Signs of the Last Days Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. - I Thess. 4:17 The air mentioned here does not mean the sky. In the Bible, earth generally means the fallen world of evil sovereignty. Our understanding is increased when we read the Biblical verse which says, Our Father who art in heaven (Matt. 6:9), though God is omnipresent. Also, we find, ...but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man (john 3:13), even though Jesus was born on earth. Thus, to meet the Lord in the air signifies that the saints will receive the Lord in the world of good sovereignty when Christ comes again and restores the Kingdom of Heaven on earth by overthrowing the Satanic sovereignty. In the Last Days, Jesus said, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven. (Matt. 24:29) How are we to understand this verse? It is written that Joseph, the eleventh of the twelve sons of Jacob, had a dream: Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? - Gen. 37:9-10 When Joseph later became the prime minister of Egypt, his parents and brothers bowed down before him, as the dream had foretold. In his dream, the sun and moon symbolized the parents, while the stars symbolized their children. Therefore, in this prophecy from Matthew, the sun and moon represent Jesus and the Holy Spirit, while the stars represent the faithful believers who are their children. Elsewhere, Jesus is likened to the true light because he came as the incarnation of the Word and shone forth the light of truth. (John 1:9,14) Here, the sunlight means the light of the words of Jesus, and the moonlight means the light of the Holy Spirit, who came as the Spirit of truth. (John 16:13) For the sun to be darkened and the moon to lose its light means that the New Testament Word given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit will lose its luster. How can the Word as revealed in the New Testament possibly lose its light? The Old Testament Word was eclipsed when Jesus and the Holy Spirit came and gave us the New Testament Word, which fulfilled the Old Testament Word. (II Cor. 3:7-11) Likewise, when Christ returns and gives the new truth in order to fulfill the New Testament Word and build a new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1), the word which he gave at his first coming will lose its light. It is said that the Word will lose its light because, with the coming of a new era, the period of the mission of the old truth will have lapsed. The prophecy that the stars will fall from heaven signifies that in the Last Day many faithful Christian believers will make a misstep and fall from Gods grace. At the time of Jesus, the leaders of the Jewish people were all yearning for the coming of the Messiah, but they met their downfall when they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah and opposed him. Likewise, Christians who have been anxiously awaiting the return of Jesus are likely to make the same misjudgment and fall when he actually returns. Jesus asked, Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8) On another occasion he said he would declare to devout believers, I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers. (Matt. 7:23) Jesus gave these warnings to the Christians of the Last Days because he foresaw that they would be likely to disbelieve and tresspass against him at his Second Advent. Exposition of the Divine Principle (unification.net/dp96/)
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 14:25:48 +0000
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