BEHOLD! HE COMETH
“THIS same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
These words were spoken by the angels as the disciples stood gazing up into heaven and as Jesus Christ ascended out of their sight. We know His coming will be just as literal as His ascension. “And unto them that look for him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28). None will see Him, but those who look for Him.
The Rapture
The living members of the Bride of Christ are looking for the coming of the Bride-groom. When we see Him, His glory will be revealed in us. This is the reward of the saints – the redemption of their bodies. These living members of the Bride of Christ, are not looking to the grave but are expecting to be raptured and to be among the number who will return with Christ when He comes with ten thousands of His saints (Jude 14, 15). Our salvation will then be complete, when we shall see Him as He is.
Full Overcomers
Only holy people will be able to meet the Lord Jesus at His coming – the Rapture of the church. To have part in the Rapture, we who live in the time of and under the light of the Latter Rain Gospel must be sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, and living the life of a full overcomer. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure (1 John 3:3). This is our Blessed hope, the coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who will change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. This is the first resurrection. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.”
We must walk with God, like Enoch of old who “was not; for God took him.” We must be filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire. God in these last days is pouring out His Spirit on sanctified souls, baptizing them with the Holy Ghost as in Acts 2: 1-4. We must seek for this anointing and power for service, and have the whole word wrought out in our soul if we expect to see the Bridegroom when He comes.
The Wise Virgins
We are living in the days spoken of by Matthew, when the virgins are going forth to meet the Bridegroom. “But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” The oil represents the Holy Ghost. Foolish virgins are going forth to meet Him with an empty vessel and light going out, but they will not see Him. The only way to be ready is to go down before God and consecrate deeper and prepare our hearts to receive the oil; and when we are ready for it, God will send the might baptism.
The foolish virgin found when the cry went forth, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,” that something was wrong with their lamps. Their oil was gone. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and the door was shut (Matthew 25:1-23). The midnight cry is upon us today. Get oil in your vessels and be clean and holy, for He is coming soon. The Spirit witnesses to it and the word says, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the son of man cometh” (Matthew 24: 44).
We are likely to witness at any moment the mighty miracle of the Rapture. “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” (1Thessalonians 4: 16, 17). It will be in the twinkling of an eye and the world will not see it. (1 Corinthians 15::51,52). “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (Matthew 24: 40, 41). The ones who are not ready will be left to go through the awful Tribulation.
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Then Christ’s spotless Bride who has suffered on earth and has gone through the humiliation with Him will be ushered in to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Jesus Himself will come forth and serve them. It will pay to make every consecration and be ready to meet Him. After the marriage Supper, the Bride, arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, will follow the Bridegroom on white horses when He returns as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11-16).
The Great Tribulation
We read that an angel proclaimed in the midst of Heaven, after the catching away of the overcomers, “The hour of His judgment is come.” This is the great tribulation. Plagues will be poured out upon the ungodly (Revelation 9 and 16). The Antichrist, during that awful time, will compel men to serve him and bow down to him as God, and cause all to be killed who will not bow down and worship him. Those who do worship him or receive his mark will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 14:9-11). But those who really know Jesus Christ and have His blood on their hearts will never bow down, nor accept the mark of the beast. Many will be martyrs and will be raised at the beginning of the Millennium and live and reign with Christ a thousand years (Revelation 20:4), but they will not be present at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
The awful Tribulation is coming upon the earth (Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21). God is sending forth His Spirit now to prepare His Bride so that she may escape it and be caught up to the bosom of God. When the great flood came upon the earth, Noah and his family went into the ark and God shut the door (Genesis 7). This is a type of the Great Tribulation that is coming upon the earth. And all those who have found grace in the eyes of the Lord by obeying His voice will be caught up out of the judgments that will be poured out, and be shut in with God “until the indignation be overpast” (Isaiah 26:20). As the Lord shut Noah in the ark, so He will shut us in. as the ark was borne above the waters, so we shall be lifted up with Him; and as the ark came back and rested on the mount, so we shall come back with Him when His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
The Jews
God is bringing to a close this Gentile dispensation, and when He closes the door, He will turn to the Jews and they will be saved. A remnant of the Jews will survive the Great Tribulation and will accept their Messiah who they have so long rejected. “And it shall come to pass, that in the land, saith the LORD, two part therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, “It is my people”: and they shall say, The LORD is my God” (Zechariah 12: 8,9). “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son” (Zechariah
- 10). They will say: “What are these wounds in thine hands?” Then He shall answer, “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” (Zechariah 13: 6). Now is the time for the Gentiles to come in, before the door is shut.
The Revelation
Jesus Christ is coming back again, and His feet will stand on this earth, upon the very spot – Mount Olivet – from which He ascended; but first He is coming in mid-air to catch away His people. The Rapture, or catching away of the Bride of Christ (1Thessalonians 4: 16, 17) is likely to take place at any time; but we know that His revelation, or the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth when every eye shall see Him, cannot take place until the “man of sin be revealed, who is the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2: 3).
“Behold, He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindred of the earth shall wail because of him” (Revelation 1:7) . The Lord Jesus is coming back with His Bride on white horses from the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, to avenge His Blood on the Antichrist and the false prophet, and He shall destroy the wicked with the brightness of His coming (Revelation 19: 11 – 15) and 2Thessalonians 2: 8).
He will come back with ten thousands of His saints in flaming fire of judgment. “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives” (Zechariah 14: 4). The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men shall hide themselves and say to the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6: 16). They will cast their idols of silver and of gold to the moles and bats (Isaiah 2: 19, 20).
Then the awful battle of Armageddon takes place. He will tread “the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” The beast and the false prophet will be taken and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant of the armies of the antichrist will be slain with the sword that proceeds out of His mouth, and the fowls shall be filled with their flesh (Revelation 19:14-21; Zechariah 14:3). The blood will run to the horses’ bridles for a distance of two hundred miles (Revelation 14:20)
Jesus Christ will return to this earth with His raptured saints from the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and bring to a close the Great Tribulation and reign of the Antichrist. Christ will set up His kingdom and reign a thousand years in the Great Millennium. The saints who come back with Him, and those who are resurrected in the final phase of the first resurrection – which takes place at the close of the Tribulation – will reign with Him for the thousand years.
The Great Millennium
Then the Lord shall be king over all the earth and reign from shore to shore. The devil will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years (Revelation 20: 1-3); and the Bride of Christ will reign with Jesus, some over five cities and some over ten (Luke 19:12-19). Then this earth will blossom as the rose and be like the Garden of Eden. “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 65: 25; 11:6-10).
The Feast of Tabernacles
During the Millennium, we shall see the Feast of Tabernacles fulfilled. We have the Passover Feast fulfilled in the death of Calvary’s Lamb; the Pentecost Feast fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit; and now we are looking for the Feast of Tabernacles. It was a time when they learned the law from the mouth of the High Priest; and our great high Priest who has passed into the heavens is coming to set up His throne at Jerusalem, and the law shall go forth from His mouth, and all nations shall be gathered unto Him. “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2: 3,4), Just before the earth is destroyed by fire, Satan will be loosed a little season and tempt the living nations and there will be a last great battle (Revelation 20:7-9). Then the heavens and the earth shall pass away and destroyed.
The White Throne Judgment
The fearful consummation of our age will be the White Throne Judgment. Of this the Apostle John wrote: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-15).
And the redeemed shall live in the new Heaven and the new earth that shall never pass away. Jesus must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. Then He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father (1 Corinthians 15: 24, 25).
The Bride of Christ is the sorrowing bride today. She is now bearing her cross. She is pure and holy, washed in the Blood, refined and tried as gold, willing to be counted as the offscouring of the earth and suffer reproach for His name. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and He will have a Bride to reign with Him who has first suffered with Him. We are living in the very eve of the coming of the Son of God. Soon our privilege of winning souls for Jesus will be past. Then how many will cry, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!”
The Last Call Is Upon Us
Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). “This gospel” means salvation, sanctification, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and power to heal the sick and cast out devils. It is being preached to the nations today; and the end is near.
A great revival has been sweeping over the earth for many years, with the signs following, as foretold in the word. The faith is being restored and the entire Gospel preached. It is an unmistakable sign of the Lord’s return.
The prophecy of Jesus’ soon coming has been spoken by hundreds, and given in visions and dreams and in many languages, spoken as the Spirit gave utterance. It has been heralded and published as never before. This Gospel, in its fullness as Jesus preached it, must be preached in all the world; and missionaries, and papers in many languages, are carrying it to the nations. God is making a short work in the earth.
The Gospel is being carried into the highways and hedges. The table is spread, and yet there is room. Multitudes of lost souls are needy and bleeding and sore. God’s command is, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14: 23)