Second Last Sunday of the Church Year + 2 Peter 3:3-14 + November 19, 2017

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1)         Christ will return to judge the living and dead. The Lord promises this numerous times throughout the four Gospels. Today’s appointed Gospel lesson is one of those promises. Ever since Jesus ascended into heaven, Christians have lived in eager expectation of His return in glory. The New Testament even ends with the teaching of Christ’s return. The final words of Christ to St. John in Revelation 22:20 are, “Surely I am coming quickly.” When Christ returns He will take those who believe the Gospel to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. On that day, everything you have now by faith you will have by sight. St. John writes in 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” All who believe the Gospel are already sons of God, “for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). But on that day we will look like sons and daughters of God, no longer bearing the sinful flesh, but glorified flesh, no longer decaying and dying, but like Christ, never to die again. All of this He will give those who believe the Gospel in this life, those whom He justifies not by their works, but by faith in Christ as He promises in the Gospel.

2)         It has been almost two thousand years since Christ ascended. Nearly two millennia have passed since Christ’s apostles began proclaiming His promises to the world. It’s no surprise that many have given up on the idea that Jesus is coming back. But we don’t have to look around to see scoffers scoffing and mockers mocking Christ’s promise to return. St. Peter wrote his second epistle thirty years after Christ’s ascension and warns of scoffers and mockers. He even quotes them! “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” There is nothing new under the sun. As it was in the first days of the Gospel, so it is now in our age. The scoffers Peter quotes have their argument and their motivation. The argument is that Christ promised to return in glory, He has not returned in glory after nearly thirty years, therefore He will not return to judge the quick and dead. These mockers choose to believe that time will go on as they’ve always experienced. Spring, summer, fall, and winter will continue to cycle through their rhythms as they have done for millennia. “All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation,” they say. But their motivation is their lust. Peter says that “scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts.” The denial of Christ’s return and the desire to walk in lust go hand in hand. The easiest way to justify one’s sinful actions and desires is to write off the final judgment. If there’s no final judgment, but only cycles of endless ages, then there is no need to repent and turn from sinful actions and desires. If there is no punishment, wickedness will abound. So it was in Peter’s day, thirty years after the ascension. So it continues in our day, two thousand years later.

3)         Peter combats the blasphemous belief that there is no final judgment by reaching back in history to the first age of the world. “For this they willfully forget,” he says, “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.” To those who deny the return of Christ in glory to judge the quick and the dead, Peter holds up the Great Flood during the days of Noah. In those days the Lord saw the great wickedness of mankind “and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). He would judge the sinful world for its rampant and continual wickedness. He gave mankind one hundred and twenty years to repent of their sin and get clean hearts through faith in the Seed promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15. Yet they did not repent. Only Noah found favor in God’s eyes, for Noah believed God’s promise. The Lord said in Genesis 7:1, “I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.” Men are only righteous in God’s sight through faith. This is how the author of Hebrews writes it: “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7). The world mocked Noah. They laughed his family to scorn. They despised the promised salvation and chose instead to follow their lusts. For their unbelief they perished in the flood. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the end of the age, when Christ returns to judge the quick and dead.

4)         Peter also points out that the scoffers and mockers of Christ’s promise misunderstand the Lord’s purpose in delaying His return. These unbelievers assumed that because it had been a mere thirty years since Christ’s ascension, the statute of limitations had expired on His promise, just as many today claim His promise is false because He has tarried for two thousand years. The Lord does not work on our schedule or timetable. Time is irrelevant to God. He is outside of time. He made time in Genesis “in the beginning.” Peter writes, “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.” He is not saying that day is a thousand years as theistic evolutionists imagine. He reminds us time is nothing to Lord. What seems long to us is but a moment to Him. “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.” His delay, which is only a delay from our perspective, is for the purpose of mercy. He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” He wants men to repent. He wants sinners to be sorry for their sins and regret doing them. He wants people to confess their sins so that He might forgive them and remove the guilt of sin. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but wants everyone to repent, turn from the sin, and believe the Gospel that in Christ there is mercy and the forgiveness of every sin. Christ does not dely. He demonstrates His mercy and longsuffering toward us poor sinners.

5)         Though He seems to tarry, the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and all that we know, the world and its works shall be burned up in fire. Peter then asks us, “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God?” In light of there being a final judgment, how ought we to live? In light of the fact that this world and all its works “will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat,” what manner of persons ought we to be? The scoffers and mockers deny Christ’s promise so that they may more freely walk according to their sinful desires and lusts. Don’t do that. Instead of indulging in sin that will only heap wrath upon you on the Last Day, turn from your sins. “Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). Strive against the sin which so easily entangles your heart, your eyes, and your lips. Sin is best fought by daily meditation on the Ten Commandments and repentance. This is why Christ delays returning, so that you might repent of your sins and believe the Gospel that He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). He promises to forgive our sins when we confess them to Him, for He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is how we fight sign. We repent of it. We believe the Gospel that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Then we fight against that sin when temptation arises from within us or from the world. Having our sins daily forgiven we strive no only to abstain from those sins, we also strive towards “holy conduct and godliness” which means we strive to live according to the commandments both outwardly in our words and deeds and inwardly in our hearts and minds.

6)         And we ought to do so in joy, “looking for and hastening the coming day of the Lord.” We can’t make Christ come any sooner by our life of repentance and faith. The text is better translated “looking for and eagerly awaiting the coming day of the Lord.” The Day of Judgment is not a day to fear for the Christian. It is the day of salvation when we are judged not according to our own righteousness, but according to Christ’s righteousness. The thought of the end of all things shouldn’t cause our hearts to despair, for on that day the new heavens and new earth shall be made for us, a world in which there is no sin or death or sadness of any kind. You do not need to worry whether you will be sheep or a goat on that day, for God justifies sinners through faith in Christ and not the works of the Law. Works are simply proof that faith is living. That’s why the sheep in the Gospel text did not expect to earn their salvation by their good deeds. They were not even aware of their good deeds. Rather they did those good deeds because they were righteous by faith. The coming day of the Lord is the Christian’s hope. It is the day in which the sons of God by faith will be shine with the radiance of Christ at His transfiguration and our sonship will be finally seen. “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.” You are made ready for that great and glorious day through faith in Christ, for only by faith in Christ are sinners reconciled to God. Only by faith in what Christ’s merits and atoning death are you cleansed from every spot of sin and blameless in God’s sight. This is the reason that you can look forward to that Day. It is the Day of your final salvation. Amen.


May the peace of God, which passes understanding, guard your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Popular posts from this blog

Feast of the Holy Trinity (John 3:1-15)

The Ascension of Our Lord (Mark 16:14-20)

Quasimodogeniti, the 1st Sunday after Easter + John 20:19-31