He was sitting on the side of the Mount of Olives when his disciples came to him privately and propounded the question: "Tell us, _when_ shall these things be?
and _what_ shall be the sign [proof or indication] of thy presence, and of the end of the world ?" (Matthew 24:3) The word world as here used does not mean the earth.

The earth will never end or pass away, because "God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited".

(Isaiah 45:18) "The earth abideth forever."-- Ecclesiastes 1:4.
[428]The word world means the social and political order or rule governing the people.

From Adam to the time of the great deluge was the first world or social order of government; which was under the administration of angels (Hebrews 2:5), and which passed away in a great flood, during which only Noah and his family, consisting in all of eight persons, were carried over from the old to the other or newer world, and were saved.

(2 Peter 3:6; 1 Peter 3:20) There began with Noah and his family a new order or world, which in the time of the Apostle's day and before that time had grown evil, and which he designated as "the present evil world".