The Second Coming will happen
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2011 · 12 June 2011
We're about to start an interesting discussion. As we begin to study 2 Peter chapter 3 we come to a section of Scripture that we could well name, "The certainty of the Second Coming." The church has always lived in anticipation of His return to gather His redeemed people and to establish His glorious Kingdom.
It is true that the Second Coming has a tremendous potential for spiritual motivation in the life of the church, but it is also true then that Satan works very hard to deny the Second Coming. We always have had skeptics who felt it was their role to deny the coming of Christ. They say that it will never be any different, we'll just keep on living and we'll die and we'll go to heaven in an unending cycle.
If you were a seminary student particularly over the last twenty-five years and in some seminaries even today, you would recognize some false theologies that have influenced Christianity today. Some say, "The Kingdom of God comes by coming to the individual, by entering into his soul and staying in his heart. There is no Second Coming, there is no future Kingdom. It is only a spiritual reality in the present.
Others deny any literal Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They say, "Since the Lord did not literally return on the clouds during the thirties of the first century, to expect Him thus to return in the twenty-first century is contrary to primitive Christianity which is true Christianity."
Others call themselves Neo-Orthodox, and believe in a timeless eschatology in which the coming of Christ is no longer understood as a future literal return of Christ. They say, quote: "It is a timeless symbol for the endless earnestness of eternity in every existential situation," end quote.
This small group of men has had a lot of influence on modern contemporary theology in the church. And the bottom line is they deny the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The false teachers who were plaguing the believers to whom Peter writes are also plaguing the church today.
So as he writes this last chapter, that is what is on his heart. The first nine verses focuses on the debate regarding the coming of Christ in future judgment. Verse 10 affirms that judgment. Verses 11 to 18 talk about the implications of it on our conduct.
So Peter takes direct aim here at this debate, and it is an incredible passage. Now the debate has two sides. Side one argues on the side of the scoffers against the Second Coming; side two argues on the side of the saints for the Second Coming.
2 Peter 3: 1-4, “This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles.”
“3knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
“5For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
“8But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
In those nine verses we find this interesting debate. And while at first glance, such as we just experienced, there may be more questions in your mind than answers. As it unfolds it will become clear what is happening.
The scoffers start the question in verse 4, and the question is, where is the promise of His coming? Or, what has become of His promise to return? Or, to put it in a more arrogant tone: where is Jesus, all of you who said He would be back?
They doubt the truthfulness of the Word of God which they have read, because these false teachers are from within the church. They know the Scripture, but they are denying what has been written and what has been said by the apostles.
They knew what Jesus said in John 14:2-3, "I'm going away to the Father's house to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am there you may be also."
They knew the testimony of the angel given in Acts 1:11 who said, "This same Jesus who is taken from you shall so come in like manner as you've seen Him go." You saw Him go physically and that's how He'll also come back.
But so do the modern mockers and skeptics. They know what's in the Bible. And yet they call it a myth and take it out of the Scripture. They explain it away. This is an outright denial of the teaching of Christ and the teaching of the apostles.
Now their argument takes three forms, and we're going to deal first with their argument tonight and then we'll deal with Peter's rebuttal next Sunday. The first one is an argument by ridicule, beginning with verse 3. "knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming?”
This is intimidation by sarcasm and ridicule. This basically works on people who are emotionally unstable. In the early church they believed that Jesus was coming back very soon. Do you remember the questions of the disciples? "Will You at this time bring Your Kingdom?" "What is the sign of Your return?" They believed it was immediate.
You hear the Apostle Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, while he includes himself, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."
Then he goes on to say in verse 17, "Then we when Jesus comes who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air." And then in 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-2, "As to the time and epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you for you yourselves know full well the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." Their hope was that Jesus is going to return.
So Peter says to them, you've got to understand how the scoffers are going to attack, how they are going to try to steal your hope, because if they can steal your hope they can feed your flesh and they can take away your motivation and your joy.
So Christians need to know that Satan is going to make every effort to mock the Second Coming. Here we are two thousand years later and when the mockers say, "Hey, man where is Jesus? Where is He?” it is pretty intimidating stuff.
So Peter puts it in perspective. He says, back in 2 Peter 3:3, "In the last days," I need to comment on that phrase, it refers to the New Testament age. It just means the time after Christ, the entire time from the first coming to the Second Coming.
You remember in Matthew 24:4-5 that the Lord said this would happen also. The first thing the Lord says is, "See to it that no one misleads you about My return, for many are going to come in My name saying I'm Christ and mislead many."
Down in verse 11 He says, "Many false prophets will arise and mislead many." Over in verse 23-24, "There are going to be some coming saying, 'Here is Christ and there is Christ," and false Christs and false prophets arise and show signs and try to mislead if possible even the elect."
In fact, starting in the Old Testament you can find those who mocked God. You can go back into Isaiah 5:19, the prophets said God's going to judge them, and the mockers said, “Well then let Him have at it, let Him do it, hurry up, God, if You're really there and You're going to judge us, let's see You do it.”
Now notice the second argument, they go really beyond this and this is an argument they don't want to make but it's an argument from morality that Peter makes for them. 2 Peter 3:3, "These mockers will come in with their mocking and they are following after their own sinful desires."
False teachers who do not know God do not have the Holy Spirit that restrains their flesh. And so they are driven by passion because they want to pursue sensual pleasure without accountability and consequence. So they develop a theology to permit their perversion.
All of us have to give an account for our lives, and we're going to be rewarded on the basis of what we've done good or bad. So whoever has this hope will purify himself, right? But if someone doesn't want to be pure, they have got to get rid of any future accountability. So they think about grace, but never about judgment.
Let me give you something you might not agree with at first, but think it through. Liberal theology is not the product of intellect; it is the product of immorality. It is the direct child of passion. It is an effort to deny spiritual accountability.
They want to ignore the law of Romans 1:18, which says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. This shows up nowhere more clearly than in evolution. A notable evolutionists and denier of divine creation, divine intervention and divine judgment was Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley. He wrote “Confessions of a Professed Atheist”.
Huxley writes, “For me, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation I desired was simultaneously a liberation from certain political and economic systems and a liberation from a certain system of morality. I objected to the morality because it interfered with my sexual freedom."
2 Peter 3:4 is the argument that everything remains the same. "Where is the promise of His coming?" Ah, here comes their argument, "For ever since the fathers fell asleep all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." Everything is and will just go along the same way as it always has for billions of years.
They're really saying, "Cataclysmic events just don't happen. So since the first people died, since the patriarchs died, verse 4, "All continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." This is the argument of uniformitarianism.
Evolution says that there's no God, there's no change, there's no judgment, there's nothing. And you know what they say? It is the philosophy of constancy. Satan invented it from the beginning.
They would deny creation in six days, even though the Bible says that. They deny that the sun stood still which means the earth stopped revolving in Joshua 10:13 and nobody fell off. They would deny 2 Kings 20 that the shadow on the sun dial went backwards. They would deny that the Red Sea parted. They would deny that God ever stepped in to judge.
Evolution is the devil's tool to accommodate the immorality of sinners who will not come to God. If Satan can get people to believe in evolution, he has cut them off from effective evangelism. Evangelism is always based upon the Scripture.
And dear friends, we live in a pagan nation. Look at the world around you, doesn't it make sense that there's a God and I want to tell you who that God is. But if pagans are all convinced that all of this came out of nothing, that the formula for everything in the universe is nobody multiplied by nothing equals everything, then there's no bridge. Let's bow together in prayer.