2Peter 3:11-18 Knowing these things beforehand
11 Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, 12 looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
This is why this is a crucial part of the gospel message. When you have a vision of the end of the age it is a controlling vision. You live and walk in light of that vision. Little, petty offences look just like that, small, petty and insignificant.
13 But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
We are not rejoicing that some people are not repenting or that God’s judgement will fall on some. Instead, our focus is on the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. Let’s consider how incredibly unrighteous the situation is here in October of 2020. We have just learned that the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop with thousands of emails completely laying out a corruption scandal between Hunter Biden, business interests in the Ukraine, China, Iraq, and other countries and Joe Biden. Not only so but there were also thousands of pictures that proved Hunter Biden continued to be a drug addict and also involved in child porn. They have had this laptop for a year. Did they bring charges against the Biden crime family? No. However the story still managed to leak out this month. Facebook whose executive in charge of dealing with the Presidential campaign censored this story. It turns out that this person worked with Biden in Obama’s administration on the Ukraine deals. Twitter also censored the story, locking out the President’s press secretary for tweeting the story and locking the NY Post account. They were caught in an ugly web of hypocrisy which is a whole other story of lies and deceit. But the story is not just of a corrupt politician and his reprobate son, nor is it of an FBI coverup or even of censorship by these giant tech giants. Adam Schiff a prominent leader among the Democrats put out a story saying that the intelligence community had evidence that this laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. In other words the whole story is false, made up by the Russians to impact our election. So the Director of National Intelligence also went on the news to state publicly and unequivocally that there is absolutely no intelligence suggesting that the laptop is part of a Russian disinformation campaign. He said that 100% of the intelligence that Adam Schiff gets goes through him and he lied when he said this. That makes Adam Schiff guilty of a disinformation campaign to alter the election. CNN and MSNBC both ran with Adam Schiff, using his statements to discredit the story. So CNN, MSNBC and senior members of the democratic party are part of this disinformation campaign to cover up the sins of Joe Biden. But it is even worse than that when you consider the potential security risk of having a president blackmailed by foreign countries clearly aware of his sins would pose. But incredible as this all is there is still more. This puts the entire dossier that Clinton’s camp put together to smear Trump and the three year campaign to investigate and impeach him in an entirely new light of crooks taking a preemptive shot. Since then we had a massive cyber attack that stole information from virtually every essential government service in this country and then we had a hack of the pipeline which was shut down for a week, disrupted for two weeks, and caused significant gas shortages to the East coast. Yet Biden immediately dismissed allegations that this was an attack from Russia even though the cyber attack did come from Russia. He followed this up with a massive failure in Afghanistan and the number of migrants crossing our border every month is equivalent in size to the D day invasion of Normandy. His policy of being vaccinated or get fired has caused massive chaos in the airline industry and hundreds of container ships to be stuck outside ports waiting to be offloaded or loaded.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight.
Every one of us needs the Lord’s blood to have peace with God. Every one of us needs to repent of our sins. Do not go down this road of covering them up, lying about them, and adding to them by trying to attack and destroy others.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Look at that, what a great example. Paul rebuked Peter to his face in the book of Galatians because he was to be condemned. Does Peter hold a grudge? No, he testifies of Paul and confirms Paul’s ministry. What a great testimony and a great example.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness.
Can we please not skim over verses like this! Knowing these things beforehand is a critical part of the gospel we preach. Everyone on earth knows that the rapture is part of the Christian belief. That is important because when they see it they need to know that they are seeing the rapture. Satan will try to deceive them with Alien abductions. There will be many people left on Earth like Lot who although they were not “preachers of righteousness” like Noah, were still “righteous men”. They will need to repent of their fear of the mockers and those who walk in the lust of their flesh and take a stand for righteousness. Knowing this beforehand will help them to repent.
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I have seen many of these Youtube accounts of “rapture dreams” and as good as they are, the key point is to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. If a dream helps you wake up that is great, but it is the fellowship of the apostles, the word of God that will help you grow in grace and the Knowledge of the Savior.
To him be the glory both now and for ever. Amen.
11 Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, 12 looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
This is why this is a crucial part of the gospel message. When you have a vision of the end of the age it is a controlling vision. You live and walk in light of that vision. Little, petty offences look just like that, small, petty and insignificant.
13 But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
We are not rejoicing that some people are not repenting or that God’s judgement will fall on some. Instead, our focus is on the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. Let’s consider how incredibly unrighteous the situation is here in October of 2020. We have just learned that the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop with thousands of emails completely laying out a corruption scandal between Hunter Biden, business interests in the Ukraine, China, Iraq, and other countries and Joe Biden. Not only so but there were also thousands of pictures that proved Hunter Biden continued to be a drug addict and also involved in child porn. They have had this laptop for a year. Did they bring charges against the Biden crime family? No. However the story still managed to leak out this month. Facebook whose executive in charge of dealing with the Presidential campaign censored this story. It turns out that this person worked with Biden in Obama’s administration on the Ukraine deals. Twitter also censored the story, locking out the President’s press secretary for tweeting the story and locking the NY Post account. They were caught in an ugly web of hypocrisy which is a whole other story of lies and deceit. But the story is not just of a corrupt politician and his reprobate son, nor is it of an FBI coverup or even of censorship by these giant tech giants. Adam Schiff a prominent leader among the Democrats put out a story saying that the intelligence community had evidence that this laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. In other words the whole story is false, made up by the Russians to impact our election. So the Director of National Intelligence also went on the news to state publicly and unequivocally that there is absolutely no intelligence suggesting that the laptop is part of a Russian disinformation campaign. He said that 100% of the intelligence that Adam Schiff gets goes through him and he lied when he said this. That makes Adam Schiff guilty of a disinformation campaign to alter the election. CNN and MSNBC both ran with Adam Schiff, using his statements to discredit the story. So CNN, MSNBC and senior members of the democratic party are part of this disinformation campaign to cover up the sins of Joe Biden. But it is even worse than that when you consider the potential security risk of having a president blackmailed by foreign countries clearly aware of his sins would pose. But incredible as this all is there is still more. This puts the entire dossier that Clinton’s camp put together to smear Trump and the three year campaign to investigate and impeach him in an entirely new light of crooks taking a preemptive shot. Since then we had a massive cyber attack that stole information from virtually every essential government service in this country and then we had a hack of the pipeline which was shut down for a week, disrupted for two weeks, and caused significant gas shortages to the East coast. Yet Biden immediately dismissed allegations that this was an attack from Russia even though the cyber attack did come from Russia. He followed this up with a massive failure in Afghanistan and the number of migrants crossing our border every month is equivalent in size to the D day invasion of Normandy. His policy of being vaccinated or get fired has caused massive chaos in the airline industry and hundreds of container ships to be stuck outside ports waiting to be offloaded or loaded.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight.
Every one of us needs the Lord’s blood to have peace with God. Every one of us needs to repent of our sins. Do not go down this road of covering them up, lying about them, and adding to them by trying to attack and destroy others.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Look at that, what a great example. Paul rebuked Peter to his face in the book of Galatians because he was to be condemned. Does Peter hold a grudge? No, he testifies of Paul and confirms Paul’s ministry. What a great testimony and a great example.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness.
Can we please not skim over verses like this! Knowing these things beforehand is a critical part of the gospel we preach. Everyone on earth knows that the rapture is part of the Christian belief. That is important because when they see it they need to know that they are seeing the rapture. Satan will try to deceive them with Alien abductions. There will be many people left on Earth like Lot who although they were not “preachers of righteousness” like Noah, were still “righteous men”. They will need to repent of their fear of the mockers and those who walk in the lust of their flesh and take a stand for righteousness. Knowing this beforehand will help them to repent.
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I have seen many of these Youtube accounts of “rapture dreams” and as good as they are, the key point is to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. If a dream helps you wake up that is great, but it is the fellowship of the apostles, the word of God that will help you grow in grace and the Knowledge of the Savior.
To him be the glory both now and for ever. Amen.