Natural Reminders of Christ's Supernatural Return
Naturally Supernatural: The Normal Christian Life • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 16 viewsNotes
Transcript
ME: Intro - “I’ll be back!”
ME: Intro - “I’ll be back!”
In 1984, the world was introduced to a big, strong, robot assassin named the Terminator.
In one scene, he approaches a police station where his target is being held.
When He is denied entry,
He scans the station and the officers,
Then promises the sergeant,
“I’ll be back!”
Moments later, he drives a car into the police station,
Blowing past all the officers that had been standing in his way.
The terminator kept his promise,
He returned and brought destruction with him.
In John 14:3, Jesus made a similar promise,
He told the disciples that He will come again.
He did not have the same accent as the terminator,
But he essentially said the same thing,
“I’ll be back!”
And just like the Terminator,
Jesus will keep His promise.
But unlike the Terminator,
Christ’s return will not be fictional.
It will be a real, physical, destruction of the world as we know it.
The longer it takes for Jesus to return,
The easier it is for us to become discouraged.
The more discouraged we become,
The more vulnerable we are to false teachers who scoff at the thought of Christ’s return.
So, 2 Peter 3:1-10 helps us to remember that Christ’s Return Stirs Up Life.
After addressing false teachers with very harsh language in ch. 2,
Peter now directs his attention toward believers with great tenderness.
He calls believers dear friends,
And he reminds us of Christ’s return.
We get a sense of heartfelt affection from Peter.
It is the way loved ones speak to each other.
The way Peter speaks to both false teachers and believers reveal a pastoral heart.
He loves the church,
He is zealous to protect her,
And impassioned when he speaks to her.
This pastoral heart stems from His heavenly Father’s heart.
God deeply desires that we will always hold fast to the promise of Christ’s return.
So, His servant Peter,
Writes this letter to stir up our sincere mind by way of reminder.
To stir up communicates a sense of disturbance.
He wants to shake us out of a sense of complacency.
It is urgent that we hold to the conviction of Christ’s return,
Especially when false teachers seek to attack it.
That is the focus of our passage this morning.
Lord willing,
Next week we will conclude 2 Peter,
Where Peter addresses what sort of people we ought to be while we wait for Christ to return.
Our outline for this mornings passage is:
Hold On Tight (vs. 1-2)
Scoffers Gonna Scoff (vs. 3-4)
God Is Patient vs. 5-10)
Fight against forgetting that Christ will come.
Our passage this morning addresses the question asked in vs. 4,
“Where is the promise of his coming?”
The first half of our passage is a warning about the end times.
The second half is a teaching about the end times.
WE: Hold On Tight (vs. 1-2)
WE: Hold On Tight (vs. 1-2)
You ever watch bull riding?
I have to be honest, I am not super into it,
But I watch enough sports related stations that every once in a while I will catch a highlight from a PBR event.
If you watch the bull rider,
You notice they’ve got one hand in the air because they are not allowed to touch the bull.
But the other hand is wrapped to this rope that goes around the bull’s torso.
While the bull is bucking with everything he has to get the rider off him,
The rider is holding onto that rope with everything he has for what feels like the longest eight seconds.
Even if he starts sliding off one side or another,
He tries with all his might to hold onto that rope until the time of victory comes.
Peter is concerned about believers having a similar grip on what the Bible says about Christ’s return.
In vs. 1-2, Peter is telling us to hold on tight to what we have been taught!
These verses are saturated with the importance of remembering.
(vs. 1) He refers to this as his second letter to dear friends,
Making it likely that 1 Peter is his first letter to this audience.
In both 1 and 2 Peter,
He is concerned that we would live holy lives worthy of the gospel until Christ returns.
So, in both letters, he stirs us up toward this end by way of reminder.
Why?
Why do we need to be reminded?
What is the big deal about remembering that Christ is returning?
The first reason,
Is that it is possible for believers to stumble when the world scoffs at the idea that Jesus is coming back.
The longer is takes according to our sense of time,
The more the world will scoff at the idea of Christ’s return,
And the greater the temptation for us to be discouraged,
Or to lose hope,
Or to become unstable.
So, for this reason alone,
The importance of being reminded of Christ’s return cannot be overstated.
Peter wants us to have a healthy way of thinking about Christ’s return.
He wants us to be able to discern truth and to be able to apply it.
The second reason is a more general reason,
We are forgetful.
This is important because the Bible equates forgetfulness with the culpability of sin.
Meaning, we should know better by now,
We should not need this reminder.
But our minds are like jars of clay.
Things fade from our minds,
When we are weary, we are not able to remember.
For these reasons, we need reminders.
Therefore, a good teaching ministry has lots of reminders.
Reminders about the basics of the Gospel.
What we would call the milk of the Gospel.
These reminders are essential.
We have to go over them again and again.
We need these reminders.
That is why Peter says it is good to stir up reminders,
Because it makes us think in a pure and wholesome way.
Dr. Jim Shaddix gives a good summary;
“While believers should always be learning new things about their faith and discovering new ways to serve the Lord, we also need to be reminded of basic spiritual truths. And we never outgrow that need.”
Remembering the gospel in practical ways as we live is not automatic.
Peter is addressing this active process of applying the truths of the gospel to new situations and problems that confront us.
Thomas Schreiner explains;
“In biblical thinking reminders grip the whole person, so that we are possessed again by the gospel and its truth, so that we are energized to live for the glory of God.”
We need natural reminders to stir us up for this.
Peter is setting an example for us.
We must remind one other of the hope we have in Christ’s supernatural return.
Satan wants us to forget this,
And when we do,
It makes us unstable.
We must fight against forgetting that Christ is coming,
Because the unrighteous will attack this truth.
So, what exactly do we need to remember?
The words of the prophets,
And the commands of Christ.
Peter is pressing back into the point he made at the end of chapter one about the authority of the apostles and prophets.
The NT letters from the apostles represent the commands of Christ.
The apostles are those who were directly commissioned by Christ or other apostles.
Ephesians 2 affirms this,
It says the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the Chief Cornerstone.
Peter wants us to remember the OT prophets and the NT apostles.
He wants us to remember God’s Word,
And wants us to obey God’s Word.
Peter’s words give us confidence in what the Bible declares about Christ’s return.
The OT prophets predict a day of judgment,
Where history will end.
The apostles reiterate these things.
And Jesus Himself talked about these things.
23 of the 27 NT books reference Christ’s return,
About 300 references total.
This means the Bible declares that Christ is returning again and again!
So, we can be certain that Christ is coming,
Because the Bible makes it clear!
Until Christ returns, we are compelled to live holy lives.
That is why Peter refers to Christ’s commandment.
This is Christ’s expected requirements for His followers.
This is not so much a list of dos and donts,
As it is the general idea of that we are to conform to the image of Christ,
To be holy as Christ is holy.
It is the commandment that false teachers were neglecting.
We must remember to obey Christ’s commandment to be holy and to make disciples.
Believers embody Christ’s commandment,
False teachers embody selfish indulgence.
That is the connection between godly living and Christ’s return.
The prophets and the apostles spoke of the day of the Lord,
And in light of that,
Urge God’s people to pursue godliness.
GOD: Scoffers Gonna Scoff (vs. 3-4)
GOD: Scoffers Gonna Scoff (vs. 3-4)
In 1991, Cypress Hill wrote a song called Psychobetabuckdown,
Introducing a phrase, haters gonna hate.
It implies that when a person hates on someone else,
It says more about them,
That they are a hater,
Than it does about the person they are hating on.
Well, if Peter were a modern pop artist like Sir Mixalot or Taylor Swift,
He might write in vs. 3-4 that Scoffers gonna Scoff.
Because the fact that they scoff at the idea of Christ’s return,
Says more about them,
That they are scoffers.
Scoffers are people who speak scornfully of God,
Specifically in this context raising doubts about Christ’s return.
Scripture repeatedly testifies to Christ’s return.
Peter warns about critics,
Or skeptics,
Or as he describes them here, scoffers.
Regarding this,
Peter says, first of all,
In vs. 3.
Do not be surprised by how prevalent these scoffers will be.
Jesus expected it,
He warned that they would come.
And Peter picks up Christ’s warning that they would come in the last days.
Scoffers coming in the last days refers to the time between Christ’s ascension and His return.
Acts 2:17 and Heb. 1:2 both refer to this timeline between Christ’s first and second coming as the last days.
Peter had encountered scoffers during his ministry,
And he was warning us that not only would they remain until Christ returns,
But they will likely become even more prominent as the day draws near.
So, ironically, the greater number of scoffers indicates the nearness of of Christ’s return.
The presence of their denial of Christ’s return is evidence of Christ’s return.
Peter says they scoff at the idea of Christ’s return,
Because they indulge their own sinful desire believing they will not have to face any consequences.
It is not because they have this superior intelligence,
Which they like others to believe,
The issue is a spiritual one.
These scoffers are not smarter than believers,
They are deceived by the enemy.
They are being lured in by the passions of their flesh like a wild animal.
These self-indulging cynics oppose God.
This is not some form of higher morality,
It is an abuse of God’s grace to satisfy their own selfish wants.
This truth negates their scoffing.
Scoffing is a form of persecution.
It can be aggressive or assaulting.
Or it can be mocking, laughing, and ridiculing.
It was the same thing that happened to Jesus when He was on the cross.
Scoffers believe they have a valid argument against Christ’s return because so many years have passed since His promise to return.
They will continue to mockingly ask, where is this “coming” Jesus promised?
This is not a genuine question,
It is a question of unbelief and mockery.
It implied that Christ’s delay is a reason to doubt His judgment.
The argument continues in the second half of vs. 4,
Zeroing in on this idea of sameness.
In other words,
They are saying that the world has always operated according to the laws of nature,
Not the laws of a Creator.
They are unable to see the goodness of God’s providence.
They do not see the maintenance of creation as a testimony to God’s goodness.
They claim the routine nature of the world is not interrupted,
So, there is no reason to think anything would happen to bring it to an end.
It makes sense to the scoffers of the world that earth is just gonna keep on spinning,
And there is no reason to think that a day will come where God disrupts and ends everything.
This belief existed all the way back during Peter’s day,
And it is still prevalent today.
Our world is said to be governed by the cause and effect of natural laws.
These natural laws, then, are believed to disprove the existence of God.
This denies the reality of creation,
It denies the reality of the flood,
And it denies a future return of Christ.
The world is believed to slowly and gradually evolve into what it is today over millions of years by random chance,
According to the abstract laws of the faceless sovereign force called nature.
And this belief then denies God’s involvement in any way,
Not through creation, sustaining, or judgment.
Nature governs itself.
If this were true,
Our world would radically change every day.
Because there is no active intervention sustaining the world.
That would then be unstable and chaotic.
Ironically, there would be no way for science to learn and make observations,
Because our world would be radically different every day.
The fact that this does not happen is a work of God.
But God’s constant nature,
What scoffers interpret as sameness,
Has lulled unbelievers into thinking the way the world is will be the way the world will always remain.
They miss the goodness of God in the constant nature of the world.
So, they mock the sovereign God Who created and sustains the universe.
They conclude that they haven’t seen the world end yet,
Therefore, they never will.
They are lulled into a false sense of security.
Which means we must fear the end of the world for them.
For our unsaved family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers,
They do not fear God sufficiently,
They are not afraid about where they are going when Christ returns.
So, we must be fearful for them.
God’s judgment is upon them.
Fear this on their behalf,
And share the gospel with them.
YOU: God Is Patient (vs. 5-10)
YOU: God Is Patient (vs. 5-10)
Scoffers reveal their character when they scoff.
The same is true for God.
His actions reveal His character.
His character, however, is very different from the scoffers character.
In vs. 5-10, Peter comments on what God has done, is doing, and will do.
When observing these actions,
It reveals many things about God and His character,
One aspect of His nature that is highlighted in these verses is that God is Patient.
Before introducing anything about God’s character,
Peter acknowledges that scoffers deliberately overlook these truths about God.
So, Peter exhorts you to not overlook them.
We just talked about how false teachers argued that the world would not change,
Therefore Christ would not return.
So, Peter takes us all the way back to creation to prove that the world has not always been this way.
Peter begins with Creation because it is foundational to God’s nature,
But it is also the foremost truth being deliberately overlooked by scoffers.
Peter includes the detail of how God formed the earth out of water and through water.
What is the reason for this detail?
Let us go back to the beginning,
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
God interrupted the formless and void chaos of the world and brought order.
He separates the waters above from the waters below.
And the waters below were separated to bring about dry ground on the earth.
Scoffers deliberately ignore this.
The Greek word Peter uses here is used only one other time in the NT,
Col. 1:17 “[Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
God has formed all of creation, He brought it into order, and He holds it all together.
How did God do this?
He spoke!
By His Word, Peter says.
God gave the command,
Then heaven and earth came into existence.
God has always existed,
Before history even began,
God was there.
And by His Word,
He created everything out of nothing.
But not only did God intervene in creation,
Bringing order to chaos.
He intervened in judgment,
Bringing chaos to order with the flood.
Peter says the world perished with the flood.
The account of Noah is a foretaste of judgment.
Scoffers are willfully forgetting God.
They do not look at the world and see God.
Scoffers presently in our world are just like the unrighteous of Noah’s generation.
At the right time, God determined to bring a worldwide flood that ended all life on earth,
Except for those whom God showed His mercy to on the ark.
People of our generation are going on living life,
Eating and drinking in merriment,
Then suddenly, on a day we do not expect, the heavens will open,
God’s judgment will come,
And the world will end.
All who do not trust in Christ will perish,
Just like the unrighteous of Noah’s generation.
Peter makes this connection in vs. 7.
He says by the same Word,
The same power that brought the earth into existence,
The same power that brought all the destruction upon Noah’s generation,
That power now has fire stored up for the heavens and earth as we know it.
This idea is powerful.
Fire is powerful.
In light of Peter’s comparison to Noah,
There is this old rhyme that summarizes Peter’s point;
“God gave Noah a rainbow sign,
No more water, fire next time.”
That is a humbling thought.
God promised never to flood the earth again.
But the fire that is coming to this world is going to be far more devastating.
Final judgment is ready and waiting.
The moment God says it,
Christ will return and all the fire and destruction that is stored up will come.
The world as we know it will be destroyed.
Fire is a common symbol used all throughout the Bible to represent God’s judgment.
A few examples include: Deut. 32:22; Is. 66:15-16; Mal. 4:1; Matt. 3:12; 1 Cor. 3:13; 2 Thess. 1:7-8;
So, Peter’s point is that scoffers are scoffing today because the fire has not yet come.
But when God interrupts the order of our world,
And the fire of His judgment does come,
It will be too late for the scoffers.
So, in vs. 8, Peter gets even more pastoral as he appeals to believers not to overlook God’s nature like the scoffers do.
Continuing a theme of sympathy for your forgetfulness,
Peter acknowledges that Christ’s delay tempts you to doubt His return.
So, Peter leans in and speaking from a heart burdened for your well-being, says;
My dear friends,
Despite how you may feel,
Do not overlook this fact,
God is not bound by time.
This happens to be the only command Peter gives in our text.
And this fact is more true than your feelings.
Peter actually explains this fact in the most beautiful way,
Saying that one day with the Lord is a thousand years,
And a thousand years is but a day.
His inspiration seems to come from Ps. 90:4, which says;
For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
This does not mean every mention of a day in Scripture should be equated to exactly one thousand years.
The point is that God is sovereign over time.
Therefore, His eternal nature is vastly different from our temporal nature.
We cannot fully comprehend it because He transcends time,
While we are bound by it.
So, the passing of time does not diminish God’s character in any way,
Because the passing of time does not affect God.
Therefore, we do not need to fear or doubt any perceived delay of Christ’s return.
Christ will return according to His perfect timeline, not ours.
So, you can say with confidence that Christ is coming soon.
Though, you do not know the day or the hour.
You are to live in this tension between the nearness of His return,
And the uncertainty of when it will happen.
Be okay with this.
God saw and knew all of human history before time even began.
To us, it has been about 2000 years since Christ promised to return,
To God, it has been as if it were a couple days.
And the time of this world in comparison to the eternity of heaven,
Means His return is in fact soon.
H.G. Wells hoped illustrate eternity as best he could,
So, he wrote picture the biggest mountain you can imagine.
Imagine that mountain is made up of a countless number of tiny little pebbles.
Then, picture once a year,
A bird comes and picks up one pebble and takes it away.
A bird continues to do this every year until every pebble is removed from that mountain,
The time is takes for that mountain to be made flat is a single day in eternity.
This is mind boggling.
This is why 1000 years to God is but a day.
But at the same time,
Let us consider what it means that a single day is like 1000 years.
This means that our 24 hour day plays out like a millennium.
Imagine how many details you would be able to pick out if you could rewatch a 24 hour day,
Play out over every moment of 1000 years.
You would know and recognize every little minutiae of that day.
Such is the case with God.
God is not like us,
He is so far beyond us.
With the Lord on day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Despite this,
Scoffers were scoffing at the idea of Christ keeping His promise because His return seems delayed.
Peter directly addresses this by saying that Christ’s apparent delay is not evidence of His unfaithfulness,
Rather, it is evidence of His mercy and patience.
The promise alludes to Hab. 2:3
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
Since God is not bound by time as we are,
He is not slow in keeping His promise as we understand slowness.
So, Peter is telling you not to mistake Christ’s apparent delay as scoffers do.
No, Peter says that Christ has not yet returned because He is patient with you.
God’s patience and long-suffering is a prominent theme throughout the Bible.
Exod. 34:6 says:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
God’s patient and merciful nature is so apparent that Jonah complained that God would not destroy the Ninevites in Jonah 4:2;
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
God’s patience is purposeful,
His patient nature is redemptive in motive.
Peter, addressing believers, writes,
God is holding back His judgment to give you time for repentance.
He says, God is not willing that any of His children should perish.
What does this mean?
It means God’s patience provokes repentance.
So, do not see His apparent delay as a reason to doubt His return,
Understand it is a highlight of His patient and merciful heart!
Dr. Jim Shaddix is right on when he says;
“Ironically, what the false teachers were using as an argument against God’s promise was the very thing that should have led them to repentance!”
God desires repentance so that you do not perish.
Peter is showing that the stakes are high!
A lack of repentance results in eternal punishment,
Where repentance results in eternal life.
So, God appears slow at keeping His promises, why?
For salvation.
To save His people from hell!
God does not want you to experience eternal punishment.
He is not slow,
He is waiting.
The Day of the Lord is set on God’s calendar.
We do not know it,
We cannot know it,
But God knows it and it will not change.
It is not here yet because He is patiently waiting.
He is waiting for the salvation of His people,
Whom He has chosen by name before the foundation of the world.
Some of them may not even be born yet.
Who knows?
God does and no one else.
He has a plan.
He is not slow as in “oh no, He missed the appointed day.”
No, everything is on His schedule.
Odds say that some of these people are alive but not repentant yet.
We do not know who they are,
So we need to pray for unbelievers,
They need their hearts softened,
They need to hear the gospel,
Maybe for the first time,
Maybe for the hundredth time.
God is so patient,
He does not want any of His people to perish.
His patience is all about salvation.
He is waiting for His people who have yet to trust in Christ.
Again, Dr. Shaddix adds a great comment here:
“This verse contains wonderful—yet urgent—news for those who are without Christ. God as merciful is manifested in his patience with people to repent of sin, trust Jesus to save them, and thereby avoid the eternal condemnation of God.”
Plead with unbelievers,
Do not assume He is not faithful to keep His promise,
Do not doubt God’s ability to save,
He is patient,
He desires that you would repent and trust in Jesus today!
Because eventually, God’s delay will reach its end.
When it does,
God will bring righteous judgment.
The day of the Lord is that day.
It is the culmination of the last days,
Which we have been living in since Christ first came.
It will be a catastrophic intervention of God disrupting the order of this world.
This was prophesied dating back to the OT prophets,
Joel 1:15 mentions it
Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
It is affirmed and repeated in the NT,
1 Thess. 5:2, for example, says;
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
Peter uses the same illustration as a warning,
That the second coming of Christ will come like a thief.
This is telling us that His return will be sudden and unexpected,
Many people will not be prepared,
Just like you are unprepared when a burglar breaks in and robs you.
But Jesus warns believers to be prepared when His sudden arrival comes in Luke 12:39 and Matt. 24:42.
God is clear that you do not know when Jesus is coming.
So, you are to do your job, be aware, be prepared, be ready for when He comes.
Since you do not know when He is coming,
You must always be ready.
There is no final countdown or preemptive warning when He is coming,
He is just going to come,
According to His timeline,
Unexpectedly,
Like a thief in the night.
Scoffers will be going on with life as if all is good.
But when Christ comes, they will not be ready for it.
It will be a catastrophic event of epic proportions.
Similar to the prophet Isaiah,
Peter says the heaven will pass away with a horrifying noise!
The sky and space that we see above us will disappear with a roar.
Jesus said the sun will be darkened,
The moon will not give light,
Stars will fall from the sky,
And the powers of heaven will be shaken.
He said there will be anguish on the earth.
This is not just a disruption of world order,
It is a destruction of it.
Peter says, the heavenly bodies will be burned up.
The heavenly bodies could refer to a number of things,
It could be talking about the elements of the world,
As some translations have put it.
Or it could be the bodies outside of earth,
Like the sun, moon, and stars.
Others propose it refers to angelic beings who have power over nature.
It is hard to say with certainty.
Elements is the most natural translation into English,
But the sun, moon, and stars would also make sense based off other references in the Bible.
If it were elements,
We can imagine the destruction this phrase is communicating.
Think of the periodic table of elements.
The basic building blocks of our world,
So, Peter is saying,
These elements will be destroyed by fire.
Think about how volatile nuclear energy is.
When atoms are opened up,
Bombs go off.
In Col., Paul said that in Christ, all things are held together.
So, if we think about this on an elemental level.
Imagine if these elements,
Which are used to make atom bombs,
Suddenly were no longer being held together.
It would create explosions beyond our wildest imaginations.
Now mind you, this is but a theory of how God will burn up and dissolve the heavenly bodies,
Regardless,
The heavenly bodies, whatever they are,
Being burned up,
And the heavens passing away with a roar,
Communicate the utter destruction of the heavens and earth.
WE: Conc.
WE: Conc.
Peter concludes that both the universe,
And its inhabitants will face this final judgment.
Peter says, the earth and the works on earth will be exposed.
Again, we come to another challenging interpretation.
Peter seems to be suggesting that God’s judgment will conclude with a definitive pronouncement of the consequences for humanity’s sin.
The works being exposed,
Or as other translations say it, disclosed,
Alludes to all our sinful works being exposed.
Everything we think we hide in the dark will be laid bare for God to see and judge.
The world will have completely passed away,
And we all will be standing before God with nowhere to hide.
Then, we will have to give an account for what we did in this world.
If any sin is found in us,
We will be found guilty,
Deserving of God’s judgment.
But the gospel teaches that we do not need to stand before God alone.
Christ died on the cross to pay for the punishment we deserve for being found guilty of sin.
He rose from the dead as proof that He is an acceptable substitute in our place.
So, He is alive,
He will be there,
And if you trust Him in you heart,
And confess Him as Lord,
Before that moment,
He will step in front of you after you are found guilty,
And instead of being judged based upon your sin,
You will be judged based on His perfect righteousness.
Peter’s purpose is to draw our eyes toward Christ’s return.
Next week, Lord willing, we will look at the conclusion of his train of thought,
In vs. 11-18.
Where, practically speaking, Peter tells us how to live given that everything we see is temporary.
Peter says we ought to live holy and godly lives,
And speed His coming through evangelism.
In other words, until Christ returns, invest in personal holiness and missions.
You know, I find myself longing for Christ’s return more and more.
COVID has made me long for Christ’s return,
The destruction in Haiti increased my longing for Christ’s return.
The bombing at the airport in Afghanistan makes me want Christ to return even more.
Whenever a loved one passes away,
I long for Jesus to come back!
As the Bible says in the second to last verse,
Come, Lord Jesus!
Even so come!
But even though I feel this way,
Jesus has not come.
The temptation is to be discouraged,
Or to doubt.
The lies of the enemy and the world begin to creep in,
“He’s not coming.”
But as time passes,
We draw closer to His return.
The world increases its scoffing.
The church holds tighter to God’s Word.
Peter said at the start of 2 Peter, God has granted to us His very great and precious promises.
Included is the very great and precious promise of Christ’s return!
The world offers empty promises of freedom that result in slavery.
Christ has not returned yet, not because He is never coming,
But because God is patient.
He is faithful,
He will fulfill is very great and precious promises,
He will be back!
So, fight against forgetting that Christ will come.
Pray.
