PROPHETIC DECLARATIONS --
"WHAT WE CAN EXPECT IN THE LAST DAYS"
A passage of Scripture that end-time ministers often overlook is found in 2 Peter, particularly chapter three. Peter is writing to the Gentile Christians about the end-times, explaining what it will be like in the days before the return of the Messiah. His primary focus is skeptics
or scoffers. In verse three, Peter informs us that skeptics will come. “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come ...” (NIV).

Today, we witness scientific, theological and philosophical skeptics. Skeptics are scoffers, mockers and people who ridicule. They love to take cheap shots at believers and people of the Faith. When this happens, it is important to understand that ridicule is emotional, not rational. Skeptics will make statements such as, “Are you kidding me?” “It has been 2,000 years!” “Where is your Jesus?”

Fortunately, Peter doesn’t stop with the announcement that skeptics will come. He continues by revealing seven different signs that will identify them, so the Church will know what to expect in the last days.

SEVEN SIGNS OF THE SKEPTIC:

1. The motive behind skeptics’ ridicule: Lust
   
   In verse three, Peter reveals that lust is behind the skeptics’ ridicule, “... in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires” (NIV). Skeptics will argue because of their lust for sensuality. In chapter two, Peter identifies their lust: sensuality (vs. 2), greed (vs. 3), indulgence in fleshly activities (vs. 10), reveling and carousing during the day (vs. 13), adulterous eyes (vs. 14) and sensuality (vs. 18).
   
   Several years ago, a book was published by historian Paul Johnson, entitled Intellectuals. Mr. Johnson selected a list of intellectuals who shaped the thinking of the Western World, such as Rousseau, Marx, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Russell, Sartre, Hellman, Orwell and Mailer. Among many of the names, I slightly knew of their writings and their lives. Amazingly, the author’s focus was on their immorality and not their ideology. The contents of Johnson’s book revealed to me the reason skeptics reject God, the Bible, Creation, the World Flood and the Second Coming is not based on Approaching the End of Time intellectual reasoning, but on their morality. Skeptics reject God and His Word because they do not want to be accountable to Him.
   
   
2. Skeptics will reject the second coming
   
   In verse four of the third chapter, Peter provides the skeptics’ response to the Second Coming, “They will say, "Where is this coming he promised?” (NIV). From this verse, we can derive three insights about the skeptics’ ridicule. First, there is the need to
   escape accountability to a Creator. Accountability means one is subject to judgment.
   
   Second, there is denial. Denial of the Creator at the beginning of Creation, as Judge and Lawgiver, results in no threat of a coming judgment, especially one associated with the declaration of the Second Coming.
   
   Third, as previously mentioned, it allows men to pursue immorality, which is appealing to their flesh. Skeptics are free to pursue their lust. For example, Aldous Huxley is viewed by the secular humanists as a noble philosopher. To the contrary, his book, Ends and Means: Confession of a Professed Atheist, reveals there was nothing noble about his lifestyle. It reveals his worldview allowed him to pursue sexual immorality:
   
   “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed it had none, and was able, without any difficulty, to find satisfying reasons for this assumption ... the philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he should not do as he wants to do ... for myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation—the liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality, because it interfered with our sexual freedom” (Ends and Means, p. 270).
   
   Huxley is identifying the reason people choose to believe in humanistic evolutionism is not because they are truly interested in knowing the truth about man’s origins, but they are looking for an alternative belief that will support their lifestyle—one that more specifically opposes Christian morality.
   
   The Apostle John reveals why people reject truth, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The skeptics’ argument against the Second Coming of Christ is not about reason, but about their passion: the lust of immorality.
   
   
3. Skeptics will not believe the earth was formed out of water
   
   In verse five, Peter points out that skeptics will ... deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed, and the earth was formed out of water and by water. God’s Word declares the way He created everything. This statement, coupled with the previous and following verses, reveals the skeptics’ reasoning and purpose for rewriting the Creation account according to their worldly view.
   
   
4. Skeptics will rewrite their view of creation
   
   In verse four, Peter continues explaining the skeptics’ rationale for disbelieving the Second Coming of Christ. They say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation" (NIV). The skeptic believes that his negative criticism allows him to rewrite the history of the world and the story of Creation. This is known as evolutionary uniformitarianism or as Peter states, “Everything continues as it has since the beginning of creation.” Uniformitarianism is the modern name for the doctrine, “the present is the key to the past.” In other words, the present-day processes in nature have operated in the past just as they do today and are sufficient to determine the origin and development of all things. Because of this continual repetition, the skeptic sees no need for the supernatural (God). By the leading of the Holy Spirit, Peter prophesied this evolutionary doctrine long ago.
   
   
5. Skeptics will close their eyes to the evidences
   
   Why don’t the skeptics want to look at the evidence? Peter provides the answer in verse five, "they deliberately forget ..." or they deliberately ignore the evidence. The Greek says, “They shut their eyes to the facts.” This means they are willingly ignorant. They are dumb on purpose. They do not want to believe.
   
   
6. Skeptics will reject the world wide flood
   
   In verse six, Peter reminds them and us that … by these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed (NIV). The evidence the skeptic refuses to consider is the entire world is a fossil graveyard that was created by water—a world wide cataclysm. The world is a testimony of a cataclysm. The World Flood, in the Greek, is “katacluso” from which we get the word “cataclysm” in English. Skeptics will close their eyes to the record of the rocks.
   
   Peter reminds the readers (of his day) of those who perished in the Flood. They were well aware of the judgments of God from the past, recorded in the Old Testament, such as those mentioned in Psalm 2:1-12; Isaiah 13:9; Isaiah 24:19-23; Isaiah 34:1-6; Zephaniah 1:18 and 3:8. For those in the New Testament Church, we look at 2 Thessalonians 1:5-9. Beginning in verse seven we read, “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power” (NIV).
   
   
7. Skeptics will reject the idea of a coming judgment
   
   The seventh prophetic sign of scoffers, and what we can expect in the last days will be covered next month in part two, entitled “How to Implode the Universe.” The article will conclude with a look at how God may destroy Planet Earth and all of creation in order to make way for a new Heaven and a new Earth. As we read in Isaiah 66:22, “‘… the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,’ declares the Lord.”