The New Heavens and the New Earth Part 1

Introduction: Setting the Mind on Things Above and Future Certainties

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, January 27, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:15 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. It's Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.

0:40 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, not on the things that are upon earth. 4. 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.

1:53 Father, 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.

2:09 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.

2:40 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.

3:11 I offer up. 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. Oh, God, come, we pray, not in the quiet, soft tones that comfort us, but, oh, 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.

3:55 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.

4:10 We come this morning to the 4th. 4th 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 bold to put this council together and introduce each strand of that council 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

5:31 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. And so with the principle clearly established from that text, my first word of council was this, At the beginning of and throughout this present year, set your mind directly upon your Savior.

6:10 And having opened up some very pivotal texts that direct the people of God to do this, I urge you to set your mind. 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 council was this, In the beginning of and throughout this new year, set your mind upon the certainty, 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.

7:36 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 stars...

8:15 ...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.

8:40 And so last Lord's Day, we looked at two of the three strands ...of the first and the second major word of counsel that will comprise the first and the second major word of counsel.

8:45 ...of the first and the second major word of counsel that we confronted this morning in terms of the opening of the sixth seal.

8:45 ...proposed to open up under this second counsel.

8:49 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,

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

10:16 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 home. 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.

11:31 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, 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.

12:50 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 not God's sin, that which is not God'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.

14:00 Your desire shall be to your husband. That is, you're going to buck against his place of authority over you. And you're going to find enmity and tension where once there was harmony and delight. And he, in reaction to that, will seek to dominate you.

14:20 And then he speaks to the man in verse 17, because you've hearkened to the voice of your wife.

14:27 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.

14:41 You were made of dust. And to dust you shall return.

14:47 Disintegration and death. As a tragic result of sin. To use the words of John Milton, Paradise is lost. Paradise is lost.

15:01 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.

15:20 Paradise. Is lost. But in the midst of that very setting, God makes this announcement. It won't always be this way.

15:30 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.

15:51 I'm going to come and disrupt. I'm going to come and disrupt. 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.

16:01 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.

16:29 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 use, universal, unrivaled, and permanent home. It will be paradise regained.

The Cosmic Scope of Christ's Reconciliation (Colossians 1:20)

17:30 And do 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, immediate dwelling, if you die in Christ.

17:46 But you're not going to stay there forever. Remember, 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, the 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.

18:50 So then, let's look at these two, 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,

19:54 to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross, through Him I say, whether 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'd read that, I'd say, Lord, that doesn't make sense to me. I didn't think any things needed to be reconciled.

20:32 Yes, they do.

20:34 Separation, disillusion, death have cursed this cosmos. And when Christ is done with it, on the basis of His redemptive work, it will all be reconciled and will be what God intends, and it should be from the beginning.

20:57 If that don't get you excited, my friend, your exciter is dead. All right. Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8: The Spirit, Suffering, and Glory of Creation

21:08 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 chapter 8, verses 1 through 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.

21:40 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. 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.

22:13 Verses 14 to 17, He is the Spirit of adoption. And then in verses 17, 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.

22:52 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?

23:13 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.

23:54 If 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.

24:18 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 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

25:14 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 compared, they mark out two ages, and they affect two subjects.

25:59 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, and then the glory of the children of God, the glory motif that applies to the creation. Alright? 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. For we know that the whole creation groans

27:18 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?

Creation's Earnest Expectation and Subjection to Vanity (Romans 8:19-22)

27:42 You persuaded that. Good. Alright. Having done that, let's now work our way through primarily prying open the major teaching of the verses with questions. Alright?

27:56 First thing we learn from verse 18 is that present suffering 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.

28:40 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 subhuman both the animate and the inanimate creation, the beasts, the flowers of the field the trees, the sea the creatures in the sea

30:10 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 1 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's 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's the revealing of the sons of God it's 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

31:39 and daughters of God now creation all is giving it the qualities of a living thinking long necked human being it says all of creation is eagerly eagerly anticipating 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 for 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

33:07 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 set the preacher this is the word they used all is futility life descends to disintegration 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

34:33 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 is 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 is 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

36:01 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 God's curse 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 in that rebellion in that rebellion 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

37:30 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 will see at the end of verse 20 two words in hope now the words in hope you have a new King James there is a semicolon who subjected it in hope semicolon that the creation it could be and again it is 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 is 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

38:59 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 the gospel 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 crushed 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?

40:27 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 is 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 the sons of God gonna get perfected can't wait we're gonna get it too if creation has a mind and if creation could speak it would say oh 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

41:56 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

43:24 those walls of water and when we hear of these unexpected snowfalls in strange places and torrential rains and mudslides 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 earth bound 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's doing it 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 know 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

44:52 and it travails but not in death pangs 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 stuff 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 now now that's part of the groaning and travailing. In the age to come, I'm going to stand on a spot of earth

46:18 that is nothing but righteousness right here in Monville.

46:26 And I won't need to preach. I can just shout. Just shout. Worship and praise.

46:35 When I die, I'm going to heaven, yes. But when I'm glorified, heaven's coming down here.

46:42 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.

47:17 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.

2 Peter 3: The Certainty and Effects of Christ's Coming

47:35 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.

47:44 Have a good time having lunch and enjoy your family. All right. 2 Peter 10. 2 Peter 10.

47:53 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.

48:05 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 sincerity, your minds, by putting you in remembrance. And what does he want them to remember? He wants them to remember words.

48:25 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 a 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 of the...

49:17 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.

49:34 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.

49:53 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.

50:16 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.

50:29 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.

50:59 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.

51:12 To him, a thousand years can be, impressed 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.

51:26 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.

51:55 But, now here's our text. Verse 10 through 15a. 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 heaven, 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?

53:09 Well, the certainty of his coming is affirmed. Verse 10. The day of the Lord will come. Let mockers mock.

53:21 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 sun tries to peek at it, God puts his hand over it. He says the time of that coming.

53:39 No man knows, not the angels nor the sun, in his glorified place. Perhaps God has taken his hand off the calendar 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.

54:01 But the day shall come. It will come. The certainty. Secondly, the sudden and unexpected nature of his coming.

54:12 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.

54:35 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.

Cosmic Cataclysm, Dissolution, and Regeneration (2 Peter 3:10-13)

54:57 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.

55:11 Will come. Certainty. As a thief. Unexpectedly.

55:16 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.

55:29 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.

55:56 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.

56:14 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.

56:51 A great noise. And the exegetes go back and forth saying that this particular Greek word is one of those that is onomatopoeic. It sounds like the thing it conveys. And you have heard people say when they have gone into a rushing inferno of a burning house, there is a strong swooshing sound like that of a jet engine.

57:15 Perhaps it is 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?

57:29 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 will be a great noise.

57:46 The elements shall melt with fervent heat. 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.

58:13 The end of verse 10. And the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. And there is a problem there. What is the precise word that Peter wrote?

58:23 If he wrote the word, it can mean not burned up but laid bare, discovered. And I am 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.

58:38 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.

59:11 It uses the term burned up. Uses in verse 11 the word dissolved. Seeing these things are to be dissolved. Look at verse 12.

59:25 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 is a third thing affirmed by Peter and it is this.

59:54 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.

60:10 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 heavens. 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.

61:34 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'm 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.

Theological Implications of Cosmic Renewal

62:46 But 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?

63:04 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 creation in a gated order.

63:42 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.

64:53 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 happen 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.

Application: Shaping Present Life by Future Certainties

65:27 Heaven and earth shall be renewed at His coming. God willing, tonight God give him His strength and bring him back 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

66:54 speaking through Peter. And then I will attempt to help us answer that question by going into the text and looking at what Peter said and 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.

A Call to the Unconverted

67:30 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.

67:47 It's coming. It's coming! And today is the day of salvation. Seek the Lord while He may be found.

67:55 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 grant that you will recognize what Peter said these mockers don't recognize.

68:16 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.

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Longing

68:34 Our Father, how we thank You. 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.

68:58 How we thank You for the knowledge that the creation itself shall be delivered from its slavery to decay. And we bless You 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.

69:35 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.