What will the world’s end really be like?  How can we tell this to others?

Let’s examine 2 Peter 3:10-12:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  Since all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

A study of the meaning of the Greek terms originally used in this passage shows that Peter is describing that the sky, universe, and stars will literally perish and leave.  What we see in the heavens – the material causes of the universe – will be destroyed with intense heat.  The world – the ground, the planet itself – and its works – the works of nature – will be burned up.

Since everything is going to be destroyed like this, Peter asks Christians a very important question.  What sort of people ought we to be when it comes to our conduct, our holiness, our godliness?  We should be looking for this day to come and living our lives faithfully so that it will come sooner, this day of God in which the sky and universe and stars will be burned up and all that we see in the heavens will melt with intense heat.

Peter’s point is that a day is coming in which everything – the sky, space, everything we can see in the heavens, everything we can see in nature, the planet itself, all the works of nature – will be burned up with heat so intense that they will melt and be destroyed.  This world is not our home.  It will not last.  There’s something after it, and we need to be living holy, godly lives in preparation for it.

How should you tell people about this?  First, know who you’re talking to.  If they’re religious – either a Christian as the New Testament defines it or a professed Christian who doesn’t follow solely the New Testament but does respect it as God’s Word – then point all of this out from Scripture and focus on how Peter applies it to his Christian readers in verse 11.

If they are not a religious person, then you will first have to attempt to convince them of the existence of God and the validity of the Bible as God’s inspired Word.  Without doing that first, describing what the Bible says about the end of the world won’t matter to them because they won’t believe it.  I recommend the material at Apologetics Press towards that end.