Christ's Second Coming: What Acts 1 & Zechariah 14 Reveal

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, once again, we'll come right back to where we left off in the book of Acts, and we're going to go right into verse 9. Verse 9. Now, for those of you that are joining us on television, we want to welcome you, and we trust that you do, as the folks do here in the studio. Take your pen in hand and follow us in these Scripture references, because we want you to see what the book says and not just simply what someone believes or thinks. And then again, we always like to make you aware that all the programs are available on video. We're trying to make it as reasonable as we can. We don't try to make anything on them. And so we've taken 12 programs, put them on one six-hour video, and we mailed them out, postage paid for what now, 30, honey? And we had to go up a little bit. We were almost going broke buying postage. And if you have any questions, we welcome your writing to us or calling us on the 800 number. And there again, we don't even charge that phone bill to the ministry. So far, we've been picking it up on our own. But the day may come we'll have to change that policy because, my, our 800 list is pages long. But we appreciate your calling. And, of course, we have the books, 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way up through number 10. And every book is a carbon copy of the video. We have people transcribing them now into print. And the publisher here in town, Keith Decker, is just doing, we think, a fantastic job in getting them ready for print. He's doing the proofreading and all the layout work for us and still keeping the cost below $5 a book. And we thank the Lord for him. And, you know, I get a real thrill out of some of the things that he's passing on, of the people that are reading the books in process of bringing them into print. And lives are being touched even that way. Okay, so much for announcements, I guess. Let's go into verse 9, Acts chapter 1, verse 9. And they're still on the Mount of Olives, Jesus and the 11. They have just been talking about things pertaining to the kingdom. And as we've mentioned in the last several programs, the kingdom was valid. It wasn't any figment of their imagination. It was real. And the only thing he said that wasn't for them to know was the timing. Now, he, of course, knew that Israel would reject all this and that he would be turning to the Gentiles under a whole different program. But that's secret. He hasn't revealed that yet. And that's what we looked at then in another program, that God has that prerogative to keep things secret until He is ready to reveal them. Now then, in verse 9, it says, "...and when he had spoken these things, while they beheld," in other words, they watched him, "...he was taken up, and a cloud received them out of their sight." Now, I believe this cloud was a heavenly host. I don't think it was a cumulus cloud. I don't think it was a cloud as we understand, but rather that heavenly host that just literally ushered and escorted him into glory. And then verse 10, "...while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel." Now, I always like to point out that throughout Israel's history, when the supernatural, such as angelic appearances took place, were they all shook up? No. Now, here again, here these 11 men are standing on the Mount of Olives. Suddenly, Jesus is just going on up into the atmosphere without benefit of rocket power, or airplanes, or jets. And then there are suddenly two angels. Now, what if that would happen today? Oh boy! I mean, there would be pandemonium, wouldn't it? But it doesn't even shake them up. It's commonplace. And so now these two angels stood by them. Verse 11, "...and these two angels said, You men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" Why are you so amazed? "...this same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as you have seen Him go into heaven." Now, what does that say? Just exactly what it says. What does it mean? What it says. You don't spiritualize it. You don't allegorize it. You just simply say, well, no, this is easy to comprehend. Here He was standing in that resurrection body. He had been fellowshipping. He had been eating and talking with the 11 for 40 days. And then all of a sudden, He went up. And I don't say this facetiously. He went up head first, which means He's going to come back feet first. Bodily. Not in some ethereal form. Not in a spiritualized realm of influence. But He is physically, literally, going to return to this planet. Now, I know there are a lot of people that just scoff at the thought of His second coming. But all of Scripture is full of it. In type, as well as in a literal sense. Now, here it's literal. He's standing there with Him. He's been talking with Him. They've been touching Him. His body is for real. And now it goes. And these two angels also appear as men to those 11 disciples. And these angels announce that this same Jesus, in the same way you've seen Him go, that is bodily, visibly, physically, He's going to come back. All right, let's go back to the Old Testament. We've already, in a previous program, at least in this afternoon's taping, we alluded to Daniel chapter 2, when the stone cut out without ham. And now let's go to Zechariah. Zechariah, which is the next to the last book in your Old Testament. And let's look at chapter 14. Zechariah chapter 14. Now, this is prophecy. And this, of course, is all directed to the nation of Israel. Let's just begin with verse 1. Zechariah 14, verse 1. I'm glad the camera is on the Scripture, because I want you folks to see what the book says. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoils shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem. And boy, we can see the stage being set today. All the Middle Eastern nations are building up their military hardware by the billions. And the rest of the world is not far behind them. What's the purpose? They're getting ready for when God will call them all to come to that end time doom, the battle of Armageddon. The city shall be taken. Now listen, the nation of Israel is going to go through some terrible, terrible days in these closing three and a half years of the Tribulation. We were just talking at break between our programs whether the Jew of today realizes that the Holocaust of Nazi Germany is just going to be almost a Sunday school picnic. I don't like to belittle the Holocaust. It was awful. But compared to these last three and a half years, it was nothing. And that's still facing the nation of Israel. And so they will be overrun by these Gentile armies. Reading on in verse 2. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled. In other words, there will be no mercy. And half the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Verse 3. And then, in other words, when it almost appears as though Satan is finally going to succeed in destroying the nation of Israel by virtue of these Gentile hordes, then shall the Lord go forth. Now remember the word Lord capitalized in the Old Testament is Jehovah. And remember too, as we've shown over and over, that Jesus claimed to be the I Am of the Old Testament. So it's one and the same. And so the Lord here is the Lord Christ. He shall go forth. Now remember, He's ascended. He's in heaven. But He will leave heaven, and He will go forth back to the earth to fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle. In other words, when God fought Israel's battles down through her history. And then look at verse 4. And His, what's the next word? Feet. Now how are you going to spiritualize that? I can't. But you take it literally. His feet that left the Mount of Olives in Acts chapter 1, and the angel said He's going to come back the same way He left. Well here it is. And His feet shall stand in that day, the day of His second coming. And His feet shall stand that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall cleave, or separate in the midst thereof, toward the east and toward the west. There shall be a very great valley. Half the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half toward the south. And then He goes on to say, and then verse 8, And it shall be in that day, that living water shall go out from Jerusalem. In other words, pure water. Half toward the former sea of the Mediterranean, and half toward the hinder sea, or the dead sea in summer and winter. Now you know it's interesting, the Middle Eastern governments, Israel and I think Jordan and someone else, they're concocting, the engineers drawing up plans to build a canal between the Mediterranean and the dead sea. It's going to cost billions and billions of dollars to accomplish it, but they're sure they can make it work. But see, God's going to do it in a moment of time. At His second coming, there's going to be a fresh water river running from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean, and on from Jerusalem to the dead sea, and then I have to think it'll run on down either all the way to the Gulf of Agaba, the Persian Gulf, or down to the Red Sea, down around Eilat. But whatever, it's going to happen. And then this verse we saw a couple weeks ago, "...and the Lord shall be king over all the earth." All right, now I'd like to have you flip back a few pages to Ezekiel chapter 47. Ezekiel 47. And here in Ezekiel 47, the prophet is getting a vision now of this waterway that's going to run out from the throne room in Jerusalem all the way again to the dead sea. And oh, for sake of time, let's come down to verse 8 of Ezekiel 47. "...then said he unto me, These waters issue out," that is from Jerusalem, "...issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go down into the sea," the dead sea, "...which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed." And that's why I know it's the dead sea, because of the healing of those putrid waters, so filled with salt and minerals that you can't possibly drink it. All right, verse 9, "...nothing can live in it," I think you all know that. "...and it shall come to pass that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the river shall come, shall live. And there shall be a very great multitude of fish," that is in the dead sea, "...there shall be a great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither." In other words, these purifying waters coming from the temple in Jerusalem. "...and they shall be healed, and everything shall live, whither the river cometh." Now verse 10, "...and it shall come to pass that the fishers," or the fishermen, "...shall stand upon it," that is the dead sea, its shores, "...all the way from En Gedi, even unto En Aglaim, for they shall be a place to spread forth their nets. Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea," the Mediterranean, "...a great many." Now can you see that happening to the dead sea through man's technology? No way. But it's going to happen when God sets up the Kingdom at His Second Coming. And so He comes to the nation of Israel, He sets up His Kingdom, and that's one of the effects of it, is that fresh water shall go out from Jerusalem and purify the dead sea. All right. Now then, the Second Coming. The Old Testament alludes to it allegorically, or by symbol, I was going to say symbolically, but by symbol, in especially the life of Moses and in the life of Joseph. And we picked that up the most clearly, I think, in Acts chapter 7. Let's go back there a minute. We'll be looking at it several weeks down the road again, but most people will have forgotten all this by then. I don't expect people to retain a lot of this on the first time through. But in Acts chapter 7, come all the way down, if you will, to verse 11. Remember here in Acts chapter 7, Stephen is rehearsing all of Israel's history, coming up from Abraham and down all the way to the slavery in Egypt. And now he's talking about the famine during which Joseph has accumulated the grain in Egypt, and Jacob and the rest of the sons and their families are in a starvation mode in Canaan. Verse 11 of Acts 7. Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first, that is, the brethren. Verse 13. And at the... What's the next word? The second time. Now why does the Scripture bring in the second time? Well, you see, the first time the brethren went down to see Joseph, he knew who they were, but they didn't know who he was. And you see, that's exactly what happened at Christ's first Advent. He came unto his own. He knew who they were, but did they know who he was? No. But now when he comes the second time, just like when the brethren went down to Egypt the second time, what did Joseph do? He revealed himself to them, and oh, there was weeping for joy, because now they had been reunited. Joseph had become their Savior. He had the grain that saved them from starvation. Alright, now I said Moses was the other one, and I'm not going to take a lot of time on this, but do you remember that when Moses went out the first time, and an Egyptian was misusing a Jew, and what did Moses do? Struck him? Killed him? I don't think he killed him intentionally, but he ended up, and what did he have to do? He had to flee. Now again in Acts chapter 7. I hope you're still there. Stephen is going to rehearse this as well, because Stephen is driving home the very point that he came to you the first time in his earthly ministry. You rejected him. But now he's ready to come the second time if you'll just believe that he is who he says he is. Now Stephen doesn't see 2,000 years interlude either. Stephen is in the same position as that what we've got on the board. That all these Jews expected that now that Christ had died, which He had to do, He'd been raised from the dead, He had ascended, but now everything was set for Him to come back if Israel will just believe. You see that? Alright, so now here's the allegory, if I can call it that, or the typology with regard to Moses. Here in Acts chapter 7. Come down to verse 23. And when he was a full 40 years old, in other words, he's been in the house of Pharaoh now since his infancy. But now when he was 40 years old, it came into his, Moses' heart, to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. Now look at verse 25. For he, Moses, what's the next word? Moses supposed, he thought, he really felt, he supposed, lost my place, 25. For he supposed his brethren, these fellow Jews, in slavery, would have, what's the next word? Understood, how that God by His hand, would deliver them. That's his first appearance. Now the only thing I can put on this, is you want to remember at this point in time, what was Moses' position in Egypt? Oh, he was the second greatest man. He was just under the Pharaoh. And he had the power and the clout, he thought, to lead the children of Israel out of bondage, into freedom, and back to a relationship with their God. Moses at this point becomes, you might say, a man of faith. He supposed, but, what did he not take into, what shall I say, consideration? That Israel wouldn't buy it. Israel wouldn't buy it. Now read on. He supposed his brethren would have understood, how that God by His hand, would deliver them, but they understood not. And the next day he showed himself unto them, as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs your brethren, why do you wrong one another? But he who did his neighbor wrong, threw him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Now are you getting the parallel? Jesus came unto His own, they could have accepted Him, they should have accepted Him, but what was their answer? Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Away with Him, crucify Him. Alright, now Stephen is bringing this all into focus. He came the first time, you rejected Him. Now read on. Verse 29. Then Moses at this saying, fled, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And now another forty years, verse 30, are expired, and he comes to the burning bush, out there in Sinai, and then you come down to verse 35. This Moses, whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge, the same, put in Moses, the same Moses, did God send, to be a, what's the next word? Ruler, and a deliverer, by Him, that had appeared to him in the bush. Now, what's the lesson? On both instances, it was the second time, that things came to the full. And so the lesson here from Stephen is, that as sure as Joseph, was recognized at his second time, so Israel will recognize the Messiah, the second time. Moses came to deliver Him, the first time they rejected Him, but when He came the second time, they followed Him, and He became their deliverer. Now the same thing is going to be true with Christ. The first time they rejected Him, the second time, they're going to acclaim Him. See? All right, now let's come back to Matthew, for just a few moments, and on this same concept of the second coming. Matthew, I think I want 25. Matthew 25. No, let's go back to 24 first, and then we'll go to 25. Matthew 24, drop down to verse 27. Matthew 24, verse 27. Now this again is Jesus speaking in His earthly ministry, and remember when we've taught Matthew before, that this chapter is all tribulation. All the events He's referring to are in that final seven years of prophecy. Then He comes down to verse 27, and He says, "...for as the lightning cometh out of the east," Remember I pointed out that weather in Israel, the same as here in the Midwest, moves from west to east, or from northwest to the southeast. Well, so it does in Israel. And so He's using that analogy of the weather pattern, that if you see lightning in the east, you know that storm isn't coming, it's what? It's going. It's passed. And so He says, "...under that same set of circumstances, that when you see the horrors of the tribulation are in the past," verse 28, "...wherever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." And then verse 29, "...immediately after the tribulation of those days," and these are all part and parcel of Old Testament prophecies, "...the sun darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Hey, you know we're getting ready for all this? Old Jupiter was just a little preview. The minute I heard them forecast, I thought, oh yeah, because you see the Scripture tells us that there's going to be events in outer space that will indicate that the end is near. And the more you see of these phenomena, the more you rest assured we don't have a lot of time left. Someone was sharing with me the other night, and I wish she'd have brought me the article so I could read it and not make any mistake. But it was something to the effect, now this is just in general terms, but something to the effect that for the last, I think, hundred years there had only been earthquakes over a six point on the Richter scale, only about four every 25 years, something like that, precious, precious few. But in the last four or five years we're having six point earthquakes at the rate of almost four every six months. Now I say those are general terms, I don't want to be quoted verbatim, but nevertheless we have that tremendous increase now in highly measured earthquake activity. Now then he goes on to say, verse 30, "...and then after these events of the closing days of the tribulation, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall..." What's the next word? "...see with their eyes." They're going to see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, and again I think it's the angelic hosts that will accompany Him. "...they shall see Him coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." What is that? The Second Coming, when He's going to stand once again on the Mount of Olives. And well, let's see. Have we got time for yet another one? John 14. John 14. Now I'm going to shake a few people up on this one. I shouldn't do this with only a minute left, should I? John 14. Thirty seconds. Oh, goodness. John 14. Everybody's got the idea that this too is the rapture. No, it isn't. It's the Second Coming. It's the Second Coming. Because you see, John knows nothing of the church age. John knows nothing of the rapture of the church. How could he write about it? But oh, what's the Lord saying, and to whom is He saying it? To the disciples. And what does He tell them? Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. I go and prepare a place for you, and I will, what? Come again. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. A weekly Bible study. 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