Click ⟳    |    Please refresh this document to insure the latest copy. Note, the Firefox browser does not reliably give an updated copy. One may try the “F5” key as well to request a fresh copy from the web-server.

April 2, 2023

The Title of the Sermon is “Remembering the predictions and the commandment”

We have seen Peter’s desire to leave the Church with important messages before his departure from this earth. Peter reminded the Church to strive for the virtuous life, the importance of the Transfiguration and that, the Scriptures are reliable. We saw Peter devote one-third of his second letter to false teachers in chapter two. Putting them on blast mode. Here in chapter three we are going to see a chiastic structure with chapter one. That is, chapter three mirrors the teaching in chapter one but in reverse. To outline Peter’s chapter three here, Peter wanted the church to …
1 Remember the Scriptures.
2 Remember that scoffers will come.
3 Remember that everything is going to burn.
4 Remember we need to focus on personal holiness.

READ 2 Peter 3:1-18

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,

• Peter begins with wanting to “stir up” the Church’s mind–verse 1.
  • lit.: regarding humans: to wake up from sleep
  • What did Peter want to stir up or wake up? Not just the mind, but here: the “sincere” mind.
  • “sincere” pure, sincere, unsullied part of our mind OR found pure when unfolded and examined by the sun’s light (LSJ, et al.)
  • That is the part of our mind that is in tune with the Holy Spirit.
  • This part of our mind is not lazy and hostile to the things of God.
  • James 1:5-8 reads in a shortened paraphrase: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God-- with no doubting. For the one who doubts is a double-minded man.
  • That part of your mind Church needs to be stirred.
• Peter wanted to put the writers of the Scriptures back in the mind of the people, what they predicted and what the Lord taught.
  • This is fundamental to us staying on track.
  • In every situation in life, God has spoke. In very specific ways and/or in a way that speaks to the general principle.
  • To not recall His words or not know them in the first place leaves us open to “misliving.”
  • In the following words, Peter will tell us what he means.

APPLICATION

• It’s the word that feeds and keeps this part of our mind active and caring and thinking about the things God cares about.
• Double-mindedness is a root problem for me for you for the Church.
• I see three consistent reasons for it:
  • #1 Some Christians doubt some of the Scriptures in a general way.
    • Therefore they have very little truth because they doubt the Word of God and choose to live in sin.
    • Because it is my experience that Christians often choose to “doubt” so that they can have the sinful choices they desire.
  • #2 Some Christians forget the Scriptures.
    • We tend to get complacent with the promises of God; we forget and then we drift.
    • When we forget the things of God we stop living the way we are supposed to live; we forget what’s important and what matters to God.
    • We tend to get lazy in our taking the word in.
    • You and I must continually place ourselves in and around the Word of God so we remember.
  • #3 Some Christians are indifferent toward the Scriptures.
    • Hebrews 5:12 rebukes here: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.
• We remember as we should by taking the time in the Bible daily, weekly, and consistently. These words stir our sincere minds up.

TRANSITION

• Now that we have remembered that we are to remember the Scriptures, let’s look at Peter reminding the Church that scoffers will come.

Verse 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

• Peter’s audience lived in the last days–as we do.
• The last days are from the time from Jesus’ death and resurrection and His second coming.
• “A scoffer is someone who treats lightly that which ought to be taken seriously.” (Wiersbe, p 951)
• A person turns himself into a scoffer because he wants to practice his sin desires instead having to deal with God.
• He is led by his own sin instead of being led by God.
• Really I think we see another pretty soft interpretation here of ESV’s choice of “sinful desires”
• 15 English translations use “lust.”
• Lit.: longing for what is forbidden, lust.
• Romans 1 speaks to this powerful potential in all of us.
• If our lifestyles contradicts the Bible, we must either change your lifestyles or scoff at the Word of God. The scoffers choose the latter. They scoffed at the doctrines of final judgment and the coming of the Lord Jesus. (Wiersbe, p 951)
• People who violate their conscience and the Word of God are compelled to scoff.

And they have a scoffing message: verse 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

• This is immediately building a case on sand.
• Their major claim was that there will not be an accountability.
• Peter’s point firstly, their mind doesn’t go back far enough.
• Peter assists them: verse 5 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,
  • Peter called this in the ESV “deliberately overlook” = λανθάνω = to be hidden: secretly, unawares, without knowing
• Part 1, Peter in essence wrote, “You didn’t go back far enough firstly.”
• The scoffers ignore that things have been different: Firstly, humans have not always been at all.
• Part 2, they ignored or denied that God made the universe from nothing with His very words.
• See 5b: “by the word of God”
• In essence here: Peter is reminding the Church that the scoffers forget that what God said would happen—happened!
• When God says “Let there be…” boom! --things happen!
• You left that out too.
• Part 3 of the missing data … (Peter helps again)
• The scoffers mention nothing about the cataclysmic event of the flood of Noah’s day. They claim that nothing like the Apostles are warning of has ever happened before so there is no reason to believe it will happen in the future. (Wiersbe, p 951)
• Peter draws the Church’s sleepy mind back to 2500+ years earlier.
• 6 and that by means of these [water and the Word] the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
• This perhaps is Peter’s bread and butter argument through this section: God has judged the world before and it did not go well for the scoffers!

APPLICATION

• We need to know that …
  • Scoffers deny that the universe was made by God from nothing.
  • Scoffers willfully forget that humans have not always existed.
  • Scoffers willfully forget and deny that God has dealt heavily with humans in the past via the flood action.
  • So in all these self-dupes they claimed to be wise, but they became fools. (cf. Romans 1:22)
• We need to be on our guard lest, – Blum said it best, “the propaganda of the scoffers distort [our] thinking.” (p 1074)
• Also we need to be ready for scoffers in our travels.
• We need to know that we may be mocked by these so called enlightened ones.
• We need to watch out for the words of the scoffers!!

TRANSITION
Now that Peter reminds the Church that the scoffers will come, and they need to have their sincere mind stirred, let’s see his reminder to the Church that everything is going to burn.

7 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.

• The same word guarantees that the end will be as God has said it will be.
• There is nothing in the Bible that God said that has failed to come true.
• What the Bible teaches about the day of the Lord and the end of the world “was not invented by the apostles.” (Wiersbe, p 950)
• This place will burn.

8 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.

• Peter knew the Scriptures, for the Psalmist wrote too, “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalms 90:4)
• The Lord’s coming = 4000 years (4 days)
• 1000 years like 1 day.
• the Lord is not slow in these matters of His predictions.
• Barclay wrote, “It is only against the background of eternity that things [will] appear in their true proportions and assume their real value.”

Peter’s conclusion on God’s timing: 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness,

• We are not to look at time from a Christian perspective always in the same way the world does.
• We are to count as God counts, looking at world history the way He does.

Peter explains the period of wait (from a human’s perspective), verse 9b but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

• God is waiting for more people to come to Him through repentance.
• In the Hebrew OT “repent” = change your actions.
• In the Greek NT “repent” = change your mind (actions will follow).
• 1 Timothy 2:3-4, This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
• God is waiting for those willing to repent!
• Ezekiel 18:23, Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?
• God wants people to humble themselves so that they escape all what is about to come.
• Then why doesn’t everyone come to faith? God has more than one type of will.
• Despite what the scoffers claimed, God is not late “off schedule!” God is the sovereign in all things and does what He pleases and does not need “prodding” or “counsel from sinful man.” (Wiersbe, p 952)
• Every day which comes to us is a gift of mercy. It is an opportunity to develop ourselves; to render some service to our fellow-men; to take one step nearer to God. (Barclay)

10 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.

• Dr. James Allman says, “What God has done in the past He will do again in the future, although He is too creative to do the same thing twice.”
• The flood is the only comparison to this cataclysmic event. AND IT PALES IN COMPARISON!
• READ FROM SHEET >> Matthew 24:36-44
• READ FROM SHEET >> DAY OF THE LORD PASSAGES
• Peter has plenty of material for this prophecy. (Barclay)

APPLICATION

• God created the world out of His word; one day He will wrap this place up by His word.
• For the ungoldly, the Day of the Lord is the most frightening thing they will ever conceive.
• For the saved it is the promise we are looking forward to.
• We need to prepare our minds for God’s mercy of time. He does what it best in action and in time.
• 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness - and godliness, 12 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!

Works Cited

Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Click here to access the works cited web-page for this document, save those marked as “Notes” or “Other Works Cited”–if any. Most of these cited works correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of general background information and references, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with. ¶ Furthermore, there may be numbered notes that are URL linked; these are usually retained numbered notes from Thomas Constable’s, “Dr. Constable’s Expository (Bible Study) Notes.” These links are preserved “as is” at the time of this work’s formation and sometimes include other citation information from Constable.

Other Works Cited

DeYoung, Kevin. The Hole in Our Holiness. Crossway, 2012, pg. unknown. As quoted by thepastorsworkshop.com.

Blum, Edwin A. “2 Peter.” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary—Abridged Edition: New Testament, ed. Kenneth L. Barker and John R. Zohlenberger III, et al., Zondervan, 1994. Sourced from archive.org.

Moo, Douglas. 2 Peter, Jude. “The NIV Application Commentary,” ed. Terry Muck, et al., Zondervan, 1996.

Wuest, Kenneth S. In these last days: II Peter, I, II, III John, and Jude in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader. WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, eighth printing, 1972. Sourced from archive.org.

^3.2