<p>1:7 <i>And he said to them: It is not for you to know times or seasons</i>- There is clearly a difference between them. <em>Chronos</em>, &quot;times&quot;, is at times used to mean 'delay'; and <em>chairos</em>, &quot;seasons&quot;, is also translated &quot;opportunity&quot;. There would appear to be reference here to the variable nature of the Divine program; there are delays, extensions, and preconditions which must be fulfilled, and therefore opportunities for hastening or realizing the day of the Lord's coming. But by the same token, there is apparently no calendar date set for it.</p><p><i>W</i><i>hich the Father has set within his own authority</i>- Or, power. The Lord made two statements to the disciples which he surely intended to be connected: &quot;All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth... it is not for you (the inquisitive eleven standing on Olivet) to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power&quot; (Mt. 28:18; Acts 1:7,8). But <em>all</em> the Father's power has been given to His glorified Son, and this therefore includes knowledge of the &quot;times and seasons&quot; of the second coming. In the exalted Lord &quot;are hid all the riches of wisdom and knowledge&quot; (Col. 2:3); it is thereby inconceivable that the Father would still keep back some knowledge from the Son. The point of all this is that when the Lord Jesus said that &quot;of that day and that hour knoweth (present tense) no man, no, not the angels... neither the Son&quot; he was not laying down a general principle for all time. He was speaking of the situation at that time: 'You can't know now, indeed at the moment even I don't know; but these are the signs which will tell the believers when I'll come'. By implication he was saying 'You can't understand them, although I'm giving them to you, but in the future some will understand them, because these signs will accurately pinpoint my return'. This was exactly the spirit of what the Angel told Daniel when he too wished to know when Messiah would come in glory; he was basically told 'It's not for you to understand, but in the last days understanding of these things will be increased among God's people; they will know the time, but you can't'. There are so many connections between the Olivet prophecy and Daniel that perhaps it is legitimate to think that the Lord was alluding to the Angel's refusal to tell Daniel the time of Messiah's coming. That the Lord was primarily referring to the twelve when he spoke of them not knowing &quot;when the time is&quot; (Mk. 13:33) is confirmed if we appreciate that the Lord Jesus sometimes uses &quot;the time&quot; as a reference to the appointed time for his own death (Mt. 26:18; Mk. 14:35; Jn. 7:6,8). The disciples were fascinated with the time of his return, and the Lord was giving them the signs. But knowing his death was only days away, inevitably he had in mind &quot;the time&quot; of his passion. And he knew that as they didn't know the time of his return, so they didn't understand the time of his death. Having pointed out that they knew not &quot;the time&quot;, in words surely reminiscent of his criticism of Jewry generally for not knowing &quot;the time&quot; of his coming and death (Mt. 16:3; Lk. 19:44), the Lord went on to tell the story of the man (himself) who left his household (the disciples) and told them to watch, with warnings as to what would happen if they didn't. Every one of those warnings, and some other language in the Olivet prophecy,&nbsp; came true of the disciples in the next few days, in the context of &quot;the time&quot; being the time of Christ's death.</p>