The End Already Came: You Don’t Need to Fear “Signs of the Times”

Why the News Always Feels Like the Apocalypse

Turn on the TV or scroll your feed and it’s everywhere: wars, disasters, corrupt leaders, collapsing governments, AI gone wild. Religious voices point to these events and declare, “See? It’s the end times!”

But ask yourself: how many generations before ours heard the same claims? World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Gulf War… every crisis has been framed as “the sign.” And yet the world kept going. Maybe the problem isn’t the events, but the lens we’re looking through.

Jesus Gave a Timeframe We Can’t Ignore

When Jesus warned of wars, earthquakes, false prophets, and tribulation in Matthew 24, He didn’t leave it open-ended. He nailed it down:

“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Matthew 24:34)

Not a distant future. Not thousands of years later. Their generation.

And sure enough, by AD 70 everything unfolded:

• Rome besieged Jerusalem.

• The Temple: the beating heart of the Old Covenant was torn down, stone by stone.

• Famine, false messiahs, and chaos filled the land, exactly as Jesus warned.

The destruction in AD 70 fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy to the letter.

The Great Tribulation Already Happened

For futurists, the Great Tribulation is a looming nightmare. But history proves otherwise. The tribulation Jesus predicted happened during the Jewish-Roman War. Josephus, the Jewish historian, describes horrors so severe that Jesus’ words ring true: “There will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now...” (Matthew 24:21)

Prophecy fulfilled in AD 70 shows that what futurists fear already happened in history.

The tribulation is not in our future. It’s in the past.

The End of the Age, Not the End of the World

Here’s what most people miss: Jesus never said the whole planet was going to burn up. He wasn’t talking about the end of creation. He was talking about the end of the Old Covenant age.

AD 70 was the end of Israel’s sacrifices, the end of the Temple, and the end of everything tied to that system. When the Temple fell, the Old Covenant was finished, and the New Covenant stood complete.

Even Josephus, who wasn’t a Christian, recorded how the Temple went up in flames and the daily sacrifices stopped (Wars of the Jews 6.2.1). That moment closed the Old Covenant for good, exactly what Jesus said would happen.

That’s the real line in the sand. Futurists keep mixing up “the end of the age” with “the end of the world,” but Jesus made the difference clear..

This changes everything about how we read prophecy.

What AD 70 Means for Believers Today

Because the end already came in their generation:

• Believers don’t wait in Sheol. From AD 70 onward, the dead in Christ go directly to Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23).

• We aren’t waiting for an Antichrist or a one-world government. Christ already reigns.

• Wars, disasters, and corruption aren’t prophetic warnings, they’re the ordinary struggles of life after a fallen creation.

Futurism leaves people anxious. Fulfilled prophecy leaves people free.

Stop Living in Fear, Start Living in Peace

The futurist message is one of fear: look out for signs, brace for tribulation, prepare for wrath. The gospel message is one of peace: judgment is finished, redemption is complete, Christ reigns now.

So when the next disaster headline comes, don’t panic. Remember: the end already came. What’s left is the calm of His eternal Kingdom.

Live in that calm.