Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00024B
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00:01 And welcome back, we're talking about 2nd Peter 3.
00:04 And we had just read before we left, 00:07 in Luke 18, this beautiful parable of the importunate 00:12 or persistent widow. 00:14 And how she kept going to this judge 00:18 and asking for justice. 00:20 She wouldn't give up. 00:21 It's interesting that Luke presents as he said, 00:23 "He told this parable to the effect 00:26 that they're always to pray and not to lose heart." 00:31 Sometimes, it's easy to lose heart. 00:34 And to think, "Oh, is He really coming 00:38 or is my faith really making a difference 00:41 and should I keep going." 00:43 The answer is yes. 00:45 The unjust judge of course is the opposite 00:47 of what God is like. 00:48 God cares for His children 00:50 and He's going to come and to rescue them. All right. 00:53 So Peter says that the misunderstanding- 00:56 the false teachers have a misunderstanding of time. 01:00 And that's why they misunderstand the delay 01:05 or seeming delay. 01:06 You see, they become lax in their lifestyle. 01:09 They dismiss the high standard set by Christ. 01:12 And they see the delay as license for dissipation, 01:17 for doing what's wrong. 01:19 But the apostle Paul's aside the veil 01:21 to show that God's intention was in what He meant by waiting. 01:25 And it was actually a very opposite kind of perspective. 01:31 He says that the Lord is not slow 01:33 in relationship to His promise. 01:35 That message of Luke 18 points us in that direction. 01:38 And then he says He is patient towards you. 01:42 Now this is a recurring theme in the Bible 01:49 that God is patient. 01:52 Now I want you to read for us Exodus 34:6-7. 01:55 We've read this before 01:58 but this is where Moses sees God's glory. 02:02 It's a rather fundamental text that has a number of connections 02:06 to the things we've been studying. 02:08 Exodus 34:6-7. 02:10 This is when God passes in front of Moses. 02:12 "And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, 02:15 the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 02:18 longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 02:22 keeping mercy for thousands, 02:24 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, 02:27 by no means clearing the guilty, 02:29 visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, 02:33 and the children's children, 02:34 to the third and to the fourth generation." 02:37 All right, now my translation reads 02:39 just a little bit differently. 02:41 In verse 6 it says, "The Lord passed before him 02:44 and proclaimed the Lord, 02:45 the Lord a God merciful and gracious." 02:48 And then it says, "Slow to anger." 02:53 Slow to anger. 02:55 This idea of slow to anger 02:58 and actually all the phrases of this passage 03:01 become like a benediction in the Old Testament, 03:07 repeated over and over as the hope that we might have. 03:12 The Lord is merciful. 03:14 He is slow to anger abundant in goodness and truth. 03:18 And this kind of rolls down through the ages, 03:21 people just being hopeful that God will be merciful to them 03:27 and not destroy them. 03:28 There is one interesting exception 03:32 and it's the story of Jonah. 03:36 And this short little book in the Old Testament, 03:39 everybody remembers because of the great fish 03:41 'X' it's not call the whale. 03:42 It's called the great fish that God prepares. 03:45 He gets followed by the fish. 03:46 He gets spit up by the fish and he goes to Nineveh 03:51 because there's nothing else he can do. 03:53 And he preaches at Nineveh and he says 40 days 04:00 and Nineveh will be destroyed. 04:03 That's his message, clear and right to the point. 04:06 He doesn't say unless you repent. 04:08 He doesn't say that. 04:09 He says 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed. 04:13 He preaches for a time and he goes out to wait 04:14 to see what will happen. 04:16 You know, God makes the bush to grow 04:18 and he destroys it. 04:19 The wind to blow 04:20 and all these things happen to Jonah. 04:22 What's interesting is when you get to chapter 4 04:25 as he's waiting for God to destroy the city 04:27 and the city isn't destroyed. 04:30 He became quite angry and upset with God. 04:36 And you finally learn why is he ran away. 04:41 You know, you're not told at the beginning of the story, 04:43 why he ran away until he gets to this point 04:47 and he says that's why I didn't want to come. 04:52 He says I knew that you are God who is slow to anger, 04:58 merciful and gracious abound in goodness and truth. 05:01 He takes Exodus 34, 05:05 this benediction that everybody hopes 05:07 and everybody trusts in and he throws it in God's face. 05:11 He said that's why I didn't want to come. 05:13 I knew you were soft on crime. 05:16 And that's why I refused. 05:17 I didn't want to come. It's not fair. 05:19 So he was the angry one. 05:21 He was angry. 05:22 And God says, "Do you have any right to be angry?" 05:26 He said, "Look you felt pity for this plant." 05:31 And Nineveh is a city of 120,000 people 05:34 and lots of cows too, by the way. 05:36 And they don't know their right hand from their left. 05:40 Shouldn't I have mercy on these people? 05:44 Our God is a gracious God. 05:47 He loves to show mercy to people. 05:50 This finds an echo in the New Testament, 05:53 the story of the prodigal son. 05:55 When he comes home, there is somebody angry again. 05:59 You know, older brother doesn't want to eat the meal. 06:02 Doesn't want to welcome him home? 06:04 Spits it in his father's face he says 06:07 he wasted all your money on prostitutes. 06:09 And when you come home, 06:11 you will give him the fatted calf. 06:13 And his father's response is, well, we had to rejoice. 06:16 He was lost and he's been found. 06:18 He was dead and he has come back to life. 06:21 Our God loves to show mercy. 06:24 Beautiful, beautiful story. 06:26 Now was there hope for false teachers? 06:29 Ah, that was the question we raised before. That's right. 06:32 These people are so terrible. 06:33 You think there's no hope for those folks. 06:35 You know, they're just the worse they could be. 06:37 Well, now look at verse 9 06:38 it says, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, 06:41 as some count slowness." 06:43 That's what we've already talked about. 06:44 "But is patient towards you." 06:46 There we are the patience of God. 06:47 He is not slow about His promise, 06:49 He's slow to anger. 06:50 That's why we can say He's not slow, He's slow. 06:53 "He is not wishing that any should perish 06:56 but that all should come to repentance." 06:58 All should reach repentance. 07:00 Now it's very interesting 07:02 the usage of the terms here. Okay. 07:05 Any, He's not really willing that any should perish 07:08 but that all should come to repentance. All right. 07:12 And just before that He says that God is not slow 07:17 about His promise as some count slowness. 07:21 So they have some, any and all. All right. 07:25 Some, any and all. 07:26 The interesting thing is that, in Greek, 07:28 the word some and any are the same word. 07:32 So some and some and all. All right. 07:34 So, I mean, we translate it properly by saying, 07:36 He is not willing that any should perish. 07:39 But when you say it that way you might misunderstand, 07:42 who this any is? 07:44 This any refers to anybody including those people 07:47 who are counting the Lord as being, 07:50 you know, He's not slow where some count slowness. 07:53 The false teachers are the ones that count, 07:55 the slowness, you know. 07:57 They say, no, He's taking too long. 07:58 It's been a big delay. 08:00 So the point of this passage is, this wonderful message is, 08:04 God is not willing that any should perish. 08:07 If you're sitting out there today watching this 08:10 and you think that God wants you to perish. 08:12 I'm here to tell you, you're wrong. 08:14 God wants you to be saved. 08:16 He wants you to come to Christ and find salvation, you see. 08:19 God wants no one to be lost. 08:20 No one to be lost. No one at all. 08:23 He wants everyone to be saved. 08:24 The question is will you repent? 08:26 You see, that is that idea of sorrow for sin 08:29 and turning away from it. 08:31 Ellen White talked about in the book 08:32 "Steps to Christ," page 23. 08:34 "Repentance includes sorrow for sin 08:36 and a turning away from it." 08:38 The problem with the false teachers 08:40 is they didn't have repentance. 08:42 That was their difficulty. 08:45 This verse 10, he talks about this thief. Yeah. 08:50 Why don't we read that again? Its verse- 08:52 "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." 08:57 Now why does Peter use this illustration as the thief? 09:00 Why does he get this idea? Yeah. 09:01 "But the day the Lord will come like a thief. 09:03 And then the heavens will pass away with a roar 09:05 and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved." 09:09 Well, not from the Old Testament. 09:10 The Old Testament thieves are, 09:12 you know, these are the kind of people that you punish. 09:15 But Jesus used the metaphor in Matthew 24. 09:18 We don't have time to look it up really. 09:19 But Matthew 24:42-44, 09:22 it said, "The Son of man would come like a thief." 09:24 Like a thief in the night. 09:26 And He will be unexpected. 09:28 Paul repeats to say it here in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3. 09:31 Concept of this thief originates with Jesus. 09:35 And it's that it will be unexpected, 09:38 the day of the Lord will come like a thief, 09:40 an unexpected coming. 09:44 Now concerning the second coming, 09:46 if Jesus is coming to destroy this world, 09:49 shouldn't that decrease our interest in this world 09:51 to preserve it as perhaps some environmentalist? Yes, suggest. 09:56 Yeah, well, it should decrease our interest 09:59 in the world system, 10:01 the wrong ways of the world, the immoral ways of the world. 10:05 But God has made us stewards over the world. 10:08 All right, He gave us the opportunity 10:10 to take care of the world. 10:11 Interestingly, in the Book of Revelation 10:13 it says that "God is going to destroy 10:14 those who destroy the earth." 10:16 So, you know, we ought not to be involved 10:18 with those who destroy the world either by immoral behavior 10:22 or by destructive practices that are not fitting 10:25 and do not preserve the environment. 10:28 We're supposed to take careof it till He comes back. 10:30 It is going to be destroyed by fire. 10:32 But we don't have the- we don't own this world. 10:37 God does and so He's made us stewards to take care of it. 10:41 Let's look at verse 12, Dr. Shepherd. Yes. 10:44 "Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, 10:47 because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire 10:50 and the elements will melt with fervent heat." 10:53 Actually that's a question that goes all the way 10:55 from verse 11, I think. 11:00 It starts, "What manner of persons ought you to be 11:03 in holy conduct and godliness looking for 11:06 and hastening the coming of the day of God," so on. 11:09 So what does it mean in verse 12 here, 11:11 where waiting and hastening for vthe coming of the day of God? 11:16 Yeah, these two don't seem to fit together to, do they? 11:18 You know, to wait and to hasten. 11:21 He says because the world's going to be destroyed, 11:23 what kind of people should you be? 11:25 He goes back to His typical way of talking 11:27 about a Christian life. 11:28 It should be moral, godly way of life. 11:30 He says you're going to wait for. 11:32 The concept of waiting for is like an expectancy, 11:36 to look for, to expect something to come. 11:40 It's all about looking forward to something. 11:43 It's the idea of the way this is used. 11:45 But hastening seems a little harder for us 11:47 to get a handle on. 11:49 The word is used in the New Testament 11:50 actually to refer to things that are done in haste. All right. 11:54 The shepherds go in haste to find the baby Jesus. 11:57 Zacchaeus is told to come down in haste 12:01 for Jesus to eat at his house. 12:03 So it talks about speed. 12:05 Doing something quickly and we tend to think, 12:08 how can you hasten the coming of Jesus? 12:11 Can we really do anything to make it come faster? 12:14 Well, here's the answer. 12:17 There's two different ways of looking at speed 12:19 in this passage. All right. 12:22 One is slow and one is fast. All right. 12:27 And that's really the key. 12:28 When Peter said that, God is not slow 12:32 as some count slowness to fulfill His promise. 12:35 He is patient towards you. 12:37 Not willing that any should perish 12:39 but that all should come to repentance. 12:40 Patient is slow to anger. He's waiting. 12:43 And what is He waiting for. 12:45 He is waiting for repentance. 12:48 So if you and I repent of our sins, 12:51 and we help others to do the same, 12:54 we help draw them to Jesus. 12:55 We help them to come to Him that can hasten the day of the Lord 13:00 because He's patiently waiting for people to repent. 13:04 So if everybody repents He doesn't have to wait anymore. 13:09 So that's how we can hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus. 13:13 Well, Dr. Shepherd, 13:15 this has been a very fascinating Bible study. 13:17 We are almost finished with 2 Peter. 13:21 We're not quite finished yet. 13:22 But we want to thank you for helping us. 13:24 And as we were saying if you have not given yet 13:27 your life to Christ, right now is the day. 13:29 Surrender your life to Him. 13:31 God has a plan for you 13:32 and He is still being patient with you. 13:34 May God bless you. We'll see you next time. 13:36 We ask and pray that you continue 13:38 to search the scriptures, for in it is the will of God. 13:41 We'll see you. Till next time, God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17