10. How does Peter describe the noisiness of Jehovah’s “day”?

¹⁰ The apostle Peter calls attention to the noisiness of that time of unparalleled world distress during which the long-established institutions of mankind undergo dissolution as if by the fire of a nuclear furnace. Writing, not to worldlings, but to Christians who may expect to witness these things and survive, Peter says: “Yet Jehovah’s day will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a hissing noise, but the elements being intensely hot will be dissolved, and earth and the works in it will be discovered.

Even though we Bible researchers know that we are living in the foretold “time of the end,” the “conclusion of the system of things,” yet that day for the removal of human rulerships will come as a thief. Man-made political governments, which have dominated mankind just as the literal heavens dominate the earth, will be unable to hold together but will disintegrate in chaotic disorganization. These symbolic “heavens” will, as the apostle Peter says, “pass away with a hissing noise.” The prolonged sound, like that of escaping steam under pressure, may increase to a roaring as the governmental “heavens” crash in ruins.

12. In what sense will the “elements” melt on that “day”?

¹² The heat of God’s anger will be expressed so intensely against this ungodly system of things under Satan’s control, that it will be liquefied, as it were, losing stability, internal cohesiveness. The “elements,” that circumambient spirit that surrounds the earth and motivates earth’s inhabitants in general, will lose whatever coolness and equanimity that it has had. Under the fiery indignation of Jehovah’s day, that elemental spirit will get hot to white heat and will fire the people to wild acts of confused thinking, to violent, lawless fighting among themselves for self-survival. It will no longer hold the people together as a self-contained community. Thus the symbolic “elements” will dissolve, melt!

13. What are the “earth and the works in it” here meant?

¹³ Well, then, could the “earth” that is to be destroyed mean our globe? No, it pictures human society according to the way it carries on under this system of things. Human society has many “works” to show for itself. It has many institutions, many organizations, many religious sects, many nationalistic ideals.

14. In what sense will “earth and the works in it” be discovered?

¹⁴ What will the “presence of the day of Jehovah” show all this form of human society and its selfish “works” to be? The “presence” of that fiery day of divine judgment will lay these things bare. They will be discovered in the condition in which they really are. The people will have these things made manifest to them as being condemned by the God of unselfishness and righteousness.