PENnED

Read 2 Peter 3:10-13

A Discover Magazine article has a list of  “20 Ways the World Could End.” The Bible has only one. And it declares it in a matter-of-fact way: “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (v. 10).

Now that’s pretty scary. Is it going to happen in 2012? Despite NASA’s assurance that “Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012,” a vast number of people are getting ready for doomsday.

“Worried Americans are rushing to buy everything from £17 survival guides to £32,000-per-person places in bunkers that are marketed as being both nuclear bomb and asteroid-proof,” Tom Leonard (www.dailymail.co.uk) reports.

“But it’s not just America. Mayan apocalypse converts have started flocking to Bugarach, a tiny hilltop town in the foothills of the Pyrenees.” And Leonard adds, “The 200-strong local community has had to contend with 20,000 visitors since the start of last year, and the French government is worried about the threat of mass suicides.”

Since the end is associated with “the day of the Lord” which “will come like a thief,” who knows when the world will end? And because the Bible declares a total devastation by fire (“everything will be destroyed”), who will be spared?

“But”–here’s good news–“in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (v. 13). Those who believe and made righteous through faith in Christ (Romans 5:19), will find their resurrected selves in “a new heaven and a new earth.”

For those who believe in Christ the end will be a new beginning.