It seems that the best answer to this question that I am aware of can be found by studying two of Jesus’ parables. Before we take on a study of these two parables I believe that it would help us if we first address the nature of God, who he is and what he does. This should help us considerably in being able to decipher Jesus’ parables.

THE NATURE OF THE TRIUNE GOD PRESENTED IN SYMBOLIC TERMS
I will use the technique that Jesus said he used in his parables as I attempt to help us get a picture of the Triune God including who he is, what he does and how he operates. We will do this symbolically, point by point. We could have expanded this to several pages but we will keep it simple for the purposes of this study.

WHO IS GOD?
He is the creator, owner, sustainer and operator of the whole of the megaverse.
All three members of the family of God participated in the creation of the physical universe in which we live. In doing so they compressed 14 billion years of processes into what we would experience as 7 days (there is good evidence that these days lasted for 1000 years each). God the Father was the architect of creation and Jesus was the craftsman at his side doing the actual creating.
He is triune in nature, meaning that there are three persons in God who operate as a single entity.

WHAT IS GOD’S NAME?
The family name is YHWH or Yahweh.
Jesus is the only person in the Trinity for whom we know a first name
The Bible is full of other nouns that describe the nature of God.

HOW DOES GOD MANAGE OR OPERATE OUR UNIVERSE?
HE OPERATES IT AS A FAMILY BUSINESS, WHICH HE OWNS

• God the Father is the Chairman of the Board
• God the Son is the Vice Chairman of the Board. Jesus is called the Son since his working relationship with the Chairman is as a Father to a Son. He is also referred to as the Bridegroom and is looking for his future bride on the created earth.
• God the Holy Spirit is called the Seven-Fold Spirit of God in Revelation. As such he is the Seven Board Members. He represents all believers on earth since he is in constant contact with them. Believers join the Family of God when they accept Jesus as their God and Savior. It is the Spirit who takes the concerns, praises, etc. of believers to the Board meetings. How some of this works is expressed in Isa 11:1-5.

The created beings who the Owner placed on earth are there to perform the duties and follow the wishes that the owner has passed on to them. These beings are just temporary tenants living on the created earth. The good news is that in addition to being tenants they are potential future brides for the Owners Son. Their decisions and performance while tenants will decide whether or not they will qualify.
God uses his angels in heaven in a multitude of ways in interacting with the tenants of earth, who are to do the will of the owner.
God is also the ultimate law giver, law enforcer and Judge. He decides the ultimate fate of the tenants living on his earth and will provide rewards or punishments as deserved.

WHEN WILL GOD ADMINISTER THESE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS
After the tenants spend a “LONG TIME” on earth God will conduct special “spring, late spring and fall” soul harvests of those who have joined his family by becoming engaged to Jesus. These harvests will take place near the beginning, middle and end of a seven year period of great tribulation on earth. Jesus will be the harvester in each case. He will provide his soon to be “bride” with special gifts or rewards at the time of each harvest. There will also be a harvest of non family members after the fall harvest and they will be placed in temporary confinement awaiting their final judgments after 1000 years. Jesus will move to earth and live with his new bride in a paradise like environment for 1000 years.
In Jesus’ kingdom parables he used this very type of symbology to present key truths for us regarding how he has interfaced with us in the past and how he will interface with us in the end times. We will see that in the two parables that we are about to analyze.

HOW WILL WE GO ABOUT ANSWERING OUR INITIAL QUESTION?
Is there any indication in the Bible about how long Jesus would be gone from earth until he finally returns for his bride at the rapture? Jesus did say that he was coming “SOON” but this likely does not address that question. The word “soon” seems to express more of a context of the nature of the rapture or return event itself. It seems to express the idea that when Jesus does return the event will happen very quickly, in the twinkling of an eye, 1 Cor 15:51-53.. We will look at two parables that taken together may give us a clue to the general or possibly even specific length of time to expect.
Jesus’ parables were very figurative in nature. He told his disciples this very plainly in Matt 13. He explained how to interpret the parables in Matt 13. It seems that nearly all of the 19 parables in Matthew were about the literal kingdom of heaven which will exist in the end times.
The first of the two parables that we will examine will be from Luke 20:9-16. In this parable there is a vineyard which stands for the physical universe that God created, and in this case it centers on the earth. The vineyard has an owner who represents the owner of the universe, God the Father in this case. The tenants are the humans that God created to populate the earth. The messengers sent to the tenants are the prophets that God kept sending to his people to warn them of their failures in doing God’s will. The son of the owner represents the one called the Son of God, or Jesus. We will explain the scenario presented in the parable below.

DISCUSSION OF LUKE 20:9-16
The parable in Luke 20:9-16 figuratively stands for the period from 4070.5 BC to 32 AD. In this parable the vineyard stands for the earth. God created mankind and placed them on earth to produce a soul harvest for him. Mankind initially knew God intimately and knew what he required of them. After “a long time” it became necessary for God to begin sending Godly messengers to earth to reaffirm his requirements of them concerning his harvest expectations.. God sent a particular messenger to earth during four separate periods in the 4100 year period covered in this parable; each time with messages about God's harvest requirements. The first three messengers were the angel of the Lord. During the fourth visit it was God's Son, Jesus. In fact, since the angel of the Lord was Jesus, the messenger in each of the four periods was Jesus himself. From the time of the fall in 4070.5 BC until 2064 BC there were no specific visits recorded in the Bible. The four periods of visitation were as shown below:
2064 to the mid 1800's BC -- the time period of Hagar/Ishmael's birth, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [period when covenants were being made and the seeds for Israel and her future mortal enemy were being planted]
1440 to about 700 BC -- the time period of Moses, the birth of the Torah and the birth of Israel until Israel’s destruction by the Assyrians. [Israel—period from its birth to its death in the Promised Land]
Mid 600’s to mid 400’s BC –- the time period leading up to the initial takeover, destruction and exile of Judah by the Babylonians until the final return from exile, rebuilding of the city, and renewal of temple worship. [Judah--period of its death, exile, return, rebuild]
2 BC to 32 AD -- the time period of Jesus’ life on earth. [God physically on earth]
The Bible records over 200 appearances of a visitor from heaven to earth who can be shown to be the “theophanic” angel during the first three of these periods. This messenger from heaven can be clearly proven to be God in several of the appearances. He looked like a man but acted and spoke like God. There are three persons in the Godhead and it can be easily shown that this was neither the Father God nor the Spirit God. Thus we draw the conclusion that it must have been pre-incarnational appearance of Jesus. There are many other clear clues that this messenger from God was Jesus.
This scenario matches that of the parable; there were four times when messengers from the vineyard owner were sent to the vineyard and four times when the messengers were severely mistreated and their messages ignored. In the fourth visit the messenger was the Son of the vineyard owner. He was treated likewise, and even killed with the vineyard turned over to other tenants.
Verse 16 says that God will take the vineyard from the original tenants and give it to another tenant. In 135 AD the Romans ended their destruction of Judea, exiled or killed many of the remaining Jews and renamed the area Palestine. God had finally completely taken the Promised Land from the Jewish people and would not return it to them until 1948. Verse 19 was completely fulfilled in 313 AD when the Roman Empire collapsed and the Hasmonean Dynasty assumed control of the Holy Land.
It was a period of about 2006 years from the time of the fall of man in 4070.5 BC until the next recorded appearance of God on earth. This was when Abraham was 86 years old and coincided with the time of Ishmael’s birth to Hagar in 2064 BC. It was at that time that the angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar. The 2006 year period of absence of God from earth was called a "long time" in verse 9. This very same phrase was also used in Matt 25:19 concerning the length of time Jesus would be gone from earth; a period from his ascension until his return at the rapture. We will now go to that parable.

DISCUSSION OF MATTHEW 25:14-30
The parable in Matt 25:14-30 about the talents is a kingdom parable sandwiched between a parable about the rapture and a description of the sheep-goat judgment right after the Second Coming at the end of the 7 year period of tribulation. The parable about the rapture concerns 10 bridesmaids/virgins waiting for the bridegroom to return for them at an unknown hour to “snatch” them from their home and take them to his father’s house for the wedding.
This parable about the talents concerns the whole time from Jesus’ ascension to his return for his bride (all believers) at some unknown future time when he will “snatch” then up to his Father’s home in heaven for the wedding. The talents are all about the time between the two events when decisions will be made about who will be and who will not be part of the bride based on what each person has done with the part of the Master's wealth entrusted to him/her. The Master's wealth was his salvation plan for man. This evaluation period goes from the time that the bridegroom became engaged to the bride and left earth to go to his father’s home to prepare a place for him and his bride to live until the time that he will return for his bride at the future rapture event. This translated to the time from Jesus’ ascension to the future rapture of his bride to heaven.
Verse 19 says that this will be a “long time," meaning the time before Jesus’ return for his bride. This same term was used in the parable about the workers caring for the Fathers vineyard in Luke 20:9-16. There the long time was about 2006 years. That may give us a gross expectation for what God might have in mind for the period of time before he sends Jesus back to earth for his bride. The first century apostles and followers of Jesus must not have understood this parable. In the time just before Jesus’ death and in the time between his resurrection and ascension Jesus spent a great deal of time relating end time prophecy to the disciples. We know from Matthew 13 that the disciples were very puzzled by his parables. Jesus gave them the key for understanding them but they apparently still missed some part of what they meant in the big picture. The church today still has the very same problem. Both Peter and Paul understood the critical importance of Jesus’ prophetic message and they began their first sermons recorded in Acts with Bible prophecy. Paul and the author of Hebrews both began their initial introduction of the gospel of Jesus with prophecy. They called it elementary. I wish it was still elementary today! I expect that God is very displeased with us because of this. Our churches almost completely ignore it. It is the easiest and most effective way to “prove” that Jesus is God and that God is who he claims to be.
Let’s get back to the “long time” for a second. If this long time lasts exactly as long as it did in the parable in Mark then Jesus’ return for his bride would take place sometime in the vicinity of 32+2006=2038 AD. I would say that is certainly unlikely, but the ominous signs all about us that seem to be similar to those presented in Matt 24 could possibly be pointing to the soon return of Jesus. We just presented Biblical evidence that according to God’s own definition, Jesus has been gone a long time. When he does come it will happen quickly, according to Jesus’ own words.