And welcome back, we're
talking about 2nd Peter 3.
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And we had just
read before we left,
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in Luke 18, this beautiful
parable of the importunate
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or persistent widow.
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And how she kept
going to this judge
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and asking for justice.
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She wouldn't give up.
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It's interesting that
Luke presents as he said,
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"He told this
parable to the effect
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that they're always to
pray and not to lose heart."
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Sometimes, it's
easy to lose heart.
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And to think, "Oh,
is He really coming
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or is my faith
really making a difference
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and should I keep going."
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The answer is yes.
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The unjust judge of
course is the opposite
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of what God is like.
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God cares for His children
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and He's going to come
and to rescue them. All right.
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So Peter says that
the misunderstanding-
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the false teachers have
a misunderstanding of time.
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And that's why they
misunderstand the delay
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or seeming delay.
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You see, they become
lax in their lifestyle.
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They dismiss the high
standard set by Christ.
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And they see the delay
as license for dissipation,
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for doing what's wrong.
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But the apostle
Paul's aside the veil
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to show that God's intention
was in what He meant by waiting.
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And it was actually a very
opposite kind of perspective.
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He says that
the Lord is not slow
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in relationship to His promise.
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That message of Luke 18
points us in that direction.
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And then he says He
is patient towards you.
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Now this is a
recurring theme in the Bible
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that God is patient.
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Now I want you to
read for us Exodus 34:6-7.
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We've read this before
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but this is where
Moses sees God's glory.
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It's a rather fundamental text
that has a number of connections
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to the things
we've been studying.
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Exodus 34:6-7.
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This is when God
passes in front of Moses.
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"And the Lord passed
before him, and proclaimed,
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the Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious,
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longsuffering, and
abounding in goodness and truth,
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keeping mercy for thousands,
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forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin,
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by no means clearing the guilty,
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visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children,
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and the children's children,
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to the third and to
the fourth generation."
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All right, now
my translation reads
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just a little bit differently.
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In verse 6 it says,
"The Lord passed before him
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and proclaimed the Lord,
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the Lord a God
merciful and gracious."
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And then it
says, "Slow to anger."
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Slow to anger.
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This idea of slow to anger
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and actually all the
phrases of this passage
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become like a benediction
in the Old Testament,
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repeated over and over as
the hope that we might have.
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The Lord is merciful.
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He is slow to anger
abundant in goodness and truth.
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And this kind of
rolls down through the ages,
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people just being hopeful that
God will be merciful to them
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and not destroy them.
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There is one
interesting exception
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and it's the story of Jonah.
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And this short little
book in the Old Testament,
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everybody remembers
because of the great fish
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'X' it's not call the whale.
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It's called the great
fish that God prepares.
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He gets followed by the fish.
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He gets spit up by the
fish and he goes to Nineveh
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because there's
nothing else he can do.
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And he preaches at
Nineveh and he says 40 days
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and Nineveh will be destroyed.
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That's his message,
clear and right to the point.
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He doesn't say
unless you repent.
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He doesn't say that.
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He says 40 days and
Nineveh will be destroyed.
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He preaches for a time
and he goes out to wait
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to see what will happen.
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You know, God
makes the bush to grow
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and he destroys it.
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The wind to blow
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and all these
things happen to Jonah.
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What's interesting is
when you get to chapter 4
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as he's waiting for
God to destroy the city
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and the city isn't destroyed.
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He became quite
angry and upset with God.
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And you finally
learn why is he ran away.
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You know, you're not told
at the beginning of the story,
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why he ran away
until he gets to this point
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and he says that's
why I didn't want to come.
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He says I knew that you
are God who is slow to anger,
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merciful and gracious
abound in goodness and truth.
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He takes Exodus 34,
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this benediction
that everybody hopes
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and everybody trusts in
and he throws it in God's face.
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He said that's why
I didn't want to come.
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I knew you were soft on crime.
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And that's why I refused.
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I didn't want to
come. It's not fair.
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So he was the angry one.
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He was angry.
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And God says, "Do you
have any right to be angry?"
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He said, "Look you
felt pity for this plant."
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And Nineveh is a
city of 120,000 people
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and lots of
cows too, by the way.
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And they don't know their
right hand from their left.
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Shouldn't I have
mercy on these people?
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Our God is a gracious God.
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He loves to
show mercy to people.
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This finds an echo
in the New Testament,
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the story of the prodigal son.
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When he comes home,
there is somebody angry again.
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You know, older brother
doesn't want to eat the meal.
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Doesn't want to
welcome him home?
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Spits it in his
father's face he says
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he wasted all your
money on prostitutes.
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And when you come home,
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you will give
him the fatted calf.
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And his father's response
is, well, we had to rejoice.
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He was lost and he's been found.
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He was dead and he
has come back to life.
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Our God loves to show mercy.
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Beautiful, beautiful story.
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Now was there hope
for false teachers?
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Ah, that was the question
we raised before. That's right.
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These people are so terrible.
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You think there's no
hope for those folks.
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You know, they're just
the worse they could be.
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Well, now look at verse 9
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it says, "The Lord is not
slow to fulfill His promise,
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as some count slowness."
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That's what we've
already talked about.
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"But is patient towards you."
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There we are
the patience of God.
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He is not slow
about His promise,
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He's slow to anger.
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That's why we can say
He's not slow, He's slow.
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"He is not wishing
that any should perish
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but that all should
come to repentance."
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All should reach repentance.
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Now it's very interesting
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the usage of the
terms here. Okay.
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Any, He's not really
willing that any should perish
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but that all should come
to repentance. All right.
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And just before that He
says that God is not slow
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about His promise
as some count slowness.
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So they have some,
any and all. All right.
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Some, any and all.
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The interesting
thing is that, in Greek,
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the word some and
any are the same word.
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So some and some
and all. All right.
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So, I mean, we
translate it properly by saying,
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He is not willing
that any should perish.
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But when you say it that
way you might misunderstand,
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who this any is?
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This any refers to
anybody including those people
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who are counting
the Lord as being,
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you know, He's not slow
where some count slowness.
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The false teachers
are the ones that count,
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the slowness, you know.
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They say, no,
He's taking too long.
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It's been a big delay.
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So the point of this passage
is, this wonderful message is,
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God is not willing
that any should perish.
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If you're sitting out
there today watching this
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and you think that
God wants you to perish.
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I'm here to tell
you, you're wrong.
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God wants you to be saved.
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He wants you to come to Christ
and find salvation, you see.
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God wants no one to be lost.
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No one to be
lost. No one at all.
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He wants everyone to be saved.
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The question is will you repent?
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You see, that is that
idea of sorrow for sin
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and turning away from it.
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Ellen White
talked about in the book
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"Steps to Christ," page 23.
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"Repentance
includes sorrow for sin
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and a turning away from it."
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The problem with
the false teachers
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is they didn't have repentance.
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That was their difficulty.
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This verse 10, he
talks about this thief. Yeah.
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Why don't we read
that again? Its verse-
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"But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night."
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Now why does Peter use
this illustration as the thief?
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Why does he get this idea? Yeah.
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"But the day the Lord
will come like a thief.
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And then the heavens
will pass away with a roar
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and the heavenly bodies will
be burned up and dissolved."
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Well, not from
the Old Testament.
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The Old Testament thieves are,
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you know, these are the
kind of people that you punish.
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But Jesus used the
metaphor in Matthew 24.
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We don't have time
to look it up really.
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But Matthew 24:42-44,
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it said, "The Son of man
would come like a thief."
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Like a thief in the night.
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And He will be unexpected.
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Paul repeats to say it
here in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3.
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Concept of this thief
originates with Jesus.
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And it's that it
will be unexpected,
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the day of the Lord
will come like a thief,
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an unexpected coming.
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Now concerning
the second coming,
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if Jesus is coming
to destroy this world,
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shouldn't that decrease
our interest in this world
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to preserve it as perhaps some
environmentalist? Yes, suggest.
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Yeah, well, it
should decrease our interest
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in the world system,
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the wrong ways of the world,
the immoral ways of the world.
00:10:01.86\00:10:05.21
But God has made us
stewards over the world.
00:10:05.24\00:10:08.13
All right, He
gave us the opportunity
00:10:08.16\00:10:10.20
to take care of the world.
00:10:10.23\00:10:11.72
Interestingly, in
the Book of Revelation
00:10:11.75\00:10:13.18
it says that "God
is going to destroy
00:10:13.21\00:10:14.77
those who destroy the earth."
00:10:14.80\00:10:16.82
So, you know, we
ought not to be involved
00:10:16.85\00:10:18.85
with those who destroy the
world either by immoral behavior
00:10:18.88\00:10:22.50
or by destructive
practices that are not fitting
00:10:22.53\00:10:25.53
and do not
preserve the environment.
00:10:25.56\00:10:28.18
We're supposed to take
careof it till He comes back.
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It is going to be
destroyed by fire.
00:10:30.85\00:10:32.95
But we don't have the-
we don't own this world.
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God does and so He's made
us stewards to take care of it.
00:10:37.68\00:10:41.31
Let's look at verse
12, Dr. Shepherd. Yes.
00:10:41.34\00:10:44.08
"Looking for and hastening
the coming of the day of God,
00:10:44.11\00:10:47.15
because of which the heavens
will be dissolved being on fire
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and the elements will
melt with fervent heat."
00:10:50.21\00:10:53.29
Actually that's a
question that goes all the way
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from verse 11, I think.
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It starts, "What manner
of persons ought you to be
00:11:00.17\00:11:03.23
in holy conduct and
godliness looking for
00:11:03.26\00:11:06.24
and hastening the coming
of the day of God," so on.
00:11:06.27\00:11:09.16
So what does it
mean in verse 12 here,
00:11:09.19\00:11:11.40
where waiting and hastening for
vthe coming of the day of God?
00:11:11.43\00:11:16.25
Yeah, these two don't seem
to fit together to, do they?
00:11:16.28\00:11:18.05
You know, to wait and to hasten.
00:11:18.08\00:11:21.22
He says because the
world's going to be destroyed,
00:11:21.25\00:11:23.59
what kind of
people should you be?
00:11:23.62\00:11:25.16
He goes back to His
typical way of talking
00:11:25.19\00:11:27.09
about a Christian life.
00:11:27.12\00:11:28.49
It should be
moral, godly way of life.
00:11:28.52\00:11:30.69
He says you're
going to wait for.
00:11:30.72\00:11:32.31
The concept of waiting
for is like an expectancy,
00:11:32.34\00:11:36.16
to look for, to
expect something to come.
00:11:36.19\00:11:40.17
It's all about
looking forward to something.
00:11:40.20\00:11:43.04
It's the idea of
the way this is used.
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But hastening seems
a little harder for us
00:11:45.10\00:11:47.47
to get a handle on.
00:11:47.50\00:11:49.31
The word is used
in the New Testament
00:11:49.34\00:11:50.80
actually to refer to things that
are done in haste. All right.
00:11:50.83\00:11:54.74
The shepherds go in
haste to find the baby Jesus.
00:11:54.77\00:11:57.87
Zacchaeus is told
to come down in haste
00:11:57.90\00:12:01.32
for Jesus to eat at his house.
00:12:01.35\00:12:03.00
So it talks about speed.
00:12:03.03\00:12:04.97
Doing something
quickly and we tend to think,
00:12:05.00\00:12:08.13
how can you hasten
the coming of Jesus?
00:12:08.16\00:12:11.65
Can we really do
anything to make it come faster?
00:12:11.68\00:12:14.41
Well, here's the answer.
00:12:14.44\00:12:17.05
There's two different
ways of looking at speed
00:12:17.08\00:12:19.85
in this passage. All right.
00:12:19.88\00:12:22.67
One is slow and
one is fast. All right.
00:12:22.70\00:12:27.17
And that's really the key.
00:12:27.20\00:12:28.61
When Peter said
that, God is not slow
00:12:28.64\00:12:32.47
as some count slowness
to fulfill His promise.
00:12:32.50\00:12:35.41
He is patient towards you.
00:12:35.44\00:12:37.81
Not willing that
any should perish
00:12:37.84\00:12:39.27
but that all
should come to repentance.
00:12:39.30\00:12:40.85
Patient is slow to
anger. He's waiting.
00:12:40.88\00:12:43.54
And what is He waiting for.
00:12:43.57\00:12:45.55
He is waiting for repentance.
00:12:45.58\00:12:48.13
So if you and I
repent of our sins,
00:12:48.16\00:12:51.30
and we help
others to do the same,
00:12:51.33\00:12:53.98
we help draw them to Jesus.
00:12:54.01\00:12:55.48
We help them to come to Him that
can hasten the day of the Lord
00:12:55.51\00:13:00.52
because He's patiently
waiting for people to repent.
00:13:00.55\00:13:04.95
So if everybody repents He
doesn't have to wait anymore.
00:13:04.98\00:13:09.12
So that's how we can hasten
the coming of the Lord Jesus.
00:13:09.15\00:13:13.66
Well, Dr. Shepherd,
00:13:13.69\00:13:15.28
this has been a very
fascinating Bible study.
00:13:15.31\00:13:17.72
We are almost
finished with 2 Peter.
00:13:17.75\00:13:20.98
We're not quite finished yet.
00:13:21.01\00:13:22.83
But we want to
thank you for helping us.
00:13:22.86\00:13:24.80
And as we were saying
if you have not given yet
00:13:24.83\00:13:27.49
your life to Christ,
right now is the day.
00:13:27.52\00:13:29.67
Surrender your life to Him.
00:13:29.70\00:13:31.07
God has a plan for you
00:13:31.10\00:13:32.47
and He is still
being patient with you.
00:13:32.50\00:13:34.75
May God bless you.
We'll see you next time.
00:13:34.78\00:13:36.15
We ask and pray
that you continue
00:13:36.18\00:13:38.34
to search the scriptures,
for in it is the will of God.
00:13:38.37\00:13:41.37
We'll see you. Till
next time, God bless.
00:13:41.40\00:13:43.90