I think different people look at God in different ways. I think some people look at Him as a terrifying person who sits on a throne in heaven and watches every move we make.

I think others think God is busy with other things and takes no thought of what we are doing. They think God is going to take all good people to heaven at the end of time, and only the Nazis, serial murderers, and other really evil people will be condemned to hell.

Which one are you? How do you see God?

In Second Peter 3, Peter talks about the coming of the Lord. He reminds the Christians that the prophets and the apostles spoke of the time when Jesus would come again.

Peter says that there will be scoffers, those who will follow their own sinful desires. There were people like that then, and there are people like that today.

Just because Jesus had not returned when Peter wrote this was simply that God was not ready for Him to return. He said, “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (Second Peter 3:8, ESV). 

In the next verse, Peter makes this statement, “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.”

Think back to the times when God brought punishment on those that sinned.

• In the days of Noah, God looked down at the world and determined to destroy everyone in it because of the wickedness. “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8).

For approximately 100 years, Noah worked on the ark. God gave     mankind plenty of time to repent, but he didn’t.

• Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had moved to these sinful cities. When Abraham found out that God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he began to bargain with God, hoping to find a way to save his nephew.

God agreed to save the city if Abraham could find ten righteous souls,      but they were not to be found. God didn’t save the cities, but He did          save Lot, Lot’s wife, and their daughters. The angels pulled them from         the cities with instructions not to look back; but Lot’s wife disobeyed     God, turned to look at the destruction and was turned to a pillar of salt.

• Then there was the city of Ninevah. “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me’” (Jonah 1:1-2). Jonah didn’t want to preach to these people because he didn’t want God to save them. Eventually, he obeyed God and went to Ninevah; and they repented.

• The children of Israel provide us with a great illustration of God’s patience. Over and over the people sinned. They worshiped idols. They grumbled and complain about everything. They refused to follow God and demanded a king.

Time after time they repented and God would restore them. Finally,        they refused to change, and God sent them into captivity.

The New Testament is filled with warnings to us. As we saw from the words of Peter, the Lord does not want us to perish. But His warning is clear. “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” (Second Peter 3:10).

The end will most assuredly come. How do I know? God always keeps His promises.

Sandra Oliver