2ND COMING OF CHRIST 2
(week 34/08)
Olubi Johnson
Last week, we saw that our resurrection in Christ will have orders and the order we will experience will be determined by the degree of the purity of our Christian lives.
So, God wants us to have this understanding to motivate us to higher levels of purity to obtain the very best order of resurrection available.
This week, we will look at the different orders of the ‘rapture’ or resurrection:
i. Pre-tribulation order:
For those who are watching and praying and so are accounted worthy to be caught away to escape the ‘great tribulation’:
Matthew 24:21 (MKJV): …for then shall be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be.
Luke 21:36 (MKJV): Watch therefore, praying in every season that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things which shall occur, and to stand before the Son of Man.
ii. Mid-tribulation order:
Revelation 11:3 (ESV): And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
Revelation 11:7-12 (ESV): And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, (8) and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. (9) For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, (10) and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. (11) But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. (12) Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.
iii. Post-tribulation order:
Matthew 24:29-31 (ESV): “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (30) Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (31) And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
3. He will come with us for the millennial reign after the great tribulation:
Revelation 19:11-15 (ESV): (11) Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. (12) His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. (13) He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. (14) And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. (15) From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Revelation 20:4-6 (ESV): Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (5) The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
It is obvious that it is best to have the pre-tribulation order and this is what we should be preparing for by watching and praying always so purifying ourselves even as He is pure!
In our article next week, we will see in more detail how Christ comes in us in perfection and fullness.
