Let me show you. These words appear in Peter’s great chapter on the second coming of Christ. Peter was telling us some of the things that would occur before Christ’s second coming.
-In verses 3-4 he tells us there will be scoffers. We read, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after 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 the creation.”
Notice, the scripture says the scoffers are “...walking after their own lusts.” That is, every day THEY WANT ALL THAT THEY SEE! They see plenty of what the world has to offer and they want it all. As a result their minds dwell on EARTHLY THINGS and they SCOFF AT THE THINGS OF GOD!
Why would these people scoff at the things of God? Because they are SPIRITUALLY IGNORANT!
Notice why they are ignorant. Verse 5 tells us, “...they WILLINGLY are ignorant...”
That is, the Lord’s way was available and they choose to not learn.
This is why some will not come to church to hear God’s Word preached and taught. They choose to be ignorant. The last thing they want to hear is what God has planned for their lives. THEY HAVE THEIR OWN PLANS. They do not want anyone, NOT EVEN GOD, TO TELL THEM HOW TO LIVE.
Peter said that people would CHOOSE to be ignorant about looking for the second coming of Christ.
Peter said their spiritual reasoning will be as that of a man who has waited a long time for someone and finally got tired of waiting and decided that party was not coming. HE GAVE UP ON THAT PERSON.
Peter assures them that just because a long time has elapsed since the Lord left did not mean He was not going to return.
Look at verses 8-10. We read, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this ONE THING...”
That is, they might choose to be ignorant about many things, but they had better not choose to be ignorant about this. Why? “...that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
While it has been almost two thousand years since Christ left, and that may seem like a long time for us; according to God’s time clock it has only been a couple of days. Why?
Again, look at verse 8b, “...one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
After reassuring his readers of the CERTAINTY OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, he asked them a sobering question. Verse 11, “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.”
Peter said, in so many words, that if everything this world has to offer us will be dissolved, then a wise and sensible man will spend his life seeking those things that will outlast the world.
Let me show you two ways people are spending their lives.
I. MANY SPEND THEIR LIVES SEEKING THAT WHICH IS SECULAR.
There is nothing SACRED TO THEM. Their entire lives are build around this world in which they live. They give God no place in their lives.
• All their thinking is about the world.
• All their desire is for the things of the world.
There is no place in their lives for God.
The apostle Paul warned the Colossians of this danger.
He said, Col. 3:2, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
The secular life is a wasted life. Peter said that before the second coming of Christ people will build their lives on the foundations that the world has to offer them. But the day will come when it is all going to cave in on them.
Jesus tried to warn people of that danger.
Look at Matthew 6:19-21. We read, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
Why did the Lord say a man was a “fool” to build his life on the things of this world? Because, all the things people build on and for this world will one day be DISSOLVED!
Peter said the smart man is the man who recognizes that all the world has to offer will be DISSOLVED. The smart man, having recognized all things of this world will be DISSOLVED, decides to build his life on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The relevancy and importance of Peter’s question comes home to us each time we witness the death and burial of a loved one or friend. No thinking person can attend a funeral service without being reminded that WE BROUGHT NOTHING INTO THIS WORLD AND IT IS CERTAIN WE CAN TAKE NOTHING OUT.
Illus: Someone has said, “You see no U-Haul-It trailers behind hearses.”
Illus: It is said that when Alexander the Great lay dying he commanded his soldiers to place his hands so they could be seen outside the coffin when he was borne to his resting place in order that mourners might see how empty they were.
Peter said, “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved...” (you can’t take anything with you,) “...what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.”
How inconsequential and valueless do ALL THINGS APPEAR when one comes to look death in the face! For example,
Illus: During the First World War, a ship carrying soldiers was torpedoed in mid-Atlantic. The ship had been hit in just the right spot. It seemed certain that all on board were headed for a watery grave. One boy broke the anguished stillness of the group around him by saying, “Anybody here want to buy an expensive gold watch cheap?”
How full of wholesome warning is our Lord’s parable of the “rich fool” in Luke 12:17-20.
He had accumulated so much of this world’s goods that he had no place large enough to store it all in. “And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do...”
It is a crucial matter when a man begins to talk to himself that way. The unfortunate reply which this man gave to himself. “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.”
Like so many who prosper, the only thing he could think of doing with his surplus was to hang on to it. It did not seem to occur to him that he might give it away, and thus immeasurably enrich some benevolent cause.
He said to himself, “And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
You see, there are only two realities in this life:
• Things.
• Personalities.
THINGS WILL NOT SURVIVE the day of the Lord; ONLY PERSONALITIES LIVE ON!
The pews you and I sit on WILL OUTLAST YOU and I.
Hundreds of years after we are gone, this building and some of its furnishings will still be here. They will outlast our physical body.
But, THEY WILL NOT OUTLAST THE SPIRITUAL PART OF US. Everything around us will be DISSOLVED, but not our souls.
Nothing really matters when a man goes into the presence of His Creator except what he has done with Jesus, (saved or unsaved), and the kind of person he has been (rewards or no rewards). When this universe has melted with fervent heat and we stand before God He will not ask WHAT DID WE HAVE, but only WHAT HAVE WE BEEN!
We are quite thick-headed about this. We just can not take it in that “...the earth and all its works will disappear.” We can not get it into our brain cells that this old world WILL CEASE TO EXIST!
Illus: The famous Dr. Stanley Jones met two rather prosperous men on a ship. He made this comment about them: “They had much in their purses, but nothing in their persons.”
He was saying that those men were completely absorbed with the care of the body. They thought of little else besides clothes, perfumes, cars, boats, houses, etc.
Many have chosen to SPEND THEIR LIVES SEEKING THAT WHICH IS SECULAR.
II. MANY SPEND THEIR LIVES SEEKING FOR THE SAVIOR.
It is, of course, right that we provide as well as we can for healthful and abundant living. I am not pleading here for a new kind of asceticism; but he who gives himself exclusively to this is in danger of becoming completely secularized. But, as I have already mentioned, some have been totally consumed with THINGS and with SELFISH THOUGHTS.
We should, of course, look as attractive as we are capable of looking, but many spend an unusual amount of time, and money, these days adorning the body, forgetting how transient it is.
These bodies of ours are temporal, but the way some people indulge them and the way they expend huge sums in outwardly trying to improve them, you’d think they were eternal.
These bodies of ours will “...see corruption.” I know that sounds a bit morbid to our sentimental ears, and terribly out of date, but it needs to be said! God “remembereth that we are but dust...” even though you and I may forget it. For example,
Illus: The most beautiful girl in our church may spend hour after hour every week trying to take care of herself, but one day she will detect evidence of age. She can buy Oil of Olay by the buckets and the wrinkles will come, and keep coming. As time goes by, her smooth, soft skin will begin to dry up. If she lives long enough, it will resemble a dried up prune.
Fellows may look at her today with great admiration, but one day that same girl will shrivel up and if fellows look at her then they will go, “Yuck.” Finally she will breathe her last breath and be placed in a casket. That lady who had been so attractive when she was young will become no more than a little heap of bones in a green hillside.
We need to remind ourselves constantly that moral discipline and spiritual development are more important than the health of the body. Ask yourself, “If tomorrow I were to lose my material possessions and my physical health, would I have anything left?”
Illus: Remember, nothing belongs to a man that can not be taken from him by storm, sickness, death, political upheaval, or economic change.
What is the character of your possessions? You have a house, an automobile, a few insurance policies, and perchance some stocks and bonds. That’s fine; but what else do you have? Have you any indestructibles in your lock box” Does your ledger show any of “the things not seen?”
How does your will read? If you expect to bequeath to your children any real estate, are you prepared to include “a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens?”
Illus: One lady said to her friend, “Yes, I saw John the other day.” The friend said, “John is getting on in the world.” There was a moment’s pause, and then the silver-haired mother by the fireside asked, “Which world?”
Conclusion:
Illus: Years ago some wise person penned this verse:
“Out of this life I shall never take
Things of silver and gold I make.
All that I cherish and hoard away,
After I leave, on earth must stay.
All that I gather, and all that I keep,
I must leave behind when I fall asleep,
And I wonder often what I shall own
In that other life, when I pass alone.
What shall they find and what shall they see
In the soul that answers the call for me?
Shall the great Judge learn, when my task is through,
That my spirit has gathered some riches, too?
Or shall at the last it be mine to find
That all that I’d worked for I’d left behind?”
-Unknown
I. MANY SPEND THEIR LIVES SEEKING THAT WHICH SECULAR.
II. MANY SPEND THEIR LIVES SEEKING FOR THE SAVIOR.
