Second Coming

by Syed Sajid Ahmad

Billy Graham, prominent American evangelist, proclaimed, “The Bible teaches that Jesus is coming again. And I don’t see any other hope, because we’re heading toward a catastrophe in our world.” He recently passed away waiting. Will millions more, who are looking for Jesus to come, pass away waiting?

Daniel’s prediction put the second coming around the 1800s but as his advent did not happen the way it was visualized, words from Matthew, “no one know the hour,” have proven to be quite convincing.

It cannot be a coincidence that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) too put the date of the second coming around the same time. Muslims held strong belief that Jesus was to return at the beginning of the fourteenth century after Muhammad (PBUH), a time frame falling during the 1800s, and believed that the sun will not dawn on the fifteenth century until Jesus had appeared, but the Islamic world celebrated the beginning of the fifteenth Islamic century without witnessing the descent of Jesus.

Today, looking back at the 1800s, we discern a claimant to be the Promised Messiah who shook the religious world of his time, and despite extreme opposition and persecution, continues to gain increasing recognition all over the world. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani (1835-1908) proved both from the Bible and the Quran that God accepted the prayers of Jesus and saved him from the accursed death on the cross. He showed in “Jesus in India” that Jesus traveled east to reach the “lost sheep of Israel,” and passed away in Kashmir and his grave is located in Srinagar. Thus, the Promised Messiah had to be a person like Jesus and not Jesus of Nazareth himself, and that God had informed him that he was the very Promised Messiah who was to appear during the latter days. Thus, he prophesied in 1903,

“No one will descend from heaven. All our opponents who are alive today will die and no one will see Jesus Son of Mary descending from heaven. Then their next generation will pass away and no one of them will see this spectacle. Then generation next after that will pass away without seeing the Son of Mary descending from heaven. Then God will make them anxious that though the time of the supremacy of the cross had passed away and the world had undergone great changes, yet the son of Mary has not descended from heaven. Then the wise people will suddenly discard this belief. The third century after today will not yet have come to a close when those who hold this belief, whether Muslims or Christians, will lose all hope and will give up this belief in disgust. There will then be one religion that will prevail in the world and only one leader. I have come only to sow the seed, which has been sown by my hand. Now it will sprout and grow and flourish, and no one can arrest its growth.”

This prophecy continues to hold true and invites an urgent review of his claim by anyone who desires to recognize the second advent before he is called to his Lord in heavens.