It can be very difficult to wait for someone that we haven’t seen for a while. Now if this person for whom we are waiting is delayed in their return it can be even more distressing. But if we know what has delayed them it can assuage our fears. When, a few years ago, Pastor Tom was delayed overnight in an airport due to a snowstorm we weren’t overly concerned because he called and told us why he would be delayed. Now had he not called we would have been worried indeed.
In this passage of Scripture Peter outlines for us that truly God is delaying Christ’s return. And He is doing so for a very important reason. So the key idea in this passage is that we must not be distressed over those who would come and mock our hope in the promise of Christ’s return because the Father is purposely delaying that return so even these mockers might find repentance and new life in Christ.
1. The Mocking of God’s Delay Expressed (vv. 3-5a)
The first aspect that Peter covers concerning the delay of Christ’s return is the mocking of God’s delay expressed. Peter communicates for us the truth that mockers will appear. In making his prophecy, he says, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking.” He describes for us the surety with which these scoffers will emerge. Not only will we have false teachers within the church but we will have those outside the church ridiculing “that antiquated belief in God’s return and His judgment.” But how is this mocking of God’s delay going to express itself? Peter says that it is expressed in four ways.
A. The mockers’ course
The first way in which the mocking of God’s delay is expressed is through the mockers’ course. Peter notes this in verse 3. Here he says, “Mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts.” What will drive these mockers? What path (course) are they following? The path they are following is their own desires. The reason for their rejection of Christ’s return is simple. They want to pursue their own desires but these desires are at odds with the righteous judgment of Christ’s return. They know that to admit Christ’s return and to continue following their own desires is to acknowledge the futility of the path they are pursuing. How can they live the way they are and believe in a coming judgment for the very sins that they are heartily pursuing? So a denial of Christ’s return, in the form of mocking, allows them to continue on their way without feeling guilty.
When I was in the Navy I, frequently, would have apologetic debates with one particular person who was on watch with me. One day he turned to me and said, “Lt, I can’t disprove what you are saying but I just don’t believe it.” His words might better have been expressed as, “I just won’t believe it.” You see because of his sinful lifestyle he refused to acknowledge the reality of all that had been said because Christ’s return would put a damper on his party.
So Peter describes the reason for their mocking as “They are following after their own desires.” In order for someone to come to Christ they must humble themselves and acknowledge their own way was wrong and God’s way, outlined in Scripture, is right. But if someone resolutely refuses to turn from their own desires they cannot follow Christ. This why Christ said that broad is the way that leads to destruction, there are many who follow it and narrow is the way that leads to life and there are few who find that. The path that leads to life comes only through faith in Christ alone. Every other path results in destruction. We cannot be on both roads at the same time. And so this begs the question, “Which road are you on?” Are you following the course of your own desires? Or have you sought God’s way? Folly and sin is the mockers’ course.
B. The mockers’ doubt
The second way in which the mocking of God’s delay is expressed is through the mockers’ doubt. In verse 4 Peter mentions that these mockers say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” They show their doubt by their questions. These are not sincere questions. There are people who have sincere questions to which they deserve an answer. But the taunts of these mockers involve the absence of the clear signs of the end. We haven’t any lightning in the sky. We haven’t seen the stars falling or the earth shaking or any of this impending doom that you naysayers are calling for. Where is the promise of His coming?
The trouble is that the doubters will never see any signs until the time that it is too late. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that, “The coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” The people in Noah’s day continued in their normal routine; eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until it was too late. The day the flood came they were all swept away because they were not setting their hearts on believing God but upon following their own course.
Perhaps, some overly zealous Christians can be partly to blame for this mocking. Perhaps, this doubt is fueled by those people who are always setting dates for the return of Christ. I remember one man who wrote a book called, “Eighty-eight Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 1988.” As I was attending Nuclear Power School at that time many of my fellow officers in the class had a real joke with that one. They thought it was really funny when it didn’t happen and they became mockers of that precious teaching of Christ’s return. There were people who had sold all they had that were really bummed out. Then this guy had the audacity to write a book the following year entitled, “Eighty-Nine Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 1989.” It didn’t sell as well.
These doubters see God’s delay not for what it is but as a sign that God is either unable to do what He says or that He doesn’t exist.
C. The mockers’ view
The third way in which the mocking of God’s delay is expressed is through the mockers’ view. What is the worldview of these people? How do they see the history of the world? Peter illustrates it at the end of verse 4. He uses the mockers’ own words as they state, “For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. What is the mockers’ view? One often used scientific word could sum it up well; uniformitarianism. This is the belief that all that we see in the natural world and everything we discover; fossils, geologic structures, fuel beds, are all derived from natural processes that have occurred over millions and millions of years. They do not look for supernatural explanations such as creation and a world-wide flood to explain them for that would require them to admit that a Creator is alive and active over the universe.
However, recent discoveries have turned this idea on its head. The Mount St. Helen’s eruption showed how a cataclysmic event produced all the elements of what other scientists had deemed as having taken millions of years to produce. Even more recently, the most complete specimen of an allosaur (a tyrannosaurus like creature) ever found was recently discovered in its original bed with non-fossilized vegetable material wrapped around its head. This shows that the material was not laid down millions of years ago but merely thousands of years ago or else the non-fossilized material would not have survived.
Again, why do they have this view that “ever since the fathers fell asleep all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation?” They want to remove God from the picture. If everything that is can be explained by natural processes then why do you need God? You don’t and this is why they choose to hold to such an untenable position. Who ever heard of anything being created out of nothing by no one? We wouldn’t say that a watch or house or something else came together out of nothing. Then why would we say that something infinitely more complex as a universe and life just sprang together from chance? We wouldn’t unless we had an ulterior motive. And that brings us to the next point.
D. The mockers’ will
The fourth way in which the mocking of God’s delay is expressed is through the mockers’ will. The beginning of verse 5 says, “For when they maintain this.” That is when they maintain their position. This phrase is probably better translated more literally, “When they are willfully ignorant of this fact.” The word “to want” or “to will” is in this phrase. It is not that these mockers do not know what they are proclaiming. The truth is that they are willfully denying it. They aren’t somehow seeking after the truth and coming to the conclusion that no one created something out of nothing. They are willfully denying the obvious. And as science makes more claims to the complexity of life, even in its simplest forms, there must be a greater willful denial.
The apostle Paul says this in Romans 1. There he notes that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. For example, in Texas a paleontologist discovered human footprints within dinosaur tracks. So what did this unbiased seeker of truth do when he found evidence of dinosaurs coexisting with humans? He began to destroy the footprints! This is the suppression of the truth. And it is happening all the time. Why is the Stanley Miller experiment still touted as the “proof” that life could spring up by itself when scientists have shown that there are disastrous flaws in Miller’s experiment? Why are these flaws never discussed in high school science textbooks? It is because the truth is being suppressed in unrighteousness. After all how can you indoctrinate thousands and thousands of students into thinking that God doesn’t exist if you don’t have certain idols that you erect in His place? And the Miller experiment is one of those idols.
But we have seen the resulting problem of these individuals suppressing the truth. It results in a complete moral breakdown of society. If there is no Creator and no one to whom I am accountable for my actions then why does it matter if I lie, or steal or am sexually immoral? But if I am going to stand before God and give an account to Him of my life then I had better live in a manner that He prescribes. This wholesale brainwashing of the population into evolutionary theory, which is not good science as more and more good scientists are discovering, is because the unsaved person wants to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. This is the mockers’ will. And many have fallen into their willful denial of God’s existence and His return and judgment.
2. The Folly of Mocking God’s Delay Exposed
We’ve looked at the mocking of God’s delay expressed. The next aspect that Peter covers concerning the delay of Christ’s return is the folly of mocking God’s delay exposed. People may mock “our faith” but in reality they are mocking God. And in verses 5-8 Peter exposes the folly of mocking God’s delay. There are two reasons through which Peter exposes the folly of mocking God’s delay.
A. The world stands by God’s word
The first reason through which Peter exposes the folly of mocking God’s delay is that the world stands by God’s word. In verse 5 Peter says, “For when they maintain this, it escapes there notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.”
Peter explains that it wasn’t by chance that the world came to be. It was by the word of God that they came into existence. God spoke, “Let light be” and it was. God declared, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures” and they appeared.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews says in chapter 11, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Faith, is not what some people believe to be incompatible with what is real or true. Faith, or trust, is based on what God says but not contradictory to what has truly taken place. Those who will not believe God must find some other explanation for the creation of this world and its beautiful wonder. And they grasp at straws with their own fabled faith in this process of evolution. Who programmed the information into the DNA that performs its work so well? How many engineers would ever say that information could ever be produced randomly or by chance? I would say not one rational engineer.
It is much easier to believe that this world came about by the words of God than by chance. Isaac Newton was a scientist who stood firm upon the foundation of God’s creative work in the world. When an atheist friend entered his office and noticed a large model of the solar system in which, when a handle was turned, all the planets rotated in their proper courses. Fascinated with it he asked Newton, “Who made it?” Newton, quickly said, “No one. It came together by itself.” Astonished he asked, “Do you expect me to believe that this all came together by itself?” And Newton replied, “It would be easier to believe that this model came together by itself than that the solar system upon which this model is based came together by itself.”
Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For by [Christ] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
And as Peter says what we see here is that God has both created the world and He is the one who holds it together for His glory.
B. The world’s timetable determined by God
The second reason through which Peter exposes the folly of Mocking God’s delay is that the world’s timetable is determined by God. In verse 7 Peter says, that by that same word which upholds all things, “the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
God has a timetable for the world. There is coming a day in which this present heaven and earth will be destroyed by fire and a new heaven and earth will be created in which righteousness dwells. And it is only according to His timetable that this will take place. So for the scoffer to say that God is delaying His return too much is folly. Who is in control here? Is it the mocker? Or is it God? Perhaps a better question is? Who created it to begin with? Obviously God. And if God then let Him run His universe according to His timetable.
What is His timetable? Peter says in verse 8, “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.” God’s calendar is not ours. We talk of immediacy. We want things done now. And yet God waits. Think about Abraham. God promised him a child to be his heir and yet God waited more than 25 years to fulfill that promise. God said that He would give the people of Israel the land of Canaan but He waited more than 400 years to do so. Why does He wait like this? Why does He sometimes delay His promises? Why does He act a little more slowly than we would hope? Why does He wait to answer our prayer? I think the reason lies in the fact that God wants us to get an eternal perspective on life. If we are always focused on the now and the right away we begin to lose the value of treasuring what is eternal which is God.
I heard a story of a man conversing with God. He asked, “God, how long is a million years to you?” God answered the man, “Like one second.” The man then asked, “God, how much is a million dollars to you?” God replied, “Like one penny.” The man inquired of God, “Then may I have one penny?” and God said, “In one second.”
Friends, is God bringing you through a time of waiting? Is He doing this to get you to focus back on Himself? Don’t get frustrated as you wait because God wants you to get a bigger picture through what He is doing in the waiting. Through waiting, God took Abraham to the place where he could fully trust God even with his special promised son. We never know on this side of the waiting what God is doing and sometimes we don’t know on the other side. But we must understand that God is in control. And on His calendar He has everything timed just right to work out His will.
What is the folly of mocking God’s delay? He is the One who is in control. He is the One who will bring all things to pass according to His timetable. Don’t get frustrated, just trust Him.
3. The Reason for God’s Delay Explained
The final aspect that Peter covers concerning Christ’s return is the reason for God’s delay explained. Verse 9 sums everything up for us. It is God’s vindication against the mockers. Peter finally explains why it is that God has delayed His return and judgment.
In verse 9 Peter clarifies the matter by saying, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Peter now explains the reason for God’s delay. He is not slow for the reasons the mockers conceive. He is not slow as some people count slowness. But the reason God delays His coming is He is patient. He is not the hothead that blows up at every little wrong done against Him. He is patiently waiting so that these who have offended Him might come to repentance and receive eternal life instead of eternal punishment.
He is waiting so that the wrath due to the ungodly might be turned aside by the blood of Christ. God is delaying His return and the coming judgment so that those who would not have trusted Christ had He not delayed could be saved. Oh how wonderful the patience of God is! Were it not for the patience of God we would have all been swept away in judgment long before now. But even so we can see the hand of God having sustained us up until now.
Who is this God does not wish to perish? Peter answers it in this verse. Peter uses the same word twice in this verse to show the scope of those He wishes to come to repentance. And to help you understand it better let me give you a little more clear translation by employing that word in the same way both times. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as any count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Who are these any that God does not want to see perish? They are the “any” who are at this time mocking God and counting Him slow.
God is willing to save all those who repent and come to Him. Of course our repentance and faith must be genuine. It cannot be a repentance that does not see our desperate condition before God and the wonderful provision of Jesus Christ as our Savior. Think of the thief on the cross who was crucified beside Jesus. At first he too began to mock him but as he saw Jesus’ actions and heard His words on the cross it caused him to repent and call out to Jesus to save him. And Jesus did. His reply, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” shows the truth of this reality that God is not willing for any to perish. God is patient. He will save someone even on their deathbed.
But don’t think God’s patience gives you the opportunity to wait until your deathbed. You may never have the opportunity. God’s patience with you gives you the opportunity to be saved today. The Scripture says that today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. If you recognize your need for the Savior today and put it off until tomorrow do not be surprised if you find your heart too hard to care then. God is patient. But do not spurn His patience. God is willing to save you who come to Him in simple faith and recognizing that Christ Jesus paid all the debt for your sin on the cross and will give eternal life to all those who trust in Him alone.
What does this say to us who believe? If God’s patience is the reason for God’s delay then we, as believers, must also have this kind of compassion for those who mock us. For perhaps, they too, will come to repentance when they see the sincerity of our love for them in Christ. Oh friends, ask God to give you this same kind of compassion so that you can truthfully desire the salvation of even those who hate and mock you.