. We see the rapture that Christ comes as the Bridegroom to take unto Himself His bride (Matthew 25: 10), "And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut." Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, according to Ephesians 5: 25, and redeemed it with His precious blood, according to Acts 20: 28, "That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5: 27) The cry of every born-again believer should be, "Lord, make me like unto thee." In the first stage of His coming, He comes as a Bridegroom for His bride, which He has purchased with His blood. Listen closely, I want to make sure you hear this: The purpose of the Gospel today is not to bring in the kingdom, or to make the world a better place in which to live, but to call out God's elect, save them, and make them ready for the Lord's return.
At the REVELATION Christ comes with His bride to rule the nations with a rod of iron, according to Revelation 2: 26, 27, "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father." Revelations 5: 10 states: "And hast made us unto our God kings (a kingdom) and priests; and we shall reign on the earth." Read also Revelations 19: 15: "And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."
There is a teaching among some groups known as "Amillennialism," which means "no millennium." They teach that Christ is ruling and reigning right now. That what we experience now is all we will know. This is simply wrong. Look around you and see if it looks like Christ is ruling on earth. The only place Christ rules in in the hearts of the believer. This does not take away from God's Sovereignty. He is in charge and part of His being in charge is to allow to take place what is happening in the world today. After the REVELATION there will be a thousand-year reign known as the Millennium.
At the RAPTURE the Lord Jesus comes only to meet the saints in the air. At the REVELATION He comes back to earth, according to Acts 1: 11: "...This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go to heaven." Christ left Mt. Olivet: He'll come back to Mt. Olivet. Zechariah 14: 4, 5 makes this very clear,
"And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south...And the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee."
Notice how Zechariah made it personal: "The LORD MY God shall come." Are you going to be coming with the saints? Will you? Yes, the feet of our blessed Lord will one day again stand again upon Mt. Olivet, from which He ascended. He will rule with His bride one thousand years! Praise the Lord! Where will you be standing? With Him or against Him. There is no middle ground.
At the RAPTURE the church, like Enoch, will be taken out of the world. It is said that "Enoch walked with God" for three hundred years, and one day he disappeared, "and he was not; for God took him." He went to heaven without dying. That is the same experience that will happen to the living believers at the time of the RAPTUIRE. This world is not your home if you belong to Christ. One day He is coming back FOR YOU! I don't know about you but that encourages my soul. My LORD is coming back for me. Is He coming back for you? You can be ready if you will come to Him acknowledging and repenting of your sins and having faith in His blood sacrifice as a substitute for you. YOU MUST HAVE A BLOOD SUBSTITUTE! Scoffers can laugh as I'm sure the lost in the times of Noah did until it started to rain. In the same way, when He returns at the REVELATION it will be too late if you have already rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation! Are you ready?
At the REVELATION, that is when Christ comes WITH His saints back to earth, the Millennial Kingdom begins. In Luke 21: 28 the rapture is referred to as being at the beginning of the Tribulation, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." Redemption spoken here means the first redemption, as set forth in Romans 8: 23, "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Then in Luke 21: 31 the revelation is referred to: "When ye see these things (speaking of the tribulation) come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." Believers have for years prayed for His return as we do now. Do you pray for His return? If not, why not? Know for a certainty, I stake my eternal destiny on the face that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again soon! He is coming back because the Word of God says so and His Word cannot be broken. Let the scoffer laugh, the unsaved religionist make fun, and the infidel belittle if they will the second coming of Christ, but in spite of all their laughter and ridicule our Lord is coming back, for His own.
The RAPTURE, that is Christ coming for His own, can occur at any moment, according to Matthew 24: 42: "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." There is not one thing that stands in the way of the Lord coming any minute for His own. I look every day and ask; is this the day I see my Lord return for the church? Are you ready, my friend? Suppose He comes in the next 5 minutes? For myself, I had a real awareness that I was not ready to meet Him. I was scared. I saw my need as a lost sinner and yielded myself to Him in repentance and faith and He saved me, GLORY TO GOD! I knew He didn't have to save me, but He did. I brought no righteousness with me when I came to Him. I only brought my sin. He took MY sin and gave me HIS righteousness.
Why are you not concerned about your soul in like manner I do not understand, sinner-friend. The Word of God is too plain for you not to hear and understand. Knowing that He could come at any moment for His church, why do you delay coming to Christ? He will never turn you away. We have no assurance that He will delay His coming another hour. There is not one promise in the Word of God that He would ever have mercy on you if you do not get saved before the Rapture. I know that there will be a multitude saved during the Millennial reign, as well as during the Tribulation period. I know that. But to you who have had your chance now and have turned it down, I hold out no hope at all for you!
While the RAPTURE can occur at any moment, the REVELATION will not take place until the close of the Great Tribulation, and after the Antichrist is revealed and rules the earth for seven years. The REVELATION of Christ ushers in the day that the Bible speaks of as "the day of the Lord." Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5: 2: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." Then Luke 17: 30 states: "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."
There are many prophecies which will be fulfilled after the RAPTURE before Christ comes in His REVELATION, that is between the Rapture (Christ coming for His own) and the Revelation (Christ coming with His saints back to earth again). First, when Christ comes for His own and takes them out of the world, then will come the revelation of the Antichrist (the son of Satan). Antichrist cannot and will not be revealed until the Holy Spirit takes every believer out of the world, both the living and the dead. This will be the beginning of the Tribulation Period, known as Daniel's seventieth week of years (Daniel 9: 24). Second, God will again deal with the Jews, bringing them back to Jerusalem and gathering His elect from among the Jews to receive the Messiah (Christ) when He comes in His revelation. Third, during this period between the rapture and the revelation God will deal with the apostate church, and every Christ-rejector will receive his just recompense of reward. Fourth, there will take place the Judgment Seat of Christ in the heavens, before which every saint will have to appear and give account of his stewardship.
Fifth, there will be the Marriage of the Lamb and the Marriage Supper after the Judgment Seat of Christ while the Tribulation is taking place on this earth under the reign of the Antichrist. I am going to be at the Marriage Supper! Are you? Sixth, Satan will have his heyday on earth, when he will rule this earth through the Antichrist. I won't be here on earth, will you? Seventh, the wrath of the Lamb shall be poured out upon a Christ-rejecting world. I want it to be crystal clear; before we can enter the Millennial Reign on earth when Christ reigns for 1000 years, this world will pass through the darkest hours she has ever known. The world is being prepared now; she is ripening for judgment, and the only thing that is holding back the judgment of God is the return of our blessed Lord, the presence of the Holy Spirit here on earth waiting for the coming of our Lord. We are so near Christ's coming for His own that I tremble for the unsaved and what they will go through during the Tribulation.
Section 3: The Attitude of the Believer
In the face of these facts, what should be the attitude of every born-again believer? First, we should walk humbly before God, as Enoch did, so as to please Him. We should also be like the prophet Micah, "He hath showed thee, O Man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Then, seeing that these days are coming upon us, we should be like the Apostle Peter.
"Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?...Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless" (II Peter 3: 11-14).
To me the rapture or being caught away at the coming of the Bridegroom, is full of the sweetest comfort. Paul, talking about the coming of our Lord for His own, says in 1 Thessalonians 4: 18, "Comfort one another with these words." What is more blessed to the human heart--what thrills the human heart that is born-again, washed in the blood of the Lamb, more than the thought of the fact that the Lord is coming, and that He might come at any moment! Not only does it comfort my heart, but it gives me strength and courage to fight on, because I know there is coming an end to this battle, and we will win!!!
Conclusion
What does His coming again mean to you, my friend? Are you waiting for His coming or are you fearful of His coming? Let me ask the believer the following questions:
1. Are you giving yourself to witness and testify of Christ as you should?
2. Are you being true to the souls of men in our testimony as you should?
Let us give ourselves and spare nothing to being faithful to the cause of Christ. We must get the truth to the lost. I like the expression, "Preaching the Word of God as it is, to men as they are." Can you say, "Yes, Lord, I will be faithful."
Let me ask the lost sinner these questions:
1. Is His coming a joy to your heart?
2. Do you believe He is coming again? If so, do you want to be saved?
3. Sinner, will you cry out for mercy? Down, sinner! Down! Down at His feet and cry for mercy. Will you ask Him for mercy?
Throw yourself upon His mercy!
You now know the manner of His coming. What will you do?
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