The Days of the Gentiles

Nephi wrote this about the last days: “But, behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles—yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon other lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations” (2 Nephi 27:1).  Thus we have a second name for the time in which we live: it is the “days of the Gentiles,” and they will be full of iniquity and abominations.  This is the only time that this phrase appears in the scriptures, but there is a similar phrase that we find.  In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord prophesied that a remnant of the Jews would “be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”  In the day “when the times of the Gentiles is come in” then “a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel” (D&C 45:25, 28).  So despite the wickedness of the Gentiles, the fulness of the gospel—the Restoration—would come forth in this the “times of the Gentiles,” or as Nephi put it, “the days of the Gentiles.” 

            The phrase “the times of the Gentiles” also appears in the book of Luke in the New Testament in Luke’s version of the Olivet discourse.  The Savior prophesied that the people of Israel would be led away captive from Jerusalem and would “be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).  From the JST we get further clarification on when the times of the Gentiles is.  The disciples asked Him, “Master, tell us concerning thy coming?”  He answered, “In the generation in which the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, like the sea and the waves roaring.”  So the “times of the Gentiles” would be near the time of His coming, and it would be in a day when there would be distress among nations.  He also said that “all will be fulfilled” in “the generation when the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (JST Luke 21:25, 32).  Clearly then this times of the Gentiles represents the last days as the gospel is going forth to all the world—including to the Gentiles.  That it is called after the Gentiles perhaps suggests that in our day the secular world—the Gentiles, particularly those nations of the Gentiles that we might consider the western nations, will have the spotlight and be on the forefront of everyone’s mind.  In general people with earnestness the happenings, indeed the perplexities, of the Gentiles nations.  So to call it the day of the Gentiles or the times of the Gentiles, seems appropriate, but the greatest events in that time will be those related to the Restoration of the gospel—the light that shall break forth to those that sit in darkness.