Appendix B
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How near is soon or
how soon is near?
If the reader will
review Prophecy 1 (Daniel 2), he will
notice that6 although the passage of
time is represented in the vision,
there is no indication of how much
time is involved. And, it is not
unreasonable to suggest that Daniel
and Nebuchadnezzar anticipated the
fulfillment of the king’s vision
within a few generations of their
day. Knowing that it takes time for
something as large as a world empire
to rise and fall, they probably
didn’t anticipate fulfillment of
the entire vision during their
lifetime; however, they may have
speculated that the vision could have
been fulfilled within a few
centuries.
“Wolf, wolf”
Across the ages, God
has prevented man from knowing how
much time is involved in His
sovereign plans. We might say that
the amount of remaining time has been
one of Heaven’s best-kept
secrets. God has wisely kept this
matter a mystery for the knowledge of
the remaining time is a double –
edged sword. On one side, suppose God
told us the end of the world would
occur on July 1, 3015. This date is
so far from now that Christians would
lose heart. Think about it. If you
asked a girl to marry you and she
said she would in 50 years, what
would you do in the meantime?
If you knew for a fact
that the second coming of Jesus was
1,024 years away, how much effort
would you put forth right now
to encourage others to get ready to
meet the Lord? And Jesus,
understanding human nature all to
well, addressed this matter in a
parable to his disciples:
{35} “Be dressed
ready for service and keep your lamps
burning, {36} like men waiting for
their master to return from a wedding
banquet, so that when he comes and
knocks they can immediately open the
door for him. {37} It will be good
for those servants whose master finds
them watching when he comes. I tell
you the truth, he will dress himself
to serve, will have them recline at
the table and will come and wait on
them. {38} It will be good for those
servants whose master finds them
ready, even if he comes in the second
or third watch of the night. {39} But
understand this: If the owner of the
house had known at what hour the
thief was coming, he would not have
let his house be broken into. {40}
You also must be ready, because the
Son of Man will come at an hour when
you do not expect him.” (Luke
12:35-40)
Jesus knows that the
other side of the double-edged sword
is just as dangerous. By withholding
knowledge about the amount of
remaining time, Jesus also knew that
the “Wolf, wolf” cry would
desensitize more and more people as
time passed. In other words, as time
passed and the return of Christ did
not materialize, rational people
would naturally become skeptical of
any message specifying the nearness
of Christ’s return.
Jesus respects our
skepticism about any message
concerning the time of His appearing
for two reasons. First, the passage
of time suggests the continuation of
time. In other words, our world has
been traveling around the sun for
thousands of years and what new
evidence is there to suggest that it
won’t keep traveling around the
sun for thousands of years to come?
Secondly, hundreds have declared the
amount of remaining time to be this
or that down through the centuries,
and they have been proven false. This
repeated failure suggests that it is
not possible to know the amount of
remaining time and therefore, any
discussion on the remaining time is
nothing more than idle speculation.
Remaining time cut
short
Jesus clearly reveals
that it is impossible to calculate
the date of His coming because the
time of the Second Advent has been
changed! Yes, the time that was first
allotted for the duration of the
great tribulation has been cut short.
Jesus said, “For then there will
be great distress, unequaled from the
beginning of the world until now
– and never to be equaled again.
{22} If those days had not been cut
short, no would survive, but for the
sake of the elect those days will be
shortened.” (Matthew 24:21-24)
To appreciate the
meaning of Jesus’ words, the
reader must consider a couple items.
First, this text (and several others)
indicates a sublime truth: God has
appointed a quality of time for the
duration of the world. And in mercy,
looking at the severity of the great
tribulation that happens at the end
of the world, He has shortened it.
For the sake of His people, He has
cut short the appointed time for no
one could live through the ordeal if
it were not shortened. This suggests
that the Father has shortened the
quality of time first allotted
to the tribulation and we cannot know
the amount of reduction in time.
Therefore, the time of Christ’s
return cannot be closely calculated.
The reader may wonder,
“Why would God set a time and
then change it?” This writer
can’t provide a good answer to
this question except to say that God
is merciful. Remember Sodom and
Gomorrah? God showed that he was
negotiable about the number of
righteous people necessary to spare
the city. (See Genesis 18.) And, in
the case of Nineveh, God spared the
city for forsaking their evil ways.
(Jonah 3:10) The point is that
sometimes God lays out a plan, and
then adjusts it for the sake of those
who love Him.
Date of second coming
cannot be known
Some apply Matthew
24:36 to the second coming, Jesus
said, “No one knows about that
day or hour, not even the angels, nor
the Son, but only the Father.”
While this verse may apply to the
second coming, there is evidence
suggesting that this text compliments
Revelation 14:14-20; 22:11. If so, it
then applies to something even more
important than the date of the second
coming: the close of salvation. In
either case, we have to understand
that humans aren’t allowed to
know the exact amount of remaining
time that earth shall have. The
element of anticipation remains.
Therefore, we have to be watching and
waiting. But, when the Great
Tribulation begins, according to
Scriptures and the world – wide
earthquake occurs; there will be
1,335 days to the Second Coming of
Jesus. 1,265 days of mercy and 70
days of wrath: 1,265 + 70 = 1,335
days.
More than
future-telling
Jesus told His
disciples, “You will hear of
wars and rumors of wars, but see to
it that you are not alarmed. Such
things must happen, but the end is
still to come. {7} Nation will rise
against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom. There will be famines and
earthquakes in various places. {8}
All these are the beginning of birth
pains.” (Matthew 24:6-8) Did you
notice that Jesus told His disciples
to not be alarmed by wars and rumors
of wars in the first sentence?
During the Iraqi war
of January 1991, a radio talk-show
host on WLW in Cincinnati made the
remark: “ever notice how
apocalypse people come out of the
woodwork whenever terrible things
happen?” He was referring to the
“end of the world” types
that came forward with prophetic
utterances as America was going to
war. He reasoned that if the Iraqi
war was in Bible prophecy, why were
we just now hearing about it?
He noted that the Bible was written
thousands of years ago, and if the
Iraqi war was prophetically
significant, prophecy expositors
should have predicted this specific
war before Iraq invaded Kuwait
in August of 1990. He asked,
“Isn’t the purpose of Bible
prophecy – knowledge about the
future?”
Yes, one of the
purposes of Bible prophecy is
knowledge about the future. But there
is much more. God has a larger
purpose behind Bible prophecy than
future-telling. Bible prophecy allows
us to understand something of the
plans and purposes of God. Bible
prophecy deals with more than the
rise and fall of world empires –
a spectacular sight indeed. But the
grandest view that Bible prophecy
offers is beholding the actions of
God. Watching God work through the
plans and actions of men to
accomplish His will and purpose is
one of the greatest insights we can
have about God. This is what prophecy
is all about.
Does soon mean
thousands of years?
Because God has kept
the amount of remaining time a
secret, many people run into a
problem with the understanding of
inspiration. Here’s the problem:
down through the ages prophets have
been shown scenes of the second
advent of Christ, but these prophets
are not shown when the Day of
the Lord occurs. As a result, they
have consistently interpreted the
Great Day of the Lord as being near,
soon or imminent. Notice the
consistency of their words even
though they lived centuries apart:
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