We will return to our study in John, the Gospel of John, in a couple of weeks, but for now we're in 2 Peter 3. I'd like to read what it says in chapter 3 verses 1 through 13 this morning. Listen to what the Word of God says. Beloved, now I write to you this second epistle in both to 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 savior, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lust and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the father's 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 water by which the world that then exists 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 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. 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 melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up, Therefore, since all these things must 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 this promise, look for the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. On May 18th, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Western Washington. It was the most devastating volcanic eruption in U.S. history. The initial blast generated 500 times the force of an atomic bomb in Hiroshima. 57 people were killed that day and thousands of animals, and the mountain itself lost 1,300 feet of its height The entire energy that was produced by the span of nine hours with the eruption of Mount St. Helens was equivalent to 33,000 atomic bombs. That's equivalent to one atomic bomb every second for nine hours. As Time Magazine reported then, the event, it said, and I quote, clouds of hot ash made up of pulverized rock were belched 12 miles into the sky, giant mudslides composed in melted snow mixed with ash propelled by waves of superheated gas erupting out of the crater, rumbled down the slopes and crashed through the valleys, leaving millions of trees knocked down in rows as though a giant had been playing pickup sticks. It went on to say gas swept down from the volcano's slope at 683 miles per hour and reached temperatures of 572 degrees Fahrenheit. The tempestuous volcano hurled its 540 million tons of ash 12 miles into the sky. Hundreds of homes and businesses and roads and railroads and railroad tracks were destroyed. Material from that eruption which they call the pyroclastic flow, which is made up of rocks and fire and lava Destroyed 230 square miles of forest Before the event there were a number of warnings that were issued to the surrounding occupants of Mount St. Helens there was one man by the name of old man, Harry Truman not the president, but a The old man, they call him. He was 83 years old. He lived in a cabin on Spirit Lake, which was one of the lakes on one of the slopes of Mount St. Helens. He had been there 53 years. He believed that the mountain would never erupt and do what they were saying it might do. In fact, he said this, and I quote, he was part of that mountain and the mountain was part of him and he was never leaving. Children from classrooms around the area and schools wrote him letters to have him leave To prepare for his own safety And he did leave only to go down to the classrooms and speak to the children, but then he returned Back to his cabin He laughed at it. He cursed at it. He cursed the visitors and those who came trying to call him away from the mountain and But on May 18th, 1980, the mountain exploded and Harry Truman perished under hundreds of feet of volcanic ash. More than 10,000 local earthquakes led up to that event. Scientists to this day realize that the reason why they had a hard time pinpointing the problem that was coming was because they only had one size monitor located near the volcano, only one. Government officials had plenty of time to ensure the safety of everyone, but not everyone wanted to leave, even in spite of the signs, because one of the most predominant signs was the bulge on the north side of the mountain, which was 450 feet abnormal. It was growing five feet every day. But that again was not enough. The warnings had been issued that a cataclysmic event was about to occur and that if you stayed in your area that had told you was not a safe zone, you were going to die. Well, we know historically that the mountain did blow and that it was devastating. In fact, in that event, 25 square miles of new earth were laid down. Earth that had never been before. Valleys and gullies and rivers and rocks were placed in places they never were before. And all of it happened not over a million of years, but just in minutes. Just in minutes. Even though the warnings were given, even though people were issued the information they needed to get out of the way of danger, that death was coming and fire was coming and a volcano was about to erupt, they did not leave. That is sadly the same way it is today. Because we have been given information in the word of God, warnings are given over and over again about the advent of the return of Jesus Christ. And whenever he comes, the Bible says he's not coming as a babe in a manger, he's coming with fire. He's coming with fury and he's coming with judgment. Yet people read the word of God, do not heed what the word of God says and do not take the warning seriously. This is exactly what Peter wants us to understand. He wants us to know that the warnings that are given in the word of God should be taken seriously. In fact, he writes the second letter known as 2 Peter to us. He writes this second letter according to what it says in verse one, to stir up their minds so that they would remember the coming of Christ. And we spent some time last week going through point one and point two, at least part of point two last week. We have five points that we want to cover as we work our way through this passage this morning. The first is believers are called on to remember the second coming. Unbelievers reject it. God guarantees it. Peter describes it and your behavior is changed by it. That's the second coming of Christ. The passage says in verse one, beloved, now I write to you this second epistle or this second letter to stir up your pure minds by way of reminder that you are to be mindful. It's very repetitive, but what Peter is saying is that, as we looked at last week, is that he's calling on these believers to stir up their discerning minds about the return of Christ. There is no place within the Christian mind for laziness and slothfulness when it comes to the return of Christ, or as far as that is concerned, any other doctrine in scripture. And he calls on them to stir up their pure minds by way of reminder. Peter reminds them of that great event coming in the future of the return of Christ. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said it this way, the purest minds need stirring up at times. It would be a great pity to stir up an impure mind. That would only lead to mischief, but pure minds may be stirred up as much as you please. And the more the better. He says, we, as those who are believers should have hallowed memories in our minds, pure memories as Christians, and we need to be stirred up and awakened out of our sleep. It's sad to say folks, especially in the North American continent, the church is asleep. We are not awake. We're not looking at the surrounding signs of what's going on in our world and realizing the very clear teaching of scripture that Jesus is coming back and we could say he's coming back very soon. We have a problem with memory, don't we? We get busy. We get busy with life. We get busy with things. We get busy with family, our jobs, our career. And we forget that there's something coming in the future that is unlike anything that has ever happened in the history of the world. Something so monumental, something so cataclysmic that nothing can compare to it. J. Vernon McGee in his own particular style said it like this. He says, I have a good memory, but my problem is my forgettery. I forget a lot. The second point we looked at was the unbelievers rejected. We just got started into this, and this is all we're going to look at today, that unbelievers reject it. That should be understood as a normality, that unbelievers, those that are not Christian, forget and reject. the very teaching of the return of Christ. It says in verse three, that knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lust and saying, where is the promise of his coming? Now, there are three things that we want to note in this text about the unbelievers rejecting the promise of his coming. And we titled them in three different ways. The first would be the reason for their mockery. The second would be the reasoning for their mockery. And the third would be the rejection of their mockery. And so with that, we kind of dissect this passage and look exactly at what Peter has to say about these scoffers who come. I noticed last time in verse three, where it says that these mockers will come, a better rendering of that would be these mockers will come mocking. They come scoffing, denying, rejecting. You can even go as far as to say making fun of the return of Christ. And so in this text, it's saying that they are scoffing and mocking what verse four says. They say, where is the promise of his coming? Now you need to understand what's going on here because it has very important effects on the rest of the passage because the words that Peter uses here are very precise. In fact, the word that is translated here in verse four, coming, where they're asking the question, where is the promise of his coming? The word coming is a Greek word commonly used in the New Testament for the coming of Christ. It is the Greek word parousia. The word parousia actually is a word that means to come alongside of and to be present with. It's made up of two words that bring the meaning together to mean being beside someone. And the idea is not so much of Jesus leaving heaven, coming to earth, even though that's what he's going to do. It has more of the idea of his physical presence on the earth. In other words, he says, I want to talk to you about the physical presence of Christ. And that involves more than his physical body here. It involves everything about Jesus. Because when Jesus comes back, everything about him comes back. In other words, his full deity on display comes back. His kingdom comes back to be set up. His rulership, his lordship, all that he is shows up whenever he shows up. In fact, if you remember back in Matthew 24, verse three, whenever the disciples came to Jesus privately and they asked the question, what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? The disciples used the word parousia. And what they meant by that, when will we see your presence on the earth in the sense that your kingdom will be established? Because you have to understand Jesus was standing there with them. So they weren't asking Jesus, when are you coming from heaven to earth? You're already here. They want to know when are you going to set up the kingdom that you promised us? When is that going to happen? What is the sign of that? That's what they wanted to know. So it's not just the idea that Peter's addressing that these mockers are mocking Jesus leaving heaven and coming to earth. They're mocking much more than that. They're mocking the reality of the rulership and the kingship and the kingdom of Christ. It goes deeper than that. So I don't want you to think that the mockers here are just mocking the reality of the return of Christ. It's much more than that. It's deeper than that. It involves much more than that. In fact, the word here that we find parousia here throughout the New Testament gives us clear indication that this promise is referred to many, many times in the New Testament, because as the scoffers point out in their question, where is the promise of his parousia, his coming, his presence? Well, my goodness, the promise is everywhere. It's all throughout scripture. Just looking at the New Testament alone in 1 Thessalonians 1.10, the Bible says that we are to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who will deliver us from the wrath to come. In 1 Thessalonians 2.19, it says, for what is our hope, our joy, our crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? Then 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, where it says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then it says in 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 7 and following, that we are going to receive rest when the Lord Jesus himself is revealed from heaven with all of his mighty angels. He's coming in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and admired among those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. Then 2 Thessalonians 2, 1 and following talk about it like this. It says, now brethren concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, which I believe is a reference to the event of Jesus coming and gathering his church to himself in what we would call the rapture. Matthew 24 verse 29 and following say it like this, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from the heavens and the power of the heavens will be shaken and the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven. Then all of the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming. They'll see him coming. Matthew Henry said it like this, that the second coming is the article that defines all of our other Christian faith. Now, the reason for their mockery, as we noted last time, was that they love their sin. You see, the bottom line is simply this. The reason why people don't want to believe in God and the reason why people don't want to affirm the authority of scripture and the reason why people do not want to affirm the reality of the return of Christ and the judgment that's coming is because they love their sin. That's it. I mean, you could try to package it in philosophy and all kinds of psychobabble, if you will. And you can bring all types of supposed logical arguments and say that there's not enough evidence about the existence of God. And there's not enough evidence about the authority of scripture. And maybe we don't have enough evidence about the creation around us, they would say. But frankly, folks, there's more evidence than we can ever package together. There's more proof out there than we ever could possibly understand. So the reason is not that there's not enough proof. The reason is not that there's not enough information. The reason is as indicated in verse three, that they walk according to their own lust. People want their sin. They want what they want and they don't want God to interfere with it. The reason why that people don't do what they're supposed to do is that they have no fear of God. They have no understanding of the reality of who God and Christ is. And so they just continue on in their sin. Spurgeon talked about the scoffers. He said it like this and referring to Psalm 1, 1, where it says, blessed is the man who does not sit in the seat of the scoffers. He said this about that text. He said, the seat of the scoffer may be very lofty, but it is very near the gate of hell. He says, let us flee from it, for it shall soon be empty and destruction shall swallow up the man who sits therein. The point he's making is so clear, those who scoff and make mockery of the word of God and the claims of Christ and who God is, one day will find themselves facing the very judgment of the God they rejected. Spurgeon also rightly notes here in this text that because they want to walk according to their own lust, he says, eras of doctrine almost always are attended by errors in practice. If you don't believe in Christ and the coming of Christ, then you'll have no motivation to live right before God. Now that's the reason of the mockery. We already looked at that in greater detail last Lord's Day, but I want to move into the reasoning of their mockery. This is where we get into their own personal logic, we could put it in quotations, their reasoning as to why they want to deny the very coming of the presence of Christ on this earth. Look at verse four. It says, they say, where is the promise of his coming? Listen to what they say. For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Well, that's interesting, isn't it? They quote the fathers, or they talk about the fathers. The fathers, as far as the New Testament is concerned, nine times it refers to the fathers, and it always refers to the Old Testament fathers, which would have been the prophets and Abraham and others like him. And so they say, since they fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the very beginning. Now, this is a very, very interesting point that they bring up. And it is the point that has caused many to fall asleep in regards to the reality of God and the reality of Christ and who Jesus claims to be and his coming. They say all things continue as they were from the beginning. In other words, the way things were yesterday is the same way they are today and will be the same way tomorrow. Whatever happened in the past, the way it was in the past, it will happen the same way today and it will happen the same way tomorrow. Or another way of saying that is whatever's going on today is the way it will always be. That's called the doctrine of uniformity or uniformitarianism as some would categorize it. It was popularized in 1800 by the geologist, Sir Charles Lyell. He was one who denied the creation, the supernatural cataclysmic creation that God gave and taught that the geological strata and the geological doctrine that is out there did not teach what we call catastrophe, but rather taught uniformity. That everything's been going on the same way. It has always been going on. Wikipedia, which I don't normally quote and would not normally recommend as a source of any truth at all, but they came eerily close to a biblical understanding of this dominant belief today called uniformitarianism, or sometimes they call it gradualism. They said this, and I quote, The dominant paradigm in modern geology is uniformitarianism in which slow incremental changes such as erosion create the earth's appearance. This view holds that the present is the key to the past and that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world. That's pretty good. They nailed it. But the point I'm trying to make is the argument that is often given is, listen, Jesus did not come before. Why would he come again? There hasn't been a cataclysmic judgment event in the past. Why should there be one in the future? The present tells us what the future and the past are. According to this doctrine, the notion is reflected in the modern view of evolution. In fact, uniformitarianism, or this whole doctrine of gradualism, is really the foundation of evolutionary thought. Because it is believed that what we have today is a result of millions and millions of years of erosion and slow progress. But there's never been any cataclysmic event where all of a sudden, sudden things changed on the earth at all. They apply their reason. They apply their logic. They apply their supposed evidence to this. And they say, listen, no cataclysmic event, no judgment has occurred in the past. It will never happen in the future. It's not happening now. And so what you end up with is this whole thought that Peter introduces to us here is really a prophecy about the current day in which you and I live. They go on and say there will not be a great cataclysmic judgment event at the end of history because that is not how the universe works. There never has been such a judgment, so why should we expect one in the future? Instead, everything in the universe, they would say, is stable, closed, fixed, and governed by never-varying patterns and principles of evolution. Nothing catastrophic has ever happened in the past, so nothing catastrophic ever will happen in the future. These mockers, these supposed philosophers and scientists reject and deny the very blatant truth taught in the Word of God. Paul, in his excellent description of this in Romans chapter one, said this, that they once knew God, but they did not honor him as God, nor did they give thanks, but they became empty in their speculations and their foolish hearts were darkened. They moved away from the reality, the reality of what God says about creation and what he says about cataclysm. So we see the reason for their mockery, we see the reasoning for their mockery, but then we move a little further to their rejection in their mockery. Look at verse five, and this is where we get into the real meat of the matter, if you will. It says in verse five, 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 water. Now you need to note the first few words of verse five, for this they willfully forget or willfully ignore. The New American Standard Bible actually does not have a very good translation of that because their translation of that verse says, for when they maintain this, it escapes their notice. That's not exactly what the text is saying. There's a lot of difference between something escaping your notice and willfully ignoring it. A lot of difference. Well, when you come to the text, in fact, other translations translate that first part of verse five by saying they deliberately suppress the fact, or they willfully overlook and forget the fact. Another translation of the NIV says they deliberately forget. In other words, this is something that is information that is known, but they choose to reject it. They choose to ignore it. They don't want to look at it. The word for at the very beginning of verse five actually is the word gar in the Greek language. It doesn't mean the fish. It means the preposition. It actually has the idea of the reason or the cause for their rejection. And the reason or cause for their rejection is that they willfully forget something. They intentionally set aside something. This is also used, the idea is used at least over in Romans 1.18, where it says that men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, the truth is there, it's very obvious, but instead of believing the truth, they suppress it. That's another way of saying they ignore it. As one author said, they deliberately choose to suppress, disregard, overlook, continually, actively, volitionally, purposely suppress. That's all in the word that is given there in that text. Now that puts a bad light on a lot of scientists and those who have PhDs and believe that everything has continued as it was from the beginning. It puts people who are evolutionists and those who believe in even theistic evolution in a very bad light. To say that this, that God teaches in his word did never happen, never did happen, they willfully forget it. By the way, the word forget here, lanthano, actually means to hide it. It's translated a couple of times in the New Testament to be hidden. So there's a purpose where those who know the truth is available, instead of exposing the truth and allowing the truth to be made known, they hide the truth. They suppress the truth, they ignore the truth, they discount the truth. and they do it willfully. Notice the word here in this text again, they willfully forget it. The word willful, important little word, the word thelo, it means to desire to do so. It's a present tense verb, meaning that they continually, willfully desire to oppress the truth. Now, by the way, this is the will of intent. This is not the will of decree. There's another word in the same text later on that is the will of decree that means it's going to happen, that's the way it is. That's the Greek word boulomai. It is translated will or desire in some cases, but that is not this word. This simply means that they desire to hide the truth. They want it not to be seen. So they'll do whatever they can to make sure that the truth is never made known. So what is it exactly that they are so willing to forget? Well, there's two things they're willing to forget. The text tells us very clearly. And this is so important because this is the reason why that so many people today are in a mass delusion and are asleep about the existence of God and the coming of Christ. This is it right here. It says that they deny, first of all, the creation. They willfully reject the creation. Look at verse five. It says that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of water and in water. In other words, that is an allusion to the very clear teaching in the Old and New Testament that God created all that there is by his spoken word. He did not use processes of evolution to create everything. He spoke the worlds into existence. In fact, the old Hebrew text in the original passages in the Old Testament, the word often that is translated to speak into existence or to use his word, doesn't even refer to a spoken word, but just to a thought. He thought it and it happened. He created it. He spoke it into existence. That's exactly what the Bible teaches, doesn't it? In Jeremiah 10, it says, it is he who made the earth by his power, who established the word by his wisdom. In Isaiah 40, verse 26, lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars. The one who leads forth their host by number and calls them by name. And then you find the passages in Genesis 1, repeatedly, nine times, it says, God said, God said, and every time he says something, something happens. He speaks it and it happens. It is the raw power of God whenever he creates by his very spoken word. It says in Psalm 33, eight and nine, that all the earth fear the Lord, that all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him for he spoke and it was done. Man, that's good stuff. See, I get excited about it. Y'all just about to fall asleep. I love that. Spurgeon, man, he said this, creation is the fruit of the word of God. Creation is the very fruit of the word of God. He says, light be and light was. Which, you know, what it does, it eliminates the whole idea that all of us often have about how we make things. We get some things together and we'll make a certain project or we'll build something because we have the material already in existence. And so we put that stuff together and we come up with this beautiful thing, whatever it is. That's not what God did. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. There was no Lowe's to go to or Home Depot. There was no storehouse in the universe to go and pick up some rock and some sand and a little water and put it together. There was no storehouse anywhere where the cells were gathered together for God just to put them together in the right order. There was nothing, absolutely nothing except the Trinity and all of his glory. And then the Bible says that God spoke and he said, let there be and there was. And it is affirmed over and over and over again throughout scripture. Not only does the Old Testament affirm it, and the psalmist affirm it, and the prophets affirm it, Jesus himself affirmed the same reality. Jesus is even told in the word of God, it is spoken of him that he is the word, and that he was the instrument by which all things were created, as Colossians says. And nothing was made that was made except he made it. He created it. Creation dr. Henry Morris who has since passed away and gone on to be with the Lord Talked about the heavens that existed long ago and in this passage He says that they willfully ignore this evolutionist whether they are atheistic pantheistic deistic or theistic evolutionists willingly ignore God's testimony that the heavens and the earth did not evolve by a continual natural process but were called into existence by the gods omnipotent word fully complete fully functioning from the beginning And just a word to my theistic evolution brothers who believe that God used evolution to bring everything about. When he created Adam, he wasn't a baby. He was a full grown man. And whenever he created trees, he didn't create a little leaf on the ground with a little twig and hang around for 50 years and wait on it to grow up. He created a fully functional, complete forest with all the vegetation and the fruit and all the animals. all of man Then you hear these ridiculous army arguments out there saying well How could God create the stars and we have to wait so many years for light to show up because of the speed of light? Well, listen God has the power not only to create the light in the source of the light but to create it in its fullness and its complete spectrum so that he doesn't wait around for a million years for it to show up I Mean seriously, what a low view of God. I He even goes on in this text and says this are about this text Henry Morse does the only reason God took as long as he did That is six days to create in a seventh day to rest was because he was setting a pattern for the workweek for you and I That's what it says in Exodus 20 verse 8 and following In other words God could have said earth heaven. Boom. There it is. It's all done but he decided to take it out six days and create everything that there was and And then, of course, to rest on the seventh day. He says, the various theories of cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, planetary evolution, all are unproven and internally destructive, as are the various theories of chemical evolution, organic evolution, human evolution, and cultural evolution. There are now thousands of fully qualified scientists, some from every field of science, who have studied the scientific evidence, pro and con, and have come to the conviction that the biblical record of Earth history is precisely correct and that evolutionary theory is totally false. Totally false. Notice in the verse, it says this, something about how God created everything. It is important how this is stated and why it is stated. In verse five, it says that the earth was created standing out of water and in water. Now we don't have a lot of information about that. We have some biblical references to that, but many commentators and many scientists who are creation scientists believe that that is a reference to the way that God created the earth before the flood. When he initially created it, they believed that he created the earth with a canopy of water over the entire earth, and there was other water on the earth, and it created what we could call today, for lack of a better word, a greenhouse effect. Protected the people who are here on the earth from the ultraviolet radiation Hence, that's why you have people living up to 900 plus years They weren't affected by all of the radiation from the Sun and all the other effects that have come with a fallen earth As one author said, the earth was formed between two realms of watery mass. During the early part of creation week, God collected the upper waters into a canopy around the whole earth and the lower waters into the underground reservoirs, rivers, lakes, and seas. Henry Morris, in his great work, The Genesis Flood, goes into more detail about that. He says, regarding what it says in Genesis 1-7, that God separated the waters which were below and the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse. This could possibly have been a canopy of water vapor and acted to make the earth like a hothouse, provided uniform temperature, inhibited mass air movements, caused mist to fall, and filtered out ultraviolet rays and extended life. The waters beneath the firmament were the waters that were collected in the seas, the rivers, and the streams, and the underwater reservoirs. This is what God did initially. Now, we're taking verses that we know in scripture, and we're understanding it based upon what it says, and we're looking at what scientists would even tell us that it would be like in that event. This is the pre-flood world, because it even says in verse six that we move to the second reason, or the second objection that the mockers have. They object to creation, but they object to creation because they deny, listen to this, the universal flood. They reject it. So they reject creation, but they reject creation because they reject the flood. This is very important. Look at verse six. It says, by which the world that then existed perished being flooded by water. You see the word by there, the Greek word dia. It means that the water that God initially created was the very mechanism that he would use to destroy the world. When he first created the world, he put in place the very means by which he would flood the world. I've heard people say, well, how could God flood the entire world and bring water above the highest mountains that we have today? Well, you have to understand, verse six says, the world that then existed, the world that then existed is not the same world that we have today. It was a different place. I mean, after all, if people lived as long as they did, obviously they had something going on that was a whole lot better, don't you think? And then on top of that, we know that as a result of the flood, the cataclysmic flood that occurred, that the mountains were exalted to higher heights as they are even today. So the world that then existed, it says in this text in verse six, perished. This is the very thing that the mockers, those who deny the coming of Christ, the presence of Christ and his kingdom and his lordship want to reject. You have to understand something folks, and I'm not wanting to be bashful about saying this, But the teaching of evolution and the teaching of a denial of the universal flood has done more to damage the hearts of young people than any other thing in the history of this earth. Because those who would deny that actually hit at the very heart of the gospel. And I'll talk about that in just a few moments because I have to get there and finish up sometime in the future. This world that then existed, it says it perished, and I have to move along quickly this morning to finish up. But look at verse six again. It says that it perished. What exactly does it mean? Does it mean that God took it out of existence and then brought a new one back into existence? Well, not exactly. The Greek word translated in verse six, perished, is a word apolumai. It's a very common word. It means to destroy, but not to annihilate. In other words, it brings its intended purpose to a stopping point. It's not able to function like it used to function. So the world that then existed perished, it says. Also, the word that is translated here, perished, sometimes translated destroyed, is an aorist tense verb. That's important to note because what it's telling us is that God did this at one time in the past. It being in the indicative mood indicates that it was a definitive event. That this is not something that is ongoing now, that this is always happening now, but this is something that God did at one time in the past as a definite act. Peter is simply refuting this whole idea of uniformitarianism that these mockers and deniers bring up. They say, listen, they would say a flood, universal flood, cataclysmic flood has never happened. They would go as far as to say, we don't believe in a universal flood. And so since they don't believe in a universal cataclysmic flood, where God judged the whole world in unrighteousness because of their unrighteousness, they would say, then the God's not going to judge in the future. The whole idea is what we know today determines the future. What we know today determines the past. You know, what's interesting, the Columbia encyclopedia, which is actually a secular source has an entry for the word deluge. And it says this flood stories resemble the biblical story and they're found throughout the whole world. They're everywhere. Every people group you go to, you find that there's stories that they tell of a flood that occur. Some of them even have stories of a boat, but we know where the source comes from, right? Because we know the original source, the original source is God. And the original source is his word. And the original source is what he said in his word and what he did. It says that that world that then existed being flooded in the text, it says, katakludzo, we get the word cataclysmic from it. The word katakludzo is a very interesting little word. It means to flood to the point of overwhelmingly occupying, to inundate. to overflow, but it has more to that because when you add the little preposition in front of it, it intensifies the word it means to dash or to cause a surging wave or a violent agitation. So whenever the flood occurred, it wasn't a trickle of water out of your faucet. In other words, God, as it says in the old Testament, he broke up the fountains of the earth. And he not only broke up the fountains of the earth, but he allowed all the water in the canopy above to come down. And the reason why you have the mass destruction that occurs and that we see in the fossil record today is not because we waited around millions of years to wait for it to happen. It's because there was a uniform, a uniform cataclysmic flood that occurred that God brought about. In fact, it may be noted that this word katakludzo is only used in reference to Noah's flood in the New Testament. There is another Greek word that is used for lesser floods, but the word katakludzo is only used for Noah's flood, cataclysm, a cataclysmic event. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has an interesting note on the origin of the word cataclysm. It actually says that the original root word from which we get cataclysm came from the biblical flood. Well, yeah, I understand that. I would agree with that. Now, with that said, let me have a few words to close with. John Morris, you may have heard of him. John Morris is the son of Henry Morris, Dr. Henry Morris. John Morris continued in the ICR Institute and continues in his research and scientific work with creationism. And he said this, and I agree with him, that he is convinced that Noah's flood is the bottom line in solving the controversy surrounding evolution and creation. Because you have to understand what happens is this. The evolutionist goes out to the Grand Canyon or goes out to some area where there's fossils and he'll look in the rock and he'll say, you know what? We know that this is millions of years old because it's in this rock layer. They'll go to another portion of the same area and they'll say, well, we know that the rock is this old because it has this fossil in it. They do this circular reasoning on and on and on it goes and the reason why they do that is because they deny The cataclysmic flood that is discussed in the scripture now, please understand what's going on here This is not just a scientific issue. This is a spiritual issue and a moral issue Because we all have the same evidence, don't we? We all have the fossil record. We all have the layers of rocks. We all have the evidence of cataclysmic event that occurred throughout the world. It's all there for everyone to look at. But the evolutionist who is already predetermined in his mind that God does not exist, looks at that evidence and based upon his own foundational thought of uniformitarianism says, well, this has to be a gradual process over millions and millions of years that laid down these rock layers and these fossils and these rock layers. The creationist and the believer and the Christian looks at the same evidence and they say, guess what? That's the flood. That's clearly the flood. And the reason why the evolutionists and those who want to deny the very presence of Christ and the coming of Christ and God himself do this is because they do not want to believe in God. It goes back to the earlier reason why they want to continue on in their sin. They want life their way. They don't want this Lord living over them. Dr. Henry Morris understood the central nature of the flood to the debate. And he wrote his pivotal book in 1960 called the Genesis Flood, which if you have not read, you need to go read that book. In fact, he credits the reading of second Peter chapter three as the catalyst that started him in the whole process of studying scientifically the processes of the flood. In his book, the Genesis flood, it is believed also that this book and his thoughts in that book were really the beginning of the creation movement that we have here today. He knew that the acceptance or the rejection of the universal flood taught in the Bible was a determiner for the belief of anything else in the Bible. You know, that's one of the reasons why, you know, and I've seen this happen. I have personally been involved in meetings with pastors that had this problem. Where they would allow for evolution to have a process in creation. God does not allow that. His word does not allow that. The only reason why you would do that, and this is the only reason why you would do that, is you want to capitulate to what you believe the scientists are saying about the evidence. But whenever you look at the universal flood and what the Bible says about the flood, it is very clear, very clear that a universal flood, cataclysmic flood that occurred in Noah's day as a result of God bringing the waters from beneath and the waters from above would create exactly what you see today. You would see, as Ken Ham has said many, many times, you would see billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. That's what you would see. So whenever you look around, you look at the canyons, you look at the rock layers, and you look at the places where water has definitely run out of channel or whatever, you notice that there are billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. That's what you see. Yet those who want to deny that, deny absolutely to their own detriment and their own destruction. The reality is that the evolutionists claim the same evidence and have the same rocks and same fossils and in their own position, they end up destroying their lives, their souls, if you will, because they do not want to accept the truth of what the Bible says. Now you say, what does this have to do with the text you had read earlier? It has everything to do with it because the whole point is this, and this is my point I want to make this morning. The reason why people do not affirm who God is, who Christ is, and the reality of his coming kingdom is because they've opted to deny the clearest evidence in front of their face that God has judged. He has done it. He did it in the past and he'll do it in the future. Again, Dr. Henry Moore said, it is remarkable that evolutionism or Darwinism as it is often called, which is currently such a dominant theory of origin and the meaning of life is based on absolutely no verifiable evidence. There is simply no scientific or historical evidence that evolution has taken place. In fact, the most basic laws of science proved that genuine macro evolution could not happen at all. And as a recent discoveries of DNA has again nailed the nail in the coffin of the whole idea of macro evolution. As Peter prophesied, this belief would be based on a willful ignorance. And that is why Paul categorically stated that such suppressors of truth are without excuse. You know, there's a passage over in Romans 1, I've referred to a couple of passages in it, and there's a passage over in 2 Thessalonians. Paul refers to it twice. He says that they believe the lie. The lie. He makes it very definite. Not just any lie, but the lie. I often wonder, because especially in Romans 1, The lie is the word, the lies in the context of them denying God's existence and his display of himself through creation and following after their own gods. That probably the lie is capsulized in the form that we call modern day Darwinianism or evolution. Nothing has had more devastating effect than what is talked about constantly in the news media, in the TV, the radio, and magazines, and sadly, in many, many schools in America, that God does not exist and you are just an accident of a collision of atoms that happened with nobody involved in it. To deny the biblical flood, as indicated in this text, is not only just to deny the truth of Scripture, but it is to deny the very gospel itself. You say, how is that? Well, first of all, if you deny the biblical flood, then you deny that God is just and that he would judge sin. You deny that. You also would deny that God is faithful to keep his promise of judgment, because he promises that he will again judge just as he did in the past. And third, you promise that God has the power, excuse me, you deny that God has the power to completely judge and destroy you. This is when you deny the flood. So it's not just a minor problem. It's not just a minor issue. You not only deny that, but you deny God is gracious and had made a way to be saved. as he did with Noah and his family and offered it to those around him, that they would be saved. God promised to judge and he did judge, but he also promised to save and to deliver. And whenever you deny the universal cataclysmic global flood, you deny that God will and can be merciful to sinners. And aren't we thankful that God is and that God can be. The promise of scripture is this, that Jesus Christ is coming back. And I'll close by just reading this couple of verses, and it's found in verse eight and following. Look at the same text, 2 Peter 3, and verse eight. It says, but beloved, it says, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. And the Lord, listen to this, is not slack concerning his promise. What's his promise? What the earlier promise was that the mockers were denying, which is the promise of his coming. And the promise of his coming is he's coming in judgment. That's the point of the text. So whenever he comes back, he's coming back to judge just as he did in Noah's day. He'll do so in the future, just because you might be slack and you might not keep your word and you might not be faithful. God's not like that. And just because it's taken over 2000 years to us to get to this point, doesn't mean that it's a long time for God. If you've been around for all eternity, what is 2,000 years but two minutes to God? So just because it's been a while don't forget God's coming Christ is coming. He's going to fulfill his promise Let's pray together today