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Day Of The Lord - Lord Of The Day
Contributed by David Dunn on Sep 29, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: Because the Day of the Lord will surely come, we live in holiness and hope, looking not for a day but for Jesus.
Part One: When Headlines Meet Prophecy
Imagine tomorrow’s headlines if the end of the world came today:
Rolling Stone: “Is There a Rock and Roll Heaven?”
Lifestyle Weekly: “Lose 20 Pounds by Judgment Day with Our New Armageddon Diet.”
Tech Times: “Ctrl + Alt + Delete: Planet Earth.”
Faith Chronicle: “We Told You So!”
The humor is obvious, but the truth beneath it is sobering: the Day of the Lord will come.
Not as rumor or metaphor—actual, certain, unstoppable.
And Scripture shows exactly how to think and live in light of that reality.
Peter offers a threefold orientation for believers awaiting Christ’s return: look back, look around, and look ahead.
This first movement calls us to look back at the Scriptures.
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> “Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle… to stir up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles; knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts…” (2 Peter 3:1–3)
Peter is addressing people who already know the message.
Still he writes again to “stir up” their minds.
The Greek verb suggests waking someone from a deep sleep—shaking off drowsiness.
It is possible to possess a wealth of biblical knowledge and still drift into spiritual lethargy.
Truth can sit in the mind like unopened mail.
So Peter sends a jolt of holy urgency: remember what the prophets wrote, what Jesus said, and what the apostles recorded.
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Scripture as the sure foundation
Why begin here?
Because our hope is only as secure as the source that feeds it.
Peter does not build on hunches or speculation but on three converging testimonies:
1. The Prophets of Old — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi and many others foretold both the Messiah’s reign and the final judgment.
2. The Lord Jesus Himself — “I will come again and receive you to Myself” (John 14:3).
3. The Apostles — eyewitnesses who confirmed and expounded the same promise.
From Genesis’ first whisper of redemption to Revelation’s climactic call—“Even so, come, Lord Jesus”—Scripture points to the same decisive intervention of God.
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Prophecy as spiritual wake-up call
Prophecy is never given merely to satisfy curiosity.
Its first purpose is to awaken holy living.
When hearts grow numb, nothing jolts them awake like remembering that history is headed toward a God-ordained climax.
A simple discipline reinforces this.
Select several promises of Christ’s return—John 14:1–3, 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18, Titus 2:13—and commit them to memory.
When doubt or discouragement whispers, those stored verses become living fuel for faith.
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God’s pattern of intervention
Peter underscores that history is not an endless cycle of natural processes.
Creation itself came by the word of God.
The ancient world was once judged by a flood.
The same word now preserves and reserves the present order “for fire until the day of judgment” (v. 7).
These reminders teach that the universe is not a closed system.
The Creator who spoke matter into being has already interrupted history and will do so again—this time to judge and to renew.
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From knowledge to transformation
Why is looking back so crucial?
Because until the reality of eternity becomes certain in the heart, life on this side will remain ordinary and self-directed.
When resurrection, judgment, and the new creation are living realities, present choices gain eternal weight.
Peter’s pastoral strategy is simple:
Before he addresses cultural scoffing or future glory, he insists that believers wake up to what God has already revealed.
A drowsy church cannot be an expectant church.
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Part 2 – Look Around: The Scoffers
Text: 2 Peter 3:8–10
Seeing the world through Peter’s lens
After urging believers to remember Scripture, Peter prepares them for the second reality: a climate of ridicule and doubt.
> “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’” (2 Peter 3:3–4).
A scoffer treats lightly what should be taken seriously.
This attitude is not new. Prophets of old recorded it; the apostles heard it; and today it still whispers through culture, classrooms, and headlines.
The reasoning sounds modern and scientific: The sun rises, the seasons change, physics holds steady. The world has always been this way and always will be.
Peter calls this willful forgetfulness. It is not neutral evidence but a deliberate choice to ignore what God has already done.
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God has intervened before
Peter counters with history:
> “For they willfully forget that by the word of God the heavens were of old… by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water” (vv. 5–6).