Sermon: Where is the Promise of His Coming?

#1784-AM
Martin G. Collins
Given 03-Oct-24; 60 minutes 2024-10-03

The Feast of Trumpets symbolizes a vast turning point in world history. It pictures the pivotal changeover between the age of man, of darkness, and of Satan to the age of God, the Millennium, and the Kingdom of God.

God judges the world's wicked and Jesus returns as the conquering King of kings and Lord of lords.

The whole state of life, the whole state of the world, and all the difficulty of living, especially living God's way of life in these confused times, is not easy. Today, in some respects, the problem is even more acute and more urgent perhaps than it has ever been. Certainly, Satan is active and false teachers are prevalent.

Please turn with me to Matthew 24, verse 21. War, famine, pestilence, disease would eventually destroy the world if not for Jesus Christ's return to stop humanity's self-extermination. In Matthew 24 Jesus describes Satan's goal in the "great tribulation" preceding Christ's coming as the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:21-22 "For then there there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved [and I will add, alive], but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened."

Through great tribulation. We wonder how great can it possibly be when there has been every sort of awful, horrible, abhorrent, torturing, and suffering in this world all through the history of mankind. But the difference will be that it will be worldwide, whereas before it has always been regional or in certain areas. Even the world wars we have had have had pockets where there has been peace. But this is a situation where the entire world, everyone will be suffering during the Great Tribulation except for God's people, who some will and some will not. But God is the one who determines who He will protect physically from that type of thing. We know there will be martyrs, but we do not know who, thankfully. But God's protection is according to His will.

So this catastrophic crisis threatens all life on earth and our only hope is for our Holy Father to send His Son to prevent the annihilation of His people.

Please turn over to the II Peter 3. In II Peter 3, the apostle Peter focuses on those who scoff at the idea of Christ's triumphant return in the final judgment. And just as God once destroyed the earth with water, He will one day destroy it with fire.

Peter warns us about recognizing false ministers and encouraging us to stay strong in the faith. He also shows how the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles speak with a united voice as he combines the promise of God's patience from Psalm 90 with the New Testament promise of Christ's return. So the third chapter of Peter's second epistle is just as much for us today as it was for the church during the first century. The caption in my Bible for this section is God's Promise Is Not Slack, and it refers to Genesis 6:5-8 and verse 22.

II Peter 3:1-4 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."

So doubting that Christ will return has always been problematic for the faithfully weak, but to make matters worse, this has also been one of the scoffer's greatest lies, their denial of the second coming of Jesus.

This worried Peter even in the first century because they (the scoffers) became active as soon as Christ was crucified and the church was established. The question was, "Where is the promise of His coming?" That was a Hebrew expression that implied that the thing asked did not exist at all. So even before the time of Christ, the scoffers used similar phrases concerning the Messiah's first coming.

For example, during Malachi's day the evil men smirked, "Where is the God of justice?" in Malachi 2:17. At about the time of David, the Gentiles demanded, "Where is your God?" Psalm 42:3 and 79:10. And then Jeremiah's enemies asked him, "Where is the word of the Lord?" in Jeremiah 17:15. In every case, the question implies that the thing or the person that is asked about does not exist.

The scoffers of Peter's day were denying that Jesus Christ would ever come again. For clarity, let me summarize their argument and Peter's answer to it. The argument of Peter's challengers was twofold, which we find in verse 4. They ask what has happened to the promise of the second coming. The first argument was that the promise had been delayed so long that in their minds, it was safe to conclude that it would never be fulfilled. And their second argument was that their fathers had died and the world was going on just as it always had. They argued that it was characteristically a stable universe and that convulsive upheavals, like the second coming did not happen in such a constant universe.

Peter's response is also twofold. He deals with the second argument first in verses 5 through 7. His case is that this is not a stable universe and it had once been destroyed by water in the time of the Flood and that a second destruction, this time by fire, is on the way. So the second part of his reply is in verses 8 through 9. Peter's adversaries spoke of a delay for so long that in their minds, they could safely assume that the second coming would not happen. (We see the same reasoning today among the politicians of our countries. Politicians know that if a lie is told often enough or long enough, eventually it will be be believed to be true.)

Peter had a two-part answer for us to apply. The first is that we have to see time as God sees it. With the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day. We see that in II Peter 3:8. The second is God's apparent slowness to act is not negligent or lacking. In reality it is mercy. He holds back His actions to give sinners another opportunity to repent and find salvation. We find that in II Peter 3:9.

Now Peter moves on to his conclusion in verse 10. The second coming is on the way and it will come with a sudden terror and destruction that will dissolve the universe in melting heat. Finally, Peter emphasizes his practical demand in the face of all this. If we are living in a universe on which Jesus Christ is going to descend and which is speeding up towards the destruction of the wicked, certainly it would be wise for us to live holy, godly lives so that we will be spared when the terrible day does come.

The second coming is a tremendous motive for correcting any character flaws so we will have prepared ourselves to meet our God.

So then, this is the general design and synopsis of chapter 3 of II Peter. Now let us look at it section by section.

II Peter 3:5-6 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.

Remember, Peter's first point is that the world is unstable. The ancient world was destroyed by water, just as the present world will be destroyed by fire. So God is constantly moving us toward the conclusion of His Plan. Things do not continue as they always have because God intervenes on behalf of His people.

Peter reminds us that the earth was composed of water and through water. According to the Genesis story, in the beginning, there was a kind of watery chaos.

Genesis 1:2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:6 Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

So out of this watery chaos, the world was formed. Also it is through water that the world is sustained because life is sustained by the rain that comes down from the skies. So Peter is pointing out that the world was created out of water and is sustained by water, and it was by the same element that the ancient world was destroyed.

The warning that Peter is giving to the church is that these scoffers reason like this: As things are so they will be forever, nothing changes. That is what we say about our politicians and their methods of rule in one sense. But it will all change, thankfully. They build their hopes on the idea that this is an unchanging universe, but of course, they are wrong because the ancient world was formed out of water and is sustained by water and it perished in a watery flood.

So the lesson of history is that there is a moral order in the universe and whoever defies it does it so to his demise.

II Peter 3:7 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.

It is Peter's conviction that as the ancient world was destroyed by water, the present world will be destroyed by fire. And that is stated by the same Word of God. He means that the Old Testament tells of the watery flood in the past and warns of the destruction by fire in the future. There are several passages in the prophets that Peter must have in mind when he is thinking this and I will go through them at this point.

Joel foresaw a time when God would show blood, fire, and pillars of smoke. You find that in Joel 2: 30. The psalmist has a picture in which, when God comes, a devouring fire will precede Him in Psalm 50:3. Isaiah speaks of a flame of devouring fire in Isaiah 29:6 and verse and 30:30. Isaiah also says, the Lord will come with fire, by fire, and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh in Isaiah 66:15-16. And Nahum has it that "the hills melt and the earth is burned at His presence. His fury is poured out like fire." And you find that in Nahum 1:5-6.

So Peter is expressing in II Peter 3:7 that the God who created the beginning of all things has the power to end them. God Himself is spoken of as a consuming fire in Deuteronomy 4:24 and in Malachi 4:1, who will, on the last day, consume what is wicked and define what is good. And in the picture of Malachi, the Day of the Lord will burn as an oven. So the Old Testament which spoke of a flood in the past speaks often of a fiery crisis in the future. But the scoffers also deliberately forget this.

The imagery is as relevant and powerful today as it was then. Humanity cannot presume on the stability of the world. We cannot take for granted that our environment will continue to support human life. It will not without God sustaining it. It is common knowledge among honest scientists that the universe is decaying. And even the simple thing as a flood which destroyed the whole earth, look at the destruction that it did in the western side of North Carolina and other areas of the South. And that was a relatively small flood compared to the Flood of the Old Testament. But the damage still can be complete.

The forces of nature retain their natural destructive power. Nuclear weaponry makes the literal fulfillment of the fiery end of the world not only possible but the daily background of our lives. And Peter's assurance that these things are not governed by rationalistic presumption or chance but by divine control is the ultimate justification for having hope in a crazy world. God is in control. Final doom is no more inevitable for the world than it was for Nineveh if, like the people of Nineveh, everyone humbles themselves and repents.

In the second half of II Peter 3:7, Peter is very careful in his choice of words. God created the heavens and the earth and the earth has remained fixed and stable. What was destroyed during the Flood was the human world.

What lies in the future, though, is the fate of the whole creation—the heavens and the earth. Although the Flood was a warning of what would happen, it was a picture painted on a small canvas compared to what God has in store for the last days.

When Peter says "by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire being kept until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men," he is saying that just because we do not see God actively judging the world is not a sign of His weakness. He is absolutely in control and His powerful word is being exercised, and that creation is reserved and kept for its final judgment. And then the present heavens and earth will be replaced by a New Heaven and a New Earth.

In Matthew 24:37-39 Jesus Himself said the Flood forewarned of a judgment ending in fire and that event will be, first and foremost, a day of judgment, and the standards that Jesus Christ left us with will be picked up again and the men and women will be measured against them. Those who live their lives failing to meet those standards will be declared ungodly. And this is the term Peter used to describe the inhabitants of the world of Noah's day and Lot's fellow citizens in Sodom and Gomorrah. He mentions that in II Peter 2:5-6 those who are declared ungodly face destruction.

Peter calls on us to live godly lives in light of what is coming against the ungodly. As he shows later, the reason for God's patience is to lengthen the days during which a change of heart is possible. There is no doubt that these are terrifying ideas, but we must not see them as so threatening and unpleasant that we block them out of our minds because that is the great fault of the false teachers.

Peter is convinced, as we should be, that it is God's right and duty to judge, and the wonder of His love is that it offers salvation against this background of destruction.

In II Peter 3:8-9 Peter moves to defend the teaching of Jesus' return against the poisonous skepticism infecting God's church at that time. Having highlighted the weakness of the scoffers presuppositions in verses 5 to 7, Peter returns to the question of verse 4. "Where is this 'coming' He promised?" And the answer is that the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise and that the end of all things is near.

Continuing on in II Peter3,

II Peter 3:8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Millennium is a 1,000-year period. The weekly Sabbath is a type of the Millennium and it is called a "rest" in Hebrews 4:1-11. Revelation 20:1-3 tells us the Millennium will be a rest from Satan's negative influence, which now is more powerful than people can know.

So Peter's reference in verse 8 is to Psalm 90:4, "For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is passed, and like a watch in the night."

Psalms 90 to 106 make up Book Four. And they describe the millennial condition coming to Israel and the whole earth. They parallel the Festival Scrolls of Numbers and Ecclesiastes. The instruction in these books is primarily to the church today and is a forerunner of what will be done by God and what is required of those entering the Millennium as rulers. This is a very important instruction to you and me because it gives us great encouragement to balance out this horrible destruction that is coming on the ungodly, showing us that there is hope for anyone who repents.

Paul emphasizes some important points taken from Psalm 90:1-17. When the Bible quotes the Bible, it is wise to assume that the writer may be looking at the surrounding passages and not just the words he has quoted. So we must briefly consider the context here. In this case, Peter references Psalm 90 and draws out five points.

1. God is an eternal God. Psalm 90:2 says, "Deep in eternity, from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." And this is the perspective from which a millennium can look like a day. The scoffer should have realized that it is fundamental to the Bible's view of God that although He deals with us inside our period of time, He is himself outside time limits.

When we think of the world's hundreds of years of existence, it is easy to feel dwarfed into insignificance. When we think of the slowness of human progress, it is easy for humans to become discouraged into pessimism. Now, there is comfort in the thought of God with all eternity to work in. It is only against the backdrop of eternity that things appear in their true proportions and in their right perspective and assume their actual value.

The scoffers rely on their desires and thrills here and now. But from God's perspective, that is a very short-sighted view and foolish attitude.

2. God is a creating God. In Psalm 90:2 it says, "You brought forth the world." Now, this has also been a weakness of the scoffers; they do not believe that this world has been created so they do not believe there is a God who can destroy it.

3. God is a judging God. Psalm 90:3 says, "You turn men back to dust, saying return to dust, O sons of men." So the psalmist has been thinking about the consequences of sin: "Dust you are and to dust you will return." And God also makes us feel the fear of death and judgment on an individual and a universal level. Psalm 90:8-9 says, "You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence. All our days pass away under Your wrath." So scoffers deny God's right to speak and the right to pass judgment on their sins.

4. God is a saving God. God is a covenant God, the psalmist proclaims in verse 17, "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us." Therefore, despite God's anger, indignation, and wrath, we can still pray for God to show compassion, love, and favor.

Peter's antagonists mentioned in II Peter 3 were denying God's ability to keep His Word of promised judgment. So in the scoffer's mind, there was no need for Him to exercise His saving Word even if He could.

5. God is a moral God. Those who know in advance what behavior God will judge and know that He will judge that behavior, will have a right fear of Him, as the psalmist says in Psalm 90:11, "Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath." So they will want to modify their behavior in light of that knowledge.

So the psalmist, in Psalm 90:12 prays, "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

These five lessons are central to Psalm 90. Peter's fellow church members were in danger of being distracted from remembering that God is the Eternal Creator who judges according to His moral law and saves according to His love.

Now continuing on in II Peter 3,

II Peter 3:9 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.

Peter concluded in verse 9 with the very encouraging statement that the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials. Here, he looks at at it from the opposite angle. The pause before the Lord's coming does not mean a delay in God's judgment, but that it allows sufficient time for His people to be made ready for His coming. Time is not the same to God as it is to humanity. God sees time with a perspective we lack and an intensity we lack. He can see the broad sweep of history in a moment, but God is so powerful that He can patiently stretch out a day as long as He wants or needs to.

Why did Peter feel it was important to remember this? Because God was being accused of slowness or even of being slack. So Peter stresses in the next verse that the Day of the Lord will come. Whether those who perceive this slowness are false teachers or some weak Christians starting to be swayed, does not affect their accusation. God has promised to judge, so why the lack of action?

Peter says that the answer lies in correctly understanding Psalm 90. The psalmist was inspired to write, "You turn men back to dust," which takes us back to the creation of Adam and Eve. God forbade them to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And He said, "When [not if] you eat of it, you shall surely die." And although they did eat, they did not die immediately because the Lord mercifully and patiently extended the possibility of salvation for them. Instead of dying on the day of our disobedience then, "the length of our days is seventy years" or eighty if we have the strength, but all our days pass away under His wrath.

In contrast, it is interesting that the scoffers are convinced that if there is a God, He is quick to judge and destroy—the very opposite of the way He is. Deep down, scoffers fear the idea of God's wrath because of the possibility that He may exist. That is a lesson that the false teachers deliberately forget, but we must never forget. It is for our benefit that God measures time on His time scale rather than on ours. He is patient with us, not wanting any of us to perish, but wanting all of us to come to repentance. Remember what Peter says in verse 7, "the destruction of ungodly men."

In light of this, we have to be careful to wisely use the time while God is being patient with us. First, we must remember that Peter's direct appeal is to the members of God's church, that is, to us. Peter is cautioning us with the awful warning of the judgment on the false teachers ringing in our ears. And Peter warns us to be on continuous watch so we do not stretch out God's patience.

One of the major concerns of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and the writings of the apostles of the New Testament is how we live in the period before Christ's return. How much wiser would we be if we admit ignorance over the precise timing of Christ's return? Even Jesus Christ Himself did not know when it would be. Matthew 24:36 says, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only."

We have to keep a level head at all times of international conflict and upheaval and build on the firm foundation God has given us that He will return and that He has responsibilities for us to work at until He comes.

Having the right perspective produces a great deal of comfort and peace for us. The patience with which God has designed His plan of salvation for the firstfruits, and the rest of humanity at a later date, is not the result of the failure of God's Plan, but rather the condition of its success. God's patience is a very necessary major part of His Plan.

But we can also see from Peter's letter, that time is always regarded as an opportunity. As Peter saw it, the years God gave the world were a further opportunity for us to repent and turn to Him. Every day we are given is a gift of mercy. It is an opportunity to develop ourselves, to provide our service to others, and to take one step nearer to God.

Now please go back one chapter to II Peter 2. The apostle Paul instructed Timothy that God will have "all men to be saved." Ezekiel hears God ask, "Have I had any pleasure in the death of the wicked, and not rather that he should return from his way and live?" But we have to remember that this does not mean none will perish.

II Peter 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.

We know from Revelation 19, verse 20 that the beast and the false prophet are destroyed in the Lake of Fire, which represents permanent death for a physical human being.

Revelation 19:20 [John writes] Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which to deceive those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.

So the dynamic nature of God's inspired written Word, commonly called the Bible, always provides the larger hope. At the planned time, according to the will of God, everyone will have his opportunity to understand and live God's wonderful way of life, but some will reject it.

Now forward one chapter back to II Peter 3. Throughout his letter, Peter has been determined to defend the whole of God's Word from attack. He has constantly made the New Testament apostles and the Old Testament prophets an inseparable combination of one complete work. He shows how they speak with a united voice as he combines the Old Testament promise of God's patience from Psalm 90 with the New Testament promise of Christ's return.

II Peter 3:10 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.

The Day of the Lord is also called the time of God's wrath. Peter speaks of the New Testament doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ, but he describes it in terms of the Old Testament doctrine of the Day of the Lord.

Please turn over to Joel 2. Now the Day of the Lord can refer to either a specific time or the time of the seventh seal, which includes the seven trumpet plagues described in Revelation 6. The Day of the Lord is a conception that runs through the Old Testament prophetic books.

Joel 2:1-2 Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations.

The world has been headed for destruction for thousands of years because of humanity's enmity toward God. The only way the world's process of physical progress and spiritual degeneration can be changed is by God's direct divine intervention.

What did Jesus tell His disciples?

Matthew 24:42-43 "Watch therefore, for you do not know when your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house be broken into."

So you and I must be ready because verse 44 tells us that the Son of Man will come at an hour when we do not expect Him.

Flip over to Revelation 10, verse 5. This is the exact counterbalance to what Peter has just argued: that God will be patient but He will come, and both the patience and the coming have been promised. And there will be a day when God says there will be no more delay.

Revelation 10:5-6 The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer.

So that promised day will be an unwelcome shock to those who thought it had been postponed indefinitely. The false teachers, of course, believe that Jesus expected the Kingdom to come fully either in His lifetime or with a few months of His ascension. These false teachers are like homeowners who casually leave doors and windows open. Peter calls this lackadaisical approach foolishness. Jesus said He would come when people do not expect Him, not when they do. And that day will be one of unrivaled cosmic destruction.

Please turn over to Isaiah 13, verse 9. The pinnacle of God's intervention is called the Day of the Lord and it will come without warning. It will be a time when the earth will be shaken at its foundations. It is a time when the judgment and obliteration of man's rule on earth will come to an end. And for them, it is a time of terror.

Isaiah 13:9-13 Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. "I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will be moved out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger."

Jump over back over to Joel 2.

Joel 2:30-31 "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord."

Now flip over to Zephaniah 1.

Zephaniah 1:14-18 "The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers. I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like refuse." Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy, for He will make speedy riddance of all those who dwell in the land.

Peter's picture in II Peter 3:10 of the second coming of Christ is drawn in terms of the Old Testament picture of the Day of the Lord. "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."

He uses a very vivid phrase "with a great noise" or "with a roar." It is a noisy word, so to speak. In Greek it is used for arrows whizzing, birds' wings rustling, the rushing of a rising stream, or the crackling flames of a forest fire. With this crackling crash, the heavens disappear. Another descriptive phrase Peter uses is "elements will melt with fervent heat." By the elements, Peter does not mean chemical elements listed on the periodic table. The word elements was used concerning numbers in a series, letters in alphabetical order, or anything in a row.

In time the word element came to mean the stars, the planets, and the galaxies, anything which was a component of the universe. So Peter and the Old Testament prophets saw the Day of the Lord as a universal upheaval. This blistering destruction is so unimaginably vast that we begin to see how futile it is to think of the Day of the Lord in terms of a global nuclear holocaust or a planetary climate change to illustrate the universal meltdown that Peter and the prophets were inspired to describe.

Our limited imagination cannot grasp the true picture of the Day of the Lord. To rely on our imagination would cause us to manufacture a God too small to be the Creator and Judge of the universe. But this is exactly what the false teachers have done and this is what many Christians have done today. They have made God too small in their eyes.

Instead, we have to rely on the description of God contained in His Word. And the Bible starts and finishes with a God who creates a universe and then recreates a new universe; who makes us in His image and then recreates us in His image. God is a God who says "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away." So it is enough to note that Peter sees the second coming as a time of terror for those who are enemies of Christ.

The Stoics of Peter's time and today's scientists have an inevitably pessimistic view of the future. But Peter encourage us to understand that we have a wonderful hope. We can see the future destruction of absolutely everything and yet know in its recreation that there is something infinitely more wonderful to follow. So Peter and the rest of the New Testament express this hope of a renewal and liberation of God's creation.

In contrast to this impending destruction, Peter informs us three times in II Peter 3:12-14 to look forward beyond the destruction to a new environment. So we encourage this ahead of time before it even happens.

II Peter 3:11-14 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. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.

The phrase in verse 11, "will be dissolved" or "will be destroyed" is a present participle in the original almost as if the process has already started. What the astrophysicist sees as billions of years ahead has already started, as Peter expressed it. If the universe ends, not with an impersonal cosmic implosion but with an encounter with the personal and living God, our human response most certainly matters. If we can neither flee from Him nor be crushed into infinite insignificance, we must face up to our responsibility to live holy and godly lives.

Peter does not give us a constricting list of do's and don'ts. The words holy and godly are both plural and mean, in holy forms of behavior and godly deeds, the plural implying that there are many ways in which these can be practiced. God wants us to expand these ideas beyond the narrow concept of religious things to do. He not only wants us to keep the letter of the law, He wants us to focus on the spirit of the law, the righteous principles of God's righteous way of life.

Peter emphasizes the moral connection with the second coming of Christ. If these things are going to happen, the world is hurrying to judgment. A person must seek with all his mind, heart, and strength to be fit to be a spiritual family member in that new world.

Believing that Christ will not return carries the consequences of ethical and moral deterioration of society. If there is no second coming, if there is no goal to which the whole creation moves, then life is going nowhere. And that is the mind of the ungodly. Their minds are going nowhere. This was the problem with the pagan Gentiles and more specifically, the scoffers that Peter was warning the church to avoid.

If there is no purpose, either for the world or for the individual life other than extinction, unrestrained attitudes and actions toward life become inevitable. Even pagans and atheists find a certain almost intolerable quality in life without a goal. They tend to seek power so that they can try to control their lives and others as well. But we know nothing can prevent us from receiving God's promise of eternal life in His Kingdom if we submit to Him in sincerity and truth, in submission and reverence, faith and repentance, and in mercy and love.

II Peter 3:12 Looking forward and hastening the coming of the day of the God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

Can we hasten the coming of the day of God? The Greek word translated as hastening means to urge on diligently or earnestly; by implication, to wait eagerly or wait patiently. Peter speaks of the Christian as not only eagerly waiting the coming of Christ, but as actually hastening it on. Partly, Peter seems to say we can accelerate the coming of the Day of the Lord by not moaning at its apparent slowness, but living in its light. Interestingly, the speed of light is the fastest thing known to man.

If God is delaying His coming by our sin, as II Peter 3:8-9 seem to imply, we encourage Him to come by our obedience. When we pray "Your kingdom come" in Matthew 6:10, we ask God to intervene in that final climactic way. But we are also committing ourselves to live as His subjects. The prayer for Christ's return was an early one, and it is a courageous one because only those striving for holiness would dare to want the coming of the Day of the Lord.

Now, we have to be careful though that we do not desire the calamity of people in the world because of an attitude of vengeance. Proverbs 17, verse 5 warns,

Proverbs 17:5 He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.

We also hasten the day by our verbal witness of Jesus Christ. He taught in,

Matthew 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."

Please turn over to Acts 3, verse 19. Now there must be a witness to the world of the coming Kingdom of God before Christ will return. Peter preached this message in Jerusalem.

Acts 3:19-21 "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Jesus taught that it is God's prerogative either to shorten or to lengthen that interim period as His sovereignty wills. And we know that it is the Christian's destiny to participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires, and that we are to look forward to a rich welcome from Jesus Christ.

Turn over to II Peter 3 once again. We know too that against the background of judgment on sin, God rescued Noah, the preacher of righteousness, and Lot, who was a righteous man. Here, Peter tells us we will have a new home, a home of righteousness, and we must be looking forward to this New Heaven and Earth and to begin to live a life now that shows how much we are getting ready for it.

II Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

So God made a good world but placed it under a curse of judgment because of human sin. And He promised that creation would be renewed and restored. So even today, creation eagerly waits that moment when God's people will rule the world in God's way.

In verse 13, the English word new is from the Greek word kainos, which emphasizes the radical change that creation will undergo and its continuation. Peter is not teaching the emergence of a cosmos other than the present one, but the creation of a universe which, though gloriously renewed, stands in continuity with the present one, in a manner of speaking.

Although the Greek words, kainos and neos mean new in the New Testament, notice how each word is used in Scripture and their different emphasis. Neos means new in time or origin, whereas kainos in verse 13 means new in nature and quality. Kainos indicates something unaccustomed or unused, not new in time. It represents something recent but its newness relates to its form or quality. It is different from what is its old version. It is a new version completely.

Take, for example, the new tongues, kainos, in Mark 16:17. These languages were new and different to those speaking them, not in the sense that they had never been heard before. They were also not new to the hearers who understood them. They were new languages to the speakers different from those they used to speak.

Here are other examples from Scripture. The new things that our calling an election provide are a New Covenant in Matthew 26:28 in some texts; a new commandment John 13:34; a new creative act in Galatians 6:15; a new creation in II Corinthians 15:17; and a new man, that is, a new character of manhood, spiritual and moral, after the pattern of Christ in Ephesians 4:24.

Now notice a few new things that relate to the Kingdom of God. We receive a new name and a new song will be sung. God will create a new heaven and a new earth and He will create the New Jerusalem. Revelation 21:5 states, "He that sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"

Here in II Peter 3:13, Peter links God's promise of new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells with holy conduct and godliness. This hope of a new heaven and a new earth is inspiring and motivates us to carry on doing God's will.

We have the individual responsibility to make every effort to submit to God as He makes us ready for our new home. This does not mean spending all day dreaming about it or trying to plot its arrival, but being ready in terms of righteous Christian living.

II Peter 3:11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?

II Peter 3:14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.

Peace is a fundamental requirement for His Family. We need to make sure that we all have peace between us and especially between us and God and not let contention or anything like that destroy that peace that we are required to have.

To be without spot and blameless was a requirement of sacrificial animals and the sacrificing priesthood, and anything that was devoted to God was to be perfect. In his first letter, Peter uses the terms "without blemish" and "spotless" to describe the absolute perfection of Jesus Christ in His death. I Peter 1:19 refers to the "precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot."

Ironically, in direct contrast, Peter describes the false prophets as "spots and blemishes." the opposite of Christ and the Christian.

II Peter 2:12-13 But these [that is, the false teachers], like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you.

So there is an enormous contrast between the saints and those who face God's judgment. They will have no place in the new home of righteousness because they are unrighteous. Those who face God's judgment will have never been at peace with Him or with with each other because of their enmity against Him. And we must be at peace with God.

Now, for a final scripture, please turn over to I Thessalonians 4, verse 13. We sometimes get impatient about Christ's return and we think "How long, oh Lord." Some have even begun to doubt whether He will return at all. He will return! And there is great comfort and hope in anticipating Jesus's promise to return.

I Thessalonians 4:13-18 [The caption of my Bible says The Comfort of Christ's Coming] But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself would descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

At the second coming, Christ will descend from heaven to earth. He will command an archangel to proceed, and the trumpet of God will awaken the dead saints to rise from their graves to life, and then the dead and the living saints together are caught up to meet Christ.

The Greek word for caught up is harpazœ and it means to grab or seize suddenly, to snatch, to take away. It gives a sense of being forcibly and suddenly lifted up. There will be a lot of power in what God uses to lift us up. Almost terrifying, in one sense, if those who have seen God have fallen on their faces, or those who have seen an image of God have fallen on their faces because of the terror.

Only a moment will separate the resurrection of the dead and the translation of the living. This ascension of believers will be accomplished quickly. The Bible does not mention how long we will remain with Him in the air, only that following this event, we will always be with Him.

Not only do we not grieve like unbelievers, but as followers Christ we can eagerly look forward to that wonderful day. This is the great hope of the church: to see Christ and be united with Him forever. And every one of us should joyfully trust the promise of His coming.

MGC/aws/drm