What About the End?
Asking different religious organizations about the return of Christ provides dozens of opinions. Many build their beliefs on human desires for material things. Some want the spiritual world of God to be like a perfect vacation rather than submit to the Kingdom of God’s Son. The concepts vary greatly because their beliefs do not come from scripture but are mistaken views of plain Bible teaching. The Bible covers this topic plainly in the following verses, which need no comment.
“Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. “Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. “But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end. “The children of Your servants will continue, And their descendants will be established before You” (Psalms 102:25-28).
“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him” (Hebrews 9:27-28).
“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself”(Philippians 3:20-21).
“You turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, to wait for His Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31).
“The world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:6-7).
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up“ (2 Peter 3:10).
The scriptures teach that from the beginning, God planned for the universe to be temporary. Creation’s design was to prepare people to be His children and inherent a spiritual eternity. Man, and all the elements, came into existence with an expected termination time. Some of us will die before Jesus Christ returns. Many will be alive when He returns. But at His return, all material things will disappear. The faithful spirits will be taken with Him to an eternal home with God. The unfaithful, and all things physical, will be consumed by fire. But the spirits of the unfaithful will begin an eternity of punishment.
Therefore, we ask as Peter did, “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!” (2 Peter 3:11-12).
