If the horrors of AD 550 were insufficient to herald the Great Tribulation Jesus warned of, what should we be?

The example you give of world disasters, and others provided by Grey Tower, might better be called the signs we are NOT to look for! Every generation since Christ was resurrected seems to have had catalogues of catastrophes which brought tribulation on them. I was amazed at seeing volumes of books printed in the 1800s, claiming that Napoleon's wars were the fulfillment of end-time prophecies, and that calculations about Jesus returning in the 1800s were based on Napoleonic dates. But is that not what Christ warned us would happen?

"Don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Messiah.' They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don't panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won't follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come." Matthew 24:4-8 NLT

In other words, "Stop looking for earthly disasters; stop listening to people who claim to be me (or my mouthpiece). Realise that world conditions will lurch from bad to worse - but the end is not yet." Even the one sign that seems to be unambiguous - preaching the good news about the Kingdom throughout the whole world - is not clear enough to say, "Now is the time!" Why not? Because only God knows when he will be satisfied that the gospel has, indeed, gone global. We are told that the end will come once the gospel has been sufficiently preached, but we don't know when that point will have been reached (verse 14).

You quoted from Luke 21 and that contains one point that I, personally, would take to be more significant than just general worsening world conditions. Jesus said that when the period of the Gentiles comes to an end, "there will be strange signs in the sun, moon and stars" affecting events on earth (verse 25). Things will be so extraordinary that peoples' hearts will fail them for fear of the things coming upon the earth (verse 26). If the heavenly signs of AD 550 were lesser than what will happen just before Jesus returns, then we may be sure that nobody will ever have seen anything like it before.

What troubles me about any preoccupation with trying to second-guess God's timetable is that this is a detraction from sharing the good news about Jesus with the lost. Explaining to sinners what we believe will happen in the future was NEVER the gospel message. The gospel is not about what God will do in the future - it's what he did in the past, on Calvary's hill and at the empty tomb. Until people grasp just who Jesus is and why he had to die and be resurrected, they will not benefit one whit from wrestling with Bible chronology and end-time predictions. Nobody is going to be saved because they had the right interpretation of end-time prophecies! We can only be saved by bending our knees in Jesus' name! "To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to be children born of God." John 1:12-13

Christians must be devoted to pointing to the empty cross and the empty tomb. It seems foolishness to so many in the world. But if they understood that God, in Christ, did everything necessary to save sinners back in time, their future will be taken care of as repentant sinners trust utterly in the finished work of Christ to be saved.

This means that the answer to your question is not that Christians should be looking for worse events on earth than those of AD 550 (or any other year); they should be engaged in the world-wide proclamation of the good news of the kingdom! They should be pointing people to the risen Saviour, not calculations and explanations about end-times!

The first of the Cursades began in the year 1065 or there about. The black plague started in the year 1348 AD and killed an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the worlds population, but from 1680 AD until 1948 AD more than 300 million people lost their lives, from wars. ending with the most devasting war and single reason for loss of life in all of history, World War II in which an estimated 60 to 120 million people lost their lives in less than 8 years.

The Great Tribulation is only evident in the 6th Seal at the very end of the 6th earth age, which was the age and war where bombs were dropped from the sky as an untimely wind scatters the figleaves from a fig tree.

The Tribulation is only evident in the 5th seal, and is brought on by the birth of Jesus as spoken of in Matt 11:28-29.

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Those horrors were like a dress rehearsal for the real end times. Now there are 7 billion people on this earth and many evils going on all over the world, and it has been escalating at a fast rate. The prophecies are coming true from the Bible also.

You are 100% correct the events then have not been repeated anything like that since and as they were not the teething signs of the end time then we are no where near it now.

I believe we are within 20 years of the end time but as one day is like a 1000 years to the Lord that is only just over 7 million years away, I am worried it is too close.

Luke 21:25, signs in the sun, moon, stars.

Revelation 20:4, I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And i saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to live and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

20:5, The rest of the dead did not come to live until the thousand years were ended. this is the first resurrection.

20:6, Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

The signs Jesus gave in Matthew 24 embrace much more than natural disasters, famine and pestilence. Those things are only the beginning of the troubles that mark the end times and the Tribulation. As dreadful as the catastrophic events of the mid 500's were, worse was to come. The mini ice-age from 1314 to 1327 caused crop failure and famine in North Europe. In 1318 10% of the English population died, and then came the typhoid pandemic of 1319. In 1348 bubonic plague (which started in India) came to Europe and the population declined by almost 40%. John Wesley thought that 1784 marked the second coming after 5 months of volcanic eruptions in Iceland cause thousands of deaths from toxic fumes and famine. Then came the Great War in 1914 followed by the Second World War in 1939. And now, in the 21st century, terrorism, earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding and gunmen running rampant killing innocent children and adults are commonplace. Yes, we are living in the end times, but the Tribulation is yet to come.

The Tribulation will last for a total of seven years, and the Great Tribulation will happen during the second half. During the Great Tribulation te Beast, or Antichrist, will be revealed. It is Christ Himself who used the phrase "Great Tribulation" with reference to the last half of the Tribulation. In Matthew 24:21, Jesus says, "For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall." In this verse Jesus is referring to the event of Matthew 24:15, which describes the revealing of the abomination of desolation, the man also known as the Antichrist. Also, Jesus in Matthew 24:29-30 states, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days . . . the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory." In this passage, Jesus defines the Great Tribulation (v.21) as beginning with the revealing of the abomination of desolation (v.15) and ending with Christ's second coming (v.30).

Other passages that refer to the Great Tribulation are Daniel 12:1b, which says, "And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time." It seems that Jesus was quoting this verse when He spoke the words recorded in Matthew 24:21. Also referring to the Great Tribulation is Jeremiah 30:7, "Alas! for that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s distress, But he will be saved from it." The phrase “Jacob’s distress” refers to the nation of Israel, which will experience persecution and natural disasters such as have never before been seen.

Considering the information Christ gave us in Matthew 24:15-30, it is easy to conclude that the beginning of the Great Tribulation has much to do with the abomination of desolation, an action of the Antichrist. In Daniel 9:26-27, we find that this man will make a "covenant" (a peace pact) with the world for seven years (one “week”; again, see the article on the Tribulation). Halfway through the seven-year period—"in the middle of the week"—we are told this man will break the covenant he made, stopping sacrifice and grain offering, which specifically refers to his actions in the rebuilt temple of the future. Revelation 13:1-10 gives even more detail concerning the Beast's actions, and just as important, it also verifies the length of time he will be in power. Revelation 13:5 says he will be in power for 42 months, which is three and one-half years, the length of the Great Tribulation.

From Revelation 13 when the Beast is revealed until Christ returns in Revelation 19, we are given a picture of God's wrath on the earth because of unbelief and rebellion (Revelation 16-18). It is also a picture of how God disciplines and at the same time protects His people Israel (Revelation 14:1-5) until He keeps His promise to Israel by establishing an earthly kingdom (Revelation 20:4-6).

The Great Tribulation is a future event. Detailed information in the three links below.

But then came out the endless Great Blue Sky, and mongols lived to rule the world.

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God didn't care then or now.