“Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”
Once again, we see Peter’s heart for his readers. This is the second time in this chapter that he calls them his dear friends. He wants to emphasize that he is in this with them. He is not coming at this from the perspective of someone who does not understand. He is also eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus. In these verses he makes two points. God’s timing is not our timing and there is a reason for God’s delay.
Peter starts by quoting a verse from the Psalms. He says, “…don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” This is taken from Psalm 90:4. “For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by, like a few hours of the night.” Peter’s Jewish converts would have been familiar with this quote. Perhaps the Gentile believers would not have been. Either way, Peter is making the point that with God, time does not matter. John Barry writes in his commentary, “People, as finite beings, cannot expect to understand God’s timing, so they should not expect Christ to return according to their timetable.”
Some people, however, have done just that. There have been (and I’m sure there will continue to be) men who prophecy when Christ will return based on numbers found in the Bible. One example of this is Harold Camping, a Christian radio broadcaster and evangelist who passed away in 2013. He made many predictions of when the Judgment Day would occur- beginning with September 6, 1994. When that date passed, he revised the day several more times. The most well-known of these dates was May 21, 2011, which was widely publicized by Family Radio, which he was the president of. He used the verse from 2 Peter 3 to say that this day was exactly seven thousand years from the time of the Great Flood, and if God gave a warning of seven days before the Flood, then God was hinting that Judgment would occur seven thousand years after. Camping received millions of dollars in donations before these dates. I’m sure that many people sold possessions, quit jobs, etc. because of these predictions. More importantly, many people became disillusioned with their faith when the end did not come. Jesus warned that false prophets would come. He also said this about his second coming. “Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son —except the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36).
The second reason that Peter gives is God’s patience. He writes, “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” One of my favorite passages from the Old Testament is from Exodus, when God shows His glory to Moses after he gets the second copy of the Ten Commandments. “The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, “the Lord.” The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:5-7). I looked up the phrases from these verses. God is described as compassionate and gracious eleven times in the Old Testament; slow to anger, nine times; and abounding in faithful love, eight times. In Ezekiel, we read, “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?” (18:23). And “For I take no pleasure in anyone’s death.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “So repent and live!” (18:32).
The last part of verse nine is important. Peter writes that God does not want us to perish but to come to repentance. What is repentance? Repentance is admitting that you are a sinner, asking God for forgiveness, and then changing your behavior. In 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, Paul writes, “I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn’t experience any loss from us.For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.” And Jesus says this in Luke 15:7. “I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.”
God is delaying his final judgment of the world so that more can come to repentance. Sometimes I get discouraged when I look at the news or online and I see all of the evil that is in the world. I want Jesus to come back quickly. But I need to remember that every day that God delays, more people come to repentance.
I’ve been rereading Mere Christianity and Lewis states it perfectly at the end of book 2. He writes about God coming back to an enemy occupied world. “Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force, we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely…God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly with our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world…For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side… God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 