The Day of the Lord

2 Peter | 2 Peter 3:1-10

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I don't know if we have any uh parks and recreation fans in here. Some parks and rec heads. Um so this is a show that I uh have become quite fond of when it was uh airing, and I still think find it really, really funny. But there is it is a uh a comedy, obviously, about the parks and recreation um department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Um and it's uh there's a particular there's a particular episode that I have always found to be completely hilarious. Um and it is named uh the name of the episode is called End of the World. This takes place in uh season four. I don't remember the episode. Um but what happens is Leslie Nope is in charge of the calendar for the parks and recreation department, and a guy by the name of Herb walks in and he sits down because he would like to uh schedule out um something to happen in the park, and he wants it, he he wants it for himself. And what he said was he has bad news for Leslie because the uh the end of the world is going to be tomorrow at dawn. So he needs the park for he and his um, they call themselves the reasonableists, uh, but that is a name change. They were uh the followers of the Zorp the surveyor. But they changed their name to the reasonableists because they thought that would sound more reasonable for people to maybe want to be part of their essentially cult. Now, he asked for it's basically a spoof on Scientology. I won't give you uh what you will you look at Scientology yourself if you'd like to. But they wanted that Zorp was going to come destroy the world, and they wanted to invite Zorp in with flutes in the park. That was what they wanted, and so they uh they rented out the park. Now, turns out the whole episode is all these antics, and obviously Zorp does not come back to uh take all of the to destroy the entire world. And he, at the end of the episode, Herb finds himself in Leslie's office sitting in the same chair and basically saying, I'm so embarrassed. I did all this digging, all this scholarly work on the sacred texts, and I realized that I did, I made, I there was some crucial errors that I made. And she said, Yeah, I know, math is hard. He said, Yes, it is hard. And he said, But I I I did a little bit more digging, and the end of the world wasn't wasn't yesterday, wasn't today. It's actually um six months from now, which is great. So it's gonna take place. The end of the world, Zorp the Surveyor, is coming back on May 19th to destroy the world. To which Leslie turns to her computer and looks and said, Ah, that the park isn't free that day. And she and he went, Oh, you know, hang on one second. And he opens up his sacred texts and he says, Ah-uh, I did uh one more error. Um, it's actually May 20th. And she said, uh she turns, she looks, she goes, uh, that date is available. I will just put in end of the world. And the episode ends. Now it's funny, I find that incredibly hilarious because there's this obsession that a lot of different religions, and in truth, sometimes even our own Christianity has become obsessed with knowing and finding out when the end of the world is. And we use the Bible sometimes, we open through and we flip through and we think, oh, I think I figured it out, it's gonna be now around. Like we we've done this, the church has done this historically, and some still do this. And a lot oftentimes they actually use the text that we're gonna be in this morning to do that. And I want us to ask the question before we even get into it, we've we've read it. Is this what Peter's talking about? Does Peter have any interest in that? Well, let's find out and see. Now, before we dive fully in, I want to bring us back to essentially the thesis statement of the entire letter. Peter says this in 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 12 through 15. He says, Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. This is the gospel. And he says, I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, as long as I'm alive, to stir you up as a way of reminder. I'm gonna keep reminding you as long as I still have breath, since I know that putting off of the of my body will be soon, as the Lord Christ made clear to me. Verse 15 says, And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able to at any time recall these things. So essentially, I'm gonna write this to remind you of the gospel and all of its implications, and for you to have this text to keep coming back to to be reminded of the gospel and its implications. He goes, I want to remind you that you forget all the time. As way of reminder, I want to say, you easily forget. We easily forget, so I'm going to remind you to remember that you easily forget. You easily forget the gospel and the implications of it. And so I'm going to put it on wax so that you can always come back to it and you can always see it so that you don't remember, so that you don't forget, because you often forget, you easily forget, and I'm going to remind you of that. So let's dive in. Chapter 3, verses 1. We're going to start in verse 1. It's on page 958, if you're using the Bibles directly in front of you. He says, This now, this is now the second letter that I'm 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. Now he says, beloved. So he's turned a little bit of a corner. He was pretty hot and he was pretty mad and he said some pretty crazy things, true things, in chapter two about false teachers, about their motivations, about how they do things, about why they do things, all that. He's turned the corner now to say, okay, my beloved, I want to, again, I want to remind you that you easily forget, so let me remind you again. He says, Beloved, friends, brothers, and sisters, I wrote this to you once, and I'm gonna write it to you again. I'm reminding you of the gospel and the implications of the gospel. I am writing to stir up your sober-mindedness. That's what he means by sincere or pure mind. He says, he wants to genuine, he wants them all to genuinely remember all that he has written. Matthew Henry says this about Peter's goal is that the purified minds of Christians are to be stirred up, that they may be active and lively in the work of holiness. Active and lively, he says. So this is more than nostalgia. He doesn't want you to remember things from the past, to be like, wasn't that grand? I love things that were in years gone. Like we do, we're obsessed with this. We're obsessed with nostalgia. I guilty as charged. Things were better before sometimes. So I get it. But this is not what he's he's not trying to remind us of what's happened in the past so that we look back on it and go, wasn't that great? No, he wants it to stir us up into lively, into activity for the work of holiness. But he says again, remember what? So verse 2, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. So two things the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through the apostles. So let's see if we can kind of try to diagnose what he's saying here. So Peter is essentially saying the church, the bride of Christ, the followers of Jesus are sustained by the whole testimony of Scripture. Old Testament promise and New Testament fulfillment. So the holy prophets refer to, likely refers to the Old Testament prophets who spoke about the coming day of the Lord, judgment, salvation, restoration, the return of the Lord, and the final judgment are not new ideas. It's been talked about through all of the Old Testament. They're deeply rooted in it. And then he adds, your apostles, meaning that the authorized messengers of Jesus here in the New Testament passed on the teachings of Christ. So Peter puts the prophets and the apostles together as authoritative foundation for Christian truth. So all that to say is the whole of Scriptures, Old and New Testament. They're all about Christ. All of them. And he points to the first coming and then his second coming. This is something that we believe and we preach here. This is something that the Bible has taught throughout its entire its entire existence. So he goes on, verse 3, 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 this coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. So he says, This is what they're going to say. In the last days, this is what they're going to say. And he calls them scoffers. Another way to call them, another thing, the way to translate it is mockers. In the last days, these people will mock you and me for believing that Christ is going to return in judgment. For believing that Christ is even like they're just going to mock everything that we believe in the last days. And they will follow their own desires. They will do what they want to do. Because before we fully continue on here, he says the last days. Now many of us hear this and we think, okay, so this must be specifically meaning like the final days before Jesus comes back, like the actual final days. Maybe you think that, or maybe you've heard that before. I don't think that this is what Peter's talking about. And I don't think the New Testament even teaches that personally. I don't think Peter is giving the church a timeline to decode. He's giving them a theological lens on how to live. He is saying, do not be surprised that people mock the promise of Christ's return. This is exactly what the scripture said and would characterize this final age. And so as we look at Acts 2 and what Peter said, Peter actually says in Acts 2 that he's living in the last days. So if he's living in the last days, that stands to reason that we're living in the last days. And if we're living in the last days, then that means it's not just some like timeline that we can decode as we watch the signs. So we're not waiting for another age of redemption to begin. The decisive saving work of God has already happened in Christ. So we are living literally between the first coming of Christ and his second coming, and that is the last days. We're in it. And there will be mockers and there will be scoffers and there will be people that will say, Everything you believe is a lie. Everything you believe isn't true. But Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ has ascended, the Spirit has been poured out, the gospel is going to the nations. The next great climactic event is Christ's return. This is the last days framework. We're in it. We're here. So verse 4, he says, They will say, Where is the promise of this coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. So they ask a rhetorical question, implying that whatever God said he was going to do, it's past due. So Jesus says, God says that he's going to come back in judgment, and he is going to judge the living and the dead. Well, where is he? He's not here. So he must be late, or he must not care. Or he must not be able to do it. Listen, if he was going to come back and judge everyone, he would have already done it. But the truth is, ever since the beginning, this is what Peter's, ever since the beginning, so they're essentially saying, God started everything, sure, we'll grant you that, but then it's been a closed system ever since. He starts it, he spins the top, and it just goes. Ever since the fathers have passed away, like it's he started it, sure, but it's a closed system. He doesn't intervene anymore. Because if he was going to intervene, he would have already. As we put verse 3 and 4 together, we see that they believe that this is true, so they can live however they want. God's not coming back. Jesus isn't coming back in judgment, and so I can live however I want. Because there's gonna be no judgment at the end. So I can eat, drink, tomorrow I die. Whatever. You should too, by the way. He's not coming back. They have to believe that the universe is closed and it just goes on and on and on and on. And then they can do whatever they want. Peter has a response to this in verse 5 through 7. He says, 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 had 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. So Peter says, fine. You want to talk about creation? Let's talk about creation. We'll go all the way back. So by his word, God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. He created the waters, he separated the waters from the waters. And then he just closed the system and let it go. He just let it. They keep saying that God created it and then it's been closed since. So God decided, I'll create this, I'll let it go, and I'll never lean in again. This is what they're asserting. Peter's response is they are forgetting or ignoring the flood then. Now, if you're keeping a running tally, we've talked about the flood three times in this church, and somehow it's always me. Peter loves it. Peter likes to talk about it, and it's always me, and that's fine. I'm happy to talk about the flood. But they are forgetting and ignoring the flood, then. So what happens was God created the heavens and the earth. He separated the waters from the waters by his word, and then he created the first humans, and they were in perfect relationship with each other, and then the fall happened, and they were completely separated, and evil kept growing and kept growing and kept growing, and evil kept spreading. And God looked at it and said, This is not good, and then he destroys the world with water. So he essentially says, Listen, he started it with water, he destroyed it by water. Is it really that far-fetched to think he won't do it again? God has always been involved and has always entertain and intervened. And Peter's point is clear. He's at intervened at least once and he will intervene again. Now it won't be with water, because he promised he wouldn't. But he will do it again. Now, real quick, verse seven, by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Here in verse 7, Peter is saying, just like it was destroyed with Genesis with a flood, it will be judged again in the future, this time by fire. Now there is speculation as to whether this fire is literal or figurative. There are those that believe both. Peter does not give us a scientific explanation here. He's just not as interested in that. But he does give us a theological certainty. It will happen. As surely as the ancient world was judged by water, the present world is being kept for judgment by fire. So Peter means real judgment. Now, whether or not it will be actual fire that will burn things, or it means that God will purify everything, destroy it all, and make a new heavens and a new earth. Either way, the point is clear. God's judgment will bring comprehensive, purifying, unavoidable judgment. Now, now that he has refuted the scoffers and the mockers' accusations, he will turn to give two reasons as to why the Lord has not returned yet as he's promised. So he does admit, yes, God, Jesus has not returned. But there I'll give you two reasons as to why. Verse eight. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved. That the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. So the first reason that he gives may actually sound familiar to you. As we wrapped up our series in the life of Moses, Deuteronomy 34, we took a look at the one psalm that he wrote, Moses wrote, towards the end of his life, Psalm 90. And this is what Moses says in Psalm 90, verse 4. He says, For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. So Moses, again, he is contrasting the eternality and everlasting nature of God to the fleeting nature of humanity, you and me. And Peter's doing the same thing. He is drawing on this idea. So to God, a millennium is like a watch in the night, and a watch in the night is basically a few hours. A thousand years to God is like a couple hours of the night to him as he stands watch and protects his people. This is what Moses is illustrating, and Peter is riffing off of that idea. Spurgeon said this the rise and fall of empires, the glory and obliteration of dynasties and countless events will elude the pens of historians. Yet this period is to the Lord as nothing. He's saying that God is not bound to time the way that the relationship that God has to time is completely different than the relationship that you and I have to time. We are bound by it. He is completely outside of it, and it doesn't affect him or influence it, it doesn't do anything for him. He is the God of time. And it affects us in a very linear way. And we're bound by it, but he is not. And so Peter and Moses are trying to help us see that. That like the relationship that we have to time, where we look and we go, why isn't he come back here? It's been so long. God's relationship to time is not like that in any way. He's outside of it. So that was reason one. Now he gives reason two for the supposed delay. Verse 9. But the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some account slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. So what they perceive as slow is actually God being patient. While the accusation is that the Lord is either indifferent or forgetful or unable to return, Peter is saying the complete opposite. He's saying he isn't slow, he's patient. That means the apparent delay of Christ's return is not because God is forgetful or weak or distracted or indifferent. God is not late, God is not struggling to keep up with history. Oh, things are happening so fast I don't know what to do. He is intentionally impatient. The same delay that the scoffers use to mock God is actually the delay that sinners depend on to be saved. God is giving more time for repentance. Again, because Peter says he's not wishing that any should perish, but that all would repent. This is a debated and scrutinized text, and we don't have time for it this morning. Maybe the podcast, we'll see. But there is a there is a mystery here. We have to admit that it is natural to ask questions that Peter is not actually asking or answering here, but there's part of us that might look at this and go, so then why doesn't he just save everyone? Now I would argue again, we don't have time for it this morning, but I would argue that this misses the point of God's mercy and what this supposed delay is meant for. Peter is expressing God's heart for humanity. Peter is telling us why he delayed. Delays, but he is not trying to turn this section of Scripture into a debate about God's sovereignty or God or human will. We'll get into it. God is fully sovereign. But at minimum, Peter is telling us that God's delay is mercy. God takes no pleasure in judgment for judgment's sake, but he will judge the living and the dead because sin can't go unjudged. He calls sinners to repentance and he will not bring history to its final end until his saving purposes are complete. It's his call. Full stop. And for our purposes this morning, we're going to close this our the thought here in verse 10 as John will take us to the end next week. But at verse 10, Peter says this 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, he says. The day of the Lord refers to an appointed day when God will bring judgment on his enemies, on sin, and on those who are in sin. And he will fully and finally bring salvation to his people as well. Peter will explain that the day of the Lord is both terrifying on one hand and very clarifying on the other. He says, It will come like a thief in the night. This is connected to its unexpectedness. That's what he's trying to illustrate for us here. It will be unexpected. So, in other words, the day nor the hour is known, and no one will be expecting it. With that being the case, many, if not most, will be unprepared for it. Jesus says this in Matthew 24. Therefore, stay awake. For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 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. Therefore, verse 44, therefore, you must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Peter gives some details to this. It says the heavens will pass away with a roar. This is incredibly dramatic language, a cosmic language. Heavens here probably refer to the visible heavens, sky, cosmic order. We look up, we see the heavens. Not necessarily God's dwelling place. So when when he says roar, think sudden dramatic noise. The world feels so solid under our feet, but is being held together by the word of God, and one day that same word will bring it to judgment. This is what he's trying to illustrate here. The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved. Again, this is further details of the same event. The sun, the moon, the stars, planets, another way to translate bodies would be elements, or it could be more broadly speaking, like the created structures of the universe in general. Either way, Peter is describing a comprehensive judgment where everything that we know will go away as it is. The point is not merely that one nation falls or one city burns or one empire collapses the whole. Present order will be shaken and transformed. God will not abandon his world to sin. He will cleanse it, judge it, and he will make it new. The earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed, Peter says. The idea is that the day of the Lord will reveal everything for what it truly is. Hidden sin will be exposed, false security will be exposed, human pride will be exposed, empty religion will be exposed, works done in faithfulness to Christ will be revealed. And on that day nothing will remain hidden behind reputation, success, image, or excuse. Peter's pointing to this, and the whole of the New Testament is pointing to this, to the two comings of Jesus. A lot more could be said. But let me boil it down to as succinct as a statement as I can, and hopefully it will be helpful for us this morning. But before I do that, I do have one thing that I think is important that we just briefly talk about this passage and passages like it. Again, I don't want to go too deep into it, but I do think it's worth mentioning. And it connects with the way we started our sermon this morning with the Parks and Recreation episode. Often the application of this passage and passages like it is the exact opposite of what Peter is exhorting us to do. Namely, what Douglas Mu calls date setting. Another way to say it maybe would be like time set, like uh a setting, like capping it, I don't know what I'm trying to say, capping it at a certain time that Jesus might come back. Now it is true that there was a sense in the early church and the time of the apostles that Jesus' return was imminent, that it could happen at any moment any moment and any time. Paul seemed to believe that, Peter seems to believe that, most of the first generation seemed to believe that. But after some time had passed, that idea began to fade that Christ's return was imminent. And what that started to do, because Jesus hadn't returned yet, it started some theologians and some people to start to look at this scripture differently and start to try to map out some things and see if they could maybe predict when Jesus would return. And it became a bit of an obsession. In fact, there were Christians who interpreted Psalm 40, which we read, or Psalm 40 to predict and our passage this morning to predict that there would be a thousand-year messianic age, and then there were there's a certain that Jesus would actually return in the year thousand AD. Which obviously didn't happen. Then there was a book written uh fairly recently, uh in the last number of years, uh 40 years ago or so, that said 88 reasons why the rapture will happen in 1988. Now, I do like the year 1988. My wife was born that year, but I think that's the best thing that happened that year. Jesus didn't come back that year. At least not to my knowledge. Tim LaHaye, one of the authors of the Left Behind series, he wrote an article in the 90s regarding the end times, and he said this our generation has more legitimate reasons for believing that Jesus will return in our generation in our in our generation than any previous generation. He said he did some interpreting, ancient rabbinical tradition that led him to believe that the year 2000 would be the approximate day that Jesus would return. I missed it if it happened. The point being, these are the kinds of things that that that sometimes in passages like this we can get wrapped up in. We start to try to read the signs and do all these different things. And I don't think Peter had this in mind at all. Douglas Moore draws a conclusion that I think is helpful as we talk about the ideas of date setting or the at least of setting limits on Christ's return. The tendency of some Christians is to is to attach the return of Christ to signs, these certain things that have to happen, and then Jesus will come back. And the New Testament just doesn't teach that. Not from what I see. Because the danger is missing the forest for the trees. We are sign-watching and setting dates or limits all the while. Christ's return will happen when it happens, and what happens as he returns is far more important than when it happens. It's going to happen in his timing, when he wants to. It could be tomorrow. And the point is what's going to happen, and that we're prepared for it, not when it happens. We can get too wrapped up in that. And the New Testament, and Peter and Paul, they're just not interested in it. I could say more about this, but I'm not sure it would be helpful from this context. Let me boil it down as succinct a statement as I possibly can that I think Peter's trying to communicate to us through this passage. I think he's saying the Lord has promised to return, and his patience isn't permission, it's mercy calling for repentance. The Lord has promised to return. And his patience isn't permission, it is mercy calling for repentance. To put a final pin in this, I think there are four implications among others. The first one is this don't mistake delay for absence. The scoffers see delay and assume Jesus is not coming. Peter says the opposite. The delay proves God is patient. The fact that God has not returned yet is not evidence that he has forgotten his promise. It is evidence that his mercy is still reaching sinners. So we ask ourselves a couple questions. Where have you been become cynical? Where have we become cynical? Where have I become cynical? Where have you quietly, where have we quietly started living as though Christ's return is distant or irrelevant? Where have we grown spiritually sleepy because life just seems to keep on moving? Second thing is don't waste the patience of God. Some of us hear about God's patience and we think, I have time, or I'll deal with that later, or I'll repent eventually, but I'm gonna keep on doing what I'm doing right now. Peter says his patience is not permission. Every day you wake up is another undeserved opportunity to repent and follow Christ. Thirdly, live ready, not speculative. Peter does not tell believers to calculate dates. He tells them to remember, repent, and stay awake. The doctrine of Christ's return was never meant to make the church obsessed with predictions. It was meant to make the church faithful because he's coming back. As we have said, the problem with this mindset is it shifts focus from faithfulness to speculation. It often creates fear instead of endurance. It can produce either panic or disappointment. It distracts from holiness. So God hides the day so that every generation of believers will live watchfully, will live ready, will live expectant. Will not treat God's patience as permission to live however we want, but as an opportunity to repent and to become more like our Savior. Because lastly, the return of Christ should wake us up, not weigh us down. Peter absolutely wants believers to feel the weight of the coming day, obviously, but not hopeless, not fear. For believers, the judge is also our Savior. The coming day means evil ends. Righteousness finally dwells among us. Christ is finally seen face to face. So the return of Christ should produce seriousness and holiness and expectancy, and lastly, and fully, finally, hope. Not dread, for the world, the day of the Lord will be terrifying. But for the believer, the coming king is the one who already carried our judgment at the cross. The day of the Lord is terrifying if you stand on your own righteousness. But for those in Christ, the judge is the one who has already bore judgment for them. The fire of final judgment is not an arbitrary rage, it is the holy justice of God against sin. And at the cross, Jesus stood in the place of sinners so that all who repent and believe would not perish but have life. Christ will return. The scoffers are wrong. The day is coming, but until that day, every moment of delay is mercy. Mercy for sinners to repent. Mercy for wanderers to return. Mercy for the church to wake up and live ready. So do not waste the patience of God. Don't drift asleep spiritually. Don't become obsessed with predictions. Don't lose hope. The king has promised to come, and he always keeps his word because the Lord has promised to return. And his patience isn't permission, it is calling, it is mercy calling for repentance.