I think it can mean different things. It is used for the last 2000 years since Jesus came and the time before the trib.
18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.
3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
That's the time before He comes back. Not the whole 2000 years cause he says it's in the future. It may also have been the case then, but like with birth pangs, more when He almost comes.
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:14-17
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 1 Peter 1:20
Hebrews 1
God, who [
a]at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by
His Son
James 5
Come now,
you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon
you! 2 Your riches [
a]are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.
