No Man Knoweth the Day Nor the Hour

(Matthew 24:36-42) "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark. And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." In the realm of eschatology, which deals with prophecy concerning end times or the last days, there are differing viewpoints regarding the coming of the Lord. There are those that teach and believe according to the Bible in a pretribulational rapture, which is a rapture of the church. I Thessalonians 4:13-18 talks about the rapture when the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout and all the dead in Christ shall rise first and those of us which are alive shall be caught up together in the clouds to be with the Lord. That's the rapture of the church. Many fundamental Baptists teach and preach that. I believe that's Biblically accurate. There are some theologians that teach that there is no rapture of the church and the church will endure through the Great Tribulation. Television Evangelist Pat Robertson doesn't believe in the rapture. He teaches the church will go through the Tribulation period. He believes in Kingdom Age theology which teaches that Christian are going to present this world to Christ when he comes back and lands on the Mount of Olives. They believe that Christians will reform this world to present it to Christ. However, the Bible doesn't teach that. It says things will wax and worse. I dispute what Pat Robertson says because Luke 21:36 pray that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things. The only way you can be counted worthy to escape all the things that are coming to pass during the Great Tribulation is to be born again before the rapture. I believe that's the correct interpretation of Luke 21:36. The Bible says in II Thessalonians 2:11-12 that those that are left behind will be sent strong delusions by God that they will believe a lie. Those that have had an opportunity to hear the gospel before the rapture and didn't repent prior to the rapture will believe a lie.

The passage in Mark which says no man knoweth the day nor hour when the Son of man cometh is referring to the rapture. That's different from the Second Coming of Jesus, which Matthew 24:30 bears out. The Second Coming of Christ will take place following the Great Tribulation, which follows the rapture of the church. The Great Tribulation will be the most horrible time ever that's existed on the face of this earth. It will be to chastise Israel and to bring her back to God. The Bible says the Tribulation will last for seven years and then Jesus will come. However, no man will know when the rapture will take place. We can know the season. Jesus says in Matthew 24:32, "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:" I believe that scripture is referencing the rebirth of Israel which occurred on May 15, 1948. Israel is now 62 years old in the modern era. We know the time is drawing nigh. We know the season. II Timothy tells us what the last days will be like. Daniel 12:4 says that knowledge shall be increased in the last days. We know we're on the verge of the rapture. However, we don't have the ability to predict the day nor the hour. God has designed it that way for a reason.

Throughout the centuries, there have been many predictions made concerning when Christ was going to return again. Edgar Whisenaut wrote a book entitled years ago, "88 Reasons Why Christ will Come in 88". As it turned out he was wrong. There have been some that predicted that Christ would return in 1976. That didn't happen. Others have predicted Jesus would come back in 1996, 2000, etc. There are some that's predicting that Jesus will come back in 2012. One thing's for sure: whenever there's a date predicting Christ's return you can just about guarantee that Christ won't return on that particular date. God has no intentions for any man to know the date of his soon return. Even Jesus doesn't know. It's only God the Father. His schedule is on time. He's not too early or too late. Jesus said in the Gospels that He will come back in an hour we think not. We're wasting our time establishing dates. We're to be on constant alert.

Why does God not want anybody to know the exact time of his appearing? There's a number of reasons. For one thing, if we knew the date when Christ would return, we would be spending much of our lives in carnality. We're already doing that and we don't know the date of Christ's return. How much more carnal living would God's people would be guilty of if we knew the exact date. You see, we would know exactly when we can be lackadaiscal about the things of God and we would know exactly when we would have to be serious and live for God. Just think how the work of spreading the gospel would be hindered. We wouldn't be in any rush to spread the gospel or to serve God if we knew the date. We would serve him only when the time of his appearing is at hand. That's how we are. We have a tendency to be procrastinators. God desires for us to be constantly vigilant. He wants us to have our minds on serving Him continually. He desires for us to be constantly on guard. God knows our frame. God's plan revolves around the element of surprise. We wouldn't be serving God fervently if we could predict that date of His arrival. Just take a look at the business world. Many times in a place of business whenever there's word that a corporate head is going to be visiting that place the management team and all the employees will be working to organize and prepare themselves for the visit. Why? Because when we know there's company coming to visit we tend to perform our best and be on guard. A business is a lot more stricter with following company policy whenever a corporate head is visiting than when the boss is not there. Jesus said in Matthew 24:43, "But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up." We become lackadaiscal when we possess the mentality Jesus won't be coming for a long time.

Another important reason why I believe the Lord has designed it for nobody to know the time of his appearing is so God's children will be constantly on guard. We're most likely to be on guard when we expect Christ to come at any moment. If we knew the exact date of his appearing, we would let off our guard and be loose in our living. Christ wants us to be constantly on guard. We have a tendency to not be on guard when we think he isn't coming back soon. We become more sober minded when we believe that Jesus is coming back. We recognize time is drawing short and we don't have time to invest in foolishness. Life is about serving Christ when we believe he could come before the day is over with. Another important reason why it's imperative for us to not know the exact date of the Lord's coming is so we will be fervent in our carrying out the gospel. Suppose we knew that Christ wouldn't return for his bride until February 22, 2020. If we as God's children knew we had ten years before he would return, we wouldn't be spreading the gospel. We would wait until the time until Jesus was about ready to appear. Everything that's been accomplished for the sake of the gospel has been due in part to the urgency every believer has had inside of him that we may not have tomorrow to carry forth the gospel. The reason why the early church and the apostles were so dynamic in their preaching and spreading the gospel was because they had the sense of urgency that Jesus could come at any moment. Peter, James, John, and Paul all believed Jesus would come back in their lifetime. They didn't expect Jesus' appearance would be delayed for 2000 years. They were expecting Jesus back in their lifetime. That's why they were so fervent in their spread of the gospel. They believed that if they didn't accomplish the job today there wouldn't be tomorrow. In today's generation we're almost the opposite. We believe we have forever to carry out the gospel to the world. That wasn't the mentality of our early church Fathers. You read the writings of the Apostle Paul and you know he was expecting Christ at any moment. He was looking for Christ's appearing before he died. That's why the gospel spread unto the ends of the earth. There was that sense of urgency. That urgency wouldn't be there if the apostles could predict the date of Christ's appearing. Christians today take for granted that Christ's coming back soon. That's why we're so slothful about the things of God. We wouldn't be that way if the sense of urgency burned in our hearts like it did those in the early church.

Jesus said as it was in the days of the Noe, so shall it be when the Son of man appears. During the days of Noah thye were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. (Matthew 24:38). Jesus is soon ready to make his appearance. We don't know the day nor the hour, but the time is revealing to us it won't be long.