Not Wanting Anyone to Perish

Christsfreeservant said:

2 Peter 3:9 NIV

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”​

In context, this is speaking of the prophecies of Scripture regarding these last days and the return of Christ. And it is speaking of scoffers who are following their own evil desires who mock the fact that Jesus has not yet returned. And so the promise being spoken of here is the promise of our Lord’s return for his bride when he will also destroy the present heavens and earth with fire, and in judgment he will also destroy the ungodly.

Now, we have talked about this before, but the ungodly are not just all who make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The ungodly are all who are living ungodly lives in sexual immorality, idolatry, lying, cheating, stealing, committing adultery, and being unfaithful, etc. For our faith in Jesus Christ is not all talk, but it must be followed up with action. We must live what we profess, in practice, and we must not walk in sin.

So, we have the promise and the hope that one day Jesus is going to return for his bride and he is going to take us to be with him for eternity. But who are “we”? Who has this promise? It is not everyone who merely mouths a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It is those who have been crucified with Christ in death to sin, who have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, who are walking according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, in practice (see Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14).

For many people professing Christ go through the motions of religious practice, but they are still walking by the flesh. The Pharisees did that. They were big on outward displays of righteousness while their hearts were full of wickedness. Yet a person of God is a person whose life is surrendered to Jesus Christ who is walking in holiness and righteousness and not in sin and who loves his/her family and the family of God, and who sets the example before them of godly living and integrity and holy living, on a daily basis.

So, for those of us who are walking according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh, in practice, we have this hope of eternal life with God. But for those who are still living in sin and for self, and not for God, they don’t have that promise. They have the promise of being destroyed in judgment by God. And so God/Jesus, in his mercy, has delayed his coming so that more people will have the opportunity to repent of their sins and to follow our Lord in obedience to his commands (New Covenant).

And to repent is to have a change of mind resulting in a change of attitude, speech, and behaviors. It is like you were traveling west, but then you make a U-turn, and now you are traveling east, in the opposite direction. It involves us making room in our hearts and lives for Jesus to be truly Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives and for us to forsake our lives of sin and to now follow him in obedience and in holy living. This is the kind of repentance that the Scriptures teach with regard to our salvation from sin.

And then notice how “repentance” is used in this verse. Our Lord is patient with us, not wanting (or wishing, or willing, or desiring) for anyone to perish but for all to come to repentance. So, obviously repentance is critical to us having eternal life with God and to us not perishing in our sins. Yet so many preachers and teachers today are not teaching biblical repentance or they are teaching that we don’t have to repent of our sins and we don’t have to obey our Lord, for they call that “works salvation.”

But then they have to be ignoring the bulk of the teachings in the New Testament on the subject of “works,” especially Ephesians 2:10, which follows right after Ephesians 2:8-9, and which says,

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” ESV​

And Titus 2:14 ESV, speaking of Jesus: “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”​

Anyway, Jesus made clear to us the message of his gospel when he said,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” Luke 9:23-25 ESV​

And Paul and the other apostles made the message clear, as well, that we must not hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self or we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we lose our lives, i.e. if we die with Christ to sin and we live to him and to his righteousness, in obedience to our Lord, then we have eternal life in him. For if sin is what we practice, it will end in death, not life. But if obedience to our Lord is our practice, we have life in Him.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

My Sheep

An Original Work / June 24, 2012
Based off John 10:1-18 NIV

My sheep hear me. They know me.
They listen to my voice and obey.
I call them and lead them.
They know my voice, so they follow me.
They will never follow strangers.
They will run away from them.
The voice of a stranger they know not;
They do not follow him.

So, I tell you the truth that
I am the gate, so you enter in.
Whoever does enter
Will find forgiveness and will be saved.
Nonetheless whoever enters
Not by the gate; other way,
He is the thief and a robber.
Listen not, the sheep to him.

Oh, I am the Good Shepherd,
Who laid his own life down for the sheep.
I know them. They know me.
They will live with me eternally.
The thief only comes to steal and
Kill and to destroy the church.
I have come to give you life that
You may have it to the full…

They know my voice, so they follow me.

Click to expand...

• God is patient toward “you” because He is patient toward “all,” not wishing for “anyone” to perish but for “all” to come to repentance.
• God’s intentions for you are good, since “you” are part of the “any” and “all” that He desires to come to repentance. (He is a good Father to all of His “children” by creation, as per Acts 17:28-29, in which the opposite would be a bad father who doesn’t really care about most of His children.)
• God calls all to repentance because He desires for all to repent. (Otherwise, if God called people to salvation that He never designed to spend eternity with Him in Heaven, then He would be calling people to receive something that He never intended for them to have.)

• If Jesus had not sacrificially given His life for everyone, as per the Calvinist doctrine of a Limited Atonement, then at most you could only speculate on what God’s intentions for you are.
• Calvinism’s elect are never truly perishing, and conversely none of Calvinism’s non-elect can do anything other than perish, principally because they are excluded from a Limited Atonement.
• If God’s words are just a revealed will, contradicted by a secret will, then we would have to be suspicious of anything God says.