Zero Hour, what does it mean?

Near the entrance of our home hangs an inexpensive replica of a schoolhouse clock, replete with pendulum and chime.  This clock has enthralled each of our grand children when they come to visit PopPop and Nana’s home.  The steady swing of the pendulum, the wonderful tick-tock and chiming sounds offer special fascination to these little ones.  Especially when PopPop lifts them up to open the glass door, reach for the key and count the turns as PopPop winds, first the clock mechanism and then the chime.

This clock is mystifying — it has no zero hour! Unless of course, one can provide an acceptable definition of zero hour.  Most would assume that 12 o’clock on the face of the dial represents zero hour.  Just what does zero hour really mean?  How shall we define zero hour?

Does zero hour suggest a crisis hour, a climax, a fearful end?  Or does zero hour connote something positive rather than something negative?  Back to the clock.  Is 12 o’clock on the dial an end or a beginning?  Can we say 12 o’clock is negative or positive?  The obvious answer is zero hour can represent both, an end of something old and the beginning of something new.

When Jesus returns — Zero Hour, prophetically speaking — “the Great Day of the Lord,” will most assuredly be ZERO HOUR!  As Jesus described that hour, “It will be negative for the unsaved and positive for the redeemed.”  It will be the end of something old and the beginning of something new!

Magnifying zero hour in this context, we see that it is not “punctiliar,” that is to say, a momentary, instantaneous event; rather it represents a progressive series of events.  Here, zero hour may represent a protracted period of time.  For example, is zero hour negative for the unsaved the instant Jesus appears in the heavens, or was zero hour for the unsaved that moment Jesus ceased His Heavenly intercession, stepping out of the Sanctuary, thus forever shutting the door of mercy?  Or, is zero hour actually negative for the unsaved 1,000 years later when God’s wrath and fire fall upon the wicked?

Jesus likened “the end of time and His triumphant return to the Great Deluge of Noah’s day.”  Was zero hour in Noah’s day the moment when the first rain drop fell, or was it seven days before that first rain drop, when an unseen hand closed the door of the Ark?  Or did zero hour chime when leering, jeering crowds watched wild beasts from the forest march orderly into the Ark and individually chose to remain outside?  Or, was zero hour for the unsaved that singular moment when each gasped for his or her last breath, cried or cursed and drowned?  When did “the Flood” become positive rather than negative?  Or did it?

Hopefully, these thoughts will stir some pure minds.  Hopefully, some readers will grasp the simple observation that a moment in time may be stretched; that the exact instant when negative becomes positive can be blurred because time stretches and lingers.  Surely you have noticed that God’s pronouncement upon sin at the beginning of Scripture has required several thousand years of ticking and chiming before meeting fulfillment.  This stretching of time troubles every human being.   Lingering time on this dying planet seems at once negative and positive!
In Part II, I hope to prophetically “zero-in” on Zero Hour. Be patient . . .