Sermon for the week of Trinity 25
Isaiah 49:12-17 + 2 Peter 3:3-15
Christians know that this world has an expiration date. But we don’t know when that date is. At some points in your life, maybe in your younger days, when you think you have many good things to look forward to here, you may not really yearn for the end of the world. At other times, the harder things get, the uglier the world becomes, you may be desperate for Jesus to come, wondering why it’s taking the Lord so long to keep His promise. St. Peter addresses that in the second Lesson you heard this evening, as he assures us that the Lord will come, gives us the reason why He hasn’t come yet, tells us what we have to look forward to when He does come, and reminds us what effect such knowledge should have on our lives while we wait.
First, the Lord will come, in spite of the scoffers who think that He won’t. Knowing this first, Peter writes, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” Peter foresaw, by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus’ coming would take a while. And he foresaw that scoffers—people who laugh at the idea of God—would come along and mock Christianity’s claim that Jesus will come again. He wasn’t wrong, was he? Jesus has taken a while. And those scoffers are now everywhere. Many of them are atheists who don’t believe that God is behind the creation of the universe at all, but that everything came into being by natural processes that can be explained by science and scientific theory. In fact, Peter seems to allude to that in the next verse.
For this they willfully forget: 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. They “willfully” forget how God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, by the power of His almighty Word. It takes willfulness to forget that, because the creation all around us screams, “There is a divine Creator of all this!” The order, the beauty, the complexity of life and of the laws of science themselves—all of it points to an all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal God. But because people deny God’s existence, and maybe more importantly, God’s right to rule over His creation, they have to find a different way for the universe to have come into existence, which they now call “evolution.” And, of course, they deny not only the creation of the universe, but also the terrible judgment God brought upon sinful mankind through the waters of the worldwide flood.
Men can scoff. Men can make fun of God, and of us who believe in Him. Men can spread the lie of evolution all they want, and deny that Jesus will come again for judgment. But what they can’t do is actually get rid of God, or stop Jesus from coming, or escape the judgment He’ll bring with Him against the ungodly and unbelieving. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. It’s only the word of God that continues to preserve this creation. He holds it up, keeps it going, keeps it running, and, yes, allows the suffering and the pain and the wickedness that the world is so full of. But God has made a reservation for the day of judgment, a day of fire, when everything evil and wicked and harmful will be burned up, and when every unbeliever will be sent, body and soul, into the eternal fire that was long ago prepared for the devil and his angels, as we’ll hear this Sunday in the Gospel.
But why does the Lord allow so much suffering to go on now? Why has Lord not returned yet to put an end to man’s wickedness? Peter spells it out for us: 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. Understand what that means. It doesn’t mean that God measures time differently than we do. It means that God views time differently than we do. He is outside of time. We view a thousand years (or 2,000 years) as a very long time, as if God were “taking too long.” God views it as if it were only a day. We view a day as a very short time. But to God, who has eternity to spend on each and every day, one day might as well be a thousand years. So we shouldn’t look at the time between Christ’s first and second coming as “long” or as “short.” In God’s estimation, it will be “just right.”
But here is why Jesus hasn’t returned yet: 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…and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. “Longsuffering” is a word we don’t really use anymore. “Patience” is the word we commonly use for it. But “longsuffering” does give us the original picture behind this word. God “suffers” or “puts up with things” for a long time. He puts up with mankind’s sins and wickedness, because the alternative is immediate judgment on mankind. When that judgment comes, it will be final. After that judgment, no one will be given any more time to repent, to see the error of his ways, to hear the Gospel, to believe in Christ, and to escape the eternal fire of hell. That judgment will come, and everyone’s time of grace will be cut off, when God’s patience, when God’s longsuffering runs out. And it will run out. And God knows how long it will be until it runs out. But God also knows that there are people out there, who have yet to be born, or maybe who have already been born, who will believe the Gospel when He sends it to them and join us in this Holy Christian Church. Thank God He was not willing to cut off this time of grace before you and I were born, or worse, before we had a chance to be born again of water and the Spirit. Instead, He waited a little longer. Consider, Peter writes, that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.
What do we have to look forward to when He comes? But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. That’s one thing we look forward to: the destruction by fire of this present universe. That destruction will come suddenly, unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. Everything you see, everything you own will be gone. Only mankind will remain. And as we already heard, the ungodly will remain only to perish in eternal fire.
But as for believers, Peter writes, nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. The prophet Isaiah wrote about these new heavens and this new earth. John also writes about them in Revelation. Jesus spoke of it as the “mansions” He has gone to prepare for His people, to which He will bring us when He comes again. This is the main thing we have to look forward to, a home of righteousness, a home with the enormous Christian family we barely see a fraction of in this life, and most importantly of all, a home with the Lord who has loved us and paid for our new home with His own precious blood.
What effect should such knowledge have on our lives while we wait? 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, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?… Beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot, and blameless. Christians are looking for Christ to return. Why would we want to be living in sin and filthiness as we wait for the One who is sinless and pure? Why, if we are children of heaven, would we want to live as children of hell? If we are waiting for eternal life with God, then let us rehearse for what that life with Him will be like, with genuine love, with heartfelt obedience to God’s commandment, with ears that are eager to hear His Word, and always with an eye toward the sky, yearning for our Savior’s promised return. Amen.
