MARK 13:24-27

MARK 13:24-27

It is certain that this prophecy of the great tribulation does not refer to any event already fulfilled, as for instance, the destruction of Jerusalem, or persecutions of the Church under either pagan or papal Rome, for the next verses tell us what will take place just as this period of wrath and judgment comes to a close.

Observe that all these portents and the actual return of the Son of Man are to take place immediately “after that tribulation.” Therefore, this condition has not yet taken place, for the Lord’s second advent is still in the future. How near it may be none but God can say; but it is still the expectation of the people of God, and not something to which they can look back.

His coming to the earth will be attended with great natural convulsions, when everything that can be shaken will reel to and fro like a drunken man, and supernatural events will occur among the heavenly bodies. The expression, “The powers that are in heaven shall be shaken” is most significant in view of the atomic age upon which we have entered, for uranium is an element named from the Greek word for “heaven.”

Note the difference between this stage of the second advent and that depicted in 1 Thessalonians 4. Here the Son of Man comes to the earth with power and great glory. There the Lord descends from heaven, but calls His saints to meet Him in the air. Here He sends forth His angels to gather together His elect (the remnant out of Israel and the nations who will be waiting for Him in that day) from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. There His heavenly election, the saints of the past ages and of the Church, the Body of Christ, will be raptured (caught up) to meet Him in the air, in order to return with Him in glory when this passage in Mark is fulfilled.