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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 43. Fourfold Effect of the Coming
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Fourfold Effect of the Coming
In connection with His coming four things will occur, to the Jew, to the Church, to the Antichrist, and to the multitudes. The Jewish nation and people will be born again as a people by the power of the Holy Spirit. The greater part of them will probably be gathered in Palestine. As they suddenly recognize the Jesus whom they crucified, and have so bitterly hated, as they now see Him coming down out of the sky in such dazzling glory, and realize that they killed their Messiah, they will be seized with great penitence. That will be the moment of the conversion of the nation of Jews, by the conversion of its individual members, in precisely the same way as Paul was converted on that Damascus road. This is the Jew event.
Something will happen for the followers of the Lord Jesus. The presence of the Lord Jesus so near will be as a great spirit-magnet drawing up to Himself those belonging to Him. First of all, the bodies of those followers who have died will be raised up, their old tenants taking up their abode again in these raised, changed, glorified bodies. Then those who are living will experience an instantaneous change in their bodies, and will rise into the air, up to where the Lord Jesus is, meeting Him and their own loved ones in His presence. It will all be done more quickly, probably, than the time it takes to tell the story here. The coming into His presence will work a wondrous change. Before those eyes of flame every blemish shall be revealed, and as quickly purged away as we are purified by the fire of His presence. The purifying will be blessed. Will some have a feeling of bareness?
One day I was walking down a main street in Christiania with a Norwegian friend. He called my attention to a large business concern, and then told me this story of its wealthy founder and head. He had been a poor boy in a country district tending cattle. One day he wanted to be away, and asked his sister to tend the cattle for the day, promising to let her hold for the day a small coin, current there, worth less than three cents of our money, to be returned at night. She consented. The very sight of money was a great rarity to her. So she spent a long, hard day tending his cattle, and holding the little bright coin, and returned it again at night, quite content with her day's pay.
Long years afterwards the brother was telling the story. He had grown very wealthy. He had allowed love of money to crowd out the Christ passion to which he was not a stranger. He told the story to my friend with great glee, laughing at his sister's childish simplicity. My friend, who knew him well, said very quietly, "That is all you get; you hold your wealth to the end of the day of your life, then you give it up and have as little as before, and the whole of your life is gone." And the man's startled face showed that he quite understood. In our Lord's presence everything not from Him, and not held for Him, will disappear before the flame of His eyes. This is the Church event.
And something will happen to the blasphemous leader of the tribulation time. He will be at the height of his infamous career, accepting the worship of the deceived multitudes. But at the appearance of the Lord Jesus, and at a word from His lips, this awful leader will be slain, and his hosts scattered. With his death the reign of terror ceases, and a new order begins on the earth. Still another result must be noted. At the sight of the glorified Jesus, the multitudes on earth, so long befooled by the leader of lawlessness, will be grieved over their conduct and become deeply penitent. These four things occur in connection with our Lord's return. This is the second thing, the Lord's return, to hold clear in its place.