Concerning the Times & the Seasons

       This is a word of preparation given at a recent Chronos Ministry weekly meeting. “Concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you”  (1 Thess. 5:1). Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians give us key details concerning Christ’s return at the end of this age and the order of the resurrection. He goes so far as to say he doesn’t need to remind them of this again.
      How can this be so?  Verse 5 gives us one reason. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.”  2 Peter 3:8 (emphasis added) gives us the other reason, what we call the Day Code.  “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
        Sadly, the Church in general does not know the times and the seasons. Most believers recognize that Jesus is coming again, but how and when He shall come is blurred by clouds of confusion. Yet 1 Cor. 14:33 tells us that God is not the author of confusion but of peace. So we can only conclude that this confusion is the result of our human interpretations of the Scriptures, no doubt helped along by the shenanigans of Satan the deceiver.
         For example, one of the most predominant deceptions is that we cannot know the time of Christ’s return. This falsehood comes from a misinterpretation of Jesus’ words in Mat. 24:36. Notice, however, that the verse begins with the conjunction “but.” That word signals that the statement that follows is connected to the statement given in the previous sentence.
         What Jesus said cannot be known is what it will be like when heaven and earth pass away and God the Father makes the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21:1). This happens at the end of the Days, after the final judgment when sin and evil are contained in the lake of fire (the second death).
           This confusion has robbed the Church of the comfort, hope, and sense of victory we should be walking in now. It tends to keep us from sharing the Gospel message. It makes us vulnerable to false date-setting because we do not understand that Jesus taught us to know the times (chronos) and the corresponding seasons or signs (kairos). By not understanding the timing of God’s prophetic plan of redemption as stated in His Word, we tend to  put our efforts into achieving peace through mankind’s efforts instead.
         Daniel 2:21 affirms that it is God the Father who determines the times and the seasons. In order to realize how key this fact is, we only need to flip over a couple of pages to where Daniel describes the Antichrist. “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, he shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law” (Dan 7:25, emphasis added).
         The various conflicting manmade views of the end-times have also redefined key terms that Jesus used when He taught His disciples about the end of this age and His second visible coming. This tends to undermine Jesus’ last words recorded in Rev. 22:20-21. “He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”