What About It Brethren?
Sometimes we overlook a passage of scripture that has a vital bearing on a point of controversy. If I am not mistaken, I have such a passage in mind.
The future kingdom advocates have arranged this program for the Lord: The Lord will come for his saints, at which time the dead in Christ will be raised, and with the living saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Then there is to be a period of tribulation, and then the Lord will come with his saints to reign on earth one thousand years. At the end of the thousand years the dead sinners will be raised. According to the theory, all who die in their sins before his second coming will not see him "coming in the clouds of heaven." Now read Matthew 26:62-64: "And the high priest stood up, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." The plural pronoun "ye" shows that Jesus addressed, not the high priest alone, but the whole council. These hardened sinners, now dead these many centuries, shall see the Lord "coming on the clouds of heaven." It seems to me that the future kingdom advocates will have to revise their theory to make it fit these words of Jesus, or else show that he was not referring to his "second coming."