The Second Coming of

                                      JESUS CHRIST

                                        By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.

When I was in my teens, our Emmanuel Lutheran Church showed a Billy Graham  ‘black and white’ movie titled, 'The Missing Christian'. It made a definite impression on me, which I have not forgotten.

The story imagined the affects in the life of small - town lawyer and his family, as his lifestyle changed from a church – going, caring father and husband, to that of a worldly backslider.

Then a miracle occurred!  In a scary dream, he awakened to an empty house with his entire family gone. He searched everywhere but could not find them. He sought the Pastor and other members of the church and realized they also were gone. All his drinking and gambling buddies were all still around. Someone dug out a Bible, and they heard the news that Jesus Christ had returned to Rapture His church.

Others mocked but the lawyer fell to his knees crying out in repentance but was too late. He had missed the Rapture! Then, suddenly he awakened and discovered that it was  a dream. Falling upon his face, he cried out to God in repentance and faith. And a backslider had come home to Jesus! The following Sunday the entire family were together in the House of God!     

BEHOLD, I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY!

Jesus Christ promised His disciples that even though He was leaving them to go to His Father in Heaven, He would return for His own! He stated: “In My Father's House are many mansions: If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 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 14:2,3)

As Jesus was ascending to Heaven, two angels said: “...Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven.” (Acts 1: 11)

St. Paul declared: “Behold, I show you a Mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

“So when  this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15: 51-57)

THE LORD SHALL DESCEND!

St. Paul wrote: “But I would not have ye to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the  Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto that the Day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and Safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But, ye brethren, are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you. Ye are all the children of Light, and of the Day: We are not of the night, nor of Darkness.

“Therefore, let us not sleep, as others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us  who are of the Day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thes. 4: 18; 5: 1-9)

CHRIST'S RETURN PROPHESIED!

“I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their OFFENCE, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early. Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will HEAL us. He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After TWO days will He revive us:

“In the THIRD day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the RAIN, as the Latter and Former rain unto the earth.” (Hosea 5: 15; 6: 1-3)

Although this text refers to the history and judgment of God’s people who had corrupted themselves with paganism (760-720 B.C.), I believe it is a perfect picture of the reception God the Son received from the leading religious leaders of Israel who rejected Him as their Messiah. After His humiliation, condemnation, scourging and crucifixion, He arose triumphant over death and the power of darkness, and ascended to His Father in Heaven.

The prophecy states that Israel must SUFFER terribly. After 2 days (2,000 years) will He revive us, until they acknowledge their sin. After the rebirth of Israel May14, 1948, more and more Jews are receiving Jesus Christ as their Messiah in Israel. In the THIRD day He will raise us up and we shall live in His sight. (Millennial Reign of Christ). The Holy Spirit will then be poured out upon all of God’s people, like the early and latter rain!

HEBREW TRANSLATION!

About thirty or 40 years ago, Hebrew Biblical scholars made a revision in two verses in the Psalms that seemed so minor but have a major impact on prophecy. These two verses were Psalms 102:18 and Psalms 122:3.

Psalms 102:18: “This shall be written for the generation to come…” was changed to: “This shall be written for the last generation…”.  Psalms 122:3: “Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together” was changed to: “Jerusalem is builded as a city no longer divided.” 

When was Jerusalem compact together? When was Jerusalem a city no longer divided? In 1947 the United Nations gave the Jews the right to the West Bank but allowed the nation of Jordan to have control over Old Jerusalem. 

When Tom Tutyko and I were wrapping up our 3 ½ months crusades in 1966, we decided to stay in Jerusalem for a few days. When we wanted to go to the Jewish side, we were denied entrance by the Jordanians. We had to take a bus to Ammon and fly back to the West Bank in Israel. The City was divided!

In the 1967 Six Day War, the Jews liberated all of Israel and Jerusalem was no longer divided! That was twenty years later and in 2021 it is still compact and “no longer divided.”

As I see it, Jesus Christ could not have returned before 1967 because there was no Jerusalem for Him to return to at that time. Israel was reborn on May 14, 1948 and Jerusalem was in the hands of the Jordanians. There was no “House of the Lord our God to go into.” (Ps. 122:9)

Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels in Heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

“For as in the days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, and knew not until the FLOOD came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man shall be.

"Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore, be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matt. 24: 34-44)

                                         YET A LITTLE WHILE!

 St. Paul wrote: "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the Promise. For yet a little while, and HE THAT SHALL COME will come and will not tarry.

"Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back my soul shall not have pleasure in him. But we are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." (Heb. 10: 35-39).

God bless you, my friend! Amen.

- To be continued shortly!