Book of 2 Peter - Ch. 3, Vs. 1-18 (12/08/2002)

The Third Chapter and the Misreading of Its Audience

The third chapter. This section of the Bible, this chapter, has been maligned, has been misrepresented. And they all take a person who goes through the third chapter very slowly, asking questions like this.

To the chosen people. To the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel.

And no testament was written to them. The saints. The saints. The church. And he's talking to the Beloved. What is that about here? Could it be the church? I would think, Brother Otis, it means to make you recall, to make you ponder on something, to think on something that could be said.

Yes, sir. Well, we all do. But the fact that you realize that means that you're on the right track. The true doctrine, holiness, the aims of the prophets and the apostles. And that's all we have. And if we didn't have the scripture, how would we know?

I don't know. Is it because God set the example when he destroyed the world the first time? When he did judgment with the flood? He set the example showing that he told him he was going to do it the first time, so we can just take it for granted.

If he said he's going to do it, he's going to do it. Well, that's true. But this judgment is spiritual. What I'm trying to put out there is that there has to be one. Otherwise we couldn't be responsible for our actions.

There has to be one.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit shows us. Yes.

How do we know that our judgment is coming? Is that what you're asking? Yes. The answers are right, but there's still more. Well, I think like the question you asked before, and I think Greg kind of hit it in with it.

You asked about accounting before. There's never been an accounting, so there has to be one. And there needs to be a judgment. There should be. There should be none. So they endeavor to find people to support them.

No, to follow up their own desires.

Well, he said he's going to come back, and he's not coming back yet. So they're really using it just to prove or discredit the Word of God, are they not? Yes.

But we didn't prepare for it until the night before.

That's our problem. You hoped for a catastrophe that you wouldn't have today, but you knew it was coming. Just one more day.

They say since the Father fell asleep, everything continues as it was from the beginning of creation. Yes, but they are ignorant. They have declared in the former version of the Word.

If you can drown everybody in a local flood in the whole world, that was something.

According to the Scriptures, it was like the sun.

The gases that are in the gases and so on.

You've got heat from below you or above you or anywhere else. As far as destroying the world by fire. Well, let's read a little more. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

God's Different Time Scale and the Promise of His Return

What's that mean, Craig? Well, if we can think of it that way. God's on a different time scale. And our long term doesn't mean a thing. Actually, he's not on a time frame at all. So our time here is meaningless to him.

That's right. Time is for man. But I assure you, then, that this delay, or apocrypha, just according to us, to our sense and attitude to things, for God does not measure time as we do. That's hard to realize, but he doesn't.

He says a thousand years is as one day, and one day is a thousand years. It means there is no time. It's a finite duration. There is any proportion. It's not a measure of time by our method, or cast up in years by our arithmetic.

God is outside of time. ...not slackness, but is long-suffering, to us a burden. Not willing that any should perish, but that we all should. There is the verse. His return promise is that he is coming.

Yes. He's coming back, and that's the promise for all believers. He doesn't count a thousand days, or a thousand years as the same time. Maybe that's included that he's long-suffering, and that this won't happen until after the thousand-year reign on earth.

I mean, that is a long way off. Does that point back, maybe, to that many things are going to happen before this total destruction, and eternity starts? Well, that's true.

His return. Believe it right there. His return. Because we don't... Okay. We don't know. His long-suffering. To who? To us. To us. Now, who's he talking about? Chosen people. He's talking about us. He is not willing that any should perish.

He's talking to us, and he's not willing that any of us should perish. All should come to repentance. Save us. His people. Out of this world. He's talking about the individual atoms. The word is taking off.

The atom shall burn all things from light, or things pertaining to light. ...concerning his promise. As some men's countenance, long-suffering to us, not willing that any of us should break the law. Seeing then to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conversations of the God of us?

What does it mean to dissolve?

To separate the molecules. You might dissolve something in water, and it's taking it like in a solid form, and separating them.

You didn't read verse 10. You tell me you don't.

Seeing that all of these things shall dissolve, the Father tells us to dissolve those too. ...just everything to a hundredth of the solid. Is he talking about fear? Fear? No, not really. He's talking about everything being broken down into, from their structure into just nothing.

All right. Seeing then that all of these things shall be dissolved, a person should be... ...same word as melt. So melt means to untie. Longer join together. ...this world and everything untied. Verse 12.

Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, ...fire shall be dissolved, untied, ...and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.

Not to be man's doings. I mean, we might have brought it all about, but...

...the elements, the very elements, ...the thing on itself will melt. ...his people, the Christians, ...for this life.

517. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, ...and the former shall not be remembered, ...nor come into mind.

New Heavens and New Earth, and the Call to Holiness

Wherefore, Taylor, ...seeing that he, and he is who? The church. His people, ...look for such things, ...be diligent that he...

...consents with us, each one.

...may be found of his spot, ...and blameless for his salvation, ...even as our, his people, ...beloved brother Paul also, ...for him to wisdom, ...given unto him, ...and written unto you, ...as also in all his epistles, ...seeking in them those things, ...in which are sometimes hard to be understood, ...which they are, ...which they are unlearned, ...and unstable, ...rest, ...and sufficed, ...as they do also the other scriptures, ...unto their own destruction.

Now, some of the Bibles, ...I say Bibles in quotation marks, ...his word is supposed to be different, ...all of these vowels, ...that King James uses, ...is a language that was just for the Bible. I was rather shocked when I found out ...that people didn't talk.

...seventeen, ...he therefore, ...each one individually, ...he therefore will let us see, ...he know these things, ...in that way.

It's past our understanding, ...it's just these hard things, ...we have to accept it the way it's going to be, ...but don't you think that we're going to have ...a thousand year reign on earth ...before this final judgment, ...but doesn't this come with the final judgment, ...the great white throne judgment, ...and then everything's destroyed?

I think we need to realize we cannot walk.

...in this wholeness or righteousness ...only in Christ. That's the main thing we need to get out of this.

...we've just studied, ...it's short but it's very powerful, ...and a lot of things in it ...are difficult to understand. Help us to see those things, ...help us to understand them, ...if you want us to.

...to learn these things well so we can explore them.