Those familiar with the subject of biblical prophecy will recall the many times the coming of Christ is mentioned, but, what many do not realize is that both the first and the second comings are referenced multiple times, scores of times, and the Second Coming is prophesied in much more detail many more times than the prophecies concerning His first coming to Bethlehem as the Babe in the manger. The purposes for both comings are in stark contrast, so much so that about the only thing the Second Coming has in common with the first coming is that they both speak of the same Person. Apart from that, all else is different, radically different. That baby born of Mary, deity in flesh, came as a suffering Servant to redeem, and to do so as the sacrificial Lamb of which John, the Baptist, spoke in John 1. He came to fulfill the promises God made to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was the One who knew no sin but was made sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It was all a part of God’s amazing grace.
But, with His Second Coming, the string has run out on the grace of God. It’s over. Grace will give way to judgment. God has scores to settle, and He will begin doing so at the Second Coming. Someone has described it by saying, “Jesus Christ is coming again, and this time He will not be in a good mood.” The settings and the principles are unmistakable. The Antichrist and his minions are targeted for annihilation before the conquering Christ. Vivid depictions are given of this blow by blow account of earth’s greatest conflict. Massive armies that will dwarf the World War II invasion of Normandy will gather themselves together to battle, assembling on the plains of Megiddo, better known as Armageddon. From there, they will march from the north to meet the Christ, who will advance from the south, and the clash to end all clashes will ensue in the Valley of Jehoshaphat before the holy city, Jerusalem. The carnage will be unimaginable and irreversible; truly, the war of all wars, ancient and modern combined. For details, none depict it so graphically as Revelation, chapter 19, and Matthew 24 and 25, in the Olivet Discourse.
Our Jewish friends would do well to consult their own Scriptures, our Old Testament. They tell the same story in Psalm 2, Isaiah 59, 60, 63, Daniel 2, 7, Zechariah 14, Malachi 3. If these several verses in the Old Testament do not speak with great clarity regarding the Second Coming of the Redeemer, earlier rejected by Israel in His first coming, then words mean nothing, and the entire matter is unintelligible and non-sensical, signifying nothing. They, in their claims, are indisputable. Jesus, the Messiah, has come, has returned to heaven, and is coming again.
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