The Lord may graciously help
me, I return your prayerful attention to the second epistle of Peter, chapter 3, and reading verses
10 and 11 for a text. The second epistle of Peter,
chapter 3, and verses 10 and 11. 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. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation and godliness. The second epistle of Peter,
chapter 3 and verses 10 and 11. Peter begins this chapter was
telling us why he has written this epistle. This second epistle,
beloved, I now write unto you in both which I stir up your
pure minds by way of remembrance. He wants to stir up the people
of God to a greater sense of godliness and living the Christian
life with a view to what is before them. And you see, Peter warns
us in this epistle of something that we know very well today. In verse 3 of this chapter, know
this first. that there shall come in the
last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying where
is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. The only difference today is
they don't even believe in creation. But you see what we have here
is very much a picture of what the world view of our world is. You see, a number of you perhaps
were at the Truth in Science talks yesterday and they were
talking about creation and how the world around us gives evidence
of the creation. The creation of intelligent design. things that we see in creation
and the birds and the animals, we cannot match them as engineers
in what we make. We come profoundly short compared
to what they do. And they're meant to have got
there by random chance, so it doesn't say much for our engineers
if we can't do as much as random chance. So we have in the whole
of the world around us evidence that God created the world. But you see, here it says that
everything continues as it has done. So the theory is, the thought
is that the world is millions of years old. We saw a chart
yesterday, 500 million years old. That's when some things
were happening apparently. According to their of flawed
philosophy. But you see, the idea of these
millions of years, if we get them in our minds, we think millions
of years? I only live a hundred years at
most. Millions of years is much greater. And therefore, it's been going
for millions of years and it will no doubt go on for millions
of years. Where's God in all this? It gives
a sense of, well, it's not going to end. It's been going 500 million
years. Well, what's a few more million
years now? You see, the whole philosophy
is this. In the last days, scoffers will come. They will mock at
the age of the earth being something like 6,000 years old. They'll
mock at it. They'll ridicule it. But Peter's not perhaps so worried
about the fact that they're ridiculing how long ago the world was. What
he's worried about is this, that there's a coming, there's a second
coming of Christ. And whether you believe 6,000
years ago exactly what happened, you will not be part, you weren't
as it were at that time at the creation. And then he also mentions
the flood. But what we all will be involved
in, is the second coming of Christ. In verse 5, it's for this they
are willingly are ignorant of, that the word, by the word of
God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water. We spoke of that two weeks ago
when I was here, how God on that second day, sorry, the third
day of creation, he separated the waters that were on the face
of the earth. You think of what life would be like if there was
water everywhere and no land. We couldn't live, could we? But
God, you see, he bound the oceans so that they could go in a certain
area. They couldn't go everywhere. There would be dry land. There
would be somewhere for us to live. God made that place. And
Peter picks that up. For they willingly ignorant that
by the word of God, it's God's word that did it, the heavens
were of old and the earth standing out of the waters and in the
waters. And then he immediately goes on to a second event. So
we have creation. And then he goes on to the flood.
Because there was this idea of the waters being bound, God then
commanded something else. If we look in Genesis 6 and verse
17. God says this, and behold, I,
even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all
flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven and under
everything that is in the earth. and everything that is in the
earth shall die. That is God. You see, the flood
didn't come randomly. It came at God's command. The
waters were taken away from the earth by God's command, and the
waters covered the earth once again in the time of Noah by
the Word of God. These great events. God created
everything. He commanded everything. And
he spoke, you see, that he was going to flood the world, and
then he promised that he would never flood it again. But you
see, he said this and it happened. And it's interesting to me, isn't
it? I find it interesting that it's
really the creation and the flood which are the great scoffing
points of the secular world. They want to ridicule it. Why
are they so interested in ridiculing it? Because it's the same God
that did creation, that did the flood, that is going to do the
fire at the end. It's the same God. And if we
can ridicule the fact that he didn't do the creation, ridicule
Noah's flood, where's the faithfulness then
of the second coming of Christ? but the whole of the creation
shouts of a creator. It's really an insult to engineers
that we say that we can't make something better than random
chance. Of course, we can't make something better than what God
has created, because he is the gold standard of design, and
we come short. But if it's random processes,
It's really a ridicule of engineers, I would
say. But God has shown that he has done these things. He's put
his handiwork in all of creation. But the question for you and
me is, God has said he's coming again. Yes, you can understand why they
want to ridicule creation, why they want to ridicule the flood,
why? Because then they can ridicule the second coming of Christ.
And that's why it's so important to us today because we're not
going to be involved in the flood, it's happened. But there's a
day coming when every one of us in this chapel is going to
be involved in the second coming of Christ. Every one of us. And it's happening when God commands. The word of God that took the
sea off of the land and made dry land. The God that spoke
in it rained 40 days and 40 nights. The fountains of the great deep
were opened up. The world was completely flooded
again. He is coming to judge the world
again. And we need to be ready. And this is what Peter, his emphasis
in looking back at the creation and looking back at Noah's flood,
his His message is this, Jesus is
coming again. He's coming again, this time
not by water, but this time by a fire. A fire that is going
to burn everything up. There's no insurance policy against
this fire. It would be ridiculous to have
one. Who can stand against such a
God? This is a fire that's going to burn everything and anything
up. But the people of God will be taken safe to glory. Just as it was in Noah's day,
there was those eight souls. They were in the ark. They entered
the ark and they were safe. The ark took all the battering,
all the storms, all the rain, battered that ark. That ark was
Christ. But those in the ark were safe.
They were safe from every storm that came upon that ark.
Picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. These great events in history.
The creation that we spoke of two weeks ago. Noah's Flood,
which was that huge catastrophe. Why is it that we have fossils,
I understand, on the Himalayas, where Everest is part of? We have fossils of sea creatures
buried alive in the Himalayas. Isn't that evidence of a global
flood? Why do people want not to have
a global flood? Because the God that's made the
global flood, he's coming again and the scoffers don't want it.
They want to ridicule it, they want to say, we are king of this
world, we own this world, we can do what we want in this world.
But God is saying, I made it, I flooded it once, and I'm going
to burn it up at the end. This is my world, and you're
to be my people. Vastly important message. and Peter is using the past to
show something of what is coming. 9. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. You think of this. The Lord has
his people down through the ages. If he terminated the world today
and there was yet some that had not yet been born that were his
sheep to go into eternal glory, then they would be lost, wouldn't
they? There's a necessity for the world to continue until the
entire Church of God is saved in the Lord with an everlasting
salvation. That creation that I spoke of
two weeks ago has to be performed in each of the hearts of His
people to make them conform to the image of Christ, to bring
them to the full stature of Christ. And then, time will be no longer. You say, but so many other people
have got their ambitions of what they're going to do with their
business in the next five years, what they're going to do here
and what they're going to do there. Surely they've got an agenda.
That's just your religious thoughts about what's going to happen.
But other people have got their own views. I ask you this question. When Noah was in that ark and
the rain was coming down and the floods were coming up, was
it a private matter between Noah and God whether it was just Noah's
thoughts that God was bringing a flood or not? The other people
down the road might have said, well we don't agree with Noah's
God so we're not having a flood. Did they not have a flood? God sent a flood and swept them
all away. We live in a world that tries
to think that there can be multiple truths. Ultimately, the truth
is the truth. And I think people would have
come to realize that as the waters rose, that there was, what Noah
was speaking was the truth. And there wasn't 100 versions
of it, it was the truth. and it was pretty salutary for
those that are outside the ark. This is a picture of salvation.
It's not up to you to choose, as it were, which way you go.
All roads lead to the right way. It's not true. When the time
of Noah's flood came, there was only one place of safety. And when this second coming of
of Christ comes and the world is burnt up and the elements
melt with fervent heat, there will only be one place of safety. But the day of the Lord will
come. It will come. I had a dream last
week of what it would be like. Something of this world passing
away. I woke up with these words, seeing then all these things
shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? You see, we can't
grasp it, can we? What would it be like for everything
all over the world to be burning? No place of safety, there's no
fire alarm system that's going to save you. The idea of a fire
alarm system is you get out of a burning building, you get to
somewhere where it's not burning. A very good system. But it won't
help you on this fire, will it? Where are you going to go? But
the day of the Lord will come. It's a certainty. As God commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, he will command and this world
will be no longer. And the scientists, with all
their mocking of God, will be finished. They'll be
silent before the God that created everything, that controls everything,
that sustains everything, which will bring everything to an end. When his work is done, this great
work you see, and this is what we sung about in our opening
hymn, the wonders of creation are amazing, but the wonders
of God's redemption are greater still. And here as we are below,
we want to be involved in knowing what this wonders of redemption
are, because the day of the Lord is coming. We don't know when.
But what God says you see, Jesus spoke of these things you see. In Matthew 24 we read, in verse
37, But as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son
of Man be. That's why they want to ridicule
Noah's flood. You see, the atheists are not fools in that sense.
They can read the Bible, they can see what the Bible says and
what the Christian hope is. If you can ridicule this, you
can ridicule the second coming of Christ. But as the days of
Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that
Noah entered the ark, and knew not until the flood came and
took them all away. shall the coming of the Son of
Man be. The same way. Interesting, I
do feel this. We live in this day which seems
to wreck and ruin all the God-created ordinances of marriage and those
great blessings and all this transsexual movement. It's interesting
to me, you read this, that it's going to be the same In the second
coming of Christ as in the first, they shall be marrying and giving
in marriage. I don't believe that all that
is trying to go on will completely derail that, because God has
said it's going to be the same as in Noah's day. It's just a little side point.
But God has said this, this is what Jesus spoke. And what does
Jesus say about it? Therefore be ye also ready, for
in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. The Son of Man cometh, you see.
And this is the great message, the urgency. There's an urgency
here, isn't there? We don't know when it's going
to be. It could be very soon. could be very soon. And we are
to prepare in our lives as if it is very soon. That's why God
deliberately doesn't tell us when it is. He says one day is
like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. In other
words, we do not know. And God has said elsewhere that it's
only the Father that knows. He hasn't revealed it to us.
Why? Be ye also ready. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night. How does a thief come in the
night? Does he ring you up the day before and say, well, at
12 o'clock next evening, I hope to bang through your door and
I hope to take your jewellery and I hope to take your car and
your car keys and I'll sort everything out. I'll give you just a bit
of warning. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in
the night. He doesn't give warning. He comes. in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise. See we read that our God is a
confuming fire. There's this idea that the New
Testament is entirely different than the old. This morning we
were speaking, James was speaking and others, of the Ten Commandments
and the giving of the Ten Commandments and the fire and the shaking
of the mountain and the smoke and all that went with giving
of those Ten Commandments. The holiness of God. He's the
still same holy God that judges sin and hates sin in the New
Testament. You look at this. But the day
of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise. I guess it's going to
be much louder than Sinai. With a great noise. And the elements
shall melt with fervent heat. There was smoke coming out of
the top of Sinai. But this is going to be greater. And the earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up. There's going to be a destruction
of everything here below and there's going to be only one
thing that's going to be valuable. Are you, am I, in Christ? Are we in Christ? Do we know Him as our Lord, our
God and our Saviour? Do we know that He is our God?
This will be the all important question. And you see, this is how Peter
uses the truths of creation, the truths of Noah's flood. He
uses it to instill in the people of God, be ready, be prepared. We don't know when this is coming,
but we know it is coming. And the only way to be ready
for it is to be prepared, to be able to say, yes, this is
not my rest. As Abraham was able to declare,
we have here no continuing city, but we look for one to come.
We're strangers and pilgrims in this earth. We're not building
the big, great estate here below. That's not
what we're about. We're not about building up a
huge estate here below. We're looking for that blessed
hope. and the glorious appearing of the great God. This is not
our rest. It's all going to be burned up. It's all passing away. It puts a very different perspective. It's just in my dream. It just
put everything in a different perspective. To think that the
world is passing away. Our houses. Our jobs. The things that we think are
so important and they are important in their place. I'm not trying
to despise all the things that God has given us. What Peter
wants us to do is be ready. Don't make this your rest. But
the day of the Lord will come. This is just as certainly as
God created us and as certainly as the whole of creation shows
the handiwork of a mighty God. And the fact that we have fossils
all over the surface of the world shows that it was flooded at
one point. Peter says, next time it's not going to be
a flood, it's going to be fire and it's going to pass away.
And that's going to be the end of time. The end of time. All the people of this world,
they They think of what they would do and what they would
build and how they'll use their time and everything. But the
day of the Lord is coming and God's people should be aware
of it. And I'm speaking to myself. In
that dream, everything crystallized as to what was really important
in life. The heavens shall pass away with
a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. that this is going to happen
in two weeks time? How would it change your calendar in the
next two weeks? Would it change your calendar? How would it change
what you do? Would it change whether you bothered
turning up in the house of God? Would it change whether you actually
read the word of God? Whether you actually felt that
it was necessary to speak to God in prayer? Whether you were
found amongst the people of God. Would that change anything? Sure
it would. 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. What a tremendous occasion that
will be. When everything, God has spoke
everything into existence out of nothing and God will speak
again and everything that is material will go into nothing.
These are not things that we can do in a lab. They're not
things that we can reproduce. This is God and his power. Everything in this world is sustained
by the word of his power. And when he has his work of creation
in the hearts of his people, like I was speaking of two weeks
ago, when that is complete, when the Church of God is ready, when
all the Church of God is ready to go into everlasting glory
in the marriage supper of the Lamb, then this world, with all
that's in it, will be finished. The sun will no longer need to
shine. The stars won't be needed anymore. The moon won't be needed
anymore. Everything will pass away. People today get very concerned
about global warming, and rightly so to some extent. But this is
going to be global warming on a different scale. This is going
to be the whole world will be burnt up. This is much, much
more serious. Day of the Lord will come as
a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall
be burnt up. We think of all the national
trust properties, the things of great heritage of England,
the great important things, we say we must keep those, they're
going to go too, they're going to be burnt up, all the history,
all those things. History in the mind of God won't
be lost, God knows everything that's happened. But everything
that we count precious here below is passing away. It puts a new
priority set on our lives, doesn't it? What's really important? Who do we need to know? How can
we be made right with God? How can we get right with this
holy, holy, holy God? that requires a standard which
we are totally unable to live up to. How can we be right with
him? How can we go into glory? Well, you see, the Lord Jesus
came to this earth. in the fullness of time. 400 years. But He came! He came,
He didn't not come. Jesus is coming again. He's coming again and we don't
know when, but we do know we need to be ready. There's only
one way to be ready, to be in Christ. And the works that are therein
shall be burned up. There's just a majestic simplicity in this verse, isn't
it? It's just simplicity and majestic. This is what is going
to happen. God is going to do it. God never
lies. What he says he's going to do. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved. Perhaps you've put a, you children,
if you put a sugar cube in a glass of hot water, put a cube of sugar
in there and watch it, perhaps give it a little stir. That sugar
cube dissolves away and you can't see it anymore. Seeing then that
all those things shall be dissolved, they're gonna pass away. What
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and
godliness. Is it not going to change our
priority set? Peter thinks it will. Peter thinks this will
change our priority set. This second epistle, beloved,
I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds
by way of remembrance.' He wants to stir them up and the end point
that he makes at the end of this whole epistle, but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is the whole purpose. This
is why it's important to believe that God created the world. This
is why it's important to believe that there was indeed a Noah's
Flood. Because he's coming again. And
we need to be ready. We need to grow in grace. We
need to be ready for that time when time will be no longer. Grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is life eternal. that they may know me and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent. This is what it is to be ready. This is what it is to be prepared.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved. They're passing away. It may
affect the way you think about your lives, the plans that you
make. These things are going to be dissolved. We need to make
things, we need to do things here below. I'm not suggesting
that we just do nothing, but we need to remember the day of
the Lord is coming. Am I ready? Are my children ready? Are those around me ready? Seeing that all these things
shall be dissolved. What manner, what sort, what
kind of sort of person ought ye to be in all holy conversation? Conversation there is not just
our talk, it's our whole behaviour. Holiness, without which no one
will see the Lord. Peter is using these solid facts to wake Christians up. to their
need to live godly, to their need to know Christ. Not to say, oh well, you know,
some 20 years ago I was baptised. Grow in grace. The light that
shined. Is there an ongoing work? You
see, God didn't just let the light shine and that was the
end of it. He didn't finish the work until he described it was
very good, it was complete. man formed in the image of God. Formed to show forth his praise. God made man to glorify him and
to enjoy him forever. And that is the purpose of God
working in our hearts. Not just to make us go from being
non-Christian to Christian and then just sit there in some sort
of level state with no communication with God, with no growth. Well,
you say of a child, if a child's, I mean, you take the little ones
here. It's lovely to see them little.
They're lovely children. But if you came back 20 years'
time and they just looked exactly the same, you'd say, something's
really wrong. That little boy is still a little
boy. He hasn't changed in 20 years. Grow in grace. Don't just say, well, 20 years
ago I was blessed. 20 years ago I joined the church.
Growth. You see, that's how you know
that something's living, is it's growing. Growing in grace and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Seeing
then that all these things must be dissolved, what manner of
persons ought ye to be? in all holy conversation, in
holy behavior. You see, are we drinking in the
way that the world thinks, the customs of the world, what the
world calls good and great, what the world glories in? It's passing
away, it's passing away. They don't glorify God, they
mock God, they mock Noah, they mock the creation. The word of God is powerful. and the Word of God is to be
taken seriously. There's a simplicity in this,
but there's a tremendous depth of truth. 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 and the earth also, and the works that
are therein shall be burnt up. Sounds pretty drastic from a
safety point of view, doesn't it? That's why the things that
we deal with are eternally important. Yes, safety has its place, but
if we're worried about safety, truly, we should be worried about
the day of the Lord. seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen.