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.