To me, the most rational and biblical view of the second coming is proposed by the organization known as "The Bible Students" www.biblestudents.com .

See their study links on Second Coming and Millennium and see if you don't think so too.  I attended a Bible Students' annual conference and found a complete absence of the haughtiness and one-upmanship I had witnessed in certain other prophecy conferences.  There are many of these organizations, but they do not evangelize except by maintaining collections of literature and expecting the Set-apart Spirit to guide the elect to it.  What a great concept.

Restoration Light Ministries is a Sacred Name Offshoot of the Bible Students movement.  There are several articles from Reslight on my sites.  There are TREMENDOUS scholarly resources there found nowhere else.  http://hereafter.reslight.net/ 

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Advent is Coming

Why I Believe that Yahshua has Secretly Returned
to Rule the Nations in the Millennium

   We’re now approaching a new year on the Christian calendar.  It’s called Advent and begins this year on December first.  How many have heard of Advent?  How many of you know that a new Christian year begins with Advent?  I’ve known it, too, for a long time now.  But it seems like I only remember it when about a month passes, on January 1^st, which is the secular new year.  For a long time, when I thought of Advent, the beginning of a new Christian year, Advent was already gone.  Oh, well.  There isn’t much to dread about missing Advent.  There’s always next year.  (By the way, Advent is a Latin word that means “arrival.”)

   Sometime around two thousand years ago, a child arrived in an obscure cave in Palestine (6 - 7 AD).  This child was to become the Savior of the World.  At the time of his advent, there were thousands, perhaps millions, of people who were desperately looking for him.  They expected him as a warrior-king flashing out of the sky like a lightning bolt that would be seen from one end of the earth to the other.  This is what their teachers had insisted, that the Messiah would fly down with the angels, swords drawn, and destroy sinners in one bloody roundup.  But instead of sending the super hero they all expected, Yahweh sent a helpless baby.   With the exception of very few – only those who were specifically looking for the babe – the millions of expectant missed his advent entirely.  However, for the few who were looking in the right place at the right time (despite what they’d been told), there was great joy and glory.

   Advent is still a few weeks away and we’re finishing up the great circuit of the Christian year.  Last year at Advent we lit the candles and had a concert to celebrate the Savior’s coming as a child.  Now, eleven months later, the circuit of the year is almost completed.  As we look toward remembering His advent again, we are now, at the end of the circuit, remembering his promised return, his second advent.

 

Signs of the Second Advent

Sign of Jonah - 2007

   We’ve tried to make it clear for you over the course of the year that the signs and circumstances of his second advent are, for the first time in history, completely in line with what we understand the prophetic voices to be saying.  Again, let us list for you just of few of the more sensational signs of his imminent second advent:

• Jerusalem is free but surrounded by armies.
• Babylon has fallen and is falling.
• The most successful false prophet in history is currently masterminding world leaders.
• The Roman Empire has reincarnated as the European Union and is almost at full power.
• The Parthian Empire has reformed consisting of all the enemies of Israel,
• Seven million Jews were burned in our lifetimes; seven million are now in Israel.
• Priceless relics and texts from the time of Jesus are surfacing.
• At least five of Revelation’s seven seals have been broken open.
• The majority of those who believe in Jesus also believe a great deception about his return.

These are only a few of the signs of the times – our times.  Yet these are exciting times for us.  However, for many, the thought of such times and of what the Bible says will happen brings on one of two reactions: either fear or apathy.

 

Fear and Apathy

We Are In the Millennium Now!
Here’s proof!

   One time I was invited to some peoples’ house to meet their minister.  I think the people had heard me teach about the end-times and they wanted their minister to check me out.  (Now that’s what I think.)  So it was the minister and I on the couch.  On the chairs opposite were the host and his wife.  The minister and I were in a friendly discussion about the end-times.  He was proudly telling us that his church believed that Christians would be raptured out long before any world disaster began.  Only the sinners would be left behind to face disaster.  The minister beamed with joy, thinking about the fate of those left behind.  Then he said, “What do you think, brother?”  I told him I thought we we’d been in times of disaster for decades and that the evidence of disaster was everywhere; only the blind couldn’t see it.  Then I began to calmly lay out for them the scriptural plan of the coming of the Savior.  Everything was going fine until, all of a sudden, the host jumped up out of his chair and made a beeline out the room.  He never came back.

   After the minister left (and the host had still not returned), I asked the wife, “What got into him?  Your husband just disappeared and never came back!”  She said quietly, “Yes, he got upset when you started talking about Jesus’ coming.  You see, he’s concerned about the children and doesn’t want to think about disaster.”  What she meant was that he was scared and couldn’t imagine life out of his control and in Yahweh’s.  So his defense mechanism against fear became apathy.  He said to his soul, “I don’t want to know about it!”  This is a very common reaction.

   Another reaction goes just the opposite way.  Some people allay their fear not with apathy but with the making of intricate, detailed plans of how everything is going to play out.  One of my friends became very interested in Jesus’ return and asked me a million questions over the course of a few weeks.  All of a sudden I just didn’t see him again for a while and when I did, he showed me a fabulous chart of the end-times from a book he bought.  He’d studied this chart and could clearly see that Christians would be raptured out when any disaster started brewing.  Well, that was the end of his inquisition on that topic.  The first detailed explanation he found fit his hopes to a tee so there was no longer any concerns about the Bible truth on the subject.  The chart had all the answers he needed.  Like a sugar pill, it allayed his fears as he said to his soul, “I don’t need to know any more about it.”

   But friends, I’m glad and secure.  I’m not fearful and certainly not apathetic.  Like you, I’m watchful everyday, knowing that when he comes it won’t mean my doom but my salvation.

 

Thief in the Night

 

   Jesus used a really fine illustration of how to react to the prospect of his return.  He likens himself to a thief.  Seems like a contradiction, but that’s Jesus for you!  Friend, if someone called you on the phone and told you that your house was going to be robbed that night, you’d have sufficient reason to be on guard.  If you had such a tip off, you’d be ready for action.  There could be no entry into your place without your awareness because you (or the police) would be watching and waiting for something to happen.  Of course, if nobody warned you ahead of time, you’d certainly be robbed as you slept.  No, it wouldn’t be your fault that you got robbed since you didn’t have a tip; however, fault would not exempt you from being a victim of robbery.

   It surprised me to find how many times the metaphor “thief in the night” is used in the Bible.  It first occurs in the earliest book, Job (24:14).  It’s reiterated in the gospels in a couple different forms.  Jesus’ likening himself to a thief is hard to handle when he says that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.  Not that Jesus, the Thief, comes to do that, but if you knew the thief was going to kill somebody in your house, wouldn’t you be all the more responsible in watching out?   It’s one level of vigilance that protects from robbery, but you’re even more likely to be ready if you knew someone in your house would be killed.  Right?  Watch, therefore: for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

  Peter reiterates the “thief in the night”-style advent of Jesus, emphasizing that Yahweh desires not one to perish in that hour, but that all might come to repentance.  But he warns those who are aware of his coming to “be zealous to be without spot or blemish and at peace.”  To be at peace in this sense is to know your place in Yahweh by being obedient to his commandments in everything you do.  Peter said, “without spot.”

   Paul also uses the “thief in the night” illustration in a very positive way.  He admits that those who belong to the night sleep at night, get drunk at night and carouse at night.  But, you and I, as children of the light and children of the day, don’t sleep as other do, but we’re vigilant and awake and sober in keeping the commandments of Yahweh.  That he has not destined us, his children of the day, to his vengeance, but to his salvation through Jesus. 

 

Twelve-step Program

Seven-fold Millennium Prayer

   Did you know that Paul invented the twelve-step program?  He gives us a “to do list” of twelve steps that help us determine whether we are watchful or slothful (1 Thessalonians 5:11-22).  The list includes the following (follow along in your Bibles):

• Admonish idlers,
• Encourage the faint,
• Help the weak.
• Have patience with everyone,
• Do good for evil,
• Rejoice always,
• Pray constantly,
• Give thanks in all,
• Quench not the spirit,
• Don’t disdain preaching,
• Test everything for goodness, and
• Abstain from all evil.

Through this 12-step checklist, we as individuals and families might be at peace with ourselves and with the coming of Yahweh, because, body and spirit, we are assured of our entire sanctification, soundness and blamelessness.

   We might add one more step to these twelve – more like a constant attitude.  That is, watchfulness.  That means that we recognize that we don’t have it all figured out, that we don’t have it all down on the chart, that we’re not exactly sure when the thief comes, but that we do see the signs of the times, and we are concerned about the state of the world, and we are keeping his commandments daily because we love him and are children of the light.  And we want to be among the few who perceive his presence when he comes.  We watch and wait!

 

Are You Ready?

The Seeing Generation

   Two other things: When Jesus and these evangelists tell us that he comes like a thief in the night, does this imply that most people will be asleep?  Yes it does.  99.9% of people will be sleeping when he comes as a thief.  And does this imply also that his initial return is going to be heralded in all the great newspapers and television news specials?  No, it does not.  He comes as a thief in the night.  Over and over the evangelists affirm it – as a thief in the night.  Very few people saw him initially ascend and, my friend, very few will perceive his presence at first when he comes again.  For most, they will awaken or sober up and find -- at least -- they are robbed or something of theirs is destroyed -- at worst, someone in the house is killed: one is taken, one left.  This is why the Day of Yahweh will be a day of terror for many.

Zephaniah 1:17. Yahweh says, I shall bring such distress on humanity that they will grope their way like the blind for having sinned against me. Their blood will be poured out like mud, yes, their corpses like dung; 18. nor will their silver or gold be able to save them. 

   But this is not the fate of the watchful.  Not of the blameless.  Not of the spotless.  Not of those who have seen the sign and have made the house ready for the visitation.  I am ready for his coming as a thief in the night because I’m watching and waiting.  Are you ready, my friend?