(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Man, the title of my sermon this evening is stirring up your pure minds, stirring up your pure minds. The Bible says there in verse number one, this second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and savior. Now Peter is writing in this chapter especially to maybe mature Christians or people who already know a lot about the Bible. But even if we know a lot, there's always more that we can learn. And not only that, even things that we know, we need to hear them over and over again so that our pure minds can be stirred up by way of remembrance of those things that maybe we've heard in the past. If you jump down to the very end of the chapter, it says in verse 17, ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, he's like, look, you know this stuff, but beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. So no matter how much you know, no matter how well versed you are in the word of God, you're still possibly susceptible to falling into heresy or getting sucked into a weird doctrine or just forgetting important teachings of the Bible or just not practicing things that are taught in the Bible because they're not at the forefront of your mind. And so he says, don't fall from your own steadfastness. I'm glad you know the word of God, but I want to keep you where you are right now. I want to stir up your pure mind by way of remembrance and also even to those who do know a lot, he says in verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, because no matter how much you know, you can still always grow in that knowledge. So backing up to the very beginning, it says the second epistle beloved, I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance that you may be mindful, meaning that you will think about these things, meditate upon these things of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and that was probably more of a reference to the old testament scriptures talking about the words spoken before by the holy prophets. And then it says, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and savior. Because of course the words that the apostles have given us in the new testament, whether that's from the four gospels, whether that's from the epistles of Paul or Peter or John, those things are just as authoritative as the laws of God that were handed down on Mount Sinai, right? All of the word of God is equally inspired. It's all profitable for doctrine and there's not one part of the Bible that is more authoritative than another. Just like God gave commandments to most on Mount Sinai, the Bible here is teaching that what the apostles have given us are also classified as commandments. The commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and savior. So there's no hierarchy in scripture. You know, it's interesting when you talk to the Jews, you know, I grew up in an old IFB church and so I thought the Jews believed the old testament because that's what pastors keep saying, right? Well, the Jews believe the old testament, but they don't believe the new testament. Then I eventually found out that the Jews don't believe any of the Bible at all, which is what Christ said because he said, well, if you believed Moses, you'd believe me. So if the Jews believe Moses, then they would believe in Jesus. That proves that no Jews believe in Moses because if they believe Moses, they believe Jesus. But I remember one time I was witnessing this guy because, you know, back when I was young, whenever I would knock on somebody's door to give them the gospel and they were Jewish, I'd be like, oh, I got to go to like Isaiah 53 or like, you know, Psalm 22, I got to show them from one of their scriptures, you know, because this is how I was brought up. You know, nowadays I knock on a door and they're Jewish. I go straight to Romans 3 23 because they don't believe any of it anyway. Might as well just hit them with the standard, easiest, best plan of salvation. But I thought, you know, I was working with a coworker that was Jewish and I start witnessing to this guy and I started saying something about, you know, some old testament scripture and he's just like, just, just stop right there. He said, let's just get something clear right now is that we don't, you know, first of all, he said, we don't really believe that the Bible is God's word. First of all, you know, this is a Jewish guy telling me this and this is how Jews are okay. Now you might find some most extreme sect of Hasidic Jews or Orthodox Jews that actually claim to believe the first five books and they're lying, but your average Jew doesn't even claim to believe any of it. Most of the Jews are borderline atheist in their beliefs. That's the vast majority. So this guy basically said, let's just get this straight. He said, first of all, he said, you're quoting Isaiah to me. He said, first of all, like even for Jews who believe that part of the Bible is the word of God, they're not talking about Isaiah. He said, you know, to them, really the only part that is straight from the mouth of God is the Torah, the first five books. He said, I don't even believe that, but he said, if any Jew believes anything is the word of God is those first five books. And then he kind of explained to me how there's this hierarchy and in fact, if you open a Hebrew Bible, it's broken into three sections, the law, the prophets and the writings. And guess what? They believe that the law is the most authoritative, then the prophets and then the writings are the least authoritative. Okay. So that's how they break it down. And these are not what you would think. Like let's do a little quiz. Where does the book of Daniel go? Yeah you'd think, right? But you're making way too much sense. Okay. Yeah. You'd think that the book of Daniel would go on the prophets, right? Nope. It's in the writings. Where would the book of first Kings go? It's the prophets. It doesn't make any sense because it's not about whether it's actually a prophet or whether this is a writing. Here's what it's about. It's about how authoritative it is to them. It's about when it was written and they think, oh the older stuff is more godly or more spiritual or more authoritative. So they give more weight to the Torah and then the next weight goes to the prophets which aren't necessarily prophets. Like it could be the book of Joshua, it could be first Samuel, okay, in the prophets and then you have someone like Daniel in the writings just because the book of Daniel is written so late. So it's really just about when it's composed and how authoritative it is to them. Hey, I'm glad that our Old Testament is laid out in a way that makes sense and it's laid out in a way that doesn't give preference to certain books based on how authoritative they are. No, because all scripture is given by inspiration of doctrine. All scripture is profitable for doctrine and Daniel is no more or less authoritative than Isaiah and Isaiah is no more or less authoritative than Genesis. It's all God's Word and by the way, the epistle of 2 Peter is just as authoritative as a booming voice coming from Mount Sinai giving the Ten Commandments and writing them with the very finger of God. You know, this epistle is God's Word, it is scripture. And so he talks about the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior. He says in verse 3, knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Now we are living in this time today, we are living in the last days and obviously we don't know when the second coming of Christ will be, but as we approach his coming, as we get closer and closer to his coming, we will see these phenomena in our world. That there will be last days scoffers walking after their own lusts saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Now notice people who scoff at the Word of God, people who don't believe in the second coming of Christ, they don't believe in the creation of the world by God. The Bible says that these people walk after their own lusts. Now another word for lust is desire, right? Just like the Bible says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. It also says thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife. It also says that I had not known lust except that the scripture said thou shalt not covet. And so these words are used synonymously. And so let me put it to you another way, people believe what they want to believe. People who deny the creation, the Word of God, the second coming of Christ, they are walking after their own lusts, they're walking after their own desires. They want to live their life in a certain way and they don't want the Bible to interfere with that so they want to pretend that the Bible isn't true and that there's no God and that there's no accountability for their actions. They're walking after their own lusts. People believe what they want to believe. You say well no Pastor Anderson, it's just that they studied science and now they know that God is not necessary. Now look, this is absurd because the more that you actually study science, especially biology, you would know just how necessary God is. Because if you think about it, a person who doesn't know science, you know, they look around this world and they see plants and animals and bugs and they see a lot of wonderful things. They see a lot of amazing things. But let me tell you something, what we know about science today in the 21st century shows that these organisms are so much more complex than anyone could have ever possibly imagined. I mean when Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species in 1859, not only had DNA not been discovered yet, but there was no concept of genetics. Didn't even exist. I mean the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, lived around the same time as Darwin and Darwin never heard of him because his work didn't become famous until long after he died. Gregor Mendel's work on genetics didn't become famous until the early 20th century. And we're talking Gregor Mendel, all he did is just come up with some basic ideas about dominant and recessive genes, but he had no clue how they worked. He didn't know what was going on. Folks, if you study cellular biology, microbiology, and you get down on that super small level, you will find that every cell in your body, every cell in anybody, every cell in any plant, every cell in the animal, it's like a small city. It's like a factory. Every single cell is like a super computer. It's insane, the complexity. Darwin didn't know that. None of these people could have known that. They're looking at a simple organism and then it gets more complicated. Folks, there is no such thing as a simple organism on this planet. It doesn't exist. There is no simple life form. It just doesn't exist. Every life form is incredibly complex. Our DNA has 2.9 billion base pairs. So that's basically like the code that tells that little fertilized egg to turn into a human. Basically if you could read that DNA code, you could literally tell everything about what a person is going to grow up and look like if you knew how to read the thing. It's like an instructions for the cell to know to turn into a human. But there are single-celled organisms. There's a type of protozoa that has 290 billion base pairs. So our DNA has 2.9 billion, there's a single-celled organism that has 290 billion and there's your simple organism right there. Single cell. That's pretty complicated. That's pretty complex. Not only that, understanding that the genetic code is so extensive and that there's just so much information there, that is nothing compared to when you start to understand how that genetic code actually gets executed. Because even if you somehow could have these type of codes come into existence on their own just by random chance, which is impossible, but let's say you could have these super complicated programs write themselves. What about the hardware? Right? I mean, you know, if a computer program writes itself, it's not going to do you any good unless you have a computer to execute the thing. You got to have the hardware and the software. And if you look at the way cells work, I mean, there are all of these proteins and enzymes and nucleic acids and all of this work that's happening in every cell of your body. We have literally like a hundred trillion cells in our body. So I have like a hundred trillion cells in my body and in every single one of them, there's all this machinery at work replicating DNA and using the genetic code from the DNA to build proteins. And not only that, just in the genetic code, the code will tell you, there will be a section of code that will tell you to code for a certain amino acid, right? But then you have all the amino acids that go into a protein. It's like, okay, wow, you got a protein. Where do you put it? Where do you stick the thing, right? What about the shipping and receiving department in the cells, sending the proteins once they've been manufactured, sending them where to go, telling the cell when to make more of this building material, what to keep that inside. I mean, think about a grocery store, it has all these things in stock. You have all these people going around checking what's in stock and different people are stocking the shelves and they have to know where to put each thing on the shelf. Folks, that's what every cell in your body is doing 24-7, basically creating new proteins and sticking them where they need to go and it is so incredibly complicated, you can't even begin to imagine it until you start delving in and studying this stuff and then you're going to delve in and study that stuff and say, oh, I studied and now I lost my faith in God. Once I found out that every single cell in my body is this incredibly sophisticated super computer run city, that's when I just realized that it all just came into existence by itself. It's crazy. Anybody who said, oh, I studied science and lost my faith in God, you know what? They just didn't want to believe in God in the first place and so they found some professor to tell them what they wanted to hear, that hey, this all came about by itself, even though science has no clue where that first life form came from. Science can't even explain what the definition of life even is. They don't even have a theory. In fact, they don't even have a hypothesis for how life came into existence. There is no detailed hypothesis at all that even begins to say where life came from and constantly when you're learning about this stuff, here's what they'll say. They'll be like, and then, you know, during cell division, the cell does this. We don't know why. We don't know what's making the cell do this. We don't know why these chromosomes are doing this. We don't know. Hey, I've even heard some of these people say, hey, if you can figure this out, you'll be a really wealthy person. If you can figure out how this works or what's going on. I'm telling you, it is incredible, but yet people claim the science debunks God. It's the stupidest thing in the world, okay? Or you can think of it another way. Let's say the hardware could just magically come into existence by itself. You know, you've got the primordial soup, you've got the rock substrate, and the primordial soup is raining down on the rocks, and let's say it all just lays out, right? And I like to think of it as this, like let's say you had like these green circuit boards all over the world. There's just a planet filled with green little circuit boards, and it's raining solder out of the sky, and there's all these like resistors, and transistors, and all kinds of electronic components floating around and everything, and you know, it just happens for millions of years, and pretty soon one of them, you know, actually makes like a working circuit. Where's the software, right? Where's the, I mean look, you've got to have software, you've got to have hardware, and let me tell you something. The software hardware example, talking about computers, computers are a joke compared to our brains and our bodies. Our brains and our bodies are more amazing than any computer that has ever existed. And yet these computers take an insane amount of intelligent design over the course. I mean look, it's not like somebody just came out with a computer from one day to the next, just like, we don't have computers that's just like, here's a MacBook Pro, I just invented this in 1955. Folks, no, the computer, if you study the history of the computer, it didn't just come out in the 80s. Like you might think, like oh computers kind of came out in the 80s, folks computers were already in the works in the early 20th century, and they developed, and they developed all throughout the 20th century over the course, I mean we're like a hundred years in on this thing of the computer, okay, and you know, we've arrived at the iPhone or whatever, okay. So let me tell you something, people, they think that all this complexity, all of this amazing complex machinery that goes into even the simplest bacteria, show me a simple bacteria. Show me an animal that's so simple that you could imagine it coming into existence on its own. There's nothing even close. Even viruses, which aren't even, they're not even really living organisms on their own. They're just basically protein and DNA, pretty much, a bundle of protein and DNA. Viruses that most people would agree are not really life forms. Even they would have something like 55,000 base pairs or something, you know, they still have a complicated program, and they can't do anything on their own. They have to, they just have to hijack some other cell that's, you know, a thousand times more complicated and get in there and make that cell do what they want it to do. Anyway, I digress. The bottom line is that people who walk after their own lust, they are the ones who decide that they don't believe there's a God, that everything just came into existence on its own, and that, you know, life came from nothing, and all these other ideas that really can't be proven by science at all. How do you prove that life came into existence on its own when you can't even make life in the laboratory? You know, how do you prove that we all evolved from some primordial simple organism? You can't even find an organism like that, you don't even have an example of an organism like that. It doesn't even exist. Anyway, we could go on and on about that, but the point is that these people say, where is the promise of his coming, talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ, for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. And I've heard a preacher one time say that, oh, well these people are Christians because they're talking about creation, wrong, because of the fact that creation doesn't necessarily mean Christian, okay? You can believe in creation without being a Christian. But not only that, even the atheist today, even the person who doesn't believe in anything supernatural still believes in a point of creation or origin because they believe in the big bang. And this has not always been the case, right? The big bang is a pretty new theory, relatively. It didn't really come out until the mid 20th century as far as, and it really didn't get popular until later in the 20th century, but it used to be that these evolutionary types believed that the universe had just always been around and it was just eternal. But now they believe that there's a starting point. They believe that there's a creation and that all things continue as they were from the beginning of that creation. Why do they believe that? Why do they reject the idea of a creator? Why don't they want to believe even in an intelligent designer? It's because they want to walk after their own lust. They don't want to believe. That's why they don't believe. People believe what they want. And you say, well Pastor Anderson, you believe what you want. You got it right. I do. I want to believe in God. I want to believe in Jesus Christ because I love God and I love Jesus Christ. And if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Yeah, I do believe what I want. And you know what? That's why people who don't want to believe in God and don't want to believe in Jesus are wicked and they go to hell when they die. Yeah, I believe what I want. Who here is like, well, I believe in Jesus, but I really don't want to. I'm stuck with it. Hey, you know what? If you believe in Jesus and you don't want to, but you just know that he's real. Hey, God bless you. I'm glad you're, I'm glad you believe in Jesus. I'm glad you're going to heaven, but I have a feeling that most people that are here today love Jesus. They not only believe in him, they actually like him. They actually love him and they're actually glad that the Bible is true and not just like, well, it stinks, but here we are. But you know what? Hey, if you believe that, at least you're not an idiot, right? Because it's the fool that said in his heart, there is no God. So he says here, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, again, proving that they believe what they want. Their belief is according to their desires. They willingly are ignorant means they want to be ignorant of the fact that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. They're willingly ignorant of the fact that not only did God create this world, God also has already one time destroyed this world. And that is a sobering thought because it shows what kind of God we're dealing with. If he has already destroyed the world once, he'll do it again. And he has said that he would do it again. That's why the Bible says in verse seven, but the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. The same heavens and earth that were one time destroyed in the days of the flood are reserved for a future judgment of being destroyed once again at the second coming of Christ. But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. So people say, you know, where is the promise of his coming? What's taking so long? You know, it's 2023 AD and still no second coming of Christ. What's the deal? You know, that really shouldn't shock us for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you look at events in the Old Testament, they happened over the course of thousands of years. I mean, from the creation of the flood is like, you know, some almost 1700 years or what have you, right? And then, you know, from Abraham until David is like a thousand years or something, right? From David and all the prophecies that David gave about Christ, you know, it's another thousand years until Jesus actually shows up. You know, God is dealing with us over a long period of time and to him it doesn't feel long because he dwells outside of time. So to him, a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day. It's no thing to him. Also, the other reason why we shouldn't be surprised is because this epistle exists. You know, a lot of people will try to tell you, oh, the apostles all believed that Jesus Christ was coming back in their lifetime. Well, apparently, at least at this point in Peter's life, Peter doesn't believe that Christ is coming back in his lifetime because he's predicting some future time way off in the distance where people would say, where is the promise of his coming and where he would be reminding people, hey, a day is like a thousand years. You know, reading this, doesn't it make it seem like Christ coming at least like a thousand years out from when Peter's writing? Because why would Peter write, well, a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day, and he's coming back in 200 years. It would make more sense if he says, well, to him, a thousand years like a day. And so if he doesn't come back for a few thousand years, it's like a few days, right? Think about how Jacob, you know, he wanted to marry Rachel and he has to wait seven years and it seemed like just a few days to him for the love that, you know, basically that's like God. It seems like a few days to him when he lets two, three thousand years go by. It's just a few days, right? And so this chapter right here shows us that Christ coming, even from a first century perspective, could be seen as something that would happen maybe a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years later. Because why are we even talking on that order of magnitude about thousands of years? So don't listen to this stuff that says, well, you know, they all believed it was going to happen in their lifetime. Well, apparently not all of them at all times because this epistle exists. And it says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. It's not that God is just, he's just procrastinating. I know I need to come back and destroy everything and rule and reign, but it's just, I'm kind of putting it off. I don't want to have to kill all those people and do all that, you know. Is God just up in heaven procrastinating? Is he slacking off or is he slack concerning his promise? Like is he not sure whether he's really going to follow through with what he has said that he would do? No, it's not that he's slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to us, word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So the longer that he waits, he's allowing more time for people to get saved because at any time he shows up and cuts it off, you know, and people start dying en masse, well those are people that aren't going to heaven if they're not saved, right? Whereas like, you know, as he lets it go, more and more people are getting saved, right? We're getting people saved at our church every day. Other churches all over the world are getting people saved every day. The gospel is going forth and being preached. And so, uh, he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So he's letting things run their course and letting the gospel go around the world and letting more and more people hear the gospel so that as many people could be saved as possible. But verse 10, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. You know, eventually it's going to come and it will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also in the works that are there in shall be burned up. Now of course we were to compare this to the epistles of Paul. We would see that the day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night according to first Thessalonians chapter five. And by the way, Peter is definitely aware of Paul's epistles because he's going to bring up Paul's epistles in a couple of verses. And he says how Paul has talked to you about these things in his epistles. And so first Thessalonians five talks about the day of the Lord being as a thief in the night, but in first Thessalonians five we get a little more detail because in first Thessalonians five he says, but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. He says we're to watch, we're to be sober. We're not in darkness that that day should overtake us as a thief. We have no need that he write unto us of the times and the seasons because we already know what the scripture has prophesied will happen in what order. And when we see those things begin to come to pass, we will look and lift up our heads for our redemption draweth nigh at that point. Whereas this world, the scoffers that are out there scoffing at the second coming of Christ, it will come upon them as a thief in the night. And in that day of the Lord, the Bible says the heaven shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also in the works that are there and shall be burned up. Now when is this? What is this referring to? Well, the day of the Lord is referring to that day when the sun and moon are darkened after the tribulation, the sun and moon are darkened. Christ comes in the clouds, the trumpet sounds and the elect are caught up to be with Christ in the clouds. This is what we're talking about with the day of the Lord. It's recorded in Matthew 24, Revelation chapter 6. Well, if you study this in Revelation chapter 6 and you see that sun and moon being darkened and the great day of Christ's wrath has come and then the great multitude appears in heaven in chapter 7 of all nations and kindreds and tongues because of all of those who've been caught up together to meet the Lord in the air and so forth. If you study that passage you'll find that a half hour goes by. After this great multitude appears in heaven and all these things happen, then there's a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour and then fire is rained upon the earth on that same day. So basically the rapture takes place and then shortly thereafter the same day fire and brimstone are rained upon the earth. Now what did the Bible say in Luke chapter 17? Jesus Christ in Luke 17 talked about how the coming of the Son of Man would be like it was in the days of Noah and it says the same day that Noah entered into the ark, the flood came and took them all away. And then it also says that it will be like it was in the days of Lot because the same day that Lot went out of Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah. So that's what it's going to be like in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. The same day that Christ appears in the clouds, the trumpet sounds and we are caught up to be with the Lord, the same day it will rain fire down from the sky upon this earth. And that's what's being described here in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 10 as well. And if you remember when the sixth seal is opened in Revelation 6 and the sun and moon are darkened, which are the key events of the day of the Lord, just look up all the references of the day of the Lord, you're constantly going to see sun and moon darkened. Then the sun and moon are darkened. The Bible also says the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together. So the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together and then after that catching away of God's people, there's going to be fire raining down from the sky. And the Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 8 that one third of the trees that are on this earth will be burned up and all green grass will be burned up. Now if you stop and think about fire that would burn all the green grass and one third of the trees, I mean this is basically universal destruction. This is fire all over the place. Everything's on fire, everything's burning. You say, well, two thirds of the trees survived, but these are probably just the two thirds of the trees that are the most robust that can handle a fire coming through. But if all the green grass is burned up, then obviously, you know, you have fire happening in all areas. There's a lot of fire going on. And so the Bible says here, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. There's your heaven departing as a scroll when it is rolled together. The elements shall melt with fervent heat. When things are on fire, stuff melts. The earth also in the works that are then shall be burned up. That's just talking about things on the surface of the earth being burned up. So you don't want to exaggerate the events of 2 Peter 3.10 when the Bible says the earth and the works that are there in shall be burned up. It's not saying the earth's gonna be like burned up and it's not there anymore. It's just burned up and it's gone. No because the Bible says the earth abideth forever. Now heaven and earth shall pass away, the Bible says, but that's referring to the earth being changed into a new earth just as we pass away. But yet we also live forever because we shall be changed, bodily resurrected. The earth will also be, in a sense, bodily resurrected, but that's another sermon that shall be preached another time. The bottom line is that here we see the earth also and the works that are then being burned up. This is just talking about fire raining from the sky and destroying things that are on the surface of the earth, which is exactly what we read about happening on the day of the Lord when we study this in the book of Revelation, just mass burnings throughout this world. Verse 11, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, you say, what's the relevance of these type of end times apocalyptic teachings? What's the relevance of thinking about eschatology or the second coming of Christ? Well seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness? You know, it's going to change the way that we live our life when we stop and think about how everything in this world is going to be burned up someday. All the skyscrapers of this world are going to come crashing down someday. All of your toys and all of your possessions and all of the things that you own will ultimately be destroyed someday. Nothing that you can see with your eyes is permanent. The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are not seen are eternal. And so what type of person should we be? What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Speaking for verse 12, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. And again, I believe the day of God and the day of Lord are just referring to the same day here. Nevertheless, we according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore – because that's of course in the long term what things are going to end up at. This is not giving a detailed account of end times, it's just hitting a few major highlights. It says, wherefore beloved, verse 14, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him at peace, without spot and blameless, and account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. Now back up, what did it say in verse 9? The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. And then now it says the long suffering of our Lord is salvation, meaning that the reason why we're still here in 2023 and the reason why God has allowed it to go on for thousands of years is for the purpose of people being saved. So if we're not going out and evangelizing as Christians, if we're not reaching the world with the Gospel, if we're not sending missionaries all over the world or going on missions trips ourselves, if we're not going out there in the highways and hedges preaching the Gospel to the lost, then it's kind of a waste for God to just keep dragging this thing out. You know, the purpose of God dragging these things out is so that we can exist right now and do the work that we're doing right now. Why is the world still here in 2023? It's so that you and I can be out there winning people to Christ because the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. God's long suffering to us were not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You know, if Christ would have returned in the year 2005, well then Faithful Word Baptist Church would have never existed. And think about all the people that we've seen saved since 2005. Well, none of that would have ever happened. None of that would have existed if Christ would have come in 2005. Who was alive in 2005, but you weren't saved? Okay, so you guys all would have been toast. So hey, the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. Okay, so hey, we're here and that was like most hands in the building, the majority of hands in the building, the vast majority. I'm saying that for people at home who can't see your hands. So basically, yeah, and the people that are watching at home, probably a lot of them were alive in 2005 and not yet saved. Now if you were a baby or a toddler, well, you were automatically going anyway. So you were going to have a pass anyway. But it says in verse number 15, account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you. He's referring them to what the Apostle Paul has written in his epistles, validating Paul's epistles as scripture, as the word of God. So he talked about at the beginning of the chapter, the commandments of us, the apostles, and then he's including the Apostle Paul in that, even though the Apostle Paul was not one of Jesus's original disciples or apostles. Peter is validating the fact that yeah, Paul is legit. And he says, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you. He wrote unto you about this stuff as well, as also in all his epistles. So again, Peter is acknowledging a multitude of epistles from Paul, because we know of course that there are 14 epistles of Paul in our New Testament, so it's quite a few. Paul's epistles speaking in them of these things in which, and I love this part, in which are some things hard to be understood. Now here's what's funny, you have people out there today whose goal is to make the Bible easy for you to understand, but I've got news for you, it's all not supposed to be easy. You know, if somebody hands you a Bible and says, this whole thing is easy to understand, I'd say, I don't want it because it's false, because the Bible said that some of it's supposed to be hard, and if some of it isn't hard, it's the wrong book. And you know what I've noticed that a lot of modern versions, they'll take really hard passages of scripture and they'll make them really easy, but they just don't say the same thing anymore. You know, yeah, it's pretty easy to make things easier by just changing them to something easy. And you know what I've noticed is that when you run into a passage in the King James that's really hard. You know, you run into a passage sometimes and you're just kind of like, uh-huh? And you know, I mean, we could go to so many examples, but I think the example that my mind always instantly goes to is Romans chapter five. You know, there's this part in Romans chapter five, let's just go there real quick just to get a quick example. But I mean, we could turn to all kinds of scriptures. This is just kind of my go-to that I think of, is I think of this portion in Romans chapter five because it's just so complicated the way it's worded. Let's just start in verse 14 of Romans chapter five. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many, and not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. And I'm just kind of like, huh? Not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. And obviously like we understand the gist of what's being said, but some of this grammar is a little complicated. Like not as the offense, so also is the free gift, it's just like, whoa, it's a little bit tough. We could go to other portions of scripture, and I've seen when modern versions are advertised, they will sometimes pick portions of scripture that are a little bit tough in the King James, and they'll show you those to try to show you, see, the King James is really hard, and you need to get one of these modern versions. And you'll see them pull that number quite a bit. There's another example in second, oh yeah, here we go. This is one that I actually saw on an advertisement for Bibles. Go to second Corinthians chapter 10. There was this little brochure showing you the differences between versions, and it was all about just kind of dragging down the King James and telling you why you need to buy the NIV. That's obviously what they were selling, was the NIV and this brochure at a Christian bookstore. And this was the verse that they used, verse 13, but we will not boast of things, second Corinthians 10, 13, but we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God had distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. Now, and you might, if you just read that out of context at face value, you're kind of like, I don't really know what that's saying. What is that at first blush? And so, you know, they'll often use this tactic of maybe picking something that's worded in a complicated way or that's a little tough to understand and show you, see, this is why the King James is a problem and whatever. But here's what I found. What I found is that if you look up any difficult passage in the King James New Testament, if you look it up in a Greek New Testament, guess what? It's the same complicated, hard to understand grammar in the original and all the translators, they would just bring it into English and it is what it is. I mean, that's what it says in the original. It's not like, oh, well, the original is so clear and then the King James had to go and make it all so complicated. Like they just brought in all this new complexity or something. What it is is that some passages in the New Testament are maybe tough to understand. Some things don't necessarily make a lot of sense at first blush when you read verses and they kind of just don't make sense right away. Well, what the King James translators did is they just translated them to English and just said, well, we'll let someone else worry about the interpretation of this difficult passage. But here's what it says, you figure it out. Whereas what the new versions will do sometimes, they'll take things that are hard to understand and they'll just kind of decide, well, here's what I think this means and then they'll just write it in a really easy sentence and then you're like, oh, so refreshing. It's so easy to understand. Yeah, that's just because it's not what it says. They changed the text. So what did Peter say? Peter said, hey, there's some stuff in Paul's epistles that is hard to understand. It's supposed to be hard. You know, I thank God that the whole Bible isn't written on the level of like a Dr. Seuss book or something, because you know what? Because I've been saved now for like 35 years and I'm still learning, I'm still trying to figure things out. I'm still learning the Bible and trying, but do you think I'd still be doing that if the Bible was all written on a first grade reading level, third grade reading level? And these versions will brag about, oh, the Bible is written on a fifth grade reading level. Well, I don't worship a fifth grader. I'm not worshiping some fifth grade God, some 10 year old up in the sky. I'm worshiping the God of the universe who's got some complicated stuff in the word. And I'm glad it's complicated sometimes. You know what? But you know what I'm really thankful for are the easy parts. Because if it was all complicated, we'd all be screwed because we can't figure it out. I'm thankful for the easy parts and I'm thankful for the hard parts. Because the easy parts can get us all to first base right away. We can all get saved, we can all get the basics, we can all figure out what we're supposed to do with our lives in general. But then the complicated parts, you can still be wrestling with 50, 60 years from now and you're not going to be bored with the word of God. Because it still has more, it has beginner, intermediate and advanced passages all throughout so that you can stay interested and stay engaged. So what did Peter say? There are some things that are hard to be understood in Paul's epistles. If you want to get back in 2 Peter 3.16, and it says, which they that are unlearned, we would say uneducated, those that are unlearned and unstable, they rest them. Rest means twist, right? They twist them, they rest them as they do also the other scriptures. So they don't just do this to Paul, they do this to other scriptures too, they twist things. But guess what? Hard scriptures are easier to twist than easy scriptures. Easy scriptures like, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, it's kind of hard to twist that. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, he that believeth on me has everlasting life. It's kind of hard to twist that, isn't it? Those simple verses are wonderful because you can't really twist them, they say one thing and it's obvious. But false prophets and false teachers, they don't want to grab on to those really easy passages. They want to grab on to some really obscure dark passage, because then they can make it say whatever they want in a sense. Because it's difficult, it's going over most people's heads, so then they can guide you down a dark path and twist your understanding of that verse. They do that to the other scriptures too, but they do it under their own destruction. But ye therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before verse 17, beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. None of us is immune from falling into some kind of a stupid false teaching. Now we are immune from believing in a false gospel, because if we're saved, anybody who starts believing in another gospel is just proving that they were never saved in the first place. We can all get involved in stupid doctrines, squirrelly doctrines, so we want to be sober and vigilant and up on the word so that we are not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, so we don't fall from our steadfastness and we need to continually grow in grace, verse 18, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to Him be glory both now and forever, amen. So here's the moral of the sermon, right? So we've gone through this whole chapter and seen some basic things, we've seen some complicated things but bookended with this idea of, look, you guys know this stuff, right? But I want to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. I don't want you to get complacent in your knowledge of the Bible. I want you to keep growing in knowledge because I don't want you to get caught away with the error of the wicked if you let down your guard, if you stop learning. And so what we need to understand today as Christians is that in 2023, I don't care how long you've been saved, I don't care how many times you've read the Bible coming to cover, you still need to be reading your Bible and you still need to be going to church. And I've been saved a long time, my friend, I've been saved for 35 years, I've been in church the whole time, nonstop, been in church, the vast majority of that time, it was three times a week, I've been reading my Bible every day for years and years and years and years, I've read the Bible cover to cover, scores and scores of times. But you know what? I need to read my Bible every single day. I can't just say, well, you know, I've read it so many times, I'm done. Now I'm just going to go live it. Well, you know, yeah, I need to be living it. But guess what? I need to read it tomorrow. I can't just ride on past knowledge. You can't ride on past knowledge. And I don't want to have this attitude that says, well, I'm not going to listen to preaching because I already know it all. But there are people who have that attitude. You know, what do I need to go to church for on Sunday night? I mean, I already know what Pastor Anderson's teachings are. I already know what the Bible says. You know, 1 John series, Pastor Anderson's already preached all, I've already heard all that. I don't need that stuff. But let me tell you something. Number one, there is always more to learn. I learned something new constantly reading my Bible. And sometimes when I think I learned something new, then I'll hear an old sermon from myself and I said it like 15 years ago, which shows that even stuff I learned, I forgot and needed to learn it again. And I'll get all excited, like learning something new. I was talking to my brother this week and he's like, oh, I got a great sermon idea for you. And he told me the sermon idea and I was like, man, that's so good. I'm like, I'm going to preach that this Sunday. I love that idea. And so I sat down to write my sermon for this morning and I'm all excited about this idea he gave me. And I was like, you know, just to be safe, I better check. Have I already preached this? And I searched and the sermon with the identical title from 2021, and that's not even that long ago. Hey, then I click on the sermon and listen to the first 60 seconds and it was like everything I wanted to preach in the first 60 seconds. And I was like, okay, yeah, let me think of something else, which is why, which is why I preach something else, you know? But the point is like, you know, I guess if I didn't remember and he didn't remember, you know, maybe you guys wouldn't remember it either, but the internet would have remembered, you know? So anyway, but that happens to me all the time, but you know, I was just happy that I figured it out before I wrote the sermon because I was just starting to write the sermon. I've literally sat down and written like a four page outline and just been like, oh man, this is just, it's just all falling into place. And I write this big long sermon. And then at the end I'm just like, wait a minute, this seems a little familiar. And I literally pull up an old sermon from 10, 15 years ago and the points are in the identical order. And I'm like, well, great minds think alike, I guess, you know, it's crazy how much you forget. I've literally, my pastor, I remember pastor, he always jokes about how I told him, like, he told me something from the Bible and I'm like, man, I've never thought of that. That is so, he's like, I'm like, I heard this sermon where you preach this. I've never thought of it. He's like, I learned it from you. And I'm like, what? No, I never did. But the thing is, it's true. We forget everything, don't we? We forget, first of all, but I am constantly learning things that are for sure new, I promise. I actually do learn new stuff and I also have a memory disorder, so that makes my Bible reading stay exciting. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, when you get really old, the Bible is fresh every day. Once you get like, once you're in the memory care unit, it's like, man, the book of Genesis just hits hard every time. You're like, man, who's gonna, how, you know, his wife's barren, how's he gonna be a great nation? I mean, the book of Genesis is a page turner once you hit 100. I mean, it's great. But the point is, you know, first of all, there is always more to learn, but second of all, we need to be reminded of things that we don't forget them. But third of all, even if you already know it and you know that you know it, you just need to hear it again to get stirred up about it, right? To get excited about it, to get motivated about it. I mean, look, we all know that we're not supposed to steal. I mean, nobody's like, oh, yeah, that's stealing. That's one of the Ten Commandments. That's right. We're not supposed to steal. I can't believe I forgot. You know, thank you for teaching me that, Pastor Anderson. But yet a sermon on stealing would be a great sermon to preach, even though everybody already knows. Why? To get up and preach about stealing so that people have it in their head how bad stealing is and why we shouldn't steal and just have a hatred for sin and to be righteously indignant at sin and to not maybe just forget how bad stealing is or just kind of not have it on our mind that we shouldn't be stealing and the next thing you know, you're stealing something or whatever. You say no one in church would ever steal. But I promise you that there are people in this building that have stolen and will steal in the future, unfortunately. You name a sin and pretty much somebody is doing it somewhere in a crowd this size, okay? Because of the fact that we're all human and different people have different temptations and different proclivities. But the bottom line is we all need to be reading our Bible and we all need to be in church. You never grow out of needing preaching or needing to read the Bible. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and thank you for stirring up our pure minds by way of remembrance, Lord. I pray that all of us would stay zealous about our Bible reading and stay zealous about our church attendance, always seeking to learn, number one. Number two, to reinforce what we've already learned and number three, to actually just be stirred up about things that we've always known, Lord. Please, Holy Spirit, continue to speak to our hearts in this assembly and in our own personal Bible reading and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.