Promises, Promises

"And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.  And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.  And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.  And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."  --Genesis 9:11-16

            Tom and the children saw this beautiful reminder of God's promise over our house the other evening as they were returning from a long bike ride.  Because of the inerrancy of Scripture, we can know that God will never again flood the entire earth in judgment as He did in the time of Noah.  No matter how many ice caps melt or what have you, it won't happen.  But fire?  Well that's another story because God has also promised to destroy this fallen earth and create a new one in the end.  Peter described it like this: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.  Since all these things are to be destroyed this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be destroyed, and the elements will melt with intense heat!  But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3:10-13)
             If you've ever heard the phrase, "It's all gonna burn", I imagine this is where it comes from.  And this news ought to change the way we live.  All the things we work hard for and strive for on this earth and in this life are temporary and in the end will be destroyed.  In the meantime there is work to be done for God's kingdom and if we profess Christ we should be about our Father's business.  For the one who is born again and trusting in Christ this is great news--we look forward to this day!  But for the one who doesn't know what all the fuss over sin is about and is trusting in their own "good" works to justify them before a perfect and holy God--this is a frightening scene. "It is appointed unto men once to die but after this the judgment," says Hebrews 9:27, so every man must be prepared for that day.   God has promised salvation and deliverance from his own wrath to those who in humility, call on His name for mercy and He has also promised judgment and condemnation to all lawbreakers.  A holy God must punish sin.
           But what exactly qualifies as sin?  "Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law," says 1 John 3:4.  Sin is transgression of God's moral law, i.e. the Ten Commandments.  This includes idolatry (anything that takes the place that God should have in your life), blasphemy (using God's name lightly, i.e. OMG! or as a curse word), dishonoring your parents, stealing, lying, adultery (including lustful thoughts which is adultery of the heart -Matthew 5:28), murder (including hatred which is murder of the heart--Matthew 5:21-22), lying and coveting.  This is why the Gospel really is good news!  When we look at God's moral law we can see that we are all guilty before God and cannot escape His coming judgment.  We cannot be perfect as God requires.  But God in his great compassion sent His perfect Son Jesus to die in our place, for our transgressions.  The just for the unjust.  Now our sins can be justly forgiven and Christ's righteousness can be imputed to us so that we can be seen as righteous on the day of judgment and receive eternal life.  Repentance (away from sin) toward God and faith toward Jesus (as the One who fulfilled the Law for us and died in our place) is how His righteousness gets applied to our account (Acts 20:21, Acts 11:18, Acts 26:20, Romans 2:4, 2 Timothy 2:25).  God supernaturally gives us a new heart with new desires so that we begin to love righteousness and hate sin, just as He does--we become new creatures at heart (2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:15).  We will never be perfect this side of heaven but we will no longer be what we were.  Then the promise of a new earth "in which righteousness dwells" is truly something to look forward to!