What if Jesus' Second Coming Doesn't Happen The Way We Plan?

I don't exactly know where to put this, since there are two forums it belongs in, for two different reasons. But I am making this an addition to the religious forums since it is a religion debate in and of itself.

Last night, I had a dream. Like many nights, it started in the normal way, so I will say it was just a dream – although what happened and what was said in this dream, makes it pertinent to everyone who believes either Jesus, or a Messiah, will come back.

Let me begin by telling the dream.

I was with my brother, (who is dead but in my dream he wasn't dead anymore) and it was set at some future point in my life...yet I didn't feel much older than I do now.

My brother and I were at the airport and we were late. True to the nature of my brother, he was busy telling me how being late was all my fault and trying to make me feel guilty for it. On the other hand, myself, I was just trying to get us to the plane.

The airport was packed, there were HUGE lines just trying to get inside the airport, and more lines once you were inside to get through security and to the plane you needed to be on. We were late. No way were we getting through all that mess of humanity to get to our plane on time.

I knew we needed to make that plane, it seemed like life itself depended on it. So I told my brother lets go around the lines, and try and make it through security and make the plane before it leaves. So we picked up our luggage, we each had a suitcase and I my purse and a small carry on, and we went to another entrance where we were able to get inside the airport while avoiding the line. We had to get upstairs to get to a proper terminal, so I used the elevator thinking it would be faster than trying to walk it.

When we got in the elevator none of the buttons were working properly and we ended up on the wrong floor but I knew if we stayed in that elevator we would never make it. Once we got off the elevator I was a bit lost, and knowing we were running out of time I found a security guard, he was an older (around my age, perhaps 45– 50 years of age) pleasant looking black man.

I walked up to him and told him we were going to miss the plane, and could he help direct us to the proper terminal so we could try to still make it. Well we found a wonder in him, because he just took me by the hand and said you just follow me – your one of my people and I wont let you down.

I assume by what he said it was more like he was eager to help another American or something, since our races are different, or it could be as someone once told my husband, brothers from another mother..

But take us by the hand he did, and he guided us through all the mess and took us straight through security to the terminal we needed. He took our luggage and made sure it got underneath the plane.. and we got loaded up, just in the nick of time!

Once we were on the plane and seated properly, that whole plane scene fell away, and I was simply sitting beside a woman, who was about my age. She said “I have a story to tell you ,would you like to hear it?” “Sure” I said, then settled in to listen.

She told me, “This is the story of my people, and what happened back then. We were a people of great faith in God, and we believed everything that had befallen us was prophesied to happen. It all seemed to be unfolding just the way it was foretold to us.”

“Our people fought bravely. It seemed that nothing could kill them, and that they would never tire. Some fought...:

And I saw pictures of what she was saying, pictures in my head of people on a field of battle, light so bright all around that people seemed to almost glow, and many people I saw fighting, with a look of hope and joy in their eyes

“And many prayed” She said

And I saw pictures again, bathed in the same white light, on their faces praying to God.

“In the end we won” She said. “The people all expected Jesus to come back now, they all believed the second coming was now” She told me.

“But HE didn't return, like everyone had believed. In the end of it all, it was just another day. Granted, it was another day with hardship, in the wake of battle. But there was no second coming as everyone expected”

And again I saw pictures, different this time, I saw the aftermath of war, people dejected, burying their dead, the signs of destruction seemingly everywhere.

She told me “Our people lost faith then. They quit believing in God and the return of Jesus. But it must be so, this will happen to every people. Every people will go through this same thing, and they, like us, will loose their faith in God.”

And I saw entire countries as faithless then, Iran, Israel no faith left in them. And I saw us as being next.

She then said. “This is why it is written, Jesus will come as a thief in the night. Because all the people's will go through this, and they will loose faith. They will expect him to come, and when He doesn't show up when they expect, they will loose all faith in HIM.

But He WILL still come, just not in the time they expect him to. All these things must happen first. Tell the people all that I have said”

And that is when I woke up. So, whether it was a true dream, or just another dream, I do figure its very much a discussable topic, since everyone who is waiting on Jesus, or the Messiah, thinks they know the interpretation of the prophecies.

Will all of us, loose our faith if it doesn't pan out the way we think it will?

a reply to: OpinionatedB

The Jews believed the Messiah would come in like a king, which is why they reject Jesus. Now the Christians believe he will come back like a king, so they are merely echoing what the Jews before them taught. I think we as people want kings, because that abdicates from us the responsibility of rectifying ourselves. If you read the old testament, it is a story of a God trying to give his people simple rules to live by and to liberate them from oppression and a people speaking on behalf of that same God to create complicated rule systems and to beg for Judges, Priests, Kings, Prophets and Messiahs to rule over them.

Remember, Moses was never permitted to enter the promised land. Why do you think that is? What did he do or teach that offended God so much that he didn't want Moses to taint his people in their fledgling country? Personally, I think the Mitzvahs and the rules from Moses all came from his ego and only really the Noahide laws came from God. If Jesus came from God, he certainly even reduced those ten rules down to just a handful, so it seems the more one embraces the light and rejects the ego, the fewer rules they have to live by and the more freedom they are given to employ macro level guidelines instead.

Guilt and shame are ok if they motivate you in the future to change yourself for the better, but if they get you caught in a perpetual cycle of guilt, shame, temptation, surrender, release, and denial ad nauseum, then the rules have become just another type of prison for you to reside within. What can liberate you from this cycle, ending your need for rules in the first place? Personally, the only thing that has annihilated within me these materialistic desires has been that antiseptic light which restores infancy to the mind. This is largely allegorical, but it is useful and I think those who have had similar experiences will understand what I'm talking about.

Here is the paradox. Totally independent of the light, we can have no freedom, because we are merely a slave to the forces of the animal that we reside within. We lust and no matter how hard we resist we inevitably cave into that lust at some point or another. Only through the annihilation of desire are we then free to choose the path we wish to take. I have not personally totally abandoned all desires, but they are tamer now, thanks to the light, and I am more able to guide them so that instead of consuming to discomfort, I merely consume to satisfaction, and instead of allowing my lusts to lead me down vicious paths, I am finding better ways to satisfy them so as to create more virtuous outcomes.

This is a form of self-mastery which is itself a greater form of freedom, and it is only made possible by the sacrificing of the animal flesh as a holocaust to that part of ourselves which is transcendent from this world. This is not a sacrifice of a scapegoat to a god, but a sacrifice of our worldly desires to that spiritual part of ourselves so that instead of the light sacrificing itself for our desires, we sacrifice our desires to amplify that light within us, which is our true self that, I believe, will live on even after this corpse is no longer animated by my intentionality.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

I recall thinking likewise about should the be a return of Jesus. I recall reading Rev. years ago and it saying that there would be the Rapture, where all the Christians would be lifted up into the air and how Jesus would be seen by all and he would be in the clouds and stuff. Then after the Christians had been lifted on up into the air, the rest of the world, the deniers would then go through the Tribulation and all the suffering after the Rapture.

My thought at the time was WAHT??? Jesus shows up in the clouds and everybody sees him? And all the Christians fly up into the air and still there are those who do not believe???

Well then I began reading other religions and their beliefs about the return of their prophets or imams or what evers, and so many had plans for the return of their big guys. So I figured that maybe they all would return and would'nt that be a hoot. All those saviors floating around in the clouds and people lining up to check their luggage for their favorite salvation.

Then I figured that let em come if they want, Jesus, any of them, all of them, let them come and when they either do or don't we can deal with it when it happens. Or doesn't.

In any event Opi, a wonderful dream with much to consider. Thanks for sharing it.

I suppose I would be described as an agnostic.

With that said, I was raised by very "religious" not necessarily "spiritual" people who believed that when all these things have come to pass that were written in Revelations (or were interpreted as being those things) the end would be near. They also believed that the Word of God must be heard by everyone living before the second coming.

I can't imagine that everyone on the planet has not heard about the Bible by now. Maybe not, but I think more so likely that it has been "preached" to every corner.
The dream , to me, seems as if the reverse must happen before the second coming. In other words instead of the Bible or Word being taken to every person, all people must lose their faith first....

Just my thoughts, for what they are or are not worth...

Have you accepted jesus? i ask because i thought you were reading out of another book where he is not accepted.

I am very careful about what I watch and think when I view eschatology. There does seem to be a grand convergence of events, but I still don't think it will happen quite how everyone thinks. So, I keep telling myself to listen to Him when He speaks to me.

I also have had dreams. There are two recurring themes I have had:

1.) We are heading to the sea. It is something like the scene at the end of Lord of the Rings where everyone is passing into the Gray Havens.



None of them die. They just get onto the boats and go.

Well, in my dreams, the theme is that we are leaving something. Something, I don't know what, but it frightens me, and we must go to the sea. I have had these dreams periodically over the course of the past few years. Every time, we get closer to the sea. In one, I was in a car with a bunch of other people who were all sleeping and oblivious to the car getting washed off the path to the sea. I remember I was getting out, but none of them seemed to care or even be aware that the car was sinking and wouldn't get to the sea.

In the most recent dream, we were away from whatever was behind us, and I remember being excited because we could see the sea. The sky was silvery and the waters were calm and clear. There was a fog, but I could see the shapes of ships offshore with big triangular sails and they were turning toward us. This time the water was up to my ankles before I woke up.

Always we are closer to the sea in these dreams, and the last one we were quite close. I say "we," but I never directly see other people (except that once in the car). I only know that I'm not alone.

2.) The other theme seems to be that I am surrounded by people who are not awake or aware of what I see in my dreams.

I already talked about the people who were asleep in the car despite my best efforts to warn them and get them to wake up. Despite my telling them we needed to get to the sea.

I had a dream early in the spring where I was walking along a path being led by a man who told me he would never leave me. We walked past a lot of large pavilions of people who were picnicking and having a good time, but they didn't notice that their pavilions were being undermined by a ton of snakes. I remember stopping a couple of times and trying to pull some snakes out, but they only hissed and tried harder to tunnel under and undermine the pavilions. The people in them were completely oblivious to the danger.

And a couple nights ago, I had a slightly creepy dream where I was sleeping in a large dark house with a lot of other people. I kept getting awakened by intense balls of bright purple light. It kept happening all over the house, and I remember that the light was always just behind me so that I could not see it no matter how hard I tried to crane my head or move my eyes. I also tried to wake others up, but I couldn't do it and none of them woke up on their own. At the end, a large, shadowy presence came between me and the others and part of its cloak/cape brushed my face. The creepy part was that I clearly felt it, and that's what woke me up along with a chill down my spine.

So, I think something is coming, and I think most people just are not awake spiritually and walking the walk. I think this will catch them by surprise. If my dreams are larger messages, then that's the conclusion I draw.

Would you recognize Jesus if he came back?

Quinn Eaker

Not saying this guy is Jesus but the parallels are intriguing. I think everyone who is working against the PTB and PTW is a lightworker; which will win out, the goons and their paymasters or The People, remains to be seen.

Oh, and don't miss this: Pachamama Portal

Turn your speakers up

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with you that some of us keep having recurring dreams that make it seem like something is about to happen. You are one, I am another.. and there are more.

But like with people at large, everyone really does seem to feel, even if just in their bones somehow, that something is about to happen... what if its not the "thing" we think it will be?

What if in the end, we go through some huge catastrophic event - and its not the event that Jesus returns at the end? Maybe that is the being awake part? We need to get somewhere, to do something - for our spiritual self... but in the end, it's not because the return is imminent, yet everyone thinks that is what all this is about?

I don't know... in the end, it doesn't seem to preclude the need to "get somewhere" or the fact we are running out of time to make it.

originally posted by: OpinionatedB

Will all of us, loose our faith if it doesn't pan out the way we think it will?

Matthew 24-13

but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Not all, I think, but probably most. We can see it at work, even now, with the increase in atheism. Some people are "losing their faith", and some never had any to begin with - which condition they tend to pass on to their children.

It's a funny thing. Among many religions, and certainly all of the Abrahamic religions, there are tales told of what the "end times" will be like, and a series of conditions to be met with before the end comes. Everyone thinks THEY have the one true and proper interpretation, often extracting those interpretations from the exact same book, but reaching radically different conclusions. Among the Christians alone, we have "pre-trib", "post-trib", "mid-trib"... "pre millennialists", "post millennialists" and on and on it goes, each certain that THEY have the key.

I'm not really a Christian, but I'm still a "pan-millennialist" - I think it will all "pan out" in the end as it's supposed to, and not as ANY of them think it will. I think that miracles happen every single day, and few if any people ever notice them when they do. They're too busy looking for the burning bush to see God. When the end does finally come, they will STILL be looking for the burning bush, and may miss it altogether.

So the end will come upon them as "a thief in the night", because they will be looking in the wrong direction, expecting their preconceived notions to roll out like a carpet. When that happens (and in some cases it already has), you'll hear things like "well damn! I guess there really is no god after all!" - never thinking for even an instant that a god might just have it's own notion of how things are supposed to work out.

Look at the Jews. they have spent millennia expecting their messiah to come. Maybe he has and they missed the boat, and maybe he just hasn't showed up yet, but they are still waiting - and becoming more faithless by the hour because of it. Most now seem to be entirely secular, having lost all faith beyond a mere cultural token.

Look a the Muslims - they have their own timetable, too. There has to come a Dajjal, and that one-eyed cracker whose name escapes me at the moment, and a Mahdi (Gomer over in ISIS is trying to make himself out to be the Mahdi, I think, right now), and Jesus on the coat-tails of the Mahdi, working in tandem with him to exterminate Christianity in favor of Islam. There has to come a Black Flag, a great War, and stones must cry out to Muslims and give up the Jews hiding behind them. it's all very specific... and what happens if most of that occurs, and still no real Mahdi? We can see the "Black Flag" of ISIS right now... what happens if it fizzles out?

Faithlessness. A falling away from their faith for some, perhaps many. Sure, there will always be some who backtrack, try to reinterpret both the writings and the "signs" they saw, but by and large, I think many will just go fishing and give it up. That applies to Christians, Jews, Muslims, and perhaps even other, non-Abrahamic religions.

God doesn't work on OUR timetable, at OUR pleasure - but many will refuse to see or believe that, opting instead to go the "there IS no God" route. Otherwise, they believe deep in their hearts, God would have done their bidding, done things as THEY think it ought to have been done. At some level, they think they can lead God around by the nose, that it MUST go according to their plan, or it's just a bust.

I've heard Christians condemn the "damnable heresies" of other Christians simply for believing in a different timetable, one supported by every bit as much evidence - which is mostly none, all of them being based on conjecture and interpretation. I think it will be interesting to see how that conversation goes between them and their God after the dust settles.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

Well... in the bible it says that the times prior to the return of Jesus will be as the days of Noah before the flood. There was much debauchery then, hence the reason for the flood.

in Islam it speaks of the same thing... the books say people will revert to the days of ignorance prior to Islam. That Islam will become a thing unknown and no one will be following it.

So... maybe it is simply that we are facing those times, the times right before a loss of faith and a rise in godlessness.. since that, in all the books, christian and islamic, precedes the return of Jesus. If we haven't come upon those times yet, then that might do it... some event that people expect their Messiah to come, and HE doesn't show up the way they imagined.

That really might be a cause to a huge loss of faith in God.

originally posted by: deadeyedick
Have you accepted jesus? i ask because i thought you were reading out of another book where he is not accepted.

I don't think WE "accept Jesus" - I think HE "accepts" us.

It's all a matter of whom you put in the driver's seat - you or him.

With that said, even Muslims believe Jesus will return, and will rule. It's right there in the Qur'an.

I also think this there are a few different ways a potential Rapture event could play out.

1.) There are a lot of people right now who think it will happen next fall for various reasons, next September/October. The failure of this could cause a massive disappointment and falling away, setting people up to miss the real event.

2.) The Rapture could be quiet and easily explained away by science as some strange natural phenomena ... the same way they have more or less given the plagues of Egypt natural explanations. It might be far-fetched, but since I'm guessing that plenty of people who are now thoroughly convinced they will go will not and plenty whom you would never guess would go ... will, it will seem random to people in denial and looking desperately for an excuse for their own failure to be "caught up." Of course, some will realize and correct their walk, but they will have to go through hell to prove themselves.

This is if God wants things to still play out on a faith mechanism.

3.) The Rapture is every bit as big and flashy as some say it will be, and everyone sees it and is forced to realize that at the very least it has to be aliens if not supernatural. At his point, God turns on the switch and is extremely evident in everyone's life until the very end. People will not be able to deny His existence although they can still deny Him, and many will.

This is if God wants to end the age with an point.

But when it says that Jesus comes as a thief in the night, it could simply mean that no one can tell whom He will take and whom He will leave. This fits with the theme that only God can judge who is worthy and who isn't.

a reply to: nenothtu

lol yeah... I agree with you on the points you made. In the end, it will all pan out! And we... we can burn dinner because we got caught up in a television program... how much more can we burn our own soul, by being distracted by our own vision of how it is "supposed" to go!

originally posted by: ketsuko

So, I think something is coming, and I think most people just are not awake spiritually and walking the walk. I think this will catch them by surprise. If my dreams are larger messages, then that's the conclusion I draw.

And THAT is the whole thing, in a nutshell. I believe that if one is truly "walking the walk", then eschatology will not matter in the slightest - they'll be ready for whatever comes, whenever it does come.

People who worry over much about eschatology and "end times" worry ME slightly - there is some reason that they are worried about the end. If they are ready at any instant, "the end", and when it comes, and HOW it comes, will not matter in the least. they will be ready.

"The end" comes every single day, for some one, and it's usually unexpected.

originally posted by: signalfire
Would you recognize Jesus if he came back?

Quinn Eaker

Not saying this guy is Jesus but the parallels are intriguing. I think everyone who is working against the PTB and PTW is a lightworker; which will win out, the goons and their paymasters or The People, remains to be seen.

Oh, and don't miss this: Pachamama Portal

Turn your speakers up

HOLY MOLY!

I dunno if I'd recognize Jesus or not, but I know when I see concrete evidence of "NOT Jesus"!

a reply to: nenothtu

My philosophy is plan for all your futures.

It's great to worry about eternity, but you have to count on dying old in your bed, too.

a reply to: FlyersFan

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

So your very right.. anyone who says they know, are only setting themselves up for disappointment... because only God knows.

a reply to: ketsuko

Exactly. You walk your walk, keep yourself right the best you can, and whether you die in bed of old age, have your head lopped off in an epic End of the World Battle, or suddenly start flapping your arms in a panic because you didn't know you could fly, it's all still good - you're going home, and it doesn't matter what kicked the boat away from the quay.

originally posted by: nenothtu

originally posted by: deadeyedick

Have you accepted jesus? i ask because i thought you were reading out of another book where he is not accepted.

I don't think WE "accept Jesus" - I think HE "accepts" us.



It's all a matter of whom you put in the driver's seat - you or him.



With that said, even Muslims believe Jesus will return, and will rule. It's right there in the Qur'an.

not all of them. That acceptence will be the greatest divide the muslims have ever seen.