Beginnings and Endings

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Condensed from John MacArthur →

March 6, 2009

Beginnings and Endings

   The Theology of Creation - John MacArthur
Creation is a theological issue, not a scientific issue. Theology is the only source from which we have any information about creation. Any study of creation must come in the framework of theology because it is a word from God. Theology used to be called the queen of the sciences, because in the final analysis the ultimate reigning truth is theology. Biblical theology, the revelation of God in Scripture, trumps all other sources of information and knowledge. For centuries creation was a theological issue, not a scientific one. And then came Darwin aho confiscated the subject of creation out of the realm of theology and tried to put into the realm of human knowledge and did no service to mankind.

If we want to understand creation, origins and how the universe came into existence and everything that is in it, we have to look at theology, not science. And the source of theology is the Word of God in which God speaks. The Bible is not theory, the Bible is fact. The Bible is reality. The Bible is truth no matter what subject it addresses, but particularly with regard to origins since no one was here when God created, we have only His eyewitness account.
When the Bible speaks with regard to creation, or when it speaks with regard to origins, it speaks truly and factually. And Scripture begins in Genesis 1 and 2 with a very straightforward account of the origin of the universe and the earth and everything on the earth. Scripture opens with one very clear unmistakable statement, it is this, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That is not an ambiguous statement. That is not an unclear statement. That is frankly not a statement that needs any explanation. Pre-Darwin, no one was confused by it. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In those simple, clear, unmistakable words there is massive, massive, profound data.

Herbert Spencer, a non-Christian scientist, hailed as one worthy of many prizes in science, died in 1903. His greatest achievement, Herbert Spencer, was that he discovered the categories of the knowable. That is to say he determined that everything that exists fits into one of five categories. This was hailed as a massive, massive cataloging of realities. Spencer said, “Everything fits into one of these categories, time, force, action, space, matter,” and was hailed by the scientific community.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning,” that’s time, “God,” that’s force, “created,” that’s action, “the heavens,” that’s space, “the earth,” that’s matter. Everything that Herbert Spencer discovered in 1903, or before that, was in the first verse of Scripture. The Bible says that God created everything, and in saying that, the Bible gives us all the categories that exist.
Now, because the Bible is so clear about this in Genesis 1, and then giving us an even further and more detailed look at this creation, rehearsing its elements in a broader way in chapter 2, you face a test at the very outset of the Bible. You’re not going to get past the first verses of the Bible, you’re not going to get past the first verse in the Bible, the first chapter in the Bible, the first two chapters in the Bible without facing a test. And the test is this, do you believe the Scripture? Do you believe the Scripture? That is the test. No one gets past the opening verses of the Bible without having to face the test of whether or not that person believes the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God. Do you submit to Scripture? Genesis 1 is your first test.

The first word is fidelity or faithfulness. Either you believe what the Bible says or you don’t. That’s the test. You can accept what Genesis says, or you can reject it. You can’t change it, you don’t have that privilege. In fact, were you to add to Scripture or take anything from it would be added to you the plagues that are written in it. There’s no need for you to edit God. There is nothing lacking anywhere in Scripture and that’s true of Genesis 1 and 2 which somehow needs you to embellish it. You either accept it or you reject it, you have those two options.
You say, “What about science? Don’t we have to apply science to the Genesis account to be intellectually honest? Don’t we have to bring the vast scientific knowledge that we’ve accumulated in the modern world to bear upon the text of Genesis in order that we may have a true understanding of it?”

Well there are a lot of people who believe that and there are a mass of people who call themselves Christians who believe that Genesis is an inadequate presentation of what happened and we have to marry it with scientific discovery in order to get to the truth. Get past that notion and you will free yourself from needless doubts and endless confusion. Get past the idea that science, makes any contribution to an understanding of creation. It makes none.
This may shock you. There is no such thing as the science of creation. There is no such thing. It does not exist, because there is no scientific way to explain creation. It was not a natural event or a series of natural events. It was a brief series of monumental super-natural events that cannot be explained by science. All science is based on observation and no one observed creation. All science necessitates verification by repetition and creation cannot be repeated, and thus it cannot be verified.
Creation had no observers and cannot be repeated. It is not observable. It is not repeatable. It did not happen by any uniform, predictable, observable, repeatable, fixed, natural, laws. It is just the opposite of that. Creation was a series of supernatural instantaneous, inexplicable miracles. That is why there is nowhere in the Genesis account any place where evolution is mentioned or even hinted at. There are no natural processes in creation. They are all supernatural. Evolution was not the means or a means by which God created, it was all supernatural and miraculous.   There’s only one record of creation, Genesis 1 and 2. You can believe it or you can reject it, but that’s all there is.

You say, “Well wait a minute. Don’t creatures change?” Yes. “Don’t plants change? Don’t animals develop and mutate within species and isn’t there progress in growth?” Yes and all of that is true and has absolutely nothing to do with creation. How the created material operates we can observe. How the created material functions we can discern. But watching the way it functions and the way it operates gives us no information about its creation, none. It doesn’t tell us anything about how it came into existence in the first place.
Let me give you an illustration. Let’s say that you lived in Jerusalem at the time that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and you met Lazarus. “Hi, Mr. Lazarus, nice to meet you.” You felt his hand, and wow...you were dead, huh? You’re alive, right? Yeah. Could I hang around you a little bit, I want to kind of observe that like do a little analysis of you? Sure. And you followed Mr. Lazarus walk around. You watched the way he walked. You watched the way he talked. You watched the way he scratched his head. You watched the way he ate and you observed him. You kept a little record of all the things that he did. You could keep observing Lazarus as he did his daily living for the rest of his life and it would tell you nothing about how he came back from the dead, nothing because his resurrection had nothing to do with any of those natural processes. It was a supernatural miracle.
Or let’s say you were in Galilee the week after Jesus fed the five thousand men, plus women, plus children, the loaves and the fish and you wanted to know where in the world did He get that ability to do that? How did He do that? How did He feed those people with loaves and fish, how did He do that miracle? And you decided that you were going to go up there and you’re going to interview all those people and you’re going to ask them about what they felt while they were eating it and how it was digested and any experiences that they might have had after having that meal. It wouldn’t do any good if you were in the process of that investigation trying to figure out how Jesus made fish and bread out of nothing. You see, that is analogous to the issue of creation. You can observe the way things are now but that doesn’t tell you anything about how they became what they are. Creation cannot be understood any other way than by believing the revelation of the creator. And that’s your first test when you open your Bible.
I am absolutely astounded at how many people who call themselves Christians who lead large and effective Christian ministries don’t have any position on Genesis 1 and 2 except that they find it hard to believe it. And I ask them, “At what chapter do you kick in? When do we finally get you on board? Is it Genesis 3, do you buy that? Or maybe 4?”
What I’m saying is, creation has no connection at all to science anymore than the behavior of Lazarus could in any way reveal how he was raised from the dead. Creation is not a scientific event, cannot be explained scientifically as if natural law played any part. Creation was a massive supernatural miracle to be equaled by the future uncreation when in a lot less than six days God destroys everything He created. Neither event, creation or uncreation, can be explained by any natural fixed laws.
Look at Hebrews 11:3. “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God.” We weren’t there. No one was there. It is by faith. “So that what is seen, the material creation...was not made of things which are visible.” In other words, God made everything that we now see from what is invisible. That is to say He made everything out of nothing, ex nihilo. Hebrews 11:3 is telling us what Genesis records, that God created everything that exists in the universe out of nothing, from no preexisting material, obviously, that obviates evolution.

There are honest non-Christians who recognize the impossibility and non-existence of evolution in the world today and have honestly said that evolution is not an explanation of present reality and therefore it can’t be an explanation of prior reality. It isn’t happening now. It doesn’t happen, therefore it hasn’t happened. But while they are admitting that, they are not embracing the account in Genesis because if you embrace the account in Genesis as true, then you embrace the Bible as true and the God of the Bible as the true and living God and you get not only a Creator but you get a lawgiver and a judge. And so, they would love to find another alternative except the Creator God of Scripture. So you have the development of this new kind of science called ID, Intelligent Design, in which people acknowledge that there is behind this great reality of the universe a mind that is intelligent from which it all springs, but they are unwilling to acknowledge that to be the God of the Bible and Genesis to be the accurate account of creation. They come up with this non-threatening middle ground safe halfway zone called I.D., Intelligent Design. By the way, far from safe, deadly dangerous to reject the God of Scripture as Creator and therefore as Judge and as Redeemer. Why do they do this? Evolution was invented in order to eliminate the God of Genesis and oust the lawgiver and obliterate the inviolability of His moral law. Evolution is the latest means fallen sinners have devised to suppress our innate knowledge of God and the biblical testimony to Him and that we are accountable to Him.
So even if you reject evolution, there’s not a mad rush to embrace the God of Scripture because that brings to bear upon the sinner way too much responsibility and accountability. Evolution is not happening, it has never happened observable in the world in which we live and there is no reason to assume that something that doesn’t happen and never has happened was the way in which everything was created, particularly since no one was there and since the one who was there and who did it all has given us a complete revelation of exactly how He did it. Scripture is the test then of what you believe about origins. We come to the formidable battleground on this issue and it is a formidable one. Even Paul recognized it when he said this to Timothy, 1 Timothy 6:20, “Guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called science which some have professed and gone astray from the faith.” Watch out for false knowledge, false science.

These are the things which Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, these are the ideologies, every high idea raised up against the knowledge of God. So the first word to consider in the theology of origins is the word fidelity, trust in Scripture. The matter of origins is the foundation. It’s the starting point of all reality revealed in the Bible. It is your first opportunity to believe the Bible or to reject the Bible. But understand that whatever you do with Genesis 1 and 2 sets the tone for your attitude toward Scripture.
So, the first issue is fidelity. Let me give you a second word, simplicity. The Genesis account is by all honest consideration simple, plain, clear, perspicuous, uncomplicated, unmistakable, unambiguous. It is what it is and a child can understand its simplicity.  John 1, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God, all things came into being by Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Is that complicated? Nothing exists that He didn’t create.

Or Colossians 1 and verse 16, "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him." Deuteronomy 4:32 speaks of the day that God created man on the earth. Scripture is simple in its clarity. Look at Psalm 104 and Psalm 148. How unmistakably clear is that?    This again is the unmistakable simplicity of biblical testimony. It is not complicated. Isaiah 40:28, “Do you not know, have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired.” Ephesians 3:9, “God created all things.” Colossians 1:16, “By Him all things were created.”
Revelation 3:14, “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write, ‘The amen...this identifies Christ...the amen, the faithful and true witness...then this, so wonderful...the beginning of the creation of God says this...” That could be translated “the beginner, the originator of the creation of God. John 1, “All things were made by Him.” We never forget as the church of Jesus Christ that the Christ that we worship is the Creator who made everything. “And without Him was not anything made that was made.”

In the fourth chapter, the glimpse goes from earth to heaven and we see the hosts of heaven worshiping. Verse 11, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power for Thou didst create all things and because of Thy will they existed and were created.” Eternal praise offered to God in heaven for the work of creation....for the work of creation. Chapter 10 of the book of Revelation, “Saw an angel...in verse 5...standing on the sea and on the land, lifted up his right hand to heaven, swore by Him who lives forever and ever.” That’s God...that’s God. Further described as, “The one who created heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and the sea and the things in it.” Chapter 14, “Heavenly praise having been offered to God as Creator, we who proclaim Him in this world will also then proclaim Him as Creator.”

In the future time of the Great Tribulation, there will be an angel flying in the mid-heaven, verse 6 of Revelation 14, and he’ll have an eternal gospel, an everlasting message of good news to preach to those who live on the earth and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.  What is the everlasting message that will be preached, is being preached, has been preached? “Fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” Therein lies the rub with the evolutionists. If He is the Creator, then He is to be worshiped for the God that He is. He is to be feared because He is holy, is to be loved because He is gracious.

The eternal gospel is the good news of salvation to be preached to the world. It’s the same message preached now, preached in the past. There is a God, He is a holy God. We have violated His Law. We need to fear this God and we need to worship Him. The means by which we can come to worship Him is through Jesus Christ. Sinners over the world have always been commanded the same thing. “Fear God, give Him glory, worship Him or die, or perish.” And who is this God? The one who made the heaven and the earth.

There are all kinds of examples of this. Read Psalm 33. All kinds of examples of this, worshiping God as the Creator. There’s no question about the fact that the writers of the New Testament affirm the Genesis record. There are 165 passages in Genesis directly quoted or referred to in the New Testament. Genesis has alluded to 200 times, 165 of them are quotes or direct references. They’re all simple, straightforward affirmations of the book of Genesis and the simple account of creation that is contained there. Every New Testament writer, every New Testament writer refers to Genesis. Universally the writers of the New Testament affirm the reality and the truthfulness of Genesis. We do a great dishonor to God to deny Him as the Creator.    To reject the Genesis account is to reject not only Old Testament worship but New Testament worship and the worship of the church of Jesus Christ through the subsequent centuries when the believers put their confidence in their God and their Christ as the Creator. So fidelity and simplicity rest together.

There’s one more word, priority. What is God’s priority? What is His purpose for which He made everything? What is the goal in the end and the reason? God didn’t create and hope some meaningful plan evolved. He created with a very specific scheme in mind. He created with a very defined ultimate purpose that would be brought to its fulfillment. And God orchestrates the array of circumstances, contingencies, changes and revolutions from person to person, day to day, nation to nation, era to era, toward some certain fixed goal to which everything moves inexorably.
Jonathan Edwards put it this way. “Providence subordinates all changes in the affairs of mankind.” That’s a great statement. Providence subordinates all changes in the affairs of mankind and they’re all subordinated to a divine plan. Everything from creation to consummation is part of one great divine plan being worked by God’s powerful providence. There’s not one hostile molecule that operates outside of that plan. History will end exactly the way God wants it to end. The actual end of history will be the end of history which He Himself brings to pass. This universe is not eternal, it will come to an end. It will implode in a nuclear implosion and go out of existence. That’s what Scripture says. But not until and only when God’s scheme is complete and He has no further use for this universe.

Meanwhile, divine providence, divine purpose, subordinates orders, overpowers controls all things to achieve God’s end. There are lots of places in Scripture where we have insight into this. Perhaps one you might not think about but is critical to our understanding is found in Isaiah 46:9. “Remember the former things long passed. I am God, there is no other. I am God, there’s no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done saying, ‘My purpose will be established, I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
As we read in Colossians, “All things created by Him and for Him.” And what is this grand design? What is this grand purpose? What is God doing? Why did He create this universe? Why did He create the earth? Why did He put on the earth all these creatures? Why did He make man? What is the point of all of this?
And the answer is, “The grand design is redemption.” The grand design is the gathering of a redeemed people into eternal glory for the purpose of worshiping Him forever and ever. And all God’s works of creation and providence and consummation are all associated with the work of redemption. The work of redemption is not incidental, it is the reason why the universe exists. It is the reason why there is an earth.   It is the reason why there is a supporting life system for man. Every part of the creation is intended to focus on the purpose of redemption.
Even the heavens are declaring the glory of God so that men might be led to redemption. Even the beast of the field gives Him honor so that men might be led to the God who created the beast of the field that they might see Him as not just Creator but Redeemer. Every molecule in the created material universe, every spiritual entity be it a demon or a human fits somewhere into the subordinated purposes of God under the great unfolding plan of redemption.

In Ephesians 3:Paul says, “To me the very least of all saints, the grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Why did He create all things? In order that He might put on a display of manifold wisdom for all the angels of heaven to see and for which they would forever praise Him. He created to redeem, to display His glory to the holy angels.

So, when you look at creation, you must understand that in creation is the very beginning of the purposes of God in redemption. The New Testament makes those kinds of connections as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Romans chapter 5, I think, very familiar to us, verses 18 and 19, draw parallels between creation and redemption. So then through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, meaning Adam’s sin, so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. Through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. Through the obedience of one, many will be made righteous.

You go back to Genesis 3 and the Fall and even in the Fall there is a clear connection to the work of redemption. We’re familiar with that. But that also is not just limited to those categories of fallenness. First Corinthians 15 says, “Adam was given life but the second Adam is a life giver.” I Corinthians 15:21 says, “The first Adam brought death, the second Adam conquered death.”  Revelation 2 says, “Adam lost paradise.” Revelation 22 says, “The second Adam brings paradise.” First Corinthians 14:47 says, “The first Adam was earthy. The second Adam is heavenly.” First Corinthians 15:48-49, “The first creation is in the likeness of God and the new creation will also be in the likeness of God.”

All kinds of salvation analogies are drawn not only out of the parallels between Christ and the fallen Adam, but between Christ and an innocent Adam. But perhaps the richest analogy between redemption and creation is in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, “For God who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness.’”

What’s that referring to? Creation. God said, “Let there be light.” Paul sees in the original creation of light a picture, an analogy of the light of salvation. For God who said light shall shine out of darkness. Do I need to remind you about that? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1. But verse 2 says, “And the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.” It was formless. It was lifeless. It was empty. It was a void of darkness until God said, “Let there be light.” And the rest of the verse, “It is that God who spoke light into the primaeval darkness who is the One who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
God creating light in the midst of the darkness by His sovereign instantaneous power is a picture of what He does in the darkness of the sinner’s heart. If you introduce some convoluted concept of evolution into the book of Genesis, you tamper with the sovereign, divine, instantaneous miracle of God who gives life to a dark universe as parallel to God who gives light in an instant to a dark heart.

Jonathan Edwards saw this here and pursued the idea all the way through the first chapter of Genesis and suggests that the light dawned and the darkness was gone but things had not taken their form yet and day after day of creation things began to take form and take shape and become clear and the earth became richer and fuller and finally very good. And then came rest. And Jonathan Edwards says, “What a magnificent picture of the life of a believer. In the darkness and in a split second the light shines in his heart and he lives in the light but the process of sanctification just begins and he flourishes and he becomes richer and fuller until one day he enters into everlasting rest. This is the picture, don’t tamper with it. This is the glory of redemption tucked in to the testimony of creation.


The End of the Universe, Part 1
2 Peter 3
It is God alone who knows how it all began because He alone was there when it was created. It is God alone who knows how it will all end because only God knows the future and not only does God know the future but God determines the future as He has determined the past, is determining the present. In order for us to understand origins, beginnings, and for us to understand endings, for us to understand creation or consummation, we have to turn to the revelation that God has given to us. All we know about creation or comsummation is what God has told us.

He has given us an explicit account of the creation of the universe in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. He has also given us explicit accounts of the destruction of this universe. There are a number of passages in which reference is made to the destruction of the universe in which we live, but one of them is most notable and most detailed. It is in the second epistle of Peter chapter 3. So, open your Bible, if you will, to 2 Peter 3:1-13.
“This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I’m stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment spoken by the Lord and Savior spoken by Your Apostles. Know this, first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.’ For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which 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 all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 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 new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

Peter’s epistle is designed to warn about false teachers, and in chapter 3 addresses one of their favorite areas of attack. They attack the biblical truth that this world, this universe is coming to an end and it will be destroyed by the return of Jesus Christ. It says that creation came by the Word of God, that He spoke it into existence. And it’s also clear about the end, the end will also come by the Word of God. God spoke it into existence. He will speak it out of existence. This is a disposable planet and a disposable universe. This planet is useful to God only for purposes of accomplishing His redemption and then it will cease to exist.
Peter knows there are false teachers who attack this notion, who don’t want to believe that there is a God who is judge, a God who is by nature holy, and therefore hates sin and punishes sinners. Obviously, people who are content with their sin don’t want to believe that. So Peter presents the divinely inspired arguments against the skeptics who deny the future judgment that God will bring to this world through the judge whom He has ordained, namely the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter begins, and this is where we’ll begin, with the arguments of the scoffers. What are the arguments that this world is going to continue the way it always has? What are the arguments that there is no coming judgment, no coming destruction? First of all, go down to verses 3 and 4. “Knowing this first of all 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, for ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation?’”

The first argument that surfaces there is what you would call an ad hominem argument which is an assault on the individual rather than a reasonable approach to the issue. We would say this is argument by ridicule, this is argument by ridicule, intimidation by scorn, emotional and not rational, playing on people’s unrealized hopes and unrealized expectations. And what we read, first of all, then in verse 3 that is the last days mockers will come with their mocking. This is just plain ridicule. Many, of course, in the early church were expecting the Lord Jesus to come very soon. Certainly the Apostles assumed He would come in their lifetime instead of His Kingdom. Paul talks about “we who are alive and remain” referring to the Rapture, will be caught up in the air to meet the Lord. And so he himself no doubt hoped and anticipated that Christ might come in his lifetime.

Jesus had said to them, “It’s not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father has put in His own power, and yet they had anticipation of it. Now Peter knew that he would not live to see the return of Christ because in John 21 Jesus told Peter that he would die, that he would be arrested and that he would be taken and killed. That specifically was told to him by our Lord, so he knew that he would not live until the return of the Lord. But most Christians had this expectation. Those who read the New Testament epistles in the early church were waiting for the moment, the twinkling of an eye when they would be changed, they were waiting for the moment when the voice of the archangel and the trump of God would be heard and the Rapture of the church would take place. They were looking for the glorious appearing of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, living with what Paul told Titus was the blessed hope.
But at the same time, believers like Peter were dying. Some were dying as martyrs, some were dying in illnesses, some were dying from accidents. Some were dying of natural causes and there was a growing sense that they were missing out on this wonderful future Kingdom. And so the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, “Don’t worry about those who die, they’ll be raised first and caught up in the air to meet the Lord in the air to ever be with the Lord.” They’re not going to miss the Lord. They’re not going to miss the Kingdom. They’re not going to miss the glories of the future.

But when Jesus didn’t come and establish His Kingdom and years went by and more years went by, believers who were becoming wearied under the pressure of persecution, under the disappointments of difficulties in life were easy prey to false teachers who would come along and say, “So where is this Jesus that you’re waiting for who is going to come and bring this great Kingdom and gather you together and fulfill all His promises?”
So, Peter says, “You must understand how these scoffers operate. They prey on your vulnerability.” Here we are two thousand years later, two thousand years later and the skeptics can prey on us. And they can do it very effectively, so effectively, seemingly in this period of the church’s history, that Christians have virtually lost all interest in the return of Christ.

This is nothing new. “In the last days...” What is that? A common New Testament term meaning the age since Christ came, the time between the two comings, now having reached two thousand years. “In these last days,” His first coming inaugurated the last days. And through this age there will be saboteurs of sound doctrine, saboteurs of the Second Coming hope, mockers will come, future tense. Jude says, “They have come and they will come with their mocking, attacking the reality of the return of Jesus Christ, preying on the disappointments and the impatience of believers by sheer ridicule.

There’s a second argument, the argument from immorality. They’re driven by ridicule and mockery but they’re also driven by immorality. Verse 3 says, at the end of the verse, “Following after their own lusts.” Let’s understand this word, epithumia, meaning evil desire. What motivates them? Scholarship? No. What motivates them is lust. Going back in to chapter 2, let me introduce you to the false teachers. They, in verse 2, are sensual. In verse 10, they indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority, anyone who would try to stop them from that full indulgence. They are daring and self-willed. Verse 12 describes their lust in this way, “They’re like unreasoning animals born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed.” Verse 13, “They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes reveling in their deceptions as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, a cursed children,” end of verse 15, “who love the wages of unrighteousness.” Verse 18, “They speak arrogant words of vanity. They entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality.” Verse 19, “They are slaves of corruption.” ... “They are dogs that return to their vomit and sows after being washed to return to the mire.”
People don’t deny the Second Coming because of some scholastic interpretation of Scripture. They don’t deny the Second Coming because they find it impossible to believe it. They deny the Second Coming because it fits their immorality. They don’t want an accountable day. They don’t want a judge. They don’t want divine wrath. They don’t want the vengeance of God. Bottom line, biblical eschatology doesn’t fit their life style.
Evolutionist Aldous Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley, Aldous Huxley wrote a document called Confessions of a Professed Atheist. “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning. Consequently assumed it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He’s also concerned to prove that there’s no valid reason why he should personally not do just what he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously a liberation from a person political and economic system and a liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom,” end quote.
There’s one other argument that they make that Peter identifies, the argument from ridicule, the argument from immorality, and thirdly, the argument from uniformity. Verse 4, they say this, “Where’s the promise of His coming?” Where is He? He’s not here. Most believers, as I said, thought He would come in their life time. He didn’t come. He still hasn’t come. The false teachers capitalize on this, not only emotionally by ridicule, intellectually they attempt to, I guess maybe, elevate themselves above their admitted immorality by saying it’s a bad kind of historical deal. It’s a bad historical perspective. It’s a bad philosophy of history because look, everything continues as the same...everything continues exactly the same as it’s always been. “Where is the promise of His coming for ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation?” That is definitely a revisionistic history view. Ever since the fathers fell asleep...meaning the Old Testament patriarchs, the people in the very, very beginning, the first people all continues just as it was from the beginning.
I would call this immutable uniformitarianism, unchanging uniformity. The satanic lie is that there will not be a future catastrophic judgment. The satanic lie is that divine intervention will not come into the created order, it never has come. All is always continuing exactly the same. Everything moves at the same uniform natural pace, always has, always will. This is like saying, “I’ve never died, so I never will.” What kind of an argument is that? This denies miracles. This denies the Old Testament history of what I call judgment miracles, for the acts of God in the Old Testament that were judgments of God that brought about death and disaster were miraculous interventions by God. Supernatural judgments. Most miracles before Christ got here, the vast majority of miracles in the Old Testament were miracles by which people died, not by which people were healed. The skeptics want this evolved universe, this evolved planet, this closed system of natural, inviolable, fixed laws to be impersonal and ongoing with no moral law and no moral lawgiver in charge of anything. Sensual sinners find their only hope for guilt-free sinning in the fable that everything continues the same, judgment never comes. Evolution is simply a tool, atheism is simply a tool, agnosticism is simply a tool to free up the sinner to indulge his lusts. Those are the arguments...ridicule, immorality, uniformity, everything continues the same way.

On the other hand, you have the argument of the saints. Those are the arguments of the scoffers, let’s go back to the text. What about the arguments of the saints? How is Peter going to help us? How is he going to equip us not to fall victim to these things, to ridicule, to uniformity, immorality?

So Peter sets forth some arguments, first  from Scripture, verse 1, “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I’m stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.”  “Your sincere mind...your unpolluted mind...your mind without wax...your true understanding.” I am stirring up your pure faculty for spiritual discernment. We find our answer to the critics in the Scripture and we go to the Scripture with a mind that has been transformed. We have the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2. Romans 12, “We have had the renewing of our minds that we may know what is the good and perfect will of God.”

So Peter recognizes that as believers, contrary to false teachers, verse 12 of chapter 12, who are like unreasoning, irrational, instinctive animals to be captured and killed, or verse 17, springs without water, mists driven by a storm, or verse 22, dogs going back to their vomit or pigs wallowing in the mire, we have according to verse 1 been given a pure mind that can be stirred. And what is it that stirs that pure mind? Verse 2, “I want to stir up your pure mind by way of reminder the Word spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your Apostles.” This is Peter’s reference to Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament. And Peter has already said, back in chapter 1 verse 19, “We have the prophetic word made more sure by which you do well to pay attention to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. Know this first of all, no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, or origination. No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God,” that’s the Scripture.
We have an inspired Scripture. We take our purified minds that have been made pure by the work of regeneration. We go back to the words spoken before hand by the holy prophets, referring to the Old Testament, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior that came through the Apostles, that’s the New Testament. Where do we go to rebut the skeptics? We go to the Word of God.
You can go back to the Old Testament, you will read much about judgment. Psalm 2, Isaiah 13, Isaiah 24, Isaiah 34, Isaiah 51, many of the minor prophets, Zephaniah, Malachi, all kinds of places in the Old Testament where the holy prophets of old spoke concerning final judgment. There are prophecies in Isaiah about the end of this world as we know it and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. And also, the commandment of the Lord, the entole, literally the law of the Lord that was spoken and written by the Apostles meaning the New Testament...the New Testament, 23 of 27 books written by the Apostles themselves. And they tell us a lot about divine judgment. They tell us a lot, including Peter, about the end of the age, words like the words of the Apostle Paul, “It is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, to give relief to those who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus and these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power,” promises like that, found in the Old Testament and found in the New Testament as well.
So, we argue against the skeptics from Scripture. Old Testament Scripture, New Testament Scripture gives us clear revelation concerning the coming judgment which will be brought on men at the exploding final wrath of God mediated through the one He has appointed judge, Jesus Christ.

Then Peter moves to an argument from history. Verse 5, “When they maintain this,” meaning all things continue from the beginning as they were, immutable uniformitarianism, when they maintain that everything goes along the same way, he says in a sarcastic fashion, “It escapes their notice....it escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.”
They overlook the fact of the Flood. It escapes their notice that you can go to the top of the flat cliffs in the Grand Canyon and find seashells and they’re not just found by Christians. I have one on my desk that was found about a mile from my house. “It escapes their notice,” literally in the Greek is they shut their eyes to the facts, or in the Authorized Version, the King James, they are willingly ignorant of. Here’s the path of deliberate ignorance, convenient ignorance. They seek evil. They seek sin. They seek freedom to be immoral and that colors everything. They ply their deceptive lies in the church. Romans 1 says they consider themselves to be wise and in reality they are fools, deliberately, willingly ignorant.

I’m never surprised when a Christian believes the Bible can shut down the arguments of an atheistic evolutionist. That doesn’t surprise me because their arguments are not reasonable or intellectual. They willfully refuse to recognize this massive historic event that undermines the whole concept of uniformity, namely the Flood, the universal world-wide Flood by which God destroyed the entire wicked world except eight people.  Peter’s description of the Flood is remarkable. Look at it. Verse 5, “It escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.” He goes all the way back to creation. “By the Word of God...by the Word of God everything was created, and by the Word of God everything was destroyed in the Flood.” By His Word, the world was made and everything in it. By His Word the world was destroyed and everything in it except for eight souls and the animals gathered into the ark. God spoke it into existence and He spoke it into destruction.

This is diametrically opposed to the idea of uniformity and evolution, everything goes on in the same process. Peter says there is God, God spoke the heavens and earth into existence, and God stepped into the heavens and the earth and altered them dramatically causing the death of every inhabitant on the earth except one family.
Now let me go back and take that apart a little bit because it’s very important. “It escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago.” This speaks of creation. The heavens existed long ago. The Hebrew word for heavens is always plural, so Peter uses a Greek plural form. And by that word, heavens, Peter means all the creation because the earth is part of what is suspended in the heavens. “Long ago by God’s Word, not natural causes, not a piece of protoplasm floating in some primordial muck but by the Word of God the universe was spoken into existence. And the earth then was formed out of water and by water.” That’s a very interesting statement.

This means that when the earth was formed it was formed from a condition of a kind of formless mass of H2O in some form, mist, water, we don’t know. Formed is a perfect participle of sunistemi, it describes the main thought. God brought it into existence and by bringing it into existence, He formed the earth out of water, out of a watery mass.

To understand this, go back to Genesis 1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now listen to this, verse 2, “And the earth was formless and void, tohu and bohu in the Hebrew. It was a formless mass. But there’s more. “There was no light so darkness was over the surface of the deep.” It is a deep...it is a thick formless void, there’s more... “And the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the...what?...waters.”

The original act of God was to speak into existence H2O in some form, in complete...complete darkness without form, totally without shape...an uncontrolled, as it were, mass of watery substance in the darkness. It is formless. The first three days then of creation form it into the earth, and the second three days of creation populate it with plants and animals and people. The first three days, God gave form to the earth. The second three days, He filled it.

Verse 2 says, “The Spirit of God is hovering over, literally hovering over the surface of the waters.” So it has a surface. The Holy Spirit then moves this surface, pulling it together into a sphere in the first three days by creating gravity which makes the water molecules cling to each other to form first the surface and then a sphere.

God then creates light without objects to attach the light to...which is not a problem. What is light? It’s the spectrum of waves and rays and all that is light. He shapes the earth. Verse 6, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters. Let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, separated the waters which below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. God pulled some waters up, pulled some waters down. The waters that went up provided a watery canape over the earth. This defines the heavens that were long ago that Peter talked about, and it’s called heaven, called the expanse heaven. The water above and water below on the earth. So that the heavens had this watery content.
Verse 9, “God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place.’” The waters that were above created a canope literally around the whole earth. The waters below were then collected into one place and then the dry land was created. And God called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good.

Perfect environment, by the way. That’s why people lived to be 900 years old. The ultraviolet rays of the sun couldn’t penetrate the misty canape. Everything flourished. The Garden of Eden, we can’t even conceive of what that would be like, everything growing perfectly and man living to 900 years.

But then, something catastrophic hit the world. Genesis chapter 6, it’s the Flood, let’s go back to what Peter wrote now. Peter, who has the exact right view of creation, says, “God by His Word created the heavens that existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.” What is most distinctive about the original creation was how much of it was water. At first it was all water. And then there was water above, and water below. And the water below then seceded, as it were, into the oceans and the seas as the land came forward. “Through which,” what does that mean? What’s the antecedent? Water. “Through which the world at that time was destroyed being flooded with water.”

Bottom line, God built in to His original creation the agency by which He would destroy it. From the beginning, God built in to His original creation the very means by which He would destroy that creation. He formed the earth out of water and destroyed it with water.

The destruction of the Flood did not put the earth out of existence. It did not put the heavens out of existence. It just changed the old order. And that is why Peter’s language is very careful in verse 6, “Through which...not the earth was destroyed...but through which the world was destroyed,” the kosmos, the system, the order, being flooded with water. The Greek word for flooded with water, katakluzo, from which we get the English word cataclysm.

You can go back and read Genesis 6 and Genesis 7, read the description of the Flood. God broke up the water above, suspended over the earth in the canope, water came crashing down on to the earth from above. God then broke up the fountains of the deep, fractured the earth so that the continents which now exist were formed then and not before, shifting the tectonic plates of the earth and the water that was inside the earth belched forth. And when the earth cracked open, gas, dust, air, water exploded up into the atmosphere. And the world has never been the same. The whole order of the earth and life on the earth, dramatically changed. All of a sudden people had difficulty living for a hundred years. The world changed dramatically.

The Egyptians have a world flood creation...world flood destruction account. The ancient Babylonians had a world flood destruction account. The ancient Assyrians had a world flood destruction account. There are creation stories and there are flood stories all across the globe. These people willingly are ignorant of this because if it’s true, then this powerful God can step into human history and alter this planet. And why did He do it? Genesis 6 says because He looked at this world and saw that everything man did was only evil continually. And He repented that He had made man in the beginning.
The world, friends, has not always been the same. The whole order of the heavens and the earth was dramatically altered by the Word of God as He drowned the ungodly all over the earth. And this is testimony that sin will not go unpunished and that the Lord does do things that dramatically alter this universe in which we live. We’re worried about squirting hair spray into the air, as if somehow this is going to bring down the planet. There is One who will bring down the planet, it’s not you and it’s not us collectively. All the fossil record, strata can be explained by the unbelievable cataclysm of a universal Flood, catastrophe, not uniformity.

False teachers refuse to face the true history. They become revisionists historians. They deny all kinds of evidence and make up their own history without divine intervention so they can live immoral lives. Things have not continued as they were. The most cataclysmic environmental event that ever happened in this world was the Flood. Just think of it. Talk about an environmental disaster, everybody died. All life was destroyed. And God did it. And that is the historical precedent for what is coming.

Look at chapter 3 verse 7, “But the present heavens and earth...” Now the present heavens and earth, the one we know, the one we experience is not like the one the people experienced before Noah, it’s different. It’s the one that’s been environmentally devastated by God, the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved not for watery destruction but for fire. This is the post-flood. We’re living in the second earth system, the second eco-system, if you want to use that kind of language. We’re living in the second biosphere, the present world system since the Flood. And it was by His Word that He brought the first system into existence. And it was by His Word that He destroyed that system. And the present heaven and earth by His Word are being reserved for a future destruction by fire for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Once water, next time fire. In fact, in the original creation there’s no mention of fire, there’s water below and water above, no mention of fire. Now we live on the crust of an inferno, ten miles below your feet is molten lava at a temperature of twenty-four thousand, five hundred degrees centigrade.  Fire will be God’s tool next time when He destroys the second heaven and earth.

He’s given us a taste of what that might be like. Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah, two wicked cities characterized by homosexuality, lust were destroyed by fire and brimstone belching out of the ground at the command of God. The prophets of the Old Testament warn about this. “Behold, the Lord will come in fire,” Isaiah 66:15, “His rebuke with flames of fire.” Verse 16, “The Lord will execute judgment by fire.” Daniel 7 says the same thing. Micah 1 says the same thing. Malachi 4 says the same thing. John the Baptist said the same thing. Second Thessalonians, I read to you earlier, that Christ will return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the gospel. Fire could come from the sky in fiery balls, ...Revelation describes that,, doesn’t it? Fiery balls coming out of the sky. It can come from below. We live on a fire ball.
More devastatingly, fire can come from the splitting of the atom. We understand a nuclear holocaust. Well, when God decides to split all the atoms in the universe, the thing will incinerate instantaneously. There’s a fire storm coming. This world will not continue, will not continue the way it is permanently. Its judgment was built into its original creation with water. Its judgment is built into this recreation with fire. And so, he says in verse 7, “The present heaven and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

After the Flood...after the Flood, verse 2 of Genesis 8, “The fountains of the deep, the floodgates of the sky were closed.” You remember I told you the water came up from below and down from above, God shut off the water. The rain from the sky was restrained. The water receded steadily from the earth, decreased, months went by, finally, as you remember, verse 13, “It came about in the six hundred and first year and the first month, the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth and Noah removed the covering of the ark, looked and behold, the surface of the ground was dried out.” God said to Noah in verse 15, “You can leave the ark.”

And then Noah built an altar to the Lord in verse 20, and gave Him an offering. And the Lord said to him, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth, I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.” And how did God make that promise visible? With a rainbow. So when you see a rainbow, that’s a reminder that God will never destroy the world again by water. By fire, yes.

But look, folks, verse 22, listen to this, this is God’s promise. “While the earth remains...” Did you read that? Or, “As long as the earth remains,” and who determines that? God. “As long as the earth remains, seed time, harvest, cold, heat, summer, winter, day, night shall not cease.” That’s a great promise, isn’t it? We’re not going to kill the planet. This is a divine promise. This planet is here for man to use and as long as it is here, God will sustain it for our use and our good and our joy and our praise to Him.