I want to take up with you this morning a theme and an image that I imagine has been impressed upon every eye and every soul over the course of the last few days. I'll ask you to turn with me please to 2 Peter and chapter 3. 2 Peter and chapter 3. Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Saviour. knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this they willfully forget, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. that 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 melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, without spot and blameless, and consider that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. Let's ask God's help. Lord, now reach out in your mercy. Grip our souls by means of your truth. Work in us by your gracious spirit. Instruct us and lead us. Heavenly Father, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You are shaken awake in the middle of the night. Someone has got you by the shoulders and they are rattling your bones and your teeth. The fire is coming. We've got to get out. It is time to go. What do you take? Who do you take? Do your mind turn to people or to things? Do you run away or do you stay? Do you cling to the things that you have or do you flee? What's it like to live in California at this point in time? What's it like to live with a map imprinted on your mind with great red areas that seem to be growing all the time? Flames sweeping across the landscape, destroying and consuming everything in their path. so that there seems to be, when the flames have done their work, nothing left behind. Have you seen the pictures? Have you looked at the maps? Have you seen the aircraft or the helicopters flying overhead? Have you seen the shots that they're taking of these great sweeping patches of flame? Have you seen some of the video of people trying to drive through the flames and the embers, desperately trying to escape with whatever they can carry? I think one of the most striking pictures that I've seen. There were two that really stuck in my mind. One was of the kind of Californian mansion that I'd imagine most of us would say if we saw it, well, I wouldn't mind living there. I mean, of course, I'm not covetous, I'm not envious, but offer me that, yeah, for sure. There's two of them on the street and a row of those beautiful palm trees, you know, tropical splendor. Who wouldn't want to live there? And in front of the palm trees with these two beautiful mansions in the background, the kind of sports car that boys dream about driving when they grow up. And the trees are all on fire. And the sky behind the mansions is red and orange. And you can see the flames. I don't know if they're reflected in the windows or if they're already in the houses. And in front of those burning palm trees is an abandoned sports vehicle with inches of ash and dust resting on its useless carbon fibre. They talk about the rebuild. in a landscape that has been utterly devastated by fire. And they say actually, some interesting stories now say, the way that insurance works and the way that tax works, who will actually be able to rebuild in the way that they once had? There's a fire coming that is worse, more complete, more fearful, more all-consuming than the worst pictures and videos that any of us have seen. In the scripture those flames are often connected with final judgment. The heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition, the punishment of ungodly men. That's not just a New Testament image. You'll find it in Psalm 50 and verse 3. Our God shall come and shall not keep silent. A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around him. When the Apostle John is speaking about the end of the world in 1 John 2 and verse 17, he reminds us that this world is passing away and the lust of it. Not necessarily using the fire language, but picking up the same sense. A fire is coming. and I want to shake you this morning. I want to shake you awake. It's time to go. You've got to get out. Are you safe from the coming fire? Are you prepared? The fire that is coming has no limit in range. The fire that is coming has no limit in range. You can look down with the bird's eye view, even in real time, as the aircraft and the helicopters swoop over, fixed wing and helicopters swoop over California. You can see the maps with the little squares where they're plotting how far the fires are spreading. You can read about the desperate efforts at containment they are making. They're not always trying to put the fires out, they're just trying to stop the fires spreading. Some of those fires are large. Hard for us to contemplate what it's like for a fire that is bigger than the centre of London to be sweeping through a landscape. Hard for us to think about fires starting here and there and whether or not they can actually be held back. But the fire that is coming is universal. The fire that is coming is cosmic. The heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat. There is nothing that has been created that is not going to be touched and consumed by the fire that is coming. There is no limit to the range. And there is no delay in time. Now you can trace the progress. Now you can look at those overviews on the map. You can see how it's advancing. But the fire that is coming does not so much advance as simply arrive. It is instant. It is all-consuming. When that fire comes, there are no more warnings. That's why you need to be told now. It's not a fire that's gradually sweeping in from the hills. It's not a fire, the progress of which you can track. The fire that comes on the day of judgment is a fire that arrives in its entirety all at once. The warnings then are over. This day comes like what, says Peter, like a thief in the night. The warnings come now. The urgings come now. The shaking awake needs to happen now because that fire will arrive and there will be no delay in time. The fire that is coming, everything in this world, will go up in flames instantaneously and your opportunity for preparation, your chance to listen to the warnings and invitations of a patient and gracious God will have gone in the moment when the fire arrives. In that fire there will be no degrees of impact. Now you can see that certain neighbourhoods have been spared. Maybe the wind changed direction. Certain buildings have been left standing. And you might have seen the things that people are calling miracles. Other people call them concrete. There's houses that have been swept away on either side and there's one building left in the middle. Sometimes it is simply a mercy of God, other times it's the building construction or whatever else it may be. But you can see places where the fire hasn't touched and you can see buildings or properties where the fire has left something standing. But when this fire comes, It will not simply scorch some things and destroy a few things. It will consume all things. The coming fire is total. There are no degrees in the damage that it does. everything is going to be destroyed. The heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." John has told us, 217 again of his first letter, that this world is passing away. You can already see that, can't you? You can already feel that. You can feel that in your own flesh. You see that in the world around us. You see it hinted at in fires or floods. When this fire comes, everything destroyed. When this fire comes, there'll be no ease of trouble. there'll be no way out for the rich and the famous. There are people now who've gone to the surviving high-end hotels of Hollywood and California, where it costs more money to stay for one night than most of us spend in an entire month of simply living at a normal rate. Now we don't for one moment scorn the fact that the rich have lost everything as well as the poor, but there'll be no fine hotels, there'll be no second homes to flee to, there'll be no protected enclaves where the fire cannot reach. Everything you have here will be gone in a moment. All of the things that you're tempted to cling to, all of the things that you now find precious, all of the things that you're living for and investing in, they will go. That other photo that I mentioned that hit so hard was somebody walking through what you might call the nightmare landscape. Clouds of smoke billowing over the front, the flames sweeping across in the background, and somebody with a shopping trolley. And everything that they had managed to save was in that shopping trolley. I don't know what they'd started with, but that's what they had been reduced to. You won't even get away with a shopping trolley. Everything will go. The fire is coming and it will be entire. In this world, which is passing away, everyone will lose everything that this world now offers. There's no scope to contain the coming fire. There are men working desperately and bravely to try and stop the Californian fires spreading. They use fire breaks. They're trying to cut gaps in the brush that is helping the fire to spread. They're trying to dig holes and create trenches. People have tried to sprinkle their lawns in order to try and preserve their properties. Hydrants where there's water in them and hoses are being employed to try and hold back the fire. Fire bombing is being used. Those great clouds of water that are being dropped by helicopters and by aircraft in order to try and put out or to hold back the flames. They're doing everything that they can to contain the fire. You cannot contain the coming fire. It is unstoppable. There are no barriers. There is nothing that you can do to resist it. This is a fire that cannot be slowed down. This is a fire that cannot be extinguished by human effort and endeavour. There will be no goods to save. People are taking what they can. They're dropping them into the shopping trolleys. They're packing their bags and their cars. It's an interesting test, isn't it? If I were shaking you awake in the middle of the night, if I were banging on your door, if I were trying to call you somehow, and you've got, let's be generous, two minutes, what do you take? Who do you shout for? My friends, you cannot save anything in this day. People in California have been wonderfully inventive. I saw one lady, she'd carried all her fine china out, and she'd stacked it at the bottom of her swimming pool. Well, that's clever. It's a good way of... Certain things you can't do that with. Here's my computer with all my work on it. I'll stack it at the bottom of the swim... No, that's not going to work. People who've said that they've lost everything. One woman in tears. How close she may have been to truth, I don't know. She said, it reminds me that only the things that aren't tangible I can carry away. Something like that. You know what tangible means? Touchable. The only important things I've got left are the things that I cannot carry because there's nothing left to take. People are putting their children their pets, their in-laws into their cars. Some of them are going back and they're starting to scrape through the ashes of what was left behind. In California, they found a few precious things. One lady found a page of a book burnt all around with just a few letters left in the center. One person found two pearls. left over from his mother's pearl necklace that he'd been saving. There are a few scraps here and there that seem to have survived, but when the fire comes you'll be able to carry nothing away. Do you remember the rich young man of whom we just read in Mark's gospel and chapter 10? What did the Lord Jesus say to him when he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord Jesus pointed out the commandments of God. And that man, in all his sincerity, actually believed that he had done everything that God required of him. But where did the Lord Jesus put his finger? What did the Lord Jesus say to him? What did he press home upon him? I want you to go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor, and then come and follow me. You need to take up your cross, sell all you have, take up your cross and follow me. That made the man sad. Up until that point, he thought he'd been ticking the boxes, but then he was sad. Why? because he had great possessions. There's another man in the scriptures, in Luke's gospel, chapter 12, he's described as a rich fool. He was doing very well. He had the Jewish equivalent of the great mansion and the palm-lined avenue and the lovely sports car out the front. In fact, having done well, things were now going better for him, as far as he could tell. He'd just had a bumper harvest. His stocks and shares had realized phenomenal amounts of money. The things that he'd invested in had brought in a wonderful return. His business had had a bumper year. Expenditure was level. Income was skyrocketing. And he thought to himself, I'm going to buy a bigger mansion. I'm going to get a better car. I'm going to move to a better part of town. He said, I'm going to build my barns bigger. I can make this even better for me. I'm going to accumulate. I'm going to gather. This world is everything. And I've got so much of it. And God said to that man, You fool, this very night, your soul will be required of you. What then will become of all of the things that you have accumulated? And it's heartbreaking, isn't it, to hear the stories of people who said, that was my dream home. Do you hear the language? My dream home. I'd spent all my time, all my energy, all my money pouring into that property. This was the environment I wanted. This was like the promised land to me. I'd given everything to have this. And what happened? Overnight, gone. Everything that I'd labored for, lost. You have to wonder sometimes at the economics of disaster, don't you? That the people you know are sitting on millions upon millions upon millions of pounds or dollars. and saying, I'm donating 100,000 of these to look after other people. Things get all skewed. People's appetites get so twisted up. I read one, I thought it was a desperately unhappy article. You know what's happening in those luxury hotels in California? Therapy. There are therapists going in to help the rich and the famous. Sex. People hooking up with one another to try and put these horrors behind them. Botox. Because while people are thinking about the fires you can have a little bit of touching up done here and there and then you come out of your hotel room once you've recovered and no one will notice that you've had your little bit of bits and pieces done here and there. when the world's burning. Is that what we're going to be thinking about? Amidst the storm, amidst the blaze, you understand that when the fire that is spoken of in the Word of God comes, you won't be playing any games behind closed doors. You won't be worrying about how much of your stuff you can carry away. There'll be no payments that you can make there. There'll be no amount of wealth, no amount of fame, no amount of fortune that can for one moment take the edge off the fact that this world and the lusts of it are passing away. My friends, these fires that you are seeing, perhaps almost constantly on the page or on the screen in front of you, they are but a shade, they are a shadow of the flames that are coming on the day when God judges the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. It's very easy for us in, I was gonna say warm, still reasonably warm and damp England, to look across at that and say, well, that's California, we're okay. We may be in measure. But these things at least hint to us and should warn us that all of the things that you now think are valuable that belong to this world alone are going to be consumed. I hope I'd want to make sure that my wife and my children are safe. Maybe some of you would add to that your dogs, your cats, your reptiles, your birds, whatever it may be that you take care of. What else would you take? Most of you won't be surprised to know that I think of my books and my computer. I can't take all of them, but there's a few precious ones. I could say that That's my life's labour there. Gone. Pulled the handle off my car this morning, told you that. The one that my wife was driving, that broke down on the way she was coming to church. What am I going to get agitated about? If Christ came this moment, what is that? If Christ came this moment, what is that car of yours that's sitting outside? The clothes, the food, this building, your home, what is that if Christ comes this moment? My friends, what really matters? This is a fire that has no limit in range, no delay in time, no degree of impact, no ease of trouble, no scope to be contained, and there are no goods to save. And there is one way of escape. I can't imagine what it's like to be in a car perhaps with your family, with the flames closing in on every side, and the embers blowing across the road, and the smoke billowing towards you. You get some sense of what it's like to have somebody knock on the door. Those of you who work in high-rise buildings, I remember being, when I worked in London, The building that I was in, huge great building, and I was right at the top, on the right hand side as you look at it from the most obvious place. I think it was the eighth floor or the ninth floor. I used to stand outside and think, you know what, if there really is a fire in there, chances of us getting out. We used to do fire drills. 12 minutes, 13 minutes to get from where we were. Now, it was a huge, great concrete stairwell. Maybe we would have been preserved. But nobody took it very seriously, because it was just a drill. And we'd be standing there with the choke points further down, thinking either, all right, there's no fire, or perhaps if you're so inclined, if there is a fire, we're really in trouble. How do you get out? Do you know how you're going to get out of your house if there's a fire? If you wake up in the middle of the night, what are your safe exits? When this fire comes, there'll be no more safe exits. When this fire comes, there'll be no way out. You won't be able to carry anything with you. You won't be able to rescue your precious things. The only thing that will matter in that day will be your undying soul. My friend, that's your precious thing. That's your true jewel. That's what really matters. And if you are living today as if your soul is insignificant, as if your soul is unimportant, as if you can play fast and loose with eternity, then you are neglecting the warnings that God in his patience and mercy has given you about the fire that is coming. This will not play out on a screen reflecting some distant reality. This is going to happen in the world that God has made. The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. And that's why I'm speaking to you this morning, because now is the day of salvation, because now is the opportunity to escape, because Jesus Christ has come into this world in order that sinners like us may have our souls saved through faith in him. When the Apostle Paul was thinking about the day of judgment, What was he able to say? I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him until that day. What have you committed to him, Paul? Myself, my soul and all that is truly valuable. or my labour as a gospel minister. All of the things that will outlast this fire, those are the things that I have committed to the care of my God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. My friends, God has said that everything else will pass away. In that day, the only question that will need to be answered is this, is my soul safe? is my spirit secure in Jesus Christ. You see, once this fire is swept across God's creation, once the heavens and the earth have been consumed in this fervent heat and everything has been burned up, God will remake this world, a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. and only those who live by faith in Jesus Christ will come through that last blaze unscathed. We can afford to lose everything that this world offers. We cannot afford to lose our own souls. You remember how the Lord asks it, and it's repeated in I think three if not four of the gospels, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? What value will it be if you accumulate everything that this world calls precious and dear? And then the fire comes and it's all swept away and your soul exposed to the awful judgments of a holy God is condemned to the fiery pit where the flame is not quenched. where worm does not die to the blackness of darkness forever. You see, now is the season of warning. Now is the season of invitation. You hear people say, well, we knew that there's, do you know there's a fire season in California every year? That's what they call it, fire season. But they let the lakes run dry. and the water pressure that feeds the hydrants has dropped. And the brush that needs to be cleared regularly has been allowed to grow. Apparently people like the undergrowth. Can you imagine what they think about the undergrowth now? That the trees and the bushes, nothing but fuel for the flames sweeping towards them. If you knew the fire was coming, How would you live? If you knew you would lose everything, how would you act? Peter tells us, since all these things will be dissolved, what kind of people ought you to be? My friends, if all of this is going to go, what kind of people ought we to be? what ought to be our concerns and our priorities. Peter's telling Christians how we ought to live. We ought to hold lightly to the things of this world. What manner of people ought we to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? My friends, in a world that is going to be swept away, in a world that is passing away and the lust of it, what is worth holding on to? Nothing. Who is worth holding on to? Christ Jesus. Because Christ Jesus is able to save your soul. Christ Jesus is able to bless you in the depths of your being. And Christ will never leave you or forsake you. And the blessings of the kingdom of heaven will not pass away with this fallen world, but they will endure. There is a kingdom which cannot be shaken. There are blessings which will not be burned up. You cannot lose eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. So hold lightly these things and live righteously. Holy conduct and godliness. This isn't about earning salvation, this is the evidence of salvation. What really matters? How we behave toward men and how we behave toward God. Are you a servant of others? Do you live righteously, godly, before God himself? Brothers and sisters, do you have the kind of faith that makes you live not for this world, but for the world which is to come? Do you have the kind of faith that can say, when the fire comes, God and his mercy will keep me? There's a rock you see. There's a rock which can withstand the flames. There's a rock which raises us above the floods. There's someone who can hide you. There is someone who can keep you. And if you are not hidden in him, then when that day comes, you too will be swept away into the horrors of hell. You see, if you're not a Christian here this morning, you're not holding lightly to this world, you're holding tightly to this world. You're like that rich young ruler. But these are my things. This is what matters. This is what I'm living for. It's my job. It's my career. It's my degree. It's my salary. It's my hobbies. It's my home. It's the things that really matter to me. My friends, if you're living for this world, then the things that really matter now are going to go. You cannot save them. Like that rich young man, you're clinging to this passing world and you're not living in a godly way. You're living in a carnal way. You're living as if this world is everything. Pilgrim's Progress. I hope many of you have read it. I hope you will if you haven't. What was the city called from which the pilgrim was urged to flee? He wanted to go to the celestial city, to the city of the great king, to the place where Immanuel reigns. Why was he urged to flee? Because the place where he lived was called the city of destruction. And he was warned warned by the book that he found, warned by the man called Evangelist who came to talk to him, that before very long the city in which he dwelt was going to be consumed in fire and nothing would be left. And so the gospel man pleaded with the man who was then living in the city of destruction, get up, get out and run for your life. There's a horrible image, is there not, in our Old Testaments of somebody who was told to get up, to get out, and to run for their lives. We don't know her name, we just know her relation. She was the wife of a man called Lot. Lot knew that there was a true and living God. Lot saw his uncle Abraham living not for this world, but for the world which was to come. But Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom. Lot's heart was attracted to the things of this world. Lot looked out and he saw how green and beautiful it all looked in a certain direction. And Lot lived as if that were important. And Mrs. Lot, Mrs. Lot's heart was attached to this world. And when the time came, and when the fire and brimstone began to rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah, there were angels who were present, and they grabbed Lot and his wife and their two daughters by the hands, and they dragged them out of the city. because they'd warned them that the judgment was coming and they said, you've got to run. And even Lot's there saying, well, there's just a little place here. Can't I stay here? Do we have to really go that far and that fast? And what happened to Lot's wife? Where was her heart? It was in burning Sodom. And she looked back. Why? Because everything that mattered was behind her. And Lot's wife shared in Sodom's judgment. My friends, you and I are living in the city of destruction. You and I are living in a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. You and I are living in a world that is going to be burned up together with all the things that are in it. And you can either hold it lightly and cling to Jesus Christ to be safe, or you can hold it tightly and be dragged down with it. When the fire comes, you'll have nothing left except your souls. Will they be safe with Jesus Christ because you have trusted in him? Or will they, stripped by the flames that consume everything in this life, will they feel the eternal flame of divine judgment in an unending hell? If that fire comes today, this might be the last warning you'll ever hear. If I don't make it home today, this might be the last time I ever get to give you this warning. If you die before the night falls today, this might be the last chance you ever have to turn to Jesus Christ to be saved. The fires in California can seem a long way away. You might be able to do something about them. You might be able to hold them back. You might be able to stop them. You might be able to save something from them. You might be able to get away from them by some means or other. But not this flame. And so I urge you this morning with all my heart to remember that the fire is coming and to flee to Jesus Christ that you might be safe in the day when the flames arrive. Amen.