By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
I am the recipient, as is true of many of us, of mass emailing. As I recall, one gave 17 reasons why Christ’s return will be in 2026.
About the same time, I was packing books from my library to donate to charity. I noted about a dozen books published in the mid-1800s were on prophecy. The dates advertised to be the return of Christ included 1820, 1872, 1944, and several others.
One of the newer books, published in 1925, titled Twelve Great Signs of the Return of Jesus, did an excellent job showing why Christ’s return would occur very soon.
It covered recent events and was well-documented, both Biblically and scripturally. Nonetheless, the Twelve Great Signs book’s prediction was wrong unless the word “soon” could refer to a period as long as a century.
One of the most famous wrong return of Christ predictions was by the Baptist preacher William Miller. William Miller based his prediction on the Bible, specifically the “2,300 days” prophecy from the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:14).
A prominent view is that, in prophecy, a “day” represents a year (Ezekiel 4:5-6), totaling 2,300 years. Miller posited that the 2,300 days began in 457 BC and ended in AD 1844, marking the beginning of an “investigative judgment” in the heavenly sanctuary.
According to Ezra 7, the king authorized Ezra and the exiles in 457 B.C. to return to Jerusalem. It was this year that Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, signifying the kingdom.
For these reasons, he prophesied that Jesus Christ would return to rebuild his kingdom sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 1844. When Christ did not appear, the date was revised to October 22, 1844.
As the new date approached, some followers sold their possessions and prepared for Christ’s return and the Rapture. But when October 22nd passed uneventfully, many were left humiliated and disillusioned. This failure became known as the “Great Disappointment.”
The Seven-Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses were formed partly due to Miller’s influence. The Witnesses set the date of Christ’s return at 1914, then 1925, and, lastly, 1975, when large numbers left the faith due to their disappointment.
The details of the Rapture vary, depending on the denomination, but generally, it is the belief that all believers, both living and deceased, will be physically “caught up” to meet Jesus in the air at a specific point in the future.
It is described as an instantaneous event where believers’ bodies are transformed into spiritual bodies and taken to heaven to be with Jesus.
Major Bible verses about the Rapture include 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, which describes believers being “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air. 1 Corinthians 15:52 speaks of believers being transformed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” at the last trumpet.
Other relevant verses include passages from Matthew 24 and Luke 17, which describe a future separation where one person will be taken and another left behind. Many mainline denominations, including the Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, interpret these verses very differently.
The founder of the Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W. Armstrong, predicted Christ’s return in 1972 and 1975. One widely publicized prediction of Christ’s return was 1988 by Edgar Whisenant.
His booklet, which detailed the reasons he used for his prediction, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988, sold four million copies. After 1988, he revised his prediction to 1989, a date that also failed.
American Christian radio host Harold Camping proclaimed he had discovered a new formula that revealed when Christ would return. His dates for Jesus’ return include 1994-1995 and again in 2011.
Predicting the return of Christ goes way back in history. During the Great Awakening (1734-1745), many religious leaders began preaching about the imminent return of Jesus Christ and encouraged their followers to be ready for His coming by repenting of their sins.
Ironically, the scriptures are very clear about Jesus’s teaching on the end times and His second coming. Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32 teach: “concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor even the Son, but only the Father.”
This verse refers to Jesus’s teaching about the end times and His second coming. And the meaning of 2 Thessalonians 2:2-3 is clear: “Do not let anyone fool you. For the Lord will not come again until many people turn away from God.”
This prophecy appears to be occurring in our day. Before WWII, 97 percent of the German population were tithing members of the church; now the rate is less than four percent. The same is largely true for the rest of Europe.
In the U.S., in the 1990s, around 70% of Americans were church members. By 2021-2022, this number had fallen to under 47%. Church membership and religious affiliation in Canada are also in sharp decline, with the most significant drops occurring in the last decade.
This trend is driven by a broader societal shift toward secularism. Younger generations often conclude that religion is at odds with modern values, such as the aggressive acceptance of many once-outlawed sexual behaviors.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. Has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com