Climbing the Ladder: “Seven Imperatives for the Expectant Bride” – 2 Peter 3

 Many of you recall the lazy days of summer vacation as a child. I grew up in a large neighborhood – with literally dozens of children. Some of my earliest memories include “kick the can” games on the front street of our Billings Avenue home in a small town in south Jersey. We had an easy dozen kids on that block, and children swarmed the neighborhood. You recall the drill. One solitary child with eyes closed as children scatter during a countdown…. Three…two….one…“Ready or not – Here I Come!”

In a way, 2 Peter 3 is well captured by the picture of that childhood countdown, but this isn’t a story of a child – IT IS THE STORY OF A WAITING BRIDE. She has been chosen. She has his letters. She has her dress and her dreams… now she awaits her love. The Bible says that the bridegroom of the church is coming. He is our Savior and our coming love! Yet, it has been a long time. For some the thrill of the promise has faded. For others, they have become disillusioned by the voices of friends and family that have warned “He is not coming! It has been too long… it is time to move on!”

Peter wanted to counter a defection that could easily come in the midst of persecution and trouble by reminding early believers that their groom was coming as He promised. That message was meant to motivate the bride to long for her love so much that the anticipation would help them hold tight to the promises of the awaited love and keep herself for Him alone! He offered seven imperatives for the waiting bride that are as true in these days as ever before!

1: Learn to look closely at things in the daylight to check for authenticity (3:1).

1 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,  The first few days of the engagement it may be hard to sleep. The excitement is unbelievable! Yet, if the engagement is protracted over a long period of time, after a while the excitement can fade, and a sleepy disbelief that the big day will ever get there settles in. Peter used the term “stir up” in his purpose statement (di-egeiro: is literally “through awakening”) because he recognized the stupor that befalls the disillusioned. He wanted them to WAKE UP to the AUTHENTIC TRUTHS promised by her coming groom.

The term “sincere” (Gree – eili-krines: “judged by the sun light”) has the same derivative in Latin “sin” (without) “cere” (wax). Potters that discovered cracks in their wares after firing in the kiln were tempted to fill the cracks with wax and then paint over the finished product – hiding the impurity inside. The shopper needed to hold the pottery in the sunlight to discern any flaws that were being hidden by the shop keeper. As this text unfolds, it becomes obvious that some are deceitfully marketing and the wise bride is being cautioned to check for authenticity.

2: Measure the true promises by the true Word of God (3:2).

2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.

The benchmark of truth is found onlyin the confirmed promises of the groom. They were given to the bride to be POURED OVER, recalled lovingly, and believed. They were to change everything in her priorities and her demeanor. They were promised before His appearance by the grooms own chosen and distinct (i.e. holy) communicators. They were offered again when the Groom came -  and then faithfully communicated by men like the Apostle Peter.

The Word is the measure of the true promises – not simply the things people SAY about it. I am constantly amazed at people who are certain of the Bible’s many flaws, but they are unfamiliar with the story line, the culture or even the basics of real Biblical knowledge. They have concluded opinions that hold the weight of their eternal destiny based on an article of a skeptic or the criticisms of a professor, who when carefully watched will show himself to be a miserable soul. The Bible is under assault on many fronts of our culture. Consider the words of Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship, one of the true thinkers of the modern church:

“Secular humanism is institutionalized in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin entered Cambridge University to prepare for ministry in the Anglican Church, but was captivated by naturalist Charles Lyell’s theory of geological uniformity– the theory that the rate of earth’s upthrusts and erosions has been the same throughout history as it is today. This would mean the earth is millions of years old. On his trip around the world on the HMS Beagle, Darwin dated the biological specimens he gathered by Lyell’s theory of uniformity. He further speculated that all life forms have developed from a single source by adaptation and natural selection. The academic and scientific communities of the world today regard Darwin’s speculations as facts in spite of the fact that they violate the biological evidence and the known laws of science.

Why is Darwinism so popular? Julian Huxley says, “It frees us from our sexual mores.” Atheist Richard Dawkins says, “Darwin made atheism intellectually respectable.” Why do Bible believers consider it such a danger? First, because it denies God. Second, because it denies the deity of Jesus Christ. Third, because it destroys standards of ethics and morality. Fourth, because it leads its followers to hell according to the Bible. Christians should oppose it as a spiritual plague.”

The bride unfamiliar with the true promises of the Groom will become dispassionate and drift as other would be suitors lie about the promises she should be clinging to. It is essential that she read, re-read, and truly cherish the Words of the Groom.

3: Learn to unmask those who are set to trick you (3:3-4).

3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”

The term “mocker” (empaiktes) is from a root of a “trickster”. There is no doubt that such a person will arrive, and that they had, in fact, already made their voices known in the early time of Peter. In order to “unmask” them, Peter offers clues to their trickery and their underlying identity. First, he said they are “following their own lusts” (epithumia: through heat or passion). The idea seems to be they are led by SELFISH DESIRES TO FULFILL SOMEHTING WITHIN THEMSELVES. They was to be exalted, filled, pleased and important. They can’t help themselves! That description can aid the discerning bride – and can make a masked trickster easier to spot. They are not true SERVANTS.

Another way to unmask the trickster is to take careful stock in their words regarding the truth of the Groom’s promises found in His Word. They are asking, “Where is the promise (Peter used the term for a “summons” or “announcement”) of His coming (parousia: “official arrival” is used 24 times in the New Testament and refers to an official, Jesus, or even the “Man of Lawlessness” and their official arrival on God’s time table). Examples of the usage of this arrival can be easily spotted in Matthew 24:3 (“sign of your parousia”) and 24:37-39 (“so shall the parousia of the Son of Man be”). Paul used the same term when referring to the snatching away of the Bride in 1 Thessalonians 4:15.

4: Take careful note of what God has done and what He promises to do – especially in light of other’s denial (3:5-7).

5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

It is worth noting that the trickster attempts to question, and so to refute, the coming interruption of God with His creation. The language does not imply the trickster BELIEVES in the Creator or His work – only that they believe “from the beginning of all things” they have gone uninterrupted. It is worth noting how many believers are reticent to stand on the historicity of the flood, when Peter made the argument that a trickster’s work is to convince the bride to disbelieve even this record of the past.

Peter pointed out that the flood was about the past, and fire about the future. At the same time, both shared the conjoined idea of God’s Divine interaction with the world, and His Divine right to judge men. This is an idea that is absolutely rejected out of hand in non-evangelical circles. The re-shaping of God into a Divine genie that exists for our pleasure has taken the hearts of liberal Christianity. God is about HEAVEN, not about STANDARDS, JUDGMENT or HELL. Loving people cannot accept a God who intervenes and holds people to a standard.

5: Don’t misread the delay as impotence – He is heroically saving perishing ones (3:8-10).

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

Peter urged the bride to pay close attention to a truth that would help ease the pain of the Groom’s delay, particularly in times of distress and trouble. The Groom’s delay is, in part, because He does not judge time according to the same measuring device as the Bride. His timing is distinct. His plan is still operative – no matter if it seems He delays through a long veil of her sorrows.

A second truth can also offer comfort to the pining bride… His promise is delayed because He is assisting in the rescue of others. She awaits One who will be all the more honored and exalted, for He is rescuing others that are perishing amidst the time of His delay. She must take comfort that He will come – because He has promised. Yet, she must also gather strength from the admission that His very delay is to do the most noble of all things – to save those who cannot save themselves. He is not only her GROOM, He is her HERO!

6: Set your priorities by His promised coming (3:11-13).

11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Peter offered words to turn the heart of the bride toward action and transformation. She must awaken her heart, believe her Hero and change her perspective on her choices! The term “holy conduct” (agios anastrophe) is literally “distinct turns in the path of life”. He asks: “If the Groom is truly coming as our Hero and our Love, how should this affect the choices of my life — the turns I choose?”

He posits that the Bride should be eagerly looking for any sign of the Groom, rather than cozying up to life without Him. The Bride should DESIRE to be with her Groom, and not have her eyes drawn off to the delicacies of another. The Bride should be doing what she can to BRING ON the return. What can she do? She can share the message with others, for this will hasten His return. Other voices will mock His memory and defame Him through calling His promises untrue. She must loudly and yet tenderly proclaim His Words. She must not be ashamed when the mockers become loud. She must warn of the coming of the Hero that will judge those who are not ready to be His.

7: Let the anticipation of His coming encourage your purity and dedication – the best is yet to come!

14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Peter closes with a very specific call to the bride. She must be so careful (“diligent” is spoudazo: exert focused energy upon) to recall the promise of the Groom that she if lifted in her daily life by His promises. She cannot become disillusioned by the mockers, but rather she is called to “make every effort” to settle Herself in His promises (“peace”) and keep Herself pure and ready (literally “without discredit”) for the Groom. She is to be pleased with the thought of His delay, as He valiantly rescues others from peril. She is to believe what He has promised and stand opposed to those who do not confirm those Words.

There are those who “discredit”themselves. Some are “untaught” (amathes: without proper instruction) and others are “unstable” (asteriktos: LIKE AN ASTERISK – NOT AS SIMPLY PRESENTED).  They are NOT as they appear on the surface (you will need to read the fine print!). In both cases – the untaught and the inauthentic share an issue… BOTH of them “distort” (strebloo: TWIST) the Words of the Groom. They don’t share His mind, and perhaps not His heart. They are not to be trusted, so they must be guarded against.

Conversely, the Bride is to swell up in joy at the undeserved favor of her coming Groom. She is to take her stand on His side, even before He shows Himself. She must not fall away – for the best is yet to come!

· He has promised to supply every need of the Bride to accomplish His work: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus“. (Philippians 4:19).

· He has reminded her leaders that were afflicted – that His favor is enough to get the Bride through all: “(2 Corinthians 12:8-10). 12:8 “Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

· He has promised the Bride a way of escape when tempted will be provided: 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” Later Jude wrote: “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present your faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy…” (Jude 1:24).

· He has promised His Bride victory over death. Peter said earlier: “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all  witnesses” (Acts 2:32). The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: 15:55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 15:55-58).