God Wants Us To Have Wholesome Thinking

“Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:1-7, NIV).

Show a video of polygraph test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwUxY8xhAYg)

A polygraph test is known also as a lie detector test. I experienced it, when I was employed in the City Treasurer’s Office (Legazpi City) and there was a robbery. The result of the test showed that I was “positive,” which meant that I was telling a lie. My co-employees could not believe the result. They could not imagine that I did not tell the truth. Of course, I was more surprised, because I knew that all my declarations at that time were true.

Perhaps, in other instances in my life, I also lied.

But who among us who have never lied in their entire life?

But, our Holy Father does not like us to be liars or just to desire to tell lies, or entertain lies in our mind. He wants us to be holy and to think whatever is true.

GOD WANTS US TO HAVE WHOLESOME THINKING -- and that’s what we are going to focus on as we deal with our text (2 Peter 3:1-7).

So, how could we have wholesome thinking?

Again, be reminded that 2 Peter was addressed then to the believers, who were bombarded with false teachings and he encouraged them to hold on to the truth.

He pointed out that they have the Scripture that they could completely rely on, because its message was not just the idea of men, but it is of God. And those who would distort it, or who would believe and live not in harmony with it would certainly suffer punishment from God.

After Peter made his point that “the Lord knows how… to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:9), he portrayed in the succeeding verses how the unrighteous – the false teachers or false believers were doing.

In verse 13, Peter cited that they were even fellowshipping with the true believers. And he added in verses 21-22:

“It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,’ and, ‘A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.’”

Peter would like to awaken or to stir the pure minds of the true believers, not only to see the danger of false teachers or false believers, but how they could maintain a pure mind or to have wholesome thinking.

In our time, when the air is polluted with the attractive melody of false teachings, false hopes, false values, false security, etc., let’s be sure that our mind is not being contaminated. But, how? How can we have pure, refreshing, wholesome thoughts flowing in our mind?

First, REMEMBER THE WORD OF GOD (verse 2).

Peter wrote in verse 2: “I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.”

In the New Living Translation, we read:

“I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.”

Peter told his readers, “I want you to recall…” or “I want you to remember…”

After he enumerated in the previous chapter the wrong behaviors or actions and destructive words made by the unrighteous, the false teachers or false believers, Peter would like his readers to remember something else.

In chapter 2, he pointed out that the unrighteous, “those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority” (verse 10) would unleash words of “slanderous accusation” (vv. 11-12), “empty, boastful words” (v. 18), deceitful or false promises (vv. 18-19). Instead of allowing their minds to be filled with those negative words, Peter exhorted the believers then “to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.”