Is it possible that the "end times" could really mean the time of the end of the old covenant?

I think for years we've been misinterpreting the time statements in the Bible because the original letters were written to the people living back then, not to us. How would they have understood it? Would they think "soon" and "at the door" and "shortly" meant 2000 years later? Could the "end of the world" be the end of THEIR world, the temple sacrificial rituals of the old covenant? Otherwise, it contradicts "the earth endures forever," and the "everlasting gospel" and "world without end, amen."