And Then the End Will Come: The Promise of Matthew 24:14Chikamu

Day Three: When Are you Coming Back?

Suppose you had invited a friend to come to your house for dinner. If you wanted to know when she was going to arrive, who would you ask? Well, obviously, you’d ask her—she would be the one who would know the answer to the question, “When are you coming?”

And that’s exactly what the disciples did, as we read in Matthew 24: they asked Jesus when he was coming back. 

The disciples had been admiring the temple when Jesus surprised them by saying, “Do you see all these things? Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” Shocked, they asked, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:2, 3)

In response, Jesus delivers what we today call the Olivet Discourse, listing a number of events and circumstances that would occur before “his coming” and “the end of the age.” But then in verse 14 he says, 

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” 

In other words, when the disciples asked Jesus, “When are you coming back?”, he answered, “Only after the gospel has been preached to all nations.” 

Today, the gospel has been preached to nearly all of the world’s “nations.” Even after 2000 years, though, there are still a few hundred people groups remain that are “unengaged,” meaning no one has ever been to them with the gospel—there has never been a single Christian among them. 

But over the last few years, the number of unengaged groups has fallen dramatically. According to Finishing the Task, in 2005 there were more than 3,500 unengaged people groups with a total population of over 700 million people. Even as recently as 2015, there were still more than 1,400 groups with no known Christians. 

But today, there are only a few hundred unengaged groups remaining, and hundreds of people groups are being engaged with the gospel each year. 

By God’s grace, the church is on track to reach all of the remaining groups by the end of 2022, or shortly thereafter. We’re very close to the finish line.