Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 16)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 1 – References to the Second Coming
References to the Second Coming in Other Prophets (continued and concluded)
I’m going to finish our survey of selected verses from other prophets with a lightening round. Remember that our focus is to notice the scope of the Second Coming implied by the Old Testament prophecies. First, here’s Malachi giving us a compacted view of both comings: Jesus in the temple and then Jesus in His glorious return.
Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
Malachi 3:3 “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.
In between the two comings (the first in the flesh, the second in the spirit), individuals had to decide whether they would repent to the Lord or keep walking in their own ways. Joel puts it this way:
Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.
The decision each individual made determined whether the day of the Lord would be good or bad for them. Amos warned against complacency.
Amos 5:18 Alas, you who are longing for the day of the LORD,
For what purpose will the day of the LORD be to you?
It will be darkness and not light;
Obadiah writes almost as if he’d been given an advance copy of the Sermon on the Mount. (“However you want people to treat you…” Matthew 7:12)
Obadiah 1:15 “For the day of the LORD draws near on all the nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you.
Your dealings will return on your own head.
Zechariah promises a resolution to a problem he has no way of foreseeing – the consistent New Testament epistolary salutation invoking two parties: God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Zechariah 14:9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one.
I don’t know how to read the following statement from Haggai and think it has nothing to do with Isaiah’s prophecy of a new heavens and new earth.
Haggai 2:6 “For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land.
Keep remembering that the Old Testament prophecies of the Second Coming that I’ve shown you are but a fraction of the ones I could have listed. But even these few I’ve shown you imply a Second Coming of astounding scope. That scope would involve a revelation of Jesus Christ greater than all previous revelations of Him, a new heaven and a new earth, and a resurrection of all the dead. Those three events alone make the promises of the prophets monumental. And since we’ll next turn to the details added by Jesus and the apostles, that scope will turn out to be even larger than what we’ve seen so far.
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