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Are these the last days?

I'm always a bit doubtful when I hear Christians predicting that Christ is going to return soon. After all, they've been saying that for centuries. Sure there are signs that we are in the 'last days'. That's no surprise. The coming of the Holy Spirit is recorded in Acts 2 as a fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, and that was a 'last days' prophecy. So, we have been living in the last days for 2000 years - and who's to say for how much longer?

Maybe the real question is, 'Are these the last last days?' Are we near the time of the end?

We can look to biblical prophecy for an answer, but it's generally risky to interpret prophecy out of its context. And by definition, the context of the last last prophecies will only appear in the last last days, when they are about to be fulfilled. Until then, Christian 'teachers' will continue to make a name for themselves with weird and not-very-wonderful interpretations of the more obscure revelations. (I remember listening to one brother preach for an hour on how Russia was going to invade Israel for its oranges!)

That's why we must not rely solely on particular interpretations of Scripture. We need to ask some other questions as well. Like, what is the Holy Spirit saying in our generation? What are the prophets saying today? And we need to look for fig-tree signs - things that are happening in our world today. And like the people on the Day of Pentecost, we need to ask 'what does this mean?' And just as important, 'what then should we do?'.

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