The Day of the LORD (A Sermon)
(2 Peter 3:3-14 NASB)
Introduction:
There is a day coming when the whole world will be confronted with the Lord Jesus the Messiah at His Second Coming. This will be the culmination of the Day of the LORD. This day is not a moment in time but a very short period of time that will see sequential events occurring one after the other leading up to and including the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus.
Prophetically speaking, The Day of the LORD applies to the end of this age when God wraps things up. The Day of the LORD includes the judgements and the wrath of God, the destruction of the Antichrist and his armies, the rapture and resurrection of the saints and the spiritual restoration of Israel.
All of these events make up the Day of the LORD climaxing at the end of this age with the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
There are three things we need to consider in relation to the Day of the LORD.
1. We must have the right attitude towards it: (Vss.3-7)
(Vss.3-4) “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.”
Around 30-40 years ago within wider Christendom there was much more interest in the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus than there is today and His Second Coming is much closer than it was back then.
Because of many extremes today related to Bible prophecy many sincere Christians remain confused and push it aside while others just don’t want to know.
Many today are ignoring Bible prophecy with the attitude that it is all too difficult to understand and so they put it into ‘the too hard bin!’ But can any of us afford to neglect a basic understanding of Bible prophecy.
In chapter 1 of this letter the Apostle Peter tell us that Prophecy of scripture is not the product of man but men were moved by the Holy Spirit to write scripture and to declare the things that are to come.
Added to this, Peter says that the prophecy of scripture is as a light shining in a dark place. Without it all will be dark and getting darker as the day of the LORD gets closer.
There have always been those within and without the Church who actually scoff and mock Bible prophecy and treat those who teach it as extreme and sensationalists. While there are many extremes in this area today, never the less we cannot afford to ignore Bible prophecy.
These mockers or scoffers Peter tells us are controlled by their own lusts for the things of this world and do not really want to know about what is happening prophetically according to God’s Word. They know that they will have to give an account to the Lord Jesus when He comes back for the way they have lived.
They use the excuse that everything remains the same and by this imply that the last days and the second coming and things related to it is somehow relegated to antiquity and not really relevant. They are in fact saying that people have been predicting things for centuries but things still remain the same.
In Matthew Chapter 24 the Lord Jesus uses the term ‘birth pains’ to describe wars, rumours of wars, famines, disease, earthquakes, spiritual deception and false prophets and false Messiahs.
What He is telling us is that as His Second Coming gets closer these things will increase in frequency and intensity like labour pains of a pregnant woman. When these contractions are coming one upon another we will know that the birth of His Physical Kingdom on earth is about to occur.
Today we see these contractions happening before our eyes. However, the one event that is a definite mark that we are in the last days is that Israel is a nation once again after almost 2,000 years of exile. Israel is God’s prophetic time-clock for the nations. God said Israel would be back and He keeps his Word.
In 70AD when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and sacked the city God’s prophetic timeclock stopped ticking but in 1948 it started ticking again after God had been repairing it after almost 2,000 years. But let’s continue…
(Vss.5 -6) “For when they maintain this (that all things remain the same), 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.
We are told in the Bible that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and as he built the ark he preached to the unsaved of his generation. He preached while he worked and worked while he preached.
It took him 120 years to complete building the ark and God gave the whole world an extended time in which they had the opportunity to be saved from the coming wrath.
I imagine the word spread widely about this old man and his family members building a ship in the middle of a desert.
Undoubtedly when Noah was warning the people to repent and turn back to God and to come into the ark for their salvation they just laughed and scoffed and assumed that things would still remain the same as they had always been.
However, when rain started to fall and the flood waters started to rise people panicked and started running towards the ark but it was too late because God had shut and sealed the door and their eternal doom was sealed.
The Lord Jesus told us that as it was in the days of Noah so it would be in the days just before His Second Coming. People were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage and conducting business as usual. There was wide spread violence, sodomy, immorality, witchcraft and that the people’s imaginations were constantly set on evil things and did not know or care to know what was coming.
In the time of Noah God used water as the means to destroy the ungodly and sweep them away in his wrath because of their sin and rebellion. In the end only a faithful remnant were saved and the rest perished and it will be the same just before the Lord Jesus comes back. This is why the scriptures say; “Today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time” and “today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts.”
The coming wrath of God will be for the ungodly that have rejected God’s ark of salvation being the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
(Vs.7) “But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
God’s wrath is coming again only this time it will be by fire and this fire is held in reserve giving the unsaved time to repent and come into the ark of salvation being the Lord Jesus and the salvation He has provided through His atoning blood shed at the cross for our sin. God will keep His Word. The fire will fall upon the unsaved as it did on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Whatever we do in life we must make sure that we have been put right with God through repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus.
He, who has provided justification, atonement, cleansing and protection through His shed blood. He “who rescues us from the coming wrath!” Time is running out! So then the first question we must ask ourselves is; do we really have the right attitude towards the Day of the Lord?
2. We must have the right hope for it: (Vss.8-9)
(Vss.8-9) “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like 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.
God measures time differently than we do. A thousand of our years are as a day to Him. He has fixed a day when He will judge the world by the man He has appointed being the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
On that day no one will be able to hide from Him as all will be revealed! Many are living today as if somehow that day is still somewhere down the track and think that it won’t happen in their time.
However, God sees things differently. Israel has now been a nation for 75 years. Wars, famines, diseases, earthquakes, persecution, false prophets and spiritual deception are common place and occurring with an intensity and frequency more than at any other time in past history.
The ‘birth pains’ are well and truly here!
Some would say then if things are so bad why does God not send back the Lord Jesus to sort everything out? Well He will send the Lord Jesus back and He will most certainly sort things out and that big time!
On that day men will have to give an account to Him for everything they have done and said and thought in this life.
The reason God has delayed the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus is because He loves all men, women and boys and girls and does not want any to perish but that all should come to repentance.
God has provided the ark of salvation in the Lord Jesus and He is the only door by which anyone can enter if they want to be rescued from the wrath to come upon a sinful and rebellious world.
As the Lord Jesus Himself said…
“I am the door into the sheepfold of God.” and again he said; “I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me!”
God gave the people in Noah’s time 120 years in which to turn from their sin and turn back to Him. Today God is once again extending this final span of time for men to repent.
It has now been over 2,000 years since the Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners from sin, from hell and to deliver them from this present evil age. Down through history people have had the opportunity to turn from their sin and to turn back to God for mercy, pardon and reconciliation through the Lord Jesus, The Messiah.
Our hope for time and eternity is found only in the Lord Jesus.
So then the second question we must ask ourselves is; do we have the right hope for the day of the LORD?
3. We must have the right lifestyle to endure it: (Vss. 10-14)
(Vs.10) “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 (laid bare).”
Just as the refiners fire burns up the dross so everything that God has not established on earth will be burnt up or laid bare before Him.
Nothing will escape His sight. His very presence will expose all sin and evil and destroy it. The secrets of men’s hearts will be laid bare before Him.
Those who have rejected His salvation but are still alive at His Second Coming will be consigned to the eternal flames to join the rest of the unsaved that have already died. Let’s continue…
(Vss.11-12) “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, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!”
In the Bible the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus was a major motivation for a believer to live a life that fully pleased God. Peter clearly tells us this. We must have a lifestyle that reflects holy conduct and godliness. If we have a holy heart then we will have a holy life! For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. What is in our hearts in abundance will come out of our mouths.
Holiness is not being religious but seeking to love God with all of our entire being, to genuinely love others and to separate ourselves from the lust of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh and from the things in this life that produce pride. We love the Lord Jesus because He first loved us and gave Himself for us.
If believers sought to live in this way then it would actually hasten the day of the LORD. In eternity God knows the exact day of Jesus’ return but down here in time it is variable. It is not so much that we are waiting for Him to come back but that He is waiting for us to be ready for when He comes back.
It is interesting that Peter mentions that the very elements themselves “will melt with intense heat” and the language he uses is that which describes something akin to a nuclear detonation but much more powerful. Of course Peter knew nothing about the splitting of the atom but the Holy Spirit did as the Greek text affirms.
We have a further glimpse of this fiery judgement on the ungodly from the Apostle Paul who writes; “The Lord Jesus will 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. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” (2 Thessalonians 1:7b-9) Now let’s continue…
(Vss.13-14) “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.”
There is a new age coming when the Lord Jesus will reign on the earth in His Millennial and Messianic glory from Jerusalem. The Hebrew prophets write much about this. It is a harbinger or forerunner of the final and eternal state to come.
Ultimately the LORD will recreate a brand new earth and solar system because the world and the universe have been affected by sin and satanic activity in the heavens. As the Lord Jesus says in the Book of revelation “Behold I make all things new!”
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus and are seeking to be diligent to be found by Him having peace with God, keeping your life unspotted by sin and walking by a faith in the Lord Jesus that produces obedience to His word, then you will not be judged along with the rest of the ungodly world.
You will not only have a resurrected and glorified body when Jesus comes back but a thousand years after that to live and to serve Him in His Messianic Kingdom. After that you will have all of eternity to enjoy the glory of The New Jerusalem
So then we must have the right lifestyle to endure the Day of the LORD.
Conclusion:
There is a famous book written titled “A Tale of Two Cities” and the Bible also describes the tale of two cities. One is the City of God’s Kingdom and the other is the City of Satan’s kingdom. We either belong to one or the other; we cannot be citizens of both cities at the same time.
Even though we live in this world we should not be living like the rest of the people in the world who do not know God personally, who place pleasures, selfish ambition, pride and the lusts for other things above the Lord Jesus, having no regard for Him or the salvation God has provided in Him.
Just like the people in Noah’s time many without and even within Christendom are living only for the things of this world which are temporary and have nothing of eternal value.
If you have never repented and believed on the Lord Jesus and His shed blood to atone for your sin and rebellion, and if you find yourself still enslaved to sin and doing your own thing in life, then you are still a citizen of Satan’s city.
Satan is described as “the god of this world.” The world’s ambitions, attitudes, pursuits, pleasures and values “lie in the power of this wicked one.” As John writes; “If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him.”
However, if you have turned from all known sin and confessed it to God and have put your faith in the Lord Jesus to save you from sin’s power, from the lake of fire and from this present evil age, then you are a citizen of God’s eternal City, the New Jerusalem.
The Day of the LORD is coming and you must settle the question “To which city do I belong?”
So then if we want to be ready for the Day of the LORD we must have the right attitude towards it. We must have the right hope for it. And we must have the right lifestyle to endure it. Amen!
