Hello everybody. Good evening. Let's take our seats at this time. For those of you guys who are over there by the cafe, please make your way over to your tables and in one minute we'll get started. Okay? Okay everybody. Please join with me in a word of prayer as we start off our evening Bible study.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks. God, each opportunity that we have in the midweek to gather together, we praise you for. Lord, help us to really glean from this and to be able to focus on you, to learn from your word. And God, as we fellowship with each other, trying to share our observations, applications and more, I pray for the time of fellowship, God, that it would truly be edifying to our faith, that God it would spur one another on and that it would truly be fruitful.

We also pray, Father God, that the topic that we're studying through 2 Peter, there are very, very sobering and heavy things. And I pray, Father God, that we in wisdom would be able to receive it, not to push it aside because it seems too much or because it seems so far off, but exactly the opposite.

God, that we would look more intently at your word, readying ourselves both mentally, spiritually, in every way for all the things that you have in store. We thank you again for tonight. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Please go ahead into discussion. We'll see you guys back near 8 o'clock.

Okay everybody we're going to enter into a time of going through the passage together. So if you're in the rooms please make your way out and we'll go through the passage together. Fire! Everybody who is in the room let me say a short prayer for us as we cover the passage.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you God for the scriptures and we pray now that as we cover the text, we look at words, we look at the sentences, we pray for both understanding, a proper interpretation, a desire to come as close as possible to the precision of what you intend for us to know, and then God grant to us conviction, a level of conviction that will truly shape the way that we interpret our lives, the world, other people, and more.

And I pray God that you bless us through your spirit with this. We thank you God it's in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, so as we take a look at this passage I want to do a quick review by reading for us the previous section. So in the previous section, last week on 2 Peter, it said, "This is now beloved the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.

Know this first of all, there is the command, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking following after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.

For when they maintain this it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which, meaning the word of God, the world at that time was destroyed being flooded with water." Okay, as I give a brief review I want to point out to you that essentially he wanted us to be ready that there will be mockers in the last days who will deny the return of Jesus.

Asking in a mockery form, where is he, where is he? And they deny the return of Jesus primarily because they want to excuse and make provision for their lusts. It is difficult to argue theologically with somebody who has an agenda in their heart to purely be right to give themselves provision so that they may sin because they love the darkness.

And then the content of what they say is that everything has happened just as it always did, meaning God is not going to intervene. God is not going to be judging us. He's not going to come in and change and radically do some kind of intervention kind of thing to us.

And so from there there's the mockers who will come and say this stuff and then we were looking at our passage starting primarily at the end of verse 5 and 6 and then into this portion here and it says, "But by his word the present heavens and the earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up." Now I always like to write out an actual summary of the passage that I'm studying and I encourage you to do the same.

Basically just saying that Peter is writing the second time, just showing the importance of it, to remind the church of the importance regarding the end times. They should expect mockers to come denying the return of Christ and the church must know that God is being patient but will bring his judgment by his powerful word.

It is certain. And so when we look at chapter 3, verse 7 through 10, our passage today, there are counter arguments that Peter is giving to those who would be mocking. And his counter arguments are, "You are ignorant of the fact that God's word is so powerful he created, God's world is so powerful he flooded and judged, and God is so powerful in his words that he will burn everything from heaven and earth." That's the judgment that's going to come.

So this little portion that we're looking at is Apostle Peter's counter argument. And that would be the best way to summarize what's going on in the passage. As you know, as a look ahead, the next portions that are coming up are going to be the application of our future expectation of how that should impact our godly living.

And that's the study for the next time. So we're essentially hitting a transition point, going towards the push for this should be your holy living because of all these things you know. Here is my color-coded outline, okay? And we'll walk through this together and just like Pastor Peter does from week to week, we'll just stay on this so that we can meditate on the elements of the passage.

Now, as I look at this passage, I want to show you something, which is that sometimes when you look at the biblical author, they're so organized and they give you little markers that show you how they're kind of highlighting their points. And what I noticed was that every time he used the word "but," there was a thought that he was using here.

This is highlighter. I want ink. And just over here, as you notice with these markers here, these markers to me highlight very clearly if I was breaking this down to just be able to chop it up into absorbable themes, these three is what I would be using. Clearly here, it is still in verse 7, the continuing thought as to how central the power of God's word is, that with his making the argument that God, that Christ's return is so certain, how do you know?

Because of the power of his word, yes? And that's why last time we talked about how verse 7 probably should have been connected with the previous section. So what we're looking at then is the power of his word as a theme. What's more here in the middle, when he talks about "but, do not escape this notice," the fact is God's relationship to time, he's not slow, but instead he's patient.

So I would start this, I'll start up here, start his word, and then over here in verse 10, in contrast to that, he says, "but will come like a thief in the night." So he's still talking about timing, but what he wants to push is this idea of God's timing about the day of the Lord.

So, just as a brief, like, if I were to, in an outline form, summarize what's happening, I would section it off in this way, that verse 7, it's his word about heaven and earth being reserved for fire, verse 8 and 9, the Lord is patient, and then verse 10, describing to us what the day of the Lord is going to be like.

Okay? So coming back here then, let's take a moment and walk through some of the major themes within this text. So, we start with this idea of God's word, and we describe how, if we're getting the point across from this, the flow of thought, then we should be thinking, the argument is that the main thing is the power of his word, created, judged, and then the next verb is reserved.

Okay? And so what we'd be kind of meditating on is, that's really interesting, that even within creation, we meditate on the power of God. The power of God is incredible because they will say, "Ex nihilo," meaning, out of nothing by his word, God created. Yes? But also, by the power of his word, creation is being sustained.

So if you read Colossians about Christ's power, the world was created through him, it was created for him, and all that is being currently sustained, the reason why it's not going out of orbit, the reason why that gravity isn't going the opposite direction, all that stuff, is that the sustaining power is God through his word.

Okay? And then we could take a moment to ask this question, "Huh. How should we think about that?" Like, I'm not even sure if I can really grasp what that means, that by the power of his word, God is reserving the heavens and the earth. And the reason why I underline this, because all my underlines, I just try to think about what's everything that he's going to be judging, right?

And later on, we'll discuss that it's heavens, elements, earth, it's works, basically everything. Heavens and the earth, it's a literary device called merism that tells you everything holistically. This is cosmic judgment. Yes? What does it mean to have it be reserved? Okay? And it be reserved for fire. I hope you guys got a chance to just ask that question and discuss it.

For now, what we're going to just leave at this is to say, if we understood this argument then, is to say, it's really incredible that by the promise and the word of God, all of these things from both the creation through water, through the judging of water, but also the judgment through fire, that all of these things are going to be certain.

I think that if we're kind of thinking about, like, the attacks of our enemy in our day, and the attack of, you know, Satan towards believers and nonbelievers, there's just a simple question of, did God say or did God not say? This was the case from the very beginning at the Garden of Eden.

Did he say? Did he really say you're going to die? He didn't say you're going to die, right? But that's also basically the temptation and the kind of threats that will come to us all throughout Scripture in the Old Testament, and that will be the question that will come to us here and now, too.

Did he say that we have to do it this way? Did he say that this is going to be the consequences? And our enemy will always cast out to say, did he really say that? Okay? All right. One of the things that I want to do is focus primarily on verse 8 and 9, because from there the transition is, but do not let this one fact escape your notice, that what the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. I do want to explain a little bit about my color coding, okay? The reason why I want to focus the majority of the attention and time on verse 8 and 9 is because if you look at where is like the, I guess, emphasis, I guess, in any given paragraph, what would be the main thing, so to speak?

Well, sometimes the emphasis comes by way of command, right? And so for me, every time I see something like do not, like this right here, I always highlight in purple, because those are the commands that I want to make sure that I get and I say, okay, I need to meditate on what is He exactly expecting me to do, what does it look like, and why is it important for me to do that?

Well, what's really interesting about this, He says, do not let this escape your notice, okay? And previously we mentioned that this was the sin, actually, of the mockers. If you think about the sin of the mockers, we mentioned that previously from the sin of the mockers, they intentionally ignored, okay, all of the things that we just mentioned earlier, that it wasn't just the, oh, oops, they were intentionally trying to turn a blind eye to the fact of what God has already done in His creation power and His judgment power, right?

And for them to say then, where is He? It's always been like this. They're ignorant of this incredible, incredible truth. And likewise, then, His command is basically don't be like the mockers who ignore the power of God to create and judge. You, and especially you as a believer, don't be ignorant of the fact that God is actually not slow.

And the reason why I highlighted these then in red is because if I'm thinking about a conviction about where I can go wrong in my theology is I will never, ever say Christ is not coming, because then I'd be a heretic. But suddenly I could assume it's so far off I don't have to worry about it, right?

I don't even have to suddenly believe that. I could just be in a state of constant assumption that it's not my generation. It doesn't concern me, right? The world has to go out. This has to happen. Da-da-da-da-da, right? And there is this idea, too, of it can go both ways.

One, you can be frustrated like, gosh, God should have been coming now, right? Where is He? Why didn't He just do it? Or on the flip side, you could be so set on the agenda that you have now that you want Him to be far off, okay? In either case, if there is an opportunity for us to be convicted about areas of our own common fallen nature, areas where we can be deficient, it's this idea of we could just like the mockers be ignorant of a certain fact purposely.

What's more, we could just be under the assumption that He's not going to come. One of the things I want to highlight here is when He is talking here about what's going on, there is clearly this idea of the timing of God that is dictated by not just simply robotic clockwork machine, but by His patience.

And so, obviously, it doesn't go far to say everything that is of God's grace and mercy is highlighted as green, right? But I want us to think and meditate on that for a second that God is so exacting. Here, I want us to highlight this idea of timetable. Sorry, I hope you guys can read that.

Timetable, okay? And just for visual graphic, there's a clock. Because if you think about timetable, our table was, our group over here, we were just kind of meditating on the fact that sometimes we do hypothetical alternate universe scenarios. Yeah, what if God decided to, like, you actually had generations and seasons when the known world became Christian, right?

Early on. In Constantinople, all this, like, early on, large swaths of the earth population, superpowers had become Christian. Then you go to Europe and all this kind of stuff, Catholic church, whatever it may be, everything used His name and it affected everybody. And so I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people at that time that wondered, could this be it?

As soon as they saw the downturn of the Christian culture in their era, probably wondering, could this be it? Of course, God must judge now, okay? But also we kind of wondered, man, if God already knows His elect, He knows who are His, couldn't He have done it earlier?

And it's a strange question to ask. You know why? Because if you think about it, God is so exacting. He is not a forgetful God. He is not a God who sweeps things under the rug. He is mounting for Himself the kind of vessel and cup in which He will pour out the vessel of His wrath.

And what's more, He is so exacting that all of the elements of when certain things will happen, the fulfillment, like, the filling up of the sins of the pagan nations, etc., each thing came to pass. And yet, if you think about it, patience is dictating His timetable, not the exacting nature of judgment like clockwork, right?

And if you think about it, man, if we meditate on the patience of God, it's pretty incredible because just the Old Testament alone were so many cyclical fashions of people saying, "God, we're for you. God will obey. Failure, failure, failure." And then even after that time, to think of all different generations that came and passed.

I want to read to you a passage from Joel 2, verse 13, that talks about this idea of rending our hearts to God, but that He says, "Now return to the Lord your God, because He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting from evil." Right?

And so if we're meditating about the characteristics of God, we should be meditating on this idea, like, Scripture many times describes our God as a long-suffering God. Yeah? Scripture describes God as a God who is, in this passage in Joel 2, verse 13, that He is slow to anger.

So this is, again, such a contrast of the various characteristics of God, and in this way, God is so unique and so good. He is a God who is so righteous, right? That His judgment is going to be precise, exacting, and certain. That's what the passage is saying to us.

The promise of God that's for the future is including the promise that He will give out and dish out justice according to everything and everybody that deserves it. But also, we see here that God is so patient towards us that He's giving time. And this time that He has both includes then the reserving yes for fire, but also we're reminded that Scripture, the book that we study here in 2 Peter, told us, "Guys have confidence.

God knows how to save, and God knows how to judge." Okay? So I wanted to make sure to highlight that as something to kind of meditate on, on the various characteristics of God. Okay? And then, therefore, in the last portion, if we're kind of breaking it up into segments, in the last portion, He says, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." Okay?

So what's interesting is then we should be asking, "Do I understand?" You know what? I'm just going to go ahead with green from here forward, okay? I thought it was going to be cool with color coding, but it's just wasting time. Verse 10, it says, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." Even though that term is just a contrast, He is using it like indicators of His thoughts.

I should be asking, "Do I understand the contrast He's making?" Clearly, according to just the argument and the flow of thought, He was contrasting the markers who are saying, "Jesus is not going to come, because look, look at history. Everything's the same." And He says, "But you don't remember the power of God's Word." And by the power of God's Word, He has promised that there is going to be judgment.

And then He says, "But don't forget that God, like you see it in your eyes like slowness, like it's just never happened. But to God, the reason why there is this time is there is a patience of God, okay? And that to me has always been the solution to the problem of evil.

When someone says, "How can a good God allow all this evil to happen?" I always say, "If you want exacting justice, God can do it now. The moment you lust, the moment you lie, the moment you sin, God is simply giving you time. And don't be fooled. The kind of exacting justice you want, it's going to happen.

It's just a matter of time, right?" And then He says, "The reason why I bring that up is because I think that's how He's introducing the idea of like, 'But that last day, that judgment day, that day of the Lord that's going to happen, it's going to come like a thief in the night.

And it's going to be incredibly all-encompassing. It's going to include the heavens, the elements, the core principles, the building blocks, the kind of ideologies of the world, all of the earth, its works, all of it is going to be burned up." Now, there is something for us to meditate on here, which is, why everything?

Like, I think nowadays there is this newfound interest in restoration. I don't know how many Facebook videos I've watched, watching some guy out in like the rural parts of the, you know, third world countries trying to restore some rusted axe. I don't know how many Facebook videos I've watched where they're showing me somebody just restoring this old pool or something like that.

And there is just this, I think, infatuation with reusing something and wanting to have something that's restored, right? Well, that's not God's agenda, is it? Clearly, God has in His plan and design the complete, utter destruction of what we see now. And you've got to take a moment to meditate on that.

Like, why? And for me as a Christian, then how does that influence how I view everything that's so good and beautiful here? Shouldn't we be looking at creation and saying the heavens declare the glories of God? Yes. But also I know all of it is going to be judged.

And what's more, I want us to kind of think about this idea here as a final closing thought is, I kind of wondered, so today, some summary themes. And then, so it's kind of some meditation is like, I don't know. Do you guys experience mocking in any way? I started asking myself, He's preparing us for mocking and persecution that's to come.

And then He wants us to be certain of these truths. God is powerful. His word is sure, never to be doubted. Judgment is coming, but I also trust the patient heart of God. I have confidence, yes? And then I started thinking, of course. How many times have people come to you and said, oh, you know, Christianity, oh, hell and brimstone, fire and judgment, right?

They're mocking you. Why do you have to be so down and negative? And then what's really interesting about that is even though we're supposed to be courageous and strong, that typically makes us kind of shy back. It's like, no, no, we're not all about hell and judgment. We're all about grace and love, which is actually all true.

But this passage is so explicitly emphatic, top and bottom, verse 7 and 10, that all the heavens and earth as we know it is going to be destroyed. And then the other part of it is God has reserved, which literally means He is laying up or storing up, He's saving.

He has intended that certain objects would be for His wrath. Yes? And so as we think about that, it's like, yeah, if we say this stuff just outside and out loud, we're going to look like either conspiracy theorists or we're going to sound like hell and brimstone preachers. And there's a question like, am I ready for that?

Am I able to explain and articulate that truth with a kind of conviction and certainty? Not only am I not ashamed of it, it is for sure going to happen. Don't let it escape your notice. Don't try to ignore it. And so that's kind of a strange thought to leave on, but I think it's important for us to realize in terms of what is next on the timetable of God, all of the Old Testament, when you start reading it, it starts pointing to from even just the first five Pentateuch to the major prophets and the minor prophets.

All of the Old Testament has been pointing this way to the judgment that's going to come. Just for the sake of reading one of the Old Testament passages, I want to read something for you that's, I guess you can say, quite scary. Isaiah 13, verse 6 through 11, it says, "Wail." Okay, Isaiah 13, 6 through 11.

It says, "Wail, for the day of the Lord is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore, all hands will fall limp. Every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified. Pain, anguish will take hold of them. They will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at each other in astonishment, their faces aflame.

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation, and He will exterminate its sinners from it." That is an incredibly frightening text, yes? But that has been the warning sense of old. And actually, just about every single New Testament book, including 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, it has been preparing us that what's next on the timetable of God isn't greater peace and security.

It's warning, warning there's going to be greater devastation, greater sin. And people, this wicked generation, just like every other wicked generation, is storing up God's wrath. It's a sobering thought, but it is a reality. And we've got to learn how to both articulate it. We've got to learn how to react to it.

We can't go over, but we have to have an appropriate reaction to the fear of God. Amen? Okay. So, the discussion question for you guys are these. One, in the long paragraph of verse 1 through 10, there's a lot that's been said about God's power, intent, relationship to time, inner desires, and more.

So, what truths are you thinking and meditating on? Number two, mockers are going to say, "Man, God is incredibly ineffective. If he desires for all to come to repentance, but the gate to heaven is narrow, how can we best articulate God's desire to save with the reality that the majority will be judged?" If he says, "I desire that none perish, but all to come to repentance," how are we supposed to articulate the reality that there's actually only a remnant?

Number three, God is cosmically patient in that he didn't burn the whole earth sooner. I want just an opportunity, he says, "God has been patient with you, so how has he been patient with you?" Any personal stories would be good. And then number four, in evangelism, how appropriate is it to share about the future judgment to come?

What is the appropriate level of fear for the believer as a response to the truth that the entire earth will be burned? Okay? All right, let me take a moment to pray, and then you guys can enter a time of more discussion. Father, we want to say to you, God, that when we look at passages like this, we get the full gamut of the experience and emotions.

Lord, you're so merciful that you're patient with vile sinners, and you have been for generations. You have been blasphemed, accused, mocked, and belittled, and we know just how powerful you can react. But Lord, you don't just simply react to man, but you operate by your intention, by your own economy, and your own timing.

And for that, we praise you and thank you. And also, Lord, we experience just in this short passage the extreme nature of the judgment that's going to come, and it causes awe and fear and wonder. And I pray, God, that we would have then both of these thoughts of you, Lord, because these are elements of your character and what you will do.

Help us to recognize the severity of our Lord, but also the incredible grace. We thank you, Lord. It's in Christ's name. Amen.