2 Peter 3: God Is Not Slow, He Is Patient With You

Introduction

"Where is the promise of his coming?" The question the scoffers ask in 2 Peter 3:4 hasn't aged a day. William Philip, back in the pulpit at The Tron Church in Glasgow after missing the previous Sunday, laid up in bed with the flu, continues his series on Peter's second letter, which is all about living in the last days of the world.

He reminds us that this letter was written for ordinary Christians, to strengthen their faith in difficult times. Having drawn, in the previous message, the portrait of the scoffers (verses 4 to 7), he stops this evening at verses 8 and 9: the apparent slowness of the last day. The suddenness of that day, in verse 10, is left for the following week.

Peter gives the scoffer two clear answers. He is completely wrong about who God is and about his relationship to time. He is also completely wrong about what God is doing in time.

Message Outline

1. A Letter for All Believers

This letter was not written first of all for church leaders, as Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus were. Peter writes to all believers.
He expects the whole Church to take responsibility for not being led astray and for not swallowing the lies of the world, which so often end up seeping into the Church.
At the end of the letter (2 Peter 3:17), Peter warns that some may be carried away by the error of the lawless and lose their own stability. Among those we would call theology professors, bishops or leaders, some were, in his view, nothing but scoffers and skeptics.
Yet God has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), through the words of the prophets and the commandment of the Lord spoken by his apostles (2 Peter 3:2).
Just as there were false prophets, there will be false teachers who will secretly bring in destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1). "That is the story of the Church for two thousand years, and it is still the story of the Church today." This letter is not an old relic to look at in a museum.

2. The Mark of the Scoffer: Denying Reality

Like the leopard that cannot change its spots, the scoffer's traits do not change. He denies the Word of God (verse 4): you can't believe the Bible anymore today, at least not if you're intelligent.
William Philip remembers the naturalist David Attenborough speaking with contempt about his school headmaster, who preached the Bible in the school chapel: how could an intelligent man believe such nonsense? Shortly afterward, he saw him on television saying that he believed in the existence of the abominable snowman. "Who is talking nonsense now?"
The scoffer also denies God's wrath and his judgment on sin (verses 5 and 6). In doing so, he undermines the whole notion of sin and the very need for repentance.
For the preacher, this is why the policies of the liberal optimists who dominate the West are so often doomed to fail: they live in an imaginary world. Only the reality of God and of his action explains the chaos of our world.
Paul says it in Romans 1:18-25: people suppress the truth in unrighteousness and exchange the truth of God for a lie. It is no accident that Paul goes on to speak of human sexuality, an area where this denial surrounds us today.
The denial isn't only for politicians who believe money grows on trees, or for governments that create it out of nothing. "We all do it." Deep down, we are afraid of the truth and we don't want to let the disturbing questions come.

3. "Better Not to Look Down"

William Philip quotes Matthew Parris, a columnist for The Times. Marked in his childhood in Africa by the good that missionaries did, he keeps a deep respect for them, even if he sometimes lashes out at the Christian faith.
In his autobiography, one chapter is titled "Better Not to Look Down." Woken in the middle of the night, he sits in the dark on the edge of the bathtub. Little by little, he hears the distant noise of London, the hum of the refrigerator, the Thames against the wall, then the whistling of his own nervous system, his blood and the beating of his heart.
He marvels at the almost miraculous mixture of fragility and resilience that a human being is, then concludes: "Man's survival is an impossibility sustained by inattention." So he turns on the light, and it all vanishes.
"That is the willful blindness of the scoffer. It is the human heart hiding from the truth."
The Bible, on the other hand, always brings us back to reality. "But don’t forget this one thing, beloved" (2 Peter 3:8): don't turn on the light to hide everything, face the facts.

4. God Is the Master of Time

"Where is the promise of his coming?" Could God be weak, unable to keep his promise? Should we listen to Friedrich Nietzsche, who declared God dead, or to Richard Dawkins, who the previous week celebrated twenty years of his book The God Delusion? Should we believe the ads plastered on buses twenty years ago: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life"?
"with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). God is not a creature caught in time as we are. He is the creator of time, and therefore its Lord and its only interpreter.
We are bound by time and space. We perceive time only from the inside: it passes slowly during a sermon, but for the preacher watching the clock, it flies by at lightning speed. Two hours with a pretty girl on a summer evening pass in a few seconds, while two hours of math class are something else entirely.
On a train leaving the central station at the same moment as another train on the next platform, you feel like you aren't moving. From a police helicopter, you see the truth: both trains are moving. God sees time from above.
The scoffer's arrogance is to explain everything from himself and from what he sees. "That is the very essence of sin according to the Bible: being centered on yourself and not on God." Yet the visible is explained by the invisible, not the other way around (Hebrews 11:3). To claim that nothing exists beyond what we can see is to claim divine knowledge.
If you could meet Shakespeare, he could tell you many things about Hamlet. Hamlet, for his part, could tell you nothing about Shakespeare, because he was created in a world that Shakespeare alone made.
Peter draws here on Psalm 90, sung earlier in the service: a thousand years are in God's sight like yesterday. We are like the grass that flourishes in the morning and withers by evening. At the grave of a loved one, when we hear "to dust you shall return," no one can calmly say: "That's all there is." Human life can only be explained in reference to God and to the eternity for which we were created.

5. God Is the Great Redeemer in Time

"The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wanting any to perish, but that all would come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
For the scoffer, two thousand years of apparent inaction prove that God is dead or powerless. Peter answers: no, God's slowness is not powerlessness, it is patience, and that patience expresses his great power.
The preacher asks a question: who is stronger, the father who can't control his temper and explodes at his child at the slightest annoyance, or the one who has self-control and patience, who corrects and disciplines at the right time and in the right way? "One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty" (Proverbs 16:32).
The God of the Bible defines himself by his slowness to anger. When Moses asks to see his glory, the Lord passes before him and proclaims: "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth" (Exodus 34:6).
Skeptics smother God's mercy as much as his righteous wrath. God is neither vindictive nor capricious, as Richard Dawkins would have it. He is a just judge who will punish sin, but he is patient and does not want any to perish.
Peter almost echoes Ezekiel 18:23: "Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” says the Lord Yahweh, “and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?"
William Philip suggests an idea: perhaps this is why there is no repentance for angels and spirits, who are not subject to time. As for us, God created us in space and time, and he gave us time as a gift of life, so that we might find him, know him and come to repentance.

6. What Are You Doing With the Time God Gives You?

"I wonder if you have ever thought about this: the very reason for your existence is to have time, time to repent and turn to God." The psalmist understood it: "So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).
Maybe you have spent a good part of your life mocking the Word of God and his Gospel. Peter tells you: don't ignore this truth. God alone is the master of time, he is the Redeemer in time, and the time he gives you on earth has one purpose: that you come to repentance and find eternal life with him.
In Chester Cathedral, a clock bears a poem titled "The Steps of Time": "When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept. When as a youth I dreamed and talked, time walked. When I became a full-grown man, time ran. And later, as I older grew, time flew. Soon I shall find in travelling on, time gone. Will Christ have saved my soul by then?"
"Will he have saved you by then? Have you found that repentance, that road back to the heart of God?" If you are not certain, don't let this day pass without finding the answer: "now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). Tomorrow, who knows what it will bring?

Key Takeaways

The scoffer lives in denial: he smothers the truth of God's Word, of his judgment and of his mercy.
God is the creator and master of time. He alone sees history from above and can interpret it rightly.
God's apparent slowness is not powerlessness but patience, and that patience is an expression of his power.
God does not want any to perish: the time he gives you is a gift to come to repentance.
Today is the day of salvation. Don't put off until tomorrow the question of your relationship with God.

Personal Application

In what area of your life do you tend to "turn on the light" so you don't have to face a disturbing truth?
How do you react when God makes you wait: with impatience, or by recognizing that he is the master of time?
Have you ever mistaken God's patience for indifference, to the point of taking his judgment lightly?
What are you concretely doing with the time God gives you on earth?
Are you certain you have found the road back to God? If not, what keeps you from seeking him today?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Jesus' return seem delayed according to 2 Peter 3?

For William Philip, this apparent delay is not powerlessness. Peter answers that the Lord is not slow concerning his promise: he is patient, not wanting any to perish, but that all would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

What does "one day is as a thousand years" mean for the Lord?

Peter draws on Psalm 90 to remind us that God is the creator and master of time. We are locked inside time and cannot measure it from the outside. He alone sees history from above and can interpret it rightly.

Why is God patient with us?

Because he is slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness (Exodus 34:6), and he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). According to William Philip, the time God gives us on earth is a gift: it is granted to us so that we may come to repentance and find him.