When Do The “Last Days” Really Begin? (Part 2)

INTRODUCTION

As you will remember from Part 1, a great noise exploded from the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Within those walls, a hurricane-like wind came rushing in, a torch-like flame settled onto the crown of each disciple’s head, and a crowd began forming to make sense of the confusion. Amid this pandemonium, all of the elect believers in the group, meaning everyone whom God had chosen for salvation, began hearing Peter preaching in their native language, causing wonder to come over the crowd. For the ones whom God chose and poured out His Holy Spirit, this was an exhilarating affair, watching the plague of Babel dissolve right before their very eyes. 

But, men and women were standing there that day who were not elect. There were some whom God did not pour out His Spirit and for whom this dramatic display was patently absurd. They even began hurling the accusation that the recipients of the Spirit must be inebriated from drinking too liberally of spirits. This was a terrible mischaracterization. And suggesting the Holy Spirit’s work was on the same level of foul inebriation was likely a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that Jesus previously warned about. 

Against this context, Peter began preaching from a text in Joel that perfectly fit the situation and precisely addressed both groups. Last week, we saw the situation. God was bringing the Old Covenant period of a temple, a priesthood, a sacrificial system, kosher laws, and clean and unclean statues to an abrupt halt. He ended that transitional era to bring about the final epoch of human history, where His Son, the true and better Adam, would recapture everything the first Adam lost. Because of this, that old Kingdom of types and shadows needed to go away because our Lord would not allow any rival kingdoms to become a distraction from His purposes. 

With that, Joel also declares that there will be dramatic signs in the heavens, on the earth, and among the people of God, showcasing exactly when the last days began. According to Joel, “the last days” were not a future end of human history but the final moments of the Mosaic era, and when that glorious era faded away, there would be undeniable signs proving it was happening. As we saw last week, some of those signs applied to the believers, to the ones who experienced the outpouring of the Spirit, spoke in tongues, prophesied, had visions, and dreamed dreams. These signs would confirm that the old boat was sinking and they were on the new covenant raft. Today, we will look at the five remaining symbols, the ones that are signs of judgment for all those who have rejected Christ, and we will understand how all of this proves the last days Peter, Luke, and Joel were speaking about already occurred. 

A NOTE ABOUT EARTHLY SIGNS AND HEAVENLY WONDERS

For many, Acts 2:19 guarantees that the events described concern things that have not already occurred. They will tell you that the first-century sky over the top of Jerusalem wasn’t filled with any significant wonders, the earth during those forty years was not full of various perturbations and signs, that the blood, fire, and smoke have no historical referent, and the sun and moon did not go dark and stop casting their light. Because, they say, these things have not yet happened; we cannot be living in the last days, and anyone who says so is full of malarkey. 

One need only reply to that assertion with: “Hold my beer.”

PROOF 6: THE SKY WILL BE FILLED WITH WONDERS 

Since encountering the Jewish historian Josephus, I continue to be amazed and shocked that so few modern Christians know of him or have considered what he has said. Josephus was a pharisee and statesman living after the ascension of Christ, who witnessed the entire war that brought the Jewish temple to smoldering rubble. He had a front-row seat to these events, and what he records should (at a minimum) cause a few eyebrows to stand on end. 

For instance, concerning wonders in the sky, Josephus (who was no friend of Christians and indeed not a believer in Jesus) records several incredible events worth noting. The first Josephus describes is the appearance of a comet in the sky, which hung forebodingly over Jerusalem just before the war broke out (“The Jewish War,” Book 6, Chapter 5, Section 3). At that time, comets signaled political instability and the changing of power dynamics within an empire, which is why some theorize that Nero, as his power and sanity were crumbling around him, ended his life after spotting Halley’s comet in the Italian sky. Josephus records that this great sign in the heavens hung over Jerusalem as an omen of judgment against her. 

This is how Josephus described it:

“Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers (false messiahs), and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.” – Jewish Wars, 6.5.3

Josephus tells us terrifying signs flashed in the sky over Jerusalem, signaling to any discerning person that Judah was doomed. While it is hard to imagine a sword-shaped visage hanging over the city of Jerusalem in the months leading up to the war or a comet that hung in the sky for a year, Josephus was an eyewitness and proof that the kind of wonders required to prove our hypothesis were present during those years. 

Another sign haunted the skies in Jerusalem in the months leading up to their downfall. While the sky should have been filled with nighttime darkness, a strange and unnatural light came out of nowhere and shone upon the temple and the altar with noonday intensity. While many in Jerusalem took this spectacle as a positive sign from God that the Jews would be victorious in overthrowing Rome, Josephus reminds us that judgment was coming. Like a spotlight shining down from a helicopter on a fleeing criminal, this light was no good news to the people who had become God’s enemies. 

He tells us:

“Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it.” – Jewish Wars, 6.5.3

Again, this qualifies as the kind of events that would need to be present to confirm our thesis. And, in case you’re wondering, these events are not recorded in Scripture because the canon was closed. Some attest that New Testament books, such as Revelation, were written after Jerusalem’s fall. But, in recent scholarship, there has also been convincing proof that these books were written before the Jewish war began (See “Before Jerusalem Fell, by Ken Gentry). Either way, in Josephus, we have fascinating and corroborating evidence that the skies were filled with wonders, proving that these forty years of overlap between eras (from 30 AD to 70 AD) were the last days that had been foretold. 

Before moving along to the following proof, I want to leave you with another cosmological wonder that Josephus tells us about. He says:

“Besides these (signs), a few days after that feast, on the twentieth day of the month, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities.” – Jewish Wars, 6.5.3

While we dare not speculate what Josephus and his contemporaries saw, it was clear that they saw something terrifying. Something that made them hold their bated breath and freeze with paralyzing bewilderment. Josephus felt that writing about it would entirely damage his credibility as a historian and only included it because so many other eyewitnesses also saw it. Again, those who were discerning during those days understood Jerusalem to be totally surrounded. 

The irony is that so many evangelical Christians today will ignore these events as fantastical or will never know about them because of uninterested ignorance. Joel declares there will be wonders in the earth and sky over Jerusalem, and there were. Peter warned the men and women of Jerusalem that these events were coming upon them soon, even detailing the exact sequence of signs, but in their hardness of heart, they remained enemies of Christ and opposed to the things of God. In the same way, God poured out His Spirit on His people; He poured out His wrath upon His enemies, and they were totally consumed. 

We do not need to keep kicking the eschatological can further into the future to find events that perfectly correlate with what Peter is preaching. We already have these events in the past. Let us rejoice and be glad in what God has said. 

PROOF 7: THE EARTH WILL BE FILLED WITH SIGNS 

While I have written about the evidence for this elsewhere, let me quickly catch you up. First, Jesus predicted that there would be various signs that were happening on the earth in the generation that followed His ascension, which would confirm to His disciples that they were living in the last days (Matthew 24:34). As we have shown in other blogs and episodes, every single one of those signs happened during the forty-year window we are describing. For helpful reference, go here if you want to know about the rise of false messiahs, the sign of wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines, extreme persecutions and tribulations, the abomination of desolation, and various other signs of the times that Jesus was warning them about. 

Second, we have also carefully detailed the extra-biblical evidence of strange signs and peculiar wonders happening in and around Jerusalem in the moments before her destruction. For instance, in the moments immediately preceding the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, where the city will be set to flames and utterly destroyed, Josephus tells us of a heifer that gave birth to a lamb. 

“At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.” – Jewish Wars, 6.5.3

While the historian does not pause to give commentary or opinion on this account, the fantastical nature of it should not be overlooked. He reports that a female cow gave birth to an actual lamb as it was being led to the slaughter. Strange signs and mysterious events like these ought to have been viewed with terror by the Jewish people. It seems, however, that they simply pressed on and ignored them or interpreted them as signs of God’s favor. 

Another sign occurring on the earth around Jerusalem’s downfall was the supernatural opening of her gates, which stoked fear in everyone with discernment in the city. Josephus tells us

“Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men… was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came here upon running to the captain of the temple and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshadowed the desolation that was coming upon them.” – Jewish Wars, 5.5.3

Josephus and the men of learning in the city understood the point of these signs. This is clear evidence that God had turned against them and left them vulnerable to their enemies camped outside the city walls. And while this seemed clear to the discerning in that day, countless evangelicals today dismiss the fulfillment of these prophecies in favor of uncertain futurism, which, to me at least, seems more improbable than a cow giving birth to a goat, or something like that. 

Perhaps the most astounding sign happening on the ground level in Jerusalem was when many men heard a mysterious voice announcing that the removal of the divine presence was upon them. 

Here is how Josephus recounts it. 

“Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.” – Jewish Wars, 5.5.3

Earthquakes generally signaled divine punishment was coming upon a people. If that was not clear enough, when the temple priests felt the earth shaking beneath their feet, they also heard a multitude of heavenly beings shouting, “Let us remove hence,” which could mean nothing less than their removal from office, the end of the temple era, and the decimation of their holiest building. 

The prophetic writing on the wall was just about thoroughly dried; the signs of their demise that Joel described were occurring before their eyes, yet they ignored them to the bitter end! My prayer is that Christians would give this evidence an honest look. We are not waiting for the last days to arrive; the last days for the old covenant period have come, the entire temple and sacrificial religion of the Jews have been put firmly under Jesus’ feet, and we are living in the glorious reign of Christ as He recaptures this world for the glory of God. Stop looking for antichrists and signs and get to work in the Kingdom you have been privileged to enter. 

For now, let us continue. 

PROOF 8: BLOOD, FIRE, AND SMOKE 

Peter, quoting from Joel 2, claims that the last days of the Biblical Jewish era will be accompanied by a loud sound, rushing wind, tongues of fire, men miraculously speaking each others languages, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, men and women prophesying, young men seeing visions, old men dreaming dreams, a revival of the Jewish remnant, and also signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, which describe the punishment coming on all who reject God’s Son. For them, there will be great bloodshed, their city will be set on fire, and the billowing smoke from its ashes will go up to the heavens as testimony of their crimes against their God. Blood, fire, and smoke were explicitly involved in Jerusalem’s downfall and positive proof that Joel’s prophecy and Peter’s sermon came true. 

OF BLOODSHED

For instance, in the months just before the Roman siege penetrated the city walls, Josephus describes the most awful bloodshed imaginable. The sad irony is that many Jews were not murdered by the advancing Roman legions but were killed by each other in a deranged and cursed madness. God had removed from them their sanity, and they were perpetrating the most wanton and psychopathic violence upon themselves. When the Romans finally entered the city, the pools of Jewish blood still puddled and splashed with coagulated tackiness. 

While I cannot quote at length all of the horrifying bloodshed that befell the city, perhaps I can pull a few phrases from the trainwreck Josephus is describing. He tells us that robbers descended upon the city and put numerous people to death (The Jewish War, 4.6.1). He tells us that before the Romans even made entry, the city fell into a civil war where the dead bodies were simply piled up to bake and stink in the noonday sun (The Jewish War,” 5.1.6). Later, when both sides were sufficiently weakened, a group of opportunistic Idumeans (Herod the Great’s people) filled the temple courtyard with blood from five thousand bodies (The Jewish War,” 6.5.3). When the Romans finally joined in the slaughter, Josephus tells us that the factious Jews that remained were murdered everywhere, so much so that their blood ran in streams down from the highest parts of the city into the lower portions (The Jewish War,” 5.13.6). He tells us that the holy temple, which was esteemed by all men throughout the empire, had the: “blood of all sorts of dead carcasses standing in lakes in the holy courts themselves.” (The Jewish Wars, 5.13.1) and that the temple courtyard appeared like a burying ground for the dead (The Jewish War,” 5.13.4). He tells us that the people were in such bitter hunger and madness that they were eating from trash heaps and drinking from the pools of blood left by the slaughter of their countrymen (The Jewish War,” 5.10.2). Josephus even tells us that the Romans looked with horror upon the scene and wished that the Jews would relent, so that the glorious temple could be spared. 

He tells us: 

“Indeed, there were none of the Roman soldiers who did not look with a sacred horror upon the holy house, and adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent before their miseries became incurable.” – The Jewish War, 5.13.6 

When Joel and Peter predicted that bloodshed would be one of the signs that the Mosaic period was coming to an apocalyptic end, what could fit that scene more clearly than a city filled with men under the curse of God being slaughtered for their crimes, filling the city with their corpses and streams of blood, flowing into every corner of it from the mass executions and bloodshed therein. The horror that befell this city and went on within its gates is unlike anything I have ever read in history. Shouldn’t we consider it a viable candidate for the bloodshed Joel is describing? 

OF FIRE AND SMOKE

After setting fire to one city after another in Galilee and Judea, sparing not even the infants and elderly from the flames, the Romans also brought fire to the city of Jerusalem. But not before the Jews weaponized the flames against themselves. Again, there are too many references to quote them here, but I will summarize as I have before. For instance, before the Romans could even light the first match in the city, both parties participating in the inner-city civil war set fire to each other’s food supply, guaranteeing mass hunger and famine throughout the Roman campaign (The Jewish Wars 5.1.4), which led to cannibalism and other horrors (The Jewish Wars 6.3.4). Amid the civil war skirmishes, a band of robbers also set fire to some critical buildings in the city, foolishly aiding the Romans in their invasion (The Jewish War, 5.4.4). When Rome finally gained entry, they set fire to the suburbs (The Jewish War, 5.6.2), the Tower of Antonia, and by the providence of God, they eventually set fire to the temple itself (The Jewish War, 6.2.9). Josephus even recounts that some of the injured Jews, when they saw the temple in flames, cut off their gangrenous limbs and kept fighting, supposing that the temple being on fire was a sign from God of their imminent victory (The Jewish War, 6.2.9).

From there, Rome systematically slaughtered the remaining fighting men within the city. Josephus recounts for us:

“Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them; for the ground did nowhere appear visible, for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them.” – The Jewish War, 6.5.1

One final offer of peace was offered by Titus, the emperor’s son and the Roman general who was leading this battle against the Jews. But, in their madness, the few remaining Jews rejected his appeal, causing the future emperor and general to go after the remaining Jews with the full force of his army. Josephus records for us:

So he gave orders to the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city; on the next day they set fire to the repository of the archives, to Acra, to the council-house, and to the place called Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of queen Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also were burnt down, as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies of such as were destroyed by famine. – The Jewish War, 6.6.3

Instead of squinting piously into the future, trying to imagine a good match for these harrowing events, why don’t we open our eyes to the gruesome episode that befell all those who rejected Christ? In Jerusalem, they mocked the disciples on whom the Holy Spirit had fallen. In the war for Jerusalem, they continually mocked the Romans until their blood ran like ruby rivers, the city burned with unquenchable fire, and the ash of their burning buildings and corpses marked the spot of their treacheries. Peter preached this sermon forty years before it happened, and everyone with good sense saw the events of AD 70 as their terrifying fulfillment. 

PROOF 9: THE SUN AND MOON WILL GO DARK

In addition to the proofs we have seen, Joel also prophesies that the sun and the moon will refuse to give their light when these events occur. For the dispensational premillennialists, who apply rigid literalism in the most inconsistent ways, this must be a physical sun and moon that goes completely dark, whereas the plank in their eye, perhaps stopping them from seeing the true meaning of these texts, is clearly metaphorical. What do I mean?

It is well known that the sun, moon, and stars going dark and doing other unnatural things is a common Old Testament phenomenon. It is either apocalyptic imagery that has an underlying meaning. Or, the sun has actually and physically gone dark on multiple occasions, which is scientifically impossible. 

Yet, more than a sole appeal to general revelation, there are special revelation considerations for why the Old Testament also uses such phenomenal language. When you study the issue, you will notice that God created the sun, moon, and stars to rule over the skies, which look down upon the rulership of man (Genesis 1:16). And whenever we read of instances of the sun or moon hiding, refusing to give light, turning to blood, falling from the sky, or other such phenomena, we are not reading of literal historical accounts but of apocalyptic imagery describing the downfall of nations. Think about it: when man’s reign is compromised, the dominion of the sun, moon, and stars becomes agitated. These events are described with personified intensity, giving human characteristics to the celestial bodies observing our downfall. 

For instance, when Babylon receives God’s omen of judgment, God says that: 

For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light. – Isaiah 13:10

Against Edom in Isaiah 34:4, God says: 

And all the hosts of heaven will wear away, and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll; all their hosts will also wither away as a leaf withers from the vine, or as one withers from the fig tree. – Isaiah 34:4

Concerning the downfall of the ten northern tribes of Israel, God says in Amos 8:

It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord God, “that I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight. – Amos 8:9

In each of these three examples, there is no recorded occasion where the sun ceases to give light. Even more, when Edom ceased being a sovereign nation just before the New Testament because of Roman invasions, the physical sky did not roll up and wear away. It would be preposterous to believe that. 

These events are describing, and what Joel 2 and Peter in the book of Acts are all getting after, is that one of the apocalyptic signs that always accompanies the downfall of a nation under God’s judgment is cosmological and celestial perturbations. More simply, when God destroys a government for her corruptions, He describes it poetically as a shaking in the heavens. Even the sun, moon, and stars have the good sense to tremble when God brings man down to the dust. 

In Acts 2, Peter quotes Joel, saying that God’s fury was now squarely aimed at Judah. The last two surviving tribes from the original twelve had continually played the harlot with the nations. And, in an act of utter treachery, crucified their God who visited them in the flesh. All of the signs in the heavens and earth, the blood, fire, smoke, and the trembling balls of fire in the sky were the just consequences of their covenant betrayal. These are not future events. They are judgments that have already occurred. 

PROOF 10: THOSE WHO ENDURE TO THE END

Peter concludes his quotation of Joel with the tenth and final sign that the last days would happen to that generation. To the crowds standing in front of him, half of them had the Holy Spirit poured out with dramatic displays, and the other half was mocking him in mangled hatred of God; he declares: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). This, of course, echoes Jesus’ own words in the Olivet Discourse, where he said: “the ones who endure to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13-14). 

And this, of course, is the point Peter was driving toward all along. Peter was calling that wicked generation to repent of their crimes and for crucifying their God. He tells them:

This Man [Jesus], delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, (is the one) you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men who put Him to death. – Acts 2:23

Everyone who repented from that generation were given the right to become members of the final epoch of human history. In this era, God would once again rule the world from His throne in heaven until all the earth was filled with the glory of God. For all who stood in rebellion to the King of kings and Lord of lords, there would be untold suffering, unquenchable fire, and utter destruction. 

CONCLUSION

These last days, the final moments of the Jewish temple era, were recorded with precise and exacting detail in the Scriptures and secondary accounts like Josephus. We do not need to go on looking into the future for these events to begin. Instead, we need to put our hand to the plow and get to work, thanking God that He has chosen us to be alive during the reign of His one and only Son. 

End Times, Eschatology, Last Days, Partial Preterism, Postmillenialism, Theology