DENOMINATIONAL DOCTRINES: “The End is Near”
No one knows when Christ’s final coming will be. It could be today or it could be 10,000 years from now. In spite of this, we hear preachers constantly saying the end is near, the end is near. Well, the end has been near all of my life. I’ve been hearing preachers from various man-made religious denominations talking about how “it’s all about to end very soon” for well over forty years.
Contrary to what these people assert, no one can say when the Second Coming of Christ will happen. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night (2 Pet. 3:10). Thieves don’t give signs of any kind as to when they are going to commit a robbery. They don’t even give signs of the “general time.” Jesus taught that the unexpected arrival of a thief illustrates the fact that he will come when not expected (Luke 12:39, 40). Since there will always be people—faithful believers—expecting his return, the point of the statement has to be that there will be nothing particularly different about the time of his return than any other time.
It is unfortunate when preachers, under the guise of biblical authority, proclaim to the world that Christ is coming on some certain date or during some specific period. There have long been those who have made a material fortune by their claim to have figured out “the signs of the times.” When their prophecies fail, as they have so many times before, the cause of Christ is made to look foolish, and the list of those who deny the reality of his Second Coming grows.
This could be avoided if people would heed the words of the one who is going to return: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my father only” (Matt. 24:36). Why do people insist on building speculative philosophies and doctrines out of the Book of Revelation, a book of signs and symbols that no one understands enough to build any doctrines from. Any doctrine that is based on the Book of Revelation and is not taught elsewhere in the New Testament is not only suspect, it is absolutely false.
Do these “prophecy experts” know more than Jesus did? He said no one knows. This statement, by the way, is in the same chapter where many “signs” of his coming are supposedly found. You need to stop saying Jesus is coming soon or the end is near. You don’t know that, and it hurts the cause of Christ. Instead, we should only say he could come at any time and we should always be ready.
Dewayne Dunaway
