NIV. Obviously the Lord comes like a thief in the sense that His Return will be a great surprise to those who
aren’t ready—it catches them off guard. But it’s NOT silent or invisible. There’s nothing quiet about the
heavens disappearing with a roar.
Here’s how Christ Himself pictures the event in Matthew 24:27 & 30, NIV: “As the LIGHTNING comes
from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man . . . the Son of Man will APPEAR
in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will MOURN. They will SEE the Son of Man coming on the clouds
of the sky, with POWER and great GLORY.” This eye-riveting Event may come as an incredible surprise to
some—but it won’t be quiet and invisible or secret and mystical!
God has laid out His end-time plan very carefully in His Word. Specific events will take place:
1. Seismic upheavals. Revelation 6:14; 16:18-20 There’ll be stupendous seismic upheavals. The heav-ens
roll back like a scroll; mountains and islands are moved; and a great earthquake shakes the planet.
2. The righteous dead are resurrected. 1 Thessalonians 4:16; John 5:28-29 “The dead in Christ shall rise
first.” The faithful asleep in their graves will hear Christ’s voice and rise up to eternal life.
3. The righteous living are translated. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 The righteous who are alive will be caught
up together with the resurrected and ascend toward Christ, their Redeemer.
4. Immortality is bestowed. 1 Corinthians 15:53 Both the resurrected dead and the translated living
receive the gift of immortality for their faith in Christ. “This mortal must put on immortality.”
5. The wicked are destroyed. 2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 19:11-21 Those who deliberately and
persistently rejected God’s mercy will finally be destroyed.
6. The righteous welcome the returning Christ. Isaiah 25:9 The redeemed exclaim, “This is our God; we
have waited for Him, and He will save us. . . . We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
7. The righteous journey to heaven. John 14:2-3 The righteous are welcomed into the divine procession
and journey with Christ toward their heavenly home.
What will you feel during those last moments of Earth’s history? Joy? Or terror? You may feel indifferent
about God right now, may not think faith is important. But one day soon it will make all the difference and
will divide humanity into two groups. One group sees Christ’s Coming as a horrifying surprise. Revelation
6:15-17 says they’ll pray for the mountains and rocks to fall on them! The other group sees it as a wonderful
deliverance, a fulfillment of all they’ve lived for. Open your Heart and make your commitment to Christ
right now.
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#8 – Revelation Reveals How Jesus Will Come
“IT IS WRITTEN . . .”
John 14:1-3 Like a promissory note, Jesus said He would return—and we can bank on it!
Acts 1:9-11 Angels confirmed His promise and testified to its truthfulness.
Jude 14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of our Lord’s return.
Revelation 1:7 It will be a VISIBLE event. When Jesus returns, every eye shall SEE Him.
Matthew 24:27 Jesus taught that His Return shall be like lightning flashing across the sky.
Matthew 24:30 The wicked also “will SEE the Son of Man coming . . . with power and great
glory,” but they “will mourn” their lost opportunity.
1 Thess. 4:15-17 It will be an AUDIBLE event. The Lord Himself will shout, and the
trumpet—the noisiest of instruments—shall sound.
Psalm 50:3-5 David declares “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent. . . .
He shall call . . . gather My saints together to Me.”
Matthew 16:27, It will be a GLORIOUS event, in His own glory and the glory of His Father.
25:31 He comes with “ALL the holy angels”—which Revelation 5:11 says are trillions!
Revelation 19:11-16 As King of kings leading the armies of heaven, He returns as triumphant Lord.
Isaiah 25:9 The righteous, delighted to see Christ, joyfully exclaim, “Lo, this is our God!”
Revelation 6:14-17 The unsaved wicked fear His Coming and cry for the rocks to fall upon them.
1 Thess. 4:15-17 The faithful dead will first be resurrected and rise to meet the Lord; then the
faithful living will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
1 Cor. l5:51-54 God will clothe His faithful people with immortality.
2 Thess. 2:8 The wicked are struck dead by the brightness of His Coming..
Matthew 13:37-43 The evil are purged out of His kingdom, and the righteous are saved
through all eternity.
Titus 2:13 Christ’s Coming is called the “Blessed Hope” of a lost mankind.
Revelation 22:11-12, Jesus offers His final invitation to prepare for His soon Return.
17 & 20
. . .
If you like statistics . . .
There are over 1500 prophecies of Jesus’ Second Coming recorded in the Bible.
For every prophecy of His first coming mentioned in the Old Testament,
there are eight predicting His Second Coming.
The return of our Lord is mentioned once in every five verses in the New Testament.
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Quick Quiz
Our heavenly Father has so much He longs to teach us! Think of each seminar session as one in a series
of steps leading upward—a series of “lessons from heaven.” May we learn our lessons well, so we in turn
can teach others. God’s Word, the Bible—our Textbook for this seminar—offers Learning Unlimited!
#8 – Revelation Reveals How Jesus Will Come
1. Jesus promised to return to this sinful world when He said, “I ________________ come again”!
To check your answer, see John 14:3.
2. The Savior leads us to believe His Return would be visually spectacular when He says it will be “as
the _______________________ ” that comes out of the east and shines all the way to the west.
To check your answer, see Matthew 24:27.
3. The Apostle Paul leads us to believe Christ’s Return will be noisily audible when he describes
that event by saying, “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a _______________ ,
with the __________________ of the archangel, and with the _____________________ of God.”
To check your answer, see 1 Thessalonians 4:16.
Compare Matthew 24:31 and John 5:28-29.
4. . T What the Bible means by “the Second Coming of Christ” is that Jesus comes into your
. F heart when you invite Him and accept Him as your Savior..
To check your answer, see any or all of the Scripture texts listed on this Quiz.
5. Could John the Revelator use human language any more clear or emphatic about the visible
nature of Christ’s Return than to say simply: “ __________________ __________ shall see Him”?
To check your answer, see Revelation 1:7.
6. Besides the fact that the wicked are all struck dead by “the brightness of His Coming,” another
very cataclysmic, catastrophic event in connection with Christ’s Return is “a ______________
earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so ________________ an earth-quake,
and so great.”
To check your answer, see 2 Thessalonians 2:8 and Revelation 16:18, 6:14, and 16:20.
Your Name: __________________________________________
Revelation of Hope Companion Resources
Revelation Predicts
the Time of the End
IT IS WRITTEN’S
The United States Supreme Court is a symbol of the majesty of law and justice in a world that’s of-ten
tragically unfair. But each of us has a case pending before the highest tribunal of all—the Supreme
Court of the Universe! The final judgment is the most important one of all. To many, this is a terrifying
prospect. Our eternal destiny seems to be decided, as it were, in the wink of an eye; with the flick of His
wrist, God assigns us a place with either the sheep or the goats. Is God really acting alone in the final
judgment, making a private, arbitrary decision? How will He really conduct this all-important proceeding?
Daniel 7:9-10, NIV, says: “As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his
seat. . . . Thousands upon thousands attended Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.
The court was seated, and the books were opened.” Note that it says, “thrones were set in place.”
Thrones—in the plural. Evidently the Ancient of Days, God Himself, permits other heavenly beings to
preside with Him in the judgment. That idea is further supported by the phrase, “The court was seated.”
Evidently God’s decision isn’t just a matter of divine decree. He’s willing to carry this out in a court-room
setting, accompanied by others on their thrones, and in front of thousands upon thousands of wit-nesses.
God’s final judgment is not just a private decision but an open affair, which many will witness first-hand.
When the court is seated, Daniel tells us, “the books are opened.” The all-knowing God needs no
reminder of the facts, but He’s chosen to make the final judgment a matter of public record; all the evi-dence
is down in black and white.
In Revelation 20:12 John the Revelator confirms that scene: “I saw the dead, great and small, stand-ing
before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.
The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” God doesn’t just want
to satisfy Himself in the judgment; He also wants to satisfy all those who witness the proceedings. Evi-dence
is presented on which to render a verdict.
Those nine justices on our own Supreme Court have law clerks do a great deal of research on each
case. They want as many facts as possible before making their decisions. The same is true here: There
seems to be a thorough work of investigation that goes on. The court is seated; books are opened. Be-fore
the saved and lost are finally judged, God graciously goes over the evidence in an open and thorough
investigation.
WHERE does the judgment take place? Obviously, in Daniel 7:9-10, the prophet was directed to
heaven, to the throne room of the universe. There Daniel saw the supreme court of the universe set up in
heaven’s sanctuary. The books were opened there. God’s final judicial investigation takes place in heaven.
What about WHEN? When does it begin? The surrounding verses of Daniel 7:8 & 11—tell of the
Little Horn power speaking great, pompous words on earth while this heavenly court begins proceedings.
And you may recall that Revelation 14:7 tells us: “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His
judgment has come.” Note the text doesn’t say “will come”—at some future time—but “has come.” The
same text clearly states that before Christ returns, a message will go to all the world announcing the judg-ment
hour. So we must look for a type of judgment that occurs before the Second Coming of Christ.
The prophet Daniel gives us the time frame in Daniel 8:14, the Bible’s longest prophecy: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” What does that mean, “the sanc-tuary
be cleansed”? The Old Testament sacrificial system had God’s people sacrifice an innocent animal
representing Christ that would bear the guilt of the repentant sinner. A few drops of the animal’s blood
were sprinkled in the sanctuary. Thus the sin was transferred from the sinner to the animal to the sanc-tuary.
All year long, sins symbolically accumulated in the sanctuary, and that’s why the yearly cleansing
service was required. Each year, the Hebrews participated in the DAY OF ATONEMENT. That’s when the sanc-tuary
was cleansed. Leviticus 16:29-30: “In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall
afflict your souls, and do no work at all. . . . For on that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to
cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.”
The Day of Atonement was the solemn day of judgment for God’s people. The Jews would search
their heart, “afflict their souls,” and make things right with God. Those daily sacrifices of animals pointed
forward to Christ, but the yearly cleansing of the sanctuary pointed forward to something else: It refers
to a very specific process of judgment that takes place