My brother in law and I were talking about the end times yesterday and I was reading him some of your articles. Well he brought up 2 Peter 3:8 NLT “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.” Then he said, “So if you think about it its only been like 2 days”. I myself believe the time is very near, but he says he thinks it’s another 1,000 years away. Is there any biblical proof?
There is no Biblical proof for the nearness of the rapture, but there is lots of evidence that it could be very close. It’s true that in 2 Peter 3:8-9 Peter said, With the Lord a day is like 1000 years and 1000 years is like a day. But this was not meant to be taken literally. After all how could a day be 1000 years long, when 1000 years is only a day long?
Peter was saying that time is not the same to God as it is to us. What seems to be a long time for us can be a very short time for Him and vice versa because He’s not governed by time the way we are. Peter went on to say while He’s been gone a long time according to the way we measure time, He’s not being slow in keeping His promise to return. He’s actually being patient with us so as many as possible can be saved.
Some people use the 1000 years for a day formula to interpret Hosea 6:1-2. They say it means that God promised to revive Israel 2000 years after He caused it to be scattered and in the third 1000 years He would restore Israel to their place of prominence on Earth. There is a general sense in which this fits because the church Age has been about 2000 years long and the Millennium will be 1000 years long. But applying that analogy to the rapture would mean it will have to happen any day now, like you say, because the Church Age has to end before Israel can be fully restored.
But there is no Biblical justification for the opinion that the 2000 years He’s been gone are only 2 days to Him and therefore we should expect to wait another 1000 years before the rapture can happen.