Reminder to Stir You Up! 2 Peter 3:1-10

Søren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1813. During his short life of 42 years he wrote 38 books about the Christian faith and philosophy. While he was in college he experienced a dramatic conversion and became a follower of Jesus. When Kierkegaard died he was virtually unknown since he lived in Denmark and his writings were in Danish. It would be another 100 years after his death that the world would discover the brilliance of the young philosopher who would become known as the “father of existentialism.”

 Kierkegaard was a harsh critic of the Church. He had strong words for the followers of Jesus, whom he felt had turned a missionary venture into a social club. Even though Kierkegaard shared his thoughts almost 200 years ago, you might think he was writing to us today. 

In his book Either/Or, Kierkegaard tells the parable of a theater where a variety show was taking place. Each entertainer, who came out to entertain the crowd, was better than the last. The crowd laughed and applauded again and again. Suddenly, a frantic clown came out from behind the curtain and apologized for the interruption. He had to let everyone know a fire had broken out backstage and everyone needed to leave the building as quickly as possible. The audience thought it was part of the show so they cheered and clapped their hands while continuing to laugh and have a great time. The clown begged and pleaded, “Run for your life!” but the people just continued to laugh and applaud. At last, he could do no more. The fire raced through the whole building and everyone went down with it. “And so,” Kierkegaard wrote, “our age will go down in fiery destruction not to the sound of mourning but to applause and cheering.”

I said that it is almost like Kierkegaard was writing to us, because, are we not turning the Church in America, dotting the landscape all across our nation and established by our Lord and Savior as mission stations, into houses of entertainment where those who are bored can be entertained? Many are no longer concerned for the truths of God’s Word as long as they can be entertained by some silver tongued preacher who can make us feel better by the end of his 20 minute dancing bear act. Time is winding down, history is playing out, while we grow increasingly numb to the things of God because of our fascination with being amused. The theater is on fire, but all we want to do is be happy and have a few laughs. 

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. The Bible is very clear, crystal clear that there is coming a day when Jesus will return and the opportunity to be reconciled to God, to be forgiven and gain eternal life will be over. If you are a follower of Jesus and you know what the Bible teaches about that day then you know that those who are not followers of Jesus, on that day, will be forever separated from God. The time of forgiveness will be over and the day of judgment will have arrived. I have to believe that if we knew the date of His return, we who are followers of Jesus would urgently, passionately, persuasively share His love with others who don’t know Him like never before. I would hope we would experience an urgency like never before. We would risk being mocked and made fun of for the greater good of getting the word out to anyone and everyone who would listen. 

We don’t know the day of His arrival. As a matter of fact, it’s been so long since He made that promise that many never even give it a thought any longer. I pray our time in God’s Word this morning will awaken us, inspire us, and captivate our minds and our hearts with the assurance that He is on His way! Let’s read from 2 Peter 3:1-10.

1 Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. 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. 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." 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. 8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. (2 Peter 3:1-10 NIV)

In chapter 2, Peter addressed the issue of the false teachers, but in his opening words of chapter 3, he turns his attention to his friends, his “dear friends.” The word Peter uses, which is translated “friends,” is the Greek word “ἀγαπητός”  (agapētos). This is a word of affection, a word used by parents to refer to their kids, their loved ones. Peter uses this word two more times in this chapter, in verses 14 and 17. Just a few verses ago, Peter was hammering the heretics who were working to distract, discourage, and deceive the followers of Jesus, but now he will spend the rest of his time encouraging those he so dearly loved. 

In verse 1, Peter writes, “this is now my second letter to you.” Some don’t believe the previous letter was 1 Peter, but the vast majority of Bible teachers think he was referring to 1 Peter. In any case, both letters that Peter has written have been written for a purpose, as “reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.”  Peter wants to remind them of what they have already been taught. We need constant reminders don’t we? Douglas Moo writes,

Christians, of course, should always be learning new things about the faith and discovering new avenues of serving the Lord in the way they live. But Christians also need reminders of basic truths, and they never outgrow the need for such reminders. While still resident somewhere in the data banks of our minds, the basics of faith can cease to have an influence over us. ‘Remembering’ these truths involves more than the mental act of ‘recalling’ what had once been learned. It is the dynamic process of applying the truths to the new situations and problems that the believer confronts. (Moo, Douglas. The NIV Application Commentary: 2 Peter, Jude. pg. 162). 

We need constant reminders of the truths of God’s Word. I want to let you in on a problem I’ve wrestled with this past week. I have two more Sundays to teach before I will be gone for one month. I don’t want to have to delay our wrapping up 2 Peter until September so we need to make it through the 18 verses of this 3rd chapter in the next two weeks. That means we are going to have to skip over some verses. I don’t like doing that, but it is what it is. For that reason I want to jump down to verses 3-4. Peter writes,

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." (2 Peter 3:3-4 NIV)

“Above all,” means first priority. Do not forget this fact– “in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Scoffers of the Christian faith and the followers of Jesus mock all aspects of our beliefs, but these scoffers that Peter was writing about were scoffing at something very specific. They were mocking the promised return of Jesus. They were asking, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” They were saying “Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 

More than 30 years had passed since Jesus had been resurrected from the dead and ascended to Heaven, to the right of the Father. His followers had been waiting, anxiously waiting for all of those years and yet, He had not returned. Is it any wonder that the scoffers of our day roll their eyes and say, “Surely you don’t believe that!?” when the topic of Jesus’ second coming comes up today. It’s been 2,000 years and still He has not returned. Does that mean He won’t or He has failed to keep His promise? Not on your life!

The Hebrew Bible is filled with the promises of the coming of the Day of the LORD. The Day of the LORD was a day of judgment and it came in times past as a foreshadowing of the great Day of the LORD that is yet to come.  The prophet Daniel, whose ministry took place more than 500 years before Jesus was born, wrote,

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, o coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14 NIV)

More than 500 years after Daniel saw this glorious vision Jesus was on trial for His life before the high priest, Caiaphas. You can read about it in Mark’s Gospel. Let’s pick up in verse 61.

61 …Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” 62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61-62 NIV)

The New Testament is filled with references to the coming of Jesus in all of His glory. On the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2, Peter used a prophecy from Joel to point to Jesus’ return. Listen to this.

20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ (Acts 2:20-21 NIV)

Over and over again in the New Testament, in twenty-three of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, Jesus’ return is emphasized. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament there are some 300 references to the second coming of Jesus. Jesus Himself spoke about His return in 21 different passages.  With such overwhelming evidence that Jesus’ second coming is the culmination of God’s plan for the entire world, the scoffers continue to laugh, ridicule, and doubt. As it was in the days of the believers scattered throughout the Roman Empire so it remains for the followers of Jesus today. 

The scoffer's line of argument follows from what they think is an observation of history. They say, “Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” There are different views of how history unfolds throughout time. There are those who believe that history runs in cycles. Nations and empires rise and then they fall only to be replaced by other nations and empires. Others believe that history is linear and progressive. Each generation builds upon the next and progress is made over the course of time. There is another school of historians, like the great H.A.L. Fisher, the British historian and educator who wrote the monumental 3 volume work “History of Europe.” Fisher saw no purpose or plan, no cycles being followed, and certainly no linear growth of one society to the next. He wrote,

Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations; only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen. (Fisher, H.A.L. History of Europe.)

Along with the scoffing historians there are the scoffing scientists who look at the laws of nature and hold that uniformitarianism, the view popularized by the Scottish geologist, Charles Lyell, governs the created order. Uniformitarianism holds that the same natural laws and processes which operate today have always operated and will continue to operate in the future. Ernest Best writes,

This is an amazingly modern argument for rejecting the supernatural, bodily second coming. It simply says, the laws of nature are constant and unchanging. The sun has come up and gone down, the seasons have followed each other, the tides have risen and fallen for thousands of years in perfect order. Therefore, we must expect this constancy for the future, and any thought that the sky might be rolled up like a scroll and the earth purged with global, fiery judgment by the returning Christ is unimaginable and unwarranted. This is exactly the position of much modern science, and there are hundreds of pastors and theologians in the churches and seminaries today who reject a physical second coming and future judgment for the same reason (Ernest Best, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, pp. 363 and 367).

Peter points out something very telling about the scoffers in his day which is still true of scoffers in our day. In verse 5, Peter writes, “But they deliberately forget…” The Greek word “θέλω” (thelō) translated “deliberately,” is an important word for you and me to understand. The word literally means “to wish, want, or to will.” It is used to describe a conscious “willing” which leads one to action. The scoffer's skepticism about the second coming of Jesus isn’t due to their ignorance, but it is a deliberate and willful choice. Scoffers that I have listened to on podcasts and on YouTube pride themselves on being knowledgeable, objective, and scientific, and yet they are only open to the knowledge and science that proves their point of view. 

It is interesting how Peter counters the scoffers. He doesn’t use science or reason or philosophy…he uses Scripture. In verses 5-7, Peter goes back into creation history to prove that God has not only broken into the created order in times past, in the flood of Noah’s day, but He brought about creation itself.  

Martyn Lloyd-Jones makes a very important point for those of us who are followers of Jesus and living in a skeptical society. The Bible doesn’t need science or history to prove its authenticity and reliability. We don’t believe God’s Word because science has shown us “this” or “that” or history has shown its teachings to be true. We believe God’s Word and the teachings contained within its pages because it is God’s Word, our ultimate authority. Dr. Lloyd-Jones writes,

Peter’s reply to them is that ultimately it is not a matter of reason, it is not a matter of argument. He bases his whole case primarily upon the Scriptures themselves. …In other words, in this letter, as indeed in all central matters of the Christian faith, we either accept the revelation or we do not; and the Bible itself tells us that revelation is something which is definitely beyond reason. That is perhaps the great watershed that divides men into two groups at this moment-–those who are prepared to accept the revelation of this Book and those who reject it. Peter refers to those who reject it as scoffers. (Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Expository Sermons on 2 Peter. pg. 168)

In Creation, God brought order out of chaos. We are told in Genesis 1:1-2 that God created the heavens and the earth. When God created “the earth was formless and empty,” there was chaos and desolation. God brought order out of the chaos. Read Genesis 1 with me.  

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 NIV)

See the phrase “formless and empty?” In Hebrew it reads, “תֹּ֫הוּ בֹּ֫הוּ” (tohu va-vohu) and the phrase was used to describe a desolate desert. There was chaos and then God spoke. A tenth century rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, translated the opening verses of Genesis in this way, “At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness … God said Let there be…” And God said… Order came about out of the chaos, beauty overwhelmed the desolation, and His creation has been upheld and sustained by Him ever since. 

In verse 6, Peter tells us that the same God who brought creation into being by His word, out of the watery chaos, is the same God who used His creation to deluge and destroy the world. Peter writes,

6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. (2 Peter 3:5 NIV)

Peter has the flood of Noah’s day in mind. He has already used the judgment of God that happened in Noah’s day back in 2 Peter 2 so he doesn’t elaborate. There’s really no doubt that during the 120 years that God held back His judgment, while Noah was building the ark, scoffers were walking by Noah each and every day. They could have said, like the scoffers in Peter’s day, “Everything goes on just like it has since the beginning. Nothing is going to change. The sun came up yesterday and it will come up tomorrow.” Do you know that Jesus also used the illustration of the people of Noah’s day to highlight what will happen when He does come again? In Matthew 24:36-39, Jesus said,

36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:36-39 NIV)

We are running out of time, but there are two more things we need to talk about before we go. First, what about His delay? It has been so long hasn’t it? Peter lets us know that we live and move according to time, but our time is not God’s time. Peter writes,

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (2 Peter 3:8 NIV)

Let me tell you what Peter does not say: He does not say a day is a thousand years to God. He says, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years.” Some preachers have used this ratio to try and pinpoint the time of Jesus’ coming. Don’t fall into that trap. Do you remember the verses we just read where Jesus said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” So if Jesus doesn’t know the moment He will return, what makes you think some preacher knows? Don’t fall into that trap. You can know this: He is on His way! 

Last of all, before we close for this morning, why the delay? Is Jesus unable to fulfill His promise? Peter tells us the Lord isn’t slow in keeping His promise, but He is patient. Let’s read verse 9 together.

9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NIV)

God is not slow. He has been patient with you like He was patient with me while I rejected Him over and over again. I was like those scoffers. I didn’t reject Jesus because I was ignorant. How can you be ignorant about Jesus and living in Oklahoma? Some of you come from countries where you honestly didn’t know or you were told things about Jesus that were not true, but living in Oklahoma we are saturated with the stories of Jesus. 

Some of you are here this morning who are still rejecting Jesus. You aren’t a scoffer, you are an admirer. You believe in your heart that Jesus lived and He did so many good things. You believe that it is wise to follow the Golden Rule and take Jesus’ lessons to heart. You admire Jesus tremendously, but yet you refuse to surrender to Him. The Lord has been so patient with you. Do you know why He has been so patient? There were people in Paul’s day who stood where you are standing now, not a skeptic or scoffer, but an admirer who refuses to become a follower. They held Jesus up as a hero, but not Lord and Savior. Paul wrote,

4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4 NIV)

Let today be the day you surrender to Jesus. I wish we had more time, but know this: “The day of the Lord will come and it will come like a thief in the night, when you least expect it.” I hope we will all be ready.

Mike Hays

Britton Christian Church

July 27, 2025