Cecil B. DeMille was making one of his great epic movies.
He had 6 cameras at various points to pick up the overall action
and 5 other cameras set up to film plot developments involving major characters. The large cast had begun rehearsing the scene at 6am
and they went through it four times. Now it was late afternoon.
The sun was setting & there was just enough light to get the shot done. DeMille looked over the panorama, saw that all was right,
& gave the command for action.
One hundred extras charged up the hill; another hundred came storming down the same to hill to do mock battle. In another location Roman centurions lashed and shouted at 200 slaves who labored to move a huge stone monument toward its resting place.
Meanwhile the principal characters acted out their reactions on the hill.
Their words were drowned out by the noise around them, but the dialogue was to be dubbed in later. It took 15 minutes to complete the scene.
When it was over, DeMille yelled, "Cut!" and turned to his assistant, all smiles. "That was great!" he said. "It was, C.B.," the assistant yelled back. "It was fantastic! Everything went off perfectly!"
Enormously pleased, DeMille turned to face the head of the camera crew to find out if all the cameras had picked up what they had been assigned to film.
He waved to the camera crew supervisor. From the top of the hill, the camera supervisor waved back, raised his megaphone, and called out, "Ready when you are C.B!"
In our Scripture this morning Peter speaks when Jesus keeping his promises, specifically, that Jesus will return. He encourages us that even though people will mock this Christian belief, that Jesus keeps his word – in all areas of our lives, and that indeed Jesus will return, so live your life well.
"14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this,
(The return of Jesus) make every effort to be found spotless,
blameless and at peace with him.
We don’t want to be caught waiting, like the camera crew supervisor, we want to continue to live our lives well, even in difficult circumstances, as Peter has been addressing in the previous chapters.
In 1 Peter and in 2 Peter, the apostle Peter has been addressing the issue: How to live your life well, as a Christian in the middle of difficult circumstances. Here in the final chapter, Peter talks about the ultimate good news - The return of Jesus Christ.
For no matter what junk has been thrown at you in life, if we have given our life over to Jesus, in the end we will be with him.
So, when is Jesus coming back?
The Bible is very clear that no one knows when that event will occur.
But people throughout history have still tried and obviously, all have failed.
In the year 135 Montanus, a second century Christian, proclaimed himself to be a prophet and prophesied that the New Jerusalem would descend from heaven to earth and take root in what is now Turkey.
He was wrong.
In 204 a Roman Christian named Hippolytus records
that a bishop was convinced that the Lord was going to return immediately. He urged his followers to sell all of their land and possessions and following him into the wilderness to await the Lord’s coming. He was wrong too.
On the last day of 999 the basilica of St. Peter’s at Rome was filled with people who terrified as they expected the world to end. They were also wrong.
Starting in 1914 the pseudo Christian religion Jehovah’s Witnesses have predicted the return of Jesus so many times it is easy to lose count. I remember back in 1976 reading JW publication saying the end of the world was to be July 4th, 1976. I was rather upset about it, I thought I might miss the great fireworks display if Jesus came early in the day. The Jehovah’s Witnesses keep on predicting…perhaps they figure if they keep guessing…they may just hit it right. But they are wrong and will continue to be wrong.
Rev. Colin Deal published a book titled "Christ Returns By 1988 – 101 Reasons Why." The book was made available for a contribution of $5.00. He was wrong. But the good Reverend made some cash on his nonsense. In 1995 I actually found a copy of this book in a Bible Bookstore. It was in the clearance section. Two bucks.
There are many others in our day who keep predicting the day when Jesus will return. Usually, there is an exchange of money to find out the exciting details.
With all these nuts giving failed predictions, the result has made many who don’t believe, reinforce their unbelief. I’m sure God is pleased with that. Today, on the Web there are numerous sites mocking the idea that Jesus will return. They pretty much give the same reasons we see in the chapter before us today. It hasn’t happened yet, so it must not be true.
Before we look at this issue, I want to go to the end of the chapter and address a very important issue about the power of Scripture. Having your bibles open to Second Peter chapter 3….let’s look at the middle of verse 15, through verse 18:"just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this,
be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
I want us to note this:
The Apostle Peter not only knows the Apostle Paul, but has read his writings.Those which we have in our bible today.He admits hat they are difficult to understand. Apparently, the false teacher’s in the church are quoting Paul and misrepresenting what he has to say. But even though they are difficult, Peter implies that he agrees with what Paul has written. And not only that, he calls Paul’s writings scripture, by giving them the same level of authority as the OT Scriptures. So here we see an instance of the NT claiming that the NT is part of the Bible.
I run into pastors from time to time who say, “I never read Paul, his writings are in error”. The Apostle Peter would call them ignorant and unstable, for they are unable to see the truth of God’s word, that as Peter says – it is Scripture.
I start with this upfront, because I want to point out at the outset: this is serious stuff. The Bible isn’t just another philosophical book. Or another best seller. But it is true, from cover to cover. And what we look at every Sunday morning is not just religious musings. It is the real stuff. These words we read today, are really, the words of the Apostle Peter.
Every time I think about that – I am blown away. When I was at seminary, we studied the Scriptures in their original language, and studied how they were brought together in the form that we have today. It was nothing less than the hand of God bringing it all together.
What a gift we hold in our hands!
Many of our have been reading about the documentary, “the lost tomb of Jesus”, where a film maker claims to have found the tomb of Jesus, and you wonder, is the Bible really true? I’ll address this nonsense on Easter in three weeks.
So Peter, he is writing to people who are living in difficult times, and within their own church, we saw that last week, people are rising up and teaching that Jesus Christ is in fact, not coming back. And the people are losing hope.
Now what would motivate them to do this? The same thing that was their motivation in the last chapter. SIN. Remember, in chapter 2, the false teacher rejected the final judgment. If there is no return of Christ, there is no final judgment, and sin is not a serious issue. More than that, since Christians are wrong about the return of Jesus, other prophecies, and moral laws could be taken lightly as well.
Again this parallels what we saw last week. Again, Peter, rejects the false teacher primarily by their actions, then their philosophy. We see this in verse 3, "3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires."
The scoffer’s reject the doctrine of the return of Jesus by going after their own lusts. In other words, they want to justify their own sin either blatantly or unintentionally they want to keep acting the way they do.
So they create a religious philosophy that matches their lifestyle.
Remember last week we say that they got drunk at communion meal,
And then tried to pick up women during the meal. Amazing
Peter sees their immoral actions as a precursor to their philosophy of avoiding sin. Some of the Bible might be true, but not enough for me to change my lifestyle….
Their logic is exactly like we hear today – in verse 4. Basically they say, enough time has passed why isn’t Jesus here yet? Today we hear, it has been two thousand years, clearly Jesus isn’t coming back. This thought has been reinforced by the ignorant predictions made everyday. The serious, and very real return of Jesus becomes a joke, have you see the bumper sticker: “Jesus is coming back – look busy”?
But this isn’t new. In the OT the prophet Jeremiah was ridiculed in this way.
Jer. 17:15 They keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it now be fulfilled!”
Pagans of the day saw many Christians die as martyrs and proclaimed where is their God? These false teacher echo their cries, a very painful thing for the congregation.
The end was expected before all the Apostles die,d "4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” It was thought by many that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Of course we see this again and again throughout history. People seeing difficult circumstances around them and speculating that their time is the time.
So what calendar does God go by?
According to the Hebrew calendar it is the year 5767, not 2007. Though we say we are in the year 2007, there is no year zero, so it is really 2006. Plus our calendar is wrong because when it was first put together, it was off by four years. Jesus was born in 4 BC according to our current calendar.
"8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."
God is not bound by any dates. Ignorant people calculate these dates, and then the world mocks us by their foolishness.
Now we do see Jesus saying in matt 24:34, referring to his return:
Matt. 24:34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
This generation is taken by many to mean the generation that Jesus is speaking to, but the Greek grammar shows that Jesus is speaking of the generation that will see these things occu,r not meaning the current generation he is speaking to.
See, ultimately these false teachers are not just denying the return of Jesus, but, they are denying the very intervention of God. If God will not intervene at a particular point in history, why should he intervene in your life today? But Peter says, oh no, this is very real, this will happen. "9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness."
Psa. 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
God works on his own time, irrelevant of any calculations men may make.
Verse 5: Peter talks about water referring to the flood in the time of Noah – he parallels the flood in Noah’s time to the time when Jesus returns.
Flood marks the break of the world as it existed, and as it does now.
Jesus return will mark the world as it will be in the future.
The people of Noah’s day, thought Noah was crazy – remember it took 120 years to build the ark, and then their world came apart very quickly. This is why in verse 10 he speaks of the Lord coming like a thief in the night. We live our life normally and the thief takes us by surprise – so will the coming of Christ
And so Peter tells us – when it happens it happens. Live your life in a Godly way, whether it happens tomorrow or not
Let me end with this:
"When Spain led the world (in the 15th century), their coins reflected their national arrogance and were inscribed Ne Plus Ultra which meant "Nothing Further" - meaning that Spain was the ultimate in all the world. After the discovery of the New World, they realized that they were not the "end of the world" - they changed the inscription on their coinage to Plus Ultra - meaning "More Beyond." Which motto better expresses your Christian life - "Nothing Further" or "More Beyond"?"
