2 Peter 3:1-13 [NLTse]
This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”
5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the Word of His command, and He brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then He used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same Word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the Day of Judgment when ungodly people will be destroyed.
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the Day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.
11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the Day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, He will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth He has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
Sermon
We’ve been reading the New Testament together as a congregation here in 2016. A week ago we finished reading through 1 Peter and began 2 Peter, and this past week we finished 2 Peter and started on 1 John.
These are all letters from the apostles: Peter being Simon Peter; John being the John of “James and John”, who were brothers, and fishing partners of Peter. Peter even goes so far, at the beginning of 2 Peter, to remind everyone that he’s not writing to them about things he heard from someone else. He reminds us all – his readers – that he was on the mountain when the Lord Jesus was transfigured and met with Moses and Elijah! These aren’t legends, he tells us! These aren’t fables! These aren’t even the tall-tales of a fisherman! He was there. He saw it happen. He heard God speak, “This is My beloved. Listen to Him!”
There’s an intensity about 2 Peter. After reminding everyone that he was there – a personal witness to such wonders and glory as the Transfiguration – Peter writes, “Therefore, I will always remind you about these things—even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught. And it is only right that I should keep on reminding you as long as I live. For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life, so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone.” (1:12-15)
History tells us that Simon Peter was crucified by the Roman government on account of living with the Lord Jesus as his king instead of Caesar. (“Caesar” was the royal title for the emperor in that day.) But Peter didn’t consider himself worthy to die the way the Lord Jesus did, so Peter asked if he could be crucified upside down.
In 2 Peter we see that the great apostle knows that this death is near, so he writes the letter as a last message to his followers, likely focusing on that which he believes to be most important for them to know and remember in the years to come when he’s gone. And what does Peter talk about? He warns them about false teachers.
Peter says, “There will be false teachers among you.” (2:1) So, it’s not a possibility, it is a guarantee. And notice that he says, “among you.” Peter is writing to the church, so he is not talking about New Age folks blogging or the leaders of other faiths on television. He is talking about people in the local church: False teachers will be the leaders and members of our local congregations!
You see, Satan is the counterfeiter. He has a false trinity and a false gospel being preached by false ministers that produces false Christians. And Satan plants his counterfeit-believers in the same place that God plants true believers: In the church.
You may think that such false teachers and Christians would be easy to spot in the church: Boldly twisting the Scriptures and speaking lies, on the one hand, or idiotic buffoons, on the other. But it’s never been that easy.
The famous 19th Century Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle recorded eight “symptoms” he’d been surprised to witness about false teachers in his day. He wrote:
“1. There is an undeniable zeal in some teachers of error – [and] their “earnestness” makes many people think they must be right.
“2. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge [among false teachers] – many think that such clever and intellectual [people] must surely be safe to listen to.
“3. There is a general tendency to completely free and independent thinking today [Ryle writes] – many like to prove their independence of judgment by believing the newest ideas, which are [really] nothing but novelties.
“4. There is a wide-spread desire to appear kind, loving, and open-minded [in our day] – [and] many seem half-ashamed to say that anybody can be wrong or is a false teacher.
“5. There is always a portion of half-truth taught by modern false teachers – they are always using scriptural words and phrases, but with unscriptural meaning.
“6. There is a public craving for a more sensational and entertaining worship – people are impatient with the more inward and invisible work of God within the hearts of men [and that makes them susceptible to false teachers].
“7. There is a superficial readiness all around to believe anyone who talks cleverly, lovingly and earnestly, [as false teachers often do] forgetting that Satan often masquerades himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).
“8. There is a wide-spread ignorance [concerning the Bible] among professing Christians – every heretic who speaks well is surely believed, and anyone who doubts [them are] called narrow-minded and unloving.”
Remember, Bishop Ryle said that in the 1800s when it took a huge amount of energy and effort to influence the masses. Messages were still mostly copied by hand, and teachers had to travel by foot or horseback. There were no cars or airplanes, websites, or Facebook pages. How much worse our situation today when just about every false teacher has a Twitter account!
Even so, just about anybody can recognize the difference between a true and false teacher and a true and false believer, if you really want to.
Faithful teachers and Christians tend to point their hearers to the Bible so we can see for ourselves what they are preaching and teaching. False teachers and Christians tend to want you to take their word for whatever they are promoting, often basing their arguments or debate on sources other than the Bible, such as scientific studies or popular opinion polls or the words and writings of well-known leaders.
For the true teacher and Christian, the Lord Jesus is at the center of life, truth, and absolutely necessary for salvation. For the false teacher and Christian, Jesus may seem important, but a careful listening shows other people, leaders, and ways of life also being critical or available for purpose and fullness of life, and that in truth, Jesus is out on the margins or only one savior among many.
The true teacher and Christian preaches and teaches to show and lead others out of slavery to sin and self-condemnation. The false teacher and Christian is a slave to sin and is stuck justifying or rationalizing what they do and why.
The true teacher and believer pursues and calls others to pursue goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love in all things and at all times. The false teacher and Christian is marked by arrogance and slander. “Trained in greed” and with “eyes full of adultery”, Peter writes. Eventually it becomes clear that for them it’s all about money, sex, and/or power.
Ultimately, the Lord Jesus tells us that we can always know the difference between true teachers and false teachers and true believers and counterfeit believers by their lives: “By their fruit you will know them,” Jesus said. So, do they remind you of Jesus? Do they stir up in you love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, trustworthiness, gentleness, and self-control? Do their lives reflect these qualities? Because these are the qualities that the Holy Spirit produces and spreads in a person’s life and through a person’s influence. So, if you don’t see these qualities in them or growing in you on account of their influence, then false seeds, foreign seeds, other seeds are being sown there and “Listener and Follower: Beware!”
Of course, the very best way to know the counterfeit is to master the original. So, read and keep reading your Bibles. (Even if it’s just a headings-worth to start with each day, or, of course, join us in reading the rest of the New Testament. This week’s readings are on the inside flap of our Bulletins.) Think about whatever you are reading and put it into practice in your lives. By doing so you will grow not only in the knowledge but also in the grace, of Jesus.