II Peter 3:1-9
“Where Is the Promise of His Coming?”

Introduction
1. To most Americans today the 2nd coming of Christ is a fairy tale…a myth on the level of
Mother Goose and no better than Jack and the Beanstalk.
2. Where is the promise of His coming?
3. II Peter 3:1-9 says, “Jesus Is Coming”

Where is the promise of His coming? Jesus Is Coming!
I. SAINTS REMEMBER HIS RETURN 3:1-2
A. The Participants 1a Beloved
1. This is the first of four occurrences in this chapter (vss. 1, 8, 14, 17)
2. These are those who are loved by God. It is a term of endearment… ‘Friends’,
‘Loved Ones’.
B. The Purpose 1b-2
The purpose is twofold:
1.To stimulate you to wholesome thinking 1b
*As reminders to stimulate you or as in (1:13) to refresh your memory.
Pure minds is literally, ‘without wax’. Some pottery salesmen would use wax to cover
cracks and weak places in pottery. Such a cover-up could be detected only by
holding the jug up to the sun to see if any weaknesses were visible. Such a jug was
‘sun judged’.
*God wants His people to have ‘sun judged’ minds not those in which the sun spots have been covered up. He wants the genuine article!
2. Verse 2 Peter reminds his readers that they need to remember (1:12-15).
*Prophets as they spoke of the day of the Lord…
*Commands of our Lord and Savior…His teachings which were proclaimed by
the apostles. This linking of prophet with apostle placed them on the same level
of authority.
*Remember the Old Testament and the New Testament concerning His coming.

Where is the promise of His coming? Jesus Is Coming!
II. SCOFFERS REJECT HIS RETURN 3:3-7
A. The Denial of His Coming 3-5a
1. Remember, the appearance of scoffers in the last days deny Biblical truth and live
ungodly lives.
2.The last days…Last days is the time between Christ’s ascension and His return.
We are in the ‘last days’. Peter looked ahead!!
3.Scoffers are those in (2:1) who deny Authority, the Atonement and His return. It
applied to those of Peter’s day, but how true this is today! These are mockers. Walking after their own sinful desires (senses…from a purely human perspective). Arrogant…they disdain the idea of a coming judgment which led to sexual perversion.
4.Verse 4a Their mocking took on the form of a single question: Where is the
promise of His coming? Where is the coming He promised? These are denying that Jesus would ever come!
5.Verse 4b Their premise: all things continue as they were from the beginning of
creation.
*This is the 21st century theory of uniformity (carbon dating and radioactive dating) “The cosmic processes of the present and the future can be understood solely on the basis of how the cosmos operated in the past.”
*“Catastrophes do not happen in the stable universe.” 150 years ago science, protestants, catholic all believed in creation, the flood, etc. No more. The science world: “Natural laws and processes have never yet been interrupted.” This theory is to be prevalent in the last days. Peter regards this theory as untrue. If you start with a wrong assumption you will end with a wrong conclusion.
6. For this (last of v. 4 because of this theory) they willingly are ignorant.
*They can’t see the facts for their theory. They are willfully ignorant of God’s
truth.
*A professor at Ball State when asked if he studied the Biblical account, his reply,
“I don’t have time to study such material.”
B. The Demonstration of His Coming 5b-7
1. Peter reviewed some ancient history: By the word of God.
*In His sovereign will, any change in process can occur at any time, for He
designed and controls these ‘natural processes’.
*Interestingly Peter was both a creationist and a believer in the universal flood.
2. Peter answers their theory and their being willfully ignorant with two events which
cannot be explained on the basis of uniformitarianism:
*Creation in 5b was by the word of the Lord. Either all of this came from nothing
or there was an intelligent designer. Something cannot come from nothing. If
there is an effect, there must be a cause.
*The Flood 6 was by the word of the Lord. The inhabitants of the word were
destroyed being over flowed with water. Look at the mountains worldwide. Up
to 6000 to 8000 feet is sedimentary rock, which means there has to be water.
Water seeks its own level. The tops exploded with volcanic force and heat
melting the sand and rocks. Look at the Grand Canyon’s layer of rocks. It was
not formed by millions of years of the Colorado River gushing through the rocks.
For this they are willfully ignorant.
*Verse 7 By the word of the Lord the heavens and earth is reserved for a fiery
Judgment as well as sinful men. God is reserving. He is holding the earth on
layaway, stored up like a treasure. He will purge the cosmos by His word
with fire!

Where is the promise of His coming? Jesus Is Coming!
III. SAINTS, RELY ON HIS RETURN 3:8,9
God guarantees it!!
A. God’s Delay Is Not Denial 8
1. Why should the Lord be so long in coming? Be not ignorant of this one thing.
They were ignorant and the scoffers had forgotten.
2. People see time against time. God sees time against eternity. With the Lord one
day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Time only seems
long because of perspective. What to people seems a long time is to the Lord
very short. The present Church Age in God’s eyes has lasted two days! We
can’t put God in our calendar of time.
B. God’s Delay Is By Design 9
1. He is not willing that any should perish, but all would come to repentance. God
wants as many people as possible to be saved.
2. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise…God’s slowness or tardiness
(according to man’s schedule) is off their schedule, but not God’s!
3. Peter is not teaching universal salvation. He longs that all would be saved. He
knows that all won’t!
4. Repentance is a change of mind, a turning around regarding God, Sin, Christ,
Salvation. The heart of God is to see people saved. This should be our heart’s
desire and determination!

He Has Not Come Back So That You Might Be Saved!