Good Morning Friends,
Do You think a lot about heaven? Most people think they are going there but hardly ever think about what heaven is and how we get there. But if we are going to heaven, and I hope we all are, it seems proper for us to prepare. Now we may not have much to say in the outcome but to defer to our advocate, however we have events each day that we weigh in on that might give us a hint as to the outcome. And frankly in the process realize that heaven is closer than we might think. So we need to be cognizant of what motivates our behavior and be intentional about our priorities. You see, we cannot go far in life before we bump into things and sometimes it is because we have poor vision, but not always. The thing is, we have a choice as to how we proceed when this happens. We have to decide if we are bumping into a little bit of heaven or a little bit of hell. Or most likely a little bit of both. But like light being either a particle or a wave our perception of heaven and hell do not happen at the same time in our observation of reality. Sometimes our emotions decide for us and sometimes we overcome our base instincts. We are hardwired to remember our failures as a matter of survival, but we need to try to remember our successes, especially when it comes to things spiritual. With this mindset today we look at the second and third chapters of 2 Peter and ask: Are We Applying The Recommendation To Begin With The End In Mind When It Comes To Heaven?
Scripture: But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment—especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgment from the Lord. These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed, suffering the penalty for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of doing wrong, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,” and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”
2 Peter 2 (NRSV)
This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
2 Peter 3 (NRSV)
Message: It seems that everywhere the gospel of freedom and the assurance for the elect was preached, false teachers distorted it. The letter of 2 Peter addresses this problem for the early church who were expecting Jesus’ return soon and very soon but lived in the reality that the now was not yet. Today approximately 2000 years later in might be wise for us to consider Peter and the Psalmist comments that for God a day is like 1000 years. So, 2 Peter is about what we are to do given the return of Jesus and the consequences related thereto including the baptism of fire. And whereas the first chapter which I have addressed in a previous devotional, was a positive and encouraging summons for us to confirm our call and election by availing ourselves of God’s power of godliness, the second and third chapters set a different tone regarding the second coming. The first chapter is a carrot and the second a stick and the third a focus on the coming accounting and the certainty of the coming day of eternity. Indeed Chapter 2 is a very bleak portrayal of the false teachers in the churches who do not avail themselves of God’s divine nature and instead give themselves over to sinful indulgence in the name of Christian freedom. The main point of the chapter is that these false teachers and those enticed by them will in the end experience condemnation and destruction. The heresy of the false teachers is a moral heresy but moreover a denial of Christ’s saving act on the cross. The chapter intends to do in a negative way what chapter 1 aims to do in a positive way, namely, make us earnest about the business of confirming our call and election. Peter warns how these false teachers entice new and unstable Christians into moral apostasy. And when they turn away from the faith, their condition is worse than if they had never known the way of righteousness at all. Being a Christian means being willing to be all in and to go the distance. What Peter is saying is that false teachers are so brazen and cocky and self-assured that they consider themselves safe from any supernatural evil influence at all even in the midst of sinning themselves. They offer mirages in the desert for those in need of a drink and perhaps even believe in the mirage. And to show the arrogance of such an attitude of false security, Peter says that even the good angels who, unlike the false teachers, are stronger than the evil ones, nevertheless do not presume to pronounce a judgment. They humble themselves and leave the judgment to God. What we need as seekers is a real oasis and the discernment to recognize the difference between waterless springs and living water. We need to recognize the signs of heaven here and now. And there needs to be a sense of urgency in the seeking the right priorities. Peter argues that the cost of false teaching is so great that a more severe punishment is reserved for those who start in the faith and fall away because they failed to repent. And for false teachers a double punishment is in store. Success here is a matter of trusting the good doctor who prescribes an antibiotic that you need to take in its completeness or risk that your latter state will be worse than the former illness. The image here is like the casting out of demons without replacing them with God. If we do not have Jesus as part of the solution all the demons will come back with their friends.
The principle is also that the more we know of Christ and his way, the more severe will be the judgment for not trusting and obeying Christ. Better never to have known the way than to reject it. We need to trust our heavenly doctor in the prescription for our redemption. The main point is that those who deny Christ are headed in the wrong direction. Peter having denied Christ three times knew the remorse of such an action and its pain but changed before the last call.
Interestingly there are no commands, no admonitions, no imperatives in chapter 2. What we have is just a pure, terrifying description of what will happen to those who fall prey to the false teachers in the church. Friends, if we choose to not follow God and instead follow our base impulses, we are fools. The cultural subversion of the Biblical faith is at play and the judgement is harsh for getting it wrong even though a focus on getting it right is even more important.
Peter illustrates God’s wrath with three cases and then draws his conclusion that is relevant for us today. The first, is the case of the fallen angels. The second illustration of God’s judgment is the case of Noah’s generation. The third illustration is the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. Peter uses scripture to back up his warning to not let the world shape us. We are not be enslaved to irrational passions. We are to repent or face doom. That is what this letter is about. To make the lesson of history perfectly plain Peter claims that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and he knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of denying Christ’s rule and therefor despise authority. And, of course, Peter does not just mean God knows how to do it. It means he has done it in the past; he will do it in the future. Destruction is not sleeping. The risk of failure is severe. This is serious business. In summary the letter of 2 Peter was written to help us confirm our election by warning us not to deny the Master who bought us and by strengthening us to resist the temptations of spiritual pride and self-sufficiency, the love of money and all its destructive tendencies, and sins. It is not the kind of letter we enjoy reading. But not all medicine tastes good. God, the great physician, knows our need. And every word is profitable. If it increases our earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope to the end, it will have succeeded, for Jesus not only died but rose from the dead and will come again. We need to prepare for heaven. Preparing for hell is pointless.
And So, a lot of us just do not think much about heaven. If we were to take a survey asking the question, about conversations people have had over the last week I doubt I would get many positive responses. The problem is that heaven, even heaven on earth is sometimes difficult to envision. The fact is that we can go a pretty long time and engage in conversations with people all around the world and never discuss heaven. The challenge is that when the experiences of life get difficult and we bump into the things of life, it is easy to get squeezed and fail to meditate on the celestial glories. Maybe heaven is hard to imagine but if we love and have been loved it is so much easier. Only then can we get over the painful reality that to get to heaven we die to self and only if we believe and trust in the Advocate Jesus can we avoid the judgement verdict of guilty at our death. But we have to think about heaven because those things we bump into in life might just be the gates of heaven. Friends, the entrance to heaven is not limited to one ethnic group, or one denomination, or a certain social status, or type of person or even to a specific time. Jesus opens his arms to all, and even now says, I can take you to heaven if you come on the narrow road trusting in what I did on the cross. So, what we need to do is to accept the free gift of grace. We need to open our hearts to Christ, confess our sin and ask Jesus to save us and help us to believe before we die. This is how we confirm our election. And no, it is not about the campaign trail. Nevertheless, we run on a ticket to heaven with Jesus and hopefully vote early for the party to come. For it will not be long before the returns are tallied. And even though we already know Jesus wins it is sure to be a dramatic finish.
Pray we learn that the church is not immune to false teachers. Pray therefore that we remember that we have been established in our faith with the essentials of being Christian and sharing in the divine nature of Christ. Pray therefore we grow in love, as a sign of life, in the grace, stability and knowledge of Christ. Pray
we make every effort to keep ourselves rooted and grounded in the Word of God lest we lose our stability and be carried away in the emotions of the world. Pray we realize that free love is not free. Pray we never deny Christ in thought, word, or deed. Pray we realize judgement is coming and we are to live our lives as though something very significant were at stake. Pray we repent and trust in Jesus who redeems us if we but not deny Him. Pray we not ignore heaven in our lives now. Pray we are born to new life. Pray we realize what Jesus has already done for us if we would just believe. Pray when the time comes, we have the privilege, joy and assurance of heaven not because of what we have done but because what Christ has done. Pray for the time beyond time when the world is made new and the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting become one. Pray we keep our sights on heaven even when the world around us seems hell bent on destruction.
Blessings,
John Lawson
P.S. The poem The Second Coming was written after World War 1 by William Butler Yeats. A 2016 analysis by research company Factiva showed that lines from the poem were quoted more often in the first seven months of 2016 than in any of the preceding 30 years. The context of the quotes was thought to be because of increased terrorist violence, polarized political animosities, and Brexit reform with the invoked line being: “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” Interestingly the poem’s original title was the Second Birth not the Second Coming. But since we are meditating on the letter of Second Peter and the Second Coming is part of the storyline, I thought I should include it for your consideration as an after image of staring into the soul of the universe we call the Bible. Indeed, we also like those countless people of Yeats’ time might feel that the end of an era has been reached and something new needs to be born.
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, / The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, /The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, /The ceremony of innocence is drowned; /The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity ./ Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. / The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out / When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert / A shape with lion body and the head of a man, / A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, / Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it / Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. / The darkness drops again; but now I know / That twenty centuries of stony sleep / Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, / And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Daily Devotionals 