06 - Peter Scours The Scoffers 2011

Last time we talked about the sinister sin of Balaam. We saw how his love for money contributed to his downfall. We also looked at the Doctrine of Balaam, which, in a nutshell, was “if you can’t beat ‘em, seduce ‘em.” Balaam advised wicked King Balak to bring Israel down by seducing them into sexual immorality and idolatry.

This time in 2 Peter 3, we’re going to look at a subject near and dear to Peter’s heart—the return of Christ. Peter was particularly concerned because the truth of the Lord’s return was being denied. So first, he exposes the scoffer (3:1-13), then he exhorts the saints (3:14-18).

“Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),”—3:1.

Peter is referring back to his first letter. He’s reminding them of what they’ve already heard from him and the other apostles, but may have been inclined to forget. His readers had been well and truly grounded in the truth by the apostle Paul. Most of Paul’s great epistles had already been written and were in circulation. Luke’s gospel and Mark’s gospel were probably already in circulation, too, as were the book of Acts and the epistle of James.

Next, Peter’s point is made:

“That you 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 Savior,”—2:3

False teachers were on the prowl. Peter’s solution was to refer his readers back to the Old and New Testaments. He believed rightly that the “doctrines of devils” warned of by Paul in 1 Tim. 4:1 and elsewhere cannot take root in a soul already well grounded in the Word of God.

Modern cults are full of people brought up in orthodox and fundamental churches that were either not taught sound doctrine or didn’t pay attention to it. Biblically literate believers are not trapped by the snares of false teachers.

Next come the scoffers. First, their ridicule is exposed:

“Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days,”—2:3a

Peter has now turned his gaze to the end times. He sees the coming of a generation of scoffers. “Scoffers” can also be rendered “mockers”. They ridicule, malign, and poke fun at Christ and Christians.

Their rottenness is exposed:

As is always the case, they are “walking according to their own lusts” (2:3b). These mockers are motivated by their own carnal desires. They are lust-driven, sensual, having not the Spirit of God.

And their reasoning is exposed:

“…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 creation” (2:4).

The scoffers have arrived. They are now among us and growing. In 1982, the June issue of Atlantic Monthly devoted its cover and leading article to ridiculing those who believe in the second coming of Christ. The article was by William Martin and was titled, “Waiting for the End.” The cover depicted a fussy little man dressed in a poorly tailored blue suit, with a Bible tucked under his arm, impatiently pointing to his watch.

But the scoffers have grown much more brazen since 1982. One need not look far to find them. Failed comedian and radical leftist liberal, Bill Maher, produced a movie called “Religulous” in which he mocks and ridicules those who believe in the 2nd coming of Christ.

Very predictably—usually around Easter—major national magazines like Time and Newsweek run front cover articles questioning the return of Christ and those who believe it.

Mockers believe they have given God plenty of time to fulfill His promise to return and thus have now concluded that His time is up. “If He hasn’t come by now,” they say, “He simply isn’t coming.”

But their unbelief, says Peter, stems from willful ignorance:

“For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water” (2:5-6).

Peter returns to the story of Noah’s flood again and again in his writings. His point is that the world was well warned. Enoch had hinted at God’s approaching judgment by the name he gave to his son, Methuselah, meaning “When he dies, it shall come.” Methuselah lived for 969 years and Enoch’s prophesy slumbered. But it did not die. Judgment fell.

Then Noah came. At God’s command he began to build an ark. A time was set—120 years (Gen 6:3). During this time the ark was built and Noah preached to a rebellious, heedless world. Jesus Himself pointed to the ignorance of the antediluvians (Matt. 24:38-39). It was culpable ignorance. The ark was a sign of judgment soon to come. The death of Methuselah was a sign. The preaching of Noah was a sign. Still “they knew not.” They were “willingly…ignorant.”

The ages rolled by. The dry land still raised its head above the sea. All things continued as they were. Then, with no further warning, the last day dawned. Noah and his family were in the ark where they had been for 7 days—the closing seconds of God’s great patience.

The antediluvians were given one week to realize that Noah and his family, along with two of every species God’s creation, had gone in. The ark door remained open. On the 8th day, the Holy Spirit records, “Then the Lord closed the door behind them” (Gen 7:16).

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”—7:11-12

The Holy Spirit vividly recounts the rest of the story:

“For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. 18 As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. 19 Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, 20 rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. 21 All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. 22 Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. 23 God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat. 24 And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.”—7:17-24

Peter in his epistle says that people are “willingly…ignorant” of this fact. The story of Noah’s ark was ridiculed then as it is today. But the flood really happened. The people of Noah’s day scoffed just as they do in our day, saying “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”

The people of our day have two things to scoff at—Noah’s ark and the promised return of Christ. Either way, they expose their blindness, ignorance, unbelief and rebellion against God.

Next, Peter predicts God’s next judgment will be, not by water, but by fire:

“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” (3:7).

Note the phrase “by the same word.” The same word of God that kept the seas in check until the Flood came, now holds the fire in check. The Lord promised Noah that there would never be another universal flood (Gen.9:8-17). The next universal judgment will be by fire.

The doom that overtook Sodom and Gomorrah reminds us that God is fully able to ignite this globe. We now know that every atom carries a furnace of doom within its tiny heart.

Peter says that the universe is “kept in store” against the coming judgment. The phrase kept in store means “to be treasured up.” That is, the universe is being carefully kept for the day of God’s choosing.

Because the entire creation has been stained and sullied by sin, God intends to clean things up by fire and reserves to Himself the time, the scope, and the means for doing so. According to Rev. 20:11, this “Day of Judgment” has already been noted on God’s calendar. It will coincide with the Great White Throne Judgment.

Next, Peter reminds us of something very important about God:

“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”—3:8

According to this passage, Jesus has only been gone two days! As human beings, we live in three tenses—past, present, and future. We can only experience life one moment at a time. We can anticipate the future and remember the past, but we are locked into time, a moment at a time, in the fleeting present.

God, on the other hand, gathers all of time past and future, into an eternal present tense. He is the I AM. Jesus told the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). God lives above time. He inhabits eternity (Is. 57:15). He can experience a thousand years as though it were a single day.

God can summon all of time before Him—past, present and future—a moment at a time or all the moment at once. This is why God says in Isaiah,

“For I am God, and there is no other;       I am God, and there is none like Me,       Declaring 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,’—46:10

Before a thing begins, God already sees the end. Before something starts, God sees the finish!

So Peter is reminding us that God is not locked into our own small measure of time. He is “working all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph.1:11), and is not bound to a time period we consider too long. Peter assures us that He is not slack, He is not late, and His word is not false.

God’s long-suffering and patience are because He’s “not willing that any should perish.” The only hope for the salvation of any soul rests in the patience, longsuffering, and self-control of God.

The fact that God allows outrages to continue must surely mean that He sees ahead for many a future of inconceivable horror.

So Peter explains the seeming delay in Christ’s return in terms of the pity and the patience of God. God’s heart reaches out to all men. And so He waits and waits. Yet keep in mind, Peter says. A glacier moves steadily but so slowly that it seems not to move at all. It might take the glacier two thousand years to get from here to there, but it gets there in the end.