Do turn back with me in your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3, which is on page 1019 of the Church Bibles.
!
And at first hand, it seems frankly a bit silly and a bit flippant, a bit of a waste of someone's money to put these things on the side of the bus.
It's a slogan dreamt up as a comedian, and perhaps we might be tempted to just laugh it off.
But I think, perhaps accidentally, perhaps really quite knowingly, that slogan touches on something fairly deep, doesn't it?
It's something that's been gnawing at mankind for a very long time.
There probably is no God, you can't stop worrying and enjoy your life.
There's two parts to that statement, aren't there?
The first part is a kind of pessimistic scepticism.
There probably is no God.
This is it.
There's nothing left after life.
Nothing more.
Nothing really looking down and smiling when you do good.
There's no one who cares.
This is it.
This is all there is.
This world full of civil wars.
Some sets, yes, but civil wars and diseases.
Beautiful mountains, lovely animals, and sin and pain and misery.
This is it.
This is all there is.
There probably is no God.
The first part is a gloomy scepticism, isn't it?
But it seems to be driven by that second part.
There probably is no God.
Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
This pessimism is seen by so many as liberation.
There is no God.
There's no judge.
There's no eternal consequences to what you do now.
Just stop all that worrying.
There's a 112 million percent chance that there's nothing out there.
The percentage doesn't work, doesn't it?
But it's very unlikely there's anything out there.
So let's just quit worrying.
Let's just enjoy our lives.
We'll have much more fun.
And it sounds like a modern statement, doesn't it?
I think the people who make statements like this like to think of this as being the height
of enlightenment after however millennia we finally come to this position.
But really, there's nothing new about this statement at all.
It's been there since the beginning of time.
And at root, it's this challenge that Peter is dealing with in 2 Peter chapter 3.
There's probably no God.
So just enjoy your life.
We're going to look this evening at how Peter answers this challenge.
We're going to look at it broadly in three sections.
Firstly, we're going to analyse the challenge itself, roughly looking at verses 1 to 4.
Then we're going to see Peter's very direct and pretty blunt response to this challenge
in verses 5 to 7.
And then his broader explanation.
Well, where is God?
Where is he?
In verses 8 to 10.
Firstly, the challenge that comes to the churches Peter's writing to.
We see it in verses 3 and 4, don't we?
Knowing this, first of all, the scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing.
Following their own sinful desires, 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.
Come on, Christians.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Jesus has said he's coming back, but where is he?
Are you sure you heard it right?
You didn't just misunderstand something he said.
It's been 30 years now since he ascended.
Where is he?
Surely he didn't really mean it.
There probably is no God.
There probably is no second coming.
It's quite a lot like that bus campaign, isn't it?
But unlike that bus campaign, there's something more sinister, more insidious about this scoffing.
This scoffing comes from within the church.
It's a challenge from not outside.
It's not smug atheists who perhaps you can laugh off.
It's a challenge from within the church.
The scoffers come and they say, well, maybe he's not coming back.
We know this from the context of the book.
Chapter 1 of 2 Peter.
Peter is addressing really the certainty of the apostolic teaching.
He goes back to basics and says, everything we've taught you is true.
Chapter 1, verse 16.
For we did not follow cleverly desired myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.
This stuff I've told you, I didn't make it up.
I didn't come with my own idea of the gospel.
I got it firsthand.
You can trust the apostolic word.
And then chapter 2, having reasserted the authority of the apostolic word,
Peter goes on and introduces us to the false teachers who've come to usurp that apostolic word.
We're introduced to them, really, in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.
But false prophets also arose among the people.
Just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,
even denying the master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
And many will follow their sensuality.
And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.
And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.
The apostolic word is reaffirmed in chapter 1.
In chapter 2, we're given an introduction to who these false teachers are, to their character.
And now in chapter 3, really, Peter is addressing the specific heresies they have,
the specific challenge they're bringing to the church.
And it's this.
Where is the promise of his coming?
It's more insidious than just an attack from outside.
And I'd imagine that this would have hit the church that Peter's speaking to particularly hard.
Peter makes it clear in verse 1, doesn't he, that this is his second letter.
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.
The only other letter we have from Peter is his first letter.
So it seems a reasonable assumption that he's writing to the same people.
If not to exactly the same people,
then they'll be the same group of churches that he pastored to.
And we know from the book of 1 Peter
that the Christians he's writing to are oppressed.
He calls them the elect exiles of the dispersion.
They're spread out all across the ancient Near East.
And they're isolated.
They're marginalized.
They're not in Christian societies.
They're surrounded by pagan beliefs.
They're feeling cut off, perhaps, from Jerusalem.
They're feeling cut off from Christianity.
And in 1 Peter, they need real encouragement.
And in the first book that Peter writes,
he encourages them by directing them to the second coming of Jesus.
Even now, if you are suffering with trials, yet just for a little while,
he encourages them with the certainty of a future judgment
and the second coming of Jesus.
He talks about the treasure, the imperishable riches that are hidden for us,
waiting for the day when Jesus appears for a second time.
So you can imagine, this church is really struggling with the claim that Jesus might not come back.
It's the only thing that's encouraging them to hold on.
So why?
If that's the only thing that would keep you hanging on when you're a persecuted church,
why would any Christian deny that hope?
Why would these false teachers come?
Surely that would undermine and defeat the whole point of the faith they're supposed to be teaching.
Well, there's a little phrase that gives them away in verse 3, doesn't it?
That describes these scoffers.
The scoffers will come in the last days scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
These scoffers, we're told, are coming with their sinful desires in mind.
The reason they come with this challenge is not because they've found a new truth,
not because they've worked something out that Peter was too dense to understand,
not because they've got some new revelation,
but it's because there's some motivation there.
They want to get away with something, frankly.
We get a snapshot into the attitudes of these scoffers in chapter 2, verse 19.
They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.
For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
For if, after they have escaped the defiance of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome.
The last state has become worse for them than the first.
These are people who want to justify a libertarian living,
a life free from law, free from regulation,
free from any morality,
on the grounds that it satisfies their sinful desires.
Their motivation is not truth, it's their sinful desire.
At the end of the passage,
we're looking at today 2 Peter 3,
did you notice that slightly awkward phrase,
where we find that Peter found Paul difficult to understand?
Quite an encouragement, really, isn't it?
It's right at the end, verse 16.
Peter says, doesn't he,
there are some things in Paul's writings
that are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable twist
to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
And I think this really helps us understand
what the specific false teaching would be.
Martin actually referred to it this morning,
in Romans 6.
Do you remember if you were here,
Martin was talking about how Paul teaches grace so strongly
that people might be tempted to think
that sin might even be a good thing.
We have a God who forgives,
who forgives our sin no matter how bad we are.
But why don't we just keep on sinning?
If grace is so great,
if God is so merciful,
why don't we just keep on sinning?
And it seems to be that that is the real challenge here.
Look, Jesus isn't going to judge us.
Where is the promise of his coming?
He's not going to judge us for this sin.
We can carry on as we have been.
We can carry on in our old ways.
It's as if they're saying,
look, you followers of Peter,
we've gone back to Paul,
and you're just,
you're taking it all a bit too seriously.
Jesus is not coming back to judge.
He's not going to stop you from enjoying your life.
Do you know, there probably is no God.
Why don't you just stop worrying?
Stop worrying, calm down,
and enjoy your life.
It's the same as our bus posters, isn't it?
And it's actually the oldest lie in history.
It's the oldest lie in history.
We can find it right back in Genesis.
Turn with me quickly to Genesis chapter 3.
Genesis chapter 3.
Eve and Adam are in the garden.
They're in the garden that God's created for them.
And the serpent, Satan, comes to them.
And we read,
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God made.
He said to the woman,
Did God actually say to you,
You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
Where is the promise of his coming?
Did God actually say to you,
You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
And the woman said to the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
But God said,
You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
But the serpent said to the woman,
You will not surely die.
Where is the promise of his coming?
He's not going to judge you.
That's not the kind of God you've got.
You shall not surely die.
There probably is no God.
There probably is no judgment.
Why don't you calm down and just enjoy your life?
That's the lie of those of us posters.
That's the lie that's being faced by the church here.
And that's the lie that Satan would come to us today.
And it's not a first century problem, is it?
We hear that snake voice in our ears from all sorts of corners, don't we?
We hear from the world around us,
Not just on posters on the street,
Not just from blatant, aggressive atheism,
But from the general culture of our society, don't we?
A society that says,
Well, if it hasn't hurt anyone,
Then there's nothing wrong with it.
There's no judgment.
There's no final comeuppance.
Frankly, if you can get away with it,
Why not? It might be fun.
We hear it from our society, don't we?
You shall not surely die.
Where is the promise that is coming?
Shockingly, sometimes we hear it from the church, don't we?
We hear it from obvious liberalism sometimes.
A church that completely denies that certain things are sins.
But we can hear it as well from people who call themselves evangelicals.
Every problem in church history, it seems, I'm sure church historians will correct me,
But it seems to be on an overemphasis of one truth over another.
And there seems to be a massive habit at the moment of saying,
Well, God is love.
Talking so much about love that we say,
Well, you shall not surely die.
Where is the promise of his coming?
We can emphasise love so much that there's no judgement anymore.
And I think there are some evangelicals who can fall foul of that.
We hear it from the world, we hear it from the church,
But don't we most often hear it in ourselves?
When we're sitting at home,
And we know that we're committing the same old sins again.
But we also know that we've got away with it yesterday.
We got away with it the day before,
So we say to ourselves,
Well, you shall not surely die.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Jesus hasn't come back yet.
He probably won't come back for a week or so.
So I'll wait.
I'll wait.
I'll sort this out another time.
It's the same devil lie, isn't it, that we hear.
There probably is no God.
Where is the promise of his coming?
You shall not surely die.
That's the problem we're facing here.
So, how does Peter deal with it?
How does Peter address this problem?
Well, we get a very blunt response in verses 5-7.
Frankly, it's very blunt.
There's a very direct answer here.
This challenge, this statement,
relies on a willful ignorance of the truth.
A willful ignorance.
Just find my page.
The challenge the scoffers bring, we read in verse 5,
is because they deliberately overlook a fact.
They deliberately overlook a fact.
You can't bring this challenge,
you can't promote this lie
without deliberately overlooking the fact.
What is the fact?
Well, let's read.
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
and that by means of these,
the world that then existed
was deluged with water and perished.
By that 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.
What is it that's being overlooked here?
What is this willful ignorance?
Well, they're overlooking the word, aren't they?
They're overlooking the word of God
and the certainty of it.
Did you see?
The earth is created by God's word.
The heavens existed long ago
and the earth was formed out of water
and through water by the word of God.
God created through the word.
And then, at Noah's time,
God destroyed through the word.
And that by means of these,
the word,
the world that then existed
was deluged by water and perished.
God created by the word.
He's destroyed by the word in the past.
And now we read verse 7,
but by that 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.
God created through his word,
the word of power.
He has brought judgment before by his word.
And now it's that same word
that comes to us in judgment,
that promises that Jesus will return
to bring the ultimate hope of Christians with him
and to bring judgment upon our world.
Essentially, the point that Peter makes here
is that God doesn't cry wolf
and it's foolish to think he does.
If God says he's going to do something,
he's going to do it.
He's shown us how he is in the past.
We've seen in the past.
Did you notice in the Scoffler's statement,
they actually get it wrong, don't they?
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.
They've got that wrong, haven't they?
They've forgotten Noah's flood.
They've forgotten history.
They're deliberately overlooking the fact
that when God has promised judgment in the past,
it's come.
And now we're in the same situation.
God has promised judgment.
It really will come.
God doesn't cry wolf.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Peter is asked.
And he says, well, I don't know.
It's not mine to say.
I don't know where it is.
But I know that it's his promise.
So it's going to happen.
It's not mine to say when.
But it's his promise.
So I trust it.
There's an implicit reference in the background here,
isn't there, to Noah.
And to Noah's attitude towards a promise of God for judgment.
I think it illustrates the kind of faith
that we as Christians, living in this period,
waiting for the coming of Jesus, should have.
I don't know if you've ever thought about it,
but it would have taken a long time to build the ark.
It's a big boat.
You can work it out.
Well, you can try and piece it together
by the ages of Noah and his sons.
And it looks like it may have taken Noah
around about 100 years to build the ark.
Now, that's a little inaccurate
because you have to guess at some of the ages.
But it was a long time to build the boat.
And I would imagine he would have looked absolutely mad
to everyone around him, wouldn't he?
Building a big boat a long way from water.
It wasn't even a dry dock.
He's building a huge boat for a flood
that he's been promised by God.
You can imagine that every time
a little rain shower comes,
people are loved in it.
Hey Noah, here's your flood.
Is it going to flood us this time?
You can imagine that people would have come to it
and said, well, come on,
where is this flood that you're so busy preparing for?
We've barely seen a rain cloud this year.
Where is this flood?
Where is the promise of this coming?
He would have looked absolutely ridiculous.
You'd imagine at times in that 100 years
or however long it was,
he would have doubted.
Well, maybe I have got this wrong.
Maybe I misheard.
Maybe I did this wrong.
But he trusted in the word of God, didn't he?
He continued on what looked like a foolhardy scheme.
He built his boat.
And only he and his family survived.
He trusted in the word of God
when it looked frankly ridiculous
to the world around him.
How much more should we trust?
You think Noah,
Noah had so little of the world's history
in place to see.
Perhaps, perhaps he knew about Adam and Eve in the garden.
Perhaps he knew of the handful of dealings
God had had with people before that.
But he didn't know about the covenants.
He didn't know about God's grace to his people Israel.
He'd never even heard Jesus' name.
He hadn't seen the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
He hadn't seen how our Lord has time and time again
come to us and been faithful to us.
And yet he trusted.
How much more should we as his people
who've got all this knowledge,
all this evidence of his faithfulness to us,
trust that if God has said he's coming,
he's coming.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Well, we don't know.
We don't know.
It's not ours to know.
But it's his promise.
So, we'll trust it.
That's Peter's direct response.
But perhaps it's leaving us a little underwhelmed.
It gives us confidence, doesn't it?
God's word is certain.
We know the second coming is coming.
It gives us confidence.
But it doesn't necessarily give us comfort, does it?
You can imagine the church that Paul's writing to
sitting there and thinking,
well, that's all very well,
but where is he now?
Where is he now while I need him?
This is a suffering church.
I imagine a church perhaps not dissimilar
to the church in Nigeria at the moment,
Egypt, Syria,
where people are persecuted for their faith.
You can almost hear them, perhaps,
singing the word of that hymn we sung earlier,
the serpent's brooding crease,
the power of hell broke but bold,
the conflict thickens,
faith is low,
and love is waxing cold.
How long, O Lord, our God,
holy and true and good?
Wilt thou not judge thy suffering church,
her sighs and tears and blood?
Where are you, God?
Okay, you're coming,
but why are you delaying?
You can imagine them saying to Peter,
well, okay, Jesus will return,
but why hasn't he returned yet?
Has he forgotten us?
Does he not care that we're suffering?
Why hasn't he come back?
Well, Peter nips this in the bud, really,
in verse 8,
by reminding us of the difference
between God and man.
Verse 8,
Do not overlook this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day.
It's a very poetic way of saying,
look, guys,
God isn't constrained like we are.
It's a very poetic way of saying
God is not a man to be stuck behind roadblocks,
to be held back by accidents.
He's not a man to be forgetful.
He's God.
If God's delaying,
he hasn't forgotten.
He's not being held back
by something stronger than him.
He's God.
If God's delaying,
it's got to be deliberate.
If God's delaying,
it's got to be because he's waiting for something.
But then,
what is he waiting for?
We need him now, don't we?
But why has God not come back?
We read it in verse 9, don't we?
The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise
as some count slowness,
but is patient towards you,
not wishing that any should perish,
but that all should reach repentance.
The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise
as some count slowness,
but he is being patient towards you.
God hasn't forgotten you.
He's not just decided he doesn't care about you.
He hasn't got other priorities in mind.
He's not forgotten you,
Peter says to the church.
He's waiting for you.
He's waiting until you're ready.
He's bearing with you.
He's showing you grace.
See, the problem in this church
is that Christians are clinging to their sin.
They're saying,
well,
we like Jesus,
we like the Bible,
we like God's word,
but we like the world,
we like our sin,
we like those pleasures
that we've always enjoyed.
And they're clinging to them,
they're not giving them up.
And God is being patient with them.
Do you notice the scoffer's lie
is a particularly dangerous experiment?
The scoffer's lie
is a really bad experiment,
dangerous and bad,
because it's based on
a really flawed judgment,
a really flawed,
messy logic.
Let me try and explain it in an analogy.
Imagine if I went to Australia.
I never will,
because I'm scared of animals
that would kill me.
But imagine if I went to Australia
with all its big bad bugs and things,
and I were to go to the beach,
and I were to want to go swimming,
and there was a sign up saying,
danger, sharks.
Imagine if I said,
well, okay, there are sharks,
there might be sharks,
but I'll believe they're a danger to me
when they've bitten me.
I'm going to go swimming.
I'm going to keep on swimming,
and if they bite me,
then I'll believe there's a danger.
It's not great logic, is it?
Because by the time I've found out
whether there is a danger or not,
by that logic,
I'll have lost a leg.
It's terrible logic.
I will only know
whether the danger is real
when it's too late.
And it's exactly that logic
that's being used by the scoffer here.
Well, I sinned yesterday.
I sinned today.
I'll probably sin tomorrow.
God's never judged me for it.
So when God starts judging me,
then I'll believe.
But it's foolish, isn't it?
It's too late.
So God's giving them time.
It's a foolish logic,
and perhaps we use it all the time,
don't we?
We use it when we sit there,
and we think, well,
there is this sin that frustrates me.
There is this habit I have
that I know God doesn't approve of,
but I'll sort it out
when work isn't so stressful.
I'll sort it out
when the kids have left home.
I'll sort it out when I retire.
Where is the promise of this coming?
You shall not surely die.
It's that same false logic,
the logic that gets my leg
bitten off by a shark,
the logic that leads to
really a shaky ground
for any confidence.
And God is being patient
with us, his church.
As we use that logic
day after day,
God is being patient with us.
He's waiting for us to repent.
That's what Peter can say
in verse 15.
This is not God's indifference
towards you.
This is not God's
carelessness of you.
It's not his lack of love for you.
Verse 15.
Count the patience of our Lord
as salvation.
Count the patience of our Lord
as salvation.
You've got another day today.
Count it as salvation.
Because it allows you
to turn away from those things
that perhaps keep you from it.
that perhaps
you're not a Christian
here tonight
and maybe you find
the things of the Bible
interesting.
You've heard the gospel
and maybe very sensibly
you're weighing up
the probabilities.
It's true.
If there probably is no God
then what are we
wasting our time for?
I would stress that
that probability is based
on a very poorly weighted dice.
But the probabilities
we might be weighing up,
mightn't we?
If the gospel is true,
if the word of God
is true,
then frankly
life's going to have to change.
Perhaps you're weighing that up.
Well,
can I encourage you
not to follow
the fool's logic?
There are lots of important things
that you need to consider
that Jesus has promised
he will return to judge.
And when he comes back
it will be too late.
The test of
I'll wait till he's judged me
is not good logic.
Count the patience
of the Lord
of salvation.
Today
he has given us
time to repent.
And to those of us
who are Christians already
I would encourage us
to think about those things
that perhaps we put off
dealing with.
The specific sins,
the sins we know about
where we say
well
maybe I'll
continue in that one
because God's
let me off so far.
It's a fool's logic
isn't it?
We say to ourselves
don't we so often
where is the promise
of his coming
but we know
God's word is true.
It's a fool's logic.
But perhaps there are
more general things
we've got.
I don't know about you
I find myself
regularly saying
well I see I'm not
that godly this week.
Maybe next week.
Or I say
well I'll have more time
for God
when I finish
these professional exams
or I'll have more time
for God
when I've got the house
or I'll have more time
for God
perhaps when the children
move out
perhaps whatever.
count the patience
of the Lord
today as salvation.
Today God calls us
to repent.
Today God calls us
to worship him
with all of our heart
and all of our mind
and all of our soul.
Count the patience
of the Lord
as salvation.
Notice just before we close
there are two words
in Peter's
explanation here.
The first one is patience.
It's a very important word
patience
and it's an incredible word.
The patience of God
is a glorious thing.
I don't know if you've
ever thought about it
but patience
is grace
extended over time.
It's grace
that comes back
time and time again.
It's more than grace
because it's grace
that happens
when we continue
to mess up.
It's the grace
that's forgiven us
for every sin.
It's the grace
that's given us
breath to live
every day.
Every day since
we've been born
we've been rebelling
against God
and yet God
has given us grace.
He's shown his patience
towards us.
The patience of God
is a glorious thing
but notice that if
patience goes on
forever
then it's not patience
anymore.
There's a word for patience
that goes on forever
and that is
indifference.
If you keep on
forgiving and forgiving
and forgiving
with no end
then clearly
you just don't care.
imagine the parent
around the dinner table
and I don't know
I'm not very
I've never done
parenting
but I've been a child
and I've thrown
broccoli at my sister.
Imagine the parent
at the dinner table
and the child
throws broccoli
at the sister
and the parent says
well
that's your first warning
two more
and you're on the stairs
you're going up
to your room
the child
throws the broccoli
again
second warning
that's patience
that's grace there
second warning
third warning
now there are two options
here aren't there
the third time
the parent can either
send them up
to their bedroom
in which case
they've shown grace
throughout
they've shown grace
and then they've shown
judgment
so they've been patient
or they can just say
well
yep you threw broccoli
at your sister
never mind
that's indifference
for patience
to be glorious
for patience
to be really patient
it has to have an end
and that's what we're told
in verse 10
God's grace
comes back
and back to us
but the day of the Lord
will come like a thief
and then the heavens
will pass away
with a roar
and the heavenly bodies
will be burned up
and dissolved
and the earth
and the works
that are done on it
will be exposed
God's grace
comes back to us
time and time again
but there will be a day
when that finishes
and you and I
don't know when that is
count the day
count the patience
of the Lord
as salvation
as we're told elsewhere
today is the day
of salvation
we don't know about
tomorrow
we don't know about
the day after
and our God
isn't an indifferent God
he's a just and a holy God
a God who is truly patient
secondly
and finally
notice
what God is waiting for
is God waiting
for holiness
no
is he waiting
for godliness
no
is he waiting
for perfection
no not at all
the Lord is not slow
to fulfill his promise
as some counselors
but is patient
towards you
not wishing that any
should perish
but that all should
reach repentance
the bar is set
as low as it could be
God isn't waiting
for us to have
sorted everything out
he's not waiting
for the finished article
is he
he's waiting for us
to be repentant
for us to turn away
from those sins
even if we continue
to mess up
to turn away
from the things
that we love
in the world
which offend him
and to worship him
instead
he's asking for a start
and not for the
finished article
the bar is set
as low as it could be
as one hymn writer
puts it
all the fitness
he requireth
is to feel
your need of him
you don't need
anything else
God's only waiting
for repentance
we see that
don't we
reflects in
Jesus' life
Jesus came to us
as a human
God in human flesh
and did he wait
till people were perfect
before he went
to sleep with them
well no
he ate with tax
collectors
and sinners
he spoke with
prostitutes
he made friends
with the lowest
people
and he offered
them forgiveness
and while we were
still sinners
he died for us
God isn't waiting
for us to be perfect
don't hold back
in coming to him
because you think
you're not the real deal
you're not the finished
article yet
he's only waiting
for repentance
count the patience
of our Lord
as salvation
let me read
as we close
Peter's conclusion
really
in verses 11
onwards
since all these things
are thus to be dissolved
what sort of people
ought you to be
in lives of godliness
and holiness
waiting for
and hastening
the coming
of the day of our Lord
because of which
the heavens will be
set on fire
and dissolved
and the heavenly bodies
will melt as they burn
but according to his promise
we are waiting
for a new heavens
and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells
let's close together
by affirming
and a new earth