Today I would like to look at what the Bible’s response is to many people who say that you cannot know the timing of the end or you cannot know the day or the hour. And, actually, that statement is found in the Bible, “No man knoweth the day or the hour.”
Many people, when they hear information that is being presented at this time in our day—for instance, when we are very specific and we say that May 21st in the year 2011 is going to be the rapture of the believers; it will be the time of a great earthquake and the resurrection of the just to life, to be raised up, and the resurrection of the unjust to damnation in the sense that they will be supernaturally raised by God; they will come out of the ground, whatever is left of them, whatever remains, and they will just be raised up far enough to fall back flat down onto the ground, so that the bodies of all those who died unsaved will litter the whole face of the earth for that 5-month period—and we are being very specific—we are saying May 21st, 2011 this is going to happen; it will happen for 5 months; all those who are left behind, all the unsaved, will be here on Earth, and on October 21st, 2011, God will destroy the whole world; He is going to destroy the Earth—and, you know, that is a lot of information. That is a lot of information. We are giving dates, we are giving times, we are giving the day, the month, the year, and so many people, they read verses in the Bible, and, really, you do not have to look too hard. For example, if you go to Matthew 24:42-44, it says:
Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
There are several verses of that nature that we find in the Bible, and, of course, people go to them and say, “You are wrong. You are wrong. You cannot tell me that Christ is coming on May 21st, 2011, or that the world will be destroyed on October 21st of 2011. The Bible says you cannot know. You are going contrary to what the Bible says and I do not have to listen to you and I am not going to listen to you. I am not going to pay any attention to you and I am not going to read your books and I am not going to listen to anything that comes from your direction.”
That is what people say and it gives them a nice excuse to then go their way and go about their life and do whatever they have been doing in their life. And many of these people, most of them, are in the churches, in the congregations, and they will go to church on Sunday and they will listen to what the pastor has to say and so on, but they will not listen to what anyone says.
Well, that is not quite true. They will listen to some people. If you write some off-the-wall prediction about the coming of Christ, that is not put down. But if you write something that is based on the Bible alone and only the Bible and is full of information from the Scriptures and is not off-the-wall, well, then, that is given no hearing.
And are they right? Are they right? Believers know that no, no; they are incorrect. We do not think they are; we know they are! That is an incorrect understanding of those verses, that no man knows the day or the hour.
Now, God gave us those verses. He did sprinkle them here and there in the Bible, because He did have a certain season when He wanted to reveal these things. Like in Acts 1:7, it says that it is not of you to know the times or the seasons, and we were looking awhile back in John 16. Let us look at that because that really pertains. In John 16:12, Jesus is speaking and He says:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
You cannot bear them now, so God did not want the church to be bogged down with information concerning the specifics of the end of the world. This is because they had to minister in a very harsh and cruel world for hundreds of years under severe persecution, sometimes unto death, and so they did not know. They did not know. They could have some hope that maybe Christ would come in their generation, that maybe this might pass. But God did not want them burdened with information of knowing that it would not be for another 2,000 years, or it would not be for another 1,000 years or 500 years. So they could live their life without that additional information, and that is how Christ wanted it. That is how God wanted it.
Well, anyway, today, I would like to look at several things in the Bible that show us and teach us that believers will know the time. Believers will know the time. We are going to look first at three men in the Bible. As we look at their situations, it is going to show us that it is God’s plan to reveal truths to His people. We are going to look at a couple. I wanted to put three—I actually have three groups. I wanted to do three, three, three, but I do not know if we will have the time for that.
We have the three men at first. Then we are going to look at two Scriptures that show that the wise will understand. And then, finally, we are going to look at three passages where God explains what He means by no man will know the day or the hour. He explains that if Christ comes as a thief—and He is coming as a thief; He is; the Bible tells us that—if Christ comes as a thief for you personally, you are in big trouble. You are in tremendous trouble. If you do not know, in other words, when Jesus is coming, if it is up in the air with you and if you want to leave it that way, then you are in serious trouble with God. You are in darkness and you are, in all likelihood, going to perish. Now, the Bible tells us that. So we are going to look at these three sets. And if we have time, I will try to sneak in a third Scripture that has to do with the wise knowing, because there is much more than that. But first, let’s look at these three men.
Number one—I think everybody knows where we are going—we are going to the book of Genesis and Noah. Noah, that child of God who lived long ago and whom God saved by grace. It says in Genesis 6:8 that he “found grace in the eyes of JEHOVAH.” He was a true believer, in other words, and God saved Noah just like He saved anybody here or anybody in any generation: through grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” So he was a true believer and in his day, God saw the wickedness of the world. And we read in Genesis 6:3:
And JEHOVAH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
During that 120-year period is when God is going to come to Noah and instruct him to build the ark, and he has quite a bit of time to begin constructing this ship and to build the boat.
But, you know what? It was a huge ship. It was a huge ship, and we do not know what his skill level was. I am sure that he developed very excellent skills in shipbuilding over the course of that 120 years. But at first, we do not know what he knew and what his level of skill was.
We know that God would have helped him and that he would have had his sons to help him. But even if you are building this ark and you are building it over the course of time, you are still going to need wood. You are going to need wood. You are going to have to go get the wood. You are going to have to cut the wood. You are going to need other supplies to build the ship. We do not read that God just gave Noah a whole bunch of money, “Here Noah; here is everything you need.” God did not say any of that, so Noah maybe was doing other tasks to raise money, to get the supplies, to obey God and build this ship and build the ark.
And do not forget: he was a father, he was a husband, he had a home, he had to take care of the house. He had a lot of things to do and it was a huge ship. And so God gave him this time, “You have this period of time: 120 years to the world in order to construct the ship.” And as he is doing it, he is a preacher of righteousness, the Bible tells us.
And the ship itself, the ark itself, was a testimony to anybody who would live in the area, anyone who would see Noah and his family working on it continually, adding to it as it was getting more complete. As they were going along, it was a testimony and a witness to all the people.
And, you know, I am sure, that many people, especially children, probably went up to Noah and said, “Mr. Noah, what are you doing? What are you doing? Why do you keep building this ship?” And Noah would say, “Well, son, God told me to build this ship because He is going to destroy the world. He is going to destroy the whole world.” And so that little kid would go home and say, “You know why Mr. Noah is building that ship? Because God told him to because He is going to destroy the world.”
And don’t you think it would get around? News would spread and people would just look at this crazy old guy. “Look, the world is still here, Noah! The world is still here! Nothing changed from yesterday or last week or last year. You keep building that ship and we are still here, like we have always been.” You would have mockers and you would have people who would be reviling him and saying, “Hey, Noah! Hey, Noah! If it does not happen, can I have that ship? Can I have that ship, Noah? If it does not happen, are you going to give me that ship? Sign it over to me.”
Well, Noah would probably say, “How silly!” But, you see, he was working and his work was a testimony to everyone that this was going to happen. He was a preacher of righteousness, and they did not like to hear this. The world of that day, just like today, did not like that kind of a message. They would not like to hear it at all, but God gave him warning, advanced warning. And, actually, if we look at Hebrews 11:7, it says:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
You see, “by faith,” that means “by Christ” that God gave him this spirit. God gave him a heart, a new heart. He was saved by grace, so he had eyes to see. He knew that if God said it, no matter what the world said, if God said, “120 years, Noah,” that would be exactly how much time they had.
And so he had this foreknowledge, because God revealed it to him. He had advanced warning, advanced warning, before it happened. Long before it happened, God told him, “Build the ark, Noah.” He did not see God…that we know of, because it said…what did it say there? Or he did not see the actual destruction. That might be a better way of putting it. He was “warned of God of things not seen as yet.”
It did not happen. There was not any water falling. No deluge. There was not any flood. Long off into the future… long, long into the future. “But Noah, build the boat. Build the ark. Build that ship.” And God blessed him incredibly because he obeyed. He blessed him incredibly.
You know what the most wonderful thing is if you have a family and you read the story of Noah and his ark? It is that Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives all went into the ark. It was a family affair. It was only the relations of Noah and their wives: God saved the family. He saved the family. And we know that God is not going to save every individual of every family, but it gives us hope that if we do have families, that God might save our wives or our children or our husbands.
And so God gave Noah advance warning. And remember what we read in Matthew 24? Now, we have to search the Bible. Many are saying that you cannot know the day or hour. Well, in Matthew 24:36-39:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man…
There it is again.
…no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe (Noah) were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Christ came as a thief, we could say, with the flood. He came in judgment. God came to destroy the world, and the world did not know. It was a total surprise. Total surprise. They were caught off guard. Suddenly, it happened to them.
How could it be sudden? How could it be sudden? Noah was building the ark for years and years and years and years, and preaching to them for years and years and years and years, “This is going to happen.” And they are eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, like nothing was going on, completely like they had no warning whatsoever.
Now, you see, that is what God is saying. Nobody knows the day or hour, and it is just like in the days of Noah. “If you do not take warning, if you are not watching, if you do not have eyes to see, if you are not one of My children,” actually, that is really what it boils down to, “you are going to be caught like a thief in the night. You are going to be caught off guard, just like the people of Noah’s day. You are going to be destroyed as they were drowned with the waters of the flood.” And yet Noah had plenty of advanced warning and so did his family. And more than that, Noah, by that reference of 120 years, would have known the year.
But as it got closer, God gave him more information. In Genesis 7:4, it says:
For yet seven days…
And this is the Lord speaking to Noah.
…and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
And that was on the 10th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s life. One week later, on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s life, the flood came. So before it happened, and it was only a week—it was only a week when God got very specific—but still, nonetheless, before it happened, there was more information given to Noah so that he could pinpoint the very day.
So it is not way off-course that we are saying May 21st, the very day, of 2011. And did we know that all along? Well, first of all, we did not know 2011 all along. It was not until a few years ago that we started understanding that Christ is coming in 2011 and we saw that, yes, that fits, and this verse is one of the main reasons, because from 4990 B.C. until 2011 is 7000 years. And as God said to Noah, “Yet seven days,” we know in 2nd Peter 3, in the context of the flood and the end of the world, God says, “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
And, you know, there has been plenty that has been said about that. But 7,000 years from the flood to 2011 will be the duration that the world has, their 120-year period, we could say, that was given to the people before the flood. That was their duration to repent, to find salvation, by God’s grace.
Well, the world since the flood has had 7,000 years, and then there will come destruction. And also, May 21st in 2011, in the Hebrew calendar, is the 17th day of the 2nd month, but we will not get into that either. That is just additional information that God gives us. So God has given us the example of Noah and his family, and He tells us in Matthew 24 that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.
Well, let’s stay in Genesis and go to Genesis 18. In Genesis 18, the Lord, in the Person of three angels, was coming to Sarah and Abraham and telling them that Sarah would have a child. And from thence, they were turning their faces toward Sodom. And it says in Genesis 18:17:
And JEHOVAH said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;
Before He was going to go to Sodom, God was going to reveal to Abraham what He was going to do, because Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked cities and God was going to destroy them. And just out of the blue, He says, “Should I hide it from Abraham? No, I am going to reveal it,” and He does. And so Abraham begins to intercede for the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, “If there are so many righteous, will You destroy it?,” and Abraham goes through that countdown. And yet the important thing is that God asked the question, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” And that fits perfectly with Amos 3:7, where it says:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
So that is a Biblical principle. That is what God has established: He will do nothing except He reveal it to His servants the prophets.
So before bringing the Babylonians against Jerusalem, He revealed it to Jeremiah and other prophets. Before destroying the world of Noah’s day, He revealed it to Noah. Before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, He revealed it Abraham. And, you know, we could go on and on in the Bible. Actually, it would be an interesting search to see if anybody could find a major judgment in the Bible where God did not reveal it to one of His people, to one of His servants the prophets.
And what prophets are in view? Yes, He revealed it to prophets of old, but the Bible tells us that all believers are prophets, priests, and kings. And so when God says that He will do nothing but first He reveals that secret to His servants the prophets, He has in view the true believers, the child of God. He will reveal information concerning judgment to His people, and the history of the Bible shows us that, as we do check it out and see how God has worked in the past.
Or look in the next chapter, in Genesis 19, and this will be the third person we go to, and it is Lot. It is Lot and Lot was a relative of Abraham, and this was one of the reasons why Abraham was so interested in Sodom. He was concerned for his nephew Lot. And it says in Genesis 19:12-13:
And the men…
And these are two angels, which actually is God Himself making an appearance, the Lord Himself.
And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of JEHOVAH; and JEHOVAH hath sent us to destroy it.
Do you see what they told Lot? This place, this city is going to be destroyed, and they said it twice. “We will destroy this place. We are going to destroy this place.” Did Lot get the message? Well, look at verse 14. Genesis 19:14:
And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for JEHOVAH will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
He heard. He heard right. God told him, “I am going to destroy it,” and immediately he went to his family because he loved his family—his daughters, his own children—and he told them just what he heard, nothing really more than that, “God is going to destroy this place. Up! Get out! Get out of this place!” And yet he seemed as one who mocked.
It was an incredible thing. It is an incredible thing for some reason, with man, to really believe that God is going to destroy them, that He is going to destroy them, even though and despite the fact that everyone sees the sin that is all around and everyone sees the wickedness. Before God destroyed the world of Noah’s flood, it was only evil continually. The cry of Sodom was going up to God because it had such a reputation for its wickedness. And yet despite the fact that sin is prevalent, it is everywhere, that unrighteousness rules the day, and that there is wickedness everywhere you look, people still think that it is an incredible thing, “God will destroy Sodom? I cannot believe that! I cannot believe that!” Just like the people of Noah’s day would not believe that God would destroy the world with a flood, “I cannot believe that!” And yet, that was exactly what was going to happen, and soon.
There was not much time in this case of forewarning, but there was forewarning and that is the important thing. There was advanced warning by the Lord, because that is His Biblical principle. He will do nothing except He reveal His secret to His servants the prophets. He had a prophet, He had a believer in Sodom, and so He went to Lot and He gave him the information: this is what is going to happen.
And then in Genesis 19:15-16:
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; JEHOVAH being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
So it was entirely of God’s will. God worked it out that Lot and his daughters and his wife, even though we know later that she was destroyed…but we would have to get into a different area of study to talk about that. For now, though, God is telling us that He warned Lot and He took special care to make sure that Lot was delivered, that he did come out of his city.
And also, when we go to the New Testament, in Luke 17:26 it says again of Noah:
And as it was in the days of Noe…
And then in verse 28, Luke 17:28-29:
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
God said, “I am going to destroy this city. I am going to destroy it.” And Lot warned, “Get out! Get out! God is going to destroy it!” And God certainly destroyed it, because everything that we read in the Bible is true and faithful and trustworthy. With absolute confidence, we can know that everything is trustworthy.
And so, again, yes, nobody in Sodom knew the day or hour, except Lot and his daughters, and his wife had some information about that, too. You see, they did know, didn’t they? They knew the time of Sodom’s destruction, but nobody else knew. You see, watch therefore. Watch therefore, lest you…really, what God is saying is that if you do not watch, you are not going to know.
Well, those are the three individuals. Now, let’s look at a couple of verses where God shows us that the believers will know the time, because they will have wisdom to discern the time. We find this reference in Ecclesiastes 8:5, where it says:
Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
“A wise man’s heart” is in view because when God saves us, He gives us a new heart, a new spirit, and that heart is patterned after the heart of the Lord Jesus. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us, and anyone who is saved is “wise,” any person, whether young or old or a little child. If they are truly born again, God looks at them as being wise, and, yet, here He is saying:
…and a wise man’s heart discerneth…
That is, it is able to understand time and judgment. The word “discerneth” has to do with discerning between good and evil. You know what is good. You know what is evil. And, here, it is being able to know time and judgment.
For instance, in Daniel 12, that word “time” is found. In Daniel 12:4:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
So, here, the word “time” is the same word where in Ecclesiastes 8:5 it says:
…and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
And, here, in Daniel 12:4, God is telling Daniel:
…shut up the words…
That is, close up the information dealing with much Scripture concerning the end and other doctrines:
…even to the time of the end…
To the time of the end of the world. And then at that point:
…knowledge shall be increased.
And that is exactly what is happening. That is what is going on in our day as we are learning more about the timing of Christ’s return, the end of the world…we have learned a great deal of information from the Bible.
So that is one verse, and a second verse is also right here in Daniel 12. In Daniel 12:10, it says:
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
And, again, God is making that distinction. The wicked do not understand. The wise do understand. And it just boils down to that; it comes down to that at the end of the day.
That is why Christ comes unexpectedly for billions of people. They do not understand spiritual things, so they have no ears to hear, no eyes to see. And you could hand them information that is all laid out, like the booklet We Are Almost There!, and it has the information right from the Bible that is pointing out what is coming on the world shortly, and they will not get it. They will not understand it. Maybe some things in there might interest them or maybe, for a little while, they might be interested. But, finally, since they do not have God’s Spirit, they are not going to take warning and they are not going to understand.
Okay, well, there are other verses of this nature that speak about the wise will have the ability to understand, but let’s go directly to answer this question of those who say, “No man knows the day or the hour, so don’t bother telling me anything about the timing of the return of Christ.”
If we go to Revelation 3:2-3, where it says:
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.
Now, God is addressing the church of Sardis. But, really, the admonition He has for them is for anyone.
And then it goes on in verse 3:
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
Now, if you had to say what this verse was declaring, if you had to sum it up, if you read that and you had to tell someone what Revelation 3:3 is actually saying, how would you do it? How would you do it?
You see, God says:
If…
That it is conditional.
…therefore thou shalt not watch…
And in those places where we read about no one knowing the day or hour, many times it says “Watch therefore” first. Watch. If you do not watch, it goes on:
…I will come on thee as a thief…
Do you see what it is saying? Do you see what it is saying? If you don’t watch…and where are you going to watch? Are you going to post a watch on the roof of your house, like some children look for Santa Claus on the 25th of December, seeing if they see a streak in the sky?
No, we don’t watch for Christ that way. We watch for Him in the Bible. We watch for Him in the Scriptures. We study the Bible, and for believers throughout the centuries, this command has been there for all of us. We keep looking, looking for these things that are coming, and we are studying and we are searching, and at the proper time, at the time of the end, God opens up the Scriptures, knowledge increases and all of a sudden, because we have been watching all along, we can know the coming of Christ’s return.
But if…“No, no, it says it right there, Matthew 24, Mark 13, no man can know the day or hour. I don’t want to hear anymore.” Well, that is the same attitude as so many doctrines where God gives verses that apparently say one thing and if you just are satisfied with that, well, you are going to end up dead wrong. You are going to think that you can accept Christ, rather than checking further in the Bible and realizing that no one can accept Him, that He has to do the work of salvation. In many, many things, we just cannot look on the surface.
It is like skimming the Scriptures. That is what so many people do. If they read something and it agrees with their mindset and what they want to believe, then, “The Bible said it! The Bible said it! It is good enough for me.” And, actually, it might be good enough for you, and anyone is welcome to do that and to hold on to those kinds of flimsy conclusions if you want to do that, but you are going to end up, tragically, paying the consequences with your eternal life, because you will not have it. You will not have it. You will experience an eternal destruction.
You see, it says:
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
All conditional on not watching, and the implication is that if you do watch, you will know; you will know.
Alright. Let’s also go to the second one of these passages that answers this wrong understanding that people have that no one can know the day or hour. In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, it begins:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
And we all agree on that. We all agree on that. We are not saying that He is not.
And then in verse 3, 1 Thessalonians 5:3:
For when they shall say, Peace and safety…
Just like the people in Noah’s day. Just like the people in Lot’s day. Just like the people today.
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.
Now, there God is saying that it has all taken them off guard once again. Man has not changed, and it is not going to change on May 21st in 2011. There are going to be billions, billions, and many of them will have heard some things. They would have heard something about Family Radio, something about a book We Are Almost There!, something about May 21 st, 2011, something about a mysterious 5 months of hell on earth. I am sure that they are going to know or will have heard many things, and yet it is all going to catch them completely off guard, and no one will have an excuse. No one will have any excuse. It is the nature of man. And that is going to happen. That is why Christ comes as a thief in the night.
But in verse 4, 1 Thessalonians 5:4:
But ye, brethren…
And the “brethren” are the believers, the children of God, God’s elect, those saved by grace like Noah, the child of God like Lot who had his righteous soul vexed day-to-day in Sodom, the true people, not everybody who says, “I am a Christian”—there are plenty of them—not everybody who says, “Lord, Lord”—there are multitudes of them. But God has His people, His people, and we know that at this time in the world, He is saving a great multitude.
And, by the way, in 2 Peter 3 (and keep your finger there in 1 Thessalonians 5), but it says in 2 Peter 3, and this is the same meaning in verse 8, 2 Peter 3:8:
But, beloved…
Referring to the true believers.
…be not ignorant of this one thing…
That is, have understanding, have discernment, have that wise heart that is able to discern time and judgment. Know these things. The wise will understand. Do not be ignorant of this one thing, and that leads to our understanding that 2011 will be the time of the end.
Well, in 1Thessalonians 5:4:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
You see, that is what I was saying earlier. If Christ comes as a thief for you, it means that you are in darkness. And if you are in darkness, then you do not have God as your Savior because God is Light. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, and if you do not know, if you do not know when He is coming, if you are going to just leave it at that and you do not have any interest and you do not care and you quote flippantly a verse like “No man knows the day or the hour,” then you are in darkness or you are giving evidence of being in darkness; you are giving a lot of evidence of that.
And then it goes on to say in 1 Thessalonians 5:5:
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
You see, God again is indicating that His people will know. They will know. Christ will not come as a thief. He is not going to surprise His people. They are going to have information.
So let’s go one last place to look directly at this question. In Revelation 16, and it is kind of interesting that God gives us this verse in this passage, but He does. In Revelation 16:15, it says:
Behold, I come as a thief.
So we know that it is Christ who is speaking.
Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
You see, Jesus is telling us again that He is coming and He is coming for most of the world, for over 6 billion plus. We know God is going to save tens and tens of millions at this time during the Great Tribulation of the great multitude, which is going to leave 6 billion, four or five hundred, 6 hundred million. I do not know the exact figure by the time we get there. But over 6 billion people in the world are going to be caught and shocked. And many of them, nearly 2 billion or around 2 billion, are professing Christians, around 2 billion people in the world. That includes everyone: Catholics, Protestants. I think that is just a survey that they have done. That is not an exact figure. But around 2 billion are professing Christians, and when anybody says that they are a Christian, they are saying, “Christ is my Savior.” And if Christ is your Savior, then you have a covering. It should be His covering, His covering where He died for your sins and then He clothes you with His righteousness. He covers you. He washes away all iniquity. He gives you that fine, white linen, which is the righteousness of the saints. That is what Christ gives His people. But it says that when He comes as a thief:
Blessed is he that watcheth…
And we have seen that as referring to the child of God who will watch, and he is going to be studying the Scriptures to keep watch and will know. He will have discernment of time and judgment, and he will take warning like Noah, and he will flee from the wrath to come like Lot, fleeing to Christ and all safety. And all that information is included in “watcheth, and keepeth his garments.”
You see, if you watch, you are going to maintain that pure, white linen and that righteousness of the saints, that holiness that comes with the salvation of God. You are going to retain it. Nobody can take it from you. However, if you are not watching and Christ comes as a thief, then you walk naked, which means that your garment has been taken away. Your garment is taken away, like we read in Matthew 22 in that parable of the guests who are bidden to this wedding, and it says in Matthew 22:11-14:
And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
You see, God definitely is greatly concerned with what type of righteousness we are claiming to possess. Who is our Savior? What kind of salvation plan do we have? Are we saved by grace or by works? What is our covering for sin? All those things are involved in our garment, and Christ is the only One who can give us the proper garment that is acceptable to God.
And yet, when He comes as a thief, then those who are unsaved, they are in darkness—we have already seen that—and now they are going to be stripped of whatever they were trusting in on that day, on May 21st, 2011, because all of the believers were just taken up—they were all raptured; they were all lifted up to be with the Lord—and it revealed that every other gospel, every other thing that professing Christians were trusting in, was false, and it just stripped them, from God’s perspective. Many are still going to claim that they are believers and come up with far-out ideas, but it stripped them of the righteous garment of the Lord Jesus Christ and now they are going to walk naked.
Remember Isaiah, that prophet? God used him to prove a point and he walked naked and barefoot for three years. Wow! We think we have it tough! He walked naked and barefoot for three years in order to prove the shamefulness. Let’s go to Isaiah 20, and the whole chapter is only a couple of verses. It says in Isaiah 20:2-4:
At the same time spake JEHOVAH by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And JEHOVAH said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
It is a shameful thing, and that is because of our sin. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they wanted to cover themselves when God came around, because they were exposed. And that is what the Bible tells, that God sees all things. The One with whom we have to do, all things are naked and open to His eyes.
And so, when Christ comes as a thief and He takes the garments from everyone who dared to approach that glorious wedding banquet without the proper attire, without the proper wedding garment, without true salvation, then they are going to walk naked and barefoot—not for three years, but for 5 months, 5 months. Not literally, not physically, people will still manage to find clothes, even though that is going to be a desperate time, literally and physically. But spiritually, 5 months without a covering of any sort before their destruction, before the end.
So I really would plead with anyone who has the idea in their mind—and they got it there maybe through their church, through a pastor, through a friend, it does not matter—but if you have the idea in your mind, even the littlest bit, because you heard someone say it and it just sounded good to you, whatever it was, that no one knows the day or hour, get it out of your mind. Get it out of your mind because if you continue to hold to that, then it is going to lead to your final death.
Okay, we will stop here.
(There was no question/answer session pertaining to this study.)