My dear readers,

The Apostle Peter predicts of the rise of scoffers in the "last days," men who openly oppose the Word of God. What is the believer’s defence against these enemies of truth? The only, and the best protection is the Word of God. The Apostle Peter encourages his readers to steadfastly cling on to the Bible – our best defence!

What is it that these scoffers and mockers are so agitated about? They are opposed to the coming of our Lord Jesus! Make no mistake about it! They simply do not want our Lord to return!! For our Lord shall return with "power and great glory." This will also mean our Lord shall return for His saints – those who have served Him well and are ready for His return! (The mockers and scoffers will not be blessed by our Lord’s return.)

1. SCOFFERS, WILLINGLY IGNORANT OF CERTAIN JUDGMENT (2 Peter 3: 3 – 7)

It is a sad fact that men are blinded by the false pride of learning and by their own sinful lusts, so that they cannot see the obvious truth of God. The Apostle warns against such men whom he calls "scoffers." Puffed up by their own idea of wisdom they make fun of the clear doctrines of God. They make a mockery of the fact that God punishes sin, past, present and future. They laugh derisively at the doctrine of our Lord’s return. That these scoffers are to be right inside the church is nothing strange or surprising, that Apostle has warned: these men walk after their own lusts; they are carnal unregenerate false Christians, even the false teachers referred to in 2 Peter 2. Christians only in name, they follow after their own corrupt affections and have no part in the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their thinking and lifestyle are opposed to God. They glory in their superior education and pour contempt on the Gospel of salvation and the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Their wickedness has grown to such a height that they openly ridicule the Word of God. Yet they are within the church, calling themselves pastors, bishops, cardinals, popes. What is the reason for this?

Answer: THEY ARE WALKING AFTER THEIR OWN LUSTS!

With cynical boldness they demand: Where is the promise of His coming? Then, with wilful and arrogant ignorance, they advance the reason for their unbelief: For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. These men have obviously dismissed God and the authority of Holy Scripture.

But to us who believe, the doctrine of our Lord’s return is precious. It is one of the "exceeding great and precious promises" of God. It is the believers’ BLESSED HOPE. Without it the body of Christian doctrine would be incomplete, robbed of its GRAND FINALE – in clinical terms, "fractured and crippled." This doctrine gives the finishing stroke to all the other doctrines. It is the LAST MAJOR PROPHECY YET TO BE FULFILLED.

Do you harbour any doubt, even the slightest, about our Lord’s return? Beloved, doubt not! To believe is to stand on unshakeable ground, even the solid Rock Jesus Christ Himself from which we shall never be moved. Our Lord Himself promised to come again (John 14:3), the angels reaffirmed it at the Ascension (Acts 1:11), and Apostles all testified to it. The Old and New Testaments have over 1,500 references to this glorious end time event, the CLIMAX OF HISTORY. To doubt is simply to be blind to irrefutable evidence available in superfluous abundance. The sceptics deceive themselves with a piece of totally fallacious reasoning based on a lie. Contrary to the argument which they have advanced, things have not continued as they were from the beginning of the creation. There has been an unprecedented flood of global extent, the evidence for which is not lacking. But these false teachers shut their eyes to the facts and argue thus: "Those are all dead to whom the promise was given, which promise was never fulfilled in their time, neither in ours. And it appears that all things continue as they were, so they are likely to carry on as they are. Why then should we trouble ourselves over the future?"

Furthermore, other doubters today delude themselves with more fallacious arguments, saying, "Since the world has undergone no catastrophic changes in the course of so many thousand years, it is likely to continue the same way. What has never happened can never happen!" THE WORLD COMING TO AN END? HA! HA! SCOFF, SCOFF!

In their self-assured wisdom, these scoffers willingly shut their minds to the evidence of a global flood which drowned out the world in the days of Noah. The evidence was there (and still is in abundance everywhere) but they took no notice of it, brushed it aside, and dismissed it from their thinking. Peter says these people were "willingly ignorant" of the facts. Their wilful ignorance shut their minds to the fact of the creation, how that "by the word of God the heavens were of old (created), and the earth (also)standing out of the water and in the water" (2 Pet 3:5). Those who doubt the Universal Flood have no mind to believe the Creation either, for both were brought to pass "by the word of God." Doubters and sceptics essentially DISTRUST THE WORD OF GOD. This is their fatal mistake not knowing that "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth … For he spake, and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast" (Ps 33: 6, 9).

Men have presumptuously underestimated God. They do not believe in the power of His Word, that by the breath of His mouth He could create as well as destroy. These scoffers, walking after their own lusts, foolishly think that they can "CUT GOD DOWN TO SIZE." Men resent the thought (and threat) of coming judgment and the unpleasant prospect of having to give an account of their ungodly lives before God. For this reason they resent the doctrine of the Second Coming, and reject the record of the Flood. But it is for this very reason that the Bible records the Flood story, as Peter reminds us, "making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly." The destruction of the world by water, of Sodom and Gormorrah by fire, are both to serve as examples to future generations that God will not tolerate men’s unrepentance, and will judge the earth once more. The first global judgment was by water, but the second and final judgment will be by fire. This wicked world is already ripe and over-ripe for judgment. While judgment seems to be delayed, yet it is by God’s Word that the world is upheld, "kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men" (2 Pet 3:7).

2. COMING: THE DAY OF THE LORD (2 Pet 3:8 – 10)

"BE NOT IGNORANT." We earth-bound creatures live in TIME, limited in all our thinking, planning, actions and movements by the TIME-FRAME. Our God is not so limited at all. He inhabits timeless ETERNITY where PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE are all before HIM in one unending ETERNAL DAY.

Within the compass of ETERNITY ("with the Lord")

ONE DAY = 1000 YEARS

1000 YEARS = ONE DAY

In God’s accounting, there is no difference. His perspective is not time-bound.

We need to overhaul our way of thinking, and not to think of God as one of ourselves. He says to us, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways … For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa 55:8, 9). Realizing then that God’s ways are "high ways" and not "my ways," we begin to see events and happenings in a different light. We will not grow weary with awaiting His coming. We will not complain that He is late with His promised return. We will see that the Lord is not slack or delayed, as He appears in men’s reckoning. We will see that "MEN’S SLACKNESS" = "GOD’S LONGSUFFERING."

God in His great patience and mercy has held back the day in order to give men more time to repent and turn to Him, for God’s great loving heart is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. This explains His "slackness." But when He finally comes it will be with great suddenness and awesome finality, taking mankind by surprise "as a thief in the night." The Lord will come in a day when men think not, when they are slumbering away in a state of false security, saying to themselves, "Peace and safety!" (1 Thess 5:3). The day of the Lord’s coming will be a universe-shaking event: "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up" (2 Pet 3:10).

The ancient Chinese had God-given knowledge of the two global judgments inscribed into their written language. The word for "great disaster" is [災] which suggests to us that the first disaster was by water [ < ] and the second by fire [ 火 ].

And while God’s salvation in the first judgment was Noah’s ARK, His salvation in the second will be the ARK of Jesus Christ. No physical ark or any sort of shelter on earth will be able to save anybody. Only those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, taken supernaturally out of this perishing earth, transformed by God’s almighty power (1 Cor 15:51, 52; 1 Thess 4:16, 17).

Yours faithfully in the Saviour’s Service,

Dr SH Tow, Sr Pastor