August 18, 2026 • 25 mins
“Where is the promise of His coming?” That one sentence has fueled doubt for centuries, and 2 Peter 3 treats it like a flashing warning light for every generation. We open God’s Word and deal honestly with what scoffers do, why they do it, and why their confidence rests on selective memory rather than careful truth.
We trace Peter’s argument that Scripture is reliable and unified from the prophets to Jesus to the apostles. Biblical prophecy is not given to create armchair experts or endless arguments about tribulation timelines. It is meant to wake us up, ground us in sound doctrine, and push us toward holy living and bold witness when the culture treats judgment, hell, and the Second Coming like jokes.
Then we address the scoffer’s favorite claim: “Everything continues as it always has.” Peter points to two historical interventions that shatter that story, creation by the word of God and the flood in Noah’s day. If God has already acted in history, it is not irrational to believe He will act again. The Day of the Lord is real, the present world is being preserved by God’s word, and the delay is not weakness. God’s patience is mercy, calling people to repentance before judgment arrives.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
Welcome to South Teacher Truth, the biblical
teaching ministry of Dr.
Timothy Banks.
Where is the promise of thiscoming?
The scoffers were asking thatquestion in Peter's day.
2,000 years later, they're stillasking it.
But Peter says their argumenthas a fatal flaw.
They've conveniently forgottenwhat God has already done.
(00:42):
Today we continue our seriesTruth in a World of Error with a
two-part message answering thescoffers from 2 Peter chapter 3.
Here now is Dr.
Timothy Mann.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Will Rogers once said everybody is ignorant only
on different subjects.
So true.
That is so true.
However, that's not the wholestory because there's more than
one kind of ignorance.
There really is.
Some people are ignorant becauseof the lack of opportunity to
learn.
And sadly, some maybe because ofa lack of ability to learn.
(01:15):
Others are, to use Peter'sphrase in 2 Peter chapter 3,
verse 5, the old King Jamessays, for this there of
willfully ignorant, willfullyignorant, or willfully forget,
willfully ignorant.
Philosopher one time said, Notignorance, but the ignorance of
ignorance is the death ofknowledge.
(01:35):
Ignorance of ignorance.
Peter at this point, as we cometo this section in his letter,
he has dealt with the characterand the conduct of the false
teachers, the apostates, aswe've called them, in 2 Peter
chapter 2.
Now, however, as we move to thisportion of the letter, he begins
(02:01):
to deal even more specificallywith their false teaching.
Now, early on in the letter, theApostle Peter had affirmed the
certainty of Christ's coming inglory.
Back up in chapter 1, verse 16,he says, We have made known to
you the power and coming of ourLord Jesus Christ, which we were
(02:23):
eyewitnesses.
And he talks about a little bitlater of his second coming, his
coming again that's going totake place.
This is a truth that the falseteachers, the apostates, as
we've called them, havequestioned and have denied,
even.
I mean, they are they werescoffing at the very idea of the
(02:46):
return of the Lord.
They're scoffing at the veryidea of the judgment of the
world.
And they're certainly scoffingat the idea of some sort of an
establishment of a gloriouskingdom.
Scoffing at that.
Questioning.
How important it is for us asbelievers to understand God's
(03:06):
truth.
That's very important.
Because today we're we'resurrounded by scoffers all
around.
We're surrounded by people whorefuse to take the Bible
seriously, really on most anysubject, but especially when it
speaks about the certainty ofjudgment and the subject of
(03:30):
Christ's return.
Don't take it seriously.
But in this paragraph that we'regoing to be looking at, the
Apostle Peter admonishes hisreaders in that day, and us
today, the Holy Spirit, appliesthis truth to our life today,
and we get admonished tounderstand some important facts
about God and about thecertainty, the promise of
(03:52):
Christ's coming.
And that's what we're going tolook at.
So let's begin in verse 1, andwe're going to read down through
verse 10.
The Bible says, Beloved, I nowwrite to you this second
epistle.
In both, meaning the first oneand this one, in both of which I
stir up your pure minds by wayof reminder, that you may be
(04:17):
mindful of the words which werespoken before by the holy
prophets, and of the commandmentof us, the apostles, of the Lord
and Savior, knowing this first,that scoffers will come in the
last days, walking according totheir own lusts, and saying,
Where is the promise of hiscoming?
(04:39):
For since the fathers fellasleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning ofcreation.
For this they willingly forgetthat by the word of God the
heavens were of old, and theearth standing out of water and
in the water, by which the worldthat then existed perished,
being flooded with water.
(05:01):
But the heavens and the earth,which are now preserved by the
same word, are reserved for fireuntil the day of judgment and
perdition or destruction ofungodly men.
But beloved, do not forget thisone thing that with the Lord one
(05:21):
day is as a thousand years, anda thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerninghis promise, as some count
slackness, but is long sufferingtoward us, not willing that any
should perish, but that allshould come to repentance.
(05:43):
But the day of the Lord willcome as a thief in the night, in
which the heavens will pass awaywith a great noise, and the
elements will melt with ferventheat, and both the earth and the
works that are in it will beburned up.
We'll end at verse ten today.
(06:04):
And so as we're talking aboutthese scoffers and really
scoffing at the scoffers,there's reasons that we can have
confidence in what the Biblesays.
There's some things that wereally need to know about God,
important facts in this passagethat Peter's reminding us of,
and the promise of Christ'scoming.
What are they?
Well, the first one is this thatGod's word is true.
(06:24):
God's word is true.
That's what he tells us inverses 1 through 4.
It's absolutely possible to havea pure and sincere mind, but to
have a very bad memory.
That's possible.
That's what Peter's kind ofdealing with here.
Peter wrote this second letter,he says this, to primarily to
awaken and to arouse hisreaders.
(06:45):
It's easy for Christians to getaccustomed to God's truth.
We just kind of take it forgranted.
We get settled in it.
Remember in Acts chapter 20, uhEudicus went to sleep while
listening to Paul preach.
And maybe that was because Paulwent way too long, I don't know.
But he fell out the window ifyou remember that.
(07:06):
Our Heavenly Father, hesacrificed so, like we've
examined this morning in thistable, he sacrificed so that we
might have the truth of the Wordof God and the freedom to
practice it.
But the reality is too often wetake this for granted and we
become complacent.
We take God's word for grantedand we become complacent.
(07:28):
The church, Peter was aware ofthis, and I think it's something
that is not practiced enoughtoday in far too many local
churches.
The church needs to be arousedregularly, lest the enemy find
us asleep.
And I tell you what he'll do,he'll take advantage of our
spiritual lethargy.
(07:48):
He does.
But because God's word is true,we have to pay attention to it,
and we must take its messageseriously.
New believers have to be taughtin the word and established in
the doctrines of the faith.
Because new Christians, newChristians are oftentimes the
ones who so easily fall prey tofalse teachers' doctrines, and
(08:10):
oftentimes are their primarytargets.
But that's not to say that olderChristians don't need to be
reminded too.
Older Christians need to bereminded of the importance of
Bible doctrine and all thosedoctrines that relate
specifically as well to thereturn of Christ, as we're
looking at today.
Prophetic teaching shouldn'tjust be something that piques
(08:30):
our interest and we want tostudy so we can know all of
these juicy little details aboutwhat's going to take place.
Prophetic teaching shouldn'tjust lull us to sleep either,
neither one of those things.
Rather, prophetic teaching oughtto awaken us to live the life
that Christ wants us to live andmove us to seek to want to win
(08:55):
others.
That's what prophetic teachingought to do.
What the Bible teaches about theday of the Lord was not invented
by the apostles.
Prophets taught it, and so didour Lord Jesus Christ.
What Peter's doing here is he'semphasizing the unity of the
Word of God.
(09:16):
And when the scoffers denied thepower and coming of Jesus
Christ, they're denying thetruth of the prophetic books in
the Old Testament.
They're denying the teaching ofour Lord Jesus in the Gospels,
and they're denying the writingof the apostles.
Understand, like the seamlessgarment of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, the scripturescannot be cut apart without
(09:37):
ruining the whole.
You just can't slice and dicethe Bible and pick and choose
and do whatever you want to dowith it.
It's a unity, it's a whole.
And as far back as the days ofEnoch, God warned that judgment
was coming before Noah.
Many of the Hebrew prophetsannounced the day of the Lord,
and they warned that the world'sgoing to be judged.
(09:58):
And Isaiah and Jeremiah andDaniel and Joel and Amos and
Zephaniah and Zechariah, all ofthose.
This period of time is talkedabout over and over throughout
the Old Testament and in the NewTestament.
Our Lord taught about this dayof judgment in his sermon on the
Mount of Olives.
You should read about that inMatthew 24 and 25.
(10:21):
He's very explicit about it.
The Apostle Paul discusses it in1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and in
2 Thessalonians chapters 1 and2.
The Apostle John describes thisday in Revelation chapter 6, all
the way through Revelationchapter 19, the day of the Lord.
Now you may have a differentview on this, but the Bible, I
believe, very clearly teachesthis going to be a time when
(10:44):
God's wrath is going to bepoured out on the nations, when
Satan will be free to give ventto his anger and his malice, and
it's going to culminate with thereturn of the Lord Jesus Christ
in glory and victory.
Now, prophetic students fallinto all kinds of categories
about this, and wherever youland on this, that's all right.
You may be, as it relates totribulational matters, you may
(11:04):
be pre-mid post whatever.
I was talking to Oak Shannonabout this one day, and he's
decided he's pan-tribulationist.
I said, What do you mean bythat?
He said, It's all going to panout in the end, you know, and uh
I guess that's all right.
Whatever the case, I want to sayto you, there are good and godly
people in each group, and ourdifferences of interpretations
(11:25):
about those matters must notcreate problems in the
fellowship or in the sharing ofChristian love.
Now, I used to be a lot moredogmatic about things, about
those issues.
But I found out that that's notthe big ticket items that we
need to be as concerned about.
What we do need to be concernedabout is the Bible very clearly
predicts the coming day of theLord.
(11:49):
But not only does it predictthat, it also predicts the
appearance of very scoffers,these apostates who deny that
truth, who deny that word in thelast days.
And so what that says to me isthat their presence is proof
that the word that they deny isthe very word of God.
Because the word of God predictsthat.
(12:10):
And they're here.
And so we shouldn't besurprised, really, we should not
be surprised, at the presence ofthese folks in the world who
mock Bible truth, who mock God'sWord, and who mock people who
believe in that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
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questioned, dismissed, and evenmocked, Foundations of Truth
exists to keep pointing peopleback to the authority of God's
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Your prayers and financialsupport help make this teaching
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Thank you for standing with Dr.
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(12:47):
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That's foundationsoftruth.net.
Now let's return to today'smessage, part one of Answering
the Scoffers.
Here's Dr.
Timothy Mann.
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
So what's a scoffer?
Well, a scoffer is someone whotreats lightly that which ought
to be taken very seriously.
That's a scoffer.
The people in Noah's day scoffedat the idea of judgment.
The citizens of Sodom andGomorrah scoffed at the
possibility of fire andbrimstone destroying their
cities.
(13:26):
I suspect if you've ever triedat all to witness for the Lord
Jesus Christ, you've no doubtmet people who scoff at the very
idea of hell or a future day ofjudgment or anything along those
lines.
They just scoff.
But these false teachers thatPeter's talking about, these
apostates that he's been writingabout, why do they scoff?
These people in the church thatare in the fellowship.
(13:48):
Why?
Why do they scoff?
Well, it's because they want tocontinue living their life as
they're living it.
That's what he says.
He makes it clear that back overin chapter 2 we talked about
that.
He makes it clear that theseteachers cultivate the lusts of
uncleanness.
That's what he said.
And they allure weak people bymeans of lusts of the flesh.
(14:09):
See, here's how this works.
If your view and your life'spractice contradicts the word of
God, do you know what has tohappen?
You either have to change yourview and you have to change your
life's practice, or you have tochange the word of God.
That's your only option.
(14:31):
You really don't have any otherchoices.
And so, false teachers theychoose the latter approach.
And so they scoff at thedoctrines of coming judgment and
the and the coming of the Lord,and they scoff at those things
that are hard to deal with.
It doesn't fit their view andtheir life's practice, and they
adjust God's word to make it fitwhat they want it to say.
(14:52):
Well, what's their argument?
He talks about that.
He mentions that in verse 4.
He said, They say, Where's thepromise of his coming?
For since the fathers fellasleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning ofcreation.
The uniformity of the world,that's their argument.
Basically, they're sayingnothing cataclysmic has ever
happened in the past, so there'sno reason to believe it's ever
(15:13):
going to happen in the future.
You know, and they take theso-called scientific approach by
examining evidence and applyingreason and drawing a conclusion.
The fact is, though, the Biblesays here that they willfully
ignore or they willfully forgeta great deal of evidence that
does not seem to disturb them.
They don't want to deal withthat.
(15:34):
You talk about the scientificapproach, I would submit to you
that yes, that works admirablyin matters that relate to the
material universe, but youcannot take Bible prophecy,
biblical truth, into alaboratory and test it as though
it were simply anotherhypothesis.
For that matter, the so-calledlaws of science are really only
(15:57):
sometimes educated guesses basedon a limited number of
experiments and tests, and thoselaws are generalizations that
are subject to change because noscientist can perform an
infinite number of experimentsto prove his claim, and nor can
he or she completely control allthe factors involved in the
experiments and in his ownthinking as well.
(16:20):
You just can't get to the bottomof it.
Nobody's able to do that.
But the Bible says the word ofGod is still a light that shines
in a dark place.
We can trust it.
We absolutely can trust it.
No matter what the scoffers mayclaim, God's day of judgment is
going to come on the world, andJesus Christ is going to return
(16:41):
to establish his gloriouskingdom.
That's a fact that we need toknow.
God's word is true.
We can trust it.
But not only does he say that,in verses five through seven, he
says that God's work isconsistent.
Not only is his word true, buthis work is consistent.
These arguments of theseapostate scoffers, these false
(17:03):
teachers that infiltrate thechurch, how does he refute that?
They say, Well, God does notinterrupt the operation of his
stable creation.
They they that's what they'resaying.
The promise of Christ's comingis not true.
All Peter did was to remind themof what God has done in the
past, and thus prove that hiswork is consistent all
(17:25):
throughout the ages.
He simply presented the evidencethat the false teachers
deliberately ignored, that theywillfully forgot about.
It's amazing to me how so-calledthinkers, you know, scientists
and liberal theologians andphilosophers and all those
people, it's amazing to me thatthey will be selective and
(17:48):
deliberately refuse to considercertain data, certain facts.
The Apostle Peter, he cites twoevents in history to prove his
point.
One was the work of God increation, verse five, and the
flood in Noah's day, verse six.
Verse five says, For this theywillfully forget that by the
(18:10):
word of God the heavens were ofold, and the earth standing out
of water and in the water.
God created the heavens and theearth by his word.
That's what the scripturesteach.
And I'm not ashamed to stand onthat.
That doesn't trouble me, thatdoesn't worry me.
I don't have to have long agesof time, I don't have to have
(18:30):
some sort of evolutionaryprocess, I don't have to have
some sort of existing material.
The phrase and God said occursnine times in Genesis chapter
one.
That's enough.
And God said.
The Bible says in Psalm 33,verse 9, for he spake and it was
done.
And it was done.
He commanded and it stood fast.
(18:52):
I want to say to you though, notonly is creation made by the
Word of God, it's held togetherby the Word of God.
That's what the scripturesteach.
Held together.
Kenneth Weist, a greatlinguistic scholar, he
translates 2 Peter 3, 5 to bringout this very subtle meaning.
He says, For concerning thisthey willfully forget that
heavens existed from ancienttimes and land standing out of
(19:15):
water and by means of water,cohering by the word of God.
Cohering by the word of God.
So Peter's argument is obvious.
What is it?
It's this it's that the same Godwho created the world by his
word can also intervene in hisworld and do whatever he wishes
to do.
He can do that.
(19:35):
And it's his word that made it.
It's his word that holds it alltogether, and his word is all
powerful.
And so that's the first thing hementions.
The second event, though, thatPeter cites is Noah's flood.
Did you notice that?
2 Peter 3, 6.
He refers to Noah's flood.
He's already referred to theflood as an illustration of
divine judgment.
(19:55):
He's done that once already.
And so there's no need to gointo detail about that.
But the flood was a cataclysmicevent.
It was.
In fact, the Greek word that'stranslated overflowed or being
flooded with water, that thatgives us our English word,
cataclysm.
(20:16):
And the people who were livingon the earth, they'd never seen
a rainstorm, they'd never seenthe fountains of the deep broken
up.
We can't imagine what that waslike.
Filled with all that heat aswell.
There's no way that we can knowthat.
But these events happened justthe same.
And their scientists, evenduring that day, could have
argued as the scoffers haveargued and said everything goes
(20:39):
on as it has done from thebeginning.
Life is so uniform that nothingunusual can happen, but it
happened.
It absolutely happened.
Anytime.
(21:08):
That's our God.
And so, having established thefact that God has already
interrupted in the past thecourse of history, Peter is now
ready for his application inverse 7.
Here's his application.
In verse 7, he said, But theheavens and the earth, which are
(21:28):
now preserved by the same word,see that?
By the same word, are reservedfor fire until the day of
judgment and perdition of godlymen.
The same word that created andsustains the world is now
holding it together, stored withfire, preserved, being preserved
(21:49):
and reserved for this future dayof judgment.
If you're not familiar with it,go back and read Genesis 9, that
account.
God promised that there would beno more.
Floods to destroy the world, thewhole world.
So the next judgment will be ajudgment of fire.
The phrase here, reserved forfire or stored with fire.
(22:14):
That sounds very modern to me.
It's interesting.
Modern atomic science hasrevealed that the elements which
make up the world are storedwith power.
Atomic scientists tell us thatthere's enough atomic energy in
a glass of water to run a hugeocean liner.
(22:34):
Enough atomic energy.
That's amazing to me.
What does that say?
Well, man has discovered thisgreat power.
And as a result, it seems likewe uh the world continually
teeters on the brink of somesort of atomic destruction all
the time.
Everybody has all trying to seekto get these weapons of
(22:54):
destruction.
However, I want to say to you,Peter seems to indicate that man
will not destroy the world byhis abuse of atomic energy.
It's God who will push thebutton, if you will.
It's God who will do that at theright time and burn up the old
(23:15):
creation and all the works ofsinful man with it, and then he
will usher in the new heavensand the new earth, and he will
reign in glory.
See, everything in God'soriginal creation was good.
Good.
It was it is man's sin thatturned a good creation into a
groaning creation.
Now God allowed for that, heaccounted for that, I understand
that in his providence and hissovereignty.
(23:37):
But the fact is God could notpermit sinful man to live in a
perfect environment.
And so he cursed the groundbecause of man.
And since that time, man hasbeen busy polluting and
destroying God's creation.
We do that.
And for years it appeared thatthis exploitation might not
cause too much trouble, but noweverybody's changing their
(23:57):
minds, right?
Everybody's going green.
Going green.
Why?
Because you know we're gonnawe're gonna kill this thing,
everybody's saying.
We're not gonna be able to livehere.
The balance of nature's beenupset, and valuable resources
are being wasted, and the supplyof energy is running down, and
civilization is facing a crisis.
And so the prophets of doomtoday are not only preachers and
evangelists, but they'resociologists and ecologists and
(24:19):
politicians and atomicscientists.
All of that.
But Peter, what he's doing ishe's proving his point here
again, and that's that God isable to intervene again in the
course of history.
He did it in the past, he's ableto do it again, and the day of
the Lord is promised by theprophets and the apostles as
well as by Jesus Christ, andit's gonna come just as surely
(24:41):
as the flood came in Noah's day,as the fire and brimstone came
to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,and so here the fact is these
scoffers have their argumentready.
Well, then why the delay?
Why the delay?
If it's going to come, thispromise of Christ's coming in
the judgment of the world hasbeen around for centuries.
Has it not?
(25:02):
Why has it not been fulfilled?
Has God changed his mind?
I don't know about you, but Ithink the world is certainly
ripe for judgment.
SPEAKER_01 (25:10):
God's patience should never be mistaken for
God's absence.
The day of the Lord will come,and every promise of God will
ultimately be fulfilled.
I'm Dallas Priest for Dr.
Timothy Mann at Foundations ofTruth and our entire team.
Thank you so much for listeningto the biblical teaching
ministry of Dr.
Timothy Mann.
Until tomorrow, the grasswithers, the flower fades, but
(25:32):
the word of God stands forever.
Foundations of Truth is madepossible in part by the generous
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in equipment through biblicaland theological education.
(25:55):
We're grateful for theirpartnership in making this
ministry possible.
Welcome to South Teacher Truth, the biblical
teaching ministry of Dr.
Timothy Banks.
Where is the promise of thiscoming?
The scoffers were asking thatquestion in Peter's day.
2,000 years later, they're stillasking it.
But Peter says their argumenthas a fatal flaw.
They've conveniently forgottenwhat God has already done.
(00:42):
Today we continue our seriesTruth in a World of Error with a
two-part message answering thescoffers from 2 Peter chapter 3.
Here now is Dr.
Timothy Mann.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Will Rogers once said everybody is ignorant only
on different subjects.
So true.
That is so true.
However, that's not the wholestory because there's more than
one kind of ignorance.
There really is.
Some people are ignorant becauseof the lack of opportunity to
learn.
And sadly, some maybe because ofa lack of ability to learn.
(01:15):
Others are, to use Peter'sphrase in 2 Peter chapter 3,
verse 5, the old King Jamessays, for this there of
willfully ignorant, willfullyignorant, or willfully forget,
willfully ignorant.
Philosopher one time said, Notignorance, but the ignorance of
ignorance is the death ofknowledge.
(01:35):
Ignorance of ignorance.
Peter at this point, as we cometo this section in his letter,
he has dealt with the characterand the conduct of the false
teachers, the apostates, aswe've called them, in 2 Peter
chapter 2.
Now, however, as we move to thisportion of the letter, he begins
(02:01):
to deal even more specificallywith their false teaching.
Now, early on in the letter, theApostle Peter had affirmed the
certainty of Christ's coming inglory.
Back up in chapter 1, verse 16,he says, We have made known to
you the power and coming of ourLord Jesus Christ, which we were
(02:23):
eyewitnesses.
And he talks about a little bitlater of his second coming, his
coming again that's going totake place.
This is a truth that the falseteachers, the apostates, as
we've called them, havequestioned and have denied,
even.
I mean, they are they werescoffing at the very idea of the
(02:46):
return of the Lord.
They're scoffing at the veryidea of the judgment of the
world.
And they're certainly scoffingat the idea of some sort of an
establishment of a gloriouskingdom.
Scoffing at that.
Questioning.
How important it is for us asbelievers to understand God's
(03:06):
truth.
That's very important.
Because today we're we'resurrounded by scoffers all
around.
We're surrounded by people whorefuse to take the Bible
seriously, really on most anysubject, but especially when it
speaks about the certainty ofjudgment and the subject of
(03:30):
Christ's return.
Don't take it seriously.
But in this paragraph that we'regoing to be looking at, the
Apostle Peter admonishes hisreaders in that day, and us
today, the Holy Spirit, appliesthis truth to our life today,
and we get admonished tounderstand some important facts
about God and about thecertainty, the promise of
(03:52):
Christ's coming.
And that's what we're going tolook at.
So let's begin in verse 1, andwe're going to read down through
verse 10.
The Bible says, Beloved, I nowwrite to you this second
epistle.
In both, meaning the first oneand this one, in both of which I
stir up your pure minds by wayof reminder, that you may be
(04:17):
mindful of the words which werespoken before by the holy
prophets, and of the commandmentof us, the apostles, of the Lord
and Savior, knowing this first,that scoffers will come in the
last days, walking according totheir own lusts, and saying,
Where is the promise of hiscoming?
(04:39):
For since the fathers fellasleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning ofcreation.
For this they willingly forgetthat by the word of God the
heavens were of old, and theearth standing out of water and
in the water, by which the worldthat then existed perished,
being flooded with water.
(05:01):
But the heavens and the earth,which are now preserved by the
same word, are reserved for fireuntil the day of judgment and
perdition or destruction ofungodly men.
But beloved, do not forget thisone thing that with the Lord one
(05:21):
day is as a thousand years, anda thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerninghis promise, as some count
slackness, but is long sufferingtoward us, not willing that any
should perish, but that allshould come to repentance.
(05:43):
But the day of the Lord willcome as a thief in the night, in
which the heavens will pass awaywith a great noise, and the
elements will melt with ferventheat, and both the earth and the
works that are in it will beburned up.
We'll end at verse ten today.
(06:04):
And so as we're talking aboutthese scoffers and really
scoffing at the scoffers,there's reasons that we can have
confidence in what the Biblesays.
There's some things that wereally need to know about God,
important facts in this passagethat Peter's reminding us of,
and the promise of Christ'scoming.
What are they?
Well, the first one is this thatGod's word is true.
(06:24):
God's word is true.
That's what he tells us inverses 1 through 4.
It's absolutely possible to havea pure and sincere mind, but to
have a very bad memory.
That's possible.
That's what Peter's kind ofdealing with here.
Peter wrote this second letter,he says this, to primarily to
awaken and to arouse hisreaders.
(06:45):
It's easy for Christians to getaccustomed to God's truth.
We just kind of take it forgranted.
We get settled in it.
Remember in Acts chapter 20, uhEudicus went to sleep while
listening to Paul preach.
And maybe that was because Paulwent way too long, I don't know.
But he fell out the window ifyou remember that.
(07:06):
Our Heavenly Father, hesacrificed so, like we've
examined this morning in thistable, he sacrificed so that we
might have the truth of the Wordof God and the freedom to
practice it.
But the reality is too often wetake this for granted and we
become complacent.
We take God's word for grantedand we become complacent.
(07:28):
The church, Peter was aware ofthis, and I think it's something
that is not practiced enoughtoday in far too many local
churches.
The church needs to be arousedregularly, lest the enemy find
us asleep.
And I tell you what he'll do,he'll take advantage of our
spiritual lethargy.
(07:48):
He does.
But because God's word is true,we have to pay attention to it,
and we must take its messageseriously.
New believers have to be taughtin the word and established in
the doctrines of the faith.
Because new Christians, newChristians are oftentimes the
ones who so easily fall prey tofalse teachers' doctrines, and
(08:10):
oftentimes are their primarytargets.
But that's not to say that olderChristians don't need to be
reminded too.
Older Christians need to bereminded of the importance of
Bible doctrine and all thosedoctrines that relate
specifically as well to thereturn of Christ, as we're
looking at today.
Prophetic teaching shouldn'tjust be something that piques
(08:30):
our interest and we want tostudy so we can know all of
these juicy little details aboutwhat's going to take place.
Prophetic teaching shouldn'tjust lull us to sleep either,
neither one of those things.
Rather, prophetic teaching oughtto awaken us to live the life
that Christ wants us to live andmove us to seek to want to win
(08:55):
others.
That's what prophetic teachingought to do.
What the Bible teaches about theday of the Lord was not invented
by the apostles.
Prophets taught it, and so didour Lord Jesus Christ.
What Peter's doing here is he'semphasizing the unity of the
Word of God.
(09:16):
And when the scoffers denied thepower and coming of Jesus
Christ, they're denying thetruth of the prophetic books in
the Old Testament.
They're denying the teaching ofour Lord Jesus in the Gospels,
and they're denying the writingof the apostles.
Understand, like the seamlessgarment of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, the scripturescannot be cut apart without
(09:37):
ruining the whole.
You just can't slice and dicethe Bible and pick and choose
and do whatever you want to dowith it.
It's a unity, it's a whole.
And as far back as the days ofEnoch, God warned that judgment
was coming before Noah.
Many of the Hebrew prophetsannounced the day of the Lord,
and they warned that the world'sgoing to be judged.
(09:58):
And Isaiah and Jeremiah andDaniel and Joel and Amos and
Zephaniah and Zechariah, all ofthose.
This period of time is talkedabout over and over throughout
the Old Testament and in the NewTestament.
Our Lord taught about this dayof judgment in his sermon on the
Mount of Olives.
You should read about that inMatthew 24 and 25.
(10:21):
He's very explicit about it.
The Apostle Paul discusses it in1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and in
2 Thessalonians chapters 1 and2.
The Apostle John describes thisday in Revelation chapter 6, all
the way through Revelationchapter 19, the day of the Lord.
Now you may have a differentview on this, but the Bible, I
believe, very clearly teachesthis going to be a time when
(10:44):
God's wrath is going to bepoured out on the nations, when
Satan will be free to give ventto his anger and his malice, and
it's going to culminate with thereturn of the Lord Jesus Christ
in glory and victory.
Now, prophetic students fallinto all kinds of categories
about this, and wherever youland on this, that's all right.
You may be, as it relates totribulational matters, you may
(11:04):
be pre-mid post whatever.
I was talking to Oak Shannonabout this one day, and he's
decided he's pan-tribulationist.
I said, What do you mean bythat?
He said, It's all going to panout in the end, you know, and uh
I guess that's all right.
Whatever the case, I want to sayto you, there are good and godly
people in each group, and ourdifferences of interpretations
(11:25):
about those matters must notcreate problems in the
fellowship or in the sharing ofChristian love.
Now, I used to be a lot moredogmatic about things, about
those issues.
But I found out that that's notthe big ticket items that we
need to be as concerned about.
What we do need to be concernedabout is the Bible very clearly
predicts the coming day of theLord.
(11:49):
But not only does it predictthat, it also predicts the
appearance of very scoffers,these apostates who deny that
truth, who deny that word in thelast days.
And so what that says to me isthat their presence is proof
that the word that they deny isthe very word of God.
Because the word of God predictsthat.
(12:10):
And they're here.
And so we shouldn't besurprised, really, we should not
be surprised, at the presence ofthese folks in the world who
mock Bible truth, who mock God'sWord, and who mock people who
believe in that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
In a world where biblical truth is increasingly
questioned, dismissed, and evenmocked, Foundations of Truth
exists to keep pointing peopleback to the authority of God's
Word.
Your prayers and financialsupport help make this teaching
possible.
Thank you for standing with Dr.
Timothy Mann and our entire teamhere at Foundations of Truth, as
(12:47):
together we proclaim truth in aworld that desperately needs it.
If you'd like to give afinancial gift to support this
ministry, you can do so rightnow at foundationsoftruth.net.
That's foundationsoftruth.net.
Now let's return to today'smessage, part one of Answering
the Scoffers.
Here's Dr.
Timothy Mann.
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
So what's a scoffer?
Well, a scoffer is someone whotreats lightly that which ought
to be taken very seriously.
That's a scoffer.
The people in Noah's day scoffedat the idea of judgment.
The citizens of Sodom andGomorrah scoffed at the
possibility of fire andbrimstone destroying their
cities.
(13:26):
I suspect if you've ever triedat all to witness for the Lord
Jesus Christ, you've no doubtmet people who scoff at the very
idea of hell or a future day ofjudgment or anything along those
lines.
They just scoff.
But these false teachers thatPeter's talking about, these
apostates that he's been writingabout, why do they scoff?
These people in the church thatare in the fellowship.
(13:48):
Why?
Why do they scoff?
Well, it's because they want tocontinue living their life as
they're living it.
That's what he says.
He makes it clear that back overin chapter 2 we talked about
that.
He makes it clear that theseteachers cultivate the lusts of
uncleanness.
That's what he said.
And they allure weak people bymeans of lusts of the flesh.
(14:09):
See, here's how this works.
If your view and your life'spractice contradicts the word of
God, do you know what has tohappen?
You either have to change yourview and you have to change your
life's practice, or you have tochange the word of God.
That's your only option.
(14:31):
You really don't have any otherchoices.
And so, false teachers theychoose the latter approach.
And so they scoff at thedoctrines of coming judgment and
the and the coming of the Lord,and they scoff at those things
that are hard to deal with.
It doesn't fit their view andtheir life's practice, and they
adjust God's word to make it fitwhat they want it to say.
(14:52):
Well, what's their argument?
He talks about that.
He mentions that in verse 4.
He said, They say, Where's thepromise of his coming?
For since the fathers fellasleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning ofcreation.
The uniformity of the world,that's their argument.
Basically, they're sayingnothing cataclysmic has ever
happened in the past, so there'sno reason to believe it's ever
(15:13):
going to happen in the future.
You know, and they take theso-called scientific approach by
examining evidence and applyingreason and drawing a conclusion.
The fact is, though, the Biblesays here that they willfully
ignore or they willfully forgeta great deal of evidence that
does not seem to disturb them.
They don't want to deal withthat.
(15:34):
You talk about the scientificapproach, I would submit to you
that yes, that works admirablyin matters that relate to the
material universe, but youcannot take Bible prophecy,
biblical truth, into alaboratory and test it as though
it were simply anotherhypothesis.
For that matter, the so-calledlaws of science are really only
(15:57):
sometimes educated guesses basedon a limited number of
experiments and tests, and thoselaws are generalizations that
are subject to change because noscientist can perform an
infinite number of experimentsto prove his claim, and nor can
he or she completely control allthe factors involved in the
experiments and in his ownthinking as well.
(16:20):
You just can't get to the bottomof it.
Nobody's able to do that.
But the Bible says the word ofGod is still a light that shines
in a dark place.
We can trust it.
We absolutely can trust it.
No matter what the scoffers mayclaim, God's day of judgment is
going to come on the world, andJesus Christ is going to return
(16:41):
to establish his gloriouskingdom.
That's a fact that we need toknow.
God's word is true.
We can trust it.
But not only does he say that,in verses five through seven, he
says that God's work isconsistent.
Not only is his word true, buthis work is consistent.
These arguments of theseapostate scoffers, these false
(17:03):
teachers that infiltrate thechurch, how does he refute that?
They say, Well, God does notinterrupt the operation of his
stable creation.
They they that's what they'resaying.
The promise of Christ's comingis not true.
All Peter did was to remind themof what God has done in the
past, and thus prove that hiswork is consistent all
(17:25):
throughout the ages.
He simply presented the evidencethat the false teachers
deliberately ignored, that theywillfully forgot about.
It's amazing to me how so-calledthinkers, you know, scientists
and liberal theologians andphilosophers and all those
people, it's amazing to me thatthey will be selective and
(17:48):
deliberately refuse to considercertain data, certain facts.
The Apostle Peter, he cites twoevents in history to prove his
point.
One was the work of God increation, verse five, and the
flood in Noah's day, verse six.
Verse five says, For this theywillfully forget that by the
(18:10):
word of God the heavens were ofold, and the earth standing out
of water and in the water.
God created the heavens and theearth by his word.
That's what the scripturesteach.
And I'm not ashamed to stand onthat.
That doesn't trouble me, thatdoesn't worry me.
I don't have to have long agesof time, I don't have to have
(18:30):
some sort of evolutionaryprocess, I don't have to have
some sort of existing material.
The phrase and God said occursnine times in Genesis chapter
one.
That's enough.
And God said.
The Bible says in Psalm 33,verse 9, for he spake and it was
done.
And it was done.
He commanded and it stood fast.
(18:52):
I want to say to you though, notonly is creation made by the
Word of God, it's held togetherby the Word of God.
That's what the scripturesteach.
Held together.
Kenneth Weist, a greatlinguistic scholar, he
translates 2 Peter 3, 5 to bringout this very subtle meaning.
He says, For concerning thisthey willfully forget that
heavens existed from ancienttimes and land standing out of
(19:15):
water and by means of water,cohering by the word of God.
Cohering by the word of God.
So Peter's argument is obvious.
What is it?
It's this it's that the same Godwho created the world by his
word can also intervene in hisworld and do whatever he wishes
to do.
He can do that.
(19:35):
And it's his word that made it.
It's his word that holds it alltogether, and his word is all
powerful.
And so that's the first thing hementions.
The second event, though, thatPeter cites is Noah's flood.
Did you notice that?
2 Peter 3, 6.
He refers to Noah's flood.
He's already referred to theflood as an illustration of
divine judgment.
(19:55):
He's done that once already.
And so there's no need to gointo detail about that.
But the flood was a cataclysmicevent.
It was.
In fact, the Greek word that'stranslated overflowed or being
flooded with water, that thatgives us our English word,
cataclysm.
(20:16):
And the people who were livingon the earth, they'd never seen
a rainstorm, they'd never seenthe fountains of the deep broken
up.
We can't imagine what that waslike.
Filled with all that heat aswell.
There's no way that we can knowthat.
But these events happened justthe same.
And their scientists, evenduring that day, could have
argued as the scoffers haveargued and said everything goes
(20:39):
on as it has done from thebeginning.
Life is so uniform that nothingunusual can happen, but it
happened.
It absolutely happened.
Anytime.
(21:08):
That's our God.
And so, having established thefact that God has already
interrupted in the past thecourse of history, Peter is now
ready for his application inverse 7.
Here's his application.
In verse 7, he said, But theheavens and the earth, which are
(21:28):
now preserved by the same word,see that?
By the same word, are reservedfor fire until the day of
judgment and perdition of godlymen.
The same word that created andsustains the world is now
holding it together, stored withfire, preserved, being preserved
(21:49):
and reserved for this future dayof judgment.
If you're not familiar with it,go back and read Genesis 9, that
account.
God promised that there would beno more.
Floods to destroy the world, thewhole world.
So the next judgment will be ajudgment of fire.
The phrase here, reserved forfire or stored with fire.
(22:14):
That sounds very modern to me.
It's interesting.
Modern atomic science hasrevealed that the elements which
make up the world are storedwith power.
Atomic scientists tell us thatthere's enough atomic energy in
a glass of water to run a hugeocean liner.
(22:34):
Enough atomic energy.
That's amazing to me.
What does that say?
Well, man has discovered thisgreat power.
And as a result, it seems likewe uh the world continually
teeters on the brink of somesort of atomic destruction all
the time.
Everybody has all trying to seekto get these weapons of
(22:54):
destruction.
However, I want to say to you,Peter seems to indicate that man
will not destroy the world byhis abuse of atomic energy.
It's God who will push thebutton, if you will.
It's God who will do that at theright time and burn up the old
(23:15):
creation and all the works ofsinful man with it, and then he
will usher in the new heavensand the new earth, and he will
reign in glory.
See, everything in God'soriginal creation was good.
Good.
It was it is man's sin thatturned a good creation into a
groaning creation.
Now God allowed for that, heaccounted for that, I understand
that in his providence and hissovereignty.
(23:37):
But the fact is God could notpermit sinful man to live in a
perfect environment.
And so he cursed the groundbecause of man.
And since that time, man hasbeen busy polluting and
destroying God's creation.
We do that.
And for years it appeared thatthis exploitation might not
cause too much trouble, but noweverybody's changing their
(23:57):
minds, right?
Everybody's going green.
Going green.
Why?
Because you know we're gonnawe're gonna kill this thing,
everybody's saying.
We're not gonna be able to livehere.
The balance of nature's beenupset, and valuable resources
are being wasted, and the supplyof energy is running down, and
civilization is facing a crisis.
And so the prophets of doomtoday are not only preachers and
evangelists, but they'resociologists and ecologists and
(24:19):
politicians and atomicscientists.
All of that.
But Peter, what he's doing ishe's proving his point here
again, and that's that God isable to intervene again in the
course of history.
He did it in the past, he's ableto do it again, and the day of
the Lord is promised by theprophets and the apostles as
well as by Jesus Christ, andit's gonna come just as surely
(24:41):
as the flood came in Noah's day,as the fire and brimstone came
to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,and so here the fact is these
scoffers have their argumentready.
Well, then why the delay?
Why the delay?
If it's going to come, thispromise of Christ's coming in
the judgment of the world hasbeen around for centuries.
Has it not?
(25:02):
Why has it not been fulfilled?
Has God changed his mind?
I don't know about you, but Ithink the world is certainly
ripe for judgment.
SPEAKER_01 (25:10):
God's patience should never be mistaken for
God's absence.
The day of the Lord will come,and every promise of God will
ultimately be fulfilled.
I'm Dallas Priest for Dr.
Timothy Mann at Foundations ofTruth and our entire team.
Thank you so much for listeningto the biblical teaching
ministry of Dr.
Timothy Mann.
Until tomorrow, the grasswithers, the flower fades, but
(25:32):
the word of God stands forever.
Foundations of Truth is madepossible in part by the generous
support of AMM Plummick, proudlyserving Daytona Beach, Ormond
Beach, Port Orange, and SpartaBeach Community.
Also Cat Care Clinic of OrmondBeach, providing compassionate,
fine-focused veterinary care andlutherized seminary, equipping
in equipment through biblicaland theological education.
(25:55):
We're grateful for theirpartnership in making this
ministry possible.
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