When are these last days?

Appeared here and there messages about Mormons who thought today would be the last day and that the blood moon heralded the end of the world. Meanwhile, we know that this is not the case. But why was it necessary for the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to issue a statement issued not to panic? Do people who call themselves Saints of the Last Days not expect it to be over at any moment? Where does that name actually come from?

I admit that the name is confusing. The term “Last Days” suggests that we are a church of doomsayers, who think “yes, it's over now” with every full moon, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The term, however, refers to this  dispensation. Yes laps, a word that is of little use to you as a non-Mormon. A dispensation is a period in which the gospel of Christ is present on earth. Throughout history we see that Heavenly Father calls a prophet again and again to bring the gospel to earth again, but that after a time people fall into their old sins and the gospel is no longer lived according to God's standards. Without going too deeply into our doctrine, we believe that Christ re-established His church on earth in the previous dispensation, but because of the persecution of the apostles and the distortions that were made, it again disappeared from the earth.

The Last Dispensation

Our church came about because God called Joseph Smith as a prophet in 1830 to restore the true church, for the umpteenth time, in fact. But this time God said, promised in fact, that this church will not disappear from the earth before Christ returns to the earth. In that sense, it is therefore the last dispensation and we are The Church of Jesus Christ, just like in His time, but we supplement it with the Last Days. However, how long those last days will last, no one knows.

From that perspective, Mormons are indeed concerned with the end of times. We know we are closer than ever, but whether it will take another five years or five hundred, we have no idea. But it is therefore part of our leaders' instructions to be prepared, precisely because we don't know. In most Mormon families, you will therefore find extra food supplies to get by for a while when disasters occur.

Of course there are Mormons, especially in the US, who go a step or many steps further in this. In the US, you simply have real  preppers. People who build bunkers and so on. So it's not a purely Mormon phenomenon.

Panic due to the blood moon

However, due to the blood moon, many Mormons have been more intensely involved with it. A small majority has put doomsaying high on the agenda, but that is not official. That is why our leaders felt it necessary to disseminate an official position.

Yes, we are in the Last Days, but we literally read in the Scriptures that even Jesus does not know when He will come again. That is one of the few things Heavenly Father has not even shared with His Son. So we are prepared, but panic is certainly not necessary.