Few questions are asked more often than this one: are we living in the last days? Jesus Himself gave His followers signs to watch for, so the question is a fair one — He wanted us to read the times. But He gave those signs for a very particular purpose, and missing that purpose has led many astray. Here are the signs Scripture actually names, an honest word about what they mean, and what the Lord told us to do with them.
“What shall be the sign of thy coming?”
On the Mount of Olives the disciples asked Jesus directly: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3). His answer — the Olivet Discourse, recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 — is the fullest list of signs He ever gave. (The whole discourse is opened up on its own page: The Olivet Discourse.)
The signs Jesus named
- False christs and false prophets — “many shall come in my name… and shall deceive many.” Matthew 24:5, 11, 24
- Wars and rumours of wars, nation rising against nation. Matthew 24:6-7
- Famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in diverse places — “the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:7-8
- Persecution of believers, and the gospel hated among all nations. Matthew 24:9-10
- The love of many waxing cold as iniquity abounds. Matthew 24:12
- The gospel preached in all the world for a witness — “and then shall the end come.” Matthew 24:14
- Great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world. Matthew 24:21
- Signs in the sun, moon and stars, and distress of nations. Luke 21:25-26
Paul fills in the moral picture of the age’s close: “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud… lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). And Peter foretold the mockers: “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
The budding fig tree — Israel
Jesus gave one sign a special place: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24:32-33). The fig tree is an old picture of Israel, and for many readers the return of the Jewish people to their land — scattered for centuries, regathered and made a nation again in 1948 — is the budding of that tree in our own time. It is the sign this generation can see that no generation before 1948 could. (The debate over this reading is handled honestly on Israel in Bible Prophecy.)
Are we in the last days? An honest answer
Yes — in more than one sense. The New Testament says the “last days” began at Pentecost: Peter stood up and said the outpouring of the Spirit was “that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days” (Acts 2:16-17). So the whole church age is, biblically, the last days, and believers have lived in expectancy from the beginning. At the same time, many of the specific signs Jesus named appear to be converging and intensifying, and the fig tree has budded. This site reads the season as ripening and calls for readiness — while being honest that every generation has seen wars, famines and earthquakes, and that God’s patience is deliberate: He is “longsuffering… not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9).
Why no one can set the date
This must be said plainly, because so much harm has been done by ignoring it. Jesus forbade date-setting: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). After the resurrection the disciples asked about timing, and He answered, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7). Every confident prediction of the date has failed, and each failure gives scoffers reason to mock the promise itself. The signs are a season, not a schedule.
What the signs are for
Jesus never gave the signs so we could calculate; He gave them so we would watch. The command that follows the whole list is simply this: “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42), and “be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44). To watch is not to stare at headlines in fear; it is to live each day as one who expects to see Him, “looking for that blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). The one who waits like that is not shaken by the news, because his hope is not in the times but in the One who holds them.
Which leaves one question
If the signs mean anything, they mean this: do not put off the one decision that outlasts every headline. Whether the end of the world comes in your lifetime or the end of your world comes first, you want to be ready for the same moment. The way to be ready has not changed: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). Then watch — not anxiously, but with hope.