Why no one knows the day

The sentence that ends every calculation

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

People have been setting dates for the return of Christ for nearly two thousand years, and every date has passed. Each failure has made unbelievers scoff and believers weary, and each one was a direct contradiction of what Jesus said. Not the angels, not even the Son during His earthly ministry (Mark 13:32), knew the day. Anyone who claims to know it is claiming more than Jesus claimed. That should settle the matter, and for the believer who loves the truth it does.

Why He did not tell us

Jesus did not withhold the day to tease us. He withheld it so that we would watch. His own explanation is a short parable:

Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”

If the servants knew the master would return on Friday at noon, they would idle until Thursday night. Because they do not know, every hour matters. Not knowing the day is the thing that makes faithfulness continuous. “And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” The command is not only for the disciples on the hill; it is for every believer in every generation, including the generation that will actually see Him come.

The servant who said “my master is delaying”

Jesus described two servants, and the difference between them was entirely in how they handled the delay.

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.

The evil servant does not deny that the master will come. He says, “in his heart”, that the master is delaying, and he lives accordingly. That is the danger of the long wait: not open unbelief but a quiet decision that the coming is far enough away to make no practical difference. The faithful servant, by contrast, is the one “whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (Matthew 24:46): doing the work, feeding the household, not because he has calculated the date but because he has not.

Ten virgins and a long delay

But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’

All ten virgins expected the bridegroom. All ten had lamps. All ten slept when he was delayed. The only difference was oil: the wise had brought enough for a long wait, and the foolish had not. When the cry came at midnight, there was no time to buy more. “Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut” (Matthew 25:10). Jesus draws the lesson Himself: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Matthew 25:13). The parable is about readiness that lasts through delay. It is not enough to have been ready once. The oil, the inward life of the Spirit, has to be there at midnight.

The scoffers and the patience of God

Peter foresaw that the delay itself would become an argument against the promise:

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.”

His answer is one of the most important verses on the subject:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

The delay is not neglect. It is mercy. Every day the Lord waits is a day in which someone else may come to repentance. The same patience that kept the door of the ark open for a hundred and twenty years keeps the door of grace open now. But the ark door did shut. Peter goes on in the next verse to say that the day “will come”, and when it comes, it comes with a great noise. The patience of God is real, and it is not endless.

Will He find faith?

Jesus asked a question that hangs over the long wait:

I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?

He asked it at the end of a parable about a widow who kept praying when there seemed to be no answer. The faith He is looking for is not faith that has calculated the date. It is faith that keeps praying, keeps working and keeps the lamp filled when the bridegroom is delayed. Habakkuk was told, when he complained that the vision was slow: “Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:3). It will seem to tarry. It will not tarry. Both are true, and the believer lives between them.