Guilty Prophets of Old and the Contemporary Abomination of Date-Setting

1.  The Unpardonable Sin of Date-Setting

There is a new iniquity in the canons of contemporary Christianity, an abomination comparable to the unpardonable sin.  Some call it the sin of date-setting, others call it date-fixing.  It is the sin someone commits when they claim that by any stroke of divine prerogative, they were allowed a peep into the calendar of God.  The sin is more unforgivable if they should further claim that they have been privy to a mystical date that none is supposed to know, not even the angels in heaven.  That iniquity is unpardonable because, by claiming such forbidden knowledge, the prophet or dreamer or whatever they are called, make themselves equal with God and place themselves not only above the angels of God but also above the weary Jesus of Galilee who longingly sought food from a fig tree one hungry afternoon (Mark 11:12-14), who sat thirsty by an unlikely well, asking an afternoon drink from a very unlikely woman (John 4:6-7), who fell so deeply asleep during a boat ride that even the boat-rocking waves and storms could not wake Him out of His wearied slumber (Mark 4:37-38).

The stout defenders of the doctrine of forbidden knowledge of the dates and times of God have stoned many into dreadful silence.  They are feared for their zealous brutality in the name of the Lord, their merciless piety against daring transgressors of an apparent scriptural bastion: no one knows the day or the hour, not even Jesus, even though He is now God omnipresent, God omnipotent, but sadly not omniscient.

My aim here is to show that many prophets of old have been guilty of the same abomination, but they were luckier because there was no social media then.   First on the list, Jonah.

2.  Jonah was a Date-Setter

That Jonah was a prophet of God (I mean the Jonah who was swallowed by a fish), there is no question.  Here was his audacious message to the city of Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord that he received: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4).  He did not just say it, he “cried” it, raising his voice as loud as possible, to ensure that it got as far as possible, the airwaves carrying his clarion voice over mountains and hills, until even the king heard it.

Was that date-setting?  Yes.  If anyone had a calendar and counted forty days forward from the day Mr Jonah started his announcement, they would arrive on a specific date, the date decided by the Council of Heaven for the complete overthrow of that land.  Jonah’s hearers were simple folks, not as intelligent and intellectual as we, “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (v.5).

Their king at the time was also not as sophisticated and theological as some leaders today.  Even though the preacher was from the other side of the world, and spoke of a different God than they worshipped, judging by how the messenger had come to their shores from the mouth of a fish, common sense (or let’s call it “discernment”) told him that it would be tragic foolishness to waste the days arguing about the rightness or wrongness of ‘date-setting’ while Heaven’s ultimatum counted down to the apocalyptic date.

Unlike many of his kind in this age, that leader promptly proclaimed a total nation-wide fast, himself mourning no less as “he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (v.6).  God was greatly moved at the humility of that heathen king, and how he had honoured Him.  “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not” (v.10).

Let us suppose for a moment that Jonah, wishing to be politically (or theologically) correct, spoke in general terms about a certain judgment that could come upon the people on a day and at a time that no man knows or should know, even though he knew, how might Nineveh have responded?  They would not have responded as promptly and as urgently to an ambiguous message as they did to the specific message that he brought.

If Jonah’s message had been about a judgment on an uncertain day, only a few careful hearers might have been saved, whereas all of Nineveh could have been saved.  If Jonah had been a preacher in our day, mindful of the mockers and attackers, he might have been stoned into silence or compromise, then alas, the many that would have been lost, who might have been saved!  On whose head their blood?

3.  Daniel the Calendar Prophet

Daniel was perhaps a less pardonable date-setter, who set not just one date (like Jonah) but many, and not just for one present generation but for far into the future.  Theologians of better meticulousness than I have noted that his ‘set’ dates have some been fulfilled to the very day, and the others still loading in this age.  He ‘set’ dates in years and down to weeks; dates when the temple would be rebuilt, dates when the Messiah would come, seasons and times when kingdoms would rise and fall (Daniel 9:25-27; 2:32-45).  His dates are yet to be faulted, and the contemporary keepers of the law against date-setting are careful not to call him out for the crime, as that could announce them in very unpleasant ways.

4.  Jeremiah was his Father

If we charged Daniel for date-setting, then we should not spare his mentor in the art, Jeremiah.  That was the ancestor-prophet whose books Daniel read, and which began his preliminary initiations into the cult of date-setters.  Hear his confession: “During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the Lord, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years” (Daniel 9:2, New Living Translation; Jeremiah 25:12; 29:10).

Had fear of being labelled a date-setter made Jeremiah unspecific about a message that was specific to him, Daniel, in later years, would have had no prompting to pray the prayer that was so impactful that the very Prince of Persia, the Satanic ruler over that sphere, personally arose to oppose that date-setter’s timely and strategic intercession (Daniel 9:12-14).  Had Daniel also sought to be ‘general’ about his message, even though the seal of Jeremiah had been opened to him, his people might have remained longer in captivity, praying their ‘correct’ prayers to offend no one, until their days expired.

It will seem to me that the Prince of Persia is at it again, strangely arming his opponents against themselves with one Bible verse weaponised against any urgent heed to the cry in the air.  Blood smells in the winds.

5.  Lessons from a Thief

Some apostles of no-date setting are of the view that if God’s specific dates should be announced publicly, the wrong people would make it into heaven and pollute paradise with their wicked ways exported up there.  My Bible study tells me otherwise.  The thief on the cross repented in the nick of time, and Jesus said to him, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).  That man did not carry his thievery into paradise because he met the truth in his last moment and grasped it with both hands and legs.  Maybe Jesus was wrong.

The truth is, the considered abomination of date-setting is God’s mercy of a last chance to sinful humanity, because He is never willing that any should perish, but that ALL should repent and be saved, unless the Bible lied again in  2 Peter 3:9.  The problem is not the supposed date-setting but the hearts of men and women, for even if an angel should announce in the sky before everyone’s eyes that Jesus was coming at a specific time on a specific day, there would still be mockers more willing to be damned than injure their rigid doctrine.  The two thieves on their crosses to the right and left of Jesus had equal opportunity, but one went to hell and the other to paradise, each one’s destiny sealed by what they did with the general opportunity.   That explains my next point about Lot’s dilemma in Sodom.

6.  Lot, the Frustrated Date-Setter

Angels from heaven had told Mr Lot that the Council of Heaven had passed a ruling of fire and brimstone upon his territory.  He was urged to go into town and announce the date.  In under 24 hours, fire would start falling from the sky.  He did. They mocked.  Those were even family members: in-laws, the husbands of his daughters.  If that was how his own family treated his urgent pleas, one wonders the trauma that he may have suffered at the hands of other Sodomians.   They might have queried very ‘intellectually,’ “Since you were born, have you heard of a rain of fire?  Science does not support your theology.  Look up, it is clouds of water, not smokes of fire.  Old stranger, your religion is beginning to make you mad.”  At last, the date came.  The fires fell.  Everyone suddenly realised that Lot had been right.  But it was late.  The fires had vindicated him.

The messengers from heaven had announced a room wide enough for anyone to believe and be saved: sons, daughters, in-laws, “But he seemed as one that mocked,” until the date came, and it was too late (Genesis 19:12-15).  The mocked ‘prophetic’ “speculator” of forbidden dates had been right, they were wrong, but too late to make amends.  Lot was not there to take their apologies, even if they lived to do so.  God is merciful, but not every error is repairable.

7.  Killers in the Name of God

Everyone who insists that “no one knows the day or the hour” (which they wrongly interpret as ‘no one should know or would ever know’) strongly believes that they are defending the sanctity of the holy scriptures.  When they contend that Jesus would come to His Bride “like a thief” with the “element of surprise,” and it is therefore arrogant abomination for anyone to claim to know the specific times of God’s visitations among men, they are persuaded that they are being scriptural.  In the light of the present arguments, however, the following scriptures come to mind:

Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God (Matthew 22:29).

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

… yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service (John 16:2).

8.  Elisha and Elijah

Bible students generally agree that the taking up of Elijah was an Old Testament type of the rapture.  In other words, there are patterns in that account that can be applied to a discussion of the New Testament rapture.  What is of interest to the present discourse is, was the departure day of Elijah a date that no one knew, and none was supposed to know, not even the man for whom the chariots of fire were coming?  Did everyone know?

Elijah did not announce it, but he knew it.  His body language that day also said a lot to Elisha, his disciple.  Elisha knew it, too, but he did not announce it to everybody, as it did not concern them. The company of the prophets in several cities, whom we might liken to the Church at the time, was not unaware.  If it took anyone by surprise, it was Jezebel and her kind in the land.  Even young apprentice prophets, called the “sons of the prophet,” knew it to the very day, even if they did not appear to have known the hour of departure.

Was awareness of the specific date helpful to anyone?  Yes.  We might not have been speaking of the double-portion anointing upon Elisha, for instance, if there had been no ‘date-setting,’ as it is called (2 Kings 2:1-6).  A ‘general’ date would have meant a general preparation, which could not have given Elisha that specific anointing.  If knowing the calendar of God were a crime, we should start stoning patriarchal sinners such as Noah, the purpose of whose ark was not kept from the builders; then Abraham, to whom God first gave a date for Sodom’s appointment with judgment; then Lot, then Elijah and Elisha, then Jonah, then …

9.  The Ten Virgins

One has cited Old Testament cases so far.  Is there scriptural validation for ‘date-setting’ in the New Testament?  Yes, plenty, but let us take one: the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13).  Whereas that parable concludes with the call to be watchful because no one knows “the day nor the hour” of the Lord’s coming, the actors concerned were not in the dark about the day (1 Thessalonians 5:4-6).  If there was no specific notice about date and place, how did all ten virgins manage to arrive at the same venue on the same day, merely awaiting the hour of the call?  The day was unknown to the non-virgins who had not been called to the feast, but it was not hidden from those for whom the event was meant.

Another New Testament case would be Jesus Himself who ‘set’ dates for His resurrection, announcing that He would be three days in the womb of the earth like Jonah in the belly of the fish (Matthew 12:40).  If the disciples understood, and if they had not been overtaken by prevalent dogmas, they would have counted three days from His burial and come to a specific date; then they would not have been amazed when the women returned from the tomb to announce that He was risen.  So, even Jesus was a guilty date-setter.

10.  Announcers or Date-Fixers?

Was it Jonah that ‘fixed’ the forty-day ultimatum for Nineveh, or was he merely an announcer of a message?  When the ten virgins arrived at the wedding venue, were they the ‘setters’ of a date or merely ‘watchers’ of a given date?   Unless dictionaries mean a different thing now, to ‘set’ or ‘fix’ places the action in the powers of the subject.  If one were merely delivering a message they had received about a day, they would be announcers, not reproachable ‘setters’ or ‘fixers’ or ‘speculators,’ as some also have called those messengers of unliked revelations.  The date was not their choice or decision; they were merely reporters of it.

The sincere anger of some is not the message, but that anyone should have the audacity to announce forbidden and unknowable dates.  Thus, even without hearing the messenger out, they shun them harshly and shove them roughly through the doors, often unlike the Christ they say that they are defending in doing so.

Someone might say, suppose it is not true in the end?  We can only answer a supposition with a supposition, scripture with scripture, and logic with logic.  Suppose it is true at last?  Imagine then the many that might have been warned and saved if one had not been wrongly swayed by a no-date perspective that is not scriptural?  Imagine then the irreversible and eternal loss!

Some are genuinely sceptical about dates because other dates have failed in the past.  That is logical, and we may answer logic with logic: the fact that some dates have failed in the past does not mean that every date will ever fail.  The one date we ignore, despite the signs, could be the one that will not fail.  The fact that there are counterfeits only points to one original.  It does not point to no original.

“No one knows the day or the hour” seems to be the one verse every defender of forbidden dates quotes, many not even knowing where it is in the Bible.  Take out that expression being a Jewish idiom referring to the Feast of Trumpets, as many have shown; let’s approach it as simple grammar: If I said, “No one knows,” does that mean that no one would ever know, no one should ever know, and it is an abomination to know at any time after now?  Some insist that Jesus could come at any time, but it is largely a mental truth, not a practised truth.  They accept ‘any time,’ but not a ‘speculated’ date.  God is not an ‘any time’ God.  His ways are planned, with books about the earth written even before the foundation of the earth.  Jesus was not born on any date, He did not die on any day; He was not buried on any day, He did not resurrect on any day, and Pentecost was not just any other day.  Similarly, His appointments with the earth will not be arbitrary.

If it was said that only the Father knew, does that mean that the Father should not tell anyone, or would never tell anyone when the time came?  But that is how many stoutly interpret it, ready to die for how they see it.  Did not even Jesus say that there were things He could not tell His disciples at the time, but they would be revealed to them in later times by the Holy Spirit, who would tell them “all things” (John 16:12)?  Did not God tell Daniel that some revelations were sealed from an age, but would be unsealed in later years to those for whom it is meant (Daniel 12:9)?  Maybe those verses have been deleted from some Bibles by the antichrist who is soon to appear.  Well, everyone speaks according to the level of their faith or their doubts, both those who assert and those who oppose.

That there are times and seasons the Father has put into His own power (Acts 1:7) does not mean that He is not free to do with those details what He wants, when He wants.  God Himself has promised that He would usually reveal to His servants what He wants to do on the earth (Amos 3:7), so why should it pain anyone what He chooses to reveal, especially when the revelation does not contradict His nature and His word?  Someone had wondered from 2 Thessalonians that the antichrist was first to be revealed before the saints would removed; but that is merely one half of the message, referring to a different dispensation, for the same writer said in the same place, that that wicked one would be revealed “only” when the Church (some interpret it as the Holy Spirit) has been “taken out of the way” – rapture (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8), but that is not my focus now.

11.  Long and Short Notices

Some have a problem with short notices, others have a problem with long notices.  God has tried both with the world, and the result has not been different, which points to a problem not with the notice or the announcers of the notice but with the heart of men.  At the time of Noah, there was a general notice for the many years while Noah built the ark.  Some think it was 120 years, others put it at less (Genesis 6:3; 7:6).  The people helped him to build the ark, but they mocked him for sailing his ship on dry ground.  Closer to the time, God was more specific: seven days.  Date setting?  Yes.  Still, only eight people got saved.  For Sodom and Gomorrah, God tried the shorter notice: a fire next day.  Still, only a few got out: Lot and his two daughters, despite the prior notice.

12.  The Dilemma of Jesus

What more shall God do for this generation?  Once upon a time, that was the lamentation of Jesus

15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

 17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

 19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

 20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:

 21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

 22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.

 23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

 24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee (Matthew 11:15-24).

From The Preacher’s diary,

September 10, 2025.