What are the signs of the end times?
Jesus named wars, disasters, persecution, false teachers and growing lawlessness as signs, but called them only the beginning of birth pains. No one knows the day, so the Bible calls us to be watchful and hopeful rather than to set dates.
Every generation has looked at its own wars and disasters and wondered whether the end is near. The Bible does give signs, but it uses them differently than many people expect: not to calculate a date, but to keep us awake and unafraid.
What Jesus said would come
On the Mount of Olives the disciples asked Jesus when the temple would fall and what the sign of His coming would be. Matthew Henry notes that Jesus did not answer the question of time, but answered the question of signs fully, so that His followers would be prepared rather than curious.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Matt 24:6–8 · King James Version (1769)
After this Jesus spoke of persecution, false prophets, lawlessness and love growing cold, and promised that those who endure to the end will be saved and that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all nations (Matthew 24:9–14).
Christians read this passage in different ways. Albert Barnes and John Wesley see its first fulfillment in the years before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Barnes points to the violent deaths of four emperors within eighteen months, famines and earthquakes, and Wesley says the gospel had reached the nations through Paul and the other apostles by then. Matthew Henry agrees that the prophecy first concerns Jerusalem, but adds that it also looks ahead to the final judgment. The New Geneva Study Bible lists three approaches (Jerusalem only, the Second Coming only, or both together) and takes the signs as describing the whole time between Christ’s resurrection and His return. John MacArthur says wars and false teachers already exist but will grow worse as the end approaches, and the picture of birth pains means the troubles will become more intense. William MacDonald places most of these events in a future tribulation after the church is taken up.
What they share is the point Jesus Himself makes: these things must happen, yet the end is not yet. The Geneva Bible notes put it simply: even when they are fulfilled, the end will not come at once.
Moral and spiritual decline
Paul adds another kind of sign in a letter to Timothy.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
2 Tim 3:1–5 · King James Version (1769)
Who are these people, and when do they live? Wesley takes the last days as the whole age of the gospel that began with Christ’s death, and MacArthur and the New Geneva Study Bible likewise as the time between His first and second coming. Since Paul tells Timothy to turn away from such people, he is speaking of days Timothy himself would see, not only of a distant future. So Paul’s list is a description of what to expect throughout this age, growing darker as it goes.
Notice where the danger lies. Matthew Henry says such times are perilous because of persecution from outside, but still more because of corruption inside. MacArthur observes that the most dangerous people are those who keep the outward look of Christianity while denying its power. Paul’s instruction is short: turn away from them.