Our Lord’s Return to Earth Again

I am watching for the coming of the glad millennial day,
When our blessèd Lord shall come and catch His waiting bride away.
Oh! my heart is filled with rapture as I labor, watch, and pray,
For our Lord is coming back to earth again.

Chorus
Oh, our Lord is coming back to earth again.
Yes, our Lord is coming back to earth again.
Satan will be bound a thousand years; we’ll have no tempter then,
After Jesus shall come back to earth again.

Jesus’ coming back will be the answer to earth’s sorrowing cry,
For the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth and sea and sky.
God shall take away all sickness and the sufferer’s tears will dry,
When our Savior will come back to earth again.

Yes, the ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion then with joy,
And in all His holy mountain nothing hurts or shall destroy.
Perfect peace shall reign in every heart, and love without alloy,
After Jesus shall come back to earth again.

Then the sin and sorrow, pain and death of this dark world shall cease,
In a glorious reign with Jesus of a thousand years of peace.
All the earth is groaning, crying for that day of sweet release,
For our Jesus shall come back to earth again.

Over the last several weeks, the Lord’s return to earth has been part of the daily news because of the prediction that the Lord was coming back on May 21st.  I don’t want to get into a discussion of the formula for calculating the Lord’s return, or the specific prophecy or the person who made this prediction that did not come true.  What is saddest to me is that many unbelievers (especially those I saw on TV) use this incorrect prediction as an opportunity to make fun of Christianity, or joke about the “end of the world” or criticize Christians for making these kinds of predictions.  Although this person was dead wrong about his prediction, the truth is that the Lord is coming back to earth again.  This song, a red-back hymnal favorite of mine, reminds us that Jesus is coming again.  He said He was coming back and He will make good on His promise.

The early Church reminded each other of this truth over and over again by saying “Maranatha” which means “The Lord is coming.”  We need to live our lives as if the Lord is coming back.  Just because someone makes a prediction about Christ’s return that doesn’t come true, we should not discount the reality that Jesus is coming back.  Paul tells us in I Thessalonians 4 “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.”  And that return could be this very night.

Couple of comments on the lyrics:

• Labor, watch, and pray – I thought these three simple words give us plenty of things to do until the Lord returns.  Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  He is calling us to labor in His vineyard.  To do a work.  To answer His call.  To get our hands dirty in ministry to others.  Several times in the Gospels, Jesus tells His disciples to keep watch.  To be aware and on the look out that they not be surprised or overtaken with temptation or the evil one.  That they not become distracted by the things of this world, but to be focused on His return.  Finally, Jesus and the New Testament writers over and over again emphasized the importance of prayer.  To pray for one another.  To pray without ceasing.  To pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  As followers of Christ, I am reminded that we have a lot to do.

• Nothing hurts or shall destroy – Last night, I watched the weather and news intently because there were tornadoes in and around where my family lives in Oklahoma.  There were several tornadoes and one that was on the ground for over 50 miles.  The images on TV showed the destructive path of that particular tornado.  But it reminded me of something.  It reminded me that there is a place where there is no storm or tornado.  There is no destruction.  A place of no pain and no hurts.  No loss of material things and no loss of loved ones.  It is a place that Jesus has prepared for His children, and oh, do I want to go there!!

I did a little research on the author of this hymn, but unfortunately couldn’t find much.  James M. Kirk was born in 1854 in Flushing, Ohio, and died in 1845, 7 days before his 91st birthday.  He was active in the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CAMA) and was also a quartet singer.  His name, however, made me think of another James Kirk – the famous Captain of the USS Enterprise of Star Trek fame.  James T. Kirk’s goal as captain of the Enterprise was “to go where no man has gone before.”  James M. Kirk, the hymnwriter, reminds us of a place where all men and women have the opportunity to go, if they choose to accept Christ as one’s personal savior.  They get the opportunity to spend eternity in Heaven with the Lord.  James T. Kirk wanted to seek out strange new life forms.  James M. Mirk wrote about a Lord that required His people to be a little strange or “peculiar” as the King James tells us.  James M. Kirk also told us of a Savior who will one day give His children a new body and a new life. 

I hope today that you are longing for the Lord to come back to earth again.  I hope that you were not discouraged or disillusioned by the fact that the Lord did not come back on May 21st.  I hope that we, the Bride of Christ, are ready for the Groom no matter when that day is.  And finally, I hope that our loved ones are ready for the rapture too – especially if He decides to come back tonight.