Zechariah tells us in terms so plain, so clear no one need misunderstand nor be in darkness for a moment that the Lord is coming the Second time.
He will come with all His saints. His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives; and that no false teacher nor wilful perverter of the truth about the reality of the Lord’s bodily presence on the earth at that time may have even the shadow of a shadow to rest on, and as a proof that this coming is not spiritual but actual and the testimony of His very feet under the most pronounced topographical conditions, the prophet says the mount on which those blessed and real feet shall descend is not only on the Mount of Olives, but that “Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.”
At the touch of the Lord’s feet this wondrous and sacred Mount of Olives will split in twain. One half of it will roll like a wave northward. The other half will roll to the south. A great valley will be formed. That valley is named in Scripture, but never has been found on any map and cannot be found in Palestine to-day. It is the valley of Jehoshaphat, the valley of decision, the valley of judgment of the nations. And into this valley pell-mell shall rush the Antichrist-led and Devil-deceived armies of the league of ten nations to find their overthrow at the hand of the Lord and the inauguration of that hour when the once despised and crucified Christ shall be the revealed and recognized God of the whole earth; when there shall be one Lord and His name one—even that name which is above every name whether in heaven or on earth—the name of Jesus.
Malachi closes the book of the Old Testament. He beholds our Lord Jesus Christ coming the Second time. He sees Him coming as the rising sun filling the heavens and flooding the earth with the benediction of His majesty and might.
From Malachi to the New Testament we pass over four hundred years of prophetic silence and then we are in the book of the Gospel according to Matthew.
Here we are face to face with the night of nights.
The stars like silver squadrons sail close to the waiting earth. The angels fling down their wreath of natal song and the virgin mother cradles upon her white and unsullied breast the Christ of God.
We follow Him in the days of His unfolding ministry. Every time He touches the earth His footsteps leave a benediction. Each time He breathes the air He sweetens it. His low and modulated voice starts a note of music whose rhythmic accents have not done sounding and whose heavenly harmony outsings the discords of earth. He looks daylight into blind eyes. He cools the fever pulse to quiet beating. He makes the lame man to leap as a hart. He hushes the storm on Galilee till the ruffled, windswept waters are as calm and peaceful as a babe upon its mother’s breast. With a word He raises the wept-for dead. Everywhere and at all times His miracles are wrought, not merely that He may do good and bring needed blessings as He passes by, but as the credentials and sign warrant of the truthfulness of His claim that He is Son of God, God the Son, the Anointed of the Lord and Israel’s king.
But in all His ministry of hand or word never does He speak save incidentally of His first coming. Always and in fullest degree He speaks of His Second Coming. Seated upon the Mount of Olives He affirms, after the cross shall have slain and stained Him and the grave shall have briefly held Him He will come again; but, just before He comes it will be as it was in the days of Noah—a time of materialism, sensualism, the culture of self-consciousness, an hour of boasting, pride, lawlessness and war; and when He is revealed it will be as with the driving judgment of the flood.
In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew and the first part of the chapter He declares He is coming as the bridegroom comes—seeking the marriage hour of his bride.