Pastor’s Note: I have been doing a lot of studying lately on the end times and not just the Book of Revelation as there are so many that confirm the book that the Apostle John gave us. With all the “prophets” coming out of the woodwork, so to speak and trying to predict what tomorrow will bring, the Bible is full of warnings AND comfort on what the Christian can and should expect. There are a lot of warnings to the unbelievers, but there is immense comfort to the child of God.

I very seldom listen to those that are “prophesying” today, but I will listen to those teaching what God has already recorded, for that, the Scriptures, the Word of God is the ultimate, the final, and the trustworthy words we can live by.

The following article I am posting is not mine, rather like the one I posted several weeks ago, it is only one of them that I have been reading and studying. Like the Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians, we SHOULD be comforting one another with the Scriptural prophecies that have been given us in God’s written word. Don’t be deceived by the sensational that you see going around us for the sensational will soon be the routine of the day used to deceive many. Rather, trust in the eternal word!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-21, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” KNJV (Bold emphasis, added).

JESUS IS COMING AGAIN

This same Jesus, who came nineteen hundred years ago, is coming back again, for He is now in heaven and waiting to return. No one who takes his Bible seriously can doubt the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. His Second Coming is mentioned two hundred and forty times in the New Testament alone, more times by far than any other doctrine in the entire Bible. There is no more certain truth in the entire Scriptures than the personal, literal, imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth.

AN UNDATED EVENT

The exact day of this great event, however, has not been revealed. We know not when He will come as far as the day and the hour are concerned. All attempts to fix dates, therefore, are absolutely un-scriptural and can only bring reproach upon the cause of Christ. All the date-setters of the past have proved to be false prophets. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” We, therefore, reject every attempt of men to fix the date of our Lord’s return.

THE TIMES AND THE SEASONS

When we say that we cannot know the day or the hour, it does not mean that we cannot know the “times and the seasons.” We are told definitely that we may know when it is near and the general time when He will come back again. One thing we do know, we are nearer the coming of Christ today than we have ever been before in all of history. Each day brings us one day closer to this certain event. The Bible abounds with signs which will reveal to the spiritual Christian the nearness of His Second Coming. To ignore these signs is to make ourselves partakers of the sin of the hypocrites of Jesus’ day who were rebuked and castigated for not knowing the signs of His First Coming.

Jesus Himself gave us scores of signs and indications which He said would precede His coming again by which we might know that His coming is imminent. Again and again, in speaking of these signs, He assures us, “When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24:33).

There are, then, two dangers. First, the danger of date setting, and, second, the opposite evil, just as serious, of ignoring the signs of the times which tell us when Jesus is about to come again. The believer need not be ignorant concerning the time of our Lord’s return. Some time ago I heard a preacher speaking on the Second Coming who said, “No one can know when Jesus is coming again, for He will come as a thief in the night. The thief does not announce his coming or give any indication of when he may be expected.” This brother then quoted 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 2 and 3:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

There he stopped. Why stop there? Why not read verse 4 of 1 Thessalonians 5 and the verses which follow as well? Jesus comes as a thief for the unsaved, to be sure, but certainly this passage was not spoken concerning the believer. Here is the passage which follows:

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:4–6).

Notice carefully, the coming of the Lord will not come as a thief for the believer at all. That applies only to the unsaved. For this reason, the true Christian studies the signs of the times as given in the Scriptures that he may know when Jesus’ coming is near. To fail to acquaint ourselves with the signs of His return will merit the rebuke of the Lord Jesus Himself who said, “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (Matthew 16:3).^[1]

M. R. De Haan, The Signs of the Times (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1997), 12–14. All rights reserved.
*Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the King James Version. In the Public Domain.
**NKJV; Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.