¹⁰But 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.

The universe as we know it will end in an apocalyptic firestorm. Our imagination limits us, but the Bible’s description consistently paints the most intense imagery possible to the human mind. It will be sudden and all-consuming. The delay in its arrival will be instantly forgotten. The Old Testament prophets (e.g., Isaiah 24:19­­–20, Micah 1:4) predicted it, Jesus reiterated it (e.g., Matt. 24:35), and of course, the book of the Revelation described it (e.g., Rev. 15:15). The end of creation as we know it is a significant theme of the Bible! And Peter invokes this in his confrontation with false teaching that there will be no final judgment. At this juncture in human experience, the world has survived many cataclysmic events and recovered from all of them. The warning of a final event has so far gone unfilled. So we must be reminded.

Many science fiction movies have been produced to capitalize on people’s lust for watching the horrific. But the biblical apocalypse will come, as Peter reminds us, “like a thief”—totally unexpected. Believers will not be surprised (because of the many biblical warnings), but the shock for unbelievers will be all-consuming. The apostle Paul also echoed this:

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. (1 Thess. 5:2–3)

Second, Peter describes the end times as the destruction of interstellar space (from our perspective, he calls this “the heavens”) as well as this planet we call Earth. Some have likened this to a nuclear explosion that will melt anything and everything in its way. Multiply that exponentially to include the entire universe with billions of stars, and there is no way to describe it adequately. Scientists speak of a “big bang” as the beginning of the universe, an explosion of what they call the singularity where all existing matter expanded from an almost infinitely dense point into what is our universe with its enormity of celestial bodies. The Bible describes God creating the world in six days, but the force and power would have been just as enormous as scientists describe as the big bang. Peter’s point is that the end of the universe will come with a big bang. We should consider this reality soberly.

Lord, I am ready for when You come in judgment. Help my unbelief.