By the Spirit.
Having jumped right into the middle
of the subject, I am now going to "back up
"and deal with each phase of the Lord's
coming. First, we need to see that there is a
spiritual coming of the Lord TO His church
through the personal ministry of the Holy
Spirit. Our authority for this is found in
John 14:15-18, where Jesus promises another
Comforter, and then He says: "I WILL COME TO
YOU.” Jesus was very clear in His teaching on
the Holy Spirit in John, chaps. 14-16, that
this one who was to be sent was HIS personal
representative, acting on HIS behalf, and
communicating HIS life, truth, presence, etc.
to HIS disciples (see particularly John
16:13-15). By means of the personal ministry
of the Holy Spirit, HE would always be with
them, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20, Heb.
13:5).
Suddenly coming.
God had spoken through the prophet
Malachi concerning HIS COMING to His people in
these words: "Behold, I will send my
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me; and the Lord, whom you
seek, shall suddenly come to his temple"
(Mal.3:l). This was first fulfilled
when God in human flesh came to the Jews in
the person of Jesus. The messenger who
prepared the way was John the Baptist. In the
early part of His ministry, Jesus came
suddenly to the temple at Jerusalem and
cleansed it of the money changers (John
2:13-17),
However, I want to point out a second
application which was fulfilled on the day of
Pentecost after Jesus had been raised from the
dead and had ascended back to the Father. The
disciples who had gathered in the upper room
to wait for the "promise of the Father" (Acts
1:4) had become, through the previous
importation of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22),
His spiritualTEMPLE.
But Jesus was yet to COME to that temple in
order to endue and fill it with power and
glory. This was to be accomplished through
the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Note the
words in Acts 2:1-2: "And when the day of
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with
one accord in one place. And SUDDENLY there
came a sound from heaven as of a rushing
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where
they were sitting." Thus in fulfillment of
Mal. 3:1, Jesus suddenly came to His
spiritual temple when the Holy Spirit was
outpoured on
the waiting disciples.
Second Pentecost.
There must, however, be a second
Pentecost in order to bring forth an end-time
harvest. The outpouring of God's Spirit in
the Scriptures is likened to the falling of
rain (Isa, 44:3, 32:15).
The Lord had promised the Israelites
that if they would obey His commandments. He
would give them rain for their land in its
season, "the first rain and the latter rain"
(Deut. 11:14).
The first, or early, rain came in the
fall of the year, after the long hot summer,
in order to soften the ground that they might
plow the soil and plant the grains before the
winter came. The latter rain came in the
spring in order to swell the grain and bring
the crops to maturity for harvest. That which
God established in the natural is designed by
Him to pattern His workings in the spiritual
realm. First the natural and then the
spiritual (1 Cor. 15:46), with the natural
becoming a type of the spiritual.
Thus we know that for God to be true
to His word, there MUST be a latter rain
outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the HARVEST
of this age to be brought forth. That which
came on the disciples in the upper room as
recorded in Acts 2 was only the first, or
early, rain, in order that the gospel seed
might be sown. We are now coming to the end of
this age which is the time of the latter rain
and harvest. Mt. 13:39 makes it clear that the
harvest is the end of the age.
The Husbandman.
In James 5:7-8, God is likened to a
husbandman who "waits
for the precious fruit of the earth, and has
long patience for it, until he receives the
early and latter rain." Then follows the
admonition, "Be [ ] also patient; establish
your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draws
near." This scripture indicates that the
Lord cannot receive the full fruit of the
earth (the final harvest) apart from the
"latter rain,” and with patience does He wait
for the time of that fruit to come. There are
two other scriptures which I will quote from
the Old Testament to indicate the Lord's
coming TO His people in a latter rain
outpouring.
The first is Joel 2:23: "Be
glad then, you
children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your
God; for he has
given you the former rain moderately, and He
WILL CAUSE TO COME down for you the rain, the
former rain, AND the latter rain in
the first month. " Then in Hos. 6:1-3 we have
the following admonition and promise: "Come,
and let us return to
the Lord; for he has
torn, and he will heal us; he has
smitten and he will bind us up. After two
days will he revive us: in the third day he
will raise us up, and we shall live in his
sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to
know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as
the morning; and HE SHALL COME TO
US as the rain, as the latter and former rain
to
the earth." We are now in the dawning period
of this third day, and the Lord is beginning
to come to His church as the rain. But first
it is a restoration of the former rain, coming
down now moderately, according to Joel
2:23. But
the full intensity of the former rain is to be
restored, as well as the latter rain being added
to it. This
will take place only after the firstfruits
company has been translated, as I will show
later.
[Next:
The Coming
of Jesus FOR His Saints .]