God the Son His Coming With His Saints
Roger Henderson · Oct 6, 2002
Major Bible Themes (2002-03), No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262248111136

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today, we're finishing up a section. In the first 19 chapters, there's sort of a pattern, if you will. The first four chapters talk about the Bible, God's Word. And then we basically have a section on a chapter on the Trinity, a chapter on God the Father. And then there's seven chapters on God the Son, and six chapters on God the Holy Spirit.

And I want to kind of point something out here. In fact, if you look through the book, you'll see that right now we're looking at this kind of comparison between God the Son's coming for His saints, the rapture, versus God's coming with His saints, His second coming, or His coming in power and glory.

And actually, we're going to see some other chapters that address this topic, but maybe from a different perspective. This is more a comparison and contrast we're doing this morning. Later on, we're going to be doing There's actually three more chapters that talk about the events preceding the second coming, the great tribulation, and the second coming of Christ. So we're going to have a chance to, this isn't the last time we're going to look at this area. And the intent of these two chapters is really to contrast, to try to highlight or spotlight that there is a difference between the rapture and the second coming. And that's the main focus of this morning.

There's certainly a lot more. We're going to spend going through Revelation. We've been going through the end times a lot already. So there's a lot more that can be said. But for this morning, we're going to kind of contrast those two things. So let me go to your book back here. OK.

Well, here's a picture that we've kind of been using for these seven chapters on God the Son. Now, we've talked about His preexistence, His incarnation, His death on the cross and resurrection, His ascension. And then now we're going to come to this part here where we're going to contrast. And then Hal last week covered His coming for His saints. And this morning we're going to talk about His coming with His saints.

And then we kind of label some things from the bottom, the Church Age, the Tribulation, the Kingdom, and the Day of the Lord. And actually, it's funny, after you start going through this, there's another chart I should have built, but I didn't. I always have good ideas after you finish. But the section we're going to cover this morning, His Coming with His Saints, I have about four or five points. And you'll see it as we go through the charts.

But just kind of to give you an overview, we're going to look at You know, in contrasting His coming for His saints to rapture with His second coming, I think it's important that we look and compare those two events and really see, you know, the differences.

And part of that is looking at sort of what we're going to see this morning is that Christ is physically coming to the earth at the second coming. At the rapture, He doesn't physically come to earth. The saints come up, and as this little picture indicates, we meet the Lord in the air. So there's a physical coming to the earth.

So that's one point. Another point is that the clouds are involved. As when the Lord left, when the disciples in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, when he left, they saw him go into the clouds, he went into the clouds, and they said he'll come back in just the same way. So his coming back, The second coming, the clouds are involved. And we're going to see that several different words that are used. Some have, he's engulfed, he's on the clouds, with the clouds. It's funny, I went through four or five verses, and it's amazing. In different versions of those verses, the clouds are intimately involved in the Lord's return. The third point is that it's a glorious event.

Whereas the rapture was an event that was very spontaneous at any moment. The second coming is one that is almost a drawn-out thing. They use the idea of lightning, like a thunderstorm possibly. And if you, you know, like in Colorado, you might see the storm coming in the distance and it comes, it gradually comes, and lightning and thunder, and then it passes.

Well, that's kind of the picture it seems that when the Lord comes in power and glory. It's an event that is observed and comes, it has a duration, if you will, whereas the rapture is instantaneous. And the other point is that he's coming with his saints. There are many verses that talk about the fact that the Lord is not alone. He's coming with his holy ones or with his saints. We'll see some of that. And then we're going to also see that, whereas the event of the rapture is only talked about in the New Testament, it's a mystery, not previously known, the second coming is talked about in all the scripture, Old and New Testament alike.

So those are about five points there that we're going to kind of cover as we go through. And we're going to kind of just go through, look at the verses and kind of, and then at the end, there's kind of a comparison chart. And actually I have, I found looking at, in the book, there's at the end of each chapter, at the end of chapter 12 and 13, there's a section on the contrast. I would, I would commend that to your looking at that. It talks about the differences between the rapture and the second coming.

And I was going to build this super list that I got. I didn't finish. So anyway, I have a partial list, which has already it's his list for the most part. I kind of rearranged it a little bit. OK. So let's look at point number one here. OK, the first point, he's going to return physically to the earth. And I'd like you to turn to Zachariah. I'd like somebody who would volunteer to read this passage for us. Zachariah. Chapter 14. If someone would volunteer to read the first four verses. I'll read it. OK. Thanks, Alan.

Behold, the day of the Lord comes, and thy spoils shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and houses destroyed, and the women ravished. And half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when he fought in the day of battle.

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 its midst toward the east and toward the west. And there shall be a very great valley. And half the mountain shall be moved towards the north and half of it towards the south. So, you know, how I read that verse, and just listening to it, and maybe if you're following along, could someone point out to me maybe something that strikes you about the, this is speaking about, it says, the day of the Lord. I'll just tell you one thing that, in my study of this, I have a new American standard. I don't know, how many folks have a new American standard? Just, I'm kind of curious. Okay, quite a few.

I really like, it's a wonderful translation, but sometimes there's little difficulties in the fact that since most of the study aids are in the King James, that Numeric Center doesn't render, in verse 1, it doesn't render that the day of the Lord. So that was a little bit of a stumbling block to me when I started studying this verse. I wasn't sure it has a day as coming for the Lord. So that was a little bit of a stumbling block in a way. But once I realized that they're talking about the day of the Lord, that helped. So that's just kind of an aside.

What I was wondering, What would you say here, just a first impression, what would you say is happening in these four verses? Just pick one thing that you see in terms of the Lord and what's happening. For example, what's happening just before he's going to stand on the Mount of Olives there? You know, yeah, go ahead. Okay, good, good.

So there's a battle that's going to take place, right? And then actually, you'll see after that, like in verse four, that the, actually in verse three, the Lord's going to, he's going to fight against these nations. And the battle lines are drawn, right?

And he points out that, that it's going to be an awful time. The city's going to be captured, houses plundered, women ravaged. The city of exile is going to be an awful, terrible time. And I think that's talking about the Tribulation period, talking about the end of the Tribulation period. And this great battle is going to be formed, and the Lord's going to go forth. And looking at this, it's interesting. In verse 3 there, it talks about the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations.

And looking at some different translations, it's the idea, like today, most of you folks, not most of you, some of you folks will, if you like the Broncos, may go watch the Broncos. And at the beginning of the game, the team, like in the Super Bowl, they come to this shoot, they take the field. Well, the idea of going forth is to take the field. The Lord is going to take the field in this battle. And that word fight is the idea to wage war.

He's going to take the field and wage war It's not going to be a very long war, it didn't seem to me. The Lord's going to be victorious pretty quick. But it's kind of interesting looking at some various translations of things that there's a picture of the battle being, people coming up and battle being drawn, taking the field and the battle is executed.

And then you'll see down in verse 4, it talks about that he will physically, and in that day, and that's referring back to the day of the Lord, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. So he's going to physically stand there. He's going to physically stand on the Mount of Olives. And what we're going to see later on, that's just where he left from. It's the same place that he left the earth from. He left from the Mount of Olives, and he's going to come back to stand on the Mount of Olives. And it talks about, you know, the Mount of Olives will be split in the middle, and there's some things that happen there. And here's one thing I think that's interesting, and that I mentioned about the Day of the Lord. You know, the Day of the Lord is a period of time.

And, you know, if we looked at the picture we had here before... Let me get it right here in a second. The day of the Lord is shown here starting at the rapture. And you might say, well, this verse says that the day of the Lord is here at his second coming. So it looks like the day of the Lord has been moved over to here. So as I look through this verse, I begin to see how people can say, well, OK, it says in this passage the day of the Lord starts here.

So if you make the Day of the Lord start here, then all that we studied last week, you're going to have all those events moved. These events are going to collapse right together. And I began to see, well, that's why there's so much difference of opinion, different views. Well, because you were trying to pin the Day of the Lord to a day where it's a period.

And all these things describe different aspects of things that happen over this, quote, Day of the Lord, a period of time. And just to refresh your memory, let's go back to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. And I'd just like to read verses 1 and 2.

It says, that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. And then there's a parallel verse like in Peter. It says that same phrase, a thief in the night. So as we do with all scripture, we observe, well, OK, this verse says the day of the Lord is as a thief in the night. This verse says the day of the Lord, that the Lord Jesus will stay on the Mount of Olives. And then we find other aspects of the day of the Lord. We find all these pieces of information about the day of the Lord. So how do we put that together? How do we correlate that? And basically, what I believe is that that's describing this entire period. It starts here, and there are different aspects.

One aspect is described when the Lord stands on the Mount of Olives. That's part of the Day of the Lord. And later on, there's aspects that talk about in the kingdom. And there's aspects that talk about here. So there's many verses that, and actually, Dr. Schaefer, not in this volume, but in his systematic theology volume, he basically points out that that's kind of a critical study to really come to understand that the day of the Lord is this big time period.

Otherwise, you're going to have events, you're going to flip them around, have all kinds of different layouts there. So I think that's really important. And you need to look at it and decide, is that really, you know, When do these events occur? If you don't, it's going to be confusion. It's going to be very confusing.

But I started reading this verse and not realizing it was the Day of the Lord, and I was very confused. Then afterwards, I said, well, OK. You've got different aspects of the Day of the Lord talked about at the time period, not a single day. OK. Let's see here. How did I do with that? OK. So let's go back to OK, the next verse I want to look at is this is a really familiar verse in Job. Could someone volunteer to read in Job 19? Job 19. And actually, if you could, someone could read 23 to 27. Harry, yeah, thank you. Yeah, verse 23 through verse 27. that with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. At last he will take his stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me. OK, thank you. That's great.

So even Job, you know, Job realized that the Lord will take his stand on the earth. He will physically take his stand on the earth. Basically, other translations have, he will reveal himself on the earth. Other renderings of the same passage. He will reveal himself on the earth. He will stand on the earth. So we're talking about a physical thing. So I kind of had a what, when, where kind of thing. What's going to happen?

The Lord's going to stand on the earth. And that's going to happen at the conclusion of this battle. He's going to stand there when the battle begins. It's going to happen on the Mount of Olives. So that's the what, when. He's going to stand on the earth. The when is that battle at the end of the tribulation. And it's going to be in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.

Okay. So that's point one. He's physically going to stand on the earth. Point two is the thing about the clouds. And I found this really kind of interesting. Let's look at Acts chapter one. I'll go ahead here and I'll read Acts chapter 1. I'll start in verse 9.

It says, And after he said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. And they also said, Men of Galilee, Why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven. So this passage, and if you look here, if you look basically down in verse 12, you'll see that then they return to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. So we see this is where the Lord left from, and He's going to return to the same place.

And I kind of put some phrases out of that passage. I think that a cloud received Him, and also it says that He'll come back in just the same way. I think that those are kind of significant things to think about. And also, another thing to observe, and one more thing.

In verse 11, it says, and actually the King James has it a little bit stronger, it says, in my version it says, this Jesus or this same Jesus. So the same Jesus that left there is going to return there. I mean, that's not a biggie, but it just kind of, just kind of is, I think, significant. The scripture is very precise. It's like saying the same person is going to return to the same place. It's very specific.

There's not any doubt that the Lord Jesus left from that point, and the same person is going to return to that same point. So King James has the same Jesus. And this is interesting. This idea of the cloud. He was received in the cloud. The cloud, in different renderings, the cloud hit him or took him. Or he rode in the cloud. There's a variety of different descriptions of that. And actually, there's a passage that kind of describes this a little bit in 1 Timothy 3. So it's just a short little section. 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16.

And it talks about, and this is a wonderful ending, I think, that we read many times. And by common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the spirit, beheld by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up into glory. So the same idea, taken up or actually it could be received or taken into. The cloud seems to be an integral part of that, and we're going to have other verses that are going to address that as well.

So we see that the cloud hit him or encompassed him, took him up. Now, okay, let's look at... at Revelation chapter 1. Could someone volunteer to read verse 7 for us here in Revelation chapter 1? Bonnie? Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierce him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him.

Even so, amen. OK. OK. Actually, I found one of the parts here. OK, he is coming. This says with the clouds. I have other renderings that say among the clouds, on the clouds. I'm not quite sure of the... It seems like it could be rendered any of those three ways, among the clouds, on the clouds, or with the clouds.

And then there's the idea kind of in here that every eye will see him, or it actually could be rendered, every eye shall observe him with recognition and understanding. That's in the Wyss translation. Every eye shall observe him with recognition and understanding.

So that's a lot more than just, you might just, you know, a car whizzes by you when you're driving along and say, that was a red car. this seems like it's a much more significant they're going to acknowledge and know who that is. It's not just a casual, well, this red car whizzed by me. They're going to realize and know that it is the Lord Jesus. It's a significant, you know, with understanding and recognition.

Can anyone explain how every eye will see him? That's a tough one. That's a tough one. We've had, at home, we've had a lot of discussions about that. How is every eye going to see him? I don't know. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Internet. Internet. Any other ideas? How is every eye going to see him? The Lord hasn't really told us. Unless somebody has an idea, I'd be happy to... Doesn't the book say, Come, let us see earth turn?

Well, actually, and that's good, Bonnie. And that's good because we're going to see that we're going to see this as a, as I mentioned, this is a, it's a procession or progression of things. So it's not, it's not like the rapture, which is very quick. This is a, this is like a storm. So some have argued, I think that, that the earth would turn in this time period. I think the author, I think the author offers that as an explanation.

Go ahead. That's excellent. Excellent. Right. Right. That's good. That's good. OK. OK. I have one more cloud verse here. Daniel chapter 7. I think there's actually more. This is not an exhaustive list of all the ones that talk about the clouds and the Lord Jesus. In Daniel chapter 7 and verse 13, I'll just go ahead and read that.

It says, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming, and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away. His kingdom is one, which will not be destroyed.

So in verse 13, it talks about the fact that, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, And actually, there's an author of a New Testament translation called Knox. Yes, he's actually Monsignor Knox, I think it is. And actually, he renders this riding on the clouds of heaven. So anyway, I just throw this out for all these different relationships, standing, riding, engulfed. It's interesting that the Lord clouds took him up and clouds will return him.

Okay, so we see here that it's going to be a visible bodily return. And it's the same Jesus that left. So from the verses we've looked at, I don't see, you know, this is a visible bodily return of our Savior. I don't see what other conclusion you can come to.

Any thoughts or comments about that? Okay, okay, that's interesting. Okay, okay, that's good. Any other thoughts? Okay. All right. OK, so those the first two points. So what I'm trying to do here, I'm just trying to build up a picture and then we're going to look.

I want to go back and just look at what Hal did last week, a little part of that and look at the rapture and just kind of we're just trying to contrast between these. Are these two events? Can it's possible. Can you can you merge these two events? It's kind of the issue. Or are they distinct events? Which I believe they really are distinct events.

OK, so let's. OK. So in Matthew, Matthew, Chapter 24. I have another volunteer here to read Matthew 24, they could read the. From twenty seven to thirty. I think this is a very descriptive passage. This really helps this along with the passage we've read so far, really. So if I could get. Go ahead. Thank you.

But just as the lightning comes from the eaves and flashes in the moonlight, so will the coming of the sun of man be. Wherever its corpse is, there the vultures will gather. But immediately after the tribulation of the day, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the tribes of the earth will know. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, a power, a great glory. Could you also read 31? And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather together to be left from the four realms and come down into the sky together.

OK. All right. Actually, I don't have my, I just have some bullets about the passage, but back in 27, I think it's really, really significant. And this, this really kind of helped me. Once again, it's this idea of, as lightning says, as lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west. So in my mind, you know, this is, this is, someone has described this, you know, how, how public, How public is a thunderstorm? If we have a really bad thunderstorm here, like we had tornadoes a couple of weeks ago, a month ago, that's a pretty public event, right?

I mean, it's reported on the news. I mean, schools get locked down. Bonnie, who's been subbing it for Cherry Creek, they locked down her school or something like that. I think Ryan got locked down at his school at Grandview. And so anyway, it's a public event.

The public knows about it. So this is talking about that. It seems like making a comparison here. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. So I think this verse really, to me, says this is going to be a public event. It's not going to be a private event. It's going to be very noticeable. Everyone's going to see it.

And also, I think the second part is that I'm not sure it's It talks about the lightning coming. It seems to me that it is speaking about a time period that the lightning is coming. It was it was farther there and it came to here and it is moving. So it's describing a time period.

OK, then. Let me just mention verse 28. It seems to be like an aside almost, but it seems like it's talking about, you know, an aside talking about possibly about judgment. But anyway, people have pondered why kind of in the middle of this that verse 28 is there. I'm not sure I can really give you a good explanation. It's interesting. But then let's go to verse 29.

But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give us light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken. Actually, what's kind of neat is actually Verne's been going through Revelation. He covered this exact passage, so I feel I've benefited by listening to him talk about it. If you think about it, sun darken, moon will not give light, stars will fall from the sky. How much light are we going to have? There's not going to be a whole lot of light. There's no sun, there's no moon, and the stars are gone. So all we're going to see, it seems like, we're going to see our Savior. We're going to see His glory and His radiance. There's no other light source that I can see from what that description is.

I have another question for you here. It says, Let me find it here. I see. OK. It's the third bullet. It says, the sign of the Son of Man, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, I think. OK. Can someone tell me what you think the sign of the Son of Man is? These aren't easy questions. These are ones I'm sure people have... Or is there something in the passage you think that might indicate that? And that was kind of what I thought. I thought that I could find something in the passage that might indicate what the sign of the Son of Man is. I know. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. I think it is light. I guess the question is, what's the source of that light? Already kind of talked around that a little bit. Right, right. This is not my idea.

Someone said we're going to see His glory. Our Savior's glory. His glory, the Shekinah glory. Some have offered that as being... The Shekinah glory was a special one that they talked about in the Old Testament. I'm not sure I totally understand the Shekinah glory, but it's God's glory. We're going to see His glory. And it says that He's going to come in power and great glory.

So I think that the sign is our Savior Himself. Just His presence there is the sign of the Son of Man. And actually, that word sign in the New Testament can be rendered a testing miracle. In fact, actually, Weiss renders this passage, that section, the attesting miracle of the Son of Man shall appear in the sky. He's coming on the clouds with great glory and power. That's a miraculous thing.

Okay. And then it talks about these groups of people here. And actually, it says, all people of the earth will mourn. And then it says, they, or all people, will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds. The idea of every eye will see him. And we also see that there'll be a great mourning over that. People, if they recognize him more, if they know who he is, they know that that's the Savior, every eye will see him and recognize and comprehend who he is, then there will be mourning. They'll realize that they will see themselves for who they are. And it will be too late for them, right? Right, right. They've already taken the mark of abuse.

Well, you know, he's going to talk about the elect in a little bit here. Yeah, we're talking about the elect. So, I know, I saw these, and that's one of the things that, you know, it says all people of the earth, kind of twice, all people of the earth will mourn, all people of the earth will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds. And then he's going to talk about down here, Christ will send forth his angels, and his angels will gather together the elect from the four winds.

So there are those that are... Sorry, Mark, go ahead. Okay. Okay. Okay, that's good. Okay. Okay. That's good. So what I try to look at here, when he comes, he's going to gather his elect, but there's going to be a vast majority of people, it seems like, outside of the elect that will mourn his coming.

They will realize their sinfulness. They will realize that they're not worthy. And I think one thing that, and I saw another area here, this is a great, this is a good week for me because it's interesting how you go through and you have to, you know, talk about some of these verses. I have to understand what they're saying or try to understand what they're saying.

And, you know, I can see another point where people can try to combine events. It's talked about gathering the elect. So one of the questions is, what is, who are the elect he's talking about here? Does someone like to venture a guess on that? I guess. Do you have a verse you want to, you know?

And actually, the way you answer this question will determine a lot about how you view this passage. If you say, well, this is the elect of the church, you're going to have a tough time, in my mind, reconciling this passage. Because you're going to have the church, you're going to have the, he's gathering the, you know, He's going to gather the church from the four winds. Then you're going to say, well, the church is here in the tribulation. So let me offer a passage here that helped me. Let's look at Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah chapter 11, and can I get someone to read for me verses 11 and 12 in Isaiah 11? Okay, thanks Mark. 11 and 12 in chapter 11.

Look at this verse, I thought this was this kind of picture very well, the idea of gathering, the first nation of Israel, gathering from the four winds, from the four corners of the earth. So I think this is speaking about the elect, speaking about Israel and not the church.

So his angels, and it's interesting, in this picture here, and we're going to assume we get to the rapture here if we get to it, if we go back and do the comparison, his angels do the gathering. You know, in the rapture, We have a personal meeting. It's totally different. We're personally meeting the Lord. Here, the angels, they go out and gather. They gather this one and that one from the four corners. The angels are out there gathering. In the rapture, we personally meet him in the air. It's a different picture. OK. All right. Any other questions or thoughts about that? And then the last verse that I have down there, 2 Thessalonians, just another...

In this verse, it says that the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels and flaming fire. So this is another... And actually, some actually have rendered that... They've had that flaming fire like great glory. So I think it's the same picture, the same picture that we see here in Matthew 24, that the Lord comes, and it's in power and great glory. So if we just have to kind of summarize here, the Lord's going to physically appear on the earth. It's going to be a miraculous kind of thing, a testing miracle.

He comes in the clouds, and it's Every eye will see him. They will mourn that he's coming. And right after that he will send forth his angels to gather his elect. So let's just, with that in mind, let's go back and look at what Hal did last week. Sure, go ahead. I don't understand something you just said because in my version it says here that he will send his angels with a great sound of the trumpet. And they will gather together his elect from the four winds. OK. OK. OK. Yeah. And mine does, too. So let me just kind of see if I'm thinking the way I think you're thinking.

Are you thinking from that, if you rendered heaven? Now, mine has a rendered sky, which might be... You're thinking that he's gathered, you know... Actually, why don't you hold that question and let's see... We're going to look at some passages about the church coming with him or the saints coming with him. And we'll kind of put that into the picture too. I kind of see where you're coming from. What you're saying as well is, could that... If they were in heaven, he'd be gathering the... If you're... The believers have been raptured to heaven, and he's gathering from heaven. Well, the thing is, it says...

In fact, we're going to read that, that we're going to always be with the Lord. In the rapture, we're already united with him bodily, and we're going to always be with him. Why would he have to go out and gather us, the church? Well, if we're raptured, we're in our perfect body at that point in time. So even though we're in him, I mean, it's a gathering of us, I think, to come with him, act with him, is the way I see it, rather than in the sense that we're presently with him at that point in time.

Okay, I see what you're saying. Let's go ahead and look at the passages that talk about the church coming with him just shortly here. We're going to have to hurry. Okay, let's just review quickly here. And this is Hal's chart from last week. And let's just turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. So now let's just look at the rapture here quickly. I'll just go ahead and read, starting in verse 13.

It says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so, he will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not perceive those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangels, with the trump of God, And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we who are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord.

OK, so in that passage, and then there's another passage, it talks about how there are two groups of believers here. They're the ones that have already died. They call those who are asleep. They're asleep in Jesus, asleep in the Lord. And then there are those who are alive.

So those two groups he's addressing. And he talks about basically that at the time of the rapture, men will receive their glorified bodies. They'll rise up to meet Him. The Lord will meet them in the air. So it's a picture of me in the air. The Lord never touches earth physically. Those alive will not experience death. They'll be changed to their glorified bodies.

And there's this idea of being caught up. It's this very rapid, or they catch away very rapidly. So that picture is, you know, This meeting in the air is much different than physically coming with this slow moving lightning in the clouds. They're described as different events.

OK. All right. Let's just look here quickly about the church returning with Christ. I have four passages that I kind of looked at. It says, then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him. OK, let me just see here for a second. And, you know, what you'll notice as you go through here, and many times references, in some cases, like in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints, some verses will call the believers saints. Some will call the believers holy ones.

That's done in the first couple passages there and also in Revelation. And in Revelation there, it talks about these armies. And actually, where army there is used for this, it's not so much the idea of an army in terms of all gear up for battle. It's more the idea of a procession of people. It's a steady procession of people, wave after wave, rank after rank. So that was rendered armies.

But it's the idea that there's this wave after wave of holy ones or believers that clothed in fine linen following him. I think these four passages show us that the Lord is coming back with the holy ones, his saints. And it's interesting, in my version it says, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands. And you think, well, that doesn't sound like too many there. Actually, that could be rendered with his holy myriads. It's actually, thousands seems kind of small. Myriad sounds a little bit larger in number.

So I think, looking through those four passages, that you see that the Lord is coming back with his company of his saints, and their clothes in fine linen, and actually it's bright and shining and clean. So the Lord is... And I think somewhat that's, you know, a brother that asked a question about the gathering in the sky. I think that they're there with him, and I don't think there's really, you know, they're accompanying him. because it says he came with many thousands. And it seems like that gathering is after he has arrived, he's sat down.

And the last bullet here kind of talks about just the fact that we see these aspects in both the Old and New Testament. I'm just going to skip over that. One last chart here, and actually, This is basically Hal's chart. I kind of redid it a little bit. And we added all the verses in there. So we have all the verses. This is kind of a bird's eye view of comparison of the rapture and the second coming with all the verses. And a lot of them we've already kind of talked about. The same verses kind of show up again and again.

But basically Christ, in the rapture, Christ comes for his saints. In the second coming, he comes with his saints. In the rapture, the saints go from the earth and they go up to heaven. The two bodies of believers, both the ones that are already with him spiritually, but their bodies go up, and they meet the Lord in the air, whereas the saints come down to earth, come down from heaven to earth. The rapture is the start of the tribulation. As it says there, the day of the Lord, that's when the day of the Lord starts.

The Second Coming is the end of the Tribulation, when the Lord ends the final battle, and the Lord is victorious. Those who are asleep, the church saints are resurrected. Actually, we haven't covered some of these ideas, but the Old Testament saints are resurrected. The alive church saints are raptured, and there's no rapture that occurs at the Second Coming. There is still unrighteousness on the earth because we go through the whole tribulation after the rapture. Righteousness ends because the Lord sets up his Millennial Kingdom.

The rapture is imminent. It can happen at any moment. Whereas there are many signs, there's a procession of signs and glorious things that happen at the second coming. The rapture is a mystery. It's not previously known about in the Old Testament, whereas the Second Coming is talked about in the Old Testament over and over again. It's a regathering of Israel. The Lord is bringing back together from the four winds. The rapture initiates rewards to the Church. The Second Coming initiates a judgment. That's why people are mourning, it seems like. Satan remains active and is a prime player in the tribulation period, and then Satan is bound for 1,000 years.

And actually, that's just 10. If you look in the last two sections of each of the chapters, 12 and 13, you'll see there's, I think, about 15 in there. There's more. I just commend that to go through and look at those. I guess we better... If you have any other questions, Okay, better end. Dear Father, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for this time, Father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for all that you are. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.