The sermon transcript is about the preacher's intention to talk about the coming of the Lord Jesus and not about details or schedules. The preacher shares a personal story about his joy and relief upon being reunited with his daughter after a difficult time in the military. He emphasizes the importance of being together and the value of family. The preacher also mentions the lack of focus on prophetic teaching in current Bible conferences compared to the past.

In the Gospel according to John, the 14th chapter, let not your hearts be troubled. Ye who believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go into that place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, the purpose being that where I am, he may be also. Then there is a verse in 1 Corinthians 15. It is Paul writing in the Spirit about our Lord, and he says, for he must claim. He hath put all enemies under his feet. I will come again, said Jesus. He must claim, said Paul. Now, I want to bring my only prophetic message of this year. I have noticed that 25 or 30 years ago, every convention had a prophetic teacher present who preached on little else but prophecy. And even the evangelists couldn't get it along, and the Bible teachers were giving one or two talks or more on it. Now, I find you can go into a conference, a Bible conference, fundamentalist or alliance, and go through from the first service to the last one, and nobody will preach on prophecy. I understand the evangelist last night, he told me what he said. I wasn't here, and I'm not overlapping him today, and I won't be giving to any of you curious-minded people who strive on difficulties. I won't be giving you any consolation whatsoever, because I want to talk about the coming of the Lord, and not about the details and schedule, or as Brother Turner probably would say, schedule, because that's what they say in Canada. I think I'll disappoint you, but I'm going to preach anyway about our Lord's coming. Now, the doctrine of the return of the Lord Jesus, and we can take that calf out of this thing, whoever runs it. It sounds like the kids of a calf were bawling back at me, and I don't like it. Would you, Mr. Hoover, wherever you are, would you please do something to this gadget? Can you check this for me? Are you better than that? All right. He's whining a little bit, and I'm not a whiny preacher. Now, the doctrine of Christ's return has always been a part of the Christian message. It is the background against which the Gospels are written, and it is the backdrop against which the epistles are written, and it is both center and circumference of the book of Revelation. And this hope of Christ's coming back was never lost to the Church. It was always held. Well, it was sometimes held in a very general, broad way, sometimes even a vague way, but the Church had always believed that Jesus Christ would come back to the world again. We'll find it in Christian literature clear back to the days of Paul. We'll find it preserved in hymns, both Greek and Latin, and German, and they're all in our English. And we'll find it in sermons and letters and devotional work written from the days of the Fathers, the Church and Apostolic Fathers, down to the present day. We'll talk about his coming and the day of Christ and the day of his triumph. It was not very much emphasized by the Reformers, or by the Wesleyans at the time of the Wesleyan revival, and it was not much emphasized even in the days when Johnson Edward, the greatest American preacher, preached and the Great Awakening came. But it was always there, nevertheless, though it wasn't emphasized. It was an assumed fact that our Lord would come a second time to the earth, and nobody denied that he would, though some didn't emphasize it as strongly as others. And then, about a century ago, there came a widespread revival of interest in prophecy, and a new emphasis fell upon Christ's millennial reign. And there was renewed study about his coming and the prophecies concerning his coming, and Daniel and Revelation came back into their own again. And then began to preach about Daniel and Revelation, and there were all certain detailed interpretations of prophecy, particularly Daniel and Revelation, and some of the sayings of Jesus. And there were two comings that became popular, the for and with. The coming for us and coming with us, and those two prepositions were enough to make some congregations shout, just say for and with. But if you didn't say for and with, they looked down over the edge of their social Bible at you rather suspiciously. They said, the man isn't saved because he doesn't say for and with. Then they had the restoration of the Roman Empire. Then when they hung Mussolini up by the heels along with his girlfriends, after it was about to close in the Second World War, that just knocked the crops out from under a lot of the boys with their for and with, and their Roman Empire restoration. And a lot of books had to be quietly snuffed in the attic and forgotten. And the tribulation got a lot of attention, so that I grew up with everybody talking about the for and the with and the Roman Empire and the tribulation. And when there was nothing else to excite us, they argued about whether Babylon would be literal or figurative. So, we went through a terrific period of prophetic teaching, and then along about the time that this new emphasis on prophecy came along, there also came rationalism and science and higher criticism. That started over a period from the faint rationalists down to the latest scientists, and they turned against our Bible and said that the thing isn't true. It's a nice book, all right, but you can't trust it. And then there were certain men to combat them. I could name them, but won't. And we thank God for them and every one of them. And they fought desperately. Phrygian was among those early fighters, and they fought for the truth of the scripture, for the word of the Lord, for the he that is he, for the virgin's birth, for the necessity of redemption through the blood, and for the complete trustworthiness of the sacred scripture. And a division came up between what we call the higher, or the modernists, really, and the fundamentalists. And we had the book called The Fundamentals, and we got the Schofield Bible which embodied in their notes the doctrines of the fundamentalists. So we had fundamentalism and modernism set over against each other, as Israel was over against the Philistines on many an occasion. And here is a curious thing that history will note, that it so happens, either in the will of God or by one of those accidents in history, that just when the brethren were fighting tooth and nail for the truth of the scripture, and were on their side, God knows, and always have been, when they were fighting for the truth of the scriptures and fundamentalism was getting dug in and getting its bastions established, also it coincided with them leaving for the great emphasis on prophetic teaching, so that the fundamentalists and the millennialists, the believers in Christ's return, came to be one and the same, so that a man couldn't be a believer in the deity of Christ and the truth of the scriptures unless he was also a believer in all that the prophetic teachers told us about prophecy, about what Daniel said in the Revelation. And so we threw out everybody that didn't agree with the Schofield Bible notes, and we forgot that long line of saints that walked with God and were not, who would have been astonished or horrified at some of the things that some of our brethren were teaching. Because you see, prophecy became a pretty slick way of getting crowds. It also became a pretty slick way of getting money, and it also became a pretty neat way of getting prominence. A man who had no saintliness and didn't know much about God, anybody can study Revelation and make a chart, so they did. And the result was, when that man came into a neighborhood, he wanted to get a crowd like he talked about from the Roman Empire, and the coming of Christ, and all the curious-minded came and sat dog-legged, and he thought that he was doing God's service. Well, that was true up to the time of the Second World War, about the time of the Second World War, when Mussolini got that hanging up there, and when everything blew up in our faces and the things that we had been teaching and pointing to as being fulfillment of prophecy suddenly unbid themselves and came apart and fell away, while the honest and conservative people who weren't out after money and they weren't out after prominence, they turned away. So the doctrine of the second coming of Christ has recently been very much neglected, and people who used to teach it are very cautiously mentioning it occasionally, but not teaching it much. So the doctrine of our Lord's return has gone into eclipse in the last 15 years, literally all over the world. The best article that I ever managed to get hold of on the second coming of Christ was written by a Bishop in India, and I printed it to me last week, about four years ago. Maybe you thought, maybe you didn't. It came from a Bishop in India who wouldn't have been classified along with us, but yet he believes that Christ is coming back, and he told us why. Well, I believe that Christ is coming back again, and I'll tell you why. Now, the doctrine that the Messiah must come twice to the earth is found throughout all of the Bible, particularly of the New Testament, and I think that it is more neatly summed up in Hebrew's line than anywhere else. Verse says, "...the day that looketh for him, till then he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Now, he appeared once, and it says he shall appear the second time. Now, that was written several score of years after he had come the first time. So there is a first time, and there is a second time, and this is both warning and comfort. It is in that he says, "...take heed, and beware, and watch." That is warning, and it is comfort in that he says, "...therefore comfort one another with these words." Now, the coming of Christ has two aspects. It has the political aspect and the personal aspect. I said something in an editorial about the political aspect of the coming of Christ, and somebody wrote a hot letter in there that I don't know how it ever got through the mail. It was so hot. But the Bible has given us a political aspect. There is one there, and then there's the personal aspect, and the trouble with our brethren with the charts was that they forgot the personal aspect of Christ's coming, and that only in the political aspect. And you can get anybody interested, even an old sinner, you can get him interested in the possibility of another king coming and upsetting the Democrats and Republicans, anybody who knows ready to listen to that stuff. So, there is a political and there is a personal aspect of the coming of Christ, and without going into any details whatsoever, I am going to deal with both of them here this morning. Apologies, this is the political aspect. He shall reign until all his enemies are made his footstool, and the personal aspect is, I will come again for you, that is, where I am there you may be. That's the personal aspect, and that's the part I'm interested in, and that's the part I know the most about. But I do know maybe a little from the study of the scriptures about the political aspect of the coming of Christ. Now, it says he shall reign, and a reigning one is required, it's necessary. According to the scriptures, there must come someone who can reign until the weak are delivered from the oppression of the strong. A reigning one is required to deliver and rescue the race of mankind from the tyranny of sin, and a reigning one is required to deliver Israel from her ancient tormentors, and to deliver the world from all trouble and provide a perfect leader for the world. These problems are too big. Now, I'd like to say this to you. I suppose that in spite of my sermon the other morning about not grumbling, that I have broken my own rules a little about some of our politicians. I don't have, and I think maybe a man has a right to have sanctified indignation against some things he has to see and hear in the world, and a lot of our politicians are just little fellows, little mice, studying hard to become big enough to be rats, and they are trying to lead us, but they're not getting it done. But they are honest men. Do you know what I think, Ike Eisenhower? I think he's an absolutely dead honest man. That big German couldn't lie if he wanted to. It doesn't come natural to him. He might get mad and red-faced and cut you out for you as a soldier, you know, but he won't lie to you. He's an honest man, but he simply can't unravel our problems. He just can't do it. And there must come a man that can, and all the evil spiritual powers of the world have got to have a master. They've got to have a master. We can't go on like this, and death itself has to have an executioner. One of our old hymns talks about a breath of death. It's rather an odd phrase, but it means that there's coming a time when death will die, when God Almighty will slay death and death won't be here anymore. Now, if a man is going to have to come, a ruler, somebody's got to come to put down sin and deliver Israel and set the Church free and slay death and change the devil and bring righteousness on the earth and let it rain like a river from the river to the ends of the earth, then somebody has to come to do it, and whoever does, it has to be qualified to do it. We re-elect men who aren't qualified, you know. The rule is, we scrape the bottom of the bell and get what we can get, get some politician from Missouri or somewhere and put him up there, because there's nobody else. And we get men who aren't qualified. And the biggest abuse in politics is men sitting in chairs that are not big enough to build. That's the biggest abuse. You're wearing shoes that rattle around like a bean in a wash tub. They're not big enough for the job. But somebody has to come with qualifications to fix this world up and take the devil out of it and get the bones out of it and the graves out of it and disease and pain out of it. The Bible tells us that we're going to have a world like that, and if we do, somebody's going to have to do it, and somebody's going to have to be qualified to do it. Now, there are three qualifications that this reigning one has to have. He must be a native of the earth. The Lord isn't going to bring a stranger in to rule over the earth. A stranger couldn't do it to begin with. This earth is our home, brothers and sisters. Yesterday, and since I've been here, I took a little time off, and some of my friends rode me around in their cars with their experience all around over the old hillsides that I used to know. Way up on top of the hill there, and then down and up, that's Plummetstown, up to Arvona, as you say here. Arvona, and Sullivan, and Bellwood, and Burrowindale, and Colport, and Offend, and Puckety. And they took me all around and showed me the places again where I used to be. Well, this first of mine, I don't have any objection to the earth. You know, I kind of like it. Somebody told me about a woman who was very sick, and she had gotten a wise old doctor who had more good sense than science. He said, Listen, you'll die unless you come down where you can get your feet in the ground. He said, Take your shoes and socks off every once in a while, and tramp around in the earth, and you'll get all right. And she did, and she did. She tramped around in the dirt and got all right. And I have a grandson, Stanley, about a year old, and his father and mother, they were college people, you know, and very smart, but they've got sense enough, in spite of that, they've got sense enough to let that fellow sit around on the ash pile and in the sand and eat dirt. And he's eating dirt, young Stanley is, and he's a huge toil of a fellow for a year old, and he gets to eat dirt. He comes in, you know, with his mouth all black with it. I wonder why they're not frightened, but they're not. God gave us the ground of it. He gave us the earth. It's our mother and our nourisher and our home and our playground and our battleground and our resting place at last. And this earth of ours, don't get mad at it. It's a pretty good earth. God made it. In the beginning, God made the earth, the Bible says. And he made the heaven and the earth, and he made the stars also. He made the stars to look down on the earth, and he made the sun to kiss the earth and warm it up and give it vitamin A. And he made this earth for you and me to walk around on. And you know what you are, big boy? You think you really amount to something. There isn't anything you'll like more than when you shave in the morning to look in the glass and see that great, big, handsome boot looking out at you. You know what you are, Junior? You're just a big hunk of animated earth. That's all you are. God on the mighty reached down and took his thumb and scraped up a little of the earth's crust, blew into it the breath of life, and the doctor said, It's a boy. And you're just a hunk of animated earth's crust. That's all you are. Well, whoever comes down here to straighten us out has got to be a native. God isn't going to let somebody come in that isn't a native. I can come and preach to you people here, and I can preach as rough as I want to, because I know you. I know your language. I've been out here. I was born out here. The dust that God used to make me came from up the hollow here. So I'm not a stranger to you. I'm a native. And when God sends his man to rule the earth, he's sending no stranger. Archangel Gabriel couldn't or wouldn't get a vote. If he came down here, he wouldn't get a vote. If he carried them with his six wings and came down here, he wouldn't get a vote. We don't want him to carry them down here, ruling over us, because carrying them doesn't know anything about us. They're not made of dust and clay. Melt them up and you won't get lime and calcium and copper. They're not made of the earth. God didn't make them of the earth. They're a spirit. But you and I have a body made of clay. So the man that's going to reign over us has got to have a body like that, too. Well, the Son of Man came down here, and in that unspeakable holy mystery of the incarnation, he entered the womb of the Virgin Mary. And a little sweet Virgin Mary gave to him a body. And it was not a material body born of sky or dust. It was an earthly body. And the body he took to the tree was composed of blood and bones and tissues and nerves and skin and hair and gristle, the same as your body is. He was like all we are except sin. And Jesus received his body from this earth, and here on this earth he walked, and here on this earth he took the best of his mother, and here on this earth he worked in the carpenter's shop, and here on this earth he traveled the dusty highways, and here on this earth they nailed him high on a cross to die of the just for the unjust. And when they laid him away, it was in a hole in the earth that somebody had made to put dead people in. And when he came out, it was a man that came out, a real man. So, my brother, Jesus Christ qualifies. He's a native of this earth. He's no foreigner imported to straighten us out. He belonged down here. Strange and wonderful is the mystery, he belongs in heaven, too, for he is God and man. So Jesus Christ is at home both in heaven and on earth. As God, he's at home among the heavenly spheres. As a man, he's at home among the trees and rocks and flowers. So he is both God and man, and he fits both places, and he's a stranger in either place. Can our poet really talk about him being a stranger here? He was no stranger here. When he walked up beside a man and stood alongside of him, he was standing along the side of a man like himself, only he had no sins. And then this man must qualify. He's got to have unspotted holiness. We're not going to have anybody that's not fit to reign. Jesus Christ qualifies. He's unspotted holiness. God being a holy God will never send an unholy king to the world. That's why David slept with his fathers, because he wasn't early enough to live. He had to sleep with his fathers. Death had dominion over him, and took him and put him down there, and he sleeped in there. I always thought that was a quaint and blessed way to do when you got old and had nowhere to go, just go sleep with your fathers. But he did that in the Old Testament, and it was a nice way to do. And David did it, and all the kings have done it, the good ones as well as the bad ones have done it, because there were no kings holy enough to reign over the earth. But Jesus Christ is, for he's holy, harmless, unspotted, undefiled, and higher than the highest heaven. And so he qualifies, and all his enemies and his friends and all the ages have testified in unison that this was the Son of God, holy enough and good enough to qualify for king of the earth. And then he must have unchallenged right to reign, and that right has got to be established by the prophets and by the scriptures. You know, there have been a lot of people who said they were Christ. I was just reading this morning in Mark where he said there will be men who will come and say, I am Christ and shall deceive many. Back there, old Zola Laster came along and taught his religion, and Buddha taught his, and Anne Mohamed taught his, and Mary Baker Ebbey taught hers, and Psyche Ann Appellate taught his, and the great I Am Ballard taught his, and the Father Divine taught that he was God. And all down the centuries they've come and said, I am Christ. But he said, watch out for that. Because nobody can establish a claim to being Messiah except Jesus, and I'll show why. You see, he had to establish the fact that he was coming of the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then he had to prove that he came of the seed of David, and then he had to prove that he came of a certain son of David. And when Jesus was born, they traced his lineage back. You see, when the child was born, they put the record in the temple in Jerusalem, and they kept it there as the family tree. Every Jew had his family tree. You remember in Ezra and Nehemiah how they got tangled up on that, and they had to send scribes to straighten that out and get everything clear? Why did they keep the family record clear? They did it so when Messiah came, he could trace his lineage straight back to Abraham, and show that he was the true Messiah. And then when Jesus had come and died and risen again, they destroyed the temple and they destroyed the record, too. So now, nobody now or in the world to come, or in the days to come, can prove that he descended from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob and David. Nobody can prove it because the records were all destroyed and burned up. So nobody that came before Jesus Christ could prove it, and nobody that came after his time could prove it because he lacked the record. He has not the family history to prove it. So there isn't a Jew anywhere in the world that can prove he came from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and David down the Messianic line. God cut it off when the Messiah was cut off. So Jesus, my brother, qualifies, and he's the only one that does. Jesus, our Lord, has to qualify on all the predictions. You see, they predicted he would be born of a certain race, of a certain tribe of that race, at a certain time in a certain city, and nobody else was. Buddha was born too soon, Muhammad was born too late, and Father Divine belonged to the wrong race, and Mrs. Mary Baker, Eddie, wasn't of the right sex. And so you see, they're all mixed up. He qualified on every point. So he qualified to be the King of the Earth, and then he had to be faithful both to God and man, and Jesus Christ was that. And as man he could go before God, and as God he can come before man. And he took man in one hand and God in the other, and reconciled God and man. He had to be that kind of a King. And the scripture says he must reign. He must reign until the riddles of the world are solved, and, brother, don't think there are not many riddles. The riddles of the world! I don't think any man alive knows anything about how to untangle them. Sometimes I get all kind of, you know, I don't like the way that fellow, what's his name, Foster Dulles, does. I think you ought to stay home. I think that the more peace conferences he makes, the nearer we are to war. And I think they ought to anchor him and ground him somewhere, and put a chain on him and nail him down and say, Now, Johnny, you stay here. Don't run around, you'll get us in trouble. And I don't like a lot that's being done. But, brother and sister, I don't impugn their motives. They mean all right, but they just don't know how. You see, to straighten this mess out that we call mankind, and to get the political mess straightened out, a man has to have three things. He's got to have love in his heart enough to make him to want to do it. He's got to have wisdom enough that he'll know how to do it, and he's got to have power enough that he'll be able to do it. Now, nobody ever said that. Abraham Lincoln had love enough. He'd like to have delivered the world from its problems, but he didn't know how, and he didn't have the power. And Solomon might have known how, but he didn't have the heart to do it, and he didn't have the ability to do it. You've got to have all three, and Jesus has all three. He not only loves the world so he gave his blood to redeem it, but he knows how to straighten it out, and he has the power to straighten it out. Don't forget that. Man can have knowledge and not have power, and man can have power and not have knowledge, but Jesus had both in fulness and perfection. So he shall reign. He's going to come to the earth, and evil is going to be put down, and no effort ever has been made yet to put evil down. You know, I don't mind going aside from my sermon and telling you something here. I don't care much for these religious communal places. No, they have them. Wheaton, Illinois is one of them. Every budget converted is moving to Wheaton now. And I don't like that very well. I don't like this idea of getting the Christians all in one place, because it never works out. Zion, Illinois tried that under Dowie, and now they're selling cigarettes and dancing in that town where poor Dowie would have died and rolled over in his grave or spun like a chalk if he knew what they were doing in Zion. It just doesn't work. Savonarola tried it in Florence, and Calvin tried it in Geneva, and the Tuatons tried it, but it never works, because you've always got a serpent in your garden, you've always got a Judas among your apostles, and you've always got some scoundrel that'll mess up things and ruin your little Eden. And so there's no place, not even Nyack, New York. Now, I speak with great reverence and spend one minute at attention even to think of Nyack, but brothers, they're not all saints up there. I tell you, they're not. Not even among the last people. There are some grumblers there, and some people that don't agree. There isn't anywhere you can get people together. We do pretty well here, but it's only because we stayed ten days. If we stayed twelve days, some of you old deacons would be locking horns, there's no question about it, because you're not as sanctified as you want to make out you are. God's people just can't get along together. A fellow told me this one time, he used to be one of our men, but he's now a professor in a Baptist seminary. He said he used to be a railroad man. He said, you know what, I like sometimes to go back to the railroad yards and just listen to some of the conversation of those railroad men. He said they swear a little, but he said they're downright honest and they're not afraid to talk. He said there's so much pussy-putting and insincerity and sham among Christians. We walk around with our head off on one side, and you'd think we were images of the saints themselves. But go back and ask the pastor of the homework, and you'll find it's just not so. Some of you that are making such a big lot of noise around here, you're an awful pest at home. You're your pastor, and I know that now. Don't get mad. I'm native here, so you can't get mad at a prophet of your own. But that's the fact. But our Lord Jesus Christ ought to put down evil, and he will put down evil, for he must reign, and he's going to abolish death. Some people say they like death, but I confess I don't like death. I never liked it, never liked to see what it'll do to people. Take a great strong man and lay him out there, cold and white and helpless. Take a beautiful, vivacious woman and stretch her out there, flat and cold and unbeautiful. Death will take the sweet little turtling baby, and in an hour's time have it's tiny little alabaster image lying there in it's white bed. Death is a devilish thing. Think of the saints who would have been on this platform here. Think of the holy men that might have been here today if death hadn't cut them off. Your old brother Hyde. I confess my heart revolted against his ghost. I didn't want to see him go. I think he was one of the holiest men that's ever been my privilege to know. But death took him. He's worthy savior now. Death, death, I don't like it. But there'll be a day when God Almighty will send that worthy king to pull all the teeth out of old bitter death, and tear all it's toenails, and rob it of all it's steam, and then behead it, and death will be no more. You can walk up and down in the earth and not be afraid of death. He must reign until he, you say, is that to be when he comes for us or when he comes with us? Oh, you take your prepositions and go. I'm just preaching the broad general fact that Jesus Christ will come, and when he comes he'll do a few things that they put on the charts, you know, know a lot more about than I do. He'll clean up around here, and when he does he will put down death and he will abolish it, and he will reign from the river to the end of the earth. Now, that's just as much a part of my overall belief, to use a lazy expression, my overall belief. It's just as much a part of my creed as the authenticity of the scriptures and the existence of God and the fact of redemption. I believe in that. And I don't preach too much on prophecy, but my whole ministry is against the background of he's coming, he's coming, he's coming. I know he's coming, and they mess this up a little about the details and confuse us by arguing and they don't agree, and they have to run and burn their books and stop the presses when the events turn out the other way from what they thought they were going to. All right, the devil can laugh at that kind of thing, but he can't laugh at the fact that Jesus Christ, the worthy and qualified King of the world, will someday rule on this earth. And stand on this earth, and the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and the nation shall walk in the light of it. And he who once was on a cross will sit on a throne. Now, the devil can't laugh at that. He can laugh at the goofy evangelist trying to get a crowd with prophecy, but he can't laugh at the fact that his doom is sealed and the Lord of Glory is coming back to the world again. Now, that's the political aspect of his coming, but I think he's a whole lot more concerned with the personal aspect, for you know what he said there, and what you say just before you die as a rule, you're very tender and honest, and you say the tenderest things closest to your heart, I find, just before people die. Well, it was just to be a few hours until they nailed him on the cross, and he was very tender as he looked his disciples over, and he talked to them about his coming back again, and he said, Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I'd have told you. I wouldn't have fooled you. I'd have told you. I was honest with you, he said, and I'm telling you that I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, what's the next step? Logically, I'll come back again and take you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Now, that's the personal aspect of Christianity. Let me illustrate it like this. Here's a young man, and he falls in love with a young woman, and they're both young and single and happy and innocent, and they want to get married, and they're going to get married. All right, they set the day. But in the meantime, the young fellow decides that he's going to build a house for that bride of his. So, he goes, and he's able to get away, and he goes, and he either builds or buys, and he gets to hide it all connected. There's the water in, and the electricity in, and the gas in, and all fixed up. He is preparing a place for her. I'd say that's a kind of a political aspect of things, you know. That's the external, outside thing. But when she walks through the door, his joy is complete. But until she walks through the door, it's only an external and material kind of thing. And I grew up on a prophecy that was everlastingly drawn maps and talking about politics, as I have this morning, what the political aspects of the second coming are. But, my brethren, that's getting a house. That's another thing. It's when the Lord our God walks through the door, and we see him, and he sees us, and we go walking in on his arm into the presence of the Father with exceeding joy. That's when the personal aspect will be fulfilled. He says that he wants us to be with him forever. He will overthrow evil nations, yes, but he didn't say that here. He will triumph over his enemies, yes, but he was talking to his sweet, loved disciples here. He will fulfill the prophetic scriptures, yes, but he didn't mention that here in John. He said, I want to be with you. Together is a good word. You know that word, together? Do you hear that word, together? Here's a family in there, together. Our eldest son, Lowell, he was about 22 years old. He'd been years in the army, and he'd fought, and he'd been wounded, and I was in a railroad station. And, well, first, I was on a train out west, traveling toward the west coast, and I told my wife, I said, now we haven't heard from Lowell for a long time, and I'll be on pulling car number so-and-so, seat number so-and-so, train number so-and-so, and if you hear from me, wire me. So they came through and said, closer, closer. I said, here I am. They handed me a telegram, and the telegram said, Lowell is in North Africa. Well, that was a pretty low day for me, really. I don't want anybody's sympathy. That's all gone and passed, but that was a low day for me. My big boy, my first one, was over there in that hell, and the war wasn't over yet. It wasn't over for a year, and there was my boy over there. Well, that was a pretty low day for me. Well, time went on, and we heard from him sometimes, and then I was in a railroad station, and they said, page me, page, closer. I went to the, said, go to the station master's office, and I went to the station master's office, and he said, we want you on the phone. So I went to the phone, and my wife's voice answered and said, Daddy, do you know what? And I said, no, I don't know what. I knew by the tone of her voice it wasn't that, that I don't know what. She said, Lord, and he'll be home tomorrow. Brother, talk about, talk about delight. I had all the grief I had on that train two or three years before was forgotten in the joy that came to my heart. Then we let our little daughter, little Rebecca, that he loved so much, he said, I'd walk 15 miles to hear my little sister sing Walking With Jesus once more. Now, after all that terror and hell that he'd gone through, and the bitterness and all, as a military policeman over there in Italy, now he arrives. I knew he was wounded, and I was afraid, maybe, that he might be terribly banged up. But here was little curly-headed Becky, and I was leading her along, my wife with me, and we walked to the station. He let out one hoop, dived and grabbed her up in his arms, and that was that. Together, those are good words, brother, that word together, together, together. You that have boys in the service, wouldn't that word together be a good word for you? You knew he was coming back. You that have fiancées, and I don't know what the French word is for the other sex, but somebody you're going to marry. You that have loved ones, and they're far from you, isn't that word together a good word? Well, that's a good word, friend. And Jesus Christ said, the personal aspect of all this is that we might be together, you and I. I want to be with you, he said. I want to be with you. And we're going to look upon his face. No wonder people shout and cry when they talk about looking on the face of Jesus. Why, Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah and Paul all wanted to see that day, and they wanted to see his face, and some of them died in hope that they never saw it. But you and I are going to see it, and that's the personal aspect that he's coming again, that he might take us to be with him where he is. Now, that's the test, my brethren. That separates the men from the boys. That separates the prophetic teachers from the teachers who teach prophecy. That separates the real from the artificial. If you don't want to see Jesus, then I don't see how many works of grace you've had. You're not ready yet to see him. There ought to be a longing to see Jesus. Behold him. Old Bernard said, Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, with sweetness fills my breath. And the story of the saints, the poems and hymns and books that the saints have written, are all fragrant with desire to see Jesus, that we may be together. That's the personal aspect of the second coming, and it was lost for 30 or 40 years. The people told us all about the Jews in Jerusalem and Babylon and the Millennium and the Roman Empire, and we used to get bored and walk out under the trees and wonder how come. And we forgot that they were forgetting the most wonderful aspect of the second coming, and that is the personal aspect. He is coming again, and 10,000 times, 10,000 in shining garments bright, the army of the ransomed saints shall stream up the gates of life. It's finished all, it's finished the fight with death and sin, open wide the golden gates and let the victors in, and we'll behold Jesus. There is a song, now five minutes after 12 is too many, there is a song we sing often in Chicago, written by a man named Bernard of Plumy, not Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote the song I just quoted, but this man was another fellow by the name of Bernard. He was from Plumy, and he was, of course, way back there in the 11th or 12th century, and all I had was the Catholic Church. He didn't know anything about much, but he did know God, he did know Christ, and he was deeply in love with Christ. But he thought that Rome was the most wonderful place in all the world. He talked about the Pope and the Vatican and the Cardinals, and he got an idea that was heaven itself. So, one day he got the privilege, as he thought, of making a trip to Rome, and he went and looked it over. And to his horror and disgust, he found instead of it being a little heaven, it was next door to hell. He found the priests were wicked, and they were a carnal bunch of liquor-drinking, wicked men. Instead of the Vatican being a holy place, it was an unholy nest of unclean birds. And it shocked him so terribly that, like a wounded animal, he crept through his lair. And back in Plumy, he wrote the song Jerusalem the Golden. And in a long poem called The Celestial Country, he wrote what he thought heaven would be. And we sing it sometimes when we're not singing some cheap chorus. We sing, I don't mean we at home ever sing. Any song director would ever lead a cheap chorus in Chicago by shagging through to the north side. But we sing, Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey-blessed. You ever sing that? Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey-blessed. Beneath thy contemplation sinks heart and voice, O friend. I know not, O I know not, what joys await me there, What radiancy of glory, what joys they uncompare. Why will it be like that? Because we'll be together, and I will come for you that we may be together. And where he takes us and what he does, that doesn't matter. What does the new bride care where they go as long as they're together? And what will it take that Christ care about where he takes us as long as he stays with us? And then we have another stanza. They stand o'er the halls of Zion, all jubilant with song, and bright with many an angel, and all the martyrs throng. The king is ever in them, the daylight is serene, the pastors of the blessed are decked with glorious sheen. Ah, my brother, I remember your brother Cop preached for me a couple of times. I had a series of meetings, and he doesn't know it, but he blessed us marvelously there in that church. One day he was preaching, you know the way he does, that big Dutchman, and he said, well, he said, work, hard work. He said, I was born for hard work. He said, I never expect to get out of it till I die. He said, I don't expect to have an easy time. He said, I've just settled it, but I expect to work hard all the rest of my life. He wasn't complaining, he was just prophesying. And since that, our people say, when things go a little bad, oh, remember Brother Cop, we're settled, we're just going to work hard all the rest of our days. We don't expect to shine and get into the newspapers and be big shots, just work hard all the rest of our days. And you, dear, good, hard-working people, let me tell you, they stand those halls of Zion, all jubilant with song, and bright with many an angel, and all the martyrs throng. And five minutes of gazing upon the face of Jesus in that holy place will more than make up for all the hard work and toil, and all the corns and bunions and calluses and wrinkles that you've got from your service. They'll all pass away in one glorious breath of delight as you look upon the face that once wore a crown on its forehead, and you say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That'll be all, Brother, that'll be enough. We won't need any more, that'll be enough. And everything after that'll be bonus. Everything after that'll be added. He's coming. He's coming for good, sound political reasons, but he's coming for personal reasons, too. He's not only to be our king, he's our brother, our bridegroom, our all. In the gospel according to John, 14th chapter, let not your hearts be troubled. You who believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, the purpose being that where I am, he may be also. Then there is a verse in 1 Corinthians 15. It is Paul writing in the Spirit about our Lord, and he says, For he must reign. He has put me under his feet. I will come again, said Jesus. He must reign, said Paul. Now, I want to bring my only prophetic message of this year. I have noticed that 25 or 30 years ago, every convention had a prophetic teacher present who preached on little else but prophecy. And even the evangelists couldn't do that alone, and the Bible teachers were giving one or two talks or more on it. Now, I find you can go into a conference, a Bible conference, from the Nicholas or Alliance, and go through from the first service to the last one, and nobody will preach on prophecy. I understand the evangelist last night told me what he said. I wasn't here. And I'm not overlapping him today, and I won't be giving to any of you curious-minded people who strive on difficulty. I won't be giving you any consolation whatsoever, because I want to talk about the coming of the Lord, and not about the details and schedule, or as Brother Turner probably would say, schedule, because that's what they say in Canada. I think I'll disappoint you, but I'm going to preach anyway about our Lord's coming. Now, the doctrine of the return of the Lord Jesus, and we can take that calf out of this thing, whoever runs it. Sometimes I feel that the calf is bawling back at me, and I don't like it. Would you, Mr. Hoove, wherever you are, would you please do something to this gadget? Would you fix it for me? Are you better than that? All right. It's whining a little bit, and I'm not a whining preacher. Now, the doctrine of Christ's return has always been a part of the Christian message. It is the background against which the Gospels are written, and it is the background against which the epistles are written, and it is both center and circumference of the book of Revelation. And this hope of Christ's coming back was never lost to the Church. It was always held. Though it was sometimes held in a very general, broad way, sometimes even a vague way, but the Church has always believed that Jesus Christ would come back to the world again. We will find it in Christian literature, clear back to the days of Paul. We will find it preserved in hymns, both Greek and Latin, and German, and eroding our English. And we'll find it in sermons and letters and devotional work written from the days of the fathers, the Church and apostolic fathers, down to the present day. We talked about his coming and the day of Christ and the day of his triumph. It was not very much emphasized by the Reformers, or by the Resslings at the time of the Ressling revival, and it was not much emphasized even in the days when Johnson Edwards, the greatest American preacher, preached and the Great Awakening came. But it was always there, nevertheless, though it wasn't emphasized. It was an assumed fact that our Lord would come a second time to the earth, and nobody denied that he would, though some didn't emphasize it as strongly as others. And then, about a century ago, there came a widespread revival of interest in prophecy, and a new emphasis fell upon Christ's Millennial reign. And there was a new study about his coming and his death.