Jesus, by saying in the Olivet Discourse that no one knows the day and hour of His coming except the Father, was referring to the earlier time He would next intervene into the affairs of mankind. That time will be the Rapture of His Bride, the Church. No one but God the Father knows that “twinkling of an eye” moment prophesied by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–8.
So to repeat, the pre-Trib adherents’ most-used reason for not setting a date for the Rapture is:
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. (Mark 13:32–33)
This predominately involves the Church. Looking up as we who constitute the Church see that electrifying moment coming—as commanded by Jesus in Luke 21:28—is crucial to being comforted at this darkening time of evil. It is a primary matter to consider as we think on signals that the great event called the Rapture might be close to snatching us from this growingly dangerous earthly orb.
We’ve looked in these commentaries numerous times at the signals pointing to Christ’s coming in the Second Advent. We always point out that if the signals we see are for the time when He breaks through the black clouds of Armageddon, we know that we can expect the Rapture to be even at the door—even sooner—because that event will take place at least seven years before Christ’s foot touches down on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
We’ve also pointed out that Jesus told His disciples that the first signal of His Second Coming will be great deception. That has been the topic of many of our articles for many months, of course. Daniel, the prophet, and John, the close disciple of Jesus and the writer of Revelation, were given glimpses of earth’s last evil empire: the Antichrist and his regime of tyranny. We have looked at this signal of Christ’s coming—the globalist agenda and all involved in its Ephesians 6:12 wickedness—over the months and years many times. Our commentaries have covered developments in regard to religious apostasy—including a pope who denies Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation—an eventuation that has now overwhelmed this generation. We have looked at how our day—filled with every sort of sexual perversion and debauchery—is almost precisely in line with times as they were in the days of Lot in Sodom. Jesus said the days will be filled with violence and evil, exactly like the days of Noah as laid out in Genesis 6.
But now, we want to look at what I believe is perhaps the prime signal of the moment to look at when we consider just how near we must be to Christ calling us to Himself.
The Church—again, all born-again believers—is indwelt by God, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sent back to believers at the time of Pentecost (Acts 2). The Holy Spirit, resident within each believer, thus within the Church, is the Restrainer of evil. He, through the Church (and through all other means the Lord uses) restrains Satan’s completion of his wicked intentions as outlined in the struggle told in Ephesians chapter 6, especially Ephesians 6:12.
We are told in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the devil and his man of sin, the son of perdition, Antichrist, can’t come to power until the Restrainer is taken out of the way. Therefore, Satan wants to destroy the Church.
This isn’t possible, because Jesus said that the “gates of hell” (meaning Satan and all his minions and their evil activity) can’t prevail against the saints of the Church Age (Matthew 16:18). The Antichrist will overcome the saints of the Tribulation (Revelation 13:7), but he cannot prevail against the Church Jesus promised to keep from the very time of God’s wrath (Revelation 3:10).
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