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2 Peter 3
New Living Translation (NLT)
The Day of the Lord Is Coming
This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.[a]
11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him— 16 speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
Peter’s Final Words
17 I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends. Be on guard so that you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. 18 Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
What a heavy chapter to begin with. When I read this I think of Noah. Imagine this. It has never rained. Ever. It's a beautiful, sunny day and you come to your backyard to grill up some delicious animal carcass when you glance at your next door neighbor's yard and notice he is beginning the frame work for something massive. Curiosity gets the best of you, so you walk to the fence and ask him what it is he is building. He replies, "a boat". What a great idea you think to yourself. A boat of that size could easily fit your family and his together plus, well possibly the entire neighborhood, or maybe the whole city, but hey, go big or go home right? You begin to mention your dreams of fishing trips on the Jordan River when you realize that there is no way to get that boat to the water because, trucks and trailers have not been invented yet. You share your conundrum with him and he kindly explains that not only will there be no fishing trips in this boat, but that God told him to build it and there is going to be a flood that will destroy the entire earth. You begin looking around, expecting to see a camera crew, or possibly Ashton Cutcher to inform you that you have been punked, but neither one happens. He is serious. Dead serious. He walks away from the fence and goes back to work.
Many people base their disbelief of something on the fact that it has not happened yet, so it will never happen. I imagine Noah had some doubts as to the validity of what he was bulding but God told him there would be a flood so he acted on it, regardless of how foolish he felt or other people told him he was. That is faith, and his faith was validated when he felt that 1st raindrop hit his cheek.
In this chapter Peter tells us that we are in the last days. He tells us that scoffers will come mocking the truth and following there own desires. If there has ever been a time in history when people allow their personal desires to direct there actions, it is now. Everything sacred has been demoralized in the name of tolerance and acceptance. All the while the best selling Book of all time sits on store shelves and our own book shelves, describing what is to come, and we act as if it is either a fairy tale or it is something that we can put off worrying about until later. I'm sure many people in Noah's day felt the same way until they were knee deep in rain water and truth.
I know that this may turn some of you away from my blog but I promise that I will not bring doom and gloom upon your heads every day but from time to time I will share my faith with you because it is necessary. If I walked into a cancer ward with the cure in my pocket and kept it to myself for fear of offending someone with my cure, then who would I be. If you lived across the street from me and I noticed your house was on fire, I promise I would risk my life to get you out of there, and I beleive you would do the same for me. With that been said, I believe when the Bible says that apart from Christ are all destined to hell, that is true. If a relationship with Christ is something that you have considered but you feel like you can put it off until later, than please reconsider that stance. If working on an ambulance has taught me anything, it is that you could die at any moment, and any age. Death does not discriminate. There is a 1:1 ratio when it comes to the reaper appointment. My question to you is, are you ready? Not do you think your ready, or you hope you're ready, but are you 100% sure that if today was your final day, that you know where you would spend your eternity. Most of you probably have car, health, dental, vision, and life insurance, but do you have death insurance? If you would like to know what the Bible says about your eternity than I would be more than happy to tell you what I believe about eternity, and where you are heading at this point.
If you are a believer, than I believe that this chapter should cause you to take a look at your life. How are you living? Are you playing church? Are you wrapped up in the world and it's pleasures? Are you just going through the motions? The word Christian, by definition means little Christ one. Jesus lives through us. Have we been Christ to the world around us, or do we look like everyone else? If you feel as if you have faded into your culture than it is time to wake up! Though you may have a saving relationship with Jesus, it may be no more than a skin of your teeth rescue plan. We will all have to give an account for how we have lived and how we have used our time, our talents and our treasures. If God called you today would you step into His presence having finished strong or would you have to look into His eyes with shame and remorse for a life wasted?
I told you that I can tend to ramble and go on tangents and here is one of many, but I believe that these things need to be said from time to time. I will close with the words of Peter that he closed this chapter with. Enjoy your day until we meet again.
Peter’s Final Words
17 I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends. Be on guard so that you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. 18 Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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