9-11-2021 That none should perish
2 Peter
3:8-9
But beloved, don’t be ignorant of this one thing, one day
with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years is as if
it were only one day.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise but is longsuffering
towards us, for His desire is that no one should perish but that all would come
to repentance.
Father
always was, still is and always will be.
He is Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8), the first and the
last.
I watched an
episode of Stargate SG-1 where the team (in a spacecraft) was fired upon by the
‘bad guys’, but due to friendly alien technology, they put themselves in a time
bubble. Outside the bubble, time
progressed normally. Inside the bubble
slowed down immensely (for the team). Or
was it the other way around? The team
felt and operated as if they were in regular time but hours could pass in the
bubble while only tenths of a second would pass outside. Get the picture.
God is
infinite. We can’t determine His
beginning nor can we predict or see His end (what end?). We are ‘finite’, our beginning and end are
easily determined (birth and death). God
knows we operate in this finite zone, so He puts up with our foolishness for a
long time (as we see it) before He lowers the boom. That’s why some really nasty people seem to
go on and on, like the ‘ever ready bunny’ while other ‘good people’ seem to
have their lives cut short. I guess
loves them a little bit more and doesn’t want to even take a chance of them
messin’ up! God gives us foolish ones
chance after chance, but eventually He will no longer put up with that
foolishness. Eventually, He will give
those (who insist on it) over to their own conceits, a reprobate mind (Rom. 1:28). He will not wrestle with us forever (Gen. 6:3, Rom 3:20-32), but eventually will
let us do our ‘own thing’ allowing us to suffer the consequences.
God has
given us free will to make our own choices.
Just as Eve and Adam had a choice to eat or not to eat the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.
3:1-6). And so it is today. We can still choose between what is right and
what is wrong. We just have to get a
handle on what is right. We know that
when we are obedient to God, good things come our way (Rom. 8:28). We see that our
enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus has come that we may have
life and have it more abundantly (John
10:10). We see that God loves us so
much, He has given us His only begotten Son that we should not perish,
but have everlasting life (John 3:16)! We make the ‘right’ choices, God is with us
and if God is with us, who can stand against us (Rom. 8:31)?
I have an
example from my own life to demonstrate this.
Norm and I were processing out of country (Vietnam) in December
1967. We had to go to Vung Tau (on the
coast), to process out of country, but had to come back to our home base in
Saigon (more inland) to catch the flight home the next day. Around five or six PM, we had just missed the
last flight back to Saigon. We checked
around to see if anything else might be headed back to Saigon and found a
helicopter headed for the 90th Replacement camp, just a couple miles
outside Saigon. They dropped us off at a
helipad in the middle of nowhere. The
other guys, who were on the helicopter with us, had a deuce and a half (truck) waiting for
them, but we were headed the opposite direction of where we needed to go,
literally. There was only one road –
left or right. They went left. As far as the eye could see to either side of
the road was an open field which ended into dense tree lines, which were about
100 yards from us and again on either side.
We were told that the 90th was about five miles down the road
(maybe a little farther, maybe a little closer) and after waiting a while, to
see if anyone might ‘happen by’, we started walking. After walking about fifteen minutes or so, a
jeep comes roaring up behind us. “What
in the *@#$*! Are you guys doing out here!”
The captain yelled, yet he gave us a ride the rest of the way to the 90th.
And yes, we did make our flight
out in the morning. God’s grace and
protection? Let’s put things in
perspective. Consider that if we were
walking just a few miles outside Kabul (Afghanistan) trying to get back to the
city to catch the last flight out of Afghanistan. A safe walk?
Especially for a couple of American GIs?
In those
days, I had been a church-goer in my youth, but had not been to church
regularly for some time. In those woods
to either side of the road, VC (Viet Cong) snipers could have easily been
hiding, waiting to ‘take out’ some unfortunate GIs like Norm and myself. Obviously there weren’t any, or at least
there was no attempt to kill or capture us.
God is good! As I’m writing this,
Father is saying that they WERE there.
He kept them from doing anything.
I can give
numerous accounts of how Father has shown His love for me, before and since
giving my life to Jesus, but I relate this incident to give you an idea that
God’s angels DO watch over us. He is
longsuffering and Father does not want us to perish! What does our passage say? He puts up with a lot of our stupidity in
order to draw us in. Yet, if we insist,
Father will apply Romans 1:28 (above) and let us go. When a pig insists on being a pig, quit
casting pearls before him (Matt. 7:6).
Does anyone
remember Jonah? God called Jonah to
minister to a people which Jonah didn’t like, so Jonah took off in the other
direction. He ran from God! As God persisted, Jonah finally realized that
it was useless to fight against God and went on to Nineveh, although he did so
begrudgingly. Even after Father brought
salvation to the city, Jonah still had an attitude. Read all four chapters of the book of Jonah
to see what happened.
We (man)
often feel that God is not watching or perhaps He can’t see us in the
dark. The little boy has been told “No
cookies until after dinner.” Yet, in the
middle of the afternoon, having checked around to make sure no one is watching,
sneaks into the kitchen and grabs a cookie.
God is Spirit (John 4:24). We said earlier, time is irrelevant with Him
so He sees and knows all things (Ecc.
12:13-14). Nothing is hidden from
Him (Heb. 4:12-13).
God is love
(1 John 4:8)) and He loves us so
much (again John 3:16) He does put
up with an awful lot from us.
Over the
years, too often I have identified with Paul when He relates how he fights from
doing things he shouldn’t be doing yet he has problems doing those things he
should be doing. He realizes that it is
human nature to want to do sin. We are born in sin (Psalm 51:5) and in a constant struggle (Rom. 7:1-25).
We don’t
always make the right choices. I haven’t
always made right choices, yet Father has been longsuffering with me just as He
is with all people.
I gave my
life to Christ in 1972 when my wife went to be counselled for marriage. I knew, in my heart, my life had changed that
day yet I still made too many wrong choices, even though My bride and I were
now back in church. I received the
baptism of the Holy Ghost in 1978! My
wife and I both received the ‘baptism’ that night. My wife at a meeting we attended and me,
several hours later in the wee hours of the morning in our living room. Yes, I know that Cornelius and his family
received the baptism at the same time they received Jesus (Acts 10:34-46). I also know
that the twelve men Paul met on the road to Ephesus had been baptized only in
water but (until that day) not the Holy Ghost (Acts 19:1-7). That morning in
1978, I took another step closer to my Lord, but I still had a long way to
go. I still wrestled with some major
issues. It seemed that I knew what to do
– just doing it seemed almost impossible.
The “old man” kept winning the battles.
My wife and
family moved several times between 1972 and 1994 when we finally settled in the
town where I now reside. Each move meant
looking for a new church. We were
married in a Baptist Church and over the years, Father took us through
Presbyterian, Catholic and I don’t know how many Pentecostal churches, big and
small.
Now, in a
new town in 1994, we were still looking and still not finding one to call
home. My wife went to be with the Lord in
2005. By the way, ‘yes’, I was still
wrestling with some of the same issues as before and still hadn’t found victory
nor the right church. Father had given
me victory in many of my issues, but a few just seemed to be hanging on, not
letting go. I just didn’t seem to be
able to dump them.
In 2009/10,
Father introduced me to the “prophetic” and a church where Father said “This is
where I want you”. And here I still
am. Father has taught me so much in the
past, recent years. Perhaps more that
all the other years combined! I’ve
learned so much about my relationship with Father – or perhaps I should say His
relationship with me, it’s been incredible.
I’ve come to know Father in ways I had never even dreamed of. I enjoy close times with Him and even though,
I usually do a lot of the talking, I do stop and listen. It is then He shares so much with me – one on
one. He shares with me in the early hours
of the morning as I ‘think’ I’m trying to sleep. He interrupts my prayers to share. These are the times He is teaching me.
PTL! And still, there is one area of my
life I just can’t seem to shake. Then
(even now as I write this) He reminds me of what Paul shared with the
Corinthians about keeping my relationship with God and with man in proper
perspective (the thorn in the side - 2
Corinth. 12:6-10).
Through all
of this, Father keeps showing me how longsuffering He has been with me. I can’t thank Him enough for putting up with
me for so long.
Father has
taught me about what is sin. There was a
time in my life that I believed that If I didn’t “do it”, I was OK. Then I realized that Father judges our
heart. I knew I was in trouble for @90%
of my battles are in my mind (my heart) and if I’m guilty of every thought …
dum de dum dum …! Then Father showed me
the book of James. Blessed is he who
endures temptation for when he is tried, he shall receive a crown of life which
God has promised. Don’t let anyone say we
are tempted by God for neither can God be tempted with evil nor does He tempt
anyone. But we are drawn away by the
lust (in our own heart) and enticed.
When we “decide” to act on that lust we put it into action and that is
what brings death (separation from God) (Janes
1:12-15). Once we ‘decide’ to do
whatever it is, we have sinned. The
action just compounds the issue.
Over our
lives, many of us put a lot of garbage into our minds and our enemy can use
that to tempt us later. We have to be
diligent to ‘put the brakes on’ as soon as those thoughts enter our little
‘pea-pickin’ brains by rebuking the devil and refocusing our thoughts on Godly
things. Amen? This is why Paul told the Philippians to
think on these things: those things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely
of good report, if they have any virtue or are worthy of praise (Phil. 4:8). We get our mind focused on the good and away
from the bad!
God IS longsuffering. He is always willing to work with us as long
as we are willing to yield over to Him.
He DOES NOT desire that any human perish. His DESIRE is that we all repent those things
which separate us from Him and receive Jesus into our heart. As we allow the Holy Spirit to align us in
Father’s will through Jesus Christ, Jesus is faithful to come back through the
Holy Ghost to keep us faithful and obedient in God’s Word.
AMEN!?
