Things Temporal and Things Eternal.
I. First, our Lord declares to us, "Heaven and earth shall pass away." By heaven and earth are meant this state of things of which we have experience; this earth as it is an habitation for human beings; the sun as it is a light to us, the moon and the stars as in any way connected with man. We know that we ourselves shall all die; nay, we know also by past experience that nations many times die; and, so far as it is a death to perish utterly from the knowledge of future ages, so there are many generations of the whole human race which in this sense are to us dead. But our Lord's words go further than this; they tell us that there will be an absolute end of all worldly things whatever, that all the human race shall come to an end.
II. But yet I quite allow that this portion of the text without the other might, and I think would, have very little practical effect. For granting that heaven and earth shall pass away, and that our highest earthly labours are bestowed therefore on that which is perishable, yet still if this perishable is all that we know of, it becomes after all of very great and paramount importance to us; it may be but a poor thing to live, but live we must by the very necessity of our nature, and we must love this life, if we know of nothing better. And therefore simple declarations of the perishableness of earthly things are really of no effect whatever. No man heeds them, or can heed them, for our nature repels them. It is, however, altogether different when we take in the second part of the text, and are told that Christ's words shall not pass away. For if there be anything in the world eternal, then that which is perishable, even though it may last for many years, or many ages, must become infinitely insignificant in comparison. If some of our works must pass away utterly and some abide for ever, the glory and value of the first becomes as nothing by reason of the greater glory of the second. We have a work that is never to perish, a suffering yielding a multiplied harvest of blessing, if we firmly believe that there are things which shall not pass away.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. v., p. 185.
References: Mark 13:31. A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 16; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 193.