Are We Living in the Last Days? (Part 1 of 3)

Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Wildfires. Mass shootings. And a power-hungry man in North Korea with nuclear weapons.

In recent months these, combined with all sorts of other supposed signs, have generated a good bit of speculation about the end of the world.

We've been here before. In 1999, for example, as we approached the turn of the millennium, a large billboard along Interstate 85 in South Carolina depicted a hand reaching down out of the clouds. The caption announced, "Jesus is coming for a soul near you." A survey conducted by Time and Cable News Network revealed that 20 percent of adults in the U.S. believed that 2000 would mark the beginning of the end. And who could have missed the news about the mass suicide of the apocalyptic Heaven's Gate cult?

The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse, Albrecht Durer, 1498

Most of the excitement, then and now, can be traced to various millennial views, especially premillennialism. What is that?

"Millennium" stems from the two Latin words for "one thousand" and "year." Premillennialism is the belief that Christ's return will precede His literal reign on earth for 1000 years. This teaching in part derives from a literal reading of Revelation 20.

During the 20th century, a relatively new variety of this doctrine--called dispensational premillennialism--was popularized by a number of preachers who effectively used the media of print, radio, and television. The success of their work can be seen in America's reaction to the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and '91. During the height of that conflict, 15 percent of people in the United States believed that a literal Battle of Armageddon, a hallmark of dispensational teaching, was just around the corner. (See George H. Gallup Jr., Religion in America [Princeton, NJ: Princeton Religion Research Center, 1996], p. 26).

Another distinction of the dispensational view revolves around the expression "the last days." Based on a certain reading of Matthew 24, some taught that this biblical phrase points to the days immediately preceding the Second Coming. According to them, "the last days" will include many signs, including wars, famines, and earthquakes.

But is this what the Bible teaches? It would require a book to present a full-length review of dispensational premillennialism. The more modest goal of this series of posts is to identify what the Bible means by "the last days."