We're going to be tonight in the book of 2 Peter. We'll be in chapter 3, looking about the first 13 or 14 verses there. Preparing today, looking at this text. It's felt that in the moment in which we live in the world, particularly in the last few weeks, I'm reminded that every few weeks, few months, year, there's always a new headline, right? There's always wars breaking out. There's alliances shifting, threats flying every which way. And I think obviously recently the news out of the Middle East and Israel and Iran has stirred up a lot of concerns. And I think some people look and They begin to wonder things, you know, is this it? You know, there's other people that start, oh gosh, they start sending me things about how the specifics of what's going on right now tells me that this means that. in the scriptures, and that means this in the scriptures. I saw one just today that because apparently, or I don't know if this is true or not, it's what they said, this guy said, he said, you know, China's been sending airplanes into Iran to do this and do that, and because it says that, it's clear in this book and in this passage that that means this. And I thought, You know, the same people that say that about these events are the same ones that said it about when we went to Afghanistan in the early 2000s, are the same ones that said it during World War II. And we've got to be really careful when we try to take our eschatology from the newspaper. But the reality remains that when these things come up, it stirs up in a lot of us, I think, a wonder and some people an anxiety. There are people that really think, is this it? Is this when it all begins? But I want to submit to you tonight that the point of prophecy in the Bible is never to stir panic, but instead to stir up perseverance in the people of God. Every single time. In fact, the entire book of Revelation was written in order that the people who were receiving it in the first century, that as they received it, it was to encourage them and strengthen them in the trials that they were facing. So here in 2 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter, he's writing to Christians who lived in persecution. The letters that Peter writes are some of the clearest letters to those who are dealing with difficulty and persecution in the New Testament. They lived in a world where danger was always close and future felt uncertain. That was their reality, and I know we can feel like that today sometimes. But Peter doesn't give them a grand breakdown of the end times. He doesn't send them a chart that has to be strung out across three walls. And if y'all have never been in a presentation with a chart across a wall, then you've missed out on something, because there's some charts out there I want you to know. There's some people that got some end times charts that God couldn't make sense of. Instead, Peter writes to them and gives them hope. It gives them the hope that comes from God and steadies us when the world seems to be shaking. And so, I just want to look at that together tonight here in 2 Peter 3. And I'm going to read the first 13 verses. There the Bible says, Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder. But you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that 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." But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, 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 which 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. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in a holy conduct in godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Let's pray. Lord, help us tonight as we look into Your Word that we might understand it, we might apply it, and it might bring us strength to do the things that You would call us to do. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen and amen. Again, I want to remind you the context of 1 Peter. As Peter's writing this letter, the flavor of both the first and second epistle of Peter is that there are people who are dealing with deep trouble. There are people who are being persecuted in all manner of ways, and he is writing to them about some matters that have to do with the inner workings of the church and false doctrine, but he particularly focuses in this letter on false teachers. And the fact that one of the times when false teachers rise up the most is when there seems to be chaos in the world. Now why does that happen? I believe it happens because when things are chaotic and people get a little shaken up, they're always looking for something new to bring them some sort of peace of mind. If you look through the ages of history when a lot of the large moves of ungodliness or cultism and things like that, what you'll find is a lot of the rise of those things happen centered around a time period of uncertainty. There was economic uncertainty, there were wars, there were different things going on. A lot of the later American cults that we know something about today, some of them might have had roots that went farther back, but a lot of them exploded in the Depression years. And so why is that? Because again, people were uncertain, they were scared, and they began to grasp at things. And so Peter's writing to calm them down a little bit. He says, I'm stirring up your pure minds. He's saying, it's not your righteous mind. It's not the mind of the new man that's stirred up. Right now, the mind that's stirred up is the carnal mind. It's the mind of the old man that is looking at circumstances and is looking at the difficulty and not remembering who our God is. And so he's saying, now, I need to write and stir up your pure minds. I need to remind you. I need to remind you who you are and who God is. Peter's remedy for confusion and fear here, it's not a new word, but an old one. He points them back to the rock-solid truth of the Scriptures. And here, one of the amazing things about this letter that Peter writes is that he doesn't just point them to the Old Testament Scriptures. There are some who would try to come along and say, The people in the New Testament, the apostles in the New Testament, they had no concept of there being scriptures that were coming out of their own teaching. Well, Peter makes pretty plain that he's putting the teaching of the apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ on par with the teaching of the prophets here. He says, it was spoken by the holy prophets and at the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior. Later on in this same chapter, he's going to talk about the apostle Paul. And he's going to reference the Apostle Paul's writings themselves as Scripture. Isn't it amazing that even while they're both living, there's a recognition there that what they're putting out is Scripture? It's something that God is ordaining, that God is giving to His people and to His church. One of the best things about what Peter writes about Paul is that he says, at Paul, sometimes he's hard to understand. You ever read a passage in Paul and say, what in the world did Paul just say there? He's got a sentence that's three paragraphs long. What is Paul talking about? Peter says the same thing. Sometimes Paul, he's a little hard to understand. But he puts it on par and he's pointing the people who are having difficulties back to what? Back to the teaching of the Old Testament, the prophets, back to the teaching of the apostles which we have in the New Testament. Friends, whenever the world shakes, we have to be reminded that God has spoken. And that everything will come to pass. Not according to our speculation, not according to our particular understanding, but according to the sovereign timeline of the Lord Himself. In a time when the believers were tempted to fear, Peter tells them, do not forget the Word of God. Don't forget it. The Word steadies us when chaos seems to reign. I would remind you and myself in tumultuous times that we are not the first generation to think we might be the last. And that's just the truth. When Peter here is writing, he's writing with the recognition that we are living, even in his time, that they're living in the last days. That's what he says in verse 3. He talks about scoffers will come in the last days. Peter's not pointing toward the future there. He's commenting on what's already happening in his life. They were living in the midst of the scoffing of these false teachers that he's addressed all throughout the letter up to this point. Yes, are there scoffers in our day? Of course there are scoffers in our day. But there were scoffers in Peter's day too. People say, well, when are the last days going to come? Friends, we've been living in the last days, biblically speaking, since the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent. It was imminent in the time of Peter. They didn't know when it was going to happen. It could have happened at any moment. It's imminent in our day. The Lord Jesus Christ can and will return when He's ready. But we have to be ready. He tells them that knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lust and saying, where's the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning. Peter's warning them that everyone's going to scoff at the idea of the return of the Lord. Again, the same thing is true today. And Peter says the arguments that they have is, well, everything's just gone on just like always since the fathers, that is, they're talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since the fathers have fallen asleep, everything's just gone on the same old way. We hear those kind of things today. Well, you guys have been preaching about the return of Christ for over 2,000 years. They say, you know, we've been preaching about the return of Christ for over 2,000 years. And we say, yes, and we'll continue to do it, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to do it for another 2,000 years should the Lord tarry. We'll keep doing that. Why? Because we've been commanded to. You remember in 1 Corinthians when Paul's talking about the Lord's Supper, and he's talking about the observance of the Lord's Supper, and he's saying that we're going to do this until He comes. We do this until He comes, and within what Paul's talking about there, he points to the fact that the Lord's Supper itself points us both backwards and forwards. It points us to look back at what Christ has done in the shedding of His blood, and the breaking of His body, and purchasing our redemption. And, as we do it until He comes, it points us to the promise of His future resurrection. Friends, we won't have to take the Lord's Supper in heaven. Why? Because we'll be in the presence of the One who the Lord's Supper was pointing us toward. That's the purpose of the ordinances. Right? That they point us toward the Lord Himself. The scoffers misunderstand what's going on. Just as those around today that scoff. On one end, we've got the scoffers. On the other end, we've got people that are so concerned with end times theology, they've got no practical everyday theology. They've got no theology that tells them how I'm supposed to live toward God and toward other people. They've got no theology that pushes them forward in evangelism and the life of the church. Friends, I love to study the Bible, and I love to study the end times of the Bible. And I've got some pretty worked out and solid personal positions on the very specifics of end times theology. But I don't major on it. Do you know why? Because some of it I'm wrong about. And that's okay. But here's what I know. Every single thing that is written down in the Word, particularly that which points us towards the end, is so that we can be assured that the end is not in our hands, but in His. The scoffers that exist both in Peter's day and in our day, that scoffed at the return of Christ, they were saying, well look, where is He? They're acting like the prophets of Baal and Elijah. You know, going up on the mountain, let's show us your God. Well, God showed up that day, and rest assured that God will show up when it's His time to show up in the return of Christ. But one of the things that Peter makes sure that they understand is that they willingly forget this. What do they willingly forget? Basically, he says they willingly forget that God spoke this thing into existence. that God called the heavens and the earth out of the water. He put it all together. By the Word of God, the heavens were of old. He spoke the heavens into existence. He said, and not only that, the heavens and the earth, they're in verse 7, which are now preserved by the same Word. God created it. God's preserving it. And ultimately, God is going to destroy it in the fires of judgment. There's going to come a time when the earth is going to be remade in fire. It's going to be purified in fire. But look what Peter says immediately after speaking about a very specific reality in what we would call end times theology. What does he say in verse 8? But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. Now, don't make the mistake of taking that statement and trying to let it help you do eschatological math like a lot of people have in the past. Well, that means this, and the people that want to deny a literal six-day creation, they want to say, well, that means thousands of years. Look, it says it right there in Peter. No. What Peter's relaying here is that our concept of time is not God's concept of time. Time is a creation of God. Time is subservient to God. I believe that it's right to say this, that God in the fullness of who He is, He is outside of time. He overlooks time. And so, Peter's explaining to those who are sitting there and going, those that are scoffing and saying, oh, when's He going to come? And believers that are suffering and they're saying, oh, I wish He would come. What's Peter saying? One day is as 1,000 years with the Lord, and 1,000 years is one day. You don't have a grasp on the timeline. We don't know. We don't know what it is to exist in a way where this is true. Look, I think that 1,000 years and the concept of eternity is a blink of an eye. Well, what does that tell us as we think about these types of things? It tells us that yeah, we may look around and we may see some things that look similar to stuff in prophetic literature. And could it be? Of course it could be. But make no mistake, the world could persist for another 10,000 years and God would not be slack in His promises was what Peter's about to say here. God's not slack in His promises. As a matter of fact, God's showing mercy. Friends, it's tempting to read the news like a checklist sometimes and try to think, is this check in that box? But the reminder of Peter is that the day of the Lord is not going to come because the right nations are doing the right things. The day of the Lord is going to come when God says they're going to come. He will put things in whatever place He needs to put them then. But until then, His delay is not slackness. He speaks about that in the next few verses. In verse 9 especially, The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. What's He saying there? He's saying, look, you better praise God that He hadn't come yet. Why? Because there are more that are going to come in to the kingdom. He's not going to let any one of His children that He's calling unto Himself, they're not going to miss the boat. When the fullness of the Gentiles have come in, the Bible says, then the Lord shall return. Well, guess what? The fullness of the Gentiles hadn't come in. You know why I know that? Because God hadn't come yet. The Lord hasn't returned yet. When's that going to happen? I have no idea. I do know this. I do know that there's billions of people today in the world that know nothing of Christ and His Gospel. Do I think that the mission's endeavor in sending people both to the neighborhood and to the nations is somehow going to allow us to kind of push God to the return of Christ? No. Not at all. Do I think we ought to send missionaries to the neighborhood and to the nations? Yes, I do. Why? Because the Bible has commanded it, and because there are still souls yet to be saved. And we know that because Christ hasn't returned yet. You say, that sounds like circular reasoning. Here it's biblical reasoning. The problem is that we as a people in this time and this place, we have lost the ability to look at some things and wrestle with them the very best that we can and then stand back and say, I think I know what I believe about this, but I'm willing to be wrong should God prove me wrong. There's a lot of mystery when it comes to the workings of what God's doing. God can do as He pleases. He will always work according to His Word, for that's His promise and He's not a liar. But my understanding of it may fall short. When people look at things that are going on in the world and they speak with certainty about prophetic utterances and what's going on, it is clear, oh my goodness, it's clear that this means that, and that nation means this nation. Friends, It's not clear. Because some of these nations didn't exist fifty years ago when other people were writing about this. And you know what? They assigned the same kinds of meanings to different nations and different peoples and different places a hundred years ago. They assigned them to different people and different places. If you don't think that World War I and World War II produced a whole bunch of people with a whole lot of ideas about prophecy, every Christian alive during World War I was convinced that that was the end-all, be-all war of the ages. That that was it. There was no concept in their minds that a conflict like that could ever happen again. And it happened again not all that long later. I say all that to say this. We must rest in the fact that our hope is in the truth of God. Our hope is in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we shouldn't allow ourselves to be pulled off of the path by worrying ourselves to death with what might be going on. Because we have so much information about what is going on. God is at work. God is moving still today in the hearts and the minds of people. He's drawing people to Himself by the power of His Spirit through the preaching of His Word. As he goes on in the text here, He mentions this. And again, verse 10 is I think a verse that we've misunderstood at times. It says, But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which 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. Some people look at that phrase about a thief in the night And they look to that to point to the realities of a secret rapture. Some people who are outside of regular Christian understanding, they look at it and they say, well, that's going to mean that the return of Christ is going to be hidden. There's a lot of people today that call themselves full preterists, that they say that the return of Christ happened in 70 A.D. when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, that that was the full return of Christ, but it wasn't a visible return of Christ. Friends, I'm here to tell you something. The language of a thief in the night is speaking about the suddenness of it coming. You have no idea that it's about to happen, and yet it happens. that it happens when you're not expecting it. Nobody expects a thief where they would sit up at night and they would sit in a lawn chair with their gun on the front porch and they'd catch them when they were coming. He's speaking about the fact that it's going to be sudden. I guarantee you it's not going to be secret or quiet. You know how I know that? Because it says the heavens will pass away with a great noise. And if God says a great noise, I bet it's going to be pretty loud. One of the, perhaps the loudest sound that's ever existed on planet Earth was when the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa. And I believe it happened sometime in the late 1800s. You can check me on that. But when Krakatoa erupted, they estimated, because of some observations that they have, that the sound wave traveled around the Earth at least twice. It was so loud that it busted eardrums of sailors on ships that were a hundred miles away. This was the loudest sound that we have any concept of in recorded history. And I dare say it's probably going to be a lot louder when whatever this is describing comes to pass. What's that going to look like? I can't tell you what it's going to look like except how it's described here. When the judgment of Christ falls, it will be a complete remaking of the world as we know it. But that's not bad news for us if we know Christ. Friends, the right response to prophecy is its speculation, its sanctification and growth in the things of God. That's what Peter gets at here. Look at verse 11. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? We need to have a robust understanding of the truth of the return of Christ. If anybody tells you that there's not going to be a visible return of Christ, they have just set themselves completely outside of orthodox Christianity of almost any stripe for the last 2,000 years. Everybody from the apostles to solid Bible-believing Christians today believe in the visible return of Christ. Now, they may disagree on when everything's exactly going to happen, but they agree on that fact. Okay? So we ought to be settled on that. Jesus is coming. He's coming back. And that's good news. But Peter says, recognizing that truth, that all of these things will come to pass, shouldn't have us sitting around wringing our hands or sitting around just saying, well, it's going to happen, so there's nothing for me to do, just being apathetic. He says we ought to be considering what manner of persons we ought to be in holy conduct and in godliness. Speculation. Peter gives not a specific timeline of events. Peter instead gives us a calling. He reminds us. That's what he said he was doing here in chapter 3. He reminds the people he's writing to. And through the ages, he reminds us that we are called to live in holiness. To live in patience. There where the text says We're looking for there in verse 12, "...and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat." Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord means living in such a way that our lives reflect that we believe He's actually coming. The question is not when He's coming, but if He comes. Have I been living in a way that's pleasing to Him? That should be the concern of the Christian. We know because His Word has promised that He is coming and that His return will be a joyous occasion. And we can live expectantly. This is what the Apostle John, what he meant when he writes at the end of the book of Revelation when he says, even so, come Lord Jesus. Was he telling God what to do? No, he was proclaiming that we're going to live as if He's coming tomorrow. We're going to live to His honor and glory. We're going to live in a way that pleases Him. We need to ask ourselves, when so many can become anxious when they hear about what's happening in the Middle East, or we feel a twinge of fear because of something else that's happening in our lives, or we start, again, we reach for the remote, oh gosh, what's going on? Hey, we need to stay informed, but don't allow it to control your life. Live your life here and now in the midst of your personal life, your family life, your work life, your church life, your community life. Live right now to the glory of God and trust that those things are in His hands. You can be informed, but don't let it dominate your life. The bigger question is, what kind of person am I becoming? Am I becoming more like Christ? Am I living more into the image of Christ? Again, I believe this, if prophecy leads us to panic, we've missed the point. It should instead lead us to purity. If it leads us toward pure living, we have heard the Word of God rightly. One pastor said this, the Christian does not hope for the end of the world because he despairs, but because he knows who holds the world. I can hope. I can pray, God, make me ready. But guess what? If I go to meet Jesus because I die in this physical body, all glory to God. If I get to meet Jesus as He returns to judge the quick and the dead, all glory be to God. Whatever way it comes, it all comes in the control of God, and I need to be content with that. I didn't simply say in this. I love what he says there at 13. Nevertheless, we according to His promise look for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. Verse 14, Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace without spot and blameless. I guess that chapter's got a lot of good stuff in it too, but I won't read it tonight. What he tells us there, I think that we can really pull close to ourselves in this time, is that for the child of God, hope is not a guess. It's a guarantee. It's something that we have. I know I say this all the time, but the way in which we have come to use hope in our modern vocabulary is such an affront to the biblical use of the word hope. Because the way we use hope is like the way we use the word wish. Oh, I hope this happens. When we say that, we mean I kind of wish that that would happen. That's not the way that the word hope is to be used. It is used and is to be understood in the biblical text. When the Bible points us toward hope, right? And in here, I know the word's not specifically mentioned, but that's the summary here. When the Bible is pointing us toward hope, the things of hope, the person of hope, it is pointing us towards something that is assured. It's going to happen. God has promised it will happen. And we can count on it. We live in light of the living hope. That's a phrase that's used to describe the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is our living hope. He is hope given to us in the fullness of His person and His work. The world is always going to be full of shaking. Always. There has never been a time when it's not been that way. You say, well, I remember a time when things were all quiet on the western front. Well, here's what you don't know. You didn't have 24-hour news then and stuff was going on in other places. You just didn't know about it and you were happy. Most people were way happier then because they just didn't know. Do I think we ought to be ignorant? No, but I think sometimes we know too much. I'm going to tell you something. When I get a thought in my head and I say I wonder about this, I don't have to wonder about things anymore. I get my phone out and then I spend an hour looking into it. Is that a good thing? Well, sometimes it's a good thing, but sometimes some things are better left alone. There's better things for us to occupy our mind and our heart with. And so we've got to be discerning. There's so much information out there. One of the biggest things as the people of God that we can do is be discerning in what kind of time we spend and where we go and how we gather our information and what we do with it. But make no mistake, the shaking of the world is not a new thing. God isn't slow. God isn't surprised. And God won't be late. There's an old song that used to be sung a lot about God being an on-time God. Y'all know that song? Wow, I like that song. We had a choir at our church. I was a youth pastor. And that was one of the songs that they could just sing. Boy, I enjoyed it. He's an on-time God. Yes, He is. Friends, make no mistake, God's going to be on time. Jesus is coming. That's the hope. Rest in that. Yes, study your Bible. Yes, if you think you need to firm up what your positions are on some of these end times questions, study your Bible. All I'm saying is don't stick your nose into prophecy so much that you ignore the rest of the plain speaking language of the Bible that tells us things that are so plain and true that they can't even be debated. A friend of mine, Brother Kevin Williams, he used to be my youth pastor, he said this one time, he said it a lot actually, he said, if we would just obey the 97% of Scripture that we clearly understand, instead of debating the 3% that we don't have a good grip on, we'd probably be a lot better off. And I think he's right. Again, rest in the fact that Jesus is coming. That's your hope. And until then, don't look around in fear. Look up in faith. Trust in God. Be ready, be faithful, be hopeful. I'll finish with this. It's 1 Thessalonians 5, 4-6. It says, But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for the day. I pray that Your Word's done its work. And I ask, God, that You would just use it to encourage us, to strengthen us, to deepen our hope, to just embolden our work that we seek to do on Your behalf. Give us clarity, give us wisdom, give us strength and boldness, we pray in Christ's name. Amen and amen.