The Scoffers--2 Peter 3:1-7

2 Peter • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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Introduction

I In the South Atlantic Ocean stood the beautiful tropical island of St. Helena. Napoleon was exiled there. But that’s not the story.

In 1840, every wood house, which was all of them, was torn down. It appears that termites had come to the island, and over time, they ate away the foundations of all the structures.

Imagine an entire island destroyed by termites.

In today’s lesson, Peter introduces us to a different type of termite. It can, if left unchecked, destroy faith and, eventually, churches.

This termite is the scoffer. It is so dangerous that Peter puts in as one of the three dangers to the church alongside false teachers and moral impurity.

What exactly are scoffers, and how do they operate?

The Reminder

Peter begins by repeating something he has already written. He writes to remind.

“This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder” (2 Peter 3:1, ESV)

In chapter one and chapter two, he reminds them of something. But why?

Peter is about to leave the earth, and the church is in flux. The first generation, the eyewitnesses, were dying. A second generation was coming. Now, they did not have the fisherman’s voice to tell them. They would have to rely on what was left.

We are in the same boat today. We have no eyewitnesses, just the reminds they have left in the form of Scripture.

He has a purpose for this reminder. He wants to “stir” them.

Have you had to wake sleeping children in the morning to get ready for school? They are in a deep sleep, and you jostle them awake. They need to wipe the stupor from their eyes so they can listen.

But why do we need to remember? It is because time is a sedative that deadens our recall.

One of the marvels of modern medicine, at least in my mind, is the drug they give you before a colonoscopy. It keeps you from remembering the procedure.

That’s what happens over time. Memory is erased and replaced by something newer and more attractive. So, the more you get reminded, the more likely you will know what is accurate at the moment.

That which is known tends to fall from urgency. Then, when it does become urgent, it is not top-of-mind.

So Peter wants them to hear it again and again.

He knows they can hear it. They have a mind that is unadulterated and polluted by false teaching. His readers have believed the truth and obeyed it wholeheartedly. He can speak to them, and they will listen.

What exactly does he want to “awaken in them?” It is the basis of their faith. Peter doesn’t merely believe in repetition. He also advances the unity of Scripture.

“that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,” (2 Peter 3:2, ESV)

Peter speaks of the consistency between the prophets, the teachings of Christ, and the teaching of the apostles. Nothing changes. Nothing is in discord. Each supports the other.

Perhaps it is best to see it as overlapping circles. Each is part of the other. Removing one damage all of them in some way.

Don’t overlook this point. We are in a dangerous place today in this area.

People want to pull the thread of Scripture, leaving it a heap. They call the Old Testament old and outdated. They dismiss the apostles as nothing more than men with their own agenda. That leaves Jesus, and they can twist what he taught to their liking.

No one can dispose of any without tearing the cloth completely. The prophets inform us of Jesus, and the apostles taught what he spoke. They are not separate.

The Scoffers

That brings us to the third danger sign of 2 Peter.

“knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3, ESV)

The source of the scoffers is unknown. They may be sitting in the pew or in the streets hurling ridicule at Christian beliefs.

It is crucial to understand what a scoffer is and does.

A scoffer is different than a false teacher. A false teacher launched a frontal assault on faith, tearing it apart. They were blatant, bold, arrogant and had a personal agenda. In a way, the false teacher was a wrecking ball smashing into the faith to level it.

The scoffer is more subtle. He never directly attacks faith. Instead, he reduces Christianity into a joke that people laugh at. Anything that is treated cavalierly is dismissed as unimportant.Their barbs created confusion and doubt. While the false teacher bangs against the church, the scoffer merely puts dynamite charges at the foundations.

We see it today. With the rise of the internet, scoffing has been raised to an art form. It bashes politicians of all stripes and anything conventional. Many write a tart Facebook post or a clever tweet that people will chuckle at.

Sadly, many Christians have fallen into the trap of using humorous ridicule as a weapon.

But the faith suffers significantly in the digital sphere. Articles, blog posts, and memes treat believers as buffoons born in the barn. Or they question the sanity of anyone who believes in the resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, or the Biblical teachings of the Bible. For them, Christianity is something to be skewered and roasted.

All scoffers have a reason for their actions. Peter says that they “follow their own sinful desires.” I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message. It comes from their “puny feelings.” Their focus is never on truth but on self. They want to create heat, not light.

Let’s see how Peter describes their derisive attack on truth?

Their Argument

They argue that we live in a stable world that does not change. It is run by immutable laws of nature.

“They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”” (2 Peter 3:4, ESV)

Since it is stable and unchangeable, it leaves no room for an event such as the second coming of Christ. Their argument assumes the fact of this kind of world. The upshot of the idea is that if there is not a second coming, there could not be a first. That makes Jesus and the teaching of the apostles irrelevant in a stable world.

We are faced with this today. It is a fancy philosophical word called Uniformitarianism. While it sounds confusing, it is exactly as what the scoffers were parroting. The teaching believes the world is only material. It is the typical secular mindset.

The world came into being on its own. Random events dictated an orderly development, and it has not changed.

With such a viewpoint, the messy interference of the supernatural, miracles, and cataclysms has no place. In fact, most deny anything could exist, much less did.

So what Peter has to say is reflected in a myriad of modern websites.

Their Method

To get this point across, they used a question. It is not a question seeking truth but one created to promote doubt.

“They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”” (2 Peter 3:4, ESV)

It is not a new technique. Skeptics have employed it constantly. It shows up many times in the scoffers of the Old Testament.

In Malachi, the prophet says that the people have wearied God with their false faith. In response, they use a scoffer’s question.

“You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”” (Malachi 2:17, ESV)

They were saying, “prove it tangibly.” The question challenges the truth of the prophet.

It was also true of Jeremiah. Jeremiah preached in advance of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity. Yet, most of the Jewish leaders denied anything was wrong. After all, God put Jerusalem on the map, and he would protect it. They were not disobedient. After all, they sacrificed according to the law, didn’t they?

When Jeremiah preaches, the scoffer comes out.

“Behold, they say to me, “Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come!”” (Jeremiah 17:15, ESV)

In fact, in the ancient world, this literary form became a formula for skepticism. If you cannot provide direct proof, it doesn’t exist.

The aim is to reduce the faith to absurdity. And with that, the scoffer starts to chisel away faith.

Their Evidence

They offer flimsy evidence to support the contention that the second coming will never happen.

“They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”” (2 Peter 3:4, ESV)

They had heard the preaching of “Jesus is coming back.” Yet, they look around. The generation who preached that are dying. Isn’t that evidence enough? After all, if Jesus were coming back, would he not already have done it? And since it hasn’t happened, it will never happen.

The scoffers do what so many do. They let their own temporary experience define reality. For a lot of our world, what is “normal” is what we face each day. People are born, and then they die. That means life merely continues in a straight line without interruption.

It is this “evidence from experience” which leads to flawed conclusions.

Their Fatal Flaw

And Peter points out that flaw in their thinking.

“For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” (2 Peter 3:5–6, ESV)

First, they are looking at life through a keyhole. They have shut their eyes to the big picture. With only the landscape of their own experience, they cannot see what came before and therefore cannot see what comes in the future.

For Peter, what the scoffer ignores is critical.

He refers to two events.

The first is creation. Peter emphasizes that the earth has its shape and composition of water. You can read this in Genesis 1.

“And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”” (Genesis 1:6, ESV)

As crucial as dry land is to our survival, the stark reality is the earth is 71% water.

And this water would play an essential role in the second event Peter refers to.

He takes us back to Genesis 6. There, God sees the wickedness of man and knows he will destroy himself. So he unleashes a global deluge to wipe out everything.

Interestingly, every culture finds a way to describe significant events. The Babylonians and the Chinese, and the Sanskrit cultures all have a story of a massive flood that wiped out the world.

The deluge of water changed the course of history. It was one of those cataclysms that the scoffers would reject as part of their premise. And yet, it occurred.

Peter, though, is not interested in reciting history. He emphasizes that this came from “God’s word” in both circumstances.

The creation came from the action of God, not some kind of a cosmic traffic mishap.

In addition to what it says about God speaking the water into existence, it was true of other central elements.

“and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:15, ESV)

Light itself came because he “spoke it” into existence.

It was true about the flood. Peter says it was “by means of these” words that the flood came about. God made the decision based on his own eternal judgments.

The difference between the secular mind and the Christian mind is simple. The secular mind sees the world only as physical. It came about from random events, and that same randomness continues. There is no cause to the effect.

The Christian mind says there is a cause to the effect. God is behind the creation. God is controlling events, and we must respect and respond to God.

The scoffer has a secular mind that rejects a God or his activity. But this view is short-sighted and is based on only personal observation.

The second coming is not a never moment, only not now. God has other plans.

“But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 3:7, ESV)

By that “same word,” the one that caused creation and unleashed a flood has stored up time for the right moment. The destruction will come, not with water, but with fire. On that day, judgment will come, and the ungodly will face destruction.

Simply because it has not happened yet, does not mean that it will not happen. It is coming, and God is waiting. But why? That’s what Peter answers in our next lesson.

Conclusion

Christianity will always have its opponents. They will look at life through secular and worldly eyes. When that happens, the most convenient argument is not the hard one but the mocking one. Instead of scrutinizing Christianity, they make a joke of it.

But man’s thinking is not God’s thinking. Man’s experience is too narrow, too selective to see the hand of the Almighty in the world. Man cannot predict the future because he does not experience the future.

Man’s feelings are also not the reality of life. They are fickle and distort what is true to fit what he wants it to be.

So how do we deal with scoffers? For most, arguing is fruitless. We have to keep speaking the truth clearly so people can sift through the noise. The scoffer wants to confuse. Let us, through our living and teaching, be the clear signal that cannot be ignored.

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