A - It is the blogwriter's viewpoint, and that of many others, that we're not inside the house yet, but we are getting ready to climb up onto the porch.
Or, putting it another way: we cannot yet see the train on the horizon, but we can hear the horn in the distance, and the baggage handlers have started moving around. Clues are starting to multiply.
Or, still another way: when you enter the foothills of the Rockies, you'd better start preparing for the hard drive up the mountains. Difficult times are coming, perhaps sooner than we expect.
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Two questions: When will we know we are "inside the house"?
ReplyDeleteand- Are the "end times" different than "the last days"?
Anthony
A to Q1: No illustration is perfect, especially when one uses three illustrations to make the same point. (Didn't Jesus do that with his "Kingdom of Heaven" parables?)
ReplyDeleteThe first illustration means no more than it says. The house is not the kingdom, and the 'climbing up onto the porch' is not the rapture. They are only indicative of the stages or phases that are coming. First the porch, then the house, but neither of them mean anything except the loosely expressed view that we are not yet in the end times.
The answer to the latter two illustrations are (2) when we see the train itself approaching, and (3) when we have to shift into a lower gear because the foothills are becoming more steep.
Q2. Are "the end times" different than "the last days"?
A to Q2: Yes, in that "the last days" is infrequently used to refer to the time beginning when Christ rose from the dead (Heb 1:1-2).
More often, however, "the last days" is used to mean a similar period as "the end times". Both of them mean the short period preceding the second coming of Christ, which is taken in some circles to be a period of 7 years or somewhat longer.
Much more about this in future posts.