Sorry to Tell You, But Jesus Is Not Returning on September 23

Yes, it would be wonderful if Jesus returned for His people next week, but it’s not going to happen. Count on it. The Second Coming will not take place this year on September 23.

How can I be so sure? The Bible tells me so, and not in some ambiguous, mysterious language.

Instead, Jesus told His followers what had to take place before He returned, and those things have not yet happened, nor can they happen in just a few days. That’s why I’m quite certain that His return is not scheduled for September 23, 2017.

What, then, do I think about the claims of Christian numerologist David Meade, who argues that “verses in Luke 21:25 to 26 are the sign that recent events, such as the recent solar eclipse and Hurricane Harvey, are signs of the apocalypse”? And what do I think of the alleged correspondence between Revelation 12 and the alignment of Jupiter, the sun, and the moon?

Actually, I don’t think about these things at all, any more than I thought about the claim that Jesus was coming back between September 11-13, 1988, or the claim that Judgment Day was coming on September 6, 1994, or the claim (made by the same author who predicted the 1994 date) that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011.

There was not a shred of scriptural evidence to support these claims, and there was a mountain of evidence against them. Why, then, bother to give them any thought?

“But,” you ask, “didn’t Jesus say that no one who knew the day or hour of His return? If so, how can you be so sure He’s not coming on September 23?”

First, the fact that He says no one knows the day or hour of His return (Matthew 24:36) means that it’s utter foolishness to predict a specific day. If Jesus says no one knows the day, we should quit predicting specific days. Simple.

Second, Jesus said we could not know the specific day or hour when He would return. He never said we could not know when He would not return.

Put another way, if I get on a boat to sail across the Atlantic from New York to London, you might not know the exact time of my arrival. But you can certainly know that I will not be arriving in one or two days. It takes longer than that to cross the ocean by boat.

So, Jesus spoke of great world upheaval that would take place (far greater than anything we have yet witnessed) and of great cosmic signs (again, of unprecedented nature), while Paul wrote of major world events that would transpire before the Lord’s return (see, for example, Luke 21 and 2 Thessalonians 2).

The Old Testament prophets also painted pictures of what we could expect before the end of the age, and it is clear their words have still not come to pass (see, for example, Zechariah 12 and 14).

But this doesn’t mean that we should grow complacent and say, “The Lord delays His coming” (see Luke 12:45). God forbid.

Instead, we should always live with readiness to meet the Lord, and we should labor with all our might to make an impact for Him, since we have only one life to reach our generation. As one of my colleagues once said, “I don’t know if this is the last generation. But it is our last generation.”

As for those who believe that there will be a secret rapture that could happen at any moment, when hundreds of millions of Christians are suddenly and stealthily removed from the earth, that will allegedly happen without any definite signs. In other words, it could happen today as well as any other day, since the timing of it is unpredictable. Why, then, are we bothering to make predictions?

By all means, we should understand the times in which we are living and know what we should do (see 1 Chronicles 12:32). And we must be sober and alert lest we fall asleep in the light.

But let us stop making foolish predictions. Not only do they make us look like fools in the eyes of the world. But they rob us of a multi-generational perspective, since we’re always thinking, “Jesus is coming any moment,” rather than thinking and planning in the long term.

Little wonder, then, that we’ve lost so much moral and cultural ground in recent decades. While our ideological opponents are planning ahead, we’re planning our escape.

In the last few years, I’ve spoken to leaders and believers about the importance of developing a multi-generational mentality, and the impact of those messages has been very deep.

As I look back on my own journey, I came to faith in 1971 at the age of 16, and we were told that Jesus was coming at any moment. The signs of the times were all there! Little did we think that, in 2017, we’d still be here and my wife and I would have a 16-year-old granddaughter.

Instead, let’s live with readiness, with urgency, with focus, with purpose, and with a long-term, multi-generational plan. And if the Lord chooses to interrupt our plans along the way with His return, that would be a welcome prospect.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus! We long to see Your return. Until then, we’ll stay busy and pass the torch to the generations to come.

COMING ON CLOUDS

“For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will be the COMING of the Son of Man. . . . the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. . . . and they will see the Son of Man COMING on the CLOUDS of heaven with power and great glory. . . . Truly, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Matthew 24:27-34)

Matthew 24 is packed with prophetic imagery. Included in this imagery are CLOUDS and cosmic disturbances. People who are not familiar with biblical imagery assume that such language is literal. When Jesus comes again He will literally appear riding a cloud (on a white horse per Revelation 19).

I dare say that not one Christian in a hundred understands the Old Testament context of New Testament prophecy. While this is startling to most evangelicals, there is overwhelming evidence that this happened at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70—in a non-literal way. This is the preterist view of eschatology.

The nature of the Second Coming is in part determined by its timing. Jesus promised that all such prophecies would happen in his generation (Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:22). There are over 100 passages in the New Testament that affirm this time constraint (“must shortly take place,” “about to happen,” “before some standing here taste death,” “soon,” etc.) Consider Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28; 23:29-39; 26:64; Revelation 1:1-3; 22:6-10; etc.

In the Old Testament, CLOUDS are used symbolically to portray God’s presence, judgment, or proclamation. People did not see God literally, but saw what He did or perceived his presence in other ways. Consider the following passage excerpts, where clouds are God’s FIGURATIVE abode or mode of travel. Often this is about God’s judgment on groups of people:

“The Lord descended in a CLOUD and stood with him there . . .” (Exodus 34:5-7)

“He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick CLOUDS dark with water. . . and the foundations of the world were laid bare.” (Psalm 18:4-15, judgment against David’s enemies)

“And the Lord is riding on a swift CLOUD and comes to Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence. . . .” (Isaiah 19:1-15, judgment against Egypt)

Now take a minute to look up these additional passages: Exodus 13:21; 16:10; 19:9; 33:9; Leviticus 16:2; Numbers 9:15-22; 11:25; Deuteronomy 4:11; 5:22; 31:15; 2 Samuel 22:8-15; 1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chronicles 5:14; Psalm 97:2-5; 104:3; Jeremiah 4:13; Ezekiel 1:4, 27-28; 10:3-4, 18-19; 30:3, 18-19; Daniel 7:13-14; Joel 2:1-2; Nahum 1:2-6; Zephaniah 1:14-15.

Jesus in the Olivet Discourse was claiming equality with Yahweh when He spoke of himself as “coming on clouds.” So, when we read Matthew 24, in light of this Old Testament language, we understand that Jesus’ Second Coming was a “coming in judgment” upon Israel, expressed in highly figurative, but common Hebraic apocalyptic language. His Second Coming is specifically tied to the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24:2-3.

In addition to the cloud language we see other astronomical perturbations associated with Jesus’ presence in judgment—sun darkened, stars falling, heaven shaken. This too is Old Testament imagery describing God’s “coming” in judgment. No one actually saw God, but certainly saw the EFFECTS of his judgment.

In AD 70, God used the Roman army as his instrument to punish apostate Israel. This coming/presence in judgment of Jesus in AD 70 was similar to Yahweh’s previous judgments against his enemies on multiple occasions in the Old Testament, most of which are accepted by scholars as having been fulfilled in the past.

Compare the similar language of cosmic disturbances in Matthew 24:27-31 with these Old Testament judgment passages: Isaiah 13:10-13 (against Babylon), Isaiah 34:4-10 (against Edom), Jeremiah 4:23-31 (against Judah and Jerusalem), Ezekiel 32:7-8 (against Pharaoh and Egypt), Joel 3:15-16 (against the nations), Amos 5:20, 8:9 (against Israel), Micah 1:2-16 (against Israel and Judah), Zephaniah 1:14-18 (against Judah, Jerusalem, and Judah’s enemies).

The New Testament writers emphatically taught that Jesus would return while many of his contemporaries were still alive (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8; Hebrews 1:2; 10:37; James 5:7-9; 1 Peter 1:13-20; 2 Peter 3:9-12; 1 John 1:18; etc.). Where did they get this? From Jesus himself, of course. I, for one, believe that Jesus fulfilled his promises in exactly the time and nature that He predicted. If He did not, He was a false prophet.

https://prophecyquestions.com/2014/02/01/articles-by-charles-meek

>>Signs of the age

Rom 1:25-26

25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

NIV

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=USAFA+Lesbian+Commandant
"Army punishes officer who halted lesbians' public 'make-out'"
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3586304/posts?page=19

"Kindergarten celebrates 5-year-old transgender ‘transition;’ kids traumatized"
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3585968/posts
Etc Etc

psy·cho·sis

sīˈkōsəs/

noun

a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

"According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.

The first stage being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least 3 generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism.

Most of the activity of the department [KGB] was to compile huge amount / volume of information, on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publisher, editors, journalists, uh actors, educationalists, professors of political science. Members of parliament, representatives of business circles.

Most of these people were divided roughly into two groups: those who would tow the Soviet foreign policy, they would be promoted to positions of power through media and public manipulation; [and] those who refuse the Soviet influence in their own country would be character assassinated OR executed physically, come Revolution. "

--KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov

--Soviet Subversion of the Free Press (Ideological subversion, Destabilization, CRISIS - and the KGB)

Same ol' Ba'alshyte described in Romans, different municipal outhouse.

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