An Attempt To Stop The End Of The World

II Peter 3:3-7

I. Everybody won't believe what God says.

A. Some people will openly make fun of Godly doctrines.

B. As the last days draw to a close, the number of scoffers will increase.

1. These scoffers are walking after their own lusts, not after Godliness.

2. Any child knows that if Christ had already come, the promise would have already been fulfilled.

3. They haven't looked to the scripture.

C. Eccl. 3:11 - God has set the world in men's hearts, so they can't find out God's work from the beginning to the end.

1. Heb. 11:3 - It is by looking with eyes of faith that we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.

II. Since the fathers fell asleep.

A. They don't understand the reason for death.

1. The scoffers will say that the people who declared the end of the world have died without seeing the fulfillment of their preaching, therefore their preaching must be wrong.

2. That doesn't mean that the prophecy didn't come true.

3. It simply means that it didn't come true in their lifetime.

III. It is important to understand the scoffers believe there was a creation!

A. Everybody believes the universe had a beginning.

1. Even the evolutionists believe in creation.

2. They just don't believe God had anything to do with it.

3. They foolishly devise their own creation, leaving God and His power and His will out of the matter.

B. Believers know God created the universe.

1. This fact creates a philosophy of the mind that forces them to know that God had a plan in mind when He created the world.

2. Everything in their world is viewed from that perspective and the end result is that God is Almighty, and they are accountable to Him.

IV. There are three things in these three verses that these people are willingly ignorant of:

A. The condition of the world when it was first created. (See verse 5)

B. The flood during the days of Noah. (See verse 6)

C. The judgment to come. (See verse 7)

1. "Of old" refers to the age of the heavens, being about 6,000 years old at the present time.

a) "Of old" could also very well apply to the way God created the world to look.

b) Heb. 11:3 states that the world wasn't made like it appeared to have been made.

c) God made the heavens and earth to appear older than they actually are.

d) Those people who are looking for evidence of an ancient earth will find what they are looking for.

e) For example: sunlight travels the 93,000,000 miles to earth in about eight minutes. The light from the farthest star would take billions upon billions of years to arrive at the earth. God so created the heavens and earth so the light from the farthest star was already here, therefore it would look like it had made the trip.

D. Earth standing in the water and out of the water.

1. Genesis 1:6-8 - In the beginning, there was a "water barrier", called the firmament, in the atmosphere which (I believe) acted like a filter to keep the harmful rays of the sun from the earth.

2. Below this firmament, there was more water on the earth itself.

3. Unbelievers are willingly ignorant of this fact because if they accepted this fact, they would also have to accept the fact that God made it, and that God called the firmament "heaven".

E. Why do they refuse to believe in God's creation?

1. If they believe God created the world, they would be God's creation, or they would be living on God's creation.

2. If they are God's creation, they would be accountable to God, and they don't want to be accountable to anybody.

Verse 6, Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

V. The flood during the days of Noah.

A. They are willingly ignorant of the evidence of the flood.

B. If these people can just "reason" away (1) the creation, (2) the judgment of God in the flood, they can also "reason" away (3) the coming judgment of God upon the wickedness of man.

C. The evidences of the flood they are willingly ignorant of.

1. They say the ark wasn't big enough to hold all the animals.

a) Genesis 6:15 - The ark was approximately 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall.

b) It was divided into three stories, giving a total floor space of 33,750 square feet on each floor, for a total of 101,250 square feet on all three stories. Each story could have an 11 foot ceiling if three floors and the roof were each 3 feet thick!

c) The ark held the equivalent of 522 stock railroad cars. Two trains with 73 cars each would be able to carry approximately 35,000 animals.

d) Some have estimated the number of animals on the ark in the hundreds of millions, but the most logical estimates are about 35,000.

2. They said the flood wasn't world wide, but a local flood.

a) It doesn't make any sense to me for Noah to build such a huge ark to escape a local flood.

(1) It would have been much more logical for him to have simply moved to another part of the world that wasn't going to be flooded.

(2) God could have caused the animals to migrate to another place, so there wouldn't have been any need for an ark at all.

b) Some say that only the known world was flooded.

(1) It just so happens that all of the world was known at that time.

(2) Our ancestors had a greater view of the world than we think they had.

c) Some say it was raining so hard that Noah couldn't tell a mountain from a hill.

(1) Noah didn't write the Bible. God Himself told Moses what to write. To claim that Noah was mistaken about this episode is the same as saying that God was mistaken.

(2) I am sure it had quit raining when Noah and his family got off the ark. They knew at that time they were on Mt. Ararat.

3. Unbelievers deny "footprints in the rocks".

a) The Paluxy River Bed near Glen Rose, TX has dinosaur and human footprints in the same place!

b) These footprints are together and they are running. Some say the dinosaur is running from the man. Some say the man is running from the dinosaur. It just might be that both are running from the flood!

4. The fossil records points to destruction.

a) For a fossil to be formed, there must be a living creature (plant or animal) that dies and is suddenly covered in sediment before the body decays.

b) The body of any living creature that dies will decompose before natural events cover it up.

c) There is a "fossil graveyard" at Agate Springs, Nebraska. There are thousands of bones in this stratum, which runs horizontally for a long distance in the limestone hill. Fossils of the rhinoceros, camel, giant boar, and numerous other exotic animals are found jumbled together in this stratum.

Verse 7, But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

VI. Kept in store, reserved.

A. God still has control over His creation.

B. God is keeping His creation intact for His own purposes and glory.

C. When He is ready, he will destroy it all by fire.

D. We must understand that God didn't create the world in order to destroy it.

E. He created it for His glory and honor.

F. The world was plunged into sin because of the disobedience of Adam.

G. God will use that disobedience for His own glory.

H. Eccl. 8:11, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."

1. God has kept the world in reserve until the day of judgment.

2. Wicked men have used this "moratorium" as an opportunity to do more evil.

3. They will answer for all of their wickedness.