Author and humorist Douglas Adams once quipped, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” We are all familiar with deadlines—that critical date when something must be completed. Because of human nature, a project or assignment without a deadline will typically languish, if not fail altogether. A deadline helps us focus, giving us a fixed point to compare where we are in our progress with where we need to be. As such, a deadline is an invaluable tool.

However, those called by God are part of an extraordinary project that turns the conventional wisdom of deadlines on its head. Our project certainly has a deadline, at which time all progress stops, yet we do not know the deadline. The project in question is God’s plan of salvation and the unknown deadline when our part in this process finishes.

We will look at this unknown deadline in two ways: the timing of Christ’s return and that of our death.

An Unexpected Arrival

Within Christ’s various statements about His return, He consistently warns that He will return unexpectedly. He describes conditions, such as the days of Noah and the days of Lot (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-30), but in every reference, the timing is a question mark. Notice:

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. . . . Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:42, 44)

However, it is not just the hour that is unknown, but the day itself:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matthew 24:36; emphasis ours throughout)

At the conclusion of the Parable of the Virgins, in which everybody falls asleep and only half are truly prepared, Jesus teaches His disciples—then and now:

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” (Matthew 25:13)

The Parable of the Stewards—often neglected in nominal Christianity because it upholds personal responsibility and works—depicts the scenario of a servant of God who lets down in his responsibilities. The result is that his master’s return catches him unaware:

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)

After Christ’s resurrection, the establishment of the Kingdom was on the minds of the disciples. However, Jesus rebuffed them for inquiring into something that was not given to them:

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.” (Acts 1:6-7)

Christ’s words indicate that not only the hour and the day are unknown, but even the significant times and seasons are reserved by the Father on a need-to-know basis. He has judged that no one else needs to know; it is knowledge He has retained for Himself.

Does Jesus Christ Know?

Mark’s version of the Olivet Prophecy contains something with far-reaching ramifications:

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. (Mark 13:32-33)

The “day and hour” refers to Mark 13:24-27, where He foretells His return in the clouds with great power and glory and the gathering of His elect. Then He declares that even He does not know that day—only the Father does!

Christ’s statement has some implications we may have never entertained. It also serves as a test for us: Do we truly believe what the Creator God says here?

Jesus—the same Being who inspired all prophecy—declares that He does not know. He was behind the prophecies in Daniel of “a time and times and half a time” (Daniel 7:25), of 1290 days and 1335 days (Daniel 12:11-12), of 2,300 evenings and mornings (Daniel 8:14), and the well-known 70 Weeks prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27)—all those precise prophecies that comprise every prophetic timeline anybody has devised.

What is more—and this is something to consider deeply—the Word of God also gave the instructions for the holy days. He spoke the instructions for the Day of Trumpets, the day the church of God believes pictures His return. He commanded Israel to set apart the first day of the seventh month, to keep it holy, and to make it a memorial of the blowing of trumpets (Leviticus 23:24). He knew what the Feast of Trumpets is all about, yet He also said He did not know the day of His return.

In addition, Jesus inspired Psalm 47, a prophetic psalm about His return and His future Kingdom. It contains the statement, “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet” (verse 5), which sounds like the trumpets and shouting of the first day of the seventh month, not to mention Paul’s later prophecies (I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16). Psalm 47 also declares that, at that time, “God is the King of all the earth” (verse 7). It is all about His return, written millennia in advance. As the God of the Old Testament, He also inspired Isaiah 27, which describes the Day of the Lord and mentions a great trumpet that will gather God’s people to the holy mount at Jerusalem (verse 13).

All these things came from the mind of the One who knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He was and is God, and He was in the beginning with the Father (John 1:1-2). All things were created through Him and for Him, including the holy Scriptures (John 1:3). However, He told His disciples that He did not know the day of His return.

He knew the significance of the Day of Trumpets better than we do, having instituted it. He knew what the prophecies foretell while we see through a glass darkly. The Scriptures testify of Him, yet He testified that He did not know the day of His return. That means He did not put together that He would return on Ethanim (Tishri) 1. That should give us something to think about.

Is Trumpets the Day of Christ’s Return?

Since even He did not know the upcoming deadline, we should reconsider our assumption that the Feast of Trumpets is the day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Consider how likely—or rather, unlikely—that we have connected the dots and concluded something that even He did not.

To be clear, the themes of the Feast of Trumpets certainly match the prophetic descriptions of His return. However, matching themes do not, by themselves, give us the deadline, which He says no one knows except the Father. We have faith that Christ will return but are given no assurance as to the exact day.

The Bible contains other examples of fulfillments coming at an unexpected time. Consider the timing of Christ’s crucifixion. It might seem logical to us that He would die at the time the Passover lambs were killed (at the beginning of the fourteenth day of Abib; see Exodus 12) because He is our Passover (I Corinthians 5:7). However, the gospel accounts are clear that Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples at that time, dying the following afternoon, not when we might have expected (see "Why Was Jesus Not Crucified as Passover Began? (Part One)").

We can add the Day of Atonement as another example. Jesus did not fulfill the Leviticus 16 ceremony of the two goats on the Day of Atonement as we would expect, nor did He fulfill it in the supposed order. For instance, He bore our sins on Passover day, not the Day of Atonement. Also, the bearing of sins was the role of the second goat, the azazel. But Jesus did not completely fulfill the role of the first goat until He ascended and entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood, which we believe happened on Wavesheaf day. Thus, He fulfilled the role of the second goat before the role of the first goat and while the Day of Atonement was still six months away.

Thus, the timing, the sequence, and other specifics of His instructions are not always fulfilled as we might believe they should be. When we add the fact that He declared He did not know the day of His return and the gathering of His saints, we must allow that those things could happen on a day other than the first day of the seventh month. The fulfillment may be at a time other than the day it is celebrated. That deadline remains unknown.

Our Personal Deadlines

A second factor that makes the end of our project unknowable is each individual’s lifespan. We each have a personal deadline, so to speak, after which spiritual growth ends, and we can produce no more fruit—nothing more can be done (see Ecclesiastes 9:10). We cannot depend on our longevity; God may choose to override the general allotment of threescore and ten years or perhaps fourscore (see Psalm 90:10) for any number of reasons that we may never fully understand. The death of each saint is precious in God’s sight (Psalm 116:15) because it signifies the completion of His project. Only God, however, knows when we reach that literal deadline.

The Bible contains multiple examples of faithful believers who died early (as we see it). God determined that John the Baptist had faithfully run his race when he was in his early 30s. He made a faithful witness, and God was satisfied that His work with John was finished. Stephen is another example. While we do not know how old he was at his martyrdom, we know he had only been converted for a handful of years. Nevertheless, God judged he had successfully completed his sanctification process.

One of Christ’s parables speaks of this unknown deadline with a potent warning:

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21)

In the shadows of this parable and the Parable of the Stewards, cited above, we can see a downside to knowing a deadline: the human tendency to bank on having enough time later to finish the project, also called procrastination. The result is that a person becomes focused on things of lesser importance and lets down spiritually. However, as A.W. Tozer wrote, “Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.” Not knowing the deadline should drive us to remain focused and keep ourselves from slipping into complacency.

Rich Toward God

The question naturally arises about what we should do with our remaining, unknown time, and Christ’s parable points us in the right direction. Among other things, it teaches that it is foolish to assume we have more time. Therefore, we should be rich toward God right now.

While the parable contains an obvious financial application, it contains more significant principles and obligations that are not limited to finance. Tithing or giving offerings fulfills the letter of the law in terms of our obligation to God (see Proverbs 3:9; II Corinthians 9:7), but a person can do such things without truly being rich toward God.

God’s currency is not the U.S. dollar, nor is it the Israeli New Shekel or even the ancient Temple shekel. God says all the gold and silver are His anyway (Haggai 2:8). He is not really interested in money or wealth but in souls—in lives that glorify Him. He is concerned about our directing our lives toward Him and using His gifts to yield to Him and take on His character image. Those conscious and consistent choices, made with Him as the overriding factor, are worth far more to Him than anything material.

God makes this point powerfully through Micah:

With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)

While we have financial obligations to God, Micah describes the offerings that really please Him. Micah mentions acting fairly and justly; loving mercy, which could be translated as “steadfastness” and “loyalty”; and walking humbly with God in faithful obedience. These character traits show our devotion to God’s project of creating us in His image. When we do things like these—and this is by no means a complete listing—we are rich toward Him. We are giving back to Him from the way of living He makes available to us, using His currency by living as He lives.

Recall the individual who “lays up treasure for himself” in the Parable of the Rich Fool and consider that what people treasure is not limited to physical wealth. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus warns about areas other than money that keep the seed of God’s Word from flourishing in people’s lives (as expanded by the Amplified Bible):

» As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit. (Matthew 13:22)

» And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word; then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless. (Mark 4:18-19)

» And as for what fell among the thorns, these are [the people] who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked and suffocated with the anxieties and cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not ripen (come to maturity and perfection). (Luke 8:14)

Thus, the cares of this world, a focus on things to do and things to acquire, as well as the distractions and pleasures of life, can also choke out the seed of eternal life. We could be treasuring up many things, such as relationships, positions, pastimes, or circumstances—things we reserve for ourselves that keep us from being rich toward God with the totality of our lives.

In view of not knowing how much time we have left, these two parables invite us to take stock of what we spend our time and attention on. How would the divine words, “This night your soul will be required of you,” register with us? If we knew our personal deadline was this year, this month, or this week, would we not rearrange our lives to ensure our walk with God was our top priority in deed and not just in word?

What God wants is us. We already belong to Him, but He wants our growth into His image and our complete dedication to Him and His will for us. Anything that competes with that is something we treasure for ourselves, blocking us from being rich toward God with our entire lives.

We have little idea how much longer God’s project will take. No matter how we look at it, the deadline is unknown, meaning that each day is critical in growing to have the same mind as God. Each day is a new opportunity to be rich toward God in the way that pleases Him.