The return of our Lord Jesus in glory will be God’s answer to infidelity. The promises regarding that return that are found in the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New, are very plain; and they are also, humanly speaking, very improbable and apparently impossible of fulfilment; and, when they are fulfilled, they will constitute an unanswerable proof of the Divine origin of that Book that contains these promises and prophecies. The promises and prophecies regarding the first coming of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, the place of His birth, the time of His manifestation to His people, the manner of His reception by His people, His death and burial, and the detailed circumstances connected with it, His resurrection [out] from the dead, and His victory subsequent to His resurrection, seemed most improbable when made; but these predictions have been fulfilled to the very letter, and by their fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth we have conclusive proof of two things: first, that Jesus is the predicted Messiah of the Jews, and second, that the Old Testament is the Word of God.

But the Old Testament contains far more detailed and explicit predictions regarding the second coming of Christ than it contains concerning His first coming, and in addition to these Old Testament predictions we have in the gospels and in the epistles and the book of Revelation in the New Testament still more detailed predictions regarding the same event.

And when these numerous predictions are fulfilled to the letter, the prediction for example regarding His descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, the rapture and all the events predicted as to follow the rapture, the manifestation of the Antichrist, the time of Jacob’s trouble and the coming of the glorified Christ visibly and bodily to the deliverance of His people, and His blessed and glorious [millennial] reign, then every infidel mouth will be stopped and every knee shall be forced to bow and every tongue has to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2: 10, 11). There will be no possibility in that day of denying the Divine origin of these predictions and the supernatural inspiration of the Book which contains them.

The second coming of Christ, the visible and glorious return of Christ, will be God’s final answer to the destructive criticism. One of the fundamental postulates of the destructive criticism, and of pretty much all that in our day is called “Higher Criticism”, is that there can be no such thing as minute and detailed and supernaturally inspired, predictive prophecy. So, whenever any minute and detailed prophecy is found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Daniel, or any other Old Testament prophet, the destructive critics take that at once as conclusive proof that these passages could not have been written by the person whose name it has borne for so many centuries, but that it must belong to a later period.

This fundamental postulate of the destructive criticism has already been proven untrue time and time again by the many minute and exact literal fulfilments of prophecy that have already taken place: for example, by the prediction in Micah 5 : 2 regarding the place of the birth of the Messiah; the prediction in Daniel 9 : 25-27 regarding the time of the Messiah and His cutting off, i.e., His death; the many, predictions concerning the manner of His reception by His people, the manner and details of His death, burial, and resurrection contained in Isa. 53, for we may bring these predictions down to the latest date that the most daring destructive critic ever thought of assigning them to, and still they will be centuries before their minute, detailed and literal fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth. Furthermore the fact that there are many minute, detailed and specific predictions regarding the Jews in the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New which are being fulfilled before our very eyes to-day.

But when the Lord Jesus comes again and the many and detailed predictions connected with His second coming are fulfilled to the letter before the very eyes of men in a way that cannot be misunderstood or mistaken, then the utter folly of the fundamental postulate of the destructive criticism will be seen by all. So the second coming of Christ, His visible return in glory, with all the events connected with it will be God’s final and crushing answer to destructive criticism in all its forms.

Lastly, the second coming of Christ will be God’s final answer to all would-be world conquerors and world rulers. His coming will be the solution of all the world’s problems and the cure for all the ills of human society. He alone can bring peace, and He will. If I did not know that Christ were coming again, I would necessarily be plunged into the depths of a hopeless pessimism and despair. War will continue, more frightful wars even than this, until He comes; but His coming, the Prince of Peace, will end it all. Boastful man tells us how he will bring all evil to an end by his evolutionary process and the growth of knowledge. When He comes war will end, except for that brief space at the end of the Millennium when Satan shall be loosed for a little season that he may meet his overwhelming and final defeat. Then war ends, tyranny will end, unbelief will end, every evil will end, and “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11: 19). Then, and not till then. Even so, Lord Jesus; come quickly.

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