Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 29, 2017 | Living At The End Of Time - I See Fire

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October 29, 2017 | Living At The End Of Time - I See Fire · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful day.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It's uh good day to be alive.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: And um wow, I just warmly because I heard yesterday it was supposed to freeze, maybe even snow, and then it's getting warm.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal?
0:20
SPEAKER_00: I like the warm though.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: This is good.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: It's anyway, it's nice to have you.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Mulvain Building, College Avenue Building online, whatever.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're in a series called Living at the End of Time.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're in the penultimate, the next to last of these messages.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: The last one will be next week.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: The week after that, we'll have a special Sunday that I'm looking forward to.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh um thinking of persecuted Christians across the world.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So today is wow.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Um I've made it a little easier since first service, but it's sort of like seminary Sunday in first service, a lot of theology, controversy, and so forth.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: But for those of you that like theology and like some of that stuff, we're gonna have some of that.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: There's some verses here uh that are really famous that that, but they're controversial.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Also, this would be good for you if you're interested in eschatology and the end of things, how the earth will end, what it'll be like uh then.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I would say that this message is especially for those of you who've ever woken up in the middle of the night, awakened, whatever, and you suddenly had the thought, uh, like I have, um, is what I believe really true?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is there really a God who's in charge and a heaven to come where uh where there'll be a paradise where I can live forever with my Savior and with my friends and loved ones?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Um or is this just some sort of religious mysticism that I've bought into because of my past, because I'm in America, or because, you know, whatever else?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is is what I believe?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus, for instance, is he really coming back?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all know, yeah, he lived back then, but is this promise?
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's been so long, really?
2:10
SPEAKER_00: With so many people today disbelieving and a rising number, still really small, but a rising number of total agnostics and atheists, is this really true?
2:19
SPEAKER_00: So for those of you, I admire people who've never doubted, but if you've ever uh lived uh a few hours in the middle of the night on the sloping back of a question mark, uh then uh then you're with me.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And this this text is especially for you, and it's especially to answer doubts because Peter, that's where Peter is sort of on the dock.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: He's in, he's on trial, and some people are throwing stuff at him and saying this is ridiculous, and he's answering them.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And I decided to entitle my uh message this morning, I see fire, because this passage, in a sense, uh reminds me, it reminds me of a Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smog, and in the background of that movie, uh uh a wonderful singer sang the words, I see fire inside the mountain, I see fire burning the trees, I see fire hollowing souls, I see fire, blood in the breeze.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit scary, a little bit perhaps not Sunday morning-ish, but uh it's a little bit like this passage.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I entitled, I've entitled our message.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: We're going through 2 Peter, uh, we're now in chapter 3, these six verses, 8 through 13, I see fire.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to say right at the beginning, we're not forecasting anything.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: One of the embarrassing things uh for those of us who believe in the end of the world is that there are people, prophecy, uh nuts and so forth, who seeming seem to come out every year or two with some forecast.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's earlier this year he was supposed to come back, and in 2015 and 2012, and 2009.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like, you know, there's somebody always, for whatever reason, maybe they want to make a couple hundred thousand dollars by getting on the radio and writing book, but but it's been forecast so much, and and it's one of the reasons it makes it a little harder to talk, to say in public, I believe in Jesus' second cousin.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Second cousin?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I believe in Jesus' second cousin.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had a second cousin.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Second coming.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: First time in my life I've ever said second coming with second cousin.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So um so it makes it a little more embarrassing, but we're not talking about that.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the mockers or scoffers that Peter is dealing with are not mocking and scoffing uh because there were people that were making crazy predictions or forecasts in those days.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: No, they they were uh actually he last week we talked about this, verses three and four, he said, you need to know that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, Where's the promise of his coming?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Because ever since the fathers fell asleep, everything continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And so his point is, you and I need, and by the way, this was this happened 35 years after Jesus, you know, is gone.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus goes up into heaven.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: This is only 35 years later.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: You go, that's like a snap of time.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: It's been two grand, two thousand years now.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: But they were saying, he said he was going to come back soon, and it's been 35 years.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And Peter, well, everything Peter says applies to us today, and he says, you need to know these people.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: You need to recognize when you hear this stuff, you need to know the false teachers, you need to identify them in two ways, by their life and by their lip, by how they live and what they say.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: With their lip, their words are Jesus returned, how ridiculous.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And by their life, they say, don't, you know, quit obsessing about sex and other things.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Just satisfy your urges, and that's the way they live.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: We ask ourselves this question last week: who says these two things?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Our answer was, I mean, about a billion people.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody who seems to be cool.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: The media certainly does.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: The intellectual elite, you know, people we look up to on college campuses, a lot.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there's a link.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed the link between secularism and immorality?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: These two things, living according to your urges and denying the return of Christ, they go together.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Because the idea is if God doesn't exist or if he's not coming back, I can live as I please, right?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And Aldous Huxley, founder of American Humanist Association, sort of the father of agnostics and atheists today, wrote a wonderful book, Brave New World, wrote in his final little book, Ins and Means, he admits the connection between these two in his own life when he says, I had motive for not wanting the world to have meaning.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world isn't concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: No, he's also concerned practically to prove there's no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: So there's a link between these two things.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And Peter has four replies to these scoffers.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: The first, last week, was that history is, he says, you guys are saying history is uniformitarian.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: I got into science last week, uniformitarianism versus catastrophism.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: He says, You guys say there's never been any shocking interruptions into the world?
7:36
SPEAKER_00: He says, you're forgetting creation and you're forgetting the flood.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And now the other three answers, his replies to the scoffers, are coming up in this text.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And one of them will be in verse 80, he'll say, and I'll just tell you what they are.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: You guys are saying the clock has run out on God's promises, so they can't happen?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Listen, his clock isn't our clock.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: In verse 9, he'll say, You're saying God's slack about his return promise?
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Listen, he's not slack, he's just patient.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he'll say in verse 10, fact, the day of the Lord will come, both like a thief, surprise, and a fire to purify.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: So let's work our way through here.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: We start in verse 8 with one of the most famous verses of the law, a verse you've heard many times.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget this one thing, dear friends, Peter says, with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: He's quoting Psalm 90, a thousand, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: His clock is not our clock.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've probably heard the story, you know, about the businessman.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: He was out for a walk on Sunday afternoon, and all of a sudden he found he had a companion.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: He looked over and it turned out to be none other than Almighty God.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: True story.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: So this is so anyway, he's really nervous, he's freaking out a little bit, and he and but the only thing he can remember is that when he was in Sunday school as a kid, he heard that that a thousand years to God was like a minute.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Or a thousand years to us was like just a minute to God.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And so being the only thing he could think of, being really nervous, said, Can I ask you a question, God?
9:07
SPEAKER_00: God says, sure, go ahead.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: He says, Is it really true what I heard in Sunday school that like a thousand years on earth is just like a minute to you?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: God says, that's right.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Now he's he's beginning to get a little more confidence and being a businessman and so forth.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking about money.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: He says, Would it also be true for me to say that a million dollars to me is just like a penny to you?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: God says, Well, yeah, that's true.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: That's also true.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And now he's really feeling his oats.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: He said, Would you mind?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Could I have one of your pennies?
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And God says, sure, you know, excuse me, though I didn't bring any with me just a minute.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So uh it really happened, it really happened.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: So so the first point is that God's clock is not our clock.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Long and short to us is not long and short to him.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: There's no delay on his clock.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: A thousand years to us, it's like a day to him.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: So think about that.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: It's been about 2,000 years, a little under since Jesus made the promise.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And we back your back up about two days.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: You remember Friday morning, you know, when you were kind of a hurry, so you poured a little cold cereal and you poured some milk in there and you gulped it down because you were late getting up.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
10:32
SPEAKER_00: That's been over 48 hours.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: That's what the angels feel it's like right now in heaven when we complain it's been so long.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: You go, what?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: I was just eating cereal two days ago.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: So the time, God, the clock in heaven, in a sense, you could say, is different than our clock, which really should change some of our frustration with God about timing.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: I talked to somebody this last week, so frustrated.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: No matter how much they seem to apply for a job, you can't get a job.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And they've been praying, praying, praying.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And they're really upset.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to think that God's time is our time.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Or how about the health thing?
11:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, you've been trying so hard to get over this health problem.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Lyme's disease, it just keeps going on and on and on.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: I know someone, you probably know someone, and I mean, just how long will this have implications?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Or how about the family thing?
11:25
SPEAKER_00: You go, God, I've been waiting forever for my husband to become loving.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're the husband, I've been waiting forever to my wife for my wife to stop being so bossy.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And I've been praying to you about it.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: We've been praying to you, Lord, about about about the kids.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how long do they have to be such such such uh difficult children?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: How you know how when are they ever gonna come around?
11:50
SPEAKER_00: How much do we have to pray?
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I his time I was really appreciated, a family issue, and and and they were talking to him about it, and and and one of the one of the parents said, We're we're wrestling, we understand God's timing is not ours.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I thought that is so, so wise.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: That's really true.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: God's time is not our time.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: His time is perfect, but we have to trust and we have to wait for his time, right?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Because God, in a sense, you can say he's above time, he's outside of time.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: If you take event A being his death, resurrection, and promise of return, and event B being today, in a sense, that's all the same moment to him.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: He's above it.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Augustine wrote a lot about this and God and time, and you can read stuff like this.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Here's what kind of makes it really interesting.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: If a thousand years to us being just a day to him shows his control and his sovereignty, the second line says, and a day is as a thousand years.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Meaning today.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Your day today.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: He lives in.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: He's not just above time, he's in time in such a way.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: You think this sermon is long?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: He has to live in it for 20 years if you figure out the timing of all that, and that's just if it only goes 30 minutes, 30 minutes is 20 years.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So he has to, that's why I work so hard.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: I really don't want him to be falling asleep on me for 20 years.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: But just imagine what you're thinking about for the next 90 seconds.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: His concern, his compassion, his care, he will live in that moment, he will live in that 90 seconds of your thoughts for one whole year.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Do you really want him living for a year?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Making him happy, making him sad, pleasing him with what you do.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Eight months for the next 60 seconds.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that astounding?
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Showing how he is different than time.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: So let's uh this let's just end talking about the whole delay thing and it's been so long and so forth.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: The reply is, this and God's clock's not our clock.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: What is long and short to us is not long and short to him.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And then the third argument is in the next verse, he's not slow about his promise, as some people think.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: No, he's being patient for your sake.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want anybody to be destroyed, wants everyone to repent.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: So having talked about God's clock, now he talks about God's heart.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: He says his clock isn't our clock, now he says his heart isn't our heart.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: There's no delay on his clock, and now he says God isn't being slow, he's just he's just soft.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: He's soft-hearted.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: He's not procrastinating, he's just patient.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: He wants every last person to hear and to have a chance to respond to him and become a Christian.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And this, by the way, is one of God's major when you if Jewish rabbis love to talk about God and his attributes, and they always go to a key verse when Moses is on the top of Mount Sinai and he asks God to reveal himself, and so God says, I will, and he sticks him behind a rock, and then God passes by and in front of him, and he proclaims, God proclaims, Yahweh, Yahweh, I'm Yahweh, Yahweh, God, compassionate, that's number one, compassionate or merciful.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Number two, gracious, that's grace.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of the five, slow to anger, i.e., patient.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: I wish I was slower to anger, don't you?
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Slow to anger and patient.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, abounding in loving kindness, that's loyal love, and fifth, truth.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And you go through the whole Bible constantly.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: God's so patient.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Jonah got mad at him.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm not gonna destroy Nineveh after all, even though you preached that I was gonna destroy him, because I mean they repented and they put sackcloth even on the cats and dogs, true.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not gonna do it.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah's so mad, and then Jonah goes, Oh, I hate the fact that you're so slow to anger.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Except with me, you know, Jonah would burn.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, we want him to be patient with us, just not with other people.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking this weekend, I was thinking, where do we have where do we struggle being patient?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I struggle in a lot of ways, but um, you know, we struggle as parents being patient with our kids.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Am I right about that?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: So I thought, okay, I'm gonna Google this.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Patience, child rearing.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't believe the billions of websites on how you as parents can try to be more patient with your kids.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's the one great rule about how to be more patient, then there's the two, and then there's on it, and I'm not kidding you not, then there are the three great rules about how to learn patience and be, you know, not kill your children, and the four, and then there's five, and there's six, and then there's the seven rules, ten, twelve, twenty.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: It's astounding.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I picked out my four favorites out of all that.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: This has nothing to do with anything except that if God is this way, his children should be this way, right?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: You and I should be a little more patient, nod your head if you agree, and should should be more long-suffering, even as parents.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So, four ways to be a more patient parent.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready?
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, as I read them, I thought, man, these are a lot like a car.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: So I added something.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Number one, don't take it also personally when your kids drive you crazy.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: It's the nature I wrote of cars and children not to work the way they should.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't take it personally.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Two, stay calm, just cool it.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Or as I wrote, idle your motor rather than scripping your gears.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Three, slow yourself down instead of jumping on top of them and pummeling them into a so tap the brakes of insight.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Think, think, think, understand.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: And fourth, ask questions and listen actively before you jump to conclusions.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Or lift the hood and listen to the engine.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that's just extra if you want to be a more patient parent.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this text, moving back to the patience of God, what's interesting is that God was patient back in the days of Noah as well.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: He's going to say in a few verses that in the days of Noah, the patience of God waited.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Did it really?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And I say, yes, if you look back at Genesis 6, God said, Noah, I'm gonna flood the earth, but that won't happen for 100 years.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: He was patient.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, he says, every thought of every person on earth except for Noah and his family was absolutely awful and evil.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And yet he waited a hundred years for more people to turn to him.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: They didn't.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: But his patience just waited.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And so the point God is saying, hold it.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about delay.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Number one, my clock isn't your clock.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: What's long and short to you isn't long and short to me.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying, delay, it's not delay, it's patience.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: It's mercy, giving as many people as possible a chance to respond.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: So if you struggle with this whole idea in the middle of the night of delay, and is it really gonna happen?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: You this text is hoping that you'll get to the place of Habakkuk, who said the revelation awaits an appointed time, the end of time, in other words, though it linger, wait for it.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna happen, it'll certainly come, and it will not delay.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, you and I can stand up and say the end is near.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Just as Martin Luther did, just as Christopher Columbus did, just as John Calvin did, just as Jonathan Edwards did, just as D.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: L.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Moody did, just as Billy Graham's done.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Because we've been walking along the edge of the cliff for 2,000 years, and it will come.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And I gave some arguments a month ago as to why I think it's well, this is obvious, nearer than it's ever been, but yeah.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, there is a line in here that's a little, this is our four-minute seminary moment.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Just hang on, grit your teeth, let your eyes roll back in your head.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: But it's a Calvinism question.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: The Lord isn't really being slow, he says, about his promise.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: He's being patient.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want anyone, not even the scoffers, anyone, to be destroyed like Noah's generation was.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: He wants everyone to repent, like you guys did.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Because the Lord says very clearly, I take no pleasure in the death of anyone.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Declares the sovereign Lord Ezekiel 18, 32, repent and live.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, 2 Peter 3.9 is just one of two humongous verses that say the same thing in the New Testament, the other one being 1 Timothy 2.4.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Say that with me out loud.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, which gives us a problem, doesn't it?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that give us a problem?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Because if God is God, can't God do what he wants?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: God wants everyone to be saved, God wants everyone with him in heaven.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: However, many people will not be saved, right?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Most people will not be saved if you believe Matthew 7.13, where Jesus said the way to life is narrow and few there be who find it.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: That should cause you a problem.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: If God is God, if God is sovereign, if God wants everybody to be saved, why doesn't He just do it?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't He save everybody?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Why, in a sense, in the end, do we find that not everybody's gonna be saved?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So this is the big seminary problem.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: This is the problem that somebody in the Middle Ages said if you don't believe this, you lose your soul, but if you try to understand it, you lose your mind.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So uh anyway, how do you how do you wrestle with this?
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, it seems to me there are three options, there are three doors that you can pass through.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is the door of universalism that is, that everybody will be saved.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: God wants everyone to be saved, and therefore everyone will eventually be saved, because no one can thwart God's will.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And there are some people who believe this.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: There are some Christians who believe this today, I think.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I think they're Christians.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Even though the Bible is pretty clear that most people will not be saved.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: So this is the idea that, well, God's will can't be thwarted, so everybody, the door of heaven will remain open until eventually everybody crawls in.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Number two option: God wants everyone to be saved, but he can't make this happen because he allows men and women to decide.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: This is C.S.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's view.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the free will view that man has free will, that God's backed off, that God provides salvation, but and he waits to see how you and I will respond.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And he hopes and he prays and he tries to influence us to respond, to trust him.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: But man has free will.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, millions of people, believe this.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I used to believe this.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: But I would say that I now believe, I believe the Calvinist view, verse number three, which is that God wants everybody to be saved, but he doesn't accomplish everything he wants.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And he's chosen to save only some.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Tells us he does it for his glory several times.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: And I don't pretend to understand that, but what this means is that there's not one will of God.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: There are actually two wills of God in Scripture that sometimes we hear of God's will being whatever happens, he does as he pleases.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: But then you have the will of God that says, please be holy, as I am holy.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So there's the will of command, thou shalt not kill, be holy, love your neighbor as yourself, the biblical commands, but there's a will of decree that God does as he pleases.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: There's the moral will on one hand, such as Jesus saying to Israel, please believe in me.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: But the sovereign will, Jesus says in John 12, that God's blinded the eyes of many of them.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: There's the revealed will, be holy, and then there's a secret will.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: There's what God desires, and then there's what happens, what God does or what he permits, say to Job.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: He allows Satan to torture Job.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh so, so, so, and I think you can understand this personally.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for instance, some of you wanted to stay home and uh uh clean the leaves out of the gutter.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Did probably none of you did, but I mean, that's the job I need to do.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So uh if I wasn't here, maybe that's what I'd be doing.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you desired to do that.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Let's pick something better.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You desired to stay home and eat donuts and watch TV, but uh but you came here anyway.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: You decided to do something differently than you desired, right?
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And and we do that as parents and as people and as individuals, we desire certain things and then we do something else, and that's what I would say is happening here.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: But how whatever view you take on this whole Calvinism thing, the most important thing is something I'm about to say, and that is it doesn't make a hillabean's difference to you and to your eternity if you are hearing what I'm saying today, because written across the door of heaven, as you look at it, are the words, whosoever will may come.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Whosoever will may come.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And maybe after you go through one day, you look on the other side and it says, chosen from before the foundation of the world, great.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: But on this side of the door, you have a chance to decide.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the, that's why it was so important 500 years ago when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the on the door of the there at the Cathedral Wittenberg.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, at that point, everything wasn't really clear.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: It would take a couple hundred years before we came up with a so five solas, the sola scriptura, that means the Bible alone, scripture alone is our authority.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Solus Christus, by Christ alone are we saved.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther wanted that to be clear.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: He said it's not by Christ plus money that you give to the church, indulgences, or you know, walking to the Vatican or anything.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Sola gratia, it's only by God's grace are we saved.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Sola fide, it's only by faith that you're saved.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: It's not faith plus works or faith plus baptism, faith plus going to church.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And then as a result, you have solide o gloria, for all for the glory of God.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Those are the five solas.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And the point of this is not that you understand the Latin or anything, but just that you realize all it takes for you to get to heaven is faith, to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: It's been done for you.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: All the work has been done for you.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about the chosenness before the foundation of the sovereignty thing and so forth, because as far as it as affects you right now, the important thing is you actually have a real choice to say, Yes, Lord, I come.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And if you come, then Peter is saying, you can know for sure that when the fire falls, you'll be safe.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And so he says in verses 10 through 13, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, meaning surprising.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And then the heavens will pass away with a roar.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: With a roar?
27:06
SPEAKER_00: I once talked with, we had a guy in our church who's a firefighter who flew out to help on the West Coast.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: They're having big fires out there a few years ago, like they are now.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And he came back and I asked him, I said, tell me, what is the thing you remember the most of being there and fighting the fire?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And I fully expected him to talk about the incredible heat or the speed of the fire.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: And he said, the noise.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: I said, What do you mean noise?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: He says, you wouldn't believe it.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a freight train right next to your near as the ear as the fire just gulps up a whole forest at one gulp.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: It's just so loud.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And one day that's what it'll be like.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: 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.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Not annihilated, I don't think.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: I think the Greek, the Greek word's clear there.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: It's blade bare or exposed.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And this leads us, by the way, another little quick seminary moment.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: What will happen to this earth one day?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Will it be annihilated or will it be purged and refined?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that it will be purged and refined.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Not just because I want the Grand Canyon or Multnomah Falls and Oregon or Mount Hood to still be around, though that would be nice.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe my favorite fishing pond out on the east side of town.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: But but I would I just I think that's what the Bible teaches.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: I agree with my classmate years ago, Craig Blazing, now a professor.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Peter is speaking of the coming of the day of the Lord as a movement from the heavens through the heavenly bodies to the earth.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: God coming to the earth, and as his glory, bright, shining, comes through everything, everything he passes gets on fire through the universe.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And this movement is that of a refining fire descending from the heavens, refining the cosmos as it descends, finally bringing that refinement to the earth and the works done on it.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: The result is a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: The words of our text sound kind of like a soapy fire because he says, who'll be able to endure that day?
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Who'll be able to survive on that day?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: He is like a purifying fire and like a cleansing soap.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's talking about a refinement rather than a complete destruction.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: As John Piper says in his book, Future Grace, when Revelation 21 and 2 Peter 3 say that the present earth and heavens will pass away, it doesn't have to mean that they go out of existence.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: But it may mean that there will be such a change in them that their present condition passes away.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: We might say the caterpillar passes away and the butterfly emerges because he goes on, because God promises that the glory of his people, you and me, will demand a glorious creation to live in.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So the fallen creation will obtain the very same kind of freedom from futility and evil and pain that you and I are given, the church is given.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when God makes all things new, he'll make you and me new spiritually and morally, right?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: He'll purge us, purify us.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: He'll make us new physically, and then he'll make the whole creation new too, so that our environment, and I think this has implications environmentally, so that our environment fits our perfected spirits and bodies.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you and I will be recognizable on the other side of our purging and our changing and our death and our destruction and our resurrection.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: We will know each other.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: We will be recognizable, I think the earth will be too.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: I agree with Randy Alcorn in my favorite book on heaven, entitled, surprisingly, Heaven, when he says the earth's death will be no more final than our own.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: The destruction of the old earth and God's purifying judgment will immediately be followed by its resurrection to new life.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Earth's fiery end will open straight into a glorious new beginning, which means, just really quickly, just to summarize, basically there are three stages of Earth's existence.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: The first earth, the first world was creation to the flood, the first heavens on earth, destroyed by water.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Second world, the one we live in today, the flood to the second coming.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: The third world, the new heavens on earth, which will never end, destroyed by fire.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: So let's conclude.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So how do we live as a result?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's just barely said there's gonna be a fire that's coming, and since it's gonna happen, what sort of people ought you to be?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: And lives of holiness and godliness.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: You and I need to live accordingly.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: We need to live well.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: He circles around and repeats himself.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: In verses 12 and 13, he says, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to his promise, we're waiting for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's wait, hasten, wait for it.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you say this to some people, if you tell people you're looking forward to the second coming, am I right that some of them will kind of back off from you?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: They go, weird, weird.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, because the idea is that people who look for the second coming are either into forecasting or predicting, or they're, you know, they're no earthly good.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: I think C.S.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Lewis was exactly right when he disagreed with that.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: He said, listen, a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things that Christians meant to do.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: If you read history, you'll find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, there is one weird thing in this verse.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you noticed it.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're living in the day of man, and the day of God is coming.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: I can actually speed that up.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Really?
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Apparently.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: So when you go, well, how how how can I bring Christ's return quicker?
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Two ways I can think of.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Number one, sharing Christ, witnessing, because if Jesus is delaying so that more people can hear and be saved, that's his heart, then the more people we tell, the sooner he'll return.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And praying, because Jesus, remember, said, Pray, thy kingdom come, as if God would answer that.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And the last verses of the Bible go, Come, Lord Jesus, witness, pray.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: So the second coming of Christ is coming, the fire is coming, and here's how you and I should live.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: I ask myself these questions because I fall short.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Am I talking about his coming and the need for people to consider the claims of Christ?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Am I talking about it?
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Am I praying for it to happen?
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Am I living well in light of it?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Am I waiting and am I watching?
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the fire is coming.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: And on that day we'll see fire inside the mountain.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: We'll see fire burning the trees.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: We'll see fire hollowing souls.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: We'll see fire.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Blood in the breeze.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: It'd be a scary time when the wrath of God has finally said, This is enough.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: I have waited so long, I cannot wait any longer to bring paradise, to bring this world to an end.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I've got to bring fire.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: And he'll bring fire, and on that day, he'll rescue his people, he'll deliver.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Those of us that are waiting and watching for his coming, those of us that are his children.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And on that day, if you're not one of his children, you won't want to be alive.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: It's so important that as Christians, you and I believe that he's coming, that we satisfy our doubts with the knowledge, with the reminder that his clock isn't like our clock, his heart's not like our heart.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: He really, really, really does care for the lost.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: Wants to bring all of them, as many as possible, to paradise with him and with us.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: So let's participate in that.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's wait, let's watch, let's witness, let's live as we should.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Father.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: This is a little rich, a little deep, a little scary, a little bloody, a little fiery, a little hot.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh yet it is the text of Scripture, and so we do say, Come, Lord Jesus, come, come, come back quick.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Come back before worse happens.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Come back to set things straight.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Come back to bring justice to your people.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Come back to to bring joy and reunion to all of us, uh, to our loved ones, so that we can see our Savior.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Our Savior who loved us so much, and in his name we pray.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.