What Is the Fate of our Universe?

There are many different naturalistic ideas about how the universe will come to an end. The most common is a prediction of the big bang idea. Robert Matthews, science correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph, puts it this way:

A mere thousand billion years from now, all the stars will have used up their fuel and fizzled out. There will still be occasional flashes in the perpetual night: the death throes of stars so large that they have collapsed in on themselves to form black holes. Even these will eventually evaporate in a blast of radiation. For the next 10¹²² years, this Hawking radiation will be the only show in town. By then, even the most massive black holes will evaporate, leaving the universe with nothing to do for an unimaginable 10²⁶ years. … In the beginning, there may have been light, but in the end, it seems, there will be nothing but darkness. (R. Matthews, “To infinity and beyond,” New Scientist 158:2129, April 11, 1998, pp. 27–30.)

This view contradicts the biblical teaching that God will destroy the present heavens with fire, and will create a new heavens and earth for His children (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). Those who have received the free gift of eternal life can rest in the salvation given by God, and His promise of spending eternity with Him. God is sovereignly in control of His creation and nothing happens apart from what He has decreed. He has already determined how this present heaven and earth will end: rather than beginning with a big bang, the universe will end with one!

2 Peter 3:7–13:
But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.