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Christ Again Returns to the Earth, November 24
Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying,
Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute
judgment upon all.
Jude 14, 15
.
At the close of the thousand years, Christ again returns to the earth.
He is accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a retinue
of angels. As He descends in terrific majesty He bids the wicked dead
arise to receive their doom. They come forth, a mighty host, numberless as
the sands of the sea. What a contrast to those who were raised at the first
resurrection! The righteous were clothed with immortal youth and beauty.
The wicked bear the traces of disease and death.
Every eye in that vast multitude is turned to behold the glory of the
Son of God. With one voice the wicked hosts exclaim: “Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord!” It is not love to Jesus that inspires this
utterance. The force of truth urges the words from unwilling lips. As the
wicked went into their graves, so they come forth with the same enmity to
Christ and the same spirit of rebellion. They are to have no new probation
in which to remedy the defects of their past lives. Nothing would be gained
by this. A lifetime of transgression has not softened their hearts. A second
probation, were it given them, would be occupied as was the first in evading
the requirements of God and exciting rebellion against Him.
Christ descends upon the Mount of Olives, whence, after His resurrec-
tion, He ascended, and where angels repeated the promise of His return.
Says the prophet: “The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with
thee.” “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which
is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the
midst thereof, ... and there shall be a very great valley.” “And the Lord shall
be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name
one.”
Zechariah 14:5, 4, 9
. As the New Jerusalem, in its dazzling splendor,
comes down out of heaven, it rests upon the place purified and made ready
to receive it, and Christ, with His people and the angels, enters the Holy
City.
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