Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20120108.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
2 Peter: Effective Christian Growth For Combating Spiritual Apostasy
Part VII: God's Direction On Answering False Teachers Unique To Our Era
(2 Peter 3:1-9)
  1. Introduction
    1. Though the Apostle Peter provided a comprehensive series of tests by which we could discern false teachers and their teachings in 2 Peter 2:1-22, a prophecy of specific teachings by false teachers in our era of Church History would be especially helpful for providing direction and for edifying the Christian today.
    2. Such a prophecy was made in 2 Peter 3:1-9, and we view it for our direction and edification as follows:
  2. God's Direction On Answering False Teachers Unique To Our Era, 2 Peter 3:1-9.
    1. 2 Peter 3:1-9 focused on errors that scoffers will teach in the latter days of Church History, the era "between the Lord's First and Second Advents," 2 Peter 3:3-4; Bible Knowledge Com., N. T., p. 875.
    2. As such, Peter told us Christians to recall the words of the Old Testament prophets along with our Lord and Savior's words in the New Testament given unto us by the apostles so as to "stimulate" us to "wholesome thinking" in clear contrast to the error of false teachers of our unique era, 2 Peter 3:1-2.
    3. Specifically, Peter wanted us to know "above all", the meaning of the word rendered "first" in verse 3 (Ibid.), that certain troublesome false teaching, the doctrine we know today as "uniformitarianism" that is behind Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, was going to arise (as follows), 2 Peter 3:3-4 NIV:
      1. False teachers who heeded their own "evil desires" would arise and scoff at Scripture's promise of Christ's Second Coming, 2 Peter 3:3-4 NIV.
      2. They would claim the "uniformitarian" idea that since the Old Testament fathers to whom God began to give His promises, including the promises of Christ's Kingdom, everything goes on just as it has since the creation of the universe, 2 Peter 3:4 NIV. In other words, these teachers would claim that "the cosmic processes of the present and the future can be understood solely on the basis of how the cosmos has operated in the past", a view that "rules out divine intervention" via "miracles" so that the "special creation" by miracles as in Genesis 1 and 2 is not true! (Ibid.) Such "uniformitarianism" is the foundation of Darwin's theory of evolution, Roger Patterson, Evolution Exposed, 2006, p. 109-110.
    4. However, Peter then wanted us to know how to answer this false teaching as follows, 2 Peter 3:5-9:
      1. We are to note that teachers of uniformitarianism "deliberately forget" that by God's spoken word, miracles occurred when He called into existence the heavens and formed the dry land out of the waters on the third day (Genesis 1:9-10), 2 Peter 3:5; Ibid., Bible Know. Com., N. T. Answers In Genesis and other special creationists and their groups provide huge quantities of scientific data today in support of this claim by Peter that evidences for special creation are ignored by teachers of uniformitarianism.
      2. We are to note that teachers of uniformitarianism also "deliberately forget" that God miraculously made those same waters flood and destroy all life on the earth in the Genesis Flood, 2 Peter 3:6; Ibid. Again, Answers In Genesis and other special creationists and their groups offer much evidence in support of the reality of the Genesis Flood that is simply ignored by teachers of uniformitarianism.
      3. We are also to realize that the earth will once again be miraculously destroyed by fire when God judges and destroys ungodly men, 2 Peter 3:7.
      4. Peter wanted us to answer the uniformitarian ideology by noting that the seeming long time of a lack of miracles did not mean uniformitarianism was true, but that it was to be explained in view of God's grace: He is very long-suffering with the ungodly, not wanting anyone to perish, so He greatly delays His judgment to give men time to repent and to be saved, 2 Peter 3:9.
      5. Indeed, God's patience is so great, length of time is relatively meaningless to Him, a day being as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, 2 Peter 3:8. This is not to say that the seven days of the creation in Genesis 1-2 are non-literal days of long ages of evolutionary development, but that the 2 Peter 3:8 expression is a simile, a figure of speech designed to describe God's great patience!
Lesson: To guard against the uniformitarian error that is so strong and prevalent today, God wants us to gain wholesome thinking by recalling written Scripture and Peter's 2 Peter 3:5-9 reasoning.

Application: May we recall God's Word and heed 2 Peter 3:5-9 to stay pure of uniformitarian ideology.