Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - October 3, 2021

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on 2 Peter 3:1-13.

The word for today is “disappointment”. Why is disappointment such a blow to us? It means that something we looked forward to or counted on didn’t happen. For instance, when you were little, did you ever look forward to a trip and have it fall though? When I was nine, my parents told Jack and I that we were going on our first trip - a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Going on a trip to the Blue Ridge mountains was a big adventure for me. All spring, I was told about seeing the mountains. Mountains with rocky passes like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers galloped through. I could see myself jumping from a ledge down on some unsuspecting outlaw and being a hero to the Sons of the Pioneers. Thinking about all the fun Jack and I were going to have in the mountains, made James Madison Elementary in May almost unbearable. Finally June came and the wait was nearly over. Almost daily, my mother promised thrills and adventures only dreamed by other nine-year-olds. School let out and the plans hit maximum over drive.

The day of departure came. Jack and I made sure that our cap pistols were loaded with ammunition. Red roles of caps jammed our pockets as we filed into the back seat of our old Ford. Now that Ford had seen it’s hey day in the early thirties, but, it coughed and sputtered to life as my father pumped the choke and repeatable slammed the gas pedal to the floor. With the car shaking, I think with fright that it was leaving the safe confines of Norfolk, we took off down Route 460. Things were going great. Jack and I were busy preparing our guns for the onslaught of cattle thieves when all of the sudden, the car coughed, shook one last violent time and puffed to a stop. We hadn’t even gotten past Portsmouth when the Ford gave up the ghost. With a lot of cussing and banging under the hood, my father urged life into the old Ford. Afraid that it would have another fit of spite, my father turned the car around and headed back home.

Now, my mother had bragged to everybody about this wonderful trip to the mountains. She was a proud woman and wasn’t about to be shamed by not making it past Portsmouth. So, when we chugged into the drive way, she ordered my father to drive around to the back of the house. We were then ordered into the house where we spent the next two days out of sight and incommunicado. No answering the telephone are venturing outside. Days later when I was taken back to my grandmother’s house, my mother told her and all of my aunts and uncles what a great time we had in the mountains. All I could do was shoot Jack with a full role of caps.

Isn’t it hard when things that you plan on don’t take place? That’s what Peter is dealing with in today’s lesson. Christians had been looking forward to the return of Jesus and now time was passing and no Jesus. To make matters worse, some of their old pagan friends were saying how stupid they were for pinning their hopes on such a pie in the sky idea. Let’s see what Peter has to say about that.

2 Peter 3:1 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you 2 that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles.

Which letter is this? His second. This gives some scholars a good argument that Peter did write this letter because he calls attention to his previous letter. What is the purpose of this letter? To remind them. Remind about what? The author tells them to remember the commandments spoken in the past by the prophets and apostles. Last week I told you that some scholars believe this letter wasn't written by Peter, but another person about 75 years after Peter died. This is one of the scriptures that these scholars get support because the author refers to apostles as speaking sometime in the past as if the apostles had lived and died a long time ago.

While all of this may be confusing, for our study we are sticking with Peter as the author. By reminding them of things he had told them before, lets us know a little bit about how Peter preached. He believed in the value of repetition. Repetition is a funny thing. If people hear something repeated enough, they begin to believe it. Maybe it’s because we are so thick headed that we have to hear something over and over again to penetrate the rocky covering of our brain. Peter certainly felt this way. Actually, that is how most of us learned anything in school. Repetition, repetition - and what? Repetition.

2 Peter 3:3 First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers wii come scoffing and indulging their own their own lusts 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!

Peter is zeroing in on the problem of what had happened to the Second Coming that the Christians are dealing with. There were scoffers who not only didn’t believe in the Second Coming of Jesus, but, made fun of the people who did. What is a scoffer particularly in a religious sense? More than just being skeptical about religion, the Greek word used meant somebody who despised or ignored religion. Like Bill Maher on HBO. A few years ago, there was a letter in the paper where the writer claimed that God didn’t create us, we created God. The scoffers the author is talking about are still around. You see, a scoffer lives like there is no God. If God does exist, he doesn’t really do anything except cut down on the fun people want to have. What were the scoffers saying to the Christians in Asia Minor? What happened to this Second Coming you were promised? What were they really saying? “You were promised that Jesus would return. Do you see him here or any where else? Case closed.” Their argument was that the promise was so long delayed that it was safe to say that he wasn’t ever going to happen. Ever have somebody promise to do something and you wait and wait and he doesn’t come through? Finally, you decide that it it’s a lost cause. It’s like being left at the alter. Throw the wedding bouquet in the trash can, pack up the wedding dress and get depressed.

To bolster their argument they said, “All of your lives you’ve been told by your Dad that Jesus was coming back in his lifetime. Any day now and here comes Jesus. But, now all of the Dads are dead and still no Jesus. The world is going on just like at always has done. Nothing has changed.” You see, to them the universe was a stable place and stability couldn’t stand a convulsive upheaval like what will happen if Jesus’ returns. It would turn the world upside down like they were told.

These are the arguments made by unbelievers. If you really want to bring down a good idea, you make fun of it. You mock it. When you mock something, what does it do to the thing being mocked? It’s made to look foolish. Made to look dumb. If you believe in it, what does that make you? Foolish and dumb too. Sometimes the worse thing is that when you defend your belief, you are made to look naïve and out of touch. If you don’t believe me just listen to the jokes made by today’s comedians making fun of people who want our society to be more moral.

2 Peter 3:5 They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water 6 through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished.

Peter is going to take on these arguments. That’s just the way Peter was. Impulsive and ready for a fight. Remember, he was the apostle who cut the ear right off of the guard arresting Jesus in the garden. He says their argument is full of holes. They think that this world is stable. Well it isn’t and never was. The world started out as nothing but chaos. What did God do to create everything from this chaos? “God said -.”

When God started creating this world, it was nothing but a watery chaos. As he moved over the watery chaos, he said there should be land out of the water and sure enough there was land. The chaotic water was pushed back stored away. But not all water was chaotic. Some water was left to sustain the world by falling as raining and causing plants to grow and giving animals and us water to drink. When creation got out of hand, God spoke and released the stored up chaotic water and the world again flooded and it nearly wiped out all life. Peter tells the scoffers, “You say that things have always been as they are right now and that they will always be this way. Your hope is built on an unchanging world. The same water that had been tamed at the world’s founding and used to nurture the world was the instrument for it’s destruction.

A stable world? Not in my history book.” In our day and time, we know that the world is constantly changing. One of the biggest challenges for our time is global temperature change. No computer model can tell us what the world will face fifty years from now much less next year. One thing we know - the world will be changed. Chalk up a point for Peter.

2 Peter 3: 7 But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless.

All right Peter, if the world isn’t that stable place that never changes, what will happen to this changing world? Peter tells them and us that the ancient world was destroyed by water, but, the present world will be destroyed by what? Fire. And the same word from the same God that sent the water will send the fire. The idea of there being a future destruction of the world by fire did not originate with Peter. In fact, the Psalms and many prophets spoke of God coming in fire to purify the world. Is global warming part of God’s fiery end game plan? If it is, it sure is getting our attention.

In Peter’s time there was a group of people known as the Stoics. When we say someone is stoic, what are we describing? Someone who remains calm - who isn’t passionate about anything. You wouldn’t know if the person was busting with joy are hurting with unbearable pain by the way he looks. In the old days, Stoics were people who followed a philosophy that taught that virtue was the highest good and that men shouldn’t get all excited by what was happening around them or to them. They should be nonchalant and assume the philosophy “Why? Me worry?” like Alfred Nueman in Madd comix.

Stoicism was a very popular philosophy because you weren’t required to take any action on any problems that arose. They also believed in the world being destroyed by fire. But, they had a different take on this fiery destruction. They thought that the world was nothing but a continuing cycle - a wheel that kept on turning. It started, ran it’s course and was consumed by fire. But that wasn’t the end. After the destruction by fire, the world was re-formed. In fact it was exactly like the world that was destroyed. A person would forever relive their lives. At this very time in each recycle, you would be sitting in your favorite chair reading a study on 2 Peter 3:1-13.

Nothing would ever change. Every good and bad thing that ever happened to you, every mistake you ever made would be repeated, the same friends, the same places would still be there. Worse of all, the same old jokes would be repeated over and over again. There would never be any new thing happen. Everything would be repeated down to the smallest detail like the socks you are wearing right now. Is this a life you would want? It would be like living the movie Groundhog’s Day every day. It’s a pretty dismal future to look forward to.

Peter says that the fire will end the world as we know it just like the Stoics say. But, the world will be replaced with a new one; not a carbon copy of the last world. Not only that, we will be new creatures too. No more pain. No more sorrow. In fact, I will have a full head of hair in that new world and you’ll never have to diet again. For the Biblical view, there is something beyond destruction; there is an absolutely brand new creation by God.

Will the world actually be destroyed by fire? Scientists believe that a billion years form now, our Sun will begin to die. As it dies it will expand until it absorbs the earth in a fiery end. The Bible also calls for a fiery end and the possibility is certainly there at least according to our modern scientists. As far as we are concerned, it’ll be a billion years from now. We won’t be here when it happens.

2 Peter 3: 8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

In dealing with the timing of the Second Coming, Peter says not to ignore one fact. What fact? There is a difference between how God and humans look at time. The scoffers speak about what was said a generation ago. Peter tells them that they have a very small idea about time. Time isn’t the same with God as it is with man. When we think of a world that is millions of years old, our seventy or eighty years seems to be pretty insignificant.

Have you ever sat outside on a dark night and looked up at the stars? The dimmest star you can see is millions of miles away. But, behind that star are stars that you can’t see. And beyond the unseen stars is an expanse of the universe that continues to an end we can’t even conceive of. Even the Hubble telescope can’t see to the end of the universe. I sat one night and looked into the dark sky and tried to think about what I was looking at. An expanse so big, that I couldn’t imagine the end. For just a brief moment, the enormity of the universe exploded on me. I still remember being afraid of what I couldn’t see or understand. That is the difference between our time and God’s time. Our view is so tiny, so limited, it’s down right scary to even think of time in God’s terms.

Now that Peter has made his point about God’s time, he tries to explain why we want something to happen fast while God can afford to wait. For us time isn’t all that long. If we wait we might miss out so we have to have it now. God owns time and he can afford to wait and spend it any way he wants. And this is the great part about God and time. God can use time as an opportunity for us. What if God lived with time like we do and proclaimed that at 12:00 noon tomorrow he wasn’t accepting anymore Christians in New Jerusalem? We’d have to get our act together real fast. You see, because God isn’t on the same time table we are, he can wait for us to make our mistakes so we can finally wise up and be the kind of people he wants us to be.

Looking at it this way, God acting in his own time is an act of further grace for us. Why does God do this? Why does he insist on waiting? Because he doesn’t want to see us perish. He wants as many of us in New Jerusalem as that new city can hold. And if it’s too small, God will just speak and expand the walls and form new rooms. Where does that leave us Christians? We can believe that somehow and some time God who loves all of the people in the world will bring the whole world to himself.

2 Peter 3: 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements wii be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

We studied a few weeks ago that Peter equates the Hebrew Day of the Lord with the Second Coming. How does Peter say the Day of Lord or The Second Coming will come? Like a thief in the night. What’s the worst thing about vandals? You don’t know when they will strike. One year, I had Christmas lights strung all over the bushes in the front yard. Nearly every night, somebody would break a few lights causing all of the lights on a lot of strings to go out. It was frustrating because no matter how many times I looked out the window, I couldn’t catch them. They picked the time to strike and I couldn’t control that. Thieves and people who rob you do the same thing. They hit you because they set the time table.

Peter says that what happens with God. Nobody knows when he will pull the plug on this world and he has all the time in the world to do it. When it happens what will happen to the heavens? Pass away. Dissolved with fire. When Peter speaks of “the heavens’”, he is including all of creation. The heavens burning up - this seems like a scary time to me. And it is for unbelievers. Because it means that time has finally run out for them. God’s opportunity for sinners has come to an end. The interesting thing that Peter says is that not only will the world be destroyed, but, the heaven will be destroyed too. Why would God destroy heaven along with earth? God is wiping the slate clean and starting over fresh, both in heaven and on Earth. A new day calls for everything being new.

For Christians today, the Second Coming is a future event. We think that at the Second Coming, God will enter our lives. But, the truth is that God breaks into every life when we breath our last and die. That is the day we need to prepare for because on that day, we cannot change how we enter God’s presence. Whether it is alone or with Jesus at our side waving a plea bargain .

2 Peter 3: 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. 

Peter goes on to say that if the scoffers are right and there is nothing to the Second Coming; if it is a myth, a fairy tale, then there is no goal in life. There is nothing better to look forward to. If that is what you think, then in your view, life isn’t going anywhere. If there is nothing to come after this life, then you believe that you are nothing right now because nothing begets nothing.. If there is nothing to come after this life then you will be indifferent to what is happening to you. Nothing can matter very much if the end of everything is extinction. Like Peggy Lee sang, “Is this all there is?” If there is nothing to come after this life then that will produce a sense of lost in people. Why go to all the trouble of living if it won’t mean anything?

Without the promise of the Second Coming there is a nothingless void. But Christians have the promise of the Second Coming. They don’t know the exact day or year, but, it is coming. And when it comes, this tired old world and even heaven itself will be remade. It is going to be a world make over that will snap you to attention and fill you with awe. We will be home at last and Auntie Em, there is no place like home.

So, are we disappointed? Are the scoffers right and we are gullible? I was disappointed when we didn’t get any further than Portsmouth back there nearly eighty years ago, but, I got over it. I have spent a lot of summers since then riding through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Of course Jackie made me leave my cap gun home and refused to let me jump down from a ledge on her, but, other than that, it was always a great time. The real question that Peter is asking us today is what do you believe? Do you believe that the Second Coming is real and determines what’s in your future? Have you given up waiting for it to come? We answer Peter every time we think of a new home where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, just the sweetness of reunions with love ones who went a head of us and the peace and quiet of living on Moose Avenue in New Jerusalem, New Heaven.

Prayer: Father, thank you for the promise of the Second Coming. The timing is in your hands and when ever it is, it’s all right with us. Amen.