But of that day and hour knoweth no man

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Matthew 24:36 (Also Mark 13:32).

Of all the verses on supposed Imminence that Pre-Tribbers obsess over.  This is the only one that is really specific about anything.  And if you think Matthew and Mark are just separate recordings of the same speech you don't even truly have a second witness.

Pre-Wrathers also often fixate on opposing date setting, they don't believe the Rapture exact timing can be known, just that it's somewhere during the second half of the 70th Week.

The incredibly interesting detail that even "The Son" (Jesus himself as He's speaking) doesn't know the exact timing, is compelling considering He is also God.  And Pre-Wrathers also make a point out of this.  To some of them at least Mid-Trib is date setting, but they're not, it could be almost anywhere in the Second Half of the 70th Week to them.

Pre-Tribbers say this leaves only Pre-Trib possible because once in the 70th week you can time everything to some extent (most of them don't know how Pre-Wrath actually works).  And the Revelation 19 return is when the 70th Week ends.  Back when I was Post-Trib I retorted that what ends the 70th Week exactly is The Beast's defeat/Armageddon, and that the Revelation 19 return could very well be an unspecified time before, where he is reunited with Israel in their Hiding place.  (I was a very rare Post-Tribber who didn't believe in Replacement Theology.) Where they look upon his wounds and mourn for him.  Now, as you know if you saw the title of this blog, I'm Mid-Seventieth Week.

The irony is, it was a Pre-Tirbber, Chuck Missler, who made known to me the insight I'm about to share with you.  But he refuses to see the full significance of it.

Revelation 1:1

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:"

I'm going to suggest to you.  That Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32 are only describing a temporary condition.  Jesus was God made Flesh, but still in a Human form, and not yet Resurrected.

But once He was back in Heaven, and seated at the Right Hand of The Father.  The Father revealed to Him what he didn't know at that time.  And then He revealed it to us via John.

Since the only thing ever defined in Scripture as something The Son didn't know is the Day and Hour of his Return.  Revelation must make the Day and Hour or at least the Day knowable or else it failed at fulfilling it's opening verse.

There is another objection some have made to how Matthew 24:36 is used, they say the context of verse 35 tells us what Jesus is referring to is when "Heaven and Earth pass away" which would be the after the Millennium, not The Rapture/Second Coming.  But the grander context of the chapter, especially given what he talks about next makes that unlikely, the question the promoted the discourse was the time of his Coming and the end of this age, not a future age.

The verses on people being unprepared are about warning us to be prepared, you don't want to be among the unprepared.  And that the World will certainly be unprepared because they reject that it'll happen at all.

So you can't say that we still can't know the timing pretty closely.  But I certainly agree that date setting is a mostly futile enterprise until we are actually in the 70th Week.  Even then I only know for certain I can calculate the day of the Two Witnesses' Resurrection and Rapture.  I'm still not 100% certain the Rapture of The Church is simultaneous with that.  But I certainly view there as being a highly probable link.

For the First Advent of Christ, the exact timing of the Triumphal Entry could be known from Daniel 9.  And Scripture, rather then implying it was safer not to try "date setting" because of how embarrassing it might me to be proven wrong, Jesus explicitly condemned the Jews of his Day for not knowing "the Time of thy Visitation" in Luke 19:41-44.

So it doesn't matter how many "date setters" are proven wrong, I think when it's said and done someone will have predicted the correct date.  I don't expect it to be me, but I'm certainly investigating.

I could also point out what many others have that "No man knoweth the hour" is an expression that every First Century Jew would have known to link with New Moons, but especially the New Moon of Tishri. That backs up in a sense my view, because I believe the 7th Trumpet/Revelation 12 have many clues further pointing to the beginning of Tishri.

The Sensationalist Date Setters like mark Blitz and his Blood Moon theory, or that Rapture would happen in May 2011 guy are clearly a major problem.  But my point here is, at a certain point, the Date will be knowable.  If it's not possible to deduce it now, it will be once we've clearly entered the 70th Week.

Correction on some of what I said above, I believe the Last Trump is the 7th Trumpet and will sound the at the halfway point of the 70th Week.

The Reason why I'm so upset at the people who get over reactionary to any date setting, condemning them as heretics based on this one statement of Jesus.  Is that they need to remember Ezekiel 33.

If someone honestly believes they have good reason to suspect a certain date, they have an obligation to inform others of that.