Why Christ Must Return
Here in the Philippines, we live with warnings.
A typhoon signal goes up, the sky stays blue, and by mid-afternoon the streets are full again.
Most people treat the return of Jesus the same way. Sincerely believed, but never quite acted on. Even devout believers speak of “the end” as a mood, a call to stay morally alert, rather than a fixed point on a timeline.
But Scripture does not leave the sequence vague. It ties the outcome of history to an ordered chain of events, and the Olivet prophecy explains, step by step, why that chain closes only when Christ Himself returns.
Yeshua (Jesus) told His disciples the gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to all nations as a witness, “and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). His return is prophetically necessary. The rest of the prophecy shows why.
Matthew 24:14 Marks More Than a Task
Last week’s essay, Why the Church Exists (Week 26), established Matthew 24:14 as the Church’s mission — the gospel preached as a witness to all nations. This week, the same verse carries different weight, because the commission comes with a clock attached. “And then the end will come.” A definite work of proclamation is completed, and a definite end follows. History is not open-ended.
A Witness, Not a Conversion
Notice what the verse does not say. It does not say the world will be converted before Christ returns. It says the world will receive a witness — testimony delivered whether accepted or rejected. The Church cannot manufacture the Kingdom through human effort. It announces the Kingdom Christ Himself will bring. The witness warns the world. It does not replace the King.
The End That Requires Rescue
Why does that horizon matter? Christ answers a few verses later: “For then there will be great tribulation… and unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:21–22). He was not exaggerating. “Flesh” means human life itself, physical and mortal, and “saved” means saved alive — Moffatt translates the clause, “not a soul would be saved alive.” The verse describes total extinction.
Notice, too, who the shortening is for: the elect. God does not merely intervene when the clock runs out. He intervenes for the sake of His people on the earth. The rescue of the world is tied to their presence in it.
And the prophecy identifies the Rescuer: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days… they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29–30). The days are cut short by an arrival. The rescue is the return.
Human Government Cannot Save Itself
Jeremiah wrote what history keeps confirming: “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Human governments have never lacked ambition — only the capacity to restrain their own worst instincts long enough to survive them.
For most of history, that flaw could only take civilization so far. No sword, siege, or empire could reach every last human being. Since 1945, we can. In September 1983, the Soviet early-warning system reported American missiles inbound, and the officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, judged it a false alarm rather than an attack. He was right, and the world went on. That is what human self-restraint looks like at its best — one officer’s judgment on the right night. Left to run its course, human self-government is the very mechanism Christ says would end all flesh.
Why This Matters for the Kingdom
Here the gospel becomes rescue. Christ does not return to a world quietly working out its problems. He returns to a world that has run out of time.
Revelation records the announcement at the seventh trumpet: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15, MSB). One kingdom, the whole world system, handed to its rightful King in a single moment. And those converted now are being trained to administer that government alongside Him (Revelation 5:10), a rule under which humanity will never again be capable of destroying itself.
Conclusion
Matthew 24:14 gives the gospel a deadline, and the deadline requires the personal, physical return of Christ — the one intervention Scripture says can stop humanity from destroying itself. This is why the gospel of the Kingdom is good news and urgent news at once. The witness is still going out, and the One who set the deadline will keep it. That is what the Church has been praying for all along, every time it says…
“Thy Kingdom come.”
