Sermon: The End and Our End

Let's pray together.

Oh Lord, as we come now to open the scriptures and as we prepare to hear it read and preached, we ask, oh Lord, for your divine blessing, give us understanding of these spiritual realities. Give us faith to believe your promises. Give us an increase of hope. Convict us of error in our ways and lead us to repentance. We pray that this word would save and sanctify so bless now the reading of your word in its proclamation this night.

We ask in Jesus name, amen. Well, you can turn with me in your bibles to second Peter chapter three If You are using a pew Bible that's on page

and we will be considering uh, verses eight through 13. While you're turning there, uh, we'll read that in just a moment. While we're turning there, I'm, I'm wondering if there's any of you who can think of an experience when it seemed as if the thing you were anticipating, something you were waiting for took so long to arrive, that you began to wonder, will it ever come? Will it ever arrive? Maybe you interviewed for a new job

and the person who interviewed you told you we'll call you back and you wait a week for that phone call and then that week turns into a month and then you begin to wonder, is it ever coming? Maybe I should just move on. Or maybe you've been waiting for your boyfriend to propose and he is delaying it seems taking so long. Every weekend that goes by without a ring on your finger, you think, is the man going to propose? Or maybe boys

and girls, maybe you've been waiting for Christmas day, you've been counting the days down since Thanksgiving. Is it ever going to come? It's almost here just a few days away As time goes on and we wait and wait and wait. Isn't it true that sometimes we begin to wonder, is this thing that I'm waiting for actually going to come?

Sometimes waiting feels like an exercise in futility and we can have that experience in the Christian life as well. Will God answer my earnest prayers? Will he answer my prayers for physical healing? Will he give me victory over sin? That sin that I've been asking him to help me defeat? Will God give us a child? Will God bring my child to faith? And repentance waiting is not easy, but it is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian.

We wait on God. We wait in faith with expectation, with hope, with perseverance. Some of us in this room are waiting on God for something specific, but all of us are waiting. We are all waiting on God or waiting for Jesus to come back and to bring us safely home to God. In the early days of the church, the claims and the ways of false teachers were beginning to cast doubt for waiting Christians. These false teachers were saying that waiting for Jesus

to come was an exercise in futility. Jesus isn't returning. They were saying just look, he hasn't come back. The end is not coming and they were living like it.

How? How does one live? If there are no consequences to your actions, whether positive or negative, how does one live you live However you please. And that's what the false teachers were doing. Their claims and their way of living was casting doubt for waiting Christians. Maybe Jesus isn't coming back. Maybe it's not worth waiting. Maybe I should just move on.

Maybe it doesn't even matter how I live.

Maybe you're here tonight and you have some doubts. Maybe you're just not 100% certain that Jesus is gonna come, that there's gonna be any consequences to the way you live. Maybe your life shows it.

God has written this passage that I'm about to read for you. God's written this passage for you and he's kept it for you. So let's read together from two Peter chapter three verses eight through 13. Listen carefully for this is God's word

but do not overlook this one fact, beloved that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved

and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening the coming day of God because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Amen. These verses are about the end.

The end is coming. There will be an end, an end to all things and to this world as we know it. And these verses are about our end, our end as Christians, meaning our purpose, our purpose as Christians waiting for the end to come. And so those are gonna be the two headings for this sermon. The end verses eight through 10 and our end verses 11 through 13. We've already seen that It's not unusual to begin questioning whether something will come

to fruition when it's taking a while aisle.

But here's a, here's another question for you. Is there any reason that we should have confidence that the end will come and that God will fully and finally condemn error? Is there any reason we should have confidence that the end will come and that God will fully and finally condemn error? Yes, there is. There is reasons to be confident. That's what Peter's setting out before us in verses five through 10. One reason that we should be confident that the confident

that the end will come is because God has already intervened in history in this world. He inflicted judgment by means of the flood

beginning in verse eight. Peter shares a second reason, a second reason. And you notice that Peter calls them facts. The Christian faith, that's just a quick aside. The Christian faith, dear Christians, is not unreasonable.

It's not anti-fat. Christianity is not just blind belief. The Bible calls reasons for our hope, reasons for our faith facts.

The second reason we can be confident that the end will come is established by the character of God. God is eternal, God is faithful, God is patient, God is just, and I wanna show you how God's character gives us reason to expect the end to come.

So beginning in verse eight, Peter appeals to God's eternity. He said, he says with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day, Peter's alluding here to Psalm 90 and verse four in particular, which says, for a thousand years in your sight our but as yesterday, when it is passed or as a watch in the night, the reason why this is that one day can be as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day in God's sight is because God is eternal.

God is from everlasting to everlasting. God has no beginning, God has no end. God exists outside of time. He created it. God created time. He exists in a real sense outside of time. And so God's perspective of time is not like yours. What might seem really long, really slow to you is not, not nearly so long from God's perspective.

It's been 2000 years since Christ walked on this earth, But to God that's only like two days. The time it takes for Amazon to bring a package to your front door, God is eternal. The implication of verse eight as it pertains to Jesus's return is found in verse nine and in verse nine, Peter appeals to God's faithfulness. God is faithful. Some people Peter points out count the time between God's promise and fulfillment as slow, so slow

that it begins. It brings into question the veracity of God's promise. And by veracity I mean the truthfulness of God's promise, the reliability of God's promise. And so if the veracity of God's promise is brought into question, then God's very character is brought into question and that's what the scoffers are doing. These false teachers, they say in verse four, where is the promise of his coming? Can God really be trusted? That's what they're asking.

Is God faithful? Is his promise reliable?

Now if you struggle, you find yourself struggling or maybe you're finding yourself doubting God because the time between promise and fulfillment is so long You're Beginning to wonder, are God's promises? Sure, are they certain? Is God himself reliable? Then I want you to think with me just a moment about some other promises of God and the time in between the promise and their fulfillment. Here's a few examples. Consider how from the time of the promise to eve

that her offspring would crush the head of the serpent to the fulfillment of that promise in Christ was some 4,000 years.

The time of the promise to Adam that he would surely die to the time of his death was approximately 800 years. The time from the promise of the virgin birth to its fulfillment in Christ was about 600 years. The time from the warning of judgment to Noah's contemporaries until the flood was 120 years. When it comes to the promises of God, the Bible prepares us to expect two things. The first is that it may be many, many years before God's promises come to fulfillment.

And the second thing that the Bible prepares us for with God's promises is that God's promises always come to pass. They always come to pass. Unlike your most non-perishable food items, God's promises do not have an expiration date.

Your library books have an have a due date attached to them. God's promises never have a due date. God never forgets his promise. He never rego renegotiates his promises. God never over promises such that he cannot fulfill them. God always fulfills his promises because God is faithful and thus Peter can confidently and rightly say in verse 10, the day of the Lord will come.

Now there's a reason. There's a reason why God's promise has not yet come to fulfillment in this case. God doesn't always make his reasons known to us, but in this case he does. Why Jesus hasn't returned and the reason is that God is patient. God is patient, he is delaying. That's how it's rendered. In other translations, God is slow. God is delaying the day of judgment so that people would repent of their sins and be saved from the wrath to come.

It's striking to review just how patient God is to judge sin and wickedness toward Adam, toward Israel, toward Pharaoh and the Egyptians toward the Ninevites.

God doesn't have to delay judgment, he doesn't have to, but he chooses to delay because he is patient and God wills that people would turn from their sins to Christ. Exodus 34 is that well-known passage where God reveals himself To Moses and he says the Lord, the Lord a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. God is patient, but you see God's patience is not indifference to sin.

God's patience is not a dereliction of duty.

Is there any reason that we should have confidence that the end will come and that God will fully and finally condemn error? Yes, because God is eternal, faithful, patient and God is just, God is just God will not delay forever. The day of the Lord will come that final day of history when God will intervene in the person of his son and he will save his elect, the ones he came to save and he will inflict judgment on the ungodly.

That day will come suddenly it says in verse 10, without warning, just like a thief will break into someone's home unannounced without warning, suddenly so will that day come. And so we must be prepared. Say more about that here in a little while when that day comes, we also see verse 10 says that there will be cosmic upheaval. What Peter is describing in verse 10 and 12, it sounds very drastic, alarming, and it is in a sense.

But what he's describing echoes what the Old Testament and New Testament passages describe about the end, the end of the world. The heavens meaning the sky And the earth will pass away. The sun, moon and stars will be burned up and dissolved.

When that worldwide flood came in Noah's day, it cleansed the earth of wickedness. And on the final day of judgment, the earth will once again be cleansed of its wickedness. Everything ungodly will be wiped out and the world will be renewed and this time it will come through fire. And on that day it says at the end of verse 10, all works done on earth will be exposed. Some of you college students just finished your final exams.

You were preparing for them, they came and went. Now those final exam days can be terrifying in a, in a sense because everything you know or don't know will be exposed. It will be exposed. On that final exam, there is no hiding.

That exam is going to reveal to you, to your professor, to your parents, maybe how prepared you were for the exam.

And that is similar to what will happen on the final day. On that final day, all of our works will be laid bare. There will be no hiding. The final day will reveal just how prepared we are you were for the final day to come. God is just, God is just. And so he must judge evil and he will on that final day, he will judge fairly just like he always does. None deserve. I want you to be clear on this, none deserve to be spared from God's wrath on that final day.

At least none deserve to be spared upon their own merits and none will, no one will be spared on that final day due to their own merits. But as many as have repented and sought refuge in Christ have hid themselves in Christ by faith, they will be spared on account of his merits, his work. We sometimes sing the sin that song in Christ alone because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul is counted free for God. The just is satisfied to look on him

and pardon me, the end will come. God's promise to send his son to judge the world will come to pass. And we have reason to confidently expect Jesus Christ to come because of God's character.

Now what difference should that make? What difference should that make? How should we live in light of this coming judgment, this coming fulfillment to God's promises? How should we prepare? And this is our second point, our end. What is our end as Christians, as believers? What is our purpose in life?

We'll see two purposes here in these final verses. We are to live lives of repentance and faith and we are to live holy and godly lives. Let's consider these two together. First, we ought to live lives of repentance and faith. Repentance and faith are not merely the first spiritual acts that we enter the Christian life, the first spiritual acts of the Christian life. They are ongoing spiritual acts throughout the Christian life.

We don't just repent and believe once and then we're finished with that step of the Christian life. We continue to do that every day as Christians and in light of the end coming, Christians are called to do both when we fall into error. And that's possible for us as Christians, whether that be in our way of living or in what we believe we should repent. Repentance is the act of turning from error to truth. It's a 180 turn turning from error, from error

to truth to Christ. Who is the way, the truth and the life. I want you to notice in verse nine that God's patience is toward you. It says, who is the you? Who is Peter writing to? Who is he speaking about?

Peter is writing to believers. God's patience is toward you. Not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all of you should reach repentance.

There are many lovable aspects to the Christian, uh, to the Christmas season, excuse me. But in this Christmas season, do not overlook this one fact, the most important thing. The eternal son of God came into the world to save sinners and God wishes that sinners would turn from sin to Christ and be saved. That is God's will if you've never turned from Christ, uh, from sin to Christ. If you've never done this ever before, then I would urge you

tonight is the night. Turn from your sin tonight to Christ. And if you have many times turned from your sin to Christ, repented of your sins, But You're holding onto some sin, maybe there's a a sin that's only known to you or maybe it's known publicly known to a few others, whether that sin be small or big, turn from those sins. Tonight, God is not delaying judgment so that you should delay turning from your sin to Christ.

He's delaying so that you should repent. Romans two, it says, do not presume on the riches of God's patience. For God's patience is meant to lead you to repentance. Do not delay. Tonight is the night.

Imagine with me just to maybe push this home for you. Imagine that you're flying out for Christmas. You're going to see family and friends and your flight is running behind. So now your scheduled flight is, is going to miss your connecting flight by five minutes. Pretty close, but you're gonna be late. You're gonna be stuck overnight because that flight was the last one out and now you're not gonna make it home. You're not gonna make it home to family and friends.

There are a few things that are worse than that in life being stuck overnight in the airport.

But the stewardess comes up and tells you, look, you need to go right now. Run to the gate. Run to the gate. They are holding that plane for you so that you will make it home for Christmas. If you run, you will make it. Don't stop to go to the bathroom. Don't go refill your water bottle. Go run. You can make it. I ask you, is this delay a good thing? It is. It's a very good thing. You won't be stuck in the airport overnight.

What will you do? Are you going to putts along to the next gate? Of course not. There's no time to delay. You've got to go. You've got to run. And that's what we're called to do here. Repent. Do not delay. God's patience is meant to lead you to repentance but also believe. Believe in verse 12, Christians are called to wait for the coming day of God. Waiting is an expression of faith. Dear Christian, waiting is is an exercise of your faith.

We expect God to fulfill his promise. When we are waiting on him, we look for it. We wait for it with eager expectation. Eager anticipation. In this day, this coming day of Jesus' return is a day that we desire to hasten. It says in verse 12, we want to hasten the coming day of God because for us, it will be a day of salvation.

It will not be a day of condemnation. If we are hidden Christ, it will be a day of salvation. In one sense, we cannot hasten the day of God because we cannot change what God has decreed from eternity past. But just as God uses things like our prayers to accomplish his purposes in the world, so our manner of life, second Peter three says, can hasten Christ's return? And don't we want to pray like it, like it says in the Bible, come Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Lord Jesus, we are waiting for you to return. We want you to return.

Let us wait in faith and let us prepare even if you should be the recipient of mocking and scoffing for believing this supernatural intervention on the part of God is coming into this world. Persevere in faith. Keep the faith. Expect every one of God's promises to come to pass. So first, as we anticipate this day to come, we we live lives of repentance and faith. And then we also ought to live holy and godly lives.

Dear believer, don't you know that what Christ has redeemed you from is sin? He's redeemed you from sin and he has set you apart from the world for God.

Holy living is not an expectation for the so-called super Christians

that Jesus freaks. Holy living is not a trait only to be found in pastors or elders or church leaders. Holiness is the calling of every Christian. Peter wrote in his first letter, exhorting all Christians as he who called you is holy. You also should be holy in all your conduct since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And the same goes for godliness. This is to be a mark of every Christian. Every Christian. If you look back across the page at chapter

one, that's where this book started godliness. You see it there in verse three. Chapter one tells us that God gives the Christian saving knowledge. Then God gives to the Christian all they need for life and godliness. He instructs us in godliness. And then God gives us motivations for godly living. And even better than that, God rewards us for godly living says in verse 11. In this way, there will be richly provided for you in entrance into the eternal kingdom

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Our purpose to live holy and godly lives is shaped by two motivations we see here at the end of, uh, this section of the passage. On the one hand, we want to live holy and godly lives because God's judgment is coming on account of ungodliness. That's what it says in verse seven, the day of judgment, uh, the the ungodly are being kept until the day of judgment and for destruction. So that's maybe a negative motivation.

Judgment is coming on account of ungodliness. We should not want to live as ungodly but godly because the judgment is coming. But on the other hand, we should want to live wholly and godly lives because we are headed for the new heavens and the new earth. In wherein righteousness dwells, it says in verse 13,

while it is certainly true, that God himself will dwell there with his people in the new heavens and the new Earth. This righteousness that verse 13 is speaking of is not referring to the righteousness of God. It is true that God is righteous and God will be there. But this righteousness is the righteousness of believers. The new heavens and the new earth is the place in which righteousness dwells. Those who go to glory will be perfected in righteousness.

They will be without sin. John Owen wrote, holiness indeed is perfected in heaven, but the beginning of it is invariably confined to this world. Holiness and godly living begins here and it will be perfected in the new heavens and the new earth. If we truly desire to live in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells, then we should find that our desires for sin are decreasing over time. And we should find that our desires to be holy

and godly are increasing over time because the new heavens and the new Earth are coming and we are getting closer. You see, dear believers, there will be a time, there will be a time when the holy God will live with his holy people in a holy place that he has prepared for them. And that place is the new heavens and the new Earth. And that ought to be a motivation for us, a positive motivation for us to pursue holy and godly lives now and to live them now.

So dear Christian, just in closing, since you can expect the end to come, you can expect it based upon the character of God, since you can expect the end to come Live a life of repentance and faith and live lives of holiness and godliness to the glory of God. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, would you take this word that has gone out, Has gone out among us. Would you take this word and would you put it deep into the soil of our hearts?

Oh, spirit, would you water it? Would you cause it to bear fruit in our lives? Fruit that is shown through faith and repentance, fruit, uh, fruit that is shown to be godly and holy living. May it be true of each believer here, and Lord, if there are any who have heard this message for the very first time, would you work in their hearts to bring them to faith to see that Christ is the only savior of sinners to rest upon Him alone for salvation?

And then oh Lord, to follow you wherever you might call, no matter what it might cost, help us all. Oh Lord, not to delay

because you're coming, is coming soon. And we do pray. Oh Lord, come quickly. We are waiting for you. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.