Bible Text: Daniel 6:26 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. Daniel 6:26

There is an inscription on the dome of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. which few people know about. It reads, “One far-off divine event towards which the whole creation moves.” A visitor once saw that inscription and asked one of the guides what it means. The guide hesitated for a minute and then replied, “I think it refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ!”

The Bible says very plainly that Jesus Christ will one day return, to put an end to evil and to take over the reigns of world government. That belief goes back to the day when Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. Luke, Paul’s companion and the author of the Book of Acts, describes how that belief began. He tells how Jesus walked with the disciples for 40 days and then on that memorable day literally ascended into heaven. He says, “They [meaning the followers of Jesus] were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’” (Acts 1:10-11).

This belief—that Jesus Christ would return and physically come again, just as He came the first time—was held by all the writers of the New Testament. The author of Hebrews wrote, “He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28). The Apostle Paul wrote that we are to “…wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own…” (Titus 2:13-14).

Jude, the half brother of Jesus Christ, believed that the Lord would return. Convinced by the resurrection that Jesus was no mere mortal, he wrote, “…See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done…” (Jude 14-15).

John, the venerable old apostle, exiled on the island of Patmos, wrote, “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him…” (Revelation 1:7).

Down through the centuries of time, believers in Jesus Christ have held to that simple promise that He would return, and the literature of Christianity, from the early Church fathers to the present, has spoken of that hope. Check out the hymn books going as far back as we have them, and you will discover that there have always been hymns and songs about the return of Jesus Christ.

This belief has been especially meaningful to people during times of intense suffering and times of persecution. It is the hope that life will someday be better than the present, and that the distress and affliction of the present is not permanent—something that many of us have never grasped in a world of affluence and miracle medicines.

On numerous occasions, I have been privileged to break bread and minister to believers who have known what persecution is all about, and as someone translated their hymns and songs, I couldn’t help but notice how they spoke of the great hope in the return of Jesus Christ as something which gave them a reason for living and enduring pain and suffering. May God help us to recapture the hope which may have dimmed with the affluence of our age.

Resource reading: Acts 1.