Fifteen years ago, a boy found a pile of stones at a Jewish archaeological dig. These were no ordinary stones. They were carefully cut and shaped into a nearly spherical form. They were not works of art. They were ancient weapons. These grapefruit-sized stones were used by the Roman legions around 70 AD, about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. They were found in the Old City of David, and launched by catapults, these stones would pack a lethal punch. Seeing these stones, which were considered a national treasure by the Israeli authorities, this boy could not resist. And so he took one with him, and he kept it, not just for a day or two, or a week or two, but for 15 years. During that time, he grew up, he married, had a family, and still he had this ancient catapult stone in his possession. And then one day he decided he absolutely had to return it to the Israeli authorities. He arranged to have it returned anonymously, but he did give the reason. for the return after all these years. He said this, The time has come to clear my conscience. It feels that the end of the world is near. This unknown man is not alone. The coronavirus has people asking, Is this the end? Is this the end of the world? Is this Judgment Day? Where can we go for the answers? Well, the Bible is the only book in all the world that gives us reliable information about the future. The Bible has the marks of authenticity from cover to cover, and it proves itself to be the book that we can trust. concerning reliable information about the future. The Word of God draws back the curtain on future events, and it reveals the things that are to come. Does the coronavirus mean that this is the end? Has Judgment Day arrived? The Word of God speaks about the end in several ways. The Bible tells us about the end using one name. The Bible calls the end the last days. And the last days are the time that we are in today. The words of Winston Churchill could well describe the last days. He said this at one point during the dark times of the Second World War. He said this. This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning. And so today is not the end. Today is not Judgment Day, but we are in the last days. We are at the end of the beginning, and we are in the days before the time of the end. The next phase in God's program for future events is the day of the Lord. So after the last days, you have the day of the Lord. Bible students refer to this time as the end times, the end times, or the eschatological future, if you will. And the day of the Lord has a definite event that marks the beginning of that time period. That event is the rapture of the church. And that event has not taken place as yet. The church is still in the world. So the day of the Lord has not come. We are in, again, the last days, the period before the day of the Lord. And then the event that marks the close of the day of the Lord is literally the end. And so we have the last days, we have the day of the Lord, and then we have the end. And the end really is the end. It is the end, the dissolution of the present heavens and earth. The universe will, as the Bible says, be burned up. It will disappear, go out of existence. And that is the end. With that are the final judgments. Those will take place at the end as well. However, the end, is not the end forever. In fact, after the end is a new beginning. Just as in the days of Noah, you had the worldwide flood, a catastrophic judgment on the entire world and the world and the people in it perished by that flood. And yet after that there was a new beginning. And today we are the descendants of Noah. The entire human family descends from Adam and then through Noah to where we are today. And so you had a judgment that was an ending and then a new beginning. In the same way, the end that is in the future, the end of the present heavens and earth, will also lead to a new beginning. And in this new beginning, there will be a new perfect heavens and earth. This new and perfect universe will replace the old. Sin, sorrow, and suffering will be no more. It will be a wonderful, wonderful world in which to live. Well, today we are in the last days. What will this time be like? Well, if you have a Bible, turn with me to 2 Peter chapter 3. And in chapter 3, verses 3 through 9, we have several vital facts about the days in which we live, the days that are not the end times, but the last days. But what do we find out about the last days? Before we go to 2 Peter, I want to look at a couple other places in the New Testament that speak to us about the last days. And the first place we're going to turn is 2 Timothy chapter 3. And what we find in 2 Timothy 3, starting at verse 1, is that the last days will be difficult times. The last days will not be easy times in which to live. And we would agree that the last days, the times in which we're living today, are not always easy. They can be very, very difficult times. Here's what the Bible says. In 2 Timothy 3, realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. Now that little phrase, difficult times, can be understood to mean savage times. Savage times. And so in the last days, savage times will come. not just difficult, but truly savage times. And in fact, the last days will be marked by a general breakdown in society. It's described this way. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And so the time of the last days will be marked by the breakdown of relationships in the human family. It'll be a time of unrestrained materialism and greed. It'll be a time of the breakdown of the family, the home, and much more. And these are difficult times. The last days are literally savage times. Difficult times. As we see these trends increasing around us, it is easy to become fearful and discouraged. It's easy to ask ourselves, what is this world coming to? Is there any hope? But again, these trends also tell us what time it is on God's prophetic calendar. It's not the end. It's not the beginning of the end. But we are in the last days. We are in the days that mark the end of the beginning. Jesus is coming again. Keep looking up. Number two, we find out that the last days will be unstable times. The last days will be unstable times. Now in these last days, the time before the end, our world will become increasingly unstable. And as we think about these events again, it reminds us where we are on God's prophetic time clock. And I'm turning now to Matthew chapter 24, starting at verse 3. And this is a portion of what we know as the Olivet Discourse. This is the message that the Lord Jesus gave to his disciples in answer to a question that they asked. And he outlines the time of the end. He outlines the time that we describe as the tribulation period. And this passage divides into two halves. The first part of the tribulation, the birth pangs, and then the second part, which is the great tribulation. And as we look at what the Lord Jesus has to say in the passage we have before us, he concentrates on the first part of the tribulation and the signs and events that are taking place that are predicted for that time will certainly take place during the years of the tribulation. But in fact, they are also taking place today. Today we have a preview, if you will, of prophetic events. Someone has said that prophetic events cast their shadow beforehand. And so we're seeing really kind of a foreshadowing of events that will take place during the time of the tribulation. So, at Matthew 24 verse 3 we read this, As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no one misleads you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And in various places there will be famines and earthquakes, but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. And the events that Jesus is describing here are events that will take place before the end, and in the days of the end they will intensify. Spiritual counterfeits, wars, international conflicts, disasters, All of these are important signs of our times, and the Lord Jesus predicted that they would come. And certainly these can be discouraging things to think about or to witness. But remember, these signs and these events are important time markers, and they tell us exactly where we are on God's prophetic timeline, that we are living in the last days, the days before the time of the end. So as we see our world becoming more and more unstable, remember, these events tell us that we are not at the end, but we are in the last days, and we should keep looking up. Jesus is coming again. And then also, number three, The last days will be deceptive times. Deceptive times. Now in recent times people have been very concerned about something called fake news. And there's been some concern as to where we can find the truth about things. And the last days will be deceptive times. It will be a time where the world will be filled with deceivers and deceptions. spiritual counterfeits who will seem to be the genuine article. They will look and sound and preach and teach like Bible-believing Christians. But in fact, they are cleverly designed spiritual counterfeits. And these trends remind us that we're living in the last days. John said this in 1 John 2, verse 18. Children, it is the last hour. And so he uses a slightly different description for the last days. He says we are in the last hour. And it has been the last hour for nearly 2,000 years since John wrote these words. Children, we are in the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have appeared. And from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us. they were not really from us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out, so that it would be shown that they are all not of us. The last days are a time when some will leave the church and turn from the truth to teaching error, teaching a false gospel that will not save. And when we see this happening, it is a reminder that these are the last days. So don't be discouraged, don't despair as you see perhaps a growing number of teachers claiming to be Christians, but as you listen and function as a Berean, opening the Scriptures to see if what they are saying is true, and you find out, wow, this is really not consistent with the Word of God. What they're saying sounds biblical, but in fact it does not agree with Scripture. Don't be discouraged, but be reminded that this is a sign that we are truly in the last days, the days before Jesus' return, the days before the time of the end. And so in these deceptive times, we can be confident. There will be deceivers and deceptions, spiritual counterfeits all around us, but we don't have to be worried that we would be deceived by them. In fact, God has given us a built-in truth detector, if you will. That truth detector is the Holy Spirit who lives inside every born-again believer. John says this in 1 John 2, but you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know. And that anointing is the Holy Spirit. He is our teacher. He is the one who shows us what the truth is. He's the one who sheds light on the scriptures and enables us to understand the truth and to expose error. And so be encouraged, be confident as we live in the deceptive times of these last days. Remember that God has given us His Holy Spirit to enable us to understand the truth and to detect error when we find it. And then also the last days will be skeptical times. they will be skeptical times. And in the days before the end, not everyone will be looking to the Bible for answers. In fact, there will be skeptics, and they will be busy as well. They will say, how can you believe that the end is coming? The world has always been here. It has never changed, and it never will. And the skeptic makes bold statements. However, he also rejects the wisdom of God and the word of God. Now turn with me to our passage for today, 2 Peter chapter 3, starting at verse 3. Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. And so the skeptic rejects the wisdom of God. He exchanges the wisdom of God for the wisdom of man. It says here that mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts. They don't seek the wisdom of God. They don't want to know what God knows, what God has to say. They're interested in what they think. They're interested in what they want. And that dictates their thinking. and their teaching, and the things that they are saying to people. He prefers to follow his own godless ideas, and he rejects the wisdom of God. The skeptic also rejects not just the wisdom of God, but the word of God. And again, the skeptic says that God has made promises about the future, promises about the end, promises about final judgments. But in fact, he's broken his promise and he is a God who we cannot believe. He's made these promises long ago. They never came true and they never will. God has lied to us. That's the message of the skeptic. Take a look at verse 4. They're saying, where is the promise of his coming? Now the skeptic tries to undermine the faith of believers. They're not just thinking to themselves about their unbelief and the things that they say, but they're saying them out loud. They're saying them continually. And they're challenging the faith of believers, saying, how can you believe these promises that Jesus is coming again? How can you believe these prophetic predictions of the end of the world, of the new heavens and the new earth, of the judgments that are to come? How can you believe it? These promises, predictions were made so long ago, they've never taken place. Certainly God has lied to us. And so they're working to undermine the faith of believers. They're talking continually about this. And not only that, The skeptic rejects the word of God and the many Bible prophecies that tell us Jesus is coming again. The first recorded prediction we have goes back to nearly the dawn of time, to the days of Enoch. And Enoch lived just seven generations from Adam. very near the beginning of creation, very near the beginning of history. And God gave Enoch, in fact, a prophecy, a prediction that is found near the end of the Bible. He lived near the beginning of the Bible. He's mentioned in the book of Genesis. But his prophecy is recorded near the end, in the next to the last book of the Bible, the book of Jude. And we read there in verse 14, Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. And so Enoch, just seven generations after Adam, makes a prophetic prediction of the return of the Lord as judge, to judge sin and to judge sinners. That prediction has been given nearly 60 centuries ago, and it still has not been fulfilled. The skeptic says, you know, after nearly 6,000 years, I think we can forget this. It looks like it's not something that God really meant. And perhaps he has lied to us. And that is what the skeptic has to say. Well, this prediction was the first of many that God has sent over many, many, many years through many different messengers, many different prophets. And they all predict the return of the Lord, the coming judgments, a new heavens, a new earth, all these things. They have not yet been fulfilled, and the skeptic does not believe these promises. Instead, he laughs. Take a look again at verse 3. Mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? They laugh at these prophetic predictions of judgments that are to come. The skeptic does not believe these things. He laughs. And the skeptic says judgment day will never come. The skeptic says judgment day will never come. Again, verse 4. It says, ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. And so the skeptic says, the world has always existed, and it always will. There's not going to be an end of the world, and there's not going to be a judgment day. The world will just continue to turn. The sun will continue to come up. The seasons will come and go, and everything will be the same. But when they do this, Again, Peter points out, when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by his word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. And so the skeptic makes bold claims. He says, there's not going to be an end of the world. There's not going to be a judgment day. And in doing this, he overlooks two vital pieces of evidence. This evidence tells us that the world has had a definite beginning, and it will also have a very definite end. When we hear the skeptic laugh at the Bible promises of Jesus' return, the judgments to come, and the new heavens, the new earth, the end of this world, again, it can be discouraging, but in fact, it should be a reminder that today we are living in the last days. This is not the end. We're not at the end of the world just yet, but we're living in the days that are before the end. And in number five, the last days will be times of evidence, times of evidence. In these last days before the time of the end, we are surrounded by undeniable evidence that tells everyone who is willing to listen that the end indeed is coming. Now again, the skeptic says God has broken His promise. In verse 4 we read that they say, Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. And the skeptic says, These predictions of a coming judgment were made so long ago they will never be fulfilled. The world has always existed, it always will, and God will never intervene. And the skeptic deliberately overlooks evidence that says, yes, the end is coming. Verse 5, it says, when they maintain this. Now, different Bible versions render these words in different ways. I'm reading from the New American Standard. It is a difficult passage to really translate. But the NIV, the King James, do an excellent job. And here's what they say. The NIV correctly renders these words, but they deliberately forget that long ago, by God's word, the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. The skeptic sees the evidence of creation. The skeptic sees around him, as we have all around us, the evidence that our world is a created world. That as the Bible says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The skeptic has all this information, but he deliberately forgets it. He deliberately ignores it and rejects it. Very interesting. This is one of the effects of sin. In Romans 1 verse 18, we read the same thing in a little different way. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. What this means is that everyone has access to the truth, that there is a God, that man has sinned, that God has provided salvation, and that through Jesus Christ we can be born again. Everyone has access to the truth. They have the testimony of creation, they have the testimony of the conscience, and they have the testimony of the word of God so widely available in our word today. But Romans tells us that because of sin, the fallen man is one who is willing to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Someone described it this way, he takes the truth, he puts it in a box, He puts a lid on the box and he sits on the lid. And so there is no shortage of truth in our world today. But there are people who are unwilling to believe the truth, unwilling to agree that the truth is true, but rather they put the truth in a box. They put the lid on the box and sit on the lid. They reject the truth. They deliberately forget what God has said. And so the skeptic rejects two critical lines of evidence and together these lines of evidence Tell us that what the Bible says is true the end really is coming now the evidence of creation tells us that the earth, this world has not always existed. But in fact, it had a beginning point, a definite point in time, if you will, when this world came into existence at the beginning of time. Now the skeptic says this, but the Bible says this again, that they deliberately forget that By the word of God, the heavens existed long ago. So God is the one who created the heavens, the earth, and every living thing. All of it had a definite beginning, and God created it. The Bible opens with these words, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And you know, the Bible everywhere assumes that our world had a definite starting point, creation. Every genre of biblical literature tells us this. The history, the historical books of the Bible, the wisdom books, the prophetic books, the gospels, epistles, even the book of Revelation together say to us that this world, the heavens and the earth, had a definite beginning and had a beginning at creation. God created it all and the evidence is overwhelming. We see it in scripture, but we see it in the evidence of the material world around us. Now, antique collectors have a clever way of identifying genuine antiques. In fact, sometimes a person will accidentally buy a fake antique, something that was made recently and then made to look old. But a good antique collector, a good antique buyer, has ways of really telling whether This is a real antique. And one of the things they look for are tool marks. Marks made by tools that are not used today, but were used 200 years ago, 300 years ago. And a clever antique collector can find these tool marks and say, you know, this bears the evidence that it was made a long time ago. This is a genuine antique. And our universe, our heavens and our earth have tool marks, if you will, left behind by our God, the creator of all of it. He has left abundant evidence in our creation all around us to show us that this could not have happened by chance. But in fact, it is the work of a God who created all things. Now take, for example, our planet Earth. And just thinking on the mega scale, our universe, our solar system, our planet. Planet Earth is unique among all the planets. It has been called correctly the Goldilocks planet. And you remember the story of Goldilocks when she would sit on a chair in the house of the three bears, I guess it was. She would sit on one and say, oh, too hard. The next one, too soft. The next one, just right. And then she came to the bowls of porridge. One was too hot, one was too cold, and one was just right. Well, in the same way, planet Earth is the Goldilocks planet. It is just right. It is perfect in many, many ways. The perfect place for human life. There's no place like it in all the universe as far as we know. We've never discovered anything even close to planet Earth. For example, Liquid water is only found on Earth. Life is impossible without liquid water and we have an abundance of liquid water. Our oceans, our lakes, our rivers and streams filled with liquid water necessary for life. More millions of gallons of water are stored in the clouds ready to fall as rain. Liquid water all around us unique to planet Earth. Liquid water. And then our atmosphere is not chlorine gas, it's not sulfuric acid, it's not another substance that would kill you in one breath, but it is oxygen. In fact, mixed with nitrogen, the perfect blend, the perfect atmosphere for life here on Earth. Every form that uses the atmosphere breathes oxygen necessary for life. And also we have plants that replenish oxygen. They take the carbon dioxide that we produce as we EXPLODE And they take that carbon dioxide, and they convert it back into oxygen. And then also, we have the location of planet Earth. And again, the location of planet Earth is the perfect location. Not too far away from the sun, not too close, but just right. It is the Goldilocks planet. If we were farther from the sun, what would happen? The Earth and everything in it would freeze. If we were too close, the earth and everything in it would heat up to the point where life would be impossible, would burn up. Imagine that. And then the mass of our planet. Why is our planet not bigger? Why isn't it smaller? Why isn't it heavier? Why isn't it lighter? Because the mass of our planet is perfect. It's just right to give us a gravitational field that is strong enough to hold our all-important atmosphere in place. If gravity were too weak, our atmosphere could float away. If it was too strong, we'd be like some of the other planets where the gravity is so strong that a 100-pound person would weigh 900 pounds and would be crushed under the force of that gravity. A perfect gravitational field. Again, the planet that is just right. The Bible talks about evidence we have of our expanding universe. In Psalm 104, it tells us that God is continually stretching out heaven like a tent curtain. And scientists generally agree that our universe is expanding. And we see in the pages of the Bible that our God is stretching out the universe as someone who is setting up a tent and stretching out those tent materials to expand and expand. God is doing that. Now the Big Bang Theory is a popular explanation people use for the origin of the universe. But in fact, it does not explain the evidence. Now, the Big Bang Theory relies, and this is one of the reasons it's appealing, is that it posits a beginning to the universe. And in the beginning, according to the Big Bang Theory, there was a massive explosion. And this explosion flung everything that exists out from a central point. Now, when you have an explosion, everything tends to travel out in all directions in a uniform pattern. Take, for example, if you had a handful of flour and you threw it in the air, that small handful of flour would become a cloud of flour with evenly dispersed particles of flour. Don't try this at home, kids. Your mom would not like it. But what you see is you have this cloud of flour, and the flour is evenly dispersed. The problem with our universe is the materials in it are not evenly dispersed. Our universe is lumpy, if you will. And there are these clusters of thousands and millions of stars. We call them galaxies. We can see them from where we are here on Earth. You can see them with the naked eye. And these galaxies are made up of Multitudes of multitudes of stars and they're bunched together in these massive galaxies And then there are huge empty spaces in space as well The Big Bang can't explain this and of course it can't because the Big Bang never happened The Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and so simply looking at the stars the starry heavens we see the handiwork of God that God made it all and then we go from the mega scale to the micro scale and Think of the cell, the basic building block of life. Think about what is in a cell. In the days of Darwin, no one knew, but today we have unlocked the interior of the cell. And the interior of a single cell is a world all its own. Inside the cell are countless parts, countless chemical substances. All of these must be present, must be in working condition, and must work together perfectly in harmony in order for life to exist. Now DNA is the blueprint for life, and DNA, just the DNA that would fill the head of a single pin, contains enough information to fill 500 stacks of books, and each stack could reach from Earth to the moon. Imagine that. 500 stacks of books reaching from earth to the moon. Just amazing. The amount of information in a single head of a pen filled with DNA. DNA is the blueprint of life. Some years ago I purchased my first thumb drive. It cost a lot of money and it didn't store very much. Nowadays of course there are much bigger thumb drives and much less money. But the human cell is a marvel of information storage on a micro, micro scale. A single cell contains enough information to fill all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Not once, but three or four times. Just think about that. Inside the cell are all kinds of mechanisms and systems and one scientist has used the phrase irreducible complexity. That is all the parts in the cell have to be there at the same time in working condition for life to take place. There's no opportunity for a cell to exist with some of the parts while it evolves the rest of them. All of them have to be there, and all of them have to be there at the same time. Think about it this way. Someone has illustrated it this way. Think about a mousetrap. Now, a mousetrap has very few parts, but you have to have all of them. You have to have the hammer. That's the part that traps the mouse. You have to have the spring. The spring is the part that moves the hammer. You also have to have the locking lever that holds the hammer in place until the mouse steps on the trigger. And then finally, you have to have the base. You have to have all these parts. If one is missing, you have something, but you don't have a mousetrap. Years ago, I had a friend who was an engineer, and he worked for a company that made mousetraps. And I asked him, I said, so have you invented the better mousetrap? And they never did. They found more efficient ways to make a mousetrap, new materials that could be used, ways to do it less expensively, but they haven't found a better mousetrap. They can't eliminate any parts. You have to have all of them. And that's irreducible complexity. I noticed that on a car I had, a Volkswagen Bug. I was traveling one time in a place where I needed to park the car and lock it, but I couldn't lock the car. It was an older car and it wouldn't lock. I thought, what can I do to protect my car from being stolen? And I thought, I think I know. And so I went back to the engine room, I opened the hood. On a Volkswagen Bug, the engine is not in the front, it's in the back. I lifted the hood, I looked, and there it was. The distributor cap. I removed the distributor cap, and there it was. The rotor. A tiny, tiny little part. I pulled it out, put it in my pocket, put the distributor cap back in its place. The Volkswagen Bug was 99.99% there. But one piece was missing, and that car would never start without the rotor. That's irreducible complexity. You see, a single cell has countless, countless parts, and all of them have to be there. Why are they all there? Not because it happened by chance, but because God, the designer and the creator, put them all there in the beginning. And then also, we have another evidence of creation, really carved in stone all around us in the fossil record. Now, people talk about the missing link, and the missing link is still missing. In fact, there's not one missing link, there are thousands of missing links. And the missing link is what scientists refer to as a transitional form. something that would bridge the gap between ape and man or one species and another. And as you look through the fossil records you see changes within one species. Birds change into different types of birds, dogs likewise, cattle likewise, but you don't see a bird changing into a cat or a cat Changing into a kangaroo you never see that you don't see a half man half ape We've never found that the missing links are still missing And this is a real problem for those who say all this happened as a result of time and chance Darwin himself knew this and he was honest about it. He said why are there no intermediate links and again modern scientists are saying the same thing people agree that The missing link is still missing. How do we explain that? Well, there never was a missing link. God created everything after its kind. Individual species. Again, evidence for creation and a creator all around us. The evidence is overwhelming. The prophets are right. The world will have an end because it had a definite beginning. God created all. The evidence of creation says you can believe the Bible. The world had a beginning. It will also have an end. Today is not the end. Today we're living in the last days, the days before the end. And so the skeptic completely ignores the evidence of creation. He also ignores a second line of evidence, and that is the evidence for the flood. The fact that God judged and destroyed the entire world, with the exception of a single family, the family of Noah, in that flood, the fact that God judged the world in the past tells us He will do it again. It is proof that He will do it yet again in the future. Now, in the days of Noah, God judged the world with a flood in the past, and He will judge the world with fire in the future. Take a look at verse 6. through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. And again, we have the evidence of this historic judgment literally carved in stone all around us. There's fossils. Millions of fossils can be found all over the world. These petrified skeletons, trees, seashells, other things are preserved everywhere around the world. And these fossils tell us that these animals died and were buried instantly, before they could decompose. And they went through a process of petrification. where they went from being living bone, living shells, living tissue, to becoming stone. The minerals replaced the cells that were there. I personally have seen myself in the Badlands of South Dakota, I have seen seashells in a place that's out in the middle of the Midwestern Prairie. How did that happen? There was a time when it was underwater. We've seen up in the Coast Range in Oregon the same way. We've seen seashells in the hillside. How did that happen? Well, there was a time when that hillside was underwater. The universal flood, the flood of Noah. A trip to the Grand Canyon gives us amazing evidence that the world was once covered with water. You know, a trip down to the canyon, to the bottom of the canyon, I've done that. you get a ringside seat to the many layers that cover the top portion of our Earth's surface. And what you find is there are many layers, and the transition between these layers is paper-thin. Now we're told that these layers formed over thousands and millions of years, but there's no evidence of that. A layer is laid down, and immediately another layer appears above it. There's no evidence of erosion, no evidence of time passing, It really appears that these layers were deposited very quickly, one after the other, with no time for anything to happen in between. The only way this could happen is through a massive flood depositing sediment. And these layers can be seen around the world. Layers that appear in the Grand Canyon can be found in the Midwest, they can be found in North Africa, and also in the Middle East. Also around the world we see layers of stone. Stone that is bent into amazing horseshoe shapes. A stone doesn't bend. Stone is hard, it is brittle, and one thing it doesn't do is it does not bend. But this is stone that is bent in a horseshoe shape. How did it happen? Well, it was deposited as mud, as sediment. in the flood of Noah, and it bent as the terrain changed shape, and then it hardened into stone." Again, evidence of a worldwide flood. Amazing. The evidence of the flood is impossible to ignore, and the reality of the worldwide flood in the past tells us that there will be a worldwide judgment in the future. but not by water, it will be by fire. And in these last days God has given us his word to say to all that the end is coming. Today is not the end, today we are living in the last days. Today is the day to be saved. With God's word, he's given us the amazing testimony of fossils and rock layers besides, left beside by the great flood of judgment so many centuries ago. So God has given us his word, and then he's given us the concrete evidence of creation, evidence of creation, evidence of the flood to tell us that, yes, what the Bible says is true, and we have this confirming evidence all around us to tell us. These last days are days of evidence, and today is the time to heed the message and to be saved. And finally, number six, the last days are the time to be saved. The last days are the time to be saved. Now the thief who returned that archaeological treasure to the Israeli authorities really believed that this is the end of the world. He wanted to be sure that he met the end without any criminal record, and that's a very good idea. However, there's an even more important preparation that every person should make in these days, the last days, and that is to be saved. Today is the day to be saved. These last days are the best opportunity we will have, anyone will have, to be saved. Look at verse 7. By his word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. There is an end that is coming. There is a judgment that is coming. The end of the heavens and the earth is coming, it is on the calendar, and the heavens and earth as we see them will be destroyed by fire, and judgments will come as well. But it says this, Do not let this fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but He is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And so as we think about the scale in which God operates, we can look at the universe and realize that he operates on a mega scale, beyond our comprehension. He is stretching out the universe even today, making it bigger and bigger all the time, and it's enormous. We can't even Fathom how large it might be. God works on a mega-scale. He works on a micro-scale, the size of the single cell, the size of the molecule, an atom. And he also works in history. And in God's mind, a thousand years is the same as a day. A day is the same as a thousand years. Nearly 6,000 years have passed since Enoch made his prediction, and the promise of judgment still has not been fulfilled. Why is that? Well, the reason is that God is patient. Now, the last days, the time that we're in, began when Jesus Christ was born. They've continued for nearly 2,000 years. Why has God waited for so long to bring about the time of the end? God is patient. He wants everyone to be saved. Every day that the end is delayed, from our perspective, is another day of God's patience, and another day to be saved. Verse 9 says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. God wants everyone to be saved, and every day that the judgment appears to be delayed is a new opportunity to proclaim the gospel, a new opportunity to hear the gospel, to believe it, to repent, and to be saved and receive the gift of eternal life. As a volunteer fire service chaplain, I was called out more than once to a scene where someone had lost his life. It took place at a time, in a place, in a way the person never anticipated. And his life ended. And it's just a stirring reminder once again that today is the day of salvation and tomorrow might be too late. Nearly 60 centuries have passed since the first prediction of the return of the Lord Jesus. Has God forgotten? Has He broken His promise? Not at all. Today we are living in the last days. It is not the end, but these days are the days before the end. These are the days of God's patience, and today is the day to be saved. Today people are asking, have we come to the end of the world? Does the coronavirus mean this is the end? Only the Word of God can draw back the curtain on the things that are to come. Again, 2 Peter 3, verses 3-9 have shown us that this is not the end. But in fact, we're living in the last days. These are the days before the end. What are these days? Second Peter has told us, Peter's told us that they are difficult days and we're seeing a deterioration in society and the culture. This is to be expected in these last days. They're unstable days. We're hearing of wars and rumors of wars, of all kinds of earthquakes and other problems. Again, a reminder that we are in the last days. It's not the end, it's not the beginning of the end, but we are at the end of the beginning. We're in the last days. And also, these are skeptical days. Yes, even with all the things going on, not everyone is looking to the Bible for answers. There are people who are saying, you can't believe the Bible. These predictions were made so long ago. They've never been fulfilled. They're never going to be fulfilled. Everything's going to stay just as it was. But in fact, the skeptic overlooks the testimony of the Word of God, the evidence of creation, the evidence for the flood. All these things together say, yes, Our earth, our heavens, our universe had a definite beginning and will have a definite ending in that final judgment that is to come. And then also these are skeptical, not just skeptical days, but convincing days. That is, in our time, God has given us an abundance of evidence with his word to say, yes, the Bible is true and you can see it all around you. Evidence for the flood, evidence for creation again saying, yes, the predictions of the prophets are true and now is the time to be saved. But above all, These days, these last days, which have gone on for nearly 20 centuries, are the days of God's patience. You wonder, why doesn't God intervene? Because God is patient. He is a God of grace, a God of love, a God who wants all to be saved. He is a holy God and just God who will judge sin. But today, He is giving the free offer of salvation. It is my prayer that if you're listening today and don't know for sure that heaven is your home that you would claim Jesus' promise as he said to us in his word that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, that it unveils for us the things that are to come. And Father, as we are living today in the last days, we know that this is not the end or the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning. We're living in the time before the end. We're living in a time where there are skeptics, times that are difficult, but times where you have provided abundant evidence to show to everyone that your word is true and that you are a patient God who is willing to forgive. And Father, we pray for those who do not yet know you that today would be the day that they would hear the gospel and be saved. And we pray also that we would be faithful messengers in bringing that message to people who need to hear. In Jesus name, Amen.