The first is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together up to him. This is when Christ will come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe. This is the departure, which is described in the context as that which restrains the man of sin from being revealed until it is taken out of the way.

The gathering together of the Church to meet the Lord in the air will precede both the Day of the Lord and the revealing of the man of sin on the earth. Thank God for His exceeding great grace and His great love for us!

The second aspect will occur sometime after the Lord Jesus Christ comes to save and redeem us, and he gathers us together up to him. After this, the Day of the Lord will begin. The man of sin will be revealed on earth, the son of perdition, who is the lawless one. This man will come according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders, and with every deception of injustice. He will sit in the Temple of God showing himself that he is God!

But wait; the lawless one cannot come before God sends the Lord Jesus Christ to gather together the Church of the Grace of God up to him.

Sometime after the restraint is removed and we depart up to the Lord, the Lord will come to the earth with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on the ungodly, who will be sentenced to everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power…after he shall have come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all those who have believed.

When God removes the restraint, the departure of the saints by our gathering together up to the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Day of the Lord will begin, and the man of sin will be revealed.

Thank God that He has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. The wrath of God is part of the Lord’s Day and we will already be gathered together before it begins.

Dearly beloved, we will acquire the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and it will take our Father the ages to come to display the exceeding riches of His grace to us in loving kindness and with His tender mercies in Christ Jesus. Rejoice, and again I say rejoice; he is coming!

I hope we see much more than another new year; I hope we are snatched up together, the living and the dead in Christ, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so we are with the Lord forevermore!