Every year as we review the third and final Festival season, the question comes to many; How long? How long will it be until Trumpets, Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles become reality? The fulfillment of these Festivals will begin within a short span of time. The Last Great Day will have to wait a thousand years, but for born spirit beings, the Millennium, pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles, will seem as only a 24-hour day—well, maybe a little longer to newly born children of God, but it will pass much more quickly than we might imagine.
People often ask me the “how long” question, and I studiously avoid making specific, dogmatic statements. Recently, one gentleman gave me his speculation and I assured him that there was nothing necessarily wrong with him speculating—but the same was not true for me. The reason is simple; while the Church of God historically has understood the general outline of prophecy, every time we have tried to be specific about prophetic timing, we have been wrong.
At one time, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong thought that the events of World War II were leading to the very end. That was certainly reasonable considering the horrific conflict that engulfed the entire world, ultimately taking the lives of tens of millions. The National WWII Museum in New Orleans estimates that there were 15 million combatant deaths, 45 million civilian deaths, and an additional 25 million wounded in combat. It also states in a footnote, “Worldwide casualty estimates vary widely in several sources. The number of civilian deaths in China alone might well be more than 50,000,000” (“Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II,” NationalWW2Museum.org).
The scope of that war is so staggering that those of us who did not live through it may find it difficult to comprehend. If we had experienced that time, perhaps we could better understand why Mr. Armstrong mistakenly interpreted German General Erwin Rommel moving toward Egypt and what was then called Palestine in the light of Daniel 11 and assigned apocalyptic significance to the destruction occurring all around the world.
He later wrote a booklet titled 1975 in Prophecy. It was never intended to set that year as the date of Christ’s return, but instead was highlighting a significant milestone in the future as many others have done; for example, George Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, and William and Paul Paddock’s Famine 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive?, written in 1967. Today we might highlight a future year such as 2050, not intending to imply that 2050 is a specific year during which we expect something earth-shattering to happen. But in the course of time, 1975 in Prophecy took on a life of its own. Some Ambassador College faculty began calculating, using 19-year time cycles, that the work of the Church could end in 1972 with the three-and-a-half-year period mentioned in Revelation taking us to 1975.
I do not know when Mr. Armstrong began to consider that 1975 could be the year, but I do know firsthand that, as late as 1969, on the occasion of one of the Senior Dinners that he hosted in his home, he thought it possible for things to wrap up by then. At the same time, however, he strongly warned the Church not to set dates. And Dr. Meredith was already saying as early as 1968 that “the end of the Work in 1972” and “the return of Christ in 1975” were dates that would come and go without those expected events.
When it was clear that 1972 was not the end of the Work, people looked for other dates and some concluded that the error was in subtracting the seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity from the 2,520 years from the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. This recalculation brought us to the year 1979 for the end of the Work, with Christ returning in 1982. That was nearly 40 years ago—obviously, speculators were wrong again.
Perhaps we can be forgiven such errors, as we are in the company of the Apostle Paul, who wrote, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). This certainly applies to some people, perhaps many of us, but Paul wrote to a contemporary audience, while God inspired it for all times. Paul did not set any specific dates as far as we know, yet it may seem in his epistles that he thought they were living very near to the end of the age—certainly not 2,000 years away from it!
It is natural to want to know how long we have left to wait, and it is natural to hope that Christ’s return will be within our own personal lifetime. This natural tendency to speculate must be tempered by mature thinking whereby we learn from the past. It would seem that, given the history of the last 100 years, we should have learned not to attempt specific predictions. Dr. Meredith realized this, refusing to be specific, but when pressed for some indication he would say that he thought it would be seven to 17 years—and he repeated that for a decade or more, as a moving target.
This is not a criticism of Paul, Mr. Armstrong, or Dr. Meredith, but it should be a lesson for all of us. Sadly, some never learn, and they go beyond simple speculation and count on specific dates. When one date fails to bring Christ’s return, they set another—then another, then another. And sometimes they become discouraged and leave the faith. While it is fun to speculate, the problem is that some people begin making important decisions based on their speculations: not furthering their education, not getting their teeth fixed, rushing into a poorly matched marriage, etc.
The best approach is to look to what Jesus told His disciples when they were asking, When? “And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’” (Acts 1:7–8).
There was also the parable of the minas. “Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately” (Luke 19:11). He went on to explain that His servants should do the Work until He returned. In other words, we are to focus on the task at hand, not on trying to determine when the looked-for reward will come.
A now-deceased evangelist and well-known Ambassador College faculty member put it well: Christ will come later than some expect, but sooner than others expect. Events may develop slowly and take longer than expected, but once they start, they can happen very quickly. This is similar to the warning given by Robert Kagan based on the time immediately leading to WWI: “They learned, and we have now forgotten, that when things start to go wrong, they can go very wrong very quickly, that once a world order breaks down, the worst qualities of humanity emerge from under the rocks and run wild” (The Jungle Grows Back). Kagan also reminded us of a character in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. When asked how he went bankrupt, he responded, “Gradually and then suddenly.”
In reality, both categories—later than expected and sooner than expected—could apply to any of us and probably will to some, as indicated in Scripture. “Beloved, I now write to you… that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before… knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Peter 3:1–4). This indicates that at the end of the age—“the last days”—some will become cynical and disbelieve in the imminent return of Christ, or even that He will come at all!
Breaking into another prophetic thought, we read, “But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:48–51).
We might do well to explore why cynicism and an attitude of the Lord has delayed His coming develops. Could it be the perception that prophecies have failed? So it would seem.
When Prophecy “Fails”
The books of Ezra, Haggai, and Malachi are instructive. Ezra gives us the history of Judah’s return from captivity, when 42,360, along with a few thousand others, returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of God (Ezra 2:64–65). Scholars estimate that this was a small portion of those who were in Chaldean captivity, since they reckon that as many as two million Jews lived in Babylon at the time.
It must have been a daunting task, as we read of Jerusalem lying in rubble for decades, but they set up an altar and started offering sacrifices on the Feast of Trumpets (Ezra 3:1–3, 6). They also kept the Feast of Tabernacles that year (v. 4). Probably due to getting settled in from their journey and the need to construct shelters before the cold, rainy winter, they were delayed in the temple construction until after Passover the next year, when they began construction and celebrated the laying of the foundation (3:8, 10).
After an enthusiastic start, trouble set in from the inhabitants of the land. These inhabitants, later referred to as Samaritans, first offered to help in the work, but Zerubbabel was not naïve. He saw where this would lead—that the locals would assimilate the Jews and effectively take over the temple once it was completed—and he would have none of it. This is not too dissimilar to well-intentioned-but-naïve members today who want to bring all the Churches of God together through social activity—not realizing that there are significant differences in focus, governance, and motivation between the groups. While this is not to compare other fellowships to the Samaritans, there is a reason why we are not all together! The Jews would build the temple by themselves, just as we will not become distracted by “grassroots” attempts to “bring everyone together.”
The locals then hired counselors—think lawyers—against them and wrote lying accusations to bring construction to a halt. This was done in the days of Cyrus and Ahasuerus (4:4–6). The result was that the Jews left off building the temple until the second year of Darius, king of Persia. Thus, temple construction was halted for a period of about 15 years.
What happened to start it once again? “Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophets, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them. So Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak rose up and began to build the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them, helping them” (5:1–2).
What Did the Prophets Say?
This occurred around 520 BC, and a quick reading of Haggai reveals that his prophecies, while applying to that time, were really for a time that was then far into the future. But notice what he told the people on the first day of the sixth month during the second year of the reign of Darius (Haggai 1:1). They were called to build the temple of God but had become sidetracked by opposition and by their own human desires to take care of “number one.” God chided the people through His prophet for not doing the job that they were sent to do. “‘Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: “This people says, ‘The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.’”’ Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ‘Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’” (Haggai 1:2–4).
They were cut off from blessings as a result of their lack of commitment. This was the “stick.” The “carrot” is found in the second chapter. On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (2:1), we read “For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:6–9).
Zechariah also took them to task for failing to do their part (Zechariah 3–4). And he, too, wrote of a time in the future when the Messiah would return. We often read of this, from Zechariah 14, during the Feast.
The Jews responded to the admonitions of these two prophets and their leaders. It was a major project that took four years to finish. Based on the predictions of the two prophets, they thought the Messiah would come soon—but He didn’t. The city of Jerusalem still lay in ruins, even to the time of Nehemiah, some 60 years later.
While we cannot know with absolute certainty, it appears that this is where the prophet Malachi came in. He spoke to a cynical, doubting, disillusioned people who wondered what good it did to serve God. They were not giving of their best to God, they were trifling with the law of God and divorcing their wives, they were stealing God’s tithes, and in all of this they were self-justifying and argumentative, denying that they were doing anything wrong.
For the Jews of that time, the long-anticipated Messiah that Haggai and Zechariah spoke of had failed to materialize. They had built the temple, but where was He? Yet He did come to that temple—but 500 years later than they expected! Some in our day have also lost the big picture. They have forgotten that they were called to do a Work. Rather than attempting to determine the time of His return, and thereby becoming disappointed if our timing does not work out, we need to do the Work He called us to do. The Messiah, whom we pray for daily to come and set up His Kingdom, will come at exactly the right time. When we look at our world around us, it is clear that this time is coming. For certain, it is closer now than when we first believed (Romans 13:11).
“Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:45–51).
We must not allow ourselves to be caught up in a the-Lord-has-delayed-His-coming attitude, but should look forward to hearing, in God’s perfect time, the most beautiful words we will ever hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matthew 25:21, 23).