SWING AND A MISS

When Christians hear the phrase “The Last Days” or “The End Times,” what images come to mind? For some, a clandestine government laboratory where a pseudo-scientist whose name rhymes with Dr. Ouchie is busily brewing the next super woo-flu that will kill a quarter of the population is well in view. For others, it could be a one-world cryptocurrency, planes falling from the sky, a maniacal and blood-lusting monarch, or the Romish pope (if you’re really old school). Whatever the case, for the vast majority of evangelicalism, we have utterly missed it. 

Now, when I say we have missed it, I don’t mean a booming foul ball ovah tha Green Monstah, kid! No. We missed it like an undersized middle schooler trying to make contact against a Randy Johnson slider. It wasn’t even close. 

Instead of the final fleeting moments at a cataclysmic end to human history, when the Bible talks about the “Last Days,” it means the last days of the old covenant era. It refers to the winding down of that redemptive epoch where priests mediated between God and us, temples were where you traveled to meet with God, and animal blood sacrifices stood between you and the almighty. The “Last Days” picture the close of that significant era and the dawning of the final chapter of human history, where the world will know God through His one and only Son. 

We are not waiting for that great eon to materialize in the uncertain future. The old covenant has been closed already, the new and final covenant era is fully here, and the events we will look at today, from Acts 2:17-21, will overwhelmingly confirm this. 

THE TEXT:

17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: 21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. – Acts 2:17-21 KJV

TEN PROOFS THE “LAST DAYS” ARE IN THE PAST

A BIT OF BACKGROUND:

Whenever one of the three great pilgrimage feasts prescribed in the Law occurred, Jerusalem’s population would swell from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million. This is because all Jewish males were required by the Law of God to attend these three festivals every year. And, since most Jewish males were also married with sizable families, the city would balloon up rather quickly. 

Intriguingly, history reveals that numerous Jewish pilgrims embarked on journeys from the farthest reaches of the known world to partake in these festivals. While some hailed from nearby Judea and Galilee, a significant contingent had settled in the distant corners of pagan cities, towns, and nations across the vast reaches of the Roman empire. This widely scattered group bore the title of “diaspora Jews,” they arrived in Jerusalem, each carrying the rich history and traditions of their native people and the languages from their far-flung homelands.

Now, on the morning of Pentecost, downtown Jerusalem would have been packed with no shortage of extra bodies. Once-quiet city blocks, home to only a handful of families, now teemed with hundreds, even thousands, of individuals pressed tightly together. According to the account of Luke, as the Spirit descended, a deafening crescendo of sound erupted, undoubtedly piquing the curiosity of neighbors, onlookers, and the naturally inquisitive. 

They found a group of very ordinary, a run-of-the-mill assortment of blue-collar Galileans. But, with one extraordinary twist. Instead of those Galileans praising God in Aramaic, the common tongue of the Jews, everyone present heard them praise God in their native tongue. For instance, picture those from Rome hearing hymns sung in Latin or Greek while those from Egypt listened to Peter’s preaching in the elegant flow of Coptic. Even pilgrims journeying from as far as Seluecia, modern-day Iraq, were met with the disciples speaking fluently in their Parthian tongue. They all collectively saw the ancient curse of Babel being miraculously reversed before their very eyes. Well… Not all of them.

Among them stood a few who remained untouched by the Holy Spirit’s power, hearing only an incomprehensible babel crescendoing from a cacophony of gibberish. Instead of recognizing the nature of this event as a fulfillment of eschatological prophecies, they hurled derision and ridicule upon the disciples, accusing them of inebriation. 

For the one group, God had chosen to freely give them the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That outpouring caused them to praise Him, to hear His praises in their own dialects and languages, and to go on to serve Him for a lifetime. For the skeptical party, God intentionally chose to withhold His Spirit, leading them from skepticism to utter ruination, poignantly demonstrating His total sovereignty over election and regeneration. 

To clear up any confusion between these two groups and let everyone in earshot know what was happening, Peter stood up and declared precisely what was happening from the prophet Joel. Within those very poignant words from Peter, we will see ten undeniable proofs that the end times have already come. 

This week, we will look at the first five that Peter mentions, describing the situation for those who love Christ and receive Him. They are the ones who will experience the Holy Spirit’s power, inherit the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, and they are the ones who will endure to the end, and be saved in those last days. 

Next week, we will look at the final five signs that Peter mentions from Joel’s prophecy, which concern those who hate Christ and reject Him. For them, incredible signs and wonders will demonstrate they are on the wrong side of the end-times debate. They will not make it alive into Jesus’ Kingdom; they will be buried in the ashes of Jerusalem, along with all of the other old covenant trappings and shadows. 

With that, let us look at the first five proofs that the “last days” concern the events in the first century, focusing on how that applies to believers and Christians. 

PROOF 1: PENTECOST SETS THE TIME FRAME

Peter addresses the concerns that they were drunk before the second breakfast by saying: “in the last days” God will pour out His Spirit “upon all flesh” (v. 17). Peter is acknowledging the loud sound they just heard and the miraculous gifting of this group to speak in each other’s languages, is proof that the outpouring of the Spirit had just happened, which makes this an eschatological event. Peter isn’t overlooking the scene unfolding beside Him to opine about something that will happen in the distant future. He claims that the last days had come upon them, and His chief evidence for this is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as Joel describes, just happened. Based on this, we can confidently say that the last days are not something we are waiting on but something that has already occurred. 

PROOF 2: YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTER WILL PROPHESY

Along with the loud whooshing clamor in the Upper Room and the Holy Spirit’s miraculous appointment of tongue speaking among the crowds, Peter also claims that young men and women will prophesy in the last days. According to Luke, Joel, and Peter, the onset of male and female prophets in the first century was one of the sure signs that the Old Covenant era was drawing to a close because, in these last days, God had chosen to speak through His Son (Hebrews 1:2). 

These men are clear: when you see young women and young men prophesying in the Spirit, then you will know that the temple, the priesthood, the ceremonial law, and the sacrificial system are on their last leg and the final chapter of redemption, where the world will be conquered by God’s reigning Son, will be fully inaugurated. For some time, both redemptive eras coexisted simultaneously. Meaning the new covenant era of Christ’s advancing Kingdom lived alongside the waning Herodian temple, the Aaronic priesthood, and the Mosaic system of sacrifice for about forty years (from the time of Christ’s ascension in AD 30 or 33 until the destruction of the temple in AD 70). 

That Biblical generation (about 40 years) was the God-appointed season where men and women could prophesy, which is precisely what occurred in the first century. For instance, when Jesus was born and brought into Jerusalem to be circumcised, he was greeted by an elderly woman named Anna, and an elderly man named Simeon, who were called prophets and ones with whom the Spirit of God was speaking (Luke 2:25, 36). Paul also alerts us that young men and young women were prophesying in the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:1-6) and needed specific instructions on how to implement this gift appropriately (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). Luke also tells us that Philip, who was one of the seven Hellenistic deacons, had daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9) and that there was a man named Agabus in the Christian Church who prophesied (Acts 11:27-28 and Acts 21:10-11).

Do not miss the fact that prophets had been notably missing from Judah since the death of Malachi, the final prophet. For four hundred years, God was silent, refusing to raise up new prophetic voices to speak to the people until the birth of His Son. When Christ was born, God unleashed the prophetic tongue once more and brought both men and women to speak prophecies in the early church, which again is a sign that the last days were occurring in the incredible events described in the first century. 

There is one last point to consider before moving along. When God raises up prophets, especially female prophetesses, it is always in transitional periods during the waning of epochs. Think about it like a book with various chapters. The nation of Israel went through a chapter called slavery, a chapter about being set free and given a new covenant, a chapter about the occupation in a new land, a chapter of rule by judges, a chapter that describes the rule by various kings, an exile, a homecoming, and a period of silence that lasted 400 years. During each of these chapters near the closing moments of each, God raises a prophetic voice to bring that chapter to a close. For instance, God raised up Moses and Miriam (both described as prophets) in the waning years of the slavery period, just before a new era of communal Torah observance, called the Mosaic covenant, began. The same is true for Deborah, a prophetess before the Lord, presiding over some of the final years of theocratic rule by judges just before the Jewish Monarchy was installed. This was also the case for Huldah, a prophetess who had a significant role to play in the life of Josiah, a mere 30-40 years before the end of the Monarchy and the beginning of exile (2 Kings 22). 

As the final grains of sand in the Old Covenant hourglass fell, it is not surprising that a proliferation of the prophetic occurred. It is also clear that this was a specific prophecy given by Joel, recounted by Luke, that confirms this would happen when the last days of the Old Testament had come. All of this points us to the fact that these prophets and prophetesses were a forty-year sign to the first-century believers and us that the last days had already begun and that a new era was dawning. That era is the epoch of Christ and His Kingdom, which we live in today.

PROOF 3: YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS

In the same way that a rise in prophetic activity would signal the last days of the Old Covenant era, visions among young men would also be used by God as a powerful testimony that the changing of ages was occurring. This is precisely what we see going down in the New Testament, and we do not need to speculate whether this sign was fulfilled in the first century. We know unequivocally that it was. 

For instance, while Paul was on his way to kill the believers hiding in Damascus, he was confronted by a dazzling vision of the resurrected Christ (Acts 9; 26:18-20), where he was told to go into the city and wait for a man named Ananias to pray for him. When he arrived, the Lord also gave Ananias a vision as well, comforting the reluctant disciple that it was His will that Paul be healed (Acts 9:10-18). Beyond this, Cornelius the centurion saw a vision (Acts 10:2-4), Peter saw a vision (Acts 10:9-23; 11:5), Paul had multiple additional visions (Acts 16:10; 18:9), and John the apostle wrote an entire book of the Bible, which is the book of Revelation, based on a vision (Revelation 9:17).

Peter cited visionary experiences as critical evidence that the last days of the Mosaic period were occurring in the first century. By the Lord’s grace, we have a plethora of evidence pointing to this being true. 

PROOF 4: OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS

In addition to noises, tongues, the outpouring of the Spirit, prophesying, and visions, God continued piling up evidence that the last days were happening more than 2000 years ago by citing the fact that the old men would be dreaming dreams. This also occurred in the New Testament period, with examples such as Joseph, who, like his Old Testament counterpart, had many dreams (Matthew 1:20-24; 2:13, 19, 22), the Magi (Matthew 2:12), and even Pilate’s wife, who is not a man, but was given a specific dream by God as a warning to her husband, Pilate (Matthew 27:19). Once more, we see a proliferation of these events in the first century, not so we will be confused on the timing of the last days, but so God can give us exacting clarity. 

PROOF 5: A JEWISH REVIVAL

Peter’s quotation from Joel 2 also states, in verse 18,: “On my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit.” When we realize that “my servant” is a common way for God to refer to Israel and Judah as a nation (Isaiah 41:8-9; 44:1; 49:3; 53:11; and Jeremiah 30:10), then we can understand that the prophecy of Joel is a prophecy, not just about the salvation of the nations, but also about the events beginning with a revived Jewish people who will have the Holy Spirit poured out upon them in the first century. 

This certainly did not happen in full at the events of Pentecost, nor during this forty-year window we have been describing. And, for that matter, Joel does not predict a monolithic revival in Judah where everyone is converted to Jesus. That did not happen in history, and that is not at all what Joel says. When he describes the revival of Judah, he talks about it like there is a remnant that survives while the majority of the unfaithful Jews will perish. For instance, in Joel 2:32, the prophet says: “For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.” 

Joel tells us that God will set apart a remnant of Jews to be a part of His elect people that will eventually take over the entire world. This happened most assuredly since the vast majority of the first-century church was Jewish converts to Jesus, beginning with the 3000 who were cut to the heart while listening to Peter preach (Acts 2:41). A future revival of Israel may still be coming. We pray to the Lord it does. But, it is no small matter that droves of Jewish people began worshiping a resurrected man named Jesus Christ in the first-century city of Jerusalem. Let us not take for granted how shocking that would have been at that time and in that context. 

CONCLUSION

As we have seen from this text, Joel lays out five initial pieces of evidence that the first-century people were living in the last days. These passages have proven that the “last days” are not esoteric events in OUR future but clear events within the forty-year future of Peter and the first-century church. We have seen how the glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit caused men and women to hear Peter, who was preaching in a foreign language, perfectly and clearly in their mother tongue. We have seen how the Holy Spirit’s outpouring caused His people to prophesy, His elect young men to dream dreams, predestined old men to hear visions, and a remnant of Judeans to come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for their salvation. 

The last days began in the first century and ended with the end of Jerusalem and her temple. That isn’t to claim that the Bible contains nothing in our future; it does. But when we consider this text and the ones that have come before, we can conclusively conclude that these events have already happened. Until next time, enjoy living in the last chapter of human history and get to work building Jesus’ Kingdom.

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