1Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.
Curiosity is killing us, or at least some of us believers. Many have set specific dates for our Lord’s return. The Second Great Awakening of the mid-1800s in the U.S., which garnered a revival in personal, biblical faith, also engendered a renewed interest in the Lord’s return. Specific dates were set, which of course came and went. Further interest came to the fore in the 1970s, when many evangelicals believed Christ would return within the generation (nominally put at forty years from the time Israel was ostensibly restored to the land in 1947). A popular book circulated in the late 1980s called “88 Reasons Why the Lord Is Going to Come by 1988.” Sales for that book dropped off dramatically after that year! And it continues to happen.
On the positive side of things, we believers are indeed looking for our Lord’s return with great anticipation. And the more difficult life is, the more we long for it. At the very end of the last book of the Bible, written while the apostle John was in exile on the island of Patmos, he quotes the Lord, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’” The apostle responds with the yearning, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” The heart that has been captured by the grace and love of God desires the return of His beloved Son.
So it may be somewhat forgivable for those who study to find out when that will be. But the Lord has kept the specifics hidden from us. Jesus Himself said, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:7, see also Matt. 24:36, Mark 13:32). Holding our curiosity at bay, the Lord has given us something else to spend our time doing:
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” (Deut. 29:29)
There is plenty to concern us in what God has already revealed in His Word, without having to search for things that God has kept secret. But the inspired writer, Paul the apostle, gives us some things that God does want us to know. And it is clear that he had already taught them these things, or at least the basic facts of Christ’s return. We do well to resist the temptation to extrapolate from these things into date setting. That will certainly not hasten the Lord’s return.
Lord, I desire to do what You asked me to do while I await Your return.
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