Nuggets from Countdown to the Second Coming—Are We There Yet?

I well remember, as a youth in the late 1930s, listening with growing conviction to the many traveling preachers who visited our small fellowship of believers to present from familiar scriptures the prophesied “signs” that would herald the approach of Christ’s second coming. Though not as prevalent as it is today, even at that time there was skepticism among some Christians concerning “last days” prophecy. What could be the value of speculating about future events? Why not get on with living our lives faithfully in the present and leave the future to God? After all, whatever was going to happen would come to pass in its appointed time and way, so why worry about it prematurely?

There were those, however, who had implicit faith in Bible prophecy and believed that it was intended to present recognizable “signs of the times” to guide the attitudes and actions of a future generation that would be taken alive into heaven at Christ’s return. Such was the view of my godly parents. I remember the lively discussions about the place current developments had in the prophetic scheme. What was the significance of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed it during the 1930s? Where did President Roosevelt’s New Deal, with its innovative economic and banking measures, fit in?

There were several basic premises that evangelicals in those days generally considered essential to a proper interpretation of “last days” prophecies but that seem to have been largely forgotten today. First of all, one had to differentiate between the church and Israel, each of which had a unique relationship to God and Christ. Failure to discern to which of these two entities a prophecy pertained would lead to great confusion in one’s understanding of “last days” events. With proper discernment, however, prophecy would shed valuable light on the present and future, while prophecies already fulfilled, when recognized as such, would provide irrefutable evidence that the Bible was God’s Word.

Second, one had to distinguish between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ. These were viewed as two separate events. The Rapture would be for the church, when Christ would catch her up to meet Him in the air and take her as His bride to His Father’s house of many mansions for a glorious heavenly marriage and honeymoon. The Second Coming would be for Israel seven years later, when Christ would come visibly to this earth, in power and glory with His church, to rescue His chosen people from the armies of the Antichrist, and to begin His thousand-year reign from David’s restored throne in Jerusalem.