In this world, we are warned about many things. Geologists warn us that a major earthquake could strike at any time. The San Andreas fault is way overdue to shake California. The New Madrid Fault along the Mississippi River seems to be giving warnings of an upcoming large quake.
As you read either chapter found in the Gospels, Jesus explains to His disciples what the signs will be of the end of the age and His return. Note one thing, as you read this chapter, Jesus was living as a mortal man, God in the flesh, a Jewish man that was speaking to other Jewish men who had customs and idioms that modern men must come to understand, in context, to what Jesus was teaching to His followers. His disciples were going to have to teach these very things to the rest of the world, so they would have to be able to grasp what these signs were. So Jesus used familiar speech patterns or “idioms” that each were easy to understand and convey their meaning to the Jewish brethren of Jesus’ day.