In response to me talking about the soon coming rapture (which I believe is imminent), most all people have responded with "We can't know the day or the hour". This page are my thoughts on how badly people's understanding is regarding this scripture.

The scripture people are quoting is Matthew 24:36 which says: But of that day and hour no one knows,

There are MANY problems with their interpretation:

1. This verse is referring to the timing of Jesus' 2nd coming and has nothing to do with the rapture
   
   
2. People stop reading at Mt 24:36 and as such misunderstand what this scripture means. They need to read Mt 24:42 (NKJV) and Mt 24:44 (NKJV) both of which says we won't know the hour of His coming. Where did the word day go? Now here is a problem since some English translations replace the Greek word for hour with the English word day. NIV, NLT, NASB and others do this. Other translation like KJB, NKJB, and Geneva correctly translate the word in English to hour. An additional complication is some people assume that v42/44 means day so they have changed the underlying Greek word to mean day instead of hour so that the English translation becomes day.
   
   So the next question is why does v36 say day and hour while v42/44 only say hour? When you read the scripture and ask who the audience is, you see that there are two different groups of people being addressed. The first group are the people who are not watching while the second group are watching. Since the first group is not watching they will see the signs but not understand what they mean so they won't know the day or hour of Jesus' second coming. The second group though is watching so they will understand what the signs mean and will know the day of His 2nd coming. They won't know the hour since with time zones, He might return at 1PM for people in one timezone but 5PM for people in a different timezone.
   
   In addition, in the book of Revelation, we are given a bunch of events that will happen before Jesus second coming, so if you are paying attention to the seals, trumpets, and bowl judgments in Revelation it will not be hard to know within a few days when Jesus will come.
   
   
3. People incorrectly assume that if you can't know the day, then you can't know the week, month, year, decade, century, or millennium so any talk about the end times is a complete waste of time. The problem is Jesus makes it very clear that we will know the season (1 Thessalonians 5:4 - But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief which is saying that since we, the Christians, are in the light, the day of Jesus' return will not overtake us as a thief). Remember that Mt 24:42,44 says we won't know the hour of His coming which implies we will know the day since He mentioned day in v36). The best example to demonstrate this is a women in labor. Say it is 9 PM when a women goes into labor. We can honestly say that we don't know the "day or hour" since we don't know if the baby will be born today or tomorrow (if not today then it will be tomorrow). And clearly we won't know the hour either, but just because we don't know the day does not mean we cannot know the "season" which is a few days.
   
   
4. There are some people who suggest that Jesus will come at the Feast of Trumpets. This feast is the only God called feast that starts at the beginning of the Jewish month while all others are either in the 2nd or 3rd weeks of a Jewish month. Why is this important? According to Jewish tradition, a new month cannot start until 2 rabbi's actually see with their eyes the first sliver of the new moon. This seems odd to us since we can exactly calculate when the new moon is, but tradition is different. This means if the first day is cloudy and the rabbi's cannot see the moon, then the new month cannot officially start. But say the second day also starts cloudy but clears up around 3 AM, then the new month would officially start at 3 AM on the second day. It would be at this point that the rabbi's would sound the trumpet letting all of Jerusalem know that the new month has officially begun. This is important since the Jewish people back in Jesus time would have known that But of that day and hour no one knows, was referring to the Feast of Trumpets. Only when they would hear the sound of the trumpet blasts from the rabbi's would they know when the new month and the Feast of Trumpets had started. So some scholars suggest that when Jesus said But of that day and hour no one knows, He was actually referring to the Feast of Trumpets which culturally everyone would understand. If this is true, then we actually will know when His second coming is. Even if you still disagree, we absolutely will still know the season.

Since the bible makes it very clear that we need to be watchful at all times, go to http://amazedbygrace.org/bin/view/Common/WatchMan for a page that contains links to all synonyms for the word watch. Jesus commands us to watch (Matthew 26:40-41 (NKJV). Numerous other verses (shown in the above URL) say the same thing and one verse in 1 Peter 5:2-4 (NKJV) says that being watchful means you will receive a crown of glory/righteousness.

So it is my view that being watchful means that we will know the day of Jesus second coming because we will see the signs that will appear before His second coming.

-- Tait - 2026-02-23

Revision r1 - 2026-02-23 - 18:21:16 - TaitCyrus

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