But for now, let's turn to God's Word, and I want to read from 2 Peter chapter 3 and verses 1 through 13. 2 Peter 3 and verses 1 through 13. Let us hear the Word of God. 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 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 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 His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. 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 then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by that 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." 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. 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. 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." Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 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. But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." Amen. May God bless to us the reading of His Word. I want to begin with a quotation. from what has become a very well-known and very well-loved work of literature, and that is The Lord of the Rings. The book is always better than the movie, of course, but I haven't quite checked, but I think the quote is in both. Gandalf, you're late! Okay, I can put an English accent on there. Now, I trust you remember that scene. It's when the wizard comes along to the little village where all the hobbits are living, and it's the first meeting of Frodo and Gandalf. Gandalf, you're late. then that gentlemanly giant wizard, he looks at the little hobbit and he says, "'A wizard is never late,' Frodo beggins, "'nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.' In the first century and in the twenty-first century, there are those who would charge the Lord with lateness, or more precisely, according to the text 2 Peter 3, 9, slowness. And as we open up this text, I want us to open up some important application with regards to the Lord's promise, promises, and purposes and plans. And of course, we will be thinking of that as it pertains to Jewish mission as well as ministry in general. And I want us to see that the Lord, in His timing, is never slow. He comes precisely when He means to. But there is a perceived slowness. We read it here in this text as some count slowness. Well, what is this slowness concerning? Well, it's concerning promise fulfillment. It's concerning that promise of God to do certain things, and we could apply it in multiple ways. But I want us to hone in, really, on what I think is an immediate, at least, and sometimes overlooked, promise to which Peter is referring. And that concerns the promise regarding the ancient people. Now, why do I say that? Well, we've got to look back a little bit and consider, to whom is this letter addressed? Who is the you of verse 9? The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but His patient towards you." Who's He writing to? Well, go back up to the first verse of chapter 3, and we read there, this is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. Oh, second letter? All right, well, what's the first letter? You go back to 1 Peter, and you find the opening verses of 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1 and 1, it is addressed to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion. So who are these? Is this a letter to the church? Yes, in some ways. That rather cryptic phrase, the elect exiles of the dispersion, well, they are dispersed. Who were the dispersed? Well, when Peter was writing, the Jews were kicked out of their land. There was a dispersion as the Romans came down hot and heavy upon these pagans in their eyes, these idolaters in their eyes. So, I want us to know that this is not a letter initially to the Gentile church. Now, please don't misunderstand me. This is perfectly applicable to us, and I think sometimes we take the Scriptures and indeed maybe rob the Scriptures of our Jewish neighbors by missing the original and initial context. of these verses. So, this is not written to the Gentile church. It's not written to Constantine or Calvin or Christ's covenant. This is written to dispersed, exiled Jewish believers, and I would actually add Jewish non-believers, particularly as it speaks in 2 Peter 3, 9 about the Lord being patient with them, not wanting them to perish, but that they'll come to repentance. So this is written to both Jewish believers and non-believers. And so, we need to see that in the initial context, and in that sense, put ourselves into the DeLorean, and I'm sure Neil has told you that the DeLoreans were built in Belfast. Of course, we've got to get that one in. But put ourselves in the DeLorean and go back to this first century and grasp something of to whom this is being written to and what is being spoken of here. And so, here are these Jewish believers that have been dispersed. They're feeling the heaviness of the Roman Empire upon them. They're feeling the weightiness of the world against them. And they're saying, how long, Lord? How long? It's time for you to act, Lord. And of course, we say the same. And again, please don't misunderstand. There's application for us as well in that respect. It is right to have a godly impatience. Lord, come down, Lord. restore, revive. Yes, these are good prayers. But we also need to learn that the Lord arrives precisely when He means to. So I have three headings under the title that you have there in front of you, the slow train coming, I'll explain that in a moment. But the first point is slow train coming, the second point I want to look at is the sudden arrival, and the third point I want to look at is the seismic event. then we will take three more points of application. Just when you think that I've got to point three and you are done, no, there's three more coming, so just bear that in mind. So, first of all, I want us to think about the slow train coming. Verse 8 gives us an understanding of the Lord's timescale. Do not overlook this fact. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Ecclesiastes, you will remember, has that wonderful passage that there is a time for everything. Galatians 4 and 4 will speak of Christ's coming in the fullness of time. And for those that were waiting for His appearing, it might have appeared slow. You think of old Simeon. It had been revealed to old Simeon that he would see the Lord's salvation. And day after day, is it today, Lord? Is it today? And the years would go by, and he's getting older, and he's getting older, and he's getting older. Or those that are looking at the Scriptures will remember that It's been hundreds of years, Lord, since we had that word from the Lord. The intertestamental period is several hundred years. Lord, are You slow in fulfilling these things, even the promises that You made to Jeremiah about a new covenant with the house of Israel? Are You slow, Lord, in fulfilling those promises? Old Simeon, Anna, these faithful saints were waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering, when's he going to show up? And then, as we'll very soon be remembering, I trust, then there was an angelic message to a virgin, and the fulfillment of Isaiah 7, and the virgin will conceive and bear a son His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God." Can you imagine what the Jewish people must have thought? The Jewish believers at that time, the Jewish faithful, as the Jewish faithful today, were taught to pray the Shema. When Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment, He, like a good Jewish boy, would simply say the Shema. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one." And so our Jewish neighbors today will say that God cannot have a son, and yet Isaiah said it, prophesied it. A virgin will conceive and bear a son, and His name will be called mighty God." How blasphemous, Isaiah! No, that was Isaiah's inspired prophecy. And so the angels heralded to the shepherds, and the rest is history. The Lord comes 700 years after Isaiah said that. He arrives precisely when He means to. Slow trains. I, coming from Northern Ireland, I used to travel by train every day. Actually, in my student days, I lived in Bangor, and I would travel to Belfast, where Neil lived and grew up, and I would travel to Belfast for Queen's University Belfast. I spent six years, I did my two degrees in Belfast, in Queen's University Belfast. I would travel by train from my home. It was a wonderful service. It took about 30, 40 minutes to do maybe 15 to 20 miles. And it was, there were fast trains, there were slow trains, but it was largely a slow train-ish. But not like your slow trains. Because your slow trains are entirely different. And I got to understand the American slow trains when my daughter went to Texas A&M University. So 2004, my daughter went to Texas A&M. Now, my daughter is now married to an Aggie, and she has five little Aggies. That's the family that we have. And we hope to just visit this new baby that's literally born one week old, our 14th grandbaby, by the way. Yes, my quiver is full, and my Christmas is expensive, yes. But all that to say, I was visiting my daughter back in 2004, and I really didn't know about the railroads and the tracks and all of that kind of thing. And so I was just going around College Station and talking a lot with my daughter, and suddenly I see these red flashing lights. and barriers were beginning to come down. Now, I had learned one thing about driving in the U.S. People had told me that when you drive in the U.S., things are different than in the U.K., because in the U.K., red means stop, and amber means stop in the U.K., because the amber light just takes a second or two, and then it becomes red. I'm told, or I was told, that when the amber comes on, that means you put your foot down, And so, when I saw these red lights flashing, I put the foot down, and quite literally, I ducked under the barriers. And yeah, I learned a lot from that. I got a bit of my daughter's tongue at that time as well. But I learned about the slow trains. I also learned that if I had stopped, half my day would have gone, because this mile-long train is slow. Bob Dylan wrote a song, and some of you may know the album, Slow Train Coming. Dylan, as ever, is very cryptic, but so far as we understand Dylan's writings, he was speaking of the hypocrisy that he saw both in the church and in the state, and there would be a slow train of comeuppance and judgment. And certainly we can see that as we read even these verses. There is a slow train. But here this slow train concerns promise. It concerns God's covenants. It concerns God's sworn, promissory truths that are irrevocable, unable to be revoked, unable to be taken back. Now, you can have two approaches to the slow train. You can have impatience and duck under the bar, or you can actually have indifference and just hang out on the tracks. Both are deadly and dangerous. There's a slow train coming. Now, I want us to think about the promises of God, but also the train does come. Because the second thing I want us to note from these verses is the sudden arrival, the sudden arrival. The day of the Lord will come. That train comes around the bend, as was it Johnny Cash that sang that one. That train is coming. The train of the Lord's day is coming, and it is certain. The day of the Lord will come. And perhaps you're here this evening and you're thinking rather indifferently to Christian things. You're on the fence, perhaps. You're on the tracks. That train is coming. The day of the Lord will come. Don't think that nothing's really happening, as it was in the days of Noah. so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." What was it like in the days of Noah? Well, from the initial announcement of divine judgment until the time when the rain started was 120 years. Hey, Noah, where's the rain? It's coming. It's coming. It's coming precisely when He means it to. Now you can be indifferent to the gospel, you can be indifferent to the things of God, you can be indifferent to the preaching of God's Word that you have heard under Neil and many others from this pulpit. Or you can be impatient and maybe think, Lord, you're rather slow and you need a helping hand. Both are wrong. He is not slow to fulfill. He will come. It is slow, it is certain, it is sudden, and it is seismic. It is seismic. We read that in second half of verse 10. The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. I can't understand these things, but they're seismic. Or when I read in Revelation, Revelation 6, I think it is, of the sky peeling back, like a scroll being rolled up. That's seismic. The Lord's apparent slowness, as we find it here, has a saving and gracious and merciful purpose. It is not wanting you to perish. in Greensboro, North Carolina, or here in Jerusalem first century, or the dispersed exiles in Cappadocia and elsewhere that we read in 1 Peter 1.1. Not wanting you to perish, the Lord is not slow. The slowness of that train is to grant the proclamation of the gospel Two thousand years have passed since that. Two thousand years have passed of preaching to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. But that slow train is coming. It will be sudden. It will be seismic. We all need to have that in mind, dear friends. While I'm speaking of Jewish mission, I'm speaking of all mission. When we go out on the streets to talk to people, we don't profile. We don't look and say, well, are you Jewish? No, you're not? Okay, well, I'm not talking to you. We were recently in Boulder, Colorado at the University of Colorado doing street outreach or just doing outreach on the campus, and we talked to everybody. We talked to some Jewish people, but we talked to everybody. And I'm here talking about Jewish people, but I'm talking to everyone. Don't be as the foolish virgins. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins is clear as to the suddenness and as to the seismic and final nature. The ark door was shut. No second chance. There are those that think and have a dispensational view of things perhaps that post-rapture the Jews get a second chance. No! The imperative of the apostle was to take the message to every synagogue under heaven. They don't get a second chance. The day comes, sudden, seismic, and irreversible. I want to make some points of application just briefly under these points of exposition. And the first thing I want us to speak about and consider and have in our mind is mustard seed missions. Mustard seed missions. And this is something of a challenge, and it's something that I need to take to heart myself, because it seems to me we live in such a fast-paced, twenty-first century life, Jesus didn't say the kingdom of heaven is like a bullet train. He said it's like a tiny mustard seed that takes its time, and the Lord makes everything beautiful in His time. Some of the first-century Christians were impatient. Some stopped working. We read of that elsewhere. The apostle had to address this misunderstanding of the imminence of the Lord's coming. There have been those even in our era that go up on a mountainside and wait for the return and wait for the end. But they, and we, need to be taught mustard-seed missions. What do I mean by that? Well, the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise. I was sharing just before the service this evening of how the growth of the body of Christ in Israel has been exponential. But nonetheless, it's small. It's mustard seed. In 1948, there were twelve Jewish believers in the land of Israel. I texted one of my colleagues yesterday concerning all the things that are happening there at the moment, and just by way of reporting on that, he simply replied, and he's obviously very busy, but he simply replied, Stephen, it's very bad. It is. Pray, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. But in 1948, there were 12 Jewish believers, and in 1968, there were 50. 12 to 50 in 20 years? That's four times growth of the church. Not bad in 20 years. From 1968 to 1998, 50 became 5,000, and today 5,000 has become 30,000. Praise the Lord. There's mustard seed. It's growing. It's growing. Some define the Lord as being slow. He is not slow. He is long-suffering. He is long-suffering for kingdom growth among Jew and among Greek. He is long-suffering for global Christianity, for Jewish redemption. Please forgive me, but the American mindset finds it hard to think in terms of hundreds of years. The European finds it a little easier. Jewish people find it easier still. I've often referred to Psalm 67 as really the, indeed, that's my first sermon, that's on the Awakening the Conscience course. Please check it out, look it up if you wish. But I try to remind my Gentile friends that they were praying for you 3,000 years ago. Three thousand years ago, read Psalm 67, they're praying that the nations would know the God of Israel and His salvation. In Psalm 67, in B.C. 1000, give or take, we find Jewish missions to the Gentile world. Maybe J-M-G, not C-W-I. Three thousand years ago they prayed, and here we are. The Lord is not slow to fulfill the promise that the Gentile, that the goyim, would come to believe in the God of Israel and be the recipient of the saving grace to Israel? Yes. And here we are. The early church. was an expectant church, yes, on the imminence of His appearing, but the Lord is not slow to fulfill. We're here 2,000 years later, 2,000 years of Christ's power, 2,000 years of Christ plundering the nations. You know, sometimes we're so short-sighted, we look at our world or we look at our own society and we put our heads down and we please pray, just rapture us all out of here. I believe in that kind of rapture. Okay. I don't want to be raptured away. I would rather see the earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. My desire is not to flee, but to fill this earth with the wonder and glory of the God of Israel. to the Jew first and also to the Greek. But again, put ourselves in the DeLorean and think of that little group of Jewish believers in Jesus, early Hebrew Christians, being told to take on the world. And in the power and in the authority of Christ, they go forth, they preach the gospel, and Satan's kingdom falls. nations, countries. Christianity is global. When it began in Jerusalem and then went to Judea, Samaria, even unto the ends of the earth, what would the church fathers think? What would the Westminster divines think? What would William Carey think? What would Hudson Taylor think of the state of Christian gospel missions in the world? And even our own forefathers in Jewish mission, Robert Murray McShane, he was so thrilled that a Jewish believer found his way to his pulpit in Dundee, Scotland. And he writes of it and says, that a son of Abraham after the flesh would be in my pulpit. And yet today, we have Jewish people around us here in the U.S., six million of them. I have a Jewish-believing colleague in Pittsburgh. What would McShane say to me? What would McShane say about Jewish believers in the U.S.? I mentioned what it's like in Israel. Here in the U.S., they reckon 100,000 Jewish believers in the U.S. What would these forefathers in Jewish mission, our ministry is 180 years old, what would they say if I were to say, I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I'm meeting Gentiles in churches all over the U.S. who have Jewish friends? There's Jewish believers in the churches, and maybe they've got a Jewish dentist or a Jewish doctor or a Jewish lawyer. McShane would be amazed. The mustard seed is growing, dear friends. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise. And what was the promise? Well, we haven't time to greatly deal with it, but read it on your own, and I've referred to it on previous visits. Romans 9 through 11. Romans 9 through 11 are those wonderful passages when the Apostle is vexed within, because in chapter 8, The Lord has shown him that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. End of chapter 8. We love those verses. And then the apostle wonders, but Lord, my people, my people are separate. No, your people are separate. so He is in acts. I have great sorrow," Romans 9.1, great sorrow and anguish in my heart, for there's the adoption, there's the covenants, there's the promises, from them the Christ of God. What's going on, Lord? Romans 10.1, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. And so, in Romans 11, we read of the natural branches broken off that those unnatural, goyim, pagan, unclean nations of the world might be grafted into the Lord's grace. But what about these branches, Lord? What about the natural? God is able to graft them in again. their rejection has been to the riches of the Gentile world. But that's not the end of the story, says Romans 11 verse 12, verse 15. Check the might. What will their acceptance be? Life from the dead. So that valley of dry bones that you read of in Ezekiel 37, that Spurgeon preached on, take the leaflet on Spurgeon in the foyer, the valley of dry bones. Preach to the bones, pray for the wind. So I'm telling you, pray, pray, my brethren. We will preach to the bones. We will preach to bones. They are dead. They don't want to know us. They turn away from us. I had a young girl in Boulder. After I'd shared the gospel with her, I said, look, I have this book. It shows you Isaiah. It shows you where to find peace. It was obviously the New Testament. It shows you the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31, who said there would be a new covenant with the house of Israel, and she simply replied, I've got to do my good deeds. I've got to do my mitzvot. And they don't know the God of Israel. And so we preach to bones, but we pray to the wind, And as the Lord, by His Spirit, brings the Word to bear upon the bones of the house of Israel, they come a-rattling, and they come a-rising, and they come to faith in their Messiah Jesus. We are so, so desirous of things to happen now. And again, don't misunderstand, America has a wonderful get-it-done approach. But we've got to have prime delivery, and those traffic lights are far too slow. Lord, do something. Our fonzy, happy days, world is falling apart. Time for you to act, O Lord. And the Lord reminds us, mustard seed missions. mustard seed missions. Well, by way of application even of mustard seed missions, my second point of application, I want to think just for a moment on persistent plotting, persistent plotting. In missions, I think I was sharing this maybe with Chris earlier as well, there is the tendency for us who are on that front line of missions, I want to have a glowing report my supporters. I want to come here and tell you of thirteen people that confessed Jesus Christ in the last month. No. We've got to have that great story. We've got to have that glossy magazine and glossy image that we are doing so wonderfully well because you'll then give us the money. Well done, good and successful servant. Oh, no, sorry. well-done, good, and faithful servant. In mustard-seed missions, we engage in persistent plotting. We haven't time to deal with these surrounding verses, but just look at those surrounding verses. As we wait, what kind of people are we to be? We're to be holy, godly, patient, diligent, Verse 17 shows that we are to be theologically sound and stable. We're to be growing, verse 18, in Christ. In other words, mission work. There's no excuse for lazy workers. There's no excuse for ungodliness and ungraciousness. Character matters. And there's no excuse for pragmatism and forcing the issue and saying, God, you're rather slow, but we can get it done. persistent plodding. And you see, when you engage in mustard-seed missions and when you engage in persistent, faithful plodding, things happen precisely when He means to. Don't lose that understanding of God's timescale. And also, again, please don't misunderstand. Don't lose the impatience. Don't lose the godly impatience. Plod on faithfully. My wife works as a registrar in a local school, and we have a ton of different nationalities in Rogers High School, Northwest Arkansas. And one of the nationalities that we have are Marshallese from the Marshall Islands. And I discovered, and I maybe need to fully check this out, but I discovered that after all the various tests I think nuclear tests that were done on the Marshall Islands, the payback was to allow the Marshallese to come and settle in the U.S. And there were two areas that they were allowed to settle, and one was northwest Arkansas, and the other was Hawaii. I think I would have settled for Hawaii, but we have a sizable community in northwest Arkansas. But my wife says they're so, they exist on island time. Lovely people, but they exist on island time. Things go rather slowly in their culture and life. we need to learn kingdom time. A thousand years like a day, a day like a thousand years. He comes, He revives precisely when He means to. I'm a kingdom optimist. I live with that Puritan hope for the grafting in again of the natural branches And I engage in mustard seed missions with persistent plodding, and so should you with your Jewish neighbor or your Jewish high school friend or your Jewish doctor or dentist. Plod on patiently with gospel truth. There's a slow train coming, and it's sudden, and it's seismic. Final point I want to make mention of concerning the seismic. even the sudden nature, concerns our watchman witness, our watchman witness. We are to be the watchman of Ezekiel 33. We're to sound the alarm. We're to blow the shofar. In our literature and in our policies, we have often spoken of doing two things, one as we look to the church and the other as we look to the Jewish community. And very, very briefly, let me talk about those two things, arming and aiming. A-R-M and A-I-M. What do we need in the church to get this? We need armed. We need awakened to the reality of the mission field here on our doorstep. We need resourced, as I trust we and others may give you resources, tracts, Bibles, useful materials to understand the mission field, and mobilize. A-R-M, awaken, resource, and mobilize. And what we've been doing is we've been going to various cities, and I'll talk a little bit about this later, but going to various cities with Jewish communities is to get alongside the church, we're a parachurch organization, and mobilize the people. Even some of the folks from Greenville were just We're earlier in the year about to come up to Pittsburgh. We called it off just at the last minute, but we're looking on organizing a team from Greenville to come up to Pittsburgh, to go with my buddy in Pittsburgh to the streets, to Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, where it's Jewish Pittsburgh, to engage, to mobilize the church. So we awaken, resource, and mobilize, and then we take aim. We take aim at the Jewish community by arresting Yes, we need to stop people. We need to stop them on the road to destruction, and we need to implore them. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. And we implore them about the Messiah, their Messiah, and ours. We are watchmen witness Hebrews, the book to the Hebrews, in case we didn't notice, declared, it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. My colleague Mitch is a Jewish believer. His father is a 98-year-old Jewish atheist who lives in Delray Beach, Florida. Mitch often will say to me with a little humor but also very serious, most Jews retire to Florida to die. It is appointed unto man to die once, and after that comes judgment. Dear friends, let us believe in the slow train. Do not be disheartened at the Lord's lateness. And let's believe in the suddenness and live faithfully. And let's believe in the seismic nature of the end when He will close all things. These ultimate realities must drive our life. our ministry and our words to the lost, to the Jew, to the Greek. Let's pray together. Father, we thank You that You are patient with us even here this evening. Perhaps there's some here who know You not. Perhaps there's some who have sat under gospel ministry for years and still remain outside of the kingdom. Do your work. As the Word of God is preached and we pray for the wind of God, may the bones rattle and come to life by your Spirit. What we pray for here, we pray for our ministries and missions, all of them. And we think particularly then of the ancient people who prayed for us. May we be so burdened to bring the message back to those who brought it to us. Hear us and help and bless us, in Jesus' name. Amen. closing hymn of praise is 358 for all the saints. Perhaps we'll simply sing 1 and 2 and verse 6, 1 and 2 and verse 6, 3, 5, 8.