It's the end of the end times.
"You're stupid. You people have been saying it's the end times, like, forever."
True. That is because it HAS been the end times like forever. At least two thousand years. They began when Jesus ascended, and will end when Jesus returns. (Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2)
The last days is like a woman who is pregnant. Her baby grows inside her, and as the weeks progress, she shows more and more evidence of her imminent state. (in today's terms, 'baby bump'.) As she nears the end of her pregnancy, she develops other signs that her term is nearing the end. Her body aches. Her stomach grows. Her doctor visits become more frequent.
Then there is a final sign, the final sign that the baby's birth is nearing. The pregnant mom's water breaks. This is the moment when it becomes evident in the long gestation that the final phase has been entered. There is pain, blood, mess, and screaming.
Then the baby is born. New life has arrived. (Revelation 21:1)
The gestation is the end time, or last days. This is the time that Jesus is building His church. (Matthew 16:18, Romans 11:25, Luke 21:24). The water breaking is the rapture. The blood, mess and screaming (labor pangs) is the Tribulation. (Matthew 24:8). The new baby is the new earth and the Kingdom, fresh and new.
Jesus likened the last days as to the woman's pregnancy, and specifically to labor pangs. In Matthew 24, Jesus answered the disciples specifically as to three three things they were wondering:
"As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray." (Matthew 24:3-5).
They asked --
1. When will it happen?
2. What will be the sign of your coming?
3. What will be the sign of the end of the age?
Jesus said no on knows when, so we can get that question out of the way fast. The disciples were waiting for Messiah and of the Kingdom that had been promised them. They had learned as Jews that when Messiah came, He would institute the covenant promises, so naturally the disciples were eager for it all to start. What they did not know (but should have) is that His coming would be in two phases, Lamb and Lion. Suffering Servant and Sovereign King. So they asked excitedly in Matthew 24 and several other times too, "Is it now? When? When? When?"
What we know from our vantage point is that Jesus has been building the church, growing His bride for these last two thousand years. The disciples thought it was all going to take place right then, and they didn't have the church on their radar.
As for question #2, Jesus went on in Matthew 24 with all the signs. These are signs of His immediate coming, His return after the 7 year Tribulation. Matthew 24 is a Tribulation chapter relating to the Jews. These are signs the Tribulation saints will be looking at and waiting for His return on the Day of the LORD.
I think we are moments away from the water breaking. I really do. I think we are in the last moments of the last days.
I could be wrong. But the rapture is always imminent. Always has been, always will be, until it happens.
"And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen." (Romans 16:20)
"Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus" (Titus 2:13).
"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the Day approaching" (Heb 10:24-25).
"For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry" (Heb 10:37).
Here is the plea:
Do you know where you would go if you were to die in the next few moment of time?
Do you know what would be happening if all the true Christians suddenly disappeared and the world went to hell (literally. That's not a swear. The Tribulation is a time hell comes to earth). Well, do you?
No?
You can. You can know where you will go when you die. If you repent of your sins (be sorry for them, truly sorry that you've done things that disobey Holy God), you can ask Jesus to forgive them. He is the resurrected Lamb, whom God exhausted all His wrath for sins. Pleased with Jesus's sacrificial death, He raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at His right hand in heaven. Now people who are sorry for their sins can come into heaven under Jesus, since He already took your wrath for your sins for you.
Once you do that you become born again, born from above, you will go to heaven when you die.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
If you do not repent, and do not ask Jesus to forgive your sins, and are not born again, when you die you will go to hell. That's because you still have a debt to pay- that wrath. You didn't want to come in under Jesus, who already blocked God's wrath from you. So now you have to take it, and that will happen forever in hell.
It's much better to get your sin-debt to Jesus taken care of now, before you die. Christians have been saying this for two thousand years, and how much closer is the kingdom today than yesterday? Closer.
"and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
"You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:8)
Don't wait until tomorrow. You may not have a tomorrow.
"Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14)
Eternity is long.
"It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?" Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, excerpt)
Repent. The end is near.
