Lesson 7--Living in the Shadow of His Coming (2 Peter 3:8-18)

Introduction

In 2011, a group of men and a dog boarded an airplane to leave for the Middle East. They were SealTeam 6, and their mission was to hunt down the infamous terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

In the days before getting on the plane, they had specific instructions. Make ready in case you don’t return. It was not an idle exercise, so preparations had to be made. Wills were written or updated. Final letters to family members were penned to be delivered if they did not return.

They were living in the shadow of not returning.

Christians, too, live in the shadow of another event, but it is not an impending death. We are living in the shadow of the return of Christ. It casts a shadow because we believe Jesus is coming back, God is judging all, and we will get what is due to us.

William Barclay called this final lesson 2 Peter “the moral dynamic of the second coming.” How you see the second coming determines who and why you live.

For Peter, he asks a pointed question to all of us:

“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,” (2 Peter 3:11, ESV)

What do we do living in the shadow of the second coming?

Discussion

Realize God’s Time

We live in a process world run by timepieces of all types. We change calendars on December 31st. Clocks get adjusted up and down for Daylight Savings Time. We measure the days as “there are thirteen days until Christmas.”

And adults and children see time differently, even using the same clock and calendar. A child sits by a Christmas tree, sighing at how slow it is until Christmas. A parent sweats bullets trying to wrap presents in the bedroom, muttering, “wasn’t it just Christmas yesterday?”

But God has none of those restrictions.

The scoffers had mocked that God had lost his clock for the second coming was nowhere to be found. If it had not happened already, it was not going to happen!

Peter holds up his palm and says, “wait a moment.”

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8, ESV)

He shames the scoffers who had shut their eyes (vs. 5) to the facts around them. He instructs Christians not to close theirs.

We realize that God is above and outside of our feeble way of counting the movement of time. The tick of a clock is silent in eternity. Peter says a thousand years is a day and a day is a thousand years to God.

Is this a literal statement?

Some want to be spiritual accountants. They carefully count the times to determine the precise moment. If you pile up the numbers, we can know the day. Their names are legion—Marcion, Miller, and Russell.

Yet, Peter alludes to the word of Moses in the 90th Psalm.

“For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4, ESV)

Moses contrasts man’s mist-measured life with God’s view of time. You see the future. It is “as yesterday” or “as a watch in the night.” These are things that pass quickly and are almost unnoticed except in hindsight. Haven’t you gotten to Friday and said, “where did the week go?” You can say the same for Christmases and your birthday.

After all, if you did not have a calendar or a clock, would you know what time it is? To ask “what time” is irrelevant in a time is unmeasured. But God doesn’t even acknowledge time exists. A second in eternity is the same as a millennium.

Because of that, God is not a tardy schoolboy who had dawdled getting to his task of sending his son back to earth.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9, ESV)

The Lord is not “slow.” He hasn’t forgotten because there is not set timetable for man to catch the 3:30 train to heaven!

Time is passing for us but not for God. But that leads us to a second reality of living in the shadow of the second coming.

Recognize God’s Opportunity

Why is God waiting? God has a distinct purpose in the delay for those who are tapping their feet and checking their watches.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9, ESV)

God is “patient.” Peter uses a classical word that best describes someone who has the right and opportunity to take revenge for a wrong. But instead of acting in anger, they don’t throw the punch or pull the trigger. They choose not to.

God chooses not to send Jesus to end the world because he has hope.

He wants all to be saved. He is like the father who stands at the road, hoping to see his errant last born coming back in the story of the prodigal son.

He does not want to punish. God is not eager to pronounce destruction if a delay might bring someone back.

So he creates “room” for repentance. He knows the stubborn human heart does not change quickly. It is filled with arrogance and ego. Yet, if enough time passes, it can soften. It can hear the right message at the right time and bend to the will of God.

He knows repentance is like a plant. A seed falls in the ground, and quietly changes start taking place. It sprouts and grows, but you must wait for the right season for it to bear fruit.

We should be grateful that the Lord did not end this world before we could obey Jesus. And if it is true for you, isn’t it true for all?

Every movement we live is an opportunity to come to the Father.

Acknowledge God’s Reality

The problem with the scoffers is they believed that if it had not come, it would never come.

Peter puts that thought to bed.

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” (2 Peter 3:10, ESV)

When Peter wrote the words, the verb “will come” stood front and center in the sentence. It was his way of punctuating it. This is a definite thing, and delay does not mean cancel.

It will indeed come.

Peter says many things in this lesson about the second coming.

There are things we don’t know.

We don’t know the “when.” Even from the 10 days before Pentecost, the disciples were curious. “When” was the question. It was also raised in Matthew 24. It seems to be the question everyone wants to be answered.

The preoccupation of many in Christendom focuses on finding out the “moment” of arrival. Yet, it is unknown. There is no signal. It is like a “thief in the night” who robs when least expected.

It was the popular way to discuss the timetable of Christ’s coming.

Jesus used it in Matthew 24.

“But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.” (Matthew 24:43, ESV)

When Paul told the Thessalonians about the second coming, he used the image to communicate the unknowing moment.

“For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2, ESV)

The truth is we don’t know when Christ will return, and we don’t need to. If we live for him every day, the need to know vanishes. It is only a question for the skittish.

But there are things we do know.

We know the manner.

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” (2 Peter 3:10, ESV)

Peter paints a dark picture of the conflagration of the world. He says it will pass away with a roar.

The word is spelled as it sounds. It has the sound of a flock of birds flapping their wings madly as they fly away as one. It is the sound of a forest fire raging through the Northern California redwood forests, licking up house after house and hearing them crack as the flames like the last lumber.

And with it, the stars, sun, moon, and galaxies will dissolve, leaving nothing. Peter paints a picture of a world made of tinker toys that fall to a floor, and all the joints come loose into a pile of nothing.

Why it is done.

Some may wonder, “why is this the fate of the world?” But imagine a world in which there was no consequence for action? What would happen?

We could live for pure pleasure, but our lives would count for nothing. In fact, those who live that way find themselves bored, searching for the next thing to give them greater pleasure. Life counts for nothing than a pursuit. It is like the drug addict’s high that leaves a residue of despair.

Many would become indifferent to life. The ancient gravestone reads: ‘Once I had an existence; now I have none. I am not aware of it. It does not concern me.’

If there is no judgment, life heads nowhere without direction. We become the proverbial hamster on the wheel with constant activity and no reason for it. That provides one of the worst kinds of lostness, the loss of the reason for life.

So Peter asks the pertinent question.

“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,” (2 Peter 3:11, ESV)

The question does not ask us to answer the question of “doing” but of “being?” What kind of a person should we be in the light of the second coming? What will be the daily character that drives our actions?

Recommit to God’s Way

Peter’s closing words in this letter provide the answer to that question. It is a recommitment to the teachings of Jesus and the instructions of his inspired interpreters.

We wait expectantly.

This class takes place in the Christmas season. We continually pay attention to a date on the calendar. That expectation creates shopping lists, mounds of wrapping paper, and furious amounts of cooking so we can be ready for Christmas Day.

It is that same kind of expectancy we bring to our lives as we see the approaching day of the Lord.

“waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!” (2 Peter 3:12, ESV)

We are eager because we will get the reward we work for on that day. We will be with the Lord. Righteousness will reign, and suffering will be over. Evil will be stopped.

On the day when the earth and all the cosmos melt into a pool of nothing, it will be a glorious day for those who prepare for the day. We live to make that day the absolute joy of our life, not something to dread.

We live blamelessly.

Peter continues:

“Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.” (2 Peter 3:14, ESV)

For the second time in the letter, Peter talks of working up a sweat to be the kind of people we should be.

We look after our lives much as a Jewish farmer would look over his flock for his Passover sacrifice. Nothing with a mark or flaw is good enough for God himself. It is the sheep without spot or blemish.

The Christian life is lived so that we have no black marks. Sins come but so do repentance and forgiveness.

Have you moved into a house in which someone had lived? You spend some money and time clearing out what was there’s and making it your own. You want to clean place for you to live in that clean house. That’s the same kind of life we want to bring to God, not one used and abused but cleansed and made ready for a new home.

We reconcile with God and are at peace with the day of judgment.

We study honestly.

In verse 15, we find one of the more interesting passages of 2 Peter.

“And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,” (2 Peter 3:15, ESV)

Peter makes mention of another apostle and his writings. He speaks of what Paul had written.

This shows the changing times. Paul had probably been executed, and Peter was close. The picture is of the church scurrying to come to grips with what is authoritative or not.

Many things were written. Some were good books but did not rise to the level of “scripture.” The church was seeking what would last as their standard of faith.

Paul was prolific and was recognized, and his works were more than just letters. They bore the mark of authority.

But the problem, as Peter says, is “understanding.” The word Peter used to refer to the dilemma that they and we face with scripture is typical in that ancient world. It comes from the utterances of Greek oracles.

When a decision was to be made, such as going to war, a king would go to the Oracle of Delphi to ask him a question. (In reality, it was like the old 8 Ball that you shook, and it gave vague answers.) The answer may come, “if you go to war, you will destroy a great nation.” But which nation? You could destroy your enemy, or your enemy could destroy you. Either way, the oracle was going to be correct.

You had to “interpret” the meaning, which is Peter’s point.

He says some mangle the meaning.

“as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:16, ESV)

People who are not careful with the text can do damage to it. They can twist or torture it. They take the text and wring it like a wet dishrag until it is out of shape.

Think of how you could do that with Paul’s writings.

In Romans 6, some took Paul’s instruction about God’s grace as saying, “do as you please and let God just pour his grace on you over and over.” It became a terrible distortion.

Others took Paul’s emphasis on freedom in Christ and turned liberty into license (something that happens today). If we are free, we are free to do as we want. Yet, when Paul speaks of freedom, he speaks of freedom to do as God made you be.

In 1 Thessalonians, it was apparent that his teachings on the second coming could be easily misunderstood. People thought Jesus was coming back immediately, yet one of the Christians died. Had they missed the second coming? Paul has to redirect them. This may be the immediate issue in 2 Peter, this same kind of distortion of the teachings of the second coming.

Peter reminds us that holy scripture should be handled carefully. What was intended? What is the eternal message? How does it change you so you can serve God better?

When we hold our Bibles in our hands, we need to treat it honestly, searching for God’s truth, not a confirmation of our personal biases.

Conclusion

With that, Peter starts to wrap up this second and final letter. His departure from this life is at hand. This was his last chance to speak to these people. As the eyewitness exits the scene, he has final words.

“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:17–18, ESV)

You have been warned. You have no excuses. And neither do we.

Be on your guard because many will sing the siren’s song to draw you away. But if you will not just resist but keep developing in your faith, you can withstand then.

And if we do those things, we will be ready for the Lord’s second coming.