When Daniel was little he couldn’t wait for Happy Daniel Day, usually Tuesday, when he got to choose what we did for the day. I made a special calendar so he could see how long it was until that day. His perception of time wasn’t like mine.
The older we get the more that perception of time changes. Each day, week, month, and year passes more quickly and we wonder where time has gone, but God is timeless; He is eternal.

I. Creation is Different (2 Pet 3:7). The word God spoke and created the universe (Gen 1:1-3) also destroyed it with a world-wide flood. After this judgment, God promised never to destroy the earth again by water (Gen 9:11, 15). That flood changed everything beyond our imagination, so that the heavens and earth which now exist are not the same as the original creation. What we see today is the result of judgment.
God is Creator and Judge, who began all things and has the right and power to end all things. He alone has the power to speak and create something from nothing (Rom 4:17), and what He creates He also sustains or keeps for His purpose (Col 1:16-18). It’s kept in store or literally, kept in protective custody, for His day of judgment which will end this ruinous world of sin. He created the world to be temporary (Heb 1:10-11; Rev 20 - 20:1), a fact people reject. Trying to save the earth is un-Biblical and won’t succeed, yet God is actively saving sinners.
He has reserved this universe for destruction with fire and the perdition (apoleia) of ungodly men. Apoleia is a strong Greek word used 20 times in the New Testament to express a final and irreversible punishment. It’s used of Judas (Jn 17:12), the Antichrist (2 Thess 2:3), false teachers (2 Pet 2:1-2), and those who walk in the wide way (Mt 7:13). Apoleia is only used of the unsaved (Mt 25:41; Lk 3:17; Jn 5:29; Rom 9:22-24; Phil 3:17-19; Heb 10:36-39).



II. Time is Different (2 Pet 3:8). The unsaved willfully forget (2 Pet 3:5), and we need reminded (2 Pet 1:12-15; 3:1-2), but God never forgets. Scoffers say Jesus hasn’t come because God and His promise are faulty; God says it’s because He’s patient.
Time is fluid, but God is eternally stable. He is not affected by time and doesn’t change as we do; He is immutable (Ps 90:1-4). We experience time moment-by-moment. The past is more tangible than the future, easily grasped by memory, but we can’t escape time by living in the past or the future. But God isn’t bound by time or affected by it. He alone is the eternal, ever-existent I AM (Ex 3:14; Jn 8:24).

III. God is Different (2 Pet 3:9). God also isn’t slack or loitering in His apparent delay in judgment. He’s not hampered by circumstances, man’s choices, the devil’s plans, or a lack of power. His seemed delay is actually His plan in action! He keeps all His promises, working all things to His eternal purpose (2 Sam 22:3; Ps 111:5-8; Is 25:1; Jer 33:14; 2 Cor 1:20; Gal 4:4).
Time is slowly moving to God’s designed and determined end, demonstrating His longsuffering patience with the wicked and the righteous (Gen 15:12-16; 1 Pet 3:20). Destroying every sinner at the moment of sin would reveal His power and justice, but not His patience.
He is patient, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Some assume that any and all means God wants all people of all time in all places to be saved. But that’s not what the verse says. The grammatical antecedent to any and all is us; meaning God patiently keeps this world because He’s unwilling that us - His elect - perish in damnation (2 Pet 1:1, 4; Col 1:28). He’s waiting to judge the world once the last person He’s chosen from eternity to come to faith in Jesus according to His predestined will (Eph 1:3-6).
God has no pleasure in damning the ungodly (Ezek 18:32; Jer 17:17; Mt 23:37) so He calls every sinner to turn to Him (Mk 8:34-38; Rev 22:17). That turning is the definition of repentance and is a gift given by God (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim 2:25). All are condemned because of sin, but God grants repentance. Man is incapable of good (Rom 3:10-12), but God is good and His grace abounds according to His eternal will (Jn 1:12-13).