When is the world going to end?
According to God's Word, the Bible, Planet Earth will never "end" in the sense of being forever done away with. It will, however, be radically reshaped by God's creative fire into a planet, or world, much different than it is presently.
Jesus' disciples asked him in the Olivet discourse to tell them when the end of the world would come. Actually, they asked: When will be the end of the age? The question involved the end of human history, as it had been known up to that point. That age about which they questioned the Lord is still going on in our time.
Jesus answered by giving a list of prophetic signs that will precede His Second Coming. Christ indicated that the world, as it was then known, and is now known, would end when He returned. Revelation tells us that Jesus' millennial kingdom will be the next "earth age."
It will last 1000-years, after which time the Great White Throne judgment will take place, where all lost (unsaved) people of all ages will be judged and sentenced to eternity apart from God. The lake of fire is their final place of residence, from which there will be no escape.
Planet Earth will then be remade into something more glorious than can be imagined or described by the human mind, this side of heaven. Peter, the apostle, through divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us just a glimpse of earth's ultimate destiny:
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:10-13).
God's Word promises:
"One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever." (Ecclesiastes 1:4).
