"IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW"        Acts 1:7 

 

            Language could not be more emphatically clear. The Lord Jesus tells us,  "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."

 

            All men are curious about the future. One aspect of man's universal fascination with the future is the fact that it allows him to momentarily escape the realities and responsibilities of the present. Another reason for this curiosity about future things is that all men want to avoid any present sense of guilt, condemnation, and judgment. Certainly, this curiosity also arises from the fact that all human beings have both a God consciousness and a sense of immortality from which they cannot escape.  But the fact remains -  God does not intend for us to know the times and seasons. He has given no man the ability to map out the future. He has given no man the key to discover the timetable of predestination. And he never will (Deut. 29:29; I Thess. 5:1-2).

 

            There are some great events of the future clearly revealed in Holy Scripture. All God's elect shall be saved (John 10:16; Rom. 11:26). Christ is coming in power and great glory (Rev. 1:7). There will be a resurrection of the dead (John 5:28-29). All men will stand before God in judgment (II Cor. 5:10). The Lord Jesus Christ will create a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (II Pet. 3:11-13). All the righteous will live in an eternal state of bliss and glory with Christ; and all unbelievers will exist forever in a state of undying death, misery, and woe, under the wrath of God (Rev. 22:11). And the Lord our God, in the trinity of his sacred Persons, will be exalted, praised, glorified, and forever honored by all things that are, have been, and shall be (Rev. 19:5-7).

 

            God has told us plainly that these things will happen. But he has given us absolutely no information as to when these things shall take place. God does not tell us when the end of the world is coming. He does not even give us a single shred of evidence indicating the general course of events leading up to the time of the end. Those passages of Scripture that refer to "signs of the times" are referring to signs of events that have already taken place, by which these last days, which began two thousand years ago, were announced.