our Savior. And thank you. We can come together and gather here this morning. And we thank you that He has coming back and we look forward to that day.
And Father, we count this a real privilege that we can gather today. Thank you for the freedom we have in our land to do so. And we pray that that continues and is extended. We pray for those this morning who in other parts of the world and probably prior to when we met had to meet in secret because they do not have this privilege that we have.
We pray for them. We pray for persecuted Christians around the world as they endure great hardship because of their faith. But we thank you for the one who is faithful, the Lord Jesus, and sustains in all of these things. Father, I ask that you would help this morning as we look into your word that your word would be clear to us, that we would come away from here, encouraged in our faith.
And if there's anybody who has come this morning, has never come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, that today that they would put their faith and their trust in Him and that they would be starting today on the path of eternal life. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I was hoping for a clicker.
I was hoping you weren't going to say, no, we didn't get your PowerPoint. And you did. Thank you. Well, Jesus Christ is coming back again.
I'm glad you are excited about that. That is really great that you're pumped. So I might say it again. Jesus Christ is coming back again.
Thank you. Yes, thank you. Not for me, but for Him. It's a wonderful promise that we have that Christ is coming back.
And I've been thinking about this. Someone asked yesterday, how are you getting along in preparation? I said, great, on my third sermon of the week. So I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
So I've taken, I've taken Genesis and just parked it for a little bit. We'll go back to Genesis, Lord, willing, and January. But to try to get into understanding Noah and the flood and the ark and not make a lesson in geology. And for me, it's a hard thing.
So I had so many questions as I studied through, and I had to keep studying and studying. And as I did more and more and more of that, I thought, okay, I've gotten through the first verse or two. So I can't do that to you. So I'm going to work on that Lord willing over the next month.
And we will go back to that. And then I started thinking about what's going on in the world? Because this is kind of consuming the minds of many. And I have to say that I have been a little bit like you may, I've checked out of the news a fair bit.
I do follow it because I have to tell Him what's going on because He has no clue. He's told me He's told me shut off the news. So if He needs to know anything about the news, I have to get it to Him. So I do watch a little bit of it.
So I was watching, I've been following what's going on in Israel and around the world. What's come out of October the 7th and a lot of what's on my mind and everybody's mind probably is, is this an indication the Lord is coming back? Like is it going to happen next week because you know, you've got stuff going on in one place, you've got stuff going on in another place, you've got wars, you've got rumors of wars, there's been a couple of big earthquakes going on in Philippines last two days. And I'm thinking that gets people ramped up and you get prophecy preachers just coming out of the woodwork.
Like this is a great time to write a prophecy book because you will sell it. But there's so much speculation because the Lord Jesus himself said, no man knows, no man knows the time. And then I got into a discussion we had a company with us this week and they were very kind and took us out to dinner. And while we're sitting there having dinner, one of the ladies said to me, he said, you need to go Lord, it's coming back soon.
And I said, I think He could come back before we have dessert. And she said, I don't think so. I said, oh, I do. And I said, I do also think that He could delay 200 years.
And she said, well, I think we have to go through this. I said, I don't think we're to think that way. We're to be prepared right now because it could happen before dessert. Or we also are to live in such a way because it could happen in the next lifetime.
Now, I don't really believe it's going to take 200 years just looking at what's going on in the world. And I do honestly believe that we might not even get home today to our houses that go to our big house. I mean, that would be so wonderful. Wouldn't it be wonderful to go from Northbrook to heaven?
That's it. There we go. I knew Warren was going to get excited. And it would be wonderful.
So I started thinking about all of these things. And then I started thinking about, this is one of my favorite passages in the New Testament outside of the Gospels, 2 Peter, chapter 3. If you want to turn in your Bibles, I'll put the text up behind me as well. But we're in a time of the year when we celebrate that Jesus came to deal with sin.
It says in the account before he was born that the name was given to his mother. You should call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, his whole purpose in coming. But the other thing is, and I like this, when we get to this time of the year, I start thinking, yes, he came and yes, he saved us from our sins. In fact, I came to Christ over Christmas holidays.
So it's very special to me. But I also look forward at Christmas time of the return. Every time we sing that song, Joy to the World, it's about the Second Coming of Christ. It says, No more let sin and sorrows grow in North Thorns infest the ground.
He comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. That song is about the Second Coming of Christ. So every time that song is sung, it just stirs me up to think he's coming again and he's going to come soon. So I think with all that's going on in the world with what went on from 2000 years ago, the church has been looking forward to the promise of his coming.
We'll read a little later on that this is a line that's used by mopters, where is the promise of his coming? I look at it and think I'm clinging to the promise of his coming. So let's look at the text. I'm going to have to magnify that for myself.
Okay, so Second Peter chapter three verse one. Now this is now the second letter I'm writing to you beloved in both of them. I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. Knowing this first of all, the scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following their own sinful desires.
They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the Father's fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlooked this fact that the heavens existed long ago and that the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
But by the same word, the heavens, and the earth that now exists are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this fact or 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, then the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
You want to talk about global warming? It's going to get hot. So this is speaking of the day of the Lord that is coming. The Scripture has a lot to say about the coming of Christ.
Next to the faith, the return of Christ is the most referenced topic in the Bible. About 1,850 times it is spoken of or alluded to. One out of 30 verses speak of the return of Christ. Someone said, if you're going to read your Bible every day, make sure you read 30 verses because you'll probably get one that has to do with the return of Christ.
Give those statistics. One fifth of the Bible deals with the end of days and or the second coming. For every one verse about his first coming, there's about eight about his second coming. For everyone verse about his first coming, there are two about his second coming.
Sorry about atonement his atonement. There are two about the second coming. 21 times Jesus personally referred to it. 50 times we are told to be ready for it.
In John chapter 14 verses 2 and 3, Jesus said these words to the disciples when he had them together to encourage me, says, in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you, take you to myself that where I am there you may be also. Peter was dealing with a group of people who were denying all of this.
If you look in 2 Peter chapter 2, you'll see that. Dealing with the rise of false prophets, just causing so much trouble for believers at the time, people were saying, well, you know, it's, he's not coming again. They had the past wrong, they had the present and they had the future wrong. They were teaching these false teachings.
And the thing is, the reason was because they had Jesus Christ wrong. And when you have Jesus Christ wrong, you have everything wrong. That's just the way it is. And many people today get Jesus Christ wrong.
They do. They have him wrong. If you want a live demonstration of that, I would encourage you to come out on the streets on the 15th when we go that night. And that is why we have the most popular tracts that we give out is the one, do you know him?
And do you know why we give that out? Because he is the core of everything. He is the core of everything, not just the gospel on the streets. He is the core of why we are here this morning.
He is the core of life. He is the core. And if you get him wrong, you will get everything in your life wrong, you will get through this life without eternal life and you will die in your sins and you will be separated forever from God if you get Jesus Christ wrong. That's why it's important.
Do you know him? And if you don't know him, I would encourage you today. Seek him. Seek him out.
Get into the scriptures. Get into the Word of God and know him and come to know him personally. To know him is life eternal. You see, there were and there still are people who mocked and scoffed at the idea of a second coming.
But believers, we look forward to is coming. It's the thing that we get excited about. So I have three points. I want to look back at what the scriptures say.
I want to look around at the scoffers. This is what Peter lays out here. The writing of the prophets, the teaching of the apostles. Look around at the scoffers.
There are a lot of scoffers today. The New American standard tells them mockers. That might be an even better word because we know what a mocker is. Scobber is an older word.
But a mocker. We know people who mock everything. Everything. Their worldview.
Their wrong view. And then finally, we want to look ahead to the Savior. First, as we look back at the scriptures, he begins the writing and saying, I want to remind you it. I want to, he says in the New American standard, it says, I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets.
It's very interesting. What will stir up your mind? The scriptures will stir up your mind. Get into the scriptures.
Stir up your mind. Use your mind. We've come through a time when, I hate to say this, I'm not trying to be political, but the government seem to think that they can now think for you and you don't need to think anymore. We'll do all the thinking and you just take it on the spoon.
You need to stir up your mind. You need to think through these things. Someone is on TV, some talking head that says, there is no God and blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you going to just take that or are you going to think about this?
Are you going to logically think the implications of what they're saying? Somebody comes to you and says, there's 57 genders. It's called People Snickers. But they are saying that.
They are saying that every single day. It used to be in colleges where they said it. Now it's kindergarten. So are you going to just take that because they said it, whoever they are?
Or are you going to use your mind? And are you going to say, that doesn't make any sense? And look into the Word of God. And look into the logic of life.
It does not make any sense. But you see, the problem is we're now living in a world where people will just take anything they're given. That's why we're teaching through Genesis. It's not just to tell old stories.
It's because we live in a day when people will just take anything they're told and they'll run without a truth, even if it's the biggest lie that's perpetrated. Peter says, look back at the words of the prophets, the holy prophets he calls them. You see, sometimes we as Christians, we get a little lethargic, get a little drowsy and we get up and perhaps I try to make it my way of starting my day. I take my Bible, I open it on my desk before I get into my emails before I do any of that stuff and just do it.
And I have to admit, there's days that I get there and I'll read through a passage and I'll go, well, there we go, I read and put it away. A shirt, little prayer, almost like now I leave me down to sleep, I got to get to work. That kind of thing. And we get lethargic.
I'll admit it. I fall into that at times. We need to get stirred up. We need to get stirred up about the Word of God.
We need the guidance of the Word of God. We will be falsely guided every single day by a thousand different directions if we listen to the media, if we just listen to what's going on in the world around us, even if we listen to our own families. We will end up misguided. We need to listen to the Word of God.
We need to pay attention to the Word of God. The cure for spiritual drowsiness is the Word of God. And especially prophecy. When you get in and you look at prophecy, it's amazing.
It'll bolster you. It'll help you in sharing your faith. For me, I love the idea of prophecy because it is one of the infallible proofs of the veracity of Scripture as I look at prophecy that has been fulfilled from the past. Just wear a Christmas time.
Look at all of the prophecies that were given in the Old Testament about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and then look how they were fulfilled right to the letter. Go through and read Psalm 22. We talked about that yesterday in our men's study and then read the account of the crucifixion and see how almost letter for letter it was fulfilled in what happened on that day of Calvary. That will bolster your faith.
That will encourage you. That will strengthen you and that will help you share your faith. The day of the Lord is what he's referring to here. In verse 10, we'll see he talks about the day of the Lord, but he is talking about the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's coming back. And if you read your Bible at all, you've come across the idea. You've heard of this idea of the day of the Lord. 19 times in the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Zechariah, the last chapter of Zechariah is just so clear in giving a picture of what the day of the Lord will be like.
When Jesus Christ comes, he sets his foot on the Mount of Olives. It splits into and his enemies are done away with. And all that will happen after that. Now, I want to clarify something here.
The day of the Lord, first of all, it's a terrible, terrible day. But something very good comes out of a terrible, terrible day. It's a terrible day for mankind left living on the earth at that time. A terrible day.
The judgment of God will be poured out in its fullness on this earth. But at the end of that, our Savior will rule and reign forever. Rule and reign forever. There will be peace like there has never been before.
And it'll be an everlasting peace. There will be no nonsense. Every injustice will be fixed. It'll be a wonderful day, but a terrible day for those who don't know him.
I also want to clarify, just so we're not confused, there is the Rapture of the Church, which I believe takes place before the day of the Lord. That we are looking forward to. If we do not die, it's the time when Jesus comes and meets us in the air. And we are forever with the Lord from that moment on.
It's a controversial topic with some people these days, but I want to say that's what we believe and that's what we teach here. There are details about it that I don't know. I don't know what the details, whether they're exact or not, and I don't get dogmatic about it. But I do believe that the evidence of Scripture points to a pre-millennial return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth.
And then we will see at the end of a tribulation of seven years, we will see the day of the Lord come, when He will set His foot upon the earth and all things will change. References to the day of the Lord that we see in the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 13 verse 6, wail for the day of the Lord is near and destruction from the Almighty will come. As destruction from the Almighty it will come. Jeremiah chapter 46 verse 10, the day is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance to avenge Himself on His foes.
The sword shall devour and be sadeth and drink its fill of their blood for the Lord God of hosts holds a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. Amos chapter 5 verse 18 wail to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have a day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.
It is a frightening and terrifying day. That time of tribulation that leads up to the actual return of Christ is a frightening and terrifying time. Don't mess around and think, well, I'll go through that and then I'll see, you know, maybe I'll believe then. The time to believe is now.
The day of the Lord is coming. It is a terrible and frightening day. Jesus in His teachings in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 taught on the day of the Lord. The apostles in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2 and in Revelation 6 through 19 speak of the day of the Lord.
So the other thing that's interesting here is he also references not just the Old Testament prophets, but he says the apostles records. You see Peter elevated the teachings of the apostles as being on equal power with the writings of the prophets. It is the word of God. The word of God, whether Old Testament, New Testament, whether it's the apostles or whether it's the prophets, is to be elevated to the point that it is the Supreme Word of God.
There is nothing greater than the Word of God. There was a continuous revelation of the day of the Lord from the Old Testament right through to the New Testament right through to the end. So the question is for you, do you stir your mind up in the Scriptures? Do you use when you go to the Scriptures to stir up your mind?
Does it cause you to think? Peter wanted us to engage our mind, to stir up our mind, to memorize Scripture. Nothing will help you in your spiritual formations, like memorizing verses as they come to mind when you need them. Martin Luther and most of his work on justification by faith came from Scripture that he memorized, Scripture that he knew.
In fact, he had a mentor, Johann von Stapitz, I think his name was, he taught him, taught Martin Luther to memorize entire books of the Bible. And through that, Martin Luther was able to do his treatise on the justification by faith to break away from salvation by works. Let your mind be stirred, what the prophets wrote, what Jesus said, and what the apostles recorded. I like, as you know, I've listened to an awful lot of a guy named Mike Winger, a Bible thinker, they call him, and he often reads something and he'll say, okay, let's get into this.
He said, I just want to, my purpose is to teach you to think biblically about everything. And I like that. Think biblically about everything. How do I make my choices?
How do I live my life? I need to think biblically about everything. So that's looking back at the Scriptures and the prophets. And then we're to look around at the scoffers.
Be aware, be equipped, be ready. I have to ask the parents, because I think the kids are all downstairs, so the parents are here. Are you equipped for when your child comes home from school and says, mom, dad, my teacher told me that the Bible is a fairy tale. Are you ready for that?
Can you defend the Bible with your children? If you're a little one, and I mean a little one, comes home and says, I know, mommy, you said I'm a girl, but my teacher said I can also be a boy. Are you ready to answer that? Are you equipped for that?
We need to be equipped. We need to know what's going on around us. We need to know what the Scripture teaches on all these things. We need to know that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, male and female, He created them both.
We need to know these things. This isn't political. It's not. It's eternal.
Knowing Jesus Christ is an eternal decision. Jesus is not a political figure. He's the eternal Son of God, and you need to know Him. Your children need to know Him.
And the world is filled with mockers and scoffers, and they are teaching our children. They taught me in school, and they probably taught you in school. You see, the prophets who also predicted that the Messiah was coming and the reign of the Messiah also predicted that scoffers are going to come, that mockers are going to come. Isaiah chapter 5, Jeremiah chapter 17, Ezekiel 12, Malachi chapter 2.
You see a scoffer is someone or a mocker is someone who treats lightly what should be taken seriously. The dictionary that I look up says, someone who jeers or mocks or treats something with contempt or calls out in derision. Have you ever run into a mocker, John? The world is full of those who would mock God.
You know, and I was no better than my friend at one time, and I told the story before, but it's such a warning to me. I had a friend named Donnie. It's all you need to know is that was his name. And when a couple of his close friends, myself and another one, came to know Jesus Christ, and he saw that we were totally changed people, totally different than the person he knew months before.
I was in a car with him one time, we were driving along, and he said, so you really, really believe in God. He was just mocking me and mocking me and mocking me as we drove along. And I said, I do. And he said, all right, then, call on your God right now to strike me dead right here, right now.
And I said, I wouldn't do that. And he said, why? I said, one, he might. And two, because Donnie, I love you and I want you to know God.
I don't want you to go and die and not know Christ and not know God. You will be going to a horrible place. And he laughed at me. Fast forward 20 years.
I run into him at the ferry. I'm waiting for Esther and I think Mary to come from PEI. He comes out and he goes, hey, you haven't seen you in a long time. So he's got those other way within 30 seconds.
He goes, you're still religious? I said, Donnie, I'm not religious. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ.
And he goes, yeah, okay, you are. He's just a whole lot of that, are you? And then he walked away from me. You know, within two years, he was peddling to work across the McDonald Bridge halfway across with no explanation, healed over dead.
It was 20 years, 25 years later, but God did strike him. And he had so much opportunity and he scoffed for all of those years. I'm telling you, it's a serious thing to do this before God. Now, I say that knowing that I was no better.
I was no better. I see these guys to come up Spring Garden Road and they mock us and they laugh in our faces and all of that stuff. You know what? 45 years ago, I would have done exactly the same thing.
I would have taken the tracks and torn them up. The world is filled with mockers. They have this world view and this is taught to you, Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, Smithsonian Channel, National Geographic. They have this view that we live in this, everything, everything from the, here's what it says, where's the promise of his coming?
For ever since the Father's Fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. So when I started in school at Dalhousie, oh, I called you to care about it, I'm sorry, it just because it wasn't enough to have a textbook, my teacher wrote his own textbook to start us off with and it was all typed and everything else. But I want you to notice this little phrase on the first page. Fossil should be, fossil should, by comparing them with similar modern forms, teach us something about the environment which the animals they represent once lived.
We base these conclusions largely on the doctrine of uniformitarianism, which simply stated, says that the present is the key to the past. In other words, things just carry on the way they've always been. Huh, what an awful idea. Peter knew about uniformitarianism long before I took geology in 1970 something.
It was in the late 70s, just so you know. But you see, Peter says this, in the last day, I'm going to read the L.T. First I want to remind you, in the last day, there will be scoffers who will laugh at the truth and do every evil thing they desire. This will be their argument.
Jesus promised to come back, did he? Then where is he? Why? As far back as anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly the same since the world was first created.
It's not a new doctrine. Uniformitarianism, that whole thing has been taught going back into the into the scriptures. This is my book. Talking about yesterday, first year geology.
Okay, here we are. Basically, the scientists were religious men and the implications of great periods of time began to create conflict between what they saw in nature and what they had been taught to believe by the Bible. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Until finally, Darwin comes along right here.
It says, last straw and the safe world of catastrophe could no longer survive. Eventually, geology obliterated the great compromise entirely. Interesting. No, no, that's not a religion.
We now know the oldest rocks. We now know the oldest rocks in the world are approximately 3.8 billion years old. Actually, it's now, I think, 4.2. And that the geological cycle has envisioned by Hutton has been operating that long.
Things are the same as they've always been for billions of years. Oh, that doesn't work. We'll just add another couple. So I just put that up, not to teach you what geology lesson, but to show you that this is what is being drilled into our society.
This is what's being drilled into our society. Peter says, they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and that the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God. God shaped this earth the way it is. He divided the water from the land.
He divided the water from the water. We have so much evidence. The other thing they deny is the flood. If you read this passage, I don't have time to go into it.
They deny the great flood. We'll get into that. Boy, I'll tell you. We're going to be submerged in that flood when I get back to Genesis.
Don't hold your breath, Warren says. For this, they are willingly ignorant. There are fossil trees that you see in Nova Scotia. There's fossil slabs in Nebraska with trees running through them.
There's seashells up in the Himalayans. There was a universal flood and it's exactly, it's so much easier for me with a geology degree to pick up my Bible and read that the waters covered the mountaintops and that's why there are shells on top of the Himalayans. That's so much easier to believe because God's Word says it and explains it. So enough of the mockers.
Jesus says that in the days of Noah, as in the days of Noah, so will be in the coming of the Son of Man. Mockers, scoffers, violence, uproar, people turned against God. But you know what? I say, look around at the scoffers.
I should have said glance. Just give them a quick glance, be aware that they're there. Here's where we want to look. We want to look ahead for our Savior.
That's where I want to occupy myself. Looking ahead for our Savior. What seems to us to be a very long time, perhaps, is a very short time to God. In fact, God doesn't have a watch.
God lives in eternity. Peter says in verse 8, he says, but beelive, do not forget this one thing that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. So sometimes we're sitting here thinking, oh, 2,000 years, that's such a long time. People have held onto this promise for 2,000 years, 2,000 days.
Really? Not much difference from where God's reference frame is. And there's a reason for that. The reason for that is because he is patient.
He is long suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Perhaps you're here today and you've gone a long, long time. You've heard the gospel a long, long time. And you've never accepted Christ.
And God has been very, very patient with you. I look at members of my family who don't know Christ. And I think I don't want the day of the Lord to come now until they come to Christ. I see others here who are in the same situation.
They're nodding in agreement with me. I dread the thought of loved ones missing out. I dread the thought of loved ones going to hell. It's horrible.
It's an awful thought. But you see, God has been patient and he's not willing that any should perish. You see, scoffers and mockers, we have got a bad rap. They say, oh, God's this mean, you know, just up there sitting, just throwing up bolts and lightning and judgment on people all the time.
God is long suffering. God is not willing that anyone should perish, but that everyone would come to repentance. He commands all men everywhere to repent. It says in Acts, you see, the Lord is long suffering.
It means that he burns slowly is what that word actually means. He has an amazing capacity to not spill his anger out on this world that deserves it so much and delay until that day of the Lord. I'm going to close with this little story and then I'm going to go to the last part of the passage here. One of the prime ministers of England, his name was William Gladstone.
And he was a Christian. He was a devout Christian. And from what I understand, a brilliant statesman. And one day a young man had an audience with him.
I told the story here before, but you probably don't remember it. The two sat across from each other and the prime minister said to the young man, so what are you planning to do with your life? He said, well, Mr Gladstone, I'm planning to go to either Cambridge or Oxford and get a good education. He said, that's good.
A man needs a good education, a good foundation. That's wise. But then what's next? Well, the young man says, maybe I'll graduate.
I want to be a lawyer actually. And maybe I'll get on with one of the good law firms and a very prominent law firm. And then I'll be able to practice what I've learned in school and become a very, very good lawyer. He said, that's very honorable.
That's wise. And then what? He says, well, you know what, I'd really like to serve. And I'd like to serve in the government like you have.
You're my hero. And I really look up to you. And he said, I think I could achieve things if I were to sit in the House of Commons, Great Britain, and influence the world through our government. I mean, we, we, we, they say that the sun never sets on the British Empire.
And look at the influence that we could have. Gladstone says, that's great. You aim high, don't you? And he says, well, maybe I could be prime minister someday.
And I can sit where you are and make real impact. Gladstone says, well, that's, that's very nice and kind. He says, well, then what? And the young man says, well, I don't know, I guess maybe I'll retire.
And he says, okay. And then what? Well, then I guess I'll be old and it'll be time for me to die. And he says, and then what?
And the young man looked at him and said, what do you mean? I've been making all these plans. He said, I don't, are you talking about religion? I haven't had any time to think about that.
Gladstone said to him, he says, young man, you have better get right home, get down by the side of your bed, open up your Bible and think your life through to its end. Think it through to its end. I've rather John told a quote from his dad. I've never forgotten this a couple years ago.
Everybody chooses a path. And when you choose that path, you choose its end. What have you chosen? Is the day of the Lord for you, a terrifying day?
Or is it a day that you look forward to with great anticipation? Peter writes this to end this part. He says, but the day of the Lord, this is verse 10, the day of the Lord will come like a thief. When the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up.
Since these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? That's the Christians. How should we then live if we know that this is what's coming? It says in verse 12, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat.
But according to his promise, we are looking for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. I hope you're looking forward to the day of the Lord with anticipation as a day of great blessing when you were with your Savior. If not, the day of the Lord is a terrifying thing, whether it will be great judgment and great loss and it will be eternal. Father, thank you this morning that we as believers, we look forward to the day when we hear that shout or we are taken in death and we are with the Lord Jesus Christ forever.
We thank you that the day of the Lord for us is a great blessing. Our Savior will come. He will rule, He will reign. We were singing of that this morning.
Father, help us to prepare for that. Help us to be prepared to give an answer, to reach out to those around us who live in our neighborhoods, who we work with, who we brush shoulders with every day, people in our family who don't know Christ, that they may come to know Him and not know the terror of the Lord, but know the joy of the Lord when He comes. We thank you for the Lord Jesus in this precious name. Amen.