The hope of all the world. Paul describes Jesus’ return to this world as “the blessed hope.” What does the Second Coming of Jesus mean to you? Learn how the message of Jesus’ return can encourage you in your daily experience and add power to your relationship with Him.

<p>The hope of all the world. Paul describes Jesus’ return to this world as “the blessed hope.” What does the Second Coming of Jesus mean to you? Learn how the message of Jesus’ return can encourage you in your daily experience and add power to your relationship with Him.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

The Second Coming

We're going to gather around the Bible together, open it up and expect that God will bless us.

Our Father in heaven, we are thankful for the opportunity to come to you through your Word.

Bless us, lead us by your Spirit, and feed us on the bread of life.

A day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said would do what?

350 aircraft of the Empire of Japan attacked Hawaii, the territory of Hawaii, not yet 1 of the United States.

Navy battleships in Pearl Harbor were damaged.

4 of them were sunk, although 3 were later raised and returned to the war.

And more than 2, 400 Americans were killed and almost 1, 200 were wounded.

Japan was looking to control the Pacific.

Japan was intending to control the entire Pacific down to Australia, which it had attacked numerous times, and New Zealand, in whose waters it had lurked.

Now just hours after that dreadful attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked the Philippines, which at the time was essentially a colony of the United States.

Following the United States' victory in the Spanish-American War, the U.S.

Paid Spain $20 million as compensation for the Philippines.

The Philippines is made up of more than 7, 500 islands.

Now, if that sounds like a lot, it's because it is.

But for some perspective, only 11 of those islands are bigger than the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

When Japan attacked the Philippines, everything changed.

Life was considered pretty good in the Philippines up until then.

And while the United States had a military presence there, it simply wasn't enough to counter the Japanese onslaught.

On December the 24th of that same year, General Douglas MacArthur moved his headquarters to Corregidor, a 2.12 square mile rock fortress in Manila Bay.

Some called it the Gibraltar of the East.

But Corregidor was hammered from the air.

MacArthur's headquarters on Corregidor was inside a system of tunnels on the island, the Malinta Tunnels.

I've been in there, we filmed in there, fascinating place.

It served as a hospital, it served as a shelter, it served as a supply depot.

It became very clear that in spite of this fortress, the Malinta Tunnels on the island of Corregidor, victory was very unlikely in the Philippines.

So then on March 12, 1942, General MacArthur and a small group of others were evacuated from the Philippines.

The B-17, which transported MacArthur, landed in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory.

And then he travelled by train to Melbourne.

Now what's interesting is that in Australia the railroad was comprised of 2 separate gauges.

Some tracks were so wide and some tracks were a little narrower or a little wider And so what that meant was that MacArthur was going to have to change trains, which he did at a little place that I would be astonished if you've ever heard of, a place called Tarraoui.

MacArthur changed trains at Tarraoui, which is about 140 miles northeast of the capital of South Australia, Adelaide.

About a hundred, maybe a little bit more, people live there now.

I read that Tarawih, get this, appears on most maps.

But while the battle was raging back in the Philippines, MacArthur spoke words that entered history, that entered into history at Tarawih.

The assembled media came to MacArthur and they said, General MacArthur, we would like a statement from you.

They stopped in Tarawih knowing he would change trains there, and they said, would you give us a statement?

It's interesting that in Tarawih, the railway station has long since been abandoned, there's a little low sort of a brick wall with a plaque on the wall commemorating the speech heard around the world.

General MacArthur spoke and he said, The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing an American offensive against Japan, the primary purpose of which is the relief of the Philippines.

He said, I came through and I shall return.

Famous words spoken by General Douglas MacArthur at a little tiny place on the other side of the world.

You know, somebody else said something very much like that approximately 2, 000 years ago.

Now, the Philippines suffered immensely under Japanese occupation.

Thousands of servicemen, Filipino and American, were killed.

Manila was virtually completely destroyed.

And the American troops retreated to the Bataan Peninsula.

There they were marched alongside Filipino captives to what's known today as Camp O'Donnell on what is referred to as the Bataan Death March.

Let me tell you about the Bataan Death March.

We took our readers, written cameras to the Bataan, well not so much to the Bataan Peninsula but to the root of the Bataan Death March.

We went to Camp O'Donnell, went to the little town of Capas where the train station is that the servicemen were, where they were processed and loaded onto boxcars.

Thousands of men died on the Bataan Death March.

The cruelty they experienced is almost impossible to believe.

But there was something that gave them hope.

As they were there in Camp O'Donnell, many of them dying, something gave them hope.

As they were suffering from malaria and beriberi, something gave them hope.

General MacArthur had made them a promise, and he wasn't 1 to break his promise.

He said he would return and they believed that he would return.

The American servicemen who were taken to Japan and forced into slavery working for large companies, there was a promise they believed and it gave them hope.

Again, the parallels are obvious, aren't they?

He was in a battle-scarred, war-ravaged world when He said in around 31 AD, and we find these words in John chapter 14, when Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled.

In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.

Jesus said, "...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, that where I am, there you may be also.

Now what does the promise that Jesus made, what does that very promise mean to you?

When you think of the Second Coming of Jesus, what do you think?

Maybe there are a raft of thoughts and emotions that wash through your mind.

Perhaps you think, finally there won't be so much competing for my time.

I'll have time to do what matters most and the wisdom to know what matters most.

You might think eternity, family and friends.

You might think eternity, the second coming of Jesus, no more sin.

You might think when Jesus comes back, the struggle is over.

Maybe you look forward to a life without pressure, a life without pain, without hardship, without injustice, a life without illness.

The Second Coming

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