In 2 Peter 3:9 Peter says “One day is a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Peter’s admonition is a quote from Psalm 90:4 where we read that, “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. ” The point of this quote seems to be similar to Isa 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and so are My thoughts than your thoughts.”
We must always remember that we cannot by our very nature understand the mind of God! We instead must approach our discouragement with regards to what we perceive as “God’s delay,” not a problem with God but instead one of human perspective! There is an infinite qualitative difference between how God views time and how we do.
We cannot view events the same as God for four reasons:
• God sees them from eternity, and we see them from the prison of earth. This speaks not of altitude of the vista but rather what Isa 46:10 declares that God “Declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” God is above time, yet we are His creation bound by time and think and operate only in the sphere of time. So, when we think of the fulfillment of God’s promise and purposes, we must be careful NOT to ascribe to God our understanding and limitations. In other words, God does not LIVE at all in the realm or terms and conditions of the process of time!
• The second point is also found in the above statement out of Psalm 90:4 and that is God is above time but acts in time! Although God does not LIVE at all in the realm or terms and conditions of the process of time, He clearly has chosen to operate in this realm, He created it as He began it by creating the world in a moment in eternity and in so doing started the clock of history! Though he is above it He set time in motion! God, the Watchmaker made the watch but doesn’t wear one but makes sure that the one that we are all wearing functions perfectly just as He made it to and everything in the world of time happens perfectly according to His plan and not always ours.
We need not worry about the events of our life; we won’t leave time one second before it is time!!! Everything in this world and in our specific lives operates on the exact same time the GST time zone, “God Standard Time”. The problem we have is that we forget that God is not bound to work in the DST or Dale Standard Time zone that I often prefer. And when God doesn’t work in my time zone, I wrongly doubt the events of my life as if he is either “unable” or “disinterested”. The bible records 86 times the phrase “in due time” and that is a reminder that God was telling the readers that the events of their life were “right on time”, His time! God’s watch is a “divine Chronograph” that starts and stops only on His command and plans, not ours!
• The third point in verse 9a is one that is found in the 9th verse as we find here what delays or stops time is far different with God than what controls our earthly time. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” What moves the hands of “God’s watch” is what we are told in Genesis 6:3 “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” The moral conditions of when man no longer was heading the opportunities to get back in the right relationship with Him. As it relates to His second coming He will come back to humanity again as Genesis 6:5 says of the days of Noah a time when “The Lord sees that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only on evil continually.” That is not a fixed date on our calendars, but it is one that is fixed on His! He isn’t looking at a watch He is looking at the hearts of humanity and that will determine the fulfilment of time! We can pick a date on a calendar, but God is not obliged to keep it as He alone as Hebrews 4:12 reminds us “is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.
• Finally in verse 9b Peter reminds us that God “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”. He is not “tardy” with regards to His coming, He has made a promise, and He will keep it perfectly. God is greater than His promises, especially the way we wrongly interpret them. What has caused the “delay” from our perspective is not incompetence but instead LOVE for the LOST. Had God not delayed from our perspective. I would never have had the opportunity to know His love for me.
Oh, how we all should praise the seeming delay! God is always willing to save a person, but people are not always willing to be saved!