Do You Feel Like We Are Living In The End Days?
Over the past 3 months I have repeatedly said, “Surely we are living in the end days.” Another phrase I have said over and over again, “I have never seen or experienced anything like this in my lifetime.”
Are We Living In The End Days?
Things are happening in our nation that I never thought I would see happen here. Some things made me sad, some scared, and some mad. Consequently, for us as Christians we struggle to know what a right response looks like. Do we go along to get along? Do we stand strong and fight against wrongs? I guess if you boil it down to one question, that question would be, “What in the world are we supposed to do or say in times like these, especially if we are living in the end days?”
When I think about how to answer that question from the standpoint of what the Bible teaches us, I realize the difficulty of answering that question comes from the tension of what we see in Scripture.
One of the first Scriptures that comes to mind is the story in Luke 9:51-56. The disciples and Jesus were on their way to Jerusalem and were passing through Samaria. There were people there who did not receive Jesus and it made the disciples fighting mad. They were so mad they asked Jesus if He wanted them to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. Luke 9:55 says that Jesus rebuked them and said,
“You do not know what manner of Spirit you are of.
For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’
Luke 9:55
Now let’s don’t forget that Jesus spoke the harshest to the religious leaders during His earthly ministry.
Here are a couple of examples:
Matthew 21:12-13 – Jesus’ anger in the temple over it becoming a “den of thieves”
Matthew 23:13-29 – Jesus used the phrase “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” six times.
So it sounds like Jesus was the most merciful to those who did not know Him, and even rejected Him, rather than to those who were supposed to be His people.
Now let’s go back to another story of Jesus sending out His disciples in Matthew 10:5-15. He told them when anyone didn’t receive them or their message, to shake the dust off their feet and leave. However, He assured them that there would be a day of judgment for those who rejected them and their message. Jesus follows that with this explanation in Matthew 10:16 to his disciples.
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Matthew 10:16
Then there is a long discourse of Jesus teaching His disciples about coming rejection and persecution. And in Matthew 10:34 Jesus said,
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.
I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”
Matthew 10:34
With all that laid out on the table, we see the tension of what we are faced with in our day and time of how we should live and what we should say as Christians.
I personally can’t help but believe that we are living in the end days. I know people have thought that in every generation, but I’m like, “How much worse can it get before we are sure we have arrived?”
Matthew 24 gives us a list of signs for the end times.
Jesus followed his end times signs teaching with these words,
“Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves,
you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near–at the doors!
Matthew 24:32-33
When I wrote my Bible study, Not Home Yet: A Glimpse of Revelation’s Treasures, I walked away with an extraordinary understanding I had not had before. I had always seen and understood Revelation as a book that revealed God’s wrath poured out on mankind and the earth for the evil proliferated throughout history until the final days. However, I had not seen the desire of God’s heart laced throughout the stories of His wrath. Now I see that God’s desire to redeem mankind and bring us all into His kingdom is no less demonstrated in His wrath than in His loving sacrifice on the cross.
Ultimately God’s heart for redemption seems to supersede everything else. So what does that look like? I think we can go back to Matthew 10:16 and see how He sent those first disciples out into the world still stands for us today.
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Matthew 10:16
The term “as” tells us that this is a metaphor. Jesus sends us out like sheep. The original language term for wolves is a metaphor for cruel, greedy, rapacious (meaning aggressively greedy or grasping), destructive men.
And He gives us instruction of how to “be” in the midst of that situation.
Be wise as serpents
Be harmless as doves
Let’s look at “Be wise”
Wise used here means prudent, sensible, practically wise in relationships with others. Ironically, that term is used a few times in the New Testament in an evil sense. When it is used in a negative way it is based on someone thinking they are wise because of self-complacency.
Now let’s look at “Be harmless”
First let me tell you that the meaning of harmless may surprise you, because it did me. Harmless in the original Greek language means without any mixture of deceit, without any defiling materials.
Harmless isn’t about physical gentleness but about a heart of purity and truth.
So if we boil all this down to its essence, for us to live wise and in purity and truth in our world today, we will only find what we need to do that in a relationship with the One who gives us wisdom and makes us pure and who is the Truth. As we seek Jesus through prayer and His word, He reveals to us how He wants us living in the end days. And one thing is for sure, the closer we are to living in the end days the more we will need the exceeding greatness of God’s power in our lives.
I want to recommend a movie my husband and I just watched and we loved it. We watched it on Amazon Prime, but I think there are other options of ways to watch it. The movie is titled, Before The Wrath. It was such a beautiful picture of the Lord’s return!