The Coming of Our Lord
By D. L. Moody
IN the first place, I want to show you the importance of this subject. The denominations all make a good deal of baptism—I don’t know of one that doesn’t make a good deal about it, unless it be the Quakers. Take Paul’s last letters; he writes about baptism thirteen times in his epistles, but he writes of the return of our Lord fifty times. There are two hundred sixty chapters in the New Testament, and three hundred eighteen passages about the return of our Lord; so that there is an average of more than one passage to every chapter. Another thought: What is it that makes certain chapters very precious to all the churches? Now, I suppose that no one will contradict the statement that the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is one of the sweetest9portions of Scripture, and very precious to the whole church of God. Perhaps there is not one single chapter in all Paul’s epistles that is read oftener than that fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. Why is it that this is so precious? It not only tells us what the gospel is, that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification, but it tells us that Christ went back to heaven and that I used to read that chapter, but I did not get the sweetest part of it. In the fifty-first verse he says: “I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” Now that is what makes that chapter one of the most famous in the Bible. I suppose the high mountain peak of the gospels is the fourteenth chapter of John; I don’t think any one will challenge that statement. It is read oftener in the sick-room and at funerals than any other chapter in all the Bible. “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 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” “I go to prepare a place for you.” I used to think that was what made that chapter so famous; but there is something even sweeter than that. He is coming back again: “I will come and receive you unto Myself.” I do thank God for the promise of His return—of His coming back. Mark you—we have the same authority to believe that He is coming back as that He was going away. It was an angel that told Daniel He was to come; it was an angel told Mary He would come; that told the shepherds He was already come; an angel that told that He was risen from the dead, and an angel told us He was coming back again. An angel dropped down, and said, “Ye men of Galilee, . . . this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner.” That is how He is coming—just the same body He took up from this earth. That is the declaration of this blessed Book, and we have the same authority to believe that He is coming back as we have that He came first.—D. L. Moody.