Why Date-Setting Hurts Our Witness to Unbelievers

Here we are, in May 2025, and while the world is unraveling before us, multiple predictions about the end have now failed.

There is a prominent ministry that has been saying the world will end in 2028. If that were true, the Abomination of Desolation would have happened two months ago in the newly standing Temple in Jerusalem.

Incidentally, the red heifers that would have made building the Temple possible by cleansing the priesthood are now all disqualified. Mankind cannot speed up God’s timetable by trying to force the prophecies to occur. This is what a rancher in Texas had tried to do by giving them to the Temple Institute in Israel.

The End Times will happen when God says they will happen, not by us forcing the timeline.

Another popular video that has been making the rounds out there says Jesus will return in 2030.

They have a particular notion that Jesus must return 2,000 years after He died and resurrected.

The problem is, the Bible says nothing about Jesus returning 2,000 years after His death and resurrection.

It’s all speculation made up from some hoop-jumping math.

He might not return for four thousand more years. I’m not in that camp, because I’ve felt like it won’t be that far out, but I can’t tell God when to unleash the events of the last days.

Date-setting the return hurts our witness to unbelievers. Like Peter says, unbelievers often say, “Where is the promise of His coming? Everything is as it’s been since the beginning of the creation.”

We can do better than set dates for Jesus’s return. We can show others the love of Christ, which might prompt our seed to grow after God waters it, doing His part after we do ours.

Besides, setting dates for the end isn’t what Jesus said to do. He said to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all the things He commanded.

We have other evidence of the Bible being true, anyway. Look at Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia. The mountain is burned at the top, and there is even a split rock that shows water had flowed out of it, and even pictographs representing the events of the Torah.

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, there is now a giant megacity being built in the exact area where the Bible says there will be a giant megacity that will rule the world economy in the End Times. A little too perfect of a coincidence, in my opinion.

These types of evidence are enough. Faith is also required, but we can’t force people to believe what we believe. That is what radical terrorists do to unbelievers. We are not to be forcing others in the manner of what some do.

What about Isaiah 53? Why not use that to witness about the truth of the Bible?

That passage is a proof of prophecy and impossible to get around.

Psalm 22 is a good one, too, a psalm Jesus quotes on the cross.

We can also use Daniel 9, which says the Messiah was supposed to come in the first century A.D. before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It predicts His death, the end of the need for blood sacrifices, and the destruction of the Temple.

This is also impossible to get around, even if you give the Book of Daniel a late date, because some liberal scholars think the Book of Daniel predicted the Diadochi too specifically. I’d argue those passages are about End Times events, not the past, considering the angel in the text says as much. I’ve digressed, though, so let’s go back to why date-setting is awful for our witness.

We are supposed to be lights in this world, who follow the true light of Jesus Christ.

If we set dates about the End Times, and then nothing happens, what does that do to Christian credibility?

Jesus commanded us to watch, not set dates. He said even He didn’t know when He would be returning. If the Son of God didn’t know, who are we to set dates?

Unbelievers might use this point against our witness of the gospel. I’ve seen it done a few times.

They might also think we’re crazy, apocalyptic-obsessed loons. Not that I care if people think I’m crazy, but it makes them less likely to repent and believe the gospel.

Predicting the End Times isn’t part of God’s commandments to His people.

He said to watch, so we don’t miss it, but there’s way too much that must happen for any of this to happen soon.

Perhaps we should read our Bibles, which show us what will take place, instead of setting dates.

Once those events begin, they will be undeniable anyway. Ten kings rule a single kingdom, a massive megacity ruling the world economy, miracle performing false Messiahs. Christian and Jewish persecution unlike anything in history, and an ultimate battle over Jerusalem and the Land of Israel where Jesus steps in and returns to protect Israel from the nations that surround Israel as they try to eliminate them.

None of that is occurring JUST yet.

So, let’s stop setting dates and start setting things right in our own lives.

There’s nothing wrong with watching for Jesus’s return, something I do myself.

But we should be careful not to put too much stock in formulas and esoteric beliefs and making Christians lose credibility by setting dates.

It will happen when it happens.

Until then, serve the King and serve others to put the cause of the kingdom forward.