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النشر الإلكتروني

CHAPTER V.

THE TIME OF OUR LORD'S RETURN

VER and over again we are told in the Word of God that the exact time of our Lord's return is not known, and cannot be known, by man. Our Lord Jesus Himself declares in Matt. 24:35, "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." And on the ground of this fact that we do not know the exact time of our Lord's return He says, "Watch therefore; for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh" (Matt. 24:42). In Mark 13:32, our Lord says, "But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Many are trying by calculations from the data given in Daniel to fix the exact date of our Lord's return, but all such calculations are utterly unreliable. The statements in the book of Daniel were not intended to give

us a clue to the exact date of Christ's return, and therefore to attempt to arrive at the date by such calculations is an attempt at the impossible. It is a part of God's purpose and method in dealing with men to keep them in uncertainty on this point. The things which are revealed belong unto us, but this is one of the "secret things (which) belong unto Jehovah our God" (Deut. 29:29). The prophecies of Daniel were extant in the day when Jesus uttered the words found in Matt. 24:36 and Mark 13:32, and doubtless He understood the lessons those prophecies were intended to teach, but He distinctly declares that even He did not know the day nor the hour of His coming again. As a man setting an example for us to follow in His steps, He had put away the knowledge of the time of this event. After His resurrection our Lord declared to His disciples that God did not desire us to know the time when He should return again. When His disciples asked Him, "Lord dost thou at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?"’ He said unto them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority" (Acts 1:6, 7). Let us leave the times where God has put

them, within His own authority. Any teacher who attempts to fix the date of Christ's return is at once discredited, and it is entirely unnecessary to waste time by wading through his futile calculations.

2. While we are not told the exact time of our Lord's return, we are told that it will be at such a time as even His disciples think not. Our Lord says, "Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." It will not be a time when there is a well-nigh universal expectation of our Lord's coming. It will be in a time when men do not expect that coming. Even the faithful and wise servant will be taken unawares, though he will be found doing his Master's will. "Who then," says Jesus, "is the faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing" (Matt. 24:4647).

3. The time of our Lord's return will be a time when the world is absorbed in its usual occupations. "As it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they

drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all; after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed" (Luke 17:2630). Everything will be going on in its customary way. As already said in another connection, men and women will not be gathered on hilltops in white robes waiting for the descent of their Lord, but men will be engrossed in their ordinary occupations, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling, planting and building; everything shall go on as usual up to the very moment of our Lord's coming. Some would press these words further than this and make them teach that as the days of Noah and Lot were peculiarly wicked days, so will the days of our Lord's return be days of extraordinary wickedness, but this is pressing the words which our Lord speaks here beyond their evident intent. Our Lord

meant what He explicitly says, that men will be engaged in their usual occupations, little thinking the Lord is near, and in a moment He will come.

4. The day of the Lord will not come until after the revelation of the man of sin. Writing to the Thessalonians who had been disturbed by the thought that the day of the Lord had already come, Paul says, "Be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; (English Revision "now present," i. e., "Has actually arrived"). Let no man beguile you in any wise; for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God" (2 Thess. 2:2-4). Of course, the "day of the Lord" is the time of the Lord's coming to the earth. This, as we have already seen, is preceded by His coming into the air to receive the Bride, the Church, unto Himself. There is nothing in Scripture to show that quite an interim may

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