“.....My take is there are no end times, anybody that thinks we are is just plain wrong..... Every generation for the entire recorded history of mankind has had people that thought they were in the end times. They were all wrong. And they still are....”
Interesting is one of the signs of the beginning of the end is that people would say exactly as you stated....
Peter wrote that scoffers would deny the signs given and the coming of the Lord saying......” “since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation”.
I think that when people refer to the “end times” they see a increasing progression and intensity of events.....which even unbelievers are warning about.... doesn’t mean the world’s ending...rather that the staging of events is clearly recognized and moving into place as it’s written. ....Jesus said in Matthew, “all these are ‘beginning’ of sorrows”....Matt. 24:8
We also keep in mind that the same thing occured in Noah’s Day.....Again Matthew 16 v.3 tells us that Jesus rebuked the people of His day for ‘failing to recognize’ the signs of the times” that heralded His ‘first coming’.... How much more reason do we have today to recognize the signs of His second coming? Which is really what Christians mean...they are looking to depart before the worst happens here in the world...just as was written.
Well it’s kind of a given. When you always have people predicting X you’re also going to always have people scoffing at said predictions. When there’s a constant cry of “wolf” from one camp there’s a constant rolling of the eyes in another.
A lot of that increasing of intensity is really just a matter of looking. With more people on the planet, doing more things, causing more events, and better information infrastructure there will always be an increase of intensity, both in what’s actually happening and what you can find out is happening.
People failed to see the “signs of the time” when Jesus was around, and yet it turns out, those weren’t the times. His Apostles thought he was coming back in their life time, and pretty much ever generation of Christian since has thought the same thing, and they’ve all been wrong. I believe strongly in empirical evidence and playing the odds. And the evidence says odds are against this generation being right while all previous have been wrong.