Well, if you'd have paid attention, whether it be to Revelation or to more modern phenomena like Marian apparitions, the common theme is that no one will be able to predict it. Everyone from Saladin (10th century Islamic crusader) to Napoleon (19th century French emperor) to Ronald Reagan (20th century U.S. President) have been labelled the "anti-Christ."
An interesting footnote in Marian apparitions (I know these best, because I studied them; hence, why I quote them a lot when dealing with apocalypticism) is that the terms for "the end" are not set in stone. According to them, as late as the 1980s, World War III was supposed to happen, but, according to Mary, the repentance and prayer of mankind has led to the revocation of World War III, so, if this is correct, we will never see it. Also worth noting was that, supposedly, "the end" should already have happened, but that God continues to postpone it out of mercy--but that His patience is waning.
But I've never understood this. Why should Jesus' second coming be a "frightful" event? I almost see this as, perhaps, another throwback to "Pharisee faith," who were awaiting the Messiah to come down as a warrior-conqueror to create a powerful, worldly Kingdom like no other for His "chosen people." Some of the apparition conversations have hinted this to not be so the second time around either, but that it will be a "rebirth" into a Garden of Eden-like paradise and that humanity will continue from there. If this is true, I would love to be able to survive to see all this; to be one of those lucky to see paradise on Earth.
But the key is to realize that it will come when we least suspect it, and that those who claim to know when the end is are wrong, because none of these events are set in stone. God may be infinite in His love, but He's not a monolith when it comes to the semantics of an event.
Melon
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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time