People like to say "Jesus is coming soon", and it's incorrect: Argument Series #1

 Currently, a lot of people has reacted to the tension between the United States and Iran by saying "The end times are soon". Not only do they say this because of the "war", but also because of technologies such as artificial intelligence and Neuralink. In this post I want to challenge this claim. Of course, we shouldn't even try to say "this is near the end times", this is misleading, none of us know when, and we cannot even say that it is vaguely soon. Nevertheless, I will still bring up other points.

I will go one by one for each claim.

#1: The Iran-US-Israel controversy conflict is a sign of the End Times

Many claim that chapters like Ezekiel 38, which speaks about Israel and surrounding powers at war, point to today's conflict. There are several approaches when it comes to interpreting Biblical verses. One of them is covenant theology, which is the reformed approach in this area. God has an Old Covenant, which is with the nation of Israel, and now, after Jesus Christ, it is the new Covenant, the church. God has had a covenant with Israel, and now it expands to the church. Covenant theology sees God's relationship and interaction with humanity as a covenant. Meanwhile, this claim is with a dispensationalist approach. Dispensationals believe that God does not have one overarching covenant (which means agreement), rather interacting with humanity in distinct periods and his plans are not tied together. Dispensational theology is most common among  pentecostal and charismatic churches, especially in the West. Nowadays, however, it seems like dispensationalism is in many more denominations. Dispensationals take the prophecy in the Old Testament literally for Israel,  not acknowledging that God  is now not limited to Israel as his covenant people now. In the Biblical passages they quote, the passages say of nations outside of Israel. For example, one of them is geographically near modern day Iran, so they claim it is now Iran, and since the chapter speaks about a war between Israel and the "coalition of Gog and Magog" (Gog being attributed to Russia) Even this is flawed, I think the passage just tries to imply there is great strength in the nations that will attack Israel (the "coalition of Gog and Magog", which people claim are now Russia, China, and Iran). Also, this is even somewhat historically wrong - simply ancient states or peoples that lived in a vaguely near area as modern countries are not the same as the modern countries. Totally, this is false.

#2: Recent technologies is a sign of the End Times

On YouTube, I stumbled upon a video. The thumbnail was clearly AI-generated and the title was "What you are seeing is not real". This was a confusing thumbnail and title, so I decided to click on it. Basically, the YouTuber claimed that since AI could imitate real pictures quite well, this was the "great deception" described in a certain passage (2 Thessalonians 2:11). This claim is senseless, completely. Read 2 Thess 2:1-3: only 3 verses. These three verses basically warn us not to fall for the deception, because people will deceive us saying "these are the end times". Yet, the YouTuber does not care to read the whole chapter, instead claiming that AI is the great deception described in this chapter. The video is deceiving us, and his "source" is even against him. This claim has no support, there is no reason to believe these link up. The YouTuber, after investigating,  kept posting videos about dispensational claims to the end times being near. - he almost only makes that kind of video about the end times.

3#: in general, about claiming the end times are near

It is obvious many are obsessed about the end of the world and the judgement day. Why obsess over these things so much so you neglect what is important: Christ? People have claimed they were living near the end for centuries, all of their claims false. What makes this different? Everyone is all obsessed or fearful, it is utterly useless -  being lead astray by false claims. Yet these false claims become popular, because they are interesting for many people. Many  Christians today are being so pulled further from Christ and rather to these "catchy" topics like the end of the world, angels and demons, etc - pulling us away from Christianity itself. This is the end of my argument.