Second, His personal coming to us is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for our appearing with Him at His historic second coming. Basic salvation and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are not sufficient to prepare us for the awesome role of riding behind Christ as He descends to deliver Jerusalem from Antichrist and to establish His Kingdom on the earth. We not only must have been saved and filled with God's Spirit, we also must have opened the door of our heart and received Him in such a manner that the Father and He are now enthroned in our personality.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. (Revelation 3:20,21—NIV)

The Throne of Christ is our heart when we open the door to the Lord.

The Words of Christ concerning opening the door of our personality are addressed to the church in Laodicea, that is, to the church era we are approaching in which great emphasis is placed on human rights, on the welfare of people—not their spiritual welfare in Christ but their physical welfare.

The stress on the physical welfare of people instead of their spiritual welfare in Christ will bring about an age of unprecedented wickedness because of the open door it will give to Satan. (When we do not open the door of our heart to Christ we automatically open it to Satan!) Therefore Christ has prepared the great third work of grace, the eternal residence of the Father and the Son in those who obey God, so every one who receives may be more than a conqueror throughout the coming age of moral horrors.

Third, the personal coming may have begun today, for the personal coming of the Lord is typified by the last three feasts of the Lord, and these come after Pentecost—that is, after we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

We are speaking now of a third work of grace, a Divine aspect of salvation that comes after we have been saved and filled with the Spirit. Being saved through the blood atonement gives us the authority to enter the third work.

Being filled with the Spirit gives us the wisdom and power to enter the third work.

It is the third work, the dwelling of the Father and the Son in us through the Holy Spirit, that is the Kingdom of God and the climax of redemption.

It is quite clear in the New Testament, as we shall see in the following pages, that there are two separate comings of the Lord. One is His historic coming to the world. The second is a personal coming to the disciple who is obeying His commandments.

To be continued.