The End of the World?

Is the end of the world just around the corner?
Yes.
It is.

Recently there have been floods in Queensland, birds dropping out of the sky, and other natural disasters around the world.
Are these a sign that the end is near?

A group in america is claiming that the world will be destroyed in fire on the 21st of October this year (4 days before my birthday... devastated!).

But, how can we be sure?

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."
Matthew 24:35-37

Wait, hang on? Jesus says that the end will be like the days of Noah... does that mean there will be floods?

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5

Genesis 6 tells us that the world was corrupted, and that God was going to destroy all people and the earth because the evil inclinations of the human heart had corrputed everything. So this is what Jesus is referring to, when Jesus returns the earth will be consumed by its own evil.

But Jesus also said, "that day or hour no one knows", so then how can I claim that the world is going to end?

If I claim that the end will come on a certain date, then won't I just be like one of those terrifying cults?

For complete and utter exegetical fallacies, look at what the ebible fellowship have to say on the end of the world.
Sometimes I feel that we, as Christians, look at what the bible says, and pull profound meaning out of passages, because that's what we feel God's word must be. But we forget that God gave us His word so that we could know Him, that is, He didn't write a cryptic crossword, He wrote a letter to all of His creation.

We read plainly in this 'letter' that we are in the end days, the days in which we wait for the coming of Christ in all His glory. We are to wait in expectation of His return with every moment, but to understand that He will come like a thief in the night. We do not know the day or the hour of His coming, but we know that it is soon.

The end is near. It may not be in my lifetime, it may not be in the lifetime of your children, but Christ will return.
So expect His coming.