 |
Bible Study from 2 Peter 3:10
The Day of the Lord
By I Gordon
Introduction
We have seen so far that the context of chapter 3 deals
with the last days and the Lord’s return. We have seen that some will come
saying ‘Oh yeah, right, Jesus is coming, yeah sure! There’s going to be
judgment at the end of the age, yeah right!
Everything just carries on as it always has, the sun rises, the sun
sets. Nothing ever changes. God doesn’t step in, if there is a God, to the
affairs of man’. So Peter is saying that this is going to happen in the end
times. They are going to start mocking
the thought that there could actually be a judgment, and that God would even
judge the earth. But the Day of the Lord will come, Peter tells us… there is no
doubt about it. So what I want to look at in this study is this term ‘the Day
of the Lord’. We will look at what it means and what the threefold purpose[1]
for the Day of the Lord is.
The Day of the
Lord
2 Peter 3:10 ‘But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.’
So firstly, let’s look at the term ‘the Day of the
Lord’. Peter didn’t make up this term.
Paul didn’t make up this term.
The other apostles didn’t come up with it. This goes all the way back to
the prophets of the Old Testament and they were always consistent in talking
about the Day[2] of the
Lord that would come at the end of the age.
In short, the day of the Lord defines a period of time at the end of
this age where God will bring His judgment upon the earth.
So Peter says that the Day of the Lord will come. It
is not going to be a day too late and it’s not going to be a day too early. It
will be in God’s absolute perfect timing[3].
And it 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.’ So how does a thief
come? When you are least expecting it,
and that is why Paul said this in Thessalonians (he was talking about the Day
of the Lord as well)
‘For you
yourselves know full well that the Day of the Lord will come just like a thief
in the night, while they are saying peace and safety then destruction will come
upon them suddenly like labour pains upon a woman with child and they will not
escape.‘ (1 Thes 5:2-3)
Jesus also, when He was talking about His return
(Matt 24:42-44), said it would come unexpectantly and quickly like a thief[4].
We know that they will be saying ‘peace and safety’, ‘everything is great in
this world’. But it’s amazing how quickly some things can change. I preached
this study in the week of the disaster in
Now, in Arnold Fruchtenbaum’s book ‘The Footsteps
of the Messiah’, he states the three fold purpose for the Day of the Lord and I
want to use this as the frame work for this study. The first is in Isaiah 13.
First purpose – To
make an end of wickedness and wicked ones
Isaiah 13:9-11 ‘See,
the day of the LORD is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger— to make the land desolate and destroy the
sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not
show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give
its light. I will punish the world for
its evil, the wicked for their sins. I
will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of
the ruthless. I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the
gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will
shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD Almighty, in the day of his
burning anger.’
In this age in which we live, Peter says that God
is amazingly patient, He is wanting people to repent, He is wanting people to
come to Him and to know Him. But all of the Prophets talked about this time as
Isaiah does here. And so the first
purpose of the Day of the Lord is to bring an end to wickedness and wicked ones…
which is a pretty full on thought. It says in verse 9 that God will make the
land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. And not only will this
judgement be upon the earth, but the heavens as well as we saw in 2nd
Peter 3:10. We see this also in Isaiah 13 passage where it states that “The stars of the heaven and their
constellations will not flash forth their light and the sun will be dark when
it rises and the moon will not shed its light”.
Isaiah chapter 24 pictures the same time as this
and it speaks of a weight that is upon the whole earth, pulling it down. It says
-
‘The
earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder; the earth is thoroughly shaken.
The
earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it
is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls—never to rise again.’ (Isa
24:19-20)
So basically it is picturing the earth and likens
it to a drunken man with weights upon him, pulling him over - and that weight
upon the earth is its sin. It is a vivid picture of the day when God just says
ENOUGH!! ENOUGH – there is enough sin.
And I don’t know about you, but when I was thinking about it, I thought
we have gone 2,000 years where God has been dealing with mankind in the day of grace. And God has been amazingly patient… and we
know that the Amorites had 400 years until their sin was complete, so that
judgment could take place. And when I think of the sin of the world, it reminds
me of the exponential growth curves that you see in physics and mathematics
classes at school. It starts off pretty flat for a while, but it starts to grow
and double, and double, and before long it is increasing enormously in very
little time. Sin can be like that. Because the world in which we live is
becoming so unified, the philosophies of the world are spreading everywhere –
and rapidly! There does seem to be an exponential growth curve in terms of sin.
Because of this I really feel that the day of the Lord and Jesus’ return can’t
be too far away. So it says: “The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard,
for its transgression is heavy upon it and it will fall never to rise again”.
So that’s the first purpose of the Day of the Lord;
to put an end to wickedness and wicked ones.
But there is another reason for God has a very real purpose for the good
of mankind, even amongst His judgement!
Second Purpose –
Worldwide Revival!
The second reason for the Day of the Lord is to
bring about worldwide revival. Now, a lot of people talk about revival, saying “oooh
there’s gunna be a revival, revival is coming, oooh here it comes”. I’ve heard
that for some time. And it is true that God is doing some fantastic things in
the earth right now - normally though within eastern or third world countries
where there is either persecution or real need for Him. But as I read my Bible,
the only revival that I see clearly in scripture is this one during the
tribulation, the day of the Lord. Let’s have a look –
Rev 7:9-14 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count,
from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne
and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm
branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on
the throne, and to the Lamb.”… Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and
where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the
great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb.
So John saw a great multitude that no man could
count. From every nation standing before the throne! And it specifically says
that they are the ones who have come out of the Great Tribulation. This period
of time, this Day of the Lord, is going to be decision time for people. You
cannot just sit on the fence. If you
have watched the news about the
So the first purpose of the Day of the Lord is to
put an end to wickedness. But it is also to bring people to the point where
they are going to make a choice. Which
way are you going to go? – Are you going to believe and stand up for the Lord
or are you just going to carry on with the masses on the broad road that leads
to destruction? And in Revelation itself you see both of these cases. You see
these people, multitudes even from every single tribe and tongue who come out
of the Great Tribulation because they have washed their robes in the Blood of
the Lamb - meaning that they have accepted the Lord and have been washed clean.
Yet you see others that curse God when the judgements occur and will not
repent! (See Rev 9:20-21, 16:9, 21) This always amazes me, and I always think
“why can’t they just give in – why don’t they just acknowledge God as God?” But
they will not. So you see both sides of it. At least at that stage there will
be no more “lukewarm”. No sitting on the fence then!
The Third Purpose
– Break the power of
The third and final purpose is in Daniel chapter
12. It goes back a long, long, long time to some promises He made to a nation
called
Daniel 12:5-7 Then I, Daniel, looked, and there before me
stood two others, one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank.
One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of
the river, “How long will it be before
these astonishing things are fulfilled?” The man clothed in linen, who was
above the waters of the river, lifted his right hand and his left hand toward
heaven, and I heard him swear by him who lives forever, saying, “It will be for
a time, times and half a time. When the
power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be
completed.”
The context of Daniel 12 is speaking about the
tribulation that the nation of
Conclusion
So the three-fold purpose of the day of the Lord is
1) To put an end to wickedness, and the wicked ones
2) To bring about a worldwide revival
3) To break the power of the Jewish nation but to
bring them to repentance.
And let’s just finish by looking briefly at the two
next verses in 2nd Peter chapter 3. (It’s ok, they won’t be as long
as verse 10!)
2 Peter 3:11-12 ‘Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.’
So how should you live now, seeing as these things
are going to happen? Is it going to make any difference as to how we live our
lives now?[6] Are we going to think more about eternal
things and the things that really count, the things that really matter?
There is a saying –
“Only one life and it shall soon be past. Only what
you do for Jesus will last.”
And that is the truth of the matter. That is the
challenge - To live for more than just the here and now![7]