Sermon Tone Analysis

2 Peter 3:3-7

What the Scoffers Forget

 

/First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?

Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men/.

He was Principal of what is probably the best-known theological institutes in Canada.

I was in his office as an official emissary of my denomination, appointed to explore a co-operative educational venture.

In the course of introductions I had revealed that I had earned a PhD in biochemistry and he had used that knowledge to open an avenue of conversation unrelated to the reason underlying my visit.

He turned the conversation to the issue of origins, noting that he was amused at the number of naïve literalists among evangelicals.

He referred to those uneducated and unsophisticated individuals who actually believe the Bible, and more particularly who believe that God actually called all things into being in six literal days.

He suddenly ceased his uproarious laughter when I stated, “I am a naïve literalist.”

“Surely you are not … one of those?” he sputtered.

Arrogantly, he blustered, “Surely someone as well educated as you knows better than that?”

I found it amazing that someone who was well known among evangelicals and who had a reputation of believing the Bible to be reliable and accurate would sneer at that same Word.

I was even more amazed at his assertion that none of the members of that august faculty believed the Word to be accurate in its account of origins.

I quickly accepted his offer to debate the issue with selected members of his faculty only to have him suddenly withdraw the offer after I assured him that I would inform his constituency of his mockery of Scriptural truth.

He evidently considered that constituency to be benighted souls so unlearned as to believe mere myths, but they nevertheless wrote the cheques which paid his salary and permitted expansion of his beloved school of theology,

There was a day in Christendom when all professing believers held to certain essential truths, including confidence that Christ would return.

There was a day in which all Christians accepted as accurate the biblical account of the origin of all things.

Today, sophisticated theologians ridicule those uneducated, unlettered, misinformed and witless souls who actually take God at His Word.

Those who disagree with their scorn of God’s Word are too often silenced through fear that they will themselves become objects of derision as their faith is caricatured.

I am convinced that one of the surest evidences that we are drawing near to the day on which our Lord shall return is the increase in religious infidels occupying positions of influence within evangelicalism.

The infiltration of evangelicalism with religious leaders who reject whatever challenges them or condemns them is evidence that we may well be nearing the return of Christ.

Increasing lethargy in the pew, growing doctrinal laxness from the pulpit, a Laodicean climate of pride and unrighteous tolerance among the churches, each point unerringly to the proximity of Christ’s return.

Among those evidences is the growing tendency to discount both biblical history and prophecy.

The Truths which are Ridiculed – Those who scoff at the Creation of the world also deride the coming of Christ.

Having rejected God’s account of the beginning, they are compelled to reject His warning of the conclusion.

With neither beginning nor ending, they can live only for the moment.

They are /without hope and without God in the world/ [*Ephesians 2:12*].

Having /a form of godliness/, they /deny its power/ [*2 Timothy 3:5*].

As an aside of no small importance, there is no purpose in religious observance once one has rejected the foundation for that observance; and the Word of God is foundational to the salvation God offers.

The middle is essentially meaningless if you do not understand how you arrived at that mid-point nor where it must of necessity lead.

*“Where is this ‘coming’ He promised?”*

laughs those who have decided that God does not tell us of His plans.

There is an arresting assertion found in the prophecy of Amos.

/Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing /

/without revealing his plan /

/to his servants the prophets/

[*Amos 3:7*].

The context in which that revelation is provided is a warning of pending judgement.

God does not act capriciously.

Always He pleads with the wayward.

Always he warns.

Always He shows mercy to the sinner and the errant.

At the time the Old Covenant was being penned, most of the prophecies dealt with the first coming of Messiah.

As though viewing mountain peaks from a high vantagepoint, the Second Coming appears superimposed over the first advent.

Only after the fact of the first coming of Christ are the two advents distinguished.

Thus, the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day did wish for a Messiah, but they wished for one who would confirm them as a religious elite, as scholars blessed with power and position.

They wished to see a Messiah who would not cost them anything, but who would free them from the hated Roman occupation troops and who would exalt them in the world.

The prophecies which speak of Messiah’s reign do appear to speak superficially of such things as indiscriminate exaltation of the Jewish nation and of the humbling the nations, but ere the Second Advent shall be accomplished the first must be completed.

A Messiah who would suffer and give Himself as a ransom for sinful man was incomprehensible and repugnant to these self-important religious leaders.

Thus, they decidedly rejected this Jesus as a pretender and a fraud despite the fact that He fulfilled Scripture precisely at the point of His first coming.

Actually the Jewish scholars were wrong on both counts.

They missed the humility which would of necessity attend His First Advent and they did not anticipate the judgement of *all* wickedness which must be accomplished at His Second Advent.

They presumed themselves to be superior to all others and acceptable to God because of punctilious observance of religious ritual.

They reasoned that scrupulous observance of the rituals prescribed by the Law would suffice to make them acceptable to God.

It is an axiom of the Faith that neither under the Old Covenant nor under the present dispensation does ritual purity count for aught in obtaining salvation.

As for legalistic righteousness, Paul considered himself faultless.

But whatever may have been to his profit, he counted as rubbish, that he might gain Christ [*Philippians 3:6-9*].

Only forgiveness of sin in Christ is of eternal value.

Writing the Roman Christians, Paul made the following insightful statement.

/What the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit/ [*Romans 8:3,4*].

We need such a Saviour, though the sinful nature in its pride rejects such a provision.

To acknowledge that we need a Saviour, to confess that we can do nothing for ourselves to merit God’s salvation, is humiliating in the extreme to the flesh.

Rejecting the grace He offers because of His sacrifice, the proud dare not think of the purpose of His coming again.

He has promised to come again, not to sacrifice Himself again, but to judge the wicked.

Testifying to the Jewish leaders Jesus solemnly attested: /I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man/.

/Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgement is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me/ [*John 5:24-30*].

*“Everything goes on as it has since the beginning,”* unbelievers sneer as they bolster their unbelief.

Dismissing the future, they must discount the past.

So, they insist on a uniformitarian principle that the past can unerringly be interpreted by the present.

They contend that the present is an accurate key to past events.

Since there are no cataclysmic events shaping world history at this moment, they conclude there has never been a disaster of world-wide proportions.

There never was a great flood which covered the entire earth.

There never was a judgement of the peoples resulting in confusion of language.

There never was a Garden of Eden, so there never was a Fall.

Everything continues in a uniform fashion just as it is witnessed today.

Thus there shall never be a conclusion, an ending of this world.

Of course, such thinking is folly-wide-the-mark.

From a purely rational point of view there was a beginning.

The first law of thermodynamics insists on this point.

Something served to wind up the universe at one time and there was a beginning.

Imagining “seeds” from outer space as the source of life only shifts the beginning of life to another time even further back in the dim past, but still fails to address the issue of origin of the elements necessary for life.

If there was a beginning, there must of necessity be an ending.

The second law of thermodynamics makes this point as any competent scientist concedes.

The universe is moving inexorably toward a heat death.

Everything does not go on as it has since the beginning; all things move toward judgement.

Have you ever considered the importance of the earliest chapters of the Word?

Have you ever thought of the teachings which you accept as true and valid and which are utterly dependent upon those first chapters of the Bible?

Though many portions of the Word of God offend religious infidels, prophecy and origins are the two greatest sources of irritation to such destructive termites.

Hence, the first eleven chapters of Genesis serve as a lightning rod for religious unbelief.

If a person begins well, he is likely to end well.