Skip to main content

Waiting For The Coming Day of the Lord

2 Peter 3:5-13

5 For they (the scoffers) deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 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.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 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! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

In today's passage, we come to the conclusion of the section dealing with "scoffers". The lie that they are propagating is that there is no God, and they back up there claim by saying things like, "show me the proof that there is a God." The radical atheists are coming "out of the closet" these days and Christians must be prepared to deal with these scoffers. Thankfully we have the Word of God to aid us in keeping the proper attitude toward those that would oppose the truths that we believe. We are not told how to respond to those that would scoff, but rather we are given insight into how they are coming up with their error. This approach hopefully causes us to have compassion for their utter lostness. We are told in this somewhat difficult to interpret section (verse 5-7) that they are deliberately choosing to ignore their conscience that is somehow revealing to them that God exists, he is not afraid to bring judgement down on the planet, and that He will do it again. And when it comes it's going to be really bad for the ungodly.

We are reminded in vs.8-10 that even though it seems like a long time to us, God's judgement is coming quickly; However, He is exercising patience with His creation in the mean time.

Verse 9 is a special glimpse into the heart of God. We see here part of God's personality! He has desires! and they are that everyone would come to a state of repentance from sin. MYSTERY ALERT! This verse does not say that God is powerless to save everyone, he could if He so chose, but He didn't. There is a mystery here that is difficult to resolve in our limited minds. Because of other teachings in scripture, we must conclude that because God is a perfectly righteous judge, there must be punishment for sin.

Peter makes an interesting transition here in verse 10-11. Here we run across the classic verse that says that "the Lord will come like a thief". That doesn't sound very reverent to compare God to a thief, but the meaning is clear. God isn't coming back to steal stuff, He's coming back when we least expect it. It's an illustration about mode, not motive. This leads us right into an application in verse 11.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God...

Peter here says that since God is going to judge the world by fire when we least expect it, we should be living holy, godly lives in eager expectation of Christs return. I'm not sure I think about that very often. This challenged me.

Only one paragraph remains in this letter. I promised last time that Peter would give us a comforting message. At first read, this section of scripture reveals the most frightening thing in all of the bible; That judgement is coming and everything is going to be incinerated by fire. Well, we get a little taste of that message in verse 13.

13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This should comfort us as Christians, because we will be with Christ in that new heaven and new earth, and we won't have to deal with scoffers anymore. Amen to that!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards In Plain English. (#1-10)

Jonathan Edwards is known as one of the greatest and most profound of American theologians. His writings have benefited many Christians throughout the years. I was impressed with these resolutions and so I have attempted to translate them into the language of the day. I understand that I may have missed Edward’s full meaning at some level, but I made every attempt to capture the essence of the original author and summarize in such a way as to benefit the modern reader. There are 70 resolutions in all. I have summarized the first ten here. I hope you enjoy these. ________________________________ 1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I mee...
4 comments
Read entire article

Removing Planks and Seeing Clearly

Is it ever appropriate to speak out about sin even though we all have sinned? Worded this way most of us would say, "sure!, of course. Especially if the Bible calls it sin."  And I would agree. What if I worded the question like this? "Since we have all sinned, and many of us sin terribly in secret, is it hypocritical to condemn the sin of someone else?" This one should make us all think a little more before answering.  I think Jesus spoke to this matter. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 7:1 ff “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?    You hy...
Post a Comment
Read entire article

My Chiropractic Dilemma

So, I've had this back/neck/shoulder pain for two weeks now. It was getting so bad that I was really at the point of doing anything to get rid of the pain. Everybody kept telling me to go to the Chiropractor. I've actually only spoken to one person who has ever told me anything negative about their experience with Chiropractic treatment. Most people are convinced that it is helpful. A little history. About a year ago, I went to a Chiropractor here in town who was recommended by a friend. She told me that I could get a free exam and x-rays with a referral. Well, I figured if it was free how bad could it be. I was skeptical at that point. I do not like to be deceived, and from the things I was reading, Chiropractic treatment was pseudo-science and mostly "smoke and mirrors." I was in pretty severe lower-back pain at that time and figured I'd go ahead and give 'em a try and see what it was all about. I won't go into the whole story, but to sum it up, I was ...
2 comments
Read entire article