{"id":1004,"date":"2009-06-17T20:19:08","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T02:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2009-06-17T20:19:08","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T02:19:08","slug":"2-peter-34-evolution-of-the-mocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/2-peter-34-evolution-of-the-mocker\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Peter 3:4 – Evolution of the Mocker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

2 Peter 3:4<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

They will say, “Where is this \u201ccoming\u201d he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We will be ridiculed if we proclaim the soon return of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word \u201ccoming<\/span>\u201d is translated from the Greek word parousia<\/span><\/em>. This is made up of para<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto be near\u201d and a form of eimi<\/span><\/em>, the verb of existence (I am, you are, he is). Hence, parousia<\/span><\/em> refers to a physical presence here with us, not just a spiritual presence. It refers to Christ\u2019s physical return.<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the last verse Peter introduced the notion that there will be scoffers in the last days. He now tells us what the subject of their mockery is. They scoff at the notion that Christ is coming back. In effect, they\u2019re saying,<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, since you apostles started preaching, you have been saying that He is coming back soon. Even the prophets have been predicting a conquering Messiah for thousands of years. Nonetheless, things just continue on as they always have.\u201d<\/p>\n

And today it\u2019s even worse!<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, even the apostles believed that Christ was coming back in their lifetime, and they have been dead for thousands of years. You religious fanatics are a bunch of radicals with antique ideas. Come on, join the 21st<\/sup> century and get out of the dark ages!\u201d<\/p>\n

You may not consider yourself to be a religious fanatic, but I\u2019m sure that you catch my drift. The more loudly we proclaim the message of a lifestyle committed to the precepts taught in the Bible, the louder the opposition will proclaim us to be crazy. <\/span>The more we proclaim His soon return, the more they will ridicule us. And, they will do all they can to separate us from the rest of society because they think that we are bad for them.<\/p>\n

The world system today rejects the notion of a living God who is active in the affairs of mankind. Instead they believe in uniformitarianism, the belief that all existing natural processes we can observe today have been at work in the same manner ever since the beginning, which they believe was the \u201cBig Bang.\u201d Everything is explained in terms of these existing processes and evolution. Most people today believe these ideas so strongly that they refuse to believe even obvious evidence that points to a catastrophic world-wide flood.<\/p>\n

Because of their faith in evolution and uniformitarianism, they are blinded to the truth of the Gospel and all the Biblical references to the soon coming of our Lord in judgment. There are many references to His return in the New Testament including John 14:1-3; Acts 1:11; 1Corinthians 15:23; 2Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 1:6; 1Thessalonians 3:13; 1Thessalonians 4:14-18; 2Thessalonians 1:10; 2Thessalonians 2:1; 1Timothy 6:14; 2Timothy 4:8; Titus2:13; Hebrews 9:28; James 5:7<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let us boldly proclaim the word of salvation by grace through faith unto all we meet, and let us proclaim His soon return! Sure, we will be ridiculed and attacked; so was our Savior! He died to save even those who attacked Him; the least we can do is to proclaim His message because He is alive and He is<\/strong> coming back soon!<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Peter 3:4 They will say, “Where is this \u201ccoming\u201d he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” Truth to Learn We will be ridiculed if we proclaim the soon return of Jesus. Behind the Words The word \u201ccoming\u201d is translated from the Greek word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,355,356],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-evolution","tag-second-coming","tag-uniformitarianism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-gc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}