The "generation" of Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21 is best understood as the generation that saw the atomic bomb and gained the ability to wipe all life from the earth. Joined with Matthew 24:22 and Mark 13:20, "no flesh would be saved" unless those days were shortened, the statement "this generation will by no means pass away till all these things are fulfilled" points to the World War II generation, often called the Greatest Generation. That generation is dying out. The last surviving USS Arizona veterans were too frail to attend Pearl Harbor ceremonies, and George H.W. Bush has died. Strauss and Howe place the G.I. Generation's births between 1901 and 1924. If the last member lives as long as the oldest known people, about 116 years, the generation ends around 2040, roughly 21 years away, which is about the length of an average generation. Christ could therefore still return within this generation, and the world's drift from God and its readiness to turn to a human savior suggest that time is short. This reasoning is not date-setting. Scripture says no one knows the day or hour, which rest in the Father's hands, and Christ will come when He is not expected. Believers must therefore be prepared for the Great Tribulation, the Day of the Lord, and Christ's return, and also for ruling with Him in His government, whenever these come.

"This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place" (Matthew 24:34) does not refer to the generation of Jesus' disciples. Preterists claim it means the roughly forty-year generation ending with Jerusalem's destruction in AD 70, but that reading makes Christ a liar, because the gospel has not yet been preached to the whole world, the Great Tribulation has not come, the heavens have not been shaken, and the elect have not been gathered. The wording is firm: all three synoptic Gospels record it, it opens with "Assuredly, I say to you," it uses "by no means," and it is followed at once by the assurance that His words will not pass away. The statement therefore cannot fail. Jesus spoke in what may be called the prophetic tense, God's view of time, which shifts without warning between present and distant future, as Moses does in Deuteronomy 29-30. The key is Matthew 24:22: unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. Only since the 1940s has mankind been able to destroy all life, so "this generation" is the generation of possible human extinction. It appears inside the Parable of the Fig Tree, so it gives only a general sense that the end-time generation is here, not a date. Luke warns that this period is marked by self-indulgence, drunkenness, and the cares of life, so believers must watch and be ready.

Christ's promise in Luke 21:32 that "this generation will by no means pass away till all things are fulfilled" cannot refer to the apostles' generation, because those things were not fulfilled in their lifetimes. Read together with verse 31, it describes the generation that sees the signs of the Olivet Prophecy fulfilled and recognizes them. Since about 1952 man has had the ability to wipe out all life on earth, which is the concrete meaning of Matthew 24:22, so the generation is narrowed to the one that invented, tested and used atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is also the generation that heard Herbert Armstrong's prophetic explanation of Matthew 24 and most enthusiastically supported his work. That is the generation that fought World War II and carried on the Cold War, called the G.I. Generation. These people witnessed rising religious fervor, war, disease, hunger and natural disasters and saw the prophecies being fulfilled. They are now in their seventies and eighties and will pass into history within a decade or two. They formed the backbone of the church at its spiritual peak in the 1950s and 60s. The identification is not exact, since Jesus said no one knows the day and hour (Matthew 24:36). Yet the parameters indicate that the end is not far off, and the signs place us squarely in the last days.