The Daily Word of Righteousness

I Will Come to You, #18

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution [restoration] of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19-21)

The program of redemption we have outlined is in harmony with the passage containing Peter's declaration to the people of Israel.

Certainly the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah can be viewed as the description of a time of restoration of all things spoken by the Prophets!

Christ is coming now as the Day Star to the Body of Christ in Heaven and on the earth. Each member of the elect is judged and purified as the necessary preparation for the entering of the fullness of the Glory of God into the Church.

The fullness of the Glory of God revealed in the Church will serve as the Day Star that will announce to the world the nearness of the rising of the Sun of the Day of the Lord.

The appearing of Christ in the heavens will be the climax of a slowly increasing Presence of Divine Glory that commenced with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early Church, continued with the building of the Body of Christ, and today is being expressed in the fiery purifying of God's people.

In the days to come the tribulation in the world will separate the remnant of saints from Babylon (man-directed Christianity). The Glory of Christ given to the Church will bring the Church suddenly to maturity and unity. The holy nation will be born at once. God and Christ will enter the Church in order to begin the destruction of Satan. Then the Lord will appear in the clouds of the heaven.

The vision of God entering His people in the last days in order to attack Satan appears many times in the visions of the Hebrew prophets:

The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies. (Isaiah 42:13)

Notice, in the following parallel passage, that the setting for the roaring of God is the time of the second advent of Christ:

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. (Joel 3:15)

We know that the events mentioned in Joel 3:15 are the signs of the soon return of Christ in the clouds of glory (Matthew 24:29).

But observe what will take place in that hour:

The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. (Joel 3:16)

The Scripture teaches clearly that at the time of the return of Christ to the earth the Lord will roar out of Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem—not from Heaven but from "Zion" and "Jerusalem."

To be continued.