Luke 12:40

40. Cometh… hour… think not The language is now literal. The judgment day lies in the unknown future. It may be to-day; it may be myriads of years hence. We may be mistaken in placing it nearer than it is, or making it more distant. Even our interpretations of those prophecies which seem to us at the present time to indicate that the day is distant, may be wrong; for prophecy is designedly obscure, in accordance with the law that the future must be profoundly hid from mortal knowledge. But, on the other hand, near two thousand years have passed since these warnings of our Lord were given, and those were certainly mistaken who have, during every age from the apostles to the present day, fixed the time as to be in their own generation. On this very subject it is that the apostle warns us that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. (See 2 Peter 3:8.) This night of the master’s absence is to be measured by the chronology of eternity, by the arithmetic of infinity; for it is the eternal and infinite One that speaks. Yet it is plain from many scriptures that when the Lord does come it will be upon an unsuspecting world.