Sooner or later, many will ask: What does Jesus teach us about the end-times, the Second Coming and related prophetic events? To answer this question, let us follow the roadmap laid out by Jesus in His parables and discourses with an open Bible. We’ll discover that while we cannot pin down specific dates, we can understand the principles, signs and sequence of world-changing events. The more accurately we align our lives to those teachings, the less these events will “catch” us unawares. As 1 Thessalonians 5:1–4 urges, the goal is not just foreknowledge but response in readiness.
We will divide our study into three sections: (1) general principles, (2) specific signs, and (3) chronological sequence.
1. General Principles — The Parable of the Vineyard Tenants
Jesus Christ in Matthew 21, Mark 12, Luke 20 shares the parable of the tenants stewards who, after a series of misdeeds, disowned and killed the owner's son (which they had longed to possess for themselves). This stonecutting, a veiled allusion to the coming destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, foreshadows both Israel's rejection of Jesus as well as a parallel greater, final judgment. The central message, which permeates Jesus' teaching on the end-times is that God's rulership of the earth, by Rightful Heir, must be honored.
Also, Christ points out that no one knows the "hour" nor "day" (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32), not even the Son; such things are the Father's purview alone. Both verses come from the same event: disciples querying the timeline of the Temple's fall, or the "end." Wh ile Christ offers indicators, the fact that He veils it underscores a main lesson: Persistent focus on temporal details can detract from spiritual preparedness, calling to mind Paul’s counsel "Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envying ... [but] put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in regard of its lusts" (Rom 13:13–14).
Christ taught about the consequences of that hour in Matt 24. Many events would occur "in many lands,... woe unto them that are with child, and to them which give suck in those days" (v 19–21). He spoke about wars, natural disasters (famines, pestilence) and religious persecutions ("troubles of him that saveth," a reference to a righteous gentile in a Jewish milieu). Jesus described increas ing apostasy when "the elect" would stumble (v24a, literal meaning). These events are referred to as "birth pangs": portents, not precise predictions, signaling mankind’s sins have reached critical mass. But all should be alarmed at the global magnitude and rapidly escalating frequency of the geo-political, moral and ecological distresses. The very signs Jesus says "shall" precede His return (Matt 24:8, 14), yet a clear-eyed recognition and abhorrence of sin will keep believers vigilant, rather than burying hearts under obsessive scrutiny of the timing, days or hours.
Additionally, it is key to notice who endures: "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved (Matt. 24:13). In context, this stands out as an earnest entreaty for staying spiritually alert. In essence, Hebrew doctrine holds we're "sanctified through the fire," so fire imagery — apocalyptic or metaphoric — thus becomes hopeful, not merely horrifying.
2. Specific Signs
The seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2—3 provide perspective on end-time challenges, not date setting. Jude also advises about insidious false teachers: "they went out from us, but were not of us; for if they had been of us, they had continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest, that having not God's love in them, they might be revealed" (v4). This situation resonated with Paul’s earlier warning to Timothy: "Perilous times shall come....men shall be lovers of their own selves...lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof ... ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2Tim 3:1–2, 5–7). All such passages serve the same purposes: to guard against spiritual myopia.
In Matthew 24:4–13, Christ specifically mentions false Messiahs and false prophets, unparalleled deception on a grand scale. He warns of apostasy within the corporate church and renews His denunciations of national unbelief; "when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Like the parable of the tenants, the unrepentant miss out on the Kingdom, as individuals, and potentially collectively.
Meanwhile, the Old Testament prophets' post-exilic writings (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi) offer solace for the rebuilt nation, but also warn of future judgment arising from disregard for social justice, respect for God's Sabbath day, and propensity towards idolatrous syncretism. These are timeless moral admonitions too, reminding Christ's followers to remain Holy Spirit-filled, lest evil grow unchecked.
Eze 38–39 contains Messianic, eschatological prophesies that parallel the imagery in Rev 20:8, painting the Battle of Armageddon in symbolic terms. Both contextualize the end with the shattering of Gentile world empires under God's final judgment before ushering in the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
Revelation also reveals the term "one thousand years," signifying a major time frame of restored order but not the commencement of new, linear, earth years. Its figures must be read symbolically. John prefaces his work with "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending..." (Rev 22:13), implying circularity, not endless chronology. It is deeply significant that "a thousand years" are part of this verse, the numeral underscoring completion and cosmic summation.
3. Chronological Sequence
The six end-time seals (Rev 6) depict a procession of calamities unleashed by Heaven's invisible Judge. Seal 7 inaugurates the 'Great Tribulation,' akin to Matthew 24:21's "such was never from the beginning of the world to this very time," referring to the intensity, duration and quantity of human suffering.
The series of seven trumpets, after the seventh seal, details catastrophic plagues on humanity: economic collapse (trumpet 1, Rev 6:12–16), Wormwood's poisoning of rivers (trumpet 2, Rev 8:10–11), infernal fire ravaging a third of the earth's vegetation (trumpet 3, Rev 8:7), hail and fire mixed with blood incinerating a third of Earth's waters and Earth dwellers (trumpet 4, Rev 8:8–9), cosmic disturbances causing more social upheaval (trumpet 5, Rev 9:1–12), the Locust Army tormenting unredeemed humankind (trumpet 6, Rev 9:13–21) and the final angelic ejecting of evil spirits, preparatory to Christ's descent (trumpet 7, Rev 11:15ff). These trumpet judgments presage the bowl plagues (ch. 16) and Antichrist's rise to global ascendance (Rev 17).
It's crucial to note these seals, trumpets and bowls do NOT represent consecutive years. They serve symbolically, with vivid imagery to communicate events and emotions. Biblical hermeneutics counsels reading these symbolically, not literally. Revelation unfolds a panorama of futurist prophecy; then, these dramatic images leap into history at staggeringly regular intervals. Thus, their purpose is not prognostication or prophecy fulfillment over centuries, but as typological reminders that human darkness, strife, war, and spiritual decay run counter to God's nature, with Lucifer (that old Serpent,