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THE LAST GENERATION Not everyone will agree with me, but I have believed for most all of my Christian life that we are living in the last generation before the Lord's return. There are many good reasons for this belief, but probably the strongest reason of all is something that Jesus said in Matthew 24:32-34. In the context of speaking of many signs that would precede His return, our Lord spoke of the Super Sign of all signs, the sign of Israel showing life as a nation: "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." The key words here are "this generation." He said "this generation" would not pass until all the things that He had mentioned, including the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming, are fulfilled. The preterist view is that all of these things were somehow fulfilled by 70 AD; therefore the term "this generation" refers to the generation living when Jesus gave the discourse. That would also mean that most of the events of Revelation were also fulfilled and that preaching and teaching about most of its prophecies is useless. That clearly is NOT the truth, so the term "this generation" must have reference to something else.And it does. The phrase "this generation shall not pass" likely refers to the generation that witnesses the fig tree (Israel) putting forth leaves. Perhaps it could be argued that this has been witnessed to some degree since the first Zionist Congress in 1897, but Israel was not an official nation at that time and the congress was not even held in the land of Israel. It wasn't until after two world wars that enough Jews had settled in their God-given land to establish official statehood. That was on May 14, 1948. So, "this generation" would be the generation that was alive in 1948.That brings us to the million dollar question: How long is a generation? Well, you can't get a fair answer to that question until you know what a generation is. After all, based on the length of the "fourteen generations" of Matthew 1:17, you could reason that a generation is under fifty years, which would mean that the fig leaf generation expired before the year 2000 and that we are now in sort of a no man's land wondering if maybe the Lord forgot something. That obviously won't work, so it must be that "this generation" refers to a FULL generation, rather than to a representative part of one.Allow me to explain. Suppose you have a family reunion and five generations are represented. Actually, not even one generation is FULLY present since the reunion lasts only for a few hours, not seventy or eighty years, but five generations are present in the sense that a great great grandfather is there, a great grandfather, a grandfather, a father, and a son. Any single FULL generation would be 78 to 80 years on average, and possibly as long as 100 years or more, since some people do live that long. If the Lord was saying that some people living in 1948 would live to see His return, then the decade 2040-2050 would likely be the outer limits of the last generation before Christ returns. Then you have to subtract seven years for the tribulation. That's seven years subtracted from around 2048-2050, which would place the rapture of the church at around 2041-2043, if we are generous enough to allow for a 100 year generation. If "this generation" is less than 100 years, then we are just that much closer. If we stick to the eighty year maximum of Psalm 90:10, then we'll "fly away" any day now: ". . . if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." (Psa. 90:10)Now, if you couple that with the 2,000 year church age theory (33 AD to 2033 AD: one day as a thousand years - II Pet. 3:8 and Psa. 90:4) and then subtract the seven years, then you have the rapture happening very soon, possibly even this year, assuming our calendar is correct. No one knows any of this for certain, but it does look like the last generation is just about gone and the trumpet is about ready to sound. I hope you're ready.