Are we Living in the Last Days?
Surely, we must be living in the last days. We haven’t seen fighting like this in the middle east in years. Riots, bombings, and attacks within Israel are a sure recipe for the Lord’s return. When you add Syria and Iran, plus Russia’s politics and pirating software, wow, we are for sure nearing the end of the days!
The spread of Covid and the aftermath of death, division, and demise in our country and around the world could be straight out of the book of Revelation. Covid also has allowed us to see how quickly “a mark” could be distributed to all those who comply with the government’s orders. We are for sure watching a one-world agenda beginning to take shape.
These are all signs of the times…or are they?
Before we get crazy, cover our cars in bumper stickers, quit our jobs, and move to the mountains, let’s first look at what Jesus meant we he said the “signs of the times.”
This passage comes from Matthew 16 when the Pharisees were looking to tempt Christ and asked for a sign from heaven. They wanted further “proof” of who He was. As they pressed Jesus, he said, “How is it you understand a red sky night is a delight and red sky in morning is a warning (paraphrase), but you don’t see the sign of the times you are living in? The sign was Jonah. He told them they were living in the days of Jonah. What does that mean?
He had already explained this in Matthew 12:40-41: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah [is] here.
The signs of the times had nothing to do with Jesus coming back, but they had everything to do with Jesus being present.
This is an incredible lesson for us today. People love to pursue the events in the book of Revelation, conspiracy theories, the anti-Christ, and facts like I mentioned above. The problem is we lose track of the fact that Christ is already here!
When Jesus talked about the end times he said it will be like the “Days of Noah,” not the “Days of Jonah.” He said, “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark… (Matt 24:38)”
It was a day I’ll never forget. I was sitting in my second-grade classroom watching PBS when suddenly the teacher told me to pack my bags. I was completely confused, and even more, when my parents walked into the classroom. We lived 45 minutes from the school so they never just “showed up.” They walked me out of school and told me we were going away for a little vacation (that had never happened either). That little getaway was great but the surprise is what made it so memorable. Mom and Dad showing up at school was the last thing I was looking for.
You see, no one will be looking, expecting, or prepping when Jesus returns. No books, math equations, or solar moon eclipses will give us any hint when this will be.
So instead of looking for the days of Noah, let us live like we are in the days of Jonah, and proclaim Christ!
Treg Spicer is pastor of Faith Baptist Church, Morgantown, WV. Follow his blog here. We republish his articles by permission.
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