It is common for religious people to try and predict the time when Christ will come again. They seek to correlate current events with Biblical prophecies to determine the day, and even the hour when Christ will return to the earth.
Scripture clearly shows this to be impossible. Paul and Peter both state that the “day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10). The thief depends upon surprise, coming when he is not expected. This phrase clearly indicates that we can’t know when Christ will come.
Some in Paul’s day were doing basically the same thing. They had been told the Lord would return to the earth, and took it to mean that His coming was imminent. So, they basically stopped everything, and began to sit and wait for Him to show. When Jesus delayed His return, these individuals became disorderly. The old phrase, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” is apropos here.
Paul’s admonition of these Christians used the strongest language possible. “But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6).
Consider the two approaches in preparing for Christ’s coming. The first is to try to determine what day it will be. This will lead to a severing of ties with the world. We will quit our jobs, sit in lawn chairs looking up to the sky, and with anticipation wait for the fulfillment of our fanciful and misguided predictions. The problem with this approach is what happens when the guess is wrong? Now we are jobless and aimless, which leads to sin. “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not work at all, but are busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:11).
The second way is the Lord’s way. We prepare for His coming by living righteously. We recognize that we can’t know when He will come. Generations have lived and died, and still He delays that day. It is not because He is not faithful regarding His promise, but that He is “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Paul admonished the first group, “Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread” (2 Thessalonians 3:12). He told the rest, “But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And is anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed” (3:13-14).
It is silly to try to predict the time of the Lord’s second coming. It is a dangerous activity that both disregards what the scripture teach about His return, and leads to other egregious sins. It is so destructive that Paul called for the disfellowshipping of those guilty of the sins that followed it.
The best preparation for Christ’s second coming is a righteous life. If in His absence we faithfully discharge our duties, when He comes again, He will reward us as good and faithful servants. As Jesus told those persecuted in Smyrna, “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
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