From time to time, I plan to post lyrics from the songs we sang in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches I grew up in and pastored. Unbelievers and non-Fundamentalists might find some of these lyrics quite interesting, and, at times, funny or disturbing. Enjoy!
Today’s Independent Baptist Song is Jesus is Coming Soon by R.E. Winsett. I was able to find a video of this song being sung by The Oak Ridge Boys.
Jesus is Coming Soon by R.E. Winsett
Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear
Freedom we all hold dear now is at stake
Humbling your hearts to God saves from the chastening rod
Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound
Love of so many cold; losing their home of gold;
This in God’s Word is told; evils abound.
When these signs come to pass, nearing the end at last,
It will come very fast; trumpets will sound.
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound
Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forevermore
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then shall fly, glory to share
Oh, Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound
Robert Emmett Winsett (January 15, 1876 — June 26, 1952 (aged 76) was an American composer and publisher of Gospel music.
Winsett was born in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, and graduated from the Bowman Normal School of Music in 1899.
He founded his own publishing company in 1903, and his first publication, Winsett’s Favorite Songs, quickly became popular among the Baptist and Pentecostal churches of the American South. Pentecostal Power followed in 1907; that year Winsett completed postgraduate work at a conservatory.
He married Birdie Harris in 1908, and had three sons and two daughters with her. He settled in Fort Smith, Arkansas, continuing to compose gospel songs, of which he would write over 1,000 in total. He became a minister in 1923, and was affiliated with the Church of God (Seventh Day).
Birdie Harris died late in the 1920s, and shortly thereafter Winsett moved back to Tennessee. He founded a new company in Chattanooga, and published more shape note music books. He remarried, to Mary Ruth Edmonton, in 1930, and had three further children.
Winsett’s final publication, Best of All (1951), sold over 1 million copies, and in total his books sold over ten million copies. His song “Jesus Is Coming Soon” won a Dove Award for Gospel Song of the Year at the 1969 awards. He has been inducted into the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame.
I remember that song! Certain pastors and music ministers liked it more than others. Reading the lyrics now as an atheist makes me see how horrible the message of this type of Christianity is – “many will meet their doom”.
For those under the influence of the Kool-aid from God, this kind of hateful clique is the perfect environment for all men, women and children. Most of my family still participate in sick gatherings of song and experience calm satisfaction in knowing the final solution for all who deny and great joy in the relief the believers will have in heaven…. Kool-aid, Kool-aid, tastes great! Kool-aid, Kool-aid, why wait!
And after the songs of loving hatred, take the children aside to rooms in the basement of the church and tell them in lurid detail what will happen to their bodies if they are not saved, what the eternal fire of hell does to skin, how the suffering will not end. Carry on doing God’s Will, amen.
Christianity is designed to harm.
I remember this one well
My favorite song in my youth. It still gets me cranked up. No matter. It’s all hooey.
You poor sensitive souls. You must have been terribly scared as children. The fact is R. E. Winsett was insightful into the teachings of the Bible which he saw as the word of God. So, faithful to his believe he could write “many will meat their doom”. And faithful to your belief you mock him and lick your childhood “wounds”.
You said: “many will meat their doom.”
Hot dogs, bologna, or sirloin steak? What if I’m a vegetarian?
Being “insightful into the teachings of the Bible” is like holding a PhD in the socioeconomic trends of pixie communities.
Hey Brian, you disparage being sensitive! You gleefully point out the doom! You accuse of mockery and meanly suggest people who have been harmed aren’t!
Your life is wound, Brian. You are a typical mean-hearted Christian. Take your Jesus with you when you leave because he has given you only a weapon to harm others. You are an idiot-bully. Fuck off.