THE GOSPEL OF
CHRIST
SPREADING THE SOUL-SAVING MESSAGE OF JESUs
(Chapter 3)
Introduction by narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Spreading the soul-saving message of Jesus. And now, Timothy Sparks and Ben Bailey.
Timothy Sparks:
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness,
but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). I’m Timothy Sparks.
Ben Bailey:
And I’m Ben Bailey. Welcome to our study of 2 Peter This
lesson is being brought to you by individual members and congregations of the
churches of Christ. We invite you to visit the
The Book of 2 Peter is about spiritual growth. In chapter 2, we learned about the “ingredients of spiritual” growth—such as virtue, knowledge, godliness, etc. In chapter 2, we learned about “impediments to spiritual growth,” such as false teachers, and the kind of false living their teachings can bring about. In chapter 3, we are going to learn about “incentives” to spiritual growth—that is to say, the kinds of things that encourage us to grow as God’s children.
Timothy Sparks:
In 2 Peter 3, Peter presents as the primary motivation for our spiritual growth the fact of the Second Coming of Christ. Peter says,
“Scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Pet. 3:3-7).
Peter accused the scoffers of being “willfully” ignorant. Their accusations were not the result of mere oversights. They were intentional. God does not want us to be ignorant. One of the key words of 2 Peter is “knowledge.” Yes, there may be some who suggest that Christ is not coming again. But Peter wanted us to know otherwise. Christ will return!
Ben Bailey:
This entire discussion revolves around God’s promise that Jesus would come again. But some were saying, “So, where is He?! Did God lie to us?” Peter therefore deals with this idea at some length, addressing the integrity of God and the idea of the scoffers that Jesus is not going to return. He specifically addresses the time frame, noting that God’s time frame is not necessarily our time frame. Peter commented, “By the word of God the heavens were of old….” Peter’s point was that God spoke—and that was that! The same principle applies to the Second Coming of Christ. God said that Christ will return—and He will! We may not know, or understand, the time frame. But we do not have to! God said it, and that settles it. So what, if Jesus has not yet returned? He never said when He would return. He only said that Christ would return. No specific time or date was ever stated. Here in 2 Peter 3, we learn a powerful lesson about trusting God’s Word. We must not doubt or “second guess” God. If something does not happen when we want it to happen, and in the way we want it to happen, that does not reflect on God. He is still God! He has not lied to us. He will accomplish all things—in His own good time.
Timothy Sparks:
Jesus said in John 12:48, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” Part of the reason for Peter writing this second epistle was to “remind us” of certain things. In verse 1, Peter says, “Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder).” Then, in verse 8 he continues this same line of thinking when he says, “Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Sadly, some people pull this verse out of its proper context and thrust it back into Genesis, in order to suggest that the days of creation would very well have been long periods of time of thousands or millions of years each. And, some people even go so far as to suggest that during those long periods of time, God used evolutionary processes to produce our planet and its inhabitants. This, however, is erroneous. The text of 2 Peter 3:8 is not placed into the context of creation; rather, it is in the context of God’s patience. In the very next verse, Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (vs. 9). God wants everyone to change their hearts and minds in order to conform to His will. When it comes to God’s patience and longsuffering, we must realize that He does not work on the same time scale we do. He is not bound by the time frame in which we live. Plus, Genesis 1 and 2 make it clear that God created the Earth and its contents in six literal days of approximately 24 hours each. Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17 reiterate that same point, and indicate that one of the reasons the Israelites were commanded to observe the Sabbath was in commemoration of God’s creative activity during the six days of creation. To take 2 Peter 3:8 out of its proper context (God’s patience) and thrust it back into Genesis 1, is to misuse and abuse the passage.
Ben Bailey:
Peter’s point is that God cannot be restricted to man’s time schedule. God is not bound by “our” time. We cannot say something like, “Well, it has now been 2,000 years, and the Lord still has not come yet. Therefore, He is not coming at all!” God does not operate on time scales like you and I do every day. With God, time is meaningless. Before the creation of the Earth, time did not exist. That is difficult for us to understand, because every action we take centers on a time schedule of one kind of another. In verse 9, when Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” he is stressing the longsuffering nature of God. Why has God not sent Christ back to the Earth yet? We cannot know all the answers to such a question, because we are not God. But this verse makes it clear that as long as Christ does not return, people still have an opportunity to repent. God is not “slack” in what He is doing. Rather, He is longsuffering so that people can repent. We ought to be thankful for the longsuffering of God, and for the fact that He wants people to be saved. There are some who seem to think that God is an evil, vindictive character Who enjoys seeing people be lost. Nothing could be farther from the truth! God wants all men to repent and be saved. It is a good thing indeed that God does not operate on a time schedule like we do, because the fact that He does not, affords us a greater opportunity to be repent and be saved. It seems somewhat strange that we sometimes are impatient with God (like the people seemed to be in 2 Peter 3), yet the very reason that God is “slow” (as we think of it) is because He is being patient with us!
Timothy Sparks:
Look at God’s activities in the Old Testament. He seemingly “worked overtime” as it were to preserve a people who were bent on their own self-destruction. Luke 19:10 tells us that Jesus came “to seek and save the lost.” Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Christ came to Earth in order to die for sinners. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Paul said, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” He died for us; thus, we should live for Him! Paul told Timothy that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). God has done everything He can do to save us. Jesus came, lived a perfect life, showed us the way, and then died for our sins. He was raised from the dead in order to give us the hope of Heaven. The Holy Spirit has revealed God’s Word to us. And that Word reveals to us that “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (2 Pet. 3:10). When we hear someone say that they know when the Lord is going to return, we know they are mistaken. The statement that “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” is clear and compelling evidence that we will not know when the Lord is going to return. A thief does not call you and say, “I’m coming to rob your home at midnight.” Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5, made the same point about the Lord coming as a thief in the night. In that same context, he said that the Lord’s return would be “as labor pains coming upon a pregnant woman.” Just as surely as a pregnant woman will experience pain at childbirth, so the Lord will return. Peter adds something to this discussion, however. He tells us how the world is going to be destroyed at Christ’s return. In verse 10, he says, “The heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”
Ben Bailey:
Peter makes it clear that when Christ returns, the Earth is going to be destroyed. Knowing that this world in which we live is not going to last forever, provides a marvelous incentive for spiritual growth. When Christ comes back, time will come to an end. There will be no more time for anyone to repent and be saved. We, therefore, need to get ready now for the coming of the Lord—while we have the opportunity to do so. Sadly, there are some misguided souls who teach that the Lord has already come, and that e therefore will not be coming again. Fortunately, thanks to Peter’s teaching in 2 Peter 3:10, we know that the Lord has not already come. If the Lord had already come, you and I would not be having this discussion! Why? Because the Earth and everything in it would have been burned up and destroyed. This is clear and compelling evidence that the Lord has not yet returned. God has promised, however, that Christ will return. What should be our response to such a promise? In the words of Mark 13:15, we need to “watch and be ready.”
Timothy Sparks:
Peter makes it clear that since there is going to be a Day of Judgment, and since we are people who should be looking forward to the return of Christ, then we should make sure that our lives are in line with God’s divine will. Peter writes, “Since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (vss. 11-12). Peter’s point, of course, is that Jesus will return, and He will destroy the Earth. We, therefore, should be ready for such an occasion. Whenever we see a rainbow, it should remind us—based on the promise that God made in Genesis 9:13-15—that He will never again destroy the Earth by water. But it also should remind us that the Earth will be destroyed—by fire at the Second Coming of Christ. The first destruction of the Earth (the flood of Noah) destroyed the Earth’s people. The second (and last) destruction of the Earth (at Christ’s Second Coming) is going to destroy the Earth itself. Peter urged us to look forward to the Second Coming? Why? It is because our citizenship is in Heaven, not here on Earth. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul wrote, “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words” (vss. 16-18). At the Second Coming, we will be forced to accept our eternal fate—to live in Heaven with God, or to live in Hell with the devil and his angels.
Ben Bailey:
In verse 13, Peter says, “We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” According the 2 Peter 3:10-12, the idea of a premillennial, thousand-year reign of Christ simply cannot be true. There are some religioius groups which teach that Christ is going to return, set up an earthly kingdom, and reign in that kingdom for a thousand years. There are also some who teach that the Earth is going to be transformed into a paradise, similar perhaps to the original Garden of Eden, and that we are going to live here in a euphoric state forever. But listen to the phraseology of 2 Peter 3:10. Peter says, “The elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.” But we should not be discouraged by these words. Why not? We are looking for what Peter describes in verse 13 as “new heavens and a new earth.” According to Philippians 3:20-21, our true citizenship is in Heaven. We should not yearn to live on this Earth forever. Peter’s point is that if we remain faithful and dedicated to God—yes, even in the midst of suffering—then we can live forever with God throughout eternity in Heaven. What greater incentive for spiritual growth could you want than that? Can you think of anything greater, anything grander, anything more beautiful than to know that you can live in Heaven with God forever? Hebrews 4 describes Heaven as a place of rest (Heb. 4). It is described as a place where no sin can dwell (Mt. 25:46). It is a place that Jesus has specially prepared for those who love Him. In John 14:1-4, Jesus said,
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
I want to go to that place that Jesus has prepared for us. And I hope you want to go there, too. If we want to go to Heaven, we must be motivated to grow as a Christian. We cannot afford to stagnate and say, “Oh, I’m exactly where I need to be.” Rather, we need to awake every morning, knowing that we are not where we need to be—and we won’t be until the day we die. This is a great incentive to remain faithful to God’s will.
Timothy Sparks:
In 2 Peter 3:15, Peter writes, “The longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.” God is patiently waiting for you to obey His will. If you are not a child of God, God’s longsuffering is in your favor. He wants you to obey the Gospel and be saved. Why does God allow Christians to be persecuted, even to this very day? He wants to give evil people time to repent. God does not want anyone to be lost. He has done everything He can do. Have you done everything you need to do for your soul’s salvation? In 2 Peter 3:17-18, Peter says, “Beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” Peter wants us to know that we do not have to fall from grace. Rather, we should grow in grace. Peter closes this chapter with the phrase, “To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” The Book of 2 Peter tells us that Christ is going to come again, but that we, as Christians, should look forward to that day.
If you are not a Christian, we ask you to consider what we have said today. In order to become a Christian, you must believe in Jesus as the Son of God. You must repent of your sins, confess Jesus as your Savior, and be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of yours sins.
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Narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
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1. What is the main thrust of 2 Peter 3?
2. In 2 Peter 3, Peter presents a single motivation for Christians to remain faithful to God. What is that motivation?
3. What did Peter mean when he said that some scoffers and mockers were “willfully” ignorant?
4. Of what were the scoffers (mentioned in 2 Peter 3:3) ignorant?
5. What did God, or Christ, have to say about the specific time that Christ would return?
6. The context of 2 Peter 3:8 is not placed within the Genesis account of creation, but in the context of something else. What is that “something else”?
7. What was Peter’s point in 2 Peter 3:8 (“Beloved,
do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day”)?
8. What is one good reason why
God has delayed Christ’s return to Earth?
9. What is the connection
between Luke 19:10 and 1 Timothy 1:15?
10. What is the connection
between 1 Thessalonians 5:2 and 2 Peter 3:10?
11. According to 2 Peter 3, when
the Lord’s Second Coming takes place, what will be the fate of the Earth?
12. What is the connection between
the messages of 2 Peter 3 and Mark 13:35?
13. According to 2 Peter 3, the
Earth has already undergone one destruction (of its people). What was that
destruction?
14. In Genesis 9:13-15, God made
a promise that He never would destroy the Earth again in the same way that He
had destroyed it then. What was the sign of that promise?
15. According to 1 Thessalonians
4:16-18, what will happen to the Christians who are alive when Christ returns?
16. Where is the Christian’s
“real” citizenship? Support your answer with Scripture.
17. In John 14:1-4, Jesus spoke
of “going to prepare a place” for faithful Christians. To what was the Lord
referring?
18. What did Peter mean when he
said, “The longsuffering of our Lord is salvation”?
19. In 2 Peter 3:17-18, Peter warned those to whom he wrote about something. What was that “something”?
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST,