Intense Heat

 

DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER OF PETER

INTENSE HEAT

2 Peter 3:8-10

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  

NIV

Having considered that which we are not to forget and that we are to walk and talk with the Lord, and that he is eternal with no beginning and no end and time has no constraints on Him and that he desires that no one perish, we should deal with the rest of what Peter has told us as he was inspired by the Spirit. The End is going to happen. There is going to be a day when there are going to be people who perish, just as in the days of Noah. It is unfortunate, even though the Lord desires that none should perish, some will. What we can be certain of is that he does not condemn them to perish, but they do because of their unbelief and therefore their sin. We can also be certain that Jesus is coming back and he will show up when we least expect him, like a thief in the night, as Peter puts it. If we knew the very moment that a thief would break into our home, then we would not worry about it until just before he made his attempt. Why would we stand guard against this entry all the time, if we knew when he would break in? That is the point Peter is making, we do not know when a thief would show up and we certainly do not know when Jesus is going to show up. The next words of Peter which we will explore later talks about that if Jesus is going to show up when we least expect him, what type of people ought we to be. But for now, we should consider just what this Day of the Lord is going to look like. When we think about the heavens, they encompass all that we cannot see with the naked eye. Looking through telescopes and even with all the various space telescopes added since the Hubble space telescope, man has been able to see billions upon billions of suns, planets, and various other clusters of objects. The Heavens are so vast, we can be sure, we have not seen it all. God’s creation of the heavens is far greater than we can imagine. Yet all of that is going to disappear with a roar. All elements, which include every element known to man, plus those men still have no knowledge of, such as the elements of some distant sun or planet, will be destroyed by fire. To think how intense that fire is going to be, to destroy elements such as gold, silver, iron, krypton, all the elements of the periodic table burned up until they are nothing, gone forever, never to be seen, is an awesome thought. It should give us pause, to think everything we may hold dear in this material world will all be destroyed by fire. Some make such an exerted effort to save the trees, or the environment, or whatever else various movements, or organizations had determined to be their cause. We are not saying that is bad, we should tend the garden until he returns. We should be concerned about the place God created for us to live in, yet at the same time, we are so small, having such a little effect in comparison to the power of God who sustains all things by his will and by his will destroy it all with fire. Everything will be laid bare. It is interesting the Greek uses the verbiage, “therein works shall be burned up. That is everything we have ever done, any of our deeds, our accomplishments, all our hard work, will be burned up. Therefore we are sure, we will only stand before our Lord based on grace, not of works, lest any of us boast, for all works will be laid bare, or burned up in the intense heat. So let us live by grace, knowing what is to come.