In Matthew 24 of the Bible, the writer, Matthew, paints a beautiful image for us of the disciples walking with Jesus, in awe of the marvellous architectural feat that was the Jewish temple. After they have been excitedly raving about its beauty and splendour, you can imagine their surprise when Jesus tells them that it’s all going to be destroyed. This sparks an intense conversation, Jesus’ faithful followers have questions coming out of their ears! Knowing that Jesus would one day depart from them, the conversation funnels itself into a simple question, How will we know when you’re coming back?

Jesus takes this time to share with His disciples the truths of the future. This future telling has a term known as “Prophecy”. Jesus Says in Matthew 24:29 that these things will happen before he comes again:  

“The sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light. The stars will fall from the sky…” 

Lets keep this in mind as we explore 2 world events. The first happened on May 19 1780. England, Canada, America and most of the western world all unexpectedly fell into darkness. The sun rose but quickly disappeared at noon, not returning until past noon the following day. People at the time believed that it was the end of the world, the day of judgment. This “day of darkness” sounds exactly like what Jesus was talking about in verse 29. The second event that I’d like to share with you happened during the 1800’s. A meteor shower lit up the sky beyond anything ever imagined. As the meteors surged out of the constellation of Leo, the Leonids shower provided so much light that in the middle of the night, in the middle of a paddock, one could clearly read their newspaper. There was estimated over 200,000 meteors visible over a 9 hour period. 

So what should we do with this information? 

Well Jesus put it quite simply in verse 32, “Now when you look at a fig tree, and you see that it’s budding and its leaves are sprouting, you know that summer is near. You know the signs.” Imagine you’re visiting Grandma's place interstate, as you drive past the large green signs and white text saying “Melbourne 799 km” and then the next sign says “540 km” and so on. The signs don't tell you exactly where Grandma's house is. The signs tell you that Grandmas house is coming up. The purpose of prophecy isn’t to know when, not to be afraid or to scare you into believing. The purpose of prophecy is to be ready. 

Mark 13:36-37

Jesus says in reference to the signs - “Lest, coming suddenly, He finds you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”