Dear Ryan:

The passage you speak of, and to which Jehovah Witnesses like to quote to support their error that Jesus is not God, is Matthew 24:35-36 where Jesus says:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

The Ignatius Study Bible Commentary states:

This saying is comparable to Matthew 20:23, where Jesus says that the Father, not the Son, makes royal appointments of rank. Here also only the Father appoints the time of the Son's royal return in glory. Christ's professed ignorance of this day and hour may be understood as a hyperbole (overstatement), a teaching device used by Jewish rabbis and Jesus himself (Matt 5:34; 23:9; Lk 14:26).

Tradition maintains that Jesus' apparent ignorance is not a literal statement, but a figurative expression; for the Father and Son share everything in common, including their divine knowledge: (Matt 11:27; Jn 3:35; 10:15; 17:25). Here Jesus does not display any human knowledge of the time the Father will send the Son to judge all nations, because this mystery lies beyond the scope of what the Father intends the Son to reveal (CCC 472-74).

Jesus, being divine, of course know the day and hour He will return. This information was not for Him to reveal to his disciples.

Primarily, this was a hyperbole is that often used to make a point. It is a teaching technique common to the rabbis at the time, and is a technique often used today.

St. Paul uses this technique a number of times, such as in 1 Corinthians 15:29...

Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

St. Paul is not teaching baptism on behalf of the dead. Rather is is using this errant practice that some people had to make a point of the Resurrection of the dead and the end of the age, to which was the belief of the people he was preaching to. It made no sense to baptize on behalf of the dead if the dead were never to resurrect. His illustration was a hyperbole using the unChristian notion to prove the Resurrection.

Another example is the Scripture 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, which many Charismatics misinterpret as proof of a personal "tongues". Not so. St. Paul was using hyperbole in a similar manner that we often us it. St. Paul said:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

St. Paul exaggerates in saying "tongues of men and of angels". He says "If", which is the setup for the hyperbole.

St. Paul follows with another obvious exaggeration: "understand all mysteries and all knowledge."  Just ten verses down the page St. Paul write:

(1 Cor 13:12)  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 

This statement proves that St. Paul's comments in verses one and two are hyperbole. Hyperbole was used all the time back then and the Bible is full of such teaching techniques, just as the hyperbole technique is used all the time today. 

Thus, we know that Jesus was using hyperbole because that was a common teaching technique which is proven by numerous Biblical examples, and because that is the only interpretation possible if Jesus was Divine. Many other Scriptures prove his divinity and by that the argument is won.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary