2023-02-07 “when he shall appear”

I John 3:2  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Just a few hours before our Beloved Lord Sacrificed Himself on the Cross, to encourage His Apostles, He told them “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:3).  Our God-given “faith” (Hebrews 12:2), planted within our heart’s mind, declares and affirms to us that “he shall appear”.  By “faith” we know that “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28).  And when He appears, “before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:  33  And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.  34  Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:32-34).  When He appears and issues the Command, “Come, ye blessed of my Father”, it will be like the sound of a great “trumpet”, like “the voice of the archangel”.  Upon that Holy Command, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (I Corinthians 15:52).  By “faith”, we know that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (I Thessalonians 4:16) and those who are alive at His coming “shall all be changed,  52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (I Corinthians 15:51-52).  Then all the Children of God “shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (I Thessalonians 4:17).  Now we greatly rejoice, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (II Corinthians 5:1).