The Second Coming — A.W. Tozer

Christ’s Promise to Come Again

In the Gospel according to John, 14, but 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, 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 that with all enemies under his feet I will come again, said he.

The Neglect of Prophetic Preaching

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 told me what he said, and 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 and 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, who took that calf out of this thing, whoever runs it, found that there was a calf bawling back at me, and I don't like it.

Would you, Mr. Hulme, wherever you are, would you please do something to this gadget? Would you take this for me, and I'll go to that? All right. He's whining a little bit, and I'm not a whiny preacher.

The Historic Christian Hope of Christ’s Return

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 had always believed that Jesus Christ would come back to the world again.

You will find it in Christian literature, clear back to the days of Paul. You will find it preserved in hymns, both Greek and Latin and German, and eroding our English. And you will 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 Wrestling at the time of the Wrestling 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.

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 men 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 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 ladder at you rather suspiciously.

Most of the men would be scared, because he doesn't preach for and with. Then they had the restoration of the Roman Empire. Then when they hung Jusceline up by the heels along with his girlfriends, after it was about to close 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. Surgeon was among those early fighters. And they fought for the truth of the scriptures, 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 scriptures.

And a division came up between what we call the higher or the modernists, really, and the fundamentalists. And we had the books 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 happened, either in the will of God or by one of those accidents of history, that just when the veterans were fighting tooth and nail for the truth of the scriptures, 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 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 veterans were teaching.

Because you see, prophecy became a pretty slick way of getting crowds, but also it 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. Why, he talked about the Roman Empire and the coming of Christ, and all the curious-minded came and sat dog-legged, and he thought, of course, 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 cases and the things that we had been teaching and pledging to as being fulfillment of prophecy suddenly unlived themselves and came apart and fell away.

Where 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 the people who used to teach it are very cautiously mentioning it occasionally, but not teaching it much.

So that 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.

The Second Coming as Warning and Comfort

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 than Hebrew, Lime, and anywhere else.

First says, "...the day that look 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 is 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. He's an old sinner. You can get him interested in the possibility of another king coming and upsetting a Democrat or a Republican or anybody who is 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. The problem is this, 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. He 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 of 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 in the face 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 that's when you get men who aren't qualified. And the biggest goof in politics is men sitting in chairs that are not big enough to fill. That's the biggest goof. They'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.

Christ’s Qualifications to Reign

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 to Platt's Thomas Town, up to Arvona, as you say here. Arvona and Sullivan and Mack, and Bellwood and Burwindale and Colport and Offend and They took me all around and showed me the places again where I used to be.

Well, this earth 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 stockings 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. I have a grandson, Stanley, about a year old, and his father and mother were college people 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 whale of a fellow for a year old, and he gets to eat dirt, and he comes in 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 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 almighty 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 crust. That's all you are. Whoever comes down here to straighten us out is God being 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 native. And when God sends his man to rule the earth, he's sending no stranger.

Dark angel, good or good, and you wouldn't get a vote. If he came down here, you wouldn't get a vote. If he carried them with his six wings and came down here, you wouldn't get a vote. We don't want him to carry them down here, ruling over us, or carry them and don'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 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 star 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 thin. And Jesus received his body from this earth, and here on this earth he walked, and here on this earth he took the breast 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 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 belongs 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 alongside of a man like himself, only he had no sin. 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 father, because he wasn't holy enough to live.

He had to sleep with his father. 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 father.

They 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 heavens. And so he qualified, 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.

Christ’s Messianic Right and Faithfulness

Then he must have unchallenged right to reign, and that right has got to be established by the prophets and by the scripture. 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. Buddha taught his, and Mohammed taught his, and Mary Baker Ebbey taught hers, and Psyche taught hers, and the great Ian Ballard taught his, and 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. So you see, they are all mixed up. He qualified on every point.

So he qualifies 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.

Now, 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 entangle 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 he ought to stay home.

I think that the more peace conferences he makes, the nearer we are to war. And I think I 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 has 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.

The Failure of Earthly Christian Communities

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. Well, 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 Tewartons tried it, but it never worked, 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 will mess up things and ruin your little Eden.

So there's no place, not even Nyack, New York. Now, I speak with great reverence and stand one minute at attention, even to the Saints of Nyack. But 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 10 days.

If we stayed 12 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. You're God's people, you 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 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 they're downright honest and they're not afraid to talk. He said there's so much pussy-footing 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. Be your pastor. I know that now.

Don't get mad. I'm a native here, see, 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.

Christ’s Triumph Over Death and Evil

Now, 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 its 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 its toenails and scrub it of all its sting and then behead it, and death will be no more.

And 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 and 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 is just as much a part of my creed as the authenticity of the scriptures and the existence of God and the facts of redemption.

I believe in that. And I don't preach too much on prophecy, but my whole ministry is against the background that he's coming, he's coming, he's coming. I know he's coming, and they've messed us up a little about the details and confused 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 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.

Christ’s Personal Promise to His People

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. 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? He said. Why, 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, 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 the 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 mad and talking about politics, as I have this morning, what the political aspects of the Second Coming are. But, my brethren, that's getting the 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.