God Always Keeps His Promises

2 Peter 3.

Apostle Peter closes out his second letter the churches of Asia Minor with this chapter.

The entire letter is a detailed examination of our faith and God’s steadfast promises.

An easy outline would be:

Chapter One:

Peter expounds on the Greatness and Glory of our Lord and Saviour.

Phrases, like- “His Divine Power”, HIs own Glory and excellence...”

Support the assertion that Peter and the other Apostles had, by Eyewitness, validated the Ministry of Jesus and the continued Gospel message.

Chapter Two:

Peter Issues the warning against False teachings being a distraction to the True Gospel Message of Christ.

Chapter Three:

Validating the Glory of our Redeemer and the Promised return of Christ.

We will focus on the Third Chapter, today.

Focusing on the True nature of God’s promises.

As Peter reminds his audience, So we need to be reminded that, “God is not slow to fulfill His promises...”

God faithfulness and Perfect timing is what assures us that His promises made will be Promises Kept.

So we start with:

1- Promises Past, Present and Future- Kept

2 Peter 3:1–7 ESV

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

It is said that a good teacher repeats the lesson until the class has learned it.

It reminds me of a story of the newly appointed Pastor to a church.

The first Sunday Service, he preached a message that was very well received by the congregation. He received many hearty handshakes and pats on the back for such a dynamic message.

The second week, He preached the exact same message- Word for Word.

This time there were fewer handshakes, not many pats on the back, and even some grumbling about the repetition.

The Elders got together and decided that since he was new, they would give him a pass- After all maybe he hadn’t had time to prepare a new message, what with relocating and all.

The Third week came and the Pastor preached the same message for the third straight week!

Some folks got up and left mid way through the message.

There was a lot of grumbling and complaining to the Elders and NO handshakes or pats on the back.

The Elders approached the Pastor about his repetition of the message, expressing their disappointment on his serious lack of preparation.

The Pastor replied, “When y’all start living by the precepts of the first message, I’ll gladly move on to the next one...”

This chapter is like that.

It is a recap of the previous teachings of the first 2 chapters, and concludes with Peter’s final farewell.

Several points to be highlighted in this first section are:

They should remember the predictions of the Holy Prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior, through the Apostles.

They should also be aware of scoffers that will come following their own sinful desires- Casting doubt in regards to the Return of Christ.

These same scoffers, forget the very nature of Creation itself, deliberately neglecting that all of Creation was formed out of the very Spoken Word of God.