Chapter three, not necessarily
just verse nine, but starting in verse one is where I'll begin.
I've preached on this in the past, talked about this passage
of scripture, probably one of the most misrepresented verse
in scripture other than John 3, 16. Verse nine, and You know, people use this passage
to prove or as a proof text that God loves everybody and that
God wants everybody to be saved. And it's not, you know, because
it says that he's not willing that any should perish. And so
that means that God wants everybody to be saved. But we find that that in context
here is not what this passage is talking about. Now, we're
gonna deal with that passage when we get here. I'm gonna deal
with the whole chapter here this morning, and not necessarily
just the ramification of the verse nine, because really, when
we look at verse nine in the context of chapter three, verse
nine, while I believe that it is a linchpin part of the verse,
because this is the reason why these brethren are waiting we'll
get into that also here in just a minute but we'll see that this
is something that Peter is teaching them or explaining to them reminding
them in passing in the overarching discussion upon the coming of
Jesus Christ. Okay, so the context of chapter
three isn't focused upon God not willing that any should perish.
Okay, and while that's a very important and important statement,
like I said, what comes before and what comes after is grounded
in or secured by verse nine. But verse nine isn't the main
attraction of this passage. This portion of the letter to
these believers is the fact that Christ is not slack in his promises,
that he is coming back. That was the whole purpose of
why the encouragement in this letter is being written. If you
remember in the previous chapters, Peter has been dealing with all
kinds of things like a lot of the licentiousness of people. He's been dealing with the false
teachers, the false prophets that have been speaking blasphemies,
that have been speaking and taking advantage of the people. And
he's warning the church about listening to these men and following
after these men and how they speak great words. As a matter
of fact, if you look back, It says, verse 18, it says, for
when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure
through the lust of the flesh. Through much wantonness, those
that were clean escape from them who live in error. While they
promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.
For of whom a man is overcome are the same as he brought in
bondage. So we see, whenever these men
are speaking, they're speaking to appeal to the people. and
to get them and draw them away. And so Peter is warning them
about these men, matter of fact. And he said that these men had
their condemnation coming. Matter of fact, they were They
were born, they were ordained, as it says, actually they were
ordained for this condemnation. This condemnation is something
that is already decreed by God that these men would be raised
up, that they would be false teachers, be false prophets for
his purpose. And we know that God does those
things. He did it in the Old Testament as well. So anyway,
the context leading up to this is all of this turmoil that these
believers are experiencing. Now, also remember where we are
in history whenever this book is being written. Jerusalem has
not yet been ransacked. God has not yet destroyed Jerusalem. The Roman army has not come in
and wiped everything out. That was the arm that God used
to destroy Jerusalem is Rome. But they have not been destroyed
yet, but yet there is a lot of persecution that is going on
during this time period. not only persecution of the church,
but persecution of the nation as a whole. The church has already
been scattered. We read that back in Acts that
the church had already been scattered and only the apostles were left
in Jerusalem at the time. And so there was just a small
remnant of people there in Jerusalem, but the people have been persecuted
during this time period. We know specifically that Peter
is writing to these that have been scattered. Matter of fact,
if you look there, verse one, let me just let me just read
through this chapter real quick and then I'll go back in. I probably
should have done that to begin with. Like I said, I'm a little
scattered this morning, but let's look at verse one and I'm going
to read down through it. and then we'll kind of go back and
kind of get the highlights of what leads up to this. It says,
this second epistle, beloved, now pay close attention, this
is the second epistle, that's why you see at the top of your
Bible, 2 Peter chapter three. The second epistle, beloved,
make note of that. If you've got a highlighter,
if you've got a pen or something like that, underscore the beloved,
you're gonna see this a lot. It says, I now write unto you,
beloved, in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of
remembrance. So he's saying the reason I'm
writing to you is to remind you of some things. That's what the
apostles did this a lot. They wrote to remind. because
we as children of the flesh, the children of Adam, still in
the flesh, we forget things. We get sidetracked on things.
We get led astray sometimes, okay? But the Lord always brings
us back. He always brings us back. He
always brings us in our minds. He renews our minds and He refreshes
us in our learning because the children of grace are never going
to go away, gonna fall away. The true children of God are
never going to fall away. And so what Peter is saying here
is I'm writing these things to bring you into remembrance because
you can be led away, you can be led astray by these false
teachers. You can be led astray by the false prophets. You can
be led astray by these strange doctrines, false doctrines, and
in doing so you forget The fundamentals of the Word of God. The fundamentals
of Christianity. The fundamentals of the doctrine
of Jesus Christ. And so we take this as a remembrance. This letter is bringing them
to remembrance. Remember whenever I preach to
you this. So remember whenever I give you this. And again, brother,
don't forget, these apostles were taught directly by Jesus
Christ. Peter has expressed it that what
he preached was not from himself, but from Jesus. Paul himself
said the same thing, that the things that he received were
from Christ himself. The apostle John said that he
shared the things that the Lord had given him to say. We know
that these things are given by the Lord. And so they're saying,
remember these things. These are the true doctrines. These are the true truths. That's kind of a redundancy. But these are the things that
are from God. He says 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 saviors.
It was like what I was saying. They had the holy prophets that
was in the Old Testament. These believers had the Old Testament
with all the prophecy. They had been steeped in the
prophets growing up. Remember that the Jews? and their
religious training. They trained their children from
the time that they were born to the time that they raised
up and they made them memorize scripture and they made, you
know, they had the little phylacteries and they would put the little
things on there and on their wrists and they would have these
scriptures and they would learn these things and they would raise
them in the nurture and the admonition of the scriptures. And so he's
reminding them, he said, remember what was 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 fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
And this day, willing 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. 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.
But beloved, there's that word again, Be not ignorant of this
one thing, that one day is with the Lord a thousand years and
a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness, but has long suffered
to usward. You can underline and highlight
that one as well. So he says, but as longsuffering
towards us were, not willing that any, you can underline,
highlight that, whatever, should perish, but that all, there,
you can underline, highlight, whatever, should 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 a 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," you can
underline that, be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking
for and hasting 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," underline
that, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved," here's that
word again, seeing that ye, underline that, look for such things, be
diligent that ye, again, underline, 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 of
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 unto their own destruction. Ye, there
it is, Therefore, beloved, there it is again, seeing ye, once
again, 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 in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, to him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Heavenly Father, we ask
you now to come and teach us by your Spirit. We ask you, Father,
for guidance, for direction. We ask you, Father, for utterance
here. We ask you, Lord, to open up the scriptures to our mind.
We pray for encouragement, for edification, conviction. Father,
we pray these things all for the building up of the body of
Christ here. Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you
for being the creator of all things as we just sang about.
We thank you for the triune God who has saved us through the
Lamb of God. Father, we just come now and
we ask that you just might glorify yourself in the worship of your
people as we now gather around your word. We need your spirit
here to teach us. We need your spirit here to guide
us. And Father, we just pray that you would help us to worship
you in spirit and in truth. And Father Lord, we just are
so grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ who by His blood redeemed
us from the sin that we had, redeemed us from the curse, redeemed
us from the wrath that would be towards any of those without
Christ. And so, Father, once again, we
are grateful. But Father, we also, in light
of what we'll be reading and talking about today, we are anxiously
awaiting and anticipating the soon return of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. And Father, may you remind us
daily that God is not slack in his promise, that God is faithful
and will keep the very words that he has given us and the
very promise that he has made to us about coming again. And
so father, we just ask now that you'll be with us now as we study
this thing, that it might be an encouragement to our heart,
even in these days of evil and wickedness in our country and
in this world in general. Father, that we might seek you,
think on these things, be watching for you, and may that keep our
hearts and our minds fixed upon you. And it's in Christ's name
that we pray, amen. As I said, you see here in the
very first verse, it says, this is the second epistle, beloved,
If you go back to the beginning of this chapter or this book
or letter, you'll see in verse one, it says, Simon Peter, a
servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained
life, precious faith with us through the righteousness of
God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. So you see here, The context
and the subject to who this letter was written to or the audience
to who this letter was written to is not people in general everywhere. Okay, this is a personal letter
and we always have to remember these things. This is an epistle. An epistle is a letter of instruction
that was written to the church, a specific church or a specific
group of people. And so with that in mind, this
epistle had ramifications. Whenever this letter is written,
whenever you write a letter to somebody, you write to them with
a special intent, don't you? Number one, you address them,
dear John, And then you go into, it's been so long since I've
seen you. We miss you. We hope to see you
soon. I'm writing to say happy birthday. We hope you have a glad day in
your 50th birthday. May God grant you grace and peace
and wisdom, blah, blah, blah. Yours truly, Michael Smith. So
we have the introduction or the subject of who he's writing to. Then we have the reason why he's
writing to them. And the body of that letter is
going to encapsulate what he wants that person to know about
that particular subject. And then he has the conclusion
or the sign-off. So we see here that there is
a specific intent. So if I'm writing to John, and
wishing him a happy birthday, if I would end that and say, dear
John, and knowing that this might get passed
around to other people, I would write, dear John and anyone else
whose birthday falls on today, happy birthday and may God bless
you. I send that to John, well specifically
it's for John, but it also includes anybody else that might have
a birthday on that day. So they're included in that.
But does that speak to anyone else? No, it doesn't speak to
anybody else. It only speaks to that to whom
this letter pertains. Okay, Peter is writing a letter
to specific people and the content of the letter is pertinent for
them and how it pertains to them. They are the subject matter for
whom he is writing. I look at it and it says, an apostle
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. So who
is, this is the people of God, right? This is believers. Those
who have obtained light, precious faith with us are those who have
been born again, those who are the elect of God, born again,
given faith in Christ Jesus, and an imputed righteousness
on his behalf, or by him and for him, and on His behalf. He has stood for us. That's who
this letter is written to. Now, if you'll notice there in
chapter 3, verse 1, he said this was the second epistle or the
letter that he has written. We also have the first letter
right before this one. If you'll turn to 1 Peter chapter
1, we get a little clearer idea
of who these people are that he's writing to. He says, Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Mithninia. Now, why
are they strangers? Well, I believe they're strangers
two ways. This could be taken in two different
ways. Number one, they're strangers because these are Jews who have
been scattered from Jerusalem into these Gentile areas. And so by the fact that they
come from Jerusalem and now are living in Gentile lands, they
are strangers to them. So he would call them strangers
because they have been scattered abroad. But also we know that
the Bible says that we are strangers and pilgrims here on this earth,
right? That this world is not our home. We are the people from
above. Our home is above. That's where
we come from. Now what do I say, what do I
mean by that? And this actually, I hope at one point in time,
it's kind of, I've studied this off and on a little bit, and
maybe one day I'll preach on this, but, Whenever we say that
we are not from this world, when Jesus prayed in John 17, I pray
for them, they are not of the world as I am not of this world. What does that mean? Because
all of us have not known anything except right here, right? But
yet when we're born again, we have a life that was hid with
Christ in God that has been given to us that has been an eternal
life, that has always been with God. We were a people that was
given to Christ before the foundation of the world. And so I believe
that there's some here and I don't know all the answers to it and
I can't even describe it all. But I believe that whenever he
talks about us being strangers in this world, it is because
that we are not of this world. We're in the world, but not of
the world. We're strangers to this world because we are a people
that is not like the people of this world. If you remember last
week, I talked to you about the children of obedience and the
children of disobedience, that there's two groups of people.
Remember that I've talked to you about there's two seeds of
people. There's the children of Christ and there's the children
of the devil. Okay, and then there's the children of wrath
and disobedience, and there's the children of obedience, which
we are. But he says, elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father and through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied. So the letter here, the first
letter, is to the elect of God who was scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. How many
groups of people there were, I don't know. I just know that
there were that many cities and this letter was sent to all of
them, wherever they were. Now I would think that there
was probably, possibly, churches all in that area. Somebody that knows things more
than I do probably could tell me whether or not that's true.
We do know that there was churches in Galatia, multiple churches. I mean, we learned that from
Galatians chapter one. It says, Paul, an apostle, not
by man, but by Jesus Christ, the God Father, and all the brethren
which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. So we know there
were multiple churches in Galatia. Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. We know that there was seven
churches in Asia Minor. So I don't know how many congregations
this went out to. I did not know how many groups
of people this went out to. But we know one thing, that Peter
addresses them as the elect. He addresses them as the beloved. Chapter two, look at chapter
two of 1 Peter. But ye are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. So we see here these are not
just people in general. This is not a letter written
to those who are unbelievers. And when I say unbelievers, I
should say these are not letters that are written to those who
are not the elect of God. But if you look all through the
first letter, you'll see that everything in there, the context
speaks to who he's writing to. He is writing to those groups
of people. And now in the second epistle,
we see that he is speaking to the same people. This is the
second letter that I have written unto you. And who is the you? It is those who have obtained
like precious faith. Verse three, according as his
divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness. So the people that he's writing
to is those who have obtained a like precious faith, those
who have been given life and godliness through the knowledge
of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Whereby are
given unto us, again, That is tying back in to who is the subject. It is the beloved. It is the
people of God. It is the elect of God, whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. The promises of God are only
for the elect of God. It is not for the reprobate.
It's not for the non-elect. So that's why we don't believe
in in a general call, or I should say general call, we don't believe
in a general invitation to everybody to come to Jesus Christ. This
is specific, it's for His people. We believe that the work of Christ
was specific for His people that was given to Him by God. And so this epistle that Peter
writes has a subject that is being talked about. It's being
talked about these people receiving great and precious promises. He says in verse 10, wherefore
the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election
sure. So again here we see that it's talking to the brethren.
It's talking to those who have been called, elected of God. Verse 12, he says, wherefore
I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of
these things. So he's doing this to remind
them. This letter is a letter of remembrance. to remind them of these things,
though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I
think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle, that's in
his body, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. See, brother,
we have to be reminded. I mentioned this to the Delaware
Church a couple weeks ago whenever I was there. A lot of times people
say, you know, why do you kind of preach the same thing over
and over? Why do you preach about the sovereignty of God and about
election and about the gospel and all that stuff? How come
you don't preach on other things? Well, it's because we need to
be reminded. You know, that's the food that we feed off of
as the children of God. Jesus said that his body and
his blood were food indeed. And that's not talking about
flesh and natural blood. It's talking about his work on
the cross. What he did for us is food for
us. And that is what we get our spiritual
nourishment from. so to speak, that's what revives
us, that's what invigorates us, that's what keeps us into remembrance,
and that also is what keeps us looking unto Christ whenever
we look at Him and we preach these things. And honestly, I
really have suspicions on people who get tired of hearing that.
If people get tired of hearing about what Christ has done and
it's all about Him and His sovereignty and His glory and His work and
it's all about Him and nothing that we do and abasing man and
glorifying Christ. If people get tired of that,
there's some suspicion there. There's some suspicion there
of whether or not they truly have been converted of God to
the truth. I'm not saying that they're necessarily non-elect,
they've just not been converted of the gospel and been given
to believe the truth yet. They may, at some point, don't
know. I believe that if they ever go
out of this life without that, then they never was given faith,
and if they were never given faith, then they were never part
of the promise. So they weren't the children of God. But look
what he says. He says, knowing shortly, I must
put off this tabernacle, even as my Lord Jesus Christ has shown
me. Moreover, I will endeavor that
ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in
remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly
devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. So one of the
things he's reminding them of is the power of Jesus Christ. We talk about his sovereignty
and his almightiness. And we talk about his coming
again. For he received from God the
Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from
the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mouth. We
have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place
until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. A
day star is another word for Christ. knowing this first that
no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. For
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So here he is talking about this
message that he is bringing them into remembrance of is not something
new, but something that was even talked about in the Old Testament
that they had already had. These precious promises that
was for them was told for generations and is now being told by the
apostles. And he is reminding them, bringing
them to remembrance of that. And so that's why in verse one,
he says, the second epistle, beloved again, grasping hold
of the context of who he's talking to. I now write unto you in both
which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. that you
might be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the
holy prophets and of the commandment of us apostles of the Lord and
Savior. Okay, so before we can ever understand
verse nine and what he means by that, we have to understand
the context and the people to whom He is writing. The precious
promises. And one of those precious promises
is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that return is for
a specific people, right? When the Lord returns, who is
He coming to get? He is coming to get His people. He is coming to separate the
goats from the sheep. He is coming to separate the
tares from the wheat. He is coming to take the elect
and separate the non-elect from out from them. And then the righteous
will be on his right hand and the wicked will be on his left
hand. And he will judge the wicked
and they will be condemned and then they will be thrown into
destruction. So we have to understand the
context before we can get to verse 9. If we proof text verse
9 outside of the context of the first two chapters out of the
first epistle, then we're going to get wrong what this is talking
about. And many people have fallen to traditions of men, the common
Armenian belief that God wants to save everybody and that salvation
and Jesus's death was for everybody. And so they come to this and
they cherry pick verse nine out of its context and say, aha,
God is not willing that any should perish. Brethren, we do injustice
to God's word. We are, if you hold to this after
seeing and hearing these things, You are intentionally denying
the context of this passage. If you are looking at these things
and you see that this is directly addressed to the people of God
and they are the ones in view in verse nine and who God is
talking about in this passage and you continue to do that,
that's being dishonest with God's word for your intentional tradition,
doctrine for the thing that you want to support because you do
not receive and accept the doctrine that scripture puts forth in
God's sovereign and free grace. And I know that encompasses a
lot of people, a lot of family and friends of mine, that encompasses. But brethren, we have to teach
and preach and believe and hold forth and defend what the scriptures
say. And the scriptures here, in their
context, do not put forth God willing that any, as in all people
everywhere, should perish, but only those in view. Look with me if you would. Verse
three. Knowing this first that there
shall come in the last days, scoffers walking after their
own lust. Brethren, we see now, when was
the last days? When is the last days? Does anybody
know when they begin? Well, there's a group of people
who are newspaper eschatologists who are looking for the last
days. They're looking at the news, they're looking at events,
and they're trying to determine when the last days are going
to begin, or if they've begun. And some of them are saying,
we're in the last of the last days, or whatever the case might
be. Do you know that the last days
began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ? That's when the
last days began. Jesus made that very clear in
his discourse, that that was the last days, that we were in
the last days already. Scripture makes that very clear,
that we are in the last days. And it says that in the last
days, there shall be scoffers. So what does that mean for us?
That means that from the time that Jesus was resurrected and
ascended to heaven, that the last days began there, and from
that time until his second coming, there are gonna be scoffers.
There are gonna be people that's gonna try to turn us away that
is gonna scoff at our message, that's gonna scoff at the return
of Jesus Christ. I mean, there are people now
that are scoffing at the return of Jesus Christ. Now, I will
admit, a lot of eschatological teaching in the Bible had to
do with AD 70, whenever Jerusalem was destroyed. And I believe
a lot of people take the verses that talk about that and are
trying to apply them about what's gonna take place whenever Christ
comes at his second coming. So I don't want to throw away
that teaching, and I also don't want to go into the teaching
where people have made everything future. The last days, and as
I understand it and see from scripture this, and I might be
wrong, I'm still studying and learning eschatology stuff, but
as I see it from the time that Jesus ascended and to the time
that Jesus comes back, we are in a cyclical pattern of things
that is happening There'll be much tribulation. There's gonna
be antichrist. There are gonna be scoffers.
There's gonna be falling away. All these things are gonna happen.
Now, granted, whenever Christ comes again, right before that,
there will be a great falling away. It looks like we're in
that now. There's a great falling away
of people who are falling away from the faith. And Peter will
tell us in his deals that if they fall away, and I may be,
I may have that wrong, but, If they'd fallen away, there never
was of us. So the scoffers are here. Now, whether they're scoffing
about the second coming or whether they're scoffing about Christianity
in general and what we believe in the Bible, I mean, look, I
mean, you take the Democratic Party right now and you see scoffers,
people who want to stand upon God's word, God's principles
and God's thing. What do they think? Well, they
think we're crazy. fanatics, Christian fanatics, religious
zealots. They're already scoffing at how
we stand on God's word. Now that's Christianity, and
I say that in the big general. Anybody who professes to be a
Christian, people are scoffing at that. How much more do you
think they're gonna scoff if they actually had ears on what
we actually believe? about God's sovereignty and about
God's predestination. You know, that isn't a message
that's out there in the masses for the media to pick up on.
If they heard these things, how much scoffing? Now, there's a
lot of scoffing. I see it on Facebook all the
time. A lot of my friends, they scoff at what we believe about
predestination, election, God's sovereignty. They scoff at those
things. I've had even acquaintances and
friends that I know that says, if that's God, then I don't want
to serve a God like that. That's scoffing at God. So there
are scoffers. And he says that we must understand
that there are going to be scoffers. So don't think that because all
the scoffing that's going on, don't let that change your understanding
of what the precious promises was. Remember, It is God that
is true and every man is a liar. Okay. It is God's word that we
hold to and not man, his philosophy, his doctrines, his traditions. We don't, we don't listen to
that. We listen to God's word. Let
that be our driving force and let our encouragement, let our
perseverance and preservation come from the fact of what God
has promised us. He's gonna preserve his people,
he's gonna keep them in the faith, and he's going to give them and
teach them his word. That's also part of his promises.
But brethren, look to those things. That's the admonition that we
keep. Continue, if you don't, if you're looking to other things,
that is gonna cloud your mind. That is gonna bring doubts in
the Adamic man. Adamic man is gonna look at those
things and is gonna scoff at them. But the inward man is gonna
look at these promises and say everything is yay and amen in
Christ Jesus. He says in verse four, he says,
and saying, this is what these scoffers who are walking after
their own desires or lust is saying, he says, where is the
promise of his coming? And look what they say. For since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of creation. He said, there ain't nothing
happening. Look, everything that's going on today is just a cyclical
thing that is happening over and over and over and over and
over again. I think it is in, let me look
here. I don't want to take too far
of a jump off the path here with this, in case I'm wrong on the
passage. Genesis chapter eight in verse
22. Genesis chapter eight in verse
22. The Bible says this. It says, while the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease. Now that's what God was telling
Moses, Noah, that's Noah and Moses, or Moa. This is what he talked to Noah
whenever he's given the covenant to Noah. Now, side note here,
for all the climate change people, the word of God tells us one
thing, The word of man tells us another. Oh, we're gonna destroy
our planet. Whether it's by global warming
or global cooling. They can't make up their mind
which it is. You know, depending on the circumstances. So what
have they done? They've changed it to global
climate change. It's climate change now. Well,
the climate changes all the time. The Bible tells us it will. Seed
time and harvest. Cold and heat, summer and winter. Seed time and harvest, that's
spring and fall, right? Cold and heat, summer and winter. There's your four seasons. Everybody's
saying, well, it's getting down to where now it's only summer
or winter. We're hardly ever seeing fall anymore. What does
the Bible say? Forget the skeptics, forget the
science, so-called. It says, as long as the earth
remaineth and it's gonna remain until when? Christ comes again. Seed time and harvest is gonna
come, spring and fall. Cold and heat, there's gonna
be cold, there's gonna be heat. We're gonna have summer, we're
gonna have winter. We're gonna have day, we're gonna have night.
I know at this time of year, it seems like it's night a whole
lot. It's not waning, we're not gonna
eventually have all night and no day, or no day and no night. Listen, according to this, those
people that think that our sun's gonna burn out and we're gonna
freeze to death, no. Until Christ comes and destroys
this present earth and heavens, the Bible says that there will
be day and night. That means our sun's gonna be
here. And our moon is gonna be here.
There's not gonna be a destruction of our moon. Why? Because God
has set two lights in the sky. Ain't that what he said in Genesis?
That he's placed two lights in the sky. One to rule over the
day, one to rule over the night. And he's given it there for times
and for seasons. And that's not gonna pass away
until Christ destroys the earth, okay? So don't listen to the
scoffers. The scoffers are telling you
that this is gonna happen God's word is the truth, not them. So don't worry about what they're
saying. And they're saying here that
things are gonna keep going on, that everything's gonna continue
as they were, that all things are continuing as they were from
the beginning. Now, while all things in God's
order are taking place, all things have not been the same since
the beginning. Look what they say there. Since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. Does anybody remember the Noah
the Noah flood? Was that continuing on like from
the creation? No, God destroyed the whole world
and everything in it, except for how many people? Except for
eight, except for eight people. and those animals that was put
on the ark by God. Everything was destroyed. So
everything isn't the same. God can intervene with anything
that he wants to intervene with. Now he has made a promise that
he's not going to destroy all of the earth like he did in that
Noahic flood. But he has promised that he is
going to destroy the earth with fervent fire. We know that is
coming. But until then, day and night,
spring, winter, summer, fall, all those things are gonna continue.
So don't listen to the scoffers. Verse five, 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.
See, by God's word, God made the earth come forth. Now I want
you to notice something here. It says, that by the word of
God, the heavens were of old. So God made the heavens and the
earth. And if you remember in Genesis,
the Bible said the earth was without form and void and that
the spirit of God was upon the face of the deep, it was upon
the waters. And what does it say here? And
it says, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. So you think, nothing but water,
but what did God do? He created and he brought the
earth up out of the water, where the earth is standing out of
the water, that's dry land, and is in the water, which is the
oceans of the deep, and the earth is there. That's his. Now, not everybody believes that
God has made the earth as a plane. a flat plane, but when you look
through scriptures, you find that there's a lot of evidence
for this, especially the fact that the cosmology and the way
that the sun and the moon work are not according to what our
science tells us in schools, but that it is actually the sun
and moon that does the moving around our Earth. But anyway,
that's for another day. 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. So here Christ
is telling us through Peter that by the same word that destroyed
the earth with the flood, he is keeping the earth in store. Nothing is happening to it. Nothing
is gonna happen to it, but it's being kept in store for a purpose. He's reserving unto, he gets
kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men. So the earth is going to be destroyed
against the day of judgment and the perdition of ungodly men. the destruction of ungodly men. But he says here, but beloved.
So you see the contrast here? Even within the context here,
not only do we have the words brethren, beloved, elect of God,
telling us who this letter is to, Peter contrasts those who
are the beloved and those who are the ungodly. Right here,
he says, this is being held in reserve for judgment for ungodly
men. But beloved, you who are not
in that group, ungodly men, you're the 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. We talk about this all
the time, about time and how, you know, to God who's eternal,
you know, a thousand years isn't nothing, you know. There's that old song, you know,
when we've been there 10,000 years, we've only just begun,
you know. You know, a thousand years in the course of eternity
is just a blip, okay. And then 1,000 years, what seems
long to us is just a day to God. And one day to God, to us, is
1,000 years. You know, it's a long time, okay? So we're seeing here, what is
Peter saying here? Is he trying to give us some
sort of eschatological timeline, or is he trying to, no, what
is he trying to do? Matter of fact, the word 1,000
there, kilion, or kilioi, I think is the Greek word behind that,
That word there, know what that word means. It just means an
infinite amount of years. Whenever we talk about the thousand
year reign, the millennial reign, and everything. I believe just
like with this and also other things within Revelation and
the Word of God, the word is used in a symbolic way. It just
means an extended amount of time, an infinite amount of time that
God has placed upon something and a long period of time. Not
a literal 1,000 years, but a symbol of a long time. So he's saying here, don't let
time be a factor in your understanding of things. Don't let scoffers
get under your skin or in your head because it's been a thousand
years or 2,000 years, 2,020 years, okay? Don't let that get under your,
don't listen to the scoffers, listen to God. Nothing is gonna
happen to this earth until God determines it to be so, and at
that time, he has a purpose in that, but you, you don't have
anything to worry about. Now, all of that is what leads
us to verse nine. Who is in context? The people
of God. The elective God, the brethren,
the beloved. Okay? The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise. Why is he not slack? Because
with him, time is an initiative. It's not about time for him. It's about purpose. See, God
is eternal, so it isn't about time, although God does Create
time, he created time. God does use things within time. Jesus had an appointed hour,
right? There was an appointed time that Jesus was to be born. There was an appointed hour that
Jesus was to be betrayed and to be crucified. There was an
appointed time that Jesus was to suffer on the cross. There
was an appointed time that Jesus was to die and to be buried and
resurrected. There was an appointed time that
he was to ascend to the Father. There was an appointed time for
when the Holy Spirit would come down and would testify of the
Lord's church in Acts. See, those were things that God
had lined up with specific times. And so with God, time isn't an
issue even though he uses it. To God, time is nothing. So it
isn't the fact that we're looking at time, we're looking at purpose
here in verse nine. God is not slack, beloved of
God. Don't think it's slack. Think
it as this. It's long-suffering. He's got
a purpose. See, time is talking about hurry
up, keep on schedule, keep on schedule. But God's saying, I'm
not looking at it as in time, I'm looking at it as in purpose.
I have a purpose. I have purpose that a certain group of people
are gonna be redeemed by my son and that all those for whom he
redeemed are going to be brought to repentance and brought in
before he comes again. And so God has an amount of time
that that's gonna happen. Yeah, we know, but what did Jesus
say to his disciples whenever they asked, is this the time
of your coming? He said, it's not for men to know the times
and the seasons or the times and the dates that Christ is
gonna come. It's not for you to know those things, okay? So he looks here and he says,
we're looking at the purpose behind this. The reason that
Christ has not come is because the purpose of long-suffering.
And why is he being long-suffering to usward? Again, that word usward
is pointing back to the beloved, to the elect of God. Why is he
being long-suffering? What's the purpose in it? Because
he's not willing that any of the usward should perish. He's
not willing that any. Now we know that God has told
us in his word that he will do all of his pleasure, that he
is from the end. I've declared all things the
end from the beginning and all things that are not yet done,
I've declared those. He said, I have purpose and it
shall stand, no one can disannul it. But he has said that he has
put out his purpose and that his purpose will stand and that
he will be the one that brings it about. He is gonna do it. And he will do all of his pleasure.
If it's God's pleasure that none should perish, then he has promised
that he will do it, make sure that none will perish. So we
look here at this verse and say, if you proof text this and pull
it out of its context, and just use that as a proof text to say
that God loves everybody and wants to save everybody, then
what you're saying here is that God is not willing that any should
perish. And if you're gonna be faithful
to God's word, and if you're pulling that out of its context,
you're not being faithful to God's word. But if you're concerned
about faithfulness to God's word and the congruency of scripture,
the non-contradictory aspect of God's word, God's word doesn't
contradict itself. If you find what is a seemingly
contradiction in God's word, it's you that has a misunderstanding
of a certain passage. But if you look here, you'll
see, if you pull this out of its context and say that God
wills that none should perish, and that means every man, woman,
and child that has ever existed, and if you're not contradicting the rest of
scripture, then every man, woman, and child is going to come to
repentance, because that's what he's willing. God is not willing
that any should perish, but willing that all should come to repentance.
that word, but there's the contrast. He's not willing that any should
perish, but is willing that all come to repentance. I see this
is where the Armenian comes in and they speak a double word
here. They're saying that God wants,
is not willing that any should perish, but then they, Crawfish
on the next part. He's not willing that all should
come to repentance. So is he gonna make sure that they all
come to repentance? Because Jesus, or God has said, the same as
Jesus, has said that he will do all his pleasure. So at that point, when you pull
that out of its context and you proof text that as a universal
thing for all people, and you apply their other parts of scripture
that are extremely clear. This right here, I can understand
somewhat how this can be vague. Some people can look at that
and just read that verse and see the vagueness of it. I don't
see how really they can stay that way if they look at the
context. But if you pull that out, which a lot of people do,
a lot of preachers do, I used to do that. Whenever I preached,
I found a proof text to go with my subject, and I would pull
verses out of their context as a proof text to prove my point. But see, whenever you exegete
the scripture and the context that it's found in, you find
that it has a different meaning than what we intended it to be. See, I used to preach this, that
God's not willing that any should perish, and that means everybody.
And I used to hate The things that I even preach now, I used
to hate these doctrines and would preach against them. And this
was one of the verses that I come to and would say. But see, I
was taking the proof text and not taking the text in its entirety. And so I made it say something
that it doesn't say. And so I was not being faithful
with God's word. This text, if you take it out,
and then you apply the other places of scripture that says
that God will do all His pleasure, then that means if this is His
pleasure, because that means He's willing, that any should
perish, then no man is gonna perish. Now what do we have? We have a conundrum, don't we?
Let's just say that this is true. We're gonna play pretend again
here, okay? Let's say this is true, that this is talking about
every man, woman, and child. that God is not willing that
any should perish, but that all come to repentance. We know for
a fact that there have been people that have died without coming
to repentance. They die every day without coming
to repentance. We have places in Scripture that
talk about people in hell already right now. You remember Jesus talked about
the rich man and Lazarus. and how Lazarus was in the bosom
of Abraham and the rich man was in hell and he lifted up his
eyes and he's seeing Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, which
is in the bosom of God. And he asked him, can you just
give me a little bit of water on the end of my tongue? I can't
do that, there's a great goldfish between us. Can't do that. Send Lazarus to just put a drip,
can't do it. We know that there's people in
hell right now. If there's people in hell right
now, that means that they never came to repentance. And right now in hell, they are
being held for judgment, awaiting the time for them to perish eternally. And here it says that God is
not willing that any should perish. If any perish, God did not perform
that which he pleased. And he promised he would. So
here's the conundrum. God lied. God's promises can't
be trusted. And the very fact that Peter
in this whole entire letter is Baking on the promises of God
as our encouragement in these scoffing times and He's saying,
look to the promises, look to the promises, quit listening
to everybody, look to the promises, look to the promises, look to
the promises. But if we have God making a promise
that He's not willing that any should perish, but that all come
to repentance, and we apply that to that He will do all His pleasure,
that He will perform it, He will make it happen, He is going to
do all that thing that He has decreed, then guess what? God's word has fallen. God has
lied, which the Bible says God cannot lie. God has lied. We
now can't trust in the promises. And so now all the promises that
Peter, and as he said, Paul also wrote about, we can't trust them. And so now we're left to carnal
thinking. We're left to worry. We're left
to doubt. We're left to skepticism. We're
left, and there again, we're without hope. Why? Because we have a God that we
can't trust. God said he doesn't will that any should perish.
God said that he wills that all come to repentance and that that
is what he is long suffering for. He's waiting for that to
take place. He is in the middle of doing
all of that. He is bringing that to fruition.
By His providence, He is bringing all the elect of God from the
four corners of the world. He is bringing them to Himself
of every language, nation, and tongue. And that is why the end has not
come. That's why He is long-suffering. And so the promise to these people
If it be for a universal thing, the promise is no good because
there are already those who have perished, are in holding for
perishing. There are already those who have
gone to hell without repentance. So God was unable to bring about
that which He pleased. And so now we can't trust God. You see, the damage is more than
just misrepresenting this verse. Whenever you preach this verse,
if you're going to faithfully preach the rest of this Bible,
you are going to bring people into despair because now they're
going to look and say, well, I thought God said he will let us perish.
I can't trust God. Why do you think there's so many
people that are scoffers? It's because they're hearing
mixed messages from pulpits of people that have come and ran,
but were not called. What does he say there in verse
10? But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.
That doesn't mean he's coming at night. You know that, right?
It's an allegory here. He's coming as a thief in the
night. Quick, without warning, in which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements
shall melt with the fire and heat. The earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up Since when all come to repentance,
all those that He willed should not perish that come to repentance,
then the day of the Lord comes. Quickly. Whenever I read these passages
and look at these things, I can almost just picture whoever
that last elect person is that is to be brought to repentance
in conversion. So as that person comes, the
Lord's coming. He's coming to get us. He's coming
to tear this place down and a new heaven and a new earth. Wherein
dwells righteousness. Is that not what it says? He
says, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what
manner of persons are you to be in all holy conversation and
godliness? See, he's saying don't be scoffers.
Don't be like the false prophets, walking after their own lusts.
The fact that Christ is coming, we should be looking for it,
expecting it, and our conversations, our lives, should be walking
according to His Word. Looking for and hasting 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. I don't know why there's a question
mark after that, but that's kind of strange. Nevertheless, we,
according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness. See, that's what we're looking
for. We're not looking to save this world. All these climate
people that want to save this world, it is going to be destroyed
no matter what happens and what you do to it. But it's not going
to happen until this time right here. So it doesn't matter how
much trash you clean up. How many cows you tap their farts,
excuse my language, but I mean, we laugh, right? It's stupid
though, ain't it? It's stupid. For years and years and years,
things have gone on because God controls them. There's a time
and a season for everything. There's a purpose for everything.
But brethren, listen, His promise, we are looking according to His
promises for the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. That is going to come at this
appointed time. Wherefore, beloved, in light
of these things, because of what you've just heard, the remembrance
that I've stirred up in your mind, seeing that ye look for
such things, be diligent that ye may be found in him peace
without spot and blameless." So we're called to look to Christ. Now, the law of Christ is that
we believe, that we love God and we love the brethren, right?
And so we see that how are we to be found without spot and
blameless? Well, as individuals, it's doing
that very thing, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher
of our faith in all things. Not looking at our own self-righteousness.
See, that's where we're spotless. We're spotless in His righteousness,
but we're not spotless, and we are never gonna be spotless and
blameless in this life. So he's talking about, see, whenever
you look at verses like that that tell us to Do the will of
God to not sin, go and sin no more. When you look at this,
to be found without spot and blameless. Brethren, as long
as we're in this flesh, there's going to be spot and blame. It
can't do anything more. The flesh is flesh and cannot
please God. And all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. He didn't
say all of our badnesses. He said all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. So that means the only thing
that is righteous before God, or even looked on as right before
God, is Christ's righteousness. And he tells us the command that
he gives us, the law of Christ to us, is look to that, trust
that, believe that, and rest in that. We rest in his righteousness
given to us. We don't look to our self-righteousness.
That was what Adam did. Adam went and tried to cover
himself up. That's what man always tries to do when he does it.
Cain, what he tried to do, he tried to cover it up. Everyone
tries to cover it up by what? By doing what they think is right
in their own eyes. He says, an account that the
long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. The longsuffering
of our Lord is salvation. He's being longsuffering because
He has decreed salvation to all His elect. And that that longsuffering
is their salvation. Were He not longsuffering, Now,
this is a big hypothetical because you can't change the decrees
of God. You're not going to speed up
or slow down His time frames. And not one person for whom Christ
has elected is ever going to miss out, is not ever going to
perish. But it says here, the longsuffering
of the Lord is salvation. If the Lord was not longsuffering,
then there might be those, if he came like right then, whenever
they were talking about, all the elect of God in these ages
would never have been brought in. Now again, that's a big hypothetical. We're not talking about that.
We're talking from his point of view. His long suffering,
the reason that he's not coming right now and hasn't come is
because there are still sheep that he has to find. He's going
out and getting them. And He said that He was going
to go get them. And that He was going to bring them all in. And
not one would perish. Not one would be lost. Now, back in verse 9 it says,
He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. This corresponds with John 3.16. As a matter of fact, we'll start
in verse 15. It says that whosoever believeth
in Him, if you remember in our passage that
we read, the letter was written to those who have obtained like
precious, what? Faith, right? Those who have
been given a faith that is from Christ, that is Christ's faith,
those are the ones who believe on Christ. You can see that in
John chapter 6, I believe it is. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life. This isn't a condition. If you
believe on Jesus Christ, then you'll get eternal life. This
is a statement of fact, brethren. Jesus has given a statement of
fact to Nicodemus. Remember, this is in the discourse
to Nicodemus, who he said, you must be born again. Nicodemus
came and was asking Jesus questions, and Jesus said, listen, you must
be born again. It isn't about your knowledge of scripture.
It isn't about your religiosity. It isn't about your law keeping.
It isn't about who you were born under at Abraham. It isn't your
fleshly lineage. The issue is you have to be born
again. You have to be born again to know and understand the things
of God. You have to be given faith That's what he's getting
at here in this passage. You can't see and know and understand
and believe the things of the kingdom of God until you're born
from above. But once you're born from above,
then you are given faith to understand that and you become believing
in the things of what God is doing. And he says right here
that whosoever believe it, those who have obtained like precious
faith, should not perish. He's not willing that any should
perish. Any who, those who have obtained
like precious faith. Is that not what John 3.16 is
saying? Who is the ones that are not perishing? Those who
have been given to believe, the believing ones. Matter of fact,
there where it says, that whosoever believeth in him, and in verse
16, that whosoever believeth in him, the actual literal rendering
of that in the Greek is the believing ones. You can actually go to
some of the older translations of the word of God, before the
King James, and it actually says it that way. That the believing
ones, the whosoever is not even there. It says that the believing
ones should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten son, that the believing
ones should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now that's
what Peter is reminding them of. He's reminding them of what
Jesus said. Those who have obtained light,
precious faith shall not perish. Why? Because God's not willing
that any should perish. Matter of fact, he made certain
of that by sending his son. And Christ said, if I be lifted
up, I will draw all men. Now there again, who's the all
men? Sorry. I didn't mean to spit on you. You've got to watch out sitting
there, Daniel. You're in the spit zone. Hey, I've done that before. Jesus said, if I be lifted up,
I will draw all men unto me. Now, let me ask you, has all
men been drawn to him? If there has been any that has
perished or has went to hell and waiting of perishing, If
there's any there, then that statement, if it's ripped out
of its proof text, has no meaning. Jesus didn't draw them. Jesus said, no man come to the
Father except they be drawn, right? And then all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me. That means they will all
be drawn. And so who is Jesus? If he be lifted up, I will draw
all men. So the all men there is not talking
about all men everywhere. It's talking about all men that
is in view, the believing ones. And who are the believing ones?
Well, the Bible says it is the work of God that you believe. The ones who God gives faith
to. That's why, in closing here, we see Peter said, Those who
have obtained like precious faith. Not those who performed like
precious faith. Not those who used their like
precious faith. No, those who obtained. When
you obtain something, it wasn't yours, right? And then you got
it. How do we obtain like precious?
This is the work of God that you believe. He is given unto
you not only to believe on Him, but to suffer in His name, right?
It was given unto you to believe. See, God has to do that work.
And whenever God does that work, that puts you in that group of
people. You're in that group of people who Peter called in
the first epistle, he called them a peculiar people. He called them a chosen generation. a royal priesthood, a holy nation. This is the context, brethren,
of 2 Peter 3, 9. You can't get away from that.
I mean, it is overarching throughout all of Scripture that God has
chosen for Himself a people, and that people is the people
that He will save. And those people that He has
chosen cannot fall away. They cannot escape. They cannot
die before they're saved. They cannot not hear the Word
of God and be drawn to Christ. They're never going to do anything
to be cast away. He is never gonna leave them
nor forsake them. There's not people out there
that has not heard the word of God and they're gonna perish,
but if they would have heard the word of God, they wouldn't have perished.
No, everyone for whom God has given to Christ shall come. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me and all that come to me, I will in no wise
cast out. Why? Because it is God's will
that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Now that word repentance again
doesn't mean repentance from sin necessarily. It means repentance
from self-righteousness. Repentance from thinking wrong
about salvation and about Christ. That all should come to believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Repent and believe is what the
Bible says, right? Turn and believe. You find that
put together all the time throughout Scripture. Repent and believe.
Repent and believe. Repent and believe. So our repentance
is turning from thinking that I can gain God's favor, that
I can get to heaven, that I can do enough good by following this,
that God is going to accept me or let me in. or that I can obtain
some sort of perfection, that God's going to weigh the good
and the bad. Whenever I get to heaven, He's going to look and
say, oh, well, He's done enough good that, you know, well, He tried. No, what's going to happen? What
happens, the Bible says, there are going to be many on that
day that say, Lord, Lord, did we not in Your name cast out
demons and do all these wonderful works and everything? What is
Jesus going to say? depart from any workers of iniquity. See,
even doing this right here, the things that God has put in this
Bible that is apart from the God given faith that's given
to us in the new birth is working of iniquity. Why? Because he
never knew us. He never knew us. So, brethren, the overarching
theme of Scripture The overarching context of the two epistles,
the overarching context of this particular passage in this particular
part of the letter, screams a peculiar people. Screams a precise people. It's not a universal passage.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count
slackness, but is long suffering to us-ward. the children of God,
the people of God, the elect of God, those given to Christ,
all the phrases you want to put on it, not willing that any should
perish. Why? Because if they've been
given to Christ, they are going to come. And they will in no
wise be cast out. Why? Because they keep the law
all the time? No. Because he's not going to
cast them out because he's allayed his righteousness to their account. God cannot deny them. He's not looking at their righteousness.
He's not looking at their performance. That's not what God looks at.
God, from the moment that he has elected a people, is only
looking at their surety, Christ. That's why he says, he hath not
beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor hath he seen perverseness in
Israel. Because he's not looking at their performance, he's looking
at Christ. And so that's why everyone will
not perish, but come to repentance because that has been laid in
their account. And God will keep his promise and fulfill it. And
Christ will come back when the long suffering of God has ended
at the last one to be brought in. Amen. Well, think on those
things, brother. Don't let scoffers sidetrack
you. Muddle your mind about all that's
going on in this world. know that it is coming. Christ
will return and we say, even so come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Amen.