Replies

I think "the day nor the hour" refers to Christ's appearing in the clouds or The Rapture.

And, it would appear that we MIGHT know the season or even the week or month??? Absolute conjecture, of course.

Certainly no secret knowledge involved!

Someone has calculated that ~75% of the Bible is about prophecy in one way or another.

The Bible is abundant in prophetic statements about the end times--abundant Scriptures that have yet to be fulfilled though that number seems to decrease at an increasing rate as the years go by.

We can pretend they aren't there. We can us a long list of man's notions; doctines of man; traditions of man; doctrines of demons; fantasies; wishful thinking . . . whatever to facilitate ignoring them and still sleeping . . . but that won't make those Scriptural truths go away or be the least bit inoperable.

We can quote whatever long list of RELIGIOUS leaders to comfort our biases and assumptions.

Christ wasn't impressed by such RELIGIOUS leaders and their TRADITIONS of men during His dusty pathed days. I think He will be even LESS impressed at His SECOND COMING.

To my mind, gnosticism is a lot closer to a kind of blind mumbo jumbo manipulating the text apart from the BREATHED TRUTH OF HOLY SPIRIT than is HOLY SPIRIT leading us into all truth REGARDING THE SCRIPTURES *AND* up-to-date inputs about our daily lives and God's will therein as well as fulfillment of Scriptural prophecies in our time.

Thank you so much for your reply!

IMHO, because the term gnosticism is ill-defined - it becomes the condemning perjorative of choice in many "debates" with other believers. But if one inquiries more closely as to the origin of the term, it becomes clear that the term originally is:

A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.

These days, the term more commonly means "the doctrine of salvation by knowledge".

Any man can obtain knowledge wisdom requires humility. Even so, both knowledge and wisdom lead to despair:

I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all [they] that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom [is] much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. - Ecclesiastes 1:16-18

There is only one way out of this conundrum. And, unsurprisingly, it is the Great Commandment – to love God absolutely, i.e. with all our heart, mind, soul, strength and understanding. (Matthew 22:36-40) There is no alternative way to Truth than to abide in Him (John 15):

For the law was given by Moses, [but] grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. – John 1:17

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. – John 8:31-32

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. – John 14:6

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. – John 16:13

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. – John 17:17

This is he that came by water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. – 1 John 5:6