Exactly. We don't know. We can't know. Not even Jesus knows. Only the Father knows the day and the hour. All we know is He is coming in an hour when we think not. He is coming quickly. He is coming soon. Period.

I've been wondering why American culture spawns so many conspiracy theories. It certainly is entertaining watching all the new end-times theories roll off the press. They come in cycles. The eschatology theories largely reflect the newspaper headlines of the day.

I think it could be a freedom of speech thing - due to their written constitution, their "inalienable rights". The brave and the free are always on the lookout for being denied one of their freedoms. And of course, if freedom is threatened in America, it surely must be the end of the world since America is the focal point of all prophecy! Not.

I've been a missionary in countries where people hardly even notice when one of their freedoms is threatened - because they hardly had any real freedoms to cherish in the first place. Christians in those countries certainly don't start rolling new end-times books off the press everytime some new plan to rule the world gets revealed. They've been seeing such things come and go for centuries. They've just had to live with it. Besides, many of them never even had access to the printing press in the first place.

But in America there are some people who think Jesus must be coming back by the end of the financial year just because the price of petrol may reach $1/litre (nevermind that the rest of the world has already been paying more than $1/litre for years).

In America some people think the Beast of Revelation has been revealed just because someone starts preaching some dodgey doctrine (nevermind that centuries of dodgey doctrine was already taught during the Middle Ages and it wasn't the end of the world).

Some think it's the end of the world if floods hit the Mid-West (nevermind the long list of far worse natural disasters elsewhere in the world over the past 2,000 years).

To some, every earthquake that hits, every famine, every war, every conspiracy theory - is a sure sign of the last generation. Whereas in other countries the people don't even have a Bill of Rights, let alone see it being threatened - yet they just keep on preaching the same old Gospel. No matter what happens - no new tape series about the end-times; no new books containing eschatological predictions - just the Gospel.

I mean, Americans have a body-building competition, and they call it "Mr Universe". They have a baseball competition and they call it, "The World Series". They have a missionary organization and they call it, "The Center for World Missions". I don't mind that - but what if I wanted to put a sign over the door of a prayer room in Australia and call it, "The Centre for World Missions"?

They have a flood - and preachers call it the end of the world.

Some bad thing happens - and they think it has to have far more eschatological significance than anything else that's ever happened anywhere else in the world in any previous or future generation no matter its magnitude.

It's called ethnocentricity. But what if your worst conspiracy theory comes true? Well how will you know the world won't subsequently recover from it? How do you know God won't send a revival? Or how do you know there won't still be a far worse, more significant thing, in the distant future?

Even if something terrible happens and the world has to go back to what it was like before America existed (God forbid!), since it wasn't the end of the world then, it might not be even now.

Or on the other hand it could be the end, even before your conspiracy even begins.

We simply don't know.

So here's a thought. Try to avoid ethnocentric hermeneutics and current affairs exegesis, don't ignore far worse things that happened in previous generations, don't focus only on what's happening in your own newspaper, let the text of Bible prophecy speak for itself. And then see what light it sheds on your current events.

And avoid the folly of all follies - of trying to come up with a date. When Jesus said, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."