Everyone knows that in the Bible (Old and NEW Testament) the FIG tree represents Israel. When His disciples came to Him and asked Him when He would return and what would be the signs - Jesus gave the sign of the FIG TREE. This is how we KNOW that it will NOT be YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS before the rapture - He said - (Matthew 24:32-34) "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 see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." WHAT GENERATION is Jesus speaking of? Israel became a fledgling nation in 1948 (in 1967 she was at the "tender" age of 19 years old) but in the SIX day war of 1967 she put out "leaves" and GREW by winning land from three Arab nations that had attacked her with the intention of totally destroying her. (This was land that belonged to her in the first place - by the end of that war, the Israeli flag was flying over the Temple mount, The Suez and the Golan Heights!) If you were born anywhere around 1967, YOU are part of that GENERATION that will not die BEFORE Jesus returns! Whoever LIVED to see Israel put forth "leaves" in 1967, will be the SAME generation that SEES the bodily, physical return of JESUS! This is why - in the last 40 years we have had such an acceleration of learning (PCs, ipods, blackberries, etc. etc) traveling to and fro, plagues, hurricanes, earthquakes, decline in morality as people have lost their "natural affection" given to them by God, volcano eruptions, gamma-ray bursts, strange signs in the heavens - etc.
 
Rene