Good morning. I'm going to ask Andrew if he would come up and do a scripture reading for us this morning. Do you guys have my thing? So look to the Lord in prayer.
The Lord, we thank you for your word. It is a sure word of prophecy. We thank you, Lord, that we can trust your word. We thank you that you have provided it for us.
And we thank you for the Lord Jesus, our Savior. And that he is coming again. And we look forward to that day. I do pray this morning, Lord, I need to, early afternoon, that if there's anybody here that's with us this morning who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, may you stir up their hearts.
They may consider these things and come to the only one who is the Savior of the world. I pray, Father, for help in speaking your word this morning, that it would not be my words, but it would be the word of God that comes through and that you would penetrate our hearts and change us in the ways that you would want us to be. In Jesus' name, amen. I was thank you, Andrew, for reading.
And I was glad I was able to give you at least a few hours notice, not like the last time when it was a half an hour. So I thought, what do I call a message like this today? And I thought, I'll just use the words that Peter used in this passage. So if you're turning your Bibles, please, too.
I forgot to put the passage on there. The one that he just read, 2 Peter chapter 3, verses 1 to 10 is what we're going to look at today. Now, I want to say to you this morning that Jesus is coming back again. So there's five of us that are really happy to know that Jesus is coming back again.
That's awesome. John, Clyde, Toulou, and Nick, and myself, and Ken. And Ken. So there's always second chances, right?
Sometimes. You know, Jesus Christ is coming back again. Thank you. Thanks for, yes.
That's the way we should be. You know, it has been the hope of the Church for over 2,000 years, or about 2,000 years. He came once to deal with sin, and he did that. We spent a time this morning at the Lord's Supper.
Thank you, Sam, for that plug on the Lord's Supper this morning, because seriously, if you want to come and have your mind focused, or have your mind stirred up to think about the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the time to do it. We come for an hour. We sit around, and we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we think about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray, and we sing to him. There is no greater topic.
There is no greater thing. In fact, somebody wrote that into us on. There is no greater thing than knowing you. And I'll tell you what the next greater thing is going to be, is when we can see him face to face, when we are with him forever.
He is coming back. You know, Isaac Watts wrote a what we sing as a Christmas carol, joy to the world. And every time we sang at Hilton, it was very quick to point out to me that this is not a Christmas carol. This is about Jesus coming back the second time.
And I'd say yes, but we could sing that at Christmas too, right? And so we would do that. And so in that song, and how I know it's not a Christmas carol, it says, no more let sins and sorrows grow and earthorns infest the ground. Now I know that sin and sorrows are growing.
And I know, as I try to garden little tomatoes, that thorns are infesting my ground. But today is coming when all of that will stop. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. So that refers to his second coming.
And when he comes back and sets up his millennial kingdom, the scriptures say a lot of things about Jesus coming back. Next to faith, the return of Christ is the most discussed topic in the Bible. That's an amazing fact. 1,845 times it is spoken about or alluded to.
One out of every 30 verses speaks of it. That's a lot. One fifth of the Bible deals with ends of days for the second coming. For every one verse about it, his first coming rather, there were eight about his second coming.
21 times Jesus himself personally referred to it. 50 times we are told to be ready for it. And in John chapter 14 verses two and three, Jesus said these words in my father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare and prepare a place, I will come again and receive you to myself. Where I am there, you may be also. The greatest promise of the Bible to the Christian. I will come back and take you to be with me.
He will come again, if now you may have grown up in a church where you recite the Apostles' Creed. I don't know most people who grew up here at Northbrook or Gospel Hall or somewhere else. He didn't recite the Apostles' Creed. When I was first saved, I went to the Presbyterian church and thought, what's this?
We say every week. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth and so on and so on. And then when somebody explained to me, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, but that was all about then. I was good, but the universal church.
But there's a line in there that says, he will come again to judge the living and the dead and of his kingdom there will be no end. And I add an amen to that. Peter in his day was dealing with people who were denying all kinds of things. And in 2 Peter chapter two, maybe we'll do that some other time, but he speaks of people who deny the truths of the scriptures.
And this would be one of them, that Christ is coming back. You see, they got the past, the present and the future all wrong. And the reason they got it all wrong is because they got Jesus wrong. And if you get Jesus wrong, you get everything wrong.
That's just the way it is. And that's the whole of life. That's not just your understanding of the Bible, but that is the whole of life. If you get Jesus Christ wrong and don't understand who he is and don't understand what he has done and don't understand where you fit with him, you've got everything wrong.
I'm sorry to tell you that. But in Peter's day, there were many, many people who had things wrong and they were scoffers. They mocked the fact that Jesus is coming again. So this morning, I want to look back at the scriptures, what they say, look around at the scoffers and see what they are saying and look ahead to our Savior and his coming back for us.
1 Peter chapter, our 2 Peter chapter three verse one says, now this is now beloved my second letter and I'm writing to you in which I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder. He is stirring us up to think about these things. And what he's gonna tell us first of all is to look back at the scriptures. What did the scriptures say about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ?
You see, I find it's very important to look back at the scriptures. The Old Testament of the scriptures is very important to us. He reveals the nature of God. It tells us what he is like.
It tells us that he has a plan of redemption. He has a plan to rescue this lost world. He has a plan to rescue you. The Old Testament speaks of that right from the book of Genesis all the way through to Malachi.
But you see, sometimes, I have to admit, the past week I felt like this, I texted or called, bro, we met here and said, I'm preaching Sunday. I can't believe it's now December 8th that's come up upon me and brother, pray for me because the well is dry. Now, I've heard of the dry well. I have a dry water well sometimes.
In fact, last Sunday, the Gintons, man, I'll tell you they take long showers. But I thought, what am I gonna do? And I thought, well, why don't you just go to where you're reading right now? And maybe God will give you some mana from that.
We become drowsy spiritually, the more likely we have. I find that, I find that sometimes we just kind of, I made a trip down to Stellerton this week, put the car on cruise control, and I was there before I knew it. I can hardly remember the last 100 kilometers I've driven. We're just kind of just going on through.
And we can become drowsy ourselves in our spiritual life. We can become lethargic. We know a lot, we hear a lot, we sing a lot, we speak a lot, and we can become drowsy. And Peter says here, we need to be stirred up or woken up.
And prophecy is one of those things that cure drowziness. I read all kinds of articles on what will help me sleep at night. Sometimes I need to read more scripture to help me stay awake during the day and stay awake as I walk with Christ. So we'll look at prophecy as a way to wake us out of a slumber.
He says, stir up your minds. It speaks here in the first verse of the day of the Lord. It's actually in the 10th verse. He says, the day of the Lord.
He speaks of the day of the Lord. Now, if you've read the Bible, you will come across this idea. It's mentioned many, many times, 19 times in the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Zephaniah, and Zachariah.
I'll refer to this event called the day of the Lord. It's mentioned four times in the New Testament, but what is it? What is the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is when God dramatically and miraculously comes into human history and intervenes and brings great distress.
And it's coming that it's going to be the greatest distress this world has ever known. That's really bad. However, at the same time, at the end of that, Christ is going to come back and rule and reign. That's really good.
So the day of the Lord is the day when God will come and have His vengeance upon this world. You think, the vengeance upon this world. I mean, come on, that's like so old. Do you think that this world does not deserve the wrath of God?
There's a verse in the scriptures. I can't remember where it is, but it says, you've taken my laws and thrown them behind your back. It's like we've taken the laws of God and crumpled them up and just tossed them behind our backs and we don't believe Him anymore. It's shameful to speak of Him.
We talked about that in the minutes that yesterday, that sometimes you get asked a question. You can answer it with anything else by God or Jesus Christ. If you mention those names, you're shunned. Do you think God just sits back and says, that's cool?
I'm okay with that. No, His day of vengeance is coming. It'll be the day of the Lord. But it'll culminate with the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The one who should rule. The one who will rule. The one who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In the Old Testament, I'll just give you some references here and we can look at the verses.
I put them up Isaiah chapter 13 verse 6, it says, wail for the day of the Lord is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty. In Jeremiah chapter 46 verse 10, it says, for that day belongs to the Lord, God of hosts, a day of vengeance. So as to avenge himself on his foes.
And the sword will devour and be, say that word, say it, say it, yes. And drink, it's fill of their blood. For there will be a slaughter for the Lord God of hosts in the land of the north by the river Euphrates. Amos chapter five verse 18, alas you who are longing for the day of the Lord.
For what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light. This day is coming. In the New Testament, it's referred to in Jesus' teachings in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.
Apostles, Peter and Paul and John speak of it, but Paul specifically in 1 Thessalonians chapter five and 2 Thessalonians chapters one and two. And in Revelation chapter six through 19, you read of the day of the Lord, what will happen? The Apostles' records as Peter refers to here, what Peter is doing is taking the records of the apostles, these chapters in Thessalonians and Revelation and he's elevating these to be unpowered with the words of the prophet of the Old Testament. It will happen, it will be sure.
So he wants to stir up your minds to think about this. So I ask you this morning, do you stir up your mind? What do you stir up your mind with? Do you stir your mind up with the scriptures?
That's what we need to be doing. We need to be stirring up our minds with the scriptures. Engage your mind, memorize scripture. Think about the scriptures.
In fact, I was kind of surprised yesterday as we sat in our men's study and the thing was the point number one of, how many nails is it, four nails? Yeah, nail number one, stay. Stay in the scriptures. And he told the story about, and I still remember it because it's still, the ad used to come up with this.
Now you have to be from North America and you have to be old like me to remember this ad. Just a little bit between your cheek and gum will do. Do you remember that? No, it was about chewing tobacco.
So you just take this little bit of chewing tobacco and you put it in your mouth and you stick it between your cheek and gum and you're good all day. You just go around spitting out this brown junk all day long but you got this little water chewing tobacco in there. And I told the story yesterday but the first time I ever tried chewing tobacco my mouth I thought was gonna throw up, it was that bad. But just the whole idea was if you stick it in there and you walk around all day with this stuff stuck between your cheek and gum, it's with you for the whole day.
And whenever you wanna spit if that's what your thing is you just string of brown stuff comes up and it's the chewing tobacco. So now I'm not trying to compare the scripture to chewing tobacco but the whole idea is the idea. You stick the scripture or you stick the chew in the back when you're mouth you got it with you all day. If you stick a bit of scripture in your mind every day and you walk around with the scripture on a curtain, your pocket or on a curtain on the dash of your car or by your mirror or on your desk or on your phone now because this writer didn't have an iPhone back then.
But if you do that then as you need it you've got it with you. It's kinda like that chew in tobacco that's stuck in your mouth. You got a little bit of scripture somewhere with you all the time that you could go to. Thought it was a good idea.
Rest of your glazed over. You know, Martin Luther when he did a lot of the work that he had written, all of the things that he had spoken and written during the Reformation on justification by faith, most of that came from his memorization of scripture. I didn't know that but they were not encouraged to read the Bible in the church where he was and he had a mentor, Johann von Stoppitz. And he encouraged Martin, young Martin, memorized the scripture, memorized the scripture and in doing so in memorizing the scripture he came around and said, wait a second now, I'm not saved by the church, I'm saved by Christ.
By putting my faith in Christ not in the church, I am saved. And he wrote all these great works and led the Reformation. Let your mind be stirred up with what the prophets wrote, Jesus and the apostles recorded. So we look back at the scriptures.
Next we look around at the scoffers. Now you don't have to look very far to find a scoffer. The verse there in three and four is knowing this first, but scoffers will come in the last days walking around according to their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.
Now scoffers were predicted, I actually looked at where some Old Testament references are. Isaiah chapter five, Jeremiah 17, Ezekiel chapter 12, Malachi chapter two. A scoffer is someone who treats lightly what should be taken seriously. I unfortunately sometimes can do that, that's more sarcasm than scoffing is the way I do it, but it's going to be my undoing I think at times.
But a scoffer, somebody who just makes a joke of something that should be taken seriously. The dictionary says someone who laughs and speaks about a person or idea in a way that shows that they think that person or idea is stupid or silly. Now I'm not sure, I could ask John Warren, have you ever met a scoffer downtown? I believe you have.
Yeah, I believe you have. They mock you for your faith. They'll say to you, what are you, what are those, you're not one of those fanatics. Do you really believe that book?
Are you kidding me? God, are you kidding me? You believe in him? Open up your mind, man.
The scoffers are everywhere. And if you've ever tried to share your faith, you have run into a scoffer. I'll tell you a story. It's a young friend of mine from childhood.
His name is Donnie. And Donnie, I saw a picture of my eighth birthday party. And Donnie's right there front and center. You see him more than anybody else because he's got this big smile on his face.
And so he and I way back, great primary, all through school, all through college. And I came to Christ and so did his other best friend. And one day we were driving in a car, we were on a trip and we met up with him. And he said, you still got that religion, right?
I said, well, it's not religion, Donnie. It's a relationship with Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys are fools.
You guys are idiots. And I said, well, sorry, but that's the truth. It's changed my life. He said, so you believe in God?
I said, yeah, I do. This is an occur. I can still see right where we were. He said, if you believe in God, why don't you call on him right now and ask him to come down and kill me right here?
We're all shocked by that, aren't we? I have to say, before I was a Christian, I was not much better. I'll have to admit. I would have been a scoffer too.
I said, I won't do that. He said, why not? I said, I'm not going to put God to the test. That's what the Bible says.
And secondly, I love you. Why would I do that to you? And he goes, yeah, because you know he won't do it. And I said, this is not going anywhere.
Fast forward, a number of years, 20 years or so. I'm standing waiting for my wife at a place. And he comes up and he goes, hey, how you doing? A long time, blah, blah, blah.
What are you doing? Where are you working? So he goes, so are you still religious? I said, I still have the same faith.
I had back to last time we talked, yes? Yeah, you and our other friend. The next time I heard his name was when my other friend called me and said, you've got to hear about what happened to Donnie. What?
He was driving to work on his bike, going across the McDonnell Bridge. His heart stopped like that and he died. Now, I tell you that story, not to be dramatic. But this is a scoffer.
He got what he asked for. He said, God, if you're really there, strike me dead, and prove it. God was merciful. He gave him 25 years.
But scoffing, mocking the Lord of Heaven. It's serious. The world is filled with scoffers. And what do the scoffers do?
They go around and they say, where's the promise of his coming? What? Are you even waiting for that for 2,000 years? Are you kidding me?
Why are you wasting your time? That's the way they talk. But what's interesting is it says, for since the fathers fell asleep, they continue as they were from the beginning of creation. You see, they say we live in a kind of a closed system, where events just kind of move along the way they always have.
Everything's the same. There's no interference by God. There's no cataclysms. There's no changes.
God doesn't intervene. There's no God. That's the way they look at it. And they have this doctrine, which is called uniformitarianism.
Now that's a big word, but you should be aware of it. Your kids probably are if they're going to school. Uniformitarianism is a doctrine that says the present is the key to the past. And you know, when I went to university and I studied my geology degree, that was drilled into me from chapter one, chapter one.
And I'm going to tell you that today, it's drilled into your kids from grade one. Back then, I grew up knowing the Bible, having relatives and family that love the Bible. And I believed the Bible. I wasn't a believer in Jesus Christ, but I believe the Bible to be true.
And I walked into that college, 1977, 1978, believing that there was a God in heaven. Believing that his word was true. Chapter one, I brought my book. I brought it with me.
It's easier to read it than it is to tell you about it. Chapter one, James Hutton, the Scottish physician, 1726 to 1797, is generally regarded as the founder of modern geology. Western European scientists had noticed many layers of rock, which implied the notion that much time had been involved in the formation of such strata. Basically, these scientists were religious men, and the implications of great periods of time began to create a conflict between what they saw in nature and what they had been taught to believe by the Bible.
Interesting. What they'd been taught to believe by the Bible, but what they observed. So discredit the Bible, chapter one. As late as the 19th century and so on and so on, they thought that the canyons, canyons were curved and oceans filled and mountains raised initially by catastrophic activities.
And that was the doctrine of catastrophism. But they had said that the landscape was created not by catastropies, but by a continuing process of change that had been going on in the past as it is in the present. Huh, Peter was onto these guys before they were even around. Peter knew all about uniformitarianism long before it was ever proclaimed in any university, long before it ever went into any book.
And he knew that that was going to be the doctrine of the day. I found this, disturbed me. It was in my book when I opened the doctor's paper fellow at Melchus. Huh, my own handwriting.
The formation of the planets began in the collision of dust grains, really. And they stuck together and formed a larger particle. And then they moved towards the middle. And then gaseous nebula was formed a disk and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
In my own handwriting. So I've gone from within chapter one, believe in the Bible, God created the heavens and the earth, believing it true. In chapter one, the writing that the universe was formed by dust-cared particles colliding. I'm telling you this, because if your kids are going to university, if your kids are going to school, you need to equip them, because they will be facing that.
They're facing that in grade one. I faced it in first year, geology 102, because we were smarter in Cape Breton. We didn't take 101. But we face that from university.
I'm telling you, your kids at elementary school are facing that right now. Discrediting the Bible, discrediting God, scoffing at him. It's happening right now. And you, as a Christian parent, need to be aware of that.
And you have the responsibility to raise your children otherwise. Their worldview is wrong. And it's wrong on two accounts. First of all, they dismiss the whole idea of creation.
They dismiss the idea of a flood. I didn't want to make this a geology course today. But there is great uniformity in this world. But God, in his providential working, interferes with the affairs of men, interferes with the natural processes that are going on.
Not everything that happens can be explained by a natural process. God is at work. And when you believe that, you have a biblical worldview. It's different than what's being taught.
The biblical worldview says we live in an open system where God is at work. Verse five says it gives the creation account in one single verse. Verse five says, for this they are willingly ignorant that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. All of creation is holding one verse.
God made the earth by the word of the Lord. Separate it land from water. You go back to Genesis and you can read it. Chapter one, verses six to 10.
Water was a huge part of the original creation. And it became part of the destruction that you read in Genesis chapter six. Now, it says that the world was flooded. Flooded.
Catacluzo is the Greek word that's there. It's a punctuated event where God interrupted the flow of history. The flood explains a lot of things that are inexplicable in the world. Again, I'm giving you a geology lesson.
There's inland seas that you find all around the world, middle of North America, China, Russia. They're all over the place. Cold deposits, that little map that I put up there, all the black spots there, that's not population. Those are coal measures.
And there's some that you probably haven't found in Antarctica and some parts of remote South America. Why is the coal buried plant material all over the whole world? Probably a big flood buried it really quickly. That's my explanation.
Their explanation is that it grew up in a swamp and over hundreds of thousands of years and even millions. It just kind of turned into rock and it was buried. Now, I'm sorry, but the trees in my backyard, they grow up, they rot, they fall over dying and then turn into much. They have to be very rapidly to turn into coal.
There's a fossil record. That fish, fossil, Mount Everest. That's what that was found. I'm pretty sure that fish don't swim around the top Mount Everest.
How'd you get there? Mount Everest probably wasn't 29,000 feet back when the flood took place. It was all uplifted and all the upheaval that had taken place. But I'm telling you, these are the things that God has done in this world.
It didn't just happen to be over time. And let's just let that a few more billion years, and maybe that'll answer the question. It doesn't work that way. In fact, the longer you go, the more randomness you get, the more that these things will fall apart and will not precipitate into the things that you wanted to do.
I like what Peter says here in verse 5, right at the bottom there, for this, I took us from the King James, because I like the way he puts it. For this, they willingly are ignorant of. I'm ignorant of a lot of things. There's no doubt about it besides me, ignorant.
But I'm ignorant of a lot of things. There's a lot that I don't know. But to be willingly ignorant is a whole different thing. To this, they are willingly ignorant.
I am not going to believe that. I know that's the fact. I know that's what you put in front of me. I know what you're saying about the gospel, about my sin, that I need to deal with my sin.
And I know all of this stuff. But I choose to not believe it. Have you hear that, John? OK, good.
I just don't want to make a point that's not true. But it happens all the time. Willingly ignorant. People dismiss these things.
And now we read in Matthew, chapter 24, that as it was in the days of Noah, so will be in the days of the coming of man. Did Noah ever run into scoffers? You bet. Guess where he built that ark?
Middle of Iraq. Landlocked Iraq. And he's building a big boat. And the guys are coming up to him.
He's going, no, what are you building? Boat? For what? You know.
If you want to get in, there's room. And they laughed at him. I'm sure they laughed at him until the first raindrop fell. It would be like building a yacht factory in Saskatoon.
Here he is, out in the middle of the dry land in the desert, building a boat. And everybody came by and they laughed and they mocked him. But the word of the Lord came true. But you see, we can fixate on all of these things and all that's wrong with our world and the scoffers.
I said, look around at the scoffers. I should say glance around at the scoffers, because I'm not going to fixate on that. I'm not going to get wound up. I've got myself off Facebook, as those of you who noticed my absence have noticed.
But I got so tired of people fixating on the wrong things, all the negativity things, all the political stuff, all that's wrong with this world. Because what we really need to do is look ahead for our Savior. I've got to look and fix my eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christmas is coming up.
And Christmas is a very precious time to me. I've saved it for Christmas all days. So Christmas to me is the most amazing time of the year, the most wonderful time of the year. I think it's a song about that, too.
But to me, it's wonderful. Because it speaks of all of those people that looked ahead for 4,000 years to a Savior. And he was born. And he came.
And he died for us. And he went to that cross. And he bore my sin and my sin and my sorrow. And all of my sins were nailed to that cross, as we said this morning earlier.
And I have life. My sins are washed away. Isn't that better to look ahead at that than to look back and around at the sinners and try to evaluate all that's wrong with this world? We need to be aware of the world we're in.
But we also need to be aware that we have a Savior to look forward to. It says here in verse 8, but we love it. Do not forget one thing that with the Lord, one day is as 1,000 years. And 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2.
I know that kids always thought that when I'd say, yeah, OK, maybe later we'll do that. That's going to take 1,000 years. It seems to be what they say. Why is it taking so long?
You see, the thing is, God's not affected by time, like you and I are. 2,000 years to God, same as two days to us. God lives outside of time. God exists.
Has existed. But he exists outside of time. He's not bound by time like we are. There's a little boy that read these verses.
And they also read that the Lord owns the cattle on 1,000 hills. So he said to the Lord, one day, he just kind of got down by his bed. He said, Lord, I understand that with you, a day is like 1,000 years. And 1,000 years is like a day.
And you own the cattle on 1,000 hills. That's amazing. So for you, like a million billion dollars is like $1. Do you think I could have just a dime?
And the Lord said sure, just a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Some of you got it. So you see, it says here that his promise is not slack in the next verse as some count slackness. God is merciful.
You see, God is delaying, but he's punctual. Time might not affect God like I'd affect you when I, because we're boxed in by it. But God is always on time. He's never outside of, oh, I knew there's something I meant to do.
God does not work that way. God is not bound by the things we were bound by. But he's always punctual. It says that he is merciful.
He's long suffering. I think I missed a verse here. I'm sorry, I'll go back and find it. It says, the Lord is not slow about his promise, his slownness.
But is patient towards you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's the key verse here. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He's not slow.
He's not slack. He's not missing the schedule. He's being merciful. I'm so glad, because you know what?
If he wasn't that way, I would have been doomed. If he wasn't that way, you would have been doomed. God is merciful to us. He is long suffering.
That word actually I think I put up there, the Greek word, is macro-thimeo. Macro meaning big. And thimeo means to burn or literally temper. It means that God has an amazing capacity to store up well-deserved anger and hold it back until he finally spills it out of judgment.
But in the meantime, he's being merciful to us to give us opportunity to repent and to turn from our sin and come to him. One day he will act. But until then, he's long suffering. Aren't you glad of that?
In Exodus, this is one of my favorite passages in all the Bible. It's almost like Moses had an interview with God, interviewing God. Moses is in the cleft of a rock. He said to God, he's almost here, glory.
God says, you can't see that, because you'll die. But I'll tell you what, I'll put you up in this little spot and there's a little notch in the rock. I'll cover you over there. And I will pass by.
You can see my back parts. I'll move my hand so you can see my back parts. And I'm going to declare who I am. I don't know what you think.
But I think that's the biggest wow in the Old Testament when you read that. What a place to be for Moses. And when God went by, he says in verses, I put the verses there at the bottom. It says, now the Lord ascended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord God merciful and graces long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands for giving iniquity and transgression and sin. By no means clearing the guilty, visiting their iniquity or the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children in the third and fourth generation. And so Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worship.
This is right after Israel sinned. They just built a golden calf and they worship the calf instead of God. And he says, the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious and long suffering. That's one of his key characters.
I'm so glad that God is long suffering. That horrible example I gave you with my friend Donnie. As those words come out of his mouth, God could have struck him right there. But our God is merciful, not willing that any should perish.
Let 25 years go by. I look at my own life. God was merciful in all of the things in my life, allowing me to repent. First 10, describe some of the details of the day of the Lord what it would be like, a terrible day for the earth.
As things are burned up, as the vengeance of the Lord is visited upon this earth. But then at the end of it, those who trust, put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know he's gonna come. He's gonna right every wrong. He'll bring justice upon the earth.
He'll bring a kingdom of peace and rule upon the earth. That's our great hope. That's our great assurance. And I gotta ask you, before I close with a little story here, are you ready?
Are you ready for that? Are you ready for the day that the Lord is gonna come? That's what this is about. I wanna stir your minds up and think.
Am I ready? He is coming. There was a Prime Minister of Britain, his name was William Gladstone. He was one of Great Britain's great Prime Ministers and he was not only just a brilliant statesman, but he was a devout Christian.
One day a young man came to Gladstone to talk about his future. Now that's pretty cool that you get to go and talk to the Prime Minister about your future. And the Prime Minister asked the young man, what are you propose to do? And the young man said he's planning to go to Cambridge or Oxford to get a good education.
Gladstone said, that's good. The man needs a good education, foundation. That's wise, what's next? The young man said, maybe when I graduated, I could get a good job with one of the law firms and get some good practical experience.
To which by its own reply, that's wise. And what then? The young man said, what I would really like to do is serve in the government. And if I do really well in law, I could achieve a seat in the Commons and be involved in influencing the world through the government of Great Britain.
Gladstone said, very honorable. What then? He said, if I do well with my party, maybe they might choose me to be Prime Minister someday like you and I could sit where you sit and make a real impact that way. Gladstone said, that's good.
You aim high, don't you? And then what? The young man said, well, I suppose, sir, I guess like any man, it would be time for me to die. Gladstone then looked at the young man right in the eye and said, and then what?
The young man responded, well, I haven't really thought much about that. I've been so busy making my plans. I haven't really had much time or thought for religion. Gladstone rose and said, young man, you better get right home.
Hit down beside your bed, open up your Bible and think your life through to the very end. The young student only thought about the next few years. We need to think about eternity. We hadn't really thought about the end of the line and meeting the Lord himself.
That's important. We will meet him one way or another. You don't want to meet him as judge. You can meet him today as your savior.
You can come to the Lord Jesus Christ. As a believer, I'm looking forward to the Lord's return. It's a blessed hope, whether it's by death or by rapture. It is the great hope of my life.
You know, back in the early church, they used to say to each other, marinatha. That's the word we don't say anymore. It means the Lord is coming. We'd walk in perhaps in the morning instead of saying, hey, has it going cold, isn't it?
You wouldn't do that. You can be in shake hands and say, marinatha, the Lord's coming. Oh, yeah, that's great. After this week at work, yeah, that's great.
After not having lunch prepared for today, the Lord is coming. Great. I'd say it's a good word if we resurrected that and came back to using it again. Marinatha, try it.
Just turn to somebody next to you and say, marinatha. Oh, yes. You can't bring enthusiasm to Northbrook. I'll tell you that.
I've tried. There. He's helping. But the Lord is coming.
And we should be excited about that. Father, thank you this morning as we consider your word. And I know we've gone long. But Father, the day is coming when we will see your son face to face.
The day is coming when all the things of this world will pass by. And we will be occupied with him forever. Lord, prepare us for that. Prepare our hearts.
Father, if there's anybody here this morning, and I have no doubt that there would be somebody here this morning who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, what awaits them is horrible. Your judgment, deserved judgment upon them. Lord, help them to turn. We read this morning that you are not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
That excludes no one. If there's somebody here this morning who has not repented of their sins and come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, may they do so today. We pray for their sake and for the Lord Jesus Christ. Giving thanks to him.
Amen. Now I know I've gone long. Are you guys OK to sing a song before we go? OK.