🎵Hallelujah Choir🎵 🎵In
perfect harmony, oh🎵 Return
to 2 Peter chapter 3 for our last
study in this epistle.
2 Peter chapter 3.
I think we'll begin with verse 3 tonight.
2 Peter 3, verse 3, Knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days
scoffers walking after 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
the creation.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that
by the word of God the heavens were
of old, and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water, whereby the
world that then was being overflowed with water
perished.
But the heavens and the earth which are
now by the same word are kept in
store, reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one
thing, that one day is with the Lord
as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,
as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to us.
We are not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night, in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a
great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up.
Seeing then that all these things shall be
dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to
be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking
for and hasting unto the coming of the
day of God, wherein the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless, we according to his promise look for
new heavens, and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness.
Therefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such
things, be diligent that ye may be found
of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord
is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul
also, according to the wisdom given unto him,
hath written unto you, as also in all
his epistles, speaking in them of these things,
in which are some things hard to be
understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable
wretch, as they do also the other scriptures,
unto their own destruction.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things
before, beware lest ye also, being led away
with the error of the wicked, fall from
your own steadfastness, but grow in grace, and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever.
Amen.
As we've noticed in our outline, this epistle
has to do with false teachers, and in
the third chapter we find this special aspect
of these false teachers, that they're scoffers.
They're scoffers.
They arise in the last day, and they
scoff at the whole idea of the coming
of the Lord.
They say, we can live it fast and
loose, we can play both ends against the
middle, there's nothing to worry about.
And they base their loose living and their
scoffing on what we called last night the
doctrine of uniformitarianism.
That is the same.
There have been no changes, everything works according
to natural law, and the world is just
going to go on at
that whole idea.
And we noticed last night that this doctrine,
this basic doctrine of his
faith, works this way, and
there have not been any great catastrophes or
cataclysms in the history of the world.
And that brings us to verse 5.
Verse 5 says, For this they willingly are
ignorant of, willingly are ignorant of, but that
by the word of God the heavens were
of old, and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water, were by
the world that then was, being overflowed with
water, perished.
Peter refutes their doctrine by saying, look here,
God did intervene, there was a great cataclysm
that took place, and that destroyed the theory
of evolution.
Now notice what it says.
It says that the world was stored with
the seeds of its own destruction.
There was water above, you know, the clouds
in a sense, or
some other power, we literally would,
springs with water.
And this tremendous flood took place, and was
one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
cataclysms that the world has ever known.
Now it's an interesting thing to me that
in our day, and in evangelical circles, a
new theory has been propounded, and that was
that it was just a local flood.
And it's interesting how all of the things
we've been studying in 2 Peter are the
very things that are being brought in.
And so you're really not in the theological
swift.
But I want to tell you, if that
flood was local, you'd have to picture a
gigantic flood in a little place.
And yet this is what men are saying
today.
They have to attack the universality of the
flood in order to get on with their
man-made theory.
Now what Peter is arguing is this.
You say all things continue the same since
the Father slept, but now he said God
is going to do it again.
He did it once, he can do it
again.
And he's going to do it again, only
this time.
And so he says in verse 7, but
the heavens and the earth, which are now,
by the same word, are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men.
Now he said in the verses above that
in the days before the flood, this was
filled with the seeds of its own destruction,
the water.
Well now it's an interesting thing that in
this atomic age, man has come to realize
that the world is also filled with the
seeds of its own destruction, namely atomic energy.
And they've been able to take and split
the atom.
And man has been able to take and
cause explosions.
And man is invading this whole area of
matter.
And well, it's kind of amazing.
They know that when they can break that,
there's a tremendous explosion.
And for the want of a better name,
they say that matter is held together by
cosmic glue.
Well, that's one word for it.
Another word for it is, and what this
passage of scripture is saying is that someday
God is going to release the restraint that's
holding things together.
It'll make an atomic explosion.
And that's exactly what it's, by the same
word, have, this is the Isn't that interesting?
Stored up for fire.
If you told that to an atomic scientist
twenty years ago, he might have been, but
not today, or at least thirty or forty
years ago.
By the same word, are stored up for
fire, being reserved against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men.
And so Peter teaches us here, I think
I explained, all
right, then in verses eight and nine, Peter
gives the reason for God's delay.
Everything's gone along and evolution will continue to
take its course.
And so Peter, be
not ignorant of this one thing, that one
day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promises,
not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance.
Now this is interesting.
Peter tells us in the eighth verse that
God doesn't live in a sphere of time.
We think in terms of time, four years,
year of our Lord, but that's only because
we live on this earth.
And time is made because of our relationship
to the Creator.
It's the relationship of the earth to the
sun that makes us think in terms of
days and months and years and millennia.
But God doesn't live on either the earth
or the sun.
He's above the reach of all that, and
there is no time with God.
And so it says here, a thousand years,
beginning of creation, up to the present.
A long time, but it's not a long
time with God.
God can crowd into a day with ordinarily
you'd think it would take a thousand years
to do, and he can stretch out in
a thousand years long-suffering mercy that might
last a single day.
Isn't this a wonderful picture of God?
God lingering in loving kindness over this earth,
not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance.
And I can't help wondering as we come
to verse nine of this chapter, and God
has spared you.
God's wrath has been withheld, and time and
again he's spoken to you to come to
his son's savior.
I wonder what it's going to take.
Before your stubborn will will be broken, and
you'll bow in confession at the pierced feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a picture of God bending over this
scene tonight, souls in the balance, God's mercy
and long-suffering being extended so that you
might be saved.
It reminds me of the Lord Jesus when
he was up there on the top of
the Mount of Olives, looking down over the
city of Jerusalem and weeping over it.
I wonder if he's weeping over some...
The poet said he wept alone, and men
passed by the men whose sins he bore.
They saw the man of sorrows weep, they'd
seen him weep before.
They asked not who those tears were for,
they asked not whence they flowed.
Those tears were for rebellious men, their source.
The eye of God is downward bent, still
ranging to and fro, where'er in this
wide wilderness.
And if the rebel should come, God mourns
his death.
Deep breathing from the heart of God, but
he would not.
What a tremendously solemn thing.
What a picture.
Long-suffering.
He's not slack concerning his promise.
He hasn't forgotten the promise that he's going
to step in and bring sin to a
climax.
He hasn't forgotten that.
But in the meantime, he's lingering with long
-suffering and love and grace, not willing that
any should perish.
Then it says in verse ten, But the
day of the Lord will come as a
thief in the night, the which the heavens
shall pass away with a great fire, shall
be dissolved with fervent heat.
The earth also, with the works that are
therein, shall be burned up.
Now here we're introduced to an expression, the
day of the Lord, and I'd just like
to say a word about that tonight.
The day of
the Lord is not a single day of
twenty-four hours, but the day of the
Lord is an expression used in the Bible
to speak, to describe any period of time
in which God punishes his enemies and marches
forth to victory with his people.
Let me say that again.
The day of the Lord is any period
of time in the history of the world
in which God punishes his enemies and in
victory for his people.
For instance, in the Old Testament, when the
armies of Israel would march forth to battle,
the people would say, the day of the
Lord.
In fact, that's what the writer of the
hymn, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, had
in mind.
He is transfixed on the idea of the
day of the Lord, the day, any day,
any battle when God is enemy.
So in the Old Testament, for instance, in
Joel 1.15, and in Ezekiel 13.5,
which we're not going to turn to, Joel
1.15, Ezekiel 13.5, the day of
the Lord.
But this expression, the day of the Lord,
will always be used.
After the church is taken out of this
scene, there will follow a tribulation, and this
is the day of the Lord.
First Thessalonians, chapter 5.
First Thessalonians, chapter 5, and verse 2.
It says, For yourselves know perfectly that the
day of the Lord so cometh as a
thief in the night.
And it goes on to describe this terrible
period, when God is going to pour out
the day of the Lord.
Then thirdly, the day of the Lord, the
day of the Lord's victory, the day when
he will have been sitting on the throne
of David.
That's going to be the day of the
Lord.
If you'd like to see that, you might
turn to Isaiah chapter 11.
Isaiah chapter 11, and we'll just read a
few verses there to give you the picture.
It's a picture of the millennial reign of
Christ, and it uses that expression, the day
of the Lord.
Isaiah 11, verse 10, first of all, says,
And in that day, and if you go
back in the chapter, you'll find it's the
day of the Lord he's talking about.
In that day there shall be a root
of Jesse, which shall stand for an instant
of the people.
To him shall the Gentiles seek, and his
resting place shall be glorious.
It shall come to pass in that day,
says the Lord, that the Lord shall set
his hand again the second time to recover
the remnant of his people.
This is the regathering of the remnant of
Israel, which shall be left from Assyria, and
Egypt, and Patras, and Cush, and Elam, and
Shinar, and Amath, and from the islands of
the sea.
And then verse 16, And there shall be
a highway for the remnant of his people,
which shall be left from Assyria, like as
it was in Israel in the day that
he came up out of the land of
Egypt.
Now this is a picture of millennial conditions,
and God gathers his people from all over
the world, the Jewish people, back to the
land again.
And verse 12 gives you further millennial scenes.
It says, And in that day, and it
goes on to describe what it's going to
be like in the millennium.
And so the day of the Lord is,
first of all, in the Old Testament, any
time when the armies of Israel went forth
to battle, and the Lord defeated his foes,
and brought victory to his people, the day
of the Lord.
The day of the Lord, this is
the destruction of the heavens and the earth
at the end of Christ's thousand-year reign.
And the idea of a thief in the
night, that idea of a thief in the
night has two thoughts connected with it.
A thief comes to steal, to take, to
rob, and a thief comes unexpectedly.
If you knew the thief was coming, you
wouldn't like the house to be broken into.
And this speaks of the terrible loss that
will take place, and the unexpected character of
this day of the Lord.
Notice what's going to happen.
The heavens shall pass away with a tremendous
explosion, and the elements shall be dissolved with
fervent heat.
Once again, I say, God doesn't have to
use atomic energy to do this, but all
he has to do is release the restraint
that he is now holding.
And every great explosion, and with a tremendous
burst of energy.
Now, notice what Peter, the exhortation he bases
as a result of that.
The believer's conduct and attitude in view of
the day of the Lord.
He says, verse 11, seeing then that all
these things shall be dissolved, what manner of
persons ought ye to be in all holy
conversation and godliness?
I'd like to just take those words, all
these things shall be dissolved.
All these things shall be dissolved.
Look about you in the world today.
Look at every created thing.
Think of this country of ours, of the
world of ours, in Chicago.
The man who lives for material things is
living for past.
Somebody has said, a fool is a man
all of whose plans end at the grave.
A man who's lived for what he can
touch and handle and taste and feel.
The word of God is ever trying to
draw us from material things to that which
is eternal, to spiritual reality.
May the Lord speak to hearts tonight through
this verse of scripture.
All these things shall be destroyed.
Should speak first of all to those of
us who are Christians, that we won't go
through life hugging material things, but that we'll
go through life with a vision of that
which lies beyond.
It should speak to those who are making
their nest in this world, unsaved people who
are making their nest in this world.
It's all going to be destroyed.
One day Spurgeon was walking down in a
park in London, and he saw a bird
building, and the axmen, people
who are living for this world, who don't
trust Christ, who don't live for eternity, that
soon pass away.
What manner of persons ought ye to be
in all holy conduct?
Just think of it.
Every person in the room tonight is going
to stand before God.
It makes some of the things we're living
for today look pretty sick, doesn't it?
Pretty worthless.
Every one of us is going to stand
before God.
Reach down and feel your knee.
That knee is going to bow to the
Lord.
Feel your tongue in your mouth.
That mouth of yours, that tongue, the Bible
tells us if we don't do it willingly
down here, the
glory.
Then it says in verse 12, looking for
eager expectation, looking for and hasting unto the
coming of the day of God, wherein the
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Now you say, why should a believer be
looking for and earnestly desiring the day of
God?
Here's a day when this universe, the way
of smoke, and the Bible says we ought
to be looking for.
When all the wicked will be destroyed and
cast into everlasting perdition, the Bible says we
are one.
Well, we ought to look at things for
a while from God's standpoint.
Sin and immorality.
And there's a day coming when God has
allowed men to shake their fists, and
everyone who, and
that sin might be put down once and
forever.
The coming of the day of God.
But you know, that's quite a mistake.
You can't hasten the coming of the day
of God.
By lives of holiness and by lives of
debt, the day of God is fixed in
God's eternal purpose.
Hasten it, but we should be hastening or
earnestly desiring the coming of the day of
God.
Now I noticed that three times in this
chapter, the Apostle Peter speaks about the heavens
and the earth being destroyed by fervent heat.
Why three times?
Well, a three-fold cord is not easily
broken, and the mighty thing be established.
And I think the Spirit of God is
purposely repeating this over and over again to
show the solemnity.
This world is going to be destroyed by
fervent heat.
The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Dear friends, when that day comes, there'll be
only one thing that will really count, and
that will be, what have you done with
the Christ of God?
Nothing else will be of importance in that
day.
He says in verse 13, Nevertheless, we according
to his promise look for new heavens and
a new earth, wherein the theme where the
Lord Jesus Christ will have delivered up the
kingdom to God might be all in all.
This is the eternal state that Peter is
speaking about in verse 13, the eternal state,
a new heaven and a new earth.
Now a lot of people want to know,
well, what's the difference between the new heavens
and the new earth, and who will dwell
on the new heavens, and who will dwell
on the new earth?
Well, a lot of Bible teachers suggest that
saved Israel will dwell in the new earth
for all eternity, and that the church will
dwell in the new heaven.
Well, it's an interesting thought.
I think it's just enough to have a
new earth, and God will be all in
all.
Well, then in verse 14, we learn that
we should have as believers a zeal for
peace and spotlessness and blamelessness in his sight.
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such
things, be diligent that ye may be found
of him in peace without spot and blameless.
Now, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ
has peace with God through the Lord Jesus
Christ, and has a positional standing before God
where he's without spot and blameless.
But this is speaking of the believer's practical
condition, and it tells us that we should
be looking for the coming in the midst
of turmoil and changing circumstances and rising and
falling kingdoms.
And it also tells us that practically our
lives should be without spot and blameless in
his sight, so that when he shall appear,
we might have confidence and not be ashamed
before him at his coming.
It's all too possible for a Christian person
to be saved by the peace of God,
and yet go home to heaven in a
very real sense with stained garments, and with
a wasted life as well.
Then the apostle Peter tells us also that
we should understand the reasons for God's delay.
An account that the long sighted that means
that we as believers are just to understand
that the reason for God's delay is that
we might go out to men and women
throughout the world.
And that doesn't mean that we should just
sit back passively and see it take place,
but that the Lord should use us in
seeking to win others to himself during this
day of God's wonderful patience.
Now Peter says that Paul had written to
them in a similar vein according to the
wisdom given to him, and he had said
the same thing.
As in all his epistles, speaking in them
of those things in which are some things
hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also
the other scriptures, unto their own distrust.
He says, I'm not the only one that
says this of Paul.
He says the same thing, and in all
the other scriptures they have a united testimony.
And incidentally, it's nice to see that Peter
here puts Paul's writings on the scriptures of
the Old Testament.
He says that the writings of Paul are
just as the writings of the Old Testament
are.
And then in verses 17 and 18, you
have closing exhortation and benediction.
First of all, you have the negative.
Don't be led astray.
He's been speaking about the false teachers that
would be abroad in the last days, and
he says now, don't be led astray by
them.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things
before, beware lest ye also, being led away
with the error of the wicked, fall from
your own steadfastness.
Be on your guard, he says to these
Christian believers in the last days.
You're going to see your friends drift off
into evil doctrines and evil practices.
Be on your guard, see it doesn't happen
to you.
And then the positive side of it, the
growing grace and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
This is the way he began the epistle,
telling us of the knowledge and safeguard of
God's people in the day of apostasy and
declension.
And then I'm especially pleased with that last
part, to him be glory both now and
forever.
To whom?
Well, the preceding words tell you, our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
He says to him be glory both now
and forever.
Now, you know, if the Lord Jesus Christ
were not God, it would be blasphemy to
say that.
Because God has decreed that only God is
to be worshipped.
Only God is to be reverenced and homage
done unto him.
And here is Peter saying to Jesus Christ,
be glory both now and forever.
What does it mean?
He believed in the absolute deity of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful thing, an epistle, dealing with
false teachings in the last days.
That Peter's closing note should be the deity
of Christ.
That's the cardinal truth of the Christian faith,
and that's the day.
Now, in the closing moments, I'd like to
speak especially of the Savior.
This is a very solemn chapter of the
word of God, and it's to my shame
and to the shame of God's people that
we can even speak about it without tears
in our eyes.
But I want to tell you it's a
solemn thing to think of living souls, perhaps
in our meeting tonight, men and women, born
for eternal glory, and yet, by deliberate choice,
refusing the soul, plunging down to eternal fire.
And I'd like to tell you, as simply
as I know how, what it would mean
to you tonight to trust the Son of
God and to go out one of those
doors as saved as God can make.
We have a young fellow at our school.
Some of you know him.
His name is Larry Smith, and he was
down at Fort Bragg.
He was a paratrooper.
And one day he was in my office,
and I said to him, tell me about
your first parachute jump.
He said, I'll do it.
He told me about this plane flying over
the countryside in North Carolina, a thousand feet
above the ground.
Two doors open at the front of it,
one on either side.
The fellows are sitting there, the command comes
for them to stand up, and Larry moves
toward the front door.
And there's the plane, and it's way above
the North Carolina country.
He's got his parachute, his main parachute on
the back and his reserve on the front.
And he's standing there at the front door
of the plane, and the noise is deafening,
the noise of the engines and the noise
of the wind hissing by the door.
He has to wait for a green light
to go on.
The green light goes on above him, and
he doesn't even see it.
But the man behind him sees it, and
gives him a slap on the side.
And when he gets that slap, he hunches
his head forward, and he jumps out of
the plane.
And he counts one thousand, two thousand, three
thousand, four thousand.
He looks up, and there is a great
canopy of the parachute billowing out above him.
And within just a few seconds, he sees
the ground racing up at him.
And he prepares, and when he hits the
ground, he does his, what he calls a
PLF, his parachute safely in the ground, and
then he's on his feet watching his...
Do you know what was an act of
faith?
It was a real act of faith.
Do you know that when that young fellow
did that, he trusted himself, every bit of
him, to a piece of silk?
That's what he did.
He said, I believe that that piece of
silk will operate, that it'll save me, that
it'll bring me down to the ground in
security.
Listen, there's more to it than that.
I don't know how many of you have
ever been in the service, and have ever
come in contact with parachute riggers, but I've
been in contact with them.
We had them at our base in the
Navy.
I never knew any fellows who drank more
heavily.
And you know, that day Larry Smith trusted
himself to a parachute rigger whom he had
never met.
And for all he knew, that fellow was
just a drunkard, for all he knew.
But never mind, he trusted himself to him,
he hunched his head forward, and jumped out
of the plane.
You know, men say, I wish I could
trust the Lord Jesus.
You tell them your testimony of faith in
Christ, they say, I wish I could believe
like you believe.
Listen, that's just the mix.
They can trust a piece of silk.
They can trust a parachute rigger whom they've
never met, and who for all they know,
might be a deep-dyed drunkard.
They can trust him.
And my dear friends, when you come before
the Lord, that you acknowledge the fact that
you are a sinner, when you're utterly broken
at Calvary, so that you don't have a
good word to say in defense of yourself,
and you take that step of faith, and
say, Lord Jesus, I trust myself to thee,
spirit, soul, and body.
The best way I know how, I commit
myself to thee, for the saving of my
soul.
The minute you do that, God saves your
soul, and you're as saved as God can
make you.
God saves you on the basis of the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ 1900 years
ago.
That was a finished work that cannot be
improved on.
And the moment you commit yourself to him,
you're absolutely saved.
And I tell you tonight that God broods
over this scene.
God broods over this meeting tonight, and he's
waiting for somebody to take that step.
I wonder if it'll be you.
I wonder if you're going to say tonight,
Lord Jesus, the best way I know how,
I commit myself to thee.
I've been fighting you, I've been resisting you,
and I've been reaping the bitter dregs of
my sin.
Now I want to turn my back on
it, and I want to turn my life
over to thee.
I wonder if God is speaking to some
heart here tonight.
I wonder if the Spirit of God is
dealing with someone.
Do you feel your heart beat faster tonight?
Do you know the issues?
I wonder if you're going to yield to
the Savior.
I wonder if you're going to say, nay,
but I yield, I yield.
I can hold out no more.
I think my dying love compels and owns
thee.
He's waiting.
He's been waiting a long time, hasn't he?
I wonder if you'll open the door tonight
and say, come into my heart, Lord Jesus,
there's room in my heart for thee.
Dwell in my heart, Lord Jesus.
For time, God is waiting, waiting to see
you take the step of faith, waiting to
hear the cry of the lost sheep.
I'll tell you, if you take a step
toward him, he'll run and fall on your
neck and kiss you.
He really will.
Will you do it tonight?
Our brother Jim comes and leads us in
a closing hymn of invitation.
Will you, sitting there in your seat, say,
yes, Lord Jesus, this is going to be
the night.
This is why you wanted me to come
here to Bristol.
I'm going to get it settled tonight.
Maybe there's somebody here, and maybe you think
in the past you might have been saved,
and yet you're not sure.
There's a doubt in your mind.
Why don't you get it settled?
Why don't you say, Lord, if I never
was really saved before, tonight's going to be
the night.
I see it all.
I see how that young fellow took his
parachute jump, and I realize that spiritually it's
the same idea, only it's trusting somebody who
cannot.
Will you do it?
I pray that you will.
And if you do trust the Lord Jesus,
make it known afterward.
Don't keep it a secret.
If he's worth trusting, he's worth confessing.
If he isn't worth confessing, he isn't worth
anything.
So if you trust him tonight, make it
known, and we'll rejoice with you in your
newfound salvation.