There is a common sentiment shared among christians that Christ could come back any day, so we need to be prepared for that. But, is that true? Could Christ return any day now?
The answer is an emphatic “yes” and “no.”
It depends on what is meant by His returning. If by “His return,” one means His actual return to the earth, then that is definitely a “no.” That cannot be “any day now.” If by “His return,” one means a return only in the clouds, and His bride meets Him there, then that is still a definite “no.” That cannot happen “any day now.”
But, there is a sense in which “His return” can be at any time, and that is when an individual meets Him through death (in the idiomatic sense that He “returned” for that individual—meaning that the Father called that believer home).
An individual’s death accomplishes the same thing as what many call the “rapture,” as that believer’s soul is immediately “raptured” (caught away) from the earth and transported to heaven to await the day when Messiah Yahoshua brings those of the bride who have already died with Him to meet the rest of the bride who are alive and remain on the earth in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The Bridegroom will then take His bride to the wedding chamber.
But, here’s where christians lack the spiritual understanding that comes from knowing the Father’s traditions. Since christianity rejected those traditions (Greek: “paradosis,” 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15), those lost in the false teachings of christianity lack understanding of the prophetic calendar. That’s why there are so many different false christian interpretations of the “end times” (which is a misnomer, as there will still be 1000 years left for this earth after Armageddon).
Some christians believe the bride will be raptured from the earth before the tribulation, but they are clueless about the day on which that will occur (having no understanding of what “the day or hour no man knows” is). Other christians believe that the bride will not be raptured before the tribulation, and those folks are just “doubly blind” in a sense.
Both groups are essentially blind spiritually, though, because they have no real understanding of these things, as the details of them are revealed in the Father’s traditions (those traditions include the Sabbaths—weekly and feasts, the wedding traditions, and the temple ordinances and practices).
There are even some christians who are so lacking in their understanding that they think the gathering of the bride to the Bridegroom and His return to the earth are the same event.
Here’s what the traditions show us: there are three spiritual harvests: barley, wheat, and grapes. The bride is barley, and the barley harvest (winnowing of the bride from the earth) has been happening since Acts 2, as members of Messiah’s bride die, and are transported to heaven.
The end of the spiritual barley harvest will occur on the Feast of Trumpets (the first of the three Fall feasts—HINT: it will happen in the Fall). There are ten days from Trumpets to Atonement, and that will be a period of ten years from the time the bride is removed until Armageddon, which will happen on the Feast of Atonement.
How are those ten days understood to be ten years? Daniel’s 70th “week” prophecy is a period of seven years, and that will begin three years after the bride is removed from the earth.
So, if someone who has received the covenant dies right now, then he is immediately raptured. But, the corporate removal of the rest of the bride that is foretold (end of the barley harvest) will happen ONLY on the Feast of Trumpets. Christ does not physically return to the earth until ten years after that.
So, the notion that the “church” (counterfeit of the bride) can all be raptured together at any time is just as false as the self-declared salvation it teaches.
So, no, Christ Himself can NOT return “any day now.”
For more information: Will There Be a Pre-Tribulation Rapture?