What Is Our Response When Jesus Has Not Yet Returned?

Some people want to give up trusting in Jesus simply because it has taken too long for Him to return. Peter wrote about these people two thousand years ago in his second letter:

2 Peter 3:3-10: “Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.”

The reason that Jesus has not come for His church already is that He has been waiting for your family and friends to believe and be saved. The two thousand years that have passed from Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection to the present day have been allowed by God to give the world time to hear what Jesus has done for us, repent of sins, and trust in Jesus for salvation.

How Long Would You Wait For People You Love To Be Saved?

We who already believe want Jesus to come for us as soon as possible because we want to leave this broken world filled with sin and live with Jesus in the perfect world of heaven. That is understandable, but we must remember that Jesus also died for all of the people who have not yet believed. These are the persons whom Jesus has been waiting for.

With this being understood, there is an expiry on the offer of forgiveness of sins and eternal life before the judgment of God arrives.

Fifty-one years ago, I learned the doctrine of the Rapture as a new believer in Jesus. I believed it because Paul taught it to the first-century Christian church. Paul was taught the return of Jesus for His church by Jesus during an event described in the original Koine Greek as the “Harpazo.”

1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 “We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up (Harpazo) in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words.”

Jesus’ church has continued to teach the facts of the Rapture through every generation. There are more than 100 citations in church history where the doctrine of Jesus’ return for His church before the Tribulation begins was being taught (See the book by the same author: “The Rapture.”)

The Feast of Trumpets and the Rapture

September 11-13, 2026 was the Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah. If you have read my books and essays, you know that I believe Jesus will likely return for His church during the Feast of Trumpets. Why do I say this? Jesus fulfilled the Spring Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost on the precise days and in the exact way each of these four Feasts was to be observed, when He came to Earth the first time. Jesus established a pattern for us to pay attention to: the Seven Feasts are an important part of our understanding of who Jesus is and why He came to Earth.

Three Fall Feasts Remain: Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles.

Between the Spring and Fall Feasts, there is a four-month period called “the harvest.”

John 4:35: Jesus said: “You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest. (Spring and Fall)’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest.

Matthew 9:36-38: “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. 38 So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

Jesus was talking about a harvest of souls who hear what Jesus has done, repent of their sins, and turn to Him in faith so that He can save them from the coming judgment of God for sin.

Revelation 6:17: For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to survive?”

Jesus spoke of this present time as an opportunity the world has, since He died and rose from the dead, to hear that He came to earth to die for all sins and offer forgiveness to anyone who repents and believes. So far, He has given the world 2,000 years, but this time of Grace will soon be over. Genesis 6:3: “And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever...”

Since I published the book, “The Feast of Trumpets and the Rapture,” every year during the observance of this Feast, I eagerly watch for the arrival of Jesus for His church. For 51 years I have waited and watched. Not once have I ever doubted that the Rapture would happen, though I don’t know which year Jesus will arrive.

People have asked me how I can continue to believe in the Rapture—that it may happen during the Feast of Trumpets—when year after year, Jesus has not come for His church.

It comes down to one important principle I learned the first year I was Born Again by the Spirit of God and began to follow Jesus: Everything in the Bible is true, and there is no evidence anywhere that anything in the Bible is not true.

Critics often tell me that this is “circular reasoning,” but they are wrong. If I said that everything in the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true, this is circular reasoning. But when I qualify my statement that everything in the Bible is true with the declaration that “there is no evidence anywhere that anything in the Bible is not true,” this changes a circular reasoning premise to an evidence-based apologetic.

For 2,000 years, critics have been trying to disprove the texts of the New Testament about Jesus. Everyone who has tried has failed. This is because the New Testament is a historical eyewitness narrative of true events. By modern literary forensics, we have tested the statements of the men who say they saw Jesus with their own eyes and have proven that these men are telling the truth. There are 203 eyewitness statements in the 260 chapters of the New Testament.

1. Paul: 1 Corinthians 9:1: “Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord with my own eyes?
2. Peter: 1 Peter 1:16: “We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes.”
3. John: 1 John 1:1:”We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.”
4. James, Paul, all the Apostles: 1 Corinthians 15:7: “Then Jesus was seen alive by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.”
5. Mary Magdalene: John 20:18: “Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!”
6. Peter: Acts 5:29-32: “But Peter and the apostles replied… We are witnesses of these things…”
7. John: 1 John 1:2-3: “This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us.

Men like Bart Ehrman, who write and publish books that claim the New Testament is a fabrication, have never proven their assertion that the New Testament was written by men who never saw Jesus. Ehrman cannot prove this claim because the actual texts of the New Testament prove he is a liar. When surviving manuscript texts record that the men who saw Jesus wrote these narratives, anyone claiming later that they did not write, are impeached by the manuscript evidence itself.

The seven examples of eyewitness statements above, recorded by the men who saw Jesus with their own eyes, impeach Bart Ehrman and all other critics who say the New Testament was written late in the first century by men who never saw Jesus. The actual texts of the New Testament record the statements of these men. They say that they saw and heard what they wrote about Jesus.

Bart Ehrman is known as a preeminent New Testament scholar. When we examine his conclusions about the New Testament, he classifies these texts as non-historical, fabricated narratives. Ehrman rejects the eyewitness testimony because he does not believe miracles are possible, and this is while demanding proof of God that would necessarily involve miracles.

This is classic circular reasoning that says Miracles cannot occur (assumed). Therefore, any testimony reporting miracles is unreliable. Therefore, there is no reliable evidence for God. Therefore, miracles cannot occur. The conclusion is embedded in the premise.

This is not historical skepticism; it is philosophical exclusion. If we applied Ehrman’s method consistently for all extant manuscript evidence, his method would invalidate every ancient claim involving divine action. Any historical account involving supernatural causation. Any worldview claim that transcends materialism demands evidence. This evidence is provided by the massive New Testament historical eyewitness record.

When we read Bart Ehrman’s books, we see only his opinions as an atheist, not any evidence that he provides that proves the New Testament was written by non-eyewitnesses.

The surviving 24,593 manuscripts of the New Testament prove that Bart Ehrman is wrong. The text itself has survived two thousand years and proves these men saw and heard Jesus themselves.

Why People Give Up Trusting In The Return of Jesus

On the evening of Saturday, September 12, 2026, I read an article in a publication about a woman who was raised in a home where they believed in the Rapture of the church. She said that after she got older, she realized that many years had passed and Jesus had not come. She said that because of this long delay (in her mind), she could no longer continue to believe in the Rapture because Jesus had taken too long to return.

You see, this is the difference between following a religion and trusting in the written Word of God found in the Bible. We trust what God said, because He always tells the truth. God has magnified His Word above even His own name:

Psalms 138:2: “For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.

After all, since God exists and He has the great power to create the universe we see, He is also capable of communicating to us a revelation of Himself and causing His communication to be recorded by faithful men set apart for Him. His word has been preserved by Him since it was written, and preserved for every generation so that every person can know the truth about God and the salvation He has offered the world. Since God is perfect and He is without limit in what He can do, He was certainly able to deliver a perfect text to us and preserve it throughout all human history.

Unless and until a person believes that the Bible is true because it comes to us from the Eternal Living God, they will not have the ability to endure a lifetime of waiting, watching, and trusting in what God said.

We Find Great Expanses of Time in the Bible

Understanding the first sentence of the Bible that states, “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” how much time passed for God before He decided to create the universe? This is impossible to measure. Eternity has no beginning. If we imagine in our limited human minds how long eternity is, our reason collapses under our lack of understanding.

God has existed forever; He is perfect in every way, and there is no other like Him. This is why we define the God of the Bible as “God.”

In consideration of His eternal nature, He did create the universe at a specific point when time also began. Science and Cosmology say that the beginning of the universe took place about 13.799 billion years ago. If we stipulate this duration, then the question that must be asked is “Why did God wait so long to create the universe?” He must not be concerned about time as we know it. Therefore, in all that God does we can never limit anything He does or might do, by a long duration of time. Peter tried to explain this to us:

2 Peter 3:8-9: “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think.”

Our concept of time has distorted our understanding of God’s reality of eternity. He doesn’t care about time. If we see that God waits for a long time before doing something that He promised, we should understand this wait from His perspective. He knows that when it comes to human beings, long durations of time are required to teach us.

When God told Abraham at 75 years old, in the Old Testament, that he and his wife, Sarah, would have a son, and that son would begin a line of descendants that would lead to the birth of the Messiah, Abraham believed what God said. We would imagine that since God told Abraham this important fact, He would give him a son right away. We would be wrong.

Because Abraham believed every word that God said, when he was 75 years old, God waited until he was 99 before His promise was fulfilled. Hebrew scholar Paul writes later in the New Testament that “Abraham never doubted God.”

Romans 4:18-24: “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!” 19 And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb. 20 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. 22 And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

What we learn about this great expanse of time that God determined for Abraham in receiving a son is that it was necessary. Abraham learned about the faithfulness of God over a long time, and we learn today about the faithfulness of God after waiting a long time.

Then we learn the most important lesson as to why a long time passing is necessary:

When time passed and Abraham continued to trust what God said, this is what pleased God and made Abraham a righteous man. The reason that God saved Abraham and made Him our example of what God requires of us is all accomplished through a long period of time.

Salvation, heaven, and eternal life are the reward for a lifetime of trusting God no matter how long it takes of whatever might happen.

In Genesis 3:15, we find the first Messianic Prophecy in the Bible that proclaims a Savior will be given to the world who will crush the head of satan and provide eternal life for anyone who believes.

It took 4,000 years before Jesus arrived as the Messiah and fulfilled this promise. It has taken another 2,000 years to the present time, and Jesus has still not returned for His church.

Is God unfaithful? Has the promise of Jesus to return for us failed? Has the Word of God, the Bible, been found unreliable because it has just taken too long to see Jesus’ promise to return and remove His church from the earth?

NO!

What has failed is the faith, the trust, the certainty that many people have that God will accomplish all that He promised in His time and under His schedule. How do we know this is true? We look back over history and see that although there were great expanses of time for many people in the Bible, God did fulfill what He promised. Because we have an eyewitness historical record of these facts in the Bible, we have all that we need today to keep trusting that Jesus will return for His church as He promised.

He will return when He has determined the time is right. Our part, since Jesus is our Lord, is to say, “Yes, Lord, come when you are ready.” Until that time, we live our lives for Jesus, fully trusting in everything the Bible teaches, and we tell everyone that they must repent of all sin and fully trust in Jesus until our lives are over, or He returns to take us to heaven.

See all 57 of Rob’s books about the Bible, and specifically, those which describe the last of the Last Days and the return of Jesus.

Click on the Image to see All 57 of Rob’s Books

Categories: Robert Clifton Robinson