Are We in the End Times?

Jared:

That a lot of people seem to really want to know about that I think is kind of funny because I think it's an obvious answer, but it'd be interesting to hear your perspective on it.

Jared:

So are we in the end times, Pastor?

Pastor David:

We have been since Jesus proclaimed it. So for the last 2000 years we've been in the end times. But I know that the question is more eschatological in the sense that they're saying is this the culmination? Which is really the language. Culmination of the end of time. So I probably would want to... I could stop right there and just say, "Okay, that's enough." But that doesn't take up five minutes or whatever.

Pastor David:

But I would say if people are looking, and they are. They're looking for... Eschatology now is going to... In fact, it's been interesting to me that eschatology is driving vaccination thoughts. It's driving thoughts in relationship to our political structures.

Jared:

I was going to say, who's president, who's not president.

Pastor David:

It's all... And we bring these spiritual parallels and could this be the antichrist, could this be the false prophet? And we're constantly bouncing off this eschatology to frame how we're relating to our current situation. And as Americans, the thing that we are obsessed with, at least some are obsessed with, is the role that America plays in the end times. Is America a thing? Is America not a thing? What's God's role with America? Blah, blah, blah in relationship to this. So I think having an historical apocryphal or apocalyptic understanding of things is super critical.

Pastor David:

I think when we don't understand the scriptures historically and in context, then it gets really- It becomes the wild west in modern day eschatology. So for me, if you were to say, "How do you frame this?"

Pastor David:

I'd go to Matthew 24. I'd say if you were to look at the language of Jesus when he talks about the disposition of the end times, when he talks about... And so there's a dichotomy in his communication, because in one context, he's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. This is what's going to lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem. And then he clearly goes into a what we would call a last day's language. So some of it is the set of, "Hey, when you see this coming, grab your kids and go." Because it's going to happen.

Pastor David:

And in those instances he's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, but then he boils it down. He starts talking about what the church is going to look like. Starts talking about the general attitude of people. And we give way too much stock in my opinion. We give way too much stock to political and economic environments for our eschatological communications and understand.