Jesus Christ provides detailed insights into the signs and conditions surrounding His return to establish His Kingdom on earth. He warns against deception, stating that His return will be unmistakable, like a flash of lightning visible to all. He emphasizes that before His return, He must suffer and be crucified as man's Redeemer. He describes the world's condition at His coming as similar to the days of Noah and Lot, marked by widespread disregard for God's ways. For His followers, His return will test their faith, requiring them to abandon homes, possessions, and even loved ones to obey God's call, as Lot's wife faced judgment for looking back. He illustrates individual judgment through scenes where personal obedience and good works will not save others, no matter how close the relationship. When asked where these events will occur, He indicates a place of great carnage, where vultures gather over a carcass, suggesting a location of significant destruction. All these descriptions point to a literal Kingdom, to be established with power and great glory at His return, growing to fill the whole earth under His rule.

Christ's return is tied to the Olivet Prophecy's statement that "this generation will by no means pass away till all these things are fulfilled," read together with the warning that unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. The generation in view is the one that fought World War II, the generation of the atomic bomb and the ability to wipe out all life on earth. That generation is dwindling fast. The last survivors of the USS Arizona are too frail to attend Pearl Harbor ceremonies, and members of the G.I. Generation, born 1901 to 1924, are now at least 94. If the last of them lives as long as the oldest known person, about 116 years, that generation ends around 2040, so Christ could still return within roughly one generation's length of about 21 years. Even so, no one can set dates. No one knows the day or hour, because the time rests in the Father's hands, and Christ says He will come when He is not expected. Still, the signs show that time is short. The greatest is that God is being pushed to the margins as humanity turns its back on Him, moving away from Christian values and toward cultural and political instability. The world is increasingly ready to give its allegiance to a human savior who promises power, prosperity, and peace on carnal terms, setting up the crisis at the close of the age. Believers should therefore be ready for the unexpected: the Great Tribulation, the Day of the Lord, Christ's return, and then service in His government.

Luke 21 gives the warning signs that signal the end of the age. Verses 7-19 name the visible world events, verses 20-24 the events involving Jerusalem, and verses 25-28 the cataclysmic upheavals in the sky and on the earth that herald Christ's imminent return. The Parable of the Fig Tree (verses 29-33) sets the right perspective toward these things. A fig-tree owner knows where his tree is, how healthy it is, and where it stands in its annual cycle, but he does not spend hours each day scrutinizing it. Likewise, believers should be aware of prophecy and keep an eye on world events without making them the primary focus. Some make the spiritually dangerous mistake of letting prophecy become a major or even sole focus, which distracts them from their primary spiritual responsibilities. Verses 34-35 then turn from external events to the heart. The Day will spring like a snare on those weighed down by carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, because they are looking in the wrong direction. The command to watch in verse 36 therefore concerns spiritual alertness, not monitoring world news, as the Greek agrupneo and its other New Testament uses show. Watching means overcoming, together with praying always. These are what make one worthy to escape the coming turmoil and stand before the Son of Man.

Jesus' Olivet Prophecy (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) answers the disciples' question about the sign of His coming and of the end of the age by giving a series of signs rather than a date. The closest He comes to naming a time is that the end will come when the gospel has been preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and only He knows when that goal will be reached. Revelation is a disclosure from Jesus Christ of things that must shortly take place, and it covers the same ground as Matthew 24, crescendoing at His return and culminating in the new heavens and new earth. The two prophecies come from the same Revelator, so they are parallel and must be compared. The Four Horsemen of the first four seals (Revelation 6) match the first signs Jesus gave. They are dreadful judgments on sinful mankind, released at the command of Christ the Judge, and they kill up to a quarter of the earth's population. Jesus' statement that "all these are the beginning of sorrows" separates the horsemen from the fifth seal, the tribulation and martyrdom of the saints. The first four seals may therefore break in quick succession and inflict mayhem for a long period before the fifth is opened. Jesus' wording suggests the horsemen were let loose long ago.