The 10 Signs Jesus Gave About The End Times

You have heard some of them your whole life. You have probably felt several of them this year. But when His disciples asked Him privately for the sign of the end, He gave them a specific list, and almost nobody reads it from start to finish.

By Emily Johnson
Updated November 2026

I did not set out to count signs. I was sitting in my kitchen last winter after the evening news, and I realized I was afraid in a way I had not been since I was a girl. Not afraid of anything I could name. Just afraid of the next headline.

So I opened my Bible to Matthew 24 and read it slowly, with a pencil, the way my mother taught me to read anything that mattered. I counted what Jesus actually said. By the time I reached the bottom of the page, my hand was shaking.

Here is the list, in the order I found it.

Sign #1: Deception

"Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many."Matthew 24:4-5

Notice what He put first. Before the wars, before the earthquakes, the first warning out of His mouth was about being fooled.

He said it to twelve men who had watched Him raise the dead. If they needed the warning, so do we. And now there are preachers with faces that never existed and voices that sound like someone you trusted for twenty years.

Sign #2: Wars And Rumors Of Wars

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."Matthew 24:6

It does not matter which side you are on. Turn on the news tonight and count the countries in conflict. Jesus said you would hear of it, and He said not to be troubled, which is harder than it sounds.

Sign #3: Famines, Plagues, And Earthquakes

"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

Think of March 2020, when churches locked their doors. Think of the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria that took more than fifty thousand lives. Think of empty grocery shelves.

He called it the beginning of sorrows. Beginning. Not the end.

Sign #4: Persecution, And Love Growing Cold

"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold."Matthew 24:12

In parts of the world, believers lose their homes and their lives for the name of Jesus. Here the change is quieter. Neighbors who do not know each other's names. Families that stopped speaking and never started again.

You can feel it, even if you cannot explain it.

Sign #5: The Mark And The Money

"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."Revelation 13:17

Look at your money. Cash is disappearing, and everything is a card, an app or a scan. John wrote two thousand years ago that the mark would be tied to buying and selling.

He never said it would look evil. It will look convenient.

Sign #6: Knowledge Increases

"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."Daniel 12:4

Running to and fro. Knowledge increased. Daniel could not have pictured a phone that holds every book ever written, or a plane that crosses an ocean before supper.

Yet we have more information than any generation, and fewer people who know what to trust.

Sign #7: Scoffers

"There shall come in the last days scoffers... saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were."2 Peter 3:3-4

Have you noticed how easy it has become to roll your eyes at a believer? Peter said the mockery would come, and that its favorite question would be why nothing has changed yet.

Sign #8: The Gospel Reaches Every Nation

"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."Matthew 24:14

For most of history, this one could not happen. Today a verse can reach a village on the other side of the planet in seconds. The last barrier is falling.

Sign #9: The Fig Tree

"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."Matthew 24:32-33

He did not give a date. He gave us a tree. When you see the leaves, you do not need anyone to tell you the season has changed.

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

Sign #10: Life As Usual

"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away."Matthew 24:38-39

This is the one that stopped me. The people of Noah's day were not monsters. They were busy. They were having dinner and planning weddings, and they were sure that tomorrow would look like today.

The Question I Could Not Put Down

Ten signs. I could see every one of them. And then I asked myself the question that kept me up that night. Matthew tells me what to watch for, but where does it tell me what to do when I see it?

My grandmother used to say that a warning without a plan is just a fright. She was right. Jesus did not teach in riddles. He spent forty days after the resurrection with His apostles, and my own Bible goes quiet about what He said.

So I went looking. What I found changed what I own and how I sleep.

The Books I Was Never Handed

The 1611 King James Bible had eighty books, not sixty six. Fourteen of them sat between the Old and New Testaments, and Christians read them for over fifteen hundred years. In 1826, the British and Foreign Bible Society voted to stop paying to print them. One reason given was that a Bible without them was cheaper to produce.

"The way of truth shall be hidden, and the land shall be barren of faith."2 Esdras 5:1

Read those two lines once more. I did not choose to be given a shorter book. Nobody asked my grandmother either.

Several of the signs I just listed are described in more detail in those pages. The famines, the friends turning on each other and the deception that comes first are all there. Ezra even wrote down what it would feel like to live through it.

"Then shall wit hide itself, and understanding withdraw itself into his secret chamber, and shall be sought of many, and yet not be found."2 Esdras 5:9-10

They Did Not Disappear

In 1947, in the caves at Qumran above the Dead Sea, scrolls were found that had been sealed away for two thousand years. They are older than any Bible printed today, and they include books that were later cut from ours.

The Ethiopian church never took them out. It has kept eighty eight books for more than fifteen hundred years.

Men decided which books I would be handed. God decided which ones would survive.

Not Afraid. Awake.

In Matthew 25, ten virgins wait for the bridegroom. All ten fall asleep, even the wise ones. The only difference is what they had with them when the cry came at midnight. Five had oil. Five had to go and buy it, and while they were gone, the door was shut.

No one is asking you to know the hour. Just to have oil in your lamp.

"The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and suffer the consequences."Proverbs 22:3