On a “Feast of Trumpets” before a Worldwide Church of God (WCG) congregation in Metro Manila some 25 years ago, I once astounded the brethren when I opened my sermon by singing the first strains of a well-known Christmas carol: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come! Let earth receive her King!”
Most of our WCG brethren had been trained to “abhor” Christmas [with its trappings of decorations, lights, gifts, greeting cards, worship services and songs or “carols” as parts of the rotten system of Saturnalia, worship of the pagan Sun-god. [See: https://www.herbert-armstrong.org, click ENTER HERE, select “Books & Booklets,” and scroll down to the booklet titled “The Plain Truth About Christmas.”] My singing shocked the brethren, but I certainly got their attention!
If we examine the lyrics of this carol, we will find that it is quite appropriate in celebrating what most people know as Christ’s “second coming” to take the reins of government of the whole earth soon, which the Feast celebrates or looks forward to. [See: “The Comings of Christ.”]
The second stanza of the carol reinforces the first:
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods,
Rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy!
The third stanza can only refer to Christ’s “second coming”:
No more let sin and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground.
He comes to make His blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found!”
This is reminiscent of Isaiah 55:13, prophesying about the blessings of God’s coming kingdom: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.”
Isaiah 35:1-2, 6-7 paints the marvelous transformation of earth’s waste places at that time:
The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose;
It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing….
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water.
Finally, the curse which God pronounced on the land or earth after our “first father” Adam sinned (Genesis 3:17-19) will be lifted or removed. As a result, there will be such an abundance of food harvest that “…the plowman shall overtake the reaper” (Amos 9:13. There will be so much harvest that the reapers are still not done when the plowman begins to break up the land! Worldwide famines, so common today, will be a thing of the past!
As the carol ends with a reprise of the first stanza:
Joy to the world, the Lord has come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven and nature sing!
Indeed this is good news we can look forward to “When He Rules the World”!
Pedro R. Meléndez, Jr.
09072026/0925206