"But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness; but is long-suffering to youward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."--2 PETER iii. 8, 9.
"All things continue as they were from the from the beginning of the creation," said the mockers. It was foolish therefore to believe in, or to think of, a judgement to come. In the words before us the Apostle not only supplies an answer to the scorners, but gives a precious lesson to Christians for all time on the nature of God and His government of the world. It is but a single thought, but when the mind of the believer has grasped its significance, he will look out upon the world untroubled. No mockery will disturb his faith.
_But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day._ Here the Apostle quotes some words from that psalm (xc.) which is entitled "A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God." In it the Psalmist is contrasting God's eternity with the frailty of man and the shortness of human life. "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past." But St. Peter not only adopts, but adapts, the words for his own purpose. He wants to teach the Christians in their trials that, while what is long in man's estimation may in God's providence be counted but little, yet through God's decree what to man appears little may be big with mightiest consequences. He therefore first inverts the words of the Psalmist. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, while a thousand years may be as one day. One day of His deluge swept a whole generation out of the world, while His day of Pentecost remains potent in the history of His grace for all the ages which are yet to come. Through a mistaken literalness, men have sometimes expounded the lesson as if Jehovah's dealings were a question of arithmetic. Nothing could be farther from the Apostle's thought, who would have us know that of great and little God's work makes no account. With Him there is no short or long in time. What He does is not to be measured by the petty standards of humanity.
Men _must_ take note of time, for they feel its lapse and its loss. They are ever conscious that a period is coming after which what is undone must continue undone. Again, the length of time is known to them by the recurrence of the various acts of life, and by the weariness which comes of continued labour, and by the grief of protracted waiting. These things force them to speak of short and long, but with God it is not so. For Him all time is one. He knows nothing of toil. Whatsoever He pleaseth, that doeth He in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all deep places (Psalm cxxxv. 6). The Psalmist had attained a true conception. The whole world and all worlds were in His control, and their order the working of His eternal will. He needs no rest; He slumbereth not, nor sleepeth. To Him there is no waiting, no weariness. Hence the past, the present, and the future are for Him one unbroken now.
This is the one thing which the Apostle offers to the Christian brethren for their support and consolation against the scoffers. And the knowledge is mighty for those who grasp it. It helps them to cast themselves securely upon the almighty arms, convinced that God's working is not to be estimated according to man's days and years, but is certain in its effect. One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but death, they learn, does not take men out of the knowledge or the hand of God, be it for mercy they are reserved, or for judgement. God does not defer His action because He lacks power to perform, neither does He tarry because He is unmindful of His servants or insensible to what they endure.