Pastor Marty Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 1:10PM A link to the audio can be found at the bottom of this article.
2 Peter 3:11-13. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
The article will be up later.
Pastor Marty Monday, September 28, 2026 at 10:30AM A link to the audio can be found at the bottom of this article.
2 Peter 3:8-10. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 27, 2026.
In this chapter, Peter has referenced scoffers in the last days who would particularly ridicule the Second Coming of Christ and the Day of the Lord. They will say [are even now saying], “Where is the promise of his coming?”
The scoffer’s problem is partly willful ignorance and partly a blindness that comes from willfully ignoring the Word of God. The cycle starts by pushing away truth and turning towards a desired lie. However, this then hardens a person’s heart and leaves them insensitive. It takes more and more powerful conflicts with truth to break through to their heart; and yet, they can just ignore that too.
Peter in these verses turns his focus from the scoffers to believers. We must not let ourselves be affected by the scoffers. We must hold fast to faith in God’s promise to judge the wickedness of this world, both spiritual entities and humans in league with them (knowingly or unknowingly).
Let’s look at our passage.
The issue of time with the LORD (v. 8-9)
We generally understand how time limits and affects us as humans. However, it is easy to blindly insist that those same limitations are effective upon God. Scoffers are not just willfully ignorant of the reality of God’s Word, but they do not understand the relationship between God and time.
We experience time as those who are being carried along by it and only have so much of it to do what we want to do. If something takes longer than a lifetime, then we have difficulty waiting for it or working for it. Our modern age has only exacerbated this reality. If we do not have an immediate effect, we look for alternative ways to make it happen. Or we give up completely and go in a different direction.
We might be able to conceive how angels think of time. They were created at the beginning and have existed all this time, millennia. They can think about long periods of time without becoming impatient. However, God is not a high-powered angel. He is the Creator of all things including time itself. It has no control over Him and holds no fear to Him. It is something that He imagined and brought into being. He is the Lord of time and yet, works within it.
In verse 8, Peter tells us not to let “this one fact escape your notice…” Unlike the scoffers who willfully ignore and become blind to these matters, we are not to let the following fact escape our notice. We are not to travel down the same path as the scoffers. The long period of waiting for God to keep His promise about the Second Coming and the Day of the Lord does not logically support the contention that it somehow disproves the promise or God Himself. Instead, we are to keep in mind that “with the Lord” 1 day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like 1 day!
Let’s contemplate the second part of that, “1,000 years is like 1 day.” This is not meant to be some kind of equation that we can use to crack the meaning of prophecy. God does use symbolism in the length of time of His works, but we must be careful of treating this as a law of the prophetic universe. It simply means that long periods of time to God are shrugged off like one day to God.
It is probably even greater than Peter states because he is probably thinking of Psalm 90:4. “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.” Notice that Moses doesn’t treat it as an equation. It is not only like yesterday (i.e., one day), but it is also like a watch in the night. This would have been about four hours.
The point is that it is something short (though for humans a watch in the night might seem to take forever when you are sleepy). In fact, when it is dark, it is easy to let the eyelids rest for just a moment. Many an army has been caught off-guard by their enemy with such men on watch.
Because we are talking about the Promise taking so long, this is the salient part of Peter’s statement. However, we should note that he also makes the opposite contention. “1 day is like 1,000 years.” God’s ability with time is beyond our imagination. He not only takes long periods of time to do something, but when He does it, He can accomplish 1,000 years of work in a day, or even one hour! His ability is beyond our imagination, but it should not be beyond our belief!
When a human delays decades, or even the majority of their life, it is easy to give up hoping for what they promise. God is not like us. He keeps His Word. We should not read into the long period of time in which He works the idea that it is no longer going to happen.
Verse nine tells us that God is not delaying His promise as men consider delays. The word for delay here is not just about something being late as in being tardy. It also has the connotation of being so late as to non-fulfillment, i.e., that God has changed His mind about doing it or is unable to do it (it’s too late!). It is one thing to make such determinations about human endeavors (though we can easily be wrong), but it is quite another to make such judgments about God and His works.
Now listen. Scoffing is not just something that comes from outside of the Church. There are plenty Christians who scoff at this promise. Some have gone so far as to treat it all as an allegory about a person gaining enlightenment about the genius of Jesus and the path of love. This is what Peter is nipping in the bud. People coming up with alternative ideas within the Church.
God means to keep His promise. So why is the coming of Christ taking so long? Peter’s answer is that God is being patient with humanity. The word for patient here has the sense of having a long fuse. His patience comes from the fact that He does not want anyone to perish. Some versions say that He does not wish for people to perish, but I think this is nonsensical with God. He does not desire anyone to perish, so He has planned a long period of time. For Jesus to come back is to shut the door on this age of grace. It is to seal the fate of so many people. Only God can righteously make such a call.
It is also His desire that people come to repentance [and faith in Jesus]. This is His path of escaping the path of perishing on which we are careening into the future. Yet, God will not force people to repent and be saved. This issue of freedom, desire, and power is at the root of all that we are facing today.
In any project, taking too long is not seen as good. However, when it comes to issues of love, taking too long, or being unimaginably patient, is not seen as bad. Rather, it is remarkable as a great goodness that is not deserved. God’s long “delay” in sending Jesus is precisely such. It is a powerful testament to His patient love towards us.
It seems that modern man wants its cake and to eat it too. We want to blame God for the evil in the world, saying that He has taken too long, and yet, we repel at the idea of a God that will hold us accountable for our sins. How dare God be so patient! Yet, the true nature of God is perfect in these matters. He is not quick to judge sinners, and in fact, does what He can to help them avoid the fate that is only right for those who cause pain and suffering in this world.
The Day of the Lord will come (v. 10)
In verse 10, Peter emphatically states that the Day of the Lord will come. The Second Coming of Jesus is not equivalent to the term “Day of the Lord.” It is only one aspect of the larger concept of the Day of the Lord. It can be thought of as the event that initiates the Day of the Lord, but there are also events that lead up to the Second Coming, having been triggered by its timing.
The Day of the Lord is an all-encompassing phrase that refers to the judging of the world by God. Revelation 19-20 reveals that this will be initiated in the years leading up to the Second Coming, often referred to as the Great Tribulation. The pouring out of the wrath of God culminates in the Appearance of Jesus to remove the devil, and his angels, and the kings and powers of the earth. This leads to 1,000 years of peace under a direct rule of Jesus and His resurrected administrators on this earth. At the end of this time, the devil will be released from his prison and allowed one last deception upon humanity. The ensuing rebellion will perish in fire. The fire engulfs the heavens and the earth as all beings are brought before the throne of God for judgment. Following this judgment, God creates New Heavens and a New Earth for those who proved righteous. Those who did not prove righteous will be walled off from that good creation. The Day of the Lord encompasses all of that.
Some may protest that there are places in the Old Testament where the Day of the Lord is used for a judgment that was in the past and not for all nations. This may be true, but it is not what Peter is talking about. Peter is looking ahead to a time when the elements of the heavens and the earth will melt with intense heat. It is the ultimate Day of the Lord, of which all previous and smaller days of the Lord were only harbingers.
We must never let ourselves doubt that the day will eventually come when God triggers these events. In fact, through Christians, the peace terms of Christ are going out to the whole world. We are planting the seeds of truth, watering them, and harvesting as people respond with faith. We don’t know when this time will be closed, but we can be faithful to God’s grace being extended through us.
Peter also describes the Day of the Lord as coming like a thief. It is going to catch the world by surprise. This is surprising since they will have been warned about it for thousands of years! Paul makes this same point in 1 Thessalonians 5. However, he adds something in verse 4. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.” We have been given the truth so that we can be saved, so that we are not taken by surprise on that day. We will not be surprised by it because we live our lives holding on to the promise of the coming of our lord and His perfect judgments.
Sodom and Gomorrah were surprised on that day, but they didn’t have to be. They could have remembered The Flood and God’s clear warning of judgment to humanity. They could have taken note of the man Lot who testified to them that they were going too far in their sin. Yet, they scoffed at such things and cast-off restraint. They ignored God’s Word and so judgment caught them by surprise.
Peter speaks about the heavens passing away with a roar, or a sudden loud sound. This seems to be a clear reference to the picture found in Revelation 20. At the end of 1,000 years of peace under Jesus on this earth, there will be a rebellion. This will lead to a rapid series of events. Revelation 20:9 says that fire will come down from heaven and devour the rebellion. Verse 10 states that the devil who deceived them will be cast into the Lake of Fire forever, never to return. Verse 11 then states that heaven and earth “fled away” from the Great White Throne and Him who was seated upon it. I believe that the fleeing away is connected to the fire that falls out of heaven in verse 9. It doesn’t just engulf the wicked; it engulfs all of creation, melting it down as all beings are brought before the throne. Thus chapter 21 opens with the presence of new heavens and a new earth, walled off from the wicked by a great firewall called the Lake of Fire. Heaven will pass away with a sudden noise.
Then the elements (2 Peter 3:10) will be destroyed with intense heat. The word translated “elements” refers to the underlying things that hold something else up. In this case, we are talking about the creation. Thus, the elements here can be thought of as the underlying things of matter itself, whether molecules, atoms, quarks, etc.
The word “destroyed” does not mean to go out of existence. It is the idea of breaking the bonds of something that exists to the point that it is no longer what it was. Like the temple of Jerusalem being pulled apart stone by stone and cast into the valley below is a destruction, so this destructive event will separate the bonds of matter itself.
How do you survive such an event? You don’t, at least not as a mortal human. Only those who have put their faith in Christ will come out the other side into the goodness that God has for them. You survive it by knowing Jesus!
Finally, Peter says that the earth and its works will be burned up. This is not just talking about the wicked works but works in general. It goes beyond human works. It involves even the work of God in the prior creation, or even post flood. The mountains, the seas, the animals, and all living things on the earth will be burned up. This is the final judgment of God upon this creation.
There is a textual issue with the word translated “burned up.” There are some manuscripts that have a different word that means to be laid bare and exposed in a destructive sense. Burned up could be expected due to the previous “intense heat.” However, some older manuscripts have the word that pictures the works of the earth being uncovered and laid bare. This is a concept that is often connected with judgment in the Bible. It is a day of finding out the hidden realities of something and judging them. Regardless, we end up at the same place. A creation that will be so judged by God that it will be broken apart to the smallest degree and laid bare before the God who created it.
Has God changed His mind? The short answer is no. Believers do not need to fear the coming of the Lord. For us, this is a promise that is meant to be our hope while we live in this life, often in the face of great wickedness. God will judge all these things. Yet, He doesn’t want to catch people by surprise. He doesn’t want to catch you like a thief.
May God help us to be the expression of His patient desire that none perish.
Email Article | Print Article | Share Article | tagged God, New Earth, New Heavens, Prophecy, Second Coming, The Day of The Lord, Timing Pastor Marty Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 10:39AM 2 Peter 3:1-7. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 20, 2026. A link to the audio can be found at the bottom of this article.
We have reached the last chapter of this letter. In some ways, the message in this chapter can be connected to the false prophets and false teachers warned against in chapter two. However, there is a clear transition here in chapter 3:1-2. Although the case can be made that false teachers and false prophets are clearly scoffers of the truth of God’s Word, Peter is separately warning of scoffers that will exist particularly in the Last Days. He is stating that such people will particularly be a problem in the Last Days, and we must not let them influence our faith.
Let’s look at our passage.
The first two verses establish a clear break from chapter two. Verse one establishes that this is Peter’s second letter (to the people of Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey). Of course, 1 Peter is the first letter. In both letters, he desires to stir up our sincere minds by reminding us to remember some things that they (and hopefully we) had been taught.
Let’s talk first about the idea of a “sincere mind” here. The emphasis in the Greek is a pure, clean, undefiled mind. This is not a statement about perfect control and never having a thought that you have to take captive. It is a statement about our faith in Christ and embrace of His Gospel. The Word of God (both Old and New Testaments) has a purifying effect upon our hearts and minds. There is an immediate cleansing that happens as our faith switches from self, false gods, and false philosophies to the commands of Christ. However, there is a daily and life-long cleansing work as we listen to the Holy Spirit and follow Him. Our minds are pure because of the presence of the Spirit of Christ by faith. Much of the Christian life consists in the battle to keep our hearts and minds free from the influence of the world and to keep them tethered to the Spirit and the Word of God.
Verse two highlights two things that Peter wants us to continually remember: the words of the prophets (Old Testament) and the commandments of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, given to them by the apostles of Jesus.
There are some issues in the text that are not important to theology. However, Peter is most likely emphasizing that they had received these things by “your apostles.” Peter is recognizing that the apostolic work of Paul and Barnabas who had founded many of these churches.
The phrase “first of all” in verse three can be used to introduce a list that includes secondary and tertiary issues. However, we do not find in the rest of the letter such phrases as “second of all,” or “secondarily,” etc. Peter is simply emphasizing that the following is an area that is of primary importance. Believers must not forget the warning he is going to give about scoffers.
Several versions use the word “mockers” as opposed to “scoffers.” There is no true difference between them. The idea is that they treat certain Christian teachings with derision and ridicule. They both scoff at the teachings and mock them. This is a very different person than someone who expresses arguments of disagreement but are willing to seriously engage the arguments of God’s Word.
There is a Hebrew idiom employed here. In English, it comes across as redundant to say that scoffers will come with their scoffing (or mockers). However, in Hebrew, this is a way of intensifying the expression. This scoffing will be more than individuals here and there who are keeping it to themselves. Rather, it takes on the nature of an assault of many scoffers flooding the public discussion with their derision and ridicule of the Scriptures.
Peter also emphasizes that he is speaking about “the last days.” This is a phrase that connects to the same phrase in the Old Testament along with a whole group of similar phrases. “The Last Days,” “the Latter Days,” “End Times,” and even the “Day of the Lord” generally point to the same things but also have some particular emphases that can distinguish them. They are not necessarily synonymous. You need to pay attention to the point the author is making, whether it is general or specific, etc.
In fact, prophecies that are forward looking have an effect that is sometimes called the Mountain Peak Effect. When you look at a mountain range, it may appear that many of the peaks are about the same height, but experience teaches us that there may be large distances between them. A peak may actually be taller than all the others, but it is farther away. Prophecies in the Old Testament sometimes will speak of things that clearly point to the first coming of Christ and then also include things that are clearly from His second coming. We know this because the first coming of Christ gave us more information from Jesus himself through his apostles.
We are technically in the last days of God’s work of bringing in the Kingdom of His Messiah. It involves the offer of peace to any person in any nation with God the Father through Jesus His Son. At some point, this age of God’s peace offer (an Age of Grace) will come to an end. His Son will then come forth to take up control of the nations.
Yet, we can also recognize that this period is coming up on 2,000 years in duration. Thus, there are the end times, latter days, where we approach the final years before Christ’s second coming. If we are not in these now, we are rapidly approaching them.
It is of no surprise that we see all kinds of scoffing and mocking towards Christians who believe God’s Word, as Peter told us- really as the Holy Spirit told us through the Apostle Peter.
Peter says in verse three that they do this “following after their own lusts.” There is a repetition in the use of the pronouns “their” and “own.” Again, this is not redundancy but intensification. Their strong desires are leading them, pulling them along. In fact, there is a willfulness involved in this as well as a bondage to it. This cycle of choosing something that then becomes a shackle and stronghold in your heart and mind is as old as humanity itself. There is nothing wrong with having questions about God’s Word and the things it teaches. However, be careful that you are not willfully following the lust of your flesh.
In verse four, we are given a particular scoffing that will be prevalent. It is not the only one that will exist in the last days, but it is the one the Holy Spirit emphasizes. “Where is the promise of His coming?”
Remember that this is not the question of a heart that is seeking truth. This question is being asked by someone who holds such an idea in derision and ridicules it. They reject it and deny it.
Such a scoff definitely comes from some militant atheists who believe that religion is holding humanity back from greater evolution. However, it can come from a person from a false religion as well. Finally, I would warn that it also can come from within the Christian community itself.
There are those who interpret the second coming of Christ as an allegory of a person accepting the way of Jesus. They do not believe in a day of judgment in which the nations of the earth will be judged for what they did with the Gospel of Jesus and the truth that God has anointed him as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Such people often boil the message of Jesus to this. Love everybody. However, it is always in a non-judgmental way that embraces all kinds of things that Scripture calls sin. It is as if Jesus died so that nothing can be called sin anymore. True love helps promiscuous heterosexuals as well as homosexuals to face their sin and turn to Christ. Christ taught us to love God by listening to His Word. If you love such people as I have listed, then you will warn them of the destruction that comes from following your flesh over the boundaries designed by the Creator.
Such “Christians” see those who believe in a literal return of Christ as the problem that is holding us back from Utopia. This is the foundation approach of people like James Talarico in Texas and the strange things he says as a “Christian.”
Verse four continues with support for their questioning the return of Jesus (why they think it so ridiculous). Their evidence is that everything continues as it always has since creation.
This appeal to the uniform character of what we see today is prevalent in the science of today. We extrapolate long periods of time because we require a natural solution. Yet even that does not naturally require long periods of time. Huge canyons can be carved out in a day by large catastrophes. Erosion that would normally take a million years can happen in a matter of hours in catastrophic conditions.
This leads to a greater problem. We don’t see God “creating” new things today, so we refuse to let that be the explanation for why anything exists at all. We tell ourselves that we must use what we see today to explain what happened yesterday.
In all of this, there is a hidden motivation. If we weren’t trying to get rid of any connection to God and Jesus, then perhaps we could carefully let what we see today help us understand what happened in the past. The question of nature is wrapped up in a moral issue. Is Jesus who God says he is? If so, then what does that mean for me and my life now?
The early leaders of the scientific method were generally Christians. They believed that the same God who gave us reasoning powers also made the world around us in rational ways, ways that we could discover. Without that common bond, there is no rational basis for believing that we can figure everything out on our own.
The use of “the fathers” in this argument from uniformity- i.e., that the rates of natural processes today can help us explain the past- is a reference to the patriarchs of the Old Testament. This would be the list of men from Adam down to Jacob. These men lived with an expectation that God would send a “Seed of the Woman,” an “Anointed One,” who would fix all the issues of sin and our domination by Satan. The use of this phrase is likely an indication by Peter that these scoffers would be led by people from within Christianity. It is possible that it is simply using Christian language for something that a person from outside of Christianity would say in different language, but I would lean towards the first interpretation.
Verse five has a grammatical issue. There is one word that can be paired with either verb, which gives a subtle change to the meaning. Peter is either saying that these scoffers willfully ignore the fact (of the flood), or he is saying that, as they assert the fact of uniformity, it is hidden from them how God’s Word has always been the foundation to all that happens.
I don’t think this is a critical difference because Scripture speaks of both scenarios being a problem for those who reject God’s Word. The first interpretation simply emphasizes that these scoffers are willfully ignoring critical evidence for whatever reason. God has shown them, but they refuse to see it or recognize it.
The second interpretation emphasizes how willfulness (to follow our flesh) not only holds a bondage within it, but also a debilitation. “It is hidden from them,” is the flip side of the spiritual blindness that happens to those who willfully push aside God’s Word. Sin hardens hearts and minds to truth. Truth becomes something that is harder and harder for them to see. Without God’s grace of revelation and salvation, we would all be stuck in that condition.
Peter reminds us that the world hasn’t gone on the same without interruption (vs 5 and 6). The heavens and the earth came into being, existed, by the Word of God. “Let there be light! And there was light.” This is an interruption of what was (or wasn’t) before it. God speaks and it interrupts the current uniformity. Again, at The Flood, God’s Word of judgment interrupted the ancient world. If not for Noah and the ark, humanity and the animals would have ceased to exist on this planet. Yet, Noah and the others stepped onto a world radically different from the one on the other side of the Flood, a Great Interruption of the Uniformity.
This brings us to the point. God’s Word also speaks of another Great Interruption that is coming upon the heavens and the earth. They are currently being reserved for a fire that will destroy all ungodly men (even melting down the universe- see 2 Peter 3:10).
Peter is speaking in general terms.
In Revelation 20, we are given more specific information about how this fiery judgment will connect with the second coming of Jesus. I believe it is clear that Christ’s second coming will institute a kingdom of peace for 1,000 years. During this time, God fulfills all His promises to national Israel, to the nations, and to the righteous. Yet, at the end of that millennium, a final rebellion will be instigated by Satan. It is then that we are told of a fire that comes down out of heaven. The scene swiftly moves. The rebellion is devoured by fire. The devil is cast into the Lake of Fire. The Great White Throne appears causing the heavens and the earth to flee away. If we couple this last statement with 1 Peter 3:10, it appears that they melt down to a plasma and are moved away. Then all who have ever lived that have not been resurrected yet (mostly the wicked) are resurrected, judged and sent into the Lake of Fire (if their name is not in the Book of Life). The very next statement is that there are new heavens and a new earth. It seems logical to see that the old has melted down to a plasma and then remade. You might think of it as a purification, renewal, even a rebooting of the Creation. This Great Interruption lays ahead of humanity and the spiritual hosts of heaven (wicked and righteous), all of Creation.
In the last days, scoffers will attempt to dissuade believers that these things are coming. If we are dissuaded of that, then the impulse to live righteously is greatly undermined. The hope for humanity becomes something of our own making, led by our own lust, and led by a devil who hates humanity.
Let us hold fast to the faith and hope that we have been given by the apostles of Jesus!
Email Article | Print Article | Share Article | tagged Apostles, Judgment, Lust, Mocker, Prophets, Scoffer, Skepticism, Unbelief, Uniformitarianism, Word of God Pastor Marty Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 10:02AM We will only post the audio for this sermon preached on Sunday evening, September 13, 2026.
We apologize that a few minutes are missing from the beginning of this audio.