Date-setters embarrass the church. Sleepers shame her. There is a third way — the way of the watchman who reads the signs of the times without claiming the calendar.
Harold Camping died in 2013. He was a good man, by most accounts — generous, devout, sincere. He also told millions of people that the world was going to end on May 21, 2011. When May 22 arrived and the sun rose as it always had, he revised the date to October. October passed. He was finished as a public teacher. The damage to the name of Christ — incalculable.
He was hardly the first. William Miller in 1844. Edgar Whisenant in 1988 ("88 reasons why the rapture will be in 1988"). Each one in his time confident that this time the math worked, the dreams aligned, the trumpet was about to sound. Each one wrong. Each one a wound on the church's credibility, healed only by time and patience.
Why date-setting is unbelief
It looks like faith. It feels like faith. The date-setter is often the most enthusiastic person in the room. But underneath the enthusiasm is a refusal to trust God with what He has reserved to Himself. Jesus said plainly: "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36). When a teacher claims to know what Christ Himself did not claim to know in His earthly humanity, that teacher has stepped past the boundary God set.
It is also unbelief because it makes the believer's faithfulness conditional on a date. If I am sure He returns this October, my obedience this October is easy. What about November? What about three years from now? What about thirty? Date-setting is, at bottom, a way of asking God for a deadline so we don't have to walk by faith.
Why sleep is also unbelief
But there is a second error, and it is not less serious. Jesus warned about it more often than He warned about date-setting. The unwatchful servant of Matthew 24:48–51 says in his heart, "my master is delayed." The result is not pity. The result is judgment.
We sleep when we stop reading the times because they make us uncomfortable. We sleep when we shrug at persecution because it isn't our persecution yet. We sleep when we ignore prophecy because we've heard too many false alarms. The remedy for false alarms is not deafness. The remedy is discernment.
The watchman's posture
Ezekiel was made a watchman. "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me" (Ezekiel 33:7). The watchman's job was not prediction. It was vigilance. He stood at the wall, eyes on the horizon, and when he saw the army coming he blew the horn.
He did not blow the horn every day. He did not blow the horn when nothing was happening. He did not announce dates. He watched. And when the day came, he was awake.
That is the third way — between the embarrassment of date-setting and the shame of sleep. The watchman's way. Read the news. Read your Bible first. Pray with your eyes open. Walk faithfully today, and plant for the future. If Jesus comes today, you will not be ashamed. If He tarries another fifty years, your obedience today still mattered.
Watch and pray. The Master is coming.