This study is from an on going online Daily Bible Study at:
DailyBibleStudy.Org | Daily Bible Study Index Page | Daily Bible Study Online E-Book Library
2 Peter 3:2
2 That ye may be mindful [mnaomai] of the words [rhema] which were spoken before [proereo] by [hupo] the holy [hagios] prophets [prophetes], and [kai] of the commandment [entole] of us [hemon] the apostles [apostolos] of the Lord [kurios] and [kai] Saviour [soter]: KJV-Interlinear
2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. NASB
From the time of Adam, up until our current generation, the Word of God has been available, and made known clearly, to anyone and everyone who has had even an inkling of an interest.
No other religion can make this claim on history.
The words of the prophets and of the apostles have always been consistent and obvious. Isa. 53 is probably one of the most plainly stated prophecies regarding the savior, and yet most of the educated priests of Jesus’ day, rejected or argued over the book of Isaiah.
In Jude, we know that Enoch preached that the Savior would return (second advent) with his followers. How did Jude know what Enoch was teaching some 4000 years earlier? He knew because he also was aware of the Saviors sacrifice, ascendency and glorification and subsequent return, as everyone else has known since Adam.
Adam was promised the seed of the woman for a Savior. That was not all that God taught Adam. Adam knew the entire plan of God with respect to the Savior. Didn’t Adam receive clothes from God, clothes from animal skins? Where did those animal skins come from? They came from sacrificed animals. And what was behind those sacrifices? The teaching of the Savior, His sacrifice, and the purposes behind it all.
Even Cain tried to reinvent the sacrifice ritual to one of his own liking. And his works were rejected by God.
Only Gods works are accepted in the spiritual life, not mans.
And by the way, when Christ returns with His ‘holy ones,’ who are they? They are you and me and all of the believers of this dispensation of the Church Age.
When the Rapture occurs, all believers from our dispensation will be caught up in the air and off to heaven we will all go. Probably tens for billions of people, who have been saved over the last 2000 years, will be whisked away into heaven.
There we will spend the next seven years standing before His Judgment Seat, receiving our evaluation, rewards, honors, celebrating the wedding feast, etc. and then at the end of those seven years we will return to earth with Christ, as the Tribulation (on the earth) reaches its climax of destruction, which Christ will bring to an end in an instant.
But why does Peter remind us of the words of the prophets, which words have not really been taught in this letter?
Because there is only one reality in life, and it does not have anything to do with what you think is important for this world.
When God created the universe, and He created it perfect by the way. That perfection we have no clue as to what that initial universe looked like. But the angels had it all to themselves and they destroyed it, or brought it into a state of chaos. Probably several times. ‘And the earth was [became] null and void,’ as described in Genesis.
If paleontology and geology and such sciences are anywhere close in their objective findings (not their subjective interpretations), then we know that the angels messed up the universe (or earth) perhaps several times. How they did it, we again, haven’t a clue, but at some point they lost their right to inherit the universe. And then God (again, do you suppose) restored everything and then made man.
There do seem to be several documented extinctions in pre-historic times. So how did they all (however many there might have been) come about if God created a perfect universe?
We are the heirs of the new universe to come, and we (most of us) don’t seem to have a clue about that either.
So, Peter reminds us, that our day to day lives are nothing unless we grow up in our spiritual lives. And unless we get our thinking straight (the world is not flat), and get with an objective view of life, God, and our destiny, then we are in for the biggest shock of our life when we get to heaven.
Stubborn thinking leads to failure. And failure in ones life equates to a phenomenal loss for all of eternity.
