The Return of Jesus
G od is love (1 John 4:16). To bring the fallen mankind back to God Father's glorious presence is the ultimate purpose of the salvation of the Lord Jesus (See Love Through Time and Space). Jesus' First Coming accomplished salvation and fulfilled God's love and righteousness; His Second Coming will carry out God’s judgment, eliminate sin, establish the Millennial Kingdom, and welcome God’s children to enter the eternal home that God the Father has prepared for mankind! (For details, see Covenant of Love)
All Things Made New – God's Tabernacle on Earth
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
- Revelation 21:1-4
Mount Carmel has a history of battles between true and false prophets. Israel worshipped idols and betrayed God, so there was no rain in the land (1 Kgs. 18:17-18). God asked the prophet Elijah to challenge the 850 false prophets who served the false god Baal and the evil spirit Jezebel (1 Kgs. 18:19) to prove who the one true God was in order to bring His people back (1 Kgs. 18:21, 23-24). Elijah’s great victory and God’s sending of rain confirmed that the LORD God is the only true ruler of heaven and earth (1 Kgs. 18:28-30, 37-38, 45). The people killed the false prophet on the spot. Elijah’s destruction of false prophets is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ return to judge the world. The prophet Zechariah prophesied more than 2,500 years ago that in the last days God would destroy all false prophets and unclean spirits on the earth and cast them into the lake of fire and brimstone (Zech. 13:2), just as is foretold in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 19:20).
The Lord Jesus warned us to be vigilant and to prepare for His return, for “as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matt. 24:37-39). Fallen humanity cannot free itself from its sinful nature and return to God on its own (Rom. 7:19-20; 8:20-22). God’s final judgement will complete the final part of His salvation for mankind. It will eradicate the evils of the world and man’s sinful nature (Gal. 1:4; John 3:16-17), and restore mankind to God through the reborn new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17, 21; Rom. 5:21). As Peter saw in the vision of Revelation, Satan, the devil, the false prophets, death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire at the end (Rev. 20:10,14; 21:6-8).
God has a timetable, and everything happens according to His plan. Before Jesus was born, God told the prophet Daniel that He had ordained "seventy sevens", or 490 years, for the Kingdom of God and His people, “to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” (Dan. 9:24), prophesying the time and events leading up to the Lord’s Millennial Kingdom (Dan. 9:25-27). History shows that the first 69 sevens have been accurately fulfilled, leaving only the last "seven" to be revealed, related to the end-time Antichrist and the return of the Lord. These last seven years will be the tribulation period of the Antichrist's reign, divided into two periods of 3.5 years. Jesus quoted Daniel's prophecy to warn us of the unprecedented tribulation when "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place" (Matt. 24:15-22).
Jesus told us clearly about the harbingers of the end-time tribulation and His return after the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:29-31) “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” (Matt. 24:7-8). Antichrists and false prophets will rise up greatly in the last days (1 John 2:18), and God will judge the whole world and condemn the great harlot who corrupted the world with her fornication (Rev. 19:2). God will completely cleanse the sinful world and eliminate all idols, false prophets and idolaters from the earth (Zech. 13:2; Mic. 5:13-15), just as the Old Testament prophets warned hundreds of years before Christ (Jer. 25:31; Isa. 2:8-9,12, 18, 20). God also warned us in the Book of Revelation about the plagues of the 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls in the last days. Behold, the Lord is coming soon! Everything prophesied in the Bible will be fulfilled in due time. (See God's Judgement)
All born again children of God who believe in Jesus have the Seal of God as a mark of belonging. This seal is the Holy Spirit. “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” (Eph. 1:13). The Holy Spirit is the indisputable evidence of our inheritance (Eph. 1:14; Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:22). In the Old Testament, God marked His people with blood on the doorframes when He judged Egypt (Exod. 12:13). The prophet Ezekiel saw God marking the foreheads of the righteous ones in a vision to save them from His judgment on the idolaters (Ezek. 9:4). The Book of Revelation also tells us that before His great judgment, God will put a seal on the foreheads of all His servants (Rev. 7:2-4). During the Great Tribulation, God will protect His servants just as He did in the land of Goshen. where the Jews lived in Egypt (Exod. 8:22; 9:26).
In the last seven years of the Great Darkness, the Antichrist will take power and control the global economy. "He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Rev. 13:16-17). God made it clear: “Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.” (Rev. 13:18). The Mark of the Beast identifies people as Satan’s followers. The Book of Revelation tells us that the Antichrist will persecute God's people for 3.5 years (Rev. 13:5), but will then be cut off completely (Rev. 19:19-20), just as the prophet Daniel foretold over 2,500 years ago (Dan. 7:25-26). God warns us that those who worships the beast and receives his mark will drink God's wrath and suffer in fire and brimstone at God's final judgement (Rev. 14:9-10; 16:2).
The Bible tells us that when the last trumpet sounds, that is, when the angel blows the 7th trumpet, the bodies of all the born-again children of God will be changed and transformed into incorruptible glorified bodies. Apostle Paul told us that, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Cor. 15:52-53). We shall all be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air, together with the resurrected body of Christ, and be welcomed by Him into heaven (1 Thess. 4:16-17). The Lord Jesus told us that He had gone back to the Father to prepare a place for us, and “I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” When that time comes, we will be with the Lord Jesus forever (John 14:2-3).
God has repeatedly warned that the Day of the LORD is near (Isa. 13:9-11; Obad. 1:15; Jer. 30:7). This is the final battle between Good and Evil. On that day, the demonic spirits will gather the nations against Jerusalem at Armageddon, "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." (Rev. 16:13-14, 16). But God will fight for His people (Zech. 12:1-3, 8-9), and the Lord Jesus with His armies will completely destroy the Devil, the Antichrist, the False Prophet and their armies (Rev. 19:11, 14-15, 19-20; 20:10). The prophet Joel also foretold more than 2,800 years ago that God would judge the nations, deliver His people, and renew heaven and earth on the Day of the LORD (Joel 3:2, 14-16, 18).
The original meaning of church is the Greek word “Ekklesia”, meaning the called-out ones. All those who are called out from the world by God are members of the Body of Christ, sanctified and united with the Lord Jesus to form One Body (Eph. 4:4-7). This includes all born again Christians and the children of Israel under God's covenant (Jer. 31:33-34). With the Lord Jesus as our Head (Eph. 5:23), we are all members in His Body (1 Cor. 12:27). We are fully unified and built into the One Body (Bride) of Christ by God the Father, united with the Head (Bridegroom) (John 17:22-23) to the fullness of Him (Eph. 4:16), and gradually becoming the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22), that is, the spiritual temple of God, the glorious Bride of Christ – the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). God’s ultimate plan is to establish the Kingdom of God on earth through the born-again children of God (Eph. 1:7-10), and restore mankind to God. (See Marriage Supper of the Lamb)
Jesus told the parable of the wedding feast, describing the kingdom of heaven as a king who gave a wedding feast for his son (Matt. 22:2). This points directly to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb – the wedding feast of the Lord Jesus with His Bride of Christ. The bride price has been paid, not with gold and silver, but with the blood of Jesus, and the wedding invitations have been sent out. All believers who have accepted the blood covenant of Jesus are betrothed to Him. They have been dressing up by the Holy Spirit in anticipation of the glorious wedding day. All have been invited, but not all are willing to attend, and not all will eventually be able to attend. Only those who accept Jesus as their saviour are entitled to attend the wedding feast of the Son of God. King David foresaw the glory of the King’s marriage and the beauty of His Bride over 3,000 years ago (Ps. 45:9, 13-16), just as John saw in his vision ( Rev. 19:7-9).
The Bible tells us that “as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” But as Jesus said, “he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (Heb. 9:27; John 5:24). When Jesus returns, the dead will be raised, the righteous will be rewarded, the wicked will be condemned, and heaven and earth will be renewed. At that time, all the dead and the living will stand before God and be judged by their deeds (Rev. 20:11-15). This is also foretold by Daniel and Isaiah over 2,500 years ago (Dan. 7:9-12; Isa. 11:3-5). Jesus warned us that anyone who is ashamed of the Word of God will be ashamed of Him when He returns (Mark 8:38; John 12:48). The righteous and the wicked will be separated, with the righteous entering into eternal life and the wicked being thrown into the lake of fire for eternal punishment (Matt. 25:31-32, 46).
God, the Author and Finisher, whose plan of Salvation is to fulfil His eternal love for mankind - God's tabernacle on earth, dwelling with us forever (Rev. 21:1-4). The Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is the city of the living God (Heb. 12:22). It is the perfect union of heaven, earth and man. It is the New Heaven and New Earth, in which God dwells with us forever. The prophet Isaiah prophesied the new heaven and new earth more than 2,700 years ago (Isa. 65:17-19; 11:6-9). Just as Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:23; Col. 2:9) "I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it. " (Rev. 21:22-24). (See New Heaven and New Earth)
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