MATHEW 24 Bite size scriptures and thought.

When we read Mathew 24 We see Jesus describe when will be his return. 
Mathew 24: 32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.
Jesus likened all of the events mentioned to birth pains by saying:  “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains,” (Matthew 24:8). Just like for a woman in labour, the contractions will get closer and closer until finally the child is born, so it is if we were to consider today’s events in terms of giving birth, we might say that prophetically all that is left is to push the baby out.  All that the Lord had said   was a response to the disciples’ question “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
The Fig Tree is the Sign of His Coming.  The answer to the first question is unmistakably Israel.  God clearly compares Israel with a fig tree.  The following verses are given in chronological order.
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season, (Hosea 9:10, emphasis mine).
Here God compares Israel to grapes and the fathers to fruits of the fig tree.  Then in Joel He speaks of “my land” as being comparable to “my fig tree” again showing that Israel (both ethnically/nationally and geographically) is symbolized as a fig tree.
For a nation has come up against My land, strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion.  He has laid waste My vine, And ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white, (Joel 1:6-7, emphasis mine).
Next God shows Jeremiah a vision of baskets of good figs and bad figs. Note that both the good and the bad are representative of Israel (Judah). The “good” are taken out of the land, that is, out of danger, and the “bad” are left to be judged. [1]
One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten, they were so bad.  Then the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.”  “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans.

Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth [4] be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labour, She gave birth to her children, (Isaiah 66:8).

On May 14, 1948 Israel (the fig tree) declared independence and then was ratified as a nation by edict of the United Nations and literally was born in one day.  1948 [5] becomes the year by which a generation can be measured against.
Early Christian Commentary Confirms Israel is the Fig Tree