Judgment is Coming2 Pet 3
Judgment is Coming
2 Pet 3.1-7
In March of 1980 steam emissions begin to come out of a mountain in the state of Washington. The mountain was a dormant volcano and it appeared to geologists that the volcano was dormant no longer. It was called Mount St. Helens. By April of 1980 the mountain began to emit volcanic ash and the north slope of the mountain was swelling by 5 feet a day. Geoologists became increasingly worried that the volcano would erupt.
The situation became so dire that the government decided to forcibly evacuate all people in the area surrounding Mt. St. Helens. On the side of the mountain there was a beautiful crystal clear mountain lake called Spirit lake. A man named Harry Truman lived in a lodge along the shores of Spirit lake, he had lived there for 50 years and knew the mountain like no other man alive. When the authorities told Harry Truman to evacuate he adamantly refused to do so. He was quoted as saying, “No one knows more about this mountain than Harry. And it don't dare blow up on me. This #$%@# mountain won't blow. Harry became an instant celebrity. The press wanted to talk to him, he made news broadcasts. He was quickly famous. Government officials tried to get him to evacuate to now avail. Friends of his urged him to evacuate. Even an entire class from a school who had heard about him wrote to him pleading for him to get off Mount St. Helens. To all of the pleading, Harry turned a deaf ear.
By May of 1980 the north slope of Mt. St Helens was swelling at 50 feet a day. In an interview on May 17, 1980, Harry Truman said, “They been sayin' the mountain is going to erupt for over 7 years and it hasn't - I obviously know more than the experts.”
At 8.32 a.m. on Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mt. St Helens erupted with a force equivalent to 500 atomic bombs. The force of the blast leveled 150 square miles of forest in six minutes. Hurricane force winds stripped the soil from nearby ridges and hillsides, leaving bare rock. In nearby cities like Yakima and Pasco, it looked like it was snowing. Volcanic ash poured down on everything turning day into night. A geologist from Vancouver who was monitoring the blast from what he thought was a safe distance, transmitted the words, “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it.” A wave of scorching volcanic gases and rock fragments shot horizontally from the volcano's flank at 200 mph, killing the geologist.
At Mount St. Helens an earthquake that registered 5 on the Richter scale was recorded which triggered the largest landslide in recorded history. On the south side of the mountain Shoestring Glacier melted instantly picking up millions of tons of dirt and rock and taking off at 45 mph. The greatest devastation was on the north side of Mount St. Helens, where Harry Truman lived on the shores of Spirit lake. . The eruption was so violent that the entire north side of the mountain slid down into Spirit Lake at 150 mph. It totally filled the lake up. When it was over, Mount St. Helens was 1300 feet shorter and had a new crater on the north face of the mountain 2000 feet deep.
61 people died the day that Mount St. Helens blew. And Harry Truman? He was buried almost instantly under 600 feet of mountain. His body was never recovered.
Harry Truman is a cautionary tale to us of the danger of pride and assuming that what is now will always be the same. He ignored all the signals that would have preserved his life, and died because he was essentially too stubborn to listen.
I want to look at a passage of Scripture this evening that is a warning message to us, much like Mt. St. Helens was to Harry Truman. It warns us of the coming judgment of God. It tells us, “Listen, because Judgment is coming.” Judgment is coming.
2 Peter 3.1-7, reads: 2 Peter 3:1-7
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, [2] that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, [3] knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. [4] They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." [5] For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, [6] and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. [7] 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.
What Peter is telling his readers here is that the day of judgment is coming. There is a day, coming sometime in the future, in which God will bring judgment upon the world. It is going to come. We cannot stop it from coming. We may not believe it will come, but that makes no difference, it will come whether we believe it or not. This is the truth we want to explore tonight.
Now if judgment is coming, we must first understand exactly what Peter means by judgment. What does judgment mean? The dictionary says that judgment is, “A misfortune believed to be sent by God as punishment for sin.” Interesting how they put, “believed to be sent by God,” isn't it. The word used here means “a decision given concerning something.” I like to define it in this way, “to be set up against a measuring line.” What I mean by that is judgment is to be measured against something. God's judgment means to be measured against God's standard which is perfection. In other words in the day of judgment, each person's life will be measured against perfection to see if they measure up.
When I was in Marine Boot camp back in 1982 they took us up to Washington D.C., to see the US Marines silent drill team, and I can tell you it was very impressive. They go through this whole routine, two platoons of Marines, where they parade together while going through what they call the “manual of arms,” all in perfect unison, and all without a single command. They have perfected the routine so well that they are all absolutely on cue together, even when there backs are turned to each other. They are undoubtedly the best military drill team in the world. After I saw them drill I judged every other drill team by that standard, and no one else measured up to their precision, execution, and ability.
That is what the day of judgment is, God measures all of us by His standards. This day is coming. It will come. When judgment comes it will be final and eternal, and it involves fire. Hebrews 9.27 says, “and it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes judgment.” This is what awaits every one of us here who die in our sin.
But “why,” I hope you ask this question, “are we to be judged?” I can describe why we are to be judged in one word, sin. The Bible says in Romans 3.23 that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Remember that judgment is being lined up against God's measuring line to see if we measure up. Well, I have news for you, you don't need to wait until the day of judgment to find out, because God has already answered that question. The answer is, you do not measure up; I do not measure up; no one measures up. All, Everyone, every person has sinned and so fallen short of God's standard. Thus the need for judgment as Peter tells us.
When the Bible says that we all have sinned, what it means literally is that we all have “missed the mark.” It is a term that the Greeks used in reference to archery. If a man shot an arrow at a target and missed the target, they said, “he sinned,” “he missed the target.”
When I was in the Marines, every Marine officer has to qualify at the shooting range with the M-16 rifle, and at least then the .45 semi-automatic pistol (now it is the 9 mm pistol). One of the things we had to do, was, from a distance of 15 yards shoot 5 shots at a target within a set amount of time, I think it was 25 seconds. At any rate, one day we were all standing next to each other in this timed fire and the guy next to me, who was a good buddy of mine, was not a very good shot with the pistol. As we began to fire, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that he would jerk the pistol down every time he pulled the trigger and his bullets were flying into a dirt mount which was right in front of us, it wasn't even halfway to the target. The sight of the dirt flying around struck me as quite funny, and before too long, I was laughing so hard, my own shots were flying everywhere but the target. Fortunately, that was just practice day, not qual day. But my buddy was missing the mark. He wasn't even getting close. He was horrible.
That is what the Bible sets before us as sin. The word is a picture to us of missing the mark that God has set out, “perfection,” when we do not live up to God's standards we “miss the mark,” we sin.
Now the inevitable objection at this point is usually, “but John, how can God judge me, how can he punish me, when I do such a little thing as lie to someone, or steal something? After all it is just a little sin.” Do you notice who the judge of how bad a sin is at that point is? It is you. You are making yourself judge on what degree of sin is important. To understand sin, we must look at how God sees it. How serious does God see sin? Serious enough to send his Son, Jesus Christ, who became a man and lived a life of perfection, perfectly living up to God's standard, only to suffer horribly and die, for our sin. That is how serious sin is to God. Romans 6.23 says, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. If you think that your sins aren't that serious, and God shouldn't punish you, think again. They are serious, and God will punish sin, whether or not you like it, or whether or not you agree with Him.
So let me summarize before we go on. Peter says that God is coming for judgment. Judgment is simply God measuring us all against his standard to see if we measure up, which we do not. We do not measure up because we are all sinners.
So in this passage Peter says, Judgment is certainly coming, but what else is coming is scoffers. 2 Peter 3:3 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 are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
Be prepared, says Peter, because scoffers are going to come saying, “God is not returning. Christianity is a religion based on myth and hearsay. Give it up. Don't waste your time with it. This is no such thing as judgment.”
In 1966, John Lennon, one of the Beatles, who were the most popular music group in the world at the time, gave an interview with Maureen Cleaves of the London Evening Standard. He said this: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus Christ right now.” John Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980, shot in the back in front of his apartment building in New York City. “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes judgment.”
Now, I do not know you guys. Perhaps you are this type of person, “come on, stop with the judgment stuff, stop with the Christianity stuff, stop speaking for heaven's sake, I just want to have fun. There is no such thing as judgment or eternal punishment.” If that is you, I say to you only, there are no scoffers in hell. Everyone in hell believes in the reality of sin, judgment, and eternal punishment.
Peter then tells his readers, “if someone says this, I want you to remember the past.” Remember that at the time of Noah, they said the exact same things. “Come on Noah, you are building this colossal boat, no where near the water, and what for, a flood, you say. Crazy Noah, you have lost your mind.” Noah built that boat for 120 years and I'm sure they scoffed at him for all 120 years. Until one day when they experienced something that they had never experienced before in their lives...rain. Do you know what the Bible says about those people at the time of the flood? It says, Matthew 24:37-39 - As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. [38] For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, [39] and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Do you see what they mean there. God coming in judgment will be exactly like when God judged the world by water. No one listened to Noah. No one believed. No one turned away from their sin. They scoffed at him and made fun of him, “until the flood came and swept them all away.”
So if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, when you hear these sorts of things, come to 2 Peter 3, and say, “ah, this is exactly what I am to expect,” Peter said they would do exactly this. If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, then take a lesson from the flood. It was the same way. God will not send rain. He won't destroy the world by water, but He did, and they were swept away and destroyed.
So the truth, says Peter, is that God is coming in judgment. 2 Peter 3:7, “ 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.” He says that God is coming for “judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
That word “destruction,” means to “utterly ruin” or “utterly destroy.” It is used in the Bible when referring to “the destruction which consists of eternal misery in hell.” There is an illustration of its use in Matt 25.46 in the parable of the sheep and the goats, or the righteous and the ungodly. Christ says, “and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
I was once watching tape of an airshow in Europe where a flying team was performing. One of the stunts that they flew was one where planes came flying at each other from 4 different directions and passed each other separated by a matter of only a few feet. It was a really impressive stunt. At this airshow, they performed this stunt and something went terribly wrong. One of the planes was slightly out of position and as they came together it hit a plane flying at right angles to it. The force of the crash threw the two planes perpendicular to the runway and amazingly, right toward the crowd. In the first partial second after the impact the crowd gave a huge gasp as they realized that the stunt had gone wrong, but in less than a second, the realization dawned that the fireball was coming directly to them! They went from the realization that a crash had occurred, to the realization that they were in real danger of death in a matter of less than a second or two, and you could see it all on this tape. The fireball crashed into the crowd killing many and wounding many more.
What a frightening picture of the judgment to come in Christ. People will be unaware of it, will be denying it, until, gasp, they realize they are in danger and it is too late. There lives are over, or Christ has returned and they are taken away into judgment.
Revelation 20.11-15 gives us a frightening picture of the day of final judgment. It says, Rev. 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. [12] And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. [13] And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. [14] Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. [15] And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
I don't think I need to say any more here. Judgment is coming. It will be firm and final. It is coming, and here Peter gives us just a smidgeon of hope, it is coming “for the destruction of ungodly men.”
I have been giving you the bad news about this passage, but there is good news. We do not have to go through judgment. We can escape this certain, final judgment. How do we escape it? We escape it by being declared innocent. That is the reason that Christ came and died on the cross, so that he would die in our place, so that we would not have to die! Remember Romans 6.23, “the wages of sin is death [that is the bad news], but the gift of God is eternal life [not death] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” I like best how Jesus himself puts it in John 5.24, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
If you put your faith and trust in Christ and the work he did for you on the cross, his death on your behalf for your sins, look at what he promises, “no judgment! Eternal life!” How do you do that? Easy! Roman 10.9 says, “if you confess with your mouth Christ Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” That is it.
Judgment and punishment is coming. That is the message Peter has for us this evening. You cannot stop it. It does not matter whether you believe it or not, judgment is coming. But the good news for you, the reason you can hope, is that destruction is coming on the ungodly, and if you come to faith in Christ, you have passed out of death into life. No judgment, no condemnation, no eternal punishment, but eternal life!
Judgment Is Coming
2 Peter 3.1-7
I. Introduction - Harry Truman and Mt. St. Helens
A. Harry - No one knows more about this mountain than Harry. And it don't dare blow up on me. This #$%@# mountain won't blow
B. May 17, 1980 - They been sayin' the mountain is going to erupt for over 7 years and it hasn't - I obviously know more than the experts.”