Living In Anticipation Of The Return Of Christ

2 Peter 3:1-18

What we are going to try to do today is to do a brief exposition of 2 Peter 3. Brief is hard to do because all of God’s Word is rich with truth, a sustaining truth that will keep our hearts and minds in peace. So, we will try to work through some of these things, as we go there is an emphasis on verses 11-13.......which makes a statement that by the knowledge we have how much more excellent should our manner of life be.

It is similar to Paul’s declaration in 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”

Peter has written his 2nd epistle to warn of false teachers, to expose them......and one of the central themes of being able to thwart false teaching is knowledge. Knowledge of the truth is very important to being to combat and shutdown false teaching. Maybe not stopping the false teachers but to rid your ears of them and also to warn others.

Make no mistake...........there are many false teachers in the world with a cunning and exciting presentation but they teach doctrines of devils by sprinkling the name Jesus in with their message.

A snip-it of the first 2 chapters....... 2 Peter 1:3 “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:” .........2 Peter 2:20 “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”

These are just brief verse of the desire of Peter to squash these false teachers in the minds of his readers.

In chapter 3, Peter now deals with the same false teaching but this deals with the coming of Christ!

He starts out telling us to stir up, bring back to remembrance......

That is important, how will we hear if there is not a preacher of the truth, stirring up our remembrance, also how will we know if we haven’t read the Scriptures?

Coming together as the Body of Christ is vital to stirring up our remembrance and rightly dividing the Word of Truth!

Also, having our own healthy knowledge of God’s Word, not someone’s interpretation, but rightly dividing the Word of Truth!

The Words which were by the holy prophets (OT) and the commandments of the apostles (NT).

The OT and NT are linked together in the declaration of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Only Way to God!

Now in the last days.......this is after Jesus ascended, that is when the last days started........

Let us be mindful of this and view this rightly......the last days are the last opportunity before God’s wrath will be completely poured upon the earth!

During those last days, scoffers (mockers)....walking in their own lusts.......living after the flesh......these will mock you for your belief, your walk in Christ........

They will mock you for waiting on the promise to come.....some have taught that heaven is on earth and so many other crazy teachings.........

Satan’s plan is to just get you confident and desiring this world and that is what these scoffers have done and will continue to do. They live with no expectation of the return of Jesus Christ!

I like how Peter adds that these are willingly ignorant.....they like the state that they are in, regardless of any conviction or proof contrary to their teaching, the want to be where they are at.

God spoke the heavens and the earth into existence and by His Word they are held there.....

This next part is very important.....God created the earth in amongst water below and above, He created water for that matter.......and He also destroyed the pre-flood world system with that same water.

The world system perished by being overcome with the water that was being kept by God’s Word.

The water didn’t do this on it’s own, it wasn’t some earthly event, this order came from God Himself! And it was because of man living each to their OWN way!

The heavens and the earth that are now, are kept or reserved by the same Word of God for judgement, God’s fury poured out onto a world system that continually rejects Him after continual gifts of Grace, He is still rejected, willingly denied and that world system will be judged and burned with fervent heat! Intense heat!

Perdition of ungodly men.....destruction of ungodly men!

I heard a preacher say it this way: “It is as though with one hand God is holding back His justice and with the other hand He is pleading for men to come to Him, but one day both hands will be dropped! You know that don’t you?”

This is basically what Peter is telling us! This is God’s doing and it will happen!

There are scoffers who say this day of judgement will not happen, but it will happen!

Why is it taking so long?

Peter explains.......verse 8 is not a teaching on 1 day being a thousand years for us.......but to God time is not an issue....this is also not a teaching on prophecy time. Humans must understand time as it is relative to us, in others what we deal with!

Time, for us, is according to God’s command......He is not limited to time, but we are......Genesis 1:5 “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

Peter is telling us that those that scoff that time continues on, do not understand that time is not an issue with God.......

Peter seems to pull from Psalm 90:4 “For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night.”

Adam Clarke said this about that: ““All time is as nothing before him, because in the presence as in the nature of God all is eternity; therefore nothing is long, nothing short, before him; no lapse of ages impairs his purposes.”

Spurgeon also said this: ““All things are equally near and present to his view; the distance of a thousand years before the occurrence of an event, is no more to him than would be the interval of a day. With God, indeed, there is neither past, present, nor future. He takes for his name the ‘I AM.’... He is the I AM; I AM in the present; I AM in the past and I AM in the future.”

We normally stop at one verse and make a doctrine, however we must continue reading and if you do not understand what Peter is speaking of, all you have to do is keep reading.......The Lord is not slack or slow about His promise, however He is patient toward you and not willing any should perish but desiring that all will come to repentance!

That has nothing to do with time, but everything to do with God’s Love, Grace, and Mercy!

The only reason we are not destroyed right now,is Grace and Mercy

Verse 15 Peter tells us that the longsuffering (patience) of the Lord is salvation. As long as the judgement is not here there is hope for deliverance for those that will believe!

As long as the door was open on the ark, there was time to change your mind and heart and run to the True deliverance, but there will be a day come that the door will be shut!

When God shuts it no man can open it!

The 2nd coming of Jesus Christ will come as a thief in the night......at a moment when no one is expecting Jesus will, from the air, call His church Home! His faithful will be joined with Him in the presence of God the Father!

Then, the Great Tribulation begins for 7 years the world will be judged and then Jesus will come and destroy the world system as the flood did and will set up an 1000 year reign. At the end of 100 years everything will be destroyed and there will be a new Heaven and New earth.

Intense Heat will destroy everything that humans thought was dear to them, those things that we have put before God!

Peter now makes a statement that is powerful and also convicting..........

“By knowing this truth of the judgement of God on the earth and everything will be dissolved.........what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conduct and godliness”

This is really a statement......knowing that God will dissolve everything with intense heat, how much more excellent should our outward and inward lives show the desire to see Jesus and look for that time when it is all destroyed and there will be new Heaven and earth, where we will live as Adam and Eve did before sin entered and even on a greater scale than they knew!

Spurgeon explained it this way: ““The king is coming; he is coming to his throne, and to his judgment. Now a man does not go up to a king’s door, and there talk treason; and men do not sit in a king’s audience-chamber when they expect him every moment to enter, and there speak ill of him. The King is on his way, and almost here; you are at his door; he is at yours. What manner of people ought ye to be? How can ye sin against One who is so close at hand?”

The question or statement is one to examine of our own self! Do you believe in what is to come according to God’s Word? If you do, that should dictate your life!

I question myself a lot........this is not a good thing........I look at myself and wonder if I am living for this coming of The Lord Jesus or I am holding onto the things that will be dissolved!

What drives me? What takes up my time? I measure my life by laying it beside those that abandoned everything for Jesus’ Name sake and wonder!

To live at peace with God, to live without spot and blameless.......

1 John 2:28 “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.”

You get the idea? I guess you could ask if Jesus would appear today is your life the way you want to be found......if not, maybe our passions are skewed!

If Jesus is our passion, then being at peace with God is not an issue because Jesus is our peace!

If Jesus is our passion, then being without spot and blameless is already taken care of by Jesus!

The idea is clinging to Jesus, holding on to His life, following His life!

In conclusion, so what is our directive to keep from being pulled away from the Truth of God, daily.......Grow......Grow, How?

In grace, I quote Spurgeon again: “But you will remark that our text does not say anything about grace growing; it does not say that grace grows. It tells us to ‘grow in grace.’ There is a vast difference between grace growing and our growing in grace. God’s grace never increases; it is always infinite, so it cannot be more; it is always everlasting; it is always bottomless; it is always shoreless. It cannot be more; and, in the nature of God, it could not be less. The text tells us to ‘grow in grace.’ We are in the sea of God’s grace; we cannot be in a deeper sea, but let us grow now we are in it.”

It is not finding more grace but living and having confidence in the abundant Grace that God has poured out upon us!

Allowing our confidence in the abundant Grace of God be what holds us!

In the knowledge of Jesus Christ.....Paul said it best in Philippians 3:8-10.........

This is the directive for the church........I think of the church of Corinth when they allowed worldliness to enter the church, they brought in other things and different speakers, not staying at the apostle’s doctrine.....the doctrine that the ones that was witnesses of the physically resurrected Christ......that church went away from God......Paul told them that he didn’t want to hear of nothing among them except for Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the Gospel!!!

At the very beginning of the early church of Jesus Christ, they met out of proximity not because this church had this or that church had that.

They met because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they wanted to know more and have their lives grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, His life, his work.......and to learn more about the abundant of Grace that has been poured out from God through Jesus!

They had no other desire!!!

What directs my life, what directs the church?