is often misunderstood.  He comes first, not to the earth, but into the air to meet His Bride and gather her to Himself; both those that are sleeping and those that are awake:  “For 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:  then we which are alive and remain 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 Thes. 4:16, 17).  This phase of his coming is, and has been, imminent since the promises of his return were given; and it is for this particular preliminary event that the Church is taught to hope and pray, for it will be the time of her rapture and blessedness.  As has been before stated, the utter dissolution of humanity is latent in the unregenerated heart (Rom. 3:10-18), and its own tribulation only awaits this removal of all Divine restraint.  It is, therefore, both Scriptural and reasonable to conclude that tribulation will instantly begin upon the earth after the first aspect of the return of Christ when He comes for His Church.

Thus it may be seen that this period of unsurpassed trial upon the earth, when the blasphemous claims of Satan and man are to be proven and God’s testimony is to be vindicated, is bounded by the two events in the Second Coming of Christ:  when He comes for His saints (I Thes. 4:16, 17), to gather to Himself His heavenly people, and when He comes with His saints (Rev. 19:11-21) to be the complete fulfillment of all the covenants of God with His earthly people.

The actual duration of this period is marked off in Daniel 9:24-27:  “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.  Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks:  the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.  And after the three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:  and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:  and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”