How many will make it through the last days?

“The earth abideth forever,” Ecclesiastes 1:4. From this we know that the literal earth is never going to be destroyed.  

“There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts (plans).”  II Peter 3:3  This verse informs us that there will be people on this earth in those last days.

“The Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of His holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against Him,”  Jude 15 (NIV).

“And He shall turn and reconcile the hearts of the (estranged) fathers to the (ungodly) children, and the hearts of the (rebellious) children to (the piety of) their fathers (a reconciliation produced by repentance of the ungodly).” Malachi 4:6   (Amplified Bible)

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel (and eventually all mankind) after those days (the last days), declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” Hebrew 8:10-12.  (Italicized words are added explanations.)

How many people?  There will be many, many people upon the earth–even children–in those last days.  We are not told an exact number, but enough to require thousands of holy ones to help bring them into reconciliation with God, preparing them for the Restitution blessings of His glorious Kingdom on earth. (See Acts 3:19-21.) 

When there is no heaven and earth, where will God dwell?

Matthew 24:35, Mark13:31, Luke21:33, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

2 Peter 3:10, “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.” If these scriptures were literal, the question’s point would be valid.

These texts are in reference to the “passing away” or destruction of the symbolic heavens and symbolic earth. The “earth” represents the evil earthly governments and social orders. Whereas the heavens are the false church systems. In Isaiah 24:19-23, the earth in verse 19 is obviously symbolic because in verse 23, the Lord is reigning from Mt. Zion and in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 24:19-23: “The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth…Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.”

The returning Lord will judge and find the present nations, religions, and their works to be unrighteous. These ecclesiastical and social orders on earth and in the spiritual heavens will be removed and eliminated. Then Christ will establish His righteous rule on earth and the Lord’s prayer will be fulfilled: “…thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are assured that the planet earth will not be literally destroyed because “…the earth abideth forever.” 

How old is the earth? Biblical Calculation

We know from biblical chronology that Adam was created approximately 6,000 years ago. Therefore, the earth would have to be older than 6,000 years. In fact, we believe that the earth is very old. Scientists used to think the earth was about 100 million years old. They now theorize that it is about 4.5 billion years old. We quote from Wikipedia:

“The moon, as another extraterrestrial body that has not undergone plate tectonics and that has no atmosphere, provides quite precise age dates from the samples returned from the Apollo missions. Rocks returned from the moon have been dated at a maximum of around 4.4 and 4.5 billion years old. Martian meteorites that have landed upon Earth have also been dated to around 4.5 billion years old by lead-lead dating.

“Altogether, the concordance of age dates of both the earliest terrestrial lead reservoirs and all other reservoirs within the solar system found to date are used to support the hypothesis that Earth and the rest of the solar system formed at around 4.53 to 4.58 billion years ago.”

We also know that dinosaurs that roamed the earth for thousands and thousands of years were long gone when God created Adam.  Scientists theorize that dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago, millions of years before many of the mammals that we are familiar with today came into existence.

The above having been said, we do not know how old the earth actually is. Genesis, chapter 1 gives us God’s account of its creation in “six days.”  These “days” were obviously very long periods of time and could have been of varying lengths as well (billions, millions or thousands of years).

Is the earth only a little older than 4,000 years?  No it is much older, since Bible chronology tells us that human kind has been on the earth for 6,000 years and there is scientific evidence that animals have been here much, much longer.