2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
There is something I wanted to bring up yesterday for which I didn’t have space then. In yesterday’s passage, Peter uses the term “Day of the Lord” in 2 PET 3: 10 and the term “Day of God” in 2 PET 3: 12. There has been some confusion on these terms, which Les Feldick has addressed in his teaching. Les makes the distinction that the Day of the Lord refers to either the rapture [1 THESS 4: 16-17] or Christ’s second coming [ZECH 14: 4-5], depending on the context of the Scripture in which it appears. The Day of God refers to what Peter was discussing [REV21: 1-3], that Day when the present earth and heaven will disappear, and the new heaven and new earth will appear. If you want to understand this better compare the same Scripture in several versions of the Bible.
Today’s passage, 2 PET 3: 14-16, [and later, 17-18] deals with the opportunity for salvation that we are given. “And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God’s sight and to be at peace with Him. Look on our Lord’s patience as the opportunity He is giving you to be saved, just as our dear brother, Paul, wrote to you, using the wisdom that God gave him. This is what he says in all his letters when he writes on the subject. There are some difficult things in his letters which ignorant and unstable people explain falsely, as they do with other passages of the Scriptures. So they bring on their own destruction.” Once again, it is helpful to put Peter’s writing in the context of the historical situation at the time it was written. The dispersed early church was dealing with horrific persecution from the Roman Emperor Nero. Understanding that the recipients of this letter were having their faith challenged helps us to appreciate why this letter was so necessary. Obviously, the specifics of our situation today are different, but the fact that our faith is being challenged makes the principles that Peter is teaching just as applicable to us today as it was to his original recipients.
Peter knew that these early Christians were being spiritually assaulted by false teachers just as we are today. In a previous devotion, we looked at how false teachers were discouraging them from waiting for Christ’s return, because it had been a long time and hadn’t happened yet. Here, Peter is reminding them to live a godly life holding on to their faith, because they don’t want to waste the opportunity that God has given them for salvation. We live in a world that offers many temptations for us to waver in our own faith. We are bombarded by media messages that our bodies are the most important part of us, and our worth is measured by how close to Madison Avenue’s ideal we appear or how much money we make. Prayer has been excluded from our public schools, despite the fact the our country’s founders made it clear that God’s teachings were a part of the documents they wrote. When President Eisenhower added the words, “under God,” to our pledge of allegiance, he was demonstrating remarkable courage of faith. Many leaders of modern society don’t make the point that we need to take responsibility for our own decisions and behavior. Remaining grounded in the word of God and holding fast to a dynamic, two-way communication with God through prayer is our best defense against these sinful ideas. 2 TIM 1: 13-14, “Hold firmly to the true words that I taught you, as the example for you to follow, and remain in the faith and love that are ours in union with Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Who lives in us, guard the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” That treasure is the Gospel.
Peter refers to Paul’s teaching in 2 PET 3: 15. Notice the point that Paul makes in RO 2: 4 when he is addressing himself to the hypocrisy then being demonstrated by traditional Jews claiming that they had all the answers about how to be righteous, which were all based on their genetic lineage to Abraham and practicing the set rituals of their faith. RO 2: 1-4, “Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have not excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself. We know that God is right when He judges the people who do such things as these. But you, my friend, do those very things for which you pass judgment on others! Do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or perhaps you despise His great kindness, tolerance, and patience. Surely you know that God is kind, because He is trying to lead you to repent.” That last verse really reveals the question the Peter is bringing to the surface. Peter wants those who read his letter to know that the consequences of abandoning their faith and thus, wasting the opportunity for salvation that God has given us, will be dire. That is why he comments in 2 PET 3: 16, “So, they bring their own destruction,” when referring to false teachers.
Over and over again, God and His Son have reminded us that we are to love the Lord and to love each other [LV 19:18, JN 13: 34-35; JN 15: 12; RO 13: 8-10]. Part of that is answering the question: are we our brother’s keeper? Peter was demonstrating the kind of love that the Lord has commanded us to have when he took the responsibility to write these letters in the first place. Moses, John, and Paul did too in conveying the warnings in their writing. So, I believe the answer to the question above is a resounding, “yes,” as long as the expression of that love follows the model that God and His Son have set for us.
Peter and other Scripture writers have done what they could to describe the attributes of a false teacher. In my own writing, I feel that responsibility too, although I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to compare myself to them. When a teacher takes Scripture out of context, when his teachings are based on a human agenda (for example, acquisition of donations or personal aggrandizement), or when his teachings depart from those of God, we need to be warned that we are in the presence of a liar. We need to know that that false teachers are often subtle in their approach, often offer something for nothing, and often make false promises. They often take partial truths and plug them into man-made constructs to make them sound plausible. They will go to their own destruction and will try to bring as many people with them as they can.
Let me close this series of devotions with 2 PET 3: 17-18, because Peter’s words are better than my own. “But you, my friends, already know this. Be on your guard, then, so that you will not be led away by the errors of lawless people and fall from your safe position. But continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory now and forever!”
PRAYER: O Lord, by the greatest sacrifice ever made, that of Your Son on the cross, You granted us the greatest of all opportunities. That is the opportunity to be saved and to work through our sanctification toward our eventual glorification. Peter’s message in today’s passage is that we shouldn’t waste that opportunity by abandoning our faith in the face of challenges to it. We should heed this warning well, Dear Lord, because our eternal life with You and our inheritance of the Kingdom is at stake. You know that we are constantly subjected to the temptations and sinfulness of false teachers. Because You love us so much, You have provided a way for us to be equipped to distinguish their lies from the truth and to fend them off. That can only happen if we make You the Lord of our lives though Your Son Jesus Christ. The path You have laid out for us isn’t easy, but it is an path that remains open to us if we will seek You out and follow it. We dedicate ourselves to doing that and humbly offer You our thanks, praise, worship, adoration, loyalty, trust, obedience, and glory. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I will begin a new series of messages based on PS 68, A National Song of Triumph, which reveals both an interesting period in Israel’s history and remarkable attributes of God. The Psalms are a very special part of the Scriptures which have blessed my life enormously, demonstrating the extraordinary love our Abba has for us. I hope to write a lot about them in the future. Know His love for each of us is profound and feel the warmth of His loving embrace today and always. My husband, Peter, and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn