Psalm 98:7-9. "Let the sea roar, and all that fills that; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity."

We (or maybe it is just me:) always think of the Second Coming as a scary time, but here we are told that the sea and the earth and all that fills them will rejoice when the Lord comes to judge the earth with righteousness and equity. When you think about it, the seas, the land, the creatures, will of course be joyful when their Creator returns! As should we be! The reason that we find it scary is because of our fallen nature. Just as Adam and Eve hid from God after the first sin, so we don't want to be "found out" in all of our evil ways. We know that God sees all of our sin and that it will be revealed to us in the light of his truth.

This is why, as described in the Book of Revelation, God permits much suffering before the Second Coming. God wants us to run to his son with joy at his coming, not to turn and run away from him and try to hide. So, he will allow (and I do believe is now allowing) much suffering prior to that final revelation. As we try to hide from God and keep going in our sin, this is causes great distress in the world. This is what Revelation describes: the gradual "awakening" of our individual consciences to our sin. Many people double down on their sin as they approach the time that it will be revealed to them and in the light of truth, either because they are truly lying to themselves and believe that their sin is goodness or because they are taking what they can get before the party is over. Thus the suffering increases, as the rest of the world labors under the deeper and deeper sin of much of humanity. But with each seal being broken, each new evil being released by our sin, more and more people wake up, face their sin, and repent. They then turn to God with all of their hearts and experience his unfathomable mercy.

This is where all this suffering leads; only then will we be ready, along with the rest of creation, to welcome Christ back with nothing but joy!