Living With Our Eyes on the Judgment

Bulletins

Michael Hickox
12/10/23 - General

2 Peter 3:10: But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

It can be difficult to envision the earth being done away with. It can be even more difficult to internalize the truth that this may be seconds away.

The Holy Spirit through Peter said that some will find this so hard to believe that they’ll ridicule the promise of the Day of Judgment (2 Pet. 3:3-4).

Walking by faith in what God has said yields a completely different outlook (2 Cor. 5:1-7). James 4:14 shows both the brevity of life (“you are a vapor”) and uncertainty of life (“you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow”). The words “as a thief in the night” in 2 Pet. 3:10 show the folly of presuming to even know how much longer the earth will be here.

Recognition of how temporary temporal things are should prompt constant preparation for what comes next (cf. 2 Pet. 3:11-13). Since the world may be gone any moment, we should set our affection on things above (Col. 3:2), and fear God rather than man (Matt. 10:28).

May we heed the Lord’s warning and “Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Matt. 25:13).

“For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).