There is only one second coming. I understand it is taught that there will be two comings separated by seven years. The first coming is to carry the believers up to Heaven. The second is the return of Christ with the believers to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Last night we had some fun at the evening service. I asked the congregation if they had heard of the two comings separated by seven years. Some replied that they had.

I then asked them what they had been told the believers would do during that seven years.

Some said they had been informed there would be a wedding banquet lasting seven years. Others said this would be the time we receive our rewards. Still others referred to a period of fellowship in which football and golf might be played, when they were not reclining in their mansion.

I asked them to imagine this seven-year period and consider it carefully.

"Then," I said, "picture this! After seven years of frolicking and easy living the Lord suddenly says, ‘The party is over. Get up on the white war stallions. It now is time to invade the earth. We are going to descend into the middle of Hell and fight against all of the spiritual and physical wickedness that can be brought to bear against us.'"

Because most of these "raptured" believers have never had Christ formed in them, have never undergone moral transformation but have trusted in grace and imputed righteousness to save them, they still are filled with worldliness, the lusts of the flesh (which can exist outside the physical realm, such as in the case of demons of lust and anger), and self-will, self-centeredness, jealousy, selfishness, divisiveness, a need to have their own way, to seek preeminence in whatever situation they find themselves, and every other uncleanness of the spirit, soul, and body.

These are fearful, self-seeking, spiritually lazy people. The Lord would have a difficult time convincing them to mount the stallions and follow Him to the earth. They have never been trained for war. They have been told there is no need for them to be suffer. God wants nothing but their continued happiness. Most of them would disobey the Lord and return to their mansion, just as they do today.

Christ would lose the Battle of Armageddon if He depended on this kind of army.

From this point forward I desire, in this brief essay, to discuss two concepts: the first is that the coming of the Lord is the coming of war—the conflict of the ages; the final struggle between good and evil, God and Satan. The coming of the Lord will not be a time of high revelry but darkness and horror as Christ and His saints attack all the forces of Hell.

Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? (Amos 5:20—NIV)

To be continued.