Luke 21:9 –
“And when you hear of wars and insurrections, don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place first, but the end won’t follow immediately.”
This chapter starts with the parable of the widow’s offering then quickly moves to end time prophecies. We are going to need to look at a few other verses to help understand if this can be mapped into today’s world. This verse is a key point that we will never know the end, we can say look at all this but may die of old age before actually seeing the coming of Christ. We look at history and see wars appear to be a common thread; man seems to deal with issues this way. So we look at this and wonder when the wars Jesus is talking about are going to happen?
We go to verse 12 and see we are not going to have an easy time as Christians. Doesn’t sound like the “rapture” will protect us from suffering! So don’t be surprised if this happens and you are in jail for beliefs. Verse 20 talks about Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, which it has been since Jesus died, so that may not be a great “sign”. Although since WWII and the nation of Israel being restored, this is truer than ever before. You cannot point to a “safe” part of their border. You could also say these events are what are foretold in verse 24!
Verse 25 is also happening, with some major catastrophes happen on a frequent basis. But again a study of history shows we are really not that special. One could argue that because this is so vague that maybe “the end times” are really our “end” and not the worlds. Is Jesus just making sure we are prepared for our own deaths since we really could never predict them unless we took our own lives? Verse 32 talks about this happening in “this generation” before all takes place. So is “this generation” the one Jesus is addressing at that moment or the ones reading it? So far 100% of the people living on earth will experience their own “end times”, be it horrific or peaceful, we all die! But we can have peace in life after death with Jesus!