Read with Me
2 Peter 3:8-10 (HCSB)
Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.
Listen with Me
Here Peter gives the appropriate response to those who scoff that it has been so long since Jesus promised to return that He is probably not coming back at all. They claim that it is a promise that has failed, and that that failure throws doubt on Jesus’ claim to be God in the flesh.
But Peter responds by telling the scoffers that God is not slow in keeping his promises, but that he is patient, not willing to pull the plug until everyone has had the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel. That is why God sent out all His people, not just the eleven apostles, to make disciples of all nations, to take the message of the gospel quickly to every part of the earth.
This is also what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 24:14, where He declares that the gospel of the kingdom must be preached in the whole world before the end will come. And it is what Peter is referring to in verse 12 (margin), just a few verses later, when he strongly intimates that God’s people are able to speed the coming of the day of the Lord. By getting the word out to everyone, it puts the return of Jesus that much closer.
By the way, some have taken Peter’s words that with God a day is like a thousand years to teach that the days of creation are each a thousand years long. Others use them to teach that the end of the world will come at the start of the seven thousandth year of the Earth’s history. But in this section of his letter, Peter is not talking about history in any sense. By saying that with God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day, he is simply using the concepts and vocabulary available to him to say that God exists outside of time, so the speed or slowness of his keeping his promises can’t be evaluated on the basis of earthly clocks and calendars.
But in verse 10, Peter assures us that, whether today or a thousand years from now, the day of the Lord will come, and everything in the universe will be destroyed by fire. That day will come without advance warning (See also 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4; Revelation 3:3, 16:15), and when it happens, the mouths of all scoffers will be silenced for all eternity.
Pray with Me
Father, it’s odd how many Christians “believe” that Jesus will come soon, but they live their day-to-day lives as if He is not coming back at all. In large measure there seems to be no sense of urgency about how they live their lives, no urgency to get their family members, and friends, and coworkers into the kingdom before the door snaps shut without warning, leaving those loved ones outside in the dark forever. Father, Jesus promised to return at exactly the right moment And, since You have never broken a single promise, we can know for certain that this one, too, will be kept to the letter. Help us, Lord, to live each day in positive anticipation of the return of Jesus, and to be diligently about His business every single day. Amen.