2 Peter 3:1-7
Peter begins the next segment of his letter in the context of his affection and love for the recipients. As he is winding down the second of his two letters, he states plainly that one of his motivations in both is to awaken them and remind them of certain things.
What is it this time?
- This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
- That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
- Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
- And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
- For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
- Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
- But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
“Remember! Remember the warnings and admonitions of the prophets and the commandments of the apostles. And in your remembering, give heed!”
One sign of the last days is scoffers who dismiss the promise of Jesus’ coming again. These mockers live according to their own drives and desires, dismissing also the words of the apostles and prophets. “But you, when the scoffers mock, remember and give heed to God’s words through His chosen men.”
In the great brilliance of their own intellect, these scoffers point to nature to explain and justify their godlessness. “All things continue as they were from the beginning.” Seriously? That passes for intellectual brilliance? So much for a coming ice age. So much for global warming. So much for climate change. So much for evolution.
Look, either “all things continue as they were from the beginning,” or they don’t. You scoffers say they don’t in the natural realm. Then indulge intellectual integrity and don’t on the other hand use lack of change to dismiss God’s promises and warnings. Either nature is degrading or it isn’t. Either God is true or He isn’t.
Scoffers voluntarily pass over catastrophic natural events that upset nature’s status quo, each new condition being an overall negative relative to the previous. More simply put, they choose to ignore nature’s downward trend. The Second Law of Thermodynamics “codifies” it. The Law of Entropy “guarantees” eventual planetary disintegration.
They dismiss God’s creation of the world. They ignore God’s global destruction by the Flood. They scoff at God’s promise to wipe out the present heavens and earth with fire.
God did and will do these things. By His word. According to His Word.
And that includes the judgment and destruction of the ungodly, unregenerated scoffers among them.
I’m supposed to remember all that, believe it, heed it, and live by it.
I reject the other option: Live a life that effectively dismisses the promise of His coming. (I can do that without the overt contempt of the scoffers, you know.)