The Day of the Lord Will Come

Transcript

GR 1969
11/06/2016
The Day of the Lord Will Come
II Peter 3:10-13
Gil Rugh

We are going to 2 Peter in our Bibles. We move to the closing portion of this letter of Peter, the second letter he is writing and in 1st Peter he indicated that he was writing to believing Jews, the diaspora. A word that means to be sown throughout and these are Jews that are scattered outside the land of Palestine, Israel, the land that God had promised to the nation, the nation that He had chosen. Remarkable that in His grace as the nation comes under the judgment of God for the rejection of their Messiah as the culmination of their continuous rebellion against God, God establishes the church, not to replace Israel but to be the people that He will work in and through during the time when Israel is under the judgment of God, set aside by God if you will. In a sense no longer will his work in the world focus in Israel. The work of His salvation will no longer be centered in the nation as it was for example in the Old Testament. The revelation of God was given to the nation Israel. The covenants of God focused on His relationship with the nation of Israel. Now because their sin and rebellion they have been put under His judgment which continues down until our day and through the period of time in which Peter is going to talk about briefly and which will be the subject of our considerations through the majority of the book of Revelation.

As in any letter with Peter knowing that he is at the end of his life, he exhorts them, encourages them, and warns them. He doesn’t want them to get discouraged. Time is passing. It’s been over 30 years since Christ walked the earth, was crucified and was raised from the dead. His followers had anticipated His return and doesn’t seem long to us, 30 plus years moving toward 40 years but where is the Lord? He said that will be the question of the unbelievers, those who want to find a reason not to believe what God has revealed. So we find that right down to our day. The world doesn’t recognize that the creation was brought into existence by the Word of God. The creation was destroyed by the Word of God in calling the flood to flow over the earth and destroy most living things. There is yet a coming judgment.

So this is to encourage believers as we have talked about in our study in the early part of the book of Revelation as well. Not just to give gloomy thoughts about the future, for the future for us is not gloomy but to remind us in the difficulties of representing Christ in the world, we don’t expect there is going to be mass, positive response but we are not to get discouraged.

Verse 9 of chapter 3 of 2nd Peter. “The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness.” It is put off. He is not able to bring about what He said. There are endless delays. No, this is a time of patience. God is willing from His perspective. A thousand years is next to nothing so don’t get discouraged. These are days of salvation. Peter will come back to this theme before we are done with the letter to remind us these are days of salvation, days of opportunity, days for us to mature and grow and demonstrate our faithfulness to God as He prepares us for what He has promised. So the end of verse 9, this patience of God is because “He is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

We talked about the fact that every day is a day of opportunity for us. Every day is a day, another day when people have opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is God’s power for salvation for everyone who hears and responds in faith, to everyone who believes. But this day of opportunity will close.

So we have verse 10 beginning with “But.” The contrast – God’s patience goes on. He invites the world to His salvation. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” “He is not willing that any should perish.” “He gave His Son in order that all who believe in Him might not perish but receive in Him eternal life, but ‘The day of the Lord will come like a thief.’” It will come and as we have talked about in Greek you can rearrange the word order because of the form of words and so on you know what they are. In English we put them in order so our English translation does. So the first word in verse 10 is “will come,” “will come,” stressing it. It seems like we have talked about God’s judgment, wrath to come. You see cartoons as we had mentioned making fun of you know, they will show some old geezer like me holding a sign “Repent, the end is near.” And to the world that is somewhat of a joke. It has been going on for endless time. Don’t people get tired of saying this same old thing? But the truth of it is not lost. It will come.

So it is a stress for encouraging us as believers but the day of the Lord will come. This expression, “The day of the Lord” is drawn from the Old Testament. We are not going to go back and look for all the references. We will be doing some of that connection in the study of the book of Revelation but the day of the Lord is a time of God’s judgment that is probably the dominant theme in it. For example, the book of Revelation from chapter 6-19 and really on to the end of the book but the dominant emphasis is given to the judgment that is coming. In the Old Testament, the book of Joel has much to say about coming judgment, the Day of the Lord and some of what its characteristics will be. It includes God’s judgment particularly the times of the tribulation, seven year tribulation, the second coming, Armageddon, Great White Throne, the kingdom. So it is an encompassing time when God brings to fruition what He has promised.

It could be used in some contexts in the Old Testament to refer to more imminent, close at hand judgment like a nation that was going to come in and bring judgment on Israel. In the prophetic context as Peter is talking about here it refers to the final time and culmination of those last days. So as Peter is talking about here it refers to that time coming following the rapture, the seven years prior to the return of Christ to the earth and then all the way into the kingdom period. But the Day of the Lord will come.

Now for the unbeliever since what precedes the kingdom part of that is the judgment part on an unbelieving world and remember it is the book of Revelation that lays out in order for us the chronology. So after the heavenly scene that we will have in chapters 4 and 5 we pick up with judgment. The four horsemen of the apocalypse that open up the first series of judgments in chapter 6 and we run all the way to 19 when Christ returns and we have Armageddon and the culmination of the judgments of that tribulation coming with Christ returning to bring the fullness of judgment on an unbelieving world so that by the time that we open up chapter 20 of Revelation with the kingdom there are no unbelievers left alive on the face of the earth.

So the judgments of that seven year period have resulted in the death of billions. Then that judgment is brought to its final climax with Christ returning at Armageddon. Then we can have the kingdom.

Now this Day of the Lord will encompass the events right up and including the kingdom but the terror, the judgment for the unbeliever becomes a focus and the unbeliever will be caught off guard. The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, unexpectedly.

Come back to I Thessalonians chapter 5. You will see the same kind of statement written here by Paul. “You yourself full know (I Thessalonians 5:2) that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.” So that coming day of destruction that will come upon the believers.

My understanding of the thrust here is the rapture of the church which will remove the church from the world before the beginning of that seven year period is recorded at the end of chapter 4. We will talk more about these events in some detail in connection with the study in Revelation but you have the rapture of the church at the end of chapter 4. Then you flow in to the coming Day of the Lord and it will catch the unbeliever unexpectedly. It will be like a thief in the night. He comes when you are not expecting it.

Remember the parable of the virgins and the unexpectedness of the five virgins in contrast to the five virgins who were expecting the return of the bridegroom? These whole events will catch the unbeliever and the unbelieving world totally off guard. He goes on just to read here. “While they are saying, ‘peace and safety’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child. They will not escape. But you brethren are not in darkness that the day would overtake you like a thief.” So when we say that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief it is talking in the analogy of the thief on the unbelieving world. In Peter it is the same thing because what do the previous verses talk about? Those who are mocking the idea of the coming of the Lord, “All things continue as they have been.” They have rejected the truth that God has revealed, His intervention in bringing about the existence of all creation, His intervention in bringing about the destruction of the world with the flood but we as God’s people don’t live in darkness. We have the light of the revelation of God and His truth. We have the indwelling Spirit who gives us understanding of this truth so we are not living in the darkness. That day won’t overtake us like a thief. “You are all sons of light, sons of day. We are not of night or of darkness.”

So you note then the exhortation and this is what Peter’s same thrust is. “So let us not sleep as others do. Let us be alert and sober.” This is what Peter’s emphasis is, the same as Paul’s when you think about it in this context. Since we are not going to be caught off guard we ought to be living as alert, ready people taking advantage of this period of time. We don’t settle in to the flow of the world and the concerns of the world and the desires of the world. The world is asleep so to speak. It is in darkness. It has no clue of what is going on. They are absorbed in the events of the day and how to structure their life to be ready for their future here. We are not of the darkness. They live totally devoid of the knowledge of God and His purposes and plans.

How sad it is the church and this is why we have the constant warning and emphasis because the Spirit is directing these men to write the Scriptures because the pattern is to settle down.

I remember the statement of a speaker who was here many years ago and is now with the Lord said, “Every church, every Christian school goes liberal.” That constant settling down, getting comfortable, looking for ways not to make waves, adjusting our doctrine and our emphasis on sin and salvation and the narrowness of the truth centered in Christ who is the way. And you know what that leads to? The next generation, where do they go if we begin to hold the truth loosely, focus more of being comfortable and easy? The generation that is raised learns less of the truth and that trend continues. I mean we have 2,000 years of church history. We can see the pattern. That is the concern. Don’t allow yourself to begin to live like the children of darkness. We are not of the darkness. “We are sons of light, sons of day, not of night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do.” The point is live clueless. We are to live differently in this world.

“Let us be alert and sober. Those who sleep do their sleeping at night. Those who get drunk get drunk at night. We are of the day. Let us be sober having put on the breastplate of faith and love as a helmet, the hope of salvation.” And here you have just a couple of the connections to the armor that we are to have that is developed with more fullness in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in chapter 6. Why? Verse 9: “For God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And since that day of the Lord and that whole preliminary period of it they call the day of wrath we are not destined for that wrath. We are destined for salvation so even though we are going to talk about that period of time and the judgment it is going to bring we are not discouraged by it because that is not out destiny. “He has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another, build one another up just as you are also doing.”

So again, it is like Peter saying, “I am reminding you of what you already know. I am not saying you are not doing this.” We saw in chapter 1 he talked about their zeal but just because I am zealous today, just because I am living for the Lord today doesn’t mean I will be next year. We never want to think, “Well those things won’t affect me. Those things won’t affect our church. It won’t affect us.” We have the same pressure pressing in on us from the world. That is like we are not to allow ourselves to be conformed to this world but we are transformed by that constant renewing of our mind and that is what this truth is doing. The world is going to judgment. Their concern is how to provide for the world long term and our comfort in this world long term. That is not our view. That is why even many professing believers don’t like the doctrine that we promote because they say it is pessimistic. It is pessimistic regarding the future of this world but it is not pessimistic regarding the future of God’s people and ultimately what He will do when we are going and making the world new. Our hope is not in this world, the things of this life, who’s the next leader of this country or our country or another country and the future of stock markets, climate, whatever that consumes the world. This doesn’t mean we aren’t good citizens but we are not to be occupied with here because our true citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a Savior as Paul wrote to the Philippians.

It is a pervading theme, the deceitful trap of the devil that gets the church turned away from prophetic truth and when it gets turned away from prophetic truth it becomes more occupied with the things of the world and the solutions of the world and political involvement and all of that and yet here clearly he is reminding us you live differently than the world. We are out of step with the world. It is not bad.

Come back to Peter. So we are talking about the day of the Lord. Verse 10 of 2 Peter 3: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” Now what he wants to focus on is what the ultimate results of this will be for the world “in which the heavens will pass away with a roar. The elements will be destroyed with intense heat. The earth and its works will be burned up.” Not looking good for the world. That is where he is going. Understand the ultimate end.

Now Peter doesn’t yet have the advantage of reading John’s revelation that will be given around 30 years later. So he still doesn’t have all things put together in order but he knows what is going to happen in the context of the Day of the Lord and those events. He doesn’t say anything wrong here but it is not until the final revelation of the book of the Revelation that you get a sequential unfolding of events that put things in order for us. But it is true. The Day of the Lord whether it be the culmination or that judgment, the destruction of this world, this world system and this world. “The heavens will pass away with a roar, the elements will be destroyed with intense heat. The earth and its works will be burned up.”

This is talking about the heavens around the earth here. Obviously not the heaven which is the place where God manifests His presence and His creation multiply but the heavens associated with this earth and this earth; they are all doomed to destruction. We are not occupying ourselves and getting involved in a program of trying to save the earth.

Don’t get me in trouble. It is fine you know if you want to save energy, if you want to recycle. That is fine. Marilyn has got us recycling the newspaper. That is fine. I need to do it in my house. Why? Because my wife wants me to do it. We are not doing it to save the planet necessarily because you can’t save this planet. I don’t have any problem with programs for global warming. I am not for or against. God knows it is all going to be burned up so you can’t save it from the ultimate warming that will be a consuming fire but that doesn’t mean we to be calloused but that is not where we are absorbed. I can’t get caught up in this. The world can. They think what are we doing to save our planet? You can’t save this planet. You cannot. God has doomed it to destruction. Again, that doesn’t mean you have to, you know, throw your garbage in the street. We are not talking that way but believers ought to be careful.

How passionate we can get about the things of this world and the things of this life. Peter realizes that. Here is a man who is on the verge of giving his life for his testimony for Christ. He knows what we ought to be passionate about. He is not talking about what we ought to do to try to get the Roman Empire turned around and hopefully we will get a better emperor after Domitian or Nero or whoever comes. For John it would be Domitian. For Peter it would be Nero. We are looking at things from God’s perspective…..2,000 years later we are still looking. This is where the world is going.

Oh boy, you know it has been a long time. Well from our perspective it has. From God’s perspective, verse 8, “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years. A thousand years is as one day.” We are looking at nothing. In 100 billion years as we are enjoying eternity we will look back and say “this little speck of time, this 70, 80 years while that was so long now we are here.” So all this will be burned up. “Heaven and earth will pass away.”

Come back to Matthew 5. There are a number of references in the Gospel. I will just take two from Matthew to talk about the passing away of the heaven and the earth. Matthew chapter 5; look at verse 18. “For truly I say unto you until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished;” the passing away of heaven and earth.

Come over to Matthew 24. Look at verse 35. “Heaven and earth will pass away but My Words will not pass away.” That is why we want to be occupied with that which is eternal. This is what we bring into the world that has no perspective. The eternal Word of God which will not pass away. That is why we will die for the Word of God. Peter will give his life for God’s Word. This world which is the focus and occupation of the unbeliever is not ours. In that sense we are outsiders. Good citizens, quote, obeying the ruling of those that God has put in place. We understand they are temporary and transitory, moving us toward an end. “Heaven and earth will pass away.”

And now Peter reminds us that “it will pass away (back in 2 Peter chapter 3) with a roar. The earth, its works will be burned up. They will melt.” One commentator wrote “The physical structure of the present world will disintegrate.” Not necessarily to be annihilated but the earth and its works, all its achievements that men are so proud of and now we hear when we transfer leadership their concern about their legacy, very short termed legacy, very short termed monuments, building wealth. We admire those who have multiplied their wealth and showed their ability, God given ability. Who gave you the ability to make money, to acquire, to do? God has done that but all the works will also be consumed.

Let me just give you what is included in this Day of the Lord in summary fashion as Peter has talked about here. The next event is the rapture of the church. That is not included in the Day of the Lord when the church is removed from earth. Then we have the seven year tribulation divided into two three and one half year periods. Again we will be doing this particularly in connection with the prophetic portion of the book of Revelation. That seven year period we will talk about it in detail in Revelation chapter 6-19. So that is included in the Day of the Lord. The Battle of Armageddon as I mentioned comes with the destruction of the wicked, the return of Christ in Revelation 19, the judgment of living nations in Matthew chapter 25 because when Christ comes to earth He will call the surviving wicked before Him for judgment and they will be cast into hell in Matthew 25. That includes the millennial reign of Christ in Revelation chapter 20. It includes the destruction of the heavens and the earth and in the sequence of Revelation I would put that there at the end of Revelation 20 and then the Great White Throne and then the new heavens and the new earth which verse 13 he is going to talk about but “According to His promise we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteous dwells.”

So again, Peter doesn’t include all the details and most passages don’t have every detail in it but the Day of the Lord, the culminating of destruction because that’s what he wants to drive home. Why if we believers do believe in the prophetic promises of Scripture would be devoting our life to the things of this world? That doesn’t mean we don’t have to work to provide for the necessities but we don’t want to become so absorbed.

We have talked about this and studies have been done on it and some of the studies I was doing many years ago. We have studied the pattern of the church in different parts of the world. They have found that where the affluence grew and it often did when the Gospel comes in and it transforms lives people begin to live responsibly, fulfill their responsibilities. We are to work to provide for ourselves. Paul said “If people don’t work they shouldn’t eat.” Obviously we care for people where circumstances have come in and that made a problem. The earth church sometimes because of persecution, loss of jobs and things like that but the basic premise, we are not living to build wealth here. We are living to build wealth in heaven where we have an eternal inheritance.

What did Jesus remind His followers? “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth” where they can be eaten up by inflation “or moth or rust” as they talked about then. “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” which are permanent and enduring. Don’t occupy your life with the things of this world.

Come back to Matthew chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Most of you are familiar with it. This is not new. Peter heard these things taught by Christ. Look at verse 19 of Matthew 6. We are in the Sermon on the Mount beginning in Matthew chapter 5, moving through 6 and 7, verse 19: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal;” all those things that can consume, whatever that be. Today we would be talking about inflation, deflation, stock market crash and that. The point is earthly things have no sure security. “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” None of these earthly things can touch them. Here is the point and what is so crucial. It doesn’t mean we can’t plan for tomorrow, do certain things but our heart can’t be absorbed with that. “For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” That is where we get drawn away. The world tells us these things are what are important. These things we ought to be concerned about but the world is after our heart, the passion of our heart and “where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” No matter what we have materially we have to guard against it becoming the treasure of our heart and mind.

Here is Peter. He can write this letter that we are studying knowing that his physical death is imminent but you don’t get it as a morbid letter. I am losing everything and on, on, on. No. What is important.

Verse 24 while you are here in Matthew. “No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and wealth.” We cannot live for the world and live for God. The world is constantly alluring us, pressuring us so that is where the battle goes. You know it is sort of like if you are in a flowing body of water if you stop paddling up stream you are going down stream. There is no stopping. We are going against the tide of the world consistently and if we get weary in that and doing the things that God has called us to do we begin to get carried along with the tide of the world. There is just no middle space. I don’t want to be going always against the tide. I don’t want to go with it. I just want to find a nice comfortable spot. But when the church thinks it has found that comfort zone it is being swept downstream.

So verse 25 while we are here since it ties to what Peter is going to say in a moment, “Don’t be worried about your life and the things of this life.” It doesn’t mean we don’t to the best of our ability carry out our responsibilities but I know it is in the hands of the Lord. Lord, I do the best I can to provide for myself, my family and those needs but you know I realize it is in Your hands. And that is the familiar section here.

So verse 31: “Don’t worry then what you will eat, what you will drink.” The Gentiles and the Gentiles of course from the Jewish perspective that Christ is ministering in, those are the unbelievers. Those are the outsiders.

Verse 33: “Seek first His kingdom, His righteousness, all these things will be added to you. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own;” and again in the perspective of Scripture. It doesn’t mean I can’t plan for tomorrow. I have. We have to. If you were planning on being up by a certain time so you can be at your job at a certain time. You are not saying, well go to bed and don’t set the alarm and just don’t think about tomorrow, no, but we are not worried about it. I am not worried about who gets voted into office this week. I am not worried about what is going to happen in the world if the stock market crashes or you know a volcano goes off. I serve a God who has tomorrow for me under control. I trust Him for today and the plans I make for tomorrow, remember the warning of James? “Don’t be over confident about tomorrow.” This is what I am doing tomorrow you say. Don’t even voice it. You should be saying in your mind, “If the Lord wills I will.” It used to be common, more when I was young, the believers in the church would often say, “Well I will meet you Wednesday, Lord willing.” It was good to say that. It’s a reminder. We don’t want this to become just an empty saying but it has to be in our mind. So tomorrow this is what I plan, Lord willing. My tomorrow is in His hands like today, He cares for me today. This is the same thrust then that we have from Peter. It is not new.

Come back to 2 Peter. So verse 11: “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way.” And you believe it is true, you believe this will be the ultimate end? “What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?” This shapes the way we live. Again, I keep drawing it because the church is in large ways moving away from its emphasis on future things and this is a constant danger. That is why the Scripture talks about it so much as though prophetic things are just not what matters. You know we can have different views. Well then why did God spend so much time telling us about it? It shapes how we live. It is a major difference. There are believers that think we are going to change the world by being involved politically and socially. That is why they are hostile toward premillennialists and especially pre-tribulational millennialists. They are just pessimists. They don’t want to help make the world better. Well I want to help the world pay. I am thinking of paying because I pay to have my lawn cut. I don’t want to do it but I have to do it because I have neighbors. That’s fine. I am not against that but you know where are we. You know we are the only ones, we as believers, not just our church only but we believers are the only one who can shine as lights in the darkness bringing an eternal perspective to a lost world and we are the only ones who are living with that kind of perspective. It is “all these things are to be destroyed in this way. What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?” And that word, ‘what sort of people ought you to be.’ And that word ‘ought’ is a word we sometimes refer to as divine necessity, little three letter word. It is because this is what we must be. What sort of people ought we to be? Must we be? We live holy and godly.

“Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” The ‘day of God’ is referring to the same thing as the day of the Lord, the day when the Lord will manifest His wrath most fully, His judgment and His ultimate salvation with the establishing of the kingdom. So we live holy and godly lives looking for and hastening the coming of that day.

Back up to I Peter chapter 1. Remember this letter is a reminder letter on top of the first letter so there are things with the same basic emphasis. Verse 13 of I Peter 1: “Therefore prepare your minds for action. Keep sober. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” And that is what is going to happen in Revelation 19 following the time of wrath on the world. For us with the revelation that Peter talks about that Paul writes about, things difficult to be understood and the clarity that is brought with the rapture we are people focused on God’s promises to us. “As obedient children don’t be conformed to your former lusts which were yours in your ignorance but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourself in all your behavior” because it has always been God’s intention for His people. He told Israel, “You shall be holy for I am holy.”

“So you call God your Father and He is the One who will impartially judge, conduct yourself in fear during your time of stay on the earth.” You see the same kind of emphasis and thrust.

You come back to 2 Peter and stop in chapter 1 of 2 Peter, verse 5. What He has done for us in providing our salvation so we are to be “applying all diligence.” 2 Peter 1:5 “In your faith supply moral excellence, and in moral excellence, knowledge; and in knowledge, self-control and in self-control, perseverance and in perseverance, godliness; and in godliness brotherly kindness, and in kindness love.” For these are the things that you should be growing in, increasing, and maturing in. So you are more fruitful in the knowledge that we have entered into in Christ. And where do we come, down to verse 10 and 11. These are things that manifest that we belong to God and are going to be entering into the kingdom that He promises. Verse 11: “In this way an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior.” That is where we are going at the end of the verse. So it is just woven through the Scriptures, this great emphasis.

Come back to chapter 3: “We are looking for and hastening.” Hastening, the word is a synonym very similar for those of you who have been studying Greek you will notice to the word for ‘zeal, zealous’ and in many ways you go to a Greek dictionary the meaning is the same. So I think here it could be ‘earnestly desiring’ as some translations have it. So “We are looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God.” We are part of moving it along as we are part of God’s work in the world moving it toward that end but I think what he is really saying is we are looking for this and earnestly desiring it. We are living in light of it. And we are eager for it, “the day of God because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning. The elements will melt with intense heat.” That is what he said in verse 10. But we are not looking for the judgments that are involved in that. We have something better. “According to His promise we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

So we are not absorbed in this world and it’s not salvageable from the human perspective. It will take God’s intervention to make it new just like it took God’s intervention to make us new. So we are looking for the new heavens and the new earth. So we are not discouraged. The world is absorbed here. This is all they have. They hold on.

I remember one of the richest men in the world during his life, I read his biography and they said he spent the closing portion of his life in one room of his mansion oversees just constantly making contact with people offering them large sums of money if they could extend his life because that was all he had. You see men worth billions and they devote themselves to planning and working and making sure that they have the succession laid out. Did they think about where they are going to be when they take their last breath?

This world is going to melt. Is going to be destroyed so the things that I can hold on to here, it doesn’t matter the size of our houses, the size of our bank account. You know all the things that the world says are important and measures us. Here is where we are going. This world is going to be destroyed but we are moving toward the new heavens and the new earth. That is the contrast. It couldn’t be any greater. The day of the Lord, the day of God. We are looking forward, eagerly anticipating that because when this world is destroyed, wiped away, done away, what do we have, the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Come back to Isaiah. Look at a couple passages in Isaiah then to the end of the book of Revelation and then we wrap it up. Isaiah chapter 65, right at the end of the book of Isaiah. Most of our passages will come from the end of Isaiah, Isaiah 65, look at verse 17: “Behold I create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” So we are not going to sit there thinking back to what we had, what we did, what we accomplished. “The former things will not come to mind.” These things are going to be wiped away. There is no measuring and comparing the glory that will be ours and he talks about characteristics of the kingdom.

Remember there is no order put in these Old Testament passages. We find the order laid out for us in the book of Revelation. Come to chapter 66. You see the new heavens and the new earth. In Isaiah chapter 66 come down to verse 22: “For just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me, declares the Lord. So your offspring and your name will endure but the warning of judgment on those who are lost. They will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. Their worm will not die. Their fire will not be quenched.” The contrast – not everybody is going to the new heavens and the new earth.

Come over to Revelation chapter 21, Revelation chapter 21. Look at verse 1: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth passed away.” We know now how they were destroyed by fire, they melted; that whole issue. So you can see we move here when we get to the new heavens and earth we have come through the seven year judgment on an unbelieving world, Armageddon in chapter 19, the first phase of the eternal kingdom which is 1,000 years. Then the final destruction of the wicked in hell at the end of chapter 20. Then we can have the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. There will be no unrighteousness here. Verse 8 of chapter 21: “But for the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murders, sorcerers, idolaters, liars. Their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, the second death.” That is their destiny, not the new heavens and the new earth.

Come over to chapter 22 and in this kingdom with the new Jerusalem and so on excluded from it, outside where, in the lake of fire, 22:15: “Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral, the murderers, the adulterers, idolaters, everyone who loves to practice lying;” so the contrast. We are looking for the day of the Lord and not for the judgments that will overwhelm the unbeliever because God has not destined us for wrath and that seven year period is a time of wrath and judgment on an unbelieving world as we will see. It is not our destiny so we look for what we call the rapture but the ultimate destiny and that’s where they carry us to, is the kingdom and that’s when heaven will be on the new earth. They will be merged together. God’s throne will be on the new earth in the New Jerusalem, part of that whole system. We won’t get into the details. That is our destiny. So what a contrast, the unredeemed closed out, sentenced to an eternal hell. “The smoke of their torments goes up forever and ever into the ages of the ages,” we see in Revelation 14 but for us it is glory. We eagerly anticipate that.

How sad it is that believers in the churches get settled down to what we sometimes call a “comfortable Christianity.” We just don’t want to stir up trouble. We don’t want to have problems. Let’s just get along. We can’t get along with the world. We are not there just to antagonize the world but I don’t want to be a bad neighbor. We are to be good citizens. We find Paul being very respectful to the Roman rulers and so on that he deals with. He reminds Titus, “remind them.” They were lost just like those unbelievers. They were just like them. So there ought to be graciousness in our dealing with the unbeliever. We are not saved because we are better than them. God said we were just like them. He looks at the unbeliever and He sees a depraved heart, “Desperately wicked above all things.” My inner condition was just like the worst of the worst. So we don’t come at the world with a disdain in a sense, looking down on them because we have been redeemed out of that fallen condition and we can tell them the wonderful provision God has made. Paul could say, he came to them as what? As the worst of sinners so that they could have help in knowing if God could save me, He can save you. That would be the approach we come. But we don’t look in trying to become like them again and fitting in with them in the wrong sense. They won’t understand. Why won’t you do what we do? They will say, “Oh, you think you are better than I am.” No, we don’t want to think that. We have to guard our thinking but we are different. We are living with a different purpose, with a different goal. So we desire to please Him and whatever we have or don’t have in this world is not even secondary because we know it is all going to be consumed but what we are storing up in heaven will endure forever.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the riches of Your promise. Lord, it is a reminder to us that we have not yet reached full perfection. How easily we are distracted, how easy it is for us to become comfortable in the world and think that we can pursue the things of the world, having settled our eternal destiny but when we have settled our eternal destiny then our lives become Yours and we can no longer live like the world, live for the world. We no longer want to live that way. Lord may we be careful in our personal walk. May we be careful as a church to never be ashamed of the Gospel but to be bold and loving in bringing Your truth to a world that is without hope as long as they are without the Savior that we have and share. Bless us this week as we serve You wherever we are we pray in Christ’s name, amen.