By Frank M. Keele
There are a number of second coming signs that the average member of the church miss-understands and two in particular which cause many to conclude that the second coming is much further off than it actually is… they are:
1- The gospel going to all the world before Christ comes.
2- The belief that we will build the earthly New Jerusalem before Christ cimes.
Let us start with number one above. It is true that the gospel will be preached in all the world before the Lord will make His third appearance but this is not true of His first two appearances.
For example, the Lord will bring Zion and will make His first appearance to the elect here in America and the gospel will not yet have gone to the Jews and when the Lord does appear to the Jews, this will happen:
51 And then shall the Jews look upon me and say: What are these wounds in thine hands and in thy feet?
52 Then shall they know that I am the Lord; for I will say unto them: These wounds are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. I am he who was lifted up. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the Son of God.
53 And then shall they weep because of their iniquities; then shall they lament because they persecuted their king.
54 And then shall the heathen nations be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them. (D&C 45:51-54)
When the Lord appears at Jerusalem and cast down Gog’s army, the heathen nations will come to know that Jesus Christ is God. From Ezekiel 28 we read:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes…
23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
The Lord expounds further on this in section 90:
10 And then cometh the day when the arm of the Lord shall be revealed in power (at Armageddon) in convincing the nations, the heathen nations, the house of Joseph, of the gospel of their salvation.
11 For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ.
It’s pretty obvious that the gospel will continue to be preached well beyond the Lord’s first two appearance, right? So, we aught never again default to thinking that the Lord can’t come this year or at any time soon because the the gospel has not yet gone to all the world, right?
The other deterrent to thinking that the Lord could come very soon is the belief that we will build the earthly New Jerusalem before Christ comes. If this were the case it would mean that we would have to trek back to Missouri in mass, perhaps even calling upon resources from around the globe in order to establish an enormous building program that could take many years to accomplish.
It’s easy to see why so many believe this, many of us still have it in our minds that we must accomplish what the early saints were not able to accomplish… but the problem with this perspective is that it ignores and looks right past what the Lord himself said to His deciples about His coming while on the mount of olives. From JS Matt we read:
32 And again shall the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, be fulfilled.
33 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken…
36 And, as I said before, after the tribulation of those days, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory;
37 And whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived, for the Son of Man shall come, and he shall send his angels before him with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together the remainder of his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
So, according to what the Lord tells us here, the elect (His saints) will still be scattered around the globe, “from one end of heaven to the other”, rather than in Missouri when He comes and He will send His angels to gather us from our present disbursed condition… so nothing more needs to be done… we are already in place for the Lord’s coming! All we need to do is accept what the Lord told His deciples on the mount… nothing has changed, the Lord makes no mistakes, no update is needed, this has always been the Lords plan.
To understand this better we go to Rev 21 and read:
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
When the Lord comes to His elect, “the holy city, new Jerusalem” will come “down… out of heaven” with Him and if you continue to read further in this chapter you will find that it is more than large enough to accommodate all of the elect and more. The bottom line is that everything needed for our gathering and protection will be provided by the Lord when He makes this first appearance to His elect!
The purpose of this post was to illustrate that neither the gospel being preached in all the world or the building of the earthly New Jerusalem stand in the way of the Lord coming tomorrow… we need not say, “My lord delayeth his coming”.