And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:30)
Nothing stands in the way of Christ’s return. That is why I have repeatedly used the term imminent . . . Jesus’ coming could occur at any moment. In other words, there is no future event in God’s timetable that must take place before Christ comes in the clouds for His own. Nothing! Candidly, I find that rather exciting. Since we know for sure He’s coming, yet we don’t know for sure when . . . any day or any hour could be the one!
H.L. Turner was right, over a hundred years ago, when he wrote:
It may at morn, when the day is awaking,
When sunlight thru darkness and shadow is breaking,
That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory,
To receive from the world his own.
O joy! O delight! should we go without dying,
No sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying,
Caught up thru the clouds with our Lord into glory,
When Jesus receives His own.1
My maternal grandfather, L. O. Lundy, whom I loved dearly, used to say that he looked forward to dying because he wanted to go through the whole process as a Christian. Rather than bypassing death, he wanted to go through it. He wanted to know in a conscious manner, the joy of life beyond the grave. He wanted to experience his body’s bursting out of the ground, glorified and fitted for eternity, brought immediately into the Lord’s presence.
As I recall, he used to say that those who were going to be taken up while they are alive are only getting part of the blessing. But those who go through the whole death process “are going to get their money’s worth!” In fact, they get preferential treatment. We will not “precede those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:15 NASB). They will be raised first, and then we will be brought up with them, glorified, “to meet the Lord in the air” (4:17).
Well, L. O. Lundy got his wish. He has died and his body awaits the Saviour’s arrival. Any day now, he’s going to get his “money’s worth.”
- L. Turner, “It May Be at Morn,” https://hymnary.org/text/it_may_be_at_morn_when_the_day_is_awakin, accessed April 29, 2026.
