Jesus 2nd Coming

Matthew 16:27-28

Matthew 16:27-28, For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. ²⁸ Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

The chapter division is wrongly done according to me. Beginning in Matthew 16:27-17:13 is one unit. This is one of the great moments in all the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the life of His apostles, and in our lives.

Matthew 16 is a marvellous chapter. It contains some monumental realities. It’s startling how many great truths are clearly put in focus in this chapter. ✓ Jesus has them affirm that He is the Messiah. ✓ You are the Son of the living God.

✓ I will build My Church. ✓ The plan is on schedule. ✓ The gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

✓ Jesus speaks of the power of His kingdom. ✓ Jesus will die and rise again the third day. ✓ He has revealed to them His death and His resurrection. All of this in the brief space of the second half of chapter 16. This is the first clear revelation, in the life of our Lord, of His second coming.

This is a great truth for them to hear. ✓ He is Messiah. ✓ He is God in human flesh. ✓ He will build His kingdom. ✓ Nothing can stop it. ✓ He will die. ✓ He will rise again to prove that even death can’t stop it. ✓ He will return in full blazing glory.

Now, this then constitutes the great Gospel message which becomes His theme as He instructs the disciples in the days and weeks and months until His death. Even though they heard the lessons, the fullness of all of it never really dawned on them until after it had happened. They began to look back, and it had meaning that it never had when first they heard it.

It was not a new message that Jesus would come in glory. The prophets were filled with that message. ➢ Isaiah talked about it. ➢ The psalmist talked about it. ➢ David talked about it. ➢ Davidic covenant promised that there would come a King with an everlasting, glorious kingdom.

Jesus is merely affirming to them the glory that the prophet said would come to pass through the Messiah. It wasn’t according to their messianic expectation. Our Lord here adds this most significant dimension, that the last view the world has of Jesus Christ will not be as a crucified criminal. He will come again in full glory.

The first time He came in rejection, hostility, and death. The second time He comes in glory, majesty, dominion, power and might, and is worshipped as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The disciples really need to know this fact.

So, verse 27 is so important to them. V 27 needs to be seen from two vantage points.

➢ A promise character. ➢ A warning character.

• It is a promise to those who believe.
• It is a warning to those who don’t believe.

For those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, the thought of His coming is a promise that fills us with great hope and anticipation. Like John said in Revelation 22:20, He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Revelation 6:10, And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Like David, who in the imprecatory psalms cries out to God.

Psalms 94:3, Lord, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph?

When are you going to come and take your glory and bring equity and justice to the world? There is a great, anticipated promise in the coming of Jesus Christ that fills our hearts with hope.

It was needed on that day when Jesus spoke to His disciples. V 24, Jesus said these are the conditions of discipleship. If you would follow Jesus Christ Denying yourself, bearing your cross, and following in obedience. Sacrifice. Self-denial.

You say no to ease and comfort, and you say yes to a cross.

• The cross of rejection,
• The cross of persecution,
• The cross of alienation from the people of the world, and maybe
• The cross of martyrdom.

But you carry it willingly. Loyal obedience at any price. Those are the conditions. It is all sacrificial. It is all saying no to the things that allure in the world. It is all saying no to ease, comfort, money, and pleasure.

Saying yes to pain, struggle, persecution, and warfare.

When they realize that He was the Messiah, and then He said, “I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades won’t prevail against it, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom.” They must have started saying that it is going to happen. He is going to take His kingdom.

Then Jesus says, “I have to go to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed.” Jesus says to them, “Not only do I have to be killed, but I want you all to take a cross. I want you all to deny yourself. I want you all to follow me no matter what the price. Instead of gaining the whole world, I want you to say no to all of that and follow Me.”

Little heavy.

• They see a lot of the pain,
• They see a lot of the suffering,
• They see a lot of cross.

The Lord knows that. Then our Lord says that the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels. That hasn’t changed. The plan is on schedule.

Romans 8:18, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. A warning character. V 25-26, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. ²⁶ For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

What about you people who do not belong to Jesus Christ? Jesus is coming also in glory. He is going to come and act on your behalf just as much as on the behalf of His own. V 27, “He will render to every man according to His works.”

Everyone. Christian is one who love His appearing.

2 Timothy 4:8, Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. A non-Christian eagerly denies His appearing.

2 Peter 3:3-4, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” Because it’s always associated with judgment.

Revelation 10:10, Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. ➢ The sweetness is the promised character for the believers. ➢ The bitterness is the warning character for the unbelievers. Paul looked at the coming of Christ in the same way. On the one hand, it was great joy, and he longed for Jesus to come. On the other hand, it makes people to reconcile to God.

2 Corinthians 5:11, Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.

• Because Jesus is coming, it is joy to our hearts.
• But at the same time, it is sadness to the same hearts.

➢ We rejoice in what shall be ours and His! ➢ We are pained over what shall not be the lot of those who know Him not. But He will come.

• For some, a life of self-denial, cross bearing, loyal obedience, and a life of sacrifice. All will be repaid with eternal rest, and eternal riches.
• For some, a life of self-centeredness, and self- indulgence will end. All will be replaced by an eternity of torment, unrest, poverty, and loneliness.

The believers raptured, immediately taken to the judgment seat of Christ to receive their reward for the things done that were worthwhile, God produced. The unbelievers gathered finally at the great white throne from out of the sea, and out of the land, and brought before God as the final Judge, and then sent into the second death, the everlasting hell forever.

All those elements of judgment that encompassed that are sort of carried on the back of this verse. It is a general perspective. Jesus is coming.

1. Identity Reveals Judgment. V 27, “For the Son of Man shall come.” Why does Jesus call Himself the Son of Man? Identification point that He uses more commonly than any other by far. He most often refers to Himself as this, and it first marks His humanness.

It speaks of Him as the incarnate God. He is identified with men, one of them. But in this context, it gets a richer, fuller, and marvellous meaning. Daniel is looking across the history of the world. He is seeing the final wrap-up on human history. He sees all the way to the final judgment.

Daniel 7:9, “I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; Judgment taking place.

The thrones are set, and the Ancient of Days, God Himself sits in judgment.

✓ His garment white as snow speaks of His purity, ✓ His utter and absolute holiness, ✓ His hair like pure wool of His wisdom. ✓ His throne like fiery flame. ✓ His majesty and His authority are like wheels and burning fire.

✓ It is a throne on fire is what it is, with whirling flames at the foot of that throne in consuming judgment, purging judgment.

Daniel 7:10, A fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened.

God keeps books. The final accounting will be based on objective data. God has kept the records. God can look at the books in judgment.

Daniel 7:11-12, the destruction of the satanic world leader, the beast, the Antichrist, and the end time is destroyed and devastated.

Daniel 7:13-14, “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. ¹⁴ Then to Him was given dominion and glory

and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed. There we have the Son of Man coming in glory to receive the kingdom from the Father and to act, in harmony with the Father in judgment.

Matthew 16:27, when we see the Son of Man coming in the glory of His Father with his angels to render to every man according to is works, you have another prophesy, like that of Daniel, which sees Jesus as the Son of Man, coming as man to judge men on behalf of the eternal God. So, this is Jesus in judgment, Jesus in glory, Jesus coming to take His kingdom. ➢ Those who belong to Him go into the kingdom. ➢ Those who don’t are thrown out of the kingdom forever. Matthew ²⁵ describes this clearly. V 27, He will come in the glory of His Father. Now, glory basically must be understood in Scripture.

Glory is another way to express the attributes, the nature, the character of God. He will come in the full blazing reality and manifestation of the eternal God. When Jesus came into the world, His deity was veiled. He was among men, but they didn’t know who He was.

➢ They didn’t receive Him. ➢ They saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. ➢ They didn’t really see the glory. It was so veiled in His humanness. But there will come a time when He returns, and the veil will be pulled back, and He will come in the glory of His unveiled Father.

Now, that means in a full display of divine attributes. Moses asking for God’s glory.

Exodus 33:18-19, And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.” ¹⁹ Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Moses says, “Let me see Your glory.”

God says, “I will show you My attributes.” Therefore, glory equals attributes.

The glory is the blazing, radiant manifestation of all that God in His infinite holiness is. It’s the full Shekinah.

Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. In the revelation, John sees the heavens rolling up like a scroll, like when you pull down the blind, and it slips, and it just goes up and rattles around like this. The whole heaven goes black and just rolls up, and all you have is that infinite black space. All the lights are out, and God is getting ready for a show like the world has never seen.

Matthew 24:30-31, Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. V ²⁷ is talking about. He comes in the full glory of the Father with His angels thousands upon thousands, as Daniel ⁷ said.

He comes in the blazing, unveiled glory of God into a black sky, lighting the whole universe with His blazing glory so that men scream and cry to hide from that light. The Bible says that when He touches the earth, His glory will fill the earth. He will establish His kingdom, and then shall we dwell with Him in glory.

But those who refuse the lovely Saviour are cast out of His presence forever. 2. Reward to your works. V 27, “render to every man according to his works.” To render to every man according to his works. It is final accounting.

It is judgment day.

What basis will the judgment be made? Based on works. That’s right. Works. People have a lot of trouble with this statement.

Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Do you mean God’s going to judge me based on my works? That is right! 1 Corinthians 3 says He is going to judge them on their works. 2 Corinthians 5 is going to judge men on their works. It talks about it in Galatians 6, Revelation 2, Revelation 20, Revelation 22.

It is not anything new. It is all over the Bible.

Romans 14:12, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Romans 2:5-6, But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: Now, it’s not so hard to understand what it’s saying.

It is saying whether you know Jesus Christ or not must be evidenced by your works.

➢ They are not how you are saved. ➢ They are the objective verification that you are saved.

James 2:17-18, Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Works are not how you are saved!

But they are the evidence that you are. God, in that final judgment day, uses the objective criteria to verify, “This is indeed a redeemed person. Here is the evidence,” This is indeed an unredeemed person and here is the evidence.

Among those who do not know Jesus Christ, who have never taken Him as Saviour, there can be no fruit born, no good works, no righteous deeds because God isn’t there to produce them. Among those who are saved, God is there.

The Holy Spirit dwelling in the soul of the individual Christian, and there will be the product that proves the transaction really occurred. It’s objective criteria. They are the absolute, objective, evidential indicator of salvation. This message is all over the Scripture.

Romans 2:7, eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality; For those people who pursue righteous things and who seek the heavenly glory, and the heavenly honour, and the heavenly immortality, I will give them eternal life. Now, we know that nobody’s going to seek that kind of thing unless God’s regenerated His heart.

Romans 3:10-11, As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; ¹¹ There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. So, if a person is pursuing righteousness and pursuing well doing and seeking glory, honour, and immortality in God’s kingdom, it is evident that Christ has changed His heart. That person receives eternal life.

Romans 2:8-11, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, ⁹ tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; ¹⁰ but glory, honour, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹¹ For there is no partiality with God.

God isn’t putting you in heaven and you in hell just whimsically. God is not saying, “I like you better than others.” He is simply saying that if there is proof in your life that you have come to Jesus Christ, you belong in My kingdom. Works are the objective criteria.

So, you show me a person who says there is a Christian, but there is nothing to show that it’s true, and without objective criteria, they have no assurance that they will ever enter into God’s kingdom no matter what they may think.

So, this is then a promise. Matthew 16. A promise for those who love Christ. I look at my life as a Christian, and I say, “I fail a lot.”

So do you. Isn’t that true?

Sometimes all we can ever see is that. We trying to find the stuff that’s good. If you find something you think you did good, you have just corrupted it because you thought it was good, and now you have messed up your motives. Now you have injected pride into what originally was a humble act.

We all struggle with that same kind of thing, but basically, it’s hopeful for me to know that because I have given my heart to Jesus Christ, He is producing through me works worthy of God’s reward. Someday, when I stand there, the record is going to show that there is, on behalf of the life of Abraham, evidence that God changed my heart.

On the other hand, it is a warning that no matter how good you may think you are, your goodness is only on a human level. You are not having goodness produced by God unless God lives in you. You are going to stand there that day to say, “Well, I did this, and I did that.” God is going to say, “I don’t know you.” That’s just human goodness, not the goodness produced b God.

For the unbeliever

It will be a day of such fear it’s hard to describe. I think the best description given is given by the apostle Paul.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; ⁶ since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, ⁷ and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, ⁸ 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. ⁹ These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, ¹⁰ when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

They are both intertwined in the passage. Rest you saints, your glory is coming. Beware you unbelievers, vengeance is coming. V 27, “The Son of Man is coming in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and He will render to every man according to His works.”

It is sweet and bitter. For all men, there will be an accounting day. There will be a day of reckoning and the suffering, self-denying, cross-bearing, loyally obedient Christians, even though they fail.

We will have on the record the evidence that the life of God was in their soul by faith in Jesus Christ. Their struggling life will be balanced with eternal bliss. The selfish, sinful, Christ-rejecting, indulgent people will face the fact that the accounting shows and the books indicate nothing ever produced by the power of God occurred in their life. On that basis, they will be given everlasting punishment.

Just to say this to the disciples, it seems inadequate in our Lord’s mind, and I understand that. Nothing spectacular is going on. It is just another day, and the whole plan doesn’t seem to be working out, and they didn’t think it was working out very well.

Now Jesus said to them that He is going to die. He said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” Then He said, “You better be willing to die for Me and bear a cross.” All they could see was all those hundreds of peoples, that they had seen before, walking with a crossbeam to a cross, going to their own execution. The whole thing is really a little difficult.

They are in a very real situation where they don’t have any

resources

➢ The kingdom doesn’t seem to be coming. ➢ The people don’t accept Him as Messiah. ➢ The Jews hate Him and want Him dead. ➢ Now He is talking about dying and them dying. This is not what they signed up when they followed Him.

They were thinking that can I sit on your right and left hand in the kingdom. Jesus tells them but the glory will come! That’s so far away. It is so remote. A nice thought, but they were overwhelmed by the reality of what is.

Even we are also that way. We get literally drowned in what is. We have this tiny thought, “the second coming. Yeah, it’s going to come, and we are going to go and I know that.” But we lose the purifying hope that that reality is supposed to create, because we don’t really live in the vividness of that.

So, the Lord doesn’t just say to them, “That’s the way it’s going to be.” He illustrates it to them in an absolutely dramatic and unforgettable, life-changing way.

He goes one step further because He know they are a tough case. Their faith is week. The subtitle of that group was the Oh Ye of Little Faith Association. 3. Preview of His Glory. V 28, Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

That is amazing. Most did taste death before they saw Him, just some wouldn’t. Most would die before they saw Him, but some wouldn’t. V 28, best could be translated this way: “Some of you standing here shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His royal majesty.”

The term basileia used 150 plus times in the New Testament, to render it not only as the kingdom itself, but the kingliness of the King in regal splendour, royal majesty. In fact, you might put that there in your text, because that’s the best way to see this, “There are some of you standing here who will not die until you see the Son of Man coming in His royal majesty, His regal splendour.”

What does that mean? Some commentators suggested it means the resurrection, that He came out of the grave in royal splendour. Some suggest it means the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, that the Spirit of God came in the majesty and so forth, and all that happened in the birth of the Church.

Others say that it was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., when He came down in judgment against the apostate Israel and, using the royal army, wiped them out. Some have even suggested that it refers to a spiritual coming when Christ comes and enters into your heart.

All those are wrong. All those things happened, but they don’t have anything to do with this verse. It can’t be the resurrection, because the resurrection is never expressed by the verb “coming,” it’s the first step in Him going back to heaven.

It can’t be Pentecost because He didn’t come.

Who did? The Holy Spirit.

It can’t be the destruction of Jerusalem, because it says some of you will see the Son of Man, and nobody saw Him there. It is just mystical to make it some spiritual coming. If you want to know what it means, you just must keep reading.

Unfortunately, they stuck a chapter deal in here, and then a bunch of other headings and a few other verses you could look up, when you ought to have these things flow together. “Some of you standing will not see death,” appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

All three cases where it appears, it is immediately followed, every single time, by the same incident so that what the Lord is simply doing is interpreting what He just said by what happens. Do you know what they were about to get?

A personal, private preview of second coming glory. It’s exactly what they were going to get.

Matthew 17:1, Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; Just those three are the “some” who didn’t die till they saw Him in regal splendour. The rest died, before they saw Him in regal splendour, because they haven’t seen Him coming in regal splendour.

Jesus hasn’t come in regal splendour yet. But these three weren’t going to die until they saw this. It only came six days later brought them into a high mountain privately.

Matthew 17:2, and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.

Do you know what happened? God flipped the switch and turned-on deity on the inside. The blazing light came from the inside out.

Matthew 17:3-6, And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. ⁴ Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵ While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” ⁶ And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.

The disciples, according to Luke, were already terrorized, and this didn’t help.

Matthew 17:7-8, But Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” ⁸ When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

What an experience? They went on this little retreat into the mountain privately with the Lord. Luke says they were sleeping. They often did that. Jesus was praying, and they were sleeping. Same thing. In the middle of this prayer of Jesus, and just as they were coming out of their sleep, He pulls the veil back and says, “I just want you to know that when I said I was coming in glory, I meant it.

Jesus pulls the veil of His flesh back, and He shines like the sun at midday. They are terrified. Then comes the voice of God, and Moses and Elijah, and it’s overwhelming. It is a preview of the second coming. Every single, minute thing that happened depicts an element of the second coming. An incredible event.

Conclusion

It changed Peter’s life. It became the theme of His message. 1 Peter or 2 Peter, basically the theme is the second coming. “Don’t worry about your pain and suffering. He is coming.” The one thing Peter knew Jesus would do was return. And the resurrection just verified it. He is sort of waned a little bit when Jesus died, but he was strengthened by the resurrection.

This became His great anticipation. He was literally consumed with the coming of Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:16, For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Peter says that when we go around preaching that Jesus is coming in power and glory, this isn’t some human fable. We didn’t make this up. We were eyewitnesses of His royal majesty.

We were eyewitnesses of His regal splendour.

When was that?

2 Peter 1:17-18, For He received from God the Father honour and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well

pleased.” ¹⁸ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. Peter never forgot that. I mean he was a basket case when that voice came out of that cloud. That was just an ordinary mount, but after that night, it was a holy mount.

Peter says, “When I preach the second coming, I am not just talking about something I hope happens. I got a glimpse of glory. I got a preview of the second coming. Firsthand, private preview.

John 1:14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

They saw the partially unveiled glory of God and the transfiguration did Peter and John, and they wrote about it. James didn’t write about it because James didn’t write anything, but I bet he talked a lot about it. The Lord is so gracious.

He didn’t just stay, “I am going to come.” He said, “I am going to come and now, I want to show you.”

Moses says, “Lord, You say You are going to direct me. You say you are going to do this. Show me Your glory.” God says, “All right, Moses, I will show you, My glory.” God takes Moses, in Exodus 33, tucks him in a rock, let’s a little of His back parts glory go by, and he gets it all over his face, and then Moses knows, “God’s going to go with me. See His glory.”

Here the same kind of situation existing again. The disciples are awaiting to hear, and He says, “I am going to come in glory.” Jesus takes them in the mountain and shows them His glory. It isn’t just for their behalf. It’s for your behalf as well.

So that this isn’t pie in the sky. This is confirmed by Peter. This is confirmed by John.

2 Peter 3:3-7, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For this they wilfully forget: that by the word of

God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 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.

Peter says, Have you forgotten the flood? Just as God destroyed the world by water one time, He is going to destroy it in the fiery, furious judgment when Jesus comes.

2 Peter 3:11, Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, That’s the message. Jesus is coming. He previewed it for us.

We are going to see every detail of that preview next Sunday. But He is coming. You are going to be judged by your works. I mean the record is going to show it. You can’t hide it. There is no escape. For those of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a sweetness about His coming; it is a promise filled with hope.

For those who do not know Jesus Christ, it is a warning filled with terror.