PT-1 God's Will is Merciful (2 Peter 3:8-10)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 05/10/2004

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 God’s Will is Merciful

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  2 Peter 3:8-10

            Message of the verses:  “8 But 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.  9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

            I suppose that one of the great problems that people have today, both believers and non-believers, but especially non-believers are that they try to make God into their own image.  Peter is addressing this issue here, but he is only talking about the apostates as they truly were making God into their own image.  I have stressed in many of my Spiritual Diaries the need to learn and understand as best we can who God truly is by the study of His attributes, for that is the only way that we can understand who God is.  If we study the life of Jesus Christ in the gospels we will see who God is for at the end of the gospel of John (chapter 14) Jesus tells Philip His disciple that “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  Study the attributes of God, and study the life of Jesus Christ and you will get to know God as well as you can get to know Him in this life.  In my Sunday school class on the book of Revelation this week we are going over the end of chapter one which shows us who Jesus Christ truly is as far as being Lord of His church.  John gives a wonderful description of Jesus as He is now, the Lord of His church.  We can learn about who God is by studying these later verses in chapter one of Revelation.  I have told the story of how a banker can recognize a counterfeit bill in earlier Spiritual Diaries.  The banker does not go out and study all of the different counterfeit bills, but studies the real bills, and by knowing everything there is to know about a real bill they will recognize a counterfeit bill when they see them.  If we as believers get to know who the real God is by studying the life of Christ and studying the attributes of God they we will not be fooled by the apostates of our day, and there are many apostates in our day as prophesized in the Word of God concerning what will happen towards the end times.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes on this subject “They [the apostates] are making God in their own image and ignoring the fact that God is eternal.  This means that He has neither beginning nor ending.   Man is immortal:  he has a beginning but not an ending.  He will live forever either in heaven or hell.  But God is eternal, without beginning or ending and He dwells in eternity.  Eternity is not just ‘extended time.’  Rather, it is existence above and apart from time.”  One has to remember that God is the One who created time.  24 hours is one revolution of the earth, and one revolution of the earth around the sun is one year, that is how God made it, and that is how we live in time.  God, as Dr. Wiersbe says lives above time.

            I want to talk about Psalm 90:4 which is where Peter gets his quote from verse eight:  “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”  Dr. Wiersbe points out that Isaac Watts used Psalm 90 as the basis for the familiar hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is Thine arm alone, And our defense is sure. Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same. Thy Word commands our flesh to dust, “Return, ye sons of men”: All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth again. A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. The busy tribes of flesh and blood, With all their lives and cares, Are carried downwards by the flood, And lost in foll’wing years. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the op’ning day. Like flow’ry fields the nations stand Pleased with the morning light; The flow’rs beneath the mower’s hand Lie with’ring ere ’tis night. O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home.

We will continue to look at verse eight in our next SD.

10/7/2017 9:46 AM