Start reading in verse 1, read
all the way down to the 18th verse. Read through the whole
chapter here. Then we'll come back and we'll
look at a few things that the Lord leads in some of these verses. 2 Peter chapter 3. Scripture
says, This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both
which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, 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 there
shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts
and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the
father's fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation. 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. But the
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are
kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men. 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. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any of us or any should perish, but
that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in which the heaven shall pass
away with great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall
be burned up. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
all holy conversation in godliness? Looking for and hastening unto
the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. Nevertheless, we walk according
to his promise. Look for new heaven and 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, 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 in these things, in which are some things hard to be understood,
which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do
also the other scriptures under their own destruction. 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 grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both
now and forever. Amen. Now let's just go back
and go through this conclusion that Peter is writing in this
second epistle. Now we know that Peter is Already
written epistle. If you matter of fact, if you
want to turn back to the first epistle of Peter, we see who
he is writing to, who the recipients of these letters are. First Peter chapter one, it says,
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. elect according
to the full knowledge of God and Father through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace be
multiplied. So here we see that this letter,
the first letter, was written to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontius Galatia, if you remember, as Paul first began breathing
out his threats to the church in Jerusalem. The church then,
there in Jerusalem, scattered. If you remember, there was roughly,
you know, 2,000 or so members of that Jerusalem church at the
time. On the day of Pentecost, of course, we had, you know,
the 12 apostles, and then we had the 500 that were there along
with Jesus, that Jesus showed himself to after his resurrection.
those women and men that followed along with Jesus and the apostles
as they ministered while Jesus was here. But then on the day
of Pentecost, after Peter preached, there were roughly 2,000 people
that were converted and were baptized and was added to the
church. So we see that there was a big group of people at
the time, and even more that had been added later But as Paul
began to breathe out these threats to the church, the church was
scattered. I was talking about this earlier
this week. The church wasn't scattered because
they were scared like they were running and hiding from Paul.
They were actively scattered. They were purposely scattered
to go out into all the world as the Lord had directed them
to do. to go first from Jerusalem then to Judea and then to the
other parts of the world, Samaria and the other parts of the world.
And so they were scattered throughout the region and they went into
that region preaching the gospel. So we have all these strangers
to these other lands have been scattered out. And this is who
Peter is writing to. He is writing to these believers
who have been scattered throughout the region, and as you see there,
you can see Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, that
they were scattered. Now, in the second epistle that
he has written, he writes, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle
of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith
with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus
Christ. So we see here, two times, Peter
is very clear in who he is writing to. He is writing to the saved
people of God, the beloved, the strangers, the pilgrims. Well, I don't think he uses the
word pilgrims, but strangers identifies with that. The elect. Here he says, those who have
obtained like faith, those who are the righteousness because
of Christ Jesus. So we see that these letters
are not written to people in general, okay? And I wouldn't
even go so far as to say that neither is the whole Bible. The
whole Bible is written to God's people as a revelation of their
God and their Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's given to them. The natural
man cannot receive these things. people of God. But we see specifically
here who Paul is writing to. So now we see in chapter three
where we're going to pick back up where we began our reading.
He says, this is the second epistle. So we know this is still the
same people. And he calls them beloved. I now write unto you in both
which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. So Paul
or Peter is wanting to remind them of some things. And now
what's going on? Well, there's false prophets
that have arisen within the church and has began to teach heresy.
There is scoffers that's been coming and has been telling them,
hey, you guys keep saying that Christ is coming back, but here
it's been all this time since he's supposedly resurrected and
supposedly ascended back to heaven, but yet he's never come back.
Where is he coming? When's he coming back? So they
have these false teachers, they have these scoffers and the church
is becoming a little antsy saying, you know, hey, you know, they're
starting to listen to these guys and beginning to have some doubts
and everything. And so Peter is writing this
letter as a letter of remembrance to remind them of the promise
of Jesus Christ. Now, if you guys remember, the
scriptures are very clear in the fact that the Bible says
that God cannot lie. He's not like a man that he can
lie. And so whenever Christ made a
promise that he would come again, then he is going to carry that
promise out. He promised whenever he was here,
he said, I am going away to prepare a place for you. And if I go
away, surely I will come and receive you unto myself. I will
come and bring you to myself. that where I am, you may be also. Paraphrasing that, of course,
but that's what Jesus promised, and if Jesus makes that promise,
we can count on that. My kids and my wife, who is with
us at the conference, you heard me read the passage whenever
concerning God's purpose is immutable, we read that passage that whenever
God says something, he's gonna carry it out, he's gonna do it.
God cannot lie. But God has made these promises,
and he's made these promises by two immutable things, which
is number one, God's counsel, which will stand, and the fact
that God has made an oath that this stuff is gonna take place.
And so we can count on those things. And so Peter here is
bringing these people's minds into remembrance of the promises
of Jesus Christ. And that's basically my intent
this morning, in going through these verses, especially in chapter
three, is to remind us that Christ is returning. I know we can become
very complacent, we can become so busy in our lifetime that
we really don't really think about the fact that Christ could
come at any minute, at any time, and that He is coming back. And
sometimes we just don't even have that on our radar. But we
need to be reminded of these things. The Bible tells us that
we should be watching and waiting for his return. For those of
us who are Christ Jesus children, we've been given a hope. And
that hope that we have is the hope of his return as much as
it is the hope of his salvation that he has given us in a legal
sense, but the hope of his return so that there might be a consummation
or a wrapping up, a finishing of this redemption because so
far we've been redeemed as far as legality is concerned but
one of these days these bodies are going to be redeemed and
the fact that this flesh that is full of sin is going to dissolve
into nothing and Christ is going to give us a new body and our
spirit which is perfect and created in true righteousness and holiness
our body will be equal, our body without sin. And so a lot of
times we forget about these things. We don't think about this. And
for the child of grace, we are longing and yearning for these
things. But even at that, you know, we
can be caught up in the busyness of life and we need to be remembered,
be brought to remembrance of these things. He says in verse
two, that ye might be mindful of the words which were spoken
before of the holy prophets and the commandment of us, the apostles
of the Lord and Savior. In Jude, if you'll turn to Jude,
look at Jude, starting in verse 1, it says, Jude the servant
of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, to them that are sanctified
by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, mercy
unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave
all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was
needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints. For there are certain men, corrupt
and unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I
will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how
that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt
afterward, destroyed them that believed not, and the angels
which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation,
He hath reserved an everlasting chains under darkness, under
the judgment of the great day, even as Sodom and Gomorrah and
the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over
to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers
defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Yet Michael, the archangel, while contending with the devil, he
disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a
railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these
speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they
know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt
themselves. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of
Cain, and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward,
and perished in the gainsaying of Kor. These are spots in your
feast of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves
without fear. Clouds they are without water,
carried about of winds. Trees whose fruit withereth without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of
the sea foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars to whom
is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch,
also the seventh from Adam, prophesied these saying, Behold, the Lord
cometh with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon all
and to convince all that are ungodly among them, and of all
their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against
him. These are murmurers, complainers,
walking after their own lust, and their mouth speaketh great
swelling words, have immense persons in admiration because
of advantage. But beloved, remember ye the
words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ." So see here, even Jude is bringing remembrance to the
believers, saying, listen, remember, all these men that are infiltrating
in and are speaking these things, he's saying, Keep in mind what
God said. Don't be listening to what they
say. What did God say? And as I've mentioned to you
guys before, and I've taught you all growing up, the only
thing that we have that is truth is the Word of God. The only
thing that we have that we can bank on is the Word of God. I
can fail. You can fail. Every preacher
in this world can fail and is fallible and can preach an untruth. I know there's a lot of preachers
out there that they don't admit that they can preach an untruth.
They think they know it all. But brethren, listen, we are
fallible people. The only thing that we can count on is what
God's Word says because it's true. But here we see Jude is
bringing them into remembrance of what the Lord said. He said,
how that they told you there would be mockers in the last
time who should walk after their own godly lust, these be they
who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit, but ye,
beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying
in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for
the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, and of some
have compassion, making a difference, and others, save with fear, pulling
them out of the fire, hating even the garment, spotted by
the flesh. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise
God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and
forever. So back to 2 Peter, we see that
these are the things that we are to be mindful of, the words
that were spoken by the holy prophets in the Old Testament.
These things were talked about in the Old Testament. They were
talked about in type in shadow, they were talked about veiled,
but they were talked about. But now they've been revealed
to us, they're opened by the command of the apostles through
the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse three, knowing
this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking
after their own lusts. Well, what's a scoffer? Well,
someone who's out there and is just making fun or just poking
fun. at what's going on is just, you
know, just passing it off as nothing, you know, even doubting
it, just saying, you know, hey, just like what we're talking
about here, you know, where is the Lord? Look at verse four,
matter of fact, and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
You know, you guys keep saying the Lord's coming and here it
is. It's been, you know, 2022 years since your Savior died and resurrected
and all that stuff, you know? Roughly 2,022 years. But where's
He at? I thought He promised He was
coming back soon. Well, what did Peter say? He
said, Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, verse 8. Don't
be ignorant of this thing. Don't listen to the scoffers.
Okay? Why? They willingly are ignorant
of what God has said. They're ignorant of what God
has said. And he said, don't you be ignorant of what God has
said. Get your Bibles and read your
Bibles and see what the promises of God have been about his coming
back. He said, he said, where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continued as they
were from the beginning of the creation. Everything's continuing
on, trucking on, year after year, day after day. Everything's the
same. But look at verse five. He says, for they are willingly
or 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.
He's reminding them that, remember, Things aren't always like it
is. Things do change. God does come in judgment. If
you'll remember, Noah, in the days of Noah, men were eating
and drinking and carrying on about their lives, and they were
scoffing. Whenever Noah was preaching to
them about righteousness and was preaching to them about Christ
and about the gospel, of course, again, veiled, but preaching
to them about righteousness, And about God, they were scoffing
and mocking. They weren't listening. And then
all of a sudden, judgment came upon them. And the wicked were
taken away and the righteous were left behind. And so he says,
it wasn't like that. It isn't just going to continue
on and continue on and continue on like it always is. There is
going to be a day of reckoning. There is going to be a day of
judgment. There's going to be a time when Christ comes And
he's going to come in judgment. He says, also remember Sodom
and Gomorrah. Look at that. Sodom and Gomorrah. We've seen that in Jude, actually,
not Peter. All these people in these cities
was living in immorality. They were fornicating. What does
the word fornicating mean? Well, that's having sex outside
of marriage. God has ordained that sexual
relations are to be kept within the confines of a husband and
a wife in marriage. That's it, not outside, not before
you're married, not while you're married with somebody else, okay? That is a command that God has
given us that we are to be faithful and that this is given to us
in the confines of marriage However, Sodom and Gomorrah, they had
perverted that. The Bible says that they were
fornicating. Not only were they just having
rampant sex with everybody that wanted to have sex and not within
marriage, but the Bible also says that mankind was laying
with mankind and womankind was laying with womankind. Exactly
what is being pushed in our society today. that homosexuality, lesbians,
LBTGQ, whatever it is, all the letters are. All these things
are now being promoted as a normal lifestyle and they're shoving
it down your throat saying this is normal. It ought to be normal. They're putting it in everything.
They're putting it in children's cartoons. They're putting it
in advertisements on TV, commercials, where at one time you never would
have even spoken of these things Now they're showing it on commercials
and children's TV shows. They're trying to make and push
what is abnormal and to make it normal. And they've gone so
far now that whenever you speak God's word and say, that's not
right, that's normal, now you're saying, you're being called a
bully. You're being called someone who
is intolerant. Someone who is old-fashioned,
that's old days thinking. You're thinking like a, you know,
you're thinking like a boomer, or whatever. You know? Listen guys, God's Word doesn't
ever change. What God said in the Old Testament,
He says in the New Testament, He says right now. It doesn't
change. Just because the times have changed
and men have grown more wicked on the earth, or the manifesting
of their wickedness has been greater in the earth, doesn't
mean that God's Word has changed. It's still sin. It's still abnormal
for that to take place. And yet we see it on TV, we see
it in commercials, we hear it in music, we see it out in the
open, everywhere you go, it's pushed. Just, hey, sex is okay,
just have it whenever you want, with whoever you want. It doesn't
matter if it's a a man, if it's a woman, if it's a man dressed
like a woman, a woman acting like a man, and listen, I'm telling
you, it's gonna eventually happen. They're gonna say it doesn't
matter if it's even a child. Go ahead. As long as they say
it's okay. But brethren, listen, God destroyed
two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, for that very thing. He destroyed
everyone in the city. And so this is what Peter is
reminding them of, saying, listen, there were scoffers then, there
are scoffers now. There is false teachers then,
there is false teachers now. Don't listen to their rhetoric.
Don't listen to their persuasion where they're trying to make
you feel guilty for following God's word. See, that's what
a lot of these scoffers and that's what a lot of these false teachers
are trying to do. They're taking God's word and
they're twisting it and changing it and trying to get you. They're
going back to what Satan did in the garden when he said, hath
God really said? These people are saying, do you
think that the God of love would really tell you that you shouldn't
love these people and just accept them for who they are? Doesn't
God accept us for whom we are? No, God doesn't accept us for
who we are. There is not one person in all
this world that God has accepted for who they are. He's only accepted
them for who they are in Christ Jesus. See, the only way that
we're accepted in God is by who we are in Christ Jesus, by being
in Christ. He doesn't accept us as lesbians
and queers and gays and transsexuals and you know, whatever the other
letters mean, I don't, you know, whatever that is, no, he doesn't
accept us as that and says, okay, come in here and it's all right,
you continue being like that because I love you anyway, in
spite of who you are. No, that's not what God means. The only way that God loves us
and accepts us is because we are in Christ Jesus. And he loves
us because Christ Jesus has died for us and his righteousness
is laid to our account. And whenever He does save us,
He changes our heart to where we want to do what God says. We want to be not sinners like
God has shown us to be. Now, we can't quit sinning, but
I believe that God does equip us and enable us to overcome
these sins that's in our lives. And He delivers us from those
things. The one who, and what a great
testimony. We know of people that the Lord
has delivered from these types of lifestyles and everything. And so we're thankful for those
things. Let's look at what it says here. It says, verse seven,
but the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word
are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men. So he's saying here that there's
coming a day that judgment is going to come and this world
will be judged. It's not going to be destroyed
by water like he did with Noah. And with Sodom and Gomorrah,
he destroyed it with fire and brimstone, but it was only two
cities. With Noah, he destroyed the whole
earth with water, but he made a promise that he would never
destroy it with water again. But brethren, he has made a promise
that one of these days he's going to destroy everything of this
earth with fire. It's going to completely be dissolved
away, as it says here. But the heavens and the earth,
which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. God is reserving this there.
I'm just going to say on a side note of this. Notice that it
says here that it is reserved. this world, this earth, the heavens
and the earth, are reserved until that day of judgment, for that
day of judgment. So again, all this notion that
people talk about in the world here about man-made global warming
or man-made climate change that's going to destroy our earth if
we don't stop this, if we don't tax everybody to death so that
we can have all of these green programs and all this kind of
stuff, we don't get all this implemented, our earth is going
to start dying. We're going to have problems.
We're going to have the hottest summer that we've ever had. We
had a hot summer. I mean, it was in the hundreds
almost all day, every day, throughout the whole summer. But brethren,
this isn't the first time we've had that. It's been like that
before. We've had a dry, matter of fact,
I think it was what's been a hundred days since we've had any measurable
rain. back in July. So, I mean, it's
been like that before. We've had winters where we've
had snow up to our hip. It's been like that before. We've
had years where we've not had any snow. It's been like that
before. We've had times whenever the
ice caps begin to melt, but then we have times whenever they get
bigger again. We have times whenever there's
Few polar bears. Then we have times where there's
a lot of polar bears. Brethren, it comes and goes.
It's cyclical. Year in and year out. But listen,
it's all being preserved until the day of fact. Listen, we are
not going to destroy this world because God is preserving it
for His judgment. Man cannot destroy this earth.
Only God can destroy it. But it says here, keep that in
mind. Remember that. Remember not only
is this earth going to continue on until God comes, but when
he does come, he's the one that's going to destroy it and it will
be destroyed and all the wicked will be destroyed as well. He says, Beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord is a thousand
years and a thousand years is one day. Remember God is not
bound with time. God is an eternal being. And
he is in the ever present now. And so one day to him is like
a thousand for us. And a thousand of our days is
like one day to him. And now this is just a comparison. This is a illustration that Peter
is given. And men like to take this and
make it, there you go. Whenever God says one year, that
means a thousand years, exactly a thousand years. And what do
they start doing? They start counting days. They start looking
for signs. We just passed last week or the
week before last. Listen, what was happening, professing
Christians were counting down the days till Jesus was going
to return because if we added these days, If we add up the
festivals and feasts of the Old Testament, and if we look at
the patterns, and if we see this moon and that moon and this moon
and all this stuff, and they get out their dispensational
maps and they start looking at all the stuff that all the dispensationalists
put up and all this stuff, then they start listening to all the
Jewish junk that's out there, which the Lord, by the way, said
was a synagogue of Satan, and has decimated their religious
system, by the way, and said that it will never more be. They start listening to those
things, and what do they do? They start counting down, and they
say, all right, the Lord's coming back on September the 27th. September the 23rd through the
27th, any of these days, oh, I think it's gonna be the 27th.
I think it's gonna be by this certain time of day, blah, blah,
blah. Whenever Jesus said, no man knows the hour and no man
knows the day except the Father in heaven. He's the only one
that knows whenever he's coming back. God is coming back on his
timetable and whenever he decides to come back. And no man knows
that, and no man's gonna figure that out. No man's gonna count
the days and get it right, okay? There's been, listen, I've grown
up in the 80s, In the 80s, there was a deal just like these last
two weeks where everyone was saying the Lord's coming back
on this day and they counted up the days and the reasons why.
They even put out a book, 88 Reasons Why the Lord Will Return
in 1988. And I mean it, it supposedly caused this great revival of
everybody coming back to Jesus because everybody was scared
that Jesus was coming back. And listen, you can't scare anybody
into being saved. You can scare people into being
religious start coming to church, cleaning up their act because
they know Jesus is coming back tomorrow. Jesus is coming back
tomorrow so I'm getting my act cleaned up. You're not saved by cleaning
up your act. You're not saved by coming to church. You're not
saved by those things. All that is is scare tactics
for religionists to get other religionists to join in with
their religion so that they feel good that they have been successful
in their religion making. Okay? That's what all that is. And so Jesus said here that a
day is with the Lord is a thousand years, a thousand years is one
day. This is basically just saying that the Lord, time is not an
issue with the Lord. And so we just need to wait upon
him, hope in him and look for him to come. He could come at
any time. Now there is no reason why we
should ever doubt that the Lord could come at any time. Could
He come today? Absolutely. Could He come before I'm done
preaching this message? Absolutely, He could come at
any time and He will take the wicked away and He will keep
the elect among Himself and eternity will begin after He destroys
all things. That could happen at any minute.
But brethren, don't let the scoffers who keep saying, well, yeah,
you said that yesterday, you said that last year, you said
that the year before, Don't let that persuade us to be ignorant
of the fact that Jesus promised that he was coming back. I know
I said that last year. And guess what? It's a year closer
to him coming. It's a year closer now. So, I think one of the biggest
things that is a hindrance, or at least is a black eye to Christianity,
so to speak, is whenever Christians start trying to date Christ's
coming. He's gonna come on this date
at this time. Don't do that. Every time you
do that and that doesn't happen, it just makes things look bad
for the true Christianity. So people shouldn't do that.
He says here, he says, he says, the Lord is not slack. So he
said 1,000 years is 1 day a day is 1,000 years. So he says, quit
looking at the time frame of it. Look at the promise. Did
Jesus promise that? If He promised that, then you
can bank on it. But He never did say how long
it was going to be before He comes back. He never did say,
I'm going to be back in two months. He didn't say, I'm going to be
back in two years. He didn't say, I'm going to be back in
two millennia, which is 2,000 years. Okay, which we now are
two millennia away, you know. We don't know. But he said this,
one thing don't be ignorant of is that he is coming back. And he goes into verse nine and
says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. Now some will say,
well, yeah, he is slack. It's been 2,200, it's been 2,022
years since supposedly he was born. And now here it is, you
know, It's been 2,000 years and he
still hasn't come back. He's pretty slack in that. Yeah,
you think 2,000 years is anything? There was 4,000 something years
before Jesus even came. 2,000 years is only half of that. But whenever you compare that
to the fact that God is eternal, 2,000 years is just a speck. 2,000 years is just a The Bible says that our life,
and the Bible usually gives that the average length of man's life
is 70 years, and he says that man's life is just a vapor. You
know whenever it gets cold outside and you walk out and it just
goes away? That's how God is comparing our
70 years of life is just a vapor. That's how long it is compared
to eternity. It's nothing. It's nothing. Peter is writing
here saying, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise,
as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering. See, don't
look at it as, well, God's not keeping His promise. Don't look
at it that way, Peter's saying. He's saying look at it this way.
God is being long-suffering to His elect, not willing that any
of them should perish. He's not wanting any of them
to perish. but all of them to come to repentance. Now, we know that this verse,
verse 9, is often used by Arminians, or by those who believe in free
will, free choice, that believe that they choose their own salvation,
that they have to accept Jesus as their personal Savior to get
saved, which is not true, They use this verse to say, see there,
God loves everybody and wants everybody to be saved because
he's not willing that anyone should perish. So there, you
see, God did send Jesus to die for everybody and he does want
everybody to be saved. And so he does leave it up to
them to choose because he's not willing that any should perish.
But the only reason they perish is because they don't choose
him. But see, that's not what this verse says. This verse isn't
even written about them. This verse is only written about
the elect of God. Who is this letter written to?
We just read it. To the elect of God. To those who have obtained like
precious faith. That's not the reprobate. That's
not everybody else. That's only the elect of God.
Those who have obtained. Not those who have chosen to
exercise faith. Those who have been given a faith.
Those who are the elect of God. Those who are the beloved. That's
who the usward is there in verse 9. But is longsuffering to usward. God is holding out this time
period and not coming back because He has elect in every generation. He has elected every nation,
every tribe, every tongue, and He has a certain number that
He has chosen before the foundation of the world, that He has written
down in a book. I know my kids have heard me
say this now a couple times this last weekend, but He has written
their names down, and He knows who they are, and until every
one of those people have come to repentance, meaning that they
have come by faith, to trust in Christ alone for salvation
and not trust in themselves in religious activity and religious
works and what they do for salvation until that point, until that
last person that God has ordained from the foundation of the world
to believe comes to belief, then he's long-suffering. Meaning
that he is not ending everything right now. He is suffering that
these things should be and continue to be wicked, continue to be
evil, continue to have the reprobate among the elect, to have the
wicked among the righteous, to have the sheep and the goats
mingled together, to have the wheat and the tares mingled together. He's not separating them yet.
He's long suffering, allowing that to take place. Why? Because
he has a purpose in all that. But at the end, At the end, there
will be a separation. The goats are not going to beg
for mercy and get in. If you remember Jesus, he gives
an illustration of the ten virgins. Five of them were ready and five
of them were not. Whenever the bridegroom came,
the five that were ready went with him and the other five that
went because They weren't ready for him to return. Whenever they
got there, they begged, hey, give us some of your oil for
our lamps and everything. And they said, you know, you
should have been ready. You know, we can't give you our
lamp. We can't give you our oil. And
so they were taking in the other ones and were left out. Well,
there's not going to be a day just like whenever Noah, whenever
it began to rain and God shut the door to the ark, all those
people, can you imagine all those people That was the first time
that it ever rained. It had never rained on the earth
until the day that it rained for Noah and the flood. It never
rained. And the Bible says that the floodgates
of heaven were opened up and within just a few days, the whole
entire earth, and think about it. Y'all have been to the mountains
before. You guys have seen the mountains and how tall they are.
I mean, you go to Colorado and some of those mountains up there
are 8,000 feet above sea level, above the water level. 8,000
feet. Some of them are more than that.
Some of them are 12, 15,000 feet above the water level. Now you
think of that across the whole entire world, how much water
it takes to cover everything in the world. That's a lot of
water. And within so many days, God flooded the whole entire
world. That's a lot of rain. That's some heavy rain. You imagine those people when
all of a sudden something started happening that they'd never seen
before, these floodgates of heaven being opened up. And they now
remember Noah saying, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain. Repent,
it's gonna rain. Repent, it's gonna rain. They're
making fun of him, scoffing at him. And when God shut the door,
there was no more people getting in. No more people was gonna
get in. God, matter of fact, designed
the ark for those people and those people only. And those
people outside, we see pictures of it and stuff like this, all
those people outside the ark, banging on the ark, begging to
get in and things like that. Listen, the wicked will not be
shown any mercy. They will not be shown any mercy.
God is long-suffering now towards the wicked for the sake of the
elect. But there will come a time when
God will no longer be long-suffering and that judgment will come. And Peter is reminding them,
listen, we are being bombarded by wickedness today. We are being
bombarded by scoffers and false teachers today. We are being
persecuted. And brethren, we may be persecuted
in days to come. But he's saying, remember, don't
be ignorant of this one thing, that this is just a short period
of time in your ever eternal life that God has given you. One of these days, you're going
to be absent from this body. You're going to be present with
the Lord. One of these days when the resurrection comes and Christ
comes again, you'll have a new body and that is going to last
forever. It won't die. And listen, the time that you're
going to experience from there forward, this little time period
you've spent on earth is nothing. And what little bit of ups and
downs, what little bit of hardship, what little bit of turmoil, of
wickedness that you've had to endure, of pain, of suffering,
of agitation, of even, like I said, persecution. These things that
you've experienced for what little bit of time you are here, and
to some it may be 80 years worth of it. What little bit of time
compares nothing to what we're going to experience in eternity.
And he says, he's not willing that any should perish, that
it all come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass
away with great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall
be burned up. Everything is going to be destroyed
and there will be a new heaven and a new work that will come
down from God. But God is not willing that any
of us should perish. That's why He's waiting. That's
why He's long-suffering. Because none of us are going
to experience that judgment that's going to come. He says, verse 11, See the others
are scoffing, saying, Lord's not coming back. Just go ahead and don't
worry about it. Live however you want to live. Do whatever you want to do. It
don't matter. It don't matter. Now, brethren,
I'm telling you, we're going to continue to sin until the
day that we die. We still have this flesh. But
the child of grace has been given in them a desire for holiness,
a desire for righteousness, a desire to obey Christ Jesus. Now, can
we obey him perfectly? Absolutely, we cannot. And should
we be thinking that, hey, I need to obey Him that I might continue
to be righteous or accepted before Him? No. The Gospel doesn't teach
us that. The Gospel teaches that all that's
been given to us freely by our substitute. But that doesn't
change the fact that we still want to do the very thing that
we can't do, and that's be obedient. We still want to do it. And we
still try to strive to do it. Why? Because we want to honor
the Lord. We want to show Him praise. We love Him. So we want to keep those commandments
even though we know we can't perfectly do that. And so he's
saying here, how should we, you know, seeing that these things
are going to take place, how should our conversation or how
should our walk in godliness be? He says, looking for and hastening
unto the coming day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall
be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
I can't even imagine what that's going to look like. I can't even
imagine how it's going to happen even. But it says it's going
to happen. Nevertheless, we, who are we?
The elect, the righteous, the beloved. Nevertheless, we, according
to his promise, whose promise? Christ's promise, who's Christ?
He's God. Manifested in the flesh. The triune God dwelling in body
form, that's Jesus. He says, according to His promise,
look for new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, so in light
of all that, He's saying, in light of all that, seeing that
ye look for such things, be diligent that ye be found of Him in peace
without spot and blame. What does it mean being found
in peace? Does he mean be diligent to make sure that you're getting
saved, right? No, that's not what he's saying. It says be
found of him in peace. Quit getting worked up about
it all. The Lord is in control of everything. The Lord is over
all things. You think Do you think Joe Biden's
running everything? Well, we know he's not running
anything, but do you think the Democrats are in control of everything?
Do you think the one world government's in control of everything? The
Illuminati and all the other junk that, you know, is going
on, the shadow governments that's back there behind with all these
people. Do you think that they're actually in control of anything?
No. There once was a time whenever
Caesar was in control of most of the known world and Pilate
who was one of his underlings, who'd been given control over
the area of Jerusalem, controlled all that area. The Jews, even
among their people that was leaders in the Jews, they had no power
over the Romans. The Romans were in charge. And
at any whim, those Romans could kill you for anything they wanted
to do. And anything that Caesar decided
to do, you had to do it or you would die. And Jesus stood before Pilate,
and Pilate looked and said, I can't find anything wrong with this
man. I don't see anything that he's done wrong. I don't see
any reason why these people are wanting him to be crucified.
And they kept calling for his blood, kept calling for his blood.
He even went and said, I don't see anything wrong with this
man. And he even offered up another criminal. He said, I know that
you have a custom with your people at this time of year. free and let him go. They chose a thief, they chose
a murderer over Jesus Christ. They would rather have that man
among them than Jesus, who had done nothing but heal the sick,
raise the dead, feed the multitudes, done all these miraculous things,
loved them, was kind to them, preached the truth to them, but
yet they didn't want him. They wanted to kill him and let
me have the murderer Barabbas instead. Turn him loose and let
keep Jesus. And Pilate was saying, hey, listen,
don't you know that I can turn you loose? Just with one thing,
I could have all this changed. And Jesus told him, he said,
you know, and I'm paraphrasing, you think you have power, but
you don't have any power except what's been given to you by my
Father in heaven. See, we think that all this stuff
is spiraling out of control in this world, but it's not. God
is still in control of all this, and this is what he's saying
here. He's saying, wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look
for such things, we're looking for the return of Christ, we're
looking for the time when God does away with wickedness and
evil and separates us and pulls us out and relieves us from sin
and all the effects of sin and all the people in sin and all
the wickedness that's out there to remove us from all that. And
He says, Be diligent that ye be found of Him in peace without
spot and blameless. That doesn't mean perfection,
that you need to be without sin. He's saying that you be found
in Him in peace. trusting Him, in faith looking
to Him, knowing that He not only is in control, but that He is
our righteousness, and that He is our defender, and that He
will come and make things right. He will justify His name. He
will justify His glory. He will come in judgment, and
He will destroy the wicked in all sin, and that we, because
of His righteousness, will not be part of that. That's what
He means. That we be found of Him in peace.
That we be found of Him without spot. Be found in Him. Be found
of Him without spot and blameless. See, we only are spotless and
blameless because of the righteousness of Christ. So this means that
we are to be living in faith. That we are to be living by faith.
By the faith of Jesus Christ. What He done. and not what we
have done. Verse 15, and account that the
longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. See, the reason the
Lord is being longsuffering is because He is manifesting, exhibiting,
carrying out His salvation. He has saved His people, and
now He is manifesting that in all the world by their coming
in faith to Him. The long-suffering of the Lord
is salvation, even as our beloved Paul, also according to the wisdom
given unto him, hath written unto you." So see, Paul wrote the same things. Now, see this carefully, what
Peter is saying. Now, this is before the New Testament
was written, right? This is before the Bible even
came all together. Now, they had the Old Testament
scriptures. They had it in Hebrew, but they
also had it in Greek and Septuagint. And he says here, he says, 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 that which they that are unlearned
and unstable rest, as they do also the other scriptures." So
what is Peter doing here with the writings of Paul, his epistles? What did Peter just mean by saying
that about Paul's writings? Well, look at it there. Figure
this out. You guys start reading your Bibles
and start looking at these things and pray that the Holy Spirit
give you an understanding of this. What did Peter say about
Paul's writing in view of what he just said here? He says, as they do also the
other scriptures. So what's he saying about Paul's
writings? Would that not mean that Paul's
writings were the scriptures? If he says, as they also, right? Also the other scriptures, he's
talking about Paul's epistles, and he said, listen, people are
not understanding, they're not understanding Paul's epistles
when he writes to them as all the other scriptures they don't
understand either. So he's saying that, listen,
Paul's epistles are a scripture. See, they're not understanding
the Old Testament, but they're also not understanding Paul's
writings either. Who's he talking about? These unlearned men. These
who are ignorant of God's word. Those who are ignorant of spiritual
things. The ones who were, as they says
right here, resting the other scriptures. That means that they're
taking the scriptures and they're turning it to make it fit what
they think it means. We call that eisegesis. Eisegesis
is taking the scriptures and laying on it what you think instead
of just taking the verses and explaining the meaning of the
verses. What are the verses teaching? That tells us what we believe.
But what mostly we do, and I've been guilty of this also, and
I pray that God keeps me from continuing to ever do this ever
again. But we have an idea, we have a tradition that we've learned
growing up. Maybe our parents taught us something
or our grandparents taught us something or a church that we
used to be a part of. That was their teaching all this
time and we heard that over and over and over and over and over
and over and over in our mind. And then all of a sudden we come
and we see, man, I don't really think that's really what the
Bible is saying, but it's hard to get it out of our mind. Why?
Because we've been indoctrinated with something else. Why? took
something and they said this is what I believe and this is
what I think that this is. So it has to say that because
of what I think about this. So what are they doing? They're
isogening. They're laying their interpretation
of, they're laying their tradition, their belief, their presupposition
on the scripture and saying the scripture has to say this because
it doesn't fit in my box of my understanding of what I've been
taught about this. So it can't mean that. Instead
of saying, that's what the Bible is saying. So, oh, I thought
I was always taught this. Well, that must have been wrong
because this right here is clear. This is what this is. There was
a time that I didn't believe and I preached against election,
that God elected a people for himself and give them to Christ
before the foundation of the world. And he decided their destiny
and not us. I didn't like that doctrine.
But, you know, there came a time that the Lord showed me in scripture,
that's the truth. But yet, what I had learned and
what I had taught myself, if I went through the Scriptures,
I was always trying to make excuses for why that's not true. Why? Because I didn't like that doctrine,
because I wasn't taught that doctrine, it was foreign to my
understanding, and I'd heard even people that I had always
went to church with, and my family and things, saying that, oh,
that's a bad doctrine. Oh, yeah, that's the doctrine
of devils. You know, I've heard that from people before as well.
That's the doctrine of devils, election is, and all that stuff.
And so what did that do? That formed in my mind and therefore
when I went to scripture I was like, well that can't mean that
because we all know that's the doctrine of the devil. When all
along it's actually the doctrine of Christ. Just the opposite. And so that's called exegesis.
Taking out from what the scriptures teach. We get what we believe
from what the scriptures teach, not laying our interpretation
upon And so Peter here, he says that Paul has written these things
and people are misunderstanding these things and they're taking
them and turning them to mean certain things as they do the
other Scriptures to their own destruction. But look at verse
17. 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. Now there's a couple of things
that can go on here. We can listen to the scoffers and be led away
and say, you know, they're right. Maybe the Lord didn't really
mean what he meant. Maybe he really isn't coming
back. He has taken a long time. He did say, he did say that he
was going to come back and get us, but he hadn't been back yet.
Now, I would pause to say this. Did Jesus make mention of coming
again soon? He did. Did John write in Revelation
the things that are soon to take place? Yes, he did. But are those events the same
as the events we're talking about here? Are the events that were
soon to take place and the coming again soon The coming that Jesus
is talking about here is return to destroy the heavens and the
earth and to remove the wicked from the righteous. Is that what
he was talking about or was he talking about the judgment? He will soon come to Jerusalem
in judgment upon Jerusalem as had been prophesied, as Jesus
had told him he was going to do. And as he most certainly
did, whenever he came in AD 70 by the hand of the Romans and
destroyed all Jerusalem, millions of Jews killed, the temple destroyed,
all the religious things destroyed, just as Jesus had promised, I'm
going to leave unto you your house desolate. Why? Because it's the synagogue of
Satan. It doesn't preach about me. It preaches about self-righteousness. Is there going to come a time
whenever Jesus is going to come again and He's going to show
forth His righteousness compared to the righteousness of men?
Absolutely. What was He promising back then though? That He was
going to come and as He promised was going to destroy Jerusalem
and show them that judgment has come to their house. And that's
exactly what happened. What was John in Revelation talking
about? John in Revelation was talking
about the things. I must show you these things that must soon
take place. Revelation chapter 1. He says,
The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show
unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. And he sent and signified it
by his angel unto the servant John, who bare record of the
word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ and of all things
that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth and
they that hear the words of the prophecy and keep those things
which are written therein for the time is at hand. The time
is at hand means for the time is now. It's time for this to
happen. So whenever John wrote this,
and I believe that John wrote this before the destruction of
Jerusalem, that John wrote these things and it was a warning of
the things that was to come. I believe that he wrote these
things to tell everybody that this was going to happen. But
listen, this is only part of the Lord's overarching work in
his creation. And that the end will come. But
this right here was talking about a destruction. He's writing to
the seven churches about repentance. And then he begins to write about
all the things that we're going to experience. in this lifetime,
and then ultimately into eternal places. But what John is writing
about were things that were soon to take place, and I believe
they were. What Jesus preached about in
Matthew 24, I believe, were things that were soon to take place,
speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem. And so... Peter, let
me get back to Peter here. And so Peter says here, Seeing
that you know these things, beware lest ye also be led away with
the error of the wicked. Fall from your own steadfastness. So see, He's calling for us to
be steadfast in these things. Don't let the world and all the
things going on, think that things are out of control. Remember,
let us be found of Him in peace. But He says, but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to Him
be glory both now and forever. And so we see that we are to
grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
we do that as God enables us. As a matter of fact, Peter talks
about this again in earlier, a letter in 1 Peter chapter 2
and verse 2. It says, Wherefore, laying aside
all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and
all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk
of the Word, that ye may grow thereby. So we are to desire
the sincere milk of the Word. Do you desire the sincere milk
of the Word? Do you love the Word of God?
Do you love reading the Word of God? Studying the Word of
God? Child of Grace has that desire to study those things.
He says in Ephesians chapter 4 and in verse 15, I believe. He says, as a matter of fact,
I'm going to go back to verse 11. He says, and he gave some
apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors
and teachers for the perfecting of the saints." That means the
maturing of the saints. For the work of the ministry.
Who's the one who's doing the work of the ministry? For the
perfecting of the saints. The maturing of the saints. For
the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body
of Christ. Okay? That's the reason that preachers
are given is to help mature and they're reminding them, bringing
them into remembrance of all these things, teaching the Word
of God, preaching the Word of God, putting before them every
time they meet the Word of God, edifying, building up the body
of Christ. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
or a mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ, that we henceforth, why? Why do we do that? Why am
I preaching here today? Why am I teaching doctrine? Why
am I being specific about what they say versus what does the
Bible say? You know, a lot of people take
offense to that, right? They take offense whenever preachers
say, why all the time are you always talking about what they
say is wrong and you're right? Well, I'm not saying that I'm
always right. You've heard me enough to know that I know that
I can be wrong. I'm not saying that I'm always
right. I'm saying the Bible's right. And if what they're saying
is against what the Bible says, they're wrong. And so I'm pointing
that out so that you might see that and not be deceived by it. Because he says right here, one
of the reasons why that pastors and teachers are given for the
maturing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for
the building up of the body of Christ, is that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine. So that you might be steadfast
in the doctrine that Christ has already given us. And not looking
out there and saying, well, that kind of sounds good. You know,
hey, my best friend, they believe this. And that sounds, that to
me sounds pretty right. I don't know. Or mama told me
this. I can't go against what mama
told me. Well, now dad's telling me this
and maybe I should listen to dad. Guess what? You're being carried about by
every wind of doctrine. There's only one body of doctrine
that has been given to the saints by Christ. He says, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about by every
wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Here it is, but speaking the
truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the
head, even Christ, that we might grow up into him in all things,
that we might grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and His
doctrine, the teachings about Him and what He has done. That's
what we are to grow in. And as we grow in those things,
all these other things, guess what? They don't mean nothing to us.
We can live in peace knowing what Christ has said. My grandpa
used to always say, he used to talk about counterfeiters, You
know, we have all these men that are called apologists out there,
and they go and they study all these false religions and cults
and all these things, and they have all their debates and all
this kind of stuff, and they're out there learning everything
they can about that so that they can warn people of the stuff
that's fake. My grandpa used to always tell
me, and he always used to tell this story about, you know, the
people that work with money, and he said, you know, whenever
they learned to know about counterfeiting, you know, how to tell a counterfeit
bill. He said, they don't go and study all the counterfeits.
They don't go out and study about what all the counterfeits look
like, feel like, taste like, smell like, act like, look like. What do they do? They study the
original thing. And they get to know the original
thing so well that whenever something does fake come in, they know
that it's a fake. They can tell that it's a fake.
Why? Because they know the real thing and what it's like. See,
if I was to go out, like, with a dollar bill, you know, for
a long time, or for money, I should say, for a long time, we used
to have those pens that you drew on. You could tell it was a fake,
but now you guys know that they've got counterfeit bills out now
that can fake out the fake pen, right? Why is that? Because Every time that a fake
is found out, what do the people that are wicked do? They find
another way to get around the truth and make the fake again. See, Satan is all the time disguising
himself as a angel of light, as a messenger of light, of something
that's good. And so he's always conforming
himself to make himself look good. And what does wickedness
and evil always do? They always try to put a good
spin on it to make it look good so that it will be acceptable.
The counterfeit bills, they had it for a while, it looked like
the same thing, but oh, we got found out every time something
was checking us. Every time somebody came and
checked the validity of who we are, now we're found out. So what do we do? Now we slink
over here and we change our ways a little bit to look more real.
Now whenever they put that pin across there, it looks like it's
a real one. See, brethren, that's what they do. That's what I was
talking about with the lesbian and all the other stuff, gays
and all that stuff. What are they doing? They're
making it look normal. Why? So that you'll be accepting
of it and not know that it's wrong. Why? Well, we see it on
TV all the time. It's in kids' movies. It's in
kids' cartoons. How can it be so bad? It's got
to be right. We're just old-time thinking.
That's really what it is. We're just old without, you know,
no need to get hip. Get up to date. See, that's how
Satan moves. And this is what Peter is telling
us here. He's telling us that we need to not be tossed to and
fro by every, or not Peter, Paul, not being tossed to and fro by
every wind of doctrine and the cunningness of man and the wicked
one who is the father of lies. He's trying to lie to us. And
so he's saying here that we should be diligent and grow in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, brethren, if
we get into God's Word and learn what God's Word says, then whenever
we hear the fake stuff out there, we'll know it. We don't have
to go study all that fake junk out there. Listen, I don't have
to go study the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. I know what
some of the things say. And sometimes, you know, I like
to kind of know what that kind of stuff is all about and what
they're saying. But listen, I don't have to go and know all that
stuff. Whenever someone comes and knocks on my door and starts
talking about, hey, You know, let me tell you about somebody
about Jesus, and I say, well, what do you think about Jesus?
Who is Jesus? Well, he was the first creator
of God, and he's the, you know, the brother of Lucifer. Well, I know that that's not
right. Why? Not because I've studied
what he said, but I studied this. You know what I learned when
I studied what they believed? I learned what they believed?
If learning what they believe, does that tell me whether or
not it's true or false? How do I know whether or not
what the Mormons say is true or false? The only way that I
can know what's true and what's false from what they believe
is by knowing this. How can I compare what's true
and false? If I go study all the Mormons and what they believe,
all I'm going to know and learn is what the Mormons believe.
But unless I already know what this says, I will never know
what they believe.