Mike, I didn't know you believed that God couldn't tell time. Let's see, He speaks to His creation, then tells them that a day and night is no longer 24 hours? But that a day 12 hours in God's time is 1,000 years? Therefore His creation can now build whopping theories concerning eschatology based on a 1,000 year DAY doctrine? Well, don't feel bad, you have plenty of company. Mostly Talmudic Rabbinicals and Hindus. They just do a better job, since their vedic writings revolve around their 4,320,000 long time span within each age. Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. But enough of all that garbage. Let's see, here we have Peter a devout Judean who is quoting
Psalm 90:4. But let's examine what Peter is talking about, which leads him to quote
Psalm 90:4.
"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."
Mike, those scoffers Peter is referring to aren't backsliding Christians. They are religious Judeans who didn't believe that Jesus was their christ. Walking after their own lust isn't referring to not attending a church service, or going to the bar room, or smoking cigarettes. It is referring to the Judeans denouncing Jesus as being the Christ, and making the statement that a christ will NEVER come. Meaning the FIRST ADVENT. Not a second coming, but the first appearance. Scoffers were at the foot of the cross telling Jesus if He was the Christ that He should save Himself. That is what the popular belief among the Judeans who were not Christians and would NEVER be Christians. They didn't believe a christ was ever going to show up. 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. The fathers, meaning the patriarchs of the Judeans and the Israelites. The Genesis, since the beginning, everything was exactly as it always had been. Christs showed up, people flocked to them, and those christs didn't last. This is what Peter is dealing with.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, 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: 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.
What ungodly men? Mike? The ones who were scoffing and doubting there would ever be a christ. One thing very interesting here. Peter talks about the flood, and how God dealt with the ungodly wiping them out with a flood. I know some people have a crazy idea that God would then engulf the earth with flames burning not only it but the entire solar system. Interesting, but false. God speaking of His covenant makes this statement to His creation...never again will the waters become a flood to DESTROY ALL LIFE. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. I know, I know, you will say..."but God is saying He will never again destroy with flood waters, doesn't mean He can't destroy with a deluge of fire?" Well, the key word in the verse is destroy. Not flood, but the promise's focus is on destruction of ALL life. That's like a spouse taking their fist and breaking their beloved's nose. The spouse regrets the act of violence and says how they would no longer strike the other with a fist. Only two years later to beat them with a stick? Understand? Peter is telling Judeans who understood their own history that the same God would burn up the "elements" with a fervent heat, those elements aren't all life on a planet or the heaven where God dwells, or the solar system. Because after all, aren't the stars supposed to fall out of the sky? The Moon turn to blood, and the sun extinguished? The solar system rolled up like a scroll
Revelation 6:14,
Isaiah 34:4. No, it is all poetic language which the Judean fully understood since childhood. You don't understand it, and to the early Judeans you are more like a cargo cult who create a religious belief out of that which they don't understand.
So,
2 Peter 3:8 isn't talking about how long things take to happen. Peter wasn't telling people in his time that the scoffers in their time were correct. That God was going to take over 2,000 years to get everything accomplished. Isn't that what they were doing? Complaining that everything was talking too long? That since the fathers fell asleep since Genesis!!! OK, let's look, "Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up."
Everything in those verses are about SPEED, how we never see or notice how fast God performs. For us He is taking to long. For the scoffers they gave up believing that a christ would ever appear. But the promises of God are yea and amen. In
Psalm 39:5 Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. God is eternal, we don't notice how fast He works. Here the psalmist says that his life is passes quickly, not a 1,000, or two thousands years and still counting! The scoffers whole point is that God was talking too long. At the time of the first century was the time when Christ would appear. “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." Simeon understood the Word of the Lord, and understood that he would behold the Christ and the appointed time. He and Ana were waiting there because they knew the time. In
Luke 2:38 Ana understood she had found the redemption of Israel. But those who Peter calls scoffers, didn't believe the christ would ever come.
Psalm 90 is speaking about how fast God takes care of things. Not that He cannot tell time, or He forgot that He made a day literally 12 hours and a night 12 hours.
Hybrid Mode
