Matthew 24:3 — And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

When I was growing up in England, there was a man who walked up and down Oxford Street in London wearing a sandwich board with “The End Is Nigh”. He was predicting, of course, the end of the world — the rapture, the tribulation, the last judgment … So was he right, or just another crazy?
I thought I’d address this topic today because of some of the reporting I’ve seen about the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit the Napa Valley on Sunday morning.
People are looking at a couple of verses in Matthew’s Gospel and starting to ask a question:

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:7-8)

Is the Northern California earthquake one of those “earthquakes in divers places”? Are more earthquakes happening,and does that mean the end is nigh?
Well, we may or may not be seeing more earthquakes. A paper published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” in June did say that the rate of major earthquakes more than doubled in the first quarter of 2014 compared with the average since 1979. The problem with that, though, is that 35 years is just too short a time to measure by.
But let’s say that there really are more earthquakes. Does that mean the end of the world is upon us? That’s a definite maybe! Jesus said …

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36)

You know, I’m not smart enough to have a definite answer as to how far we are from the rapture — and I’m not stupid enough to claim to know the date! What I do know is that a lot of wonderful men of God believe that all the necessary conditions have been met, and that Jesus could return for His people at pretty much any time. So I do think the end is nigh … earthquakes or no earthquakes.
While I’m here let me touch on a related topic. Whether the end is nigh or not, we are definitely in the end times.
Just consider “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” (1 Peter 4:7). For two thousand years we have be in the end times … but now, the end is nigh!