Wholesome Thinking

The Word Has Come:

“I have written both of them to stimulate you to wholesome thinking” - 2 Peter 3:1

Pokémon Go really stirred up the world. Millions of people are wandering around the planet capturing these creatures in the world of virtual reality. I myself have captured five. We are all stirred up about presidential politics. Politics will generally ignite a fiery and passionate discussion. I hope that your Bible class is not wasting precious time on Donald and Hillary when you should be discussing the far more important words of Jesus and Peter.

Peter wants to stimulate or “stir them up” to wholesome thinking. “Wholesome” may have the ancient root of “sunlight.” It means pure or unsullied; “pure when unfolded and examined by the sun.” Thinking is the “the mind as the faculty of understanding, feeling, and desire; understanding.”

Pastor Peter wants their thinking process to be pure even when examined in the bright light of God’s truth. He wants their understanding of themselves and of their world to be pure and sincere, not skewed by evil motives and desires.

He wants them to recall two things:

1. the words of the holy prophets and
2. the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

• Peter is even now writing that apostolic command as he pens this letter to the churches. Yet in his own time he is aware of the great burden of leadership placed upon the Twelve that the Lord Jesus chose those years ago in Galilee. Those Twelve were deliberately given the mantle of leadership of the church of Jesus Christ and the responsibility to deliver to the people all that Jesus taught them.

• This apostolic authority was given to the eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus for this very reason—that they could continue to insist on what they had seen and heard from the Lord Jesus himself. This is the church of Jesus Christ, not Peter’s church or Paul’s church. Peter has this assignment because he is representing Jesus in the world.

You can really stir up your mind, your memories, and your world by anchoring all that you do in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Scoffers Will Come:

“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires” - 2 Peter 3:3

Scoffers are generally sitting down. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers.” (Psalm 1:1).

• They are deriding those who are trying. They are on the sidelines ridiculing the person who is running the race.

• They do not have a solution.

Scoffers follow their own evil desires.

• They have thrown away the notion of eternal, objective truth in the universe. They have embraced the idea that truth is whatever you think it is.

• They have conveniently decided that their own evil impulses should rule the day. According to the proverb of the 1960s, “If it feels good, do it.”

Every generation has endured scoffers from the very beginning. They were there when Noah heard God’s call to build the ark. They were there when Abraham heard God’s call to go to a land yet unidentified. Joseph’s brothers scoffed at his visions. Goliath scoffed at David and his measly sling.

• You will endure scoffers. They will ridicule you because you display self-control, discipline, and the courage of your convictions. They will make it all sound so silly.

• And it gets worse as the end draws near.

Jesus Will Come:

“They will say, 'Where is this coming he promised?’” - 2 Peter 3:4

The Second Coming of Jesus is a fundamental teaching of Jesus and his Church.

• It is an essential part of our view of the world and human history. It is not a throw-a-way doctrine. It is at the heart of what we believe about the nature of God, the nature of humans, and the nature of this universe.

• This truth is a part of all the ancient confessions of the church and of our own Baptist confession.

The Return of Christ is not a story made up by false prophets. It is not a way to calibrate human calendars. The return of Christ to this planet is not a doctrine for kooks and clowns. And it is not about any person’s date-setting agenda.

The Return of Christ is a fundamental doctrine taught by Jesus and his apostles. This is how it reads:

• All things began in the heart and word of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There was nothing but God. And then there was God and the universe which he created by his own irresistible Word.

• Pastor Maltbie Babcock lived in Lockport, New York in an area known as “the escarpment.” When he went for his walks he would say, “I am going out to see my Father’s world.” In 1901 he wrote these words, “This is my Father’s world:” This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears / All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. / This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought / Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; / His hand the wonders wrought.
• The people of God have confessed through the generations that Planet Earth and the farflung universe does not belong to humans—it all belongs to the Father in Heaven.
• All things find their culmination in the will and purpose of God. The coming of Christ is the companion doctrine to the creation of the world. One is the beginning and the other is the end.

• Human history is linear. It began in the heart of God, and that is where it will find its completion. We are not spinning around in senseless and eternal circles. We have a beginning, as all science now confesses, and we will have an ending.

• The end will happen in the Providence of God. It will not be accidental. It will not be of human origin. It is already written in the purpose and will of God. And he will bring it about. God is going to break into human history again as he did when he sent his Son and our Savior.

• Peter is not conflating two different events: the coming of Jesus and the end of the world. He helping us understand that the coming of Jesus is essentially the end of the world and the falling of God’s judgment. People who insist on charts and calendars concocted from obscure texts and the misinterpretation of current events have perpetually confused God’s people about the meaning his coming.
• This same Jesus who was taken from us into the clouds at his ascension so long ago will come again. He will come with the clouds, from above, and he will bring judgment to this rebellious human race that has so loudly and profanely resisted his will at every turn.

• The only way to prepare for the inevitable end both of human history and of your own personal history is to confess Jesus Christ, God’s One and Only Son, as Lord and Savior.

The end of the world will happen one day. The closer we get to the actual end of the world, the louder the scoffers will get. There will be scoffers even “in the last days” who will insist, “God is not going to send a flood, you fool!” Hold on to the truth of God’s conclusion to all this mess we are in. Jesus is coming!