The PuritanBoard - Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts...

In 2 Peter 3:1-13 , the Apostle writes:

...I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

These days are full of scoffing about the Last Days in large measure because of men that Peter describes just before in 2 Peter 2:17-22.

17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

This is nothing new. The Scriptures are filled with the stories of false prophets leading the people astray. They never come with black hats, evil eyebrows, or signs announcing themselves false. They often claim to be speaking for God and announcing what His revelation says about things. They are also consistently more popular than the true prophets as the sensuous people do not desire the pursuit of holy things but flee to things that feed their carnal natures and curiosity.

False teachers like Harold Camping feed the carnal desire of man to believe they can navigate the labyrinth of the hidden and inscrutable things of God without holding on to the thread of God's Word that truly guides them through it. Claiming a form of Godliness and a desire to "escape judgment", it feeds the carnality and idolatry of man. Man is not comfortable obeying God's command that the hidden things belong to Him alone. Men prodly claim that they can name the day and the hour. God's ways, it would seem, are not truly inscrutable. Indeed, God's "punch" is so telegraphed that we can easily duck the Arm of His Judgment.

And so the world looks on and mocks. The world is left comforting itself that, after all, there will be no Judgment for sin and rebellion. God's Word reminds us in Romans 1 that all men are created in God's image and Creation everywhere proclaims in living color that men owe God obedience and worship. It shouts aloud that the world is under a Curse and in need of Redemption.

Yet, man is dead in sins and trespasses, and hates the things of God. We men who were created by God to image Him in marvelous and fearful ways are given tremendous gifts by Our Creator. We are given powerful weapons of intellect and emotion that were to be used for His glory and service. We became His enemies willfully and turned the weapons that He increated and use them daily to stand on His lap and slap Him in the face in our idolatry.

And so man deserves the wrath of God and eternal punishment for his highhanded crime of treason.

But God is rich in mercy.

While we were dead in our sins and trespasses, Christ came to earth. While the holiness of God could only evoke hatred and terror in us, the Son of God took on human flesh and veiled His holiness to make it safe for those He would redeem. Mankind was an enemy of God and under the strong power of sin and death but Christ would have the last word. He was more powerful and died on a Cross to put sin as power to death for His own. Moreover, because death could not hold Him, He rose again with an indestructible life so that all in Him might be made holy.

The secret things belong to God but the revealed things to us. Christ has been revealed in these last days. The Day of the Lord has been upon us every since Christ came upon this earth. The Kingdom of God has been in and among us and advancing. Christ has all things under His feet and will come again to consummate His Kingdom and finally put all things under His feet. We live in the confidence that Christ has put sin as power to death on the Cross and has risen again so that we might live. We live with the down payment of spiritual things and the substance of what Christ has already accomplished in the sure hope that He will come again to finally and fully vanquish and bring in His Holy Bride.

In the meantime, Christ has commanded that His Church is the place where He will be found. He commands in such clear language that it is only those who have scales over their eyes who fail to apprehend:
Heb 10:19-25

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Christianity is not a "mystery" religion where the things that the deity states are impossible to understand unless someone with some extraordinary sense of the deity can understand. Flee from such false teachers! They are pagan mystics and not ministers of God's Word.

Our God is a living God and is well able to communicate through His living and active Word the things that we are to live by.

If you have abandoned the Church of God because of false teachers then I exhort you to repent and return to the Church where you might hear God's Word proclaimed and be in and among God's holy outpost here on earth. Christ could not have been clearer and those who have told you to forsake the assembling of the brethren will have their judgment in full lest they repent.

I urge you to consider that we are not owed a single day of certainty concerning that day and hour. In one sense, the Day of the Lord has come where Christ has come to die for sin and establish His Kingdom on this Earth. In the fuller sense, Christ will come again. Even as the world looked on and mocked a false teacher's prophecy, Christ might have returned on May 20th. He may yet return tomorrow.

The admonition of the Word concerning Last Things is this:

4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,

“They shall not enter my rest.”

6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

When is it called Today?

Today.

TODAY, if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts! Flee to Christ! He is a powerful Savior. He has already borne the full measure of God's wrath for needy sinners. Look not to the future as a day of deliverance but let Today be the day you believe upon Christ and rest in the full assurance of faith.

God's Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. He gives us just enough light to see the next step before us. We know enough TODAY, that each of us is to turn from our sin and fall at the feet of Christ for salvation is only in His Name. We are not given any revelation concerning day and hour and any man that tells you otherwise is a liar and a thief who steals the Word of God as false prophets always have done.

Flee the folly of idolatry and believe upon Christ and let Him take care of the rest. He is a good Savior whose yoke is easy and Whose burden is light. Stop living for yourselves and your own desires and be ye freed from the yoke of sin that you can begin to love God and neighbor by the transforming work of Christ.

Come, Lord Jesus! Even so, should You tarry, You are a Good King and I serve you Today because I am created anew so to do. May it be for all Your scattered sheep.