Daily Thought

The cry of the scoffers continues to be heard in this present day of God’s grace, ‘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’, v. 4. Such men and women are motivated by their own lusts, v. 3, and display their wilful ignorance of God’s word.

Firstly, the scoffers are ignorant of what happened to ‘the world that then was’, i. e., the world before the flood in the days of Noah, vv. 5, 6. Men assumed that things would continue as they were then, but they were wrong: it ‘being overflowed with water, perished’, v. 6. Peter had written earlier about God ‘bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly’, 2. 5.

Secondly, they are ignorant of the destiny of ‘the heavens and earth, which are now’. They are being ‘kept in store, reserved unto fire’, 3. 7. God is restraining the potential of the elements at the present time, but ultimately He will use fire, not water as in the days of Noah, to judge ungodly men. Peter uses graphic terminology to describe the coming end of the present heavens and earth, e. g., ‘great noise’, ‘fervent heat’, ‘burned up’, and ‘dissolved’ (setting free what is bound), vv. 10, 11. Unbelieving evolutionists state that the cosmos began with a big bang, but God says that it will end with a big bang!

Thirdly, they are ignorant of how God views time. He is eternal and therefore He is not limited by time. Even believers need to be reminded of this, v. 8. What often appears to be a delay in God’s plans is not so from the perspective of eternity.

Fourthly, they are ignorant of His character. What they regard as slackness on His part in carrying out His promises is evidence of His ‘longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’, v. 9.

We leave the ignorant scoffers, resting in the assurance that the day of the Lord, i. e., the day of His judgement, will suddenly overtake this godless world, v. 10. We will not pass through that day, but we look beyond it to the day of God, when there will be ‘(completely) new heavens and a new earth’, vv. 12, 13. Such a blessed hope ought to lead us to holy and godly living, v. 14.