As I wrote this, 2023 was near its end and 2024 was already here in some countries. Time. It is a funny thing. A mystery. To God it is no mystery. The God who is Father of Jesus has no problem with time. He knows 2024 like He knows 2023. 3024 too. We tend not to care about 3024 because we expect we will not be alive, but not quite true for some of us. Not everyone will be dead by then. Some will be alive immortal raised from dead, probably nearing 1000 years since it happened. Some will be immortal having never died. But it seems too far away to be of concern. Remember that by 3034 there will be solemn thoughts in circulation that as 1000 years of the rule of Jesus nears its close, armies will start preparing to oppose him. Weapons will be amassed after more than 950 years of peace. The devil will be released after more than 950 years in chains. Armies will amass weapons and get ready to fight with him. Our descendants might be among them. It will end badly for them. They cannot hope to win against God and His Christ. But what of today? 2024 and all that? Do not think Jesus is bound to return imminently. Allow for several decades. The five wise and five foolish maidens parable tells us to be prepared for a longer wait than expected. Keeping the lights on tonight as midnight of New Year is hours away, my lights are on and I am ready dressed to go out to celebrate. I know it will be five hours from now when midnight strikes and I need to be awake till then. But waiting for Jesus to return and the big feast to begin we do not know how long to wait. So we need not just to keep the lights on, metaphorically, and stay ready, but we need to be ready for a longer wait than expected, just in case. I remember everyone in evangelical circles was saying 2000 would be the year, with millennium bug problems exacerbating the tension. It wasn’t. Folly to even think our year numbering had significance. Our year numbering started in some random year, not the year of Christ’s birth, and nobody in heaven was watching for two thousand years. God had other plans. The Book of Enoch even records the plans to some extent, and 2000 years AD gets no mention. Most likely the phophecy speaks of 2060 AD, 2800 years after the Assyrian Conquest. I could be wrong. Even Jesus does not know it precisely. Be ready for it to be decades from now. More than fifty years could be a problem with Enoch’s predictions so probably it is less than that. Build into your plans a long enough wait so you do not under-prepare. Do not be like the five foolish maidens.
