When Will The World End?

When Will the World End?

Sunday September 17, 2000

As we begin our sermon this morning I would like for you to all turn in your bibles to, Matthew the 24th chapter.

I want to take this text this morning and with the help of God answer some of the questions that come up from time to time.

Matthew 24:1-3

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you. There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

3 And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

I want to stop for just a minute and tell you just a couple of things about this temple.

It was very impressive, it covered about 1/6 of the land area of the ancient city Jerusalem.

It was not one building, but a majestic mixture of porches, colonnades, separate small edifices and courts surrounding the temple proper.

Next to the inner temple, where the sacred objects were kept and the sacrifices offered there was a large area called the Court of the Gentiles ( this was where the money changers and other merchants had there booths ).

Outside these Courts stretched long porches.

Solomon’s porch was 1,562 feet long, and the royal porch was decorated with 160 columns stretching along the 921 foot length.

So you can see that this was not just some building that was being discussed.

This made any of the structures that we think about in todays time seem very small in stature.

In this passage of scripture, the disciples asked Jesus three questions.

You know, way back then, people were wanting to know when the end of the world would come.

The disciples were showing Jesus the temple buildings and while they were looking it over Jesus told them that there was a time coming when the temple would be completely destroyed.

Not even one stone would be left in place.

Then they went and sat on the Mount of Olives and the disciples began to ponder what their Lord had said and to question him.

From this text this morning we want to consider the question:

When Will The World End?

It seems that many would like to know the answer to this question for various reasons.

The righteous would like to know so they would know how much time they have to get their lost families and friends saved.

But do you really feel that it would do any good for you to know?

Do you really feel that even if the friends and loved ones knew when the world was going to end it would make any difference to them?

No one really seems to care anymore they just think that they are going to live to be a ripe old age of 100 and that when they get too old to have fun, then they will give there hearts to God.

You know what they are doing as well as anyone does, so that also should tell us that they are not fooling God.

And you know the way God looks at it He doesn’t want people that only want to use Him as a fire escape!

God only wants people that are willing to give their all to Him, people that put Him first!

People that love Him and that want to live for Him, people that do it because they love Him more than anything else in the world today!

God is not a play toy!

God is not something that you can use when you want to, and put Him away when you are tired of playing the religious game!

God is real! God is alive! God is here in this building right now!

And do you know what?

God is living inside of some of our hearts right this very moment and for those of us that know that He is living in our hearts, we can look up to Him and know that we have done our best and tell Him that we are ready to go to be with Him.

We don’t have that fear of what would happen if He came back right this very moment.

We are not using Him as a fire escape.

We are living for Him because we want to live for Him!

And as we go this, we find that,

The unrighteous would like to know how long they can put off salvation or rather gamble how long they think that they can put off salvation.