²⁷ This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Temporary and unsteady world is what we live in. The physical universe is shaky and tottering. Physicists tell us everything is moving to complete disarray, but it takes no advance degree to recognize the truth of this by simple observations. A brand new car, in a relatively few short years reduces to rust, a house once brand new, eventually needs new roof shingles and a coat of paint. Our bodies once virile soon creak with age and health problems.

Earthquakes shake the earth continuously as the great tectonic plates migrate against and away from each other. The whole earth trembles, with continuous volcanic events reminding us that the globe on which we live is anything but in a steady state. Inter-stellar space gives evidence of novas and super-novas, stars burning out in flames of nuclear explosions followed by mind-boggling implosions.

Is it not true that much of life is spent dealing with difficulties? Just when we think there is peace, things arise that cause disturbances. We live in a fallen universe and the whole world groans (Rom 8:22). “For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven…” (2 Cor 5:2). Yet, in the midst of all this, we Christians have a hope based on that which is beyond the useless theories of evolution and material philosophy. Our anchor (see Heb 6:19) lies beyond this universe of time, space and material things.

Implied in our verse today is a future event to exceed anything geology or cosmology has yet seen, the removal of the present created universe and the ushering in of a new one. What secularists chalk up to black-holes or alternate landscapes of reality, the Scripture elucidates. God will remove the present and bring in a new “which cannot be shaken.” The only thing that will continue is that which is eternal. And we believers have eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know … Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:16–18).

Lord, I am so looking forward to eternity with You and moving beyond this broken-down, fallen world and all its troubles. You are my Anchor!