What Are The Last Days?

As a new believer it freaked me out when I heard someone on Christian television, in fact, what is said on Christian television freaks a lot of people, when someone said we are living in the last days. I have heard preachers and even deacons say that. When I found out what the last days were, which is, the times when Jesus is drawing near to "rapture" his church, it amazed me that Christians are boldly proclaiming Jesus is returning soon so get ready, which Jesus is returning and we should live our lives for God's glory as if was the last.

We all know in the last few years, decades more like it, there have been bold proclamations that Christ on a particular date. Who can forget Harold Camping last year sayings Jesus will return on May 21 and when that did not happen he said it will indeed happen on October 21, which again did not. Hal Lindsey in the 1970's wrote a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, which predicted the "rapture" will happen in somewhere in the 1980's. Neither did the rapture happen nor one of his predictions in the book.

There are many Bible teachers that proclaim we are in the last days. Are they correct? Yes, but not in what they maybe thinking. So what are the last days and why do we say we are in the last days? First of all, Jesus said no one knows the time of his return (Matthew 24:36). He told his disciple before ascending into heaven, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority" (Acts 1:7). So this is not an entry to put my name in the hat on when Jesus will return because God knows that and it is not our job to guess.

The last days is the period of time between Jesus' first coming (his virgin birth) to the time of his second coming. As Ed Stetzer would says, "We are living in between in the times." Now for those who may disagree, which when it comes to Jesus' return, most Christians will disagree with one another, let me show you some Biblical support regarding why the last days have been upon us for the last 2,000 years.

First, after the Holy Spirit came upon the believers at Pentecost, Peter gets up and starts preaching one of the greatest sermons ever, the one that God used to get the church started. He quotes from the prophet Joel, who said:

‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:17-21)

So when the Holy Spirit came on the believers, it was a mark of the last days.

Second, the writer of Hebrews said:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Jesus has spoken to us, not only in person during his earthly ministry, but also through the written word of God and the Holy Spirit, who is to remind us of the things Jesus taught us.

Now we know we know we are in the last days, remember one thing, Christ's return could happen within a year, 10 years, or even 1,000 years from now. We just do not know and that is the hope we have as Christians that Christians have to Jesus will return and make this world the way God always wanted it.