The Second Coming...

This past Sunday, thanks to Scott Smith's message in Sunday School, I had a new thought--new to me--about the rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ. It was based on the translation of Enoch directly into heaven. Scott made the connection that this was a picture of the rapture of the church at Christ's coming. This is what came to my mind that afternoon...

Enoch, and his being translated, is a picture of the church and what will take place when Christ returns to claim it as His bride. What cannot be ignored here is that Enoch's translation was the result of his faith—a life of surrender and active obedience to God's will. We say we are waiting for Christ to come back and take us up into heaven with him like he did Enoch, but could it be that Christ is waiting for us to prove our faith as well? Can it be that Christ will not return until he find's His church fully surrendered and obedient to the Father's will?

In addition to returning for His church, what is the purpose for Christ's return? to finally conquer the evil in the world. The apostle John in his first epistle speaks of the victory over the world. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith." (1 Jhn 5:4) Our faith! We like to spend time reading, studying and debating the various theories of Christ's return quite possibly to the point of diverting ourselves from the role we must play. We wonder why it hasn't happened yet. He's likely wondering the same thing…