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Signs of the Second Coming of Christ
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profess to hold communion with departed spirits is not the call now
heard, “Behold, He is in the secret chambers”? This is the claim that
spiritism puts forth. But what says Christ? “Believe it not.”
Signs in the Heavens
The Saviour gives signs of His coming and fixes the time when
the first of these signs shall appear: “Immediately after the tribulation
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give
her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of
man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and
they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the
four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
At the close of the great papal persecution, Christ declared, the
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sun should be darkened, and the moon should not give her light.
Next, the stars should fall from heaven. And He says, “When ye
shall see all these things, know that He is near, even at the doors.”
Matthew 24:33
, margin. Christ says of those who see these signs,
“This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
These signs have appeared. Now we know of a surety that the Lord’s
coming is at hand.
Christ is coming with great glory. A multitude of shining angels
will attend Him. He will come to raise the dead and to change
the living saints; to honor those who have loved Him and kept
His commandments, and to take them to Himself. When we look
on our dead, we may think of the morning when “the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
1 Corinthians
15:52
. The King will wipe all tears from our eyes, and present us
“faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
Jude
24
. “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift
up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”
But Christ stated plainly that He Himself could not make known
the day or the hour of His second appearing. The exact time of the
second coming is God’s mystery.