This sermon focuses on the concept of the last days and the end of the world as we know it, emphasizing the signs and scoffers that will arise. It delves into the idea of a new world where God's kingdom will reign, contrasting the current state of moral depravity and rebellion against God. The speaker encourages readiness for the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of God's kingdom on earth.

Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Let's pray. Father we are so thankful that as we come here this morning and we can acknowledge Lord your greatness. You have made us, not we ourselves. We are the sheep of your pasture. Lord as we enter into your presence today for this time of worship, conscious of your presence with us. Lord we recognize that we are always in your presence but coming for this specific purpose of praising you and giving thanks for your mercy and your goodness. Bless we pray now the study of your word. Open our hearts Lord that you might speak to us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Well we finish 2nd Peter tonight. Last week we took about to chapter 2 verse 9 and we'll finish tonight which means we start with 1st John next Sunday. So we encourage you to read over chapters 2 and 3. Join with us tonight as we deal with these interesting subjects. The end of the world and the great events that will be taking place according to the prophecies here in chapter 3. So encourage you to be with us this evening. This morning we'd like to draw your attention to the third verse of chapter 3 where Peter tells us knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers who are walking after their own lust. When we talk about the last days, when we talk about the end of the world what are we referring to? It is the last days of an era that is about to pass away. Before the flood of Noah the people were living in the last days of that pre-deluge era. As Noah was building that big ark out there in the desert he was called a preacher of righteousness and I'm certain that he was the laughing stock of his day. A hundred years preparing that big boat and the whole while warning the people that God's judgment was going to come. They were in the last days. I imagine they had camel caravans going out with tours of people to see this big boat and this old eccentric man out there building this ship and saying that there's going to be a flood and the earth is going to be destroyed. And no doubt he was the butt of many jokes as and just the making people making fun of him for this declaration that God was going to bring his judgment that they were living in the last days and that God was going to destroy the world with a flood. Even so, Peter tells us that in the last days there will be those scoffers who will come and they will say where is the promise of his coming? Since our fathers have fallen asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning. Nothing has changed. That is known as the doctrine of uniformitarianism and it is the basis for the evolutionary theory. Nothing has really changed. All that has ever happened can be observed happening in our world today and it is a slow evolving process from the simple into the complex. It's interesting, our human bodies, just one aspect of the human body. The hemoglobin, that iron-containing compound in your red blood cells that carries oxygen from your lungs to every tissue in your body. Each hemoglobin is composed of four protein chains, two alpha and two beta. Each alpha chain in turn has a hundred and forty one amino acid units joined together like Legos and each beta chain has a hundred and forty six of these amino acid sites. There are 20 possible amino acids that could occupy each site. So how is it that in these four chains with the possibility of 287 times 20 or actually 287th power, 20 to the 287th power, could they come together by chance to form the hemoglobin to carry the oxygen to the cells of your body? 220, rather 20 to the hundred, 220th power or it would be 10 to the 373rd power. A number that is so vast that there's nothing in the universe that we can even liken it to. They estimate that in the entire universe, all of the galaxies of the entire universe, is made up of only 10 to the 80th power atoms. Now we know how small an atom is. And 10 to the 80th power atoms is all that it would take to make the entire universe. Can you imagine then the number of 10 to 373rd power? It just defies our imagination. Simply too many odds to come to the combinations by rolling dice. It's impossible for that to just happen to be. And it's dishonest for a scientist who knows better to suggest that it all happened by random chance. When they teach evolution as a science, this is what they are postulating. It just so happened that all of these factors came together to form the hemoglobin to make life possible so that every cell of your body can be nourished with the oxygen from your lungs. When we say that we are close to the end of the world, we mean the end of the world as we presently know it. The world in which we are living is governed and controlled by Satan. You remember when Satan was tempting Jesus, he took him to a high mountain and he showed him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Then he said to Jesus, all of these I will give to you and the glory of them if you will just bow down and worship me for they are mine. I can give them to whomever I wish. Jesus did not challenge that statement of Satan. He didn't say, oh you're crazy, they're not yours. In fact, he recognized that Satan was in this particular instance telling the truth. That he had control over the world that was forfeited to him by Adam. In fact, Jesus had come to redeem the world that it might come under the control of God once again. In Revelation chapter 5, we read how that in heaven when Jesus takes the scroll out of the right hand of the Father who sits upon the throne. How that this scroll, the title deed to the earth, as he takes it in preparation to redeem the world back to God. As we are there in heaven and we watch this event take place, we will be singing worthy is the Lamb to take this title deed and to loose or break the seals of it. For he has redeemed us unto our God out of every nation, tongue, tribe, people. And he has made us unto our God kings and priests. And we will reign with him on the earth. In the 10th chapter of the book of Revelation, Jesus comes. The scroll is now open and he sets one foot upon the sea and one upon the earth. And they declared there will be no longer delay. In chapter 11, at the opening of the seventh seal, they declared the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. So when we say the end of the world, we're saying the end of this world, this era, where we're not saying that you know the whole thing is going to be obliterated, but there's going to be some radical changes. Satan is no longer going to rule through man over the earth. And I think that history pretty much proves that it is impossible for man to reign over fellow man in any form of government without it deteriorating and man's greed and avarice ultimately just destroys any form of government that has ever been devised. I think that democracy perhaps is one of the final forms of government that we have attempted and democracy works until people understand that they have the power to vote themselves a free ride. And the moment people realize, well I can vote men who will provide me with my food stamps, they will provide me with my health care, they will provide me with my housing and all, once they discover that they can vote those benefits for themselves, you soon have the breakdown and you know you have more people living off of the government than you have supporting the government and ultimately it collapses. And it looks like we are moving in that direction very rapidly right now, away from a true democratic society as we have noticed here in the state of California and we are moving really to a bankrupt government. They no longer can afford it and this business of the redistribution of the wealth, well what does it do? It destroys incentive. Why should I work when I can have all of the benefits without working? And so people begin to discover that and the whole system begins to fail as the government can no longer afford to pay all of the bills because they don't have enough people making enough money to support the taxes and so forth necessary for these socialized forms of government. So we're coming to the end. We've tried just about every form of government and they all show that ultimately greed and selfishness and all take over and the government fails. So we're talking about the end of the world as we know it, but not the end of the world period. There's coming a new world and this world that is filled with moral depravity, with suffering and pain, this world that is in rebellion against God is about over and there's going to be the beginning of a new world where the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard and the lion will lie down together and the calf and the young lion together. A little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will feed together and the lion will eat straw like an ox. A world where there will be no war, no crime, no fighting, no strife, where there shall be peace like a river. A world that will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. What we're told about these last day scoffers when you talk about this new world and they scoff and say, oh no, all things continue as they were from the beginning. It's just going to go on. Peter said these men who are scoffing at this idea of the last days of this present world, that they walk after their own lust. They are self-centered egoists. Paul describes themselves then in Romans chapter 1 as professing themselves to be wise, they've actually become fools because they worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forevermore. They ascribe man's existence to the evolutionary processes of random chance rather than acknowledging the intricate design that demands the existence of an eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient God. Again, as Paul says in Romans 1, that because they did not want to retain God in their minds, God gave them over to reprobate minds. That caused them to commit the most vile, unnatural sins you can imagine. No longer did they reflect the image of God in which God created man, but they are living now as beasts. Peter tells us that they are willfully ignorant of the flood in Noah's day that destroyed the pre-deluge civilization. They don't want to believe that God will judge the sin of the world, that he will judge the world that now is for the same reasons that he destroyed the world of Noah's day. In Noah's day we read that you know people were doing everything that their evil minds could imagine, that there was exceeding wickedness throughout the whole world, and God destroyed that world that was then. And he has reserved this present world until that day when he will again judge it, not with a flood, but with a fiery destruction. When the Bible speaks of the last days, it tells you some of the things that will transpire in the last days. In Ezekiel chapter 37, God tells us that in the last days that he would take the children of Israel from among the heathen, where they had been dispersed. He would gather them on every side and bring them into their own land and make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king will be king to them all, and they shall no longer be two nations, but one nation, and neither will they be divided into two kingdoms again. When this happens, and of course it did happen in March 14, 1948, when this happens Ezekiel 38 tells us that Russia will join with Iran and Libya and Turkey and invade this newly developed land of Israel to forcibly drive Israel out of the land. Speaking of this invasion in Ezekiel 38, it tells us that God will speak to the invading army saying, after many days you will be visited in the last days you will come into the land that has been brought back from the sword that is gathered out of many people against the mountains of Israel which have been lying waste, but it has been brought forth out of many nations. And you shall come against my people of Israel as a cloud to cover the land. It shall be in the last days, and I will bring you against my land that the heathen may know me when I shall be sanctified in thee, O God, before their eyes. Paul tells us in 1st Timothy 4.1, now the Spirit speaks expressly that in the last days some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their consciences seared with a hot iron. In his second letter to Timothy he wrote, know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. They will be truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And having a form of godliness, yet they will deny the power thereof, and Paul warns, from such turn away. Jude wrote, but beloved, remember the words that were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you that there would be mockers in the last days who would walk after their own ungodly lust. Therefore, we can look for the world to mock and to scoff at the idea that we're living in the last days, and surely they do. They make fun of you if you say, well I believe that the end is near. I believe that we're living in the last days. They'll say, oh, come on, you don't really believe that, do you? And they scoff at the idea. But their scoffing is only a proof that that's where we are, because they will be scoffers who will say, where is the promise of his coming? Since our fathers have fallen asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning. So the next time you express to a friend your view about the coming again of our Lord, and they scoff and say, you know, you're a fool to believe that. It's just a good sign to you that we are there in the last days, the end of the world as we know it, but yet the beginning of the new world. It's interesting to me how that's so often when you speak of the last days and the coming again of Jesus Christ, that there are those that say, oh, there he goes, doom and gloom, prophet, you know. No, you get enough of that just watching the news. And when I talk about the last days, I don't talk about it with a long face and a dour look and say, friends, we're in the last days, you know. But I say, hey, we're in the last days. It's almost over. You know, Satan has run his course, and the Lord is coming, and we're going to enter into the glorious kingdom age, and there will be no more wars, and no more striving, and no more pain, and no more suffering, and we're going to have just a glorious time in the kingdom of God, and we'll see how God intended man to live when he created us, you know. And it's going to be an exciting thing, and whenever I talk about it, I never talk about it in a terms of sour, you know, doom and gloom. But man, this is exciting, the days that we're living in now, because these are the last days of this era. It's coming quickly to a close, and our Lord is going to come and establish God's kingdom here on earth. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Father, we thank you for the wonderful, glorious hope that we have of the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is coming to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth, and the pain and the suffering will all be over, and we will see, Lord, the new earth that you planned from the beginning. Man living in harmony with each other and with you as you planned from the beginning. Lord, we see this earth today, and we see the violence as the days of Noah. We see everyone just doing that which is right in their own eyes, turning away from you, living for pleasure and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Lord, we see what it has brought our world to. We see the threats of mass destruction, and Lord, we thank you that there is a hope, a living hope, for we who believe in Jesus Christ. And so, Father, we pray today for those that are here, recognizing that these are the last days. We pray, Father, that we might live in such a way that when you come, we will be ready to enter into that new era that you have designed and purposed for your people. Thank you, Lord, for the hope in a rather dismal world, the hope we have for the future. It's almost over. These are the last days, and you're coming again soon. And for that, we rejoice. Amen. Shall we stand? The pastors are down here at the front to minister to you. For the Lord, when He comes, it says it's going to be like a thief in the night. It's going to be without warning. It's going to be in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It won't be that you hear the trump of God, and then you say, oh, God, you know, have mercy, forgive me, quick. It'll be over before that, and you have an opportunity to even, you know, cry out. So, I would encourage you, ask yourself right now. You know, He could come this afternoon. Ask yourself, if He did, would I be ready? Would I be among those that would be a part of His kingdom, or would I be left out? The pastors are down here to help you, to be prepared. As the prophet Amos said, prepare to meet thy God. There is preparation that is necessary, and the question is, have you made that preparation? These men are here to help you, to pray with you, and to explain to you preparation that is necessary to be a part of God's glorious eternal kingdom that He will establish here on the earth. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.