The End of the World

One Corinthians 3:10-15. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I have laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become manifest.

For the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burnt up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. We'll now go to one Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 to 18. From verse 13.

But we do not want to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of a trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. So far our reading. There is one further passage I would like to share with you from which our text is taken, and that is two Peter chapter 3, and we will read the first 13 verses here. This is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved.

In both of them, I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have been continuing as they were from the very beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of waters and through water by the word of God and that by means of these, the world that existed was deluged with water and perished.

But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfil His promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in a life of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Brothers and sisters, our title today is "The question: the end of the world." And I'd like you to look at this passage here in Matthew where we read, "This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field.

One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other left. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. And I have a question for you. Who would like to be left behind on that day when God comes?

Well, I would, and I hope I'm not the only one. And the reason for that is if we look at the full passage, it actually begins in this way. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. You see, who were taken away?

The sinners. Who were left behind? Noah and his family. So again, I say, who would like to be left behind? And I hope it's all of you, because those left behind are the ones who are saved.

Now if you say, well, that's not how I heard it. If you're confused about this, don't be embarrassed. I think a lot of people are confused, and the reason is we've had a lot of wrong teaching coming in from different sites. And one of them is a teaching that we will look at at the moment, called dispensationalism. But I want to point out that wrong teaching on this point is nothing new.

It's a common mistake because a lot of people from early times onwards were mistaken about the nature of the end times. You see, in the early church, the worldview was that everything spiritual was good, but everything physical was evil. And therefore, people with this Greek worldview or Hellenistic worldview said, oh, when Christ comes, He's gonna take away all this physical stuff. It will disappear, and only what is spiritual and good will remain. And therefore, we will go to heaven, to a spiritual place where everything is good.

And while this fuel was so strong, when Jerome translated the books of the bible into the Latin language, he came to our text, and that's the text that we find here. "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up," it said in the Latin Bible. Burned up because it's rubbish. That's not what it says here.

What the Greek says is that it will be laid bare. And our text is not talking about the total destruction of the world by fire. And I want to point out that there is no text in Scripture that I'm aware of that talks about everything being totally destroyed by fire. That's not in accordance with the promise that God gave when He made the first covenant of grace, which was the covenant of common grace with Adam and the world. You know, that's the covenant marked by a rainbow.

And in that covenant, God says that He would not destroy the world, and that was to be an everlasting covenant. Now if that's a covenant that God would not destroy the world, did He mean I won't destroy it by flood? Well, that's hardly a comfort, is it? Imagine you're on death row and they come to you. I've got good news for you.

You're not going to the electric chair. You will be shot instead. That's hardly good news, is it? And so I'm not gonna destroy the world in a flood. I'm gonna burn it up instead.

It's hardly good news. But here in this covenant, we see God's grace displayed that despite our sinfulness, God will save the world. And Peter's words of warning, when he talks of burning, are not addressed to the world, but are addressed to scoffers, to the unrepentant, those who want to live their own life apart from God. And they are warned that if they do not repent, they will be taken away even as those were taken away in the flood in the days of Noah. But this time, it will be by fire.

Now fire is something that we often see mentioned in Scripture, and usually it's in the context of purification. So for example, when God appears to Moses at the burning bush, Moses is told, take off your shoes because the ground where you're standing on is holy. It has been purified by the presence of that fire. And in the temple too, we find that at the end of the offerings, at the end of the day, the Levites were to take all these pots and so on that had been used and pass them through fire to cleanse them so that there would be nothing dirty left on it. And so the picture that we have is that when God comes again, when Christ comes again, the world will be destroyed by fire, but everything that's good will be left behind.

That's what we read earlier in one Corinthians 3. Remember Paul says, be careful how you build on this foundation. If you build with straw and wood and stubble, it'll all be burned away, and you'll have nothing. But if you build with gold and silver and precious stones, it will be left behind, and you will have treasures on the new earth in the new world. And fire will bring to light what is good and what is bad.

And that's the same picture we have here in our text. The world, what's good in this world will be left behind. It will be laid bare. It will be disclosed. Actually, the word is a word you probably know.

The Greek word is a word related well, it's the word eureka. And what do we say when we see something new? We say, eureka. There it is. Well, that's how it will be when we see that new world that's cleansed of all sins.

What a wonderful sight it will be. Now I don't know if any of you here watch Harry Potter movies. And if you don't, that's fine. But if you have, you may remember there's a scene where Dumbledore has this bird known as a phoenix. And this bird gets has to do a lot of heavy work, and he gets more and more tired and bedraggled and feathers fall out, and he looks like he's about to die, when all of a sudden fire comes and burns the bird up.

But does it? No. When the fire, when the smoke clears, you see there is a brand new phoenix, perfectly healthy, young, glorious looking. Well, that's the kind of picture we will have of the world at the end of time. There will be this fire and smoke, but when the smoke clears, eureka, there is that beautiful world waiting for us.

So our text is not speaking about an annihilation of the world. Now it's speaking here of a renewal of the world, a cleansing of the world, and it's a picture we had throughout the Bible. Let me just pick a text from the Old Testament here in Malachi chapter 3. "But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears?

For He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver." Notice how it links fire and soap here. Both are cleansing methods used in scriptural days.

So putting it all together, the picture is as follows. When Christ comes, everybody will be surprised. Nobody's expecting Him. It'll be like in the days of Noah when everybody was just going about their work. Oh, starting to rain.

What's happening? And that's how it will be with us. And even as then the waters purified the earth, so fire will purify it at the end time. That's what we also read about in two Thessalonians 1:7 and 8. "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

And I've got to warn any of you who have not repented and come to Christ that that is the picture we have of the end of those who do not follow Christ. They will be burned up with everything else that is sinful in this world, but what is good will be left behind, purified. And those who follow Christ will not be touched by this fire. Why? Because we will meet the Lord in the air.

We read that in an earlier book where Paul was asked the question, oh, what about those who have died? Are they gonna miss out on meeting Christ? And Paul answers, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first," so those who are buried will rise. And then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with Christ. Now why do we meet Christ in the air?

Is it so that He can take us into heaven? No. That's not it, because the word "meet" here is a very special word in Greek. I don't know why, but the English has no equivalent word. A number of languages I know do have a word for this, but not the English language, because this word "meet" reflects a custom that I think we had in our distant past, but it was certainly a custom in the Jewish world, in the Roman world, in the time of Christ.

And the custom was as follows, that when somebody important came to your town, like a governor or Caesar, all the leading citizens would walk out to meet Him on the road. They'd go for miles sometime and then take Him back with them into the town. Now we have this word used only three times in the New Testament, in our text here, but also in the story of the 10 virgins. Remember? The 10 virgins went to meet the bridegroom.

Why? Were they gonna run away with Him? No. They were meeting Him to bring Him home to the bride. That was the story.

And the third time when we read about this is in Acts 28:15. When the citizens in Rome hear, hey, the apostle Paul is coming. They all get on the road. They walk 50 kilometres to a town south of Rome called Appii Forum, and there they wait for Him. Why?

To bring Him home with them to Rome. See, that is the meaning of this word. In the Greek Old Testament, you find the same meaning. For example, when Jephthah makes the promise, oh, I will sacrifice the first one to come and meet me. Only it turned out to be his daughter.

So but the point is that is the meaning of the word. We go to meet Christ, not to disappear with Him, but to bring Him back to that renewed earth, and then the new Jerusalem will descend on it, and that will be our eternal home. Now if we understand this aright, then this has an important implication for how we live in the world today. God made this world. We read in verse 5 of our reading in Peter that God made creation by His word.

And from John chapter 1:1, we know that this word, of course, was Christ. "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God." This is Jesus Christ.

And but if you ask the question, why did God create the world? It's not answered in that text, but you do find the answer clearly in Colossians 1:16. "For by Christ, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him." Notice this word "for Him." This is not something we can ignore, like so many people do today who say, oh, this world's gonna disappear in fire, or people who think that this world is really here for us, that God made this world and said, now we put men in there to enjoy it.

Well, that is not, of course, the picture we have in Scripture. We read there of the creation of the world, and then when God created it, everything was good. Now the creation of human beings came as a climax, not as God's sole objective, not that God did all that just for us. No. We were created as a climax.

Why? Because we were placed here now to look after that world that God had created for His own enjoyment, for Christ. And so we were put here to have dominion over the world, to look after it, to take care of it. But we are aware how sin changed all this, because the first human being sold out to Satan, didn't they? And now Satan became the prince of this world as he's even called by Christ in John.

Satan took over that dominion that had been given to Adam. And so we find that now sin affects not only all human beings, but sin begins to affect all of creation, which now sets out thorns and thistles and animals get sick and get hurt and so on. And so in Romans 8:19 and 20-21, you see that creation itself is pictured there as being in bondage to sin, groaning, saying, when are we gonna be relieved from this sin? And so throughout Scripture, we read that God, there are really three parties involved there. There is God, there's human beings, and there's the world.

And God put humankind there, Adam, to worship God, to have fellowship with human beings, and to have stewardship over the earth. Now in the Old Testament, they changed a little bit, because now it was God and Israel and the land of Canaan of Israel. And Israel was to look after that land because that was God's gift to them. Now they were to look after it to make sure that it was not polluted by sin. So if you go to Deuteronomy 21, for example, you find a detailed description here of what they had to do if they find a body lying on the land of somebody who has been killed, and they don't know who the murderer is.

But they have to go through all kind of cleansing ceremonies so that the land will be cleansed. And in Deuteronomy, sorry. In Leviticus 18:28, we see that if Israel dirties the land and doesn't keep it clean, the land will vomit them out. And that, of course, happened when Israel was sent into captivity in Babel. This was a fulfilment of that warning.

If you do not live properly in this land and keep it pure, you will be vomited out by the land itself. And then when God brings redemption, it's not only redemption for people, but it's redemption for the world, for land, animals, people alike. Look at Joel 2, for example, where we read, "Be not afraid, O land. Be glad and rejoice. Surely the Lord has done great things.

Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit. The fig tree and the vine will yield their riches." Now this is not just a kind of poetic personification of nature. This is talking about God's concern for all of creation.

And we see this concern of God reflected in some of the Psalms. For example, Psalm 136, that's the one that has the refrain "His love endures forever," but it talks about how God takes care of all aspects of nature. Christ, of course, shows His love for nature. He's the one who tells us that God feeds the sparrows, that God dresses the lilies to be more magnificent than King Solomon in all his glory.

And whenever he gets a chance, Christ withdraws to the hills. He withdraws into the wilderness. He withdraws to the Garden of Gethsemane. It's clear that Christ appreciates this created realm. Now as I mentioned, we are to take care of this world for God.

That's why God placed us here as the apex of His creation, so that we could look after it and have stewardship over it. Now sin did change things a bit, and we often, as a result of sin, we now think that God created the world for us rather than for His son, Jesus Christ. No. That's not correct. God, first of all, created a world for Christ, but secondly, He made it for all His creatures.

We share our domain with the animals. We have the same living space. The dry land was created for men and animals alike. Birds and fishes had their domain, the skies and the waters, and every creature was placed there by God for His glory and for the glory of His son. And it's important that we acknowledge our status as a fellow creature placed here to look after the rest of creation.

And I want to be careful that as Christians, we don't react against this green philosophy which glorifies the world. The green philosophy looks upon the world as itself as something to worship, because as pantheists, they hold that the world itself is a god. And therefore, you shouldn't eat meat because you'll be eating your cousin if you eat meat, because that goes hand in hand with the evolutionist understanding of the world. Now let's not overreact to this and therefore withdraw from any interest in the world. We were placed here to take care of God's world, not to worship it, but to take care of it.

And we see that Adam had a very special connection to the world. We see this in his naming. He was called Adam because he was made of edama. Edama means soil. It's a kind of wordplay.

You see, Adam from edama. Now you could say it in English this way. Somebody said, humans are made of humus. That's what it sounds like in the Hebrew language. And so very clearly, we are connected to this world.

And the ark story shows us that God wasn't just concerned with Noah and his family, but all the animals were represented, every species of animal in the ark. Now there were seven of one couple of each animal, except for the edible kosher animals, there were seven pairs of them so that there would be food to eat. Because as a result of sin, as we hear in God's blessing of the earth, He does say that humans are allowed to eat meat as long as they let the blood of the animal soak back in the earth as a reminder that things ought not to be this way.

It was an allowance necessary in our sinful condition. But dominion does not mean that the animals are here for us. Rather, we are here for them, to look after them. We were given that task of stewardship over God's world, and therefore, we must be prepared to share our environment with them. We, I think as Christians, we have to be concerned that we do not remove all the trees and the rainforests, which are so precious, that we don't burn all the bush, that we don't pollute the air or the soil.

Now don't get caught up in theories of climate change and so on, which I don't think follow the biblical model, but we are to take care of God's world. And ruling it, ruling the world, means to develop God's world and take care of it. We see this already when Adam is given the task to name the animals. But instead, we see today that humans pollute the environments. We see species disappearing.

We see desertification. That means that fertile land is turning into deserts in places like India and so on. We see acid rains, which kill forests. And as Christians, we have to be concerned about that, and we want to encourage science to do an unbiased research on these things to see how they may be rectified. But I wonder, how do you think God looks upon us as human beings when He sees everything we do to His creation?

Imagine there's a farmer who is going on a holiday, and he calls his son. Son, I'm going on holiday. I would like you to take care of the farm for me while I'm gone. And as he drives off and he waves goodbye to his son, he looks around. He sees there's a bit of shrub, and he said, oh, I better do some burning when I come back to clean the land. And he goes on holiday, and he comes back, and he finds the farm in a mess. The gates are off their hinges.

Fences are broken down. The weeds have come up, and he said, son, you were supposed to look after this farm. What happened? But dad, when you left, didn't you say you were gonna burn it down? Misunderstanding.

And I'm afraid that many people, even Christians, have a misunderstanding about this world, as if it's something God's gonna burn down anyway. That's not the case. This world was made for Christ, and it will be used for Christ once again when it is beautified, when it's cleansed of all sin. And this world will be there to glorify God. God loves the world.

He made it by and for His son, Christ. And God so loved the world that He gave His son to redeem it when it fell into sin. And then He began to gather a people for Himself, and you know what those people are called? They're called the first fruits of His work of redemption. Now if you talk about first fruits, your next question is, so what's next?

What are the further fruits? Well, I think it's very clear that the further fruit is the rest of creation. God begins with us, but as I said already, in Romans 8, we read that this world is groaning under sin, asking when will these sons of God be redeemed so that our turn comes, so that we too will be redeemed. And so, friends, let's look after this world because we want this world to not only be glorious through what has been done by God through creation and redemption, but in God's redemption, He placed us there to again become, well, stewards of God's world, and we are to do what is good for it. We are to lay up those treasures that we read about in one Corinthians, the gold, the silver, the jewels, because they will remain when the fire comes.

It's a little bit like, well, the church is the bride of Christ. And what does a bride do when it is she's waiting for the wedding? Well, it used to be custom that already when a girl was young, she was given a box called a glory box. Some of you older people will remember that. And then sometimes at birthdays and Christmas, she would give presents that would go into the glory box.

These were things to be used at the time when she got married. Well, as the bride of Christ, let us put aside things in that glory box that will remain, that will be there for the time of Christ's return when His church will be His bride. So as Christians, let us lead a way to clean environment, clean air, saving endangered species, and so on. Let's not get into a left behind mentality, but rather a recognition that this world belongs to God. It is our inheritance in Christ.

For God so loved the world that He sent His son to redeem it, beginning with us as His first fruits, but with all the world to follow. God so loved the world. Thank you, God, for such a Saviour as Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

Our Lord God, we thank you that you have placed us in this beautiful world that you created. And, Lord, we're sorry that in Adam, we sinned and that so much harm has come to your wonderful work. But we thank you, Lord, that we can look forward to a time of cleansing, and we thank you that one day we will live in a renewed world, cleansed of all sins, and that this beautiful city you are building for us will descend on this new earth and that you will live in the midst of your people. Father, we look forward to this time and pray for Christ's coming in His name. Amen.