At the heart of every prophecy uttered by Jesus the Messiah is the certain promise: "I will come again". That promise is the hub around which revolves all prophecy. In His `end-time state of the world' message His return is a cast-iron certainty. Why will he again visit Earth?

Often portrayed as `meek and mild' the returning Jesus will however be a fierce political animal. His mission is to overthrow every human government. No political system will escape - not even so-called `democracy'. Every pathetic attempt at human government, every form from democracy to tyranny will be destroyed to be replaced by the benign and perfect government of the Family of God.

Gone will be every terrorist regime and every terrorist. Overthrown will be all corrupt dictators and their hangers-on. Replaced will be every shade of relatively benign democracy. Because no system has worked. Western democracies, said Winston Churchill, may be `the worst system devised by the wit of man - except for all the others'. Look at the mess we inhabit! The more government we experience the worse life becomes.

Nor will Jesus just overthrow all civil government. The returning Christ will turn the world upside down - including all forms of religion that is contrary to his revelation. For not a single world religion fully reflects the mind of God - not Islam, not Hinduism, and certainly not Christianity. And hasn't religion been so often a cause for horrific conflict? And still is in 2023?

What would you expect from the perfect government? Certainly an end to every form of criminal activity - no murder or theft or rape or child abuse. A secure home. Walk out safely at any time day or night. An end to all war with all its attendant evils. Harmony between nations. Pure and abundant water and air for every man, woman and child on earth. No food shortage in any corner of the globe. And food free from pollutants. Pleasant and well governed towns and cities. Abundant health for all. No blindness or other physical disabilities. Happy marriages without divorce. Respectful and contented children. A fair and just society governed by wise judges and a sound justice system. The purging of wickedness of every form. Everywhere, good neighborliness. Government untainted by bureaucracy, greed and corruption.

That doesn't sound like our world. Human ingenuity stumbles on short-term solutions, but beyond our grasp is the ability to make things work permanently. We see a need for reform but avarice, ignorance, competition block a solution. In the West we can `change government' - only to replace useless by useless. The past six thousand years of recorded `civilization' hasn't advanced our ability to rule well. We still harbor tyrants. We still solve our problems by violence. We go from bad to worse. We substitute human reasoning for divine revelation.

Yet that outline blueprint for a world at peace is exactly the government Jesus Christ will bring to our troubled planet at his coming. What a transformation will occur in a relatively few years of divine rule. Mankind will learn to live joyously within the divine Law: no more false religion, and perfect human relationships. We need Him - and urgently.

The coming of Jesus Christ and that new world is certain. No-one can stop it - not even the coming world-ruling dictator who will marshal humanity to oppose in open warfare the coming King of kings. Assembling the armed might of all nations and supported by the ultimate false prophet - representing the combined religions of the world - he will launch a war against the returning Jesus. But Jesus will, at last, defeat all opposition and abolish war for a thousand years.

Jesus, you may recall, warned us not to fix a date for his return. Thousands over the centuries have tried and failed. However, the times in which we live are a fair reflection of the prophetic Biblical description of the world for the years just before his return.

Not since Eden has our world been perfect. War and peace trail each other with pathetic certainty. Millions die: new weaponry invented, new means of mass murder, new killing techniques. And it culminates in our day with the ability to erase all life from our planet.

Jesus told his disciples: "I will come again" (John 15:3). And as he returned to heaven from the Mount of Olives following his miraculous and spectacular resurrection God's messengers told the disciples: "Men of Galilee why do you stand gazing into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same manner in which you have seen him entering heaven" (Acts 1:11). The prophet Zechariah sketches in further detail. He wrote: That will be an awesome time. Jesus is coming.

"I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to wage war. The city shall be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished; half the city shall go into captivity but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth and wage war against those nations as he fights in a day of war. His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is on the east side of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in the middle eastward and westward by a very great valley. Half the mountain shall move northwards and half southwards. The LORD will become King over all the earth in that day [the political agenda of Jesus]; the LORD shall be one, and his name one [his religious agenda]" Zechariah 14.