WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

2 Peter 3:10-13

 

10-30-60

 

Now the title of the sermon is WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE.  The title that is printed is, THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH.  The climax of the sermon tonight will be of that new heavens and that new earth; but as I prepared the message, it seemed infinitely better to wait until I preached through the Revelation to speak of the new heavens and the new earth at length.  So tonight we shall follow the passage.  Simon Peter here says by the revelation of God that this world will not remain as you now see it.  He says that this world is going to be rejuvenated.  It is going to be remade.  All of the tracts of Satan, all of the slime of the serpent, all of the dregs of iniquity and sin are going to be effaced and destroyed.   And out of this world, God is going to reshape and to remake a new and a perfect and a beautiful and a righteous and a heavenly creation. 

Now, as I said this morning, Simon Peter writes this for a two-fold purpose.  First, he is encouraging the saints.  Lest we be weary in waiting, and lest we think that the powers of darkness are going to overwhelm us, unless a man might fall into despair that we are going to lose this final battle, Simon Peter writes this word, that there is coming an interposition, an intervention of God in human history, and by God's own right hand, He will bring a triumph to our Savior and to our Lord's people.  That is to encourage us and to send us with a new uplifted heart and spirit in the way of our work and ministry.  Then, of course, he wrote this as an answer to the scoffers who looked up at the heavens that were clear and said, in Noah's age, "It never rained.  We never saw rain.  It is not going to rain.”  And who looked upon the face of the face deep and said, "These great oceans are held in the arms of the sage.  They could never overflow.”  And all the while, that Noah was building an ark on the dry land, hundreds of miles from where it could be floated.  All of the scoffers and all of the cynics and all the unbelievers and all the blasphemers came by and mocked the old man and laughed at the old man and jeered and made fun of and ridiculed the old man.  But Noah, the preacher of righteousness for one hundred twenty years, spoke of the judgment of God that was yet to come.  And however they might have scoffed and ridiculed and believed and jeered and jibed and made fun, the Flood came according to the Word and promise of God.  And those who were not ready perished.  Simon Peter uses that intervention of God in human history to say things do not continue always in their course, but in God's elective purpose and in God's elective time, when God says it is enough, when the last soul has been saved and the last name has been written according to election in the Book of Life, the great end time shall come and the judgment shall come and God shall destroy this world by fire in order that He might, that He might make out of it the new creation that shall glorify and bless His name forever. 

Now, there are two great forces in nature.  One of them is water, and the other is fire.  And both of these does Simon Peter use here as instruments of God in the judgment of God upon the world.  Water, and that was in the days of the Flood.  And then he says, this world that we now see is reserved by the same word of God that destroyed it in the Flood.  That same word of God now preserved this Word of God, preserved this earth until the word of God shall be spoken that shall bring that ultimate and final kataklusmos.  That is the Greek word used here, and we take that word kataklusmos and take it into English and make "cataclysm" out of it.  The great kataklusmos, he speaks of in the ninth verse.  And then he says here in the seventh verse, that these heavens, and this earth that now is, is stored up in fire against the day of judgment.  A thesauros the—literally, the meaning of thesauros is "to treasure up.”  Here it would be a better translation to say "stored up.”  That is, the fire is already in it.  The fire is already underneath it.  The fire is already about it.  The fire is already above it.  What Simon Peter is saying, that the instrument by which God shall judge and destroy this world is already here.  It is not something He is going to bring from outer space.  It is not something He is going to create at the last minute.  It is not some mysterious something He is going to bring up from the deep.  But this world is stored in fire this minute, and the great active agent for the destruction and perdition of this evil world is already present. 

Now, isn't it a strange thing that when our Lord Jesus Christ spoke of that great and final confirmation, that he used those same two illustrations of water and of fire?  Our Lord said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man" [Matthew 24:37]—the water that destroyed the earth.  Then, our Lord in the next syllable said, "As it was in the days of—as it was in the days of Lot”—in the days of the cities of the plain, in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the days when they were destroyed by fire, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man [Luke 17:28-30].  There have been two great cataclysmic catastrophes in the history of the world, One, the destruction of the world by water, and the other the destruction of the cities of the plain by fire.  And both of those cataclysmic destructive forces and powers are figures of that great and ultimate judgment, when God shall dissolve this world by fire and shall create the new heavens and the new earth.  Now this is not a strange or a new thing that is revealed in the Word of God.  You will find the revelation of that great, ultimate, and final judgment all through the Word of the Lord, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. 

May I read for you, if you do not mind, just a few of the typical passages of that final judgment that we read in the Word of God?  In the Book of Joel, for example, the thirty—the second chapter in the thirtieth and the thirty-first verses, Joel says, "And I will show wonders”—talking to the Lord—“and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come” [Joel 2:30, 31].  Then here is a typical passage from the Book of Isaiah: "Behold—

Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel in wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and God shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. 

For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not give her light. 

And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the -- of the terrible [Isaiah 13:9-11]. 

Then, this is a typical passage—passage out of the Book of Ezekiel.  In Ezekiel 32:7, 8: "And I shall put thee out—and when I put you out, I will cover the heavens and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.  And the bright lights of heaven I will make dark over thee, and set darkness upon the land, saith the Lord GOD.” 

And here is a typical passage out of the New Testament.  In the words of our Lord in the apocalyptic chapter of Matthew 24:29” "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.”  And once again in the Book of the Hebrews, Hebrews 12:27: "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”  All through the Word of God, all through the Bible, you will find that same—that same dark threat.  You will find that same heavy, heavy and dark shadow.  There is a day of judgment coming.  There is a day of the fierce, burning wrath of God, and there is a day when the Lord shall destroy this world by fire.  And those that are not able to stand in the presence of God shall perish in that awful and terrible conflagration. 

Now, Simon Peter, in speaking of it, speaks of three things that are going to be destroyed, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which,” first, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,” second, "and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,” and third, "the earth also and the works thereof shall be burned up” [2 Peter 3:10].  First of all, the heavens are going to pass away with a great noise, with a great catastrophic explosion, like a gigantic hydrogen bomb increased ten thousand million times.  Now, there are three heavens that are spoken of in the Scriptures.  There is the heaven of God.  That is called the third heaven, where God dwells.  There is the heaven of the stars, those great planetary systems that are out there that you see in the Milky Way and in the sidereal spheres.  That is the second heaven.  And the third heaven is the heaven above us, the heavens where the birds fly, the heavens where the airplanes go, the heavens where the clouds and vapors all gather, the heaven that is above us.  Now, that is the heaven that Peter speaks of when he says, “And the heavens are going to pass away with a great noise,” he is speaking of the heaven above us.  It is going to enter some kind of a vast explosion, and with a great noise, it is going to be taken away.  That is the place where Satan has his principalities.  That is the place where the demons and the devils and the powers of the air who circle this globe and who hound it and persecute it and who drive it into sin and blasphemy and despair and madness, that is where they have their principalities.  And God is going to destroy it with a great explosion.  And Peter says that this thing is stored in that fire right now. 

Wonder what that refers to?  Why, it is very evident and very plain.  Did you know this atmospheric heaven above us, all of this vast above is, did you know it is composed of mainly, almost altogether two elements, oxygen and nitrogen?  Oxygen is the one element without which you do not have any burning.  When a thing burns up, it is merely the uniting of oxygen with another element, with the consequent relief of light and heat and energy.  Fire and burning is just the union of oxygen with some other element.  Down here in the Coleman Hall, I so often see the women when they have a banquet and those beautiful candles are burning.  And after the candles have burned a while and they burn low, I see them take a spoon and they put it over the flame, and the candle goes out.  Wonder why that candle goes out?  What is in that spoon to put out a fire?  Nothing in that spoon puts out a fire.  But when they put the spoon on top of that flame, it cuts off the oxygen, and the flame dies itself.  If you want to kill a thing that is burning, cut off the oxygen from it.  If you want to heap up the flame, as in a blowtorch, turn on the oxygen, and it will turn blue with heat.  Think of the oxygen that God has at His disposal.  This world is stored up for fire.  And then the other element in the atmosphere above us is nitrogen.  Isn't that a strange thing, that the two most explosive elements in this earth are right there above us?  Nitrogen—in any kind of a manufacture of these explosives: dynamite, TNT, nitroglycerin, nitrates, nitrogen is a vital component part.  And the nitrogen in this atmosphere above us, the Lord only knows how much is at His disposal, "And the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, with a vast explosion.” 

And then the second thing, "And the elements shall melt with fervent heat” [2 Peter 3:10].  That word "fervent" there is kauson.  Our English word "caustic"; a caustic acid, a caustic soda.  By "caustic," you mean “burning”; and kauson, the Greek word used there, with fervent heat, kauson, that means a terrific burning.  There is not an element that cannot be melted, whatever the element is.  Our world is made up of about ninety-six or ninety-seven elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sodium, iron, zinc, lead, gold, silver, aluminum, calcium. . . . All of these elements, and every one of them can be liquefied, and every one of them, whatever it is, can be melted.  And they can boil with fervent heat; kauson, caustic.  And isn't it the strangest thing in the world?  Here is this great atmosphere above us, oxygen and nitrogen, highly explosive.  And here, beneath us and below us, are these great illimitable oceans made of oxygen and hydrogen.  Isn't that the strangest thing?  Hydrogen, they used to put in dirigibles, but it is so explosive that they dare not use it any more.  So they substituted another element, helium.  Hydrogen is one of the most explosive elements in the world, and all of these elements are right here in God's hands.  Peter says this earth is stored with fire, ready for it to be inflamed by the Word of God.  Why, it scares you to death just to think about it.  

I lived in Amarillo in the days when the great oil fields were discovered out there.  And they had a fellow out there name Pick Thornton.  And he put explosives in the wells in order to make it blow.  They would drill a little hole down there about that big around, about a mile deep, and then this fellow would come along and go down there about—send down there about a mile his explosives.  And they would blow out a great big area at the base of the well.  And then the oil would pour into that pool down there, and then they would pump it out.  Well, he was an authority and world famous for using those explosives to blow a well.  So one day, he made a speech to the Rotary Club in Amarillo.  And on a table, he had all of his explosives from one side to the other.  Here was dynamite, and here was nitroglycerin.  Here was TNT.  Here was black powder, and here was white powder.  And here was all kinds of his explosives.  They were all up there.  And then he would just handle them as though they were nothing.  You know, he would flip around and talk about them and he scared the bunch to death.  And finally, he picked up a little vial just about that big.  And he said—he said, "This is the most explosive of anything in the earth.”  And he said, "If I were to drop this, it would blow this whole building wide up and open.”  And you know what happened.  While he was talking and flipping things around, he just happened to lose that out of his hand, and it fell out there on the floor, and everybody [inaudible].*  Have you got a nickel?  I have a nickel in my hand.  There is enough atomic power stored up in that nickel, if it were released, to blow up a city ten times as big as the city of Dallas.  "Oh, Preacher, don't drop it.  Don't drop it.  Don't drop it.”  That's what Simon Peter's talking about.  He says God has stored out in this world this great power by which He's going to make this thing turn into an atomic bomb. 

And the third, "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.  And the earth, also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up” [2 Peter 3:10].  This world shall catch fire.  It shall flame.  It shall burn.  Did you notice a recurring thing in all of these passages from the books that I read?  Did you notice it says, "And the moon shall be turned red like blood”?  And did you notice all of those passages say, "And the sun shall be darkened as though it was covered and veiled with black sackcloth”?  And did you notice those passages say, "And the stars shall fall out of—out of heaven”?  Did you notice that?  All that refers to this gigantic, terrestrial conflagration, when the great fire comes to burn up this earth.  When he says, "That moon turns red.”  It is going to be red with the reflected light of this burning orb.  And when it says, "And the sun shall be black with sackcloth of ashes," it refers to the great columns of smoke—pillars of smoke that are referred to in one of those passages I read—pillars of smoke that shoot out into space ninety‑three million miles and cover the face of the sun until it is black like sackcloth of ashes.  And did you notice where it says there, "And the stars shall fall out of heaven”?  That is, when this earth explodes, and when God burns up this terrestrial sphere, that the movement of it is going to shake these other planets and these other stars out of their courses.  And it is going to look as though they are falling from heaven as they are deflected from their regular orbits.  God says He is going to shake the heavens and shake this earth, and all of these things may be taken away that the things that cannot be taken may remain. 

Last Sunday night, you know, I referred to the fact that we are just walking on an eggshell.  And that is literally a comparison of how we live in this earth.  The eggshell is on the outside, and the center liquid contents on the inside is a fine, proportionate figure of the earth on which we live.  And the crust is just about the same in proportion to our earth as an eggshell is to the semi-liquid contents on the inside.  And on this crust, we walk the shell of this globular egg.  But on the inside of that globule, there is fire and heat.  These men say that the heat down there is sixteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit.  And the molten mass of this earth is filled with the fury of the burning of God.  When Peter says this world is scorched by fire, he is referring to the agency that is already here out of which God shall make a new heaven and a new earth. 

Now, he says an unusual thing, a remarkable thing.  He says, "Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Day of God, wherein the heavens on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.  But we according to his prophecy [promise], look for new heavens and a new earth” [2 Peter 3:12, 13].  How in the earth could Simon Peter ever say a word like that, "Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord?"  What does he mean?  How does he say, “We are looking, longing for, and hastening unto; our spirits call out to, earnestly seeking for, waiting for, hoping for, praying for that day of the Lord”?  What frightens us?  No.  No.  What Peter knows is this, that God's people, God's redeemed people, we are all with our Savior when this great conflagration consumes this earth.  The Lord is a thief, "Behold, He comes as a thief in the night” [2 Peter 3:10].  He is coming first.  The first thing, our Lord is coming to take out of this world His glorified—to take out of this world His glorified, to take out of this world His sainted people.  First of all, God's children are going to be taken up with the Lord.  And up there in glory, maybe we can watch—maybe we can see the fury of the conflagration and burning and destructure** of the evil in the day.  Maybe we can watch as Satan is dropped and falls out of heaven.  Maybe we can see God triumph over His enemies.  I do not know what we'll be doing.  Simon Peter says to God's people that the day of our climactic triumph is the day of final and ultimate triumph.  He says we are to look forward to when God shall take Satan and bind him and put him in the pit, when God shall wipe away the stain of the old judgment, and when God shall make this world beautiful and perfect.  Man, we never think about those things.  How was it in the days of Eden when Satan was not there, and when the first couple walked in nobility and in holiness and in righteousness and in beauty, and they talked to God day to day, and every tree gave its fruit, and the lion ate straw, and all of the animals were domestic.  The whole world was beautiful in the hands of God.  And then Satan marred it. 

But, look, when it is burned, that does not annihilate it.  Burning does not annihilate any thing.  It just changes it from this into gas and fire, smoke and ash.  Nothing in matter has ever been annihilated, and God is not ever going to annihilate anything.  When a vase made out of gold is worn and beaten and battered, the goldsmith can take it and melt it and make it again into a beautiful, perfect thing.  That is what God is going to do with this world.  He is going to take this world, and He is going to melt it down.  And then He is going to put it back into its primordial elements, and then He is going to reshape it and remold it, and He is going to make it perfect.  Every thing will be perfect.  Every river will be perfect.  Every field will be perfect.  Every part of a mountain and every part of the sea, every part of the glory of the earth will be perfect and beautiful.  And when God has prepared the new heaven and the new earth, then we are coming down out of heaven—out of heaven with God, coming down into the beautiful city of Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem, and we're coming down to this earth, and God shall have perfect peace for us.  The Lord God makes it beautiful and holy and glorious just for us.  And we are going to live in that beautiful city. 

And, man, you can get you a bowl and go out to that stream and catch whatever your heart's desire.  And all the fellows that like to hunt, I do not know what you are going to do.  There won't be anything to kill.  All the lions will come up and lick your hand.  And all the elephants will come up and put their trunks around you and hug you real tight.  And all the animals and all the people will be around Jesus' feet.  Why, bless your heart.  Why, you can hardly think of it.  When the wolves shall dwell with the leopards, when the wolves shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the sheep, oh, Lord, I want to be there in that day.  The deaf will hear.  The blind will see.  And the cripple shall walk.  And the sinners are all washed clean and pure, and God's children sing and shout in His presence world without end.  I tell you, as I move to that Book of the Revelation, my heart begins to sing. 

So what Jesus has done when He died for us, and what the martyrs suffered when they preached to us, and the consummation in the day of redemption when the Lord comes again and gives us back all that we have lost, how could you say no to God?  "I do not care about that.”  How could you say no to the Spirit of appeal?  "I am not interested.”  Why, man, outside of that it is death, fire, judgment and separation.  In the loving arms of Jesus, all of this and heaven too, take it in your heart, your soul.  Take it with you to heaven, just by trusting.  Would you?  While we have this song, "In the Sweet By and By," would you give your heart to Jesus?  Would you come and stand by me?  Here I come, Preacher, and here I am.  I am giving my hand to you, but I am giving my heart to Jesus gladly.  We are coming into the fellowship of the church.  Make it tonight; in the balcony round, down one of these stairwells at the front or the back; in this throng of people on the lower floor, into the aisle, and down here to the front, would you come?  Make it tonight, while we stand, and while we sing. 

 

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