Looking Forward To Eternity

Looking Forward to Eternity

2 Peter 3:1-13

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

Christians, are you looking forward to spending an eternity with Jesus? Even in the absence of the signs of severe famines and wars (Matthew 24:7) here in North America, has not seeing a generation of lovers of themselves and money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, rash, conceited and unholy people (2 Timothy 3:1-5), not convinced most of us that the Day of the Lord is at hand? Even though we look forward to the return of our Savior, one can’t help but wonder how the knowledge of this truth has made us any better than the scoffers of this world who believe God will never come good on His promise to judge this world? Upon close examination of our motivations and subsequent deeds, is not the above description of what the people will be like in the end times not act as a mirror reflecting what is truly in our souls? After all, don’t Christians spend most of their time trying to secure the carnal desires of their own hearts just like unbelievers do? In today’s sermon I am going to examine 2 Peter 3:1-13 in the hope that the Spirit might motivate you to start living every moment spotless and blameless with your eyes fixed on the return of Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)!

3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 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.”

One of the signs of the end times is that many people will scoff at the mere idea of an impending Parousia. For a world that has made self their god, it should not come as a surprise that those who have rejected any concept of absolute truth would also scoff at doctrine suggesting a time and place of future judgment. Having abandoned the faith their conscious has been seared as with a hot iron by hypocritical liars and deceiving spirits (1 Timothy 4:1-2). The world has taught them that truth is relative and individualistically determined and as such no one truly knows which path to God is right, or even if god exists! While some believe in an afterlife these anthropocentric hedonists mock any idea of the Day of the Lord coming in which there will be separation of the wheat from the tares (Matthew 13:24-29). Believing all will make it to “heaven” based on their own relative goodness or that upon death they will simply cease to exist, they scoff and do not live as if Christ is about to return but instead live to maximize pleasure and minimize pain that comes from following their own evil desires.

They ridicule and scoff at God’s word by presenting their “wisdom” on this matter. Defiantly they ask where is this coming that was promised? We have been waiting for over 2000 years and yet everything goes on as it has been since the beginning of creation! Ever since Christ told us “I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back” (John 14:3), Christians have been looking up to the heavens expecting Him to return in their lifetimes. When men from supposed God-fearing groups such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ, the Worldwide Church of God and the House of Yahweh for example use the contents of Scripture to predict the exact date of the end of world and yet it does not come about, this only fuels more ridicule and scepticism, “doubts and disbelief of other aspects of Christ’s teaching.” Every time a Christian says “Jesus will return in my lifetime” and they are buried without this promise being fulfilled it only reaffirms Albert Einstein’s statement “I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes with the personal affairs of mankind.”

5 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. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 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.

To counteract their foolishness Peter reminds them that creation and the flood prove that God has and will intervene during human history. Out of the watery chaos (Genesis 1:2-6) the land was separated from the water by the word of God (Genesis 1:6-10). With a series of commands “let there be” all things seen, and unseen were created by Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16). Peter not only reminds the scoffers they owe their very existence to God but goes on to say that the flood is proof that God can also destroy what He has created. It is at this point that Peter draws a parallel between Noah’s time and this generation. They too felt that God would continue to overlook the evil inclinations of their hearts and forgo any kind of judgement upon this world (Genesis 6:5). Despite the warning they too continued to eat, drink and marry right up until the day that the flood came and destroyed them all (Luke 17:27). “Floods of sin called for floods of destruction!” Peter warns the scoffers that God is about to destroy the world again but this time with fire!