Understanding the End-Times and Last Days

Image source: StJohnLutheranChurchBoerne

As with every major war, the invasion of Ukraine is causing many to ask once again, are we in the end-times, are we experiencing the last days? I have been asked this question in the past week, and here I share Biblical insight on the issue.

Permit me to start off with this illustration; I enjoy going on long road trips, sometimes involving 12 hours of driving, with my young family during holidays. To cope better during the 12 hour trip, I break it down into 4 stages, each stage of the trip lasting 3 hours. This means that after every 3 hours of driving, we take a break; we stop, and let the kids out of the car to stretch their legs and run around.

During the first stage or first 3 hours, we are all very excited; during the second and third stages of the journey, the kids are tired and bored; then in the last stage or last 3 hours, the endgame, we are thankful that it will soon be over. The Bible teaches that God’s engagement with humanity has been in stages.

In Heberews 1:1-2 (Living Bible) we read: “Long ago God spoke in many different ways to our fathers through the prophets, in visions, dreams, and even face to face, telling them little by little about his plans. But now in these days he has spoken to us through his Son to whom he has given everything and through whom he made the world and everything there is.”

This same Hebrews 1:1-2 in the King James Version (KJV) reads: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things…”

“These last days” is a stage in God’s plan – it is that stage where God’s engagement with us is no more through Moses, or Samuel, or Elijah, or John the Baptist, but through Jesus alone. We are in the last days, or last stage, or endgame of God’s plans, because there is nothing else after this other than the judgement.

The coming of Jesus put us into the endgame of God’s plan of salvation. So, we have been in the end-times or last days for the past 2000 years. The war in Ukraine, or a big earthquake somewhere in the world, did not put us into the end-times; from the moment Jesus came, we entered into the end-times.

May the Lord give us clarity in our understanding of the end-times, Amen!