The Day of the Lord is coming

by Mike Ratliff

36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. 37 For just as the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then there will be two in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding grain at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
42 “Therefore stay awake, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Matthew 24:36-44 (LSB) 

I am no “expert” on eschatology. All I know is that the Jesus and writers of the New Testament say over and over again that the Day of the Lord is coming and we need to be ready, but most will not be ready. If you look at the current trends in the Missional movement, its adherents seem to have abandoned any concrete concept of a Church age that will end with the Lord Jesus returning in judgment against those outside of His Kingdom. To be honest, I grew up with a lot of that eschatology stuff with those very complicated charts with arrows and lines running all over the place and I must admit that I understood them only when those presenting them spoke, but when I read the Word of God for myself, I couldn’t find what they were talking about most of the time. I think they were overcomplicating things. Let’s look at one passage from 2 Peter that deals with this.