Rooted 9 - Remember

Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Two thousand years ago Peter saw "rough road ahead" for the church — and told us how to be ready for the day of the Lord.

Rough Road Ahead

This week my wife and I and our three oldest kids took a few days off to camp at Lake Powell with her parents, which meant an eleven-and-a-half-hour drive yesterday to get back here. As we drove I-40 west through Arizona, just outside Flagstaff, we came upon one of those big orange signs: Rough Road Ahead. Those signs are a bummer — it means slower going, more traffic, a less smooth ride.

Two thousand years ago, as Peter wrote this letter from Rome — believed to be the mid-sixties A.D., not long before his martyrdom — he looked at the conditions of his world and looked forward to the future, and he could see and prophesy: rough road ahead. Those aren't words we want to hear, but throughout Scripture we see this is the case. Jesus prophesied it in Matthew 24 and Luke 17. Paul warned Timothy and Titus and the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 of difficult days to come. We would rather see smooth sailing, but that's not the case.

His Final Words: Be Mindful of the Word

Peter writes, "I now write to you this second epistle." This could refer to 1 Peter, which we studied earlier this year, or to a different letter not preserved in the canon. Whatever the case, the point is his purpose: "in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder."

These words call back to 2 Peter 1:12–15, where Peter says, "I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things... as long as I am in this tent... knowing that shortly I must put off my tent." He saw this letter as his final word to the church. He twice calls them beloved — from agape, the highest form of love defined in 1 Corinthians 13. A person's last words carry weight. If you had only about a thousand words — roughly the length of this letter — to write your last thoughts to someone you love, you would labor over them. So Peter's parting exhortation is this: "that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of our Lord and Savior."

We must remember to be mindful of the word. Be mindful of the words of the holy prophets — those holy men of God who, as he said in 2 Peter 1:21, spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit — and the commands of the apostles, those sent by our Lord. The earliest church was focused on this. At its birth on Pentecost, Acts 2:42 says they "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine."

What "Mindfulness" Really Means

Mindfulness has become a trendy word in our day — productivity gurus and consultants talk about it, and you can even get smartphone apps for it. But mindfulness is really just the new word that has replaced meditation. The meditation popular today comes from Eastern roots and aims at emptying the mind, ridding it of distractions to attain self-awareness.

The meditation Scripture prescribes is wholly different. It is not an emptying of the mind but a filling of it with the Scriptures. Peter is saying we need minds full of the words of the prophets and the teachings of the apostles — full of the Old and New Testaments. At the time Peter wrote, he may not have fully realized that the words being penned by his brother Paul were becoming Scripture, though by the end of this chapter he refers to Paul's writings as Scripture. We followers of Jesus need to meditate upon, to be mindful of, the whole of God's Word.

Why Be Mindful of the Word

Why is this important? I can think of four reasons. First, because false teachers are among us. Jesus said wolves would come not sparing the flock; Paul warned of savage wolves; Jude said they creep in unnoticed. If your mind is not full of Scripture, you will not be conscious enough of its truth to combat the false teaching that creeps in.

Second, because our faith is built upon this foundation. Ephesians 2:20 says the household of God is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone." The doctrine we hold as truth comes from the prophets and apostles, so our minds should be full of it.

Third, because it is a path to blessing and fruitfulness. Psalm 1 says, "Blessed is the man... his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water... and whatever he does shall prosper." If you desire to be spiritually successful before God — and I assume by your presence here you do — the path is to meditate in His word.

Fourth, because of what comes next: "scoffers will come in the last days."

Scoffers Will Mock Our Faith

Not just false teachers — who come in secretly and covertly — but scoffers, who are wholly different. We must remember that scoffers will mock our faith. They did so in Peter's day. In Acts 17, when Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens and came to the resurrection of the dead, the philosophers mocked him out the door.

There is a specific kind of scoffing Peter foresees: "Where is the promise of His coming?" As the time gap widens between Christ's ascension and His return, the mockery escalates. Back in 2005, Greg Laurie — pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship — was on Larry King Live. When a woman called in about the second coming, Larry King stopped her: "You guys have been saying for two thousand years now that this is going to happen. Where is He?" — almost verbatim the words of Scripture, with that look of "come on, really?"

This is why we must be mindful of the words of the apostles and prophets — so we're not taken by surprise. Christians are mocked for their views on creation, on the last days (and we've given off plenty of fodder by saying wacky things), on heaven, hell, and salvation through Christ alone, on marriage, sexuality, and morality in general. We must remember this will happen — and Peter says such mocking is itself an indication we are in the last days.

We Have Always Lived in the Last Days

Based on passages like Hebrews 1:2 — "God... has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" — we have been living in the last days since Christ's first coming. From His ascension, recorded in Acts 1, when the angels told the men of Galilee, "This same Jesus... will so come in like manner as you saw Him go," until His return, we are in the last days. You could make a case we're in the last of the last of the last days, but we are certainly in them.

So when Larry King asked, "What about it?", Greg Laurie smiled and said with great tact, "Larry, we are two thousand and five years closer." That echoes Romans 13:11 — "our salvation is nearer than when we first believed." Like the apostles and the church in every age, we live in expectation of the second coming. That's why we say at Cross Connection we have an optimistic vision for the future — because our future is Jesus Christ ruling and reigning. It's hard to be optimistic looking at the news or the coming debates, but Jesus is on the throne.

A Wishful Mockery

The scoffers say, "Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." This is a strikingly modern argument that Peter hits two thousand years ago. It is the statement of the modernist and postmodernist mind: uniformity. Everything has flowed the same since creation, all the constants constant since the Big Bang. "I've got you," they think — "you say Jesus is coming in some cataclysmic judgment, but everything has just gone on normally for millennia."

But this mockery is really a wishful mockery — a sure hope that He doesn't come back. Peter says these scoffers walk "according to their own lusts," living after the very pattern of things God's wrath will judge. So it's in their interest to bury their heads in the sand. "For this they willfully forget" — another way to put it is they are wishfully ignorant — "that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water."

Our Faith Is Not Fiction

We must remember our faith is not fiction. Peter takes us back to the very beginning — the very thing scoffers are wishfully ignorant of. They say everything has gone on uniformly: the sun rises and sets, summer turns to fall, fall to winter, year by year, century by century. But Peter reminds us things have not always been uniformly continuous. God spoke everything into existence. Read Genesis 1 and 2: by His word He created the heavens and the earth, the earth without form and void, waters covering the deep, and by His word the dry land appeared. And by that same word in Genesis 6, 7, and 8, the waters came and covered the earth in judgment — the flood — and all life ceased except Noah and those on the ark.

The mocker says, "You believe this stuff? You probably think the world is flat." But Peter believed it. This shows us that two thousand years ago Peter firmly held to a literal creation and a literal flood. Why? Because he had met Jesus, who died on a cross and rose from the dead — and Jesus taught about Noah and about creation. "If Jesus believed it, and He rose from the dead, I'm going to take Him as authority."

God Will Be Just

"But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." We must remember that God will be just. By His word God spoke the earth into existence, by His word He brought the flood, and by His word He preserves all things as they are now.

The physicists at the CERN project on the French-Swiss border, with their particle collider, stand amazed at how everything is held together. Scripture says God preserves it by the word of His power; He holds all things together. The same voice that spoke the earth into existence and that spoke the flood is the same word by which the heavens and earth are reserved for fire until the day of judgment. God will be just.

One Day Is As a Thousand Years

"But, beloved, do not forget this one thing" — Peter's emphatic closing point. There's an anticipation here; this must be important. And then he gives us almost a poem: "that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

It's important to understand what this is not. It is not some Bible-code key to figure out when Christ returns. Whole books have been written this way — a day is a thousand years, He rose on the third day, so it's been two days, the third day is coming. No. Peter is simply saying God sees and experiences time differently than we do.

We understand this even at a micro level. I spent eleven and a half hours in a car with three young children yesterday, and it's very clear they experience time differently — an hour is like a thousand years to a six-year-old, even with an iPad and a DVD. Time is subjectively relative to age. I'm almost 37; one year is one-thirty-seventh of my life. For my seven-year-old it's one-seventh, so a week feels like forever. God has seen all time — He was there at creation, He has watched the thousands of years go by, He is eternal, outside of time. So when the mocker says, "It's been two thousand years, where is He?" — to God that's like a long weekend.

God Delays Because He Is Gracious

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." We must remember that God delays because He is gracious. The NIV says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise." He made a promise thousands of years ago through the prophets, and Jesus Himself said in John 14, "If I go... I will come again and receive you to Myself." He has kept every other promise; He will keep this one.

Some picture God in heaven with the key in the ignition, ready to push the button — but Scripture says He is not desirous that any be destroyed. How many of you are grateful Jesus didn't come back in 1981, or in 1988 as a book claimed, or at Y2K, or when Harold Camping said, or at the end of the Mayan calendar, or at the last blood moon? If He had come even five years ago, some of you would not have been ready.

One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 30:18: "The Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you." God is slow to anger and long-suffering. He waits and waits and extends grace to all who repent — "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." But we must not mistake His grace and patience for weakness, impotence, or indifference.

The Day of Judgment Will Come

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." When will it be? Jesus said it is not for us to know the times and seasons; that is in the Father's hand. Every time people have claimed to have it figured out, they sell a lot of books — until the date comes and goes and the books end up on a used shelf for a penny, inviting more mockery. Jesus said do not listen to those who say, "See, He is in the desert" or "in the secret place." When He comes, every eye will see it. It will not be secret.

We must remember that the day of judgment will come — and it will come suddenly, as a thief upon those who are not ready. First Thessalonians 5 encourages those in Christ that you will not be taken unaware. But the question at the end of all this is: are you ready for the day of His return?

Are You Ready?

As we'll see next week, verse 14 says: "Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation."

How can you be ready? Be diligent to be found in Him, in peace, without spot and blameless — by putting your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, who took all of God's wrath and punishment upon Himself on the cross two thousand years ago, so that you and I who trust in Him would be rescued. "For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:9). That's good news.

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank You for the good news that Jesus, You died for our sin according to the Scriptures, that You rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that through Your death on the cross You have made a way for salvation. Lord, I pray that every single person here at this moment would be ready for the day of Your return. But I know in a room this large there may be some who are not quite ready. If you want to receive the grace and forgiveness of God today — to be diligent to be found in Him in peace — receive it as a free gift by putting your trust in Jesus. Pray with me: Dear Jesus, I recognize that I have failed. I've not kept Your commands, and I need Your grace and forgiveness. Would You come into my life, forgive me of my sin, and help me to follow You by faith until I see You on that day. In Jesus' name, amen.