1 ¶ This second epistle, beloved, I now write
unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2 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:
3 ¶
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers,
walking after their own lusts, 4 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.
This second letter is a reminder of things the church was
told by the prophets through their writings and by the words spoken to the
apostles by Christ. Peter warns them about the nature of people in the last
days. This, like Paul’s warnings, are not about the unsaved in the world for
men and women have always been scoffers and reprobate. It is their nature.
These warnings are about what to expect, just as it has happened, in the
Christian community itself. Here are some warnings for Paul that are directed
to the body of Christ so don’t waste your time looking ‘outside the camp’ for
these people. They are in the pews and offices around you. Paul said to Timothy;
1Timothy 4:1 ¶ Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in
the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot
iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and
commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with
thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and
nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and
prayer.
And then, in the second letter, in more detail, and as mankind
has always been like this we know this is a reference to the traitors to Christ
in the church;
2Timothy 3:1 ¶ This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. 2 For men
shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of
God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into
houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers
lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8
Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the
truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9 But they shall proceed no further: for their
folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
Jude gave this warning within the context of a letter you
should read as applying to this passage in 2Peter as well. So, please take a
moment to read that short letter from Jude.
Jude 1:18 How that they told you there should be
mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate
themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
And then, keep in mind this statement from Paul;
2Thessalonians 2:3
¶ Let no man deceive you by any means:
for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with
you, I told you these things?
And remember how Daniel characterized this man, whose type
has been revealed at various times throughout history.
Daniel 11:38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his
fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious
stones, and pleasant things.
Now let’s go back to 2Peter. People will say that everything
just keeps rolling along and nothing changes. They will mock the conservative
Christian’s belief in the literal application of the Bible in favor of a pagan
mixture of modern theoretical science and the Bible. People who claim to be
Christian will embrace evolutionary theory and say the first three chapters of
Genesis are metaphorical or a story about sin or some other thing so they can
acknowledge that they consider Satan’s question in chapter 3 of Genesis to be
their own mantra. “Yea, hath God said…?”
The error that things have always been just as they are now
back into distant history and prehistory consisting of billions of years and
that things will go on and on as they are now until the Sun burns out is not
just in the secular world, but has invaded the church. It is there in the
pulpits when a preacher talks about how God wound things up and watches rather
than, as the Bible says, is intimately involved in every action of reality as
God’s speech to Job reveals in chapters 38-41.
We have a Bible which says that God created everything
including life. Even atheist scientists acknowledge the mathematical impossibility
of life happening by chance on earth, so they postulate panspermia where life
was seeded on earth after forming elsewhere in a stellar cloud.
We have a Bible that says that the Lord Jesus Christ holds
all things together in Colossians 1:17 and yet they postulate something they
cannot see or measure by observation in His place, called Dark Matter or Energy,
to perform that task.
We have a Bible that implies that the earth is the center of
the universe and states in Genesis, chapter one, that the stars and other
heavenly bodies are there for reasons that have to do with the earth. Atheist
scientists like Fred Hoyle admitted even that observational data shows we are
at the center but then they treat it like it must be an illusion and state that
they believe that anywhere in the universe will appear to be the center. Some
of them believe that life is probably only possible here and that all of the
physical universe is in perfect balance for it to exist as such but then deny
that that means there is an intelligent designer or maintainer of it.
We have a Bible that suggests that bodies in space revolve
around the earth and not the other way around and yet, these same atheist
scientists admit that this is a matter of relative motion only and has no
physical significance so, if the Bible indeed suggests that, it is not wrong.
We have a Bible that says the earth is spherical in Isaiah
40:22, in an age where some believed it was flat. We have a Bible that says
that the earth hangs in empty space in Job 26:7 and is not on the back of a
turtle or the shoulders of a god like some ancients believed.
We have a Bible that predicts events of future history like
Cyrus the Persian and Alexander the Great hundreds of years before they arrived
on the scene and that predicted the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the
Temple, all historical events, years before they happened. We have a Bible that
is true in every particular and has not been proven in error by anyone except
in their untestable theories.
More importantly than all, though, we have a Bible that says
the Saviour will physically return to rule the earth and we are to wait for
that glorious event, no matter what scoffers and so-called modernists believe.
But, it is not surprising that these scoffers exist but that they are now
within the very walls of Christian churches, unbelieving believers.
1Timothy 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to
thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science
falsely so called: 21 Which some
professing have erred concerning the faith.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of
the world, and not after Christ.
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