THERES A GREAT DAY COMING!
December 11, 2005 PM
Sermon Outline
2 PET 3:8-10
INTRO: When I was a boy, we often sang for the invitation song Theres A Great Day Coming. In the chorus is the question are you ready? are you ready?. On one Lords day morning a little girl in the row of pews just behind me said loudly, Im ready! That just about broke up the people who were within earshot. My mother had a very hard time continuing to sing and keep from laughing aloud. Well, there is a great day coming. In our text it is described as the day of the Lord. In scripture that expression usually refers to Gods judgments. So, yes, there is a great day of judgment coming. The appropriate question in light of that fact is this: are your ready for that day to come?
1. Gods calendar is not like ours
a. at v. 5 Peter had referred to the deliberate forgetfulness of scoffers
b. in their belief in uniformitarianism they did not acknowledge the flood
c. and they were not acknowledging the coming of the great day of judgment
d. there was one thing Peter wanted his readers to remember vividly
e. Gods calendar is not like ours!
f. Ps 90:4 - scripture had revealed this fact for many, many years
g. God is not bound by space and time as we are ... He sees with a perspective we lack
2. Gods promises are kept
a. true, God may well delay the coming of the great day
b. but not for the same reasons human beings might delay to keep promises
c. for us passing time allows forgetfulness, change of plans, change of circumstances, indifference, etc.
d. and we have a tendency to judge God by our own limitations, standards
e. a problem here? Eccl 8:11 (do we tend to become complacent, negligent?)
f. a historical lesson? Ex 17:14 with 1 Sam 15:1-3a - several hundreds of years had passed between the offence and judgment ... but God did not forget
g. Isa 46:11 - ...I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass...
3. Gods patience has a purpose
a. scoffers mistook Gods longsuffering for neglect or indifference
b. to the contrary, His patience had a very serious purpose, reason
c. Gods desire is that no one should perish ... but that all should repent
d. Ezek 18:30-31 - the implication of 2 Pet 3:9b is that repentance would be toward God ... toward obedience ... toward change of life
e. notice, too, 1 Pet 3:19-20 with 2 Pet 2:4 ... it is apparent that the patience of God, the waiting of God, while the ark was being built provided a time for the preaching of Noah
f. does not this passage, then, speak of the great need for evangelism?
g. for a lost world the evangelistic interest of the righteous is the only hope ... should we not have the same desire, attitude as did Noah?
4. Gods patience will have an end point
a. the day of the Lord will come - brother Woods notes that the verb will come is in the emphatic position in the Greek text (p. 186)
b. no matter what scoffers may say, this is going to happen!
c. when? Mt 24:42-44 ... like a thief ... unannounced
d. 1 Thes 5:1,2 - Peter certainly would have recalled Jesus words ... and knew what Paul had written ... even John (Rev 3:3) wrote of the thief in the night coming of the Lord
e. on that day there will be no place to hide, not place of safety on this earth
f. the material universe shall melt with fervent heat
g. all of the works of men, as lasting as they might have seemed, shall be burned up
h. this picture of what will happen exceeds even the that of the great universal flood ... at least then the earth and universe remained ... and the ark carried Noah safely
i. how all of this will be accomplished we are not told ... and speculation is idle
j. but it will come ... this end point to Gods amazing patience
CLOSE: Yes, there is a great day coming. So, when the roll is called up yonder, will you be there?
Cecil A. Hutson
11 December 2005