The conditions of Matthew 24 for the return of Christ have not been met, or at least the evidence directly suggests they have not been met. Amid the chaos of modern life, some Christians mistake various current or historical events for signs that the end of the age as described in Matthew 24 is upon us. In actuality, some of the clear requirements for this listed in the chapter have yet to be fulfilled. For example, when Jesus says that the gospel will be preached in the whole world and to all nations before the end, why would anyone think he meant something other than what he said? Has literally every region on Earth already had the gospel made accessible to it? Not even evangelicals tend to think so, yet they might still act as if we are moments from the Second Coming because of our time in history.
When Matthew 24 literally says that every nation--the "whole world," to be more precise--will have the gospel preached to it "and then the end will come," it is very asinine to say that we are already in the final moments before Christ's return. When Jesus says to "see to it that you are not alarmed" when hearing of wars and rumors of wars, it is ironic that Christians tend to do the exact opposite: to act like we are already near the very end of the eschatological timeline. Like almost everything else in the Bible, the eschatology of Matthew 24 is misrepresented by those too irrational to avoid just reading the text without bringing assumptions into the analysis.
If even a single unreached people group exists, then the prediction of Matthew 24:14 about the matter cannot be at hand. If wars and rumors of wars, famines, and earthquakes are just the beginning of "birth pains," it is idiotic to point to plagues/diseases and wars of lessening severity as evidence that we are now in the last of the last days. Humanity is ironically more just by Biblical standards now, in spite of its grievous faults, than it was at any previous broad era of the historical record. The worst forms of persecution of Christians are limited to certain regions of the world. In light of any single one of these points, there would be a basis for rejecting the idea that we are about to face the very last days, but there is even more to consider.
It is also important to know that just because the prerequisite conditions for Christ's return are met does not mean his return would even happen immediately. What if the conditions dissipate and come back later on? All that the Bible says about this is that the "birth pains" will get progressively worse at some point before the Second Coming, but it never says that there is no possibility of moral and practical improvement to human civilizations before the return of Christ finally comes [1]. If one event is set to happen after another, just because the first event in the sequence happens does not automatically mean the rest will follow the first time. It only means that the later events will not happen except after the prior one.
If no wars, earthquakes, or persecution of Christians ever occurred at all throughout the last two millennia of history, Matthew 24's eschatological predictions would lack all outward evidence and have no immediate relevance to historical and current events whatsoever. However, just because these things occur even today does not mean we are living in the worst of these predicted disasters. Not only have the not conditions of Matthew 24:3-14 not all happened according to historical and present evidences, but humanity has at least temporarily started to rise to an even higher quality of life and moral standing by Biblical standards. Only a very irrational person would read Matthew 24 and think that the return of Christ, if the Bible is true, is likely to happen any year at this point.
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