HopeLives365

Mark Finley: Do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. In other words, God views time differently than we view time.

Guest (Female): This is Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. Today's message, Jesus Wins, Satan Loses, Part One. Enjoy and remember you can always catch up with past messages and stay up to date with Hope Lives 365 and Pastor Mark by going to hopelives365.com. And now, Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: Father, we're going to open your Word again tonight, and we pray that as we do that, your Spirit would speak to us through your Word. We know the Spirit is here to impress our hearts, to woo us, to draw us closer to You, to write your name upon our hearts. And so that's our prayer tonight in Jesus' name. Amen.

In one of his sermons, Billy Graham tells the story of the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein. Einstein, it seems, was traveling on a train through Europe. And as Einstein traveled, the man taking the tickets, the steward, walked down the aisle and went to each individual on the train and asked to see their ticket.

It seems that Einstein just couldn't find his ticket. He fumbled through his belongings, he searched his pockets, he looked in his billfold, but all of his attempts to produced absolutely nothing. He just couldn't find his ticket. So the train steward said, "I know who you are. Don't worry about it. I know you've got your ticket someplace," and he proceeded up the aisle.

When he looked back, he saw Einstein on his knees, frantically looking under the seat, desperately looking for his ticket. And Einstein really seemed nervous, he seemed stressed out, he seemed anxious. So the ticket taker came back and he said, he wanted to ease his anxiety and said, "Mr. Einstein, don't worry about it. I know who you are." And Einstein said, "I know who I am, too, but I don't know where I'm going."

You see, that single sentence reflects the thinking of millions of people in this world. They have little idea where this world's headed. At best, they have some vague, shadowy idea about the future. They're longing for a hope beyond tomorrow. But the great hope of the coming of Jesus gives us purpose for our lives.

Seventh-day Adventists know where we're going. We recognize that all of history is coming to one grand climax in the Second Coming of Christ. Now, somebody has well said this: life has no value unless you focus on something valuable. Life has no value unless you focus on something valuable.

And there can be nothing more valuable than knowing Christ. There can be nothing more valuable than having the hope of Jesus soon return burning in your hearts. I've always been fascinated as I've traveled to Rome and I've gone into the catacombs. The catacombs were graves that were built in the earth underneath the city of Rome.

And if you've ever traveled to Rome, you can go down into those caverns and you can walk into those narrow passageways, and at times notice the artwork on the graves. Now, there's something distinctly different about the pagan graves and the Christian graves that are underneath the city of Rome in the catacombs. The Christian graves will say something like this, "Goodbye, my love. Goodbye until the morning."

Because Christians never say goodbye for the last time, because the morning will shine. Lightning will flash from the east to the west, the graves will open, and Jesus Christ will come. Goodbye, my love until the morning. But the pagan graves have inscriptions that are filled with hopeless despair. Let me give you just a couple of inscriptions that are written on pagan graves beneath the city of Rome in the catacombs. Here's one: "I was not, I became, I am not, I care not."

What hopeless despair. Here's another one: "Eat, drink, enjoy yourself, then join me." You see, for the pagan, there is no hope beyond the grave. For the pagan, there the grave is a dark hole in the ground. Earth is a long night with the grave is a long night without a morning. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, atheistic philosopher, put it this way: we stand on the shore of an ocean crying out to the night and the emptiness. Sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness, but it's the voice of a drowning man, then the voice of another and still another.

Bertrand Russell pictures life as a dark ocean, and he pictures us as standing out on the shore, and he pictures these dying people as drowning men and women, crying out in despair, crying out in hopelessness. Sometime ago, a college newspaper had a contest for the college students to define the word "life."

And they offered a prize for the best definition of the word life. Here's the winner. One college student wrote this: "Life is the penalty that we pay for the crime of being born." Life is the penalty we pay for the crime of being born. What hopelessness, what despair. If you don't have something valuable to live for, some hope for tomorrow, some overriding purpose, life has no value.

But Seventh-day Adventists are the most joyous people in the world. They're the most hopeful people in the world, because beyond the craziness of life, beyond the famines and the earthquakes and the war, beyond the rising violence, beyond the immorality and depravity of our society, our hearts beat with a passion. Our hearts beat with a hope. We sense that Christ is coming, and He's coming soon.

We cling to the promise of Jesus' return, there in John 14, where Jesus says, "I will come again." We cling to those 1500 places in the Bible that talk about the coming of Christ. Our Bible study tonight focuses on 2 Peter chapter 3, and we're going to be looking at most of that chapter. Although we'll be taking little detours from the chapter, that's the basis of our Bible study.

The hope of the coming of Christ, the hope that burns in our hearts when tears fill our eyes and a loved one dies. The hope that burns in our hearts when we turn on Fox News or CNN or MSNBC or ABC or CBS or NBC, and we see the trauma and the difficulty and the heartache in our world. The hope that burns in our hearts when we walk through dark valleys.

It is this hope that we're focusing on in this series. We begin with 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 1 and 2. Peter says, "Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken to you by the prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of our Lord and Savior."

Peter says, "I'm not writing to you some novel new truth." There's significance here. Peter says, "I have no new truth to unlock to you." You know, there are some people that are always trying to discover some new prophetic truth. They have some new time chart that they think that if everybody understands, they'll be ready for the Second Coming of Christ.

They are time setters, and they're always looking at some fanciful interpretation of Scripture. That's not where Peter was at. Peter says, "I write to you in my second epistle to stir up your pure minds by way of reminder. I want you to be mindful of the things that the prophets have spoken. I want you to be mindful of the things that the apostles had said."

In other words, what Peter is actually saying is, what we need is not some fanciful new truth. What we need is not some new time chart. What we need is not some speculation about when the judgment of the living is going to start, as was suggested by someone in an independent ministry recently, who believed that the judgment of the living started when the Pope came to Washington D.C.

And what Peter is saying is, "I want to take you back, back to the bedrock reality of Christ coming. What we need is not fanciful speculation. What we need is a praying church on their knees that with heartbroken repentance. What we need are people who are totally sold out for Christ. What we need in this generation is deeper commitment to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not some fanciful speculation."

So Peter goes on when he talks about this great need for commitment, and that's what this chapter, it's about. It's about leading us to our knees. It's about total commitment to Christ. You know, I have spent so many years traveling in Eastern Europe and so many years with our brothers and sisters there in communist countries, and I've seen the deep commitment that these Christians have had, many of them experienced prison for their faith.

I've also come across the commitment that communists had to their cause. Let me tell you an amazing story and read to you an amazing letter.

Guest (Female): We'll be right back with Pastor Mark Finley. We thank you for listening and hope you're enjoying today's message. Our mission is to attractively present the Christ-centered biblical truths of scripture in a practical, relevant way to people around the world so that they may experience the abundant life that Christ offers and effectively share with confidence His life-changing truths with others. You can support this ministry and help us reach even more by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now, back to Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: This letter is one of the more precious things I have in my possession. Now, it's good, the story is going to surprise you. It's a letter written by a college student. And this college student was a Christian. But a communist evangelist came to his university, and he was attending a university in the United States of America.

It was in the late 60s or early 70s. And this college student, who was a Christian, engaged to a wonderful college young woman who also was a Christian. This young man began in college reading the writings of Marx and Engel, communist philosophers. And as he read them, he became enchanted with the thought of world communism.

As he became enchanted with that thought, a communist evangelist held lectures on his university. This young man gave up Christianity for communism. And he wrote a letter to his girlfriend on why he could not continue the relationship with her as a Christian, and why as a communist, he had to break the engagement that he had with this Christian girl.

And I'm going to read his letter to her. And I and as I read the letter of this communist, I want you to ask this question: do I have the commitment to the cause of Christ to hasten the coming of Jesus by an all-out total commitment to Him that this communist young man had? And I want to read his letter to you.

This is the letter that he wrote to his girlfriend, breaking off their commitment. He said to her, "I can no longer enter into our engagement because I've become a communist. And we communists have a high casualty rate. We are the ones that get shot. We get hung, we get lynched, we get tarred, we get feathered, we get jailed, we get slandered, we get ridiculed, we get fired from our jobs in America, and in every other way made as uncomfortable as possible.

A certain percentage of us get killed. We turn back to the party, that is the Communist Party, every penny of what we make, except that which is necessary to keep us alive. We communists don't have time or money for movies, or concerts, or T-bone steaks, or decent homes, or new cars. We've been described as fanatics, and we are fanatics.

Our lives are dominated by one overshadowing factor: the struggle for world communism. We communists have a way of life that cannot be bought for any price. We have a cause to fight for, we have a definite purpose to live for. There is one thing in which I'm in debt earnest. It's my communist cause. It's my life, my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my wife, my mistress, my bread, my meat. I work at it in the daytime and I dream about it at night. Its hold on me grows, never lessens as time goes on.

Therefore, I cannot carry on a friendship, a love affair, or even a conversation without relating it to my cause, and I have to break our relationship." Does the cause of Christ call for less commitment than the cause of communism? Does it? Does the cause of Christ call for our best, our total, absolute commitment?

The cause of Christ is much broader. The cause of Christ is much greater. The vision of the Second Coming of Christ makes the cause of communism look at its paltry nothingness as it is. We go back to 2 Peter chapter 3. Jesus is calling us not to wade in kitty waiting pools and pick up pennies as Christians.

But deep calls to deep. And Jesus is calling us to dive into the Word of God for the pearl of great price. Jesus is calling us not for some superficial Christianity, but Jesus is calling us to a commitment that is deep. He's calling us to the cross, and there at the cross, we see the one who's given all for us, and we give all to Him.

There at the cross, we give ourselves away to the one who gave himself away in the light of the Second Coming of Christ, in the light of eternity, we hear his call for deeper commitment. And Peter is not calling us to something fanciful. He's not calling us for some speculative time setting. He's calling us to the teachings of the prophets, the teachings of the New Testament writers.

He's calling us to something deep. Now, in this generation, Peter says, verse 3, 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 3, "Knowing this first, that the scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, 'Where's the promise of your coming?'" Now, don't miss the significance. They walk according to their own lust. Their lifestyle dictates their understanding of the word.

In other words, because they're walking after their own lust, they scoff and say, "Where's the promise of his coming?" There is a danger in Adventism today, and there's a danger in every Christian church, and it's this. It has been 2,000 years since Jesus has given his promise, "I will come again." And every generation that passes is a generation that's less likely to believe we're living on the knife edge of eternity.

Every generation that passes is more likely to settle into Laodicean complacency. Every generation that passes is more likely to allow the world and its secular humanistic values to put a noose around our neck and strangle out the hope of the Second Coming of Christ. But it is the scoffers that say, "Where is the promise of his coming?" because in true Adventist hearts, that promise never grows dim.

Each passing year, that promise grows brighter and more glorious because we are no further from the Second Coming of Christ, we are closer to the Second Coming of Christ than we were 2,000 years ago, than we were 1,000 years ago, than we were 100 years ago. So here, Peter says in verse 3, "Knowing this first, scoffers come in the last days, walking after their own lusts, saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming?'"

Now, notice three times in 2 Peter chapter 3 it talks about the promise. We find it in verse 3, in verse 4, "Where's the promise of his coming?" We find it in verse 9, "The Lord is not slack concerning his," what, everybody? "Promise." "As some men count slackness." We find it in verse 13. "Nevertheless, according to his," what, everybody? "Promise."

Three times. What is a promise? You see, the Greeks speak of time and the passage of time which wipes things out. The Greeks speak of the mind as a blackboard slate and time as a sponge that passes across that slate, erasing time from our mind. So it's important for us as the Adventist people to recognize the promise of Christ coming.

What indeed is a promise? A promise is a declaration. A promise is an assurance that somebody is going to do a particular thing at a particular time. A promise is a pledge. A promise is a bond. A promise is an oath. A promise is a contract. A promise is a commitment. A promise is a covenant.

But a promise is only as good as the one making the promise. Do the Bible promise prophets make a promise to us? Enoch, the seventh from Adam in Jude 14, prophesies that Christ would come with 10,000 of his saints. David says in Psalm 50 verse 4, "Our God will come and not keep silence."

Isaiah says in Isaiah 35 verse 4, "Say to those who are fearful-hearted, 'Be strong, do not fear, your God will come, He will save you.'" Zephaniah says, "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hastens greatly." The prophets of the Old Testament promise. They don't give us a wish, they don't give us a vain hope, they don't say maybe, or I think so, or it might take place.

The prophets of the Old Testament, their words echo and re-echo down the stream of time. They give us the promise of Christ coming. Matthew says, "The Son of Man will come," chapter 16 verse 27, "in the glory of his Father with the holy angels, and then reward every man according to his works." The apostle Paul says, repeat it with me, you know it, "The Lord himself shall do what?" "Descend from heaven with a what?" "Shout! And the voice of what?" "The archangel! And the dead in Christ will what?" "Rise first! Then those which are alive and remain will what?" "Be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Paul says, "The Lord himself," not might descend, maybe he'd said descend, I think he'll descend, "the Lord himself shall do what?" "Shall descend from heaven!" I like that word shall. And then Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. And I go and prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you," Jesus says, "I will come again."

The promise of Christ coming is as good as the prophets of the Old Testament. The promise of Christ coming is as good as the apostles of the Old Testament. And the promise of Christ coming is as good as the word of Jesus himself. I have traveled and lectured in university after university in Eastern Europe. And I remember after communism fell, I was invited to come to university after university to speak to the students.

And very often, I would go to those universities and we'd have question and answers after. And some student would raise, I remember, I was in Szekesfehervar University. It was in Hungary. It was, Szekesfehervar was the center of communism. And I, I lectured at one of the communist universities on the integrity of the Word of God.

And after lecturing there, one of the students said, "Well, the Soviet astronaut, he, he, he went up into the heavens, Yuri Gagarin, and he didn't see God. Have you ever seen God?" And he went on this speech about atheism. And I said to him, "Look, let's suppose you have only two choices. I'm not going to ask you to believe, I'm just going to ask you an intellectual question. Let's suppose you only have two choices. Choice number one: you live, you don't make sense of life, there's suffering, heartache all around you, and one day you die and you go into the grave and that's it. Worms eat your body."

"That's one option. Here's the other option: a loving God created us. He gave us the capacity of choice. This world plunged into sin, but Christ came and he provides eternal life. And one day beyond the suffering and sickness of life, you can live forever in a land with no suffering, sickness, heartache, and death. I'm not asking you to believe, but from an intellectual standpoint, if you have the choice that the grave is a dark hole in the ground and one day you're going to be a cosmic zero, or you have the choice that one day you're going to live the most fantastic life in the greatest joy, which one are you going to choose?"

Guest (Female): You've been listening to Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. We hope you've enjoyed today's message and remind you that you can find more and our many ministry resources at hopelives365.com. And you can support this ministry by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now, a final thought from Pastor Mark.

Mark Finley: See, atheism provides no hope for the future at all. You and I with all of our folly, with all of our sinfulness, with all of our weakness, can come to Him. And in the light of his soon return, we can say, "Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, all I want is what you want. You have given all to me. I want to give all to you."