II Peter 3:1 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.
5 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:
It is important to take God at His Word. The only way to make sense of what is taking place in our world, is to know the true God and trust in Him.
God directed Peter to remind his readers that they were beloved. The warnings given in chapter 2 were for the beloved. God does not want anyone to be deceived and led astray. As we see in this chapter, God is not willing that any should perish. Those who perish and thus end up in hell do so against the will of God. Those who are saved are His beloved.
You notice in verse 1 that God wants to stir up those of pure minds. That is those who are saved. The ungodly do not have pure minds. They do not know how to think pure thoughts. They are always scheming and trying to find a way to justify their sin. That is why they do not like the King James Bible, and that is why they avoid a true church. They want someone to put their stamp of approval on their sin.
Peter was not giving the saints anything new. He was stirring up their memories. What he was writing was already known to the saints. The same is true today. Saints are those who are born again and thus they spend time in a true church being taught the truth. Our minds can take in many things, but we tend to forget things. We need to be reminded of what is truth.
In verse 2 Peter was directed to remind the saints to be mindful of the words spoken before by the holy prophets. That is the Word of God. The holy prophets are differentiated from the false prophets that were around in Old Testament times. Jeremiah had to deal with them. There were false prophets all the way through the Old Testament.
Peter further wrote about the commandments that God gave the saints through the apostles. A true apostle was chosen by the Lord and Saviour. A true apostle needed to have been personally taught and trained by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 1:21 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
There are no apostles today because there is no need for them. Jesus is not personally training any men in the way He did with the apostles. There are men who claim to be apostles but they are either deceived or wilfully choosing to deceive others.
In verse 3 Peter reminds the saints that first of all there will be scoffers, walking after their own lusts. Those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ and go about to establish their own religion do so for their own benefit. They are not motivated by the love of God. If they were, they would not dare to corrupt God’s Word.
Verse 4 tells us more about these scoffers. They reject the prophecy of Jesus’ coming. He has already come once. He is coming again. He has not come now for about two thousand years, but that does not mean He is not coming back.
Acts 1:11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
How did the apostles see Jesus leave? He left in a cloud. He was taken up in a cloud and they did not see Him anymore. The Bible tells us that He is coming back in the clouds. The first part of His second coming will be announced with the sound of the trumpet. The saints will hear that sound. We do not know if the lost will hear it. The dead in Christ shall rise first and the saved at that time will meet the Lord in the air together with the risen dead saints. All will receive new bodies in a moment and will be taken with the Lord into heaven.
The second part of the second coming will take place seven years from that moment. At that time, Jesus will come back down to earth and set His feet on the Mount of Olives. The Mount will split in two when He sets His feet upon it. He will destroy the antichrist and the false prophet at that time. He will destroy all the wicked of that time and an angel will bind Satan with chains and he will be cast into the bottomless pit for one thousand years.
The scoffers are blind and spiritually ignorant. They assume that since the time of the death of the fathers, the patriarchs of old, everything has remained the same.
A simple reading of the Bible refutes that lie. Peter went on and talked of the flood of Noah’s day. That was a catastrophic event that changed the climates and the topography of the earth. The earth that Noah left when he entered the ark was vastly different than the world he entered after the flood. It must have been quite a shock to him when he opened the door of the ark and walked out of it.
By the mercy and grace of God, the earth was still quite capable of sustaining life. The animals would find enough to eat and man would be able to produce food year after year.
The problem that Peter was addressing was that people in his time as well as every generation since then, did not believe in a universal flood.
Verse 5 tells us that the scoffers were willingly ignorant. It is not that the evidence of a worldwide flood isn’t there. It is that all the evidence is being reinterpreted to support a lie. The lie of how the Grand Canyon was formed is one of many lies. The supposed age of the earth based on the different layers found in the earth is another lie. There are so many lies being promoted without any evidence to support them. When we take God at His Word and believe that He sent a worldwide flood that destroyed all life that breathes and the plants and other vegetation, then we can begin to look at the evidence that proves that. The Grand Canyon was not cut by millions of years of the meandering Colorado River. It was cut quickly by a massive rush of water as the earth and rock and other debris collapsed, causing that massive rush of water to cut that canyon.
God even gave us Mount St. Helen and the volcano that occurred there a number of years ago. The after effects of that volcano gave us a mini picture of what happened during the flood. There was a massive mud and debris dam that burst as the waters in front of that debris moved away and the waters behind the debris were too much for that temporary dam to hold. As that dam broke it caused a mini Grand Canyon.
God did not need to give us that scene. In fact those who reject God’s Word regarding Noah’s flood also misinterpret what happened at Mount St.Helens.
The Bible is clear.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
True faith is based upon a God Who cannot lie. He preserved His Word and He tells us there was a worldwide flood. He tells us the mountains were tipped on their sides during that flood. He tells us of other changes that took place at that time and have carried on since that time.
The key is: don’t be a scoffer. If you have questions, seek out a God-fearing man who can show you from the Bible, that God is true, and man can easily be a liar. You will never go wrong in accepting God’s Word as He gave It.
Pastor Bartel