Do Not Fear the End Times Part 45: Wait for it ….

The LORD isn’t being slow, He is being patient! He wants to give everyone every chance He can for us to change our hearts and lives. He wants us all to change our ways. He wants to give us all a chance to experience His love and the personal walk with Jesus Christ.

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Previous End Times Post

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Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another End Times post.

Today I have another in-depth read-through of Scripture, like what I wrote for 2 Timothy 3:1-9 in Part 29.

Today’s post is on 2 Peter 3. We’re going to look at that chapter, and go through the content verse by verse (well more like passage by passage). It’s a close reading of this passage related to the End Times. The End may seem slow or delayed, but it’s not. It’s coming in God’s time, not ours. So we’d better stay ready for it, not believing the lies of the world meant to shake our faith.

So let’s not waste any time, and let’s dive deep into 2 Peter 3.

2 Peter 3

I quoted 2 Peter 3 in the previous End Times Post, the part that says a thousand years is like one day to the LORD. The point of that being the Day of the LORD is not slow or delayed, but it’s coming in God’s time.

1 and 2 Peter were written by Peter the Apostle, rather than Paul.

Today I’m looking at the entire 2 Peter 3 except for verse 1 and 2. The whole chapter explains and repeats the one message I have for today. Before going through 2 Peter 3 verse by verse, I’ll start by quoting the whole thing (except for verse 1 and 2). Here it is:

(3) Most important, know this: in the last days scoffers will come, jeering, living by their own cravings, (4) and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? After all, nothing has changed—not since the beginning of creation, nor even since the ancestors died.”
(5) But they fail to notice that, by God’s word, heaven and earth were formed long ago out of water and by means of water. (6) And it was through these that the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. (7) But by the same word, heaven and earth are now held in reserve for fire, kept for the Judgment Day and destruction of ungodly people.
(8) Don’t let it escape your notice, dear friends, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day. (9) The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives. (10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.
(11) Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, (12) waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. (13) But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
(14) Therefore, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found by him in peace—pure and faultless. (15) Consider the patience of our Lord to be salvation, just as our dear friend and brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, (16) speaking of these things in all his letters. Some of his remarks are hard to understand, and people who are ignorant and whose faith is weak twist them to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.
(17) Therefore, dear friends, since you have been warned in advance, be on guard so that you aren’t led off course into the error of sinful people, and lose your own safe position. (18) Instead, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory now and forever. Amen.

2 Peter 3:3-18 (CEB)

The Day of the LORD isn’t slow or delayed. It’s coming in God’s time, not ours. Now let’s get into 2 Peter 3, verse by verse. Well, passage by passage actually.

Waiting on God’s Time

(3) Most important, know this: in the last days scoffers will come, jeering, living by their own cravings, (4) and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? After all, nothing has changed—not since the beginning of creation, nor even since the ancestors died.”

2 Peter 3:3-4 (CEB)

Peter starts off by warning us that in the last days, the world will mock us for believing in Christ’s return. They’ll see how long it’s taking, and say that Jesus isn’t coming. That nothing in the Bible is real, and our faith is a lie. These people are “scoffers.” They’re cynical and they will mock us (jeering) for our beliefs.

We will know these people are of the world because they live by their own cravings. They follow the whims of their own lusts and desires, whenever they feel them. Instead of practicing self-control, they sate their various appetites whenever they have them. Since they have no God, their own pleasure becomes their God. They seek their own pleasure above all else. This means they worship themselves, their own will, and their own enjoyment. This is a form of idolatry, which I wrote about in Part 33 and Part 40.

So these cynical mockers, who worship their own pleasure and live by their cravings of the moment, will tell us that Jesus lied. They’ll see the fact that He hasn’t returned yet, and ask where is His promised coming. They’ll say nothing has changed, that the world still works the same as it always has.

These statements are demonically-inspired lies, meant to shake our faith in Jesus and His return, right at the final moment. This is what the devil wants: For us to lose faith right at the very end, when we’re so close. For us to give up and stop playing right in the fourth quarter of the game!

Don’t listen to the devil! Don’t listen to his lies, spoken through his cynical, self-worshiping servants. We know Jesus will return because He promised He would. We can believe in His promise, because God never lies (Romans 3:4).

(5) But they fail to notice that, by God’s word, heaven and earth were formed long ago out of water and by means of water. (6) And it was through these that the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. (7) But by the same word, heaven and earth are now held in reserve for fire, kept for the Judgment Day and destruction of ungodly people.

2 Peter 3:5-7 (CEB)

In the next verses, Peter starts to explain where these people of the world are deceived. They don’t know, or don’t believe, that God’s Word created this world and God’s Word will one day destroy it.

Genesis describes the LORD creating the heavens and the earth, and the earth He made by bringing the waters into order. The sea and the waters represented chaos to the Hebrews. To them, the LORD taking command of the waters and forming the world represented Him conquering chaos and bringing order to it.

But this Word which formed the heavens and the earth was the same one that destroyed the earth in the Great Flood. This time around, the same Word of God will destroy heaven and earth again but with fire. So this is what the cynical, worldly, self-obsessed mockers of verses 3-4 don’t see. In this way they’re like the people of Noah’s time who mocked him for building the ark, only for them to die in the flood. These people will (and already do) mock us for waiting for the LORD’s return. But just like the people of Noah’s day, their destruction will come as a surprise for them. In this case, death by fire. Fire is the final destruction of the ungodly people.

(8) Don’t let it escape your notice, dear friends, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day. (9) The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives. (10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.

2 Peter 3:8-10 (CEB)

Here is the part I quoted in the previous post. Our human perception of time is nothing like God’s. To Him, a thousand years is like one day and vice versa. So in verse 9, Peter explains that the Second Coming of Christ isn’t slow and it isn’t delayed. It’s coming right on time—on God’s time. He will keep His promise, on His time, not ours. And why does He do this?

Verse 9, for me, is the most important verse in 2 Peter 3. The LORD isn’t being slow, He is being patient! He wants to give everyone every chance He can for us to change our hearts and lives. He wants us all to change our ways. He wants to give us all a chance to experience His love and the personal walk with Jesus Christ.

The LORD doesn’t want to damn anybody to hell. He will when He has to, but He doesn’t want to. Every soul, every person on this earth is precious to Him, even when we’re sinning. Even when we’re lost and walking without Him. Remember that Jesus comes to find the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14). And when we return to Him, He welcomes us back with unconditional love like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).

Heaven rejoices over every single sinner who changes their hearts and lives (Luke 15:7-10). So the LORD wants to give everyone on earth this chance. Every person who can and will be saved, the LORD wants to save.

Don’t get impatient for the LORD now, if you’ve already been saved. Don’t you want everyone to have the same gift of being saved as you’ve received? Everyone deserves that chance. Not everyone will take it, but everyone deserves it.

It falls on us, because of the Great Commission, to do what we can to spread His message to whoever we can. This ties in to verse 12, coming up next.

But He won’t stay His hand forever. This last chance has an expiration date, though we don’t know what it is. Verse 10 tells us once again that the Day of the LORD will come like a thief, when no one expects it. Then this world and the elements will be consumed in fire, and all things exposed.

(11) Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, (12) waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. (13) But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

2 Peter 3:11-13 (CEB)

Now, since we have faith in the LORD’s promise, what should we do while we wait? We must live holy and Godly lives. We must love and respect God by obeying his commandments. We must give Him praise and gratitude as we wait for His return. And we must evangelize, spreading His message and trying to reach as many as we can.

That is how we can hasten the Day of the LORD: By obeying God’s commandments and living Godly lives, and evangelizing as far and wide as we can. When everyone has decided if they want to be saved or not, then the Day of the LORD can come.

Then Peter once again says the heavens and elements will be destroyed by fire. But he also notes that this is nothing to worry about. The end of this world is the beginning of God’s new world, the beginning of His true vision for the world. This new world is described in Revelation 21 and 22. There will be no more tears, God Himself will live with us, and it will be true paradise. Peter describes this as “righteousness is at home.” This is what we’re waiting for—God’s new heaven and earth.

(14) Therefore, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found by him in peace—pure and faultless. (15) Consider the patience of our Lord to be salvation, just as our dear friend and brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, (16) speaking of these things in all his letters. Some of his remarks are hard to understand, and people who are ignorant and whose faith is weak twist them to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.

2 Peter 3:14-16 (CEB)

So while we wait, we have to obey live Godly lives by obeying God’s commandments. Yes, Peter does repeat himself a few times in this chapter, like any good teacher. We have to obey God’s commandments so that when Jesus returns unexpectedly, He finds us pure and faultless. This is the lesson of Luke 12, which I wrote about in Part 6. We need to always be ready. And that means reading God’s Word and obeying His commandments as best we can.

“Consider the patience of our LORD to be salvation.” I love that phrase in verse 15. The LORD’s patience, which seems to humans like a delay in His return, is a salvation of its own. What if the LORD had come quickly? If He had come any time before late 2019, I would have been damned to Hell when He appeared. So I for one am indescribably grateful that didn’t happen! Now I’m on a path following the LORD, and I have Hope for being saved when He returns. It’s up to me to live up to that Hope and to do what I need so that I’m still “saveable” on that final day—which won’t be easy! Sins are so tempting.

But anyway, know that this “delay” which is only God’s patience is a good thing. It’s salvation. Many people will be saved because the LORD chooses to do this. Hallelujah!

Peter mentions that Paul also wrote about these things. Then Peter gives a word against twisting Paul’s words (which are hard to understand). Anyone who twists Paul’s teachings or other Scripture to their own ends, twists them to their own destruction. We must read Scripture and accept what it says, even if we don’t like it. We must never twist Scripture to serve our own agenda or suit our own purposes.

If we do that, we do it for our own destruction as Peter says here. This is something the ungodly would do. Twisting Scripture is a sin that will be punished by our destruction. So we must not do it.

(17) Therefore, dear friends, since you have been warned in advance, be on guard so that you aren’t led off course into the error of sinful people, and lose your own safe position. (18) Instead, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory now and forever. Amen.

2 Peter 3:17-18 (CEB)

Now we reach the end of 2 Peter 3. Peter ends by once again giving his same warning: Live Godly lives, obey God’s commandments. We never know when the LORD will come, so we must always be ready. We do this by obeying His commandments, loving Him, loving our neighbors and our enemies, giving Him praise and gratitude, and spreading His message to the world.

We don’t want to be caught unprepared when He returns. We don’t want to be led astray, off the path, to the ways of sinful people. If we do we’ll lose our salvation. We don’t want to be deceived by the world, which is another of the devil’s traps. We need to be careful, very careful, in these final days.

But we have the ultimate ally on our side. We can stay safe by walking in the light, on the narrow path, together with our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. Instead of relying on our own guidance, which is a recipe for failure every time, we have Him to rely on. So let’s rely on Him!

Turn to the LORD now and seek Him out. He will come to us when we do, and He will guide us to a deeper relationship with Him. Then we can grow in grace and knowledge of Him, reading God’s Word and focusing on Him, focusing on Pious and Heavenly things. Focus on God in these chaotic, final days. Grow in the knowledge of God. That’s the safest way to be. He will come to us when we seek Him out.

(13) When you search for me, yes, search for me with all your heart, you will find me.

Jeremiah 29:13 (CEB)

Remain at the Ready

So that’s 2 Peter 3, minus verses 1 and 2. It’s a good read, and I hope you enjoyed my breakdown of it. The key messages of 2 Peter 3 are:

• The world will mock us that Jesus lied and isn’t coming back, because ….
• The end will seem greatly delayed, but it isn’t, because ….
• The “delay” is God being patient, because He is merciful and wants sinners to REPENT and change their ways
• So we must obey God’s commandments while we wait, because ….
• We don’t want to get led astray like the sinful world, since we never know when Jesus will return
• Seek the LORD!

Don’t be discouraged in the pain and chaos of the End Times. The world will try to shake our faith, mocking us that Jesus is never coming back. Don’t believe those lies, meant to shake our faith! The devil wants us to lose our faith, right at the endgame.

We know Jesus is coming back because He said He would. So we need to stay focused on that, and stay ready at all times. We need to REPENT, change our ways, and obey God’s commandments.

And we need to seek Him out. Who else can guide us safely through these final days? The LORD is safety. Seek Him out now, and He will come to you. We all need Him in our lives right now. We won’t get through these End Times without Him. But when He is with us, we have nothing to fear.

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Until next time, be strong and do good!

Your new best friend in Christ,

99:9

<<<EXALT THE LORD OUR GOD AND WORSHIP AT HIS HOLY HILL; FOR THE LORD OUR GOD IS HOLY>>>

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