#focr 38

One day when I dropped my husband off at our local train station, I watched as the conductor scanned the area for stragglers. A woman with wet hair bounded from the parking lot and up into the train. Then, a man in a dark suit strode to the platform and climbed aboard. The conductor waited patiently while several more late-comers sprinted to the tracks and boarded at the last moment.

Just as the conductor was patient with people boarding the train, God patiently waits for people to come to know Him. However, someday Jesus will return and “the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10). When this happens, or when our physical bodies die, it will be too late to establish a relationship with God.

“The Lord is ... longsuffering toward us,” Peter says, “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (v.9). If you have delayed deciding to follow Christ, there is good news—you can still commit yourself to Him. “If you declare with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). He is calling. Will you run in His direction?

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, Calling for you and for me; See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching, Watching for you and for me. —Thompson

Now is the time to choose the Lord.

I am including the following comment from William Barclay so that you might be wary when using his popular commentaries which, although often providing unique insights into the Greco-Roman culture, history, and word meanings, are subtly laced with the arsenic of half-truth which calls for caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware" so to speak). Now with this forewarning read Barclay's comment on 2 Peter 3:9…

“Ever and again there shines in Scripture the glint of the larger hope. We are not forbidden to believe that somehow and sometime the God Who loves the world will bring the whole world to Himself.”

Do you understand what Barclay is implying? Read it one more time like a good Berean (Acts 17:11-note).

Clearly, Barclay affirms the possibility of universalism (all men will be saved) and yet look back at the evidence to the contrary even in the context of this book (2 Peter 2:7-note). Furthermore, the plain thrust of Peter's teaching in this section is that after the second coming, ushering in the judgment of conflagration, there will be no further opportunity for repentance. You must also note what is clearly NOT being taught in passages like this –

“There is absolutely no indication of a "secret decree" by God which predestinates certain ones unto eternal damnation.”

That specious (having deceptive attraction, having a false look of truth) argument is not substantiated in the current text nor anywhere else in Holy Writ!

Keep in mind that the best commentary is to compare Scripture with Scripture (far better than these "Verse by Verse" notes!)

A Straw of Hope

The Bible is a machine gun with 31,173 bullets, for that’s how many verses it contains. One of those bullets had Mark Sloan’s name on it.

Mark combined alcohol and cocaine in lethal amounts, desperately trying all the while to stop. After one stay in a rehabilitation center, we invited him to live with us, thinking we could encourage his sobriety. For months all went well, then one morning he disappeared. We were unprepared for his relapse, and it seemed almost like losing a son. I would find him in despicable places, drunk, high, hurting, spiraling downward. Then several months passed with no word from him at all.

One day I heard he was in a basement across town. I found the place and banged on the door until he grudgingly let me in. He was badly depressed. I tried to persuade him to enter a treatment program, but he refused. It was time to die, he said. He had tried so hard to overcome his habits, and could not. His eyes were glazed over, his words slurred, and nothing I said fazed him.

“There’s enough cocaine in this apartment to kill an elephant,” he said, “and my body can’t stand much more. A day or two, then it’ll be over. You’ll forget about me in a few weeks; we’ll all be better off. It’s meant to be …  just let it be. It’s meant to be.”

I was turning to leave, choking back tears when a verse suddenly popped from my mouth without forethought. “Mark,” I said, “it isn’t meant to be. The Bible says that God is not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” A flicker of hope registered in Mark’s eyes. It was very faint but unmistakable. I repeated the verse, and he listened as if trying to grasp a straw blowing past him.

In the years since, I’ve told Mark of that moment several times. He doesn’t remember it, but I’ll never forget it. I’m convinced that verse saved his life and eventually led to his becoming the sober, dedicated Christian he is today.

How can the God of the New Testament, of whom Peter says, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9) also be the God of Joshua who commanded the annihilation of every living being in the city of Jericho (Joshua 6:17–18)?

The resolution to this dilemma is that God is both a God of love and a God of justice. The two exist in a fine balance throughout biblical history, for which we can be infinitely grateful. We can be glad that God’s justice is tinged with mercy, for if any of us got what we truly deserved, we’d be, as my kids like to put it, dead meat.

We can all cope with the notion of God’s judgment at the end of time, but the notion of God judging in the here and now somehow sets us back on our heels. It’s almost as if we don’t think He ought to be trespassing into our territory while we still have time left on the clock.

But God has been intervening since the beginning of time. The Bible opens with an act of divine love in creation, moves almost without pause to an act of human sin, to be followed by the first act of divine judgment. From that point on, human history is a litany of sin punctuated by periodic judgments.

Although God sometimes used natural forces as His tools of judgment (the Red Sea is about as natural as you can get) and sometimes supernatural, as often as not He arranged the affairs of nations to coincide with His plans for blessing and judgment.

While pestilence and famine accompanied the fall of Samaria and the fall of Jerusalem, they were natural companions of siege warfare. God used human armies to judge Israel and Judah.

Is it any surprise then that He also used a human army to judge the Canaanites? The conquest of Canaan was no afterthought to God. Sometime around 2,000 B.C. He promised that land to Abraham. But even though He spoke about the land as if it had already been delivered, Israel wouldn’t take delivery until generations had passed.

It used to trouble me that God’s promise wouldn’t be fulfilled until long after Abraham was dust. But the delay was necessary. God used the time to help the patriarchs to grow in their faith. But the interval had another side to it; to give the land to Israel, God had to first throw out the Canaanites.

He wouldn’t arbitrarily evict His current tenants, even to give a gift to His chosen people. That would be unjust. Instead, He waited because “the sin of the Amorites [a name sometimes used for the residents of Canaan] has not yet reached its full measure” (Genesis 15:16).

Even in judging the Canaanites, God was gracious and patient. His justice demanded that their sinfulness be punished, but by His grace the punishment could not come until there was no other alternative. God was not willing that any should perish. But when the fullness of their iniquity had come, the armies of Israel were the tool God used to enact judgment.

The Character of the Lord—"Longsuffering, not willing that any should perish" (Isa. 30:18).

The Objects of His Compassion "Usward"—"While we were yet sinners" (1 Tim. 2:4).

The Purpose of His Patience—Salvation (1 Peter 3:20).

The Great Need of Man—"All should come to repentance" (Ezek. 33:11).