The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, January 27, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now, as I have urged you to do
in this brief series of sermons that I'm presently bringing,
please turn with me to Paul's letter to the Colossians, and
I read in your hearing the first two verses. Colossians chapter 3, verses
1 and 2. Having told the Colossians that
in union with Christ they have died with Him, they have been
buried with Him, symbolized in their baptism, chapter 2, verse
12, and that they have in union with Christ risen to newness
of life, their sins fully judged in the cross, the dominion of
sin broken in that union with Christ in death and resurrection,
now raised and seated with Him. Since then you were raised together
with Christ. Seek the things that are above
where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind
on the things that are above, on the things that are upon earth
for, verse 3, you died and your life is hid with Christ in God. Well, let's pray and ask the
help of God's Holy Spirit as we come to the preaching and
teaching of His Word. We're so thankful that Your Word
tells us that like as a father pities his children, so You pity
those who fear You. You remember, You know our frame. You remember that we are dust. And Father, You know that my
own mind and spirit feel so oppressed by the weight of this chapter
that we have read. and the knowledge that those
horsemen ride throughout the earth while we sit in comfort
and in ease. We have brothers and sisters
staring that horseman who rides as death and others in the midst
of famine. Oh, Father, help me that my spirit
may be able to be for the time being detached from those things
and focused upon the things that I have planned and purposed and
prayerfully believe I ought to say to your people, Lord, help
me. I offer up this weak, frail mass
of human clay and ask you to take hold of it. and make it
the instrument of speaking your truth to every heart. O God,
come, we pray, not in the quiet, soft tones that comfort us, but,
O Lord, in tones that will shake us, in tones that will cut us
loose from our cavalier attachment to stuff that is going to go
up in smoke. when our Lord Jesus returns in
power and in glory. Lord, come to us. Oh, come to
us, we pray. And may we taste and feel the
powers of the age to come in the hour of ministry. Amen. We come this morning to the fourth
sermon in this brief series of messages that I have entitled,
Council for the New Year. And each of the categories of
that council begins with the words, at the beginning of and
throughout this new year, set your mind upon. And I have been
told to put this council together and introduce each strand of
that counsel with these words, set your mind upon, based upon
the obvious principle embedded in Colossians 3 and verse 2,
where the apostle assumes that true Christians, those who are
united to Christ, having experienced union with him in death and resurrection,
His spirit-indwelt body have both the power and the duty to
regulate those things upon which their minds are set. He does
not want them to allow their minds to be drawn by the magnets
all around them or by the channels cut from within their own remaining
corruption. As Christians, they are to deliberately,
consciously, continually discipline the focus of their minds. They are to set their minds upon
And so, with the principle clearly established from that text, my
first word of counsel was this. At the beginning of and throughout
this present year, set your mind directly upon your Savior. And having opened up some very
pivotal texts that direct the people of God to do this, I urge
you to set your mind upon your Savior as you live the Christian
life in 2008 as together we face the changes in leadership in
our assembly and as we confront the events which unfold in our
nation and in the world in the coming year. My second word of
counsel was this. In the beginning of and throughout
this new year, set your mind upon the certainties of the future. For while the Scriptures tell
us and our own observation and experience validates, we do not
know what a day may bring forth as to the particular events that
will mark God's providential ordering of our individual lives. However, God has revealed in
His Word that there are some certainties with respect to the
future. And furthermore, the Bible tells
us that you and I as Christians will only live as we ought to
live in the present when our present is shaped and governed
by the certainties of the future. In other words, God has revealed
the certainties of the future, not only that we might know them,
but that we might be regulated and shaped and molded by those
certainties. And no Christian lives as he
ought in the present who has not set his mind upon the certainties
of the future. And in opening up that principle,
I asserted last Lord's Day that all three of the individual strands
that will comprise the stuff of that second major word of
counsel cluster around that great certainty in capital letters,
even the return of our Lord Jesus in glory and power at the end
of the age, the events that we confronted this morning in terms
of the opening of the sixth seal. And so last Lord's Day, we looked
at two of the three strands that I propose to open up under this
second counsel. It is certain that at God's appointed
time, Jesus shall return and complete his work of salvation
in me and in all of his people. And then we looked at the implications
of that and how it should shape and mold the working out of our
lives before God and one another. And then secondly, it is certain
that at the appointed time Jesus shall return to perform his work
as the appointed judge of all men, including me. And then we looked at six specific
ways, and that was not an exhaustive treatment of the many texts that
show how living in the light of the Day of Judgment is to
be an integral part of a true Christian's experience. Well,
now we come, so much for the review, to this third strand
of this exhortation that at the beginning of and throughout this
year, We set our minds upon the certainties of the future. Not
only that Christ will return and complete His work of salvation,
He will return and fulfill His task as universal judge. But the third strand is this.
It is certain that at God's appointed time, Jesus shall return to usher
in the new heavens and the new earth. wherein righteousness
will have its universal, unrivaled, and permanent home. It is certain
that at God's appointed time, Jesus shall return to usher in
the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness will have
its universal, unrivaled, and permanent hope. Now, when we
pick up our Bibles and start at page one, what do we confront? Well, the first words of our
Bible are these. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. And then the Bible further records
that as God did this work of creation, all that he created
was pronounced good and very good, not by onlookers, but by
God himself. God's omniscient eye described
in the totality of his creation nothing but that it was very
good. So when God's work of creation
was completed, there was perfect cosmic order, harmony, compatibility. The very perfections of God were
perfectly mirrored in a perfect world, inhabited by a perfect
man and a perfect woman with a perfect marriage in perfect
symmetry and interaction, I'm sorry, in perfect harmony and
interaction with all of the created reality in which they were placed. That's Genesis 1 and 2. But tragically,
Genesis chapter 3 tells us that into this perfection sin and
evil entered. And we are furthermore informed
that with this entrance of sin comes disorder, disintegration,
disruption, and eventually death itself. And so when the Bible
tells us that God comes to deal with this intrusion of sin in
space-time history, in the place where it occurred, there in the
garden, that when He addresses this matter and begins to deal
with the serpent who tempted Eve and with Adam and with Eve
herself, God says that man's sin is that which is going to
cause disruption in the cosmic order that up till then was marked
by nothing but harmony, compatibility, perfection. And now God says
something else is going to mark the created order. So he says
in Genesis 3, I will put enmity between you and the woman speaking
to the serpent and your seed and her seed. He shall bruise
your head and you shall bruise his head, his heel. But unto
the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception. Your desire shall be to your
husband. That is, you are going to buck
against his place of authority over you, and you are going to
find enmity and tension where once there was harmony and delight. And he, in reaction to that,
will seek to dominate you. And then he speaks to the man
in verse 17, because you've hearkened to the voice of your wife. Cursed
is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all
the days of your life. Thorns and thistles will it bring
forth. And then eventually, he says,
out of the ground you were taken. You were made of dust. And to
dust you shall return. disintegration and death as a
tragic result of sin. To use the words of John Milton,
paradise is lost. Paradise is lost not only in
terms of the disruption of the creature's relationship to God,
but of the creature's relationship to the world in which God placed
them and in that world itself. Paradise is lost. But in the
midst of that very setting, God makes this announcement, it won't
always be this way, that God will sovereignly and graciously
and effectually work in this very situation to break up this
alignment between the man and the woman and the serpent. He
says, I'm going to put enmity You've cast your lot in with
the serpent. I'm going to come and disrupt
that relationship, and ultimately through the seed of the woman,
I will bring an absolute crushing to the head of the serpent. God
announces there will be a marvelous and glorious and powerful undoing
of the work of the serpent. And when we pick up our Bibles
and ask, what will it look like when Genesis 3.15 is fully realized
in the history of this world? It is nothing less than paradise
regained. And what I want to demonstrate
from the Scriptures this morning is that at God's appointed time,
Jesus shall return not only to complete the work of salvation
in His people, which He began in time, a great measure that
He accomplishes when they die and that will be ultimately completed
when He returns and He gives them resurrected bodies and they
are glorified. Not only at His return will He
complete His salvation in His people, Not only will he fulfill
his role as the appointed judge and gather the nations before
him, but he will usher in the new heavens and the new earth
wherein righteousness will have its universal, unrivaled, and
permanent home. It will be paradise regained. And you know what? You are sitting
on part of that paradise. Oh, you say, I thought when I
die I'm going to heaven. Yes, you will go to the heaven
of Christ's immediate dwelling if you die in Christ. But you're
not going to stay there forever. When Jesus comes, where you're
sitting is going to be part of heaven. When heaven comes down
to earth and the presence of God fills the new heavens and
the new earth, where righteousness in this earth has its universal,
unrivaled, and permanent home. And that's what I want to demonstrate
out of the Bible. This morning, particularly looking
at two Mount Everest peaks, in the whole mountain range of biblical
texts which teach this, which point to it, we have two Mount
Everest or Matterhorn texts that unmistakably declare this truth. And I want to expound those texts
If I have time, apply them. If I run out of time, I have
Pastor Carlson's consent to get patched up and come back tonight
and give the application. So then, let's look at these
two Mount Everest texts that set before us this marvelous
truth that Christ's return will not only be the completion of
your personal, individual salvation, and the salvation of all of His
bride that He will present to Himself without spot or wrinkle. But this poor, staggering, groaning,
sin-cursed cosmos will be restored on the basis of Christ's redemptive
activity. for our Bibles tell us. And these
verses puzzled me for years when I did not understand this. I
said, Lord, what does this mean? It was the good pleasure of the
Father that in Christ should all the fullness dwell, and through
Him, Colossians 1.20, to reconcile all things unto Himself, having
made peace through the blood of His cross. Through Him, I
say, weather things upon the earth, or things in the heaven,
and you people His reconciliation not only affects people, but
things in heaven and things upon the earth. And every time I read
that, I say, Lord, that doesn't make sense to me. I didn't think
any things needed to be reconciled. Yes, they do. Separation, disillusion,
death have cursed this cosmos, and when Christ is done with
it, on the basis of His redemptive work. It'll all be reconciled
and will be what God intended it should be from the beginning. If that don't get you excited,
my friend, your exciter is dead. All right, Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8. Now, this is going to be heavily
didactic. I've got to expound before I
can apply. One commentator I read this week
gives a very helpful suggestion that we can look at Romans 8
verses 1-30 under the title of Assurance of Eternal Life in
the Spirit. Everyone who reads Romans 8 knows
that the Holy Spirit's presence pervades this chapter or teaching
about His ministry. And I think it's a convenient
way to think of the first 30 verses as assurance of eternal
life in the Spirit. And so in the first 13 verses,
the Apostle tells us that the Spirit is the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus. that has made us free from the
law of sin and of death, has brought us into this realm where
we are no longer dominated by the flesh, but by the Spirit. The Spirit is the Spirit of life.
Verses 14 to 17, He is the Spirit of adoption. And then in verses 18 to 30,
he is the spirit of glory. And so when we come to verse
18, having said that if we are the adopted children of God,
we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, verse 17,
Paul concludes that statement with the introduction of this
thought, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be glorified
with Him. Suffering precedes glory. It
did so with our Lord, and it will do so with all of His people. No glory for Him apart from the
path of suffering. No glory for us apart from the
path of suffering. So then, in verse 18, what does
Paul say? I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that shall be revealed to usward. The glory that shall
be revealed in us, the glory that shall be revealed to us,
and the commentators differ as the true significance of that
little prepositional phrase, but this much is clear. Yes,
suffering is in the way to glory. If you want a way to glory that
bypasses suffering, you've got to make up your own, because
the only way to glory established by God is through the path of
suffering. It so be that we suffer that
we may be glorified. And it's as though someone says,
well, that doesn't sound like too good a deal. Paul says, look,
wait a minute, wait a minute. He said, when I think of the
weight of the sufferings, and compare it with the weight of
the glory, it's not even sensible to put them on the same balance
scale. The weight of glory is such that
it will bring the scale up so quickly, all of the weight of
the suffering will fly off that side of the scale. That's what
he said in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. He said, while we look not
on the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen,
for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things
that are not seen are eternal. That's why he called all of his
sufferings our light affliction, which is but for a moment. So
Paul says, I reckon this is my serious, logical perspective. I've given serious thought to
this. And think of the man who wrote
this. that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy
to be compared. The second thing he introduces
here is present time and revealed glory. You see the emphasis? I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time, he's marking out this age as the age of suffering,
but there is an age to come which is called the glory age. This
coming age will be marked by glory revealed to us. A glory revealed in us, but a
glory revealed to us. Then in the next verses, and
now follow closely with me, he says this suffering and glory
motif They're not worthy to be conferred. They mark out two
ages and they affect two subjects. He then goes into identifying
the first subject, the suffering and glory of the creation, verses
19 to 22, and then the sufferings and glory of the children of
God, verses 23 to 27. And I want us to focus on that
first subject of the suffering glory motif that applies to the
creation. All right? So I've tried to give
you the flow of thought, where we are. Now listen as I read
and then try to identify the major strands of teaching in
verses 19 through 22. For the earnest expectation of
the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation
was subjected to vanity or futility, not of its own will, but by reason
of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty
of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole
creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Then you see in verse 23, he
moves to the second subject of this suffering, glory motif,
and not only so, but we ourselves. So he's talking about two subjects
of this suffering and glory motif. Do you see that from the text?
You've persuaded that. Good. All right. Having done
that, let's now work our way through primarily prying open
the major teaching of the verses with questions. All right? First
thing we learn from verse 18 is that present suffering is
not worthy to be compared with future glory. But verse 19, future
glory will involve the entirety of the subhuman and impersonal
created order. Future glory will involve the
entirety of the subhuman and impersonal created order. Paul personifies creation and
treats it as though it were a living, thinking, speaking being with
a long neck. He says, for the earnest expectation
of the creation. And the word he uses for earnest
expectation waiting is the word you would use to describe that
man who's gone to the airport. to meet his son or daughter who's
been away in a dangerous setting, perhaps a son who's been in Iraq
and done his tour of duty and God has spared him, and he longs
to see him, and he goes to the airport and he knows the place
where that particular flight will have its passengers come
through, and he's standing in the milling crowd and stretching
out his neck to catch a glimpse of his son. Paul says, the created
order It excludes man because later on he's going to deal with
man, man redeemed. And he certainly is not speaking
of fallen man because he says whatever this creation is that's
got a problem from which it needs to be delivered was not brought
into its problem by its own will. Any problems we have because
of sin is attributed to our fall in Adam and our own sins. So it's speaking of the cosmos. the sub-human, both the animate
and the inanimate creation, the beasts, the flowers of the field,
the trees, the sea, the creatures in the sea, that entire creation,
the Apostle says, personifying it into a living being with a
long neck. He says the created order is
eagerly awaiting something. And what is it eagerly awaiting?
Look at the text. The earnest expectation of the
creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. What in the
world is that? What's the revealing of the sons
of God? Well, let John answer. First
John 3. Behold, what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called sons of God,
and such we are. But it does not yet appear. It has not yet been revealed
what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. What is the
revealing of the sons of God? It is that marvelous reality
that is attached to the coming of Christ. when we, whom the
world knows not because it knew him not, we shall have our sinless
spirits united to our glorified bodies, and the entire universe
will say, this is that amazing people called the sons and daughters
of God. Now, creation Paul is giving
it the qualities of a living, thinking, long-necked human being. It says all of creation is eagerly
anticipating with stretched out neck the time when we, the sons
of God, are revealed for who we really are. And when is that?
At our glorification. Our glorification, the creation
knows will be the trigger for something marvelous that God
will do in it. That's verse 19. Now then, verse
20 answers the question, why? Why does the created order eagerly
await the revelation of the sons of God? Why is it all excited
about God's people getting glorified? Well, verse 20 tells us four.
Why does the creation have this earnest expectation waiting for
the revealing of the sons of God? For, or because, the creation
was subjected to vanity, futility, not of its own will, but by reason
of Him who subjected it. He says, you want to know why
the creation eagerly awaits and stretches out its neck longing
for the revealing of the sons of God? It's because of creation's
present condition. It has been subjected to vanity,
to futility. And when the Old Testament scholars
were putting the Hebrew Bible into Greek, 200 years before
the birth of our Lord in what's called the Septuagint, the LXX,
you'll see when you have it referred to. These 70 people labored to
do that. When they came to that book of
Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher.
This is the word they used. All is futility. Life descends
to disintegration and death. Try as we may, and Ecclesiastes
is a marvelous commentary upon this, this entire cosmos, the
created order, was subjected to vanity, not for its sin, but
because of man's sin. God said to Adam, Cursed is the
ground for your sake! And so this entire created order
has experienced God's curse upon it. Yes, though the Bible tells
us the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament show
His handiwork, and we see the wisdom of God and the beauty
of God and the symmetry of God in flowers and the majesty of
God in the rolling seas, it is nonetheless a created order that
is under the curse of God. It is subject to vanity. So its present condition, notice
how it's described in verse 21, the creation shall be delivered
from slavery of decay. Bondage of corruption is the
slavery it is under to what? Decay. Disintegration. Leave a field alone and it's
overgrown with weeds. Leave the house alone and it
becomes a shack. Leave things alone and don't
restore and repair, and they tend to decay. That's the present
condition. It shall be delivered from bondage
of corruption, slavery to decay. And then notice, verse 22, it
is described as groaning and travailing. It is subject to
vanity, to futility. It groans and travails. That's
why the created order has its neck stretched out waiting for
the revealing of the sons of God. It's weary of the condition
it's been in since man sinned and it came under God's curse. And this is mere speculation,
so I cannot establish it, but it could well be that some of
the disruptions in the outer reaches of our cosmos, those
black holes and those stars that are consumed and those other
massive destructive forces in the universe, could it be that
those have a relationship when there was that first intrusion
of evil, when the one who is now the devil and those who joined
him in that rebellion against God were cast out of heaven. Could it be? I do not know. But
my Bible says the created order as we now know it is in slavery. to decay. It is subjected to
vanity, to futility. It groans and it travails. Well, then we ask the question,
what will be the ultimate issue of this subjection to futility
and this slavery to decay? Where is it all going to go?
What will be the ultimate issue of it? Well, if you look at the
text, You'll see at the end of verse 20, two words, in hope. Now the words in hope, you have
a New King James, there's a semicolon, who subjected it, in hope that,
or in hope, semicolon, that the creation, it could be, and again,
it's legitimate linguistically, syntactically, and all the rest.
If you put a comma after subjected it, by reason of him who subjected
it, in hope, that the creation itself shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the glory of the liberty of the
children of God. You see what it's telling us?
At the point it was subjected to vanity, it was subjected to
vanity in the context of hope. And what is hope? confident expectation
of what God has promised to do. You say, subjected to vanity
in hope? Yes. Follow now. Where did God
say, I'm going to put enmity between the one who was the cause
of the injection of evil into this world? Genesis 3.15. And it's in that context that
the God who gives gospel hope And the crushing of the serpent's
head says, cursed is the ground for your sake, Adam. But the
cursing of the ground was in the context of the hope of the
gospel. God did not curse the ground
in a vacuum, but He cursed it in the context of hope. And that hope as we understand
from the rest of Scripture and passages as Colossians chapter
1 verses 20 through 22 is that on the ground of what Jesus did
in His life and death and resurrection, the serpent's head is crushed
And all of the fruit of His place injecting evil into this world
is undone and reversed, and paradise lost becomes paradise regained. So then the nature of that hope,
look at it, in hope that the creation itself shall be delivered
from this slavery to decay into what? Into something that is
parallel to the liberty of the glory of the children of God. And what is to be the glory of
the children of God? Full restoration to original
moral integrity and physical perfection. In other words, all
that sin has done to mar the image of God in us, both physically
and spiritually, all of that will be reversed. God's image
perfectly restored after the pattern of His Son, for we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. That's our glorious
liberty, and this created order is going to enjoy that liberty
consistent with its nature. Now you see why it stretches
its neck out? When are the sons of God going to get perfected?
Can't wait! We're going to get it too! If
creation has a mind, and if creation could speak, it would say, O
sons of God, get glorified! We're next. We're next. We're next. You see, this created
order in the entire subhuman animate and inanimate creation
that has been brought into slavery to decay, that groans and travails
shall be liberated, not annihilated and replaced, but purified, renovated,
regenerated is the very term Jesus uses in Matthew 19 when
the Son of Man comes in the regeneration, speaking not of the individual
regeneration of the believer, but of the entire cosmos. And then if you ask the question,
what is the indication, the tangible indication that all of this is
true, verse 22, for we know that the whole creation groans and
travails in pain together until now. That's the language of a
birthing mother. She groans and travails, and
all the commentators without exception that I checked on this
passage quote Calvin, who said these are not death groans and
death pains, but they're birth groans and birth pains. and all of the indications when
we hear of a tsunami, the result of a deep sea volcanic action
that forced out those walls of water, and when we hear of these
unexpected snowfalls in strange places and torrential rains and
mudslides, What are all of these things but this poor, created
order in birth pangs, not death pangs? This is where the secular,
materialistic, earthbound people don't have a clue. Not a clue,
folks. This world is not where it is
in much of its mess because of man's doing, though much is.
It's God's doing. He subjected it in futility. He did. Cursed is the ground
for your sake and where you have no view of ecology and geology
and of all the other ologies. that take into account God's
creative action and man's fall and God's curse and God's pledge
to redeem it all. You don't have a clue in most
things what you're talking about. And I do not despise every true
avenue of genuine science, but I'm talking about how we view
the whole thing within a biblical framework of perspective. And
so this old world groans. And it travails, but not in death
pains, but in birth pangs. And a moment is coming when that
for which it groans and travails shall be birthed. So John could
say in one of the final visions, Revelation 21, I saw New Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven to earth And then he goes on to
say, I beheld a new heavens and a new earth. Not this earth,
annihilated, discarded, and a new, fresh start out of nothing, but
this one. that's been subjected to futility,
this one that is in slavery to decay, this one that groans and
travails, this is going to be heaven. The heaven above will
join the heaven beneath. And I love to think that these
few square feet that I stand on now that's part of the groaning
and travailing In the age to come, I'm going to stand on a
spot of earth that is nothing but righteousness right here
in Montville. And I won't need to preach. I
can just shout. I can just shout. Worship and
praise. When I die, I'm going to heaven,
yes. But when I'm glorified, heaven's coming down here. Do
you believe that? You see, we've been snookered
into thinking that somehow heaven is being taken to some ethereal
realm concerning which we can form no definitive concepts. Paul says, look, I'm in the midst
of my most detailed, extensive exposition of that gospel which
is the power of God unto salvation, and he wants these Roman Christians,
many of them made up of common people, slaves, and not the intelligent,
common, ordinary people. He wants them to know, where
you sit listening to this letter, someday righteousness will dwell. All of the curse that is present
and operative in you and in the world around you shall be forever
removed. Paradise will be restored. Well, that's the first mountain
peak text. Now we're going to come to the
second. And now I know there's no way I'm going to get to the
application. Bart, you can have a good time having lunch and
enjoy your family. All right. 2 Peter 10. 2 Peter 10. Thank you for tracking
with me. I sense that you are, and I appreciate
that, and trust you will continue to track with me as we now come
to 2 Peter 3. Let me just say a word about
the setting. Peter in the opening words of
chapter 3 says, Beloved, this second epistle I write, and in
both of them I stir up your sincere minds by putting you in remembrance. And what does he want them to
remember? He wants them to remember words, the words spoken before
by the holy prophets and the commandment of our Lord and Savior
through your apostles, knowing this, that in the last days mockers
shall come with mockery saying, where's the promise of his coming?
So Peter is concerned that those believers in Asia Minor to whom
he writes, that they would remember the words of the Lord Jesus and
the other inspired penmen to the effect that they will carry
out their witness in the context of scoffing, arrogant unbelief,
particularly with regard to the return of the Lord Jesus in power
and in glory. And these arrogant, unbelieving
skeptics will say, the promise of His coming from the day that
the fathers fell asleep, everything continues as they were from the
beginning of creation. They say what is has been and
what has been and is always will be. They had a uniformitarian
view of history. But Peter says they willfully
forget something. What is is not always what was. There was a time when there was
an original creation made out of water in which God separated
water from above and beneath. However, that's not the world
you're now in. The world that was then was overflowed
with water. There was a cataclysmic disruption
in the flood sent in the days of Noah. He said they willfully
forget this because in willfully forgetting it, They can try to
push down the haunting sense that maybe history is moving
to the second coming. And to try to persuade ourselves,
we say, well, what has been is and what is always has been and
always shall be. He said, no, no, they willfully
forget the realities of the flood. But then he comes in verse 8
and says, but forget not this one thing, beloved. One day is
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering to you,
word, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. He says, look, these people are
reckoning as though God deals with time the way they do. They've
brought God into the sphere of their thinking. No, God does
reckon with time, and He works in time, but God does not relate
to time the same way we do. He knows the end from the beginning.
To Him, a thousand years can be compressed into the events
of the day, and the events of the day can be as a thousand
years. They have brought God down to
the level of their own little pea brains. Don't forget that.
And furthermore, They have forgotten, and don't you forget, that the
reason He has not yet fulfilled His promise to return, He's committed
to the gathering out of all of His elect. The Lord is not slack
concerning His promise, but is longsuffering to you, longsuffering
to you and to all upon whom He has set His love. And there must
be time in which to gather His elect unto Himself. But, now
here's our text. But the day of the Lord will
come, as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with
a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent
heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned
up Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought you to be in all holy living and godliness,
looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God,
by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? But according to
his promise, we look for a new heavens and a new earth wherein
dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
you look for these things, give diligence that you may be found
in peace without spot and blameless in his sight, and account that
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Now what do we
learn from these verses? Well, the certainty of His coming
is affirmed. Verse 10, the day of the Lord
will come. Let mockers mock. Let skeptics
in their arrogance say what they will. They cannot scrub from
God's calendar that day that is marked. And even if the son
tries to peek at it, God puts His hand over it. He says, the
time of that coming No man knows, not the angels, nor the Son. In His glorified place, perhaps
God has taken His hand off to Calen and said, My son, as the
reward of your obedience and your willingness to undergo even
voluntary ignorance in your perfect manhood, I now let you see. I don't know. That's speculation.
But the day shall come. It will come. The certainty. Secondly, the sudden and unexpected
nature of His coming. The day of the Lord will come
as a thief. That is, unexpectedly to the
unbelieving, skeptical world. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians
5, it does not overtake believers as a thief. They live and labor
and shape their lives in the expectation of and longing for
His return. But remember, Jesus said, as
in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming
of the Son of Man, eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage.
Unexpectedly, the heavens open, the fountains of the deep are
broken up, so shall it be in the day of the Son of Man. Certainty
shall come, unexpectedness as a thief. Now then, we park on
the effects of His coming described. Notice what Peter tells us. The
day of the Lord will come. Will come. Certainty. As a thief,
unexpectedly. Here's the effects. In which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. The elements be
dissolved with fervent heat. The earth and the works that
are therein shall be burned up. Verse 12b. by reason of which
the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat. Let me try to reduce all of this
description under three simple headings. When Jesus comes, Peter
is focusing upon the effects of His coming on two things,
the ungodly and this sin-cursed Cosmos. With regard to the ungodly,
verse 7b, that day will be the day of judgment and destruction
of the ungodly. Clear. Simple. With regard to
this created order, this sin-cursed cosmos, he tells us three things. Number one, there will be a cosmic
cataclysm. The word cataclysm is defined
in our dictionaries as a great upheaval that causes sudden changes
such as an earthquake, a flood, etc. And what Peter is describing
here in conjunction with the effects of the day of the Lord
is nothing short of a cosmic cataclysm. A great noise and
the exegetes go back and forth saying that this particular Greek
word is one of those that's onomatopoeic. It sounds like the thing it conveys
and you have heard people say when they've gone into a rushing
inferno of a burning house, there is a strong swooshing sound like
that of a jet engine. Perhaps it's something of this
nature that Peter is describing here with the use of this word. There will be great noise. Notice,
the elements shall be dissolved. What are the elements? We don't
know. And those who wrestle with Bible
language and Bible words can only speculate. But it has to
do with the aspects that comprise this cosmos, both in heaven and
on earth. So there'll be a great noise. The elements shall melt with
fervent heat. The works the works that are
therein shall be burned up, is that referring to man's productions
in his cities and in his villages, his architecture, and all of
the things that he has produced with his hands, and then it is
burned up or is laid bare and discovered. The end of verse
10, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned
up. And there's a problem there.
What is the precise word that Peter wrote? If he wrote the
word, it can mean not burned up, but laid bare, discovered. And I'm not going to weary you
with all of the different approaches. This much is clear. You read
those words and you say, everything is in upheaval. everything that
to us is external in this world and in the heavens above, there
will be nothing short of a cosmic cataclysm. Verse 10 says heavens,
the celestial realm, and earth, the terrestrial realm, will all
be affected by this cosmic cataclysm. But secondly, this will result
in cosmic dissolution, a breaking up into its parts. Look at the
words of verse 10. It uses the term burned up, uses
in verse 11 the word dissolved, seeing these things are to be
dissolved. Look at verse 12, the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. This cosmic cataclysm will result
in a cosmic dissolution of things as we now know them. Burned up,
dissolved, elements melting with fervent heat. But bless God,
there's a third thing affirmed by Peter, and it is this, cosmic
cataclysm leading to cosmic dissolution. These things will issue in cosmic
regeneration. Verse 13, but, but, this is what
it's all going to issue in, according to his promise, the promise explicitly
given through the prophet Isaiah in chapter 65 and again in 66,
I make a new heavens and a new earth. But according to his promise,
we look not for the cosmic cataclysm, not for the cosmic dissolution,
but we look for a new heaven This disruption in the terrestrial,
in the celestial realm will issue a new, renewed, purified, reordered
heavens and a new earth in which righteousness shall have, and
then Peter uses a lovely word, its permanent home. Its permanent home. That's why I began by saying
it is certain that at God's appointed time Jesus shall return to usher
in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness will
have its universal, unrivaled, and permanent home. a thoroughly purged, reconstituted
cosmos, a new heavens and a new earth, a cosmos made suitable
and fitted to be the permanent home of righteousness, inhabited
not only by righteous, unfallen angels, and by a righteous God
and a righteous Savior, all suffused with the life-giving power of
a righteous Holy Spirit, men and women, boys and girls. And perhaps I am agnostic what
other creatures may be there, but wherever you go, every square
inch will be claimed by absolute, untainted righteousness, conformity
to the mind and will and character of God. And I personally believe that
those galaxies out there aren't waiting for us, for somebody
to build us powerful telescopes to see them and worship God for
them. I say no more. I keep those things
up here that you think about it. A new heavens! To what extent,
to what extent are the things men discover with the Hubble
telescope, to what extent are some of those, the effect of
this cosmos being subject to futility? I do not know. But
wherever the curse has gone, The redemptive activity shall
conquer and renew and restore. Listen to one author who has
beautifully summarized everything I've tried to show you from the
passage. He writes, The day of the Lord
will be a day of cosmic judgment which will affect the entire
created order. It will not just affect the human
race, but the entire creation. Just as creation was contaminated
by the consequences of human sin, so it will be purged and
purified by God's supreme act of judgment. All this reminds
us that our rebellion has consequences for the world and universe of
which we are a part. Just as human recklessness and
greed lie behind the countless ecological disasters affecting
the planet and even the growing pollution of space itself, so
too in a more sinister way the sin that is bound up with that
recklessness and greed touches the outer reaches of the universe
in ways we cannot fully fathom. The disorder sin has brought
into our lives has had the domino effect of bringing disorder into
creation itself. Now listen to this final paragraph.
It is not hard to see what Peter has in mind and why he says that
such drastic action will be necessary on God's part when the day of
judgment dawns. When a landlord comes to repossess
a property that has been leased to unscrupulous tenants He has
a major clean-up operation on His hands to restore it to its
original condition. The same will be true when our
tenancy in our God-given home expires. God has not abandoned
His good intentions for a world that He made well and pronounced
very good, even though we, His tenants, have spoiled it. God
is going to come and set His house in order. Heaven and earth
shall be renewed at His coming. God willing, tonight, God giving
me strength and bringing us back together again, I want then to
demonstrate my thesis. that these realities are not
things simply to be known, and while hearing them expound, experience,
I trust, some measure of spiritual exhilaration and longing that
makes you say, even so, come, do it, Lord, do it, Lord. But God says, and we're going
to see it right in this passage, these realities are to exert
a powerful, constant, detailed pressure upon your life and mine
today, tomorrow, the next day, all the hours within the day.
It is the certainties of the future that are so to mold us
that we live as we ought in the present. And may I urge you to
take the time this afternoon to read this passage, verses
10 through 15a, with this question, how should these certainties
of the future affect me according to the Holy Spirit speaking through
Peter? And then I will attempt to help
us answer that question by going into the text and looking at
what Peter says by the Holy Spirit. This certainty of the future
ought to do for you and for me. as we live out whatever today's
God may yet give us. Now that entreaty assumes not
presumptuously you'll be alive to come here tonight, but my
unconverted friend, don't play Russian roulette with your soul.
You may trip over the curb on your way out to the parking lot,
break your neck, and be dead in the next half hour. Don't trifle with your soul.
The day of the Lord will come. It's coming. It's coming! And
today is the day of salvation. Seek the Lord while He may be
found. Call upon Him while He is near. For that day, if you
go on in your impenitence, will be the day of the destruction
of the ungodly. And that's you God grants. that you will recognize what
Peter said these mockers don't recognize. They mock that the
promise of His coming is not fulfilled and they don't realize
that that very delay in His return is salvation. The door of salvation
is yet open. Press in before it is forever
shut. Let's pray. Our Father, how we thank You
that you have not left us in the dark. And while the world
wrings its hands wondering where all of this poor, groaning, vanity-suffused
world is heading, how we thank you, how we thank you for the
knowledge that the creation itself shall be delivered from its slavery
to decay. And we bless and praise you that
we may look for the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells
righteousness, where no longer will we have to wrestle with
the effects of our own remaining sin and feel the shock and the
pain of the sin of others. O Lord, we thank you for the
prospects that are before us And with John we utter our prayer,
even so come, Lord Jesus. Seal then your word to our hearts
and continue with us throughout this, your special day, we ask
in Jesus' name. Amen.