Jesus and his apostles (the real ones) gave a clear picture of societal and cultural conditions which believers would experience in the times before Jesus’ return. Some like to point out that New Testament references of the “last days” or “the day of the Lord” are referring to the entire time period from the resurrection of Christ, or from Pentecost onwards. We’ve always been in the “last days” they say. In a way that’s true, but there’s more to come. Go to any passage of Scripture where someone is speaking of end times things and you’ll find they’re speaking of the future, not their own time.
THE FUTURE DAY OF THE LORD. For example, when Peter speaks of “the Day of the Lord” (2 Peter 3:10) he tells us that “the elements will melt with fervent heat”. So far as I can tell that hasn’t happened yet. The “uniformitarian” view is related to the mistake Peter warned of, when he wrote:
“… there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation'” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
In other words, Peter says there will be a period of stasis, but don’t let that fool you into thinking there will be no change and no end to our present world.
Warnings given by prophecy were of extra-ordinary times and conditions which would stand out from the norm. Those of us who’ve been around for more than a couple of decades can see a fundamental and profound change in the way people live, act and think and in the way the world works, and for the most part it’s for the worse. We’ve lost unity, commitment, meaning and community. We’ve lost conscience and respect. It’s all being taken from us by people who think their twisted views will make the world a better place.
LOVE. An often-overlooked prophecy is contained in Jesus’ “Olivet Discourse”:
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
We could identify Jesus’ warning of love turning cold as being partly a prediction of unbelief: love for Christ and for God would fade, and unbelief would be widespread. This would make perfect sense, and it’s just one of the many indicators that present day “prophecies” of a world-wide revival are questionable to say the least. There may be revivals – even regional or world-wide – but New Testament figures including Jesus were clear that His return will be at a time of unbelief and rebellion against the Christian gospel.
Considering other prophecies of end-times events in the Bible, it seems clear to me that Jesus isn’t only speaking of unbelief, but of the fading of human love among believers and unbelievers. It’s been my observation over decades that this phenomenon is growing exponentially, at least in the West. Families break up with regularity and never speak to each other again. Family members move hundreds and thousands of miles away from each other. Many young people don’t know who their fathers are: the dads have had no integrity or commitment, and very liberal people have stopped us saying that they should.
DIVISION. Where there were once close communities people do not know names of the people living next door to them, and don’t care. The movement of people across nations and continents, and the forced mixing of totally diverse cultures creates huge divisions in society.
Take a little wander on social media and you will see a dearth of love and respect. In its place is bitterness, spite, hate, argumentation, vile comments and ridicule. The list of destructive traits we could identify is almost endless, but Paul summed them up well in the first century:
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-4).
AN UPSIDE-DOWN MORALITY. God said through the prophet Isaiah:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).
There was a time when if someone did wrong to another person they recognized that they had done wrong and felt some level of remorse: that’s all changed. In the “iron and clay” of the West, a considerable and growing portion of society believes that killing, as in the case of Charlie Kirk, is justifiable in order to get rid of someone who doesn’t fit the new woke mold or go along with the new socio-political agenda. The October 7th massacre of 1200 civilian Jews was deserved, in the eyes of such people. Murder rates are shockingly high in the cities of “civilized” first-world nations, and liberal politicians and judges look for chances to give the killers a free pass. Giving gender changes to children is called “good” by an increasing number of people and preventing them is called “evil”. Abortion on demand is defended in the highest courts. People routinely live in one adulterous and immoral relationship after another with no apparent disturbance in their conscience.
The social conditions prophesied in Revelation portray a culture in which immorality is defended vigorously with no shame. In the midst of Tribulation events, those who have rejected God will have no intention of changing their ways:
“And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Revelation 9:21).
LAWLESSNESS. Paul calls this future reality a time of “lawlessness”. It’s a rebellion against the moral and natural laws of God:
“For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
The events Paul was speaking of in the above chapter are associated with the return of Jesus Christ, not with first century realities. Therefore it would be wise of us to be alert to such conditions and the potential of such events.
THE TWO ENEMIES OF END-TIMES HUMANITY. People will love evil and sin in those last days, our Bible tells us, but there will be something they hate. Besides their rejection of the true God, they will see Christians and Jews as their enemies. This is documented in Revelation chapters 12 and 13, in which believers are seen to be attacked and even executed for failing to go with the flow. Notice that there is one world religion missing from the list of enemies. Also notice here that “the woman” of chapter 12 is not the Church: the two are distinct, even at this time:
“But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon had hurled out of his mouth. So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 12:16-17).
THE GULLIBLE AND THE OFFENDED. Along with the huge phenomenon of deception which I wrote about in the last part of this series inevitably come the gullible: those who fall to deception. With multiculturalism has come a culture-wide confusion of beliefs, so that even in the Church you will find people who view faith as a personal collection of personal tastes and ideas, rather than on gauging truth by the word of God:
“For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:3).
Today people believe what takes their fancy. The believe what they want to believe. They aren’t interested in the Christian faith which has historical and archaeological evidence to support it, but they’ll believe and take on board whatever takes their fancy, even if many of those ideas are contradictory and mutually exclusive.
ANOTHER SPIRIT. There’s “another spirit” sweeping the world, posing as the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 11:4); making a mockery of the Spirit of God; belittling the power of God and making great claims about things which are of no consequence in relation to those seen in the life of Jesus and his real apostles. The spirit of today is providing people with a false spirituality which appeals to the senses and fallible emotion and is not of real faith. See my posts on the Holy Spirit, especially the gift of tongues.
UNBELIEF, NOT REVIVAL. Even in the Church Jesus’ warnings are commonly ignored. He said that there will be a time of such testing that people will fall away from the faith:
“And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:10-12).
This warning tells us again how false are the modern so-called “prophecies ” of world-wide revival as a prelude to the return of Christ: they deny Scripture. In truth God is calling a people out of the world – he isn’t looking to reform it. This prophecy of Jesus lines up with something Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in warning of future times:
“Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
This “rebellion” as the NIV words it is said in the NASB to be an “apostasy” and in the KJV is called a “falling away”. It refers to a falling away from the faith. The hard times of Tribulation will cause those who have a shallow or unreal faith to abandon it. It’s a means of separating genuine lovers of the gospel from those who are in it for the ride, for one reason or another, and it reflects the challenge given in the gospels and in the book of Revelation to endure the trials to come:
“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:12-13 NKJV).
CONDITIONAL LOVE. You can be loved if you follow the politically correct line of thought and life, so that even in those last days of human government there will be, as there is now, a form of “love” for people who agree to think and live by the new rules of godlessness. The motivation for this kind of love, says Jesus, is of no value to God:
“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”(Matthew 5:46).
Paul described those who live by this kind of love as “people pleasers” rather than God pleasers. Being a people pleaser is not pleasing to God:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 