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Staying Sane Among Scoffers (2 Peter 3:1-9)
Series: 2 Peter (Hastening the Day of God)Christians live with an orientation towards time, history, and life that is different from many others.
With time we live (in theory) with a constant awareness that we don’t know when all time as we know it will end. Everything might seem stable from what we can see, but we know the Lord will appear from heaven to end it all in the blink of an eye.
Some see human history as having an upward trajectory: we are getting more advanced, educated, peaceable, and our cities will continue to improve. But Christians know that however much Babylon’s power and wealth increase… its idolatry, lawlessness, and injustice also rise. But the story of reality is not one where Babylon leads us into a golden age of tolerance, peace, and security, but to the triumph of God’s kingdom over all the earth.
And with our lives we strive to live each day in a manner that is loyal and pleasing to King Jesus who will judge on that final day whether have done good or evil.
And if we live with this fearful view towards the final day of the Lord, that will cause many to wonder about us. Some will ask for reasons why we have such a hope. God, help us to be ready for them. Others, Peter says here, will scoff. “So, where’s the promise of his coming? You are believing a naive myth. Nothing like that has ever happened in all history.” They may be from the outside. How surprising has it been that it has come — as Peter predicted — more and more from the inside? “God won’t judge.” But Peter tells us that people say things like this because they are ultimately following their sinful desires. We mock truth when lies offer us a shelter of reason for the sin we love.
While Babylon is building its future on false hopes and false versions of reality and when even Christians are watering down the truth of that a final day of judgment is coming, it can be hard to keep our wits about us. Peter offers us a few reminders to help us keep our sanity among the scoffers. Keep in mind that Peter is not necessarily dealing with modern atheists, but people who simply didn’t believe God (or “the gods”) would bring final judgment.
1. This was all predicted by the prophets, the Lord, and the apostles (v. 1-2). Ancient prophecy means little to people in the modern age. But most people throughout history have been dubious of new information that supposedly contradicts what is old and trusted. Socrates was executed because his philosophy sounded new and strange.
The modern age is different. We live under a new form of government with new knowledge and new technology to shape our world how we want. What is new seems reliable. From young to old, the feel of our age is that we have overcome the past — whether sicknesses, war, misinformation, superstitions, or small-minded arguments — and embraced what is newer and better. So, today, Peter saying that ancient prophets and apostles predicting a final day can sound at first to our ears like the superstitions of cavemen.
But do try to appreciate the power of remembering and trusting these ancient predictions. When nations burn to the ground — and they do — people make it of utmost importance to have passed along by that point what is sacred and important — knowledge, skills, possessions. The Scriptures we hold in our hands range from 2,000-3,500 years old. Consider how many big, new, exciting things have happened and that have been built over that time — and yet these words never disappeared in the distraction. Consider how many attempts have been made to actively destroy these pages, and yet by divine protection and great sacrifice, they remain. Millions of parents have recited, chanted, and sung these words to their children for thousands of years and held them more sacred than their own children.
Why? Because these prophets, poets, and preachers had special connections to the true God. And, they all testify in various ways that no matter how long time will seem to go on, God will intervene in a final day to bring his kingdom power and justice. Every human dead or alive, great or small will be judged. And though every generation of the faithful have died still hoping to see this day, they still passed along this sacred knowledge because they knew it to be reliable beyond their lives. They were thinking about you and me needing to be warned.
When scoffers come with cutting edge data and clever appeals to rationalize their choice of sinful desires, remember that we are not clinging to the predictions of some hot-off-the-press cult-leader with special Kool-Aid, we are clinging to the ancient, reliable words of the prophets and of our Lord through his apostles. A hundred faithful generations have clung to these same words and passed them on to us.
2. The earth was formed by the word of God. Peter says that as people rationalize why they don’t believe God will intervene, they will say that, “Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” Ironically, their argument undermines their very point because they maintain that there was an actual creation of the cosmos. And if God can and did intervene to create the heavens and earth, how inconceivable is it that he would one day intervene to cast fire upon it?
Now, some today do not believe God began all this. I don’t have enough faith to believe that. Without attempting to wade into those waters, I would simply suggest that we acknowledge that something began all this and that there must be an equal and opposite power able to destroy it all. And I would recommend that we not look too hard to find that power before we humbly consider the One who is easily found and trusted by children — the purest among us.
The fact that we even exist is a marvel. Of all other possibilities, we are alive in a place that is quite livable and beautiful in comparison to the chaos it could be. The word and the power that made all this can and will bring it to an end one day.
3. The world has perished before. Even in Peter’s day it was a pretty foolish thing to say that “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” because everyone knew there had been a flood. Though the stories differ in their details, it doesn’t matter if you were from India, China, or Mesopotamia, if you were an Aztec or a European, they have a flood story. Now, of course, some would say that because the details differ, we can’t trust any of it. I would offer that this is not a careful conclusion. If suddenly all sorts of people showed up in your neighborhood talking about a grocery store burning down, but they differed on some details, it would be foolish to be “conservative” and conclude that nothing happened.
Here’s Peter’s point: the world was once formed out of and by water in the beginning, and that the world once perished in a watery deluge of epic, mythological proportions and it is only in the past couple hundred years that our world has forgotten that. If that world perished in water, the heavens and earth that now exist can perish by fire too. And they will. That day await a word from the Lord.
4. Delay? Time is different with the Lord (cf. Ps. 90). With scoffers speaking in our ears, a big question arises: “Okay, he says judgment’s coming. So where is it? Why the delay?” It’s not just scoffers though, the discouragement of the wilderness can bring us to that point. If God is really an all-powerful loving God who is near us, why hasn’t he come? We grow impatient.
Turn to Psalm 90. Peter alludes to this Psalm of Moses here when he speaks of a thousand years as being but a day — which is appropriate because Moses wrote this some 1,400 years before even Peter. Notice how Moses compares the passage of time for God and humans (vs. 1-13). Moses says God is the one who predates the mountains, he is the one who is everlastingly God. But people are dust, grass. We wither away in God’s anger in the heat of a moment before the next generation rises up and flies away in a moment. Because of this, we need to fear God, we need to number our days, we need to recognize how small we are.
We need this reverential awe for the everlastingness of God among scoffers and in our wilderness years. We want him to work so quickly. Show up so these scoffers are can see. Show up so we can be rescued. And though Christ has come once, he hasn’t yet come a second time, and that can become frustrating. But let’s just hold off on trying to figure that out. If God is really an all-powerful, all-knowing, God of love, what sort of question are we going to ask about the timing of his judgment that we could even comprehend? Let us fear lest we end up with too high an estimation of the reasoning in our pea-sized brains in comparison to the Everlasting one. To say he’s been around longer doesn’t even do it justice.
5. Delay? The Lord is patient toward you, not slow. But Peter ultimately comforts us. The reason he hasn’t come yet is not due to any human-like slowness, it’s really out of patience. Think about it. Who wants the evil that has wrecked his creation to be burned up more: us or him? Who wants to be with us more: us or him? Hands down, it’s him. Then why is he waiting? Because he does indeed want to be with you. But you may not be ready for him.
And when we consider that he wants evil to be eradicated from the world he made and for righteousness to triumph more than we do, his patience is astonishing. His love is astonishing. His patience is toward you. He wishes that none would perish, not even the scoffers, but that all should reach repentance. Do you need to repent?
Brothers and sisters, sin makes a fool of us. It is plain that history will have an end, but people scoff at plain facts because sinful desires have mastered them. Sin makes us like children who insist 2+2=10 because we want to have ten. Sin makes us say and believe what is false. But we must release our pride. There is a day around the corner that is the Lord’s, and shelters of self-deception will evaporate in an instant. In Isaiah’s words, the agreement we think we have with death — that we’ll somehow escape death and judgment — it will be annulled. He will come like a thief in the night. But the Lord has delayed until this moment so you can repent. Now is the time to turn back to him before it is everlastingly too late.
