Could Jesus come back tomorrow? Is the Lord’s Return Imminent?

Matthew 24:36
No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Matthew 24:42
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come.

Matthew 24:43
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

Matthew 24:44
For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.

Matthew 25:13
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

Mark 13:35
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know when the master of the house will return–whether in the evening, at midnight, when the rooster crows, or in the morning.

Acts 1:7

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.

1 Corinthians 1:8
He will sustain you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:4
But you, brothers, are not in the darkness so that this day should overtake you like a thief.

2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be dissolved in the fire, and the earth and its works will not be found.

Could Jesus come back tomorrow? Is the Lord’s return imminent?

The Bible says we need to be ready at all times because we do not know the day or the hour that Christ will return.

Pretribulationists argue that if Christ returns at the end of the Great Tribulation then his return will not be imminent or like a thief.

The reference point for God is Jerusalem.  With all that is going on in the Middle East it is quite possible that the Great Tribulation has started and we have missed the signs that Jesus talked about on the Mt of Olives (Matthew 24).

The Western Church is relatively spared from overt hostile persecution.  It tends to be persecuted more by atheists, evolutionists, moral decay and the general Godlessness of society.  The Western Church is more likely to be the Woman who sits on the beast in Revelation Chapter 17 than the persecuted Church of Revelation Chapter 13.

The Bible says that Jesus will not come back until the man of lawlessness has been revealed.  (2 Thess 2:3)  But can we be sure that we have not missed the antichrist’s coming?

We are called to be watchful so that the day of the Lord will not surprise us.

The fact that God does have a schedule for the second coming of Christ does not mean that Christ could not come back tomorrow.  We cannot know for sure where God is up to in his schedule.  He may not have even started to open the seals but maybe he has and is close to the end.

In Matthew 24, the Olivet discourse, Jesus lists the signs of his coming.  These harmonize well with the signs associated with the seals of revelation.

As Jesus told us to watch for these signs, it is unlikely that the rapture would occur before these signs take place.  Otherwise, the people who are told to watch out for the signs (the believers) would never get to see them if the rapture took place before the first seal.

In any case, we need to be awake and sober minded so that the Lord’s coming will not surprise us.

In times of such suffering and persecution we need something to encourage us to persevere.   The degree of suffering and persecution itself will be a sign that the Lord’s coming is near.

The Western Church should not be complacent and think that the Lord’s coming is not near just because it is not being persecuted and put to death like the Church in the Middle East.

1Thess 5:4 says: ‘But you, brothers, are not in the darkness so that this day should overtake you like a thief’.  So the Lord coming like a thief applies to those who are in darkness.

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. (Matt 24:42)

http://www.truthinlove.com/References/144000JewsSealed.html

http://www.truthinlove.com/References/seven_seals_trumpets_bowls.htm

http://www.truthinlove.com/analogies/seven_seals.htm

http://www.truthinlove.com/References/last_trumpet.htm