Nothing on the prophetic calendar has to happen before He comes for His own.
Ask most believers what still has to take place before Jesus could return, and they will start listing events — wars, a temple, a treaty, a final sign. It is an honest instinct, and it is exactly backward. The hope the New Testament hands the Church is not a checklist to complete. It is a Person who could appear at any moment. Theologians have a word for it: imminence. It means there is no prophesied event that must be fulfilled before the Lord descends to gather His people. The next thing on His calendar for the Church could be the next thing, period.
Teachers who keep a close watch on Israel — Amir Tsarfati among them — make this point with particular force, and they are right to. The regathering of Israel set the stage for the whole drama. But setting the stage is not the same as starting the first act. The catching-up of the Church is not waiting on a sign. It is simply waiting on the Father’s word.
The Stage Is Set — That Is Not the Same as the Clock Striking
For nineteen centuries there was no nation of Israel. Then, in a single generation, a scattered people returned to an ancient land and a state was reborn. Whatever else you make of the modern Middle East, the regathering of Israel is the precondition the prophets said would be in place in the last days — the super-sign, the timepiece set back on the wall. It tells us the hour is late.
But read carefully and you will notice something. The detailed prophetic timetable — Daniel’s seventieth week, the covenant, the abomination, the final conflicts — describes the world’s Tribulation, not the Church’s departure. The departure comes first, and it comes without warning. That is why the New Testament never tells the Church to watch the news for permission to hope. It tells the Church to watch the sky.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
— 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (NASB1995)
In a Moment, In the Twinkling of an Eye
Paul does not describe a slow unveiling. He describes an instant.
“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 (NASB1995)
An event with no runway. No buildup you could measure, no countdown you could read. That is precisely what imminence means: not that He is coming soon on a clock we can check, but that He could come at any moment, with nothing required to happen first. The same Lord who promised it staked His own faithfulness on it.
“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
— John 14:3 (NASB1995)
Watch the Text, Not the Date
Here is where sober teaching parts ways with sensationalism. Imminence is not a license to set dates; it is the very thing that makes date-setting impossible. If no event must precede His coming, then no event can be used to calculate it. The man who circles a day on the calendar has already misunderstood the doctrine. And the man who shrugs because “people have said this for two thousand years” has misunderstood it from the other side.
So read the Middle East soberly. Watch the alignment of nations against Ezekiel and Zechariah with humility, not a map and a marker. Take current events seriously as confirmation that the stage is set — and refuse to twist them into a timeline. Jesus held both together in a single command:
“For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
— Matthew 24:44 (NASB1995)
“They Have Been Saying This for Two Thousand Years”
It is worth answering the oldest objection directly, because Scripture answered it before the skeptic ever raised it. Yes, the Church has lived in expectation for two millennia. Peter said it would, and named the mockery word for word.
“Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?'”
— 2 Peter 3:3-4 (NASB1995)
The delay is not failure; it is mercy. Peter explains it in the same breath: the Lord is not slow about His promise, but patient, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. Every extra year is another door held open. And imminence was never a prediction that He would come soon by our reckoning — it was a command to live ready, because He could come at any time. Each generation of the Church has rightly watched, because each generation genuinely could have been the one. The waiting does not disprove the hope. It is the hope, lived out faithfully, exactly as the Lord said it would be.
What Imminence Demands of You Today
A coming that could happen at any moment is not meant to make you anxious. It is meant to make you ready — and the New Testament is relentless about what ready looks like. It is not survivalism. It is holiness and hope.
“And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
— 1 John 3:3 (NASB1995)
The hope purifies. A man who truly believes his Lord could appear before this week is out does not live loose; he lives clean. He keeps short accounts. He stops postponing the apology, the obedience, the witness to a neighbor who has no such hope. This is what Paul called the blessed hope — and notice he calls it a hope, not a dread.
“looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,”
— Titus 2:13 (NASB1995)
For the believer, imminence is the best news there is, because the One who is coming has already promised that we are not destined for wrath but for salvation through Him. Our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we eagerly wait. So lift your head. Keep your account clean. Tell someone before the trumpet sounds. The stage is set, the hour is late, and the next voice the Church may hear could be the shout from heaven. The right posture is not panic and not apathy, but the oldest prayer of the watching Church: Come, Lord Jesus.
Teaching the Word. Watching the Times.
— SmithForChrist