The One who made Heaven and Earth and all of us who dwell here didn't plan on it being permanent. It will all be destroyed, with only a few survivors. Who survives? Those who love God.
3. Isaiah 64:1-9
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would
tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your
name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the
mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God
besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy
rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.
4. Isaiah 45:5-10
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the
clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it.
“Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are
nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the
ground.
Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’
Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?
Woe to the one who says to a father, ‘What have you
begotten?’
or to a mother, ‘What have you brought to birth?’
6. Isaiah 24
See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it;
he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants—
it will be the same for priest as for people, for the master as for his servant, for the
mistress as for her servant, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as
for creditor.
The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered.
The Lord has spoken this word.
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish
with the earth.
The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.
So will it be on the earth and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
Terror and pit and snare await you, people of the earth.
Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake.
The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is violently shaken.
The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls—never to rise again.
8. Is rescue from our own sins possible?
Yes, thanks to the sacrificial death of God’s Son,
Jesus Christ, on the cross.
Jesus died for all.
Does that mean Judgment Day has been cancelled?
Do we no longer have any obligations before God?
Or, just one obligation, according to denomination:
baptism, sinner’s prayer, altar call, . . . .?
9. II Peter 3:4-15
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors 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 came into being 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 the ungodly.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends:
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord
is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient
with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. 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.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You
ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its
coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements
will melt in the heat.
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth,
where righteousness dwells.
10. Romans 9:19-26
One of you will say to me:
“Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”
But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?
“Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery
for special purposes and some for common use?
What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore
with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?
What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy,
whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from
the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’
who is not my loved one,”
and,
“In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will
be called ‘children of the living God.’”
11. Could it be that God still wants us to love Him for life?