Amazing. So back to 2 Peter, chapter three,
and we will focus on what is said in verse nine. And I know we usually stick to
the NIV, but we'll be focusing more on what it says in the King
James Version. It says, the Lord is not slack in concerning his
promise. as some men count slackness.
And he talked a little bit earlier about how the scoffers were talking
about where is this coming, the second coming that he promised. And this isn't even that long
after Christ died. And they're already saying, where
is he? And here we are thousands of
years later. And it says concerning that the Lord is not slack concerning
his promise. as some men count slackness,
but is long-suffering to usward, to us, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance. And then it says a little bit
later in verse 15, it says, bear in mind that the Lord's patience,
or the Lord's long-suffering, is our salvation. This long-suffering,
first of all, it's just a word we don't use anymore. This is
coming directly from some notes that Joe wrote in 2011. I don't
know if you guys remember this sermon, but I do, and it was
amazing. It was one of my favorites, and
I stumbled across his notes, which were once again unfinished. He, and it's, I love it, actually. It's just so incredibly Joe that
he finished maybe 10% of his notes. I would read through his
notes of his sermon, and I don't know how far he would get, whether
it was halfway, three quarters, I don't know, but they would
just stop, which is kind of how Joe lived his life. He would
start projects and not finish them, but he was gifted in a
way where I think that's how he actually preached. I think
he took unfinished notes to the pulpit all the time and had the
ability and the gift through God to finish them, as we know
he did. I don't have that ability. So
I write it down. But I'm very grateful for everything
that Joe wrote down. It makes my studying so much
easier, and I remember this topic really well. I remember loving
it. He wrote it in 2011, preached on it multiple times. But the
long-suffering of God is, it just sounds strange. How can
God suffer, right? He's God. So God suffers, how
does that make sense? And then two, what makes God
suffer? How does God have to endure longsuffering? And what does God's longsuffering
mean for his people? Because everything about this,
through Christ, is to save his people. So what does the longsuffering
have to do with that? So God has promised us two things.
First, he has promised judgment on this world of rebellious creatures. Jude 1 verse 14 and 15 we find
a record of Enoch preaching about judgment and Enoch was a long
time ago he was a seventh Well it says right here, it says Enoch
the seventh from Adam. So this is early. Prophesied
about them and it says, see the Lord is coming with thousands
upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict
all of them of the ungodly acts they have committed in their
ungodliness. And all the defiant words ungodly
sinners have spoken against him. So we're talking early, seventh
from Adam, and Enoch is telling us about the judgment of God
on this world. Later, Paul, in Acts 17, verse
31, he writes, for he has set a day when he will judge the
world by the justice, or with justice, by the man he has appointed,
Jesus. He will judge the world by Christ. He has given proof of this to
everyone by raising him from the dead. So in other words,
if you're wondering how we can be sure that God will judge the
world through Christ, look to the resurrection. That was the
proof. That's how you know he was the
one. Jesus is the appointed judge
of all humanity. Judgment day is real and it's
coming. That's what Paul was saying.
God's authority and justice are fully vested in Christ. And then this is a straight from
Joe, because I thought it was great. He writes, unless we can
find a way to put Christ back in the tomb and keep him there,
justice will come. And it will come through the
return of the Lord and King, Jesus Christ. So that's the first promise,
that he will judge this world and its rebellious creatures.
Second, God has also promised salvation to his elect, that
is to all who trust in him through Jesus Christ. We're not speaking
of two different groups when we say elect and those who trust
in him. That's the same group under two
definitions. The word elect describes them
according to God's timeless purpose, before time, concerning his people. It is written that all things
work together for the good to them that are called according
to his purpose. God has a purpose. The glorification of himself
through the glorification of his son, the Lord Jesus, through
the saving of his people. Everything that God has ordained
bows to that plan. One of the ways he will accomplish
this glorification, like I said, is the salvation of a multitude
of sinners whom he has chosen. That is an unavoidable truth
in Scripture. In Ephesians 1-4, through 10, it says, For he chose
us in him before the creation of the world. Election. Before the world began, he knew
his people. To be holy and blameless in his
sight. In love, he predestined us for
adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ. So there's two categories. The elect and the believers are
the same. The elect happened long before
we existed. The believing happened once we
got here. To the praise of his glorious
grace, which he has freely given us, the one he loves. He says that he will make us
adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ and according with his
pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace. This is
all for his honor. which he has freely given us
through the one he loves. There's only one that was deserving
of his love and he gave him to us. In him we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches
of God's grace that he lavished on us. So lavished, what does lavished
mean? to bestow something in generous
or extravagant qualities. Quantities, sorry. So he doesn't
just give us enough grace to get by. It says he lavished God's
grace upon us. Generous and extravagant quantities
of grace. And then it goes on to say, with
all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery
of his will according to his good pleasure. which he purposed
in Christ to be put into effect when the times reached their
fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and earth
under Christ. He has promised to save his people,
and in doing so, glorify his son, the one he loves. These elect are also described
as those who trust or believe him. This is their description
as time reveals them. They are not elect because they
believe, they believe because they are elect. Election precedes
faith, it has to. Election happened prior to the
world beginning. How can we have faith if we don't
exist? So election precedes faith. Election
is a work of God carried out in timeless eternity. Faith is
a gift of God given in time. God has promised both judgment
and salvation from the very beginning of man's rebellion, but we have
not seen either of them fully come to pass. It has been several
thousand years since God first made these promises, yet we have
not seen the fulfillment of God's word on this matter. We haven't
seen the return of Christ. This evokes two different responses
depending on who you are. There are two types of people,
gods and not gods. And for the believers, it evokes
a longing for that day to come. To think about the return of
our Lord, who he is, what he's done, what he means to us, and
what he's coming back to do for us, especially as we go through
this world. It creates a longing. Now, there's a natural fear as
a human of any kind of ending, death. But to the believer, there's
a longing there, oh, that day could just come. how long they
cry. How long before we see the things
we have believed in? How long before we can see with
our eyes the things that our faith has shown us, that our
gifted faith makes us believe when we can actually see those
things? How long before all the enemies of our souls are destroyed? Because that will happen. How
long must we languish in this present condition? How long before we are made perfect
in both mind and body? Peter describes it this way in
verse 12 of 2 Peter, it says, as you look forward to the day
of God and speed its coming. It's not as though his longing
for that day can actually make to come any sooner, can't bring
it any quicker, but God has already set that date by his own authority.
What does it mean to speed or hasten its coming? Joe actually
wrote down a really good illustration here and he says that when he
would come home to his parents' house after not being there for
a long time, he would drive up and his mom would come out the
door and her arms would come out. That doesn't make them hug any
sooner than not putting your arms out, but that's the longing.
That feeling of, I can't wait for you to be here. That's what Paul meant in 2 Peter
when he says, speed, it's coming, that longing that we have for
that day. Toddlers do this all the time,
right? and they're learning to walk
or just new at walking, they very seldom have their hands
down. They see mom or dad and it's like this, like I just,
I wanna be with you. That's longing, that's speeding
it's coming. It doesn't speed anything up,
but that's how believers look towards the day of his return. The anticipation of the reconnection
or the connection of someone you love who has been separated
from you. That separation would finally
end. The outstretched longing doesn't
make the embrace come any sooner, and so it is with God's people.
And doesn't it feel that way sometimes? Reaching out to the day when
God will come and take them, take you, to himself. And the many years that have
come and gone since his promise serve only to make them stretch
for it, reach for it all the more. Now, but there, like I said,
there are two different responses. That's the response of the believer.
To the unbeliever, as we read earlier in 2 Peter, they will
scoff. It said again, above all, you
must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come. Scoffing
and following their own evil desires, saying, where is this
coming, he promised. Ever since our ancestors died,
everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.
We see no evidence of this coming. And this is true for the obvious
scoffers back then and today. Your atheists, the angry. Those who overtly cling to the
things of this world. Those are the obvious scoffers.
But it's also true for the religious. They have heard preachers warn
them. And maybe at first, those warnings
caused them some fear. They may have reformed their
lives a little bit, given up some bad habits, taken up some
good habits, start going to church more. But after a while, when
nothing seemed to change, they went back to what they were doing
before. In time, they began to scoff.
Such people will invariably find some fault with church or with
the preacher so they can excuse themselves from listening to
what he has to say, and they comfort themselves in the fact
that God has not yet come. So there must not be much to
his threat. Or in modern Christianity, there's
no warning at all of a threat of his coming, because he loves
everyone, according to modern Christianity. You just have to
open your heart to him, which you will not find in the scriptures. That is simply untrue. He has
a people, and there is a warning about the day coming back. It
is either gonna be a day of absolute glory, love, and joy, or the
exact opposite. No in between. The long period of time that
is passed between the promise of the Lord and his actual appearance
is also a test of faith to believers. It's easy for us to think according
to the flesh. I feel like 99% of my thoughts are according
to the flesh. Rather than the spirit, we can
become doubtful of the truth of God's promise. Doubt is part
of a believer's life. It just is. and that will always
be the case until we are no longer attached to this flesh and this
world. Doubt will exist. We can begin to focus on worldly
matters, but our reaction to the passage of time should be
threefold. Knowing that the Lord shall come.
We should live our lives in holiness and godliness, not wasting our
efforts to establish worldly possessions, which not only will
be destroyed and ended, but must be destroyed and ended. Think about that. Everything
that we hold on to dearly in this world, which is a lot, which
is true. There's so much that we love
about this world. It will not only come to an end, it must
come to an end. It's part of a cursed world.
There's nothing here to be kept. Not the greatest aspects of your
life will never belong in eternity. But investing ourselves in eternal
things of Christ and his gospel, which will never be destroyed,
which will never end, Let us look, be ever looking
forward to that day. The promise is for the future.
God has set that day and it will get here at his appointed time.
Ours is not to be occupied by the amount of time that has passed,
but to be ever just looking forward to that day. And then keep in
mind that this time that separates the promise from the fulfillment
actually has a purpose. We may think that God has saved
us. Why should we wait to bring the
end of all things? Why is he waiting? If he's already
got people, if he's already got them saved, why are we waiting
until the end of times? The answer is very simple. God's
long suffering is salvation. It says that directly in the
scriptures. That is, God's long endurance
of the sin of man is for the purpose of bringing salvation
to all of his elect, so that none shall perish. Again, in 2 Peter 3, verse nine, the King James Version, the Lord
is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,
but is longsuffering to us. not willing that any should perish,
but all should come to repentance. So there it is. This long period
of time between the promise and the fulfillment is not due to
some lack of honesty or diligence on God's part. It is a demonstration
of his patience on behalf of his elect. waiting until every one of them
is called to Christ. And it is a demonstration of
his patience in behalf of his elect. He's waiting till they're
all called, when the last of his sheep shall have been gathered
into his fold then, and not until then shall God fulfill his promise.
Then and not until then shall God return and judge the world
in his righteousness. Not until every one of them has
been brought home. Then and not until then shall
Jesus Christ return to gather all of his people to himself
that they may be with him and behold his glory. Were he to come any sooner, some
of his elect would perish. And that is contrary to his will.
and anything contrary to his will doesn't happen. Let us talk about God's long-suffering
for a few minutes. First, note the beauty of these
words to describe it. Long-suffering. Modern translations,
like I said in the NIV, says patience. It falls short of the Greek word. It's a combination of two words,
one meaning great and the other meaning suffering. Both teach
us something of God's long suffering. It is suffering indeed, real
suffering. Do not think that our sin is
merely an aggravation to God. I fall in that category. I fall
in all these categories. You forget what our sin actually
did and what it means to God. It's not simply an aggravation
to God, a mere transgression of some law that he commanded.
God's laws are an expression of himself, of who he is, what
he stands for. Therefore, every infraction of
those laws is a personal offense to God. It is more, our sin is deeply
offensive to him. God's wrath is not over the simple
fact that we have disobeyed, though that would be enough.
It's more than just you have broken a rule, you have offended
me. God's wrath So when we lie, and
think about this, when we lie, we have not merely broken a command,
we have actively, offensively, we've acted offensively in the
presence of him who is truth. He is the definition of truth. When we murder, it is not only
breaking a command, but a personal offense to him who is life. When we cheat, it is not only
a breaking of command, but a personal offense of the one who is faithful. When we steal, we are not merely
breaking God's command, but offending one who is the great giver. True personal offenses to him. Our sins assault his very character. They're disgusting to him. So
when God endures our sin, He is suffering a personal offense
with everyone. And His suffering is not short-lived.
He has suffered long with sinners. Think about just yourself, what
He's had to endure. through your life. And I'm not
picking on any of you impersonally. That's true for every one of
us. Think of the sin that he has long suffered for just you. And now think of everyone in
this world. He's putting up with everyone. Believers and not believers. Everyone. Personally offending
him every day. God suffers long with all men,
but God suffers long for his people. It says his long-suffering
is towards us. Many take this passage to mean
that God is long-suffering to everyone, for he is not willing
to take anyone, he doesn't want anyone in the world to perish.
So when they see long-suffering towards us, oh, that means he's
talking about everybody. That's not true at all. He's
talking specifically about his people. Who was that written
to, this scripture? It says he was long-suffering
towards us. 2 Peter 3 starts with, dear friends, this is my
second letter to you. Well, to who? Go back to the
first letter. It says, the very first words
of 1 Peter, to God's elect. exiles scattered throughout the
provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who
have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient
to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. That is who Peter
was writing to. And that is who God is long-suffering
for. And then 2 Peter 2 starts out,
He is long-suffering for his people. His letter was addressed to the
elect and the believers. God suffers long with all men,
but he suffers for his elect. He suffers long with the sin
of all men in order that he might save every one of his people. First Peter 3.20, it says, to
those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently
in the days of Noah while the ark was being built, in it only
a few people, eight in all, were saved through the water. In the King James Version it
says, which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering,
there's that word again, of God waited the days of Noah while
the ark was being prepared, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by the water. So the sin of man back then had
gotten so bad in Noah's day that God determined to destroy the
entire human race. It grieved him that he even made
man at that point. Does he destroy it immediately?
No, he waits 120 years. Why is that? His grace was upon
Noah and his family. So he long suffered with man
who he, at that point, wished he hadn't created in the first
place for 120 years. so that he could save those eight
individuals, some who weren't even born yet 120 years prior. So God waits 120 years so that
the way of salvation, the ark, a picture of Christ, could be
built and all those intended for safety in the ark could be
born, and brought into the ark before justice came. Once all of God's elect were
in the ark, God shut the door and he stopped long suffering. He ceased suffering for man.
And the waters came up from the deep and the rain came down for
40 days and the world was wiped clean. but his eight people,
whom he loved and had elected, were safely in the ark that was
prepared for that 120 years. You think Noah understood that?
I mean, we look at it too and think, man, what's taking so
long? God had a plan then, you don't think he does now? He knew
exactly when those floods were coming, and he knows exactly
when his son is coming back. and it won't be until the ark
is ready and everyone's on it. Since the days of Adam, all mankind
has been engaged in the rebellion against God. God promised judgment
for that sin, but he has endured the offense of man's sin for
thousands of years until Christ. The way of salvation came into
this world. And God continues to wait for
not all of the chosen household has been brought into the ark,
have been brought to Christ. Some might not even be born yet. Once the last one is brought
in, God will cease from enduring the sin of this world. He will
stop. He will seal his people in Christ
and visit the earth's inhabitants that aren't in Christ with eternal
judgment. And there are no words to describe
that. There are no words to describe what awaits us and there are
no words to describe what awaits the rest of humanity. We long to see our Lord come,
but it shall not happen until the last of God's elect is brought
to faith in Christ and sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit so
that they are all safe from judgment on the day of justice. And there is our hope. And it's a perfect hope, because
it's guaranteed As long as God is long-suffering of man, man's
sin, the door of the ark is still open, because not everyone that
is meant to go through has. The open door is a sign that
the day of grace, the day of salvation, has not ended. There are still more sheep. The church has work to do to
gather the sheep of God, and that's silly to say, but that's
how God works. He works through spreading the
gospel, and someone else needs to hear it. And every sinner still has reason
to hope in Christ, because we don't know who God has elect. We would have no idea. If it
were up to us to pick, it would be a completely different group
than who God has already picked. That's pretty obvious through
the history of man. God is long-suffering, but not
eternal suffering. It has been a long time since
God promised judgment. And maybe that long time has
lulled you into carelessness. But God is not slack. He's not
taking his time. He's not slacking on his due
diligence. He is not delaying. He has set
a day and it is coming. Every day is a day closer. So get in the ark. Get in Christ Jesus. It could be tomorrow. It could be tonight. It could
be in an hour. Get in the ark, for the waters
of judgment take away this world. Don't be caught as part of the
world. Call on Christ. If you haven't
already, call on Christ now. We don't know when that door
will shut. If you're in the ark, though,
praise God. Be so grateful. God's wrath is coming, and it
will wipe the world clean. Christ is why you're in the ark. His righteousness has made you
clean and worthy of entry. Christ is how you're in the ark.
His work has taken your lifeless body and put it there. Christ is the ark. You have his righteousness. You
have every blessing that he deserves. You have the safety of being
in the one God loves on judgment day. Christ is where you're found,
and Christ is how you got there. It's all glory to him forever. Our Father, we thank you. We
thank you for your truths. We trust in them as best we can,
Lord, but we pray that you'll help us to trust them all the
more every day. Help us to look to you, help us to look away
from ourselves, Help us to trust that you have a perfect plan
and that someday all of this will become clear. Clear in the actual sight and
clear vision of your face. We love you, Christ, only because
you love us. But we are so thankful that we
love you. And none of that can change because
we trust in you to keep it. We thank you, Jesus, we pray
this in your name, amen. Take out your hymnals once again,
and we'll stand and sing Rock of Ages, number 421.