| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
Coming to the Disciple and Coming to the World, #6
So if anyone tells you, "There he is, out in the desert," do not go out; or, "Here he is, in the inner rooms," do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:26,27—NIV)
I believe I have given you a true, scriptural portrayal of the historic second coming of Christ. His second coming in the clouds of glory will be followed by the thousand-year Kingdom Age.
There will be no secret coming prior to this great second coming, a pre-advent coming to carry off the Lord's people before the second coming. If there were to be such a special, secret coming, it would have occurred in the first century. Christians have suffered terribly during the two thousand years of the Church Era. There is no scriptural or logical reason why our generation of believers should be especially favored of God and caught away to Heaven so we do not suffer.
There has been much persecution of believers, and many have been martyred, to this point in the twentieth century. The vicious torture and murder of Christians is continuing as I am writing today. What scriptural, logical reason can be advanced to prove that for some unknown reason the American Christians of our time, many of whom are a disgrace to the Gospel of Christ, will be caught up so they may avoid suffering, while the godly have suffered through the centuries?
The changing of our blessed hope from the coming of the Lord to the going of carnal believers to Heaven is one of the symptoms of the philosophy of Humanism that has so poisoned Western thinking.
I believe the passages above are all referring to the same event—the historic return of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of glory.
Having established this biblical truth, let us turn our attention to a coming of the Lord that is not nearly as well understood.
The Coming to the Disciple
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:3—NIV)
Because of the wording of the New International Version (above) the impression is left that Jesus is going to Heaven to prepare a place for us in Heaven. Then He is going to return and bring us to Heaven so we can be with Him where He is in Heaven.
This is not what Jesus meant at all. The King James Version is closer to the truth.
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. (John 14:3—KJV)
If the student will search the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters of the Gospel of John he will discover the Lord never spoke of going to Heaven, only to the Father. This is not the same thing.
The Lord had said, "In my Father's house there are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you."
To be continued.