Bob Prichard | THE BIBLE MESSENGER

Yes, we are living in the “last days.” It should not be a cause for alarm, however, because we have been living in the last days for almost two thousand years! The ‘last days’ refer to the last great period of history, the Christian Age. There have been three great dispensations or ages of God dealing with mankind. The first was the Patriarchal Age, when God dealt directly with the heads of families (from Adam to Moses). This period ended with the beginning of the Mosaic Age, when God gave the Law of Moses to Israel. The Mosaic Age (the age under which Jesus lived) ended with the advent of the Christian Age, ushered in by the preaching of the Gospel and the establishment of the first century church.

On the Pentecost following the resurrection of Christ, Peter rose up with the rest of the apostles to speak and said, concerning the things that were happening, ‘This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; 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’ (Acts 2:16-17). Peter said that the events of that day were the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy concerning what would happen ‘in these last days.’

Succeeding verses describe dramatic events: ‘…wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come’ (Acts 2:19-20). This ‘apocalyptic’ language describes cataclysmic events that man could hardly imagine. Some have suggested that these events refer to the crucifixion of Christ or the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies.

The Spirit was poured out on ‘all flesh,’ as the Gospel message was to go from Jerusalem to all the nations of the world, a message of salvation: ‘And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2:21). To the Jews it was almost unbelievable that the Gospel could be for the whole world, including Gentiles, but Peter promised such: ‘For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call’ (Acts 2:39). He called all present to respond: ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins’ (Acts 2:38).

Later Peter wrote that Christ ‘was manifest in these last times’ (1 Peter 1:20). Time may be drawing to an end. Today may be the last day. Or, the Lord may delay His coming for a thousand years so more can ‘come to repentance’ (1 Peter 3:9). Look for no special ‘last days’ signs in present events. Do not listen to false teachers who set dates for the second coming or the end of the world. Do not be lulled into thinking you have plenty of time to make your life right with God, either. We should prepare to meet Christ-the angel may be getting his trumpet ready (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Now is the time to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 6:2). – Bob Prichard

‘Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!’ (Matthew 23:13). It seems that the word hypocrite is almost a synonym for Pharisee, because the members of this Jewish sect seemed to always be in conflict with Jesus and the disciples. But there was much more to being a Pharisee than being a haughty hypocrite. They emerged from persecution about two hundred years before Christ, emphasizing the importance of keeping the law and traditions. Their number included Simeon, who held the baby Jesus, Zacharias, Gamaliel, Nicodemus, and Saul of Tarsus.

Pharisees were considered the strictest sect of the Jews because each member had taken a pledge to devote his life to keeping every point of the law. Because of their piety, they were generally well-respected by the people. Jesus acknowledged, ‘The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat’ (Matthew 23:2). Many were also scribes (men with official status who had been formally trained in rabbinic law), so the scribes and Pharisees are often mentioned together.

While their devotion to the law and to the traditions about the law made them zealous students of the Torah (books of Moses) and the prophets, many became legalists concerning their traditions. It was in their traditions that they strayed most from God’s will.

Their greatest conflicts with Christ came in two areas. First, while the Pharisees often ignored the plain meaning of the Scripture when it conflicted with the teaching of the rabbis, Jesus held to a strict interpretation of the Scriptures. For example, the Pharisees allowed many grounds for divorce, but Jesus restricted divorce to the one ground of adultery (Matthew 19:3-9). And Jesus defended His healing on the Sabbath as correct, ‘the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath’ (Mark 2:27), even though this conflicted with the Sabbath prohibitions of the Pharisaic rabbis.

Second, Jesus called for a much higher standard of righteous living that truly came from the heart, applying the Scriptures to real life. The Pharisees were so tied to ‘keeping the rules’ of their traditions that they thought they could attain righteousness by all of their elaborate rituals concerning cleanliness, tithing, and prayer, with little concern for the inner man. For this reason, Jesus told them, ‘Ye are like unto whited sepulchres [whitewashed tombs], which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness’ (Matthew 23:27). While traditions are important, they cannot replace the authority of Scripture. – Bob Prichard

THE BIBLE MESSENGER

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