My question is are we living in the end days?

We're living in the End Times (time since the Resurrection), but no, not the end days. I think this ol' world will keep spinning for a while yet.

WG,

Why? Israel became a nation after 2,000 years and you don't think that means anything? We aren't close?

Yes. According to 1 John 2:18, it's been the final days since the first century A.D. Are we in the final generation? I doubt it. Every generation since Jesus has been able to point to "signs of the times" and claim that they're the last generation. Supposedly we can see an Antichrist rising. Big deal; a verse or two later, John tells us that the teaching that "Antichrist is coming" is wrong, because there's not just one. There are plenty to go around.

Are we in that generation? Who cares? I read the end of the book. We win. Why isn't that enough? Why aren't we expending our energies doing what Jesus commanded us, instead of sitting on our hands and speculating about ideas that have absolutely no impact on anybody's eternal destiny? Frankly, I think the whole field of eschatology is a nice little trick of Satan to divert Christians from doing the work of the Kingdom. It's easily the most useless doctrinal hobby-horse that Christianity has ever come up with, because the symbols are so vague you can make them say anything. And only someone hopelessly misinformed and ignorant of sound biblical hermeneutics would interpret that stuff literally. Interpreting books like Revelation literally is like trying to interpret Pilgrim's Progress literally: we end up with some of the stupidest-looking imagery ever conceived by humans. It doesn't work. Genuine biblical scholars don't do it.

Seriously, the question is pointless. It affects nothing relating to life and godliness. And it's a distraction from the important stuff. It's baby food. We have more important things to do.

If you believe the end is near, now is the time to repent. Repent for indiscretions. Repent for cheating on spouses, repent for drug/alcohol abuse, etc. When the time does come you will have nothing to worry about and this question would be less worrisome.

Israel isn't a nation. Not in the biblical sense, anyway. When even a Jewish religious scholar stands up in front of a room full of Christian students and says in so many words, "that godless mess over there is NOT Israel" then something is wrong, and it's clear the Jews understand this situation a lot better than the Christians, especially the Dispensational ones, do. Once again, all the stuff about Israel is nothing but idle speculation and it accomplishes nothing. We have better ways to waste our time.

Israel was a god-less people many times, just read the old testement how they turned away from God, followed idols, followed pleasure of the flesh. They do not have to be turned to God to be a Nation.

But no one knows, when the end is,

Of course no one knows the day or the hour but what is the purpose for Mathew 24?

Israel was a god-less people many times, just read the old testement how they turned away from God, followed idols, followed pleasure of the flesh. They do not have to be turned to God to be a Nation.

The real question is, what does Israel as a "nation" mean in the Bible? All through the Old Testament we're told that they were supposed to be a special people dedicated to God. Yes, they departed from that many times, and the Lord sent them into exile for it. The difference between then and now is, then there was a promise of return. Jeremiah and several other prophets make it clear that the exile will only last a certain amount of time, and then the people will return. And it worked; they got idolatry out of their systems once and for all because of it. Now, fast-forward a few hundred years. We have Jesus talking about how the temple is going to be destroyed and he'll come back. But there's no real timeline there. The temple was destroyed exactly as he predicted, and Jerusalem fell and the people were thrown into exile again.

But here's the difference: this time there's no promise of return. Not even a hint. Why? Because the dividing line between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. Since Jesus, everybody who believes becomes a part of that "peculiar people" that God has culled out for himself. So there's no need for any ethnic return, because Jesus has fulfilled all that. The Kingdom is a spiritual one, and a bunch of Jews living in Palestine doesn't change that. Their "return," at least in biblical terms, is meaningless. In fact, it may be counter-productive, because it's diverting a lot of Christians' attention from the really important matters of godliness into empty eschatological speculation. All that does is distract us and get us fighting among ourselves. We don't need it. We're screwed up enough as it is, we don't need self-appointed experts tickling our ears with stuff that has nothing to do with living an effective Christian life. It's time to ignore this stuff and get on to the important matters.

Having said that, this topic was set up for a particular reason, but that reason didn't follow us to this board. ClassyT has indicated to me that she's not interested in pursuing it, and I'm fine with that. So this will be my final comment, and then I'm going to respect her wishes and let it drop.

Can't tell. People try and try to figure it out. "Only the Father Knows". It has been predicted for 2000 years and we are still here!