I did not know such a thing as "date police" existed. It does however seem you are
endorsing date setting. Just an observation. Should I be sorry you don't like it? Nah.
Oh, well then let's clear up this misconception immediately.
I started this blog because I was disappointed that every discussion of this topic always seemed to devolve into when the rapture would be. Since there is so much more to this topic than that I wanted to focus on everything else around this topic. That said, I have posted links to many others who are also sharing relevant information like this brother.
Personally I find the focus on the "date" of the rapture somewhat misguided. Just because you know the date of an exam doesn't mean you will pass it. So then isn't it far more important to know how to fill your vessel with oil and to do that than it is to know the day and hour the Bridegroom is coming? After all everyone is woken up when He comes, it doesn't say that five knew when He was coming and five didn't. It says they all were asleep, they all woke up, the problem was five had vessels that were empty and didn't have any oil and their lamps were going out.
Everyone knows the verse that "no one knows the day or the hour". But there is really a whole lot more to it than that. We are told in the Bible that the calendars will be messed up so that we cannot know the correct date. That puts a whole new spin on it. One way to interpret that verse is that the date of the rapture was never revealed in the Bible. But if that were the case why do you need to mess up the calendar? So then another way to interpret that is that the rapture was revealed in the Bible but because the calendars have been confused no one knows the day or the hour.
However, in the context of a bridegroom coming for his bride a different interpretation is that the son is required to prepare a place for his bride and it isn't until the Father agrees that the job is complete that he can go get her.
But what is also interesting is that there are about five or six relevant calendars that people are referencing. You have the Bible's calendar, and the Torah Calendar, and the Gregorian calendar and the Enoch calendar as the big four. But in addition you also have the Julian calendar and dates used by others (some even have given references to the Mayan calendar). So when Jesus said "no one knows" He might have been referring to all these different calendars (Enoch calendar was a calendar used by angels, Gregorian is used by the world, Torah is used by the Jews, Mayan was used by the Mayans, and Biblical was used by Moses).
Then there are others that point out this word was "present tense" and did not refer to the future. Joel has a prophecy that at the end of the days there will be dreams and visions. So even though no one knows the day or the hour 2,000 years ago, it doesn't mean there won't be warning dreams and visions given, on the contrary the prophecy is that there will be. This is actually an attempt to interpret the warning in Revelation 3:3 that if you don't watch you won't know when the Lord is coming and will be caught by surprise.
Others point out that not knowing the day or the hour doesn't mean we can't know the season or the year. This aligns with the verse that says that the calendar will be confused so that we don't know the day, doesn't say the calendar is so confused we don't know the year. Still others point out that this was an idiom for the first day of the month. The way the Biblical calendar worked, you had to see the new moon by two witnesses. It wasn't simply based on the calculation, unless the witnesses saw the sliver of the new moon you would not claim that it was the first of the month. Still others say this was an idiom for the Feast of Trumpets since it is on the first of the month. And still others point out this is a reference to the feast of Shavuot which, unlike all the other feasts, was not given a date.
You may think some of this is hokey, and I agree. But on the flip side there are those who go so far as to say that we can't know anything at all about the rapture and should not talk about it, teach about, or study it. That is the most extreme, but you will find there are churches where it is considered like the third rail on a subway and you "can't touch it". Others like Magenta get triggered when someone says "we know the year and we know the season". This is quite Biblical and I have posted numerous links to those who have done this research. I would refer you to the links to S4C Global Community and also to Dr. Barry Awe. Everything those brothers share is tied tightly to the word of God.
What I have shared repeatedly is the context of that verse that "no one knows the day or the hour". After all the Lord always concludes by saying "watch therefore". It seems so many of these self appointed rapture police interpret this verse to mean "don't watch" directly contradicting the Lord.
Context
1. The rapture is likened to the birth of the man child in Revelation 12. No one knows the day or hour that a baby will be born. We can estimate (and doctors always give you a date) but it is simply an educated guess. You have to watch and be ready. All the watchmen are telling us that it could be any day now.
2. The rapture is likened to the harvest of the wheat field. The farmer cannot tell you months beforehand the day or the hour that the field will be ripe. He can make an educated guess and of course he'll probably know the week, but he must watch to know when the field is ready to harvest.
3. The rapture is likened to a thief in the night. No one knows when a thief in the night is going to come, so you have to have night watchmen. You have to prepare so that a thief cannot rob you.
The point of the context of this verse is that you must be alert, awake and watching for the lord's coming.
