Why The Creation Matters: Day 5

First of all you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come…They will say, “Where is this coming He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

 2 Peter 3:3-6

So here we are. If we believe the Bible’s view of things, we realize that what is above us, around us and inside us isn’t nature or the result of evolutionary forces. It is the purposeful work and reflection of a supernatural Creator. We also understand from Scripture that this Creator is no remote, impersonal force but is involved in His creation: He brought it into being at a fixed point, He is moving His creation forward by a pre-determined plan to a known end.

In Scripture we also learn something else. A Creator has the right to judge His creation. This is not a scary concept: It is as simple as the housewife who bakes a cake, watches it fall as it cools, decides that frosting can’t salvage it and decides to throw it into the garbage and start over. 2 Peter 3 tells us that God did the same thing with wicked world. But this is not a comfortable concept in some circles, so it is better to believe that “Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on since the beginning of creation.”

“Not so fast,” Peter says. “The water out of which the Creation came was the same property that God chose for judgment.” The idea of a world-wide flood capable of destroying everything on the planet is a really big one and the stuff of fairy-tales, some would say. However, if you believe it happened as the Bible says, then you are left with an uncomfortable conclusion. The God who could do that is even bigger than that flood and He means what He says about righteousness and obedience to His revealed laws.

Peter hasn’t finished. He tells us that kind of judgment was not a one-time event. There is another judgment waiting—this one of fire, not water—for those whose lives are spent worshipping the creation instead of the Creator, who ridicule  righteousness, who spurn the offer of “a new hope into a living faith” in Jesus Christ, and who scoff at the notion of a coming judgment by the Creator who made it all.

Nancy Shirah