Staying on Target... (7)

In the Last Days...

When you look at the statement, “In the Last Days...”, What thoughts does it bring up?

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul said,

2 Timothy 3:1–5 NKJV

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

In the last days, there will be terrible times. Jesus talks about the Day of the Lord. Times are going to get tough, but let’s not forget this about the last days. Peter quotes Joel 2

Acts 2:17–18 NIV

“ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

Over the next three weeks, were going to endeavour to look at why it’s so important to live lives that are pleasing to God, why it’s so important to be ready to meet the Lord, and why we need to be alert, and not deceived.

2 Peter 3:1–7 NLT

This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

1. I want to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory

Peter wanted nothing more than to see his church family walking with God, growing in their faith, and being ready for Jesus’ Second Coming.

We need to be reminded while it is still called today what Peter wrote,

1 Peter 1:3–5 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

and in 2 Peter 1:3-4

2 Peter 1:3–4 NIV

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

In the books of 1 & 2 Peter, Peter does a lot of encouraging, admonishing, and warning. I believe that he does this because there is so much at stake. If we wander back to the life that we have been set free from, we can lose everything. Peter was fighting for people’s eternities, and he knew that after he was gone, corrupt people would come and try to undo everything that he had taught and preached.

We need to hold on tightly to the hope that we profess. Let’s not be swayed by the cunning words of others.

Proverbs 4:23 NLT

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

2. I want you to remember God’s word...

As Moses was coming to the end of his earthly life, he wanted to make sure that each family in Israel kept God’s word at the center of their lives. This is what he said,

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 NLT

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

There is an old saying of Dwight L Moody that goes like this, “The Bible will keep you from sin, and sin will keep you from the Bible.”

The Psalmist wrote,

Psalm 119:9–11 NLT

How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. I have tried hard to find you— don’t let me wander from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Peter gave this warning

3. In the Last days scoffers will come...

2 Peter 3:3–4 NLT

Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”

Peter was warning about people that would come and mock the claims of Jesus Himself.

Often when we look at history, we think that our generation was worse than the previous generations, and in a lot of cases, that’s true.

We look at our society and we can see that many people have bought into the lie that there is no God, and if there is how can we know that there are not many gods.

A mocker or sceptic, isn’t on the hot seat. They can scoff or make accusations and they might say, “Prove that there is a god. Prove that there’s life after death. How do you know that Jesus died for your sins?”

When you say, “The Bible says...”

They might say, “I don’t believe the Bible…How can you prove that the Bible is true?”

In the last days scoffers will come...

John 15:18–19 NLT

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

Satan can us hatred, persecution, and ridicule against God’s children. You may be accused of being intellectually challenged for believing an ancient book, but

Hebrews 4:12 NIV

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Christ is still the power of God unto salvation.

They will say

4. What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again?

Maybe somebody has asked that? Or

“If Jesus is real, why hasn’t He come back already?”

Look at the scientific evidence of how the world started, how can you believe that God created the world? What about natural selection? It’s obvious that we came from monkeys, look at the genetic similarities.

They just didn’t have the science and the technology that we have today to know where we came from.

We have a choice that we need to make. We can either believe those who mock God or we can choose to believe God and His word.

Listen to what Jesus said about what will happen after the Great Tribulation,

Matthew 24:29–31 NLT

“Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

We live in a society that has become largely humanistic. Many believe that there is nothing beyond this life. They might say that we need to be inclusive. All faiths are equal and there is nothing absolute.

Jesus didn’t give us that option.

C.S Lewis wrote this in Mere Christianity:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

We can choose to believe in human wisdom such as theories of evolution or we can choose to believe that Jesus is God and that one day He will return. If we choose to believe that God did not create the Heavens and the earth, we must also choose to believe that Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins.

As Christians, this should cause us great angst.

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said,

1 Corinthians 15:12–20 NIV

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

5. They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago...

2 Peter 3:5 NLT

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water.

Most scientists would agree that everything thing exists by chance. We live in a world where only the strongest survive. If you disagree, you are non-sensical. Many will laugh and jeer at you because of your blind faith to believe in God.

It takes more faith to believe that there is no one to design what we see than to believe that there is an all-powerful designer.

I think that this is the real reason

How can you believe that God will punish humans?

Inn his Autobiography, written in 1876 when he was 67, Charles Darwin said:

“I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” (Moore)

2 Peter 3:6–7 NLT

Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

If we believe that the Bible is true, this means that we must receive Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins to receive everlasting life. If we are not willing to believe the Bible, it brings comfort that there is nothing after this life. It’s impossible to have both.

Our hope is this

Romans 5:8 NIV

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God made a way for each of us to receive His grace and His mercy. In Christ, each of us can have access to this.

Hebrews 4:15–16 NIV

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We can come at any time. You can know the God of the universe and draw near to Him because of what Jesus did. This should give us great hope that He cares for us.

Let’s pray!