Matthew 16:2 But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘[It will be] fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 “And in the morning, ‘[There will be] a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot [discern] the signs of the times? (NASB1995)

Jesus never seemed to condemn the average person, who knew no better, but He surely put forth condemnation of the Elite of His day. Teachers and rulers, who had the scriptures and yet for some reason missed it when considering what was happening before them in their day.

The scripture told them Messiah was coming. Simeon and Anna were aware. They spent time in the Temple where the Scrolls were kept and read daily. Daniel’s prophecy made known the times and seasons. When Harold knew that he had been tricked by the wise kings of the east, he inquired from the teachers in the Temple where Messiah would be born, and he was told in Bethlehem of Juda. Yet, when Jesus began His ministry their message was “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Matthew 2:23 KJV

They had these O.T. scriptures. They had the ability to check what was happening, and they did not hear the words of their scriptures, and they therefore did not believe them.

1 Thessalonians 5:1 Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. (NASB1995)

These verses cause my mind to be packed with questions.

Why, if it is true that we are implied here — to know the times and seasons, did the teachers, who point us today to the soon coming of Jesus, also tell us that His Coming has always been imminent? Do not times and seasons imply that there is something pointing them out in God’s word? Is it conceivable that those indicators of the time and season of His coming could have according to them, pointed to every time and season since He returned to the right hand of the Father? Not even they attempt to make this case, yet this is what they must believe.

Can we really know these times and seasons, if as they tell us, there is no sign pointing to the Rapture, which they attempt to separate from His coming?

Why are we told that Rapture is separated from His coming, when Paul says:

1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. (NASB1995)

So Paul attaches the Rapture to His Coming. So because of this, we are told that His coming is in two parts. And, so it was always taught when I was a kid, as being two comings separated by the seven year Tribulation. But that teaching is changed today, because it made no sense to have the Rapture to be an imminent any moment Coming, which would be attached to a time having specific signs, none of which were in existence in the past. So it had been impossible for the second coming to earth to be attached by such a short span of only the seven year Tribulation and still have always been imminent.

So it is taught today that the Rapture could have occurred at any time since the founding of the Church and in order to protect the imminent (no signs) Rapture, it must in no way have been connected to the coming of Christ to earth. For Israel was not a nation for most of Church history. So, as to the second coming of Christ to earth, it must occur surrounding the signs that will occur only in the times and seasons of His coming. Yet why does Paul tell us that no one need tell us of the times and seasons for we know that He comes as a thief in the night, when people are calling peace and safety?

This season that we are now in, is certainly beginning to look like the time of His signed (with many signs) Second Coming. We are even told in scripture that His coming as a thief is attached to the sign of Armageddon.

Revelation 16:15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.”). 16 And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon. (NASB1995)

We need to remember that there was no punctuation in the original text when John wrote the Revelation.

Teachers will tell us that this statement has no attachment to what is going on around it in prophecy, but is there not an agenda when they tell us that? God does nothing without purpose. I have always been Leary of the elite and teachers with agendas, men, who apply you with man’s thinking rather than with the truth of the word taken as a whole. If one separates out parts of the word from the whole clothe, then it can be made to say almost anything.

In the past preachers turned the development of Atomic bombs into the soon rapture, because Armageddon was on the horizon, yet Israel was not yet a state. When that event, Israel’s return to nation status, happened there was greater urgency, but the Temple was still not rebuilt, and nations were not aligning into a new world order.

One other question. Why is it that we are said to have no belief in the Rapture, just because we place it in the time and season of Christ’s coming to earth? What they really should say, which would be true, is that we do not believe scripture to teach a Rapture separate from the Second coming of Christ to earth, but we do believe that the rapture will come for those who are left alive in Christ at the time of His coming. That certainly appears to be the only scriptural answer which aligns with the events prophesied. The rapture will occur after the resurrection of all those who have died in Christ. Exactly when is that? That is an unknown to us as to day and hour, but it must include Tribulation deaths of those who are in Christ.

Matthew 16:2 But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘[It will be] fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 “And in the morning, ‘[There will be] a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot [discern] the signs of the times? (NASB1995)