Transcript & Slides: The Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3)

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The Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3)
By David Feddes

Today we’re going to conclude our study of the letters of Peter. We’re looking at 2 Peter 3. The whole letter has a major theme of knowing and growing in our Lord Jesus Christ. When Peter writes chapter 3, he talks about scoffers, and that’s not a new thing. But at times, it seems like he’s talking about the very time that we’re living in.

Let me give you a little picture of little Samuel Scoffing. Little Sammy grows up and goes to Sunday school. His parents send him there because they think it would be good for him. There he learns some stories. He learns the story about Noah and the animals in the ark—what a cute little thing that was, wasn’t it? Those animals in that ark, kind of a fun story. He learns about people walking through the Red Sea. He hears about the birth of Jesus. He hears stories about miracles Jesus did and the resurrection of Jesus. He hears all those nice stories, and mixed in with that he hears stories about Santa Claus bringing presents on Christmas, the Easter bunny and the joys of Easter, and that wonderfully reliable tooth fairy who rewards him every time a tooth comes out.

So he’s learned a lot of nice little stories. Then as Sam gets older, he attends a school where everything is explained without any reference to God—where everything happens the way it always has and where there are certain laws of nature that control everything and never vary or change. As he gets a little older, he finds that party life is exciting and interesting and fun. He likes to get drunk now and then, and he likes to sleep with this girl and that one. As he goes through that whole process, he begins to understand that the tooth fairy and the miracles of Jesus are roughly in the same category. The idea of Jesus returning is a little bit like believing in the Great Pumpkin returning to the pumpkin patch on Halloween.

He learns that those stories that were fun to learn and kind of cute for childhood don’t really apply in the real world. When you really get your head on straight and see the world the way it is, you understand that miracles don’t happen, that Jesus was not born of a virgin, that he never rose from the dead, and that he’s certainly not coming again to judge the living and the dead. That’s a little disappointing, to let go of those stories. But on the other hand, the upside is you get to do what you want and never answer to anybody, because there is no future heaven awaiting you, no great judgment of fire awaiting the wicked.

So he’s become a successful adult. He scoffs at some of those old stories. He doesn’t much like those old-fashioned Bible-thumpers who talk about the return of Christ and some judgment. He gets along pretty well with the nice Christians—the ones who think the church is about their latest political project. But those who talk about Jesus returning again to change all things and some great Day of the Lord that’s going to bring it all to an end—well, Samuel Scoffing doesn’t think very much of that.

We live in a time of scoffers, of taking very lightly the extremely serious claims of the Bible about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Day of the Lord. Peter talks in general terms about some of the things you can expect in false teachers and what they’re like in the second chapter, but now he really zeroes in on what one of the main false teachings is: scoffing at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹ This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, ² that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³ knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For they 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. (1 Peter 3:1-7)

 

Peter begins by saying, “I just want to remind you.” Reminders are so necessary. He wants to remind us that the Old Testament prophets predicted Jesus’ first coming. He wants us to remember the predictions of the holy prophets. They predicted his first coming and many details of it—when he would be born, how he would die, what his miracles would be like. All those things were predicted, and they happened. But those prophets also predicted something else called the Day of the Lord—the final great day of God’s judgment. And they also predicted something else: they predicted false prophets and false teachers.

Now those prophets have a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting Jesus’ first coming and predicting what the scoffers and false teachers are going to be like. So you can bet they’re going to be right in their predictions of the Day of the Lord.

Peter also says, “I want to remind you of what Jesus said and his commandment through the apostles.” He commanded us to trust him, to walk in his way, to be ready for his second coming, because we don’t know what hour the Master is going to come. He gave a commandment always to live in readiness for him to come again. And Jesus himself said, “Watch out for false prophets.” Watch out for those scoffers.

So you have the predictions of the holy prophets, you have the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, and Peter wants to stir us up to remember what the prophets and apostles have said. He says before you get too shaken up about people who say, “Oh, it’s been a long time, and that promised coming hasn’t happened, so you shouldn’t plan on it happening at all,” just remember this: those very people were predicted by the prophets and apostles. When they’re scoffing, the irony of it is that they’re fulfilling the predictions. They’re laughing at the predictions, and their very laughter is a fulfillment of the predictions of the holy prophets and apostles.

So before you start thinking, “Oh, Scripture was wrong, and the second coming isn’t going to happen,” remember that the presence of the scoffers is itself one more confirmation that the Bible is right. He says remember that these are people who are not following truth—they’re following their own sinful desires. They don’t want a great reckoning. They don’t want Christ to come back. They don’t want to answer to him. A lot of their thinking is wishful thinking. It’s not that they’re analyzing the data so carefully and wisely and then coming to this conclusion. They’re following their own sinful desires.

They sneer, they deny the second coming, and they spout the doctrine of uniformitarianism. Now if you don’t like the word “uniformitarianism,” here’s an easier one: same old, same old. That’s basically what uniformitarianism means—same old, same old. Laws of nature, never giving a thought to who might have written such laws, if there is such a thing. But there are these things that never change, and so everything has gone on as it has from the beginning, and it’s going to keep on going the same way forever and ever.

Uniformitarianism tries to undermine what you think of the beginning of the world. They say, “If we take processes as we look at them now and project them backward, we can say that the earth is thus and such many years old, and we can say that no great disruptions have ever happened because things always operate in the past the way they do now. So we can look at what’s happened for the last couple hundred years and figure out what happened billions of years ago. And we can also look at the last couple hundred years and predict exactly what the future is going to be like, because everything is the same old, same old. The same laws always apply, and once you figure out those laws, you can tell what happened in the distant past and what’s going to happen in the future.”

I’ll give a couple of examples of our ability to predict the future. Twenty-five years ago, there was a very strong prediction that the East Coast would be underwater by now, that all the glaciers would have vanished. Fifty years ago, there was the opposite kind of prediction—that we would be in the midst of a global ice age and that global cooling would kill us all. The short-term predictions of those who claim to understand the “same old, same old”—they’re not very good at telling you what’s going to happen 25 years in the future. They might not be so good at telling you what happened four billion years in the past either, or what’s going to happen in the future, because they’ve got assumptions. And if uniformitarianism—same old, same old—is an assumption, not a reality, Peter says they deliberately overlook some facts.

Where did everything come from in the first place? Peter says the heavens existed long ago. Let me remind you that the heavens existed long ago before we’re even talking about the earth and what happened on it and how life came to be on earth. The heavens were created by God before anything else was created. The realm of angels and heavenly beings was created before any physical reality that we would refer to on earth was created. The heavens existed long ago because God made them exist.

And the earth was formed. Even before it was actually formed, it was what the Bible calls tohu vabohu—formless and void. It was a watery chaos, and the Word of God spoke, and out of the watery chaos came form and shape and separation of the waters from the earth, and the growth of plants in the earth, and the formation of animals and birds and fish and humanity. All of this came when God said, “Let there be,” and there was (Genesis 1).

So let’s not pretend there was a “same old, same old” that brought the universe and the earth into existence. The heavens were formed long ago by the Word of God, and the angels were shouting for joy when God created the things that we know of on earth (Job 38:7). God’s Word formed the earth. Oh, and by the way, God’s Word flooded the earth. If you believe in “same old, same old,” who do you think runs those laws of nature? Laws of nature are repeated patterns that go that way till God says otherwise.

If you want a definition of the laws of nature, they are repeated patterns till God says otherwise. There was a watery chaos. God said, “Let there be land, and let there be separated rivers and oceans,” and so on. And then God one day said, “My Spirit will no longer strive with man. I’ve seen enough. I’m going to rescue Noah and his family, and the earth is going to return to watery chaos” (Genesis 6–7).

Do you know why water flows downhill? You say, “Laws of nature.” No, water flows downhill because God tells water to flow downhill. God gives the laws of gravity. If God wants water to flow uphill, it will flow uphill, and it will cover the earth. It will pour down, it will flow up, it will erupt, it will turn back into watery chaos, because the only thing that keeps water and land separate is the Word of God. And if God announces a different word, the world is covered.

The scoffers deliberately forget that God created the world. They deliberately forget that God, at his word, flooded the world. And so when they deliberately overlook these things, they also deny the fact that God is going to bring an end to the world as we know it.

There are a lot of warnings about climate change. It has happened a few times before—when everything gushed down from the skies and erupted from the earth. That would be defined as serious climate change. When the Word of God reserves the earth for fire, that would constitute global warming—and it won’t be one degree centigrade. “The elements will melt in the heat,” says the Bible (2 Peter 3:10).

Whatever one’s understanding of how we are looking at processes now, what our predictions are in terms of climate change or global warming—and we should take care of the earth as best we can and to the best of our understanding now—but it shows what kind of people we are when we’re panicking about a possible change of one degree and give no thought to a change of fire consuming the entire world and being ready for that day. That shows what kind of scoffers and what kind of age we live in—when people are in a panic when the latest scientist says something about global cooling or changes the tune and makes it global warming, and people are chewing their nails off wondering what to do about it. And when Jesus says, “I’m coming again. Get ready,” they yawn or they laugh or they scoff.

Peter says that’s a very deadly situation to be in. He says that by God’s Word the earth is stored up for fire until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. There Peter is reflecting again, as he so often does, the words of the prophets: “The Lord will come in fire to render his anger and fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire the Lord will enter into judgment” (Isaiah 66:15–16). That’s the last chapter of the book of Isaiah. Right after Isaiah speaks of the new heavens and the new earth, he also says, “The Lord will come with fire.”

The apostle Paul says that “the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his mighty angels, and he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). So the Lord is coming in fire, whether the scoffers want to accept or get ready for that fact or not.

In addressing the claim that the delay has been so long you can’t possibly believe it, Peter says, “Don’t overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow in fulfilling his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:8–9).

There Peter is echoing the words of the psalmist Moses, who wrote Psalm 90: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:1–4). A thousand years is like a day—maybe that’s too much, like a few hours during the night. That’s what a thousand years is like.

Peter says a thousand years is like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. God doesn’t really use watches and calendars when he decides what he’s going to do, because the Lord is eternal. He’s not time-bound. He’s not even within time. Time itself is a creation of God within which we live, but in which he can intervene or act. He’s never trapped inside it or made merely time-bound. God’s eternal, and time periods that seem short to us might not seem so short to him. Time periods that seem really long to us—they’re all the same to him. He doesn’t count time the way we do.

So if 2,000 years have gone by since Jesus’ death and resurrection, if God had a calendar, he might have X’d off two days. “A couple millennia—what’s a day or two here or there?” The eternal God is not bound by that. If we experience it as a long delay, here’s what it means: it means that God is slow to anger. He’s not trigger-happy. He’s got the earth reserved for fire, but he’s in no hurry. He is not slow to keep his promises; he is slow to anger and slow to bring the final day of punishment. He’s ignoring our calendars and our stopwatches, and he’s extending his mercy to all.

Peter wants us to understand that God has a whole different way of measuring time than we do. The Bible tells us again and again that we’re already in the last days, because time in God’s estimation is determined by events and by spiritual realities. In terms of those realities, the Messiah has come, the Messiah has revealed himself, the Messiah has risen from the dead, and he has launched the hidden workings of the kingdom of God on earth. That means there’s nothing else between us and the end except God’s timing, because the big events of God’s action have happened, and the next big event is the Day of the Lord.

So we need to be ready for that and not worry about how many days or months or years it might be until then, but realize that we live right on the edge of the Day of the Lord, and only God’s decision and timing will determine when it happens. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare” (2 Peter 3:10).

“Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat” (2 Peter 3:11–12).

“Thief in the night” is a common picture in the New Testament for the coming of Jesus—the suddenness of it and the lack of readiness that many people will experience. Jesus said, “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Matthew 24:42–44).

So expect the unexpected. Live always in readiness. Jesus warns of people who live wild lives and mistreat others, and then all of a sudden the master shows up and they’ve got a lot to answer for. The apostle Paul says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly” (1 Thessalonians 5:2–3). Jesus himself says again in the book of Revelation, “If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you” (Revelation 3:3). That’s a terrible phrase—“I will come against you”—and it will be at a time you don’t expect. He says that to a church, by the way.

So just as Peter warns of false teachers infecting the church, Jesus can say to a church, “You don’t know what hour I will come against you, so wake up while you still have time.” Peter speaks of that great fire that will consume the entire planet. Jesus says, “There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexed at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:25–27).

That cloud, by the way, is not the kind that dribbles rain on us. It is the Shekinah cloud of the brightness of God’s glory. People will see Christ coming after all these tremendous signs—the shaking of the earth, the tossing of the seas—all preceding that time when fire consumes the world as we know it and when Christ comes again. So there is definitely, according to the Word of God and the Word of Jesus Christ himself, an end to the world as we know it.

Peter says that only scoffers and fools will deny that or behave as though it’s not going to happen. The fact is that the fire is coming just as surely as the flood was coming in the days of Noah. They laughed at Noah. They went on and on, acting as though things were going to continue as always. And then one day the flood came and took them all away. Jesus says that’s what it’s going to be like when the Son of Man returns. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37–39).

It’s a terrifying thought for non-Christians when Christ comes again, when they see his brightness, when that fire comes and they’re swallowed up by fire forever. But even for Christians, we ought to remember what the fire means for us. In 1 Corinthians 3, the apostle Paul says there’s one foundation, which is Jesus Christ. But be very careful how you build on that foundation. If you’re building on the foundation of Jesus with flammable trash, what’s the outcome going to be? “Their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames” (1 Corinthians 3:13–15).

Maybe the best way to understand that is the story of Lot—the righteous man who was saved from Sodom. He made it out of Sodom by the skin of his teeth because the angels dragged him out, but everything he’d spent his life working for and building was burned in the fire and brimstone that fell upon Sodom (Genesis 19). There are Christians who are still genuine Christians—righteous through Jesus Christ—who are at least somewhat different from the world and do have the new life of Christ in them. But they’re not acting like it very consistently and not really building in a manner that shows eternity matters.

They’re occupied with a lot of stuff in this world, or maybe even in the realm of teaching, not teaching the solid truths of God’s Word but always dealing with fluff. Churches can be ninety percent fluff. That fluff is going to burn, and those who truly knew Christ may be saved, but there’s going to be an awful lot who say, “I wish I had built differently.” The rewards will be much greater for those who have their minds set on the things of Christ and have their minds set on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, not on earthly things that are headed for fire (Colossians 3:1–2).

So that great fire that comes with the Day of the Lord and with the return of the Lord is going to consume the wicked, but it’s also going to consume anything that the righteous did that was unworthy. Thank God, one thing it will also consume is our sin. It will purify. God’s fire will purify us from all that is unworthy, and God will make us fit to be with Christ forever, catching us up to meet the Lord before the great fire that consumes all of the wicked and the earth as we know it now.

But we do need to be prepared for the fact that we can lose much, even though we’re still saved, if we don’t pay attention to the return of Christ—if we don’t make eternal things matter the most.

“But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). It’s the end of the world—and yet it’s not the end of the world. Just as the flood was the end of the world and yet not the end of the world, so even that great fire will be the end of the world and yet not, because out of the ashes will rise a new world—the world as it’s meant to be. The new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells, where righteousness is everywhere, where “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).

Everybody on earth will know God. Everybody on earth will be perfected and purely oriented to the Lord, loving him and loving one another. It’s the home of righteousness—the place where righteousness dwells. It’s a whole new creation. Jesus spoke of the rebirth “when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne” (Matthew 19:28). Sometimes the Bible talks about rebirth as an individual receiving the life of God when we come to know Jesus as Savior. But there’s going to be a rebirth that is the rebirth of the entire creation—the rebirth when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne.

Peter preached in Acts that “Christ must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21). That’s another word for the rebirth—the restoration of all things, the entire creation. “The creation itself,” says Paul, “will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). That’s the day we’re looking forward to—when the creation is cleansed by God’s fiery judgment, but then out of the ashes rises that new creation, the new heavens and the new earth.

In Isaiah 65, God says, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create” (Isaiah 65:17–18). “No longer will they build houses and others live in them; they will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune. The wolf and the lamb will feed together; the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food” (Isaiah 65:21–25). That’s what Satan gets. But all of creation is going to be living in perfect harmony. That’s the picture from Isaiah 65 of a new heavens and a new earth.

And Peter says that’s what we’re looking forward to—the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

In Revelation 21 and 22, the apostle John says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new’” (Revelation 21:1–5).

John sees this splendid city with its gates of pearl, its foundations of precious stones, and its streets of gold. He sees the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stands the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:1–5).

That’s the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. That’s what the Day of the Lord brings. It brings an end to all that is unworthy, and all of that is cast into the lake of fire. Then there is this new heaven and this new earth—the home of righteousness.

It is disastrous to forget that, to scoff at that, to scoff and spit in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, the returning King of the universe, to act as though the fire is nothing to be afraid of, as though the new creation is nothing to look forward to. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Same old, same old.

The apostle Peter says if you’ve got teachers who are teaching that way, you need to remember that God told you these scoffers were going to come. Don’t believe them. “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these things to happen, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace” (2 Peter 3:14).

He says you are “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). You do that by the way you live, by the way you witness, by helping more and more people come to know him. God is being patient because he wants people to repent. So repent yourself, and then help lead others to repent, and you’ll be hastening the Day of the Lord.

You’re diligent because you know that when that day of fire and new creation comes, how do you want to be found? You want to be found by him without spot or blemish. You want to be found at peace with God and at peace with people. “Count the patience of our Lord as salvation” (2 Peter 3:15). Don’t say, “Oh, God is a big slowpoke.” Say, “I’m so glad that God is patient and slow to anger.” God’s patience means salvation for countless millions of people. What a joy it is that he is so patient.

Instead of grumbling or scoffing, we say, “Wow! God is not a trigger-happy God. God does not want anyone to perish but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11). If you hear of this great fire coming on the earth and you say, “Oh, that shows that God is a big meanie,” the Bible says no. He’s patient. He keeps holding back, though he’s righteous and holy and is going to bring that day. He doesn’t do it happily or gleefully or with a desire to burn and destroy those who will not repent. He doesn’t want to do that—but he will.

Meanwhile, he is very patient. So count his patience as salvation. Seize the salvation he’s given you and then spread that salvation to others.

“I’m not the only one who writes that way,” says Peter. “Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these things” (2 Peter 3:15–16). Paul talks about the return of Christ. Paul talks about the Day of the Lord. Paul talks about holy living. He talks just the way Peter does.

“When Paul writes, there are some things in his writings that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16). Some people read Paul’s letters, read of grace, and say, “My life hasn’t changed one bit, but hey, I must be saved.” No, then you’re twisting Paul’s writings to your own destruction, as you do the other Scriptures.

Once again, Peter closes with a reference to the sacred Scriptures. He’s been talking about the Scriptures throughout his letter. The same Spirit who inspired the Old Testament prophets is the Spirit who inspired the New Testament writers. So don’t pit the different parts of Scripture against each other. They’re all sending the same message. The same Spirit who inspired Peter also inspired Paul to write the same way, and he inspired all the other New Testament writers.

One sign you’re dealing with a false prophet is when they tell you, “Peter and Paul had very different perspectives, and they all fought with James too. What we really want to do is follow the sweet and gentle Jesus. We don’t like the way Paul put certain things. Peter—well, 2 Peter might not have been written by him, so don’t listen to him too seriously. And James was just an old legalist anyway.”

How did the apostles view each other? You have it right here. “Our dear brother Paul also wrote the same way when he spoke of these things.” Those apostles agreed with each other, and they agreed with each other because they were speaking the message of Jesus Christ in a unified way, though sometimes addressing different situations.

Sometimes you emphasize one thing more strongly, sometimes another, depending on the situation. If you’re dealing with people who don’t know anything about grace and are living in legalism, then you have to preach grace very strongly. If you’re talking to people who say, “Grace, grace, grace—let’s sin that grace may abound; let’s give God even more to forgive,” there were people who thought that way, and they would twist the Scriptures to their own destruction.

So you have to emphasize different things. There are those whose main mistake is denying the Day of the Lord and the return of Jesus Christ, so you have to emphasize that more strongly in one letter than in another letter where, yes, they know Jesus is coming again and aren’t doubting or denying it.

You have the letters of the New Testament and the other writings that emphasize one thing for this audience, another thing for that audience, but they’re not clashing with each other. They’re not denying the truth taught by their fellow apostles. The biblical writers reveal the real Jesus, and they agree with each other, even if those writings are sometimes twisted by ignorant, unstable people.

One sign of a person who’s actually communicating the real Word of God is someone who has confidence that it is the voice of Jesus speaking to us through the New Testament authors and is constantly looking for the harmony and agreement and truth among the different New Testament authors, instead of pitting them against each other as though they disagreed or were squabbling. That’s one sign—and it’s a very important one.

A very common pattern among what’s called biblical higher criticism these days is doubting the truth of the Bible and constantly trying to point out, “Oh, those early Christians didn’t see things eye to eye.” They did. Read the New Testament—read it for yourself—and you’ll see the harmony that’s there, the way those apostles have the same voice. It is the voice of Jesus speaking to us. The moment you hear somebody say, “Oh, Paul was mixed up about that,” or “Peter was confused about that,” just turn them off. Shut them off. You’ve got somebody living two thousand years later trying to tell you what Jesus Christ taught, and you have Peter and John and James, who were his apostles, who spent years with him and with each other—and these guys know better.

The scoffers—no. Just scoff at the scoffers and move on until the day dawns. That day is going to dawn. Remember what Peter said at the beginning of this letter: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). At the transfiguration they saw the cloud, they saw the glory, they saw the brightness that’s going to be with him when he comes again. So you need to pay attention to him and to the message of the biblical writings “as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).

So here’s the upshot: “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and to the day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:17–18).

Know and grow.

We’ve been living through a time of a lot of upset and a lot of concern about a deadly virus. We were told the main way to deal with that deadly virus is to keep our distance—keep your distance from other people, keep your distance from that virus. If you distance, distance, distance, you might stay healthy.

There is no distancing from the scoffers. You can avoid them—don’t go to the churches where they’re preaching—but that stuff’s going to be out there. False teaching is going to be out there. If your spiritual health depends on avoidance, escaping, and never hearing about false teaching, I’ve got bad news for you: you’re sunk. You’re not going to be able to avoid false teaching. It’s all over the place in our world. There are going to be churches that are infected, the media are going to be infected, the schools and education systems are going to be infected. Even if you homeschool and do a good job of that, your kids are going to find out false teachings one way or another. It’s going to get to them at some point. They’re going to hear it. Social distancing won’t work to keep that virus of false teaching away.

And I don’t think it worked very well to keep a regular virus away either. Whatever measures people took, viruses spread. There is another approach: get healthy.

Sometimes when it comes to a physical virus, if you’re old and in feeble health, that’s not much of an option—some people have other complications that make them vulnerable. But I’m not turning this into a medical commentary. What I want to talk about now is the spiritual reality.

The fact is, with that deadly virus that went around, people who were already in excellent health were largely okay—with some exceptions, but largely okay. If you were somebody who eats well, exercises, your body’s fit—you weren’t usually very vulnerable.

This applies to spiritual reality. That’s why Peter says there are false teachers out there, these scoffers, this deadly teaching. What do you need to do? You need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You need to be healthy, because you can’t socially distance yourself from all the false teaching that’s out there. The main way to resist it is to get a good immune system. The main way to resist it is to keep building your spiritual health.

Now, in the physical realm, you can’t always do that. Sometimes you have a condition you can’t do much about. Sometimes you can make your health better. But we all get older. The fact is, in our physical bodies, once we stop growing, we already start dying. I hate to be a downer, but that’s kind of the way it is. Once the growth stops, the reverse process starts setting in. Our bodies start aging, and eventually they can’t hold up anymore.

That is not true in the spiritual realm. That’s the good news. You can keep growing and growing and growing—and the older you get, the younger you get, because you’re getting to know better and better the Ancient of Days, who is younger than you are because he’s eternal. So you keep growing and growing, and as you get older and older, you get younger and younger and healthier and healthier.

As you know more and more Bible promises, though outwardly you might be wasting away, inwardly you’re being renewed day by day, and “our light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:16–17). So we grow. We grow in knowing God’s promises and in knowing his commands. We trust his promises by faith, we obey his commands, and as we do that, our health grows.

As we know Christ and we’re growing in godliness, we know that “his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3–4).

When you’re partaking of the divine nature, when you’re getting to know God better and better—who he is and what his blessings are in your life—then when some scoffer comes along and tells you that you should not trust in a great and glorious and wonderful God, you say, “That’s not even a temptation.” You know him so well, and he is so wonderful, that you’re not going to fall away from him.

There’s this instruction where you know enough biblical truth that you’re not easily swayed, simply because you already know better. You know the predictions of the prophets, you know the Scriptures, and that knowledge of facts helps to immunize you against false teaching. But there’s also that personal knowledge—the personal knowledge of what God is doing in your life and who he is, what kind of God he is. He’s slow to anger, great in love, great in compassion. He’s the one who gives you every good and perfect gift from above (James 1:17). And as you know him, you’re just not as vulnerable to the alternatives.

Then you can say, like Peter did, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). I like eternal life, and I like God, and so I’m not going to be as tempted as if I didn’t have a good taste of eternal life, if I didn’t know God, if I didn’t have a deep and loving relationship with him.

So know his promises. Keep growing in grace. A little place to start—on your way out, if you haven’t already done so, grab your Bible memory sheet and start learning a couple of sentences a month as a beginning to embed in your mind the promises and the commands of God. Be a person of prayer—daily prayer, reading the Bible personally and with your family. Grow in grace.

The alternative is to get more and more vulnerable, to get older and weaker and flabbier, and to have a less healthy immune system. Then that virus of false teaching is just waiting to pick you off. But having said all that, it still does help to know the traits of the false teachers—to know what they’re like.

We’ve studied a good deal now of what they’re like. Be watching for those greedy ones. Be watching for those who say your urges are good just the way they are—go with the flow. Be watching for those who say, “Oh yeah, you can’t really count on those Scriptures. They’re old, they’re outdated. Paul and Peter didn’t know some of the things we know now.” You just say, “No. I know what they’re like. Been there, done that, seen guys like that before. I’m not listening this time either.”

The Bible was written to forewarn us against that and to help us know that Christ will return. So keep growing—keep growing readier and readier for a world of righteousness, because that’s the kind of world it’s going to be: the world in which righteousness dwells.

May God give each of us the grace to keep knowing him, to keep growing in his grace. As we do that, we’ll be strong against false teaching—but better than that, we’ll be partakers of the divine nature, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

Prayer

Dear Father, we thank you for your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for sending him, and for promising that he is coming again. Help us prepare for that day and hasten that day by the way we live—that we will be repentant and ready, and that we can help lead others to repentance by witness, by godly living, by showing how much you mean to us.

We thank you for your mighty servant Peter, for your work in his life, for these wondrous letters that you inspired him to write, carrying him along by your Holy Spirit, preparing us for our own time—this Word that is ever fresh, ancient and yet ever new. We thank you that for our own time these great letters are here to remind us and to build us in the faith and to show us again that you’ve given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, that you’ve given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for us until that salvation that’s ready to be revealed in the last time.

Lord, may each of us be ready for that day. If any are not, Father, turn their hearts even now to repentance, to faith, to seek you while you may be found. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

The Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

¹ This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, ² that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³ knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For they 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.

Recall Scripture!

• OT prophets predicted Jesus’ first coming, the day of the Lord, and the rise of false teachers and scoffers.
• Through apostles, Jesus commanded us to trust him, walk his Way, be ready for his Second Coming, and beware of false prophets and scoffers.
• Scoffers fulfill biblical predictions!

Scoffers

• Follow sinful desires, not truth.
• Sneer and deny Second Coming
• Spout uniformitarianism and deny dramatic divine interventions.
• Deliberately overlook facts:
• God created heavenly realm.
• God’s Word formed the earth.
• God’s Word flooded the earth.

Stored up for fire

The Lord will come in fire… to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment. (Isaiah 66:15-16)

… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his mighty angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8)

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.

Everlasting God

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the  world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God… A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. (Ps 90:2, 4)

God and time

• The Lord is eternal, not timebound.
• Time periods that seem short or long to us are the same to Him.
• Delay means God is slow to anger, not slow to fulfill his promises.
• God’s timing ignores calendars and extends his mercy to all.

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!

Thief in the night

Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming… if the homeowner had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24:42-44)

The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly. (1 Thess 5:2-3)

If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. (Rev 3:3)

End of the world

There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, the nations will be in anguish, perplexed at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (Luke 21:25-27)

Revealed by fire

Their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3:13-15)

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

New creation

… the rebirth, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne… (Matt 19:28-29)

He must remain in heaven until the time of the restoration of all things. (Acts 3:21)

The creation itself will be freed from its bondage to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom 8:21)

I will create new heavens and a new earth… Be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create… The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. (Isaiah 65:17-25)

New heavens and earth (Rev 21-22)

¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. ¹⁵ And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶ as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Sacred Scriptures

• The same Spirit who inspired OT prophets also inspired NT writers.
• The same Spirit who inspired Peter also inspired Paul and all NT writers.
• Biblical writers reveal the real Jesus and agree with each other, even if twisted by ignorant, unstable people.

Until the day dawns

We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty… pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:16, 19)

¹⁷ You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. ¹⁸ But grow in the grace and know-ledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Know and grow

• Know Christ, and grow in godliness.
• Know Bible promises and commands, and grow in faith and obedience.
• Know traits of false teachers, and grow more immune and stable.
• Know Christ will return, and grow readier for a world of righteousness.