If you would open your Bibles
this morning to the book of 2 Peter and the 3rd chapter. I've called this today, Milestones
of Mercy. And I use that title because
another year has come to a close, and another year has begun. Another milestone, you might
say. And we can surely say another
year of mercy and grace to someone. Another year of grace and mercy
in the year ahead to someone if the Lord is pleased to give
it. It came to my mind this morning
that the Lord only gives us these increments of time for our sake. They don't really pertain to
Him at all. He's the everlasting God. But these words that we find
in our texts This morning, they are words of mercy, as I said,
to someone that the Apostle Peter describes as beloved. If you look back in the first
chapter of 2 Peter, he addresses them in this way, Simon Peter,
a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained
like precious faith with us." That's what Brother Bill was
talking about. Those who have this common faith
given to them of God, enabling them to believe God, He says, through the righteousness
of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. All we have, we have
of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He addresses these words
to believers. And if you look back over in
the first epistle of Peter, He begins that letter to this same
people, describing them in another way, saying, Peter, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to
the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." So
what we find is that these words, as well as all the words of Scripture,
they are written to God's elect, redeemed, regenerated, and believing
people. And as such, Peter is used by
the Spirit of God, and speaking as the voice of God, he says,
I would not have you to be ignorant. Brethren, Paul uses that statement
on a number of occasions. And all of Scripture and the
knowledge that is contained therein is God giving it to His people
so that they are not ignorant like those who He describes in
this third chapter of 2 Peter who scoff at the things of God. Some of them do so as irreligious
people, and some of them do so as religious people, but they
are nonetheless scoffers at the word of truth. If you look here
in verse 3 of 2 Peter 3, He says, "...knowing this first, that
there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their
own lusts." Now, all that means is simply they scoff at the Word
and truth of the gospel of God, believing what they want to believe,
doing what they want to do, without any consequence or consideration
of the consequences of God's truth. 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 the creation. And for this they willingly are
ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old,
and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water,
whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished. In other words, they scoff at
the promised coming of God again in Christ, in judgment, just
like they did in the first judgment that he describes here as the
flood. He says, "...but the heavens
and the earth, which are now by the same Word, the Word of
God, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and perdition of ungodly men." But against that kind of
background, and in the midst of these kinds of circumstances,
he makes the statement that he does in verse 8. He says, "...but,
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
In other words, just because Another year has ended on our
calendar and on our time clock. And another year has now begun
on the same things. That does not mean that they
will go on in this way forever. I don't know if you caught what
was said in the reading of that 90th Psalm. Because in there,
in that 4th verse, he says, "...for a thousand years in thy sight,
or but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."
In other words, Peter is stating the exact same thing that the
psalmist stated, and he says this because evidently it is
necessary and needful that this one thing, as Peter calls it,
be reaffirmed again and again. And that is, although another
year has passed and another year has now begun, that does not
mean that we will even have the balance of this year that we
now call 2011. You see, there is a need of our
understanding this and seeing this, not only as far as the
unbelieving world is concerned, but as far as our own encouragement
is concerned. I like what an old writer said,
he said, a holy awe, and a reverential fear of God
are necessary in order to our worshiping and glorifying Him,
and a belief of the inconceivable distance between Him and us is
very proper to beget and maintain that religious fear of the Lord
which is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. And only when God brings us to,
in some measure, see the great distance and the great difference
between Him and us, Will we ever begin to see Him aright? In other words, God is not like
us. He is, as I said, the Eternal
God, and is described as the High and Holy One that inhabits
eternity. So what is going on in time with
regard to this God of eternity and His purpose and His will
concerning this earth and most especially concerning His people? Well, hold your place right here
and turn back to Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43, he says in
verse 13, "...Yea, before the day was, I am He." In other words,
before the first year, or even the first day, or even the first minute of time
that ever was on the face of this earth before any of these
things, He, as the Great I Am, was. And there is none that can
deliver out of My hand. I will work, and who shall let
Him?" In other words, in the midst of all this time, and in
the midst of all these years, God Himself is at work and is
busy, and He is doing all that He purposed to do, and there's
not anybody that can stay His hand or say unto Him, what doest
thou? In other words, he gives us,
in a sense, his perspective, and he reminds us of what he
can accomplish, whether it's in 1,000 years or one day. You see, that's what's got all
of the evolutionists and all the scientists and all the philosophers,
that's what's got them all in a stir and a turn, unable to
figure out anything. It's because God does not operate
on a steady way in time like they think He does. I remember
reading this once. You know, they tell us that it
takes so many years, so many million years just to make the
oil that lies in reserves between our Earth's surfaces, surface
and layers. And this goes on, and it's repeated,
and it's believed, and it's taken, and it's never hardly questioned.
And then one day, a scientist, according to what is reported,
a scientist taking certain circumstances and conditions and elements under
certain pressure, guess what he does? In just a few minutes,
he makes high-grade crude oil. But nobody reports that much.
Why? Because we would have to acknowledge,
such as we find evidence of everywhere, that is in that catastrophic
event that is called the flood, and what took place in the flood,
what men say took millions of years to create, God did in just
a little while. And we're still discovering it.
We're discovering it, we're finding out, we're learning things. Well,
we're just finding out what God did. We're just finding out about
God's purpose. Because he says to us, he reminds
us of this great divide as far as being is concerned. He says,
"...for my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts." There's a big difference. And
that's just simply one way of expressing it that He gives us. That a day is with the Lord as
a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. So that you and
I can never, by measurement or by searching or by anything we
do of ourselves, we can never, by searching, find out God. He
has to reveal Himself to us. And yet, as He does here in places
like this in His Word, when He makes plain statements and such
clear declarations, we reveal the ignorance of our minds and
the bias of our minds and the hardness of our unbelieving hearts
that we won't even receive what He declares. Somebody said His
eternity exceeds all measures of time. To His divine knowledge,
all future things are present. His power does not require long
delays for the performance of His work. His longsuffering excludes
all impatient expectation and eager haste such as we as men
feel, and He is equally blessed in one day and in a thousand
years, and He can do a work of a thousand years in one day."
That's amazing. But what does all this mean with
regard to us? to men and women living on this
earth. Well, we have to know and we
have to admit, whether we want to or not, that he will be as
true to fulfill every promise of his judgment. He will be just
as true and faithful concerning the fire he speaks of in this
text as he was the water. That's what Peter is saying.
They scoffed in Noah's day. They scoffed as this preacher
of righteousness, as Scripture calls him, was preaching the
gospel and building the ark. And they scoffed in our day at
the promise of His second coming. But let men and women scoff all
they want to. It will not alter His purpose,
His plan, not one little The old writers used to refer to
what they called the leisure of the eternal. What did they
mean by that? They meant he can't be hurried,
he can't be hindered, and his purpose cannot be thwarted in
any way or in any detail. Talking to a man this week, he
said, now that gets over into predestination. I said, that's
exactly where I live. That He has marked off all things
according to His own will and purpose beforehand, and what
He's purposed to do, He will do it, especially concerning
His people. And you see, that's what Peter's
saying here. He's reminding us that this very characteristic
of God, that God being the God that He is, this remains the
foundation of the hope of all His people. He always is and
was and will be the same. Now, it's not likely that 2011
will be the same as 2010. There are a lot of things that
I'll be glad that that's the case. But God will be. And His purpose, His purpose
is like that wheel, somebody described as the wheel of God's
judgment. They said, the wheel of God's
judgment grinds exceeding slow. but it grinds exceedingly fine. Doesn't miss anybody. Doesn't
miss anything. And so look at what he says here
in that ninth verse. He says, in light of this, in
light of this being the way it is with God, he says, the Lord
is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness,
but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance." He's not slack. He's not slack. That means He's not slow. That means He always possesses
the power and the will to fulfill His promise. Just don't have
to worry about that, not one bit. You see, that would be a
real consolation to us. No matter what's going on in
this world or our lives right now at this one time, if we could
find ourselves resting in the realization that whatever it
is, it's the Lord. And let Him do what seems right
to Him. It's Him. And if we are His people,
If we are that people that He loved and chose in Christ and
brought in time to an end of ourselves and enabled us to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and find in Him all the truth of
God, all of salvation, it's especially so with us. He said, for I am
the Lord, I change not. Now, he could have just said
that, and, brother, it would be absolutely true, wouldn't
it? He is Jehovah, and He does not
change. He cannot change for the better. He's absolutely perfect and holy. He will not change for the worse. But He put a therefore behind
that. He said, therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. You're not consumed. And this
is especially so because all of His promises are yea and amen
in Christ. All the promises of God are in
Christ. All spiritual blessings, all
God's purpose of grace to His elect, they are all in Christ. And He is the same yesterday,
and today and forever. Well, a day passes, Christ is
the same. A thousand years passes, Christ
is the same. If ten thousand years pass, or
a million years pass, and I always think it's so foolish to hear
finite creatures of this three score and ten talking in terms
of millions and millions and billions of years. But if it
does take place, He's going to be the same. If you're His child,
He's going to be the same to you. If He's your Savior, He's
going to be the same to you. And any delay or extending in
time is not because of God's inability or His fickleness,
but it is, as Peter says here, because of His longsuffering. Years ago, I looked in the Old
Testament. And I looked at most all the
usages of that word, longsuffering, which is used much more in the
Old Testament than it is in the New Testament. But the best I
could conclude was this, longsuffering of God is simply the grace of
God. The grace of God. The grace of
that God who A day is a thousand years to Him, and a thousand
years is as a day. Time goes on, and it's not because
men are doing something right, and it definitely is not because
we're making progress in pleasing Him. No, it's because of His
mercy to His people. Peter describes them in that
8th verse as beloved. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians
in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, he describes them as beloved,
beloved of God, who God from the beginning chose to salvation. Somebody says, well, if that's
the way it is, I don't want any part of it. If God chose some
and He left some to themselves, if He did this, if He decided
He'd show mercy on you and He didn't show mercy on this one,
I don't want it. That's the most ridiculous logic. that we could
ever entertain. Here you are over here, let's
say you're dying of the most awful disease. And finally there's
a man, a doctor somewhere who comes up with a remedy for that
disease. And he decides he's going to
make a batch of this antidote or this medicine, whatever it
is, that's a cure for your disease. And you're going to stay and
stand him in the face and say, well, because you're not going
to make it for everybody, I don't want what you got. You wouldn't
entertain such logic as that with anybody except God. Because
in that, we have to acknowledge Him as God. We have to own the
fact that we don't deserve anything but that judgment He's talking
about here. We have to confess that we're
nothing but wretched sinners, and it's His right as God to
give or withhold whatever He will, and to be gracious to whom
He will. Look in that 9th verse. He says, To usward. If there's ever been
an abused verse in Scripture, it has to be this. He's gracious
to usward. And usward is simply another
one of those pronouns that has to be identified close by somewhere,
by something that distinguishes and identifies. He does that
beginning in the letter, in the first greeting of this letter. He says it all the way through
and he says it there in that 8th verse. Those who are beloved
of God. You say, well, God loves everybody.
No. He said He didn't. He said he hated Jacob, hated
Esau rather, but he loved Jacob. You see, we think that there's
something lovable in us, but there's nothing lovable in us.
He says, the reason that God's judgment has not already fallen
upon this sin-cursed world, and time be brought to a consummation
of all things, is because God is not willing that any of His
beloved and chosen and redeemed people, that is, these uswards,
should perish. You go over to Romans 11 and
you hear Paul. lest these Gentile believers
be all puffed up and believed and say, oh, now God has just
abandoned these Jews altogether. He said, lest you begin to think
like this, don't you forget what it is for you to be engrafted
in to this thing of grace. He said, God has a people of
the Jews, He has a people of the Gentiles. And now he says,
I wouldn't have you ignorant, brethren, that what's going on
is now the bringing in of these Gentiles. And he says the final
thing is this, all Israel, that is all the spiritual Israel,
of which is Jew and Gentile, all Israel shall be saved. That's what's going on. All Israel
is being saved. He's not willing that any of
these should perish. And though minutes turn into
hours and hours into days and days into years and years into
thousands of years, all that time ever displays is the long-suffering
of God. Everybody gathers together, we're
going to have a New Year's party. We're going to have a New Year's
celebration. All you're going to do is just
have a time of revelry and gluttonous and such as that. You're not
going to acknowledge the mercy of God. Here's another milestone
of mercy. We say sometimes, and we think
it's a bit pious when we say, well, I want the Lord to just
bring all this to the end. I don't want Him to before it's
His time. I want all this to be over. Really, I don't until
it's time. Why? Because he said it'll be
going on until the last stone in that building is put into
place, and he said it'll be with shoutings of grace, grace. There's coming a time when the
last one of God's people is called by His Spirit mightily and effectually
and brought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And when that
last one is called to Christ, He said it will be with shoutings
of total completion and fulfillment, with shoutings of grace, grace. You see, the grace of God to
these elect sinners Their salvation being accomplished altogether
in Christ is an eternal salvation. And His covenant does not alter
in any detail concerning their full inheritance of the promised
things in Christ because it's an everlasting covenant. The
priests of the Old Testament, they lived and they died. And they were succeeded one by
another. But the Lord Jesus Christ, our
priest, is a high priest forever. Forever. You see, the years of
time, they don't display the great accomplishments or progress
of man, but they show the great mercy of God. A thousand years. Sounds like a long time to us,
doesn't it? Like a day with the Lord. A day. I can't get nothing
done in a day. I was thinking about what I just
need to accomplish tomorrow. I can't even get what I need
to accomplish tomorrow. God can accomplish whatever He
will in a day. And time stands, and it continues
to pass, so that all of God's elect are born into this world,
and then in that time, the day of His power brought by the Spirit
of God through the gospel that He brings to them through repentance
and faith, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show you a verse.
Turn back to Isaiah 30. It's a wonderful verse, I think. What he says to Israel, he says
to all his people, to all his believing people in all times. Isaiah 30, look down at that
18th verse. He says, "...and therefore will
the Lord Now, that's waiting that seems to be waiting to us.
But it says, and therefore will the Lord wait that He may be
gracious unto you. That's why we've got another
year. The Lord waits that He might be gracious to His people. You may pray during this year.
You may have prayed during the last year. And it seems like
the Lord waits. Well, what's He waiting for?
To be gracious. To be gracious. Do you remember
old Methuselah? I've told you a lot of times
probably what his name meant. He was the man that lived prior
to the flood. His name meant this, when he
is gone, it will come. How long did he live? 969 years. He lived the longest. of any man upon this earth."
What did that do? That showed the long-suffering
of God. He didn't live, die a day after
He was born. His name meant, when He's gone,
it's coming. That flood is coming. And God
blessed him through year one, which I'm sure in that day wasn't
maybe so easy, and year two, and like me, I'm in year 63,
and that's not easy, I'm telling you that. He lived 969 years. Why? Because God was being merciful,
gracious, nearly a thousand years. He lived the longest and thereby
showed God's great mercy. And year after year has rolled
by, a hundred years, a thousand years, I don't know how many
years, I don't worry about it a lot. But year by year rolls
by from the time that Adam, the head of our race, fell in the
garden, And the seed of the woman was promised, and it appeared
many times that time would soon end, and a multitude of false
prophets predicted the end of the world, just like they have
in our day. And then came the century in
which we live, and the discovery of so many amazingly awful things,
that it looks like it could end any second." There's a little
pygmy over in North Korea, he's talking about And I quote, nuclear
holocaust. I got an article, a news article
on my phone that said, it was entitled, 16 wars that could
begin any minute. We're looking at 2011, we're
saying, well what if this happens? Or what if that happens? I don't
know if you noticed or not, but there seems to me a whole lot
of rich and powerful countries in this world right now, they
would just love to rub the face of this country in the dirt.
You reckon they will? If the Lord wills. But if He
doesn't, they can have what they want, and they won't be able
to. But the thing of it is, it doesn't
matter what goes on. He maintains. He brings all these
things to pass. He withholds the hand of man's
wickedness in order that his people can be born and live and
be brought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when
the Lord imputed all the sins of His elect to Christ, when,
as Isaiah said, He laid on Him all their iniquity, divine justice
required that He die the death of the cross. But now that same
justice, since He has now paid all their debt, since He has
redeemed them by His blood, since He has given Himself a ransom
for them and satisfied every claim of that justice against
them, that same justice requires that they be free, that they
be delivered, that they be saved, that they be called. that they
be brought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they
be manifested in this world as his people. Why? Because he shall
see the travail of his soul and what? Be satisfied. Be satisfied. When he came the
first time, it ushered in that day that the prophets had talked
about and that he himself acknowledged in Luke 4, the acceptable year
of the Lord. A year? Well, that's just like
every other measurement of time that God uses, such as the day
of the Lord, the acceptable year of the Lord, that millennial
or thousand years of the Lord. All it is, is just definite distinctions
and increments of time in order to show us that God has a beginning
and an end and accomplishes all He will in the midst of it. 2010. Oh, some people say it's
the worst year ever. Worst year for the stock market,
the worst year for this, the worst year for the economy, the
worst of all things. No, it's just another year in
which God Almighty has been merciful to sinners. And we just come
to this milestone, and by it alone we're reminded of His mercy. That it's the Lord's mercies
that we're not consumed. That our hope is in that everlasting
righteousness which Christ brought in. Well, Peter continues on
here and he tells all about what will take place, how we're to
conduct ourselves in the light of that. He says in verse 10,
"...but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
into which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned up." That doesn't
mean consumed. means purged, purified. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation and godliness? Now, we've just come through
a time, as I said, of revelry and lightheartedness and all
that, but if we really knew that 2010 would be the end of it.
How would we have regarded it? And yet this is just what he
says. It very easily could be. "...looking for and hasting unto
the coming of the day of God, when the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Nevertheless, we according to his promise, look for new heavens
and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved,
seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may
be found of him in peace without spot and blameless, and account
that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." The grace
of God. is salvation. It's always our
salvation. Even as our beloved brother Paul,
also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto
you, as also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things,
in which are some things hard to be understood, which they
that are unlearned and unstable rest, twist, as they do also
the other scriptures unto their own destruction. I wonder what
those folks do when they try to say, well, this is the Scripture
and that's not the Scripture, or what Moses wrote is the Scripture
and what Paul wrote is not the Scripture. Peter said what Paul
said is the other Scripture too. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing
ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led
away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness,
but rather grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and
forever. Amen. Could it be that God has
given us just another day, not even to say another year, but
today, and that He has extended, for that's really not even a
proper term. He doesn't extend anything. But
this day that He's given us is a day in which He might make
manifest to one of His children the fact, the truth, that He
loved them, set His heart upon them, took upon Himself human
flesh to die for them, and that this time goes on because of
His purpose to save them, bless them for the glory of His name. He passes another milestone of
mercy in order that he might reveal the Lord Jesus Christ,
who He is, and what He's done for you, for me. He's worthy
of all glory. And may we grow in the grace
and knowledge of Him. And not just last year, or this
year, or today, or tomorrow, but to Him be glory forever. Our Father, this day we give
You thanks and praise. You alone are worthy. We know
that You can accomplish in a day whatever You would. You can prolong
Your mercy for a thousand years, that You might save all Your
people. We know that You do all things right, and that all of
time is but continued mercy to such sinners as we are. We thank
you. We praise you. In Christ's name,
amen.