In the Last Days There Will Be Scoffers
Standard;2Pe 3:1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),
2 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,
3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to 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 creation."
5 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.
7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 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.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;
15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;
18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
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Ac 1:14 These all continued with one accord in prayer (worship) and supplication, (prayer requests) with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
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I was reading this verse in the Book of Acts on Thursday of this week. And I found myself wondering, “I wonder what they were worshiping unanimously and what they were unanimously asking for? (That's what it means to be in one accord, to be unanimous)
Well, that caused me to look back to Jesus' final instructions to His disciples found in Luke:
Lu 24:49 "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."
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To paraphrase, He said, “Look, I am going to send you the Promise of My Father. Promise with a capitol P! The third person of the Trinity referred to here as the Promise. Another word for promise here is “Divine assurance.”
Now I can't describe Divine assurance, but I know when one has it, they will act, they will go ahead with the plan. They will use the power given to them. When you know something is right, you go ahead and do it. One of the things that the Holy Spirit brings to your soul is confidence in the “rightness” of the Word of God.
So Jesus tells the disciples to hang out in Jerusalem until they have this “Divine assurance” in the person of the Holy Spirit upon them, and of course this happened in a miraculous fashion and was evidenced by the tongues of flame that came “upon” them on Pentecost.
They could be assured then of being endued (clothed) with God's power to carry out God's plan:
Which Jesus had just spelled out to them in Luke.
Lu 24:47 "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
This was going to take place in the near future and I believe the answer to the question, “what were they worshiping? Is this: They were worshiping in anticipation of what God was going to do! I think we could learn from that.
I'm not saying that we should not give praise and thanks for what God has done. Certainly, this should be a part of our worship, but I wonder how much our worship would change for the better, if we would spend some time considering what He is about to do?
What is He about to do? He is about to come back and judge the world! Jesus is about to return! I think this portion of Peter's epistle is written for that purpose, to get our minds off of the past and looking to the pivotal point of our glorious future! Judgment Day!
2Pe 3:1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),
2 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,
This is the second letter Peter has written on the subject (apparently, the first one has been lost) and this letter was probably written before 1 Peter. Now that may seem weird to you, but the epistles are sorted in the NT by length, not by date.
The purpose of his “reminder” is to call to mind the words of the prophets and the commandments (the King James says “commandment” singular) issued by Peter and the other apostles. This commandment or authoritative prescription was issued by Jesus before He left this earth, when He said in Luke 24:47 that, “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations,” This command is summed up in Mark 16:16, where repentance is inescapably connected to belief and remission of sins is inescapably connected to baptism.
He who repents....believes.....and he who experiences remission....... is baptized shall be saved, shall stand on this coming Last Day.
First of all, he says in v3, let me warn you that scoffers will arise as it concerns a Judgment Day.
3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to 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 creation."
Pay close attention to what is being said here. How is a scoffer defined? He is defined as someone who walks (lives) according to his own lusts (desires) A scoffer picks and chooses how he lives. And the one who picks and chooses how he lives, what he will obey and believe about God is in effect saying,
“Where is the promise of His coming?” Where is Judgment Day? There is no Judgment Day. They live as if there is no Judgment Day.
Conveniently forgetting that we are hanging by a thread. Jesus could return at any moment. They forget that God has not left the world intact as His original creation, but that He caused a flood to wipe it all out.
5 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.
7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
I just began studying the Creation account in Scriptures again this week, and three words always stand out to me. God said, “Let there be,”.....and there was. And the way He fashioned the heavens and earth are fascinating, because if you read the account carefully, you see that He started with what amounts to a huge shapeless drop of water.
He introduced firmament or air space into this mass of water and a 360 degree ring of water completely surrounded what we call the heavens or the universe. And so the earth was “standing out of water and at the same time in the water.”
In the days of Noah, man picked and chose how he lived and God became fed up and after warning the people for 120 years....desiring that they should repent, He basically said, “Let there not be” and He opened the windows of heaven and this ring of water above and the fountains of water beneath, opened up and destroyed the earth by flood
And what's missing from the original creation is this ring of water. The water that had completely covered the earth dried up and receded and we were left with heaven and earth....no more ring of water around the universe just the heavens and the earth. And the only thing that preserves them is the same word that created them, and He could speak “Let there be Judgment Day at anytime.
The gospel has pretty much been preached throughout the world, (one of the signs of the end according to Jesus) Mt 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
The warning has been issued. “Believe and be baptized to be saved!” Fire, not flood, awaits the ungodly who do not receive the warnings, who reject the Gospel, who continue to evidence their rejection by picking and choosing how they will live.
8 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. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
The delay is not evidence of no final judgment, rather it is evidence of God's love and patience that all should come to repentance. Now I think we take this as some sort of patience for personal repentance, well, if that's the case, then the end WILL never come. For there will always be someone who needs to come to repentance. No! We need to see this for what it really is.
People come to repentance through the proclamation of the Gospel, this is what God has been patiently waiting for....the declaration of the Gospel to all tribes and all nations. This has been accomplished. The ark has been presented to all nations just as Jesus commanded. The end could come at any moment.
And when it comes it will come just as fast as the light arrived when God flipped the switch and said, “Let there be light.”
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Do you want to be here on earth when this happens? No you do not? Do you want anyone else to be here when this happens? No you don't. Pray! Preach the gospel, (use words if you have to) Do anything you can to save that soul from perdition.
Yes I know you are mad at them, yes I know they've dumped on you and mocked you and even mocked your God, but they will be begging for the rocks to fall on them on this Last Day rather than face Jesus Christ. And if you say, “good for them!” Then your heart is not right....you still don't understand. Jesus saw this on the cross, and He cried out, “Father forgive them! They know not what they do!”
He saw their end and He sucked it up! It's time we started sucking it up for the lost. He wept over the lostness of Jerusalem, because He saw their end. Can we not weep in like manner for our lost loved ones, and even our lost not so loved ones?
Listen this is what the end of the world will be like. God will one day soon say, “Let there be Light” with a capitol L, and the holy Jesus will re-enter our universe with the company of angels and departed saints. And just as Isaiah said , “Woe is is me, I am undone,” when he was in the presence of the holy God,
so will it be for the sun, moon, and stars. They will become undone by His holy presence. The final trumpet will sound. Paul talked about it in his letter to the Thessalonians.
1Th 4:13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Yes, the sun, moon, and stars, who have been faithfully held in their courses from the beginning of time, sustained by the Word of God, will fall to the earth and burn it up. How long do you think that will take? For those who have rejected the gospel, it will be the most terror filled moment in the history of the world,
Re 6:15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains,
16 and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
These are the ones left behind, the ones who picked and chose what to believe.....the scoffers.
The ones who mocked the very terror that they are now feeling and will experience for eternity!
11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, “How should you live?”
I'll tell you what manner of persons we ought to be....ones that don't pick and choose what to obey and what to believe!
Rather we are to be .....
12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
The idea being that we are to anticipate this end, it should not catch us by surprise and we should eagerly desire it, even though it will be tragic for those who have rejected Him. .This eagerness ought to translate to earnestness for the lost!
13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;
God will rebuild the heavens and earth after they have once and for all been purified from sin, and the only thing left living will be righteousness. Therefore beloved look forward to what God is going to do and worship Him and be found in Jesus, for it is the only place that is without spot and blemish.
15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation--
Consider, the delay in Judgment is for the purpose of salvation......yours and others.
“as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
Paul's epistles get a ringing endorsement from Peter here, (even though he admits they are a tough read sometimes) but they are very helpful in spelling out the plan of salvation and guarding us against the mistakes of the wicked....guiding us to holy conduct rather than .
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;
You know better, don't fall in with the wicked! Rather,
18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
We grow by yielding every bit of our being to Jesus, knowing that He will help us pick and choose what is right to believe and obey........... and those things are revealed to us as we allow His Word to penetrate our hearts and rule our lives.
Anything less is to scoff at the idea of a final Judgement....to laugh at Noah and his ark, and if you do........it will be the last thing you remember as you beg the rocks to fall on you.
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